Hide and Sneak

by G. A. McKevett

  Savannah reached over and squeezed his knee. “That’s not true, sugar. We’ve still got Orman, the degenerate gambler and rosebush killer, and I haven’t even talked to Candace York yet.”

  “That’s right, Dirk-o,” Tammy said. “Your investigation may be on life support, but it’s not altogether dead.”

  “Gee, with encouragement like that, I think I’ll go to the zoo and hurl myself into the tiger habitat.”

  “O-o-o, I just love tigers,” Tammy cooed. “Did you know that no two tigers have the same pattern of stripes? They’re kinda like fingerprints with each one being unique and—”

  “Good-bye, kiddo,” Dirk said. “Thanks for the good work.”

  “Yeah,” Savannah added. “Come down and join the search if you feel up to it.”

  “I’d like to. But it’s not my mom’s kinda thing, and I don’t feel like I should leave her by herself, after her coming all this distance to see me. You know what I mean?”

  “I know exactly what you mean. Tell your husband and dad I said, ‘Thanks a bunch.’”

  “You’ll probably see them before I do. They’re volunteering for the search. They’re probably already there now. And by the way, there’s another thing about tigers. They—”

  Dirk reached up and switched off the phone. He turned to Savannah. “I know she’s your best friend, and she’s a great gal, good heart and all that. But she drives me crazy sometimes.”

  “A two-minute ride that’d be, I reckon,” she mumbled.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” She turned off the ignition and started to get out of the car. That was when she saw at least one hundred people standing in a line along the yellow police cordon tape.

  Dirk saw them, too. “Wow! What a turnout!”

  “No kidding, and look who’s front and center.”

  “Ethan Malloy himself.”

  “Good for him,” Savannah said. “It’s his family that’s missing. Of course he’d want to be in on the search.”

  “Come on, darlin’,” Dirk said. “Let’s go get this unruly mob organized.”

  * * *

  As Savannah approached the crowd, she saw another familiar face. One that failed to give her a warm, fuzzy feeling. It was Neal Irwin, standing off to the side of the crowd, well away from Ethan Malloy. He was holding the hand of a woman with a frightening amount of badly bleached blond hair and dramatic cat eyeliner.

  Dirk had spotted him, too. “Hey look. Mr. Red Banana Exhibitionist has decided to join us. Oh, well. Could be worse. We can thank our lucky stars that he’s dressed at least.”

  “Why do I have a sneaking suspicion that the woman with him is none other than his pizza-eating friend from last night, Miss Bambi?”

  “I suspect you’re right.”

  “Who cares? As long as they’re here to search, they’re welcome. Especially now that he’s no longer a suspect.”

  “Gr-r-r-r.”

  * * *

  As soon as Ethan spotted Savannah walking his way, he headed in her direction. They met in the middle of the lawn, near the swing set. She was shocked and dismayed to see that he looked even more exhausted and depressed than the last time she had seen him, less than twenty-four hours before.

  “How are you?” she asked, afraid of his answer.

  But he was stoic and gave her a simple “Okay, I guess.” He looked around at the crowd, which appeared to be growing by the moment. “I thought it would be a good idea to come down here. It beats sitting at home and feeling helpless, doing nothing.”

  “I’m sure that’s an awful feeling,” Savannah agreed.

  “But now that I’m here, I realize a lot of my fans showed up, and I don’t know if they’re here to help or . . .”

  “Or to see you?”

  “Something like that.”

  Savannah saw Dirk getting his bullhorn from the trunk of the Mustang. He was wearing his serious, no-nonsense-allowed scowl.

  “Don’t worry about that,” she told Ethan. “They may have come to catch sight of you in the flesh, but my husband will have them out there among the weeds and the rattlers in two shakes of a lamb’s tail. Nobody volunteers to join his search and gets away with loitering.”

  She glanced around the ever-increasing group and noticed that at least fifty or more of the volunteers were wearing baby blue T-shirts, decorated with a darling picture of Freddy. They stood off to one side and a woman with bright red hair was addressing them. Savannah couldn’t hear what she was saying, but her tone sounded urgent and her body language intense.

  “I wonder who they are,” she said, pointing toward the group in blue.

  “That’s one of my fan clubs,” he replied. “They’re probably the most active group of followers I have. They’re certainly the best organized. The lady with the ginger hair is Kitty Z., the club president. As soon as she found out there was going to be a search and we needed volunteers, she got right on it. She knows Beth and thinks the world of her. She really wanted to help.”

  “I’ve seen her before,” Savannah said. “I just can’t think—oh, I remember. She and some silver-haired ladies were on the news last night, pleading for anyone who knew anything to come forward.”

  He nodded. “Yes, the silver-haired ladies are Imogene and Lydia. They’re awesome, too. They called Abel this morning to tell him to pass along their love and concern.”

  “You know your fans by name?”

  He shrugged and grinned. “I guess I’m expected to look down my nose at my fans and act like they annoy me. But the truth is, the ones I’ve met are really great people. I enjoy interacting with them whenever I get the chance. Without them, my audience, I wouldn’t be an actor. If they weren’t watching my performances, I wouldn’t be able to do what I enjoy for a living.”

  He looked around at all the baby blue shirts, the women, and even men, who were wearing them. “They could be anywhere doing anything right now, but they’re giving up their day to come out here and trudge around these hot, dusty hills, to help me find my baby. They are more than just fans; they’re friends.”

  Savannah could see that Dirk was getting ready to address the crowd with his bullhorn. She turned to Ethan. “Come on. Let’s get you up there, front and center. If they love you that much, we don’t want them to forget who they’re doing this for.”

  Chapter 22

  As Savannah had predicted, it didn’t take long for Dirk to get the crowd organized. He barked his instructions through the megaphone, they dispersed to their assigned areas. Following his directions, they lined up, side by side, only a few feet apart, and began to move forward, searching, searching.

  “What are we looking for?” several volunteers had asked.

  “Anything out of the ordinary” had been Dirk’s answer. “Even if it just looks like garbage, let us know. If it isn’t part of the natural terrain, we want to know about it. Either come and tell me, or talk to one of these fine police officers in blue.”

  He pointed to a line of cops, most of whom were off duty, but like the other volunteers wanted to help find the missing child and his mother. The off-duty SCPD volunteers were wearing jeans and royal blue T-shirts with the word POLICE printed in large yellow letters across their chests.

  She noticed that Dirk had directed the Malloy fans in the pale blue shirts to search the park itself, scouring the perfectly groomed lawn, along with the flower beds and decorative bushes. Some of them were looking inside the restrooms and around the barbecue area. They even crawled inside the children’s “fort” and wriggled their adult bodies through the tube slides.

  When one group of them, including the redhaired lady whom Ethan had identified as Kitty Z., came close to where Savannah was searching, Savannah used the opportunity to say, “Hello.”

  “I saw you on television last night,” Savannah told Kitty. “You were most eloquent, asking people to help search for Beth and her baby.”

  “It’s the least I could do,” the redhead replied. “The Malloys have been r
eally good to me, and a lot of other people I know. Only a few months ago, we were fundraising for the local animal shelter. Beth and Ethan were there, working our booth at the fair, doing everything they could to help us get money—not to mention the very generous donation they themselves gave.”

  “That’s true,” said Imogene. “Ethan and Beth are as down-to-earth as anyone you could know. They treat their fans like friends, even family. How could we not come out now and support them when they need us?”

  A few moments later the group moved on, leaving no area unsearched, looking for, as Dirk had said, anything that seemed out of place, anything man-made and not part of the natural beauty of the park.

  Savannah took out her phone, and scrolled through her contacts until she found the number that Tammy had given her for Abel Orman. Considering that he was a close number two on her mental suspect list, she thought she would be of more use to Beth and Freddy if she spent her time interviewing a viable suspect, rather than continuing the search.

  She was just about to call the number when she glanced up and saw a familiar face in the crowd. It was Orman himself, just one among the many searchers.

  He seemed less intent about his work than the others. He was walking about, almost as though he were in a daze. It occurred to Savannah that, in his present state, he could have stepped on a body and not even noticed.

  She decided to pull him out of the line, take him to her car and, as Dirk would say, “squeeze him” a bit.

  But her plan was more easily imagined than executed.

  “Do you mean ‘leave the line’?” he asked, as though she had just suggested that he cover his naked body with blue paint and dance at a crossroads at midnight in the light of a full moon.

  “I just want to ask you a few questions,” she said. “I’m working for your client and friend, Ethan Malloy. Surely you don’t mind spending just a few minutes with me if it might help me find his wife, Beth, and their little son.”

  When he still resisted, she added, “I hear you’re fond of Beth. In fact, I hear you’re extremely fond of her. I’m surprised you wouldn’t do everything you can to try to help her.”

  Just when Savannah thought it was a lost cause, an unexpected ally came to her aid.

  Quincy Hart walked up behind Orman, leaned close to him, and said, “If I were you, I’d do as she asks. Before the day’s out, you’re going to be talking to either her or him.” He pointed to Dirk, who stood a few yards away, bellowing into his megaphone. “I’ve had dinner with them both, and I can tell you right now, she’s not only a lot prettier than he is, but she’s much better company, too.”

  “Plus,” Savannah added, “if you talk to me, you can do it sitting in my gorgeous, red, fully restored Mustang. If you don’t talk to me, you’ll wind up having a little chat sitting in the back of his squad car. I guarantee you, ‘the cage’ as they call it, isn’t nearly as comfortable as my bucket seats.”

  “Okay, okay, okay.” Orman the Rosebush Crusher threw up his arms in surrender. “Here I think I’m doing a good thing, volunteering to search for a missing kid and his mom, and I wind up being harassed by the cops.”

  Savannah slipped her arm through his and walked along beside him companionably.

  “You aren’t being harassed by the cops. I’m not a cop—not anymore, anyway. I’m just a nosy lady who wants to spend a little time with you and ask you a few personal questions.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like . . . what does it feel like to be in love with a woman, when that woman is married to the hottest actor in Hollywood?”

  Abel stopped dead in his tracks. “I beg your pardon?” he asked, his voice dripping with indignation.

  She gave his arm a squeeze and an affectionate little pat. “Just keep walkin’, darlin’. Just keep walkin’. If you think that question’s a doozy, you just wait. I’ve got worse ones than that.”

  * * *

  A few minutes later, they were sitting in her Mustang. Savannah was asking him questions, and he was refusing to answer most of them.

  “I have no intention of discussing how I feel about Beth with you,” he was saying, “other than to tell you that I have the utmost respect for the lady. She’s smart and beautiful and kind, and extremely talented.”

  “Is that why you signed a contract with her recently? You’re going to be both Ethan’s and her manager?”

  He looked startled to find out that she knew.

  “Oh, you thought that was hush-hush, right? Does Ethan even know?” she asked.

  Still there was no answer.

  She decided to press a bit further. “Does Ethan know that you’re in love with his wife?”

  “You need to not say that again. It’s insulting to her and to me.”

  “But it’s true. It’s not like it’s a secret. Love is a hard thing to hide, Abel. You’ve been so transparent about it that everyone knows.”

  “I asked you not to say that again.”

  She could see his fingers clenching into fists. She reminded herself to be careful. Sitting in a car with a man who had a reputation for possessing a foul temper, who might have killed another woman less than twenty-four hours ago, asking him infuriating questions, might not be the smartest thing she had done all day.

  “Okay. I won’t. But I do need to ask you where you were the day before yesterday, when she disappeared.”

  He gave her a smile that was anything but warm. In fact, it gave her the creeps, much like he did.

  Something was askew with this man, and she wasn’t sure what. All she knew was that she didn’t trust him. Deep in her gut, where it truly counted, she wouldn’t put anything past him.

  When he didn’t answer her, she repeated her question. “Where were you, Abel, when Pilar was killed and Beth and Freddy went missing?”

  “I have an alibi, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “Okay. Phrase it anyway you like, but Mr. Orman, you need to account for your whereabouts during that time period.”

  Again, he gave her the sinister smile that did nothing to reassure her.

  “I was in China.”

  That was a new one. She couldn’t recall ever having someone use China as an alibi.

  “Seriously?”

  “I have a passport stamp to prove it. I didn’t reenter the country until yesterday morning, right before I came over to the Malloy home. This car we’re sitting in was in their driveway, so I assume you were there and know that I was, too.”

  Savannah felt her stomach drop, much like it did on a giant roller coaster when it hit the first big dip.

  Another suspect Post-it fell off her mental suspect board and fluttered to the ground.

  Two in less than an hour. That had to be some kind of record, even for her.

  “What airline?”

  “Air China. Beijing to LAX, arriving in LA at nine o’clock a.m. I landed here after a twelve-hour flight and headed straight for Malibu and the Malloys’ home.”

  “Why the rush?”

  “I had been there for eight days, discussing a new movie deal for him. The financiers greenlighted the project, and I couldn’t wait to tell him. Beth, too. They wanted her to be the leading lady. It would be the chance of a lifetime for her. A role worthy of her talent.”

  He paused and turned his face away from Savannah to stare out the passenger-side window. “I wouldn’t hurt Beth for anything, Ms. Reid,” he said, his voice tremulous. “You’re right. I do have a great deal of affection for her. But mostly, I just want to do well by her as her manager and her friend. If you don’t find her, if she misses out on this, she’ll never get over it.”

  Savannah believed him. She didn’t want to, but she couldn’t help it. Dirk would be able to find out with one phone call whether or not he had been on the flight. He wasn’t a stupid man, and he had to know that.

  So, he was probably telling the truth.

  Dangnation, she thought.

  “All right, Mr. Orman. I’ll tell Detective Coulter abou
t your trip to China and your return flight. I have no doubt that what you told me is true. I apologize for offending you with my accusations. Also for my indelicacy when questioning you about personal matters. It was insensitive of me, and I’m sorry for upsetting you.”

  He turned back to face her. His eyes searched hers deeply before he finally answered. “Thank you, Ms. Reid. A sincere apology is a rare thing in this day and age. I appreciate receiving one from you.”

  They sat silently for a while, as the tension inside the Mustang gradually subsided.

  “Before I get out of this car,” he said, “and begin to search again for my friend, my client, and her child, is there anything else I can do for you that might help her?”

  “As a matter of fact, Mr. Orman, there is. Thanks to you being in China at the time Ms. Malloy disappeared, I’m now running very low on suspects. Could you tell me if you know anyone else who might consider Ms. Malloy their enemy? Anyone who might wish her harm?”

  “There’s only one person I know of who hates Beth. One person who despises her so much that they would want to see her dead.”

  “And who is that?”

  “Candace York. Candy never got over the way Beth and Ethan made a fool of her. Her career has never been the same. Her confidence was shattered. When Ethan jilted her for Beth, Candace lost more than a fiancé. She lost part of herself that she’ll never get back.”

  Savannah tried to hide her excitement, but she couldn’t as she filled out an imaginary Post-it with Candace’s name on it in big, bold black letters, and stuck it at the top of her otherwise empty board.

  “Before you start getting all excited though,” Abel Orman said, as if reading her mind, “I think I should tell you something.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Candace didn’t kill Pilar or abduct Beth and Freddy.”

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but how can you be so sure?”

  “Because Candace was with me in Beijing. In fact, she’s still there. The financier wants her in the movie, too. And get this, he wants her to play the villainess.”

  Once again that ugly smile played across Abel Orman’s face, and it occurred to Savannah that he could easily play a convincing villain himself.