Locked In - [McCone 29]

by Marcia Muller

  “I’d rather we do this one-on-one. Your attorney...”

  Long pause. “Yes, I understand. I’m staying at Hope House in the outer Richmond. It’s a shelter for women at risk. I’ll give you the address.”

  “I can be there in less than an hour.”

  * * * *

  CRAIG MORLAND

  C

  lose to eleven. He pushed away from his desk and the voluminous paper files on the city hall investigation. He’d replayed the surveillance tapes he’d made on Teller and Janssen from his room at the Big Sur lodge. They’d run out sometime between when he fell asleep and when he was awakened by the shots, but the Monterey County authorities could use what was there.

  Now he was having a crisis of conscience. The tapes were illegal. If he turned them over to the sheriff’s department, it could compromise his license and the agency. Even sending them anonymously would be a risk. Besides, as a former fed, he harbored a great distrust of local law-enforcement agencies.

  Screw them, he thought. He’d probably solve the case before they even broke significant ground.

  To that end, he slipped one of the DVDs he’d taken from Harvey Davis’s condo into the computer and watched it once again.

  A tall, slender woman—naked, her blonde hair cascading over her shoulders. Facing away from the camera. A man, facing her, but in shadow so his features weren’t clear.

  “Oh, baby, you are something else. As advertised and then some.”

  “Tell me I’m beautiful. I’ve always wanted somebody to tell me I’m beautiful.”

  “You’re beautiful. You are beautiful.”

  Cut to another, similar shot. Different man, different shape, but also in shadow.

  “You’re worth the money I gave, all of it.”

  “Because I’m pretty.”

  “And incredibly hot.”

  “How much money did you give?”

  “A lot.”

  “I could use some money for myself. They never give me anything. Would you pay that much to me? If I’m good to you?”

  “If you’re very, very good ...”

  Next scene: a couple in bed, indistinguishable except for the long sweep of blonde hair. Graphic noises.

  Next: similar recording.

  Craig ejected the DVD, slipped the other one in.

  Another unclear view: a man with a hairy back, humping.

  Another man, a tattoo visible on his shoulder. The same well-publicized tattoo of the insignia of USC, his alma mater, that the mayor bore in the same place. He’d often joked with the press that he intended to have it removed, since his wife had graduated from rival UCLA.

  And now the last one: two unidentifiable naked women, one blonde and one dark-haired, twined in an embrace.

  The dark-haired one: Amanda Teller, or someone made up to look like her.

  Craig slowed the recording speed, played the disc again.

  The mayor’s tattoo could have been faked. The woman who resembled Teller could be younger than the dead supervisor.

  Where had Harvey Davis gotten these discs? Who had made them? And who were the unidentifiable participants?

  Craig checked his watch. After one now, but his friend Daniel Blackstone down in Scottsdale, a video and audio forensics specialist, would probably still be at his computer. Daniel worked best in the cool night, slept best during the hot daylight hours.

  Craig punched in his number and got an immediate response.

  “You need work?” he asked.

  Daniel laughed—a habitually harsh sound exacerbated by the two packs of Marlboros he smoked daily. “I’ve got plenty of work, but I can fit you in. What’s the job?”

  Craig outlined what he thought about the videos.

  “That shouldn’t be any problem. You want to messenger them to me?”

  He thought about the call he’d received earlier from Hy. He wouldn’t be doing McCone any good sitting around a hospital waiting room.

  “Just a second.”

  His fingers skipped over the keyboard. Southwest Airlines had a seven a.m. flight that got into Phoenix’s Sky Harbor at nine-fifteen. Seats were available.

  “I’ll see you around ten-thirty tomorrow,” he said.

  * * * *

  JULIA RAFAEL

  N

  ow she was digging deep on the embezzlement at Haven Dietz’s former financial management firm. Reviewing the reports Thelia had delivered to her, plus information on the woman, Delia Piper, who had been accused of the crime and then exonerated. Piper now lived in Hawaii, on Oahu: four hours earlier there. Julia got her number from information and called.

  “Of course it was Haven,” the woman said when Julia had explained about her investigation. “I never doubted it, and neither did a number of my colleagues. The audit couldn’t pinpoint the time of the embezzlement, but she was still with the firm the first two months of its fiscal year.”

  “Why did they suspect you?”

  “I had more responsibility than Haven, and access to cash. Also—I admit it—I was the company bitch. A lot of people didn’t like my style. Still don’t. And I’d been very outspoken about the conduct of our married branch manager, with whom Haven was having an affair.”

  “Oh? And he is ... ?”

  “Was. Todd Daley. He committed suicide a week after Haven was attacked. Shot himself. I guess he was afraid she would talk.”

  “I understand Ms. Dietz didn’t have access to cash.”

  “No, but Todd Daley did.”

  “So you think they were in on the embezzlement together?”

  “Well, sure. Todd had a shrewish wife and three snot-nosed kids in a tract house in Pacifica. Haven was pretty and smart. A hundred thousand dollars doesn’t sound like much to start a new life on, but Todd knew how to make money work for the clients. Haven must’ve persuaded him to let the clients’ money work for them.”

  The venom in Delia Piper’s voice annoyed Julia. “Ms. Piper, are you aware that Haven Dietz is dead?”

  “No. Really?”

  “She was killed by an intruder in her apartment Sunday night.”

  “Well, that’s too bad, but I don’t feel sorry for her. The woman was one of the most unpleasant people I ever worked with.”

  That, coming from the self-described office bitch.

  * * * *

  Haven Dietz, her boss Todd Daley, a hundred thousand dollars missing from the management firm but not discovered till the annual audit.

  Haven walking through the park on her way home, a small fortune in cash in her briefcase.

  Haven brutally attacked, the briefcase gone.

  A hundred thousand dollars in the tack room at the Peepleses’ vineyard.

  Was Larry Peeples Haven’s attacker? Had she perhaps confided her plans to him?

  But then why had he nursed Dietz back to health?

  And why had he abandoned the cash?

  And where was he now?

  * * * *

  RAE KELLEHER

  S

  he’d meant to get to the Hope House an hour after Callie O’Leary’s call, but everything had conspired against her. Ticket for making an illegal U turn on the Embarcadero; accident blocking an intersection on Franklin Street; heavy traffic on Geary; and no parking spaces within six blocks of her destination.

  Now it was after eleven. Would they even let her in to talk with O’Leary?

  The safe house was brick, three stories. Edwardian style. A porch light shone brightly and there was muted light in some of the windows. Rae went up the front steps, noticed the eye of a surveillance camera trained on her as she rang the bell. A female voice came through a speaker above the bell, asking her to identify herself.

  She did, holding up her credentials to the camera.

  “I’ll be right there,” the voice said.

  A woman dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt opened the door. “Callie’s been waiting a long time for you, Ms. Kelleher.”

  “I realize that. I’m sorry.”

&nbs
p; “Not my problem. I’d’ve been up anyway; it’s my night on the door. Callie’s in the coming-together room.” She gestured toward an archway to her right.

  Interesting name for living room. Rae liked it.

  She went over there and looked in. A dark-haired woman was curled in an oversize armchair, an afghan pulled up to her shoulders. The room was filled with similar comfortable furnishings, and a gas log flickered on the small tiled hearth—a fireplace that had once burned coal; but was later converted.

  When Rae cleared her throat, the woman started and looked up. Rae saw that she was a beauty. Big, heavily lashed gray eyes, sculpted chin and cheekbones. But the bleakness in those eyes and the tight lines around her mouth told of a hard life. As did the yellowing bruise on her chin. She couldn’t’ve been much over twenty.

  “Ms. O’Leary, I’m Rae Kelleher. Sorry to be so late.”

  “No worries. I don’t sleep much anyway. This story about an inheritance—it’s not true, is it?”

  ”No, it’s not. How did you know?”

  ”I don’t have any relatives, at least not any that would leave me money.”

  ”Then why did you call me, agree to meet with me?”

  Callie O’Leary motioned for Rae to be seated across from her. ”Because this has got to be about Angie. I saw on the news that they identified her body. I know ... quite a few things about Angie, and it’s time I told somebody.”

  Rae’s phone buzzed. She looked at the number, saw it was Hy and said, “I need to take this.”

  After she’d ended the call, she sat silently for a moment, fingers pressed to her lips, feeling sick inside.

  “Bad news?” Callie O’Leary asked.

  “...Yes.”

  “You need to leave? We can talk another time. I’ll be here until it’s safe for me to get out of town.”

  Rae forced her mind away from what Hy had told her about Shar and back to the situation at hand. “No,” she said. “It’s bad the news, but there’s nothing I can do to help.”

  Besides, she was doing what Shar would want her to.

  “So how come you’re here?” she asked Callie.

  “Guy threatened me.”

  ”Don’t you get a lot of threats in your line of work?”

  ”Not like this. Not from somebody so powerful.”

  “Somebody connected with Angie?”

  She nodded.

  “Tell me about it.”

  O’Leary’s earlier resolve had faded. “This guy, he’ll kill me if I do.”

  “Not if he can’t find you.”

  “He can find me, a guy like that. And the security isn’t all that good here.”

  “I know a place where it is.”

  Ricky was going to be amazed when she brought a hooker home.

  * * * *

  TUESDAY, JULY 22

  * * * *

  HY RIPINSKY

  A

  fter midnight. Still no word.

  Once he’d made his calls people started to arrive. Ted and Neal. Ricky, in lieu of Rae, who was working a lead. Craig had stopped in briefly, but he would be off on an early morning flight tomorrow, pursuing another lead. Julia. Robin Blackhawk, Shar’s half sister. Brother John. Mick. And Elwood Farmer, sitting silent and calm by himself. Hy hadn’t called Elwood because he assumed the traditional old man didn’t have a cell phone, but Ricky had supplied a number. An iPhone, no less. Traditional or not, Elwood had entered the twenty-first century in style.

  Two hours gone now, and nothing from the doctor. Two hours in surgery: God, what a toll that must be taking on his wife’s weakened body!

  He wondered what he’d been thinking, sitting here alone and refusing company. Refusing comfort. Since he’d changed his mind he was surrounded by the most caring people he’d ever known. Family, what a family should be. What they so often weren’t.

  The nurse on the desk was eyeing them nervously. So many people crowding the waiting room. Hy went up to her and asked, “Do you want some of them to leave? They can sit with me in shifts.’

  “No, Mr. Ripinsky. They can stay as long as they behave themselves.”

  “Well, that’s kind of a risky proposition. Anybody misbehaves, you tell me and I’ll throw them out myself.”

  He crossed the room to Elwood, sat down beside him. Shar’s birth father nodded to him, but remained silent.

  Hy felt uncomfortable; he barely knew the man, and even McCone had been struggling to connect with him.

  “She will be all right,” Elwood said.

  Hy glanced at him, startled.

  “How do you know that?” he asked.

  “Saika mukua kettae. Her spirit is strong.” Farmer shrugged. “Some things, you just know.”

  “Because you’re her father?”

  “Well, there’s something about blood.” He shot a keen look at Hy. “You know how strong she is. Why are you doubting her?”

  He thought on the question. “Maybe because I’m not sure how well I’d do in the same situation.”

  Elwood made a dismissive motion with his hand. “Then doubt yourself, not your wife.”

  Doubt himself. He’d been doing that ever since Southeast Asia. Why transfer the feeling to Shar? Elwood was right—just stop the doubting altogether.

  “Saika mukua kettae.”

  After a moment Elwood added, “You can’t take control of her physically; the doctors are doing that. But mentally, emotionally ...” He shrugged again.

  “Thanks. I’ll try.”

  They sat there together in silence, waiting for news, and Hy felt the strength that radiated from Shar’s father.

  Three hours gone.

  * * * *

  RAE KELLEHER

  C

  allie O’Leary asked, “You live here?”

  “I do.” They had just pulled through the automatic gate to the house in Sea Cliff; to the north the Golden Gate Bridge shone orange through the gathering mist. The big, multistoried residence loomed before them, soft lights in only a few of its windows.

  “Awesome,” Callie said, “but where’re all the security guys?”

  “They’re here. You just don’t see them—and neither do intruders.”

  “Rad. This PI business, it must pay real good.”

  Rae smiled and stopped the car. “It helps to have married well.”

  They got out and went to the front door, where Rae punched numbers on a keypad, then let them in and rearmed the system. The house was quiet: the younger kids had gone back to Charlene and Vic’s home in Bel Air, Chris was at her apartment in Berkeley, and Mick was probably at the hospital. Ricky, too—he’d promised he’d fill in for her.

  When they entered the living room, Callie again said, “Awesome!”

  “Are you hungry?” Rae asked. “Do you want a drink?”

  “... I’m not hungry and I haven’t had a drink since I went to Hope House. Probably I shouldn’t now.”

  “Soda? Coffee? Anything else?”

  “No thanks. All I want to do is sit down on that couch and look at that beautiful fireplace. I’ve never seen one like that, just standing in the middle of the room with rock all around it.”

  Rae motioned for Callie to sit. “Where’re you from?” she asked.

  “You mean where I was born? Honolulu. My dad was in the navy. We moved a lot. I headed out when they were gonna leave San Diego for someplace on the East Coast.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not? I had three brothers. They liked them better than me. And I liked San Diego.” She looked sharply at Rae. “And no, nobody abused me. They... just didn’t care if I was there or not.”

  “So you were living in San Diego ... ?”

  “And a guy made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. Move to LA, live in his penthouse, make a lot of money. Old stupid story, and I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “That’s cool.”