Vanishing Point (v5) (epub)

by Marcia Muller

  But it wasn’t Hy standing there. It was Rob Traverso of the PRPD and another heavyset, balding man whom I didn’t know. “Ms. McCone,” Traverso said, “this is Detective Jim Whitmore of the SLO County Sheriff’s Department. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  “The dead man’s name is Emil Tiegs,” Jim Whitmore said. “He was found under the Cayucos pier by a fisherman at five-thirty this morning. Your business card was in his wallet.”

  “How did he die?” I asked.

  Whitmore ignored the question. “What kind of dealings did you have with Mr. Tiegs?”

  We were seated at the table in my room, Whitmore across from me, Traverso to my right. I glanced at the police detective; his face was impassive, and he didn’t meet my eyes.

  I said, “Mr. Tiegs offered to sell me information on the Laurel Greenwood case. When I met with him, I gave him my card.”

  “When was that?”

  “Yesterday around noon.”

  “And what did he tell you?”

  I considered. Tiegs’s information had implicated Kev Daniel in a minor crime upon which the statute of limitations had run out. Revealing it and sending the county sheriff after him would destroy any leverage I might have to force him to reveal where Laurel had gone after she received the new identification from him, or her present whereabouts. However, I’d seen Daniel returning to his home late last night, disheveled and terrified—

  “Ms. McCone?” Whitmore prompted.

  I opted for shading the truth. “As you probably know, Emil Tiegs had a criminal record. He struck me as unreliable. Also, he was asking for a good deal of money. I wanted to ask my client whether she was willing to pay.”

  “And was she?”

  “I wasn’t able to reach her. May I ask how Tiegs died?”

  Whitmore glanced at Traverso, then shrugged. “Autopsy hasn’t been performed yet, but Tiegs’s neck was broken. He could have fallen from the pier, or been pushed.”

  “What about his seeing-eye dog?”

  “It hasn’t been found.”

  I pictured the dog, the way it had protectively moved with Tiegs. An animal like that would fight to the death for the man it guided.

  I asked, “Did you talk with Tiegs’s wife?”

  Whitmore turned keen eyes on me. “How do you know he had a wife?”

  “I had one of my staff background him as soon as he contacted me.”

  “Yes, we talked with her. She was evasive. Seemed more frightened for her own sake than concerned that her husband was dead.”

  Frightened. Yes, that figured. Emil Tiegs had told me about the day he and his wife went to Daniel’s winery and attempted to extort money from him: He said if I told anybody, he’d have me taken out of the gene pool. He meant it, too—I heard it in his voice. And Nina—she was with me, drove me to that winery of his—she saw it in his eyes.

  I thought I knew how Tiegs had died—and why.

  I just wasn’t sure what to do with the information.

  Early evening on Hillside Drive in Cayucos. Number 30 was dark and again looked deserted. I knocked on the front door anyway, and after a moment it was opened by the woman I’d seen through the window on Wednesday evening. Her eyes were puffy and red, her hair dirty and unkempt.

  “You’re selling something, I don’t want it,” she said.

  “I’m Sharon McCone. Your husband sold me something the other day. Five hundred dollars’ worth. There should be another five hundred in your bank account by now.”

  She snorted. “And that’s gonna go a long way to pay for burying him.”

  “Maybe I can arrange for more, if you’ll let me in so we can talk.”

  She hesitated, then motioned me inside. The room that I’d glimpsed from the street last night was dark, the TV turned off. Nina Tiegs moved to the couch and sat heavily.

  “How are you holding up?” I asked as I took a seat in a rocking chair.

  “How d’you think?”

  “Probably not very well. I know I wouldn’t be.”

  “You married?”

  “Yes.”

  “Long time?”

  “Long enough.”

  No, not long enough—no amount of time will ever be long enough.

  “Then you know.” Nina Tiegs sighed. “My mother used to tell me, ‘Husbands, you sure miss them when they’re dead.’ I thought it was a peculiar thing to say, but now I understand. Of course, my dad died in bed at eighty. Emil was only—” She bent her head, began to cry.

  For a few moments, the only sounds in the room were her muffled sobs; then she raised her head, pulled a Kleenex from a box on the table, blew her nose, and wiped her face.

  “I keep goin’ off like that,” she said. “Stupid. Emil hated it when I cried.”

  “You’ve got good reason.”

  “Yeah, I do. You know the stupidest thing? That dog—Blake—that’s what makes me cry the hardest. Best damn dog I ever knew, loved Emil. I just know he’s dead, too.”

  “Animals can become a big part of your life. Particularly one like Blake.”

  “Yeah.” She blew her nose again.

  “Nina, what d’you think happened to Emil?”

  “I don’t know. He went out, he didn’t come back. What I told the cops.”

  “But that wasn’t true, was it?”

  Silence.

  “Did he decide to hit Kev Daniel up for more money than I could offer?”

  Even in the darkness, I could see fear flare in her eyes at the mention of Daniel’s name.

  I added, “You didn’t tell the police because you’re afraid of Daniel. And you’re afraid they’ll arrest you as an accessory to extortion.”

  “Could they do that?”

  “Yes, but I doubt they would, if you were honest with them.”

  A long silence. “I want to see them nail that bastard Daniel, but I’m afraid if they can’t make it stick, he’ll come after me.”

  “They’ll make it stick.”

  “I don’t believe it. These rich guys, they always get off.”

  “Not always.”

  “Mostly they do.” She sighed. “You know, Emil could be such an idiot sometimes. Brilliant forger and top dog in prison, according to him. But then, what was he doing screwing around with meth and getting himself half blown up, for Christ’s sake? And then this Daniel thing—” She broke off, putting her fingertips to her lips.

  I said, “So he did try to extort money from Daniel.”

  “You tell the cops any of this, I’ll say you’re lying.”

  “Look, Nina, the sheriff’s department investigator already knows you’re hiding something. He told me as much a couple of hours ago. It’s only a matter of time before they come down hard on you. Why don’t you talk with me, and I’ll see what I can do to help you.”

  She bit her lip, considering. “You mean it—that you’ll try to help me?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what about more money? You said you might be able to arrange it.”

  “That, too.”

  “Okay. This is what happened: After Emil got that five hundred off of you, he was high. Said he knew what he had was worth a lot more. He called Daniel that afternoon, told him he had a five-thousand-dollar offer from you, but was willing to keep quiet for real money—fifteen. They set a meet for the pier last night, at ten-thirty. Daniel said he’d have the cash with him.

  “I wanted to go along, but Emil wouldn’t let me. I told him the situation would go bad. ‘What kind of person keeps fifteen thou in cash just laying around?’ I asked. But he wouldn’t listen, he never listened to me. He went anyhow, and now he’s gone and Blake’s gone and I’m all alone.” She bent her head and began to cry again.

  I rummaged in my bag for my wallet and took out my remaining hundred dollars. Laid it on the coffee table. Nina Tiegs didn’t notice; she’d pressed her face into her hands, and tears were leaking around her fingers.

  Before I left I touched her shoulder and said, “Thank you for t
alking with me, Nina. I’ll be in touch. And I’m sorry for your loss.”

  I’m sorry for your loss.

  Conventional, empty words. They don’t help anybody.

  The way to help someone like Nina Tiegs is by nailing the man who killed her husband.

  “Why did you withhold the fact that when you met with Tiegs you paid him for this information?” Jim Whitmore asked, pointing at my voice-activated recorder on which I’d just played him the tape of my meeting with Tiegs.

  I turned it off. “Client confidentiality.”

  “Come on, McCone. You can do better than that. You also withheld the part about seeing Kevin Daniel returning home last night.”

  “Okay, I wanted to talk with Tiegs’s wife first. And frankly, I was concerned about losing my leverage over Daniel. But given what Nina Tiegs told me, there’s no way I can justify withholding anything any longer.”

  Whitmore leaned back in his desk chair and regarded me with narrowed eyes. We were in his small office at the SLO County Sheriff’s Department in San Luis Obispo, down the hall from where I’d spoken last week with his colleague, Deputy Selma Barker.

  “The wife will give us a statement?” he asked.

  “If you lean on her. I’ll ask my client if she’s willing to pay more for the information about her mother, and that may loosen Nina up somewhat.”

  The detective continued to stare at me. “You remind me of my sister,” he said. “She’s a lawyer in Seattle. Specializes in divorce for women. Her clients call her ‘Old Hard-as-Nails,’ but they know that the reason she goes toe-to-toe for them is that she cares.”

  “Ah, you’ve found my weak spot. Kittens, puppies, children, grieving widows.”

  “Isn’t a weak spot—it’s a strength. So how’re we gonna do this?”

  “We? I assume you’ll pick up Daniel. You’ll have the information on this tape, Nina Tiegs’s statement about the extortion attempt, and my statement about seeing him return home last night in a disheveled and distraught state. Yes, the tape isn’t admissable in court, but even though Daniel’s egotistical, he’s not very tough. You people can break him easily enough.”

  “Maybe. But the kind of money and local prominence he has builds a thick wall around a person.” The phone buzzed. Whitmore picked up. “Yeah? . . . Uh-huh . . . I see . . . Well, canvass the neighbors and run a surveillance on the place . . . Yeah, thanks.” He replaced the receiver and looked up at me, scowling. “You screwed up, McCone. The Tiegs woman has taken off.”

  I thought of the hundred dollars I’d left on her coffee table. Not a lot to most people these days, but traveling money to someone like Nina. “Damn!”

  “Kind of puts a whole new slant on how we proceed, doesn’t it?”

  “I guess.”

  He thought for a moment, then smiled—fiendishly, I thought. “Okay, McCone, how d’you feel about wearing a wire?”

  Ten-thirty that night, and the huge windows of Kev Daniel’s house in the vineyards blazed with light. People in casual attire were scattered over the floodlit deck, sipping wine and conversing animatedly. From where I had parked my car I could hear their laughter, see their sometimes expansive gestures. A woman shrieked, and the shrill noise was followed by applause and more laughter.

  Friday night party time in the mid-coast wine country, and here I was, alone and cold sober, with tape pulling at my skin where the sheriff’s deputy had attached the wire and my bag hanging heavily from my shoulder. Jim Whitmore had been adamantly opposed to my going into Daniel’s house armed, but I’d made an unauthorized stop on the way here and retrieved my .357 from the closet safe at the inn. No way would I place absolute trust in the sheriff’s department for getting me out of there speedily and safely should the situation turn dangerous.

  As I got out of the car, I wondered what was wrong with me. Why had I volunteered for this duty when I had a new husband hoping we could spend at least part of the weekend together? But as I approached Daniel’s house the thought vanished in a rush of excitement. I lived for moments like this, and so did Hy. So what if we weren’t a conventional couple?

  A few people glanced at me as I crossed the deck to the front door, probably wondering who I was; the circle Daniel ran in would be a small, close-knit one, and an outsider was always interesting. The door stood open and I went inside. More people filled a large room straight ahead, where a bar and buffet table were set up. I went to the bar, asked the man behind it for Mr. Daniel.

  “Out there, ma’am,” he replied, motioning at the other side of the wraparound deck, which was accessible through open French doors.

  “Thanks.” I crossed the room, went back outside. Daniel was by the far railing, his arm around a woman in a barebacked yellow dress with blonde hair cascading to her waist. I stepped up behind him. “Kev, I need to talk with you.”

  He started, swinging around, and a few drops of wine from his glass splashed over its rim and onto his fingers. He recovered his poise quickly and said, “Can’t this wait till tomorrow? As you see, I’m entertaining.”

  “It’s to your advantage that we talk now.”

  “. . . All right, then. Will you excuse us, darling?”

  The woman nodded. “I see Marnie and Bart have arrived. I’ll go catch up on all their news.”

  Daniel watched her go, then turned to me, his face stony. “Let’s take this into my study.” He grasped my elbow and guided me inside, through the big room, and down a hallway. Shoved open a door and motioned me into a room that was furnished in massive leather pieces and lined with shelves of books in elegant bindings—the kind that pretentious people buy in quantity to impress others, but not to read.

  After he shut the door behind us, he said, “All right, what’s so important that you’ve come out here and crashed my party?”

  I selected a chair, sat down, took my time about settling into it. “Laurel Greenwood. I know you arranged for false identification for her. I want to know if she confided her plans to you, or if you know her present whereabouts.”

  “The old case you’re working on? How the hell would I know anything about that? It happened twenty-two years ago. I was—”

  “A recent parolee, right here in SLO County.”

  He set his glass on a side table. Ran his hand over his chin. “Okay, you’ve got me there. It’s a matter of public record.”

  “But it’s not a matter of public record that you met with Laurel at the Sea Shack in Cayucos the day she disappeared and gave her the identification she needed to assume another woman’s name.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes you do. About six months ago Emil Tiegs, the man who forged the ID, tried to extort money from you to keep silent about it. He recently sold the information to me.”

  Daniel sat down across from me, spread his hands on his thighs, and rubbed them up and down. “When?”

  “Noon yesterday.” When he didn’t speak, I added, “I have a tape of my conversation with Tiegs. It won’t stand up in court, but it will make the sheriff’s department take a close look at you.”

  “. . . All right, I helped Laurel. When I got out on parole, I called her, gave her my phone number in Cayucos, thinking she’d help me get some more of my work into this San Luis gallery that had sold a couple of my pictures. A few days later she called me back, asked if I had any contacts who could doctor an ID. I’d run into Tiegs the week before; I knew he was her man.

  “I didn’t want to get mixed up in something illegal, but Laurel was a wonderful woman and, from what she said, trapped in a miserable marriage. She’d been very good to me when I was taking her class in prison, and I felt I owed her. And I suppose in my young, impressionable way, I was a little in love with her.”

  Sly glance from under his thick eyelashes. Kev Daniel was probably used to charming his way out of sticky situations—particularly situations involving women.

  I asked, “Did Laurel tell you where she was going?”

  “She said it
was better I didn’t know.”

  “She must’ve said something. Jacob Ziff saw the two of you with your heads together at the Sea Shack.”

  “Ziff.” He shook his head. “When my partners insisted on using him to design our new tasting room, I was afraid he’d recognize me, but I should’ve known better. Way back then, all he saw was a scruffy young biker, not the man I am today.”

  “About your conversation with Laurel . . . ?”

  “It was so long ago, I don’t remember much of it.”

  “But you do remember that I have the tape of my conversation with Tiegs.”

  “I’ll deny everything.”

  “Still it’ll be a hassle, could damage your reputation.”

  Silence.

  “Look, Kev, you committed a minor crime, and the statute of limitations on it ran out long ago. I’m only concerned with finding Laurel, and I never reveal my sources.”

  “I’ve heard that before.”

  “From Mike Rosenfeld at the Trib.”

  Daniel raised his eyebrows. “He told you I gave him the story about you?”

  “No,” I lied. “He’s as protective of his sources as I am of mine. I just guessed it was you. Why’d you do it?”

  “I don’t know; it was a dumb move. But at the time I thought the publicity might impede your investigation. I didn’t want that shit dug up. All I did was help a friend.”

  “You also thought shooting at me would scare me off.”

  He tensed. “I had nothing to do with that.”

  “I’ll accept that as the truth—even though we both know it isn’t—and let it drop if you tell me about your conversation with Laurel.”

  “All right, let me think a minute.” He relaxed some, leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes. “She said she shared the same profession with the woman whose name she’d appropriated—somebody Smith. The first name, I don’t remember. She hadn’t worked at whatever it was in a long time, but the other woman had, and her license was current. So it would be easy for her to earn a living. She had a fair amount of money, anyway. I asked about her kids—Laurel’s, how she could leave them—and she told me her whole family would be better off without her because she was a terrible person. She wouldn’t tell me why. Before she left, she gave me a postcard and asked me to mail it. That was the last I ever saw of her.”