by Leona Karr
Kerri worked through the noon hour, making arrangements for other investigative services to do some research for her. For a fee, there were many agencies who would comb existing files and records for data that might prove helpful. After she’d done as much as she could, she went home and packed a bag.
Everything was under control at the house, just as she had expected it to be. Patti was sitting on Gram’s lap, sucking her thumb while being rocked, Timmy and the twins were running around the yard in some wild game of follow-the-leader, and the baby was asleep in a small bedroom off the kitchen.
Kerri’s mother immediately started lecturing her on the perils of the big city. “Don’t be going out alone at night, you hear? And mind you watch out for purse snatchers. Always keep your door locked. Don’t open it for anyone you don’t know.” She sighed. “I’ll never forgive your father for leaving the business to you. I do wish you’d stop traipsing all over the country by yourself.”
Kerri gave her an affectionate hug. “I’ll call you tonight when I’m tucked in bed, safe and sound, I promise. Have a good time with the kids.”
“No problem. They’re good little tykes. I guess your handsome Mr. Richards told Timmy to call him Uncle Mark. It’s easy to see the little fellow’s really taken with his new uncle. I guess Mr. Richards’s got a way with kids and adults.”
Kerri ignored the inuendo as she started toward the door. “Well, if he calls to check on the children, you could tell him I’m going to be out of town for a few days.”
“Shouldn’t you be calling him yourself?” her grandmother asked with her usual bluntness.
“When I have something to report, I’ll get in touch with him.”
The old lady just snorted. “You don’t fool me none, Kerri, girl. I may not see as good as I used to, but I’m not blind. There was some sparkin’ going on between the two of you.”
“You’re imagining things, Grams. There’s nothing but business between me and Mark Richards. He’s not my type.” She thought about sexy, curvaceous Lisa. “And I’m definitely not his.”
THE FLIGHT TO THE West Coast was routine. Kerri liked flying, and was perfectly relaxed thirty thousand feet above the earth, reading, dozing, or catching up on paperwork. She preferred not to engage in conversation and thankfully other first-class passengers usually felt the same, leaving her to her own thoughts. Idly, she wondered what it would be like to have a traveling companion like Mark Richards. She could all too easily imagine his long legs stretched comfortably out in front of him, an amber glass of Scotch in his well-formed hand, and the brush of his sleeve on the armrest between them. For a moment, a remembered masculine scent teased her nostrils. She closed her eyes, and the sensation of his presence was so strong that she was almost afraid to turn her head and look at the passenger sitting beside her. Then she chided herself for indulging in such absurd fantasies, and gave a weak smile to the older gentleman who occupied the aisle seat.
The plane landed without incident, and she took a taxi to the Windhaven, a fashionable downtown hotel. When she checked in, a young desk clerk handed her a note that was waiting for her.
“Have a pleasant stay, Ms. Kincaid,” he told her with practiced friendliness, but there was a shine in his eyes that said he meant it.
She didn’t look at the note until she reached her room, a pleasant single bedroom on the twelfth floor. Then, sitting on the bed, she read the message from her secretary. “Just finished contacting marriage bureaus in all fifty states. No luck.”
Kerri crumpled the note. Maybe there had been no marriage. But why would Jason lie to his brother and everybody else? None of it made sense. She was getting nowhere fast, and complications kept piling up.
Moving around the room, she felt like swearing and throwing something. As a child, she’d never handled frustration well, and her father had warned her more than once, “Keep a leash on your temper, lass, or you’ll be dragged into a cow pie.” Through the years she’d tried to heed his warning, but at the moment, she felt as if she were definitely being dragged into something smelly.
The feeling stayed with her when she entered the office of Fidelity Investments the next morning, and asked to see Mr. Elders.
“Do you have an appointment?” asked a rather plain young woman working at a computer in a small outer office. A brass name tag identified her as Elsie Jones.
“No, I don’t.
“May I ask what this is about?” She shoved back a pair of gold-rimmed glasses.
“Here’s my card. Will you kindly give it to Mr. Elders?”
The receptionist raised an eyebrow as she read the card. “You find people?” she asked with open curiosity. “People who are missing?”
Kerri nodded.
“Who are you looking for?”
Kerri had learned not to pass up any avenue for gaining information, so she said a confidential tone, “Jason Richards’s widow. Do you have any idea where I might contact her?”
“Is she missing?”
“Not really,” Kerri lied. “We just need a current address.”
“Oh,” said Elsie, losing interest. She obviously was conditioned by television to expect some hair-raising tale like those on “Unsolved Mysteries.”
“Did you ever meet Mrs. Richards?” Kerri prodded.
“Nope, Jason never brought her to the office. He was funny like that. Never mixed business with his personal life. I got the impression that it was one of those open-ended marriages. You know the kind, you go your way and I’ll go mine and we’ll hit the sack whenever we’re together.” She had the grace to blush slightly. “I didn’t mean to gossip about the dead and all.”
“Did you by any chance make any telephone calls to her for him? Or post any mail to her?”
Elsie cocked her head for a moment, and Kerri’s hopes vaulted sky-high, but came plummeting down with a crash when she said, “Not that I remember. Like I told you, he was real private about his personal life.”
“But he told you what his bride’s name was, didn’t he?”
“Ardie.”
“Just, Ardie? No last name?” Once again Kerri’s hope rose as the woman’s forehead furrowed in deep thought.
“Let me see.” Her face brightened. “Once he called her Mrs. Ardie Richards.”
Kerri mentally groaned but managed to keep a smile on her face. “Thanks for your help. Now, if you’ll tell Mr. Elders that I’m here…”
She nodded and went down a short hall. In a moment she was back, saying, “He said to come right in.”
Mr. Jeff Elders, a tall, slender man with a precise mustache, greeted her when she came into his office, smiling as he made a quick assessment of her trim figure from neck down to her ankles. He obviously approved of her fawn-colored linen suit and buttercup-yellow blouse. There was a slightly flirtatious overtone in his manner that had been absent on the phone. He wasn’t elderly at all, probably only in his early forties.
“What a nice surprise, Ms. Kincaid.” He put out his hand and held hers just a fraction too long to be all business. “I didn’t know I was going to have the pleasure of your company.”
“Thank you for seeing me without an appointment. My decision to come to California was rather sudden.”
“Please sit down.” He waved to a conversational setting of a chairs around a low table. “May I get you some coffee?”
“Yes, thank you,” she said as she eased into a chair that curled around her with deceptive softness.
When Elsie had settled a tray on the table in front of them, he deftly poured two cups from a silver percolator. As he handed a cup and saucer to Kerri, a diamond ring on his pinkie finger flashed in the air like a twinkling star.
“Cream and sugar?”
“No, black.” She’d already noted his expensive silk suit and hand-painted tie. His attire was such a contrast to Mark’s conservative appearance that she had difficulty believing that Mark was the boss and Jeff Elders the employee. “As I told you on the phone, I’m interested in speakin
g with Jason Richards’s widow,” Kerri said smoothly.
“Well, I’ve told you just about everything I know. I never met the lady, and frankly, Jason wasn’t in the office very much after he hooked up with her.” He smoothed his tie in a preening fashion. “I’ve been the one to keep this office going. Things have been much easier since Mark put me fully in charge.” The smug satisfaction in his tone was obvious. “He should have done it a long time ago. Our client list has appreciated considerably. I tried to make Mark see that Jason was nothing but a liability, but you know how it goes. Family loyalty is blind.”
Obviously, Jason’s fatal accident had not been a cause for mourning as far as Jeff Elders was concerned. In fact, he had benefitted from the death. The question came from out of nowhere, and Kerri was startled to find it on her lips. “Was Jason a careless driver?”
“Maybe not careless, but fast. He used to brag about what good time he could make going from here to Reno and Carson City. He had a gambling problem, you know.”
“No, I didn’t.”
Jeff Elders nodded. “I’m surprised Mark didn’t tell you. He was always pulling his brother out of one scrape or another. If it wasn’t women and bad marriages, it was debts. The sad part was that Jason was a nice guy, and everybody liked him. Mark tried his best to protect his brother, and keep him on the right path, but I know Mark washed his hands of this last marriage.”
“Do you happen to know if Jason knew a man named Dirk?”
“Dirk? Who’s that?”
“We don’t know, but we have reason to believe Jason knew him.”
Jeff shrugged. “Jason knew a lot of people, but not many of them were clients.” The sarcasm was thick. “Mostly racehorse people or gamblers. I know he bet heavily on the ponies.”
“Did the police interview you after Jason’s accident?”
He looked surprised. “No, why should they?”
Kerri shrugged. “Just asking. Did anything happen out of the way that day? I mean, did he seem himself? Did he leave the office at his usual time?”
Jeff frowned. “He worked in his office, saw a few clients, and took off a half an hour early. I remember that because someone called just a couple of minutes after he left. I told them they could probably catch him in the parking garage.”
“But you don’t know who it was?” Like someone who wanted to follow Jason in his car and force him off the road?
“No, I don’t,” Jeff answered readily.
“I suppose someone has already cleaned out Jason’s desk?”
“Elsie took care of it and boxed up all his personal things. We’ve refurnished the whole office. Mark has asked me to interview another associate to take Jason’s place. I have several good prospects for the job.” Then he looked at his watch, as if remembering an appointment. “I’m sorry, but I have someone coming in a few minutes. Is there anything else?”
“Would it be all right if I looked through Jason’s personal effects? Maybe there will be some clue to his wife’s full name.” Maybe even a picture, Kerri silently hoped. She was due for some kind of a break.
“Sure, go ahead. I don’t think he kept much personal stuff here, and Elsie may have already sent it to Mark.” He stood up and walked her to the door. “How long are you planning on staying in Los Angeles?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Why don’t you leave your hotel number with Elsie, in case I think of something that would help. I’m busy tonight but perhaps you’d like to have dinner, and continue our conversation another time?”
She gave him a noncommittal smile. “I’ll let you know.”
Elsie frowned when Kerri asked her about Jason’s things. She looked uncomfortable, and twisted slightly in her chair.
“Mr. Elders said you cleaned out his desk. I’d like to look at any pictures, telephone and address books, mail, notes or anything else of that kind.”
“There wasn’t anything like that. The drawers were almost clean. I think Jason was moving out and already clearing out his desk. He left one sweater and a pair of shoes in the closet. There was only one other thing and I gave it to Mark.”
“And what was that?”
Elsie swallowed hard. “A gun.”
Kerri knew she’d heard correctly, but echoed anyway, “A gun?”
Elsie nodded. “Mark told me not to say anything to Mr. Elders about it. I think he wanted to keep it quiet. I hope he won’t be upset that I told you.”
“I’m sure telling me about the gun just slipped his mind,” Kerri said with a Christian charity she didn’t feel. Blast it all, why did she have to dig up all this information the hard way when Mark could have told her plenty about his brother that might have saved her a lot of time? She hadn’t learned much about Ardie, but she’d learned a heck of a lot about Jason Richards. Of course, whether any of it would help track down the missing mother remained to be seen. That was the trouble with the sleuthing business, you never knew when you were pulling on a loose thread or one that would unravel the exact information you needed.
“Will you give me the address where Jason lived?” Kerri asked on impulse. Maybe the landlord would be more helpful than Jason’s office personnel.
“He rented one of the Palisades Bungalows, near Huntington Beach,” Elsie said as she wrote down the address. “Don’t know what good going there will do.”
“You never know,” Kerri said with more confidence in her voice than she felt, and in the end, she had to admit it was pretty much a waste of time.
The manager of the half-dozen cottages that were almost obscured by thick stands of palm trees only shook his bald head to most of Kerri’s questions. No, he’d never met a Mrs. Richards, didn’t even know there was one, and didn’t care one way or the other. The cottages were built for privacy, and as long as the rent was paid on time, he admitted to little interest in renters’ private lives.
“What about Mr. Richards’s private belongings? After his death, who cleared out his cottage?”
“His brother.”
So that was that. On the way back to the hotel in her rented car, she wondered if Mark could have overlooked something like a telephone bill that might contain a frequently called number to his absentee wife. If Mark paid the last bill, he might have a copy from the telephone company, or request another one. She made a mental note to follow up on this possibility.
She spent the rest of the afternoon collecting more information on Jason’s fatal accident. The autopsy showed no signs of drugs, and only a modest trace of alcohol. That meant Mark’s brother had been sober when he ran his car off the cliff and crashed to his death on the rocks below. If speed wasn’t the factor, then it could have been something else more insidious. Why did Jason Richards keep a gun in his desk?
At the moment, the best bet on finding the missing widow seemed to be collecting as much information on Jason as she could. Somebody in his acquaintance must know something about the woman he’d married.
Kerri returned to the hotel late in the afternoon, intent upon making some telephone calls before she typed up the day’s report on her laptop computer. As soon as she entered her room, she checked her phone for any voice messages. None. That meant Debbie hadn’t had any luck to report.
She called home and her mother’s cheery voice eased away some of her fatigue. “How are things going, Mom? Are the kids settling in okay?”
“Like little angels, they be. The baby’s eating and sleeping contentedly. Timmy and the girls are playing in the tree house.” Her mother gave a deep laugh. “It sure does my heart good to see him leaping up and down the tree like a monkey. And remember all those cloth books that you and Cathy used to love so much? They’ve been stored all these years, but your grandmother found them easily enough and is reading them to Patti. I heard her laugh for the first time just a few minutes ago, and my heart got in a twist, I’ll tell you. What have you found out about their mother?”
“Not much,” Kerri said instead of the truth which was zero.
�
�Lordy, you must have some idea why she left them the way she did,” her mother insisted. “From what I’m seeing, they don’t act like neglected children. Anybody in their right mind can tell that they’re ready to love you back if you give them half a chance. But, Lordy, they need their mama. You know that picture in the living room, the one of the mother holding a child on her lap? When Timmy saw it, his little mouth quivered, and he sobbed, ‘My mommy went away.’
“I hugged him, and said, ‘I know she did, honey, but she’s coming back. Kerri’s going to see to that.’”
“I’ll do my best, Mom,” Kerri promised, then hung up with a heavy heart. She only knew one reason a loving mother would not want to be found—fear. What had frightened Ardie so much that she’d left her children with a man she didn’t even know?
Sighing, Kerri kicked off her shoes, slipped out of her linen suit and headed for the shower. She hated the city grime, and felt dirty from head to toe, but before she could step into the shower, there was a brisk knock on her door.
Grabbing the white terry-cloth robe that the hotel provided, she pattered to the door and looked through the peephole. Then she slipped the lock and opened the door. “What are you doing here?”
Mark’s eyes slid over the soft robe, down her bare legs to her slender feet and lightly painted pink toenails. He grinned as he leaned casually against the door frame. “I guess I should have called up from the desk.”
“I was just getting into the shower.”
“So I see. Do you need somebody to scrub your back?”
She was not amused. She’d never faced a client with only a thin piece of white material between her and nudity. Her determination to maintain a strictly business demeanor with this man was suddenly as firm as a soap bubble.
“May I come in?” he asked. “We could leave the door open if you like.”
“Don’t be juvenile,” she snapped, walking away from the door with as much dignity as she could manage.
Mark appreciatively eyed the rear view of her fanny wiggling under the tightly clutched robe. As she moved away from him, he thoroughly enjoyed the long sweep of her back, her small waist, and rounded buttocks, so soft and naked under the robe. In his mind’s eye, he let the robe drop to the floor and—He caught himself, and jerked back from the fantasy, but not in time to deny the truth. He’d never wanted to make love to a woman more in his life.
