4 A Dead Mother

by Anna Celeste Burke

  “I’m sure you’ve tried to locate him using all that info,” I said dreading her response.

  “Yes. No answer on his cell phone. I left a voice mail message. I even got the manager of the condo complex where he rents in Palm Springs to let me into his place. There’s no sign of foul play, although it appears he was in a hurry—he left drawers ajar, stuff on the floor in the closet like it had fallen off the hangers and he hadn’t picked it up, unwashed dishes in the sink—that sort of thing. Messier even than Ms. Windsor’s house after that break-in.”

  “I take it he’s not at his home in San Bernardino, either?” Frank asked.

  “Nope. I had a pal check even though no one has filed a missing person’s report. Madison hasn’t been gone long and isn’t married so I don’t know who, other than his office mates would contact the police, anyway. He was in San Bernardino for a short time earlier today. A neighbor saw him roll a large suitcase to his car which was parked in the driveway and watched him load it into the trunk. The guy told the officer that Madison waved when he honked at him. He didn’t see more than that because he was pulling into his garage at the time and the door closed behind him.”

  “Yikes!” I exclaimed. “David Madison must plan on being gone for a while, don’t you think? Did the neighbor mention anything about how he was dressed?” My question was almost an idle one as I imagined Madison rushing to get out of town.

  “Had he changed into shorts and an aloha shirt like he was heading for a Caribbean Island or Rio or somewhere like that?”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s what I was getting at.”

  “No, but I haven’t located his passport yet, so he might have taken that with him. The only thing the neighbor mentioned was that Mr. Madison had a heavy jacket on. It’s not that chilly by San Bernardino standards, but he says David spends so much time in the desert, his blood has thinned or something like that and he has to bundle up.” Rikki shrugged and paused for a moment as the server brought her a steaming cup of decaf and a small plate with a big cookie on it.

  “This is your fault. I’ve been on a cookie binge since that meeting at your office,” she said, looking at me as she picked up the cookie and took a bite. “Not as good as Bernadette’s, but I’ll eat it anyway.” She took a swig of coffee before getting back to business.

  “We’ve done a quick check of his credit cards and there’s no recent purchase of an airline ticket or cruise. He filled up the tank of his car at a gas station on I-10—the one in Cabazon with the dinosaurs, you know?”

  “Sure. He’s on a road trip, then, huh?” I asked, wondering if Madison had chosen a destination where that coat would come in handy.

  “That’s my conclusion. Maybe he’s going someplace that doesn’t have lots of ATMs since he stopped at one near his office in Palm Springs and withdrew the max allowed. At the gas station, he took out more using a cash advance option on his credit card. He’s got at least a thousand dollars in cash with him at this point.”

  Hmm, I thought, a heavy jacket and no ATMs. “Hiding out in the boonies where it’s cold, maybe.”

  “This time of year, that could be lots of places in California,” Rikki commented.

  “He’s smart enough to know that ATMs and credit cards can be used to track him. If David Madison doesn’t want to be found, switching to cash makes sense regardless of where he’s going,” Frank suggested.

  “If he doesn’t want to be found, he must be in trouble! Can’t you track him using his phone?”

  “We’re not going to get a warrant unless we’ve got compelling evidence that he’s involved in a crime, even if it’s as a witness. That’s tough given that we don’t have a crime to link him to, do we?”

  “No, but it can’t be a coincidence. He calls me, sends me that packet of information about an iffy investment fund, and the next day he suddenly leaves town without telling anyone where he’s going? I don’t like it.”

  “You know I don’t like coincidences any more than you do. If I get information that someone threatened him, or you connect him to a crime—financial or otherwise—I’ll go for a warrant.”

  “Have you had a chance to go through the information I sent you?” I asked.

  “Yes, but to be honest, it’s like Greek to me. I’m not awful with numbers, but some of the technical terms make no sense. Madison’s notes are too cryptic for me to understand. How about you?”

  “Things wouldn’t make sense even if you were familiar with the technical terms. The numbers don’t add up.”

  “How’s that?” She asked.

  “I’m not sure yet. He was concerned that the annual returns to investors are too regular. Normally, you’d expect a fund to have a good year or two and then falter a little, maybe come back after that. Especially a fund like this one that’s built around the performance of alternative energy start-ups, although Madison said there were subsidies in place for some of the companies. I haven’t had time to follow up on that issue. What’s worrisome is the steady seven or eight percent return a year.”

  “What I was able to do in the short time I’ve had the information you forwarded to me was put somebody on the trail of the accounting firm Madison raised concerns about. No one’s had time to do much on our end other than confirm that the group has already had problems with the law. Not trouble that would have grabbed headlines or landed them on an episode of American Greed, but they’re lucky to still be in business,” Rikki added.

  “Yeah, that’s true about this fund, too. Their holdings are tiny compared to the Ponzi scheme Bernie Madoff was running, but I wouldn’t be shocked to find out that Beverly Windsor was being asked to invest in something similar.”

  “How’d she become involved in anything like that?” Frank asked.

  “Her friend, Ruth St. Armand, believes a man she’s been dating, Cedric Baumgartner, steered the opportunity her way. The one at the top of the list of names I gave to Rikki when we met.” I gave Frank a quick rundown of the circumstances surrounding Beverly Windsor’s HOA and neighborhood problems, not going into all the dirty details, but giving him a rundown of the characters involved including the tie-in to Baumgartner. Plus, the information about him I’d received from Ruth and Leslie.

  “We’ve done a round of interviews with the people on the list. That includes Cedric Baumgartner.”

  “My team has done that, too. What’s your conclusion?” I asked.

  “A peachy-keen bunch on the surface. We’re running down their alibis, but several gave each other as their alibi, so that won’t stick unless we can get corroboration elsewhere. There’s a snooty, cliquish quality to their interactions, but nobody jumped out at us as a psychopath. Each one of them had something nasty to say about at least one of the other people on your list. People willing to cast suspicion on each other or just dish the dirt always put me off. A couple of them even had unflattering things to say about their dead neighbor.”

  “Let me guess, Tanya Wilkins was one of them.” I said.

  “Yes, and that’s not surprising given what you went through with Beverly Windsor and that HOA mess, plus what Barbara Stoddard claims she overheard.”

  I gave Frank a quick rundown on what Rikki meant by that. I told him about Barbara Stoddard’s visit to Beverly’s house the day before, returning the brooch she’d borrowed, and revealing that she’d heard Tanya Wilkins wishing Beverly would drop dead. I also included a brief rundown of Tanya Wilkins’ obstructionist role as Chairwoman of the Architectural Review Committee.

  “She was definitely on Beverly’s case from the start, wasn’t she?” Frank asked. Rikki answered him before I could.

  “Oh, yes, and Ms. Wilkins still holds a grudge, even though Beverly Windsor’s dead! She blames Ms. Windsor for creating problems from the moment she bought property in Araby Oasis because, in her exact words, ‘Beverly thought she was better than everyone else and above the rules.’ Whether it’s true or not, she’s still angry enough to make me suspicious. A silly reason to have it in for someone,
but what do I know? She’s got an alibi, though, and she’s a nail biter.” It was the detective’s turn to get Frank up to speed on why that made Tanya Wilkins less likely to have murdered my client.

  “I read the preliminary report from the coroner. A vicious brunette with long red fingernails and a gun fits the bill. She sounds like a character from Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer novels.”

  “Or a movie,” I added. “According to Marcia Garrett, another community member who failed to welcome Beverly Windsor to the neighborhood with open arms, there was more behind the squabbling than disputed HOA rules.” I explained who the former Hollywood actress was in the cast of what seemed like thousands at this point that also included Cedric’s current wife. I added to that, Marcia’s recent disclosure about the way in which Cedric Baumgartner had moved from woman to woman, and how that might explain the cliquishness Rikki had encountered.

  “I’m sure you’re checking into the fact that the three musketeers—Tanya Wilkins, Cathy Walker, and Tamara Parker claim they were all at the spa together when someone lured my client into a car or abducted her at gunpoint before killing her. Maybe that was the point of their togetherness. That spa’s not more than a few blocks from Figaro’s.”

  “I know that. If you’re talking about a conspiracy to murder Beverly Windsor, I find it difficult to believe these women banded together to get rid of her because of Cedric Baumgartner. Why not just wait around a few weeks until he dumped her and gloat? Besides, we’ve checked their alibis and all three were at that spa for treatments that kept them busy until lunch time.”

  “It might not have been that hard to slip out and make a call from Figaro’s. Maybe worth it, too, if they thought they could somehow implicate Cedric Baumgartner in Beverly’s murder by calling from that location while he was there,” I suggested as I searched for our server. I was ready for another beer. I didn’t have to drive, since Frank was dropping me off at my hotel that was only a few blocks away. I waved at the server who acknowledged me from the table where she was taking another order. “Far-fetched, but a wickedly practical strategy for killing two birds with one stone, if they could pull it off.”

  “I got a first name of the woman who asked to use Audrey Atkins’ office phone to make a call. Suzanne—not one of the women at the spa, but we don’t have the names of attendees to know she was at one of those breakfast meetings, yet.”

  “Maybe she used a phony name,” I said as the server joined us at our table and took our order for another round of drinks.

  “It could be,” Rikki said, picking up the conversation as the server stepped away. “We can’t confirm the call she placed is the one that went to Beverly Windsor until we get the phone records from Figaro’s service provider and can match the time that call was made with the time your client picked up a call on her phone. I can have someone ask if there’s any way one of the women at the spa could have slipped out, gone to Figaro’s, and placed that call and then returned without disrupting her spa day, but that doesn’t seem likely.”

  “That also means there are more than three conspirators involved. Given the scenario you’re describing, I doubt the person who made that phone call could have met Beverly Windsor a short time later at Desert Park Preserve, abducted her at gunpoint, and then killed her before running back to finish a spa treatment,” Frank added. “It’s hard to keep that many conspirators from spilling the beans about an operation, unless they’re pros.”

  I didn’t say a word, but I was pretty sure I knew the pros that were on Frank’s mind had to do with the French Connection. He must still have been mulling over the news I’d given him earlier about the nanny’s tale about seeing a dirty cop hovering over Marty Hargreaves at Jim’s party.

  “Even for pros, it’s not easy to maintain control over everyone who’s in on it,” he added glancing at me as if confirming my thoughts.

  “That’s so true,” Rikki responded. “If the caller also murdered Beverly Windsor after placing that call, she had at least one more co-conspirator—the driver of the car that picked up Ms. Windsor.”

  “A cranberry colored Chevy Impala. I know,” I added absent-mindedly.

  “How do you know that?” Rikki asked. I explained how Jerry had tracked down that information and added that none of Cedric’s jilted women drove one. Nor did anyone else on the list I’d given her.

  “Your team’s been busy,” was all Rikki Havens said. Not even a thank you.

  “The Cat Pack is on the job!” Frank added as our server delivered another round of drinks.

  “Cat Pack?” She asked. Frank explained what the heck that meant as I sipped my micro-brewed pale ale. Delicious, although I needed the calories as much as I needed to see the smirk on Detective Havens’ dimly-lit face. I changed the subject before she could add a snide comment to go with the smirk.

  “Sorry to take us off on a tangent with talk about a conspiracy of jilted women. Despite the brutality of the attack, her death may have nothing to do with love gone wrong. There’s also the money matters raised by David Madison, who suddenly decided it was time to leave town. Another twist that leads back to Cedric Baumgartner, by the way. Funny how so many of the intersecting paths between Beverly Windsor and the other people in her life lead back to that pompous ass,” I snapped.

  “He must have held sway over them somehow if you’re right and Wilkins quit hassling your client once Cedric Baumgartner stepped in. I wonder what he said or did that got her to back off?”

  “That’s an excellent question to ask her and the other women in their clique, isn’t it? If you chat him up the right way, Cedric might tell you. I’ll warn you, though, that he’s not keen about having his past brought up in casual conversation. I take it you’ve spoken to him long enough to get him to give you his alibi.”

  “We interviewed him, yes. You have too, apparently.”

  “One of Jessica’s specialties is cornering men she regards as evildoers and confronting them as if she has them on the witness stand.” Rikki looked at Frank then at me. I shrugged.

  “He’s not far off base. There’s no need to rough them up with a Perry Mason style interrogation. I’ve discovered that psychopaths often decompensate quickly if you pierce their veneer of fake civility. Ask Leslie. She claimed it was as if Dr. Jekyll morphed into Mr. Hyde right before her eyes.”

  “Jekyll or Hyde, Cedric Baumgartner’s got an airtight alibi.”

  “That’s what I heard. No holes you can find?”

  “Nope. He was at Figaro’s at a meeting of some group that’s trying to raise funds to build a bike path from one end of the valley to the other. He couldn’t have made that phone call, either, since he was holding forth about his opinions about the matter when Beverly Windsor answered that phone call. The meeting didn’t end until after the body was dumped on the side of the road.” I sucked in a big gulp of air, about to raise an objection before Rikki spoke again. “I know, I know, not a body, a somebody. It doesn’t change my main point that he didn’t leave the meeting until after someone had killed Beverly Windsor.”

  “Okay,” I sighed, not sure why I felt such disappointment since I already knew Baumgartner had an alibi. Maybe it was fatigue. “Who was the other woman who said something nasty about Beverly?”

  “This one may surprise you. Barbara Stoddard!”

  “Good grief! Is there anyone we can take off that list of names I gave you?”

  “I spoke to her after she had that heart-to-heart with you and Leslie Windsor. Nasty’s not the right term to use. What she had to say cast Beverly Windsor in a different light than anyone else has. Ms. Stoddard has claimed she heard Beverly having it out with someone recently—more than once, at high volume and loaded with expletives!”

  “With a man or a woman?” Frank asked.

  “A woman.”

  “Did she see who it was?”

  “If that were the case, do you honestly believe I’d be sitting here with you and Jessica? I’d have that person in custody while we examined
every moment of her life for the past week—red fingernails or no red fingernails.” I tried to hide my amusement as the exasperated woman stared at Frank.

  Detective or not, Frank does have a way when it comes to riling up women, I thought. I tried to remember how long Rikki had said it had been since she joined the team at the Sheriff’s Department. Not long. That makes the man a fast worker, too.

  “Geez, I didn’t mean anything by that. Give a guy a break, will you?”

  “Sorry. As you can tell, I’m more than a little distressed that we have so many suspects, some with ample motive, and little more to go on than we had on day one! Less, maybe, because it turns out that the fingernail retrieved from Beverly Windsor’s hair is acrylic.”

  “No!” I exclaimed, slopping my beer.

  “Yes. They may still be able to get DNA from it, but not as easily as I’d hoped.”

  “What about those strands of brown hair?” Frank asked.

  “No follicular material, according to the lab.”

  “Not hairs she pulled out of the killer’s head by their roots, huh?”

  “Nope, and I’ve also been told that even when hairs do have their roots, the probability of successful extraction of a complete DNA profile using standard technology is somewhere between 60-70%. Without the roots, there’s almost no chance of extracting DNA.”

  “The lab techs can still do lots of things to match the strands of hair with a comparison sample,” Frank added.

  “Yeah, but to get a sample to use for comparison purposes means we’ve got to have a candidate. Right now, we don’t have one.” I felt more empathy for the detective who was obviously upset about the setbacks. “Leslie Windsor never said anything to you about her mother having screaming matches with another woman?”

  “No. Neither did Beverly’s friend, Ruth St. Armand, although Kim and I didn’t ask her. What did Leslie say about it when you interviewed her?”