Strike one. Or maybe the more apropos baseball term would be safe.
Then Chaz called Martha Paquet’s house. A woman answered the phone and said, “Hello?”
“Is this Martha Paquet?”
“No,” the woman said. “This is her sister, Sandi.”
• • •
Smiley Leslie and the silver Mercedes dropped Kat back at Chaz’s yellow Ferrari. Before she got out, Leslie said, “I’ll call you when I have an address.”
Kat almost thanked him, but that seemed woefully inappropriate. The driver handed her back her gun. She could tell from the weight that he had removed the bullets. Then he handed her back her cell phone.
Kat got out. They drove away.
Her head was still spinning. She didn’t know what to make of what Cozone had said. Actually, even worse, she knew exactly what to make of it. Wasn’t it obvious now? Stagger had gone to visit Monte Leburne immediately after his arrest. He hadn’t told Suggs or Rinsky or anybody else. He made a deal with Leburne, so that Leburne would take the fall for Dad’s murder.
But why?
Or was that getting obvious too?
The real question was, what could she do about it? It wouldn’t pay to confront Stagger anymore. He would just continue to lie. Or worse. No, she would have to prove him a liar. How?
The fingerprints found at the murder scene.
Stagger had covered them up, hadn’t he? But if they belonged to Stagger, they would have shown up in the first fingerprint search Suggs and Rinsky ran. All cops’ prints are on file. So they couldn’t belong to Stagger.
Still, when they did get a hit, Stagger had inserted himself in the investigation, pretending (or probably pretending) that the prints belonged to a random homeless guy.
The fingerprints were the key.
She called Suggs on his cell phone.
“Hey, Kat, how’s it going?”
“Good. Have you had a chance to look at those old fingerprints?”
“Not yet.”
“I hate to be a pest, but they are really important.”
“After all these years? I can’t see how. But either way, I put the request in. All the evidence is boxed up at the warehouse. They tell me it’ll take a few more days.”
“Can you push it?”
“I guess, but they’re working active cases, Kat. This isn’t a priority.”
“It is,” she said. “Believe me, okay? For my father.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. Then Suggs said, “For your father,” and hung up.
Kat looked back toward that damn stretch of beach, and now she remembered what she’d been thinking about before Leslie had shown up, leaning against Chaz’s car.
It’s Kat.
She had been the one to type that in an instant message to Jeff/Ron. First, she had sent him a link to the “Missing You” video. Then he had responded as though he didn’t know who she was. Then she wrote . . .
It’s Kat.
Her body felt cold. She, Kat, had told him her name. He hadn’t said it first. He started referring to her as Kat, as though he knew her, after she had already told him her name.
Something was wrong.
Something was very, very wrong with Dana Phelps and Gerard Remington and Jeff Raynes aka Ron Kochman. She couldn’t prove it yet, but three people had disappeared.
Or two anyway. Gerard and Dana. As for Jeff . . .
One way to find out. She slid into the Ferrari and started it up. She wasn’t going back to New York City. Not yet. She was going back to Ron Kochman’s house. She would knock down his goddamn door if she had to, but she was going to learn the truth one way or the other.
When Kat turned back onto Deforest Street, the same two vehicles were in the driveway. She pulled her car right behind them and slammed the stick into park. As she reached for the door handle, her cell phone rang.
It was Chaz.
“Hello?”
“Martha Paquet went away last night for a weekend getaway. No one has seen her since.”
• • •
Titus thanked Dana for her cooperation.
“When can I go home?” she asked.
“Tomorrow, if all goes well. In the meantime, Reynaldo here is going to let you sleep in the guest quarters in the barn. There’s a shower and a bed. I think you’ll find it more comfortable.”
Dana had the shakes, but she still managed to say, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. You can go now.”
“I won’t say a word,” she said. “You can trust me.”
“I know. I do.”
Dana trudged toward the door as though walking through deep mud. Reynaldo waited for her. The moment the door closed behind them, Dmitry coughed into his fist and said, “Uh, we got a problem.”
Titus’s gaze snapped toward him. They never had a problem. Not ever.
“What’s wrong?”
“We’re getting e-mails.”
Once they got the passwords, Dmitry set it up so all the e-mail accounts for all their guests would be forwarded to him. This way they could monitor and even answer e-mails from concerned family or friends.
“From?”
“Martha Paquet’s sister. I guess she’s been calling the cell phone too.”
“What do the e-mails say?”
Dmitry looked up. He pushed his glasses up his nose with his pointer finger. “It says that a New York City police detective called and asked where Martha was. The cop seemed worried when she said she’d gone away with her boyfriend.”
A blinding bolt of anger crashed through Titus.
Kat.
The balance of his internal cost-benefit analysis—kill or not kill—had now tilted to one side.
Titus grabbed his keys and hurried for the door. “E-mail back to the sister that you’re fine and having a great time and will be home tomorrow. If any other communications come in, call me on my cell phone.”
“Where are you going?”
“To New York City.”
• • •
Kat pounded on the front door. She looked through the pebbled glass for movement again. She saw none. The old man had to be home. She had been here, what, an hour ago? Both cars were there. She knocked some more.
No answer.
The old man had told her to get off his property. His. So Ron or Jeff might not be the owner. The old man was. Maybe Jeff and his daughter, Melinda, rented space. She could easily find the old man’s name in the records, but really, what would that do?
Chaz was supposed to notify the FBI about this case now, though again, they still didn’t have much. Adults are allowed to be out of touch for a day or two. She hoped the circumstantial consistencies would give the case some urgency, but she wasn’t sure. Dana Phelps had actually spoken to both her son and her financial adviser. Martha Paquet could just be holed up in bed with her new lover.