Baylin House (Cassandra Crowley Mystery) (29 page)

While Gorduno drove out of the motel parking lot, Rob pressed
his fingers on his temples with his eyes closed. Cassie had no doubt he had
real pain after sleeping in the chair, but it was his own fault.

“If Fozzi found out rigging Sydney’s car didn’t kill her, he
might be crazy enough to pull something up at her parent’s place.”

Rob shook his head slowly. “Victoria PD has one of their
guys at her place.”

“Oh cripes,” Cassie groaned. “That must be scaring the crap
out of Mrs. Waller.”

“As far as the Waller family knows, he’s just an old friend from
high school who decided to spend some time with them while Sydney’s laid up.”

Cassie moved to the chair vacated by Gorduno, and fished a
blueberry muffin from the box. She peeled back the paper cup and picked off a chunk
to slide into her mouth.

After she swallowed, she said, “Delona Zimmer told me her
husband coached basketball before he died.” Then she took a sip of coffee.

Rob’s eyebrows flicked. “How do you know Delona Zimmer?”

“You asked me if her husband worked for Baylin House.”

He nodded, and moved his gaze to his own coffee cup.

She continued,“If you find the high school annual for
1995-96, you might find the connection between Coach Zimmer and a student named
Brent Mitchell, who knew the coach had heart problems and left his car in the
garage.”

“And that’s important because why?”

“Because Mitchell is Skolnik’s contact person in the Strickland
office.”

Rob took a deep breath and glanced at the clock on the TV. “You
don’t work at Baylin House today?”

“Not on Sunday unless Bea calls me. Why?”

“Gather what you need for the day. You may not get back
until after dark tonight.”

***

Cassie didn’t waste time asking questions. She felt too
grimy in yesterday’s clothes to go anywhere without a shower and change.

When she came out of the bathroom, Rob was talking on his
phone.

He glanced at her and hung up. His mood was a hundred
percent better than when she went in. He gave her an affirmative smile. “Feel
better?”

“Yes, much. Thanks.”

He waited quietly while she gathered the laptop and
paperwork into the satchel, pulled her black-hole-handbag from the closet, and then
made a quick pass around to collect everything she didn’t want to leave unattended
in the motel room. It wasn’t much, because she hadn’t unloaded the thing when
she came back from Victoria last night.

“Now what?” she asked.

“For now, you’re with me.”

“Oh . . .sure . . .” She followed him out the door and stood
while he unlocked the passenger door of the tan and white Expedition. Cassie
climbed in pretending to be perfectly comfortable sitting in the bucket seat
with a strobe light in front of her and a shotgun holstered between her and the
driver seat.

He drove to a neighborhood south and west of town where cross
streets were heavily shaded by mature cottonwood trees. They passed one corner
where an arrow sign proclaimed ‘Public Dock Access’ and under it another sign,
The
Baileys Full Service Restaurant
.

“Public dock?” Cassie asked.

“River access,” Rob answered. “Most people out here have
boats to go upstream to King Lake, or down river to the bay.”

A few blocks later, he turned into a dead-end street crowded
with thick trees and small houses. He drove straight into the carport of the
house at the end.

“You’ll be safe here while I get cleaned up,” he said as he
got out. He came around and opened Cassie’s door, then turned and unlocked the
door of the house, holding it open for her to enter.

“What is this place?” Cassie stepped into a tiny living room
with polished wood floors, walls covered in woven jute, and sparse furniture. There
wasn’t room for much; just the sofa and a side table, a TV hanging on the wall
across from it, and a low credenza under the TV. Plantation shutters covered
the window with almost no light seeping through.

Rob clicked on the TV and handed the remote to Cassie. “Take
a load off while I use the hot water.” He dropped his keys and phone on the
side table before he opened the bedroom door and went in, and then disappeared
behind another door. A couple beats later she heard the shower running.

She had not expected him to bring her to his home, though it
did make sense; better than leaving Gorduno to babysit while Rob came all the
way across town and back. Maybe a little rough on Cassie’s libido control,
finding herself in his personal space with his personal smells . . . Caesar’s
Man . . . or something like it . . . probably shower gel because, mild as it
was, it was increasingly wafting throughout the house while the shower roared.

Cassie went to the door of the bedroom and peeked in. King
size bed neatly made, chocolate brown cover; that was no surprise. Two doors on
a narrow wall promised to be the bathroom and a closet. Barely enough room to
walk between the bed and walls, but a combo floor lamp and tray on one side
held a house phone and a bottle of antacids.

In the kitchen she found a 2-seat dinette; more plantation
shutters on the window. A small window over the sink was uncovered and looked out
on a narrow, tree-shaded yard stretching between the house and the riverbank.

Everything was spotlessly clean as though no one lived here;
nothing on the counters, not even a coffee pot; nothing personal on the walls
of any of the rooms. She might have thought it was some kind of police safe
house, except for a couple photo frames and an envelope sitting behind glass
doors in the credenza under the TV.

Cassie squatted down to study them. The envelope was stamped
and postmarked, addressed to Robert Baxter in beautifully flowing script; the
return address was too small to read without opening the glass door.

The larger photo frame held a studio 8x10 of a young girl
who looked about five or six. The smaller 5x7 frame held a school photo of the
same girl, looking early teen age, and dated in the lower right corner: 1993;
thirteen years ago. A wallet-size loose photo of the same girl as a beautiful young
woman in cap and gown was tucked into the corner of the 5x7. She looked enough
like Rob to be his sister, but Cassie didn’t think that was the case.

He hadn’t mentioned that he had a daughter. There was a lot
she did not know about him.

Cassie sat down on the sofa ready to skim through TV
channels. The mid-day news was already on, showing a photo of PI Doug Skolnik
standing next to the sign outside his bungalow office. She turned up the sound
long enough to hear the recap of information released this morning by the CBPD
Information Officer. Not exactly the same as Rob told her last night – nothing
about Brady Irwin -- but close enough. The man in custody was identified as
Roger Marcus, a Vietnam Veteran known in the San Miguel neighborhood as
‘Dozey’.

Cassie’s adrenaline spiked as Rob’s phone shrilled on the
end table beside her. She turned, staring at it. After a short beat, it
shrilled again and rumbled another inch toward the edge of the table.

She was tentatively reaching for it when half-naked and
dripping wet Rob burst from the bathroom and grabbed it.

He stood with his back to her, a towel wrapped around his
middle, small droplets edging down furrows of muscle between his shoulders. His
voice hardly registered in her brain while her attention lingered on the shape
of his broad back. How delicious it would feel to run her hands down those same
furrows . . . oh my!

“Are they sure it’s him?” Rob demanded of the caller. “Who
made the ID?”

Cassie’s gaze slipped farther down. The calf muscle of one
leg was oddly thin. There was a nasty scar extending several inches above his
ankle, and it looked like part of his foot was hacked away leaving long strings
of scar, but that could have been just a shadow from the shutters.

“All right, I’ll be there in a couple hours,” he said into
the phone. Then he set it closed on the table, glanced back at Cassie, and
quickly returned to the bathroom.

She was glad she had stopped staring at his foot before he
looked at her; she was actually meeting his eyes when he glanced her way. Then she
turned her face to the TV and left him some dignity to get back to the bathroom.

It was none of her business but she did wonder if he’d been surfing
and battled with a shark or something.

Neither of them mentioned that awkward moment when Rob came
out of the bathroom again, fully dressed. He picked up the keys and phone, and
dropped them in pockets.

“Let’s go get a real breakfast and put something in the
refrigerator for lunch,” he told her. “You can stay here. I won’t be gone too
long.”

Cassie followed him out without arguing. Obviously, he
couldn’t take her along wherever he needed to go, so staying at his place was
fine with her. More than fine, actually, compared to being dropped at the jail.

Breakfast was at The Baileys next to the public dock, with a
trendy menu including a veggie frittata garnished with alfalfa sprouts. Rob
smiled when she ordered it; he opted for sausage, eggs and hash brown potatoes.

They returned an hour later with two chicken salad bowls in
a bag. Rob went directly into the bedroom. Cassie carried the lunch bag to the
kitchen and opened the refrigerator.

There was nothing inside, clean as brand new; plenty of room
to stow the bag even with the giant advertiser card stapled to the outside.

As she closed the refrigerator she stepped sideways, and
crashed headlong into Rob standing there. Once again, his arms went around her
to steady them both on their feet.

He laughed softly and drew his arms tighter, holding her
against him while he brushed his lips against her temple. “I think I could get
used to us bumping into each other like this.”

Cassie breathed in the scent of him. For a second she
thought he was going to kiss her. At that moment, she actually wanted it.

Instead, he frowned at the clock on the stove, and stepped
back, leaving her slumped into empty space as he walked quickly to the door. “I’ll
call your cell phone if anything comes up. You’ll be okay here.”

Then he left.

Cassie locked the front door, and watched through the living
room shutters while the Expedition drove away, feeling light headed like she’d
just been on a wild carnival ride and didn’t have her feet under her yet.

She left the window and took several deep breaths to clear
her thoughts, and then carried her satchel to the kitchen table to set up the
laptop. For more than an hour she tried hard to focus on the text without
thinking about the detective or the lingering scents of him in the house.

She did a few knee bends, stretches, twists, and then made
her way to the bathroom. As with the kitchen, it was as clean as if nobody
lived here. Even the shower was spotless, except for his damp towel hanging
over the brass frame. She made sure she left it in the same condition.

Back at the kitchen table, she read again the file of notes
she’d been organizing, trying to drag herself up from the haze. The chapter
about Rosalie’s London birth was ready for review. The list of questions about
the relationship between Rosalie and Emmet was growing – Cassie had calculated
their relevant ages when they met; Rosalie was only 37, five years younger than
Cassie was right now.

It was too quiet. She checked her phone once more to make
sure it was turned on and charged, and laughed at herself because it was at
least the third time she’d done that since Rob left.

She needed to do something that didn’t require staring into
the computer screen, and it might as well be something she couldn’t do if Rob
was here. She pulled the steno notebook from the satchel, picked up her phone,
and dialed Margaret Goodman Frank’s number.

When the Latino woman answered, Cassie said, “Hi, this is
Cassandra Crowley calling again. Please tell Margaret it’s important that I
talk to her right now.”

She heard the phone contact a hard surface, heard footsteps
moving away. She waited. When the footsteps came back, the Latino woman said,
“Mrs. Frank is not available. May I take a message?”

“Yes, and I’ll hold while you give her this message. Tell
her I need to talk to her about Mr. Thornton and his son-in-law Mr. Fozzi.”

Cassie detected a gasp on the other end. Good! If connecting
those names brought a reaction from the Latino housekeeper, it ought to get
Margaret’s attention too.

It took only a few seconds. “What do you want from me,
Cassandra? I can’t help you!”

“I want to know what happened to the funds my father
contributed to Baylin House. I already know it should have practically run the
place by itself, and the only way they can be broke now is if someone is
skimming it off the top. I want to know what your pal Thornton is up to, and I
want to know how Fozzi is involved, and the shysters at Strickland and Yates,
too. I think you’re in over your head, Margaret, and I can help you, but only
if you help me.”

Cassie finally stopped and listened, expecting an argument.
She had not expected to hear choking hysterical sobs. She waited nearly a full
minute, listening.

 “Margaret?”

“Alright!” Margaret Goodman Frank squealed in pathetic keening.

“All right what?”

Margaret sniffed, and spoke in choking starts and stops, “I
don’t know . . . how much . . . David Thornton actually controls. I don’t know
anything about Strickland and Yates . . . but I can tell you  . . . sob . . .
what Fozzi is doing. It’s probably better for my husband to get this all out in
the open. He’s been so upset with me he’s moved out. And I’ve stayed locked in
here because I’m too terrified of Fozzi to step outside.”

Cassie almost wavered. She could feel the pain in Margaret’s
voice. “Stay where you are to be safe,” she told the whimpering woman. “I’ll
find a different car that Fozzi won’t recognize and I’ll come to you.”

As soon as she ended the call, Cassie retrieved the
advertiser card from the lunch bag inside the refrigerator, and verified the
City Cab phone number printed on the bottom. She opened the credenza door and
pulled out the greeting card to verify Rob’s address. The return address was in
Seattle, but she didn’t have time to think about that right now.

She called the cab company for a ride back to her car at
Treasure Isle. While she waited for the cab to arrive, she called Rob’s cell
phone.

He sounded distracted. “I’m going to be tied up here for a
few more hours. Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine, but I need to run some errands for Baylin
House.”

“Cassie, I can’t--”

“I know you can’t come get me – I’ve got a cab coming. Is it
all right if I call you later after I find out what’s going on over there?”

He was quiet long enough that she sensed he was working to
stay calm. She needed him to not ask any questions, and that meant she couldn’t
ask any of him, especially not
has anybody spotted Fozzi yet?
She didn’t
want to open that door. So she added, “Or you call me, if you get done first.
I’ll have the cell phone with me.”

He had not hung up; she could still hear background noises.
She rang off anyway. She just couldn’t talk to him any more right now.

When the cab dropped Cassie in the front driveway at
Treasure Isle, she was surprised not to see a police car waiting for her. She did
not doubt one was there, somewhere, likely unmarked.

Actually, it was a comforting thought.

She noticed a dark blue Ford Taurus that followed her
through two turns when she left the motel. It waited discreetly at the end of
the block when she parked in front of Computer House and went inside.

She purchased a small voice recorder that would fit in her
purse, and had the clerk install the batteries and test the features. Then she
loaded a fresh blank cassette tape, and returned to her car.

All the way to Margret’s neighborhood on the western edge of
the city, Cassie maintained the speed limit, used proper signals, and made full
stops at stop signs, allowing the dark blue Taurus to keep her in sight. As
long as they did not get in her way or try to stop her, she would cooperate.