Buried Secrets Can Be Murder: Charlie Parker Mysteries, Book #14 (The Charlie Parker Mysteries) (22 page)

Chapter 23

The phone nearly slipped out of my hands twice as I fumbled Detective Cunningham’s number. By the time he answered, I was feeling a little breathless.

“Charlie. I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon,” he said when he came on the line.

I realized that he meant he didn’t think I would locate Tali so quickly.

“I’ve got some new evidence. I hope it will help, but it isn’t Tali herself yet. This is something she kept. Her mother had it in her possession.”

I better not go into detail about how it had come into my hands. Hands. Fingerprints. I backed away from picking up the tape again. I would slip it into a plastic bag later.

“I know how Tali’s kids could be gone all afternoon, even when Mrs. Richards testified that she heard them playing outside. It makes a lot of sense. Tali could have played the tape loudly, spoken up now and then to make it sound as if she was talking to them. Anyone who couldn’t see through the thick bushes that separate their two properties wouldn’t have reason to question that it was a mother and her kids spending some time outdoors.”

“So the kids might have been gone from the house hours earlier than we believed,” he said.

“It makes sense, I think.”

“I do too. I’ll need that tape.”

“Will overnight shipping be good enough?”

He laughed. “It’s been five years. We can wait a day.”

I promised to package it up and send it first thing in the morning.

“Make a copy first. Even though we’ll want the one she actually touched, it’s good to have a backup. And, Charlie, I’m not asking how you got this tape but once someone realizes it’s missing . . . well, things could get pretty desperate for Tali. She’ll be like a cornered animal if she thinks the police will come after her again.”

“Yeah, she might.”

“Just be careful. I’m glad you are looking for her, but don’t approach. Just call me and I’ll alert the New Mexico authorities to actually bring her in.”

“Okay. And if I can find out that she was somehow involved in Chet Flowers’ death, I really want them to come down hard on her.”

“Charlie . . .”

“Okay, I know. Just call. I will.”

I used a plastic bag to pick up the tape gingerly by the edges and slip it into our recorder to make a copy. Then I slipped the bag around it and packaged it up for Fed Ex.

By this time Drake had cleared the table, made coffee and turned a slice of fruitcake into something fresh and delicious by topping it with some kind of warm sauce.

“How do you
do
this?” I said with a grin as he handed me a plate.

“Taste it first. It might not be all that great.”

But it was and I ate way too much. Consequently, I had a heartburn-filled night and woke around five in the morning knowing that I had to get up and get moving.

Thoughts of how to catch Tali Donovan had filled my sporadic dreams. During a pre-dawn walk with Freckles, while I held a little brainstorming session with myself, verbalizing every possibility, I came to one conclusion. Scout Stiles was going to be my ticket to her sister. She
had
to be in contact. I merely had to ride her ass until she led me there.

That little question settled, I started to pick apart the details. Scout had seen my vehicle when I went to her house that time before Christmas. She might not remember it with one sighting, but she would certainly start to notice it parked outside her house and trailing her all over the city.

To do this right I should get a team together, but since Drake had flights every day this week, Sally had a new baby to nurse, and Ron was up to his neck with the Flagg contract, I wasn’t sure who else I could ask. Too bad Katie Brewster wasn’t old enough to drive; that kid was a pretty good little snoop. Right now it would be me, on my own.

At least I could switch vehicles now and then. Freckles and I got back to the house and she ate her breakfast. I felt itchy to be doing something toward the solution to this thing so I could be done with the whole case. I don’t know how the police do it, stick with a case for weeks, months, years. I’m too much a child of the modern age; I want instant gratification and I want it now.

I gathered myself some granola bars and fruit, telling myself it was a healthy eating kick, but in truth it was the quickest thing to grab. Scribbling a note for Drake I told him I was taking his truck and leaving the Jeep for him. Freckles didn’t especially want to go back in her crate so quickly but I could see real problems with having to feed and walk a dog while on surveillance. Thousands of icy-looking stars prickled the clear sky as I backed out of the drive and headed toward the west side. At a convenience store I got the largest coffee they sold and picked up a bag of Cheetos for later. Just in case healthy eating became too boring.

The Stiles house sat in darkness when I cruised past, no real surprise there. It was still not quite six. I gave it a pretty good stare on the first pass, circled the cul-de-sac and parked a few houses away in a spot that gave me a clear view of their front door and driveway.

Within minutes a small window at the side lit up. Bathroom. Somebody was starting the day. I sipped at my coffee and pretended this was my ideal way to start a glorious new day. When my legs started to feel like popsicles I started the engine and ran the heat for a few minutes. Sitting in a vehicle early on a January morning was noticeable enough; sitting there with the exhaust pipe puffing away would surely bring someone’s attention.

I shut the heater down, ate two granola bars, finished the coffee, fidgeted in my seat. Another light came on at the front of the Stiles house, probably the kitchen, but the shade remained down and I really couldn’t pick out movement at this distance. Two neighbors got into their frosty cars and drove away. I found myself starting a little mental checklist of which residents had left and which were still home.

At a quarter of eight, with sunshine beginning to brighten the rooftops, the Stiles garage door started to rise. At my angle I couldn’t see exactly what was happening but it appeared that only one vehicle was parked in there. As the red Civic backed out I could see that Scout was driving and Dave rode shotgun. From their hand gestures and the intensity of their facial expressions as they passed it sure looked to me as if they were arguing.
Hey guys, that’s not really a good way to start your day.

I had to pull into another driveway and turn around in order to follow, but as they were so busy with each other they didn’t appear to notice. I managed to get onto Coors Road before I lost sight of them, and then it was a matter of hitting all the lights green since I had no idea where they were going. If one of them had to be at work by eight, they hadn’t allowed much time for the brutal amount of traffic that makes the commute across the river into the city every morning. I really hoped we weren’t in for a NASCAR style attempt to beat the clock.

But Scout stuck to the surface streets and on the dot at 7:59 dropped Dave off in front of an office building. I didn’t have time to study the listing of tenants, but the place seemed mostly to house small businesses; I spotted a graphic arts firm and an ad agency before I had to start paying attention to Scout again.

The little red car wasn’t too difficult to keep in sight, despite the heavy traffic. She stayed on Coors for a mile or more before making the sudden decision to whip off the road at the entrance to a self-storage unit. Ah, now this could get interesting. I’ve watched enough of those reality shows to know there’s always great stuff in these places.

She went through a high chain-link gate and made a left, clearly knowing exactly where she was going. I watched until she’d turned right at the third row in the little community of garage-sized buildings. Staying unnoticed in these tight quarters would be a trick. I needed to see exactly where Scout went but couldn’t let her spot me. I wheeled Drake’s small pickup into the facility and took the ‘street’ before the one where Scout had gone. Running parallel, I sped up, turned left, and peeked.

Sure enough, she had parked the Civic in front of a unit where she was in the process of raising the door. I grabbed a ball cap that Drake always seems to be leaving somewhere, gathered my hair into a ponytail and pulled the cap low over my eyes. Sunglasses added to my minimal disguise, and I worked my jaw as if I had a big wad of gum in my mouth. Hopefully, I’d not made enough of an impression on Scout at our first meeting that she would figure me out now.

Chewing like crazy, I cruised slowly past the units as if I were having a hard time finding a certain one. As I approached the Civic my eyes were squarely on the contents of Scout’s garage space. Inside, was parked a big Ford SUV. Scout had the passenger door open and appeared to be rummaging in the glove compartment. She briefly glanced up at me. I turned my head back and forth, still looking for some unit I couldn’t seem to find, until she went back to her business. I memorized the plate number from the SUV, then cruised to the end of the row and pulled the truck up to a unit about ten spaces down from Scout’s.

I jotted down that prized number, then ever so slowly got out of the truck, pulled my coat around me, and pretended to work at the padlock on someone’s storage place. Scout came out of the unit carrying a large brown envelope, hopped into her Civic and drove past me way too fast for the tight space. The moment she went out of sight I got moving. By the time I spotted her she was already past the manager’s office, out the gate and making a right-hand turn onto Coors.

The first traffic light caught me and I tapped my fingers impatiently as I lost sight of the red car in the rush hour traffic. The best I could do at this point was to make an educated guess. Two lights later, Scout’s car sat at a red light and I waited six cars back. She continued to head for home and I hung back as we entered her neighborhood. All the other cars were going the other direction, people heading toward the business areas, not away.

I pulled to the curb three streets away from Scout’s and looked through my phone calls to find Sergeant Ramirez’s number in Santa Fe. Not surprisingly, my call went to voice mail so I left the plate number I’d gotten from the Stiles SUV and told him the name and unit number of the place where it was stored.

A break from surveillance was in order. I had to pee. Plus, I justified to myself, I’d reached one important goal and it wasn’t even nine o’clock yet. With a little pat on the back I headed for a McDonald’s I’d passed where I used the bathroom and ordered myself the big breakfast. Granola can only hold a girl so long.

Fortified, I cruised back through Scout’s neighborhood. Her red Civic sat in the driveway where, as it turned out, it would sit until almost three o’clock. I slumped low in my seat, trying for invisibility but that didn’t seem to matter in this working class neighborhood where it seemed that everyone except Scout Stiles was away all day.

The sun continued to warm the air and to keep from drifting off I made phone calls, checking in at the office (Ron had finished one batch of employee checks for Flagg and assured me that he had impressed them so well that another set was on the way) and with Drake (not so happy with me for taking his truck but as he was currently in the air over a herd of elk he really couldn’t say much). I called Sally and got a glowing report of how well mommy and baby were doing. Tried to think of other friends to call, but frankly couldn’t think of anyone who would welcome a call in the middle of their work day. No one I knew had this much free time on their hands.

I felt myself getting dozy in the warm truck and was about to allow myself the luxury of a little break to rest my eyes when I became aware of movement in the distance. Scout was in the Honda and the car was in motion. I dipped down out of sight until I heard it go by then tried to adopt a casual pace as I kept her in sight.

Out on Coors the traffic was far lighter than it had been this morning but there were still plenty of vehicles to lose mine in the crowd and manage to stick with her through the four hundred traffic lights before we got to I-40 and aimed eastbound over the river. She exited almost immediately at Rio Grande Boulevard and started toward Old Town. Call me slow, but it took a full five minutes after she bypassed that popular shopping locale to realize she was heading straight for my house.

Chapter 24

Every thought in the world went through my head. Scout had somehow identified me; she’d gotten my address; she planned a showdown or maybe just a flashy little firebomb through my living room window. As we entered my neighborhood I held back, trying to come up with a strategy except that I had no idea what she was up to.

She continued on what was my normal route home but then . . . she made a wrong turn. I slowed and watched from a block away, then caught up as she made another turn. She turned into the long drive of the Talavera Mansion. I did a whole mental double-take. The Brewsters?

I parked around a bend in the road and pocketed my keys.

When I walked up to the edge of the property Scout was nowhere in sight. Her car was parked near the garages rather than in front of the portico. It seemed she knew the layout pretty well. I crept from spruce to spruce, shrub to shrub, trying to stay out of sight, which is a trick when a home has about a hundred windows on every side.

Laughter from the south side of the place attracted my attention. I edged to the corner of the house and took a peek through a tall arbor vitae. Scout Stiles and Felina Brewster greeted each other with a big hug; they were laughing over the beautiful weather.

“Let’s sit outside for awhile,” Felina said. “It’s so nice not to be cooped up inside with the kids.”

I moved a branch aside that was jabbing me in the ribs and positioned myself so I could watch as they arranged a pair of deck chairs to face the sun. Scout glanced up toward the third floor.

“Julia’s taken him for a walk. They’ll be gone for awhile. Katie’s in school. God, finally. I just wish Jerry had taken some time off to be with me.”

“You and I are just alike in that,” Scout said. “Could easily do without kids in our lives.”

“Kids are fine. As long as they belong to somebody else. I pictured this life with Jerry . . . we would travel in the lifestyle the dealerships provide . . . shopping in Milan, dining in Paris . . . Nobody else in the picture . . .”

Scout gave a little sigh. “You do seem to pick the right guys for that. Dave is never going to make it up the corporate ladder.”

“I don’t know about this time. Jerry is so into the whole kid thing. My idea of sending Katie off to boarding school—somewhere exclusive, mind you—he blew that off altogether. And what was I thinking with Adam?”

“You were thinking you would get the wedding done a lot quicker and then have a little procedure, call it a miscarriage . . . Jerry would have never figured it out.”

“I should have done it anyway. I could have found some doctor.”

“You made that mistake with the first one but you’re lucky,” Scout said. “You got the chance to start all over.”

Felina laughed. “Had to completely reinvent myself. Thanks to you, sis.”

I stared hard at Felina, a sickening feeling forming in my gut.

Scout Stiles had said in one of the police interviews that Tali only wanted a successful husband, one who could show her the good life.

Felina? Tali? Visions of the photos of Tali Donovan flashed back at me. She was a lot heavier than Felina. She had dark hair and an uneven complexion. Her features were different. And yet . . .

A breeze ruffled the shrubs and both women exclaimed over it.

“Ooh, chilly,” Felina said. “Let’s go inside.”

They were out of their chairs before I had a chance to think.

“I’ve got Dave’s car hid—” Scout’s words got cut off as they closed the door behind them.

Okay, I had a lot to process and more to learn. I crouched below the level of the windows and worked my way around to the front of the house. The front door was locked but I found another, a plain one with a path leading toward the detached garages. I twisted the knob carefully and it opened, with only a small creak, into a laundry room. I stepped in and closed it, my eyes adjusting to operating in the dim light from a triplet of small windows at the top of the door.

Aside from a washing machine and dryer, the room contained cabinets for supplies, a sorting bin with divided sections, and an ironing board. I realized with a start that I’d nearly run into it. I slowed my breathing.

I ran through the confusing data. Felina looked nothing like Tali Donovan but she had to be. She’d called Scout
sis
.

Boyd Donovan had talked about Tali’s obsessive need to have him to herself, how she’d become more needy when the children came along and he’d failed to notice the little tortures she put them through. I thought of little Adam Brewster with his tiny arm in a cast. Ethan Donovan had also suffered a broken arm at a young age.

Their voices came closer, then faded. They probably wouldn’t come in here, I reasoned, but hiding out wasn’t gaining me any new information either. I needed to report this to Detective Cunningham, but I might as well use the opportunity to learn as much as I could. I opened the inner door a crack, trying to figure out where I was in the gigantic house.

The visible sliver of room appeared to be the kitchen. A wine bottle stood on the end of a granite countertop, with a corkscrew beside it. I edged the door a little wider and stuck my head out. I couldn’t hear the women from here. A clock chimed four times in the foyer.

Sticking to the edges of the rooms, where I could quickly duck behind something, I worked my way from the kitchen, through the dining room and foyer. Finally, I began to hear the hum of conversation from the living room. I stood just outside the door and heard them perfectly.

“You know where? Hawaii,” Scout said, giggling a little. “A girls’ trip away. We get one of those big hotels where the desk won’t let any calls through that you don’t want. That way, Dave will leave me alone about the stupid Expedition and that little bashed place. I told him we shouldn’t have it fixed right away but he doesn’t get why.”

“Not Hawaii,” Felina said. “That’s where Jerry and I went for—”

“Ah, yes, your neat little plan to snag him by getting pregnant.”

Felina growled at her sister. “I don’t want to go away right now. I almost have Jerry ready to take a romantic trip with me to Europe this spring. I just need to take care of a few lit-
tle
details.”

The way she said ‘little’ sent a chill right through me.

I rubbed at my arms. The chill wasn’t only coming from Felina’s words. The front door had opened and Jerry Brewster stood in the center of the foyer.