Bury Me With Barbie (26 page)

It wouldn’t explain, however, why Nancy’s computer monitor was lying on its side on the kitchen floor several feet from the desk and the flat-screen monitor had been hurled as far as its cord could take it without becoming unplugged from the power strip. It also wouldn’t explain why the computer tower had been decimated at close range.

Her mind flashed to an old movie scene. She couldn’t recall the movie title, but she did remember that the main character didn’t like what he was seeing on TV, so he pulled out a gun and blasted the screen to smithereens.

You would only shoot or throw a TV or monitor if you didn’t like what you were seeing or reading
, she thought.
You would only decimate a computer due to online angst
.

Nancy was a big fan of the Best Barbie Board, and she would logically log in to read messages and post her thoughts while at home.

Could the killer know her from the Best Barbie Board?

She opened a browser and logged on to the BBB. Doing a search for any threads containing Nancy’s name called up discussions about her murder, but that wasn’t what she was searching for at this point. She needed to take a look at the victim herself. Nancy’s user name was NANCY_PANTS, so Caresse did a search for all of her posts from the most recent to those dating back as far as the archives would take her.

At 4:56 p.m. on Saturday, February 9, Nancy had posted a message.

Huh. At 4:56 p.m., Nancy was supposedly dead, so why would this post be showing up after the fact? Was P.J. the lead Caresse had been seeking? The “run-in” mentioned was something to pursue. She did a search for the phrase “train case” and struck gold with a patch of notes dating back to April 2007.

Caresse’s memories of P.J. were vague. All she knew about her was that she was a frequent poster who generally argued with everyone and criticized what many said and did. She checked her BBB profile, but it was devoid of data and photos, and her avatar was simply an orange frowny-face emoticon set against black. Her email address was not on file, and the only way to contact her was through the board.

While a country song started up in the background, Caresse did a search for all of PJ-RULEZ’s postings from the most recent to those dating back as far as the archives would take her. Her last notes, written January 5, involved a heated debate between herself and—holy Ken and Skipper—the late Gayle Grace.

After that, P.J. was silent.

Keeping a low profile
.

Now things were beginning to come together.

A thrill ran through her. She needed the police to find out who P.J. was. There would be records at eBay and PayPal, including her home address.

She wasn’t going to call Rowell and Carter, but she had to send them her audio cassette from KVEC anyway, so she had the novel idea of making a second cassette for them outlining what she had discovered. Bringing the cassette back in style, one murder case at a time. She retrieved the micro-cassette recorder from her desk drawer, popped in a fresh tape, sat back in her chair, and rambled for a good fifteen minutes. Then she ejected the tape, put it back in its tiny translucent case, and placed it alongside her KVEC interview tape.

Next, she wrote a short, friendly note on a piece of blank typing paper in blue ballpoint. She pulled out her wallet and retrieved the business card Rowell had given her. Grabbing a padded envelope from her bottom desk drawer, she slid both cassettes inside the mailer with her handwritten note.

She smiled. The note was understated, as she’d wanted it to be. No amateur sleuth’s over-the-top proclamations, exclaiming, “By gosh, I think I’ve got her!”

She signed it,
Best Regards, Caresse Redd
.

P.J had never been angrier.

She’d waited down the block from Jordanne’s apartment Tuesday night, but Jordanne never arrived. At 11 p.m., she drove to Darby’s apartment and saw Jordanne’s beat-up Mustang parked on the street out front. So that was it, then. A stalemate.

As if Darby sensed his half-sister’s presence, he appeared at his window, scanned the street, and spotted her. “Damn it! She’s relentless!” He turned to look at Jordanne, who was resting on the aging brown couch. She was bundled in a plaid blanket and had a pillow beneath her head. Darby ran his fingers through his hair and sat down in the overstuffed brown chair across from the couch. He was filled with love for his baby angel. He wanted to be with her. He wanted to care for her. He wanted to protect her.

“That was your sister?” Jordanne stared at him dully. The ordeal of being on P.J.’s bad side was taking its toll. “She’s never gonna leave me alone.”

“Then you should just move in with me,” Darby suggested, temporarily brightening.

Jordanne’s sour expression told him not to press it. “Darby, if we move in together, it shouldn’t be because I’m hiding from your lunatic sister.”

“Half-sister,” Darby corrected her. “Our mother is sane. She’s the one with a crazy father. Took off and never let anyone know where he went.”

A tear slid down Jordanne’s cheek and, embarrassed, she twisted in the blanket so she could bury her face in the pillow.

Darby got up and went over to the couch. He knelt down beside it and rested his head against her ribcage, listening to her heart.

“I love you, Jordanne,” he said.

He heard a sharp intake of breath, and then the floodgates opened.

Darby knew that when it came to women, there was good crying and there was bad crying. He just didn’t know which this was.

He got up, lit a cigarette, and paced.

He walked over to the window again and saw that P.J. had left.

He squinted at the full moon full and it blurred in his vision. Like Jordanne, he began to cry, but silently, wiping his eyes as soon as fresh tears leaked out.

You gotta go, P.J. Even if I’ve gotta make it happen
.

Caresse got a call at the
County Times
from Rowell at 4 p.m. on Friday, March 7.

“Let me ask you something,” he began, without preface.

Her hand trembled like a leaf on the receiver. She held up her index finger to Anthony, who had come over to her desk to talk. She knew he was at odds with the trio of brats Jenna had left in his custody and that he was ready to give them their walking papers. She had overheard whispers all week that the fat needed to be cut from the budget and that they were candidates for trimming. Anthony stood there a moment, sipping coffee from his mug, grinning. He was wearing a dark purple shirt teamed with a perfectly matched plum and avocado patterned tie. She didn’t know him very well yet, but she wanted him to take her shopping.

“Wha—what?” she asked Rowell. “I mean, sure, go ahead.”

Rowell chuckled, deep and low. “How easy do you think it is for us to find a micro-cassette player in Walnut Creek?”

“Ve—ver—very hard?” She had wasted their time. She had sent them a tape they couldn’t play, and they would have had to find a way to listen.
And then, if they did, they probably thought what I had to say made no sense at all
, she thought.

Anthony motioned to her. He mouthed the word “later,” and then raised his pinkie and thumb toward his ear in the universal “call me” gesture.

She nodded, waiting for Rowell to speak.

“It took a day, but we found one at Radio Shack.”

So they
had
listened to the tape. “Listen,” she began to apologize. “It was late. I was up and—”

“You’re a brilliant woman,” Rowell said.

The phone slipped a bit in her sweaty palm.

“I’m—”

“We got your letter on Wednesday and by this morning, after we worked with PayPal and eBay, everything was solid. You know her, by the way.”

“Know who?”

“Someone who looks like a very promising suspect. Sierra Walsh.”

Caresse was not only sweating, she was confused. “I thought the woman causing all the trouble on the Best Barbie Board was named P.J.”

“That’s Sierra’s nickname. We called the number provided by eBay and one of Sierra’s staff members at
Barbie International
answered. When she repeated, ‘P.J.? I don’t think we have a P.J. here,’ Sierra took the phone from her and said, ‘This is P.J.’ Apparently it’s a nickname only her immediate family uses, and she thought she was taking a call from someone close.”

“She doesn’t look exactly like the police sketch,” Caresse said. “I mean, she’s got the blond hair and everything, but—” The room started to tilt and she sat down hard.

“Close enough to question her and find out where she’s been during the times of the murders. We’ve contacted the FBI and they’re letting us do the honors of securing a hair sample. There’s enough for probable cause, thanks to you. She should have known better than to write that note from Nancy’s house. Oh, and guess what she drives?”

Caresse didn’t know.

“A white four-speed Miata roadster.”

“The same car Nancy’s neighbor saw a redhead get into.”

“The neighbor had additional details when we called him again yesterday. He mentioned she was carrying heavy bags that looked like Army duffels. He imagined maybe she was from out of town, visiting someone, and that it was just her luggage. But it struck him as strange that such a good-looking woman would be lugging Army gear.”

Army duffels were missing from the Uzamba home in Vegas. “Wow.”

“I know, huh? So we’re gonna go talk to her on Monday, first thing.”

“Wow,” Caresse repeated, starting to feel foolish about her speechlessness.

“So that’s it,” Rowell said. “We’ll let you know how it goes.”

“Okay, thanks.” She was stunned. She needed to process.

“Good work,” he reiterated. “Oh, and by the way—”

“Yes?”

“You give a kick-ass radio interview. I’m gonna go get me a collector Barbie if all of this pans out.”

It was Saturday, Heath was in Beijing, and P.J. was itching to move the Rubbermaid stacks from the garage into her exercise room. She longed to be alone in the house with her dolls, spreading them out on the carpet with room enough to see them all at once. It would be a magnificent assembly of goddesses, certain to lessen the sting of Darby’s betrayal.

After breakfast, she told her maid Vicky, her personal assistant Wendy, and her weekend chef Michel that she had decided to surprise them with paid time off.

Delighted, Vicky parked the vacuum cleaner in the closet and gave P.J. a hearty hug. Michel asked if he needed to finish scrubbing the pans first, and P.J. told him no. Wendy threw her day planner, BlackBerry, and Kindle into her large bag, issued a terse, “Okay, see you next week,” and hurried out before P.J. could change her mind.

P.J. sighed, went upstairs, and changed into denim shorts and a plain pink tee. She tied her hair back with a pink bandanna and slid on a pair of white Keds. She was going to work up a sweat, so she didn’t want to overdress.

Once in the garage, she surveyed her storage bins. The stacked cubes with translucent drawers took the entire middle area meant for a third car. They were lined up in rows, positioned between her Miata and Heath’s 1967 red Sunbeam Alpine. P.J. never drove Heath’s car, and he never drove it to LAX or the Burbank Airport, preferring to take the shuttle or a cab there and back from his constant trips.

The concrete floor in P.J.’s garage was freshly swept, and sunlight poured in through the open garage door. There was no other way into the garage save for the way the cars entered. This was one drawback P.J. resented, because it meant she would have to carry the storage bins out through the front, around the corner, up the path, and into the house.

Carrying each set of drawers into the house and returning to the garage took ten minutes per trip. When she was done with eight rounds, she opened the driver’s side of the Miata and sat on the edge of the seat.

I need something to drink
, she realized, getting up and slamming the car door.