Relatively Dead (22 page)

I shook my head. I’d failed that test.

“Doesn’t matter. There’s doctor-patient confidentiality. A doctor won’t give us that information.”

Rigo was still holding my hand. He looked at me. “It sounds like you’ve done just about everything you can do, sweetheart. Time to step back and let the police handle it.”

“The police aren’t handling it. They haven’t caught the scammer and they haven’t caught the murderer. If the same person killed Jason and Timothy, the police won’t make that connection. If Tom’s not a killer, why is he going to Edinburgh?”

Frances was looking at the Boyd genealogy charts. “Tom’s connection to the Boyds goes back to his great grandmother, Jean Kelly, who, according to what Tom told you, received financial aid from Jason Boyd I. That’s suspicious. You said you gave Tom the DNA test kit?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s hope he sends it in.”

I hadn’t made that connection before. “You mean Tom may be a Boyd?”

“It’s certainly possible, although he wouldn’t have been able to prove it yet. If he has the Boyd Y-DNA, that would be overwhelming evidence he’s descended from Jason I. We can compare his DNA to that of Jason II. He may suspect he’s a Boyd and resent the fact that his grandfather was treated like a bastard, instead of a member of the family.”

Rigo listened attentively to Frances, and then spoke. “Although we don’t think Tom killed Timothy, he might have killed Jason III. He may have a source of information we don’t know about that informed him about the party. He could be going after Jason IV, especially if he murdered Jason III. One of his obsessions seems to be with the Boyd name. Maybe he wants to end the line of Boyds, make the name disappear. He may figure that the Boyds treated his ancestor like dirt, and the Boyd name doesn’t deserve to continue.”

Rigo, without knowing it, had walked right into my hands. I spoke casually. “I think I’ll take a trip to Edinburgh. I want to meet all the cousins I can—while they’re still alive.”

***

Rigo drove me to an urgent care center near where he lived. They doctor there took x-rays of my ankle and confirmed it wasn’t broken. He rebandaged it and prescribed what he called RICE—rest, ice, compression, elevation. As a runner I’d already heard about this treatment. He agreed I was doing the right things.

Rigo tried to talk me out of going to Edinburgh, using arguments about the risk and my bad ankle. I told him if there was any risk it was to Jason IV, and since I wasn’t leaving for six days my ankle would have a chance to heal. To shut him up, we went to my motel and figured out how to have sex without hurting my ankle.

We were lying on my motel bed, naked, when Rigo said something that touched me.

“You know, I really care for you. But you ride on the wind. You blow in, unexpectedly, and then you blow away again and I don’t know when you’re coming back. And sometimes the wind can be dangerous. I worry about you.”

I told Rigo I loved him. I didn’t tell him I wasn’t ready to settle down yet, but he already knew that.

There was a loud knock on the door of the motel room. “Police. Open up.”

CHAPTER 24

Rigo and I looked at each other. We were still naked.

Rigo was the one to take action. “Just a minute.” He leapt out of bed and stepped into a pair of pants, not bothering with underwear. I couldn’t move that fast. I pulled the sheet over me and cowered beneath it. He went to the door and yelled through it.

“I’m going to open the door.”

He opened it, gingerly. Two uniformed police officers, a man and a woman, came barging through the doorway, guns drawn. The male officer took a bead on Rigo while the female concentrated on me.

She glanced at a piece of paper she was carrying. “Are you Cynthia Sakai?”

I acknowledged that I was in a voice somewhere between a squeak and a croak. She spoke again.

“Cynthia Sakai, you’re under arrest for breaking and entering.
You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do can and will be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand these rights?”

My voice was still betraying me, but I managed to convey the impression that I did. She told me to get up.

“I don’t have any clothes on.”

The female cop looked at her partner. “Wait outside.”

“But…”

“Wait outside. And take him with you.”

She gestured toward Rigo. Both went outside, reluctantly. I removed the sheet and sat up on the bed. At least she didn’t have to search me for weapons. She saw the bandage on my ankle.

“What happened to you?”

“Sprained ankle.”

My clothes were in a disorganized heap on the floor. This was very embarrassing. I dressed slowly while the officer stood watching me, still holding her gun as if I were about to pull a weapon out of who knows where. How had they identified me? It had to be the fingerprints. Then I remembered. Detective Rossi had taken my prints when I spoke to him, so he could distinguish them from any other prints on the letter. I’d forgotten about that.

“How did you track me here?”

“I’ll do the talking.” She hesitated, and then added, “One word of advice. If you don’t want people to know where you are, don’t carry a cell phone.”

My phone must have a GPS in it. I remembered something else that justified her caution and was going to get me into a lot of trouble. I’d better come clean.

“There’s a gun in my purse.”

She grabbed the purse and dumped the contents on the bed. Both the gun and the knife fell out. She placed them in separate plastic bags she pulled from her pocket and looked at me.

“Do you have a permit for this?”

“Of course.”

Brave words since I didn’t have the faintest idea whether Kyle had cleared it with the police. The officer looked around the room.

“Is it okay if we search this place?”

I had no idea what the law was. “Sure. You’ve already seen everything there is to see.” I saw her playing with the handcuffs on her belt. I didn’t want to be handcuffed. That would be the ultimate indignity. “I can’t walk without crutches.”

She apparently made the decision that I wasn’t dangerous enough to handcuff, and I wouldn’t use the crutches as weapons. I picked up the crutches and we went outside. Rigo and the male officer were talking to each other as if they were good friends. Great. Rigo gave me thumbs up. Just what I needed when I was going to jail. I frowned at him.

“Ask your parents about a good defense attorney.”

The black and white patrol car said Redondo Beach Police on it. They must be doing this for LAPD. I wondered where they were taking me. The female officer opened the back door and guided me inside, making sure I didn’t hit my head. Considerate. I pulled my crutches into the car. She shut the door. There were no inside door handles, and a metal screen separated the backseat from the front.

The police officers went back into the motel room, apparently to search it. They also had the keys to my rental car. Rigo waved to me and then got into his car and left. I figured they’d told him not to hang around. I was alone.

***

The holding cell or whatever it was called wasn’t that bad. It was small but fairly clean and had a couple of benches. The only other occupant was a blond girl—she couldn’t have been older than nineteen or twenty—wearing some sort of a dress and oversized sweatshirt.

I laboriously sat down on a bench and stacked my crutches beside me. What happened now? I’d been told to wait. I had no other information. I had nothing with me—not a purse or a cell phone. The police had confiscated those items.

“What are you in for?”

I glanced at the girl to make sure she was speaking to me. There wasn’t anyone else present.

“Breaking and entering.”

“Yeah, you look like a hardened criminal.”

She didn’t exactly fit the profile, either. “How about you?”

“I lost my top.”

“I’m sorry?”

“On the beach. I lost my top.”
“You were on the beach today? What is it, April first? This is some sort of an April Fool’s joke, isn’t it?”

“No, it was warm this afternoon. I’m in college but I didn’t have any classes, so I decided to go to the beach.”

This wasn’t making any sense. “And you got arrested. Do you want to tell me a little more?”

“I was in this kind of secluded spot, so I took my top off. Next thing I know, this big, burly cop is grabbing me and handcuffing me to himself.”

“He what?”

She stuck out her arm. There was a red circle around her wrist.

“What did he do that for?”

“I was a flight risk. A danger to society.”

“You’re kidding.”

She shrugged She didn’t seem terribly upset. “That’s the way the codes are written. Nipples are obscene. At least on women. Remember Janet Jackson? Her wardrobe malfunction during the Super Bowl broadcast almost destroyed western civilization. Of course, men go topless all the time.”

“But they wear those long, ugly shorts.”

“If a guy wears a Speedo, will he be arrested?”

“No.”
Good point
. “Don’t the cops here have anything better to do?”

“He was just doing his job. But he didn’t have to hurt my wrist.”

“What will happen to you?”

“I’ll probably be fined.”

“What will you do then?”

She shrugged again. “Maybe get all my girlfriends and have a topless sit-in on the beach.”

An officer unlocked the door and called her name. She got up, wished me good luck, and was gone. I was alone with my problems. I couldn’t find a comfortable position for my ankle and I was hungry.

I should make a plan. Tom Kelly would have to appear and testify against me. If I had a good attorney, we could cross-examine him and put him on the spot. Maybe get him indicted for scamming Grandma at the very least. I felt a little better. That prospect kept me occupied for a while. Then I felt overwhelmed. I was suddenly very tired. I leaned my head against the hard wall in the corner of the cell.

***

“Cynthia Sakai.”

I awoke with a start. Who knew I could sleep in such an uncomfortable position? My neck was stiff. Well, this was it. I was being taken to jail. Grandma would be mortified. I got up, adjusted my crutches, and walked out of the cell. The officer held the door open. Shouldn’t he be holding a gun on me or something?

“Where am I going?”

“Wherever you wish. The charges have been dropped.”

Was this a trick? No, I was getting my purse back from the desk officer who came from the office behind the transparent barrier in the small entryway of the police station. It even had the gun in it. I was signing for my personal items, agreeing everything was present. An officer held the outside door for me. I walked out into the evening, feeling the euphoria of someone who’s just escaped a horrible fate.

The sun had recently set, but I would be able to see it tomorrow instead of being locked away in a dark hole. I had my cell phone. I needed to call Rigo to come and pick me up. I probably wasn’t more than a mile from my motel, but I didn’t think I could walk it.

I saw a familiar looking car parked near the entrance to the police station. A woman got out who also looked familiar. Officer Watson, the stakeout cop. She opened the back door.

“We’ll give you a ride back to your motel.”

As much as I didn’t want to get into a police car again, I thankfully accepted. The unmarked car even had door handles inside. I didn’t feel like a prisoner. Watson’s partner was driving. As we drove away I asked her why I’d been freed.

“Kelly wouldn’t press charges. When the fingerprints on the flashlight were ID’d as yours, we were sent to his house because we’d talked to both of you before. By the way, it looks like you left there in a hurry. You even left your shoes.”

“Do I get them back?”

“Sorry. Evidence. When Kelly heard your name he looked surprised. He hemmed and hawed, and then said you were his cousin and he meant to leave a key for you but forgot. His story didn’t make a lot of sense. He wouldn’t let us into the house. We asked him if you’d taken anything and he said no. He’s obviously hiding something. What we want to know from you is what you found there.”