Stunner (16 page)

After class, Will and I meet around the corner at the coffee shop. Private eyes seem to drink a lot of coffee.

He hands me a folder. “Here’s what I’ve been able to learn about Juliana Wentworth in California without actually going there. Her husband, Carleton Todd Wentworth, a successful tech investor, appears to have left her very well off. You can look over the report at your leisure. After reading this, I really don’t get the feeling that she’s a gold digger.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear it, for my brother’s sake.” I quickly scan through the report. “I don’t know…there’s something familiar about her. I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

“Let me know if you want me to check into anything else regarding Juliana,” Will says. “Now switching to her early years on the Terry-or-Teresa-Gonzalez front—since she was a minor, I’m having a tougher time finding out about her before her Scranton Gang days.”

He sees my disappointment. “Why do you really have me checking into this?” he asks. “Your bogus family-reunion story is taking you much further in conducting your investigation than I ever expected, but what is it you really want to find out?”

“Part of me is just plain fascinated by her story. How did someone like Teresa start so far on the wrong side of the tracks and make her way over to the right side—so that she ended up as Juliana?” I ask. “That’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. More importantly I want to learn as much as I can, since she may end up marrying my brother. Plus there’s the discovery of this new teenaged Frankie, or Francesca, and how she fits in.”

I must look distressed at the thought because Will speaks up quickly. “Ronnie, can’t your brother take care of himself?”

“Will, you don’t get it,” I say. “I have another brother, the oldest of the three of us. Years ago, he married a woman we all thought was nice enough. She turned out to be emotionally troubled and insecure, and she cut him off from the entire family. Our parents spent the last ten years of their lives without seeing my brother or those four grandchildren. It broke their hearts.”

Will stares at me with a kind expression on his face. “How sad. Why did your brother allow it, though?”

I still wish I understood. “Who knows… sometimes it’s easier to just go along rather than fight a difficult situation in a marriage. Still, to this day, it upsets me to think of it.” My eyes blink back the tears quickly as I finish my coffee. “Anyway, my niece, Laura, is terrified of history repeating itself when it comes to her father. I am, too.”

I change the subject and bring Will up to speed on what I’ve learned at Club Nucleus and my failed attempt to get David Spencer to tell me about Terry Gonzalez. “He hung up on me. Plain and simple.”

“Sounds like you need to practice your phone technique.” He laughs.

“Not funny, Will.” I do notice that he has a great smile.

“Ronnie, do you plan to join that Nucleus club? If you do, you could walk the application into the club personally, stop by David’s office and try again,” he advises.

“I already belong to a nice club in the city, so I don’t plan to go back to the Nucleus offices any time soon.”

“Then you have to phone David again. This time, right after you identify yourself, ask him to please not hang up and to hear you out. And write the script for what follows ahead of time,” he says. “Keep it short and sweet, and use some charm. Got it?”

“Ten-four,” I throw back. Heard that on some TV show, and it sounds very P.I.ish.

I go back to the drawing board and write a script for David Spencer at Club Nucleus. During the next call, I plead with him not to hang up. This time it works.

The next day, David and I walk down Hudson Street not far from the club. “What made you change your mind?” I ask while carrying two iced coffees from a nearby deli.

“How you told me that she’s a part of your family,” David answers. “And you’re trying to get the family together for a reunion. And you want to make things right with her, even though she took off years ago. Well, all of that sounds good for Terry.”

I wonder how many little white lies I will have told by the end of this investigation.

“So, the two of you started at the same time at Club Nucleus?” We walk onto a small plaza lined with benches several blocks from the club.

“Yes, and from day one, everybody liked her,” he says.

We sit on a bench in the shade, and I hand David one of the drinks. “You’ve been at Club Nucleus a long time—you must really like it,” I say, still trying to win him over. He nods. “And how’d it go for Terry at the club? Did she thrive, too?”

He shifts nervously on the bench. “Please don’t let Adriana know that I’ve talked to you about this. She never discusses it. Are we clear?” His voice is firm.

“Yes.” Must be job preservation that has David Spencer so adamant about this—and with member privacy a high priority at a place like Club Nucleus, my not saying anything would be crucial.

“One of the younger members fell for Terry and began to pursue her.” David looks away as if he’s thinking back in time.

“Why was that a problem?” I take a sip from my iced coffee.

“Adriana has always had strict rules about not fraternizing with members outside of the club.” David also takes a drink of coffee. “Not allowed at all.”

“Who was the member?” I ask.

He hesitates, but continues, “A dot-com guy, not much older than Terry. Probably in his late twenties when they met.” David folds his arms, still holding the cup, and leans against the back of the bench. “John Palmer. I can still picture him in some quiet corner of the club playing chess with another member or off by himself playing online.”

John Palmer. I’m mentally going through the books on Juliana’s nightstand at Meadow Farm. I recall the inscription in her chess book—
JP, 1999
. Might well be this John Palmer.

“So how’d he go from chess to falling for Terry?” This has the makings of an interesting story.

“Oh, it was all innocent at first. He didn’t set out to put the moves on her. You have to understand, Mrs. Lake—”

“Please, David, it’s Ronnie.”

“OK, Ronnie. John was geeky, you see.” David chuckles. “Hugely successful, but geeky.”

“Go on,” I encourage.

“And Terry was just curious about, well, everything and always trying to learn new things. So, when she’d bring him a cup of coffee, she’d watch him play for a few minutes.” He shakes his head. “Next thing I see Terry’s reading beginner chess books during her breaks.”

I give him a look. “So she put the moves on him?”

“Not at all. It wasn’t Palmer she was interested in. It was chess. She wanted to learn how to play. She’d say to me, come on, David, why don’t you learn, too. And I did. We’d play together outside of work.”

We both drink from our coffees and contemplate the past. “So what happened? I mean, with John?”

“Well, when she’d bring him something to drink or, say, a message—he always turned his phone off at the club even though it wasn’t a rule—she’d quietly cheer his move on the board or ask a question about strategy. John and Terry quickly developed an easy rapport.”

“David, is that code for relationship?” I ask.

“Not yet. So, a couple months later, it’s after work and I come across the two of them playing chess here, of all places, on this little plaza.” He shakes his head. “The next day, I read her the riot act, tell her that if Adriana were to find out, Terry would be fired. I said she was a fool to be with him so close to the club, where maybe next time the boss instead of me would see the two of them.”

“Were they involved?” I’m all ears.

“She said they were just friends.”

David and I display similar cynical expressions at the same time and laugh.

“Whatever,” he says. “Anyway, around the club, John Palmer seemed to come out of his tech-geek shell. He still played a lot of chess, but he was much more outgoing and friendly to everyone. I think it was due to Terry’s influence.”

“Sounds as if he was in love.” I smile.

“Yep. He fell hard,” David agrees. “And Terry was very happy, although she had to hide it, but I could tell.”

“That’s nice.” Or was it, really?

David says nothing. I wait. Still nothing.

“What’s the final chapter in their story, David? Did they run off into the sunset together? Did they live happily ever after?” He still doesn’t respond.

David sighs. “They made plans to run off into the sunset, but they didn’t live happily ever after.”

“What then?” I’m always a sucker for a romantic story, but I prefer one with a happy ending.

“Four months or so after I first saw them playing chess on this plaza, I noticed Terry, at her desk, fussing with a ring on her finger. She had the stone turned down, and she was trying to take it off and put it in her bag. I’d just walked in, and she acted as though I’d caught her breaking the law.”

“Was it an engage—”

“John Palmer had given her a beautiful ring. Terry was so happy. She said they were going to be married the very next week, nothing fancy. City Hall and then a small celebration for a few friends at a restaurant. She asked me to come, to be part of it. She didn’t have any family around and didn’t know many people outside of where she worked.”

Hmmm. “What did Adriana do when she found out?” I ask.

“Adriana wasn’t happy when Terry broke the news. First of all, Terry was involved with a member. Second, the boss was losing a valued employee. But Adriana was decent about it, since Terry had being straight with her and given her plenty of notice.”

“Sounds as if they did live happily ever after,” I offer.

“No.” David looks sad and his posture sags a little.

“She wasn’t in an accident or something—”

“No, no.” His voice goes quiet. “She was a runaway bride.”

My jaw drops open—literally. “Wha—”

“She took off the day before their marriage…just left him a note at the club…said it was better for him if they didn’t marry, and that she didn’t mean to hurt him. I saw the note, torn in half, on Adriana’s desk.” David finishes his iced coffee. “I guess Palmer tossed it, and maybe Adriana found it. Anyway Adriana quietly flipped out. You know, she originally discovered Terry in Orlando, gave her a start in New York. I don’t think the boss ever got over it.”

“And Terry? What happened to her?” I feel Teresa—Juliana—slipping through my fingers, again, in this early life of hers.

“She just disappeared. Something bad must have happened for her to bail. None of us ever heard from her after that.” David gets up and tosses our empty cups into a container.

He returns and starts speaking again. “John stayed away from the club for about six months. Finally, one day he showed up again, back to his pre-Terry geeky self, playing chess all the time. A year later Hewlett-Packard bought his company, and he moved to Utah to start a new business.”

David pulls a paper from his pocket. “Here. John Palmer’s contact information in Salt Lake City. Never, ever, say anything to Adriana. I could lose my job for giving you this.”

“I promise I won’t.” I look at the paper and then at him. “David, why are you giving me Palmer’s address?”

“Because Terry had a heart of gold. I still miss her friendship. If she can reunite with family, then that’s a good thing. Maybe John Palmer can help you find her.”

“Thank you, David.”

“You’re welcome.” He walks away, stops, and turns back to me. “Ronnie, were you ever really planning to join Club Nucleus?”

“Maybe. Haven’t decided yet.”

David smiles, gives me a skeptical look, waves quickly, and walks out of the plaza and up Hudson Street.

Me? I’m thinking of the chess-playing Juliana telling Bobby Taylor that she’ll leave the country if he doesn’t back off. I now understand this is no idle threat, since she’s done this disappearing thing before. I’ve got to call Will.

Oh, Frank, you better guard your heart.

The crowd is screaming, and I have a headache. Inside an octagonal ring, two mixed martial artists, both with overly tattooed upper bodies, appear—in my nonexpert opinion—to be evenly matched. They come at each other with a combination of boxing, wrestling, judo, karate, and jujitsu. Every time one of them falls onto the mat, pinned by the other in some unfathomable joint lock, the decibel level in the place skyrockets. The fighters’ stage names, which I hear repeated often by the announcer, are the Bronx Bulldozer and the Deadly Assassinator.

Will Benson and I sit on bleachers in a huge warehouse not far from the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport. I don’t see many women in this crowd, so how in the world did I end up here? I think I agreed to come when I brought Will up to speed on runaway bride Teresa/Terry/Juliana, and he interrupted me to suggest we watch a mixed martial arts fight.

Mixed martial arts? I asked. What does that have to do with Aikido, which I love?

Nothing, he answered, except it was an opportunity for me to broaden my horizons.

When I told him I preferred to stay home and watch paint dry, he told me to stop being such a snob and come check it out.

Besides, he added, I might learn more about Bobby Taylor. It seems Will got a tip that Bobby Taylor is working security for one of the mixed martial arts companies that puts on events in this area. So we expect to see him here at this fight.

I’m surrounded by boisterous fist-pumping teenagers and back-slapping twenty- and thirty-something guys in the bleachers. I could be the den mother of most of the men cheering the cagefighters below, who one moment are on their feet punching each other and the next sprawled on the mat grappling.

Will nudges me. “Look to the left, Ronnie. The guy walking down the aisle toward the ring.”

My eyes open wide. “Yep. Bobby Taylor. I saw him arguing with Juliana in front of the coffee shop in Moosic.”

Taylor leans over to speak to a gruff-looking man in a ringside seat. Bobby’s tee-shirt rides up, and I’m reminded that his tattoos are as ample as those on the gladiators in the ring.

“Hard to believe this is the guy who’s been bothering your brother’s girlfriend,” Will says. “They’re worlds apart. Whatever the connection, it must be an interesting story.”