Swift Justice (19 page)

“Your lawyer didn’t ask for proof of age or identity or anything?”

“How would I know? Stefan handled all the legal stuff.” She tore around the room, her movements so agitated I thought the bandeau top might lose its grip. “He did the paperwork, set things up with the insurance company and the hospital—”

“Look,” I said, holding up a calming hand. “What made you consider a private adoption?”

Jacqueline sank into a club chair positioned by the window. “I had to have a total hysterectomy in my twenties. I can’t have biological children of my own.”

Although she spoke matter-of-factly, I heard the underlying sadness. Sitting in a matching chair, I asked, “How did your lawyer locate Elizabeth?”

She took a deep breath. “Russell found Elizabeth on a Web site where prospective parents can meet girls—mostly teens—who want to have their babies adopted. We liked her photo, liked the fact she was here in Colorado Springs. We invited her over for dinner, and she seemed nice. Really, she was very businesslike, and that’s part of what I liked about her. She kept in touch throughout the pregnancy, e-mailing us with
details of the baby’s development. We went with her for the ultrasound, and I got to hear the baby’s heartbeat.” Her eyes lit up but then darkened. “So when she went off and had the baby on her own, instead of at Memorial like we had planned, well, I was terrified, afraid she was going to tell us she wanted to back out of the contract, keep Roberta herself.”

She took a ragged breath, as if reliving the ordeal. “Then she called Sunday night two weeks ago to tell us about the birth and make arrangements to deliver the baby to us. I was overjoyed! Everything was going to work out just fine. But she didn’t show up on Monday like she said she would, and when we called her, she never answered. When I saw the death notice in the paper, I was stunned. I read every word, scared there’d be something about the baby dying, too, but there wasn’t. Stefan and I didn’t know where she lived—she always came to us—and I was frantic with worry about the baby.”

I was pretty sure this woman was frantic more often than not. “Then what did you do?”

“I went to the funeral and saw Elizabeth’s parents. I knew then they must be hiding the baby from me, and I confronted her mother.” She glared at me defiantly, daring me to question her behavior. “You can tell her that if it’s a matter of money, we’ll happily pay her the money we still owed Elizabeth.”

“How much was that?”

“None of your business.” She moderated her instinctive response. “Of course, we’d pay you a finder’s fee if you can locate the baby and deliver her to us.”

I shook my head, rising to my feet. “Sorry, but that would be a conflict. I’ll let my client know about your interest and pass along your name and number.”

“Thank you. Please help us bring Roberta home.” She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear.

We descended the stairs, me in front for once, eager to get away. In the foyer, we shook hands. Her hand was cold and bony. I gave her one of my cards and told her I was sure my client would be in touch. I felt her gaze searing into my back as I cut through the courtyard to reach my car.

My tummy grumbled as I drove away from the Falstow house, and I was in dire need of a Pepsi. Dialing Montgomery’s number, I told him I’d buy lunch if he’d meet to share information.

“Get something to go and we can meet up at America the Beautiful Park.”

I zipped into Pita Pockets and got us both fragrant gyro wraps dripping with cucumber sauce and yogurt. I sucked down half my Pepsi waiting for the clerk to bag our pitas. My whole car reeked of spiced lamb by the time I pulled into the parking lot fronting the park with its huge circular fountain and wading pool. Just across from an artists’ commune on the west side of downtown, the park was an easy drive for Montgomery coming from police headquarters on South Nevada.

His unmarked car pulled up alongside mine as I got out. Wearing suit pants and a white button-down shirt, he greeted me with a kiss on the cheek that went straight to the pit of my stomach. I wrote the feeling off as hunger. Food would fix it. Handing him the bag with his gyro in it, I cut across the grass to a spot near the fountain and settled cross-legged on the ground. Misty droplets spangled the air around the fountain and lent a fresh smell to the small park. Kids ranging in
age from barely walking to obnoxious ruffian splashed and squealed in the fountain. Parents offered varying degrees of supervision from neurotic—“Put on more sunblock! Wrap up in the towel so you don’t catch cold!”—to negligent as they chatted with friends, munched on picnic lunches, and smoked cigarettes.

Finished with his lunch, Montgomery stretched out on his back, hands tucked under his head, and watched me from beneath drooping lids. The sun gilded the smooth olive skin on his face and firm curves of his lips. He looked ridiculously young relaxed like this. I had a feeling the sun was not so kind to me: It was undoubtedly spotlighting the faint crow’s-feet I’d been noticing recently around my eyes.

“Don’t fall asleep.” I prodded his calf with my foot. “I bought you lunch; now you’ve got to put out.”

“Willingly,” he said, inviting me into his arms by stretching them up toward me.

I fought the temptation to let him pull me down against his hard chest. “No, no, you have to give me something I
want
,” I said, pressing my lips together to keep from smiling.

“You
do
want me,” he said with conviction but sat up, brushing at blades of grass on his shoulders. His voice shifted from seductive to businesslike. “The autopsy results are back.”

“And?”

“Let’s just say they’re equivocal. Her neck was broken, possibly in a fall.”

“It was an accident?” All my theories went up in smoke.

He held up his right hand, and the garnet in his University of Colorado class ring shot red sparks. “Not so fast. She might have fallen, she might’ve been pushed. There are no signs of
manual strangulation. But . . . livor indicates she was moved after she died, so we have to assume she was with someone.”

“Maybe they just found her, already dead.”

“Then why move the body? Why not just call 911?”

Montgomery had been through this with his team, I could tell. “When did she die?”

“You know the pathologist doesn’t want to commit to a time, especially since the girl was dead better than a week before we found her. Ballpark figure, she died sometime on Sunday or Monday two weeks ago.”

The day she had the baby, or the day after. “Did you find any prints in her place?”

“Plenty, but none of them are in the system. She wasn’t killed in the apartment—”

“How do you know?”

“She struck the back of her head, just where it meets the spine, on a hard edge of some kind.” Montgomery’s hand snuggled up under my hair, and two fingers made a slow circle on my neck to demonstrate. “There’s no trace evidence of any sort on her kitchen counters, her bathtub, any likely surface, and no indication anybody tried to clean up.” His hand lingered, kneading my neck muscles, and I forced myself to lean away. It felt too damn good.

“Got any leads?”

“How about you?” he countered.

I let him get away with not answering my question—for the moment—and told him about my interviews with Patricia, the Falstows, and Linnea Fenn and gave him my impressions. “Pastor Zach could well be the baby’s father,” I said. “I
think the mother suspects something but can’t admit it to herself. Or he could’ve killed Elizabeth in a fit of rage if she told them she was pregnant. I’m sure he laments the day stoning disobedient kids went out of fashion.”

Montgomery grinned at my vicious humor.

“And the Falstow woman . . . well, she definitely wanted Elizabeth’s baby. Still does. But Elizabeth was already committed to giving them the baby, so I don’t see any motive for them to kill her.” I paused, reviewing my impressions of all the people I’d talked to about this case. I wondered why Elizabeth had lied to Linnea about the pregnancy. Maybe because she was ashamed. Or maybe because she didn’t want questions about the baby’s paternity. Both of those items pointed to Pastor Zach, as far as I was concerned.

“I need the name of your client, Charlie,” he said. Montgomery’s expression and voice told me he’d be pissed if I ducked the question. PIs in Colorado have no legal standing when it comes to protecting clients’ confidentiality unless they’re working for a lawyer and are covered by attorney-client privilege.

“No can do. My client’s into discretion.”

He glared at me from under dark brows. “I can charge you with second degree kidnapping.”

I grinned at his bluff. “Uh-uh. I’ve had nothing to do with the baby. And the mother voluntarily left the kid with my client—she’s got a note—so I don’t think you could even scare her with a kidnapping charge.”

“Obstruction of justice?” Montgomery offered, but I could tell he wasn’t going to press the issue.

“Get a court order and I’ll spill it all,” I suggested, pretty sure he wouldn’t go that route, at least not yet. “I’m not exposing my client to your Gestapo tactics without one.”

“Damn, and I left my jackboots at home this morning,” Montgomery said, pretending to study his shined shoes. “Have you figured out who the dad is?”

I plucked a blade of grass and began systematically shredding it. “Lots of possibles, but no one admits to it. Too bad we can’t just DNA-test ’em all, figure it out.”

“And you called
me
the Gestapo.” He grinned. “Ever heard of a thing called probable cause?”

“Yeah, it was overrated in the OSI, too.” I pushed to my feet, swatting grass off my butt. “Those of us not mooching off the city’s dime have to get back to work.”

Montgomery stood. “Too bad we can’t spend the day like that.” He nodded at the kids dashing in and out of the fountain’s spray, gilded with sun and water and the joy of summer.

I gazed at them for a moment, trying to absorb some of their carefree attitude. “I
do
have a bikini I didn’t get to try out this summer,” I mused with a sidelong look at Montgomery.

“You’re torturing me, Swift,” he said.

The heat in his eyes almost made me jump in the fountain to cool off. I beat a hasty retreat to my car, telling Montgomery I’d call him if I learned anything pertinent to his homicide investigation. Like who fathered Elizabeth’s baby. Like who killed her.

I dialed the number to Designer Touches to warn Melissa the police were working hard to find her and got an answering machine that told me the shop was closed for the day. Hmm.
Maneuvering around a van doing ten miles under the limit, I dialed her home number. A man’s voice answered with an impatient “Hello?”

Her husband must be home early. “Is Melissa there?”

“She’s busy. She’ll call you back.” Without even waiting to get my name or number, he hung up.

I debated calling back but decided that a drive out to Melissa’s house might prove more fruitful. I pointed the car north on 1-25 to Monument, the small town adjacent to Colorado Springs. The exit was almost twenty miles up the highway, and I cruised along at just over the speed limit. Passing Uintah, I remembered my wine supply was low and crossed two lanes of traffic to exit. My favorite wine store, CoalTrain, sat just off the access ramp, in the shadow of the highway overpass. I wondered idly if Aurora Newcastle had ever considered opening a Purple Feet in Colorado Springs. I liked the store but wasn’t prepared to drive an hour to Denver every time I needed some zin or pinot grigio. A screech of brakes and a blare of horns behind me made me check my rearview mirror. A gray SUV with the distinctive Mercedes hood ornament had taken my example and jumped off the interstate at the last moment. It barreled up Uintah as I swung into the parking lot.

With several bottles of chardonnay rattling in a box, I got back on the highway. Another call to Melissa’s number netted nothing, not even an answering machine. A faint twinge of worry niggled at me, and I sped up. Fifteen minutes later I was about to make the turn onto Scottswood Drive, Melissa’s street, when I noticed a familiar silhouette cresting a hill as I climbed the next one.
Don’t be silly
, I told myself, dismissing
the notion I was being followed. SUVs, even Mercedeses, were a dime a dozen in this area. Still, this one was the same gray as the one that followed me off at the Uintah exit.

I’d survived as a cop in a war zone by trusting my instincts, and I decided to heed them this time. Passing Scottswood, I made a quick left at the next street in front of oncoming traffic, trusting the Mercedes, if it was really following me, would have to wait to make the turn. With no one in sight behind me, I pulled into the second driveway I came to, one partly obscured by lodgepole pines. Sure enough, the gray SUV zipped past the driveway entrance moments later. Gotcha, amateur. I backed out of the driveway and followed the Mercedes from a distance of a couple of blocks. It drove slowly, hesitating at a cross street, before going straight. When the driver gave up and pulled into a driveway to turn around, I quickly closed the distance between us and used the Subaru to block the driveway.