The Michaela Bancroft Mysteries 1-3 (72 page)

Joe walked to the balcony off Sterling's bedroom. As quietly as he could he slid the door open.

"What was that?" the woman downstairs said.

"I don't know. Stay here and I'll check it out," the man replied.

They heard someone climbing the stairs. Joe motioned for Michaela to follow him onto the balcony. The area overlooked the community pool from two stories up. A palm tree swayed silently in the slight breeze, about two feet away from the balcony. "Hit it, Mick."

"What?"

"No time for questions. Jump onto the tree and shinny your ass on down."

"No way." The man on the stairs was almost to the top, Michaela figured.

"Do it,
now
."

Michaela knew Joe was right; they had no choice. Luckily for her she was athletic, so she took the chance and made the jump, then shinnied down the tree. She felt the pain in her hands and on her right knee. She leaped off the tree about five feet from the ground and looked up to see Joe attempting the jump. She closed her eyes. He might have been one savvy guy, but athleticism was not one of his attributes. Somehow, he made it.

They tore out of the parking lot in the minivan. "Shouldn't have had that burrito," he said. By the time they cleared the parking lot, they could not help but laugh. They roared for several minutes. For Michaela, part of the laughter was caused by the reality that she'd made it out of there without getting caught—well, basically—and the release of her pent-up stress.

"Oh my gosh, you should have seen yourself coming down off that tree," she said, tears streaming down her face. "I didn't know that you could move that fast, Joe."

"I didn't either. Yeah, that was classic."

"That wasn't Peters. Was it?" Michaela asked, already sure she knew the answer.

"Nope. I'd bet you it was Zach and Juliet."

"I'd bet you're right."

Joe reached into his back pocket and pulled out an envelope. She took the crumpled paper and turned on the overhead light in the minivan. "Do you mind? Will the light bother you?"

"Nah. I'm cool. Read it."

She read over the words that Juliet had written:

I know what you did. My father knows what you did, because I told him and for your sake, I would get out of town. You are disgusting and horrible and I will never trust you again. My father is out for blood. You've messed with the wrong family.

JM

"Whoa," Michaela finally uttered. "No wonder the two of them wanted the letter. Maybe they didn't murder Sterling, but what if they are protecting Juliet's dad?"

"Yep. It's a good theory, and we can't leave out Pepe Sorvino and his daughter."

"What do you think this all means? It's obvious Juliet wrote it. These are her initials, she and Zach were talking about it out at the barn, and those two are awfully friendly with each other these days. And all this stuff about her and her father knowing what he did…Wait a minute, I just had a thought about what Juliet might've told her father."

"What's that?"

Michaela quickly told Joe about the newspaper articles that Camden had found concerning Sterling Taber and Rebecca Woodson. "Follow me. The letter that Juliet wrote to Sterling may have to do with this girl."

"It might. But why wouldn't Juliet just break up with him?" Joe asked. "Why go through the whole deal of telling her dad and all? Sterling was never convicted of killing the girl. You said that the papers reported it to be an accident."

"I don't know. But Rebecca Woodson's family filed a wrongful death suit. They don't seem to think it was an accident."

"Okay. Keep talking. Go back to Sunday at the fashion show. Maybe you missed something."

"Juliet seemed flushed and hurried. Camden had thought she and Sterling were off together because she couldn't find either one of them. She offered Juliet a shot of tequila after she showed up, but she refused and got up on the stage."

Joe nodded. "But what about Zach? Where was he during all of this?"

"On the runway," Michaela replied. "I saw him up there, and then Juliet came rushing through because she was next. He asked her if she was okay when he saw her stepping up on the stage as he was getting down. She nodded and the show went on."

"One thing we know then is that Zach didn't kill Sterling, so we can cross him off the list, but what we don't know is if he's protecting Juliet. From the sound of it, he's protecting her from
something
. We can also guess they're protecting her father. Strange, though, I don't think Daddy would go and advertise to his little girl that he planned to knock off her boyfriend."

"No. I agree with that. Let's stay with this train of thought, that the murder has to do with Rebecca Woodson," Michaela said.

"Okay, we'll see if we can't peel this back a bit more and give each of them a motive. I know we can only theorize but it might help. Say Juliet felt threatened by Sterling. Maybe the dude did kill this Rebecca Woodson. He might have threatened Juliet for something; maybe she didn't want to see him anymore for another reason. Who knows if there was a lovers' quarrel? Say there was. Taber threatens Juliet Mitchell, who tells Zach, who is their buddy. Now, Juliet is a pretty girl, and Zach may have had a thing for her. You said they were all kinda lovey-dovey when you spotted them in the stall area?"

Michaela nodded. "Definitely. I would even go so far as to say that they looked to be more than friends."

"Okay. Zach sees an opening where Sterling screwed up with the girl. He's there for her to lean on and she tells him that Sterling threatened her. Zach was in Santa Barbara with Sterling when this Rebecca Woodson died?"

"Yes. And what if Zach knows that her death wasn't an accident and thinks that Sterling might have killed her? He decides to protect Juliet, and one or the other goes and tells her father about Sterling's threat and what happened in Santa Barbara."

"We're like a regular Holmes and Watson, girl."

She smiled. "Sort of, huh? Now, Ed Mitchell hears this and he's not happy. He kills Sterling. Zach and Juliet assume he did it because they told him about Sterling and maybe Ed went ballistic. Now Zach and Juliet feel the need to protect her father."

"Exactly. The kicker is, where does Pepe Sorvino and his clan come in and what's the deal with the ring that you saw Mitchell give to Pepe?"

"A payoff?"

Joe clucked his tongue. "Possible. I'm gonna call around to a few of my cousins and see if the Sorvinos have any ties with one of the families."

"Mafia?"

Joe shrugged and wheeled the van onto her property.

"Wouldn't you know that already? With your connections?"

"You've watched one too many
Sopranos
."

She shook her head. They pulled up in front of her house. Michaela extracted the videotapes from the backpack she'd taken into Sterling's place. "Wanna watch some movies?"

Joe looked at his watch. "Can't. What you got?"

"Compliments of Sterling."

"You little vixen."

"Never know what we might find. I figured I might as well grab them. We've already broken a hundred laws tonight."

"Report back. I told Marianne I'd be back before Conan. We like to watch it together."

"Deal."

Michaela went inside her house. A quiet staleness that she had never gotten used to since her old lab, Cocoa, passed away came over her. She sighed. What it must feel like to come home to a family. Lucky Joe.

She got her video camera out. These videos hadn't been transferred from the camera-type cassettes. She would have to put them through her camera to see, and then run it on her laptop. Maybe she'd make some popcorn for the evening's entertainment. Probably just shots of high-priced vacations that he'd taken. She put some popcorn in the microwave, grabbed a bottle of water, and started watching the first tape while it popped.

The bag remained in the microwave before she ever got to it, an hour later. What she saw on the tapes was not only startling, they also revealed someone who would have one helluva reason to put Sterling in the ground, where he couldn't speak a damn word.

WHAT MICHAELA VIEWED ON THOSE TAPES WAS completely scandalous. They were appalling, so much so that she had to fast-forward through quite a bit of it. All she could do was repeat the word
wow
over and over again, and shake her head.

All the tapes, except one, displayed a story of a love affair, if that's what it could be called. More of an
erotic
affair. The stars were Sterling and a woman she had never seen before, and they did things on those tapes together that she had no clue were even possible. One tape featured some other gal with Sterling. Probably a one-night stand. Is this what Juliet had discovered—that Sterling had this disgustingly perverted side to him? Had he taped
her
?

Michaela had never seen an X-rated movie—never had an inclination to—but what she saw on the tapes was likely way up there in that category. It was actually gross. The thing was, it became obvious to Michaela that the woman who was on most of the tapes had no clue she was starring in them. At the end of the last tape, which she assumed was the most recent one taken, Sterling sat by himself at the end of his bed. He slicked back his hair with his hands, sighed, and started speaking:

"As you can see, Carolyn, we've had quite a run, and I'm sure Charles will not be a happy man when he receives these tapes. Don't bother destroying them. I have a few copies in select places. You've been charming and fun and it is obvious that you make an excellent star, but you have not come through for me as you had promised." He raised his voice now, sounding like a madman. Ha! Michaela had always sensed there was something lurking underneath that suave, smooth exterior and here it was, coming out of him as a freakish pervert. "You, my dear, promised to get me back in good with the family and make sure my allowance not only matched what it once was, but was increased substantially. You've failed miserably. I am now giving you, as of today, one week to make good on your promises, or else something tells me that you won't be getting a dime of the Taber fortune once the family sees this. I don't have much more to lose, but you, my dear, have what, forty, fifty million that would slip out of your nasty little hands—which I love, by the way. One week, Carolyn. One week."

With that the tape finished up. The date flashed across the screen. It was almost a week to the day before Sterling was murdered.

Holy flying horse pucky. Who was the woman who had made promises to Sterling that she couldn't keep?

MICHAELA WRACKED HER BRAIN AND WENT OVER everything about three hundred times. At least it felt that way. Finally, at about 1:30 in the morning, she started to drift off to sleep, and that's when she heard it. At first it was like the moment when falling asleep as the body drifts into that next stage, almost as if the soul is being shaken loose—the body jerks and then a deep sleep follows. The jerk came, but not the sleep. A noise in the house. She sat up and listened. Had she started dreaming? No. There it was again—in the kitchen. What if someone was rummaging for a weapon—a knife? She quietly slid out of bed and tiptoed over to her bedroom door; she kept a baseball bat behind it. She now realized that she should've been keeping it next to her bed. What good would it have done her if whoever was down there had made it upstairs without her hearing? The phone. She needed to get to the phone and call 911. Dammit, she'd left the portable phone in her office. She wished for the day when phones couldn't travel all over the house, when they had cords on them and were stationary. Yes, that would've worked much better right about now.

She heard a creaking sound. Whoever was there now climbed the stairs. She gripped the bat tighter and hid behind the door. She stood still as she watched a figure enter the room. It was not a man, but a woman, and as Michaela switched on the light, she was stunned to see Juliet Mitchell spin around and point a gun at her.

"JULIET! WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?" Michaela white-knuckled the baseball bat, poised and ready to swing. "Put the gun down."

"Give me the letter!" Juliet yelled. Her tearstained face was streaked in black from mascara. She did not look well, and if Michaela was right, she smelled of alcohol.

"Juliet, let's talk about this. Rationally. You put the gun down and I'll put the bat down and we can talk. Okay?"

"Give me the letter. I won't let you ruin my life!"

"I don't want to ruin your life. Let's talk."

"No. You don't understand."

"Tell me then, what don't I understand?"

"Juliet, put the gun down!" Zach Holden, standing behind the girl, looked as horrified as Michaela felt. "Please, Jules. This won't solve anything. Let's work together on this."

Michaela wasn't too sure she should be relieved to see Zach or not, but if he could get Juliet to put the gun down, she at least would still have the bat in her hands.

"Why should I? If anything happens to my dad, then what good is any of this? Especially after what you told me tonight!"

"Juliet, all I was trying to say is that we're young and we don't need to rush anything. This has nothing to do with your father."

"It has
everything
to do with my dad! Everything. You're just like Sterling. All you want is one thing." Positioned between Zach and Michaela, Juliet weaved a bit to the side. Michaela looked for the right moment to pounce. But she had no idea where Zach stood in all of this.

"My dad only wants to protect me and I thought that was what you wanted, too." She turned away from Michaela and pointed the gun at Zach.

"That's not true," Zach replied. "I'm sorry about tonight. You surprised me is all. I thought we agreed to take things slow. The marriage thing, it was out of the blue. You've got to admit that. But, I'm not opposed to getting married at some point."

Michaela saw that Zach was trying to save his skin, but she hoped it wasn't as obvious to the girl. "I believe him, Juliet. Give me the gun and you and Zach can go and work things out."

"Give me back the letter. We know you were at Sterling's tonight. It had to be you. You overheard us in the barn at the polo field." Juliet slumped to the floor, and Michaela and Zach both seized the opportunity. Zach wrapped his arms tightly around her, and shook the gun out of her hand, and Michaela quickly picked it up. She didn't want to aim it at anyone, but she needed the power right now. Still, instead of turning it on either one of them, she simply held it, while Zach wrestled with Juliet, who finally calmed down and began crying into his shoulder.