The Nightmare Thief (3 page)

The local sheriff’s department thought he got caught in a flash flood while hiking and was swept to his death. That, or he got drunk during a walkabout in the high country, stumbled on the mine, and fell into the shaft while exploring. Or he threw himself down the shaft deliberately. Basically, he took a midnight header to oblivion, and nobody knew how or why.

It was the biggest backcountry hiking death to hit the State Bar since the defense attorney’s from the Manson Family murder trial, and Evan was writing a feature story about it for
California Lawyer
magazine.

But the story stubbornly refused to come together. She’d felt like she was poking roadkill with a stick, coaxing it to dance. Until, out of the blue, Jo Beckett, MD, phoned and asked to meet.

That was the reason Evan parked and hiked to a coffeehouse near Fisherman’s Wharf.

Java Jones was steamy and felt lived in. The young barista had a silver nose ring, Tiggerish energy, and curls the color of the coffee she was brewing. Her name tag said TINA.
Bad Dogs and Bullets
was playing on the stereo.

Evan approached the counter. “This sounds like a honky-tonk requiem.”

“You want something tall and strong to go with the song?”

“And hot. Make sure he can skin a bear, and looks good on a horse.”

Tina smiled. “Americano, large?”

With a gust of wind the door opened and a woman came in: early thirties,
café Americano
curls, subdued athleticism beneath boho-chic clothes. She waved at the young barista and scanned the place.

She couldn’t be called elfin—she was too sober. Her gaze seemed warm but guarded. Or maybe she was just analyzing the clientele.

Had to be the shrink.

“Jo?”

“Evan.” The woman extended her hand. “Thanks for coming.”

Evan nodded at the barista. “You’re sisters?”

Jo smiled. “Yeah, but drink this coffee for a month and you’ll look just like us.”

She ordered an espresso containing so many shots that the mug vibrated. Evan glanced her over. So. This was the deadshrinker.

Jo looked the compleat Californian: Doc Martens and a Mickey Mouse watch, the hint of East Asian heritage a few generations back. She wore a Coptic cross on a chain around her neck. The light in her brown eyes looked both engaging and shrewd.

Evan bet that 90 percent of people who heard the words
forensic psychiatrist
got tongue-tied and skittish, worried that Jo was sizing them up for tics and compulsions. Because she was one of them.

Jo led her to a table by the windows. “I’m performing a psychological autopsy on Phelps Wylie. His law firm has asked me to investigate his mental state and try to determine the manner of his death.”

“And how’s that going?”

“It’s frustrating.” She sat down. “Wylie’s life contradicts every assumption the sheriffs drew about his death. He didn’t hike. Didn’t like the mountains. He did like gold, but in the form of bullion traded by his corporate clients. And he liked booze, but when it was poured into champagne flutes at the opera house.”

“Bear Grylls he wasn’t,” Evan said.

“Not by a New York mile. You know how a psychological autopsy works?”

“You examine a victim’s psychological life to figure out how he died.”

“Yes—when a death is equivocal. That is, when the police and medical examiner can’t tell whether it was natural, accidental, suicide, or homicide. When they hit a dead end, they call me to evaluate the victim’s mental state,” she said. “I’m their last resort.”

“And I’m yours.”

Jo’s expression turned piquant. “I’m aware of the irony.”

Evan paused. Her skittishness was abating, because she saw on Jo’s face the same drive and foreboding she felt herself.

“This investigation is getting to you, isn’t it?” she said.

“It’s under my skin like a tick. Tell me about Wylie. I need background, insight, some clue to Wylie’s personality and motivations, any evidence that will help me build a timeline of his final twenty-four hours.”

“Did he have a psych history?” Evan said.

“None.”

“Think his death was from natural causes?”

“What, he dropped dead picking wildflowers, in a flood channel, and got washed into that mine by a convenient downpour?”

Jo’s tone was caustic. Evan liked that. She batted down a smirk.

“Do you think Wylie was murdered?” she said.

“Possibly. Do you?”

“I’d lay money on it. He was a baby barracuda, angling to reach the top of the legal food chain. He made enemies. And his friends say that before his disappearance he seemed preoccupied and brooding. The word
edgy
has come up more than once.”

Jo nodded. “And then there’s the car.”

Shortly after Wylie disappeared, his Mercedes turned up near the Mexican border, stripped, abandoned, and wiped clean of fingerprints.

“The gold mine is in a remote part of the Stanislaus National Forest. So maybe the car thief stumbled across the empty Merc on an isolated logging road and decided to take a five-hundred-mile joyride. But color me skeptical.”

Evan nodded. “If you determine Wylie’s state of mind, will that prove how he died?”

“Not necessarily. I don’t have a Magic Eight Ball that says
murder
or
accident.
Clients who think I can dowse for death end up disappointed.”

“Your psychological autopsy broke open the Tasia McFarland case.”

Jo’s gaze sharpened. “That case ended with the man I love shot and wounded, and the media crawling over me like scorpions. So be aware that I tread carefully when dealing with the press.”

Evan’s eyes widened. “Tread carefully? You fought a battle royale against the Creature from the Channel of the Blondes. And you took her down, live on national television. For which, by the way, I should throw confetti over you.”

Jo laughed.

“And if you’re so wary of the press, how come you called me?”

“You have a background as a lawyer yourself. You’ve been looking at the case from angles I probably haven’t. And I’m told you’re a straight shooter.”

A shadow passed behind Jo’s eyes. It seemed to say,
And I know how you got into trouble, Ms. Delaney.
Did Jo know why this case pulled so hard on her? Her own father had gone missing. And though Evan had found him, in the aftermath the certainties in her life had boiled away in a cauldron of grief.

She went still. “Who gave you my name?”

“It’s no secret you’re doing this story,” Jo said.

A tickle began at the base of her skull. “Still—who pointed you in my direction?”

“My sources are confidential. As are yours. Right?”

“As acid rain.”

Jo looked at her calmly.

Cool down.
Evan drummed her fingernails on the tabletop. “Very well.”

They gauged each other for a moment longer. Then, simultaneously, they got out notepads, pens, and digital audio recorders.

Jo said, “Have you seen the police reports?”

“Tuolumne’s. Not the SFPD’s.”

“Okay. The day before Wylie disappeared, he worked a full day. His e-mail and phone records show nothing out of the ordinary. His last call was to a client at six P.M. He mentioned no plans to go hiking in the Sierras. Saturday morning, he pulled his Mercedes out of the driveway. He phoned his mother from the car and said he was headed to the office. That’s the last anybody heard from him.”

Something about the timing scratched at Evan, but she couldn’t pin it down. “Have you spoken to his clients?”

Jo’s expression became studiously neutral.

“That’s confidential?” Evan said.

“Absolutely. However, Wylie’s client list isn’t. Nothing stops you from interviewing them.”

“Got a copy?”

Jo handed her a file folder.

Evan smiled. “Okay, I’ll trade.”

From her backpack she took maps and photos of the rugged country near the abandoned gold mine. She handed Jo an eight-by-ten.

Jo looked surprised. “Satellite photos?”

“Orbital image taken two days before Wylie’s disappearance.”

“The resolution’s amazing.”

Evan handed her another. “Same patch of terrain, snapped from the same satellite, but this month.”

Jo stilled. “How did you get these?”

“Relatives with the right passwords. See what I see?”

Jo pored over the photos. “The flood channel. It’s much deeper on the recent image.”

Evan unrolled a U.S. Geological Survey map. “Have you been up there?”

Jo’s dispassion turned to disquiet. “I’ve carved out some time to drive up next week.” She examined the map. “I know that part of the Sierras. The terrain’s brutal. Look at the topo lines.” She traced a series of closely convergent changes in elevation. “Forest, granite crags, sheer drop-offs, and when heavy rain falls, flash flooding is a real problem.
If
Wylie was hiking, he could plausibly have gotten caught in a washout. I mean, I know native Californians who think they’re safe camping by the Russian River after a downpour.”

“I’m from the Mojave Desert. I know people who thought they were safe driving across eighteen inches of rushing water on a highway,” Evan said. “What are you thinking?”

“The sheriffs’ photos didn’t fully depict the severity of the terrain. Or …”

Evan raised an eyebrow. “The timing?”

Jo straightened. “I need to get up there ASAP. Because your satellite photos suggest that the flash flood occurred
after
Wylie disappeared.”

“Precisely.”

Noise swirled around them, the clatter of coffee cups and silverware. The intensity on Jo’s face mirrored Evan’s own feelings. She felt a weight, heard a deep-background snarl. It was menace, looming.

Jo said, “The question is, what drove Wylie to that mine? Or
who
?”

The scratchy feeling, Evan’s sense that she’d missed something, intensified. “You said that the day before Wylie disappeared, his last phone call was from the office.”

“Right.”

“What about the dog walker?”

The evening before he disappeared, while checking his mail, Wylie had run into his next-door neighbor. The two spoke briefly.

Jo said, “I talked to him. He didn’t mention a phone call with Wylie.”

“No. He overheard Wylie take a call. When did you speak to him?”

“Two weeks ago.”

Evan felt a frisson. “I spoke to him yesterday. He said they chatted for a minute before Wylie’s phone rang. Wylie excused himself and answered it.”

Jo looked consternated. “What time was that?”

“Eight P.M.”

“Wylie got an incoming call on his cell phone.”

“Yes,” Evan said.

Jo’s gaze sharpened. “Wylie’s cell phone records show no calls after five thirty.”

They both tensed.

“He had a second cell phone,” Jo said.

“He damned well did.”

“Whoa.” Jo looked both irked and excited. “Did the neighbor overhear Wylie’s conversation?”

“A few words. He said Wylie mentioned something about running, and a concert. A rock concert, he thought.”

Jo sat straighter. Her eyes were alight. “Second cell phone. Was Wylie using it for sex or for bad business?”

“I’ll check. But if this mystery phone didn’t show up in Wylie’s records, it’s either pay-as-you-go or registered under somebody else’s name. Unless we can unearth the number or the phone itself, we won’t find out who called him.”

Jo looked again at the photos. “What did the neighbor hear Wylie say? Exactly.”

Evan checked her notes. “Wylie mentioned something about how they ‘ran.’ And ‘rock.’ ”

Jo tapped one of the photos. It showed massive wedges of granite. “Maybe it’s nothing. But maybe he was talking about the mountains.” She stood. “I need to clear my schedule. I have to get up to the Sierras.” She extended her hand. “Thanks for the information.”

“We should compare notes again. Forty-eight hours from now?”

“You bet.” Jo’s smile was hardly neutral. It was hungry.

“Excellent. And who gave you my name?”

That smile became enigmatic. “I’ll call you in forty-eight hours.”

Jo headed for the door, blowing a kiss to her sister as she left. Evan took a breath, excited, and her stomach pinched.

Who had put Jo in contact with her?

The door opened and the wind whispered in, teasing her, hinting at his name.

But she hadn’t told him about the feature story. She hadn’t told him because she hadn’t spoken to him—though he was the man who knew her better than anyone. He was the man she loved, and who had left her inconsolable, struggling through emotional wreckage after her father went missing. The man she didn’t know how to face, the man she had promised to marry.

She slung her pack over her shoulder and walked out.

 

 

Jo jumped off the cable car near the top of Russian Hill. The tracks rang with the sound of gears and cables beneath the road, a bright noise that echoed the humming of her nerves. In the park across the street from her house, a basketball hit the backboard and sluiced through the net. Sophie Quintana grabbed the rebound, and saw her.

She hopped and waved. “Jo, you be on Dad’s team.”

Gabe stood beneath the basket, hands on his hips, catching his breath. “That was a quick meeting.”

Jo jogged to the court. “Hurried back to be your point guard, Sergeant.”

He looked good in the October sunlight. Ripped and smiling and welling with energy.

“What’s that gleam in your eye?” he said.

Sophie turned and charged the lane, ten years old and confident that her agility would outgun the grown-ups. Her brown ponytail flicked in the breeze. Her cheeks were bright. Her smile, Jo was happy to see, looked unburdened.

She dodged around Jo and took the layup. The shot hit the rim.