Thugs and Kisses (22 page)

When I came downstairs the next morning, I felt a lot better—not great, but better. Willie was gone, and a fresh pot of coffee was waiting for me. A clean mug sat next to my coffeemaker, on top of which balanced a sheet of paper torn from my notepad:
LM—1) the police; 2) disappear—in that order. Be good and be careful!
The words
be careful
were underlined and circled.

A band of hit women?

When I woke up this morning, that was the first thing that came to mind. For a brief moment, I thought I had dreamed the whole crazy idea—but I hadn’t. Willie’s informants had discovered that Donny had been killed by Let Mother Do It, a band of women who had turned contract killing into a booming cottage industry. Whatever happened to ladies earning extra money holding Tupperware parties or selling Mary Kay?

But the question remained: who had hired Let Mother Do It in the first place? No matter who held the gun, ultimately the real killer was the one who plopped down money for services rendered. And did Let Mother Do It also kidnap Steele—and, if so, was he still alive? Generally, women were so resourceful and creative, who knows what else they could be into as a business venture. Maybe they also ran a kidnapping service on the side. You know, just for a little mad money.

Sitting down at the table with some toast and coffee, I pored over my notes from the night before. In less than twenty-four hours, Johnette Morales had floated to the top of the suspect list, fighting for space alongside Victor Morales and Cindy Oliver. Tom Bledsoe was a long shot, but you never know … especially with a contract killer in the mix and the suspicious eye I was now casting at his wife’s death.

I turned my attention to Steele’s side of the paper and focused on Fran and Tim. After about a half cup of coffee, my tired, mucus- sodden brain loosened, and I remembered that Tim Weber was meeting again with the woman in the car. He had said he’d see her Thursday—today—same time and place. That would mean just after three thirty in the parking garage.

Willie had been right. If he had not stayed, I would have been out the door last night as soon as I had printed those photos, pounding on Johnette’s door, demanding answers. The night’s rest had helped my cold and given me time to think. I still intended to get some answers from Johnette, but now I’d be doing it in a somewhat reasonable state of mind in the light of day.

Halfway through my shower, I had an idea. Clutching a towel to my still-dripping body, I called Sally Kipman. After a couple of rings, Sally answered.

“I have some information,” I told her without identifying myself. She hesitated, probably not sure who was calling at seven thirty in the morning.

“Is that you, Odelia? I was just going to call you.” She sounded upset.

“Yes. I have information about Donny.” She didn’t respond. “Sally, what’s wrong?”

“Something horrible has happened, Odelia. Cindy’s mother, that nice Mrs. Poppin—she’s been shot.”

“What?” The news caused me to nearly drop the phone. “How did it happen? And when?”

“Poor Cindy’s had to be given a tranquilizer, she’s in such shock.”

“But what happened?” I nearly shouted into the phone.

Sally paused before answering. I heard her sniff back tears. “Cindy’s mother was shot last night by a trick-or-treater.” She paused again. “Someone shot her when she opened up the door to pass out candy. She’s in intensive care right now. It’s pretty touch and go. I heard she’s in a coma.”

Suddenly I wanted to be sick, but this morning no one would be here to wipe my forehead. Cindy Oliver had lost a husband and almost a mother in less than two weeks. My mind felt like it had been zapped by a cattle prod. I fought back the nausea. “But who did it?”

“That’s the thing, no one saw it. Cindy had taken the girls to a Halloween party at a local library while her parents stayed home to pass out candy. Her father never even heard the shot. Apparently, they used a silencer, and Mr. Poppin had the TV on pretty loud in the den. The oldest girl called Lucas this morning to tell him.”

A silencer? I may not know much about the psyche of a murderer, but on TV, random killers do not use silencers. On TV, professionals use silencers. Immediately my shocked brain made the leap to Let Mother Do It. But why Mrs. Poppin? Then I had another thought. Maybe Mrs. Poppin wasn’t the target. Maybe Cindy had been the intended victim. Maybe Let Mother Do It had been paid for a twofer, Mr. and Mrs. Oliver, but since Donny had gone to the reunion solo, they had to wait for another go at Cindy.

“Sally, I may have some information that might shed some light on everything. But you’d better sit down.” I gave her a quick rundown of what I had learned the night before. When I was done, there was a very long pause.

“Wow,” she finally said. “Are you sure your friend’s information is correct?”

“Pretty sure, and so was he.” I wrapped the towel around me and secured it. My wet skin was starting to feel chilly. Definitely not a good thing with my cold.

“Hate to say it, Odelia, but do you think maybe Johnette slipped a cog and hired this outfit to take out both Cindy and Donny?”

My stomach turned. I didn’t want to think about sweet Johnette being a cold-blooded killer, but the evidence was gathering like dust bunnies under my bed in favor of that likelihood. Then I remembered the real reason I had called Sally and decided more than ever the timing was right.

“You up to playing Cagney to my Lacey today?”

A little before nine, I was pulling up in front of Johnette’s house. I had hoped that Sally would be able to come with me, but she had an important meeting scheduled at work this morning. However, she said her afternoon was cleared for takeoff. We agreed to meet for lunch at one o’clock. I expected to find Johnette home alone, with Victor already off to work, so I was surprised when Victor yanked open the door. He was dressed in jeans and a faded tee shirt and hadn’t shaved or combed his hair. His eyes were dark and haggard.

“What’s going on, Victor?”

“Johnette’s not with you, by any chance?” He looked past me, perhaps half-expecting Johnette to be hiding, reading to pop out and yell
surprise
.

“No, I came here to talk to her.”

He opened the door wider, and I walked in. In silence, I followed him once again to the cutesy-pie kitchen and sat at the kitchen table.

“You want some coffee? I just made some.” He looked about to drop.

“Sit down, Victor. I’ll get the coffee.” I went to the cupboards and opened two before finding the mugs. I filled two and brought them to the table.

“Where’s Johnette?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m worried sick.”

“Did you see the news this morning?” The Poppin shooting had been on the early morning news.

“Yes, I did. And Cindy called me.”

“Do you think Johnette shot Mrs. Poppin? Maybe thinking she was Cindy?”

He shook his head. “I can’t believe she’d do something like that. But … ,” his voice trailed off.

“But what, Victor?”

“I haven’t seen Johnette since about eight last night. She was handing out candy, and I was watching TV. I remember her saying something about running out of candy and that she was going to the store for more. I didn’t think anything about it until an hour later when she hadn’t returned. I got up and noticed we still had plenty of candy. We hadn’t run out at all.”

I wrapped my hands around the warm mug. “She hasn’t come home?”

Again, he shook his weary head. “I’ve been up all night, worried sick. I tried to call her cell phone but discovered she’d left it here. I even went out last night driving around, going between here and the store and up and down the streets throughout the city. Nothing.”

“Did you call your boys?”

“No, not yet. I was going to wait until noon, in case she came back on her own. I didn’t want to worry them.”

“She’s done this before, hasn’t she, Victor?” I studied him.

He nodded. “Yes, a couple of times. Sometimes she’d be gone several hours or even a day. Once she took off for three days. I didn’t want to put my boys through that again if she was just going to turn up as she’d done in the past.”

“But when you heard the news about Cindy’s mother, you began to worry that Johnette had something to do with it?”

“No! Johnette would never do anything like that. True, she’s had problems, but she’d never hurt a fly. You know that, Odelia.”

“I know that the Johnette I knew in school would never hurt anyone or anything intentionally, but we’ve all changed over the years. You said yourself the other day that Johnette had undergone treatment for serious depression.”

“Once the depression set in,” he said, tears welling, “she was never the same. She became moody and paranoid, swinging between zombie and hysteric. But I had hope. This past month, she was more like her old self, more like the lovely and sweet woman I married. Until this.”

I took the photo of Donny and Johnette out of my bag and placed it on the table. “You had someone following Donny Oliver, didn’t you?”

He looked at the photo and started crying in earnest, tears running down his stubbled cheeks. “Yes, I hired someone to follow and take photos of Donny. I was having it done so Cindy would have something to use against Donny. She always knew he had been cheating. I just never expected … ”

“When were these taken?”

Grabbing a napkin from a holder on the table, he wiped his eyes and nose. “About two months ago.” He looked at the photo, then up at me. “Where did you get this?”

“Seems your private snoop was planning on shaking you down for blackmail money after Donny’s murder became public, but a friend of mine got the photos out of his hands.”

Victor took a couple of sips of coffee and tried to pull himself together. “There were lots of pictures of Donny with other women, but as soon as I saw this one, I told the guy to stop.”

“Did you ever discuss this with Johnette?”

“No. I just told Cindy I had photos that would help her get her divorce from Donny. I didn’t tell either Johnette or Cindy about this particular photo.” He lifted his face. “In fact, I’m not even sure Johnette knew about Cindy Oliver.” He looked at me with a glimmer of hope in his eyes. “You said, Odelia, that she thought I was having an affair, but you didn’t think she knew who it was with.”

“She never mentioned a name to me.”

I tumbled information around in my head, each thought hitting my brain like rolling, jagged rocks. Maybe the meeting with Donny wasn’t about revenge sex, after all. Maybe Donny had contacted Johnette. Maybe he was the one who knew about the affair and decided to enlighten her. There was just this one photo of Johnette and Donny, and they didn’t exactly look lovey-dovey in it. Either way, it still kept Johnette at the top of the suspect list. Maybe she paid someone to get rid of both of the Olivers. I didn’t believe for a minute she did it herself, not unless they had a show on HGTV about making silencers.

I left Victor with the agreement that if he heard from Johnette, he would call me. Then I headed into the office for a few hours before meeting Sally.

I was shoveling through the mail and files on my desk when Carl Yates dropped by and closed the door. “Did you find out anything yesterday?”

“Yesterday I really was home sick. I have a cold.”

“Yes, I can see that now.” He leaned against the tall file cabinet next to the door, looking rather disappointed by my lack of news.

“However, I might have stumbled onto something. I’m just not totally sure yet.”

“Mike’s whereabouts?”

“No, still no idea about that, but I have a lead on what might have happened to him. I’m going to pursue it this afternoon, if you don’t mind.”

“By all means, Odelia.” He stood straight and looked at me with great interest. “Is there something we should let the police know?”

Yeah
, I thought,
there’s a band of killer women on the loose. If they all go premenstrual at the same time, it’ll cause worldwide havoc
. Instead, I slowly shook my head. “Not yet. I don’t have that kind of evidence, just a lead.”

Carl leaned forward, eyes locking onto mine. “Is there anything I should know about, Odelia?”

I hemmed and hawed, knowing my stalling was useless. Carl made a living out of getting to the bottom of things. He knew I was holding back something important, but I wasn’t ready to tell him about Let Mother Do It. I was fairly sure he’d insist on calling the police, and I was worried that if the police got involved and Let Mother Do It had Steele, Steele would be toast for sure. They had killed Donny and were probably behind the attempt on Mrs. Poppin. I didn’t like the idea of Steele being part of a trifecta. But knowing Carl, he’d keep us holed up in my tiny office until I gave in, so I threw him a bone—an important bone.

“Carl, how closely does Fran Evans work with Silhouette—you know, individually?”

“Why?”

I answered his question with a question. “Has she given any indication of not being happy here at the firm? Any rumblings about her looking for other employment?”

While he considered my questions, I reached into my tote bag and pulled out a photo from a manila folder. It was one of the photos of Fran and Tim Weber with Ben Walker. I handed it to Carl and gave him time to study it.

He held the photo in one hand and lightly shook it at me. “It’s Fran with Ben Walker, the new CEO over at Silhouette.”

“Do you know who the other guy is?” He shook his head, so I enlightened him. “That’s Tim Weber, an attorney with Goldberg-Rawlings. Tim is also supposedly a close friend of Steele’s.”

“You think Fran had something to do with the documents and Mike’s disappearance?” He asked the question dead-on, without a hint of surprise or shock.

“It’s just speculation at this point, but I’m thinking that maybe Fran doctored or had someone doctor the Silhouette documents so that the firm would look bad.”

I stopped, thinking I had to sneeze, but it was a false alarm.

“If the firm looked incompetent, it would be easier to convince them to go with Goldberg-Rawlings.” I shrugged. “Maybe she was interviewing with Goldberg. Maybe she was going to leave and take the client with her, though why she would do that when she’s just a few months away from partnership is beyond me.”

Carl stared at the photo again and shook his head. His mouth was a tight slash across his flushed face. “She wasn’t going to make partner, at least not this year. The partnership committee decided that she wasn’t quite ready for the responsibility and suggested she wait one more year. She was told that just over a month ago.”

All of a sudden, a new motive came into play. “Steele’s on the partnership committee, isn’t he?”

“He chairs it, Odelia.”

Motives and theories were whirling around in my stuffy head like sugar in a cotton candy machine.

“Would being passed over for partner be motive enough to tank Steele and the firm?” I studied Carl, looking for answers. “I mean, if Fran tampered with the documents, that would be cause for disbarment, correct?”

Carl nodded. “Absolutely.”

“Even with all the perks and status of partnership, would losing that be enough to risk your law license and even possibly wind up in jail?”

Carl started to say something, then stopped.

“What is it, Carl?”

Whatever Carl wanted to say, it was making him uncomfortable. Finally, he spit it out. “Did you know that Mike and Fran were having an affair? Or rather had one?”

I shrugged. “That was years ago, shortly after she came to the firm. You think she’s been harboring ill feelings all this time? Isn’t there a statute of limitations on the whole ‘woman scorned’ thing?”

He took a deep breath. “They did have a fling years ago. We all knew it. But few know that they started up again earlier this year.”

The news just about knocked me off my chair. Steele had been running around with Fran Evans and I didn’t know about it?

“I guess that makes me not very observant.”

“Mike told me about it a few months ago. It had been very short-lived and already over, but under the circumstances he felt he should take himself off the partnership committee. I convinced him to stay, but we agreed that he would not vote on Fran’s matter. We told the other partners it was because of the long-ago relationship, but I doubt we fooled anyone.”

Steele had disqualified himself from voting on Fran’s candidacy because of their prior relationship. I looked directly at Carl. “Now, does that sound like a man who would tamper with documents?”

He smiled. “No, it doesn’t.”

Again, Carl looked uncomfortable. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, Odelia, but without Mike’s support and influence, there was no way Fran was going to be offered a partnership this year or maybe even ever. And I think she knew it. I understand she got quite angry with Mike when he told her he had withdrawn from the vote.”

Losing a prestigious partnership and being dumped by a boyfriend. The motive list had expanded, but was it enough? I thought back through the past few months, trying to establish a checklist of Steele’s recent flings. I almost started laughing when the timing fell into place.

“Steele dumped Fran for that Swedish pro volleyball player, didn’t he?”

Carl just stared at me with frank amusement.

Okay, now we were getting somewhere. No partnership. No wealthy, handsome boyfriend. Dumped for a double-D bikini-clad beach bunny who lasted no longer than a breath mint. That just might make a tightly wound sourpuss Stanford law grad go career postal. But still, to throw away all those years of school and work and risk disbarment? A person would have to be delusional to think she wouldn’t get caught. But then, only a delusional woman would think she could tame Mike Steele.