An Accidental Woman (8 page)

The anchor was unfazed. “Is it fair to say that if it hadn't been for the Rosetti scandal, the DiCenza case would still be unsolved?”

“No,” Randy said promptly. “Something else would have come up. The past can only be hidden so long before bits of it start to leak. The government employs a cold case squad to be alert for those leaks and to track them down when they occur.”

“Can you tell us how Heather Malone—Lisa Matlock, if the charges are correct—is alleged to have traveled from California to New Hampshire without being caught?”

“No. I cannot.”

“We understand that she has been living with a widower named Micah Smith and taking care of his two young children.”

“That is what the agency believes.”

“Is Micah Smith considered to be an accomplice?”

“I can't comment on that.”

“Have you been in touch with the DiCenza family?”

“I talked briefly with a representative of the family. They're pleased that there may be action in this case.”

“Do you believe that Heather Malone will be returned to California to stand trial?”

“I believe that justice will prevail.”

Sensing the interview was over, Griffin was trying to gauge the damage, when Ann Marie put on a perfunctory smile, said, “Thank you, Agent Hughes,” and faced the camera again. “That's the latest word we have on this story. To repeat, we are waiting word from West Eames, New Hampshire, where a hearing is now under way to determine the immediate fate of Heather Malone . . .”

Griffin turned off the television and pushed a hand through his hair. Hughes was a common enough last name. If Poppy had been watching just now, she might not make the connection.

Wishful thinking,
he thought sourly. Randy's hair was a deep auburn that could translate to brown in many lights, but there was the jaw they had in common. No getting around that square jaw. Put the name with
the jaw and add the whole thing to the timing of Griffin's visits, and Poppy would know. She was quick. He had learned that from their phone calls during the mess involving her sister. She hadn't let him get away with a thing. For all he knew, she had already guessed he was the one who'd tipped off the law.

A fast phone call would tell him one way or the other—and a fast phone call was about all he had time for. He was behind in the Hayden biography. A deadline loomed. He had writing to do.

But he didn't want to find out what Poppy did or did not know in a phone call. Far better, he decided as he began pushing together the papers strewn on the coffee table, to drive on up and press his case in person.

* * *

That didn't mean Poppy could stop feeling protective. Lily had been through a rough stretch. Now Heather's being in the news for no cause, much as Lily had been, was bound to affect her.

“It's like a rerun,” Lily said through the static of a poor cell phone connection. “Heather is the only thing the local stations are talking about. I understand that I'm in New Hampshire and that this is New Hampshire news, but what facts do they have? I don't hear any, Poppy. Certainly none that make sense to those of us who know Heather. Has the press been calling?”

“Here? No. John was right. They know how we feel, so they're steering clear. Vivian Abbott called a little while ago.” Vivian was the town
clerk and had a view out the window of the Town Hall. “She said she could see two crews filming in town, but she said they were state, not national. Maybe national doesn't dare.”

“Maybe they just haven't arrived yet,” Lily said, sounding worried. “Have you talked with Micah?”

“He called during the lunch break. He said Cassie's trying to find out what evidence the government has, but they're making her file motions for everything, and motions take days. Heather's a wreck.
He's
a wreck.”

“Do the girls know what's going on?”

“The school principal says no”—Poppy had talked with the man twice—“but that may change once the bell rings and the kids hit the streets. Hold on a sec, Lily. Someone's calling John.” She punched in another button.
“Lake News.”

“It's Charlie,” said a voice that was robust in its anger. “Kip's not there?”

“He's in Concord.”

“Christ, I hope he's setting things straight with the folks there. Not five minutes ago, they were saying on television that Micah might be an accomplice.”

“Accomplice!” Poppy cried. “Accomplice to
what?
There's no crime.”

“Tell that to the Feds,” Charlie said. “Better still, I will.” He hung up.

Poppy returned to Lily, wisely not repeating what Charlie had said, because even without hearing this latest bad news, Lily was upset.

“If it hadn't been for last fall—”

“No, Lily,” Poppy cut in. “Not your fault.” Lily had been falsely accused of being romantically involved with a man of the cloth, and the whole thing had been turned into a national news story, thanks to one particularly unscrupulous reporter. “You had no control over that.”

“Maybe not, but I can feel what Heather feels. Has Mom called?” she asked with barely a pause, which said that as improved as Lily's relationship was with Maida, Lily still felt an ingrained fear.

“Not yet.”

“She will. She'll be freaked out. She left here after the wedding thinking the past was dead and buuu-uried.” There was a pause, then a carefully controlled, “She'll worry that the stuff about me will surface again.”
Lily grew suddenly defiant. “Well, I don't care if it does. I'd like another shot at embarrassing certain members of the press.”

Poppy glanced toward the door as her friends Sigrid and Marianne came through. “What happened?” she called to them. Both had left work early to go to the courthouse; now they looked mutually dismayed.

“Halfway there we got Cassie on the phone,” Sigrid said, taking the TV remote from Poppy's desk and aiming at the set. “She told us to stay home. She said no one would ever see us there, least of all Heather. The place is mobbed.”

“With people from town?” Poppy asked as the television went on.

Marianne answered, “Loads. Dulcey Hewitt even showed up with a crowd from the Ridge—kids, cousins, you name it. The kids adore Heather. She's the one who reads to them at the library. But Cassie says there's a slew of media. Look at that picture. Oh, yuck.”

“What's happening?” Lily asked at Poppy's ear.

“Looks to me,” Poppy said, turning her chair sideways so that she could see the TV, “like they're all just standing around in front of the courthouse.”

“The hearing's going on,” Sigrid called back. “They're waiting for a ruling.”

“Waiting for a ruling,” Poppy told Lily.

“Poor Heather,” Lily said. “Can't Cassie put someone on the stand to say Heather was nowhere near California when the murder occurred?”

“Who? When has Cassie had time to go looking for someone like that? If we figure the FBI was at Micah's at six, this thing's been going on for less than eight hours. What is he saying?” she asked Marianne.

“That if there's bail, it'll be high,” Marianne called from her post by the TV.

“If there's bail, it'll be high,” Poppy told Lily.

“Bail!” Lily cried. “But she hasn't
done
anything.”

“Risk of flight,” Marianne called back.

“Risk of flight,” Poppy related to Lily.

“Where was Heather before she came to Lake Henry?” Lily asked.

Poppy recalled something about the Northwest. Or the West. “Idaho, I think.” Or was it Illinois?

“You
think?”

“It never mattered. Heather is Heather.”

“Does she have family who should be called?”

Poppy hadn't thought about family, the same way she hadn't thought about Heather's ever having lived elsewhere. She had always accepted Heather for who she was, not who she'd been, which was how Poppy lived herself. She didn't dwell on the past. She couldn't do that and still wake up smiling each day.

And Heather? Heather had fit into the fabric of Lake Henry so easily that it was hard to remember she wasn't a native. “If she has family elsewhere,” Poppy told Lily now, “she's never mentioned it. No one's ever come to visit.”

“That doesn't mean no one exists,” Lily's voice warbled as the connection worsened.

“Micah will know. If there were calls to make, he's probably done it from the courthouse.”

“Is . . . anything . . . to help?”

Poppy filled in the blanks. “No, nothing any of us can do yet. Cassie says this is just a procedural thing. But you're starting to break up, Lily, and my phone bank's going nuts. I'd better go.” She listened, heard no response. “Lily?” But Lily was gone. “Anything yet?” she asked the pair standing vigil by the TV.

“Waiting,” Sigrid said.

Not knowing what else to do, Poppy punched in her next call.

He had chosen that particular voice from a menu of several, because she made him feel less alone. He called her Sage and imagined her to be a siren of the barefoot-and-pregnant type, very down-home and country—this before he had met Poppy. When he talked to Sage now, he pictured Poppy.

Actually, had he been going straight to Lake Henry, he wouldn't have had to consult Sage at all. He knew the route by heart. For each time he had driven it in the flesh, he had made the trip ten times in his mind.

Now, though, he was headed for another New Hampshire town, West Eames. He had been monitoring the progress of the case on the radio during the drive north from New Jersey, and figured that he might just be able to arrive in time to catch the hearing.

His cell phone rang. The return number was one he had dialed an hour before. “Hey, Duncan. Whatcha got?”

Duncan Clayes was an old college buddy, currently a reporter for a San Francisco daily. “Lisa Matlock was born and raised in Sacramento,” he said in a tone that said he was reading his notes. “The mother left when she was five. She was raised by her father. Years before, he'd done time for
breaking and entering. He had a job making deliveries for a take-out restaurant at the time Rob DiCenza was killed. They lived pretty much hand-to-mouth.”

Griffin already knew the financial situation. He had learned it through a call received shortly after he'd crossed the Tappan Zee Bridge. With Duncan, he was homing in on elements of the story that might prove or disprove a connection to Heather Malone. “Is the father still alive?”

“No. He died of a heart attack two years after Lisa disappeared. The FBI staked out his grave for months, but she never showed.”

“Did the mother?”

“No. Not when he died, not when Lisa vanished. The FBI didn't have a clue about her at the time, still doesn't.”

“Are there siblings?”

“Nope.”

“Other relatives?”

“An aunt on the father's side. The Feds watched her for weeks after DiCenza died—twenty-four-hour surveillance, a tap on the phone. They did it again when the father died. If there was any contact between Lisa and her, they never knew it.”

“Did Lisa have friends?”

“At the time of her disappearance, her father said yes, but none came forward, certainly not to help her. The father claimed that someone reached them first.”

“Someone from the DiCenza family?”

“Thereabouts. Rob was a fast one, moving from one girl to the next. He apparently liked his women young and innocent.”

“So what was the relationship between Lisa and Rob?” Griffin asked.

“Initially, the DiCenza family said there wasn't one. After the murder, though, DiCenza friends came forward saying Lisa and Rob were arguing that night, which suggested that they knew each other. When word leaked that they were sexually involved, the family changed its story and started talking of extortion. They said Rob had dated the girl a time or two and was trying to end it, but that Lisa was shaking him down for money to keep quiet.”

“Keep quiet?” Griffin asked. “After a date or two? What would she have had to keep quiet about?”

“She was the daughter of an ex-con and she was poor—not the kind of girl his parents wanted, and since the family was headed for big visibility with the vice presidential nomination, she could have held Rob up for money. The family was uptight about its image.
Way
uptight.”

Griffen knew that, too. It was public knowledge and something that he had been reminded about by another source no less than twenty minutes before. “So public opinion said she was a gold digger?”

“Public opinion, egged on by family spin. She disappeared, which smacked of guilt, and the longer it went on, the worse it became. Then Charles DiCenza got the VP nod three weeks after his son was buried, and party operatives milked the sympathy factor for all it was worth. By then, Lisa Matlock would have been stoned if she'd suddenly appeared.”

“Your exit will be coming up in a mile,” Sage warned. “Please make a left at the end of the ramp.”

Griffin moved into the right lane. “Where'd you get this stuff?” he asked Duncan.

“The paper's archives.”

“Is there more?”

“I could find it. You didn't give me much notice.”

“Find it.”

“Anything in particular, or everything in general?”

Griffin didn't know. When he had started the drive, he had made one call, thinking he would get a little background information. One call had led to a second. Duncan had been the third. Griffin supposed it was the journalist in him, always curious. Then again, perhaps, the more he knew, the more he would have to offer when he reached Lake Henry.

So he told Duncan, “Everything in general, plus as many photographs of Lisa Matlock as you can get. Overnight them to me care of General Delivery at the Lake Henry Post Office. Do this, and we'll be even.” Several years before, in the course of writing one of the in-depth freelance pieces for which he was known, Griffin had come across a valuable tip to an adjacent story. He had given it to Duncan, who had needed the break.
When Duncan's career had taken an upward turn as a result, he had sworn that if he could ever do anything for Griffin, he only had to ask.

So Griffin asked now. Reaching his exit, he ended the call. He coasted down the ramp and turned left.

“Continue straight for five miles,” Sage prompted.

He glanced at the monitor as he completed the turn, trying to calculate any slowdowns he might encounter. He wanted to get to the courthouse before the whole thing ended, but this road was no highway. Granted, the lanes were generously wide, but there was only one in either direction. Five miles could easily take fifteen minutes.

He reached for the phone to call Poppy, thought twice and, instead, focusing on something with better odds for success, punched in a different number. This one belonged to Ralph Haskins, an old family friend whose skill as a private investigator had proven invaluable to Griffin's father over the years. Ralph was always pleased to hear from a Hughes. He was also totally aware of the breaking news from New Hampshire, which meant that Griffin didn't have to fill him in or give explanations when he asked for as much paperwork on Lisa Matlock as Ralph could find. Randy would have paperwork, but Randy's channels were public—and besides, out of pride alone, not to mention resentment, Griffin would love to best his brother in this. Ralph was his strongest hope. He worked behind the scenes, between the lines, and underground. He had a network that was unsurpassed, and had a way of getting information other people couldn't. Griffin knew that the smallest bit of intelligence gleaned from a medical record, school record, telephone or credit card bill might offer a clue.

Ralph hadn't been able to find Griffin's sister, Cindy, but then, she knew Ralph and knew how he worked, which made it easier for her to stay one step ahead. Perhaps because of his frustration with that, he was eager to help Griffin now.

Leaving him to it, Griffin ended the call and pressed the radio's scan button. Moments later, he was listening to the strongest of the local stations, going from one to another. They told him that the hearing was still in progress.

* * *

He parked the Porsche on a side street and was quickly hit by the cold when he climbed from the car. Pulling on a parka, he jogged past charming little homes whose eaves dripped with ice, over two blocks of packed snow to the center of town. He reached the courthouse just as the first of those who'd been inside pushed open the large granite-gray double doors and spilled out.

He didn't see Heather. Nor did he see Micah or Cassie. Those coming out looked angry, not a good sign to someone praying the whole thing would be dismissed there and then.

Feeling a sense of dread, he headed for the television camera closest to the door and positioned himself near the soundman. Within minutes, the correspondent emerged from the crowd, inserted the earpiece that she was handed, caught up the microphone, and, awaiting her cue, looked at the camera.

“You look good, Amber,” Griffin called.

Amber Abbott glanced at him in a moment's surprise, then grinned. “You, too, Griff. Doin' a story?”

“I don't know. Maybe. What happened?”

Eyes back on the camera, Amber adjusted the collar of her chic wool topcoat so that it didn't obscure her jaw. “She's being held without bail for thirty days.”

Griffin's heart fell. “Held?”

“Pending receipt of the governor's warrant from California.” Receiving her cue, Amber spoke to the camera. “Yes, Philip, the hearing here in West Eames has just concluded . . .”

Griffin moved away, having to snake through crowds that had closed in around the building. A part of him wanted to hide, thinking that
everyone would know him for the traitor he was, but the stronger part of him needed to know more.

He looked around for a familiar face, relieved to spot John Kipling, with his brown hair, close-cropped beard, and Sherpa jacket, coming out of the courthouse into the harsh winter sun. Griffin's relief faded, though, when he saw the furious look on John's face.

Seconds later, John's eyes met his. He had been seen. There was no turning back.

Fighting his way up the stairs against the crowd, Griffin extended a hand. He was relieved when it was met with goodwill, and quickly pushed aside his guilt. “How can they hold her? She's been a model citizen.”

John urged him back down the steps with the hitch of his chin. “Cassie argued that, but she didn't have a prayer of winning. Lisa Matlock went underground fifteen years ago. Odds say she'd do it again in a heartbeat.”

“You're assuming the woman in there is Lisa.”

“Not me,” John cautioned. “The judge, the prosecutor, and the FBI.
And
the DiCenzas,” he tacked on dryly. “Charlie DiCenza may have struck out as a vice presidential candidate, but he still has clout. Word has it he was brought into the loop long before anyone up here was, and he's been making calls. He wants his son's murderer caught and punished. Short of someone producing DNA evidence that proves Heather isn't Lisa, this outcome was a
fait accompli.
The hearing was over before it started. There was no way she was being released.”

“So is there DNA evidence?”

“No. There was never any reason to collect it. Lisa had no record.”

“Which raises the question of why she allegedly ran the guy down. She was eighteen years old. She was pretty and smart. She'd been accepted to Berkeley on scholarship. Is that someone who needed to resort to extortion?”

“I wouldn't think so,” John replied as they reached the bottom of the steps. Starting down the sidewalk, he shot Griffin a glance. “On scholarship? Was that in the papers?”