Buried Secrets Can Be Murder: Charlie Parker Mysteries, Book #14 (The Charlie Parker Mysteries) (15 page)

“Do you know what the vehicle looks like?” Ramirez asked.

I’d ridden in it yesterday and I still couldn’t recall exact details. A generic rental in some light color, maybe white or silver.

He consulted a page he’d brought with him and started down one of the long rows of vehicles. Apparently there was some kind of numbering system that wasn’t obvious to the casual visitor. When his pace slowed I pointed to a cream-colored Ford sedan.

“I think that might be it.”

He looked at the note again and nodded. “Yeah. It’s got the Alamo rental sticker on it. Gotta be the one.”

As we approached the passenger side, I noticed the car had a bashed quarter panel on the right rear. Minor. It hadn’t even touched the tire. We circled the rear end of the car. Along the left side a long scrape dented both the back passenger’s and driver’s doors. The windows on that side were broken out. Otherwise, the car seemed undamaged.

“You sure this is the one?” Ron asked. “It doesn’t look that bad.”

My thought exactly. I’d really expected to see something that had rolled over and was completely mangled.

Ramirez looked at the report. “The officer on scene notes that it was a hit and run. Another driver observed a vehicle swerving out of control, going into the lane of Mr. Flowers’s car and hitting the rear. Mr. Flowers held it fairly straight but the force pushed the Ford against the guard railing. That’s what caused the damage to the entire left side.”

“But—?”

“He notes that the victim’s head must have swung outward through his broken window and come in contact with one of the upright metal posts of the guard rail.”

I stared at the driver’s missing window. There was blood on the door right below it.

“The victim’s injuries were to the head, and the man was deceased at the scene. The medical investigator in Albuquerque has the body and will determine official cause of death. Their office can tell you more. All I have is what our officers on scene reported.” He put on the sympathetic face he’d been trained to use with families.

As if he’d divined my next question, Ramirez spoke again. “We haven’t located any next of kin for Mr. Flowers. That, and Kent Taylor’s vouching for you guys, is why we’re able to release his personal effects to you.”

I circled the car once again. A smear of dark blue paint attested to the collision that had set the whole tragic thing in motion.

“Will you pursue the hit-and-run driver?” I asked Ramirez.

“Of course. But we don’t have a lot to go on. The eyewitness’s car was too far back to get a plate number. We’ve got word out to all the body shops, though. The owner lost a headlight so they’ll have to get the work done soon. Unless they’ve got connections with a chop shop or someone’s brother’s garage operation, we’ll get a report on it.”

I got the feeling that Ramirez didn’t at all discount the under-the-table operations he’d mentioned. A drunk driver who had caused a fatal crash would certainly look for a way to hide the evidence.

The drive home went pretty silently, Ron and I both lost in our thoughts. When we got back to the office he dropped me off, saying he would go down to the Office of the Medical Investigator and see what he could find out. Neither of us expected the results to be different from what we’d learned in Santa Fe, but it never hurt to dot the i’s.

Upstairs in my office with a fresh cup of tea at hand, I opened Chet’s briefcase and dumped the bag of personal items on my desk. A ring of keys, some coins, a couple of wrapped peppermints, a ballpoint pen and his little spiral notebook where I’d seen him write notes. His wallet held less than a hundred dollars in cash, three credit cards, his police ID with “Retired” imprinted on it, driver’s license, an insurance card and a few business cards. None of these seemed related to our case.

Everything in the briefcase was about the Donovan case, from the notes on our conversation with Boyd—hard to believe it was only yesterday—to the visit with the juror Anna Vine. There was a list of all the jurors from the trial. I had a feeling that might come in handy at some point.

What we were missing—those huge gaps in our knowledge of the case—would be files and possible evidence Chet had gathered. And the only way I could think of to get them would be to go to Seattle.

I sighed and snapped the briefcase shut.

Chapter 16

I love the Pacific northwest. I really do. All the green is a palette of freshness for those of us from dry climates. But when that blast of humid December air shot straight through my clothing and flesh and went deeply into my bones I nearly ran right back into the terminal at Sea-
Tac
so I could beg for a return flight. We’re used to clear blue sky and sunshine to go with our winter temps.

Ron caught my panicky look and shook his head. He flagged down a cab and before I knew it we were roaring toward the city, heading for the address on Chet’s business card. It turned out that Suite 412 was really Apartment 412 and the building was located in a pleasant area near a park full of huge trees, a place that would have been appealing on a day when the frigid wind didn’t threaten to rip your face off.

We used Chet’s keys to let ourselves into the lobby and then into his apartment. It was tidy enough, for a bachelor pad. The TV screen was big, the recliner chair looked comfy. Beyond that, what do most guys need, really? Chet had the added comforts of books on shelves, a neatly made bed in the one bedroom, and a desk in the corner that appeared fairly well organized. The fridge held white take-out containers, a bottle of ketchup, a carton of milk. At least there weren’t food wrappers or dirty dishes lying about.

I stood in the middle of the tiny kitchen, feeling a little tentative. It was strange being in the home of a man who’d become a friend, knowing that he would never come back there. I felt as if I should at least clean out the fridge and call someone to deal with the furniture and such. But we were here for a purpose—to find Chet’s case files and retrieve the information we would need to continue working it. Period.

“I’ll take the living room,” Ron said, “if you want to get the desk back there in the bedroom.”

We had each brought an empty suitcase. I wheeled mine into the adjoining room, sat in Chet’s large swivel chair and pulled out the first file. It contained receipts for paid bills. After studying a few of them I realized it could take me days to determine what was personal and what was business. We would get one shot at this and I knew I better grab anything that could be remotely connected. If the personal stuff ended up being someone else’s responsibility we could always forward it along. I ended up emptying the two drawers into my suitcase and discovered that the bag was probably going to be over the airline’s weight limit.

“How is your search coming along?” I asked Ron. He sat on a stool he’d pulled up to the shelving that held an MP3 player docked to a tiny speaker system. He seemed to be thumbing through a stack of newspapers on one of the bookshelves.

“Just checking to see if any of these papers are relevant to the case,” he mumbled.

I noticed that he’d only tossed a couple of small items into his bag. I suggested we divvy up the paperwork between the two suitcases and he nodded absently.

Back in the bedroom I rearranged things more equitably. With the drawers empty I scanned the rest of it. Taking the laptop computer was a no brainer so I unplugged it from the small printer and wound up the power cord. This thing could be a treasure trove.

Small cubbyholes lined one side of the desk and I prowled through them. A calendar caught my eye when I saw that Chet regularly made notes on the little page-a-day sheets. Of similar interest were an address book and two more of those pocket-sized spiral notebooks. There were two checkbooks. Got ’em. Most of this smaller stuff could probably fit into my purse. A photo fell to the floor when I pulled the notebooks from their cubby. Chet, looking much younger with dark hair and his police uniform, stood with his arm around a teenaged girl. From their identical smiles I knew they had to be related. On the back was written in a looping script:
Dad, remember this day? Love, Shayna.

So there was someone, a next of kin to be found and notified. I left the photo on the desk, making a note to tell someone back at the New Mexico State Police, in case they hadn’t located her yet. And I wrote a brief note to Shayna, letting her know where her father’s files and computer had gone, promising we would return them as soon as we could.

I glanced at my watch. Our flight would leave in three hours. Just another minute, I decided, to take a peek at the most recent entries in Chet’s calendar. I leaned back in the chair and opened it. On the date he’d met us in San Diego, Chet’s calendar showed notations for the meetings he’d scheduled. He had the name of Anna Vine, the juror I’d met in Belen, written down. As meticulous as this was, I decided to look ahead.

The edge of a sticky note showed from the page for December 31 and I realized with a start that was tomorrow.
After the holidays
, the note said. Then there were a couple of names. I recognized one as the Donovan’s next door neighbor, the one who had testified in court that she heard the children playing in the yard. I remembered Anna Vine’s impression of that testimony.

Ron was still hunched over the stack of old newspapers when I went back into the living room. How can a man spend so much time on something so boring?

“I think we better change our flight,” I said. “Today is going to be our best chance to see things firsthand and talk with people here.” I told him about finding the list of jurors and the impressions Anna Vine had of the neighbor’s testimony.

“This will be our one opportunity to visit the Donovan house and to talk with people.”

He agreed. In a couple of minutes he’d done some little thing on his fancy phone and told me he’d switched our flight to another one in the morning.

“So, if we’re going to make good use of our time here, we better get busy.”

He found the number for a rental car agency that would deliver to the apartment. While he arranged that, I went back to the bedroom, organized the bags and zipped them shut. After a little discussion about getting a hotel room we decided we might as well stay in Chet’s apartment. Ron offered, only semi-graciously, to take the sofa and leave me the bed, so I located some spare sheets and made it up. It was weird enough sleeping in the bed of a man who’d so recently died, but to be on the sheets he used just a few nights ago . . . no, I couldn’t do it.

By the time the rental car arrived I’d found the addresses we needed. The new auto came with a GPS so I programmed our first stop while Ron played with the controls. Within thirty minutes we were cruising past the former Donovan house.

Most of the houses on the block in this upper middle class neighborhood were two-story, the kind with perfect lawns and full-grown trees. In summer I imagined colorful flowers bordering the walks and kids riding bicycles. Now, most of the places were buttoned up against the cold. Lights shone from occasional windows but not at Boyd and Tali Donovan’s old place. Although it didn’t appear abandoned, there was nothing welcoming about the house either. While other homes sported wreaths on the doors and lighted Christmas trees in windows, this one sat alone and dark.

Come on, Charlie, you’re letting your imagination go wild. A house is a house.
I consulted Chet’s list and directed Ron to pull over at the next house to the east, the neighbor who had testified in court about the kids playing.

I wasn’t sure if Chet had talked to this woman in recent times or whether their encounters were cordial or antagonistic. Had she been a friend of Tali’s or merely a snoopy neighbor? I chewed my lip for a second, trying to decide my best approach. The freelance journalist ruse had worked pretty well with Tali’s sisters, but the Seattle witnesses provided a bunch of unknown factors. By the time we stepped out of the car I’d decided to just go with the truth.

Nelda Richards must have been watching from behind her sheer curtains because she opened the door less than two seconds after we rang the bell. She was taller than I, closer to Ron’s six feet if I had to guess, with gray hair pulled into a tight knot at the back of her neck. She wore gray sweats and a purple turtleneck that hung loosely on her thin frame. She greeted us with raised eyebrows, ready to reject whatever religion she was sure we were peddling.

Ron gave the quick explanation—that we were from Albuquerque and had recently begun working with a retired detective who was trying to help Boyd Donovan locate the children.

Nelda shifted her weight from one foot to the other before agreeing to let us come inside to talk. Her face gave away nothing.

“You have a beautiful home,” I told her, looking for some common ground.

In truth, the place would never make it into a decorating magazine and Nelda Richards knew it. A television in another room sent bursts of female laughter and enthusiastic chatter our direction. We had interrupted a favorite show and Nelda was impatient to get back to it.

“We’re just going over some of the facts in the case,” I said. “We don’t want to take up much of your time.”

“Good. I said what I had to say in court.” She didn’t offer us seats.

“I know. We were just hoping that maybe something else has come to mind since then. Maybe some little thing you remembered after the trial was all over?”

She gave a slight shake of the head.

I pulled out Chet’s little notebook and pretended to consult it. Since a visit to Nelda had been on his calendar for today, there were no notes yet.

“You testified that you heard the Donovan children playing in their back yard that day. It was December, and frankly I’ve noticed that it’s pretty cold outside this time of year. Didn’t it seem odd that they stayed out there so long?”

“I didn’t think about it. I can’t see over the fence between the two properties. Plus, there are tall shrubs between us. I assumed the children would be wearing warm clothing. But I couldn’t actually see them.”

“How long would you say they were out there?”

Her mouth pursed in an impatient little move. “I don’t know. Fifteen minutes? Twenty? I heard them when I muted my TV during some commercials and went to the kitchen for a cup of tea. Then I went back to my show. When the next commercials came on I carried my empty cup to the sink. I heard the noises from the Donovan place both times I was in the kitchen.”

“Even with your doors and windows closed?”

“You sound like a damn lawyer. They try to pin a person down that way. But I’ve already been through this. Yes. Even with my windows closed. I heard the sounds of the kids playing.”

“Were you pretty good friends with the Donovans?”

“Not especially. I enjoy peace and quiet in my home and I don’t care much for children. As long as they stayed in their own yard and didn’t run through my flowers, they didn’t bother me too much.”

“Before Tali and Boyd had kids, did you socialize much with them then?”

“There’s a neighborhood block party every year and we all went to it. Tali asked for my apple pie recipe and I gave it to her. She was more interested in clothes and shopping and lunch out with friends her own age—things like that. I’m more of a homebody. It turned out we didn’t have a lot in common.”

“Was there ever any fight between you, an angry incident of any sort?” Ron asked.

Nelda stared him down. “Of course not. We are civilized people.”

I came up with a couple more little questions about the comings and goings of the Donovans but she gave only one-word answers and clearly wanted to get back to whatever was happening so raucously on television in the other room.

That seemed our cue to leave.

Out front, I told Ron about the earlier conversation with Chet and what the juror Anna Vine had said about Nelda’s testimony and Tali’s reaction to it.

“Even though they weren’t really chummy, I didn’t sense any animosity. Did you?”

“Not between the neighbors,” he said. “She didn’t exactly warm to
us
.”

“Understandable. She’s been through this for more than five years and is probably sick of the questions.”

As anyone would be. But I still groped with Tali’s reaction, as Chet had when he’d heard about it. What unspoken message had passed between this witness and the defendant during that trial?

I watched the Donovan house for a few minutes. No lights inside, no sign of activity.

“I need to have a look,” I told Ron. Before he could stop me I walked up to the front door of the white house with its blue shutters. I gave one press of the doorbell and when no one answered I walked around to the side where I’d noticed a gate. Ron followed.

Knowing that Nelda Richards couldn’t see us, we let ourselves into the back yard. The children’s swing set and sandbox that had been described during the trial were gone. The new owners had done nothing to improve the property, other than removing those sad reminders. The lot was bordered on the sides by a wooden fence. Chain link crossed the back, affording a view into the woods beyond. The gate through which Tali claimed her children were taken was still there. I walked toward it.

The gate, like the back fence, was chain link and closed with a simple hasp. A rusted lock hung from it, non-functional. Could it be the same lock that was here five years ago? Beyond the fence, a path led along the backs of other neighboring properties. A few yards to the east of the Donovan’s property line, another path headed into the thick woods that backed against the small neighborhood. The woods where Tali claimed the black-clad man had taken her kids.

I walked back toward the house and then turned to look at the gate once more, to see what Tali might have seen that day. While it was possible to see out the gate, the view was limited and the path into the woods wasn’t visible until I edged my way to the right. I tried to imagine seeing a person running away. It would be possible if he was fairly tall. The better view of the path would actually be had from Nelda’s back yard, assuming she had a similar gate on her property.