Case Closed (3 page)

“How did they respond to being caught?”

“Oh, I scared Harold half to death. He was so startled to see me, he actually gave a little scream. And he looked very shaken. I mean, he really couldn't explain himself, could he? He moved it back in—which wasn't all that easy, the garage was packed with Derek's things and all the stuff he had brought home from the company. But Harold managed to do it, then he tried to tell me that he and his father had talked things out and that all was fine, and he was just going to take back all of the things his dad had brought out here.

“Evelyn has always been bold and brassy, and while I was telling him that I'd have to hear from his father before I could let them take anything, she acted as if she'd just as soon clobber me with those boxes.

“Harold stepped between us and told her to let him handle things, that she had caused enough problems. I stopped her from taking the boxes with her—she was unhappy about that. But she set the boxes down on the drum and went out to the van.

“Harold argued with me some more, then I explained to him that I separately owned most of the company and could sell it out from under him—something that seemed to surprise him, so I suppose Derek hadn't let him in on that little detail. So he gave up. I made him lock up the garage and give me the keys he had used to get into it. I told him to leave.”

“Did he?”

“Yes, but not before he hinted threats. I told him that I had already arranged things so that if anything happened to me, the company would be sold and the proceeds donated to the United Negro College Fund, and everything in my trust would go to it as well. He was a bit of a racist, so that cooked his goose.”

“Had you made that arrangement?”

“Yes. It's an excellent cause. Besides, you don't think I'd lie to my own son, do you?”

“No, ma'am, I don't. Did you ever reconcile with him?”

“Oh yes, but not immediately. In fact, at first, things got worse. When I didn't hear from Derek after about four days, I became worried. He had stayed away a couple of days at a time, but never longer than that. I thought he was probably especially angry with me, but when he hadn't been home in five days, I called Harold to ask if his father had been in touch. He seemed upset and said, ‘Sorry to be the one to tell you this, but he's left you. He's run off with Marlena Gray.' ”

“Did you believe him?”

“Not for a minute. Impossible! It wasn't Derek's way. Even if he had left me, he wouldn't leave his company. When Harold told me that he hadn't heard from him since Halloween, I was very worried. I became quite bold. I looked up Marlena Gray in the phone book, but when I called the number, it was disconnected. There was an address listed for her in the phone book, so I drove over to her apartment. It was in a big building, but I worked up my nerve and knocked. No one answered the door. I kept knocking. Eventually the building manager came by—he was making his rounds and heard me knocking, so he came over to ask if I was interested in renting the apartment. When I told him I was looking for Miss Gray, he told me Marlena had moved.”

“When?”

“That's what I asked. He said, ‘Halloween. No notice, so she kissed her security deposit good-bye, but I guess her rich boyfriend is going to take care of that.' He told me that she had left so many of her belongings behind, the place could be rented furnished. Then to top everything off on a perfectly horrible day, he said, ‘Say, you aren't her mother or anything like that, are you?'

“I was happy to tell him no, but I was thoroughly discouraged. The police later told me that her suitcases, clothing, and personal items were missing from the apartment, and that a neighbor had heard her talking with someone in the afternoon, and the door opening and closing. That further convinced Detective Pointe that she had left with Derek.”

“What about Derek's car? Is it missing, too?”

She shook her head. “It was found parked near Union Station in Los Angeles, but no one remembers seeing them board a train.”

“When did you call the police to report that Derek was missing?”

She stood, went over to a telephone in a small alcove and opened the built-in drawer beneath it. She brought out three clothbound journals and handed them to him.

“I wrote down everything I could remember about those weeks, from Derek discovering the problem at the company, Harold and Evelyn's break-in, and so on. I have listed all of Derek's banking and credit card information, a physical description of him, a list of his hobbies and interests, where his dental records can be found, and even his blood type. I've logged all my calls, with the date, time, who spoke to me, what they said, and so on.”

“I want to look through these, but tell me the short version of what happened.”

“Everyone believed my husband and I had an argument, and he ran off with his mistress. The police talked to three friends of Marlena Gray, and all of them said that she had called them on Halloween, excited, saying good-bye, telling them she and Derek planned to just disappear in a way that my ‘fancy lawyers' couldn't do anything about. Derek and Marlena wouldn't leave a trail, they'd just go out of the country, using cash Derek had been squirreling away for years, hoping to escape me. And I would be ‘screwed over,' as she put it, because I wouldn't be able to touch his assets for at least seven years, and maybe by then he'd divorce me.”

“Wow.”

She smiled wryly. “Yes. Wow. Harold and Evelyn claimed he'd told them the same thing. Halloween was on a Saturday, and although Derek and Evelyn admitted that he had met them at the factory, they claimed he did so to tell them that he was running away with his mistress. He had supposedly been secretive, but told them that much of his plans because he didn't want them to worry about him.”

She shook her head. “Fools. I showed them that even with Derek unavailable, I could do things with the company. I fired both of them. I had the place searched, looking for some clue to Derek's whereabouts. That came to nothing. I rehired the accountant. He still runs the company and does a fine job of it.”

“I'm kind of surprised you were able to patch things up with your son after all of that.”

“We never did so completely, but things did improve. Harold and Evelyn ran out of money, and wanted to make peace. I agreed to talk to Harold, and to help him out, on the condition that he would not mention Derek to me. I wouldn't let him come here—I met him in town and had this place watched while we went out to a restaurant for lunch. Sure enough, while we were having lunch, Evelyn tried to break in. I nearly had her arrested for it, but in the end I was so tired of legal hassles I just let her know that she wouldn't get away with it a second time.”

“Did Harold seem to know about her plan to break in?”

“No, he seemed angry and embarrassed. I didn't know if he was acting or if that was what he genuinely felt, though. This goes back to why we never completely worked things out. I didn't trust my own son. It's one thing to think your child has some wrongheaded ideas. Or to have a clash of personalities. These things happen in families. But every time I met him, I kept thinking that he had probably killed his father, and that the proof was somewhere in these boxes, or out in the garage. I gave him more than enough money to live on, but at the same time I had all those locks put on the front door and an alarm system installed on the house. Still, I knew if they ever really wanted in here, they would probably find a way.”

“I'm sorry you had to fear him.”

“Mostly I feared Evelyn, but yes, him as well. Suspecting a family member in this way is poisonous. It long ago deadened a part of me toward my son, and no mother should experience that, but plenty do. We tried to find a way, especially not long before he died. We were never again as close as we once were, though. Then late last year he suddenly became ill and died. Kidney failure. Evelyn is supposed to benefit from a large insurance policy, but my understanding is that the insurance company has some questions about his death.”

He glanced up to see Bear getting out of the car.

Frank held the journals toward her. “Would you be willing to make copies of these for me?”

She hesitated, then said, “You may take them with you.”

“I don't—”

“I have a confession,” she said. “I was hoping you would be the one who responded today.”

He didn't hide his confusion. “What?”

“I follow any news about the Bakersfield Police Department very closely. I read about the murder at the trailer park. That you were the one who didn't take things at face value. I read about the indictment of Chief Cross—”

“Mrs. Sarton, please don't think all that happened because of me. A seasoned homicide detective was kind enough to listen to a rookie. It was his case, not mine. As for the former chief, I shouldn't even be talking about that, and he's innocent until proven guilty. A case has been brought against him, and if that makes you happy, there are detectives and investigators from the state attorney general's office who get that credit. A newspaper reporter found the tapes. It's nothing to do with me, really. People have been working on this for longer than I've even been an officer. In fact, I should leave these here and ask a detective to come by and talk to you. If I take them, I have to check them into evidence, and . . . and—”

“Say no more. I understand that the cleanup of the department is still under way.” She sighed. “Well, it was worth a try, and you've listened to me longer than anyone else in the police department has. Thank you for that.”

It irritated him. He didn't want to promise her he would be back, because she probably wouldn't believe him. And who could blame her? But what more could he do?

He heard Bear knocking on the door. She went to answer it. He followed her. Bear was probably ready to make him run behind the squad car.

As he passed the boxes, and thought of the overfull garage, he found himself thinking of Jimmy Chao's story. “Mrs. Sarton!”

She turned back to him.

“Have you gone through these boxes or looked through the ones in the garage?”

“No. I haven't touched anything. I haven't been in my own garage since the night I made Harold put that drum back. Not to make you think I'm another Miss Havisham, but little has changed in here since that day. When a person is missing, even if you know in your mind that most likely they are dead, your heart tells you to hope. It causes you to become superstitious, to want not to change anything, not to send any signal to the universe at large that you are leaving the missing one behind and moving on—one moment, Officer Bradshaw!”

This last was in response to much louder knocking, the type that says you don't want things to escalate to the next level.

When she unlocked the last lock and opened the door, Frank spoke before Bear could say anything. “We need to check something in the garage.”

Bear stared at him for a moment, then said in the tone you use to calm a maniac, “All right—”

“The garage!” Mrs. Sarton said. “I . . . I—”

“You trust me,” Frank said, “or you don't.”

She took a resolute breath. “Let me get the keys.”

She went back to the drawer beneath the telephone.

As they walked down the driveway, Bear signaled to him to let Mrs. Sarton get ahead of them, and when she was out of earshot, asked, “Mind filling me in? I don't want to trouble you, you understand, but—”

So Frank summarized as quickly as he could.

“Okay, but why are we going into the garage?”

“When she surprised her son on Halloween, what if Harold wasn't taking a fifty-five-gallon drum out? What if he was placing one in here instead?”

Bear shuddered, then said, “Might be another stinker. God, I hate summer.” He fished his keys out of his pocket and handed them to Frank. “Run to the car and get two pairs of gloves and the camera. You have your flashlight?”

“Yes!” Frank said, insulted.

“I assume nothing. You would benefit from the same philosophy.”

By the time Frank came back, Bear was working on a heavy padlock that was fastened through a hasp and staple, the second of two locks that secured the wooden carriage-style doors.

“The night you caught your son and daughter-in-law in here,” Bear asked Mrs. Sarton, “were they using flashlights or were the overhead lights on?”

“The overhead lights were on.”

“Hmm.” He kept concentrating on the lock. Just when Frank thought he should offer to run back to the car for the bolt cutters, the padlock made a satisfying click and released.

“I thought for sure I was going to break the key off in that thing,” Bear said. “All right. Nobody steps into the garage but me, understood?”

Frank and Mrs. Sarton nodded.

Bear pulled the doors open, and sunlight flooded into the packed garage. Stepping inside wasn't really possible—there was about a foot of cleared space that allowed access to the light switch, but that was about it. Bear left the lights off. The sunlight allowed him to take lots of photos of the front of the garage without using a flash.

When he had satisfied himself that he had taken enough of them, he asked, “Which drum?”

There were three rows of black fifty-five-gallon drums near the front of the garage.

“I'm not sure,” she said shakily.

Bear stooped to read labels. “Most of these are formaldehyde.”

“Used to make particleboard furniture,” she said.

“You said Evelyn put a stack of boxes on top of the one Harold had moved,” Frank said. There were several drums that had boxes on top of them, but only one of those was in the front row. He pointed that one out. “This one?”

“I think so. I can't really remember, but . . . I don't remember Harold moving the boxes after she set them down. I'm sorry, I was focused more on Harold and Evelyn than I was on things in the garage.”