Hold Back the Dark (12 page)

“Of course.” Walter led the way down the corridor to his office.

Naturally, the guy had a corner office. Josh thought about his industrial-grade carpet-covered cube and stifled a sigh. Perhaps his mother was right and he should have gone into a different line of business.

“What can I tell you?” Carl said after they’d all sat down.

“To start with, can you think of anyone who might have wished Mr. Dawkin harm?” Elise asked.

Carl turned slightly to look at her. “What exactly do you mean?”

“Is there anyone who might have held a grudge against Mr. Dawkin? Anyone who was angry with him?”

Walter sighed. “The business climate is pretty cutthroat these days. There are any number of people who are jealous of our position in the industry, and a few more who might have been looking to take advantage of what they might have seen as deep pockets. But people angry enough to kill Orrin? And Stacey along with him? I can’t imagine.”

“We need names, Mr. Walter,” Elise said, her fingers laced in her lap, her voice respectful but very definite.

“Names?” Walter repeated as if unfamiliar with the term.

“Yes. Names of business associates who resented Mr. Dawkin’s success or had some sort of bone to pick with him. Names of competitors who are a little more cutthroat than the others. Names of disgruntled employees.”

Walter’s eyebrows went up a bit on the last. “Did Mr. Dawkin have some problem with a disgruntled employee, Mr. Walter?” Josh asked.

Walter leaned back in his big black leather chair and frowned. “Name me a firm that doesn’t have a disgruntled employee or two.”

“I’m sure everyone has them.
Not
everyone gets their head bashed in in their own living room. We need to check out everyone, Mr. Walter.” Elise’s voice never rose, but the steel in her tone was unmistakable.

“Including me?” Walter said, leaning forward.

“Do you have a reason for wanting Mr. Dawkin dead, Mr. Walter?” Josh kept his voice even, although his pulse began to pick up. There were two reasons for most murders: sex and money. Who better than a business partner to have a money motive for murder?

Walter shoved back from his desk. His face flushed scarlet. “Of course not! I was being facetious. Orrin was like a brother to me. I’m going to be lost without him.”

“Then you won’t mind telling us where you were on Tuesday evening,” Elise said pleasantly as she pulled out her notebook.

“I…I…wait a second. Let me think here.” Walter’s eyes darted back and forth between the detectives.

Elise smiled blandly, her pen poised over the notebook.

“I, uh, I worked here until six-thirty or so and then went to the gym. I stopped for a cup of coffee at a Starbucks near there. I go there all the time; they’ll probably recognize me and you can check with the gym. You have to swipe your membership card to go in.”

Elise scribbled it all down, along with the name and address of Carl’s gym and which Starbucks he went to.

“Now,” said Josh. “What about the names of those disgruntled employees and business associates?”

Walter began to list people and spell their names. There was nothing like being asked for your alibi to make giving up someone else’s name more palatable, Josh thought wryly.

“We don’t have particularly high turnover here, considering what this industry is like,” Carl said. “We’ve had a few people leave to go on to other opportunities who we would have been happy to keep. We’ve had a couple more move away after realizing what it costs to live out here. I don’t suppose you’re interested in any of those people.”

“Not really,” Josh said, keeping his eyes on Walter’s face. Most people had some kind of “tell” when they lied. It’s what professional poker players relied on and cops, too. Walter looked unhappy and uneasy, but he didn’t look like he was lying. There was no downward glance to the left. No nervous picking at his fingers or compulsive shuffling of papers on his desk.

“You want the dirt, then,” Walter said and shifted in his chair as if the plush leather had suddenly become too warm.

“If you feel like cutting to the chase, then yes, we want the dirt,” Elise confirmed.

“The only person we’ve let go where there’s really been bad blood was a young woman who worked on our administrative side. Her name was Doreen Hughes.” Walter looked out the window.

“Bad blood in what way?” This was finally getting interesting.

“Orrin had to fire her. It was quite unpleasant. He went through the trouble of firing her with cause. It’s not much fun, but financially for the company, it was the better decision.”

“And what was the cause?”

Walter steepled his fingers and looked at Josh over the top of them. “Doreen had a drinking problem. Serious enough that if she wasn’t drunk at work, she certainly reeked of booze. More than one of her coworkers noticed it. She was a bright young thing, one of those smart kids who hadn’t quite found her way. Orrin was encouraging her to go back to school. We have quite a generous tuition reimbursement program here.”

A bright young thing being taken under Dawkin’s wing? That had a familiar ring to it. “That was kind of him.”

“We consider it an investment in our future. Good people are hard to find, and we try to hold on to them.” Carl looked Josh directly in the eye.

The guy was just a little too sincere. There was something about true believers that always made Josh a little wary. “So what went wrong?”

“Well, like I said, the girl apparently had a drinking problem. It wasn’t too long before her work suffered. She’d come in late, take long lunches, that kind of thing. Then she’d go to Orrin and try to cover it up. In the end, we had to let her go. On her way out she made some…ugly accusations.” Walter’s gaze went back to the windows.

“What kind of accusations?” Josh asked, although he was guessing he already knew the answer to that question.

“Doreen claimed that Orrin had made improper advances to her and that when she’d refused him, he sabotaged her. She said she was going to bring a sexual harassment suit against the company.” Walter rubbed the furrow between his eyebrows with his thumb. “It was exactly the kind of publicity we did not need.”

“And?” Josh asked. They’d run Orrin and Stacey Dawkin’s names through the system. If any kind of case had been filed he’d have known about it already. Nothing had been filed except a complaint against a contractor three years earlier regarding the remodeling of the Dawkins’ bathroom.

“And we paid her some money to go away,” Walter said, his words tumbling out fast.

“A lot of money?” Elise asked, her head tilted to one side.

“I guess it depends on your version of a lot,” Walter answered with a rueful smile. “When it’s coming out of my pocket, it tends to look like a lot to me.”

“Could we have a ballpark figure?” Josh asked.

“Six figures,” Walter said. “Is that specific enough?”

That was serious money in Josh’s book. Very serious.

“We get the idea.” Elise glanced over at Josh and started to rise. That was his cue to ask any last questions he might have. He stood, too.

“Thank you for taking the time to talk with us,” Elise said.

As they were turning to leave, a young man came into the room. “Oh,” he said. “Dad, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you had someone in here.”

“That’s all right, Sean.” Walter motioned the young man in. “This is Detective Wolf and Detective Jacobs. They’re here to talk about Orrin and Stacey.”

The young man gulped. “Here? They don’t think anyone at Dawkin-Walter Consulting is involved, do they?” He glanced at Josh and then Elise and then back to Carl.

“No, of course not. They’re gathering information. Detectives, this is my son, Sean. He moved back to California and joined the firm about six months ago. He’s been working quite closely with Orrin on the administrative and financial side of the business.” Walter stepped over to his son and put his arm around his shoulders. The resemblance was striking. Sean had his father’s hair, his height, and his broad shoulders. He had the same slightly Slavic high cheekbones and chiseled chin. He was a looker, all right.

He definitely lacked his father’s self-assurance, though. Sean nodded at his father’s statement, but offered nothing of his own.

“Can you think of someone who might want to hurt Orrin or Stacey?” Elise asked Sean.

Sean stepped backward as if he’d been shoved. He glanced at his father, whose expression was one of polite interest, and didn’t say anything.

Carl said, “It’s okay, Sean. If you have something to tell them, by all means, do it now.”

Sean looked slowly away from his father’s face, first to Elise and then to Josh. “Nothing that I can think of.”

“If you think of something, we’d appreciate it if you’d give us a call.” Josh gave business cards to Sean and to Carl. “Anything at all. Even if it seems minor to you.”

When they were at the door, Josh remembered one more thing he wanted to ask about. Feeling way too Columbo-ish, he turned in the doorway. “One more thing: did either of you see Orrin or Stacey on that day?”

Carl gave his head a shake. “Orrin had been working from home quite a bit. We spoke on the phone a few times and e-mailed, but I didn’t actually see him.”

“How about you, Sean?” Josh asked.

“I, uh, I brought some papers over to him that day.”

“Really? Around what time?” That was interesting.

Sean licked his lips. “I’m not really sure. After lunch, I think.”

“And how did he seem?”

“Seem?” Sean looked so confused, Josh was starting to wonder if he spoke fluent English.

“You know, did he seem nervous? Like there was something on his mind?” he pressed.

“No. Not that I noticed. I mean, Orrin was a very intense person.” Sean glanced down to his left. “He always had something on his mind. He was always thinking about something. It’s part of what made Dawkin-Walter Consulting so successful. Orrin was always looking for an edge. But no, there didn’t seem to be anything worrying him in particular.”

Elise reiterated their request to call them if anything came up or they thought of anything, and they left.

Josh tossed Elise the keys and got into the passenger seat. It was her turn to drive. She got in, turned on the car, and cranked up the air conditioning to blow the warm air out of the car before she shut the door. “So I wonder what young Sean is lying about.”

“
W
e’ve got a footprint.” Clyde was nearly dancing by Josh’s cubicle. “A bloody one.”

“And it’s not ours? You’re sure of it?” The Dawkin place had been covered with footprints by the time the crime scene unit got there. It was nobody’s fault: the first officers on the scene had had no idea what they’d been walking into until they were already in the middle of it.

Clyde nodded. “Positive. I checked.”

“What about the guy who found them? Norchester? You sure it’s not his?” The man had hightailed it out of the Dawkin home as fast as he could, intent on making it out the door to puke. He wasn’t thinking about not disturbing a crime scene, and it would have been easy for him to track blood out.

“Not unless he was wearing shoes way too big for him,” Clyde said, clearly very happy with himself. “Dude’s a size nine, and even with just a partial—we’ve got a heel and part of the sole—this guy’s at least an eleven. I’d put my money on eleven and a half.”

“Great!” Elise said. She’d stood up in her cubicle the second Clyde had started talking and had come around behind him. “Anything specific about the shoe that’ll help us?”

“You’re the detectives,” Clyde said. “I’ll send you up a copy. See what you can do with it.”

“Thanks so much,” Elise said, her eyes narrowed.

Elise stayed in the entryway into Josh’s cubicle after Clyde walked away, drumming her fingers against the metal edging. “Told you it was a man. Not many chicks out there wearing men’s size eleven and a half shoes. I’m barely a men’s seven and a half.” She looked down at her long, elegant feet.

Josh leaned back in his chair. “One shoe print does not a perpetrator make.”

“But it means somebody besides Taylor was there to walk through the blood. If it wasn’t the perp, he still knows something he should be telling us. Who walks out of a house like that and doesn’t call the cops?” Elise’s fingers had picked up pace in their drumming.

Josh shot a rubber band at her hand, hitting her knuckle. “No doubt. I’m just sayin’ that I’m not getting all excited over a partial footprint. It
would
eliminate the kid, though.”

“That would be nice,” Elise said. “You eliminate our paperhanger yet?”

Josh sighed. He had indeed. Lois Bradley’s alibi with Joanne Crawley had checked out. So much for sewing this case up fast and easy. “She was in a math class at the community college from six-thirty to eight-thirty and then meeting with her study group until ten. Damn her.”

“It is truly astonishing, the nerve some people have. Imagine trying to better herself that way, and just when we’re trying to pin a double homicide on her, too.” Elise shook her head. “I’ve pieced together what I can of the Dawkins’ final night. As far as I can tell, Orrin never left the house that day. Stacey bought…” Elise paused and looked at her notebook. “Chicken breasts, couscous, some frozen vegetables, and two bottles of Chardonnay at approximately three-fifteen from the SaveMart on Elk Grove Boulevard.”

“Two bottles?” Josh asked, thinking about what Lois Bradley had said about Stacey Dawkin hitting the sauce.

Elise shrugged. “Maybe she was stocking up. Maybe she was going to sit in her living room and get quietly plowed in ladylike fashion. Maybe she was going to pour it in the tub and bathe in it.”

She was right; two bottles of Chardonnay meant nothing. “I don’t see anything there,” he said. Nothing in Stacey or Orrin’s last day sounded like it could have predicted the hideous way their night would end.

“Me neither,” Elise said. “One more thing, about Dr. Gannon…”

“Yes?” It wasn’t like his partner to be coy.

“I figured out why she’s so familiar.”

“Yeah? Why?” Josh sat up straighter.

“Remember the shrink who was attacked by one of her patients two years ago?”

“You’re kidding. That’s her?” Josh sat back in his chair.

“Mmm hmm. The guy stalked her. Found out when she’d be alone and tried to rape her.” Elise kept her voice flat and even.

“Who stopped him?”

“According to the file, it was her fiancé, a Danny Stannard.”

Josh wasn’t sure which he found more irritating: the fact that Aimee Gannon had a fiancé, or the fact that knowing she had a fiancé made his teeth clench. Why the hell had she kissed him like that if she had a fiancé?

“Apparently he kept calling her and she didn’t answer. He got worried and went to her office. He kept the guy from raping her, but the guy had beat her up pretty bad.”

Josh sighed. “What happened to the perp?”

“State mental hospital.”

“For how long?” Josh asked.

“He got out six weeks ago,” Elise said.

Elise’s cell phone rang. She flipped it open. “Jacobs here.” After a moment, she stood up a little straighter and looked over at Josh with her eyebrows raised. “We’ll be right there,” she said and snapped the phone shut.

“Where exactly will we be, and why?” Josh asked, already standing up.

“We’ll be downstairs talking to Ed, because he knows why the Dawkins were broke.”

Carl Walter whistled to himself as he walked out into the parking lot. Last night’s thunderstorm had blown through and left the air rain-washed and clean. God, it was good to live in California. If someone else had been with him, he might have remarked about what a lucky man he was. He’d act humble and grateful, as he knew he should act. Underneath though, Carl knew that people made their own luck. He certainly had.

His car was a case in point. He’s always wanted a vintage sports car. He’d had this one for more than ten years and he kept it spotless. That wasn’t luck. That was good planning and taking care of what needed to be taken care of. He whipped the handkerchief out of his pocket and rubbed a spot off the finish of his green Mercury Cougar. He never used the handkerchief except on the car. Really, blow your nose in something and then stick it back in your pocket to carry around all day? The amount of bacteria that would contain was disgusting. But his mother had always insisted that a gentleman carried a handkerchief, and Carl was damned if he was going to be anything but a gentleman. He carried it in his personal kit that he always kept in the breast pocket of his suit. The kit that helped him take care of his daily business without exposing himself too much to other people’s germs.

Carl got in the sports car and pulled out of the lot. Taking care of business in general was going to be a lot more difficult without Orrin. He’d never find anyone as simpatico to his way of thinking as Orrin had been. There were so few people of that caliber, so few people who thought the way he did and had the brains to put it into practice. Meeting Orrin had been like finding a long-lost brother and far more providential.

He did have Sean. That was some relief, but Sean was…weak, flawed. Carl blamed the boy’s mother. It certainly didn’t come from his gene pool; he came from a long line of strong men. Sean could probably fill the gap until Carl found someone he could trust in the CFO position, but not much more.

Carl cursed the circumstances that had brought this all about. Fate certainly dealt some harsh hands, but he’d handle it. If nothing else, he could always count on himself.

He turned the corner into his neighborhood. Sarah and Thomas would be waiting to have lunch with him. He knew that Sarah would already have lunch on the table by the time he walked in the door. She liked to please him and she knew that would make him happy. Finding her had also been providential luck. No, that wasn’t true. He’d searched a long time for a woman who was right for him. He never wanted to make the same mistakes he’d made in marrying Sean’s mother. That had been a disaster. He probably was lucky that she’d done no more than leave him and taken Sean with her. Having Sarah in his life was the result of Carl’s own hard work.

And little Thomas. He was on his mind nearly all the time. Such a sweet boy. Carl had high hopes for him. It was like getting a second chance to do things differently than he had with Sean. He’d learned from his mistakes. He was still winning the little boy’s trust right now, but he was making good progress, and so much more sweetness would come of it. Carl was sure of that. It was well worth putting in the work.

Carl sighed. Orrin had had no second chances. That girl of his was even weaker and more flawed than Sean. Carl couldn’t believe what he’d seen at that mental hospital the day before. It had taken everything not to physically recoil from Taylor as she rocked back and forth, practically drooling with all the drugs they’d pumped into her system. Carl doubted that she’d ever snap out of it. If she did, would she be able to piece together a cohesive narrative of what had happened that night? The kid had had a screw loose for years. Orrin hadn’t wanted to admit it and Stacey had tried to cover it up, but Carl knew. He had a special sense about those things. He could sniff out the weak ones.

He’d stop by Whispering Pines again this afternoon and see how she was doing. He’d keep a close watch on her progress, maybe send Sean to monitor it, too. That way, Carl would know what was coming and be able to direct it.

Yes, sending Sean was the way to handle it. Now that he knew what his plan would be, he felt much better. It was good to be in control. He hadn’t thought that he’d minded sharing the power with Orrin. He’d been happy with the way they’d divided the company, with Orrin taking care of the finances and Carl directing the technical end of things. Now, though, he was starting to realize that it might be even better with Orrin gone. He’d never say that out loud to anyone, of course. There were so few who would understand. But he knew the truth of it himself, and that was all that counted.

Carl pulled into his driveway and got out of the car, looking around the yard with a critical eye. The lawn service was supposed to have been there that morning. Had they slacked off on the mowing because of the rain? He’d measure later. You had to watch people every damn minute.

When Carl pulled open the front door, Thomas was in the family room watching that show about the boy aardvark. Sean had liked those books when he was a kid, too. “Hey, kiddo. What’s Arthur up to?” he asked.

“Losing a tooth,” Thomas said, looking up at Carl. “Is it time for lunch?”

“Just about.” Carl picked the little boy up, tossed him in the air, and blew a big raspberry on his tummy.

The child giggled in response. “Stop,” he squealed. “Stop! That tickles!”

“It does?” Carl roared. “Does this tickle?” He blew another raspberry.

“Yes! Yes! It does! Stop it! Stop it!” The little boy kicked his feet ineffectually, and Carl set the boy down.

“Hey, Dad,” a much deeper voice said from the hallway.

Carl hadn’t realized Sean would be here. It seemed like every time Carl was trying to spend time with Thomas, he’d turn around and see Sean watching. How long had he been standing there watching them now?

“Hi, Sean,” Carl said. “I’m glad you’re here. I was hoping you could stop by and check on Taylor today. I’m not going to have time and I want to make sure she knows we’re around.”

Sean nodded his assent, but there was something in his eyes that chilled Carl. He had seen it before when he was playing with Thomas and his older son was around. The briefest of shadows crossed Sean’s face when Carl paid attention to the little boy. It would only be for a second, then it would disappear. But for that brief second, Carl was afraid of his own son.

“Whatcha got, Ed?” Elise strolled into Ed’s crowded cubicle and, as usual, propped her hip on the desk.

“I got the reason your vic was leveraged up to his eyeballs, is what I’ve got.” Ed rocked his office chair onto its back legs and patted his chest with pride. His heavy-lidded eyes had a sparkle to them.

“Do tell,” Josh said, leaning up against the cube entry.

“Dude was a day trader,” Ed said, as if that explained everything.

“A what?” Elise asked.

“A day trader. He traded stocks. He’d keep ’em for a few hours, ride their momentum up—or, in Orrin’s case, down for the most part—and then sell.” Ed brought his chair down onto the floor.

“Is that legal?” Elise asked.

“Yeah. I mean, there are rules, which it looks like your guy was a little dicey on, but nothing that would have interested the SEC. His problem was he got stuck with some margin calls.” Ed shook his head like a teenager’s parents shake their heads over a speeding ticket.

Elise drummed her fingers. “What the hell is a margin call?”

“Say you bought some securities with borrowed money,” Ed began.

“Borrowed from where?” Elise cut in.

Ed looked up at Elise. “That’s an interesting question and I’ll get to that in a minute, but I can only explain one thing at a time.”

Elise sighed. “Fine. Go ahead,” she said, still drumming her fingers.

“Okay. Let’s pretend that you bought some securities with borrowed money. Then those securities tanked and their value dropped below a certain point. The broker might make a margin call and force you to deposit money into the account to bring it up to a certain level.” Ed looked over at Josh, who nodded that he was following the explanation.

“But if you borrowed the money to buy the securities in the first place, where would you get even more money to deposit into the account?” Elise wasn’t drumming her fingers anymore.

“Therein lies the rub, sweetheart.” Ed smiled sadly. “You’d have to borrow more to cover the margin. Then because you were already in over your head, maybe you’d borrow even more to make more investments, to try to come back from your losses.”

“This is starting to sound like those guys who end up losing their houses at blackjack tables,” Josh said.

“The similarities are striking,” Ed said. “Some of the government Web sites post a quiz to see if you have a gambling problem on their day trading pages.”

Elise looked over at Josh. “Remember those photos in the hallway of the house? All those photos of Orrin skydiving and rock-climbing and scuba diving?”

What Josh remembered was watching Aimee Gannon stand in front of the photos in a pair of slacks that cupped her ass in a way that made him jealous of the fabric, but she had a fiancé. She should have worn a ring. A woman should make it clear that she was taken. It was just plain cruel to let a man dream. “I remember.”