In Plain Sight (6 page)

Joel Goodwin got up and walked around the glass desk. He introduced himself, as did his visitors. He motioned for them to take a seat in two low-slung, furry-looking, black chairs that faced his desk. He sat back down and leaned forward. “Miss Warren said you’re here to claim the prize. If you’re referring to the prize for information on the model whose picture we ran in the current edition, I’m sorry to tell you that was a big mistake on our part. We’re retracting it all in next week’s edition. As much as I hate to admit it, we were scammed. I am, however, authorized to give you a free year’s subscription to the paper if you fill out this form,” he said, sliding two single sheets of paper across his shiny see-through desk.

“Well, that’s not fair. What do you mean you were scammed? A paper like yours! I was counting on taking a vacation with that money,” Kathryn snarled. Nikki worked her face into an expression of disgust.

“We even brought our proof, and we came all the way from Delaware, and we didn’t come this far for a free subscription to your paper. We acted in good faith, so you need to pay us,” Nikki said.

“It wasn’t a valid story, ladies. Like I said, we were scammed, and we’re going to be making a sincere apology in the next edition.”

“Who said you were scammed? How did you find that out? How do we know you aren’t lying to us because you just don’t want to pay us? Don’t go thinking we’re stupid, Mr. Goodwin. We can go to the Attorney General and a real paper like the
Post
and tell them all about this. This is fraud! We want our money,” Kathryn snarled again.

Goodwin worked his fingers under his collar, and the girls could see he was starting to sweat despite the fact that the room was ice-cold.

“Look, ladies, I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. We pulled the story. Because there is no story. I can’t help you. How about a two-year subscription?”

Nikki laughed. “Nope! How did you find out you were scammed? You must have thought you had a story last week when you put that model’s name on the front page. Tell us what changed, and maybe we’ll let you off the hook. I said maybe,” Nikki said, menace ringing in her voice.

Goodwin sighed. These two were trouble, he could smell it. Common sense told him to up the free subscription to five years and get them out of the office as quickly as possible, but one look at the tall, mouthy one, and he knew that wasn’t going to work.

“Look, two days ago, right after the picture ran, two men from the government showed up here and told me to pull it. That’s the beginning and the end of it. That’s all I can tell you. How about a five-year subscription?”

Kathryn laughed in his face. She looked at Nikki, who nodded. At the same moment, both women reached into their handbags and pulled out their gold shields. They leaned halfway across the desk to make sure Goodwin could read the fine print on the infamous shields. “Talk!”

Goodwin turned pasty white. He licked at his lips and struggled to say something. “What do you people want from me? I told those two men everything I know.”

“What two men? Be specific. Did they have ID?” Nikki demanded.

“Lady, men like the two who came here do not need to
show
ID. They are their own ID. Their looks, and their demeanor, said it all. They talked into their goddamn sleeves. Who does that? Secret Service, that’s who. They looked like twins. Brush-cut hair, aviator glasses, Hugo Boss suits, polished shoes, and a bulge under their jackets. They were packing heat. They simply and politely asked for the file and for the name of the tipster. I gave it to them after they told me they could shut this paper down in the blink of an eye. Let me tell you something, dark glasses or not, I knew they meant it; I didn’t have to see their eyes.

“Why are you here? Don’t you people talk to each other? What else can I tell you?”

“Did you give them Miss Petrie’s name?” Kathryn asked.

“Yes, but I called her the minute they left. She’s given me some good stuff over the past few years. I figured I owed her that much. I told her to split,” Goodwin said defiantly. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You paid her sixty-six thousand dollars for the picture and whatever she told you, right?”

“Since you already know all that, why are you asking me again? The answer is yes. The check cleared the moment we confirmed the info was legit. She was . . . is to get another sixty-six thousand dollars if we managed to get the after-surgery picture. She said she was almost positive she could get her hands on it. No, I do not have it, no, she did not get it. At least as far as I know, she did not get it. That’s all I can tell you.”

“You said the two men were Secret Service. Are you basing that on anything other than the fact that Secret Service agents wear sleeve mikes?”

Goodwin thought about it for a moment. He shook his head. “Just my own personal opinion. Maybe I watch too much TV. Look, everyone in this town knows that guy Lincoln Moss is married to the model on the front page. He didn’t want her picture splashed all over a tabloid, so he sent the President’s goons here. That’s my feeling. Can I prove it? Hell no I can’t. It’s done, the retraction is ready to go.

“Oh, wait a minute, there is one other thing. The day after those men were here, a messenger came by with a letter. Inside was a check for sixty-six thousand dollars drawn on the Royal Bank of Scotland. Pam told me earlier the check cleared this morning.”

“So, you’re good with all this?” Nikki asked, the lawyer in her surfacing. “By that I mean you’re okay with someone’s dictating to you what you print in your paper. Aren’t you up on your First Amendment rights, and all that freedom-of-the-press stuff, Mr. Goodwin?”

“I think I value peace of mind and nights that I can sleep and not worry about someone out there possibly, I say possibly, trying to do me harm. In the scheme of things, that model, and did she or didn’t she have plastic surgery, mean nothing to me compared to my own well-being. Call me selfish. I don’t care. Does that answer your question about First Amendment rights and freedom of the press?”

Nikki and Kathryn stared at Goodwin with cold, unblinking eyes. Nikki toyed with the gold shield she was holding in her hand. Seeing what she was doing, Kathryn spit on hers and then proceeded to shine the shield on her pant leg.

“You have nothing to do with those two guys, do you?” Goodwin asked nervously.

“That would be correct,” Nikki said.

“Does that mean you’re ah . . . legal and they aren’t?”

“That would be correct,” Nikki lied.

“Well, in that case, I guess I might as well turn over what I kept, which is a copy of everything. I’m not a complete fool. But, I want a receipt. No receipt, no nothing.”

Nikki waved her shield in the air. Kathryn dropped hers on the desk. It landed with a solid
thunk.
They waited until Goodwin pressed a buzzer on his desk and spoke into it. “Pam, bring me that file I had you put in the safe the other day.”

“How many copies did you make?” Kathryn asked.

“Just one. I’m not lying. You can have it, but you have to sign off on it.”

Kathryn laughed, and so did Nikki.

“How about we just take you with us, and you can explain all of this to some other very important people. Oh, my goodness, will you look at the time? We’ve overstayed our ten minutes. What’s it going to be, Mr. Goodwin?”

Pam Warren entered the office and placed a manila folder in front of her boss. She scurried out quickly and closed the door quietly behind her.

Goodwin inched the file closer to Nikki, using a pencil. He didn’t touch it at all.

Nikki stuffed the file in her carry bag. “We’ll be in touch, Mr. Goodwin. Now, should you hear from anyone else, call this number.” She handed him a card with Abner Tookus’s burn-phone number, which was untraceable. “We can see ourselves out.”

Neither woman spoke until they were outside. “That was almost too easy,” Kathryn said.

“Yeah, it was.” Nikki grinned. “Sometimes it just works out that way.”

Chapter 5

H
arry Wong brought the Ducati to a full stop. Both he and Jack hopped off and looked around. Two nondescript Hondas sat side by side in the driveway. Both were locked. One was black and the other a silver gray. They looked clean and well maintained.

It appeared to be a quiet neighborhood even in mid-July, when people were usually outdoors talking to neighbors or working in their yards. No one was about that either man could see. “Maybe it’s a working-class neighborhood. It’s a cul-de-sac, not that that means anything, but I like the area. Look, Harry, they even have sidewalks, and the maple trees are old. They look like big old beach umbrellas, and they shade the second floors of all the houses on the block. I counted the houses, there are nine. Four on each side and the one in the middle. I’d say they were built in the fifties, what do you think, Harry?”

“The picture windows would seem to indicate that time period. Sixteen hundred square feet would be my guess. What we call starter homes today. You have the key Pearl gave you, right?”

“Right here in my hot little hand. Let’s not stand around here too long so as not to arouse suspicion. I’m thinking these two ladies didn’t get much company, and two guys on a hot-rod motorcycle might raise some red flags.”

Harry mumbled something that sounded like, “Then pick up your feet and move.”

The door opened silently. The moment they were inside, Jack turned around and shot the dead bolt. There was no need to turn on any lights. The bright summer sunshine coming through the huge picture window lit up the entire room. The sheer curtains couldn’t contain the sunlight.

The living room was simply furnished. Four club chairs that swiveled, no sofa. Two lamps and a small coffee table with a few gardening magazines and a bowl of hard candy stood in front of two of the chairs. A twenty-inch television hung on the wall, directly in line with two of the club chairs. The room was painted a soft dove gray, and the matching area carpet was also gray, with a few splashes of a design that looked like a fern frond. Plain, simple. Neat and tidy. No sign of trash or dust.

A small, narrow, circular stairway was tucked into the farthest corner. “Toss you for it,” Jack said. “Heads you take the second floor, tails I take it. Call it, Harry.”

“Heads!”

Jack flipped the coin. He laughed. “It’s all yours, pal. Don’t miss anything. Women are tricky, we both know that. Look for unlikely hiding places. I’m not saying either one of those women hid anything, but it is a possibility.”

Jack walked through the living room and out to the kitchen, which was small and compact. Like the living room, the kitchen was sparkling clean. All kitchens, at least in his opinion, had their own distinct smell. Nikki’s kitchen always smelled like pumpkin-pie spice. The kitchen at Pinewood smelled like vanilla, cinnamon, and sometimes garlic. This kitchen smelled like apple pie.

Jack stood perfectly still as he tried to get a fix on the room and the two women who had lived here for some time. Even with the few personal touches, like the fern hanging in the dinette window, red crockery on the kitchen counter, and red-and-green tartan-plaid place mats, there was no sense of permanence. At least he wasn’t feeling any. The words
temporary
and
stopover
came to mind.

The square table was set into a breakfast nook that overlooked the backyard and a tiny porch. Thrift-store furniture, he decided. Not ugly, not pretty. Serviceable. The cushions on the chairs matched the place mats. A small bowl with green plants sat in the middle of the table. The soil was just starting to dry out around the edges, an indication the women hadn’t been gone that long. Jack took a cup from the hook under the cabinet and watered the plant. He dried off the cup and replaced it.

The floor was covered in what looked like new linoleum, which was clean and waxed. Braided rugs that looked to be handmade were by the sink and stove. The cabinets were painted white, with bright red knobs. So in a way the women had tried to personalize at least the kitchen to some extent. Nikki would have picked up on that right away.

A small ten-inch television sat on the counter next to a toaster oven. In the corner, there was a red bowl with a green plant. It looked to be thriving with the light from under the counter. He poked his finger into the soil. It was nice and moist. Nikki would know about that, too. He made a mental note. The only other thing on the counter was a small red dish with two sets of keys.

Forty minutes later, Jack pulled out one of the chairs and sat down. He’d gone through the contents of all the cabinets, even dumping out the cereal boxes, flour, and sugar cans. He found nothing. There was food in the refrigerator—yogurt, eggs, milk, a loaf of bread, some apples, two lemons and two limes, and two cucumbers. There were two bottles of unopened wine on the refrigerator door along with six bottles of Corona beer and a six-pack of bottled water. The freezer contained two packages of frozen chopped meat, a whole chicken, and one package of pork chops along with a frozen strawberry-rhubarb pie.

The tiny laundry room boasted a stackable washer and dryer and held nothing but a load of towels waiting to be folded. He had the crazy urge to fold them, but he ignored the urge. The overhead cabinet contained two bottles of detergent, some dryer sheets, and a gallon of Clorox, along with six one-hundred-watt lightbulbs, the old kind.

Jack looked up to see Harry standing in the doorway. “This was a bust. I didn’t find a thing. How about you?”

“Just these phones. They were on the dresser. It’s just one big room up there, like a loft. Twin beds, twin dressers. Not a lot of clothes, just enough. Same with the shoes. Some boots, and yes, I checked inside them all. Nothing. No excess of anything. One change of bedding. Six towels in the linen closet. Tissue, bathroom stuff. Nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing under the sink. No tub, just a shower. I’d say the two women are very frugal. No sign of jewelry or anything fancy. I can almost guarantee, Jack, that no one but us has been here. If there was someone before us, then it was a woman who knew how to put everything back exactly like she found it. That’s my opinion, for whatever it’s worth.”

“Same here,” Jack groused. “At least you found the phones. The car keys are here on the counter. I guess we should check the cars before we leave and take the keys with us.”

“This is a nice kitchen. Yoko would like it. She likes the color red. Do you think we should water the fern hanging in the window?”

“Why?” Jack asked. “I already watered the plant on the table.”

“So it doesn’t die. Pearl is going to be moving someone else in here in short order. Don’t disturb yourself, Jack, I’ll do it.”

“Harry! You know what we didn’t find? Their purses. Every woman has a purse or a fanny pack. I didn’t find any down here. How about upstairs?”

“No. I looked, too.”

“Makes sense, I guess. A woman never leaves the house without her purse. Take Maggie. She carries her whole life in that backpack of hers. It isn’t exactly a purse but close to it. Nikki would never leave the house without her purse.”

“You’re right,” Harry said. “Yoko wears a fanny pack because she likes to have her hands free.”

“I guess we should check out the backyard. And that little porch. They might have buried something, but I’m not about to start digging up the yard. Jeez, there must be a thousand flowers out here. Those women must have loved gardening.”

“Jack, you know what else we didn’t find in the house? Trash. There was none upstairs. How about in the kitchen?”

“No. There is a garbage disposal. No other trash anywhere. Maybe outside in the can. We’ll check it when we leave. I saw it when we got here. There’s a little fence around it. To hide it, I guess. The girls are going to be really disappointed that we came up dry,” Jack said.

“We should leave, Jack. We’ve been here close to two hours. I’ll check the cars, you do the trash.”

While Harry poked around inside the two cars and the trunks, Jack flipped the lid on the trash can. He stared down into the can. A lone grocery-store bag sat on the bottom and was tied in a knot. He tilted the can and reached in for the bag and undid the knot. Candy wrappers, an empty apple-strudel box, and a copy of
In the Know
were the only things in the bag. He retied the knot and joined Harry in the driveway. He shook his head to indicate he had found nothing in either car.

Jack slapped at his forehead. “The mail, Harry! We didn’t check the mailbox!”

Harry raced to the end of the driveway and opened the mailbox. He shook his head to indicate there was no mail.

Jack pointed to the grocery bag in his hands. “They saw the tabloid. It’s here in the bag. That’s why they left. They were afraid possibly the neighbors or others would see it. I’m thinking they got out just in time.”

Harry gunned the Ducati, backed up, then hit the throttle. They flew out of the cul-de-sac like the Devil himself was on their heels.

Dinner over and the kitchen and terrace restored to normal, the gang headed back to the war room and took their places at the table.

“I have an idea if anyone wants to hear it,” Maggie said.

“Of course we want to hear it, dear. Tell us what it is,” Myra said as she settled herself more comfortably in her chair at the head of the table.

Maggie took a deep breath, then let it out with a loud
swoosh.
“Here it is. You all know the
Post
does a Man of the Year contest every year. We usually gear up for nominations around September and pick the leading entry at the end of December. Why can’t we start a little early under some pretext or other like this year there are so many nominations we need to start early so we can investigate the nominees. We can start by putting little announcements in the paper daily, then hit it full force a week later. Our lead nominee, of course, will be Lincoln Moss! What do you think, guys?”

“I love it!” Annie bellowed. “It’s perfect! You deserve a raise for that, Maggie!”

Maggie turned beet red as all the others congratulated her, saying it was the perfect way to get to the oh-so-private Mr. Lincoln Moss.

“Any other suggestions, plans, strategies?” Myra asked.

Dennis held up his hand as though he were back in grade school. “Jason Woods!”

“What about him, kid?” Jack asked.

“Don’t we need to know more about him? We think, don’t we, that he is the one who spirited the two women to safety? Jack, you said after you and Harry went through the house that it was both of your opinions that the women skedaddled on their own. Meaning that Lincoln Moss did not find and snatch his wife.” Jack nodded. “Then we need to find out all there is to find out about Jason Woods and the best place to do that is . . . drumroll please . . .
Facebook!
Young people, especially college students,
live
on Facebook. All they do is tweet and twitter and blog and text. I am confident we can find out everything there is to know about that young man within an hour. There is no reason to think this guy is any different. With both their cars still in the driveway, how did they get away, and don’t tell me they walked. Someone had to pick them up and take them somewhere, and my guess is Jason Woods is the one who drove them away.”

“He’s absolutely right,” Abner muttered as he tapped furiously, which just proved to everyone what he had said all along, he could do two things at once.

“Do it, kid!” Jack said. Dennis grinned, his thumbs tapping away almost as fast as Abner’s busy fingers.

“We are making progress here,” Alexis said happily as she winked at Espinosa. “So far, Isabelle, Yoko, and I are the only ones without an assignment. With the exception of Myra and Annie,” she added hastily. “Charles, what can we do?”

“What would you ladies like to do?” Charles said, turning the question right back at Alexis.

Charles pretended to think, then finally said, “This might be a good time for you girls to put pen to paper where Pearl is concerned. She doesn’t have to go anywhere to get her files since they’re all in her head. I think once we see everything there is to see as to how her underground works, names, profiles, we’ll be better equipped to go down that road. All in favor say aye!” The room burst into sound.

Pearl turned white, made a move to get up until she saw Kathryn’s hand poised midway to the tabletop. Her eyes filled as she settled back down on her chair.

“You have to give it all up right now, Pearl,” Myra said gently. “It goes without saying that all of us here will take your secrets and those of your people to our graves.”

“If you don’t, Pearl, I will shoot you myself, and you know what a good shot I am,” Annie said, her eyes sparking dangerously.

Pearl nodded, her face miserable, tears puddling in her eyes. “It all started the day I found out my son-in-law was abusing my daughter and their child. I was still a sitting justice on the Supreme Court at the time. I knew . . .”