Mortal Crimes: 7 Novels of Suspense (20 page)

Laura knew that underneath this request was the not-so-subtle implication that he would be the one to interview her. He expected Laura to observe Sandy Heywood's reactions and develop her own impression of her.

Laura unbuckled her seat belt, and it slithered back to its home on the door. “I think it's right that you take the lead. I will have questions, though. What's the best way for us to work it?”

“You could take over after a while. We'll play it by ear.”

That was fair.

They left the car and walked toward the train station. The depot must have been built in the twenties or thirties. The long building was Spanish in style: stuccoed walls, arches, rough-hewn wood porch supports, and window sashes painted brown. Red-tile, gabled roofs. The depot retained the feel of a time Laura did not know, but remembered from old movies—that gracious, garden Los Angeles of Bogey's day. Two of her favorite movies were the 1946 version of
The Postman Always Rings Twice
and
Double Indemnity
. She wondered if the railway scenes in
Postman
had been filmed here.

They walked through the lobby of the train station and out to the back deck, which fronted the railroad tracks. Passengers were disembarking from an Amtrak train—Waddell told her it was a Surfliner, taking people up and down the coast. The passengers trooped over to a bridge spanning the tracks, disappeared inside stairwells on either side. Reemerged on the track apron down below, headed their way.

“That's her,” Waddell said, nodding in the direction of the umbrella-shaded tables set up alongside the depot under a sign that said The Santa Fe Express Café.

A woman sat by herself, watching people disembark. She had a thin, boyish body and short, black hair that made her look like an elf. She wore black slacks, a white blouse, and black, lace-up shoes, probably the uniform for her job at The Spaghetti Company. One ankle rested on the opposite knee, if you could call it resting. Her foot jiggled frenetically as she fiddled with the straw from her drink.

As Laura watched, Sandy Heywood dropped the straw and lit up a cigarette from a silver case on the table. Her leg going all the while.

When Waddell's shadow crossed her face, the woman looked up without surprise. “You again,” she said.

Waddell pulled up a chair. “How are you doing, Sandy?”

“Same.” The muscles in her face were still, her mouth barely moving, but her foot picked up the pace, jiggling faster. “Who's she?”

“This is Detective Cardinal. She's with the Department of Public Safety in Arizona.”

“Sounds like a mouthful. What does
she
want?” Avoiding looking at Laura. At least that was the impression Laura got. Hard to tell, because Sandy Heywood's sunglasses, which were shaped disconcertingly like alien eyes, were black and bounced back light.

Waddell said, “Robert been back?”

“Why should I tell you?”

“Because I'm interested.”

“Is
she
interested, too?”

“Should she be? I heard that Robert's got friends in Arizona. You think he's there?”

Sandy Heywood set her foot down, leaned back, and stretched her legs out. Looked at her feet.

“Sandy?” Waddell prompted.

“I don't know why you're bothering me. I don't know where he is.”

“Doesn't that bother you? You are his wife, after all.”

“That's right, I am his wife. In case you didn't know, a wife can't testify against her husband.”

“I'm a little confused. What would you have to testify about? He's not under arrest. Is there something you know that I don't?”

“I know that we've been harassed.
I've
been harassed. All we're trying to do is rebuild our lives, and then you come around with your nasty hints and all this
bullshit
—”

“You asked your sister to take Katrina two weeks after Robert got out of prison. Why'd you do that? Send your daughter to live across town? I know why. You didn't like the way he was looking at her. It bothered you. You told me that, remember?”

“I did? I don't think so.”

Waddell shook his head. “I don't understand you, Sandy. You're a good person. You want what's best for your daughter—you're even willing to give her up to keep her safe. You know what happened to that little girl Robert got to, don't you? They found her by the roadside, naked, covered with ant bites. Raped and strangled to death. He threw her away like she was so much trash.”

“He wouldn't do that.” But she said it dully, without conviction.

“Sandy, you know he did it. You know it in your heart. I thought you quit smoking.”

“I decided to start up again.”

“Why? Because you feel guilty? Because you were worried about Katrina, and you felt bad about that other little girl?”

Sandy Heywood hunched in her chair and put her hands over her ears. “I'm not listening to you.”

“Then why don't you listen to yourself?” He scooted his chair closer to her, right in her face. “Remember that day you called me?”

“No.”

“The day you left a message for me.” He pulled out a While You Were Out slip and put it on the table. “You said you found women's things when you were moving his stuff out of storage. You were mad, remember? But more than that, you were scared.”

“I was bullshitting you. Can't you take a joke?”

She had hunched even further into her seat. Like a turtle, her head poking up. From tough-looking chick with alien sunglasses to a frightened turtle. Her tough exterior was as thin as an eggshell. Laura could almost smell the fear on her. Fear mixed with anguish. And desperation.

“You got yourself in too deep, didn't you? Marrying this guy you hardly knew. He was different when he was in prison, wasn't he?”

She shook her head.

“He was different then. Perfect husband material. It was hard raising your little girl by yourself. And here you found this great guy, and then he's eyeing your own daughter. Not only that, but it's clear he's been seeing other women.”

She was shaking her head. “You are so full of shit.”

“He just leaves at the drop of a hat. I tell you what, that would piss
me
off.”

She didn't reply.

“Then you find all that stuff. You know what it is, don't you? The underwear, the earrings? You know why he kept those things, don't you?”

She stood up. “I've got to go.”

“I just hope you aren't next,” Waddell said as she walked away.

As she disappeared around the building, Waddell removed his sunglasses and sighed. “Sorry you didn't get a chance to talk to her.”

Laura ignored his apology. “He has trophies?”

“She only called that once, but I think she knows. They're trophies he kept in a storage facility for four years. He made a point of telling her to sell off or get rid of everything except what was in this one suitcase. So she opens it up, and she sees all these articles that belong to women or girls. I'd give anything to get my hands on that suitcase.”

“Does she still have it?”

He shrugged. “My guess is he took it back from her the minute he got out of prison. Probably stashed it somewhere. I just keep pushing with her. She's got the lid down pretty tight, but I keep prying, a little bit at a time.”

“If it's gone, though … ”

Waddell said, “Then there's nothing we can do. We don't have enough for a search warrant. He's off parole, and as far as the law is concerned, he's paid his debt to society, blah blah blah. I think Sandy knows a lot more than she's telling. Either that or she's rationalizing. Hard to tell with her.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Waddell had given Laura what he had on the little girl who was kidnapped from her own bedroom. She sat at her desk, staring at Elaine Feustel's pretty, open face.

Ten years old.

There was no doubt in Laura's mind that Elaine Feustel was dead.

She wondered if Sandy Heywood had come to the same conclusion, how she lived with it if she had. Laura was also willing to bet that Sandy knew what the articles of clothing and jewelry in Heywood's suitcase meant. But as long as it wasn't spelled out for her, she could choose to ignore it.

Ah, love. She'd been blinded by it herself a few times. She'd married a guy who wanted her to support him, but in light of Sandy Heywood's choices, that didn't seem to be such a big deal.

As she got up to make photocopies of Waddell's report, Laura bumped her elbow on the chair rest, the shock going up her arm.

She still had the sling. This morning before work she'd gone to her regular doctor and he'd told her to keep the sling on for another few days. He'd prescribed alternating ice and heat treatments and told her it was possible she could sustain long-term damage from the blow to her radial nerve. Great.

When she returned to her desk, Jaime was waiting for her.

“What's new?” she asked him.

“While you were frolicking at the beach and shopping on Rodeo Drive, I was busy interviewing Sherri D'Agnostino.”

Jaime set his mini-recorder on Laura's desk and played the interview. His voice sounded different on the tape recorder, his accent pronounced. Laura had no idea why this was. Maybe he did it on purpose. Or maybe seeing him in person, she got the whole package. In person, he sounded Anglo. In fact, sometimes he sounded like New Jersey.

Jaime went through the usual introduction, then asked Sherri D'Agnostino—her name was Sherri Giles now—for some background.

She’d been seventeen at the time of the tragedy.

She’d worked at the camp two years running.

She’d been in charge of six girls in Bunk 4, including Jenny Carmichael.

She felt horrible about Jenny's abduction, said, “I blame myself.”

Jaime had her describe the day's outing. They had left at eight thirty in the morning, and the girls had spent time exploring and enjoying the lake. The picnic had been around noon. A thunderstorm had come up, so they’d piled the girls in the vans and driven back up to Camp Aratauk. Sherri Giles was sure that Jenny had been on her van.

JAIME: Was there a reason you didn't wait the storm out?

SHERRI: It was pouring. There was thunder and lightning—really close. We didn't want to stay out under the ramada in a thunderstorm, so we went back.

JAIME: Was Jenny at the cookout?

SHERRI: Yes. I'm sure she was there.

JAIME: You saw her there? At the cookout?

SHERRI: I'm sure I did. It's hard to remember after all this time.

Laura said to Jaime, “Could you play that for me again?”

“Sure.” He rewound a little, punched STOP, and then PLAY.

I'm sure I did. It's hard to remember after all this time.

Laura heard it in Sherri's voice: avoidance, wiggle room. Sherri’s words “I'm sure” qualified “I did.” Sherri also said that it was hard to remember. Laura thought that the day Jenny Carmichael disappeared would be the one day Sherri Giles
would
remember. Forever.

A little further on, Sherri Giles admitted to Jaime that she couldn't actually remember having seen Jenny at the lake.

She admitted that she had asked Jenny's best friend, Dawn, where Jenny was. She had been told Jenny was in the bathroom.

Then the rain had come—hard—visibility only a few feet. All the girls had piled in the vans. Sherri D'Agnostino told Jaime she’d taken a head count on one van and then the other. The numbers had seemed to match up.

JAIME: You say they’d “seemed to match up.” What do you mean by that?

SHERRI: There was a lot … of chaos. Dawn told me Jenny was in the bathroom and so I told her to, uh, go get her, then I went to the other van. I think that's what happened. I did a head count at the other van, and then I went back to the van Dawn was on.

JAIME: You counted heads?

SHERRI: Yes. I'm pretty sure … No—wait. We were in a hurry, visibility was so bad, we wanted to get everybody back to the camp—I counted …