The Easter Egg Murder (16 page)

41

When they arrived at Canyon Estates, Ginger told the guard they needed to speak to the security supervisor, and he directed them to a building around the corner.

Ramona Sanchez had already alerted the supervisor that Ginger and Harrie would be coming and going at Senator Lawrence’s home while he was ill. They showed their drive
r’s licenses, filled out a form and received temporary passes for each of their cars.

“Okay, the first hurdle is done,” Ginger said when they returned to the car. “Now all we have to do is remember how to get into that room.”

Ginger worked the key in the lock and felt it release. “Well, here we go. Keep your eyes open for anything unusual.”

The house seemed dark and forbidding with all the draperies closed and no sound of human presence. Apprehension settled over Harrie like a mist. “Could we look around before we go into the library?”

Ginger rubbed her arms and shivered. “Good idea. Let’s see if we can get a little heat in here, too.” She turned the thermostat up, and they heard the sound of the heater coming to life.

Harrie thought it odd how the lack of someone’s presence could be felt almost as
strongly as having them there.

Ginger flipped the light switch
in the library. “My God! I wasn’t expecting this!” She looked at the dark stain on the floor.

Harrie said, “Maybe we could clean it up.”

“I don’t think we should touch it,” Ginger said. “We can check with the police later and see if it’s okay.”

Harrie nodded and turned her attention to the bookcases. “Do you remember which book he used to access the hidden door?”

Ginger
nodded and reached behind the correct book. They heard a soft hiss as the bookcase swung away from the wall. Ginger took the combination from her pocket and tapped numbers into the keypad.

The door slid noiselessly into the wall. She snapped on the light switch.

“Should we turn on the monitor?” Harrie asked.

Ginger shrugged. “I have no idea how that thing works. If you want to give it a try, be my guest.”

Harrie pressed the switch marked ‘monitor’ and the screen came to life.

She turned and grinned at Ginger. “Aren’t you glad I’m geekier than you?”

Ginge
r laughed. “Yes I am.”

Harrie looked at the photographs on the wall. “I didn’t pay much attention to these before,” she said as she walked from one photo to the other. “I was so entranced with the whole ‘secret room’ thing I couldn’t take it all in at the time.” She examined each photo, admiring the extent of Philip’s accomplishments. “This is a gorgeous photo of Albuquerque from the air, and I love this view of the Capitol.” She paused in front of one. “Oh, look! Here he is with President Reagan.”

“That’s right after Reagan won the presidency,” Ginger said. “Philip spent a huge portion of the summer of 1980 helping with the campaign. He was very proud of that.”

Ginger examined the two keys on the ring Philip had pressed into her hand only last week. She sighed, “I never thought we’d be using these.” She opened the side drawer and picked up the big folder of clippings they’d looked at last week.

“We need to take these with us. He was very clear about not leaving them around if something happened to him.” Beneath the folder was a metal box with a label on the lid. Ginger set the box up on the desk.

Harrie glanced at the label. “For Ginger’s Memory Book.” She frowned. “You have a memory book?”

Ginger ran her fingers over the top of the old, scratched box. “No. I don’t even know what a ‘memory book’ is.” She pushed on the metal lever. It didn’t move.

“
Great,” said Harrie. “Now what?”

Ginger pushed the latch a few times, then looked up at Harrie and grinned. She removed the key ring from the desk lock and examined the smaller key. When she fitted it into the lock, it turned easily, and she lifted the lid.

“Cassette tapes?” Harrie reached over and picked up one of the small plastic cases. “I thought there’d be pictures and letters or something.” Disappointment tinged her voice.

Ginger examined another cassette. “They’re labeled with dates. They don’t look the same as the manuscript cassettes he sends us with a chapter number and a heading.” She examined several more. “This seems to be the latest one. It’s dated last Wednesday.”

Harrie tossed her tape back into the box, “Maybe the label is a clue. We can listen to these and find out which memories are so important and whether Nick’s visit here had anything to do with all this.”

Ginger slumped back into the desk chair. “I gave Caroline the office machine to use at her desk. Do you have another tape player? I’d rather listen to this without her knowing about it.”

“I think there’s one in the back of my closet. It’s old though, and I haven’t used it much since compact discs.”

Ginger put the cassettes back in the box and closed and locked the lid. “Let’s go back to the office. We probably shouldn’t stay here too long.”

Harrie looked at her watch. “It’s almost ten. You want to swing by my house and see if I can find that player?”

Ginger smiled as she looked back in the drawer where the metal box had been. “Or,” she said, as she reached in and pulled out a small, black rectangular unit. “
We could just use this.” It was an ancient-looking cassette recorder. “He must have had this thing at least twenty years.”

They ga
thered up the box, the recorder and the clippings folder. Ginger locked the desk, and Harrie turned toward the monitoring system. The current view on the monitor showed the front of the house. Ginger’s car sat in the driveway, but there was something else.

“Oh, please, not again!”

Ginger looked up as Harrie fiddled frantically with the controls on the panel, searching for the view she’d been watching seconds before. “What’s wrong?” Ginger asked.

Harrie didn’t speak as she pushed buttons and twirled knobs.
The monitor again displayed the view of the driveway.

Ginger came and stood beside her. “Did you see something? It looks the same as it did when we came in.”

Harrie slapped her hand against the control panel in frustration. “It is now! But that’s not the way it looked a minute ago.” She pointed to the screen. “Right there, in front of that house across the street, I saw a black SUV.”

42

They hurried through the hall and into the kitchen, turning down the thermostat and shutting off the coffee maker. Harrie opened the front door and looked up and down the street. No SUV, black or otherwise.

“You know,” Ginger said when they were safely in the car, “lots of people have SUV
s.”

“I know
—that’s what I keep reminding myself. I wish I knew whether to trust this spooky feeling I have. I’m so gun-shy, everything looks like the bogeyman.”

On the way back to the office, Ginger repeatedly glanced in the rear-view mirror
, and Harrie periodically looked over her shoulder. The normally talkative friends said little.

When Harrie’s cell phone broke the silence, she almost jumped out of her seat. “Hello,”
she said in a voice wound too tight.

“Harrie, are you all right?” DJs reassuring tone washed over her.

“Hi.” She said brightly. She covered the microphone and said in an aside to Ginger, “It’s DJ.” Ginger rolled her eyes.

“What can I do for you?” Her effort to sound normal and cheery sounded almost credible, and if it had been anyone else, it might have succeeded.

“Where are you?” DJ asked in a calm but forceful manner. “Somewhere you shouldn’t be?”

Harrie looked at Ginger with wide-eyed shock, shaking her head and pointing at the phone. When she spoke again, she took on the air of a falsely accused, indignant female. “Why would you ask something like that? You make it sound like we need to be watched all the time.”

“Well, don’t you?” His voice was almost playful.

Ginger made the turn into the parking lot at their office
and they both got out. Harrie leaned back in, gathering up the items she needed. She held the cell phone with one hand. “Look,” she said, “I can’t talk right now. I’ve got another call coming in. I’ll get back to you later.” As she turned around and closed the car door, an SUV pulled alongside and stopped in the space next to Ginger’s car. DJ still held his cell phone as he watched Harrie through the open window. He smiled and waved.

Harrie snapped her phone shut and glared at him. “Where did you come from?”

He closed his own phone and got out of the car. He stepped up to help her carry the awkward bundle of clippings and tape recorder.

“Funny you should ask. I just came from Canyon Estates, and I could swear I saw you two drive away from Senator Lawrence’s home.”

43

When the three of them walked in the office, Ginger went in search of Caroline.

DJ followed Harrie into the conference room, where they deposited the folder and tape recorder on the table. She looked at DJ. “
Tell me again why you’re here?”

“As I said, I’m taking a short vacation beginning tomorrow. I have some days I needed to use or lose.”

“Yeah, I know.” Harrie pressed. “That’s what you said outside, but it doesn’t explain what you’re doing here at our office on this sunny Monday morning. I’d think you’d be too busy packing, or cleaning out your inbox or something.”

“Well,” he grinned. “I’m not actually going anywhere. I’m just not working for the next few days.” His smile faded. “I’m meeting with my supervisor later today and handing over my case file on Nick Constantine.”

Ginger walked in while they were talking and said, “Do you have more questions for us, or are you just curious about what we’re doing?”

“Actually, I
am
curious about your activities, especially this morning’s little trip to Canyon Estates.”

Harrie and Ginger exchanged glances, then Harrie said, “Ginger’s dad has power of attorney for Philip, and we checked on the house for him. He’s handling Senator Lawrence’s affairs until he’s ready to take over again.”

“I see,” said DJ, looking pointedly at the fat folder of yellowed papers. “And what did you find there besides those newspaper clippings?”

Harrie sat abruptly. “That’s about it, really.” She avoided eye contact with DJ. “We went through these clippings last week here at the office. We knew they’re important to the senator, so we brought them back for safekeeping while he’s in the hospital. They belong in our vault.”

He nodded. “So you both drove over there first thing this morning, not to pick up any accumulated mail or important papers Mr. O’Leary might need, but to retrieve some old newspaper articles? And that process took you over an hour?”

“How
. . . ” Harrie stammered, “I mean, what makes you think it took us that long?”

Ginger laughed. “Give it up, friend. It seems we’ve been caught by the
long arm of the law.”

DJ held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. “Hey, I’m just trying to help you out here. You’re both pretty bad liars, you k
now. Why not just level with me and tell me what you’re up to?”

Harrie frowned at him. “You followed us, didn’t you?”

“No, but the plainclothes guys did. They got here just as the two of you left, and they decided to see where you were headed. They checked with security at Canyon Estates and found out you both received temporary permits for your cars. Then they called me and waited for you to leave.”

Harrie looked up, surprised. “Wait, I’m confused. Since when does the Albuquerque Police Department report to the FBI?”

DJ said, “Remember I told you yesterday I talked to Bob Swanson, and he agreed to keep an eye on you for a few days? Well, that’s what he’s been doing. He said he’d call me if anything seemed unusual, and apparently something did.”

Ginger smiled. “I suppose we should thank you for your concern.” She turned to her friend and gave her a stern look. “Shouldn’t we, Harrie?”

Harrie nodded. She studied DJ for a moment before she spoke. “Thank you for being concerned. But, honestly, you needn’t be. Couldn’t we just go back to doing our job, and you go back to catching bad guys?”

“Speaking of that, would you like to know how that’s going?” D
J sat next to Harrie.

Ginger sat across the table from them. “Do you know who attacked Philip?”

“Not yet,” he said. “They’ve been interviewing the neighbors and studying video tapes from the security cameras at both gates.”

Harrie spoke up. “There’s another gate? I didn’t realize that.”

“There’s one strictly for residents. It doesn’t have a guard on duty except during weekday evenings when people come home from work. The rest of the time, you need a magnetic card to get in. They’re also tracking to see whose cards were swiped through that controller during the evening and early morning hours around the time of the senator’s attack.”

Caroline tapped on the open door. “Excuse me, Ginger. You have a call.”

Ginger went to take the call, and Harrie’s thoughts came back to the question that had nagged at her for days. “Is there any other way someone could get by the security guards and all those video cameras?”

“If someone is determined to break in, and they’re resourceful enough, they can. Gates, fences and cameras keep out the honest or slightly dishonest citizen quite well
, but the pros can find a way.”

“How would someone go about doing that? Wouldn’t the prospect of being caught keep them out?”

DJ smiled at her and slowly shook his head. “I can see you don’t have much contact with bad guys. Some criminals get a rush out of the possibility of being caught. They consider it a challenge. What would keep them from climbing over a perimeter wall?”

Harrie pondered briefly. “
Maybe they would be afraid of landing in a backyard with a big, angry dog. Or that the patrol that drives around might spot them.”

“How about if they came right through the gate?” DJ said. “What if they had a legitimate reason for being there? Suppose they’re a resident? Or maybe they just snuck in with somebody else? There are numerous ways it could be done.”

Harrie was quiet for several seconds. “I think somebody was watching the senator’s house this morning.”

DJ’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you think so?”

“Because we saw a black SUV parked across the street.”

“Was it there when you arrived?”

“No, I saw it while we were getting the clippings folder. That’s why we left. We were spooked.”

“Did it follow you when you left, or did it stay put?”

Harrie squirmed in her chair. “No. I mean it disappeared before we left.”

“Were you looking out a window? Did you see it drive away?”

“Not exactly,” she admitted. “I saw it on a television monitor. It’s one of those security systems with multiple cameras placed around the property, and the picture rotates among the cameras. By the time I got the one covering the front to display again, the SUV was gone.” Harrie prayed silently he wouldn’t ask her the location of the monitor.

He smiled as he stood up and pushed his chair under the table. “I wouldn’t worry about it. As it happens, this time it was only me
. I was checking up on the two of you.”

Harrie let go of the breath she’d been holding. “Well, so much for that mystery.”

Ginger came back just then and asked, “What mystery is that?”

“Oh nothing. I’ll tell you later,” Harrie said. She turned to DJ. “So what will you do with your days off?”

“Not much. I have some little fix-it jobs at my mother’s house. I thought I might spend some time making sure the two of you don’t get into trouble. Maybe I’ll check some other things out on my own time.” He walked to the front door and paused. “I don’t think you ladies should go to the senator’s house again by yourselves. If you need to go back, why don’t you call me, or wait until Steve can go with you.”

“Are you always this bossy?” Harrie had a soft smile on her face.

“Almost always,” he responded with a wink and a smile. Then he made his exit.

After DJ left, Ginger motioned Harrie to follow
and led the way into her office and closed the door.

Harrie’s curiosity took over. “What’s up?”

“That phone call was from my dad.”

Harrie nodded encouragement. “Go on. Don’t keep me in suspense.”

“He called the private investigation company and explained about the power of attorney. They’ve agreed to give him a copy of the report Nick filed before he died.”