Baylin House (Cassandra Crowley Mystery) (30 page)

Margaret’s house was typical upper-middleclass, more like
Cassie’s parents had in Las Vegas. The Golf Estates neighborhood was enclosed
by a high stone wall, guard gated, flowing curved landscape everywhere, and
half-acre lots with rolling knolls and sprawling homes surrounded by stone
walls, ornamental iron, and tall shrubs. She gave her name at the entrance; the
guard opened the gate for her. She didn’t see the Ford Taurus again after she
drove in.

Margaret’s Latino housekeeper led Cassie to a room
overlooking the Fourteenth Fairway. Margaret sat alone in the room, her eyes
red and swollen; her skin blotched.

Cassie sat down on the sofa; the housekeeper poured two glasses
of iced tea. When Cassie pulled the voice recorder from her purse and set it on
the low table between them, Margaret said, “Hortensia, please leave us alone to
talk.”

The Latino woman left the room quietly. Cassie made sure
Margaret was looking at the recorder before she turned it on.

“Margaret,” she said, speaking in her announcer voice for
the sake of the recorder, “we both know my goal is to track down money my
father donated to the Baylin House charity fund, as well as find a way to
prevent Baylin House from being closed while there are people still depending
on it.”

Margaret stared at the device between them like it was going
to sprout tulips.

Cassie mellowed her tone. “I know Mr. Fozzi has terrorized
you the same as he did me. How do you know him in the first place?”

Margaret made a noise that could have been a grunt of
disgust, or another sob. Cassie waited.

Finally Margaret spoke. “He showed up with Hortensia’s
granddaughter a few weeks before Easter a year ago,” she said, not as loud as
Cassie, but at least talking directly to the recorder.

“Hortensia is your housekeeper?” Cassie said for benefit of
the recorder.

“Yes.”

“And Fozzi brought her granddaughter to your house? Did they
stay here together as a couple?”

“She stayed. Not him; he was just dropping her off.”

Margaret paused and blew her nose, and dropped the tissue in
a wastebasket beside her chair. “I could see Delavina was terrified of him. I
couldn’t turn her away.”

“She was illegal?”

“Yes.”

“Hortensia – is she illegal too?”

“No. My father helped Hortensia obtain naturalized
citizenship before he died. She stayed on to take care of my stepmother when he
was gone, and then came to me when Mother Goodman passed.”

This was not going where Cassie expected. She had to keep
Margaret focused on the Baylin House problems, but that meant staying focused
on Fozzi.

“Did Delavina say how she came to be with Fozzi in the first
place?”

“Not really. I overheard her tell Hortensia about a coyote
she called Senior Buck that Fozzi must have known from somewhere. I know the
reason she ran away had to do with her father. Hortensia already told me her
son mistreats the girl’s mother. None of us ever mentioned Fozzi again until he
showed up here a month later with another girl who was just as terrified of him
as Delavina was. He is an evil man.”

Cassie wouldn’t argue against that. “How does all this lead
to embezzling the Baylin House funds?”

The beleaguered Margaret took a deep breath and stared out
the window for a long moment. “After Fozzi dropped a fifth girl on us in less
than five months, he came back demanding blackmail payment, threatening to tell
the police I was importing slave labor for my wealthy friends up north. I knew
it was wrong not to turn the girls over to INS, but I just couldn’t do it. I
didn’t have any way to meet his demands, so he suggested I put him on the
payroll of the charity fund.”

Payroll! That gave Cassie a start, but she had to keep
Margret focused. “How could he prove you were doing anything wrong? Were the
girls still with you?”

“No, no, none of them were ever here more than a couple
weeks. But he had photos of the different girls with this house in the
background, and more photos of them getting into the car with me at different
locations driving to the east coast. When I realized he’d been following me . .
. you can’t imagine how that terrified me!”

“Actually, I can,” Cassie breathed, feeling goose bumps rise
on her arms. “Where are the girls now?”

Margaret shrugged and shook her head.

“You haven’t stayed in touch with any of them?”

“God no! I had to beg until I was sick to my stomach to get
them placed with different people who would take them in. Of course they’re
given household chores to earn their keep, but they’re also given spending
cash. And they’re being educated . . . that certainly wouldn’t happen if they’d
stayed in Mexico or wherever they came from.” Margaret’s defensive tone slipped
into a keening wail. Cassie began to worry the woman would lose it before she
got it all out.

“Whose idea was it to change accountants for the charity
fund,” Cassie asked. “Who decided to give the account to David Thornton’s
company?”

Margaret took another deep breath. “Edith’s CPA started
questioning the money going to Fozzi. I tried to use that to convince Fozzi to
back off, but he said he had located the girls in Vermont and if I didn’t find
a way to keep paying him, he’d contact my friends next. I was desperate to move
the account to a new company where they wouldn’t know so much. I was actually
grateful when he suggested David Thornton. Then it was easy to just make up
invoices and send them over for payment.”

Cassie listened without interruption. She could understand
now why Margaret didn’t want Cassie or anyone else to see the charity account’s
financial reports – not with Fozzi’s payroll draining it. Gorduno had said
Fozzi’s background tied him to scamming some Atlantic City tourists. He was
obviously very good at it, and he made it easy, collecting bogus payroll
checks. Except closing Baylin House would have lost one of his income streams –
that didn’t compute just to make brownie points with his in-laws.

“Margaret, if this has been going on for months, what does
Fozzi want that makes you so frightened of him right now?”

She sniffed and shook her head.

“What!” Cassie demanded.

“He wants me to ask my mother’s husband for money.”

Oh cripes, that was a bigger fish all right.

Margaret sobbed, “I’m afraid of what Fozzi will do if I tell
him I can’t do that, so I just hide in here to keep from having to face him!”

Cassie didn’t blame her. “Is there anyone here besides you
and Hortensia?”

Margaret shook her head.

“Who was the young girl that answered the phone a couple
days ago?”

Margaret frowned a moment, and then, “Oh, that must have
been Hortensia’s friend. The granddaughter of her friend, I mean. Sometimes
when Louisa has to go somewhere, she drops her granddaughter here for Hortensia
to babysit.”

“So she’s not here now, right?”

“No. I told you there’s no one but Hortensia and me.”

“Then I’m going to get you both out of here to a safe place.
How quickly can you pack enough to get you through a few days?”

Margaret sobbed.

Cassie called out, “Hortensia – would you come in her
please?”

The Latino woman understood exactly what to do. She helped
Margaret to her bedroom to pick out a few changes of clothes and some personal
items.

While they were out of the room, Cassie dialed Rob’s cell
phone.

She felt bad when she heard his voice, hoarse with
exhaustion, remembering he slept in a chair last night.

“Cassie, I still can’t leave here. Are you all right?”

“Yes, please don’t worry. I’m just checking in to let you
know I’m going back to the motel. I have a lot to tell you, but you need to get
some rest first and so do I.” She forced a good-natured laugh. “We’re both
exhausted after last night, so call me tomorrow when you get up.”

She hung up from Rob, and made the next call – to Arthur
Wright’s legal firm. Even on Sunday she knew some kind of answering service
would take the call.

She left the message that she was referred by Travis Harmon,
that she needed help as soon as possible, and that she was calling on behalf of
Rosalie Baylin and Margaret Goodman Frank. If those three names together didn’t
get a response, nothing would.

Cassie’s phone rang during the drive back into town. She
reached for it, and pulled to the shoulder of the road, braking to a full stop in
case Attorney Arthur Wright was already returning her call.

“Hello?”

“Miss Cassie, it’s Bea Morgan . . . Miss Rosalie asked if
you could come visit her a while this afternoon?”

“Visit? Do you mean Sunday dinner, or does she feel well
enough to work for a while?”

“No, no. No big dinner today, and not work. Don’t even bring
your computer. She just wants to have some time with you to talk. Can you come
over here?”

“Yes, but I have another quick stop to make. I could be
there in an hour or so.”

“Thank you, Miss Cassie. I’ll let her know.”

At the Treasure Isle Motel, Cassie checked Margaret and
Hortensia into room 18; only two doors from her own; a room with two double
beds. “It isn’t fancy,” she told Margaret, “but this is where the police put me
to keep me safe from Fozzi, so they’re still watching it and keeping an eye out
for him. If you get hungry before I get back, there’s a list of restaurants in
the drawer and most of them deliver.”

Margaret didn’t seem to pay much attention, but Hortensia
assured they would be fine and would not leave there.

Harvey answered the door when Cassie knocked. “Miss Rosalie
asked me to come,” she offered.

He actually smiled at her. “Yeah, she told us about you.”

He stood aside to let her in, and then led her directly into
Rosalie’s bedroom.

The room should have been bright and airy this time of day,
but it was darkened by pulled shades. One of the French doors stood ajar
letting in fresh air.

Not enough. Cassie recognized the metallic rank of decaying
blood.

Rosalie lay propped on pillows, looking more ashen with the
dimmed light. Her eyes, dulled with sedative and ringed by dark shadows,
followed Cassie to the chair where Harvey had sat with her that first night. A
lifetime ago, wasn’t it? More life than Cassie was prepared for, anyway.

Rosalie reached for Cassie’s hand, clasping her fingers
around it, and tried to force a smile. Her skin was deathly cold. When she spoke,
her voice was strained and hoarse, reminding Cassie what Bea said about Rosalie
and Dorothy yelling at each other. Yelling, for God’s sake! How could Dorothy
do that to her!

Rosalie pinned Cassie’s eyes with hers. “I need you to
know,” she said, and held tight to Cassie’s hand while she paused for a ragged
breath.

Cassie waited.

“I need you to know I gave birth to a daughter when you were
only a few months old. So she’s a grown woman now, like you.”

Cassie’s jaw dropped, but she stayed quiet.

Rosalie smiled wanly. “Dorothy was with me for most of the
pregnancy; staying at my place in Sacramento while The Colonel was on maneuvers
somewhere. She was desperate to adopt the infant and raise it as her own. We
talked about it.”

Rosalie paused, watching shadows ebb and flow on the shades
over the French doors as a faint breeze rippled into the room. “I made the
decision . . . on my own . . . to go away and give birth without her, and to
allow adoption by someone else. Dorothy has never forgiven me for that. And she
has never given up searching for the child she feels she lost.”

Cassie felt a new ache, listening to Rosalie’s words. “This
is what Dorothy really wants?” she whispered in disbelief, “to expose an
illegitimate birth?”

“I don’t think she wants it published – she just wants it
for herself. But there are some other things you need to know that Dorothy only
suspects. You should know your grandmother made the arrangements, and it was
your mother who helped me.”

Cassie gasped. Rosalie squeezed her hand.

“Dorothy visited your mother several years ago because she
convinced herself that I had let Helen and Nolan adopt, and I’m afraid for a
while she convinced Lawrence of the same thing. That’s why he wanted to see you
when you came to Texas. Of course when he met you, and saw how much you resemble
your mother, he recognized how wrong Dorothy had been about that. But he was
still very glad to finally meet Noreen’s granddaughter, and to spend time with
you.”

“Did my grandmother know that Dorothy wanted to adopt the
baby?”

“Yes, she did. That’s why she encouraged me to spend time
with Nolan and his wife, and you as a new baby, before I made the decision. And
she was right, Cassie. Being with you and your parents helped me understand my
own feelings.”

Rosalie drew one of those slow deep breaths that made Cassie
nervous. This was something Rosalie did when she was in pain, or when she spoke
of the woman she had called Mother – which was just another kind of pain.
Cassie watched Rosalie’s expression closely to see if she needed to call for
Bea.

“I wasn’t fit to raise a daughter,” Rosalie said in a steady
tone. “I already knew that. Not with the role model I had growing up. Being
around you as an infant, falling in love so quickly with a tiny bundle that
wasn’t even mine, made me determined that my child be raised by a family I
would not be tempted to contact later, and who would never know how to contact
me. There was no other way to protect her, and no other way I could survive the
heartbreak of giving her up.”

Rosalie’s gaze moved to the wall of French countryside
paintings behind Cassie. “Your mother told me you asked about the paintings,”
she said peacefully. “You were right; we were together when we bought them. Noreen
was at your house with you and your father. Helen and I drove to Los Angeles,
and visited the convent on the way to the hospital.”

Cassie studied the paintings. “What happened when you left
the hospital?”

“We drove back to Las Vegas in your mother’s car. Helen
helped find good people to adopt the baby . . . took care of me until I could
travel alone . . . and then I went back to Sacramento.”

Rosalie closed her eyes. Cassie’s thoughts whirled as she listened
to Rosalie’s steady breathing rhythm, waiting until she thought Rosalie was
sleeping.

She tried to loosen her fingers. Immediately Rosalie’s hand
clamped down, holding tight.

“Cassie, I don’t care how much of that goes into the book,”
she said with a firm voice. “I’m beyond scandal. But I don’t want it to fall on
my daughter the way Lawrence’s mother did it to me. Please . . . promise me you
won’t let that happen. Don’t let anyone find her and ruin whatever happiness
she has built of her life. Promise me that!”

“Yes,” Cassie whispered, “I promise.”

But even as she said it, she knew she was going to break
that promise.