Catherine Nelson - Zoe Grey 02 - The Trouble with Theft (12 page)

When I got to Amy’s
house, her car was in the driveway. I parked behind her then went to the door,
using my key when I found it locked. She peered around the corner of the
kitchen when she heard me then smiled. She was wearing an apron with a towel
thrown over one shoulder and had a wooden spoon in one hand.

“Hey, what are you
doing here?”

The house is a
tri-level, with the living room, kitchen, and small informal dining room on the
main level. The kitchen and living room were separated by a wall and connected
by the dining room. The house smelled delicious. Cookies, maybe.

“I’m having a shitty
day.”

She licked what I
guessed to be cookie dough off the wooden spoon and surveyed the damage to my
face.

“Looks like it.”

I walked over to the sofa
and flopped down.

“I lost the same FTA four
times in two days, and you’ll never guess who I just ran into two days in a
row.”

“Who?”

“Priscilla Casimir.”

She sucked in a breath
and her eyes got wide. “
No!
”

“Yes!”

She walked over and
plopped down on the sofa beside me, passing the spoon to me without a word. I
took a lick. It was cookie dough.

We sat there in
stunned, depressed silence for several minutes. When a buzzer rang, she got up
and went to the kitchen. I followed her, lifting myself up onto the counter and
watching as she traded cookie sheets in the oven, reset the timer, then scooped
the baked cookies onto paper towels to cool.

“Why are you baking?”
I asked.

Amy’s no stranger to
the kitchen, but she likes to cook. I’m the one who usually bakes. It wasn’t
uncommon for her to call and ask me to either bake something for her or come
help.

“One of the little
neighbor boys was just diagnosed with cancer. The family is doing a bake sale
fundraiser tomorrow to help pay for his treatment. I’m donating these.”

“How sad.”

“It is. He’s a sweet
kid. Is Priscilla bald yet?” she asked. “Tell me her hair fell out. Or that
she’s missing her teeth.”

She carried the empty
tray back to the stove and began scooping out dough for the next batch.

I told her the story
of running into her at Starbucks and then at the courthouse.

“What a
bitch
!”
she said when I was finished.

I really love Amy.

I reached over and
picked up a cookie. “I know! So, shouldn’t she be in some hole somewhere,
lonely, miserable, and afraid, having amounted to nothing? Why is she some big-shot
lawyer with an Ivy League education?
And,
why is she in my town?”

“Your town?”

I told her about my
parting words to Priscilla at the coffee shop.

“Oh, very John Wayne/Old
West. I like it.”

“I thought so.”

“Was she scared?”

“No! Can you believe
that?”

“Actually, yes.” I
gave her a look. “Come on, Zoe, we both know she’s smart, which is why we hate
her even more, but she’s pretty stupid, too. She’s just too stupid to know when
to be scared.”

She had a good point,
and I told her so. Then I told her about signing up for classes.

“Good for you. You’ve
always wanted to finish. We can do it together. Maybe we can take a class or
two together.”

“Are you going fall
semester?”

“Yeah. I don’t want to
take a full load, but I thought I’d take a few credits, maybe two classes.”

We talked about school
for a while. Amy had graduated high school and moved out of her mother’s house
immediately. She went straight to work, always working at least one full-time
job and usually a part-time one as well. About five years ago, she’d gotten to
talking with a woman she worked with named Jody. They ended up starting their
own business, a commercial and residential cleaning company called Clean Sweep,
incidentally the same company Linda McKinnon now used. In five years, they’d
built the company to a respectable size of something like two hundred clients,
and they were making a very decent profit. Amy didn’t even have to work all the
time anymore.

I’d been on the verge
of expulsion my sophomore year of high school when the principal called me into
her office and asked me about my almost non-existent attendance. I’d been
working a full-time job and found it was more productive to work and make money
than to go to school and be bored out of my mind. Instead of expelling me, we
struck a deal. I agreed to bring my attendance up to one hundred percent, and
she arranged for me to graduate in two more semesters. For the record,
Priscilla may have graduated a year early, but
I
graduated a year and a
half
early.

After high school, I
enrolled at Front Range Community College. During my first semester, my friend
Brandi introduced me to a guy named Matt who said he loved me and wanted to
marry me. I’d believed him. I ended up quitting my job and school after my
second semester and moving to Denver. The relationship ended when I found out
he’d knocked up Brandi. I eventually moved back from Denver, but I never went
back to school.

“You know, there
really is no comparison between you and Priscilla, Zoe.”

I sighed. “I know. But
I can’t help it.”

“All right, Priscilla
went to some pretty impressive schools, but so what? Now she has two pretty
pieces of paper and enormous debt. And she became a lawyer. Everybody
hates
lawyers, even the good ones, which she won’t be. People don’t hate you.”

“Well, some people
do.”

“Whatever. The point
is, everybody hates lawyers. Look at what you have. You have friends—good
friends—and you have me. And you have Ellmann. Do you ever remember Priscilla
having a single friend?”

I thought back to our
school days. I remembered Priscilla constantly surrounded by groups of people
who seemed to hang on her every word and jump at her every command.

“Yes, she had lots of
them.”

“No, not
groupies
.
Friends. Real
friends.
She didn’t.”

“That’s probably
true.”

“And what about
Ellmann? There is no way she can beat you there. I mean, come on, he’s
Ellmann.
”

Amy calls him
“Ellmann” because I do. And, by the way, she doesn’t think it’s weird.

This was a very good
point. I realized I was smiling. “He is pretty great, isn’t he?”

“The best, and so
perfect for you it’s scary. Honestly, sometimes I wonder how you did it.”

I shrugged. “I didn’t
really do anything. He just sort of showed up one day and never left.”

“You’ve always had the
best luck.”

“Don’t you think my
life would have turned out differently if I actually had good luck?”

“Think of how much
different it might be if you didn’t have such good luck.”

That was a frightening
thought.

__________

I gave Amy twenty-three bucks—all
the cash I had on me—for the bake sale and munched on another cookie as I drove
to the bank. I was feeling a little bit better about things, a little more
hopeful. Amy made some really good points. Priscilla may have me beat in the
education and career departments, but I was the one with good friends: Amy, who
was way better than any family a person could have, and Ellmann. She’d never
beat me there.

The lobby of First
National Bank was full. There were three female tellers working to help
customers, but there was still a line. I bypassed the line and walked the
perimeter of the lobby, reading the nameplates on doors. By chance, I found one
with Vandreen’s name on it.
jeremiah
vandreen, branch manager
. His door was closed, but I could see him
inside, sitting behind his desk talking on the phone. I knocked, causing him to
look up. He looked past me, trying to figure out why I was knocking on his
door, then put his call on hold and walked over.

“Yes?” he said,
peering out through the partially opened door. “Can I help you?”

He was about six feet
tall, and although his body was softened by indulgence and age, there was still
evident strength. He was dressed in a navy pinstripe suit, blue shirt, blood-red
tie, and matching suspenders. The suit was pricey. So were his shoes and
haircut. His brown hair was short, perfectly styled, and flecked with gray. His
teeth weren’t straight, but they were so white they were almost iridescent. And
his tan seemed a little too even to be natural.

This was a man who
spent a great deal of time and money on his appearance. In Vandreen’s case, I
sensed that drive was born of entitlement rather than insecurity. Experience
had taught me to be cautious of men like that.

“I have a couple of
questions for you, Mr. Vandreen.”

“What’s wrong with
your face?”

“Allergies.”

He eyeballed the
scratches but didn’t question me further. “Right, well, have a seat. I’ll be
with you in a few minutes.” He was a man accustomed to getting his way.

He stepped back into
his office and made to close the door.

Caution didn’t mean
passivity.

I put my hand on the
door, holding it open.

“Now’s better, Mr.
Vandreen.”

His head snapped up,
and I saw fire burn in his eyes. He saw the badge I was holding in front of me
then looked around. Transitioning his face into a smile, he stepped back and
held the door open, inviting me in. As he shut the door behind me, I noticed he
gave another look around, ensuring no one had noticed our exchange.

I didn’t like
Vandreen. That had a lot to do with my impression that Danielle Dillon didn’t
like Vandreen. As the victim of abuse, I have developed a pretty keen sense of
people. Danielle Dillon was also the victim of abuse, and I was betting she had
the same sense. If she didn’t like Vandreen, I thought he at least warranted my
suspicion.

“Okay, you got your
face time,” he said, walking around behind his desk. “What’s this about?”

“I need to ask you a
couple questions about Danielle Dillon and her recent attack on you.”

“Which I’ve already
been over with you people. What’s the problem?”

Vandreen was laboring
under the assumption I was a cop. This happens sometimes. I almost never
correct people. I don’t want to unnecessarily complicate things or confuse them
with details and technicalities. Plus, I don’t mind the increased degree of
cooperation this gets me with most people. For now, I decided to let Vandreen
go on with this assumption.

“I think you can help
me clear a few things up.”

“What things?”

“Do you know Danielle
Dillon?”

He leaned back in his
chair, studying me for a moment. I felt distinctly like prey being scouted by a
predator.

He scoffed. “If this
is the kind of information that will ‘clear things up’ for you, maybe you’d
better start by reading the case file.”

“I’m not asking if you
know her name. I’m asking if you know her. The two of you must have some
connection. I’d like to know what it is.”

He stared at me for a
beat. “She attacked me in the parking lot. That’s our connection.”

I shook my head. “I
don’t think she woke up that morning and decided to beat the crap out of a
perfect stranger. I think she targeted you specifically. Why? What reason could
she possibly have had?”

He shifted slightly at
the implication he’d been overwhelmed by a woman. A blow to his machismo-driven
ego?

“So far, I’m not
really hearing anything new,” he said. He sat forward and reached for the
phone. “I better call my attorney before I answer these same questions
again
.”

“If that would make
you feel more comfortable, then please do. But I only have a few questions. A
few quick answers will get me out the door.”

“Why should I help
you?” he asked, pausing with his hand on the phone.

“Because you’re the
cooperative victim of a crime and a potential aide in the capture of a
fugitive.”

He folded his hands on
the desk, a faint grin playing over his mouth.

“I’ve never met a cop
quite like you.”

That’s because I’m
not
a cop, but you know,
toe-may-toe
,
toe-mah-toe
.

“My questions are
simple, sir,” I said, drawing him back on point. “The sooner you answer them,
the sooner I’m out of your hair. Why did Danielle Dillon attack you? What’s
your connection?”

He leaned back in the
chair again, his hands folded in his lap. “I don’t know Danielle Dillon, and I have
no idea why she attacked me. Maybe she wanted to rob me.”

“So she spoke to you
that day? She indicated she wanted to rob you?”

He smiled, but behind
the casual exterior I could see an edge that was anything but. “It was a
possible explanation. She could have wanted to take the car.”