Cold Betrayal (16 page)

“Who is David Upton?”

“The young man who hit her with his car. He may well be the last person she spoke to.”

“Is Mr. Upton a suspect?”

“Not as far as I can tell. So far the investigation seems to bear out Mr. Upton’s claim that he was already slowing down to pull over when she ran across the pavement directly in front of him. Hitting her was unavoidable. I’ve been told that the right-hand turn signal on his vehicle was still blinking when deputies showed up to do their investigation.”

Ali studied her friend’s face for some time. “That’s why you wanted me to come today and look at all this, isn’t it,” she said. “It’s also why you had me wear gloves. The victim’s personal effects are here because she came in an ambulance and was admitted to the hospital. If she dies, everything here will become part of a police investigation.”

Sister Anselm nodded almost imperceptibly.

“And you’re hoping that somehow I’ll be able to help identify her?”

“Yes,” Sister Anselm answered.

“But why? Why not let the cops do it? She’s the unidentified victim of a motor vehicle accident. I’m sure they’ll do their best to ascertain where she came from.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Sister Anselm admitted. “I’m afraid they’ll figure it out. At that point, the father will most likely assert his parental rights, and the baby—assuming she survives—will be taken back to the very place her mother tried so desperately to escape. It’s possible the mother might be sent back there as well.”

Sister Anselm gestured again at the paltry collection of items that had come from the box. “Look at this. The poor girl ran away with almost nothing—a jacket, a spool of thread, a scissors, a light jacket, and a Navajo blanket. She did that for a reason. Perhaps, if we can solve the puzzle before the sheriff’s department does, we can marshal the resources to protect both mother and child. In both cases, these two girls chose death rather than going back to face whatever life they had lived before.”

“Was there any DNA evidence collected in the course of that other case?”

Sister Anselm shrugged. “I wasn’t privy to much of the investigation, but I assume so. However, there was no sign of a sexual assault, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“And nothing was found with the first victim? No possessions of any kind?”

“None whatsoever. No shoes. No clothing. She was wearing a wedding ring—a simple gold band. The same kind of band last night’s victim was wearing.”

“You said you thought the Kingman Jane Doe was about seventeen?”

Sister Anselm nodded.

“So both of them were young, married, very pregnant, and very unhappy.”

Sister Anselm nodded again.

It didn’t take long for Ali to make up her mind. She was her mother’s daughter after all. Over the years Ali had seen what happened whenever one of Edie Larson’s friends asked for help. A request like that quickly morphed into a sacred duty.

“All right, then,” Ali said. “It appears to me that we have three important clues here. Do you have any way for me to reach out to that young man you mentioned, David Upton?”

In answer, Sister Anselm read off his phone number, and Ali keyed it into her iPhone.

“Next we have the blanket,” she said. Ali had taken off her latex gloves. Now she put them back on. Lifting the blanket off the table, she unfolded it, and held it up. “I’m no expert, but this one feels genuine. That makes it both rare and valuable. So how does a girl who has to knot her broken shoelaces together end up with a blanket worth hundreds of dollars? I want you to use my phone and take a picture of it.”

“What good will that do?” Sister Anselm asked.

“As I understand it, each Navajo weaver uses her own particular designs and dyes. I have a friend over at the museum who may be able to identify the weaver. If we can figure out where the blanket came from, maybe we can also learn how this Jane Doe came to have it in her possession.”

The picture-taking process took time. When it was finished, Ali carefully refolded the blanket and returned it to the box.

“And then there’s this,” she said, picking up the tiny scrap of paper. “I found this hidden in the corner of her jacket pocket.”

Sister Anselm looked at it but didn’t touch. “Irene,” she read aloud. “And that’s a Flagstaff telephone exchange.”

“So maybe someone here in Flagstaff was expecting Jane Doe to show up last night. For all we know, they may have already reported her missing. Would you like me to make the call?”

“Please,” Sister Anselm said.

Putting the scrap of paper down on the table, Ali keyed the number into her phone. It rang several times before the call was answered.

“May I help you?”

“I’m looking for Irene.”

The operator’s reply came as a shock. In a moment of astonishing clarity, Ali knew exactly who Irene was and also that she was totally unreachable.

“Sorry,” she mumbled into the phone. “There’s no need.” With trembling hands she ended the call, nearly dropping the phone in the process.

Sister Anselm frowned. “What’s the matter? Is something wrong?”

“I should have recognized the number before I dialed it,” Ali answered. “Irene’s not there. She’s dead. She’s been dead for years.”

12

P
rincess did not like Joe Friday. At all. She followed him everywhere, going from room to room, barking like crazy. Betsy didn’t attempt to shush her, because, for one thing, Betsy was more than half convinced that the dog’s assessment of the situation was correct.

When that nice young man from Arizona, Stuart, had called her earlier that morning to say that Joe Friday would be stopping by early in the afternoon, Betsy had more or less expected a Jack Webb look-alike to show up on her doorstep. In her mind’s eye, Jack Webb had never aged a day since she had first seen that handsome black-haired man on the black-and-white TV console Alton had installed in the living room. Even with an antenna planted on the roof, the images on the screen were hazy with snow, but she’d been able to see enough of the actor’s features to think he was just the cat’s meow.

The Joe Friday who rang her doorbell and later carted an immense tool kit into her living room did not resemble Jack Webb at all. He had black hair all right, but rather than being trimmed in a conventional manly way, it came all the way to his shoulders in shiny waves that a lot of women would have killed for. Joe had tattoos everywhere Betsy could see—which is to say everything that wasn’t covered by his red plaid flannel shirt and raggedy jeans. She theorized there were probably lots more tattoos in places she couldn’t see.

In other words, as far as Betsy was concerned, Joe Friday already had two strikes against him—long hair and tattoos—to say nothing of the nose ring. Why young people insisted on putting studs in their faces and rings in their noses was more than Betsy could understand. No doubt Alton would have sent Joe packing based on appearance alone. Unfortunately, Alton wasn’t here, and Betsy knew she needed help. As a consequence she did her best to overlook that first bad impression. It helped, of course, that Joe Friday was unfailingly polite.

“Mrs. Peterson?” he inquired, when she opened the door holding Princess in her arms to keep the dog from racing outside and tearing into the hem of his pant legs.

“Yes,” she said. “I’m Mrs. Peterson, and this is Princess.”

“Cute dog,” he said, glancing at the dog, removing his worn baseball cap, and holding out his hand to the dog in greeting. “I’m Joe, the one who called earlier. Stuart Ramey sent me.”

He had indeed called earlier, asking a question that Betsy had considered odd—what color switch plates did she have on her light switches and electrical outlets? Were they black or white?

White was the answer. Decades earlier, when they had been doing a remodeling project, Betsy had lobbied for avocado-colored appliances and beige switch plates and outlet covers. Alton had vetoed both those ideas at once, saying they were just fads. Much as Betsy hated to admit it, Alton had been right on both counts.

Joe had repeated Ali’s suggestion that if anyone asked what he was doing there, she should tell people she had hired him to bring her electrical service into the twenty-first century, and that the work would most likely take a day or two.

When he bent down and started to unlace his boots before entering the house, she told him not to bother. “Having a little melted snow here and there never hurt anybody.”

Leaving his boots on, he picked up the heavy metal toolbox he had carted up onto her porch, lugged it into the living room, and opened the lid. Sitting on the couch and still holding tight to Princess, Betsy was amazed. Joe Friday may have been lacking in the dress-for-success department, but his toolbox would have won Alton over in an instant. It was neat as a pin.

“I have several more boxes to bring in,” he said. “Are you sure you don’t want me to remove my boots?”

“Your boots are fine. Just wipe them off on the mat before you come inside.”

He dragged in several loads of cardboard boxes, setting off a new set of noisy objections from Princess every time he reentered the house. “All right,” he said, setting down the last ones. “Show me where your breaker box is.”

Betsy led him into the laundry room and opened the door to the metal box that hung on the wall above her washer. Next to each breaker switch was a neat label, printed in ink, in Alton’s own hand.

“Are the labels all accurate?” Joe asked.

“Of course,” she said indignantly without bothering to look. “My late husband labeled them, and Alton was a very careful worker.”

“I’m sure he was,” Joe said with a grin, “but I’ll check each outlet as I go, just to be sure.”

“What are you going to do exactly?” Betsy asked. She had expected that the surveillance system would require unsightly cameras placed in full view all over her house.

“I’ll show you,” he said. Back in the living room, he opened two of the boxes. From one he removed what looked for all the world like an ordinary switch plate—a white one—wrapped in clear cellophane. He passed it over to her. After examining it, she shrugged her shoulders.

“It’s a switch plate,” she said. “Just like the ones I already have.”

“Not quite,” Joe said. “The base of the hole for the switch has been slightly enlarged. Once I get the Wi-Fi up and running, I’ll wire pinhole cameras inside each switch plate with the lens aimed through that bit of extra space. Because the cameras will be wired directly into your electrical system, they won’t require any batteries, making the actual devices that much smaller. Whatever the camera records will go through your new computer by way of an invisible file, but it won’t be stored there. Instead, the material will be uploaded to High Noon’s servers. An alarm will sound on our end and the cameras will start recording whenever an unidentified image shows up.”

“But what Princess and I do won’t be visible?” Betsy asked.

“Not at all,” Joe assured her. “Once I do your 3-D photo shoot and have your images uploaded into the system, the two of you will be exempt. More people can be added to the exempt status at a later date, but we don’t recommend that immediately, especially not now while we’re still trying to ascertain who may have been here the other night and turned on the gas.”

Betsy had longed for someone who would believe her version of the other night’s disturbing events. Clearly Joe Friday did. You had to watch out what you asked for.

“What if I have company?” Betsy asked. “What if someone stops by for coffee?”

“Whatever they do inside your house will be recorded.”

“That seems like a terrible invasion of privacy,” Betsy objected. “I mean, what if one of my guests needs to use the powder room?”

“I understand your concerns about invading your legitimate guests’ privacy,” Joe said. “And I’m willing to go so far as to make the powder room a camera-free zone, but everywhere else is fair game because murder is the ultimate invasion of privacy, wouldn’t you say?”

He had her there. Betsy nodded. “I suppose so,” she agreed.

“Now,” he said. “First things first. Where do you want me to set up your new computer?”

“There’s a desk in my bedroom,” she said. “As long as I have to have the dratted thing, I don’t want it here in the middle of the living room.”

“All right, then,” Joe agreed. “That’s where I’ll start—the bedroom.”

Just then the doorbell rang. When Betsy opened the front door, she was dismayed to see her daughter-in-law standing on the front porch. “What’s going on?” Sandra asked, glancing over her shoulder at Joe Friday’s work van parked prominently in the driveway.

Betsy’s first instinct was to say what she really felt—
It’s none of your business
. But with Joe in the house installing his hidden cameras and with his toolbox and boxes spread out all over the living room, she couldn’t afford to get into a tiff with Sandra.

Biting back a sharp response and sticking to the story they’d agreed on, Betsy said, “I’m having some electrical work done, and I’m also getting a new computer.”

“A computer?” Sandra asked. “You hardly ever used the one you used to have. The sign on the van says your contractor is from Minneapolis. Couldn’t you find someone local? I’m sure Jimmy could have found someone to do the work at half the price.”

“Yes,” Betsy agreed. “I’m sure he could, but he’s so busy these days. I didn’t want to bother him with my concerns.”

“Well,” Sandra asked in her usual pushy fashion, “are you going to ask me in or not?”

“Not,” Betsy said. “This isn’t a good time, not with the power going on and off all over the house. I was about to call Marcia to see if she could pick me up and take me into town to pick up a few items from the store. Since you’re here now, maybe you wouldn’t mind. I could even treat you to an early dinner at the diner.”

Unaccustomed to being told no, Sandra was momentarily taken aback. Then she glanced at her watch. “I could take you into town, I suppose, and wait while you have something to eat,” she agreed reluctantly. “But no dinner for me. We have plans.”

“All right, then,” Betsy said. “You go wait in the car. I’ll put Princess in the laundry room and get my purse.” With that, Betsy closed the door in Sandra’s face, leaving her standing on the porch, thunderstruck and sputtering.