Cold Blood (7 page)

Rooney watched them leave before he smiled at Phyllis. She closed the doors with an abruptness that made it obvious she was angry that Rosie had misled her. She turned her small, frosty eyes to Reoney.

“Well, what payments do you require, Mr. Rooney?”

“There are three of us who will be working on this. Thousand a week.”

Phyllis nodded, moving further into tHrroom.

“Three thousand a week and expenses, which I presume will We at the same rate the other agencies have requested?”

Rooney’s jaw dropped a fraction; he’d sort of calculated the thousand dollars was for the three of them.

“I will need receipts of all your expenses,”

Phyllis said curtly as she flipped open a small notebook.

Rooney beamed.

“You’ll have them, Miss Collins.”

He couldn’t believe their luck.

Lorraine did not get in to see Elizabeth Caley’s bedroom. As they reached the door to her suite she drew Lorraine closer.

“Can you find her?”

“I will most certainly try, Mrs. Caley.”

She nodded, chewing her lip, and then leaned closer still.

“I will give you an incentive. If you find her, you will get a one-million-dollar bonus.”

COLD BLOOD

Lorraine blinked.

“One million.”

“Yes. I want my daughter traced, Mrs. Page.”

Lorraine turned to look down the wide staircase and then after a moment, keeping her voice as steady as she could, she repeated,

“One million?”

Mrs. Caley nodded.

Lorraine eased her weight from one foot to the other. Her voice was soft, as low as Mrs. Caley’s, but she didn’t hesitate.

“Dead or alive, Mrs. Caley?”

“If you trace her, dead or alive, Mrs. Page, you will receive one million dollars.”

“Can I have that in writing?”

The soft white hand with the bloodred nails gripped Lorraine’s in a firm, fast handshake, and she once again got the impression that Elizabeth Caley was like two people; publicly, she was the showcase movie star, the consummate actress but beneath the show there was something else, something she had not picked up on earlierand it wasn’t the underlying steely quality she’d expected. Elizabeth Caley was very, very frightened. Up close, the pupils of her slanting brown eyes were overlarge, and Lorraine knew she was using drugs of some kind.

Not until they had driven out of the electronic gates did Rooney let out a whistle.

“One grand each for two weeks, all expenses on top. Plane tickets, hotels, we got total carte blanche, no expenses spared. Rosie was fucking right, this is a big cash deal all right.”

Lorraine gave him a sidelong look and then stared ahead.

“There’s a bonus,”

she said quietly. He looked puzzled.

“If we find Anna Louise we get one million dollars.”

He braked, and she had to press her hands on the dashboard to stop herself from sliding down the seat.

“mat? Are you kiddin’?”

“No, not kidding. She’s going to put it in writing.”

She slipped on the safety belt.

“Fuck me, one million. Holy shit.”

Lorraine gave a tiny smile

“Dead or alive.”

“Fucking hell.”

He shook his head in disbelief.

“Just one thing, Bill, two actually. Thanks for backing me up in there with that bastard Caley.”

Rooney accelerated again.

“Think nothin’ of it, only said what I meant, he got to me. So what’s the other thing you wanna talk about, the split?”

I Lorraine smiled.

“No, that goes three ways. It’s just I run this investigation, Bill, not you, me. I give the orders, understood?”

He noddedr’ieah, I hear you, it’s your show.”

“Yes, it is,”

she said softly and then let out a yell, thumping his big wide shoulder.

“One million!”

CHAPTER

1

I That same afternoon, Lorraine, Rooney and Rosie discussed

V how they would begin the investigation into the disappearance of Anna Louise Caley. First they would invoice the Caleys for an advance of salary. Rooney would approach the officers he knew had been or were still involved on the case in LA. This would cut down a lot of questions they would have to ask Mr. and Mrs. Caley, and before Lorraine talked to either of them she wanted as much background information as possible. All back issues of newspapers that had featured the girl’s disappearance had to be checked over at the library and xeroxed copies filed at the office.

They felt they were on a roll. One million dollars was one hell of an incentive.

That evening, Rooney met with the Dean Martin look-alike Detective Jim Sharkey for a liquid dinner. To begin with, Sharkey was noncommittal; as far as he was concerned, the police had done about all they could do at their end.

“Consensus is, or was, she was kidnapped by persons unknown, though no ransom note was delivered. Other cases with similar characteristics would not have been kept open as long as this one.”

Rooney sniffed.

“You sayin’ you had a lot of girls just disappearing?” “Yeah, a lot, Bill, and you gotta know it. We got a file as long as my arm on missing kids, and we try checkin7 out most of them. Believe me, we spent more tirtfe on this one because of the high profile of the Caleys. She disappeared in New Orleans anyway, so there was not a lot we could do here. We even sent a few guys there to dig around but they came up with nothing, and the guys there aren’t the friendliest bunch of bastards, kinda suggested we back off.”

“So you did?”

“Yeah, we got nothin’ from LA, and we interviewed every kid she knew.”

“Was the Caley girl into drugs?”

“Nope, squeaky clean. You know, with no body discovered after eleven months, some of the guys reckoned the girl maybe just took off.”

Bill sighed, leaning back in his chair.

“Anythin’ come up against the parents?”

Sharkey looked askance.

“What? Give me that again? They’ve fuckin’ hired the best in the business, if they’d had anythin’, anythin’ to do with their own kid’s disappearance, believe me, we’d have sniffed it. And the broad, she was weepin’ her heart out.”

“Mrs. Caley?”

Sharkey nodded.

“She must have been one hell oŁa woman, still is. Geez, what a figure, and I’m tellin’ you, Bill, I never been one for older women, know what I mean? But fuck me, well, I’d like to give her a roll in the hay, no kiddin’.”

fe—

Rooney nodded. They sank a few more biers, then switched to vodka. The dinner had been a long one. At midnight they called a cab, and made their way back to Sharkey’s precinct in uptown LA. Sharkey held his liquor well, and even though he was off duty he refused to let Rooney come into the station with him. To have ex-captain Bill Rooney in tow breathing beer fumes over everyone could cause problems, even more so considering what he had agreed to do.

Rooney waited in the cab. It was almost an hour before Sharkey rejoined him and slipped him a thick xeroxed file of information. It had been an expensive evening, Rooney thought, as Sharkey accepted the folded bills with a wink. He’d asked for five hundred dollars and a guarantee that if any questions were ever asked the files never came from him. Rooney never even mentioned the thirty-five-buck cab fare, he was too eager to get the statements back to Lorraine.

Lorraine worked on Sharkey’s information till daybreak. As far as she could make out, Anna Louise Caley was a well-liked, friendly and very pampered young lady. The students in her year who had been questioned didn’t have a bad word to say about her. All the students and teachers alike made references to her being very pretty or even beautiful; none referred to her academic prowess but she was said to have been an excellent tennis player, swimmer, horseback rider and all-around athlete. She had no steady boyfriend, but Lorraine ringed the names of the boys who had admitted to dating her up until the time of her disappearance. She decided she would target them first. She had the names of numerous female students who all claimed to have been Anna Louise’s best friend, so they were lined up second. Then came the coaches and the college teachers. It was going to be a race against time: with only two weeks on the case, she had set aside only two days to complete the LA research.

Next morning, Page Investigations Agency was busy for the first time since it opened. The phone in the office rang constantly, and Rosie was flushed bright pink and sweating as the calls came in.

Lorraine pointed to a large cork board on which she had pinned lists of names for interview, and those for her to cross-reference and delete when necessary.

“Okay, Rosie, you list every name, all the students I got to see in alphabetical order. We cross them out as we go along.”

Rosie nodded. There was a buzz in the office and it felt good.

Rooney had been assigned to make very discreet inquiries into the private investigation agencies hired by the Caleys, to see if there was an excolleague working anywhere he could palm money to, like Sharkey, and if they had any information worth digging into. He listed the companies on Lorraine’s big board.

“My God, are they all on the same case?”

Rosie asked.

“Yep. Caley’s sure been shelling out a lot of cash.”

Lorraine chewed her pencil and then stuck it in her hair.

“Okay, this is how we work it, I do the college kids. You, Bill, start seeing what you can come up with about Caley, tap your old associates, whatever you need to do. Rosie, you’ll be the anchorwoman, you hold the fort here, we call in if we get anything. Most important is that we get moving and come up with what we can as fast as possibleagreed?”

Rooney nodded as Rosie made a note of Lorraine’s cell phone number and passed it to him.

“We can all keep in constant touch.”

She beamed.

Lorraine flicked a look at Rooney and winked.

“That’s what it’s all about, Rosie!”

Lorraine began the tedious and laborious interview sessions and rented a car, an ‘88 Buick that had seen better days, with a cellular tele-

LYNDA LA PLAMTE 45

phone to keep in touch with the office while driving herself from one meeting to another. Armed with two photographs of Anna Louise, she talked to fifteerTstudents at UCLA. To be confronted with fresh young girls, eager to talk and full of youthful exuberance, made her feel tired and jaded beyond belief, but the mental picture she was gradually forming was basically the same one that had already emerged from the old police files. Making the kids feel relaxed with her was painstaking work and her fixed smile was wearing thin, but she persisted. By twelve in the afternoon she had only two names left on her list and went to the tennis courts to meet Angie Wellbeck, listed on Sharkey’s statements as a

“best friend.”

After Angie, she was meeting one of the kids listed as dating Anna Louise, torn Heller.

Angie was wearing tennis shorts, a white T-shirt and Reeboks. She carried her tennis rackets in a very professional-looking white shoulder sports bag. She constantly plucked at it as she answered very politely the routine questions Lorraine had asked all the students. Did she get on with Anna Louise? Did she know of anyone who did not like her? Anyone who might have a grudge against her? Who did she socialize with? Did she take drugs, drink too much? In essence, what was the missing girl like?

Angie sat on a bench, staring at her tennis shoes, and Lorraine could see faint freckles on her lightly tanned skin.

“Well, she was real pretty, and always wore the most ftp-to-date clothes, you know, if something was in, AL always was the first to have it.”

“AL?”

asked Lorraine, knowing full well Łhat it was a nickname because it had been repeated to her so many tiflps.

“Yeah, we all called her AL. You know, Anna Louise is boring. I don’t mean she was boring, just her name.”

Angie said nothing untoward, or even gave the slightest hint that her friend wasn’t anything other than perfect. She just reiterated that although Anna Louise was not exceptional academically, she was great at sports and very competitive.

“Like how competitive?”

Lorraine asked.

“Well, she liked to winat tennis anyway. We played a lot together, sometimes we played doubles. Her dad is a great player. He used to play With her, I think, that’s why she was so good. Great backhand, very strong, although her serve wasn’t so hot, but she was a good player. Got enough practice in, I guess.”

“Did she get angry if she lost?”

“Sure.”

“Aggressive?”

“Sometimes.” “Did she argue or get angry with anyone specific?”

“No, she was kind of more angry at herself.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, if she missed a volley she’d shout and yell at herself, you know.”

“Ah! So you never saw her fighting or shouting with anyone?”

“No, but maybe you should ask some of the others. I mean, I played a lot with her but I wasn’t the only person she played with. Tilda Brown played with her mostly. She was closest to AL, but she hasn’t come back to school, not after AL disappeared, but I guess you know that.”

Lorraine nodded, underlining Tilda’s name in her notebook.

“Did you all have the same coach?”

“Geez, no way. AL was rich, you know, and her coach was ex-Olympic standard, a real professional. We’d all have liked to be coached by him.”

She giggled.

“Did this create jealousy?”

Lorraine was boring even herself.

“Yeah, but nothin’ to do with tennis.”

Lorraine looked at Angle, who had removed her headband and was plucking at it with her fingers, picking off strands of fluff.

“How do you mean?”

“Jeff Nathan, the coach, is like a movie star, I think he coaches a lot of famous people. Sometimes when I went over to their place he’d play with us, you know, make up a four with her dad. That was the only time I got to meet him.”

“The coach?”

“Yeah, and her dad, he was real nice.”

Angie’s tennis partners were hovering, so she asked if she could go. Lorraine could think of nothing else to ask. Like everyone else she’d spoken to, Angie hadn’t given any real insight into Anna Louise but, like three other girls, she had mentioned the handsome tennis coach.