Conspiracy (27 page)

She screwed up her face and shook it from side to side. "Ugh, I meant a classy blonde. This wig makes me look like a bimbo. Talk about cheesecake."

"Don't pay any attention to her, Ken," said Cady. "She's never happy. She had a miserable childhood that she hasn't gotten over."

Linderman was ignoring both of them. He fitted her with tortoiseshell glasses.

"They're plain glass," he said. "They won't affect your vision."

Then he had a photographer take a series of pictures of her.

"Smile, Taylor," Cady said. "We're not doing a root canal. Blondes are supposed to have more fun."

Thirty minutes later Linderman handed her a California driver's license, a passport, and three credit cards, all in the name of Caroline Corbin. She stared for a moment at the license and the Santa Monica address.

"You live on Wilshire Boulevard, close to the beach," said Linderman.

"I used to live in that area once. It's a perfect address for a bimbo."

Humorless, Linderman stared at her dourly.

"What about the credit cards?" she asked. "Are these valid? I've got to buy some clothes. I left Washington in a hurry."

Linderman looked at Cady. "Tom Miller told me to set these up for the max. There's a twenty-thousand-dollar limit on each card."

Cady scratched his head uneasily. To Taylor he said, "I authorized all of this without approval from any of the top people in DOJ. Since you're a rich partner in a prestigious Washington law firm, I'll trust you to repay Uncle Sam for any charges on the credit cards when this is over. Otherwise, it comes out of my meager government salary."

"Or your trust fund," Taylor said lightly, having read Cady's bio.

"Does that mean you'll be responsible for the charges?" Linderman asked her, wanting to get this point cleared up.

"More likely I'll put twenty thousand dollars on each of the cards and drop you both a postcard from Rio."

Cady couldn't help laughing. "I'll sign for it," he said. "She's hopeless."

When Cady had signed all of the forms and they were getting ready to leave, Linderman said, "I hope you two have a good time, whatever you're planning to do."

Taylor had no sooner gotten back in the Jeep than she took off the wig and glasses and stuffed them into her purse.

"Hey, wait a minute," said Cady. "I didn't go to all this trouble for nothing."

"The wig's hot, and it itches." Taylor untied her black hair, let it hang down, and ran a comb through it. "Also, one of the things in life I was always grateful for was that I had good eyes and didn't need glasses."

His lighthearted mood of before was gone. "I guess you don't like staying alive."

"I'll put them back on if it looks like there's any danger."

"That's real smart. You know that sooner or later they're going to try to kill you. I doubt if they'll give you much warning."

He started the engine and pulled away from the curb.

"Where are we going now, boss?" Taylor asked, trying to restore the camaraderie they'd had upstairs.

"Napa."

"Can we stop at Neiman Marcus on the way? I'm getting a little tired of wearing this one suit."

He checked his watch. "You've got an hour. We have to get there before Karen closes up for the day. So don't turn into one of those women shoppers on me."

He smiled, and she punched him playfully in the ribs. "That was a disgusting sexist comment. Men can shop as well as women. Or did your mother just call Brooks Brothers and have the family chauffeur pick up your clothes?"

"Methinks you have a tongue as sharp as a—"

"Serpent's tooth? You got that right."

* * *

"Where's Karen?" Cady said to the woman with flaming red hair behind the counter at the Napa tax office. The name tag on her black cotton blouse read,
Samantha.

She shrugged. "That seems to be the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question."

Cady was nonplussed. "What do you mean?"

"It's the damnedest thing. Apparently they hired her last week. Then a couple of days ago she didn't show up for work. Now nobody can reach her."

Cady and Taylor exchanged looks. They were thinking the same thing. Either Karen had gotten scared when the senator died and took off for the hills, or whoever put Karen into this office wanted her out before Cady or anyone else came to dig further about Mill Valley.

"So who are you?" Cady asked.

"I should ask you the same question."

Cady showed her his DOJ identification. That was good enough for Samantha, and she said, "Actually, I work at the motor vehicles office. Somebody from government services called and told me to come over here to cover the office as a temp until they get a replacement for Karen."

Taylor broke in. "Who was here before Karen?"

Samantha shrugged. "I have no idea."

"Do you know where the backup documents are for the records in the computer?"

"I haven't a clue. Like I said, they just asked me to come over and cover the office."

Cady sighed. "Thanks for nothing."

She shrugged. "Hey, it's not my fault."

As they walked outside, he muttered, almost to himself, "We'll never find Karen now."

Taylor pointed to Ed's Diner across the street. "Let's head over there."

Cady shook his head. "I'm not hungry," he said, dejected. "If you want something, though, I'll go with you."

"Oh, I want something, but it's not food. Come on. It's my turn for a surprise."

They took a seat at the counter. Cady ordered a diet Coke, and she was served a cup of coffee brewed hours ago that looked and tasted like mud. There were only two other patrons in a booth in the corner. Ed, tall and thin, in his late sixties, Taylor guessed, was behind the counter in his stained white apron surreptitiously studying them.

"Have this place a long time?" Taylor asked.

"About thirty years. I guess that's a long time. You two from back east?"

"Washington."

He shook his head. "Too bad what happened to Senator Boyd. Out here we still love him no matter what he did."

Taylor bristled. The implication was that the senator had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. But that wasn't surprising. People thought most politicians were crooks. "Actually, I worked with the senator a bit," Taylor said. "He was one of my favorite people."

Ed nodded. He liked that. "What are you guys doing out here?"

Cady was watching her, wondering how she was going to handle this. She went on smoothly, "We're working on a lawsuit. Wanted to get some info from the tax office, but there's nobody over there now who can help us."

He raised his eyebrows. "Really? Trish is usually pretty helpful."

"Well, she's not here anymore."

"Hmph, I didn't know that. She ran that office for nearly fifteen years. Must have just happened." He thought about what they had said. "Actually, I was thinking that it's been a while since I've seen her. Lots of days she brings her own lunch, but she usually gets over here once a week. Always has BLT on whole-wheat toast. 'Hold the mayo,' she says, as if I wouldn't remember. I like her even though I feel sorry for her. She's one of those decent women who married a real bastard. We all cheered when she filed for divorce a couple of years ago."

Ed was rattling on. It was obvious that he liked to talk to his customers. That must go with the territory.

"Being a single mother with a teenage boy isn't easy these days," he added. "If you know what I mean." They both laughed. "But it beats having that piece of shit around the house. He was her second husband, too. Why's it always happen to the nice ones?"

"Does she live in Napa?" Taylor asked.

"Up in Rutherford. Behind the Chevron."

"You wouldn't happen to have a phone number, would you? Maybe she can help us."

Taylor held her breath while Ed pulled back and studied his visitors. They seemed honest and decent, and she had worked with the senator. "I don't have a number," he said, "but her name's Patricia Bailey. She's in the book."

* * *

"I should make the call," Taylor said when they were back in Cady's Jeep.

"Why, because you're a woman?"

"That and the fact that I worked for the senator. Ed told us people here loved Boyd."

"Be my guest." He handed her his cell phone. "Also, you should use my phone in case anyone is getting access to calls being made on your cell."

"Good point."

Taylor got the phone number from information and dialed. A teenage boy answered.

"Can I speak to Trish?" Taylor asked.

"This is Kevin," he said. "My mom's not here." He sounded polite, not surly, like lots of children who answered calls for their parents.

"Do you know when she'll be home?"

"Actually, she's off on an overnight," he said, and laughed, which gave Taylor the idea that Trish had gone with a man. The teenager apparently found this role reversal amusing. "She'll be back in the morning."

Then the boy caught himself. This woman sounded nice, but he was giving away a lot of information to a stranger. "Can I ask who's calling?"

"I'm a friend of Senator Boyd's," Taylor replied.

"My mom went to high school with him," Kevin said.

Taylor had lived in Washington so long she had forgotten what small towns were like. Everybody knew everybody.

"Any chance I can reach her by phone now?"

"No way," Kevin said. "I don't know where she is." He giggled. "She said, 'Don't call me on my cell unless it's an emergency.'"

Taylor didn't push. Tomorrow morning would be soon enough. They were making progress.

Cady started up the engine. "I'm impressed how you handled Ed and Trish's kid. You're good with—"

She completed his sentence. "Ordinary people. Real people, you mean?"

"Yeah. Like that."

She smiled. "I didn't have the advantage of a prep-school education."

He frowned. "Hey."

"That was a joke. There's nothing at all pompous and arrogant about you, C.J. You're a decent human being. You've definitely risen above your upbringing."

"Does that mean I have to turn off the road at the cheapest motor lodge I can find to prove a point?"

"Actually, I was thinking of Meadowwood."

He laughed. "Who's the snob now?"

* * *

"So have we made any progress?" Taylor asked Cady once the waitress poured some Kistler chardonnay and departed.

They were sitting in a booth in the corner of the Meadowwood dining room. It was almost nine o'clock, and they had both unwound. Taylor had run for an hour on trails that cut through the woods around the property, while Cady had hit with the tennis pro on one of the lit courts. She was wearing a white Gucci pants suit with a black tank top she had bought that afternoon. A fire was crackling in a fireplace not far from their table, which warmed the high-ceilinged, wood-paneled room.

"What do you mean?" Cady said.

"Well, if Karen was the person they installed in the Napa tax office to mislead you, then I don't see how Trish is going to help us."

Without hesitating, he said, "I don't want to talk about it tonight."

"What do you want to talk about?"

"Let's order, then I'll tell you."

After their first course, a cold crab salad, arrived, he said to her, "I feel really sorry for everything that happened in my investigation of Senator Boyd. I like to think that I'm a savvy prosecutor, but those guys had me for lunch. If it weren't for me, Boyd would still be alive and you'd be running his campaign. I hope you'll forgive me."

"Of course I'll forgive you. This was so brilliantly orchestrated that no one could have seen through it. Still, you don't have to beat yourself up, because I'm not sure it mattered."

He was puzzled. "What do you mean?"

"Even if you didn't take the bait, they would have found another way to get the senator out of the campaign."

He sipped some wine. "You liked the senator a lot, didn't you?"

She gave him a cool look. Why did everybody think they were sleeping together?

He could sense her reaction. Awkwardly he clarified: "I didn't mean it that way. I meant as a person and a leader."

That was better. "Yeah, I did. He would have been good for the country. He was an honorable man. I can't believe he's dead. It's like a bad dream. I expect to wake up and find him walking through the door, saying "Taylor, what's on for tomorrow?""

Cady looked at her sympathetically.

"Enough," she said. "Let's talk about something else. How about you? Tell me how you became a white knight."

He held off until the waitress deposited their main course of grilled quail and a pinot noir of Au Bon Climat. "Well, actually, it all started with my divorce. Janet, my ex, was a paralegal at Hunt and Brenner when I was a senior associate. We didn't get to know each other until a firm weekend outing at the Greenbrier, where we ended up as a doubles team, quite by chance, in the tennis tournament. I wasn't into all of this 'firm togetherness' stuff. Still, I decided to participate." He shook his head sadly, remembering what had happened. "Anyhow, we won the tournament in a walk. To celebrate, we got roaring drunk at the firm party that night and ended up in bed together."

"You sound like quite the social animal."

He smiled. The quail was getting cold, but he didn't care. "Hardly. I was shipped off to a boy's boarding school when I was ten because my dad, a superb Wall Street lawyer, and my mother, a superb social climber, couldn't be bothered having their only child around." He gave a shrug, meaning he was long past caring about it. "At Stanford, I was a nerd whose only activity was varsity tennis. I socialized, but had no relationships. For the first seven years at the firm, until I met Janet, I dated, but I was too busy to have a life. I wanted to make partner on my own, not on my family's connections. Though she was ten years younger, Janet was a lot more experienced at these things. She knew exactly what she wanted." Bitterness crept into his voice. "If you get him in bed, the wedding ring will follow. After I made partner, we had a great life ahead of us, or so I thought."

"What happened?"

His eyes hardened. "A few years into the marriage she told me I was a cold, unfeeling WASP with ice water in my veins. How's that?"