Dead in the Water (18 page)

“Me? Why?”

“How am I supposed to know? Get here as soon as you can. I have something to show you you won’t believe.”

On the 15 minute drive to Pamela and Spencer Matthew’s house, through the graceful golden brown hills of the Livermore Valley wine country, I thought about my conversations in the last week. Waddell’s death had been blamed on Nick, a nerdy 16-year old. A hairdresser thought it was Waddell’s sister, Pamela. And Cody hinted about someone else. What about Mike Menton? I thought he was the likely suspect. And his motive? Does winning an open water championship mean murdering your competition? I didn’t know.

.

24

The Matthews lived in
the exclusive gated community of Opal Valley. Their two story multi-million dollar hacienda bordered the Opal Valley Golf Club. I pulled into a circular driveway and parked the Checker by their three-car garage.

Pamela walked past the garage from the back of the spacious house and stopped while I got out of the cab. She was in work jeans with dirt on the knees, a pair of clogs on her feet and garden gloves still on her hands. Her blond hair was tucked under a broad brimmed straw hat. Frankly, I never pictured her living in a huge, very expensive house. She always seemed to be cleaning up. A home like this with its two story glass windows overlooking a golf course demanded that the woman of the house be dressed in designer casual clothes or expensive golf or tennis outfits. But she wore neither.

She left her clogs at the front door.

“Renata, that’s one of our maids, hates it when I leave my shoes outside like this. Says it looks trashy. She’s not here today, so I can get away with it. Come in. I pulled out some photos and a scrapbook full of clippings about Richard that you might be interested in. I think there might be more. I’ve seen boxes of medals, photos, and news stories at his house.”

We walked through the spacious living room with a floor to ceiling stone fireplace, by a kitchen that was larger than my living room, past the family room which rivaled an intimate movie theater and stopped at the door of a wood-paneled study. The windows opened on to the fairways of the Ruby Hill golf course.

“How do you get any work done with a view like that,” I asked.

“I don’t even see it any more when I walk in here. On the desk, you’ll find all the things that I put together for you. Sorry, but I won’t be here much longer. I’m going back over to Richard’s house to clean out his closets. But you can stay as long as you like. Spencer’s home, but he is in his office, working upstairs.”

“Cleaning up your brother’s house, it must be difficult for you. I hope this doesn’t sound impertinent, but couldn’t you hire someone to do that? Wouldn’t that be easier?”

“I suppose. I like to keep busy. Spencer doesn’t want me to work. He says I don’t have to; but Richard and I grew up on a small cattle ranch. When we weren’t in school, we were up at dawn and worked with the ranch hands until dinner. We had to help out our mother to keep the ranch going. I always worked until I got married.”

She told me to help myself to drinks and food in the kitchen and wrote down her cell phone number.

“Any results yet from the autopsy?” I asked.

A weary smile washed across her face.

“This has been very hard for me.”

That’s all she said as she walked out the front door. In my mind, I ran a line through Pamela’s name as a potential suspect. The hair-dresser from the Mandraka Salon was wrong. Pamela didn’t need any more money. She had plenty. And she was following through with something that was extremely uncomfortable for her. She didn’t kill her brother.

Much of the material in the folder on the desk consisted of clippings I had already downloaded. There were a few photos of her and Richard riding horses in deep snow surrounded by cattle. She looked about 10-years-old; he maybe 12, probably on their family’s ranch. There were a few pictures of an eight-year-old skinny kid in swim trunks, still dripping wet, holding up a first place ribbon and a few photos of Richard as a teenager, standing next to a girl in a swimsuit. Both were smiling and holding out their first place ribbons. It took less than 10 minutes to go through the Waddell material. I was about to leave the study when I heard a door open upstairs and a voice speaking on a telephone.

“Well, thank you so much for coming in for the interview. Sorry I couldn’t be there in person. I like your overall approach – our branding, our logo, our website. It all needs to be coordinated, I agree. (Pause) Any other questions? Our name, JL Associates? Sure. I’m a big Jack London fan. JL, the initials, it was a no brainer. And one more thing. Jack London’s first boat was called the Razzle Dazzle. That’s where RazzleD came from.”

There was a silence. “Sure, thanks again. Justin, can you stay on the phone for a minute?” Another silence.

“Do whatever you want, I don’t care. She seems capable. Look, we got to talk about something. Tip is unhappy. We’re not getting enough of our inventory out on the streets. That’s your job. (Pause) He doesn’t care. This sports crap you are so big on doesn’t bring in enough money. The audience you’re pushing it on is too high and mighty or maybe too afraid to try it, so it’s slow building. (Pause) “Forget about it. Talk to your distributors; get them out on the streets. Go down to the warehouse in South San Francisco and make it clear. Do you hear me? They have got to do more… A recession? Give me a break. That’s when we do our best. But it can’t get to the suburbs until it is on the streets. Do your job. And Tip said no more monkeying with the formulas to help your friends. You’re getting careless. People are starting to ask questions. Like your girlfriend from the swim office. No more of that stuff, understand?”

The voice became muffled as the door shut upstairs. Well, that was interesting. I had heard the end of Lena’s interview with Justin and Spencer. They must work together. I thought they couldn’t stand each other.

And the follow up conversation—was he talking about distributing RazzleD or their other nutritional products on the streets? Was RazzleD a cover for something else? My gut said that at least Justin from JL & Associates, maybe even Spencer and the third partner, Tip, could be manufacturing or supplying some type of street drugs that Terrel always talked about. I didn’t believe that Justin was knowingly involved. Spencer’s comments about the girlfriend asking questions—it was clearly me. And here I was in his house.

I had to get out of here and I wanted to call Lena. As I walked past the kitchen, I pulled out my cell phone. It dropped and clattered across the marble counter top.

“Pam? Thought you went to your brother’s house” came the voice from upstairs. Spencer walked to the banister on the second floor and looked over. “What are you doing here?”

“Just gathering up some news articles and photos for Richard’s memorial?” I picked up my phone and headed for the door.

“Wait. Come back.”

Spencer started moving down the stairs and I backed away from the island in the kitchen, keeping my eyes on him.

“Need to go,” I said. I opened the front door and quickly walked to the Checker.

Spencer stood with his cell phone to his ear at the front door and watched as I drove past him, down the circular driveway to Opal Valley Drive.

Driving toward 580, I punched in Lena’s number and the speakerphone. “Pick up, please pick up.” But it rolled over to voice mail. Then I tried Dr. T again.

“Terrel, call Lena. Get her out of that interview if she is still there.”

.

25

It took me an
hour to retrace the route back to San Francisco. Even though I was driving opposite commute traffic, cars were creeping along the top span of the Bay Bridge, heading west. Must be an accident or a stall ahead. I glanced into my rear view mirror. A few cars back was the dark sedan.

The turn signals on the Checker didn’t work, so I stuck out my left arm and waved it. The other drivers ignored me. No one would let me in. I could only inch forward with all the other traffic into San Francisco. The Fifth Street off ramp was coming up. I steered the large grill of the Checker toward the car in the next lane. He honked at me, threw up his arms, but put his brakes on. I was one lane closer to the exit. One more ‘get out of my way’ lane change and I was traveling down the ramp off the freeway. The dark sedan missed it completely and passed by. I could see the driver’s face. It was the man with the rusty colored goatee from the hospital parking lot.

I walked through the sliding glass doors of the Emergency Room and took a seat in the surprisingly empty waiting room. Terrel came out through a door behind the receptionist, nodded at me. “Taking a quick break,” he said to her. “Page me if you need me.”

As we walked out of the ER, he threw my car keys at me and told me where it was parked.

“Why did you want me to call Lena and tell her to leave the interview? Which I did and, by the way, I was not able to reach her. You sounded panicked.”

“I overheard the last part of her interview at JL’s; then I heard the interviewers talking, not about Lena, but about what I think might be drugs.”

“How would you know this? You were off somewhere in Pleasanton. Her interview was here in the city.”

I explained why I was visiting Pamela’s house.

“I think I know who and maybe even what is involved in all this.” Then I launched into a recap of my conversation with the swim coach and what I overheard at Pamela’s house.

Terrel turned around and nodded to a pair of physicians walking by.

“One minute,” he said to me as he pulled out his cell phone and punched in some numbers.

“Hey, Tariq, got a question. You ever hear of a JL Associates as it relates to…? Really? You’re sure about that? Okay. Thanks.”

Terrel looked at me. “It’s commonly known in the city’s health clinics that JL Associates is on the radar of the SF Police Drug Task Force. Just what have you gotten yourself and your sister into? Here’s the problem…I have spent the better part of my life trying to distance myself from the shit that goes on in the neighborhood. And now you and your sister are involved with some kingpin dealers.”

“I’m not involved with them. I didn’t know who these people were. I’ve just been doing my job…well maybe a little more than only doing my job. But I was curious about…oh, it doesn’t matter now.”

“All right. All right. You have to stay away from them. We have police in this city. Their job is to go after the bad guys. Your connection with them, whoever they are is over, O–VER, got it.”

I nodded.

“Now, I want you to meet someone.” He led me to the back elevator used for transporting patients. We got off on the same floor that Jackie Gibson was on.

“Hey, Dr. T. How’s it going,” said a young African-American nurse sitting at the nurse’s station. T nodded. “We’re going to go visit Jane Doe.”

“Room 367. Remember, she’s sedated.”

“Who is Jane Doe?”

We walked toward the closed door of a small hospital room at the end of the corridor. Terrel slowly pushed it open. The woman in the bed had stringy washed-out brown hair. She could have been forty, fifty or even sixty-years old. Her grayish skin contrasted starkly with the white sheets on her hospital bed and barely covered her angular collarbone. She looked old, tired and her face was badly bruised. Her eyes were closed. A small map of blue veins on her eyelids matched the color of the bruises on her face. She had an IV inserted into her left arm. Her right arm had the telltale tracks of a junkie.

“Trisha, meet Holly Waddell, Richard Waddell’s wife.”

I sipped the cup of hot coffee that Terrel got for me from the staff kitchen. We were sitting in an empty patient room right next to Holly Waddell’s.

“I don’t believe it. No one has mentioned a wife. Not his sister, brother-in-law or any of the newspaper clips that I’ve seen. Where did she come from? How did she get here?”

“A good Samaritan, from what I can tell. She’s homeless and an addict. She was on her way here to the ER because she didn’t feel well. Could have been a drug interaction. Because—drum roll, please—she has tested positive for the same drugs found in both Jackie and Waddell. However, it was more meth than cocaine. She was pushing her shopping cart and trying to maneuver it down a curb and around a car, when a cyclist hit her, knocked her down. She smashed up her face on the edge of her cart and the street.”

“So, the cyclist brought her in?”

“He called 911 and stayed with her until an ambulance showed up. The EMTs brought her here at about 8:30 a.m. We had her as a ‘Jane Doe’ because she didn’t have any ID on her and she was semiconscious, couldn’t answer any questions. About twenty minutes later, the guy with the bike walked into the ER pushing her cart.”

“You’re kidding?”

“The truth, I swear. So, I put on a pair of latex gloves and started shifting through the cart hoping to find some identification. In an envelope, I found a California ID and Medi-Cal card with the name Holly Waddell. Seriously, I thought it was a coincidence. But then I found two faded blue swim ribbons, you know the kind they give at swim meets?”

I nodded.

“They were from the 70’s. There was also a very well-worn newspaper clipping from some small town paper in Nevada. It was the wedding announcement of Richard Waddell and Holly Worthington, from 1978.”

I glanced over at Terrel.

“In the interviews I read about Richard Waddell, they said he moved to Northern California to be close to his family. I was thinking his sister. But maybe it was Holly. Pamela must have known about her. But she managed to skip over that part of his history,” I said.

“You know, Holly’s probably entitled to Richard’s estate since she is his widow.”

“Now hold on. You don’t know if they were still married.”

“I bet they are. Waddell never remarried. He had girlfriends. One of them happens to be on this same floor. Do you think I can talk to her when she wakes up?”

“Up to her. But, you’ve got other problems right now.”

“Like what?”

“Room 925. Jackie Gibson.”

Jackie Gibson was sitting up in bed with the television on. It droned quietly along, adding to the whirr and whoosh of the medical apparatus keeping track of her blood pressure and heart rate. But she wasn’t watching it. She was glaring at the man sitting in a chair with his back to me.

“Thank you,” she said. Her mouth was pinched into a straight line. “But I don’t need to go to your home to recover. My sister’s coming.”

“But Jackie…,” the man said. It was a deep voice and very familiar.

“Well, look who’s here.” Jackie spit out the words like bad tasting medicine. “The woman who thinks I’m a junkie.”

The man turned around. It was Mike Menton.

“Talk to you later, Trish,” said Terrel as he ducked out the door. “Stop by the ER before you leave.”

“You’re looking better,” I said to the upset patient, whose facial bruises were now more of a sickly yellow.

“You’re looking better,” Jackie mimicked me. “I look like shit. I want to get out of here and go home.”

“The nurses said you wanted to talk to me.”

“I don’t like you talking to my teammates and my friends.”

She nodded at Mike.

“What’s she like? Is she your girlfriend?” She mimicked me again. “What business is it of yours what I do? Who I am?”

“Okay. I talked to people. I was trying to find out who might have wanted to hurt you.”

“Hurt me? What are you talking about? I had a stupid accident.”

“Only one week after Richard Waddell had a ‘stupid accident’ that killed him. And a week before ‘a stupid accident’ affected four swimmers at the Russian River.”

“Are you saying that Dick’s death was intentional and that someone or something caused my accident?”

“I think so.”

“Who would do that?”

I looked over at Mike. If he was involved with this, I had just said too much. When will I learn to think before I open my mouth? He didn’t react to my statement, but glanced at Jackie and then at me.

“Mike, I’d like to talk to Jackie alone. Could you wait outside for a bit?”

“I don’t like this. You’re saying that Dick’s and Jackie’s and the Russian River accidents could be related?”

“Possibly,” I said. “But I need to talk to Jackie.”

Mike got up and leaned over the bed to kiss Jackie on the forehead. “I’ll be right outside in the waiting room.”

Jackie and I were silent until the door quietly closed behind Mike. Then she picked up the remote and switched off the TV.

“What is going on?” Jackie asked.

“Like Mike said, I think that your accident and Dick’s death are connected. I don’t think Dick had a heart attack. I think it was a reaction to a drug and it was too much for his heart to take.”

Jackie became very still. Instead of glaring at me, her gaze dropped down to the white sheets on her bed.

“Did Dick ever talk to you about wanting to improve his swimming?”

“All the time. A friend that he had was helping him get some nutritional…mmm…items…to keep him swimming fast.”

“Did he ever mention the words High Test or HT2?”

“Yes, but I thought he was joking. He started taking some kind of capsule before open water swims and swim meets saying he was topping off his tank.”

“Jackie, the drugs that you tested positive for have the same chemical make-up of this HT2.”

“I don’t do drugs. I told you that before.”

“I know, but somehow they got into your body. Your judgment was impaired. I think it was the reason you drove off the cliff. And it could have caused Dick’s heart attack in the water. Did Dick mention who supplied him with these nutritional supplements?”

“Not in so many words. But I got the feeling that there were a number of people involved.”

“Did Dick ever talk about his past?”

“No. He wasn’t that kind of guy. He talked about growing up in Texas, but that’s about it.”

“He wasn’t from Texas. He was from Nevada originally.”

“No. You’re wrong. He was from Texas.”

If that was hard for Jackie to believe, I could only imagine what she’d say if I told her Dick’s wife was in a room down the hall.

“Were you and he serious?”

“I was. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I might have a future with someone. He knew I’d seen a lot of guys, but that didn’t seem to bother him. We were beginning to talk about getting married. Well, maybe I was the one talking about getting married. He usually sidestepped the conversation, but he never said no.”

“What about Mike? He seems to think you and he are…uh… together?”

“He doesn’t get it. Sure, I went out with him a few times. And I was seeing Dick, too. So what? Mike didn’t mean anything to me.”