Deadly Forecast: A Psychic Eye Mystery (33 page)

“Yeah, but what if Michelle was secretly seeing someone else, and she just didn’t
tell anybody about it?”

Candice held up the file and flipped her thumb against several dozen pages. “This
is a printout of Michelle’s e-mails and texts. There’s no exchange between her and
anyone who might be considered a romantic interest.”

“There’s a connection, Candice,” I said, bending down to pick up Taylor’s photo and
Michelle’s…but then, my intuition sparked and I set down Taylor’s photo and picked
up Mimi’s. With a small gasp I said, “Or maybe…the connection isn’t between Taylor
and Michelle. Maybe the connection is between Michelle and Mimi….”

Looking up, I saw the surprise on Candice’s face. “Michelle…Mimi…two similar-sounding
names.”

I nodded, a small surge of excitement running through me. “Candice, maybe this isn’t
about Taylor at all. Maybe this is actually about Mimi.”

Candice came over to lift the driver’s license photo of Mimi out of my hands. “You
think someone drove her to suicide?”

“Possibly. But more important, I think there’s a connection between Mimi and Michelle—and
I think it’s more than just that their names sounded a little alike.”

“We should go have another talk with Mrs. Padilla,” Candice said. “And this time we’ll
bring Mimi’s photo along.”

“Good idea. Maybe we should also find Mimi’s manager at Jamba Juice and talk to her
again. Hopefully, either she or one of the store employees will recognize Michelle.
Also, I want to go back to our friend Jed Banes and pick his brain a little. I think
he knows something that’ll help us link all of this together.”

Candice smirked. “Anything else you want to fit into that packed schedule for today,
Sundance?”

I grinned back at her. “At some point I’m going to have to call my sister and fend
off a final prewedding meeting. I won’t be successful, and she’ll rein me into her
office and cover me in swarming butterflies, swan feathers, and taffeta. I’m not gonna
go in alone, and I can’t go with Dutch.”

“You want
me
to go with you?” Candice asked (like I’d just asked her to come with me into the
center ring of lions, tigers, and bears).

“Please?” I begged her. Candice began to shake her head.
“Pleeeeeeeeeease?”

Candice glared hard at me before picking up her purse and the photos we’d need for
our interviews. “You. So. Owe me.”

“Yes, yes, I’ll buy the margaritas!” I told her with a grateful smile.

“Oh, you owe me way more than that,” she groused.

I gulped. Candice would expect a favor of some kind, and it was likely to be a big
one. “What were you thinking?”

“Get me out of that purple people-eater your sister is hell-bent on making me wear
at your wedding.”

Candice’s bridesmaid’s dress was a bit of a disaster…in the way one might consider
Katrina a “bit” of a disaster. The dress was a purple velvet number with a heart-shaped
bodice, big poufy sleeves, and a short, clingy skirt. The whole thing managed to transform
my elegant and sophisticated best friend into a girl who could possibly be rented
by the hour.

The odd thing was that Cat normally had excellent taste—and I wondered if the wedding
had just become such a spectacle that it’d all gotten away from her a little. (Or
a lot.) I also thought that since the dress came with a designer label, Cat hadn’t
bothered to really look at it. It was more likely that the garment was the right color,
which had trumped fit and style.

“I promise, you will not have to wear that god-awful dress,” I vowed, crazy relieved
that I actually already had a solution. “In fact, wait here a sec, would you?”

I moved into my own small suite and retrieved a garment bag from the closet. Bringing
it back to Candice, I handed it to her with a triumphant smile. “I was gonna save
this for the margarita and nacho night we were planning as my bachelorette party,
but right now might be better.”

Candice took the bag warily. Still she unzipped it and pulled out the dress I really
wanted her to wear, an aubergine-colored chiffon gown, with thin shoulder straps,
a deep V-neck, and a loosely belted waist. It was elegant and feminine and I knew
it would show off Candice’s well-toned arms and beautiful skin. “Oh, Abs,” Candice
whispered, pulling it all the way out of the bag to hold it up high and get a better
look. “It’s
gorgeous
!”

My grin was ear to ear. “I hadn’t planned on telling Cat,” I
confessed. “I figured you’d just show up in it on Saturday and we’d lose the other
one in a tragic Dumpster accident,” I added with a wink.

Candice’s eyes filled with tears and she hugged the dress to her and looked at me
with gratitude and a bit of mischief. “It’s perfect, and I thank you. But the margaritas
are still on you!”

*   *   *

A
bout an hour later we arrived at Colleen Padilla’s home. Candice had called Michelle’s
mother from the car to ask for an early morning meeting. She agreed and we arrived
at just before eight thirty.

Colleen met us at the door, dressed in black and looking incredibly sad. My heart
went out to her. Once inside the stately home she led us to the dining room, which
was set up as if to receive company, and I realized that we might have come at the
most inappropriate of times. “The funeral is today,” she said, gazing at the table
laden with flowers, plates, Sterno warmers, and silver flatware. “We’re having the
wake here.”

“I’m so sorry that we’ve come at such a bad time,” I apologized.

“No, no,” Mrs. Padilla said. “It’s fine. Are you closer to finding out who did this
to my daughter?”

I had to give the woman credit; no way would she ever believe that Michelle had purposely
killed herself and four others. “We’re narrowing in on some leads,” I said. “The reason
we wanted to see you, ma’am, is that we know you said that—to your knowledge—Michelle
had never met Taylor Greene, but I’m wondering if perhaps Michelle had ever met this
girl?”

Next to me Candice pulled out a photo of Mimi and handed it to Mrs. Padilla.

“Oh!” she said right away. “That’s Mimi!”

I sucked in a breath. I’d hoped that Mrs. Padilla might recognize the photo, but I’d
never thought she’d identify Mimi so quickly. “Yes,” I said, recovering myself. “How
did you know her?”

Mrs. Padilla blushed a little and she continued to stare at Mimi’s photo. “Michelle
felt so terrible about what happened to Mimi,” she said. “Her suicide hit my daughter
very hard and it haunted her for months.”

My radar buzzed with energy while Candice said, “You’re telling us your daughter
knew
Mary Greene?”

“Mimi Greene,” Mrs. Padilla corrected. “And yes, I’m afraid Michelle knew her quite
well.”

“They were friends?” I asked.

Mrs. Padilla handed the photo back to Candice. “No. Michelle counseled her for a time
when she was interning at ACC’s health clinic.”

“Austin Community College?” Candice clarified.

“Yes. Michelle interned there for six months before continuing her studies at UT.
She wasn’t supposed to counsel students who were deeply troubled, but the psychiatrist
in charge was the one who matched Michelle with students who came to the clinic for
mental health support, and before she realized it, Michelle was in way over her head.
The clinic was swamped, you see, and she was only one of two interns.”

“How did Michelle know that Mimi’s death was a suicide?” I asked.

Mrs. Padilla tugged at the pearls around her neck. “The arson investigator came to
the house shortly after we saw in the paper that Mimi had died in a fire. He asked
a lot of questions about Mimi’s mental state, and Michelle admitted that Mimi was
a very troubled young girl. She’d even asked Dr. Wiseman to sit in on the session
she’d scheduled with Mimi on the day she died. Mimi never showed up for the session.
She killed herself earlier that
morning. It was so tragic. My daughter was crushed and she felt responsible. She even
considered giving up counseling because of it.”

“It wasn’t her fault,” I said, knowing it to be true. Mimi Greene was certainly a
victim of circumstance—seeking help at a facility unprepared for the burden of so
many troubled and stressed-out students—but Michelle was hardly to blame for that.

“I agree,” Mrs. Padilla said. “Which is what I was eventually able to convince her
of.” And then she seemed to realize that we wouldn’t be inquiring about Mimi if there
wasn’t some connection between her and the case involving Michelle. “Why are you asking
me about Mimi?” she asked us.

“Just following a lead, Mrs. Padilla,” Candice said evasively, before deftly changing
the subject. “Do you know if Michelle told anyone else about Mimi? That the fire hadn’t
been an accident but a suicide?”

“Oh, no,” Mrs. Padilla said, as if she was shocked by the idea of her daughter spreading
such gossip. “Michelle was very ethical. She would never talk about a patient’s personal
issues. Not even to me. And the only reason I knew about Mimi in the first place was
that I was here when the fire marshal came to get Michelle’s statement.”

My radar buzzed again and I asked, “Did Michelle share with the fire marshal the reason
Mimi came looking for counseling in the first place?”

Mrs. Padilla sighed tiredly and scratched her forehead. “I believe it was boy trouble.
The same as most girls that age.”

I leaned forward, remembering the box of photos from Taylor Greene’s apartment and
the one picture in particular marked with all that black felt-tip pen graffiti. “Boy
trouble?” I asked Mrs. Padilla. “Michelle said that Mimi had a boyfriend?”

Mrs. Padilla nodded. “Yes, but I think they broke up. I seem
to recall that Mimi’s sister got in the middle of things and it led to a breakup,
which sent poor Mimi into a downward spiral.”

The hair rose on the back of my neck. “Do you recall this boyfriend’s name?” I asked.

Mrs. Padilla frowned. “No. I’m not sure it was even mentioned. But I do remember Michelle
commenting that the man Mimi was seeing was quite a few years older than her, and
she wondered if that hadn’t also been an issue or a factor in the breakup.”

“Is there
anything
about him specifically that you can remember?” I pressed. “Like where Mimi might
have met him, or even where he worked?”

Again Mrs. Padilla scratched lightly at her forehead. “He owned his own business,”
she said. “I knew that because Michelle said that Mimi had convinced herself that
she would never find anyone better than this older man, who to her was so worldly
and accomplished for owning his own company.”

“Is there anything else you can tell us from that meeting, or afterward, that might
be important?” Candice asked.

Mrs. Padilla closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath; she let it out slowly and said,
“No, ladies. I believe that is the entire gist of that meeting. The fire marshal was
very nice, and sympathetic to how upsetting the news of Mimi’s suicide was to my daughter.
But that’s really it.”

We thanked Mrs. Padilla for her time and headed back to the car. “Holy freakballs!”
I said the moment the door was closed. We
finally
had a direct link between the girls.

“And now we can prove that this was no act of terrorism,” Candice said, already dialing
her phone. Holding it up to her ear, she waited several seconds before saying, “Hey,
baby, it’s me. Call me back right away, okay? Love you.”

“Brice?” I asked once she hung up.

Candice nodded and eyed the clock on the dash. “He might be in a meeting. Our choices
are to head to the bureau or to keep following this thread and see what we come up
with.”

“Let’s keep going,” I said. “What time does Jamba Juice open?”

Candice put the car into gear and pulled away from the curb. “They should be open
now—hey, buckle your seat belt, would you?”

I realized that I’d been so excited by our discovery that Michelle and Mimi knew each
other that I’d forgotten basic safety precautions.

“Sorry.”

“And by the way,” Candice added, zipping down the street at a steady clip, “where’s
Fast Freddy?”

I looked to my right in the car well where my feet rested and where I always stored
my cane, but it wasn’t there. “Ohmigod! I’ve been walking around without my cane!”

Candice grinned. “I noticed it when we left the office, but I was wondering how long
it’d take you to realize it.”

But I wasn’t so happy. “We have to go to the office and get it!” I insisted, feeling
no confidence about my ability to get along without it.

Candice laughed. “Girl, you’ve been managing just fine without it for the past half
hour. Why would you think you still need it?”

“I just do!”

“The office is on the opposite side of town from Jamba Juice. You really want to waste
an hour?”

“Yes.”

Candice rolled her eyes. “Fine. But at some point you’re gonna have to realize that
you don’t need it anymore.”

“I can realize it on Saturday. Between now and then I get to hang on to Fast Freddy.”