Just Evil (47 page)

And that was an understatement, he thought. He didn’t know
quite how he felt about what they’d just unearthed on their own because of
Kit’s dream. As he hit the PRINT button to make a copy of the article to take
with them, he rested his hand on Kit’s shoulder, and considered the woman.

He had to admit he hadn’t really expected to find anything
about a murdered couple on a ranch, yet here they were sitting in the library
reading about their deaths, and the deaths were just as Kit and Gloria had
described from their dreams. The whole thing was more than a little spooky. He
looked into the green eyes of the woman he loved, and wondered silently if she
might have some sort of psychic ability. He’d known Gloria had always claimed
to be intuitive. She’d been right on target about Claire. Despite his affection
for her, he’d always thought Gloria was a tad odd, but now it seemed he owed
her an apology.

And Gloria was Kit’s mother. Had Kit inherited some of the
same intuitive tendencies from her mother, her real mother?

Back on the boat, he was still thinking about Kit’s uncanny
dream and how it had led them to identify the Parkers when he logged onto the
Internet to try and find more information about them.

He hit pay dirt in a database containing L.A. County court
records. It seems in 1966 Sumner and Jessica Boyd filed only one lawsuit that
year on behalf of the Parkers, who owned a six-thousand-acre cattle spread in
the Hollywood Hills, known as The Sundown Ranch.

Parker believed McKetrick Construction was responsible for
dumping toxic waste on his ranch, killing his cattle and polluting his land. It
had taken a year for the case to go to court, then in the middle of the trial,
before the case had gone to the jury, the construction company had abruptly
settled for $15 million dollars to be paid out to the couple over a three year
time period, starting in 1967 and ending in 1969. The final payment had been
delivered in August 1969.

Just in time for their murder. The same timeframe agreed
with those copies of checks he’d found in Alana’s attic, the ones totaling half
a million dollars paid out over the same amount of time. Could those checks be
payment of some kind, maybe Alana’s share of the winnings?

When Kit hobbled up behind him and wrapped her arms around
his shoulders, he absently brought her around to sit on his lap, nuzzled her
neck. Cuddling was new to him. Funny, how it seemed so natural now. Deftly
without letting her go, he tapped keys on his laptop, switched to another web
browser, brought up a secure site designated for Vietnam veterans and typed in
the name Noah Parker. 

“Found anything?” Kit asked as she nibbled his ear, not
really interested in what he was searching for, but doing her best to get his
attention.

While he waited for a result to pop up, he told her what
he’d found out about the Parkers and what he hoped to find out about their son
using the only bit of information the newspaper article had provided.

After several seconds, the web site rendered the date Noah
Parker entered the Army, his pay grade, rank, serial number, date of birth, and
marital status. To make sure he had the right man, he added a caveat. He asked
for the city where he’d been inducted into the Army. When he got Los Angeles,
he asked for the date this particular soldier went MIA. The date came up May
1969, matching the date mentioned in the article.

Jake sat up straighter when he caught sight of the line with
the date Noah Parker had been found alive. He shifted Kit on his lap, typed in
a command looking for a discharge date. When he came up empty, he planted a wet
kiss on Kit’s mouth and declared, “Looks like Noah Parker may have survived
Vietnam. And he was attached to a sniper unit during the war.”

“And that’s significant because…”  

“Who else would have the training and the greatest reason to
avenge the murder of his parents?”

“Oh. We should let the others know what we found out.”

That evening, everyone gathered around Gloria’s dining room
table for lasagna. They were a noisy bunch even with their mouths full. And no
one enjoyed it more than Gloria. She listened as Jake and Kit good-naturedly
bickered over when she should head back to work. She got a kick out of watching
Dylan interact with Baylee and Sarah, curious to know when the baby could start
eating solid food. She noticed Reese seemed to be a little lost without Quinn
who hadn’t been able to get out of her shift at the hospital.

Gloria knew they were here to talk about murder. But it
didn’t much matter to her why only that they were here like a family, her
family. After so many years, she not only had Kit, but the family she’d always
wanted. Somewhere Morty had to be smiling at all of them.

Over a fresh pot of coffee and Baylee’s chocolate cake, Jake
told them about the newspaper article they’d found and how the Parker murders
happened right on the heels of the Manson crime spree splashed all over the
news at the time.

“And the son, this Noah Parker, would have every reason to
go after Alana and Jessica now like a revenge factor,” Dylan surmised, as he
scarfed down every crumb of the chocolate cake on his plate.

“But why wait almost forty years to make his move?” Baylee
asked. As she scooped up Sarah out of her infant carrier, she noticed Dylan get
seconds of the cake she’d baked. Pleased, she grinned before making her point.
“He’d have to be in his sixties by now, wouldn’t he?”

“Good point, but that doesn’t mean he’s any less pissed off
his parents were murdered for their money,” Dylan said, as he licked fudge
frosting from his fingers.

“And I thought it was for the land,” Kit said.

“Probably both. Like you said before, they were sitting on
prime real estate worth millions.” Jake turned to Reese. “What exactly happened
to the ranch after they died?”

“After you called this afternoon I did some checking. That
land used to be horse and cattle country. The ranch was sold to a developer
named, Robert Carlton, four months after they died.”

“Wait a minute,” Kit said to Jake. “Alana was married to a
Robert Carlton?”

Jake shuffled some papers around. “Husband number two. Son
of a bitch.”

“Guess who handled the sale?” Reese looked around the table.

But it was Gloria who answered a little sheepishly. “Alana.
It was her first sale as a realtor. And before you ask, I don’t know everything
Alana and Jessica were up to in those days other than they were almost
inseparable back then. I was ten years younger and had my own circle of
friends. I didn’t start hanging around Alana until much later, a couple of
years before Kit was born.”

“But you knew she was married to Frank Geller and this
Carlton?”

Gloria nodded. “But her marriages never lasted for long.”

“But Carlton turned the property into a strip shopping
center. It’s abandoned now, like a ghost town.” 

“Didn’t they find Eva Gatz’s body somewhere in the Hollywood
Hills at an abandoned strip mall?” Kit asked.

“They did. So wouldn’t it stand to reason, someone’s figured
out who killed the Parkers and wants justice forty years after the fact. If we
go by Kit’s dream that leads right to Alana and Jessica.”

“We’ve got smart people in this room. We need to come up
with facts and fast.”

“Before St. John gets an itchy trigger finger and arrests
me,” Kit added with a grin.

“Here’s the newspaper article,” Jake offered as he passed
around copies to everyone.

When Dylan read the article, he turned to Kit. “I can’t
believe your dream was so on target. I have to admit when I heard about it, I
thought you were nuts.”

“Me too,” Kit agreed. “Jake’s the one who made the
connection to the Manson murders. If it hadn’t been for that I’d have never
come up with the right time frame.”

“And just so I’m clear,” Reese asked, wondering if he was stirring
up the masses even more. “You think Alana and Jessica killed the Parkers for
the money they got in the lawsuit. Jessica plans to find the body, gives the
interview to the paper, and then steps into a goldmine when she’s conveniently
named executor of the Parker estate. I checked the probate records, it’s true.
No pesky son in the picture to show up and want his share of the inheritance.
That’s a nice tight scenario and might explain a few things.”

Jake frowned, picking up on Reese’s undertone. “You want to
share?”

“Over the years there’ve been rumors that BBG&G isn’t
exactly on the up and up. I didn’t put much stock in the rumors until now… But
after reading this article, after learning Jessica found the bodies…after going
through old probate files this afternoon and finding out there was a change to
the Parker will after the son reportedly went MIA. With no other relatives,
Jessica saw an opportunity, a big one.” 

Up to now, Jake had been busy organizing the box of stuff
from the trunk of his car so they could go through everything. But now, he
stopped, stared at Reese with furious eyes. “What are you talking about? What
rumors?”

Reese sighed. “There’s been talk among lawyers, common
knowledge really. Some people believe that if BBG&G doesn’t have the
documentation to prove a case in court, they somehow manage to get it.”

When Jake didn’t seem to understand the implication, and no
one else in the room did either, Reese said flatly, “Manufacture the evidence,
guys. They have a history of surprising the other side in court with nice tidy
little packages of evidence that wasn’t listed during the discovery phase, in
other words, they’re more than a little lax about complying with discovery.
After searching details about the Parker case this afternoon, it sounds like
there may be something to the rumors.”

With her hands in her jeans pockets, an outraged Quinn who’d
traded part of her shift to be here and had let herself in, stood in the
doorway of the dining room. “But that’s outrageous. People knew this and let
them get away with it. That’s against the law. They get fined for not
complying, right?”

Reese looked up, surprised at the little jolt of lust he got
in his gut just looking at her. “Sanctions are at the discretion of the court,
more accurately the judge. It’s common knowledge BBG&G has a lot of
political influence in this state. And all of the partners wield a considerable
hold over some of the state’s most influential judges, or at least they did.”

Jake hissed out a breath. “You know I’m getting tired of
hearing that as an excuse to let these guys get away with crap like that, like
they did with Kit’s adoption.”

Reese agreed. “Exactly. But a long ago adoption is the least
of our worries. If we can prove this, if the murders happened like we think, if
all this comes to light, how they won the court case, it would ruin the firm’s
reputation. We’re talking about ruining a legal empire here, guys. We can’t go
off half-cocked.”

Jake fumed. “You knew about these rumors and never said a
word these last few weeks knowing how much we didn’t trust these people? And
knowing what kind of spot that left Kit in?”

“Look, rumors are one thing. Proof is something else. At the
time I had no idea about the Parkers, okay?”

“You could have said something.”

But Kit spoke up. “If I get your drift, you’re saying that
the firm has this history of doing shady stuff with evidence they don’t have.”

“The rumors go back to the beginning, ever since they pulled
a last minute victory over McKetrick Construction.”

 “If Jessica changed the Parker will to benefit her, then
suppose Alana’s will originally left it all to Jessica, just as we all
expected, maybe when Jessica found out Alana had been murdered, she panicked,
conveniently changed the will to read everything went to me, benefited me after
all, just to solidify a motive for the police. That would certainly take the
heat off her or the law firm. But then she gets herself killed, too.”

 “Well, when you put it like that it sounds ridiculous.”

Kit moved closer to Jake, but kept her eyes on Reese. “But
that’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? They’ve done stuff like this before,
produced forged documents in court that the people didn’t sign, or didn’t know
about. Now that whole scenario would make a lot more sense than believing Alana
named me the beneficiary.”

Now, she did turn to Jake. “If Jessica was used to getting
away with it, why not do it now when everything, so to speak, was on the line.
They couldn’t have the police looking into Alana’s murder, learning Jessica was
the beneficiary all along and then stumbling across a forty year old murder
where she was also named the Parker trustee over millions.”

Jake lifted her chin. “Is this intuition or speculation,
Kit?”

“A little of both. Something just doesn’t feel right about
that will.”

Reese sensed he needed to be the voice of reason here before
the crowd got carried away. “Not provable, guys. If the documents are there to
back up the will, there’s no proof Alana left her estate to Jessica.” Looking
directly at Jake, he continued, “That’s why I hesitated mentioning any of this.
Without proof it’s just bull—it’s conjecture. Maybe just angry litigants who
feel they were ambushed in court without proper discovery, nothing more.”

But Baylee spoke up, “But according to Gloria, that’s what
they did to get Kit, isn’t it? They wanted custody and produced whatever
documentation they needed in court.” And if Jessica did it once and got away
with it, she’d have taught her sons well and they could do it again. “You’re
saying if all the paperwork is in order, the court goes along with whatever the
piece of paper says that makes it all legal.”

Baylee cringed. She needed to take Sarah and run, get as far
away from L.A. as she could. 

During the discussion, Kit had moved to the box of stuff on
the table. Now she was bent over the open mobile safe examining the gun. Out of
the blue, she said, “It’s rather large, isn’t it? The gun.” She turned to face
everyone. “You need proof, right? Something concrete that might link Alana to
the murders. This gun, it’s the one in my dream. The one used to kill the
Parkers, I’m sure of it. Couldn’t we have it tested?”