Mourning Gloria (33 page)

“No, sir,” Jerry said. She aimed an inquisitive glance at the county vehicle.

“Related business,” Blackie said, reading her look. “Your team is on its way.”

“Sheila told me you were coming to check out Gloria Graham’s apartment,” I said.

“Right. Unit One, second floor.” He added dryly, “I suppose you think that bringing in Fisher means that you’ve earned the right to tag along.”

“I do.” I grinned. “You got what you needed from Fisher?”

He nodded. “An interesting story. Several angles, a couple of leads.” He looked at me. “I doubt if our investigation would have turned her up, China. I owe you.”

He was right. There are things that cops can do and things they can’t. “I need to give you a couple of other items,” I said. Guiltily, I added, “I meant to call and fill you in on a phone conversation that took place after I left your office this morning, but things got hectic at the shop. If you let me tag along, I can do that now.”

“Come on, then.” To Jerry, he said, “Which way is the manager’s office?”

The officer pointed toward the central building, which sported a fancy white-columned portico. “Inside. Hang a right. First door on the left.” Her radio chirped. “Manager’s name is Linda Sternfeld,” she added, as she reached for it.

On the way to the office, I briefly sketched out for Blackie what Amanda had told me about Jessica’s relationship with Stuart Laughton. I concluded with, “So it seems that Laughton had been seeing both Gloria Graham and Jessica Nelson. Romance, sex, or both. And maybe more,” I added.

“Busy fellow,” Blackie remarked. “Guy with a big heart. Highpowered sex drive, too.”

“I hate this,” I said bleakly. “I’m acquainted with Stuart and I like him, although I’ve been a little uncomfortable around him sometimes. I’m sorry to hear that he’s been cheating on his wife. She’s a nice gal.” I didn’t blame Jessica, though. According to Amanda, Stuart had misrepresented his situation and Jessica had broken off their relationship when she learned the truth. I could chalk that up to a mistake. I’ve made a few like that in my time, and managed to extricate myself without too much damage. I could only hope that Jessica would, too.

“Uncomfortable?” Blackie asked.

“Yes. He’s a little too flirtatious for my taste. He’s a hands-on guy, if you know what I mean. But more to the point, he seems to be at the center of this situation. He’s a faculty member, and I like to think they’re above this sort of thing. But he’s made frequent trips to Mexico for his research. It’s possible that he’s somehow gotten involved with one of the cartels. Unlikely, but possible.”

Unlikely, yes. But this kind of thing happens. Justine Wyzinski, aka the Whiz, a law school buddy of mine who practices in San Antonio and South Texas, was recently asked to take the case of a young doctor who had financed his way through medical school with a cartel affiliation. He was a paragon of respectability, according to his friends and colleagues, and couldn’t possibly have done what the Feds said he was doing. But Justine took a look at the case and declined to represent him. I didn’t blame her. Once you climb into bed with the drug lords, they may be reluctant to let you climb back out—especially if they like your work. If she had pled him out or gotten him off, there could have been another, and another.

“Maybe Gloria Graham wanted to make some extra money,” I added, “and Laughton recruited her. It’s possible that he tried to do the same thing with Jessica, too. Maybe she refused and he—”

Blackie raised a hand. “Whoa,” he cautioned. “Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. Given what Shannon Fisher reported and what I’ve just heard from you, I’ll be talking to Laughton as soon as I’m finished here. But we don’t have a positive on the trailer fire victim yet. And we don’t know what’s happened to Nelson. In fact, we don’t know that anything has happened to her.”

“Oh, right,” I said, with some sarcasm. “Like maybe she parked her Ford here, then hopped a bus to Austin and forgot to let anybody know where she was going.”

“Or she ran into a friend of the opposite sex, and they went off together for some fun,” Blackie said. The radio on his belt chirped, and he stopped to speak into it.

Blackie was right about the identification. And as far as Jessica’s disappearance was concerned, there were suspects other than Stuart Laughton. There was the jerk—the next-door neighbor, for instance. And there was Larry Wolff, whom I had not yet tried to track down. And how about—

“Hey, Matt,” somebody called. “Yo! Simmons!”

Matt Simmons? The name rang a bell, and I turned. A tall, strongly built guy in his early twenties—brown hair, rugged good looks—was striding along the walk in front of the central building. He was wearing jeans, a T-shirt that shouted OAXACA! in multicolored letters dancing around a big sombrero, and leather sandals.

Simmons stopped, and the kid who had hailed him bounced a basketball on the pavement. “A bunch of us are going over to the court,” the kid said. “Got a half hour for a pickup game?”

Matt Simmons. This was the guy who was doing the research on ololiuqui—morning glory seeds—and supplying Lucy LaFarge with the raw ingredients for the street drug she was cooking up in her kitchen. According to Shannon, he had been one of the male students on Laughton’s field trip to Oaxaca back in November. And then I remembered something else Shannon had said. Matt Simmons had been outside with Gloria in the parking lot of that hamburger joint when she unloaded her “tourist pottery.”

Matt Simmons. He lived
here
? In the same complex where Gloria lived?

Yes, apparently. “Sorry,” he said to the kid with the basketball. “Gotta study for a quiz tomorrow. Catch ya later. Okay?” He lifted a hand, went inside, and crossed the nicely decorated foyer to the elevator. As I watched, he stepped inside. The lighted indicator above the elevator showed that it was stopping at the second floor. The second floor—and Gloria had lived on the second floor. I was beginning to see some connections.

Blackie had already headed toward the manager’s office, and I was still processing this information as I turned to follow him. The office was even more nicely decorated than the foyer, with a handsome walnut desk, a plush, comfy-looking sofa, several obligatory potted plants, and an array of photographs of luxury apartments, the club room, the gym, and the spa. The photos featured the young and lovely and well-heeled residents the Villa was designed to attract, all of them engaged in various fun-loving activities.

Blackie was holding up his official identification for the skeptical consideration of a dark-haired woman dressed in a peach-colored power suit with a matching camisole and three-inch heels—Ms. Sternfeld, I presumed. A pair of reading glasses hung around her neck on a gold chain.

She examined his identification as she listened to his announcement that he was here to check out the apartment of a woman who might have been the victim in an arson fire the previous Saturday. Frowning, she said, “I find it hard to believe that one of our residents would have put herself into such a situation.” Her tone implied that their luxury apartments were never occupied by riffraff who might die in a house trailer, and her glance at the holster on Blackie’s belt suggested that weapons were both unwelcome and unnecessary in such an exclusive enclave.

“She might not have had a choice,” Blackie replied evenly. “We’re still in the process of making an identification of the body. I’m afraid it’s not an easy task. The victim was burned beyond recognition. However, we have probable cause to believe that it is indeed Ms. Graham, and we’re proceeding under that assumption, at least for the moment.”

Probable cause
should have tipped her off, but apparently Ms. Sternfeld didn’t watch cop shows on TV. “I really don’t think I should permit—” she began in an officious tone.

“I have a search warrant,” Blackie said. He pulled a folded document out of his shirt pocket and handed it to her. “Your consent to the search is unnecessary, however. I am notifying you as a courtesy. I would appreciate it if you would either unlock Ms. Graham’s apartment for me or provide me with a key.” It was also true that she could not have given consent to the search in any circumstances, since a landlord, or his representative, lacks the authority to do so. I wondered if she knew that.

Ms. Sternfeld put on her reading glasses, unfolded the warrant, and scanned it. Then she handed it back with the tips of her fingers, as if it were loaded with germs. “Really, Sheriff, this sort of thing is highly irregular. Our residents simply do not—”

“Irregular, yes,” Blackie said. “Murder is a highly irregular event. Most people do not intend to burn to death.” He put the warrant on her desk, walked to the wall, and looked pointedly at a photo that showed a young boy and girl mounted on side-by-side stationery bicycles, gazing at a television set while they listened to their iPods.

“Of course, I wouldn’t want to cause any more disruption to your tenants than necessary,” he went on. “Your tenants and their parents, that is. The last thing you need is a half-dozen sheriff’s cars parked outside your door. But perhaps that won’t be necessary. At this point, I only intend to have a preliminary look. I hope you will agree to unlock the door, so I won’t have to make a forcible entry.”

The manager gave an involuntary shudder. “Well, I suppose we could go up there together, and see if Ms. Graham answers the door. Let me check for the telephone number, and I’ll call ahead.” Furrowing her brow, she bent over a computer, looked up a number, then punched it into a phone. While she was waiting, she glanced up and saw me for the first time, standing just inside the door. “May I help you?”

“Ms. Bayles is with me,” Blackie said.

“Oh,” Ms. Sternfeld said, and went back to listening to the ringing on the other end of the line. Finally she put the phone down. “No answer,” she said unnecessarily, and reached for a set of keys. “Well, I suppose we’d better go up there. Ms. Graham might be sick or something.”

Sick or something, I thought dryly. How about dead?

But I was still thinking about Matt Simmons. As the three of us went to the elevator for the ride to the second floor, I spoke to Blackie in a chatty, isn’t-this-a-small-world tone.

“What a coincidence, Sheriff. As we were coming in, I ran into Matt Simmons. Shannon Fisher may have mentioned his name to you this morning. He was on the field trip to Oaxaca with Gloria Graham. Thinking about it now, I wonder if maybe he shared her connections.”

Blackie nodded. He was expressionless, but he flicked me a glance. He understood what I was saying.

“Mr. Simmons?” Ms. Sternfeld asked brightly. “He’s a friend of yours? Actually, he lives across the hall from Ms. Graham, on the second floor.”

“Is that right?” I asked in a friendly tone. “It was a surprise to see him. I’m sorry that we didn’t have a chance to talk. I wonder—were Matt and Ms. Graham friends?”

“Actually, he moved in just a few weeks before she did. And yes, I believe they were acquainted before they both came here. He referred her to us and received a lease discount for the referral.” She was looking at Blackie. “Really, Sheriff, I hope you’re not right about Ms. Graham. It would be devastating if she was the one who . . .” The elevator door opened and she broke off, finding it impossible to say the words “burned to death in that house-trailer fire.”

The second floor was quiet, its wide, carpeted hallway stretching from one side of the building to the other. Ms. Sternfeld rapped loudly at a door marked 204, waited a moment, then knocked again.

“Ms. Graham,” she called, trying another knock. Then, with a heavy sigh and a great show of reluctance, she pushed a key into the door and turned it.

We stepped into the apartment, leaving the door partially open behind us. We had entered an elegant living room, with an off-white carpet, white leather sofa and chair, glass coffee table, and an entertainment center with a flat-screen TV the size of my dining room tabletop. The walls were covered with Mexican woven hangings, there was a large Mexican area rug under a dining table, and several pieces of Mexican pottery were scattered around the room. I looked at them, wondering if they were the real thing—real pottery, that is, rather than the stuff that ended up on the street, killing people. The kitchen boasted stainless steel appliances, but they were so spotlessly clean that I was willing to bet that they weren’t seeing much use. The bedroom was as posh as the living room, although the floor was littered with clothing, the bed was unmade, and the bathroom counter was crowded with bottles and jars and tubes of makeup. A sliding glass door looked out on a private sundeck furnished with luxury redwood loungers, pots of marigolds and cosmos, and a view of the cedar-clad hills above the campus.

“A very nice apartment,” I said appreciatively, as Blackie went quickly from room to room, looking for signs of violence that might suggest that whatever had happened to Gloria Graham had begun here. My own quick glance told me that this wasn’t likely, but he’s the expert in such matters. His trained eye would see things I missed. “I’m sure parents must feel that their children are safe here.”

“Safety is our highest priority,” Ms. Sternfeld said quickly. “And of course, we’re always glad to add the names of young people to our waiting list. Sometimes parents put their children on our roster when they’re still juniors or seniors in high school. This is quite a desirable complex, you know.” She paused. “I can give you my card when we go back downstairs, if you’d like to make a referral.”

“Perhaps I would,” I said. “How much would someone expect to pay for this particular apartment, for instance?”

“Our one-bedroom units are $950 a month, which includes convenient garage parking and all utilities, as well as unlimited use of our fitness facilities. We do have two- and three-bedroom apartments, as well, if your student would prefer a roommate situation. Less expensive, too.” With a practiced enthusiasm, she had switched into her saleslady mode. “I might also mention that you can choose from several different designer furniture, drapery, and appliance packages. And we offer a weekly cleaning service—for an extra fee, of course.”