Murder by Numbers (15 page)

Turning off the computer, Liza turned to the television. But after cycling through all the channel selections twice, she found herself watching a comical thing about a dog that turned out to be a commercial. Nothing else came even close to holding her attention.

Killing the boob tube, Liza got up, changed into some old sweats, and started going through her self-defense routines.

“Maybe this will make my nerves feel better—and tire the rest of me out,” she told herself.

Rusty was delighted, thinking this was a new game. He jumped around, then tried to imitate her, prancing on his hind legs while waving his front paws like a boxer.

Liza would have laughed if she weren't so annoyed.

When she wound up sprawled on the couch because he'd gotten behind her at an inopportune moment, she had to take a deep breath to keep from yelling.

“Dumb dog,” she muttered, mopping her red face with the sleeve of her sweatshirt.

This was absolutely unfair. She'd had two nights of disturbed sleep. By rights, she ought to be curled up in bed already. Instead, she found herself pacing the living room.

Rusty whined, not liking this development.

When the phone suddenly rang, it was a toss-up as to who jumped higher, Liza or her dog.

“Hello?” She realized her voice was too loud even as she spoke into the receiver.

“Ms. Kelly, this is Armando Vasquez.” The voice hesitated slightly at her silence. “From the Santa Barbara Police Department.”

“Oh, Detective Vasquez.” This was the lead detective from Derrick's murder case. Had she ever known his first name? “What can I do for you, Detective?”

“I'm not sure.” A harassed quality crept into the detective's voice, making him sound more like the man she had dealt with. “I got a call from an associate of yours, a Mr. Foreman. He asked if we would keep an eye on Mr. Robbins's house, to see if his niece might turn up there.”

“Has she?” Liza's voice was getting loud again. “Did you see her there?”

“Not exactly,” Vasquez said. “We got a call from her, but she's not at the house. However, she
has
just reported that someone had broken into it.”

Liza had to restrain herself from holding the phone out at arm's length and staring at it like a crazy person.

“So, Detective, do you know where Jenny is?” she asked when she finally got her voice back.

“She's been driving around, calling in to us. We tried to get her to come in to the station, but she didn't seem to like the idea.” Vasquez paused for a second. “Is there a particular reason for that?”

Liza sighed. “She sort of borrowed my ex-husband's car and ran off out of town.”

“Is that sort of like grand theft auto, maybe?” The detective's voice was definitely sounding more like a cop's.

For a second, anger overcame Liza's worry. “It's the sort of thing you might expect from a young girl who's been working long hours on a film set, dealing with a director who likes to play sadistic games to get the performances he wants.” She decided just to go with the facts. “Before she left the set, we found Jenny bound, gagged, and abandoned. The director left her stranded on the spot where she was kidnapped for real, just to get her more into the role of a kidnap victim—in spite of the fact that she was a kidnapping victim in real life.”

Vasquez was silent for a moment. “They actually do stuff like that to get into the movies?”

“Some people try to push cruelty off as parlor games—and they push their games as far as they can. Take it from me, Detective, Jenny felt pretty abused today. She was freezing, shaking like a leaf. She might even have been in shock when she ran off this afternoon. And now it looks as though the safe haven she ran to doesn't look safe anymore.”

She frowned, making a mental list of all the things she'd have to do after finishing this call. “If Jenny calls in again, tell her I'll be down there as soon as possible. The first thing is to get her to land in safe hands.”

“Yeah. That's what this Foreman guy said when I called him first,” Vasquez said.

So, Michelle should already be hearing Buck's report
, Liza thought.
Good. I won't be breaking the news to her.

As if on cue, the call-waiting tone beeped in her ear.

“This will be my partner. I guess I'll be seeing you soon, Detective.”

“Guess so.” Vasquez's voice wasn't exactly bursting with joy.

Liza hit the flash button. Michelle didn't even bother with the usual amenities. “You heard?”

“I just got off the phone with Detective Vasquez.”

“Right,” Michelle drawled. “Your friend on the force up there.”

“I don't know about the friend part,” Liza said. “But he agreed to try and get Jenny to stop bouncing around like a pinball. I told him I'd come to Santa Barbara—”

“Figure out the quickest way and bill it to the company,” Michelle cut in. “We need to get Jenny calmed down and back to work as soon as possible.”

Loud laughter came over the phone—probably from the party going on over Michelle's shoulder. Most evenings she could be found at a party somewhere in Hollywood.

The noise receded as Michelle apparently stepped farther away. “Well, I guess you'd better get on it.”

The connection went dead before Liza even had a chance to respond. She hit flash again, but Vasquez was gone as well.

Liza returned to her mental list, then began to deal with it by dialing Sheriff Clements's cell phone number. He sounded as if he'd been on the verge of sleep, but he got considerably more alert as Liza gave her report.

“She's very skittish about coming in to the police. They didn't exactly treat her well when she was dealing with her uncle's murder,” Liza finished, “so I said I'd get down there as soon as possible.”

“Mmm-hmm.” The way Clements said it, that wasn't just an “okay, get on with it” noise. He was considering something.

“It's a trip to Portland, and the earliest commercial flight won't be till morning,” he said. “You don't have a car. And even if you put the pedal to the metal like some people must have, the drive would still take hours. Do you mind small planes?”

“I flew with Derrick Robbins from Orange County to Santa Barbara,” Liza said, “and didn't lose my lunch or my mind.”

“Good,” Clements replied. “I've got a pilot friend. Let me check with him and get back to you…”

Fifteen minutes later, Liza stood peering out the window as a police cruiser came down Hackleberry Avenue. She was already out the door as the car pulled up, to the accompaniment of Michael's voice calling, “Everything all right?”

“It's fine,” she directed her voice to the lit upstairs window. “We've found Jenny. I'll tell you more when I get back.”

It was only about a dozen miles to the Killamook Airport, but the deputy driving the car wasn't in full sirens-and-screeching-tires mode. Drifts of fog blew in off the bay and across the coastal highway, and the driver kept a sensible rate of speed.

Liza remembered what had happened to Terence Hamblyn along this same stretch of road and decided she approved of the deputy's caution.

They arrived at the airport to meet an older man with plentiful gray hair pulled back into a ponytail. He even had all of his teeth. He showed most of them in a devil-may-care grin. “Jimmy Perrine,” he identified himself. “Bert Clements tells me you're in an almighty hurry to get to Santa Barbara.”

“Liza Kelly. Pleased to meet you. I've got a friend down there who's in trouble.”

Perrine nodded. “You're lucky I dropped the old crate here instead of over in Manzanita. No lights over there. Here the runways are lit. This place used to be a naval air station. They even have one of those huge hangars where they kept blimps—”

“I suppose you think a guided tour could help to calm someone who might be nervous about going up into the air with a total stranger aboard an overgrown kite with one engine,” Liza cut in. “I'm not afraid of flying. I'm more interested in why Sheriff Clements suggested you, and how much it will cost.”

“Clements has done some—favors—for me, and I've done the same for him.” Perrine's grin didn't exactly hide that evasive answer. “And I don't expect to do this out of the goodness of my heart. When we land in Santa Barbara, I want to be able to top off my fuel tanks. Think of it as getting where you want to go for gas money.”

I wonder how empty the tank is to start with
, Liza thought. Then she shrugged. Michelle was paying. She'd consider it well worth the money. “Fine—as long as you've got enough to keep us in the air and get us there.”

“That's the spirit!” The pilot laughed as Liza waved off the police car. Only after the deputy's taillights had almost vanished did she realize how quiet the place was.

“Not exactly a booming business this time of night,” she said.

“Most of the flying round here happens in daylight, so that's when the field is attended.” Perrine shrugged. “Over in Manzanita, the airstrip isn't attended at all.”

Liza frowned, suddenly remembering that Oliver Chissel's private jet had landed at Manzanita.
You'd think a guy like Chissel would expect to go first class all the way
, she thought.
It's not like Manzanita's any closer. All things being equal, why would the head of a studio go with number two of two choices?

Unless Ollie the Chiseler was up to something…then it might be useful to fly into and out of an airport with fewer witnesses to whatever was up.

The pilot's voice interrupted her thoughts. “Unless you're having second thoughts, we might as well get going.”

Perrine's plane was older, smaller, and definitely more spartan than Derrick's air cruiser. There were no lounge accommodations, just a copilot's seat whose stuffing had seen better days.

As he taxied for a takeoff, Liza realized that the plane was considerably noisier, too. After they'd taken off, the pilot dug out a set of earphones with a built-in mike. “Sorry,” his voice crackled slightly through the small speakers. “I'm usually up here solo, so I didn't think—”

Liza bit her lip to keep from screaming at him to keep his eyes on his flying.

They were high enough now to see patches of fog creeping across the highway like land-going clouds. The red of a car's taillights popped into view in the distance. Was that the police car that had ferried her?

Business had plunked Liza's rear end into many jets over the years. She knew how it felt to fly high and then come in over the diamond spray of city sprawl, highways like living necklaces of light. Flying down lower with Derrick had been a revelation, the terrain rolling out beneath her view like an animated map.

Low-level flying at night was yet another experience. Undeveloped areas lay dark and mysterious. Sometimes, Liza suspected they were over the ocean, but she kept her mouth clamped shut, not wanting to distract Perrine from his piloting. Flying over towns with streetlights and traffic, Liza had unashamedly gaped like a tourist.

At least no mountains suddenly appeared to blot out the sky (and them) before they reached Santa Barbara. Perrine brought them in for a sedate landing, and Liza had used her corporate credit card to arrange for a long, doubtless expensive drink for the big bird.

When they had gotten in range of the Santa Barbara control tower, Perrine had asked the controller to pass a message to Detective Vasquez with Liza's ETA. But when she came out into the small terminal, there was no sign of police or a police car.

Liza hoisted the small bag of girl supplies she'd brought along over one shoulder.
Damn the man
, she fumed. She was checking the overhead signs to find the way to a taxi when a voice called, “Over here, Liza.”

Buck Foreman stood leaning against an empty counter. He smiled at her surprise. “Even though you flew, I was closer.”

She rushed over to him. “Has Vasquez heard again from Jenny? Is she okay?”

“We set up a meet based on when you'd be arriving.” Buck's usually hard cop face gave her a reassuring smile. “I've got my car outside. If you were going to be late, I considered heading out on my own—but I thought Jenny might find me intimidating.”

“I think the Incredible Hulk would find you intimidating,” Liza told him. But she smiled when she said that.

They got into Buck's SUV and drove through downtown Santa Barbara, ending at the parking lot of an ice-cream shop. Liza suddenly remembered that the last thing Jenny had done before her life turned upside down had been going on an ice-cream run for her Uncle D.

“Oregon plates,” Buck spoke up.

“And that's Michael's silver Toyota,” Liza agreed. She stepped out of the car.

As soon as Liza stood in the light from the store window, the driver's door on the silver car flew open. A second later, Jenny clung to Liza, babbling, “Sorrysorrysorrysorry.”

Liza patted the trembling girl's hair. “I should have kept you out of the confrontation with Olbrich. But then, I didn't expect Guy to punch him in the nose.”

“I just wanted to get…away,” Jenny said. “When I finally got over freaking out, I was almost halfway here. Then, when I got to Uncle D.'s and found that someone had been in there…”

“You got freaked out again,” Liza finished. “Well, the first thing to do is go to the police. After all, we both know a few of the detectives here. I'm sure they'll be able to help us.”

 

Well, another cheerful idea bites the dust
, Liza thought as she glared across the desk at Detective Vasquez. The moment they arrived at the police station, he had reverted to his usual unhelpful self.

“How long were you in the house, total?” he asked Jenny.

“A couple of minutes. I—I don't know,” she replied. “As soon as I got in there, though, I could see that things…weren't right.”

The detective glanced from Jenny to Liza, his expression saying, “Oh, great, here's another one.”

Still he managed to put more kindness in his voice than he'd ever bothered to with Liza. “Look. You were tired, you had a terrible day, and you're a…creative person.”

What a nice way to say “overimaginative drama queen,”
Liza thought wryly.

“You don't understand,” Jenny said. “Uncle D. was—not fussy, but pretty insistent that things should be where they ought to be.”

Liza got a sudden flash of the library in his study, all those books about sudoku, puzzles, and cryptography carefully arranged by type and author. Derrick would have been able to lay his hands on any volume he wanted in an instant.

“And as soon as I came in,” Jenny finished, “I could see that things were out of place.”

Vasquez took a long, deep breath. Liza had heard a lot of those whenever she'd tried to talk to him.

Buck Foreman spoke up, trying the cop-to-cop approach. “Maybe it's nothing, but maybe it's not. It wouldn't be the first time you've had trouble at that house. Why don't you dispatch a couple uniforms to go with us and we can all check it out?”