Spider Web (36 page)

“He’s in another meeting,” she said. “The FBI is getting antsy, trying to take over. Chief is getting territorial, growling back, ready to bite somebody’s balls. It’s a jungle in there. The mayor has called three times. If something doesn’t break soon, I’m going to find that sniper my own self and twist his or her little head off with my bare hands. I’m sick of this.”

“In other words, I shouldn’t bother making dinner?”

“My guess is he’ll be in the boxing ring for another couple hours. I’d say don’t bother cooking, but have a Prozac milk shake ready.”

“I wish,” I said, thinking about what Dr. Pete had said about drug therapy in tandem with talk therapy. Would Gabe ever agree to either?

“You take a sip too, sweetie. And save some for me.”

“Hang in there, Maggie. Try to make sure he eats something.”

“I’m doing my best.”

Then I tried to call Hud again. This time he answered.

“Hey, Señora Ortiz, what’s new?”

“Haven’t you gotten any of my messages? Where have you been? Why did you say you’d help me and then just take off? I should have known better than to trust . . .”

“Hey, hey,” he broke in. “Calm down, ranch girl. I’ve been working hard on our case. I was just getting ready to call you, as a matter of fact.”

“Liar.”

“That’s not a very nice thing to say to someone who just might have solved your mystery woman dilemma.”

I straightened up, my heart pounding. “What did you find out? Where are you?”

“I’m closer than you think. I’m at the airport walking out to my truck. Are you at home?”

“The San Celina airport?”

“No, Bangkok International. Of course the San Celina airport.”

“Where did you go?”

“Seattle. And have I got some interesting things to tell you.”

“What?”

“No, I want to see your face. Where are you?”

“I’m not at home. I’m at Port San Patricio.”

“What are you doing there?”

I stared out my truck’s front window at the peeling, dry-docked boat in front of me. Someone had named it
Wishful Thinking
. “Long story.”

“Do you have dinner plans?”

“No, Gabe is working late.”

“Then I’ll meet you at Fat Cat’s. I can be there in twenty.”

Fortunately, Fat Cat’s on a Tuesday evening was not crowded. The fishermen tended to eat here either early in the morning or late at night. And the college students, who loved the huge three-cheese omelets and home-fried potatoes as a way to counteract an overindulgence of beer, tended to patronize the café more on the weekends after two a.m. Tonight the café was quiet, with only a few booths filled with what appeared to be local residents. I chose a booth by the window so I could watch Hud drive into the parking lot. True to his word, he was there in just under twenty minutes.

He waved at me when he stepped out of his truck and was sliding across from me two minutes later.

“Did you order yet?” he asked.

“No, I’m not really hungry.”

“Well, I’m starving. Let me order and then I’ll tell you what I found out.”

I waited patiently, drumming my fingers while he perused the menu, whistling softly under his breath. After ordering a cheeseburger, French fries, a chocolate shake and a dinner salad, he took a sip of his water, looked up at me and grinned like a maniac.

I slapped the table once. “Tell me what you found out.”

He pulled a photograph out of the top pocket of his leather jacket and placed it carefully down on the table between us. He pushed it toward me with one finger. It was a photo of a woman wearing a black sweater and long, dangling silver earrings. It was Lin Snider. Except she had shoulder-length hair.

“So?” I said. “You have a photo of Lin Snider before she cut her hair.”

“Look closer,
ma petite jolie blonde.”

I leaned closer and peered at the photo. It
wasn’t
Lin Snider, but looked enough like her to be her sister. The face was a tad narrower, the cheekbones more pronounced. And, if you looked closely, there was a Marilyn Monroe–type mole next to her lip.

“So, who is it? Her sister?”

He grinned again. “Benni Harper Ortiz, meet the
real
Linda Snider. Of Seattle, Washington. Linora Snider’s coworker and friend.”

CHAPTER 17

“
W
HAT?” I GRABBED THE PHOTO AND LOOKED MORE CLOSELY. “I don’t get it. Linora Snider? Linda Snider? Who’s the woman here in San Celina?”

“I know it’s weird, but here’s the story in a nutshell. The woman staying at the Spotted Pelican is Linora Snider
posing
as Linda Snider.”

I sat back in the booth. The cold from the vinyl seeped through my cotton shirt, and I shivered. “I still don’t get it.”

He pulled off his leather jacket and handed it over the table to me. “I don’t have the whole story because the
real
Linda Snider didn’t have it. She and Linora are casual friends. They worked for the same company in Seattle and became acquainted when people kept getting mixed up.”

“Okay . . .” It still wasn’t clear.

“This is what Linda told me. She and Linora were called Lin One and Lin Two at the company where they worked. To keep things straight as I tell this confusing tale, keep in mind that Linda is the real Linda Snider, my Seattle contact, and Lin is Linora Snider. They were only six months apart in age and, as you can see by the photo, fairly similar in appearance. They had remarkably similar lives, down to being only children with both parents dead. They even retired within a month of each other. Linda said they lost touch for a few months while figuring out their new lives. Linda did some traveling, visited her nieces and nephews who live around the country. The real Linda Snider never had children.” He paused for dramatic effect. “Lin has one daughter. Her name is Tessa.”

The girl in the photograph.
I felt myself start taking short, shallow breaths. Stop it, I told myself. You’ll pass out. Breathe normally. “Okay. What else?”

“After they retired, they went almost a year without seeing each other, though they did send a few postcards and had a telephone conversation or two.”

His food arrived, and Hud stopped talking while he messed around with it. “You can talk and play with your food at the same time, can’t you?” I said impatiently.

He tilted his head and took a French fry, calmly putting it in his mouth. “The longer I know you, the less I envy Gabe.”

“Trust me, Hud. You don’t want to tease me right now.”

He pushed the plate of French fries to the middle of the table. “Help me eat these. Okay, where was I? So eventually they had lunch together. Linda said that Lin seemed a little quiet and troubled. It was over lunch that Lin asked Linda for a favor.”

I took a French fry, contemplated it, then put it back. “What?”

“Now, pay attention here. Linora asked Linda if she could borrow her identity.”

Nervous, I picked up the French fry again and bit it. “Why?”

He lifted his shoulders. “Got me. Linda didn’t know either. Lin wouldn’t tell her but assured Linda that she wasn’t going to do anything illegal. Lin implied that it was to throw someone off who she’d once known. Still, Linda felt funny about it. She was an accountant by trade and by nature. She liked things to be in their proper place. When she tried to find out more about why Lin needed her identity, her friend was too vague. So she turned her down.”

“This is getting too weird and convoluted for me. How did Lin get Linda’s identity?”

“She bought it, I’m guessing. Easy enough to do, especially since she’d worked in payroll and knew Linda’s important numbers like her driver’s license and Social Security number. Even her license plates are copies of Linda Snider’s. Believe it or not, they have the same car. Phony documents are way too easy to buy.”

“But why? I still don’t get why.”

“That part, unfortunately, Linda couldn’t help with. When I quizzed her more thoroughly about Lin’s life, she was not that forthcoming. She was still a little suspicious of me and protective of her friend, despite her friend’s mysterious request. Until, of course, I showed her my badge.” He took a big bite from his cheeseburger, groaning with pleasure. After he swallowed, he said, “It’s amazing how accommodating people can be when I flash that baby.”

“Can you stop patting yourself on the back long enough to tell me the rest of the story?”

“Testy, testy. Linda told me what she knew about Lin, which, surprisingly, fits a lot of the story our Lin told you. Lin didn’t borrow Linda’s entire life. She didn’t have to. Both were only children. Both of them have lost their parents. However, there was one little thing Lin left out of her history. I’m guessing it was probably the reason she borrowed Linda’s identity, in case someone did do some checking. Someone like you . . . or Gabe.”

I leaned closer, feeling my stomach churn. “What’s that?”

“Before Lin was an accountant, she was a nurse.”

I slowly closed my eyes. “She served in Vietnam.”

“Well, shoot, you took away one of my surprises.”

I opened my eyes and asked, “Her daughter, Tessa. How old is she?”

“Twenty-eight, according to her birth certificate. She was born . . .”

“In Los Angeles,” I finished. “In 1970.”

He took a long drag from his chocolate shake. “So, you know most of this already. Why did you need me?”

“I didn’t know it. I guessed it.”

“When was Gabe over there?”

My words came out in a whisper. “1968 and ’69.”

His lips tightened for a minute. “What’re you going to do?”

I stared at my hands. “I don’t know. It’s . . . right now isn’t the best time to spring something like this on him. But I might not have a choice. I want to tell him before Lin does.”

“What can I do to help?” His face was open, nonjudgmental.

“Nothing, except what you’ve already done. Thank you. I’m sorry if I was snappy with you.”

“Forget it. If you weren’t snapping at me, I’d have to check your temperature, make sure you didn’t have malaria or beriberi or something.”

“Finish your dinner. I need some time to think.”

Hud silently ate his cheeseburger while I played with a plastic straw, bending it around and around my finger. It started to get dark around us; the café started to fill up. It was a cold night, and this was probably the warmest spot for miles.

“I fell off this pier once,” I told him, tossing aside my tortured drinking straw.

“You did? When you were a kid?”

I turned my head to look at my reflection in the window. “No, as an adult. Not that long ago. When Gabe and I were first dating. A murder suspect pushed me.” On the edge of my reflection, I could see the lights from the fishing boats start to sparkle on the black ocean.

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

I looked back at Hud’s boy-next-door face. “It was around this time of year, and it was one of the scariest moments of my life. All that dark, freezing water. My clothes were so heavy. I thought I was going to die. I saw my mother’s face. And Jack’s. At least I thought I did. Then Gabe’s face replaced both of theirs, and he told me to swim toward him. So I did. And I was saved.”

Hud smirked at me over his coffee mug. “Okay, I’ll admit your husband is a good-looking son of a gun, but he’s not God.”

I rested my chin in my hand. “I don’t mean that way. I was literally saved. I was pulled out of the water.”

“By Gabe?”

I gazed out through the window into the darkness. “No, by a guy named Clay O’Hara. An old boyfriend of mine. He lives in Colorado. He was in love with me. Or thought he was. Gabe proposed to me that night, and I accepted. We were married three days later.”

“So some old boyfriend who has the hots for you saves you from drowning and you marry the chief? Doesn’t sound fair.”

“I guess life mostly isn’t, is it?”

“I guess not.”

I glanced over at the yellow and black Felix the Cat clock over the cook’s pass-through. “It’s almost six thirty. I need to go home. Scout’s probably chewed off his front paw in hunger.”

I slid out of the booth, pulled off Hud’s jacket and laid it on the seat next to him.

He grabbed it and threw two twenties on the table.

“That’s a big tip,” I said.

“Someone may as well have a happy night.”

At my truck, he gave me a hug and whispered, “Call me if you need anything. Even just to talk. Promise?”

“Thanks.”

On the drive home, I worried the information about Lin Snider as if it was a piece of tough steak. A part of me wanted to confront Gabe right off, ask him if he’d had an affair with a nurse when he was in Vietnam. An affair that might have resulted in a child. But was that my place? What if I was wrong? What if Lin Snider had absolutely nothing to do with Gabe?

My gut and the facts told me that wasn’t the case. But my gut had been wrong before. Still, there were all these facts. What I needed to do before anything was talk to Lin herself. I needed to confront her with what I had discovered and ask her flat-out what she was doing in San Celina, what she wanted from Gabe, from us.

The trouble was I couldn’t even imagine how I’d begin.