Swift Justice (10 page)

“What? But what about the baby?”

“Turn her over to CPS.”

“I can’t. They’ll put her in a foster home. She’s my gran—” She cut herself off and massaged her temples with her fingers.

Maybe caring for Olivia had activated some latent maternal hormones or something. Turning her daughter over for adoption hadn’t bothered her. Or maybe it had. “Then give her to Elizabeth’s parents.”

“Right. To the people she ran away from.” She bit her lower lip. “You could check them out, see what kind of parents they
are. Or, what about the baby’s father?” Her eyes lit up. “You could find him. He’s the one who should have the baby.” She bent over her desk and began to scribble on something.

Yeah, assuming he wasn’t a teenager, a rapist, or the married father of one of her friends. Not to be pessimistic, but I had a feeling Elizabeth was on her own for a reason. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to look into it, I decided, as Melissa Lloyd ripped out a large check and handed it to me.

“And hurry. I really, really need this settled before Ian comes home. He just wouldn’t understand.”

What, that she’d gotten pregnant as a teenager? Or that she’d lied to him for years on end? Call me cynical, but I figured chances were good he had something murky in his own past he hadn’t fessed up to. Experience—those divorce cases again—taught me, though, that two wrongs didn’t add up to long-lasting marital harmony. They more frequently added up to large sums for attorneys and PIs.

And who was I to complain about that?

I returned to the office shortly after five to find it dark and locked like I’d left it when I’d gone to see Melissa Lloyd. However, I’d reluctantly given Gigi keys, so maybe she’d returned but then left again. I unlocked it and crossed to my desk to make the phone call I’d been dreading since Montgomery confirmed Elizabeth Sprouse’s identity. Tears choking her voice to a whisper, Aurora Newcastle thanked me for letting her know. I felt like shit: When she’d asked me to hurry up and find Elizabeth, this wasn’t what Aurora had in mind. I’d debated not calling her, figuring it might be merciful to let her
pass on without knowing Elizabeth was dead, a homicide victim, but she hadn’t struck me as the sort who wanted life sugar-coated.

“That poor baby,” she said.

I didn’t know if she meant Elizabeth or Olivia.

“I’d really like to meet her,” she added after a long silence, and I found myself promising to try to arrange for her to meet Olivia.

“No guarantees, though.” I couldn’t see Melissa Lloyd interrupting her schedule to do a baby show-and-tell in Denver.

“I understand, and thank you.” Aurora sounded considerably weaker as we hung up than she had only that morning, and I hoped the news of Elizabeth’s death wouldn’t hasten her own end. Sometimes this job sucked. I sat for a few quiet minutes before relocking the office and walking down to Albertine’s for my free drink. Creole spices, shrimp, and beer scented the cozy room decorated with Mardi Gras masks and beads and populated with a few early diners and Happy Hour hopefuls. My spirits lifted. Sitting alone on a barstool with a Heineken—Albertine was subbing in the kitchen for a chef who hadn’t shown up for his shift—I called Montgomery and told him I had some information pertaining to his case. Hearing the bar noises in the background, he told me he was just coming off shift and would stop by and get it in person.

He arrived twenty minutes later, as I was ordering my second beer. Just over six feet tall with broad shoulders and the edgy allure of Clive Owen with silver flecks in his dark hair, Montgomery turned female heads as he threaded his way through the tables to where I sat. He leaned over to kiss my cheek, and the hopeful women turned back to their friends
and cosmopolitans, disgruntled. The rasp of his five o’clock shadow against my cheek and the spicy scent of his aftershave stirred something inside me, but I squelched it. Gorgeous men who like to live on the edge are a bad bet. I knew: My ex-husband, the fighter jock, was Exhibit A. As if that weren’t enough, I figured, premature gray notwithstanding, he was at least five years younger than me. So I controlled my breathing, passed him the phone number Melissa had supplied, and explained that Elizabeth Sprouse had worked for her as Lizzy Jones.

He thanked me for it, then added, “You’re remembering this is a police case, right? You’re not poking around in a homicide investigation.” His dark eyes met mine as he lifted the bottle to his lips.

The last was an order, not a question. “Of course not,” I said. “You have such a suspicious mind, Montgomery.” I gave him my wide-eyed Miss Innocent look that hasn’t worked on anyone since I was five.

“I’ve known you a long time, Swift. You’re not passing along that number out of the goodness of your heart. You want something.”

“You wound me,” I said, smiling. “I’m not looking for the murderer,” I assured him. “I’ve got a client who wants me to locate the baby’s father.”

“The Sprouse girl’s baby?” He chucked a handful of peanuts in his mouth.

I nodded. I could see him turning that information over in his mind, trying to decide if he was interested in the baby, if it had any bearing on the homicide. “Just stay out of my way,” he finally said, “and if you find out anything that links to the
girl’s death, you let me know pronto. That includes the father’s name.”

“You didn’t get it from the hospital?”

“Nope. We can’t find a record of her giving birth in any hospital in the area.” He relaxed against the back of the bar stool, and his sport coat gaped to show the shoulder holster beneath.

Damn. I’d known the police would try to track down the birth records, and I’d hoped he could make my job easier by telling me what was on the hospital form. The hospital certainly wasn’t going to give me access to anything more confidential than the public restroom.

“Quid pro quo for the phone number and address: Give me access to the apartment.” I’d run the phone number through the online reverse directory I liked and found that “Lizzy Jones” rented an apartment just off Austin Bluffs, an area populated by University of Colorado at Colorado Springs students.

“If it’s not the crime scene, I’ll see what I can do.”

Interesting. Wherever they’d found the body, it wasn’t where she was killed. Pretty much ruled out suicide.

Montgomery watched me figure that out, a half-smile crooking his mouth. “So, what’s your next step, Super Sleuth?”

“Interview the parents,” I said. I debated a third beer and decided it would do too much to undermine my policy against gorgeous men. Montgomery’s smile was doing enough to weaken my resolve. “How’d they take the news?”

“The mother, about like you’d expect. Broke down in tears. The father . . . now, he’s a strange one. Started ranting about ‘the wages of sin is death’ and other Bible stuff. I wasn’t
sure if he was saying that Elizabeth deserved to die or if he was going to kill whoever killed her. He’s definitely on my list. Be careful.”

“Always.” I slid off the bar stool and found myself too close to Montgomery for comfort. A jazz sax sashayed from the speakers, twining its smoky notes around us as if we were the only people in the bar.

His eyes glinted, and he put his hands on my waist, drawing me in between his thighs. I was absurdly conscious of the strength in his hands, the heat of his body. “Dinner?”

I surprised him by leaning forward to plant a kiss at the corner of his mouth, then pulling back beyond his reach. “Sorry. I’ve got plans. Rain check?” He didn’t need to know that my plans included shoveling the ton of lava rock I’d had delivered today into a new rock garden in my yard.

“I must have twenty rain checks already,” he said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you weren’t interested.” He kept his eyes locked on mine as he swallowed the last of his beer.

“Impossible!” I layered on the sarcasm.

“Exactly.” He smiled the smug smile of a man who’s made his point and thunked the bottle down on the bar.

(Friday)

Before heading over to the Sprouses’ house the next morning, I stopped by the office to give Gigi an assignment. Going undercover at a fast food joint hadn’t dissuaded her from working as a PI; maybe some interminably boring surveillance would. I didn’t think she was the type who’d be comfortable
slouching in a car all day, peeing in a bottle so as not to miss the target if he or she emerged, and keeping a low profile to avoid being spotted. Frankly, I didn’t think she’d last four hours with the job I had in mind, one I’d turned down several times because the missing persons business had been brisk. Last night I’d dialed the number from my hot tub and found the client still interested in retaining Swift Investigations. I assured him an operative would be on the job the next day.

I pushed through the office door to find Gigi talking to the ficus as she watered it. Coffee dripped into the carafe on the filing cabinet, and I had to admit it smelled good.

“What a handsome plant you are.” She picked off a yellowed leaf. “I hope that didn’t hurt.” She lifted the swan-shaped watering can in greeting. “Hi, Charlie.”

“Morning, Gigi.” Today’s designer outfit included cropped red slacks under a white tunic top printed with cherries. She looked like an orchard. What sounded like a chorus of sick tree frogs croaked from the small stereo on her desk. I resisted the urge to put my fingers in my ears as I marched to my desk and liberated a Pepsi from the fridge. Ah, cold caffeine made the world look much better.

As I booted up my computer, Gigi plopped into the seat by my desk, crossing her feet at the ankles and displaying red espadrilles with inch-wide laces that wrapped up her fleshy calves.

“Charlie, I don’t feel like I’m making as big a contribution as I could to the business,” she startled me by saying. Her tone was tentative but determined. “I think—”

“Funny you should bring that up,” I said, “because I’ve got a surveillance job for you.”

“Really?” Her eyes lit up. “But I’ve never done surveillance. I wouldn’t know how.”

“C’mon, you’ve got teenagers. Haven’t you ever spied on them, read your daughter’s diary, listened in while your son talked to his girlfriend on the front porch?”

“No.”

Jesus, this was hopeless. This woman had none of the natural instincts of a good detective. No wonder her husband had been able to carry on an affair, transfer all his funds to offshore accounts, and plan a trip to South America without her noticing. “Well, surveillance really isn’t difficult. The secret is to blend in. If the target’s going to the mall, look like you belong in a mall.”

“I can do that!” Gigi put in happily.

“If he’s working out, look like you belong at the gym. The key is to never let the target out of your sight and never let him suspect you’re tailing him.”

“What happens”—Gigi lowered her voice—“if I have to answer the call of nature?”

“You improvise,” I said, handing over an empty two-liter soft drink bottle.

She stared at it as if it were an artifact from Mars. “How—”

“Just remember the cardinal rules: Don’t lose the target and don’t get spotted.”

I handed her the photo the client had faxed to my house the night before. “Here’s your target.”

“She looks nice,” Gigi observed, studying the photo.

“So did Ted Bundy. And here’s the address.” I passed over a slip of paper. “The client thinks his wife, Cheryl, is having an affair, that she’s screwing some guy while he’s at work. He
wants proof. He works a night shift out at Schriever Air Force Base, leaves the house at seven o’clock, so you need to be in place by then. Since you’ll be up all night, why don’t you go home now and get some rest? Think about having a couple of changes of clothes in the car, maybe a hat or two to change your profile, in case the wife goes out to meet her lover.”

I leaned over to pull a digital camera with a telephoto lens out of my bottom drawer and gave Gigi brief instructions on how to operate it. She made careful notes on her steno pad.

“What if nothing happens tonight?” she asked, looking up from the notebook.

I shrugged. “You try again tomorrow night and the night after that, as long as the client’s willing to pay.”

Gigi shook her head sadly. “I just can’t believe that spying on your spouse is the way to maintain a healthy marriage. A good marriage needs trust on both sides! If he has doubts about her fidelity, he should confront her, talk her into going to counseling with him.”