Swift Justice (17 page)

I drove home pondering my progress on the case. As far as I could tell, I had one strong candidate for Olivia’s father, Zachary Sprouse, and one maybe, Stefan Falstow. I’d only gotten a quick look at him, but something about him—the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, his work-hardened hands?—said “virile” with a capital V, and the way he said “
our
” when talking about the baby made me wonder if he meant “
mine
.” I reined in my speculations. Where could Elizabeth have met a man like Falstow? Maybe he had a teenager at Liberty. I resolved to check.
A third possibility for baby Olivia’s daddy was Elizabeth’s wannabe fiancé, Seth Johnson, with some high school boyfriend I didn’t yet know about sliding into fourth. I hoped tomorrow’s interview with Linnea Fenn would give me more info on that front. I considered calling Montgomery to see if he had any leads on the girl’s death—keeping in mind that whoever killed her might not have fathered the baby—but decided to let it go until tomorrow. With no leads I could pursue on a Sunday afternoon, I headed for home and a regrouting job in the shower I’d been putting off for weeks.

(Monday)

The sight of Gigi polishing Bernie’s plastic nose with a damp cloth greeted me when I arrived at the office Monday morning. Her lime green blouse and tiered skirt clashed with the pink cast on her arm. When she turned to greet me with a cheery “Good morning,” I saw she wore a strand of fat beads and button earrings that matched the cast. Even her shoes were the same Pepto-Bismol pink. I could just see the headlines in
Vogue
:
CASTS ARE THIS SEASON’S MUST-HAVE ACCESSORY
. I shut my eyes and made my way blindly across the room to my desk, reaching for a Pepsi like a drunk with a hangover.

“How’s the arm?” I asked, for the first time feeling grateful she was my “partner” and not an employee—at least she couldn’t file a workmen’s comp claim.

“Not too bad,” she said, settling into her chair. Considering she’d been sideswiped by a motorcycle, she looked pretty good, her hair styled as usual and makeup mostly concealing
a small bruise on her forehead. “Although I don’t know if I’ll be able to do any fieldwork for a while.”

Thank God.

“What are you going to do today?” Gigi asked.

“Talk to a girl who was a friend of Elizabeth’s and see what I can get from the lawyer representing the Falstows.” I hadn’t been able to find an address for them online, only a Web site for Falstow Construction, and would have to rely on my Department of Motor Vehicles contact to supply me with one. On the thought, I dialed his cell phone number. He hated it when I called him on his work phone, convinced the DMV recorded its workers’ conversations. Maybe they did. “Curtis, I need—”

“Don’t use names!” His reedy whisper sounded more frantic than usual. “Wait a minute.”

The sounds of people talking in the background, computer keys clicking, and a fan whirring reached my ears as I waited for him to return. It got quieter, and I realized he must have walked out of the office. The sound of a flushing toilet told me where he’d gone.

“Did you know people can intercept cell phone conversations with equipment they buy at Radio Shack?” he hissed. “Not just the National Security Agency or something, but regular people? I saw it on the Discovery Channel.”

“Yeah, well, those people are more interested in getting credit card numbers than listening in on your conversations with your mother, Curtis,” I said, amused by his paranoia.

“You can laugh,” he said. “It’s not your job on the line. I’m having to raise my price.”

That ended my amusement. “Curtis—”

“No names!”

“Mr. Deep Throat, you already charge a hundred bucks for something that takes you two seconds.” I wondered if he was really as paranoid as he made out or if he just wanted justification to hold up his clients—I was sure half the PIs in Colorado Springs had his number on speed dial—for more money.

“Yeah, well, the risks have gone up, so my price has gone up. A hundred and twenty-five. Take it or leave it.”

I fumed, envisioning the middle-aged man with his argyle sweater vest and comb-over. “Fine. The name is Jacqueline Falstow.” I spelled the last name for him and added the license plate number. “I need the info today.”

“I’ll e-mail it to you. I’ve set up an anonymous account, so don’t think it’s spam or a virus or something when you get an e-mail from CaptainAmerica6771. That’s 1776 backwards,” he explained.

“Very patriotic,” I said drily.

“Hey, buddy, you gonna be all day? You’re not the only one’s gotta take a crap, you know.”

I hung up as Curtis responded to the bathroom heckler.

“Who was that?” Gigi asked, her eyes wide with curiosity.

I explained, adding, “Prices are going up all over. It’s getting hard for an honest PI to make a buck.”

“You bribe government officials?” Gigi sounded simultaneously amazed and disapproving. “Shouldn’t you report them? I mean, we’re taxpayers.”

“Contacts are important for a PI,” I said, impatient with her naïveté. “We don’t have the official resources that the police or the feds do. Bribes are just part of the cost of doing
business, only you have to be creative with how you deduct them because it’s not like you get a receipt.”

“I still think honesty is—”

“How did your daughter do Saturday?” I asked. I wasn’t actually interested in the spoiled blonde’s performance, but I was tired of the ethics lecture.

Her face relaxed into a glowing smile. “She qualified for regionals, in October. I just know Kendall’s going to earn a berth on the Worlds team this year.”

I was sure every mother at the competition thought the same about her own sequin-spangled little Dorothy Hamill. “Super,” I said mechanically as my computer signaled I had an e-mail. Curtis had come through with Jacqueline and Stefan Falstow’s address and phone number. Something about the number rang a bell. Where had I seen it before? I flipped through my notebook, scanning all the notes I’d taken on this case. There it was: the number I’d gotten when I dialed *69 on the phone in Elizabeth’s apartment. I rocked back in my chair and grabbed another Pepsi. The Falstows had just surged into the number one spot on my interview list, edging Seth Johnson by a nose. As I was MapQuesting directions to their house, the phone rang again, and Jack Van Hoose told me Linnea Fenn had agreed to talk to me over lunch.

“We’ve got an open campus, so there’s no problem with her leaving. She says she’ll meet you at the Pikes Perk at eleven thirty.” His deep voice sounded just as good over the phone.

“Thanks, Jack. I owe you a dinner.”

“Friday night?”

“You’re on.”

I hung up, smiling slightly, and Gigi asked, “Was that another bribe?”

“No, that’s a date.”

I was almost positive there was a difference between the two.

Gigi, focused on her computer screen, barely waved as I walked out. I had the directions to the Falstows’ and would cruise by there after meeting Linnea. I paused at the door. “Do you want me to bring you back some lunch?” I asked, surprising myself. “It must be hard to drive with that cast.”

She looked up and smiled. “That’s very kind of you, Charlie, but Albertine has invited me down to try her gumbo. She wants to sign my cast.” She waved her pink-plastered arm in the air.

“Fine.” So she and Albertine were going to be best buds now? Fine, just fine. I stalked to the Subaru and pulled the door closed with unnecessary force.

Linnea was waiting at a corner table of the small coffeehouse three blocks south of Liberty High School when I walked in. A bored barista behind the counter was texting someone, thumbs tapping rapidly; other than that, Linnea and I were the only ones in the place. The hoops through her eyebrow had disappeared, but her left ear now sported at least eight earrings, including a purple skull that dangled almost to her shoulder. A nose stud glinted from one nostril, and her clothes looked like the same ones she’d had on when I met her in the
cafeteria: black jeans, black T-shirt with three-quarter-length sleeves, and black-painted fingernails. In my pin-striped blouse and navy slacks, I knew she must think I was as uncool as her parents. I could be this girl’s mother, I realized with a jolt, pulling out the chair that faced hers. Shit, I was getting old.

“Hi, Linnea. Thanks for meeting me.”

“Yeah, well, Mr. Van Hoose said if you could find the baby’s father, maybe it would be better off. When he said that she might have to live with Beth’s parents if you couldn’t find him, well, I thought I should try to help because anything would be better than that.” She took a swallow from the stainless steel mug in front of her, and aromas of chocolate and cinnamon wafted out.

I started out with a softball. “Did you know Elizabeth found her birth mother?”

Her eyes widened, making her look younger and less sophisticated. “Really? No
way
! I knew she was looking, but I thought she’d given it up. She didn’t tell me . . .” A hurt look flashed across her face before she hardened it to blasé again. “Recently?”

I didn’t want to intensify her hurt. “I’m not sure when. Had she been trying to find her for a while?”

“God, yes. She was obsessed when we first met in eighth grade, after her mom married the church guy. I asked her once if she thought her birth mom was going to ask her to live with her or something—I mean, I didn’t really think that was likely, and I didn’t want Beth to be disappointed—but she just laughed and said she didn’t want to meet her ‘biological maternal unit’—that’s what she always called her—for that.”

“Why did she want to find her, then?”

Linnea shrugged.

Conscious of Linnea’s lunch half hour ticking away, I moved on to what I really needed. “Did Elizabeth have a boyfriend?”

Linnea shook her head, setting the skinny ponytails bobbing in all directions. “Not really. Not a real boyfriend.” She hesitated, her eyes slipping from mine to study the napkin holder on the table. “I mean, it’s not like she was a virgin, although I’m sure her parents thought she was.”

She said “virgin” as if it were synonymous with “total loser” or “scummy creepizoid.” Despite that, I got the feeling she was one. There was just something innocent about her, despite the black eyeliner, stony face, and wardrobe from Vampires “R” Us.

“They’d kill her if they knew. There were a couple of guys last year . . . well . . . I really think she hooked up just to get the attention, you know? With her dad dying and her stepdad being a jerk, I think she just wanted to make some guy love her. I tried to tell her that sex wasn’t love and that these guys were just using her.”

I was in favor of giving this girl her own call-in radio psychology show. She knew more about relationships than half the men I’d dated.

“Maybe she listened, because I don’t think she was . . . you know, doing
that
anymore.” She pushed out a deep breath, and her green eyes fixed on mine again. “Her parents had a man picked out to be her husband, though.”

“Seth Johnson.”

She nodded. “Yeah, that’s the name. She told me that he
tried to kiss her once, in an empty Sunday school classroom, and she told him she was a lesbian.” Linnea grinned, revealing a beautiful smile that completely canceled out the darkness of her attire.

“Resourceful girl,” I said. “How did Johnson take that?”

“He said he was man enough to help her overcome her evil desires. Beth said he undid his pants right then, started to pull it out, but she pushed him over when he had his jeans around his ankles and ran out.”