Swift Justice (32 page)

“Apparently she wasn’t as happy as you thought,” I said, “since she decided not to give up the baby.”

“Yeah, she turned out to be a real bitch.”

I raised my eyebrows, and his scowl deepened. “She broke my wife’s heart. And if you or she thinks I’m going to stand still for that . . .”

He talked as if Elizabeth were still alive. “So you raced over to her apartment after she called and—”

“The hell I did! I called my lawyer.”

I believed him on that. He seemed like the type who would have his lawyer on speed dial and would summon him if a worker got a paper cut (to forestall a workmen’s comp claim), if he was involved in a fender bender (to sue the pants off the guilty party), or had trouble collecting on a rebate promise from a big-box store (to send the message that no one cheats Stef Falstow).

“Okay. So the last time you saw Lizzy Jones was . . . ?”

He glanced at his watch and headed back toward the building entrance. I was glad to get out into the sun’s glare again, although I blinked several times in the brightness. “When we signed the contract in mid-March.”

“Your wife told me Lizzy came for dinner a couple of times and that she visited her at the apartment.”

“The baby was—is—Jacquie’s thing,” he said, waving a dismissive hand. “If Lizzy was at the house for dinner, it was when I was away on business or out for the evening. I know Jacquie went to her apartment a couple of times, but I certainly didn’t.”

“You don’t sound too enthused about the baby,” I observed as we arrived back at the trailer. I pulled the hard hat from my head, running my fingers through my flattened hair to fluff it.

“There aren’t many guys my age who get excited about infants and the birthing process and all that,” he said defensively, “but once she’s out of diapers, I’ll teach her the right way to hammer a nail into a board, take her to Rockies games, and hope to God she likes tools more than she likes boys. So whoever has that baby ought to be on notice: I paid for her, and she’s mine.” With that, he stomped up the stairs and banged open the office door. It slammed shut on the rebound, so I left my hard hat on the edge of one step and headed for my car. I made notes about the interview with Falstow before starting the engine and driving back toward Colorado Springs.

Once on 1-25, I called the office to check in. Gigi answered with a cheery “Swift Investigations!”

“Any messages?”

“Oh, hi, Charlie. Yes, Melissa Lloyd called and wants you to meet her at Designer Touches as soon as possible. I was just going to buzz you.”

“Did she say what she wants?” I looked at my watch. I’d pass Monument on my way back from Castle Rock, so the detour wouldn’t be a big pain.

“No. Oh, and we got a call from a law firm downtown, one of the ones I called, and they have some process-serving work for us. I’m going down there in just a few minutes to pick up the paperwork. It goes to some guy in Fountain.”

“Great.” I made a mental note to keep an eye on the six o’clock news to see what Gigi had in her repertoire besides burning down fast food joints, busting meth labs, and scuttling golf carts. “Um, Gigi, will you be back at the office later?”

“Probably. Why?”

“Something came up last night I’d like to talk about.”

We agreed to meet late that afternoon and hung up.

I arrived at Designer Touches half an hour later to find Melissa engaged in conversation with a young couple looking at fabrics. She caught my eye and signaled she’d be with me soon. I drifted around the showroom, wishing I had enough spare change to buy a pair of pebbled glass and slate table lamps. With ecru shades, they gave off a homey glow that would be perfect in the living room when I finished renovating it. The price tag practically singed my fingers, however, and I decided I could make do with something from Target or Lowe’s.

“Ms. Swift. Charlie.”

Melissa Lloyd appeared at my elbow, looking ill at ease.
Wearing a cream jersey dress and medium-heeled sandals, her hair scraped back in the usual French braid, she looked cool and professional. She waved good-bye to the young couple as they left, then turned back to me. “I asked you to come here because . . . well . . .”

“Is something wrong?” I asked as she trailed off. “Is Olivia okay?”

“She’s fine,” Melissa said. “What I wanted to say is that I don’t need you to keep looking for her father.”

My eyebrows arced toward my hairline. “You found him?”

“No. I just don’t—”

She turned away and click-clacked across the parquet floor to her desk. I followed. Plucking a piece of paper from her desk, she handed it to me.

I studied the check. She’d made it out for more than she owed. “This is too much,” I said. The check would go a long way toward keeping Swift Investigations in the black for the month, but I felt let down. Once I took on a case, I liked to see it through to the end. I felt like I’d been benched late in the fourth quarter.

“I wanted to thank you for all the effort you put in. I—”

“Did you turn the baby over to CPS, is that it?”

“No!”

Her eyes slid away from mine to study the odds and ends on her desk. For the first time, I noticed a photo of Olivia in an elaborate wood frame. The penny dropped.

“You want to keep her.”

“Yes,” Melissa admitted. “I never planned . . . I never thought . . .” She laid her palms flat against her flushed cheeks. “I guess I owe you an explanation.”

She didn’t really, but I didn’t disagree.

“C’mon.” She flipped the sign on the store’s door to
CLOSED
and led me to a small break room apparently shared with the store that abutted hers. It featured a table with four chairs, a sink, a microwave, a refrigerator, and a vending machine. “Pepsi, right?” She plunked quarters into the machine and handed me a cold soda, getting a 7-Up for herself.

“Thanks.” I took a long swallow and seated myself in one of the orange plastic chairs.

Melissa joined me. “I was abused as a child,” she said baldly. “My father beat me. You don’t need all the gory details. Suffice it to say I was put into the system when I was ten and bounced from foster home to foster home for a few years. Elizabeth’s father was one of my foster ‘dads.’ ”

Her emotionless statement rocked me back in my chair. “I had no idea—”

“Why would you?” She smiled, a wry twist of her lips. “I never thought I’d be a good parent. All the literature says kids who are abused are more likely to become abusers. Plus, I had no good role models, no one to teach me how a good parent does it.” She rolled the soda can between her palms. “So I was afraid to have children.”

I could relate to that. Being serially abandoned with various relatives while my parents traveled the world had left me wary of having children, too. “Then Olivia arrived on your doorstep.”

“Exactly. You have no idea how petrified I was. Scared and angry. Scared I would do something wrong, angry that I’d been put in this position. Ian’s reaction didn’t help much, either,” she said. “He’s always liked it being just the two of
us, has never pushed for children. But caring for Olivia has changed me. Yes, I’m tired. Yes, I make mistakes . . . Did you know you’re supposed to put babies to sleep on their back? I was putting Olivia on her tummy until I saw something about it on one of those morning shows. But I haven’t hurt her. I haven’t felt the slightest urge to hurt her, not even when she cries for hours and I can’t get to sleep and I don’t know what’s wrong. All I want to do is make her feel better.”

“You love her.”

“Yes.” She nodded, her face shining with wonder. “And I want to keep her. So, can you just stop looking for her father? I don’t care who he is anymore.”

“You’re the client. But I have to warn you that I think you’re going to have a legal battle on your hands.” I told her about Jacqueline Falstow’s obsession with the baby and her husband’s readiness for war with lawyers as the weapon of choice. “Patricia Sprouse might get in on the action, too, if her husband will let her.”

“I’ve already talked to a lawyer,” she said fiercely, “and he thinks I’ve got a good chance. Regardless, I’ve got to try.”

“Okay, good luck.” I rose and shook her hand. “What about Elizabeth’s death? Aren’t you curious about what happened?”

“The police can deal with that,” she said dismissively. “It doesn’t have anything to do with me and Olivia.”

I thought otherwise but kept my mouth shut. I was almost positive Elizabeth’s death was tied up with the baby in some way, but it would serve no purpose to make an issue of it with Melissa. Besides, as she’d pointed out (and Montgomery would heartily agree), the murder was a police matter.
Feeling strangely let down, with no place in particular to go now that I was off the case, I drifted back to my car, sitting for a moment before keying the ignition and pulling out of the parking lot.

Gigi was waiting for me when I entered the office. I stopped on the threshold, taken aback by the pink and black tiger-striped jacket and slacks she wore over a pink T-shirt stretched to its limits. The cast now sported black stripes markered on over the pink and a rudimentary cat’s face with exaggerated whiskers.

“Dexter drew it. Isn’t it cute?” she asked, noting the direction of my gaze and waving her arm in the air.

“He’s quite the artist.” Not sure how to broach the subject of Johnson and his buyout threat, I procrastinated by getting a Pepsi and then pulling my chair over toward Gigi’s desk. She looked at me, her blue eyes curious.

“You wanted to talk about something?”

“Yes. I . . . I wanted to talk about the business.” I wished I’d rehearsed this, or at least planned what I wanted to say. The Falstow interviews had kept me busy most of the day, though, and Melissa’s bombshell had occupied my thoughts on the drive back from Monument. I struggled on, feeling my way slowly.

“When I left the Air Force, investigating and police work were all I knew. I didn’t want to be a cop, because that would’ve been trading one uniform and male-dominated bureaucracy for another. I wanted to own my own business, to answer to no one. So I set up shop as a PI. I had virtually no cash on hand—
I’d used my separation pay to buy my house—and an attorney friend suggested your husband might like to invest, strictly as a silent partner.”

I studied Gigi’s face to see how the mention of Les affected her, but she merely nodded for me to go on.

“Business was slow for the first few years, but a couple of years ago I found my niche, began concentrating on missing persons cases, and began to turn a profit, a small one. I’ve been paying myself a salary barely enough to live on and was hoping to buy Les out within a couple of years.”

“You told me,” Gigi said, beginning to look wary.

I forced myself to continue. “So, when you showed up, wanting to be an active partner, drawing a salary, I . . . I didn’t react well. I thought you’d be a drain on the agency, and I was used to making all the decisions without considering anyone else, so I wasn’t very fair to you. I shoved you into all sorts of situations you weren’t ready to handle, hoping you’d give up and go back to hairdressing. You surprised me by coping better than I expected. How did the process serving go today?” I asked, putting off the rest of what I needed to say.

“Great!” she said happily. “I got his address off the paperwork, knocked on the door, and handed the envelope over. He even said thank you.”

“You’ve got a knack for it,” I said. “You’re so . . . sympathetic looking that people don’t run when they see you coming.”