Too Little, Too Late (34 page)

“We were able to lift a partial from the top of the photo, which belonged to your mother, and another partial from the back.”

Liz carefully examined the strip of paper through the plastic. It appeared that the strip had been folded many times because it was permanently creased along the fold. The photo, or what there was left of it, was faded, yet the glimpse of hair and the bright red were unmistakable.

“I think I can tell you exactly what this is,” Liz told them excitedly.

“You can?” asked Cassidy.

“What is it?”

“I think it’s from an old photograph my mother carried around with her for the longest time,” Liz explained. “I thought she’d lost it.”

“Who’s the person in the picture?” Warner asked, scribbling something in his notebook.

“Her.” Liz pointed to the framed poster on her wall.

“Why would your mother carry that around with her?” asked Cassidy, getting up to take a closer look at the poster.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “All I know is she guarded that photo and—” Liz stopped herself just short of saying “necklace”. “—and now we’ll never know why.” While the other detective made notes on the poster, she asked his partner, “You said that another partial print was lifted from the photograph. Who did the second print belong to?”

Detective Warner waited a fraction of a second before replying. “Leo Bauer, Paco Ramierez’s former employer.”

“Are you going to arrest him?” Liz asked wide-eyed.

“He’s being sought for questioning as we speak,” Cassidy told her grimly.

The two detectives left after a few more minutes, promising to keep her informed. After she saw them out, Liz paced around her apartment, adrenaline coursing through her body. Finally, there was a solid lead! She had to tell Otis. Picking up the phone, her fingers poised over the dial pad, she hesitated as she remembered their argument. A second later, she found herself dialing another number instead.

***

Kate Stanton hung up the phone, her hand slightly shaking. She had never heard Liz so animated. And why not? Finally, the police had a solid lead regarding her mother’s hit and run, enough to haul in Leo Bauer for questioning. She sank into the nearest sofa, her heart pounding. This was the first time Kate had heard the name “Bauer” in connection with Liz’s mother. She had kept her voice neutral, not wanting Liz to know that the name “Bauer” had opened a chamber of horrors in her mind so strong that it literally left her incapable of movement. The hair had been standing up on the back on Kate’s neck since she’d heard Liz say his name. Leo Bauer, her father’s youngest son;
her stepbrother!
 

None of it made any sense yet the coincidences were stacking up alarmingly. First the necklace, then the fact that her daughter and Liz’s mother had both been patients at Woodland Hills Lodge and now this! But why would Leo Bauer want to kill Maria Weaver? What possible motive could he have for killing a mentally ill, defenseless homeless woman?
You are your father’s son, you bastard
, she thought to herself. There was no doubt in Kate’s mind that Leo Bauer had killed Liz’s mother. Call it instinct, a second sense, whatever. The son was just as evil as his father had been so long ago. And no amount of money—Kate’s mind suddenly clicked like a piece of puzzle sliding into its proper place. Woodland Hills Lodge had a
Weaver Wing!
She had walked through it on her way to Dr. MacGuyver’s office without the significance of the name having registered until just now.

Was it simply mere coincidence that Woodland Hills Lodge had a wing named after a former patient? Almost immediately, she discounted the notion. Kate figured it took a hell of a big donation to have a wing named after your family and Liz’s mother hadn’t had any.
Or did she?
 

Kate hurried over to her computer and turned it on. Luckily, her granddaughter had taught her how to use it years ago when the Paisleys went online. Although she had a webmaster that dealt with the maintenance of the sight, Kate monitored and spent quite a bit of time online, answering emails from fans all over the world. She found the site for Woodland Hills Lodge easily enough and clicked on the “About Us” link. She scrolled through it impatiently. Most of it had to do with the running of the facility, the doctors, the medical care, insurance, and plans for future growth. There, at the bottom of the webpage, was a separate link for “Benefactors”. Kate clicked on it eagerly. The webpage that came up detailed the various “gifts” the Lodge had received from generous benefactors throughout the years and then listed them alphabetically together with the amount of their “gift”. Kate figured that the more substantial gifts, like that from the Levitt Family to the tune of eight point five million warranted a wing. Almost at the bottom of the page, Kate found the “Weaver Family”. Strangely enough, the amount of their “generous gift” was not disclosed whereas most of the others had been.

Next, she went on to the
wikipedia.org
site and typed in “Weaver family”. She got over 21 different hits and looked at each one carefully. About halfway through, Kate found what she thought she was looking for. The Weaver Group was an American commodities and merchandising firm involved primarily in energy commodities. It also owned and managed a fleet of ocean vessels, developed and operated telecommunications infrastructures as well as developed and managed real estate in 18 different countries. The company was founded by Halston Weaver, and his great-grandson, Charlton Weaver, had been president and CEO up until his retirement in the early eighties. He had been married to Daniela Krantz, and the marriage had produced only one child, Sigourney Weaver, a former
actress
.

With trembling fingers, Kate typed “sigourney weaver” as a search but got no hits. Getting out of the
Wikipedia
website, she again typed in the words on the
Yahoo
search engine. Clicking on the link “Forties Hollywood”, Kate finally found what she was looking for. According to the brief blurb on Sigourney Weaver, she married for the first time at twenty-one to an investment banker named Desmond Johnson and had a son with him but the marriage never made it past its second anniversary. Sigourney apparently took up acting after her divorce and adopted her mother’s maiden name as her stage name. She appeared in only three movies before retiring to marry Karl Bauer, the director of one of her movies,
One Spark Too Many
. Sigourney also had a son with Bauer but became a widow after her husband suffered an untimely death. Rumor had it that she had married for the third time in the late eighties but this was never confirmed. There was no mention of a daughter.

Maybe Maria had been Sigourney and Karl’s dirty little secret
, thought Kate sadly. Maybe Sigourney’s very wealthy family didn’t want the world to know that the prodigal daughter had given birth to a mentally-defective child so they hid her away at Woodland Hills Lodge and bought everyone’s silence with generous donations to the facility, ending in a wing being named after them. When Maria got raped, the endowments to Woodland Hills dried up. Maria was eventually transferred to an exclusive sanitarium in San Francisco.
But why didn’t they just abort Maria’s baby? And why did Leo kill his sister now?
 

There were more questions than answers, Kate realized tiredly. She had to talk to Liz again. Dialing her number, the phone rang twice before Liz picked up. Before Liz could say anything, Kate blurted out, “I think I know who your mother was.”

“Oh my God,” said Liz. “Please tell me.”

“I think I need to show you and then you can decide whether I’m right or not,” she told the young woman excitedly.

“I’ll be there in half an hour,” Liz promised, hanging up the phone.

At loose ends, Kate busied herself by opening the gate outside and putting on a pot of coffee. Something told her it was going to be a long night by the time they sorted out this mess.

***

Liz hurriedly grabbed her purse and car keys and headed for her front door. Opening it, she came face to face with Otis as he was about to knock.

“Ote!” She stared at him in surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to apologize,” he told her gruffly. “I was out of line and I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted,” she told him, happy that he’d come back.

He looked at the keys in her hand. “Going somewhere?”

Liz hesitated, remembering their earlier argument.

“Forget about it.” He turned to leave. “You don’t have to answer that.”

“I’m going to see Kate Stanton,” Liz blurted out. “She’s discovered something about my mother.”

“Yeah?” His look of interest was genuine. “What?”

“I don’t know.” She locked her front door before turning to him. “How about coming with me and finding out?”

Otis looked at her searchingly. “You can tell me to back off anytime, you know.”

She grinned. “I know. But I want you to come.”

“I was hoping you’d say that.”

Leo was parked a little ways down from Kate’s house. He still had about another hour to go before nightfall. Just as he was trying to make himself more comfortable, he saw her gate open. Cursing silently to himself, he prepared to take off the minute he saw Kate’s car leave, only it never left. Getting out of his car, Leo nervously checked either side of the road before sprinting across it, hoping to get a closer look at her house. Suddenly, a car drove through Kate’s gate. He plastered himself against the nearest wall, hoping the driver of the car hadn’t noticed him.

***

Talk about lousy timing
, thought Kate as she saw Rina Lyons drive through her open gate. Rina waved to her and Kate waved back, trying to summon up some enthusiasm. It was obviously too late for her to run in the house and pretend she wasn’t home. She came slowly down the steps, watching silently as Rina pulled herself out of her car.

“I hope this isn’t a bad time.” Rina’s stomach was heaving from the physical exertion.

“As a matter of fact, I’m waiting for someone,” Kate told her truthfully.

Rina wasn’t about to be put off. “I promise I won’t keep you. As soon as I have the bassinet, I’ll be on my way.”

Glancing impatiently over Rina’s shoulder towards the road, Kate gave her what she hoped was a welcoming smile. “Let’s go inside and I’ll get it for you.”

***

Leo removed his gun from the waistband of his pants and crept up to the gate, peeking inside. There was Kate, standing on the steps in front of her door. Her body was turned towards the driver of the car so she didn’t have a direct view of the gate. He snuck inside the gate, finally getting his first good look at the other woman. Leo’s eyes traveled the length of her body before coming to rest on her protruding stomach. He slowly made his way closer to the house, keeping well within the shadows formed by the huge trees flanking either side of the house. As he neared the corner of the house, Leo stepped out of the shadows.

“No one’s going anywhere,” he announced calmly.

As Kate turned towards him, Leo raised the butt of his gun and brought it down hard on the back of Kate’s head. The other woman screamed and, in that split second, it became clear to Leo what he had to do. His salvation was imminent.

The phone call from one of the nurses at the Foundation had come as something of a surprise. Esther’s friend, Sigi, had been asking for Kate. Unable to reach her mother, the nurse had contacted Eve. On her way over to the Foundation, Eve phoned Karen to let her know where she was as well as tried her mother’s numbers several more times but Kate still wasn’t answering. Squelching the uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach, she pulled into the parking lot and went inside the building.

“Thank you for coming so quickly!” The head nurse greeted her as she reported to the nurse’s station.

“What exactly is the problem?” Eve asked.

“Sigi’s taken to her bed since Esther died. This evening, she became very agitated, asking for your mother. When we couldn’t get a hold of Kate, we decided to call you instead. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” Eve assured her.

The nurse looked worried. “Dickie’s been out of his mind with worry and hasn’t left her side all day.”

“I’m just not quite sure how I can help,” Eve admitted to her.

“Go talk to her,” the nurse told her as she led her down the hall to Sigi’s room. “That’s all you can do.”

The room was cast in shadows, the drapes having been drawn against the night sky. Sigi was lying in bed, the ever-present tube in her nose. They couldn’t tell whether she was saying something to her husband or if she was just muttering to herself. Dickie sat in a chair by her bed, clutching her hand.

“Sigi, you have a visitor,” she told the old woman. “Kate’s daughter, Eve, has come to visit you. You remember Eve, don’t you?”

The muttering stopped as Sigi turned towards Eve. “Where’s Kate?” she asked abruptly.

Eve hesitated. “She’s not answering her phone right now.”

Her answer was met by silence from the bed. The nurse motioned to Eve that she was leaving the room.

“Perhaps I can help.” Eve ventured closer to the bed. “What did you want to talk to Mom about?”

“I told him to deal with the situation,” the old woman fretted, “but I didn’t want him hurting her.”

“You told who to do what?” asked Eve, her confusion evident.

“My son.”

“Her son came to see her a few days ago.”

Eve jumped at the sound of Dickie’s voice. Until now, he had been silent. She took hold of Sigi’s other hand and tried again. “What situation did you tell your son to deal with?”

“The one with Kate.”

Eve’s heart skipped a beat.

Two lone tears ran down Sigi’s cheeks into her pillow. “When Kate didn’t come, I knew he’d done something to her.”

“Sigi, why would your son want to hurt my mother?” Eve asked again.

“Because she knows about the necklace,” Sigi told her in a child-like voice. “They told me to destroy the necklace years ago, but I couldn’t do it…”

“What necklace?” Eve tried to keep her voice calm and neutral. She wasn’t sure whether Sigi was lucid or not. She looked at Dickie but he appeared to be as confused as she was.