Voices in the Wardrobe (23 page)

“Why?”

“Because you and a few others seemed to have disappeared from the face of the earth all of a sudden and I felt some responsibility there—”

“Who?”

“Well, I hate to tell you this but we have some evidence that your daughter is up here.”

“You're at the Spa? Libby's fine, she's with me. Who else?”

“Well, we haven't been able to locate Mr. Hilsten, or your tall author, Cooper, either. Are they with you too? Where are you?”

“Detective Solomon, I just got a call from Luella—I'm coming up there. I may know where she is.”

“No, Charlie, I appreciate your mistrust of authority after that odd grilling you got last night and your worry for your friends—but please trust me on this one, okay? You keep you and your daughter safe and I'll do my best to find Ms. Ridgeway and Ms. Stutzman too if she's alive. I don't know what's going on but I don't want you and your daughter in danger as well. Please trust me, I know it's hard—”

“Gordy, let me tell you something. Luella said that she and at least one someone else were in the cottages and asked me to help them.”

“Cottages …”

“Those little buildings behind the Spa and, Gordy, she sounded drugged.”

“Drugged …”

“You know exactly what I'm talking about. That place is so full of drugs if they were nuclear and somebody detonated them we wouldn't have to wait for the big quake to take out California.”

“Are you alone, Charlie?”

“No, I'm sitting in a room full of witnesses—and I'll tell you and them that if you betray my trust and tell the wrong people what I've told you and something happens to my friends because of it, I'll devote the rest of my life to making yours miserable and I'm very resourceful. I'll wait one hour for your call and then I'm on my way. Oh, and watch out for Jerry Parks of the
Union-Tribune
. He was hauling files, vials, and tapes out to the quake pit where you found Libby's purse.”

“What say we all go someplace else for an hour—just in case they can trace us here,” Charlie said to the roomful of witnesses, namely Libby, Brodie Caulfield, and Keegan Monroe. And Fluffy. Even the cat looked tense.

“Think we should move the vehicles?” Brodie said.

“Why don't we take them downtown? There's a mall of sorts with a shadowy parking barn where you could lose Air Force One. Not park them together.” Keegan wiped his brow with a tissue. “Sometimes you scare me, Charlie.”

“Yeah, me too. And she's only your agent. I got me a lotta trouble for a motha.”

“You're very intense, Charlie,” Brodie added when they were ensconced in a small bar with an hors d'oeuvre bar set up to take care of dinner too, should they decide to stay the evening and drink. There were inviting outdoor or “courtyard” tables in the open but they chose a semi-enclosed corner where they could see outside but were still undercover. It would be lusciously warm in summer, but a chill breeze that smelled of rain reminded them it was still April.

Charlie munched on carrot, bell pepper, jicama, and celery sticks, tomato and cucumber slices, corn chips and guacamole, and sipped at a beer. She ate more to prepare for an uncertain evening and night than out of hunger. When she felt this stressed, nothing really tasted very good. She checked her watch. This had to be the slowest hour she'd ever endured. It was the guilt thing. She was as bad as her mother but what if she'd let her friends down in a life and death situation by reading the signs wrong?

It was, selfishly, just as much about her having to live with the guilt of a bad decision at crisis time as it was about them losing their lives altogether because of it. Libby came by her selfish streak naturally.

“Look,” Brodie said, “why don't you give him two hours? I know you don't trust anybody, but what difference will it make if the damage has already been done while the detective was trying to get a hold of you?” Since he'd left the conference Brodie had reverted to wearing a baseball cap with the bill at the back and eyeing Libby Abigail Greene at every opportunity. Charlie estimated he had four years on her and Libby had two inches on him. One would think that after what she'd done to Jerry Parks, Brodie would have lost interest fast. Libby appeared unaware of his interest, which her mother thought highly unlikely.

“I'm not letting you out of my sight anyway, Mom. You go up there, I'm going up there.”

“Libby, there are government officials up there who think it was you who broke the code on the message accidently sent to my computer and not Doug. Think about it. They don't seem to need much justification for hauling people off without giving them a chance for legal counsel these days. You could just disappear instead of graduate you know, not to mention all the parties you'd miss.”

“I promised Grandma I wouldn't leave you alone till she got here. Besides, they only do that to Middle Eastern types.”

“Yeah,” Keegan said. “What could you do if they handcuffed your knees?”

Charlie was still trying to figure out how to detain her daughter here in Del Mar so she could go up to the Sea Spa at the Marina del Sol when her phone tinkled in her purse.

“Charlie,” Deputy Gordy Solomon said, “we've looked everywhere, every crook, cranny, crevice, cottage, and closet. We didn't find a trace of Ms. Ridgeway or any of the others. I'm sorry.”

Thirty

“So, who all is ‘we?' You said ‘we didn't find anybody.'”

“Deputy Saucier and myself, the VanZants, remaining staff.”

“That's a lot of area to search that fast.”

“Well, there's also the federal officials you met yesterday,” Solomon said.

“And the satellite in the sky that traces cell phones.”

“I don't know anything about that, Charlie.”

“One thing you do know. When you showed me Dashiell's body, you said if Maggie was alive she was in worse trouble than before. What did that mean?”

“Simply meant that she was the last person seen with him alive. She didn't have a car, he didn't have a license or a car because of his drug background. She was also dependent on drugs. They got to the Sea Spa from the Islandia. Obviously, neither were stable. She could have been responsible for his death as well as the others.”

“Somebody else could have driven them both. So why is Luella missing too?”

“I have no idea. Perhaps she drove them in her car which ended up in the drink.”

“She was also Judith Judd's agent and had access to much of her private as well as public financial information. Ask the Feds and the VanZants about Arthur Douglas, Redux, and Royal Pharmaca and Dr. Judy. Watch for reactions. This is much bigger than you and me, Gordy, Maggie, Luella, and Dashiell Hammett, Raoul Segundo or Grant Howard.”

“Ever noticed Dr. Judy's picture right next to the Redux display at Long's Drugs? Rite Aid too I think,” Keegan Monroe asked the atmosphere in general or maybe the ozone. “Been seeing that probably six months anyway. Just now connecting her to the murdered one.”

Charlie broke into whatever Gordy Solomon was saying to keep her away from the Spa. “Oh, ask around up there about Judith Judd's picture appearing in the Redux ad at Long's and Rite Aid for the last six months while you're at it.”

“So, are we going up there? Or not?” Libby ordered another beer in defiance. Well, that's how she came about—a six pack and a dare.

“I might. You are not. I don't care what you promised your grandma. I'm almost getting up the nerve to call Mitch back. Doesn't sound like the satellite tracking thing works that well, like Doug said.”

Mitch's voice mail asked her to leave a message. She did. It was, “You okay?”

“You know, Mom, I just thought of something. How come they can trace people calling from plane or hiking or skiing accidents by tracing their cells?”

“Why couldn't you have thought of that before I returned his call? Maybe you have to be calling 911.”

“Isn't it interesting how little we know of the technology we depend on so completely?” Keegan Monroe said, pulling out his little pocket spiral notepad and presumably writing down that authorial thought.

“You tried a PDA?” Brodie Caulfield whipped out his. “It's a cell too, all in one, even a camera.”

“Brodie, my life and career are complicated to the max the way it is. I do not desire yet another gadget that I do not understand.” He stared off into the artificially lighted potted plant life tossing animated shadows in the increasing sea breeze that wafted uphill from the Pacific. The breeze still carried the scent of rain if not the reality.

Libby and Brodie disappeared for a few minutes, returning with shrimp and bowls of creamed spinach and cheese dip for all and other fattening grazing goodies Charlie couldn't identify. Sirens screamed by on the Pacific Highway. No one in Charlie's line of vision even paused at the sound. After this morning it would take a whole lot to make a credible emergency in Del Mar. Great time for terrorists to blow up something with no one paying attention.

Just as Charlie pulled the Ram out of the parking garage, her cell beckoned. It was Mitch returning her call. He was at the Spa.

“I'm on my way. What's going on up there?”

“I'm not sure. But don't drive up into the lot. Park down at the marina. I'll call Sidney, the steward, to drive you up just below the crest and drop you off. I'll meet you there. And, Charlie, don't bring anybody.”

He hung up before she could explain the Libby problem. Or how long it would take her to get there. Seemed odd he didn't ask, hung up so suddenly. She had visions of him being tied down and forced to say what he was told. At least he didn't sound drugged. And what the hell had happened to Kenny Cowper? She didn't have his cell number in the memory, but she did have it. Somewhere. Rush hour traffic again, and constant tourist traffic, and beach bum traffic. Where could Mitch be waiting forever, not knowing how long it would take?

How long could Keegan and Brodie keep Libby from jumping in her Jeep and heading for the Sea Spa? Short of hog-tying her? That could be dangerous for all three of them. Brodie was strong enough to subdue her long enough to tie her up. She really shouldn't be asking her friends to do any of this. They could end up in jail for attempted sexual abuse or something. And her mother was flying in tomorrow. Now all Charlie needed was to run out of gas. What if her stopping at the Marina del Sol was a trap?

She couldn't find Kenny's number but was pretty sure she remembered it now and punched it at the next stop sign. Through all this she kept seeing Maggie's face in the old days when it was perky and mischievous and sharp and funny. And Luella's half-lidded look with one eyebrow raised slightly that told you the battery on her bullshit detector was fully charged. Funny how you don't appreciate the little things until you think it's too late.

Heads up, Greene. You can't see anything through tears. You decided to venture out here, ignore all the warnings. You either get strong or turn the truck around and control your daughter yourself.

“This is Kenneth. Charlie? Where are you? I thought you were dead.”

“Where are you?”

If any satellite was tracing her phone calls it must not know where she was or everyone wouldn't be asking where she was. Wouldn't there be a lot more important legal deviants it would be using its time looking for?

“I'm at the marina—they won't let my car out the gate.”

“Well you walk through and around the curve out of sight and I'll pick you up. I'm maybe ten, fifteen minutes away.”

“Then what do we do?”

I haven't the foggiest. “Tell you when I see you.”

“Jesus, I'm glad somebody knows what's going on.” He sounded so relieved she wanted to laugh. No, maybe cry.

This was all suspiciously easy. He was waiting for her when she got there. She drove into a residential cul-de-sac, turned off the engine, and leaned back against the headrest. “I want to know what's happened—no bullshit, no macho—just the facts. I don't care what happened between you and Mitch. Kenny, I want to know what's happened to Maggie and Luella. Focus for me, okay?”

Two little boys chased each other, one with a toy rake, the other a toy shovel on a tiny front lawn. Two cats squared off in the middle of the street.

If Mitch had hurt him, none of the damage showed. Dark half-moons showed under his eyes though, the rest of his face a little gaunt. If she remembered correctly he was a year or two younger than she, but in the current light she could see an occasional gray hair hiding among its short dark cousins. She wondered if there were any in hers. She'd had a couple a few years back and plucked them, hadn't seen any since.

The guard and his dog at the Marina del Sol would not let him take his car out of the gate because he had no pass for getting it in there.

“So you just drove off after I left?”

“No, I scuffled with your inflated manfriend awhile and then drove my rental down to the marina and hiked back to see what was transpiring up there. By that time it was light and so I wandered around the grounds. Most of the activity was down by the earthquake crack or along the path to it. I stayed out of sight near the buildings where they had to walk by—the trio of government guys that tried to grill us last night, a female deputy, couple of staff women. Finally crawled onto a dusty couch in one of those cabins and slept for a couple of hours.”

“What were they doing?”

“Talking on their cells mostly. Sheriff's department all but disappeared. I figured everybody was looking for you and Libby and I was going to hang around if they brought you back. And finally I thought why would they do that? And also got hungry so I hiked back down to the marina. Didn't have any trouble buying food at the restaurant but my car was parked illegally because I wasn't a member or something.”