Web of Evil: A Novel of Suspense (14 page)

Dave put the Nissan in gear. “The hospital isn’t going to tell us anything. Let’s try the house first. Have you tried calling April?”

“I did,” Ali told him. “Both her room and her cell. No answer.”

“Try again, just in case.”

Once again both of April’s phones went to voice mail. Ali tried Edie’s phone again with the same result. By then Ali was feeling the first tinge of real panic.

When they reached the house on Robert Lane, they found it deserted. Crime scene tape was still draped across the front door, warning people not to enter. There was no sign of Edie’s Oldsmobile anywhere and no sign of any other vehicles, either.

“She’s not here,” Ali concluded. “And I’m beginning to get a bad feeling about this—a really bad feeling.”

“Don’t worry,” Dave said. “Not yet. I’m sure she’s fine. Let’s try the hospital next.”

At Cedars-Sinai, Dave drove through the parking garages, prowling the stalls and searching for the Alero, while Ali went inside to the patient information desk and tried to bluff her way into finding out whether or not a patient named April Gaddis had been admitted. It was like banging her head on a brick wall. No one would tell her anything. Period. When Ali caught up with Dave again, she learned that his garage search had been equally fruitless.

“Back to the hotel then?” Dave asked.

“I guess,” Ali said. “Is it time?”

“Time for what?” Dave returned.

“To call Missing Persons?”

“After less than five hours?” Dave responded. “Believe me, they’ll laugh you off the phone. At this point they probably wouldn’t even bother taking a report. Your mother’s an adult. Adults are allowed to disappear whenever they want to. They can and do. Let’s go back to the hotel and wait awhile longer. Maybe she’ll turn up. Besides, since the hotel was where you last spoke to her, that’s a reasonable place to try picking up her trail. Didn’t you say she was watching an interview at the time?”

Ali nodded. “Yes. The one with Sheila Rosenburg from Court TV.”

“Since April and your mother are both among the missing,” Dave suggested, “there’s always a possibility that they’re together. What if your mother and April are doing something perfectly harmless? Maybe once the interview was over they decided to go shopping. After all, April’s expecting a baby. Maybe your mom wanted to get her something nice.”

Ali shot that idea down without a moment’s hesitation. “Mom hates shopping,” she said.

“All right then,” Dave said. “Let’s track down this Sheila person. Maybe one or the other of them would have mentioned to her where they were going or what they planned to do next.”

“Maybe,” Ali agreed, but she didn’t think the idea sounded very promising.

Back at the hotel Ali was relieved to find that the media were still absent. Up on the seventh floor and on the way down the hallway from the elevator, Ali stopped off just long enough to tap on April’s door. There was no answer. Ali was in the process of unlocking the door to her own room when her phone rang. The number showing in the readout was her parents’ home number in Sedona.

“Hello,” Ali said.

“Did you find her?” Bob Larson demanded.

“No,” Ali said. “Not yet. We’re still looking.”

“Well, I just got off the phone with Chris, and we’ve made up our minds,” Bob said. “We’ve got a contingency plan all lined up. I’ve found a substitute short-order cook who’ll come in and cover for me, and Chris is going to leave his conference early and call for a substitute, too. Kip will stay here and look after Samantha. Once we get the details squared away, we’ll throw our stuff in my car and be under way.”

“Under way where?” Ali asked. “You mean you’re coming here?”

“Of course I’m coming there,” Bob said determinedly. “My wife is missing. Do you think I’m just going to sit around on my butt and twiddle my thumbs?”

The idea of her father and Chris driving across the desert in Bob’s doddering Bronco seemed downright ludicrous. When it came to dependability, Chris’s far newer Prius would have been a better choice.

“Dad,” Ali reasoned. “Are you sure you want to do that? I mean, she isn’t officially missing.”

“You haven’t reported it?”

“Dave said it’s too soon. No one will pay any attention.”

“I’m paying attention,” Bob Larson countered. “Your mother’s as dependable as the day is long. She wouldn’t run off somewhere without letting one of us know. She just wouldn’t.”

That, of course, was Ali’s opinion, too. Leaving without a word was totally out of character for Edie even if that assessment wouldn’t carry much weight with the LAPD.

“Do what you need to do,” Ali said at last.

“I was planning on it all along,” Bob said with a growl. “Edie and I had already discussed it. And don’t think I’m asking for permission, either.”

“Of course not,” Ali agreed. “But I’m glad you’re not coming alone.”

“Me, too,” Bob said. “I’m not as young as I used to be.”

Once Bob was off the phone, Ali called down to the desk. She made arrangements for April to be moved out of the more expensive two-room suite to one room and then reserved two more rooms as well—one for her parents and another for Chris. At this rate, she’d soon be occupying the whole floor. It was just as well that Dave was bunking at Motel 6.

A chastened Ali let Dave into her room, where he immediately appropriated her computer and hunkered down over it. “What was she using to search?” he asked.

“Google.”

“Good. I’ll see if I can track down her search history. In the meantime, see if you can locate that Sheila person from Court TV.”

Ali had to bite her lip. She had already gone over her mother’s search history, but she kept her mouth shut and began looking for Sheila’s number. Before she found it, however, the phone rang.

“Ms. Reynolds?”

“Yes.”

“My name’s Richard Dahlgood. I understand you’re a good friend of my aunt Velma’s.”

That wasn’t entirely true, but it was close enough.

“Yes,” Ali said. “I do know her.”

“I’ve just had a very strange phone call from someone named Andrea Morales,” Dahlgood continued. “She said her uncle might possibly be in need of legal representation in a criminal matter and that, if I took him on, you would be responsible for any expenses that were incurred.”

“Yes,” Ali said. “That’s correct.”

“So you know who this person is then, what he might be accused of, and all that?”

“I do.”

“I have to say, Ms. Reynolds, it’s very unusual for someone to assume someone else’s legal obligations in this fashion.”

“Unusual but not out of the question.”

“No, but I would have to have a signed authorization from my client—once I meet him, that is—giving you permission to have access to the bill. Billing information is also highly confidential.”

By then Ali had had it up to here with her bevy of attorneys, all of them standing around with their hands out.

“Please tell Ms. Morales that her understanding is correct and that if she makes arrangements for the client to meet with you, you’ll come prepared with whatever paperwork is necessary for me to handle the bill.”

“If it’s a criminal charge, the costs could be considerable,” Dahlgood warned.

Not nearly as considerable as Victor Angeleri’s,
Ali thought as she ended the call.

Finally Dave set Ali’s computer aside. “There’s nothing here,” he said. “How about if I go downstairs and see if I can make friends with hotel security. Maybe their surveillance tapes will show us something. Are you all right holding down the fort here?”

Ali nodded. “I’ll be fine,” she said.

He went out, leaving Ali alone. She sat still for a few minutes then ended up pacing. Her third pass across the room brought her face-to-face with the television armoire and the baggie with the cigarette butt. She picked it up and looked at it.

Suddenly, remembering the hint of stale cigarette smoke in April’s room, that cigarette butt made a whole lot more sense to her.

Her mother had been telling her about seeing April and Tracy McLaughlin sharing a romantic interlude in the hallway. And her next comment had been something about doing a paternity test. Maybe the cigarette butt had belonged to Tracy McLaughlin. Maybe Edie hoped enough genetic material could be located on the filter to develop a DNA profile to prove for certain whether or not Tracy McLaughlin was the father of April’s unborn child.

Grabbing her cell phone and room key, Ali dashed out of the room and hurried down to the lobby. She found Dave Holman and a uniformed security guard closeted in a windowless room behind the front desk, where they were surveying a bank of security monitors.

Dave was surprised to see her. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

For an answer, she waved the baggie in front of him.

“What’s that?”

“Evidence, most likely,” Ali replied. “At least it’s evidence as far as my mother is concerned. I told you Mom was playing detective. I’m guessing this cigarette butt belongs to Tracy McLaughlin, and she thought we could use it as part of a paternity test.”

Dave took the bag from her hand and held it up to the light. “It could mean a whole lot more than that.”

“What?”

“Terry’s a convicted car thief, and a vehicle theft was involved in your husband’s murder. Terry had a business connection with Paul Grayson, but he also has a possibly illicit relationship with Paul’s bride-to-be. This is sounding like a whole lot of motive to me.”

“But how does the cigarette play into this?” Ali asked.

“The duct tape. Didn’t you tell me your husband was bound with duct tape?”

Ali nodded. “That’s what I was told, but I saw it, too. Not the tape itself, but the marks it left on his face. Why?”

“Most bad guys still haven’t figured out that using duct tape in the commission of a crime is a really bad idea. Glue from the tape almost always captures the criminal’s DNA right along with the victim’s. Say somebody tears the tape with their teeth. They also leave behind traces of their saliva. And there’s DNA in the tiny pieces of skin that slough off the bad guy and onto the tape as it’s being applied. If the duct tape used on Paul hasn’t already been examined for DNA evidence, you can bet it will be. Crime labs can usually find DNA evidence. The big problem comes when it’s time to match that evidence to a known perpetrator, and that’s what Edie may have given us.”

“Since Tracy’s been in prison, won’t they have a record of his DNA profile?” Ali asked.

“Not necessarily,” Dave said. “For one thing, those databases are relatively new. McLaughlin could well have been let go without having to leave a sample.”

Ali looked at the cigarette again. “When Mom grabbed this, she wasn’t thinking about the possibility that McLaughlin might be a killer. She was thinking about the baby.”

“And from the looks of things, I’d say she gave him hell about it, too.”

Ali was dismayed. “She did? When?”

“Down in the lobby. After the interview. It’s on one of the security tapes. Come take a look.”

Dave led Ali over to the monitors. On one of them, Ali saw a frozen image of her mother, standing flat-footed, hands on her hips, glaring up into Tracy McLaughlin’s face. The security guard pressed one of the controls. Suddenly Edie Larson was in motion. Her mouth moved. Her hands gestured furiously. No words could be heard, but then, they didn’t need to be.

Ali knew her mother. Edie had never been one to hold back on delivering her opinions. Here she was giving a suspected killer a piece of her mind.

Watching the video sent a surge of fear through Ali’s body. She had done the same thing once—she had bearded a suspected killer long before anyone else had tumbled to what had happened. In the process Ali had put herself in harm’s way and had come closer to dying that day than she cared to remember. Now Edie Larson had done the same thing—put herself in harm’s way.

“What now?” she asked.

“I think it’s time to file that missing person’s report,” Dave said.

U
pstairs, the first call Ali made was to Missing Persons at LAPD—with predictable results. Carolyn Little, the Missing Persons cop Ali had spoken to on Friday, wasn’t available on weekends, and no other officer came on the line, either. Instead, an indifferent clerk with minimal typing skills and an even smaller sense of urgency took the information on the disappearance of Edie Larson.

“You be sure to let us know if Ms. Larson turns up, now,” the clerk said cheerily when she finished. “If we don’t hear from you by this time tomorrow, an officer should be in touch. If not tomorrow, then the day after.” Click.

Ali flung down the phone. “So much for getting any help from LAPD,” she muttered.

“What did you expect?” Dave asked.

Shaking her head in disgust, Ali dialed the number she had for the Riverside Sheriff’s Department. If she had reached the younger detective, she might have achieved better results, but at seven o’clock on a Sunday evening, talking with Detective Sims was the best she could do. He was a long way from sympathetic.

“I’m a homicide detective,” he said. “If you’ve got a missing person on your end, you need to call LAPD.”

“We already did that,” Ali told him. “They’re not exactly interested.”

“Why should I be?”

“Because we think my mother’s disappearance may have something to do with my husband’s homicide and with one of my husband’s acquaintances—a guy named Tracy McLaughlin.”

“What about him?” Sims asked.

The way Sims asked the question made it clear McLaughlin was already a known entity, but Ali wasn’t eager to give up any additional information without first having some assurances from the detective that he would intercede with the LAPD on Edie Larson’s behalf.

“You know Tracy McLaughlin went to prison for car theft?” Ali asked.

“That’s what I like about all you hotshot media types,” Detective Sims grumbled. “You think that just because we’re cops, we must be too dumb to wipe our own butts. Of course I know McLaughlin got sent up for grand theft auto. Served five and a half years. In a homicide involving a stolen vehicle, don’t you think that’s the kind of thing that would have come to our attention once we started investigating your husband’s friends and associates? And what the hell does that have to do with the fact that your mother has apparently taken a powder?”

“My mother’s a responsible person,” Ali returned. “She wouldn’t leave of her own volition without letting one of us know. I talked to her shortly before she disappeared. She said she thought Tracy McLaughlin was somehow involved with April Gaddis, my husband’s fiancée.”

“Talk about yesterday’s news,” Sims returned dismissively. “Of course they were involved. April and Tracy have been friends for years. According to what April told us earlier, she was the one who brought Sumo Sudoku to her husband’s attention in the first place.”

Being friends and having a romantic encounter in a hotel hallway were two entirely different things, but Ali suspected that if she hinted at a possible romantic connection between April and Tracy, Detective Sims would most likely discount that as well.

“Before my mother left she was involved in a verbal confrontation with Tracy McLaughlin. We saw that on a security tape. She also collected a cigarette butt and left it in a plastic bag,” Ali continued. “Dave Holman and I believe that may have come from Tracy McLaughlin as well. If DNA from that could be linked to the duct tape found on my husband—”

“Who says there was duct tape?” Detective Sims demanded. “How would you know about that?”

“I saw it, remember?” Ali reminded him. “When I identified the body. I’m no expert, but the marks I saw on his face certainly looked like they could have come from duct tape.”

“Oh,” Sims said. “I see.”

“So are you checking the duct tape for DNA evidence?” Ali insisted.

“Of course we’re checking it,” Sims replied with an impatient snarl. “But this isn’t exactly
CSI Miami.
In our neck of the woods it generally takes a while for our people to develop a DNA profile. We don’t try to get the job done in sixty minutes minus commercials, so don’t expect us to have lab results tomorrow or next week or even next month. We’re also required to maintain chains of evidence. If and when we decide we need a DNA sample from Mr. McLaughlin, you can be sure we’ll be able to obtain one on our own without help from either you or your mother. In the meantime, we have leads and we’re working them. Now, if you don’t mind, this is supposed to be my day off.”

With that Sims hung up, leaving Ali holding the phone.

“What?” Dave asked.

“I don’t think Detective Sims is going to help us find Mom or Tracy McLaughlin,” Ali said.

“If we can’t go through official channels, we’ll have to try some unofficial ones,” Dave said, reaching for his phone.

“Your pal at LAPD?”

Dave nodded. “If he’s home. He said something about going camping on his days off.”

While Dave worked his phone, Ali stood in the middle of the room, holding her cell phone and thinking. She remembered something Helga had said the day before as Victor had been driving them from the hotel to Robert Lane. Scrolling through her cell’s phone book, Ali located Helga Myerhoff’s number and dialed it.

“Yesterday, when you were talking to me about April Gaddis,” Ali said, “I seem to remember that you mentioned something about her wanting to be a Pilates instructor.”

“Yes,” Helga answered. “That’s right.”

“And that some of her friends weren’t exactly nice people?” Ali pressed.

“Bit of an understatement,” Helga replied. “Have you ever heard of The Body Shop in Century City?”

“Car repairs?” Ali asked.

“Not exactly,” Helga said with a snort. “Although it’s located in a building that once held an auto dealership, it’s got nothing at all to do with cars. It’s a twenty-four-hour upscale fitness club where network bigwigs and wannabe bigwigs can mix and mingle, see and be seen. It’s also one of the hot, in-crowd places at the moment. Supposedly the gym comes complete with one-on-one personal trainers, an organic juice bar, and with personal chefs available upon request. More than that, though, it also operates as a convenient pickup joint. That’s where April first met Paul, by the way. She worked there as a receptionist.”

Makes sense,
Ali thought. For an undereducated and beautiful young woman like April Gaddis, who was also ambitious and determinedly upwardly mobile, The Body Shop sounded like the perfect manhunt launching pad.

“The Body Shop’s biggest appeal is that it’s both respectable and edgy,” Helga continued. “As you already know, some of Hollywood’s best-known heavy hitters are afflicted with complicated substance-abuse issues. For these relatively respectable guys, it’s a lot more convenient if they can meet up with their drug supplier at some fashionable watering hole rather than having to buy their next hit from a street dealer at some dingy intersection in L.A.”

“What about Tracy McLaughlin?” Ali asked.

“The Sumo Sudoku guy?” Helga asked. “The one in the kilt?”

“That’s the one,” Ali said. “Did he work there, too?”

“He may have,” Helga said. “I don’t know for sure, but I’ll tell you this. I liked looking at the guy. He might be a bit young for me, but I wouldn’t mind taking him home for a day or two to check out whatever it is he keeps under that kilt.”

Ali was glad that Dave wasn’t hearing Helga’s part of the conversation.

“Why all this sudden interest in Tracy McLaughlin?” Helga asked. “What’s going on?”

“My mother’s missing,” Ali said. “This morning she witnessed what looked to her like a bit of hanky-panky going on between April and Tracy. Early this afternoon one of the hotel security cameras recorded a confrontation between McLaughlin and my mom, but by the time I got back to the hotel to talk to her about it, she was gone—not just from our room, but from the hotel, too. The parking attendant told us he saw her peel out of the hotel garage sometime after one. I’ve tried calling her. No answer, and she hasn’t called me back, either.”

“Have you reported her missing?”

“Yes,” Ali said. “Not that it did much good. No one at LAPD is particularly interested.”

“So what can I do to help?” Helga asked.

“When you were doing your investigation of Paul, did Tracy McLaughlin’s name come up?”

“I remember looking into the Sumo Sudoku thing because S and S Enterprises was one of your husband’s newer business ventures. That name could have been mentioned, but I don’t remember it in particular. I’d have to check with one of my investigators—and I probably won’t be able to talk to him until tomorrow. Is there anything I can do in the meantime—anything I can do tonight?”

“I don’t know,” Ali said. “I can’t really think straight right now.”

“If you come up with something you need,” Helga said, “don’t hesitate to call. Have you told Victor?”

“Not yet,” Ali said.

“I’ll call him,” Helga said. “He’ll want to know what’s going on.”

Ali put down the phone. Dave had finished a series of calls and was once again hunkered over her computer.

“Google S and S Enterprises here in L.A.,” Ali told him. “See what you get.”

“S and S Enterprises holds all rights to Worldwide Sumo Sudoku,” Dave said a few minutes later. “S and S was incorporated back in April with Paul Grayson named as executive director and CEO.”

That announcement hit Ali hard. She had left Robert Lane early in March. No doubt negotiations for S and S Enterprises had been well under way long before Ali’s departure, but she had known nothing about it. Sumo Sudoku had never been mentioned. In the scheme of Paul’s betrayals, this one seemed relatively small, but it was a betrayal nonetheless.

“Who else is on the board of directors?” Ali asked.

“Guy by the name of Jake Maxwell,” Dave replied.

“He worked with Paul at the network,” Ali explained. “I always thought of him more as a rival than a friend, but there are lots of shifting loyalties in television, and things change. Jake showed up at court last week when the divorce was supposed to be final. He came there to back Paul up. He was also the official host of Paul’s bachelor party from the night before.”

Dave was still studying the computer screen. “This is interesting,” he said. “S and S leases all the RVs that the various teams use. In other words, all the Sumo Sudoku guys are ultimately employees of S and S, but they’re hoping to create team rivalries that will attract media attention.”

“Sort of like professional wrestling?” Ali suggested.

Dave nodded. “Just about that real. According to this, the company was incorporated with the stated intention of obtaining coverage for the sport on one or the other of the sports-oriented cable channels. No doubt that’s why they scheduled the filming around Paul’s wedding—to garner additional media attention.”

“And that’s why they went forward with the shoot anyway, even though Paul was dead,” Ali added. “That’s how the business works. The show must go on no matter what.”

“I’ll say,” Dave agreed.

“So let’s go see him,” Ali said.

“Go see who?”

“Jake,” Ali said. “Jake Maxwell. The person we really need to see is Tracy, but we don’t have any idea where to find him, so Jake is our next best choice.”

“I’ve got a call in for Tracy’s vehicle records,” Dave said. “I’m waiting for someone to get back to me.”

“Fine,” Ali replied. “But in the meantime, since Jake is clearly part of all this, maybe he can point us in the right direction.”

“Where do we find him?”

Ali picked up her purse. “He and his wife, Roseanne, live out in Westlake Village.”

“Where’s that?” Dave asked.

“Not that far. Out on 101.”

“Do we need to call first?” Dave asked.

“I think we’ll just show up,” Ali returned. “And we’re probably better off if I drive.”

“Amen to that,” Dave said. “You drive. I’ll handle the phones.”

They left the hotel a few minutes later and headed for the 405 with Ali behind the wheel of her Cayenne.

“Have you had anything to eat since breakfast?” Dave asked as they went.

Thinking about her mother, Ali shook her head. “I’m not hungry,” she said.

“Too bad,” Dave said. “Edie would want you to eat, and we’re eating. Pull up at the next Burger King you see.”

Ali did as she was told, and much as she didn’t want to admit it, eating a Whopper did help. Back in the car, Sunday evening traffic turned what should have been a forty-minute drive into an hour and ten, most of which Ali drove in silence.

“What’s going on?” Dave asked finally. “Worried about your mom?”

“That,” Ali said, “and trying to get over being pissed off.”

“What about?”

“This whole S and S Enterprises thing,” she returned. “Obviously it was going on long before I left home last March. That kind of stuff doesn’t happen in a day or even a month, but I didn’t know a thing about it even though Jack and Roseanne Maxwell did.”

“So?”

“Once I was in Sedona, Roseanne sent me a sugar-coated e-mail in which she pretended like she and I were the very best of friends and she thought Paul was a cad, while at the same time Jake and Paul were starting a business together. I’ll never forget her cutesy little message. She kept harping on how awful it was that I was reduced to living in a trailer and having to wait tables for a living. She even offered me a place to stay—in their newly remodeled casita.”

“I take it you turned her down.”

“Do you think?” Ali asked with a curt nod. “But now it grates on me that I have to go see this woman and make nice with her when what I’d really like to do is smack her upside the head.”

“We’re doing this for your mother,” Dave reminded her. “Stay cool.”

Ali had no difficulty driving them to Jake and Roseanne’s sprawling, ranch-style house built on a grassy hillside outside Thousand Oaks. At the bottom end of the long, paved driveway, an ornamental iron gate blocked the way. Ali pressed a button and a disembodied voice spoke to them through an intercom attached to the gatepost. Half a minute later, the gate swung open.

Jake Maxwell himself stepped through the tall front door and came out into the circular parking area to meet them.