The ride up Lookout Mountain was uneventful. No more than twenty minutes after my call to Dr. Willard, I turned onto the circular gravel drive in front of his home. Kate had been right. It was impressive, and yes, the garage was huge.
I parked the car in front of the house, walked up the five steps to the front door and rang the bell. He looked tired, wrung out, but he also looked as if he’d just stepped off the golf course: fancy slacks and a shirt that must have cost at least a couple of hundred bucks. I felt like I was underdressed, and he must have thought I was, too, because he made no bones about eyeing me up and down.
“Mr. Starke?”
“Please. Call me Harry.”
He nodded. “Come on in.”
He took me into what I assumed must be his library. I’d never seen so many books in one place before. The room was large and lined with shelves and looked even bigger due to the singular lack of furniture: just a huge partner’s desk, a plush executive chair, a couple of leather easy chairs, and a matching sofa. The view from the big windows across the perfectly landscaped gardens was spectacular, even better than the view at my place. I could see up and down the Lookout Valley and then some.
“Take a seat, Mr. Starke. I already know who and what you are. I made some calls. You have quite a reputation. A good one, I might add. Now, talk to me. Tell me what happened last night.”
I told him everything I’d seen. I told him about his daughter’s presence in the Sorbonne and what had happened on the bridge. I told him everything, but I didn’t tell him who the two bangers in the bar were or who they worked for. I needed to know more about them. Could be their meeting was innocent, but I didn’t think so.
“So why are you here, Mr. Starke?”
I was silent for a moment, then I looked at him. “I’m not sure… I could tell she was scared out of her wits, but why? What could have frightened her so badly that she jumped off the bridge? We don’t yet know if she had anything in her system, but I’m almost certain she wasn’t high or drunk. I would have known if she was. She was frightened. Really frightened. I’d like to know why.”
“Mr. Starke, Harry, I can’t imagine why Tabitha would have done this. She was a very stable girl. Levelheaded. She isn’t my only daughter. Her sister, Jessica, is eighteen months younger; she’s twenty-three. They both live here. Well, only Jess now. There’s an apartment over the garage, two of them, in fact. Anyway, I would also like to know what happened. I want you to look into it, officially. I want to hire you. Can I do that?”
“You can, but—”
“No. No buts. I need to do this, for her mother and her sister as much as for me.” He opened one of the desk drawers and took out a checkbook and pen. “I know you need a retainer. How much would that be?”
“I charge two-fifty an hour plus expenses, which could be extensive. Time spent on the case by my operatives and secretarial work are charged separately. My retainer would be fifteen thousand.”
He nodded, put pen to his checkbook, scribbled, then tore out the check and handed it to me.
“I made it for twenty-five. If you need more, let me know. I expect to be kept up to date with the investigation. I’d like you to call me every day. Can you do that?”
I shook my head. “No, sir. I can’t promise to do that. That’s not how I work. I’ll communicate as need-be. I’ll call you whenever I have something pertinent to tell you, or if I need answers to questions, but that’s the only promise I can make.”
He stared at me for a moment, then nodded.
“Good, then I’ll have Jacque, my assistant, draw up the paperwork and send it over for your signature. You should have it sometime tomorrow afternoon. Please get it back to her as soon as you can. I’ll also need your cell phone number. Here’s mine.”
I handed him my card. He wrote his number on the back of one of his own and handed it to me.
“One more thing.” I took my iPhone from my pocket and pulled up the photo of the pendant. “I know Lieutenant Gazzara showed you this pendant, but I want you to look at it again. Are you sure you’ve never seen it before? Your daughter was wearing it when they found her.”
He took a look at the photo but shook his head.
“How about this key? Do you know what it’s for?”
Again, he shook his head.
“All right then. Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to take a look at her rooms.”
“Of course. I’ll take you.”
It was quite a hike: out of the rear door onto a patio, past an enormous pool complex and across the courtyard. The apartments were side by side over the garage. Tabitha’s was closest to the main house.
The door to the stairs was unlocked; the door to the apartment was not. Willard took a bunch of keys from his pocket, slid one into the lock, turned it, pushed the door open then stepped aside for me to enter.
I crossed the threshold and stopped just inside. I wanted to get an overall view of the room—first impressions are important.
It wasn’t as opulent as I thought it would be. Oh, it was quite special, but I had the feeling that Tabitha hadn’t spent much time there. The furniture was expensive, and so were the window treatments and carpet, as you might expect. The apartment included four rooms: a large living room comfortable, elegant, and furnished throughout by Williams-Sonoma.
Not a stick out of place.
The small kitchenette, as far as I could tell, was unused. The bedroom also had a feeling of vacancy about it. Unconsciously, I shrugged my shoulders, and then I noticed that Willard was staring at me, questioningly.
“Was Tabitha married, Doctor Willard?”
He smiled. “She was married. It was a long time ago, when she was nineteen. It didn’t last long, thank God…”
It was then that I think it hit him: she was gone, for good. He seemed to deflate. He pushed past me and sat down on one of the bedroom chairs. He gulped, shook his head, and then seemed to regain some of his composure, but it was still there: his eyes were watering.
I left him alone, sitting there, staring at the bed. I stepped into the bathroom. Oh boy, ladies do love their bathrooms. The rest of the apartment might not have been luxurious, but the bathroom certainly was. It wouldn’t have been out of place in Buckingham Palace. I looked into one of the mirrors and spotted Willard standing in the doorway.
“I get the feeling she didn’t spend much time here,” I said.
He nodded. “Well, not as often as she once did. I think she came here when she needed time to herself, weekends mostly, to get away from the city. She stayed with a friend, downtown. Easier than traveling up and down the mountain, so she said.”
“Friend? What friend?”
“Charlotte… Charlie Maxwell.”
I nodded. Kate had mentioned her.
“They’d been friends almost all their lives. They were in high school together, Baylor, and then they were in college together, Princeton… Charlie doesn’t know about Tab. I need to call her.” He turned and walked back into the living room.
“One moment, please, Dr. Willard.”
He stopped, half turned, and looked at me.
“She already knows. Lieutenant Gazzara has already talked to her.”
He nodded absently.
“Do you have a photo of Tabitha I can borrow? I’ll make sure it’s returned as soon as possible.”
He walked to the dresser, picked up two frames and handed them to me. One had a close-up of two girls, both in their mid-twenties; both were smiling, happy. I recognized the redhead on the left as Tabitha Willard.
“This must be Charlie.” I pointed to the second girl.
He nodded.
The other photo was a broader shot of three girls sitting together on a sofa. Tabitha and Charlie, and another girl. I held it up for him to see.
“Jess… That’s Jessica, our other daughter. She has the other apartment, next to this one.”
“Did Tabitha have a boyfriend, anyone serious?”
He nodded. “I don’t know much about him, just his first name, Michael. I don’t think she’d been seeing him lately, though. She never brought him home. That is to say, I never saw them here. I’ve certainly never met him.”
I made a mental note of the name. “Could you tell me a little about Jessica?”
He nodded absently. “She looks a lot like Tab but colors her hair blond. She’s twenty-three years old and will graduate UTC next year. Psychology. She has a boyfriend named Will Dyson. He’s a bit older than I care for, twenty-eight, but seems like a nice kid, what we’ve seen of him. She comes and goes as she pleases. We don’t see as much of her as we’d like either, but… well, children are children, very independent at that age.”
I was beginning to worry about him. He looked as if he was about to fall asleep.
“I’ll take another quick look around, if you don’t mind.”
He nodded and then let his chin drop, almost onto his chest.
I took out a small digital recorder and began a tour of the apartment, recording my thoughts and taking pictures with my iPhone. It was, I was sure, a waste of time. Nothing untoward caught my attention, but I was able to get a feel for the girl. She was high maintenance. I was sure of that. Her closets—there were two of them—were filled with expensive clothes. There must have been sixty or seventy pairs of shoes, all expensive.
No jewelry. Hmmm. Must have left it at her friend Charlie’s place.
Her drawers were filled with expensive lingerie, not overly provocative, but, well, you know, expensive. Not the kind of stuff you’d find at JCPenny. The bathroom vanity showed little personality. Kate’s bathroom was always a mess; this one was not. There were several bottles of expensive perfume on the vanity. I picked up one of the bottles, turned it over in my hand.
Body Milk. What the hell is that?
There was also a bottle of Coco Chanel’s Coco Mademoiselle. None of it was the kind of stuff a girl would wear every day at the office. Then again, maybe they would. What the hell do I know? Other than the perfume and a few odds and ends of makeup, there were no other personal items present. I opened a drawer: face cloths. I opened another: a hair dryer. I opened one of the cupboards: towels.
“When was the last time she was here, Doctor?”
He thought for a moment. “A week ago last Sunday, I think. I’m not entirely sure. I can check with my wife, if you like.”
“If you wouldn’t mind, sir. There’s no need to do it now. You can give me a call later today.”
But he already had his phone in his hand and was punching in the number. He didn’t say much, just asked the question and then hung up.
“Sunday, ten days ago. Is it important?”
“Probably not. I’m just trying to tie up loose ends. What did Tabitha do for a living?”
“She worked in public relations, some company out of New York. She didn’t need to. I gave her an allowance. With that, and what she earned at her job, she was never short of money.”
“An allowance?”
He nodded. “Yes. Not a big one. Fifteen hundred a week. If she needed anything… a car, things like that, I helped her with that, too. She knew she could always come to me, for anything, but she rarely ever did. She was a good girl, never any trouble at all, Tabitha.”
“Dr. Willard, you said her allowance was six thousand a month, and that she was working in public relations for a company out of New York.”
“Yes, that’s correct.”
“She was wearing a coat last night that must have cost more than four thousand; her closets are filled with very expensive clothes and shoes, at least another hundred thousand dollars’ worth. Her income was not enough to support such expenditures. Do you have any idea where the money came from?”
He looked at me, bewildered, and shook his head.
“Well, never mind. It’s something for me to look into… Doctor Willard, I’ll take up no more of your time today, but I may need to talk to you again soon. In any case, I’ll keep you updated about any progress I make, but it’s going to take a while. Please try to be patient.”
He rose stiffly to his feet, looking for all the world like a whipped dog. I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.
He followed me down the stairs and out onto the courtyard. He reached out to me with both hands, one for my hand, the other for my shoulder.
“Please, Mr. Starke. Her mother and I need to know. She wasn’t a bad girl, and we loved her dearly.”
What could I say to that? Not much. So I didn’t say anything. I simply squeezed his hand gently, nodded, then got into my car and drove away. I could see him in the rearview mirror, watching me.
How the hell does anyone cope with losing a daughter? I had no answer to that question. I felt sorry for the man. Well, I’ll do my best.
* * *
Jessica Willard was a younger version of her sister. She didn’t want to talk, but it had to be done. Unfortunately, there was nothing for her to tell me. She was close to her sister, but they lived very different lives and saw each other only when they ran into one another, either in town or when they were at home together.
Jessica knew about Michael, but she didn’t know they’d split up, and she seemed quite surprised to hear it. She was under the impression that he was very fond of Tabitha, and she him. No, she didn’t know his last name. No, she hadn’t seen her in more than a week.
She didn’t know any more than her father had, and she was grieving, so I thanked her, said goodbye, and left her to it.