Tuesday, September 24
Paradise Valley, Arizona
SPENSE HAD BEEN right. An invitation had been much simpler to obtain than a warrant would’ve been. Louisa Baumgartner must’ve been anxious to know the reason for their earlier visit because she’d invited them to return to the house the very next morning. Of course, the situation wasn’t ideal since they couldn’t access Baumgartner’s computer or formally search the house, but it was a start. Elizabeth answered the door and escorted Caitlin and Spense into the living room. Before the girl could announce them, however, Louisa raised one finger high in the air. “That will be all, Elizabeth. I don’t require refreshments today, and I’ll ring you if I need you.”
“Thanks for speaking with us.” Spense got straight to it. “I’d hate to have to do this down at the station.”
Harvey Junior was seated in an armchair facing his mother. He smiled warmly despite Spense’s terse words. “Welcome back. Mother and I are anxious to be of service. Anything we can do to catch this bastard.”
Louisa looked taken aback. “As I’ve said, I’m not only happy to cooperate, I’m eager to be of help. So I cannot imagine why you would suggest we come down to the precinct simply to answer a few additional questions.”
“Well, it was more than kind of you to invite us here to your lovely home instead. And I do apologize for the crude suggestion that we interview you down at the precinct. Now that I think about it, I can see how mortifying that would be for the family. I’d never want the press to draw the wrong conclusion. Conducting the remainder of the interview in your home was a much better idea. Now then, since we’re all present and accounted for, I just have a few more things I need to clear up.” It must’ve cost Spense dearly to pull out that obsequious tone of voice for Louisa Baumgartner.
“Is it about the death threats Harvey received?” Louisa asked, her shoulders dipping into a more relaxed position.
“No. It’s about Harvey himself.” Spense softened his words with a smile.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand. Harvey was the victim of a terrible crime. I don’t know why no one seems interested in tracking down those death threats.”
Caitlin couldn’t stop herself from speaking. How could this woman be so blind? “Mrs. Baumgartner, are you aware that the two live-in girls in your employ, Deejay and Elizabeth, are underage?”
Confusion filled her eyes. “I don’t know what you mean by underage. Both girls are seventeen, and I’ve completed all the proper paperwork. Even now, they only put in a few hours’ work a day. They’re paid good wages and have health benefits. I pay social security, too. I can assure you this is all perfectly legal.”
“Are Elizabeth and Deejay in school?”
“It’s hardly our fault the girls dropped out. I don’t know what more we could’ve done. We’ve put a roof over their heads and provided for their every need. Why, I’d love for them to get their GEDs if they were so inclined. But frankly, neither one seems all that bright or motivated to go on with her schooling.”
“So that’s a no. They’re not in school. Do they have friends? Do they get out and socialize with their peers?” Caitlin tried but failed to imitate Spense’s respectful tone.
“Everything proper for a domestic employee has been handled. My husband saw to that.”
“I bet he did.” Spense said. The gloves had just come off.
Caitlin shot him a smile. Good cop bad cop switcheroo time. Keeps folks on their toes. “Don’t be rude, Agent Spenser.” She reached out and patted Louisa’s hand, and the woman jerked away like Caitlin had coated her palm with flesh-eating bacteria. “Naturally, Harvey would have seen to all the legalities, Louisa.” She smiled sweetly. “I believe Special Agent Spenser means the girls are below the age to consent to sexual acts.”
Louisa’s face went as white as her best china. “Sexual acts?”
On a deeply sympathetic sigh, Caitlin said, “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but Agent Spenser and I have reason to believe your husband may have been abusing Elizabeth and Deejay.”
Mrs. Baumgartner’s back straightened. Her expression turned from disbelief to outrage. “My husband abused these girls? He absolutely did not. He doted on them. He lavished them with . . . with . . .” She stopped, and her eyes flitted nervously about the room.
“He lavished them with affection?”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. You’re putting words in my mouth.”
Junior bolted to his feet, and Caitlin worried they were about to get tossed out. She ignored him and kept her attention on Louisa. “What did you mean then?”
“I only meant to say Harvey did what he could for the less fortunate of this world, and that includes not only those girls out there in the kitchen, but your father, too. Because of you, my dear Caitlin, and your family, I had to endure all manner of social humiliation. Because of you, I was almost kicked out of the Woman’s Club. During your father’s trial, someone started a petition to exclude me.” Her nose went up. “Fortunately, my influence and spotless reputation were enough to prevent such an injustice.”
Junior took a seat next to his mother and handed her a hanky. She sniffled into it and blinked away more tears than Caitlin had yet seen her shed.
Such an injustice.
She wanted to grab Louisa by the shoulders and shake her until her teeth rattled loudly enough to wake up her brain. The woman seemed to be walking through life in complete ignorance of the plight of others. Taking an interest in her neighbors only so long as it didn’t interfere with her privileged life. Caitlin’s father was dead. Executed for a crime he didn’t commit, and this woman saw her membership troubles at the Woman’s Club as the only injustice worth shedding a tear over. “I’m so terribly sorry for any pain you may have suffered on my account. Really, I simply cannot express how badly I feel about that.”
“Well”—Louisa gathered herself and made the effort to send Caitlin a warm look, as if suddenly realizing her façade had slipped—“naturally, your family suffered far more than mine. You must think me terribly small to worry over such matters as a ladies’ club when your father was fighting for his life.” She smiled a sycophantic smile. “I never did believe Thomas Cassidy killed that poor girl. What was her name again?”
“Gail Falconer,” Junior supplied.
“That’s the only reason I was able to endure that awful, awful trial.” Even when Louisa was trying to take the high road, she couldn’t quite conceal her own selfish unhappiness over her temporary loss in social standing.
“Back to the girls.” Spense played up his bad cop role. “Did you know your husband was sleeping with them?”
Louisa put her hand to her throat. “Have they made that claim?”
“No.” Caitlin put in quickly. She would never get comfortable with certain tactics, like lying about the facts of a case as a means to an end.
“Then please don’t say such things in front of Junior. How dare you accuse my husband, this boy’s father, of misusing those poor girls. If they haven’t said so, it’s because it isn’t true. For your information, my husband . . .” She sniffled into the tissues and turned to her son. “I’m sorry, Junior, could you leave us a moment.”
He put his arm around her shoulder. “It’s not necessary, Mother, we’re all adults, and you can speak freely in front of me.”
Louisa nodded, then looked down at her nails. “My husband and I had a very happy marriage. He was quite satisfied . . . in every way. I made sure of that.” Defiantly, she met Spense’s eyes. “There was simply no need for him to go outside the marriage . . . for anything.”
“What if he wanted something kinky?” Spense challenged.
Louisa tossed back her long, platinum blond hair and thrust her overblown breasts forward. “Then I gave him something kinky. I was a good wife to him, and he was a good husband to me.”
Throughout this rather dicey discussion, Junior never took his arm from around his mother’s shoulder.
“So then your husband did have some kinky fantasies.” Spense was definitely going to get them kicked out, Caitlin thought.
But no one objected to the question. She was amazed at the polite behavior from all parties present. Apparently, this was a home where one kept one’s anger in check . . . She could relate.
“Everyone has kinky fantasies, Agent Spenser. If you don’t believe me, just take a look at the bestseller lists. And please, stop trying to make my husband out to be something he wasn’t. He was a good husband. A great one even.”
“And a really good provider, right?”
Junior’s arm came back to his side, and he leaned forward. “Look here. I’d hoped you had some information for us, but now I see you have nothing new. If you’re looking to paint a picture of my father as an unsavory character and trying to say he was killed because of his bad behavior, you’re on the wrong track. My father may have defended the corrupt and the perverse”—here he threw a pointed look at Caitlin—“but he himself was an honorable man. In fact, why don’t you come with me? I’d like to show you some of his awards.”
This was going even better than Caitlin had hoped. Junior was actually going to take them into his father’s office. Not that such a thing was entirely unexpected. She’d besmirched the good Baumgartner name, and that was intolerable to Louisa and Junior. Naturally, they’d want to counteract the accusations by showing off Harvey’s trophies and reasserting his standing in the community, and by extension, their own. They were either too stupid to realize or too arrogant to care that she and Spense had come here precisely to get a look around Harvey’s personal space.
They all got to their feet, and Junior beckoned for them to follow him down a long corridor, past a number of rooms and a guest bath, until finally they arrived at Baumgartner’s office: a masculine room with a massive rolltop desk, expensive leather chairs, and multiple diplomas on the wall. Pretty typical at first glance. Then she noticed that the room was windowless and saw that the door had a dead bolt on the inside. Seemed very odd anyone would want to work in a room without windows—and why the need to lock the world out?
Junior pointed out a plaque on the wall—actually a group of plaques. “Take a look at these, and you’ll see how beloved, respected, and honorable my father truly was.”
To Harvey Baumgartner, JD for services to the Boys and Girls Club
To Harvey Baumgartner, JD, in recognition of twenty years faithful service to the First United Methodist Church
To Harvey Baumgartner, Better Business Association’s Humanitarian of the Year
To Harvey Baumgartner, American Bar Association Pro Bono Publico Award
The awards were indeed impressive. Baumgartner apparently collected them the way Louisa did social accolades. In this family, appearance was everything, and like his wife’s Botox, the plaques served to erase Baumgartner’s imperfections to outside observers. Spense inclined his head toward one of the smaller awards and arched an eyebrow at Caitlin. She stepped in closer and read: To Harvey and Louisa Baumgartner in recognition of their generous support of the Southwest Museum of Art.
Creepy, but hardly proof of wrongdoing since the museum was a very popular cause in Phoenix high society. Still, Harvey’s role as a benefactor created something of a foundation for a case they’d been building against him from thin air. The weird atmosphere in the room made Caitlin uncomfortable, and she folded her arms across her chest, shielding herself from what felt like an invisible current of evil undulating through the air and wrapping her like a mummy. Had Baumgartner used this room for unsavory purposes? She couldn’t shake the feeling that something terrible had happened here.
In an effort to snap herself out of it, she picked up a photo off the desk, one of Harvey and his son as a teen. Like Harvey, Junior wore an expensive gray suit. The two stood stiffly, side by side, with perfect smiles. Beside that photo was another of Junior accepting some type of award at school, again his father stood in perfect, rigid posture at his son’s side. Caitlin glanced up at Spense and frowned. She couldn’t help noting the contrast between these pictures and the ones she’d seen of Spense and his father.
There was no warmth in this house. All that mattered here was external validation. The entire family seemed focused on achieving perfection. She imagined how hard Junior would’ve had to work to get his father’s affection and wondered if such a thing were even possible. At least her father had loved her unconditionally. At least the only thing she’d had to do to win his approval was be his daughter. So, yes, no matter how short a time she’d had him, no matter how horrible his death had been, between Junior and her, she counted herself the more fortunate child.
Glancing around the room again, her gaze went to a doorway leading off the study. “Where does this go?” she asked innocently, striding to the door and turning the knob. But the door was locked, and she could see by the look on Louisa’s face that she’d pushed her luck trying to enter another room without permission.
“Oh, that’s a guest bedroom. But Harvey sometimes slept there after working late into the night. He didn’t like to disturb my rest. He was so thoughtful that way.” Louisa sighed.
Then Junior anticipated Caitlin’s next question. “With no one using it anymore, we closed it up.”
“Convenient to have it adjoin his office,” she replied matter-of-factly. There was an awkward moment of silence. To ease the tension building in her body, Caitlin prowled the study, pretending to admire the décor. When she arrived at the bookcase, there was no further need for pretense. The shelves were filled with tempting treasure. Everything from the classics to the latest thrillers—even a romance or two. Beyond the fiction, which had been alphabetized by author and sorted by genre, were Harvey’s law books. She inhaled the luxurious scent of leather-bound books and ran her fingers across the sumptuous spines, tilting each book forward ever so slightly as if it were her very own. Her eyes fluttered closed in enjoyment, then popped open.
What the deuce?
She’d been reveling in the feel of the books, tilting them forward one by one, when she’d come to a book that wasn’t right. At least the weight of it was wrong—a thick tome titled Modern Criminal Procedure, yet it was featherlight in her hand. A thrill of discovery raced down her spine.
A false book.
Like the kind used to hide valuables. There was something inside this book, and it wasn’t dry discourse. Her stomach tilted, and she pressed her palm to her abdomen.
“Are you all right, dear?” It was Louisa’s I-care-so-much tone—as false as that book.
“Oh, yes. I guess I ate something that disagreed with me.” She swallowed hard, truly feeling nauseous from both excitement and apprehension.
“You look pale, darling. Maybe you should go home and get some rest.” Louisa slipped her arm through Caitlin’s.
Louisa’s touch sent a slight shiver across her shoulders. “Good idea.” Then she walked arm in arm with her hostess from the room, with Spense and Junior following in silence. They made it all the way to the front door before Caitlin grabbed her stomach again. This time with added flare. “Oh, boy. I-I’m sorry, but I need to use the powder room.”
Louisa’s face twisted in annoyance, then quickly altered, and a concerned frown appeared. “Elizabeth will escort you.” She pressed a call button on the wall.
Caitlin shook her head. “Thanks, but I know the way.” Sending a sheepish glance over her shoulder, she said, “I’ll be right back,” then bit her lip. Wasn’t that just what an actress said in a B-movie just before she did something stupid? Something that usually led to her demise?
Too bad.
Whatever was in that book, Caitlin wanted it. She rushed down the ridiculously long hall, past one room, then another, past the powder room and at last slipped inside Harvey’s study. As she eased the door shut, her shoulders jumped at the sound of footsteps in the corridor. The footsteps passed, and a door slammed a few rooms down. Her breath released in a whoosh.
Probably the housekeeper.
Wasting no time, Caitlin scanned the bookshelf and grabbed the copy of Modern Criminal Procedure. Her palm left a sweaty print on the leather binding as she opened it and let out a small gasp. Sure enough, there was a false compartment, and in that compartment lay a key.
An old-fashioned skeleton key. The key to a rolltop desk!
Caitlin rushed to open the rolltop. As it creaked open, she cast a glance behind her, but there was no one to hear. She pulled in a steadying breath and set to work. The inside of the desk was as organized as the bookshelf, with bank statements sorted by month, a checkbook, and some letters to clients. Caitlin rifled through them all, looking for something, anything that would stand out, but there was no time to read documents. She’d been expecting . . . what? Incriminating photographs, a smoking gun? And all she’d found were papers and . . . and . . . now her hands began to tremble as they closed over the object winking at her from a cubbyhole.
Another key.
This one with a red ribbon tied through it. She closed the desktop and hurried across the room to the locked door. The sound of the key turning was magnified in her ears, like someone held a microphone to the latch. She imagined the sound being broadcast down the hall and over loudspeakers as she turned the knob and opened the door to the guest room.
She stepped inside, and her head snapped back as if a gale-force wind had hit her in the face. Her pulse sloshed in her ears, and her skin went cold, her palms clammy. Reaching out, she put one hand on the wall to steady herself and willed her knees not to give way.
In the center of the room stood a crisply made bed, a nightstand on either side, and a chest of drawers . . . nothing out of the ordinary there. One wall of the room was entirely mirrored, a feature not at all in keeping with the elegant yet understated décor of the remainder of the house. But that wasn’t what made her heart bang against her ribs and her breath freeze into a solid block of ice in her lungs. In one corner, a display case was loaded with pottery, all emblazoned with the Man in the Maze motif. As for the east wall of the room—once again, there was no window to the outside world. No art hung on that wall because the wall itself was a work of art. A mural to be exact. A life-size unicameral labyrinth, and posing in the center, arms outstretched, was a hulking male figure. Reeling from the realization of what was in front of her, she took a step backward.
She had entered his lair.
The evidence before her eyes made her bones vibrate with certainty. Evil painted the air with its sickly-sweet smell. To keep from crying out, she covered her mouth. Harvey Baumgartner had been her father’s friend. He’d taken him under his wing and defended him when no one else would. Her father’s attorney. Her father’s old friend.
Harvey Baumgartner was the Man in the Maze.
She heard the creak of a door behind her and the hairs on the back of her neck sent a warning, but her feet had rooted themselves to the floor. She didn’t hear the footsteps on the soft carpet until he was already behind her. She sensed his presence a split second before his hand covered her mouth, and a familiar voice whispered in her ear:
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Caity?”
SPENSE GOT CAITY to the car as quickly as possible. Neither one said a word for a minute or two after they drove off, then Spense jammed his hand into the horn and swerved into an empty parking lot. “I’ll ask you again. What the hell were you doing snooping around where you weren’t invited?”
“I-I found a book with a false compartment, and I—”
“You what? You decided to act on your own without consulting me. You decided to search a locked room. You decided to do something that could’ve made any potential evidence we found inadmissible in court. You decided to violate the Baumgartners’ Fourth Amendment rights. You did that, not me.”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to break the law or violate their rights. It’s just I knew there was something in that book, and when I found the key, I only had a split second to decide what to do.”
The horrified look on her face instantly softened his heart.
“And I made the wrong choice. I feel awful, and the worst part is, if I had the chance all over again, I don’t know what I’d do. I’d like to think I’d make the right call, but . . . I just had to know what was in that room. There are lives at stake, Spense.”
He reached out and took her hand. He didn’t know whether to throttle her or comfort her. “I know that, Caity. Which is why we need to be careful.” His cheeks stretched into a grin. “That’s a hell of a thing, me telling you to mind the rules.”
“You must think I’m an awful hypocrite.”
“I think you’re human, sweetheart. We all are. But in the future, don’t go off the reservation without me backing you up. And don’t worry about that mural’s not being admissible in court. A good prosecutor can get around that—I’ve seen them do it a thousand times. Besides, it’s all circumstantial.”
“The mural’s not enough to get a warrant to search the rest of the residence, or the computers?”
“I don’t think so. But we’ll have to let the rest of the gang in on what you found—and how you found it—and get their take.”
Her hand squeezed his. “I’ve learned my lesson, I promise. And . . . I just want to say for the record . . . I know I’m not perfect.”
“Who asked you to be?” He started the car up but didn’t let go of her hand until he pulled into the field-office parking lot, and only then with great difficulty.