Dez, silent behind her sunglasses all the way back to Estancia, had set her mouth in a thin line of blue-hot anger. Fenway didn’t speak until they were almost at the Broadway exit. “Should we go see Tracey down in Vista Del Rincón?”
Dez shrugged.
“Okay,” Fenway said. “I think we better go see her, so that’s where I’m going.”
Dez turned and looked out the window.
“Um,” Fenway said, “did you happen to go by vice and see if they had a bug detector?”
Dez sighed. “Shit.”
Fenway cleared her throat. “That’s okay. I’ll figure something else out.”
They got to the little green house by eleven. The house looked closed up, though both cars were in the driveway. Fenway thought a minute, then asked Dez for her notebook and a pen. Dez pulled her purse up to the seat and let Fenway go through it until she found them.
Fenway opened the door. “You coming?” she said to Dez.
Dez shook her head.
Fenway walked up and rang the doorbell. She had to ring it three times before Tracey answered.
Tracey looked awful, her face red and puffy, dressed in a stained t-shirt and pajama bottoms. “What do you want?”
“Hi, Tracey,” Fenway said. She took out the notebook and wrote “I think your house is bugged” and showed it to her.
“I thought maybe I could ask you a few questions about Fletcher and his whereabouts on Friday night,” she said. “But it’s such a beautiful day, I thought maybe we could go for a walk. I’ll buy your kids an ice cream down at the store.”
Tracey gaped at Fenway.
“Sure,” she said. “But, uh, Olivia is at her aunt’s house today. This whole week, actually. But I’ve got Isla here, and I bet she’d love some ice cream. You’ll have to wait a minute, I need to get the stroller.”
“No problem,” Fenway said. “I’ll wait here on the porch.”
The full shade in their front yard and the ocean breeze kept everything cool—a good twenty-five degrees cooler in Vista Del Rincón than it had been in San Miguelito. Fenway pulled out her phone and texted McVie.
Olivia is missing
Tracey came out with Isla in the stroller. Isla had a big mop of curly black hair, and the russet color of her skin almost matched Fenway’s. She looked up at Fenway with big, dark eyes, pointed. Fenway had rarely thought about children before, but Isla looked like a baby Fenway might have had. She wondered if Olivia looked the same way.
Isla said a string of unintelligible syllables.
“Yes, she is a nice lady,” said Tracey.
They walked past Dez in the Impala and down the narrow streets toward the general store in the little town.
“When did they take Olivia?” Fenway said in a low voice to Tracey.
Tracey looked at Fenway. “I told you, Olivia is at my mom’s house. She’s fine.”
Fenway kept walking. “You know you said she was at her aunt’s house earlier.”
Tracey looked down at the handles on the stroller, mouth clamped shut.
“I swear I’ll keep this away from the police as long as I can.”
“Aren’t you the police?”
Fenway shrugged. “I just want you to get your daughter back.”
Tracey rubbed her temples. “Fletch wasn’t supposed to tell you.”
“He didn’t. I saw the note in the trash the last time I came over. When I threw my gum away.”
Tracey hesitated, worry and shame and fear in a tangled mess of emotions on her face. Then she seemed to give up, and began to talk, her voice shaky.
“There were two men that came into the house the night you and the sheriff came to talk with us the first time,” Tracey said, a tear running down her cheek.
“Before or after we were there?”
“After.” Tracey fought to keep control of her emotions. “We didn’t know what was going on. They were in a black van. One of those cargo vans, not like a minivan. They just broke through the door. We were all asleep—Olivia in her bed, and Isla in her crib. Fletch and I both ran out of our bedroom when we heard Olivia screaming. The skinny one had her and ran down the hall. They were back out the door and out of the driveway before we even knew what happened. We got a call about two minutes later, saying if we called the cops, they’d kill her.” Tracey stifled a sob. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“I think I can help.”
“You’re not getting the cops involved,” Tracey said flatly. “If Fletch confesses and goes to jail, they’ll let her live. They’ll bring her back. Once they arraign him and he pleads guilty, right? Then they’ll bring her back?”
“I don’t know,” Fenway said. “I’ve never been in a situation like this before. We’re not getting the cops involved until we know for sure Olivia will be safe. You know who my father is, don’t you?”
Tracey nodded. “He owns Ferris Energy.”
“Right. He’s pretty much the most powerful man in the county. He’s hiring a private investigator to find out where they’re holding her. No cops, like the note said. I’m supposed to be meeting him this afternoon.”
They got to the shop and Fenway bought a chocolate ice cream in a cup for Isla. She made sure to ask if Tracey was sure that Fletcher was in bed all night on Friday. Tracey confirmed that she was positive.
They sat outside in the sunshine. The patio had a great view of the ocean, and they watched a few surfers and body boarders, little specks on the water, go in and out.
“What did the men look like?” Fenway asked.
“The two of them had ski masks on.” Tracey said. “But I could see a little bit of their necks and eyes. The white, skinny one was about medium height. The other one had muscles, like he worked out a lot. He had darker skin. Not white. Asian maybe, or Latino. I guess it could have been Middle Eastern. Dressed all in black. The muscular one wore a black track suit. Adidas, I remember that. And I remember the skinny white one had on black loafers with tassels, which was kind of weird.”
Fenway took her phone out and went to her email. She pulled up a photo of Alan Patrick Scorrelli and showed it to Tracey.
“Did you hear about the shooting at St. Vincent’s yesterday?”
“No,” Tracey said. “I haven’t been paying attention to a whole lot of stuff.”
“This guy came into the ICU and shot a nurse and a security guard. He tried to kill the woman we asked about the other day, Rachel Richards. He had on black loafers with tassels too. Kind of an odd choice for a shooter.”
“I don’t know if that’s the same guy. I didn’t see his face. He had a ski mask on.” She paused. “Get me a photo of the shoes and I can tell you. He had a big scuff mark on the top of the left one, just above the tassels. I don’t know why I noticed that. I’d recognize the stitching pattern too. And the shoes had a raised edge around the toe.”
“Right,” Fenway said, texting a message to Kav. “And the one in the track suit—what kind of shoes did he have on?”
“I didn’t see. It happened really fast.”
“Okay.” Fenway paused.
Tracey spooned another bite of ice cream into Isla’s waiting mouth.
Fenway cleared her throat. “So, Tracey, I’ve been asking myself who has the motive for this. To kill your mother-in-law. To kill Rachel. To get Fletch out of the way.”
“I don’t know,” Tracey said. “Fletch did say he had to take his mother to City Hall last week.”
“Yeah, I found out that he spent all afternoon with Rachel and his mother. Four hours. Do you have any idea what the topic of the conversation might have been?”
Tracey shook his head. “He said some kind of work stuff.”
“Where does he work?”
“Aperture Consulting,” she said. “He’s an auditor there. He reviews mergers and acquisitions, annual 10-Ks, that kind of thing.”
“You think it had to do with one of his audits? That he’d take his mother into an appointment with the county public information officer?”
“I don’t know,” Tracey said. Her eyes were starting to lose focus.
“See, one thing that makes sense to me is that they could be talking about one of the upcoming candidates for coroner.” Fenway watched Tracey’s face closely. “Maybe about something that could derail a campaign before it even started. Somebody who cheated on his wife, maybe.”
Tracey looked down.
“So what do you think, Tracey? Does that make sense to you too?”
Isla reached for the spoon and started to fuss. Tracey put another bite of ice cream in her mouth.
“We found evidence of your affair with Barry Klein,” Fenway said softly. “Maybe Barry didn’t like that Fletcher and Mayor Jenkins found out about the affair. Maybe he tried to hush it up.”
“No,” Tracey whispered. Tears were welling in her eyes and starting to fall down her cheeks.
“Are you still seeing Barry? Or did you break it off with him? Maybe he didn’t like that you broke it off. Maybe you broke it off and confessed everything to your husband.”
“No,” Tracey repeated, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand. “No, Barry and I weren’t having an affair. I don’t know how you found out, but he and I did make plans to meet up. I thought it might get, um, physical.” She shook her head, like she could prevent herself from seeing the past. “Fletch has been really distracted lately. I started playing around online. I found Barry there and we flirted.” Tracey laughed, but it caught in her throat. “Honestly, I liked getting noticed. Getting some attention.”
“I saw your private messages.”
“Huh.” Tracey looked at the ground. “I guess they’re not so private.”
“And you met him at the Coffee Bean. The one over on Estancia Canyon.”
Tracey didn’t say anything.
“You going to deny that you met him there? I’m sure the Coffee Bean has security footage.”
“No, I’m not going to deny it,” Tracey said softly. “But when I saw him—when I saw a real live person, and not just a guy showing off his abs on the computer—I don’t know, I just couldn’t go through with it.” Tracey picked at the pinkie fingernail on her left hand. “I had gotten dressed up, too, I mean, not fancy, but in a low-cut top. His eyes went right to my boobs. I mean, of course they did. But I just couldn’t do it. We made small talk for a little while and he kept trying to turn the conversation into something dirty.”
Fenway looked at Tracey’s face, but Tracey avoided eye contact.
“I just couldn’t do it,” she repeated.
“How did Barry react?”
Tracey shrugged. “Not well. He called me a prick-tease. He had trouble keeping his voice down. I left pretty quickly. He followed me out and apologized, but by then I realized what a bad decision that had been.”
Fenway nodded. “Did he think you’d tell anyone? Maybe wreck his political career?”
“I don’t know,” Tracey snapped. “I don’t really care what he thinks I’d do.”
“Well,” Fenway said carefully, “if he thought you might tell your husband and your mother-in-law, he might be afraid of losing the election in November, and getting kicked off the board of supervisors.”
Tracey looked up at Fenway.
“And,” Fenway continued, “he might be desperate enough to try to get rid of anyone who might have been able to do anything.”
“You think he’s behind Olivia’s kidnapping?”
“I don’t know,” Fenway said. “I can’t think of anyone else at this point. Can you?”
Tracey spooned another bite of ice cream into Isla’s mouth.
Fenway continued to press. “But if Fletch found out, and if the mayor found out, it could end his political career. Might even hurt his optometry business. People might not want a cheating husband to be two inches from their face, looking them in the eyes with a flashlight.”
“I guess. I don’t know. A political candidate cheating on his wife doesn’t mean what it used to.”
Fenway paused. “That’s true enough. Especially in a town like Estancia.”
Tracey paused. “And he didn’t even cheat. I didn’t go through with it.”
Fenway’s phone dinged. She looked at it; Kav had sent a photo of the dead shooter’s left loafer. It had a big scuff mark on the top, just above the tassels, as Tracey had said. She held it up to Tracey. “Is this the loafer the kidnapper had on?”
Tracey looked at it. “Yes. That’s the exact one. There’s the scuff. And that’s the raised edge I told you about.”
Fenway nodded and put her phone back in her purse.
“But you don’t think Klein had any idea that Fletch knew about the two of you meeting?”
“Fletch didn’t know. Doesn’t know. Or if he does, he’s hiding it really well.”
“Okay,” Fenway said. “Do you know Barry’s whereabouts on Friday night and Saturday morning?”
“No,” Tracey said. “I told you, Fletch and I never left the house. I don’t keep track of Barry ever. He and I only met that one time.”
“Okay.”
Tracey gave the last spoonful to Isla. She gurgled happily, ice cream all over her mouth. Tracey took a couple of napkins and cleaned her face as Isla’s gurgles became mild protests.
“When will you know anything about where Olivia is?” Tracey whispered, trying not to cry.
“I don’t know yet,” Fenway replied. “We’re meeting the private investigator soon. But we haven’t started yet.”
“Barry’s got a daughter about Olivia’s age, doesn’t he?”
“Yes,” she said. “Oh no—you don’t think—”
“I don’t think anything yet, Tracey. I don’t think your husband killed his mom, or tried to kill Rachel. I’m just trying to think of who’d have a motive to do all of that plus kidnap your daughter.”
“I mean, I don’t know Barry that well. But Barry’s wiry, not muscular—neither of the kidnappers looked like Barry at all.”
Fenway opened her mouth to mention different scenarios, especially the one where Barry hired people to do his dirty work, but realized that wouldn’t be helpful to the mother going out of her mind with worry. “If you think of anything else, please let me know. But tell it to me when you’re out of the house.”
“So you’re keeping the cops out of it.”
“I’m doing my best.”
“Okay.” Tracey stood up, threw away the napkins, and pulled the stroller away from the patio table. “I’m kind of going crazy, Fenway. Please get Olivia back.”
“I’ll do everything I can,” Fenway said.
• • •
Dez had taken her sunglasses off and had moved behind the wheel when Fenway and Tracey got back. Tracey had calmed down, although she still looked worn out and anxious.
“I’m going to head out,” Fenway said. “I appreciate your time today.”
“Say thank you for the ice cream, Isla,” Tracey said.
“Ankee keem,” said Isla.
“You’re welcome,” Fenway cooed to her.
Fenway got in the passenger side. “Okay, Dez. Anything you want to ask her before we go?”
“Nope,” Dez said. “Thanks for taking that on. And thanks for driving.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Dez started up the car and they were driving through Vista Del Rincón’s narrow streets.
“It’s Olivia, their five-year-old,” Fenway said. “She’s the one who’s missing.”
Dez straightened up in her seat. “Okay, well, now that we know for sure, I’m definitely getting Mark involved in this,” she said. “Did she give you any idea about what the kidnappers want or who they are?”
Fenway shook her head. “Not much. Fletch was so distracted at work that Tracey considered having a fling with Barry Klein. I guess she decided not to.”
“How did Barry take that?”
“Not well,” Fenway said. “But you saw him at his house. I think he’s a horrible husband, but I don’t think he’d kidnap a little girl. I don’t think he would go that low.”
“Are there any other possibilities?”
“Yeah,” Fenway said. “The mayor and Fletch met with Rachel last week. Rachel’s assistant said the meeting didn’t last long, but all three of those people are involved in this—they killed the mayor, they tried to kill Rachel, and they’re trying to frame Fletch for everything.”
“We just don’t know who ‘they’ are.”
“Right.”
They had just pulled onto the highway back to Estancia when Fenway’s phone rang. She looked at the screen and picked up.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Okay,” Nathaniel Ferris said, “we’re going to meet the P.I. tonight. Grafton & Gale’s, six o’clock. He’s driving up from L.A. right now. He’ll get settled in at his hotel and come meet us.”
“Six o’clock, Grafton and Gale’s,” Fenway repeated. “Got it.”
“Can you make sure Craig comes too?”
“Um, I can call him,” Fenway said. “But I haven’t seen him all day.” She missed the camaraderie she had with McVie. She missed it with Dez too; she had been just getting out of her bad mood from the mayor’s death, and talking to Dr. Yasuda had sunk her lower than Fenway had ever seen her. Fenway hoped Dez would come out of it soon.
“Okay,” Ferris said. “Let me know if you can’t get in touch with him.” He hung up.
Fenway sighed and started to text McVie about going to Grafton & Gale’s to meet the private investigator, but then thought better of it and called him instead.
“McVie.”
“Hi, Craig. It’s Fenway.” She stopped at the sound of her own voice—she hardly ever called him Craig—although she kept catching herself slipping up recently. Maybe his administrative leave made Fenway think of him without his sheriff title. Or, she thought, maybe her subconscious was somehow trying to get closer to him. She made a mental note to stay professional and go back to calling him McVie.
“Hey, great, Fenway. Listen, I didn’t get a chance to thank you at dinner, but I really appreciate you talking your father into hiring that P.I. without me needing to call in my favor.”
“Right,” Fenway said. “To be honest, I kind of forgot he owed you the favor. It’s just something he should have done because it’s the right thing to do.”
“True,” McVie said, “But I still appreciate it. Anyway, I need to talk to you about what our next steps are.”
“Good. You got my text earlier?”
“Yeah. You’re sure it’s Olivia?”
“Tracey told me all about the, uh, incident. So I’ve got some stuff to discuss with you too. We can meet tonight.”
“Okay, I’ve got a concert to go to with Amy, but I can meet late. Maybe ten-thirty or eleven, if that’s not too late for you.”
“Actually, the guy my father hired is going to meet us tonight at six o’clock at Grafton & Gale’s. You might want to be at that.”
McVie exhaled. “Okay. I know this is more important.”
“I’m sorry, Craig.” She said his first name before she could stop it. She plowed on. “I know you’re trying to get some alone time with Amy.”
“We’re trying to work on it,” he said, through what sounded like gritted teeth. “But I’m just so angry she had the affair with Dylan. Sometimes it’s okay, and I forget about it, and she’s the woman I married. And then sometimes, when she’s mad about me cancelling on her, it’s all I can do not to throw Dylan in her face.”
Fenway was quiet.
“And of course, he’s dead, which I think she still blames me for.”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry. I shouldn’t be unloading on you.”
“That’s okay, Craig. Oh—uh, I need to tell you—I had to bring Dez in on this. She came with me to Vista Del Rincón when I talked to Tracey.”
McVie was silent for a moment. “Okay, Fenway. I’m pretty sure that whoever the mole is isn’t in the coroner’s office.”
“So does that mean you’re okay bringing Mark in on it too?”
McVie sighed. “The more people who know, the higher the chance that the kidnappers are going to find out that we didn’t keep it out of the cops’ hands.”
“Dez says Mark is really good at missing person cases.”
“He is.”
“So you’re okay with it?”
“Now that we’ve confirmed that Olivia is actually missing, we better do everything we can. So, yes, I’m okay with it.”
Fenway mouthed, “McVie’s okay bringing Mark in.” Dez nodded.
“So do you need me to pick you up?” McVie continued.
“I guess so. Will a quarter to six give us enough time to get there?”
“Yeah, that should be fine. See you then.”
They said goodbye and hung up.
Dez said, “So I take it you’re meeting the private investigator tonight.”
“Yeah.”
Dez tapped the steering wheel. “Seriously, watch yourselves. They’ve already killed one person, and anyone who would kidnap a little girl isn’t playing around.”
Fenway pursed her lips and nodded.
“And I’ll get Mark working this as soon as he can,” Dez said. “And we’ll keep it quiet. He’ll keep it to himself.”
“I know.”
They drove in silence for a minute.
“And, girl, since when have you called that man Craig? You backsliding? Do I have to kick your ass again?”
Fenway laughed, but she could tell Dez sensed her nervousness. “Probably just because he’s on leave. Calling him Sheriff seems weird.”
Dez looked at Fenway out of the corner of her eye and didn’t say anything.
They got back to the station in another ten minutes and walked into the office. Fenway saw Migs behind the desk and he looked horrified. “Hey,” he started, “I tried to stop him but—”
Dr. Barry Klein stood on the other side of the door.
“See how you like it, Miss Stevenson,” Klein growled. He had a manila folder in his hand. He angrily slammed the folder on the table next to Migs and opened it up.
Fenway looked—they were photos.
Photos of her.
She panicked at first—had he found her old boyfriend from college? Or the one-night stand she had on her trip to Miami to celebrate her graduation?
But she looked closer, and the top photo showed Fenway on her back, a man on top of her, her blouse torn, her face turned away from his.
Books—Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Gogol, Turgenev littered the desk in the clean but untidy office. The nameplate on the desk read S. Delacroix.
The photo showed her Russian Lit professor raping her.
She staggered.
“Still think the people of this county will love you when they see you having sex with your professor for grades, Fenway?” Klein sneered. “Do they know you cheated your way to your valedictorian honors?”
Dez gaped. “What the hell is this?”
Fenway couldn’t catch her breath. The room spun. “It’s my lit professor raping me,” she gasped. “I don’t know how he got those.”
Klein’s face fell. “What? No! He’s not—” And then he looked closer at the picture, and he saw Fenway’s face in the photos, and it dawned on him just what the photos were showing.
“Oh shit,” he said. “Oh shit. I didn’t—I’m so—”
Dez pushed him into the table. He tripped and fell. Dez landed on top of him, her knee in his ribs. He groaned as the air completely went out of him. Dez got down low, right against his ear.
“How dare you.” Her voice dripped with contempt. “How dare you come in here with those pictures. Pictures that are illegal for you to possess. You don’t come into someone’s office and confront them with pictures of them getting raped, you sociopath. Just because you thought you could get away with screwing someone else’s wife.”
“No!” Klein gasped. “I didn’t know—I couldn’t tell—”
“Barry Klein, you are under arrest for possession of obscene matter under penal code three-twelve point three.” Dez seethed with anger. “Migs, call an officer before I do something to Dr. Klein’s face that I’d really enjoy but probably regret.”
Migs picked up the phone and dialed.
“What do you think, Fenway?” Dez said. “Think he’s behind Rachel’s attempted murder too, or is he just another entitled prick?”
The room kept spinning.
“Fenway?”
The walls started closing in.
“I have to get out of here,” Fenway said.
She backed out of the office and almost knocked over a bookcase next to the door. She couldn’t breathe. Her vision blurred. She felt her chest tighten and knew that she would start crying soon and didn’t want to give Klein the satisfaction.
She ran to the ladies’ room, pulling the door open even though it seemed to weigh a thousand pounds. She found her way into one of the stalls and her stomach did a flip and she vomited into the toilet, sinking down to her knees. Then she vomited again. The retching tightened all her muscles from her stomach up through her face. Her eyes pinched shut and tears flooded out between her lids. She couldn’t close her mouth and her stomach kept heaving, trying to get everything out. She couldn’t catch her breath. She tasted bile on her tongue.
Her stomach finally relaxed and she wheezed. And then sobbed.
A tentative voice called from the next stall.
“Are you all right?”
“No,” she gasped. “I thought I was all right but I’m not.”
“Can I get you something?”
“Dez,” she said. “Get Dez.”
She heard a flush, the sound of the stall door opening and closing, and heels on the tile going out of the bathroom.
That woman didn’t wash her hands, Fenway thought, and then laughed miserably.
Her sobs died away.
Fenway waited a few more minutes. Her stomach had settled down. It seemed to her like it had passed. She took a couple of deep breaths, her inhalations still catching from the remnants of the sobs. She stood up, a little cautiously. She looked at her blouse and her pants. There were a couple of flecks near the top of her blouse. She had, perhaps miraculously, kept the vomit off her pants and out of her hair, at least from first appearances.
She walked slowly over to the paper towel dispenser and got six paper towels, wet them under the automatic faucet, and dabbed at her eyes and her ruined mascara, and at the spots on her blouse. She blotted her cheeks and looked at herself in the mirror. She shook her head, cupped her hands under the faucet, and splashed water on her face for a couple of minutes.
The room had stopped spinning, at least.
Dez walked into the bathroom.
“Hey, Fenway,” she murmured. “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”
Fenway nodded.
“I don’t know what to do with him. I want to push him down a flight of stairs with his hands cuffed behind his back.”
“Thanks, Dez,” Fenway said.
Dez stood there in silence for a minute.
“What did you arrest him for?”
“I told him child pornography,” Dez said. “I told him you weren’t eighteen at the time.”
“Yes, I was.”
“He doesn’t know that.”
Fenway didn’t say anything.
“Don’t worry, Fenway,” Dez said, “I filled out the paperwork for cyber exploitation, not child pornography.”
Fenway nodded.
“Dr. Klein is going to have a rough night in holding,” Dez continued. “It’s possible that Migs has accidentally misplaced his paperwork.” She cleared her throat. “How about if I take you back to your apartment? Why don’t I go meet the P.I. your daddy hired? You can decompress. You’ve had enough for one day.”
“You can take me home,” Fenway said, “but I’m going to meet the private investigator. I owe that to Olivia. I owe that to Fletch and Tracey.”
She looked in the mirror, at the wet splotches on her blouse, the tightness in her face, the tangled mess of her hair.
“And if it turns out that Barry Klein is behind the kidnapping, I’m going to cut his balls off.”