Spring in Sacramento meant allergies. A breeze had kicked up between the time I’d arrived at La Favorita Taqueria and the time I’d left. My eyes felt layered with an itchy grit. I fisted my hands to stop myself from grinding the heels of my hands into my eye sockets. I turned the key in my car’s ignition then reached to the glovebox for the bottle of allergy eye drops I kept there. I threw my head back, held one eye open with my thumb and index finger, and squeezed a few drops in at the lower lid. I switched hands and treated the opposite eye. As I blinked away the medicated tears, someone suddenly pounded on the driver’s side glass. I yelped and jumped in my seat. “¡Hijole!”
My hands instinctively went into an attack position as I swiveled my head to see who was accosting my car. Tim Haskell stood there staring at me and smiling guiltily, as if I’d caught him red-handed doing something he shouldn’t be doing.
I gulped, pushing my racing heart back into my chest cavity. When you were investigating a possible murder, your senses were heightened. “You scared me!” I said after I pressed the button to roll down the window.
“I didn’t mean to. Sorry about that. I was thinking that you should go visit some of Phil’s baseball buddies. They knew him better than anyone. They’ll tell you what kind of man Phil was.”
I pulled my notebook from my purse and flipped it open, repeating the names Marnie had shared with me.
“Yeah, that’s a few of them.”
“Do you have their contact info?” I asked.
He took his cell phone from his back pocket and slid his finger across the screen until he found what he was looking for. He held it out for me to see and I wrote down Ricky’s phone number. “He’s one of Phil’s best friends,” he said.
I glanced in my rearview mirror as I drove off. Mr. Haskell stood there, hands in his pockets, staring into the distance as if he were in a trance. I hoped he was right and that Philip’s friends would be straight with me. But a feeling of unease settled in my chest. I wasn’t confident that Mr. Haskell knew everything about his son.
Manny summoned me into his office the minute I walked into the conference room of Camacho and Associates. “Ven aqui, Dolores. Sientate.”
I followed his directions, entering his office and sitting in the chair opposite his desk. Thankfully he hadn’t called me his poderosa, something he’d taken to doing lately.
Manny was not one for small talk. He didn’t say anything, but just slid a piece of paper across the desk to me. I knew right away from the format, boxes, and sections on the paper that it was the police report on Philip Haskell’s suicide. I scanned the information. The body was found hanging from a tree in the McKinley Park Rose Garden at seven p.m. on a Monday. A note was found in his car apologizing to his family. Death by asphyxiation was the final determination. The toxicology results weren’t in yet. Other than that, it was cut and dry.
I looked at Manny. “I’ve talked to Philip Haskell’s fiancée and his father. Both of them agree that Philip didn’t have any enemies.”
He drummed the pads of his fingers on his desk. “So why does Marnie Haskell think someone else was involved?”
It was a rhetorical question that neither of us could answer. I knew, though, that before long I was going to need to pay a visit to Mrs. Haskell to delve deeper into that question. There had to be a reason why she was so convinced.
“The only viable lead so far is Philip’s old boss. When Philip left to open his own company, he apparently took some of Quaffman’s clients with him. Seems like a stretch, though.”
His gaze burned into me. “There is no such thing as a stretch in a possible murder investigation.”
“Do you believe it’s true, though?” I asked. So far nothing indicated murder.
He clasped his hands in front of him, pressing his thumbs together. “I do not disbelieve her. Not yet. She thinks this for a reason. Your job is to figure out why, and if she’s right. If, in the process, you disprove it, pues, so be it.”
Manny had taught me to formulate a hypothesis and then work to prove or disprove it. So far, the only hypothesis I could formulate was that someone else had been involved in Philip’s death. That was what I had to find evidence to support.
Or not.
So far, not.
But I’d barely just begun. “I have the name of one of Philip’s baseball buddies. I’ll get in touch with him. See what he thinks of Mrs. Haskell’s theory. Her husband thinks Philip’s death has her a little unglued. My words, not his. He said Philip was a good person. He can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt him.”
“What about his cell phone?”
“No sign of it. His dad said all Philip’s belongings were packed up and stored. No phone. Gemma, the fiancée, doesn’t have it and says she hasn’t seen it. I’ll ask Mrs. Haskell about it again.”
I made a mental note to ask Jack to tag along on that house call. I wanted Mrs. Haskell to be as calm as possible. Jack could be the one to make sure that happened.
“Let me know if you find it. We need to look through his contacts. Recent calls. Texts. Anything that looks out of the ordinary. Add the police report to your file and keep me posted.”
And that was it. No poderosa. No burning looks that made me squirm in my seat. Just business. All business. My conversation with Reilly bubbled to the surface of my brain. I opened my mouth to speak, but instantly thought better of it. What would I say? So, Manny, you were married to Sadie…and you have a daughter with her? And she owns this business with you?
I imagined the scenario. He’d stare at me like I was out of my mind. It was crossing business and personal, something Manny did not do. He kept his private life…private. Me nosing around in it would not make him happy.
I kept my mouth shut, took the police report, and scurried out of his office. Once I’d called Marnie Haskell and she agreed to meet me the next morning at nine o’clock, I headed out for my appointment with Joe Quaffman.