Prior chapters are filed in the Murder Mystery category.
I went home, showered and changed to get that bedraggled look out of my eyes. I had learned over the years that clients expect a certain look out of a PI – it was always a mistake to dress too fancy, because then it would look like you wouldn’t be willing to sift through garbage to find a clue. I also never wore any type of heels. I might as well let them think I could take off after a suspect, dodging rolling garbage cans, and effortlessly climb a chain link fence. But I didn’t want to look too downscale either, because often you had to interview their friends or mix socially. I always tried to hit somewhere in between, basically the lower end of business casual.
The drive up the canyon seemed to take forever, first wending my way through the morning rush hour traffic of Santa Teresa, then giving way to the lightly traveled road snaking up the canyon. I opened the window and rested my elbow on the car door to feel sun on my bare arm. The smell of sage just heating up drifted through the car; it was one of my favorite smells. Despite the beauty, this would not be a commute that I would want to take every day, the winding road felt more like a Sunday drive. I passed through the arched entrance of SkyeIsland and decided to enter through the Todd’s front driveway this time. I stopped at the gate, pushed the button and heard a gruff, “We are not expecting anyone who are you?”
“Yes, I am Liza Blue and I have an appointment with Mr. and Mrs. Todd at noon.”
“Well, I am Mr. Todd and I have never heard of you, and I have no appointment. You are interrupting my lunch.”
Just then I heard the voice of Cymbaline, “Honey, Liza Blue is the women I told you about, who will help us make sure that Dessa is safe. You told me that it was okay to hire someone, and I thought you might want to meet her.”
This was far from the team effort Cymbaline had promised, but I sensed that she felt triumphant in just getting this small permission. The gate swung open and I entered. The driveway curved upwards, lined by immaculate and fragrant bushes. Suddenly, the automatic sprinklers went off, spraying my exposed arm and a fine mist settled on my face. I quickly closed the window, realizing that the Todds probably never opened a window since they would not want the nuisance of closing it. It was just easier for them to live in a totally climate controlled environment. The long driveway ended in a circle. I parked my Camry off to the side, since I did not want to seem so presumptuous as to park directly in front of the door. That spot should be reserved for best friends, and maybe the police, but not a PI. The Camry looked puny and miserable next to the enormous Land Cruiser that was being detailed in the driveway. As I stepped around the spreading pool of suds, I noticed that the license plate was ST NO 1.
The door was opened by a uniformed maid who led me into the sunroom, where the Todds were seated eating crustless sandwiches. Cymbaline stood up and said, “Welcome Ms. Blue, thank you for coming up to our little hideaway so early in the morning. I hope that you can help us find Dessa.”
“Dessa doesn’t need finding,” grumbled Sam, not looking up from his paper. “She is 18 years old and we need to let her take care of herself. I am tired of your incessant mother hen routine. We should be happy that she had finally headed off on her own.”
“Yes, dear, I understand what you are saying, actually what you have been saying over and over again.” She paused and sucked in her breath and said, “but as I also have explained – over and over, I don’t think that there is any harm in finding out where she is. That’s all.”
I stood quietly in the uncomfortable silence waiting for Cymbaline to gain the upper hand. “Sam, I am not asking Ms. Blue to find her and haul her home, but I don’t think that it would be unreasonable to find our her address and contact information. And by the way, I don’t need your permission, but I want to be honest with you. Also, I didn’t want you to be surprised if you hear that Ms. Blue is asking some of our friends questions.”
Sam finally looked up and said, “Okay you win Cymbaline,” and then with a forced smile he turned to me and said, “How can we help you Ms. Blue?”
I stepped forward to the edges of their personal space, hoping to be asked to take a seat, but Sam Todd just looked at me with an imperious glare, so I started in on my standard spiel, “Well, I don’t know if your wife told you, but I am a private detective.” I flipped open my wallet to show him my license, but he pushed it away and then waved me on to signal his impatience. “Your wife told me that she was very concerned about Dessa, and that she had been gone for several weeks. I have had a lot of experience in tracking down run …” I stopped to quickly correct myself – I did not want to use the emotionally charged term runaway. “Let me put it this way, I just know how to find people, and your wife is right, that’s all I do, whether Dessa chooses to make contact with you is really not my business.”
“What makes you think that Dessa has run away,” said Sam. “Did my wife neglect to tell you that she has taken off before, for several weeks in fact. Likes to go down to Mexico. There is some artist colony down there.” His nose was back in the paper.
“Sam, you know this time is different. Usually she calls us and lets us know where she is, and asks for more money. We haven’t heard anything from her. I don’t know why you wouldn’t be worried,” Cymbaline said with an exasperated sigh. She turned to me and said, “Ms. Blue, don’t you think that it is odd that Dessa has not contacted us. What is your experience?”
“Well, I really don’t know, people can take a break from their family life for a variety of reasons.
“Well,” Simba said, “there is one more thing that I have not told you Sam.” She paused and cleared her throat. “A Detective Grimes called me last week and asked me if I knew where Dessa was. I wasn’t so worried then and knew that you would not want to get the police involved, so I just told the Detective that Dessa was in Mexico. Nick Nichol introduced me to Ms. Blue yesterday, and suddenly it seemed like a private investigator was just the solution. It’s important to me, honey, please. I talked to Nick yesterday and he thought that a private investigator was a smart idea and that Ms. Blue is the best.”
“The police involved?” Sam now stood up.
I wanted to keep the pressure on Sam so I picked up where Cymbaline trailed off. “Yes, and there is something else that I think that you should know. This friend, her name is Penny, was killed last night in a hit and run accident, so it is very likely that the police will eventually arrive here to ask you some questions. I am a little bit ahead of them, and I want you to be prepared.”
“How do you know Penny?” said Sam. “Simba, you know that I don’t like to be left in the dark. Whoever this Penny is, I can’t imagine that she has anything to do with our Dessa, and even if they are friends why she come here? We don’t know any of Dessa’s friends,” said Sam. “In fact we, or at least I, made it a point to let her live her own life – she needs to separate herself from us – it was about time.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Todd, I am going to lay my cards on the table, and give you my standard speech. Please understand that I am not accusing you of anything, I just want to let you know what the ground rules are, and you may have some ground rules of your own that we can discuss in a minute. But there are some things that don’t add up here – Penny told me that she was Dessa’s best friend, and if Penny’s death is not a hit and run, the police will definitely want to interview Dessa, and if Dessa is missing – well then now you will have the police’s attention, and I don’t think that you want that. So I want you to trust me enough to tell me the truth – I know that we don’t know each other, but Nick Nichol does. It is surprising how often a PR guy needs a discreet private detective in this town and he has always valued my services. I have kept his clients out of trouble and out of the headlines many times. The second thing is that you must be honest with the police, honest in the sense that you must very specifically answer their questions, but you don’t have to do anything more than that, and if they are just investigating Penny you don’t have to offer them anything more that what they ask. But I am telling you, I used to be a cop too, and one of the most important things that I learned is that it is the small lie that tells the big truth.”
“Okay, Ms. Blue, now you have got our attention, why don’t you have a seat,” said Sam. “But I am going to tell you my ground rules. You will not interview any of my business colleagues or ever show up at my office. And I will expect a call from you every evening to give me an update.”
I accepted his offer of a small toehold in the relationship. “You say that you did not know any of Dessa’ friends. You never met any of them?”
“No, as I say, we wanted her to have a separate life,” said Sam. Cymbaline had drifted into the background; her job in getting her husband engaged was now done.
“Yes, but Penny said that she had come here once and met you,” I said. Do you remember that. She was very distinctive looking, lots of tattoos and piercings?”
“No I never met her and I would certainly remember tattoos. She must be lying, right Simba?”
“Sam, I am sorry, I do think that I might have met her about a month ago. Dessa just showed up here for lunch. You were at work, and she brought this friend. I don’t remember her name, but she did have some tattoos,” Cymbaline said in a quavering voice.
“Simba, everything I do, you just try and undo. You dragged me off to family counseling, we’re told to stop hovering and then you are the one that doesn’t follow the advice you wanted to get in the first place.”
“Sam, you didn’t hear what I said, she just showed up here, and I couldn’t just pretend that I wasn’t here. I was scheduled to be one of the models in that charity fashion show for the hospital, so but I had one of my migraines and could not go. I almost think that Dessa planned to come specifically when I would be out, and then there was that awful friend of hers,” Cymbaline shuddered.
“Simba you are such a snob, tattoos don’t mean anything to kids today. You have got to put it out of your mind that Dessa is going to follow in your very charitable footsteps.”
Their conversation was now purely focused on each other as if I wasn’t there. I had been kicked off my tenuous beach head, but I was more than willing to be the silent bystander.
“It was more than just the tattoos, dear,” she said, pausing and then overemphasizing the last word. “It was the fact that she was so nosy, going around touching things, asking how much things cost, saying how handsome Goddard was. She said that she had to go to the restroom and disappeared for about 15 minutes. I finally found her in your dressing room, looking at all the family pictures on your dresser. And I think that she might have stolen something. Sam, you remember that picture of yourself and your sister when you were kids – it was in a silver picture frame. Now I think that it is missing.”
She had justified herself to her husband, and now she swung around to me. “I don’t think that we will be able to help the police. I can only tell them that I met her once, she was certainly not Dessa’s room mate, and in fact I could tell that Dessa just didn’t like her. Besides, this is all beside the point. The only issue for me is simply to find out where she is.”
“Yes I agree,” I said, “I will start with the usual steps that I use to find someone, but I must tell you, I need to follow the investigation where it take me, and if Penny seems to be involved somehow, then it might overlap with the policy investigation. I just wanted to let you know. Now let’s start at the beginning. Where do you think Dessa went?”
“Like I said,” Sam grumped, “she would go on these painting retreats, somewhere in Baja. We never knew exactly where, she said it would be out of cell phone range, but she usually managed to call in.”
“What was the longest time that she would be gone for, and has she contacted you for any money?” I asked. Does she have her own credit card?”
“Well usually she wouldn’t be gone for more than 2 weeks, but this time she has been gone for almost three weeks,” said Simba, “and she hasn’t called for any money. She has a credit card, but the bills come here, and there were no charges on the last bill,” she turned again to her husband, “See Sam I told you there was reason to be worried, I just don’t have a good feeling about this.”
“Okay,” I said in a matter of fact and soothing voice, “can you think of anywhere else she might have gone where she would not need any money – grandparents, aunts, uncles or cousins?”
“We are not a very close knit family. Sam has a sister who used to live in CutterCity. Do you know where she lives, Sam?”
“No clue,” said Sam. “I can’t imagine that Dessa would be with any of those people, they are just not part of our lives.”
“What about your family Ms. Todd” I asked.
“My brother lives right here in Santa Teresa, in fact the house that I grew up in. It’s the old Murphy place – do you know it? We are actually trying to sell it since my mother doesn’t live there anymore – she is senile and lives in a nursing home, and it is just time for my brother to move on.”
Of course I knew the Murphy house. Everyone in Santa Teresa did. I could only conclude that Simba wanted to me to know her blood lines. “Yes, of course I know the house, I imagine that you would need a very particular buyer for a house that size with so much beach front.”
“Of course,” said Simba, “Sam has had so many creative ideas of what to do with it, like donating it to the University, or maybe creating an artists’ retreat, but his brother insists that we sell it and insists that we price it as if was still 2007. We basically are not on speaking terms, so Dessa certainly would not go there.”
“Yes, he is an asshole,” said Sam under his breath. Cymbaline moved a step towards him and put one hand on his shoulder, signaling that she was willing to sacrifice her family unity in exchange for his support in finding Dessa.
“What about Goddard,” I asked, “You said that they were exceptionally close.”
“Yes, I have asked him,” said Cymbaline, “but he is just like Sam – said that I shouldn’t worry, but that she would certainly show up for his opening. Now that she missed the reception, maybe he will take some notice.”
“Okay, here is what we will do. First, here is a contract that you can sign. This is all part of being a licensed investigator. My fees are $1,000 per day, plus expenses. I am not the cheapest detective, but not the most expensive PI either. Usually it takes no more than a couple of days to track someone down, but this case might be a bit more complicated since there doesn’t seem to be a credit card or phone that we can use to track her down, but she must be getting money from somewhere. The first thing that I will do is go down and talk with Goddard, he might have a better idea of who her friends were are at school. I think that it will be worthwhile to talk to some of her teaches at the University for the same reason. And then of course I would like to take a look at her apartment. Do you have the key?
“No we don’t have a key,” said Simba, “but I think Goddard does. Do you know the coffee shop down there by the University? Her apartment is on the second floor.”
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