Catherine flashed a slight smile. “I hadn’t thought of it like that.”
“And now we have the money to buy back some of our property - maybe the church and the hall.”
“Very good.”
Her friend’s reaction distracted Martha temporarily.
“What if he did do it, Catherine?”
“You are not serious. How could you think such a thing?”
“It’s really bothering me, dear. Over the years I’ve seen some things that make me wonder whether…”
“What has he done that makes you think he might be capable of murder?”
“Well, once, nearly twenty years ago, we were in Modesto then and there were some protestors picketing the church about something the Reverend had said from the pulpit and that he repeated to the newspaper. They were screaming. They were quite hateful. You know how those people can be.”
“Not really.”
“Well, the Reverend was turning into the driveway leading back to our house. They were blocking our path. They would not move. Not fast enough anyway. The Reverend got a really strange look on his face. He hit the gas pedal hard. Two of them had to jump to keep from being hit by the car. I was speechless. He just said ‘that filth’ - he called them ‘filth’ and said they were lucky this time.”
Martha could see her friend was unconvinced.
“I didn’t know he had such a temper, but still…”
“There have been other things I never told you. Our second daughter Janelle married a Mormon when she was twenty-two. The Reverend told her she would go to Hell and refused to speak to her. He kept it up for three years until she got divorced. Then he said he forgave her and that it wasn’t a real marriage anyway. But he had been so cold to her. Our daughter. How could he treat her that way? They’ve never really been close ever since.”
“Oh, dear. I had no idea. You should have told me before. We mothers are called upon to endure so much. I’m sorry.”
Martha had one more fact to present. “Did you know he was a soldier in Vietnam?”
“No, I didn’t. He’s never mentioned it.”
“He killed a lot of people. Well, enemy soldiers.”
“Men have to do that in war. That doesn’t mean they would commit murder back home.”
“I know, you’re right. It’s just that he’s always been a bit different and he has no alibi.”
Having shared her worries and reasoning with her friend, suddenly they seemed fanciful. “Oh, Catherine, thank you for letting me share this. I feel better now. Foolish but better. I let my imagination run away with me.” She laughed finally.
Catherine joined in the laughter. “To tell the truth…”
“Yes?”
“I had similar thoughts. It crossed my mind - just for a minute - that my own daughter might have killed Veronica.”
“Cheryl? How could you think that?”
“She was so angry with her. And not for the first time.”
“Catherine, really,” Martha admonished.
“Well, she doesn’t have an alibi either.”
They laughed then walked in silence for barely thirty seconds when Martha said, “Look at the two of us. Aren’t we something?”
“I guess so. You know, you and I should have done it. She really did deserve it and no one would suspect us. You could have stood lookout while I filled her full of lead.”
“Oh, Mercy, Catherine. What a thing to say.”
“Martha, you’re just too nice, sometimes. No, all the time. If we get to keep the church and you get to keep your home, well then that’s just fine. I’m not going to pretend to feel sorry about it.”
She took Martha’s arm in hers as they rounded the corner to her street.
~ ~ ~
CHAPTER 47
McLean and her watchers were disappointed that there was no action that morning. Mrs. Grubb had suggested a visit to the park with its variety of activities out in the open providing opportunities for McLean to be observed and followed. The temperature warmed to seventy-three by the time McLean arrived at the entrance to the Farmer’s Market. She wore pink shorts and a pink and white striped sleeveless blouse with white sandals. She carried a backpack in which she had her cell phone, newspaper, paperback novel and a small blanket for the grass in case she wanted to sunbathe.
McLean walked through the market stalls and bought fresh corn on the cob for her mother. She was fairly certain that her watchers would not have detected anything suspicious so far. A red-haired round-faced woman gave McLean her change offering a plastic bag for the corn. McLean declined and put the ears in her backpack. She passed stalls with several kinds of lettuce, oranges, lemons and grapefruit, strawberries and fresh trays of brown and white eggs, with signs proclaiming “free range.”
McLean bought two yellow daffodils from a ruddy, white-haired man in his seventies. His bright, watery blue eyes conveyed warm appreciation for her youth and beauty but nothing to raise concern.
She sat at a wrought iron bench under an oak. She was in the shade and felt a slight chill. Twenty yards away, five college age men spread out into an irregular pentagon and began to toss a Frisbee. McLean read her paperback for a half hour then lay it on the bench next to her. Her cell phone rang a minute later.
“Nice show behind you.” It was Officer Jane Duncan’s voice.
“Oh, yeah,” McLean said looking casually over her shoulder. “I see what you mean.”
The young men had removed their tee shirts, exposing mostly pale but muscular physiques to the late morning sun. Following a bizarre fashion that would not seem to die, the shorts of all five were worn beltless, hanging low on their hips exposing boxer shorts except in one case. The exception drew the attention of both women.
“Crack Attack!” Jane laughed as the upper buttocks of the one man without boxer shorts came into view when he lunged for the Frisbee.
“Could be a lot worse,” McLean maintained an expression of disinterest. “Don’t make me laugh, Jane. Where are you?”
“Top floor of the carriage museum.”
“I haven’t seen anything. Have you?”
“No, but at least we have some entertainment.”
“Talk to you later.” McLean flipped the cell phone shut and replaced it in her backpack. She picked up her book.
By mid afternoon, McLean’s bench was in the sun. The number of people in the park multiplied. The college boys’ game broke up with shouts and loud laughter. Two boys passed McLean on the right. A dark haired, stocky boy held the head of a crew cut blond in a neck lock with his left arm. “Hello,” he said to McLean. She smiled. The other boy said “good bye” as his captor marched him toward the west end of the park. The other three boys ran by on her left, also shouting hellos. McLean waved as they raced away then returned to her novel.
She had read just two more pages when another interruption occurred.
“Hi, my name is Christopher. It’s a beautiful day isn’t it?” McLean looked up. A man of about her own age sat down at the bench, two feet from her. She was startled, though it would not have been noticeable to anyone seeing her at that moment. McLean considered how her character would react. She would be more polite than the real Kim McLean who had tired years ago of unsolicited attention from men she did not know. She smiled shyly. A lonely accountant, new in town might appreciate a chance to meet this man. He had chestnut hair, smooth, flawless skin, a warm smile and pale blue eyes. Christopher seemed oblivious of his appearance, his attention focused on McLean.
“I have a gift for you,” he said, his eyes seeming to twinkle.
“Uh oh. My mother warned me about talking to strangers.” McLean returned his smile.
“I know, but this gift is just a few words that make all the difference in the world.”
So that’s it, McLean thought. Scientology, Moonies, Amway, maybe…He pulled a black leather bound book from his bag and proceeded to explain to McLean that the New Testament tells how Jesus died for her. Just a garden variet
y Bible thumper. That’s what we have here, McLean thought. He could be making a fortune modeling but here he is in Segovia’s Central Park searching out people who happen to be alone and trying to convert them. Serial killer material? Possibly. I’ll talk to him but not for long. I don’t want anyone to think we’re together.
Just then, McLean was sure she spied the middle-aged gray-haired man from the laundromat video, standing forty yards away at the edge of the park.
“I’m sorry. I really have to make a phone call right now.” Christopher stopped talking but showed no indication he would leave.
“It’s a private call. Thanks anyway for stopping.”
He nodded, stood up quickly, bowed slightly and walked away.
“Jane, I see the man from the laundry,” McLean whispered into the cell phone.
“Where is he?”
“Right under you. Just across the street.”
Duncan saw him. He began to move slowly along the sidewalk, toward the south. Within seconds, three plain-clothes officers were alerted and directed to his location. Unhurriedly, the man crossed the street on a diagonal to the sidewalk in front of the Carriage Museum. Duncan lost sight of him as he moved to her right.
“He’s turning toward Main Street.” McLean was the only officer who could see him at the moment. Then she lost sight as well. Seconds later the officers converged at the corner of Fulton and Main. They looked up and down all four directions. Their target was nowhere in sight.
* * *
A few hours later, Dawn Miller chatted with her son while she packed clothes including shorts, two bathing suits and a form-fitting red dress with a low v-neck into a large orange suitcase that had belonged to her sister-in-law. Dawn was elated to see Aaron with an expensive haircut looking handsome in new clothes courtesy of Loraine. He spoke of his new computer and cell phone and the friends he was making in his support group. Aaron sounded apprehensive about his return to school tomorrow but he was more enthusiastic about life than she had seen him since he was a child. Dawn was thrilled herself by the prospect of her first real vacation, a cruise to Mazatlan paid for by her mother-in-law. While Aaron wheeled her suitcase to the car, she joked about meeting a millionaire on the ship and extending her vacation a few months.
~ ~ ~
CHAPTER 48
Monday, May 22
This morning at 8:30, an increasingly fatigued Sergeant De la Peña sat at his desk in the Team Center updating the investigation log on the computer. He had joined the stakeout at the park Sunday afternoon just after the near miss with the presumed sighting of the suspect but in time to pick up his team’s exhilaration. Sunday night De la Peña worked the bungalow watch again, managing only three hours of frequently interrupted sleep, ending around 3:00 a.m.
The man in the park was the only bite the police had all weekend. McLean was convinced she had seen the man in the video but this was followed by another uneventful night. During the morning commute, McLean and her escorts were disappointed again not to see the brown Nissan. They reported more traffic than usual. The officers following McLean had seen a white pickup two cars ahead of them. It stayed in the line of cars for several minutes before taking the last right before the winery turning onto a road leading to a residential section of South Segovia. Remembering a similar vehicle on the road during McLean’s Friday night drive from the winery to the laundromat, the officers reported it to De la Peña. They were unable to get a plate this time, though it appeared to match the description from Friday.
De la Peña checked the task force records from Friday. Then, the shadowing officer had recorded a plate for both a white pickup and a minivan, neither considered suspicious at the time. This morning, De la Peña ran the pickup’s plates. Within seconds, results came in from the Department of Motor Vehicles computer. The truck from Friday - which may have been the same one observed this morning - belonged to a seventy year old man in Lodi. There were no warrants of any kind. It was a 1992 Ford F-150. The description recorded on Friday mentioned a very darkly tinted rear window but nothing else to distinguish it. Today’s report described a full size white Ford pickup, early 90’s, with a darkly tinted rear window. It seemed to De la Peña it was late in the operation to introduce a new vehicle but he notified all the task force participants to watch for the Ford as well as the Nissan.
Moments later, De la Peña read an e-mail from the San Leandro police. No one was home at the Etcell’s house. Neighbors said they were on a European vacation, having left two weeks earlier. De la Peña shook his head in frustration. Maybe we made a mistake, he thought. He made a mental note to stop referring to the suspect as Etcell. Wrong age, wrong height and, now we know, out of the country…I guess I blew it with that one. So tell the team to look for a brown Nissan, I don’t care what the license plate is.
* * *
At Miner’s Flat High School, during the ten o’clock break, the undercover cop pretending to be Julie Chancellor examined her face in the mirror of the girl’s rest room at the end of the wing nearest the Quad. As she prepared to touch up her powder and lipstick, she noticed again the dermatologist’s handiwork that helped a twenty seven year old police officer pass for an eighteen year old high school senior. The week before she began this assignment a quick Botox injection had erased a vertical “worry” line between her eyebrows. Very slight furrows that appeared on each side of her mouth when she smiled were removed with collagen injections. The procedures were helpful in creating the illusion but Julie, as she took care to call herself even in her thoughts owed most of her youthful appearance to a metabolism that prevented her from putting on even a pound of excess weight. She had inherited this from her mother who also had enforced strict rules on daily use of sunscreen. Of equal importance to her appearance, a talent for mimicking the speech patterns that had changed considerably since her teenage years in Chula Vista and the imagination of a method actor provided the final components of an impenetrable false identity.
Four junior girls chatted quietly at the far end of the restroom. Julie overheard the words “that kid with the gun” and listened to the rest of their conversation. Two girls were excited at having seen Aaron Jamison. One said she thought most people would have killed themselves. Julie wondered whether she meant because of the bullying he had undergone or from embarrassment after snapping last Monday. A third asked how he looked. The answer “well, pretty normal, I guess” took the spirit out of their gossip. “He’s kind of cute,” another girl said. The first voice added “weird.”
Better give Captain Moffat a call later, Julie thought. She knew he would want to hear about Aaron’s first day back and how the students were reacting. Moffat had written a commendation for her performance during Monday’s event - secret for now. She was pleased about having it added to her personnel file. Developing a professional relationship with this high-ranking officer could help her career so she wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to talk to him again.
Julie glanced at the clock. Scott Conti would meet her in ten minutes, just outside. He had a permanent pass to come to school after second period. Julie new the justification for the pass was phony but had been signed by his father. Conti was a fairly good student and with extra credits earned at a private academy during two previous summers, he had no worries about meeting the requirements for graduation.
Julie walked to the edge of the Quad to wait for Scott. She stood very near the position she had taken last Monday when she could see several hundred students scattered about among the concrete, grass and planters in the morning sunlight. Today, scanning the crowd, she quickly spotted Aaron only thirty yards from her. He was with four other students and appeared to be engaged in conversation - listening mostly but speaking occasionally. The group broke up, two seniors and a junior moving toward the “A” wing, Aaron and a sophomore girl named Michelle walking back toward Julie and the block of lockers. From his expression, Aaron seemed normal and happy. He even seemed taller. But Julie thought he was self-conscious, walking a
bit awkwardly like a shy person in a home movie. She thought he was quite brave under the circumstances.
Scott walked toward Julie, carrying two small cups of Starbuck’s. She realized he had altered his regular route to avoid Aaron and Michelle. She was amused that the highly self-confident and arrogant Conti was now dodging the skinny sophomore. Scott was smart, though, and would readily adapt his behavior to whatever was to his advantage. He had never mentioned Aaron or anything about his role in the incident or, for that matter, his questioning by police about Veronica Gillis’ death. She had never asked, since her objective was to explore a completely different aspect of Conti’s life.
* * *
“Jason, man, you look bad. I’m eight and a half months pregnant but I bet I can take you in the half mile. Mrs. G, doesn’t he look like…doesn’t he look bad?” Tashara reported for her shift at one but ten minutes passed before she looked at De la Peña.
“Not bad, dear, just tired,” Mrs. Grubb offered. De la Peña’s short hair, normally parted neatly and combed back from his face, was pointing up and out in multiple directions. His eyes were red with faint, blue gray half moons below.
In the back of the room, the door closed softly. Moffat had entered and now he walked between the rows of tables to join the two officers and Mrs. Grubb. De la Peña took a deep breath and made an effort to look more alert than he felt.
“Anything new?”
Moffat was aware of McLean’s sighting of the suspect and the negative report of the night’s surveillance. De la Peña told him about the white truck from the morning commute and the report from San Leandro P.D. Moffat nodded and kept nodding as he appeared to drift into thought. He sat at his desk, pulled a small black address book from his jacket pocket and made a long distance call.
“Assistant Chief Joseph Walker, please.” He turned to De la Peña. “Classmate at the Academy. I want Lodi P.D. to check on the white Ford.”
The others listened as Moffat requested that a plainclothes detective go to the address in Lodi to determine whether an F-150 with the plate number recorded in Segovia on Friday was there now and if it had been in Segovia or elsewhere out of town or out of the owner’s possession recently. Moffat told Walker they would send a screen capture of the suspect from the laundromat video then added that two detectives should be sent with instructions to take precautions because of the possibility Moffat’s suspect may be at that location.