License to Lie Page 15

  He turned his back on the waves. Within the next day or two, the cops would uncover Roxy’s scam. She’d disappear forever or go to jail. His only solution was to find the money and undo what she’d done. It was the only way he could save her. Even if she didn’t want to be saved.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Roxy

  The following day, Thursday, I got to the office just a few minutes after eight. It was another gray day on the California coast. The gray in the sky would burn off later—the gray in my heart, not likely. When I opened the door and saw Stella’s blank desk, a sudden urge to turn and run overcame me. Without the money, though, how far would I get? Overnight, I’d developed a new goal. It wasn’t elegant. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t even original. I wanted my money back. Yes, my money. And actually, it wasn’t even a new goal. And no one was going to stop me.

  Stella’s cell phone hung like an anchor weight in my purse. Though the phone weighed just ounces, the mental drag was substantial and enough to make me anxious to rid myself of the weight. I locked the front door behind me, crossed the room to Stella’s desk, and pulled the little anchor from my purse. I remembered Skip’s caution—wipe it clean.

  I set the phone on the desk and pulled a plastic baggy from my purse. The baggy contained a damp lintless towel, which I used to wipe off the phone’s display, keypad, and back. I set the phone in the top drawer of Stella’s desk and stared at it.

  Head cocked to one side, arms across my chest, one leg slightly in front of the other, I began to wonder. Should it look more like it had been tossed in? Or placed on purpose? Would the cops think it had been planted if it rested neatly against a corner of the drawer? Would they wonder why she hadn’t had it on her? I scooched it sideways. No better. Tried an angle. This wasn’t working for me. I glanced around Stella’s desk. I looked behind me at her credenza.

  My eyes got wide as I spotted the solution. Stella had a charger stand for the phone. I pulled the phone from the drawer using the towel and dropped it into the stand. It lit up, happy to be home. I think my face lit up also, happy to have a solution to the problem. The towel went back into the baggy, the baggy into my purse. I’d find a trash bin somewhere later today and dump the evidence.

  Next, I went to the file cabinet and pulled Stella’s employment file. I took the file to my desk and sat, suddenly bummed that I’d forgotten to get myself a cup of coffee on the way in.

  I muttered. “Focus, Roxy. Focus.”

  Stella Robbins’ employment application listed two years at Texas A&M University. She’d told me she’d wanted to be a teacher but that she’d eventually had to leave school when both of her parents died and left her with more bills than money. Her application indicated a string of temp jobs that stretched back a couple of years starting six months after she left college.

  Her address was on Chinquapin. It was a different street number, down two blocks from Jimmy’s place. According to her application, she lived in Apartment 6. How had they met? Had they known each other before?

  I’d chosen Stella for exactly the reason no one else would hire her. No solid work background. No skills. No potential for getting in the way. I rolled my eyes. So much for my employee-hiring skills.

  Stella had told me she was new to the area and that’s why all of her previous employment had been in Texas. Stella had been exactly what I’d been searching for, or so I’d thought. As a result, I’d never even considered calling to verify her previous employment. In fact, I hadn’t even verified her address, not that it would do me much good now. On second thought, maybe it would. I glanced at my watch. It was nearly 8:30. Surely someone would be working by now. I dialed the number for Stella’s landlord.

  “Hello?”

  Nice way to answer a business line, I thought. “Hi, my name is Roxanne Tanner. One of your tenants, Miss Stella Robbins, submitted an employment application. I’m way behind, but trying to confirm her address. Does she live in Apartment 6?”

  “That one? She’s a—hey, who’d you say you were?” The voice on the other end was gravelly, probably from a few too many packs of cigarettes. Whether it was a man or a woman, I couldn’t tell.

  “Roxanne Tanner. I’m the owner of Tanner Investments.”

  “Oh, you. She rented 6. Not much more I can tell you over the phone, though.”

  A mental picture of the landlord formed in my head. She was a sixty-plus-year-old woman who had a smoke burning in one hand and a Bloody Mary in the other. Between sips and sucks, she’d hack her head off. She’d be dressed in a frumpy robe and fuzzy slippers. The way she phrased her response, though, made me curious. “What do you mean you don’t want to do this over the phone? Is there something I should know?”

  “Didn’t you hire her already?”

  I heard the phlegmy cough as she held the phone away. Ugh.

  “I’m just trying to cover myself. You know, document everything. I’m way behind. C’mon, I’ll just keep this between us.”

  “Sorry, honey, think I already said too much.” She disconnected.

  I didn’t rule out another run at her, but the next attempt would be in person. She was dying to tell me something, I just needed to—I stopped, realizing what word I’d used—dying. “Sorry, Stella.”

  If the landlord wouldn’t tell me anything, maybe the Internet would. I turned on my computer and did a search for “Stella Robbins.” That returned somewhere in the neighborhood of 700,000 records. No help there. Women with that name were scattered around the country, probably the globe. I needed to narrow this down.

  I was contemplating my next search when the door shook with a loud banging.

  Was it the cops? I had nowhere to go.

  “Roxy! Open up, it’s Skip.”

  I snarled under my breath, “Asshole.” Last night he’d pulled that stupid stalker routine on me and this morning he was practically beating my door down. I strode to the locked door and wrenched it open. “Who the hell do you think you are, banging on my door like that?”

  “I tried quiet, but you didn’t answer. I could see that the lights were on from under the door so I knew you were here. Sorry if I scared you.”

  “Whatever.” I stomped away. I muttered, “Moron.” Behind me, I swear I heard him chuckle. This guy wanted to piss me off?

  “A bit touchy today?”

  I whirled on him. “No, it’s not that time of the month,” I barked. “I’m trying to find information about Stella. What have you accomplished? Anything?”

  He held out one of cups in his hands. I’d been so intent on chewing him out that I hadn’t even noticed what he carried.

  “I thought you could use one of these.” His tone was smooth and consoling. “I accomplished not getting much sleep. Probably a lot like you. So, truce? And coffee?”

  Ten minutes later, with a bit of caffeine kicking in, I was feeling less angry. “Sorry I yelled at you. I guess if I didn’t answer, you didn’t have much choice.”

  “Don’t sweat it. It’s understandable. You were busy looking for something on Stella.” He pointed at the papers on my desk.

  “This? It’s useless. I called the landlord, she hinted that there’s something about Stella she might like to say, but wouldn’t tell me over the phone. She seemed to know who I was, but I don’t think she knows that Stella’s dead—yet.”

  “Did you search for her online?”

  “I didn’t have any luck. But I’m out of my element there. I mean, what am I looking for? I don’t really know.”

  Skip leaned back in his chair. He sipped the coffee. “I’ve been thinking about yesterday—when I hit Stella. The funny thing is that when I hit her, she went down, but she didn’t react. She’s taken some hits before. And when I forced her into that apartment? She didn’t cry or freak out. Instead, it was like she was thinking of how to turn that situation around. In fact, I almost think she wanted to help you. One thing’s for sure, that girl wasn’t a first-timer.”

  “Stella?” I laughed. “She wasn’t smart
enough to be a crook.”

  “Maybe that’s what she wanted you to think.” He tapped his chin and seemed lost in thought for a few seconds. “Where was she from?”

  “Texas. She went to A&M.”

  “She finish?”

  “She told me a family emergency forced her to leave. After that, she worked some temp jobs.”

  Skip set his coffee on my desk, then stared at the floor. “Try a search for ‘Stella Robbins Texas news.’”

  I typed in the search terms and pressed the enter key. A few seconds later, the screen filled with search results for people named Stella, but not Robbins, and Robbins, but not Stella. On page three, I stopped. “Here’s something for a Stella Robbins on a web site called The Texas Blotter.”

  “Check it out.”

  I clicked the link and started to scan the article. “This is just some guy ranting about criminals.”

  “Keep going. The guy rants, but he does report the news.”

  “You know this guy?”

  “Hello? Criminologist? Besides, we need everything we can get. Try to find her name on the page.”

  I did the PC search thing by holding down the Control key and the F key and then typing “Stella” in the little box that popped up. Halfway down the page, her highlighted name appeared. “Here it is. ‘On Tuesday, Stella Robbins and Marty Horvath were arraigned on armed robbery charges. Horvath and Robbins allegedly held up a local convenience store at gunpoint. Horvath has also been arraigned on charges of assault and manslaughter for his role in beating one of the employees.’”

  Skip nodded. “Bingo. That’s our girl. I’ll bet she made a deal with the DA to help nail this guy Horvath.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  “That’s the way the system works. It rewards those that rat out their friends. Stella wasn’t stupid, she knew that.”

  His argument made sense. “Then she bails out of Texas and shows up on my doorstep. And I pay for her makeover.”

  Skip’s chin puckered. “What makeover?”

  “Stella was a new woman in all senses of the word. Lips, hips, boobs—”

  “I thought she looked good. Damn good, in fact.”

  I glared at him. Was he deliberately trying to piss me off again? Raving about that bitch’s looks?

  He winced. “Sorry. Not real bright on my part—telling one woman how good another one looked. Besides, you’re much more attractive.”

  I gave him the evil eye my mother always used on me. “You can’t get off that easily.”

  “Maybe not, but it’s true. You are. You’re gorgeous.”

  I ignored the compliment. It was one of those weak too-little, too-late attempts by a man to appease a woman. What did I care how he thought I looked, anyway? A tinge of warmth radiated into my neck. Gorgeous? He thought I was—I muttered, “Whatever.”

  “You like that word, don’t you?”

  “It fits. Besides, we need to go see that landlord.”

  “You do realize where Stella lived, don’t you?”

  I gave him a blank stare. “What?”

  “It’s the same building.”

  “As what? Jimmy was two blocks away.” I glanced at the application and read the address. My lips parted and I whispered, “Are you sure?”

  Skip nodded. “The kidnapper used an apartment in that very complex.”

  My breath caught and I swallowed hard. “You’re positive?”

  “I know. You never saw the address. When the cops took you away, I doubted that you even noticed what street you were on. Believe me, it’s the right complex. A different apartment maybe, but the same street address.”

  “Maybe that’s why the landlord knew me.”

  “And why she was reluctant to talk on the phone. She might think you’re a reporter snooping around.”

  “Why would she live there? I mean, why rent in the same building as the kidnapper?”

  Skip shook his head. “Maybe it was the other way around. The kidnapper might have come later. The manager could tell us. We might even be able to get back in.”

  Shivers ran down my spine. “What the hell for? That’s a crime scene. I’m not going in there.” The last thing I needed was to add another felony count to my list of recent transgressions—or relive that experience.

  “We don’t have to go inside the apartment, I guess. I just wanted to see if there were any witnesses. Maybe someone can describe those kidnappers, sans the masks. I can talk to the neighbors.”

  Shit. My head pounded at the thought of getting anywhere near that apartment again.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Skip

  Skip pulled the Porsche into the parking lot and took a spot two spaces down from where Roxy had parked. He tried to recall the details from yesterday—the vacant white car, Stella leaving it, the altercation. Had she been in that white car? Where had it gone? At the time, he hadn’t thought about where she’d been coming from. But the car hadn’t been in the lot when the police arrived. And it had been empty when he saw it. Hadn’t it? Had the windows been up or down? He couldn’t recall. He left the top down, but locked the Porsche out of habit. Why hadn’t he told the cops about the white car? Had he forgotten about it? Or was it another bad decision? Roxy’s arrest must have rattled him more than he cared to admit. It was the only rationale for the lapse that made sense.

  He noted that Roxy picked a spot in the lot marked, “Tenants Only.” A rental moving truck with a ramp extending down in the back took up five of the other tenant-only spaces. Maybe the truck had permission to be there, but Roxy must feel the rules didn’t apply to her. As he approached her, he said, “That spot is for tenants.”

  She locked her car door. “We’re not going to be here long. There are plenty of spaces.”

  Skip counted two tenant spaces left. He considered using Roxy’s favorite word, but decided against it. Mentally, he countered. Whatever. “You find the manager. I want to see if I can locate anyone who might have seen something.”

  She laughed. “You just want to see if someone saw you smack Stella.”

  “Yesterday, I saw drapes move in one of these places. And that’s when some busybody called the cops. Maybe I can get a description of the kidnappers.”

  “I’ll see if I can get the manager to tell me who rented that apartment.”

  Roxy took one walkway, Skip the other. The kidnappers had been holed up in an apartment on the far end of the complex and this was the only parking lot. Skip surveyed the area from the spot where he’d met Stella. Only four units overlooked this spot, so he might as well try them all.

  At the first apartment, he got no answer. At the second, the door was open. Stacks of boxes crowded the room. Pieces of furniture stood against one wall. He was about to knock on the doorjamb when he heard a high-pitched squeaking behind him and turned to face the noise. A dolly piled high with boxes inched in his direction. Behind the dolly, a man in jeans and a white T-shirt guided it along the narrow walkway.

  “You’re doing great, just keep coming straight on about three feet,” Skip said.

  “Thanks.”

  When the dolly reached the walkway in front of the apartment, the man eased the stack of boxes to a vertical position. Skip put a hand on the top box to steady it.

  The gangly man, who was probably no more than twenty-five, stood to one side of the stack. “Thanks again.” The guy’s chin was covered in a thin mat of whiskers, about the only hair on his head other than his thin eyebrows.

  Skip extended his hand. “Skip Cosgrove.”

  “Dave Brewster. Call me Davy. That load was a heavy one.” He stretched his back for a second. “One too many boxes, I think.”

  “Just moving in?”

  “Yeah, just drove in from Vegas. I’m glad to be back in San Diego, man. But traffic’s a bitch. By the time I hit the 78 I thought that thing was gonna shake apart.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of a rental moving truck.

  Skip smiled. “Looks like that one�
��s seen better days.” He started to leave. “Well, good luck with the move in.”

  “Thanks. I’m almost done. Hey, you lookin’ for somethin’?”

  “My car got dinged, I just wondered if anyone saw it,” Skip said.

  “Can’t help you, man. Try the old lady two doors down. I hear she sees everything.”

  “I’ll do that.” Skip nodded his thanks. As he passed the next apartment, he thought about how easily the lie had rolled off his tongue. What was happening to him? Well, it was probably better to tell the guy a lie than to tell him there’d been a kidnapping and shooting in the complex. On the other hand, the guy was bound to hear about it sooner or later. Skip snickered as he walked away from Davy. Let the poor guy get unpacked, then someone can tell him about the neighborhood.

  When he knocked on the door Davy had told him about, the drapes to his right fluttered open and closed. Skip had a sudden realization that maybe Roxy should be doing this. If this was the woman who had reported him yesterday, she might already be on the phone with the cops. The door opened a crack, the deadbolt chain stretched tight.

  “I’ve got a gun and a phone to call 9-1-1. What do you want?”

  Skip swallowed hard. “My name is Skip Cosgrove.”

  “I know who you are. You’re the one hit that girl yesterday.”

  He’d found his witness. He also had an urge to explain. “I’m a criminologist.”

  “That’s why you decked a woman?”

  “She committed a felony.”

  “Let me see some ID.”

  He reached into his back pocket.

  “Slow there, mister. Real slow.” The voice came from the door opening, through which the barrel of a Colt revolver pointed at him.

  “I’m just getting my ID.” He extracted his wallet and opened it, then showed her his driver’s license and a business card.

  “You said you was a cop, where’s your badge?”

  “No, no. I’m a criminologist. I contract with the Carlsbad PD and others, but I am not a sworn officer. Can you, um, put that gun down? I just have a question about yesterday.”

  The gun didn’t waver. “Why the hell you think I got this pointed at you? I saw you clobber that poor girl yesterday.”