Chapter 21

  Katrina

  Monday

  After moving her Land Rover down the street and out of view, Katrina waited for what seemed like hours for Goode to leave so she could extricate herself from the crafty old man’s grip. Tapping her fingers on the steering wheel, she finally saw Goode at the top of the driveway, looking pleased with himself. It was eight o’clock, a good thirty minutes since she’d rung the bell. She watched him get into a black Ford Explorer, then just sit there.

  I guess the VW van is his personal car. The Explorer must be his work car. Less noisy and probably more gas efficient, I’m sure.

  “What’s he doing now?” she whispered. “I hope he’s not going to spend hours doing surveillance.”

  Katrina’s phone rang. It was Goode. She let it go to voicemail, hoping he would go home faster. She would call him later.

  As soon as Goode started up his car and took off, Katrina swung her heels out of her car and onto the asphalt and marched down the driveway.

  Vincent won’t be in a great mood after getting grilled by a homicide detective, but this can’t wait any longer.

  Vincent took even more time to open the door this time, but she could see why: His right index finger was bandaged up, which made it hard for him to open the door while holding a half-eaten chicken drumstick.

  “So, that was you before,” he said, slurring his words. His sweet alcohol breath wafted toward her. “Did the detective tell you to leave? I wish you’d come in. He probably would have left sooner. Look what he made me do.”

  Waving his bandaged finger, he turned and motioned for her to follow him through a maze of hallways into the kitchen.

  “Watch out for the glass,” he said, gesturing toward the shards on the floor.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “He got me so upset that I dropped one of my favorite crystal glasses and cut a gash into my finger. Wasted a snootful of eighteen-year-old scotch too. Why don’t you grab that bottle of Chardonnay in the fridge and pour us both a glass.”

  “I’m not here to socialize, Vincent. I came on business.”

  “Do you have news on Alex?” he asked hopefully.

  “No, but that’s why I’m here.”

  “Okay,” he said, leaning against one of the stools at the counter. “Even if you aren’t going to have any wine, can you pour me some? I’m wounded.”

  “Are you sure you haven’t had enough to drink?”

  “Excuse me?” he snapped. “You’re out of line, missy.”

  “Well, you did already cut yourself,” she said. But since he was still pouting, she handed him half a glass from the nearly empty bottle. “Here.”

  “That’s a measly pour if I ever saw one. I might as well finish it,” he said, dumping the rest into his glass.

  I can see where Alex got the addictive personality gene.

  “I’ll have you know that’s what’s left of the second bottle my wife and daughter drank on Friday night. I’ve had a rough day and an even rougher night, so give me a break, would you?”

  She could see from his mental state that he wasn’t going to withstand more bad news very well, but she had no choice.

  “I’m sorry you may have lost a grandchild,” she said.

  That’s all it took. A little softness and Vincent crumpled before her eyes.

  “It’s so sad,” he said, his face falling. “My first grandbaby.”

  Vincent may be a Machiavellian jerk, but he’s losing the people he loves, one at a time, and that makes him seem more human.

  His eyes welling up, he wobbled off to the nearest bathroom to blow his nose. Even if he was acting like a child, he knew not to cry in front of an employee.

  Meanwhile, Katrina was getting a different perspective of the paper’s owner than anyone else in the newsroom, possibly even Linda. Still, she couldn’t let his mood neutralize her purpose in coming over, and that moment couldn’t wait any longer.

  After flushing the toilet, Vincent emerged. His eyes were watery, though his face was dry. Except for his sweaty forehead, which he’d forgotten to swab.

  “Let’s try this again,” he said quietly. “What made you come over twice tonight?”

  Katrina took a deep breath, shaking her head as she spoke. “I’m sorry for the timing. I know you’ve had a bad day, but I needed to tell you in person: I can’t cover this story for the paper and still help you find Alex, because the two investigations are not just intersecting, they’re colliding, so—”

  “Hold on a minute,” Vincent interrupted. “Are you saying that you can’t help me find Alex? I don’t understand how any of this is mutually exclusive.”

  Is he purposely being obtuse, or is he drunk?

  “I’m trying to be honest with you. Do you not see that this is a giant ethical conflict?” she asked, looking him straight in the eyes now. “Especially when you asked me not to write anything I learned about Alex. But it seems to me that the two issues are not only related, they’re irretrievably inseparable.”

  “Well, that’s a mouthful,” Vincent said, bobbling onto one of the stools and holding back a chortle.

  Why is he not taking me seriously?

  “Can you explain this in more detail? Because I’m not going to let you quit. I mean, ultimately, I am your boss.”

  It was no use trying to have a rational discussion with a drunk person. Katrina didn’t know what else to say.

  I’m reporting a story that has placed you and your family smack in the middle of a murder investigation. Why do I have to be the one to make you face that? Shouldn’t that be John Palmer’s job?

  “This is all very awkward, but I have some promising leads that I don’t think I should discuss with you, because it could compromise the story,” she finally said. “I mean, come on, a homicide detective was just here interviewing you.”

  Vincent stared at her noncommittally and took a gulp of wine. “Go on.”

  “Linda assigned me to this story and told me to focus my full attention on the Fontaines and the dynamics of their personal and business relationships. Well, that directly involves you and your sons, one of whom has mysteriously vanished. I can’t keep all this separate or out of the paper.”

  Even if he was drunk, Vincent had to understand that.

  “Listen, I appreciate what you’re saying. I do,” he said. “But I need your help. I can’t trust anyone else. Keep going with this, and we’ll talk again in a day or two.”

  Why is he not getting this? Or is he simply not willing to accept it? Legally, I should be safe because I never signed his damn NDA.

  “I don’t need another day or two,” she said as firmly as she could. “I’m done.” Tossing out a Hail Mary, she asked, “Can you give me Michael’s cell number? That way I can catch him even if he’s not at work.”

  But Drunk Vincent was not only uncooperative, he was downright ornery. “Why do you need to call him?”

  “I need to know more about what was going on between him, Alex, and Victoria. I still need to figure out where Alex went and what happened to the Fontaines, so you’ll get your answers one way or another,” she said.

  “I’d rather you left Michael alone,” he said. “You saw how upset he was at the news conference today. He’s got a lot on his plate as the new CFO. Why don’t you focus on those other names I gave you and go from there. Here’s fifty bucks,” he said digging into his wallet and pulling out a Ulysses S. Grant. “If you don’t want to drink with me, go have one and some food on me at George’s. Rick, one of the bartenders there, is Alex’s surfing buddy from way back. He does card tricks. Talk to him about Alex and Victoria.”

  “Thanks for the offer, but I can’t accept your money,” she said. “Although that’s not a bad suggestion. I’ve had quite a day myself.”

  Walking back to her car, she felt her apprehension building. Any reporter with a brain would suspect that Alex or Michael was either involved in, or knew something about, Victoria’s death.

  What would happen if she called Michael at Vitaleron? Vincent would be upset because he’d asked her not to, and Linda would be angry because Katrina had defied a direct order.

  But what else is new?

  Katrina was too tired to go to George’s, a pricey, three-tiered hot spot of restaurants and bars in the village of La Jolla. Instead, she picked up a couple of pizza slices in Hillcrest and ate them with a cup of red wine in her apartment, followed by a second cup. She played her guitar for a little while until she felt her mind had cleared a bit.

  It was late by the time she lay down, but she couldn’t seem to get comfortable on the floor. She had a hard time shutting off her brain, which kept coming up with questions she wanted to ask Michael Battrelle.

  Chapter 22

  Goode

  Tuesday

  First item on Goode’s to-do list Tuesday morning was to drop Vincent’s bloody paper towel at the crime lab. It would give him the perfect opportunity to inquire about the status of the gunshot-residue tests and fingerprint/DNA analysis of the gun. Because he still hadn’t heard whether they’d found the missing casing or the fired bullet, he figured they were lagging behind.

  Do I need to go look for them myself? The longer they wait, the higher the chance a family member will come in and kick them somewhere else by accident.

  While he waited for the lab to open, he called the airlines. Starting with United, he learned that Vincent’s wife and daughter did, in fact, fly to Heathrow at 10:00 a.m. on Saturday, and Alex was not with them. A subsequent call to American revealed that Alex had been on a nine o’clock flight for the Cayman Islands the night before.

  That was right around the time of the 911 call, although Dr. Thompson said those bodies were down for at least several hours before that. Seems like pretty coincidental timing. But what are the Cayman Islands good for besides financial shenanigans?

  “That flight was late taking off, so they didn’t hit the runway until nine thirty,” the representative said.

  Technically, that still gave him time to make the 911 call before boarding or while the plane was still sitting on the tarmac.

  Alex was the last known person to see Victoria alive that morning. He also said in his text that he was planning to come back, but didn’t, which made him a likely suspect.

  “Innocent people don’t run,” Stone said when Goode called to brief him. “So, does he come back, find her dead, thinks it’s an overdose that might incriminate him, and flee? Or do they argue over whose kid she’s carrying—his, his brother’s, or someone else’s—Simon comes to her aid, a struggle ensues, and Alex tries to cover his tracks by injecting them both? Or is Alex on a binge, he and Victoria shoot up together, she dies, he freaks, and takes the drugs and syringes with him? Don’t ask me how Simon dies in that scenario. But someone shot him, and why else would Alex take off for the Caymans unless something went bad?”

  “Okay, but if any one of those scenarios happened, then why is Michael lying to us?” Goode asked. “Based on his texts, Victoria wouldn’t take his call or respond to his texts. So maybe he’s the one who comes over, is furious to learn she’s been with Alex, and injects her with something to make it look like a suicide, which is why it was so sloppy. As a recovering heroin addict, Alex wouldn’t have made such a mess of it, and Michael is the one who’s pushing the suicide scenario. Vincent implied that as well, and he didn’t seem surprised when I told him Simon had been shot in the head.”

  “Okay, but then why would either of them inject and/or shoot Simon?”

  “Fear? To frame someone else? Or it could be purely financial, to protect Vitaleron or the Battrelle family investments from scandal. Something is definitely off with this clan. The Caymans are a haven for offshore accounts and dubious investment activities. Half the family is lying, and the other half is hopping on the first plane out of here. Vincent’s and Dr. Russell’s wives and daughters left the country on Saturday as well. They said they were preplanned trips, but what if they weren’t?”

  “Alex hasn’t been doing anything related to Vitaleron for a couple of years, though,” Stone said.

  “That we know of.”

  “What other financial shenanigans could be going on?”

  “No idea. We need those tox screens and the security footage.”

  “Once we have those, we’ll be good.”

  “That’s what she said,” Goode said.

  “Okay, one of us has to hang up now.”

  Chapter 23

  Katrina

  Tuesday

  Katrina woke up, sweating, with a headache and heartburn at 4:30 a.m. Her heart was pounding and her chest was tight. The two cups of wine before bed hadn’t helped, and the weather report predicted that a Santa Ana would blow into town later that day. But she knew that the overall sense of dread she felt stemmed from something more serious—her recurring nightmare, which had started in Northampton, had come back:

  After being chased and almost run over by a black Lincoln Town Car, she was tased, blindfolded, and yanked inside. Taken to a recycling plant, she was thrown onto a conveyor belt and sent down a chute to the cruncher, a giant machine that squished enormous piles of sticky soda bottles. She always jerked awake before being sucked inside, but as soon as she drifted off again, snippets of the dream repeated in an infinite loop.

  “Not this again,” she groaned, digging through her purse for her inhaler. She took a quick puff as the traumatic memories of her mafia series flooded back.

  The day her first story ran about Mattie “the Hatter” Sienkiewicz, police found the body of the school superintendent’s wife in the brush next to the riverbed. Nearly decapitated, she had a deep furrow around her neck from being strangled with a metal wire. Her eyes were also gouged out and left next to her body, apparently as a cautionary message to Katrina that her source had been murdered for what she’d seen—and done.

  What made it even scarier, though, were the calls that came in on Katrina’s unpublished home number in Northampton.

  “We know where you live,” the man whispered with what sounded like a Polish accent. “We follow you to work. We follow you home. You’d better watch your back.”

  After filing her follow-up story on the murder that night, Katrina lay awake, jumping at every creak inside her old house and every sound outside her window, fearing that someone was coming to strangle her with a wire.

  Hearing a car engine, she got out of bed and lifted one of the slats of her blinds. A black Town Car with tinted windows was parked at the curb. As the window rolled partway down, a stream of cigar smoke billowed out and seeped into her room, even with her windows locked. The barrel of a gun slid out of the window, pointed at the house, and stayed there a couple of minutes before the car slowly rolled away.

  She immediately called the Northampton police watch commander to report that someone was trying to kill her, or at least threatening to.

  “You get a license plate or any other identifying information?” he asked.

  “No, it was dark, but I think it was Mattie Sienkiewicz’s crew,” she replied.

  “It could be anybody. Lock your doors and windows.”

  He was still mad at her, apparently, for her coverage of the sergeants’ contract negotiations. Suffice it to say, she got no sleep that night.

  The next morning, her editor wasn’t happy to hear that she’d gone “outside the family” by alerting the police, but he backed off once he realized how ridiculous that was. If the paper didn’t try to protect her, what message would it send to staff if she were disciplined?

  Instead, her editor persuaded the police chief to have an officer patrol her house every couple of hours at night, watching out for the Town Car or any other suspicious activity. That was cheaper than putting her up in a hotel or hiring an armed guard to sit and guard her house overnight. The patrols helped, but even when she was able to drop off, it was a shallow, restless doze, broken up by flashes of the nightmare.

  She insisted on finishing the series through all of this. Once the crooks were arrested and put behind bars to await trial, the nightmare stopped. Until now.

  Katrina knew the situation with Vincent was bad, but she hadn’t realized it was that bad until the nightmare returned. Her subconscious was clearly telling her to free herself of this psychological conflict.

  The question is, how do I stay safe and not lose my mind while balancing all these internal politics? I came back to get my parents’ case reopened. I’m not quitting, and I’m not going to let them fire me either.

  After failing to get back to sleep, Katrina looked online for a Starbucks that was open at 5:30 a.m. She found one in Bankers Hill, an old neighborhood full of cool old buildings with enclosed gardens and newly built condo complexes, adjacent to Balboa Park.

  Katrina was dragging as she climbed the steep set of stairs leading to the carport, looking forward to a double cappuccino to lift the brain fog. Heavy on her feet, she almost twisted her ankle on the last step, where she stumbled and caught herself by grabbing the railing.

  The strap of her purse—heavy with detritus she didn’t really need—slipped off her shoulder and fell with a thump to the inner crease of her elbow. She was righting herself and pulling the strap up to her shoulder when she saw her car.

  Holy shit!

  The entire passenger-side window was cracked like a spiderweb, with a hole in the center where the rock had hit. She knew it was a rock because the perpetrator had left his weapon on her hood like a signature, with a note fastened to it by a thick rubber band. A few glass shards lay in the bed of her windshield wipers, but miraculously, none had landed inside her car.

  As she unfolded the note, she slowly revealed one of those clichéd untraceable messages crafted out of letters cut out of a glossy magazine:

  Hey, Miss Rock Star Reporter, we see you’re back in town, digging where you shouldn’t be. Watch your back or it won’t be your car window that gets whacked next time. Could even look like another suicide.