the same morning to report two missing fiances both of whom were named Richard and who evidently shared a residence with yet a third person, also named Richard. Once you added a psychotic ex-girlfriend into the mix, Phyllis’s Sunday morning shift at the com center was suddenly a whole lot more interesting than it had been earlier.
Dutifully she took down all of Dawn Carras’s information, but the moment Phyllis was off the phone, she called Grass Valley PD and spoke to Sandy in Dispatch.
“About that welfare check I called in earlier-”
“I forgot to get back to you,” Sandy said. “It’s turned out to be a whole lot more serious than a welfare check. Responding officers found a body. If this is Mr. Lydecker, the guy’s dead and has been for some time-a couple of days at least. The ME is on his way there right now. The cops on the scene said someone trussed him up with packing tape, put a plastic bag over his head, and taped that shut as well. Can you give me any additional details?”
“No,” Phyllis said. “I already gave you everything I had on that one, but it turns out I do have one more piece of the puzzle. I just had some other woman, one from Oregon this time, who called in a missing person report on her fiance. This guy is named Richard Loomis. He happens to live at the same address on Jan Road that Janet Silvie gave me for Richard Lydecker.
“The second caller is a woman named Dawn Carras who lives in Eugene, Oregon. According to her, she and Richard Loomis had a lover’s spat the other night because she wasn’t wild about the engagement ring he had chosen for her. They had words over it on Thursday evening. He was still upset when she spoke to him on Friday morning, but she expected that all would have blown over in time for their regular Saturday date-night phone call, but he never called.”
“So we’ve got three guys named Richard, one dead guy, and two missing fiances,” Sandy said. “What does it sound like to you?”
“Sounds like our little Richard was playing with fire and got burned. He must be one good-looking dude. Or else he’s loaded. Think about how ugly Aristotle Onassis was.”
“Who?” Sandy asked.
Phyllis Williams, Phyllis James back then, had been a freshman in high school on that day in November when President Kennedy was gunned down by Lee Harvey Oswald. Years later, she had been appalled when his widow and Phyllis’s own personal idol, Jackie Kennedy, had taken up with billionaire Aristotle Onassis. It seemed impossible to Phyllis that Sandy had no idea who Aristotle Onassis was, but then again, Sandy might be so young that she didn’t know who Jackie Kennedy was either.
This wasn’t the first time in Phyllis’s many years at the Nevada County Com Center that she had run headlong into a generation gap with her younger counterparts, and it wouldn’t be the last.
“Never mind,” she said. “It doesn’t matter.”
But if Richard Lowensdale, Richard Lydecker, and Richard Loomis were all one and the same, Phyllis wondered what exactly the guy had going for him. Whatever it was, it had obviously been good enough to attract women like flies to honey.
Too bad it wasn’t enough to save his life.
22
Los Angeles, California
Ali Reynolds didn’t awaken in her Los Angeles hotel room until after ten the next morning. As soon as she heard the rumble of planes overhead, she was surprised that she had been able to sleep through the racket. She ordered coffee and breakfast from room service. Knowing she needed to check on Velma before showing up at her home, Ali dialed Velma’s phone number in Laguna Beach and then waited for someone-a hospice worker, most likely-to answer.
“Velma Trimble’s residence.”
The voice on the other end of the line was brisk and businesslike.
“My name is Ali Reynolds,” she began. “I was told Velma wanted to see me-”
“Ali? It’s Maddy-Velma’s friend, Maddy Watkins. I’m so glad you called.”
When Velma had defied her cancer diagnosis by signing up for that round-the-world private jet cruise, she had been assigned a stranger, Maddy Watkins, as roommate by the travel agency. By the end of the trip, Maddy and Velma had become fast friends. Maddy, a wealthy widow from Washington State, was an aging dynamo who traveled everywhere by car in the company of her two golden retrievers, Aggie and Daphne. When she and Velma had been invited to attend Chris and Athena’s wedding, the two dogs had come along to Sedona.
“How are your kids?” Maddy asked. “Aren’t those twins due most any day now?”
“Soon,” Ali said. “But how’s Velma?”
“The dogs and I drove down and have been here for the past three days. Aggie and Daphne weren’t trained to be service dogs, but try to tell them that. Aggie has barely left Velma’s bedside. By rights her son should be the one who’s here supervising the hospice workers, but he’s not. If you don’t mind my saying so, Carson is a real piece of work. If I didn’t know better, I’d think he and my own son were twins. Anyway, I believe Carson is a little afraid of me, and rightly so. He was ready to pull the plug on his mother four years ago when she first got her cancer diagnosis. And I don’t blame her at all for wanting people with her right now who don’t have a big vested interest in what’s going on.”
“What is going on?” Ali asked.
“She’s dying, of course,” Maddy said brusquely. “But she’s interested in tying up a few loose ends before that happens, you being a case in point.”
“I flew into L.A. last night,” Ali said. “If it’s convenient, I could come by later this morning. It’ll take an hour or so for me to drive there, depending on traffic.”
“Midafternoon is a good time,” Maddy said. “She takes a nap after lunch. If you could be here about three, it would be great.”
“Three it is,” Ali said. There was a knock on the door.
“Room service.”
“My breakfast is here, Maddy. See you in a few hours.”
Ali let the server into the room. Over coffee, orange juice, and a basket of breakfast breads, Ali opened the High Noon envelope, pulled out a wad of papers, and began to read.
23
Grass Valley, California
Detective Gilbert Morris of the Grass Valley Police Department wasn’t having an especially good weekend. Once upon a time, when Gil first hired on with the department, being promoted to the Investigations Unit was more of an honor than anything else. Sure you had a few car thefts and break-ins to investigate from time to time, but not many murders. Maybe one every two to three years. At that point, the Investigations Unit would get called out to do their homicide investigation dance. That, of course, was back before the meth industry came to town and set up shop.
People had started killing one another with wild abandon about the time Gil got promoted to the I.U., and there didn’t seem to be any sign of the homicide count letting up. That didn’t mean, however, that the city fathers had seen fit to adjust the budget enough to allow for any more than four detectives. In the short term that had been good for Gil’s overtime pay, but long-term it had been bad for his marriage. This week had been especially tough. Dan Cassidy, the lieutenant in charge, was out for knee surgery, Joe Moreno was off on his honeymoon, and Kenny Mosier’s father was taking his own sweet time dying in a hospital somewhere in Ohio. That meant Gil was the only Investigations guy in town, and this was fast turning into a very crowded week.
