Ali did so, immediately. “What’s up?” she asked when Stu came on the line.
“Have you had a chance to look at the material I dropped off?”
Evidently B. hadn’t mentioned to his second in command that there had been a big blowup between Ali and B. as a result of that so-called material.
“I skimmed through most of it,” Ali said. “Why?”
“I just got off the phone with a retired homicide detective named Jim Laughlin in Jefferson City, Missouri,” Stuart said. “I don’t know if this has anything to do with what your friend was looking for, but I thought it was intriguing. I mentioned in the background check that Ermina’s adopted parents, Sam and Lola Cunningham, died about three years after the adoption was finalized. Lola died of a heart attack. The father’s death is a lot more problematic.”
“What do you mean?” Ali asked.
“His cause of death was officially listed as suicide. Detective Laughlin doesn’t buy that. He thinks Ermina was responsible for the father’s death, but there was never enough evidence to charge her.”
“What else did he say?”
“When he found out I was just looking for background information, he clammed up. I told him you were an independent investigator who was looking into the matter. He said you should give him a call.”
Ali laughed aloud at that. “I’m independent, all right,” she said. “Give me his number.”
A few minutes later, she was talking on the phone with Detective Laughlin.
“Oh,” he said, when she said her name. “You’re the private investigator Mr. Ramey was telling me about.”
“Yes,” she said, letting his misconceptions rule the day. “I’m the one looking into Ermina Cunningham Blaylock’s background.”
“Some teenagers are gawky,” Detective Laughlin said. “Not Ermina. She was a looker and cool as can be-cool and calculating. When people hear about someone’s death, there’s a right way to react and a wrong way. She got it wrong, but I could never prove it.”
“The father’s death was ruled a suicide. Did he leave a note?” Ali asked.
“No note. According to his friends, he was despondent after his wife’s death.”
“How did he die?”
“Got himself good and drunk, then he put a plastic bag over his head. It happened on a Sunday night. Ermina was evidently home at the time. She got up the next morning and went to school. When Sam didn’t show up for work at his office that day and when he didn’t answer the phone, his secretary stopped by to check. She’s the one who found him.
“I personally went to the high school to let Ermina know what had happened. Called her out of her English class and took her to the guidance counselor’s office to give her the bad news. ‘Oh,’ she says just as calm as can be when I told her. ‘If he’s dead, what’s going to happen to me?’ Her reaction was totally out of kilter-as though I’d just given her a weather report for the next week.”
“What did happen to her?” Ali asked.
“Social services put her in a foster home for a while, but she ran away. As far as I know, she was her parents’ only heir. I know she received some money from their estates when she reached her majority, but I don’t know how much it was. Sam Cunningham was a well-respected attorney in town here. I suspect she picked up a fair piece of change.”
“I take it Stuart Ramey had to do some digging to come up with this,” Ali said.
“Ermina was never officially charged in relation to Cunningham’s death,” Laughlin said. “It happened a long time ago, but there are still enough people in town who are upset about what happened to him. One of them called to let me know that High Noon was making inquiries about Ermina Cunningham. I took it upon myself to call him back. Can you tell me what this is all about?”
“On Friday a friend named Brenda Riley sent me an e-mail asking me for help doing a background check on Ermina Cunningham Blaylock. Brenda disappeared shortly after sending that e-mail and she hasn’t been heard from since.”
“If your friend got crosswise with Ermina Cunningham,” Jim Laughlin said, “you have good reason to be worried. And if there’s anything I can do to help, let me know. I still have a score to settle with that girl.”
Ali was still thinking about that disturbing phone call a few minutes later when her phone rang again.
“The dogs and I are downstairs waiting,” Maddy Watkins said. “Care to join us?”
“Yes,” Ali said. “A brisk walk on the beach is just what the doctor ordered.”
32
Sacramento, California
When Gil parked in front of Camilla Gastellum’s house on P Street in the early evening, it looked as though he had made the trip for nothing. The house was dark. There was no flickering glow from a television set. Having come this far, however, he refused to give up without at least ringing the doorbell.
Once on the porch, though, he thought he heard the sound of classical music coming from somewhere inside the house. He found the doorbell and rang it. Moments later he heard a faint shuffle of footsteps approaching the front door. Two lights snapped on-one in the entryway and one on the porch. The door cracked open as far as the end of a brass security chain.
As far as Gil was concerned, those security chains were worse than useless. They gave the homeowner a false sense of security. If a bad guy wanted to get inside, he would.
“Who’s there?” a woman asked.
“My name is Detective Gilbert Morris,” he said, holding his ID wallet up to what he assumed was eye level. “I’m looking for Camilla Gastellum. It’s about her daughter.”
The security chain was disengaged with a snap, the door thrown open. A gray-haired woman, dressed in a robe and nightgown, stood exposed in the doorway. The way Camilla Gastellum squinted as she looked up at him made him think she couldn’t see very well.
“Don’t tell me!” she exclaimed. “Have you found Brenda? Is she all right? Come in. Please.”
She stepped back and motioned Gil into the house. “Are you saying your daughter is missing?”
“Well, of course she’s missing. She left on Friday morning and never came back. I’ve been trying since Friday night to get someone to take a missing persons report. The last person I talked to told me that since Brenda’s an adult, she doesn’t have to tell me where she’s going. I thought that was why you were here-that you had found her. Where did you say you’re from again?”
The fact that Brenda had disappeared the morning of Richard Lowensdale’s murder caused a rush of excitement to course through Gil’s veins, but he didn’t let on.
“Grass Valley,” Gil said noncommittally. “I’m with the Investigations Unit of the Grass Valley Police Department.”
“Oh, no,” Camilla said with a sigh. “Not again.”
Using both hands, she reattached the security chain, then she led the way into the house, turning on lights as she went. In a room that seemed more like a parlor than a real living room, she motioned him onto an old-fashioned and exceedingly uncomfortable horsehair couch while she settled in an wooden-armed easy chair. The source of the music was a CD player, which she muted by clicking a remote.
“When I’m here by myself, I generally sit in the dark and listen to music,” she explained. “I have macular degeneration. Sitting in the dark helps keep me from thinking about how much I can’t see. So tell me,” she added, sounding resigned, “what kind of trouble is Brenda in this time?”
“What can you tell me about Richard Lowensdale, Mrs. Gastellum?” Gil asked.
“Please,” she said, “call me Camilla. Richard and Brenda were supposedly engaged for a time, but he never actually gave her a ring. It turned out that he had other girlfriends-several other girlfriends. She found that out this past October.”
“That would be when she allegedly broke into his house?” Gil asked.
“She didn’t ‘allegedly’ break into his house,” Camilla said. “She really broke into his house. She started
