I pulled up a chair for her, then settled behind my desk. “I don’t guess you know where she is?” I asked, taking a wild-assed shot.
Harold’s eyes met mine, his gaze sad but knowing. I could feel the helplessness roll off him, but he had a sense of hope as well, one that Mimi’s husband, Warren, didn’t. I had a sneaking suspicion he might know more than the average bear. “I’ll pay anything, Ms. Davidson. I’ve heard good things about you.”
That was different. People rarely had good things to say about me, unless “certifiable nutcase” had finally shed its bad rep. “Mr. Marshal—”
“Harold,” he insisted.
“Harold, I read people pretty well — it’s part of what I do — and you seem more than just hopeful that Mimi is all right. You seem almost expectant, as if you know something no one else does.”
The couple glanced at each other. I could see the doubt in their eyes. They were wondering if they could trust me.
“Let me see if I can help,” I offered.
With a hesitant nod, he gave me the go-ahead.
“Okay. Mimi started acting strange a few weeks ago, but she wouldn’t tell you what was bothering her.”
“That’s right,” Wanda said, clutching her handbag in her lap. “I tried to get her to open up when she came for her visit — she brings the kids for an overnight stay on the first of every month — but … she just…” Her voice cracked, and she paused to dab at her eyes with a tissue before looking back at me. Her husband covered her hands with one of his.
“But she told you something. Maybe it seemed strange at the time, but when she disappeared, you put it together.”
Wanda gasped. “Yes, she did, and I didn’t understand…” She’d trailed off again.
“Can you tell me what she said?”
She lowered her lashes, reluctant. I could feel a desire to trust me radiate out of her, but whatever Mimi had said had her doubting everything. Everyone.
“Wanda,” Cookie said, leaning forward, her expression filled with concern, “if there is any one person on this planet I would trust with my life, it is the woman sitting across from you right now. She will do everything humanly possible — and even a little inhumanly — to get your daughter back safely.”
That was about the sweetest thing Cookie had ever said about me. We’d have to talk later about the inhumanly comment, but she meant well. She totally needed a raise.
“Go ahead, sweetheart,” Harold coaxed.
Wanda’s breath hitched and she swallowed hard before speaking. “She told me she’d made an awful mistake a long time ago and that she did something horrible. I argued with her, told her it didn’t matter, but she insisted that all mistakes had to be paid for. An eye for an eye.” She looked up at me, her expression one of such desperation, it broke my heart. “I don’t want her to get into trouble. Whatever she did, or thinks she did, it was a mistake.”
“That’s why we’re hoping she disappeared of her own accord,” Harold added. “That she planned this and that she’s safe.”
“But she would never leave Warren and the kids without an extremely good reason, Ms. Davidson. If she did so, it’s because she felt she had no other choice.”
Harold nodded his head in unison with his wife’s. I was glad they didn’t suspect Warren. They seemed to trust him implicitly. But I felt they should know what was happening. “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Warren is being questioned.”
Wanda pursed her lips sadly as Harold spoke. “We know, but I promise you, he had nothing to do with this. If anything, Mimi was trying to keep him out of it.”
“Cookie and I think this might stem back to something that happened in high school.”
“High school?” Harold asked, surprised.
“Did she have any enemies?”
“Mimi?” Wanda scoffed softly. “Mimi got along with everyone. She was just that kind of girl. Warmhearted and accepting.”
“Too accepting,” Harold said. He glanced at his wife before continuing. “We never really cared for her best friend. What was her name?”
“Janelle,” Wanda said, her expression hardening slightly.
“Janelle York?” I asked. “They were best friends?”
“Yes, for a couple of years. That girl was wild. Too wild.”
After a quick glance to give Cookie a heads-up, I scooted forward and said, “Janelle York died in a car accident last week.”
Their shocked expressions confirmed they’d had no idea. “Oh, my heavens,” Wanda said.
“And did you know Tommy Zapata?” In small towns, everyone seemed to know everyone. Surely they’d known our dead car dealer.
“Of course.” Harold nodded. “His father worked for the city for years. Landscaping and whatnot, mostly at the cemetery.”
This was going to sound bad, but again, I needed them to know. I needed to find out what was going on. “Tommy Zapata was found dead yesterday morning. Murdered.”
Their shock morphed into disbelief. They were genuinely stunned.
“He was a year older than Mimi,” Harold said. “They went to school together.”
“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Wanda said, her voice laced with despair. “Anthony Richardson died last week, too, Tony Richardson’s boy. He committed suicide.”
Cookie scribbled down the name as I asked, “Did he go to school with Mimi as well?”
“He was in her class,” Harold said.
Someone was cleaning house, tying up loose ends, and Mimi was obviously on his radar. Surely the Marshals knew something. Surely something had happened in high school that would pinpoint the root of all of this.
“Mr. and Mrs. Marshal, when Mimi was in high school, she moved from Ruiz to Albuquerque to live with her grandmother. Why?”
Wanda blinked back to me, her brows furrowed in thought. “She’d had a fight with Janelle. We just figured she wanted to get away.”
“Did she tell you they had a fight?”
“No,” she said, thinking back. “Not really. They were best friends one day and enemies the next. They just seemed to drift in different directions.”
“We were not upset by that fact,” Harold added. “We’d never approved of Mimi’s friendship with her.”
“Did anything happen in particular to cause the rift?”
They glanced at each other and shrugged helplessly, trying to think back.
“Whatever happened,” Wanda said, “it caused Mimi to go into a deep depression.”
“We would catch her crying in her room,” Harold said, his voice despondent as old memories, painful memories, resurfaced. “She stopped going out, stopped eating, stopped bathing. It got to the point where she would claim to be sick every morning, beg us not to send her to school. She missed almost three weeks straight at one point.”
Wanda’s face saddened with the memory as well. “We took her to a doctor, who suggested we schedule an appointment with a counselor, but before we could arrange it, she asked to move to Albuquerque with my mother. She wanted to go to Saint Pius.”
“We were thrilled that she was getting interested in her studies again. She was always a straight-A student, and Saint Pius is an excellent school.” Harold seemed to need to justify his letting her move away. I was sure they didn’t take the decision lightly.
Wanda patted his knee reassuringly. “Quite honestly, Ms. Davidson, as bad as this will sound, we breathed a sigh of relief when she left. She completely turned around when she got here. Her grades improved, and she excelled in extracurricular activities. She was her old self again.”
Cookie was scribbling notes as the Marshals talked. Thank goodness. My handwriting sucked.
“From what you’ve told me,” I said, “it sounds like her worries in Ruiz were based on more than a falling-out with her best friend, like Mimi was being bullied, possibly even threatened. Or worse,” I added reluctantly. Rape
