Patrick nodded. “Now we come to the subject of the husband. The theory that he may have made Jennifer disappear because she’d become a liability.”
“That we have to pursue very carefully. Ricky’s flying back from L.A. this afternoon and plans to visit with Mark. He may pick up on something. Frankly, I’m hoping he doesn’t.”
“But you’re the one who came up with that angle.”
“I’ve got a naturally suspicious mind. That doesn’t mean I have to like my theories.”
“My mind works that way, too.” Patrick smiled wryly. “Of course, given my relationship with the Ex from Hell, that’s to be expected.” He consulted the chart. “I see only one question left: motive for Jennifer’s disappearance?”
I thought, shook my head. “She was impatient for results from us, but that’s not enough.”
“The thing about the cousin’s death being responsible for her mother’s disappearance? The first time that came up was the day she took off.”
“It sounds like a mental tic on the part of a stressed-out person. And it’s not enough either.”
He pushed the chart aside. “Then we’re done with this. But I misspoke before-there is another question left, the biggest of all: where the hell
I spent the next two hours closeted in my office with Ted, going over agency business. Kendra Williams, he told me, was working out splendidly, in spite of her neglecting to tell him about the San Luis newspaperman’s inquiry about the case.
“She apologized, and I didn’t make a big deal out of it,” he said. “Don’t you either. I can’t lose her. She is indeed a paragon of the paper clips.”
“What kind of an ogre do you think I am?”
“I know exactly what kind of an ogre you can be. Make nice, please.”
A while back, when I’d given Ted a raise and authorized him to hire an assistant, we’d jokingly discussed his new job title, and he’d opted to be called Grand Poobah. Now I sensed he was rapidly growing into the exalted position.
Just as Ted and I were wrapping up our session, Derek appeared in the doorway. “Got a minute, Shar?”
“I’m outta here,” Ted said, gathering up his files.
I motioned for Derek to take one of the clients’ chairs. “You have something for me?” Unnecessary to ask; his dark eyes shone with excitement.
“Well, nothing on Smith, and nothing more on Ziff. But Daniel’s another story.”
“Tell me.”
“Kevin James Daniel. Born Marin County, June ten, nineteen fifty-nine. Parents James William and Janet West Daniel. Father owned a wholesale foods company which was later acquired by a conglomerate, making him a very wealthy man. Plus there was inherited money on both sides. Mother died when Kevin was only eight. He grew up in Ross, attended Catholic schools. Was expelled from high school several times for various offenses, including drug use; then the father sent him to a school for incorrigible teens in Colorado. He seemed to straighten up, so after he graduated his father rented him an apartment here in the city and he began studying business at Golden Gate University. Daniel spent more time in the bars than on the books, however, and in nineteen seventy-nine he was convicted of DUI manslaughter-motorcycle hit-and-run accident-and sentenced to prison at the California Men’s Colony, San Luis Obispo. Served four years of a twelve-year sentence, with time off for good behavior. Was released on probation, and has been clean ever since.”
Which put him in CMC when Laurel had been teaching her art classes there.
“What was his release date?”
“May twenty-third, nineteen eighty-three.”
In time to encounter Laurel Greenwood in Cayucos.
“And where was he paroled to?”
Derek smiled triumphantly. “SLO County. The records show a Cayucos address for him.”
I said, “I think we have our biker.”
It all fit: Kev Daniel had been sentenced to the Men’s Colony for a DUI manslaughter-involving a motorcycle. He was there at the time Laurel taught her art classes. He was released on parole the month before she disappeared. For some reason they met in Cayucos. And then…?
If Daniel was responsible for Laurel’s disappearance, I would need to proceed very cautiously. I already had good reason to be wary of him: he had lied about his whereabouts when the shot was fired at me in the courtyard of the Oaks Lodge.
I sat in the armchair by my office window, putting together a theory while staring at a wall of fog.
Even if he was innocent of any wrongdoing in connection with Laurel’s disappearance, a recent parolee wouldn’t have wanted to come under the law’s close scrutiny, so when the call went out for information about her, he didn’t volunteer. Or if he wasn’t innocent, he had even better reason to remain silent.
Jacob Ziff had indicated to me that Daniel came down from San Francisco four years ago, so he’d probably left SLO County at his first opportunity. But now, because he’d returned and bought into a winery there, he found himself in a position of some importance in a community that would not be forgiving were his incarceration and later involvement in the Greenwood case-however innocent-to come out.
Okay, then I showed up. Daniel found out about me from Jacob Ziff, who thought it interesting to have met with a private investigator, and talked casually about our interview with his client. Daniel was afraid that I would find out about him if I went on probing, so first he tipped the reporter from the San Luis newspaper in the hope that publicity would hamper my investigation-
Wait, when had Ziff told him about me? Before or after the article came out? I’d have to ask him.
The newspaper article aside, Daniel wanted to discourage me. Ziff had referred to him as something of a loose cannon-the kind of man who might discharge a weapon in a public place if the stakes were high enough. From our brief conversation over wine on the patio, I could tell that Daniel thought being shot at would scare a woman off.
What to do now? I couldn’t take my theory to Rob Traverso at the Paso Robles PD. He struck me as a man who acted strictly upon facts, and I really didn’t possess anything concrete. I’d first have to ask Ziff to explain his lie about being at the lodge’s bar when the shot was fired, as well as about when he discussed me with his client. Perhaps talk with Mike Rosenfeld, the reporter, too. Only then would I go up against Daniel.
After a moment’s thought I got up and went along the catwalk to Ted’s office, where the agency’s safe is located. He and Kendra were in the supply and copy-machine area in back, so I hurriedly worked the safe’s combination and took out my.357 Magnum. Ted worried about me every time I flew and every time I removed the gun from the safe. That meant he worried often about the former, infrequently about the latter. In this busy time, it was best I kept his unease to a minimum.
When I returned to my office, the fog outside the window looked thicker. I put the gun in my bag, then called aviation weather. Socked in at Oakland; I wouldn’t get off the ground in the Cessna tonight. Clear skies all the way down the Salinas Valley. Naturally.
Commercial flights from both Oakland and SFO would be delayed under these conditions, and no carriers went to Paso Robles anyway. Even if I could get a flight to Monterey or San Luis, I’d have to rent a car and drive some distance and, under the current tight security regulations, I might have difficulty taking the gun aboard, even disassembled and in a checked bag. Better to drive down in the MG-
“Shar?” Derek.
“Yes, what have you got?”
“The additional information on Kevin Daniel. He was paroled to the San Luis area, but in July of the year of his release asked for permission to serve out the rest of his probation in the San Francisco area. The request was granted, he returned to his father’s home, finished his undergrad and graduate degrees-in marketing-and became a
