When I broke the connection, I saw Ziff frowning at me. “Why d’you suppose Kev planted that story?” he asked.
“I’m pretty sure he was the biker Laurel Greenwood was seen with, and I recently found proof that her disappearance was voluntary. One thing that occurs to me is that Kev knows Laurel is alive and was trying to get a message to her.”
“But why would Kev think he could reach her by way of the San Luis paper? If she’s alive, she’s not living around here; someone would’ve spotted her long ago.”
“That’s true. But a lot of people subscribe to a local paper after they leave an area, and Laurel would have a vested interest in knowing if the investigation into her disappearance were still active, or if the police and sheriff’s department had developed any new leads.”
“Why would he want to warn Laurel?”
“For the same reason he wanted to scare me off. Now that he’s in with the winemaking crowd here, he wouldn’t want his involvement in the Greenwood case to come out.”
Ziff closed his eyes, brows knitting. “You know, Kev could’ve been the man with Laurel. Same body type and hair color, anyway. What was his relationship to her, exactly?”
“That’s a little hazy right now, but you’ll find out when you read Mike Rosenfeld’s exclusive.”
When I left Ziff’s house, it was time to meet with Herm Magruder at the self-storage place in Cambria, where his old business files were kept. The facility was on the northern edge of the town, and before I reached it I drove through an area that was lined with upscale shops, restaurants, and motels, and clogged with cars, buses, and RVs. Slow-moving throngs of tourists crowded the sidewalks. The gateway to Hearst Castle was in full moneymaking mode, and the merchants must be enjoying every second of it.
Magruder was waiting for me in front of his self-storage unit, leaning on a red Jeep Cherokee and talking with a slender, sandy-haired man. When I pulled up, the man walked off, raising a hand in farewell.
“That’s the son of a bitch who made a fortune off my land,” Magruder called to me as I got out of the car.
The man gave him the finger over his shoulder and kept going.
“You can’t help but like a guy with his chutzpah,” Magruder added. “And besides, Amy and I made out okay on the deal. Money doesn’t matter all that much to us, so long as we can keep the motor home in good running order and get away to fish and buy Mexican crap a few times a year.”
“Sounds like you’re enjoying your retirement.”
“Yeah, we are.” He picked up a folder that was lying on the Jeep’s hood, handed it to me. “The records you wanted.”
“Thanks.” I opened it, examined the two sheets inside. A photocopy of a canceled check drawn on an account at the Haight-Ashbury branch of Bank of America, dated September 1982, and a rental agreement for a single- vehicle garage at Magruder’s facility, dated the same. The check was for a full year’s rent. The signatures on the document and the check were the same: Josephine Smith.
Josie, who by the time the agreement was signed, had been dead three months.
“I can give you the same room you had last week, Ms. McCone.”
I smiled at the desk clerk and said, “I’m surprised you’re letting me stay here again. That incident on Saturday night was the wrong kind of publicity for the lodge.”
“Not your fault. And I guess you don’t know small towns-any publicity is good. Business in the bar and restaurant is up ten percent; people all want to hear firsthand about what happened.” He reached beneath the desk and pulled out a few message slips. “These came in this afternoon.”
While he ran my credit card, I thumbed through them. Rae, Craig, Patrick, Adah. None of them had called my cell, but that didn’t mean their business wasn’t urgent; my friends and operatives knew the unit would be turned off when I was flying, and I’d often enough warned them against interrupting me when I might be conducting a field interview. Sally Timmerman. How had she known I was here? Someone named Emil Tiegs, with a number with a familiar prefix.
I took the key and my credit card from the clerk, wheeled my travel bag across the courtyard, and went upstairs to the familiar room. The maid had left the air conditioner on preparatory to my arrival, and it was frigid in there, so I turned it off. Immediately I took my.357 from my bag and locked it in the little safe in the closet, then opened the balcony door and went out there to make my calls.
Adah was out on an investigation. Patrick wasn’t in the office, but Craig was there. Rae had left instructions with Ted for me to call her on her cellular. I went over some routine matters with the Grand Poobah, then asked him to put me through to Craig.
“Shar,” Craig said, “my contact at DOC finally got back to me. Kevin Daniel attended Laurel Greenwood’s art class the whole time she taught at the Men’s Colony. He-my contact-provided the name and home number of the retired prison official who oversaw the educational programs, and he’s expecting to hear from you.” He read them to me.
“Contacts-they’re wonderful, aren’t they?” I said.
“This one is gonna cost me; he’ll be down here next week and wants to meet for lunch at the Slanted Door-my treat, of course.”
“Put it on your expense report.”
“Gotcha.”
I ended the conversation and looked at my watch, then dialed the number of the former prison official, Orrin Anderson. No answer there, but Rae picked up her cellular on the first ring.
“Interesting stuff, Shar,” she said.
“I’m listening.”
“I followed up on Josie Smith’s estate. Guess who was her only heir and also executor?”
“Laurel.”
“Right. Laurel inherited a small savings account and Josie’s house on Thirty-third Avenue, which she sold two months after Josie’s death for a profit of a hundred and six thousand dollars.”
“Big profit, considering Josie only bought it the year before.”
“From the figures I saw, I’d say it was undervalued at the time of purchase, and nineteen eighty-two was probably a good year for San Francisco real estate.”
“So Laurel would’ve had plenty of money to disappear on.”
“Close to a hundred and ten thousand.”
“Anything else?”
“Yeah, and it’s not good. I did deep background on Mark Aldin. Thirteen years ago, before he met Jen, he and a partner were managing a hedge fund headquartered in Kansas City.”
“Hedge fund-high-risk investment, big returns?”
“Always high risk, sometimes big returns. I got the skinny on them from Charlotte. Basically, they’re lightly regulated investment pools for wealthy individuals and institutions like pension funds. Anyway, Mark was connected with a large financial planning firm, and he persuaded them to put a lot of their wealthy clients into the fund. Six months later, a routine audit showed that the assets of the fund were nearly depleted; and right after that Mark’s partner disappeared. He’s never been found, and neither has the money. Mark rode out the scandal, cooperated with the SEC, and then went to Los Angeles, where he started his own money-management firm. Six years ago he moved up here, where he met and married Jen.”
“That
“Yeah, like what happened to the partner? And where did Mark get the capital to set himself up in L.A.? And it raises questions of trust for Ricky and me. Mark’s never disclosed any of this to us.”
I considered. My initial impression of Aldin was of a loving, concerned husband, but that’s what I’d been led to believe by Rae. And I’d had no reason to doubt his honesty; after all, he handled millions for Ricky. But these new revelations bore looking into.
I said, “It’s definitely cause for concern. In light of Jennifer’s disappearance, I should confront Mark-”
“Ricky’s doing that as we speak. Both of us feel Mark should have been honest with us from the beginning.”
“God, Rae! If Mark had anything to do with either Jennifer’s or his partner’s disappearance, confronting him
