could be dangerous!”
She laughed. “Ricky may present the appearance of a country boy onstage, but you and I know that’s just a facade. He asked Mark to come to the house, where one of the guys from our security firm will be highly visible. And he’ll tape the conversation.”
“If Mark’s involved in either disappearance he’ll just stonewall Ricky.”
“And then we’ll know he is, because Ricky’s going to make it plain up front that if he doesn’t get some damn good answers, Mark is going to be out mega bucks in fees every year. An innocent person doesn’t throw away that kind of loose change.”
In spite of the seriousness of the situation, I couldn’t help but smile. Ricky had come a long way from the scruffy dreamer and scribbler of unsold songs who had married my sister. And Rae had come a long way from the insecure young woman with chronic credit card debt and-as I had found out much later-a history of shoplifting whom I had hired years ago to be my assistant at All Souls Legal Cooperative.
But then, I’d come a long way, too: wine bottles with corks in them; haircuts by an in-demand stylist; my own agency; three houses; an airplane; a terrific husband-
Good God, what other wonderful surprises would life shower upon us?
It was a good thought to hold on to every morning when I had to clean out the cats’ litter box.
Adah didn’t pick up at any of her numbers. Patrick still hadn’t returned to the office and wasn’t at home. He’d yet to join the legions of us who were tethered to cell phones-even though I’d told him he could buy one at the agency’s expense-so I had no way to reach him till he arrived at one place or the other. Again I tried the retired prison official, and got no answer. No one was home at the Timmerman residence, so I left a message.
Now what? Oh, yes, the remaining message-Emil Tiegs. The phone book showed his was a Cayucos prefix. I dialed, and after six rings a man picked up. He sounded as if he had respiratory problems.
“This is Sharon McCone. You left a message for me at the Oaks Lodge.”
“Right. I heard about the story in the
From the sly way he spoke, I knew what was coming. “Would you like to set up a meeting, Mr. Tiegs?”
“Not yet. First there’s money matters to settle.” He coughed, then went on, “This information is valuable-”
“How valuable?”
“Five thousand dollars, in advance.”
“Five thousand-! And
“Half up front, half when I tell my story.”
“My client won’t front that kind of money for information that may not be useful to us. Why don’t you describe it-in a general way.”
“I’m not givin’ away no freebies here.”
“I said, in a general way.”
“… Okay. Laurel Greenwood. How she disappeared. And who helped her.”
“Sounds promising. But my client and I have no assurances that your information is accurate.”
“It’s accurate.”
“I have only your word on that. Let’s meet, at least, so I’ll know who I’m dealing with.”
“I’ll agree to a meeting for fifteen hundred up front, the rest afterwards.”
I considered Mark Aldin’s net worth. “Five hundred up front, another five hundred if the information is useful.”
Silence.
“The ball’s in your court, Mr. Tiegs.”
A frustrated, rasping noise. “Okay, we’ll meet. You know the pier in Cayucos?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll see you there. Ten o’clock tonight.”
Wait a minute! Was this a setup engineered, perhaps, by Kev Daniel?
“Mr. Tiegs, as I said before, I need to know who I’m dealing with. And since I don’t, I’m not about to meet you at night in a deserted place.”
“Christ! Okay, tomorrow. But you make sure you got the five hundred on you. I need my earnest money.”
I had only about a hundred dollars with me, and I doubted that the lodge would cash that large a personal check, but I’d spotted a branch of my bank a couple of blocks away. In case this guy was offering a legitimate lead, I could withdraw the maximum daily amount from the ATM tonight and the same again in the morning.
I said, “I’ll have it. How about nine o’clock tomorrow?”
“No, I got another appointment. Can’t make it till noon. I’ll be down near the end of the pier. A real tall, skinny guy in a black windbreaker and a Giants cap and a big Labrador retriever on a halter. Have the money, and you won’t be sorry.” Emil Tiegs hung up.
Quickly I dialed the office and got Derek started on a background check on Tiegs. Then I consulted the phone directory; Tiegs was listed: 30 Hillside Drive in Cayucos. I was starving, so I decided to grab a burger and then stop by the ATM before I drove over there to scope out who I’d be dealing with.
Hillside Drive was in the older part of the beach community, a narrow two-block-long strip of pavement lined with small clapboard houses that rose above the commercial district. I spotted number 30 as I drove past, continued to where the street dead-ended at a high retaining wall supporting the larger residences above, and parked. From that vantage point I could easily study Tiegs’s house. It was one of the smallest-boxlike, with a flat roof and two windows overlooking the street, beige in color, except where the paint had been scoured gray by the elements or stained dark by mildew. An old-fashioned TV antenna leaned drunkenly above it, and a rusted white Toyota Tercel was parked in the driveway.
Having nothing better to do this evening, I waited for signs of activity. There were none. People walked their dogs, came and went at the other houses, but Tiegs’s looked deserted. In the distance the sun sank closer to the horizon, infusing the sky with pink and gold and orange; when the purple hues of the late sunset appeared, I decided to stay till dusk, then check out the house on foot.
My cellular rang. Derek.
“Got the preliminary on Tiegs,” he said. “Born San Luis, nineteen fifty-six. Parents- D’you want the boring stuff, or should I just e-mail it to you and cut to what’s important?”
“Cut, please.”
“Okay, Tiegs was at the Men’s Colony down there at the same time Kevin Daniel was. Doing a term for forgery. Was paroled the year before Daniel got out and went to live with a sister in Cayucos. The sister died of a drug overdose five years later, and Tiegs took over the lease on her house.”
“Thirty Hillside Drive.”
“Yeah. And that’s what I’ve got so far.”
A forger. Maybe he’d turned his talent to art while incarcerated, taken classes from Laurel. If only I could get hold of Orrin Anderson, the former prison official who had overseen the educational programs-
“Shar?” Derek said. “You want me to continue digging on Tiegs?”
“Please. I’m supposed to give him five hundred of the client’s dollars tomorrow, and I want to make sure it’s a worthwhile investment. Try to find out what the specific charges against Tiegs were.”
After Derek and I ended our call, I sat in the gathering darkness, thinking. Emil Tiegs, a forger who might have known Kev Daniel in prison. Who had been released a year earlier than him. Who lived in Cayucos, where Daniel had lived after his parole and where Laurel had been sighted with a biker whom I presumed was Kev. Before I went up against Daniel I needed to hear what Tiegs had to tell me. Five hundred dollars of Mark Aldin’s money was a small amount to risk-especially when the risk posed to me by Daniel was so much greater.
As darkness fell, I watched one window of Emil Tiegs’s house glow into a rectangle of light. Someone there, after all. I slipped from the car, pulling the black sweater I’d brought with me over my head, and walked slowly along the opposite side of the street. Through the window I could see a woman-heavyset, dark-haired-sitting on a green sofa, knitting and occasionally looking up at a TV.
Tiegs’s wife? Girlfriend?
After a while a man came into the room-thin and tall, carrying a can of beer. He moved haltingly toward the
