Kevin Daniel was excited about the sales, and told the board at the time of his parole hearing that he was grateful to Mrs. Greenwood and hoped to continue his artistic pursuits while finishing his education.”
“I see. Let me ask you this, Mr. Anderson: did an inmate named Emil Tiegs ever take one of Mrs. Greenwood’s courses?”
“Emil Tiegs? No, I’d remember that name. What was he in for?”
“Forgery.”
Anderson laughed. “Well, I’m surprised he didn’t take Mrs. Greenwood’s class. What better way to maintain his skills than by studying art?”
I thanked Anderson for his information and ended the call. Time to head for the ATM, and then the Cayucos Pier for my meeting with Emil Tiegs.
At close to noon a chill fog enveloped the pier; it was deserted except for a couple of fishermen and a tall, lone figure and a dog at its end. I walked along, my purse heavily weighted with my.357 Magnum, my footfalls echoing on the planks. A seagull wheeled overhead, then dove toward the water.
As I neared the tall man he turned. His unseeing gaze and the halter on the big blond Lab confirmed the latest on Emil Tiegs, which Derek had relayed to me by cell phone half an hour earlier: Tiegs had been blinded nine years ago in an explosion at a meth lab he and two friends were operating, and his lungs had been damaged as well. He’d plea-bargained, testifying against the friends in exchange for immunity from prosecution, and now he was living on state disability. His wife, Nina, worked as a clerk in a convenience store. No wonder Tiegs had tried to hold me up for five thousand dollars. And why he was willing to take a lot less.
“Mr. Tiegs,” I said, turning on my voice-activated recorder.
“Ms. McCone. Did you bring the five hundred?”
I removed the envelope containing the cash from my bag and put it into his hand. He felt its thickness, ran his fingers over the bills, and shoved it in his pocket. “When can I have the rest?”
“If your information is useful to us, I’ll have it wired to your bank account within twenty-four hours.”
“It’ll be useful.” He stepped back, breathing raspily and leaning against the rail; the dog moved with him, sitting down protectively at his feet.
“So tell me what you know.”
“In nineteen eighty-three I was living here in town with my sister. I’d gotten out of the Men’s Colony at San Luis a year before after doing a stretch for forgery. Not checks, no penny-ante stuff like that. Identification, everything from driver’s licenses to passports. Man, I was good, a real artist. Nobody ever questioned my work.”
“Except when you got caught and sent to prison.”
Tiegs shivered, pulling his thin windbreaker closer. “That was a setup. Guy I owed money to turned me in to the cops. Anyways, in eighty-three I wasn’t back in business yet. You gotta be careful after you get out, move slow, you know? But then this guy I knew from down there comes to me, says he needs some ID fixed for a friend.”
“The guy have a name?”
“Kev Daniel. He was just a kid at the time, in the Colony for manslaughter-ran some old lady over with his motorcycle while he was drunk. Rich kid from Marin County, but okay. Not snotty or anything like that. Not then, anyways.”
“You fix the ID?”
“Yeah. It was for a woman. She had the social security and credit cards, but the problem was with the driver’s license. The name and everything else was right, but she needed her own picture on it. A snap, for me. I worked my magic, Kev paid, and there I was, back in business.”
“The woman’s name?”
“You must’ve guessed by now-Laurel Greenwood.”
“And the name on the identification?”
“Josephine Smith. I remember, because it was a combination of fancy and plain.”
Laurel had been executor of Josie Smith’s estate. Easy enough for her to retain the credit and social security cards, as well as any other useful documentation, but picture ID would have posed a problem. So she asked her old student, Kev Daniel, to use his prison connections. Kev owed her, because of her introduction to the gallery owner who had sold his watercolors, probably was fond of her and willing to help out.
Well, now I knew the
What had Laurel been thinking?
No, not just her husband and her crime. In her postcard to Roy, Laurel had said that she was a dreadful person and her family would be better off without her. She’d been trying to escape from herself, and Josie naming her heir and executor had given her the out she needed.
Tiegs was uncomfortable with my silence. He shifted from foot to foot, stooped to pat the dog. “It’s the truth, Ms. McCone, I swear it.”
“I believe you. But how come you want to sell the information to me, rather than Kev Daniel? You must know he’s a big man in the area now, partner in a successful winery. He wouldn’t want his past or his connection to Laurel Greenwood’s disappearance made public knowledge.”
His mouth twisted bitterly. “Oh, yeah, I know about him. Nina-my wife-read me the article from the paper when he first bought into that winery, and we’ve kept tabs on him ever since. At first I thought he had some balls coming back here, but then I realized that when you’ve got money, who cares if you’re an ex-con? The only time they care is when you’re hungry and need a job.”
“So you haven’t approached Daniel?”
“Yeah, I have. Six months ago, when Nina was out of work and things were really rough for us. The way I figured it, even if he didn’t care about people finding out that he did time at the Colony, he sure wouldn’t want me talking to the cops about him getting that ID for the Greenwood woman. I wasn’t being greedy, just asked for a loan. He told me to get lost, said who was anybody going to believe about Greenwood-him or me? And then he said if I told anybody, he’d have me taken out of the gene pool. He meant it, too-I heard it in his voice. And Nina-she was with me, drove me over to that winery of his-she saw it in his eyes. So when Nina read me the article about you reopening the case, I thought I’d give you a try. The information’s worth another five hundred, ain’t it?”
I didn’t like Emil Tiegs, in spite of his unfortunate circumstances. They were, after all, of his own creation. But fair market value was fair market value.
I said, “It’s worth it. Give me your bank account number, and I’ll have the rest wired to you.”
He nodded, relieved, and took out a checkbook. Tore off a blank check and handed it to me. In return, I gave him one of my cards, telling him to call if the money didn’t arrive by close of business tomorrow.
As I left the pier, I reflected that a thousand dollars was probably more than he’d expected or would have settled for. The Emil Tiegses of the world make a lot of demands, but they never expect them to be met.
After I left Cayucos a number of things came together in quick succession.
I was driving east on Highway 46, plotting my strategy for confronting Kev Daniel, when my cellular rang. Rae.
“Sorry to take so long in getting back to you,” she said. “Ricky was with Mark a long time yesterday, and then we had some decisions to make. He couldn’t get a handle on whether Mark had anything to do with either Jennifer’s or his partner’s disappearances. He did say that Mark seemed very disturbed and angry when he spoke of Jen, but I suppose that’s normal under the circumstances. And he did admit to having an affair, although he wouldn’t say with whom. But here’s the thing: Mark was very evasive about the money that vanished from the hedge fund, said the case was still under investigation and he couldn’t talk about it, even to his current clients-which is a load of bull. Ricky didn’t react at all well to that. You know him: he doesn’t let a lot of people get close to him, but when he does he trusts them completely.”
And when one of them broke that trust, he acted swiftly and forcefully. I’d seen him in that mode more than
