overlook north of Cayucos.
Jennifer had asked me to call Mark and tell him she was okay, so I tried his office, cellular, and home numbers as soon as I reached the Oaks Lodge. A machine picked up each time. I had a fourth number, for an office in San Francisco where he met with some of his clients and where a majority of his support staff worked, but the receptionist said he had called in this morning to say he was taking a long weekend.
I dialed Julia’s cellular. “Aldin’s on his sailboat at the yacht club,” she told me. “Just sitting on deck, drinking beer.”
“Alone?”
“As far as I can tell.”
“Okay, I’ve found his wife, so I’m pulling you off the surveillance. Will you please go down there and tell him the news, ask him to call me? And then take the rest of the day off.”
“Gladly. Tonio’s coming home from summer camp today, and it’ll be a nice surprise if I’m there to greet him.” Tonio was Julia’s young son. A single mother, she shared an apartment with her older sister, and together they looked after him. Still, an aunt waiting to hear about summer-camp adventures was no substitute for a mother.
“Must be nice,” Julia added, “sitting around on your boat in the sun while everybody else is working.”
“I don’t think Aldin’s enjoying himself. Be careful when you talk with him; turns out he’s got a temper.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“I know you can, but be careful anyway.” I broke the connection, picturing Mark soaking up alcohol while he pondered what could be the first of a series of professional reverses. Word got around around fast in the kind of circles he and Ricky traveled in, and I was certain my former brother-in-law would have no qualms about spreading it.
It was now after three in the afternoon, and I should also let Rae know her friend was okay and on her way to Terry’s. There had been no message from Patrick when I’d returned; I was beginning to worry about him. He was relatively inexperienced and shouldn’t be wandering around God knew where doing God knew what.
And then there was Hy, who was waiting in El Centro to hear from me. This was ridiculous! We’d been married less than two weeks, and had barely spent any time together-
A knock at the door. Who would show up here? Hy? He had friends at virtually every small airport in the state- perhaps in the country-and often caught rides with them. Just like him to get somebody to drop him off at Paso Robles and surprise me. Eagerly I crossed the room.
But it wasn’t Hy standing there. It was Rob Traverso of the PRPD and another heavyset, balding man whom I didn’t know. “Ms. McCone,” Traverso said, “this is Detective Jim Whitmore of the SLO County Sheriff’s Department. We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
“The dead man’s name is Emil Tiegs,” Jim Whitmore said. “He was found under the Cayucos pier by a fisherman at five-thirty this morning. Your business card was in his wallet.”
“How did he die?” I asked.
Whitmore ignored the question. “What kind of dealings did you have with Mr. Tiegs?”
We were seated at the table in my room, Whitmore across from me, Traverso to my right. I glanced at the police detective; his face was impassive, and he didn’t meet my eyes.
I said, “Mr. Tiegs offered to sell me information on the Laurel Greenwood case. When I met with him, I gave him my card.”
“When was that?”
“Yesterday around noon.”
“And what did he tell you?”
I considered. Tiegs’s information had implicated Kev Daniel in a minor crime upon which the statute of limitations had run out. Revealing it and sending the county sheriff after him would destroy any leverage I might have to force him to reveal where Laurel had gone after she received the new identification from him, or her present whereabouts. However, I’d seen Daniel returning to his home late last night, disheveled and terrified-
“Ms. McCone?” Whitmore prompted.
I opted for shading the truth. “As you probably know, Emil Tiegs had a criminal record. He struck me as unreliable. Also, he was asking for a good deal of money. I wanted to ask my client whether she was willing to pay.”
“And was she?”
“I wasn’t able to reach her. May I ask how Tiegs died?”
Whitmore glanced at Traverso, then shrugged. “Autopsy hasn’t been performed yet, but Tiegs’s neck was broken. He could have fallen from the pier, or been pushed.”
“What about his seeing-eye dog?”
“It hasn’t been found.”
I pictured the dog, the way it had protectively moved with Tiegs. An animal like that would fight to the death for the man it guided.
I asked, “Did you talk with Tiegs’s wife?”
Whitmore turned keen eyes on me. “How do you know he had a wife?”
“I had one of my staff background him as soon as he contacted me.”
“Yes, we talked with her. She was evasive. Seemed more frightened for her own sake than concerned that her husband was dead.”
Frightened. Yes, that figured. Emil Tiegs had told me about the day he and his wife went to Daniel’s winery and attempted to extort money from him:
I thought I knew how Tiegs had died-and why.
I just wasn’t sure what to do with the information.
Early evening on Hillside Drive in Cayucos. Number 30 was dark and again looked deserted. I knocked on the front door anyway, and after a moment it was opened by the woman I’d seen through the window on Wednesday evening. Her eyes were puffy and red, her hair dirty and unkempt.
“You’re selling something, I don’t want it,” she said.
“I’m Sharon McCone. Your husband sold me something the other day. Five hundred dollars’ worth. There should be another five hundred in your bank account by now.”
She snorted. “And that’s gonna go a long way to pay for burying him.”
“Maybe I can arrange for more, if you’ll let me in so we can talk.”
She hesitated, then motioned me inside. The room that I’d glimpsed from the street last night was dark, the TV turned off. Nina Tiegs moved to the couch and sat heavily.
“How are you holding up?” I asked as I took a seat in a rocking chair.
“How d’you think?”
“Probably not very well. I know I wouldn’t be.”
“You married?”
“Yes.”
“Long time?”
“Long enough.”
“Then you know.” Nina Tiegs sighed. “My mother used to tell me, ‘Husbands, you sure miss them when they’re dead.’ I thought it was a peculiar thing to say, but now I understand. Of course, my dad died in bed at eighty. Emil was only-” She bent her head, began to cry.
For a few moments, the only sounds in the room were her muffled sobs; then she raised her head, pulled a Kleenex from a box on the table, blew her nose, and wiped her face.
“I keep goin’ off like that,” she said. “Stupid. Emil hated it when I cried.”
“You’ve got good reason.”
