“That shouldn’t be any problem. You want to messenger them to me?”
He thought about the call he’d received earlier from Hy. He wouldn’t be doing McCone any good sitting around a hospital waiting room.
“Just a second.”
His fingers skipped over the keyboard. Southwest Airlines had a seven a.m. flight that got into Phoenix’s Sky Harbor at nine-fifteen. Seats were available.
“I’ll see you around ten-thirty tomorrow,” he said.
JULIA RAFAEL
Now she was digging deep on the embezzlement at Haven Dietz’s former financial management firm. Reviewing the reports Thelia had delivered to her, plus information on the woman, Delia Piper, who had been accused of the crime and then exonerated. Piper now lived in Hawaii, on Oahu: four hours earlier there. Julia got her number from information and called.
“Of course it was Haven,” the woman said when Julia had explained about her investigation. “I never doubted it, and neither did a number of my colleagues. The audit couldn’t pinpoint the time of the embezzlement, but she was still with the firm the first two months of its fiscal year.”
“Why did they suspect you?”
“I had more responsibility than Haven, and access to cash. Also-I admit it-I was the company bitch. A lot of people didn’t like my style. Still don’t. And I’d been very outspoken about the conduct of our married branch manager, with whom Haven was having an affair.”
“Oh? And he is…?”
“Was. Todd Daley. He committed suicide a week after Haven was attacked. Shot himself. I guess he was afraid she would talk.”
“I understand Ms. Dietz didn’t have access to cash.”
“No, but Todd Daley did.”
“So you think they were in on the embezzlement together?”
“Well, sure. Todd had a shrewish wife and three snot-nosed kids in a tract house in Pacifica. Haven was pretty and smart. A hundred thousand dollars doesn’t sound like much to start a new life on, but Todd knew how to make money work for the clients. Haven must’ve persuaded him to let the clients’ money work for them.”
The venom in Delia Piper’s voice annoyed Julia. “Ms. Piper, are you aware that Haven Dietz is dead?”
“No. Really?”
“She was killed by an intruder in her apartment Sunday night.”
“Well, that’s too bad, but I don’t feel sorry for her. The woman was one of the most unpleasant people I ever worked with.”
That, coming from the self-described office bitch.
Haven Dietz, her boss Todd Daley, a hundred thousand dollars missing from the management firm but not discovered till the annual audit.
Haven walking through the park on her way home, a small fortune in cash in her briefcase.
Haven brutally attacked, the briefcase gone.
A hundred thousand dollars in the tack room at the Peepleses’ vineyard.
Was Larry Peeples Haven’s attacker? Had she perhaps confided her plans to him?
But then why had he nursed Dietz back to health?
And why had he abandoned the cash?
And where was he now?
RAE KELLEHER
She’d meant to get to the Hope House an hour after Callie O’Leary’s call, but everything had conspired against her. Ticket for making an illegal U turn on the Embarcadero; accident blocking an intersection on Franklin Street; heavy traffic on Geary; and no parking spaces within six blocks of her destination.
Now it was after eleven. Would they even let her in to talk with O’Leary?
The safe house was brick, three stories. Edwardian style. A porch light shone brightly and there was muted light in some of the windows. Rae went up the front steps, noticed the eye of a surveillance camera trained on her as she rang the bell. A female voice came through a speaker above the bell, asking her to identify herself.
She did, holding up her credentials to the camera.
“I’ll be right there,” the voice said.
A woman dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt opened the door. “Callie’s been waiting a long time for you, Ms. Kelleher.”
“I realize that. I’m sorry.”
“Not my problem. I’d’ve been up anyway; it’s my night on the door. Callie’s in the coming-together room.” She gestured toward an archway to her right.
Interesting name for living room. Rae liked it.
She went over there and looked in. A dark-haired woman was curled in an oversize armchair, an afghan pulled up to her shoulders. The room was filled with similar comfortable furnishings, and a gas log flickered on the small tiled hearth-a fireplace that had once burned coal, but was later converted.
When Rae cleared her throat, the woman started and looked up. Rae saw that she was a beauty. Big, heavily lashed gray eyes, sculpted chin and cheekbones. But the bleakness in those eyes and the tight lines around her mouth told of a hard life. As did the yellowing bruise on her chin. She couldn’t’ve been much over twenty.
“Ms. O’Leary, I’m Rae Kelleher. Sorry to be so late.”
“No worries. I don’t sleep much anyway. This story about an inheritance-it’s not true, is it?”
“No, it’s not. How did you know?”
“I don’t have any relatives, at least not any that would leave me money.”
“Then why did you call me, agree to meet with me?”
Callie O’Leary motioned for Rae to be seated across from her. “Because this has got to be about Angie. I saw on the news that they identified her body. I know… quite a few things about Angie, and it’s time I told somebody.”
Rae’s phone buzzed. She looked at the number, saw it was Hy and said, “I need to take this.”
After she’d ended the call, she sat silently for a moment, fingers pressed to her lips, feeling sick inside.
“Bad news?” Callie O’Leary asked.
“… Yes.”
“You need to leave? We can talk another time. I’ll be here until it’s safe for me to get out of town.”
Rae forced her mind away from what Hy had told her about Shar and back to the situation at hand. “No,” she said. “It’s bad news, but there’s nothing I can do to help.”
Besides, she was doing what Shar would want her to.
“So how come you’re here?” she asked Callie.
“Guy threatened me.”
“Don’t you get a lot of threats in your line of work?”
“Not like this. Not from somebody so powerful.”
“Somebody connected with Angie?”
She nodded.
“Tell me about it.”
O’Leary’s earlier resolve had faded. “This guy, he’ll kill me if I do.”
“Not if he can’t find you.”
“He can find me, a guy like that. And the security isn’t all that good here.”
