of his funeral—the watcher conducted his surveillance from a knoll above Wolfe Manor Performance Horses. His Bushnell 10X42 Fusion 1600 ARC laser rangefinder binoculars were as good as they come.
It was still early in the day—not six a.m. yet. But horse people got up early.
His binocs followed Jaimie Wolfe as she fed the horses. Her movements were agitated and disjointed. She was shaken. She was worried and harried and scared and angry. He could hear it in the banging buckets and the yelled “Quit!” and the way she dumped flakes of hay so that some of it got tangled in her hair and in her face and she had to sneeze.
He thought she was crying. It was hard to tell from here. She sped through the feeding and went to the house and came out a few minutes later with a stack of papers, probably from her printer. She pulled the truck door open with force and hopped in and whammed the door shut. There was a moment where the truck didn’t move. He could see her, bent over the steering wheel, bent forward over the dash, her loose hair falling forward. He didn’t see her shoulders shaking, but he thought she might be crying.
Right now, she was thinking her dog was lost. And she wanted it back. She was desperate to get it back, and at this point, as much as she was in despair, she still had hope.
Hope could be dashed. But first things first. Let her experience hope and then get let down by it. It would be the first in a series of disappointments for her.
This was only Round One.
CHAPTER 35
The next morning, Tess tracked down the detective working the Chad DeKoven case in Laguna Beach. It was a short phone conversation, mainly because Detective Pete Morales had so little to go by.
“I didn’t tell the family, but it looked like a professional killing.” He described the chokehold that had been used. “Quick and efficient. Nothing was stolen. The kid had an expensive board—a limited edition called a ‘Sacrilege,’ It wasn’t taken. I find that significant.”
“Any thoughts on a possible motive?”
“It’s a puzzle. Offhand, it seems there was no reason. He didn’t have any enemies, was an easygoing kid, kind of did his own thing. More than one friend used the term “harmless.” My thinking is that whoever killed him was either in law enforcement, maybe military or former military, or someone who studied martial arts. They knew what they were doing.”
“Male?”
“Probably.”
“Nothing stolen from his house?”
“His place is a mess. I don’t know where they’d begin. The cottage was unlocked and undisturbed, as far as we could tell. We had a crime scene tech go through it—nothing remarkable except for his quiver.”
“Quiver?”
“His collection of boards. Massive—and all of them expensive, some of them one of a kind.”
“None missing?”
“Can’t be sure of that, but it doesn’t appear to be.
“How did the family react?” Thinking of Brayden last night.
A pause. “They were an oddball lot. Prickly with each other over little things. The youngest, Brayden uh…” He checked his notes. “McConnell, cried nonstop. People get strange, as you know, when they are grieving, or shocked by something like this. So it’s hard to judge.”
Tess asked him to keep her updated, and he agreed to send her a copy of the report.
Her phone rang again almost immediately. It was Detective Cheryl Tedesco.
Another drive to Tucson. This time to meet an assistant prosecutor who had called Tedesco about her meeting with Steve Barkman.
Tess met Cheryl at Barista, a coffee place downtown that catered to the people going in and out of the courthouse.
Cheryl ran it down for her, that an assistant prosecutor named Melinda Bayless had witnessed an altercation between her friend Brayden McConnell and Steve Barkman.
Melinda Bayless looked like a young lawyer on her way up. She wore a black pantsuit and black shoes with medium heels. Her hair was blonde and blunt cut down to her shoulders. She carried a briefcase. She might be twenty-seven, she might be thirty, she might be thirty-two. The deep salmon lipstick matched her blouse. She saw them and knew immediately who they were. They all introduced one another, three professional women, and lined up to get coffee at the counter. They sat in tall chairs at a table in the corner, the quietest spot in a roomful of babble.
As usual, Tess played the role of an observer.
For a lawyer, Melinda Bayless was pretty straightforward. She used her hands a lot, long tapered fingers, beautifully manicured nails painted the same color as her blouse.
Melinda said, “He came on to Brayden. At first Daffy—that’s our friend, Daphne Morales, she’s also an attorney—at first she and I were envious.” Brushed a strand of hair back. “Well, not envious, exactly. But he was good-looking. When I was younger, that was the main criteria, but we’re all older now and good looks are great but they’re certainly not enough.”
Cheryl led her through the incident. Melinda described the first meeting with Barkman in great detail. “He was only interested in Brae.”
“What was his manner?”
“Other than that he zeroed in on her? He was confident. Overconfident, really. I’ve known a few colleagues like that—they think they’re the Young Guns. Cocky. But not over-the-top.”
She told them that Steve Barkman looked good but that he leaned in way too close to Brayden. “He violated her personal space. I noticed that right away. I hate that! It made me think of a cat playing with a mouse. And Brayden’s no mouse, believe me. A little mousey.” She added, “I know that sounds bitchy.”
“He was after her, big-time. I thought he was thinking he’d get laid. But we kind of joined ranks and after a while he got the message and left. It was like we all breathed a sigh of relief. It was that intense.” Then she described the second occasion, the next day. This time Barkman showed up early. “I saw him coming our way, and I thought, oh, no. We told him Brayden wasn’t coming, which was a lie.”
She described how Brayden spotted Barkman and took off.
“What did he do?”
“He went after her.”
“Brayden didn’t come back?”
“No. But she called twenty minutes later. She was freaked. She said he came up to her in the parking lot— said he basically accosted her. She said he tried to keep her from leaving.”
Outside on the street, Cheryl said to Tess, “She didn’t like Steve Barkman putting the moves on her, but I don’t see any
Tess had no answer for that. But she did wonder: Why would Brayden lie about knowing Steve Barkman?
CHAPTER 36
Michael didn’t want to see anyone—except Martin. He called Martin first thing.
“So you want me to fly back?” Martin said. “
