See No Evil

She turned, neither scared nor worried. “Yeah? Who wants to know?”

“Connor Kincaid. I’m a friend of Emily.”

Wendy’s round face relaxed. “Em’s talked about you.”

“Do you have a few minutes?”

She glanced at her watch. “Sure. Is Em okay?”

“She’s going to be fine.” He looked around, saw too many people walking around, curious about him. He pointed to a grassy slope with trees on the far side of the parking lot. “Let’s go someplace private to talk.”

They walked in silence, sat on a short stone wall near the grove.

“People are saying she tried to kill herself,” Wendy said. “I tried calling the house, but her mother refused to talk to me. What a bitch.” Wendy looked at the ground. “Em would never kill herself. She didn’t try, did she?”

“It was an accident,” Connor said. “She did drink too much, though. Had to have her stomach pumped.”

“Ugh. I told her she had to stop.”

“Do you know why she drinks?”

Wendy didn’t say anything, and Connor sensed Wendy knew more than anyone about Emily.

“Wendy? Emily told me to talk to you, that you were her closest friend. She needs your help. Tell me the truth.”

“I know about Victor, if that’s what you mean.” Wendy didn’t look at him, her hands squeezed together so tightly that her knuckles were white.

“Yeah, that’s what I mean.”

“She didn’t tell me until a few months ago. I came over one afternoon and she was drunk. It all came out then. I told her she had to stop drinking and tell her mother what was happening, but she said her mother wouldn’t care, that she would blame her for it like she blamed her for everything bad that happened in her life. Besides, Crystal’s never around.”

“Did you know whether Emily ever talked to anyone else about what Victor did to her, other than you?”

“No, and every time I brought it up she refused to talk about it. She was scared, I think. That she’d lose her inheritance if she said anything.”

“She was worried about money?”

“You make it sound bad. If you had five million dollars sitting in a trust fund and only a year to go, would you make waves? All she wanted to do was get the money and get the hell out of there. The other stuff, like the vandalism, she did when she was plastered. I really tried to help Em with that, but she needs real help, not me.”

“Did Emily talk to you about Wishlist?”

“I don’t think so.”

“It’s an online therapy group. Anger management.”

“Oh, she talked about how stupid her therapy was all the time. The guy her mother sent her to creeped her out. But it was only once a week, and she said she had him wrapped around her finger.”

“But she didn’t talk about an online group.”

“Not that I remember.”

“Did she ever talk to you about wanting to kill Victor?”

Wendy stared at him, eyes narrowed. “Whose side are you on? I thought you wanted to help Emily.”

“I do. That’s why I need to know everything.”

“She’d never hurt anyone.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“The jerk made her suck his dick! Don’t you think that’s gross enough?”

“Wendy, please. The police are going to be talking to you and if you lie, they’ll put you on the stand as a hostile witness.”

Realization hit Wendy and she paled. “Do-do the police really think she killed him?”

“I don’t know what they think, but I used to be a cop and looking at the evidence right now, chances are she’s on the top of the suspect list.”

“She would never.”

“Did she talk to you about it?”

Wendy said nothing for a long minute. “It’s not what you think. You know how people talk. They say ‘I’ll kill him’ just as a part of conversation. Not because they really mean it. Sure, Emily hated him, she wanted to hurt him, but she didn’t mean it.”

“Did she talk about this with anyone else?”

“Absolutely not. I had to pull everything out of her. She never talks about it, even now. It’s just one of those things we both know and talk around.”

Wendy took Connor’s hand. “Please, please help her. Crystal won’t. She just wants Emily’s money.”

“Crystal’s worth more than five million dollars.”

Wendy laughed. “Emily’s trust is worth a lot more than that. She gets five million when she turns eighteen. And a million dollars every year for the rest of her life. Last I heard, her trust was worth over fifty million bucks and growing.”

Connor walked Wendy back to her car and wondered if somehow this was all about money.

“Sorry I’m late.”

Grace Simpson slid into the seat across from Julia at Crab Catcher, a restaurant up the coast in La Jolla, far, far away from the courthouse.

“Thanks for coming out here.”

“I only have thirty minutes, so what’s up?”

The waitress came over before Julia could answer. They both ordered the Crab Catcher’s excellent salads, then Julia said, “What do you know about Jason Ridge’s death?”

Grace went through her mental catalog, then her eyes widened. “The football player from San Diego?”

“You covered it for the paper, which I thought odd considering you usually work the crime beat.”

“How did he come to your attention?”

“You talk first,” Julia said, “then I’ll share what I know. Off the record.”

“That’s not fair,” she pouted, but continued. “Basically, I took a look at it because that was when steroid abuse was all over the news, Jose Canseco had his tell-all book, the Bonds thing was coming down. Now the big guys can get steroids, but where do kids get them? Are they street drugs? Do their parents get them on the sly? Doctors? I thought it might be a great investigative report.”

“But you didn’t have any other follow-ups.”

“I spent weeks on that case, talking to everyone about Jason Ridge, talking to the cops about steroids on the streets, even talked to a drug dealer down in the Gaslight district who dealt in steroids. Nothing on Ridge. Not one person even hinted that they suspected he was using. The detective in charge of the case, Ollie Grant, said the best he could figure is Ridge bought them on the black market and unintentionally overdosed, but overdosing on steroids is virtually impossible. Still, there was a lot of pressure on him. I did learn that he was seeing a psychiatrist, though his parents clammed up about it. Said it was growing pains.”

“Off the record, right?” Julia asked, raising her eyebrow.

“Yes.” Grace pouted.

“Ridge got a Deferred Entry of Judgment after a rape trial in juvenile court. Part of the DEJ was a mandatory anger management class and community service.”

“DEJ?”

“A slap on the wrist. The judge telling him essentially to not do it again and it’ll all go away when he’s eighteen.” Julia squinched her face up in anger. “It happens more often than you think.”

“Sounds like it might made a good story,” Grace said, making notes.

“Yes, it would, and I would be happy to comment on the record.”

“You would?”

“Yes…but not now. I have something more pressing. Bowen was Ridge’s psychiatrist. Ridge is dead. Bowen was Billy Thompson’s psychiatrist after Billy trashed his teacher’s car and the teacher is shot to death. Bowen is