A Grave Prediction (Psychic Eye Mystery) (19 page)

Candice made a face. “What about the ancient remains belonging to the tribesman? Does
he
figure into this?”

I let out a small laugh. “No. But he’s pretty much the only one that doesn’t.”

“So we’ve got a bank-robbing gang of thugs who also could be serial killers?”

“No,” I said. “That’s not it. It’s one killer and four robbers.”

“That we know of.”

“Come again?” I said.

“We only know of four because that’s all the video shows. There could be others orchestrating the robberies who never actually appear at the bank.”

“True.”

“And we’re still pretty sure that Edwards fits into this somehow, right?”

“He didn’t get all sweaty and ditch us at the In-N-Out Burger for nothing,” I said.

“True,” Candice agreed. “The most perplexing clue you’ve turned up so far is Cindy Clawson. I’d be curious to see how she fits into all this.”

I sighed and looked at the table. None of this made sense. “Me too,” I agreed. “She seemed really nice, but if my interpretation of the dream I had is correct, she’s linked to all this somehow. And I’m also pretty sure her daughter could end up being one of the murder victims someday.”

“That’s what’s really bothering me,” Candice said. “I have this urgent desire to look her up and warn her.”

“Without sounding crazy?” I said. “Or freaking out a young girl a year and a half before she’ll really be in danger? Good luck.”

“You’re right, but, Abs, if we’re not successful and can’t solve this one, then I am going to find a way to warn her.”

I grinned at Candice. “You’ll have to beat me to it. Anyway, the one clue that I’m actually bothered by is the old guy from
the bank. I just find it too much of a coincidence that he was indisposed at the time of the robberies.”

“You mean Phil the security guard?”

“Yeah.”

“You want to go have another talk with him?”

“I do,” I said. “Right now if possible.”

Candice eyed her watch. “If he’s even working today, he’s probably on an eight-hour shift, so we’d have to hustle.”

I pulled out my wallet and motioned to the waitress. “Let’s hustle, then.”

We arrived at the pharmacy just as Phil was putting on his jacket, ready to leave. Candice waved at him to get his attention and he brightened at the sight of her. “Well, hello, pretty lady. Nice to see you again.”

“You too, Phil,” she said. “I was wondering if you had time for a little chat.”

He cocked his head at her. “I was just on my way out, but I’m only going home, so I got time. What can I do you for?”

Candice took a deep breath and dove right in. Nodding to me, she said, “My partner and I are investigators, working for a private citizen who’s interested in helping solve the La Cañada and Pasadena robberies.” Phil pulled back his head slightly and he looked on the edge of getting pissy, so Candice was quick to add, “We don’t think you were involved, Phil.”

“I wasn’t,” he said firmly.

“Yes, yes,” she said sweetly. “But maybe you told someone you didn’t feel well on the morning of the robbery, or even when you took your lunch, and maybe they took advantage of that information somehow?”

He scowled. “I felt fine that morning,” he said. “I had my tea and some banana nut bread, read my paper, and felt my usual
self. It wasn’t until about six or seven hours later that I started to have some issues, and I don’t usually take a lunch. I just snack a little on crackers during the day and have a big meal at dinner.”

“And you never told any of the customers that you weren’t feeling well?” I asked.

Phil scratched his head. “No,” he said. “It came on really sudden. Well, the gurgling started a little earlier I guess, and then I just had to bolt for the bathroom. God, it was awful.”

“You threw up, huh?” I asked.

Phil’s face reddened. “No. It was the other kind. You know. The trots.”

I was sorry I asked, but Candice was eyeing Phil curiously. “You said it was six or seven hours after you had your tea, Phil?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“What kind of tea?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “It was some peppermint blend—really intense on the peppermint. The new girl at Starbucks talked me into it.”

“The new girl?” Candice said.

“Yeah. She was a sweet young thing. Said it was her first day there and they were telling her to push the herbal teas, so I cut her a break and tried it. I didn’t much like it, though. It was too froufrou. I like the hard stuff. Their Royal English tea is the best.”

Candice nodded and then she said, “Do you remember the name of the girl who served you, Phil?”

He scratched his head again. “Nah,” he said. “Sorry.”

“Have you seen her since?” Candice pressed.

“No,” he said. “I think maybe she quit.”

“And where do you get your morning tea from exactly?”

“The Starbucks on Verdugo Boulevard, why?”

Instead of answering him, Candice squeezed his shoulder and said, “You’ve been awesome, Phil. Thank you so much.”

He looked a little stunned at the abrupt end of the conversation, and frankly I was too. I wasn’t sure what Candice was on to, but as she’d already turned away, I decided to wave to Phil and follow her. “What’s going on?”

Candice wound her way through the aisles until she arrived at the herbal remedy section of the pharmacy. “Eureka,” she said, holding up a box with a purple label. I squinted at the lettering.

“Smooth Move tea,” I said, and then it all clicked. “Holy shit!”

“Yep,” Candice said. “Phil said the tea was strong. She probably hit him with a double dose.”

I looked back toward where we’d spoken to Phil. “That poor guy,” I said. “Whoever that girl was, she set him up and cost him his job.”

“She did. The hard part is going to be proving it.”

“She could be the girlfriend of one of the robbers,” I said.

“That’s what I was thinking,” Candice replied.

“I take it we’re now heading to Starbucks?”

Candice put the tea back on the shelf. “Wow, it’s like you’re psychic,” she deadpanned.

I rolled my eyes and led the way out of the pharmacy.

The Starbucks was only three blocks over from the Sun Coast Bank branch where Phil used to work. We walked in and Candice asked to speak to the manager. A kid—who couldn’t have been older than nineteen—came out from the back. “Hi!” he said after one of the baristas pointed to us. “What’s up?”

I smirked at the informal greeting and thought,
This should be easy.
I then let Candice do the talking. “Hello,” she said. “My name is Candice Fusco. I’m a private investigator out of Texas, here in California investigating a civil suit about to be brought against your establishment.”

The kid in the green apron blinked behind his big-framed glasses.
“Really?”
he said, like he couldn’t believe it.

“Yes, really,” Candice said. “My client, who was here on vacation and visited your establishment approximately three weeks ago, was slipped something in his herbal tea that caused him significant gastrointestinal distress, and we believe one of your baristas purposely poisoned him with intent to cause great bodily harm. I’d like to speak with her and get her side of the story before I recommend to my client whether to file the suit.”

My own eyes widened at the end of Candice’s speech. She’d laid on the ruse pretty thick, and I hoped the kid didn’t freak out and start making a lot of phone calls.

“Holy crap!” he said, loud enough for everyone in the place to hear him. And then he put up his hands and said, “Ummm, you know what? Let me call my dad. He’s a criminal defense attorney and he’ll know what I should do.”

Candice realized her mistake immediately. “It’s not necessary to get any lawyers involved,” she said quickly. “All we need is the name of one of your former employees. A girl who worked here on the morning of—” But it was too late. The kid was already moving away from her like she had big, lawsuity cooties.

“Sherlock!” the kid called.

Another young man in a green apron popped up from behind the counter. “Yeah?”

“You’re in charge out here for a minute. I gotta go call my dad.”

Sherlock looked from his manager to us and back again like he didn’t really understand the problem, but he’d be fine on his own. After receiving a nod from Sherlock, the manager bolted for the back.

“Shit,” Candice muttered under her breath.

I couldn’t have agreed more.

We turned as one and walked out the door, because there was no way we were getting any information out of that kid . . . ever.

After we got back into the car, Candice made a little sound of irritation. “I went in too hard. I never should’ve mentioned a lawsuit.”

“I thought it was clever,” I said, even though I privately agreed that she should’ve eased off the legal threats.

Candice turned the car on, then sighed heavily. “His dad will tell him to alert everyone with a pay grade above his, and before you know it, there’ll be a wall of corporate lawyers surrounding the place and keeping any info out of reach, unless someone actually filed suit or came in with a warrant.”

“We could tell Kelsey about what we suspect happened to Phil and have her follow up on it. She’ll probably get a lot further if she flashes that badge.”

Candice sighed again. “No, I blew it, Abby. By tomorrow morning any official who calls will be forwarded to the corporate office attorney, who’s gonna ask for a warrant if we want a peek at their employee records.”

Candice and I stared out the front window of the car while it idled. Neither one of us seemed to know what to do or where to go next. “This case sucks,” I said, leaning my head back against the seat to close my eyes.

“Yep,” Candice agreed. “I wish we could come up with one solid piece of evidence to solve even one part of this case.”

“Me too.”

“At least you were able to give Kelsey a name for the missing boy’s remains.”

I frowned. “Only a first name. There might be half a dozen Trevors who’ve gone missing out of six thousand kids,” I said.

“Now,
that
was a depressing statistic.”

“It really was. You have to wonder how many of those teens are runaways, living on the streets. They’re probably close to home but unable to turn back, you know?”

“I do,” she said. “And you gotta believe it’s something that affects the whole community when a youth goes missing. I mean, not just the parents, but the kid’s friends and teachers too.”

My eyes popped open and I sat forward. “Whoa,” I said.

“What’s ‘whoa’?”

“What if Trevor
was
a local?”

“You mean a kid from around here?”

“Yeah.”

“Then he shouldn’t be too hard to track down,” she said.

“You’re right. And I know just how.”

“How?”

I pointed across the street to the library. “Right there.”

We walked into the library and over to the help desk. I inquired about where I could find the La Cañada Flintridge school yearbooks, and the resource librarian motioned me to follow her. Candice came along, of course.

Heading over to a section void of other people, the librarian took us down a row of stacked books to the end and pointed to a lower shelf. “The elementary schools start on the left, the middle schools are in the middle, and the high schools are on the shelf above.”

We thanked her and she left us to it.

I started with the La Cañada seventh- and eighth-grade yearbooks and Candice got busy with the high school. We took two volumes each, one from the previous year and another from the year before that, and headed to a table to sift through them.

I found Trevor four minutes into the search. “Here,” I said, swiveling the book around so that she could see the photo I was pointing to.

Candice leaned over to look at him. “Trevor Hodges. You’re sure he’s the one?”

“He’s the only Trevor dead on this page,” I said. One of my rather unique talents is that when I look at a photo of someone who’s passed away, he or she appears sort of flat and two-dimensional to my eye. It’s subtle, but the dead person always stands out, especially when there are other people in the photo who are still alive.

“He fits the description you gave to Kelsey too,” she said.

I brought the yearbook back around toward myself to really look at the image. The young man was a cutie-pie. He had the brightest smile, lots of freckles, front teeth that were too big for his mouth, and collarbones that poked painfully out of his shirt collar. He’d been thin and wiry—perhaps in the middle of a growth spurt at the time the photo was taken. “Poor guy,” I said, smoothing my hand over his image. “What happened to you, huh?”

Candice took out her phone and typed in Trevor’s name. She pressed her lips together when she hit on something and turned the screen toward me. The headline read, “La Cañada Youth Missing.” The date on the article was a year and a half ago.

“I should call Kelsey,” I said.

“We should,” Candice said, taking the responsibility off just me.

“His poor parents,” I whispered. “I can’t even imagine what they must be going through after all this time.”

Candice got up and put a hand on my shoulder. I was still staring sadly at Trevor’s photo. So much promise in a face like that. It was hard to believe such a bright future had been extinguished so brutally. “You stay here,” she said softly. “I’ll go outside to make the call.”

Candice left me alone and while she was outside trying to
reach Kelsey, I flipped through the pages of the yearbook to see if there were any other images of Trevor.

I found two more photos of him: one where he was up at bat for the baseball team, and another when he was singing in the chorus of some musical production put on for the parents.

I was about to put the book away when I flipped one final page without even thinking and felt my heartbeat tick up when I spotted the image there.

A young man with the most sinister eyes I’d ever seen stared into the camera, a wicked and—dare I say it?—cruel smile on his face. There was something about this kid, something that sent a solid shiver down my spine. And I mean, it was almost ridiculous, because it was only a photograph and who’s to say that the lighting wasn’t casting dark shadows in exactly the right way to make him appear sinister? . . . But I’ve been working with law enforcement for nearly a decade and I’ve stared directly into the eyes of more than my fair share of violent psychopaths, so I know one when I see one. Especially this kid. It was more than the predatory look in his eyes. Close up, his image projected a single intuitive note into the ether, one that made me catch my breath. He’d killed before. And he was hungry to do it again.