Almost Dead (21 page)

A woman stood in the shadows. A woman with a gun leveled squarely at Cherise’s chest.

Cherise dropped her glass. It crashed onto the tile floor, shattering, glass flying, liquid splattering, ice cubes skittering.

“Don’t say a word,” the woman ordered in a low hiss that caused Cherise’s blood to run cold. “Not one word.”

Cherise swallowed back her scream.

What could she do? She had mace in her purse, but that wouldn’t help. She could run, but there was nowhere to hide. She could—

The woman stepped out of the shadows and for a second Cherise thought she’d gone mad.

“Marla?” she whispered, disbelieving. She nearly peed her pants as she saw her assailant’s cruel expression. Other than the quick glimpse earlier, Cherise hadn’t seen her cousin’s wife in ten years, but this woman…oh dear God, she looked so much like Marla. “Please don’t. Show some mercy…. We’re related…Please, oh God…no!”

“Uh-oh. I guess you didn’t hear me,” Marla said. Her lips twisted in an ugly grin.

Before Cherise could utter another word, the woman fired point-blank. Cherise fell back, stumbling against a small table.

“Ssss!” The cat, hiding behind a potted plant, hissed loudly, arched her back, and dashed into the kitchen.

Cherise landed on the floor. Her head cracked against the Mexican tiles.

Pain exploded behind her eyes.

A hot, oozing sensation spread through her abdomen.

Her assailant stepped closer, holding the gun on her. “You miserable, money-grubbing bitch. I hope you go to hell.”

Marla? Why? No…no…not Marla…

As darkness pulled her under, Cherise watched her killer drop something soft and floating onto the floor in the vestibule before she slipped out the unlocked front door.

Why?
she wondered futilely, knowing she couldn’t make it to a phone, to anyone in time. She felt the lifeblood seeping out of her.

I’m going to die…oh God, Donald, I’m going to die…Please know that I love you…. I…love…
The blackness dragged her under. A blessing and she gave herself up to it.

Please God, take my soul.

Elyse’s blood sang through her veins.

Killing Cherise had felt so right. And the confusion and sheer terror in her eyes when she’d thought she was facing off with wicked Marla.

Priceless!

Almost as satisfying as watching that pampered bitch Cissy nearly stumble down the stairs when she’d thought she’d seen her mother in the doorway of the house on Mt. Sutro. God, what a rush! It would have been so easy to kill her then, and Elyse had considered it. She’d had the gun with her. But she wanted Cissy to twist in the wind a bit more, feel a little pain, the kind Elyse had lived with for years.

“You’ll get yours,” she said and thought about the man she loved…. Oh, wouldn’t it be perfect to make love to him tonight, when the thrill of the kill was still in her bloodstream, the adrenaline rush still pounding through her.

Eyes on the road, she reached into the side pocket of her purse, pulled out her cell, and hit the “2” pre-set button. It rang once, and a male voice answered.

“Hello?”

Holy Christ! This was the wrong phone. She’d used Cissy’s damned phone.

She clicked off and cussed herself up one side and down the other. What had she been thinking? Had she been too high, too revved up not to notice the subtle difference in the cell phones?

She had to ditch it now. Fast. Fortunately, she was near the bridge. Stepping on the gas, she drove across the illuminated span and tried hard to keep the needle of her speedometer under the limit. Her heart was pounding, her skin hot, sweat collecting under her hair.

“Son of a bitch,” she whispered, and at the south end of the bridge, before driving into the city, she turned into the park and left her car so that she could walk back along the span and, once she was a distance from the shoreline, wipe Cissy’s cell phone clean and drop it over the railing and into the water so far below. It would never be found. Quickly, once her mission was accomplished, she walked briskly back to her car and climbed behind the wheel. She had t o be more careful. She’d already nearly run over a bicyclist, and then there was the woman walking her damned dog when Elyse had left Cherise’s house. Fortunately she was wearing the disguise and it had been dark, but there was always a remote chance either she or her car would be recognized. And then she called the wrong number by dialing Cissy’s bloody phone. God, she had to be smarter if this was going to work. She had a few people on the payroll; the guy from whom she’d bought her fake ID had also done a great job of terrorizing Cissy, bumping into her at the coffee shop and then walking in front of her car. But he could talk. Elyse just wasn’t too sure how much she could trust him.

And she couldn’t afford any more slipups.

Not now.

Not when she was so close to getting everything that was due her.

Though she wasn’t as high as she had been a few minutes earlier, she was still keyed up, and so she tried again, this time with the right phone. Her phone.

The phone rang three times before he picked up. “Hello?”

“Hi,” she said a little breathily. “What’re you doing?”

“Not much,” he admitted, and she heard the wariness in his voice.

“Are you alone?”

“No,” he said, giving nothing away to whoever was close by.

“I thought we could get together.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know if we can meet tomorrow.”

“I’m talking about tonight.”

“I know.” He was covering, trying to hide the fact that he was talking to her because of the other person or persons he was with. That was the trouble with cell phones, the double-edged sword of anonymity. Not only could the person you called not know where you were, but you too had no idea where he was when he picked up. He could well be in the city, across the country, or at home in bed…with whomever.

She felt a burning in her gut, but disguised it. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

“I told you this wasn’t a done deal.”

“You know where I’ll be,” she said in a low voice. “And you know what I’ll be wearing…. We’ll have ourselves a really good time.”

“I just don’t know.”

“Trust me, you want to see me. To touch me. To kiss me. I’ll do things to your body you can’t begin to imagine.”

He laughed a little then. “Look, I’ll be in the office in the morning. I’ll call you.”

And then the bastard hung up.

“You goddamned cocksucker!” she hissed, knowing full well that he’d show. He couldn’t resist her. Oh, sure, there were other women in his life; she knew that. He wasn’t the kind of man to be satisfied with only one woman, but hell, she intended to change that. Maybe tonight. She was sick to the back teeth of him admitting that he still loved his wife. What a crock!

“Bastard.” He’d better be careful.

Now that the phone was properly ditched, she swung the car around again and headed back to Sausalito, to the place to which she knew he would return. It was there that they laughed and made love, there that they’d plotted out how to spring Marla from prison, there that they’d laid out their plans.

He’d show up.

He couldn’t resist. She knew that about him.

She considered meeting him in her Marla garb, but decided against it. Once she was back at the house, she’d ditch the green contacts, red-brown wig, padding in her bra, enhancers in her cheeks, and lifts in her shoes.

She didn’t look that much like Marla, but the power of suggestion was a strong and wonderful thing, especially if one was seeing ghostly elevators open or staring down the barrel of a handgun.

She smiled to herself, gave herself a pat on the back. “Good work, Marla,” she said and thought of the real Marla Cahill, that pathetic creature in the basement.

She couldn’t wait to take off anything that remotely resembled the woman. In only a few minutes, she’d shower and be herself again.

And then she’d wait for the turn of the key and the familiar sound of his footsteps as he climbed the stairs to her bedroom….

“The Sausalito police just called,” Janet Quinn said, strapping on her sidearm as she reached Paterno’s desk. It was ten in the morning, and she was serious. “Looks like we’ve got another dead relative of Marla Cahill.”

“What?” He glanced up from his notes. The homicide unit was bustling this morning, conversation loud, phones ringing, computers humming, shoes scraping against the floor as detectives walked from one area to the next. “Who?”

“Cherise Favier. Shot dead in her own house.”

“Jesus!” Paterno said. He hadn’t seen that one coming.

“The neighbor she usually goes walking with called 9-1-1 this morning. She was so upset the operator could barely understand her. Come on, I’ll drive and fill you in.” They walked out of the station together and headed for Quinn’s car rather than use a department vehicle. Paterno forced himself into the passenger side of Quinn’s red Jetta and clicked on his seatbelt as she tore out of the lot. The traffic was thick, morning rush hour still creating gridlock in the city, but a few rays of sun filtered through the thick, gray sky.

“This is what we know so far,” Quinn said, turning on her blinker and looking over her shoulder as she wove her way into the next lane. “Cherise was alone. Her husband was in Sacramento on church business.”

“He’s got an alibi?” Paterno had never liked the Reverend Donald and thought the preacher was full of hot air and BS, heavy on the BS.

Quinn’s mouth twisted wryly. “You’re going to love this one. Turns out he was with Heather Van Arsdale.”

“Cissy Holt’s friend?” He remembered seeing her at the funeral. Young and hip. Pretty. Good body.

“One and the same. And it gets more and more interesting. Heather, when she’s not an elementary school teacher, volunteers at the church. She’s some kind of computer whiz or something. Anyway, she and the reverend, they were a little more than business associates, or preacher and parishioner. They were pretty cozy. Had connecting rooms at the hotel in Sacramento.”

“Figures,” Paterno said. “I never trusted the guy.” He slid Quinn a glance. “You remember, he was in trouble before. Can’t seem to keep his zipper up.”

“It goes further than that,” Quinn said, cutting through traffic toward the Golden Gate Bridge. On the north end of the span lay the community of Sausalito and Marin County. “Heather was a college friend of Cissy Cahill.”

“I know. So how does that all work together?”

She shook her head and reached into the console for her sunglasses.

“Optimist,” Paterno said as she slipped the shades onto her face and eased toward the incredible rust-colored bridge with its spiraling towers and wide span. There was more traffic flowing into the city than flowing out, but the lanes were still clogged. Paterno barely noticed the view as they spanned the neck of water connecting San Francisco Bay with the Pacific Ocean. Two hundred feet below, green water sparkled in the wintry sunlight, a few sailboats and islands visible, but Paterno was trying to piece together the puzzle that was the Cahill murders. He reached in his pocket, withdrew a pack of Juicy Fruit gum, and offered a stick to Quinn.

She shook her head and kept talking, giving out what little information they had on the case. Already Favier, who’d been called hours earlier, as soon as the first detectives had gone to the house and seen the dead woman, was at the Sausalito Police Station being interviewed. Heather Van Arsdale, who had taken “personal days” from her teaching job, was in a separate interrogation room, but so far their stories matched.

“Why would anyone kill Cherise?” He unwrapped the gum, folded the stick, and shoved it into his mouth.

“Don’t know. It doesn’t look like robbery was a motive. Cherise had some pretty high-wattage rocks on her fingers and in her jewelry case. Computer, stereo, iPods, televisions—all untouched.”

Paterno didn’t like it.

“The Sausalito police have been canvassing the area near the church and Favier home. A few neighbors remember hearing a ‘pop’ last night, around eight, about the time, according to the ME, that Cherise died. One neighbor, Mrs. Bangs, reported that she’d been out walking her dog about that time. While the dog was taking a leak, she saw a woman coming out of the Favier house through the front door. The woman climbed into a silver car and drove away.”

“That’s it? Just a silver car? No license, make, or model?”

“Silver car. Sedan. Probably. That’s it.”

“What about a description of the person leaving the crime scene?”

“A woman. Average. Nothing special. Probably white and not fat. Maybe dark hair.”

“Some eyewitness.”

“She was busy with her dog.”

“Great,” Paterno groused.

“It’s something.”

“And gets Favier off the hook.”

“Does it?” Quinn asked. “If the blessed reverend wanted out of his marriage without going through a divorce, he could have hired a hit. It would have been perfect timing, as we’re all looking for a way to connect the murders. That’s why we were called in.”

“We’ll see,” Paterno said, chewing the gum and thinking the jury was still out on that one…way out.

“The Sausalito detectives are talking to the witness, offering up a photo lineup of various people, including Marla, to see if she zeroes in on her.”

“What are the chances?” Paterno muttered.

“As I said, it’s something. We’re closer than we were yesterday.”

“Yeah, and another person is dead.”

Could Marla Cahill, Cherise’s cousin by marriage, be involved in this too? The woman seen driving away from the crime scene? Paterno was willing to stake his badge on it.

On the far side of the bridge, Quinn drove through the quaint hillside village. Once known for fishing, it had become trendy with its Victorian cottages perched on slopes offering breathtaking views of the city and bay. Artists and craftsmen and people who wanted to live a quieter lifestyle, yet be minutes from the city, had driven real-estate prices through the roof.

Yeah, the Reverend Donald, reinventing himself after a career-ending tackle had forced him from the NFL, had carved himself out a nice little spot in one of the wealthiest communities in Northern California. A coincidence? Paterno didn’t think so.

“So, did you know the Amhursts were from Marin County?” she asked.

Paterno nodded; he remembered that from the last time he’d been on Marla’s trail. “She grew up in a fancy house overlooking the bay around here somewhere, I think. Her father, Conrad, lived out his final days in a care facility in Tiburon, just a few miles away.”

“And now someone related to Marla dies up here.”

“Related by marriage, through Marla’s husband.”

“It’s all a little incestuous if you ask me.”

“Won’t argue that,” Paterno agreed.

Hours later, after viewing the interview tapes of Favier and Van Arsdale, he still found it hard to think that the preacher had iced his wife. He had too much at stake.

And now he was exposed.

If not as a murderer, as an adulterer and a liar.

The media was out en masse, of course, and as Donald Favier left the police station, he made a statement to the media, admitting his sins to God and his flock at Holy Trinity of God. He stood in the winter sunlight, his breath fogging, his hair neatly in place, his mistress nowhere in sight. In jeans and a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled over his forearms, he asked Jesus’s and everyone’s forgiveness. Gold rings flashing, he clenched his fist and promised, if God would help him on his quest, to find the sorry, misguided soul who had taken precious, loving Cherise’s life.

“Can you believe this guy?” Quinn asked as they stood to one side and watched the display.

“Not for a minute.” Paterno eyed the reverend, hypocrite that he was. With a determined, square jawline, conviction in his intense eyes and talk of Jesus’s forgiveness, he turned the crowd. He vowed to find the killer of his beloved wife, and, though he was but a man, a man with flaws and weaknesses, with Christ’s help, he would seek justice.

“Touching, ain’t it?” Paterno muttered to Quinn as he watched the charismatic man work the crowd. “Almost makes me want to believe him.”

“You think he’s our killer?”

Squinting against cool winter sunshine, Paterno shook his head. “Don’t know,” he said, “but I doubt it. I’m talking about his whole act. The forgiveness, the shame, the vows of becoming a reformed sinner.” He watched the reverend nod at the cameras and slide behind the wheel of his Mercedes.