Marcia Clark - Killer Ambition

“Nah, I guess I just caught the tail end of it. Reason I noticed, though, was the girl. You know, the one whose picture was just on the news? She came into the café while he was typing. Real pretty. Dude seemed pissed that she was there.”

“What made him seem pissed?” Bailey asked. “Did he grab her? Yell at her?”

“No, nothing like that. He just seemed, I don’t know…annoyed? He didn’t let her sit down. Soon as she showed up, he packed up his laptop and they left.”

“Did he hold on to her arm? Push her?” I asked.

Legs looked off to the left. “Not that I remember. And tell you the truth, I didn’t think much of the whole deal. Seemed like a goof. The only reason I called you guys was because of the news flash about the girl.”

“So she didn’t look scared or upset?” I asked.

“Not to me. I mean, she wasn’t laughing her ass off or anything. But she didn’t look freaked.”

“Do you think you’d recognize the guy if I showed you a photo?” Bailey asked.

Legs shrugged. “Couldn’t hurt to try.”

Bailey pulled up Brian’s photo on her cell and held it in front of Legs.

He gave the photo a hard look, then nodded. “Yeah, that’s the dude. No question.”

“Thank you, Legs,” I said. Bailey took his contact information and we stood to leave.

“So I assume the girl’s been kidnapped,” he said.

“Not necessarily,” I semi-lied.

“But you’d appreciate it if I didn’t say anything about this conversation, wouldn’t you?”

The abrupt shift caught me off guard. I looked at him for a long moment. This was pretty savvy for any civilian, let alone the pierced counterculture specimen in front of me. “I can’t stop you from talking, but yeah, it wouldn’t hurt if you’d keep it to yourself.”

“Got it.”

We started to leave, but I turned back, too curious to let it go. “You said you had a class on Monday that got out at four o’clock. What class was that?”

“Not a class exactly. More like a weekly consultation. I’m finishing my Ph.D. in neuroscience.”

“So it’ll be Dr. Legs Roscoe soon.”

“Actually, Dr. Lawrence Roscoe. But yeah. Hopefully.”

At times like this I love my job.

We waited tillwe were in the car to discuss our latest find, courtesy of Dr. Legs.

“If Brian sent the ransom note from that café, and this was a righteous kidnapping, then how could he let Hayley float around like that?” Bailey asked.

“My question too. The only thing I can think of right now is that maybe he hadn’t made that video with her yet. Until Brian had her record that video, she didn’t necessarily know what he was doing. But the fact that he hustled her out of there shows he didn’t want anyone to see them together, that’s for sure. And we know he was somewhere else when he made that video and sent it with the ransom note.”

Bailey stared out the window for a few seconds, then nodded. “It’s possible. We’ll have to see whether we can figure out where the final ransom e-mail and video were sent from.” She checked her cell. “Russell’s and Hayley’s cell phone records are in. Still waiting on Brian’s.”

“They’re at the station?”

Bailey nodded. “Yeah. And our computer whizbangs are checking to see what they can get on the ransom e-mail, see if they can track down the computer it was sent from…so far, nothing,” Bailey said. “But now that Legs put Brian and that ransom note together, it’s less of a priority.”

True. Regardless of where Brian was when he sent the note, the important thing was to prove he’d written it, and Legs did that for us. “Be nice to find Brian’s laptop, though.”

“Probably won’t happen until we find Brian.”

I couldn’t argue with that point either. And I agreed with Bailey that we should get a look at those cell phone records sooner rather than later, but I knew that once we headed downtown, we’d probably be done for the day unless something else broke. “How about we check in with Hayley’s mom before we go back to the station?”

“Okay, but then we’ll need to get back and hit those records.”

The tension in Bailey’s voice matched my own anxiety level. Every passing minute made Hayley’s safe return seem farther and farther away. But now that Brian was looking like our number one suspect, I wanted to see for myself whether either parent knew anything about him. Mackenzie didn’t think Hayley had told them about Brian, but I couldn’t rely on that, and I had a hunch that if Hayley had told either parent, it was more likely to be her mom.

Bailey floored it to Raynie’s house, which was, indeed, close to Russell’s house in the hills-just five blocks away. It was a low-slung modern home set into the hillside with an entire wall of sliding glass doors that opened to two feet of balcony and an expansive view of the city. And just like Russell’s-and so many of the houses in this hood-it was propped up on stilts. Those things always made me nervous, and it didn’t matter that I knew they were set in granite and probably more earthquake-proof than the courthouse.

Raynie greeted us at the curb as Bailey drove up. “Just pull in here.” She pointed to a small space on the street a few feet from her front door. In the hills, all space, including parking space, was at a premium; all of the roads were steep, winding, and narrow. Raynie had her hair up in a loose bun and she wore a long white cotton skirt with multicolored embroidery around the hem and a turquoise tank top. She looked fresh as a daisy, a perfect counterpoint to my straggly hair, wilted gray slacks, and rumpled jacket. I reminded myself to pick a lighter, cooler ensemble tomorrow. I couldn’t get away with Raynie’s boheme maxi skirt stylings, but a dress of almost any kind would be a vast improvement over a pantsuit in this heat.

We followed Raynie inside. The house was an oven. The windows that looked out over the city also let the sun bake through. No doubt those windows could provide a stunning view, but today, all they showed was a city hazy with smog, a dark yellow-tinged basin of indistinct concrete, metal, and glass. Raynie picked up a remote, and at the push of a few buttons, the electronic blinds covered the windows. Instantly the room felt ten degrees cooler.

“Sorry,” she said. “I forgot to turn on the air and close the blinds this morning.” She paused and swallowed. “It should cool down pretty quickly now. Can I get you anything to drink? Ice water?”

We accepted gratefully. Raynie gestured for us to have a seat on the white leather sectional couch and brought us each a glass. The walls were adorned with pictures of Hayley from birth to the present. Some were of Hayley alone, some included her friends, and others were with Raynie. None were with Russell. Not that I was surprised. A husband who decamps for a younger trophy isn’t someone whose picture you need to see every day. What did surprise me was that I hadn’t noticed photos of any kind at Russell’s house. At least not anywhere I’d been able to see.

I dived right in. “Did you know if Hayley was dating anyone?”

Raynie took a sip of water, then held the glass in her lap between her hands and stared down at it. “She didn’t bring anyone around, but she did mention having met a boy recently.”

“Do you remember when she mentioned it?” I asked.

“I want to say a month ago?”

“She say when she’d met him?”

“No. Just that he was a really good guy and that he wasn’t like the other boys. That he had more…substance to him. And something about him having had a tough childhood, I think.” Raynie stopped and shook her head. “I’m sorry. I wish I could tell you more. I know you’ll think I’m a bad mother for not pressing her for more details. But I always seemed to learn more by just letting Hayley talk than by questioning her. And in all honesty, I expected I’d meet him pretty soon if it was really serious.”