Hangman Read online

  “I don’t mean to be cheeky, but it’s a little high for your voices. Would you like me to take it down to E-flat? Or maybe down a full note to D. I don’t like turning songs in sharp keys into songs in flat keys. But that’s just me.”

  Mrs. Kent stared at him. “You can do that?” Without waiting, she said, “I know. It’s not Rachmaninoff. Okay, give us a starting note.”

  Gabe gave them a D and they ran through the number again. It was still terrible, but at least the sopranos weren’t straining as much. When Mrs. Kent called for a five-minute break, Hannah went over to the piano. “We’ve got another hour or so. Sorry it gets out so late.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. If your dad had something to tell me, he’d call me, right?”

  “Yeah, he would. I’m sorry.”

  Gabe shrugged.

  Hannah said, “Your playing is truly amazing.”

  Gabe laughed. “Any moron who has training could play this.”

  “Nah, I don’t believe that.”

  “It’s true. For as long as I’ve played, I should be better.”

  “How could you be any better?”

  She had asked the question with utter sincerity. Gabe had to smile. “Thanks. I’ll contact you the next time I need an ego boost.”

  “We’re pretty bad, huh.”

  “It’s fine.”

  Mrs. Kent came over. “How long are you going to be visiting with us, Mr….?”

  “Whitman,” Gabe said.

  “A day or two,” Hannah answered for him.

  “Have you ever considered transferring to the school? We do have an orchestra and we always have room for a soloist.”

  Gabe said, “I’ll keep it in mind.”

  “Have you ever performed any solo pieces?”

  There wasn’t any way in hell he was going to play for her. He wanted anonymity, not attention. “Not for a while. I’m a little rusty.”

  “I’d love to hear you when you feel up to it.”

  “Sure. Another time.”

  When the teacher left, Hannah whispered, “I’m so sorry. She’s relentless.”

  “She’s just being a teacher.” He paused. “Hannah, if I have to come back with you tomorrow, do you think I can practice when no one’s using the room? I mean it’s really silly for me to be in your school trying to learn anything. My time would be better spent practicing. I mean, it’s not that I have to play. But playing calms me down.”

  “I’m sure it’s okay, but you’ll have to ask permission from Mrs. Kent.” Hannah raised her eyebrows. “I’m warning you that if you do, you’ll make a deal with the devil. In exchange, she’ll make you come to orchestra while you’re here.”

  “So I’ll come. As long as I don’t have to solo.”

  “Got it. But you might want to reconsider about orchestra. We are truly bad! Worse than the choir.”

  “It’s fine, Hannah. I’ve gone through a lot hairier things than a few bad notes.”

  “If it were just a few, I wouldn’t say anything.” She wagged a finger at his face. “And stop looking so cute. You’re distracting the entire soprano section. And in case you haven’t noticed, they have enough trouble staying on key.”

  AFTER THE BLANCS had left his office, Decker felt as if he had taken off a winter jacket in an overheated room: twenty pounds lighter and he could finally take a deep breath. Kathy Blanc had told him that her daughter’s apartment appeared in order, but she admitted that she hadn’t looked too closely.

  Decker started working on scheduling his time. He’d manage a quick stop at home for dinner and then he’d go over to Adrianna’s place…or maybe he should go down to St. Tim’s and see what Marge and Oliver were doing. His mind was elsewhere when his cell rang and he neglected to pay attention to the caller ID number. Didn’t matter because the number was blocked, but the voice told him who it was in the single word.

  “What?”

  Sounding more annoyed than anxious, but that was typical Donatti. Decker’s heart started jogging. “Your cell out of order, Chris? I’ve been calling you for the last twenty-four hours.”

  “You know how it is, Decker. Sometimes you just don’t want to be disturbed.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “Where have I been?” A laugh over the phone. “What difference does it make?”

  “Just wondering what could have kept you so preoccupied that you wouldn’t bother checking your phone calls.”

  Another laugh. “You sound pissed.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “Now you sound like you’re interrogating me. I don’t like your tone. Matter of fact, I don’t like you. You’ve got two seconds to tell me what you want before I hang up.”

  “You don’t want to call me back, fine. But I would think you’d answer your son’s calls. He was so upset that he called me.” There was the expected pause. It could have been real or staged. “We’ve got ourselves a big problem, Chris. Terry’s missing.”

  This time the pause was much longer. “Go on.”

  The anger was gone, but his voice remained flat. Decker said, “That’s it. Terry’s missing.”

  “What do you mean, missing?”

  “We can’t find her—”

  “I fucking know what the word ‘missing’ means. What do you mean that she’s missing?”

  Donatti had gone from zero to sixty in five seconds. He was clearly agitated, but that could be staged as well. The veracity of his emotions was impossible to read over the phone. “You need to come into the station house, Chris. We need to talk.”

  “Not until you tell me what the fuck is going on?”

  “Your son called me yesterday around nine in the evening. He was distraught. When he got back to the hotel at seven, Terry was gone. She wasn’t answering her cell phone, so he called you. When he couldn’t get hold of either of his parents, he called me. So I took him in for the night because he didn’t want to sleep at his aunt’s house. So now I’m responsible for your kid until you get here. Where are you?”

  “I’m in Nevada. My receptionist told me you called.”

  “You need to come to L.A. We need to talk.”

  “What the hell happened?”

  “I don’t know and that’s why we need to talk—”

  “So fucking talk!”

  “Not over the phone,” Decker said calmly. “In person. You’ve got to come here anyway. Your son is here, remember?”

  “Okay, okay, lemme think a moment.” He was muttering to himself. “When did she…I mean how long has she been missing?”

  “Long enough that there may be a problem—”

  “Is her car gone?”

  “Chris, I can’t tell you over the phone. How soon can you return to L.A.?”

  “Shit! What time is it?”

  “Around six.”

  “Fuck!” The sound of something crashing over the line. “Fuck, fuck, fuck! When did this happen? Yesterday?”

  “Yes. Chris, I’ll fill you in once you’re in L.A. How soon can you get here?”

  “I’m two hours out of Vegas. I drove in, so I don’t have my plane. By the time I get to McCarren and into LAX, I wouldn’t make it before eleven or so. Driving would take five to six hours…fuck! Let me see if I can lease something at the local airport. I’ll call you back.” Donatti disconnected the line.

  Decker put down his cell and drummed his fingers on his desk, waiting for further information. But his mind was on a particular thought.

  I drove in, so I don’t have my plane.

  I drove.

  Lots of empty land and deserted highway between California and Nevada. The vast, unpopulated tracks that cut through the Mojave, with their infinite miles of nothingness, had always made for fertile dumping grounds.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  EVEN THOUGH IT was beyond happy hour, the bar was packed. ICE was one of those trendy restaurants with its walls and ceilings composed of lit-from-behind panels of pastel colors that changed hues over the course of an
evening meal. The tint of the moment was aqua, giving the place the appearance of an igloo. The temperature inside sure could have used a little of the North Pole’s arctic blast. The day had been unseasonably hot and yucky. Even though Marge had dressed for the heat in beige linen pants and a white cotton blouse, she felt sticky, like her clothes had been taped to her body. Over the phone, Sela Graydon had said that she’d be wearing a gray suit, red blouse, and black pumps, so the woman was easy to spot.

  The lawyer was draped by a mane of brown, wavy hair that fell to her shoulder blades. Her pose was head down, eyes staring at the bar top, with her chin in her hands. She was being chatted up by a thirty-something man with a gilding of blond stubble. Every so often, Sela would lift her head, make a swipe at her eyes with her fingertips, and then lower her head and continue to stare at nothing. Marge wriggled through the crowd and snagged the seat next to hers. “Sela Graydon?”

  The woman glanced up at Marge’s face. “You’re the police?”

  “Sergeant Marge Dunn. We spoke over the phone. Thank you for meeting me on such short notice.”

  Sela bit her lip but didn’t say anything. The blond man extended a hand to Marge. “Rick Briscoe. I work with Sela at Youngblood, Martin and Fitch.” Marge took his hand in the briefest of shakes. “I didn’t think she should be alone.”

  “Nice of you.” To Sela, Marge said, “How about if we take a corner table. Little more private.”

  Sela looked around. “They’re occupied.”

  “My partner, Detective Oliver, is saving one for us.”

  “Go ahead, Sela,” Rick told her. “I’ll wait here until you’re done. I’m working on the Claridge depositions anyway. Just give a holler if you need something.”

  Sela nodded, slid off the stool, and stood up, her height being around five four. Marge brought the lawyer over to table where Oliver was nursing tonic water. He introduced himself and asked if she was hungry.

  “No…” She sat down and tears leaked from her eyes. “I can’t think about food. Kathy called me, asking me to come over. I said of course, but I don’t know why. I’m still in shock. I’m sure I’m not going to be any help to her.”

  “Kathy is Adrianna’s mother?” Oliver asked for confirmation.

  “Yes, sorry. She’s almost like a second mother. It’s going to be so awful.”

  “Sometimes the best thing to say is nothing,” Marge told her. “You spoke to Adrianna this morning.”

  “I didn’t speak to her,” Sela said. “She left a message on my cell.”

  “The call was almost two minutes.”

  “She left a long message.”

  “What about?” Oliver asked her.

  “I wish I could tell you all of it.” A big sigh. “The truth is that sometimes Adrianna kind of rambles and I don’t pay attention. Actually I deleted it before I heard all of it.”

  “What was the gist?”

  “Something about us getting together tonight because Garth is out of town, but not that his presence would stop her anyway ’cause he’s always gone. Then she started saying that it’s good that he’s gone, and if she was really smart she’d ditch him because he was a drain on her emotionally and financially. And he never appreciates a single thing that she does for him and there were lots of fish in the sea and blah blah blah.” Wet tracks were streaking down her face. “I erased the message when I got to blah-blah-blah part.”

  Oliver said, “You called her back, Ms. Graydon.”

  “Is that a statement or a question?”

  Marge said, “We have her cell phone, so we know you called her back.”

  “I did call her back. I left a very short message. I was busy tonight. How about we meet for brunch on Sunday. It’s always easier dealing with Adrianna in the daylight.”

  “Meaning?” Oliver asked.

  Sela’s smile was achingly sad. “Don’t take this the wrong way. I loved Adrianna with all my heart. But sometimes…especially if she’s feeling low…she has trouble knowing when to stop.” Again, she wiped her eyes. “She was never a mean drunk…but she could get careless with her words.”

  “Can you give me an example?” Marge asked her.

  “Let me think how exactly to say this,” Sela said. “When Adrianna drank too much, she started giving advice—that I needed to get out more, that I needed more exercise. She’d try to fix me up with people I loathed. I knew she was tipsy but I could tell that she was saying what she really thought. It got on your nerves.”

  Marge nodded.

  “She could be really ridiculous.” A flush had come to the lawyer’s cheeks. “I don’t mean to sound snobby, but we’re in different places. And Adrianna kept on equating our stations in life. I didn’t care about that. But even when she wasn’t tipsy, she would say things. Like the time I was complaining to her that I had overbooked a couple of clients and I didn’t know what I was going to do. So instead of being sympathetic, Adrianna said to me, ‘Oh, you have clients. Isn’t that cute.’ I swear I wanted to slug her.”

  The table fell silent.

  “Oh God, that’s awful of me!” Sela started to cry. “She could be difficult, but she was also the nicest person in the world. I really loved her.”

  Marge put a hand on her shoulder. “Of course you did. You were close. And close people know how to push each other’s buttons.”

  “It’s horrible that she died in such a tragic, brutal way,” Oliver said. “But you’re not required to extol everything she’s ever done. Mean people die, too.”

  “She wasn’t mean, she was just careless.”

  “She could be a handful,” Oliver told her. “Her own father said so.”

  “She didn’t get along with him.”

  “We gathered that. What did they fight about?”

  “What difference does it make? He didn’t kill her. I can guarantee that.”

  “Just trying to get a complete picture,” Marge said. “Like when Garth was out of town and Adrianna had too much to drink, did she hook up with men?”

  There was a long pause. Finally, Sela said, “She didn’t go missing from a bar, she disappeared from work.”

  “But maybe she was meeting a pickup from the previous night,” Marge said. “From what she was telling you about Garth, it sounded like she was mad at him.”

  “She was always mad at him. But she always went back…one of the reasons I tuned out her complaining. She’d never do anything about it.”

  “Maybe cheating was her way of doing something about it,” Oliver suggested.

  “How could she cheat with a guy? She worked last night.”

  “She didn’t go on her shift until after eleven P.M.,” Oliver pointed out.

  “She wouldn’t go to a bar before she worked.” Sela’s eyes were moving back and forth. Oliver could tell she was nervous. “She was dedicated in her job. I didn’t see her last night if that’s what you’re asking.”

  Oliver said. “Would you know if Adrianna went out for dinner or a Coke at a bar before she went in to work?”

  “I told you, she wasn’t with me.”

  “That doesn’t answer the question,” Marge said. “What we’re asking is do you know if Adrianna went out last night.”

  “Okay, here’s the deal.” A sigh. “I found out after the fact. Because Crystal called me. Crystal Larabee. The three of us were inseparable all through school. God, that seems like ages ago. Anyway, she told me that Adrianna was at Garage last night and she was flirting with someone. But Crystal insists that they didn’t leave together…that the guy went on to other women after Adrianna left for work. And since Adrianna showed up at work, the guy was probably a dead end. So Crystal didn’t want to say anything, especially to the police, because she didn’t want to get in trouble.”

  “Why would she get in trouble?”

  “I can’t say for sure, but I suspect she was comping Adrianna. Maybe even comping the guy along with Adrianna. She’s done it before. Crystal probably didn’t want the manager to find out she wa
s giving away free drinks.”

  “So why does she continue to comp people?”

  “Because Crystal is Crystal. The point is that Adrianna didn’t leave with anyone, so it’s probably nothing.”

  “What if Adrianna and the guy she was talking to decided to get together the following morning?” Marge said.

  “From her phone call to me, it didn’t sound like anyone was waiting in the wings. She was tired and pissed. She’d just gotten off shift, so she probably wasn’t at her best.”

  “Crystal isn’t at work,” Oliver said. “We’ve already called Garage looking for her.”

  “She took a sick day off,” Sela told him. “When I spoke to her, she was at home and in bed.”

  “We stopped by her place,” Marge told her. “She wasn’t in.”

  “Any idea where she might be?” Oliver asked.

  “I don’t know. I don’t routinely spy on my friends.”

  “We’re just asking if you know where Crystal likes to spend her free time,” Marge said. “We need to talk to her.”

  Oliver said, “But she’s not answering her cell phone.”

  Marge said, “Maybe she doesn’t like taking calls from a blocked number. So I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you call her up and ask her where she’s at.”

  “You want me to fink on her?”

  “It’s not finking,” Oliver said. “It’s…locating someone, that’s all.”

  Marge said, “And we know, Sela, that you want to do everything possible to find Adrianna’s killer.”

  Sela made a point of massaging her temple. Then she picked up her cell and punched in some numbers. “Hey, where are you?…No, I can’t come over, I have to visit Kathy Blanc. Have you called her yet?…Yeah, I promised. I’m sure she’ll want to see you, too…No, I’m not telling you anything, I’m just suggesting…No, it doesn’t have to be now, just…Crys, how wasted are you?…No, I’m not insulting you, but…I know you feel…oh dear…stop crying, okay…I’m sorry, okay…I feel like shit, too, but I can’t come down and drink. I have work tomor—I’ll call…okay…okay…okay…okay, I will. Bye.” Sela turned to the detectives. “Now I’ve pissed her off. Happy?”