Maggie and the Hidden Homicide Read online

  NOT AN EMERGENCY. JUST WANT YOUR HELP WITH SOMETHING, and she stopped in her tracks to take a few breaths and try to calm down.

  ON MY WAY, she texted back once her fingers were steady enough to type the words, and then she headed home at a fast walk, still worried about him.

  Jasper barked like a piercing siren when he heard her in the driveway, so she stopped at the tiny house to get him before going to Casablanca.

  They found Reese in the living room, a Carita Cove autumn afternoon glowing warmly through the huge windows that looked out to the water. Her big house was bright and cheerful, and Reese sat on the sofa, looking perfectly fine. At least physically.

  He wasn't alone. A woman dressed in crisp blue medical scrubs stood patiently in front of him, about five feet away, which gave the impression she was just out of arms' reach. The woman had a doubtful look on her face.

  Reese's wary expression matched hers, and he didn't even glance at Maggie when she came in.

  Jasper went over to greet Reese.

  Reese let the big dog get between him and the nurse, almost using him as a shield. He gave Jasper a big hug and the dog jumped up on the sofa to sit next to him.

  But Maggie noticed he didn't smile at the dog's antics. The hands that reached to pet the dog were trembling violently.

  "What's wrong?" she asked, looking from the woman to Reese. "You said you were all right. Are you sick?" Sick in his case could mean anything from the common cold to a drug relapse, so she felt her stomach lurch at the sight.

  He didn't answer, so she turned to the woman. "Has he had a relapse?" she asked. "What's going on?"

  "He's fine," the nurse said calmly. "This is his regular check-in. We're almost finished."

  That reassured Maggie a bit.

  "In fact," the nurse said, "we've been almost finished for about fifteen minutes." She raised an eyebrow at Reese.

  "I'm glad you're here," he finally said in response to Maggie's worried frown.

  "So why did you nearly give me a heart attack and make me run all the way home?"

  He was back to staring at the nurse and didn't respond.

  The nurse just stood there, looking from Reese to Maggie. He still wouldn't explain, so the woman finally turned back to him. "This will only take a moment, Sir. You won't even feel it."

  "Won't feel it?" Maggie asked, and the woman raised her hand.

  Maggie saw the hypodermic needle she was holding, and then she understood.

  "Oh," she said. "Is that what this is all about?"

  "Yeah," Reese said sheepishly, still ducking behind the dog. "Help me, please."

  Reese had a phobia about needles. As a former drug addict, even the sight of a hypodermic needle sent him into a panic. When he was ODing during his relapse, he'd almost punched her lights out when he freaked out at a life-saving injection.

  She went over to stand next to the sofa and put her hand on his shoulder. The big man was shaking almost uncontrollably, but was at least not fighting them.

  "I'll help as long as you promise not to deck me," she said, and he looked startled, then relaxed when he realized she was teasing him. "So how can I help?" she asked.

  "Could you distract me or something?" he said.

  "Okay, look at me."

  His gaze was fixed on the needle in the nurse's hand, so Maggie put her hands on his head and turned him to look at her. His stunning face, with its perfect bone structure, had brought him fame and fortune, laying the world at his feet. But now the gorgeous cobalt eyes were all pupil, wide with terror, and the fear he couldn't hide made her tear up for him. "It's okay, it's okay," she said, gently rubbing the rough beard on his cheeks with her palms.

  "You really need to trim this," she said, and he tried to smile in response.

  Jasper crawled into his lap, obviously also wanting to comfort him. The big dog got in the way, so she called him off, but Reese said, "no, let him stay," and hugged him close.

  "So have you heard from the realtor about the houses?" she asked, still holding his head so he couldn't look back at the nurse.

  "Um," he said.

  "Concentrate," she said to him. "What kind of houses are you going to look at?"

  "The realtor said he'd found some good options," he said absently. "I don't know what they are."

  "Well, that will be exciting," she said, seeing the nurse bending close to where his bulging bicep hugged Jasper's furry midsection. "Take a deep breath," she said, "and tell me where you're going to find crawdads to put in a pond."

  "Where I'm going to what?" he asked. "Oh. Well, I'd just get Patricia to—" He turned his head and she let go of him.

  "Done," said the nurse as Reese glared at his bicep, which looked tanned and muscular and completely unmarked by the injection he'd just received. "So I will see you next week." She snapped her medical bag closed. "Call the service if you have any problems at all, Mr. Stevens. I'll see myself out." She left.

  Reese sat there rubbing his arm.

  "Does it hurt?" Maggie asked.

  "Not a bit." Then he smiled at her a bit sheepishly. "Thanks. I feel like a fool."

  "You are." She grinned at him. "I'm glad you're okay."

  He smiled back. "Me, too."

  Maggie plopped into her favorite overstuffed chair across from the couch. "I just have one question."

  "Yeah?" he replied. Jasper still sat on his lap, and he pushed the dog back, without success.

  "Jasper, Come!" Maggie said firmly, and he jumped off of Reese's lap to come over to her. She praised him when he sat in front of her, and he responded by jumping up onto her lap and squashing her. "Oh, Jasper!" she said. "Get down!"

  "Jasper, Come!" Reese said, and the dog got down to go over to him. But this time Reese didn't let him up onto the sofa, and the dog finally sprawled out on the floor with a disgruntled sigh.

  Reese laughed. The shaking was gone, and he clearly felt better.

  "What was the shot for?" Maggie asked.

  "That's the drug they've been giving me at the clinic," he said shortly. "It's a special cocktail to reduce my drug cravings and keep me from getting high if I do relapse. It comes with a free lecture from the nurse about how relapsing will kill me. I need all the help I can get to stay sober."

  Maggie must have looked worried, because he said, "it's okay, Magdalena. I don't intend to lose this battle. I've got reasons to live."

  "I'm glad to hear it. But I still have one question."

  "Go for it," he said, leaning back and resting his head against the cushions.

  "What exactly is a crawdad, anyway?"

  His laughter echoed up to the ceiling beams.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The realtor arrived at five on the dot.

  He was of course the top agent in Carita, who handled deals for the most finicky clients in town. "Call me Bill," he said after handing Maggie a card that read WILLIAM PETER JOHNSON, CRE, CRS, GRI, RCE, RSPS, GREEN, Carita Cove, Los Angeles, Lake Tahoe. She didn't bother to ask what all the acronyms meant. They meant he was well-equipped to fulfill every real estate wish for a man who could buy anything he wanted, but didn't know where to start.

  "You're bringing Jasper, aren't you?" Reese asked her, and the agent, being used to the eccentricities of his wealthy clients, didn't even blink when the eighty-pound dog jumped into the back seat of his Rolls Royce and started shedding sable fur all over the white leather interior.

  They all settled in for the ride out to Carita Valley.

  Clearly Bill had been briefed on his client, because as they relaxed against the plush cushions, he handed Reese a double expresso, Maggie a mocha latte, and Jasper a dog biscuit. Then he got in the driver's seat and they headed out.

  The drive was only half an hour, and as Jasper lay at her feet and crunched his biscuit, Maggie looked out the window.

  They quickly left the busy tourist town and headed up Valley Road into the hills. At first the countryside around them looked like any California interior valley, all scrub
oak and manzanita and rusted-out signs marking Oak Lane and Valley Campground and Private: No Hunting.

  But it wasn't long before the dusty hillsides gave way to wealthy playgrounds with lush vineyards and sleekly groomed pastures where glossy horses grazed in the sunshine.

  They passed side roads labeled with discreet signs marking CARITA VINEYARDS, DREAM RANCH ARABIANS, and one labeled GOLF: 2 MILES, before coming to a wide road marked by stone pillars and no street name at all.

  That was the road Bill turned down. They passed a manned security gate where their car was let through with a wave. Maggie cynically wondered if they would have gotten the same response if they'd been in her dusty little Honda instead of a Rolls.

  The homes along this road were set way back in more of those lush fields. The horses varied, too, some dappled gray, some rich brown, and one field had, instead of horses, little alpacas with friendly smiles who lazily watched as they passed by.

  The white fences marched along, marking the borders around properties that must be twenty acres each or more.

  They turned into a driveway, a black ribbon of pavement without a speck of dirt on it. The pastures on each side were groomed to within an inch of their lives with perfect mowing marks in them, straight and true. Then the buildings came into view. There was a glimpse of a stable off to their left, looking as finely finished as the most luxurious home. A sign over the vast barn door said DAY'S END RANCH.

  Then they saw the house. This was all classical columns and heavy rooflines, with white stone siding and huge bay windows reflecting the blue and green of the perfect sky and perfect lawns.

  The Rolls pulled to a stop in front of a set of wide marble steps that led up to a portico that would have been at home on a Greek temple.

  They got out, Jasper leaping down as he usually did, grunting as his shoulder took the brunt of the landing, and then wagging happily at the smells and sights of this new place.

  The air here was dry and warm, unlike the damp freshness on the coast. Maggie took a deep breath of it, enjoying the change.

  An older woman in a crisp black pantsuit came out of the house to greet them.

  She came forward and handed a set of keys to Bill, then turned to go without a word. It seemed servants were trained to be as invisible as possible at Day's End Ranch, for she saw a gardener and what must, from his elegant livery, be the chauffeur, come around the corner of the building, and then, spotting the guests, quickly retreat whence they'd come.

  This wasn't exactly the kind of ranch Maggie had expected, but she supposed for someone with Reese's financial portfolio, this was about as rustic as it was going to get.

  There was no question it was lovely, though. It seemed like they were very far from Carita. No tourists, no working stiffs going about their daily lives, no rundown coffee shops with battered pianos in the corner, no little bead shops. It was thirty minutes and another world away from Carita.

  Reese didn't say anything, but just followed along as Bill showed them the property. And it was a magnificent place.

  The first room off the grand hallway was a large drawing room, with its glossy black Steinway piano picturesquely situated in one of those huge bay windows overlooking the lawns.

  Reese sat down there for a few minutes, drawn as he always was to a musical instrument. He played a short piece which Maggie guessed was Brahms. It seemed more appropriate in this setting than his usual fare. The agent stood rapt while Reese played, and Maggie realized she'd gotten so used to his playing that she'd forgotten how amazing it actually was.

  But he quickly finished and stood up, caressing the instrument as he closed the keyboard cover. "Nice piano," he said softly.

  "I imagine the Steinway could be included in the sale," Bill said, and Reese shrugged. It hardly mattered; he could buy a piano if he wanted one.

  They moved on to the living room, filled with the kind of furniture you wouldn't even dream of putting your feet up on. After that came a walnut-paneled office with dedicated satellite connection for videoconferencing, formal dining room, informal dining room, and it went on and on from there. There were Chinese porcelains, Warhol paintings, a pair of Louis XVI chairs she was pretty sure were not reproductions, and then she grew numb and it all began to blur into a whirl of soft carpets, elegant furnishings, and hushed silence.

  Lots of silence.

  Even the eternally bouncy Jasper seemed to get bored after a while, only livening up when they entered the servants' quarters and he got a whiff of a Pomeranian who was curled up on one of the maid's beds. The little dog gave him a baleful look and then went back to sleep.

  "How many live-in staff?" Maggie asked as they headed out to see the stables.

  "Four inside and another four for the outside," Bill said. "Plus day help, and extras for parties."

  The stables were the same. Luxurious, impeccably maintained, and stocked with everything a country gentleman could want, from the tack room with a dozen saddles at the ready for a trail ride, to the training paddock, freshly raked into concentric circles without a single grain of sand out of place. Again, there was no one around, and Maggie had the impression the staff were there, carefully staying just out of sight but invisible, like wraiths that disappeared when you turned your head toward them.

  They went back to the car.

  Reese hadn't said a word since they'd left the Steinway, and when they got back to the Rolls, Maggie finally pulled him aside to talk.

  "Give us a minute?" she asked Bill, and he nodded and withdrew as professionally and quietly as the servants.

  Reese looked out at the perfect pastures. "What do you think?" he asked quietly.

  She started to say something diplomatic, but then just blurted out, "I think it's a nightmare, Reese."

  He turned to her and smiled. "Don't hold back, honey. Give me your real opinion."

  "Can you really picture yourself living here?"

  He shrugged. "I don't know. It's just another house. I have so many." He frowned. "Why do you say it's a nightmare? You don't think it's beautiful?"

  "Of course it's beautiful. It would be like living in a museum exhibit. I mean, eight staff, Reese?"

  "Weird how you don't see them," he muttered.

  "Yeah. That's the thing. I get the feeling if you actually ran into one of them, they'd bow and scrape and back out of the room and commit seppuku for their transgression."

  He chuckled. "Yeah. That's not really my style. If I owned this, I wouldn't want the staff doing that."

  "But that's the point, isn't it? Why do you want to own it? I mean, eight servants to keep this place running is a bit much."

  "Well, somebody has to. It's a lot of house."

  "Twelve thousand square feet, yeah," she said. "I heard Bill's sales pitch. But why do you want this much property anyway?"

  "I want some peace and quiet. I grew up in the country, and I thought it would be restful to get away from the crowds." He smirked. "And maybe finally throw off that persistent paparazzo who keeps photographing me every time I go jogging." He looked around at the lush pastures. "This is peaceful, isn't it?" He glanced back at her.

  "But is this what you're searching for, Reese?"

  "Searching for?" He almost whispered the words. "I am searching. For something. Something like I had when I was a kid, at my parents' farm. I thought I wanted a ranch. Near Carita, but quiet, so I can…."

  "Heal?" she asked.

  He nodded. "Find myself. Make a home. For myself. And for my son one day."

  "This isn't it," Maggie said firmly.

  "Are you sure?" he asked. "Isn't it peaceful, Maggie?"

  "As peaceful as a grave," she agreed.

  "But there's something wrong with it, isn't there? What is it?"

  "It's lonely, Reese. It's a lonely place."

  He stared at her for a minute. Then nodded. "You're right. That's exactly what it is."

  Chapter Fourteen

  The next morning, Maggie pulled her little purple Honda Fit in
to the dusty parking area at the Kirby farm.

  "I don't get why we're here," Reese said.

  "I brought you because I need you to translate, if any of the people I want to talk to don't speak English."

  "But why do you want to do this at all?" Reese grumbled.

  They got out of the car. Maggie unfastened Jasper from his harness in the back seat and he jumped out, looking around and sniffing.

  He pulled her over to one particular spot and snuffled his nose on the ground, basking in the scent.

  "Santa Maria barbecue, I know," she told him. "That's where the grill was standing."

  "What's he doing?" Reese asked.

  "I've got a better question," someone said. "What are you doing?"

  She turned around.

  "Mr. Kirby," Maggie said, pulling Jasper away from the tantalizing scents. She reached out her free hand to shake Kirby's.

  He took her hand, reluctantly, and then quickly pulled away. His face was drawn, and he looked like he hadn't slept since the barbecue.

  "I'm so sorry," she said to him. "So very sorry about your son."

  Reese came up and shook his hand, too. "We both are. It was a tragedy."

  Kirby nodded. He seemed unable to speak for a moment, but then cleared his throat and asked again, "what are you doing here?"

  Reese turned to Maggie with a raised eyebrow.

  "I wanted to give you my condolences, of course," she said. "But also, I wanted to talk to the workers we met before."

  "Most of them are gone," Kirby said. "But the ones still here are clearing that field." He waved vaguely off to their left.

  "Gone?" Maggie asked, wondering if he had fired them.

  "They ran, of course. As soon as they saw the police. If the police couldn't find them, I don't see how you can. Why do you want to talk to them, anyway?"

  "I don't know," Maggie said, feeling the man's pain wash over her, making her doubt herself. "To get some answers, I guess. See if I can learn anything about Taiyari. About where she might be or what might have happened."