B007GFGTIY EBOK (17 page)

“No thanks, Dickie, but I’m sure Rice would love to take a peek,” Santiago said, volunteering Rice’s services.

Rice smiled and followed Dysart to the damaged Pontiac. Santiago stopped them before they got too far. He needed the answer to one question. It was the reason he’d brought Dysart out here. A no answer wouldn’t simplify Santiago’s world, but a yes would definitely complicate it a hell of a whole lot.

“Does he have the bruise?”

Dysart frowned again. “I thought you’d never ask.”

“Does he?”

“Yes,” Dysart said before returning to his work. “Come along, deputy.”

Moore grabbed Santiago’s arm and pulled him away from the scene. The exchange left confusion on her face. “Malcolm Fuller was a missing person. That’s not your department. What was so special about him?”

“I would have liked to have found out,” Santiago said.

H
ayden woke to a hand shoving him. Rebecca stood over him, ashen and close to tears. The sight of her burned the fog of sleep from his brain. He sat up and guided her to the bed.

“What’s wrong?”

“Malcolm Fuller is dead. He killed himself.”

Hayden understood Rebecca’s demeanor. The shock and distress wasn’t just for Fuller’s death, but also for herself. Yesterday, she’d encountered Fuller alone and on his turf. She’d been damn lucky nothing had happened to her. Fuller didn’t trust anyone, and Rebecca’s tracking him down to his only safe place could have had fatal consequences. If Fuller had felt cornered, there was no judging what he would have done.

Hayden had drummed this argument into Rebecca after he’d tracked her down the day before. Not that he did much tracking. He’d woken up and found a note saying she’d gone after Fuller. He’d called her cell phone, but she’d been out of reception range. He’d called her every fifteen minutes until he’d finally gotten through. His father-knows-best argument lost its power the moment he got her on the phone. The fear that she’d experienced at Fuller’s farmhouse did more to underline her error of judgment than he ever could. At the sound of Hayden’s voice on the phone, Rebecca broke down and bawled, pouring out her close encounter with Fuller.

“It’s OK,” he told her. “It’s over. You’re safe.”

“I was so stupid.”

“If you want stupid, just take a look at me. I’m a walking first-aid kit thanks to my act-first-think-later approach.”

She laughed.

“Look, we need to promise each other something. We don’t go anywhere alone. Together we can watch each other’s backs. Safety in numbers. OK?”

She agreed and he’d driven halfway to meet her. Still dopey from the concussion, he hadn’t lasted too long driving. He stopped at a Denny’s and waited for her. They celebrated her safe escape with cherry pie and ice cream.

He’d liked the smile he put on her face when she slipped into the booth next to him. He missed that smile now.

“How did you hear about Fuller’s death?” he asked.

“It’s on TV.”

He slipped into his jeans and pulled on a T-shirt. He followed her downstairs and they watched the news. The reporter recapped the events before the picture cut away to long shots of a totaled Pontiac embedded in a tree, surrounded by cops working the scene. The reporter toned down how Fuller took his life, but it still sounded gruesome enough to turn Hayden’s stomach.

“I just wish I’d spoken to him instead of running off,” Rebecca said. “I might have prevented this if I’d gotten him to come home with me.”

Hayden remembered Shane. He couldn’t turn Shane around and they were friends. If Fuller had made his mind up to take his life, there was no talking him out of it.

But why suicide? The question kept going over and over in Hayden’s head as he watched the TV footage. Fuller was paranoid. He was hiding out because he thought someone was out to kill him. Suicide seemed like an extreme way of avoiding a murderer, unless spiting the killer was his aim, but Hayden didn’t believe that. He had gone on the run to protect his family from the person following him. Maybe Fuller had killed himself to keep the killer from his family. Fuller was a brave man if this was the case.

Hayden couldn’t shake the feeling that the suicide assumption was wrong. Fuller believed he was being stalked. Rebecca may have spotted his stalker at the farmers’ market. Had the stalker gotten to him?

Hayden picked up the remote, rewound the live-action TV, and paused it on a shot of Fuller’s crumpled Pontiac.

“What are you doing?” Rebecca asked.

“Just checking something. They’re saying Malcolm tied a rope around the tree, then to his neck, got into his car, and drove away. Do you think he did it or do you think someone did it for him?”

Rebecca looked at him.

“We saw someone following him. If you found him, someone else could have as well.”

She said nothing and examined the frozen image on the TV. After several minutes, she said, “It’s possible. Someone could have put him in the car, slipped the rope around his neck, and put a rock on the gas pedal.

“It sounds easy,” Rebecca said after a moment, “but I don’t think it would be that easy in reality. If Malcolm was dead or unconscious before the accident, it would show. There’s also all the cleanup, removing the rock and all that. What if the car hadn’t crashed into the tree? The car could have kept on going, making it damn hard for the killer to cover his tracks. It’s too elaborate. Too much could have gone wrong. Hanging him from one of those trees would have been a better staged death.”

“A staged death?” he said with a smile.

“You did ask.”

The analysis had done Rebecca good and her color had returned, but it had done little for Hayden. She’d punched huge holes in his theory.

“I just find it hard to believe that Malcolm killed himself after the big speech he gave us. He wasn’t a man on the verge of suicide.”

“I know.” Rebecca took the remote from him and put the TV on live play. “From here, we can’t tell one way or the other. We need to be closer to the facts.”

“Santiago isn’t going to tell us anything.”

“We don’t need him. We have someone else. We have Malcolm’s wife.”

Rebecca called her. Hayden listened in on the extension.

“Mrs. Fuller, it’s Rebecca Fallon. Do you remember me? We spoke the other day about Malcolm.”

“Malcolm,” she managed before bursting into tears.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Fuller. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

Hayden felt like a shit listening to this conversation. It was like he was torturing the woman. He and Rebecca were putting their own selfish objectives before Mrs. Fuller’s right to mourn her husband. But if they discovered why everyone had died at MDE, then it would be justified.

“I remember you. You said Malcolm was in danger.”

“That’s what he told me.”

“He didn’t tell you he was in danger from himself,” she said spitefully, starting to sob again.

“Mrs. Fuller, can I come and see you?”

“No. I really don’t have the time.”

“My brother took his own life, so I know what you’re going through. It might help to talk to someone who understands.”

Mrs. Fuller took a long time before answering. “OK. Maybe you’re right. No one else has any answers. And I don’t know what to tell the kids.”

“Let me come by and help you.”

“Sure. OK.”

“I’ll be right over.”

The Fullers lived in Corte Madera, on a quiet residential street in the shadow of Mount Tamalpais. MDE lay just a mile from the house. As they pulled up to the house, Hayden looked across in MDE’s direction. Trees and a rise in the topography hid the burned-out carcass. He was tempted to drive by there after visiting Mrs. Fuller but decided against it. What was left of MDE couldn’t answer any questions.

Rebecca pressed the doorbell. They’d decided in the car that Rebecca would do the talking and he’d take a backseat. She had a common bond with Mrs. Fuller and that would work to their advantage. Mrs. Fuller answered the door. Rebecca smiled, but Malcolm Fuller’s widow failed to return the gesture. She looked past Rebecca and eyed Hayden with suspicion.

“Mrs. Fuller, this is Hayden Duke,” Rebecca said. “He was my brother’s friend and he worked at Marin Design Engineering.”

Mrs. Fuller’s expression softened. She stood back, and Rebecca and Hayden walked inside. Mrs. Fuller showed them into the living room. A girl, no more than nine, sat reading a Harry Potter book, but appeared not to be getting any enjoyment from it. A boy, a couple of years younger than the girl, lay slouched in an armchair with a beeping PlayStation Portable. Like the girl, he lacked any enthusiasm for the game. Both kids were dressed formally in dark clothes. Neither of them acknowledged the visitors entering the room.

Mrs. Fuller sank into an armchair while Rebecca and Hayden took the sofa.

“Kids, can you give me a few minutes with these people?” Mrs. Fuller asked.

Wordlessly, the children complied, leaving the room.

“Thanks. I’ll come up and see you later,” Mrs. Fuller called after her departing children. “It’s a godsend having both of them with me. I don’t know what I would do without them.”

Hayden couldn’t imagine what it must be like for the children to lose a parent. Rebecca could, though. She’d know what the future held for them.

Mrs. Fuller started crying. Rebecca swooped in with a comforting arm and guided her from the armchair to the sofa. Hayden switched to the armchair the boy had been occupying.

“Come on, Mrs. Fuller. You’ve got to be strong. Those children need you. What are their names?”

“Tracey and Kevin. And I’m Debbie.”

Debbie was a plain-looking woman—short, carrying a few extra pounds. She dressed simply and wore her hair in a low-maintenance style. She looked a million miles away from the woman in the photo on the wall. It pictured the Fuller family. Everybody was happy, smiling, and enjoying the moment. Debbie looked vibrant, less dowdy. Her clothes suited her figure and her styled hair brought out her cheekbones. Hayden guessed the photo had been taken in the last twelve months, judging by Kevin and Tracey’s ages. It just highlighted what death did to a family.

“Debbie, my parents died in a car accident when I was sixteen,” Rebecca said.

“Oh, that’s horrible,” Debbie said, forgetting her own troubles for the moment. She placed a comforting hand over Rebecca’s.

“Yes, it was horrible. But I can tell you that you’ll make it, and so will Tracey and Kevin. I can’t tell you what to do and how to do it, but from a person who’s been there, I know that you will get through this.”

“Thanks. It’s nice to hear, but I wish I didn’t have to hear it.”

“I know. I never thought I’d have to tell someone that.”

“And you have to do it all again with your brother.” Debbie shook her head. “There can’t be a God.”

No one challenged Debbie’s remark and a silence fell over the room for a minute. Hayden and Rebecca exchanged a glance. It was time to get to their reason for being there. Hayden nodded at Rebecca and she nodded back.

“Debbie, would it be OK if we asked you a couple of questions about Malcolm?” Rebecca asked.

“We’re trying to understand what drove Shane to suicide,” Hayden said.

Mentioning the word
suicide
made both women wince and he regretted using it. Neither had gotten used to the description in conjunction with their loved ones.

“Sure. What can I tell you?”

“Did he ever mention his work at Marin Design Engineering?” Hayden asked.

“Sometimes. He used to talk about it a lot, but less and less over the past year. Why do you want to know?”

“My brother was the same,” Rebecca said. “He went quiet about his work, and then…you know.”

Debbie nodded. She understood the pattern of events.

“We think Malcolm’s and Shane’s deaths were work related,” Hayden added. “Even more so after the fire.”

“Shane had no reason to kill himself,” Rebecca said. “I want to know if you felt the same about Malcolm.”

Debbie stared at the floor in contemplation and shook her head at an unshared thought. “Malcolm hadn’t mentioned much about his work until that Indian man drowned himself.”

“Sundip Chaudhary,” Hayden prompted.

“That’s right. When Mr. Chaudhary killed himself, Malcolm said it didn’t make sense.”

“How so?” Rebecca said.

“Because he had an appointment for the following day. Malcolm thought it was weird. He didn’t think suicidal people made future plans.”

No, they didn’t
, Rebecca thought, remembering Shane’s vacation booking. “So, you wouldn’t have expected him to have a packed social calendar,” she mused aloud.

“Do you know who Mr. Chaudhary was going to meet with?” Hayden asked.

“Malcolm had the feeling it was the press or someone like that.”

“What made him think that?” Rebecca said.

“Mr. Chaudhary had been questioning the project they were working on and Malcolm had overheard him fighting with Trevor Bellis. Mr. Chaudhary claimed that he’d been lied to and said he would expose the truth.”

“What did Malcolm think when Sundip died not long after?” Hayden asked.

“He thought it was convenient for Trevor Bellis, but I don’t think he believed there was anything sinister going on until the fire. I hadn’t really thought about it until you asked.”

“Do you remember Malcolm mentioning anyone else, Debbie?” Rebecca said.

“A college professor named Kenneth Eskdale. I only remember it because that was my maiden name. He was a consultant on MDE’s latest project. I know Malcolm said Mr. Chaudhary fought with Eskdale about his involvement.”

“Fought?” Hayden asked.

“Yes. Malcolm said it got real nasty.”

Rebecca flashed a glance at Hayden. Hayden knew what she was thinking. They had a lead, a place to further their curiosity.

Standing up, Debbie said, “Do you mind if I make coffee? I find it helps if I keep myself busy. It keeps me from thinking about Malcolm and what happened.”

“I know what you mean, Debbie. Hayden’s been a lifesaver.”

Rebecca smiled at him and he felt his face flush.

“I don’t want to take up any more of your time,” Hayden said. “I would like to say thanks for your help. You’ve put things back into perspective.” He got to his feet.

“Are you sure?”

Hayden nodded.

“Yes, you’ve been a great help.” Rebecca hugged and kissed the widow. “You’ve got a family to look after.”

After the hug, Debbie said, “You’re invited to the funeral. I don’t know when it is. The police haven’t released his body.”

“I’ll call,” Rebecca said.

Debbie Fuller saw Rebecca and Hayden out. She seemed happy but the veneer looked thin and it wouldn’t take much to crack it.

Walking back to his car, Hayden said, “Poor woman. I’m glad she didn’t ask about the last time we saw Malcolm.”

Rebecca agreed.

Hayden unlocked the car with the remote. “At least we have someone to see now.”

“What would a college professor have to do with MDE?”

Hayden smiled. “Let’s find out.”