I lowered myself to the floor and sat with my back to her closet door. “Do I have news for you.”
She rolled over and pushed herself up so she was sitting with her back against the headboard. She pulled a pillow into her lap and wrapped her arms around it. “Okay, let’s hear it.”
“It’s about Mom’s husband, Stanley. His name turned up on a list of johns who were using prostitutes in Southlake.”
“I thought you said his name was Stanley.”
“Do you know what a john is?”
She looked at me blankly.
“It’s someone who uses a prostitute,” I said. “The police busted a prostitution ring in Southlake. Stanley was on a list of the guys who used it.”
She started to smile, then covered her mouth with her hand. “I’m sorry, but it’s so ten-o’clock-news. He’s a middle-aged man. It’s gross, don’t you think?”
“It gets worse. The prostitution ring used girls as young as fourteen.”
She put her hands over her ears. “Ooh, he’s a perv!”
“I’d say that about sums it up.”
She lowered her hands. “How did you find this out?”
“Katie called and told me. One of her sources let her see the list. I just got back from Mom’s house. I had to tell her.”
Kacey put her hand over her mouth again, but this time she wasn’t smiling. “Oh, no. How did she take it?”
I spotted a gum wrapper that was lying on the carpet next to the wall. I picked it up. “She cried a little. I cried a lot.”
“Real surprise there.”
“Oh, shut up. You would’ve cried, too. I hate to say this, but it was kind of nice—for me, that is. For the first time it was like she was really my mom. I think there’s hope.” I worked at folding the gum wrapper in quarters, which was challenging with one hand in a splint.
“Of course there’s hope. Before long I’ll bet you two will be wearing matching sweaters to the mall.”
“Funny.”
She leaned forward over the pillow in her lap. “Seriously, I’m happy for you. But I hope you’re not going to go all wobbly and lose your sense of humor over it.”
“I’m just glad that you admit I have a sense of humor. By the way, wobbly?”
“It’s a Margaret Thatcherism. I learned it in World History. Very functional word.”
“So you aren’t just watching boys at that school. Glad to hear it.”
“Watching boys and studying aren’t mutually exclusive activities. I’m a multitasker.”
“Great. Anyway, back to the point, there’s more about this Stanley thing. Mom wants me to be there tonight for dinner. She’s going to confront him with it.”
She tossed the pillow aside and slid her feet to the floor. “No way! Let me get this straight. You’re sitting there eating your roasted chicken, and she’s going to say, ‘So, Stanley, tell me about the fourteen-year-old hooker from over on Southlake Boulevard.’ Somehow I don’t see that going anywhere.”
I tore up the gum wrapper and flicked the pieces toward the wastebasket next to her desk. Her eyes followed the pieces as they floated to the carpet. “Thanks,” she said.
“Sorry, I wasn’t thinking.” I leaned over and used my good hand to sweep up the tiny bits of paper. “Look, I don’t know how Mom’s planning on raising it with him, but it’s going to be something to see, I’m sure of that.”
“Can you bring a guest?”
“Forget it.”
She harrumphed. I ignored it. With her apparent yearning for adventure, I was beginning to think Kacey might be better suited for my line of work than the ministry.
“So, what are you doing here?” she said. “Why didn’t you just stay at your mom’s?”
“I want to take another look at Elise’s cell phone before this evening.”
“Why?”
“The phone number that Elise asked Brandon to trace. What if it was Stanley’s number?”
She squinted at me. “Why would Stanley be calling Elise?”
“Because he needed money and he knew about Chase. Mom said she looked at some of Stanley’s investment records. He lost a lot of money in mortgage-related securities. Millions. I’ve been thinking about how all of the puzzle pieces might fit together.”
“And you came up with what?”
“No answers, but a few more decent questions. Katie is investigating an extortion ring that blackmails prominent people who get involved with prostitutes. Stanley is using prostitutes. Your dad is being blackmailed about Chase. Stanley is one of the few people who knew about Chase. Elise embezzles money from your dad’s ministry, but Elise loves your dad, and it makes no sense that she would embezzle money from him. So, here goes: What if Stanley was blackmailing your dad, and Elise was paying him off? We figured that it could be Brandon and Elise, but what if it was Stanley and Elise?”
“But Dad told you he never talked to the blackmailer after the first call. The guy just went away.”
“What if he didn’t go away, but your father just thought he did? Your dad told Elise about the blackmail.”
Kacey scratched the back of her head. “You mean you think that Elise may have talked to the blackmailer on her own?”
I stuck my hands in the pockets of my jeans. “Your dad would never have cooperated with the blackmailer. He just would have allowed the information about Chase to become public, no matter the consequences.”
“And Elise would have figured it would ruin him. So, she might think she was taking care of Dad by paying the blackmailer for him. It makes sense.”
“Particularly when you consider that everyone—the employees, the press, your dad—was so busy dealing with your kidnapping at the time. Elise would have been able to handle it without drawing any attention.”
She leaned back against the wall. “Okay, that’s all plausible, but what does it have to do with Katie’s extortion ring?”
“Nothing that I can see. That may be just a coincidence.”
“That seems unlikely to me. We’re still just guessing. We don’t even know that the phone number Brandon traced was Stanley’s. It could be anybody’s.”
I nodded. “That’s why I wanted to come home and take another look at Elise’s cell phone. Maybe there’s something we missed.”
She hopped off the bed. “I want to help.”
“I thought you were supposed to be studying.”
“Hey, my next final’s not until Friday. This is way more interesting than studying.”
“I remember college. Anything is way more interesting than studying for a final.”
“You got that right.”
We went to my room, and I pulled Elise’s cell phone out of my desk drawer. I scrolled to the outgoing calls directory and moved down from the top. The directory held only fifty calls, and went back only a few days before her death. We had previously checked out the numbers and could identify all but three. One of those had been disconnected. The other two rang with no answer and no voice mail rollover.
The most intriguing call was made the afternoon before we found her dead in her car. It was one of the numbers that rang with no answer. It was the only time that number showed up on the directory.
Kacey shrugged. “It’s a dead end. How can we find out who the numbers belong to?”
I turned off her phone. “I’m not sure. My private investigator friend might know. One thing we can do, though, is try to find out if either of the unidentified numbers is significant. I’m going to call Brandon.” I pulled my phone out of my pocket. Within a few seconds I had him on the line. “Brandon, it’s Taylor.”
He was obviously on a speakerphone, and sounded as if he’d been asleep, even though it was 4:45 in the afternoon. “Did I wake you up or something?” I said.
“No, I’ve been playing in a video game tournament since two a.m.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I’m not. It’s based in China. And I’m in the middle of it, so what do you need?” I could hear his fingers clicking on the game controller. Someone dropped an f-bomb in the background.
“Who’s there with you?”
“No one. Those are the online players.”
“I’ve got a quick question. When did you find that guy for Elise?”
“What do you mean, when? After she called and asked me to.”
“No, I mean what day and what time?”
“Is this important right now?”
“Yes. Just do me a favor and think.”
“Wait a minute.”
I heard more clicking. Then Brandon swore loudly.
“Good grief, Brandon. What game are you playing?”
“Would you recognize it if I told you?”
“No.”
“Then let’s get back to the point. She called me in the evening. I talked to my friend at maybe two or three the next morning. Then I called her when I woke up that day.”
“So, you called her at maybe eight or nine in the morning?”
He laughed. “Try one or two in the afternoon.”
“Nice lifestyle. Was that the day before she died?”
“Yeah, definitely.”
“Do you remember anything else about the phone number or who it belonged to?”
“Nope. Can I get back to my game? I’m playing for money here.”
“I’m glad you’re so happy to hear from me. By the way, is there any other way you could trace the number now that your friend is no longer at the forwarding service?”
“What friend?”
I paused. “The friend who you said traced the number for you—at the company that set up the forwarding arrangement for whoever the number belonged to.”
More clicking. “Oh, yeah. No, there’s no way that I know of. You’d have to subpoena the records from the company, but only a court can do that.”
“Thanks, Brandon. You can go back to your game now.”
“I never left it.”
I clicked off the phone.
By that time Kacey was chewing her lip. “What did he say?”
“Just a second.” I opened Elise’s outgoing calls directory again. The last call she made to one of the unknown numbers was at 2:30 the afternoon before she died. Brandon said he’d identified the caller for her at one or two p.m. If she was dealing with Simon’s blackmailer, that looked like his phone number. Brandon might be telling the truth after all.
Kacey was practically hopping in place. “Well?”
“There’s a call to one of the unknown numbers—the only call to that number—within an hour or so after Brandon identified the guy for her. That must be the phone number that Brandon got. If we can match the person who goes with that number, we might have the blackmailer. That is, if Elise was talking to the blackmailer at all.”
“Or, we might have some guy she met on the Internet. Or Brandon might be lying.”
“Would you get off Brandon for a minute? It looks like he’s been telling us the truth. Anyway, we’ve got some information worth checking out. Wouldn’t it be something if that number belonged to Stanley? I can ask Mom what his cell phone number is. It’s almost too much to believe, though, that my own mom’s husband could be involved in this.”
“Why? The guy uses fourteen-year-old hookers in his own hometown and you think he’s not sleazy enough to be involved in something like this?”
“Excellent point. By the way, we don’t know if his hookers were the young ones.”
She folded her arms. “Oh, that helps. Listen, if he’s got any brains, he didn’t have the calls forwarded to his regular cell phone. He might have two or three phones. That’s what guys do when they’re having affairs, you know. They get secret cell phones that their wives don’t know about. That way they don’t have to worry about receiving an embarrassing call while their wives are around—or having their wives sneak a look at their call directories on their main phones.”
I put my hands on my hips. “How do you know that?”
“One of my sorority sisters told me there was a rumor that one of her professors was having an affair, and he did it that way.”
“Well, if you want pertinent information, ask a Tri-Delt, right?”
“Yep. Hey, I’ve got an idea. Tonight at dinner you can have Elise’s phone with you. Have it set up to speed-dial the mystery number. While you’re eating, stick your hand in your pocket and hit the speed dial number. Maybe Stanley’s phone will ring.”
“Oh, c’mon. What are the odds? Besides, I thought you said he probably had a second phone?”
“Maybe he doesn’t. Or maybe he’ll have the second phone with him. What’s the downside? You might get lucky. Can you imagine if his phone rang in his pocket? It would be an instant investigative classic. You could get it made into a TV episode.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to try. They won’t even know I’m doing anything.”
Kacey tapped a finger on her cheek. “Be sure to turn the sound off on Elise’s phone, so it doesn’t beep when you push the speed dial.”
I pulled out Elise’s phone and turned off the sound setting.