The Wicked Wife (Murder in Marin Book 2) (31 page)

Sylvia leaned in. “For starters, I always found myself wondering why she had no other friends. Over the year-plus that we knew her, I can’t recall a single time she mentioned any personal friends! Obviously, she had a number of professional acquaintances, but I can’t name a single person outside of the world of modeling and the promotion of her perfume.”

Holly nodded approvingly. “I know! I tried to convince myself that she didn’t have time for anything else because she was too busy with travel, photo shoots, and personal appearances.”

“And, Holly, didn’t you find it strange that she reached out to
us
to identify some community effort that she could spearhead?”

“I remember sitting at Sam’s Café and asking her why the hell she would want to get involved with something like the McKegney Park project! She didn’t seem to like any of those society gals, particularly Botherton and Hassie.”

“I got the same feeling. I just thought that she was hoping to make a place for herself in the local social set, perhaps something her new husband was urging her to do.”

Holly’s eyes got wider. “And then, of course, their jewelry disappears.”

“I was with Eddie when he interviewed Pamela and Julia. Willow was clearly the only obvious choice for having committed the theft, but then there was…” Sylvia shrugged.

“All of her money,” Holly reasoned. “How could someone so rich give a damn about their sad little bracelets and necklaces?”

Sylvia stirred her coffee and stared down at her cup. Suddenly, she looked up at Holly. “Did you see how odd the interaction was between Willow and her parents on the day of the wedding? If that had been our daughter, Jack and I would have been beaming. She’s an international celebrity, and she’s marrying one of the world’s wealthiest men—and a dear, sweet man at that. That’s what you would normally call, my cup runneth over, but she barely exchanged a word with them. I don’t remember even a hug between them.”

“I saw that! They acted more like distant relatives who were seeing each other for the first time in years!”

“Something must have happened years ago that caused a rift in their relationship,” Sylvia declared. “Whatever that was, I imagine it’s never been healed.”

“Sylvia, I have a suggestion. I’m going to look online at Willow’s senior class at Marin Academy. I want to find the names of a few of the girls who graduated with her. Why don’t you call them with the excuse that you’re doing a follow up story on Willow’s life? Maybe we’ll find out something that will help us to understand why she had no friends from her high school days at the wedding—or for that matter, from any other time in her past.” Holly was just warming up. “Then, at the funeral on Monday afternoon, go up to Willow’s parents and tell them something sweet about their daughter, and mention the next article you’re doing. See if you can get an interview with one or both of them.”

“Absolutely!” Sylvia said with resolve. “I’ll be happy to do anything if it helps us to find out why this happened to Willow.”

To seal the deal, they clicked mugs and quickly went off to do their work.

Debbie Salem called Eddie on Saturday afternoon to share one bit of good news. “I thought you’d like to know that we did pull two other pieces of physical evidence from the scene,” the forensic tech explained.
 

“I’m all ears,” Eddie answered.

“First, at the end of a twig lying under those leaves that were pushed together to cover the victim’s body, we found some light blue fibers. It came from a backpack sold through REI. It’s not much, but it’s something.”

“In fact, it’s a big help. My guess is that the killer’s supplies were in that backpack—the hammer the garment bag, and the note.”

“I suspect the killer put on a pair of nitrile gloves after the victim was struck from behind,” Debbie added. “We didn’t lift any prints off the bag, the note, or that nail we pulled from the base of the victim’s spine. We do have the chemical signature of the gloves, however. As we all suspected, the killer came well prepared for the job. Eddie, I’m sorry and frustrated that we didn’t get more.”

“Thanks for what you’ve done. The backpack is a nice little break.”

“You’re welcome. Oh, how silly of me, there is one other thing—we made some casts of bike tracks that were quite near the body. Sure, it could be unrelated, just another wide-tire mountain bike belonging to someone just passing by. Then again, it might be worth something. It didn’t seem to us that anyone wandered through there before the body was located, so perhaps the bike belongs to our suspect.”

“It’s better to have bike tracks than not. I’m glad you were able to get them, thanks Debbie.”
 

Eddie sat back for a moment at his kitchen table. From there, he could hear Sharon and Aaron playing Hide and Seek in the backyard.
 

I’d love to find that hiking bag and that hammer, he thought. But probably the day of the killing it was all tossed in a dumpster, along with those bike tires. If so, he would have been smart enough to dispose of them far away from the crime scene, and the evidence is probably by now long gone. Heck, if I had been the killer, that’s what I would have done. But, who knows? Now and then you get lucky, even if most times the breaks are few and far between.

Late that afternoon, Holly called Sylvia to give her the phone numbers of three of the girls who were in Willow’s high school graduating class.
 

“I also have the number for Willow’s parents, in Larkspur—Oscar and Gloria Bukowski. With her last name, no wonder she went with Wisp! No perfume named Bukowski would have sold a single bottle.”
 

The moment Sylvia hung up, she called the first name on the list of Willow’s former high school classmates.
 

Randi Franks picked up after the first two rings
 

Sylvia poured on the charm.
 

“Yes I’ve been reading about Willow. It’s very sad,” Randi professed.

During the first five minutes, their conversation centered on the shocking news, then Sylvia subtly moved the conversation to a deeper level. “Covering Willow and working with her, I was surprised by the lack of friends she had. Everyone in her life had a business or community connection, but there didn’t seem to be any personal friends.”

Randi sighed. “I’m more than happy to tell you my theory about that, but I wouldn’t want to be quoted, or for that matter, see my name in the paper.”

“No problem,” Sylvia promised. Her information was going straight to Eddie, and no further—at least, for now.

“I hate to speak ill of someone who just died,” Randi hesitated.

“No, don’t worry,” Sylvia assured her, “This is strictly off the record.”

“Well…the only way I can put it was that she was both a sneak and a thief.”

“Really?
”
 

“In time, she burned every other girl in her senior class. If she wasn’t busy going after your boyfriend, she’d swipe something else. It could be anything, a favorite pen, a music CD; I knew one girl who lost the gold cross her grandmother gave her! Vanished out of her gym locker. She couldn’t figure out what had happened, but I, and a few other girls knew why. We called it ‘getting Willowed.’”

“Wow,” Sylvia said, as she suppressed her shock. “Why do you suppose Willow would do something like that?”

“I have no idea. But I can give you the name of some of the other girls in the class who went through the same thing.”

Sylvia took down the names, but she had no real intention of calling them. However, their names would potentially be of great value to Eddie, Holly, and anyone else who was trying to uncover Willow’s true story and solve the mystery of her death.
 

“Randi, why do you suppose Willow was lashing out against any of these girls? Was she already a social outcast? Or was she angry with a specific group of girls?”

“Willow was an equal-opportunity thief. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that she crossed just about every girl in our senior class. It was weird. No one was ever quite sure what set her off. But from the ninth grade on, every girl learned to stay out of her way. No one trusted her and, certainly, no one wanted her for a friend.”

If Sylvia thought there was any exaggeration on Randi’s part, it was dampened by the list of names she divulged. “Start with Suzie Steiner,” Randi suggested. “She would love to talk to you. Willow took both her boyfriend
and
the watch that her aunt left her.
   

Sylvia’s conversation with Randi was so revealing that she immediately called Holly to relay what she’d heard.

Holly’s only comment was, “Oh, my God! That’s incredible!”
 

“I’m just curious if you’re now thinking what I’m thinking?” Sylvia asked.

“You mean about the Botherton and Hassie robberies?”

“Yes. It’s unbelievable—but I suppose it was her? It certainly fits with the bigger picture.”
 

“Perhaps our dear little Willow was a sociopath,” Holly murmured.

“How do you define sociopath? I don’t think I’ve ever never really known.”

“I’ve dated my fair share,” Holly assured her. “I was a Psych major, so you’d think I’d know better,” she said with a sigh. “Sociopaths have aggressive and impulsive behaviors. They have a complete disregard for the rights of others. With her classmates, she followed a sociopath’s view that what’s mine is mine, and what’s yours is mine as well. Just think about it--you would have to have a mental health disorder to be worth a fortune and want to steal the property of other people. I’m sure it gave her some kind of rush. For sociopaths, the norms of right and wrong just don’t mean very much.”

“How could someone like William Adams be fooled by a person like that?”

“Sociopaths know how to say the right thing—and to push all the right buttons.”
 

“I guess it helped that she was gorgeous,” Sylvia murmured. “But that still leaves the biggest question of all out there. Did she die for her sins?”

“I have no idea,” Holly replied, “but I’m starting to think the list of suspects might stretch from here to LA.”

Holly could not let the weekend conclude without reaching out to Eddie to share with him what Sylvia had learned.