Ghost Sudoku (9 page)

It took her three efforts before she finally made it all the way through the game and cleared the screen.

Liza banged her knuckles in frustration on the tabletop next to the keyboard, setting the monitor a-jiggle.

“Dammit all,” she muttered, killing the game and opening the computer’s word processor. Then she typed in exactly what was distracting her:

Under that heading, she began to free-associate.

That would make sense. Ted thought there was some funny business going on there. What if it didn’t just involve Chad?

That was the basic reason for the rotten state of elections in the county. Liza’s own pseudo-candidacy had come out of the machine’s hostility to the threat of reform—or even of change to the status quo—that Ray Massini represented.

But exactly who was involved?

Liza remembered Sheriff Clements’s comment that the orders to run her for mayor must have originated somewhere down the hierarchy. Maybe they had even started with Chad, amusing himself by tossing a former classmate into the political mix.

Or it could have come from J.J. Pauncecombe. Certainly, she hadn’t had a close personal relationship with him—at the time, Liza would have considered that icky. But maybe the younger Pauncecombe had seen that particular political dirty trick as a slap against Ray Massini and that annoying girl from twenty years ago.

Liza typed in his name, followed by John Jacob Pauncecombe’s. It didn’t matter if they’d ordered Liza’s candidacy or not. The question was Chad’s ghost voters, and who might have been implicated if Chad had decided to talk.

Certainly, the Pauncebombes would be at the top of that list.

Who else?

Liza quickly typed “Clark Hagen.” Then she frowned. Okay, Hagen had turned up at the scene of the crime right when Liza discovered it, and he’d given her a hell of a scare. He was essentially a mercenary, doing political jobs—even dirty ones—for the highest bidder.

A hired gun, but . . .

I could see him easily engaging in a bit of character assassination,
Liza thought. But the real thing?

She let her fingers wander a little farther, and they typed out “Ray Massini.”

Liza really scowled at that. Still, Kevin told her that the mayor had been going out of his mind over her supposed candidacy. Liza had figured that Massini would calm down when Kevin reported that it was phony, that she had no intention of running.

But what if he’d decided to take it up with the source of his problems—the county’s elections commissioner?

Another name ticked onto the screen—Sheriff Clements. As his visit a while ago showed, he was in the middle of an election campaign, one that worried him.

Could Chad Redbourne have been working behind the scenes to make it more contentious?

She remembered Oscar Smutz standing on the float that was supposed to draw voters to sign petitions for her mayoral run, sneering down at the sheriff. What had he said? “If you got any problems, you can take them up with Mr. Redbourne at the county elections office.”

So maybe Clements
did
have a problem with Chad—and had gone for a final resolution.

He had to know that having heard Redbourne’s name, Liza would end up paying him a visit. Hell, the man was an investigator. Maybe he even knew that she and Chad had a high school history.

Well, he wouldn’t know I’d be heading over to Chad’s yesterday evening,
Liza thought.
Unless he bugged my phone call with Ava.

She shook her head. With that kind of paranoid thinking, she might as well start copying out the Killamook County phone book on this screen.

Still . . .

She compromised by putting a question mark after Clements’s name.

Then she typed in another name—Oscar Smutz.

He was the one who had mentioned Chad’s name, of course, and Liza didn’t believe he’d do anything to help either her or Clements. He was involved in the election campaign, too. So if Chad was giving him problems . . .

The guy was crooked, and she really didn’t need the sheriff to tell her that. Smutz was also an opportunist. He’d shown that when he hijacked the float meant to bolster her own candidacy.

My fake candidacy,
Liza corrected silently.

Then, too, Clements had mentioned that Smutz had been the Killamook machine’s go-to guy for police action. Did that include action to plug possible leaks to the state police?

Liza sighed. Casting the net this wide was just another way of saying she had way too many questions and no answers at all.

She put a question mark after Smutz’s name, too, then sat up straight as she noticed the time inset on the screen’s lower-right-hand corner.

If Michael had managed to get the first flight to Portland, he should be here shortly.

Liza looked down at her walking-the-dog duds.

She heard a car engine in the distance, and then Rusty suddenly shook himself awake, cocking his head. The dog shot Liza a slightly surprised, “What are you doing here?” kind of look.

So the sound of that engine was familiar, one that Rusty knew—like Liza’s own car.

The engine stopped, and a moment later, the kitchen doorbell rang. Well, certainly it was someone who knew that the usual entrance to this place was the kitchen and not the front door.

Running a quick hand through her hair to get it into some sort of order, Liza headed for the door and opened it.

There stood Michael Langley, tall and slim, with a poet’s face and dark hair with a curl so unruly that it almost took a buzz cut to control it. Right now his large, dark brown eyes looked a little anxious as he said, “Hi, Liza.”

The reason for that was the two men standing behind him.

It would be hard to find a pair with a greater contrast. Buck Foreman was tall and beefy, his brown hair short and freshly barbered, his eyes hidden behind a pair of mirrored sunglasses. He still looked like the tough motorcycle cop he’d probably been when he started his career with the LAPD—a look that had served him well as he rose to the detective ranks. He’d certainly intimidated lots of perps and witnesses alike as he investigated a number of high-profile cases.

It hadn’t done many favors for him, however, when a defense lawyer found an old tape of Buck making some intemperate remarks. It didn’t matter that the tape—and the remarks—had no bearing on the case at hand. By the time the media moved on to the next news item, Buck had wound up as the poster boy for police brutality. He’d had to reinvent himself as a private eye, with help from Michelle Markson. Certainly, he was her PI of choice for dealing with any unsavory business threatening her clients.

The guy standing beside Buck barely came to the private eye’s elbow. With his roly-poly body and round, expressive face, Alvin Hunzinger looked as if he’d stepped out of a cartoon. Liza always thought he was the spitting image of Elmer Fudd. But the comical exterior hid one of the sharpest legal minds Liza had ever encountered. Certainly, there was nothing funny about the way Alvin had garnered his title as Lawyer to the Stars. He’d managed to protect many on Hollywood’s A-list from the consequences of their own folly—sometimes even when they were innocent.

“Hello, boys.” Liza tried not to scowl at her unexpected visitors.

“Sure was a surprise to bump into them at the airport,” Michael quickly said, trying to disavow any knowledge of their actions. A bit of pique did shine through as he added, “Of course, they were riding business class, while I was in coach.”

“Anyway, Michael was kind enough to offer us a lift down here,” Alvin began, but he stopped at the look on Liza’s face.

Actually, it wasn’t anger, but the attempt to hold in a laugh. She’d have paid money to see the three of them trying to emerge from her compact car. It would be like watching one of those clown cars in the circus.

“I, ah, take it that Michelle didn’t happen to mention we were on the way?” Alvin added nervously. He might be utterly fearless in the courtroom, but when Michelle Markson told Alvin to jump, he only wanted to know how high.

“Probably saw it as a waste of time,” Buck Foreman said in his rumbling bass voice.

Liza had to hand it to the PI. Buck showed unexpected depths of diplomacy, leaving the question open as to whether it would be wasting Michelle’s time to give Liza any kind of warning, or whether the waste would be Liza’s trying to argue with Michelle once the senior partner had made up her mind.

“She probably just wanted to make sure I didn’t go on vacation again before you got here.” Realizing that was ungracious, Liza stood aside in the doorway. “Well, come on in. I’ve got coffee on, and I’m sure you must be dehydrated after your flight.”

She left Rusty to greet the guests in the living room while she went into the kitchen to arrange a tray.

Michael trailed after her.

“I really didn’t know about any of this until I found Foreman looming over me at the gate in the airport terminal.”

“He is pretty good at looming, isn’t he?” Liza headed back into the living room with her tray. “I’ve got to tell you what a warm, fuzzy feeling it gives me to see you guys come all this way—even if Michelle made you do it. But I think it’s a lot of effort for nothing. I’m not intending to investigate—”

“Sure, of course. It’s obvious,” Foreman rumbled from his spot in front of her computer, where he stood reading the screen. “You have no interest at all.”

Liza scowled.
Damn detectives, always sticking their noses in where they aren’t wanted,
she thought.

“I didn’t say I have no interest,” she replied testily. “I said I wasn’t going to investigate. The sheriff was here this morning, and he came out and asked me not to—”

“That might be because he considers you a suspect,” Alvin interrupted. “You had a public difference of opinion with Chad Redbourne, and it ended with a fairly provocative threat from you.”

“Provocative?” Liza echoed.

“You mentioned swinging—and not in a good way.”

The memory of her exit from Chad’s office came back—standing in the doorway and saying, “Someone’s going to swing.”

Liza looked around at her friends. “Well, it was just something to say.” Her lips twisted. “Yeah, pretty lame. But he’d just about blown me off, and I wanted some kind of a comeback—”

She broke off. “You don’t think that gave somebody the idea . . .”

“I just think you should consider self-defense,” Alvin said.

Buck stared at him. “Interesting plea—I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a person hanging someone in self-defense before.”

Now it was Alvin’s turn to stare. “I didn’t mean that as a plea. I meant that Liza should defend herself against accusation by taking action—finding a viable alternative.”

“You mean, investigating the case,” Michael translated.

Foreman grinned. “Come on, you know you want to do it.”

“I don’t.” Liza plumped down on the sofa. “I didn’t much care for Chad back in high school, and the first time I see him after twenty years, he acts like a weasel and just about lies to my face.”

“And then somebody strings him up,” Michael said.

Liza sighed. “All right, I suppose we can do a little brain-storming. But I think we’d better call Kevin Shepard.”

Michael’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you need him?”

“
We
need him,” Liza replied, “for his local knowledge and the political stuff he’s been privy to as a friend of Ray Massini. If I could do it, I’d have Ava Barnes here, too—except she’d probably be trying to put our faces on the front page of the
Oregon Daily
.”

She didn’t mention why she wanted Kevin to come over, even when he innocently asked if he should bring his toolbox. While they waited for him, they discussed Liza’s list. Buck Foreman was surprisingly diplomatic in suggesting that Liza’s suspicions rested more on guesswork than logic. Hell, Liza agreed with him.

When Kevin arrived, he took one look at Buck, Alvin, and Michael, raised a hand to his ear, and said, “Whoops, I think I hear my mother calling.”

“We need your help.” Liza took a deep breath. “I need your help. We’ve got a mess here that no toolbox can fix.”

“It is a mess,” Kevin agreed glumly.

“I guess your friend Ray must be glad to hear that Liza isn’t really running for mayor,” Alvin said.

“He’s relieved,” Kevin replied. “Ray said people are crazy enough over celebrities without getting them into politics.”

“And he doesn’t have any other beef with Redbourne?” Buck asked.

Kevin looked at him. “You don’t think Ray had anything to do with what happened, do you? He wouldn’t mind seeing Redbourne and a lot of other drones out of their jobs, but he’s not about to put on a mask and go around stringing them up.”

“So the news is out that Chad’s death wasn’t a suicide,” Liza said.

“Yeah, it came out on KMUC after the morning chucklefest was over.” Kevin shook his head. “I always felt kind of bad about Redbourne. You know how all through school, J.J. Pauncecombe was on his back? Well, he wanted all the other guys on the team to go after Chad, too. I did some pretty nasty stuff to the guy, just to go along with the team.”

“Like the hanged tackling dummy?” Liza asked.

“That was J.J.,” Kevin told her. “It’s funny how, in the end, Chad wound up working for J.J.’s old man.”

“Not as strange as what happened with J.J.’s girlfriend.” The words burst out almost before Liza realized she’d said them.

Kevin gave her a funny look. “Why would you mention that?”

Because even after twenty years, that witch still gives me hives,
Liza thought. Aloud, she said, “I just thought it was weird, her marrying the old man.”