In Death's Shadow

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The next time I saw Officer Mike Tracey, I was perched on a gurney in the emergency room of Anne Arundel Medical Center, and the plastic surgeon was humming "I've Been Working on the Railroad" while sewing six stitches into my noggin.

Tracey had been leaning against the wall, silently watching the doctor work. "That's quite a gash," he said as the doctor moved aside and the nurse began to apply a bandage.

"I'll live. How's Mrs. Bromley?"

"She's just a few cubicles away. Why don't you ask her yourself?"

Holding my head stationary, I waggled a hand at the doctor. "Almost finished?"

The doctor nodded, smiling. "Call my office and make an appointment. I'll want to see you in five days." He pulled a prescription pad from the pocket of his lab coat, scribbled something on it, tore off the page and handed it to me. "This is for Percocet, if you need it for pain. My phone number's there, too."

"Thanks, Doctor." From the throbbing going on in my forehead, I predicted I'd need to corner the market in Percocet.

The nurse put the finishing touches on my bandage then took us to see Naddie. She was in a nearby cubicle, lying on a gurney. "We've given her a light sedative," the nurse told us. "And we're keeping her overnight for observation. Don't tire her out," she said before slipping out.

I approached the gurney from the side and gazed down at my friend. Mrs. Bromley's eyes were closed and her breathing was slow and regular. "How peaceful she looks," I whispered to Officer Tracey. "I can't believe that I put her life in danger like that."

Mrs. Bromley's eyes fluttered open; she turned her head in my direction and smiled. "Hi," she said groggily.

"Hi yourself," I said. "How are you, Naddie?" Mrs. Bromley usually wore a headband, but sometime during all the excitement, it had disappeared. I smoothed the snow-white hair back from where it tumbled over her forehead.

"I could use a drink," she said.

I filled a blue plastic cup with water from the sink and supported her head with my hand while she drank it. When she was done, Naddie relaxed against the pillow, looked up and seemed to notice my bandage for the first time. "What happened to you?"

I touched my bandage gingerly. "A bump on the head. A few stitches." I smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry, I'll be just fine. How about you?"

"They just read the X rays," she said. "My arm's broken in two places. They're going to set it. Ouch! I'm really looking forward to that! And I'll have to wear a cast."

"Casts come in a full range of designer colors, I hear."

Mrs. Bromley's face clouded over. "But my art show? It's next week!"

"Don't worry, Naddie. I'll help you with your show. You just relax, now. Everything's going to be fine."

"Do you ladies feel up to answering a few questions?" Mike Tracey extracted a notebook from his pocket and flipped it open to a blank page. When we agreed, he disappeared into the hallway, returning a few moments later, dragging a couple of chairs.

After we were comfortably seated, Mrs. Bromley launched with surprising enthusiasm into her version of our recent adventure, while I offered my two cents' worth about Jablonsky, Pottorff, and Steele. We had begun to describe the house where we'd been held prisoner when Paul burst into the cubicle, with Dennis only a few steps behind.

"My God, Hannah!" Paul fell to his knees in front of my chair as if he were about to propose marriage. He touched my bandage with his fingers, took my face gently in his hands and kissed me softly on the mouth. "What on earth am I going to do with you?"

"Why didn't you call me?" Dennis's scowl said it all.

"I'm always bothering you, Dennis. I thought you'd be proud of me. I called 911, like a good girl." I grinned, to let him know I was teasing. "I would have called you next," I added, "but they took away my cell phone."

"Who's 'they'?" Paul asked.

Mike Tracey leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, notebook still in hand. "We picked up the gardener and a guy named Pottorff when they tried to escape after the crash. Pottorff, it turns out, works for a fellow named Jablonsky. We've picked him up, too. They're so busy pointing fingers at each other it'll be a while before we get it all sorted out."

Dennis turned to me again. "Do you have any idea where you were being held?"

"Yes and no," I said. "I think it may have been Jablonsky's house in Fishing Creek Farm, but there's a way we can find out for sure." I looked around the cubicle for my purse but couldn't see it. Where the hell was it? I'd had it with me in the van, I knew that for sure. Had it gotten lost in the accident? Was it still in the ambulance? Had it been stolen? The warm pride I had been feeling about my coup with the GPS was quickly turning to ice cold panic. "My purse! It's gone!"

Mike Tracey laid a comforting hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry. It's probably back in your cubicle," he said. "I'll take a look."

It seemed like hours, but it was only minutes before Tracey returned with my purse. "Whew!" I took it from his outstretched hand and crushed it to my chest. "If I'd lost it-"

I handed the purse to Paul. "Look in the bottom," I instructed.

His brow furrowed, Paul set the purse on the foot of Mrs. Bromley's gurney, opened it and plunged in with both hands. He came out holding the GPS, still carefully cushioned in bubble wrap. I prayed that it hadn't been damaged in the accident.

"What does this have to do with anything?" Paul asked as he unwrapped the device.

"They may have taken away my cell phone, but they missed your GPS. I hit the M.O.B. button, Paul."

Like my husband, Connie and Dennis were sailors. I watched, amused, as a slow smile spread across Dennis's face when Paul explained to Officer Tracey what the M.O.B. meant.

Lieutenant Dennis Rutherford grinned at his colleague. "Hey, Mike. Ever applied for a search warrant on the basis of a latitude and longitude coordinate?"

They knew where the house was, of course. They'd looked it up.

Mrs. Bromley, the GPS, and I had given them plenty of probable cause, but I was needed to identify the place, positively, once they got inside.

With Paul's GPS mounted on the dashboard, Paul and I rode in the backseat of Tracey's cruiser from our house on Prince George to College Avenue. We turned left on College and right on Rowe, heading due west out of town, rather than east toward Fishing Creek Farm. Well, I thought sourly, that eliminates that creep Jablonsky.

When we made a right turn on Melvin, my heart began to race. At the end of Melvin was the community of Wardour, one of Annapolis's oldest high-rent neighborhoods. But before we reached the Wardour roundabout, Tracey surprised me by steering his cruiser left on Claude. At the end of Claude he stopped; we'd reached a dead end.

Directly in front of us, on a heavily wooded and beautifully landscaped waterfront lot, stood a modern, four-story home built entirely of brick. Tracey pulled into the drive and the GPS began to beep. "We have arrived," Tracey said. I didn't need the GPS or Mike Tracey to tell me that I was staring at a brand new three-car garage.

"Who does the house belong to?" I croaked.

"Somebody you know," Dennis said, turning in his seat to face me. "Mr. C. Alexander Steele, president and CEO of ViatiPro."

Why was I not surprised?

Surveying the house in front of him, Tracey whistled. "The business of death must be good." He opened the door of his cruiser, leaned out and motioned to an unmarked vehicle that had pulled into the driveway just behind us.

"Who-"I began.

"Evidence technicians," he replied.

Mike Tracey himself led the charge up the sidewalk. We stood behind him, like a tag team of Jehovah's Witnesses, while he rang the bell.

A middle-aged Filipina dressed as a maid answered the door. "Mistah Steele, he no home," she replied to Tracey's question. She stared, wide-eyed, first at us and then his badge, before backing away, bobbing at the waist. "I go get Missy Steele, okay? You wait."

A few seconds later a willowy woman dressed in a white tank top, black capris, and leather flip-flops came to the door. "I'm Claudia Steele. How may I help you, officer?" Diamond studs twinkled in her ears.

Tracey introduced the lot of us, then handed her the search warrant. "We're here to search the premises," he told her. "For evidence of a kidnapping."

If Claudia Steele was surprised, she didn't show it. While we waited, jockeying for position on the narrow landing, Mrs. Steele flipped quickly through the pages of the warrant. "I'm sure everything's in order here, officer, but I'm confident that you're making a huge mistake."

"We'd tike to begin in the basement," Tracey said.

"Be my guest." She turned. "Please, follow me."

How could she be so cool, so collected? Naddie and I had trashed the place. Did she think we wouldn't notice? She moved ahead of us with such poise and confidence that I was almost ready to believe I'd dreamed up the whole thing, until we stepped into the family room. There was the fireplace, the bar, the humongous TV, and, bless her little painted toes, the Naked Maya.

"This is it," I said firmly. "This is definitely the place."

Claudia Steele lounged against the bar while I led the officers to the wine cellar. The door, of course, was locked.

"They keep the key under the chalkboard," I told Tracey.

Once inside the wine cellar, I stared in disbelief. It had been only twelve hours since Naddie and I laid waste to the room, yet not a single bottle was out of place. There was no trace of the wine we'd spilled on the floor, no hint of a stain in the grouting. I looked up. The damage I'd done to the air conditioner had been repaired. I went to the door and looked down: even the carpet was miraculously clean. I felt like a fool.

As I wandered around the wine cellar, muttering, Claudia Steele stood next to the decanting table, holding the key in her hand and glaring at me with ill-disguised contempt. "I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about, Mrs. Ives. You'd think if somebody had been tossing wine bottles around my cellar, I'd have noticed."

I didn't believe for a minute that C. Alexander Steele had cleaned up the mess by himself, and Nick Pottorff and his buddy Chet had been otherwise occupied. Tracey would interview the maid, I was sure. Perhaps she'd tell a different story.

Mrs. Steele's arms were folded over her chest. "Will that be all now?"

"One more thing," I said, turning to Officer Tracey. "Our fingerprints will be all over the place, of course, but I think I can save you a little time. If you'll look over there? Next to the door?" I pointed. "Count nine bottles up and seventeen bottles over. You should find a bottle of pinot noir."

Mike Tracey started to cross the room, but Claudia Steele stepped in his path, blocking the way. She was used to being in control; my giving orders didn't seem to suit her. Tracey simply stared, waiting her out. "Will you excuse me, ma'am?"

Her face a mask of loathing, Claudia Steele stepped aside.

Tracey turned to a technician. "Gloves?" He snapped them on, then counted the bottles. "… fifteen, sixteen, seventeen." He stopped, his gloved finger touching the neck of the bottle, my special bottle. I held my breath as he withdrew it from the slot and set it on the tasting table.

With slow deliberation, Tracey patted his pockets, searching for his reading glasses. Once the glasses were on his nose, he laid the bottle in his palm and bent over it. "'Michael LeBois Pinot Noir,'" he read.

"That's right, 2001, if I'm not mistaken."

"The bottle's been opened."

Claudia Steele's eyebrows shot up.

Mike Tracey wrapped his fingers around the cork and twisted, but it wouldn't budge. He scanned the room, spotted the corkscrew. "Do you mind?"

Claudia Steele shrugged. "Do I have a choice?"

Tracey removed the cork, shook the bottle, then peered inside. After a thoughtful moment, he tapped out the note I'd written to Paul. He unrolled the note, scanned its contents, his face passive, then handed the note to the technician, who sealed it inside a Baggie. "We'll need it for evidence, of course, but after that-" He looked at Paul. "I'll think you'll want to have it, Ives."

"Well," Claudia Steele huffed. "I don't have the slightest idea how that got there. I haven't been home. I spent the weekend with my mother in Pennsylvania. You can check."

Strangely enough, I believed her. There hadn't been any cars in the garage when Chet pulled in with the van.

"I have nothing to do with my husband's business, or with his associates," she insisted.

Tracey reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a photo lineup, six mugs to a page. He laid it on the tasting table. "Do you recognize any of these men, Mrs. Steele?"

Claudia Steele tapped Pottorff's face with the tip of a French manicured nail. "That's Nick Pottorff. He's a messenger for MBFSG. My husband does a lot of business with them." She waved a hand. "I don't recognize any of these others."

"Where can we find your husband, ma'am?"

"Where you can always find him on Monday," she commented dryly. "At his office."

Leaving the evidence technicians to do their work, Paul and I left with Officer Tracey. As I climbed into the car, I turned to Paul. "Remind me to find out who her cleaning lady is."

Late Tuesday evening my brother-in-law showed up after dinner, bringing us a progress report. While we waited for the decaf to brew, I telephoned Daddy. Within ten minutes he joined us at the kitchen table, where I was already serving dessert.

"I don't even know his last name," I said as I set the container of half and half on the table.

"Whose name?"

"That gardener, Chet."

"He goes by Laidlaw," Dennis told me. "But he's got a record in Louisiana under Charles Lewis, the name his own sweet mama gave him."

"So, what's happening with those creeps?" I asked, sitting down.

"There's a whole lot of speechifying and finger-pointing going on, and that's just the lawyers!" He grinned. "It'll take Tracey and his crew a couple of days to sort it all out, but Chet Laidlaw's been a busy boy, implicating Pottorff and Jablonsky in the murders. They've got Laidlaw dead to rights on the shooting of Gail Parrish. The slug we took out of her body matches the gun he was carrying. As for the others." He held out his cup for a re-fill. "Tracey's getting an exhumation order for Clark Gammel and Tim Burns. After that, we'd see."

"Chet Laidlaw admitted to smothering those people," I reminded him. "So, what are they looking for?"

"If they were burked, there'd be petechiael hemorrhages in the eyes, perhaps some blue-hued congestion about the face and neck caused when blood with a low oxygen content got trapped above their lungs."

"Oh," I said simply, thinking again about Valerie and being almost sorry I asked.

"How about Steele?" my father wanted to know. "He's the one I want to see behind bars."

Dennis sipped his coffee. "Well, Jablonsky is pointing the finger back at Steele and being quite forthcoming in describing their joint role in a multistate viatical investment scam."

Daddy shook his head. "But I still don't understand why Jablonsky wanted Valerie Stone, Gammel, that Burns fellow, and all those others dead. Jablonsky already sold their policies. It was Steele and his investors who stood to gain by their deaths."

"I think I can answer that question," I said. I'd spent the afternoon with Donna Hudgins and Harrison Garvin at Victory Mutual, briefing them on my report. It had turned out to be a very interesting meeting.

"At first," I said, "Steele either didn't know or didn't care that the policies he was buying from Jablonsky were bogus. Steele was under pressure to purchase more policies for the investor money that kept pouring in, some of which he used not to buy policies, but to support his lavish lifestyle."

"Lavish," my husband remarked. "That's putting it mildly."

"Opulent, then." I gave Paul a friendly punch in the arm. "So, when some of Steele's investments turned sour and a significant percentage of ViatiPro's policy portfolio was rescinded by the insurance companies that issued them, it put a serious crimp in his cash flow."

"He would be facing ruin," Daddy interjected.

"Exactly. I figure Steele threatened Jablonsky. Either Jablonsky could arrange for the legitimate policies he sold ViatiPro to 'mature' or Steele would blow the whistle on him."

"Enter Nicholas Pottorff and his good little Do-Bee, Chet Laidlaw," Daddy said.

During the whole course of our conversation, something Dennis hadn't mentioned kept nagging at me.

"Dennis, you haven't said anything about Valerie Stone."

Dennis leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table. "Hannah, Laidlaw has copped to the murders of Gail and all those folks out at Ginger Cove, but he insists he had nothing to do with any 'Hillsmere broad.'"

"I can't believe you're telling me this! He must have done it! It can't be just a coincidence!" I shook my head angrily. "Absolutely no way!"

Dennis waited for me to finish sputtering before he continued. "Anne Arundel County is working with the New Jersey D.A. for an exhumation order, but Valerie's family is throwing up road blocks. Eventually I think they'll allow the exhumation rather than put up with all the negative publicity, but so far they're adamant. Nobody's going to dig their daughter up."

"This is ridiculous! I'm going to call Brian. He'll talk some sense into those in-laws of his."

Dennis shook his head. "It's my understanding that Brian Stone doesn't want the exhumation, either."

That was odd. If Paul died unexpectedly, I'd demand an autopsy. If someone were responsible, I'd sure as hell want to know about it.

I'd been waving my fork in the air. Before I put somebody's eye out, Dennis grabbed my hand and pushed it down on the table. "Let the police do their work, Hannah. Trust me, they know what they're doing."

I scowled at my brother-in-law. Maybe the police knew what they were doing and maybe they didn't, but either way, I couldn't see any reason why I shouldn't talk to Brian Stone. I'd call him. First thing in the morning.