Lucidity Read online

  “So, as you say, from a practical standpoint, wouldn’t it be in your best interest for me to find your mother?”

  “Sure. But I don’t know how to help you. I’ve told you everything I know. And whatever I said back then is in the police report and Frank’s book. Everything was fresher in my mind then.”

  “But you’re twenty-eight now.”

  “I actually just turned twenty-nine last week.”

  “OK, twenty-nine. Do you look at things differently? Do you see your parents and what was going on between them, all the friction, the affairs, all that stuff, any differently? Has anything ever popped into your head where you say to yourself, ‘Hey, I might have missed something important.’ Or maybe think of a person the police should talk to?”

  “I did that, Detective. I’ve been there. I was the one who remembered the name of the Mexican worker who was digging test holes on my father’s property. I was the one who helped the police find him.”

  She was. He remembered that from the file. But it hadn’t led to anything. Another dead end along a long road of dead ends.

  “What happened to that property?”

  “Everything got sold eventually.”

  “And it went to you?”

  “Some of it. There were creditors who took a big chunk. My father had his debts.”

  “So you must be pretty well off?”

  “I would have done better holding on to it. The land’s worth a ton more today. But yes, for around here we’re doing fine. We’re comfortable. Someday I’d like to find an open lot somewhere and get one of those green prefab modern homes with all the renewable energy options built-in. But for now this is good. It’s plenty big for the three of us.”

  The dog reappeared with a throw toy, dropped it at Madden’s feet, and waited, his tail wagging, eager for the game to begin.

  “Sorry, buddy, I can’t play right now,” Madden told him.

  “That’s right, Dakota,” she told the dog. “His time’s almost up. You have any other questions, Mr. Madden?”

  He thought a moment. He’d come in with a lot of questions, but now he couldn’t think of any of them. Part of him was just happy to see that she’d turned out as well as she had. After chasing bones for so many weeks, it felt good to connect with the closest thing to Stacey Walker in the flesh.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m just a little frustrated. I’ve only worked a few cold cases. What you hope happens is that after so many years you find little chinks in the armor. People die off. And a person who was afraid to talk starts talking. But I’m just not getting much. We had a new lead but it didn’t turn into anything.”

  “I know,” she said. “It is frustrating.”

  “Oh, before I forget, do you mind if I take a picture of you? You don’t have anything online, no Facebook or anything, and my associate, Carolyn Dupuy—I don’t know if you remember her, she was the assistant DA on the case—she’s been working with me on this and wanted to see what you looked like.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t take pictures.”

  Madden wasn’t totally surprised by her response. He figured there might be an explanation for the lack of photos but was still hoping to get a shot. And not just for Dupuy. It was always good to have a current photo of anyone closely involved in a case.

  “Why?” he asked.

  “I just don’t want it to end up in a story somewhere showing me compared to my mother. It’s not something I want people to see. As a child I saw myself in the newspapers. I don’t want to see that girl again.”

  “But it won’t end up in a newspaper or anywhere. I promise.”

  “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “The only one who takes pictures of me is my husband. It’s my policy. You’ll just have to draw a picture for her. I do remember her by the way. Quite well. Please say hello.”

  With that, she got up from the couch.

  “As I said, I’m really impressed with you, Mr. Madden, and what you’ve been able to accomplish. I’m glad we got a chance to meet. I’m rooting for you. I really am. If you get a good lead, something real, please call me.”

  It was time. Time to run the big play. It was why he was really here. To run the play, which was really two plays wrapped into one.

  Some private dicks—or people who called themselves private dicks—didn’t hesitate to use shadier techniques, like planting bugs or attaching GPS trackers to cars, both of which were illegal to do without a court order. He’d seen ads for tiny GSM bugs with SIM cards that would allow him to call into the bug and listen to what was going on in a room from anywhere. The good ones—the ones that worked—were expensive. But he wasn’t Machiavellian enough to start bugging people’s homes and cars. That wasn’t to say he didn’t have a few tricks up his sleeve.

  “Just one other thing,” he said, his eyes never leaving hers. He didn’t want her looking down at the coffee table. “I promised to deliver a message from your uncle.”

  He reached into the inside pocket of his sport jacket and pulled out an iPod Touch, which he’d borrowed from his daughter. He hit the home button, input her code to unlock the device, then clicked on the Photos icon. He scrolled through the thumbnails until he got to the one he was looking for, which was actually a video, not a photo.

  He hit play and handed her the iPod.

  “Hey, kid, it’s your uncle Robbie,” the video started. “It’s been a while.”

  He watched her watch her uncle. The video wasn’t long, a little more than a minute, and was mainly a plea to see her again. Robbie and his wife missed her and thought about her often. They hoped she and her new family were doing well.

  “Honey, we understand how you feel,” Robbie said. “But like I’ve said a hundred times before, we’re not the bad guy here, we just want to know you, you’re family, you’re all we have left of him.”

  The video stopped after that. Madden saw a tear stream down her face. Then another.

  A pained look. “They look so old,” she said.

  He waited for her to say more, but she just handed him back the iPod and then wiped the tears from underneath her eyes with her ring fingers, careful to avoid messing with her makeup.

  “I can’t ask you to do something you don’t want to do,” he told her. “But why don’t you speak with him? What do you have to lose? Maybe he’ll tell you something you don’t know.”

  She looked at him. “Tell me or tell you?”

  “A lot of years have passed, Cathleen. He’s your father’s brother. If there’s someone who knows where she’s buried, it would be him. He may want to get it off his chest.”

  “Why didn’t you ask him that when you saw him?”

  “I did. Not exactly like that. But I did say I could get him immunity if he had any information, so he shouldn’t worry about incriminating himself. Pete offered him the same thing.”

  “And how did he respond?”

  “He said he didn’t think his brother killed your mother.”

  “Of course he did. That’s what he’s been saying for twenty years. Oh, and by the way, he’s also made some pretty negative comments about my mother. You pick up on that in your research?”

  “Well, I think it’s worth a shot,” he said. “Think about it.”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t,” she said. “I spent a long time putting this behind me. As I said, I’m glad we met. But now I must politely ask you to leave. I’ve got things to do. Enjoy Calistoga. It’s nice there during the week.”

  She led him to the front door, passing through the kitchen as she did. Madden’s phone was still sitting on the coffee table, recording. But he didn’t say anything, didn’t even look in its direction. He just followed her out.

  “Say goodbye to Detective Madden, Eli.”

  “Goodbye, Detective Madden,” Eli said.

  19/ 5150

  FREMMER DREAMT HE WAS IN A HOSPITAL. HE WAS LYING IN A BED IN a hospital room and a doctor was talking to him, asking him if he could move his legs. First he tried to lift his
right leg, then his left. Nothing. He concentrated, tried to wiggle a toe, but still nothing. But he was able to move his finger. In fact, he could lift his right hand. He could make a fist. “What’s wrong with me?” he asked the doctor.

  “You’ve been in an accident,” the doctor said. “You fractured a vertebra in your neck.”

  He recognized the doctor. He’d seen him before in another hospital room. And that was when he realized he was dreaming. He’d put himself in the hospital bed. He hadn’t been in an accident. She’d been in the accident. Not him. This was a dream.

  “Tell her to come in,” he told the doctor.

  The doctor knew who he meant. He left the room and a moment later his ex-fiancée Denise walked in. She stood there, looking at him, tears in her eyes, overcome with emotion.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry, Max.”

  Fremmer smiled. She was in for a shock. His legs were limp, but using his good hand he swung them out over the side of the bed and sat himself up. He waited for the circulation to return to his legs. Then he stood and faced her, naked.

  Her jaw dropped. She was wearing a long T-shirt, a kind of gown, and he lifted it up and touched her between her legs. He worked his fingers inside her. Then, when he thought she was ready, he swung her around and bent her over the gurney, hiking the gown up over her head, exposing her smooth, muscular back.

  He looked over and saw a nurse sitting in a chair not far from the bed looking at them impassively. She was attractive. Hispanic. No, maybe Pacific Islander. Or African American. He couldn’t tell. Her face was expressionless but she seemed interested because he wanted her to be. He nodded in her direction, acknowledging her presence. Silently, she took off her clothes and came over to him, pressing up against him. Moving in rhythm with him, she put her hand on his backside, adding force to his thrusts. How helpful! How exhilarating! But then she brushed against his arm and something hurt. The IV. It was still in his arm. He had a tube sticking out of him. Christ. The tube.

  That killed it. He felt the dream drifting away. He’d had it. He’d been lucid. But now it was getting away from him. And then it was gone.

  He woke unsure of where he was at first, only aware that he had a dull headache and felt tired. But once he looked around it didn’t take him long to realize he was in a hospital room and that something bad had happened because both Carlos Morton and his son Jamie were there. Neither noticed he was awake at first. Morton was on his phone, tapping out a message, and his son had his headphones on and was working on his laptop.

  “What’s going on?” Fremmer asked and Morton looked up.

  “Hey, buddy. How are you feeling?”

  “Where am I?”

  “You’re in the hospital. St. Luke’s. You were downstairs in the ER for a while last night and they got you into a room at like 4 AM.”

  He looked at the machines next to him and the curtain room divider, drawn open. Another bed to his left. Polished linoleum floors. Why the hell was he in the hospital?

  “What happened?”

  “You don’t remember texting me last night?”

  There was something foreboding in Morton’s tone.

  “I texted you?”

  “Dad, you sent a text saying you wanted to die.”

  Jamie had pulled his headphones off and had stood up. He had a strange look on his face that was a mixture of fear, relief, and anger. Fremmer was always amazed at the kid’s height, almost five-seven. But he looked taller standing there. He had a little bit of acne on his forehead, but objectively the kid was a stud, a poster child for the anti-abortion movement if ever there was one.

  “What are you talking about?” Fremmer said. “Why would I do that?”

  His visitors looked at each other. They didn’t seem to believe him.

  “Dad, you texted Carlos and another person last night and said you were sorry but you were tired of living. You said tell Jamie you love him and that you’re sorry, but he could go live with his mother like he wanted to. I don’t want to live with my mother. I don’t know where you got that. I never said that. Why’d you say that?”

  “We found you on the floor of your apartment,” Morton said. “You’d vomited all over the place. The paramedics came. You were lucky you didn’t drown in your own vomit.”

  Oh, Christ, Fremmer thought. “It was her,” he murmured.

  “Her, who?” Morton asked.

  “Rochelle,” he said. “The woman I told you about. The woman from the Lucidity Center who worked for Braden. The guy you met in the police station.”

  “So, you’re saying you didn’t text anyone?”

  “No, she did.”

  “But it came from your phone,” Morton said. “It definitely came from your phone.”

  He looked over at Jamie. Tears were streaming down his face. He’d become such a stoic, macho kid that it was weird to see him crying. Fremmer hadn’t seen the floodgates open like this for five or six years. It was touching.

  “Hey, buddy,” Fremmer said. “Don’t cry. Come over here and give me a hug.”

  Jamie came over to the bed and practically lay down on top of him. A sharp pain shot through his arm, which made Fremmer realize he had an IV in him. Aside from that momentary discomfort and the dull headache, he felt pretty good.

  “I wouldn’t kill myself. You know that.”

  His son got up and wiped his face, still perplexed.

  “She must have drugged me,” Fremmer thought aloud. “They say what was in my system?”

  “GHB,” Morton said.

  Fremmer had heard of GHB, it was some sort of hipster drug, he thought.

  “You weren’t at a club last night, were you?” Morton asked. “They were saying it’s known as kind of a liquid ecstasy in smaller doses. Liquid E. At higher doses it’s a date-rape drug, though.”

  “There you go,” Fremmer said.

  “Why would she drug you?” his son asked.

  “It’s complicated. She and her boss wanted money from me and I didn’t give it to them.”

  “You might want to tell the police that,” Morton suggested.

  Fremmer thought about it—thought about what he’d tell the police and what they’d believe. He had a flashback to the scene in the restaurant, wondering for a moment if it had been real. If it had, if he’d really groped her, someone probably saw it. Where did that put him?

  “They were at your apartment last night,” Morton went on. “The cops. Firemen. Paramedics. Quite a contingent.”

  “So is that detective, what’s his name, Chu, aware that I’m here?”

  “I assume so,” Morton said.

  “What about the press?”

  “I think they may be working on a story. I got a call a little while ago. I said it was a private matter. FYI, outside of Jamie here, no one from your family has been contacted. I don’t know what you want to do there, but your son said you wouldn’t want them to know, especially your older brother in Connecticut.”

  “Thanks. Yeah, he already thinks I’m a fuck-up. He called to berate me about getting involved with our friend Ronald by the way. Can’t wait to hear what he says when he finds out about this. In case you’re wondering, I did ask him for a donation to the Carlos Morton legal fund. I have no shame.”

  Fremmer rubbed his face with both hands. He was strangely calm, not as upset as he should have been. Then it occurred to him how much his hospital stay and ambulance ride were going to cost. He had insurance, but it wouldn’t cover everything. There were deductibles and partial payments. He’d probably have to lay out a couple thousand at best. He was starting to regret not paying off Braden. But he was more perturbed at Rochelle. The woman was diabolical. He’d underestimated her. What was so important for them to do something like this? It couldn’t just be the money. It had to be something else.

  “How’d she get into your phone?” Jamie asked, not yet convinced his father was telling the truth. “It has a password, doesn’t it?”

  Fremmer raised his
finger.

  “Yeah, but there’s the fingerprint ID. She just put my fingers on the phone until the right one unlocked it.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Jamie said.

  “Where’d they find my phone?” Fremmer asked Morton. “Where was it in the apartment?”

  “On the desk in the little alcove,” Morton said. “In that home office area you have.”

  “And I was on the floor there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And how ’bout my computer? Was it out?”

  “Yeah, it was on the desk, too.”

  Fremmer thought about that. If his memory served him correctly, which was questionable at this point, he thought he’d left his laptop in his bag. He hadn’t taken it out when he got home.

  “I bet she got into that, too,” he said.

  “I think we should tell all this to the police,” Morton said. “They can figure out if someone was on your computer and exactly when.”

  “What will that prove?”

  “Look, they’re going to ask you what’s going on, we heard you tried to kill yourself, and you’re going to tell them the story you just told us, and little stuff like this will make it hold together. We get some video footage from the restaurant and some from your apartment building.”

  “There is no video from our apartment building so strike that off your list.”

  “I saw a camera.”

  “Doesn’t work. The DVR it records to broke and the co-op board hasn’t gotten around to replacing it.”

  “Great,” Morton said.

  Fremmer shook his head in disbelief. He needed to get out of here. As soon as possible.

  “You leave my phone at home or do you have it?”

  “I’ve got it,” Jamie said.

  Fremmer motioned for him to pass it over to him, but it wasn’t in Jamie’s pocket, it was in his backpack, so it took him a moment to fish it out.

  It still had a twenty percent charge. Fremmer looked up his friend Bernstein and sent him a text, asking him if he was in the hospital.

  “Who are you texting?” Morton asked.

  “A doctor I know who works here. I need to get out of here and will probably need professional help to do that.”