“They do.”
“Then tell me where you are. We can talk about your life, Gloria, and Dr. Richardson. I’d like to see you.”
“I see you all the time.”
A jolt shot through her nerves as she looked around the car’s interior. “What does that mean?” She checked her watch. Could he see her now, or was he bluffing? “I want to talk to you in person.”
“We’re talking now. What do you want to know?”
Directness was a technique she used in interviews, but she understood revealing some of what she knew came with a risk. “Why kill Gloria Sanchez if she was your half sister and she stood by you all these years?”
“That’s a bold question.”
“Did you turn on her like you turned on me?”
He was silent for a moment. “Blue eyes laughin’,” he said, quoting the Elton John song. “Remember how we used to sing it? It was our silly song.”
“Why did you gun down Gloria?” She was now operating on an educated guess, doing her best to make him miscalculate.
A heavy silence lingered as she glanced down at her watch. Either give me something or just hang up.
“Blue eyes ain’t laughing now, Katie. You’re trying to get under my skin, just as you did in high school. I’m not bad. I am good.”
The line went dead, and Mazur shook his head. He held a GPS tracking device in his hand. “Found this under the back bumper.”
“He’s monitoring us.”
“We need to check your rental car.”
“Right. What about the trace?”
“The trace wasn’t successful. We have him narrowed to a few hundred miles, but that’s not going to help.”
“He’s already on the move again.” She ran her hand over her head.
“Think of this as a chess game, and you’re letting him have the small pieces while you keep your eye on winning the game.”
“I want to talk to Martin Sanchez again and see if he knows anything about these visits, then take another look at my father’s murder file.”
“Why?”
“There’re notes in the files that William wrote to me. I’d like to read them again.”
“Why?”
“Something he just said.”
Kate’s nerves were on edge from her earlier conversation with William when she and Mazur arrived at Sanchez Motors, where they found Martin in the back office. He was alone, sitting behind his wife’s desk, staring blankly at stacks of papers that had grown since their last visit.
Martin rose. “Detectives. I’ve said all I’m going to say to you. You need to leave.”
“I’m not here to talk about Rebecca. But I do have questions about Gloria’s life before she married you. What do you know about her family?” Mazur asked.
The question caught him by surprise. “Not much. She lived with her mother.”
“Did you ever visit their home?” Mazur asked.
“No. She said her mother was a domestic, and it embarrassed her. I met her mother, of course, but it was never at the house where she worked.”
“Do you remember the name of the people Nina Hernandez worked for?”
“I did some asking around because Gloria was so evasive. Nina worked for the Bauldry family. They were good people.”
“Gloria ever talk about the family?” Mazur asked.
“Never.” He tugged on his shirt cuffs.
“What about her father? Did she ever talk about him?” Mazur pressed.
“How does this have anything to do with her death?”
“It might be critical,” Kate said.
Martin sighed. “I asked, of course. She said she never really knew her father. She was born out of wedlock and was deeply troubled by that.” He dropped his head into his hands. “It’s not what you think about Rebecca and me.”
Kate softened her voice. “How was it?”
When he looked up at them, tears glistened in his eyes. “I loved Rebecca. I wanted to marry her. But she was worried about hurting Gloria. She actually liked Gloria and appreciated all that she’d done for her.” He wiped away a tear. “Who would kill her?”
“We’re still trying to figure that out. Have you made funeral arrangements for your wife?” Kate asked.
“Yes.” He lifted his chin a notch. “The service will be on Saturday afternoon.”
It wasn’t her place to judge Sanchez, but given that he’d lost two women he’d loved in a matter of days, it was hard not to acknowledge his pain. “If we learn anything new, I’ll call.”
Martin sank back into his chair looking lost and broken.
“Should I call your daughter, Isabella?” Kate asked.
“Isabella,” he whispered. “Thank God I still have her.”
“I’ll be in touch,” she said.
Kate and Mazur left him, neither speaking as they made their way to his car. Twenty minutes later, they arrived in their precinct conference room. Her father’s murder files were waiting for them. “You sure you don’t want me to go through them first?” he asked.
“No.”
He angled his head. “But this is very personal.”
Her backpack slid from her shoulder to a chair. She traced her finger over the murder book. “I’ll be fine.”
He jabbed his thumb toward the door. “I’ll be right back with coffee. And if I can score a doughnut or two, I’ll grab them.”
“Thank you.”
When the door closed behind him, she sat in front of the book. Carefully she smoothed her hand over the vinyl top. She drew in a breath and opened it.
The first page was a form that detailed the basics of the case. If she didn’t look at her father’s name, then she could distance herself from the facts as she had done so many times before.
When she turned the page, there was a series of sketches done by the investigators. The crude drawings showed the parking lot, the position of their car in relation to the two others in the lot, and the buildings that ringed the area. And, of course, the alley where the shooter had been waiting.
The next page was the autopsy report, and this time she could not control the rush of emotion that burned through her body. Unshed tears stung her eyes and her hands trembled as she skimmed over the autopsy pages to the notes she hoped were still there.
When she saw the two handwritten letters addressed to her, she could only stare. It took several deep breaths before her heart steadied.
She read the first note:
Katie;
I love you. You’re my Angel of Mrcy. Please call me. I’m not bad. I am good. Without you, I am weak and broken.
William
Clearing her throat, she read the second:
Katie;
Your enduring silence left me in darkness; but now it makes me angry. I know now everything you told me was a lie. Everything we shared was an illusion. You don’t deserve to live.
William
She wasn’t sure how long she stared at the precise lettering written in blue ink on white linen paper. She didn’t even hear the conference door open and close.
“Kate.”
She flinched at the sound of Mazur’s voice. She looked up as he set down the brown to-go cup holder nestling two coffees and two glazed doughnuts.
“Sorry, I was lost in thought.”
Mazur looked toward the open book and the letters. “Bauldry wrote those to you?”
“Yes.”
“When did you give them to the cops?”
“Not until after my father was shot.”
“Why did you keep them a secret?”
“I was embarrassed. I had thought William was so good and wonderful, and then to find out I had been so wrong. What a fool.”
“Nothing in those letters said he planned to hurt you?”
“No. He never said outright that he wanted me dead.”
“So you’ve made a career out of finding the meaning in words.”
“More or less.”
He pulled out a chair bes
ide her and handed her a cup of coffee and a doughnut. “So what does the note tell you now?”
“William Bauldry sent this latest Samaritan note to the police.”
“How do you know that?”
“He uses the term Angel of Mrcy in his letters. And just like the letter he wrote to me all those years ago, misspelled it. The use of the semicolon after my name, which isn’t a common punctuation mark to use, is consistent with the letters to me. And look at the use of the contractions. He doesn’t contract pronoun and verb when he speaks about himself in the positive, and when he speaks in the negative it is contracted.”