I grinned in spite of myself. “Get your coffee, smart-ass.”
Candice and I spent the next few minutes talking through a game plan. We both agreed that we would be most effective if we stuck together and worked the case away from the bureau boys. Once we’d finalized our plans, we headed to our shared offices and got to work. Candice moved the furniture in her suite to the side and we began to lay out the case on the floor with index cards and photos of all the players. We started with Mary’s suicide, moved to Taylor’s bombing, and piece by piece we put together a theory. “The sisters are the key,” I said. “We find out what the bomber’s motive really is, and we’ll solve this case.”
“Well, in simple terms, the killer wanted to mentally torture and then murder Taylor.”
“Yes, but the why is the essence of this whole thing, Candice. It matters why he wanted to mentally torture and murder her.”
“We heard from Amber that Taylor wasn’t well liked around campus. Maybe she ticked somebody off enough for him to want her to suffer and die.”
I thought about that for a bit. I didn’t know if I agreed or disagreed with that theory, and my intuition wasn’t definitive about giving me a yea or nay on it. I decided to try to throw a wrench into Candice’s thinking by saying, “Then why follow it with a second bombing in Austin? College Station is a hike from here. Why take the risk and make the effort unless there’s something else here we’re overlooking?”
Candice frowned. “Good point. But you know the other thing that bothers me is, why call Jed Banes?”
“Our killer wants to get caught,” I theorized. “So he called a cop.”
“Yeah, but he didn’t call a cop,” Candice countered. “He called a retired and somewhat disgraced former cop.”
“You’re thinking the killer intentionally picked Banes, knowing his history?”
“Or,” Candice said, “maybe he knew Banes in another way. Maybe he wants Banes to suffer a little too. Maybe he’s playing with Banes and getting a little revenge to boot.”
“You think it was someone Banes arrested?”
“Or double-crossed,” Candice said. “Banes was a crooked cop. Maybe that crookedness extended to his criminal associates.”
My brow rose. “That’s a possibility, but I have two issues with that theory: The first is that Banes doesn’t seem to care so much that young women are being targeted and forced to carry out mass murders—in fact, that old geezer doesn’t seem to care about much at all—and second, how does Banes connect back to Taylor and Michelle? I mean, neither of them has a criminal record—and it’s not likely that either would’ve ever met Banes, so what’s the connection?”
“Our killer,” Candice said simply. “He’s playing some sort of cat-and-mouse game, and using Banes is part of that game. What I’m saying is that Banes may not be connected to the girls at all, but he’s being used as a convenience and maybe to settle a different score.”
“Two birds, one stone,” I said.
“Yep.”
I tapped my lip with my forefinger. “Okay, so we think that the killer had some sort of personal connection to Taylor—someone who knew her well enough to know that her sister blew herself up—but that still leaves the biggest question of all, which is, why choose a different city and a beauty salon of all places as your second target? I mean, why is he still carrying this out? He got his revenge on Taylor—she’s dead—so why keep going?”
“Maybe he’s a sick fecker and he enjoyed it a little too much the first go-around,” Candice said with a sigh.
My radar didn’t agree with that theory, though. “No,” I said. “It’s more complicated than that. He’s got an agenda here. He’s not just having some sick twisted fun; he’s trying to tell us something. It’s a puzzle with pieces that need to be put together in order to see his overall message.”
“Message?” she repeated. “What message other than that he hates women?”
I looked at Candice. “Why do you say that?”
“Well, look at who he straps to a bomb. Look at where he sends them—to a dress shop and a beauty shop. He’s specifically targeting women, Abs.”
I couldn’t help feeling that I was missing something super obvious, and try as I might to make the theory of the angry misogynist work, my radar wasn’t buying it. “Yeah, but if he just wanted to kill a bunch of women, there are so many better targets than a shop at a mall. I mean, you saw how close Janice McCaffrey and her son came to getting killed—and what about the old couple who were also murdered? You saw the footage that Oscar pulled up. The unsub waited until the older couple was close to Taylor to detonate the bomb. So, does this guy also hate children and old people?”
Candice sighed again. “I don’t know, Abby,” she said. “But I think you’re right that there’s a bigger message here.”
For a minute we were both silent, looking at the index cards and photos of the victims on the floor. My eye kept going back to Michelle Padilla. I felt a huge question mark form in my head. Why her? “I don’t think Michelle was random,” I said when Candice started shuffling the index cards in frustration.
“Hmm?”
“Michelle Padilla. I don’t think she was picked randomly. The killer had to have had access to her house at some point, right? We know that from the sliding glass door, so he knew her. Maybe the two were even intimate at some point.”
Candice bent to sift through several files crammed into a Bankers Box on the floor. “According to both Michelle’s mother and her roommate, Michelle wasn’t seeing anyone at the time of the explosion at the salon, and she hadn’t been seeing anyone in the past couple of months. Plus, her last boyfriend is currently in Europe as an exchange student. He’s been out of the country for the past nine weeks, Abs.”
“Yeah, but what if Michelle was secretly seeing someone else, and she just didn’t tell anybody about it?”
Candice held up the file and flipped her thumb against several dozen pages. “This is a printout of Michelle’s e-mails and texts. There’s no exchange between her and anyone who might be considered a romantic interest.”
“There’s a connection, Candice,” I said, bending down to pick up Taylor’s photo and Michelle’s…but then, my intuition sparked and I set down Taylor’s photo and picked up Mimi’s. With a small gasp I said, “Or maybe…the connection isn’t between Taylor and Michelle. Maybe the connection is between Michelle and Mimi….”
Looking up, I saw the surprise on Candice’s face. “Michelle…Mimi…two similar-sounding names.”
I nodded, a small surge of excitement running through me. “Candice, maybe this isn’t about Taylor at all. Maybe this is actually about Mimi.”
Candice came over to lift the driver’s license photo of Mimi out of my hands. “You think someone drove her to suicide?”
“Possibly. But more important, I think there’s a connection between Mimi and Michelle—and I think it’s more than just that their names sounded a little alike.”
“We should go have another talk with Mrs. Padilla,” Candice said. “And this time we’ll bring Mimi’s photo along.”
“Good idea. Maybe we should also find Mimi’s manager at Jamba Juice and talk to her again. Hopefully, either she or one of the store employees will recognize Michelle. Also, I want to go back to our friend Jed Banes and pick his brain a little. I think he knows something that’ll help us link all of this together.”
Candice smirked. “Anything else you want to fit into that packed schedule for today, Sundance?”
I grinned back at her. “At some point I’m going to have to call my sister and fend off a final prewedding meeting. I won’t be successful, and she’ll rein me into her office and cover me in swarming butterflies, swan feathers, and taffeta. I’m not gonna go in alone, and I can’t go with Dutch.”
“You want me to go with you?” Candice asked (like I’d just asked her to come with me into the center ring of lions, tigers, and bears).
“Please?” I begged her. Candice began
to shake her head. “Pleeeeeeeeeease?”
Candice glared hard at me before picking up her purse and the photos we’d need for our interviews. “You. So. Owe me.”
“Yes, yes, I’ll buy the margaritas!” I told her with a grateful smile.
“Oh, you owe me way more than that,” she groused.
I gulped. Candice would expect a favor of some kind, and it was likely to be a big one. “What were you thinking?”
“Get me out of that purple people-eater your sister is hell-bent on making me wear at your wedding.”
Candice’s bridesmaid’s dress was a bit of a disaster…in the way one might consider Katrina a “bit” of a disaster. The dress was a purple velvet number with a heart-shaped bodice, big poufy sleeves, and a short, clingy skirt. The whole thing managed to transform my elegant and sophisticated best friend into a girl who could possibly be rented by the hour.
The odd thing was that Cat normally had excellent taste—and I wondered if the wedding had just become such a spectacle that it’d all gotten away from her a little. (Or a lot.) I also thought that since the dress came with a designer label, Cat hadn’t bothered to really look at it. It was more likely that the garment was the right color, which had trumped fit and style.
“I promise, you will not have to wear that god-awful dress,” I vowed, crazy relieved that I actually already had a solution. “In fact, wait here a sec, would you?”
I moved into my own small suite and retrieved a garment bag from the closet. Bringing it back to Candice, I handed it to her with a triumphant smile. “I was gonna save this for the margarita and nacho night we were planning as my bachelorette party, but right now might be better.”
Candice took the bag warily. Still she unzipped it and pulled out the dress I really wanted her to wear, an aubergine-colored chiffon gown, with thin shoulder straps, a deep V-neck, and a loosely belted waist. It was elegant and feminine and I knew it would show off Candice’s well-toned arms and beautiful skin. “Oh, Abs,” Candice whispered, pulling it all the way out of the bag to hold it up high and get a better look. “It’s gorgeous!”
My grin was ear to ear. “I hadn’t planned on telling Cat,” I confessed. “I figured you’d just show up in it on Saturday and we’d lose the other one in a tragic Dumpster accident,” I added with a wink.
Candice’s eyes filled with tears and she hugged the dress to her and looked at me with gratitude and a bit of mischief. “It’s perfect, and I thank you. But the margaritas are still on you!”
* * *
About an hour later we arrived at Colleen Padilla’s home. Candice had called Michelle’s mother from the car to ask for an early morning meeting. She agreed and we arrived at just before eight thirty.
Colleen met us at the door, dressed in black and looking incredibly sad. My heart went out to her. Once inside the stately home she led us to the dining room, which was set up as if to receive company, and I realized that we might have come at the most inappropriate of times. “The funeral is today,” she said, gazing at the table laden with flowers, plates, Sterno warmers, and silver flatware. “We’re having the wake here.”
“I’m so sorry that we’ve come at such a bad time,” I apologized.
“No, no,” Mrs. Padilla said. “It’s fine. Are you closer to finding out who did this to my daughter?”
I had to give the woman credit; no way would she ever believe that Michelle had purposely killed herself and four others. “We’re narrowing in on some leads,” I said. “The reason we wanted to see you, ma’am, is that we know you said that—to your knowledge—Michelle had never met Taylor Greene, but I’m wondering if perhaps Michelle had ever met this girl?”
Next to me Candice pulled out a photo of Mimi and handed it to Mrs. Padilla.
“Oh!” she said right away. “That’s Mimi!”
I sucked in a breath. I’d hoped that Mrs. Padilla might recognize the photo, but I’d never thought she’d identify Mimi so quickly. “Yes,” I said, recovering myself. “How did you know her?”
Mrs. Padilla blushed a little and she continued to stare at Mimi’s photo. “Michelle felt so terrible about what happened to Mimi,” she said. “Her suicide hit my daughter very hard and it haunted her for months.”
My radar buzzed with energy while Candice said, “You’re telling us your daughter knew Mary Greene?”
“Mimi Greene,” Mrs. Padilla corrected. “And yes, I’m afraid Michelle knew her quite well.”
“They were friends?” I asked.
Mrs. Padilla handed the photo back to Candice. “No. Michelle counseled her for a time when she was interning at ACC’s health clinic.”
“Austin Community College?” Candice clarified.
“Yes. Michelle interned there for six months before continuing her studies at UT. She wasn’t supposed to counsel students who were deeply troubled, but the psychiatrist in charge was the one who matched Michelle with students who came to the clinic for mental health support, and before she realized it, Michelle was in way over her head. The clinic was swamped, you see, and she was only one of two interns.”
“How did Michelle know that Mimi’s death was a suicide?” I asked.
Mrs. Padilla tugged at the pearls around her neck. “The arson investigator came to the house shortly after we saw in the paper that Mimi had died in a fire. He asked a lot of questions about Mimi’s mental state, and Michelle admitted that Mimi was a very troubled young girl. She’d even asked Dr. Wiseman to sit in on the session she’d scheduled with Mimi on the day she died. Mimi never showed up for the session. She killed herself earlier that morning. It was so tragic. My daughter was crushed and she felt responsible. She even considered giving up counseling because of it.”
“It wasn’t her fault,” I said, knowing it to be true. Mimi Greene was certainly a victim of circumstance—seeking help at a facility unprepared for the burden of so many troubled and stressed-out students—but Michelle was hardly to blame for that.
“I agree,” Mrs. Padilla said. “Which is what I was eventually able to convince her of.” And then she seemed to realize that we wouldn’t be inquiring about Mimi if there wasn’t some connection between her and the case involving Michelle. “Why are you asking me about Mimi?” she asked us.
“Just following a lead, Mrs. Padilla,” Candice said evasively, before deftly changing the subject. “Do you know if Michelle told anyone else about Mimi? That the fire hadn’t been an accident but a suicide?”
“Oh, no,” Mrs. Padilla said, as if she was shocked by the idea of her daughter spreading such gossip. “Michelle was very ethical. She would never talk about a patient’s personal issues. Not even to me. And the only reason I knew about Mimi in the first place was that I was here when the fire marshal came to get Michelle’s statement.”
My radar buzzed again and I asked, “Did Michelle share with the fire marshal the reason Mimi came looking for counseling in the first place?”
Mrs. Padilla sighed tiredly and scratched her forehead. “I believe it was boy trouble. The same as most girls that age.”
I leaned forward, remembering the box of photos from Taylor Greene’s apartment and the one picture in particular marked with all that black felt-tip pen graffiti. “Boy trouble?” I asked Mrs. Padilla. “Michelle said that Mimi had a boyfriend?”
Mrs. Padilla nodded. “Yes, but I think they broke up. I seem to recall that Mimi’s sister got in the middle of things and it led to a breakup, which sent poor Mimi into a downward spiral.”
The hair rose on the back of my neck. “Do you recall this boyfriend’s name?” I asked.
Mrs. Padilla frowned. “No. I’m not sure it was even mentioned. But I do remember Michelle commenting that the man Mimi was seeing was quite a few years older than her, and she wondered if that hadn’t also been an issue or a factor in the breakup.”
“Is there anything about him specifically that you can remember?” I pressed. “Like where Mimi might have met him, or even where he worked?”
Agai
n Mrs. Padilla scratched lightly at her forehead. “He owned his own business,” she said. “I knew that because Michelle said that Mimi had convinced herself that she would never find anyone better than this older man, who to her was so worldly and accomplished for owning his own company.”
“Is there anything else you can tell us from that meeting, or afterward, that might be important?” Candice asked.
Mrs. Padilla closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath; she let it out slowly and said, “No, ladies. I believe that is the entire gist of that meeting. The fire marshal was very nice, and sympathetic to how upsetting the news of Mimi’s suicide was to my daughter. But that’s really it.”
We thanked Mrs. Padilla for her time and headed back to the car. “Holy freakballs!” I said the moment the door was closed. We finally had a direct link between the girls.
“And now we can prove that this was no act of terrorism,” Candice said, already dialing her phone. Holding it up to her ear, she waited several seconds before saying, “Hey, baby, it’s me. Call me back right away, okay? Love you.”
“Brice?” I asked once she hung up.
Candice nodded and eyed the clock on the dash. “He might be in a meeting. Our choices are to head to the bureau or to keep following this thread and see what we come up with.”
“Let’s keep going,” I said. “What time does Jamba Juice open?”
Candice put the car into gear and pulled away from the curb. “They should be open now—hey, buckle your seat belt, would you?”
I realized that I’d been so excited by our discovery that Michelle and Mimi knew each other that I’d forgotten basic safety precautions.
“Sorry.”
“And by the way,” Candice added, zipping down the street at a steady clip, “where’s Fast Freddy?”
I looked to my right in the car well where my feet rested and where I always stored my cane, but it wasn’t there. “Ohmigod! I’ve been walking around without my cane!”
Candice grinned. “I noticed it when we left the office, but I was wondering how long it’d take you to realize it.”