Later, with the bedsheets tangled at their feet, pillows pushed aside onto the floor, damp legs intertwined, Sara talked more about their son. How he was starting to say words, how he would sit quietly and stare at the pages in his picture books.
“He’s already reading and talking,” Kerney said. “What a genius. Do the three of us have the weekend together?”
Sara reached for the pillows, brought them up to the bed, and yawned sleepily. “We do.”
She ran her foot along Kerney’s leg and snuggled close. In the darkness, he listened until her breathing slowed into the quiet rhythm of sleep.
A cooperative Glenn Davitt supplied Price with phone numbers where Cora, the housekeeper, and Sheila, the personal assistant, could be reached. After making contact with them by phone, Price sent detectives to fetch them. Once they arrived, he had them show him the secret places where the Spaldings kept their important papers, cash, and valuables.
Cora took him to the hidden safes in the walk-in closets off the master bedroom. In the library, Sheila opened a sliding wall panel that concealed another safe.
All of them were locked, and since Price and his team didn’t know diddly about safecracking, he called in an expert, which meant waiting for the guy to show.
Once they were opened, Price found the closet jewelry safes had been cleaned out. Inside the library wall safe were insurance policies, prior year tax returns, real estate documents, car titles, personal property inventories, and current year quarterly investment statements.
One of the insurance polices carried a three-million-dollar jewelry endorsement. Appended to it was a list of the items with an appraised replacement value for each. A thick envelope contained photographs of the jewelry and watches. He called Lieutenant Macy.
“From what the housekeeper could tell me, Spalding packed casual traveling clothes. I don’t know how much money she has with her, or if she took her passport, but she cleaned out three million dollars in jewelry that can be pawned or sold for cash. I’ve got photographs of the jewelry we can circulate.”
“There’s a BOLO and fugitive warrant out on her,” Macy said. “Customs, the Mexican authorities, and Interpol have been alerted. Valley Air dropped her off at Burbank, where a car was waiting. We don’t know yet who picked her up or where they went.”
“I’m going to shut it down here, Lieutenant.”
“Leave a detective behind until I can get the Santa Barbara PD to put a close watch on the place.”
“Affirmative.”
Price gave the word to his team, walked outside, and studied the deep marks in the grass left by the helicopter landing skids. A daring escape from justice in a helicopter was something right out of a novel. Who would have thunk it?
Over the years he’d listened to a lot of tales by other cops about their biggest cases, the tough ones, the bizarre ones, the headline grabbers. Price figured he was smack in the middle of a doozie that topped them all.
Chapter 14
O n his trips to Arlington, Kerney tried to take over as many childcare chores as possible. He got up early Saturday morning while Sara slept, and found Patrick stirring in his crib in need of a diaper change. He cleaned Patrick up, dressed him, and fed him breakfast. Then father and son slipped out of the house for a walk around the neighborhood.
Patrick’s affectionate personality, inquisitive nature, and sunny disposition delighted Kerney. Whenever he saw something that stirred his curiosity, Patrick’s face lit up in a happy smile.
Kerney let Patrick totter along the sidewalk within easy reach, scooping him up whenever he veered toward the street. While riding safely in his arms, Patrick chewed contentedly on Kerney’s shirt collar until it was damp and soggy.
The neighborhood, known as Aurora Heights, fascinated Kerney. Developed prior to World War II, the houses borrowed heavily from Tudor, Colonial, and Craftsman-style architecture, giving the area a settled, prosperous feel. Lush lawns were neatly tended, mature trees canopied homes, and tall shrubs screened front windows.
It was a tame, orderly slice of the world, much different from New Mexico’s raw deserts and rugged mountains. Although it was pleasing to the eye, the absence of a distant horizon against an immense, limitless sky made Kerney feel hemmed in.
Back at the house, Sara was soaking in the old cast-iron claw-foot tub, reading a book.
She closed the book and put it on the windowsill above the tub. “You don’t know how much I love it when you come to see us.”
Patrick stood at the edge of the tub trying unsuccessfully to climb in. Kerney picked Patrick up and let him splash his hands in the bathwater. “I try to be helpful.”
Sara smiled wantonly. “Actually, my thoughts were more about last night.”
He leaned over the tub and kissed her. “It’s my turn to fix breakfast.”
“Put Patrick in his high chair while you do,” Sara said, “and let him help.”
Kerney looked down at his son. “How do I do that?”
“Mash some bananas into two small plastic bowls, and give him his spoon and a teething biscuit. He’ll stir it all up, dump it from bowl to bowl, and make a mess.”
At the kitchen table, Sara, now bathed and dressed, laid out the weekend plans while Patrick sat in his high chair gleefully stirring gooey banana pulp with his fingers. The plastic bowls and spoon had long ago fallen to the floor at Kerney’s feet.
Since moving in, Sara had replaced all the appliances and had a contractor put in a new countertop and sink and restore the original kitchen cabinets. The room had a warm, country feel that Kerney liked a lot.
Sara had arranged for them to stay overnight in Fredericksburg at a bed-and-breakfast inn. They would tour the town’s historic district, visit some nearby plantations and Civil War battlefields, and perhaps do some shopping. A history buff, Kerney thought it an excellent plan.
He was washing breakfast dishes at the sink when Ramona Pino called from California and gave him the news about Claudia Spalding’s fugitive status. The sheriff’s department had tracked her to Los Angeles and lost her there. Detectives were working the phones, talking to everyone in California and New Mexico who knew her, hoping to get a lead on her whereabouts. The story had already hit the newspapers and television networks.
“Keep me informed,” Kerney said as Sara stepped into the kitchen with a cleaned-up, freshly dressed Patrick at her heels.
“Problems?” she asked, with a tight, resigned smile on her face.
Kerney put the phone down and smiled reassuringly. “Nothing that will spoil our weekend. Claudia Spalding, our murder suspect, is on the lam, but I’m not about to fly out to California and help find her.”
“Then let’s get out of here,” Sara said, “before the phone rings again.”
“Good idea.”
Late Sunday afternoon, Kerney and Sara arrived back home with a sleepy, cranky Patrick in tow. In his high chair during dinner, he kicked his feet, waved his arms, and refused to eat. After his bath, Kerney put him in his crib and tried to settle him down. When that didn’t work, Kerney rocked him until he fell asleep in his arms.
Leg-weary from tromping through battlefields, plantations, and historic old Fredericksburg, Kerney stretched out on the living room couch and read the Sunday edition of the Washington Post. While it hadn’t made the front page news, the story of Claudia Spalding’s flight from justice got half a column of play inside the front section under the headline “Wealthy Murder Suspect Vanishes.”
He passed it over to Sara, who was curled up in an easy chair scanning the house and garden supplement.
She read it quickly and handed it back. “That reminds me, George Spalding wasn’t a military policeman. According to his records, he was a graves registration specialist, confirmed by his DOB and Social Security number. The information you got from the Santa Barbara Police Department is false.”