“Thanks for seeing me.” He let Chernoff lead him inside, then around a corner to an office. When they arrived, Chernoff pulled a chair away from the wall, set it in front of a couch, and motioned for Till to sit on the couch. Till sat, and waited until Chernoff had settled in the chair, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.
Chernoff said, “You said you have information about the Wendy Harper murder?”
“Yes. It’s not a murder. The reason I’m here is that she’s not dead.”
“Not dead?”
“No.” Till held up the wallet with his private detective’s license and the card that showed he was a retired police officer. “About six years ago, she wanted to disappear. I helped her do it.”
“Oh, my God, I can’t believe it!” He looked elated. He actually leaned back in his chair and chuckled. “Have you told the police yet?”
“When I got to my office this morning, I looked at the paper and saw that Eric Fuller was being charged, so I went straight to the DA’s office and told Linda Gordon. I just came from there.”
“You saw Linda Gordon? What did she say?”
“She recorded my statement, then showed me police photographs of what she thinks are Wendy Harper’s bloody blouse and a couple of murder weapons belonging to your client. She hasn’t decided yet whether or not she believes I really did help Wendy leave town. She thinks that if I did, then Fuller found Wendy a short time later and killed her.”
Chernoff took a deep breath and let it out in disappointment. “I might have known. Why did you help Wendy Harper leave town?”
“Somebody beat her up. She thought it had to do with a man who had been dating one of her waitresses at the restaurant. The girl disappeared, and Wendy thought he might have killed her. She looked into it, and one night when she came home, there was a different man waiting for her with a baseball bat. When she got released from the hospital, she came to see me.”
“Of course Eric told me about the waitress and the beating, and that Wendy had been in the hospital. All this time he’s thought that man must have tried again and killed her. Why didn’t Eric know she was leaving voluntarily?”
“That’s the way she wanted it. She believed there was nothing he could do to protect her, but he would try, and it would get him killed.”
“There was a police report filed after the attack, but I didn’t see anything in it about a second man she believed was really behind it. Why not?” Chernoff’s frustration was beginning to show.
“She thought she was being practical. In a way, she had a point. If she didn’t know the man, then the police had nobody to look for, and waiting around was just giving him another chance to kill her. She felt the only way out was to get beyond his reach.”
“So the victim is alive and I have an innocent client.”
“Yes.”
“And the evidence in Eric’s yard. Do you have a theory on how it got there?”
“The guy who attacked her had the bat, and he must have torn the piece of cloth off her. I don’t know why he kept them. Maybe he was supposed to kill her and then use them to frame Eric Fuller at the time. Maybe he hid them and remembered them later. I would guess they were planted within the past few months—just long enough ago so the ground didn’t seem disturbed.”
“Do you have any way of proving what you did?”
“No. Six years ago I tried not to leave any evidence that I had ever seen Wendy Harper. We traveled by car, mostly late at night. I made cash transactions when I could. I burned receipts. I didn’t want somebody to search my office someday and find papers that would tell him where I took her. I taught her how to get a new name, but made sure I didn’t know what it was. When I left her, I wouldn’t let her tell me where she was going.”
Chernoff pursed his lips and stared past Till for a few seconds. “What do you think we should do?”
“Linda Gordon has physical evidence, and I have nothing to counter it. The only way Linda Gordon will drop the charges is if Wendy Harper walks into the police station.”
“Do you think she would come back?”
“I think if she learns what’s happening, she’ll try to save Eric Fuller. She cared a lot about him six years ago. But remember that the only one who could have planted evidence in Fuller’s yard is the person who had it. I think the man who wanted Wendy dead six years ago is trying to lure her back.”
Chernoff looked worried. “We can’t expect the DA’s office to help us. They’re trying to make a case against Eric Fuller.”
“Max Poliakoff, the detective in charge of the case, is an old friend of mine, but he can’t help with this. We’ve got to proceed without help,” Till said.
“Proceed to do what?”
“Get word to her that Eric Fuller needs her, and hope we can keep her alive when she comes.”
7
TILL LOOKED OVER the copy for the ads as he walked away from Jay Chernoff’s office. “Eric Fuller has been accused of the murder of Wendy Harper. Persons having information about this matter may contact Mr. Fuller’s attorney, Jay Chernoff, c/o Fiske, Chernoff, Fein, and Toole, 3900 Brighton Way, Beverly Hills, CA 90210.”
The second ad was an attempt to use Till’s name to reassure her this wasn’t a trap. “Wendy Harper, Eric needs your help after six years. Please get in touch with Jack at Till Investigations, 11999 Ventura Boulevard, Studio City, CA 91604.”
The third ad purported to be from Eric. “To Wendy Harper: I’ve been accused of your murder. Please call me so we can prove you’re alive. Love, Eric.” She would still remember that address because the house had once been hers too. This ad was a bit of a fraud because Eric knew nothing about it yet.
The difficult question had been where to place the ads. Till had noticed six years ago that Wendy Harper was one of those people who read the New York Times whether she was in New York or Solvang, California. Till had noticed a hundred times over the years that fugitives seldom changed small habits that struck them as safe. The ads would run in the New York Times in rotation beginning in two days.
The Los Angeles Times seemed to him to be another obvious choice. Wendy Harper had once been a part of the food scene in Los Angeles, and the restaurant she and Eric had owned together was more popular than ever. Till guessed that she checked on the restaurant from time to time, or read about people she had known. Jay Chernoff had suggested the Chicago Tribune, just because it was the big regional paper for the center of the country. She and Eric had gone to college in Wisconsin, so the Midwest might be an area where she would have felt comfortable enough to settle.
In about two weeks the ads would also run in Gourmet and Saveur, on the theory that a person who had made her living in restaurants might still read about food. Till also remembered that Wendy had mentioned something she had read in the New Yorker, so he added the magazine to the list.
The advertisements were going to be spectacularly expensive, but Till had talked Chernoff into including them in the cost of Eric Fuller’s defense. And unless they could prove that Wendy Harper was alive, there was no defense.
Till had been in Chernoff’s office for much of the day, and now rush hour was beginning and his progress north and east was slow. He had one other stop to make this afternoon, and it was one he longed for and dreaded at the same time. As Till drove, he wished he were visiting Garden House for a different reason.
Till had always liked to think that Holly had thought of the name because that was the way her mind worked. She was not always cheerful, because her life had never been easy, but she took delight in things that were good or beautiful. She named them and she pointed them out to other people whenever she saw them.