“Everyone’s working late, then,” she said.
“We’ve got a missing child,” he said.
“Of course. That’s why I’m here.”
A.L. opened the door.
“Detective Morgan,” Kara said.
“Thank you for coming in,” Rena said. “We have a few questions about a previous statement that you gave us. In specific, you said that a few months back, you made several calls to the Baywood Bank because you were interested in refinancing your current home. Is there any part of that statement that you’d like to amend?”
“No. Listen, I understand the confusion. I spoke with Sam. Who was also a little confused.” She offered up a smile. “My husband is a great guy. Works hard. Is going to school to get ahead. But he’s not good with details or quite frankly, anything financial. I pay all the bills in my family. So those discussions I had with the bank about refinancing were done without him even being aware. It didn’t go anywhere so there really wasn’t a need to tell him after the fact.”
Again, Rena thought, such a fucking reasonable explanation.
“I guess I’m having trouble with your earlier explanation that you don’t recall who you spoke to at the bank. You see, I’ve refinanced,” A.L. said. “And it’s sort of a process. And I can’t help but think that it would have been unnecessarily complicated if you were talking to several different people.”
“Not really,” she said. “But truthfully, I never got very far in the process. My questions were mostly the exploratory variety. And a couple times, I know I just slipped them into conversations I was already having with Steven.”
“Steven?” A.L. asked. He was, quite frankly, surprised that she’d offered up the connection.
“Steven Hanzel. He’s a loan officer at the bank and was my cochair for the Fourth of July Activities Committee. So we were going back and forth on that.”
He had some familiarity with Baywood’s Activities Committee. If they’d been cochairs, there would be some public record of that. “That was convenient for you,” he said.
“Very.”
She was one of the best liars he’d ever interviewed or she was telling the truth. He just didn’t know. He decided to poke her with a stick.
“Do you happen to know Shana Federer?”
“I know that she has a child at the learning center. But not in my class.”
“But you’d recognize her if you saw her.”
“I think so.”
“And she’d recognize you.”
“I don’t know, Detective. I really don’t understand the question.”
“No question,” he said easily. “Just conversation. Let’s go back to the Activities Committee work that you were doing with Steven. Most of your communication done on the phone?”
“Yes.”
“All of it?” A.L. asked.
“Well, no. We met in person sometimes. Our whole committee did.”
“Oh, sure. That makes sense,” A.L. said. “Probably some emails, too.”
“I guess. I don’t really recall.”
“Texts?” A.L. asked.
“I... I don’t really know. I do text a lot. Everybody does, right?”
“Phones, an extension of our hands. You have just the one cell phone, Kara?” A.L. asked.
“Yes,” she said. Then she yawned. “I really am sorry,” she said. “It’s just that I’m so tired. Is there anything else?”
Rena shook her head. A.L. stood. “I’ll walk you out.”
When he got back to the conference room, Rena was on the phone. Listening intently. All the color had drained from her face. And her hand was shaking. “Thank you,” she said. “Appreciate the call.” She carefully put her cell phone on the table.
“Fuck,” A.L. said. “They found her and she’s dead.”
“No. No,” she said. “It’s not about Emma. It’s...”
“Gabe? One of the Morgans?”
“No.”
“Tell me what the hell is going on, Rena. You look as if you’re about to slip out of that chair.” He wasn’t exaggerating.
“Remember that I told you that we had selected somebody to be our carrier for the pregnancy? And that she lived with a lowlife?”
“Yeah.”
“I put a tag on the lowlife, so that I’d get notified if something came in on him.”
Cops did that, especially on people of interest in ongoing investigations. It wasn’t quite kosher that she’d done it for personal reasons but nobody was going to get too upset about that. Privilege of the job in a job where there weren’t that many privileges. “What showed up?”
“He got arrested last night. Narcotics. Unlicensed firearms and other explosives.” She looked up. “Felony charges. He’s has a previous record.”
“So he’s pond scum. It’s not his sperm making the baby.”
“I have to tell Gabe.”
“Info probably isn’t in the public record yet,” A.L. said gently. Until then, she had a responsibility to only share it on a need-to-know basis.
“I don’t care. Listen, I need a half hour.”
“Go.”
“I knew something like this was going to happen. I just knew it.” She laughed shakily. “Maybe I’m the psychic.” She got four steps. Turned. “We need to verify Kara’s story, that she was working as a cochair with Steven Hanzel.”
“We will. Now shut it off. Go talk to Gabe.”
Ten minutes later, she wasn’t sure if she was grateful or not that Gabe’s car was in the driveway. It might have been good to have a little more time to compose herself, to think of the best way to offer up the information.
To come up with a plan, a solution.
But then again, it couldn’t be her plan. It had to be their plan. Just like it was their baby.
She opened the door and was surprised to see him sitting at the kitchen table. Dressed. In dark jeans and a button-down shirt. His hair, which hadn’t been cut for months, was pushed behind his ears. Another month or two and it would touch his shoulders. It was too long but he looked good. Always had. Probably always would.
“What’s going on?” she asked. She’d talked to him two hours ago, told him that she’d be working late. He’d said not to worry about it, that he was on his way to bed.