The Maid's Diary(45)

Jon hits SEND.





MAL


November 1, 2019. Friday.

With their flashlights, Mal and Benoit pan the exterior of the Audi S6 sedan parked in the Rose Cottage driveway. Rain drips from the bill of Mal’s cap. Rivulets run down their jackets. The air is cold. The foghorn sounds mournfully in the Burrard.

“No dents,” Benoit says. “But it could have been off-road, given the mud.”

Mal shines her beam in through the car windows. She can’t see anything unusual inside.

A slash of yellow light upstairs in Rose Cottage catches Mal’s eye. She glances up at the second story. A drape falls back into place, cutting the light.

“He’s up there. Watching us,” Benoit says. “The guy is lying through his teeth, and I don’t like those wounds.”

“You can smell the fear on him,” she says. “Never mind the alcohol.”

“We need to get inside that house, and we need to impound and search this Audi,” he says.

“Yeah, but we also need something solid in order to secure the warrants.” Mal crouches down, wipes mud off the rear plate. She takes a photo of the registration and a few more shots of the Audi exterior and tires.

Once back inside their unmarked vehicle, she sends the images to Lula. Benoit starts the engine, and Mal tries once more to call Daisy Rittenberg. Again, it flips to voice mail.

Mal says, “Ty Binty at the Pi Bistro claims the Rittenbergs moved back to Vancouver to be closer to Daisy’s parents. What did he say her father’s name was?”

“Wentworth,” Benoit says as he backs their unmarked into the residential street. “Labden Wentworth.”

“Pull over across the road. I want to wait here until we can get surveillance on Rittenberg. He looks ready to bolt.”

While Benoit parks under trees across the road from Rose Cottage, Mal places a call requesting surveillance detail for Rose Cottage. She gives the Rittenberg address, then asks to be put through to Lula again.

“Lu, can you find us a phone number and address for a Labden Wentworth? He’s the father of pregnant Daisy Wentworth. She’s not at her home, and we have reason to fear for her and her unborn child’s well-being.”

“On it,” says Lu.

Mal hangs up and quickly punches the name “Labden Wentworth” into a search engine. A host of links associated with the name “Labden Wentworth” pop up. Ty Binty was correct—the Wentworth name is big.

Mal scans the linked articles. “Says here that Labden Wentworth founded TerraWest Corporation, which is a global developer and operator of luxury mountain resorts. The company also owns ancillary businesses, including a chain that sells outdoor gear. They employ more than fifty-five thousand employees worldwide. Annual revenues around 5.2 billion. Apparently Wentworth’s wife, Annabelle, is a big name in her own right, in luxury urban real estate. She owns her own company. They live on the North Shore, up in the British Properties area, but no phone numbers I can see so far.”

While they wait for the Rose Cottage surveillance detail to arrive, and for Lula to come up with contact details, Mal quickly texts Peter.

Everything okay?

No response.

Her worry about her husband deepens. This is probably going to be her last case. She’s going to need to step away sooner than she’d hoped in order to care for Peter.

Her phone rings. It’s Lula with Labden Wentworth’s number and address.

“Four four five six Eyrefield Drive, British Properties,” Lula says on speaker. As the details come through, a police cruiser approaches slowly down the street. Mal exits their unmarked and hurries through the rain to speak to the officer inside the cruiser. He winds down the window, and she bends in to talk to him.

“If Rittenberg leaves, call it in, and stay on him.” She explains the situation, then hurries back to Benoit, waiting in the unmarked. As she buckles in, he pulls out, and they start toward the bridge that will take them over to the North Shore. As they drive, Mal phones Labden’s number.

It goes to voice mail.

She calls Peter. When her husband answers, her relief is sharp. She consciously tempers her voice. She must remain calm with him.

“Hey, how’re you doing?” she asks.

“Good. You going to be late?” He’s forgotten already.

“Yeah, looks that way. Got a new case. You’re not checking your texts?”

“Oh. I . . . ah . . .”

“No worries. Did you manage to warm the lasagna?”

Silence.

“You got my note about the lasagna?” Mal curses at her framing of the question. She’s been getting advice on how to talk to Peter in ways that don’t force him into confronting the fact he can’t remember something, because it puts him on the defensive. It doesn’t help anyone.

“Yes, I warmed the lasagna, Mallory.”

She closes her eyes at his patronizing tone. “Great. Don’t wait up, okay?”

“A homicide?”

“Looks that way.”

“Who’s the victim?”

Mal feels a pang in her chest. She’s always discussed her cases with Peter. He was a brilliant professor of forensic psychology before he took early retirement last year due to his mental health issues. They were a team, and she feels her husband, their relationship, who they once were as a unit, seeping away.