“In Kyle’s apartment. It’s more of a computer lab than a home anyway. He spent almost every night and weekend either working on the robotic body or the software. It was like he was obsessed, which made me happy.”
“Why?”
“Because it was good to see my son in high spirits again.” Lauren glanced at the photo on the mantel of a beaming Kyle graduating from Stanford. “He was excited at the prospect of finally doing something . . . honorable . . . with his computer skills.”
Ash nodded. “As a mother, I can understand that. I’m guessing you helped Kyle in whatever ways you could.”
“Yes. Money became an issue. The machinery and equipment were so expensive, and since Kyle was basically experimenting, sometimes he bought stuff that he later found out just wouldn’t work.”
“So, as a supportive parent, you lent him a hand with the money.”
“At first, I told him not to worry about groceries or meals. It was nice to cook for my son again.” Lauren’s smile was bittersweet. “Later, I dipped into my savings and cashed in a CD to help him pay for the equipment.”
“And I’m assuming you also designed and created the actual teddy bear part of the project.”
She nodded. “I wanted to make him out of kid mohair, but Kyle insisted on fur with a faint metallic tipping. That meant going with synthetic plush.”
“I could tell the bear was made by a true artist,” I said, hoping the flattery didn’t come across as utterly blatant, because it wasn’t.
“Thank you.”
“What about Patrick’s voice? Is it Kyle’s?” Ash asked.
“Yes. He recorded over fifteen hundred individual words for the vocal files. He wanted Kyle to actually talk,” Lauren said proudly.
“That’s a bigger vocabulary than most people have,” I said.
Ash said, “So, at some point Kyle finished the bear.”
“Yes, right about the same time he met that scheming little bitch.” Lauren’s jaw tightened.
I almost said:
Last night, you told me that Kyle doesn’t have a regular girlfriend
. Instead, I glanced at Ash, who said, “What’s this woman’s name?”
“Rhiannon Otero. She worked with Kyle at Lycaon. He never saw what hit him.”
Meanwhile, my mind was racing. Otero was a Hispanic name and I wondered if Rhiannon was the woman I’d noticed watching us at the teddy bear show in Sonoma the previous morning. And if she was Kyle’s girlfriend, it was even more likely that she was the mystery woman seen trying to batter her way into the room at the Paladin. Another unpleasant thought occurred to me: Had Rhiannon accompanied Bronsey to the bear show to point out Lauren as the woman to terrorize?
“Was she his girlfriend?” Ash asked.
“No. She’s a parasite, and the reason why Kyle is in such a terrible situation now.”
“How do you mean?”
Lauren glanced at the picture on the mantel again. “Kyle has always been very . . . shy . . . around women and as focused as he was on completing Patrick, he’d been living almost a hermit’s life for a year. He and Rhiannon were talking one afternoon when he accidentally mentioned Patrick.”
“Is Rhiannon pretty?” I asked.
“I suppose so, if you can overlook the makeup applied with a garden trowel.”
“Take it from a guy. Him mentioning the bear wasn’t an accident. He was boasting.”
Ash said, “What happened after that?”
“Suddenly, my son had a very
affectionate
girlfriend.” Lauren’s tone was acidic and you didn’t need to be an expert in semantics to know that
affectionate
was a euphemism for
slutty.
“So, are you suggesting that she initiated a relationship in order to benefit from the sale of Patrick?”
“That’s exactly what happened. Up until she found out about the robot, that little gold-digger couldn’t have cared less about my son.”
“But Kyle thought the attraction was genuine.”
“And he wouldn’t listen to me when I tried to warn him. Rhiannon changed my son. I started seeing less and less of him.”
Although I really wanted to believe Lauren’s unflattering assessment of Rhiannon, it also appeared as if much of her animosity toward Kyle’s girlfriend was born of jealousy. What’s more, Lauren hadn’t explained
why
she believed Rhiannon’s relationship with her son was based on a profit motive.
Ash was obviously thinking the same thing. “I’m certain Rhiannon was a bad influence on Kyle, but what did she do to make you call her a gold-digger?” she asked.
“I don’t know all of the story, because Kyle wouldn’t tell me. But it seems that little Rhiannon took it upon herself to contact some toy company and tell them that Patrick was for sale.”
“When did this happen?”
“Sometime in late August.”
“What did Kyle think of that?”
“He was thrilled,” Lauren said incredulously. “He thought it was great. He told me that it would give him leverage when he offered Patrick to Lycaon again.”
“So, he thought this was an opportunity to start a bidding war?”
“He wasn’t thinking anything. Rhiannon was running the show.”
I cleared my throat. “Before I forget, you wouldn’t happen to have a picture of Rhiannon with Kyle, would you?”
“Why?” she asked suspiciously.
“I want to see what she looks like, because I have a feeling I saw her at the teddy bear show yesterday morning.”
“That’s impossible. She’s with Kyle. She has been since this whole rotten thing began on Wednesday.”
“Still, I’d like to look at a photo, if you have one.”
Lauren got up from the rocking chair. “I could look upstairs on the computer. There might be a picture in an e-mail. If I find one, I’ll print it.”
“Thanks. I’d appreciate that.”
Ash waited until she was certain Lauren was upstairs and out of earshot before whispering, “What are you talking about?”
“Right after the Sonoma officers left, I noticed a young, pretty Hispanic woman standing near the city hall. She seemed to be eyeballing Lauren. I didn’t think it was important at the time, so I never said anything.”
“Wow. You just
happened
to notice a pretty girl,” Ash said teasingly.
“Who was young enough to be my daughter.”
“Some men your age are attracted to that.”
“Some men my age are pigs. What do you make of all this?” I quietly asked.
“It’s hard to tell. It’s possible that Rhiannon began a relationship with Kyle because she recognized that the robot might make him—and her—rich.”
“But, if that’s the case, why was she pounding on his door at the Paladin last night?”
“You think that was her?”
“We have to assume it was. The witness thought the woman was acting like a betrayed wife.”
“But if it
was
her, it means they’ve broken up.”
“Not necessarily. Remember, my witness was on the lookout for johns. She may not have noticed if Rhiannon came back to the room and finally convinced Kyle to open the door.”
“Which means that Rhiannon
could
be our killer.” There were footfalls overhead and Ash glanced toward the ceiling. “But if Lauren suspects that, why didn’t she tell us right away? It’s not as if she likes the girl.”
“We don’t know what Kyle’s told her. Besides, she may realize that the story has to be told in a certain way to keep her darling boy out of prison.”
“So what do we do?”
I squeezed her hand. “It’s groundhog time, my love. You’ve been doing great, but now you have to start really digging.”
Fourteen
We heard Lauren start back down the stairs and we stopped talking.
As she resumed her seat in the rocking chair, Lauren said, “Sorry, but I couldn’t find any pictures of her. Kyle e-mailed me one of the two of them, but . . . well, I deleted it.”
“Thanks for looking,” said Ash.
Lauren tapped nervously on the chair’s wooden armrest. “Can I ask you two some questions?”
“Sure.”
“Where is Patrick right now?”
Ash glanced at me and I said, “At the Hall of Justice.”
“Provided this all works out, when can we have him back?”
“Probably never. Patrick was collected as physical evidence in a murder and it’s the law in California that police departments maintain homicide evidence forever.”
Lauren sat forward in the chair. “Forever? That’s insane.”
“It may look that way, but it’s a good rule. It doesn’t happen often, but innocent people have been convicted of murder and other major crimes. We keep all the evidence, so that the defense attorney or even another detective can someday correct a horrible error.”
“It’s not a weapon. We’re talking about a toy.”
“A toy that appears to have been the motive for a brutal murder.”
“But if we promised to bring him back to court . . . ?”
“I’m sorry, but that just isn’t possible. The defense attorney is entitled to the same access to pristine evidence as the prosecution, so the detectives will have to keep Patrick.”
“So, Kyle just loses out on something he spent tens of thousands of dollars on and slaved over for a year?”
“Lauren, I’m not trying to be a smart aleck, but Kyle has much bigger problems right now than losing Patrick.”
Lauren’s head sagged. “I know.”
Pressing the issue with the cool stealth of a boa constrictor, Ash said gently, “And that’s because he was in that motel room last night when the murder happened, wasn’t he?”
There was a long pause before Lauren answered, “He was there . . . with Rhiannon.”
“Did he tell you what happened?”
“No. The idiot is head-over-heels in love, so all he’ll say is that a man was killed and that he and Rhiannon are in this situation together.”
“But you’re reading a message between the lines?”
Lauren looked up and her eyes were feverish. “He’s covering for her! Kyle is going to throw his life away and end up in prison for some grasping little whore! It makes me so sick I could vomit!”
Ash nodded empathetically. “I understand you’re upset, but I want to be clear about this. You think Rhiannon killed the man, right?”
“I
know
she did! My son couldn’t kill anyone!”
Maybe,
I thought,
but he clearly never had any problems dreaming up buckets of savagery for computer games.
“I want to believe you, but in order to prove that, you need to calm down and tell us the whole story,” said Ash. “You said a few minutes ago that everything began to go sour on Wednesday . . . ?”
Lauren took a deep breath and seemed to recover some of her composure. “That was the day that Kyle met with the vice president of his division. Even though they’d all but laughed him out of the office the first time, he wanted to give Lycaon a final chance at acquiring Patrick, before offering him to the other company.”
“That was very loyal of Kyle.”
“It
was
loyal . . . and as stupid as trying to hand-feed a Bengal tiger. Once my son finished making his earnest little pitch, the VP told him that Lycaon wasn’t going to pay anything for Patrick. Under the terms of Kyle’s employment, the company already owned the bear.”
“How?”
From outside there came the sounds of a vehicle pulling into the cul-de-sac and then two car doors slamming. We all tensed and the room went silent. No doubt, Lauren was alarmed that the noise might herald the arrival of Bronsey or perhaps the police, while Ash and I were concerned that it was Lizard Eyes and his thugs. Lauren shot a furtive glance out the window and then relaxed, which allowed us to also. Obviously, she recognized the car and its occupants.
Looking back at Ash, Lauren said, “I’m sorry. Where were we?”
“You were going to explain why Lycaon claimed they owned Patrick.”
Lauren leaned over to rest her chin on her hand. “Kyle was told that he’d signed some form when he first started work with them. The fine print apparently said that Lycaon retained all the rights to any freelance projects he might create.”
“Did he?”
“Kyle didn’t remember doing so, but a company like that wouldn’t have any qualms about forging his signature on a document.”
“I suppose not. Still, you said Kyle created Patrick at home. How could they claim ownership?” Ash sounded outraged.
“Big corporations like Lycaon don’t explain things to the peasants. The VP simply told Kyle to go home and bring Patrick back.”
“So, he hadn’t brought Patrick to the presentation?”
“No. Sometimes my son is painfully naïve, but I think in the back of his mind, he thought there was at least a chance that they’d try to steal Patrick.”
“Did the VP at least offer Kyle a bonus?”
Lauren gave a humorless laugh. “He wasn’t offered so much as a dime in compensation. In fact, the VP told Kyle that if he didn’t cooperate, he’d be out of a job, blackballed in the industry, and that Lycaon would still get Patrick.”
I found myself muttering, “Which only goes to show that successful psychopaths don’t go to prison. They end up running corporations.”
Lauren nodded in agreement.
Ash said, “So, what did Kyle do?”
“God bless him, he surprised me.” There was approval in her voice. “I thought he was going to collapse like a house of cards, but he decided they weren’t going to push him around anymore.”
I wondered if Kyle’s relationship with Rhiannon might have sparked some of this backbone and newfound self-confidence, but kept quiet.
Lauren continued, “He figured if they could lie, so could he. He told the VP that he’d cooperate. Then he raced home, grabbed Patrick, and started looking for a place to hide.”
“And the first place he came was here, right?” Ash asked.
“Yes, but he didn’t stay for very long. He knew Lycaon would send their security people out looking for him and they’d come here. He wanted to protect me.”
Ash gave her a sympathetic look. I suddenly suspected what was going to happen next and wondered just how my wife was going to debunk Lauren’s iconic view of Kyle without derailing the interview.
“Oh, Lauren, I’m so sorry to be the one to have to tell you this, but Kyle was never interested in protecting you,” Ash said gravely.
“What are you talking about?” Lauren fixed her with an intense gaze.