“Fine.” I snatched my phone from his hand. “We can start with the investigating I did online after I got the article from CeeCee.”
“My favorite kind.” His tone was wry. “No one is likely to be put in mortal danger while doing online investigations. What did you find out?”
I gave him a sour look. “The Martinezes did move away after the alleged accident like Father Dominic said, but they didn’t go far, only up to Marin County. They own a few vineyards. She’s got two older brothers. There are no reports on file of anything ever happening to them. And after her death, the family was so heartbroken they adopted two more little girls from the foster care system. Special needs.” I showed him the photos I’d found earlier in the day on the Martinez family’s Facebook page. “See? Cute, right? They have llamas on their farm, too. Who doesn’t love a llama?”
Jesse glanced at the photos and nodded, though he refused to utter the words cute or llama out loud. He was too manly. “That puts the Martinez family in the clear for abuse, then. For the adoption to go through, social services would have had to thoroughly investigate them, and visit often. Obviously, they passed.”
“Which is probably why Lucia isn’t following them around. She’s not worried about them. She’s worried about her friend Becca.”
“Clearly,” he said. “But why?”
“That’s what I can’t figure out. Whoever was able to get close enough to Lucia to kill her must still have access somehow to Becca . . . whether Becca knows it or not. That’s the only explanation I can think of for why Lucia is so protective of her.”
“Someone from the riding class?”
“I thought about that. But Becca says she doesn’t like horses, despite the pendant she wears, which is shaped like one. I checked Google Earth, and there aren’t any stables on the Walters property, nor is Becca enrolled in riding classes anymore. I wouldn’t be, either, if I were her, after what happened to her friend.”
“At the hospital in cases of child abuse, it’s almost always someone in the home. If it wasn’t someone in Lucia’s home . . .” Jesse let his voice trail off suggestively.
“You mean Lance Arthur Walters? He’s the obvious suspect. He’d have had access to Lucia, if the two girls really were friends growing up. He’d be my number-one suspect, except for one small problem.”
“What’s that?”
“If Lance Arthur Walters killed Lucia, why hasn’t she pushed him down the stairs, the way she did Father Dom? But I checked, and Becca’s dad has never been admitted to the ER here, not even for so much as a bee sting.”
Jesse frowned with disapproval. “Susannah, how could you possibly get that information? Hospital records are supposed to be private.”
“Oh, please. Nothing’s private when you’re a billionaire. Every move that guy and his family make is in the news. That’s how I found out about Becca’s mom.”
“What happened to her mother?”
“When Becca was talking about her mother, she mentioned an accident. I thought she meant Lucia’s accident, but she didn’t. The first Mrs. Walters used to host a yearly society luncheon at their house to raise money for breast cancer research. The year Lucia died, she canceled it—not because of what happened to Lucia, but because Mrs. Walters broke her ankle in a fall. The following year, the luncheon was held by someone else because Becca’s mom no longer lived in Pebble Beach. She’d divorced Becca’s dad and moved to Manhattan.”
Jesse looked skeptical. “You think the poor woman was driven from her own home—and child—by a spirit she couldn’t see?”
“I do. And if what happened to Mrs. Walters was anything like what happened to me at the pool last night, I don’t blame her. Keep in mind she couldn’t see her attacker. It must have been terrifying to her.”
“But you don’t think the woman killed the girl, do you?”
“No, I don’t. Because a couple of years after that, there was a new Mrs. Walters—not Kelly, a different one. And she, too, suffered a fall. She was no longer able to host the Carmel-by-the-Sea Go Red for Women luncheon to raise money for heart disease research due to a broken wrist—”
“They really report these things?” Jesse interrupted, disgusted. “Why is this news?”
“Because,” I said. I often had to explain to Jesse why things like what certain celebrities were wearing—or who they were dating, or divorcing—was news. He still had trouble believing why anyone would be interested. Of course, he also had trouble understanding why it took so long for the U.S. to get involved in World War II. “These fund-raisers are where all the socialites go to show off their new designer shoes and handbags. And of course they do some good for charity, too. And for people like me, who are trying to uncover clues to solve a crime. That’s how I found out the second Mrs. Walters left Becca’s dad, too, probably because she was being haunted by an unseen, menacing force—”