I said, “I believe Rachel is telling us exactly what happened. She discovered a pay-to-play bribery operation involving Sanford Richter, Grady Locke, Horton Tarly, and others.”
Kimberly’s eyes were turning pink. She blinked faster and faster.
“So he killed her?”
“Someone killed her, Kimberly. I can’t say Grady Locke personally killed her, but Locke and his associates can’t afford to be discovered. They’d lose everything.”
Josh nodded, trying to encourage her.
“You’ve known about her escort work for a long time. You were her safety. She mentioned you on my show.”
“So what? I loved that girl.”
“You loved her, but right now you doubted her. You think she might be acting.”
“I know, I know, I’m sorry, but it’s just so crazy.”
Josh edged closer, still encouraging.
“I get it. I hear you.”
He nodded toward me.
“Elvis says we need to corroborate what Rachel says or the bastards who killed her will get away. This means we need people to confirm what—”
Kimberly interrupted.
“I know what corroboration means. I get it.”
I said, “Josh has other recordings. Rachel names clients and the places where they met. If you remember any of these things, it would corroborate her statements.”
Josh said, “Want to hear the track again?”
Kimberly Laird slashed the air. Angry.
“I don’t need to hear it. I know everyone she was with. I can corroborate everything she says about the escort business.”
I hesitated. She needed to understand what we were asking.
“Nobody wants you to lie. If you’re caught in a lie, no one will believe Rachel.”
Kimberly pushed off the couch.
“I don’t need to lie. I have proof.”
She stalked into her bedroom. A drawer opened, a drawer closed, and Kimberly Laird stalked angrily back to the couch.
She showed us the proof.
51
Kimberly opened a monthly planner the size of a magazine, and held it out. A month was divided between two facing pages with a square for each day. Two of the squares contained cramped, handwritten notes.
“She’d say, I’m meeting so-and-so downtown at the InterContinental at ten in room twenty-eight-fifty-two, and I’ll leave by midnight. Well, c’mon. I needed to know this stuff in case something happened, so I wrote it here.”
“You kept notes?”
“Not at first, but yeah.”
Josh craned his head to read what she’d written.
“I’d love to interview you. This would be great for the show.”
Kimberly closed the planner.
“That will absolutely never happen.”
I said, “Whatever you want. May I see?”
I sat beside her and flipped through a couple of pages. The planner covered the latest calendar year. Most of the day squares were blank. Kimberly’s notes appeared only on the days Rachel escorted. Her notes filled an entire square for some dates. The entries for other dates showed only a name, a place, and times. I asked why the difference.
“When she booked a date, I needed to know who she was meeting and where and how long she expected to be there. After, she’d tell me about it, and I thought it’d be good to remember certain things, like whether she liked the guy or he smelled weird or whatever. If the guy was an asshole, she didn’t want to see him again, so I wrote it down.”
I found the notes she recorded for Rachel’s most recent date. Grady, his place, 9 in, 12 out, THE STUPID VIEW.
“What’s the stupid view?”
“What she said on the tape. Grady made a big deal about his view every time she went to his loft. He did it again, so I made the note. She didn’t mention a bucket of money or I would’ve put it down. Not that I would’ve forgotten.”
I flipped through more months. Rachel had escorted five or six times during some months, and two or three times during others. The entries all looked similar except for a two-day weekend date outlined in a starburst of angry red lines. The squares were packed with names and notes. Locke, Richter, Tarly, Castillo, and others I didn’t know. Kimberly’s printing was so small the notes were difficult to read. Golf sux, JK ass, what happened?
I said, “What happened?”
Kimberly pursed her lips and seemed unhappy.
“I put that for me, not her. Something happened. She came back weird.”
Rachel had accompanied Grady Locke to a golf resort in Palm Desert fourteen weeks before she disappeared. She drove out with Grady on a Saturday morning, and returned alone Sunday night. She’d been hired as a date for an urban planner named Jackson Karch. Also in attendance were Richter, Tarly, A. O. Castillo, an environmental lobbyist named Dave Reiman, and two other female escorts.