Page 25 of Pro Bono

“There wasn’t anything wrong with them that I know of if you don’t take them together. I kept them in case I needed one or the other sometime.” She looked at him. “But it means I can tell the police I made the same mistake when I got upset and depressed all over again after I found out the money George set aside for our future was being stolen. I blanked out and drove off.”

“As I was listening, I realized how crazy this idea is. I’m sorry for putting you in this spot.”

“I want to do it.”

“Why?”

“I guess because I got to feel a little bit of what your mom went through, and I don’t want to stand in the way of your getting everything back for her.” She paused. “Maybe because you didn’t just shrug it offwhen I was abducted. Or maybe because you said you still want to help me with my problem.”

“If that drug interaction happened to you again today and you made it home, what would be the first thing you’d do?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Yes, I do. I would call my friend Tiffany, because I know she’s got to be worried sick. I had told her I’d call and let her know how the meeting with you went. That was three or four days ago.”

“Okay. But first we’ll have to do something else.”

13

Charles Warren drove Vesper Ellis to the beach at the foot of State Street in Santa Barbara and left her there. She took off her shoes and walked along the beach toward Montecito, lay down on the sand, got some of it in her clothes, and then walked back to the foot of State Street and then to the train station about two blocks away. She bought a ticket and took the approximately ninety-mile train ride from there to the train station near the Burbank airport, and then took a taxi from there to her house in Encino. When she got home, she left the sandy clothes in the laundry basket and took a shower, dressed in comfortable clothes, and used her house telephone to call Tiffany Greene. After that, she called Charles Warren’s cell phone. What she said was in the script that Warren had written.

He answered, “Charles Warren.”

“Mr. Warren, this is Vesper Ellis. I just checked my messages and found your calls.”

“Mrs. Ellis? I’ve been going crazy waiting for you to call. Are you all right?”

“Well, yes. I think so, but I seem to have lost a couple of days.”

“Lost them? What do you mean?”

“I woke up this morning lying on the beach in Santa Barbara. I didn’t know where I was at first, but I got up and I walked a little, and found myself in sight of the harbor, and recognized it. I don’t know how I got there. I still had my purse, wallet, and keys—thank God—but I must have lost my cell phone somewhere. I looked for my car, but I never found that either. I remembered the train station was just a block or two up from the beach. My husband and I used to take the train from LA once in a while and rent bikes. I took the train home.”

“The kidnappers left you in Santa Barbara?”

“What kidnappers?”

“When you disappeared and nobody could reach you, we were sure you had been abducted.”

“I don’t know anything about that.”

“I’m not really getting this. I had a completely different impression. Is it possible that someone gave you something? Put something in your drink?”

“I’m starting to think I know what happened,” she said. “Since I noticed problems with my investments, I’ve been very upset and anxious. I couldn’t sleep, and had to take some pills. The day I went to your office I took an antidepressant. That night I took another sleeping pill. I’m thinking I may have had an interaction between the medications. I had one right after my husband died, but I didn’t think I’d taken enough of the sleeping pills to cause that again.”

“Where are you now?”

“I’m at home.”

“Stay there. I’ve got to call the police detective who’s been running the search for you. And don’t take any more medicine of any kind.”

Warren ended the call. She had deviated from the script only a couple times, but what she’d said sounded genuine. He called Detective McHargue’s number.

“Sergeant McHargue.”

“Sergeant, this is Charles Warren,” he said. “I’ve just had a call from Vesper Ellis. She’s home, and she insists she was never kidnapped. She’s been non compos mentis for days, apparently because of a prescription drug interaction. She took sleeping pills for multiple nights and then an antidepressant and woke up two days later on a beach in Santa Barbara. She made her way home by taking the train.”

“Mr. Warren, I have an emergency call on another line. I’ll call you back as soon as I can.” McHargue hung up.

It was over an hour before McHargue called back. He said, “When you called, there was an officer heading for my door with the recording of Mrs. Ellis’s call with you. I listened to it and so did two other detectives, including my captain.”

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