by Carter
I didn’t see her until I was fully in the room, but an old Hispanic housekeeper in a white uniform was cleaning a bookcase with a white feather duster. She was working the same spot, a corner of the trim, so slowly that for a moment I didn’t even think she was moving.
“Your housekeeper over there is certainly thorough,” I whispered to Janice, nodding in the old woman’s direction. My thought was that she wouldn’t want to talk around the housekeeper and would suggest we move to another room.
Janice glanced where I was looking, then back at me with raised eyebrows. “What housekeeper?”
“Ah,” I said, realizing that, once again, my curse had foiled me.
“Is that some kind of joke?”
“Nope, just meant that whoever does your dusting of that bookcase is very thorough. It looks nice. Figured it has to be a housekeeper.”
She stared blankly at me. This was going swimmingly. I was kind of hoping she’d offer me something to drink, but instead she just stood there.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“It’s okay, I don’t either. Can we sit down?”
“Does my father know?”
“About the affair? No.”
“Oh, please don’t call it that,” she said, tearing up again. “It wasn’t an affair. It was … It was stupid, was what it was. God, Michael doesn’t know, does he? It would destroy him if found out. Absolutely destroy him.”
“No, no,” I said, figuring Michael was her husband. I went ahead and took a seat on the loveseat, figuring she’d take the hint and sit on the couch. She didn’t, opting to stand there clutching that toy dinosaur against her chest. “Nobody knows but me.”
“How did you find out?”
“I’d rather not say.”
“I don’t understand! I didn’t tell anyone, and it’s been killing me.”
“I don’t think anyone else knows,” I reassured her. “Remember, I’m a detective. Sometimes I detect things.”
“Please don’t tell anyone! I feel so terrible as it is, and I’m never going to do anything like it again!”
“Why would I tell anyone? People make mistakes. All I want is your help finding out who killed your sister. I know you want to be helpful, right?”
I motioned to the couch. This time, she took the hint, moving with all the haste of a chastened toddler, still clinging to the dinosaur. I caught the smell of her sweat, and something else, an apricot-scented perfume or deodorant. The old Mexican housekeeper still hadn’t finished dusting the same spot. I wondered how many years she’d been working at it.
“I’ll do anything,” she said.
“Great,” I said, “tell me what you know about Tony. Anything at this point could be helpful. Do you know much about how he made his money?”
“I really didn’t plan it, you know,” she said, dropping her gaze to the floor. “He stopped by to drop off a Crock-Pot my sister had borrowed for a dinner. I invited him in. We—we had a drink. Kids were at school. Michael was at work. I was complaining about how hectic my life was. I think—I think I started crying. He gave me a hug. One thing led to another.”
“Yes,” I said, “I know you didn’t—”
“I just get so lonely sometimes. I love Michael! I do. It’s just, he works a lot of hours. And the kids—they’re so hard. I love them, I do, I love them so much.”
“Janice—”
“I think I was just feeling a little sorry for myself, that’s all. Tony has such a way about him. The way he looks at you. He really makes you feel like you’re the only one in the room.”
“We all do things we—”
“I just wanted to feel like a woman again, you know? Not a mother or a wife, but a woman. One who was sexy and confident and could really turn the heads of any man in the room. I just wanted to be that Janice again. Just for a little while.”
It didn’t seem to matter that I was in the room at all, since most of her confession was directed at the floor. It was interesting in an Ann Landers sort of way, but I wasn’t learning a whole lot about Tony except that a lonely, rich housewife had found him sexy and available at exactly the right time. The problem was, I didn’t want to seem insensitive either.
“Don’t beat yourself up too much,” I said. “So you succumbed to temptation once. It’s not the end of the world. And you’re definitely an attractive woman. You have nothing to worry about there.”
Her face brightened a little. “Really?”
“Really. And if it really bothers you, maybe you should tell your husband.”
“Oh no, I couldn’t.”
“He might surprise you.”
“No, no. Michael is … no. Just no.”
“Sometimes a little honesty can bring two people closer. And if you don’t ever tell him what happened, how can he ever forgive you? You’re not even giving him a chance.”
“I don’t know,” she said, shaking her head.
“Well, it’s something to think about, anyway. Listen, can you tell me anything about Tony that I might not know? I have reason to think he might have killed her for her inheritance, because he didn’t know Karen had changed her will. She made sure he didn’t get much.”
She looked at me with surprise, the self-pity gone. “Who told you that Karen changed her will? My father?”
“Something like that.”
“He wouldn’t know anything,” she said bitterly. “He hardly knew her. He hardly knows any of us.”
“Let’s just say it’s true. Is there anything Tony did that would make you think he was capable of murder?”
“No! He was very suave and gentle. I’ve never even seen him raise his voice. Kill somebody? No way.”
I thought about the crazed madman who’d shot me. That guy had yelled plenty, though it now seemed pretty clear that it was all an act. Why he’d been acting that way in a Starbucks coffee shop, and for what purpose, was more inexplicable than ever to me. He must have really been in dire straits to stoop to armed robbery. Janice was watching me expectantly, turning over the dinosaur in her hands. The Mexican housekeeper had now shifted her dusting three inches to the left.
“But he did disappear after her death,” I said. “Didn’t that make you suspicious?”
“Well … I figured, you know, he just needed to grieve on his own. It wasn’t like he disappeared because the police were asking a bunch of questions or anything. And after our … Well, I guess I was kind of relieved he left town. I thought that might be part of it, too, honestly. That maybe he was kind of ashamed like I was and it was better not to be around temptation again.”
“Did he ever seem like he was in trouble? Like he needed money real quick?”
She responded with a dismissive snort. “Tony always had plenty of money. He was always picking up the check when we went out to eat. Buying everybody little gifts. He never went to someone’s house without giving them a fifty-dollar bottle of wine.”
“You sure it wasn’t just an act?”
“No!”
“He never asked you for money?”
“Never! I always got the feeling that if I needed money, he’d be there for me. He was really generous. He was always telling me about …” She trailed off, her face troubled.
“About what?” I pressed.
“I don’t know. I mean, he never asked for money, not like a loan or anything like that. But he was always telling me about different investment opportunities, different stocks that could make Michael and me rich. I offered to invest a thousand dollars, but he said we would need at least a hundred thousand for these kinds of trades. He said it was the only way to make money.”
“I see,” I said.
“So you think he was just going to take the money for himself? Not invest it or anything?”
“I don’t know. But let me ask you something else that might seem a little out of the blue. Did he ever talk about dealing with any Mexicans around Portland? Especially street-gang types?”
“Mexicans? No, not that I can
think of. Why?”
“Not sure yet. Did he—”
“Oh, wait,” Janice said, “wait a minute. There was one time when he was over when he got a call on the cell. I couldn’t make out the other person, but it did sound like they had an accent. Could have been a Mexican accent. The guy seemed pretty upset. When Tony got off the phone, I asked him what that was all about, and he just frowned and said it was just a business associate who was unhappy. I asked him why, but he told me it was nothing.” She looked at me. “It was probably nothing, right?”
“Hard to say. Was this just before Karen died?”
“I guess. A month or so before.”
“And he was over here at the house?”
“Yeah.”
“Just the two of you?”
She started to answer, then realized what I was really getting at, and blushed.
“So it was more than once, wasn’t it?” I prodded her.
“It might have been a few times,” she said in a quiet voice.
“Two or three times a week?”
Her blush deepened to a nice shade of scarlet. “Not that much. More than once, but not that much.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m not here to judge.”
“I’m a terrible person.”
I smiled. “Well, so am I. Join the club.”
“I did break it off. I really did.”
“I know,” I said, though I really didn’t. “Look, is there anything else you can tell me that can help?”
“I don’t know. I can’t think of anything.”
“Did you get along well with Karen?”
“Pretty well. Why?”
“Just asking. You haven’t visited her condo since she died, have you?”
She shook her head. “No. Dad took care of that stuff. I didn’t want … Wait a minute. You don’t think I had anything to do with her death, do you?”
“I’m just asking questions, Janice.”
“Well, I don’t! That’s ridiculous. I don’t know why anybody would want to kill Karen. She was kind of a lush, but she was a sweet person. A little naive, maybe, but very sweet. I still can’t believe Tony would ever do such a thing. Are really sure it was murder?”
“I’m not sure of anything right now,” I said. “That’s why I’m just fishing around with all these questions. Speaking of that, I better get going. I’ve taken enough of your time.”
I stood. She stood, too, looking even more anxious than ever. The sweat and tears on her face had dried, leaving track marks in their wake. Since I’d entered, the Mexican housekeeper had moved approximately six inches to the left. Janice followed me to the door right on my elbow, repeatedly glancing at my face, still clutching that dinosaur. When we reached the door, she grabbed the handle and started to open it, then paused, looking at me. We were only inches apart, close enough that I once again caught a whiff of her apricot-scented perfume.
“You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?” she asked.
“No.”
“Because, you know, if you wanted money …”
“That’s not necessary.”
“Or—or something else …”
Her eyes flitted from my face to my crotch and back again. I couldn’t believe it. After just telling me how she would never do anything like what she did with Tony again, here she was offering to bribe me with sexual favors to keep me quiet. There was also a subtle change to the way she carried herself. The way she moved, the tiny shifts of her hips and breasts, there was a lot of sexuality bundled behind all that spandex. I thought about telling her to go take a cold shower, but there was a fragility to her that made me think this kind of rejection might make her crumble. She might crumble anyway as soon as I was out the door, but I wasn’t going to deliberately contribute to it.
At least not until I found out for sure whether she had anything to do with Karen’s death.
“Your secret is completely safe with me,” I said. I took out one of my cards and handed it to her. “Call me if you think of anything else that could help.”
Chapter 18
It had seemed like a good idea when Alesha invited me, but I’d only taken a few steps through the door into the little ranch house in Tigard when I realized it was a mistake. The living room was packed elbow to elbow, filled with the hubbub of conversation and laughter, way too much noise and stimulation for my shaky state of mind. With Billie gone a little over month, the loneliness had finally gotten to me. I’d thought, stupidly, that a brief jaunt to a cop’s retirement party might cure me of some of my blues.
“Wow, a bit crowded,” I said.
Alesha, shaking the water off her umbrella on the little concrete porch outside the door, gave me one of her patented you’re-stupider-than-I-thought expressions. “Crowded? What are you talking about? We’re one of the first ones here.”
That’s when I knew the party wasn’t just a mistake, but a big mistake. Surveying the sunken living room and the adjoining dining-room area, I counted at least twenty people—mostly men, half in police uniform, most of them gray-haired and wrinkled but a fair range of other ages as well. Based on the noise coming from the kitchen and down the hall, there were probably that many and more spread throughout the rest of the house. There was so much raucous noise that I could barely make out the rain pelting the roof, and it was a hell of a downpour, even by Oregon standards.
It was also hot and stuffy, the air laced with plenty of sweat, perfume, and cologne, and that was always the hardest part of my condition for me to grasp. I could understand seeing ghosts, but smelling them? It may have made sense on some weird logical level—there was no reason ghosts could be detected merely by one sense, the eyes, and not by others—but it was still jarring.
Alesha placed the umbrella in the large clay pot next to the door, along with three other umbrellas. Three umbrellas? Did that mean that the vast majority of the people in the room were ghosts?
Still waiting for my reply, Alesha blinked her eyelashes at me—long and dark and luxurious eyelashes. The eyelashes thing was something new for Alesha the past few weeks, along with a touch of silver eyeliner and lavender lipstick, and it was amazing what just a little bit of makeup did for her face. She was already an attractive woman, with those lean features and arresting eyes, but there were times when it seemed like she was trying hard not to be feminine, like she wanted to be seen as just another one of the boys, and when she actually played up her feminine side rather than hiding it, she really was stunningly beautiful.
The designer jeans, calf-high black boots, and low-cut purple cashmere sweater also helped her cause.
“Oh,” I said, “I just, well—”
“Alesha! Myron!”
The cop’s wife, Loraine, bellowed our names across the room, saving me from having to come up with a reason for my complaint. She was short and stout, like her husband Sam, but unlike her husband, she’d taken to dying her hair bright orange and dressing herself in African-style clothing. She bounded over to us with irrepressible enthusiasm, beads rattling, arms thrown wide, her smile so wide and genuine that it was hard not to smile a little in return. It was only up close that the faint webs of wrinkles around her eyes and on her cheeks gave away her age.
“Oh gosh, I’m so glad you both could come,” she said, hugging Alesha so hard she actually looked at me with alarm. “Sammy will be so glad!”
“Where is Sam anyway?” I asked. “Is he hiding in some back room playing poker?”
Loraine eyed me strangely, then laughed and punched me on the shoulder. It was no dainty punch. Even through the thick sleeve of my leather jacket, her fist stung. “Myron, you’re such a kidder! You know full well he’s standing right over there. Go talk to him! He was really hoping you’d come.”
She gave me a gentle push into the living room, a room decorated in weavings and paintings of much the same style as her dress. Two old cops in uniforms that had gone out of style decades ago parted to let me pass, and that’s when I saw Sam standing by the
gas fireplace, a can of Bud Light in hand.
I was shocked by his appearance. Gone was the heavy guy with the big beer gut, the ruddy complexion, and the broad frame to match his wife’s. In its place was a rail-thin fellow with a spindly neck and pale, sallow cheeks. I hadn’t seen him since he’d visited me in the hospital, almost two years previously, but it looked like he’d aged ten years in that time. Blond hair had gone white. Guys on the force used to jokingly call him Sam Clemens, Mark Twain’s real name, because of Sam’s bushy mustache and eyebrows, plus his penchant for wry observations about everyday life. But our Sam’s heaviness always meant the nickname didn’t completely fit. It was only now that he more closely looked the part.
He was talking to a short, stocky man I didn’t recognize, one who looked much like the old Sam, though sans mustache. It was like a before and after shot. As I approached, Sam nodded at me. They were engaged in an animated conversation about the upcoming midterm election, sipping beer whenever the other was talking. Sam, who loved politics almost as much as he loved his badge, said he was sure the Democrats were going to retake the house, and the other guy kept shaking his head, saying, no, it wasn’t possible, never going to happen.
“Well, we’ll see!” Sam exclaimed, then waved at me with his beer. “Terry, this here is Myron. I was his first partner when he made detective.”
“And I’m sure he lived to regret it,” Terry said.
They both laughed, a good and honest laugh among good and honest friends, and I found myself joining in. It was a welcome feeling. I’d forgotten how much I liked Sam. We’d only been partners a year before a close call with a knife-armed meth head prompted him to transfer to the quieter streets of Tigard, but it had been one of the best years of my life. I’d learned a ton from Sam about how to carry myself as a detective as opposed to a uniformed cop, how to ask the questions that gave you the answers you needed, and, most importantly, how to keep feeling like you were making a difference when all evidence pointed to the contrary.