by Nicole Kurtz
The music boomed and from here I could see people dancing, laughing and tossing back a few bright green beers. Katherine and a couple of other waiters I’d never seen before navigated through the throng of people, spilling beer, and shouting to the bartender.
They partied, oblivious to the dangers of life that, for now, where suspended. I wondered how Hanson did his job well when he drank like this every night. A couple of patrons stumbled out, laughing into the cold air. They held onto each other, leaning like that tower that used to be in Pisa. I could hear their conversation, even from my distance across and down the pavement. Drunks had no idea how loud they were…
“...Mike, stop it! Stop! I’m gonna tell your wife…(Laughing)”
“All right, Lily… tryin’ to have fun…”
“Da both of ya knock it off… ‘fore I bust ya traps…”
Ah, so much love in the air tonight…I watched them until they disappeared into the dark shadows at the corner.
I sat for another hour watching people come and go from O’Shea’s. The snow stopped, but left an icy, slick ground covered by a thin layer of snow. None of the people leaving or arrived were the mayor. If Hanson and the mayor’s affair were a secret why would they meet at such a public place?
I pushed on toward the rental room, my hopes dashed.
Tired and a little befuddled, I entered the rental room and found Jane seated on the sofa, her feet up and over the edge of the right armrest, facing the door. A beer cradled in her arm, she looked totally satisfied with herself.
“About time.”
I laughed and collapsed into one of the two chairs. Jane wore her cat-that-ate-the-cream smile, which meant she found out something worth telling me. But of course, I had to ask her.
“You look awfully pleased.”
She nodded and sat up. Without looking at me she took the package of cigarettes from the table and lit up.
“Okay, I’m asking,” I said wearily. “What did you find out?”
“Guess who Nathan’s partner is?” she asked, her eyes twinkling with her newfound information, her voice full of amusement.
I shrugged, my brain dead in the water, my stomach growling. I flicked on the room’s filter, and it began to suck Jane’s cigarette smoke up and out of the small space.
“Some guy named Jameson,” she said with a ring of smoke escaping from her mouth. “Followed them to the less than stellar parts of the quadrant in their unmarked wauto. They rousted a few corner dealers, but nothing else worth reporting.”
Jameson and Nathan as partners. Jameson was a creepy kind of guy. Partnered with Nathan, there must be hundreds of regulations they’ve broken.
How did Amanda fit into this puzzle of drugs, regulators, and politics?
“So, now what?” Jane asked. “Hungry?”
I hadn’t eaten all day and smiled. “Famished.”
“Well, Aunt Belle invited us over for dinner at her home, tonight. I told her I’d call her either way by six,” Jane said hesitantly and stubbed out her cigarette, half smoked.
“Fine.”
This would be a good time to meet Mr. Christensen and to observe their relationship. After years of following and photographing wayward husbands, wives, girlfriends, and boyfriends, I could usually tell when things were amiss in a marriage or relationship.
Except my own.
P.I. heal thyself.
“She’s got this really good cook, Cajun,” Jane was saying as she headed for the bathroom to wash her hands. “I promise it will go well.”
Yeah, right.
The drive out to the mayor’s mansion passed swiftly and before I had summoned the patience and honey needed to endure the night we were there. Around the west and east sides of the house, bushes rose from frozen earth. Their naked branches weighed down low with chunky ice. The paved cul-de-sac lay covered in fluffy snow.
Her house was about fifteen minutes from Hanson’s estate home. They were practically neighbors.
I climbed out of the wauto, but Jane had already beaten me to the double, metallic doors. I reached the edge of the porch when Mayor Christensen answered them.
“Janey, so good to see you,” she said as if she hadn’t seen Jane in a year. “You made it.”
With a brief hug, Jane moved forward inside. Mayor Christensen turned her hazel eyes to me and said, "Cybil."
Definitely not feeling wanted, but not really caring, I followed her through the foyer, this one decorated in soft desert rose and mauve carpeting, to the sitting room.
The sitting room contained a couple of two-person sofas with matching floral prints of pastel pink and white. They faced each other while two stiff-looking armchairs covered by some white gauzy fabric completed the rear of the U arrangement. The chairs faced a fireplace that burned on gas, not wood. In the center, between the sofas and chairs, an oval oak coffee table was placed on top of a striped mauve throw rug. Unlike the foyer, the floor here had been buffed and polished so the hardwood floors could be seen and admired.
Already seated on one of the sofas, Jane met my eyes and gave me a half-shrug. "Aunt Belle, about the case…"
Mayor Christensen clucked her tongue. "No business talk tonight. I invited you so that we could relax with a good solid meal. Not even a synthetic slice of bland."
I fought to keep the frown from my face. I didn't think a daughter's murder was business nor did I think Mayor Christensen truly wanted to relax. She wore a Christmas red pantsuit with sparkling gold high-heeled shoes. Her Afro bore two gold encrusted barrettes. Two long golden chains complete with golden charms hung from her neck. She looked ready for a party, not dinner at home with her niece and a p.i.
When I relax, it’s in my pjs, maybe my favorite pair of sweats, but not a holiday formal outfit.
The fireplace warmed the room, and I turned my gaze from it to look around at the walls. No pictures of family, oversized oil paintings of various landscapes and a few modern art pieces.
"Dinner will be ready soon," Mayor Christensen said as she took up the seat next to Jane on the opposite sofa. "Tell me, Janey, what do you plan to do once you get back to D.C.?"
I snorted and Mayor Christensen ignored me. Jane's going to do what she always did, work cases with me and try to solve crimes. But I kept my mouth closed, trying my best to be good.
"Well, I might take some time off," Jane said, slowly, her voice low.
"What?" I balked. Jane taking a vacation? It was news to me…
Jane hesitated, and kept her eyes on Mayor Christensen's face. Seated across from her, on the opposite sofa, I watched the conversation unfold without further commentary from yours truly.
The two were pretending that I wasn’t there anyway. They talked about family, etc., nothing that I could add to the conversation. That was fine with me. I liked people watching anyway.
After about ten minutes, a slender, dark-skinned girl with silky, waist-length hair, came into the sitting room. "Madam, dinner is served."
Mayor Christensen gracefully got to her feet, her posture perfect. "Thank you, Maria, dear."
The dining room draped in feathery yellow and dark woods had already been set for a party of three. The cloth napkins, a mixed pattern of yellow and creams, were large enough to cover my entire head. The fine china and heavy silverware only reinforced the ideal that Amanda had a very good, if not wealthy, life. Why would she run away from it?
I waited until the "family" had sat before taking my place beside Jane. The place setting for Mr. Christensen was missing. Damn, and I wanted to get a look at the guy, get to meet him, and try to read him. He was missing again.
The first dish was soup du jour, a more seasoned blend than the one I had at O'Shea's. This one came full of chopped celery, carrots and peppers. I sipped gingerly as Jane and Mayor Christensen resumed their conversation.
"I wanted to ask you, Janey, if you would like to work for me," Mayor Christensen said, and this time she looked at me. If she wanted to catch my reaction, she must have been
disappointed because I didn't give her any.
I kept eating my soup, my face blank and empty.
Jane's reaction, on the other hand, startled her. "What!"
Mayor Christensen dabbed at her mouth gracefully and repeated her invitation. “Less risk, more pay.”
"But, you have to go through all kinds of exams to work for the mayor's office," Jane said, her neglected soup growing colder by the minute. "I-I’m not all that good with regulations."
Spoken like a true inspector-in-training. I beamed with pride.
"I wasn't thinking about the mayor's office. I was thinking I could appoint you over, say regulators for the Southeast Territories, as governor, I could do that," Mayor Christensen said smoothly, a hint of glee in her voice as if she'd already won the election.
Jane's eye grew wide with excitement. "You'd put in me as attorney general? Wow! Aunt Belle, I-I…" She faulted and stared at her aunt, misty-eyed.
"The election isn't won yet," I said, breaking into the happy scenario.
Jane was my assistant, and not that I couldn't get another one, I could. I didn't like seeing Mayor Christensen revving up Jane's motor when the election was still some eight months away.
Mayor Christensen laughed shrilly and said, "I know, I know, thrusters before the wauto and all that." She rolled her eyes away from me and said to Jane. "I want to know if you're on board for it, when it happens."
Jane readily accepted and Maria came into to take away the soup bowls. Empty, my bowl took the most usage, for Jane's and Mayor Christensen's bowls were still three-quarters full. I thought of all the homeless people who'd love a small sip of that soup. The wealthy never ceased to amaze me.
"So, will Mr. Christensen be joining us for dinner?" I asked, breaking the temporary silence and thus shattering their cheery mood.
I didn’t do it on purpose.
I couldn't help it. I had to know. The suspense of his whereabouts was killing me.
Behind Mayor Christensen, I watched Maria hesitate, her shoulders rising in a defensive move, before she disappeared back into the kitchen.
Mayor Christensen's mouth drew into a thin, aggravated line. She opened her mouth and quickly closed it as Maria bustled in with the salads. Mayor Christensen sat one hand under the table, probably in her lap, and the other hand lay on the table in a tightly coiled fist.
When Maria left the room, Mayor Christensen said, "Mr. Christensen is unavailable to dine with us tonight." She said it as if she'd said it a hundred times before.
Jane glanced at me. A questionable look briefly appeared on her face before turning back to her salad. She shoved in a forkful of lettuce, and chewed, though her eyes were on me.
"Why don't you tell the truth? There isn't a Mr. Christensen?" I asked, nearly playfully. "You had Amanda out of wedlock, didn't you?"
A curveball, and it socked Mayor Christensen right in the stomach. She dropped her fork into her salad plate with a clang.
"This is my house, Miss Lewis," drawing out the "s" as if my name was a dirty word. "And when I say there'll be no such talk of business, I mean it!"
I'm like a vampire, once you invite me in, you'll never get me out without giving a little blood…
Jane's eyes widened and she forcible swallowed her mouthful of salad. Then she said, "Aunt Belle, what's the big deal? Just tell Uncle Richard to come down and that'll shut Cybil's mouth. She’s like a cat. Solving her curiosity will probably get her killed one day, but…"
"She can't call him down, because he doesn't exist," I said calmly between bits of salad. "She's been playing, us, Jane. She's secretly sleeping with Captain Hanson."
Mayor Christensen's media smile was gone and in its place a sneer so animalistic, she resembled an enraged wolf. "What did you say?"
Jane too twisted in her seat to face me. "Cybil, that’s down right stupid ass…"
"She knows it's true," I said, my salad plate partially clean and awaiting Maria to cart it off. "Tell me it isn't."
Mayor Christensen said heatedly, "It's not true! I would never, never sleep with a man who-who…"
"Who did what?" Jane asked, her eyes bouncing like a tennis match between her Aunt Belle and me.
Here it is again. For the second time today, I have shoved people so far that they were close to confessing something, telling me something I'm not supposed to know. Sometimes I could press so hard, people shattered into a million pieces and nothing could be savaged. Sometimes they’d let loose something they wanted to hold close. I’d have to risk it. Not wanting to loose the moment, I pushed harder.
"Who works for her!" I shouted, slamming my own hand on the table making Jane jump.
"Who slept with Amanda!" Mayor Christensen cried and as quickly clapped her hands over her mouth.
Jane gasped. “W-what?”
Mayor Christensen rolled her eyes in disgust. Beneath her make-up she had gone a greenish color. Her hands still covered her mouth, the bright ruby red nails dug into her cheeks.
“Mayor…”
She sighed and pushed back her chair, sickened, and said, "Follow me."
Numb, for I hadn't expected that answer, I slowly scooted back from the table and rose. Jane fell in line behind me. Neither of us spoke.
We took the stairs up to the second floor, down a short hallway into the only door on the right. Inside the bedroom was painted a girlish pink with white lace, like Amanda's casket, throughout. An ivory, four-poster bed, complete with lacy canopy, occupied most of the space.
Mayor Christensen stood in the doorway, unable to enter. Jane walked in and looked around. Nothing had been disturbed or packed away. Nothing. “Mandy’s room…”
"I found her journal one night when Maria was off and I was looking for one of my sweaters," Mayor Christensen said, her voice far away, her eyes staring off into the distance. "She-she used to always borrow my clothes, you know? She'd grown up and could do that now…In a little less than a year, she’d be going off to college."
Jane whirled around to me, her face haggard and her eyes narrowed to slits. Yeah, she was angry with me for pressing the mayor, but now we had information we didn’t before. She’d have to get over it.
"…I read about two or three files. Most of it teenage girl stuff, when a note fell out of the back. It was his handwriting, to her, as if I hadn't seen it a zillion times—his handwriting was drafted into a common font for memos and reports…" Mayor Christensen said, softly. “Who uses paper in this day? Who could afford it?”
Jane brushed past the mayor and out in to the hallway, her face diverted from me. I alone remained standing in the room, looking for clues. Anything Amanda might have left to give me a clue as to who killed her.
"He talked about how he loved her. How he wanted to marry her once she came of age…the usual horseshit…"
I looked back to Mayor Christensen. It was the first time I'd heard her curse or use any language that wasn't appropriate or ready to print.
"Did you confront Captain Hanson about the affair?" I asked, interrupting her beginning rant and snapping Mayor Christensen from her reminiscent spell.
"Oh, ah, no, no I did not," she said, her eyes focusing and locking with mine. "And I forbid you to discuss this matter with him. I don't see how this can help your case to find Mandy's murderer anyway. That’s what I’m paying you for."
Jane must've snapped out of her foggy emotional dip too, because she said to Mayor Christensen, "Aunt Belle, we need to know everything. If you're holding back, it ain't going to help us find out who killed Mandy. We need to talk to everyone who could’ve harmed her."
The words, although logical, were spoken with a harshness, that even I flinched.
Mayor Christensen leaned back against the hallway wall, but Jane wasn't finished. She rounded on the mayor with avid anger. "You knew about her and Hanson and yet, you kept it from us. Why? Because she dated an older man? We needed to know this yesterday! We've been focusing all of our energy on Nathan when it could damn well be the regulator ca
ptain who murdered her. Damn, Cybil warned me and I was too, too caught up in your horseshit to see different. Arrgh! Don't you see?"
Mayor Christensen's eyes were wide with disbelief. "I-I never thought that Tom would do something like-"
"It's obvious you haven't been thinking about anything, except yourself!" Jane barked, her hands in fists, her eyes narrowed to burning slits of rage. "What? You afraid the press would get a hold of it and line the story up next to the article about spotting Elvis in Anchorage?"
I had all these thoughts too, but hearing them come from Jane shot them into perspective both for me and for the mayor, I would guess. Jane and I have been chasing our tails because we didn't have all the information from our client. It wasn't the first time this had happened with a client, but remember what I said about personal cases? Secrets get lost, hushed up and piled into a closet until someone yanks them out into the open.
Jane would not allow her aunt to pass to go down the stairs to the first landing. The mayor had to hear Jane's grief, frustration and pain all wrapped up and stabbed into her psyche.
"…and where is Uncle Richard? Huh? Speak! You've been silent long enough!" Jane spat and spun around back toward the opposite wall. Fuming, she opened her pack of cigarettes and without asking, lit it up.
The mayor's famous media smile and southern grace dissolved as she slid to the floor, her eyes brimming with tears. They spilled and splashed down the front of her suit. "Janey, I- I, oh God…"
She wept, sitting there on the floor outside Amanda's room.
This time the tears were real.
“Pink shells or purple butterflies?” I asked Jane over the top of my handheld. “She’s seven this year.”
“Butterflies,” Jane replied disinterestedly, her eyes glued to the telemonitor. A short, bushy man dressed in a leather brown coat and jeans reported on the story of the 2149 model aerocycles was on. “New color coordinated duel blasters…”