Obstacle Course

by Yvonne Montgomery

  Of course, she hadn't built much of a case yet—not enough planing and sanding no doubt.

  Well, hell, she thought. She also had Cuffy's and Paige's addresses. There was still enough daylight for her to up her social solecism quotient by dropping in for an unannounced visit or two. If she couldn't smooth some wood, she could ruffle some feathers.

  The black vinyl seat of her pickup was as hot as the hubs of hell, burning through her slacks enough to make her increase her speed by a good ten mph. She got back onto Speer Boulevard and made for the area's lower rent version of Valhalla: Greenwood Village. According to the address, Cuffy had broadened her horizons by venturing beyond the country club comfort of Cherry Hills Village. Oh, well. Who was she to snipe? If she'd had the money, maybe she'd have wanted the finer things in life: guaranteed tennis courts and the most eclectic collection of Porsches in any neighborhood west of the Mississippi.

  University Boulevard would be crammed with commuters this time of day, so she turned south on Downing. By the time she got to Belleview, the roads had coagulated with cars, the BMWs outnumbering the Fords six to one, the Mercedeses coming in first even so. She could rest secure in the knowledge that any dent her little Toyota might sustain would be cheaper to fix than those of the star cars.

  Cuffy had a little house at the still-country edge of Greenwood Village, with a half-acre's worth of space for the sleek quarterhorse that watched Finny's entrance on the gravel lane threading through wagon wheels planted on either side, like bookends.

  The horse trotted over to the wire fence around the stable built of a two-by-four frame covered with four-by-eight plywood panels. The barnyard element should have clashed with the neat stone-and-brick house nestled against the Highline Canal, but it didn't. If the Village had any remaining virtue, it was these pockets of country that had thus far survived the encroachment of expensive architecture and overmanaged landscaping.

  As Finny followed the flagstone walk to Cuffy's front door, there was no sign that her presence had been noticed. The mullioned windows were rendered sightless by wooden shutters visible through the glass, and only the soft nickering of the horse disturbed the quiet.

  Finny rang the doorbell. The carriage house lantern over the house number was still on, its yellow light dim and powerless in the bright sunshine. She pushed the doorbell again.

  The silence was uncanny. Here, in the middle of a metropolitan area inhabited by over a million souls, the cacophony of freeways and shopping centers was merely a hint on the air. A flicker's insistent tapping on a telephone pole broke the stillness.

  "Back to the old drawing board," Finny muttered after a couple of minutes, and she was turning away from the door when it opened.

  "Finny?" Cuffy Sarandon had obviously just gotten out of bed. A light cotton wrapper was belted over soft flounces of snowy white cambric. Her ginger hair was mussed and her eyes were bare of makeup. "What are you doing here?"

  "Hi, I need to talk to you. May I come in? Just for a little while," she added when Cuffy didn't move.

  "Okay." Cuffy stepped back and let Finny into the small living room. It had been decorated in an attempt to replicate a conservatory, with white wicker furniture and pink cabbage roses blooming on the cushions and curtains swept back from the white shutters by jaunty bows.

  Cuffy glanced out the small stair-step windows in the top third of the door as she closed it. Then she turned, one hand pushing the hair back from her forehead. "What time is it?"

  "Nearly four." Finny took a closer look at her. Her eyes were puffy, as if she'd been crying. She appeared fine drawn, strained beyond her capacity, her face sharper, older, than the night of the judge's murder. "I'm sorry I woke you. I've been trying to call you all afternoon."

  "I took the phone off the hook." Cuffy walked in front of her to the small kitchen, cheerful yellow walls glowing with the afternoon sunlight. "The doctor gave me some sleeping pills." She turned on a faucet in the sink and held a kettle under the flow, then set it on the stove. "Do you want some coffee? I only have instant."

  "Sure, thanks. Uh, could I use your bathroom?"

  "Of course." She pointed through the other doorway. "Just down the hall."

  Cuffy retrieved the dead phone receiver from the bird's egg blue countertop and hung it in its accustomed place as Finny went out of the kitchen.

  Rosebud wallpaper continued the botanic theme in the small bathroom. As Finny washed her hands, she wrestled briefly with her training: one does not snoop in people's medicine cabinets. One does if one wants to clear a friend of murder, she pointed out to her better self. One snoops like a fiend.

  One also finds things. Finny stared at the toiletry items next to Cuffy's Secret and Midol. Either she had a more varied life than Finny would have thought, or someone of the masculine persuasion was leaving his Obsession and Mitchum's deodorant behind. Two toothbrushes cohabited cheerfully and an electric razor rested comfortably on the middle shelf.

  Finny returned to the kitchen in a pensive mood.

  Cuffy had stoneware cups out on the counter and was stirring as she poured hot water into them. She flicked a glance over her shoulder at Finny. "Do you take anything in your coffee?"

  "No."

  The ensuing silence was thick. One meeting had not a friendship made, especially in light of what had happened.

  "Uh, I haven't had the chance to tell you—I'm sorry about your father."

  Cuffy, intent upon stirring milk into her coffee, nodded.

  "I'm also sorry to bother you now. I wouldn't, except for Twee."

  Cuffy stiffened involuntarily. "I'd rather you didn't—"

  "I have to. There's something wrong about it, Cuffy. I don't think Twee killed your father."

  "Well, that's just dandy." Cuffy turned around. "You do take a lot on yourself, don't you?"

  Finny shook her head, unsure of what to say.

  "I've never been much on the Miss Manners approach to life," Cuffy said conversationally, "but you really do bring it up. What kind of nerve did it take for you to come here?"

  Finny met the anger in Cuffy's eyes. "I'm not indulging myself in a little extracurricular prying. Twee Garrett has been a friend to me, and I don't like the way this whole thing is going down. That may not seem like reason enough to get involved, but it did the trick for me."

  "Don't talk to me about Twee." As her voice thickened, Cuffy spoke more quickly. "She's so much more than a friend to me. Do you have any idea how much that adds to the—the horror of all this? Can you even imagine?" She pushed her trembling hands into her pockets. "I think you'd better go."

  "No." Finny was beginning to tap into her own anger. "I still can't believe I'm the only person who can question what's going on. You say Twee's been more than a friend... then why the hell are you just accepting what she's doing? You've got a brain—use it! Twee wouldn't kill anything, let alone your father, no matter what he did to her husband. It's been years since all that happened, and yet you and everyone else are just sitting back, saying 'Oh, what a shame. Naughty Twee.' " Finny's voice was getting higher and louder. "Well, that's a bunch of bullshit. And whether or not you lift one finger to try to find out the truth, I won't just let this thing go. Somebody has to help her."

  The room was very quiet when she stopped speaking. She had the feeling of fury mixed with embarrassment that often follows impassioned declarations.

  "What do you want me to do?" Cuffy asked after a year or two of awkward silence.

  "I need information. Who does she care about enough to lie for? Which of those people would want to kill your father? Just the basic, obvious stuff."

  "Right." Cuffy again pushed back the hair falling over her forehead like a tired paintbrush. "You know who Twee cares about: my mother, me—you, for that matter. She's got a string of foundlings—from struggling artists to the daughter of the man who delivers her booze orders. Would she lie for any of us? I don't know."

  Finny watched her sit down at the small kitchen table as if he
r legs wouldn't hold her up. "Are you okay?"

  "Of course," sarcastically, "I feel like a million dollars—which is just a piece of what I'll inherit now that Dad's dead. Does that make me a prime suspect?"

  Pulling out the chair across the table from Cully, Finny sat down. "I don't want to hurt you, I just want to help Twee."

  "And what if you can't do one without the other?"

  "I'll jump off that bridge when I get to it."

  The telephone rang. Cuffy started at the sound as if it were a gunshot. She moved awkwardly across the room to pick up the receiver. "Hello? Oh, Mother. Where have you been? I tried to call, but—" She listened, the tears on her cheeks drying, the blurred quality to her features hardening into expressionlessness. "I don't know," she finally said. "Where are you staying?"

  Finny watched, wanting to grab the receiver and arrange to see Paige. That would probably be as useful as asking Jerry Falwell to give the convocation at a convention of atheists.

  Cuffy's gaze slid over to Finny, who signaled that she wanted to talk to Paige.

  "Mother, Finny Aletter is here. You know, Twee's friend from the—from Sunday. She'd like to talk to you." She listened, then, "I'll tell her. I can try, Mother. It's been rather difficult, as you can imagine. Or maybe you can't." Cuffy paused. "I'll do my best. All right!" She hung up the receiver. "Sorry." Her face was tight with control. "Mother's busy right now and can't talk to you. She's trying to clear up some details, like what to do about the funeral."

  "I suppose it will be private."

  "Very." Cuffy shuddered. "Can you imagine if the press—Anyway, we won't have a memorial service until next week."

  "Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

  "No. As Mother always said, once was enough."

  Finny felt another spurt of anger. She hadn't liked Paige Dexter one little bit, and nothing she'd heard so far was changing her mind. In the post-I'm-okay-you're-okay era, old Paige had a ways to go.

  "The night of Twee's party I saw your mother with a man I used to know," Finny said abruptly. "His name's TV Engelman. Do you know him?"

  Cuffy looked at her. "I've met him. He's sort of drifted in and out of Mother's life for the last year or so. Why?"

  "I told you I wanted to find out about the people who might want to kill your father. There seemed to be, um, some intensity between him and Paige."

  "They're sleeping together, if that's what you mean." Cuffy waved toward the phone. "Mother's staying with him right now."

  Loyal little thing, Finny thought. Maybe I'm being a tad too diffident in my approach. "Was there any, uh, difficulty in your parents' separation? Do you think your mother would have had a reason to kill your father?"

  "Just spit it right out." Cuffy's laugh had an edge of desperation to it. "You have one hell of a lot of gall. You come here, talking about my mother—I'm still trying to deal with the idea of Twee—" she gulped—"killing him."

  This wasn't accomplishing much. Finny rose from the chair. "I think maybe we'd better postpone this conversation. Can I call you later?"

  Cuffy followed her to the door. "What for? Do you want to take potshots at a few more of my relatives?"

  Finny looked into her eyes, bright with tears and malice. So much for friendship. "By the way," she said deliberately, "I saw Kit Landauer this morning."

  "What did he say?" The question came as quickly as her swift inhalation.

  Interesting. "Not a whole lot. Said he didn't know anything about Twee and didn't feel like speculating. He got downright hostile when I mentioned you."

  Cuffy looked down at her fingers, as if she suddenly realized they were clasping each other in a death grip. She disentangled them and looked up at Finny. "I can't imagine why," she said thinly. "And it isn't any of your business anyway."

  "That's what you think."

  Chapter 10

  Finny was driving too fast when she left Cuffy's place. She nicked one of the wagonwheels beside the driveway, gunning the engine as she pulled out onto the street, gravel flying in her wake. Only the fast reflexes of the purple-faced man who veered his Eldorado around her pickup saved them both from an encounter of the closer, nastier kind. That and the right leg Finny used to push the brake nearly into the engine compartment.

  "Cool your jets," Finny croaked aloud into the sudden silence of the truck cab. She restarted the stalled engine, then steered her pickup to the side of the road to allow her heart to descend to its usual place.

  She turned off the engine and pried the shaking fingers of her left hand off the steering wheel, then pushed her hair off her forehead. The nowhere she was getting fast would be permanent unless she got her frustration under control. It wouldn't do Twee—to say nothing of herself—any good to get smeared all over the pavement.

  Okay, so it'd been a bitch of a day. She'd had those before; a lot of them, if she thought back a ways. The only way to deal with hassles was to face them head on. Trying to prove Twee innocent wasn't the same as repairing a staircase or building a piece of furniture. She'd had no part in the creation of all the pieces of this puzzle. Hell, she didn't even know yet what all the pieces were.

  A bright red convertible boomed by, its radio turned to maximum audio overkill. The reverberations of "Like a Virgin" punched holes through the quiet neighborhood.

  Part of the problem, Finny thought angrily, was the people she was dealing with. There was a barrier between Kit, Cuffy, even Twee, and her. Not to mention Abigail Hunter. Except for Abigail, it was easy to figure out what that barrier was—money, plain and simple. She didn't have to reread her F. Scott Fitzgerald to tune into that. What she'd begun to see up close were the details of the cushion separating them, the warp and weave of the differences that financial abundance made in the backdrop against which their lives were played out.

  She hadn't ever really asked for anything from people of wealth. Until now. It was her seeking help for Twee that had pushed all of the buzz-off buttons among the country club set. Kit Landauer had treated her with disdain. He didn't have to answer her questions and he'd felt perfectly free to threaten her when she'd mentioned Cuffy. She could sympathize. She'd get bent out of shape if somebody threatened Barelli. She loved him, and even though there were some unsettled spots in who they were together, she wouldn't let somebody get away with trying to hurt him.

  Okay. What that implied was Cuffy could be hurt—or Kit thought she could be. Finny tugged distractedly at the wilting collar of her camp shirt. Cuffy had reacted to her mentioning Kit's name like a duck landing in icy water. She'd definitely sat on whatever she knew, but uncomfortably.

  What were uncomfortable were the conclusions she could extrapolate from their behavior. She'd wanted to believe that Twee had confessed to Sarandon's murder to protect some obnoxious soul like Paige Dexter, but if she would sacrifice herself for Paige, she'd be just as likely to do the same for Cuffy. Maybe more so, since Cuffy was infinitely more likable. And Kit's imitation of a stone wall in reaction to her questions about Cuffy could be seen in the same light.

  "Shit." Finny couldn't evade the possibility. While she was off getting champagne for the two of them, Cuffy could have followed her father outside and murdered him. Just because it seemed insane to her didn't mean that it couldn't have happened that way. Or, Finny thought, remembering the tension between Kit and Cuffy that night, maybe she and Kit had collaborated on the effort. But would Twee try to protect Kit if she knew he was involved? It kept coming back to what Twee would or would not do. Murder, no. Balls-out help, maybe. How many people were there in Twee's life who would rate the sacrifice of a confession to murder?

  "There's only one way to find out," Finny muttered, and reached forward to turn the key in the ignition. If she couldn't talk to Twee, and the people she could talk to wouldn't help her, she would go back to Twee's place and look again. This time she would have something specific to hunt for: photos, names in address books, appointment calendars, lists of birthdays—anything she could find that might ident
ify the people Twee valued.

  Finny eased her way back into traffic, her mind on the job ahead. It might not be so easy to get into Twee's house again. After all, MacKenzie Bartholomew had told the maid to give her the heave-ho this morning. But she—what was her name?—Bianca. Bianca had acted so scared. If she couldn't bluff her way in, then she'd forgotten every rotten thing she'd ever learned in the glamorous world of brokering.

  Or, Finny thought absently as she downshifted in response to a yellow light, I can take advantage of my newer skills: I could use my wrecking bar to pry open the door.

  * * *

  As the last notes of the stately chimes reverberated behind the massive front door of Twee's house, Finny heard the click of the lock and the knob began to turn. Good thing she'd left the wrecking bar in the pickup.

  "May I—you!" Bianca stopped the opening swing of the door with a jerk. She stared up at Finny, eyes wide. Her dark hair was falling in untidy wisps from the loose knot at the back of her neck and she looked both tired and afraid. "What is it you—"

  Finny had pushed forward into the gap between the door and its frame. "Sorry to bother you again," she said brusquely. "I need to check out a couple of things I forgot this morning."

  "But you cannot." Bianca spread her arms out as if to block Finny's entering any farther, but she was too small and too off-balance to have much effect. "Madre de Dios, what are you doing? Mr. Bartholomew, he say—"

  "Bianca, what is it?"

  At the sound of Twee's voice, Finny's gaze jerked up to the top of the stairs.

  Twee, majestic in a long, pink bathrobe, her hair a mass of ragged tufts, stared down in dismay. "Finny!"