by Dianne Emley
T. Duke patted her hand. “Keep up the good work.”
As Baines escorted Toni out, she saw the redhead follow T. Duke into his office. Baines led Toni to the front door of the building past the display cases and antique cars. On the way down, she tried engaging him in conversation, without success, but continued prattling on about this and that without his participation. He held the bulletproof glass door open for her.
“Thanks for escorting me, Baines.” She looked up at him, her eyes traveling the expanse of his body. She had to tilt her head back to look into his eyes.
“No problem.”
She grinned at him, revealing both rows of small white teeth, and tittered. “Are you always so serious?”
“Serious, ma’am?”
She thought she detected a minute softening of his icy blue eyes. She tickled his waist through his starched shirt with her index finger. “Yes, serious.”
He jerked away, the corners of his mouth twitching.
“Ticklish, are you?” She reached for him again and he grabbed her wrist a bit roughly, letting the door close.
She audibly inhaled. “So that’s how you like to play, huh?”
Still holding her wrist, he looked down at her and she up at him. Neither of them spoke. Finally, he let her go and again pressed the door open.
She pushed out her lower lip in disappointment. “I guess you have to get back to work.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He mouthed the words but the stoicism was absent.
She sauntered out the door, letting her fingers trail across his chest. Outside, she looked back over her shoulder at him. “See you around?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Through the open door of her office, Iris saw Evan Finn return from his umpteenth break that day, but she wasn’t concerned with him at the moment. She was wondering whether she was out of her mind. Maybe T. Duke Sawyer was just a businessman out to make a buck.
T. Duke was right about one thing, damn him. She was not looking at Pandora’s circumstances from a detached, unemotional perspective. Pandora needed a cash infusion and soon. Even though Suckers Finish Last was selling beyond everyone’s expectations, it wasn’t enough. Bridget had invested too much in transforming that airplane hangar into kitschy offices. It would have been much cheaper to rent office space somewhere. There were an excessive number of people on the payroll, plus Kip had squandered megabucks on enhancing his lifestyle.
Iris had another problem. She could not run Pandora and McKinney Alitzer’s L.A. branch at the same time. There were only so many Iris hours in the day. She was certain Bridget never intended the administration of Brianna’s trust to drag down Iris’s life. What was Pandora anyway but just an investment? If the firm was as T. Duke described, an underperforming dog with slim prospects, she should unload it while she could still get a good price for it. That’s what she’d advise her own clients. Kip would just have to deal with her decision. His losing control over Pandora was his own fault, anyway. If he’d been more responsible, Bridget would have left the management of the company to him.
So if there was no dark plot involving T. Duke, who murdered Bridget? It was still possible it was T. Duke. But, again forcing herself to look at things unemotionally, Iris had to admit she had begun to more strongly suspect Kip. Why hadn’t he been acting like a grieving husband or trying to find Bridget’s murderer?
Louise buzzed her. “Summer Fontaine is here to see you.”
“Really? I don’t have an appointment with her, do I?”
“She said she just stopped by.”
“Please send her down.”
Iris stood and quickly retucked her blouse into her skirt as she peeked out the window that overlooked the suite, watching for Summer’s arrival. Even though the market was busy again that day, everyone momentarily stopped what they were doing to watch Summer pass.
Louise walked ahead of her down the corridor. Summer was wearing a clingy, long-sleeved, pearl pink sweater dress with a low scoop neckline.
Iris admired the woman’s consistency. Her every outfit, be it kick-around sloppies for home or funeral attire, seemed selected for ultimate bimbo appeal. When the Crosses had originally hired Summer, she was merely cute. She had since transformed into a bombshell. Who knew?
Kyle Tucker and Sean Bliss found excuses to loiter near the watercooler.
Evan Finn was more bold. He extended his hand to Summer as she passed. “Summer Fontaine. I’m a big fan.”
She beamed, clutching his fingertips. “How nice.”
“I’m Evan Finn.” He kissed the back of her hand. “Very pleased to meet you.”
No-nonsense Louise discreetly led Summer by the arm away from Evan, who appraised the rear view. His eyes indicated he wasn’t disappointed. Summer turned and gave him one last smile before entering Iris’s office.
“Hi Iris,” she breathed like a graduate of the Marilyn Monroe school of speech. “Oooh. This is nice.”
“Thank you. Have a seat.”
Summer sat in one of the chairs facing Iris’s desk, crossing her legs in the clingy dress.
Iris saw Kyle, Sean, and now Warren too hanging around outside her door. She ignored the men’s downcast faces as she closed it. When she turned to walk back to her desk, she noticed that Summer’s cheek was bruised.
Summer drew her fingers through her hair, pulling the long strands over to cover the dark area that she couldn’t completely disguise with makeup. “Thanks for taking the time…” Her voice broke before she could finish.
Iris pulled a tissue from a box she kept in her drawer and handed it to her.
“I’m sorry.” Summer patted the tissue against the corners of her eyes. “I told myself I wasn’t going to get upset, but…”
“It’s all right,” Iris said soothingly, noticing that Summer even cried cute. Unlike herself, Summer’s face didn’t turn beet red and swell like a pimple and her makeup remained in place instead of migrating all over her face. She was easy to hate, and Iris would have if she hadn’t sensed the woman’s sincere distress. “What’s wrong?”
Summer examined the makeup that had come off on the tissue. “Kip and I had a fight. I don’t even know how it started. I was mad because all he does is sit at that computer all day.”
“Working?” Iris asked hopefully.
“I guess so. Anyway, he started complaining about the way I dress Brianna and…” Summer relayed every detail of the incident, tears streaming from her eyes, which were astonishingly emerald green. She was wearing colored contact lenses.
Iris supplied her with a mound of tissues while wondering, Where’s the beef?
“Oh, Iris. It was awful.” Summer twisted a damp tissue between her hands. “I don’t know how that sweet little thing could draw something like that.”
“Like what?” Iris thought she’d been paying attention, but something had apparently slipped past her.
“The picture. Brianna starts waving this picture and going, ‘Daddy, look!’ It wasn’t the best picture. She’s only five. But it was all there. Slade Slayer holding a gun, Stetson afraid by the pool, and”—she began sobbing—“her mom.”
“Would you like a glass of water?”
Summer shook her head. “Anyway, Kip went bat shit. He grabbed the paper from her, tore it into a million pieces, and shoved them into his pocket. Brianna was screaming and crying. It was awful. I told him he should let her draw. She’s probably working it out that way, but Kip wouldn’t hear of it.”
Summer spoke in a whisper. “I’m starting to get afraid of him, Iris. He’s been talking crazy. He’s accusing me of seeing other men and he goes on and on about all this weird stuff. About how Bridget’s murder was cause and effect or something. How he might as well act like a murderer since that’s what people think of him.” She inhaled tremulously. “I think the things people say to him—how they call him murderer and wife-killer and stuff—are really doing a number on his head.”
She placed her fingertips against her cleavage
. “I never believed Kip murdered Bridget. I swear, I didn’t. But Iris, the way he’s been acting…”
“Did he hit you?”
Summer gingerly touched the bruise on her cheek. “You can still see it?”
“When?”
She shook her head as if the memory were painful. “Last night. Brianna was in bed, thank goodness. I told the police. I thought they should know in case something…” Her voice trailed off. “Can you talk to Kip? I don’t know what to do. I’ve never seen him acting like this. I’m worried about Brianna.”
“Sure.”
“I don’t think he’d do anything to Brianna, but I can’t figure out why he was so upset over her drawing. I think she should draw. We need to find out what she saw. She said she drew pictures like that when she was staying with Bridget’s parents.”
“She did?”
“I wonder if Natalie has them.”
Iris didn’t comment but resolved to get to the Tylers before Summer did.
Summer finished drying her eyes and dropped the soiled tissues in a wad on top of Iris’s desk. “Thanks, Iris. I always thought you were a really good person. I just had to tell someone what’s going on in that house. I wish I had a friend like you.”
“Thanks. That’s very kind.” Iris considered Summer’s comment. She didn’t recall ever seeing the woman with or mentioning any girlfriends. The same went for family. She hadn’t thought about Summer much at all until Bridget’s murder. Now she realized she knew hardly anything about her.
She walked Summer to the front doors of the suite and left her waiting for the elevator. As Iris came back into the sales department, Evan was again leaving. She followed him and reached the lobby in time to see him get on the elevator with Summer.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Traffic on the westbound 10 was almost at a standstill. Iris switched from her light-jazz FM station and began pounding the preset buttons on the AM band, surfing her favorite news and talk stations. Before long, she found a traffic report, just about the same time that one of the large, illuminated FREEWAY CONDITION signs loomed into view. One word said it all: ACCIDENT. By the time she’d inched forward another quarter of a mile, she’d determined the exact location, number of cars involved, and the magnitude of the injuries sustained, but it didn’t matter. The accident could have been anything from a minor fender bender to a multicar pile-up. Hypersensitive L.A. drivers treated them all the same. Traffic stopped.
A big raindrop plopped onto her windshield. It was quickly followed by a second. Iris peered through the windshield and looked at the threatening sky with disdain.
“That’s exactly what this situation needs right now,” she sarcastically said aloud. “A little rain.”
In L.A., a light drizzle might as well be a blizzard in terms of the effect on traffic. Los Angelenos can work through almost any horror, but a disruption in their daily commute sends them awry. Poor little flowers.
Iris pulled out her cellular phone. She called Natalie Tyler, Bridget’s mother, and told her about Summer Fontaine’s visit.
“Brianna did draw pictures of…what happened,” Natalie confessed. “Please don’t tell Kip, but I called a child psychologist about it. She wanted me to bring Brianna in, but I was afraid. Kip made it clear that he didn’t want Brianna seeing any head doctors, and I didn’t want him to keep our granddaughter from us if we defied his wishes.”
“What did the shrink say?”
“That anything Brianna does to help her work out what she saw that night is good. Anything—talking, playacting, drawing.”
“Do you still have the drawings?”
“I wanted to throw them out, but something told me I shouldn’t, that they were important.”
“Do they show anything?”
“Nothing that can identify the murderer. She’s got this figure in black from head to toe with a Slade Slayer head. The drawings are nothing but stick people and blobs of color. You have to know what to look for to figure it out.”
“I’d love to see them.” Iris mentally went over her schedule and found no time to drop by the Tylers. “Could you please FedEx them to me?” She gave Natalie the necessary information.
Iris finally saw a flare on the road in the middle of lane one. A few yards beyond the flare, another was placed even further into the lane, squeezing traffic from four lanes into three. Drivers cooperatively knitted together the lanes of traffic in a “you go, I go” pattern. Iris merged.
Iris thought she’d try an idea on Bridget’s mother to see how it played. “Mrs. Tyler, what if I can’t fulfill Bridget’s vision for Pandora?”
“What do you mean?”
“What if I can’t take it public and build it into a computer entertainment giant? What if circumstances have changed such that now the best decision would be to sell Pandora to T. Duke Sawyer? Would Bridget think I’d failed her?”
“No, honey. Of course not. You did the best you could. That’s all Bridget expected. Under the circumstances, she would have come to the same decision.”
They ended the telephone call and the accident finally came into view. There were California Highway Patrol cars, khaki-clad officers, dazed civilians, a paramedics van, and three damaged cars: a Jeep Cherokee, a Honda Passport, and a Dodge Intrepid. It looked as if the Intrepid had lost.
A CHP officer stood at the edge of the mess, scowling as he angrily swooped his arm, trying to move the lookie-loos past. Iris was not dissuaded. She’d waited just as long as everyone else. She took a good long look before driving on.
Iris left the Triumph parked in her driveway, the garage still too crowded with boxes to accommodate it. She had been so looking forward to moving into her new house, and now she felt that she was using it as a place to flop. She hadn’t even capitalized on a consumer durables shopping spree. Her favorite chichi boutique was having a sale and she hadn’t had time to check it out. She hadn’t talked to Garland in three days. All they’d done was exchange phone messages. What a way to build a relationship. What was she thinking, falling in love with someone who lived on the East Coast? She couldn’t find anyone in L.A.?
Oh woe is me, she told herself. Oh woe. I’m just a bird in a gilded cage.
In her bedroom, she stripped off her work clothes, throwing her panty hose into an ever-growing pile. She put on worn sweatpants that had shrunk several inches in length, a soft, plaid flannel shirt, and tired Vans slip-on tennis shoes with cracked, peeling rubber soles.
In the kitchen, she shoved the take-out sushi and cellophane bag of prepared salad she’d bought for dinner into the refrigerator and poured a glass of chardonnay. In her backyard, she relaxed into her Adirondack chair and looked at the ocean and sky that the sunset had tinged with pink. It was chilly. Looked as if winter had finally come to Southern California.
She briskly rubbed her arms. She hated being cold. An L.A. native, she hated being cold more than being hungry. After all, she’d spent a large portion of her life voluntarily starving herself. More even than physical pain, she hated being cold.
She set her wineglass on the redwood deck and started to go in the house to put on something warmer, when she heard some indiscernible wailing followed by laughter. Soon after, there was music with a Latin rhythm and a full brass section. It was coming from Marge’s patio.
Iris crept to the hedge that obscured the chain-link fence separating her yard from Marge’s and peeked through the dense foliage. She was startled to see her mother wearing colorful crepe-paper flowers in her hair, an elastic-neck peasant blouse embroidered with bright designs around the yoke, and a fringed scarf tied around her hips. She was wantonly dancing, shimmying her shoulders and snapping her fingers with both arms held in front of her. Her partner was an older man wearing a broad-brimmed, black sombrero decorated with silver sequins.
“Ole!” Marge shouted as she clapped along with the music. “Arriba!”
“Yi, yiyiyi!” yelled a short, second man with thick, white hair who was shaking a martini shaker
in time with the music.
Iris stared at the scene. Men, music, martinis, and her mother? What the hell was going on?
Marge spotted Iris. “Hi, cutie! C’mon over and join the party.” Marge pointed to indicate Iris’s mother’s partner. “This is Mel.”
Mel took off his sombrero and bowed with it, revealing his completely bald pate.
Next, Marge introduced the silver-haired devil. “This is Frosty. We just got back from Olvera Street. Don’t you just love Olvera Street? It’s the oldest street in Los Angeles, you know. I adore the way they honor the city’s Mexican heritage there.”
“Mom!” Iris cried. “What are you doing?”
“I think the mambo,” Mel explained.
“Just having a little fun,” Rose said, out of breath. “You told me I should get out more, and you were right.”
The four of them tried to no avail to get Iris to come over. She had been happily sulking, thank you very much, before they had interrupted her. And this new aspect of her mother was a bit more than her frayed nerves could handle at the moment.
She downed the last of her wine and retreated into the house. Sitting at her dining room table, she shoved a wedge of maguro sushi into her mouth and contemplated this turn of events. Sure, she had told her mother to get a life, but this wasn’t what she’d had in mind. She’d envisioned a few nice, older ladies for her to play bridge with. She had certainly never expected her mother to start having more of a life than she was. Iris grabbed a handful of dry salad from the cellophane bag, shoved it into her mouth, and chewed gloomily.
She licked wasabi and sticky rice from her fingers, opened her laptop computer, and turned it on. She loaded Suckers Finish Last and resumed playing where she had left off, in the middle of the second level. Not a power player, she hadn’t got very far.