by Lora Roberts
Bridget wrapped a couple of brownies in foil and pressed them on me—I didn’t refuse. Amy carried the box of peaches, and we left.
The air outside was cool and felt a little damp against my face. Amy put the peaches in Melanie’s BMW, but I turned down the lift she offered us, much to Amy’s disappointment. After Melanie drove off, Amy said wistfully, “I’ve never ridden in a Beamer. Elise was talking about her dad’s today. Does everyone in California have them?”
“Obviously not.” Amy shivered in her tank top and shorts. “Let’s get going and we’ll warm up.”
We strode down the street. “They were nice women,” Amy said after a moment. “Do you think that cute one’s friend will have a job for me?”
“Melanie—make sure you remember who’s recommending you. Anyway, you’ve got nothing to lose.” I cleared my throat, wondering how to bring up the traumatic subject of work clothes. “Uh, Amy?”
“Hmm?” She was clearly preoccupied. “Aunt Liz, I was wondering—could I borrow a skirt or something from you? I didn’t bring anything like that with me. And if I get a job, do you know any thrift stores around here? Do they have them?”
“Do they have thrift stores!” I put one arm around her shoulders for a brief hug. “Amy, you’ve come to the right place.”
Chapter 16
Barker was glad to see us and escape from his prison. I took him out for a sniff around the deepening twilight, then spread my census paperwork out on the kitchen table, determined to polish off all the odds and ends so I could start Saturday afternoon with a clean slate. Amy wandered off to the living room to work on her nails, my ancient radio right next to her on the couch, turned to some monotonous, pounding music that I was glad I could barely hear. It made me feel old and fuddy-duddy to find the music of the young so objectionable.
It had totally slipped my mind that I hadn’t let her know about Jenifer’s death. After all, how could it concern her?
The knock at the door was Drake’s familiar pattern. I went to let him in; Amy, wet polish gleaming as she started another toe, was in no condition to get off the couch.
“Have you been out doing census stuff?” Drake wasn’t even in the door before he was grilling me. His hair was wild, a sure sign he’d been clutching his head over some problem for a while.
“Not today.” I gestured him into the kitchen. Amy twinkled her talons at Drake in greeting and went back to her painting. Barker growled a little, but when Amy spoke to him, he flopped back down beside her.
“Just where have you been, then?” He tossed a sheet of notepaper on the kitchen table; it was covered with his own scrawl. “This message was on the answering machine for you.”
“Farwell’s Rhododendrons—holding a plant for me?” I shook my head. “I don’t know anything about it.”
“Farwell’s is up on Skyline. Did you go up there today?”
“No.” I stacked some of my papers together. “I don’t buy expensive shrubs like rhododendrons. And I didn’t have time to drive up to Skyline today. They must have gotten the wrong number.”
“The message said your name.” Drake sat down. The way he slumped, it must have been a long day for him. “What did you do today?”
“I went to the garden after I left SoftWrite. When I got back at noon, Ed Garfield was waiting. He wanted me to come back and keep working till they could find another temp, so I did. On my way home, I ran into Jason Paston, who bent my ear for half an hour. Amy was here when I got home—must have been about a quarter to six. We ate, and after dinner we went grocery shopping, then to Bridget’s for writer talk and brownies.” I unwrapped the foil package Bridget had given me and put it on the table. He didn’t take one. That meant we were having a serious conversation. “Now I’m talking to you.”
“Your bus has been here all afternoon?”
“I drove to the garden before lunch and to the market after dinner. That’s all.” His questions were making me uneasy. I trust Drake not to he a jerk, and usually he isn’t. “What’s happened?”
“You probably remember Bill Aronson, one of the people in the apartment building where Jenifer lived.”
“The paranoid one.” I got up to fill the teakettle. “He doesn’t want to talk to me—maybe to anyone.”
“He can’t talk now.” Drake made the statement baldly. “He’s dead.”
The burner whooshed into life. I turned and stared at Drake.
“He died today sometime.” Drake’s voice was precise. He returned my stare, his granny glasses winking in the light. “In his car, parked in a scenic overlook on Skyline a little way south of Farwell’s Nursery. Carbon monoxide poisoning.”
I realized I was still holding the kettle. I set it on the burner.
“Suicide?”
Drake blew out a tired breath. “We don’t know yet. But Bruno’s wondering about suicide as a motif here. He wants to know what all the other people in this case were doing today.”
It’s always unnerving to find someone you’ve thought of as a friend treating you as business instead. “And I’m in the case? How flattering.”
Drake stood, catching my arm as I took cups from the shelf. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said gruffly. “Of course I have to check you out, just like I do Jenifer’s brother and all of Aronson’s neighbors and associates and anyone else he dealt with in the past few days. It’s a formality—or it was, until I got this message from Farwell’s.” He shook his head. “I know you didn’t go up there if you say so, but you have to admit it’s weird, like someone was trying to put you at the scene. Only the scene of what? A suicide? That doesn’t make sense.” He tore at his hair again. “I’m confused,” he complained.
“You’re not the only one.” I set the cups on the table with a thump. “I resent anyone implying that I would be so effete as to buy a rhododendron when I’ve got my eye on a nice free one in the yard of that old place on Embarcadero where they’re going to build condos.”
Drake got distracted. “You wouldn’t just boost it, would you?”
“Rustle it, you mean?” I had to laugh. “No, Drake. I’ve already talked to the contractor. He’s checking with the developer.”
I found the jar of mint. When I came back to the table, Drake was deep in his troubles again. “I don’t like this,” he fretted while I spooned mint leaves into a little bamboo strainer. “This whole thing stinks. If Jenifer’s death was suicide, then Aronson’s looks funny beside it. If her suicide was faked, then maybe his was too. Two suspicious deaths—two too many.”
I didn’t get to reply. Amy stood in the kitchen door, perfect as to finger-and toenails, ashen in the face. “Suspicious deaths? Aunt Liz? What’s going on?”
Drake glanced at her. “Your aunt found a body yesterday. Didn’t she tell you? It’s kind of a hobby of hers,” he added.
I pulled the foil-wrapped package away. “Just for that crack, no brownies.”
Amy looked worried. “What is this about, Aunt Liz? Should I call you a lawyer?”
“Okay, I’m a lawyer,” I said. Drake snickered. “Don’t go ballistic, Amy. Drake’s just jerking your chain. I’m not in any trouble, except maybe for selling a house to an over-imaginative cop.”
Drake laughed outright at that, and pulled the foil toward him.
“There’s nothing to laugh about.” Amy was indignant. “Who are these dead people?”
“Nobody you know, and no one I knew very well.”
“That doesn’t make it any better.” She looked sternly from me to Drake, who was digging into a brownie. “You should show respect.”
“You’re absolutely right.” I had a nervous desire to break into helpless giggles. Reprimanded by my niece for inappropriate behavior! Drake would never let me live this down. “Look, Amy,” I said desperately, “Drake and I have some stuff to talk about here. Why don’t you clean the bathroom? Take the radio with you if you want.”
“Just don’t get in any bathtubs with it.” Drake found his remark pretty funny.
Drake finished chuckling. I poured hot water over the mint into his cup, swirling the bamboo strainer. The clean, fresh aroma was soothing.
“Bill Aronson wasn’t connected with SoftWrite in any way, was he?” I knew Drake was thinking that these two deaths were related—and not because they were suicides.
“Nothing’s turned up so far to link him that way.” Drake picked up his cup; I poured more water over the mint into my cup. “He was a clerk at an auto parts store.”
I put the kettle back on the stove and pulled a chair up to the table. My census paperwork was spread out everywhere—Drake was dropping brownie crumbs on it. I shook them off and tucked everything away in the clunky briefcase. “Wonder how I should list him now that he’s dead? Does it count that he was alive when I started the register?”
“Look, forget about the stupid census for a while.” Drake reached for a napkin from the basket on the table, and plunked the second half of his brownie onto it. “Look at the trouble it’s already caused you.”
“My other job’s not much better.” I broke off a piece of his brownie, disregarding his mumbled protest. “SoftWrite is just teeming with angst and intrigue.” I glanced at him slyly. “I didn’t snoop, Drake, but I couldn’t help picking up some stuff. Don’t you want to hear it?”
“We’ve already established that SoftWrite has nothing to do with Bill Aronson.” He eyed the other brownie hungrily. “Those are good, aren’t they? Why didn’t Bridget invite me tonight?”
“Ladies’ night.” I pulled the foil away from him again. “That’s Amy’s if she wants it, and judging by the way she’s eaten everything else around here, she wants it.”
His face fell. “She gets it all? It’ll just go to her hips.” I gave in, broke the brownie in half, and wrapped Amy’s portion to avoid temptation. Drake munched thoughtfully.
“Bill Aronson was very nosy.” I remembered what Curtis had said. “He had a rep for offering to sell his silence on sensitive issues.”
“I talked to that neighbor,” Drake said impatiently. “The guy who lives above Jenifer’s apartment.”
“Curtis Hall. Nice guy.”
“I’m not asking you to speculate, Sully. Go ahead, tell me what you heard. You know you’re dying to.”
He seemed very skeptical of my stories of jealousy and rivalry at SoftWrite. Ed’s peccadilloes, Suzanne’s anguish, Clarice’s jealousy, and Jason’s troubles finally got an airing. When I talked about them in the flat, emotionless way Drake preferred, I had to admit it all sounded pretty nebulous.
Finally he couldn’t think of any more questions, and I couldn’t think of any more bits of gossip to feed him.
“You didn’t have your tape recorder on.” I finished my lukewarm tea.
“That’s all you know.” He pulled a tiny little tape recorder out of his breast pocket.
“You didn’t ask my permission,” I said, shocked.
He drained his cup. “So sue me. You know my notes are illegible if I write them.”
“You need a little computer.” I shaped it with my hands. “About like so. You can just type in everything the witness says while they’re saying it.”
“Maybe you can.” He held up his two index fingers. “I’m a hunt-and-peck man. I’d get one word of every sentence.” He put the little tape recorder back in his pocket. “Bruno may want to talk to you, too.”
“My friends, the police.”
Drake shook his head over my flippancy. “Because I am your friend, I’m going to say that it makes me uneasy to see you getting tangled up with this stuff, Liz. Maybe you’d better blow off the SoftWrite thing. That phone message about the rhododendron bothers me.”
“Simple wrong number.” I carried our cups to the sink. Drake followed me.
“I’ll check it out tomorrow. Think about it, Sully. Take your niece to the redwoods for a few days or something. Let me get this straightened out without you cluttering up my landscape.”
“Poor Drake. I didn’t realize I was in your way.”
He touched my shoulder, briefly. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
I shrugged, uneasy. Drake removed his hand and headed for the front door. “I guess we’re stuck, anyway,” I babbled, following him. I couldn’t stop talking, trying to erase any potential tenderness before it led to something I couldn’t handle. “You don’t have enough equity to move, and I am never going to move again.”
He turned at the door and took my face between his hands. His hands were small for a man’s, faintly calloused and warm. “I don’t like the way things are shaping up here, Liz. Take care of yourself.” He pressed a light kiss on my forehead, and stepped back. “Don’t do anything stupid, for once.” He cleared his throat and stomped away.
I shut the door and leaned my forehead against the cool glass for a moment.
“Is he gone?” Amy peered around the bedroom door. “Oh, Aunt Liz. Are you in terrible trouble? What happened?”
I was tired of the whole wretched story, but Amy wouldn’t be put off. She would have been right at home in the Inquisition. Even the brownie I’d saved for her didn’t distract her. I kept it as brief as possible.
“Well,” she said when I was done, “it’s pretty interesting, but I don’t see what it has to do with you.”
“Not much.” I yawned, wishing I were snuggled into my bed, watching the moon and stars through my tall window and trying to figure out what was happening to the friendship between me and Drake that I tried so hard to keep casual.
“I guess the cop isn’t your lover after all.” Amy sounded disappointed. “He didn’t offer to protect you or anything.”
“I told you he wasn’t.” I felt heat in my face again, and turned away, “And I don’t need protection. Aren’t you tired? You’ve had a big day—the beach, the cooking, the brownies, the excitement. Bedtime, I think.”
Amy trailed after me as I took Barker out for his evening sniff. “In the movies the police never find out anything. They just shoot people and take bribes.”
“In real life the police work hard and sometimes are successful, just like anybody else.”
Barker pawed at the bone meal-flavored dirt around a rosebush; I pulled him away.
“Aunt Liz, do you think he really does suspect you and is just setting a trap? He looked at you weird.”
I paused on the front porch while Barker strained to get free and chase a cat at the end of the driveway. Drake’s kitchen window was still lit.
“He looks at everyone like that.” I was touched by the anxious way Amy clutched my arm as we went back inside. “What bothers him about me is that I’m so marginal.”
Amy’s brow wrinkled. “Marginal?”
“You know—on the edge. No real job. No secure income, health insurance, all that stuff. No safety net.” We went inside, and I locked up. “He’s not as stuffy as that sounds, but I bring out the conservative in him, just like he brings out the rebel in me.”
Amy nodded slowly. “That’s how I relate to my parents, actually.”
“It can get in the way of a friendship.” I felt some gratitude toward Amy. For a couple of months, I’d been struggling with my reluctance to give Drake a few signals. We’re friends; he’s acted as if it wouldn’t be a hardship for him to know me better, in the Old Testament sense.
But I had retreated instinctively, and he didn’t go far enough to risk rejection. Now that Amy had forced me to verbalize it, I saw the unhealthy dynamic at work. Drake didn’t accept me as the insecure, responsibility-shy person I am. I didn’t trust the controlling vibes he gave off when he lectured me about my lifestyle—or lack of it.
Amy headed for the bathroom. I gave my computer a wistful pat. It had been far too long since we’d been able to spend time together. I wanted its uncritical acce
ptance of whatever I told it, its low, comforting hum, and the way using it took me to a different place of my own making. And seeing it reminded me that in all the turmoil, I hadn’t checked my post office box for the last couple of days.
There could be an acceptance, even a check, even a favorable reply to a query, and I wouldn’t know. That was no way to run a freelance business.
I felt rebellious, coerced by my house into doing work that was not my sphere in the world. I would help out SoftWrite the next day, unless they managed to find another temp. Saturday I had Claudia Kaplan’s garden maintenance to do. I would work that afternoon to finish my census register, and Sunday, too. Monday I would be back at my computer, doing the work that was mine to do, that only I could do. Perhaps it didn’t involve a Pulitzer Prize or a fancy office with an imminent stock offering, but one good sale to Ladies’ Home Journal or Smithsonian would replace my hot water heater and keep me in lentils for a while.
Amy came back into the living room, wearing her oversized nightshirt, her eyelids drooping. The sun had colored her a little; her nose glowed, as did her shoulders where the T-shirt slipped off. She unfolded the bed. Barker didn’t even wait for her to get into it before he’d scrambled up onto the pillow.
“Down,” I said sternly, heading for my bedroom. “You’re not sleeping on beds in this house, dog.” But I knew when I closed my door that he was right back up there, curled beside Amy.
I envied them their easy slide into dreamland. The moon had time to climb all the way past my window before I could stop wondering who thought I needed a rhododendron from Farwell’s on the same day Bill Aronson was dying not three miles away.
Chapter 17
I was up with the dawn next day, though I didn’t feel well rested. I got my swimming stuff together and crept out of the house, Barker panting at my feet and me shushing him. It would have taken a lot more than the noise we made to wake up Amy.