“Like I mean it, Mavis.”
With her hair green that day and matching eye makeup, numerous earrings, a patchwork denim jacket, and a multitude of chains hanging around her neck, it was hard to take her seriously. I refrained from saying anything insulting. “Okay, agreed. Buds?”
“Buds.” She smiled and almost looked normal.
“So you want to interpret these notes for me while I drive to the office?” Once we were in the car, I turned the air-conditioning to high, a blast of hot air hitting us. To say that Houston, Texas, in the late spring, the summer, and early fall is not the most temperate of climates would be a gross understatement.
“Yeah. Like it was really cool, Mavis, you know? Maybe I’ll be a real investigator when I graduate. Like, I was quizzing kids all day. Jeanine wasn’t in any of my classes, but like some of the girls she hangs with are, so I talked to them before and after class, and, like, at lunch I asked around. Finally, as I shut my locker to go outside like at the end of school, this little kid came up. His name is William. He’s a sophomore, I think.”
“Is he in any of your classes?”
“My computer science class.” Hardly being able to contain herself, Candy bounced around the front seat as though it was too hot to sit on, turning toward me, facing front, then toward me again. “Anyway, I nearly ran right over him, like he’s such a little dude. He stood there holding his clarinet case and an armful of books and said he heard me talking, you know, and just wanted to tell me that he’d seen Jeanine get into that car with some dude.”
“How come he noticed her?”
“Didn’t ask. Like he probably has a crush on her or something, like that isn’t too uncommon, you know, Mavis? A lot of the nerds like the popular girls. They’re always watching them in kind of a spooky way, like stalkers or something, but they never talk to them or anything. Like they’re in two different worlds.”
“So if this kid’s a nerd, why didn’t he tell Tommy?”
“William’s a sophomore. Even senior nerds don’t hang out with sophomores.”
I guess I would have known that if I hadn’t been out of school since before time began, at least in Candy’s mind. “What did the man look like?”
“He was an old white dude, probably in his forties.”
I gritted my teeth, realizing where I fit in on the age spectrum.
“William couldn’t see him very well, but he thinks he had gray hair. He wore wire-frame glasses. What really tripped me out was when William said Jeanine hugged him.”
“Exactly what did he say?”
“Like she leaned in the window and said something to the dude and then opened the door and slid across the seat and wrapped her arms around him. Like they drove away.”
“Strange. She must have known him.”
“Yep, that’s what I think.”
“Did William say if he recognized the man or the car? I mean, could it have been one of her teachers?”
“Oh, I hope not since she hugged him. Besides, William would have told me if he knew the dude.”
“Did you get a chance to talk to Tommy today?”
“Nope. I didn’t even see him. Like, I looked for him all day to see if he had any news, but never found him.”
We drove in silence for a few minutes, thinking our separate thoughts. There could be any range of possibilities, some I didn’t even want to contemplate, like an Internet date. I would stay in the present moment, not get carried away before it was time.
“I’m going to drop you off at the office, Candy. Then I’m going to the Lawson’s house. I think it’s past time for me to talk to Tommy’s parents.”
“Can’t I go, Mavis? Like, I won’t get in the way. I’ll keep my mouth shut. Please?”
I shook my head. “Not this time, kiddo. Margaret’s got some typing for you to do. She’s been alone all day. At lunch, when I checked in, there were papers to be served so she needs to go out. I want you there to answer the phone in case any of those kids call the office.”
“Oh, right, but like you’ll call me on your mobile and let me know for sure what’s happening?”
“Of course. And Candy, good job today.”
I dropped Candy off and headed for River Oaks, anxious to meet the Lawsons. I wanted to see if the kids’ father matched the description William had given of the man Jeanine hugged. It made no sense that her father would drive a Saturn when he owned a home in River Oaks but anything was possible. If it wasn’t Mr. Lawson, I needed to know what men the Lawsons knew who matched that description. Who would Jeanine get into a car with? My imagination ran wild with the possible explanations for what had transpired. I didn’t like some of them.
I drove my Mustang down a long, well-landscaped driveway to a mansion set a good distance from the street. A huge, white, two-story colonial with pillars and a double-doored entrance, it resembled the White House. Many cars of the same make, model, and vintage of the day before filled the driveway. Looked like quite a gathering.
It took a lot of intestinal fortitude for me to walk to the front door alone. I often appear a lot more audacious on the outside than I feel on the inside. An older, rather bosomy woman, in a shirtwaist with a full-length white apron over it, answered. She wore her gray hair in a severe bun and smelled of lavender. Housekeeper-type.
I stuck out my hand, which she ignored. “Mavis Davis. I’d like to see Mr. and Mrs. Lawson and Tommy, please.”
“Are you expected?” Her red-rimmed eyes gave me the once-over.
“No, but I need to talk to them. It’s really important.”
She cut her eyes at me in apparent disbelief. “They are entertaining right now, but I’ll see. Have you a card?”
I resisted a snide remark and searched in my shoulder bag for a business card. When I gave it to her, she glanced at it and wrinkled her nose like the butler had the day before.
“Come in.” She stepped aside and closed the door behind me. “Wait here,” she said in a tone and with a look that led me to believe that if I ventured any further, I’d be shot on sight.
I stood in the entry hall and checked out the joint, which was every bit as elaborate as Melanie’s folks’ place. An aroma of lemon-oil furniture polish hung in the air. How rich did a person have to be to live in a place like that?
My heels clicking on the parquet floor, I walked to the entranceway to peek after the housekeeper. The hall opened upon a large foyer with a winding white, marble staircase leading up to the second floor. At any moment, I expected Grace Kelly to float down the stairs for her coming-out party. A crystal vase filled with tall, fresh calla lilies stood upon a small marble-topped table at the foot of the stairs next to the railing.
Classical music, laughter, and the murmur of voices drifted in from a distance. I heard a splash and a door slam. When I’d seen the cars outside, I’d expected something akin to a wake, but the noise I heard sounded more like a swimming party.
I looked around for a mirror so I could check myself out. At least I wore a cotton skirt and blouse and clean flats, and clean panties as my mother always told me to do in case I had to go to the hospital. I ran my fingers through my curls and pulled out a lipstick, swiping at my lips. My nails were ragged, but a manicure would have to wait until I made enough money to pay the other bills and the girls.
After a few minutes, a woman I took to be Mrs. Lawson sailed noiselessly toward me, the picture of elegance. An older version of Jeanine, she had coifed black hair and dancing blue eyes that I’d expected to be bloodshot from grieving. Instead, it looked like she’d been partying down big-time.
In one diamond-laden hand, she held an oversized, half-empty martini glass with three large, green, pitted, Spanish olives on a swizzle stick. In the other, a salmon-colored cloth napkin and a pair of what could only be designer sunglasses in black, rhinestone-encrusted frames. A long triangle of gauzy fabric in a Southwestern print hung off one well-tanned shoulder and barely concealed a black one-piece bathing suit.
She wore black, spiked-heel
sandals and bright pink polish on her well-manicured toes and fingers.
She took my uncared-for hand with two fingers of the napkin-holding hand, her squeeze so light I thought maybe I’d imagined it. “Yes, Miss Davis?” Her voice came out melodious and light. “What may I do for you?”
“I wondered if I could have a few minutes alone with you and your husband and Tommy.”
“Whatever for?” She smiled as she spoke.
The aroma of gin smelled as strong as a squirt of air freshener. As I stared down at her, I wondered what occupied the space between her ears. Was there more to her? Was this her public persona? This couldn’t be real. “Tommy didn’t tell you?”
“Tell me what?”
“He hired me to find Jeanine.”
“My goodness.” Except for her dark hair, Mrs. Lawson brought to mind the good witch in The Wizard of Oz. She had the same high-pitched, airy voice. “No, he certainly didn’t. When was that, pray tell?”
Pray tell? That was my line. I studied her for a moment as she swallowed more martini, leaving lipstick smears on top of lipstick smears on the rim of her glass. “Yesterday afternoon. He came to my office with a girl who works for me part-time. I’ve been searching for Jeanine ever since.”
“Pardon me,” she said and put her hand to her mouth. I supposed she suppressed a silent belch; I didn’t hear anything. “Are you in the habit of taking money from children?”
“No, Mrs. Lawson, I’m not, but Tommy’s not exactly a child. He said he’s eighteen. Perhaps you could call him in here so we can get this straightened out.”
Mrs. Lawson stared at the olives in her glass. “I’m afraid that’s quite impossible. We’ve been checking on him the last few hours, but Tommy is unavailable at the moment.”
“What do you mean unavailable?”
“It appears that he, too, has disappeared.”
Chapter Four
“Disappeared?” I felt like my fingers had just been connected to a battery charger. “He came to my office yesterday with Candy.”
“Who?” She stared at me, her eyes finally showing some sign of comprehension.
“Candace Finklestein,” I said. “She’s a student at Lamar. She works for me half a day. He wanted me to find Jeanine—”
“I’ve never heard him mention her—”
“He said you thought she’d run away, but he thought she’d been kidnapped. He said you thought she was mad at you and wanted to teach you a lesson—”
“Is she in some of his classes?”
“He even called Melanie before I went to her house yesterday evening—”
“Melanie? He didn’t say anything to me—”
“I can’t understand what could have happened to him—” I stopped. With both of us speaking at once, we were getting nowhere. “I apologize. You were saying?”
Her laughter was like the twitter of a little bird. “I guess I’m confused. Why would he go to you? I’d called the police.”
“He seemed worried that no one appeared to be taking the situation seriously. He didn’t think the police would do anything—that they would classify her as a runaway and that would be the end of it.” She seemed bewildered. I felt bewildered. Who was confusing whom? Or whom was—never mind. “I can’t believe after hiring me yesterday that Tommy would disappear today.”
“Nevertheless, it seems to be true.” She took another sip of her drink. “We contacted the school this afternoon when he didn’t come home. No one has seen Tommy since this morning. He didn’t attend his afternoon classes.”
“Maybe he’s out looking for Jeanine himself. Maybe he heard where she might be and went there,” I said, ever the optimist.
She shook her head. “I think not. Security found his car still parked near the school.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Where could he have gone?” I glanced around, hoping she’d get the hint and ask me to sit down.
“I’m sure I don’t know, Miss Davis. We were just discussing that when you arrived.”
“Oh.” I wondered who she meant by we. “Well, have you checked with Tommy’s friends?”
“Yes.” Her eyes swept to her empty glass and then vaguely over her shoulder.
“None of them have any notion ...”
She shook her head again and stared at me with eyes that seemed to grow blanker by the moment. I wondered why she wasn’t more upset. If it had been me—
“Hilary,” a man’s voice called. A large, rather attractive man in his late fifties appeared in the entry hall. He wore an off-white bathing robe and sandals. Twinges of gray graced his temples in striking contrast with the rest of his blue-black hair. A twinkle gleamed in his watery, bloodshot hazel eyes when he spotted Mrs. Lawson. He glanced at her, then me. “What’s the holdup, dear?”
Hilary Lawson’s face broke into a wide smile as she took his hand and batted her eyelashes as only a Southern belle could do. “Harrison, dear, this is Mavis Davis, a private investigator. She claims Tommy went to see her yesterday and hired her to find Jeanine.”
“Really?” His forehead knitted. He was sweating profusely. He dabbed at the corners of his mouth with a white linen handkerchief.
I pulled my hand from my skirt pocket, offering it to him. His ham of a hand was somewhat damp, but he had a firm grip. “Nice to meet you. I presume you’re Mr. Lawson.” On closer inspection, I saw that his pupils were dilated. I wondered what drugs he was on.
“You presume correctly. What’s this about Tommy?”
“He showed up at my office yesterday with the high school girl who works for me half a day, Candace Finklestein. He gave me a two-thousand-dollar retainer to find Jeanine.”
“Two thousand dollars?” He spoke with a slight lisp or else he’d had too much to drink and slurred his words, or both.
“He was pretty worried, Mr. Lawson. He didn’t think the police were going to help find her and wanted me to drop everything and start looking for her immediately, which I did.”
“Where would he get two thousand dollars?” Still slurring his words, he cleared his throat and dabbed his mouth again.
Mrs. Lawson shrugged and waved her glass in the air. “He doesn’t spend his allowance as fast as Jeanine.”
“I can give it back,” I said. “I put the check in my safe. Hey, maybe you want to hire me to look for both of them?” That was bold, but I didn’t mind taking money from adults.
Lawson swiped at his hair. “This is a strange turn of events, isn’t it, dear?” he said to his wife.
“Yes it is, dear,” she said.
“Why don’t you come out by the pool and have a drink with us and discuss it?” Lawson said. “We were about to have cocktails earlier when we discovered Tommy missing. We have friends over. We were just trying to figure out where the children could be.”
Weird people. I wasn’t sure that I didn’t want to give the money back and shed myself of them. Who sits down to cocktails when their children are missing? “I don’t know, Mr. Lawson. Why don’t you call me and let me know what you decide.”
He took my arm. “Now, don’t be shy. Have a drink with us. We don’t bite. It maybe that we’ll hire you ourselves.” He chuckled. “Who knows what the children have gotten themselves into this time?” He glanced at his wife. Some nonverbal communication passed between them.
Mrs. Lawson patted my shoulder and said, “Yes, please do come in. This is nothing to be hasty about.” She led the way out of the entry hall and toward the music.
Lawson held my arm rather tightly. We followed his wife past the staircase and a library every bit as elaborate as the one in Melanie’s house, a baby grand piano the only apparent difference. It stood in front of French doors that I assumed opened onto a patio. White lace curtains covered the glass, preventing one from seeing through them at any distance. We traipsed down a long hall, Lawson stumbling once and seeming to rely on me to keep him on his feet. The music grew louder as we came to another set of French doors with sheer curtains. Mrs. Lawson pushed
them open.
Clusters of men and women lounged on a patio and around a swimming pool so enormous it could have floated a yacht. Greenery and flowers that ranged in hue from white to dark purple served as the oversized yard’s frame, the landscaping fantastic in its elaborate design. A complete outdoor kitchen, including a gigantic chrome grill, stood under a wooden gazebo. Two small Hispanic men with stained white chefs aprons wrapped around their torsos supervised the cooking of a slab of beef and shrimp shish-kebobs. If we had been inside, the air would have been thick and overwhelming. The chlorinated pool water and a strong sweet scent from the flowers in the garden mingled with slightly acrid smoke from the grill.
Adorned in various modes of dress from swimsuits to business attire, the Lawsons’ guests sipped cocktails and chatted playfully. When they noticed our entrance, all conversation ceased. It was as if we were under a spotlight.
“Everybody,” Lawson announced, “this is Mavis Davis, a private detective. Miss Davis, meet everybody.” His chuckle turned into a wrenching cough, which he muted with his handkerchief. I felt like gagging. He dragged me to the bar on the far end of the outdoor kitchen where he finally let go of me and shifted the burden of his weight to a bar stool. A rather small, ugly, redheaded man served as bartender. He gave Lawson something to drink from a bottle under the bar. I didn’t recognize the label, but that didn’t mean much. I’m mostly a long-neck and wine drinker, myself. Lawson tossed almost half of it down his throat.
The Sweet Scent of Murder Page 3