In a white Adirondack chair sat Charlotte, her feet on a wooden stool, papers on her lap. The wind caught one of the papers and blew it toward Rachel. She fielded it.
Charlotte didn’t look up. Must have fallen asleep. After all, she’s seventy-something.
Rachel called softly. Still Charlotte slept. Another paper blew from her lap. Rachel put her toe on it, picked it up, brushed off the mark her shoe had made and called Charlotte’s name again. No response.
A foot or two from the Adirondack, Rachel stopped, thinking maybe she should just let the woman sleep. She could write a note on the paper.
Something was dripping steadily. She glanced toward the sound. A tube descended the wall near the chair. Drip irrigation. Charlotte was not squandering water to provide herself with the abundant greenery.
Rachel changed her mind yet again. She was here. Charlotte would probably be embarrassed, but she would be embarrassed if she found a note. By waking her, at least they could have their talk and be done with it.
Rachel reached out and touched the woman’s shoulder. No response. She shook her gently. Nothing. Then Charlotte’s head lolled to the side, the face pale as the chair, mouth slightly open. The eyes were closed.
And directly over the bridge of the nose was a small crater.
Inanely, Rachel’s mind bounced to photos she had seen of the moon. But this crater was red.
And behind the head.…
“Oh, God.” The words tore from her in a harsh whisper. She grabbed Charlotte’s wrist. It was thin, the skin like tissue. Her own hand was shaking so badly she couldn’t tell if there was a pulse. Steeling herself, she pressed her middle finger under Charlotte’s jaw and held her breath. She could feel no throb. Eyes wild, she whirled and raced to the house.
The screen door rattled as it swung closed behind her. The kitchen was like a Sears display of gleaming, tiled cabinet tops. On the wall near the sink hung a white cordless phone. Rachel grabbed the receiver, then dropped it back in its cradle.
Three bodies in a few weeks? My own mother wouldn’t believe I had nothing to do with these deaths. And this one so clearly a violent death. Goldie was right. I’m the common thread!
But what if Charlotte were still alive, the pulse too slight to feel?
She reached for the phone again and more steadily than she would have imagined possible, dialed 9-1-1. “I need to report that I heard a gunshot at…at.…” She fumbled in her purse for the card Charlotte had given her the night before. “At 4979 Daimler Road.” The voice on the other end had just begun its questions when she hung up.
333
Rachel parked in the garage space she reserved for herself. She had only dimmest recollection of getting back to the car. Getting home had been like driving on some other planet. Harry is dead, how can this be?
Even her footsteps on the ramp as she made her way to her apartment sounded odd. She turned the key in the lock, flipped on the light, and the air in her lungs turned to lead, immobilizing her in time and space.
Everything she owned seemed to have leapt from its normal place and crashed itself on the floor.
Stupidly, her brain unable to process this information, she stood, gaping, trying to take in the scene. But Harry is dead.…
Chapter Thirty-eight
It wasn’t the sheets from the bed she had carefully made that morning, now bunched in a tangle on the floor, that horrified her so much as the mattress, slashed and spewing its stuffing. The image of Charlotte’s dead face flooded her mind again.
Run. The thought hammered at her. Get out of here. Now.
She couldn’t find Clancy. No orange ball of fur emerged from some hiding place in the rubble to answer her calls. She opened the door and called again, her voice coming back to her in eerie echoes.
Remembering that the possibility of a burglary had crossed her mind, and why, she found a chair to stand on and pried at the light fixture on the ceiling. Jason’s cuff links and the packets of grainy powders from Lonnie’s apartment and Jason’s office tumbled out.
She pawed through the mess near the bed where she had stashed her father’s old revolver, but couldn’t find it. She could not stay here much longer.
Would she be followed? Maybe.
Why? For God’s sake, why?
Never mind why, just figure out how to prevent it.
Hurriedly, Rachel changed clothes: a dark blue pants suit of raw silk, and over that a baggy, bright green jogging suit.
Into her scarred leather suitcase she flung as much clothing as would fit. At the door, she set the suitcase down. What if the people who had done this were lurking somewhere in the garage, knowing she would bolt, knowing she would take the powders and cuff links with her?
Opening the door, she listened intently for some telltale sound, then wrestled the suitcase down the ramp and into the trunk of the rental car.
Hyper-alert to every movement on every cross street, and watching her rearview mirror as closely as the road ahead, she drove toward the Glendale Mall and parked among the largest horde of cars she could find.
Inside the mall, she located a rest room on the brightly colored directory, then took one escalator up and the next down. She darted into the Lenscrafters’ shop, selected a pair of demo glasses and took them to the counter.
“But you need a prescription,” the clerk said. “Now if you’ll just step over there for an eye test—”
“I need them for a costume. For a play.”
He stared at her a moment, then took her money.
A woman in a flowered dress looked up from the sink as Rachel entered the ladies room. Startled eyes in a round face caught Rachel’s in the mirror. Wisps of drab hair straggled along the woman’s pale neck. A small green gemstone was snuggled on the right side of her nose. She glanced at Rachel’s feet and gave a knowing smile. “In a hurry?” Four shopping bags were lined up under the sinks.
“A little.” Rachel slipped into a stall, shed the sweatshirt and pants, stuffed them into a shopping bag, and smoothed the pants suit they had covered.
“Ah.” The woman at the sink gave a short, low laugh and began rattling through her packages. Rachel ran a comb through her hair and sat down on the edge of the toilet. She needed a mirror. Would the woman never leave?
More parcels rattled. “You needn’t wait, you know,” the woman called sweetly. She seemed to be lacking a few wits, might not even notice the change of clothes.
Rachel left the stall, and with as much calmness as she could muster, washed her hands, then swept her hair back and pinned it high.
The other woman, rearranging her own hair, stared into the mirror at Rachel. Slowly one eye closed in an unmistakable wink.
Was she mad? A maniac?
As the woman bent over to pull one of the bags from under the sink, the edges of two more skirts peeked from beneath the hem of the woman’s flowered dress.
Heart thudding, Rachel escaped toward the door. “Be careful of the shoes,” the woman called after her. “They can be a dead giveaway. No one would ever jog in those black pumps.”
Rachel was in the mall walkway before understanding hit her: the woman was a skilled shoplifter. And she was right about the shoes.
The crowd was thinning. No one seemed particularly interested in Rachel. She found a cash machine and tried to look bored while the man ahead of her conducted a lengthy transaction.
At the drug store she debated over hair color. She’d never tried to dye her hair, but there were directions. She made her purchase and left the mall by the street exit. A few couples wandered by on the sidewalk. Rachel stopped beside the door, waited five minutes, then slipped back inside the mall and, moving quickly, took the stairs instead of the escalator and exited two levels above where she had parked. A quarter-hour and many steps later she retrieved the car.
Freeway traffic was light. She took a sharp breath when, as she changed lanes, a dark BMW followed suit. Had someone been watching the car? She studied the rearview mirror intent
ly. In the dark, all the headlights looked alike. When hers was the only car to take the exit for Burbank airport, she sighed with relief.
She parked in the long-term lot and, suitcase in hand, boarded the shuttle to the airport terminal, where she stopped at another cash machine, then found the row of car-rental desks.
In the offhand voice of a frequent flyer, she told the Avis clerk she’d forgotten to reserve a car. Did they have something available?
“Yes,” he said, tapping a few keys on his computer keyboard. “What would you like?”
“Something big.”
“A van? How many passengers?”
“Not a van.” Too unstable, Rachel thought, if someone tried to run her off the road. “A big sedan. Something heavy. Any color but white.” Her present car was white.
Apparently perfectly programmed to react neutrally to anything other than shouts of fire, he calmly tapped again on the keyboard. “How about blue? There’s a nice blue Mercury.”
“I’ll take it.” Rachel filled out the papers, paid with a credit card, and departed with the key.
“Another odd one,” the clerk remarked to the woman at the Hertz desk. “That’s the third weirdo today.”
Rachel drove to LAX, parked, and replayed the same script she’d used at Burbank, this time renting a Pathfinder the color of metallic mushrooms.
An hour and forty minutes later, she had checked into the stately old Biltmore in downtown LA using the name Katharine Chase and paying a three hundred dollar cash deposit. “I just don’t like leaving credit card numbers around all over the place,” she murmured blandly to the clerk, who nodded his understanding.
With a firm grip on her brown leather bag, Rachel studiously ignored the bellhop and took the elevator to the top floor. The Biltmore was not a place for rushing. The decor seemed to imply that if you could afford to stay within such hallowed walls, you could afford a leisurely wander through the high-ceilinged grandeur. By the time she reached the bank of elevators in the hotel’s opposite wing, she was wishing she hadn’t packed so many clothes.
Descending again to the ground floor, she slipped out a side door where a taxi was discharging a group of Japanese businessmen. When they had paid, the driver looked at her quizzically. “The Bonaventure,” she said, keeping her voice low. It was only a few blocks, but struggling with her luggage on foot would be slow and noticeable. She got into the back seat and sat, wishing the driver would hurry the job of stowing her suitcase in the trunk.
Registering at the Bonaventure as Melanie Whitaker, she again paid cash. She’d have to find another bank machine soon.
Having tipped the bellhop to take the suitcase to her room, she walked back to the Biltmore parking lot and moved the car to an underground city lot five blocks away.
Heading back to the Bonaventure on foot, she felt fatigue shoot through her legs. By the time Rachel reached her room, she was exhausted and the heel of one foot was blistered.
The carefully designed aura of a French boudoir had little appeal, but at last she could take off the damn shoes. She ordered dinner from room service, thinking that if no one were following her, this was costing an awful lot of time and money.
And what about the garage?
But Irene had agreed to look after things each morning, so Rachel could visit Marty in the hospital. The woman had proved amazingly conscientious, and something of a busybody, so she would probably take charge if Rachel wasn’t about.
333
Waking late the next morning, groggy and aching all over, Rachel couldn’t think where she was, or why. Then waves of anxiety descended on her.
Her mind fretted over every detail. For the first time she contemplated with horror the possibility that she might be wanted for Charlotte’s murder. Her fingerprints would have been all over the phone in the Riverside kitchen. And couldn’t they even take fingerprints from bodies now? She had tried to take Charlotte’s pulse. Maybe her name was on Charlotte’s calendar!
But by the time she finished a room-service cup of coffee and bran muffin, she had struck a balance between fear and triumph. At least she was safe.
When the maids came to clean the room, she went down to the lobby, bought a copy of the Times, found a back table in the coffee shop, and thumbed through the paper. On the eighth page a small photo of Charlotte smiled up at her under the headline: “Water Executive Commits Suicide.”
The short article reported that Charlotte Emerson, Chairman of the Board of InterUrban Water District had been discovered by a neighbor who telephoned for paramedics. “Suicide?”
The waitress delivering her tea frowned, “Excuse me?”
Rachel looked up at her numbly. “Nothing, sorry.”
She hadn’t seen a gun anywhere near Charlotte. The poor woman could hardly have shot herself in the head, then put the gun away. But was there a gun? In her fright had she missed it?
She had been certain Charlotte was murdered, and that the burglary of her own apartment was somehow part of the murderer’s plan.
But the car that killed Jason was checked out to Charlotte. Could Charlotte have been involved with Harry? The idea strained Rachel’s imagination. If that was the case, suicide might be believable. Still, why would the woman kill herself just before Rachel was to arrive? Did she want me to find her?
When the maids had finished cleaning her imitation boudoir, Rachel called County Hospital and talked with Marty.
“I’m fine,” he told her. “When are you going to spring me from this antiseptic prison?”
“Something has come up, Pop. It may be a few days before I can get over there again. Besides, the doctor told me yesterday that he wanted to send you over to rehab for a few days or so.” She dodged his questions about what was so important that she couldn’t visit.
A call to the garage brought a sprightly answer from Irene, who cackled loudly when Rachel asked if she could run the place for a few days. “Course I can, dear girl,” Irene shouted. “Got yourself a fine gentleman, eh?” Rachel didn’t deny it. She gave Irene a list of instructions, then added, “Do me a favor and put out some cat food. Clancy, my cat, is missing.”
She dialed Hank’s office. His voice buzzed in her ear. “Hank?” she faltered. The voice stopped, followed by a beep. Speaking slowly, knowing she sounded evasive, she told the machine she would be out of town a few days, would get in touch when she returned.
Did Charlotte commit suicide?
Rachel decided it didn’t matter. Suicide or no, someone had torn her own apartment to shreds.
In the bathroom, she studied the hollow-eyed face in the mirror. Taking a pair of scissors from her cosmetic case, she began to chop at her hair.
She had to read the instructions on the hair-color package four times. The smell was beyond bad. Rachel dabbed the solution onto her hair, covered her head with the plastic cap, and sat fidgeting on the edge of the tub.
Restless, Rachel tried to read the newspaper, then went to the phone and dialed Goldie’s number. There was no answer, and, not wanting to trust another machine, she hung up. Glancing at her watch, she leapt up and raced back to the bathroom, ten minutes overtime with the bleach.
The result was brassy, orange hair. No matter how many times she rinsed it, she looked more like an exhibitionist than someone who wanted to fade into the woodwork. The hair dryer turned it even brassier, and the eyeglasses from Lenscrafters made the whole effect even more comical.
She would have to dye that mess on her head back to some believable color.
She wrapped her head in a scarf and locked the door behind her.
A man was dawdling near the hotel entrance: dark, wiry, black jeans, black leather jacket with a pattern of chrome studs. Can’t be a killer on every street corner, Rachel told herself as she traipsed the blocks to the pharmacy the room clerk had recommended.
With a box of auburn tint in a brown paper bag clutched in one hand, the other hand clenching the scarf, which wouldn’t quite cover the brassy orange hair, Rachel
was making her way back through the hotel lobby, when she saw the short, stocky man in a yellow knit shirt and black pants turning toward her from the hotel desk. She tried to turn away, but he saw her.
“Rachel, honey.”
“Bruno!” She almost gasped his name.
He didn’t seem to notice her consternation or her ridiculous appearance. “Big meeting called at InterUrban and I gotta see some people, so I came down early.”
“Well, good to see you,” she said blithely. “Sorry to rush off, but I’m in a hurry.” She dashed back toward the elevator, then turned and called, “I’ll phone you, soon. Promise.”
His back was to her, so she hardly noticed the small man with reedy limbs waiting at the elevator. Then he turned, and she saw the black jeans and black leather jacket with chrome studs.
Whirling, she dashed back through the lobby. Bruno had disappeared. In the gift shop, without taking her eyes from the shop’s doorway, she bought a pack of gum. Then she found a stairway and walked up ten flights.
The odds were ninety to ten that guy in the leather jacket was just some delivery guy, a repair man, or even a tourist, but Rachel decided she couldn’t risk the ten. Yanking together her belongings, she stuffed them into the suitcase.
Hair uncovered and feeling about as inconspicuous as a bolt of lightning, she left the key on the dresser, and was relieved to find the elevator empty. On the street, a panhandler angled toward her. A rather pathetic chin, sporting a somewhat unsuccessful attempt at a beard, jutted above a dirty tee shirt.
“You really want some money?” she asked boldly.
His black eyes flashed. “My sister, she is very sick,” he mumbled, dark eyes boring anxiously into hers.
“Carry this bag to the Biltmore for me and I’ll pay you ten dollars.” He gaped at her, and without another word, lunged for the suitcase. She paid him when they reached the hotel. He was staring at the bill so hard as he walked away that he almost fell off the curb.
Rachel reached the tenth floor only to realize she’d forgotten the room number. Dropping the bag she had carried from the drugstore, she dug through her purse for the key. Forcing a calmness she didn’t feel, she walked down three flights of stairs and put her key in that door.
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