Naked Came the Phoenix

by Marcia Talley

  She sobered up instantly, and the pallor of her face made him realize how fragile her control was. “I was probably the last person to see him,” she admitted. “Apart from whoever killed him, and that certainly wasn’t me. I walked through the gym because I was looking for Hilda Finch and I’d seen her going that way, but she wasn’t there, so I gave up and had a shower. It wasn’t all that important.”

  “Mrs. Finch was going that way? When?”

  She bit her lip. “Almost five minutes before I did.” She looked at him steadily, very well aware of what she had said.

  “Why did you want to see her?” he pressed.

  “She owns the spa,” she said reasonably. “It was to do with treatments, and … personal.”

  He let it pass. He would never prove otherwise anyway. ″Thank you, Miss Sullivan. That’s all for now.”

  She rose and left, walking with her own individual grace. He could not help watching her, and the image stayed in his mind for several minutes afterward.

  Naturally he sent for Hilda Finch next. She kept him waiting fifteen minutes, answered all his questions simply and briefly, and denied any responsibility for either Howard Fondulac’s or Claudia de Vries’s deaths.

  “For heaven’s sake, Detective!” she said tartly. “I own Phoenix Spa. Do you imagine I want any more deaths here? Claudia spent millions advertising this place. One death is difficult to overcome, but with hard work it might be accepted as misfortune. A staring of them is a catastrophe!”

  Looking at her sharp, elegant face with its penetrating eyes he could believe the reputation of the spa was her chief concern and the murders potentially a financial problem. He certainly learned nothing more from her, and she left him feeling more confused than ever, wondering whom to see next and what to ask.

  Caroline had refused to see Douglas after their first sharp and very brief encounter, but she knew that a showdown was inevitable sooner or later. She couldn’t remain locked in her room indefinitely. And she would not allow him to make her a prisoner, damn him!

  It happened early the next day down near the lake with the sun glittering off the water and a very slight breeze carrying the scent of flowers from the bushes around the cottages. She saw his familiar figure striding toward her, and for an instant she felt the old pleasure, as if nothing had happened and everything was perfect, as it had been only a week ago.

  Except that of course it hadn’t. If she were not so naive she would have known that. She turned to face him, swallowing hard and straightening her shoulders.

  He stopped in front of her.

  She struggled to keep control and use her brain instead of the emotions boiling up inside her: grief for what she had lost and hope that perhaps it wasn’t totally gone after all; shame for the fool she had been to be taken in by him; and rage at his duplicity, the way he had used her. “Yes, Douglas, what is it?” she said a little breathlessly.

  “Have you had time to reconsider your decision regarding a divorce?” He was straight to the point. It startled her that he did not try any charm or prevarication at all. It was unlike him not to attempt the easier way first. He believed in his own power to win people, and to be honest he had had good cause to. Damn it, she had given him good cause! When had she ever failed to melt into his arms when he tried hard enough?

  “And why should time make any difference?” she asked icily. “Would a day, or a year, change the facts?”

  His smile was chilly. She used to think he was so handsome, almost beautiful because of the confidence and the charm and the kindness inside him. Now he was ugly. There was a slackness somewhere, a meanness of spirit.

  “Time could change your perception of the facts,” he answered. “You might develop a much clearer idea of what is important and what isn’t.”

  “You mean I might acquire your idea of it!” she said witheringly. “Please, God, I hope not! The day I believe power and office mean everything, and honesty means nothing, I’d be better off dead!”

  “Yes.” He shoved his hands hard into his pockets and stared down, then up again quickly. “Well, death is a whole other subject. One I’d prefer to avoid, if possible.”

  She felt a chill ripple over her, and it was not from the breeze off the lake.

  “I care about my career, Caroline,” he went on. “And I intend to succeed. I don’t think you have fully appreciated that.”

  A tingle of danger passed over her, but she ignored it. “Of course I appreciate it!” she said angrily. “And I wanted to help you with it. I imagined being by your side …″ She was forced to stop by the emotion almost choking her. Why was it so desperately, agonizingly difficult to watch a dream die?

  “I intend that you shall be,” he said, and for an instant he seemed uncertain whether to try being charming or not. The smile was there, but then it faded and the hardness returned. Perhaps he realized it was too late.

  “I won’t!” she retorted, and now she sounded like a petulant child.

  “Grow up, Caroline!” he said sharply, staring across the lake, his face hard. “It’s time you started to think like an adult and faced a few realities of life. This is not kids playing games where you can throw your toys away and storm off in a sulk if it doesn’t go your way.” He turned back to her. “If you don’t want to get very badly hurt, then you’d better start thinking of the consequences of your behavior.”

  She exploded with a bellow of laughter, rough edged with fury and indignation. “That’s wonderful, coming from you! I’m not the one whose career is in jeopardy because I went whoring around the place with anything that wasn’t nailed down or had four legs! And was careless enough to be photographed doing it!”

  He blushed dark red, but she wondered if it was shame for having done such things, or embarrassment at his own stupidity in having been caught and recorded for posterity, in particular for the newspapers and the divorce court. She was afraid it was the latter. She might have forgiven him had it been the first.

  His eyes were hard and bright, far colder than the sun glittering off the blue lake. “I intend to deal with that,” he said between his teeth.

  “Oh yes? How?” she jeered. Anger was easier than tears. Self-pity would destroy her. It opened up like a great hungry pit in front of her, filled with the death of her dreams, the most tender and vulnerable and precious dreams she had ever known. That was a kind of murder as well. She would have to learn to hate him for that! The deceit of it, the deliberate cruelty.

  He was impatient. “Well, for a start, you are going to forget about the whole incident and behave like the loving, loyal, and admiring wife you were last week. You are going to—″

  “I am not! I am going to divorce you,” she shouted. “And if you think for half a second that you are ever going to touch me again, you’re out of your mind!”

  His eyes widened. “My dear girl, I don’t give a damn whether I touch you again or not! As no doubt you are now aware, I can take my pick of any number of very beautiful and willing women.”

  “Don’t be so squeamish, Douglas. There are names for women who are willing to be so obliging. And usually you have to pay them for it!”

  He gave an abrupt little laugh. “I’ve got dozens of friends who’d understand me very well; they can’t afford not to!” He shook his head, and his voice was brittle. “No, Caroline, you’ll play the loyal and trusting wife in public, whatever we do in private, because I intend to get into the Senate one day, possibly even the White House. I have no intention whatever of allowing you to parade your small-town outraged virtue to stop me.”

  She was aware of a sense of danger, and yet she couldn’t help herself from going on. “Small-town virtue, as you put it, has stopped more powerful men than you, men who were better at not getting caught!” she said witheringly. “Good heavens, Douglas, even if your ′friends′ in power don’t care about your appetites, surely they have enough sense to care about your crass clumsiness at getting caught! A villain is one thing, a fool is quite another!”
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br />   She felt the satisfaction run warm all through her at the fury in his face and the knowledge that out here where anyone might see them, including any wandering reporters, he dared not even let the rage show in his body language, much less actually hit her. She very nearly smiled.

  “Talking about getting caught,″ he said deliberately, his lips thin. ″A bit careless of your mother getting ‘caught’ when she was at college, wasn’t it? Not like the Hilda Finch I know. But of course she wasn’t Finch then, was she!”

  Caroline felt the blood drain from her face. How could he know that? For a moment she was dizzy, the sunlight was glaring, blinding her.

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t know?” Douglas’s voice came from far away. “But of course you know, or what I’m saying wouldn’t mean anything to you, would it? And you wouldn’t look like you’d just seen ghosts walking.”

  “How could you?” she demanded. “She would never have told you! She doesn’t trust you and never did!” She was challenging him as if the fact that he shouldn’t know meant that he didn’t. What did it matter how he knew? He did, that was the only ugly, horrible reality that counted.

  “Claudia de Vries, darling! Who else?” Now he was mocking her. “Really, I’d have thought you could have worked that out for yourself. You’re a disappointment, Caroline. Not only are you a prude and childishly unrealistic, but you’re slow-witted as well. Don’t make me spell all this out for you. Just acknowledge the facts and behave like a well-bred congressional wife.”

  “Or what?” She wanted to sound defiant, brave, and above all confident. She only sounded panicky and defensive.

  “Oh, please!” he said wearily. “Do we have to play this all out to the bitter end?”

  Caroline’s mind raced, horrible possibilities crowding one after another. Would Douglas try to blackmail her mother as Claudia de Vries had? What would he do now? Did he merely know about the child because Claudia had told him, or could he prove it?

  Anyway, these days who cared? Quite possibly it would simply add a little mystery and glamour to what had previously seemed a very staid and shallow, boring life. Her father was not around anymore to be hurt or embarrassed about it. Who was socially ruined because of a youthful tragedy these days?

  And there was the other question she would like to have avoided ever asking. How much did she care, anyway? She and her mother had never been close, and the few rare confidences over the last two days did nothing to undo a lifetime’s pattern. Would she live the rest of her own life tied to Douglas, living out a hideous charade of a marriage, to save her mother from possible embarrassment?

  No, definitely not. Hilda could clean up her own mess.

  She put her hands on her hips. “I suppose you also took Claudia’s proof of this event?” she said with raised eyebrows.

  “What do you think I’m going to do, blackmail your mother?” he said in surprise.

  “Aren’t you?” she countered. “Or, more exactly, blackmail me?”

  “Hardly over that!” He dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “At least, not exactly,” he amended. “Who cares if Hilda Finch had an illegitimate child thirty-something years ago? It would hardly be headline news.”

  Caroline was startled how deeply she resented his casual dismissal of her mother. It stung her pride, and she found herself instantly defensive, which was very odd. If ever there was anyone completely capable of looking after herself, it was her mother. But still she retaliated. “Not like a congressman caught on camera in what I imagine were some fascinating poses!” she said. “That would be news, illustrated news at that. A little difficult to deny … darling!”

  His face was white, his eyes glittering. “I think there’s really only one person interested in your mother’s indiscretion, but he would be very interested indeed, especially when he knows that it was Claudia de Vries who told me.”

  “My … my half brother? I gather it is a brother, because you said ‘he’?” she asked, finding herself breathless, her heart pounding.

  “No, fool!” he said tartly. “Detective Toscana!”

  It was all hideously clear now. She saw it in the triumph in his face, the leering knowledge that he had terrified her, and she could not conceal it.

  “Rather a good motive for murder, don’t you think?” he went on calmly. “All the years of hate, blackmail, power. Not to mention the little matter of inheriting all this rather lucrative little business?″ He gestured widely around him at the buildings, the lake, the trees and flowers, the cottages in the distance.”A lot of people have killed for a great deal less, never mind greedy women like your mother, who have endured years of humiliation and fear of exposure.″

  Caroline’s mouth was dry, her heart pounding so violently she was sure she must be shaking with it.

  “You … wouldn’t …”

  “No, of course not,” he agreed, leaning a little toward her. “I’ll help you conceal your mother’s crime, darling.″ He emphasized the last word sarcastically.”Just as you’ll help me conceal my little affairs … won’t you!”

  She stared at him. “I … I can’t! I told you before, I haven’t got the pictures anymore. Someone took them!”

  “Oh, please! Can’t you do better than that?” His tone was one of exquisite derision.

  “It’s the truth!” she said desperately. “I haven’t got them! Douglas, I swear it!”

  He looked as if she had hit him. He stood motionless for several seconds, fear and rage equal in his face. Then he mastered himself again and stared at her venomously. “Then you’d better find them, hadn’t you? Or your mother is going to be arrested for murder, and this time it’ll stick!”

  “I … but … ,” she started.

  “Find them!” He turned on his heel and marched away, his back stiff, his shoulders rigid, feet almost silent on the grass.

  She was amazed how intensely it mattered to her. She never even considered not trying to save her mother. The pain that had existed between them was irrelevant. All she could think of was the cello, as if that one act of kindness had obliterated all the quarrels, the criticisms, and the loneliness. She must find the photographs and give them to Douglas—whatever it cost. She’d deal with leaving him afterward, after Detective Toscana had found out who had killed Claudia and Howard Fondulac. Or if Toscana didn’t, then she would find out herself … and prove it. Damn Douglas. Damn him, damn him, damn him!

  11

  CAROLINE’S EARS WERE RED WITH anger, and the blood pulsed through her temples with such force that she thought her brain might explode, shooting shrapnel out through her eyes. As long as some of it went through Douglas’s heart, she didn’t much care.

  Detective Toscana was standing on the patio by the swimming pool, a glass of something brown in his hand. He waved through the pool fence at her, but she ignored him, stalking past with her head down, eyes firmly on the ground. The image of him, peering through the bars of the fence like a big brown bear in the zoo, stuck in her mind. That’s how he’d like to see her mother, no doubt—behind bars, waiting for her daily mammal biscuit!

  Out of sight of the detective, she hesitated. Her mother would be in their cabin, and she wasn’t in any mood for company, no matter how sympathetic. She didn’t think she could stand even the soothingly professional attentions of the spa staff.

  What she did want was her cello—a stormy workout with Zeller to exorcise the worst of her fury, then half an hour of Bach. JSB could calm the most aggravated spirit with the beauty of his singing logic.

  The fingers of her left hand twitched, aching for the throb of the metal strings, the solid mellow wood of the cello’s neck. But the cello was in the cabin with her mother, and she wasn’t fit to be near another human being right now. She glanced around, desperate for a refuge, someplace out of sight of everyone.

  Wind stirred in the branches of the trees behind the main building, bringing her the sharp, clean scent of pine resin, a faint olfactory echo of her cello. Mind made up, she turned toward
one of the paths that led beyond the compound and marched off, into the beckoning green depths of the wood.

  “I’d say that lady isn’t very happy with her husband, eh, Detective?″ Emilio Constanza rocked back and forth on the soles of his spotless white sneakers, tray balanced negligently on one hand.”What do you figure all that was about?” He nodded toward the scene of the recent argument, to which he and the detective—to say nothing of the maintenance man cleaning the pool filter—had been unwitting—but certainly not uninterested—observers.

  “You got me.” The sun was hot, and the metal bars of the pool fence were warm on Toscana’s face; he pulled back and took a deep, meditative sip of the iced tea Emilio had brought him.”Ooh, that’s good.”

  The waiter smiled. “Special recipe. Phoenix sun tea, brewed with orange pekoe, green tea, ginseng, and ginkgo. A dash of papaya enzyme, a drop of kiwi nectar, and Bob’s your uncle!”

  “You don’t say?” Toscana squinted into the depths of his glass, sniffed suspiciously, then shook his head. He nodded toward the lawn where Douglas Blessing still stood, spine stiff with anger. His aide had popped up out of nowhere—that lady reminded him of some kind of mosquito, the way she was always appearing out of nowhere, whining in somebody’s ear—but Blessing was ignoring her, fists clenched by his sides as she murmured urgently to him, one hand on his rigid arm. Toscana drained his glass and set it back on Emilio’s tray.

  “Tell you what, pal. Why don’t you go tell the congressman I’d like to see him for a minute? Bring some more a that up to the office, huh, maybe bring the pitcher and two clean glasses?”

  “Clean glasses,” Constanza said gravely, inclining his dark shock of hair.”I’ll make a special note of that, sir.”

  Karen McElroy was searching through the leaves of the planter full of English ivy that lined the wall of her tiny manicurist’s studio, when she saw a pale face rise up behind the glass-brick wall above the ivy. Big eyes bulged in a ghostly face surrounded by something that looked like water weed, and the mouth opened in a soundless fishy gape.