The Edge

by Catherine Coulter

  “Or are you heading back to Washington? Since Jilly’s awake again, there’s no reason for you to stay, is there? Has she told you about what happened Tuesday night? Does it match your dream?”

  “I’m going to speak to her about it right now,” I said, wishing Maggie hadn’t said anything about it in front of Cotter Tarcher. But in the long run I couldn’t see that it would make any difference. Who cared if anybody thought I was nuts? As for Tarcher, he hadn’t acted like an ass, at least not yet.

  “I hope she’ll talk to you,” Maggie said to me. “When I was in there this morning, she claimed she didn’t remember a thing. She acted shocked when I told her we were worried because it looked to Rob like she’d driven over the cliff on purpose. She didn’t say another word. If there’s something more, maybe she’ll tell you, Mac.”

  I said, “Maybe nothing’s going on, Maggie.”

  “I hope you’re right. I’m just worried she might try to hurt herself again.”

  Cotter looked back and forth at each of us. “Try to drop by tonight, Mac. My parents would like to meet you.” He shook my hand, harder than necessary, nodded to Maggie, gave me a look that said he could whip my ass anytime, and left. He was easy to dislike, on spec.

  “Maggie,” I said. “Were you invited over to Paul and Jilly’s house on Tuesday night?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Laura Scott told me Paul and Jilly were expecting other people. She had to leave early, so she didn’t know how many people or who they were.”

  Why did I have to know? It didn’t matter. What mattered was speaking to Jilly, making sure that she was okay now, that she wasn’t depressed or bent on trying to kill herself again.

  I thought about Laura, about how I’d never before met a woman who drew me instantly as she had. No, I wasn’t going back to Washington just yet. There was the Tarcher party tonight. It should prove interesting.

  “Mac, before you go see Jilly, there’s something else about Charlie Duck’s murder, something that’s really weird. I didn’t want to say anything about it in front of Cotter, but hey, you’re a cop too.”

  “You know something?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t know if it means anything. Someone killed Charlie, then ransacked his house. I’ve had my guy dust for fingerprints. I’ve made a search myself. I didn’t find anything, nothing that might have been of interest to anyone. Whatever the murderer was looking for, he probably found it. He took the murder weapon with him.”

  She drew a deep breath. “Maybe you can help me figure this out. After Doc Lambert called me, he said that Charlie regained consciousness just a moment before he died.”

  My heart speeded up, I don’t know why. I waited.

  “Doc Lambert said Charlie was real frantic, mumbled a whole lot of stuff, but the only thing he could really make out was ‘a big wallop, too much, then they got me.’ Doc Lambert said he died then. Does that make any sense to you?”

  “Have the M.E. in Portland do an autopsy,” I said. “Do it right now.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I’ve got this feeling, a real burning in my gut, that this wasn’t a random killing and burglary. Charlie Duck wanted to speak to you. He wanted to speak to me. I wish he’d done it yesterday, but he didn’t, obviously because he didn’t think he was in any danger. But he was. Someone walloped him, it was too much, then they killed him.”

  “Mac, you make it sound like some sort of B movie. You know, the murdered guy trying to tell someone who it was who killed him? It doesn’t happen like that in real life.”

  “Who was Charlie Duck?”

  “He was a retired cop from Chicago. More than fifteen years ago.”

  My heart speeded up again. “Look, Maggie, Jilly goes over a cliff. Someone murders a retired cop. Maybe the two don’t have anything to do with each other, but I’d rather know for sure than guess about it.”

  “Surely his death can’t have anything to do with Jilly driving off that cliff. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Have the M.E. do an autopsy. His name’s Ted Leppra. Call him now, Maggie. Get it done.”

  A big wallop, too much, then they got me.

  What was going on here?

  Jilly was alone. She was reading a newspaper. When she saw me, she grew very still. I was at her side in two big steps. “What’s wrong?”

  She smiled up at me and laid the newspaper aside. “Nothing at all, Ford. I’m looking human again, don’t you think? Did you come to tell me good-bye?”

  “No, I came to talk to you.”

  Again she grew still, as if she didn’t want to see me, didn’t want to talk to me. Why?

  “Jilly, you’re my sister. I’ve known you all my life. I love you. If you tried to commit suicide, just tell me why. I’ll do what I can to help. I want to help. Please talk to me.”

  I knew her well enough to see the lie in her eyes and quickly added, “No, don’t tell me you can’t remember, like you told Maggie. Tell me the truth. Did you try to kill yourself, Jilly?”

  “No, Ford, I’d never try to do such a ridiculous thing. Truth of it was that I lost control of my Porsche. I was singing as loud as I could, driving much too fast, and I lost control coming around a corner. That’s it, Ford, I swear.”

  “Rob Morrison said you speeded up when you drove toward that cliff.”

  “He’s wrong,” Jilly said. “Absolutely wrong. I lost control. Maybe I hit the gas when I went through the railing, I don’t remember. I suppose it’s possible.

  “Ford, I’m all right, truly. Go home now. You’re still not back to one hundred percent. Better yet, take another week off and go down to Lake Tahoe and get some fishing in. You know you’d really like that.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Well, if I don’t see you again, take care of yourself. You, Kevin, Gwen, and I—we’ll get together at Gwen’s in New York at Christmas.”

  It was a tradition, one we’d missed this past year and thus the get-together in February. I leaned down and hugged her hard against me. “I love you, Jilly,” I said.

  “I love you too, Ford. Don’t worry about me anymore. Be sure to call Kevin and Gwen, tell them everything is all right.”

  The Tarcher house sat on a cul-de-sac at the end of Brooklyn Heights Avenue. It clearly dominated the other three or four pretenders set far apart from one another, separated by spruce and hemlock. The mansion was a good three times larger than Paul and Jilly’s place, and looked like an honest-to-God Victorian transplant straight from San Francisco. Its basic color was cream, but there were another four or five accent colors used on the various window frames and sills, door frames, balcony railings, arches, cornices, and various other whimsical things whose names I didn’t know. It looked like a huge, fascinating, over-the-edge birthday cake. It had been designed by people with lots of money and an equal amount of imagination.

  Four young guys dressed in red shirts and black pants were valeting all the guests’ cars. By the time Paul and I pulled up in his Ford Explorer, there must have been thirty cars parked all along both sides of the winding avenue. It looked like the whole town had turned out for the event.

  Jilly had wanted to come. She wanted everyone to see she was back in action again, even though her Porsche wasn’t. She told me she’d already gotten a towing service to figure out if they could get her Porsche out of the ocean. I’d said fine, you can come if you can walk without assistance from here to the end of the hall. She made eight steps and drooped. But she was fine, according to all the tests Dr. Coates had done on her since early that morning. I’d asked him if he was coming to the Tarchers’ party and he’d said he wouldn’t miss it unless a set of triplets was ready to slip out. My sister Gwen, who’d had three kids, none of whom, I was sure, had just slipped out, would have slugged him.

  I turned to Paul as we stepped out of the Explorer in front of the Tarcher house. “Tell me about Tarcher, Paul.”

  “His full name’s Alyssum Tarcher, and don’t ask me where
he got the weird name. He’s been here some thirty years and he’s filthy rich. I wouldn’t be surprised if he owns half the state. Everybody here owes him, probably without exception. Nothing happens in this town that isn’t run by him first. The mayor, Miss Geraldine, is at his beck and call. She’ll do anything he wants. Actually, most of us will.”

  “Did you have to ask his permission to move back out here from Pennsylvania?”

  “As a matter of fact, he helped me come back,” Paul said, all cool and formal. “No secret there. He’s invested in my current project. He sold Jilly and me our house.”

  “Ah,” I said. So that’s how he and Jilly were surviving. But that beautiful house and Jilly’s Porsche were far above the survival line. “This is the fountain of youth formula?”

  “Good try,” Paul said, slamming his door. “Jesus, Mac, I’m so relieved that Jilly lost control of the Porsche. If she’d tried to kill herself, I don’t know what I would have done.”

  “Me either.”

  One of the young valets dashed up, out of breath, gave Paul a big purple ticket, and drove the Explorer away. “Some house, huh?”

  “Incredible,” I said, climbing up the deep half-dozen front steps. Lights and mellow chamber music poured out of the house. When we walked into the huge vestibule, I paused a moment, just breathing in the incredible smell of the house. It smelled like standing in the middle of a deep forest with a sliver of sunlight on your face—a hint of flowers, of water-drenched moss, of trees and light, pure air. I inhaled deeply as I turned to see a tall, hawknosed man walk toward us. It was, I had no doubt, Alyssum Tarcher, the patriarch of Edgerton, Oregon.

  I am six feet, two inches tall, one hundred eighty-five pounds before the car bombing. He was at least two inches taller than me but not any heavier. He was probably around sixty years old, his hair thick, mixed black and white. He was a strong, vigorous man, no paunch, no softness on him. He looked potent. His son, Cotter, was standing behind him—thick-necked and dark, he looked like a thug. It was quite a contrast. He’d probably just shaved, but there was a hint of dark growth on his cheeks. He cracked his knuckles, his eyes studying my face.

  “Ford MacDougal?”

  Alyssum Tarcher’s voice was as deep and rich as the smoothest Kentucky bourbon.

  “Yes, sir,” I said. He stuck out his hand and I shook it. An artist’s hands, I thought, slender, narrow, long-fingered. Too smooth.

  “You and Jilly don’t look a thing like each other,” Alyssum Tarcher said, looking through to my molecules, I thought. This was a dangerous man. Far more dangerous than his bully of a son.

  “No,” I said. “We don’t.”

  “Of course you’re both fine-looking young people and your general coloring’s the same. You’ve met my son, Cotter?”

  I shook Cotter’s hand and smiled down at him, content to wait to let him begin the pissing contest, which he did, quickly. I managed to twist my hand slightly so that I had better leverage than him. I looked him straight in the eye and proceeded to crush his fingers. I let his hand go when I saw the strain around his mouth. I think Paul was the only one who noticed the locker-room behavior. As for Cotter, oddly enough, he looked both homicidally furious and curiously absorbed. He slowly rubbed his hand, staring at me. It was as if he was trying to get inside my head, trying to see how he could best go about smashing me. I knew I’d made an enemy, didn’t really care, but I did wonder what he was thinking now. I hadn’t met up with a verifiable sociopath in at least six months.

  Cotter never looked away from me. I turned when I heard Alyssum Tarcher say, “Well, Paul, now that Jilly’s back with us, you can get to work again. I understand all this has been hard on you, but now, finally, everything will be all right.”

  “Yes,” Paul said. “Jilly wanted to come tonight, but she couldn’t walk more than a few steps. Mac and I left her nearly asleep and disappointed. She wants me to assure everyone that she didn’t go over that cliff on purpose. She lost control of the Porsche. She also swears that she won’t go a hundred miles an hour around any more curves as long as she lives. She sends her love.”

  “That’s a relief,” Alyssum Tarcher said. He picked up two flutes of champagne from a waiter’s tray and handed one to me and one to Paul. Then he picked up one for himself, raised it, and said, “To the future. May our project succeed beyond our wildest imaginings.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” Paul said.

  Neither Cotter nor I said anything, merely sipped the champagne, nasty stuff, I’d always thought, remembering fondly the Bud Light Midge had brought me in the middle of the night. Her husband, Doug, was a lucky man. I placed the flute back on the waiter’s tray. Alyssum had a dark brow raised, but I didn’t give a shit.

  Paul said, “It’s a real tragedy about Charlie Duck getting killed. Not something you’d expect to have happen in a great town like Edgerton.”

  “Bad, bad thing,” Alyssum Tarcher said, nodding that leonine head of his. “Everyone’s been talking about it, trying to figure out who could have done such a thing, and why.”

  “He was a nosy old man,” Cotter said. “He was always pissing people off when he pried into their business.”

  “A stranger went to his house and killed him, a random thing,” said Tarcher. “It must have been. No one in Edgerton would have hurt a hair on his head.”

  “He didn’t have much hair left,” Paul said. He received a strained smile from Tarcher.

  I turned to see Rob Morrison, looking like a hunk from Southern California in a black T-shirt, black slacks, and a black sports jacket, speaking to Maggie Sheffield. It was the first time I’d seen her out of uniform. She was a knockout. A red dress on a woman, especially one without much front or back, has an amazing effect. Her hair was piled up on top of her head and she was wearing three-inch heels. I had an urge to walk up to her, bite her earlobe, and go from there. Then I saw Rob Morrison’s hand on her back, very low on her bare back. Very proprietary.

  “Hello, Mac. You look very nice in that dark suit.”

  I turned to see Cal Tarcher, dressed like a frump in a long skirt with a black, high-neck, long-sleeved silk blouse and ballet flats. At least the skirt and blouse fit her, more or less. Her red hair was flat against her head, pulled back and tied with a black ribbon at the base of her neck. Her glasses had black frames. Well, at least she was color coordinated. “Hi, yourself,” I said. I wondered what had happened to that young woman I’d seen briefly outside Paul and Jilly’s house, the one who’d suddenly looked taller and arrogant and cold as ice. We were back to little miss prim and dowdy.

  “I saw you staring at Maggie. She looks beautiful, doesn’t she?”

  “Oh, yes. I like a woman out of uniform. Maybe soon you can get out of your uniform. Maybe you could try a red dress like that.”

  The cold, arrogant young woman flashed across her face, then smoothed away. “Have you met my mother, Elaine?”

  “No, not yet. The originator of BITEASS?”

  “Yes,” she said, and seemed delighted that I remembered. “I hear that Jilly is just fine now. I tried to get to the hospital today but what with the party, I didn’t have time. Mother had me running around all day long. You wouldn’t believe how much food is going to be consumed tonight. Can you believe someone killed poor old Charlie Duck?”

  “No, I can’t.”

  “You hungry?”

  “I can’t wait to attack the food. Oh yeah, do you know if Paul slept around on Jilly?” I watched her eyes widen behind her glasses. Just shock at what I’d said? It wasn’t exactly acceptable party talk. Or was it surprise that I knew that? I realized then that I just had to let it go. Jilly was fine. There was no damned crime here, except for the random murder of Charlie Duck.

  “Paul loves Jilly,” Cal said after a moment. “He wouldn’t ever sleep with another woman. Besides, Paul’s too skinny. He does enjoy sex, that’s what Jilly told me. She said he was really good.”

  “Were you jealous of Jilly, Cal?”
/>   CHAPTER NINE

  She didn’t skip a beat, just said in a very nice, indifferent voice, “Not at all. I liked Jilly. She was always so gay, always singing. Would you like a beer?”

  I stared down at her a moment, waiting her out, but she beat me in that staring contest. Finally, I nodded.

  “Let’s go to the kitchen. Cotter and I keep our stash hidden behind Father’s mango supply. My mother hates mangoes so we have to hide the beer where she won’t see it. She disapproves of beer, you know. It’s low-class.”

  I followed her through the crowd of at least fifty people, all different ages, dressed to the hilt, all of them seeming to be enjoying themselves, digging into an incredible array of food—from oysters Rockefeller to trays of chilled fish smothered in limes to heaping platters of pesto pasta dotted with sun-dried tomatoes—set out on a wide table at least twenty feet long.

  The kitchen was the command center. Cal didn’t slow, just wove her way through the caterers to a huge refrigerator, opened it, and leaned inside. She was in there awhile, scrounging around. She came out holding two Coors. “Cotter’s already been here. This is the end. We’ve got another six-pack out in the garage if we really get thirsty.”

  “This is great,” I said, popped the lid, toasted her without saying anything, and drank. I loved beer.

  “How old is Cotter?”

  “He’s twenty-eight, two years older than me. I know, I only look like I’m eighteen, but I’m not. You’re also wondering what we’re both doing still living at home at our age.”

  “I did wonder. But I’m not rude enough to ask.”

  “You were rude enough to ask me if I was jealous of Jilly. Why’d you even think of such a thing?”

  “I heard something, I guess. Why are you and Cotter still living at home?”

  She laughed, drank more of her beer, and led the way from the noisy, chaotic kitchen to a small back room, a library from the look of it. It was empty, dark. Cal shut the door and turned on a small Tiffany desk light.