“An awful lot of people are in the same situation, I think.”
“Sure, sure. But I’ve come to rely on that smoothie. For my confidence.”
“And persuasion,” Marley said, with a note of disapproval. “You rely on it because it lets you talk people into deals they wouldn’t normally agree to. You can make them buy properties they don’t need at prices that don’t make sense. Of course that solves your problems, but it only adds to theirs.”
George looked as though he’d just been insulted. “I paid your nephew ten thousand dollars a dose.”
Marley stood, and so did Albert. “Is that all? You were getting off cheap. For the sorts of deals you were making, he could have gotten twice that. Maybe more. Not that it matters. You’ve had your last ‘smoothie,’ I think.”
“Why don’t you sit back down?” George asked, smiling. He opened his jacket to reveal a small belt holster with an even smaller black pistol.
“Be still, Albert,” Marley said, just as he tensed up. “All right, George. We’ll sit and we’ll talk a bit more. But what I really want is for you to give me that weapon so I can get on with my day. Then I want you to go home and tell Celeste everything you’ve been up to.”
Goosebumps ran down Albert’s back as George laid his hand on his thigh, inches from that little Beretta. There were more than a few options if the old guy decided to draw, but none were good. The best they could hope for was that he’d take George down without being fatally shot.
George smiled. “Why don’t you sit down?” His stillness suggested that he was in control of the conversation and entirely comfortable with his threat of violence.
Marley sat, then patted Albert’s chair. He settled down, letting his weight rest forward, ready to spring.
George put his hand on his gun. “Don’t, son.”
Marley opened her bag. “He won’t do anything,” she said confidently. “He knows better. So, you want more of the potions Aloysius was selling you?”
“I do indeed.”
“Hm. Tell me, does this smell familiar to you?”
She handed him the same vial she’d given to Inez. He took it warily, then sniffed at it. “Not really. This smells like good chocolate. Aloysius’s smoothies were like drinking a chalky curry sauce with syrup mixed in.”
He returned the vial. Marley lifted it to the light, shook it, then frowned and shrugged. Empty. “In that case, I’ll need to research his recipe.”
George sighed, then stood, then set his holstered weapon on the table between them. “You do that. Just remember that I’m a man of influence in this town. The path to long term happiness in this burg passes through Doing-What-I-Say-Ville.”
He left. Marley wrapped George’s gun in a bit of newspaper, and they dropped it into the trash on the way out.
In the car, Albert said, “What’s Celeste going to say when he tells her what he’s been up to?”
Marley took a sip of her latte. “They really do make a delicious cup of coffee, don’t they?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Fellowship of the Couch
Marley sent Elaine’s address to the GPS. It was well to the north of them, and traffic was at a standstill because the Ballard Bridge was up. By the time they arrived, it was late enough in the morning that there was plenty of street parking.
Marley rang the front doorbell, and Elaine came out to meet her all covered with flour. They hugged briefly, despite Elaine’s protests, and Marley stepped back without a speck on her black blazer. Elaine directed them to a path around the side of the house that went down to the alley level, explaining that the office didn’t have a connecting door into the house.
“Office” was a grandiose name for a small studio apartment just behind the garage. The entrance was at the bottom of a steep flight of concrete stairs, and the McMansion next door cut off most of the meager Seattle sunlight. Mounted on the wall, above a worn doorbell, was a plastic sleeve with a single sheet of laser printer paper inside. On the sheet, in large, outlined letters, was PEOPLE’S WORLD NATURE EDUCATORIUM, DISTRICT 1.
“Classy,” Albert said.
Marley knocked. “I assume there’s no district two, or any other number, for that matter.”
She’d barely finished her sentence before the door swung open, revealing a short, wiry man with a wiry grey ponytail. His beard was almost a foot long but it didn’t hide his bright, wide smile. “Speak, friend, and enter!”
“Mellon.” Albert’s answer came from the books but his pronunciation was copied from the movie.
The wiry hippie laughed aloud. “Well! It’s been a long time since someone gave the correct response to that call. I like you already. Call me Merry.”
The door swung wide, revealing a small dinette table with dinged green metal chairs around it, all clearly scavenged from someone’s dumpster. A tattered map of Seattle’s bike trails hung on the opposite wall. Another printed sheet of paper hung above the kitchenette; it read THIS KITCHEN IS CRUELTY-FREE. The room smelled like armpits and bong water.
Merry gestured toward the three people seated around the table. The pale, shapeless Asian woman was introduced as Hsing. She was about Merry’s age and she looked at Marley and Albert as though she wasn’t quite sure if they were real. The woman beside her was only a few years younger, but had the body of an triathlete. Her thin, straight brown hair framed an utterly humorless expression; her name was Janet. Last was Philip, a very young guy with a wispy beard and black hair he wore in a ponytail.
Marley stood before them with her hands clasped in front of her. “I assume you all know why I’m visiting you.”
“Because of your nephew,” Hsing answered, her voice almost as droning as Amos Quigley’s had been. “Aloysius Pierce. It’s so terrible what happened, but at least he’s gone to bathe in the love of Jesus.”
“Er, thank you.”
“I know why she’s here,” Janet said, her expression stony. “She’s come here to accuse us of his murder.”
“Now that’s not true!” Marley shook her finger. “You don’t even believe that yourself. You can’t lie to me!”
“No, I don’t believe it.” Janet admitted to a lie with the same self-righteous stoicism she used when accusing someone of lying. “But I had to shock the others. They’re too trusting. I don’t want them pouring their hearts out to some wealthy capitalist with a sob story.”
Marley didn’t even blink. “I’m not interested in the contents of their hearts, liquid or otherwise. I am interested in why he was meeting with you, and what you thought of him.”
“We hated him,” Janet said with that same cold certainty.
“I don’t ‘hate’ anyone,” Hsing interjected. “That goes against my faith. I loved him.”
“I didn’t hate the dude, either,” Merry added, “but I didn’t trust him. I wished him the same spiritual peace and universal love that I would wish on anyone, but he didn’t give us a lot of reasons to like him.”
“He was a fornicator,” Hsing said. Merry and Philip looked embarrassed.
No one seemed to want to expand on that, so Marley said, “I assume he wasn’t representing you.” She knew that wasn’t true, but it was an effective goad.
Merry, Hsing, and Philip laughed. “No,” Merry said. “He was an errand boy for the corporatist/developer complex.”
Janet stared into Albert’s face. “Like so many are.”
“We’ve been opposing a certain development site out at the Cedar River—“
“All of our drinking water comes from there, you know!” Hsing cut in, her voice suddenly very loud.
Marley nodded kindly to her. “Not all, but I do know about the area.”
Merry cleared his throat. “Well, they somehow got a permit to excavate on the site. Somehow.”
“Not to mention,” Hsing said, her voice becoming more angry and strained, “that land is supposed to be preserved! Not to mention that their equipment has been digging beyond the permitted area! Not to mention�
�“
A loud, persistent beeping interrupted her. She removed a kitchen timer from her pocket and shut it off. Then she pushed her chair back. Merry stood and pulled his chair out of her way to let her head toward the bathroom. “You be sure to turn on the fan, now.”
She went into the room without a response, shut the door and turned on the exhaust. Everyone but Janet looked uncomfortable. Within seconds, they could hear the flick of a lighter and the sound of bubbling water. The nasty-sweet stink of marijuana smoke came through the door.
“You have to understand,” Merry, said apologetically. “The timer is to reduce her usage. She’s trying to cut back.”
“So,” Marley said, “I assume you were trying to block the development project?”
“We know quite a few ways to make our voices heard,” Janet said. “All of them legal.”
“And I know a couple of judges who listen with an open mind,” Merry said, “as long as the paperwork is done correctly. We have our ways. But Aloysius wanted us to lay off. What’s more, he offered a deal: If we left his boss’s project alone, he would sign over a larger plot of land to us, to be turned into a preserve. It was right on a migration zone. A really great opportunity.”
“But it was all talk,” Janet said.
Merry sighed. “She’s right. It was all talk. He kept telling us the paperwork was being put together while the watershed site was being ravaged, and then he stopped taking our calls as soon as our guy on the scene said—“
“So you see,” Janet broke in, “we did have reason to want him killed.”
“I suppose you did,” Marley said thoughtfully.
“But we didn’t do it.”
“And what about you, Philip? Do you have anything to add?”
The young man was startled by Marley’s unexpected attention. “Me? Um...”
Janet stood. Her chair slid back, caught on the edge of the carpet and toppled onto the floor. She made no move to pick it up. “I’m going out to the van. Philip, come with me.”
Philip blushed bright red. He opened his mouth as though to say something, but then he stood and followed her outside.
“Well!” Merry said, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. “That was productive, but I don’t think we can get much further today. What do you say we arrange another meeting for... Monday. We can make a list of agenda items regarding your nephew and what you need to accomplish in that arena, and we can spitball some ideas.”
“Thank you so much,” Marley said, “but I don’t think that will be necessary. I’ll be in touch if there’s anything further.”
She turned toward the door. Albert took the hint and opened it for her. Together they went up the front stairs and met Elaine in the garden where she was pulling weeds. “How were they?” she asked.
“They’re quite a collection of characters,” Marley answered. “Why do you let them use that apartment, dear?”
“Taxes, partly,” Elaine pulled off her gloves and wiped a bit of sweat from her nose. “It does me good to rent that unit, but I don’t like the idea of someone living there. My little hippies are a nice compromise. Besides, occasionally they do some good.”
“Did you ever hear them argue?”
“Them? Never. Oh, do you mean when Aloysius was visiting? You know, at first he was nearly frantic to get them to leave his precious project alone. He even threatened to call the drug squad or whatever they call it, but I... convinced him not to.”
Elaine’s hesitation when choosing that last verb was all the hint Marley needed. “Elaine! You and Aloysius?”
“Well, why not? It’s been years since Lee ran off with a younger woman. Why can’t I have some fun? But it was only the once, and not exactly worth writing songs about. But no, I never heard them argue, and as I said, I don’t think they would do anything to your Aloysius.”
They clasped hands and promised to do lunch, then Albert and Marley went back to the car.
“Do you see that van, Albert?”
She nodded at a windowless blue van with rust marks along the bottom. Someone had painted clouds along the top of the panels, with a single sun beam shining downward as though the advancing rust was rocky ground. Its springs squeaked as it gently rocked. “I don’t want to see it,” Albert said. “I mean, I really really don’t want to, but that has to be them, doesn’t it?”
“I think so, too. Let’s pull the car a little closer.”
They did, parking across the street and down the block just a little bit. Within twenty minutes, the back doors of the van swung open. Janet and Philip climbed out, both looking a little flushed. Janet marched directly back toward the studio, but Philip loitered a bit, glancing furtively up and down the block as though he thought someone might be pointing a camera at him.
“Albert, flash the headlights, please.”
Albert did, and Philip came toward the car with a certain weary resignation. Albert got out and opened the back door for him, but Philip hesitated. He was used to doing what he was told, but it occurred to him that he was about to be kidnapped, maybe. Did he really want to be so cooperative? He thought he ought to make the big guy behind him wrestle him into the car or something.
“Oh, don’t be like that, dear, you’re perfectly safe with me.” Marley patted the seat beside her. With a shrug, Philip climbed in. Albert got behind the wheel. “Would you like us to drop you somewhere, dear, or stay here?”
Philip said, “Stay here.” He felt he was incriminating himself with his own words and suddenly found he couldn’t speak. “Uh…”
“Oh, you don’t have to make any explanations to me, Philip. There’s nothing surprising about you and Janet. I imagine she’s very intense, but not much fun.”
“I wanted to do some good in the world,” Philip responded. He was ready to say anything to avoid talking about Janet with this adorable old woman. “I wanted to make a difference, to learn how to fight for the environment and social justice, but it’s pretty rare that we actually do anything. Mostly we just talk and talk and talk.”
“Philip, who is the fifth member of your group? Who is the ‘guy on the scene’ that Janet didn’t want me to hear about?”
“I shouldn’t really talk about that. I’m not supposed to.”
“That’s backwards, dear, and you know it. You are supposed to talk about it, but the others don’t want you to.”
Philip didn’t say anything for a few seconds. “There’s an old cabin out by the development site. It’s not supposed to be there, any more than the trucks and such, but it’s there, and we have a... friend who lives there illegally. He watches over things for us.”
“And why aren’t you supposed to talk about him? Because he’s a squatter?”
“No,” Philip said. “He’s dangerous. He’s killed people, I think.”
Marley took out her phone and opened up a map of the Cedar River area. “Show me where the cabin is, dear.” She offered it to him. “We’re going up there, and we need to know where it is so we can avoid it.”
Philip hesitated but, like the obedient boy he is, he marked the general area on the map. It felt to him as though he’d already gone too far and he didn’t want to say anything else, so he got out of the car. Before he shut the door, he said: “But I really do think you should stay away from there. This guy, he’s not always in control of himself. He’s really, really dangerous.”
Marley gave him a calm look. “No worries, dear. Little old ladies never want to do anything dangerous.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The Un-Recruitment Drive
Albert watched Philip, with his spindly, hunched shoulders and his long, bird-like neck, walk back to the office. “Jesus, is everybody getting some but me?”
“And me,” Marley answered. “But you’re right, it hardly seems fair, what with spring in the air and so on and so forth.”
“It wasn’t just spring, not with Aloysius. Did the guy hit on every woman he saw? Successfully?”
“It’s starti
ng to seem that way, but don’t be too surprised, dear. Aloysius was confident and manipulative. Guess what that will get you?”
Albert didn’t give the obvious one-word answer. “But he was so skeevy. Why would—“
“Careful, dear. You don’t want to become one of those men who whine about women’s taste in men. That’s a quick route to Jerkville.”
Albert glanced into the rear view mirror at her. “Jerkville?”
“Creep Town.”
“Isn’t that where Aloysius lived?”
“All right then, Masturbation City.”
“Okay, Aunt Marley, now I’m officially uncomfortable.”
She laughed, and he laughed a little, too. “Now you know how I feel, dear, considering how the conversation was going.”
“Ah. Sorry.”
“It’s all right,” she said. “As long as you don’t become one of those pathetic men who complain about women hating ‘nice guys’ or something.”
“You’re the boss.”
“What did you think about the activists?”
“I think it was a waste of time to visit them. It’s hard to believe they would be a threat to anyone,” Albert answered, grateful for the change of subject. “They seem like useless relics.”
“Useless they may be—or perhaps I should say ‘ineffectual’—but they aren’t relics, dear.”
“I wasn’t talking about their age, Aunt Marley. I was talking about the whole peace and love, tree-hugging thing.”
“I knew exactly what you meant. It’s easy to make fun of a cultural moment a few decades after it has passed. It’s easy to point out the indulgence and hypocrisy. What’s harder is criticizing your own time and your own assumptions. What’s more, I may not sneak bong hits in the bathroom, but I still hold to certain values—“
“I’m sorry,” Albert interrupted. “I keep sticking my foot in my mouth, don’t I?”
“Did I get a little testy? I guess I did. Let’s forget all that. It does seem strange to me that Evelyn would have Aloysius working on a project all the way out in the Cedar River area while he was working on her downtown development plans. Or do you think it’s all the same thing? Or do you think he had another client off the books who had him handling something else? You know, Aloysius’s schedule had every Wednesday morning—the whole thing—blocked off for ‘Errands’ with no other details. I thought he was picking up dry cleaning and going to the grocery, but now I know he was delivering magic potions for someone else, possibly Zoe—unless he stole her spell book so he could make the potions himself, cutting her out. Also, it wouldn’t have taken him all morning to make that one delivery. What else was he doing with that time? Was he selling or delivering potions to other people we don’t know about yet?”
A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark Page 17