by Nancy Bush
“Take her to Foster’s on the Lake,” Jenny said. “Her favorite place. She won’t say no.”
I gave Jenny a long look. She was grinning.
“Foster’s it is,” Chuck said merrily. “I’ll pick you up at six.”
“I’ll meet you there,” I said. He threw an arm up as a good-bye and I turned to Jenny as soon as he was out the door. “Judas.”
“You could have said no.”
“Free food at Foster’s? Yeah, that’s gonna happen.”
“We’ll come and meet you. Right, Julie? Jane, tell Jeff Foster to comp us a meal.”
I laughed. We all knew Jeff Foster was a major cheapo and ice cubes would freeze in hell before he comped the likes of me a meal.
“Tell him it’s for me and Julie.”
I snorted.
“Come on, Jane. Go with Chuck. It’ll be fun.”
Right up there with root canals.
“We’ll all meet at Foster’s,” she said. I could practically see the wheels turning inside Jenny’s head as she planned to weasel a meal. I appreciate this about her.
“All right,” I said on a sigh.
My cell phone rang as I was taking a shower. I don’t know what it says about me, but I have a hell of a time letting a phone ring, any phone, and I half debated on jumping out and running naked for it. It was with a supreme effort of self-control that I let it go to voice mail, and so I was perturbed when there was no message and the number on caller ID was one I didn’t recognize.
I threw on my jeans, a blue V-necked, long-sleeved T-shirt and my black jacket, then punched in the digits to see who’d phoned. A woman’s voice answered in irritation: “Yes? Who is it?”
“Jane Kelly, returning this number’s call.” I grabbed for my brown boots and encountered the wriggling body of The Binkster as she decided she needed some attention right then and there. I began petting her and she grabbed my hand with her mouth, a surefire sign she would prefer food over attention.
“Oh.” A pause. “This is Gigi Hatchmere.”
“Oh,” I repeated in surprise. The last time I’d seen her was on the opposite side of her quickly shutting door. I’d had a brief glance of short dark hair, angry brows and a mouth turned down in what looked like perpetual displeasure.
Binkster gave a sharp yip when her ploy failed. I ignored her so she grabbed my pant leg with her teeth and growled. Her growls sound like they were made by Mattel: cute and puppyish. I pushed her aside but she came back for more.
“Sean told me you went to see him last night. What a dope head. I hope you didn’t listen to anything he said. He should be committed, he’s so screwed up. And he has no family loyalty!”
“He seems to want to know what really happened to his father.” Not exactly what he’d said, but she didn’t have to know.
It incensed Gigi. “Well, of course he does. We all do. What do you think? Violet killed him! And she gets to just walk around with all her money? That’s just plain wrong! Why don’t you stop harassing us and put her in jail where she belongs? Jesus, I can’t believe this. The police are doing nothing. Nothing.”
That wasn’t exactly the truth, either, but I saw an opportunity to push my own agenda. “I’ve been hired to investigate your father’s death and find out what really happened.”
“I know! By Violet. You’re working for her.”
“If I learn Violet’s involved at some level, I’m duty-bound to report that to the authorities.” Again, not exactly the truth.
“Violet killed him. And she’s paying you.”
What a stickler for detail. “Are you interested in finding your father’s killer?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then talk to me. Meet with me. Let me get some background. It may be just as you think, Violet could be guilty, but my loyalty’s to the truth.”
I heard the ring of conviction in my voice and was impressed with my skills of persuasion. I crossed my fingers that Gigi was impressed, too.
“You would really turn on Violet even though she’s paying you?”
“What do you care, as long as justice is served?”
“I don’t, I guess…”
“Who knows how long it will take the police to follow leads? I’m working on the case right now. I want to know what happened that day.”
“Hunh,” she said, rolling that around. My quest for might and right seemed to have mollified her somewhat. “Where do you want to meet?”
“I could come by the house?” I suggested. I was taking a chance, as my last trip there hadn’t ended well. But Gigi and Emmett had moved into her father’s house after Roland’s death, and, as it was the scene of the crime, I wanted to see it for myself.
“I guess we could meet here,” she said reluctantly.
“Terrific.” I pounced on it, afraid she might talk herself out of it.
“Maybe the end of next week?”
“Well, yes…that would work. But…any chance I could stop by today?” I pushed. “I’d like to get moving on this and I’m sure anything you could tell me would be helpful.”
“I don’t know about that. Violet was the one who was here that day. I was at my wedding. Or, my almost wedding. When Daddy didn’t show I just couldn’t go through with it. Ohmygod, I still can’t believe it. I mean, isn’t your day supposed to be perfect? Isn’t this the one day of your life that’s perfect?”
I thought about all the divorces that occur after that one day but decided to keep quiet on that, too.
“And then Violet kills my father and he can’t come and everything’s ruined,” Gigi went on, sounding as if she was working herself up. “I was waiting and waiting and he just didn’t show.”
“It sounds—traumatic.”
“You don’t know the half of it.” She sniffed. “Can you be here around four?”
“You bet.”
“I really could use someone to talk to,” she said in a teensy, little girl voice.
“It’s been a trying time,” I assured her as I hung up. I found myself already worrying that she might cry, hug me and need the kind of support I’m terrible at giving.
I looked over at Binkster, who’d given up biting my pant leg and had retreated to her furry little bed, gazing at me with an injured expression. “Chicken strip?” I said, and she raced over to the cupboard where I keep her treats.
My dog, I understand.
I had to stop by Dwayne’s before heading to Gigi’s though I was reluctant to learn what he wanted me to do about his friends across the bay. I brought Binkster with me because I feel guilty leaving her alone in the house too many days in a row, and I had an inner hope that I could talk Dwayne into keeping her for a few hours and that the dog might divert him from his new obsession.
Binkster loves Dwayne. Just loves him. It could seriously hurt my feelings except I’m a bigger person than that…most of the time. I watched her race up the sidewalk to his front door and dig one paw at the wood, scarcely able to contain herself. As soon as I opened the door she charged inside straight down the hall to the gap in the sliding glass door and out to the dock. I heard Dwayne exclaim as he saw her and I purposely took my time joining them, letting their bonding ritual run through its paces. By the time I stepped onto the dock, Binks was on Dwayne’s lap, giving his lips some doggy licks. He was laughing and I think she tried to French him ’cause he scooped her up and put her on the ground, his laughter even deeper while she wriggled beneath his chair and began barking, her tail wagging furiously, totally into the game.
The game is simple. For Binkster it’s: I will squeeze myself beneath your chair, the bed, the couch, the bar stool or whatever and then bark my silly head off like I’m stuck. When you come to rescue me, I’ll pretend to snap at your hands, not to hurt, just to be a happy idiot. You, in turn, will laugh and pretend to drag me out, but you won’t really, because then I’ll just have to squeeze back in somewhere else and start the game again.
The game is dumb, but we all play it.
; “I got your text message last night,” I told Dwayne.
“Took you long enough to respond.”
“Didn’t know I was on the clock for Slot A and Tab B.”
“Tab A. Slot B,” he corrected. “Basic human anatomy, Jane. He’s Tab A. She’s Slot B.”
“I get it.”
Dwayne always says that everyone has secrets they don’t want someone else to know about. I agree with him. I just wondered why he felt compelled to learn the secrets of the people across the bay.
He stretched and levered himself out of his deck chair. I leaned forward but resisted the urge to help him. I find myself shying away from physical contact, which really pisses me off at myself, but for the moment it’s how things stand between us. At least how it stands for me.
I said, “Ogilvy’s selling my cottage.”
Dwayne tipped his hat back and gave me a penetrating look. “He tell you that?”
“Kind of announced it. Called me up and dropped the bomb. Looks like I’m going to be hunting for a new abode whether I want to or not.”
“Why don’t you buy it?”
“Great idea. With all the money I have.”
“You have enough for a down payment.”
“Look who you’re talking to.”
“I’m looking.”
We stared at each other for a full ten seconds. By God, I wasn’t going to turn away first. I said firmly, holding his gaze, “Inactivity has addled your brain. I’m Jane Kelly. I have nothing. Half the time my refrigerator’s empty enough to use as an extra room.”
“You’re cheap. You’re not poor.”
I narrowed my eyes. “I’m luxury-challenged, not cheap. Since when do you get to call me ‘not poor’?”
Dwayne smiled in that knowing way that sometimes intrigues me. I gazed over the bay, deciding I’d had enough of this meeting of the eyes. I wasn’t up to this challenge right now, and though I didn’t know where it was going, how it had begun and what it meant, I wanted to step out of it before something altered between us. Sometimes you recognize those moments when you’re in them with just enough time to save yourself; sometimes you don’t.
“You own a fourplex unit with your mother in Venice. You horde every dollar you make. I’ve heard you barter with Ogilvy on the rent more times than I can count. You have enough for a down payment, and if you don’t, I’ll help you.”
“I don’t barter with Ogilvy. I don’t even talk to him.”
“Yes, you do.”
That stopped me for a moment. “You’re thinking about years ago, when he was trying to jump the rent a hundred dollars a month. A hundred dollars!”
“I believe you set him straight.”
“You bet I did,” I harrumphed. I’m not sure what I think of rent control. My mother and I deal with it in our Venice four-unit. In some ways, it sounds great, but when costs spiral upward, repairs start becoming more and more expensive and pretty soon you realize you can’t afford the upkeep with the amount of rent you’re receiving. But I sure as hell didn’t want Ogilvy gouging me. There is no rent control in Oregon, as far as I know. There’s certainly none in Lake Chinook, and I don’t think it generally counts on single-family dwellings anyway. But if he was selling the place, none of it mattered. Any way around it I was screwed.
“Did you say you’d help me?” I asked, reviewing our conversation.
“Afraid of what that might mean?” He lifted one brow.
“Yes.”
“Tell me how much money you’ve got.”
“Hell no,” I said. “It isn’t polite to ask, don’t you know that?”
“Politeness ain’t my strong suit, darlin’.”
“Oh yes, it is. You can be as polite and charming as a politician stumping for votes. Worse, even.”
“Tell Ogilvy to give you a price.”
“I can tell this is a bad idea. I don’t know why I even told you.”
“’Cause you want me to rescue you,” Dwayne said equably, and that sent me into overdrive. Every time I think I like him, he makes me crazy. It was far better when we were just compatriots. Buddies. Partners. And the hell of it is, I fear deep down I might be the only one of us who truly feels all this angst. I think Dwayne likes me fine, trusts me, is attracted to me, in fact. He’s just not as worked up about the whole thing as I am.
“I’m not even having this talk,” I said, walking away from him, toward the edge of the dock. “You want to tell me about what’s going on over there, then tell.” I swept an arm to encompass the south side of Lakewood Bay.
“Maybe I’ll buy your cottage,” Dwayne said as if the idea had just struck him. “Then I can be your landlord.”
“What fun,” I snarled.
He started laughing so hard I thought he’d split a gut. What is it about men that makes them goad me? Maybe it’s not just me. Maybe it’s the whole female gender.
No, it’s probably just me.
When I didn’t think it was a full-on laugh-riot, he finally pulled himself back from the edge of hilarity. Taking off his hat, he swept a hand through his hair, sank back on the lounge, then turned his attention back to his new friends. I watched the transformation as he gazed across the bay, his expression sobering.
“There’s trouble over at Rebel Yell,” he said. “They have two teenaged girls. The younger one’s been crying her eyes out. The parents alternate between trying to talk to her and losing patience and yelling. She hasn’t been yelling back, which is a change.”
“For the better, it sounds like.”
“Not so sure. Something’s eating at her. I think the gal’s got some big secret.”
I should add that Dwayne says all this with a drawl and a lot of “g” dropping, like he’s from the South somewhere, although that hasn’t been firmly established yet. Sometimes my vast ignorance of Dwayne’s history bothers me. He seems to be on a need-to-know basis only, when it comes to talking about his personal life. Since the Violet thing, I’ve steered clear of any discussion about his history that might provide more insight into him. I’ve known Dwayne for nearly five years as an acquaintance, and our friendship has developed largely because Dwayne wanted me to come work for him. A part of me thirsts for more information—bits of data that I can obsess over whenever I start thinking maybe, just maybe, Dwayne and I could be a “thing.” But that other part of me—the sane part—wants nothing to do with him. He could be bad for my mental health.
“High school secrets,” I mused. “Test cheating, alcohol stealing and drinking, pot smoking, pregnancy…”
“I vote pregnancy,” Dwayne said seriously.
“Who’s the daddy?”
“That’s what I need you to find out.”
“Hell no.”
“She’s a good kid. Gets good grades. Plays soccer. Or played. I think she quit the team. Lots of yelling over that. Her older sister’s a piece of work. Bossy. The parents are always trying to get her to behave, but you can tell she just tunes them out. Reminds me of Tracy.” He grimaced.
Tracy is Dwayne’s niece. And yes, she is a piece of work. Luckily, she lives in Seattle and neither Dwayne nor I have seen her since a spectacularly horrible few weeks last summer.
“But she’s protective of the younger sister. When she thinks of it, anyway.”
“This is a family problem between Mr. and Mrs. Rebel Yell—the Wilsons—and their two daughters. Not for me to get involved.”
“You’re good with teenagers.”
“Do you hear yourself?” He reached for the binoculars again, but I snatched them away from him. “So help me God, Dwayne. I can’t have you look through these one more time. Now, what did you mean by that? I’m not good with teenagers.”
“They’re your best sources of information. I wish I had your gift,” he said, and with a muscular twist from his deceptively relaxed position, he grabbed my arm and the binoculars and wrested them from me. “Steal a cripple’s binoculars,” he muttered.
He was lucky I didn’t smack him alongside
the head with them. No one makes me want to act infantile quicker than Dwayne Durbin. It’s like a bad sitcom where you just know the man and woman are going to get together because they’re either acting like they’re going to throttle each other, or they’re goofily trying to one-up the other, or they’re each trying to set the other one up with their best friend with hilarious results.
Half the time I cannot believe my own embarrassing thoughts.
Dwayne’s blue eyes assessed me. “No witty comeback?”
“Teen pregnancy? Dwayne, I’d be useless to the girl. She needs to talk to her parents about it. Maybe she already has. Maybe that’s what the yelling’s about.”
“They’re always yelling. If she’d told them, something new would have happened.”
“You’re making up a soap opera. You don’t know anything.”
“She’s been hanging around at Do Not Enter with a bunch of other kids. They’re drinking and sneaking around. Pretty cagey about it, but I’ve kept an eye on them. They string colored lights. Little ones. Just enough to give themselves some illumination, but not draw too much attention.”
“Do the parents have any idea?”
“No one does, otherwise they’d be busted. There are a lot of guys hanging around. The girls seem to wait to be picked.”
“You have kept an eye on them.”
“I’ve had to watch from inside,” Dwayne admitted. “If my leg were better, I’d go up to the attic and watch from there.”
Dwayne’s cabana has a steep set of stairs to an attic whose roofline makes it hard not to hit your head against the slanted walls. To my knowledge, it’s full of boxes and junk, like Ogilvy’s garage.
“If your leg were better, you wouldn’t have started watching them in the first place,” I murmured.
“Probably.”
“Look, Dwayne, I’m meeting with Gigi later today. I met with Sean last night. I’m finally moving on the Hatchmere case. You were right when you said things would get going. I’m busy, and anyway, it’s not my place to step into some teen scene with sex, drugs and alcohol.”
Dwayne said, “You know those guys, the ones who smile and act responsible and polite in front of parents. The ones who lie through their orthodontia-perfected teeth. Who play sports and give talks on the responsibility of today’s youth. Who denounce drugs and alcohol, then get wasted every Friday night after the football game. The ones who lie to their parents and feel powerful about it. Who promise that they’ll take good care of their younger siblings, then damn near kill them with alcohol poisoning the first chance they get. You know those guys, Jane.”