by Nancy Bush
“Sure.” To stay ahead of my alcohol consumption I ordered off the happy hour menu. Some cold shrimp and a salad. In my notebook I wrote down the cost. I was really getting into this expense account thing.
And suddenly the thought coalesced. It was the timing, yes, but I was concentrating on the wrong timeline. It was the Wedding Bandits who were off. From Dwayne’s notes I knew they robbed homes while weddings were in progress. That was their m.o. and they hadn’t varied from it even once while they were running and gunning.
But they’d shown up to the Hatchmere house early. Way early.
Basics from the timeline read:
12:00 p.m.—Violet and Roland get into a fight. She hits him and storms out.
2:00 p.m.—Roland doesn’t show for pictures at Cahill Winery. Guests become worried. Emmett calls Roland several times.
3:00 p.m.—Emmett leaves to find Roland.
3:30 p.m.—Emmett discovers Roland’s body.
4:00 p.m.—Scheduled wedding ceremony. Canceled. Gigi and remaining guests leave.
The police hadn’t said much about Roland’s time of death, but Violet told me she hit him around noon, so it had to be sometime around there. Therefore, Roland must have died at noon or shortly after. The Wedding Bandits must have burgled the house after noon, when Violet left, and before three-thirty, when Emmett arrived. But the wedding was scheduled for four.
Based on their m.o., they would not have arrived at Roland’s house any earlier than three-thirty. They always robbed the homes during the scheduled ceremony.
Always.
Yet, this time they were early. Why?
What was different?
I gave it some thought, rolling the idea around in my head.
Had the Wedding Bandits known Roland was supposed to be at pictures at two? Had they received inside information? Giving them more time to rob the place blind?
Inside information…from the man or woman who was their leader? The one who’d apparently quit the team after Roland’s death? Leaving them to their own devices…?
Who was this person who had access to addresses, finances?
I wondered if Larrabee, who’d brought up the inside man, had an idea and just hadn’t shared it.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I was booked on a 1:00 p.m. flight the next day and had thoughts of sleeping in when my cell phone caught me at seven-thirty. Groaning, I checked caller ID. An 818 area code, which is Burbank, the Valley and surrounding environs, and it also happened to be where Bart Treadway’s sister, Patsy, lived.
“Hullo?”
“This is Patsy Treadway. You called and left a message on my phone about Violet Purcell.”
Her tone was slightly aggressive. My hope for a relaxing morning grew dim, although I could hear Mom already puttering around in the kitchen and the scent of coffee and cinnamon wafted into my bedroom. Cinnamon what? I wondered. Rolls? Toast? “Um, yeah.”
“Well, you came to the right person. I have a lot to say about Violet. Did Renee fill you in at all?”
“A little bit.”
“You’re a private investigator? Does that mean Violet’s up to her old tricks again, luring men with her siren’s call? I just hope you get her this time. She killed my brother, and if I can help you in any way, any way at all, just ask! When do you want to meet?” she swept on. “I’m in Burbank. Where are you?”
“Venice.”
“Well, that’s perfect. I’m heading to San Clemente this afternoon, so I’ll be shooting right by you. I’ll come your way. Maybe have lunch?”
I perked up. If anyone offers to come your way in the Greater Los Angeles area, it’s a gift. “I have a flight at one. Could we meet around eleven?”
“Do you have somewhere in mind? Oh, wait. How about Encounter?”
Encounter is the mod, Lava Lamp–motifed restaurant situated in the spaceshiplike structure that is the symbol of Los Angeles International Airport. It has a futuristic nightclub feel any hour of the day.
“I’ll be there.”
It was cinnamon English muffins, black coffee and fresh tangerine slices. I made appreciative noises around mouthfuls. Today was one of those days when I can scarcely believe my luck: breakfast and lunch. Many mornings I’m relegated to coffee and Chap Stick.
Mom was disappointed that I was leaving so soon. She really wanted me to stay, but it wasn’t going to work right now. As she drove me to the airport I promised again that I would come back and see her soon. She’d made noise about Thanksgiving, but she’d been invited to a friend’s home, so I skated on that one.
I strapped my purse atop my roller bag as I headed up the elevator to the restaurant. Encounter feels like it’s got its tongue planted very firmly in its cheek. It turned out eleven o’clock was as early as it opened, and I was led to a window seat for two, where I looked out at the hazy gray sky and the buildings and ramps and vehicles that make up Los Angeles International Airport. Inside, Encounter’s Lava Lamps were in full swing and I watched as a purple blob goopily separated into several smaller blobs within the lamp’s clear liquid.
I text-messaged Larrabee again, just for the hell of it.
don’t leave me hanging. jk
Probably wouldn’t do any good. People might not be calling me, but good old Jane was standing by, cell phone at the ready.
I pegged Patsy Treadway as soon as she stepped off the elevator. There were four arriving guests, two gentlemen in business suits, a woman in a simple green dress and sensible pumps and a middle-aged woman in a caftan. Had to be Patsy. Her hair was long, gray and wavy, and looked like it could catch and pull in the oversized hammered silver chandelier earrings that hung to her shoulders. She had that “life is serious, so don’t laugh” and “I won’t drink pasteurized milk” look. I tried to imagine Violet married to this woman’s brother and failed. Sexual chemistry is a strange and incomprehensible thing.
She picked me out as well. I lifted a hand to indicate she was right and she said a word to the maitre d’ and came directly to my table. She wore sandals that looked as if they’d been bought in Nazareth. I began to rethink my dreams of a BLT for lunch, afraid I might get the evil eye. But I’d be damned if I went for the alfalfa sprouts. Can’t do it.
“Hello, I’m Patsy,” she said, holding out a hand. Her nails were short and devoid of any kind of polish. Once in a great while I do the girly thing and get a manicure, but there was something so intimidating about her I wanted to curl my nails up and hide them, just because they looked more feminine.
“Jane Kelly.”
We assessed each other. She said, “I hope Violet will finally get what’s coming to her.”
“Renee gave me some background on your brother’s death, but she thought I should hear it from you.”
Patsy nodded vigorously, waving a hand in front of her face as her skin grew red and blotchy. “Hot flashes,” she said by way of explanation. “That’s why I’m going to San Clemente. A famous herbalist lives there.”
“Ah.”
She then launched into the tale of Bart and Violet, with a lot of Patsy thrown in, and how Violet was the root of all evil, Satan herself, a gold digger, a murderess, a liar and a fraud.
I listened, but my hunch about her proved true: I didn’t really learn anything new on the Bart Treadway death. Violet left him while they were hiking and he fell off a cliff and died. I tried to get to the timing of the whole thing. Did Patsy think Violet pushed him? Was that why Violet should be brought to justice? But Patsy couldn’t be pinned down with specifics, and I got the feeling there was a large enough gap between the time Violet left Bart and he died that it was clear it was an accident. Throughout our lunch Patsy tried her damnedest to ignore the facts and convince me with rhetoric, but as I ate my chicken Caesar salad and listened I realized I was hearing an age-old, vitriolic song that had become lore in Patsy Treadway’s world but didn’t amount to much in mine.
While she talked, I compared Patsy to Violet. The two women couldn’t have been mor
e different, even though they were probably close in age. Patsy had called Violet a siren, and that was apt. Patsy herself was an earth mother.
About the time she wound down, our waiter brought our bill. She was very specific about what she owed and what I did. I watched her add, calculate and cipher several times. She told me my bill and how much to tip. I did as I was told.
As we got up to leave, she said, “I always thought there would be enough money, but that didn’t happen. Violet got it all.”
Violet? She must have read the confusion on my face, because she said, “Oh yes. She got away with murder and my inheritance, too.” I watched another hot flash pinken her flesh and cause tiny beads of perspiration to form around her lips. I let her catch the elevator by herself, pretending I’d forgotten something at the table. In reality I just needed some time alone to think.
Could I believe Patsy? Was this another one of Violet’s lies? She’d said she hadn’t really profited from her divorces…but then this wasn’t a divorce.
When I got off the plane in Portland it was just after three. I switched on my cell phone and learned I had two messages. One was from Sharona, returning my call. Took her long enough, I thought uncharitably. She’d probably already talked to Booth. The second was from David Popparockskill. In a stiff, rod-up-his-ass voice he said, “This is David Popparockskill. We got your message. This has been a trying time for all of us, as I’m sure you know. I’ve discussed this with Emmett and I don’t believe there’s anything more we can do to help you. My wife and I believe in leaving the matter to the police. Any further inquiries should be directed to them. Thank you.”
I made a big raspberry sound aloud on the airport parking bus as I was driven through the Portland rain to my car. A young couple with a baby turned their shoulder to me, afraid to look me in the eye. The baby, however, stared at me over the father’s shoulder, eyes wide and vacant. I made a couple of ugly faces and the baby stuck its thumb in its mouth and sucked for all it was worth. Kind of like popcorn at a movie. The mom looked at me over the child’s head and whispered something to the father. She pulled the baby down and cuddled it close. I was gratified when it fussed and bobbed and tried to look at me again. Pretty soon it started into one of those siren howls that normally make me want to put my fingers in my ears. This time I kind of sat back and enjoyed it.
I called Violet on my cell as soon as I was pulling away from the lot, juggling the phone and switching on my wipers. She didn’t answer and I had to work hard to make myself sound as if I were just checking in, instead of fulminating with suppressed anger. How many times was I going to let her fool me? I asked her to call me when she could. Just good old Jane, wanting to catch up on the case. No hurry. La-di-da.
I called Dwayne next and when he picked up, said, “I’ve come across a minor discrepancy.” Then I told him about the Wedding Bandit’s divergence from their m.o., half expecting Dwayne to tell me I was overthinking the whole thing. Instead he said merely, “Hunh,” as he thought it over, then, “It’s an anomaly.”
“You think the Wedding Bandits knew pictures were at two? Maybe from an inside source?”
“Someone involved with the wedding? That doesn’t explain how they targeted other places.” Dwayne sounded skeptical. “More likely the information was posted. On their wedding Web site, or MySpace, or some other Internet chat room. People’ll give away the most amazing info.”
“I’ll call Gigi and see if she posted her information anywhere.”
“Good.”
“I need to talk to Violet again,” I said. “I’ve left her a message to call me.”
“Renee tell you something?”
I recapped what had transpired with both Renee and Patsy. Dwayne absorbed the information, then asked, “If she got the money, why did she go back for second helpings at the escort service?”
“I didn’t think she had until Renee said so,” I admitted.
“Something’s off,” he muttered. “Violet should clear it up.”
I sensed I was losing his attention. “Are you looking through those binoculars again?” I demanded.
“Things have quieted down at Rebel Yell. Maybe Dawn’s talked to her parents.”
“You think I should forget going to Do Not Enter tonight?” I asked a tad hopefully, although a part of me personally wanted to bring down Keegan Lendenhal and his disciples.
“I don’t know.” For the first time Dwayne sounded unsure. I knew the feeling. We were both feeling protective of Dawn, yet we wanted to get Keegan. “The weather’s supposed to clear this afternoon.”
I gazed out at the gray clouds and the drizzle. Fat chance. Neither Dwayne nor I seemed ready to make a decision about Do Not Enter, so I mumbled a few words about needing to keep my attention on the road and clicked off. I had the rest of the afternoon and evening to think about it.
Traffic was moving slowly down I-205. I drove onto I-84 with serious concentration because visibility was low and the rest of the drivers were idiots. By the time I’d crossed the Marquam Bridge and merged onto I-5 south, I’d labeled the drivers moving faster than I to be lunatics, the ones moving slower, morons. Faintly ahead I could see a break in the clouds, a lightening of the gray. I was afraid to call it sunshine, thinking I might scare it into remission.
Once I was heading into Lake Chinook I phoned both Sharona and Gigi. Ha, ha. Big surprise. Nobody picked up. I left messages and clicked off.
I drove directly to Dwayne’s to pick up Binks and was gratified when my dog did her “I missed you so much” happy dance for my benefit, wiggling and jumping around on her toes. Mostly I get to watch her do this with everyone who walks through the door. She licked me twice on the end of my nose as I bent down to her, huge affection on her part.
Dwayne was perched on one of the stools around his kitchen bar. They’re kind of rickety and I looked his way with worry. Today he eschewed his jerry-rigged jeans for a pair of shorts, his right leg thrust forward, the knee and shin visible below the splint-strapped thigh cast.
He swung around. “Feel this,” he said, pointing to his good thigh.
“Thanks. But no.”
“Compare it to this one.” He depressed his finger into the band of muscle just above his right knee and below the cast.
I had no intention of touching Dwayne’s flesh for any reason. I mean, come on. I’m not an idiot. “You losing muscle tone?”
“Pain in the ass,” he muttered, punching his finger around the area. “I’m scared to know what it’s like under this.” He knocked his knuckles on the splint. “I’ll be in rehab forever.”
“Somehow I don’t think so.”
“Come on. Feel this, Jane.”
Because it mattered to him, I stepped forward and touched a finger to his injured leg. The muscle didn’t feel all that bad to me and I said so.
“Now feel this,” he said, guiding my hand to his left thigh. Beneath my palm I felt tense, strong, sinewy muscles. “You see?”
Was he really so dense that he didn’t know what I was really feeling? I didn’t dare meet his gaze. Adopting a sort of Sigmund Freud, stroke-the-chin attitude, I said, “Okay, it’s not as toned, but that’s to be expected.” I turned away and chased Binkster around the room as a distraction. The dog was surprised by my sudden interest and ran beneath the chair to play “the game.” She started whining and acting like she was stuck. Worked for me. I squirreled around with her for another five minutes, and by the time we both lost interest, Dwayne had moved from the stool to the refrigerator in search of food.
I gazed over his shoulder. He never has much more than I do, and it was true in this case. I told him I’d go in search of sandwiches, but he said he’d go with me. I gazed down at his bare legs, and he headed for the bedroom to change into his jeans. He wasn’t using his crutches at all, I realized. Instead he put most of his weight on his good leg and kind of hopped with the weaker one. Redressed, he slammed his cowboy hat on his head and shrugged into his beat-up leather bomber jacket.<
br />
We went out to the rain together, leaving a forlorn Binkster gazing after us.
Not so long ago Dwayne and I spent a night together. A night that did not include sex but did include nakedness. There was alcohol involved and a lot of guilt on my part over the near death of my pug, and I kissed Dwayne and blubbered on his shoulder and generally made a complete and utter fool of myself. If Violet hadn’t come along and derailed things, I’m not sure where Dwayne and I would be right now. His broken leg and our circumspect carefulness of each other has made our working relationship a tad more distant, less familiar. But at least we’re not facing any postcoital regrets.
We went to Mook’s, a nearby burger joint. Both of us ordered cheeseburgers, and I filled him in more completely on everything and anything I could think of regarding Violet’s case. I also mentioned how the Popparockskills had blown me off, and I even told him about my secretive brother’s phone calls and his request for me to talk to Sharona.
Dwayne mowed through his burger, leaning toward me in the booth, listening hard. There were quite a few surrounding booths filled with lively discussions, so our conversation wasn’t overheard. Still, I kept my voice fairly low. Maybe I’m paranoid, but you just never know whose ears are listening.
He swirled the crushed ice around in his empty root beer glass. “Your brother’s working undercover and it’s playing hell with his relationship with Sharona. You might as well kiss that engagement good-bye.”
I reared back as if he’d struck me. “That’s ridiculous. They’re like glued together. They’ll weather this.”
“It won’t last. It never does.”
“You don’t know Booth and Sharona.”
“You haven’t talked to her yet. When you do, feel her out on the subject. He’s already worried or he wouldn’t involve you.”
I glared at him. I hadn’t known Sharona long, but I knew what I’d seen between her and Booth. I’d been envious of the way they’d looked at each other, the silent messages between them. “You’re really pissing me off.”