“I understand that,” I said softly. “But I just didn’t feel the picture would be complete without talking to you.” I could be reverent, too.
“Would you like a cup of coffee, Mr. Samson?”
“No, thank you very much. I’ll try not to keep you for long. Just tell me about yourself, how you felt about your husband’s work, his role in the company. Your family. I believe you have two children?”
Her tiny little smile twitched. “Yes, that’s right.”
“A son and a daughter?”
“Only the daughter’s at home. She’s sixteen. She’ll be home from school any time now.”
“Oh, good, I’d like to meet her.” Mrs. James Smith nodded, once. “And your son? Where is he?”
She startled me by laughing indulgently. “Well, my son is thirty-two years old. Naturally, he’s off on his own.”
“Does he live around here? I’d like to talk to him, too, if it’s at all possible.”
“Oh, he lives some distance from here, I’m afraid.”
“Oh? Where?”
She frowned and said shortly, “Mendocino.”
“The town or the county?”
“The town.” Her lips were tight.
“And what is his name?”
“You wanted to talk about my husband’s work and how his family worked along with him, isn’t that right?”
“Yes,” I said. “That’s right.” I heard the front door open. An adolescent girl strolled into the room. I don’t know what I expected the daughter of Mrs. Smith to look like, but it wasn’t like this. Not that she wasn’t neat, trim, and brittle-looking. She was, but in the eerie interplanetary style of the eighties. Plucked eyebrows, dark red lipstick, hair short at back and sides and tossed around on top, tight pants, high-heeled shoes, and a red leather jacket with immense shoulders. Her gaze was also just another version of her mother’s, cool, with a touch of the robot thrown in for good measure. She was carrying a book.
Mrs. Smith hesitated— I could almost feel the shudder under her skin when she looked at her daughter— and then introduced us.
“Bunny, this is Mr. Samson. My daughter, Bunny. Why don’t you go to your room, dear?”
“Pleased to meet you, Bunny.”
Without even glancing at her mother, Bunny replied, leering slightly, “My friends call me Barbara. What’s your name?”
“Jake,” I said.
“Mr. Samson and I are having a business conversation, Bunny.”
The kid’s eyes went robotic again, she shrugged and left the room.
Mrs. Smith began a monologue about Bright Future and her husband’s theory of education, all that stuff about studying at your own pace in the comfort of your own home. I scribbled in my notebook and let her babble on for a while, then pushed back toward more personal topics by asking about the family’s move to California, how long they’d lived in Chicago, that kind of thing. Then I got back to the son.
“You say your son is thirty-two, Mrs. Smith?” She looked wary, but she nodded. “And Bunny is sixteen. Was your son— uh, what was his name again?— from a previous marriage?”
She smiled patronizingly. “I’ve had only one marriage, Mr. Samson, and I expect to live out my days having had only one marriage.” I guessed she hadn’t liked it all that much the first time. “Bunny was…” she paused.
“A pleasant surprise?” I said brightly.
“Exactly.”
We had managed to skirt the vile edges of sex, though, and that was a mistake. She got restless.
“Perhaps we could continue this conversation another time, Mr. Samson? I have a lot to do today.”
“I understand,” I said. “So do I. Just a couple more questions, Mrs. Smith?” She continued to sit on the edge of her seat.
I asked her how her husband felt about the new sales system at Bright Future.
“My husband,” she said, “was always loyal to his company and to whatever was good for his company.” The woman, I thought, should go into politics.
“I’m sure he was. Mrs. Smith, could you tell me why your husband was in the canyon that day?”
“The police asked me that. It’s very simple. We were considering buying a lot there. He walked over to take another look. He was concerned about the water, the runoff. There had been heavy rain. The lot is at the bottom of the canyon. He wanted to be sure the water was contained.”
That explained why he’d been puttering around up top.
“I think that will be all for today, Mrs. Smith. Except of course I would like to be able to make some mention of your family members, even those I don’t talk to. What did you say your son’s name was?” I’d guessed right. Once she thought I wasn’t going to try to talk to him, she was willing to give me his name. I wondered why that was so.
She stood up and it was time for me to leave. I thanked her and allowed myself to be escorted to the door. She didn’t waste much time saying goodbye.
As I slid behind the wheel of my car, Bunny-Barbara sidled up. She must have left the house by the back door. She was still carrying her book.
“Uh, hey,” she said, “how about a lift down to Throckmorton?”
“Sure,” I told her. “Get in.” She did. She leaned against the door, one foot up on the passenger seat, and stared at me. I started the car and rolled off in the direction of downtown Mill Valley.
“What’s that you’re reading?” I asked, by way of opening a conversation I didn’t really expect to be very productive.
“I’m not reading anything,” she said.
“I mean the book you’re carrying around.”
“Oh. Yeah. It’s my journal. I take it everywhere. You know, so I can keep track of my life.” She gave an odd little laugh. “That’s what journals are for. Stuff that happens to you. Thoughts. What kind of business you talking with my mother?”
I gave her the line about working for a magazine and told her about my conversation with Mrs. Smith.
“Pleasant surprise, huh? I was an accident and a girl at that. And my brother was an even worse disaster.”
“Yeah? How’s that?”
“I’m the only one in the family that talks to him. My father wouldn’t see him at all. My mother let him in the house once a couple of years ago, but it was so weird I don’t think either one of them would let it happen again.”
We were getting very close to Throckmorton Avenue and downtown Mill Valley. “Why is that?” I asked her.
“Shit, man,” she said eloquently. “You met my mother. My father was worse.”
I nodded noncommittally.
“Don’t you get it?”
I shook my head.
“He’s gay, man.” She laughed raucously. “He really did ‘em in.”
“But you’re in touch with him?”
She turned cold. “Yeah. Any reason why I shouldn’t be? I love him. He’s real nice to me, takes me to movies sometimes— weird art ones— and out for dinner. Just let me out in the parking lot.”
I drove slowly into the municipal parking lot that served most of downtown Mill Valley and the tiny bus station as well.
“I’d like to talk to your brother,” I said.
“Why?”
“I want to find out more about your father’s life.”
“You’re a cop.”
“No.”
She narrowed her eyes at me, thought a moment, and shrugged. “My brother lives in Mendocino. He’s got a hotel up there.” She told me the name of the hotel.
“Bill Smith?” I stopped the car.
“Did Mother tell you his name? That’s pretty good.” She nodded her approval of my expertise. “You want to go out sometime, Jake?” I gave her a look. She laughed at my discomfort. “No jail bait, huh? Too bad. You want to read my journal?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Sure you do. It’s hot.”
“It’s also private.”
“You think so?” She snickered. “Don’t you want to know how I felt abo
ut my father?”
“Yes, but you’ve told me that, in a way.”
“Come on, have a look. You don’t have to be scared. Come on. It’s hot,” she repeated.
“Okay. Okay. Let me see it.”
She handed me the book. Its paper cover was printed in a marble pattern, the predominant color mauve, that favorite of the Victorians. Or was it the Edwardians? I opened it up. The inside front cover still had the price sticker, with the identification “Mary’s Bookstore.” Which was the name of Artie’s neighbor’s shop. The price had been scribbled out. The inscription on the flyleaf said the book was a gift to his daughter on her birthday, from Daddy. It included the admonition to use the book well and create a structure to her life. The message was dated the week before his death.
I turned the page. And another, and another. The journal was blank. I gave it back to her.
Bunny was looking at me slyly, waiting for me to comment on any one of several meanings the book’s emptiness might have. I didn’t. She laughed, dug around in her pocket, and handed me a purple card printed with her name, address, and telephone number. “That’s my private phone,” she said. “In case you want to know anything more about accidents and disasters.” Then she got out of the car and strolled off in the direction of the bus station.
15
Over dinner at Sen Ying’s that night, I told Iris Hughes about the goings-on in Foothill Canyon, and, since I was trying to be amusing, I leaned heavily on stories of canyon residents.
“I’d love to meet Carlota and Nona,” she said, grinning. “I can’t believe Rosie is actually staying at their house. I don’t know whether to feel sorry for her or envy her the experience. Could be useful in my field.”
Iris’s field is psychotherapy. She and Rosie had met the previous autumn. They like each other, and I could see that Iris was enjoying the imagined spectacle of good old straightforward Rosie evading the slithery advances of Carlota. Not to mention possible retribution by Nona the intense.
I laughed with her. “We’ll get to hear about her first day, if it’s okay with you. I told her we might meet her later. At Polly’s. Polly’s is a—”
“I know what Polly’s is,” Iris rejoined. “That’s great. I can’t wait to hear.”
I studied her for a minute. “I didn’t know you were familiar with Polly’s.”
She raised an eyebrow at me. “Jake,” she said. “I know all kinds of people, just like you do. And I’ve been all kinds of places.”
I wanted to know more, but I’d been seeing Iris off and on for months, and I’d finally conceded that there were going to be a lot of things about her that I’d probably never know. I knew I liked her. I knew that she was beautiful in an Anglo-Saxon way that I find irresistibly exotic. At one point, I’d even thought I was in love with her, but I didn’t know how I felt about that now. The attraction was strong, but even when we made love I didn’t feel like I was getting, so to speak, to the bottom of her.
Anyway, after we’d polished off the sizzling rice soup and pot stickers and started on the sweet and sour shrimp and Szechuan chicken, we began one of our many traditional debates. I wanted to see a movie about a forties-style detective; she wanted to see a Russian film about love and death among communal farmers on the Kamchatka Peninsula.
“We saw a film last time,” I said. “This time we should see a movie.”
She couldn’t argue with that. Fair’s fair.
And Iris is a good sport. She shared a small box of greasy popcorn with me, held hands, and laughed in all the right places.
We got out of the movie about eleven-thirty and drove through South Berkeley into North Oakland. The parking lot at Polly’s was full, but I found a spot on the street. We pushed through the padded upholstery-tack studded double doors and were greeted by a large female doorperson who asked to see our identification. We presented our drivers’ licenses, were judged to be both well behaved and old enough to drink, and were waved graciously into the dark, red-wallpapered barroom. We didn’t see Rosie at the bar or at the small tables scattered about the room, so we settled in on two recently vacated seats at the bar. The bartender, an acquaintance of Rosie’s I’d met once or twice at the cottage, glanced at us and nodded. After she had finished making a couple of margaritas, and had rung up the sale, she cleared the empty glasses off the bar top in front of us and asked what we wanted.
“Have you seen Rosie around tonight?” I asked.
“Uh huh. She’s in back. At the show. Cut and Run.”
“Huh?” Was she telling me to leave, for some reason?
“Cut and Run. It’s a band. New Wave. Should be out soon.”
We ordered drinks. About fifteen minutes later, the door to the performance hall opened and a rush of music-high women came through. Rosie was among them. She had her arm around the waist of a pale woman with dark hair. The pale woman was about thirty years old and was wearing a blue brocade jacket over faded jeans, which were tucked into the tops of English riding boots. I thought of Arlene, who would have approved. Rosie looked gorgeous in a ratty gray suede jacket, jeans, and, of course, her passé cowboy boots.
I waved and Rosie steered her friend to where we sat at the bar.
Her friend’s name was Joyce. She had a hot pink streak in her hair and was wearing a lot of eye makeup. I have never been able to figure out what Rosie’s type might be. We mumbled around with the “how are you” stuff for a minute. Joyce looked bored already.
The formalities over, I got right to it. “So? Anything interesting from your end? How’s Carlota?”
Rosie laughed. Iris leaned forward, toward her, brandy snifter clutched in both hands.
Joyce frowned. “What are you talking about?” Rosie gave a brief explanation of what she was doing in the canyon. Very brief and not very true. Something about checking on someone who owed a friend some money.
Then she turned back to me. “Carlota was weird, naturally. She flirted and twitched and talked about how wonderful Nona is and what a great painter she is. And how difficult it is to live as an artist. I think that’s a direct quote, but may not be. Somehow it doesn’t sound phony enough.”
Joyce spoke up again. “Really, Rosie,” she said. “Don’t you think it’s a little, well, incorrect, to discuss intimate things about another woman with… these people?” Not waiting for Rosie’s answer, she leaned over the bar and ordered a bottle of mineral water, orange-flavored, and a beer. The beer was for Rosie. Then she excused herself and went to talk to a friend while we finished our “business.”
Rosie was blushing, half apologetic, half amused. “Sorry. Joyce seems to lack the social graces.”
“Or thinks we do,” Iris said comfortably, “since we’re interfering in her date with you. What the heck, Rosie, at least she didn’t call us ‘breeders’.”
They both cackled about that, and I tried to get in on the peacekeeping mission. “Maybe it just made her jealous to hear you talking about another woman.”
Rosie shrugged. “Who can tell? But listen, something more peculiar than Carlota’s personality is going on in that canyon.” I was dying to hear what it was, but Polly’s on a busy night can be a hard place to have a private conversation with Rosie. She always seems to get involved in a lot of conversational byplay and odds and ends of affectionate greeting. A small woman carrying a large motorcycle helmet came up behind Rosie, hugged her, kissed her on the cheek, and said she knew someone who knew someone who wanted a basement finished. Rosie promised to call her. Polly herself strolled by, her forty-year-old person turned out in bow tie, pegged pants, and a new and wonderfully awful-looking punk hairdo. She put one arm around me and one arm around Rosie, recommended some wine she was selling cheap, and, after being introduced to Iris, asked me why she didn’t see us more often. Then she wandered off.
“Now!” I said to Rosie. “Tell me now.”
“It’s Hanley. He’s scaring Carlota half to death. She says he’s watching her. She told me he’s started using the steps t
hat go past her house, even though the path at his end of the canyon is a quicker route up and down for him. She says he looks in her kitchen window.”
“Peeping?” Iris asked clinically.
Rosie shook her head. “She doesn’t think so. And while I was working on the steps this afternoon, I saw him standing on that bridge, over on the other side of the canyon. He had binoculars. They seemed to be aimed at her windows.”
“Not at you?”
“No, I was a good ten steps below her deck.”
I thought about it. “Maybe he’s changing hobbies. Maybe he’s tired of shooting trees and has taken up Carlota-watching. It could be pretty entertaining.” I treated the matter lightly, but I was not happy about nutso Hanley aiming binoculars anywhere near Rosie.
“I think,” Rosie said, agreeing with my thoughts and not my words, “that it’s pretty damned peculiar.”
Iris, who had been listening very carefully and with some delight, asked a logical question. “Why doesn’t Carlota ask him what he’s doing?”
Rosie sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe she’s afraid he’ll tell her.”
It was my turn to tell about my day with the Smiths. Since I skimmed over my encounter with Bunny, limiting it to information obtained, the story didn’t take very long. Joyce returned to catch the last couple minutes of it. She pretended she wasn’t listening, but she knew when I’d reached the end because she took that opportunity to ask Rosie to dance.
Iris and I had one more drink and went back to my house.
Tigris and Euphrates were sleeping on the front porch, curled up together, and followed us into the house yawning, stretching, and complaining. While I fed them, listened to their problems, and scratched behind their ears, Iris built a fire in the Franklin stove. I made coffee and we sank down on the couch to admire the flames and console the cats for my frequent absences. No doubt about it, Iris is beautiful. Sometimes it knocks me out just to look at her. The blond ice maiden with glacier gray eyes that can flash hot enough to pierce a man clear through. She was wearing one of her tailored silk blouses, a lavender one, unbuttoned just far enough down to keep me preoccupied. She folded her hands behind her head, slitted her eyes at the fire, and got me talking about the case. By the time she’d stopped asking questions, she knew everything there was to know, from me anyway.
Free Draw (The Jake Samson & Rosie Vicente Detective Series Book 2) Page 10