by Dianne Emley
They were halfway down the dark gravel road.
“I can walk the rest of the way alone,” Lorraine said.
“C’mon. Don’t you want some company?” He put his hands inside the fox and jerked Lorraine toward him.
She tried to pull his hands off. She twisted and broke free of his grasp.
“C’mon, honey. In the bar you acted like you wanted some company.” He lunged at her again.
Lorraine scampered away on heavy feet, unsteady in the high-heeled sandals on the gravel road. He easily caught up with her. He grabbed her again, and she backed into a hedge that bordered the road. He pushed her against it and slid his hands under her dress.
“Stop it!” She slapped at him.
There was no one else on the lonely road.
He leaned on top of her against the hedge. The fox cushioned her against the sharp branches. While grappling with him, she reached her hand down and felt the long wooden handles of a pair of garden shears left behind by a careless gardener. She twisted away, grabbed the shears, and snapped them open and closed in his direction.
He jumped away. “Hey! Careful with those! Someone could get hurt.”
Again she pulled apart the handles and snapped them quickly together. “Yeah. You!”
He took a step toward her with his hand out. “C’mon, honey. Don’t be that way.”
She snapped the shears at his outstretched fingers.
He yanked his hand back. “Hey!” He examined his fingers to make sure they were intact. “Why, you…” He darted for the clippers, but Lorraine stepped out of his grasp.
“Okay, all right. I’m going.” He turned and began to walk back down the road. “I don’t need this shit.”
After he’d rounded a bend, Lorraine started walking. She held the shears by one of the long handles and dragged the blade behind her in the gravel, raking a path in the pebbles.
She reached the bungalow. A Do Not Disturb sign hung from the doorknob.
“Oh, fuck you, Charlotte.”
Lorraine unlocked the door of the dark bungalow and went inside.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Barbie Stringfellow lay in bed on her back wearing her purple negligee, as she had been for the past day and a half. Her lush figure pulled at the seams of the negligee’s sheer chiffon and smooth satin. She had a pleasantly surprised look on her face, but she had always had a cheerful disposition. A spring storm had blown through Las Pumas over the weekend on its way south and had kept the cabin cool and Barbie’s body intact during the many hours that had passed since her murder.
Police Chief Charles Greenwood looked down at Barbie’s body. He pulled a foil-covered chocolate Easter egg from the pocket of his suit jacket and offered it to his assistant chief, Jerry Kosnowski. Kosnowski shook his head, declining the offer.
“It’s the good chocolate.”
Kosnowski pursed his lips as if the idea were bitter to him.
Greenwood shrugged and peeled the foil from the egg with fingers that were as broad as sausages and the same rich, dark color as the chocolate. He popped the egg into his mouth and rolled it against his fleshy cheek, where it made a small bulge.
Kosnowski looked at Greenwood with amazement. “How can you eat?”
“It’s chocolate.”
“Looks like she liked chocolate a little, too. A little too much.”
Greenwood slapped his ample belly soundly with both hands. “Careful.” He walked around to the other side of the bed and scrutinized the body from that angle. “Did you notice that the little finger on her left hand’s been cut off?”
Kosnowski walked closer to the bed and looked at Barbie’s hand lying palm up on the patchwork comforter. Her fingers were curled inward, as was the stump of red flesh and white bone where her little finger had been. Blood had pooled on the comforter under her hand. Kosnowski frowned, pulling together his overgrown brown and gray eyebrows and deepening the vertical folds down each side of his face. “Wonder where it is?”
Greenwood shrugged and began to peel the foil from another egg. “Probably turn up when we start digging around.”
Kosnowski deepened his frown and walked to open the front door. “Stuffy in here.”
“When’s the last time you’ve seen a homicide, Jer?”
“Never.”
“But you’ve seen some bad accidents out on the One-oh-one.”
“That’s different.”
“This is nothing compared to when that guy used a shotgun on himself and his wife fifteen years ago. Boy, was that a mess.”
“That’s good to know.”
Greenwood stood with his hands clasped behind his back and looked down at the still pleasantly smiling Barbie. He shook his head sadly. “Lady, why did you come to Las Pumas and get yourself murdered? Just couldn’t keep driving to the next town.”
“Funny that the first murder in fifteen years wasn’t between some drunks at Slappy Mack’s but at the elegant Mariah Lodge.”
“I’m sure the irony won’t be lost on Mayor Lou.” Greenwood looked at a clock on the nightstand. “When’s the county coroner getting here? Hope this doesn’t take all day. I promised my kids an Easter egg hunt in the backyard.”
“Maybe you’ll find the finger.”
“That’s sick, man.” Greenwood pulled two chocolate eggs from his suit pocket and again offered one to Kosnowski.
Kosnowski accepted the offer this time. “See what happens when these L.A. people come up.”
“Don’t let His Mayorship hear you say that. That’s the new plan. Bring ‘em in and take their money.”
It was midmorning. Sunlight streamed through the window on the cabin’s eastern wall. A maid had discovered the body when she dared to enter the room, not having cleaned it on Saturday because of the Do Not Disturb sign on the door. Greenwood was paged at church, where he’d been singing his heart out at the Easter Sunday service with his wife and three kids, all dressed in fluffy Easter clothes. His voice was a clear, ringing tenor.
He walked to a homely wood table beneath a window, his heavy-soled cowboy boots resounding solidly on the hardwood floor, and bent over to get a closer look at a pair of long-handled gardening shears leaning against the table, their point scratching the floor.
“Look. Blood.” He drew his hands together quickly as if he were working the shears. “Snap. Good-bye, finger.”
“Isn’t it stuffy in here?”
“Man, had I known you had such a weak stomach, I wouldn’t have hired you.”
“It’s about eleven years too late for that.”
Kosnowski walked to the cabin’s rear door and opened it, holding the sleeve of his regulation windbreaker over his hand.
Greenwood looked at a cloth-draped rolling table that held a platter of shriveling fruit and drying cheese, bottles of bourbon and club soda, glasses, an ice bucket, a half-empty bottle of champagne, and two champagne flutes. One flute had been drained dry, and the other held a couple of fingers of flat champagne. Both had lipstick marks on the rim. Greenwood matched the hot pink tone with the lipstick on Barbie’s mouth. The other mark was red.
“Negligee, champagne, fire in the fireplace,” Kosnowski said. “Looks like a seduction scene.”
“And two lipstick marks.”
“Maybe Ernie was up here, having one of his dress-up nights.”
Greenwood shook his head. “Nah. Red’s not his color.” He looked down at the body. “Wonder if a woman strangled her?”
“Why not? They want their equal opportunities. Maybe someone was hired to knock her off and took her finger as proof.”
The phone rang. Both men jumped. It rang again. They looked at each other.
“I guess we should answer it,” Kosnowski said.
Greenwood pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped it over his hand before picking up the phone. “Greenwood. Morning, Lou.”
Kosnowski pulled the sides of his mouth down into a sour face.
“County should be here any minute.
Driver’s license says she’s from Atlanta.” There was a pause. “I know the tourist season is coming. I know Mr. Yajima’s concerned but we’re not turning this over to the county. Lou, the Las Pumas Police Department will handle it. I’ve got to go now. Happy Easter.”
Greenwood hung up the phone and hitched up his pants by pulling on his hand-tooled leather belt, which fastened with a silver buckle inscribed with his three initials. He ran his hand down the shiny, bald path between a fringe of black hair rimming his head. A few strands of gray were woven through the black. “That weasel. He’s afraid of Mr. Yajima.”
“Yajima?”
“The new guy the Kawashima Company sent over from Japan to run the resort. He’s not a bad guy. But you know Lou Fox. Doesn’t want to put off the deepest pockets in town. We’re not turning this case over to the county. We can handle it.”
“Can we?”
“Jer…”
“But Charlie, you need special skills for this.”
“Baloney. I have more at stake than the county does. My family lives here.”
“People would understand.”
“My kids wouldn’t understand.”
Tires rolled on the gravel road in front of the cabin. Two sedans marked with the insignia of the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Department and a square truck with CORONER painted on the side stopped in front of the bungalow. Car doors were opened and slammed closed, and soon the quiet bungalow was filled with people and activity.
A thirtyish Asian-American man wearing Levi’s, worn tennis shoes, and a T-shirt from Slappy Mack’s, the local watering hole, got out of the coroner’s truck. He jerked his head back to swing his overgrown, lank black hair from his eyes and waved a pair of latex gloves at Greenwood and Kosnowski.
“Hey, Charlie, Jer. Happy Easter.”
“Coroner Kenny,” Greenwood said. “I’ve had better ones.”
Ken flicked his black hair out of his eyes again and pulled on the latex gloves. “Let’s have a look.” He walked over to the bed and lifted Barbie’s head back, displaying the red and purple bruises around her throat. “No finger marks. Looks like it was done by a cord or something. Find it?”
“Nope,” Greenwood said.
The noise and bustle accompanying the arrival of the county people had roused some of the lodge’s guests, who were now creeping toward the cabin, looking both curious and afraid. A deputy sheriff was positioned outside the cabin to keep them away.
Ken picked up Barbie’s left hand. “Check it out. Her pinky’s gone. Gnarly. Who would have thought, here in sleepy Las Pumas?”
“Who would have thought?” Greenwood said, sounding annoyed.
“I guess times are changing on the Central Coast.”
Greenwood hitched his thumbs into his belt. “Not this way. Not if I have anything to do with it.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Iris reached to pick up the phone receiver without stopping her work. “Iris Thorne.”
“Ms. Thorne, this is Charles Greenwood, the Las Pumas chief of police.”
Iris set her pen on her desk and leaned back in her chair. “What can I do for you?”
“Did you know a woman by the name of Barbie Stringfellow?”
“She’s a client of mine.”
“I’m afraid I have some bad news for you. She’s been murdered.”
“Murdered?”
“We found her body yesterday in a cabin at the Mariah Lodge up here. She had your business card in her wallet and made the room reservation in your name.”
“What happened to her?”
“She was strangled.”
“Do you know who did it?”
“We don’t, ma’am. I’m coming to Los Angeles today. I’d like to meet with you.”
“Of course.”
“Is there anyone else down there who knew Ms. Stringfellow who I should speak with?”
“Well…” Iris worried the phone cord between her fingers. She pulled on it too hard, and the phone connection crackled.
“Ma’am?”
“I’m sorry. I’m stunned. She was friendly with one of my colleagues here, Art Silva.”
“Is he there today?”
“Yes. His extension is four-forty.”
“Anyone else?”
“The only other friend of hers I met was a woman named Lorraine. She came to visit Barbie about a week ago and was staying at her apartment.”
“Last name?”
“I never knew her last name. She said she was from Salt Lake City.”
“Could she have been with Ms. Stringfellow at the lodge?”
“She could have.”
“Did you know that Ms. Stringfellow was going out of town?”
“She told me she was going to Phoenix on business.”
“When was the last time you saw her?”
Iris paused for a second and lied. “Friday afternoon.”
Greenwood was silent for a moment, as if he were jotting it down. “What does this Lorraine look like?”
“Late twenties, about five-seven, slender, short blond hair, blue eyes, light complexion.”
“Thank you, Ms. Thorne. I’ll be in town late this afternoon. Shall I come to your office?”
“I’d prefer that you came to my home in Santa Monica, if that’s okay. My day ends early.”
“I may call you again, if I have more questions.”
Iris gave Greenwood instructions to her condo and hung up. She swiveled her chair to face her western window. The storm that had pounded the Central Coast over the weekend was heading south. Dark clouds were moving quickly across the sky. Still looking out the window, she picked up the phone and punched in three numbers. The display showed A. SILVA BUSY.
Iris waited, swinging her chair back and forth. After a few minutes, she tried the three numbers again.
“What up?” Art answered.
“Did he call you?”
“Just hung up. Wow.”
“Let’s talk.”
“Yeah, let’s talk.”
Iris spoke in a low voice, her mouth pressed close to the receiver. “Meet me in the stairwell. I’ll go first.”
She grabbed a manila file folder as a prop and left her office. She walked down the corridor past Art’s cubicle, where he was filling in the grid of one of the many sales reports that Dexter now required from the investment counselors. After a minute or two, he got up and took a different route to the stairs.
Iris was standing just inside the stairwell, among cigarette butts and Styrofoam coffee cups. “I can’t believe it,” she whispered.
Art shook his head. “Unreal. Bitch got what was coming to her, though.”
“I never wished this on her. Is this Greenwood guy meeting with you today?”
“Yeah. Iris, don’t tell him about me and Barbie.”
“He already knows you knew her.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Art, I hate lying to the police.”
“C’mon, Iris. I don’t want anyone to know about the money. It’ll get back to my family.”
“They’re going to find out sometime. The money’s gone.”
“I’m working on something to cover it up.”
“What?”
“Iris, just don’t worry about it, okay? I can take care of my own business.”
“No, it’s not okay. This whole thing is my business.”
Art ran his hands through his hair. “What about you? You want everyone to know about your safe-deposit box?”
Iris sighed. “No. It was stupid to have kept that money in the first place, but I don’t want my career ruined because of it. Damn! You tell one lie, then you have to tell another to cover up the first one and then another…” She rubbed her forehead.
Art brightened. “How about this? We tell him everything. Everything about you, me, Lorraine, and Barbie except about the money. We’ll just leave it out.”
“If we do it, we have to keep it simple. So where were we Friday afternoon?”
“You know where we were.”
“C’mon. We have to get our story straight. I dated a homicide detective, remember? Greenwood asked if I knew that Barbie was going out of town. I told him she said she was going to Phoenix.”
“You didn’t tell him you knew she was going to Las Pumas?”
“I didn’t want him to know what happened that afternoon.”
“See, you’ve already lied to the police,” Art said loudly.
“Shhh! I just didn’t tell him the whole truth. That’s not exactly lying.”
“Now we’re into the fine shades of definition.”
“Art, are we going to stand together on this? Because I have half a mind to tell the cops everything. Even if I do lose my license, at least my conscience will be clear.”
“Don’t do this holier-than-thou thing with me. You’re up to your neck in this too. Especially if they find out about the money.”
Iris turned away from him in frustration and looked at the stairway’s unpainted cement wall.
Art spoke to her back. “Are you really willing to risk your securities license over some stupid mistake you made a year ago when you weren’t thinking straight because your friend was murdered? Not to mention that you could go to jail.”
She faced him. “Let’s try it again,” she said calmly. “Where were we Friday afternoon?”
“At work.”
“But I already told Greenwood we saw Barbie on Friday.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I panicked. I was thinking someone could have seen us at her apartment.” She threw her hands up. “This is exactly what I’m worried about. We have to get our stories straight. Let’s try it again. Where were we Friday afternoon?”
“We went to say good-bye to Barbie. She said she was going to Phoenix.” He sat on the stairs. “We said, ‘Bye, Barbie. Kisses. See you next week.’”
She sat beside him. “What if they ask Lorraine?” She started rubbing her palms together.
“It’s her word against ours. Relax, Iris. Just tell the police to find Lorraine. She was so wigged out, she probably did it.”