by Nadia Gordon
The light turned somber and the air cold. She went inside and washed her hands. The only item left on her list of chores was the biscotti. She looked around at the silent kitchen and the dark windows. In the mood she was in, Wildside would feel lonely once it got dark, and she never liked the look of those windows at night, especially since one of her pet fears had been realized last year, when she’d looked up during a late-night baking session and seen a face looking in the window. All week long she had avoided thinking about the white truck that kept showing up in St. Helena. She didn’t think about the driver, and how he might be wondering if she could identify him. And she had not been thinking about Dean Blodger, and how he’d turned up at the racetrack. However, staying late alone at the restaurant was a good way to start thinking about those things all over again. It would be much more pleasant to bake at home. She gathered a box of supplies, locked up, and went out to the truck. Her cell phone was wedged in the ash tray. She could call Sergeant Harvey on the way or when she got home, if that’s what she decided to do. It could even wait until morning. Sunny pulled onto the highway, not thinking about anything, not even Kimberly Knolls.
“What are you doing?” she said, cradling the phone against her shoulder while she sifted flour.
“I just came in,” said Andre Morales. “I’m beat. We did 388 on a Sunday night. Crazy.”
“Want to come over?” said Sunny.
“I could do that, if I do it soon, before I get too tired to deal. I’m pretty foul at the moment. I need to rinse the kitchen grunge off. What’s all that clanging around?”
“I’m baking biscotti. I just put the aniseed in the oven, and now I’m going to finish the dough for pistachio orange with white chocolate frosting.”
“Isn’t it sort of late for that kind of project?”
“I didn’t feel like going to bed. You know what they say, ‘Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.’”
“I don’t think they meant when you’re asleep. Is everything okay?”
“Everything is fine. I’ve just been thinking too much.”
“What about?”
“Just fretting. Assorted worries, concerns, fears. You know, the stuff nightmares and wrinkles are made of. I’d like to forget about it all for a while. It would be nice to see you.”
“In that case, I’m yours. I’ll be there in half an hour.”
“I’m supposed to have dinner with another VC in San Francisco tomorrow night,” said Andre.
“Where are you finding these guys?” said Sunny.
“Through Emily, mostly. She’s completely behind the expansion concept. Vinifera has been great, but she agrees it’s time to take the next step and do something that will really get people’s attention. Being alive means growing. You can’t just sustain the status quo. That’s stagnation.”
Emily was Andre’s agent, a tiny powerhouse of a woman who could fit through a doggie door and still kick butt at the negotiating table as well as on the tennis court. Until she met Andre, Sunny didn’t know a cook needed an agent.
“Why is everything comfortable termed stagnation? What happened to stability and consistency? And isn’t there anything to be said about what rate of growth is healthy? That’s how herbicides kill, by overstimulating growth so the plant depletes its resources and literally grows itself to death.”
“I know, small is beautiful. Less is more. Slow food. Do you want to join us or not?”
“What time?”
“I’m not sure. It depends on when we meet. It might be early.”
“Where are you going?”
“I’ll have to check on what’s open on Monday night. Maybe somewhere old school, like Bix.”
“Give me a call when you know what time. If I can get there, I will. I’d like to see what a venture capitalist looks like.” She nestled into his arms and rested her head on his chest. “Are you going to the knife shop?”
“Yeah. I’ll go by there early and see if they can get them done the same day. You want me to take yours too?”
“Would you? They need it bad.”
“No problem. You can make it through a Monday without them?”
“I have my old knives at the restaurant. They’ll do the job for a day.”
Andre was still asleep, resting on his side with the sheet tucked under one arm, when she slid out of bed. She showered and put water on for tea instead of making a racket grinding coffee beans, and watched the dancing blue flames surge against the kettle until wisps of steam rose out of the spout. She took her tea out to the patio and sat in a spot of pale early sun, feeling the brisk air on her skin like cold water. When she had finished her tea, she crept back into the bedroom to get dressed. Andre grumbled and turned over without waking up. Sunny pulled her favorite blue sweater over her T-shirt, grabbed her shoes, and went out to the living room to put them on. She left a good morning note on the table with four biscotti, gathered up the rest, and let herself out as quietly as possible.
While she warmed up the truck, she returned to her thoughts of the night before. She couldn’t put it together. The only solution she could come up with didn’t fit well enough. It could be forced into place, but it didn’t click down smoothly and solidly the way the truth always did, fitting each piece of the puzzle perfectly. Assuming the man Kimberly Knolls met at the Flamingo Inn was the killer, it was still a stretch to see him leaving Heidi Romero’s body at the winery. The threat did not seem specific enough. What did such a grand gesture accomplish? Was he saying he would do that to Kimberly if she did not comply with his wishes? If so, why hadn’t he contacted her to make his demands known? Did he simply enjoy frightening her? And why the winery? Wouldn’t it have been more compelling, if the message was intended for Kimberly, to leave the body at the Knolls’ home?
There was always the possibility that Kim was lying. Sunny put that possibility aside. She was telling the truth, she was sure of that. But did she tell all of it? If she was willing to meet a stranger at a hotel for an anonymous bout of daring sex play, it was reasonable to assume that other excursions against boredom were not out of the question. An obvious choice was right under Kimberly’s nose. From what Sunny could tell about Ové Obermeier, he would be a willing participant in just about any tryst. What if Kimberly had shared her new hobby with him? Or vice versa? Kimberly might easily have left out how she got interested in shibari in the first place. She didn’t say specifically that the man at the hotel had introduced her to the concept.
None of these questions was likely to be answered this morning, thought Sunny, breezing past Bismark’s without stopping. And there were more questions. Why did Dean Blodger show up at the Ferrari event? Was he the one driving the white truck she’d seen around town? Who was this guy named Mark that Heidi was supposedly dating? Why did Joel Hyder lie about having permission to go to the houseboat? And why was he so amenable to their company? He was obviously attracted to Rivka, but was that the only reason?
Wildside was still dark when she pulled into the parking lot. She turned on the lights, cranked the oven up to 450 for warmth, and tuned the stereo to classical music for a lofty, efficient mood. Then she went into her office and sat at her desk. She picked up the telephone and stared at it, imagining how the conversation would go. She put the phone down. No matter how she worked it through, squealing to Sergeant Harvey didn’t feel right. On one hand, what Kimberly had told her might easily lead to the capture of a genuinely dangerous individual. On the other, it might not. It was entirely possible the two events were not at all related. Either way, Steve would inevitably question Bruce Knolls about it and, unless Bruce was a man of unusually expansive, philosophical, and adventurous understanding, that would be the end of his marriage to Kimberly.
Sunny thought about it some more. The root of the problem was that an intimate confession of the sort Kimberly had made needed to come from Kimberly. If Sunny went to Steve now, the conversation would be about how she wasn’t supposed to be involved and she should stay out of it and wha
t was she doing tracking down the Knolls and how could she prove any of this anyway? If Kimberly went to him, he would have something real, direct, and substantial to tackle.
She gazed around the office. Cookbooks were stacked in towers on every flat surface, including the floor. A ray of dawn light angled in the window and lit a carved wooden bowl filled with leafy mandarin oranges. Brown, orange, green, all boldly stated. From the top of the bookshelf, the rusty metal rooster that presided over the room stared down at her pensively. If only she could persuade Kimberly to go to the police. At that moment, she harvested the fruit of a good night’s rest, abbreviated as it was. Sleep had done its work. In the light of morning, she realized the obvious. Kimberly would go to the police on her own. She knew she was in danger, and she knew others were as well. She had already taken the first step, she had told Sunny. Now the truth had had a taste of the open air and it would wiggle and squirm until it got out again. Sunny felt better immediately. Yes, Kimberly Knolls would call the police on her own, she was sure of it. If not today, tomorrow. Unless Sunny had seriously misjudged her character, Kimberly would go to the police, and she would do it soon. The impulse to relieve herself of the burden of secrecy would grow over the next day, maybe two. After that, if she didn’t give in, the impulse would wane. If she didn’t crack today or tomorrow, she wouldn’t do it at all. Sunny would wait until Wednesday morning. If Kimberly hadn’t called the police by then, she would do it for her.
She leaned the chair back and put her feet on the desk. “You hear that, Randy?” she said to the rooster. “That little bird is going to sing. I’ll bet my last bottle of sixteen-year-old Sicilian balsamic on it.”
Satisfaction was short-lived, replaced swiftly with new concerns. Some questions couldn’t wait any longer for Steve or Kimberly to take action. She dug in her purse for the slip of paper where she’d written the telephone number, spent a moment organizing her thoughts, and picked up the receiver. Joel Hyder answered on the second ring.
22
He was breathing hard. “Sorry, I was just coming in from outside. Who is this?” Sunny explained again.
“Oh, right. Of course, Heidi’s yoga buddy. What can I do for you?”
“I just wondered if the police had contacted you about the man Heidi had been seeing.”
“Why would they?”
“I gave the investigating officer in St. Helena your name and number. That night after we were at the houseboat, the Sausalito police called him and reported what had happened, and he came by my house about it. From what you said, I had the impression maybe nobody else knew Heidi was seeing someone, and I thought he would be interested. He acted like he was, so I’m surprised he never followed up.”
“Well, nobody has contacted me. And I haven’t even had time to go by the houseboat since we were there. I feel kind of bad about it, since I said I’d watch the place.”
Sunny considered that for a moment. “Can you think of anything else about this guy she was seeing? Anything she said about him that might be useful?”
“You trying to track him down?”
“I’d like to talk with him.”
“What for?”
A few seconds went by while she tried to think of a good answer to that question, one that would encourage Joel to share whatever he knew about the topic without revealing what Kimberly had told her. She couldn’t think of one. “This is going to sound strange, but I can’t tell you. All I can say is that I recently came across a piece of information that might be related to Heidi’s murder, and based on that information, I have a hunch meeting the man she was dating could lead somewhere.”
“Let me guess, you can’t tell the police about this either.”
“Not yet.”
Joel sighed loudly, finally catching his breath from the jog to the phone. “Well, hell, I guess I don’t care one way or the other if you talk to the guy, assuming you can find him. I don’t have much to go on. She said his name was Mark. I know he was gone a lot.”
She took a pencil from the jar on her desk and grabbed a notepad. “What about his job? Did she ever say where he works or what he does for a living?”
“If she mentioned it, I don’t remember. I do remember he took her with him to New York once. I think she said he was going out there for some kind of board meeting. He seemed to have money, at least enough for dinners out and a few trips. They went down to Hawaii for a few days, and up to Tahoe to ski a couple of times.”
She wrote down NY, board meeting, Hawaii, Tahoe. “Anything else? Do you know where they met?”
“I think they met at Caffe Trieste.”
“So he probably lives in Sausalito.”
“Maybe. I couldn’t say for sure. I just don’t know much about him. We exchanged maybe ten sentences about the guy. We never talked much about the people we were dating. I didn’t exactly want to hear about her love life in detail.”
“Because you still loved her?”
“Something like that.”
“Any idea what the guy looked like?”
“None.”
“I guess that’s that. Mind if I ask you one more question?” Joel laughed coldly. “I’ll answer one more, if you’ll answer mine first.”
“Fair enough.” Sunny put the pencil in her mouth and allowed herself the pleasure of sinking her teeth into it, the wood giving way under her incisors. She examined the marks, moved the pencil over the width of a molar, and bit down again.
“You said you used to take yoga with Heidi in Mill Valley,” said Joel, “and sometimes you’d have coffee afterward. I happen to know those two statements are outright lies. Who are you, really? And what were you really after that day out at the houseboat?”
Sunny took a moment to decide what to say.
“Hello?” said Joel.
“I’m here. That’s a reasonable question. How did you know we were lying?”
“Because Heidi was a trained yoga instructor. She didn’t like the style of yoga they teach at that place you’re talking about, and she never would have practiced there. She also didn’t drink coffee.”
“So you knew we were lying even out at the beach.”
“Yep.”
“But you took us to the houseboat anyway.”
“I wanted to know what you were up to. Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer, as they say. Then the cops came and I never got to find out what you were really up to.”
“Hang on, back up. If Heidi didn’t drink coffee, what was she doing in Caffe Trieste?”
“Who knows? They don’t make you drink the stuff. Maybe she ordered tea. I’ve been in there with her for a glass of wine at happy hour. Don’t change the subject. Why do you care what happened to Heidi?”
“Very simple,” said Sunny. “I found her body. She was left near my house and I found her Wednesday night while I was out walking. I never knew her when she was alive.”
Joel Hyder whistled. “That’s too weird to be anything but the truth.”
“It’s the truth. It was a terrible thing to see. Afterward, I couldn’t get the image of her out of my head. I thought maybe I could dilute it with impressions of who she was when she was alive. The only thing we had to go on was she lived in Sausalito and liked to surf. Rodeo Beach seemed like a good place to start.”
“Makes sense, I guess.”
“Now my turn. Why did you lie about having Heidi’s family’s permission to go out to her house? You’re not supposed to be watching it. The police told me her father doesn’t even know who you are.”
“You mind hanging on a second while I get a cup of coffee?” She heard a cabinet door close and then the sound of a spoon against a ceramic cup. He took a loud sip. “Ah, that’s better. Unlike Heidi, I don’t function without the stuff. I was just brewing when you called.” He took another audible sip. “Well, it sounds like we’re going to air all the dirty laundry this morning, or try to.” There was a pause. “Sunny, where are you right now?”
“Me? In St. Helena.”
“You live up there?”
“Yes. Why?”
“I thought if you were nearby we could meet. This kind of conversation is better in person.”
“I can’t get away right now. Besides, I’m okay on the phone. I’m listening.” Joel was in the mood to talk and she wasn’t about to let him off the hook. If they arranged to meet later, he might not be so willing.
“You have to understand who Heidi was,” he said. “She was beautiful and powerful and gentle all at once. There was nobody else like her.”
Sunny waited, listening to the sound of him breathing. It was the controlled in– and-out breathing, slightly louder than normal, of someone trying to steady himself through a surge of emotion.
“The fact is, Heidi Romero never much liked me. I tried to date her plenty of times. I loved her. I was in love with her for a long time. Like I said before, that’s why I took that job in Japan teaching English, to try to forget about her. But it didn’t work. I came back a year later and it was just like before. I’d do anything to be near her.” He stopped and she heard the controlled breathing. There was a soft thump and she knew he’d put the phone down. A moment later he cleared his throat and went on. “I’d see her now and then at the beach, and we would talk for a few minutes. Small talk, like acquaintances. It’s true that I taught her to surf. We hung out a few times at her place, but she was just being nice to a lonely guy who couldn’t get over her. Once, when she went traveling, I took care of her place for her. After she died, I just wanted to be near her for a little while longer. Sort of like you. When you and your friend came along, it gave me the perfect excuse. I figured nobody would pay attention if we were all there together.”
Rivka didn’t show up for work until almost ten o’clock. By then, Sunny had done all the prep work for the day, including butchering and preparing all the beef, pork, fish, and poultry. Luckily, through necessity and time, her squeamishness about meat was beginning to fade. She was blanching tomatoes when she heard the back door slam. Rivka appeared looking disheveled.