by Sue Grafton
I did a quick pass through the apartment to make sure it was unoccupied. I opened the rear sliding-glass door, peered into each bedroom, then returned to the living room, where I drew the front drapes. I moved through the daylight gloom with curiosity. Andy lived on such spartan terms that his place had looked abandoned even when he was in residence. Now, however, the emptiness had the aura of a vacant lot, the wall-to-wall carpeting littered with paper scraps. In situations like this, I always long for the obvious-cryptic messages, motel receipts, annotated itineraries indicating where the missing might have gone. The various bits of paper on Andy’s floor were none of the above and I was no wiser for having crawled around on my hands and knees reading them. The business of private investigation is fraught with indignities.
The medicine cabinet in his bathroom had been cleared out. Shampoo, deodorant, and shaving gear were gone. Wherever he was, he’d be clean-shaven and smell good. In his bedroom, all of the dirty clothes were gone and the blue plastic crates had been emptied of their contents. One tatty pair of boxer shorts remained, wild with fuchsia exclamation marks. I’m always amazed by men’s underwear. Who could guess such things by looking at their sober three-piece suits? He’d left behind his bicycle, rowing machine, and the remaining moving cartons. There were still a few poorly folded sheets in the linen closet, one package of pizza rolls in the freezer. He’d taken the bottle of aquavit and the Milky Way bars, perhaps anticipating his life on the road as an endless round of sugar and alcohol abuse.
The card table was still in place, the answering machine on top, aluminum lawn chairs pulled up as if he’d had dinner guests for a banquet of Lean Cuisine. I sat down, propped my feet up on the adjacent chair and surveyed Andy’s makeshift office. There were still some pencils, a scratch pad, gummy whiteout, unpaid bills. His answering machine turned out to be a duplicate of mine. I reached over and flipped open the side panel where the “oft-dialed” numbers were penned in. Of the sixteen spaces allotted, only six were filled. Andy was real imaginative. Fire, Police, California Fidelity, his ex-wife, a liquor store, and a pizza joint with free delivery.
I stared at the display on the answering machine, thinking about the features on this model. Carefully I pressed the asterisk button to the left of 0. On my machine, the * redials the last number called. With a flurry of notes up and down the scale, the machine redialed, the number displayed in green. It was vaguely familiar and I made a note of it. The line began to ring. Three times. Four.
Someone picked up. There was a whir and a pause as a machine on the far end of the line came to life.
“Hello. This is Olive Kohler at 555-3282. Sorry we’re not here to take your call. I’m out at the supermarket at the moment, but I should be home at four-thirty or so. If you’ll leave your number and a message, I’ll get back to you as soon as I return. If you’re calling with confirmations for the New Year’s Party, just leave your name and we’ll see you this evening. ‘Bye for now.”
I could feel my heart thump. No one had changed the message since Olive’s death, and there she was again, perpetually hung up in New Year’s Eve day, leaving a verbal note before she went off to shop for the party that would never take place.
Perversely, I pressed the asterisk again. Four rings, and Olive picked up, her voice sounding hollow, but full of life. She was still going out to shop for the New Year’s party, still requesting the caller’s name, telephone number, and a message. ” ‘Bye for now,” she said. I knew if I called a hundred times, she’d still be saying “‘Bye for now” without ever knowing how final that farewell would be.
Andy’s last phone call had been to her, but what did it mean? A tiny jolt of memory shot through me. I saw Olive unlock the front door, her arms loaded with groceries, the package bomb, addressed to Terry, resting on top. As the door swung open, the telephone had rung and that’s why she’d tossed the package in such haste. Maybe Andy knew the package was waiting on the doorstep and had called to warn them off.
I closed up Andy’s apartment, got in my car, and headed back to town, detouring en route to wolf down a fast-food lunch. The Kohlers” house was the next logical stop, but as I turned into the lane, I noticed a whisper of anxiety. I had not, of course, been to the house since the bomb went off and I was not eager to live through the trauma again. I parked in front and gingerly stepped through the gap in the hedge where the gate had been. Only the posts remained now, the hardware twisted where the force of the bomb had wrenched the heavy wooden gate from its hinges. In places the blast had left the shrubbery completely bald.
I approached the house. Plywood sheets and two-by-fours had been nailed across the yawning opening where the front door had been. One of the columns supporting the porch roof had been snapped in two and a clumsy six-by-six had been rigged up in its place. The walkway was scorched, grass sparse and blackened. Sawhorses and warning signs cautioned folks to use the rear. I could still detect the faint briny smell of the cocktail onions that had littered the yard like pearls.
I felt my gaze drawn irresistibly to the spot where Olive had lain in a tumbled, bloody heap. I remembered then how I’d offered to carry the package for her since her arms were loaded with grocery bags. Her casual refusal had saved me. Death sometimes passes us by that way, with a wink, a nod, and an impish promise to return for us at another time. I wondered if Terry felt the same guilt I did that she’d died in our stead.
I was holding my breath, and I shook my arms out like a runner in the middle of a race, moving then toward the rear of the house. I knocked at the back door, cupping my hand against the glass to see if Terry or the housekeeper was home. There was no sign of anyone. I waited, then knocked again. In the lower right-hand corner of the kitchen window there was an alarm-company decal that said “Armed Response” across the bottom. I stepped back so I could scan the area. There was a red light showing on the alarm panel to the right, indicating that the system was armed. If the light was green, any burglar would know it was safe to start work. I took a business card from my handbag and sketched a quick note, asking Terry to call me when he got home. I got in my car again and drove to the Woods’. For all I knew, he was still there.
Early-afternoon sunlight poured down on the house with its dazzling white facade. The grass was newly cut, as short and densely green as wool-pile carpeting. Beyond the bluffs, the ocean was an intense navy blue, the surface feathered with whitecaps that suggested a strong wind coming off the water. The hot desert wind was blowing at my back, and the palms tossed restlessly where the two met. Ash’s little red sports car was parked in the circular driveway, along with a BMW. There was no sign of Terry’s Mercedes. I walked around the house to the long, low brick porch on the seaward side and rang the bell.
The maid let me in and left me in the foyer while she went to fetch Miss Ebony. I had asked for Ash, but I was willing to take pot luck. I wished fervently that I had a theory, but this was still a fishing expedition. I couldn’t be far from understanding the truth, but I had no clear concept what the revelation might be. Under the circumstances, all I knew to do is persist, plowing through. Bass was the only member of the family I was hoping to avoid. Not that it made any difference at that point, but pride is pride. Who wants to make small talk with your ex-spouse’s lover? I had to be careful that my sense of injury didn’t get in the way of spotting his role in this.
“Hello, Kinsey.”
Ebony was standing at the bottom of the stairs, her pale oval face as smooth as an egg, expressionless, composed. She was wearing a shirtwaist dress of black silk that emphasized her wide shoulders and slim hips, the long shapely legs. Her red spike heels must have added five inches to her height. Her hair was skinned back from the taut bones of her face. A swath of blusher on each cheek suggested high stress instead of the good health it was meant to convey. In the family mythology, she was the thrill-seeker, addicted to the sort of treacherous hobbies that can spell early death: skydiving, helicopter skiing, climbing the sheer faces of impossible cliffs. In the
family dynamic, maybe she’d been designated to live recklessly, just as Bass lived with vanity, idleness, and self-indulgence.
I said, “I thought we should talk.”
“About what?”
“Olive’s death. Lyda Case is dead, too.”
“Bass told me that.”
My smile had a bitter feeling to it. “Ah. Bass. How did he get involved? Somehow I get the feeling you might have put a call through to him in New York.”
“That’s right.”
“Dirty pool, Ebony.”
She shrugged, undismayed. “It’s your own damn fault.”
“My fault?”
“I asked you what was going on and you wouldn’t say. It’s my family, Kinsey. I have a right to know.”
“I see. And who thought about bringing Daniel into it?”
“I did, but Bass was the one who tracked him down. He and Daniel had an affair years ago, until Bass broke it off. There was unfinished business between them. Daniel was more than happy to accommodate him in the hopes of rekindling the fires.”
“Selling me out in the process,” I said.
She smiled slightly, but her gaze was intent. “You didn’t have to agree, you know. You must have had some unfinished business of your own or you wouldn’t have been suckered in so easily.”
“True,” I said. “That was smart. God, he nicked right in there and gave you everything, didn’t he?”
“Not quite.”
“Oh? Something missing? Some little piece of the scheme incomplete?”
“We still don’t know who killed Olive.”
“Or Lyda Case,” I said, “though the motive was probably not the same. I suspect she somehow figured out what was going on. Maybe she went back through Hugh’s papers and came up with something significant.”
“Like what?”
“Hey, if I knew that, I’d probably know who killed her, wouldn’t I?”
Ebony stirred restlessly. “I have things to do. Why don’t you tell me what you want.”
“Well, let’s see. Just in rambling around town, it occurred to me that it might help to find out who inherits Olive’s stock.”
“Stock?”
“Her ten voting shares. Surely, those wouldn’t be left to someone outside the family. So who’d she leave ‘em to?”
For the first time she was genuinely flustered and the color in her cheeks seemed real. “What difference does it make? The bomb was meant for Terry. Olive died by mistake, didn’t she?”
“I don’t know. Did she?” I snapped back. “Who stands to benefit? You? Lance?”
“Ash,” came the voice. “Olive left all her stock to her sister Ashley.” Mrs. Wood had appeared in the upstairs hall. I looked up to see her clinging to the rail, the walker close by, her whole body trembling with exertion.
“Mother, you don’t have to concern yourself with this.”
“I think I do. Come to my room, Kinsey.” Mrs. Wood disappeared.
I glanced at Ebony and then pushed past her and went up the stairs.
Chapter 24
*
We sat in her room near French doors that opened onto a balcony facing the sea. Sheer curtains were pulled across the doorway, billowing lazily in a wind that smelled of salt. The bedroom suite was dark and old, a clumsy assortment of pieces she and Woody must have salvaged from their early married years: a dresser with chipped veneer, matching misshapen lamps with dark-red silk shades. I was reminded of thrift-store windows filled with other people’s junk. Nothing in the room would qualify as “collectible,” much less antique.
She sat in a rocker upholstered in horsehair, frayed and shiny, picking at the fabric on the arms of the chair. She looked awful. The skin on her face had been blanched by Olive’s death and her cheeks were mottled with liver spots and threaded with visible capillaries. She looked as though she’d lost weight in the last few days, the flesh hanging in pleats along her upper arms, her bones rising to the surface like a living lesson in anatomy. Even her gums had shrunk away from her teeth, the aging process suddenly as visible as in time-lapse photography. She seemed weighed down with some as yet unidentified emotion that left her eyes red-rimmed and lusterless. I didn’t think she’d survive it, whatever it was.
She had clumped her way back to her room with the aid of her walker, which she kept close to her, holding on to it with one trembling hand.
I sat in a hard-backed chair near hers, my voice low. “You know what’s going on, don’t you?” I said.
“I think so. I should have spoken up sooner, but I so hoped my suspicions were groundless. I thought we’d buried the past. I thought we’d moved on, but we haven’t. There’s so much shame in the world as it is. Why add to it?” Her voice quavered and her lips trembled as she spoke. She paused, struggling with some inner admonition. “I promised Woody I wouldn’t speak of it again.”
“You have to, Helen. People are dying.”
For a moment, her dark eyes sparked to life. “I know that,” she snapped. The energy was short-lived, a match flaring out. “You do the best you can,” she went on. “You try to do what’s right. Things happen and you salvage what’s left.”
“Nobody’s blaming you.”
“I blame myself. It’s my fault. I should have said something the minute things began to go wrong. I knew the connection, but I didn’t want to believe it, fool that I am.”
“Is this related to Woody?”
She shook her head.
“Who then?”
“Lance,” she whispered. “It started with him.”
“Lance?” I said, disconcerted. It was the last name I expected to hear.
“You’d think the past could be diffused… that it wouldn’t have the power to affect us so long after the fact.”
“How far back does this go?”
“Seventeen years, almost to the day.” She clamped her mouth shut, then shook her head again. “Lance was a hellion in his teens, rebellious and secretive. He and Woody clashed incessantly, but boys do that. Lance was at an age when of course he had to assert himself.”
“Ash says he had a couple of scrapes with the law back then.”
She stirred impatiently. “He was constantly in trouble. ‘Acting out’ they call it now, but I didn’t think he was a bad boy. I still don’t. He had a troubled adolescence…“She broke off, taking a deep breath. “I don’t mean to belabor the point. What’s done is done. Woody finally sent him off to military school, and after that he went into the army. We hardly saw him until he came home that Christmas on leave. He seemed fine by then. Grown up. Mature. Calm and pleasant and civil to us both. He became interested in the company. He talked about settling down and learning the business. Woody was thrilled.” She fumbled in her pocket for a handkerchief, which she pressed to her lips, blotting the film of perspiration that had formed like dew.
So far she wasn’t telling me a thing I didn’t already know. “What happened?”
“That year… when Lance came home and things were going so well… that year… it was New Year’s Day. I remember how happy I was things were off to such a good start. Then Bass came to us with the most preposterous tale. Somehow, in my heart, I suppose I’ve always blamed him. He spoiled everything. I’ve never really forgiven him, though it was hardly his fault. Bass was thirteen then. Sly. He knew about wickedness even at that age and he enjoyed it all so very much.”
Still does, I thought. “What did he tell you?”
“He said he’d walked in on Lance. He came straight to us with that sneaky look in his eyes, pretending to be so upset when he knew exactly what he was about. At first, Woody didn’t believe a word of it.”
“He walked in on Lance doing what?”
There was a silence and then she pushed on, her voice dropping so low I was forced to lean closer. “With Olive,” she whispered. “Lance and Olive. In her room on the bed. She was sixteen and so beautiful. I thought I’d die of the shame and embarrassment, the loathing at what was going on. Woody was c
razed. He was in a towering rage. Lance swore it was innocent, that Bass misunderstood, but that was nonsense. Absurd to think we’d believe any such thing. Woody beat Lance to within an inch of his life. A fearful beating. I thought he’d kill him. Lance swore it only happened once. He swore he’d never lay another hand on her and he honored that. I know he did.”
“That’s when Olive was sent away to boarding school,” I said.
Helen nodded.
“Who else knew about the incident?”
“No one. Just the five of us. Lance and Olive, Bass and Woody and me. Ebony was off in Europe. Ash knew something dreadful had happened, but she never knew what it was.”
There was a silence. Helen smoothed the frayed fabric on the arm of the rocker where she’d picked strands loose. She glanced at me. Her expression seemed tinged with guilt, like an old dog that’s piddled somewhere you haven’t discovered yet. There was more, something she didn’t want to own up to.
“What’s the rest?” I asked. “What else?”
She shook her head, her cheeks turning pink in patches.
“Just tell me, Helen. It can’t matter now.”
“Yes, it does,” she whispered. She’d begun to weep. I could see her clamp down, forcing her feelings back into the box she’d kept them in all these years.
I waited so long that I didn’t think she meant to finish. Her hands began to shake in a separate dance of their own, a jitterbug of anxiety.
Finally she spoke. “Lance was lying about the two of them. It had gone on for years. Woody never knew, but I suspected as much.”
“You suspected Lance was abusing her and you never interfered?”