by Lois Winston
“We’re going to go pay our respects to Robert,” Daria said, adjusting the heavy strands of gold at her neck. “Want to come with us?”
I shook my head. “I talked to him the other day. There are only so many times you can say you’re sorry and sound sincere about it.”
Jim swallowed hard, and I could see his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “I have to get back to the office, honey. Maybe you could just write him a little note.”
“It won’t take long.”
“I don’t know. He probably just wants to be left alone.”
Daria slipped her hand into Jim’s. “Nonsense, this is the way things are done.”
Looking even glummer than he had, Jim adjusted his tie and ran a hand through his hair. “Well, we’ll have to be quick.”
“Kate, you want a ride tomorrow?” Daria asked. “You know how tight parking is at the Gardens.”
With all the commotion about Pepper’s death, I’d completely forgotten about the Guild Wine Festival. “I don’t know, it seems almost disrespectful to go partying so soon after Pepper’s death.”
Daria gave me one of her don’t-be-such-a-dope looks and said Pepper, who had worked so hard on this affair, would want it to be a success. “It benefits a good cause, don’t forget. Last year we raised almost seventy thousand dollars for community services.”
She was right, of course. I relented and gratefully accepted her offer of a ride.
“Come on, honey,” she said to Jim, leading him off in Robert’s direction. “We’ll just say a few words and then leave.”
Turning to go myself, I ran, quite literally, into Lieutenant Stone, who looked as hot and uncomfortable as I felt. But every bit as attractive as I’d remembered.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. My heart was doing a little hop-and-skip number so the words came out uneven and more sharply than I intended, but Stone seemed not to notice.
“It’s part of the job,” he said, with a lopsided grin. “I’m detecting.”
It took a moment to make the connection. “You think the murderer came to Pepper’s memorial service?”
“Possibly.”
Nervously, I scanned what was left of the crowd.
Stone looked amused. “He’s not going to be wearing a sign that says Killer. He probably won’t even look deranged or vicious.”
The idea that the killer might actually have been in the church, might still be lingering about, turned my stomach sour.
“Was that your husband?” Stone asked, mopping his brow with a handkerchief.
“Who?”
“The man you were just talking to, the redheaded guy.”
“No, he and his wife are friends.”
He waited, looking at me. “Your husband still out of town?”
I guess when you’re trained to be skeptical, to focus on details that appear suspicious, you find them everywhere. I could see that Lieutenant Stone was beginning to find Andy’s absence puzzling. Maybe he even thought Andy killed Pepper and then skipped town. That would make me an accomplice or a dope, and I didn’t like to think of myself as either.
“He’s in Europe,” I explained. “He’s been gone for over a month.” Pretty hard to kill someone when you’re six thousand miles away.
“Long trip.”
“We’re separated.” Sort of, I added silently. It was the first time I’d actually used that word, “separated,” and it seemed to hang in the air calling attention to itself. It reminded me of the first times I’d said “my husband” and “my daughter,” only on those occasions I’d let myself dwell on the significance of the words.
Stone nodded and then rocked forward slightly, cutting the distance between us in half. “That’s rough,” he said. Not sympathy exactly, but a statement etched with kindness. He threw me a quick, curious look, then straightened and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Did you get a chance to look over Pepper’s room?”
Decision time. I hadn’t yet made up my mind what to tell him. In fact, since I hadn’t expected to run into him, I’d sort of put the whole thing out of my mind for a while.
“I checked the bedroom and looked through her things,” I explained, feeling my way as I went, “but I didn’t find anything that would help you identify the killer.”
Something about my manner must have given me away because Stone grew suddenly stern.
“Look,” he said, “if you found anything that gave you pause, you’d better tell me. This is murder, not some nice parlor game.”
His tone irritated me. I was well aware that murder wasn’t a game. Pepper was my friend, after all, not just some corpse the way she was to Stone. But that was also the problem. Her affair might have nothing to do with her murder, yet if I told Stone about it, there would be a big hunt to locate her lover and a lot of people would be hurt, including Robert.
“We found her jewelry,” Stone said. “And her wallet. They were in the Dumpster at the end of the street, in front of that house that’s being remodeled.”
I knew the house. I even knew the Dumpster, it blocked my view of traffic on the cross street, but I didn’t understand what he was getting at. “Well, that’s something at least,” I offered.
“Yes, it is. It means burglary wasn’t a motive.”
“How’s that?”
He looked at me through half-closed lids. “You don’t break into a house and steal something, only to toss it in the garbage on your way out.”
“Maybe the thief was after more than costume jewelry. When he found out what he’d taken wasn’t her good stuff, he got rid of it.”
“How do you know it wasn’t?” he asked sharply.
“Robert told me.”
I couldn’t read the expression on Stone’s face. Something between irritation and displeasure. But he passed it off quickly.
“This stuff may not compare to the crown jewels,” he said, “but it’s not the sort of thing you pick up at Kmart either. All told it’s probably worth a couple thousand. Besides, the credit cards and money were still in her wallet, nearly three hundred dollars cash.”
“I see.” Slowly, I was beginning to see. And it left me weak in the knees. “You think someone was actually out to get Pepper?”
“It’s possible. And he went to the effort of making it look like a burglary in order to throw us off.”
“But why would anybody want to kill Pepper?”
“If I knew that, I certainly wouldn’t be standing here talking to you.” Catching my eye, he smiled then. “Pleasant as your company is.”
My heart, which seemed able at this point to take a discussion of Pepper’s death in stride, danced another little jig when the smile registered. The magnetic quality to it made rational thought almost impossible. Still, I tried to weigh my choices. I certainly didn’t want Pepper’s killer to go free.
“Are you . . . when you handle an investigation, following up on leads and so forth, are you guys . . . well, discreet?”
“We try to be, but murder’s a messy business. Sometimes a few of the niceties get overlooked. Why?”
Not exactly a ringing endorsement for discretion, but probably the best I could hope for. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I think she might have been having an affair.”
The notion was clearly not as shocking to Stone as it had been to me. “Any idea who the guy was?”
“No. I didn’t even know about it before yesterday.” Then I explained about discovering the diaphragm and about my conversation with Robert the night after her death.
Stone peered at me curiously. “Yesterday you told me you hardly knew the husband, and now you’re saying he went into graphic detail about his sex life?”
“It just sort of came up. Anyway, I’d say it was more biological than sexual. And hardly graphic.”
A hint of a smile played at the corners of his mouth and his soft gray eyes crinkled. “You do good work.”
It had been a long time since anyone told me I did good anything, and the words
sent a pleasurable, prickly sensation across my skin. “Do you think it means something in terms of the case?”
“Hard to tell, but at this point we’ll take whatever we can get.” Stone took off his jacket and slung it casually over his shoulder. “God, it gets hot out here, doesn’t it?”
I agreed, it did.
“Do you have a key to the Livingstons’ house?” he asked suddenly.
“Me? No, why?”
“People sometimes give a neighbor a key, for emergencies.”
“No, she never gave one to me.”
“How about any of the other neighbors?”
“I don’t know. She wasn’t particularly friendly with any of them. In fact, if it hadn’t been for Anna and Kimberly, I probably wouldn’t have known her myself.” Then it hit me why he was asking. “You don’t think the killer got in with a key, do you?”
“It’s a possibility. You said yourself it was odd that the window was unlocked. We didn’t find any footprints or broken branches outside, and there was very little mud on the carpet despite the fact that the sprinklers had come on that evening. Besides, if you want to kill someone, it’s kind of an iffy proposition to hang around waiting for an unlocked window. Most likely, the window was just something to throw us off. Like the missing jewelry.”
He squinted into the sun. “Any idea who does have a key? The husband thought the housekeeper might.
“Connie?”
“You know her?”
“She works for me too.” One afternoon a week for me, three full days for Pepper.
“She has a key?”
She had a key, but there was no way Connie could have killed Pepper. A lesbian and ardent feminist, Connie’s loathing of men bordered on dementia. She refused to be in the house when workmen were present, and once even balked at opening the door for the UPS deliveryman. The flip side of this was her equally zealous belief in the kinship of women, all women. Men were the oppressors, women the oppressed, it was just that some of us failed to recognize how truly exploited we were. Maybe I could have been persuaded that Connie was capable of murder, but never the murder of a sister, even one as different from herself as Pepper.
“You’re wasting your time there,” I told him. “I’m sure Connie had nothing to do with Pepper’s death.”
His eyes narrowed. “We’ll look into it all the same.”
I shrugged. I didn’t envy the cop who drew the duty of questioning Connie.
“Anyone else?”
“Possibly. There were always workman of some sort over there.”
“What about just recently? What kind of work were they having done?”
“Well, they had their windows cleaned, and their carpets. And she had a painter working upstairs. But the Livingstons have a very elaborate alarm system.”
He groaned. “The husband says he can’t remember whether or not the alarm was set that night when he got home.”
“Can’t remember?”
Another groan. “I have a feeling the guy may have stopped off for a drink or two after leaving the office.”
“It had to have been on,” I told him. “Pepper set it every evening before she went upstairs.”
Stone shifted his jacket to his left shoulder and loosened his tie. He frowned at the grass for a few moments, then asked, “You going to this wine thing tomorrow?”
“I guess so. I bought a ticket so I might as well use it.”
“Maybe I’ll see you there.”
“You’re going?”
A sheepish grin crossed his face. “Part of the job.”
I was beginning to think the city council might be right in wanting to bring in outside help. How could the police hope to catch the killer if they spent their days sitting in church and sipping wine at the Gardens? But then again, there weren’t many real leads for them to follow.
~*~
Heather, our babysitter, was on the phone when I got home, wrapping the cord around her finger and giggling, while Anna sat on the floor eating ice cream out of the carton with a tablespoon. Embarrassed, Heather hung up quickly, brushed the straight blond bangs from her eyes and started to explain. “It was Chris. I just needed to check on a history assignment.”
I could remember what it was like to be sixteen. When an hour on the telephone went by in a flash, when talking to your boyfriend seemed like the only thing that mattered.
I flopped down in a chair next to Anna and took a spoonful of ice cream for myself. “I don’t mind your talking on the phone,” I explained to Heather, “just as long as you remember you’re being paid to watch Anna.”
She nodded, her hazel eyes suddenly serious.
“And I think it’s probably better if you put the ice cream in a bowl first.”
“Oh, sure.” It seemed to take a moment for the words to sink in. “I’ll do it that way from now on.”
Taking the carton from Anna, I replaced the lid and stuck it back in the freezer. Given the small amount of ice cream remaining, and the fact that it was practically soupy, I guessed that Heather and Chris had found more to talk about than history.
When I sat back down, Anna crawled into my lap and gave me a big, sticky kiss. “Heather played Old Maid with me,” she announced proudly. “And I won every single time.”
Anyone who was willing to play cards with Anna, who had her own very precise rules, deserved a star in my book. What the heck, I thought, history assignments were sometimes very complicated, and a dirty bowl was only one more thing to be washed.
“Any chance you’re free tomorrow afternoon?” I asked Heather. Now that I knew Stone would be there, the Wine Festival had new appeal.
“I’m sitting for the Livingstons tomorrow”—she looked suddenly flustered—”I mean I’m watching Kimberly for Mr. Livingston.” She hugged herself and looked out the window toward their house. “It’s going to seem so strange to be in that house now that Mrs. Livingston is dead.”
I nodded. Murder was disturbing enough to an adult; I couldn’t imagine what it must be like for a young person. “Mr. Livingston is going to the Wine Festival?”
“No, to something in San Francisco.”
“If it’s okay with him, would you be willing to watch both girls together? You could use our house if you’d like.” I was pretty sure Robert would agree. We had done this sort of thing before, and it was probably easier for Heather when her charges had each other to play with.
“Sure. That would be great. No phone calls. And I’ll remember about the bowls.”
After I cleaned up the table, the floor and Anna, I sent my daughter to her room for quiet time.
This murder business was beginning to get to me. I felt a kind of raw sadness that wouldn’t go away. I walked around the house, picking up stray socks and old newspapers, and glancing every so often at the expanse which separated our house from the Livingstons’. Finally, I got out my easel and some brushes and went out into the garden.
The setting was one that had captured my imagination from the first day I saw it, and now, with Pepper’s death, it took on a special meaning. Setting my things down next to the old log that Anna and Kimberly used as a horse, I began my own personal farewell to Pepper. Maybe the act of painting would soften the gloom that hung on me like a second skin.
Quickly, I sketched the arbor, thick with yellow climbing roses, the old bench with the lilac bush beyond. The crabapple was no longer in bloom, but that was one of the nice things about painting. I could remake the world into anything I wanted. In early spring the tree had been a mass of greens and pinks—at least fifty shades of each. That was the way I would paint it now, from memory.
My hand flew across the page, making light, feathery strokes. In my mind I was reliving a day in late March when I’d caught a glimpse of Pepper sitting on the bench with a book in her lap. She’d been wearing a print dress and one of those big straw sun hats with a blue ribbon around the crown. I’d been ready then to ask if I could sketch her, but before I’d had a chance the gardener arrive
d and she wandered off with him to examine a lemon tree damaged by the frost.
Humming softly to myself, I was lost in thought when it hit me. The gardener! That was the face at the memorial service. Only he looked different now, which was why I’d had trouble placing him. Before, he’d had long hair pulled back into a ponytail. And of course, he’d dressed in work clothes, usually worn and a little dirty.
What had he been doing at Pepper’s memorial service?
It was hardly an “invitation only” affair, but for some reason I couldn’t explain, even to myself, his presence struck me as unusual.
My hand had stopped moving and rested in my lap, clutching the pencil tightly. Pepper treated her help well, and judging from what Claudia had told me, she certainly paid her gardener handsomely, but she wasn’t the sort to become chummy with them. When she’d found out that Connie and I sometimes had coffee together on the days she worked for me, Pepper had been horrified.
“This may be a democracy,” she told me, in a tone which suggested she wasn’t altogether happy about the fact, “but that doesn’t mean you have to treat people who work for you like friends.” The fact that I actually considered Connie to be a friend, only distressed her more. I couldn’t imagine that she’d exchanged more than a “Good afternoon” or a “Don’t forget to spray the aphids” with her gardener in the whole time he’d worked for her.
But maybe he’d been fond of her, regardless. Or maybe he was the sort of gentle soul who was profoundly touched by death. There were any number of logical explanations, but none of them quieted the uneasiness I felt. In fact, the more I thought about it, the odder it seemed. Unable to continue drawing while my mind moved in circles, I went inside and called Claudia.
“How are you all doing over there?” I asked.
“Kate, how nice of you to inquire. We’re fine.
“Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Nothing at the moment—thanks. I’ll be sure to call if there is.”
I hesitated a moment before asking, “What was the name of that gardener again, do you remember?”
“Tony something, Sherman, Sharp, Sheris, that’s it, Sheris. Why? Did you change your mind about hiring him?”