“She doesn’t have a number,” Loretta replied. “All I know is she lives at the Hidy Tidy Trailer Park, in a rental, with twelve or fourteen of her closest friends and relations. She’ll get in touch with you.”
I frowned. “Is she legal?”
“Maybe, and maybe not,” Loretta said. “You know how these things work.”
“Loretta, I’m a member of the bar association and therefore an officer of the court,” I countered, “and Sonterra is the chief of police. We have to operate within the law.”
“Whatever,” Loretta responded, sounding distracted. “The other phone line is lighting up, and it might be Kip’s lawyer. I’d better go.”
“Take care. Keep me posted. And thanks for the loan of the Lexus.”
As soon as that call ended, I put one through to the Plaza and gave them my credit card information. They promised to put all Loretta’s charges on my Visa, and I rang off.
By ten-thirty, Micki’s restraining order was in place, and I was out of reasons to stay home.
I decided to take a walk and check out the old barbershop on Main Street, see if it would work as an office. I leashed up the dogs and took them with me, praying we wouldn’t meet somebody’s roving Rottweiler along the way.
The route took us past Danielle’s Attic, and the famous Victorian cradle was prominently displayed in the window. There were plenty of tourists inside, their cars lining both sides of the street. I tried to slip past but, since fate is perverse, Ms. Bickerhelm spotted us and came out, sans sunglasses, leaving her customers to their own devices. She looked at Bernice and Waldo with obvious distaste.
Waldo lifted his leg against the lamppost in front of her shop.
“Come in and see the cradle,” she said, recovering quickly.
I wasn’t going to get out of this one gracefully, so I wrapped Waldo’s leash loosely around the post he’d just christened and scooped Bernice up in one arm. No way I was leaving my Yorkie on the street. Hazard of owning a little dog; big dogs sometimes eat them.
Danielle started to protest Bernice’s entry, then stopped herself visibly.
Waldo, who was a lover-not-a-fighter and therefore could not be relied upon to protect an eight-pound sidekick, settled onto the sidewalk with a philosophical sigh, and Bernice and I ventured boldly over Danielle’s threshold.
The interior was dimly lit and jammed with pricey stuff, all of it polished to a buy-me shine. Between the merchandise and the eager buyers, there wasn’t a spare inch of floor space, and yet the shop didn’t seem either cluttered or crowded.
My attention was immediately drawn, not to the cradle, but to a very old painting on the wall behind the counter. It was big, maybe forty-eight inches square, and showed a young matron surrounded by four golden children. These kids had known they were loved, even adored. I could almost see them breathing, and something in the woman’s eyes filled me with a deep, spooky sorrow that curled acridly around my heart, like smoke.
Suddenly, it was as if Danielle and I were alone in the place. The tourists seemed to fade like so much smoke, though I was vaguely aware of a younger woman ringing up sales at a second register in the back.
“That’s not for sale,” Danielle said quickly, as though she expected me to hoist the portrait down off the hook, lug it right out of the shop, and toss it into the back of a U-Haul.
I refrained from mentioning that I had no intention of buying the thing—just looking at it made me want to cry—but I stepped closer, just the same. “Is this someone famous?” I asked, referring to the stunning, dew-fresh mother.
Danielle was back in chatty-proprietor mode, nodding pleasantly to two older ladies as they departed with their purchases in brown paper bundles. “No,” she said. “But she’s beautiful, isn’t she?” She sounded as though she and the haunting Renaissance woman were well acquainted, maybe lunching together once a week, lending each other shoes and handbags, and sharing soul secrets.
I ignored a niggling shiver. I wanted to touch the images even more than before, but I refrained—I had an armload of dog, and, besides, I sensed that Danielle would fling herself bodily between me and the painted family if I so much as lifted a finger in their direction.
“Yes,” I said softly. “The children—”
“You’d never think, to look at them,” she responded, lowering her voice to impart a confidence, “that the poor things would be murdered before the paint cured, would you?”
These little ones had been dead for centuries, but I felt the shock of their slaughter as a blow to the solar plexus. I might have known them myself, and read about them in that morning’s newspaper, so immediate was the effect.
“Murdered?” I looked into their trusting eyes, noted again their plump little cheeks, their shimmering, flaxen hair. It was as if real blood flowed beneath those flawless complexions, through countless tiny arteries and veins as supple as my own.
“I know a little of the history,” Danielle said, with a sort of weighted lightness, gazing at the painting while I turned my full and stricken attention on her. “Or, at least, I’m familiar with the legend. She was a contessa, from one of the wealthiest and most influential families in Venice. Her husband had been trifling with the children’s governess, and one night, after he’d spurned her, the odious creature pitched all four of those babies into a canal. Three of them drowned, and one was rescued by a servant, only to contract some sort of virulent fever and die a few weeks later. The governess was sentenced to burn at the stake for the crime—but someone helped her escape.”
I shuddered, barely registering the word “escape.” My mind was full of horrific images. “Awful,” I said. “What happened to the children, I mean. And the idea of burning someone at the stake—”
I was too choked up to go on.
Danielle turned and looked into my face, and I noticed that her eyes were gray and oddly opaque. She might as well have been wearing the signature sunglasses. “She deserved to die a horrible death, wouldn’t you say?”
Naturally, I didn’t condone what the governess had done, but I was, after all, a defense attorney. The woman must have been demented to murder those kids, but did anyone “deserve” such a hideous, agonizing death? “No,” I said hesitantly. And then again, more strongly, “No.”
“Four innocent children died,” Danielle said evenly.
I shook my head. “There is such a thing as mercy,” I reasoned.
“Did she show them mercy? They must have been terrified. Imagine being betrayed by someone you trusted—water slowly filling your lungs—the darkness closing around you as the weight of your clothes pulls you under—”
It was almost as though Danielle were weaving a spell. For a moment, I felt as though I had been cast into a canal, in the depths of some starless night. I fought my way to the surface, back to a bright winter morning in southern Arizona, where the sun was shining and the air was fresh and there were flowers nodding in people’s yards.
“She must have been insane,” I said firmly, and I wondered why Danielle would want to have the painting around at all, when it clearly reminded her of something so tragic, and that was when I picked up on a fact that had been jumping down in the back of my head, trying to get my conscious attention. “You’re Bobby Ray Lombard’s sister,” I recalled aloud.
She blinked. “Step sister,” she clarified, and had the decency to blush.
“Have you bailed him out yet?”
Danielle bristled, though her lips curved into a strange little smile. “Not yet,” she said. “I was going to, but Tony persuaded me to wait.”
“Tony?” I asked blankly. “Oh, you mean Sonterra.”
She tilted her head to one side, examined me with a feline air. Cat, sizing up mouse. “Why do you call him by his last name?”
According to my therapist, it was because I wanted to keep Sonterra at a certain distance, physical intimacy notwithstanding, but my neuroses were none of Ms. Bickerhelm’s damn business. My evil twin came out. “It’s a sex
ual thing,” I said in a confidential whisper.
Danielle pulled back, mentally if not physically. “Oh,” she said.
I looked at my watch. “Gotta go.”
“What about the cradle?”
I glanced at the window display and shook my head. “Bad vibes,” I said, and I wasn’t being flippant. The thing gave me the creeps. Generations of babies had rested in that cradle, and not a few of them must have died there, the infant mortality rate being what it was in those times. No way my child was going to be immersed in that kind of energy.
Sonterra was right. I was getting to be another Mrs. Kravinsky.
“But there are years of history in that cradle,” Danielle protested.
“That’s the problem,” I answered on my way out. Waldo rose off the sidewalk, relieved to see Bernice and me pop back into his dimension. I put Bernice down and untied Waldo, taking a couple of moments to pet him. “Thanks for telling me about the painting,” I told Danielle, in parting.
Yeah, I thought. Thanks a lot.
“The Dry Creek Literary Club meets at my house on Tuesday night,” she called after me, as though we hadn’t just been talking about drowned babies, fevers, and a governess who’d barely escaped being spit-roasted in a Venetian piazza. “We’d love it if you could join us. We’re reading a new book—Oprah’s latest pick.”
I wondered if it came with a razor blade. Oprah seemed so well adjusted on TV, but she must have had a dark side. My first instinct, obviously, was to refuse Danielle’s invitation, but I had Sonterra’s position in the community to consider. It was important for the police chief’s soon-to-be-wife to fit in well with the locals, and fair or unfair, whether l liked it or not, everything I did reflected on him. “I’ll let you know,” I answered, as cheerfully as I could, and hastened away.
In front of the barbershop, I memorized the phone number of a real estate company in Tucson, planning to call for rental information when I got back to the house.
Sonterra’s SUV wasn’t in the parking lot when the dogs and I reached the cop shop, so we made a U-turn and started for home. When we reached the house on Cemetery Lane, Loretta’s Lexus gleamed in the driveway and a small Mexican woman sat quietly on the top step of the front porch, arms wrapped around her knees.
She was a study in patience. A thrift-shop madonna, sans infant.
“You must be Esperanza,” I said, opening the gate and letting the dogs off their leashes. They ran to the visitor, sniffed her cheap but dazzlingly white sneakers, and dashed off to chase each other through the fragrant grass.
Without giving an immediate answer, she stood, smoothing the skirt of her simple cotton dress, oft-washed, neatly ironed, and probably homemade, her glossy black hair tamed into a thick braid resting over her left shoulder and reaching past her waist. Presently, she smiled and gave a shy nod of acknowledgment and greeting, but said nothing.
While I marveled at the speed of Loretta’s personal network, another part of my brain took Esperanza’s measure. Hardly bigger than a child, she could have been any age between twenty-five and seventy. While her manner was diffident, I sensed a vast, almost elemental dignity behind it, and that made me like her instantly.
“I’m Clare Westbrook,” I said, approaching and putting out my hand.
She shook it readily, her grip firm. I was a head taller, and still street-kid strong, despite years of relatively easy living—if you don’t count the numerous attempts on my life—but I figured she could have forced me to my knees if she wanted. “Esperanza Lopez,” she replied. “My cousin Rosa sent word that you wish for a housekeeper. I can clean and cook.” She’d left her white vinyl purse on the step. It was tiny, the kind of beruffled, fussy thing little girls carry at Easter, and Esperanza was probably not its original owner. “I have green card,” she added hurriedly, and opened the purse. She brought out a rosary, a pack of Juicy Fruit, and a pristine pair of gloves, before she produced the documentation.
I examined the card—which, for the record, isn’t actually green—but that was a formality. I liked Esperanza Lopez, and the instant she’d said she was legal, I’d decided to hire her.
I smiled as I handed back the card. “When can you start?”
Esperanza beamed with delighted relief, her hands trembling as she hastily returned her belongings to the purse. “Anytime,” she said.
“Great. Come inside, and I’ll show you around.”
I noticed that Esperanza crossed herself as she stepped over the threshold ahead of me, but I didn’t really register the gesture. I bent to retrieve the keys to Loretta’s car, which had been pushed through the mail slot in the door, and Waldo and Bernice ducked in after us.
I gave Esperanza the tour, and we finished in the kitchen, where I put on a fresh pot of coffee. We came to terms quickly; she would live out, and start on Monday morning, at nine o’clock. It was only after she’d gone that it occurred to me to wonder how Sonterra would react to the news that we now had a housekeeper.
Since he wouldn’t be paying Esperanza’s wages, I didn’t worry about it.
I was making a fried peanut butter and banana sandwich for lunch when the landline jangled. I didn’t check the caller ID; Sonterra was due to check in, and I assumed it was him.
“No way I’m buying that cradle,” I said, instead of “hello.” “And Loretta loaned me her Lexus, so I have wheels.”
A short silence reverberated on the other end of the line.
Oops, I thought. Not Sonterra after all.
“Ms. Westbrook?” The caller was male, and probably middle-aged, judging by the seasoned timbre of his voice. If a redwood could talk, it would sound like that.
I propped the receiver between my shoulder and my ear and flipped the sandwich in the skillet. It smelled like heaven, and my stomach rumbled. “Yes. Who is this?”
“My name is Eli Robeson, and I’m—”
Everything inside me leaped to attention. “The Pima County prosecutor,” I finished for him.
He chuckled warmly. “I’m flattered,” he said.
I lifted the edge of the sandwich with a spatula and peered at the underside to see if it was brown and crisp, the way I liked it. “Your reputation precedes you,” I told him. I must have seemed a lot cooler than I felt. This guy was legendary, a courtoom barracuda. Sensible crooks took one look at him, bent over, and kissed their sorry butts good-bye.
Robeson laughed again, à la James Earl Jones. I’d never met the man in person, but of course, with his trial record, he was a regular in the media, so his image took shape in my mind right away. “I could say the same thing to you,” he said. “Masterful work, getting the charges dropped against David Valardi in that computer-virus case. You never would have gotten away with it if I’d been across the aisle.”
I smiled and plopped the sandwich onto a plate. “Fortunately,” I said, still quivering inside, “you weren’t.”
He chuckled warmly. “Obviously, I’ve been following your exploits, Ms. Westbrook, on television, in the newspapers, and via the grapevine, and when Judge Tucker told me you were in the vicinity, I decided to take a chance. I’ve got a rather novel proposition for you.”
My heartbeat quickened and I swear my ears twitched. “I’m listening.”
“I’ve got all the lawyers I can use,” he went on, “and I don’t need any more, but I could do with another investigator. And based on your track record, you’re the ideal choice.”
I caught my breath. For a moment, I even forgot about the sandwich, dripping with melted peanut butter and steaming with the aroma of sweet ambrosia.
An investigator?
Great God Almighty, it was a license to snoop.
“Tell me more,” I said.
The dogs drew near, looking wistfully at my lunch. Fat chance.
I shook my head sternly, and they slunk off to their big pillow-bed in the corner.
“We get a number of cases in and around Dry Creek,” Robeson said without missing a beat. “I’ve got the files
on three or four good old boys, and a couple of good old girls, right here on my desk. It seems there was a brouhaha the other night at a place called Bubba’s?”
“Yes.”
“And then there’s a fish I’ve been trying to hook for several years now. Bobby Ray Lombard. He’s got a record back in Oklahoma, and he’s been up on assault charges several times since he decided to honor Pima County with his presence. Somehow, he always manages to slip through the net. I’d like you to get the goods on him, Clare. He needs putting away.”
Of course. Judge Tucker had told him about the restraining order I’d filed on Micki Post’s behalf.
“I agree,” I said, trying to contain my excitement. “But I’m used to working for myself. I thought I could get back into office-mode, but now, frankly, I have some doubts. I can do the occasional staff meeting, and I’m up for consultations and reports with individual prosecutors, but if this is a nine-to-five kind of thing—”
“Strictly case by case,” Robeson broke in.
Bringing down Bobby Ray Lombard was certainly an attractive prospect; I’d need to get a current mug shot of Lombard, fix his image in my mind. With the authority of Pima County behind me, virtually nothing would be off-limits.
Oh, man, Sonterra was going to hate this. I broke off a chunk of the sandwich and chewed quietly on that as well as Robeson’s offer. “I’m pregnant,” I said, and braced myself for the whole sweet dream to go right down the tube. Women have made a lot of strides in the workplace, and everybody tries to be politically correct, but the old-boy network is hardwired into the system. Pregnant women are still considered an employment risk, and anybody who thinks otherwise is up for next year’s Pollyanna Award.
I figured Loretta was a shoo-in for this year.
“Congratulations,” Robeson replied. “But I still want to hire you.”
I wanted to accept then and there, which was a sure sign that I needed time to think. I’ve made plenty of impetuous decisions in my life, and not many of them panned out. “Can I give you an answer next week?”
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