The Man on the Washing Machine

by Susan Cox

  “Why did you leave?” I’d often wondered, and never felt comfortable asking, why he’d moved lock, stock, and barrel from his comfortable Town and Country kind of life to the slightly bizarre and unfamiliar social milieu of San Francisco.

  “Moved here to help you after that goon attacked you, Theophania. Wanted to be near you anyway, my only decent relation. But when I got here, I could see you’d frozen solid, so thought I’d hang around and help you if I could. Couldn’t much, not enough practice. Meant well though.”

  “You moved all this way to—” I gulped. My emotions were pretty close to the surface and I cleared my throat before a tear could fall on my cheek and horrify him. “You did help me,” I said. “I just didn’t realize it.”

  He cleared his throat in turn, and avoided my eye by looking around his living room. “I, er, thought of giving you some furniture, Theophania. Didn’t want to send it over without warning, might not be welcome. How does the rug look? Thought it would be right for that big front room of yours.”

  Poignantly, he seemed to want reassurance. “It looks beautiful.”

  He nodded, apparently satisfied. “Know you don’t especially like fine antiques”—he snorted—“but I have some nice late-eighteenth-century pine in storage. A couple of the chests of drawers might do you for the bedroom.”

  I knew the pieces he meant. They were perfect. I swallowed the lump in my throat. He went on without giving me a chance to thank him: “And I have some more Oriental rugs; don’t know if you want them. Do you like patchwork quilts?”

  I nodded.

  “There’s a couple your grandmother always thought she’d give to you one day. Didn’t know if you … being a modernist … and … well, about thirty yards of old lace. Thought of having curtains made but never got around to it. Don’t care for lace m’self.” I smothered a smile.

  “It’s too good for curtains,” I said, in a sort of wonder at the conversation and remembering the lace he meant. “Plain muslin curtains would be lovely with the pine.”

  “Muslin!” he snorted. “Ah-hem, perhaps you’re right.” I looked down at the floral linen of the sofa to hide another smile.

  I could have a platform bed made, I thought, and use the patchwork quilt on it. It was unaccountable and strange to think of feathering my nest in the midst of chaos; stranger still to be feeling secure about it, even though the branches holding it had felt a little shaky lately.

  “Nicole’s sister said I could have anything I wanted from her apartment,” I said. “There’s a gold-leaf coffee table—” He snorted again, too loudly to be ignored. “It will look perfect in that living room when the sun shines,” I protested.

  He laughed, short barks of laughter, like a seal, and I joined him, although the pain in my chest cut me off in mid-chuckle.

  After two weeks’ absence, I limped up my front steps on Grandfather’s arm, and followed Lucy through my front door with a feeling of coming home and no feeling at all of apprehension or fear. I had glanced into Aromas on the way past, and everything looked the way it should on a Wednesday evening, except that a small pink-shaded lamp was burning in the window. As I peered in, two passersby stopped to look. Bravo to someone for thinking of the light, I thought.

  Business was good, according to Haruto’s daily telephone reports. Probably boosted by curiosity seekers, he’d said disapprovingly. I told him to take advantage of it while it lasted; we needed the money. It wasn’t true of course; I didn’t need the money. Or the store for that matter. Perhaps Haruto would like to take it on as part-owner. First, I’d have to tell him about my past. I was sick of secrets.

  I went to the bedroom to leave my jacket and Grandfather followed with my small suitcase. Lucy’s nails didn’t click on the floor because there was an Oriental runner in the hallway glowing with dark reds and gold. She ran ahead of me into the bedroom and I heard her jump onto the bed. I stopped in the doorway and looked in at a room vastly changed from the bare place it had been. The pine chests of drawers were against one wall; a patchwork quilt was folded at the foot of a new bed. I had new feather pillows. There was a large vase of red tulips on one of the chests.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said, almost overwhelmed, and kissed his cheek.

  “I, er, had help,” he said. I watched him secretly as I put my jacket away. His long nose quivered with amusement and he looked pleased with the success of his surprise. He was dressed in what he would no doubt consider casual clothes, which included the navy blue cashmere blazer and a regimental silk tie. His face looked less forbidding, as if he had given himself permission to relax. Or perhaps, I thought with unexpected insight, I had.

  He made his way to the front of the flat saying something about tea and left me alone. I glanced down at the garden. The police barrier tapes had been removed; the broken roses had been pruned and repaired, with freshly turned soil heaped around their roots; a young woman was pushing a child on a swing. Professor D’Allessio crossed the garden at a slow walk using his hoe as a cane and as I watched, swiped at a weed daring to sprout in his path. He looked up, saw me, and raised the hoe in salute. I smiled and waved. There had been a lot of healing done while I was away, I reflected.

  A white phalaenopsis orchid sat on the bathroom counter in a basket of moss. I ran a comb through my hair at the mirror. It was longer, and showing a tendency to break into waves at the sides. My face was thinner and there were shadows under my eyes. My ribs still hurt, but I wasn’t convinced that the pain was making me so pale. I wished Ben had tried to contact me. Not that I would have talked to him anyway, I reminded myself. I could still almost taste my disillusionment. It was not sweet. And I still had no idea what was on that damn computer disk.

  I pinched my cheeks to give them some color. “Did Davie help with the furniture?” I said to Grandfather as I passed the kitchen.

  “And me,” Ben said, unfolding himself from his perch on a pine trunk in the living room.

  I stopped dead and caught my breath. My confusion was magnified by his dark striped suit, white shirt, and dark tie. For a moment, he was an intricate piece of parquetry—the theft of the computer disk notched into his inexplicable reappearance the night he helped apprehend Helga, which fitted into a clear vision of him naked in my living room. And which was he? A social worker in black leather? Or a lawyer in pinstripes? The scar over his eyebrow still produced a permanent frown. He moved his head and a flash of light glinted in his ear from the pirate earring.

  “I don’t believe you two were ever formally introduced,” he said. His expression was guarded as he turned to someone in the shadows at the far end of the room. “Charlie, this is Ms. Theophania Bogart. Theo, meet Charlie O’Brien.”

  And sure enough, there, absurdly, was Charlie O’Brien: mild-mannered accountant; the man on the washing machine; Nicole’s uncle and partner in crime. He shyly bobbed his head. I stared at him wordlessly, too staggered to do anything else.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Charlie O’Brien wiped his hands on the knees of his slacks and said nervously: “I guess I’d better fill you in.”

  “I don’t think so!” I said angrily. “What the hell are you even doing here?”

  He looked over at Ben, who simply said to me, “Trust me. Listen for a few minutes.”

  “Trust you!” I said incredulously, and then threw up my hands. “Fine! Why the hell not?”

  Grandfather came to roost on the hearth; Ben was on the pine trunk, his hands linked around one knee; Charlie O’Brien was cross-legged on the carpet; Lucy lay on her back next to him wearing a blissful expression as he rhythmically rubbed her tummy. I sat on one of the folding chairs brought in from the dining room. Like story time in the seraglio, I thought.

  “Go on, Charlie,” Ben said.

  The gentle tone of his voice was a minor shock. How the hell had they gotten so chummy?

  Charlie nodded and then looked at Grandfather and me. “Me and Nicole and Derek and Tim Callahan knew each other from years ago. I never
liked Derek much but Nicole thought he was okay. He was always into this Oriental medicine and cures for this and that, and he and Nicole got to talking about how much it all cost and anyway, he somehow arranged to get the stuff smuggled out of Africa and in through Hong Kong and then to San Francisco.

  “Nicole picked the stuff up from customs, stored it, and delivered it to the local buyers. She even shipped it on from here to buyers in New York. Everyone was used to seeing her with shipping packages and cartons from your store so it was good camouflage.”

  Which explained why Nicole had been so protective about filling out the orders for Aromas and overseeing the inventory, I thought.

  “Anyway, this was their second shipment, I guess—” Charlie’s eyes flickered. “—and Nicole decided she wanted a bigger share. She put everything on a computer disk—the African brokers; customs guys who could be relied on to turn a blind eye for a price; the customers’ names. Everything. She asked me to take care of the disk for her. I was sort of her insurance policy. She was gonna tell Derek about the disk, but she never got to it. I tried to tell her an insurance policy’s no good unless he knew, but she kept saying she wasn’t ready to tell him yet; she’d tell him if he got ugly.” He sighed. “Anyway, she’d been slipping me a few bucks to do your books—”

  “My books?” I said, and then remembered seeing Aromas on the list of references he had given me.

  He frowned at the interruption. “Yeah. Like I said, we go way back and I’d been helping her and we’d got to talking, so I knew something about what was on the disk. Jesus.” He ran a hand across his mouth. “I talked to a friend of mine who sells these Chinese herbs, see? And he told me how much this stuff was worth and I got scared. I could see all the workmen around this place here, so I came over and hid the disk in the chimney ’til I could figure out something more permanent. I didn’t know it was your place; Nicole never said.”

  “How did you get in?”

  “It wasn’t hard. Came over the roofs from Nicole’s building. The construction guys thought I was an inspector or something; nobody ever asks on a job site. They all figure someone else knows who you are. Anyway, the day Nicole told me she was giving Derek an ultimatum, I had to get it back for her but I never saw her again. Honest to God, I thought Derek had killed her. I didn’t know what the hell to do.”

  We sat in silence while I, at least, absorbed the new elements of his story.

  “There’s something Theophania would like to know, Ben,” Grandfather said suddenly. “How did you know about the shamrock lapel pin?”

  Ben turned to answer him. He didn’t look at me. “Charlie told me Derek came to him that night and asked him for a favor. He, Derek, and Nat took the crates from your garage. Charlie wasn’t too happy, the chump—”

  “Jesus, they said it wasn’t illegal to have the stuff,” Charlie erupted.

  “Which is true enough,” Ben conceded.

  “And I was afraid to refuse—what reason could I give? I felt as if my balls were in a vise. Jesus. I thought Derek had killed Nicole and I was terrified. He kept saying Nicole owed money for drugs and dealers probably killed her. He said if the cops found the crates of stuff they’d want to know where it came from and it would put him in a spot and would I help him out? I pretended to believe him; I was afraid not to do what he said. He says you’re passed out drunk at his place, so we’ve got a clear field. Of course then you and that other guy show up and he takes care of you both. Anyway, the next day I notice the damn shamrock’s disappeared and I figure with my luck it’s in your garage. So I told him.” He jerked his head at Ben.

  “If ever a guy wasn’t cut out for a life of crime…” Ben shook his head in mingled affection and exasperation, both of which emotions were completely bewildering. For the first time I felt a twinge of doubt, but my defenses almost instantly sprang back intact. I couldn’t and wouldn’t believe in him again.

  Ben took up the tale, his voice uninflected. “I was walking through the garden from the shelter after midnight the night Derek buried your partner. When I came past he was scraping the spilled compost back into shape and laced into me for disturbing it. You assumed it was Haruto and it was too dark for me to be sure. I might have recognized Derek if I met him in daylight, but it didn’t happen.”

  “I wish I had realized,” I said to Grandfather. “I feel responsible. It’s all so stupid. Professor D’Allessio was muttering about where ‘the earring one’ was, that ‘the earring one’ had been messing with the compost pile. When Nat showed me the new earrings Derek had made it made me think. They had an important anniversary coming up, and jewelry would be the kind of gift the professor would think of. And I realized Derek was keeping out of Ben’s way; he was never around where Ben was likely to be.

  “I was completely confused. So much of the evidence pointed to Derek, or he and Nat together, and there was Kurt with his bandaged hand—I didn’t, honestly, think of Helga at all until it was almost too late. She always wore heatproof gloves so even if I’d seen her I wouldn’t have noticed anything unusual. I even saw her as a potential victim.

  “What happened to the rhinoceros horn?” I asked Charlie.

  “Nat and Derek drove it to a storage place in Daly City. I guess that’s when Helga took that shot at you. I didn’t know about that.”

  “Trying to fit you”—I nodded at him—“into things wasn’t easy. I never got past figuring out that your nickname was Cob.”

  Ben said: “Um—about that—”

  Charlie looked slightly puzzled. “I don’t have a nickname.”

  I looked from one to the other. “But Sabina said Nicole’s uncle’s nickname reminded her of horses. And you’re—”

  Charlie’s blank expression told me this was all news to him.

  “You’re not Nicole’s uncle,” I said weakly.

  “No,” he said indignantly. “I’m her ex-husband. We’ve been divorced for fifteen years, but we always kept in touch, you know? Her uncle lives down the peninsula in Redwood City.”

  “What’s his name?” I had to know.

  “Haywood.”

  I buried my head in my hands. “Is his nickname Hay?”

  “You know him?”

  I shook my head helplessly. Grandfather’s lips twitched. “I’ll get tea,” he said.

  I heard smothered, seal-like barks of laughter coming from the kitchen.

  “How do you two know each other?” I asked Charlie when the silence in the room got too much to bear. Ben got up and stood at the window with his back to us. Charlie O’Brien looked at Ben’s back with a sort of pride. “He’s like the kid brother I never had, you know?” he said. “His parents died and mine sort of took him on. And later he wanted to go to law school and, well…”

  “Charlie put me through school by giving up his own plans to be a CPA,” Ben said from the window.

  “It wasn’t like that,” Charlie said seriously. “I mean, Ben here is smart and I figured he’d do better.”

  “Charlie called me and said he needed my help. He said something about Nicole, but he was so damn vague, I didn’t know how serious it was. I come out every couple of months for a few days, but this time I was planning a longer visit to get the group home set up. Nicole arranged for me to rent your studio and he told me that would be time enough but—” Ben shook his head impatiently. “I was playing catch-up from the minute I arrived. I’d never met Nicole but of course I recognized the name. When Lichlyter caught up with me, Charlie had just told me he’d been in on moving the rhino horn, and I denied everything, hoping it could be sorted out later. I’d driven him up to Mendocino, where some friends of mine have a house, and hidden him away up there. I figured if no one knew where he was, he couldn’t come to any harm.” He ran a harried hand through his hair. “When you and I found that damn disk the next day, all I could think of was grabbing it in case it implicated Charlie. It was a locked file with a secret password and I couldn’t reach him by phone so I went back for Charlie, found a compute
r to read the disk, realized it was dynamite, and came rushing home right away to protect you, if I could. I was almost too late—again.”

  The front doorbell rang and when I answered it there was a uniformed police officer with a patrol car to take Charlie O’Brien downtown. Not, it appeared, as a suspect, but as a valued, cooperative informant.

  “Stop looking so worried,” Ben was telling Charlie dryly when I went back upstairs. “You haven’t broken any laws—not serious ones, anyway. They want you to verify again what you know about the information on that disk and that it’s the one Nicole gave you. I told you I’d come with.”

  But Charlie shook his head. “I’ll call you later, okay?” He hesitated and turned to me. “He says you’ve got her locket. Can I have it? I don’t have anything of hers.”

  I felt sorry for him. I could understand Ben’s exasperation, but he was difficult to dislike. “The police have it for now. You dropped it here?” He nodded. “How did you happen to have it?”

  “She told me she was giving up the junk. She laughed. Said I could have it as a souvenir, you know?” He sniffed and rubbed his nose vigorously.

  “Her sister asked me to dispose of her things; if you’d like anything else—”

  His eyes lit up. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll call you, okay?” He held out his hand and after a hesitation I shook it.

  Before he and his escort had cleared the end of the steps, I heard footsteps on the back stairs that could only belong to Davie.

  “Hi, Mr. Pryce-Fitton,” I heard him say. “Ben here? I was gonna ask if he’d let me in to feed the butterflies.”

  Ben handed me a key ring. “These are yours; I meant to return them.”

  “Why don’t I let the boy into the shop?” Grandfather said, appearing suddenly and taking the keys before my fingers had time to close around them. “And then I think I’ll be going, Theophania.” He bent down for me to kiss his cheek. “I’ll—er—telephone tomorrow, eh?”

  Davie shambled over to me. “Hi, Theo,” he said casually. “Do your ribs still hurt?”