Time and Trouble

by Gillian Roberts

  Meanwhile, Penny was gazing at the blond policeman with much too much adolescent admiration and reverence, even given the situation. Another dangerous curve ahead if she wasn’t careful.

  “I had a camera.” Penny took a deep breath. “I took a picture.”

  Arthur snorted and pointedly looked at Penny’s empty hands, first the left, then the right.

  She stood straighter. “I left it on the catwalk. It will show you what it’s all about. Not that I knew until today.”

  Arthur, who had been contemplating the graining of the walkway’s planks, looked up sharply.

  “I thought you were having an affair,” Penny said. “I thought that was disgusting enough.”

  Arthur stared, all bravado gone.

  “Sounds like you’ve been very clever.” The blond policeman smiled at her.

  A camera? Would somebody tell Billie for what? Or was this what Emma had warned about?—her job was finished, even if she was left not knowing what, if anything, any of this had meant.

  “It’s about…” Penny looked at Arthur with revulsion. “It’s about dirty movies. Probably lots of them. With a kid. Or kids. I thought it was about another woman. A mistress.” Her eyes flicked over Arthur once again, then lowered, as did her voice. “And my mother was part of it,” she added.

  “She tried to save your life,” Billie said. “She stood in front of a gun.”

  “We should get you to the hospital now, and for a formal statement,” the dark cop said. “Tend to that ankle.”

  Penny nodded, but she stayed in place. “One more thing. He killed my boyfriend. He killed Stephen Tassio up on the mountain last night.”

  Billie inhaled sharply, and felt a stab of fresh grief.

  “You’re crazy!” Arthur said. “I don’t know what you’re—”

  “I warned you—” the policeman said.

  “Stephen went to see him yesterday, and he thought Stephen knew about this. He thought I knew, too, but I didn’t, and neither did Stephen, but he thought we did. So he followed him—probably thought both of us would be in that car, and killed him.”

  “This is a— You can’t listen to her, she’s a—”

  “You’ll have your chance to speak,” the dark policeman said. “Whyn’t you go along with Officer Dunlap there and get your chance to tell your story, and how about you, miss…”

  “August. Billie August. I’m with Howe Investigations.”

  “Emma, eh?” The men exchanged a cryptic look. Billie didn’t ask for an explanation. Nor did they, of her.

  “We’ll get you an ambulance, young woman,” the blond policeman said.

  Penny looked crestfallen. “Couldn’t you drive me?” she asked. “I don’t need an ambulance. It’s twisted or something, that’s all.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Afraid not. Maybe…” He looked at Billie, who silently sighed and nodded. That, for certain, would be the end of it.

  “Could you drive this young lady to the emergency room at Marin General? I’ll meet you there after I check out that catwalk for the camera.”

  It sounded like the reasonable plan, even though it was obvious Penny, shivering and in pain, would have preferred waiting for her hero. But the two awkward sets of people—handcuffed Arthur and his captor, and limping Penny and Billie, who reminded herself that the emergency room at Marin General would absolutely be the end of this—moved along. She wished it felt more like moving forward.

  Twenty-Nine

  Billie hovered while sitting still. Technically an impossibility, but Emma felt the blonde’s propellers whir as she leaned forward, her eyes on the report she’d completed, her antennae waving wildly, seeking approval. The girl sent up a dust cloud of anxiety every time she entered a room.

  But she wasn’t a dummy. Her report was well done. The fancy schools had taught her how to write a coherent sentence, which is more than could be said of most of Emma’s transient help. Plus, to Emma s great surprise, it was short. To the point, with nothing irrelevant or tangential added in. “So the runaway ran back,” Emma said. “Returned herself.”

  Billie flashed a look of wary alarm. Did she think Emma’s remark meant she hadn’t done her job? Jesus, but this girl should be on medication. Had to watch every damned word with her.

  “Wish she really had gone home,” Billie said. “She’d have saved me the need to make a statement and, most likely, to testify in the criminal case. And she could have saved Sophia a bucket of blood.”

  “Screwed-up families.…” Emma patted the report. “What now?”

  “Me? Whatever you say—I thought that harassment thing? I was going to pose as a new hire, or have you changed your—”

  “I meant with them. The Redmonds. The parts that don’t get on a report.”

  “Oh.”

  Billie looked worried again. The girl needed a muscle relaxant, a stiff drink, or good sex.

  “Arthur’s out of business,” Billie said, “of course. Sophia’s got a messed-up set of kidneys. A ‘Be careful what you ask for’ story. She’s going to be on disability legitimately. What she wanted was the cash to live without Arthur and he provided it by shooting her. She told Penny she’d cooperate with the police. Which means she’ll cut a deal. She said he—more honestly, they—made ‘designer’ films. Repping kids’ clothing didn’t pay the Marin mortgage and lifestyle, and Just Kidding was mostly a front for the movie biz. These were one-of-a-kind films and not for sale—except to the man who ‘scripted’ his private fantasy. Sophia insisted it was akin to having one’s portrait painted. A privately commissioned work of art, not pornography.”

  Emma snorted. “Right. The art of pandering and child endangerment and sexual abuse and prostitution.” She shook her head and sighed. Too much of the genius of mankind went into justifying its stupidities. “They’ll bilk us,” Emma said. “I can hear Sophia whining about poverty even now. We’ll sic Zack on them, but even so…”

  Billie looked offended, as if Emma had said something off-color. Little Miss Ingenue, blue-green eyes all innocent. As if she didn’t have a mortgage, bills to pay. “Money matters,” Emma said. “Ethics and adventure and righting wrongs is well and good, but you still have to pay for the gas in your car and the food you eat.”

  Billie nodded.

  She’d show she had nonmaterialistic human concerns, too, annoying as it was to feel the need to do so. “So…the kid, this Penny, you think she can she do the job? Run a house and take care of her brother?”

  Billie shrugged. “She’s eighteen. Old enough. I told her I’d check in with them. Gave them my number to call if there was any problem.”

  Emma raised both eyebrows but said nothing. Did Billie honestly consider becoming a surrogate mother was what was meant by not getting over-involved?

  “A formality,” Billie said after a moment. “They won’t call me. When I drove them home, their neighbor came over and invited them to dinner and said she’d keep an eye out for them. Although with three kids under four, it’s hard to believe she has a lot of free time. But in case of emergency, she’s right there.”

  “Who’s that?” Emma looked at Billie’s notes. “Oh, right. The lad from Nevada.”

  “His wife.”

  Emma cleared her throat. “They have any lead on the people who were in the houseboat?”

  “Depends how good a photographer Penny turns out to be. She only had one chance.” Billie brushed at the air dismissively. “I know I don’t need to, and I don’t know if pure curiosity is a good or bad thing, but I wish I knew more, like how the operation worked.”

  “Well, somebody’s going to be hired to investigate that for the trial…but not us,” Emma said with a smile.

  “If there’s a trial. One fast photo is all the evidence so far. That, and a long spell of furniture rentals. Who’ll be able to verify that the child in the photo—assuming you can see her at all—is really a child? It doesn’t sound as if this is going to have a tidy ending.”

  “Nothing does,” Emma
said. “This couldn’t. The Tassios are going to have to limp on. The Redmond kids.… Nothing real is tidy.”

  Billie was silent for a moment. “How did the Redmonds find those awful men? There must have been lots, because Penny saw a different sofa go into the house every time she was there, and surely there were times she wasn’t around. And the children, for God’s sake—where did they find them? Where were their parents while this was going on? What happens to them now? Or do I even want to know?”

  Emma liked shapely stories as much as the next person, but that wasn’t how it worked. “Your report’s fine,” she said, ending their tête à tête. Time was money, whether or not Billie-girl could bear the idea. They’d already lost the day before while Billie chauffeured Penny to the hospital, to the borrowed car, to the house in San Geronimo, to the bus stop for her brother, and then home. She was going to bill the Redmonds for every cent of it—and fat chance of collecting any. So it was charity work, and now they needed hard currency before they became a charity case themselves. She lifted the thin file folder with the basics of the sexual-harassment suit they’d discussed.

  “Meanwhile, you want me to go online?” Billie asked. “Dig more about Glenda the Good or anything?”

  “Not right now.”

  “So that’s it, then?”

  “Something else?” Emma asked in a voice that wasn’t eager for anything, she hoped.

  “Not really.” This time, Billie made it halfway to the door, then turned. “Look—this wasn’t on the report. I know you think I go on and on, or babble…”

  Like she was doing right now.

  “I wanted my report to be really tight, but the thing is—Penny accused Arthur of killing Stephen Tassio. I know that isn’t our business, but it bothers me. Even if he thought Stephen and Penny knew about the porno business. Why only Stephen? He wouldn’t be any safer with only one of them gone. I don’t know if the police are taking her accusation seriously—there’s enough real stuff there before they even would get to murder, but—”

  “Whoa! Arthur Redmond?”

  “That’s what Penny told the police. Arthur isn’t charged or anything yet, but—”

  Stephen’s college yearbook photo had been on the front pages of the I.J. and the San Francisco Chronicle. Handsome young man, he’d been. “He didn’t do it,” Emma said. “Couldn’t have.”

  Billie’s head pulled back a fraction and she stood waiting, mute as a startled sheep. Sometimes Emma got the sense the woman was actually afraid of her, although it was a complete mystery why anybody would fear a plainspoken, hardworking, middle-aged woman—her benefactor, in fact, who showed Billie every courtesy and concern.

  “I happen to know that Arthur Redmond was at a Bay Boosters meeting that night. Started with drinks at five P.M., right before we reached Stinson, and didn’t end till ten or so. By which time, Stephen was long dead. So when and how could Arthur Redmond have done it?”

  Emma could almost see through Billie’s skull to one of her redeeming traits—her curiosity—as it did battle with the sheep cowering under that milky skin.

  “How do you—”

  “Know?” Emma asked crisply. Damn. No need to have snapped back so quickly. Her personal life was personal. Shouldn’t have taken the bait in the first place. Had to show off, be She Who Knows. “Because,” she said, “…A friend was there. He told me.”

  Billie turned on her blue-green stare again, and Emma began to suspect that it was a device she consciously used, a mask. That she played on people’s assumptions. People exactly like Emma. The woman might be more interesting than suspected. Behind that neutral mask, Billie was raising eyebrows, asking what the story was, Toots. She was finding it difficult to imagine that Emma regularly ascertained where Arthur Redmond had been of an evening. In lieu of that, and given that the two of them hadn’t returned from Miriam’s until late, and even then, Emma hadn’t been rushed or worried—this friend who knew must be a very special friend indeed. The sort you can contact at any time. Or the sort who is waiting at home when you return. Or vice versa. Very interesting.

  She watched Billie’s poker face, masking racing gears and wheels that popped with the shock of Old Lady Emma’s having a male friend she saw late at night…. Was it possible? Could it be that Emma the over-the-hill hag had a lover?

  Go ahead, deduce, deduce. Don’t waste all that tuition spent on your logic courses. Detect. But she’d help, too. “The group has a tradition,” Emma said. “They insult each other as a way of bonding. You know, the how ugly so-and-so or his sport jacket is, how bad his golf game is, that kind of thing. I don’t get it, but neither do I have the time, energy, or inclination to analyze what makes men tick. The group, at least the money it raises, does good things for the county, and the jokes are one of the ways they raise cash—they pay for the privilege of insults. The reason I know was that the night we were at Stinson, Redmond’s joke managed to offend those rhino-hides, and that takes a lot. He was so gross that even those whose race, sexual preference, country of origin, and income level weren’t insulted were turned off. That’s the only reason he was mentioned.” She folded her hands.

  “So who…? I don’t like to think this way, but Penny had a car that night—Alicia’s—and she knew where Stephen was, and she’d been dumped. Of course, Yvonne…”

  Emma scowled. “Of course Yvonne. But the police get paid to speculate about that,” she said. “We don’t.” Far as she was concerned, this conversation was over, and if that was as far as she was concerned, then that was as far as it was going.

  Billie started to shape a word. Emma suspected the word was but. Then apparently she decided against speech and merely nodded.

  The but hung in the small office like a hard-edged modern sculpture.

  “Well,” Emma said cheerfully. “Good going on this one but I hope the next one’s a little less physical.”

  BUT!

  “We’ll read about it in the papers,” she said.

  “Thanks—about my report and all,” Billie said before making her exit, leaving Emma a souvenir, the two-ton BUT! hovering above her head. Emma stared at the window. The sky was slating over again to the point where she stood up and turned on the overhead lights. Presidents’ weekend, too. So much for the myth of its balmy weather. And too bad about Billie. Bright, but she had the marks of not lasting. She’d get all entangled in the what ifs and what thens, be discouraged by reality, and then she’d quit.

  Emma wondered how long it would be before she had to advertise again. She might start a small pool with Zack and George on that.

  Thirty

  Billie sat at her desk, rereading the file and rechecking the clock, always surprised at how little time had passed. Finally she pushed the file away from her. There was nothing to hold her here. Two hours deferred out of the required six thousand weren’t going to matter, so maybe she should go home, catch up on domesticity.

  She wished she could have talked more about Stephen Tassio’s possible killers, but that was a wish for Emma to revise her personality. Speculation didn’t produce revenue, but the dead boy could, and should be given a moment’s consideration. A moment’s mourning, a moment’s concern. Emma’s overreaction was an insult.

  Nor had Emma needed to act as if Billie intended to adopt the Redmond children just because she showed some humanity. They had been dealt enough insults by adults who should have been caring for them. She didn’t need to add more. For God’s sake, they were kids. It takes a village and all that. Why didn’t Emma understand? She had kids of her own, but maybe she had wrecked their lives a long time ago.

  Wesley and Penny had looked like characters in a fairy tale when Billie left them—the orphaned brother and sister, holding hands, Wesley nearly quaking with concern. And even though they weren’t in a dark wood, or under a witch’s spell, they were sure as hell abandoned and had been for a long time. It was just that upscale suburbanites did it with more panache.

  She was exceedingly tired of Emma’s na
rrow range of emotions, and not ready to believe that a refusal to have feelings—aside from fierce ones—was a bottom-line requirement for this job. Surely somewhere in the field there was a more entertaining and humane PI. And if not—if the entire profession was comprised of fire-breathing bullies—Billie wanted to know now, before she dug in any more deeply.

  She looked at the computer almost wistfully. Stephen Tassio and his misty kingdom were now lost inside it. She tidied her notes from Emma’s single attempt to train her. She had notes on the databases, the CD-ROMs, the online services—the “dossiers” they’d prepared for Audrey Miller, Talkman, and herself. She nearly tossed the lot of them, then reconsidered. No matter where she worked, she’d need information on begging the computer to yield up its innards.

  She put the pages in a neat pile, then separated each “case” and put them side by side so that the tabletop beside the computer looked businesslike, as if serious sleuthing had been going on in this room.

  Maybe the next assignment wouldn’t veer so close to the bone. No children involved in the harassment thing. No rotten parents. Perhaps, no automatic Emma—or Billie—buttons to be pushed.

  She looked again at the slim file. A Mr. Barton Davies, CEO of a company that made “tourist souvenir items”—key rings featuring cable cars, tiny red Golden Gate bridges, Alcatraz T-shirts and mugs, little hearts that had been left in “Don’t call it Frisco.” Buxom plastic girls whose breasts read “two of the hills of San Francisco.”

  The business was doing well. Not so, thirty-eight-year-old Mr. Davies, one of the two principal owners, married and the father of three. A quality-control supervisor had been let go four months ago. Three months and three weeks ago, the former employee’s lawyer had notified Mr. Davies that the discharged worker was bringing suit, claiming her career had been destroyed by Mr. D’s amatory advances which she’d virtuously put in check. He had, on various occasions, fondled, patted, propositioned, and threatened. She’d refused. He’d retaliated. Or so her suit claimed.