"You think Tommy found the red bandana?" she asked, coming to peer into the oven. I felt her closeness, breathed in that damned perfume and closed my eyes, willing myself to ignore her presence.
"No, Erica. The chances of Tommy finding something that no one has been able to find for a hundred years is a bit far-fetched. I think he might have looked for it. But I don't think there's a chance in hell it even still exists."
"So what did he hide? And why did someone attack him?"
I looked into her blue eyes. A dark tendril of hair had fallen against her cheek and I resisted the urge to brush it away, to touch her cheek. "I wish I knew, Erica. Come on. If you set the table, I'll go find us some red wine. Maybe something will come to us over dinner."
The pot roast was falling apart, just the way I liked it. Erica acted as if she hadn't eaten in weeks and spoke with her mouth full, garbling her words.
"Say that again, in English?" I teased.
"Maybe he didn't find the note. Maybe he just found the gold."
"Right, Erica," I said, rolling my eyes. "But there was so much of it he couldn't carry it all and then he couldn't find his way back again. This is exactly how these old myths get started. A hundred years from now they'll be talking about Tommy Green and his lost treasure."
Erica looked chagrinned. "I don't claim to know the answers, Cass. I'm just posing questions." She helped herself to more wine and I wondered if the rosiness in her cheeks was from emotion or alcohol. I did not want her to get to the point where she couldn't drive her boat back to her uncle's place. It's her place, I silently reminded myself. It had been hers for four years, even if she did only visit a couple of times a year.
"You gonna be okay to drive?" I asked. It was easy to get lost on the lake at night. Erica's house was only a couple of coves over but in the dark, it could be tricky. She looked at me and a smile crossed her lips.
"Afraid if I get tipsy I might let you take advantage of me?"
"Very funny. I'm afraid you might plow that fancy speedboat into Alder Point. You want some coffee?" I got up, mostly to hide the blush on my face.
"No thanks, Cass. Here let me get the dishes. Why don't you go call Booker and find out what's happening? Then I'll leave you safe and sound, no barriers broken."
I should have left it alone, but I couldn't.
"What barriers are you referring to?"
"Oh, God, Cass. You know. All those barriers you put up to protect yourself. You couldn't let yourself cry today even though your heart is breaking for Tommy. You couldn't allow yourself to be pleased to see me, even though your face lit up. And you can't allow yourself to touch me, even though every time I get near you your eyes practically beg me to kiss you."
Open-mouthed, I looked at her, not sure if I wanted to slap her or laugh. Or cry. Everything she said was true and I hated her for it. I shook my head, unable to let myself speak.
"I just wonder what you're protecting yourself from?" Her eyes were boring into mine. "What are you afraid of? If you cry, you think someone's going to think you're weak? If you kiss me, you think someone's going to think you're easy? Are you afraid of me, Cass? Or are you afraid of yourself?"
"Some people drink too much and they get silly or maudlin. Unfortunately, Erica, you just get ridiculous." I went into the bathroom and shut the door quietly behind me. I didn't come out until I heard the speedboat roar to life and race away from my dock.
Chapter Five
I slept fitfully and awoke before dawn, my heart racing. The events of the previous day came rushing back like a wave. After Erica had left, I'd called Booker, but Tommy's condition hadn't changed. His mother and an aunt had arrived from Texas around ten, and taken a motel room in town. Booker had promised to call me if there was any news, but I felt uneasy and decided not to wait. I got out of bed, startling Panic and Gammon, who were unaccustomed to getting up in the dark. After making coffee, I called the hospital and asked to talk to the night nurse in ICU.
"His vitals are stable," she reported.
"But he's still in a coma?"
"Yes. The good news is, there doesn't seem to be any sign of infection yet."
"Is anyone there with him?"
"Not now, dear. He's only allowed hospital-supervised visits by family members. Don't worry. We're monitoring him very closely."
Booker had probably insisted on the supervision part, I thought, as a way of protecting Tommy. "It's for the best, dear. What he needs right now is complete rest. That and time to heal."
I thanked her and hung up feeling a little better. If he'd survived the night, maybe he'd pull out of this all right.
Outside, the sky was beginning to lighten, the fog lifting off of the lake like cotton candy. The water was glass. I watched a great blue heron cruise the shoreline, its white tufted beard inches from the water. Panic nuzzled my ankle, reminding me that she hadn't had breakfast.
"Okay, you little muskrats. What will it be? Kitty Gourmet or Kitty Gourmet? You're in a rut, you know."
I opened a can of their favorite food and dished it into two bowls. Gammon, nearing twenty pounds, tended to scarf up all of hers in a few minutes, then go to work on what was left of her sister's. Panic didn't seem to mind. She spent her day hunting and supplemented her diet with moles and other unfortunate creatures. Gammon preferred to spend the day sprawled on the front porch in a patch of sun, watching the world pass her by. She was the more beautiful of the two, with large gooseberry eyes and dark brown spots on luxuriant, fawn-colored fur that made her valuable to cat thieves and breeders alike. Panic had finer, softer silvery fur and a tail as long as her sister's belly was round. Half-Egyptian Mau, half-Bengal, they made a striking pair.
"Watch for bears," I said, letting them out through the sliding glass door. It wasn't bears I was worried about, though. There were plenty of other predators that might not hesitate to take on a pair of cats. In the last year I had seen raccoons, mink, otters, porcupines, a mountain lion, bald eagles, osprey, bears and of course, deer on my property. The deer did the most damage. They munched everything they could reach and I'd finally had to build a greenhouse in back, just so I could enjoy a few of my own vegetables.
I watched the two cats tiptoe through the front lawn toward the lake, then went through my daily exercise routine, practicing karate kicks until my thighs ached, working out some of the tension that had built up over the last twenty-four hours. I knew it wasn't just anxiety over Tommy. The scene with Erica had been a fitting ending to a horrible day and try as I might, I couldn't get her words out of my mind. What gave her the right to talk to me like that? To look at me like that?
Exhausted and sweaty, but only marginally less tense, I went in to shower and dress, then called my best friend, Martha Harper, a detective for the Kings Harbor Police Department. She was an habitually early riser and was probably already at work. I wondered if she'd heard about Tommy. Although Kings Harbor was only a short fifteen minutes south of Cedar Hills, it was relatively sophisticated and news didn't travel nearly as fast there as it did in the tiny lakeside town nestled up against Rainbow Lake.
"Detective Harper," Martha's gravelly voice boomed.
"Hey. You hear about Tommy?"
"Had to read it in the paper. How come you didn't call me?"
"I was busy trying to figure out what happened. Anyway, I just called the hospital and he's still comatose. Booker's put a squelch on visitors, afraid that the perp might come back and try to finish the job."
"I don't get it, Cass. Why in the world would anyone want to hurt Tommy Green? I love that little munchkin." Every time Martha came to visit, Tommy insisted on chauffeuring her out to my place in his green speedboat and I expected he was enamored with her status as a cop.
"Me too, Mart. I don't know. But I'm working on it. Listen, you think you could call Maggie when you get a chance? She'd want to know."
"You sure you don't want to call her yourself?"
"I'd rather you did it, Martha. If you don't mind."
It was Monday morning and the local library wouldn't open until nine. That would give me plenty of time to swing by Tommy's and get a better look around, then maybe grab a little breakfast at the lodge. Booker usually stopped in for his breakfast around eight, and if I timed it right I might be able to find out what the crime scene had revealed. Erica had taken Tommy's books and papers with her when she left. Just another way to make me mad, I thought. With any luck, I could avoid Erica Trinidad all day.
Some of the people who lived on Rainbow Lake had road access, but I didn't mind having to go by boat. I gathered up my house trash, called the cats back in so they could nap away the day inside and jogged down the ramp to my boat. It was a blue seventeen-foot, open-bow Seaswirl that was just right for living on Rainbow Lake. I tossed the trash bag in back, warmed up the engine, then took off across the glassy lake, letting the morning chill revive my spirits. There is nothing quite as invigorating as skipping across water in a fast boat, and by the time I pulled up at the marina, I felt much better. But the absence of Tommy, who usually greeted me each morning, again dampened my spirits. Gus Townsend, who owned the marina, was pumping gas into a yellow bass boat.
"Understand you saw what happened," he said in his raspy smoker's voice. He had a craggy complexion and looked much older than his fifty-some-odd years. No matter how often he shaved, he always seemed to have a five-o'clock shadow. It looked to me like he'd been up all night at the tavern.
"Where the heck did you hear that?" I asked.
"Well, what I heard was that you and that niece of Walter Trinidad, the one who got himself killed a while back, were up in the restroom when it happened and saw the whole thing."
"You should know better than to believe half of what you hear in this town, Gus."
"Didn't say I believed it. Said I heard it. Anyway, them damn doctors won't even let me in to see how he's doing. I went over there last night and they said family only. Like I'm not practically family to the kid."
"Well, if it's any consolation, he probably wouldn't have known if you were there or not. He's still in a coma. What else are people saying? Any rumors about who might've done it?"
He threw back his head and laughed. "You askin' if there's rumors? Good God, girl. Ain't nothin' but. One story has it he was blackmailing some rich bastard on the lake. Another one has him diddlin' someone's wife and the husband didn't take too kindly to it. All sorts of speculation about who that might be. Quite a few candidates, if you know what I mean." He crinkled his eyes at me to let me know he was well aware of the extent of Tommy's sex life.
"What do you think?" I asked. He returned the gas nozzle to the pump and lit a cigarette, inhaling deeply.
"Well, I'll tell you what. Tommy has always been on time, never one to call in sick much. The last few weeks, he's been leavin' early, sneaking out at lunch, stuff like that. Didn't think I'd notice, maybe, 'cause I've been doin' construction out on the lake. But the wife notices from inside the shop and she tells me. Says a coupla times he got a ride with them Bailey boys, so I figure it isn't a girl problem. Maybe he's started doin' drugs. That Buck Bailey was always trouble. You can tell by them nose rings. Anyway, I figure maybe it was a drug deal gone bad. Maybe he owed somebody money, didn't pay up and they went after him."
It was as good a theory as any, I figured. I told Gus to take care and hauled my trash up the ramp to the dumpster, wondering how many people thought that Erica and I had seen what happened. I just hoped that whoever attacked Tommy didn't think so. Nothing worse than a bad guy thinking you're on to him when you're not.
I hopped into my Jeep Cherokee and headed for Tommy's, thinking about how to systematically go through his things and where to start. As it turned out, I needn't have bothered.
When I pulled up to his place, the first thing I noticed was Pepper curled up on the front porch in a patch of morning sun. Pepper should have been inside where Erica had left her.
I got out of the Jeep and walked quietly around the front of the mobile home. The window above the window box was shattered. Even from the porch, I could tell the place had been ransacked. Tommy's bed sheets were heaped on the floor, the clothes pulled out of his closet and flung haphazardly across the room. Books had been pulled from shelves and heaved across the room. Not only had someone gone through his things, but they'd done it angrily. I walked back to the garage and noticed the padlock had been cut with bolt cutters. Inside, tools had been pulled from shelves and boxes ripped open, their contents dumped on the concrete floor. I looked for the shovels that Tommy had supposedly borrowed but only saw one. Had the twins done this, then taken their shovels and left? Or had there never been any shovels to take? I knew Booker would have already checked the place. I wondered if he'd seen this mess, or if he'd stopped by before it had happened.
Suppressing my natural inclination to go inside, I went to the porch and picked up Pepper who seemed no worse for the wear.
"Bet you could tell me who did this, couldn't you? Was it those big bad Bailey brothers?" She started purring and showed me where to scratch under her chin. I thought about taking her back to my place, but she'd already survived the worst. What I needed to do was get Booker out here, if he hadn't already been, then clean the place up and get her back inside where I could make sure she had plenty of food, water and clean sand. That way, I'd have an excuse to come back out here and do my own snooping around. I doubted I'd find whatever someone had been looking for. They'd either found it themselves, or it hadn't been here in the first place. But I might discover more about what Tommy had been up to. First, though, I needed to make sure Booker had a chance to fingerprint the place. I knew if I screwed up the crime scene, he'd never forgive me. I set Pepper back on the porch and carefully retraced the steps to my Jeep, heading for the lodge to wait for Booker.
The lodge has two faces. At night, it's a top-notch restaurant with decent wines, a fairly upscale menu and a matching clientele. In the morning it's a haven for locals who want a good, cheap breakfast, heavy on cholesterol and served in Oregonian portions. Booker was there when I arrived, but to my dismay he was already having breakfast with his deputy, Newt Hancock. I'd hoped to talk to him alone, without Deputy Do-little getting in the way. When Booker saw me, he waved me over and I pulled up a chair.
"You remember Newt," he said by way of introduction.
"Yes. Any news?" I smiled at New but directed my question to Booker. Newt looked half-asleep. He pushed his black Stetson up a fraction of an inch in greeting, peering at me from beneath those heavy lashes.
"Still in a coma. I've got it so family only can see him. Doctors agreed, which will make that part of our job easier. You get Erica home okay?" His blue eyes regarded me with interest. He was asking more than just after her welfare.
I said, "Didn't exactly see her to the door, but I assume she got there safe and sound," answering the question he really wanted to know without coming out and saying it. "Anything from the crime scene?"
Booker looked at Newt, then waved over the waitress. I watched the exchange, not sure how to read it. Newt's eyelashes lowered and he took another sip of his coffee.
"I know you're hungry," Booker said, winking at me. He waited until I'd ordered, then filled me in. "Nothing much to report. Found the weapon in the trashcan inside the restroom. It looks like the perp grabbed the metal pole that's used to open the bathroom window and hit Tommy from behind with it at least three times. The hook on the end's what did the damage, that and the location of the blows. Probably the only reason Tommy's still alive is that the pole broke in two. One more swing might've killed him."
"So you think Tommy was just a random target?"
Hancock spoke up in his lazy drawl. "Probably. They could've been waiting in the stall for someone to come along alone, then snuck up behind him, hit him over the
head, grabbed the wallet and ran." He took another swallow of coffee and looked up at the waitress with the same bedroom eyes he'd tried on me yesterday.
"You got any cream for this, darlin'?"
"Got milk. That do ya?"
"Anything you bring'll do me just fine."
I rolled my eyes at Booker and dug into my scrambled eggs, wondering what Booker was keeping from me. It was obvious he wasn't going to divulge more with his deputy around.
"You been out to Tommy's place yet?" I asked, biting into my toast.
"Checked it out yesterday. Why?"
"Someone's been there since then. Tore up the place pretty bad."
Booker sat up and put his fork down. "When were you there?"
"Fifteen minutes ago. I went to feed the cat and found the place trashed. Didn't touch anything."
"You want me to go check it out?" Newt asked, pushing back his chair. He'd ordered pancakes and had devoured them in four bites.
"No. I want to see this for myself. You probably ought to finish that paperwork, then go see what the Lewis lady's going to do about those dogs."
Newt nodded, taking the menial assignments in stride. "I'll get started then," he said. "Good to see you again, Cassandra."
"You too, Nate." Two could play that game.
He did a slow double take and grinned. "Newt."
"Cassidy."
"Right." He dug a wad of bills from his wallet and laid them on the table, not bothering to count them out. "Breakfast's on me," he said. Booker and I watched him saunter out, his long legs crossing the room in slow motion, his alligator boots tapping the hardwood floor in a nice syncopated beat.
"You don't like him much, do you?" Booker asked, sorting through the money on the table.
"The guy's weird. Comes on to anything with two legs. And he looks like he's half-asleep all the time. I keep having to resist the urge to splash water in his face."
Booker chuckled. "He could use someone lightin' a fire underneath him. Complete opposite of his uncle, I'll tell you that. Don't think he really cares if he's a cop or not. Doing it for the prestige, I guess. His heart don't seem to be in it much. Maybe that's why his uncle sent him to me. Thought maybe I'd be the one to light that fire."
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