The Rita Farmer Mystery series Box Set

by Elizabeth Sims

  “—take him in when the police Taser him, and he comes to while you’re trying to take his blood!”

  I couldn’t believe it. “I was on the screen for all of two minutes.”

  “But it was so funny! You were so funny, the stuff you said to him.”

  “Well, it was lines from a script, you know.”

  “No, but you were really funny, you came up with the funniest sayings.”

  “I’m amazed that you remember me,” was all I could say.

  “Wait, I gotta get your autograph! Wait till Leslie hears about this!” She could not come up with a pen, pencil, or paper—the grocery bags were plastic—so she tore open a bubble pack of school supplies, and I poised the new Bic Stic over a ticket stub I found in my purse to Down Yellowknife Way, the new Serge Oatberger film starring Chet Muldoon and Electra Stenhall. She was good but not great in it.

  “May I sign this to you?” I asked.

  “Yeah! Yeah!”

  “Well, what’s your name?”

  “I’m Lydia. So pleased to meet you.”

  I wrote, “To Lydia, best wishes from your friend Rita Farmer.”

  “Rita Farmer,” she marveled when I handed her the stub. “Rita Farmer. Pays to have a good memory!”

  I’d done that soap opera bit part two years ago, part of my moonlighting as I embarked on a law degree, toward a new career.

  Infused with the energy of a brush with Hollywood, Lydia now could not get enough of me. I asked about Lance and Joey.

  “Yeah, Joey knew Lance from way back, when they went to camp together.”

  “Yeah?!”

  “Yeah, Joey was surprised to see him. Camp Saskee-wee-wit.” She warmed even further to me. “They talked; yeah, well, you prob’ly know that camp. Very high-toned; the Richie Riches from Seattle all got sent there to get tough.” She coughed. “Joey was a charity boy, you understand. Seems this Lance fellow played some kind of a prank on Joey back then. Joey was pissed off about it, I remember him coming back from camp that year so mad—gosh, such a long time ago now, but he never said what it was. Funny this Lance should come through here again after all those years.”

  My suspicion surged. “Where’s Joey now?”

  Lydia spat a long beige squirt into her box. Her teeth were reddish-brown, like the betel-nut chewers of the South Pacific. Is that it, betel nuts? I played Nellie in high school, curling my hair like Mary Martin’s on the CD and padding my bra with Kotexes cut in half.

  “The hell knows? Maybe huntin’, let’s see, it’s still OK for late buck. Him and his dad’ve been arguing about something for days now. Well, Truck’s never been the same since his accident.”

  “Accident?” What other kinds of crap happens to people around here?

  “Oh, huntin’, last summer. The idiot shoots a rabbit, comes up to it, it’s still alive, he clubs it with the butt of his gun, and it goes off, half in his face. Messed him up, but mostly mental, if you ask me. He’s my brother and I love him, but. First Truck goes off without telling me, now Joey. The gas pump busts, and I’m here selling no gas. No garage work gettin’ done either, I’m sure you notice. Turned away a brake job this morning.”

  When I went out, the bright-green moss garlands on the bulletin board looked like they’d grown an inch longer since I’d gone in. The moss thrived on the heavy moisture in the air, and the wood that hosted it was decaying because of the same. The wet giveth, and the wet taketh away. Yeah, that was written all over this place.

  Chapter 8 – Rowe Tries a New Tack

  George Rowe kicked a small scuff into the toe of one of his new shoes, thus reducing a bit of their smarting freshness and knocking down their resale value by perhaps $325. The pair had cost him $378 including tax; his suit, shirt, and tie, $1,256. The fellows at Nordstrom had fitted him out nicely this morning, now Wednesday. Because his wristwatch was not obviously expensive, he could not wear it, so he had made sure to get the substantial leather slip-ons. (The watch would travel in his pocket.) The shoe man had suggested a fruity-looking, thin-soled pair, but George wanted something high vamped, thicker soled, yet refined. Shoes make a difference, especially to women. Kitty Harris would no doubt be sensitive to such things in a man’s presentation.

  He had pondered the question of costume for this meeting—should he go the cliché route of navy blazer and duck pants? Storm-jacket casual? No, he decided, a yacht company vice president would wear a good suit. Double-breasted, classic, suggesting the British tradition. Big seafaring country, that. He chose sepia tones and oxblood, believing that gray and black might come across too cold.

  Checking his reflection in the elevator doors as he rode up to the Harrises’ penthouse, he looked like a man used to solving difficult problems firmly but tactfully.

  “Thank you for making the time for me, Mrs. Harris. Guy Seaver, Ocean Stanza Yachts.” He was exactly on time, having introduced himself to the doorman below one minute before two o’clock.

  “Mr. Seaver.”

  The force of Kitty Harris’s sexuality walloped him before he even crossed the threshold. She was as poised as a ballerina, with half-lidded eyes and a mouth that looked like a live ember. Stepping to shake her hand, he caught a fragrance of flowers mixed with pepper.

  She showed him to a white-carpeted living room that overlooked Puget Sound. The jagged Olympic Mountains floated over a layer of mist beyond. One of the enormous ferryboats was coming in, pulling its wake behind it, a long strand that remained defined for at least a mile into the Sound.

  “People would kill for a view like that,” he commented, smiling. She returned the smile.

  The rich, he knew, adored gossip and drama as much as anybody. Toys can excite them too, and if they really get into a particular one, they develop a long-term passion for it unbridled by budget.

  “I’ve prepared some coffee, would you care for some?” She hugged herself with one arm, waiflike. She might have been forty, maybe older, given the intense focus with which such women keep themselves up. She could still pull off the waif thing. A hot waif, that was her.

  “I’d love some coffee.” These Seattle people did adore their coffee.

  She went to get it herself; they weren’t overboard on the domestic help, then, probably a housekeeper who came in mornings, and caterers as needed for gatherings.

  He took a seat on one of two white couches placed at right angles, both affording a view of the Sound.

  She returned with coffee and a plate of pink cakes, and after another pleasantry or two Rowe got under way.

  “As I mentioned on the phone, Mrs. Harris, our representative Thomas Plunkitt reports to me, so he’s not fobbing you off on a peer.”

  “I see.”

  “He asked me to follow up with you. I’m not certain how detailed your discussions were”—he hesitated the slightest bit—“but I understand our model L330 had come up.”

  “Yes, oh what a gorgeous boat!” Her voice was throaty and he felt himself get warm. “But just a minute, Mr. Seaver.” She was not ready to talk about the L330. “You’ve, ah, you’ve hotfooted it over something, haven’t you?”

  “Uh?” He remained calm.

  “Exactly uh—why doesn’t Tom Plunkitt want to rep your yachts to me anymore?”

  She didn’t appear all that brainy, but she was sharp enough about certain things. The right things, for his purpose.

  He cleared his throat. “It’s a matter of project management, ma’am. Plunkitt’s got—”

  “I’m Kitty, please.”

  “Kitty”—he returned the smile—“and I’m Guy of course. Here’s the situation: Plunkitt’s got a client down in Long Beach whose vessel is fairly far along, and now the project has taken a real leap in scope. I’m afraid he’s a bit overwhelmed right now.”

  “Really.”

  “Yes.” He glanced away, inviting suspicion.

  “Come on, Guy.” Her warm, frank tone made them old friends who never kept secrets from each other.

  This was fun.


  She clinked her cup and scolded him, “You don’t expect me to believe that, do you? A yacht salesman working on commission—what’s his commission, five percent, ten percent? On fifty-million-dollar boats?”

  “It’s—between those two numbers.”

  “Yes. Any salesman at that level’s going to sit on his neck to keep working with more than one client at a time. My husband and I? Serious prospects. I just don’t believe Tom asked you to take over this potential sale.” She smiled triumphantly in response to his crestfallen look.

  Rowe hemmed and hawed. She waited eagerly, pleased with herself.

  My God, what a narrow life, if this is the kind of thing that blows your skirt up.

  At last Rowe bit his lip. “Can you keep a secret, Mrs. Harris?”

  Her eyes narrowed luxuriously. “Oh, yes. “

  He sought to channel Cary Grant being amused by any of his beautiful leading ladies.

  “The truth is, Mrs. H—Kitty—that Tom Plunkitt’s under internal investigation. I’m not supposed to discuss it, but naturally you’d wonder. I don’t like to keep owners in the dark.”

  He could see that she appreciated being called an owner, even though she wasn’t one.

  “Ohh,” she purred, “please have a cake and do tell.”

  And just in these few minutes Rowe realized what a puppet on a string a sales rep is. No matter the level. Because clients, some of them, are marionette-loving people; they love to play. Killer reps had to be cold, even with their clients, and they could only take on the stronger ones, ones that didn’t demand their asses kissed but would drive a hard bargain and enjoy the fight. He’d known one such high-end rep, a private aircraft broker in San Francisco. The guy and his buddies were barracudas who enjoyed making a kill, and who concealed their contempt for customers only when dealing directly with them. A customer who was an equal was, for these fellows, rare. That was how they preserved their self-respect.

  All this he perceived at a deeper level after just a few minutes with Kitty Harris. He forked up a bite of snow-white cake, its pink frosting buttery on his tongue. The cakes were about two inches high, with lemon sugar between the two tiny layers.

  She was, fortunately for him, a schmoozer. She enjoyed being sold; she genuinely enjoyed a skillful sales process. “Do tell,” she encouraged again.

  And she was bored.

  The apartment was so quiet he could hear the wind whistling past the skin of the building.

  “Frankly, Kitty, I need your help.” He cast an uncomfortable glance downward to his beautiful shoes. He’d never owned shoes this expensive before. He really liked them; they felt good on his feet. God keep me from ever turning into a dandy, he thought.

  “Well—if you think I can help.”

  He set down his plate. “What I need to know, Kitty, is, well, did Plunkitt bring anybody along with him when he met with you?”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “Did he take a phone call, or make one, might you remember?”

  “Well—no, I don’t believe so. He seemed to give me his undivided attention. Except...when I left the room, for all I know he could have made a call.” She was getting into it. “He certainly had the opportunity! Yes, he certainly could have made a call.”

  “Did he seem nervous?”

  “Yes! Come to think of it, he did seem uneasy, the second time we met.”

  “Your husband was not available for these preliminary meetings, I presume?”

  “Oh, no, Leland’s far too busy to bother with this sort of thing.” After checking his cup, she poured herself more coffee and bloomed some cream into it.

  “And you met Plunkitt here, in your home?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  His voice full of dismay, Rowe asked, “He didn’t bring up our jet and fly you to our facility in San Diego?”

  Slowly, “No.”

  “That’s unfortunate. We like to spoil our special clients with all sorts of goodies!”

  Seeing her face, he almost said, There, there, but he did say heartily, “Ho, we’ll make up for it! I’ll see that we host you like royalty very soon. Wait till you see our operation; we’re quite proud of it.”

  Kitty Harris’s good cheer returned.

  He permitted himself the pleasure of thoroughly noticing her beauty.

  The smiles, really, just flashed out of her. Her grooming was impeccable, and her body, in a slim sweater and slacks, moved easily. She was one of those women who exuded sex appeal not by contrivance but by making the most of the healthy body and appetites she’d been born with. Yeah, he thought, it’s the appetites more than the looks.

  He was disappointed when she left the room to refill the coffeepot.

  An unusual painting hung in the room, next to a clutch of small potted trees. It was entirely pale blue, a hundred different shades of pale blue. The painting looked almost alive, actually, like a bright miasma out of which anything might materialize—a dream window. Rowe decided he liked it.

  He allowed his hostess to top off his cup, but he let it sit. He smoothed his palms on his thighs. “Now, this is very confidential, Kitty. Even Plunkitt doesn’t know he’s being investigated. We’re in the early stages, but we’ve been given a lot to go on by another client, whose initial payment was...” He hesitated. He sighed.

  If Kitty Harris’s butt had gotten any closer to the edge of her seat, she’d have fallen off. “Yes?”

  “We suspect Plunkitt was trying,” Rowe said with well-here-it-is flatness, “to engineer a rather egregious theft from that client.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  “Yes, we’re mortified.”

  “Oh, my God! What kind of theft?”

  “Let me put it this way: it involves a serious breach of trust.”

  “Oh, my God! And he was right here, talking to me just like you’re doing! Honestly!” She paused, catastrophizing. “We could have been next! He probably was targeting us! Son of a bitch!”

  Rowe listened sympathetically.

  “Now that I think of it,” Kitty Harris said, “he was sort of smarmy. There was something about him that just didn’t add up, you know what I mean?”

  “You’re very astute.”

  “You know”—she leaned sideways and stretched her catlike back—“it’s just so upsetting how people think that because you’ve got money, it means you’re stupid, you’re easily fooled.”

  “Outrageous. Gives all of us a bad name. Now,” Rowe resumed, “in your discussions with Tom, had things progressed to the stage of discussing money, given the outlines of what you wanted? Had he given you any type of quotation, either orally or on paper?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “I have to ask you, if he calls again, would you play a little role for me?”

  Kitty Harris, quickly passing through horrified-victim mode into revenge fantasy, nodded, shivering with delight.

  “Just tell him you’ve changed your mind and won’t be commissioning a vessel right now.”

  “Yes! That’ll serve him right. Can I—sort of take my time about it, Guy?”

  He pretended to consider.

  “Pretty please? Lead him on a little?”

  “Yes. Excellent idea.”

  They just kept smiling, so broadly and happily, together. Rowe said, “You’ll crush him, you know.”

  “Oh, how sad!” Savoringly.

  They laughed.

  “But I do want my yacht, of course, Guy! I do want things to progress!”

  “Certainly.”

  “Because you see, Leland said to me, ‘Honey, you’ve got a special birthday coming up next year’—I won’t reveal which one, Guy! Leland said, ‘I want to commission one hell of a toy for you!’” She shook her head emotionally, looked down to her lap, then up at Rowe, her eyes brimming. “He loves me so much, you see!”

  All this horseshit about Plunkitt and the yachts was, of course, merely to afford Rowe a look inside the house, meet the missus, and see if she might open up,
just as she was doing. No money had changed hands, and it was utterly unbelievable that Leland Harris would commission a yacht costing $40 million or more, at his pay rate. Billionaires buy fifty-meter motor yachts, not sub-million-dollar-a-year earners.

  “So,” Kitty went on, “it’s become my project to look into a yacht for us—one of my projects, I should say. I’m just about as busy as he is, to tell you the truth.”

  “So the yacht was Mr. Harris’s idea all along?” He gauged her reaction as he pressed her on the lie, and she was good.

  “Yes, yes! I’d never think of asking for such an extravagance.”

  “What a wonderful thing for him to surprise you with. I would imagine you two travel quite a bit together.”

  “Oh, yes, all over the world.”

  “Given that Mr. Harris holds an important position with—uh, Silver Coast, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, he pretty much runs the place.” Now she gauged his reaction with a sly look.

  When Rowe returned her gaze with an open expression, showing he had no real knowledge of Silver Coast, she added in a mock whisper, “The old bat who owns it has no idea how brilliant he is.”

  He chuckled. “She losing her marbles?”

  “Definitely. Leland’s keeping that whole outfit solvent, and she doesn’t even know half of what he does.”

  “I bet he’s bringing new ideas, new ventures, to the table?”

  “All the time. Well!” She wanted to get back to talking yachts.

  “Now,” he obliged, “in order to be sure the L330 is the best yacht for your needs, I’m wondering where you tend to travel the most often. That is, are you a real North Atlantic fan, you know, heavyweight crossings between America and Europe a la the great liners, or—”

  “Oh no, I like the warmth. Seattle’s cold enough for me! I’m more of a let’s-send-the-yacht-someplace-and-fly-to-meet-it kind of person. I just love the Mediterranean—oh! Greece! Italy! Oh, the Riviera!”

  “Which is why our longest-range model would be your best choice.”

  He began to worry that he might be appearing to listen too intensely, so he relaxed and looked around the room casually.