by Nadia Gordon
19
Her first response was anger. Who would dare to wake me up in the middle of the night, let alone come into my house uninvited? she thought fiercely. Then came fear. Sunny ran through the possibilities in a frantic rush. Who had a key to the front door? Rivka. Her father. Wade. Andre. Would any of them arrive in the middle of the night without calling or even knocking and let themselves in without making a sound? Of course they wouldn’t. Sunny listened, hardly breathing. For several long seconds, the house was completely silent. She hoped for a moment that she had been mistaken, that perhaps she had imagined the sound of a key in the lock and the front door opening. In a moment she could chalk it up to a bad dream and an overactive imagination, she thought with relief. She would read another page or two of Mozart and then go back to sleep. In the morning it would all sound so silly when she told Rivka about the fright she’d given herself.
All was quiet. She had nearly decided to turn on the light when she heard a sound like a soft footfall, followed by another, this time accompanied by the slightest creak of wood. The house always creaked in the quiet of night. It had its own nocturnal clicks and rumblings and sighs that were as familiar as a lover’s. This was different. This was the unmistakable sound of a floorboard creaking underfoot. Sunny’s heart thumped like she was running for her life. She made an inventory of the items within reach, considering each one’s potential as a weapon. There was a carafe of water on the bedside table and a one-by-one stick on the windowsill, used to prop open the window on warm nights. The cell phone was under her pillow.
She crept out of bed and took up the stick, which was too light to be much use as a weapon but would have to do, and the phone and edged toward the bedroom door, stepping softly in bare feet. From the doorway, she could see most of the living room. The front door was closed. There was no one there. Everything seemed completely normal. The refrigerator ticked on and began to hum reassuringly. She advanced to the kitchen doorway. The place seemed perfectly peaceful. It was even tidy, except for the banana peel she’d left on the counter. She put the stick and the phone down, picked up the banana peel, and was just about to drop it in the container she used for compost scraps when someone cleared his throat behind her. She wheeled around and let out an involuntary shriek that seemed to rise from her toes and last half a minute. Andre Morales was standing in the hallway in his biking leathers, watching her. She picked up the stick and flipped open the phone.
“Sunny, it’s me!” he said, stepping forward. “It’s just me.”
“What on earth are you doing here?” she said, sounding shrill and brandishing the stick. “What are you doing? Are you trying to give me a freaking heart attack or something? Oh my God. I can’t breathe. Dammit!” She leaned forward and put her hands on her knees. “You scared me to death. How did you get in here?”
“Sunny, I have a key. You know that.”
She stood back up. “But what are you doing here? Why did you sneak in here like that?”
“I was just trying not to wake you. I went in the bathroom to get a tissue. But then I saw you in the kitchen and I figured I’d better say something because I didn’t want to scare you.”
“Well, you did. You scared me half to death. But that still doesn’t explain what you’re doing sneaking around in the middle of the night.”
“I wanted to see you. I told you I wanted to talk and you said we should do it later, so I figured I’d come by after work.”
“I meant later as in someday when we felt like it. You can’t just come in here without calling or anything.”
He smiled at her sadly and took off his jacket. “I always come in after work without calling.”
“Andre, don’t bullshit me, please. Things have changed and you know it.”
“Of course I do. I just thought if I came over we could, you know, relax and talk through whatever’s on your mind and maybe get back to normal. Can’t we do that?”
He stepped into the silver glow from the neighbor’s porch light and Sunny studied his familiar face.
“I’m beat,” she said, putting the stick and the phone down.
“So am I. What do you say we go to bed?”
He gave her the smile that had started everything months ago on their first date. She forced it out of her mind and shook her head. “I think we should, but not together. Not tonight.”
She turned away and was astonished to see Cynthia Meyers standing in the hallway. She was wearing a tank top with jeans and little white Keds sneakers, as if she were headed out for a Sunday picnic. Strands of blond hair fell down from her ponytail across toned and muscular shoulders. Her face looked strained. Most surprising of all was the tiny pistol she held in one hand.
“Morales,” she said, gesturing to Andre with the gun, “you are always turning up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Either you have very poor timing or very bad luck.”
“What’s this all about?” said Sunny.
“It’s about a girl who couldn’t leave well enough alone and got herself and her boyfriend killed.”
“I don’t understand.”
“That’s right, you don’t,” said Cynthia. “Which is why you should have stayed out of it. But it’s too late now. Now you have to tell me why you wanted to meet with Oliver. And hurry up.”
“You eavesdropped on our call.”
“I’m bad that way,” said Cynthia, smiling. “Now, why don’t you tell me what you’re going to tell Oliver tomorrow before I get impatient.”
Sunny licked her lips and looked at Andre. His face was frozen in fear. She looked back at Cynthia. “I was going to tell him that I found out that Keith didn’t leave the party when he said he did.”
“Go on,” ordered Cynthia. The hand holding the gun trembled. Sunny stole a quick glance at her face. The pale light bleached her skin and she looked gaunt and tired.
“Keith knew Anna had found out he and Oliver were propping up their new business with phony invoices,” said Sunny. “She had threatened to expose them. That’s what their big fight was about.”
“And you think Keith killed her to keep her quiet,” suggested Cynthia.
“That’s the theory I was going to put across, yes,” said Sunny.
Cynthia nodded, smiling. “I’m not an idiot. You have two seconds to elaborate convincingly or I will kill you both right now and go on my way.”
“Yes, you’re right, there is more,” said Sunny quickly. “After I discovered Keith never left the house that night when he said he did, I figured it had to be him who killed Anna. My theory was that he pretended to leave, but instead he waited outside Oliver and Anna’s bedroom window. After their fight, he climbed in the window, suffocated her, and pushed her out onto the concrete, hoping the fall would mask what really happened.”
“Is that it?” said Cynthia. “A theory?”
Andre looked at Sunny with wide eyes.
“No, there’s more,” said Sunny. “It turns out a woman named Astrid in Rome was helping them. With the fraud. Oliver was in love with her. Anna found out about that, too. In any case, Anna may have been trying to blackmail Oliver. That’s why Keith killed her.”
“Trying to! She wanted everything,” said Cynthia. “She wanted everything or she was going to ruin us all and send Oliver to jail. But you’re wrong about one thing. He couldn’t care less about Astrid. You think Oliver’s world revolved around women like Astrid and your friend Anna. She always thought so, too. I’m the only one who knows the truth. She was nothing special to him. Neither of them were. Girls like Anna and Astrid come and go through Oliver’s life all the time. Sometimes there wasn’t even a whole day between when one of them left and the next one arrived. It’s a form of entertainment for him. A game. But do you know who he always comes home to? Who the real constant in his life is? Me. It’s been me for years. Everyone thinks I’m just the cook. I’m part of his business, part of his family, part of every aspect of his life. Whether things are good or bad—and believe it or not, even a man like O
liver Seth has bad days—I’m always there for him. He trusts me. He relies on me. He comes to me for everything. Oliver is my whole world. It doesn’t matter what everyone else thinks. I’ve loved him for years. We’ve been as married as any married couple. Your little friend Anna thought she would change all that by making him marry her, and when that wouldn’t work, she decided she would destroy him.”
Andre looked nervously at Sunny, then back to Cynthia. “I always knew you were more than just his personal chef. I could tell, couldn’t you, Sun?”
“You, shut your mouth,” said Cynthia, her voice raspy with emotion. “And you, finish your story. Hurry up.”
“Would you like something to drink?” said Sunny. “You sound like you could use a drink. I have a bottle of wine open in the refrigerator.”
“Very funny. Are you finished, then?”
“With what I was going to tell Oliver? Yes. But there’s something else you should know. I’ve already told the police about the pie. They’ve got it by now. So none of this actually matters. It won’t matter what anyone tells the police or Oliver anymore, or what they don’t. It’s over, Cynthia. Your DNA is going to be all over that pie.”
“The pie!” said Cynthia, letting out a laugh that gave Sunny a chill. “I got rid of that days ago, cherie. That was the first thing I did when we got back into the house. Is that all you’ve got? Was that your big piece of evidence against me? That puts my mind at ease.”
“Adding two more murders to the list is not going to help you,” said Sunny nervously. “But if you leave now, maybe you can still get away.”
“Not so,” said Cynthia. “Two more murders will help me immensely. When you’re gone, this whole nasty business will be over and I can go on my way.”
“Why risk it?” said Andre. “Why get the police coming after you? You yourself said they have no evidence. And we certainly wouldn’t say anything.”
“Andre, I don’t want to kill you,” said Cynthia kindly. “With all my heart, I don’t. I feel sorry for you. But you can see I don’t have a choice. Your girlfriend had a choice. She could have stayed out of the whole business.” She turned to Sunny. “What did it have to do with you, anyway? It was never any of your business.”
“Anna’s death was my business,” said Sunny.
“In any case, I don’t have a choice,” said Cynthia. “I have to end this. I’ll spend the rest of my life running, but I won’t spend it in jail. And Oliver must never know the truth.”
Cynthia brushed a strand of hair back from her face and set her mouth in a hard line. Sunny touched Andre’s hand and he grasped her fingers gently. None of them spoke or moved and time seemed to stop as they stood watching one another, waiting for Cynthia’s next move. Sunny thought at first that the flash of light that made them all turn toward the big front window in the living room must be the pistol shot she’d been anticipating, and in the split second that followed she half felt the searing burn of a bullet strike her flesh. At the same time, she knew it couldn’t be that, since it came from outside the house. Next they heard an explosive pop like the sound of gunfire, followed by glass shattering. A man’s deep voice shouted, “Freeze! Nobody move!”
That was the beginning. The next few seconds were such a blur of activity and loud noises, with so much happening at once, that afterward no one could be certain of the exact sequence of events, least of all Sunny. Later she was sure of just three things. First, that the towering figure of Keith Lachlan had crashed through the front door. Second, that there were gunshots and Lachlan crumpled and went down hard. And third, that Sergeant Harvey appeared in the doorway afterward, silhouetted in his patrol car’s floodlights like the hero in an action film.
Around the same time, though exactly when was impossible to say, Sunny saw Andre lunge forward and knock Cynthia’s arm upward, sending the shot she fired into the kitchen ceiling. The shrill whine of approaching police sirens filled the air. Keith groaned and thrashed from the vicinity of the front door. Sergeant Harvey charged into the kitchen. He looked at Sunny, immobile with shock, then Cynthia, whom Andre was holding with her arm twisted behind her. The pistol lay on the ground nearby. Sergeant Harvey kicked it down the hall and threw an elbow into Andre’s side, doubling him over and setting Cynthia free. He crumpled to the ground and Sergeant Harvey stepped on his back and slapped a cuff on his wrist. Cynthia ran for the front door, slipped on a pool of Keith Lachlan’s blood, and took a nasty fall down the steps. She was still groaning and cursing at the foot of the stoop when the second and third police cars screeched up to the gate.
* * *
Serenaded by birdsong, Rivka Chavez pedaled her bike up the sidewalk and dismounted at the gate, which was smashed and hanging by one hinge. Andre and Sunny sat on the stoop, huddled over mugs of hot coffee and watching the morning brighten.
“What happened to the gate?” said Rivka, holding out a white paper bag. “I brought morning buns. And what happened to your window!” She gaped at the jagged hole where the front window used to be.
“Tornado,” said Andre. “Late last night.”
Rivka glared at him, leaned forward to examine a red stain at the top of the stairs, and pushed past them into the house. She paused to run her fingers over the splintered door frame. They listened to her stomp through the house and come back out.
“There’s a bullet hole in your kitchen ceiling,” she said incredulously. “And somebody busted in your door. Would you mind explaining what’s going on?”
‘‘You might as well get a cup of coffee,” said Sunny. “It’s a long story.”
“What about work?” said Rivka, looking at her watch. “It’s seven o’clock already.”
“Have a seat,” said Sunny, patting the stoop next to her. “The restaurant is closed today.”
20
The coals, gnarled old vine stock chopped into briquette-size hunks, glowed orange under a thin coating of silvery gray. Rivka arranged lines of herbed quail on the grill and stood guard over them with her tongs. A willowy figure strode past her toward the parking lot, the sleeves of her apricot kimono dress rippling behind her.
“Where is she going?” said Rivka.
Sunny paused on her way to the table. “Annabelle? Monty said she forgot her earrings.”
“And she’s going to go get them? Can’t she do without, or send someone else? She can’t leave her own engagement dinner. We’re just about to sit down!”
“I know,” said Sunny with a shrug. “You want to try to stop her?”
Rivka hung the tongs on the grill and crossed her arms indignantly. “She’s going to miss it. These birds are going to be ready in five. I can’t take them off now.”
“I told her that. It’s her party; she can miss it if she wants to.”
Sunny carried the last of the salads out through the mix of friends clustered around Wildside’s backyard and gave the table one last glance, moving a glass half an inch closer to a plate, tucking a flower a bit deeper into its vase. Search warrants, shattered windows, murder investigations—it was all behind them now, thought Sunny with satisfaction. Cynthia Meyers was in jail awaiting trial for homicide, among other charges. Wildside’s waitstaff glided among the guests, offering pristine little shrimps, toasts with a smear of goat cheese, and diced ahi tartare with fresh ginger and blackened sesame seeds on rice crisps. A gloss of chatter floated over the scene, punctuated by laughter and mixed with the jazz string quartet playing acoustic off to one side.
Most of the restaurant’s staff was on hand to help. That morning, they’d carried half a dozen four-tops out the back door of Wildside and set them up next to the garden, under the olive trees, and covered them with white linen to make one long table. Down the center were half a dozen candelabra and as many vases overflowing with roses from Sunny’s yard and the rosebushes that grew at the end of each row of vines across the street.
It was a perfect night: still, warm, and golden. Monty Lenstrom was nervous. Already he’d had too much of the local bub
bly and was standing by Rivka with a champagne flute in his hand, looking dazed in his linen summer suit. Wade Skord clapped him on the back.
“You finally did it. And before retirement,” he said.
“I am in love with an extremely neurotic woman,” said Monty. “And I’m going to marry her. That’s what I’m doing.”
Wade took the tongs and lifted a quail. “Looks like we’re almost ready. I could eat about, oh, seven of these guys myself.”
“You get one,” said Rivka.
“You’ve gotta be kidding. That’s a Scooby snack, not dinner.”
“Relax, it’s just the starter. Everybody gets a salad and a quail to start. Then bouillabaisse avec garden tomatoes, garlic, white fish, and whatever else Sunny threw in there with a big tasty crouton floating on top and a dollop of Mama McCoskey’s spicy rouille. Nobody is going to go home hungry.”
“Good. Then let’s get this thing started, I’m starved.”
Sunny came up beside them. “I think we’re about ready. Annabelle back yet?”
“Of course not,” said Rivka. “She’s probably still gassing up the car and having her nails done. It’s fifteen minutes each way at least.”
“Well, we can’t wait. We’ll just have to start without her. Everyone knows how she is, anyway.” Sunny glanced at Monty. “I mean, I’m sure she’ll be back soon. What do you think?”
