The Smart Money

by Lia Matera

  Sandy smiled, with his eyelids more than his lips.

  “And also why you left my aunt’s party.”

  “I didn’t want you introducing me to Loftus. I’d parked my car far enough away that I didn’t worry about him spotting it. But I thought I’d better hang around outside and make sure you got home okay. So ten minutes later, out comes Loftus and searches your car.”

  “Then it was Loftus who moved the revolver,” I said. “He found Bean’s gun—or rather, his own gun—under my seat where Kirsten had put it. I wonder why he took it out?”

  “Well, honey, every word you say gets picked up by the wire services. Maybe he thought it would be safer to leave you clean out of the whole mess, if he could.”

  “Maybe,” I conceded. Loftus had been unvaryingly polite to me. And surprisingly uninquisitive, every time he’d questioned me. “But why did he put it back?”

  “He’d shot me by then. Maybe he was looking to set up a scapegoat. And you were my—” He looked away. “He might need to build a case against you, if push came to shove.”

  “He came to talk to me in the hospital, and I challenged him. I acted suspicious that he hadn’t questioned me more aggressively.”

  “A mistake, Laura. That’s probably when he decided to put the gun back.”

  “Speaking of mistakes, why’d you go into the bushes, Sandy?”

  “After Loftus searched your car, he took off in his unmarked. I thought he was gone for good. But I guess he’d spotted me lurking around. He must have parked his car and doubled back.” Sandy’s face looked pinched. He obviously didn’t relish recounting this part of his story. “You left the party, and I wanted to follow you home. Just to be extra cautious. Thought I’d short-cut to my car through the gully, in case Loftus was still in the neighborhood. Well, speaking of mistakes …Turned out Loftus was coming across the gully, right toward me. I realized it about a quarter of the way across. I doubled back. Almost made it to your aunt’s yard before he caught up.”

  I stared out the window I’d made the nurses lock in Gary Gleason’s presence. Sandy himself had taken the wisest precaution. He’d told the cops it had been too dark to see his attacker. He knew he’d be a sitting duck for Loftus, otherwise.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about the German boy, whatever his name is?”

  “It’s Dieter Strindberg. That much is true. In fact, it’s all true, almost. It’s just … I didn’t know you all that well when I first told you about him. And back then I had the impression you hated Kirsten Strindberg about as much as you could hate anyone. I didn’t know how you’d feel about helping her nephew, her dead brother’s only kid. So I told you he was Lennart’s brother.”

  “Why didn’t you say you were working for him?”

  Sandy’s eyelids drooped, but he looked more sick than sleepy. “I never do tell anyone who my clients are, honey. I’m not supposed to. That’s the private part of private investigation.”

  “There’s something else you didn’t tell me.”

  Sandy looked up at me, volunteering nothing.

  “You stole Kirsten’s will, didn’t you, Sandy? You left that out of your sequence of events, but it’s true, isn’t it? After Loftus came out of Kirsten’s house, you went in and found her dead. Most people keep a copy of their will at home—you know that. So you snooped around until you found it. You stole Kirsten’s will.”

  “What makes you think she even made a will? All you’ve got is Gleason’s word for it. And he’s a lawyer. Wouldn’t he keep another copy somewhere?”

  “At his office. You stole that copy, too. You must have done it while Gary was still in the hospital, the morning after Kirsten was killed. Before I picked you up at the airport.”

  Sandy closed his eyes.

  “Gary must have been frantic when he realized both copies were gone. And he undoubtedly told the cops about it. So when they found my fingerprints on Kirsten’s letter drawer—and they must have found some—Loftus was pretty much obligated to get a search warrant for my place. It would have looked odd if he hadn’t. But I didn’t take that will. And Loftus had no reason to take it. When it comes right down to it, the only person who did have a reason was Dieter Strindberg … and you were working for him.”

  I looked at Sandy’s arms, where tubes stabbed the bruised skin of his inner elbows. I looked at the smaller tube snaking into his nose. His eyes were sunken, ringed with gray. He didn’t need this.

  “You destroyed Kirsten’s will so Gary Gleason wouldn’t inherit all of Kirsten’s separate property—like that financial district building. If I remember the rules of intestate succession, Kirsten’s brother—or in this case, her brother’s surviving child—will get half. Your client will get half.”

  “If it was up to me, Dieter would get the whole damn thing.” Sandy opened his eyes. A spark of anger lent his ashen face vitality. “Gleason murdered Lennart Strindberg, but we’ll never prove it, Laura. That’s the goddamned system for you.”

  I nodded. A little rough justice had been effected. Who the hell was I to complain?

  42

  I found my Mercedes parked in front of my house. My bastard of an ex-husband had returned it after stranding me on the sand flats.

  And I found my Uncle Henry in my living room, stockinged feet on the coffee table as he sipped whiskey and read what looked like a budget report.

  “Don’t get up.” I bent to pick up an envelope on the floor beneath the mail slot.

  It was a telegram from Doron White himself, senior partner of White, Sayres & Speck. It read, Our regrets re Wallace Bean. Congratulations on ascertaining his assassin. Assume Arkelett there at your behest on Bean-related matter. Insurer to underwrite hospital expenses and arrange helicopter transport to S.F. General. Urge you to cut short leave of absence. So-called law school murderer wishes to retain your services immediately.

  I looked up to find my uncle standing solicitously beside me. “Not bad news, is it, Laura?”

  I shook my head. “No, good news. I’m going back to San Francisco as soon as I can get packed. I’ve got a big case. Probably the hottest case in the state.”

  My uncle looked around the well-built old Victorian. “Don’t you have a lease?”

  “I’ll buy out of it.”

  He put his arm around me. I could smell whiskey and after-shave, see the sparkle in his dark eyes. “I’ll tell you what, Laura, why don’t I just stay on here for the time being? Sublease the place from you?”

  My Aunt Diana would love that. “Great. Let Papa have one of the rooms, will you?”

  My uncle smiled wryly. “He’s already asked.”

  I climbed the stairs and crawled into the bath. I was dressing when I heard a tap at my bedroom door.

  “It’s me. Hal.”

  My stomach knotted, then fluttered. The way it does before closing arguments.

  I opened the door.

  For a moment, we just looked at each other. Hal’s face was bruised, his lip split. He was unshaven, his hair damp from the foggy walk from the police station.

  But he appeared younger than he had a few days earlier. His face looked serious, but not bitter. There were lines around his eyes, but his unconscious wince was gone.

  I touched the bruise on his forehead. “You can’t say I’m a dull person to be around.”

  “I’d never say that,” he agreed.

  “I’m going back to the city, Hal. I’ve got the kind of case criminal lawyers drool over. Multiple murders, lots of publicity. Really interesting stuff, not just a panicked shot in a liquor store.”

  “I see.”

  “I mean, I know no one else has the right to kill another person. But—”

  “Murderers are entitled to the best defense. Isn’t that how the cliché goes?”

  “No, I won’t pretend it’s altruism. I love criminal law, Hal. And I’m very g
ood at it.” So why did I sound defensive?

  “Still worried about poetic justice, cousin?”

  “Yes,” I admitted reluctantly. “I guess so. Karma. Whatever you want to call it.”

  “A major occupational hazard … for everyone.” He smiled. “But the kind of week you’ve had, I’d say it’s a wash. You might even be a little ahead of the game.”

  “I don’t suppose you’d come to San Francisco with me?” Framing a question in the negative; I knew better than that. “You wouldn’t have to put up with me that much. I’m an awful workaholic—seventy, eighty hours a week.”

  “And I’ll bet you talk about your job the rest of the time.”

  “I probably do.” An admission against interest; I was blowing my case. I stepped closer, resting my hands on his chest. “San Francisco’s the greatest town in the world, Hal. You could wander around every day and never get tired of it. You could learn the bus routes; you could get anywhere without driving.” I heard desperation creep into my voice. “If you wanted to travel, I’d understand. I’d go with you as often as I could. I make such a lot of money, Hal. You’d be shocked how much. I could send you anywhere. And I could buy you music, and tapes of people reading books. And a television. I could buy a big fancy one, with a video recorder so you could rent movies.”

  The more I talked, the more I seemed to be insulting him. I’d have to do better than this for my new client.

  “I don’t need a lot of money. And I need a big TV about as much as Wallace Bean did.”

  “Sure—you’ve proved you can do without stuff. But I’m not offering you what your father offered you. I don’t want to help you.”

  “But that would be the effect of the arrangement, wouldn’t it?” His tone was neutral.

  “Anything wrong with that?”

  “I should go with the smart money. That what you’re saying?”

  “You could think of it as easy. Easy money.”

  “No. I don’t think we’d have a very easy time together, Laura. But—” He frowned down at me. “If I say no, you might start plotting against me, like you did with Gleason. And hell, I’ve seen you talk a cop right into his grave.”

  “Don’t risk it, Hal.”

  “Handicapped old vet like me.” He shook his head. “I’d better not.”

  Turn the page to continue reading from the Laura Di Palma Mysteries

  Prologue

  Hal Di Palma climbed out of bed. It took a while. His right leg was rubbery and unresponsive. He could raise his right arm and rotate it, open and close his hand. The palm still tingled and his fingers didn’t register the texture of objects he touched. He had to look at them to make sure he gripped objects with sufficient force to keep them from sliding out of his fist. But that was okay. Nothing anybody else would notice.

  He felt his way across the room. Near the partially open door, a trapezoid of linoleum glinted with soft fluorescent light. He could see no one in the corridor. His room was far from the check-in desk and reception-area couches. It was near the kitchen; he heard the clatter of trays several times a day. Not now. He’d managed to waken long before breakfast.

  He closed himself into the bathroom and turned on the light above the mirror, a sheet of institutional metal that made his skin look purplish. His hair stuck up in sleepy patches. He was surprised to see so much white in it. He remembered its being mostly black. The rest of him looked as bad as he’d expected.

  His eyes were red and watery, especially his right eye. At the veterans hospital (god, sixteen years ago?) it had been months before the eyelid closed properly. How many months would it be this time?

  In addition, everything on the right side of his face was a little off. The right cheek seemed hollower than the left, the corner of his mouth drooped slightly. Hal rubbed the stubble on his chin. The right side felt a bit numb still.

  He pulled open the cabinet and looked inside. A cordless electric razor. He’d looked earlier and discovered this object, but hadn’t been quite sure what it was. Now, he recognized it.

  He’d never used a cordless razor before. He fumbled with it interminably before finally hitting the “on” button. The sudden buzzing startled him so that he almost dropped it in the sink. Then he jerked the contoured head over his chin.

  He washed, his right hand failing to cup the water so that he splashed it over his pajamas and onto the floor. He wet his hair and fingercombed it back off his face.

  He searched his eyes intently in the mirror, trying to reassure himself that he was still the same man: thirty-seven, reasonably strong, emotionally tough. But Jesus, he looked scary. Gaunt and angry. He recalled a dark, smelly bar somewhere in the Southwest, a crazy husk of a drunkard who kept slamming money on the table and bellowing, “I got me a dollar says I can whip any man in the place!”

  Disconcerted by the physical resemblance, Hal turned away.

  Getting his clothes out of the cupboard was tricky in the dark. Getting himself into them was even trickier. The trek across the small room had knocked the stuffing out of him. It was hard to shuck pajama shirt and trousers, to bend and lift his limbs into stiffer, less-yielding clothes.

  Hal lay back on the bed for a few minutes when he was done, his heart hammering and his skin clammy from exertion. His mouth tasted sour. He’d forgotten to brush his teeth, but the bathroom seemed miles away, and the necessary movements—holding the brush, squeezing the tube, scrubbing the teeth, even spitting so that he didn’t spot his sweater—seemed far beyond him.

  He heard footsteps in the corridor, and because he had to, he found the energy and coordination to push back the bedsheet and then pull it over himself, all the way up to his neck to hide his cable-knit sweater.

  He’d barely finished when a nurse said, “Uh oh—woke you up.”

  They were so damn cheerful at this place. It was like being locked up in a department store.

  “That’s okay,” he croaked.

  She smiled. “Boy, you’re sure making fast …” something. Progress, he guessed. She said another thing that slid in and out of his consciousness without reaching his understanding. She tapped the plastic bottle hooked to the side of his bed.

  “No.” His voice was hoarse with irritation. If he had to make a wish right now it would be never again to pee into a bottle held by a stranger. He felt nauseous, the desire was so fervent.

  She nodded and smiled again, then held up a tiny white Dixie cup. “Medication time.”

  Damn. If he sat up, she’d see the clothes.

  He forced his head forward and opened his mouth.

  Simultaneously she offered the cup and her arm, to raise him. With his lips and tongue, he tipped the pills into his mouth and swallowed them, opening again to show her they were gone.

  The nurse was clearly startled. “Gosh. Let me get you some water.”

  He wasn’t actually sure she’d said water, but it made sense that way. “No water,” he replied.

  The pills stuck in his throat and he barely kept down the contents of his stomach. He was so damn tired. More than tired, stressed. Hot with sweat, scared. He wondered, with an edge of panic, what the pills did. Would they make him pass out somewhere? Worse yet, were they keeping him alive? Would he have some kind of attack without them?

  He tried to reassure himself. Think of the pharmacopoeia they’d stuffed down his gullet at the veterans hospital. Everything from antibiotics to antipsychotics. No wonder he’d lain there like a vegetable for the better part of a year.

  Without that shit he’d been able to get by in the world. Not exactly prosper, but get by. Pass for a human being.

  And this latest affliction was just some kind of seizure. Caused by … what? He remembered waking up to a mouthful of carpet. He didn’t remember how he got there. Hit from behind?

  Whatever the hell had happened, it wasn’t a bullet in the brain l
ike last time. How bad off could he be?

  The nurse gave a cheery wave and left the room.

  He told himself he’d better wait until she finished her rounds, but he knew why he was lying there. If a wash and a shave took this much out of him, how the hell was he going to make it outside?

  He thought of places he’d called home—a rusted-out old van, a windy stretch of beach, every kind of woodland from sugar maple to mangrove to sodden evergreen. He’d make it the way he always made it.

  For a split second, a sensory trick brought him the smell of oiled wood walls and backyard gully: his boyhood room. He lay still, weathering the memory—the memory and all its associations: his mother carping at him to invite her doctor’s son to dinner, his father buying him that mortifying sports car, his picture in the paper every time he won a fucking swimming certificate or spelling bee.

  Comfort didn’t make a place home. Comfort was a cattle prod of expectations, your own and other people’s.

  Look at Laura. Look what she had to do for her handmade rugs and her signed lithographs. Her career was an endless drill of in-cadence exercises, one two three four, and she couldn’t see it wasn’t worth it. Maybe do it for your flag, but not for your things.

  He closed his eyes tightly, trying to block tears. Laura. No, he wasn’t going to get sentimental about a woman who’d kenneled him.

  Oh, this was an expensive kennel, to be sure—private room, garnished food, designer paper on the damned walls. The place probably had a classy name, too, Green Oaks or something. Laura always threw plenty of money at her problems.