Obstacle Course

by Yvonne Montgomery

  "Gee," Finny said in a gravelly voice, "I turn my back on you and you go and do something stupid."

  Twee's dry lips curved a little. "Made sense at the time," she whispered.

  Finny reached for the hand that rested on the blanket. "Why, Twee? Why'd you do it?"

  Her eyes closed and she took a breath and spoke in a thready voice. "The idea of going through a trial lost its appeal." She turned her hand over, and, in a sudden movement, clung tightly to Finny. "You've got to believe I did kill William."

  Finny hesitated and then said truthfully, "Twee, I don't see how you could have."

  Her eyes opened and met Finny's gaze. "I know what I did," she said with a little of her old spirit. "I killed William because he cheated my husband and me out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. He deserved to die."

  Finny released a long breath. "Twee, remember the night of the party. You and Paige and Les Trethalwyn and I were talking. Do you remember?"

  Twee nodded.

  "I left to go to the rest room and said I'd meet you later. I ran into William Sarandon and he headed off to deal with the wine stain. Twee, I saw you in the room during that time he was away. I heard you at least once. And, when you found me right before Bianca discovered Sarandon's body, you said you'd been talking to former Commissioner Nielsson. Isn't that right?"

  Twee nodded.

  "Twee, there wasn't time for you to kill Sarandon. I know it and you know it."

  Twee's head rolled back and forth on the pillow in denial. "No, that isn't right. I told you, I swore I'd kill William someday. It was the only way to punish him, you see. He didn't care enough about anything except money and position! I couldn't take away his money, and it would have taken too much time and effort to cut away his position. It was my job to kill him. It was my right. Nobody could take that away from me."

  Slow tears had spilled onto her cheeks and made their way down her face. "When Herbert died I made a promise. I wanted to do it. I thought about it, tried to decide the best way." Her voice choked into sobs. "I promised. You just keep out of it—I wanted to do it. Understand?" on a rising note. "I wanted to."

  "It's all right, Twee." Finny patted her shoulder gently. "Just relax now. It's all right."

  Her breathing slowed and the crying subsided. In a few minutes she was asleep. Finny glanced at MacKenzie Bartholomew. He was watching Twee, like a man who was looking at something gone long ago.

  She motioned toward the door and he nodded.

  "She's asleep," Finny told the nurse who came in as they left.

  Finny turned to Bartholomew as they walked down the hall. "I still don't believe her. Do you?"

  He had his handkerchief at his nose, was wiping at it with short, quick dabs. "I don't know. If you'd asked me last week if Twee Garrett could commit murder, I'd have laughed. Twee has always been one of the kindest people I've known. Stubborn, opinionated, but kind." He tucked his handkerchief back into his pocket. "She's been so... vociferous about it, you see. When she came to me, to tell me about William, she seemed proud that she'd done it. Proud, and fearfully angry when I argued against making a confession."

  Finny stabbed at the elevator button. "Dammit, she just couldn't have done it. She simply didn't have time."

  The elevator opened its jaws and they entered it. Finny stared at the floor and Bartholomew reached around her to press the floor button.

  "Do you know anything about Twee's maid?" Finny asked.

  "Very little. Twee said she'd gotten her name from one of her friends. She seemed to like the girl."

  "She seemed so afraid when I talked to her Tuesday. I could have sworn she was either lying or hiding something. Now she's disappeared... Do you have her phone number or her address?"

  He was patting at his nose once again with his handkerchief. "I suppose we have her job application on file at my office."

  "Can you check for me?" The doors slid open and they exited into the lobby. "I want to talk to her about last night."

  He studied her face for a moment, his own reflecting warring feelings. "I could do that," he said slowly, deliberating. "You would, of course, have to agree to keep any information I give you confidential."

  Finny bit back a retort. What did he think she'd do, take out an ad? And for what, the maid's address and phone number? "I promise I'll be discreet."

  He ignored her sarcasm. "Very well."

  She followed him to the Tech Center and twenty minutes later she was on her way, the information in hand. The maid, Bianca Lopez, lived in Westwood, in one of the poorer parts of the area, judging by the street number.

  Finny gunned her pickup into the post-lunch traffic flow on the Valley Highway. Westwood wasn't all that far from the Tech Center, at least geographically, but the distance between the two areas was as vast as differing continents—one well-heeled and homogeneous, the other a melting pot of older Hispanic and white cultures and the new, energetic influx of Asian refugees.

  Finny signaled a lane change and veered around an Olds holding sway down the center of the highway. Damn. Twee was nearly unraveled. So upset at the idea that she might've let old Herbert down. Was that it? Was she ashamed she hadn't killed Sarandon?

  She passed a lackadaisical truck and zipped by the playing fields at Denver U. If she could find Bianca, maybe she could discover what she was so hysterical about last night. And why she'd left Twee alone.

  Chapter 16

  Finny pulled up to the curb in front of the tiny duplex on Irving. The front yard, its tired grass graying for lack of water, wilted behind a fence fashioned from two-by-fours and wire netting. The wood was scabrous with flaking green paint.

  She went through the gate, up the crumbling cement steps to a shiny, new aluminum screen door. Finny opened the screen and knocked sharply.

  In the hot silence of the afternoon, she could hear children's voices from down the block and the lazy shushing of a sprinkler from across the street. She knocked again.

  Damn. Finny let her hand drop and turned her back to the door to look around. At the sound of metal against metal behind her, she turned in time to see the door swing open. "Bianca," she began and then stopped. The woman looking at her through the screen was not Bianca Lopez.

  "May I help you?" Her voice was soft, but there was a thread of steel in it that made Finny's antennae quiver, especially when she registered the familiarity of the woman's features. Large brown eyes under straight, thick brows, high, defined cheekbones narrowing down into a square, determined chin. She'd seen that face before.

  "I'm looking for Bianca Lopez."

  "She isn't here right now." The strain was evident in her voice. "Who are you?"

  "My name is Finny Aletter. I, uh, spoke with Bianca a day or two ago. About the Sarandon killing."

  The woman took a step backward. "I'll tell her you came by."

  "Wait." Finny's hand went to the door handle. She tugged, but it was locked. "If you can help me, would you? It's really important that I talk to her."

  "Why?"

  "She's the maid for Twee Garrett, and Twee—Mrs. Garrett is in the hospital. Bianca was with her last night, and phoned her lawyer, but she left very suddenly, and I was wondering—"

  "You were worried? About Bianca?" She was angry. "Or is Bianca to blame for something?"

  "No," Finny said quickly. "You don't understand—I just wanted to talk to—"

  "I said I'd tell her." The woman began to close the door.

  "Wait. May I talk to you, Miss..."

  "Parmetter." Her lips spread in a travesty of a smile. "Elena Parmetter." The door closed on her name.

  "Wait!" Finny banged on the door. Elena Parmetter, the woman whose court case had caused so much bad feeling against William Sarandon. She hammered again on the aluminum screen door. "Miss Parmetter, please! I must talk with you. Please!"

  There was no response. After a few minutes, Finny turned away from the door and went back down the sidewalk to the gate. What had she tripped over here? She'd imagin
ed herself filling in the dot-to-dot picture, discovering an image in the bits and pieces of information she would find. But Elena Parmetter at the house of Bianca Lopez? What dot did you go to after a connection like that? Elena killing Sarandon with Bianca's help? Bianca murdering him on Elena's behalf?

  Finny climbed into her pickup and started the engine. This was getting too goddamned messy for her tastes. It was like turning over a rock and watching the bugs scramble for cover. She hated bugs.

  * * *

  The telephone was ringing as Finny came through her front door, and she thought, what now? It was all she could do to answer it.

  "Where the hell have you been?" Barelli snarled.

  "What's the matter?"

  "I've been trying to get you since nine-thirty this morning. I need you to come down here."

  And I need a stiff drink and twelve hours of sleep. "I knew my offer this morning would get to you sooner or later."

  He exhaled an almost-laugh and the tension went out of both of them. "How would you feel about a quickie at the morgue?"

  Finny shivered. "Your location leaves a lot to be desired."

  "So does the reason I want you to come down. I need you to look at a body."

  * * *

  The city morgue was located in the basement of Denver General Hospital, an innocuous enough building of blond brick and white metal perched between Sixth Avenue and Broadway, two of the busiest streets in town. Finny had driven past it a hundred times without thinking much about it. Why did it look so sinister today? Give you three guesses, her mind mocked.

  Whee, she thought as she swung into the parking lot, two hospitals in one day. She owed it all to good intentions and clean living.

  Barelli was waiting for her at the main door.

  "Eddie was in on the call last night," he said as they walked into the hospital. "They found some photo negatives and when they did a quickie proof sheet, guess what beautiful brunette was on one of them?"

  "Moi?" The elevator car was slow in coming.

  "And you claim to be modest."

  The elevator took fifty percent of forever to get to the basement, but it wasn't slow enough for Finny's taste. "Why would there be a picture of me?" The elevator settled with a thud and its doors slid open. Barelli's large hand enveloped hers as he led the way down the corridor.

  "Remember your phantom photographer?"

  "Oh, no."

  "We'll see."

  She was cold. It's just psychological, she told herself. Sure. And knowing that was supposed to make her feel better?

  At least she didn't have to watch the white-gowned lab technician pull open a drawer. She'd always decried that in the B-grade movies. Too melodramatic, that sliding out of a body from the coroner's file cabinet, the spooky music rising to a crescendo, the hinted horror that it might move....

  It wasn't going to move. The body, draped with a sheet, was already outside the stainless steel bank of drawers. Finny was breathing through her mouth against the chemical odors of the place, odors that were probably psychological, too. Hell, maybe all of this was an elaborate hallucination. She slanted a look downward as the technician pulled back the sheet, exposing a head, its skin gray plastic, its hair sticky-looking black fibers. The automatic defenses were kicking in, their little knee-jerk responses as uniform as goose-stepping Nazis.

  He looked so young, his face wiped clean of emotion, the eyelids closed forever on the feelings that had animated his expression. What exactly was it about life that informed flesh? But for that difference he could have been asleep, but that difference was a chasm that couldn't be bridged. What had been a good-looking, vital man was now a chunk of flesh with features that could barely be translated into the face she'd seen at Twee's party. The scrape across one of his cheekbones could have been drawn with purple and magenta markers. Finny said, "He's the one."

  "Thanks, John." Barelli cupped her elbow with one hand and urged her out of the room.

  "How'd he die?" Finny had to hurry to keep up with Barelli's long strides.

  "Somebody bashed his head in." He jabbed the elevator button a couple of times. "I hate this place."

  "No kidding."

  It was better out in the late afternoon. Finny took a deep breath, savoring the combined scents of cut grass and car exhausts. Polluted air was a hell of a lot better than no air at all.

  "You okay?"

  "Sure. I'm not dead." She looked up at him. "Who was he?"

  "A guy named Mike Guiterrez. He rented out as a freelance photographer—weddings, graduation parties—that kind of thing. Strictly local and small-potatoes local at that, until Twee's party."

  "Which was such large potatoes."

  Barelli shrugged. "Must've been, for him."

  Finny frowned. "Do you know how he came to be working for Twee?"

  Barelli shook his head. "So far his story's pretty bland looking, but we don't know a lot about him. We've been through his files—photo negatives, bills, correspondence. Eddie's checking out his personal life. Nothing's been a big number in the evidence department."

  Finny pushed her hair off her forehead. "I don't get it. You said there was a picture of me?"

  "Yeah." Barelli pulled her over to one edge of the sidewalk. A shift change of personnel had white jackets and surgery-green smocks coming and going, meeting between the hospital and the parking lot like both sides of the Red Sea after Moses had moved on. "Eddie caught it. You were wearing that pink outfit you had on at Twee's party, so I knew it was taken that night. You did say you bought it that day, right?"

  "Yeah."

  They walked slowly toward the parking lot.

  "There were other shots," said Barelli, "And I remembered some of the people we saw that night. You know that blonde with the strapless—"

  "I remember."

  Barelli grinned at her. "The problem is, there were only eighteen negatives for that roll and the usual is twenty-four or thirty-six."

  Finny waited for the roar of a semi heading east on Sixth to die down before she answered. "You think he could've been killed because of the photos?"

  Barelli shrugged. "It's worth looking into. You've got Sarandon dead, now the photog dead. There were negatives scattered all around his body and the way his studio was torn up, somebody was looking for something."

  Finny leaned against the fender of her pickup. "So what happens now?"

  "The usual. We talk to the people in those photos and we try to find out what Guiterrez was up to. We got a couple of names off return addresses on letters, there was a doctor's bill... we'll follow up on those. We'll talk to Twee to find out what she knows about him. It all comes down to hustling for whatever information we can get."

  Finny closed her eyes, lifting her face to the sun. "Yeah."

  Barelli's hand cupped her cheek. "You look tired, babe. Hard day?"

  Finny opened her eyes. "Busy, anyway. Twee's lawyer called me this morning at Corinne's."

  Barelli arched one brow. "Did he have a religious conversion, or what? Wasn't it a couple of days ago that he threw you out of her house?"

  "Having his client attempt suicide seemed to have had quite an impact on his attitude." Finny shook her head. "He passed on her request that I come see her."

  Barelli was staring down at her. "His client? You mean Twee tried to kill herself?"

  "Didn't you know?" Finny looked up at him, nonplussed. "I thought the police were told about suicides—or the attempts, for that matter."

  "Not necessarily. What happened?"

  Suddenly he was all cop and Finny could feel the conversational mode switch into serious business. "She swallowed half a bottle of barbiturates, with pure Smirnoff as a chaser. If it hadn't been for her maid, she would've cashed in her chips for sure."

  "Jesus."

  She told him about the visit to Twee because of her theory that Bianca Lopez's nonappearance might shed some light on something. "But here's the biggie, Chris. When I went out to her house, she wasn't there. But somebod
y else was. You'll never guess who."

  "The ghost of William Sarandon, right?"

  Finny snorted. "Little do you realize. Elena Parmetter answered the door, told me Bianca wasn't there. Now go figure that one out."

  "Elena Parmetter." He was looking at her, but Finny had the feeling that he didn't even see her. "What time did Twee check into the hospital, do you know?" His voice was grim.

  "No, but I can check. Why?"

  "Why?" Barelli ran a hand through his hair. "Finny, the woman confessed to killing William Sarandon. Now the photographer who was at the party that night turns up dead. Her maid is missing and Elena Parmetter, who was the victim of blatant defendant-bashing by William Sarandon, shows up at the maid's house. This is beginning to look like something out of the conspiracy handbook. We've got to check out any connections between Sarandon's and Gutierrez's murders."

  "Just don't focus on Twee," Finny said. "Bianca was there the night of the party. She splits the scene last night and Twee tries suicide." Finny looked up into Barelli's eyes. "Mike Guiterrez turns up dead. What if she's your killer, Chris? What if Bianca Lopez is behind all of this?"

  "Finny." Barelli jammed his hands into his pockets. Probably to keep himself from strangling her, judging by the frustrated expression on his face. "What screws up everything is Twee's confession. I can't see her as a compulsive confessor. We get them, you know. I had a guy a couple of years ago who admitted to slicing up his wife and planting the pieces under the trees at City Park. He had me going, ready to start looking for a shovel. Came to find out his wife had died the month before of cancer and he was all fucked up with guilt because he hadn't believed she was that sick."

  He dug a piece of gum out of one pocket and unwrapped it. "Twee Garrett isn't one of those people who feel so guilty over something they have or haven't done in their lives that they'll read about a crime and then confess to it, wanting to be punished."

  "I think you're dead wrong," Finny said. "You should've heard her today. She was practically hysterical, going on and on about how she promised Herbert she'd get even with Sarandon for the way he cheated them. I swear, Chris, it was the old death-bed promise and blood-feud revenge twisted together. The more I said she couldn't have done it, the wilder she got in telling me how she did." Finny pushed her bangs off her forehead. "I think she wanted to kill him, wanted to bad, but she didn't, and now she's working like hell to convince herself she did."