Obstacle Course

by Yvonne Montgomery

  He lifted her in his arms. "Be still my beating heart."

  "Well," said Finny, "that, too."

  * * *

  Fixing breakfast the next morning didn't further Finny's quest for inner peace. Last night's prowler had emptied all the cereal boxes and had tossed more slices of bread around than a drunken baker. He or she apparently had no grudge against eggs, since they'd escaped the massacre. Finny scrambled the eggs, mourning the loss of her mocha almond coffee, a present she'd bought herself at FBC to the tune of $7.98 a pound. Damned philistine.

  Barelli had lapsed into a brooding silence after he saw the purple circle on her stomach where the intruder had hit her. He was eating his breakfast with all the relish of an executioner working overtime, pretending to read the newspaper, sipping the herb tea she'd found intact, slanting a glance at her now and again.

  "Chris, what is it?"

  He let the paper rest on the table. "I want you to stop this thing."

  "What thing?"

  "The detective bit with Twee." His eyes met hers, and they were angry.

  Finny's looked away. "You don't know that last night had anything to do with Twee."

  "You don't know that it didn't." He pushed back the chair and stood up. "I don't like the feel of this, Finny. And I sure as hell don't like the idea of your poking around in this anymore. Not with Guiterrez dead, not with the asshole who punched you last night."

  "Chris." Finny went to him, and he pulled her into his arms. "I'm okay, you know."

  "Yeah, I know." He rested his chin on her head and his voice rumbled under her ear. "I'm going to talk to Bernie about reopening the Sarandon case. Guiterrez's murder has to make them want to take another look." He grasped her shoulders and pushed her far enough away to look into her eyes. "And I'd consider it a personal favor if you'd get back to building Corinne's linen closet."

  Finny nodded slowly. "Okay. The only proviso is that you guys do open Twee's case again. If you don't, I can't make any promises, Chris."

  His eyes narrowed as they met hers. After a moment, he nodded. "Fair enough."

  * * *

  It was definitely slow going this morning. Barelli had left for the wars a while ago and Finny was trying to get herself back into some kind of rhythm. She stood in the shower for a long time, struggling to think it through.

  She'd managed to get her clothes on and her shoes tied before the phone issued a shrill summons. She picked up the receiver but, before she could say anything, the answering machine spiel clicked on. "You've reached 888-4746. At the tone, leave your name and number." She'd forgotten to turn on the delay switch last night.

  "Finny, this is Abigail Hunter. The word's out that Twee is in the hospital. I want to know why and I want to know soon. Don't forget our deal. I haven't. Call me." By the sound of her, she could have advertised toothpaste: she was frothing at the mouth.

  Finny hung up and headed for the stairs. She hadn't even checked for messages last night. It just hadn't occurred to her.

  The answering machine's red light shone brightly and the first message was another missive of love from Abigail—marginally more polite than today's, but not by much.

  The next message was from Les Trethalwyn. "Finny, I'm wondering if you could call me. I've found something interesting about our Mr. Engelman, and I think you'll be better for knowing it."

  Finny dialed his number fast, then slammed down the receiver. Damn and blast. It was busy. She'd have to try again. Or she could go to his office and talk to him in person. The image of Barelli's face, grave, straightforward, trusting, flashed across her mind. And then she thought of Twee. Whatever she found out might help Twee. There was no guarantee that Les would talk to Barelli, was there? She could still serve as go-between until she heard that Denver's finest were back in harness, couldn't she?

  She made a quick call to Corinne to explain her delay, and then started hunting for her keys.

  Chapter 18

  "—in town for tonight's premiere of Bizet's Carmen at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. The performance, a benefit for the Serif Foundation has been sold—"

  Finny pushed the radio button and the driving beat of the Stones filled the cab of her pickup. A little down-and-dirty suited her mood.

  A Trans-Am pulled out of a parking place as she passed the huge Dave Cook's store, and she darted for it like a hungry trout lunges for a fly. She locked the doors and headed up the mall toward Larimer Street.

  Sunshine was falling on Writer Square as she rounded the corner onto Larimer, bathing the red brick of the buildings and the walks. Across the street, the copper pots in the window of Williams-Sonoma gleamed without the benefit of the sun. Finny strode past the shops, past the Market, breathing in the perfume of strong, dark coffee wafting from the open doorway, seeking and finding the discreet brass plaque posted on the white painted wood next to a doorway squeezed between two shops.

  The Denver Arts Consortium was on the second floor, Suite 201. The stairs were soft with gray carpeting, and the promise in the scent of fresh paint and furniture wax was fulfilled in the small, sleek reception area extending like a living room at the top.

  Danish modern chairs in blond wood and a soft blue and violet plaid upholstery lounged coolly around the clean lines of the birch table that held copies of Premiere and Interview, Muse and Variety. If one could extrapolate from the decor, the Consortium was doing all right.

  The soft, hurried music of a muted telephone bell played in the background—another layer in the patina of success. The sleek receptionist glanced up to give Finny the onceover with the speed of a grocery store scanner. The woman was savvy, and she didn't have any time to waste.

  "May I help you?" The delivery was business straight up, the accent pure London.

  Finny smiled. "Yes. I need to talk—"

  The door to the right of the desk opened and Les Trethalwyn looked round the edge of it. "Sarah, do be a love—" He stopped short. "Miss Aletter—Finny. Just the person I wanted to see."

  "Les." She stepped forward to clasp the hand he extended. "I tried to get through by phone, but—" She glanced back at the secretary who was picking up the receiver yet again.

  Trethalwyn moved back and motioned Finny through the door to his office. "It's a madhouse today. Carmen premieres tonight, you know, and last-minute panic has set in." He waved her into a gray leather chair, skirted the Queen Anne table that served as a desk to his own chair, and sat. "It's good of you to come here."

  "I couldn't ignore your message. What have you found out?"

  Trethalwyn leaned back in his chair. In his white shirt and striped tie, his curling hair brushed back from his forehead, he looked the normal businessman, but his dancing brown eyes played against the staid image. "Would it surprise you to know that dear Ty Engelman is on the brink of bankruptcy?"

  Finny's forehead creased in a frown. "I'd have expected money problems, but I'm surprised he's that bad off. How do you know?"

  "I have my sources." His smile was satisfied with her reaction. "Ty's been seen a great deal on the social scene during the last year or so—at the benefits and many of the parties. And that's an expensive pastime."

  "Yes, I know that." Finny looked across the desk at him, puzzled. "So?"

  "It occurred to me to check into his financial standing. Since he hangs about Paige Dexter a great deal, I wondered if Paige has been subsidizing him all along. He has to have some source of funds."

  "So you're speculating that he could've had money—through Paige—as a motive for killing Sarandon. Rather obvious, isn't it?"

  "Perhaps." Trethalwyn folded his hands together on the shining desktop. "But I can't help thinking that marriage to Paige would solve his problems."

  "Why opt for murder when a divorce was in the offing?" Finny asked.

  "Ah, but was it?" Trethalwyn nodded at Finny's look of surprise. "Paige and William had been separated for a long time—so long that some questioned whether a divorce would ever happen. And I wonder
if Paige would get quite as healthy a settlement—not to mention any sort of bequest in William's will."

  Finny thought of the way Ty had acted around Paige: attentive, even possessive. "It seems a bit shortsighted to commit murder without having sewn up his position. That is, if, as you suggest, Paige and William both were stalling the divorce."

  Les raised his hands in a who-knows gesture. "It seems worthy of attention to me."

  "Certainly." Finny was thinking back to the evening of the party. How would the timing have worked, putting Ty into the murderer's role? She'd encountered him after she left Twee, but before she ran into Judge Sarandon. She'd seen him with Paige after Sarandon's body was discovered, but that was all.

  Finny shook her head. "I don't know. It's possible, I suppose, but it'll take more than his being broke to make a case for his murdering Sarandon."

  "Oh, indeed," said Trethalwyn quickly. "Such as his feelings for Paige. And perhaps hers for him." His slightly inquiring tone brought Finny's eyes up to his. "Far be it for me to malign the lady, but it does seem to me that she's tried to be very much the fence sitter in regards to Ty Engelman."

  "One could get that impression," Finny said slowly. She was remembering the come-hither look Paige gave Ty at Twee's. But she hadn't been that glad to see him the day of the luncheon.

  "I just thought you ought to be made cognizant of what I'd discovered," Les said. He rose from his chair and came around his desk. "You know how much I want to help Twee."

  "Yes, of course." Finny rose and extended her hand. "You've given me something to think about."

  "Just trying to bring possibilities to your attention." Les opened his office door and escorted her through.

  "Mr. Trethalwyn," began his secretary, "there's a call from Mrs. Travis on line two. Can you take it?"

  "I suppose I'd better deal with the estimable Mrs. Travis."

  "Good-bye," Finny said. "Thanks."

  He raised his hand in a wave and went back into his office.

  Finny went down the stairs thoughtfully. Everything Les had told her pointed to Ty.

  Finny pushed the door open and emerged onto the sidewalk, now filling with knots of people moving like blood-clots through the larger currents of humanity streaming past the shops. If what Les was suggesting was true, if Ty had been the one to kill William Sarandon, then had he also killed Michael Guiterrez?

  She reached her truck, unlocked the door, and climbed in. What if Michael Guiterrez happened to snap a couple of pictures of Ty doing in the judge? Or, for that matter, of Paige doing the dirty deed? Then there'd be an enormous connection among all of them—all class barriers aside.

  The niggling worry at this point was, why was Les Trethalwyn working so hard to hang the judge's murder on Ty? He was a busy man, but he'd taken the time to research Ty's finances. It was enough to make her wonder about Les's motives.

  The traffic was thickening into lunchtime lunacy when Finny steered her little pickup into the fray. What she ought to do now was head straight to Corinne's house for an intensive bout of sanding. She flicked on the signal light and veered into the exit for the Valley Highway. What she was going to do was try one more angle before she hung up her curiosity.

  Finny swept onto the Belleview exit. Cuffy hadn't told her much—certainly not enough—but she had the outstanding virtue of knowing all the players in the drama. At this point in the mish-mash of the last week, that was the only advantage to be had.

  Finny pulled through the wagon-wheel gate and parked in front of Cuffy's house. If this was going to be her last shot, she'd make it count.

  She rapped sharply on the door and, a moment later, it opened.

  "Finny? " In her faded jeans and t-shirt, her copper hair caught into a ponytail over each ear, Cuffy Sarandon looked about fifteen. "What are you doing here?"

  "I've come to ask a favor—two, really. May I come in?"

  "Sure." Cuffy stepped aside. "What is it you want?"

  Finny ran a hand through her hair. "I want you to get me into your father's house."

  "Now, wait a minute—"

  Finny held up one hand. "Hear me out."

  Cuffy turned away. "Come into the kitchen," she said brusquely. "I was just getting a drink."

  Finny trailed after her, took the glass of lemonade Cuffy proffered, and drank the tart, cold liquid gratefully. "Thanks."

  "All right," Cuffy said. "Tell me what this is about."

  "You're father was not a popular man," Finny said. "The Parmetter case, as well as others, made a lot of people hate him. Then there was the Jericho Mountain deal."

  "So?" Cuffy set her glass down with a firm tap. "You're not telling me anything I don't already know."

  "It occurred to me that there might be other reasons for people to have a grudge against him. He was on the bench for quite a while, and I've heard people say there were other business deals."

  "My father was a businessman and a judge," Cuffy said shortly. "Of course there were other deals, and other people involved with them. That doesn't change the fact that Twee has confessed to killing him."

  "Cuffy, please." Finny started to touch her arm, then changed her mind at the expression of distaste that crossed the woman's face. "If you have any feeling for Twee, let me at least check. The police didn't finish going through his effects because Twee confessed. There might be something that would help her."

  Cuffy was shaking her head. "You are incredible. Loyal to the end."

  Finny wanted to smack the cool amusement off her face. "What's the matter, don't you think people in my class are capable of loyalty?"

  "Your class?" Cuffy's eyes smoldered. "Finny, you're such a snob. You're always on the lookout for a putdown, always quick to grasp at the differences. You're no better than people like my mother."

  "That's bullshit and you know it."

  "No, I don't know it. I've spent half my life listening to people like you, the ones who're convinced that, because I have money, I come from another species. You're no different."

  Finny stared at her. She supposed she did resent the wealth, the position. How odd, because she didn't really want to be a part of that world. It wasn't that she didn't have the framework of either wealth or family. She just figured she'd be bored. So why the edge, why the sarcasm? "You might be right," Finny said on a rueful note. "Jesus, you might just be right."

  Cuffy seemed to lose momentum, a balloon deflated on the edge of flight. "What?"

  "I have been looking at this whole thing as though all the players came from another planet," Finny said in a low voice. "All I could see was Twee doing the noblesse oblige bit. But what if that isn't it at all?"

  "So, what else could it be?" Cuffy had put her hands on her hips, her head cocked in curiosity like a considering child. "Except for being the murderer, why else would she confess?"

  "I'm not sure, but I think it was because she really wanted to, and she feels guilty that she didn't." Finny looked up from the floor, into Cuffy's face. "I need you to get me into your father's house. I haven't told anybody about you and Kit, so, if you want to get technical about it, you owe me."

  "Owe you for what? You never—"

  "All right, then you owe Twee. Just do it, Cuffy. Trust me, okay?"

  Cuffy stared at her measuringly. "Okay, I'll do it. But, so help me, Finny, if you cross me..."

  "Shit, what am I going to do?" Finny watched her as she swept up a handbag and started for the door. "I already perjured my soul with Abigail Hunter, and if that doesn't prove I'm trustworthy, I don't know what does."

  Cuffy stopped, her hand on the doorknob. "Finny, this doesn't have anything to do with my mother, does it?"

  Just for a moment Finny considered lying to her. That was when she finally accepted Cuffy for what she was. "It might," she said flatly. "I don't know."

  Cuffy's eyes met hers squarely. "Let's go," she said gruffly, then slammed the door behind them.

  TRIP WIRE

  "That'll be four forty-three." The Fo
to-Tek clerk glanced over her shoulder impatiently at the continuing shriek of the telephone. The ends of her long brown ponytail caught on her name tag, obscuring the "Joan" scrawled in crooked letters. "Dammit," she muttered, then, "Sammy, can you get the phone?"

  Bianca sorted slowly through the small bunch of bills in her wallet and pulled out a worn five.

  The girl took it from her and hurriedly punched numbers into the cash register. The drawer slid open and she scooped coins out of the dividers. "Forty-four, forty-five, fifty and five." She pushed the packet of photographs toward Bianca and stretched her red, full lips in a smile. "Thanks. You come back, now."

  The bell on the glass door jingled as Bianca opened it and went out into the hot, heavy air of late afternoon. Clouds were gathering over the mountains like an angry mob.

  She barely glanced at the package in her hand. She wanted to sit down first. Waves of fatigue were making her dizzy, and the coffee and roll she'd eaten at the little cafe near the bus station were lying on her stomach like the bad memories in her mind.

  She walked down the sidewalk until she saw the tables outside Hummel's. She sat in one of the metal chairs and watched the aproned young waitress come toward her. "Ice tea," she murmured. She shouldn't spend the money, but she couldn't walk any further right now, no matter what.

  The girl set a tall, thick glass in front of her, and Bianca reached for it greedily. The cold, quenching liquid slid down her dry throat, ice cubes pushing against her lips.

  She could put it off no longer. She picked up the envelope of photographs and fumbled with the flap sealing it closed. The paper tore and she widened the opening. When she turned the packet upside down, eight squares fell out onto the table top.

  Bianca turned them over, one by one, thinking of her grandfather, playing his card games in the village bodega with Senor Gonzales.

  The first picture was a blend of blacks and grays and whites and she could make no sense of it. The shapes were ill-defined. The second picture was the same and her eyes filled with bitter tears. These were what Miguel had died for?