Until Death

by Alicia Rasley

  Brad had all sorts of contacts, given his role as a mayoral advisor, but not in the police department. I couldn’t imagine Det. Martelli, he with the I-beam sized chip on his shoulder, confiding secrets to Brad. “You mean, at the mayor’s office? They’re speculating about this accident?”

  “Will Bowie is a prominent citizen.”

  “Not to mention a big contributor to campaigns.” With a jolt, I remembered I had to keep up the pretense of ignorance. “Do you think Will is still in danger?”

  “He could be, as long as Murdoch is suing him. So that’s what we’d like to propose to Bowie. Primeline will pay Murdoch a settlement, including the amount originally proposed for Bowie’s contribution, and all lawsuits will be dropped, and the land remains Bowie’s.”

  “You want to buy Murdoch off, you mean.”

  “Well, you could call it that. But it’s a good deal for Bowie. All he has to do is drop his defamation lawsuit so that Murdoch can drop his fraud lawsuit—and quickly, before the judge starts the wheels of justice turning with more discovery interrogatories. All we need is a second round of slander and libel, you know, to set off another war.”

  Slowly, I said, “I see your point. And if Will thinks he’s in danger . . . well, maybe he’ll go along with it.” Fat chance. Will wouldn’t let Murdoch profit—not as long as he remembered his Lamborghini’s fate. “So why are you telling me all this?”

  “I understand that your partner has gone on holiday with Bowie.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  Brad flushed just a bit. He looked cute, with the pink tingeing his well-barbered cheeks. “I read it in the Town Crier column this morning.”

  “You read the gossip column?” I asked. “Why, Brad, I never would have guessed.”

  He sidestepped that. “I knew you’d have the phone number. His attorney is reluctant to help.” And, he implied, reluctant to give up the fees a trial would bring if Will doesn’t settle.

  “Actually, all I have is her email. I know, irresponsible of her. But that’s how young lovers are.” I could have told him she would have left her number with Dane’s dad, but decided that Wanda and Brad and Murdoch could just wait until Will moseyed back into town. I didn’t like the idea of rewarding Murdoch for violence, and Will wouldn’t either.

  “Do you have any idea where they are?”

  “Not really. The islands. Somewhere secluded. They wanted to be alone.”

  He gave in then and got up to leave. “I understand why they’d desire that.”

  I’ll just bet you do, I thought as the door closed behind him, with only the slightest bitterness. He and Wanda would probably find an island of their own—and more power to them, I supposed. I was just . . . envious. I must be the only cautious person left in the world, at least as far as love was concerned.

  Maybe if I had an island, and sufficient rum, and Mike rubbing sunscreen into my back . . .

  Tommy called and asked if he could spend the rest of the day and the night at Jamie’s. I thought about grounding him for messing up at track camp, but discipline seemed beside the point right now. My real objection, unvoiced, was that if I didn’t have him at home, I might give in and call Mike—and I didn’t want to. Or, I wanted to but didn’t think I ought to, or something like that.

  What I really wanted, I decided, was for him to call me. To come over and overcome. Overcome my resistance, that is, with his hot kisses and those carpenter/surgeon hands.

  I gave up on work and went home and started baking. Baking is a balm for agitation, or at least eating brownie batter off the spoon is. It wasn’t until I got the pan in the oven that I remembered Tommy’s sleepover. He wouldn’t be home to help me eat. And if I ate all the brownies myself—a distinct possibility if they remained in the house all evening—I’d gain back half of the weight I’d lost in the last year. Who could I give them to? Not Barb—she was gone. Not Vince. He was in training, and Hal was allergic to chocolate.

  That was how I talked myself into a singularly foolish and antifeminist act. Even now, it makes me groan to think of it. As soon as the brownies cooled, I cut them into perfect squares (okay, one came out uneven, so I had to eat it) and transferred them carefully to the one Tupperware container that wasn’t scarred from years of dishwasher damage.

  And then I got into my car, Tupperware beside me, and drove over to Mike’s office building. And when I saw it, I realized I no longer associated this place with the death of my marriage. In fact, I felt nostalgia for that nondescript brick office building. Nostalgia for those few times I’d stopped by and terrified his receptionist with my demands to see him. Nostalgia for his eclectic collection of books and for the aquarium and fireplace and . . . for him.

  Then I saw that the empty parking lot, and remembered Mike had told me he was moving out. The building was vacant. Soon it would be rubble. I looked at the Tupperware container and debated with myself. I just happened to have looked up his home address once. Okay, the night before, when I couldn’t sleep. I could drop the gift by his house, and if he happened to be there . . .

  Ten minutes later I located his street in an old Leave-It-to-Beaver tree-lined neighborhood on the east side. His house was a beautiful pre-war Georgian with leaded glass in all the windows and a big oak tree out front. I couldn’t help it; I studied the yard for signs of who he was, and where he was, and found traces of him in the old wooden plank swing hanging from the tree, the handmade oak bench with just enough room for two, and the neglected garden. Laura, I figured, had been the family gardener.

  I was getting sappy again. I armed myself with a more dispassionate appraisal of the real estate factor. Houses in this area were going for almost nothing a decade earlier, but had been bought up and fixed up by young professionals, and now sold for far more than your average new lawyer or doctor could afford. I wondered if Mike would keep the house or take his profit and get a condo somewhere . . . or buy that dive boat and head for Tahiti after all.

  I lost my nerve as I climbed the brick steps. The doorbell was right there in front of me, but I just opened the screen door, set the brownies down, and hightailed it back to my car.

  It was the sort of thing, I told myself, that a lovesick teenager would do. And it was futile.

  Two days passed with no call from Mike. Maybe he’d gone up to that lake cottage, and the brownies were sitting there on his porch, growing mold. And he’d come home and open the box and think I’d presented him some sort of arcane feminine insult and hate me forever.

  Why is it we are all adolescent when it comes to romance? Next thing I knew, I’d be knitting him argyle socks. And he’d be pulling out his letter sweater and insisting I wear it.

  I wished.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  MY OFFICE WAS EMPTY. The phone was quiet. I couldn’t help but get a lot of work done. By afternoon, I’d finished up the business plan for yet another Internet calendar-keeper company. Even then I wasn’t sure how they were going to make any money notifying subscribers of birthdays and anniversaries, but they were sure they could get in a lot of gift-store ads. So I left a hard-copy in Barb’s in-box. She’d pretty it up with some graphs about astounding Internet growth patterns and a nice shiny cover, and maybe the bankers would be snowed.

  The only thing left on my desk was my attorney’s letter. We had thirty days to file our intent to sue the insurance company. She suggested I save the legal fees unless new evidence emerged.

  Reluctantly, I picked up the phone and called Wanda. “I want to check some of the Primeline records. So would it be okay if I went to the office and went through the files?”

  “They’re not there. I couldn’t bring myself to go back, so I had everything boxed up and moved here.”

  “The business is closed?” I exclaimed in disbelief.

  “No, of course not. There are a couple of secretaries still
there, answering the phones and correspondence. I just figured eventually I’d look through all of Don’s files and see what was going on and what project needed to be worked on next, so I have all that here at home. I even had them bring his computer over, but I haven’t turned it on yet. Now that Brad’s going to take over operations, I’ll let him have it all, I guess.” She sounded weary and disconsolate, and I felt that pull of sympathy. “This lawsuit just derailed me, you know? Can’t concentrate on anything else.”

  “Well, would you mind if I came over and went through his stuff?”

  “What for?”

  “I don’t know. Something that would implicate Murdoch. Like correspondence from him, or emails, or phone logs, you know the sort of thing.”

  “I guess so. But soon. I’ve got to leave at five for a symphony guild cocktail party. I’ll let you in, but then I’ll have to go.”

  Just as well. I didn’t want to spend the evening with her anyway. So I corralled Tommy and Jamie and dropped them off at the theater to watch the latest superhero saga. Jamie’s mom promised to pick them up afterwards and drop Tommy at Wanda’s. So within a half hour, I was looking around curiously as I drove up the driveway to her modified-portico entryway.

  The house wasn’t so bad. In fact, it was nice. The local realtors called this sort of big brick colonial Truro Traditional, because up here in Truro Heights it was the most popular style, the sedate front made a bit risqué by the copper accents and divided-light windows. Each home, by covenant, sat in the middle of a five-acre lot. In the eerie yellow light—there was another storm on the way—the landscaping was careful and lush, aimed to disguise the fact that much of this development was recently a cornfield. Looking over between this and the distant neighboring house, I could see a little scrubby woodland leading down to an artificial lake. A duck sailed in, webbed feet acting as a brake, and skidded to a stop in the water.

  As she waved me in, Wanda’s champagne-colored hair was swept up and her cocktail dress protected by a silk wrap. I realized with a jolt that she would fit in just fine with the other ladies on the block, meticulously coiffed and made-up and accessorized. If anything, it would have been Don who felt out of place, for this was the neighborhood for up-and-comers, and he’d already long since arrived by the time he moved here.

  There in the vaulted hallway, my realtor-within started the appraisal—4500 square feet at least, good if not great quality interior work, lots of landscaping on a five-acre lot. Half a million at least, a lot for a house in our little city, especially in a slow market. Duke of Leverage Don wouldn’t have paid cash, so there must be a hefty mortgage payment every month. And her assets were mostly tied up. She might be worse off than I was; at least I’d paid off my mortgage.

  “It must be hard,” I had to say, “being here without Don.”

  Wanda glanced back at me, suspicious, then, slowly replied, “Yeah. It didn’t seem so big when he was here. Now, with just Travis and me . . . well, we rattle around in it. But you know, I always wanted a house like this. And maybe it’ll feel right again someday.”

  Maybe all the time we lived in our open, woody house by the river, this was what Don really wanted—a formal dining room instead of a breakfast nook, and a library lined with leather books, not my enormous collection of colorful paperbacks. Or maybe his second wife had gotten her way as his first wife had done, and chosen the house she’d always dreamed. Don probably wanted a terrifyingly Euro condo in a high-rise somewhere downtown.

  “There’s the computer.” Wanda gestured into a study with a single desk in the middle of stacks of boxes. Compared to the pristine neatness of the library, this was a mess. I realized she hadn’t been in here at all since the deliverymen moved the office material in. “It’s the one from Don’s office. You probably know how to use it.”

  “Sure. Thanks.”

  I got myself settled in and flipped on the computer. Then I sensed her still behind me and turned inquiringly. She was leaning against the door, her head tilted so as not to muss her hairdo. She was only half-made-up, one eyelid a startlingly blue in contrast to the other naked one. I thought to remind her that it was four-thirty, and if she expected to be ready to go by five, she better hop to it. But that would be catty, and I couldn’t be catty to the woman in her own home.

  “You think I should care more, don’t you? About catching Don’s murderer.”

  “I don’t know.” I almost told her my real motive—the insurance policy—but I didn’t want her to think I was angling for her to make up Tommy’s loss there. So I just said, “I think the police should care more, I guess. It’s their job. And if I can, I’ll just turn whatever I find over to them.” To cover the awkwardness, I added, “Is your little boy here?”

  “He’s spending the night at a friend’s. So he won’t bother you. Uh, are you going to be long here? Like all evening?”

  I might not be too hip, but I figured out what she was asking. Would I clear out in time for her to bring someone back with her? Brad, presumably. He would be at the symphony party. I felt an unfamiliar connection. Here we were, two single moms, trying for a social life without an ex-husband around to spirit the kid away on visitation weekend. I’d be feeling the same tonight if Mike would happen to call and remind me of the deadline he’d obviously given up on.

  “Tommy’s going to be dropped off after the movie, at seven or so. I’ll leave then.”

  Still, she lingered. “Even if you don’t find anything that proves murder, maybe there’ll be something that will force Murdoch to settle.”

  “But Brad said it was close, that it just needed Will’s acceptance.”

  “Wishful thinking,” she replied with an angry shake of her head. “Murdoch’s holding out for an admission of guilt. And I don’t care about that, but you know Will won’t ever admit to being in the wrong. Not in a thousand years.”

  Will wasn’t guilty of anything but buying land from Don, so I could hardly blame him. “Well, every man has his price. Keep adding a thousand on to the offer until Murdoch caves in.”

  “I don’t know. He’s a stubborn one. Even now, when he’s up on federal charges, he won’t bend.” She sighed. “I hope you get him for murder. I really do. But I need to move on, you know? And get him out of my life. Maybe that’s cowardly, but it feels right to me. It doesn’t mean that Don didn’t matter to me.”

  I didn’t know how to reassure her. So I just shrugged. “No problem. I just hope I find something to justify all my work.”

  After I promised to lock up as I left, she went back to her preparations. A little while later, I heard her heels clicking in the parquet entry, the door slam, and her car start up outside. Only then did I relax and get down to real work.

  Once I logged into the office network, I found that Don was using the same system I’d set up two years ago, and the same password: Tommy. A creature of habit, Don was, fortunately enough. I waded through his last week’s phone logs and made note of each number he called. Most I recognized—a few contractors, the architect for the Millennium project, Brad, the lawyer, even me, to work out arrangements for Tommy’s weekend. The numbers I didn’t recognize, I transferred to another file. Then, one by one, I fed them into the Internet crisscross database.

  Most were irrelevant. One was Murdoch.

  That proved nothing, of course, as it was three days before that last phone call on the evening Don died. But it did mean that Murdoch had been in direct contact with Don, as Wanda had indicated—talking settlement. And Don had refused.

  The numbers started to blur on the screen. I rubbed my knuckles against my forehead and decided to take a break. In my bag I found the Janis Joplin CD I had brought along, and popped it into the computer. I was in that Janis state of mind, bluesy, half-in-love and lonely. Even when I got back to work, I couldn’t shake the melancholy, especially when she started singing about how in a world without tru
st, when a man offered you love and affection, you had to get it while you can.

  A recipe, I told myself, for eventual misery . . . but then again, the alternative was just as sad, a life without warmth. Without exhilaration. Without risk.

  I clicked Janis off. She was seriously getting on my nerves.

  And then, in the quiet, I reached for the phone.

  “Mike Warren.” His voice was strong, firm, resolutely awake. I realized he must have been asleep. The image of late light slanting across a rumpled bed, across a bare chested Michael, burned into my consciousness.

  Or perhaps he slept entirely bare. I couldn’t think of that. “Did I wake you?”

  “No. I told you. I can’t sleep in the day. What time is it?” Now he sounded cool, remote. I wished he’d cuss at me for waking him, like a normal man would.

  “Only six p.m.” I tried to make this light and teasing. “Most people are up by now.”

  “I’m going into work at eleven.”

  “Oh. Well, I was wondering if we could have dinner.”

  “Tonight?” He didn’t seem pleased. It scared me. Had he come to his senses so soon?

  “Yes, and if you’ll need to get ready for work, we can make it early.” I can’t wait till late, I managed to keep from saying, but I think my voice probably said it anyway.

  “Why?”

  That blunt question left me momentarily speechless. Then I gathered myself back together. “Oh, I need to go over something with you. This whole settlement thing, I don’t quite understand, and I thought maybe you could help.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “You don’t want to go?”

  “Not if it’s just more of the same. You have a perfectly sound mind. You’re more analytical than I am, for Christ’s sake. You don’t need me to figure anything out. You had this scoped out way before I did. So just trust yourself, and you won’t need me.”

  “But—” But what? I told myself to be honest with him. I could trust him. I knew it. “But I’m scared of what I’ll find out if I think this through. And I guess I want you with me when I do.”