The Hideaway

by Meryl Sawyer

  Why did she let him do this to her? As childish as it seemed, she still thought of him as the larger-than-life father who had taken over when her mother was killed. A bond between them formed, their grief binding them to the image of a laughing, loving woman who had been devoted to her family.

  A shared memory linked them and sometimes stood between them. Claire’s father never ceased to remind her of how much she was like her mother. Opening the gallery had increased the tension between them about this, but she didn’t care.

  Be honest with yourself, whispered some inner voice. Her father’s opinion did matter very much. She wanted to be a success, to validate her chosen career in his eyes. In her mind, it was a way of making up to him for all the misery she’d caused.

  She stood beside him, gazing at the painting, but her mind drifted back over the years to the day when she’d unexpectedly returned home from school. Her mother and Jake Coulter had been naked on the living room rug in front of the fire. The mother she’d loved had been on top of Jake Coulter, riding him with her head flung back, her wild, blond hair streaming down to her bare buttocks. Claire had stood dumbfounded as Jake Coulter climaxed, bucking upward, his face grimacing as if someone had stabbed him.

  Claire had run straight to her father. And ruined all their lives.

  She inhaled a stabilizing breath. That was then; this is now. She could not make up for what she’d done. All she could do was go forward and try to make her father proud of her.

  Her father pivoted in the wheelchair, looking up at her. “How could you?”

  It took her a full second to realize her father wasn’t on her wavelength. He wasn’t reliving the past. For some reason, he was upset about Paul’s painting.

  “Daddy, what are you talking about?”

  Her father didn’t answer, instead he turned to a very puzzled Maude. “Let’s get out of here.”

  He rammed his way through the crowd. People reacted as quickly as they could, moving aside for the wheelchair, sloshing margaritas over each other. Claire followed, muttering her apologies. Alexander Holt shot through the door and across the sidewalk to his van parked in the handicapped space.

  Claire rushed ahead and stood between her father and the van’s door. “Tell me why you’re so upset.”

  He glared at her, his hands shaking as he clutched the wheelchair. “It’s bad enough that I have to see that scum, Zach Coulter walking the streets of my town, looking exactly like his father. Then you insisted on reopening your mother’s gallery.”

  What did this have to do with his reaction to the painting, she wondered. She’d heard this litany dozens of times. She didn’t want to ruin the best night of her career by listening to it again.

  “Don’t you think the whole town knows?” he shouted so loudly that several people on the sidewalk looked their way.

  “Knows what?” Maude asked, a quaver in her voice.

  “That painting mirrors my life. I gave Amy everything she wanted. I loved her with all my heart.”

  The unchecked emotion in her father’s voice brought tears to Claire’s eyes. She looked to Maude for help, but the older woman was crying, silent tears slipping down her broad cheeks. With a flash of insight, Claire realized what she should have known all along. Maude Pfister loved her father even though he was still crazy about a woman long dead. A woman who had chosen another man over her child and her marriage.

  “When Amy was packing to leave with Coulter, I told her I would do anything if she’d just stay with me. The whole town knows that I’m the cowboy in the painting, offering a woman all I had to give. But she just turned away.”

  Claire dropped to her knees beside her father, so she could look into his eyes. She couldn’t imagine her proud father begging her mother to stay. She couldn’t imagine loving someone so much that your pride no longer mattered.

  She stroked her father’s hand, realizing with surprise how frail he’d become. She couldn’t bear to see him suffer like this. He didn’t have many years left, and she wanted those that he did have to be happy ones.

  “The emotional impact of Paul’s work is staggering. Everyone interprets it in a different way. No one associates you with the cowboy, but yourself.”

  “I thought the man was leaving the woman,” Maude added, her tone wistful. “The flowers were a parting gift.”

  Claire smiled at the older woman, but her father stubbornly averted his face and stared off across the plaza.

  “Vanessa Trent thought the man was trying to make up to the woman, but she was finished with him. Everyone agreed with her.” Personally, Claire thought this was how self-centered Vanessa saw herself—ready to reject any man who dared to cross her.

  Without another word, her father wheeled away and Maude slowly followed, throwing an apologetic look over her shoulder. Claire resisted the urge to run after her father. More and more, she sensed his problems were psychological, and nothing she did improved his frame of mind.

  Fourteen

  From across the plaza at the open-air café, Tortilla Flats, Zach saw Alexander Holt’s van pull away from The Rising Sun. He checked his watch, deciding to give Brad Yeager another three minutes. The FBI agent already was ten minutes late.

  As he toyed with his Coke, Zach saw Claire walk into the plaza and sit on a bench. Weird. With all the people in her gallery, why would Claire want to be alone? Because that jackass of a father said something to upset her.

  Didn’t Claire see what a selfish bastard Alexander Holt was? Of course not. Your parents had a special place in your heart, he reflected. No matter what, you loved them.

  Too well, Zach remembered his youth. He’d loved his father, even though Jake Coulter had been so absorbed by his photography and his affair with Amy Holt to spend much time with Zach. His mother had been a different story. She’d devoted herself to her son—when she wasn’t drinking. Trouble was, the bottle was more interesting than her child. But he’d loved her just the same. When she wasn’t drinking, she was the best mother in the world.

  How different his parents’ lives would have been—if he hadn’t been born. He’d been conceived in the back seat of a Chevy when his parents had been in high school. His father had done the honorable thing and married his mother, sacrificing a scholarship to college.

  The marriage had been doomed from the first, but somehow Zach always blamed himself. Was that what Claire was doing now, blaming herself for something beyond her control? Zach was ready to toss a couple of bills on the bar and go talk to Claire when Yeager walked in.

  “Wow!” Yeager said. “This is some celebration.”

  Zach gazed out at the plaza where vendors were preparing tamales and blue corn taquitos for the tourists who were slowly drifting out of the galleries. The aroma of roasting chiles and piñon wood filled the summer air along with the sounds of the rock band tuning up. In another hour, people would be dancing and stuffing their faces. Tortilla Flat’s outdoor bar was brimming with chattering people.

  Only Claire Holt was alone.

  “It’s the beginning of the tourist season,” Zach told Yeager. “I have my hands full. I put on my badge for the first time since last year’s rodeo. I activated four reserve deputies and the Mounted Patrol to handle the problems.”

  Yeager leaned against the bar, ordered a Red Dog beer, then asked, “Are you expecting trouble?”

  “Nah. We’ll have a lot of drunk Texans. They’ll want to fight. The deputies and the volunteers on the Mounted Patrol will help me toss ’em in the drunk tank and let ’em sleep it off.”

  Yeager’s eyes lit up—proof positive the SAC had been at the FBI’s Gallup post way too long. He missed the action. “Tell everyone that I’m in from Gallup to help you if you need it. That way people won’t be suspicious about me being around.”

  “Right,” Zach said as he noticed Angela Whitmore join Claire on the bench in the plaza. “What did you find out?”

  Yeager moved closer, his beer clutched in one hand. “Duncan Morrell was killed by a
single shot to the temple at close range. The bullet came from a .25 caliber automatic, a gun easily concealed. It could have been in a woman’s purse, or in a small duffel bag.”

  Zach thought of Claire’s wallet being found in the room next to Morrell’s. Incriminating. Sweat peppered his upper lip, but he cuffed it off with his shirt. Jesus H. Christ, leave Claire out of this.

  “There were traces of fiber in the wound.”

  “A homemade silencer,” Zach said. “Someone put a pillow or something to his head before pulling the trigger. That explains why no one heard the shot.”

  “You didn’t find the pillow or anything with blood.”

  “Nope. I had the mounted patrol comb the area searching for the murder weapon. They would have picked up anything bloody.”

  Yeager grinned, obviously pleased with himself. “I have the list of major investors in Morrell’s lithographs. Number one investor. Wanna take a guess?”

  Shaking his head, Zach shot a quick glance sideways. Beyond the patio of Tortilla Flats, he could see Claire and Angela talking on the bench. No, he did not want to guess; he wanted to be with Claire.

  Yeager chuckled. “Nevada Murphy was the number one investor.”

  “Really? Nevada planned to make a killing on his own lithographs. Interesting.”

  “The number two investor was—now this is a stunner—Vanessa Trent.”

  Zach nodded, thinking he’d never met the actress, but she’d called the station after Stegner blabbed around town that chukes had kidnapped him. Zach had seen Trent’s show once or twice. Mindless drivel. The actress strutted around, jiggling boobs way too huge to be original equipment.

  “Almost as big an investor was Seth Ramsey.” Yeager took a swig of beer while Zach twirled his glass, clinking the ice against the side. “And get this, Ramsey is tap-city.”

  “Why am I not surprised?” Cocky little prick, Zach thought. Ramsey tooled around town in a Ferrari even though he was nearly broke. “Was there anyone else at The Hideaway who’d invested and had a motive to kill Morrell?”

  Yeager drained his glass and motioned to the bartender for another. “Way, way down the list of investors is Carleton Cole.”

  Zach conjured up a mental image. Buff but brain-dead. He was perfect for Angela Whitmore. Zach stole a glance sideways and noticed Angela and Claire were still on the bench, talking.

  “Let’s discuss the body,” said Yeager.

  Body. Zach’s muscles responded instantly, thinking of Claire’s soft body. He could almost feel her beneath him. He noticed Yeager studying him with a puzzled expression and Zach managed to appear interested.

  “Good thing you had them save Morrell’s vital organs and tissue samples,” Yeager told him. “He had ejaculated within half an hour of being killed.”

  “Really? We didn’t find any condoms. No visible semen on the body either.”

  The bartender slid another beer across the bar to Yeager. The agent caught it, took a sip, then said, “A special forensics team went over the body. If they say he’d had sex, they’re dead-on.”

  “We’ve interviewed all the personnel at The Hideaway. No one reported any woman in the area.”

  “Except for Claire Holt.”

  It was all Zach could do to keep his face expressionless. He didn’t trust Yeager enough to talk to him about Claire. “I checked. She has one gun registered, a .38.”

  “That doesn’t mean she couldn’t have used another gun.”

  “I’m not buying it. Claire Holt is not the type to murder anyone in cold blood.”

  Yeager drained half the beer. “True. We had our criminal profiler go over the case. The profiler doesn’t rule out a woman, but the killer could be a man with repressed sexual impulses or something.”

  “What in hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means a bull-dyke who still goes for men, or a man who’s a switch hitter.”

  “They could tell that from the evidence at the murder scene?”

  Yeager shrugged. “They’ve been amazingly accurate in other cases.”

  “I know. I worked with a profiler in San Francisco. He analyzed crime scene photos and the physical evidence, then came up with the perp’s criminal behavior pattern. When we caught the serial killer, he fit the description. But I didn’t pick up on any clues at the murder scene to indicate a woman committed the crime.” Zach shook his head. “A pervert? Nothing there either.”

  “The odds are against it being a woman. Men are more often the killers.”

  “Crimes usually come down to greed or passion,” Zach said. “You think this was a crime of passion.”

  “Not necessarily. Just because Morrell recently had sex doesn’t mean that it was a crime of passion. Perhaps this situation merely provided the opportunity for the killer.”

  “Then we’re back to square one,” Zach said.

  “This is where we double-check alibis to rule out suspects. What about that actress who invested heavily in Morrell’s prints?”

  “Vanessa Trent missed her flight, and didn’t arrive in Taos until after Morrell was killed.” Zach stole a look at Claire who was still out in the plaza talking to Angela.

  “How’s Carleton Cole’s alibi?”

  “Up in the air. Cole took Angela home about midnight, then went to his room. No one can verify his whereabouts at the time of the murder,” Zach told him. “Now that I know he invested in those prints, I’ll take a closer look.”

  “What are you going to do about Seth Ramsey?”

  Zach couldn’t help smiling. Alexander Holt was so high on the prissy lawyer. “I say squeeze him. Hard.”

  Max Bassinger sauntered into The Rising Sun Gallery beside Seth Ramsey. Four shots of Johnny Walker in a plaza-side bar had improved his attitude, and he was feeling mellow. He enjoyed being with Seth. He’d analyzed their relationship and knew what attracted him to the blond man besides his good looks.

  They were complete opposites. Max had been born a stone Okie in a shack with an outhouse behind it. He’d never finished high school, but he had street smarts up the ole wazoo.

  Seth had been born with a silver spoon in each hand, a flock of servants to wait on him. Private schools all the way, then Harvard and Harvard Law. Now he was catering to Max like he was a king.

  And Max loved it. How far he’d come.

  The bright lights inside the gallery soured his disposition. What a mob scene. He wanted to return to the opulent hacienda he had renovated. And get naked.

  On the far side of the gallery, he spotted Vanessa Trent. He imagined making love to the famous actress.

  Women were useful, he decided. For as long as he could remember, Max had been attracted to both sexes. He accepted himself for what he was. Bisexual. It worked for the ancient Greeks. Sex was sex. Limiting yourself to one gender was boring.

  As Max headed toward the bar, he came face-to-face with Vanessa Trent. He had seen her television show maybe twice. It played up her incredible tits. Unexpectedly, Vanessa Trent smiled, a sensuous bewitching smile.

  “Hello, again. How have you been?”

  It took Max a second to realize the actress was speaking to him, not to Seth. He knew he was stick ugly; women were only interested in his money.

  “We met last year at the Talbotts’ party,” she continued.

  He didn’t respond. Instead, he let his eyes wander down the graceful slope of her jaw to her neck. Then lower. He blatantly inspected the exposed breasts that would have had most men drooling. But then he wasn’t most men.

  He’d run into the actress several times, not just at the Talbotts’ party. She’d never stopped to give him the time of day. So why now? Simple. The conceited bitch wanted something.

  “Someone told me that you’d totally renovated the old Sanchez hacienda. I understand it’s a showplace now,” Vanessa cooed. “I’d love to see it.”

  Max studied Seth out of the corner of his eye. There was more than a flicker of interest. The actress turned him on. Max was about to
blow her off, but if Seth wanted another group grope, why not?

  Claire sat on the plaza bench beside Angela, gazing at the gazebo where the band was setting up. She’d been talking to Angela for some time, explaining her father’s unexpected reaction to Paul Winfrey’s painting. She’d half expected Angela to jump up and storm into the gallery to see the controversial work, but she hadn’t. She seemed genuinely interested in Claire’s troubles, and Claire realized Angela was a better friend than she’d first thought.

  “Your situation is very similar to what I went through with my father,” Angela confessed. “He had a great deal of money and wanted to tell me what to do and how to live my life. Every time an eligible man came along, he would insist the man was only interested in my money.”

  “How did you handle it?”

  “Mr. Right came along in the form of a tennis pro. Papa hit the roof. ‘That man’s only after your money.’ He convinced me to drop him.” Angela gazed at Claire, her brown eyes concerned, and Claire could see how hurt she still was. “It took years for me to get over it.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He found someone else. The last I heard, they were happily married with three kids.” Angela shrugged as if it didn’t matter, but Claire knew better. “I learned to live with what my father said because it had the ring of truth to it. I have more money than I can spend. That’s what men are interested in, so I’ve learned to play along. I go for young guys I have no intention of ever marrying. A feminist version of love ’em and leave ’em.”

  Claire’s heart went out to her friend. What a way to live your life. To have everything but no one to share it with. “My father says I’m just like my mother. I guess that has the ring of truth to it, too. I look like her. I love finding talented artists and displaying their work.”

  “All you’d have to do is take up with Zach Coulter”—Angela stopped. Obviously something in Claire’s expression had alerted her. “Small towns thrive on gossip. I heard all about your mother running away with Jake Coulter.”