Killer Commute

by Marlys Millhiser

  “She wanted to change everything, run everything. Me, Doug, Mrs. McDougal—even the house. I’m happy with the way I am. I’m not going to change myself for someone else.”

  “The saddest words in the English language: ‘I thought I could change him.’”

  “My fault. I’m old enough to know better than get involved with someone that close to my own age. Women over forty are set in their ways and know what they want, so if they can’t find it they try to mold a man into the desired shape.” Ed used to wear dark-rimmed glasses that Charlie thought made him look even more distinguished, but he’d had that laser surgery and didn’t wear them now. He motioned to the concrete courtyard emptied of official cars and vans. “Looks like there’ll be no protection tonight.”

  “I’m going to miss Jeremy and his electrified gates. It felt safe here. It doesn’t now.”

  “I have a security system, but I don’t have gates. I keep things well lit, but if somebody’s out to get you … all that protection didn’t keep someone from murdering Jeremy Fiedler.” And Ed and Doug lived in a mansion worth breaking into with only their housekeeper, Mrs. McDougal.

  In the light cast by the bulb over Mrs. Beesom’s kitchen door, they watched Hairy Granger insinuate his fluffy self through the gate from the alley and disappear in night shadow, only to reappear around the end of a stone flower box on Charlie’s patio. “It’s okay, Hairy, our enemy’s inside with his mistress.”

  She introduced them, and the cat joined them on the table while she told Ed about finding Hairy in the Trailblazer with a dead Jeremy.

  “Dorothy had several cats who enjoyed riding in the car. He may have jumped in the open door hoping for a ride.”

  “Or maybe to get away from Tuxedo. They fight constantly.”

  “Maybe the door was open,” Ed said, emptying his glass, “while the murderer stuffed Jeremy into the car.”

  “Maybe the murderer opened the car door and stabbed Jeremy sitting behind the wheel and Tuxedo scared Hairy and he jumped in and the murderer slammed the door shut and I came home and the murderer hid someplace until I went in with the groceries and then got out one of the gates without getting shocked.”

  “Maybe there’re ways of getting in and out without getting shocked Jeremy didn’t want you to know about.”

  “Maybe you only get the shock trying to get in, but don’t trying to go out.”

  Ed went in to refill their drinks and Libby came out in sweats and slippers. “I can’t sleep. Can I come out and help you guys ‘maybe’? Sounds like a lot more fun than lying awake.”

  “Okay, but watch for Tuxedo. Hairy’s out here and we don’t want them waking up Mrs. Beesom.”

  “I can’t sleep, either.” Betty walked around the parked cars from her patio to Charlie’s. “Can I help ‘maybe,’ too?”

  And being Betty, who could rarely drop in without bearing gifts, she carried a tray with a teakettle, cups, and packets of hot chocolate. So the four of them sat in chairs around the table drinking hot chocolate. Hairy perched on the table and kept a careful eye out for Tuxedo, who Charlie knew would explode from somewhere and ruin everything at any minute, and Hairy probably did, too.

  “I couldn’t believe it when that police lady told me I’d owned Jeremy’s house all this time,” Betty said. “He was such a nice man. Except once in a while.”

  “Except once in a while what?” Ed asked. He was having a sip of scotch and a sip of cocoa. So was Charlie, and it tasted good for no good reason.

  “He could be mean. Didn’t happen often, but—”

  “Like how?” Charlie wanted to know.

  “Like when he threw rocks at Tux and old hairball here,” Libby said. “Rocks from that square patch under the pot with the fern plant where we keep the key to the back gate.” She chucked Hairy under the chin and he lifted it to the night sky so she could reach it better.

  “Well, they was fighting and screaming, Libby dear. But those are expensive decorator rocks. And I saw him throw them at a gull on top of his roof one day. And then next day he was putting out the fish scraps from his garbage on his picnic table. He come over to mine and we watched that gull swoop down and clean it up nice and quick as you please. ‘Now that, Mrs. Beesom,’ he says, ‘is recycling at it’s proper best.’”

  “Did you ask him why he threw rocks at the gull one day and fed it the next?” Ed asked.

  “Well, no. I wanted to, but he was always hinting around that I was a nosy neighbor, so I just didn’t. But most of the time he was a perfectly reasonable man.”

  Charlie thought it odd that once one of them remembered something unusual about their murdered neighbor, the rest of them began to come up with a few examples, too. Sort of like ignoring the flaws in a parent because you want them to be stable and not a worry so that you could lead your own life without that complication. Until you’re a teenager, of course, and then you pick at those imperfections, real and imagined, until something bleeds.

  Things happened then, and so fast Charlie would never be able to sort out in what order. Tuxedo’s predictable attack startled them all, anyway. When he hit the tabletop, Hairy leapt onto Ed. Ed dropped both his glass and his cup. The teakettle and two more cups hit the hard patio tile, which was suddenly awash in cocoa, hot water, scotch, broken glass, and pottery.

  And the shadow of a woman, in a long coat that reminded Charlie of Detective Amuller’s raincoat, detached itself from the deep shadow of a post holding up Jeremy and Maggie’s parking cover. It was, like Charlie and Betty’s, meant more for sun protection than rain, a series of logs with latticework meant to hold flowering vines that had never seemed to take.

  Windshields often spotted when it rained, and the ancient Olds 88 had faded patches in spots all over the roof and hood because it had to be parked in pretty much the same spot if Charlie was to park and be able to open her car doors, too.

  The lights on the latticework made it clear that the shadow was that of a woman—and she didn’t move like one of Jeremy’s nubiles, either. An older woman with hair that swung like her coat as she ran—sensible, flat shoes. Charlie ran after her, pleading for her to stop. The woman kept on through light and shadow, throwing her heels outward because her pelvis was made more for childbirth than flight.

  Charlie had followed her two blocks up and then crossed Ximeno for a couple more before the obvious brought her up short. What if the woman in the swinging hair and coat had left a bomb in the compound, and Charlie had run off and left Libby without warning her?

  In a blink Charlie had lost sight of her quarry and found herself alone out in the big bad world.

  Maggie Stutzman and that-man-Mel were there when she made it home, having run most of the way. Charlie was in no shape for running. And her ears were gurgling. Ed Esterhazie and Mrs. Beesom had most of the mess on Charlie’s patio cleaned up. Libby had put her feet up on her lawn chair and watched, of course.

  Mel and Ed took flashlights and looked all about the covered parking area across from Charlie, finding no signs of a bomb. Jeremy’s patio seemed safe, too. But a window was broken in his house.

  The dispatch person put them right through to none other than Detective J. S. Amuller, who informed them that since the L.A. county bomb squad had been there that evening, no one would attend to Jeremy’s broken window until morning—have a good night. So, the bomb went off at about two-thirty in the morning.

  But Charlie didn’t hear it. Her ears had shut down again.

  CHAPTER 16

  HALFWAY INTO HER unvacation, Charlemagne Catherine Greene traveled her killer commute again. But she wasn’t behind the wheel.

  It was an eerie, silent ride. Maggie drove. They couldn’t talk because Charlie couldn’t hear. Charlie knew every shopping center, curve, on-ramp, off-ramp, detour, ditch, shopping center, sign, palm-and-wispy-smog-finger-draped, red-tiled-roofed condo-apartment-housing development, shopping center …

  There was only one grid, but this was late rush hour, surprisingly little dif
ference now that she looked at it. Might as well, she couldn’t hear it.

  During this grid lull, Maggie wrote on the notepad, “I don’t know how you stand this every day.”

  Charlie didn’t bother to answer. She didn’t trust her voice when she couldn’t hear it—didn’t need to feel any more embarrassed than she already did. And an answer would have taken more than a notepad could handle.

  Charlie would give anything to be driving the Toyota now, drying her hair, eating her bagel, sucking in the smell of the French-pressed coffee she’d picked up at a drive-through on the way out of town. Talking with New York on the cellular, trying to put on her pantyhose and makeup.

  And hearing it all. Car horns, tire screeches, diesels thundering, the air conditioner, NPR.

  She could see and smell and taste, but it wasn’t the same. She’d never assumed she was in control of the 405. But compared to now, she’d felt in control of her life, her work, her car. Her identity.

  Charlie should be nicer to her best friend for taking off from her own work this morning to drive her to the specialist recommended by the bored doctor in the hospital. Wouldn’t you know this specialist was just off Wilshire in Beverly Hills. Congdon & Morse’s insurance wouldn’t cover him—that’s for sure. How they’d gotten her in this fast, she didn’t know. Maybe nobody’s insurance would pay for this guy. Maggie was to deliver her to the specialist, and Larry would pick her up and take her back to the office after her appointment to clean up a few things on her desk, and then he’d drive her home.

  Charlie didn’t want her colleagues to see her this way, and she didn’t want to talk to the specialist because there might be bad news. And who knew what more could blow up in Charlie’s fortress in the meantime?

  Jeremy’s house still stood, and at night, from the outside, it didn’t look that damaged. The Long Beach fire department was first to arrive and quickly doused what little fire there was. Some of the upper story had relocated to the first floor, the windows were all shattered, and the door blown out, but the unofficial opinion of firefighters and police was that the structure could probably be saved, Charlie described the running shadow of a woman who’d fled the compound earlier. Specialists of a different kind—arson and bomb—were sifting through what little was left of poor Jeremy Fiedler’s life.

  Somehow the idea of an enraged father being responsible for all this seemed a little much by now. Maybe someone was looking for something—or trying to destroy something so it wouldn’t be found. Maybe that somebody was the running shadow woman. She’d probably been trying to leave the courtyard unnoticed after placing the bomb in Jeremy’s house.

  Charlie had expected Maggie to drop her off at this clinic, but the lawyer parked and escorted her inside, apparently suspecting how tempted her friend was to bolt. While Charlie filled out one of those interminable forms demanding the scoop on her entire medical history—she didn’t remember what childhood diseases she’d had—Maggie Stutzman had a long talk with the woman behind the desk, whose attention was constantly being demanded by the telephone and a toddler toddling into everything in sight while his mother never once looked up from her entertainment magazine. Finally, the woman no longer behind the desk nodded, smiled reassurance to Maggie, and grabbed the kid who was smearing snot on one of the cloth chairs. Maggie came over to give Charlie a hug and left.

  Charlie had the nearly unbearable urge to cry.

  By the time Larry Mann met her in the clinic’s lobby after her appointment, she could no longer resist that urge. Larry is one of those people who rarely shake hands, rarely hug, never greet you with a kiss. Charlie knew a woman like that once, who refused to even nurse her baby because she didn’t like being touched. So it took a minute for her to realize she was letting all her feelings run out her eyes and nose and mouth against his shirt and he was holding her, stroking her head like she was Tuxedo. And when she backed away to look up at him, her secretary had tears in his eyes. The woman behind the lobby desk brought them over a box of tissues, and they managed rueful grins for her and each other.

  Her second-best friend and the handsomest man in the world drove her to the office on Wilshire, not that far away. Congdon & Morse shared the fifth floor of the First Federal United Central Wilshire Bank of the Pacific building with a shrink and a coven of entertainment lawyers. The FFUCWB of P sat on a corner facing Wilshire with its drive-through banking across the side street, a paved alley running along the other side, and its first floor halved in size to provide covered parking in back and two levels of parking underneath.

  Larry pulled into an agency space on the first level and they took the elevator up to the fifth floor, followed the carpeted hall to a discreet door with an intercom for those who didn’t have a pass card. Richard Morse shared an even more discreet entrance at the back of the building with the shrink, but the help had to use the front door. Larry slid his pass card into the slot and unlocked the door that protected the agents from the wannabes. Before the receptionist was murdered several years ago, a semicircular desk had graced the middle of the lobby and all calls and all visitors and all clients were processed through that receptionist. Now everything was voicemail and the office manager, Ruby Dillon, had a regular desk to the side of the room, and couches and comfortable chairs took up the center. But you had to get by Ruby Dillon to see any of the agents, and those agents had to notify Ruby that you were coming. Somebody could announce on the intercom that he was Mitch Hilsten, Tom Hanks, or Clark Gable, but that door wouldn’t unlock for him unless an agent or an agent’s assistant had put that name on Ruby’s list.

  Charlie didn’t even look at Ruby, but hung a right the minute she was inside and headed for the back hall and the ladies’ room to put cold, wet paper towels under her eyes.

  So you cried. So you’re human. It’s not like you have no reason to, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of.

  Charlie looked at the mirror and saw anger and defiance.

  When she stepped back into the agency’s lobby, they were all standing there waiting for her. All standing in a row. It couldn’t have been more horrible if this were a nightmare. Everybody was there but Larry. He probably couldn’t stand the embarrassment, either. They all looked so sympathetic, so sorry for her. She was more than likely still looking angry and defiant. Nobody said anything. People don’t talk to people who can’t hear. Makes sense, right?

  Charlie’s was a competitive business—sharks would be right at home in it. Charlie was the only literary agent here. The others handled talent. Not that screenwriters and book authors weren’t talented—but they weren’t “talent.” She was also the only one, except for Richard Morse, with her own assistant. Ruby Dillon was at his beck and call. The others had to share Tweety and resented it.

  Luella Ridgeway was the first to come up and give Charlie a hug. The others lined up behind her like Charlie was the buffet table. Luella Ridgeway was what Charlie wanted to be when she grew up. Single, rich (one profitable divorce and an even more profitable widowhood), she had a fantastic house high on the Hollywood hills with a deck as big as Charlie’s condo, and loved her work besides. She had the deepest blue eyes and arguably the most successful facelift in town, and knew how to dress stunning.

  Next, Dorian Black, whom Charlie had detested from the get-go.

  Why do I have to stand here and put up with this?

  Because you never let sharks smell blood.

  Then Howard Highsmith and Jonathan Gunn, both in brown slacks, one with a yellow shirt and the other pink. Then Tweety, her breath smelling of candy bar and peanuts. Then Ruby Dillon, probably the most unfashionable woman Charlie had ever come across. And last the boss, Richard Morse, who ruffled her hair with fatherly affection. Charlie’s hair, a mass of unruly curls, was born ruffled and didn’t need that. He whispered in her ear, “It’s gonna be okay, kid.”

  Charlie, so awash in self-pity, was halfway down the hall to her office before she realized she’d heard him. And that she was hearing sounds in her head ag
ain, sounds bodies make routinely but you don’t hear until you haven’t heard them for a while, like whatever the air pressure does when you swallow and the whish as you inhale air up your nose and the puff when you exhale. The faraway, cricketlike sounds in your ears. The gurgle in her stomach sounded alarming after all that silence. There’s even a soft click when you blink. Soon all were overcome by the air filtration and temperature control system and the chronic indigestion of the little refrigerator in the coffee-sink-water-microwave room.

  Charlie walked very carefully, trying not to jar her head and make the world go away again. Larry Mann had a cubicle just inside the door to the hall that was so full of treatments, proposals, manuscripts, and the welter of doing business in the modern world that there was barely room for him. He was a good-sized guy. He put his head down in that endearing way he had so that he was looking up at her sardonically and grimaced, and if he knew she could hear he would have said, “See, you survived walking the plank again, boss.”

  Charlie grimaced back and passed him. Her office was twice the size it needed to be, and nice. She sat behind her desk and ignored what was on top of it. God, she loved her work. Sharks and all.

  “So what did the doc say?” she heard her boss ask her secretary.

  “Met her in the lobby, didn’t see him. She didn’t say anything. Wait, I’ll write her a note and ask.”

  He came in with the note and an affectionate smile. He cared. They all did, in a way. But if she had to be replaced, they’d forget her soon enough. Turnover in the agency was brisk. They all had to survive.

  She wrote in answer that the doctor had not spoken to her because she couldn’t hear, but the nurse had written they’d let her know when the results of the tests were in. Which is pretty much what had happened.

  Charlie decided to continue her deafness so she could hear what was really going on at Congdon & Morse Representation, Inc.

  CHAPTER 17

  TRACY DEWITT’S VOICE was the next to sound from the cubicle. Her office name was Tweety because whenever she exerted, little chirps came up her throat with her breathing. She was the niece of Daniel Congden, the Congdon in Congdon & Morse. He had an office next to Charlie’s, and in the five years Charlie’d worked here, she’d never seen the man.