Murder in the Marketplace

by Lora Roberts

  The bus came along. The driver looked irritated when neither I nor my odoriferous benchmate wanted to ride. Resting on county property is not encouraged.

  I stood on my aching feet and walked on. My territory was an area of Palo Alto that was unfamiliar to me, a neighborhood of small houses and apartment buildings off El Camino Real, one of the main drags in our fair city. Some of the houses were being remodeled, which is the major leisure activity of homeowning Palo Altans. Some of the houses, the rentals, were sliding downhill. The apartment buildings ranged from older, smaller duplexes or sixplexes to featureless, monoliths like large-scale anthills. My register covered just a couple of blocks at a time, but I was beginning to feel that there was no end in sight. The secondhand pumps resumed their torture of my toes; I was tempted to climb into my VW bus, drive home, and not come back.

  Instead, I plodded on down the street, approaching the next apartment house. It was a fiveplex, facing another like it across a driveway-courtyard. Each building had two units on the ground floor flanking the parking slots, and three across the top. Since the big earthquake of 1989, buildings like this have been suspect; the covered parking areas are often inadequately shored up to support the weight of apartments above them. But optimists still live in them.

  Apartment 1, according to my register, was occupied by a Wanda Sorenski. It was on the ground floor. In front of the door was a small, tiled porch, surrounded by waist-high stucco walls with flat tiles on top. Ms. Sorenski, or someone, had set plants along the wall, trailing Swedish ivy and something with pink-spotted leaves that I didn’t recognize. A plastic pot with the price sticker still on it held a baby Venus’s-flytrap, complete with youthful fangs.

  The screen door was locked. Before I could ring the bell, a woman opened the door, obviously planning to go out. She pushed the screen door open as well, ignoring me so completely that if I hadn’t dodged, the screen would have crashed into my face. She towed a small, snuffling child.

  “Hello,” I began, catching the screen before it caught me. “I’m with the U.S. Census Bureau—”

  “Move,” she snapped. The child, curious, forgot to sniffle while he peered at me.

  I stepped back, and the corner of my clunky black briefcase brushed the plastic pot with the Venus’s-flytrap. It teetered on the edge of the wall and then toppled, spilling its dirt on the porch at my feet.

  For a moment I just gaped at it. “I’m sorry—”

  “Look what you’ve done!” She spoke in the same voice she probably used to chastise the boy. He cringed a little, glancing at me sympathetically. “Pick that up, right now!”

  Obediently I knelt at her feet, sweeping the dirt back into the pot with my fingers. The little plant’s root ball appeared to be undamaged.

  “It’ll be all right.” I tried a placating smile. “Are you Wanda Sorenski?”

  “None of your business.” She locked her front door and grabbed the little boy’s hand again. “Get off my porch.”

  It was certainly my day to be ordered around. “I’m here for the Census Bureau,” I said, standing my ground.

  “I don’t care if you’re from the Publishers Clearing House.” She elbowed me aside. “Come on, Bobby.”

  Bobby dug in his heels, but she yanked him along behind her.

  “I just need to ask some questions,” I tried, following them. “Would this evening be a better time?”

  She turned at the sidewalk and faced me, flicking a scornful glance over my Goodwill ensemble. “Bother me again and I’ll call the cops.”

  “It’s really for your benefit,” I said quickly, before she could leave.

  “Yeah, sure. The less the government knows about me, the happier I’ll be. Now stop bugging me.” She dragged the little boy away, and I watched her go. Yet another one for the uncooperative bubble on my census form.

  The sunshine seemed concentrated on my head; that cool breeze of the morning was gone. I wished for a comfy old T-shirt instead of the stiff blouse that went (sort of) with the skirt. I wished I’d gone home for lunch before trying to find people at home; daytime was not the best time to be going door-to-door, but I had hoped to get it over with. Now I would have to come back in the evening, trying to catch up with people who weren’t home until then, trying to get a few more forms filled out. I trudged across the courtyard to see if anyone was home in apartment 2.

  Amazingly, someone was. A familiar someone—Jenifer from SoftWrite.

  I gaped at her for a moment, wondering if it really was her. She was wearing a faded plaid robe, open over leggings and an oversized T-shirt.

  “Jenifer?”

  She rubbed her head. Her eyes were heavy. “Yes?” She looked at me blankly for a moment. “Oh, yes. Liz from the office. Were you bringing me some papers or something?” She frowned. “I don’t think I can get anything done right now. I’m not feeling well.”

  “I’m sorry to bother you.” The faint purple smudges under her eyes were more pronounced. I did feel bad—I must have gotten her out of bed. “I actually have a different hat on this’ afternoon—I’m a census taker, for the follow-up census.”

  She flapped one hand weakly, as if to push me away, and yawned hugely. There was a scrabbling noise behind her, and a puppy squirmed around her ankles, trying to escape.

  It was a cute little thing, black and white, with floppy ears and big brown eyes. She scooped it up and held it.

  “Does it have to be now?” She started to edge the door closed.

  “It won’t take too long.” I felt like a heel, pestering a sick person.

  “I guess I could answer some questions.” She glanced behind her, hugging the puppy to her tightly. “If it’s fast.”

  She didn’t ask me in, so I just dove into it while standing there. “Your name is Jenifer, right? Last name?”

  “Paston.” She spelled both names for me, yawned, and gave me her date of birth and occupation—she was twenty-four, and a software engineer. But when I started asking about the apartment, she got restive.

  “Why does the government need to know that?” She squinted at me. Her eyes were a little red and swollen— allergies or tears. I decided it was allergies.

  I explained that the Census Bureau wanted to count housing units as well as people. “Do you have two bedrooms here, or one?”

  “Two.” She looked over her shoulder. I thought I heard someone stirring around, but whoever it was didn’t say anything.

  “And do you live here alone?”

  “I have a roommate.” The puppy whimpered a little when she squeezed it. I reached out to stroke one silky ear.

  “Can I speak to your roommate? I’m supposed to fill out a form about everyone.”

  “She’s still at work.” Jenifer yawned uncontrollably. My jaws ached with the effort of staying closed. “Look, Liz, I’m sorry. I have to lie down now.”

  “I’ll come back this evening, okay? I can get your roommate then, and I won’t have to bother you.”

  “Yeah, sure.” She was closing the door.

  “Sixish okay?”

  “Later—seven.” The puppy struggled to get out of her grip. “Sorry. We’ll talk later.”

  As the door closed, I thought I heard another, deeper voice. Perhaps the roommate was there, but didn’t want to talk. Pausing at the stairs, I wondered if I should go back. But I felt kind of funny taking census data from people I knew, even if only slightly. Maybe there was a regulation against it; maybe I should send another agent to talk to Jenifer and her roommate.

  While I stewed about that, I plodded up the stairs. No one was home at any of the upstairs apartments. I trudged the length of the walkway, which projected out over the parking area below, ringing doorbells and knocking. I sat on a bench beside the door of apartment 5 to write the last little notice that said I would call again that evening.

  Somewhere below me a door creaked open. Brisk footsteps walked away; a car started. The puppy began yapping. The wind blew the fronds of the pepper tree in the cente
r courtyard; the long strands of pepper berries rattled together like little pink castanets.

  I was tired, hot, and my feet hurt. And it was long past lunchtime. My little house beckoned. I would go home and soak my feet, have lunch, and do a little work on the census forms before trying again in the evening. I could also finish up a couple of query letters.

  Walking the two blocks to where I’d parked the Volkswagen bus was agony. I added Number 48 to Liz’s Rules for Survival: Never wear cruel shoes. I climbed through the side door and collapsed onto the backseat; the sofa of my traveling living room. The table was folded down and everything tucked away. Old habits die hard. I kept the bus ready to take to the road at any minute. You never know when you might need to escape from something—bill collectors, earthquakes, an abusive ex-husband.

  I kicked off the toe-torturers and filled a plastic Woolworth glass with water from the sink. It tasted a little stale from being in the reservoir for a while, but my dry throat appreciated it just the same. I rooted in the cupboard beside the door for the old pair of sandals I kept for garden work, then went forward to the driver’s seat. The bus seemed smaller to me since I no longer lived in it. I nearly bumped my head on its ceiling.

  The engine made a strange coughing sound at the stoplight. I would have to spend time that afternoon delving into its guts to see if I could fix it. I’ve learned its peculiarities over the years, since there aren’t that many mechanics who will work on ‘69 buses for a price I can afford. But when it makes these noises I always worry that it’s the end. Aside from the expense of replacing it, I’m attached to the old heap.

  My place is in north Palo Alto, a few miles from the scene of my census humiliations. It’s on a flag lot, so called because it’s tucked behind another house; the driveway is like a flagpole, and my lot is the flag. At one time my cottage was an adjunct of the larger house in front, but when I’d inherited the two houses, I could only afford to tend one. Paul Drake, a detective with the Palo Alto police department, was buying the one in front. His payments were a nice regular income, since my own house needed incredible amounts of deferred maintenance. I also tried to make regular contributions to an IRA. I didn’t want to be dependent in my old age.

  When I turned into the drive, Drake’s car was parked in the graveled area between his backyard and my front yard. Every weekend we planned to plant a hedge beside the parking area; every week something got in the way of doing it.

  Drake had probably come home for lunch. His meals were of great importance to him. Sometimes he invited me for dinner, and I enjoyed the fancy cooking he did as a hobby.

  I stopped the bus in front of the garage, which I’d retained as part of my territory. Just beyond it was my cottage. It looked, to me, like the cozy home the fisherman’s wife had extorted from the Magic Fish, before she got greedy. When I was a child, that story had seemed to imply that everyone deserves this much in life—a little home with some modest but important conveniences. Having it made me feel, as the fisherman must have felt, an incredulous sense of thankfulness to whatever magic exists in our cruelly unimaginative world.

  I lavished it with attention—Drake called it the pride-of-ownership trap. I had given it fresh slate gray paint, French blue shutters, a new, expensive green roof when my own reshingling hadn’t quite done the trick. A little matter of flashing had been my downfall the winter before—seems I’d neglected to use it in the right places. The roof had been replaced after leaks warped the hardwood floor in my living room. I was sanding that down, a little at a time.

  Drake was standing in my front yard, which was unusual. Even more unusual was the girl who sat on my front porch. She had hair of many colors, chopped off raggedly on one side and shaved above her ear on the other side. Her lips were black, her eyebrows were black, and her face was dead white. What clothes she wore were skimpy, though her attributes were not. Being cursed with a large bosom myself, I could have sympathized, but her boobs were obviously on display, spilling out of a black tank top tucked into torn black shorts. Droopy black socks and black Doc Martens completed her getup. Something about her brown eyes was familiar; I wondered if they reminded me of Jenifer’s puppy.

  I also wondered why Drake had brought her to me, but his bemused expression when I jumped out of the bus told its own story. She had turned her back to him. When I appeared she got up, dragging an immense black leather pouch or backpack behind her.

  “Hi, Drake.” I reached into the, bus for the horrid shoes and shut the door. The girl had approached a few feet, then stopped, staring at me with unnerving intensity. I stared back. “Hi.”

  She cleared her throat. “Hello, Aunt Liz.”

  I looked at her blankly, then at Drake. His air of bemusement had deepened. He was gazing at my new roof, obviously disassociating himself.

  “You’re—” I couldn’t dredge up any names. I had been estranged from my family for almost fifteen years. This could be the little niece born just before my disastrous marriage cut me off from them, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember her name. Or figure out why she’d turned up on my doorstep.

  “Amy Sullivan. I’ve come to stay with you for a while, if you don’t mind.”

  Chapter 3

  “So where did you dig her up?” I was in the kitchen whispering to Drake while I got Amy the drink she’d requested. She wandered around the living room; I could see her rooster-colored hair flashing near the bookcase.

  Drake leaned against the counter, holding back a smile. “I didn’t,” he said, moving aside so I could get some ice cubes. “She was sitting on your doorstep when I came home for lunch. I thought it was only neighborly to inquire who she was and what she was doing there.” He added plaintively, “She doesn’t seem to like me.”

  “Did you tell her you’re a cop?” I took a big tub of plain yogurt out of the refrigerator. After some hesitation, I also got a little dish of raspberries I’d culled from my small patch. I had planned to eat them all myself in solitary gluttony, but it didn’t look as if I was going to be solitary.

  “I might have.” Drake looked hungrily at the raspberries. “Where did you get these lovely things?” He picked one out of the dish and inspected it with reverence before popping it into his mouth.

  “My community garden plot.” I slapped his hand away when it came back for more. “Don’t you have your own lunch at home?”

  “You want me to go.” He straightened to his full five-foot-eight and edged away. “Okay. I’ll leave you here with your long-lost relative. If she tries to drink your blood, yell. I might hear.”

  He got as far as the kitchen door, then turned back.

  “Bridget called and asked me to remind you about her party this evening.”

  “Thanks—I had forgotten.” Bridget Montrose is a local writer. I’d met her a few years ago, when I was new in the area and she only had two children. Now she had four, and had graduated from poetry to prose; her first novel was coming out soon. “What time?”

  “Fiveish. Mixed, she said.”

  Bridget had these parties every couple of months—not cocktail parties, she was careful to say, because that implied a hostess who would supply fancy drinks and hors d’oeuvres, instead of jug wine and cheese and crackers. Mixed meant that her husband Emery was also using the occasion to further Tech Ware, his little software business. Besides the usual complement of writers and poets, drinking, arguing, and devouring every crumb, there would be computer nerds and entrepreneurs.

  “Hackers and hacks.” I mumbled it to myself, but Drake picked up on it. He sometimes goes to the poetry readings, though he hasn’t been persuaded to admit that he writes poetry.

  “I’ll have to remember that. Hackers and hacks.” He laughed.

  “So I’d have time afterward to get back to the census work.” I was talking to myself, a bad habit. Drake heard me.

  “Look, axe the census stuff.” He spoke gruffly. “You shouldn’t be knocking on doors after dark.”

  “Can it be that one o
f Palo Alto’s finest thinks the streets aren’t safe?” I put one hand to my forehead melodramatically. “Alas, if someone should mug me for my stylish government briefcase.”

  Drake was not amused. “I know the streets aren’t safe despite what we can do. Cruising around in the dark is just asking for trouble.”

  “I can take care of myself.” His concern was touching, but I had, after all, a closer acquaintance with the streets than he would ever get from a patrol car. I gave him a big, sticky-sweet smile. “Thanks for sharing that, though.”

  He smiled reluctantly in return. “I’m leaving before you start getting in touch with your inner child.” He sauntered out, exchanging a few words with Amy as he left. I put the yogurt and berries on the rickety kitchen table, added ice water and a couple of bowls and, as an afterthought, a box of whole wheat crackers. Teenagers, I’d heard, eat heartily.

  When I looked up, Amy was standing in the kitchen door, her black-edged eyes bright with interest. “Is this your whole house? Just that one teeny bedroom? Where will I sleep?”

  I tried not to cringe. My privacy, my space, were precious. I didn’t want to relinquish them. “We can talk about that later.” I gestured to the table. “Want some lunch?”

  She bounced into a chair, which, as rickety as the table, groaned under the assault. “Okay. Where is it?”

  I opened the yogurt and spooned some into my bowl, topping it with some of the raspberries, which I suspected would be as so many pearls before her youthful swinishness. “Right here,” I said, stirring. “Help yourself.”

  There was a moment of silence. I didn’t look at her.

  “Cool,” she said finally. “You’re, like, dieting. It’s fresh.”

  “The berries are fresh,” I said with modest pride. “I picked them myself early this morning.”