by Lora Roberts
“I’m listening.” I was, too, fascinated by this glimpse of a girlhood so much different from mine. “Amy, if you feel like you’re in trouble, I’ll come and get you. Just call—” I stopped short.
“You don’t have a phone, though.” Amy shook her head. “I mean, on the one hand, you’re right. Nobody can call you up and yell at you, like my parents or anything. But what about emergencies? It’s, like, a dilemma, huh?”
“Right,” I said hollowly. A dilemma that hadn’t really existed before today. Drake let me give his number to the temp agencies and editors; they left messages that eventually got to me. I’d lost some temp jobs over that, which contributed to Mrs. Rainey’s lack of enthusiasm for me.
It was getting dark, and the mosquitoes had found us. I followed Amy into the house. She looked tired in the bright glow of the living room light.
“Can I go to bed?” She yawned hugely and for a moment my throat caught, remembering Jenifer. “I’m really beat. And Randy is coming early tomorrow—they want to catch the surf at high tide, or something. I wasn’t really listening. They have jobs in the afternoon—Randy and Eric.”
“What other girls are going?” I took the cushions off the couch and yanked the bed part out of its coffin. The mattress had a lumpy look. The sheets were very old, very soft cotton, part of my inheritance from Vivien Greely, the dear lady who had left me her house and contents the year before. Amy lent a hand spreading them, while she told me about the kids she’d met on the corner of University and Waverley downtown.
“Elise has a job at this deli downtown, and she’s the one who said they might have an opening. And Kimberly is doing summer school, but she has tomorrow off for some reason. We’re planning to be back by one or so, when the guys have to clean up for their jobs at the mall. There’s a terrific mall, Kimberly said, right over there.” She pointed in the direction of the Stanford Shopping Center. “That’s a good place to work because you get discounts on really great stuff. But those stores don’t want you to have nose rings or anything, so Elise didn’t apply there.”
Nose rings. “They sound like nice kids,” I said faintly, digging an old quilt out of the cedar chest against the wall.
“You can meet them tomorrow morning,” Amy promised blithely. “I told them we could have breakfast here.” She caught my eye and giggled. “They’re going to bring some bagels or something. Honestly, Aunt Liz, you look just like Daddy when you have that expression on your face.”
“Thanks for the compliment.” I tossed her a pillow from my bed. “Have you given up on your stock exchange idea?”
“Not exactly given up,” Amy said, holding the pillow under her chin while she put on a clean pillow slip. Watching her, I had a vivid flash of myself as a girl, gripping the pillow beneath my chin, both hands free to open the pillow slip and pull it halfway up, then raising my chin to free the pillow for a brisk shake the rest of the way into the case. My mother would be flapping the sheets, wearing the calm expression of one who knows exactly what her job is and how to do it That certainty had driven me wild with rebellion, but now I understood how she could barter freedom for a narrow security.
Amy put the pillow on the Hide-a-bed and I pulled myself out of the past. “I’m going to do some research on investment houses at the library tomorrow,” she said, looking like the farthest thing from a button-down stockbroker that I could imagine. “There’s a library downtown, Elise said.”
I spread one more blanket on top of the bed; nights are cold even in June. “That sounds like a good idea.”
She picked up her big leather bag and pulled out an immense T-shirt. “Can I take another shower? I still feel, like, positively groady.”
“Sure.” I looked at the Hide-a-bed, taking up all the space in my small living room. “There’s not a lot of hot water, though. The heater doesn’t work too well, and I haven’t saved enough for a new one yet.”
“Okay,” she said. “It’ll be like camping.”
I spread my census paperwork on the kitchen table, but I couldn’t get down to it. The interruption I’d been expecting came while the water was running.
Drake knocked with his usual impatient rat-a-tat, and didn’t bother waiting for me to open the door. He came in, holding a big paper bag.
“I can’t believe after all that happened last year that you’d leave the scene of a crime,” he said, shoving the paper bag into my arms. Drake had been the investigating officer the previous fall, in my brush with contrived death. That’s how we’d met—how he’d been on the scene to snap up a bargain when I decided to sell one of the houses Vivien had left me.
I was glad Amy was in the shower. “I didn’t know there’d been a crime.” Inside the paper bag was dog food, a leash, and some food bowls. “Looked like suicide to me. How did you know I was there?”
Drake shrugged impatiently. “Suicide is a crime in some states, for your information. Any dead person you discover, you’re supposed to wait until the police get there. I saw you driving away, and when Miss Jensen said there’d been a sinister census taker on the doorstep when she got there, I managed to add two and two.”
“I waited for the ambulance. Clarice more or less told me to leave.” I took the bag to the kitchen and Drake trailed behind.
Barker rose from a brief nap and attached himself to Drake’s pant leg, growling ferociously, the hair standing up on the back of his neck.
“And you removed evidence.” Drake shook Barker off his leg and picked him up by the scruff, which instantly cowed him. “This dog.”
“According to Clarice, he was a nuisance. I did her a favor.” I filled the water bowl, and Barker immediately came to drink from it as if he were dying of thirst. “It’s not like I want a puppy planted on me.” I crossed my arms and returned Drake’s glare with interest. “Why are you involved, anyway?”
“Suspicious death.” He sat at the kitchen table, uninvited, and looked expectantly at the teakettle on the stove. I filled it with water and turned on the gas, getting out the box of ginseng tea like he likes. “I hate that kind of thing,” he grumbled, waiting for the water to boil. “Everything messed up and no clear indications of what happened.” He shot me a look from behind his wire-rims. “Miss Jensen said you were the first person on the scene.”
“I was after her into the apartment.” I gave him a brief description of how Clarice and I converged on the door. “I didn’t touch anything,” I concluded. “I felt her wrist and didn’t find a pulse. There was an open, empty-looking prescription bottle by her hand.”
“Prescription bottle?” His gaze sharpened. “I’ll have to speak to Miss Jensen again.”
“Did you find a note? I assumed there was always a note.”
“Not always.” He didn’t answer further, and I didn’t press him. Drake is good at getting information without giving it.
“You haven’t heard the weirdest part,” I said reluctantly. I’m paranoid about the police, I admit, which makes me very ambivalent about having a cop live practically on my doorstep. Nevertheless, I’d learned that the best way to deal with the police is to tell them everything, and let them sort out the important from the dreck. “The strangest thing is I met them both this morning. Jenifer and Clarice. I temped at SoftWrite, and they both work there. Worked,” I corrected, thinking of Jenifer.
Drake stared at me. The sound of the shower stopped, and the sweet scent of shampoo drifted into the room. “Well. Let me get this straight. You did temp work this morning at a company, and some of those workers then showed up on your census register? And this evening, one of them is dead?”
“It’s a populous area,” I said defensively. “I was doing mailing labels, and I noticed a lot of SoftWrite’s people live in Palo Alto. I might even have more of them on my register. People tend to ask their friends and coworkers about apartments when they need one, and that creates a cluster effect.” I made that up on the spur of the moment, but it sounded authentic, and Drake nodded.
“Take you and me,
for instance,” he said, giving me a look that blended irony and speculation nicely.
“Right.” I poured hot water into the cups on the stove. He thanked me absently when I served him, and dunked the tea bag up and down, frowning into the cup.
“So do you suspect me?” The words burst out from the nameless emotions that roiled inside of me. I saw Jenifer’s pale face, and Clarice’s tear-streaked one. I remembered Ed Garfield at Bridget’s party, and the rumors that he was romantically involved with Jenifer. He’d be devastated, if so. And the other woman, Suzanne, whom I hadn’t met yet—how would she take her rival’s death?
“Suspect you of what? Posing as a census agent to make the poor girl take an overdose? Don’t be ridiculous. Coincidences do happen, and that’s all you are, the victim of coincidence.” He lifted the tea bag out of his cup and plunked it into a saucer. “At least your being on the scene gives me a reliable account of what happened. Miss Jensen was incoherent.” He looked up, curious. “Was she like that this morning? What were your impressions of them?”
I thought back, and described the scene at the table—Clarice’s motherly behavior, including the two aspirin she’d given Jenifer; Jenifer’s tense, stressed-out air. I repeated what Mindy had said about Jenifer’s being given a lot of responsibility for someone so young. Drake made a few notes on the jumble of papers he shoves into any convenient pocket. They were more for show than anything else—he remembers like an elephant.
The sound of Amy’s humming came faintly from the bedroom, and he swiveled in his chair to look at the Hide-a-bed occupying major space in the living room.
“So your niece is staying for a while.”
“Uh-huh.”
“That’s nice for you.” He raised his eyebrows. “Isn’t it?” My turn for diplomatic silence. Barker gave up untying my shoes and went to sniff at the Hide-a-bed. It was just too high for him to crawl up into. He began to trot around the living room, sniffing and whining.
“Clarice is going to call my number to let you know what she decides about the puppy,” Drake said, watching Barker. “Guess it’ll go to the Humane Society.”
Barker wasn’t listening to this callous disposal of his future. He was too involved in puddling on the floor right in front of the door. I grabbed him and rushed him outside, and Drake followed.
“Great,” I muttered. “Wonderful beginning to house-training.”
“Let’s see.” Drake thumbed through his papers. “You met them both this morning. This evening you were there when Jenifer was found dead. Anything else I need to know about?”
I shook my head. “I told you I saw Jenifer before I came home at lunchtime, didn’t I?”
“Not you didn’t.” Drake sat down on the rickety bench I keep by my front door so I can look at the roses. I finished wiping up the puddle and sat on the step to talk, watching Barker sniff his way around the tiny lawn. In the dark, his black and white spots blended in, making him a moving shadow.
I knew what Drake wanted—not just the actions, or even the words, but all the sounds and smells and impressions I’d gotten while talking to Jenifer and her neighbors that day. I obliged as fully as I could.
“You thought there was someone with her,” he said when I was done.
“A person, or the radio, or some TV show she couldn’t bear to miss.” I snapped my fingers, and Barker came back from the driveway. “Your guess is as good as mine.”
“And when you were upstairs, you heard footsteps going away. Could they have been from her apartment?”
“Look, Drake, they might have been. I just couldn’t swear to any of this.”
“I know.” He was silent a moment. “I also know you observe very well. We’re left with some unanswered questions for a suicide.” He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. They looked naked and defenseless without those light-catching lenses blocking them. “She had a brother—that seems to be the only family. He lives in the city somewhere—Clarice gave me his phone number, which was all she had. She said that he would be totally broken up. But he’s not home. She offered to notify him about his sister’s death—that takes guts.”
“She looked as if she could be capable,” I murmured, remembering the Mace. My eyes still smarted.
Drake is not my boyfriend, although certain of our mutual friends would like him to be. I’ve been man-shy for a while, and he’s still getting over a previous relationship. We’re friends; at times I’ve thought that our friendship might grow warmer. But I admit that something about the way he spoke of Clarice Jensen gave me a pang of heartburn. I can’t compete for a man; I have no womanly little wiles. And like Amy, I’m still feeling that sex is gross.
“So you don’t see her as a suspect.”
He put his glasses back on. “There are no suspects in a suicide. And if it’s not, then everyone’s a suspect.”
“Including me?”
“You’re a witness. That’s different.” He shook his finger at me. “Just don’t go sleuthing around. Even though it’s suicide, people have things to hide. It’s up to the police to uncover them, not a nosy civilian.”
“The Census Bureau is paying me to be nosy.” I picked up Barker and got to my feet. “My interest, like yours, is purely professional.”
Drake put his hand on my shoulder, looking directly at me. “Be careful, Liz. Women shouldn’t be going house to house, especially in the evenings. Bad things can happen.”
“I’m just going to finish my register before I quit. People are too rude to census takers. Some jobs just don’t pay enough for the aggravation.”
“Why don’t you find some nice office job?”
“Why don’t you?” The words were out before I could withdraw them. “Looking into violent deaths isn’t the safest thing in the world, you know.”
“I know.” He got up, rumpling his already wild hair. “That’s what I’m telling you, Liz. Type mailing labels. Write a story. Plant some lettuce. But stay out of this investigation.”
Chapter 8
Amy’s friends arrived before she was up in the morning. I had taken Barker out, just as I had in the night when he woke me up whining at my bedside. I had fed him, walked him briefly in the yard, and been at my desk for half an hour, hoping Amy would wake and take herself off so I could stop feeling like an interloper in my own living room.
She slept as innocents do, tucked primly into bed. I had looked twice to make sure it was the same girl. Her skin, washed clean of the white and black makeup, was incredibly fresh and dewy. Even the few blemishes couldn’t really mar it. Covering that complexion with thick makeup should have been a crime.
The knock on the door accomplished what all my keyboarding and throat-clearing couldn’t. Amy sprang out of the Hide-a-bed, shrieked, “Ohmigod, they’re here already!” and rushed into the bathroom.
I opened the door, with Barker, living up to his name, around my ankles. Eric and Randy were big, strapping fellows, I guessed around eighteen, one carrying a bulging bag of bagels, both smiling sunnily at me. “Good morning,” they chorused.
Elise and Kimberly, behind them, had already put their faces on for the outing—exaggerated eye makeup, with lots of red on the lids so they looked like they hadn’t slept in weeks. Elise’s hair was dead black, but at least she’d left the white off her face. Kimberly’s hair was an improbable cerise.
Amy emerged from the bathroom, wearing torn cutoffs and a skimpy T-shirt. Eric’s and Randy’s eyes lingered for one awed moment on the amount of bosom exposed, before politely retreating.. I didn’t blame them. She, too, had left off the dead white in favor of the sunblock she applied with a lavish hand. The bright feathers of her hair were spikily arranged.
She greeted her friends graciously. I had put a bowl of oranges on the table—there was an orange tree in Drake’s backyard from which I could help myself. These were the last of the season’s fruit, pithy and not too great, but the kids wolfed them down, along with the bagels and cream cheese they’d brought. I would have to get g
roceries. No, I thought, we would have to get groceries. If Amy was going to eat it, she was going to see it paid for.
The noise they made was considerable, and yet they weren’t talking especially loudly. In fact, I got the idea they were trying to be subdued, although not succeeding.
“Amy told us your neighbor in front is a cop,” Eric explained after shushing a burst of laughter from Elise. “We don’t want to get you in trouble or anything.”
“That’s thoughtful.” I peeled an orange myself. The young people looked very comfortable, eating and drinking around the table, but I wanted them to leave. I needed to get some of my own work done before heading off to SoftWrite for the morning. If Clarice’s account of last night’s trouble hadn’t made them decide they didn’t want me.
So I cleared my throat once more. “Where are you all going today?”
Eric was polite enough not to acknowledge this hint. “We’re just going over to Davenport,” he said, managing to chew and talk at the same time. “The waves aren’t so great this time of year anyway, so we’re just going to check it out, really.”
Randy nodded. “Brought the boogie boards along for the girls,” he said indulgently.
Elise smacked him on the arm. “I can surf as well as you,” she declared. She was the bossy one, despite her small size—she must have weighed less than a hundred pounds, and was shorter than I was, which is saying something. Beside her, Amy looked statuesque. It would have bothered me when I was her age. She seemed serene, however.
“I don’t know anything about it,” Amy announced. “Is the water nice?”
The others rolled their eyes at each other. “Yeah, nice for penguins,” Randy said. “It’s freezing. I brought my old wet suit—might be a little big for you, but better than nothing.”
