Thicker Than Blood

by Penny Rudolph

  Maybe she should dress up more often, she thought. Hank had never seen her like this.

  He had asked her out for dinner at a seafood place in Venice. Rachel had told him no. She needed some time to think before seeing him again.

  She slid her feet into a pair of black high-heel pumps, groaned at the way they pinched her toes, picked up the package and wobbled to the door, thinking there was a lot to be said for running a parking garage.

  The black pumps squeaked their own resentment with each step along the featureless, grey corridor that ran along the street side of the fifth floor of InterUrban headquarters. The pair of stainless steel doors to InterUrban’s water quality lab gave Rachel a blurry image of herself. She pushed one open. Along the counters, four people were perched on identical chrome-legged, backless stools. All four studiously ignored her.

  “Is Mr. Hunsinger here?” she asked the nearest, a stocky man who had parted his dozen or so remaining hairs just above his right ear.

  Without looking up, he jerked his thumb toward a glass-enclosed office.

  With as much cheery sexiness as she could muster, Rachel smiled spicily at Harry Hunsinger, who sat behind the desk in the office reading some papers. Feeling as though she were auditioning for an X-rated movie, she flounced toward his desk, bending over to give him a look at the V-neck and beyond, as she set down the package. “This just arrived and I decided to bring it over myself. I was hoping I could take you up on your offer of a tour…?”

  Harry got to his feet flashing her a look at his perfect teeth. “How nice to see you again! Gretel is it?”

  “Rachel.” Oh, please, she wailed to herself even as she fluttered on: “I always wanted to be a chemist, but my family didn’t have enough money to send me to college.”

  “We have the most sophisticated, most technologically advanced laboratory of its kind in the entire world. But I’ll bet you didn’t know that for detecting some impurities in water, no equipment is as good as the human nose and palate.”

  “Really?” She gushed, “What kinds of chemicals do you use to purify water? Like was that what was in that package I brought over?”

  “That?” He banished the package to a file drawer, casually snagged a key ring from a hook behind his drapes and locked the cabinet. “That’s totally unimportant.”

  Rachel wasn’t so sure. But maybe it was something personal sent by helicopter at company expense and he didn’t want it lying around.

  Harry rubbed his thumb ever so slightly suggestively against her arm as he escorted her through the lab, explaining the difference between chlorine and chloramine and the enormous, patriotic task of protecting the quality of water.

  Half an hour later, she had heard far more about water quality than she ever wanted to hear again, and her toes in the black pumps had gone numb.

  She had noted three closed doors. None with special locks. And she’d been able to maneuver herself close enough to try the knobs of two of them. One was locked, but the other responded with an opening click and she had jerked her hand back guiltily, relieved that Harry’s back was to her, his attention no doubt fixed on the sound of his own voice.

  He handed her the paper full of squiggles that resulted from his demonstration of the spectrometer.

  “What about security?” she asked, opening her eyes wide and looking into his, which were almost cobalt blue with flecks that verged on fluorescent. “Do you have special inventories and controls?”

  Harry laughed. “You mean could someone make a bomb with the materials we have here?”

  Rachel’s chin swung up. She hadn’t considered that possibility.

  But Harry was shaking his head. “Terrorists would be more interested in fertilizer suppliers than in us.”

  She cocked her head and smiled. “So nothing is locked up?”

  “Not much.” He shot her another smile. “We’re not open to the public. Except for reporters, we don’t see many people who aren’t wearing lab coats.” He glanced at her legs.

  She reminded herself that she had selected her shortest miniskirt for that very reason, thanked him for the tour, and departed.

  Goldie burst out laughing when Rachel described how she had spent the afternoon. “Ooooeee. You get tired of running a parking garage, you can go work for James Bond.”

  Rachel was slouching against the entrance to InterUrban headquarters. In the hazy cone formed by the streetlights, the kids were piling out of the van and marching into the building toward the room where the cleaning equipment was kept.

  Goldie watched the procession with pride. Peter gave them a big grin as he passed. “Better than most people,” Goldie said as the last of the group disappeared into the hall. “Not one smart-ass in the bunch. Not a lazy one either. They don’t play games, don’t shoot off their mouths, they just get their jobs done.”

  “And they’re always so cheerful.” Rachel slid a fingernail between her teeth, but caught herself before she bit down. She dropped her hand. “Makes you wonder if they’ve figured out something we haven’t.”

  “How can this laboratory guy be smart enough to be a chemist and dumb as a stump at the same time? He really think you stopped by just hoping he would come on to you?”

  “You doubt I’m irresistible?”

  “Somehow I got a hunch you haven’t had a whole lot of practice batting those eyelashes of yours. I hope you got that streak of grease on your cheek later.”

  Rachel made a face and swiped at her cheek with her hand. “If I didn’t need your help, I’d never speak to you again.”

  “Help with what?” Goldie asked suspiciously.

  “Two things. One, I want to get into Charlotte Emerson’s office. It’s in that wing behind the reception area where that guard sits. Can you get me past him?”

  Goldie’s face went somber.

  “You’re the one who said I can’t just ignore all this. You’re the one who thinks I need proof the tie tack and cuff link match.”

  “Where is it written you got to listen to me?” The look on Goldie’s face went from nervy to thoughtful. “You think she’s got that cuff link just laying around?”

  “I doubt she’s wearing it. Why would she take it home? She just figured we didn’t have any right to it. She’s probably forgotten it by now.”

  “Maybe. I hope you aren’t counting on me going with you. That was a whopping big chance we took last time. That old gal finds me messing around where I shouldn’t be again and she’s liable to call my boss and I’ll be on the outside looking in. You said there were two things.”

  “The next night or so, I want to poke around in that lab. That will take a while. And I want to go late.”

  “Why?”

  “Too many people around before midnight. Half the offices have somebody working late. Hank is here half the night, for one. Is there a door you can prop open?”

  “Maybe.” Goldie’s eyes took on a cautious look. “Even if they are making Ecstasy or something, how can you tell? You think they got batches of the stuff just stacked in some closet?”

  “I wish I knew what to look for. Have you seen any sign of someone working there at night?”

  Goldie pressed her lips together and shook her head. “We aren’t in there very long, though. They keep that place neat as an operating room. About all we do is dust the floors and dump the waste paper.” She turned and walked to where the empty escalator was still churning out stairs.

  Rachel followed, dropping her voice. “What about trash, chemical containers?”

  “Nope. I guess they take care of that themselves. OSHA probably makes them handle that separately.”

  Rachel started to put her foot on the stair that was emerging at their feet. “Just walk me to the lobby. You don’t have to say anything. Just let the security guy think I’m part of the crew.”

  Goldie let Rachel get halfway up before following. At the top, she waved at the guard who was gazing blankly in their direction and muttered, “If you get yourself caught, I’ve never
laid eyes on you.” Even the semi-whisper seemed to echo in the huge open space.

  The security officer had a little whisk-broom of a mustache. Perhaps it tickled, because his cheeks gave little twitches. Scratching the fringe of hair above his right ear, he nodded a vacant greeting and went back to reading the sports page as Rachel crossed in front of him to the executive wing.

  Inside the outer secretary’s office, Rachel bypassed the light switch, snapped on her Maglite, and moved quickly to the inner office and Charlotte’s desk.

  Four of the drawers were unlocked and as tidy inside as the rest of the room. No cuff link rested among the paperclips or in the corners. The fifth drawer was the largest. Rachel pulled at the handle. It didn’t budge.

  A hurried riffling through the credenza behind the desk revealed only spare office supplies. She swept the flashlight beam along the walls where a sofa, as regal as it was spartan, was accompanied by a conference table and chairs, but saw no cabinet where a stray cuff link might have been placed and forgotten.

  Part way down the inner wall was another door. It groaned only a little when Rachel pushed it open.

  Identical to Jason’s, this bathroom was complete with shower, sink, and toilet. A round brush with plastic teeth, a tube of pale pink lipstick, and a bottle of ibuprofen sat on the small shelf above the sink. She couldn’t resist removing the lid of the toilet tank and checking behind it, but there was no brown envelope.

  She turned off the flashlight and made her way back through the shadows to the secretary’s office. Here, despite trays piled high with papers, a sense of neatness still prevailed. Four tall file cabinets along one wall were locked, but the desk was not.

  It took Rachel several minutes to search through the disarray of rubber bands, colored paperclips, pens, pencils, and scissors in the wide middle drawer.

  The right front drawer held a supply of envelopes and, in the tray above them, three tubes of lip balm, but no silvery cuff link etched with the image of a tortoise. She had closed that door and slid open the one on the right when she heard footsteps in the hall.

  Dousing the flashlight, she moved quickly toward the door as if she could escape into the hall. The steps were still coming toward her, soft and steady. Rachel put her back against the door as if to bar an intruder’s entrance. But of course she was the intruder.

  She swallowed hard and told herself firmly that it was probably just one of the cleaning crew. The door pressed against her back and she stepped into the corner as it opened. Unseen fingers flipped on the light switch and closed the door. Rachel found herself blinking into the startled eyes of Charlotte Emerson.

  “I.…” Rachel’s mind raced, searching for some way to reasonably explain her presence. Finding none, an icy coldness descended on her. She stepped away from the door and Charlotte shrank back as though she, too, felt the coldness.

  “Sorry to startle you,” Rachel began, “but I’m glad you’re here. Perhaps you can help.”

  “Yes?” After many years on InterUrban’s board of directors, the older woman was no stranger to confrontation. But in a print dress and Mexican sandals, she looked small now, and uncertain. Still, she drew herself up, as she often did in the board room, apparently struggling to gain control. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was looking for something.”

  “Again? In my office? In the middle of the night?”

  “I suppose I should have asked you about it, but I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  “I see. And it shouldn’t disturb me to find a prowler in my office?” Charlotte had found her foothold and now it was her voice that was growing cold. She moved toward her secretary’s desk, picked up the phone and jabbed a dial button twice. “You can explain it to the police.”

  As if she had done it many times, Rachel reached out and pressed the button in the hollow that held the receiver. “I think I know something about Jason’s death.”

  Charlotte’s eyes had not panicked at finding someone in her office. But they did now. Her face went white and drawn and she dropped the phone into the cradle. Her voice cracked, making “Yes?” into two syllables. Eyes riveted on Rachel, she sank onto the secretary’s chair.

  “I think he was murdered. I think I may be close to proving it.”

  The tip of Charlotte’s tongue moistened dry lips. “Please explain.”

  Rachel told her of the car, the fender, the dent, the spot that was apparently dried blood, the tie tack caught under the hood.

  “That’s why you were in Jason’s office a few weeks ago.”

  “You took the cuff link I found there. Now I need it, to be certain it matches the tie tack.”

  Charlotte’s face seemed to reflect some vague but gnawing pain. “But I gave that to Jason’s wife.”

  Rachel sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. “What’s her address?”

  “Yes, of course.” Charlotte’s voice faltered again. She reached for the address book on her secretary’s desk. “How sure are you of all this?”

  “Very sure.” Rachel wrote down the address on a slip of scratch paper. “Am I correct that you picked up the DeVille from the shop after the fender was repaired?”

  Charlotte’s eyes went hard. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Did you pick up the Cadillac with the new fender from Andy’s—”

  “I heard the question,” Charlotte fired back. Silence seemed to hum in the tiny office. Finally, Charlotte broke it: “I may have. I collected some car from a body shop. The entire fleet was in use, I needed a car, this one had been repaired, I picked it up. I didn’t ask why it was at the body shop.”

  Something in her eyes convinced Rachel she was telling the truth, but maybe only part of it. “You were going to find out exactly who was driving that car the day Jason was killed, but you never did.”

  Charlotte’s brow pulled into a hard line and the eyes beneath it seemed to be fixed on something in another dimension. “I’ve been busy.” She looked far older than Rachel remembered, but perhaps it was the overhead light.

  “Will you do it now?”

  Charlotte’s voice sounded small in the stillness of the empty building. “I suppose I should.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  The next morning, Rachel again put on clothes dredged from the back of her closet—this time a pale, businesslike blouse and black skirt. When rush hour had subsided, she drove around the neighborhood until she saw Irene leaning on her supermarket cart, elbows splayed on the bars, frowning intently over a somewhat disheveled newspaper.

  Rachel rolled down her car window and called, “Can you do me a favor?”

  The woman squinted into the sun that shone behind Rachel. A small felt bird dangled from the hat that sat rakishly atop hair that seemed determined to escape it. “Ah, dear girl, Wall Street is in trouble now, it is.”

  Rachel’s thoughts stopped, backed up. “Really?”

  “Too many mergers,” Irene said sagely. “Too much of anything is never good.”

  “Could you go over to the garage and keep an eye on things until I get back?” Rachel asked. “Shouldn’t be more than a couple of hours.”

  “Of course, dear girl, of course. You go on, now. Don’t you worry about a thing.” Irene ambled in the direction of the parking garage, pushing the cart, still reading the paper.

  Rachel took the first ramp to the Santa Monica Freeway. Last night she’d felt nothing but relief when Charlotte didn’t call the police. But now, Charlotte’s reaction seemed oddly accommodating.

  Westbound traffic on Interstate 10 was always slow, even midmorning. Nervously, Rachel reached into her purse to reassure herself that the tie tack was still there.

  Jason Karl’s house was on a cul-de-sac on a side street in Santa Monica not far from the beach. The neighborhood was clearly upscale, but the house itself was a plain brown stucco, not the pretentious castle Rachel had expected. Getting out of her car, she heard a piano. Liszt, she guessed as she walked up the driveway.

  When
the door opened, a great crescendo burst through the gap as though it had been bottled up against its will. The woman who faced her was small and pretty and wearing a bikini top so brief it might have been a costume for a strip show. White-blond hair had been tied carelessly in two long pigtails framing a pouty face.

  “Mrs. Karl?” Rachel shouted above the music, thinking that if this nymphet was Jason’s wife, the reason for his murder might be quite different than she had supposed. But Liszt and Lolita?

  “I have something I think belonged to your husband.”

  The music came to a sudden halt, its echo shimmering in the stillness. The blonde rolled her eyes, whether at her question or at the music, Rachel wasn’t sure. “You must want my mother.”

  Not sure why she was relieved, Rachel nodded. “Is she home?”

  “Obviously. Or did you think that was a player piano?” The blonde still blocked the door and Rachel did not really want her to turn around in those cut-offs.

  “Who is it, Mellie?”

  Soon a tiny woman, exquisitely painted and manicured from what looked like size three high heels to her perfectly highlighted hair, appeared beside the blonde. She tilted her head toward Rachel like a hummingbird seeking nectar.

  “I have something I think belonged to your husband,” Rachel said again. “I’m sorry. I should introduce myself. Rachel Chavez. I own the garage where he used to park and I think—”

  With no warning, the woman’s eyes flooded and tears gushed down her cheeks. “Oh, dear. I’m terribly sorry.”

  Rachel thought she caught a whiff of brandy. She well remembered what it smelled like. Well, the woman was in mourning and probably still in shock.

  “Mother,” Mellie said impatiently before turning to Rachel. “Now look what you’ve done. You’ve gone and upset her again. That piano will be going all night.”

  “Perhaps I should come back later,” Rachel stammered. She had been so intent on her own thoughts she’d forgotten this would be a painful time for Jason’s family.