Murder in a Nice Neighborhood

by Lora Roberts

  “Maybe they’re just getting the property lines straight,” Delores said, her forehead wrinkling. “There’ll be a probate sale, I suppose. Who knows who’ll buy that darling house? Maybe someone who wants to fix it up.”

  Vivien didn’t look convinced. She changed the subject. “Your briefcase looks so heavy, Delores. I worry about you carrying it around all the time.”

  “It’s actually my portable computer.” Delores flourished the neat black case. “I wanted to show my group some spreadsheets today.” She glanced at me, including me in the conversation. “That’s what you need, Liz. A portable computer to use in your van.”

  And plug into my private power plant, I thought (but didn’t say). “My typewriter works fine for a low-tech person like me,” I said instead.

  “Yes, indeed,” Vivien chimed in. “Typing is a dying art now, I suppose, with everyone keyboarding. Liz can type so well she could submit her rough drafts as final copy.”

  “That’s quite an accomplishment.” Delores glanced at her watch. I thought perhaps she was being ironical, but she probably didn’t have enough sense of humor for irony. “I’ll be late for my class if I don’t get going.”

  She sprinted past us up the stairs with a cheery good-bye. Vivien stared after her admiringly. “She always looks so pretty, doesn’t she, Liz? And no husband! I wonder when she’ll settle down.”

  It was a topic that held no interest for me, so I changed the subject to writing as we went slowly through the lobby in Delores’s wake. The horrors of the morning began to recede, and I was glad I hadn’t let Bridget fill in for me. The company of six elderly, opinionated ladies was not exactly soothing, but it provided an excellent distraction from murder.

  Chapter 18

  I went to my garden after the class ended. It’s my usual routine, and I couldn’t stop it just because I suddenly had access to supermarkets. The garden had been my main source of food for the past couple of years.

  The peppers were drooping. I gave them and the tomatoes a good drink, and picked a few to take back to Claudia’s. I had lettuce, too, and some late beans. Normally I would have been figuring out what I could cook with my little harvest. Instead I was trying not to think about Alonso’s face, slack-jawed and bluish, the stubble on his flaccid skin, the unpleasant smell that no amount of disinfectant could disguise, the extremely dead look of him.

  I didn’t want to be dead, too. I didn’t want to occupy the next drawer in the morgue.

  While I pulled weeds and mulched and cultivated and planted peas, the same futile thoughts chased themselves around in my head. Whoever was doing this killing had it in for street people. Though I didn’t consider myself exactly a street person, I was well aware that I might be perceived that way. Ergo, there was danger for anyone living on the streets. And, though it might not be rational, I felt there was extra danger for me, that the killer was pointing at me.

  It was almost a relief to think about Tony, to try and place him in the scene. Was he at the bottom of it all? I wouldn’t put any kind of vicious craziness past him, but I had to admit that the Tony I’d tried to kill eight years ago was more likely to go one-on-one with his plans for me. I couldn’t see him working through the agency of these other murders. I could only see him coming straight for me, using his own two hands.

  A cold gust of wind carried away the empty little bag that had held sugar snap peas for planting. Shivering, I moved the hose over to the artichokes and began to collect my equipment. The sounds of cars driving by on Embarcadero, people coming and going from the library and community center, were muted by the wall of trees and hedges that enclosed the community gardens. The vast silence of growing things pushed out man-made noises. When several gardeners are present, the place hums with conversation and activity. On this chilly late October afternoon, there was no one around but me.

  I told myself it was ridiculous to think anything could happen in daylight, in shouting distance of the library. But all the same I hurried while repacking my garden basket.

  When the shadow fell across the planting bed, I wouldn’t look up. I wanted to think I was imagining it, that it was a product of too much angst, too much nerviness. But I could feel eyes watching me, the vibrations of someone nearby. None of my fellow gardeners would stand there without saying anything—there would be comments about the size of my peppers, at the least.

  My fingers tightened around the trowel. I turned. Paul Drake stood behind me.

  “Damn it!” I jumped to my feet. “You’re always sneaking up on me. Why didn’t you say something? I might have duked you before I checked you out.”

  “You’re frightened.” He sounded surprised. “Sorry, Liz. I thought you heard me coming.” He looked around, interested. “I’ve never been here before. Do you have to pay?”

  The tension leaked out of me till I felt like an air mattress at three A.M. “It’s a token amount.” I picked up my basket. “Were you looking for me or just trying to find something to do?”

  His eyes narrowed. “I’m keeping an eye on you, Liz. Everyone seems to agree that it’s a good idea.”

  “You mean, because I may be killing people?” I shook my head. A couple of sleep-deprived nights were starting to catch up with me. “Don’t worry, I’m not planning to knock anyone off in the next couple of hours. You can have dinner in peace, maybe even take in a movie.”

  He didn’t smile. “That’s like joking about terrorists in an airport”

  “Sorry.” I pushed past him. “My sense of humor has been impaired.”

  “Mine, too.” He put one hand on my arm when I would have walked away. “What have you got, anyway?” I stared at him blankly, but he wasn’t even looking at me. “Lettuce, scallions, beans, tomatoes—looks good.”

  “Everything tastes better when you grow it yourself.” I shrugged. “I always think so, anyway. Ton—I’ve been told it’s just my imagination.”

  “Your ex-husband told you that?” His expression didn’t change, but something came and went in his eyes. He fell into step behind me down the narrow path to the gate. “Have you always gardened, then?”

  “Sort of.” I pushed the gate open and waited for him so I could latch it shut—it keeps the neighboring dogs out. He latched it himself, so naturally that I wondered if he’d been lying about never having been there before. “My mother always had a vegetable garden. I took it up after leaving school—helps on the food bills.”

  “I bet.” He eyed my produce hungrily. “That stuff would run you quite a tab at Whole Foods.”

  “Somehow I picture you hanging out at the bakery, not the produce.”

  He managed to look affronted. “Someone’s been gossiping,” he grumbled, stopping beside Claudia’s car. “Was it Bruno?”

  “Detective Morales? I hardly know him.” I unlocked the trunk and put my basket there, next to the portfolio where I kept the notebook for the writing workshop. It bothered me to have my stuff sitting out in the car, exposed to public view. I was too used to carrying everything around with me, neatly put away. It gave me a dislocated feeling to walk out to a parking lot and not see my bus, my home, waiting for me.

  “So, I’ve been hinting for a dinner invitation.” Drake leaned against Claudia’s car as if he had all evening. “You’re not picking up on it.”

  “Such subtlety,” I murmured, unlocking the driver’s side. “I’m fixing dinner for Claudia, Drake.”

  That gave him pause for a minute. “She doesn’t like me.” His voice was almost plaintive.

  “She doesn’t think much of you,” I agreed.

  “But she wouldn’t grudge me a good dinner, I’m sure.” He smiled at me ingratiatingly.

  I hesitated. “You can’t expect me to invite you to dinner. It’s not my house.”

  “That’s okay.” He patted me on the shoulder. “I’m inviting myself. Police business—keeping an eye on a material witness.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll do the dishes,” he said, with the air of one mak
ing a great concession.

  I didn’t want to like the guy, but it was hard not to. “Okay. You’re on.” I slid into the car and rolled the window down. “Don’t blame me if you end up with your self-esteem in tatters.”

  “Oh, I won’t blame you—for that.” He walked away to his battered Saab.

  All the way back to Claudia’s, while I drove with the exemplary road manners that are induced by having the police close behind, I wondered just what he would find to blame me for.

  Chapter 19

  Claudia was awake. I could hear her thrashing around upstairs, and I paused just to put down the basket of veggies before I raced up to her. She was sitting on the edge of her bed, trying to pull a caftan over her head. Her eyes stared out at me from the tangle of fabric, dilated and groggy-looking.

  “Let me help you.” I found the armhole that had eluded her. “You should have waited until I got back.”

  “I’m not in the habit of waiting around for help,” she grumbled. “I can look after myself.”

  “That makes two of us,” I agreed.

  She thrust herself up from the bed, tottering on one foot. “Don’t start drawing a lot of silly parallels between my situation and yours,” she snapped. “I want out of this bed. I want to go downstairs and look at my notes. I want a cup of coffee.”

  “Yes’m. Right away.”

  That pulled a reluctant smile from her. “Sorry to be in such a bad mood,” she muttered. “I’m a rotten patient. It really bugs me to need help.”

  “Me, too.”

  She shot me a look from which the grogginess had dissipated. “I warned you, Liz. There’s no comparison between having a bum ankle and being stalked by murderers.” She shook her head impatiently. “God, my head feels like someone performed liposuction on the gray matter. Did I hear you tell Biddy that another man had been killed?”

  “That’s right.” Her cane had fallen out of reach; I handed it to her. “If this doesn’t work, try leaning on me. Yes, there was another murder. They asked me to identify the body, lacking anyone else to do it.”

  “Oh, Liz.” She lost a little of her belligerent air. “Do they suspect you?”

  “It seems not.” We moved out into the hall, she leaning on the cane, me ready to assist. Our procession stopped at the head of the stairs. Claudia looked at them for a stony minute, and then lowered herself until she was sitting on the topmost one.

  “I used to enjoy this as a child,” she remarked. “We called it bumping.”

  “Claudia—”

  “Works when you’re hiking a steep trail, too,” She scooted down to the half-landing and made the turn.

  Paul Drake stood at the foot of the steps. His face was carefully expressionless.

  Claudia gave me an accusing stare over her shoulder. “You didn’t tell me he was here.”

  “I didn’t get a chance.” I waited, wondering if Claudia would annihilate Drake with a few well-chosen words before throwing him out, or just boot him without stopping to talk.

  She did neither. “Well, Detective Drake,” she said graciously, bumping her way down the rest of the stairs, “you can give me a hand up. After all, that’s supposed to be the police function, right?”

  “Right you are, Mrs. Kaplan.” He offered her his hand, and managed not to wince when she put her full weight on it pulling herself up.

  “He wants to join us for dinner, if that’s all right with you, Claudia.”

  She scowled for a moment, then shrugged. “Why, certainly, Liz. It’s our duty to offer aid and comfort to the minions of the law.” She turned to Drake. “I guess you miss Signe’s cooking.”

  “I missed Signe, for a while.” Paul Drake glanced from her to me. “She moved several months ago, and I’m still alive.” His smile was tight. “Mrs. Kaplan seems to have heard the same gossip you have—that I’m ruled by my stomach. Well, no point in denying it. Can I help you fix the vegetables?”

  He was handy in the kitchen, I’ll say that for him. I enjoyed it myself, having had just the bus’s tiny galley or the closest picnic table as a kitchen for the past few years. We worked together while Claudia watched from a seat at the table, sipping the coffee she’d demanded and making sarcastic comments on Drake’s domesticity. I wondered about this Signe person—the name had a familiar sound, and after a while my subconscious connected her as a friend of Bridget’s who used to come to the local writers’ meetings.

  “Get the man an apron, Liz,” Claudia commanded. Drake was rather splashily scrubbing beets. “He’s getting water everywhere. Is that why Signe left, Detective Drake?”

  “She got a different job,” he said, keeping his eyes fixed on the beets.

  “That’s right. Los Angeles Times, wasn’t it?” Claudia turned to me. “Signe Harrison used to write for the Redwood Crier. I understand her new job is much more lucrative. Do you correspond?” This was jabbed at Drake, who managed to roll with it.

  “She sends me scenic postcards,” he replied, cutting the tops off the beets much too closely. “Like she does the other friends she left behind.”

  I gathered up the beet greens to stem and wash. “We’re not going to eat those repulsive things, are we?” Claudia dropped the subject of Drake’s former love, which was fine with me.

  “They’re delicious, and good for you, too.” I shoved the beet greens into a pot and added a little water. Drake didn’t look too enthusiastic, either.

  “Where’s the meat in this meal?” Claudia transferred her glare to me. “I’m no vegetarian, Liz. I need red meat to keep up my strength.”

  “Relax.” I pulled a bloody London Broil out of the refrigerator. “I picked this up especially for you this morning, when I got Vivien’s groceries.”

  Claudia’s eyes lit with pleasure. “I’d better cook it. You vegetable-lovers don’t know what to do with a good steak.”

  “I’m an economic vegetarian,” I said mildly. “Meat is hard to grow in a garden, so I only eat it for special occasions.”

  “I’ll cook it,” Drake offered.

  Claudia enjoyed bossing him around—“That heavy cast-iron skillet, Detective Drake, since we don’t have time to grill it. Lots of salt, mind. No, get it really hot!” Drake stood it pretty good-humoredly, and maybe he really preferred having Claudia hector him to eating a solitary dinner in his trailer. I don’t mind solitude, but it was pleasant to share the kitchen with other people, to join a conversation whenever I felt like it, to set a table with china and glassware, instead of eating out of the pot that fits my one-burner stove.

  The steak filled the kitchen with its aroma, and I was ravenously hungry all of a sudden. I had the veggies steaming gently, the beet greens cooked and chopped. I wanted to add a little good vinegar to them, but Claudia didn’t have any.

  “Bridget gave me some—it’s in the bus.” I took a bottle of wine out of the cupboard where Claudia had told me to find it, and set it on the counter. “Open that, Drake, while I go get it.”

  “Open that, Drake,” he mimicked, looking through the silverware drawer for a corkscrew. “I can see this dinner was a mistake. You’re losing all respect for my authority.”

  “I never had any to lose.” I felt quite witty, going out the back door while they laughed inside. Night lay over the garden like the spangled velvet I had once fingered at the fabric store downtown. The scents of roses and jasmine were shamelessly cohabiting. The air was cold and, despite the flower scents, definitely on the cusp of a seasonal change. I picked my way through bars of moonlight, around the corner of the garage.

  The side door on my bus was open. The dome light was off.

  I didn’t even think that Tony might be in there with a knife, or that the murderer was waiting for me. A surge of territorial adrenaline took over my thought process. My home, my few precious things, were under attack.

  I launched myself through the gaping door. After the brightness of the moonlight, it was as dark as a cave in there. Crouched on the floor beside the cooler, I had time to real
ize what a stupid move I was making. The correct thing to do would have been to yell for the police, since one of them was right in the kitchen.

  Before I could rectify my mistake, something moved in the back of the bus. It came toward the door, a dark, indistinct shape. Reflexively I grabbed at it as it rushed by, and found myself with a handful of what felt like sweatpants. The intruder fell heavily in the doorway of the bus, and I lost my grip.

  The intruder straightened. An arm came up, silhouetted in the open doorway. I couldn’t tell exactly what it was holding, but some intuitive part of my brain suggested that it would be heavy and would hurt a lot when it encountered my head. As the arm came down, I managed to roll sideways. Even glancing off my head, the blow had an impact like collision with an asteroid belt.

  I didn’t really lose consciousness. It was there, somewhere, just out of my grasp. In the dark bus there was a considering silence, and I knew as well as if it were spoken that my assailant was still there, wondering how badly I was hurt, whether to finish me off.

  Then the back porch light came on, making a nimbus over the garage roof, and Drake’s voice called, “Where’s that vinegar?”

  The looming shape at the door of the bus vanished. Footsteps raced down the driveway, crunching in the gravel. More footsteps came pounding toward the bus.

  I lay there, letting the blackness of the ceiling slowly dissolve as my eyes got used to the dark. I couldn’t seem to move or make a sound, although I could hear acutely Drake’s muffled curse when he tripped over a loose paving stone in the path.

  “Liz! Are you back here?” His footsteps stopped when he saw the open door of the bus. For a few moments there was silence, and then he was leaning over me.

  I wanted very much to see his expression, but it was too dark, His fingers touched my neck, feeling for a pulse, then he moved my head gently. At last I could summon my voice. “I’m okay.”

  “I’ll get an ambulance.”

  “No!” This threat brought me fully alert. “I’m fine, really.”’ I sat up, unable to keep from wincing. “Nothing an ice pack won’t cure.”