The act was getting harder to pull off because I’d gotten my name and picture in the papers too many times, but I wasn’t all that sorry to have to tone it down. Sometimes I used to think: God, what crap! Is this what the one and only life I possess is to be about? Children’s games? Masquerades? Hide-and-seek? Charades?
But recently I’d concluded that I was being too hard on myself. I might be playacting, but it was for high stakes—often the highest there are.
I grabbed another canapé and popped it into my mouth.
Park and Lucy seemed disarmed by my behavior. I saw Rae’s smile as she came into the room and apologized for not greeting her guests. She’d told me many times that it amazed her what a chameleon I could be.
“So,” I said to Park, “you’re the head of Bellassis Aviation Services. You fly much?”
“Not as much as I’d like. Unfortunately, administrative duties take up most of my time.”
“And you, Lucy, I believe you said you fly too?”
“Some. My license is current, but I prefer to limit myself to the right seat.”
“My little copilot,” Park said.
Irritation flashed in Lucy’s eyes. “The right seat can be trickier than the left.”
She was correct: it’s where the flight instructor sits and some controls are reversed; if the pilot becomes confused, makes a mistake, or simply nods off, it takes skill to pull out of the situation.
“Well, I fly every chance I can get.” I leaned forward and engaged Park in a discussion of airplanes, all the while watching Lucy’s reactions.
She had become tight-lipped, and her gaze wandered through the room, coming to rest on a row of Ricky’s gold records and Grammy awards.
Rae said to her, “Sometimes it’s tough being married to such an overachiever.”
“But you achieve too. I don’t do anything.”
Park’s mouth twitched as he looked from me to his wife. “You do plenty of things. Your charity work—”
“Is not on a par with what another woman might have done to make you proud. You would’ve been better off married to Gaby.” To Rae she added, “Park and Gaby were engaged at the time she died, did you know that?”
“Sweetie, we were not engaged—”
“Not formally, but you were fucking.”
“Lucy, please!”
“Gaby was the love of Park’s life.”
“Lucy!”
She stood. “Now I’ve made an ass of myself. It’s an old family tradition. But then, social blunders are harmless compared to the other stuff. I’d better leave.” She fled from the room, snagged her fleece jacket from the hall tree, and was gone. I excused myself and went after her.
She was standing on the front steps, putting on her jacket. When I touched her arm she pulled away. “You don’t need to make me feel better. I know I was out of line in there. But sometimes it all gets to be too much for me.”
“What does?”
“The polite chitchat. The pretense that Park and I are a normal young couple.”
“I wonder if such a thing exists. Actually, I followed you out because I want to show you something.” I took the photograph I’d found in Chuck Bosworth’s shack from my pocket and held it out to her. “Gaby’s in the center, but do you know who the other people are?”
She turned it over, looked at the stamp and notation on the back. “ ‘The Four Musketeers’—Gaby, Chuck Bosworth… The others are probably Tick Tack Jack and Lady Laura. Where did you get this?”
“I found it with some old documents.”
The answer seemed to satisfy her. She gazed intently at their faces.
“Who do you suppose took the picture?” I asked.
“I have no idea. Gaby told me that Jack was a photographer; he documented everything, from people to rocks and wildflowers. She said he could be annoying, always popping up with his camera and demanding they strike poses. Since Tullock’s in this picture, maybe it was taken on a timing device.” She hugged her elbows across her upper body. “Frankly, I hate to look at it.”
“Why?”
“Because that summer was a bad time for me. Gaby and I had been best friends, but then she abandoned me for… those people. And then she came back and tried to act like nothing happened. But she was changed—hard and angry. We had an argument the morning of the day she died.”
“About…?”
“You know, I can’t remember. All I know is we parted on bad terms, and I’ve regretted it ever since. This picture—can you contact Jack Tullock and find out if he took it?”
“Yes. He owns a ranch near Amity, Oregon. The Jokin’ Jack.”
“Amity? Where’s that?”
“In Yamhill County, a couple of hours from Portland.”
“Maybe…”
“Yes?”
“Maybe he has others from that time that might tell more about Gaby’s murder.”
“We’ll see.”
Lucy hurried off home. When I went back inside, Park Bellassis said, “I don’t know what’s the matter with Lucy. She doesn’t usually go off like that.”
“No problem,” I told him, and excused myself to go to the kitchen, where I almost banged the swinging door into Mrs. Wellcome’s head. Her gray hair was pulled back from her forehead and secured in a knot at the nape of her neck; the style rendered her long, sharp-featured face stern. She’d been leaning forward, listening.
“Eavesdropping again, huh?” I said.
“That young woman is a bundle of nerves. If I were you and Ms. Kelleher, I’d watch her carefully.”
Those of us who were frequent visitors to this house pretended we disapproved of Mrs. Wellcome’s nosiness, but she knew that wasn’t so. Actually both Rae and Ricky relied on her insights into the many guests who crossed the Kelleher/Savage threshold. Ricky had been known to consult with her many times about dubious visitors.
I asked Mrs. Wellcome, “What about the woman’s husband?”
“More difficult to understand. He’s uneasy around his wife, probably because he doesn’t know what to expect next. The marriage is in trouble. Has been for some time now, unless I miss my guess.”
“You got all of that listening at the door?”
“I’ve been keeping an eye on that couple for some time, ma’am.”
“Cut out the ‘ma’am’ stuff. Have you ever considered going to work for my agency?”
“I’m perfectly happy where I am, but I could be persuaded to help out when domestic matters are involved.”
Lord help me, an aspiring private investigator is managing Rae’s and Ricky’s household.
Darcy Blackhawk
How could you do this to me?
He’d hidden in the park all last night and most of today, taking a few trips past the little brown girl’s apartment building. Now it was dark again, he was back in the park, and he was hungry. He hadn’t eaten since the sweet roll and coffee.
The little brown girl…
He tried to remember what they’d done after he met her. At one time she’d taken him to a restaurant and bought him a burger. A restaurant where the waiter didn’t look at him like he was a freak. After that he didn’t remember anything except for the steep steps of the big house and waking up in the girl’s bed.
Why’d he leave? Oh, right—to go to Shar’s. But he’d screwed that up, and now he had nobody.
Shar had abandoned him too. Hadn’t e-mailed him back. Where was his computer? He had a frantic moment, pawing the ground around him, then remembered he’d sold it someplace, sometime.
The river. Long, quiet days. And then Laura had come, disturbing them. And then they’d had to run anyway. And then she’d abandoned him too.
How could you do this to me?
Sharon McCone
It was almost midnight, and I couldn’t sleep. Finally I gave up trying and went to the kitchen. The table was littered with the usual stuff: junk mail, half-read books, unpaid bills, spare change, dry cleaners’ tickets, my purse and briefcase. I
shoved it all aside, booted up my laptop, and began clicking through sites containing the phrase “the four musketeers.”
Nineteen-twenties silent film adaptation of the classic novel The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas.
Nineteen-seventy-four Richard Lester film. Another film a year later, with Raquel Welch and Oliver Reed.
French quartet who’d dominated men’s tennis in the 1920s and -thirties.
More movies. Scholarly works on the novel. Other movies loosely based on it with silly storylines.
What did this have to do with anything in the real world?
Musketeers: infantry soldiers dressed in plumed hats and capes, brandishing sabers.
Informal usage: comrades, friends. People who aid and support one another.
Four: Gaby, Chuck Bosworth, Laura Mercer, Jack Tullock.
Three: Laura Mercer, Chuck Bosworth, Jack Tullock.
Two: Chuck Bosworth, Jack Tullock.
One: Jack Tullock.
And now?
I tried to call Mick to find out what he’d learned from Tullock, but his cell was out of its service area.
Damn!
Okay, deep search. I wasn’t as good at that as Mick, but I could try….
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10
Darcy Blackhawk
I love you…. she’d said.
She came to him out of the fog. The little brown girl.
She grabbed his arm. “Where the hell have you been?”
He tried to pull away; she was hurting him.
She yanked at him—hard. “Where did you go?”
“… No place.”
“Bullshit! Who did you talk to?”
“… Nobody.”
“God, you make me sick!”
She yanked again and started moving him along the street. She scared him, but he hadn’t the strength to protest.
The drug haze was clearing, slowly. He lay flat on his back, eyes still closed. His tongue tasted like iron filings. He remembered the little brown girl shooting him up—when? His sense of time had left him.
Voices came from nearby.
A man. “… Shouldn’t talk in here with him.”
A woman. The girl. “I gave him a shot. He’ll be out of it till morning. Besides, I don’t want to talk upstairs where one of the nosy neighbors might hear us. The heating ducts in this place really transmit sound. Tell me what you did.”
“Okay, I went to the house. You were right—he wasn’t there.”
“I told you he wouldn’t be. I checked; he was at that bar association dinner.”
“All right, all right. I’m sorry if I doubted you. Anyway, that house is huge and the grounds are damn dark in the fog.”
Darcy could picture a house like that. In his mind, he moved closer to it.
“I went down the side, to the backyard where there’s a little fountain. Man, Niagara Falls never sounded as loud as that trickle.”
Darcy could hear the water. It pounded in his ears, and he wanted to run away from it.
“I found the junction box for the alarm. The connection was frayed—a snap to break it.”
What was a junction box? Darcy wondered.
“Then I got in by busting one of the windows in the French doors.”
Darcy heard the breaking glass.
“You broke the glass? That wasn’t very smart. He’ll know somebody was in there.”
“What was I supposed to do?”
“Did you clean it up?”
“Hell, no! Wait till you hear the rest of this—you’ll understand.”
“I understand that you might’ve left fingerprints all over the place.”
“D’you think I’m an idiot? I had gloves on. Anyway, there were DVDs and videos in the entertainment center. I went through them—nothing. The guy has weird taste.”
Darcy pictured titles: Night of the Lepus; Attack of the Crab Monsters; Jaws; Dracula; I Walked with a Zombie. All favorites of his.
“I thought there might be more videos upstairs, so I went to the front hall, and then there was this noise. Snarling.”
“God, a guard dog.”
“No, a little dog. Like the movie stars are always carrying around in their purses. But it was a tough one; it came leaping at me, got hold of my pants leg, ripped it before I got away. I dropped one of his stupid twisties while I was doing it.”
“Twisties?”
“Those straw things he’s always making.”
“What the hell were you doing with it?”
“They’re all over the place here. I’d filled my pants pocket cleaning up after him, and one just fell out.”
“And you left it there?”
“Why not? It points to him, not us.”
Pause. “Maybe you’re right. But you didn’t get the tapes.”
“No. Couldn’t find them. If he’s got copies there they’re well hidden.”
“Jesus!”
“Look, why don’t we give it up? For all we know he’s stashed them in a safety-deposit box.”
“That kind of material? No, I don’t think so. Besides, we’ve got this idiot on our hands, and he’s seen our faces.”
“So what do we do with him?”
“For now, keep him drugged up. Later, I don’t know yet.”
“Why don’t you just let me beat it out of him?”
“Like you tried to do with Chuck Bosworth?”
Silence.
“We’ll figure something out later. I have a couple of ideas….”
Darcy tried to move, but he felt paralyzed. How could she do this to him?
I love you…. she’d said.
I love you….
Mick Savage
After he and Rosa had finished searching Jack Tullock’s house the night before, she’d left him there and driven home, asking him to call if her father returned.
Mick had suggested they call the police, but Rosa said no, Jack was “allergic” to them. He appropriated a big leather recliner and settled down to what he hoped would not be another long wait. The house was silent except for a clock that bonged on the quarter hour. Occasionally from outside he heard the eerie rattling cries of the pheasants. The last bong he was aware of was at three-thirty a.m. His eyelids grew heavy and he dozed….
Unfamiliar sounds brought him straight up in the chair, fully alert.
Stealthy movement outside, toward the back of the house.
A creak. A scraping step. Then silence.
Mick got up and went quietly to the family room at the rear. Eased aside a corner of a curtain to peer out. Nothing to see but the dark shapes of outbuildings—a barn and a large prefab. No lights, no motion within the range of his vision.
He let the curtain fall back, feeling a shiver skitter along his spine. He’d been wanting to do fieldwork for a long time, but now he had to admit he was more comfortable as a techie. This was Shar’s kind of thing—waiting in darkness, following people, having dangerous confrontations. And look where that had landed her last year: in a locked-in state from which nobody had ever expected her to return.
He’d see this situation through, but that would be it. Then strictly a desk jockey until he decided what he wanted to be when he grew up.
He went back along the hallway, his heart thumping, and let himself out the front door, cautiously followed the approximate path he judged the footsteps had taken. Skirted the barn looking for a window and came up against a high rail fence with a darkened security spot mounted on it. In the murkiness beyond two malevolent eyes glared at him; the face was tan and haughty; the lips pulled back showing large yellow teeth.
Camel.
The beast looked as if it was preparing to spit. Mick backed off. The camel snorted derisively. If a thought balloon had floated above its head, it would’ve said, “Cowardly human.” It snorted again, then turned and plodded away to the other side of the corral.
Not Mick’s idea of a pet. Nor were the llamas—wherever they were pastured. One of his friends had been bitten by a llama a
t a county fair and had the ragged scars to prove it.
He went back the way he’d come and this time noticed that the barn door was slightly ajar. He sidled up to it and peered inside. Total darkness and silence. Again he felt the shiver, but he girded himself and entered anyway. Took out his small flashlight and shone it around. Three stalls, empty. Bales of hay, neatly stacked. Tools arranged along the far wall. Workbench with an attached vise. Nothing else.
He moved outside and over to the prefab. It was more like a guesthouse than a shed, and wires—electric? phone?—extended to it from the house. No windows, and the door must be on the far side.
The ground here was covered with some kind of plant with burrs; the plants caught on the legs of his jeans, their long branches twining around his shoes. He made his way carefully to the rear of the prefab—and stopped just as light flashed on the opposite side and hurried footsteps slapped on the ground.
Mick was momentarily startled, then gave chase to a dark figure disappearing around the main house, but by the time he reached the top of the long driveway the person had started up a dark van that he hadn’t noticed before and vanished down the road. Finally he retraced his steps to the prefab, whose door was open, spilling light.
Inside was a scene of chaos.
The building housed an office: metal desk; file cabinets; computer; fax machine; industrial-strength gray carpet; gray walls hung with framed documents. But the contents of the desk and cabinet drawers had been dumped on the floor and lay in a tumble of spilled files, manila envelopes, and photographs, scattered pens and pencils, invoices, and computer disks.
Mick squatted down and sifted through the mess. Pretty standard stuff: bank statements, feed bills, junk mail, catalogs. The bank statements showed that Jack Tullock was not on sturdy financial ground: he had only $267.30 in his checking account and $5,000 in a CD that wouldn’t mature until next April; the bills, totaling roughly $1,500, were mostly unpaid. Mick examined the phone bill: Tullock had made two calls on Wednesday to the same number in San Francisco. He noted it.
City of Whispers Page 9
