Although I wanted to go to the hospital, I was pretty unpresentable, even for Berkeley. So I fought the battle of the bridge at commute time, got home in just over an hour, then took off my clothes and examined my burns in the mirror. When I saw what was going on with my hands, which had assumed the color and texture of watermelon without the water, I considered going to the hospital for treatment. Instead, I opted for two glasses of grapefruit juice, under the two-pronged theory that the worst part of burns is dehydration and grapefruit juice tastes bad enough to cure anything. After I showered as much of my body as I could stand to get wet and changed clothes with more pain than I’d experienced since I’d been shot, I decided to defer the hospital till later and got back in my car and drove west.
Millicent Colbert and her husband, Stuart, lived in an elegant stone structure on Santa Ana Way near the crest of St. Francis Wood, up the hill from Stern Grove about a mile east of the ocean. The Colberts are the parents of Eleanor, a five-year-old girl who was carried to term by a surrogate mother and presented to the Colberts pursuant to their contractual arrangement with the surrogate. What the Colberts don’t know, and neither does anyone else but the surrogate, is that the odds are better than even that I’m the father of the child. I didn’t plan it that way, and in fact I took steps to prevent it, but for reasons of her own, the surrogate was so hostile to the prospect of giving birth to Stuart Colbert’s offspring that she replaced the embryo implanted at the fertility clinic with one produced by the two of us, without my knowledge or consent. Her perfidy infuriated me when I learned of it, but it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me. Life can be funny like that. When it isn’t being horrible.
Because I’d had something to do with salvaging the arrangement when the surrogate became balky at providing a child to the Colberts, Millicent considers me Eleanor’s godfather even though I declined the honor when she offered it formally. Although publicly my status is only de facto, Millicent keeps me posted on Eleanor’s progress and lets me visit whenever I want, which I make sure happens no more than once a month so I won’t become either suspicious or a pest. Millicent is an excellent mother and Stuart’s an adequate dad, but every time I leave their house, I wish I could take Eleanor with me.
I pulled to a stop next to the curb. People were coming home from work. The homes they entered were all huge, the cars they drove were all expensive, the lights in the windows that welcomed them were all bright and congenial. All kinds of wonderful things were going on inside those homes, no doubt, and some dastardly things as well. But when you’ve got the kind of money these people have, you get to keep both behaviors private unless someone shows up with a subpoena.
I rang the bell and waited. A moment later, Millicent opened the door. “Marsh,” she enthused. “How wonderful.” Her smile bloomed, then withered. “But I’m afraid Eleanor isn’t here. Stuart just took her to a computer fair at her school.”
“Computers at age five?”
Millicent laughed at the Luddite. “She’s a real geek, Marsh; she’s been on-line for almost a year. She e-mails children in France and Bulgaria.”
“I guess I’d know more about that if I were on-line myself.”
“You should be, you know. Then you could e-mail Eleanor every day.”
“I don’t have that much to say.”
“It doesn’t seem to stop anyone else.”
She clutched my arm with her usual exuberance. I tried not to flinch as she ran roughshod over my burns. “Don’t worry about Eleanor,” I said. “This time I’m here to see you.”
Millicent’s blush was dramatic, so much so that she turned away so I couldn’t see her reaction. I think she was afraid I was going to make a pass at her and what stirred her was that she wasn’t sure how she was going to respond. Given our past, which featured lots of friendship and a little flirtation over and above our common bond with Eleanor, I was tempted to meet expectations. But the pain radiating off the scalded flesh beneath my sleeves helped me keep my leanings under control, as did a quick flash on the image of Jill Coppelia.
“Come in, Marsh; come in,” Millicent managed finally, her usual graciousness momentarily shouldered aside by the uneasy ethic of the moment.
“I’ll only be a minute,” I said as she led me into her sumptuous home.
Stuart Colbert ran a women’s clothing store, so he was up-to-date on fads and fashion and had the money to keep pace with each. As a consequence, the living room had been redecorated thrice in the five years I’d known them. At present, the drapes and carpet and wall coverings were baroque and overabundant, a riot of paisley weaves and floral prints complemented by the dozen bouquets of cut flowers strewn about the room in antique cuspidors and wooden buckets. The couch and chairs were formed of dainty frames and shiny fabrics, the tables were built of dark hardwoods no doubt appropriated from some colonial conquest. The fireplace was a work of art all to itself, a symphony of wrought iron and painted porcelain. I’m sure the room was a triumph for some celebrity decorator, but I would have gone crazy in the place myself.
Thankfully, we traversed the living room and entered the library, which was far more my style: leather and plaid, oak and brick. We sat side by side on the husky couch and crossed our legs simultaneously. “Do you want coffee, Marsh? Or a beer?” Millicent asked uneasily. It might have been the first time in our acquaintance that we weren’t being chaperoned by a child playing somewhere in view.
“No, thanks.”
“You look … distracted.”
“I am, a little. And that’s why I’m here.”
She reached out a hand and touched my wrist, which happened to be where I was burned worst. This time I couldn’t suppress the flinch.
Millicent frowned and lifted her fingers, then examined my wrist more closely. “What’s wrong, Marsh? Are you hurt?”
“I got broiled just a little.”
“Let me see.”
Because I’m not nearly as tough as I act, I let Millicent play nurse. When she peeled back my sleeve she recoiled from what she’d exposed. “Good gracious. Don’t tell me you were trying to make French fries again.”
I shook my head. “I’ve moved beyond my Martha Stewart phase.”
“Then what on earth happened?”
“I got too close to a car.”
“But how did that …?”
“The car was on fire at the time.”
Her eyes widened. “It wasn’t yours, was it?”
I shook my head.
“Then why were you so …?”
“Because my client was inside it.”
“What client?”
“Chandelier Wells.”
Millicent’s hands were a pantomime of prayer. “Oh, my God. Did something happen to Chandelier?”
“Her car blew up. Probably from a bomb. I was supposed to stop it and I didn’t. Since you were the one who recommended me, I wanted to tell you before it hit the news.”
Millicent hugged herself as though we were meeting in Nome. “A bomb? Really?”
“Afraid so.”
“Good Lord. She’s all right, isn’t she?”
“I don’t know. I doubt if anyone else does, yet. She had to have been badly burned, but I don’t know the details. They took her to Alta Bates over in Berkeley. I’m going there after I leave here.”
“Maybe I should go with you.”
“I’m sure there’s nothing you can do for her at this point. My guess is she’ll be in intensive care for quite a while and in the burn ward for quite a while after that.”
“How awful.” Millicent thought it over, then stood up. “Well, there’s one thing I can do, at least,” she said firmly, then strode off toward the door. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
She left me to gaze around the library, at books I had read and others I should have, at souvenirs of her trips throughout the world with Stuart, at a rolltop desk I’d coveted from the moment I saw it, at attractive art and tasteful furnishings. At times like these
, I get depressed about the things I don’t have in my life, until I remember what such things cost in terms of pride and dignity and freedom. Then I cheer up till the next time.
When Millicent returned, she wore an air of self-satisfaction that puzzled me. “What?” I asked her.
“I called the hospital. They said Chandelier is critical but not grave.”
“Good.”
“And then I called my neighbor.”
“Why?”
“You’ll see.”
I looked at my watch. “I should be going.”
“Not yet. Please.”
I didn’t know what was up so I expressed my worst fear. “Is something wrong with Eleanor?”
Millicent smiled. “Eleanor’s fine. Terrific, as usual. She’s going to start dance lessons next month.”
“Is that wise? I’ve known some ballerinas. Dancing’s pretty hard on the body.”
“Don’t worry, silly. It’s not really dancing. It’s movement therapy.”
“What does she need therapy for?”
Millicent wrinkled her lips in resistance to my question. “You sound like my mother. It’s just so she’ll do more with her body than she gets to do at school.”
I was too tired to go into it. “You’re the boss, but I don’t see why a five-year-old kid needs some sort of therapy just to—”
The doorbell cut off my cry of impotence and insecurity and Millicent hurried to answer it. When she returned, she was followed by a distinguished-looking gray-haired gentleman wearing a shiny burgundy running suit and carrying a black bag. “Marsh, this is Kyle Bronson, my neighbor. Doctor Kyle Bronson.”
I stood up and shook his hand. As we muttered the usual bunk, I figured out what Millicent was up to. “I don’t need a—”
“You most certainly do,” Millicent dissented firmly. “Roll up your sleeve or I’ll do it for you.”
I did as directed and the doc looked me over. The burns were mostly minor, with some second-degree on my hands and wrists and first-degree on my forehead and cheeks. He wanted me to go to the hospital for a more thorough exam, but when I told him I didn’t have time, he put some ointment on the worst parts and bandaged them up. The ointment made me feel so good that I offered to pay him. He told me not to be silly. After some chitchat with Millicent about a man down the block who had shingles, Dr. Bronson went back home.
“Thanks,” I said when he’d gone.
“You need to take better care of yourself.”
I grinned my wolfish grin. “It’s more fun when you do it for me.”
She colored again and I was sorry I’d pushed the envelope, but on the theory that it was the flush of pleasure, not insult, I took her hand and kissed it. “You’re the best.”
“Thank you.”
“I mean it.”
“And I appreciate it.”
As the silence grew uncomfortable, I stood up. “Tell Eleanor hi.”
“Of course.”
“And Stuart.”
“Surely.”
“I’d better go.”
“Do you have to so soon?”
“I think I’d better.”
She nodded as though she understood what I meant, which was that we shouldn’t tempt fate any longer than we had to.
“Well …” she said.
“Well …”
“Tell Chandelier I’m so sorry.”
“I will if they let me see her. For both of us.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Marsh. Please.”
“Have to. The only other guy I can blame is dead.”
I gave Millicent a peck on the cheek and she gave me a dispassionate squeeze and I decided she might not be as enamored of me as I thought she was. I decided that was just as well. Then I headed back across the bay and got there in half the time of my previous trip.
It was a little before eight when I parked at the hospital, and a little after that by the time I found my way to intensive care. Lark McLaren was sitting in the visitors’ room looking wan and lifeless, as though she’d survived an explosion herself.
When she saw me, she rushed to embrace me, but stopped when she saw the bandages. “Mr. Tanner. How are you? I was worried that maybe you were badly hurt as well.”
“I’m fine,” I exaggerated. “How’s Chandelier?”
Lark tugged me to a chair and sat me down. “Pretty bad, I think. They haven’t told me much, but there’re third-degree burns on her hands and face and legs; second-degree almost everywhere else. She’s still in shock. They say she won’t be out of danger for days.”
“Burns are tricky,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean she won’t make it. Have you seen her?”
She shook her head. “They won’t let me. But she thinks it was Mickey.”
“How do you know?”
“She told one of the ambulance attendants she thought her husband had done it.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Mickey’s better off with her alive and earning big bucks, which I told him she was about to do. He’s not in her will, is he?”
She shook her head. “No way.”
“Who is?”
“In the will?”
I nodded. “Inheritance makes a nice motive. It says so in all the mystery novels.”
Lark frowned. “All I know is what she told me once, which was that I would get a small bequest—fifty thousand—and Amber and Sally would, too, and the rest of the staff would get something similar though not as large. And the bulk of her estate would be split between Violet and the library.”
“The city library?”
“Yes.”
“What’s Chandelier’s net worth?”
“I don’t know, exactly; she has a zillion accountants keeping track. But I think it’s between twenty and thirty million.”
I laughed. “I think we can add the librarian to the list of suspects.”
Lark grasped my hand, then released it when she felt my twinge. “I don’t know what to do. I feel helpless just sitting here, but I’m afraid if I leave, something awful will happen.”
“All you can do is wait. And you can do that just as well at home.”
Her cell phone rang. She took it out of her purse, then turned it off. “The publisher keeps calling. So does the press. So do her fans.”
“Tell them everything’s on hold and you’ll make a statement when there’s something to say. Tell the doctors in here to get the best burn people in the business on the case. Tell Amber not to leave town till I talk to her. And then go home and get some sleep.”
“I’ve already done all that,” Lark said, “except for Amber.” Then she shook her head miserably. “Who could do such a thing?” she asked rhetorically, not really expecting an answer.
“I don’t know,” I said truthfully, “but if you’ve got no objections, I’m going to try to find out.”
Ever the faithful employee, Lark frowned uneasily. “I’m not sure I can authorize the expenditure until Chandelier can—”
“There won’t be an expenditure of anything but time. It comes under the category of saving face.”
“Won’t the police be unhappy if you interfere in their case?”
“I won’t be interfering; I’ll be aiding and abetting.”
Chapter 16
When I got home, the telephone was ringing. “Were you there?” she asked breathlessly. “Are you all right? What happened? Is Chandelier Wells going to make it?”
I chuckled at the torrent of words formed in questions I couldn’t answer. “I was there, I’m fine, Chandelier’s critical but not grave, and I have no idea what happened except for some reason her car exploded.”
Jill Coppelia paused to take it all in. “You’re sure you’re all right?”
“A little crisp in spots. But, yes.”
“Crisp from what?”
“I forgot you’re not supposed to play with fire.”
“It was really a car bomb?”
&nbs
p; “I think so.”
“You weren’t in the car, I hope.”
“Nope.”
“Where were you?”
“Inside Steinway Books.”
“The news said something about a driver.”
“Chandelier and her driver were in the car when it blew. The driver didn’t make it.”
“Did you know him?”
“Not well.”
“But why on earth did it happen? Who had reason to kill Chandelier?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“A nut, I’ll bet. Some fool who was sure God wanted Chandelier up in heaven with Him. Or down in hell with the devil.”
“Maybe. But all kinds of people have a bone to pick with famous writers, it turns out.”
“What kind of bone?”
“Ten minutes before the bomb went off, a young woman stood up at the reading and accused Chandelier of stealing her work.”
“How would that happen?”
“Chandelier used to teach. The woman used to be her student.”
“But still.”
“But still,” I agreed.
She paused to let things simmer back toward our version of normal. “Since you’re all right, do you want to come over for a nightcap?”
“I definitely do, but I probably shouldn’t.”
“Why not?” she asked, not entirely without frost.
I laughed at her new mood. “Do you think it’s at all significant that you cast a bad light on every ambiguous statement I make?”
This time her tone was rectitudinous. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You always think I’m up to something and I usually never am.”
“That’s nonsense.”
Ellipsis Page 12
