1 Margarita Nights

by Phyllis Smallman

  Well, this was a new and interesting twist. For a moment I forgot to be afraid of him.

  “You and Jimmy . . . well, you kept us entertained with your godawful husband stories but it was torture watching you go back to him. And you always went back. No matter what he did.”

  He swung his leg off me and rolled onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling. “As long as Jimmy was around, I didn’t stand a chance, nobody did.”

  His words sent a chill through my body. Was I listening to a murderer’s confession? “What did you do?”

  “I hired a private investigator” He looked at me. “In my business, knowledge is power and money. It’s all about what you know and who you know. I thought I might find something out to make it easier for you to leave Jimmy.” He looked away and stared up at the ceiling as if he were looking for answers in the fine veining of cracks. “Dumb. It didn’t take me long to realize you knew every bad thing about Jimmy. There was nothing to add.”

  “There were lots of pictures of Jimmy and women. Why didn’t you show them to me?”

  He snorted with disgust. “I hadn’t fallen quite that low. Besides I soon realized those pictures wouldn’t tell you anything about Jimmy you didn’t already know, but they’d tell you a whole lot about me I’d rather keep to myself.” He looked into my eyes and said simply, “I’m sorry.” His black eyes tempted me to forget but I’d been charmed by the best. I was immune.

  I rolled off the edge of the bed and stood looking down at him, “And Lynch?” He looked confused.

  “I read the file on Gridiron. Then I went to the library and read everything I could on Hayward Lynch and the King Ranch Development. I found a picture of one of the guys on Jimmy’s tape, a county commissioner. There’s a tie-in,” I counted them off on my fingers, “. . . Jimmy, King Ranch, Lynch,” I pointed a finger at him “. . . and you. You’re the key, the one that ties it all together.”

  He was on his feet protesting, “I didn’t have anything to do with Jimmy’s death. Nor with Andy’s.” “Did you break into my apartment?”

  “No.”

  I blew a raspberry. “You almost had me convinced. Only four people knew about the tape. You mean to tell me one of the others, for some unknown reason, broke in here?”

  He thought about it, rolling it around in his mind and then he said, “Oh, shit.” He dragged his hands through his hair. “I told Lynch. In the bar the night you told us about the tape, I told Lynch who you were, told him about the tape.”

  And I remembered turning on the blender to block out his words.

  “Hayward is in deep shit. He came into the Sunset to get me to buy into Gridiron. He owns a thousand acres of the King Ranch and he’s been trying to get a zoning change to develop it. He’d have had it already but for cutting down that tree to get rid of the eagles. The city didn’t like his end run. He’ll get the change, but the question is will it come in time to save his ass.”

  “So Lynch stands to make a lot of money if the zoning changes?”

  “Yes. Lynch has about seventeen million of his own money into that property already, everything he and his family owns,” Clay told me. “If that zoning change doesn’t go through quickly he will lose it all. He’s desperate. Each day the decision is held up just brings him closer to bankruptcy. His creditors are already in court to seize his assets. He’s as thick as thieves with most of the commissioners—Dunton and that lot— that’s why he thought the zoning change would be a shoo-in, but a couple of county commissioners are being sticky. This will set a precedent. All hell will break loose and they won’t be able to close the floodgates on development out there. Until they solve the sewage and water problems even I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “What if there was a scandal involving a member of the county commissioners?” A worm of an idea was digging its way out of my brain.

  Clay shrugged, “I’d say he was shit out of luck if it involved this piece of property. The county would put off making any commitment for months and that would screw him.”

  “Would he be willing to pay someone to make it happen?” I asked. “To get the approval?” “What are you saying?”

  “Would he pay off one of those guys who were being difficult?”

  “Definitely. They were only shy one vote the last time it came up. If someone hinted that they’d be willing to stop dragging their feet and vote yes Hayward would grab at the chance.”

  “Well, say Jimmy saw Lynch paying off one of those guys, perhaps when he was trying to fix the camera, and say Jimmy knew what it meant when he saw those guys together.” I was going slow, thinking out loud. “He taped it. And say Jimmy demanded . . .” I shrugged my shoulders and picked a number out of the air, “. . . a hundred thousand dollars. Would Lynch pay up to keep anyone from knowing?”

  “He would if he had the money.”

  “Surely he could raise that amount?” Clay looked doubtful. “I bet he’s maxed out every piece of plastic, every overdraft and every friendship. Do you know how much it costs to finance his debt?”

  “Fortunately not, my own is enough to disturb my sleep.”

  “But he might give him something and offer him a small piece of the action when the zoning went through.” Now it was Clay’s turn to ask a question. “Would Jimmy try blackmail?”

  I didn’t hesitate. “Yes. But why kill Jimmy? Why not just pay Jimmy off?”

  “He might once. But Hayward is all about being in control. He wouldn’t be at anyone’s mercy. He plays to win . . . all or nothing. Plus it’s my guess he wouldn’t trust Jimmy. Wouldn’t trust him not to come back again and again.”

  “Blackmail would tend to make you untrustworthy in most people’s eyes.”

  “Well, unless you have the tape, there’s no proof.”

  “I want the guy that killed Andy and Jimmy to rot in jail. Even better, I want him to fry.” I turned away. “I’ll find the proof.”

  Clay came to me and wrapped his arms around me. I let him.

  “Look,” he said, “you’ve got a lot of reasons to be angry with me.” He turned me around to face him. “Please forgive me.”

  And then I was in his arms and he was kissing me. My pride in being different from Ruth Ann, stronger and more controlled, was broken, completely shattered in the fires of desire. Oh my, I’m my momma’s girl all right. Give me a little pat on the head, well actually that wasn’t what he was patting, and I’m willing to forgive anything. The old brain just disconnects and the hormones take over.

  Someday soon I was sure to be saying, “Gee, how could I get it so wrong?” but right now my blood was hot and my body was saying, “Bring it on.”

  Chapter 47

  Sex couldn’t distract me from death for long.

  Betsy Crown grimaced when she saw me at the door but stepped aside to let me in. She shut the door quietly, paused and then lifted her face to me, bracing herself for what was to come.

  The first words out of my mouth were not the ones I’d rehearsed on our drive down the beach. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  With a small moan she wrapped her arms around me, grasping me tightly to her hard little body. A patch of dampness bled into my shoulder. Then she regained her iron composure and led the way into her magnificent white living room with the white baby grand.

  She waved at a couch and went directly to a chrome bar cart. “I was just going to make myself a drink. What can I get for you?”

  I know drinkers. I can tell within a sip how close they are to having a skin full and I knew she’d already had more than one. If she were in my bar, I wouldn’t serve her.

  “Whatever you’re having is fine,” I answered.

  She dropped ice cubes into two glasses and then poured two inches of Stolichnaya vodka in her glass and an inch in mine. As she handed me the glass, Mr. Crown walked into the room.

  He frowned at me and said, “I didn’t expect to see you here.” In a voice that yelled, “Don’t mess with me,” Betsy Crown said lightly, “I want to talk to
her.”

  I perched on the edge of a benchlike white sofa to let him know I intended to stay.

  Mrs. Crown settled on the sofa across from me. “Tell me about Andrew,” she begged.

  “I don’t know who killed him but he didn’t kill himself. I don’t want you to think that.” I set the glass down on a glass-and-chrome table.

  Mrs. Crown held her hands up before her face as if she were praying while Mr. Crown sat with his elbows planted on splayed knees staring at the deep white rug as I told them every detail of finding Andy and of our time in the Pelican Motel. When I finished, they sat in their separate islands of silence digesting it and making it part of their own history and memory bank while I got up and walked to the baby grand piano.

  The lid was open. I had a good look around. I walked slowly around the piano looking at the black interior from all angles and running my fingers along the curve in case my eyes missed something. A black video case taped on with black electrical tape could easily be missed.

  “Do you play?” Mr. Crown asked. He looked mildly curious at my strange behavior but that was all. His son was dead and nothing beyond this fact could penetrate his mind.

  “No,” I replied, still checking. Nothing. Wrong piano. I went back to the couch. “When did you last see Andy?” “Thanksgiving,” said Mr. Crown. “He was already delusional. He wouldn’t listen to us, wouldn’t go in for treatment. We decided to try tough love.” Misery washed over his face. “To set him free, to find his own way.”

  “Tough love, soft love, true love: none of that would work. Love just wouldn’t cut it. The only thing that would bring Andy back to us was the drugs. If you need to be angry with someone, save it for Dr. Steadman. I called him and begged him for help.”

  “I called him too,” said Mrs. Crown. She swiped tears off her cheeks with the flat of her hands. The look she gave her husband kept him quiet. “Dr. Steadman reminded me that Andrew was his patient, not me. Dr. Steadman said he couldn’t discuss Andrew’s illness with me without Andrew’s written permission. He did, however, suggest I bring Andrew to his office.”

  She gave a whimper. “Quite impossible.”

  Each of us in our own way had tried and failed. Forever after, we would ask ourselves what we had left undone.

  “I’ll leave you now,” I said.

  “But you’ll be at the service, won’t you?” Mrs. Crown pleaded. “You were always so good to Andrew, you and Jimmy. You’re the only ones who never forgot him.” She gripped my hand in both of hers. “You’re the only friends he had left.”

  They’d soon know that Jimmy had caused Andy’s death, maybe not directly but Jimmy’s greed had set all of this in motion. Sooner or later they were going to figure that out and hate us.

  “I’ll be there,” I promised.

  The door closed behind me. The exit visa, AKA Jimmy’s tape, was not in the grand piano at the Crowns’. So where was it? Was it in any piano? Did I have any better idea?

  I looked at the pink stucco castle next door. Ignoring Clay waiting in the car, I walked down the drive, along the road and up the flagstone path to the front door.

  Chapter 48

  “What are you doing here?” Bernice had lost weight. The skin on her face looked parchment dry and hung in great folds, but her eyes still blazed with hatred. I pushed past her. “We need to talk.”

  “Talk? Talk? If I never talk to you again it will be a blessing.”

  “Someone murdered Jimmy. It wasn’t me. Someone murdered Andy. It wasn’t me. Don’t you want to know who it was?”

  She jolted upright like a steel rod had been shoved up her spine. “Come,” she said and marched off to the small sitting room off the kitchen, always the most used space in the four-thousand-square-foot house.

  It had been redone in apple green and white since I’d last been in it.

  “Sit,” Bernice ordered while I was still taking in the pretty new color.

  I sat. Then I told her everything I knew or thought I knew.

  “Hayward? You’re saying Hayward Lynch killed Jimmy?” Her face warped into hard cruel lines.

  “Or had him killed.”

  She hadn’t even denied the possibility that Jimmy could be a blackmailer. Maybe she knew him better than I’d realized.

  “Did Jimmy leave a video with you?” She shook her head. “He hasn’t been around lately.” “Why?” And why was I asking?

  “You,” she spit out. “You were always the problem. He wouldn’t listen.” Yada, yada, yada.

  She took a deep breath and started down a well-trod path. “You destroyed him. And you couldn’t even do what your sort does best . . . breed. At least I’d have something of my beautiful boy left.”

  As if I’d ever let the bitch get close to any child of mine. “Do you think Jimmy might have come in when you weren’t here and left a package?” She thought it over. “I don’t know, but I’ll look.” “Without evidence we’ll never prove Lynch did it.” She gave a sharp little nod of her head. “I’ll look.” I started to leave and then turned back. “I have some things of Jimmy’s, pictures and trophies, I’ll drop them off.”

  With Clay still playing chauffeur, we fought the traffic over the bridge to Tamiami, but there weren’t any music stores in the mall across from the box stores. “Where to now?” he asked.

  “There’s a mall two blocks from Andy’s apartment,” I answered, “near enough for him to walk to. If there’s a piano store there he might have stashed the tape inside of a floor model.” The truth was I was desperate and willing to go on any wild goose chase just to be doing something. “Let’s try there.”

  It was an older mall where the pavement competed with the façade for the speed they could crumble at and it didn’t look like the ideal place to find what we wanted. But there, between Hollywood Nails and the American Terminator Pest Control Company, was a lovely little store selling all kinds of instruments. It seemed like an omen. The sign on the door said the Highnote offered music lessons as well.

  A plump man in his forties, with thinning hair combed over a bald spot, came out of the back room just as I lifted the lid on a small Japanese piano by the front door. The clerk hurried over, rubbing his hands in anticipation. Lifting the lid on a piano must be comparable to kicking tires on a car.

  We looked inside, gave it a good look, but there was no tape to be seen. At the second piano the clerk exposed the insides for me and explained what we were looking at. There was no videotape contained in the innards of this piano either. The two other pianos also came without videos.

  “Do you sell many of these?” I asked.

  “Oh, yes,” the clerk assured me.

  “How many in the last two weeks?” I asked. “I was just wondering if there was a piano here in the last two weeks that isn’t here now.”

  “Well, no.” The clerk’s answer was hesitant. Perhaps he didn’t want to admit that he hadn’t moved one of these babies in two weeks or maybe it was the weirdness of the question that shook him.

  I reached into my purse for the picture of Andy. “It’s really my friend who knows about pianos.” I showed him the picture. “Has he been in?”

  His face told me that this was very odd behavior but he was willing to play along if there was a chance of a sale down the line. He studied the picture of a neat and clean Andy, with no dreadlocks, and shook his head.

  “No,” he said regretfully. “I don’t think he is one of our customers but I’d be happy to meet him.”

  “Call Styles.” Clay ordered.

  “I really hate being told what to do.”

  We were on the balcony of his apartment, a warm tropical oasis of lushly flowering plants and bamboo furniture. Below us, six-foot breaking waves gave the azure blue horizon a jagged look and set bright-colored beach umbrellas trembling and dancing on the sand. I sat enfolded in Clay’s silk robe with my feet resting on the bottom support of the table.

  We’d been at it for hours. Clay wouldn’t let it go while I wanted to sit he
re, enjoying the good feelings and banishing the rest from my mind. That wasn’t Clay’s way. His hard dark face had a take-no-prisoners look. “You have to tell Styles about Lynch.”

  “Why would he believe me?” I lifted the carafe and poured more coffee. “I haven’t come across as any too credible.”

  His lips thinned into a straight hard line. I knew this stubborn and unyielding look. “I’ll go with you.”

  “No. This is my problem not yours.” He started to protest. I reached out and took his hand with its long slender fingers and raised it to my lips before I laid it along my cheek. “Never mind, Styles or Lynch or anything else. Let’s just enjoy this.”

  Clay wasn’t having any of that shit. “Lynch has got to be stopped.”

  “Give it a rest, Clay,” I begged.

  “I need a little time.” He sighed.

  “Doing nothing just isn’t your style, is it?” I asked. He gave a jagged little laugh that tugged at my heart. “I’ve never done enough of it to know.”

  “Well,” I nodded at the apartment behind us, “working like a fiend gave you all this.” “I’ve missed a few things.”

  “I never thought you wanted anything but money.”

  “Neither did I until you came along.” He frowned, unhappy to be at the mercy of emotions. “I still can’t believe it.” He got up abruptly from his chair and left the room.

  I debated going after him but decided to hell with him. Whatever his problem was I didn’t need it. I didn’t need him.

  But not needing Clay was a lie I couldn’t sustain.

  He returned with my handbag and dropped it onto my lap. “Go ahead,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Have a cigarette,” he said. “I know you’re dying to.” Clay hated smoking with a passion.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Clay dropped into the rattan chair and went back to studying the horizon. “I don’t want to make a fool of myself.”

  “In what way a fool?”

  He shrugged. “By going into the Sunset and hanging all over you or crowing or . . . I don’t know what. I’m out of control.” Again the shrug. “You’d think it would be easier at my age. But it’s worse than when I was a teenager. I want to stand on the bar and announce it or send out e-mails or something. I warn you, Sherri, I might really do something embarrassing.”