Scot Free

by Catriona McPherson

  “Mum,” I said. “I’ve got to go. I’m going to start telling you why. If I get to the end of the sentence, you’ll understand. If you interrupt me, you won’t. Okay?”

  “What are you talking about?” my mum said.

  “Don’t treat your mother as if she’s one of your patients,” my dad said.

  “The police are here,” I said. “I need to give a statement about—”

  “NO! Oh Lexy, what have you done? Have you got a lawyer? Don’t say anything. They’ve got the death penalty in California and—”

  I hung up quietly and smiled at Mike and Mills. “Coffee?” I said.

  When we were settled with our coffee mugs (bone china, plain white with a fine gold line), Mike flicked through a notebook.

  “So,” she said. “You had an appointment with both Bombaros at seven p.m. on the fourth. They didn’t show. They didn’t call you. You didn’t call them. You didn’t leave your office. Right so far?”

  I nodded. “I was staying put, avoiding the fireworks,” I said. “I hate fireworks.”

  “And who made the appointment?” Mike went on. I frowned. What was she getting at? “Was it you, or Mr. Bombaro, or Mrs. Bombaro who suggested a meeting at sundown on the Fourth of July?”

  “Ah,” I said. “I’d have to check. Oh—actually I can’t check. I’ve closed my practice account because I’ve closed my practice.” I had deleted everything and shredded what I’d printed. I was one county permit away from a great big symbolic bonfire, really.

  “Cast your mind back,” said Mike, dryly. The dryness intrigued me. The look that went with it intrigued me enough to make my pulse race. She thought I was playing her in some way. I was so far from playing her I couldn’t even work out what the game would be.

  “Well, typically,” I said, “one or other of the Bombaros emailed me from their joint account. That last appointment request”—I screwed my face up, trying to remember—“came from … ” I shut my eyes and tried to visualize the end of the message. Was it Yours, V or Boom!? But, honestly, who reads to the end of an email? I don’t even open them if I can get the gist from what shows in the inbox. “I can’t remember,” I concluded. “I’d be guessing if I picked one.”

  “What a surprise,” said Mike, dryer than a cornflour desert.

  “Ah,” I said. “You think … ” I paused to let my brain catch up. No luck. “Sorry, what do you think?”

  “Next question,” Mike said. “You said you were leaving town?”

  I nodded.

  “You look pretty cozy for someone who’s leaving town,” she said. “We delivered your luggage so you wouldn’t need to go to Target and buy panties. Quite a surprise when the owner let us into your room.”

  “We?” I said. “You? A detective delivered my luggage to my motel room? That’s a bit odd, isn’t it?”

  “I thought I might learn something,” she said. “I was right.” Then she glanced down at her notebook. “And after the appointment was made, did you have any communication with Mr. Bombaro about it?”

  “Uhhhh, no,” I said. “But that’s not unusual. I gave them tasks at first. You know, listening exercises, quizzes, that kind of thing. But by yesterday … no.”

  “And how was the arrangement made for you to witness the divorce papers?” she went on.

  “Oh well, there I can be much more help. Mizz Visalia called and asked me.”

  “No communication with Mr. Bombaro on that either?”

  “No,” I said, “but I’m assuming he was fine with it.”

  “And do you have any idea why they were traveling to your office separately? I mean, why Mrs. Bombaro was traveling alone?”

  “No!” I said. “And actually I meant to ask her about that but I got sidetracked.”

  “Oh you did, did you?” said Mike. A hot wind had blown across the cornflour desert and baked it just a little drier.

  “I did,” I confirmed. “I will ask and I’ll let you know, if I see her before you do. There’s a lot of things I’d like to ask her, actually. Barbara’s full name and address for one thing. Oh but wait. Actually, that would be better coming from you lot. But, you see, it occurred to me that if Clovis and Visalia had made up and he’d ditched Barbara, she’d be pretty angry. You should definitely speak to her. And there’s the Dolshikovs too. Business rivals. And there’s family. They’ve turned up and I got a very bad vibe from them yesterday. They’re at the Bombaros’ house out on—Oh, but you probably know the address.”

  “Do you have their names?” said Mike. “The family, with the bad vibes?”

  “Serpentina,” I said, “and Jan.”

  “Bombaro?”

  “No,” I said. And then I remembered the card swap. I fished in my wallet for it, smoothed it out, cast my eyes over it, and dropped dead from the shock of what I saw there.

  At least, it took a minute before I could speak again.

  “Not Bombaro,” I said. “Serpentina Dolshikov, chief financial officer of Dolshikov Pyrotasia. Contact numbers are for Dallas, Texas.”

  “Dolshikov the business rival?” said Mike.

  “And her brand-new husband Jan. And the two cousins were called … Oh God, I want to say Ivan and Boris. Definitely Dolshikov-compatible. They weren’t Angelo and Dario, anyway.”

  “And all these people are staying with Mrs. Bombaro at the house?”

  “Yes!” I said, loud enough to wake Mills of God out of his daydream. “And this is interesting. Visalia was surprised by how fast Sparky had turned up and—”

  “Who?”

  “Serpentina. It’s a nickname. She’s beating herself up about something or other she thinks she did to her uncle. Oh yes, very definitely worth looking at the family, I think. And speaking of family—”

  “Yes?” said Mike. One of her eyebrows was a good two inches higher than the other. It’s a useful skill for a detective. It might have been what made her join the force in the first place. It worked on me, anyway. There was no way I wanted to tell that eyebrow anything so cheesy as Mizz Vi’s Sicilian mafia theory.

  “Don’t you think it’s a bit odd that they didn’t come to the court or even the jail?” I said, substituting pretty adroitly, in my opinion.

  “I do,” said Mike. “It’s very strange indeed. An old lady relying on a therapist for support while her family waits at home? There’s no way that would happen without someone planning it and laying down the law.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “So. Barbara and the Dolshikovs. Both worth a look, eh?”

  “We’ll get right on it,” Mike said. I blinked at her. The eyebrows had changed places. Many people have made a good living from their eyebrow work—Nathan Lane and Nicolas Cage, for instance—and a subset of them can quirk one eyebrow at a time—Roger Moore and Sarah Jessica Parker do it all the time. But until I met Mike, I had never seen anyone truly ambisupercilious.

  She drained her cup and stood. Mills of God, who had not said a word yet, set his cup down, the coffee untouched, and joined her.

  “You’re not still ‘leaving town,’ are you?” Mike said.

  “No,” I assured her, ignoring the quotes. “For one thing, there’s the bail bond. And anyway, she might need me again, you know?”

  “She ‘might need you again’?” Mike shook her head and left, laughing. I watched her go and wondered about the laughter for a minute or two then headed into the bathroom for a shower.

  Todd was sitting on my bed when I emerged wrapped in a bath sheet from armpit to ankle. He had fluffed the covers and reapplied the seventeen cushions in order of size.

  “Have you got a master key?” I said.

  “No,” said Todd giving me a look as if I’d asked a weird question. “Kathi gave me hers. Why?” He shook it off before I could answer. “Listen, I’ve laid out an outfit for today.” He waved a hand at the back of the wardrobe door wh
ere a skirt, shirt, bra, and pants were hanging on a satin hanger. “But you really need to go shopping. I can take you to Nordstrom’s Rack if we leave now.”

  Boundary issues, Roger had said.

  “Aren’t you working today?” I said.

  “Get your clothes on quick before your hair dries and I’ll blow it out for you,” he said. “I’m not looking.” He was gazing straight at me without a hint of a smile.

  “Are you on a late shift?” I said. “On call?”

  “I’m out sick at the moment,” he told me. “I’m surprised Roger hasn’t delivered the propaganda already. He’s had a whole day and he likes to get in quick. Roger, for reasons known only to himself, has decided to convince the hospital board that I’m suffering from a mental condition.”

  “You’re not?” I said

  “I’m not,” he said. “We had termites at the house and we moved out while they were treated. Then we had a wasp nest at the Hilton Garden, mosquitoes at the Double Tree but we couldn’t find the hole in the screen. We had bedbugs at the Four Points and roaches at La Quinta. If you want to live with roaches, you go ahead. I’ll stay here.”

  “So are all those hotels closed down while they deal with the problem?” I said.

  “People are pigs,” Todd said. “Did Noleen tell you about the tomato juice in the toilet? But she and Kathi know how to clean. I mean, say what you like about the hair-dos, those gals can clean!”

  “Right,” I said. “Can I ask you something?” He nodded. “Would you let me interview Roger to see where his delusion is coming from? You can sit in on the sessions if you like?”

  “Why, Miss Lexy!” he said. “You have caught me in your clever web and I can’t escape. You wouldn’t be trying to get me into therapy to see if you can cure me while I think you’re working on Roger, now would you?”

  “Okay, scratch that,” I said. “Can I ask you something else?”

  “And then we go to Nordstrom’s?” he said. “Your lingerie is a sin against God.”

  “Agreed,” I said. While I dressed, back turned, I related the whole of the morning’s interview with Mike, eyebrows and all.

  I turned back, fully dressed, to find him staring open-mouthed at me.

  “You are not safe to be out alone!” he said. “Oh my giddy aunt. You need supervised care! What were you thinking?”

  “What are you talking about?” I said, taking the earrings he had selected for me and sitting down so he could start work on my hair.

  “The Sicily story is obviously garbage. The old guy obviously wanted a divorce. So Visalia killed him. He was never coming to your office. She cooked that up alone. And the niece is in on it—or at least someone took the timing device away. Maybe the niece gets the business as a reward for playing her part. It’s too much of a coincidence that she just happens to have married another firework guy exactly when her uncle exits the scene. And now they’re all hanging back and letting the spotlight stay on you.”

  “What did I do?”

  “Provided an alibi. And I think the cops think Visalia paid you for it.”

  “What?” I said, spinning so that the section of hair he had wound round a brush was yanked hard. “Ow! What? She didn’t pay me. Well, I mean yes, she paid me for our sessions and she paid me extra for the last night, because it was a holiday and I was doing notary work, but she didn’t pay me.”

  “If I were you, I would steer clear of all Bombaros and Dolshikovs from here on in. Can I trim your bangs?”

  “I can’t steer clear,” I said. “I’ve dropped Mizz Vi right in it. The only good thing is that I didn’t tell the cops the Sicily bit in case it sounded unlikely. But I need to straighten this out. Without making it worse. I need to—Whoa! I look great.”

  We agreed there was too much going on for me to take off on a shopping trip, but I noticed Todd entering my bra size into his mobile as I locked the room (Why? If Kathi shared the master key willy-nilly?), although he assured me he would only buy unmissable bargains.

  There was some kind of altercation going on in one of the rooms on the ground floor. Kathi, in her Skweeky Kleen overall, was standing in the open doorway of the room like a Viking warrior. With a wet vac. From inside came high-pitched but inconsolable wails.

  “They’re not!” a child’s voice was yelling. “They’re pets, Mama! They’re my pets!”

  “No pets,” Kathi said. “You signed the forms, Della.” She pulled the cord of the wet vac and plugged it in to an outlet on the walkway.

  Todd clutched my arm. “Kathi?” he said. “What’s going on?”

  Kathi shot a poison dart of a look into the room and then turned and gave Todd a tight smile. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

  A woman appeared in the doorway. She had the sobbing child on one hip.

  “Della?” said Todd. “What is it? An ant farm? Stick insects? Bees?”

  “It’s not insects, Todd,” Kathi said. “It’s really not. I would never lie to you about that.”

  “They’re my pets!” said the child. He was about three with a mop of black curls—sweaty at the edges from crying—and impossible, enormous brown eyes, bigger than Disney, brimming with tears.

  “Let me see,” said Todd. “Show me.”

  “They’ll be gone in five minutes,” Kathi said, wielding the hose of the wet vac like a sabre.

  “Pe-he-hets,” the child sobbed.

  I could feel Todd’s hand on my arm getting slick as his temperature rose and when I turned to glance at him, his face was flushed and a pulse was fluttering in his throat.

  “I can help you,” I said, and I slipped my hand into his and squeezed. “What kind of creatures are we talking about?” I asked Kathi.

  “I hashed them,” said the kid, laying his head against his mother’s shoulder.

  She kissed him and gave a sad smile. “It’s frogs,” she said. “He hatched them from the eggs.”

  “Frogs?” said Todd. I felt his hand go limp in mine.

  “I came home and found the egg jelly in the bathroom,” the child’s mother said.

  “Where did you get frogspawn?” I asked the kid. It seemed an old-fashioned kind of thing for a twenty-first-century California child to do. Like catching tiddlers in a jam jar or scrumping apples over a garden wall.

  “From the slough,” said Kathi. “At a guess.”

  “What’s a sloo?” I said. All four of them, even the kid, stared at me.

  “Don’t you ever look out of your windows?” said Todd. “Last Ditch Slough. The river? That runs along behind the motel?”

  “I’ve been busy,” I told him. “What’s your name?” I asked the child.

  “Diego,” he said. “And I knew what a slough is.”

  “Well, see the thing is, Diego,” I went on, “those frogs you hatched need to go back and live in the slough now. You did a great thing taking care of them, but now they need to go and live in the river. They won’t be happy out of it. You need to set them free.”

  “Like Nemo?” he asked. His eyes grew wider and a couple of the brimming tears brimmed properly and splashed.

  “Lose the Hoover,” I said to Kathi out of the corner of my mouth. “Just like Nemo,” I told Diego. “And speaking of Nemo, I bet Kathi and Noleen wouldn’t mind if you had a pet goldfish, would they?” I turned and glared at Kathi. “Would they?”

  “But if a goldfish turns into a hamster … ” she said.

  “We’ll all be in the news,” I finished. “Diego, if you and your mama can put the froggies back in the slough this morning, I’ll bring you back a goldfish this afternoon. Or we can all go to the pet shop and you can choose one.”

  “Chihuahua adoption event,” said Della, out of the corner of her mouth. She was better at it than me.

  “I’ll bring one for you,” I said firmly and, still holding Todd’s hand, I walked away.
“Can I borrow your car?” I said. “And can you tell me where the nearest pet shop is?” I gave his hand a squeeze. “And will you let me help you?”

  “Three yeses,” Todd said. “But I get to buy bras and you have to wear them.”

  While he went to fetch the keys to the spare car that he and Roger only used at the weekend, Kathi came back from her cleaning cupboard, minus wet vac.

  “Okay about the goldfish?” I said.

  She nodded. She was a stern-looking woman. Could have given Korean dictators hot tips for their headshots. “Nolly said you were some kind of shrink,” she said. “You helping Todd?”

  “I’m going to try,” I said. “I’m not a psychiatrist, though. I’m a psychologist. In Scotland. Here I’m not even that. Just a friendly ear.”

  Kathi shrugged. “Psychiatrists just want to fill you full of drugs and write papers,” she said. “One friend is more use than every shrink in America stuck on the same skewer.” I nodded as if it was an expression I heard every day. “I help Todd and he helps me, you see,” Kathi said. “I want him to get better, sure I do, but I’ll miss him when he’s gone.”

  “Helps you do what?” I asked.

  “Keeps Noleen off me,” said Kathi. Then Todd was back and I couldn’t press her any more.

  The “spare car” was a black Jeep glittering with chrome and without a speck of dust on it anywhere, even in the wheel arches. If Todd and Roger used it to go off-roading, they must put carpet down first. Todd waved me off, perfectly unconcerned about me being in charge of it, and thankfully I was out of his sightline before I turned the wrong way onto the main road and had to swerve out of the way of a UPS truck.

  “Drive on the right,” I told myself. “Drive on the right and stop at the stop signs.”

  As long as I remembered things like that, I would be okay.

  Eight

  I was half convinced that either no one would answer the bell at the gate at all, or that they wouldn’t let me in once they heard it was me. I was hatching a plan to threaten them with a call to the Cuento Voyager. Elder abuse and false imprisonment would put a kink in Clovis Bombaro’s will no matter which of them he had meant to take over the fizz-bang now he was gone.