by J. M.
“All right,” Mr. Hamlet said calmly. “Let’s go look for it. Come on, Laurie. I’ll help you.” He held his hand out.
Laurie stared at the hand as if it was a dead rat. “When you say ‘go look for it,’ you’d better mean everywhere.”
“Of course I do. Every room in the house. Do you want to look in your father’s office right now?”
Laurie wavered, then surrendered to his gentle, engulfing hand. Dr. Claudia wondered. Was he a hypnotist of some sort? He was incomprehensibly perfect at these things. He was sincere. He meant this. It was why she loved him, but…wait, what were they doing? If she had been the one in charge, this wouldn’t be happening. They were climbing stairs, Laurie, Garth, Miguel, and herself, and moving towards Polly’s office. What was it he had said to her that filthy night? Records, notes, something “from Danielle’s own hand.” Paper? There still might be nothing. If there was, it actually might be better for Laurie to have it, Laurie with her pedestrian mind rather than someone flexible and imaginative.
They entered the office. Polly’s laptop was not to be found. Mr. Hamlet shook his head as he stood up from the desk. “If it’s not here, Laurie, I honestly don’t know where it is. I assume you looked everywhere in the cottage.”
“Of course.”
“Well, I told you we’d look in every room. I can have Marcellus walk through the entire house if you want to look some more.”
“You’re darned right I do. The entire house.”
It had to happen. Oscar, Perla, and Marcellus were summoned to the walking tour so no one could race ahead to hide anything or spirit anything off the property. For nearly four excruciating hours, Marcellus unlocked every single room, checking off every closet, every bath, the pantries, storage, work rooms, the kennels. As they cleared the more obvious areas, the offices and meeting rooms, Dr. Claudia felt her step and her heart begin to lighten. The thing really might not be in the house. In fact, someone might have seen to it already. She burned to take Oscar aside and ask him what he knew. She could not get a clue from his expression. For once, their signals seemed to bounce off each other.
At last, she took her husband’s elbow as they walked Laurie somberly out to her car. Laurie slammed the door hard and promised, looking straight ahead, “I’ll be back with a search warrant.”
Dr. Claudia shook her head slowly at Oscar.
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” he repeated, patient and reassuring. “Claudia. Laurie is hysterical.”
She shut her eyes. “Thank you. I’m going to sleep.”
She headed back for the Green Suite. It was not yet seven in the evening.
Poor Laurie. She now had to face the world in all her humiliation. Jilted by fate, snubbed by God. For endless years to come, standing alone, no one beside or behind her, she would have to persuade each new person she met that she had once been loved. Job interviews, parties, defending her solitude at every turn. It was a world crowded with strangers—and a miserable world, nothing fair, everything spinning out of control. Stupid, unconscious, willful people living their noisy, disorderly lives while she didn’t have a breath of living proof that she deserved someone to go home to. After his ex-wife’s death, Polly had failed to engage the sympathy of her family on his children’s behalf or to win the love of another woman. Laurie had no grandparents or aunts or uncles to take her in. Mr. Hamlet insisted unequivocally that she was welcome to stay in the cottage indefinitely, and offered her shelter and care elsewhere if she chose. His concern was genuine, but it all came from his good nature, not hers. There were people who would love her on general principles, the way they’d love prisoners and unborn babies, but there was no one left on earth who loved her because she was Laurie. Police had arrived soon after her angry departure from the main house, to inform her that Phil’s surfboard had washed up a few miles north an hour earlier. Phil himself had washed up nearby, dead and drowned.
A KINDRED SPIRIT
While Mr. Hamlet spent the next eighteen hours consoling Laurie and helping, along with Oscar and Marcellus, with sad necessities, Dr. Claudia tactfully withdrew to think things over. The earth turned and placed the Green Suite, its curtains undrawn, at the apex of an angle of solar elevation of 2.65 degrees with a declination of 9.08 degrees. The cool light of the sun grazed her cheek and she awoke with a start. Somehow, all the plausibilities of the day before were gone.
What had Polly meant in that last conversation in the hallway? Had he scanned his “notes”? Had he stored them in a place that would be revealed upon his death or his lapse into a persistent vegetative state?
She hunched over her knees to think. Now it was Laurie whose determination pressed like a boulder on Dr. Claudia’s chest. Once Laurie had raised her head from Garth’s fatherly shoulder, she had scarcely shed a tear. It was strange. Dr. Claudia detected in the girl a kindred spirit—one who directly opposed her, but that nut of commonality existed. They thought the same, they worked the same. So how to stop Laurie’s schemes? Dr. Claudia took another pill for her aching head. She had done her best to hide everything Danielle had uncovered, but the truth was still out there for anyone who was willing to tread every inch of ground—and Laurie had trod all through the house the day before, quitting only under bodily exhaustion. She would be back. It was time for Dr. Claudia to act again.
In the cottage, Laurie lay against a couch, boneless and disheveled. She moved her eyes as Dr. Claudia took a dainty step into the big front room. “You’re not welcome here.”
Dr. Claudia’s sad, vulnerable face sank. “What, Laurie?”
“I’ll find out what my father knew.” The girl was drugged from lack of sleep. “It couldn’t have been in only one place. It’s just a matter of time.”
“You know I’m sorry about your father.”
“You wanted to get rid of him.”
Dr. Claudia took another step forward. “I never wished him any harm. It was time for him and the Foundation both to part ways.”
Laurie turned away and placed her feet on the floor. “I wonder why that would be.”
“It was just a business decision. It was mutual.” Dr. Claudia took a chair close to Laurie’s couch. “Let’s not lose sight of the essentials.”
“What essentials?”
“To start off—” She shook her hair away from her face. “If you want to carry a grudge, carry the right one.”
“The right one what?”
“Laurie, you know my husband did not shoot your father.”
“Oh! I know that?”
Dr. Claudia mumbled into her purse. “I thought you had figured that out. Maybe I’m saying things I shouldn’t.”
Laurie’s voice rose. “Quit talking in riddles.”
“I don’t mean to.” She held out a cigarette.
“No. All right.”
Dr. Claudia lit them up. “They can lie to you, but I won’t.”
Laurie coughed. “About what?”
“The thing I assumed you knew. Dana’s father is covering for her.”
Laurie’s look was threatening. “You come here and tell me—”
“I don’t know the whole story of what happened in the bedroom. My husband won’t tell me and I can’t really ask, but he begged to get Dana out of the country so she wouldn’t, well, so she wouldn’t weaken and confess. I’m sure the shooting was an accident, Laurie, but it rippled out, obviously. I’m sorry.”
Laurie stared through chapped eyes. “So she did shoot him?”
“It was an accident.”
“How do you know that?”
“There’s been an investigation and no one is being charged. The evidence shows it was an accident.”
“The evidence was messed with. The hell with you!” She lumbered off the couch. “If Mr. Hamlet is covering up a murder and you’re staying with him, you’re no friend of mine! Why are you even here?”
Dr. Claudia rose to her. “Laurie, my husband is an honest man.”
“Who lied about the shooting!”
“He’s a good man is what I meant. He’s good, he wouldn’t let a crime like that go unpunished. If he believed for one second that Dana deliberately harmed your father, we would be in a very different situation right now.”
“What does ‘good’ have to do with it? You’re not making sense. If it was an accident, why is he covering for her?”
“Think about it, Laurie. If your brother or father had done something like that accidentally and you could take the blame, wouldn’t you?”
“Hmf. It happens I’m on this end of it. And I want to know what went on in that bedroom.”
“That might be impossible. I don’t even know if Dana’s father was in the room when the shots were fired, but everyone believes their story. And now there aren’t going to be any charges. Even the room has been fixed. Bullet holes gone, blood wiped up.” Laurie let out a stifled cry, and Dr. Claudia laid gentle fingertips on her arm. “But there’s a bigger picture,” she said in a sharp, confiding voice. “Dana’s been causing trouble around here much longer than you imagined. She accused me of some unmentionable things. She was wrong about it all. Nothing was the way she painted it. I guess you heard about that night in the media room.”
“Why don’t you do anything about it?”
“It’s easier said than done. Haven’t you noticed? She’s always at the center of some X-rated circus. If you happen to walk by, you’re part of it. I got married just over a month ago.” She looked up at the ceiling; a tear trailed back into her temple. “I love Dana’s father. He’s like yours. He loves his daughter more than his own life.” She dabbed her nose on the back of her hand as she went on. “I can’t fight her. It just drives him further away from me.”
Laurie stared at the weeping older woman. “That still leaves me alone.”
“I’m sorry. That’s why—”
“My brother is dead. And my father’s life is hanging by a thread. Oh, but you and your ‘love,’ your precious love. Go ahead and save your love for your hus— your good husband. I’m going to make Dana pay.”
Dr. Claudia blotted her tears away methodically. Her voice was controlled and even. Blot. Blot. “That’s what I came to talk to you about.” Blot.
Laurie took an awkward drag on her cigarette. “Well go on, for God’s sake.”
“You know, I don’t consider my marriage a suicide contract. I’ll tell you something if you don’t mind keeping a secret. Just the two of us.”
“What?”
Dr. Claudia lowered her head. “It may seem like Dana’s escaped.”
“You mean she hasn’t?”
“I’ve done something,” she whispered.
“Are we getting to the secret?”
“I made some arrangements.”
Laurie looked at her curiously, and opened her mouth as if to continue the interrogation. At that moment, the hum of a vehicle grew louder, and louder, stopping just outside the cottage.
The two women exchanged a puzzled look and moved to the door to see a uniformed courier jump out of a van. He carried a bulging envelope addressed to Dr. Claudia—for her eyes only.
She weighed the thing in both hands as the van disappeared. Her heart sped up. “Jesus. This might be the thing I was just about to tell you ab—”
She tore into it. The news, the document, the—
There was a hand-written note. She felt her way to a couch as she read.
Aunt Claudia,
Greetings from exotic California. I’ll soon be back in the Canyon to regale you with the narrative of my strange flight abroad and its stranger conclusion. On the vessel that conveyed me to a land of odd customs, I encountered potent rarities. More on that later, but meanwhile I couldn’t wait to give you this souvenir, a little something used by the superstitious locals in the place I just came from. The best translation for it is “ghost money.” You get your survivors to burn it after you’re dead so you can have cars, cash, and other comforts in hell.
Hugs,
Dana
Laurie snatched it from her. Dr. Claudia spoke in amazement. “That’s Dana’s signature.”
Laurie dug something else out of the envelope: a packet of some scratchy paper with red and gold designs and crude drawings and Chinese characters. “Ghost money,” Dr. Claudia said with a dull little laugh. “They sell it all over Asia.”
“You’re well traveled,” Laurie said. She waved the letter. “What’s she mean by this?”
“I was hoping you could enlighten me. You’ve known her longer than I have.”
“I don’t know this.”
Dr. Claudia cracked a fatalistic little smile. “You suppose she’s threatening to kill me?”
Laurie re-read the note. “If she’s coming back, I’m glad. I’d like to thank her in person for killing my father. If only…”
If only. It hit Dr. Claudia like a cold shock: the laptop chase was over. Years before, when she had felt a creeping finger on her neck, she had thought up a solution that she had never needed to use. She sat forward slowly. “If only you could do it.”
“Yes. But I can’t.”
“Can’t you? Would you consider a plan of mine?”
“As long as it doesn’t end with me and Dana kissing and making up.”
“Nothing like that.” She paused again. “You loved your brother, didn’t you?”
“He was my treasure!”
“I would think so.”
“Why do you ask?”
Dr. Claudia lowered her voice. “A little while ago your father came to see me and my husband about a problem your brother had. The way Dana was stalking him the past few months. He said you’d told him to avoid her.”
“I did—it was the last thing I said to him in Alaska.”
“You know she got to him anyway. Your father showed me her last e-mails to Phil. He made him purge them.”
“Do I want to know what they said?”
“She had a very strange way of expressing her attraction. And some strange ways of wanting him to prove his love for her. All this sick fantasy about death and dying and getting revenge. Punishing her father for marrying me. Punishing God for taking her mother. It was supposed to be a pact.” Her eyes fell on a picture hanging on the wall: Dana and Laurie as little girls, playing on the beach. “I used to know her, too. From the time she was a baby. I don’t know how or when she got like that.”
Laurie followed Dr. Claudia’s eyes to the picture and her face filled with rage. She marched over to it and ripped it off the wall. “She killed him! He was the perfect brother.” She pulled the frame apart and ripped the picture up savagely. “The fucking bitch took the sweetest, most wonderful boy in the world from me! He was all I had!” The pieces fluttered to the floor around her and she bent her face over her hands.
Dr. Claudia waited. “And you’re the only one left to act for him now—for him and your father. Have you ever wondered what you would you do if you knew for a certainty that you could pay someone back and get away with it?”
Laurie was sobbing.
“I won’t go into details—to keep you safe—but we can do it. It’ll happen right before everyone’s eyes. Even her father won’t suspect a thing.”
“About what?”
“We can do something on Labor Day.” In Elsinore Canyon, Dana’s birthday, which fell in the first week of September, was always celebrated on Labor Day. “We won’t have a celebration this year. We’ll do something small. We’ll dedicate it to Phil. We can make an underwater memorial for him. Dana will come. All you have to do is go along with one little thing I tell you. No questions, it’s better that you don’t know. Just one little thing.”
“What do I have to do?”
Dr. Claudia looked into the girl’s streaked face. “Let me ask you something first. People get upset and say things when they’re…”
Laurie held her sobs, expectant.
“Labor Day is still a few days off. Are you sure you’re willing to do something about what’s happened to your father and brother
? Not just die of grief over it?”
“For God’s sake, if you’ve got a plan, tell me!”
“All right. There will be scuba equipment. Use only the pieces I point out to you. That’s all.”
Laurie stared at Dr. Claudia for an interminable moment. “Don’t you dare put me through this and have it fail.”
Dr. Claudia bit her knuckles and smiled. “A backup plan. I’m so glad I talked to you, Laurie.”
Mr. Hamlet lifted Dr. Claudia’s hair off the back of her neck and kissed her. “How did the talk with Laurie go?”
“Not easy. I got her a little calmed down, but we’ll see.” She pressed herself against him. The torment of the next three days she would have to endure alone. Channeling Laurie’s rage was not enough. She was now certain that Dana was the one who had Polly’s laptop.
HOW DO YOU LIKE ME NOW?
I picked Dana up at the airport in Santa Barbara after getting a long-awaited e-mail—my first word in five days from or about anyone in Elsinore Canyon. She looked whipped; she’d been traveling coach for over twenty-seven hours. After we dropped off the package for Dr. Claudia at the courier, I drove her to my uncle’s ranch since she wanted to rest before greeting “her highness Queen Claudia.” She slept in my car all the way, curled in my passenger seat with her golden arms folded in front of her and her thick lashes shading her face, and then for a few hours more after we arrived.
The melancholy notion came over me that sheltering her like this—with her trust so complete and the other cares of our lives so distant—was happiness that would never be equaled for me. What did that mean? That from now I would begin, irreversibly, the sadder half of my life, that over the years to come I would look back on this moment knowing that nothing would ever fill my heart with the joy I felt now?
With those questions for company, I was nubbing my wheels back and forth over the boards of a redwood deck and watching the horizon, when a door shut behind me. Dana shrank back against the wall and held Polly’s laptop against her chest. She was looking at me in a way I understood well.
