Naked Came the Phoenix

by Marcia Talley

  “I fail to see the relevance,” the lawyer said.

  This parrot talk didn’t go over very well with Vince. He ignored the lawyer and picked up the rap sheet in front of him and said, “You went to Soledad Prison fourteen years ago. For attempted murder. You tried to kill your then-girlfriend. Not Claudia.” He turned to Derrick. “Relevant enough for you?”

  “Go ahead.”

  He was ordering Vince around, the twerp, but Vince did want to go ahead, so he contented himself with a scowl and went on. “You served only two years, what with good behavior, good lawyering, and good connections. It’s cryin’ out for reform, our penal system.”

  “Is there a question pending?” asked Derrick.

  “I didn’t do it,” de Vries said flatly.

  “Yeah? You told the California parole board you did it. You gave plenty of details and said you were sorry. You said you were, let’s see, in a rage due to her infidelities and didn’t know what you were doing. You beat her up pretty bad.”

  “If I hadn’t told them I did it, I’d still be rotting in jail,″ de Vries said. He had crossed his leg and was bouncing his foot up and down. He was counting the seconds until he could get out of there.

  “Did you already know Claudia by then?”

  “Yes. We were married two months after my parole. Which has expired, by the way.”

  “Where’s she now? The girlfriend, I mean.”

  De Vries jumped up. “Why are we crashing around in this ancient history? My wife is dead! You should be finding her killer, finding out how Hilda Finch ends up getting everything we worked for, everything we own. You should ask me where I was last night, when I went to bed, how we got along! Yes, I went to bed with her! No, we had no quarrel at all! Yes, she must have got up in the middle of the night and gone to check something or maybe meet someone, I don’t know!” He covered his face with his hands and started to sob.

  Bored, Vince sat back and waited for the curtain to fall. He didn’t believe de Vries’s performance. Vince was getting the idea that de Vries was a jealous, weak man with a definite place in his scheme of things for women as objects of desire and sources of financial security, who had learned a few things in prison.

  Derrick put his arm around his client’s shoulder and offered him the paisley handkerchief out of the chest pocket of his jacket. Next he’d be saying de Vries was too distraught to continue.

  Time for a little consult with Laidlaw, Vince decided. Laidlaw was the accounting expert the department used in white-collarcrime investigations. Raoul and Claudia had a nice business here. He wondered where the money to start it had come from. Were they pulling down a profit? So much money they could lay almost a million bucks on that stick of a girl out there?

  And Fondulac’s story, was there anything to it? De Vries was all bent over now, bawling like a baby, getting his back patted. It was a good act, but nothing Vince hadn’t pulled himself when his ma caught him stealing papers off the stoops in Philly and reselling them on the corner.

  And he thought about ancient history. It had a way of rearing up and biting you on the ass. The whole case had a smell of ancient history.

  6

  OUT OF BREATH, CAROLINE SLAMMED the cabin door behind her and then stood leaning against it, gasping.

  “You never did learn to enter a room like a lady,” Hilda said. “You came racing through the door like the devil himself was after you.” Hilda was once more seated in the morris chair. Quickly she removed the pair of red-framed reading glasses that had been perched on her nose. She stowed them in one pocket of her pink sweats and then gathered up the sheaf of papers and photographs that had been spread in her lap. Those she shuffled back into a manila envelope. Once the envelope was closed, she used the metal fastener to hold it tight.

  “Douglas called,” she said.

  Caroline barely trusted herself to speak. “And?” she said finally.

  “He wants you to call him back. At the cabin.”

  “What did he want?” she asked. Even as she asked the question, it puzzled her why she was carrying on this charade and acting as though everything were normal when she should have thrown herself into her mother’s arms and confided in her, telling her the awful truth—that she had already called Douglas that morning only to find another woman at the cabin. But the years of acrimony between Caroline and her mother had left too much of a void between them, too much distance to be crossed all at once.

  Not trusting her knees to hold her upright, Caroline sank down into the desk chair and stared at the phone as though it were her mortal enemy.

  “Well?” Hilda urged impatiently. “Are you going to call him, or are you just going to sit there all day looking at the phone?”

  “I’m not going to call him,” Caroline said.

  ″Why?″

  “Because I don’t feel like it.” Even in her present mood, it sounded to her own ears like a childish, stupid thing to say.

  “Caroline,” Hilda said firmly. “You have to understand. Your husband’s a politician. You need to talk to him so he can give you whatever directions you need for handling yourself in this kind of situation.”

  “You mean like send one of his staffers out to bird-dog me and make sure I don’t say or do something that could make matters worse?”

  “Yes. Of course,” Hilda returned mildly. There was another unspoken part to her mother’s answer, the part about now that Caroline had made her bed, she would have to lie in it. And, of course, there was no need for Hilda to say it then because Hilda had said it so often, Caroline knew it by heart.

  She felt her temper rising. The whole idea was absurd. Here was Caroline, an innocent bystander to a murder she personally had nothing to do with, but both her mother and her husband expected her to agree to being led around by the nose and told how to act, what to say, and how to say it. Meanwhile Douglas was free to do whatever he wanted. He had taken a woman with him to the cabin, a cabin that was, after all, half Caroline’s. He was up there now, doing God knows what and giving no thought or care to any kind of scandal. The double standard inherent in that was simply too much.

  All her life Caroline had been a good girl. She’d done what she’d been told and tried her best to live up to other people’s expectations. Last night she had broken into the kitchen and taken food. This time, instead of knuckling under to her mother’s pressure, Caroline found the strength to fight back.

  “What are we doing here, Mother?” she asked.

  “Doing here?” Hilda repeated. “What do you mean by that?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “We’ve both been through so much the last few months,” Hilda replied smoothly. “I thought a getaway to the spa would do us both a world of good. A time-out, as it were,” she added.

  “Like when you used to punish me by sending me to my room?”

  “A little, I suppose,” Hilda agreed. “Only with better food. Back then, you made mud pies. You could just as well have been taking mud baths,” she added. “You were that messy most of the time.”

  “This isn’t funny, Mother,” Caroline continued. “And it’s no time for jokes, either. Why are we here, and who paid?”

  “Why Douglas did, of course,” Hilda answered. “You saw the check he wrote—twelve thousand dollars.”

  “If you own the place now, I’m sure we could have come for free.”

  Hilda shrugged. “Maybe we did—come for free, that is. In fact, Claudia invited us to come, both of us. Douglas gave me his check to pay for it, and I did cash it, but I can tell you Claudia de Vries never saw a penny of that money. I made certain of that.”

  “What do you mean?” Caroline asked.

  “Go upstairs and look in your closet,” Hilda ordered.

  “In the closet?”

  “Yes,” Hilda replied. “It came this morning. UPS delivered it to the office while we were all preoccupied with what had happened to Claudia. It was heavy, so I had the deliveryman carry it upstairs.”

&nbs
p; Without saying anything more, Caroline fled up the stairs and threw open the door to the closet. Inside, her clothing had all been shoved aside in order to make room for an enormous box. As soon as she saw the size of it, she knew what it had to be. Still, not trusting her own judgment, Caroline went into the bathroom and retrieved the fingernail shears she carried in her overnight bag. Then she rushed back to the closet. It took her several minutes to chop her way through layers of protective cardboard and plastic bubble wrap, but as soon as she saw the black case she recognized it for what it was—a cello. And not just any cello. It had to be her own cello. She recognized the worn but familiar case. She placed the case on her bed and then opened it to reveal the beautifully finished instrument inside. Tears of gratitude sprang to her eyes as she caressed the familiar lines and curves and ran her fingers across strings Caroline knew almost as well as she knew her own body. Somehow her mother had returned it to her.

  Leaving the instrument lying on the bed, Caroline made her way back down the stairs. “Where did you get it?” she asked in a hollow voice.

  “I remembered the name of the woman who had bought it from you,” Hilda answered. “All I had to do was track her down. I offered to buy it back for four thousand dollars more than she paid you for it. Believe me, she was more than happy to make a deal. Who wouldn’t be? And there went Douglas’s twelve thousand dollars. Money well spent, if you ask me.”

  Caroline was stunned. “Thank you, Mother. I can’t tell you how grateful I am, but why would you do such a thing?” she asked.”Whatever possessed you?”

  “Giving up everything that’s yours for a man like that—a man with that kind of power—is an entirely stupid thing to do,” Hilda returned. “Surely you’re not really that naive, are you?”

  Even though Caroline had called herself “stupid” not an hour or so earlier, it hurt to hear her mother say the same thing. Under other circumstances she might have been overjoyed to see her beloved cello once more. Now she was overwhelmed. She bit back the tears that still threatened to wash her away.

  “I have no idea what you mean,” she said, still playing the game, still pretending that things were all right between her and Douglas when they were anything but.

  “Maybe you should take a look at this, then.” Lifting the envelope from her lap, Hilda held it out. Caroline looked at it but made no attempt to take it.

  “What is it?” she asked. Her voice sounded wooden. There was an ache in Caroline Blessing’s heart. She knew that whatever was in the envelope was going to be bad news, and she didn’t want to touch it.

  “Surveillance reports,” Hilda answered. “From a private detective.”

  “Surveillance reports on whom?” Caroline asked.

  “On Douglas, of course. Who else? Names, places, dates, times. I thought you should know all these things. And I thought you should have some idea which of your friends aren’t friends at all. That’s always useful information to have, to know where you stand. When it comes to this sort of thing, a woman can’t afford to have too many surprises, especially in this day and age.”

  “You’ve been spying on Douglas?” Caroline managed to stammer.

  “Spying’s too strong a word,” Hilda returned mildly. “I prefer to think of it as checking up on him. And it’s a good thing I did, too. Your father certainly wouldn’t have considered doing such a thing, although, in my opinion that’s something fathers are supposed to do—protect their daughters. Now take it,” she urged. “Even if you don’t want to look at it, I still want you to have it now, before it’s too late.”

  Caroline reached out and took the envelope. The paper should have been cool to the touch, but it wasn’t. The surface of the envelope seemed to sear her skin. She held it for a moment, and then it slipped through her reluctant fingers and dropped to the floor.

  “I don’t want it,” she said. “I don’t want to know. I already told Douglas I want a divorce. I don’t need to know any of the rest of it.”

  “You may think you don’t want to know, but if you don’t take this envelope and put it away, the rest of the world is going to find out all about it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, Caroline, please don’t be so incredibly dim,” Hilda returned. “Why do you think I refused to talk to the detective today?”

  “You said you had a spa to run.”

  “The detective may have been dumb enough to fall for that, but he’ll get over it soon enough. I expected better than that from my own daughter. What I had to run was you,” Hilda said. “I had to get you away from that man long enough to give you this so you could put it away properly before all hell breaks loose.”

  “All hell has already broken loose,” Caroline pointed out. “Claudia de Vries is dead, and Douglas is having an affair. How much worse could it be?”

  “That Detective Toscana is going to show up here any minute to arrest me.”

  “You?” Caroline gasped.

  “Of course,” Hilda said calmly. “Whom else would he come after? Even you should be able to see that I’m the most likely suspect. Once that happens, they’ll get a search warrant, go through this room, and the contents of this envelope will be up for grabs. So while I go turn myself in, I suggest you do something with this. Put the envelope somewhere safe so that Toscana and his henchmen won’t find it.”

  The fact that Caroline’s mother was about to be arrested for murder was utterly unthinkable. “You’re going to turn yourself in? For what?” she asked. “And what about having a lawyer there with you? Shouldn’t you have one? Everyone else does.”

  “No need,” Hilda replied. “It’s nothing but a delaying tactic. I didn’t kill Claudia de Vries, although, truth be known, I sure as hell wanted to. No, my turning myself in will give you time enough to get rid of the envelope. Then, when they find the real killer, they’ll let me go and everything will be fine, and you’ll have what you need to get yourself a great settlement. Judges don’t just hand those out for no reason, you know,” she added. “You have to have the goods on an erring husband in order to do that, especially when the erring husband is a member of Congress. But not to worry. You do have the goods, so take good care of them, while I freshen up and put on some makeup. If I’m going to be arrested, I’m going to be photographed. It wouldn’t do for the new owner of Phoenix Spa to be hauled off to jail looking like something the cat dragged in, now would it.”

  With that Hilda went straight to her closet and paused there, studying the contents. “Which do you think, the navy suit or the fawn?”

  “Navy would be better,” Caroline supplied.

  “Good,” Hilda agreed. “That’s what I think, too. It does a better job of showing off my hair.”

  Taking the blue suit with her, Hilda disappeared into the bathroom. Caroline stooped over and picked up the envelope that still lay on the floor where she had dropped it. It was addressed to Mrs. Hamlin Finch, and the postmark was dated weeks ago. From the weight of the envelope, Caroline could tell that it contained many sheets of paper. If each of them meant a separate report, then the surveillance had been going on for some time. So had Douglas’s betrayal and infidelity.

  Caroline was still standing and staring at the envelope when the bathroom door opened once more. “Are you still here?” Hilda demanded. “You’ve got to do something with that, and you’ve got to do it now. Otherwise, it’s going to be too late.”

  Nodding wordlessly, Caroline retreated upstairs to her loft. Not only had her mother bought back her cello, she had bought back the case as well. The case had a secret compartment concealed in the lid that had been known only to Caroline, her mother, and the person who had made the case. She pressed the pressure point just to the left of the topmost latch, and the satin lining sprang away from the leather to reveal a letter-sized, foldout pouch. She slipped the envelope into the pouch and then closed up the lining.

  Once the damning envelope was out of sight, the weight of all that had happened washed across Caroline and brought
her to her knees. It was too much. The pain of her husband’s betrayal, the shock of Claudia’s death, the prospect of her mother being arrested—it was all more than Caroline could handle. She leaned against the bed with her head buried in the silky cover of her feather-soft duvet while a wild storm of weeping shook her very being. She stayed that way for a long time.

  “Caroline?” her mother called up the stairs at last. “Are you still here?”

  She stifled a ragged sob. “I’m here,” she answered.

  “I’m going, then,” Hilda said. “I just wanted you to know.”

  “All right,” Caroline managed. “Do you want me to come with you?”

  “No. I’m sure you’re in no condition to deal with any more stress. You stay here and try not to worry. Everything will be fine.”

  Everything won’t be fine, Caroline wanted to shout at the top of her lungs. My marriage is over. My life is a wreck. My mother is being arrested for murder. But she didn’t say any of those things aloud. Instead, she reached out her hand and touched the long, clean neck of the cello. She let her fingers trail along the smooth surface, allowing her fingers to find comfort there. When the door slammed shut behind Hilda Finch, her daughter reached over and removed her bow from its holder. Then she wrested the cello upright and carried it over to the dressing table chair.

  Ignoring the ravaged countenance that stared back at her from the mirror, she planted the instrument between her sweatsclad legs and pulled the bow across the strings. The cello was so far out of tune that the shrill sound made her wince. It took her several minutes of tuning before she had it right, but when she did, she launched into the haunting strains of Camille Saint-Saëns’s Cello Concerto no. 1. As the music washed over her it brought her the same relief it always had. It was through the cello that she had been able to endure all those years of arguments between her parents. It was music that had seen her through the loneliness of being an only child in an apparently loveless marriage. She had assumed, mistakenly, that once she fell in love—once she found the perfect mate—the peace granted her by music would no longer be necessary.