“I like it,” Claire said. “It’s sweet.”
“It can be heartbreaking,” he said. “It can be everything all at once.”
“My cousin Maggie listens to this kind of music,” Claire said. “Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington. She plays it in her bookstore.”
“Do you mean to tell me that I’ve been pursuing the wrong Fitzpatrick all along?”
“I used to work in a strip club,” Claire said.
“All right,” Laurie said. “That was a bit of a non sequitur, but do tell.”
“When I moved to California, I couldn’t afford to take the additional training hours required to get a license to do hair there, so the only place that would employ me without a license was a strip club. I didn’t take off my clothes; I did the strippers’ hair and makeup.”
“Sounds reasonable enough.”
“That’s how I met the woman who I worked for, for the next twenty years. She started as a stripper, became a dominatrix, then a porn actress, had plastic surgery, changed her name, and became a famous film actress.”
“As one so often does,” he said.
“She paid me an enormous amount of money to do her hair and makeup, plus menial, personal assistant-type things,” Claire said. “Mostly I was paid to keep her secrets, which are quite valuable, as you can imagine. In Rose Hill terms I am filthy rich.”
“Why’d you quit?”
“My dad got sick,” she said. “My mom needed me.”
“Do you miss it?”
“No,” Claire said. “I kept expecting my life to get better, to be happier, and sometimes I thought I had found it but it never lasted. You can get tired of luxury and first class travel when you’re lonely all the time. I wasted twenty years of my life getting rich on the coattails of someone else’s fame instead of having a family and putting down roots.”
“So, what you’re telling me is that you practiced cosmetology in Rose Hill without a license? I’m going to have to arrest you now. I hate to do it, but like your married boyfriend, Ed, I’m so honorable and full of integrity that I have no choice.”
“Ed doesn’t know any of that.”
“I see,” Laurie said. “So why tell me?”
Claire shrugged and looked out the window.
“It’s either one of two things,” he said. “Either you care so little what I think, or you care so much. I know what my preference is, but I’d hate to delude myself.”
Claire continued to watch the scenery fly by, and for a little while, Laurie was content not to talk. Finally, after about ten minutes of what felt to Claire like companionable silence, he reached out and pushed her shoulder.
“Hey,” he said. “I’m an alcoholic. I got drunk after my wife died, because it felt like getting blasted in the chest with a double-barreled shotgun, and I stayed drunk until last October. While I was drunk, I married the most inappropriate person I could find, and made a huge mess of everything. I couldn’t have self-destructed more neatly if I’d poured gasoline all over my life and lit a match. I’ve let down everyone who ever loved me or counted on me. My mother died disappointed in how I turned out. I lost my best friend, I quit my job, and I never liked being a police officer to begin with; I just didn’t know how to do anything else and it’s what my old man wanted me to do. How’s that for honesty?”
“So what you’re saying is you’re not exactly excited about your new job.”
“Obviously,” he said. “What I’m also saying is life is messy and people screw up but the beauty is you can also be redeemed. I don’t mean as in ‘go to church and get saved.’ I mean you can decide things are going to be different, and then make it so.”
“Is that what you’re doing?”
“It’s what we’re both doing,” he said. “I think you can only have real compassion for someone like me or you if you’ve been someone like me or you. The Scoopster has never been anything but an upstanding model citizen. How could he understand?”
“I wanted to tell him,” she said. “I started to more than once.”
“Don’t tell him,” Laurie said. “Don’t tell him and don’t pine for him. He’s not the guy for you, Claire. If you can’t be yourself, it’s no good even trying.”
“And you are the guy for me, I suppose.”
“I’m probably the worst person you could choose,” he said, “and yet I desperately want to call you ‘sweetheart.’ I don’t understand your penchant for huge handbags and insanely elevated footwear, but I’m willing to accept those quirks as part of the package. I don’t want to hurt you, Claire, but I’m bound to do so, sooner or later. I know all this about myself, and yet I can’t seem to quit following you around town like some lovesick teenager.”
“You still drink,” Claire said. “I’ve seen you in the Thorn.”
“It’s under control.”
“I didn’t think that was possible for alcoholics.”
“It’s possible for me.”
“Here it is,” she said, as they came upon the first storage unit facility on the list.
“So we’ve concluded it would be a huge mistake, you and me,” he said, as they parked by the office. “A catastrophe of epic proportions.”
She turned to face him, and was struck by his pained expression.
“Let’s not have sex,” she said. “Let’s just be friends instead.”
He shook his head.
“No offense, Claire, but I don’t think I could bear the proximity without the intimacy.”
“So we won’t be anything to each other,” Claire said.
“Except we already are,” he said. “We’re only human, after all. What more can we expect?”
Diedre did not have a unit rented at this first place. At the third place they came to, the manager recognized her photo. He led them to a storage unit on the back side of the property, unlocked the garage door, and rolled it up.
“Oh my goodness,” Claire said.
“Will you look at that,” the manager said.
The unit was packed from floor to ceiling, wall to wall, with every kind of thing you could collect. Boxes, furniture, rolled-up rugs, toys, bicycles; you name it, it was crammed into this space. But there was no treadle sewing machine.
“When was the last time you saw Mrs. Delvecchio?” Laurie asked him.
“Several months ago,” he said. “There was still snow on the ground. Her station wagon got stuck in the mud and we had to pull her out.”
“Let’s press on,” Laurie said.
“What do you mean?” Claire said. “We found it.”
“We found one,” Laurie said, “and it’s full. There’ll be more.”
At the third place on the list they found another unit Diedre had rented, and at the fourth place they found Diedre.
Claire sat in the truck with the windows rolled down while the county morgue staff took away Diedre’s body. She was feeling pretty queasy at her stomach, having just thrown up her Salad Niçoise in the bushes at the edge of the property.
She recognized County Investigator Sarah Albright when she arrived, and hoped to avoid her. Unfortunately, she wasn’t so lucky. Sarah followed Laurie over to the truck.
“Good afternoon, Miss Fitzpatrick,” she said.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Albright,” Claire said.
“Chief Purcell, here, tells me he gave you a ride to this facility out of the goodness of his heart, and that in the process of speaking to the manager about procuring a unit for yourself, you happened to mention the deceased.”
Claire didn’t understand why Laurie wasn’t telling Sarah the truth, but she instantly backed him up.
“That’s right,” Claire said. “I’m having my things shipped from California, and I need a storage unit.”
“Decided to stick around, huh?”
“Mm hmm.”
“I guess Chief Gordon’s still on his honeymoon.”
“That’s right.”
“Old Maggie finally got the matrimonial noose around his neck,”
she said with a smirk.
Claire just stared at Sarah until the woman flushed and looked away. Laurie cleared his throat and tried not to smile. Fire Chief Malcolm Behr arrived and Laurie walked away to greet him.
“He still on the sauce?” Sarah asked.
“I beg your pardon,” Claire said.
“Changing jobs won’t change anything,” Sarah said. “Until he hits rock bottom and gets some help he’ll just keep making the same mistakes.”
“None of your business, really.”
“You’ll see,” Sarah said. “He’ll take you down with him if you’re not careful.”
“You seem to think you know everything there is to know.”
“I do,” Sarah said. “I was one of the people he hurt on his way down.”
“Excuse me?”
“After his wife died, I eased his pain, so to speak, for a little while. Smart guy, Laurie; he’s a lot of fun to talk to but rubbish in the sack. That’s the problem with alkies, you know. They can’t keep it up.”
“I don’t want to hear anymore,” Claire said. “Please stop.”
“I’m just sayin’ …” she said. “Watch yourself.”
Claire turned away, rolled up the window to the truck, and tried not to visualize everything Sarah had just told her, but it was too late.
On the way back to Rose Hill, Claire’s head was so full of conflicting thoughts she lost the ability to form a sentence.
“Mystery solved,” Laurie said, finally. “Thank you for your capable assistance.”
“Where’s her car?” Claire said.
“What?”
“Where’s the station wagon?”
“Good point,” he said. “You think someone murdered her by dropping a sewing machine on her head in order to steal her vintage station wagon.”
Claire shrugged.
“It’s a loose end.”
“What happened back there?” he asked. “Did good ole Sarah fill your head full of nonsense about me?”
“She warned me about you.”
“So concerned was she about your emotional well-being, that, as a caring, compassionate woman-friend, she felt compelled to alert you to my unworthiness as a potential partner.”
“I dislike Sarah, and I don’t trust her,” Claire said. “But it’s one thing for you to say you were a reckless drunk for a couple years, and another to talk to one of the women you fooled around with during that time.”
“There were more than a few,” he said. “I could give you a list.”
“I don’t like this about myself,” Claire said. “I’m jealous even though I know it’s petty and mean.”
“I’m just glad you care,” he said.
“I’ll have to introduce you to my ex-husband, Pip,” Claire said. “Then you might understand why I’m so screwed up.”
“Pip Deacon is your ex-husband? Stoner dude Pip Deacon is Prince Shit-for-brains?”
“King Dipshit is his formal title,” Claire said. “You know him?”
“Oh, Lord,” Laurie said, and then laughed a little too long and loud for Claire’s taste.
“I’d say we’re even,” he finally sputtered, and then smothered some more laughter.
“I was only seventeen when we met,” Claire said.
“And I was forty-two when I met Daphne,” Laurie said, and shrugged. “It just goes to show you can be a fool at any age.”
“Why didn’t you want Sarah to know you were investigating Diedre’s disappearance?”
“You change subjects with rapier-like speed.”
“Tell me.”
“Less paperwork,” he said, with a shrug. “This way, Sarah gets credit for finding the missing woman, and gets her name in the paper, but she also has to do all the heavy lifting. All I had to do was give her my statement and now I’m done. Her work just got started.”
“I think it’s because you feel bad about the way you treated her.”
“Part of some kind of atonement initiative, you presume.”
“Isn’t that one of the steps?”
Laurie gave a Claire a look that could have cut glass. It was the first time she’d been at the receiving end of his anger and contempt, and she could feel her face flush.
“I wouldn’t know,” he said.
“It seems to work for other people.”
“Other people can believe in a higher power,” he said.
“C’mon,” Claire said. “You don’t believe in any kind of creator.”
“Intelligent or otherwise,” he said.
“Just nothing.”
“I believe human existence is a long, lonely slog through pain and sorrow, experiencing loss after loss, only to end up mentally and physically crippled before dying an undignified death.”
“That’s the saddest thing I ever heard.”
“And I wonder why everyone doesn’t drink.”
As soon as they got back to town, Claire walked up Peony Street toward Kay’s house, intending to give Kay the news about Diedre. As she passed Machalvie’s Funeral Home, she noticed the former mayor, Stuart Machalvie, former bank president, Knox Rodefeffer, and Knox’s brother, Realtor Trick Rodefeffer, having an argument in the back parking lot. As soon as they saw Claire they quieted, so when Claire reached Kay’s house, the back of which was shielded from Machalvie’s parking lot by thick hedges on the other side of the alley, she quickly skirted around to the back yard of the house and knelt down by the hedges to listen.
“Congressman Green is no longer returning my phone calls,” Stuart said. “I can’t even get his personal secretary on the phone.”
“Senator Bayard’s staff is doing the same thing to me,” Knox said. “I guess they’re hanging us out to dry.”
“I’ve got reporters calling me all hours of the day and night, and the feds came to my office yesterday,” Trick said. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m scared.”
“I’ve got one piece of advice for you two,” Stuart said. “Listen to your attorneys. If they say keep your mouth shut, keep it shut. Don’t talk to anybody without their approval, and don’t say anything they haven’t advised you to say.”
“Easy for you to say,” Knox said. “You’re not being accused of murder.”
“Because you told Courtenay to give Aunt Mamie the tea,” Trick said. “That’s what killed her, Knox.”
“I had no way of knowing that tea would interact with all the medications she was taking. I’m telling you, I thought I was doing something nice for the old bat.”
“So why didn’t you take it to her?” Trick asked. “Why send your mistress?”
“I knew Mamie would just ask me for money,” Knox said. “I was tired of hearing it.”
“What happened to all her money?” Trick asked. “Sandy heard you were embezzling it through the bank.”
“Boys, I don’t want to hear this,” Stuart said. “This is your family’s business. I’ll see you later.”
Claire heard Stuart walk away, get in his car, and drive off.
“You need to lay off the sauce,” Knox said. “You’re gonna get us all arrested.”
“Just tell me,” Trick said. “Did you mean to kill Aunt Mamie?”
“No, of course not,” Knox said.
“Where’s her trust money?”
“All gone,” Knox said. “She put it up as collateral on a second mortgage and she defaulted. She was broke.”
“That’s not what people are saying …”
“I don’t care what people are saying, and if you had any sense you’d tell that wife of yours to keep her mouth shut.”
“So why did Courtenay get murdered?”
“That crazy assistant of Anne Marie’s did that,” Knox said.
“But he says Anne Marie was working with you.”
“He’s lying,” Knox asked. “I’d hardly go into business with my ex-wife, and I ended the affair with Courtenay back in the spring, so I had no reason to cause her harm. It’s more likely that my current wife would try to kil
l Courtenay; she’s the homicidal maniac in the family.”
“Where is Meredith?”
“Gone for good, I hope,” Knox said. “Listen, my life’s on the line, Trick; my freedom’s in jeopardy. We’ve got to form a united front on this. You’ll be expected to testify on my behalf. We’ve got to get our stories straight.”
“The truth, you mean.”
“Yes, of course that’s what I mean.”
“It looked bad,” Trick said. “You didn’t see Aunt Mamie. It was like something out of a horror movie. It looked like she died in pain.”
“I didn’t mean to hurt her,” Knox said. “I’m sick of going over this with you. You’ve got to pull yourself together, little brother.”
“The FBI wants to interview me.”
“Call the attorneys,” Knox said. “They’ll prep you and go with you.”
“I just want it all to go away.”
“You and me both,” said Knox. “I’ve got to get on the road. Are you all right to drive?”
“I’m fine,” Trick said. “You go on.”
“Just keep it together a little while longer,” Knox said. “And for God’s sake don’t drink so much. You look terrible.”
Claire could hear them get in their cars and leave. When she stood up and turned around, Kay was standing right behind her. Startled, she jumped, and clasped her hand to her heart.
“You shouldn’t sneak up on a hungover person,” Claire said. “I’m liable to puke on you.”
“That was certainly an interesting conversation,” Kay said. “Come inside. I’ve got something to show you.”
Once inside the house, Kay went back to the bedroom and returned with a thick file folder full of documents. She sat down at the dining room table and patted the folder.
“Trick mentioned Knox had been accused of embezzling from his Aunt Mamie,” Kay said. “I think I know where the money went.”
Kay took out a sheaf of what looked like bank statements paper-clipped together.
“The city has a contingency fund,” Kay said. “For years, Stuart has syphoned money off of that fund to pour into his many schemes. For the past two years he’s been depositing money from the fund into a bank account in Pittsburgh. He reported it to the City Council as fees paid to a consulting firm, however, the documents I just happened to have intercepted have his name, Knox’s name, and one other interesting name listed as owners of this account.”
Hollyhock Ridge Page 9
