The Lillian Byrd Crime Series

by Elizabeth Sims

  “Or so you thought.”

  “Yes, I feel pretty damned betrayed.”

  “I would expect that.” Minerva drank some coffee with a tiny slurp. She liked hers with cream.

  “Grown-ups,” I said, “keep things from kids, of course. But I thought—I just didn’t think these particular people could be so careless. And in the case of Trix, so…casually malevolent.”

  “When you’re a grownup you sort of expect betrayal, or at least you know to watch out for it.”

  “That’s right. The thing that bewilders me is—her little apology to me aside—how she’s still Trix, she’s still got this kooky, half-assed approach to life. I’d expected her to have achieved a more mature outlook by now.”

  “Lillian, she’s a drug-addicted hooker.”

  “I know! I know! I’m still hoping she gets it together someday!”

  We laughed at that, marveling at the relentless absurdity of life. Man, I enjoyed that laugh.

  Serious again, I said, “Minerva, I…”

  “Hmm?”

  “I must formally apologize to you for losing that money. I’m very sorry. I’ll…” I swallowed. “I’d like to pay it back.”

  She made a dismissive sound.

  “Yes, but,” I said, “that money didn’t just fall out of the sky on you. You worked for that money. I’m making no mistake here: Just because you have a lot of it doesn’t mean you don’t care if a whole big wad of it goes up in smoke.”

  “Lillian. I don’t care if a whole big wad of it goes up in smoke.”

  “You’re just trying to make me feel better.”

  “Dear heart, it was money well spent.”

  “Mph.”

  “Listen, I’ve lost more than that in a night in the casino downstairs. In an hour, once or twice, to be honest.”

  “My God!”

  She looked at me mirthfully. “There’s something still so innocent about you, do you know that? Something very little-girl-like about you.”

  I didn’t want to be little-girl-like.

  “I’m making you uncomfortable,” said Minerva gently. “Never mind. Now, what do you want to do next?”

  “Find that son of a bitch Bill Sechrist.”

  I poured some more of the perfectly brewed coffee and we sipped. The cups and saucers were paper-thin china. Bone china, I guessed it was. The cup rim felt almost crisp against my lips. Minerva said, “Don’t you want to talk to the police?”

  “I don’t give a shit about the police. Minerva, come on. I mean—yeah, OK, I could talk to the Detroit cops and maybe find a detective who’d really listen. Ciesla could help me, I guess he knows most of them. I could try to get Duane to stay involved on it. But,” I paused to view the jagged mountains beyond the windows, “all I want now is to find Bill Sechrist. Did you think I’d be satisfied after hearing what Trix had to say?”

  “I honestly didn’t know.”

  “I’m glad as hell to have found her. I guess it was lucky it played out like it did. She was gonna trick us and split with that money somehow, or try to.”

  “Yes. What do you want from Bill Sechrist?”

  I looked at her intently. “Please understand something important. I don’t want a goddamn thing from him. I want to talk to him. I want him to hear what I have to say.”

  Quietly, Minerva asked, “What do you want to say to him?”

  I put down my coffee. “I want to tell Bill Sechrist that my father was forty-four years old and he had a strong back and arms and he liked to play horseshoes, he was a very good horseshoe player on those hot Sundays when we would go to Belle Isle for a picnic, and he would organize horseshoe tournaments with every other family in the picnic area. I want to tell Bill Sechrist that my father could run fast and he knew how to whistle incredibly loud between his fingers and he knew how to get a sliver out and what to do if a poisonous snake comes around; that he had a tattoo of Betty Boop on his left biceps and a pair of bluebirds on his chest; that he could jump up and kick the top of a door frame with the flat of his shoe, and nobody else I’ve ever met in my life could do that. I want to tell Bill Sechrist that my dad bought a microscope from a wino who’d probably stolen it and he liked to look at things under it and show me things; that he liked to drink beer and tell jokes and beat his hands on the bar tremendously fast in time to the polkas on the jukebox; that he let guys win dime bets off him on whether that fly would land on the rim of Hiram’s glass before the end of ‘Soldier Boy Polka.’”

  Minerva listened.

  “I want to tell Bill Sechrist that on the last day of my mother’s life she worked on the seed pearl bodice of a wedding gown for one of the Kaminsky girls, the transmission shop heiresses, and when a pearl fell off she gave it to me and I put it in my treasure box; that she wore a size eight dress and her favorite flowers were lilacs and she liked to take me to Sanders’ for a hot fudge sundae for no reason once in a while; that she hated Cream of Wheat and never made me eat it either; that she liked Johnny Carson and Rosemary Clooney and Harry Belafonte and Adlai Stevenson; that she wished she’d taken up an instrument and she insisted on midnight Mass on Christmas eve and thought that John Steinbeck walked on water. I want to tell Bill Sechrist that my mom didn’t get mushy about the Kennedys or little kids who got cancer, and she liked to play cards; that a few hours before she died she showed me how to balk the crib, why you don’t want to get stuck at the 120th hole, and why it’s funny to say you have a nineteen when you have a crappy hand.

  “I want Bill Sechrist to know that neither my dad nor my mom laughed at me when I expressed a serious interest in growing up to be a garbageman. Riding on the back of the truck looked exhilarating. They understood that.”

  I stopped and breathed. “That, more or less, is what I want Bill Sechrist to know.”

  Minerva had moved closer to me, listening, watching. Now she drew me into her arms. And the anguish that I’d carefully managed in the days and years following the fire came coursing out, unstoppable. I laid my head on her shoulder and gave in to it. For a long time, she patted me and murmured and waited and was there for me.

  _____

  Afterward, I felt sleepy, and almost napped on her shoulder. Maybe I did for a minute or two, because when I lifted my head I felt clear and OK.

  No, the truth was I felt more than OK. From our perch on the couch we watched the mountains as the pink glow of twilight intensified to an impossibly pure hippie purple. The air in the whole suite tasted cool and fresh; I’d opened the glass door to the small patio out there, hanging so high over the desert. We sat in silence like that for a long time. I went to the bathroom and washed my face. The bathroom, too, featured excessively huge windows and a view out to the mountains. I watched them some more as they settled into deep blackness.

  I returned to Minerva, who was nibbling on a finger cake, a plate of which, along with a fresh pot of fragrant coffee and a bottle of cognac, had mysteriously materialized on the low table next to the couch.

  She stretched herself, plump and inviting, on the cushions. Lifting an eyebrow, she offered, “Dessert?”

  I believe I forgot to mention that neither of us was wearing clothes. That is, after our showers we’d slipped into the sophisticated, crest-pocketed bathrobes supplied by the hotel and had lounged through dinner barefooted and refreshed.

  The V of Minerva’s bathrobe plunged effortlessly down the slope of her smooth neck, across the swelling plateau of her upper chest, then down the intriguing ravine between her breasts, where my gaze lingered openly and long.

  I knelt on the lush rug between the couch and the treat-laden coffee table, more or less facing this lovely, wise creature who regarded me without pity, who looked at me with gentle naughtiness and, I thought, a certain amount of desire.

  “Just a minute,” I said. “Do you take me for a masochist? A glutton for punishment?”

  She lifted herself on an elbow. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about Tillie, what the hell
else?”

  “Ohhh,” she sighed, her lips curling into a conscience-stricken smile.

  I continued, “I was good for a one-nighter once for you, but don’t think that merely by flying across the country, drawing out $20,000 of your own cash, letting it get burned to cinders, not uttering a peep about it, and helping me get to the bottom of a terrible crime that resulted in the deaths of my own parents, that I’m just gonna jump in the sack with you for tonight’s fling, when you’ve got your little hot nurse babe at home keeping the waterbed nice and—”

  “Lillian!”

  I stopped, panting with ardor. Oh, how I wanted to caress those curving hips, how I wanted to test the nervous system underlying it all—how I wanted to kiss that hesitant hand, that reluctant foot, perhaps finding a way, some magical way, to bring full function back to them.

  Minerva sat up, drawing her legs in, hugging her knees. “Did you really think,” she said, “that all I wanted was that one night?” She set her chin on her knees and gave me a You’re not going to get away with anything kind of look.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted.

  “That’s all we got. But that wasn’t all I wanted.”

  I blinked. “Really?”

  “Lillian, do you think you’re unlovable?”

  I realized that I couldn’t say.

  She touched my hand. “You’re so…appealing. I don’t know how you did it, but somehow you’ve got a grip on my heart. When you move, when you talk, I feel…” Seeing my face, she stopped. “All right. Let me tell you about Tillie.”

  She drew herself a bit more erect.

  I gnawed my lips.

  “As I believe I mentioned,” she began, “I met Tillie in rehabilitation. She helped me. She was very good. We became friends. When I began having seizures I realized it would be a good thing if I had someone at home with me. Living alone with frequent seizures is no fun. Won’t you have a shot of cognac?”

  Indifferently, I poured myself a small quantity of the aromatic liquor and sipped it. She reached for my glass, and I shared.

  “Should you be drinking hard liquor at all?” I wondered.

  “Damn it, I like a drink now and then. Listen. I offered Tillie a good salary to move into my apartment—into her own quarters—and coordinate the last stages of my rehab and recovery. And to look after me when I had a seizure. With the new medication, the seizures tapered off. In fact, I thought they were all over. I was about to tell Tillie—”

  “So Tillie is—”

  “Tillie is a paid employee. As I said, I do consider her a friend as well, but not the kind you…suspected. She’s a divorced grandmother and she was happy to have a cushy break from the grind of the rehab facility. When I no longer need her help, she’s going to take a vacation and then, she told me, look into teaching.”

  There wasn’t much I could say except, “Oh.”

  “Now, don’t you feel ashamed of yourself?”

  “No, goddamn it. I don’t feel ashamed of my feelings for you. They’re strong and proprietary and I want to kiss you right now and go on kissing you for days on end, until we get evicted from this ho—”

  “So do it.”

  And so to her smiling lips flew mine. Oh, my lips were happy then. The level of happiness in the rest of me was somewhere between the Hubble satellite and the edge of Mars.

  After an agreeably long time on the couch, I helped Minerva to one of the suite’s two super king-size Las Vegas bedrooms and its super king-size Las Vegas bed. We shed our bath wraps and there began the lengthy, meticulous process of rediscovering each other.

  Now and then we burst into joyful laughter.

  Her body was as marvelous as I’d remembered but different too. Her newfound appetite for food had given her the physical voluptuousness I’ve already described, and because of that, her body looked and smelled and felt enriched, more robust. To my surprise, the word healthy came to mind. Yes, Minerva LeBlanc appeared, except for the slight weakness on her right side, healthier than she’d been when I first met her.

  My lips explored her face, my hands explored her head, where, beneath her shining distinguished hair, I felt evidence of the attack on that astonishing skull. There were bumps and hollows from the injury and the surgery, a deep seam that ran in an irregular shape, something like the outline of South America. A steel plate, I knew, kept her wondrous brains together in there.

  “Do you still have pain?” I murmured.

  “No, not at all.”

  I caressed her head, then segued to the other main compass points and most of the ones in between. I elicited delicate moans and soft pleadings: No music could have moved me more.

  She was amazingly energetic. Her hands, hungry and knowing, made the whole of my skin—just everywhere—register a deep ache that only more touching transformed into pleasure.

  The night, there in the desert beyond the windows, flowed in on us and engulfed us in nourishing darkness.

  21

  In the morning Minerva and I decided to fly to Detroit, where I would inform Duane of what I’d learned from Trix, collect Todd from Billie, and figure out what to do next. Minerva made the arrangements.

  “But don’t you want to go back to New York?” I asked.

  So far neither of us had uttered the L word. Love. I felt as good as I’d ever felt in my life. Something akin to a small nuclear reactor had been implanted just beneath my sternum and was generating constant superefficient energy to all the cells in my body.

  Minerva moved about the suite in smiling serenity. I’d tried heroically to cure her of her lingering afflictions last night, but had to satisfy myself with the glad tranquillity I seemed to have produced.

  “New York,” she answered, “can wait. I want to be with you for now. I want to see you through to the end of this…quest you’ve undertaken.” She paused. “Um, would you like that?”

  “Yes.”

  We avoided discussing the future beyond that. And that was all right with me. I felt alive enough just then without getting myself all worked up about what was next with Minerva. And my drive to find Bill Sechrist was growing stronger and stronger, filling me with a feeling I’d never known before. The feeling was cold and hot at the same time, like the strongest of cravings. Was it justice I yearned for? No, nothing that explicable. Maybe I wanted vengeance. Did I? The hot-cold feeling of vigor dominated me, that was all I knew.

  As we packed our things I said, “Do you mind if we leave for the airport a little early? I’d like to make a quick stop on the way.”

  “All right.”

  Minerva wasn’t surprised when I pointed the Mercedes in the direction of Trix’s mobile-home court.

  “There’s something I have to ask her,” I explained. “It’ll just take a minute.”

  However, an incident had occurred at Trix’s place. Two cop cars and a medical examiner’s wagon were parked out front.

  “Uh-oh,” said Minerva.

  A motley assortment of neighbors hung around pretending to have gone out for a walk and merely happened upon this interesting scene.

  I don’t know why, but I felt neither surprise nor anxiety. I looked for the ringmaster neighbor, but she wasn’t around. Minerva went up to a lady cop and handed her a card. “Hey, lieutenant,” said the cop, handing over the card to a plainclothes detective who’d just stepped from the trailer.

  The lieutenant looked from the card to Minerva and broke into a smile. “Welcome back to the land of the living,” he said. “Or, as the case may be…” He let that hang.

  “Thanks,” said Minerva, extending her hand. “Ramirez, isn’t it?”

  “Good memory. What are you doing here?” Lt. Ramirez’s tone indicated that he ranked the importance of the present situation as somewhat below an incipient hangnail.

  “My friend here wants to talk to the occupant.”

  “No can do.”

  “What happened?”

  “Overdose, it looks like. Maybe deliberate.”

  Mi
nerva’s eyes flicked to mine.

  “May we go in?” she asked.

  To my utter shock, the plainclothesman skipped up the steps and opened the door for us.

  “I know the routine,” said Minerva. To me she murmured, “Don’t touch anything.”

  I don’t remember what the lieutenant or Minerva said to the police staff inside the trailer. All I remember is walking slowly through Trix’s tacky living room to her bedroom and standing at the door, looking in.

  Trix lay faceup on the bed, crosswise on it, one arm flung out as if in surprise, the other clutched to her chest. Her wasted body was naked; there were no marks of violence on her that I could see. Her lips were drawn back in a grimace, her eyes wide and empty.

  Minerva said quietly, “A crack or meth OD could result in cardiac arrest. Sudden and painful, at least painful at first.”

  On second look I saw a trace of something in Trix’s face: resignation. Her body had been seized in a wracking grip, then as death neared, she met it knowingly, somehow. That was the impression I got.

  One of the cops said, “She started out with enough shit to get this whole neighborhood high. She made the rounds last night, bought a thousand bucks’ worth of stuff.”

  Another cop asked, “Who told you that?”

  “Neighbor who knows the dealers here. He said she had a fistful of cash and went on a spree. I’d say the street value of what’s left here is about 200 bucks.”

  _____

  I sat, chin in hand, watching the planes taxiing, barely aware of the clang of the slot machines in the concourse. Minerva handed me a paper cup of water. “What was it,” she said, “that you wanted to ask her?”

  A taxiing Aloha jet stopped to make way for a Southwest jet hurrying to deliver more passengers to the town of Trix’s dreams.

  “One time,” I said, “I got into a fight with a bully girl in the neighborhood. This was a real mini-bitch. She liked to pick on me, trying to get me to fight her. She’d walk behind me on the way home from school, shoving me in the back. One day I turned around, even though I knew I was about to get the crap beat out of me. She slapped me and I kicked her. She was bigger. She knocked me down and got on top of me and spit out her bubble gum into my hair and mashed it in. I went home to the bar, torn jacket, bloody knees, the gum in my hair. My dad was totally oblivious. ‘Hi, sweetie,’ he says. Trix took me into the toilet and helped me wash up before I went upstairs. She snipped the gum out of my hair and said, Yeah, kid, she’s scared a you now.”