Whatever Doesn't Kill You (An Emma Howe and Billie August Mystery Book 2)

by Gillian Roberts

  “Hi, I’m Julia, Max’s mother.” A tired-looking woman extended her hand.

  “My sympathies,” Billie said. “Although you look to be holding up well.” She turned to urge Jesse to gather his goody bag and get going.

  “Wait, Mommy—come look. Max’s mother said we could. Max has birds. Can I have one, too? Can we?” Jesse was starved for another small breathing thing—a dog, a cat, a pony, a hamster, a lizard, a snake, a baby brother or sister—anything. He requested one or the other on a daily basis. This was his first bird request.

  Max’s mother looked amused. She was obviously a resilient type, to have a sense of humor after hosting a preschool birthday party.

  “Oh, don’t bother,” Billie said. “You’re swamped here, and we can—

  “It’ll give me a moment off,” Julia said. “This way.” Billie and Jesse followed her through several spacious rooms into a sunny plant-filled room off a swath of garden and then, beyond that, into a two-story caged expanse. An aviary larger than Billie’s house was filled with brilliantly colored birds perched on a tall tree like so many dazzling ornaments.

  “Spectacular,” Billie said, meaning it.

  “My husband’s passion, though I’ve grown fond of them, too.”

  “I’ve never seen— What are they? That one?” She pointed to an intensely blue bird whose eyes and beak were outlined in bright yellow.

  “A hyacinth macaw.” Julia pointed. “He looks like a parrot, doesn’t he, Jesse? And he’s smart in addition to being gorgeous. That one over there is a black palm cockatoo—” The bird was blue-black, with red splashes on its cheek and wild plumage like a B-movie Indian’s headdress.

  “Amazing,” Billie murmured. “Where on earth do you find such creatures?”

  “People breed them. There’s a whole network of collectors and my husband’s pretty plugged into it so he hears when somebody’s bred a great specimen. That’s an African gray.” Julia pointed. “Not glamorous, but the smartest of the smart. He has quite a vocabulary, when he feels like talking. Imitates all of us, laughs just like Max…” She smiled up at the bird.

  Somebody called out for her and Julia charmingly made it clear that the show was over.

  Jesse was not quite as tuned in to the subtleties of etiquette. “I want one,” he said. “Can we have one, Mom? Just one?”

  Billie rolled her eyes and Julia smiled. Kids.

  Still, every time Jesse yearned for a pet, which was every moment he wasn’t yearning for a sibling, Billie felt a throb of irrational guilt. He had no father to speak of, a distracted, tense mother, a somewhat nutty Russian as his nanny, and no pets.

  So a bird might be a possibility. I’ll think about it, okay?” There was a store not far away. Maybe she’d take him over there this weekend. No, she’d go alone and surprise him.

  Good intentions in place, she felt virtuous and guilt-free. Jesse watched her the entire road home, as if monitoring her thoughts and making sure that birds stayed in them.

  *

  Ivan was in the living room, trying to look normal, at least until a cough that sounded as if it ripped out his intestines reduced him to a gasping wraith. He raised a hand in what probably was intended as a wave of greeting, but looked more like surrender.

  “Look what I got, Ivan.” Jesse dumped his goody bag onto the puke-green carpet—the very first thing Billie had vowed to replace if she ever had discretionary funds.

  “Go rest,” she told Ivan. “I’ll bring you soup and tea. I’m here for the evening, so you don’t have to do anything. Any messages?”

  He stood up in slow increments, like an arthritic old man, and shook his head before shuffling to his room.

  She sat on the sofa, her coat still on. Things would work out. Jesse looked hale. He’d be in extended day care tomorrow, too, and her appointment with the llama lady was for the morning. She could work in at least one additional interview and still pick him up in time. She let her muscles relax one by one and found herself staring at the TV as if it were an aquarium. She had no idea when Jesse had flicked cartoons on, but the swirl and flicker of moving shapes was soothing, made even more so when Jesse snuggled in next to her. She didn’t even mind his playing the shrill plastic kazoo that had been in his goody bag. At least, she didn’t mind much and in fact felt an unfamiliar rush of peace. Of contentment. “This is nice,” she said, after a long while, her arm around her son. “I like being with you. Tonight we’ll play whatever game you choose. Right now, it’s time for me to take off my coat and go make our dinner.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the phone on the kitchen wall rang precisely as the pasta water surged up and over the lip of the pan. With her left hand, Billie poured oil on the troubled waters, and with her right, grabbed the receiver.

  “I’m sorry to have to say this.” She didn’t recognize the voice. “I can’t make it tomorrow.” She paused for a fraction, then said, “Oh! I’m sorry even more; I didn’t identify myself. This is Veronica. We have a meeting scheduled out here in the morning, but I won’t be here.”

  Billie controlled a rush of irritation. Ranchers didn’t up and chug off to— Where in hell would she be going?

  The angel-hair pasta was about to leave the al dente stage for the mush stage. She braced the phone under her chin, removed the pot and headed for the sink.

  From the tiny back room, she heard a choked cough. “Let’s reschedule,” she said. “When will you be back?”

  “That’s just it. I’m not sure.”

  Billie tossed the drained strands with another dollop of olive oil. “Thanks for telling me, then. When you do get back, why don’t you give me a call—or—” Behind her, the tomato sauce hit the critical temperature and popped itself onto the wall behind the range. She put down the pasta, turned the burner to its lowest setting and covered the pot. “Easier still, could you talk to me now? I just wanted a handle on Gav—”

  “I know and I want to talk to you.” And then talk she did, in a great rush. “But—listen, I…well, is it humanly possible for you to get out here tonight? I’m thirty minutes away, max, and I know it’s an imposition, but it’s because of this emergency. My brother-in-law just called. My sister started labor. They have a three-year-old and a two-year-old and right now a neighbor’s watching them, but I promised I’d— This turned into a high-risk pregnancy and she isn’t due for another month, so I don’t know how long I’ll be—”

  “Then it’d be a major help if you’d talk to me now. There is time pressure.” Billie turned off the burner. She could reheat the pasta and sauce. The more the end product sogged into canned-variety taste, the more Jesse would enjoy it.

  “The thing is, I was going to worm the llamas tomorrow, except I have to do it right now. The woman who’ll feed them and all while I’m gone, she won’t do worming. In fact, I’m halfway through. I was rushing around like crazy when I remembered you were coming tomorrow, and I’m really trying to get to them before it’s too dark, you see?”

  “Want me to come up to your sister’s, then?”

  “She’s in Santa Rosa and I’ll be in and out, back and forth—and those kids—it’d be really hard to tell you precisely when. I don’t even know the drill yet.”

  Billie realized she was nodding. That surprised her because the rest of her felt too weary and put upon to move a muscle. It was nearly dark already. “How about I call you back in an hour and a half? You’ll be done then, and—”

  “To be honest, I’d rather do this in person. No offense, but the thing is I don’t want to talk till I see you. Have a sense of you, okay?”

  Not really at all okay, but understandable. “At your place, then. Tonight.” Damn and double damn.

  “I’ll try to be all packed and everything before you get here so you don’t waste your time. You still have the directions?”

  She did, and she said so, and then she took a deep breath and went back to Ivan’s room. The TV could babysit Jesse, much as Billie disapproved. Wouldn’t hurt for one night, a few
hours while Ivan vegetated in the wingback chair. No harm done.

  Sickness was palpable in Ivan’s room, the air thick with it. “Ivan?” she whispered in the dusky light. She could hear the moisture in his lungs with each inhalation. “Ivan?”

  Nothing but the rattly, deep sucks of air. He was out cold, anesthetized with antihistamines and fever, and there was no way he could be responsible for so much as his own toes. She closed the door behind her.

  She was going to look like an incompetent fool with a preschooler tagging behind her, either shyly lurking behind her legs or launching into hyperactive magno-destructo mode. Either way, not good.

  If her fairy godmother ever showed her face and offered her three wishes, high on the list would be the appearance of competency. It seemed enormously important, maybe more important than competency itself. She wanted it so much she could taste it. She wanted Emma to slap her forehead and say how incredibly wrong she’d been about Billie August.

  Tonight was not going to advance that goal.

  “Jess,” she said while they ate their overcooked pasta. “How’d you like to take a ride with me in the dark. You can stay up late, too.”

  He looked pleased by the idea, then he changed his mind. “You promised we’d play.”

  “We’ll play ‘take a trip in the car.’”

  “That isn’t a game. You said I could pick the game.”

  “Here’s the thing,” she said. “I have to work. I didn’t think I would, but guess what? I do.”

  “No!” he shouted, then he put his head down onto the table, his hands cupping his ears. Hear no evil, ride no cars.

  Well, great. Tonight she could disappoint everybody, all at once. She imagined Emma’s expression when—if—she heard about her investigator taking a kid along with her. And Veronica’s when she saw a three-year-old arrive along with Billie. And Jesse shouting “No!” the whole time.

  Then to hell with it. Billie would behave as if this were the most natural thing. Of course I brought my son along. What would you expect when you screw up our appointment? It’s your fault.

  She could almost begin to understand Emma’s approach to life, and see its appeal.

  She cleared the dishes and prepared for the trip with her hostile three-year-old passenger. Obviously, her fairy godmother had put her name at the end of the wish-granting list, and this was how it was. A whiny kid, a frustrating interview with a woman who didn’t like phones, and an employer who’d be angry at the idea of Jesse’s doing a ride-along for an interview.

  But Emma would be angry no matter what. Billie had to remember that.

  She stood straighter and dried her hands with the kitchen towel. Since she couldn’t possibly please Emma, why the hell worry about displeasing her?

  The only thing left to worry about was why it had taken her this long to realize that.

  Nine

  The ride might have been pleasant had they been able to see the countryside, a stretch of nearly virgin California landscape, except for the strip of blacktop cutting through it. But the night had become misty and heavy with clouds, and visibility was limited, and her son had obviously memorized the kid-script that made him whine, “Are we there yet?” at five-second intervals.

  Once they arrived at Whynot Farm, things eased. Billie pushed the button in front of the gate, heard a voice shout, “Be right there,” and waited as a tall slender woman in her thirties—close to Billie’s own age, she estimated—walked from an unpretentious home toward them, and swung open the gate.

  “I’m Veronica,” she said, hand outstretched as Billie got out of the car. “Glad to meet you, and thanks, really, for switching your schedule around.”

  “Mom!” from the back seat.

  Veronica Napoles looked at the car, then at Billie.

  “I…my babysitter…I…” Billie shrugged. She was through with apologizing, even mentally, for how her life worked.

  “So we both had child-related emergencies,” Veronica said. “No problem.” Her dark hair was pulled back and held with a large clasp, and her fine features looked scrubbed. No makeup, no ornaments. The word “wholesome” came to Billie’s mind.

  “Come with me,” she said to both of them. “I need one last checkup, to make sure they’re okay. They all just got shots.” Jesse moved closer to Billie. “Needle shots,” Veronica said. “Not guns.”

  “I don’t like needles, either,” Jesse whispered to Billie.

  “I like the name of this place,” Billie said. “Funny—or am I making a faux pas and ‘Whynot’ is a family name or something?”

  Veronica shook her head. “It’s an answer. My answer. I was a programmer. Good at it, but I had a small problem: I hated it. Still, when I inherited a little from my grandparents, and I decided to chuck the day job and grow organic vegetables and raise llamas, there was a general hue and cry as if I’d gone insane. If one more person said ‘Why on earth are you doing that?’ I’d have gone bonkers. Instead, I had cards made up with the name, and just handed them to them. Shut them right up.”

  The llamas didn’t seem concerned about the logic behind their lives in West Marin. They regarded their nighttime visitors with mild curiosity. Veronica explained that this was the bachelor herd, kept segregated from the females and babies for the sake of population control. “The boys,” she called them.

  “Lemme see,” Jesse said, and Billie lifted him so he could stand on a rung of the fence. Sometimes he loomed so large in her mind, dominated so much of her being, that she forgot how small he actually was.

  “Don’t my boys look beautiful?” Veronica sounded serious. “They’ve all been brushed, so they’re at their best—although I’m half-dead. Do you like having your hair brushed, Jesse? My boys—and my girls, too—aren’t keen on it, but we’ve got to keep that fiber in shape for shearing come spring, so people can weave with it later.”

  Jesse looked at her as if waiting for the point. Billie didn’t blame him. Veronica was babbling in the nervous, overly animated voice of someone who’d forgotten that she, too, was once a kid.

  “I can’t see,” Jesse whined. “It’s too dark.”

  Billie knew he could see but dimly, as she did. The moon was blocked by cloud cover and the llamas seemed ghostly deeper dark shapes against the already dark background. Billie had to serve as intergenerational interpreter. “Veronica was saying that later on, when the animals get their hair cut, people knit sweaters and things out of their hair.”

  “I don’t like getting my hair cut, either,” Jesse said.

  “I’m going to have a hard time talking to my sister’s kids, aren’t I?” Veronica murmured.

  “It’s a business, then? Selling their coats?”

  “Struggling, but getting there. These have fine fiber.” She waved at the herd in front of them. “And they’re used as, well, watch-dogs—guards—for sheep, against foxes, so I’m considering that, too, along with their becoming caddies.”

  “Excuse me?” Billie pictured a llama in a golf cap.

  “Really. There’s a golf course here that wants to use them as caddies, but I’m not so sure about that.”

  The world grew ever stranger, Billie thought, imagining these South American mountain creatures hauling clubs around a course, and wondering what the hell they’d be thinking as they watched humans tee off.

  “Can I touch one?” Jesse whispered. At least he wasn’t asking if he could have one, Billie thought. At least not yet.

  The llamas were not near the fence, and Veronica took some while to answer. “Better not,” she said. “They’re way over there, and humming. It’s a tired sounding hum, ’cause they’ve been through a lot—brushing and those needles, you see.”

  “Just look at them, sweetie,” Billie whispered. “Aren’t they interesting animals?”

  “Don’t want to annoy them because they’re even more interesting when they spit stinky green stomach contents. Which is what I’d like to avoid by not making them come over.”

  Keeping her
distance, Billie studied the creatures. Interesting—or strange was more like it. Not beautiful, except to Veronica, they looked hastily invented, like an assortment of mismatched parts and colors: rabbit-faced heads on thick, long necks, barrel-shaped torsos on spindle legs, fleece a crazy quilt of browns, whites, tans, and black in any and every combination and all hanging raggedly as if they’d borrowed their heavy coats from larger friends.

  “Makes gorgeous fiber,” Veronica said.

  Billie had to take it on faith; some alchemy obviously transpired between beast and loom.

  “They look fine,” Veronica said after inspecting her small herd. “And, not that you asked, but I’ll tell you anyway—not a single one of my llamas is named Dolly.” She grinned. Jesse stared at her, stone-faced. “Now we’ll let them sleep.”

  Jesse jumped off the rail.

  “Can he watch TV?” she asked Billie. “I have some Disney on video from when my sister’s kids were here.”

  Jesse, with a backward glance at the animals, now opted for his shy routine, which was fine with Billie. “Stay with me,” he whispered. Luckily, Veronica’s house turned out to be mostly one room, the TV at one corner, the kitchen table at the other. Things were going to work out.

  The room was furnished with solid, worn pieces sitting on weathered planks partially covered by a faded Oriental rug. “Welcome to Flea Market Central,” Veronica said. “I invested my capital elsewhere.” She waved with both hands toward the great outdoors.

  She brought a pot of herbal tea to the dark wooden table, and looked over at Jesse’s back, where he’d seated himself in front of the TV. Beyond his silhouetted body, bright-colored cartoon characters cavorted. “Tracy bought that video, for my niece and nephew,” she said softly. “She was like that. Thoughtful. It saved the day then, too, but I wouldn’t have thought of anything like it till way too late.”

  “You knew Tracy, then?” Billie said.

  Veronica’s eyes widened. Then she frowned. “I assumed that’s why you called me.”

  Billie shook her head. “It was actually Gavin…the woman at the Marine Mammal Center said you were Gavin’s friend.”