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

by Gillian Roberts

  Finally, Ana pursed her mouth and made a half-nod. “Two things. I have to get them from the kitchen. She left the room and returned with a folded black cardigan sweater and her pocketbook. “The police, they came and took most things of Miss Tracy’s, but I was wearing this. She said I could wear her things. It was a cold day and I borrowed it.”

  Big deal, a black cardigan. “Thanks,” Billie said.

  “You give to the police—or keep it,” Ana said. “What should they want with a sweater? It didn’t do nothing bad to anybody.”

  “You want to keep it?”

  Ana shook her head. “Bad luck, maybe.” She pursed her mouth and took a breath. Now, Billie thought. Whatever had been pressing on her innards wanted out now.

  “I don’t want you think bad things about Miss Tracy,” she began. “She worked hard, and I think maybe this year, she bought herself something nice, like her husband wouldn’t buy her.” She shook her head. “He no like her having things, spending money. My ex-husband was like that, so cheap. Took all the money I make. If I buy a lipstick, he shouted. Selfish, that’s all.

  “So this one time, when she explain could she leave her ring for a while and he didn’t know nothing about it, I said okay. She knew she could trust me. When the police came, I wonder what will they do with it. Give it to her husband, is what I think, but she didn’t want that mean husband to know she had it. What would he do with it? Give it to his woman?” As she spoke, she shook her head, answering her own questions.

  “He had another woman?”

  Ana rolled her eyes. “Those men, they’re no good. My ex-husband he chased women, too, so I threw him out, but Miss Tracy, she was too nice. She wait and wait, and then she moved out herself. Dumb to give him the house that way. I say kick him out, instead.”

  A ring, Billie thought. And then Ana articulated her next thought.

  “I say that if another man give it to her, she shouldn’t leave it here,” Ana said. “I don’t want no trouble with the husband. Jealous sons of bitch like Mr. Robby no good. Dangerous. Not just for me, but for Miss Tracy, too. So I said get a box at the bank, but nothing here that will make trouble, but she said no, she bought it for herself and nobody knows about it and she thinks maybe she’ll sell it in a little while. I think that means after she leaves her husband so he doesn’t get any of that money, you see? I figured no trouble. You understand, I love them all, but no trouble, please?”

  “Could I—Do you still have it? The gift she left here?”

  “Sure is here. I carry it in my pocketbook every day, back and forth. I am not a thief.”

  Billie wondered why Tracy hadn’t reclaimed her jewelry once she was settled in with Veronica. Maybe her ex was still causing her too much grief. Then she remembered that they weren’t divorced yet.

  But if it was worth that much hassle, if it was really valuable, then Ana might have had less innocent reasons for hiding it. Ana was shrewd and Ana loved Gavin. It wouldn’t help Gavin’s case if he was hoarding something valuable or refusing to return it to the dead woman.

  “Here,” Ana said. “Every day, I carry it home, then carry it back. Now maybe you take it.” She extracted a small pouch and handed it to Billie. “Makes me too nervous.”

  Billie emptied the pouch into her palm and stared at the cocktail ring that landed on her hand. A good sized green stone set high in a sunburst of tiny diamonds—or at least, bright, clear stones. Billie couldn’t imagine where a woman living Tracy’s life would wear a ring this size or this valuable. It looked too old for her as well, designed for a dowager’s hand.

  Gem-quality emeralds were more expensive than diamonds, she’d been told. She couldn’t tell if this was real, let alone its quality, but if it was…Thousands of dollars at the very least. An incredible souvenir of the shipboard romance that Jimmy said hadn’t happened.

  And the idea of a generous lover with gaudy but expensive taste was quite a stretch given that her lover supposedly had been the financially struggling Veronica the llama rancher. Billie put the ring back into its pouch.

  Ana raised her shoulders and put her palms up. “Is all I know.”

  “What if we said you just this minute found this? In, say, a dresser you were cleaning out while I was here, talking with you?” Billie asked.

  The housekeeper pursed her lips and rocked mildly on her heels, then she nodded.

  “One other thing,” Billie said. “Those notes she wanted to leave—that diary or whatever it was—has anybody found it?”

  Ana shrugged. “I tell her don’t bring that kind of problems into the house and she didn’t. Notes, what are they? Secrets, right? And her husband so jealous.” She shook her head. “Not here.”

  “Did she seem upset about not being able to keep it here?”

  Ana shook her head. “Is nothing.”

  “Did she ever talk about anything like that before?”

  “No. She never have a jerky nosy husband before, either. I know about bad husbands. That’s why I’m single now. And forever.”

  Billie put out her hand, but in mid-shake, she paused. “Congratulations on getting rid of him. I must say your ex sounds awful.”

  “Which one?”

  “Which…there were…may I ask…how many?”

  Ana rolled her eyes and grinned. “Too many! Five!”

  “You’re certainly brave.”

  Ana giggled. “I keep thinking this one is different, and he is. He’s bad in new way. You have a husband?”

  “I used to.”

  Ana nodded. “You see that ring Miss Tracy had? She was smart. Unlucky in the end, but smart then. Rings—they last, they stay the same. Men…” She shook her head, sighed, and having said her piece and then some, the interview was over, and she closed the door to the cottage by the bay.

  Thirty

  “I’m humiliated. The son of a bitch probably hasn’t been faithful for a day of our marriage. I feel…used. And what kind of fool am I that I didn’t realize it for years! Like a dumb stupid—” Jeannie Vincent, still in her tennis skirt, punctuated the air with jabs of her cigarette as she paced her living room.

  “Jeannie, hon, you’re burning the carpet,” Adrienne said.

  “Big deal. Serve him right if he has to buy new carpeting. Look what he’s been doing to me! And he has money—he has more money then he lets on. I can tell by things he says, little things he drops. Things he buys me—to celebrate, he’ll say. Disappears for three days, then buys me something. It’s no celebration, it’s a bribe! Don’t notice, Jeannie. Don’t put two and two together. Don’t make a scene.”

  She stubbed her cigarette out but continued pacing. She’d spent a lot of time in this room today, wondering how it would feel to kick him out, wondering whether he’d hire some fancy lawyer so that she’d wind up with nothing. How would she live? The thought sent her into new shudders.

  “He’s made me a laughingstock, alley-catting, ignoring me and the kids—and now, carrying on with that tramp that works for him.”

  “You don’t know that for sure,” Adrienne said.

  Jeannie wheeled around. “Are you on his side?”

  “I’m your friend! I just want you to remember that what you have are suspicions, not facts.”

  Adrienne was a good tennis player, but an idiot. Like there were other explanations for his disappearances. For that girl who’d phoned three separate times now. If there were good explanations, then why didn’t he say them? “How about he says he went to the gym and that’s why he’s home late and in different clothing but he doesn’t put workout clothes in the laundry. How about that?”

  Adrienne shook her head. It was clear she didn’t get it. No wonder Adrienne’s husband was such a jerk, she was totally dense. Why waste breath on her?

  “Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Adrienne said. “You’re going through a bad time is all. Have you seen the doctor?”

  “I’m not crazy!”

  “Did I say? I meant you seem…jittery. Your game was off, to
o.”

  “Wouldn’t yours be?”

  Adrienne shrugged. “Something for your nerves wouldn’t hurt.”

  Jeannie sat down across from Adrienne and tried to speak calmly. “That won’t change a thing.”

  “It could make you feel a whole lot—”

  “He’s cheating on me with a teenaged tramp!”

  “Men sometimes…you know, midlife crisis and—”

  “Don’t give me that crap! I don’t want to hear about how men are. You may put up with that, Adrienne, but I refuse to!”

  First Adrienne sulked, just the way Jeannie had known she would. Adrienne’s husband was a jerk, not that anybody ever said so. He was a doctor over at Marin General, a man with status in the community, so nobody mentioned what an asshole he was and how he chased anything female. He’d come on to Jeannie, his wife’s good friend, at a dinner party Adrienne had slaved over for days. A jerk. And the word was he’d been with practically every woman who worked at the hospital, or he’d tried to be. But it had never been clear whether Adrienne knew or cared, and that wasn’t a discussion Jeannie wanted to start now. This was about her own situation and nobody else’s.

  “It could be something else,” Adrienne said.

  “What? What could be?”

  “I saw this movie…”

  “Don’t give me movies—say what you meant. Something else like what?” With some difficulty—her hands were shaking on the outside now, too—she lit another cigarette. Now Adrienne was driving her crazy, too. As if she needed additional stress.

  “Something else than another woman.”

  “Women.”

  “Than sex. It could be a secret he has. Like this movie I saw—the man had these old parents he was ashamed of, and he never told his wife they were alive, but he’d go there to take care of them and—”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake!” She stood and paced again, couldn’t stay still. She itched under her skin all over. Out back, the rhododendron—the purple ones she loved so much—were in bloom. Did he want to make her give this up? Maybe that was his plan all along. “His parents are alive and fine and they live in Sebastopol. They aren’t secrets.”

  “That was an example. It could be anything. All you know is he takes trips.”

  “And never invites me on them. Why shouldn’t I go, too? You think he has aging parents all over the world?”

  “An example. Only an example.”

  She turned from the vista of lavender rhododendrons and looked at her friend. Adrienne was tiny, the sort of person with every hair in place even when she was batting a tennis ball across the net. Adrienne made her entire life have every hair in place. She didn’t look where it might be different. She didn’t look at what her husband did. She didn’t think about it, either, and she couldn’t understand what this was like. “Okay,” Jeannie demanded, “so give me another example. Another explanation. How about”—she could feel how tight her throat was becoming, pulling at its sides like she was screaming, even though she wasn’t—“how about he comes home late, way late for dinner with those filthy shoes and no gym clothes again the other day, okay?”

  “It could be a secret gardening project.”

  “I give up!” She put her hands up and ash fell on her forehead. “You’re impossible! A garden? David?”

  “Okay, but it’s been raining off and on, so there are a million muddy—”

  “Forget the shoes!”

  “Okay, then,” Adrienne said. “Don’t get angry or anything but I saw this show”—she put her hand up—“don’t tell me not to quote from shows, Jeannie. I learn things there about the world. Things you should think about.”

  “Such as?”

  “You promise not to get angry?”

  Jeannie closed her eyes and counted to ten. Then she opened them, took a deep breath and said, “Promise.” Of all the ridiculous things—how could she tell what she’d feel in advance?

  “Maybe he’s…with a man, not a woman. Maybe he has a secret life. It happens. I saw it on―”

  “Gay? You think David’s gay?” She wasn’t sure if she’d screamed the words, but she was afraid maybe she had. Her throat felt tight in a dizzying way, and it hurt. As if she was screaming and laughing and crying, too, all at the same time.

  “It happens.” Adrienne looked at her watch and stood up. “I have to get my kids.” She stopped near the door. “You don’t think…don’t get angry now—I’m thinking out loud—”

  “Stop telling me not to get angry, okay? What now? He’s a gay spy? Or what?” Thinking wasn’t something Adrienne was good at, and Jeannie wasn’t interested in her theories. All she’d ever wanted was sympathy, which seemed the last thing in the world Adrienne could provide.

  “Is it possible—have you ever thought—that David could be…I mean like he accidentally got involved in something…maybe…”

  “You’re driving me up the wall and I have a car pool so what the hell are you trying to say!” She hadn’t meant to be that loud, her voice pitched that high. But Adrienne didn’t seem to notice, she was gulping and looking like she wanted to swallow whatever she’d said.

  “Nothing. Forget it.”

  “Adrienne Pascali, you are not leaving here without saying whatever—”

  “Illegal.” She said the one word, then stood there, a tiny woman in a tennis outfit. “I’m not saying he is, just what if? Like maybe he’s protecting you by keeping his secrets.”

  Jeannie’s brain squeezed together. The top of her head prickled and she wondered if her hair was standing on end. David, a criminal? It was ridiculous, but still and all, she had wondered. The moving company didn’t seem busy enough for how they lived. David said she just didn’t understand enough, so how would she know how busy they were.

  “David isn’t a drug dealer,” she said. “He doesn’t touch drugs.”

  “I didn’t say he was. But I know he has guns, for example. He must be worried about something.”

  “Everybody has guns. I have one for my protection, so what? Because he’s away so much, which is what I’m saying!” She shook her head against all the poison Adrienne was spreading, but then she didn’t want to stop shaking it, almost couldn’t. Moving—motion—kept down the buzz inside, that loud itch, and now, her hands were shaking on their own, inside, where you couldn’t see it, inside the blood vessels, they were shaking all the time now.

  “I’m not—I didn’t say David is a drug dealer—you said—you twist everything up!”

  She touched the bracelet he’d given her, diamonds, and it felt, all of a sudden, on fire, burning her. He wasn’t a drug dealer, he was a cheat, screwing around, shaming her, disgracing her with teenaged tootsies. The bracelet was the bone he tossed her to keep her quiet. “He’s playing around,” she said. “That’s what he’s doing, that’s why he’s doing it. That’s his secret so stop making a huge deal. Next, you’ll call in the FBI. I can handle this myself. You watch.”

  “What are you…”

  “I’m not taking crap anymore. I’m not a rug for him to walk all over. I’m going to—I’m going to—”

  Adrienne put an arm on Jeannie’s shoulder. “You’re scaring me—you look so…what are you saying?”

  Jeannie could barely hear her for the roaring in her head and the pulsing in her veins. “I’ll show him,” she finally whispered. “Show them.”

  “You aren’t going to do anything scary, are you? Jeannie? Think about it. You haven’t seen anything, you’ve only heard—Maybe a wrong number is all.” She tightened her hand on Jeannie’s shoulder, and shook her just a little. “Say something! What are you going to do?”

  “Do?” She heard her voice as if it were coming from somewhere outside her head. “Do? Car pool, that’s what I’ll do.” And then she laughed, that was so funny. Really, really funny. Maybe the funniest—

  Adrienne squeezed her shoulder till it hurt.

  “Hey!”

  “You okay?”

  Jeannie stopped laughing. Nothing w
as funny anymore.

  Adrienne glanced at her watch, sighed and nodded, and together, the women walked out of the house, then separated, each into her SUV. Adrienne’s was dark blue; Jeannie’s, tan.

  For a second, Adrienne paused, her car door open, one foot already up inside the car. “Jeannie?” she asked.

  Jeannie didn’t want to talk with her anymore. There was no point. The only thing on her mind was David. He didn’t like it when she checked up on him, watched him. Tough. Adrienne thought this was all just ideas with no reality. Tough. She would prove she was right. She would make them understand what they were doing to her. And she wouldn’t ever again try to tell another human being what was going on with her because nobody understood. But they would, after they’d see. They’d know exactly how bad all this felt. She’d show them all.

  Thirty-One

  “Some sort of diary, or notes,” Billie said. “The housekeeper didn’t want them at Gavin’s house; she was afraid of the jealous husband. She thought they were about the jealous husband, in fact. I don’t think anybody’s found them.”

  Emma tapped her index finger on the desk, then caught herself and pulled her hand down and onto her lap as she saw Billie watching it. “Haven’t we wandered afield?” she asked.

  She was quite proud of the diplomacy involved in using “we” instead of the more truthful, “you.” “Aren’t we forgetting the point of this all?”

  “Isn’t the point finding out whatever will help prove that Gavin Riddock’s innocent of murder? Or okay—since even his own defense team thinks he’s guilty—isn’t the point finding whatever would help his case? Wouldn’t finding out that Tracy was involved with someone dangerous, or someone jealous, someone quite possibly murderous—”

  “And then what?”

  Billie shook her head. “I don’t know. But that ring…”

  Emma wished Billie hadn’t gone directly to Michael Specht with the jewelry, even though it was the appropriate thing to do. She wanted to have seen it herself, as if the stones would reveal their secrets to her. “Maybe it’s enough to know there is that ring even if we don’t know its origin. Of course, it could also be used against Gavin, to suggest he wanted it and killed for it.” Emma wondered if Specht was handing over the ring to the police at all. He hadn’t withheld evidence, the housekeeper had. And in fact, it was only hearsay that the ring had ever belonged to Tracy or when she’d gotten it or how it came to be with the housekeeper. Emma was sure it fell into a deep gray area that the lawyer could interpret however he liked.