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

by Gillian Roberts

  Billie felt older with each new title. She and Gavin weren’t all that far apart in age—six years, she thought—but she didn’t recognize most of the groups’ names. She skimmed the printed labels, cassettes that Gavin had bought, and concentrated on the handwritten ones, praying that Tracy and Gavin hadn’t developed a secret code so that “God’s Wrath,” which was written on one, didn’t actually mean “Here’s the information I told you about.”

  In tidy progression, she found group after group, collections of the songs of the eighties, one of whale music, even a sprinkling of classical music, handwriting that might be Tracy Lester’s, but nothing that in any way could by any stretch be a message from her.

  She was out of ideas.

  “Something is wrong?” Ana asked.

  “I thought…Gavin loves music so much…” She felt as if all the air and energy had been sucked out of her. She’d been positive a tape would be how Tracy could be sure he’d find her message, hear her out.

  Ana nodded. “All the time, that boy. Music, music. And so loud! When he listens and I am here, I make him wear the earplug thing.”

  “And this is all of it? His music?”

  Ana nodded. “I keep it nice. Everything he listen to.”

  How could she have been so wrong? She knew Ana was in a rush, wanted to go home, but she was reluctant to leave, to give it up, concede permanent defeat. And then, she either had it, or she was grabbing for her final straw. The tapes here were for listening inside the house. Ana tidied and refiled them each time in alphabetical order. But he’d said that one of the nice things about Tracy was that she’d made him mixes for running and he’d done the same for her and Billie hadn’t seen labels of tapes like that here.

  “Ana,” she asked, “one last favor: music that Gavin ran to? Are those tapes somewhere else?”

  She rolled her eyes to the heavens. “They are not for listening that way. Is for running.”

  “Yes, right. Can I see them?”

  “In the little room,” she said. “All his things.” She led Billie to a small room with a treadmill and another TV, plus a stand holding free weights. “The police took his shoes he runs in,” she said. “And Miss Billie, I have to leave. My grandson—”

  “One second. I promise.” Let it be obvious. Please. Let it be labeled in a way she understood.

  The police hadn’t been interested in the running cassettes tossed in a basket on top of the tiny chest, but Billie was. She pawed through the pile, almost feeling Ana’s impatient breath at her back. Then she herself took a deep breath, reminded herself that this was important, and went through them systematically. “Run Mix—August ’98.” “Tracy’s Run Mix—January ’98.” She saw their different handwritings now and Tracy’s was easy to distinguish. She focused on the feminine script. “Tracy’s Fave Rock Mix for Gavin,” “Tracy’s Fave Oldies for Gavin.” Half a dozen in her hand—she must have spent her life making mixes and he as well, for there were just as many that began with “Gavin’s” and ended with “for Tracy.”

  She nearly passed right over it because it looked so much like the rest. But Gavin would have found it. “Tracy for Gavin—February ’99. Just that. It looked and sounded enough like the rest to hide in clear sight. Tracy, on tape.

  “Ana, may I use the living room tape player?”

  “Miss Billie, my grandson will be on the corner all alone if I don’t—”

  Billie nodded. “Sorry,” she said. “I know how that is.” And she in fact glanced at her wrist to check the time, even though Ivan, sufficiently recuperated, was picking up Jesse from school today. “I won’t keep you any longer.”

  She put her hand back into the basket, as if to return the tape but palmed it instead and slipped it into her pocket. She wasn’t sure if Ana noticed, whether Ana would care, but she wasn’t taking any chances, and was glad the housekeeper was distracted and intent on getting Billie out of here.

  She thanked Ana, and almost raced to her car, and once in it—the housekeeper, hands on hips watching from the front door—started the engine and put in the tape.

  She realized she had gone the wrong way on Gavin’s street, when she eventually reached a barrier—the “no entry” side of Blackie’s Pasture—from which she could see the statue of the horse, the spot where Tracy had died.

  It seemed, accidentally or not, the right place to pause and listen, to hear Tracy Lester for the first time.

  “Hi, Gav,” a light, lively voice said. “I don’t know if you noticed the new tape or not yet, or if I’ve called you because I got hung up and couldn’t go to the meeting, because it might be that I have to go away for a while. But in any case, here goes. After you listen to this, would you just not do anything or tell anybody except take this to CoXistence and ask them to play it. You know how good they are at getting the newspapers interested. And you won’t get in any trouble because of it.

  “Know how I told you to never start anything you can’t stop? Well…I was right, but I started something and stopping it is making a big mess. Don’t be angry with me, Gav, but I did a very bad thing. And stopping it is really tough.”

  Someone tapped the windshield. Billie looked up, alarmed by the tape, then by the noise. “You can’t park here,” a runner said. “Fire lane. The police will tag you for a million bucks.”

  “Thanks.” She stopped the tape, missed the last sentence or two and was disoriented. She turned the car around and parked twenty feet away, on the side of the road. She could no longer see the statue of the swaybacked horse, but that was just as well. Hearing the voice of the girl who’d died at Blackie’s feet—and such an airborne voice—brought home the crime with horrible immediacy. Whatever she’d been preparing for, it wasn’t murder.

  “Remember my free trips and cruises? Well, I found out I could make a lot of money pretty easily on them, that other people I knew were doing it, by doing something I’m really ashamed of now. The travel company I work for and the moving company across the street are in this together—plus other people, too. They go to these foreign countries where they have contacts and they…they steal wild animals. Birds. Snakes. Lizards. Even insects. There are people who collect insects, Gav. Animals and animal parts, like skins or horns or the feet of elephants. They’re all creatures that aren’t allowed to be sold because they’re endangered.”

  Tracy’s voice had thickened. She cleared her throat before she went on.

  “They do it a lot of ways, but the way I did was— Remember how one time I flew home? To save time, I said? Well, it was, but only so that all the parrot eggs I had in my clothing wouldn’t hatch while I was traveling. It was special clothing with pockets hidden in the vest and the skirt. I looked like a tub, but you couldn’t tell if you didn’t know me, and it was winter, so a thick coat didn’t look all that weird.

  “If an egg had hatched, I was supposed to kill the chick. Thank goodness none of them did. I did that again, from Mexico. I’m ashamed, but I did it. And on the boat, there were turtles in the cargo, packed in a box like a row of books might be. They die. Most of the animals die.

  “They call what I was being a ‘mule.’ Funny that it has an animal’s name, isn’t it? I did it four times, and then…Now I can’t stop thinking about the animals, and what I did. I thought I needed money so I could leave Robby but…I didn’t. I just liked…well, you know me.

  “I bought a ring in South America with the money I’d made, so that Robby wouldn’t know. I figured to sell it later on. And then you were talking about CoXistence, about saving things, and I knew what I’d done and I couldn’t stand me anymore, so I joined, remember? I don’t blame you if you hate me, Gav, but please try not to.

  “Joining groups wasn’t enough. Too slow. Too indirect to make up for what I did. The only thing is to stop those people, which means I have to confess what I did and tell what I know and maybe go to jail.

  “These people act like once you’ve been a mule you’re part of them forever. That’s why I’m leaving my job. It
got creepy when I said I wouldn’t do it ever again. I promised to never say a word to anybody, but Jimmy…he’s who got me involved first off. He’s a nice guy even though he does those terrible things. He wants to stop, too, but he’s too afraid of the boss, this man, David Vincent. Vincent owns Moving On and, I think, some of the travel company, too. That way he uses the trips and then his vans and everything to move these animals around and nobody suspects. I’m afraid of him, too. He made me come into his office one day and said if I didn’t keep doing it, then they wouldn’t trust me and if they didn’t trust me, they’d have to take action.

  “So I started something I can’t stop, and I’m trapped, but I’d rather face jail than David Vincent’s ‘action,’ so I called the Fish and Wildlife Agency. I’m going up to Sacramento to talk to their agents. If I’m not back in time to go myself, take this tape to the CoXistence meeting. This is my safety net, my insurance policy. I told David Vincent that I’d hidden proof of what they did somewhere, and it would go public if anything happened to me, so there’s no point in his hurting me, but all the same, I might have to stay out of town for a while.

  “And please, Gavin. Try not to hate me.”

  Billie sighed and put her finger on the rewind button, but heard Tracy’s voice once again. “I forgot—there’s another copy of this tape in your tuxedo shoes at the back of your closet. And one other thought: just in case—I mean nothing bad’s going to happen, but just in case—Ana has the ring. Please give it to Veronica. She needs money for the ranch. But don’t worry, nothing’s going to happen to me. And thanks, buddy. I love you!”

  It was horrible and sad and Tracy had been tragically wrong about being safe. But, everything now fell into place. The proof the caller wanted. The ring. The mysterious cruise. The groups she joined and quit. The fear.

  The name of the killer.

  Billie took out her phone and called the office. “Zack?” she asked. “Let me talk to Emma.”

  “Not here. Meeting that Wilson girl.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I guess it can wait.” But she wasn’t sure she could. “Hang on! Where is the Wilson girl? I’m in Tiburon—isn’t she around here?”

  “Right next to you in Sausalito. You want the address?”

  “Sure, I’m five minutes away.”

  She’d tell her in person. She couldn’t wait to see Emma’s expression.

  She’d done it. Solved it. Found the evidence. Billie the kid had cracked the case.

  God, but she felt brilliant. The old witch would have to be impressed. That’s all Billie wanted. That one moment of recognition. Of amazement. Of admiration.

  And then—Gavin. She’d kept her promise. To her amazement and delight, she’d found the person who knew that Gavin hadn’t killed Tracy. The person who also knew who had, and why.

  Ironic. In the end, Tracy would remain Gavin’s best friend, and it would be her voice that testified on his behalf.

  Billie looked at the address Zack had given her. She’d written it in a shaky, overexcited hand, but she made out the numbers and headed toward the freeway.

  Thirty-Seven

  Mid-afternoon, Friday. Still time, and southbound traffic wasn’t bad at this hour. It was the return to San Rafael in the Friday escape-the-city rush that would do her in, but Emma wanted this over and done. The Wilsons made her head hurt and by the time she’d left Kay-Caitlin, she felt as if her muscles had dissolved and there was nothing left to hold up her bones.

  “What will you do now?” the woman had demanded.

  “See my client,” Emma said. “I owe her what she came for. The truth.”

  She’d never take on another birth-mother search. Even when they weren’t this filled with evasions, detours, and sad stories, they were too often futile and depressing. No more.

  Right now, if she had her way, she’d never take another case or another client. The business of digging through lies had gone stale and ashy. Time to sit back and watch the world go by and not wonder at its motives or what it was hiding.

  Traffic south was heavier than she’d anticipated and several times she decided to pull off the freeway and go home. Pour herself anything that would blur the edge of this feeling, a frightening feeling she couldn’t remember having before. Aside from the waves of fatigue, a counter force—jittery, quivering anxiety—pulsed through her. And inexplicable anger, too.

  Where was this coming from?

  It had to be Kay Wilson, trying to make Emma feel guilty about doing the right thing. Sure, her story was sad, but sad didn’t alter reality. It didn’t matter why she’d lied. It didn’t matter what excuses she had. It mattered that she’d wasted hours of Emma’s life for her face-saving, so that nobody would know who she really was.

  As if all of us were no more than rubber stamps of our family. Kay Wilson wasn’t her mother or father or murderous sister. She was herself, the day-to-day woman she’d become, and nothing could change that. People weren’t show dogs, with pedigrees that determined their worth. Why didn’t she understand that?

  Why obsess about what other people think of you when in fact, other people don’t think about you in the first place?

  What if people simply accepted the truth and lived with it? Look at the Riddocks, look at the misery and ill will Riddock Senior set up with his belligerent attempts to bend the truth, not be who he was, which was the father of a brain-damaged child. That was big-time lying, different only in scope and expense account. So he’d sued and driven doctors out of practice and so what? It didn’t change one iota of reality except to make people recoil when they heard Gavin’s name, make things worse for him.

  Caitlin Wilson had taken a quieter, stealthier path, adopting new identities, changing her story as it evolved, living a long lie and passing it on to her niece, who would have been long since finished with the story had it only been given to her as truth, right away. But her mother, the woman who raised her, who still had to save face, had made her life harder and ultimately more painful because of lies.

  And she’d made Emma’s life more painful, too, because Emma, a woman not given to headaches, had a searing, screaming one. She had to find coffee before she faced Heather. Sit quietly, take aspirin, drink caffeine, and get her head back in shape.

  She pulled off the freeway onto Bridgeway. The traffic was appreciably worse; stop and start along the road of restaurants, shops, and small hotels. Tourists no longer seemed to have a season, just a constant presence, she thought as she watched a ferryboat load of them pour out onto the sidewalks and streets, further slowing traffic while she waited, her head burning as if she were wearing a spike-lined helmet. Her brain alternated between pulses of pain and echoes of Kay Wilson’s explanation, until the pain and her story mixed into one intolerable vise.

  And then, as she stopped at a crosswalk filled with slow-moving outlanders, she registered her furious thoughts and was further confused. Why was she acting like an outraged ingénue because people didn’t tell the truth? If Emma knew anything, she knew that. In fact, if human nature were to change and everyone became straightforward, Emma would be out of business. Her livelihood depended on the duplicity of strangers.

  She wasn’t angry because people lied, but because Kay Wilson, in her flat and undramatic way, had undermined everything that held Emma up, drilled holes in all of Emma’s supports. She had somehow made it obvious that Emma Howe, missionary of truth-telling, was the worst kind of liar because she lied to herself.

  “The truth is what’s important,” she’d insisted to her own daughter, although Caroline couldn’t look real life in the face and insisted she was that way from an overdose of truth when softening its edges might have been both kinder and wiser.

  Caroline’s words pursued her, stuck to the back of her neck, bit at the sore places in her brain. “What would it have hurt if you’d spared us the details of what a bastard my father was?”

  Which he was. A charming and lovable bastard, but one all the same. That was the truth. What she’d said
was the truth.

  Now she wasn’t sure why it had felt vital to let her children know precisely how worthless he’d been, how he’d died bare-assed in a motel with a sleazy pickup. How he’d gambled away their money. How he had zero sense of responsibility, of his role as protector and provider for his children, as husband to his wife.

  She’d wanted her children to be free of illusions and delusions. Wanted them to know how life was, so they could cope.

  She’d told the truth.

  Her head pounded.

  But the real truth was that there were lots of truths and she’d only told the one that suited her then, the one she could see from her furious, hurt, and frightened position.

  She hadn’t mentioned Harry Howe’s infinite charm, his cleverness, or how he played the guitar and sang, or how dizzy in love she’d been in the beginning.

  She hadn’t mentioned lots of truths about her dead husband.

  Her headache enlarged, reddened. She was afraid she was having a stroke. Finally, her head seconds from detonating, she found a parking space, two blocks down and halfway up the steep hill above Bridgeway.

  She had to regroup. Difficult enough facing Heather, but with this headache and worse, this thrumming anxious, angry exhaustion, it would be impossible.

  Time out. Time to get back to herself, to be Emma again.

  If she could find her. Because that Emma was dissolving into a fog with no hard edges, sometimes called the truth.

  Thirty-Eight

  “For my protection,” Jeannie Vincent muttered, patting her pocketbook and pressing it to her heart. That’s why she had it. He’d said so.

  She’d come to see with her own eyes, to find out, and she’d seen, all right. But she had never, ever thought she’d see that much in the middle of a day on a street in Sausalito.

  They were animals. Like they could do whatever they wanted to do wherever they wanted to. Right in front of the window for the world to see.

  At least now she knew for sure. Wife knows last, wasn’t that how it went? But now she could protect herself. She knew.