by Nancy Bush
“Did he say something, or do something, that gave you that idea?”
“Not really. Not that night. Everything seemed okay again, but then the next morning he was brusque. Distracted.”
“Did something happen?”
She thought about it and shook her head. “No.”
“Anything at all. Maybe something that didn’t have anything to do with you. He came home upset with Renee, and you had a fight,” I repeated.
“More like a spat. A couple of comments and that was it,” she corrected.
“Then you went to bed together and you thought everything was all right.”
She nodded.
“Then what happened?”
“He just woke up on the wrong side of the bed. The phone started ringing. All that wedding stuff started. He didn’t want to get in the tux. I actually laid it on the bed for him but he was so touchy. You know, being the supportive girlfriend behind the scenes isn’t my forte,” Violet remarked candidly. “But I was doing a hell of a job.”
“So, then…?”
“We got dressed and went downstairs. I was getting ready to go home and leave him to it, but Roland hadn’t put his coat on. He was in the pants and shirt, and he was…oh, I don’t know…a pain in the ass, if you want to know the truth. He wouldn’t talk. He wouldn’t say what was wrong. I tried to be all fun and bubbly and act like I didn’t notice. I joked that he could call me at the reception and maybe I could sneak in for a while, and he about bit my head off. I was getting fed up by this time.”
“What time was it?”
Violet shrugged. “Ten-thirty? Eleven? I don’t know. It was early. Roland was supposed to be at the Cahill Winery for pictures at two. He was going to leave around one. I told all this to the police.”
“I’m just trying to get the timeline down for myself. So, what happened between you and him between eleven and one?”
“Nothing. We stopped talking. He’d made a toast to Gigi the night before, apparently, and he was planning to say something more at the reception. He said he wanted to go finish writing his speech, and he walked outside to the garden beyond the solarium. I stayed in the kitchen, but I kind of kept peeking at him. His back was to me. He was on the phone. There wasn’t a lot of writing going on.”
“You know who he was talking to?”
“No. But I heard him say something about Melinda. I was really trying to eavesdrop but he caught me, and that’s when we really started fighting. I wanted to know what he’d said about Melinda. At first he wouldn’t answer. Told me it was none of my business, to which I said, ‘Oh no. I have a stake in this!’ and I demanded to know what was going on with him and Melinda.” She looked down at the ground and I saw color creep up her neck. Violet was usually in such perfect control that it sent a frisson down my spine. “We said some pretty terrible things to each other,” she admitted. “Things I wish I could take back. Roland was absolutely furious. He grabbed my shoulders and pushed me up against the wall. I couldn’t believe it! He told me to stay out of his business. Said he had things to work out with Melinda. Said he’d misjudged her. But he was roaring this at me! Shaking me.” The memory brought tears to Violet’s eyes, which she dashed away in fury. “The tray was right there. On that Asian buffet in the hallway. I grabbed it and slammed it against his head.” She pressed her knuckles to her lips and said around them, “I hurt him, but it wasn’t half as much as he hurt me. He grabbed his head and yelled at me to get the fuck out of his house. So I left.”
Her narrative cut off abruptly. We stood quietly, listening to the rain. After a moment I stirred myself. “What time was that?”
“Noon, maybe?”
“How much of this did you tell the police?”
“As little as possible. I said I’d stopped by in the morning, that we had a fight about the fact I wasn’t invited to the wedding.” Her lips pulled into a bitter smile. “I can’t believe we were breaking up over Melinda.”
“But she knew about you and Roland.”
“Suspected, not knew,” Violet corrected.
“Maybe that’s motive enough,” I suggested.
“Who? Melinda? No way. Melinda would never kill Roland. He was her meal ticket.”
“She doesn’t act like it.”
“She had a chance to come out okay in a divorce settlement, but death? Uh-uh. The estate went to Gigi and Sean, almost entirely. She signed a prenup. Roland said so. Besides, she was at the wedding when he died, wasn’t she? As much as I’d love to blame this on Melinda, I don’t see how she could be in two places at the same time.”
I nodded. The same thoughts had occurred to me. Like Larrabee suggested, I kept trying to think up some other motive for Roland’s death.
“Well, who else, then?” I asked Violet.
She shrugged. “Some disgruntled patient?”
“But he was talking about Melinda on the phone.”
“Talking about her…I don’t know. Her name was mentioned, that’s all. And he said something like ‘your day’ll come’ or ‘you’ve got it coming’ or ‘today’s the day.’” Violet made a dismissive gesture. “Maybe he was talking about the wedding, and I got it screwed up.”
“It sounds like a threat.”
“Maybe,” she said, cocking her head as if she was thinking that over.
Watching her, I recalled Melinda’s comment about how I should look into Violet’s past. I’d dismissed it, mostly because I knew the basics of Violet’s history. I’d thought Melinda was just being snarky. But could something else have cropped up? Something about Violet that she still wasn’t willing to share? And could this all be an act? A means to push me in another direction?
“And afterward, that’s when things got physical,” I said.
“We’d never fought like that before,” she said. “I was stunned when he shoved me against the wall. It just wasn’t like him.” She searched through her purse for her keys. “It’s just depressing to go over this. I really thought Roland and I had a chance. I wanted to remarry him. It sounds ridiculous now, but I fell in love with him. When we got married the first time, I don’t know…I didn’t really feel that way about him. I liked him. Sure. He was nice to me and I wanted out of L.A. I was not thrilled about his kids, and they were not thrilled about me, but it wasn’t terrible. I even helped Gigi with birth control when she needed it. At fourteen! Trust me, that girl would have been pregnant before she hit high school if I hadn’t intervened. And the drugs and alcohol? Roland may have had his problems, but drug abuse runs in that family. Look at Sean, and Gigi sure took her turn around that block when she was younger. So Roland and I split up. Too many forces dragging us down back then.” She shook her head at the irony of it all. “But now was our time. It was just us. Somebody killed him, Jane, but it wasn’t me.”
For the first time I thought Violet looked her age. Every minute of it.
“Okay,” I said after a long moment.
She gazed at me uncertainly.
“I get that you loved him.”
Violet exhaled as if she’d been holding her breath for eons. “The Dwayne thing got in the way of you believing me before.”
That was true, but I didn’t feel like confirming it.
“Maybe it was those Wedding Bandits,” she said. “Maybe they came to rob the place after I left, but Roland was still there and got in the way. Maybe…they hit him with something, too?”
My skin rippled as if a cold breeze swept over me. Maybe she was trying to lead me in another direction.
Something niggled at my brain. Another thought that swam just out of reach. I tried hard to catch it, but it seemed to leap away at the last moment, a teasing sprite I was going to have to ignore for now and hope it would draw near enough some time in the future for me to grab.
A different issue occurred to me. “You didn’t go to the memorial service?”
Violet was opening her driver’s door. “Oh, I went, though I know they all wished I wouldn’t. I came late and stayed toward the
back, but it wasn’t really the way I wanted to say good-bye, so I left early.” She looked at me over the roof of her car, her smile ironic. “I drank a toast to him by myself. To what might have been.”
I nodded.
“Jane?”
“Yeah?”
“Find who killed him. Please.”
I nodded again and climbed in my Volvo. As I drove toward the parking lot exit I watched her in my rearview mirror. She took a long time to thread her key in the lock. Sometimes it’s weird how people age in an instant. Vitality one moment and then poof. Father Time swings his scythe and hourglass and knocks them hard on the head.
I thought maybe it was a good thing she’d damn near bought out The Face.
CHAPTER TEN
I drove straight to Dwayne’s and we stood side by side just inside the sliding glass door to his dock. The slider was tightly shut for once, as the rain continued unabated. Balanced lightly on his crutches, his binoculars hanging from one hand, Dwayne silently watched the deluge while I recounted the gist of my latest interview with Violet.
When I was finished he digested the information for a bit, then said, “So, now what do you think about our client?”
“She’s been lying to us. Okay, omitting. Amounts to the same thing.”
“Think you squeezed her dry?”
“Pretty damn close.”
Dwayne nodded thoughtfully. I waited for further instructions, but he just kept staring out at the weather. I was feeling frustrated and stymied all over again and asked myself once more if I was really cut out for this business.
“Who do you think called Roland that morning?” Dwayne asked finally.
“Someone involved in the wedding?”
“Roland was talking about Melinda during the call, so it wasn’t her. When you talked to Gigi, did she say she’d called him?”
“No…she must have been having mimosas about that time, and getting her hair and makeup done,” I recalled. “With Deenie and Melinda.”
“Doesn’t sound like she’d take a break to call dear old dad,” Dwayne said. “It was after the phone call, or calls, that Roland was upset.”
“Yes, but Violet said he was distracted and they were having trouble the night before, too.”
“But not like after the phone calls. That’s when things got physical.”
“True.”
“Somebody set him off. Whoever called Roland gave him some information that sent him over the edge, enough for him to push Violet against the wall.”
“Do you think he was mad at Violet?” I asked. “Or he was just enraged and she was there to take the brunt?”
“Could be either. We know that after Roland talked on the phone he and Violet got into a fight, and she hit him with the first available object, the silver tray.”
“She says it was the first time they fought physically.” When Dwayne didn’t immediately respond, I asked, “You’re not convinced Violet’s telling the truth anymore?”
“I don’t think she killed Roland, but I don’t think she’s giving us the complete truth, either. Was Roland going back to Melinda? Was he breaking up with Violet? Were he and Violet getting back together? There’s no way of knowing. I’m not even sure Violet really knows. We’ve got to stick with the facts. And the fact is Roland took at least one call that precipitated the fight with Violet.”
“Roland’s cell phone,” I said suddenly. “The police must have confiscated it. You think Larrabee might tell us about those calls?”
“Not unless it suits his purposes.”
“What do you think we should do?”
“Stir things up.”
“Okay.” I waited. “How?”
“When you interviewed Melinda she asked you to keep her informed if the investigation led away from Violet,” Dwayne reminded me. “Go ahead and do that. Tell her you’re certain of Violet’s innocence and you’re looking in other directions. Maybe she’ll tell you what she was hinting at before.”
“Good idea.”
“Tell Gigi and Emmett the same thing. Have you called Emmett’s parents? Maybe it’s time to check with them. I’ll give Larrabee another call and push him.”
I was thrilled Dwayne’s brain was humming along. This was what I’d missed while he’d been recuperating. I could have shouted my joy to the skies.
“And the plastic surgery partner?”
“Dr. Wu.”
“Damn convenient that he’s out of the country right now,” Dwayne muttered. “Go to one of the clinics. See what they’re about.”
“Oh yeah, sure. That’ll be easy. Roland sold that business,” I reminded him.
“Money’s a big motive for murder.”
“Melinda thought there was something fishy about the business sale, but she really doesn’t have much nice to say about anyone or anything.”
Dwayne snorted. “Do any of them?”
“Not really.”
“What about after Thursday’s game?” he asked suddenly. “Are you planning to meet Dawn?”
“Thursday?” I repeated, before I remembered that we were approaching Veterans Day, one of those holiday weekends that sometimes include a teacher in-service day, or whatever they call them now. “The game’s on Thursday?” Dwayne nodded. “You seriously think they’ll meet at Do Not Enter after last week’s fiasco?”
“Maybe not. But it’s like their clubhouse.”
I drew a breath, gazing across the bay. I let my eye travel along the shoreline. “I should return Social Security’s canoe,” I admitted.
The house where I’d docked was nearly out of sight from Dwayne’s, tucked into a slight bend as far west as I could see. I took the binoculars from Dwayne’s hand and adjusted them. I could just see the end of the canoe, peeking from beneath the shelter of the boat-port. Through the rain I could see it was a faded red, its tags barely visible. If I didn’t move it back, someone might eventually discover it and learn it was registered with the Lake Corporation, so its ownership would be established. But how long would it take for someone to find it? It wasn’t like there was a lot of bustling activity over there. I was doomed to take it back.
“Could it just stop raining?” I muttered.
Dwayne snorted in agreement.
Binkster greeted me at the door when I returned, wriggling around my legs excitedly, as if she hadn’t seen me in a decade. I had stopped at the market and purchased several sacks of essential foods. I’d even gone so far as to buy hamburger, half price, a few days old, and had visions of spaghetti or lasagna or something. I was pretty sure I could stir in tomato sauce and pour it over pasta. Hefting my brown bags on the counter, I bent down to scratch Binkster’s ears, which earned me a long, happy inhalation that sounded like a train rumbling over tracks.
“Guess what?” I told her, to which she cocked her head from side to side. “I bought groceries!”
She wagged her tail slowly, clearly trying to assess the importance of my words. Dogs apparently have about two hundred words they understand. Treat, mochi, walk, she gets. Groceries, apparently not.
Note to self: increase dog’s vocabulary.
I put a call into Melinda’s cell, wondering if she would pick up or dismiss me as quickly as she had the caller who’d phoned the day I’d interviewed her. I got her voice mail fairly quickly, so I left a message, telling her that it appeared the Wedding Bandits were more at fault than originally thought. I added that she’d asked if I would let her know if the investigation was turning away from Violet, so I was following through, just letting her know. I topped off the lie about the Wedding Bandits by saying I’d talked with the police and though they hadn’t come right out and said so, they, too, were concentrating on the Wedding Bandits instead of Violet.
I called Gigi and Emmett with about the same message, and then I tried the number for the Popparockskills, but David and Goliath also weren’t answering. I left my name and contact information with them, then Renee once more, just for the hell of it, since she seemed to have dropped
off the planet. Finally, I gave Deenie another jingle, reaching her voice mail. Then I took my dog for a walk in the rain.
As I was returning, I saw Mr. Ogilvy’s blue pickup truck in my drive and my heart sank. Now what?
The side door to the garage was open, to my surprise. I’d never really seen inside and since this could be my one and only opportunity, I hurried to the open door and peered in. Binkster pulled at the leash for all she was worth, but I held her tight. She shook water from her coat and whined at the door while I stared past her at a huge pile of old, dispirited furniture, rotting trunks, boxes of files seemingly marked from the beginning of time, some bicycle tires and various and sundry other stuff. Above my head were several planks laid over the open rafters, and on those planks were more boxes.
“Jane?” Ogilvy called, straightening up from a dim back corner. The guy had a shock of gray hair and about the blackest, bushiest eyebrows around. He could give Scorsese a run for his money.
“You’re starting to clear this out?” I asked, looking at the pile of old toys, circa mid-seventies, early eighties. Fisher-Price scored big. Lots of little, cylindrical people wearing big smiles. There were also a couple of yellow, red and blue Big Wheels, molded-plastic vehicles with pedals.
“Garage sale,” he stated. “This Saturday.”
We were practically shouting at each other to be heard above the rain as it pounded on the roof. I had a picture of would-be “garage-salers” blocking my driveway and trying to involve me in their purchases.
“You want anything, you can have it,” he added generously. “Better tag it or get it outta here quick.”
I want my cottage, I thought. Binkster snuffled on the ground, eye to eye with a group of displaced centipedes disturbed by Ogilvy. They gave me the willies as they moved like a wave to the nearest group of Fisher-Price people lying on their sides, having been tossed out of their faded Fisher-Price home.
I feel for you, I told them silently as I pulled Binks away from the centipedes. Aren’t they supposed to be poisonous? Or is that something I learned from a video game that has no merit? Whatever—they’re creepy. I had a picture of myself pulling one out of Binkster’s mouth and it gave me the heebie-jeebies.
