“Chloe,” I said, “you run the communications department. Didn’t you know Morton was out of town that weekend? And what about Franklin? He’s supposed to be working for you.”
“I don’t bother with the newsletter,” she said. “Franklin writes it and Morton checks it through. Sometimes I manage to avoid reading it altogether. But Jake, just because Morton says it’s so doesn’t mean it is. And the newsletter story might not be— quite accurate.”
“That’s true. Is there any way for you to check it out?”
“Yes. I’ll call some people in Santa Cruz with some excuse or other.” She looked sad.
“Sorry to bring you such depressing news.”
“Well, hell… I have to do some things to our dinner, now.”
“Anything I can do?”
“No, it’s all under control. Want to read some of that correspondence while I cook?”
I nodded and she handed me a stack of paper that had been sitting on the bookshelf. She left the room. I began thumbing through the letters. Most of them were addressed to admirals and commodores, a few to captains. Most of it was congratulatory— keep up the good work, numero uno— or threatening— shape up or ship out, commodore. Pretty boring. I read through maybe half of it, put it aside in two neat piles, and strolled out to the kitchen. Chloe had just finished putting chicken, broccoli, and parsley potatoes on two plates. I picked up the plates and carried them to the table in the living room. She followed me with more wine and a bowl of salad. She lit the candles and switched off the standard lamp.
I poured out two more glasses of wine and held up my glass. “To a pleasant evening.” We touched glasses, smiled at each other, and began to eat.
“Good chicken,” I said.
“Tarragon.” She helped herself to salad.
“I got through about half the letters.”
“Good. Have some salad. Find anything?”
“Not yet.”
“Are you clear on the hierarchy, the levels?”
“Reasonably. But what’s with the navy stuff?”
She laughed. “Multilevel companies tend to model their hierarchies on something traditional. The army, the navy, even British aristocracy. Anything with status and a sense of power.”
“Any archbishops?”
“Not that I’ve heard of. No rabbis, either.”
“Have you read any of Morton’s correspondence?”
“No. That’s for you to do. My department’s clean— more or less— and I want to keep it that way.”
We took the plates out to the kitchen, where dessert waited in the oven. Baked apples. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten a baked apple. She’d made real whipped cream, too. We sat in the chairs near the fire to eat them, and when we’d finished, I offered to do the dishes. No, she said, the dishwasher would do that. So I went back to my reading while she filled the machine.
In a few minutes, she returned to the living room and lay down on the couch with a book. Another half an hour and I’d finished. Morton was a careful man. The way some of the letters read, there was more between the lines than on them, but with the possible exception of one letter, there wasn’t much to go on. It was addressed to the captain of Los Angeles and it referred by name to a commander who was causing some kind of trouble about a “fee” that was due “with reference to” a new lieutenant, who was also named. I folded the letter and put it in my pocket. Then I put the rest of the correspondence back on the bookshelf.
Chloe glanced at me. “Finished?”
I nodded.
“What do you think?”
“Could be.”
She sat up at one end of the couch and I joined her. “You could still lose your job, you know,” I said. “If there’s an investigation, and if anything comes of it, the company might not survive.”
“I know,” she sighed. “But I could lose it anyway. Morton’s never been too crazy about me, and now— it’s a gamble, but a job’s just a job. I’ve had a lot of those.”
“Tell me about that. What it’s been like for you.”
“You want to hear my life story?”
“Yes.”
“Especially the parts with Smith in them?”
“Those too.”
At some point while I’d been reading, she had made the Grand Marnier appear magically on the table, along with two liqueur glasses. She got up, put another chunk of wood on the fire, and poured our drinks. When she brought them back to the couch, she sat closer to me.
“Friendship,” I said, raising my glass.
“Friendship,” she repeated, smiling softly. When she smiled that way, the crease between her eyebrows smoothed out and the sardonic lines at the corners of her mouth deepened into something happier. The firelight took the chill off a face that reflected a complicated life and a loss of faith. At that moment, I felt a kind of love for Chloe. What Iris and I had was good in its way, but she kept her emotional distance, so we managed to avoid the real closeness that carries the threat of loss. There was nothing cool, that night anyway, about Chloe.
“Samson, what is it about you?”
“What? What about me?”
“You look at me with those big blue eyes, run your fingers through your graying yellow curls, and I want to beat you to death with my life as a woman. Maybe it’s because you look so vulnerable. For a man.” I leaned over and kissed her gently. She responded, briefly, then moved a few inches farther away.
“Once upon a time,” she said, “there was a bright, ambitious, eager young woman. College editor. Crusader. Star. But she made a big mistake. She graduated. Out into the ugly, real world. A home-sick kid five hundred miles from home. Like the song, you know? I used to sing it sometimes. Learning about life and love and pain and everything all at once.” She smiled wryly. “Nothing was like it was supposed to be. The job I thought I’d prepared myself to do, wanted to do, was a Rosalind Russell movie. The job I was doing was an existential nightmare. I hated it. When the stories weren’t stupid or senseless, they were painful. I was a ‘girl reporter.’ I begged for decent assignments but when I got them I seized up, paralyzed. I drank too much and I went to bed with too many men and I shattered, like the little porcelain receptacle I was.”
“Where was this?”
“Chicago.”
“Where was home?”
“Wisconsin.”
“Couldn’t you have worked there?”
“Sure. On what they used to call the Women’s Pages.”
“So you went to Chicago.”
“They offered me a job. Wire service. I took it. I don’t know why. Come to think of it, I don’t know why I came to California.”
“Because you got a job here.” I poured some more Grand Marnier.
“Oh yes, that’s right. I guess you know my life story, after all.”
“Not enough of it.”
“You have a nice, strong nose. Tell me about your life now.”
“Thank you. My nose goes with my blue eyes and yellow curls. We can talk about me another time. I want to hear more about you. What happened next?”
“I left the wire service and started drifting. You want words? I do words. Public relations, magazines, textbooks. Then I ran out of luck. You can only drift for so long before you become what is known as unemployable.”
“So, being unemployable, you went to work for Bright Future.”
“Correct. But when they started making plans to move, I decided not to move with them.”
“Because you didn’t like the job, or the company, or the management?”
“Does it sound like I liked any of my jobs? Temperamentally unsuited to corporate life. Or just a little too crazy for it. Or too sane. And of course, even after the move, Smith would be my boss. I couldn’t see moving all the way to California to keep on working for an asshole. I decided to write poetry, instead.”
“Speaking of working for an asshole, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you about. The Bright Future faculty. The
y worked with Smith. Did any of them have any problems with him?”
“Wrong tree, bloodhound. They all date back to Chicago days. The only one who doesn’t still live back there is an old woman who retired to Arizona five years ago.”
Well, I thought, it was just an idea, anyway.
“So,” I said, “you didn’t want to move to California to keep working for an asshole. But you’re here.”
“I changed my mind. It turned out I was also temperamentally unsuited to starvation. And Chicago’s not a comfortable place to be poor in. I wrote Bowen a letter. He rehired me. Smith wasn’t happy about it, but he went along with Bowen.”
“So you never got along with Smith?”
“We got along. He made it clear I belonged in someone’s kitchen, and I could barely stand the sight of him, but we got along. And you’re not Sam Spade. You’re a cop, and now that you know I had a motive, you’re going to arrest me for murder, right?”
“No. I work for the attorney general’s office and I’m going to arrest you for fraud.”
“Good,” she said cheerfully. “Fraud has more class.” We had gotten to the point where a good dinner, good wine, and romantic firelight were combining to make us both feel attractive, witty, and compatible. Maybe there was a touch of adolescent memory in my attraction to her, but it was her real presence as Chloe that was doing me in.
It was all Iris’s fault. If she were more reliable, I wouldn’t have to travel all over the place chasing women. My stepmother was right.
“That’s a look of speculation, Jake.”
“The trouble with mature women is that they can pick up the subtlest look, the tiniest nuance. But the look is not one of speculation. It is a simple, honest look of lust.”
“That’s the trouble with mature men. High expectations. I suppose you think I invited you out here because I wanted to go to bed with you.”
I shook my head. “Never occurred to me. This was a business dinner. Purely informational.”
“That may be. But dinner is over.”
28
I didn’t get back to Mill Valley until the following afternoon. Chloe called in late and we spent the morning making love, before and after an omelet I threw together from some odds and ends including leftover chicken, jack cheese, and mushrooms. Chloe was as impressed with my cooking as I had been with hers.
By noon, she was getting anxious to replace the correspondence she’d lifted, minus the letter I was keeping. I borrowed an envelope, a stamp, and a piece of notepaper, scribbled a note to Hal, sealed it up with the Morton letter, and stuck it in my pocket, ready to mail.
We said goodbye with the promise to be in touch by the weekend, sooner if Morton discovered she’d been messing with his files.
On my way into Mill Valley, I dropped the letter in a box. Then I found a phone booth and, shuffling through the accumulation of business and personal cards in my wallet, extracted the purple one Bunny had given me the first time I’d visited the Smith house. The phone number was not the same one I had for Mrs. Smith. After three rings I got a recorded message.
“Hey, this is Barbara.” Thump thump thump went the new wave music, fade back and voice over. “And you’ve probably guessed I’m not home.” Thump thump thump, fade back. “But I don’t know where I am so I can’t tell you, right? So you tell me where you are, and who you are, and maybe I’ll call you when I get back from wherever I am.” Thump thump beep. I left my name and Artie’s phone number, figuring someone would probably be around there if Bunny should actually play back her tape and decide to call. Then I phoned Artie’s house and warned Julia that she might get a strange call for me. I had this vision of messages going back and forth in space between me and Bunny for days. Maybe if I just parked in front of her house, she’d appear as she had each time before.
Rosie was working on the steps. She’d replaced one section of a stringer and was nailing redwood treadboards to it. There was a gap of about six steps, so I stopped.
“Glad I caught you, Jacob.”
“Certainly did,” I agreed, looking at the open stringers with mud behind them.
“You can crawl up the side. Listen, you’ve got to do me a favor.”
“Okay.”
“I’ve gotten myself stuck with an evening with Carlota and Nona. Dinner and a showing of Carlota’s films.”
“Poor baby.”
“Yes. And I can’t stand the thought of doing it all alone. Please?”
“Oh, shit, Rosie. You want me to be your date or something?”
“Something. Please, Jake. At least, if you’re there, it will be bearable.”
“Tonight?” I sighed.
“Tonight.”
“What time?”
“You’re a true friend. Six-thirty. The films are at eight-thirty.”
“Lovely.”
I grabbed hold of the railing and hoisted myself up along the stringer until I got to real steps again. Then I went to my room, locked the door behind me, and went to sleep.
29
Rosie came to get me at six-thirty and we descended together to Carlota’s. Nona let us in— we knocked, we didn’t use the gong— and offered us martinis.
“Got any beer?” Rosie asked. Nona scowled.
“Me, too,” I said. Nona shrugged.
Carlota was draped across the grand piano, martini in one hand, cigarette in the other, martini pitcher at her elbow. She was wearing a black velvet lounging outfit, the tunic top cut low front and back, the pants tucked into the tops of some knee-high black glove leather boots. Very fetching. Nona was dressed in a baggy white suit that looked like something Peter Lorre might have worn in some steamy tropical movie, and a flowing red cravat.
Rosie and I were pretty dressed up, for us. I was wearing cords, and turtleneck, and a tweed jacket. Rosie was wearing an outfit similar to mine.
“How kind of you to come, Jacob,” Carlota said.
“Kind of you to ask me, Carlota.” She hadn’t, but that was okay.
“Yes. Well,” she waved airily, “sit down, please. Dinner will be a while. I hope you both like stroganoff.”
Nona came out of the kitchen carrying a tray in each hand, one with our steins of beer, the other with hors d’oeuvres. She looked like a butler. Rosie and I had seated ourselves on the love-seat. Nona set both trays down on the coffee table in front of us.
“Do try the canapés,” Carlota said. I picked one of the small toast rounds off the tray. Melted cheese with an anchovy embedded in it. Some kind of herb, too. I liked it. Rosie didn’t take any. She hates anchovies.
“Aren’t they lovely?” Carlota asked. “They’re one of Nona’s specialties.” Nona had retired again to the kitchen. Carlota had maneuvered herself onto the piano stool. “Would you like to hear something?”
We both said yes. I wondered if Rosie felt as trapped as I did. Carlota began clomping her way through an exercise in cacophony that seemed to consist mostly of jarring starts after patternless pauses.
Rosie leaned close to my ear. “I think I’ve got a lead to someone who might know where Andy was, or at least where he wasn’t, when Smith was killed. I should know for sure in a couple of days.”
I nodded, downing another appetizer. I hadn’t eaten, after all, since about eleven.
“I haven’t had a chance to tell you,” I said. “It looks like Morton has an alibi.”
Rosie made a face. She wasn’t happy.
Carlota kept banging away, with much head-jerking. She didn’t seem to notice our half-whispered conversation. In the relatively quiet parts of the piece, I gave Rosie a disjointed account of the evening with Chloe, with emphasis on the correspondence. I was about to start filling her in on my talk with Morton when the piece Carlota was playing ended abruptly. We waited a couple of seconds to be sure it was really over, then we applauded.
Carlota bowed, deeply and slowly, from the waist.
Nona appeared in the doorway. “Dinner is almost ready,” she told Carlota, who looked startl
ed at being brought out of her trance. “Perhaps our guests would like another drink.” Then she turned and disappeared again into the kitchen.
Neither Rosie nor I had finished our first beer. Carlota poured herself another martini, no olive. She downed it in three gulps. Then she smiled brightly, said, “Must go help Nona,” and left us alone.
“What kind of impression are you getting about Andy’s whereabouts that day? Anything?”
“I’ve only found out one thing for sure. There was a small party on Saturday night. Organizers for the fund-raiser, friends. And I know Bill wasn’t there. But the day of the murder? That’s what I’m checking on now. Incidentally, the fund-raiser’s this Sunday.”
Carlota and Nona reappeared with a wood and brass serving cart. We took seats at the dining table. The napkins were real linen, the plates fine china, the candlesticks and flatware silver. The wineglasses were still discount store.
Somehow, knowing the temperaments of our hosts, I had expected an elaborate and possibly inedible dinner. But this was just ordinary old beef stroganoff with noodles and a salad with artichoke hearts.
“Nona,” I said, “this is very good.”
She smiled. She had a surprisingly sweet smile. It occurred to me that she must have a good side to her personality, and that living with Carlota could put almost anyone in a permanent state of tension.
“And I’ve been admiring your artwork,” I added. Actually, I hadn’t really looked at it since the first time I’d been in the house.
“Thank you. I hope to be able to make it pay eventually.”
“That’s right,” I said. “You were at work the morning that man was killed. What do you do?”
“I work in an art supply store.” She said it simply, without embarrassment or pride. “We’re open on Sunday mornings.”
“Like a hardware store,” Carlota said. “But it’s only temporary and she gets her materials at a discount.”
“Well,” I held up my glass, “here’s to your success.”
Carlota smiled briefly and twitched, wrinkling her forehead. “She will be successful, I’m sure,” she said, in an end-of-discussion tone. She added, with hardly a break between sentences, “I’m so glad you two are coming to my films tonight.” The message was clear. This was her night, and it was her art we were going to concentrate on. Nona was glowering again.
Free Draw (The Jake Samson & Rosie Vicente Detective Series Book 2) Page 18
