Wow. There was a part of me that was slightly scandalized, and part of me that admired anyone with the chutzpah to actually wear something like that in public.
More rooting around revealed a few more pieces of barely-there clothing items: tiny halters, short short skirts, and the like. But nothing of real interest. So Ariel had dressed like a hooker when she lived at home-what bearing did that have on her murder? Whenever I'd seen her she'd been dressed provocatively, but nothing like this. It appeared her taste in clothing had matured a little.
I closed the doors to the closet and began opening drawers. I mean, after all, if you put someone in a room for the night and say it's the "guest room," it's not exactly surprising if they open a few drawers, right?
The dressing table held precisely nothing. Not even dust. Thoroughly cleaned out. The small bureau held two utterly empty drawers, but the third, bottom drawer, was full of high school annuals. Some of them were Rocky's, and some were Ariel's. The siblings had been five years apart in age, so their high school careers hadn't overlapped; eight annuals altogether.
Settling myself cross-legged on the floor, I pulled out the first one and thumbed through it. Rocky's, when he was a junior. He was nice enough looking now, but the school picture had captured a gleam in his eye that seemed to be missing in the man I'd met yesterday. He'd been one of the more active kids in school: on the football, basketball, and wrestling teams, as well as belonging to Future Farmers of America and Future Business Leaders of America. The abundance of friends and teachers who had signed his yearbook, and what they wrote, indicated he was well-liked by a variety of people. In fact, he'd been quite the big fish in the small pond of the La Conner school system. I flipped through a few more pages and found Gabi's picture. She was a year younger than Rocky and sported a very short haircut. She had a big happy grin pasted on her face. No doubt a ridiculously well-adjusted teenager.
All his annuals had the same flavor, but when I got to his sister's, they told a slightly different story. The pictures of Ariel as a freshman and a sophomore showed a gawky girl, first slightly gaptoothed, then second with braces presumably to correct said gap. All light-brown hair and hesitant smile, she looked skinny and awkward and very, very uncomfortable about having her picture taken. Frightened, tenuous, unsure; it was shocking how different that little girl in the pictures was from the young woman I'd known.
Something must have happened in the summer between her sophomore and junior year, though, because the Ariel pictured in the last two yearbooks was quite different. She'd dyed her hair blonde, loaded on the eye-liner, lowered her neckline by a degree that no doubt tempted official school reprimand, and gazed at the camera with a hard, determined smile.
Ariel had been sixteen when her parents died. My bet was that it happened between those two yearbook photos. Could her transformation have been a reaction to losing her mother and father?
The new and improved Ariel was certainly sexier in a crass kind of way, and, if the story about the English teacher was true, she'd put it to immediate use. Could Gabi have been jealous of her sister-in-law? Or did she just dislike her? What I'd learned so far about Ariel painted her as the kind of person who demanded instant gratification, took shortcuts to get what she wanted, and was not willing to wait. Impatient. Owed.
In fact, Ariel was beginning to sound like a bit of a sociopath. Could you be a bit of a sociopath? Or was that like being a little pregnant? She was charming as the dickens up front, but as you got to know her those charms faded. A social parasite, taking advantage of the people around her-and especially taking advantage of the particular weaknesses of men-to get what she wanted.
Except she wasn't all that good at it. At least not yet. Still young. And possibly becoming more effective with time.
What had Scott Popper offered her? What practical benefit, as Gabi put it, had Ariel reaped from the affair?
Scott Popper, ready to leave his wife to be with Ariel.
Who died in a car wreck.
Lifting the books to place them back in the drawer, I nearly dropped them.
A good driver, a semi-professional driver, for that matter. Certainly well trained as a police officer. Scott Popper, who died in a car wreck.
Just as his lover's parents had.
His lover, who, whatever she might have wanted from him, might not have wanted his city-salaried self on her hands full time.
His lover, the girl who was such a good car mechanic.
NINETEEN
I MANAGED TO RETURN the high school yearbooks to the dresser drawer. When I pushed the drawer back in, it shrieked as if in agony. Slowly, I pulled it back out and tried to re-align the gliders. This time it slid on the track with only a low moan, but wouldn't go all the way in. I removed the drawer completely and, on my hands and knees, peered into the dark recesses under the dresser.
Something on the floor, way back there.
I leaned in, cheek to the floor and butt up in the air, and scrabbled among the dust bunnies with my fingertips. Finally, I grasped hold of the edge of whatever it was and dragged it out to the light of day.
A book, fabric covered, with one corner all bent up from having the drawer jam into it. It was filthy, and one edge had yellowed after obvious water damage. I opened it and recognized Ariel's spiky handwriting from the few times I'd seen it at the co-op.
Footsteps in the hallway paused outside my door. I froze.
An eon later, they moved on and went downstairs. Hurriedly, I pushed the drawer back in. It moaned like a wounded animal again. Standing, I took the book and stuffed it into the bottom recesses of my tote bag. Then I pulled the covers up, tidied the bed, grabbed the toothbrush Gabi had given me the night before, and opened the door.
Noah and Evan hurtled past me and down the stairs, calling, "Hi!" and "Hello!" over each other. And then, from the kitchen I heard, "Hey Mom, can we have pancakes?"
I turned to see Rocky come out of his and Gabi's bedroom. He paused when he saw me, surprised.
"Good morning," I said, trying to sound cheery.
"Uh, morning." He walked down the hall barefoot, carrying a pair of tube socks in his hand. "Everything all right?"
Meaning, why are you still here?
"Oh, sure. Time just got away from us last night, talking yarn and stuff, and Gabi offered to let me stay." His face remained impassive. "So, I took her up on it," I finished in a more subdued tone.
"I see. Well, I hope you slept well." He didn't wait to find out if, in fact, I had slept well, but walked past me and down the stairs without another word.
Maybe he resented my spending the night in his sister's bed. I had to admit it was a little weird.
I strode down the hallway to the bathroom where I splashed water on my face, brushed my teeth and futzed a little with my hair. It looked like I'd just rolled out of bed, which I had, but it always looked like that now, so there wasn't much help for it. I grabbed my bag and followed in Rocky's footsteps.
In the living room, I paused. Even with the gluttony of fiber caressing and fondling the evening before, we'd never looked at the wonderful stuff spilling out of the basket by Gabi's spinning wheel. The rattle of pans and clamor of voices carried out from the kitchen. I tiptoed over to the basket, went down on one knee, and plunged both hands into the beautiful fluffy goodness.
I just wanted a quick hit, and would have stopped there, but when I separated the batts and slivers waiting their turn on the wheel, I saw the familiar sunset pastels of my new favorite fiber.
It wasn't mine, of course. It was Gabi's. But it was the same hand-painted bamboo Ruth had left for me when she brought her wheel over to the house. The same delicious softness that had soothed my soul in the middle of the night and made me completely forget about Barr, Hannah, and Ariel et al. And right next to it, another batt with Thea Hawke's label attached, this one an ethereal mixture of blue and green and pink.
Gently, I ran my fingertips over it and smiled. Something tickled my memory. Hadn't I seen thi
s color combination before?
"What are you doing?"
My head jerked up and I saw Gabi, looking disheveled and tired, standing in the doorway to the living room.
"I, uh, never got a chance to look at what's in here," I said. "Sorry. Didn't mean to presume."
Gabi flushed. "No, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to snap. I guess I'm a little cranky this morning-not used to late nights, especially not involving wine."
Standing, I said, "Oh, gosh, that's okay. I sure appreciate you putting me up for the night, but I'll go ahead and get out of your hair."
I was dying to see what Ariel had written in that book.
A book I was essentially stealing. Not good. If there was anything important in there, I'd bungled things. Would it be admissible in court? Maybe I should put it back. But then no one would know what was in it, important or not. Could Barr and Robin get a warrant for an old journal? Unlikely. I couldn't think of another way to see what Ariel had written. Swallowing my doubt, I decided to take the chance.
I pointed to the basket. "Isn't Thea's stuff great? I just finished spinning a few ounces of it. Amazing."
Gabi frowned.
"The pastel bamboo."
She came over and stood beside me, and I reached down and pulled the batt out, to show her what I was talking about.
"Oh, that. Yes, it's pretty, isn't it? I think I got it online."
"Uh oh. Don't tell me that. I could develop a serious Internet shopping illness for this kind of stuff," I said.
"Every once in awhile I can't help but order something." She bent her head. "Pretty self-indulgent, I know."
I handed her the batt. "Good for you."
She stroked it a couple times, as if it were a baby animal, and returned it to the basket. "What would you like for breakfast?"
"Oh, no. Nothing for me. I can't impose on your wonderful hospitality anymore. Besides, I have to get back."
"Are you sure?" But she couldn't quite hide her relief.
"I'm sure." I stripped off the sweatshirt and handed it to her, then went over and leaned into the kitchen.
The twins sat at the table, slurping their orange juice and making play plans for their day. Beside them Rocky listened with a half-smile and sipped coffee from a mug advertising the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival from six years before.
"Goodbye," I said. "And thanks for everything."
"Bye!" the twins said in unison.
"You drive safe now, Sophie Mae," Rocky said. "And thank you for bringing up the pictures."
"I'm glad I could help. I'll be thinking about you."
He inclined his head in acknowledgment.
As I turned to pull the door closed behind me, I saw Gabi pop a couple of aspirin in her mouth and chase them with a swallow of coffee.
***
I wanted to go home, actually feeling a little homesick. Maybe it was silly to feel that way after just one night, but the atmosphere at the Kaminskis in the cold light of day made me miss my morning routine with Meghan and Erin. And if I missed it after one pleasant evening out of town, how much would I miss it if I moved? Would it be so bad, not moving in with Barr?
He'd understand.
Wouldn't he?
But homesick or not, I was starving, not to mention intensely curious. I stopped at the Calico Cupboard Bakery in La Conner, mouth watering the second I hit the doorway. A serving of their famous bread pudding and large cup of coffee in hand, I sat at a little table by the window and dug the handwritten book I'd found in Ariel's room out of my bag.
It smelled like old library books do, the ones in the back room that no one ever checks out. Musty and dusty. I took a bite of pudding and opened it to the first page.
I hadn't dared to hope, sure that would jinx it, but there it was, right in front of me. An honest-to-Pete diary. Ha! Elation hit my bloodstream at the same time as the caffeine, and I had to keep from grinning to myself so the locals wouldn't think they had a raving lunatic in their midst.
Ten pages later, I sighed. It was the most boring diary I'd ever seen. Oh sure, there were things in it that were telling. She recorded every single thing she ate, complete with calorie content. She also wrote down whenever anyone said anything about her weight, good or bad. I remembered wondering what her last meal had been before she was killed; now I tried and couldn't remember ever seeing her eat. Maybe she hadn't had a last meal at all.
She also kept track of things that the other students did and said at school, musing on the reactions they engendered in other people. It was as if she were creating a roadmap of behavior, with a particular effect as the goal. Her writing voice was cold, almost mercenary. As I read on I was struck by the lack of information about Ariel's own feelings, which I found odd given the usual teenaged girl's abundance of angst about everything from a broken fingernail to world hunger.
I munched and sipped and read on, skimming a lot of the content. But when I reached the final entry, I swallowed and slowly returned my cup to the table.
Today I lost a button on my shirt, and I caught Mr. Blankenship looking at the side of my boob. At first I was embar rassed, but then he seemed more embarrassed than me. So I let him do it some more. He didn't turn away. He kept looking. And that was when I realized that all those girls with the fancy clothes and snotty attitudes weren't going to get their way. They're too scary. But if you're not scary, if you smile and are nice to men, they start getting all stupid and let you do anything. I read once boys think about sex every seventeen seconds and that men think about it almost that much. When Mr. Blankenship was looking down my shirt I finally got it. And now I'm going to get whatever I want.
The rest of the pages in the book were torn out. A part of me was glad I couldn't read them. I sat and looked out the window at the tourist traffic beginning to parade down the street outside of the bakery. Sadness mingled with distaste as I digested what Ariel had written about the discovery of her sexual power.
It could be a dangerous thing, to intentionally manipulate with that power. I hoped it hadn't burned her, as she apparently brandished it, no doubt awkwardly, in her teen years.
And then later? As a young woman, somewhat more refined and practiced? Had it been the reason she'd been murdered?
TWENTY
THINGS HAD CERTAINLY BECOME complicated, I mused as I maneuvered along the country lanes leading back to the interstate. Had Ariel killed Scott Popper? I mean, she was the murder victim, right? It was ridiculous to think that she might have actually killed a policeman.
Even if she'd somehow caused his car crash, what good did knowing that do? As Gabi had pointed out, it hardly mattered what Ariel might have once done, now that she was dead.
Unless… did Chris Popper know more about her husband's death than she had let on? Did she think Ariel killed him? That could be a significantly stronger motive than an affair.
But no matter how strong the motive, Chris had an alibi. My brain hurt. Nothing was making any sense. Instead of having too little information, I suddenly had more than I could fit together, as if someone had added a few extra pieces from another box to the jigsaw puzzle.
I opened my window and inhaled the morning breeze. A high haze of cloud cover cast a veil between the sharp summer sunlight and the verdant greenery below. Soon it would burn off, and the ambient temperature would again begin to rise. Above, hawks circled and dove, hunting the small things that crept in the fields on either side of the county road.
Ahead, a sign warned that I was approaching a four-way stop. Bowers Road.
The road Ariel's high school friend lived on.
I sighed. Even if there were a few sections from another puzzle box thrown in, I obviously didn't have all the pieces of the original jigsaw, either. However much I wanted to return to my own happy home, how could I resist making this slight detour? I tossed a mental coin and turned west. Three miles later, I turned around and went back, crossing my original path and tried east. I had no idea what Lindsey Drucker's address was, or even whether her
name was still the same; Gabi had said she was married. This was a stupid way to try and find her.
Almost ready to turn around again and give up, I saw it: Drucker & Sandstrom. The names were spelled out in reflective letters on the mailbox in front of a sprawling, single-level house painted dark green with wine-colored trim. A long, low barn surrounded by a series of paddocks and pasture indicated that they kept livestock, but I didn't see any horses or cows. Then the driveway curved, and I saw alpacas clustered and dotting one of the large fields. Recently sheared, they looked like teddy bears crossed with oversized poodles. There must have been a hundred of them, in shades varying from cream to brown, with a few gray and black ones thrown in.
The woman who answered the door had short red hair and wore navy shorts with a plain white cotton T-shirt. The expectant look on her smooth tan face invited me to introduce myself.
"Hi. Are you Lindsey Drucker?" I asked.
"Yes"
"I'm Sophie Mae Reynolds. I knew Ariel Skylark."
She tipped her head to one side, considering. "I see." Without another word she stepped back and opened the door for me.
Inside, sunlight streamed through the windows that made up the back wall of the main living space, and through a large skylight overhead. At least I thought it was the main living space, because it looked more like an artist's studio. A huge loom dominated one side of the room, with an elaborate rug in progress. The interlocking geometric design in red, cream and light brown was reminiscent of traditional Native American art, but somehow possessed a modern flair. Three easels took up the other half of the room, each displaying a landscape painting in a different stage of completion.
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