by Julie Smith
I nodded.
“You mean, did the mighty Ms. Swedlow grace my humble abode that day and say, ‘Rick, I think I’ll get murdered this afternoon and I wanted to make sure I checked it out with you first’?”
I was sick of his kids’ games. “I mean, when the two of you broke up.”
“Broke up? What do you mean broke up?” He sounded so taken aback, I knew I’d made a mistake.
“You didn’t break up then. You were still seeing each other.”
“Seeing each other? You mean romantically?”
I nodded.
“I don’t get this. First you tell me I’m where I’m not, and then you tell me Sadie was my girlfriend.”
“She wasn’t?”
“No. Read my lips: Uh-uh. Never. Not even a little bit. No way, Jose.”
I leaned back, exhaling. “I guess I was misinformed.”
“Someone told you that?” He was starting to get red in the face, either from the champagne, the sun, or high emotion.
I didn’t say anything.
He whispered, “Marty.” And then he practically yelled, “That bitch!"
People turned to stare, and he dropped his voice. “Marty and I were involved. Not Sadie and me. Not that I wouldn’t have loved to. But Sadie wasn’t like that.”
“Wasn’t like what? Didn’t sleep around?”
“Didn’t even flirt. All business. But in a nice way.” He got that look men get when they’re talking about a woman they’ve admired but couldn’t get—kind of like brown-robed saints in religious paintings, staring up at the sky, at angels, or maybe at Lucy-with-diamonds. To be perfectly frank, it’s a look of utter idiocy.
“Tell me about you and Marty,” I said.
“She hit on me at a party, after we got that last exhibit up. Amber was at her mom’s, so why not?”
“When was it?”
“I don’t know. Eight or ten months.”
“Can you get any closer? It’s important.” (Well, maybe not important, but it would sure provide some insight into Marty’s marriage.)
“I remember now. It was at Christmas—I was feeling sorry for myself.”
“Before Sadie came here?”
“Oh, sure.”
“So Marty cheated on Don.” I shouldn’t have said it aloud.
“With anything in pants.”
“What?”
“Hubby traveled a lot.”
“I wonder how he met Sadie.”
“Party at their house. Marty was always throwing them—I guess she thought it was the corporate thing to do. I watched it happen. Marty was so busy chasing Julio, she didn’t even notice they sat down on the floor by the hearth and stayed there for an hour and a half.”
That I could believe. I said, “How long did you and Marty keep seeing each other?”
“Month or two, I guess. It kind of petered out. Just one of those things.”
“Can you think of any reason she’d say you and Sadie were involved?”
“Oh, she thought so. I guess she and I ran out of gas about the time Sadie got here. So then when Sadie’d been here a couple of months, and she saw how much competition she was, she, like, started calling me again.” He pulled his hat down against the sun. “I wasn’t interested, you know what I mean? I guess I was in love with Katy. I didn’t want to see her anymore. So she accused me of porking Sadie. She had this thing against Sadie.”
“Well, Sadie did shoplift her husband in her own house.”
“Sadie, hell. That dude was ready, you know that?”
“Want some more coffee?”
He swiveled his neck for the waitress. “Wouldn’t mind another drop of champagne.”
“I’m going to the ladies’.”
I felt as if I’d been the one drinking to excess. This brunch was beginning to feel like time spent in the Twilight Zone. Ricky seemed to be taking each of my assumptions and systematically destroying them. Could I believe him?
On some things, probably. But which ones?
I’d have to sort that out later. For now, what was left? Ah, yes, I remembered. His changed status at the aquarium.
Returning refreshed and re-lipsticked, I said, “Could we talk about something that could help your case?”
“What case? I thought I was off the hook.”
“I hope you are. But I thought of something that might help if Tillman and Jacobson start sniffing around again.”
“Which one’s which? Is Jacobson the woman?” He was starting to slur.
“Yes. Sergeant Paula.”
“She’s kind of good-looking.”
I lifted an eyebrow, which prompted a slightly unwelcome knee-pat: “Course, you are, too.”
“Tell me, Ricky, who were you hitting on at Marty’s party? With Marty and Sadie busy?”
“God, I can’t remember… . ” He looked as if he were genuinely trying to.
I took pity on him. “I was just kidding.”
“Oh. Guess you think I’m the kind of guy that—”
“Honest, I don’t think anything.” Anything much. “Listen, two important things.”
“Two!”
“Two. Remember when you came over to Julio’s yesterday? Before I was your lawyer?”
He nodded.
“You sounded as if you were worried about your job, with Sadie gone.”
“That wasn’t because Sadie loved me so much. I guess she thought I’m pretty much of a good-for-nothing asshole like everybody does. Listen, I still do my art, you know? Nobody thinks so, and I hardly have time with Amber and all, but I do, goddammit, I do!” His face was decidedly red now, but not from the sun, and not from anger.
I steered him back to the subject. “So if Sadie wasn’t your special advocate, why were you worried?”
“Because that goddamn Warren Nowell hates my guts. I just met that bastard a few years ago, but I feel like I’ve known him my whole life. You know that? This town’s like that.”
I waited.
“His mother was my fifth grade teacher, can you believe that? The teacher from fuckin’ hell. Ran her goddamn classroom like fuckin’ Auschwitz. Bitch. Goddamn harpy.”
He belched, a faraway look in his eyes—or maybe he was just having trouble focusing.
“You know what she used to do? We had this mother-fuckin’ white rat in there, and this little kid named Willie-little Willie Oppenheimer—he was terrified of rats. Couldn’t stand to look at the thing. Started to shake whenever it was time for the science lesson and we had to feed the animals—we had some snakes, all kinds of things, they didn’t bother Willie. The rat was all that did.
“Well, that bitch of a Nowell, she told him the only way to get over it was to make friends with the thing you’re afraid of, and she said a certain day was the day he was going to have to feed the rat, and the poor kid stayed home, but I guess he couldn’t stay home forever. So he came back and she made him do it, and he was shakin’ and sweatin’ and turnin’ blue and everything, but she made him do it anyhow.
“He must’ve moved too fast or something, he was so scared—I don’t know exactly what happened, but the rat ran up his shoulder and got loose in the room. Kid was so scared, he peed his pants. So was that enough for Mrs. Adolf Nowell? Not even close. She didn’t let him go home. Made him sit there the rest of the day with his pants soaking wet. And she tried to make him catch the rat, but he got sick.”
“You mean threw up?”
“Nah, I think he almost fainted. Had to put his head between his knees and lie down on the floor and everything. Smelling of pee the whole time.”
Pretty horrible, but was he ever going to get back to the point?
I said, “So you hold Warren’s awful mother against him?”
“Hell no!” His fingers closed into a fist, with which he banged the table. People would have stared again if there’d been any left, but we were living it up in lonely splendor. “Warren’s a goddamn wimp. I can’t stand a wimp, can you?”
“I thought you said
he was the one who hated you.”
“He knew about Katy and me.”
“I don’t understand. Why would he care?”
“Because he was a goddamn wimp! Because he could never get a woman like Katy in a million years.”
“What are you getting at, Ricky? He wouldn’t need one—he’s got a perfectly good wife, and doesn’t strike me as the roving-eye type. Frankly, I don’t buy jealousy as the reason he hated you.”
He laughed, too far gone to get his feelings hurt. “You’re a sharp one, you know that? Pretty sharp lawyer I got. Okay, okay, he wasn’t jealous. He was a snob. Katy was his mother’s best friend—they went to college together or something—that’s how Warren got his damn job in the first place. With a little help from ‘Aunt Katy.’ That’s what he called her. He didn’t like the help messing with her. It was that simple.”
“How would he even know you were seeing her?”
“He saw us at a party once. He saw her looking at me. Katy never was good at hiding her feelings.”
Right. I decided to admit what I knew: “Frankly, Ricky, I hear Warren has good reason other than ‘Aunt Katy’ to be angry with you. I hear you like to bait him.”
He looked astonished. “Bait him?”
“That’s what I heard.”
He rested his chin on his fist. “You mean like calling him fatty and stuff?”
I shrugged, waiting for more.
“Like teasing him about not knowing how to swim? Oh, yeah, he really did get mad that time I introduced him around to all these girls at a party and said what a stud he was. I don’t think that’s it, though.”
“You don’t think that’s what?”
“Why he hates me. He knows I hate him, that’s all. He just knows. By instinct. The dude’s gonna fire me, you know that?”
“I hope not. I know you need the work.”
“I’m really going to miss Sadie.” His eyes were the soft, sincere ones of the very loaded.
As he walked me to my car, I remembered I’d told him to go straight to the police after our brunch. Now I had second thoughts. “Ricky, why don’t you go home, have a half-hour nap, get up, drink some more coffee, and then call the police—don’t go over there—and tell them about the pearl.”
He adjusted his baseball cap—nervously, I thought. “Think I’m drunk, huh?”
“I’m just giving you good legal advice. You never want to walk into a police station with alcohol on your breath. Especially not with a semi-fantastic story to tell.” And then something that had been nagging at me came into consciousness. “That reminds me. The maid you remodeled the cottage for—”
“Yolie. Great old gal.”
“Was she ever there when you were?”
“Sure. She used to serve us drinks. And sometimes snacks.”
“Ricky, think hard. Was she there the night Katy gave you the pearl?”
He frowned, marshaling resources. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m pretty sure she was. Made us margaritas.”
“Did she see Katy give you the pearl? Or could she have heard the two of you talking about it?”
“I see what you’re getting at—can she verify my story?” I nodded.
He stroked his cheek, as if checking to see whether he’d shaved. “I don’t know about that. It’s a thought, you know that? Yolie might have been there.”
“I think I’ll drive out to see her this afternoon.”
“She goes away on weekends. To see her family down south somewhere—Santa Maria, I think. She probably doesn’t even know Katy’s dead yet.”
“Maybe I could call her. What’s her full name?”
“I don’t know. Yolie’s short for Yolanda, I know that. Some Spanish name, I think.” He shrugged. “I don’t think I ever heard it.”
“Does she get back on Sunday nights?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’ve been around Sunday nights when she was there—even seen her come back. Gets in around seven, seven-thirty. Say, you want me to go?”
“No, it’ll be better if I do it. You just go home and give the cops a buzz—after your nap.”
I waited till he’d left and got out of my car—I needed a walk to clear my head.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I walked in Pacific Grove, along the shore, watching pelicans and gulls (western ones, of course), mostly just drinking in the sea air, thinking about the Sheffield Pearl.
Much as I hated to admit it, I thought Esperanza’s nightmarish theory had a lot of merit. Sadie might have been killed for the pearl. She must have had it with her when she went to the roof, perhaps planning to show it to Julio.
But maybe it wasn’t true. I’d made a promise to Esperanza, and it was time to try to keep it. Both Marty and Ricky seemed to be off the hook, but Esperanza was still my client. That was the way with pro bono work—it always took longer than the paying jobs and was usually more difficult. I walked for forty-five minutes, working off my coffee buzz, just as Ricky (I hoped) was sleeping off his champagne one.
Then I consulted a phone book, made a call, and hung up when a man answered; a man with a familiar voice. Don was home.
The listed address was the one for Sadie Swedlow, the love nest where she’d lured Marty’s husband and where she entertained her children on weekends. I was sure Marty looked at it that way—as a usurpation of her possessions, of her children as well as her husband.
It was a modest house in Pacific Grove, a one-story frame house, old and charming, but perhaps a little small for a stepfamily of four. If she’d lived, she and Don would probably have moved soon.
Don was tousled, wearing only a pair of khaki shorts I suspected he’d just pulled on. “Oh. Rebecca.”
“I guess I woke you up. I’m sorry.”
“Not at all. Not at all. Will you come in?” He didn’t move aside to permit me, but I’d come there to go in, and good manners weren’t going to stop me.
“Thanks,” I said. “We need to talk.”
He led me into a living room of antique wicker furniture and plants—Sadie’s taste, I was sure. It was an inappropriate room for a house with two children—a little too delicate and breakable, a little too feminine. The furniture would soon have been replaced with sturdier stuff, I thought.
But for the moment it was lovely, as cheerful as a nineteenth-century house in the country. The windows were open, and the breeze had caught a lace curtain. There was no television or stereo anywhere in sight. The walls were even hung with flowered wallpaper, completing the effect. They were decorated with a child’s drawings, Libby’s, I was sure.
“Are the kids here?”
He gave me a rueful smile. “No. I lost the argument.”
He looked sad and vulnerable sitting there barefoot with his chest naked. I felt intrusive.
“I’m really sorry about this morning,” he said. “I was upset.”
“You have a lot to be upset about. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you.” He leaned over, catching his face in his hands, not wanting me to see his expression. “This is very hard for me.”
“Don,” I said, “I hope you don’t think I’m judging you, that I bear you any ill will because Marty’s my friend. Things happen. And anyway, I’m beginning to think I didn’t really know Marty at all.”
“She can be difficult.” His eyes were full of pain. “Sadie was so soft—so sunshiny.” He stopped. “I’m having a hard time with this.”
It seemed cruel to make him go through it alone. I was furious at Marty. “I’m sorry you don’t have the children with you. I think they need to mourn Sadie, too, and I have a feeling they don’t think they can with Marty around.”
He looked at me as if I’d just pulled him from a burning building. “Yes. You think that, too?”
I nodded. “I think they really miss Sadie a lot.”
“She was so warm—they’d never been around a woman like that.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Oh?” He certainly was pulling no punches.
“Marty and I got
married when she was pregnant with Keil. She told me later—when she wanted me to know how much she hated me—that she’d gotten pregnant on purpose. I was on her list. A goal. Two goals. She wanted to get married, and she wanted to marry someone successful. Also she wanted a kid. Three goals. Though why she wanted that, I don’t know. She isn’t the maternal type.”
“And she had Libby because, having had a boy, she then had to have a girl. That was the next goal.” I was surprised to hear what came out of my mouth, and apparently Don was, too; I could see it in his eyes.
I was on a roll and I wasn’t going to stop: “Tell me something. Does she often yell the way she was doing this morning?”
“No. I’ve never seen that before in my life.”
“She’s not the type to get mad?”
“She got mad when I left. First time I’ve ever seen it.”
“I came here because I need to ask you about something, and I also need to ask a favor.”
“Of course, Rebecca.” To my amazement, he smiled; perhaps the anticipation of doing a favor had made him comfortable, given him something he knew how to cope with.
“Did you talk with Sadie Friday? Even Thursday?”
“Both days, but only once on Friday. We usually talked several times a day.”
“Did she mention a pearl to you? Something Esperanza brought her?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Esperanza came into possession of something that might be valuable—she said she found it on the beach. This is going to sound strange, but it looked like a pearl the size of a Ping-Pong ball.”
He stared.
“But she wasn’t sure it was a pearl, and she took it to Sadie for confirmation. Sadie, I think, recognized it as something she’d seen before—she knew it was genuine. But that isn’t the point. The point is that it’s missing now. It wasn’t in Sadie’s desk, but there’s a chance she brought it home. I’m wondering if you’ve seen anything like that.”
He shook his head, still staring, trying to take it in. “The police didn’t mention it.”
“To tell you the truth, Esperanza didn’t come out with it right away. She was upset about Sadie’s death—”
