Blowing Smoke

by Barbara Block

  “Maybe she was playing me, but what about James? How do you explain that?” I demanded as he brushed by my leg. I scooped him up and buried my hand in his thick fur. He moved his neck, letting me know he wanted me to scratch behind his ears. I’d reached my house just as the painter was pulling out of my driveway and gotten him to unlock the back of his truck. If I hadn’t, my kitty would have been God knows where instead of sitting in my lap. “Pat Humphrey was right about him being in the van.”

  George snorted and took another swallow of beer. “Get real. It was a lucky guess. That’s all it was. That’s all it usually is.”

  “I wish I was as sure.”

  “Humphrey is running a classic textbook con.” George put his beer down on the table. “Think about it. She made a general statement about James.”

  I took a sip of my scotch before replying. “No, she didn’t.”

  “Yes, she did. Robin, saying James is in an enclosed space is like saying he was up a tree. Crawling into nooks and crannies and climbing up trees are two things that cats do.”

  “What about the van part, then? How did she know that?”

  “Easy. You gave it to her.”

  I flushed and fished a Camel out of the pack lying on the table.

  “See,” George said, taking my silence for assent.

  I went to light the cigarette, and James, disgusted with my actions, jumped onto the ground and disappeared back into the hedges. “You still haven’t explained how she knew I had a cat.”

  George cocked his head and studied me for a second before replying. “Like I said before, she probably knew who you were.”

  I drew in a breath of smoke, then exhaled. “How do you explain the fact that she knew James’s name? That’s a fairly specific piece of information.”

  George drummed his fingers on his chair’s armrest. “Come on, Robin. This is a small town. Maybe Humphrey knows one of your neighbors. Maybe you guys have a mutual friend. You’ve been written up in local papers. Maybe they mentioned James there. Or maybe you mentioned James to her in your conversation and you’ve forgotten that you did.”

  I thought back. I was fairly positive I hadn’t, but I could be wrong.

  “That’s the way people like her operate,” George continued. “She’s good at remembering what other people say. She’s also good at reading people cold, reading their body language. It’s a knack.” He stifled a yawn. “Good salesmen have it. So do con artists. I read that some professor even teaches a college course on how to do it. He calls it debunking psychics.”

  “Still...” I began when George pushed his chair back and stood up.

  “You want a beer?” he asked.

  “I’ll stick with scotch, thanks.” I enjoyed watching him walk into my kitchen, the way he strolled along. When he came out a moment later, he had a beer in one hand and the picture of the Mexican family in the other. I’d left it on the counter by the sink.

  “Who is this?” he asked.

  I reached up and took it. “Just a photo I picked up somewhere,” I lied, the words flowing out while prickles of guilt blossomed in my gut.

  I hadn’t told George about the man lying in the hospital. I hadn’t told him about having to get tested for TB, either. Maybe I should have. But we weren’t married, I rationalized. Therefore, I didn’t have to tell him everything. Of course, I hadn’t done that even when I was married, but that was beside the point. Anyway, it had been a long day, and I wasn’t in the mood for the argument I was sure would ensue.

  George sat back down. “You want me to ask Paul to run Humphrey’s name for you?”

  “Think he can leave the golf course long enough to do it?”

  George frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. I’ll ask him.”

  Paul was a friend of George’s. At the moment, George was going for his Ph.D. in medieval history, but when I’d met him, he’d been a cop, and he still had lots of friends on and off the force. Paul was one of them. He’d recently opened a security agency, and so, even though I didn’t like the guy too much, any kind of checking that had to be done, I threw his way. It wasn’t worth it not to. That’s the thing with relationships—they always involve compromises.

  Half an hour later, after George had finished his second beer, he grabbed my hand and pulled me up. “Come on,” he said, kissing me, his hand lingering on my hip. “Let’s get a little action going here.”

  I kissed him back.

  “Let’s go upstairs.”

  My hand went to his waistband. “It’s too hot upstairs, let’s stay down here.”

  He kissed the side of my neck. “I don’t think so.”

  “How come you’re so conservative?”

  “How come you’re so reckless?”

  We compromised on the living-room sofa.

  After George left, I went back into the garden. I smoked another cigarette and sipped my scotch and pondered the last two days. Watching Zsa Zsa and James playing hide-and-seek, I thought about ghosts and spirits and whether I believed in them or not. By the time I was ready to go to bed, I’d convinced myself that George was right, that what I’d seen that afternoon was a fluke. Pat Humphrey was an exceptionally talented con artist. Nothing more. I could understand why Hillary and her sister and brother were so upset, why they’d wanted to hire me. I’d want to hire me, too, if I were them.

  That night, I dreamed about Murphy, something I hadn’t done in years. I woke up before my alarm went off to Zsa Zsa licking the tears off my cheeks. The dream had had something to do with a green skeleton that turned into a straw mat that became a cluster of blue and yellow butterflies. I tried to remember more and failed as I dragged myself out of bed, stood under the shower, got dressed, and drove off to Noah’s Ark. But the dream had become lodged in my mind like a cinder in your eye. I couldn’t get rid of it.

  I was still trying at ten-thirty in the morning when a man walked through the shop door. Zsa Zsa immediately ran out from behind the counter and started barking. Looking at him, I figured two things. One: He wasn’t a customer. And two: He wasn’t from around here. His clothes, expensive, casual, pressed khakis and a dark green polo shirt with an Izod logo, marked him suburban. And then I caught sight of his car and amended the suburban to rich.

  “Nice ride,” I said, indicating the Mercedes parked by the curb after telling Zsa Zsa to stuff a sock in it.

  Actually, now that I’d taken a closer look at him, he wasn’t so bad, either. Attractive rather than handsome. Tall, loose-knit body. Clean-shaven. A chin a shade too narrow, a nose a little too big for his face, eyes that never seemed to come to rest, but somehow together the features worked.

  He grinned, revealing a set of prominent canines. “Personally, I like the Jag better.”

  “Personally, I like the old MGBs.”

  “Me, too.” He winked. “I’m trying to get the boss to buy one. I spotted a beauty down in Tully the other day.”

  “So what are you? A chauffeur?”

  He cracked his knuckles. “Something like that.”

  “It must be nice to have that kind of money.”

  His grin grew wide enough to split his face. “I think so.” He planted an elbow on the counter and leaned toward me. I caught a whiff of his aftershave. “Here.” He pressed a small envelope into my palm. “This is for you.”

  “Who’s it from?”

  “The boss lady.”

  “And that would be?”

  “Rose Taylor.”

  “Rose Taylor?” Hillary’s mom. I lifted an eyebrow.

  “Why? Is there a problem?”

  “Not at all.” Well, that hadn’t taken long. Maybe George had been right about Humphrey knowing who I was. I flushed, thinking about what a fool I must have looked like.

  “Nice place you have here,” he said, looking around the shop as I absentmindedly tapped the edge of the envelope on the counter. “Although your air conditioning could use a little help.”

  “I know. I’ve
been trying to get the repair guy on the phone for the past two days.”

  He pointed to one of the saltwater fish tanks alongside the left wall. “Are those hard to keep going?”

  “They’re not recommended for beginners.”

  “Pity. That’s the story of my life.”

  “What is?”

  “Always wanting things above my ability.” He clasped his hands together, straightened them, and popped his knuckles. “So aren’t you going to open it?” He indicated the envelope with his chin.

  “Sorry.” I loosened the flap and slid the card out. It was the expensive kind, the kind made out of vellum, the kind with the embossed black letters. I flipped it open. Rose Taylor was inviting me to cocktails at five-thirty that evening. Her handwriting was precise and even. She’d written the invitation out with a fountain pen in bright blue ink.

  “I didn’t think people drank cocktails anymore.”

  “Most people don’t use fountain pens either,” the chauffeur observed.

  “Why does she want to see me?”

  He shrugged. “She didn’t say. Can I tell her you’re coming?”

  Watching him, I got the feeling that no one refused Rose Taylor. “And if I say no?”

  The chauffeur smoothed out the logo on his shirt. “You’ll miss a good martini.”

  “I prefer manhattans.”

  “We have those, too.” His smile was positively wolfish. “I’ll even have the maid put a cherry in your glass.” He leaned forward. “You like cherries, don’t you?”

  “Doesn’t everyone?”

  “Good. I’ll have her put in two. It’s a great house. You’ll like it. Oh,” he said, turning when he reached the door. “One more thing. Try to be on time. She hates it when anyone is late.”

  “Don’t we all.”

  After he left, I picked up the card Rose Taylor had sent me and studied it. Amy had said her mother was rich. The card and the car confirmed that. They also told me something else. They told me that not only did Rose Taylor have money; she wanted people to know that she had it. Given the way her children had acted, I had a feeling she wasn’t above using it to get what she wanted.

  I put the card down next to the photograph of the Mexican family. Well, one thing was for sure: It was going to be an interesting visit. I went into the back and poured myself a cup of coffee and checked in with Bethany’s parents. She hadn’t shown—big surprise. Then I called up another one of Bethany’s friends and got a possible line on one of the boys she was staying with. I was just looking up his name in the phone book when Calli called me.

  “B&N. Tomorrow night around nine. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Great. Gotta go. I’m on deadline.”

  “Just give me a two-minute precis on Hillary and her mother.”

  “You got it.” I took notes while she talked.

  After she hung up, I went back to looking up Bethany’s boyfriend’s address. Matt Andrews lived on Seymour Street, which wasn’t that far away from the store. I called the number listed and was informed by a man with a thick Russian accent that he was out painting houses and would be back around four that afternoon. I thanked him and hung up. Maybe if I was lucky, Bethany would be there too.

  Chapter Five

  I intercepted Matt Andrews just as he was going up the steps of his house. He was a good-looking, compactly built guy in his twenties with closely cropped blond hair and a killer tan. I could see where Bethany would want him, but why would he want Bethany?

  “Yes?” he asked as I approached him. His face closed up as if he were expecting trouble, and he hugged the six-pack of beer he was carrying a little closer to his chest.

  I gave him my card. “Bethany’s parents would like her to come home.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I pointed at the SUV parked in the driveway. It was the same one I’d seen drive away from Karim’s house. “You picked her up the other night.”

  “I don’t have to talk to you.” He started back up the steps.

  “Do the words statutory rape mean anything to you?” I called after him.

  He kept going.

  “Her parents don’t want to prosecute, but they will. She’s just fifteen.”

  He stiffened and whirled around. “Fifteen? You’re kidding me, right?”

  “What do you think?”

  “She told me she was eighteen,” he protested.

  She looked eighteen the way I looked twenty-five. “Well, she’s fifteen. Now where is she?”

  “I don’t know. Honest,” he added after a few beats had gone by.

  “Think about it. No. Don’t shake your head. At this moment, you’re liable to prosecution. You know, being labeled as a sex offender—that wouldn’t be good at all.”

  “Hey.” He shook a finger at me. “I didn’t force myself on her. She gave it up of her own free will. She wanted it.”

  “Legally, a fifteen-year-old girl doesn’t have free will. Is she in your apartment?”

  “No.”

  “You mind if I take a look?”

  “Be my guest.” I followed him inside. Salsa music and the smell of frying potatoes wafted down from upstairs. “I keep telling them to lower the volume,” he groused as he unlocked the door.

  The inside of the apartment was surprisingly neat. It was furnished with odd pieces of mismatched, tattered, nicked furniture, but the windows, floors, and walls were spotless.

  “See?” Andrews said as he followed me from room to room. “I told you she wasn’t here.”

  “So who else does she hang out with?” I inquired when we were back in the living room. When he didn’t answer, I nudged him a little. “Remember, a sex-offender status will follow you wherever you go.”

  He tugged at his painter’s hat. “Sometimes,” he said reluctantly, “she hangs at this tattoo parlor on the North Side.” And he gave me the address. I wrote it down. “She has a friend that works there.”

  I consulted my watch. I’d have to drop in there later. The drive out to Rose Taylor’s would take me at least a half hour—if there wasn’t any traffic on the road. Plus, I was stopping on the way and seeing Bethany’s parents before I hit Rose Taylor’s. It was a meeting I wasn’t looking forward to. After all, how do you tell someone that their fifteen-year-old daughter is stealing money from people? And that was the good news?

  I took my card out of Matt Andrews’s hand, scribbled my cell phone number on the bottom of it, and handed it back to him. “If she comes by, be smart and call me immediately.”

  “Don’t worry. Believe me, I will.”

  “Good. Because you don’t need the kind of trouble she’s going to cause you.” And I got in my car and took off. Hopefully, I’d scared him enough so he would.

  As I drove along Route 92, I pondered what Calli had told me about Rose Taylor. She was definitely a high-powered lady. The widow of Sanford Taylor, a down-home guy who had been known as one of the powers behind the throne in the New York State Republican Party. A power broker and financier, he’d inherited the family fortune from his dad, Hubbell Taylor, who’d made his money manufacturing office equipment. Sanford had dramatically increased his fortune by strategically aligning himself with certain prominent families that had widespread interests in construction, trucking, waste disposal, and real estate. Rose Taylor was his second wife, his first one having died in an automobile accident.

  Twenty-five years younger than her husband, she’d been a nurse, training that had served her well when her husband had come down with rheumatoid arthritis. He’d remained bedridden for five years before he died at the relatively young age of sixty-five. It was rumored she’d become the brains behind his particular operation, the person in charge. Nothing went through without her say-so.

  Maybe that’s why Sanford had left everything to her. She, in turn, according to Calli, was supposed to look after her children’s needs out of the money in the estate. Then, when she died, they’d inherit what was lef
t over. The kids had outstanding debts all over town that the mother was refusing to honor. Not a good recipe for family harmony, I decided as I lit a cigarette. Not a good recipe at all.

  Eagerness made palpable, Arthur and Millie Peterson were waiting for me when I pulled into the driveway of their house. Once we were seated in the living room, I told them everything I’d found out about their daughter. I kept my hands folded and my eyes focused somewhere in the middle of the room, because I didn’t want to see their reactions.

  “You’re wrong,” the mother cried when I was done. “Bethany would never do those things. She’s still a baby.”

  I felt as if I’d just shot Bambi.

  “I just want her to come home.” She covered her face with her hands. Sobs flew out between her fingers.

  I couldn’t think of anything to say. I studied a piece of pottery and tried not to see her. Her husband put his arms around her and held her close.

  “It’ll be all right,” he murmured. “You’ll see. We’ll get through this.”

  I couldn’t get out of the Petersons’ house soon enough. I hate giving people this kind of news, I wished I was back in Noah’s Ark, taking care of my fish, cleaning out the bird cages, and feeding Zsa Zsa her dog biscuits. Everything is so much simpler there.

  Like Bethany’s parents, Rose Taylor lived in Cazenovia, but in a ritzier part. Normally, I liked driving through the town. Bordering on Cazenovia Lake, it is one of those quaint summer resorts that turn up in tour guides under the heading of undiscovered American gems. It has its share of bed-and-breakfasts, hotels with colorful faux British names, and shops selling amusing postcards, expensive, imported scented soaps, and candles.

  Until recently a WASP stronghold, although not as conservative or rich as Skaneateles, another small lakeside resort town in our area, it still harbors a sizable contingent of the wealthy, though their numbers are dwindling as the middle class moved in. What’s even worse, from some people’s point of view, is that the college there, once an all-girls school, in an attempt to shore up their enrollment, not only turned coed but was now recruiting minority students from New York City. The barbarians were no longer at the gates. They were inside. But they hadn’t reached Rose Taylor’s house yet.