Blowing Smoke

by Barbara Block

  I perked up. “You’ve met her?”

  “No. I’ve just heard about her. Louis talks about her all the time.”

  “What does he say?”

  Debbie moved her ring finger up and down. “That she’s a fake. That she’s ripping his mom off.”

  “And?” I asked hopefully.

  “That ever since she came on the scene, his mom doesn’t want to talk to him anymore. Not that he really cares,” she added. “Now, why are you here? What does he have to do with her?”

  “I’m not sure. She’s disappeared, and his mother hired me to find her. I came by to ask him if he’d seen her, and he punched me.” Not exactly the way it happened but close enough.

  Debbie carefully folded the dress and put it back on the bed, then took Louis’s wig and put it on the stand on top of the dresser drawer. “So, you’re some kind of private detective?”

  “Something like that.” I gave her my card.

  She tossed it on the bed. “He didn’t have anything to do with Pat Humphrey disappearing.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because he’s a dear, sweet man. That’s why.”

  The room started spinning again. I steadied myself against the table. “I take it you’re more than friends?”

  She held out her hand. On it was a tiny diamond ring. “He’s my fiancé.” Her grin was back. “We’re going to be married next month.”

  “His mother didn’t say anything about that to me.”

  “His mother doesn’t know. And we’re not telling her until afterwards. If she could, she’d control when he takes a leak. We’re going to get married at the speedway. Then we’re going to travel around the world. To Africa and India and Australia. I’m totally psyched.”

  “Doesn’t the fact that he’s a transvestite bother you?”

  “No. It’s totally cool as far as I’m concerned.” Debbie ran her hand through her hair. “So what if he gets off on that kind of thing? People should be able to do what they want. I mean, guy, girl, age, race. They’re irrelevant. Pretty soon they’ll have a pill so you can change them at will.” Debbie hit her chest with her fist. “It’s what’s in here that counts.”

  “That’s what I’m worried about.”

  “You are so wrong. What gives you the right to come in here and invade his space and make those kind of accusations?” Debbie was going to say something else when her beeper went off. “I gotta take this.” And she went out onto the steps. While she was out there, I took the opportunity to take a quick peek through her backpack.

  She had a lipstick, lip gloss, mint-flavored condoms, and a key chain with a can of mace hanging from it—just like I did—jumbled up in the bottom. I lifted out her billfold and opened it up. Her license read “Debbie Wright.” I glanced at the address. She lived close to Bethany’s friend Michelle.

  I wondered if they knew each other as I did a quick count of the money she was carrying. It was all twenties and fifties. She had at least five hundred dollars, maybe more. I put that back and picked up a small plastic Ziploc bag. It had ten ecstasy pills in it. I pulled out another Ziploc bag. It contained twenty. I guess I knew where Louis had gotten his. I was holding one of the bags when she came through the door.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she demanded. “Put that back.”

  I did. “Do you sell this stuff?”

  She grabbed her backpack. “No wonder Louis popped you one. I would myself if I did things like that.”

  “So do you?”

  “We were going to a party. These were for my friends, and please don’t give me that archaic drugs-fry-your-brain crap. Because they don’t.”

  “I wasn’t going to.”

  “You guys give your kids Ritalin and all those serotonin reuppers, and that’s okay, but this isn’t.”

  “I don’t have kids.”

  “Don’t confuse the issue.” And she stormed out the door. I followed.

  “You see Louis, you tell him to come talk to me,” I called after her.

  She paused long enough getting into her Honda Civic to tell me to go fuck myself.

  “Maybe I can keep him out of jail.”

  She slammed the door and drove away.

  So much for that. I motioned for Zsa Zsa and went back inside. I spent the next half hour going through Louis’s stuff. I looked in his file cabinet and found the DBA for his antique business as well as his tax returns. A cursory glance told me he was getting by, but that was it. As I closed the drawer, I wondered where he was going to get the money to take his bride on her wedding trip.

  I went through his dresser drawers next. Half of them contained the usual socks and underwear, while the other half contained bras and silk panties in sizes I didn’t know they made. In a box by his bed I found what appeared to be every birthday card his mother had ever sent him, two pressed roses, plus clippings of his fights. An interesting mix.

  Then, off to one side, on top of a stack of local newspapers, I found a bubble envelope addressed to Shana Driscoll. I opened it up. Three Tommy Makem and The Clancy Brothers CDs fell out. A fact that indicated what? I sighed and put them back and checked my watch. It was still early enough to go back and talk to Shana. I had a couple of more questions that I wanted to ask her.

  I was the only car on the road. As I drove along, I couldn’t get Louis out of my mind. I kept thinking about him. Thinking about the expression on his face when I’d told him about Shana. Thinking of him in his dress. Thinking of Debbie. Thinking of what she’d said about categories. Wondering if she really believed what she said.

  What would Rose say if she knew about Louis’s clothes? What would she say if she saw Louis’s girlfriend? Or maybe she did know about her. And about the cross-dressing. Maybe she knew other things about Louis as well.

  And there were other possibilities. According to Debbie, he had reason to be pissed at Humphrey. Had she learned about Louis’s other passion? Maybe seen him when he was decked out? Or gone to his trailer and surprised him? Threatened him with blackmail?

  What would Rose do if she knew? Write him out of the will altogether? Cut him off without a cent? I rubbed my throbbing jaw and wished I had an ice pack with me to put on it as I watched tree branches weaving themselves into fingers, heads, and bodies, then disentangling to become branches again.

  What would it be like to have a child you didn’t like? All those dreams, all those expectations, and then you get—what? Something you haven’t ordered, something you can’t relate to. An orchid that refuses to bloom. And what do you do with flowers that do that? Especially if you’re someone like Rose Taylor? You toss them in the trash and buy yourself more.

  I wondered if Rose Taylor had done that as I turned between the two stone pillars that marked the beginning of her estate. Everything seemed quiet. The lights along the road I was following cast a gentle illumination. The scent of roses from her garden lingered in the air. I could hear the sound of an owl hooting off in the distance, followed by a dog barking. If this house and land were in Westchester, it would cost several million. Here it was worth just one. But still, that was enough.

  The facade of the house was still lit up, but now all the house lights were off. It looked as if everyone were in bed. Glancing up, I thought I saw a slight movement in one of the windows. Then I decided I was mistaken, that it was a trick of the light. I scanned the driveway in front of the house. It was empty.

  I parked a little way back from the house and followed the path over to Shana’s cottage. The grass was soft under my feet. Zsa Zsa ran ahead of me, chasing after fireflies. It was a perfect summer night. Warm. A night for staying up and watching the stars. A night for building a bonfire on the beach. As George and I had done the summer we’d rented a cottage down in Hatteras. It had been nice, us drinking beer and sitting there and feeding twigs to the fire. What it wasn’t a night for was going looking for someone, I decided as I passed by the garage. I’d started down the gravel path and was thinking about how pissed Shana was going
to be when Zsa Zsa began to bark.

  “Shush,” I told her. “You’re going to wake everyone up.”

  “My wife takes sleeping pills.”

  I spun around. Geoff was standing there in a pair of khaki shorts and nothing else. Unless, of course, you counted the Glock he was holding in his hand.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “How about pointing that somewhere else,” I said to Geoff.

  “Sorry.” He lowered his weapon. “I thought you were a burglar.”

  “Really?” I noted the lights around the garage. “I would have thought you could see me well enough.”

  “Well, I couldn’t. You should call first before barging in. Especially at this time of night. In other parts of the world, like Mexico, I could shoot you if I found you on my property without permission.”

  “But we’re not in Mexico, are we? We’re in Central New York.” I shushed Zsa Zsa again. This time she took the hint, but she stayed close to me in case I needed protecting.

  “No,” Geoff conceded. “We’re not. Any particular reason you’re here?”

  “I came to speak to Shana.”

  “Shana?” He frowned. “Why? What possible interest could you have in talking to her?”

  “I want to find out more about a fight your girlfriend—”

  “She’s not my girlfriend.”

  “Fine. Your ‘friend’ told me she witnessed between Louis and Pat Humphrey.”

  “And that couldn’t wait until tomorrow morning?”

  “Yeah, it could have. But I didn’t feel like driving back here again. Tell me, does he ever visit?”

  “He might.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “He times his visits so I’m not here.”

  “And why is that?”

  Geoff scratched his chin with the muzzle of his gun—not a good thing to do. “About four months ago I caught him stealing from the house. Nothing big, mind you. Some Roman coins. A couple of small Daumier etchings. He told me he had a right to take them. He said they were his. Can you believe that? He steals something every time he comes.”

  Maybe that was how he was going to finance his honeymoon with Debbie.

  “Are you missing a piece of blue-and-white pottery?”

  “Yeah. We are. Why?”

  “I think it’s in Louis’s trailer.”

  “Christ.” Geoff chewed the side of his cheek. “If it wasn’t for Rose . . .” He let his voice drift off.

  “You’d do what?”

  “I’d call the cops.”

  I thought about Pat Humphrey’s necklace. “You know that necklace Pat Humphrey wears?”

  “The one with the pansy? What about it?”

  “Do you know if it’s valuable?”

  “It’s worth maybe a couple of thousand dollars—it’s an old piece. A famous jeweler did it. Why? Did you find it?”

  “I might have.”

  “She took it off to try on one of Rose’s necklaces, and then she got a phone call and had to run off. When she came back, it was gone. Rose insisted one of the maids took it. She fired her.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  Geoff thought. “Three, four weeks. But it was Louis, right?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I swear he’d steal candles from a church. He and Amy. They’re a real pair. I feel bad for Rose having to put up with them. If they were my kids, I would have told them to hit the road a long time ago.”

  “From what I understand, she practically has.”

  “My mother took a strap to me when I was bad.”

  We started to walk. Zsa Zsa kept a little bit to the right of me. “Can I ask you something? What are you doing out this time of night?”

  He shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep. I thought I heard something and came down to investigate.”

  “I’m surprised you don’t have a security system in here. Other than that.” And I pointed to the gun.

  “Oh, we did. But Rose canceled it. The cat kept setting it off. Drove her crazy. So now I’ve taken over.”

  “How comforting. You know, you don’t have to come.”

  “I want to.”

  “And if I told you I didn’t want you to?”

  “I’d tell you I’m coming, anyway.”

  I was about to reply when Geoff held up his hand.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  He pointed to the pool with the barrel of his gun. It took me a couple of seconds to see that one of the Adirondack chairs had been knocked over on its side.

  “So?”

  “It wasn’t like that before.” I glanced at Geoff’s face. In profile it was impossible to read. He picked up his pace, and so did I. We were almost at the pool when Geoff cried, “Oh, my God,” and broke into a run.

  I was about two seconds behind him.

  Shana Driscoll lay floating on her belly, facedown, just under the surface of the water. She had on the bathing suit I’d seen her in earlier in the evening. Her hair swirled around her like an undulating patch of exotic seaweed. Just like the tails of the angelfish in the aquarium I’d been looking at earlier in the evening, I couldn’t help thinking as Geoff jumped into the water.

  I followed. Zsa Zsa stood on the edge and whined for me to come out. The water was still warm from the day’s heat. Shana’s body bobbed gently in the wake of the waves Geoff and I had created. Geoff reached out and turned her over. I felt for her carotid artery. There was no pulse. She was dead. But then I had known that the minute I’d seen her. What she was doing wasn’t called the dead-man’s float for nothing.

  “Don’t touch her,” I said.

  Geoff shook his head. “We can’t leave her like this.” He tenderly ferried her over to the side. “Help me get her up. She may still be alive.”

  “She isn’t.”

  But Geoff had already clambered out of the pool, grabbed Shana under her arms, and started to pull. Zsa Zsa barked twice at him, then retreated a safe distance away.

  “Come on,” he cried, his face twisted with exertion.

  I helped even though I knew that disturbing the crime scene is a definite no-no.

  Shana was heavier than she looked. We hauled her over the edge of the pool and laid her out on the concrete apron. Aside from a black-and-blue mark on her thigh, her skin was clear of bruises. Squatting above Shana, watching Geoff perform CPR, I couldn’t help thinking that in the water Shana had looked like a mermaid drifting with the tide. On the concrete, with her blank eyes staring up at the night sky and her wet hair hanging down in clumped strands over her breasts, she looked like a piece of refuse that had been cast upon the shore.

  “Let her be,” I told Geoff. “This isn’t going to help. You’re not going to bring her back.”

  But he kept going, vainly trying to pump life into her lungs.

  I’m not sure how much time went by as I listened to Geoff’s breathing and watched his back muscles moving. Finally, I roused myself and touched his shoulder. It was warm from exertion. “It’s over.”

  Geoff’s arms went slack. He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again and rubbed his forehead. “You’re right. I know you’re right. It’s just that ... it’s ...”

  “Hard.”

  He took a deep breath and stood up. His chest and legs were beaded with water from the swimming pool. He ran a hand through his hair. “Jeez, what am I going to tell Rose?”

  I walked over to the chair that had been tipped on its side. A three-quarter-empty bottle of Jameson was balanced on one of the wooden slats. “Did Shana drink Jameson?”

  “She was Irish, wasn’t she?”

  “Did she drink a lot?”

  “Sometimes. Why? You think she got drunk, fell in, and drowned?” When I didn’t answer, Geoff said, “I don’t believe it. Not for a minute. She was a good swimmer.”

  I made a noncommittal noise. It certainly looked as though Shana could have died that way. I hoped for everyone’s sake she had. But I didn’t believe it, either. Maybe it
was the pool lights, but I couldn’t get over the feeling I was in the middle of a stage set. And then there was Louis. He sure hadn’t been happy when I’d told him what Shana had said. I was wondering where he’d been when Shana died when my phone started ringing. I took it out of my backpack. Manuel was on the line.

  “Not now,” I told him.

  “But Robin, Bethany ...”

  I cut him off. “Manuel, I’m going to have to let you go. I’ll call you back as soon as I can.” And I pressed the OFF button. “You want to ring up the police, or should I?”

  Geoff ran a hand through his hair. “I’ll call from the house. I gotta talk to Moss first,” he muttered.

  “Use my phone to call him.”

  “Ryan’s at the house.”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “He stays over sometimes,” Geoff said, going defensive on me. “When he’s too tired to drive home.”

  “Fine. Have him call the cops. I’ll stay here.”

  Geoff groaned and brought his hands up to his face. “My mother was right. I should have stayed in Michigan and learned computers.” Then he turned and jogged toward the house.

  The moment he was out of eye range, I motioned for Zsa Zsa and, with her trailing behind me, started toward the cottage. I wanted to take a look around before the police got here and sealed everything off. We were about twenty feet away from the cottage when Zsa Zsa started barking. I looked where she was looking but couldn’t see anything. A moment later, a little white ball darted out from behind a tree and started yipping at Zsa Zsa. Zsa Zsa wagged her tail. Shana’s dog did, too. Then she ran over, stood up on her hind legs, and scratched at my legs, begging me to pick her up. Which I did despite Zsa Zsa’s protesting growls.

  “You look okay to me, Maurice,” I said as I checked the dog out. Outside of some leaves and twigs stuck to his coat, he seemed fine. “So what happened to your mistress?” I asked. In answer, Maurice licked my nose, jumped out of my arms, and started playing with Zsa Zsa. Obviously, that famed animal empathy wasn’t in force here.

  The cottage Shana had lived in was picture-book charming, the kind you always see in travel ads for the English countryside. It came with a rose-covered trellis overshadowing the front of the place, ivy growing up the side of the walls, and a path made of paving stones. I wouldn’t have minded living in a place like this myself, I thought as I looked at the flower beds flanking the doorway. Blowsy with cosmos, black-eyed Susans, and lupines, they gave evidence of being well tended.