Blowing Smoke

by Barbara Block

  Amy shook her head. She watched me as I walked over to the nearest bed, picked up a bright red shirt that was on it, and held it up to the light, then dropped it back down. It was too big to be Pat Humphrey’s. I glanced at the clothes lying on the other bed. Small-sized linen pants. A silk T-shirt. A silk bathrobe.

  “Who’s your roommate?” I asked Amy.

  “Those are my clothes.”

  I held the pants up. “No they’re not.”

  She flushed again and began fiddling with her pendant I dropped the pants back on the bed and walked over to the closet and looked inside. Three white robes, just like the one Amy was wearing, were hanging on the steel rod, along with a selection of slacks and blouses. My glance traveled downward to a suitcase lying on the floor.

  “That’s mine,” Amy said, moving toward me.

  I bent down and read the tag before she could take it away. “You always travel with Pat Humphrey’s suitcase?”

  “She lent it to me a while ago.”

  I just stared at Amy. She bit her lip and stared back at me. By now she was breathing hard, but I couldn’t tell if it was from anger or exertion.

  “Has it ever occurred to you,” she said, “that Pat Humphrey doesn’t want my mother to find her.”

  I remained silent.

  “Don’t tell her,” Amy begged. “Please.”

  “Why not?”

  “Pat has her reasons.”

  “You were the one in the boat with her, weren’t you?” I intuited.

  Amy blanched.

  “Where did she go?”

  “I wasn’t with her.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “That’s enough.”

  I turned around. Sinclair was standing by the door. He had a nasty smile on his face and two unsmiling, powerful-looking men flanking him. Somehow they didn’t look like members of his congregation. I think I would have preferred seeing the police.

  “These two gentlemen will escort you off the premises,” Sinclair announced.

  “Gentlemen? Now there’s a misnomer if I ever heard one.”

  “Be quiet.”

  “Where’d you get them from?” I asked.

  Sinclair folded his hands together in an attitude of prayer. “I think there have been enough questions asked here for one night.”

  “And if I don’t agree?”

  “I said that’s enough,” he yelled.

  Amy cringed at the loud noise. He went over and stroked her arm.

  “I’m sorry, my dear,” he said. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “That’s touching.”

  He pointed at me. “Get her outside. Now.”

  One of the men took one arm, the other took the other, and they marched me out of the room. Sinclair joined them a moment later.

  “It must be tough having to keep that sensitive front up all the time,” I said.

  Sinclair came up till he was about two inches in front of me. “Just be glad I don’t beat up women,” he hissed. “Unlike the person who did that.” He pointed to my jaw. “Though if I see you again, I’ll make an exception to that rule. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  “Absolutely. You couldn’t be clearer.”

  “Good.” He turned to the two men. “Make sure she leaves the area.”

  “So you guys trying to find inner peace, too?” I asked both of them as they escorted me to the parking lot. “Or are you here for the fishing?”

  They could have been deaf for all the response I got. They walked me to my vehicle and stood there, arms crossed, while I got in.

  I waved to them as I hit the accelerator. “’Bye, assholes.”

  The bigger one growled and started toward me. But it was too late. I was already in motion.

  “Next time, guys.” And I gave the car more gas.

  It was probably the letdown, but all of a sudden I realized I was ravenous. My stomach was rumbling. I drove into the first rest stop I came to after I got off Wolfe Island, bought two Big Macs, a Coke, and a large order of fries, and called the Taylor estate. Moss Ryan got on the line. He sounded tired and edgy.

  “It’s late to be calling here,” he said to me.

  I licked the ketchup off my fingers. “Don’t you ever go home, or have you taken up permanent residence?”

  “Of course not,” Ryan snapped. “I’m just staying here till things calm down. Rose can’t handle all of this by herself.”

  “Where’s Geoff?”

  “With Rose. She’s very upset by everything that’s happened.”

  “I can’t understand why.”

  “Do you have anything to tell me or not?” Ryan said impatiently. “Because if you don’t ...”

  “Actually I do.” And I told him about my evening’s adventures.

  There was a brief pause on the other end of the line, and then he said, “I can’t believe you lost her.”

  “Hey, you think someone else can do better, be my guest and go hire them.”

  “No. I want you to go back and see if she’s still there.”

  “Now?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  I guess I should have been politer to the two gentlemen in Sinclair’s employ. Either that or come back armed. “And if she is?”

  “Call me.”

  “And then what?”

  “We’ll take it from there.”

  “And if she’s not?”

  “Then you’re to keep looking.”

  I finished off the last five French fries and unwrapped the second Big Mac. “Are you sure Rose will agree to this?”

  “Absolutely positive.”

  “Maybe I should talk to her.”

  I could hear his sigh of exasperation. “You can call her tomorrow morning if you want. No earlier than ten, though.”

  “Why can’t I speak to her tonight?”

  “Because she’s already taken her sleeping pill for the evening.”

  “I see.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Moss Ryan demanded.

  “Nothing”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s just been a zoo around here.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “And it’s only going to get worse.”

  That I could believe.

  Chapter Nineteen

  At seven o’clock the next morning, I got a call from Pat Humphrey. I’d been in a deep sleep, the kind you have to claw your way out of when the phone rang.

  “I hear you’ve been looking for me,” Pat Humphrey said. “What do you want?”

  I sat bolt upright. The phone started to slip through my sweat-slicked fingers. I caught it just before it hit the bed.

  “Who told you?” My voice was thick with sleep. I shook my head to clear it and tried to focus.

  “Amy. Tell me what’s going on.”

  “Rose was worried about you.”

  “She shouldn’t have been.”

  “Well, she was.” A sparrow lit on my windowsill. We stared at each other for a few seconds before it flew off. “It looked as if you’d disappeared.”

  “I was helping my neighbor with an emergency.”

  “But the hose and the door,” I protested.

  “Her ten-year-old was supposed to take care of that. He forgot.”

  I wondered what the emergency was as a narrow band of sunlight moved across the floor and onto the fluttering shade in the window across from my bed, but she didn’t tell, and I didn’t ask. “She wants to see you.”

  “She will. I just need some time to myself. I understand you found my pendant.”

  I moved my legs over the side of the bed and reached for a cigarette. “You stay fully informed.”

  “I try to.”

  “Louis has it.”

  “Louis is a thief.”

  “Why don’t you call the police?”

  “I might, although I think he’s in enough trouble at the moment, don’t you?”

  I found my lighter. The flame flared up when I clicked it, and I move
d back. I tried again. This time I succeeded. “You know that message you left on my machine the other day, the thing about blood and the dark? Well, don’t do that anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t like it.”

  “You should be grateful.”

  “Stick to your paying clientele.”

  “You know, Murphy has things he’d like to say to you.”

  “Can the crap and stick to your animals. If I want to hear from my dead husband, I’ll consult a friggin’ Ouija board.” And I slammed the phone down without trying to find out where Pat Humphrey was staying. Which was not good, since that’s what I was being paid to do. The woman was making me crazy.

  I tried redialing, but this time star 69 didn’t work.

  I finished my cigarette while Zsa Zsa watched me disapprovingly.

  “Yes, I know I shouldn’t be smoking this early,” I told her. I put it out, hopped in the shower, threw on some clothes, and raced over to Pat Humphrey’s house.

  I wanted to make sure she hadn’t been calling me from there. But if she had, I was too late. She’d already come and gone. The breakfast dishes on the table in the backyard had been cleared off. The doors were locked. Her mailbox was empty, and there was no paper on her stoop. I spoke to the neighbors. One of them had seen her leave. She’d just waved at him as she’d driven by, but he had no idea where she was going.

  I rang up the Taylor house on my way to the store. Moss Ryan got on the phone, and I told him about my early-morning phone call.

  “Find her,” he told me. “Find her now.”

  I pressed the OFF button. It was a little after nine in the morning, and I felt as if I’d been up for hours. The day was already hot. Flowers drooped and people watered scraggly lawns as I listened to the announcer on the radio predicting it was going to go into the nineties. I felt as if someone had hooked me up to a vacuum cleaner and sucked all the energy out of me. I stopped at a minimart on my way to work and got a large Coke to go, but it didn’t help much.

  I was still wondering why Pat Humphrey had called when George came through the door of Noah’s Ark carrying a take-out bag and two coffees. As I watched him approach, I realized that one of the things I loved about him was that he fed me.

  George plunked the bag down on the counter. “I thought this would make a change from your chocolate-doughnut diet,” he announced as he took the coffees out of their cardboard holder and unloaded three types of bagels, cream cheese, juice, and the morning edition of the local paper.

  “Thanks.” I grabbed a bagel and cut it in half as George looked over the news.

  “Hello.” He whistled. “Here we go.” He took out the Metro section and folded it, indicating a two-column story, tucked below the fold, headlined: “Fatality in Cazenovia,” and handed it to me.

  I emptied three packets of sugar into my coffee and stirred. “It’s not getting much play,” I observed. Stories placed under the fold in newspapers are traditionally deemed less important than those above the fold.

  “Maybe not, but it’s still in.” George took a bite of his bagel. “Even Rose Taylor couldn’t keep it out.”

  “True.” I spread some cream cheese on mine and wondered what people down in New York City would have to say about the bagel I was eating—banana orange. When I was growing up, bagels came plain or with onion, garlic, or poppy. Now they’re at least double the size and come with everything from sun-dried tomatoes to chocolate chips. Sometimes, I decided as I settled down to read the story, choice is not a good thing.

  According to the piece in the paper, “Shana Driscoll, an employee of well-known philanthropist Mrs. Rose Taylor, was found floating in the pool on the Taylor estate by Mrs. Taylor’s husband and a guest. When attempts at resuscitation failed, Mr. Moss Ryan, prominent lawyer and family friend, called 911. Police are investigating the possibility of foul play.”

  “I’m a guest?” I said to George.

  The police sure hadn’t treated me like one when they’d arrived at the scene. From the way they’d carried on, I’d expected to be marched down to the Public Safety Building and booked. Fortunately, it hadn’t come to that, although I’d had to go down there again to give another statement.

  He took another bite of his bagel. “Evidently”

  “Possibility?”

  “That’s what it says.”

  I spread more cream cheese on my bagel and added some jam. “So reading between the lines, what they’re saying here is that the police think someone fed Shana Driscoll a large quantity of alcohol and then proceeded to hold her under.”

  George broke off a piece of his bagel and gave it to Zsa Zsa. “That would appear to be the case.”

  I thought back. “I didn’t see marks around her throat; in fact, I didn’t see any bruises on her at all, but there wouldn’t have been if someone pushed her in and held her head underwater. It probably wouldn’t have taken all that much strength to do, either.”

  “Not if she were drunk enough.”

  I visualized the two whiskey-filled glasses I’d seen sitting on the coffee table at the cottage and the half-empty bottle of Jamieson’s on the arm of the chair out by the pool. The scene wasn’t hard to read. She and her killer had started drinking in her cottage and then continued out at the pool. Then her killer had suggested they go for a quick swim—and bye-bye Shana.

  “Whoever killed her was definitely someone she felt comfortable with. Otherwise she wouldn’t have let them into her house,” I reflected.

  George removed the lid from his cup of coffee and tossed it into the trash. “I’ve always said that stranger danger is an overrated concept.”

  I picked a strand of lint off my linen skirt and decided I should have sent it out to have it ironed instead of taking it directly out of the dryer and putting it on. That way maybe I wouldn’t look like an unmade bed. “How high do you figure her blood-alcohol level had to be?”

  “High.” George fed Zsa Zsa another piece of his breakfast.

  I studied my dog, who, having gobbled down George’s last handout, was prancing around his feet in the hopes of getting more. “She is getting really fat.”

  “Spheroid. Maybe you should consider feeding her—dare I say the word?—dog food.”

  “Dog food?” I laughed. “No, I don’t think she’d appreciate that too much. Maybe I’ll just feed her less.” I lit a cigarette, took a puff, then reached for my coffee.

  I told George about the reception I’d gotten at Sinclair’s.

  “It’s amazing how many of these cult places have men with guns hanging around them,” he observed as his glance strayed down to the picture tacked up on my cash register.

  I explained about Raul and the picture.

  “I didn’t think people died from TB anymore.”

  “They do if it’s not treated.” And I made a mental note to go down and get a TB test.

  George snorted. “And you’re really going to try to find this woman?”

  “If I can.”

  “Why?”

  “I suppose because I would want someone to do the same thing for me.” And I changed the subject. “You want to take a boat ride with Zsa Zsa and me?”

  “Where?”

  “Around Wolfe Island, of course.”

  I readjusted my baseball hat against the sun, rubbed some more suntan lotion on my arms and shoulders, and thought about how nice being on the water was. As I listened to Zsa Zsa bark at a water-skier whizzing by, I watched a seagull diving for something below the water’s surface. The wake from a passing boat set ours rocking. I took two Sam Adams beers out of the Styrofoam cooler sitting next to my legs and passed one of them over to George.

  “Thanks,” he said, lowering the binoculars. He twisted off the cap and took a swig. “I should get one of these,” he mused aloud, referring to the twelve-foot fiberglass runabout we’d rented from the marina down the way. “Maybe even get something a little larger. They’re not that expensive. I could winter it over in my garage
, then dock it on Ontario in the summer. I always wanted one.”

  I grunted and stretched my legs out. “Anything yet?”

  “Just some people doing tai chi over by the trees.”

  “See Sinclair?”

  “Nope. No Sinclair. No Amy. No Pat Humphrey. No anyone you’re interested in seeing.”

  I was betting that Pat Humphrey had come back to the center, that she hadn’t left the area after her phone call to me, but the only way to find that out was to wait and watch. If she had skipped out, I reflected gloomily, finding her was going to be a bitch. Unless, of course, I could get Amy to talk.

  “Here.” George handed me the binoculars. “Your turn.”

  Our vantage point of about thirty yards out on the river gave us an unobstructed view of the main lodge of the Center for Enlightened Self-Awareness, eight of the cabins, the lawn, about one-quarter of the parking lot, and all of the shore and the jetty. We’d been playing at spying for a little over an hour.

  We’d kill the engine and bob around for twenty minutes or so, then start her up, ride around for another ten minutes, and come back again. This was in case anyone was watching from the shore. I didn’t think anyone was. But George believed in being careful. At least that’s what he said, although I thought that his being careful had more to do with taking the runabout for a spin than with anything else.

  So far, the only things we’d seen were a middle-aged couple walking by the shore, a couple of dogs wading in the water, a man throwing a fishing line off the jetty, and the aforementioned group of tai chiers. Not that I minded. We had a cooler filled with beer and tomato-and-cheese sandwiches. There was a nice breeze blowing off the river, and the late-afternoon sun felt pleasantly warm on my shoulders and back. I even caught the scent of the sea in the air. I put my toes in the water, wiggled them, and watched the ripples lapping against my toes.

  “You know,” I said to George as I scanned the center with my binoculars, “I could do this all day.” Actually, we were going to do this until it got dark—four and a half hours away.

  “It certainly beats sitting in a car.”

  I rested the binoculars on the seat next to me and rubbed some more suntan lotion on my shoulders.

  “You should invest in some of that high-tech surveillance equipment.”