Blowing Smoke

by Barbara Block

  “Arthur isn’t here right now,” she told me, wiping a strand of hair off her forehead with the back of her wrist. “He went out for a run.”

  I wanted to ask if she needed his permission to talk to me. Instead, I asked if I could come in, anyway.

  Millie Peterson hesitated. “I was gardening.”

  “I can keep you company while you work, if you’d prefer.”

  “No. That’s all right.” And she motioned for me to come in. “He should be back soon.”

  Somehow I couldn’t imagine Arthur Peterson running. He was too short and heavy. His wife must have thought so, too, because she said, “I don’t know why he decided to take this up.”

  The house’s air conditioning felt chilly on my bare arms and legs. “So how’s Bethany?” I asked as Zsa Zsa and I followed Millie Peterson through the hallway and into the living room. I noticed her gait was stiffer. She was moving more slowly since I’d seen her last.

  “She’s fine,” Millie said. “Just fine.” And she curved her lips up in an apologetic smile. “Is this about the check? I’m positive Arthur said he sent it.”

  “He did. Can I speak to Bethany?”

  She turned to face me. I noticed she’d developed a tic under her left eye. “Is that why you’re here?”

  “One of the reasons.”

  Millie bit her lip. “Arthur said . . .”

  “What did I say?” Arthur asked as he walked into the living room.

  Millie and I both jumped. Neither one of us had heard him come in.

  Arthur Peterson was wearing running shorts and a tank top. His face and hair were slick with sweat, as were the chest hairs curling out of his top. His complexion was beet red. His chest was heaving up and down. He looked as if he were about to have a coronary.

  “My, this is a pleasant surprise,” he told me, although the expression on his face said otherwise.

  “About Bethany . . .” his wife offered.

  Arthur glanced at his wife. “Those shorts have seen better days. You should throw them out,” he commented. I watched her flinch as he turned to me. “Bethany is fine. Didn’t you get the check I sent you?”

  I nodded. “So she’s still here? I thought she’d be gone by now.”

  “She leaves for Florida next week. She’s grounded until then. No guests. No phone. No TV No radio.”

  “Can I see her?” What Debbie had said to me about Bethany must have bothered me more than I was willing to admit, because for some reason I needed to reassure myself that Bethany was okay.

  Arthur Peterson raised his tank top and wiped the sweat off his beard with the bottom of it. “You came all the way out here to check up on her; that’s very admirable. I hadn’t expected such diligence.”

  “Is there a problem?”

  “Not at all.” He nodded to his wife. “Millie, why don’t you bring Bethany out. You know, my daughter may not be happy to see you,” he added as his wife scurried off to do his bidding. “Sometimes,” he continued, his eyes following her, “it’s hard for people to do the unpopular thing.”

  “Like your wife?” I hazarded.

  Arthur Peterson sighed. “My wife is a lovely person, one of the sweetest I’ve ever known, but she thinks with her heart, not her head. She wants to take our daughter in her arms and make everything all right, but sometimes that approach doesn’t work. Believe me, I wish it did.”

  “And you think your way is better?”

  Peterson took a small white towel that was hanging on the back of one of the chairs and wiped his face with it. “I’ve been a family therapist for twenty years now. In my practice, I’ve found that setting limits works. It may be painful. For everyone. But someone has to take charge. Obviously, you can’t have a fifteen-year-old girl running around the streets.”

  “Obviously.”

  I looked up as his wife brought Bethany into the room.

  She was smaller than I remembered, and paler. More tentative in her movements. Her face was scrubbed; her blond hair had been redyed to a brown color and was pulled back in a ponytail. She wasn’t wearing her gold jewelry. But the expression on her face was still the same—sullen.

  “Say hello, Bethany,” her father instructed.

  “Hello,” Bethany parroted.

  “So?” I said. “How’s it going?”

  “Considering I’m a prisoner in my own house, just great.”

  “Now, Bethany . . .” her mother admonished.

  “What? I’m not?” She faced me. “Satisfied?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Here to collect your blood money?”

  “I already have it.”

  She jutted her chin forward. “Then what?”

  “I just wanted to see you.”

  “That’s why you came?”

  “One of the reasons.”

  “Bullshit,” Bethany sneered. She picked up a fashion magazine and started to thumb through it. “I’m nothing but a check to you.”

  “So why are you here?” her father asked before I could answer her.

  I turned back toward him. “A couple of reasons.” I showed him the picture of Dorita that Raul had handed me. “Does she look familiar?”

  Peterson shook his head.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure. Is this it? Are you done?”

  “Not quite.” And I pulled out the list of addresses I’d copied down and handed it to Arthur Peterson. He looked at it and handed it back to me.

  “Are these supposed to mean something?”

  “One of these addresses is yours.”

  “I can see that.”

  “They were taken off a pizza box that I found in a cabin on Wolfe Island, a cabin that was a clearinghouse for undocumented workers. I was just wondering why they had your address?”

  Peterson raked his beard with his fingertips. “May I ask what this is in relation to?”

  “A case I’m working on involving the recent death of a woman called Pat Humphrey.”

  “Never heard of her.”

  “She was a pet psychic.”

  Peterson rolled his eyes. “Lord, grant me the strength to withstand this New Age gibberish.”

  “So you have no idea why you’re on this list?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t have a clue. Maybe they were copying down phone numbers at random.”

  “You’re such a friggin’ hypocrite,” Bethany cried. “You make me want to puke.” And she threw down the magazine she’d been reading, turned, and stormed off to her room.

  “See what I mean,” her father said to me as we heard a door slam. “She’s impossible.”

  “Why should she say something like that?”

  He shrugged again and pulled on his beard. “Why does she say or do anything? I wish I had an explanation other than the fact that she’s fifteen.”

  Out of the corner of my eye I watched Millie Peterson. She was studying the sofa. Her fingers were nervously plucking at the waistband of her shorts, as if she were playing a harp.

  “Millie, do you know why she said that?” I asked.

  “Me?” She gave an incredulous laugh. “I don’t know why she says anything these days. I wish I did.” But her eyes weren’t meeting mine.

  “I told you that trailer park should be cleaned up,” Arthur pontificated to his wife. “I’ve said it from the first. But no one wants to listen. No one wants to do the hard thing anymore. Everything is spin control. That was probably a list of people whose houses they were planning to rob. I’ll bet anything on it.”

  “I doubt that,” I told him.

  He glared at me. “And what, may I inquire, makes you such an expert on this topic?”

  I gazed out the living-room window at the landscaping. “How much land do you own?” I suddenly asked.

  Peterson furrowed his brow at the question as he tried to figure out where I was going with it. “An acre,” he answered. “An acre and a half. Why?”

  “That’s a lot to keep after.”
r />   “I hire a gardening service.”

  “Speaking of that,” Millie said. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to get back outside. The weeds are calling.”

  I put my hand out and stopped her as she went by. “One quick question.”

  “But I don’t know anything,” she wailed. “Arthur does all the hiring.”

  “But you’re here.”

  “Could you get to your point?” Arthur Peterson said, interrupting.

  I ignored him. “Millie,” I said. “The man I picked up on the road that day. You knew him, didn’t you? He’d worked for you. That’s why you called your husband to the door, isn’t it?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” She bit her lip and studied the brown-and-orange patterned rug on the floor as if there were going to be an exam and she would be asked questions on it.

  “My wife doesn’t know what you’re talking about, and neither do I,” Arthur Peterson blustered.

  I turned to face him. “I think you both do. I think you hire these people along with half the inhabitants in this area. That’s why you’re on the list.”

  “You have no basis for making that statement. None at all.” He pounded his right hand into his left for emphasis. “If I had known you were going to come in here and insult me in my own house, I certainly would never have hired you. Now get out before I call the police.”

  “Gladly. But there’s something I think you should know.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “That man in my car. He died from TB.”

  “Remember, I was there,” Peterson replied. “I heard what the EMT guy told you. It has nothing to do with us.”

  “If you say so.”

  “Out,” said Peterson, pointing to the door. “Now.”

  As I walked toward my car, I could hear Arthur Peterson yelling at his wife. His voice seeped out through the cracks in the door, disrupting the serenity of the late-Saturday summer afternoon.

  Chapter Thirty

  Zsa Zsa and I stopped at a couple more of the addresses on my list before heading over to the Taylor estate. The responses I encountered were pretty much the same as the ones I’d gotten at the Peterson house. Puzzlement. Outrage. Lots of rejoinders like: “I don’t know what you’re talking about” and “Who do you think you are?” I wasn’t surprised. After all, who was going to admit they knew they were hiring undocumented workers to clean their kitchens and mow their lawns? These were the kind of people that wouldn’t talk to Saint Peter on the final Judgment Day without proper representation. Why the hell should they talk to me?

  Geoff opened the door when I rang the bell to his house. He was wearing tennis whites and carrying a racket.

  I stopped leaning against the doorframe and straightened up. “Where’s the maid?” I asked.

  “It’s her day off. What do you want?”

  He didn’t look pleased to see me, but then, so far no one had.

  If I had less of an ego, I might have taken it personally.

  But despite Geoff’s costume, from the way he was looking, I had to surmise two homicides were not what he’d been counting on when he’d signed on as Mr. Taylor. The polished, I’m-so-cool look had been replaced by sprouting facial hair and bloodshot eyes with puffy lids. Evidently he hadn’t been sleeping too well these days.

  “I’d like to talk to your wife, if you don’t mind.”

  “The boss lady?” He chuckled mirthlessly. “Even if I did mind, what difference would it make?” He tore at one of his cuticles with one of his fingernails.

  “None.” I watched Zsa Zsa chase a squirrel a short way before coming back and flopping down next to me.

  “Does this have something to do with Pat Humphrey?”

  “It might.”

  “God.” Geoff ran his free hand through his hair. I noticed his fingers had a slight tremor to them. “I rue the day that woman ever came into this house.”

  “I bet you do.” I looked around.

  The grass had been mowed, the bushes clipped. The water in the swimming pool was a limpid blue. The sprinklers were making hissing noises as arcs of water shot out from them. Everything looked the way it had the first time I’d set foot in the place, with the notable exception of the outdoor staff, who seemed to have disappeared. Or maybe I was just being unduly suspicious. Maybe they all had the day off. Then I wondered if Johnny had gotten out of the closet yet. I should probably call Russell and make sure.

  “So how are things going?” I asked Geoff. “How is Rose doing?”

  Geoff let out a strangled laugh. “My wife? Better than I am, if truth be known.”

  I gestured toward the house. “Are you going to let me in? I need to see her.”

  “She’s not in there.”

  I waited and watched Zsa Zsa sniff around one of the laurel bushes. “Well, where is she?” I asked after a minute or so had gone by.

  Geoff gazed off into the distance, seemingly tracking the lone cloud in the sky. “With Amy,” he finally said.

  “At the hospital?”

  “No. Our little murderer has been released to the fond embrace of her family.” He waved his tennis racket in the air. “Bad joke. Sorry. Forget I said that. She’s staying in the cottage for the present.”

  “The place Shana was living in?”

  Geoff nodded. “That’s right. Pretty bizarre, isn’t it? But you know what Rose said when I made a comment? She said, ‘Life goes on.’ ”

  “Maybe she didn’t like Shana as much as you did.”

  Geoff gripped my arm and pulled himself toward me. I could smell the whiskey on his breath. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, you did like her, didn’t you?”

  Geoff swallowed. He let go of me. His eyes drifted in the direction of the swimming pool. I wondered if he was seeing himself and Shana there. “She was a nice woman,” he allowed. “Fun to be with. When you gave her things, she had this neat habit of cocking her head and looking as if your present was the best thing in the world. It didn’t have to be anything big, either.” He paused. “I still haven’t been able to take a swim in the pool.” He shook his head. “I ask you, is that stupid or what?”

  “Not really.” After finding Murphy’s body in the garage, I hadn’t been able to go into it for six months. I’d parked my car in the driveway.

  “I wanted to keep her dog,” Geoff said. “Maurice liked me. He really did. I thought it would be nice to have him around.”

  “So why didn’t you? What happened?”

  “Rose wouldn’t hear of it. Claimed the dog would ruin the carpets.” Geoff ran his fingers over the tennis-racket strings. “It seemed the least I could do.”

  “Where is Maurice?”

  “I found a home for him with a friend of mine. He’ll be fine.” And Geoff lapsed into silence.

  I lit a cigarette.

  “Got an extra?” Geoff asked.

  “I didn’t know you smoked.”

  “I quit when I met Rose,” Geoff said as I handed him my pack.

  “You know,” I said after he’d lit up, “given the way Amy is, I’m surprised that she consented to stay in the cottage. I would have thought she would have refused. Negative karma. Ghosts. That sort of thing.”

  “God, this is good,” Geoff said, taking a deep puff of my Camel. “They have her so doped up she could be in the Taj Mahal and she wouldn’t know the difference”

  “But why not the house?”

  Geoffmade a wry expression. “Amy has someone watching her. Rose said she didn’t want to be disturbed by all the comings and goings.” He shifted his weight from his right to his left foot. “And now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got to get onto the courts. I have a tournament coming up at the club, and I’m going to need all the practice I can get in.”

  Given Geoff’s present condition, I’d say he was going to need a lot more than a couple of practice rounds on the back court to win, but I wished him luck and walked down to the cottage to find Rose.

  The first thing I saw wh
en I pushed the door to the cottage open was a man standing in the middle of the kitchen who could have been a stand-in for one of the World Federation Wrestling bad guys. He was about six feet four, probably weighed at least three hundred pounds, and had biceps the size of cantaloupes, a chest you could break things on, and a shaved head that looked as if it had been polished. The hoops he was wearing in his ears only added to the impression of menace. He put down the sandwich he was eating and turned to face me. The expression on his face was far from welcoming.

  “Yes?” he growled.

  “I’m Robin Light, and I’d like to speak to Mrs. Taylor.”

  He gave me a quick appraising glance and must have decided I wasn’t going to be any trouble, because he said, “She’s busy with her daughter. Come back later,” before returning to his sandwich.

  “I need to speak to her now.”

  “Didn’t you hear what I said?” Annoyed, he slapped the sandwich down on the plate and started toward me. “I told you to come back later.”

  “Listen, bud, I’m trying to be nice here.”

  “Or you’ll . . . ” He sneered.

  “Leave.”

  “It’s all right, Tom.”

  We both turned. Rose Taylor had wheeled herself into the room. Her hair and face were immaculate. She was wearing an expensive white linen blouse and matching pants. A strand of pearls circled her neck.

  Tom touched the edge of his hand to his forehead in a mock salute. “If you say so, Mrs. T,” and went back into the kitchen.

  “You’re hiring bodyguards now?”

  Rose looked up at me and frowned. “Tom is a nurse. He comes highly recommended.”

  From where? I wondered. The state psychiatric facility? Attica?