“Maybe we should have talked to Felix,” I said as we rounded a particularly panoramic curve. There were horses on this hill as well as cows.
Wayne turned to me, his eyebrows raised as high above his eyes as they’d go.
“Why?” he demanded. You would have thought by his tone that I’d asked him to join a satanic ritual group.
“Felix gives information as well as takes it,” I explained. “I know it’s easy to forget that when you actually have to listen to him, but—”
“Like what?”
“Like who has a criminal record, who’s been in the paper, that kind of thing.” I paused, negotiating another curve. “Maybe we should give him a call.”
Wayne furrowed his brows and thought for a few more turns of the road.
“I’d rather be stuck in a locked kennel with the terrier and the orange cat,” he finally concluded.
He had a point.
It really was a beautiful drive. In spite of our discussion of Felix. And it got more beautiful as we neared Charlie’s. The rolling hills turned green for the last few miles of the ride. I wondered who or what had supplied the necessary water. And then, finally, we arrived.
There was no way to miss the place. Suddenly, there were acres of paradise to the left of us, filled with fruit-laden trees, neat lawns, and flower beds. All behind vast wrought-iron gates.
I pulled off the main road and headed toward paradise. Once we were parked in front of the gates, Wayne got out and made a phone call from the adjoining sentry box. All under the moving eyes of the surveillance cameras. And then those magnificent wrought-iron gates opened magically and silently wide. We traveled up a long, winding drive until we saw the main house itself nestled between two hills. It looked like something out of a children’s story, made of stone and wood with multilayered stories completed by turrets and chimneys and stained-glass windows.
Charlie’s cottage was at least a half a mile further past the main house, made out of the same materials but not in such dramatic proportions.
What Charlie’s cottage might have lacked in proportion however was made up for by the vast ocean of lupines that surrounded it. Stalks and stalks of gloriously blooming lupines in blues and whites. And pinks and purples. And creams and yellows. All gently swaying in the light summer breeze. The effect was astonishing. And dizzying. No wonder Charlie wrote children’s stories. Charlie lived in fairy-tale land.
We walked up the rambling stone pathway through the lupines to the cottage and knocked on the wooden door set into its stone front. There was no doorbell. Except for the crazed barking from within. I guessed it was our day for animals.
Charlie opened the door and two Labrador retrievers came bounding out, tongues lolling, ready to lick.
A pink tongue had just reached my hand and was heading toward my face when Charlie shouted, “Down Donner, down Blitzen!”
I looked anxiously for the rest of the team, but there were only those two. They were enough.
Charlie alternately shouted commands at the dogs and apologized to us as he led us into his cottage. Donner and Blitzen trailed behind, making little begging noises.
The inside of Charlie’s cottage was spacious, mostly stone except for the wooden roof, doors, and window frames. If it hadn’t been for the thoroughly modern skylights, the cottage could have been from another century. It even had the right smell, of must and cooking and animals. Books filled the room, mostly in piles, some in bookcases obscuring the stonework. And in one corner, a built-in shelf held a bank of small TV screens. No, not TV, I corrected myself as I saw the estate from twelve different angles. Surveillance screens.
“Um, have a seat?” Charlie offered, motioning us to the only couch in the room as he gazed up at the ceiling over our heads. The couch was large and covered in a rainbow crocheted afghan. Which was itself covered in dog hair.
Wayne and I sat down and the dogs sidled close to either side of the couch as Charlie pulled up an easy chair covered in another rainbow/dog hair afghan and lowered his lanky body onto it, his eyes still focused on the ceiling.
I felt a cool moist nose nuzzle my hand from the right side of the couch and gave a surreptitious pat to either Donner or Blitzen’s head.
“Been looking into this thing about Sid,” Wayne began brusquely.
Charlie brought his gaze down from the ceiling and looked into Wayne’s eyes, locked in by the man-to-man approach.
“Sid,” Charlie repeated as if hypnotized. “Right.”
“Need to make sure no one else is in danger,” Wayne went on. Charlie’s dreamy eyes widened as he leaned forward in his chair. “Especially the women.”
“Pam?” Charlie whispered.
I wouldn’t have believed Wayne had that much manipulation in him. But he certainly had Charlie’s attention now. And he was milking it too, taking his time before answering Charlie.
“Pam’s okay, isn’t she?” Charlie demanded more loudly, halfway out of his chair now. The dog to my right sidled in a little closer. I gave it another pat for reassurance. Mine, not his.
“Pam’s fine,” Wayne told him. Charlie sank back into his chair with an audible gasp of relief. “As far as we know,” Wayne added. Charlie looked at him again. “If there’s a murderer at large, we can’t be sure who’s safe,” he finished up.
“Wow,” Charlie whispered. “What can I do?”
“Answer a few questions,” Wayne suggested. “Offer a few observations.”
“I’ll be glad to,” Charlie agreed. “If Pam is in danger, maybe I should stay with her. Or bring her up here where she’d be safe.” His voice took on speed. “Pam’s an incredible woman. I’m sure she can take care of herself, but still—”
“Back to Sid,” Wayne broke in quietly but firmly. “Why wouldn’t you talk to him about Vietnam?”
“Huh?” Charlie responded.
“Sid asked you about your experience in Vietnam and you didn’t answer him,” I translated.
Charlie looked up at the ceiling again. “I suppose I didn’t want to talk about my experiences with Sid because he might have been one of those guys who liked killing people over there,” he answered. “I hate that stuff.” He brought his eyes back down again, squinting in confusion. “But what does that have to do with anything?”
“Gotta cover all the angles,” Wayne growled, detective-style. Charlie still looked confused.
“Who do you think killed Sid?” I asked before Charlie could get unconfused enough to see where Wayne’s question had been heading.
“Gee,” he answered slowly, looking down at his hands now. “I just don’t know. Becky’s kid was sure mad at him, but…” His voice trickled away. I opened my mouth to prompt him, but he started up again before I had to. “And Mark was mad for a little while, but Mark’s too nice a guy. And anyway, everyone was mad at Sid, I think. I was and I didn’t kill him.”
“Who would Rodin Rodent believe killed him?” Wayne asked quietly.
Charlie’s shoulders straightened with the question. His dreamy eyes came into clear focus. Damn. It was working. I’d compliment Wayne later. He was getting good at this stuff.
“Hmm,” Charlie murmured. I could almost see his whiskers twitch. He popped up a finger. “One, someone who kept their real anger well hidden at the barbecue.” Another finger came up. “Two, someone who was capable of careful planning. Three, someone who hated Sid a great deal or had a lot to lose with him alive. And four, someone incapable of empathy, at least for Sid.”
“Who?” I demanded when he ran out of fingers.
Charlie squinted his eyes for a while, then flung his hands in the air.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, and he was Charlie again, slumped shoulders and all. He gazed at the floor. “I can’t imagine any of us doing it.”
I wanted to fling my hands out too. But one of my hands was too busy petting the Labrador, whose chin was now on my knee.
“Where did you and Pam go after the memorial?” I asked casually.
“Oh, I came home,” he replied just as casually.
“But I thought you were going to take Pam back to San Francisco,” I objected.
“I was, but it turned out that Anna May, the woman who sang for the memorial, was practically Pam’s neighbor, so Pam decided to hitch a ride with her instead of putting me to the trouble.” Charlie sighed. “At least, that’s what she said.”
Did this give Pam an alibi for Elaine’s murder? I wondered happily.
“Anna May said they just had to pick up a couple of things at Elaine’s first,” Charlie rambled on.
My hand froze mid-pet on the Lab’s furry head. Pam and the singer went to Elaine’s? My mind buzzed. But if the singer was a stranger to Pam, the two couldn’t have conspired to kill Elaine. So they must have arrived before the murderer. Because if they had arrived after the murderer, they couldn’t have missed what we’d seen. I shook off that thought. But what if Pam had actually seen the murderer—
“Did Pam seem to know this Anna May previously?” Wayne asked, interrupting my thoughts.
Charlie shook his head. “No, they just got to talking and found out they lived close by—” He stopped mid-sentence. “What’s all this got to do with Sid anyway?”
I looked at Wayne and nodded. I wanted to see Charlie’s reaction to Elaine’s death.
“Elaine Timmons was murdered,” Wayne announced without any softeners.
“What?” said Charlie, his dreamy eyes looking even more confused as his head jerked back. “You mean Elaine from high school?”
We nodded.
“But why?” he asked, his voice dazed.
Was Charlie shocked by the news of Elaine’s death? His voice sounded dazed, but I wasn’t sure if it was any more dazed than usual.
“Did you or Pam leave the memorial first?” Wayne asked Charlie.
“Huh?” he responded. Back to square one. Maybe he really was in shock.
After what seemed like close to a half an hour of careful questioning, Wayne and I had elicited very little from Charlie about who left where, what, or when at the memorial. Charlie told us that Pam had left with Anna May and then he’d left right afterwards. Apparently, he’d been so smitten with Pam that he hadn’t noticed anyone else’s departure, not even Elaine’s.
And then somehow, as the Lab eased his head onto my lap and his paw onto my knee, Charlie had stopped talking about the memorial and segued back into a listing of Pam’s virtues.
“…never fully appreciated her before,” he told us. “She’s strong, like one of these women detectives in books, but so kind and compassionate—”
“Like Mother Teresa,” I interrupted.
“Well, kinda,” Charlie agreed, startled by my interruption.
“Charlie, Pam is a real woman,” I told him. “If you make too much of her, you’ll blow it. She’s wonderful, but she’s not Superwoman. She gets mad. She gets scared. She’s real.”
“Yeah,” he muttered, blushing now, looking off to the side, having run out of other places to look while avoiding our eyes. “I really know that. I’ve had girlfriends, you know. I know real women aren’t really like Rolanda.”
“Rolanda?” I asked. Who the hell was Rolanda?
“Rolanda is Captain Penelope Page’s ship rat, remember?” Charlie answered, looking at me now with hurt in his eyes.
“Oh, right,” I said quickly. And it really was coming back to me.
Rodin Rodent lived on the evil captain’s boat. And Rolanda lived on Penelope’s. Rolanda was a brave female rat with silky brown fur, a scrap of red velvet for a cap, and a two-inch hat pin for a sword. And the evil captain had taken Penelope and all her hands prisoner in the last installment.
“So how do Rolanda and Rodin save Penelope from the evil captain?” I asked to prove that I remembered. And because I really wanted to know.
The hurt look left Charlie’s eyes. He even smiled as he answered, “Oh, Rolanda and Rodin chew through Penelope’s bonds. Then Penelope frees her whole crew and they get their ship back and escape. Including brave Rolanda.”
“But what about Rodin and Rolanda’s relationship?” I objected, caught up in the story again.
“Rolanda is faithful and must leave with her mistress,” Charlie answered, his eyes on the far beyond ocean of lupine. “So she leaves Rodin alone once more. One little rat embrace and then she waves her red velvet cap goodbye. And she’s gone.” He sighed, then added more cheerfully, “But they may meet again. Maybe in the next book.”
“Would Rodin kill to protect Rolanda?” Wayne interjected before I could ask for more details.
“No,” Charlie answered without pause. “He’d find a way to save her without killing.”
“How about in real life?” Wayne pressed on. “Would you kill to protect Pam?”
“I wouldn’t kill,” Charlie insisted. “Unless there was absolutely no other way to protect her. But that’s not the case. Pam was never in any danger from Sid.” He looked Wayne in the eye. “Rodin Rodent doesn’t believe in killing. And neither do I.”
And that was that. We left paradise very soon after.
“We have to find a phone,” I said once we were settled in the Toyota once more, driving back the way we’d come, the wrought-iron gates closed silently behind us.
“Why?” asked Wayne.
“What if Pam saw the murderer arrive?” I proposed.
“What if Pam is the murderer?” he counterproposed.
“In conspiracy with a singer she met that day?” I shot back, shaking my head. “No way.”
“Not likely,” he conceded. He thought for a moment. “Gravendale’s the nearest place for a phone.”
“Why don’t we visit Aurora’s bookstore at the same time,” I suggested, inspired. I was sure she’d let us use her phone. And I wanted to talk to her anyway. The woman had real moments of insight. It would be interesting to know what she’d make of what we’d uncovered. More than interesting.
Wayne found the card with the address for Aurora’s store in my purse, but he didn’t recognize the street name.
He reached in the glove compartment for a map.
And pulled out a fuzzy purple windup toy.
“What the hell is this?” he demanded.
“Oh, that?” I said, looking over. “Just a practical joke from Sid. It jumped out of the glove compartment the last time I opened it. With Sid’s card attached.”
“And you didn’t tell me,” he accused quietly.
“Well, no—” I began defensively.
“What else haven’t you told me?” he asked just as quietly.
- Twenty-One -
“What to do you mean, what haven’t I told you?” I sputtered as I pulled back onto the main road. “Nothing, nothing at all.”
Except for that little old death threat, it was pretty much the truth.
I drove a few miles in silence, looking at Wayne out of the corner of my eye, hoping he wouldn’t see me do it. His brows were pulled three quarters of the way over his eyes, his face set in gargoyle mode. All he needed was a fountain of water spouting out of his mouth and they could clamp him onto the wall of a castle alongside the drawbridge.
“Nothing important anyway,” I amended. Wayne usually knew when I was lying anyway.
He didn’t move a hair.
“You know,” I followed up, finding myself suddenly more than defensive. Finding myself angry. “I don’t have to tell you everything. You could give me credit for being able to assess what’s important and what’s not. For being able to decide what you need to know and what you don’t.” Self-righteousness was pumping into my bloodstream now, obliterating that pesky old rationality.
“What am I supposed to do?” I finished up in full snit. “Give you a complete written report every time I come home?”
I tromped out my anger on the gas pedal, taking the curves like I was in Wayne’s Jaguar instead of my own Toyota. Kate-io Andretti at the wheel.
“Is this why you want a traditional marriage, so I�
��ll be a good little traditional wife—”
“Sorry,” came a whisper from my side.
I wasn’t actually sure I’d heard it at first. I risked another quick sideways glance as the car zoomed ahead. Wayne’s face was no longer made of stone. It was made of soft vulnerable flesh again. Soft, white, vulnerable flesh.
“Kate?” he requested, his voice low and quiet. “Could you slow down a little? Not that there’s anything wrong with the way you’re driving,” he assured me quickly. “But just because it would make me feel more comfortable?”
Those brown hills were whizzing by pretty fast. Actually, they were a complete blur, along with most of the road. I squinted at the speedometer and eased up on the gas pedal immediately. Jeez, no wonder Wayne was white. I eased up on my snit too as the Toyota slowed to a more reasonable speed.
“I know you don’t really want a traditional wife,” I told him. Then I let out a long sigh made up of righteousness leaking away. “If you did, you’d be asking someone else to marry you. But, Wayne, really, that’s what I’m so afraid of. I like living with you. Most of the time I love living with you. I love you! I just don’t want to screw it up.”
“You’re right,” he murmured, and a wave of guilt carried away the last prickles of my self-righteousness with it.
By the time I saw Aurora’s Illuminations Bookstore, we were both insisting that whatever the other one had been saying all along was probably absolutely correct. Ethically, practically, and emotionally.
I braked, cutting short Wayne’s admission that his insecurity was at the root of any and all the problems we had and would ever have, and parked under the rainbow glow of the illuminations bookstore sign. Some people are just impossible to fight with.
Aurora’s bookstore was packed, and not just with books. The smell of incense vied with the scent of aromatherapy oils. Celestial strings and Tibetan bells played in the background as a number of customers browsed and talked. And there were crystals everywhere, catching the light and refracting it in competing illuminations across books and jewelry and artifacts. Maybe these rainbow flashes were the illuminations that had inspired the bookstore’s name, though I had a feeling something a little less physical and more metaphysical was probably the source.
Most Likely to Die (A Kate Jasper Mystery) Page 21
