“More coffee?” I asked, feeling suddenly contrite. He continued to stare at his cup without even acknowledging me. “Would you like more coffee?” I repeated.
“What?” he said, looking up. “No, I don’t think so.”
I had stood up to get more coffee, but now I sat down again, tucking a foot under me. “I’m sorry.” I wasn’t quite sure what I was apologizing for, but his mood had changed abruptly and I felt somehow responsible.
“It’s not your fault, I’m just tired.”
He did look tired, exhausted in fact.
“I can’t get a handle on this case. Usually things begin to take shape about now. Not necessarily a clear picture, but at least some of the pieces begin to coalesce. Here we just have a lot of loose ends. It’s like a room full of kindergartners. You get one to sit down and two others pop up.”
“What do you know of kindergartners?”
“Barbara was a teacher. Before she got her MBA.”
“Oh.”
He seemed ready to say something else, then stopped and smiled at me instead. But it was a flat, mechanical smile.
“You don’t seriously think Robert is involved in this do you?”
“I don’t know. Something about him bothers me, but I can’t put my finger on it We’ve questioned him twice and come up with zip, except that his alibi for the night she was murdered stinks. There’s absolutely nothing to link him to the crime, and no motive that we’ve been able to discover.”
“What about Pepper’s affair? Did he know she was seeing someone else?”
“If she was.” He crossed his legs and peered into his cup. “So far we’ve come up with a big, fat zero in that arena as well.”
So much for my clever detective work.
“Still, we have grilled the guy about their marriage.”
“And what does he say?”
“Just what you’d expect. They had a good, solid relationship, better than most He loved her; she loved him. Just your basic perfect couple.”
“He’s right, you know.” Pepper didn’t knock you over with her Robert-is-such-a-prince routine the way Daria did, but she never complained either, not even in the half-joking way a lot of us who’d considered ourselves happily married did. Pepper and Robert had seemed so . . . so balanced, almost synchronized. A perfect match, I’d often thought.
Stone shrugged. “Except if Pepper was sleeping around, then the marriage wasn’t so good.”
I knew there were women who would disagree with him. Women who found an afternoon of sex an interesting alternative to an afternoon of tennis. An innocuous diversion that had no bearing whatsoever on their feelings about their husbands. But I wasn’t about to take that one on at the moment.
Setting his cup, now empty, on the table in front of him, Stone stood and went to the window. “The mayor is furious. He wants us to arrest someone soon, and he doesn’t much care who it is. The chief feels the same. They don’t like to have a blot like this by their names.”
“That’s what Pepper is now, a blot by their name?”
“Walnut Hills isn’t the same as Oakland. Murder’s not an everyday occurrence in Walnut Hills. And the longer it takes us to come up with something, the more likely it is we never will.”
Just then the phone rang and I went to answer it, leaving Stone hunched forward by the window, hands in his pockets.
“Kate, it’s Robert.”
For a minute I was struck with guilt. As though he’d caught me gossiping behind his back.
“I hate to ask you this again, but I have to go out for a couple of hours this afternoon. Do you think Kimberly could stay with you? I’ll buy you dinner some night as a token of my appreciation.”
“She’s welcome to stay here, there’s no need for dinner.”
“I’d like to, really. It would be my pleasure.”
“You bring Kimberly over, we’ll talk about the dinner part later.”
I hung up the phone and turned to find Stone leaning against the door jamb, his long frame looking as though it had been arranged, a limb at a time, by the guy who shoots the Marlboro commercials. I waited for him to move so I could get through, but he didn’t budge. Instead, he fixed his eyes on me and reached out, touching my shoulder. Then he ran his hand along to the back of my neck and pulled me toward him.
The first kiss was soft, tentative, like the caress of a gentle breeze on a warm summer day. But the second and third were more intense. I could feel the roughness of his skin against mine, the smooth warmth of his tongue against my lips.
“That was every bit as wonderful as I’d imagined it would be,” he said.
Silently, I agreed—and then gave myself a mental kick in the butt. This was definitely not part of the new, orderly life I’d been envisioning.
I was leaning forward to kiss him again when I heard the back door slam; then Anna came into kitchen humming softly to herself. With a quick step back, I ran my fingers through my hair, and probably adjusted my shirt as well, just for good measure. Stone remained draped against the door frame, watching, the hint of a smile crossing his face.
“I finished lunch,” Anna announced as she set her bowl and spoon on the counter. “Can I have a Drumstick?”
Clever. She knew the Drumsticks in the freezer were for dessert only, but she also knew I was in the middle of something and wanted her out of the way.
“Okay, but eat it outside.”
“How about one for Clary, too?”
I shook my head. A second Drumstick was going too far.
Before she could fall into a funk and eat up ten minutes arguing with me, I took the Drumstick from the freezer, unwrapped it and handed her the cone. “Now, outside with you.”
Then I walked to the sink and began rinsing dishes, keeping my back to Stone. “Would you like more coffee?”
“Kate, come here.”
I turned to face him, but stayed rooted to the sink.
“Come on, I won’t bite.”
I shook my head. “I don’t think I’m ready for this.”
“Ready for what?”
“You know.” Trouble was, in some ways I was ready. And that’s what I found so frightening.
Stone walked toward me and touched my cheek. “I wasn’t expecting to carry you off to the bedroom.”
I nodded, saying nothing. I would have gone. I would probably have locked the back door and done it on the kitchen floor if he’d suggested it.
“Not today anyway,” he murmured.
“That was Robert,” I said, trying to catch my breath, “on the phone.”
“Hmm.” Stone seemed uninterested.
“Are you going to ask him about the blue Cherokee?”
“Probably. But not right this moment.”
He leaned forward to kiss me again, but I put my hands, damp and sticky with soap, against his chest and made a halfhearted effort to protest It took remarkable effort to hold them there without kneading his shoulders or letting them fall to his belt.
I flashed a bright, artificial smile. “If you don’t arrest someone soon, will they force you to bring in another law-enforcement agency?”
With a resigned sigh, Stone moved away. “Let’s talk about the other thing.”
“What other thing?”
“Why you’re afraid of me.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“Why you don’t like me then.”
“It’s not that I don’t like you.” My voice sounded so calm and composed, I wondered for a moment what stranger was speaking.
“What is it then?”
“It’s . . . it’s not anything I want to discuss right now.”
There was a moment of silence, broken only by the soft hum of the refrigerator. Stone was watching me intently with an expression I couldn’t read.
“You were saying,” I continued brightly, “that the big shots want the case closed, sooner rather than later.”
Another deep sigh, then he took a seat at the table and folded his hands.
“Yes, they want the case closed.”
“So,” I said, with a touch more enthusiasm than was probably warranted, “what are the possibilities?”
“Endless.” He looked bored.
“It’s not that bad. You’ve got this blue Cherokee which parks suspiciously across from the Livingstons’ house and is connected in some way to Robert.”
“A friend, a workman, a messenger service perhaps.”
Undaunted, I continued. “And then there’s Tony, who shows up at his employer’s memorial service ...”
“Along with a hunched other people.”
“... and then mysteriously disappears.”
“Or simply moves.”
“Not to mention the likelihood that Pepper was having an affair.”
Stone moved his hand across the table as I yanked mine back into my lap.
“Jeez, you’re jumpy,” he remarked.
“Maybe they’re all connected. Maybe Tony was the person in the car, and he and Robert had some secret, illegal scheme—smuggling exotic plants into the country, for example—and Pepper was sleeping with the head of agricultural inspection. That’s how she found out, and she went to Tony’s apartment one day to try to convince him—”
“You’ve certainly got an imagination.” Stone inched his chair closer to mine.
“It could be,” I insisted, inching mine in the opposite direction. “Of course, if Robert was guilty he would have set up a better alibi. He’s not stupid ...”
“Kate?”
I looked up.
“Stick to your painting and leave the detective work to me. Okay?”
Then he leaned over and ran a hand down the length of my arm. Without meaning to, I trembled.
“Oh, and McGregory,” I said. “I almost forgot about him.”
“Who?” He sat up now, my arm forgotten.
“McGregory, the developer who wants to build a series of townhouses along the ridge line. Pepper headed the Save Our Hills coalition, which was trying to block the project. He apparently threatened her after the last council meeting. Well, sort of threatened.” I repeated what Lily had told me the day before.
Stone listened thoughtfully. “Any other potential suspects you’ve lined up and neglected to tell me about?”
“Not yet.”
“Good, try to keep it that way.” His tone was light, but there was an edge to it.
“So, what are you going to do next?”
A sly grin spread across his face. “See if I can find away to sneak another kiss.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
My look must have convinced him, because he stood up again and carried his empty cup to the sink. “I’m going to try to find out who has a key to the Livingstons’ place. I’m going to keep talking to people, trying to dig up as much as I can about Pepper. I’m going to see if I can come up with a motive. I’ll continue to search for the blue Cherokee, the elusive Tony and the lucky guy who found a woman who didn’t reject his advances.” He headed for the door. “And I’ll talk to McGregory.”
Chapter 9
The rest of the afternoon was clearly shot. How could I paint soft-hued scenes of pastoral tranquility when inside I was churning like laundry in a tub?
As soon as Kimberly arrived, which mercifully was not long after Stone left, I packed up sand toys, small cartons of juice, and a large bag of cheese puffs, then took the girls off to the playground in the center of town. While they swung from rings and slid down the big, twisty slide the San Francisco Chronicle once listed as Walnut Hills’ chief attraction, I concentrated on taking slow, rhythmic breaths and tried to shut out the images that rushed at me like so many wild harpies. There were some tough, certainly painful, decisions to be made, and I knew I wasn’t up to tackling any of them just yet.
Instead, I nibbled cheese puffs and studied the play of light and shadow in the fluttering leaves, trying to think how I could capture the sense of that whispering breeze on canvas. The day was warm, but the temperature in the shade was quite pleasant, and the fresh scents of jasmine and newly mowed lawn hung in the air, soothing my nerves. Then, just when the craziness in my brain was beginning to ebb, a young mother sat down next to me, shooing her toddler off with an air-blown kiss before turning her attention to the stroller she’d parked to her left. And the little, blue bundle tucked inside.
Okay, just don’t look, I told myself. There’s plenty else to see in the park. But my eyes kept drifting back to the soft form to my right. So tiny, so perfect. Every so often his little mouth would quiver and twitch, sucking at some invisible source of comfort. I could practically feel the gentle weight of his body in my arms.
The mother caught me peeking, and smiled. “He’s just one month old.”
I nodded and tried to appear blasé, looking over the top of the carriage while I mumbled something appropriately appreciative.
Lovingly, the woman adjusted the blankets and then began gently rocking the stroller with her foot. “His name is William. His sister’s thrilled at having a little brother.” She laughed lightly. “My husband and I are kind of pleased as well.”
It was too much. Standing abruptly, I made some hasty excuse about the time and walked over to the playhouse where Anna and Kimberly were busily working out the rules to some new game.
“How about a movie?” I asked.
“Can we have popcorn?”
“Sure.”
“One carton for each of us?”
What the heck. I’d just devoured half a pack of cheese puffs all by myself. “A carton for each of you,” I promised.
We were gathering up our things to leave when we spotted Zachary Fontaine and his Irish au pair, Tina, laden with rollerblades, remote control car and baseball bat. Anna called to Zachary who, by way of acknowledgment, made a running leap, jump-kicking in the air as he went. The girls looked at each other and giggled.
Tina, who was at least fifty pounds overweight, trudged up the path after him.
“Good day, Mrs. Austen,” she said when she caught her breath. “You’ve beaten us to a good afternoon I see.”
Despite her weight, Tina was a pretty girl, with a soft, peaches and cream complexion. And a far more pleasant disposition than her predecessor, who had viewed herself as a guest of the Fontaine encampment at Camp Walnut Hills.
Each spring a new girl would arrive fresh from Ireland to clean, shop, cook and look after Zachary while his mother, Olivia, was at work. In exchange, the young woman got room and board, and a chance to experience a taste of America, or as much of America as one can taste from Walnut Hills. It seemed to me that Zachary’s parents got the better deal, but there was never a shortage of applicants. The arrangement was not entirely legal, but that minor point never seemed to make a difference. Only once, Olivia told me, had they had trouble with the immigration officials, and that was right after Zachary was born, before she’d learned the ins and outs of the system.
Tina dropped her load of play gear into a pile on the grass, then plopped down on a bench in the shade while Zachary ran in circles uttering strange, gun noises. The girls continued to giggle.
“It’s good to see Kimberly laughing,” she said. “Even just for a moment.”
I nodded.
“She’s been coming over to the house Friday afternoons, you know. Until last week that is. She has gymnastics with Zachary, and I’ve been bringing them both home, then watching Kimberly for a couple of hours. I feel so terrible for her.”
Nodding agreement, I took a seat on the bench as well. I experienced the kind of “what if” that worked its way into my mind in the wee, sleepless hours of the night, and for a moment the anguish washed over me anew. If I were to die suddenly . . . would Anna even remember me in the years to come? Would she ever know how much I loved her? Then, in a shameless fashion, I latched on to those Friday afternoons of freedom, and my thoughts jumped from the tragic to the mundane.
“Would you by any chance be interested in watching Anna
a couple of afternoons a week?” I asked. “I’m starting a new job tomorrow. Though the hours are quite flexible, I’m going to need some extra help.”
The Fontaines lived down the street, across from the house which was being remodeled. The arrangement would certainly be convenient.
“Myself, I’d be happy to, but Mrs. Fontaine doesn’t usually like me to take on extra jobs. The thing with Kimberly was really something she did as a favor to Mrs. Livingston. I’ll ask her, though, if you’d like.”
“That’s all right. Don’t bother.” I knew already I was not the sort of socially prominent person for whom Olivia Fontaine would do a favor.
“The last time I saw Mrs. Livingston,” Tina said, “was when she came to pick up Kimberly that Friday . . . you know, before she was killed. Then, less than a week later, she was dead.”
Tina’s voice wavered. She paused for a moment, fanning herself with an open hand. “I felt bad for her that day because she was obviously upset about something. She acted real flustered, and usually, you know, she was so composed.” Tina’s voice wavered again. “Something like this, it shakes you up a bit.”
“It certainly does.”
We sat in comfortable silence for several minutes, watching the children play. “It’s funny,” Tina said, raising an arm to shield her eyes from the glare. “That night Mrs. Livingston was killed, I . . . well, it was so hot I couldn’t sleep. My room doesn’t have air conditioning like the rest of the house.”
There was a moment of silence while she creased and re-creased the cuff of her shorts. Then she looked over at me, squinting in the bright afternoon sun. “I got up to make sure the window was open, though in that kind of heat it doesn’t make much difference. The moon was pretty bright that night, and while I was standing there, looking out, I—”
But before she could continue, a loud, unhappy howl had us both on our feet and running over to Zachary, who had tripped and skidded across the asphalt path. The wailing got worse when he looked down and saw blood on his palms and knees.
“It hurts, it hurts,” he cried, working himself into near hysterics.
We washed his wounds, which were impressive but not serious, calmed him down some, and then I helped Tina carry her load of play equipment back to the car while Zachary sipped Hawaiian Punch from one of the juice cartons I’d brought.
Murder Among Neighbors (The Kate Austen Mystery Series) Page 11
