Courting Trouble raa-9

by Lisa Scottoline

  “Yeah, Anne.” Judy twisted around in the front seat, the last of the day’s light filtering through her sunny hair, her bandanna blowing in the wind. “The heat will be on him. They’ll have Kevin in custody in time for us to take a field trip to the fireworks.”

  The Mustang cruised forward to a red light, and Bennie braked. “Only problem is, it may discourage him from showing up at the memorial service, if he’s still a fugitive.”

  “He’ll be there,” Anne said, with absolute certainty. They were getting closer to catching Kevin, and Bennie’s reaction to Plan B had been much better than she had expected, though she wasn’t sure why. “He’ll find a way to be there.”

  The Mustang idled in traffic, and Bennie tapped her finger on the wheel. “Let’s think about that. How will he do it? Talk to me, Murphy. It was your idea.”

  “Well, I used to think he’d come as a guest, a mourner in some half-assed disguise, but now I’m beginning to wonder.” Anne wondered if Bennie was just trying to engage her, but played along because it was such a nice thing to do. “Not with the cops and every reporter in the city, looking to make his mark. I’m thinking now he might try to come in another way.”

  “Like what?” Judy asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe as staff of some kind?”

  “Secret agent stuff.” Judy smiled. “Yowza!”

  “So, what’s at a memorial service, ladies? Let’s brainstorm,” Bennie gave the car some gas. “We’re having it at the Chestnut Club, in town. What staff will be there? Any?”

  “Only the head lady, because it’s closed.” Anne had made the arrangements for her memorial service, posing on the telephone as a cousin from California. The Chestnut was one of the oldest eating clubs in Philadelphia, with two stories of dining rooms and waiters in white jackets with time-warp Nehru collars. “They subcontract out the catering. The lack of house staff will make it easier for Kevin.”

  Mary frowned. “How?”

  “Well, Kevin is smart. It’s not beyond him to anticipate that my firm would hold a memorial service of some kind, especially after you offered the reward. I took out ads in the Sunday papers, announcing the service, open to the public. He’s got to see one of them and find out where it is, then maybe he’ll get hired by the caterer or something.”

  “Really.” Mary sounded almost respectful, and Anne knew the feeling.

  “I know. My stalker is a genius.”

  “There’ll be flowers,” Judy offered, thinking aloud. “He might come as a flower delivery guy.”

  It sent a chill through Anne. “Very possible. Kevin’s a red-roses kind of psycho. Sent them to me every day, a single one.”

  The Mustang accelerated down Race Street. “Here’s how it’ll go down,” Bennie said, wind blowing blond tendrils into her eyes. “I’ll backstop everybody, but we all need our own jobs. Carrier, you quiz the flower delivery guys. DiNunzio, you deal with the press. Don’t let them in the service, but check their IDs anyway. Satorno may use it as a way to get close.”

  Mary nodded. “Got it.”

  “Thanks,” Anne said, touched by their willingness to help. “I can cover food and drink. The kitchen staff is from Custom Catering. They were the only ones not booked this weekend.”

  “I’ll help with the food,” Judy chirped, and Mary laughed.

  “There’s a surprise.”

  Bennie glanced over. “Carrier, make sure you get a list of the kitchen staff. Does that cover everyone?”

  Anne tried to picture it. “Folding chairs, and a lectern. Microphones. I rented them all from a caterer the club uses. I’ll check chair guys, too.”

  “Okay, that’s it, I think.” Bennie turned left onto Broad Street and steered south. The parade had gone but the street was still full of partiers, drinking beer and hanging out, waiting for dusk and the laser show. “The cops will be there, and I’ll hire security. Rent-a-muscle guys, and we’ll have Herb, too.”

  Anne cringed. “In case our breasts need protecting.”

  “Be nice, Murphy. He knows his stuff, and he was very upset when your chest passed on.” Bennie laughed. “Ladies, it’s almost dark and you’re all ordered home to bed. DiNunzio, I’m dropping you off first, then Carrier. Murphy, you’re staying with me tonight. You’ll be safe at my house.”

  Anne looked up in surprise. She hadn’t planned that far ahead. She couldn’t very well turn Bennie down. She knew from the movies that sleepovers were a big deal with girlfriends. But she thought of Mel, alone in the office, and then, of Matt. She wished she could tell him she was alive. She wondered what kind of a night he’d be having.

  “Agreed, Murphy?” It was Bennie, jolting Anne from her thoughts.

  “Sure, yes. Thanks. But we have a stop to make first.”

  “My thoughts exactly.” Bennie checked the rearview. “You’re not too tired? You’ve had a helluva day.”

  “Not worse than hers,” Anne said, looking out the window, as night came on.

  Judy looked at Bennie, confused. “What are you guys talking about? Where are you going?”

  Anne let Bennie answer. It hurt too much to say.

  Fitler Square was one of Philadelphia’s historic pocket-parks, a square block limned by privet hedge and wrought-iron fence, with tasteful wooden benches around a center fountain and newly refurbished brickwork underfoot. Fitler Square didn’t get half the attention of Rittenhouse Square, which was roughly in the same city neighborhood, but Anne found Fitler more charming. It was out of the way of the business district, at Twenty-sixth and Pine, and any time she had gone past it in a cab, it was full of moms pushing strollers and toddlers dropping Cheerios or scribbling sidewalk pictures with chubby pastel chalks.

  But the neighborhood, Willa’s neighborhood, had been changed for her, too, and tonight the scene was different and felt strange. Fitler Square was almost empty, and the black Victorian gaslights that anchored the park’s four corners flickered in the darkness, barely illuminating a couple on one of the benches, their arms around each other. The Mustang cruised around the square, looking for a space, and headed to Keeley Street. Anne edged forward on her seat as they rounded the block and pulled into a space at the end of the row.

  Bennie parked and shut off the engine. “Got the purse?”

  “Yes,” she answered, taking Willa’s purse from the seat between them. It was a striped cloth sack from Guatemala, and she had retrieved the purse from a locker at the gym, where Willa had left it last night. A quick check inside revealed that it contained no wallet. Anne figured that Willa, like her, didn’t bring her wallet to the gym, because the lockers didn’t lock. The little bag held only keys, sunglasses, and a bruised organic apple, and Anne felt funny carrying it as she fell in step with the taller Bennie and walked to Willa’s house.

  The night air was punctuated with the popping of distant fireworks, and the short heels of Anne’s mules dragged on the sidewalk. Fatigue and emotion were catching up with her, but she set both aside. She owed this to Willa. It was awful that it had taken her all day to get here. She had to find Willa’s family before the day was over, and tell them the worst news of their lives.

  They passed 2685, then 2687. The rowhouses on the skinny back-street reminded Anne of Fairmount and were of the same colonial vintage; a lineup of attached brick homes, two-stories high and with a door flanked by two front windows, distinguished by the paint color of their shutters or the occasional clay flowerpot on the step. Anne’s stomach tensed when they reached 2689. She opened Willa’s purse for the keys, feeling terribly like they were invading the dead woman’s privacy. Going into her purse. Entering her home.

  “You want to wait outside?” Bennie asked, but Anne shook her head.

  “No, thanks. I’m the one who owes her.”

  “Don’t think about it that way.” Bennie’s tone softened, though Anne couldn’t make out her expression in the dark. The only streetlamp was down the block. It would have been what Anne’s own street looked like last night, when Willa ope
ned her front door.

  Anne fished for Willa’s keys and inserted them in the lock until she found the one that clicked. She opened Willa’s front door and stepped into the darkness. Please God don’t let there be an entrance hall. A light went on suddenly, and she turned.

  “You sure you’re okay?” Bennie was standing behind her, one hand on a switch on the wall, and the other closing the door behind them with a solid click.

  “I’m fine.” Anne turned back and looked around. There was no entrance hall, and the light switch illuminated a white parchment sphere with red Chinese characters which hung over the small living room. But this was like no living room Anne had ever seen. Every inch of wall space was covered with a drawing. Skilled, detailed charcoal cityscapes had been tacked up, cheek by jowl, floor to ceiling. Sketches of storefronts in the Italian Market. Skyscrapers in the business district. The concrete lace of an Expressway interchange. The lights on the boathouses along the Schuylkill River.

  “Wow,” Bennie said quietly. “Look at these drawings. There must be hundreds.”

  “She was so talented.” Anne tasted bitterness in her mouth. Kevin would have to pay for this. For taking Willa.

  “Notice anything unusual about them, by the way?”

  “Not really.” Anne scanned at the drawings. “All of them are black-and-white, I guess.”

  “True, and there are no people in them.”

  Anne double-checked and saw that Bennie was right. The series of drawings of Fitler Square focused on the gaslights and the shadows they cast, or the intricate pattern of the wrought-iron fence. There were no babies, no mothers, no kids. A study of Rittenhouse Square depicted its statues—a frog, a goat—but none of the people who used the statues as meeting places. Anne wasn’t immediately sure what it meant.

  “I like art with people,” Bennie said. “You’ve seen my Thomas Eakins prints of rowing.”

  “Sure.” Hate them. “Love them.”

  “They’re from the exhibition at the Art Museum. Did you see it?”

  “Missed it.” But I’ve been to the Lucy-Desi Museum in Jamestown, New York. Does that count?

  Anne surveyed the rest of the living room. It contained no TV or VCR, only a sixties-retro sling chair in white, sitting in front of a cordless phone, a stereo system and stacks of CDs on a white entertainment center. It was more gallery than living room and contained no clues about Willa’s family, but Anne couldn’t help but linger in it, breathing in the faintest smell of dust and lead. It was all that was left of Willa, that and a misidentified body, cold in a morgue.

  “Here we go,” Bennie said, crossing to the telephone and picking up the receiver. “Here’s a way to reach her family and friends instantly. They’ll be on speed-dial.”

  “Good idea.” Anne wondered why she wasn’t thinking of this good stuff. She felt suddenly so passive, a half-step behind. “Maybe I should be the one to tell them.”

  “No, let me handle this. When my mother was alive, she was in the number-one spot. Actually she still is. I don’t have the heart to take her off.” Bennie pressed the first speed-dial button, listened into the receiver, then frowned. “No number in the first spot.” She pressed the second button. “No number in the second spot.” She pressed another button. “Strike three,” she said, after a minute, then hung up the phone. “Evidently, Willa didn’t set up her speed-dial. So there’s nobody she calls all the time. That seems strange.”

  “Not really,” Anne blurted out almost defensively. She hadn’t set up her speed-dial either.

  “Maybe not. Come along.” Bennie touched Anne’s arm. “There has to be something, somewhere, that can help us. Bills, correspondence, old birthday cards with a return address. Something that would tell us more about her, or where her family is. How old did you say she was, again?”

  “My age.”

  “She’s too young for her parents to have passed on.”

  “Right,” Anne said, though she wasn’t thinking that clearly. Maybe she was exhausted. Or maybe she just had no idea how families kept in touch with each other. She’d never gotten a birthday card from her mother. She wouldn’t know her father if she ran him over with a car. She followed Bennie through the living room to the back of the house.

  The layout was similar to Anne’s, a combination dining room and kitchen fashioned from one room, and she could tell at a glance that it would reveal little, if anything, about Willa’s family. Sketches blanketed the white walls here, too, and the oak table was bare except for a bouquet of dried flowers. The kitchen was perfectly clean, with Kenmore appliances that landlords always installed. The remarkable centerpiece of the room was a beautiful, cinnabar-red spice rack that had been mounted above the stove.

  She stepped over to it, reading the hand-lettered names on the spice jars, which were so exotic she’d never heard of them, much less cooked with them: cumin, cardamom, turmeric. Willa must have been a wonderful, creative cook. Anne felt a terrible twinge, stepping into a life that was lost because of her.

  “Maybe she has an office upstairs,” Bennie said, turning away. “There has to be a place she paid her bills. We’ll have better luck there.” She left the room, and Anne followed her numbly. Bennie turned on a light over the stairwell and led the way upstairs. Sketches served as wallpaper all the way to the second floor, and Anne marveled at the hours it must have taken to draw all of the scenes.

  At the top of the stair was a tiny bathroom that they skipped in favor of the bedroom, another completely unconventional room. A wall that would have typically existed between two bedrooms had evidently been taken out, leaving an L-shaped bedroom-studio. Sketches covered the wall, their subjects similar to the ones downstairs, but much larger here, as if this were the second floor of an exclusive gallery, reserved for private customers.

  A pine double bed, whose canopy top had been draped with long, white sashes of silk, sat at an unusual angle against the front windows. Beside it was a plain white IKEA-type dresser and desk, covered with papers in neat stacks. Bennie made a beeline for the desk and when she reached it, turned on a black halogen lamp. Anne went over after her.

  “No computer, that’s unusual,” Bennie said, but somehow it seemed to Anne like speaking ill, so she didn’t say anything. “Here’s her bills.” Bennie thumbed through a pile of envelopes as Anne watched. Visa, Philadelphia Electric, and Verizon; Bennie pulled out the Verizon bill, which was already open, and reached inside. “The phone bill. It’ll have a record of her calls. Maybe we can find her family that way. She has to call them, even if they’re not on speed dial.” Bennie slid out the bill, flashing the familiar sky-blue, and they both skimmed the listings.

  “Almost nothing beyond the basic charges,” Anne said, recognizing it. The bill could have been a duplicate of Anne’s own; they were even on the same billing plan. “She’s on the plan where you pay by the call. It makes sense if you don’t make a lot of calls.”

  But Bennie was already casting around for a telephone. “No phone up here. Jesus!” She slid her cell phone from her pocket, and flipped it open, and called the first number on the bill, which was local. She listened on the line, then hung up. “Taws, the art store, and they’re closed. Read me the next number.” Anne read it off, and Bennie called it on the cell, then listened. “The Philadelphia Horticultural Center, also closed. Wonder why she called them?”

  “To sketch it?” Anne guessed, but Bennie was on a tear.

  “Try the next.” Bennie called the number as soon as Anne read it off, listened, then flipped the phone closed. “Fresh Fields. Gourmet foods. Shit!” She skimmed the rest of the bill and tossed it aside. “None of the calls are long-distance, to family.”

  Anne’s gaze fell on a stack of correspondence on the desktop. Maybe there’d be a letter from Willa’s parents. Obviously, Willa wasn’t a computer jock. Maybe she grew up in a family of artists. Anne picked up the topmost letter, but it had a letterhead from Mether Galleries in Center City. It was dated last week, and she skimmed it:
>
  Dear Ms. Hansen;

  We are writing in the hopes that you will reconsider your decision not to let us represent your portfolio. We understand that you were one of the most talented students in Bill Hunter’s class at Moore College of Art, and believe that we can help your art find wonderful homes, in addition to providing a substantial income for you. Please contact us as soon as possible at the above address.

  Anne mulled it over. Mether Galleries was one of the fanciest in the city. Why didn’t Willa want to show her wonderful drawings there? If she had a trust fund, she didn’t need the money. But still. Why hide all this talent under a basket?

  “No luck on the other bills,” Bennie said, opening the top file-drawer of the desk. “You finding anything?”

  “Not yet.” Anne reached for the next letter in the stack. It was an earlier letter from Mether, and there were two others underneath it from galleries in SoHo. She glanced through the letters, but they were like the ones from Mether Gallery. Why hadn’t Willa at least responded? “All these galleries want her art, but she won’t sell it. From the looks of it, she doesn’t even call them back.”

  “Nothing here.” Bennie had opened the upper file-drawer of the desk and was rooting through a stack of correspondence and papers, narrating as she went along. “No family pictures or anything. No birthday cards. Just receipts from Taws and some from Anthropologie. She doesn’t buy much at all. Here’s a transcript from Moore College of Art.” Bennie frowned as she read. “She was doing well, then there’s no courses listed after the first semester. Too bad. She must have dropped out.” Bennie set it down and opened the lower drawer, filled with manila folders. “Now this looks promising.”

  “What?” Anne replaced the gallery correspondence.

  “Taxes, old check registers, and stuff.” Bennie dug to the bottom of the drawer. “Here’s a copy of her lease, and there’s other legal papers.”