Sleuthing Women

by Lois Winston

  Deer tend to leave it alone and people often plant a few in deer country for a spot of color in an otherwise gnawed off garden. The bush itself is pretty enough, but I think twelve acres of oleanders is a bit boring, even to keep Bambi at bay.

  Once, when I was fourteen years old, I refused to go inside the house with my mother to one of Mrs. Wyler’s high teas, a ritual which gave the word ‘tedious’ new meaning. I decided to wait outside in the garden. Bored, I counted all of the oleanders I could find. I stopped at four hundred.

  When Mrs. Wyler and Mom came out, after about an hour, looking for me, I’d turned to Mrs. Wyler and said, “Dios mio, get a rose bush or something, will you? Don’t you have any imagination?”

  Of course, I apologized like crazy afterward, but I knew I’d hurt her feelings and humiliated my mother. I grimaced when remembering the snotty kid I could be, any teenager can be.

  Maybe I wasn’t a snotty kid anymore, but I couldn’t warm up to Mrs. Wyler any better as an adult than I could as a child. I always suspected when no one was looking, she howled at the moon and chased cars for their hubcaps.

  I shook my head at the shocking thoughts pinging through my brain about the recently widowed. I needed to get a handle on it. After all, I was an adult now.

  As I pulled up to the ornate black, iron-gate standing sentinel in front of the infamous oleanders, a vision of Portor Wyler’s unseeing eyes blurred the pastoral scene before me. Sitting in the idling car, I wondered how I could face the woman who might have lost her husband because of something I did or didn’t do.

  I resisted the urge to turn and run, sucked it in, pressed a button on a little black box and gave my name. The gates opened wide. I passed through and down the graveled drive toward the house, wishing I’d had a splash of whiskey at lunch. Or, maybe, a shot or two.

  Despite the rain, Yvette Wyler, dressed in a long sack-like black dress and holding a black umbrella, was standing in the middle of the circular drive next to the house. She gave her finest Queen Mother wave as my car pulled up to the house and halted.

  I, in turn, smiled my best Miss America smile and got out of the car. Mrs. Wyler embraced me awkwardly and guided me inside the house asking the standard questions about my health and state of mind.

  She smelled of Old Lavender, Listerine, and garlic, a charming combo. We passed our dripping umbrellas on to her housekeeper, Mrs. Malchesky, who’d been with her since before dirt.

  “I asked Mrs. Malchesky to make some tea and sandwiches for us,” she said as we walked into the smaller of the two main living rooms.

  “Oh, God,” I thought, remembering tea in this room from my childhood but managed to remain calm. The room was ill lit and damp, even though a fire burned at one end inside a marble fireplace large enough for you to park an SUV in, should you run out of room in the driveway.

  “Please sit down, Liana, dear,” said the older woman, as she smiled and gestured to a velvet green horsehair sofa, stiff and lumpy with age.

  Her voice echoed in the large and sparsely furnished room that for all its supposed grandeur gave off a cold and impersonal air. I sat down and tried my best to get comfortable. Mrs. Wyler sat in a matching wing back chair directly opposite me.

  A small tea table, laden with paraphernalia for afternoon tea, loitered between us. Heavily starched doilies seemed to be breeding everywhere. Stiff embroidery on the armrest and at the back of the settee stuck to all exposed parts of my skin.

  “Don’t bother yourself about us, Hilda, dear. I’ll serve the tea this afternoon. You go ahead and pack for your trip,” she said to the housekeeper, with a dismissive look. The woman gave a nod of her head and left the room. Mrs. Wyler began the ritual of serving afternoon tea, while chatting about her housekeeper’s upcoming three-week tour of the Greek islands, something she hoped, herself, to do some day.

  While this small dialogue was going on, I studied the woman’s face, marveling once again she was only in her mid-fifties, the same age as my youthful and beautiful mother. I knew the loss of her husband contributed to her ghastly appearance, but in all honesty, she looked like death warmed over, no pun intended.

  Her thin brown hair, flecked with gray, was teased and coifed but still managed to droop. She wore little or no makeup, which made her yellowish eyes fade into her sallow complexion.

  The wrinkles on her face jumped out at me almost as much as her narrow, hooked nose. It was, however, the twitch in her right cheek I found unnerving. I found it hard not to stare or count the number of twitches per minute.

  So I sat with a frozen smile on my face, a fragile teacup in my left hand. A small plate of dreadful looking toast points covered with a brown spread that reeked of garlic and cloves in my right.

  As Mrs. Wyler chatted on, a frequently washed napkin threatened to slide off my lap. I could hear a distant grandfather clock ticking the painful minutes away.

  I was also aware of the fire crackling at the other end of the room and wished we were closer to it. My legs were freezing, and I was sorry I hadn’t worn slacks.

  I began to understand how the Man in the Iron Mask felt as he sat imprisoned, listening to his beard grow. I waited in agony for Mrs. Wyler to speak about the purpose of this Command Visit.

  Finally, Mrs. Wyler, after taking a healthy bite out of a soggy, beige covered toast point, cleared her throat and said, “Liana, dear, I want to apologize for dragging you into this sordid affair. Little did I know when I begged your mother to send you out to help me that I might, in some way, be endangering your life.”

  “I don’t think my life was ever en...” I began, trying to reassure her in a prim and proper manner, as befitted the occasion.

  The older woman held up her hand to silence me and continued, “Please, dear, do let me say this. I don’t know what was going on in my mind to send a child like you out to do something so base and contemptible as spying on my husband.

  “I suppose, when a woman loves a man and is afraid he may no longer love her but another, younger woman, well, she can do foolish things. When I think of you standing out in the pouring rain, catching your death of cold, while my Portor was....”

  Mrs. Wyler stopped speaking, put down her cup of tea and brought her hand to her mouth. “I’m sorry, dear,” she murmured.

  I hastily set down the china plate of toast points and reached for her hand in sympathy. Unfortunately, the plate clattered on the sterling silver tray, with a sound that rang through the room like a dinner gong. She withdrew her hand from mine and touched her temple, the way you do when you feel a sudden headache coming on. I leaned back again, afraid to move.

  “Please don’t apologize, Mrs. Wyler,” I answered, downing half the tepid tea in the cup in one gulp. “I’m just sorry that what happened...happened. You have my sincere condolences,” I finished lamely.

  What does this woman want of me? What am I doing here?

  “I want you to allow me to pay for those new suede boots you ruined that night,” she said, as if reading my thoughts.

  Boots? She dragged me here for boots?

  “Absolutely not. Considering all that’s happened, I wouldn’t dream of such a thing,” I objected, with as much force as I could gather under the circumstances.

  “I insist. I had a pair of my best shoes ruined the same night by the rain, and I know how heartbreaking losing a good pair of shoes can be. It was such a rainstorm! And out of the blue. Just a clap of thunder and a deluge.”

  She clasped her breast in remembrance, something I’d only seen done in the movies.

  “I’ve already asked your mother for the brand and size. She’s such a wonderful woman, your mother, so good and kind. She’s been a godsend in helping me with the funeral arrangements. The funeral is Saturday. You’ll come, of course. You got them at Neiman Marcus, didn’t you?” she asked, brightening up, as she reached for another wretched toast point.

  She munched enthusiastically as she continued, “I’ve already ordered a pair for you. They should be here in
a week or two.”

  I had trouble keeping up with her thought processes but tried my best. “Of course, I’ll be there. I don’t know what to say about the boots, Mrs. Wyler, except you really don’t have to do that.”

  “Please.” Mrs. Wyler held up the same hand again, but this time it contained the half-eaten toast point. “It’s my way of saying thank you for trying to help.”

  “If it makes you feel better, then, of course, I accept. Thank you very much,” I conceded.

  “There! That’s settled,” she said, putting down her plate.

  Seeing this as a sign of dismissal, I half rose, putting my teacup down on the tray between us. I looked down at the woman expecting to be allowed to go.

  “I hope you weren’t frightened by what happened that night and haven’t had trouble sleeping or bad dreams. You are so young.”

  Mrs. Wyler reached out a clammy hand and grasped my arm, almost throwing me off balance. I chose to sit back down rather than fall.

  “Not at all, Mrs. Wyler. I’m fine, just fine,” I answered, feeling about three years old and not liking it a bit. “I didn’t even know something had happened until it was… too late. I didn’t see or hear anything.”

  “Oh, dear. I was so hoping...praying...you had. That in his death throes, he managed to say something about his killer before he…”

  Mrs. Wyler began to sob.

  “The police seem so baffled. No one seems to know anything. We may never know who or why...” The woman broke off and blew her nose noisily into an already sodden handkerchief.

  So that’s why I’m here!

  My heart suddenly went out to the woman, she and her four hundred oleanders. I took a chance and reached for her hand again to squeeze it. This time she didn’t pull back.

  “I’m truly sorry. I wish I could help you, but I didn’t see or hear anything.”

  “He never said anything right before he…passed over?”

  “He was over by the time I got there. I mean…” I stammered and stopped talking, trying to find the right words.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Wyler, but by the time I found him, it was too late. He was gone. I would help you if I could, but I don’t know anything. I’m so very sorry. I wish I could help you.”

  “That’s all right, my dear. And I’m sorry if I’ve caused you any more distress," she said, blowing her nose again.

  She rose from the chair and straightened the creases out of her skirt. “Thank you so much for coming and be sure to give my best to your mother.”

  Mrs. Wyler dismissed me with a small nod and, holding her head high, left the room.

  I stood, picked up my handbag, and walked to the door as fast as I dared without breaking into a dead run. Once in my car, I careened down the driveway toward the imprisoning iron-gate.

  Fortunately, it was on an automatic eye and opened just in time, or it and I would have been one. I headed toward University Avenue and didn’t actually breathe a sigh of relief until I got back to the office. Frankly, I was a mere shell of my former self.

  I had several calls in my voicemail. One from the Palo Alto Police Station letting me know I could pick up my revolver at any time.

  Another, from Vets and Pets, instructing me the kitten was due in the following Wednesday to be altered. They included a small lecture on how good it is to fix kittens when they are between nine and twelve weeks old. I made a note on my calendar.

  There won’t be any more unwanted kittens in the world because of me, I vowed.

  The third call was from Ronald Everett. He had returned mine and left a number in San Jose where he could be reached. I dialed the number and after going through several people was put on the line with him. He was polite but distant, and I was surprised at this change in behavior.

  When we initially met with him, he had seemed very eager to put an end to a problem jeopardizing his new and flourishing company. Overall, he gave me the impression of a warm and compassionate man. Now he was cold and withdrawn. The more we talked, the more suspicious I became.

  After five minutes of my probing, Everett hesitated and then took a deep breath and paused. It was a pause I knew well.

  I figured he didn’t want to pursue the matter because he now suspected or even knew who the culprit was. His behavior also indicated to me it wasn’t an employee, valued or otherwise.

  An employee, no matter how loyal or long they are with a company, would elicit outrage and anger for their duplicity. Hang them by their toes or private parts would often be the cry.

  But trusted friends, and especially family members, bring on a different reaction. The betrayal, hurt, and humiliation often make the victim feel emotionally impotent. Frequently they do nothing, hoping the problem will resolve itself or go away, and take that person with it.

  “Mr. Everett, I think you want to drop this investigation because you have a suspicion as to who it is,” I said.

  “I don’t suspect. I know,” Mr. Everett uttered in a hoarse voice, after a moment’s silence.

  “Okay, you know. Now the next step is to think about how you want to handle it. It’s not going to go away just because you now know. That’s not how it happens.”

  “I’ve spoken with him. He’s going to stop. He understands I’ll prosecute if he doesn’t.” His voice had lowered and together with the hoarseness made him difficult to understand, “I have proof, irrefutable proof. He wouldn’t dare continue.”

  “Mr. Everett, if you have proof, take it to your lawyer,” I said. I didn’t like the way the conversation was going and pressed on, “Let somebody else know what’s going on. If you don’t want to go to the police—”

  “Certainly not! The scandal would kill my wife.”

  “I understand. Really, I do,” I said. “Please remember, though, you’re dealing with hundreds of thousands of dollars—”

  “Try millions,” he interjected.

  “Exactly. Some people will do anything for that kind of money. Today someone caught pirating software at the level you’ve indicated is facing a jail sentence of six to ten years. Desperate people commit desperate acts. Protect yourself by giving someone else the information or the evidence.”

  “I don’t know that I can do that.”

  “At least, think about it. Promise me that.”

  “Yes. Yes. I’ll…I’ll think about what you’ve said,” he replied hurriedly, as if he couldn’t wait to get off the phone. Then he let out a sigh so loud it sounded like water rushing through the phone.

  “Thank you, Miss Alvarez. You realize I cannot use the services of your company the way things are.”

  “Absolutely. I understand, and that’s not the issue. You need to be careful, Mr. Everett, in whatever you decide to do,” I added.

  “I will. Thank you,” he said again and hung up.

  Listening to the dial tone, I tried to quell that awful feeling again in my solar plexus. I tried to convince myself he was the CEO and owner of a very large computer company.

  He’s savvy. He’s smart. He’s a “wheeler dealer” and could wipe up the floor with simpletons like me. He should be able to take care of himself.

  I said that over and over to myself, but it didn’t make me feel any better.

  I hung up the phone and began reading the printout Richard had given me, more to occupy my mind than anything else. I was immersed in it within seconds.

  Yes, he was right about the cars. The only one unaccounted for was Grace Wong’s. That area was strictly for tourists or dockworkers. Not many other people had a reason to be there. I studied the printout of Grace’s purchases of gasoline.

  So nice of these businesses, I thought, to give you this much information. Not only do they give you the date and the amount, they also give you the time of the purchase.

  Every one of Grace Wong’s gas charges was made in the late evening, usually around midnight. I checked the calendar for dates going back several months and discovered another interesting fact. Her visits were always on a Thursday night at
least once, if not twice, a month.

  What’s that all about?

  I tried to reason this out. Grace Wong had to be performing on a Thursday night. The usual day off in the theatre was Monday.

  I grabbed a newspaper and checked the theatre section to confirm this. I was right. In addition, most performances ended around ten-thirty p.m. In order to be there shortly after midnight, in my judgment, Grace Wong must have ripped off her costume after curtain call and driven like a bat out of hell down to Princeton-by-the-Sea.

  Well, tomorrow is Thursday, I mused, and I’m going to have to visit this New England harbor on the Pacific.

  I finished the rest of the work on my desk determined to free up the following day. I left a series of voicemail and email messages for Lila and my co-workers explaining I was taking a PTO day, Personal Time Off, and I would return to work and respond to all messages on Friday.

  Leaving the office shortly before four-thirty, I stopped off at PAPD, where I signed several forms. Then I retrieved my gun and managed to avoid Frank.

  When I got home, I took the stairs two at a time in my excitement. Tossing my handbag on the sofa, I picked up the phone before even taking my shoes off.

  I called Tío with the new name for the kitten. The newly named was in his usual position on the sofa, dead to the world. He didn’t even stir as I threw myself next to him.

  “Tío,” I said, eagerly after my uncle answered the phone. “I’ve got the name for the little guy. It’s...”

  “Un momento, mi Sobrina,” he interrupted. “Let me call you back after my gordas are out of the oven. I don’t want to have the queso to burn.”

  Tío hung up the phone before I could tell him that “to have the cheese to burn” was not grammatically correct. He liked to have us correct his English when called upon, and we all obliged him when necessary.

  However, that was the least of it. While I didn’t exactly expect to hear applause because I’d finally arrived at a name for the little guy, I did expect a better reaction than what I got. I put down the receiver and leaned over the sleeping kitten, knowing I should leave him alone. He needed his sleep and would probably be conked out for hours.