Sleuthing Women

by Lois Winston

  “It was weird. They went around asking all the same questions you did.”

  “Like what?”

  “You know. Who drew what person and like that. That’s why I started worrying again about the presents Eldon gave me.”

  I felt both proud and annoyed that the detectives were following my routine. “Do you know who Patsy and Big Red drew?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know who Patsy had, but Big Red had Buzz.”

  I thought about the chart I’d made. If I weren’t mistaken, this tidbit left only one conclusion. “Do you know if the police matched everyone with his Kris Kringle?” I tried to keep my voice nonchalant, while my body vibrated from a surge of adrenaline.

  “You, for one, were already gone, although I suppose someone knew who you had. Who did you have, anyway?” She drained her glass. The bartender hustled over.

  “Want another?”

  He didn’t check with me, but then, I had a half glass of stale beer in front of me.

  “No, thank you,” she beamed at him. “I have a pleasant buzz.”

  The word buzz made her face fall, and I felt mine follow suit.

  The bartender shifted uncomfortably, probably wondering what gaffe he’d committed now. “Would you like some pretzels?”

  “No, thanks. How about you, Carol?”

  The bartender looked at me, his eyes taking in the lip, and then moving back up.

  I felt like screaming, “I’m not a battered woman!” but realized I was. I had been hit, and by someone I knew. “No, thanks,” I mumbled.

  He left.

  “That’s one thing about having gone with an older man,” Suzanne said, trying to cheer me up. “It moves the whole game of seduction to another level.”

  To hear something positive about a relationship with Fortier disappointed me.

  She glanced toward the bartender. “Young guys are so obvious.”

  And Fortier wasn’t?

  An arm covered in blue mohair whipped impatiently through the air. “So easy.”

  “Eldon’s older,” I teased.

  THIRTY

  Soquel Drive followed along the outskirts of Live Oak before descending to the white, steepled church, the picturesque centerpiece to Soquel Village. I told myself that I was taking this route to avoid the rush hour on the freeway, but I also wanted to delay this necessary and overdue confrontation.

  I hoped that Patsy’s partner wasn’t home. Ana, aka the Bulldog, was immense, not big and muscular, but a woman for whom the adjective obese was invented, fat to the point that seats on planes and busses became issues. Ana’s body was the center of her universe and she had a one-item political agenda. Granted work needed to be done in the area of women’s body images, but even those who agreed with her found her intimidating.

  I turned right off Soquel Drive and headed toward the ocean. I made a left by a small string of shops, salivating at the sight of Manuel’s Restaurant. I hadn’t eaten since after work when I was waiting for Suzanne. Even with the car windows up, I could smell the Mexican food through the salty sea air.

  A quick right brought me to Ana and Patsy’s spruced up beach house. Real estate agents would call it a “doll house,” a pale blue-gray charmer with white shutters and white picket fence. Their front lawn was exceptionally green, the flower borders manicured although nothing was in bloom. Smoke curled from the chimney. I felt bad about disturbing this domestic tranquility.

  Patsy opened the door before I knocked. She was dressed completely in black: thick black socks, black jeans, black sweater pulled over a black turtleneck and her ears dotted with onyx studs, throwing her shock of mauve hair into high relief.

  “I didn’t know whether you or the police would figure it out first, but I’ve been expecting a visit.”

  She gestured me into the living room. The fireplace screen was open and the andirons lay on the hearth, the only items out of place in the room. Ana wasn’t on either of the sturdy couches and Patsy looked so pale that my nervousness dissipated.

  Aware that this wasn’t a social visit, she didn’t offer me anything to drink.

  “Your lip is sure swollen,” she said, as she perched on the brick hearth and poked at a log. “I guess you know that I drew Fortier’s name.” She kept her gaze on the fire. Her voice sounded matter of fact.

  I sat on the edge of one of the blue and white striped couches. “You know, until I completed the chart, I didn’t believe he participated.”

  “You never talked to Ray.”

  “That’s true. But if I remember right he had Delores’s name.”

  Patsy turned. The fire was blazing, but she didn’t shut the screen or put up the poker. “Fortier tried to finagle her name from him.”

  I thought about Eldon trading for Suzanne’s name and wondered if there was any point of having a drawing in the first place if everyone was going to swap names to get who he or she wanted. Had Buzz traded to get my name? I blushed at the thought. “Obviously Ray wouldn’t switch.”

  Patsy smiled. “Yeah, that was cool. Ray’s had a crush on Delores since her first day. The only reason Fortier participated was so he could get Delores’s name. He wanted to give her a vibrator.”

  “So why didn’t you tell me or the police this?”

  “Why? So you’d think I gave him the honey?”

  “Did you?”

  “What I don’t understand, Carol, is why you care who killed him. The person did the world a favor.”

  “I guess it has to do with truth, justice and the American way,” I said lightly, so she could take it as a joke if she wanted. “So, did you kill him?”

  “No.” She turned and gave the log a vicious poke. It tumbled from its stand into the corner of the fireplace, shooting up embers. Patsy jumped. “Fuck!”

  The agitated woman lifted the poker. I hopped up from the couch. Not again, I thought. I did not want to get hit twice in one day.

  My imagination was in overdrive. Patsy put the poker in its stand and picked up the tongs. She busied herself with maneuvering the log back into place.

  “If you didn’t give him the honey, what did you give him, Patsy?”

  She laughed bitterly and twisted around to look at me. “At the time I thought it was funny. But in retrospect, I can see it was just mean spirited. Like the syrup of ipecac that I put in that petit four.”

  I deduced that one person had known about Fortier and Patsy and that had been Alexis. But Patsy was right about the mean spiritedness. I got really sick from that petit four. Even if Alexis had blindly sided with her uncle, even if she’d lorded her uncle’s power over Patsy, she didn’t deserve the treatment I’d received. The girl was hardly more than a teenager. She was entitled to a degree of misplaced loyalty and obnoxious behavior. They were survival techniques until she could become more of an adult.

  Remorse softened Patsy’s strong face. “I was as bad as Fortier. That’s part of the reason I didn’t want anyone to know. I didn’t give the son-of-a-bitch anything.”

  THIRTY-ONE

  Kicking wrinkles from the extension, I dragged my home phone from the bedroom and sat it on our small table. I made a second trip for the phone book.

  I plopped on the wooden chair and watched Lola through the sliding glass door. She hunched, peering through the dusk at movement under the lantana. I turned to the yellow pages and found a beekeeper supply store in San Jose. It wasn’t quite five thirty. Even if they’d already closed, someone might be there to answer the phone. I dialed.

  A pleasant, older-sounding woman answered.

  “I was wondering if you could tell me how far bees travel for food?”

  “They’ll travel a long ways, sometimes miles, to forage. That’s why, if a beekeeper wants to label his product clover honey, clover has to be the primary foliage for a two-mile radius.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I think that answers my question.”

  It seemed unlikely that Victor, or anyone, could control bees enough to produce a reliably poisonous
product. That would involve a painstaking effort. A long-term, obsessive plot. Fortier’s murder didn’t have that feel.

  But Victor was still the guy with an apiary and he hated Fortier. He was the one with the scraped knuckles after my attack. On the other hand, would a guilty person flaunt incriminating evidence? He could have worn a bandage and said he had a cut or burn, such a common occurrence in the kitchen that no one would have thought twice.

  Lola sprang into the bush.

  I tried to think of a good story to explain my lip to Chad. If I told him the truth, he’d be worried about my safety, when there wasn’t much danger. If the person had wanted to kill me, he could have easily done so. I believed the person, at most, wanted to scare me. Or, the person may have just delivered the note and been interrupted, hitting me out of fear.

  I thought about once when I’d wrenched a weed from the ground. It turned out not to be a weed at all, but a shoot from a tree. I’d strained with all my might until the growth snapped and my hands, clutching a long, green strand of leaves, flew back and blackened my eye. I could tell Chad something like that.

  Later I told him the whole truth and nothing but the truth. He took a pack of Camels from his beat-up Levi’s jacket and shook one out right in front of me.

  “Chad!”

  He opened the glass door, stepped out onto the bricks, struck a match and lit the cigarette. Dusky, cold air rushed into the house. “If you don’t want me to smoke, don’t tell me shit like this.”

  “Well, I considered lying.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  “What you mean is I can be held accountable for your smoking. That pisses me off.”

  Chad turned around and exhaled smoke in a thin, angry jet. “Don’t be such a hypocrite, Carol. If you don’t want me to endanger my life, why should I let you endanger yours?”

  “My life is not endangered,” I said.

  He licked his fingers, pinched out the cigarette, and put the unsmoked portion back in the pack. “Who’s in denial here?”

  “You’re twisting everything, Chad.”

  He stalked into the kitchen, not at all calmed by the nicotine. “Then let me make my meaning clear. Tomorrow I want you to go down to the police station. I want you to report what happened. And, I want you to stop poking around in this murder before you really get hurt.”

  “Are you telling me what to do?”

  “Am I stupid?” He managed a faint smile. “I am merely, for once in my life, Carol, telling you what I want.”

  THIRTY-TWO

  Chad was long gone when I opened my eyes. He liked working in the winter. In spite of the increased danger from dampness, the roofs were cooler and work was limited by the shortened daylight. By nature, he was a laid back guy.

  My mother had made the patchwork quilt resting on top of me. I contemplated it lazily and thought if one wanted to get literary, it might symbolize our relationship. All manner of sizes and shapes had been hastily machine sewn with no discernible pattern and the corners puckered. My mom had inherited more of her Grandpa Turner’s impatience than she’d ever admit. Yet, the quilt had so clearly been made for me with deep, forest green and dusty rose the predominant colors, a little gold for dazzle, and a ruddy brown to stabilize the menagerie. Inside my mom had inserted an old blanket to give the quilt weight and warmth. The backing was a durable but soft flannel.

  It was ugly and I’d never buy it, but if the house caught fire, I’d dash through flames to rescue it.

  I stretched one foot, then the other, feeling the cramped bow of my arches. I touched my rubbery lip and wondered if collagen produced the same weird, stretched smooth texture. If it did, how did models deal with having their lips feel like beach balls?

  Lola padded up from the foot of the bed and meowed in my face.

  “Oh, poor Lola,” I whimpered. “Neglected and starving.”

  I closed my eyes.

  Lola reached out a paw, unsheathed one claw, and poked my hand with it.

  “No!”

  She sprang from the bed, walked indignantly to the living room, and scratched the couch.

  I leapt out of bed. “Stop that, Lola!”

  She fled under the table. She had me up. Now she just had to get the hand to reach under the cupboard, grab a fistful of IAMS, and throw the crunchy nuggets into the bowl.

  She peeked around the table leg, widened her green eyes, and meowed once, as piteously as possible.

  I refused to be manipulated by a cat. I held up a spray bottle full of water. “See this, Lola?”

  She shrank behind the leg of the table.

  “I’m going back to bed and I’m taking this with me.”

  I stomped to the bedroom, set the bottle on the stand, and hopped back into the delicious warmth.

  I did not look forward to humbling myself to crooked-nose Carman. I considered Chad’s request reasonable, but I didn’t want to do it. This was the kind of situation where marriage got tricky.

  Lola hopped on the bed, sauntered up my body to my chest, and peered into my face.

  I snaked one hand into the cold and scratched her spotted ear. “Such faith in my goodness and restraint.”

  She purred, circled, crushed a boob, lay, and began to bathe.

  My pleasures were simple. I loved lying in a warm bed with a happy cat on my belly.

  I wrangled with my conscience and reached this compromise. I’d go to the Police Department, but I wouldn’t make an appointment. If no one could see me, too bad. I could look Chad in the eyes, throw up my hands, and protest, “I tried.”

  I had the weekend off, a rare opportunity, and I planned to take advantage of it, maybe see what Julieanne Fortier was up to these days.

  Chad’s request that I stop investigating had to return to the bargaining table. I’d tell him that I understood his concern, but there were things I had to do to be me, dangerous or not. If he argued, I’d remind him of my support for his bungee jumping escapade, a seventy-dollar expense for a completely nonsensical, one-minute thrill.

  He’d claim it wasn’t dangerous.

  Simultaneously, I searched my brain for a retort and planned a visit to Alexis and Julieanne.

  ~*~

  Julieanne and Alexis Fortier lived off Capitola Road in an apartment development, four boxy buildings that heaved, brown and stark from a field, the parking lots fresh, tarry insults to nature, the landscaping recovering from shock. Ten years ago the Live Oak area of Santa Cruz had narrow roads through spacious lots, grazing pastures, and large vegetable gardens. Now the sometimes tastefully designed, but always cheaply constructed, monstrosities erupted everywhere and cast long shadows over the original bungalows and farmhouses.

  Alexis and Julieanne lived in the back building, facing a creek. I climbed concrete and metal steps, the freestanding kind that reverberate, to a small concrete landing with an orange door to my right and to my left.

  I rang the bell for the door on my left. When it opened, a miasma of smells wafted from the room like oily heat waves from a busy highway. The palpable stench surrounded Julieanne, who wore a dirty, blue knee-length terry robe. Curlers dangled from her hair. I didn’t know anyone still used them.

  Exhaling cigarette breath, she scowled, making uglier the tear-soaked, alcohol-bloated face. “I don’t want any.”

  “I’m a friend of Jean’s,” I lied before she could close the door.

  She narrowed her eyes.

  “A co-worker,” I amended.

  “Oh, yeah,” she said. “I remember you from the funeral.” She backed up a step and yanked curlers from her hair. “Wanna come in?”

  That was grounds for philosophical debate.

  Julieanne had the house closed up, all shades and curtains drawn. As my eyes made out my surroundings, the swampy smell separated into its components: whiskey, Kool cigarettes, the toxic odor of the new nubby, dark blue carpet, and the pizza box and coffee grounds in the overflowing garbage can at the end of a counter. This sloppiness didn’t go w
ith my impression of compact and spry Alexis, but I had no problem pinning it on Julieanne, now slouched and spreading on the couch. Against the backdrop of muted stripes of color, Julieanne picked at her eyes’ crusties, and then combed her hair with the hand.

  I sat away from her, on a wooden stool pulled up to the kitchen counter. Without any embarrassment, the woman poked through a heap of elbows in the ashtray, straightened the most promising, and lit the crooked third of a cigarette.

  “Rough time,” I said ambiguously.

  “Jean’s death unhinged me,” she stated, quite matter-of-factly for an unhinged person.

  “Why did you return to Santa Cruz?”

  She exhaled, a leisurely and sensual act. “When I got back to New Orleans, it heightened the fact Jean was gone. That’s where we courted and married. His family likes me, and they’ve never recognized the separation. Good Catholics.” She bent the butt of the finished cigarette—her trademark. “But here in Santa Cruz, Jean never belonged to me. Not really. He never needed to divorce me. I let him have whatever he wanted.”

  For a moment I thought she’d cry, but she finished strongly. “Anyway, I got to New Orleans and said, ‘What am I doing here? I don’t have a job. I like Santa Cruz better and Alexis is like a daughter to me.’”

  More like a mother, I thought. “Do you have a job here now?” I asked.

  “Well, no.” She seemed surprised by my question, pulled her robe more securely around her and peered at the mound of butts.

  “I guess you quit your job at KRUZ TV?”

  Her mind, numbed by alcohol, tears, and self-pity, slowly sensed I had not come to offer condolences. “That’s right.”

  “Why?”

  Suddenly she didn’t care about her hair or whether the robe pulled apart to reveal ample cleavage. She stalked past me to the kitchen, poured herself a half glass of Jack Daniels, straight, and took a gulp. She coughed. “Who are you?” she asked in a strangled voice.