18
I woke really refreshed the morning after my uneventful cruise across the bay on Sea Cock. I stretched happily, sprang from my bed, and let RJ out through the deck door. While he went to whiz, I made mental notes for what I would accomplish that day as I made my bed, gathered dirty clothes for the hamper, and picked up my rings and bracelet from the bedside table. Walking over to the tansu chest, I opened my jewelry box and was stashing my bracelet when I stopped and stared. Palming the bracelet, I was still looking dumbly into the box when the phone rang.
“Hey! It’s me. Wasn’t that a nice date last night?” Jan asked.
“It wasn’t a date.”
“Oooh, someone got up on the wrong side of her perpetually empty bed this morning. Now come on, admit it, you had a good time.”
“Yeah, okay, so I did. Got me to thinking about a few things. But I gotta ask, Jan, and you’re probably going to think I’ve finally gone over the edge, but did you rearrange my jewelry?”
“Rearrange? Is that your sneaky way of asking if I borrowed something you’ve misplaced?”
“No. Nothing’s missing. And you know I don’t care what you borrow or wear. I was wondering if you’d moved things around? Kinda straightened things up or something?”
“Not me. Maybe RJ’s taken up cross dressing. He’s always been partial to bows and beads, you know.”
“Yeah, mayhap he’s been hanging out with Raoul’s Catamite too much. Oh, hell, I guess I’m having a brain cramp. Another indication that I need to do something with my life. Like a major, major, change.”
“Let me guess. You’re gonna get botoxed.”
“Naw, I hate needles worse than I do wrinkles. But I might consider getting detoxed.”
“I ain’t going to no stinkin’ meetings, Miz Hetta.”
“Some friend you are. Listen, my house is falling apart, the piece of shit engineer I, uh, relocated in Seattle.”
“You mean screwed over, don’t you? Depth charged? Sold down the tubes?” Jan interjected. She never lets me slide.
“Okay, yeah, him. His name is Dale, and the bastard’s trying to get even with me by sabotaging both me and my project. On top of that, someone is still breathing into my phone, my house has haints, and now my jewelry is rearranging itself. Something’s got to give. I’m going to sell the house and buy a boat to live on.”
“O-kay, I might consider one lit-tle meeting.”
“I’m serious.”
“You hate sailing.”
“I’m thinking powerboat.”
Silence hung heavy on the line, then she sighed. “Hetta, do the words ‘major mid-life crisis’ mean anything at all to you?”
* * *
RJ ate his prime rib for breakfast, but still kept giving me nasty looks while I munched a bowl of Total and sliced bananas. I ignored RJ’s sulky attitude and leafed through local boating magazines. Scanning yacht brokerage listings, I jotted down a list of desirable features I wanted on my boat. Yacht. Whatever. Unfortunately, not one of the ads listed the interior color scheme. I made a couple of calls. They went something like this, with me just imagining what they were thinking..
“Good morning, Old Tub Yachts.”
“Good morning. I see you have a fifty-seven foot Dream Machine for sale.”
“Sure do. Give me a minute and I’ll pull up the details on her Missus, ah?”
“Ms. Coffey. Hetta.”
“My name is Ralph, Ms. Coffey, and I appreciate your call.” Shit, I finally get a hit on that garbage scow and it turns out to be a single broad. Single broads never buy anything. “Let’s just see...yep, here she is. Windsong. Beautiful boat. What would you like to know?” This should be good.
“What are the colors?”
This is worse than I thought. “White, with blue canvas.”
“No, I mean inside. What’s the color scheme?”
Is this a joke? I bet some of those guys over at Pristine Marine put her up to this. Well, two can play this game. “Lime green and hot pink.”
“What? Do you have anything in peach? Or at least neutrals?”
“Listen, Ms. Coffey, you tell those guys over at Pristine to stick it where the sun don’t shine.”
I hung up, slightly confused but undaunted. I tore pages from magazines, got out a map, and planned my yacht ne plus ultra. Hey, not a bad name for a boat: Perfection. Using the organizational skills I’d developed during my career, I put together a plan, a search for perfection. The future looked rosier, despite the fact that my dog wouldn’t speak to me.
I cheerfully put in a few hours in my office, then decided to give myself a reward in the form of a nice, midafternoon, hot water soak. Dropping clothes as I went, I grabbed a towel and, since I was alone, decided to go in au naturel. My deck was not visible from any of the neighbor’s houses, and except for the occasional helicopter, I had total privacy. I stepped onto the sun warmed redwood, and holding the towel in one hand, flipped back the tub cover and stepped in. And screamed. The water was ice cold. This house was definitely histoire.
* * *
The unseasonably warm weekend was ideal for the Big Boat Hunt.
Armed with a list of questions and boat data, Jan and I began in Alameda, worked our way back to Oakland, then on to Berkeley and Emeryville. The boats I liked were too expensive. The ones I could afford were too small. And badly decorated.
Exhausted from a day of repeatedly removing our Birkenstocks to board yachts, we stopped at Macys, bought deck shoes, then headed home to meet my hot tub repairman.
Jim “Dr. Hot Water” Evans had his own key to the dog jail gate so he could service the pumps and plumbing housed therein. And since we had RJ with us, Jim could get to the equipment without losing any limbs. When we got home, Dr. Hot was on the deck, fiddling with control knobs.
“Hiya, Jim. What’s the verdict?”
“Don’t know. Can’t get in.”
“Forget your key?”
“Nope. Fuggin’ key don’t work.”
“Whaddyamean ‘fuggin’ key don’t work’?”
“Don’t work.” Jim is a man of few words.
I tromped down the redwood steps to the padlocked gate, dug out my own key, and tried the lock. I tried again. Jim was right, fuggin’ key don’t work. It slid into the keyhole smoothly, but wouldn’t turn.
“Did you try WD40?”
“Yep.”
I looked a little closer at the Master Lock. Something about it wasn’t quite right. It was the same model, same make, but shinier. I hadn’t opened the lock in ages, and Jim hadn’t been over to service the tub for at least a month. Since then, someone had changed the lock!
I left Jim cussing and hacksawing into hardened steel while I drove to my local Ace Hardware for a new lock. During the short trip, my mind raced, bouncing from one question to another. Who changed that lock? And when? And why? It was time to call the gendarmes.
19
“How about them Warriors?” I said when I met Detective Martinez at the door.
He gave me a grimace that passed for a smile. Judging from his gray crew cut, soft middle, and permanently pained expression, Martinez looked to be on the ragged edge of a long career. He thumbed a Tums from a frayed roll and popped it into his mouth. Between chews he mumbled, “Yeah. Amazing what a good night’s sleep will do for a guy’s game. You been outta town?”
“To paraphrase that other great comedic genius, Fred Flintstone, ‘Droll. Ve-ry droll, Detective.’ ”
We moved to the living room and got down to business. Martinez asked a few questions, took notes and made a comment or two that only slightly indicated he thought I was a total simpleton.
Okay, so it hadn’t occurred to me to leave the lock alone until the police had a chance to dust for prints. Who am I? Kinsey Millhone? So now, between Dr. Hot’s hacksaw, our communal handling of the lock, and a few licks from RJ, chances were slim for lifting any useful fingerprint evidence. And evidence of what?
“So,” I said as Martin
ez carefully bagged the mangled lock, “is it against the law to change a lock?”
Martinez contemplated my question for a moment before answering. Either that or he was waiting for his antacid to kick in. “Not exactly.”
“Then what, exactly?”
“Well, it appears someone did trespass. If we can find that someone, you can press charges. Can’t say, though, I ever charged anyone with breaking and locking before.” His little joke amused him greatly, but his laugh deteriorated into a hacking cough. I waited while he had his fun and caught his breath.
“Now,” he said, clearing his throat and getting back to crime scene concerns, “is there anyone you can think of who might want to do you harm?”
“Gee, can’t you cops come up with a new line? That one’s been used for decades of movies and TV shows.”
“And the answer is?”
I laughed. Gotta get up early to stay ahead of this legal fireball. “I can’t think of anyone off hand.”
He shrugged. “Just a thought. This is the second time I’ve been here and I don’t believe in coincidence. Looks to me like someone took the time to make sure they could get in and out of your house, so maybe they want to get to you. Can you think of anyone who might fit that bill?”
“Certainly not,” I said, crossing my arms across my chest.
Jan, who up until now sat quietly, groaned and rolled her eyes towards Heaven. The cop caught it and stared me down until I admitted, “There might have been a couple of, uh, contretemps.”
“Contretemps? Can’t say as I’ve heard that one in awhile. Ever. Tell me about them.” Martinez flipped to a new page in his ubiquitous little notebook and waited, pen poised.
“Let’s see. I gave Big Dick Reechard’s Armani jacket to a wino.”
“Does Big Dick have a last name?” Martinez said without a hint of a smile. He wrote down Richard’s real name and a phone number supplied by Jan, and then urged me to continue.
I listed people I might possibly have pissed off. Besides BDR, there was Dale, the yahoo I had torpedoed on the Seattle project and who was turning out to be a real pain in the ass, and Mr. Kim of the postal Jeepjacking. Then there was Wade, who, although I didn’t really consider him an enemy, was incarcerated with hundreds of his new best friends at an institute for the criminally insane.
“Medical facility,” Martinez said.
“Huh?”
“Not called institutes for the criminally insane anymore. They’re State Medical Facilities. PC.”
“I like loony bin, myself,” I countered. I hate PC.
Martinez almost smiled. He wrote something on his pad, then looked up. “Anyone else?”
“Nope.”
Jan gave me a look. “What?” I asked her.
“Hudson,” she mouthed.
Martinez, it seems, lipreads. “Hudson who?”
“Williams. But I really don’t think he...I mean...Interpol told me a year ago that I probably had nothing to worry about. They said he might be dead, even.”
Mr. Cool Cop almost dropped his pen. “Interpol?” When I nodded, he said, “I think you’d better tell me all about Williams. Dead or alive.”
So I did. Seven or so years before, while on a business trip to Tokyo, I slipped away from my business associates for a little solo foray on the town. Since I was moving to Tokyo for a two-year stint, I told them I was going to look for an apartment and not to expect me for dinner. I headed straight for Rappongi, the district where I’d heard many foreigners lived and partied. Especially partied.
After actually checking out a couple of preposterously priced apartments, I began my evening of checking out drinking establishments. Although a disapproving Jan had given me my very own copy of Looking for Mr. Goodbar—both the book and the movie—I steadfastly refused to consider my international, nocturnal wanderings hazardous.
Truth is, I instinctively knew in which type of bar I would find the people with whom I’d be chummy for however long I’d be in any one place. In Brussels I homed in on an English Pub, in Mexico City it was a hotel bar. You show me any large city anywhere in the world and I’ll show you a ginmill where foreigners meet, drink, tell lies, and grouse about how nothing in the stinkin’ country works right. I was looking for just such a place and the men who frequented them.
Hudson Williams was draped over the bar at Red’s Revenge, Home of the Fightin’ Roo.
At seven a.m. the next morning, I was making my way back to my room when I ran into my Baxter Brothers cohorts. I was still a little drunk and probably reeked of the kimchi Hudson and I had consumed at an all night Korean BBQ, but my colleagues thought I’d been out for an early morning walk. I let them keep those thoughts. I didn’t think it wise to apprise my fellow employees, and thereby my employer, that they had a barfly of international renown on their hands.
Two months later, when I did relocate to Tokyo, Hudson and I began a hot and heavy affair that lasted for six months. Until the day he disappeared, along with funds belonging to his company, several of his clients, and me.
I had fully cooperated with Interpol, giving them copies of my phone bills since Hudson had moved in with me right after I arrived, saying his place was too far out of town. I gave them the names of any of his associates I’d met, addresses he’d given me for relatives in the States, and everything else I could come up with. As far as I knew, no one ever found him. Dead or alive.
“Dead would be good,” I told Detective Martinez, “but even if he is alive, I don’t think Hudson, wherever the dirty rat bastard may be, would be looking to harm me,” I said. “As a matter of fact, if I ever see him again, he’s the one who’s gonna get harmed. Some folks, like old granny used to say, ‘just need killin’’.”
Martinez raised his eyebrows at my threat. “Do you happen to have a photo of the alleged dirty rat bastard?” He was enjoying this. I think.
“Nope.”
“Tore them up, huh?”
Feeling really, really, stupid I reluctantly admitted, “He never let me take one of him. Said it was bad karma to be photographed.”
I glared at Jan before she could say anything like “So, what was your second clue?”
Martinez made a little humming sound, closed his notepad and struggled to his feet.
Jan cleared her throat. “Breathers,” she said.
The cop sighed and sat.
Jan was becoming a pain in the ass. I scowled a warning at her, then told Martinez, “Someone keeps calling. Hanging up, or breathing. My caller ID can’t ID the number. Could you? I wouldn’t object to a phone tap or something like that.”
“Maybe,” he said slowly. He looked at me in what I can only call a quizzical manner. Either that or his Tums totally failed. “Ms. Coffey, for a well educated, successful professional, you appear to walk on the shadowy side of life’s little lane. Brinkmanship, as I call it, is a fine art. Be careful you don’t take one step too many and topple over the edge.”
My ears burned and white heat rushed all the way to my toes. It took every ounce of self-control, something I’m light on anyway, to keep from letting him have a piece, the murderous piece, of my mind. I bit my tongue. Hard.
Martinez rose, handed me his card, walked to the front door, then turned back and said, “I’ll get back to you on the phone thing. Have a good evening, girls.”
“OhBesides submitting proposals, please, call me Hetta,” I said, “I mean since we’re becoming so close and all.”
If Martinez caught my hateful tone, he ignored it. When the door shut behind him, I shot off the couch. Both Jan and RJ watched warily as I paced and fumed. “Girls? Girls? And where,” I spat, “does that sumbitch get off lecturing me? He’s probably never been out of the friggin’ state. He’s probably a high school grad-u-ate. He’s probably....” I ran out of venom.
“Right?” Jan finished my sentence. “You know Hetta, we do have a history of hanging out with guys who aren’t, well, exactly good for us.”
Now there’s an understatement.<
br />
She was right. Martinez was right. I plopped down on the couch and RJ, who had retreated from my anger, returned to put his head in my lap.
“Dog,” I said, scratching his velvety ears, “how would you feel about living on a boat? We’re blowing this Popsicle stand. It’s jinxed.” RJ’s tail thumped. After all, he had vowed, back at the pound, to follow me to the ends of the earth.
Just Add Water (Hetta Coffey Mystery Series (Book 1)) Page 11
