Topaz Dreams

by Patricia Rice

  Kurt rested his hand on her shoulder before she opened the door. “Look, I’m sorry about the scene back there, and I’m sorry for being a dick. Maybe we can go into the city and do this properly, with dinner and theater and normal?”

  Teddy hadn’t realized she’d been wound tight ever since Carmel Kennedy’s intrusion. At his apology, the tension loosened and she leaned into him, relieved. “It’s okay. We haven’t had any good reason to discuss family. But that’s what this package is about. I’ve already told you that I can’t just do sex and walk out. Do you get that?”

  He squeezed her shoulder and kissed her hair. “I’m trying. Give me time. If we’re learning family, let’s see what’s wrong with your sister.”

  Reaching for her pocket, Syd swung around as Teddy turned the key in the lock. She looked both relieved and guilty when she recognized them. “You were gone so long, I worried.”

  Teddy didn’t need to open her Monitor to know that Syd was more than worried. “I’m sorry. We had a lot of plans to discuss. What happened?”

  Syd cast Kurt a look of doubt. “Nothing. We can talk later.”

  “Shall I leave?” he asked, his chiseled face revealing nothing.

  But Teddy sensed his concern. She actually felt him for a change, without need of her Monitor. This was almost as good as sex. Better, actually. It meant he trusted her enough to lower his barrier!

  Or that the evening had worn it down. Still, she kissed his cheek, then strode toward the kitchen. “Stay,” she told him. “Syd, speak. I’m fixing coffee. Whatever it is, we’ll work it out.”

  “Does she always treat friends and families like Prince Hairy?” Kurt asked.

  “She doesn’t fix coffee for the prince,” Syd replied.

  Teddy hoped that meant the two of them were willing to talk to each other, because she couldn’t take much more soap opera. She yanked out the coffee beans and the grinder and filled the kitchen with the kind of noise that expressed how her brain was feeling right now.

  “You want your iPod?” Syd asked over the noise. “Or is coffee enough to take the edge off?”

  “You do not want to know.” Teddy glanced up, saw Kurt looking for mugs and Syd setting out cream and sugar. That worked. She concentrated on calming her rattled nerves while she poured grounds into the magic machine. What would it be like to have a man around the house again?

  Now wasn’t the time to find out. “Okay, I’m ready. Tell me what happened.”

  “Nothing, really,” Syd said. “It’s me being paranoid.”

  “And sometimes, people really are out to get you,” Teddy countered. “So let us decide.”

  “I was using your computer to set up the shop books. You never think of things like that. I e-mailed your office asking if they had a system I could work with.” Syd filled the pot with water and handed it to Teddy.

  “Thank you, I think.” Syd was right. She preferred working with crystals to computers. “Is there something wrong at the office?”

  “They forwarded your voice mail messages. You haven’t been answering them.” Syd didn’t sound as if she were scolding.

  “They’re usually from customers with special orders and I haven’t had time. I need to think about expanding and hiring help.” The coffee started perking and perfuming the air.

  “I recognized one of the numbers.”

  Syd said that in such a way that even oblivious Kurt stared.

  “It was the number Ash uses from his office.”

  Assbutt, the abusive cop—calling her office? “He got into your laptop, didn’t he?” Teddy asked in horror.

  He could be on his way to Hillvale, right now.

  Samantha

  July 1: morning

  * * *

  Sam studied the photos hanging on Dinah’s wall. The enlargement1s of the two panels of Lucinda Malcolm’s triptych had developed a life of their own. “I like the colored Sharpies,” she said, admiring the newly emerging colors. “Dinah, is this the color you want your door painted?”

  Dinah wiped her hands on her apron and peered near-sightedly at the photo people had been coloring on. “Does turquoise go with the gold letters on the window? I like my gold.”

  “Purple might go better,” Mariah called from behind the counter.

  Dinah grabbed a marker from the mug on the counter and began re-coloring her window frame. “Yes, that’s better!”

  “I’ll take the turquoise for my windows,” Aaron called from his seat at the counter. “Navy blue on the door.”

  “Color your own, lazy man,” Pasquale from the grocery store said as he carried in a load of napkins Dinah had ordered.

  Pasquale never came through the front door. He always trundled his boxes on a dolly to the back. Since he aimed directly for the photos, Sam assumed they were his goal. She got out of the way and returned to waiting on the breakfast crowd. She watched in amusement as the diminutive, graying Italian examined the increasingly colorful photographs. Word had been spreading.

  “Are we labeling people we know?” Pasquale asked, squinting at the names scribbled beside the people depicted. “Not many of dem still ’round.”

  Sam glanced at Walker. He didn’t turn to watch but she could tell Pasquale had his attention. Interference from officialdom tended to squelch conversation, so Walker seldom said much. In this case, she knew how to speak for him. “Were you here back then? We think the original painting depicts a day about ten years ago.”

  “Sure, dat’s me hanging da sign before I open da store. I couldn’t afford a big one back den. When it got blown off, I replace it with da big one dat’s dare now.” He added his name to a figure with a full head of black hair with his back to the artist. “Ten years about right. It will be ten years in August dat I open da store. Dare’s Lonnie Thompson packing up his car to take his wife’s work to some gallery. He use to sell pottery down in Monterey.”

  “Did you know them?” Sam poured orange juice and tried to sound casual. “I think his wife is related to Teddy and her sister.”

  Pasquale chose red for his store colors, but he painted the wood siding instead of the window frames. “I knew him from Monterey. He told me about Hillvale. I tink his wife was upset ’bout leaving here. I taught it was ’cause she didn’t want to leave her friends.”

  Dinah put down her coloring pen and peered at the cramped writing. “That inkblot is Lonnie Thompson? He was a philandering prick who yelled at his wife all the time. A’course, she yelled back a lot.”

  Sam glanced at Walker. He was frowning, listening, sipping his coffee—and waiting for her to draw out Dinah. She rolled her eyes at him. He winked in return.

  “I didn’t know you were here back then, Dinah,” Sam said, although now that she thought about it, Cass had said she’d arrived before Pasquale. “You’ve been here ten years already? Or longer? Do we need to have an anniversary party?”

  “Goin’ on about twelve years.” Dinah stepped back to admire her handiwork, then glanced over at the panel depicting the town hall. “That’s Thalia Thompson coming down the bluff. He made her carry his stuff down until one day, she flung a bowl at him. Maybe that’s the day. They had a huge blow up in the street and left pretty soon after.”

  In August then—according to the newspapers, the kiln had burned that month.

  “You know for certain they left together?” Walker finally asked.

  Dinah turned and glared at him. “I don’t snitch on customers,” she informed him. “I told you all I know.” She marched back to the kitchen, her short figure ramrod straight in her engulfing white apron.

  Pasquale watched her leave with a puzzled expression. “What dat about?”

  The café grew quiet. Pasquale seldom ate here or participated in the gossip. Sam was pretty sure that Walker would have questioned the grocer about Thalia though. She didn’t know what to say.

  It was Aaron, the urbane antique dealer, who spoke up. “Walker thinks Lonnie killed Thalia and left her bones in Teddy’s attic. Dinah pre
sumably doesn’t agree.”

  “No, Dinah just doesn’t talk to the police,” Walker said, rising and leaving his payment on the counter. “I respect that. But if anyone else knows if Thalia left with Lonnie, I’d appreciate hearing about it.”

  Walker had had no response to the e-mail temptation he’d sent to Thalia’s mailbox. Whoever was picking up the mail, if anyone, didn’t do so regularly.

  Pasquale finished coloring his building. “Dey were not a happy couple, but it’s hard to tink of eider of dem as killers. Dey took care of friends. Lisa woulda starved when she broke her arm.”

  “It could have been accidental,” Walker said. “Do you know this Lisa? Does she have a last name?”

  Pasquale shrugged. “None of dem did. Lisa helped paint pots, lived on da farm, and left with da rest.”

  Tracking a homeless tribe from ten years ago was hopeless, Sam figured. “Do you recognize anyone else in that photo who hasn’t already been identified?”

  “Dare’s Orval before he grew his beard.” Pasquale inked in the name.

  Sam knew Orval Bledsetter as a retired veterinarian who wore a scraggly gray beard, ponytail, and overalls. He didn’t come in often, and he’d been obnoxious the few times she’d met him. Walker had probably already talked to him, but he leaned over Pasquale’s shoulder to look anyway.

  “I don’t remember dem using a moving truck,” Pasquale said, standing back. “Dey didn’t have much. Dare’s Tullah, did you ask her?”

  “She said pretty much the same,” Walker admitted. “She thought they left in the dead of night. She thinks that was before the kiln burned.”

  Pasquale scratched his head. “Da kiln blew up a few weeks after I open da store. I remember worrying if my insurance covered fire. I check and made sure it did as soon as da fire trucks left. I’m pretty sure da Thompsons were gone before den or Lonnie would have been right in dare wit dem. He was da last of da potters using it.”

  They could very easily be looking at a painting of the day of Thalia’s death.

  “You ought to be asking the Nulls.” Harvey, the long-haired musician found a seat at the end of the counter near the photos. “Carmel just flew into town last night.”

  Mariah arrived through the kitchen door, tying on her apron. “On her broom, you mean? If she wanted to take someone out, she’d hire a hitman and be in Hawaii when it happened.”

  “I doubt if Mrs. Kennedy knew the Thompsons any more than Cass did,” Sam said, delivering water to Harvey and a few new customers. “Unless she collects pottery and bad artwork, that is. Has anyone asked Daisy about Thalia?”

  “I tried. No forward progress yet.” Walker kissed Sam’s cheek. “I’m heading over to Teddy’s to recommend security. Mariah’s ghost traps aren’t strong enough.”

  Sam laughed, but she’d heard him talking to Teddy on the phone last night. The ghost was the least of her worries. They needed human traps.

  Twenty-three

  July 1: morning

  * * *

  “Can’t we have her institutionalized?” Kurt asked, pacing up and down Monty’s office in the building they used as their city hall. “I can’t work with her interference anymore.”

  “Mom’s not crazy,” Monty pointed out. “She just needs handling with care, and you’re the only one who knows how. If you go, the lodge goes, and the whole town with it. The only other solution is to buy her out, and I’m not sure even that works. She probably still wouldn’t leave.”

  Kurt ran his hand through his hair, unwilling to discuss the scene Teddy had been subjected to last night. She’d been brilliantly understanding, but she probably thought he’d meant it when he threatened to walk out. Monty brought him down off that cloud.

  He was either chained to the lodge or played the coward and left everyone to hang. Right now, he seriously leaned toward the latter. “Mom owns half the corporation. We’d have to mortgage our personal assets to the hilt and still probably come out lacking.”

  He needed a window to look out, to see what was happening out there.

  Last night, he’d left Teddy agreeing to call Walker, but Syd had been reluctant. One dead body in the attic was more than he could accept. Fearing for Teddy and her family had set his mind off kilter. He couldn’t focus on the argument.

  “Marry Mom off,” Monty suggested facetiously.

  Kurt thought about what the Lucys called their mother—an emotional vampire. She’d been a nag and a bitch before their father died. With the financial wreck he’d left behind dumped on her, she’d pulled out all the stops. So in a way, the Lucys were right, although it had nothing to do with the supernatural and everything to do with her desperate need to control everything in her universe.

  He winced as he remembered Teddy nailing that about him. And that was the reason he wasn’t calling Walker himself and demanding more security—even though he was wearing a hole in the floor to prevent picking up the phone.

  They had children over there.

  He paced more.

  “If Kylie’s father is still interested in the town condo project,” Monty said with hesitation, “Would it hurt to talk to him about a loan to buy Mom out?”

  Kurt rubbed his head, hearing Teddy’s voice calling his dream no more than a profit center. He needed profit to buy his mother out of the lodge. Was that so wrong?

  He came from a long line of male philanderers. He could marry Kylie, have Teddy on the side. . . Even thinking that gave him a headache. Teddy had been pretty damned clear she didn’t fly that way. And he didn’t blame her. She deserved honesty.

  “I can ask, but I think Kylie and her father are a package deal, and it may include Mom,” Kurt admitted. “Kylie’s father is just her sort.”

  “He’s married,” Monty said with a grimace.

  “When has that stopped her? She’s always needed a man in her life.” Restless, unable to accept any of his alternatives, Kurt strode out of Monty’s windowless office to check the street from the front window. Someone had started painting the walls of the lobby a stark white, which contrasted badly with the battered dark floors.

  Monty followed, if only to check the cloudy sky. “It’s not supposed to rain in July.”

  “Pray it isn’t heavy. Half that mountain is likely to slide onto our doorstep—another reason we need money now.” The other side of the equation was that if there was no rain, the remaining half of the mountain could easily catch fire in the dry heat of summer. “Remind me why we stay here?”

  “I’m starting to wonder as well. I vote we leave Hillvale to the Lucys and become beach bums.”

  Kurt followed the path of Monty’s thoughts—police chief Walker was headed this way. “If we build a real town out here, we’ll need real city services to fight fire and flood and crime. We’ll have to tax the hell out of ourselves.”

  Monty laughed. “That’s one way of looking at it. Or we tax the tourists.”

  Walker entered, looking less enigmatic than usual, more in the direction of grim. “The lab found enough DNA on Thalia’s canvases to positively identify the bones as someone who had their hands all over those paintings. That may be as conclusive as we get.”

  “I thought the labs were backed up and it would take months for an analysis.” Kurt began pacing the floorboards, testing for rot in the old wood.

  “My lab,” Walker said with a shrug. “If there’s a killer lose in Hillvale, I want to know about it now, not next winter. Consider my company’s services in lieu of taxes, like the artists used to do.”

  “You’re renting. You don’t pay taxes,” Monty reminded him. “We’ll give you artwork in exchange for your services.”

  That almost made the expressionless officer smile, Kurt noted. “What about Teddy’s sister?” he demanded. “Did she call you?”

  “I just came from there. That’s next on the agenda. We need security cameras in the parking lot and at the entrance to town.”

  Kurt tried to feel relief that the women had been sensible, but Walker was only
one man. He couldn’t eliminate all danger.

  The police chief pulled out his phone and called up a website with the equipment he apparently had in mind.

  “If you want cameras, you’ll have to pay for them,” Monty said, glancing at the images. “I don’t think the website will take paintings in trade. Or crystals,” he added in an attempt at humor. “Why do we need cameras?”

  “We need protocol for how much I can reveal and to whom.” Walker punched at his phone.

  Kurt figured he and Monty were about to receive links to the cameras. Coming from a wealthy, non-police background, Walker wasn’t inclined to wait for what he wanted.

  “I already know about Syd’s domestic situation,” Kurt told him. “You won’t be revealing anything new.”

  “City mayor ought to have access to police information,” Monty said, jotting notes in his own phone. “I’ll add protocol to the council agenda.”

  “We have a town council?” Walker asked in interest. “When does it meet?”

  “Whenever the Lucys get a bee in their bonnet and start raising hell.” Monty shoved his phone back in his pocket. “What’s Syd’s situation and why do we need cameras?”

  “Abusive cop boyfriend,” Kurt said, keeping Walker from fighting with his conscience over confidentiality. “He put Syd in the hospital when she tried to break up with him. He broke into her house while she was laid up, stole her laptop and is sending threatening messages pinpointing her location. So she’s hiding up here and living on cash. He’s out on bond and still has access to all official investigative resources. The women didn’t think he knew how to find Teddy, but he recently tried to reach her through her office.”

  Walker added, “Teddy’s office is shipping her inventory here. If this creep wields his credentials, one of her people might believe they have to give him the address. Since he appears to consider himself above the law, he might even have hackers breaking into her website. We have to consider her hiding place has been compromised.”