Desert Shadows (9781615952250) (15 page)

They looked at each other again, nodded in unison, then stepped back from the door.

I hurried inside before they changed their minds. As soon as I was through the door, a fug of stale air enveloped me, and I wondered how long it had been since the windows had been opened. Looking around, I saw that unlike most Arizona homes—which tended to be filled with sunshine and soft, Southwestern colors—the interior of the twin's house aped its exterior depression. Fusty gold-flocked wallpaper darkened the large living room, a darkness only intensified by the deep avocado carpeting. While the carpet's color might have been decades out of date, it looked almost new due to the plastic runners that crisscrossed it. The same care had been taken to protect the furniture. Plastic slipcovers glimmered on matching settees and armchairs.

I had seen homes like this before. Such hyper-protection usually meant one of two things: extreme frugality, or encroaching poverty. Which was true in their case?

For all its careful preservation, the house wasn't quite clean. Dust covered every object in the room.

My assessment of the twins' housekeeping skills hadn't gone unnoticed. “Maid's day off,” No Bruise cackled, as the two settled together onto the sofa. Uninvited, I lowered myself into a matching chair nearby. Plastic crackled around me.

“Don't you mean maid's
year
off?” Bruise. “Perhaps if you were less demanding.…” When No Bruise threw her a dirty look, she fell silent.

I didn't care about their help problems. “As I said, I'm investigating Gloriana's murder, and I hoped you'd be able help me fill in some blanks, Mrs. uh.…”

“I'm Lavelle,” Bruise said, plucking a piece of lint from her frayed collar.

“Sandra's mother?”

Lavelle flicked the lint onto a plastic runner. “Yes, I am, not that you'd know it from how seldom the girl visits.” The whine in her voice hinted at long practice.

No Bruise sounded more assertive. “I'm Leila, and I have no children to break my heart, thank god. But Miss Jones, we really don't see the need for your visit. According to our information, that handyman of hers has already been arrested.”

We. Our. The usual speech pattern of twins.

“There's some doubt about Owen's, uh, the handyman's, guilt.”

Leila, obviously the more dominant twin, ignored my statement. “Gloriana should have had more sense than to hire him. Having strangers around the house never comes to any good.” A meaningful glance at Sandra's mother.

Lavelle heaved a tremulous sigh. “It's so sad. Last night I was remembering what Gloriana used to be like as a young girl. Did you know, Miss Jones, that she was once almost as pretty as you? And so popular.…”

“
Used to be
being the operative term,” Leila interrupted, her voice acid. “That so-called charm of hers vanished a long time ago, and you know it. No one could stand her. If you ask me, Sissy, even her precious Zach was only interested in her money, and the same goes for your darling daughter.”

Instead of defending Sandra, Lavelle merely looked down at the plastic-covered carpet and said nothing. It was easy to see where Sandra had inherited her hangdog personality.

“When did you find out Gloriana had been murdered?”

Leila flashed her dentures at me. They looked due for a cleaning. “Both Zach and Sandra called us right afterward. Then the next day two detectives came by and asked us all sorts of personal questions. They even dared ask if we'd profit financially from our sister's death. I told him we did, but the amount was hardly enough to murder for.”

Knowing that people had killed for pocket change, I paid no attention to Leila's disclaimer. Their house obviously needed some work. Still, the twins looked too old to be running along an Oak Creek river bank searching for water hemlock. “Was the bequest merely a token, then, or…?” Might as well be as rude as the police.

A snort from Leila. “Depends on what you'd call a token, doesn't it, Miss Nosy? Our baby sister might have had her problems, but lack of family loyalty was never one of them.”

“You were close, then?”

Lavelle looked up from her perusal of the carpet and struggled to smile. “We used to be. When Gloriana was younger, she was fun to be around, but after she married Michael, well.…”

“That husband of hers, a regular tom cat,” Leila interrupted. “But that's most men for you, isn't it?”

Considering recent events in my own life, I was tempted to agree. “You didn't like Michael?”

A harsh laugh from Leila. “That's one way of putting it. But no matter what we told her about him, Gloriana thought the sun rose and set in that man. Such a fool.”

“Sissy, do we need to…?”

“You're right.” Leila's face appeared to soften for such a brief moment that I wondered if I'd imagined it. “She never had any sense about men, and now she's dead. Let's leave it at that.” Then to me, “You see, Miss Jones, we can't help you, so you might as well leave.”

I dug in my heels. “I've heard that you and Gloriana had some sort of disagreement recently. Is that true?”

She lifted her lip in disdain. “We were always having disagreements with her. They never amounted to much.”

An obvious lie. I tried again. “Did she ever say that anything or anyone was bothering her? Maybe one of her authors?”

Lavelle opened her mouth to answer, but Leila cut her off. “Gloriana never told us about what was going on at that ridiculous publishing house of hers. Why should she? She had her life, we had ours.”

Lavelle looked back down at the carpet. I wondered if she was musing about her lack of a life.

Merely out of curiosity, I asked, “Do either of you know what water hemlock looks like?”

“Socrates died from it, didn't he?” Leila poked Lavelle in the arm with a spindly finger. “Speak up, Sissy. You used to be a school teacher. Enlighten us.”

Lavelle brightened slightly at this chance to display her knowledge. “You are correct, Sissy. Socrates died a few minutes after he said he owed a cock to Asclepius.”

“Nice to know Socrates paid his bills.” Leila, with a smirk. “He did better than us.”

A nervous laugh from Lavelle. “No, Sissy. Asclepius was a god. Socrates was bribing him for a painless death.”

My suspicion that the two were trying to distract me deepened, and I decided to end their excursion into Greek history. “What else could you tell me about your sister that might be relevant to her death?”

Twin frowns, timid Lavelle's the larger of the two this time. “Well, if you ask me, I don't see why Zach should get the bulk of the inheritance. It's unfair. Considering everything Poor Sandra had to put up with.…”

“That's your own fault,” Leila snapped, her temporary good humor vanished. “If you'd kept quiet, everything would have been all right, but no, you had to go ahead and shoot your mouth off.” She gave her twin a punch on the arm that looked more painful than playful.

Lavelle scooted to the other end of the sofa. “But I had to tell her, didn't I? Otherwise.…”

I rose from my armchair and sat down between the two. “Tell Gloriana what?”

Leila, thus blocked from punching her sister again, sulked. “You're one of those modern women who works out, aren't you?” She poked my own arm with that sharp finger. It hurt.

“Every day. Tell Gloriana what?”

“Who, not what,” Sandra's mother mumbled, from her safe distance.

“Shut your mouth!” Leila snapped. “Our family affairs are none of this woman's business.”

Lavelle hung her head, too dispirited to meet my eyes.

I made a mental note to call Zach as soon as I left. Perhaps with his newfound wealth, he could afford to hire a nurse or social worker to check up on his aunts. Especially on Lavelle, who obviously endured much.

I tried one last time. “Tell Gloriana about who?”

But I might as well have been talking to the plastic slipcovers. Leila just glared at me, and Lavelle continued looking at the floor.

I let myself out, wondering if what I had just seen constituted elder abuse. Then again, would it still be termed elder abuse when abuser and abusee were the exact same age?

Chapter 14

While the Jeep idled at a red light on Indian School Road, I called Zach from my cell phone. When I voiced my concerns about Lavelle, he pointed out that Sandra stopped in to see her mother a couple of times a month.

“She's never mentioned seeing anything out of the way, Lena, certainly not bruising. You must have caught them on a bad day. Besides, when two people are as close as they are, you have to expect a squabble or two.”

“They didn't seem all that close to me.” I remembered the punch and Lavelle's attempt to evade it. Then I wondered if Gloriana had noticed any bruises during her last visit.

Zach's laugh hissed through the line. “They're probably too close. That's why their marriages didn't work out. Lavelle's, a late marriage, lasted long enough for her to have Sandra, but Leila's, same late type of deal, was all over with in a matter of months. They moved in together then and haven't been apart since.”

The light changed to green and I shifted the Jeep into gear. The traffic heading back to Scottsdale was heavier than usual. Not for the first time I wished the city would install some mass transit other than buses, but no, that made too much sense.

“Lena, is there anything else?” Zach's voice startled me out of my revery.

“Uh, yeah. While I was at the house, they mentioned warning Gloriana about someone, but I couldn't get the specifics. Do you know what they were talking about?”

After a moment's silence, he responded, “I haven't the slightest idea. Unless maybe they were angry with me. On my last visit, about a month ago, they both seemed to have lost some weight, so I suggested they start thinking about a move to an assisted living facility. When I got to the office the next day, I mentioned my worries to Gloriana, and she said she'd look into it. Maybe she did, maybe she didn't. We'll never know. Now, I have some phone calls to make, authors to disappoint, so.…”

No one can say that Lena Jones can't take a hint. “Thanks for your time, Zach.”

Feeling dissatisfied with the conversation, I disconnected.

***

Later in the day, Owen Sisiwan stopped by to thank me for the work I was doing on his behalf. Recalling Gloriana's intimate photographs of him made me uneasy, but I don't think he noticed.

“I haven't helped much yet, Owen.” I tried not to blush. “Wish I could give you better news.”

“Jimmy says you've solved worse cases than mine,” Owen said, his face serene.

Past successes weren't always indicators of future triumphs, but I kept my concern—and my suspicions—to myself. “Owen, how close were you to Gloriana?”

“Close?” The dark eyes were unreadable. “I worked for her, that's all. Gloriana wasn't the type to confide in the help.”

I noticed that Owen didn't use Rosa's more respectful “Miss Gloriana,” just “Gloriana.” Did it mean anything? “She never attempted to engage you in a personal conversation?”

His face remained blank. “What kind of personal conversation would she have with a handyman?”

“I'm only fishing around for ideas. By the way, how much do you know about Gloriana's sisters?”

He gave me a gorgeous smile. “Those two? Not much. Well, except for last time she visited them. She seemed real upset on the way back home.”

Something had gone on between Gloriana and her sisters, something important enough to shatter her frosty reserve. “What exactly did she say?”

“She told me to drive fast, that she had some phone calls to make.” Then he added, “She didn't carry a cell phone. She hated them. Just like she hated computers.”

“She didn't say who she needed to call?”

His face revealed a hint of impatience. “I told you, Gloriana didn't discuss her private business with the help. But it was probably something about lawyers, the usual. I didn't really pay that much attention.”

More questioning elicited no further new information, so I gave up and turned the conversation to another subject. “Owen, what are you doing now that, uh, your job.…” I trailed off. What I really wanted to know was, Owen, do you have enough money to take care of your family while your case drags though the courts?

But I didn't have to ask. Owen's bronze face creased into a big, teeth-glittering smile. “I'm working for Zach. Some deliveries, a little gardening, some fetching and hauling for Megan's rescue organization. Apparently Gloriana's attorney told them they could go ahead and move into the Hacienda, so things haven't changed for me that much. Except that life is more peaceful now.”

A slip, perhaps. He had so much as admitted there had been strain between him and Gloriana. I remembered that Gloriana had forced him to sit in the hallway during the banquet. Not for the first time, I wondered why. Could she have been punishing him for something?

“Say, Owen. I've heard that at the SOBOP banquet she made you sit out in the hall, rather than at the table. What was that all about?”

He looked away from me for a few seconds, out Desert Investigations' big picture window. When I followed his eyes, I didn't see anything interesting out there, nothing but tourists in rental cars driving slowly up and down the street.

When he finally looked back, he said, “Gloriana said it wouldn't be appropriate for the help to eat at the same table as her business associates.”

I remembered the cameras, the photographs. “And that didn't bother you?”

“Why would it?” As if it hadn't fazed him.

But I knew better.

Then I chased my suspicions out of my mind. Owen had enough troubles without his own private investigator investigating him.

***

The rest of the day went by quickly. Using various computer search engines, one of them even legal, Jimmy discovered two felons among the applicants for a high-security job at a local computer chip manufacturer. While he reported his findings to the company's personnel office, I busied myself making phone calls, lining up appointments with various people connected to Gloriana or Patriot's Blood.

In March, the days are still fairly short, and by six the light began to fade. Jimmy left early in order to visit Owen, so when I was through with my paperwork, I locked up. Then I climbed the stairs to my apartment.

The monster in the closet.

As I searched through the rooms with my gun drawn, Gomez' words mocked me.
“You realize, Lena, that you can't go on like this. Creeping into rooms as if something horrible were waiting for you….”

“Shut up!” I snapped to empty air. But I made quick work of the search this time. Progress?

I had just settled down on the sofa to watch the evening news when someone knocked on the door. Snatching the .38 from the coffee table, I walked to the double-bolted door and stared out the peephole.

Dusty.

“Go away!” I yelled.

“Not until we talk.” He voice was muffled through the steel-reinforced wood, but clear enough.

“Then you'll sit out there all night!”

“Fine with me.”

I watched through the peephole as Dusty settled himself into a corner. Then I went into the kitchen, nuked some ramen, and came back to the sofa where I watched the top of the news, which had become little more than a laundry list of the day's terrorist attacks. Recitation of the list completed, fatalities intoned, the anchors began talking about the latest celebrity accused of murder. I turned the TV off and headed for the bathroom.

I do some of my best thinking in the shower, but every time I tried to make sense out of Gloriana's death, old voices kept intruding.

“
Lena, honey, you've got to let someone love you sometime.”
Madeline, the foster mother who had to relinquish me back to CPS when she developed breast cancer.

“Perfect love wipeth out all fear.”
Reverend Giblin, trying in his own way to help.

They'd both seen through me, understood that my rage was no more than a cover-up for my terror.

Gomez had probably figured it out, too.

I leaned my head against the shower stall and whispered, “Why can't you all shut up?” That's when I realized that not all of the water on my face came from the shower.

What seemed like hours later, soggy and still miserable, I stepped out of the shower and wrapped myself in my terrycloth robe. I strode to the door and looked out the peephole again.

Dusty was still sitting on the landing.

I opened the door.

“Come in, you son of a bitch.”