Elizabeth C. Main - Jane Serrano 01 - Murder of the Month (16 page)

I gave up on sleep long before sunrise. Bianca hadn’t answered her telephone last night or this morning, and I could hear the first whisper of fear in the back of my mind. Telling myself I was being foolish, I banged down the receiver once more and climbed into the shower. Ten minutes later, hair dripping wet in the early morning chill, I headed for the car. When I located Bianca, I knew I’d encounter scorn for fussing and being “such a mom” to someone of her advanced age and experience, but I didn’t care.

Raymond Morris’s Rule Number Six ought to work best:
Admit to your own weaknesses
. Bianca already knew about my over-developed capacity for worry, so I’d simply throw myself on her mercy. I was a mom, and I wanted to see my daughter, whether she was mad at me or not. I had replayed her message countless times. She’d said she would call me later, and she hadn’t.

I streaked east on Highway 28 in the growing daylight. Only occasional traffic shared the road with me at this hour, and, uncharacteristically, I passed every car I overtook. My thoughts were far away from my driving and I was lucky that no deer ventured out in front of me.

Bianca’s trailer looked even more forlorn than usual, perhaps reflecting my apprehension. No lights glowed from inside and Bianca’s bicycle wasn’t in sight. My careful scrutiny of the rise behind the trailer revealed no slender figure meditating, a sight I’d have welcomed today.

“Wendell! Here, boy!” I called as I approached. Nothing, but I hadn’t really expected to see him. Wherever Bianca was, Wendell would be, too. His food and water dishes stood empty.

I knocked briefly and then opened the trailer’s cheap metal door, registering the fact that it was unlocked. “Bianca, are you here?”

I’d been reading too many mysteries. The open door merely suggested that Bianca trusted everyone—except Gil Fortune, of course. Still, I listened before stepping inside, trying without success to overcome the feeling that I wasn’t alone. I cocked my head and listened harder. If there had been a sound, it wasn’t repeated. The trailer was so small that I could see the entire living and kitchen area from the doorway, but the door beyond was closed. After a minute of indecision, I tiptoed across the matted shag carpet and threw open the door to the bedroom. Empty. So was the tiny closet.

All that remained was the bathroom at the far end of the room. Its door stood halfway open. I crossed the room and smashed the door hard against the wall. Poised to run at the slightest threat, I jumped back as a figure appeared before me. It took only a single, heart-stopping second to realize that I was looking at myself in the bathroom mirror.

Shaking, I entered the bathroom and leaned on the built-in vanity. I was alone, but the strained expression reflected in the mirror told me that I was almost out of control.

I splashed some cold water on my face and took stock. Bianca didn’t view the world the way I did. Possibly she hadn’t even realized that I was worried about her. Once she learned of my apprehension over her absence, she’d be incredulous, telling me to loosen up. She’d also chide me for my lack of faith in her ability to take care of herself. After all, she was nineteen years old.

Nineteen. I was never nineteen the way Bianca was, with a carefree nature and a desire to experience as much of the world as possible. By the time I was her age, I was already head over heels in love with Tony, planning our wedding and wanting to start a family as soon as possible. Well, I’d gotten what I wanted, and if my chosen path wasn’t adventurous, at least it had led to a warm contentment that I had relished until Tony’s death. Since then, I had been slowly rebuilding my world.

But now that Bianca had stirred things up, I seemed to be losing ground. I was in such a state this morning that I hardly recognized myself. Really, what were the chances that a killer would be hiding in Bianca’s trailer waiting for someone to happen by? About as likely as the notion that Gil had killed Vanessa. I pictured the calm, self-assured man who had talked to us last night at Thornton’s. Ludicrous to picture him as a killer! Bianca’s whole premise was a fantasy, the product of her overactive imagination. I couldn’t let myself get caught up in her world. It was my job, as always, to provide her with reason and perspective. But to do that, I needed to find her.

Somewhat self-consciously, I returned to the kitchen area and looked for clues that might tell me where she had gone. An extensive collection of Tazo herbal teas overflowed a basket on the counter. One label proclaimed that “Calm Herbal Infusion” was “the reincarnation of tea.” If Bianca were to learn about my panicky search of her trailer, she’d prescribe a daily dose of this tea immediately.

The few treasures that adorned the trailer—feathers in a colorful bowl, a black and white photograph of a running horse, and a mound of smooth rocks artfully arranged in the middle of the floor—declared Bianca’s personality, but didn’t tell me where she was.

In the current mysteries I had scanned to familiarize myself with the stock at Thornton’s, clues were sprinkled liberally throughout and the main characters immediately understood the significance of each of them. Apparently, I didn’t have the knack. Pamphlets on the benefits of massage therapy and a half-written scenic postcard of nearby Broken Top addressed only to “Al” rested on the counter.

I retraced my steps to the bathroom. This time I noticed some photographic equipment stacked neatly in the corner of the shower stall. If I hadn’t been so frightened earlier, I’d also have noticed the acrid odor of chemicals hanging in the air. Bianca had used her makeshift darkroom recently. Was this a clue? It was the best I could do, but I already knew about the fuzzy photos she took at the gorge, so it didn’t seem too useful.

The hair on the back of my neck prickled as a wail issued from somewhere outside. The ancient, mournful sound was eerie, but my heart jumped at the thought that Wendell might be near. If he had arrived, Bianca would be here, too. I ran for the door, wondering whether retrievers were supposed to howl. Probably not, but then Wendell wasn’t exactly a purebred.

I all but fell down the two steps leading from the trailer in my haste to scan the surrounding area. No sign of either Wendell or Bianca. Confused, I ran all the way around the trailer and was halfway through a second circuit when the howling began again. It was coming from the front. This time I looked into the blackness underneath the trailer. Once my eyes adjusted, I could make out the outline of a large black dog.

“Wendell, come out of there! Wendell!” The usually exuberant dog didn’t move. “Come on, boy,” I coaxed. Something was wrong. I scooped up his water dish and filled it from the kitchen tap. Slowly, Wendell emerged and lapped up the entire bowl of water before sinking onto his haunches in the dust. He wagged his tail slightly when I knelt to pet him, but out in the sunlight I could see that his one good eye looked dull, and he winced when I touched his right side. He put his head on his paws and looked at me.

After a final struggle, I let go once and for all of the very sensible idea that Bianca had just wandered off. She might be careless about leaving doors unlocked, but she would never have left Wendell hurt and without water.

I didn’t know what was going on, but something very bad had happened to my daughter. The earlier whisper of fear had now become a scream. Where was Bianca?

Twenty-five minutes later Alix’s cream-colored Saab convertible pulled up beside my Volvo. Before the occupants of the convertible were fully visible through the dust stirred up by their arrival, I identified Tyler as the lump of clothes in the back seat, Minnie by the fuchsia scarf swirling around her head, and Alix by her words.

“
This had better be good. If we were dragged out here to eat Surprise Seaweed Soufflé, so help me—”

“
Don’t look at me,” Minnie responded irritably from beneath the floating scarf. “You kidnapped me—and I don’t know what the Knitwits are going to do for cable stitch instructions until I get back.” Minnie tamed the scarf temporarily and heaved her bulk out of the car.

Alix rounded the front of the vehicle and stared at the dismal surroundings. “Does Bianca really live here? No wonder she prefers Swami Rhami’s philosophy of searching for a higher reality. So would I if—”

“
Really, Jane, was it necessary to interrupt my cable stitch session? Those Knitwits are all just sitting there in my house waiting for me. They can’t do another thing until I get back.”

“
Minnie’s knitting group,” Alix contributed helpfully.

“Where’s Bianca?” Tyler slid over the side of the car without bothering to open a door.

“
She must be here somewhere,” Alix said. “There’s Wendell. She doesn’t move an inch without him.”

“
She’s not here,” I said.

“
She’s probably inside, getting ready to spring some ground-up kelp juice and tofu on us,” Alix said.

“
I’m telling you, she’s not here,” I repeated.

“
Then she’s probably off … off … picketing Gil’s office or something,” Minnie said.

“Without Wendell?” I asked. “Alix just said that she never goes anywhere without him.”

“I meant in general, “Alix said.

“That still doesn’t make this an emergency,” Minnie added reproachfully. “Cable stitch is hard enough to teach under the best of circumstances, but Alix said that you wanted us to come, so I came.”

“What about the hospital?” Tyler suggested. “Maybe she went to visit Grandpa.”

“I checked. Bianca didn’t go visiting, or picketing, or anything else like that. And yes, Minnie, this
is
an emergency,” I said. “Wendell was here alone, and he was out of food and water.” I let that information sink in.

Minnie tried first. “Well, it’s been very hot …” She trailed off, unable to sustain the fiction that the temperature of the day would explain things. “Are you sure?” she finally asked.

Even Alix looked uneasy. “That doesn’t sound like Bianca.”

“
Wendell has already emptied his water bowl twice,” I said, “and he wasn’t interested in the food I gave him.”

“
Did you try frosted bran bars?” Alix attempted a joke, but she sounded worried.

“Besides,” I continued, “there’s something wrong with his side. He’s been hurt somehow.”

We all looked at Wendell as though waiting for him to explain what was going on. He had looked up briefly at the sound of his name, but now lay back down. The sight of Wendell ignoring a full food dish was frightening.

“
An accident?” Alix asked.

“
I’d have been notified. Besides, I checked.”

“
She left me a message,” Tyler said slowly, “but she didn’t want me to tell you about it.”

“What message? When?” I was seized with a sudden burst of hope.

“Yesterday, when I was visiting Grandpa.”

“Yesterday!” I grabbed his arm. “What did she say?”

He hesitated. “She was going to check out Gil’s alibi by talking to Jenna Lang at her house.”

“What else?”

“Well, remember how in the book Miss Pittimore sent a message to Bernard, hoping to rattle him?”

“She already sent Gil that message,” I said. I noted irrelevantly that Tyler and I were exactly the same height as we stood facing each other.

Tyler nodded. “She was going to sort of follow up on it … with those dummy pictures, and maybe a dummy videotape.”

“How?” Alix asked. “Just walk up and hand them to him, expecting a confession?”

“She didn’t say,” he mumbled.

“
Maybe she’s playing a joke on us … you know, paying us back for making fun of her ideas?” It was clear that Minnie didn’t believe her own words.

“
Crazy as it sounds, what if she discovered something incriminating?” Alix asked.

Though I ached to have Bianca float in here clutching a spray of desert wildflowers and offering herbal tea, the sick feeling I had in my stomach told me it wasn’t going to happen. Everyone looked at me silently until I voiced our common thought. “Something’s happened to her.”

“I thought she’d be back by now,” Tyler said miserably. “I should have—”

“It’s okay, Tyler,” I said. “You didn’t know. We’ll go to the police.”

“They’ll never believe us,” Minnie said. “
I
don’t even believe us, and I know we’re right.”

I was thinking furiously. “We don’t have to accuse anyone of anything. We’ll just tell them that Bianca has disappeared, and play it by ear.”

“
They’ll never believe us,” Minnie whimpered again.

“
We have to try!” Alix said. “She left the dog hurt and without food and water. She might do a lot of fool things, but never that.”

I mentally tallied a long list of sensible reasons for believing that Bianca was simply off somewhere being irresponsible. Then I balanced them against Wendell’s condition. Was I prepared to go to the police based on an ill-defined hunch and a dog’s empty water dish? Yes. No question about it.

“We’ll drop Wendell at the vet’s office on our way,” I said.

Tyler, the boy who had already demonstrated once this week that he could handle an emergency, gently picked up the injured dog and carried him to Alix’s car. “Okay, Wendell. Here we go.”

Yes, I thought. Here we go.