House of Smoke (37 page)

“Says who?” Kate answers, stung.

Miranda walks to a small desk in the corner. She picks up a manila envelope, opens it, and takes out some sheets of paper.

“‘Katherine Theresa Blanchard,’” she reads. “‘Private investigator, single practitioner. Less than two years experience. Assumed Carl Flaherty’s business, but has lost several of his accounts. Before that a member of the Oakland police force. Forced out under pressure. Divorced, two children, both girls. Girls living with sister, by court order. Ex-husband also a former police officer, same force, also resigned under pressure. Borderline psychotic, is capable of committing great bodily harm to subject. Subject has restraining order against ex, but lives in fear of him.’” She pauses. “Shall I go on?”

“Sure,” Kate says, boiling with rage. “Show me all your cards. And I’m not afraid of Eric,” she adds defiantly.

“‘Currently having an affair with a married man who is a ranking officer of the Santa Barbara County Sheriffs Department.’” She looks at Kate. “That’s pretty stupid. You could get him into trouble.”

Kate feels a chill. This woman does not pussyfoot around. “He’s a grown-up. He can make his own decisions,” she manages to answer. She’s drowning now, she can’t let this go on.

“If a woman wants a man, he usually isn’t capable of thinking clearly,” Miranda corrects her. “Not a woman of your charms.”

“Cut the shit.”

“I mean that. I know what it is to be a desirable woman, and I know it when I see it in another woman.”

“Anything else?”

“You’re also sleeping with Cecil Shugrue, my neighbor next ranch over. Although I didn’t need a private investigator to find that out for me,” she says parenthetically, “I knew it as soon as I saw the two of you together.”

For some reason, that stings more than anything else. “So what?” she says, feeling like a kid in the schoolyard.

“So I know things about you. Things you don’t want people to know.” She puts the papers back in the envelope. “All this is confidential, for my eyes only. No one else is ever going to see this.”

“Damn decent of you,” Kate manages to reply.

Miranda ignores the sarcasm. “I didn’t check on you to blackmail you. I needed to know who you are. You can understand that.”

Goddamnit, Kate thinks, this is bullshit. She can’t sit here and passively take this without fighting back. “I know some things about you, too,” she tells Miranda.

“Oh? What do you know about me?” Miranda asks nonchalantly.

“You have lovers of your own. You see them right here, on your ranch.”

“And?”

“I’m sure your husband would be interested in knowing that. Not that I have any interest in blackmailing you, either,” she hastily adds.

“He already does,” Miranda responds in a calm voice. “I’m curious, though. How do you know?”

“That’s my job.”

Miranda looks at her. She smiles. “What else do you know about me that you think could be hurtful to me?”

“That’s for me to know …”

“And me to find out?”

Kate gets to her feet. “I’m out of here. Thanks for the great dinner and the other stuff. I’ll cherish the memories always.”

“The pleasure was mine.” Miranda smiles. “And yours, too, you can’t deny it. Here,” she says, handing Kate the envelope. “I don’t want this in my possession anymore.”

Kate doesn’t take the envelope. “It’s a nice gesture, but they have me on their computer—whoever ‘they’ are.”

“I’ll have them expunge you from their records.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Fair enough. But I promise you, no one is ever going to know about this; and I won’t have you investigated any further.”

“That’s a relief,” Kate answers sarcastically.

Miranda tears the envelope with the pages inside in half, then in half again. “This never existed,” she says. “That’s a promise.”

And if you believe that one …One thing’s for sure—she’s going to have to watch her ass. Being the prey instead of the hunter is not to her liking. Until this moment in time she’s never understood how much fear and anger that can engender.

“My daughter thinks she’s sophisticated, but we both know she’s naive,” Miranda says as they walk outside onto the porch. “She set things in motion she shouldn’t have. She could have hurt her family. She didn’t, and now it’s over.” She pauses. “Isn’t it?”

“That’s Laura’s decision.”

“Then it’s over,” Miranda responds firmly.

Kate nods. This case is already over for her, but she isn’t going to tell Miranda that. She won’t give her that satisfaction, not after this. Let her dangle, she thinks, like she’s kept me dangling all night long.

As she’s about to get into her car Miranda has one last word. “Cecil was a lover of mine, too,” she says from her perch on the top porch step. “He’s a sweet man, isn’t he? Say hello for me the next time you see him.”

She goes in, closing the door behind her.

Kate sags against her car.

Miranda’s last cut is a fitting end to the evening. She feels guilty and dirty about it, the whole thing, especially the seduction; not that she made love to a woman, she’s glad she had that experience—but that she was used. The way, she realizes, she used Juan Herrera to help her.

She makes a vow to herself: no more sexual manipulation; and use more discrimination. She doesn’t want to think of herself as being in the same space as Miranda Sparks.

What she does want—now—is to get out of here as fast as she can and be alone, until she can figure things out.

Chill out, girl, she says to herself. Chill out.

She is on the highway, heading back towards Santa Barbara. Her mind is racing. What was that all about up there? Miranda Sparks didn’t need to extravagantly wine and dine and then lay her just to try and talk her out of pursuing Frank Bascomb’s death. What is her agenda, and does it connect to the other events in her recent history? What is underlying all this, anyway?

Carl and Herrera had cautioned her to give it up. She had agreed to; she had severed her contract with her client. Now this.

False notes and looping trails. Miranda tells her that she and Laura keep nothing from each other. Yet Miranda doesn’t know she’s told Laura she’s off this. So that part of it is bullshit, definitely. If that part is a lie, then is there any truth to any of it?

Give it up, goddamnit. You are an impartial observer, a gatherer of facts.

How can you give something up when they won’t let you?

She’s been barely aware of the road passing under her tires. Now she looks up, as something familiar jogs her eye: the entrance to Cecil’s ranch, where she came and they made love—and spied on Miranda Sparks.

It’s late—past midnight. Instinctively, as if the car were driving her, she yanks the steering wheel and heads up his driveway.

The door to his storage barn, where he keeps his wine barrels; is open. A light is on inside. He’s back from his trip to Paso Robles—the old Caddy is parked in front.

She gets out of her car and walks across the gravel drive to the barn. Looking in, she sees a shadow playing against the far wall, cast by a single bare lightbulb hanging from the ceiling near the back.

Then she sees him. He’s suctioning wine out of a barrel into a beaker. He brings the beaker to his face, examining the color of the wine inside it. His back is to her; he doesn’t know she’s here.

“Cecil.” She’s a few feet from him. She walks quietly, her running shoes silent on the concrete floor.

He turns, startled, almost dropping the glass in his hand, a look of bewilderment on his face.

“Kate! What are you doing here?” He smiles, a wide, engaging smile. “What’s going on?”

She comes closer. Then she draws her right arm back and slaps him across the face as hard as she can.

The beaker smashes on the floor, wine splattering both their pants legs. His hand goes to his face, which has reddened from the blow.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were screwing Miranda Sparks?” she screams at him. “Are you still humping her?”

He stares at her. “What’s going on here?”

“You fucked her, didn’t you, you bastard!” She’s shaking. “You fucked her and you didn’t tell me.”

“Hey, calm down here a minute.” He steps towards her.

She backs away. “Tell me about you and Miranda Sparks,” she orders. “Are you still lovers?”

“Who told you this?” he asks quietly.

“Are you?”

“No.”

“Were you?”

He rubs his face where she slapped it. “Yes, for a brief time, several years ago,” he answers, his voice flat. “So what? I don’t question you about your past.”

“So why didn’t you tell me?” she persists.

“Because you didn’t ask, and it isn’t any of your business, anyway.” He moves towards her again, and this time she doesn’t back away. “Let’s go in the house.”

They’re in his living room, sitting side by side on the sofa.

“Can I explain?”

“Go ahead.”

“Miranda Sparks means nothing to me.”

“You slept with her. That’s something.”

“You don’t have to care about someone to have sex with them. Haven’t you ever?”

“I don’t know.” That’s a lie—she had sex with someone an hour ago she doesn’t care about.

“I don’t have to,” he says. “Although it’s better if you do care. Like with you.”

Everything he’s saying is logical. So why does she feel betrayed?

“It was there and I took it. That’s all. She’s a beautiful woman, I’m not attached. If she wanted it, why shouldn’t I?” he asks.

“But what about her husband? Don’t you know him? Aren’t you friends?”

“Sure, I know him. Friends? No. Longtime acquaintances at best. I wouldn’t sleep with a friend’s wife.”

“Don’t you feel ugly when you encounter him?”

“No, I don’t feel ugly. Sorry, maybe. Look, we both know Miranda sleeps around. We saw her with another man the last time you were up here. But that’s her business, not mine or any other man’s. Just like it’s your decision who you sleep with.”

She dumb-nods. She knows where this is coming from: her feelings of guilt about sleeping with both Miranda and Herrera. He’s right—she has no reason to be angry with him. What he did with Miranda Sparks happened a long time ago, before he met her. She’s the one who’s been unfaithful, if that’s the right word. They’re not going together or anything, but she knows he wouldn’t sleep with anyone else now. If anyone should be feeling ugly, it’s her.

“If it’s any consolation to you,” he says, breaking into her thoughts, “Frederick Sparks is gay.”

That’s a jolt. “He is?”

“I don’t have firsthand knowledge, of course,” he says, “but that’s the word on the street. Which is why Miranda takes lovers.”

That would make sense. A woman as sensual as Miranda isn’t going to go celibate because her husband isn’t having sex with her.

“I’ve also heard that if she were to bail out of the marriage she’d lose most of her money,” he continues. “Rumor is they signed a financial agreement when they got married—Frederick’s desires weren’t the issue then, it was a standard arrangement rich folks make, in case she turned out to be a gold digger. What’s important to Miranda is if she wasn’t a Sparks she’d lose her power base, which is her life’s blood. She lives to hold power.”

“I’m starting to discover that,” she says, and suddenly she’s exhausted, wasted from the effects of everything that’s happened. “I’m wiped out. It’s been a very long day.”

“Stay the night.”

Wouldn’t that be wonderful, to fall asleep in his arms?

“I can’t. Not tonight.” He would want to make love, and she can’t, not tonight.

“Are you sure?”

She nods. “Can I take a rain check?”

“Make it soon.” He pauses. “Is there something going on I should know about?” Another pause. “Let me rephrase that. What’s going on I should know about?”

“I can’t talk to you now,” she says, turning away from him. “Not about myself.”

She watches him fade away in the rearview mirror as she drives down his lane. He was warm and understanding, under the circumstances. But she knows that he knows something is going on.

L
OUIS PITTS IS A
senior operative for a big PI firm in L.A. A black ex-Marine who learned his trade working for the CIA, he’s one of the best in the business. Kate calls on his company occasionally to help her out when she has a case that requires backup, or when she needs the kind of specialized technical assistance they can offer.

“Your office is clean,” he assures her. He’s spent a couple hours checking it out for bugs and other electronic snooping devices. Before sweeping her office he checked out her car and her apartment. “Clean bill of health, the whole shebang.”

“Nothing on my phone?”

“No.”

“What about my computer?” she inquires fretfully.

“No taps anywhere that I can find,” he says. “I’d stay off the modem for a few days as a precaution. And I’ve installed a warning system that should alert you if anyone’s trying to access illegally.”

“What do I owe you?”

“Nothing. Professional courtesy.”

“Thanks, Louis. I owe you one.”

He shakes his head. “Investigators tailing investigators; I don’t like it. Reminds me too much of the government.” He finishes packing up his gear. “If that warning I installed in your computer goes off let me know—if someone is tapping in we can track down those suckers, ’cause they won’t know they’ve been found out unless they’re at my level of expertise, which they aren’t. Unless they’re CIA or some organization like that, in which case you can just pack your bags and catch the first plane to Brazil.”

“That’s comforting.”

He smiles. “Feels like a good background check is what they did. I doubt you were ever bugged.”

Relieved of that anxiety, Kate spends the next two days catching up on her caseload, going out with her lawyers to interview clients, workaday things like that. She has a feeling of relief—heroics are great in the movies, but in real life she can do without that level of stress.

She returns to her office at the end of a long day in the field. It’s almost nine o’clock, she realizes. She’s starving—she skipped lunch, as usual; too busy.

Her phone machine is blinking—one message. Earlier she had checked the machine and cleared what was on it. This one must be recent. She punches playback, waits while it rewinds.