Killer Chameleon (10 page)

I trotted around the corner and found Tank and Tina playing kissy-face. I gave them a couple of minutes, then couldn't take it any longer.

“Sorry to interrupt,” I said, climbing into the backseat, “but it's too cold to stand out here and watch.”

Tina unglued herself from her husband's shirtfront, looking more than pleased with herself. “Just as well you came back now or there'd have been no turning back. You get the tickets?”

I wasn't ready to talk about it yet. “No. Long story. Let's go get your pizza. I'll tell you then.”

Tank said, “Uh-oh. I smell trouble. How about Paisan's, Tina?”

Her expression made it plain that he had hit the jackpot. Tank zipped through Northwest D.C. to just inside the District line.

We'd settled into a booth and were scanning a menu packed with four pages of different kinds of pizza and pasta when my cell phone rang. It was Margie, the murmur of voices in the background and yet again, wherever she was, the Drummer Boy on the Muzak.

“Leigh? I left a message on Janeece's machine, but thought I'd better try your cellular too.”

My pulse rate tripled. “Don't tell me. You'll be able to get us to Hawaii after all?”

Tank and Tina looked up with interest.

“No, no. I just got to this stupid party. I cornered Dolly about the message she'd left and it turns out I misunderstood one thing.”

“What?” I couldn't see how it mattered.

“She apologized for not making it clear. It wasn't a call, Leigh. She says you came in and canceled the trip yourself.”

Numb with shock, I counted to five. “Again, no, I didn't, Margie. But thanks for letting me know.” Without a good-bye, I hung up.

“What?” Tina demanded. “What's going on?”

Somehow, I managed to relay this latest foul-up of my life.

“That,” Tina said, slamming a small fist on the table, “does it. She's gone too far this time. We're not gonna take this. She's messing with our Duck's money!”

7

WE WERE HALFWAY TO THE SHORES BEFORE
Tina's fuse finally burned itself out. Tank's eyes had met mine in his rearview mirror, his message telegraphed across his broad open features: just wait; eventually she'll shut up. By the time she did, the silence in the Explorer was so welcome, neither Tank nor I opened our mouths, except for his sigh of relief. All I could think was: ditto.

Other than that, I was incapable of thought. My brain had the consistency of lumpy oatmeal. Who the hell was this woman? What could I have done to her to warrant this kind of maliciousness?

Tina turned around in her seat as far as her seat belt would allow and demanded, “Well, what are you gonna do?”

I fought the temptation to remind her that, contrary to the accusation implicit in her tone, as far as I could determine, this whole business was not my fault. I had done nothing to deserve it. Rather than waste breath in defense, I took the direct route.

“I'm doing all I can for the time being, Tina, trying to figure out who the hell this woman is. I'm assuming she was in the lobby of my building Monday, helping to decorate the tree, an outsider, one of two. What's puzzling is that none of my neighbors who were there has mentioned any resemblance between this woman—or girl—and me. Yet she must, to have fooled the receptionist at the travel agency. I've been in there several times. They all know what I look like.”

Saying that triggered a connection that hadn't occurred to me before: the woman who'd walked into that travel agency and the one whooping it up at the Silver Shaker. One and the same? I wasn't sure. Eddie said that the cops there to set up a sting had thought it was me because they remembered me from Jensen's wedding, not because the woman had identified herself as Leigh Warren. If she had, Eddie would have said so. And the woman could not have known that a few of the nightclub's patrons were boys in blue, much less boys in blue who knew me. Coincidence, pure and simple.

Then why did it smell so much like rotten fish?

Once again I wondered if it might be a cousin. Tracy, my aunt's daughter, and I were enough alike to be sisters. I'd only known her a matter of weeks but had no doubt that she had nothing to do with any of this. We had clicked immediately, a blood bond formed over plates of cheeseburgers and French fries.

Ourland, however, was chockablock with cousins I had yet to meet. And I had been responsible for the death of my father's first cousin, a man so consumed with jealousy and hatred of my dad that he'd been willing to kill my father and mother years ago, then try for me and my brother. I'd had no choice and had acted in self-defense. But he'd been a man well thought of in town. Perhaps someone was exacting revenge. I'd have to ask around, find out if there was yet another relative who looked like me and Tracy.

“Hey!” Tina snapped her fingers toward me. “You still in there?”

“Do you mind?” I asked, annoyed at having my train of thought derailed. “I was thinking. Okay, I've narrowed down the number of unfamiliar faces in the lobby to a teenager named Georgia Keith and a woman with a West Indian accent.”

“Well, I know Ted Willard,” Tank said, zipping with panache past a sixteen-wheeler. “He'll have checked to see if there was anything distinguishable about the voice of the woman who called. If he didn't mention an accent, it probably wasn't your Jamaican lady.”

“Duck talked to Libby Tuesday evening,” I said. “She had no idea who it was.”

Tina gave me a penetrating stare. “So if you eliminate those two, where do you go from there?”

It burned my butt to admit that I didn't have a backup road map in mind. “Perhaps a cousin,” I ventured. “I've already met one who could pass for my sister. She's definitely out, but God knows there are a whole crop of them I haven't met yet. Make the next exit, Tank, then watch for the first turn on your right. It's the back way into town but it's quicker.”

“Gotcha.” He sped up, scared the bejesus out of a man in a battered pickup, and me, then zipped down the off ramp. I closed my eyes. Tank drove as if in hot pursuit of a stolen auto, and my nerves were frayed enough already.

I didn't dare even peek until he said, “Hot damn! It's been a long time since this baby got to do some off-road maneuvering.” He hit a pothole in the long-neglected two-lane road, and Tina went flying toward the roof of the Explorer.

She squealed and, once no longer airborne, hauled off and whacked her husband on the shoulder with enough muscle behind it to make me wince in sympathy.

“Slow down,” she said, teeth gritted. “And next time, Leigh, we go in the front way.”

I doubted there'd be another occasion for them to make the trip to the Shores, front way or back. Tank and Tina were big-city denizens. Native Washingtonians, they eschewed the suburbs except for the occasional restaurant. Tina, especially, looked down her pert little nose at anyone who lived more than a mile or two beyond the city limits, considering them too chicken to live in the District. What she'd make of Ourland/Umber Shores challenged the imagination, especially after a mile and three-quarters on a rutted road that should have been condemned long since.

“Sorry, Tina,” I said. “I promise, we'll be there soon. Tank, take it in second and stay off the shoulders or you'll be listing worse than the
Titanic
.”

“Yes'm, Miz Daisy.” He grinned and downshifted, clearly enjoying himself, zigzagging to avoid the craters in the pavement until we began to pass the industrial section, ancient warehouses that must have been empty for years, their sidings bleeding rust.

“Jesus,” Tina said, staring gloomily out the windows. “This is where you're gonna work?”

“I'll have to check, but I don't think the Shores extend this far.”

“Can't tell you how happy I am for you,” she grumbled.

I decided to shut up. Something told me that she was just beginning to realize how far she was from what she considered civilization. Probably nothing I could say would improve her disposition.

Which was a shame, because it was a beautiful, atypical December day, the temperature inching toward the mid-fifties, with the sky a shade of blue you'd love to paint a room. Once past the warehouse graveyard, there were few opportunities to see it until we'd cleared the section where trees older than Moses arched branches, still in full leaf in spite of the season, over the road to form a dimly lit tunnel. Then, in an instant, we were in open air again, and directly in front of us was an expanse of warm gray water that seemed to stretch into infinity.

Tina sat up straight and leaned forward. “Holy shit. That's the bay?”

The road came to an end at a cul-de-sac. Well beyond it, the incoming tide caressed the shoreline, which consisted of rich, umber-hued sand pockmarked with wispy stalks of grass that swayed gently in the breeze. A parade of wooden piers of varying lengths jutted from the shore, a few fat gulls standing sentry on the railings.

“Stop, Tank. I want to get out.” Tina wrestled with her seat belt.

“What for?” He slowed and pulled onto a paved section on the right, the excuse for a parking lot protecting two sides of the ramshackle house that camouflaged the Ourland Eatery, the best restaurant in the area. Thank God none of the aromas of Mary Castle's cooking wafted toward us or we'd be eating again.

Tina threw open her door and scrambled out. Slowly she made her way onto the sand, walking as if testing her weight on it. The water was perhaps thirty yards ahead, the first pier a good ten yards beyond that.

Tank cut the engine and got out, but remained standing against the open door of the Explorer, his expression quizzical. Reaching back, he opened the rear door for me. I unbuckled and joined him for a second, then followed Tina onto the sand.

“This really is the bay?” she asked softly. “I mean, not a river or something?”

Belatedly I realized that this might be her first time seeing the Chesapeake. “This is it, Tina. But just a tiny section of it. It runs the length of the state.”

“And that's the Bay Bridge way down there?” she asked, pointing. Barely visible at this distance, the umpteen-mile-long bridge wore a ghostly quality, as if you blinked hard it might disappear.

“Yup. Pretty, isn't it?”

She took it all in, seemingly mesmerized, before glancing toward her left, where the roofs of the houses that backed up onto the sand peeked from among surrounding trees. “People live there? All the time?”

“Most of them. See that street?” I nodded toward the only one branching off the cul-de-sac on our left. “That's North Star Road. All the property on this side is Ourland. On the other side, it's called Umber Shores.”

“Why?”

“I had an aunt who was killed way before I was born, and her death caused a big multifamily feud. East side versus west, actually. The ones on the west decided they didn't want to have anything to do with anybody in Ourland, so they changed the name to Umber Shores. Everybody's kissed and made up just recently, and now they're trying to decide what to do about the names. There's a lot of history to Ourland, so no one really wants to give it up, but they also like the fact that Umber Shores is a perfect description of the area. I figure they'll work it out sooner or later.”

“And
this
is where you'll be working.”

“Yup. Lord knows when, the way things are going.”

Tina, squinting across the bay, moved farther toward the water, stopping just beyond the point where it lapped against the shore. “Is that land over there?”

“The Eastern Shore. You know—Cambridge, Salisbury, Ocean City.”

“Oh.”

My phone jiggled. Janeece.

“Hey, roomie, gotta make this short. I just ran into Gracie. She told me to tell you that one of her students remembered that the woman with the accent was named Nell Gwynn. She's already called the cop you talked to but I wanted you to know.”

“Thanks, Janeece. I'll try to pop in tomorrow and thank her.”

“Do that. She's a sweetie. Gotta go. Later, gator.” Click. She was gone.

Nell Gwynn. I'd heard the name somewhere before. Where?

“Hey,” Tank called, “y'all gonna stay there all day or what? It's gonna be dark by the time we start back.”

“So what?” Tina responded over her shoulder. “It's not like we've got anything special planned this evening.”

“Well, I,” he responded, sounding peeved, “thought we did.”

Tina threw up her hands in defeat. “Swear to God, you'd think he never gets any nookie. Guess we'd better get moving. Where are we going?”

Back in the SUV, I directed them to my grandparents' house. I'm not sure which impressed Tina more, the gate to the compound—“Just like in
The Godfather
!” she said, wide-eyed—the fact that my father's family members lived beyond it, or that a good many of the houses were those she'd spotted from the shore. Most perched on brick pillars tall enough to protect a home during a flood, some high enough to afford covered parking spaces. Stand out in the street, look under the house, and one had an unobstructed view of the Chesapeake. So did the houses across the street, each positioned at a point between the ones that backed onto the bay.

“These folks have boats?” she asked.

“Some do, but most don't. A good many are retirees who live here year round, the others only during the summer or weekends.”

“And they're all your relatives?”

“In one way or another. You want to talk about cousins fifth and sixth removed? Knock on any door.”

“Jesus,” she whispered.

I wasn't sure whether she thought that was good or bad and decided it might be better not to ask.

Ritch Road homes ran the gamut from old clapboard edifices and modest ranches, through redwood A-frames and sturdy stucco two-stories. All had decks or porches, almost all with a swing or hooks for hammocks. The lots were rife with trees older than the town itself, lending an air of permanence.

I pointed out my brother's house, and that of an aunt I had yet to meet, described by various cousins on my mother's side as having a whimsical nature.

“Bullshit,” my brother had confided. “The truth is, Aunt Beth's nuttier than a bar of peanut brittle.”

The white clapboard home of my grandparents anchored the end of the road, its three stories stacked like a wedding cake, each with its own wraparound porch, and a widow's walk skirting the roof. It gleamed in the late afternoon sun, the effect blinding against the muted gray of the Chesapeake beyond it. The lawn, in winter hues of muted greens and browns, was immaculate, not a dead leaf in sight in spite of the oaks and fir trees nestled around the house.

“Fair warning,” I said, as we climbed the steps to the porch, “the first floor is a museum, literally. There are things in here that date from the town's founding in nineteen-oh-one. I don't know how long this visit with my grandmother will take, so feel free to wander through all the rooms.”