Murder Alfresco #3 (24 page)

A white plastic chair stuck out of the glossy mud next to the dock, along with the domed top of a barbecue, an evening slipper, assorted cans and bottles, and a two-by-four painted yellow and bristling with rusty nails. The tide had gone out still farther in the last hour, stranding the houseboat community in
a quagmire of debris. Sunny made her way as quickly and quietly as possible down the dock. A woman was watering her plants in the twilight. Otherwise, she saw no one.

She entered Heidi’s place the same way as before and stood in the kitchen letting her eyes adjust to the gloom inside. She considered the light switch. Was it more suspicious to turn on a light in a dead girl’s house, or to be seen going into a dead girl’s house but not turning on the light? She imagined the sight of a yellow glow, visible up and down the dock, coming from a house known to be deserted. It would attract attention like a beacon. She waited until she could make out the heavy wooden table, the desk with its stacks of papers, the two stairs up to the living room. Out the French doors, the mountain stood in silhouette against a Moroccan blue sky.

She climbed up to the loft and froze, listening. The creak of wood settling its weight against its mooring sounded remarkably like careful footsteps on a wooden floor. She was seized by the temptation to go downstairs and be sure no one had come in behind her. She listened again. Now there were definitely footsteps. They sounded close enough to be on the boat. She thought of the sound of the shopping carts people used to ferry heavy loads up and down the dock. Whoever was walking was on the dock, not in the house. It was a trick of acoustics. She stepped forward and returned the photograph to its place on the mirror, her heart thumping, then slipped into the bathroom to peer out the window. A silhouette was walking away down the dock. She turned to go back downstairs and realized she had forgotten the kitchen towel. She went down to the kitchen, grabbed it, climbed back up, then backed her way down, removing her footsteps as she went.

In the kitchen, she rinsed the towel out as she had done before and hung it back up to dry. Someone, Vurleen or a neighbor, had put the stargazer lilies she’d left outside in an old mayonnaise jar filled with water. Sunny stashed the key back under the aloe vera and stepped lightly down the gangway. Since she’d arrived at the houseboat, the lights along the dock had come on. One of them, positioned on the dock directly above, flooded the catwalk with a soft yellow light and reflected off something shiny in the mud. It was the same piece of metal she’d seen earlier in the day, lying just out of reach. She could see now it wasn’t a can. It was rectangular and made of brushed aluminum. A credit card case, or a folding makeup mirror for your purse. She kneeled on the catwalk and reached, stretching her hand out as far as she could. The silver rectangle sat several inches beyond her fingertips.

Under the dock, an old newspaper lay moldering in its plastic bag. She pried it from its resting place and laid it in the mud between the catwalk and the shiny square of metal, resting her weight on it with one hand and stretching out with the other. Her fingers came together around the piece of metal and she shoved her weight back to the catwalk. She considered the newspaper. Throw it away or put it back where she found it? Safer to put it back where she found it. She tossed the newspaper back into its place under the dock and was sitting on the catwalk examining her treasure when a voice called down from the dock.

“The tide reveals all kinds of interesting things. What did you find down there?”

She looked up slowly into the face of Vurleen’s friend, the guy taking care of one of the houseboats while the owners were away. “Looks like an iPod,” she said, trying to come up with a
reason to be sitting where she was sitting, just in case. “Know anybody who’s lost one?”

He pulled the corner of an iPod out of the side pocket of his khakis. “I’ve got mine. Haven’t heard of anybody else losing one. I wouldn’t imagine it matters much either way. I’d say that one is gone for good. Might make a nice paperweight.” He lingered, looking down at her. “Are you the one who left the flowers?”

She nodded. “I came by to see if they were still here. Somebody put them in water.”

“Probably Vurleen. That woman thinks of everything. She takes very good care of us.”

Sunny stood up and climbed the ramp up to the dock. “We’ve met once before, sort of, when I visited last time with some friends. I’m Sunny McCoskey.” She wiped her hand on her pants and held it out.

“Ronald Fetcher,” said the man, with a warm, natural smile. “Pleasure meeting you.” He was dressed Ralph Lauren preppy as before, with a cable sweater around his neck and a polo shirt underneath. “You must have been close with her,” he said, indicating Heidi’s house.

“We were friends.”

“Since we’re here, do you mind if I ask you a rather forward question?”

“You mean about Heidi?”

“Yes. As a friend and a peer of hers, you might have some insight on a topic that’s been tickling my curiosity.”

“Now I’m curious.” If Ronald Fetcher wanted to exchange gossip about Heidi Romero, she wasn’t going to do anything to discourage him.

“Not that it’s any of my business, mind you. Just something nagging at me.”

“Fire away.” She gave him a smile of encouragement.

Ronald glanced up and down the dock, as though expecting someone to be eavesdropping on them. “It’s just this. Frankly, I couldn’t understand it. Why would a girl like that, a young woman with everything going for her, why would she waste her time with a married man? What was it about that guy that was so special?”

Sunny watched his face. Did Ronald Fetcher have a thing for Heidi too? Or did his concern find its roots in the protective paternal impulse? Or was he simply a voyeur and a scandalmonger, mining for details of her personal life? “The usual reason?” said Sunny. “I don’t think most people have affairs on purpose, do they? It’s too messy. They fall into it by accident. The attraction overwhelms them and they can’t help themselves. Before they know it, it’s too late.”

“You’re being generous. If you ask me, it was the money. Or a daddy complex. He was twice her age.”

“Was he rich?”

“He wasn’t poor. You never know how much a guy like that is really worth, but it was more than nothing.” He inched closer to her and put his hand on her sleeve, speaking with an air of intimacy that made her want to pull away from him. “I’ll tell you something else. Those two had a knock-down, drag-out catfight a few days before she disappeared. Everybody heard it. He was furious because she’d called him at work and his PA told his wife. He said she did it on purpose to drive a rift between him and his wife. She was livid. She said that that was the final straw, she was tired of sneaking around and didn’t want to see him anymore. Then he really came unglued and accused her of using him for sex.” He gave her an awed look and waited for her to react.

“Interesting,” said Sunny.

He seemed disappointed at this response but soldiered on. “Is this the twenty-first century or what? The older man accusing the mistress of using him for sex. That was the last we saw of him.”

Sunny manufactured an appreciative smile while she studied his face. He obviously enjoyed other people’s lives. He gave the impression of being idle. Did he work? Or just hang around other people’s houses? “Vurleen said you’re moving.”

“That’s right. I found a place up in Guerneville for the summer. On the river.”

“Nice spot to be in for the summer,” said Sunny. “Very relaxed. Especially if you don’t have to commute to work.”

“Not as nice as this spot,” said Ronald, gesturing to the surroundings. “Still, nothing lasts forever.”

A seagull squawked overhead. Sunny looked out toward the water and the distant high-rises of San Francisco, stone gray in the dusk. She turned back to Ronald. “I should hit the road. It was good to meet you, again.”

“Likewise.” He shook her hand for the second time. “Take care of yourself.”

Sunny walked out to the parking lot clutching the iPod in one hand. The harbormaster’s office was dark, the door closed and locked. She felt an illogical pang of guilt. Illogical because even if Vurleen had still been there, she would not have left the iPod with her or even mentioned it. It belonged with Sergeant Harvey if it belonged anywhere. She had already decided she would try to discover what was on it herself before she turned it over to him. The risk of its being ignored in a storage box somewhere at the police station was too much. She would try everything she could think of to extract whatever information it held before she handed it over. There would be music, certainly, but people
kept plenty of other things on iPods. There could be photographs, contacts, to do lists, documents. Anything that could be on a computer could be on there. When her curiosity was satisfied, or if the device refused to come back to life, she would turn it over to Steve and hope he had technical contacts who could work their magic and extract the data from its memory.

Past the harbormaster’s hut and the acacia tree standing guard over it, a wider outer parking lot led to the street. At the entrance, Sunny glanced automatically both ways before crossing to the truck, then stopped and looked right again. There it was. Waiting at the stoplight was a white pickup truck with mismatched taillights. All she could see of the driver was an outline. The light turned green, and the truck pulled up and made a right. On the door was the Pelican Point Harbor logo.

By the time she started
the old Ford, turned it around, and drove up to the stoplight, the white truck was long gone. It didn’t matter. Dean Blodger’s truck was the truck, that was all she needed to know.

Her heart pounded. She dug in her purse for her cell phone. She needed to talk to Sergeant Harvey. Make that Officer Jute. She put the phone down. Before she talked to anybody, she needed to organize her thoughts. In fact, was it really so urgent that she report what she’d discovered? Couldn’t it wait until she’d had a chance to unwind a little? She wanted to sound calm and together when she talked to the police. Dean Blodger wasn’t going anywhere, and Mark Weisman was already out of reach. It had been a tiring day.

She foraged in the glove compartment for music and found a Beach Boys CD. She rolled down the window to the cold air and turned up the volume.
Wouldn’t it be nice
. . .

It took the entire greatest hits to get home. She was back at the beginning, replaying her favorites, when she turned onto Adams.
Round round get around, I get around
. . . The cottage on Adelaide was dark when she pulled up, as of course it would be, since she lived alone. She never got entirely used to that. How
long until the day she would come home to a light on, somebody else home, somebody expecting her? Too long. Forever, she thought gloomily, if past experience was any indicator of the future. She picked up the mail on the way in. Andre had left her knife kit and the movie he’d mentioned on the dining room table. She headed straight for the refrigerator, grabbing the phone on the way. She dialed Wade Skord’s number. This was no time to be alone. “Have you had dinner?”

“Nothing I couldn’t forget about. You cooking?”

“If you’re eating, I’m cooking. Nothing fancy. Looks like I can scrape together a refrigerator clean-out pasta. I’ve got, let’s see, two Meyer lemons, a red bell pepper, a red onion, some of those big capers we love, a little leftover salmon, and, in the herb department, a bunch of fresh parsley. Wish it was dill. Anyway, we’re good for a carbfest, and soon. I’m starved.”

“I’ll be there in half an hour.”

Monty Lenstrom had eaten already. “But I could use a glass of the soft stuff,” he said. “Work kicked my ass all day long. I need to sit on the couch and stare at a blank wall for about twenty minutes, then I’ll head over.”

Rivka picked up her mobile. “I’m at the market. You want anything?”

“A baguette, if they’re worth having. And a pineapple. I have a strange craving for pineapple. Unless there are apricots or cherries. The first cherries should arrive any day.”

“One baguette, one pineapple, early seasonal dream fruit optional. You sure you don’t want some chocolate sauce with that? Maybe a side of mac and cheese?”

“Tonight I’ll eat anything.”

She put the phone down and turned her attention to the tiny, mud-caked device she’d left on the counter on her way in.
This one had an extra nugget, a white rectangle of plastic, plugged into the top of it with a perforated metal area, probably a microphone. Ronald Fetcher was probably right, it was sure to be ruined for good. Still, it was worth a try. Rivka once dropped her cell phone into a tub of lime vinaigrette. The tech gurus in customer service in Bombay suggested she rinse it in warm water and leave it somewhere warm to dry out. Sometimes all the water evaporated from the inner mess after a few days and whatever it was worked fine again. Sometimes, they regretted to inform her, one had no choice but to go back to the store and select a replacement model. This was the way with cell phones dropped into tubs of lime vinaigrette. Sunny rinsed the player under the tap, wondering if this was also the way with iPods found at low tide in local harbors. The stream of water ran over the casing and into the tiny holes with disastrous efficiency. Certainly there was little hope it would ever sing again. She patted it dry and left it on the windowsill, then went to find a pair of headphones. She found one plugged into the portable CD player she never used and brought them back. They fit into the port and she put them on, to no point since the device was dead as a stone. She hit all the buttons. Still nothing. No life on the screen, not even a crackle over the headphones. She put it back on the windowsill and turned to the refrigerator.

An hour later, the three of them—Rivka, Wade, and Sunny—sat down to pasta, mixed greens, and bread and butter. Sunny passed a bottle of chilled pink wine. Rivka rhapsodized about her recent telephone conversations with her new crush while they loaded their plates.

“Who are we talking about?” asked Wade skeptically.

“Remember the sexy guy selling those incredible blackberries at the farmers’ market last summer? Super puffy hair, great lips.”