Old Chaos (9781564747136) (28 page)

O
N FRIDAY BETH made herself enter the courthouse for the first time since Mack’s death. Because John had gone back to Portland, Rob took her in his pickup. At the door to Mack’s office in the annex, he made a vague offer of help, which she declined. She also thanked Mack’s longtime secretary, Ramona Flynn, for
her
offer of help and shook her head no. With massive tact, Ramona brought her a roll of plastic garbage bags and went off. Beth had to deal with the sorting herself.

Nobody had touched Mack’s office since his death, except to dust and retrieve necessary files, so the experience was wonderful and horrible, and ultimately, because Mack had been a packrat, exhausting. Beth was torn between tossing everything into a Dump-ster and keeping everything, including random scraps of paper with incomprehensible scribbles and half-used rolls of antacid mints. Grimly determined, she set about cleaning out the clutter. She would have to make Mack’s office her own, as she had made Mack’s work.

She salvaged all the photographs, whether framed or curling at the corners, from the walls and the desktop, because most of them were of family. She’d lost the best of her photos in the mudslide. She was looking through the pile, tears pricking her eyes, when Ramona announced, “Commissioner Bjork” from the doorway and stood aside for Cate Bjork.

Beth blinked hard and shoved the stack of snapshots away along with the memories they provoked. She didn’t try to rise. Her cast rested on an upended drawer, her walker in a corner of the room. “How nice to see you, Commissioner. Have a chair.”

Cate smiled and sat. She wore a Donna Karan suit, unusual but not too pretentious for Klalo, and carried a huge pistachio handbag. “I came to apologize for my absence from your husband’s funeral.”

Beth murmured something forgiving. She hadn’t noticed the Bjorks’ absence.

“It’s Lars, you see. He has Alzheimer’s.”

Beth made a polite sound of sympathy.

“We were hoping to keep his condition to ourselves, but it had to come out sooner or later, I suppose. Some days he’s quiet and calm, as he was the night of your dinner, and other times he’s… difficult.”

“That must be stressful.”

“Oh, I have plenty of help, but I don’t like to go out when he’s in that state. Who knows what might happen? He used to wander off—”

“How frightening for you, Cate. Do you have competent care-givers? It’s hard to find good people.”

“I’ve been lucky so far.”

“You’re younger than he is.”

“Twenty-five years,” Cate murmured. “He was so vigorous and interesting when we met. Old age is a terrible thing.”

But so much better than the alternative, Beth thought and was instantly ashamed of herself.

“And how is your daughter?”

“Conscious,” Beth said. “She’s weak, though, and she doesn’t remember anything about the mudslide.” She cleared her throat. “The doctors are worried that she may suffer grand mal seizures. There was brain damage.”

“I am so sorry,” Cate murmured, polite and correct.

Beth wondered why she couldn’t warm to the woman. “We may be able to bring Peggy home next week, but of course we’ll need professional help.”

“There’s an agency—”

“Yes, we called them, and Skip will be interviewing people over the weekend. They’re expensive, though. Skip and Peggy are graduate students, for heaven’s sake.” Something else to worry about.

Cate rose. “Let me know if I can help.” She held out her hand, and Beth shook it.

When Beth was growing up, women never shook hands. The custom came from back East or maybe from Europe. Handshaking revealed whether a man was carrying a weapon, according to Beth’s father. She had pointed out that women could carry weapons, too, but her father had just laughed.

Rob intruded as Beth was sorting through a file marked
personal.
It was quite large. It included every school photograph of Beth since she began teaching, as well as pictures of all the children and most of the grandchildren. She cried a little over Mack’s secret stash, until she saw the ominous bank statements, a row of well-thumbed envelopes. Her heart sank. When Rob’s knock came, she shoved the drawer of the file cabinet closed with a smack.

“Come in.”

He slid into the chair Cate had vacated. “How’s it going?”

“Slowly.”

“I can imagine.” He handed her a fax sheet. “The toxicology report just came in on Fred Drinkwater. There’s not much doubt he was murdered. That’s a copy. I gave one to the prosecutor, too. We can go into high gear now.”

“You don’t sound enthusiastic.”

He shoved his good hand through his forelock. He needed a haircut. “I can’t say I’m burning to avenge Drinkwater’s death, and I’m distracted by Inger’s disappearance.” He told her about the sneaker that had washed up.

She nodded, trying to look wise, which was hard with her thoughts on what might be hidden in Mack’s bank records. So she told Rob about the commissioner’s visit in more detail than he probably wanted to hear. He had the knack of looking as if he were interested in what you said, a major asset in interrogation, Beth reflected.

“We’ll probably bring Peggy home to your house next week,” she finished. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“No. It’s a pity I took the wheelchair ramp down when Gran died. If Skip wants to resurrect it, I stashed the lumber from it in the garage.”

“That’s a good idea, if you don’t mind—”

“Beth,” he interrupted, smiling, “I really
really
don’t mind. And if you need good LPNs, I can give you several names.” He had been responsible for his grandmother’s care in her last years.

She thanked him warmly and took down the names. They were all on the agency list, he said.

He stood up. “The drug that was used on Drinkwater, quetiapine, is not a common street drug. It was found in the glass beside him as well as in his bloodstream.” He gave her the proprietary name, which she didn’t recognize and wouldn’t remember. “An anti-psychotic medication, sometimes used for anxiety or insomnia.”

“That’s weird. Did Fred have a prescription for it?”

“Not from his primary care physician.” He made a face. “I’m getting old. I can remember when a doctor was called doctor.”

Beth smiled. “Or Doc.”

“Or that.” Rob sighed. “If it weren’t for the state’s HIPPA Act, we could start asking pharmacists who on our suspect list is taking the stuff. Unfortunately, we’ll need more evidence before we can get a court order.”

“Frustrating,” Beth said.

“Yes. Almost as frustrating as financial stuff.” Rob glanced at her and at his watch. “You look tired. Do you want to go home?”

“I…uh, yes. Give me half an hour and I’ll have most of the personal things sorted.”

“No problem.”

When he left, Beth locked the door and began stuffing the bank records into a garbage bag. She set the stack of photos on top of them and, for good measure, Mack’s awards, of which there were many. She twisted the wire tape in place and felt safer. Then she unlocked the door and waited for Rob, busying herself by tossing out the paper scraps, the indigestion remedies, and a hideous artificial poinsettia that no one had removed after Christmas.

Towser bounced beside Meg’s Accord as she set the brake. Because the garage door had not yet been repaired, she had taken to parking in the short concrete driveway. Towser treated it like a trampoline. She cracked the car door, grabbed her briefcase, and looked around for Tammy, who trotted up, smiling.

“Towser, sit!” He did that.

Meg slid out and locked her door. “A miracle,” she murmured. “What’s happening, Tammy?” She held her hand low, palm down, for the dog to sniff. He did that, too.

“I’m back at work. Well, I got a lot done through the Internet while I was in Las Vegas, but I’m back at work in my office. Feels good.” She worked from home.

“Did you lose clients?” Meg scratched Towser behind the ears, and he gave a small, ecstatic bounce.

“Not a single one,” Tammy said with justifiable pride. She was a bookkeeper/accountant and had worried about leaving town in the run-up to tax day, but here she was, back in time for frantic last-minute filers.

They talked awhile about the heartwarming loyalty of Tammy’s clients, and Tammy reported that her son was going to graduate from cooking school at the end of April. He already had a job lined up.

Meg congratulated her and agreed to go for a walk. “Let me dump my briefcase first and change my shoes.”

It never ceased to surprise her that she and Tammy had become friends in the few short months she had lived in Klalo. Tammy was a recovering alcoholic, an abused wife, now a widow, and uninterested in the library. Being loyal herself, she would support the levy, but she wasn’t sure what a levy involved. Her late husband, a Libertarian, had opposed all levies on principle, insofar as he had had principles.

In LA, Meg’s carefully chosen friends had shared all kinds of things—profession, taste, social attitudes, political affiliation. Here you took your friends where you found them, down the block in Tammy’s case. It was an interesting change for Meg. Later, over dinner, she meditated on the luck of finding friends down the block and across the street, and a lover next door. She wondered what she’d missed in LA.

She hadn’t missed Marybeth Jackman. Marybeth was an all-too-familiar type. At one time she must have been a good librarian, but disappointment at home and work had soured her disposition. She enjoyed inflaming conflicts, even when the sparks burnt her. Marybeth was on her way out, one way or another. She didn’t have friends, just cronies, fortunately for Meg.

“She threatened to out us,” Meg said darkly.

Rob stared at her over the rim of his coffee cup. He looked as if his mind had been a million miles away. “Who? What?”

“Marybeth. Our fornicating ways.”

“Ah.”

“I laughed. I told her that blackmail is a two-way street, that
she’d
better not have any secrets.”

Rob set his cup down. “Marry me.”

Her turn to stare. “Are you running for public office?”

“No way.”

“Then I don’t see why.”

“I love you.”

“Prove it.”

His grin started in his eyes. “I might just rise to that.”

Well, it had been a problem, what with his bad back and slashed arm and all his medications, not to mention the overall gloom. She was glad he felt better.

Very glad, she decided, somewhat later. They lay abed upstairs in a peaceful tangle, both of them drowsing but not asleep. Downstairs, all the lights in the house were still on. Scandalous. She thought of Marybeth and snickered.

“What?”

She reached over and tweaked a nipple. “Marriage. Not necessary.”

“You don’t like the idea?”

“I don’t know what I feel.” She rose up on one elbow, looked at him, and said, very serious, “I’ll take it under advisement.”

His mouth relaxed in a smile that was at once tender and languorous. “We don’t want to scandalize the librarians.”

“Or our daughters.”

They drifted downstairs after another interlude. Meg made another pot of coffee.

She turned off most of the lights. “Feel like telling me about it?”

“About what?”

“Your investigation.”

“Jesus, Meg.”

She poured two shots of single malt and set the tiny glasses on the kitchen table beside their coffee cups. “Maybe if you talk about it you won’t thrash around so much in the middle of the night.”

“Have I been doing that?” He looked sheepish. “I’m sorry.”

“You did propose marriage. This would be an issue.”

He didn’t respond. His eyes darkened.

“Openness,” she said. “Either I’m trustworthy, or I’m not. I would never betray you, and I certainly wouldn’t blab sensitive information to the media or my friends. True, I told Beth about the landslide hazard, but that was an extreme situation.”

“But why—”

“I believe in words. Talking things over is a way of understanding, oh, everything, not just this case, but who you are, and who I am, and what kind of community I find myself in. If something is so awful you can’t bring yourself to talk about it, just say so. That I can understand. So how about it?” To cover her uneasiness, she took a tiny sip of scotch.

He sat down slowly, opposite her, and raised the shot glass. To her surprise his hand was not steady. “I’m afraid. Superstitious.”

She turned that over in her mind. “You’re afraid that Inger may be dead.”

“I’m pretty sure she’s dead.” He tossed off half the whisky. “I’m afraid she was murdered.”

“But I thought—” She bit her lip. “Okay, yes. I see. Saying it may make it so.”

“Sounds stupid.” He set the glass down with care.

“Word-magic is a primeval thing. We all use it.”

“Thank you.” He made a wry face. “I’m afraid she was killed, and afraid I won’t be able to prove who did it.”

“But you think you know.”

“Yes.” He toyed with the shot glass, then met her eyes. “I won’t give you the name. It wouldn’t be fair.”

“Not fair to the killer?”

“Not fair to you, Meg. You’d look at the suspect differently. Believe me.”

She did see. What a burden. “All right. I understand. What are you going to do? Do you have leads?”