Patrice Greenwood - Wisteria Tearoom 03 - An Aria of Omens (27 page)

“Well … yes, ma’am!”

We stepped through the front door and she smooched my cheek. “Go on, scoot.”

I followed my orders. Kris passed me on the stairs and we said goodnight, see you tomorrow. I changed into jeans and a caftan top, grabbed a sweater in case it got cold later, and snuck out the back door of the tearoom.

Ten Thousand Waves is one of my favorite places on earth. I’ve been going there since I was a teen. It started out as a Japanese spa with a handful of hot tubs. It has grown to include rooms for overnight guests, a fabulous gift shop, and a full-service spa with amazing treatments and fascinating Japanese plumbing.

One of the best things about 10k Waves is its location, only a few minutes from the Plaza on the road to the ski basin, but set apart in a beautiful piñon forest with gorgeous Japanese-style landscaping. The walk up the path from the parking lot is a journey from modern mundanity to peaceful sanctuary. The door to the spa is next to an indoor waterfall, the sound of which follows the visitor up the short staircase to the lobby/gift shop.

Though I’d brought along a suit as Nat suggested, I opted to hang out in the women’s tub rather than the communal tub. I was tired, and I didn’t want to have to watch how I sat or keep an eye on who was looking at me. I wore the suit anyway, more as a sign that I wanted privacy than from any concern about nudity. As it happened, there were only two other women there, one of whom appeared to be asleep on a lounge chair. The other was in the pool. I gave her a cursory glance as I joined her, noting dark hair up in a bun, skin a shade too tan, and tension lines around her mouth.

As I entered the tub, I breathed a sigh of relief. River stones provided a variety of smooth shapes underfoot, and the hot water made my muscles very happy. The tub was long and oval-shaped. I moved to the far end, leaned back, and looked up through pine boughs to the sky.

The sun hadn’t set, but it was obscured by the trees and by hills to the west. A warm twilight filled the space under the canopy, with just an occasional breeze to stir the branches. I let go of all my worries—or rather I pushed them away—and concentrated on appreciating my surroundings.

The smell of the pine trees. Bird song. The endless motion of the water, ripples reflecting fragments of sky on the pool’s surface, stirred by the tiniest movement from myself or the other woman.

Water.

That little message had been a dead end. Poor Willow.

I looked up at the sky again, noting clouds above the pines. I wasn’t here to worry about Willow.

A splash made me glance up; the other woman was heading for the cold plunge in the corner. I didn’t need that kind of stimulation, but after a while I did get up and go inside to the sauna. I took a paper cup of water in with me and drank it while I sweated, then took a quick shower rinse and returned to the tub.

I stared at the shards of light dancing on the water. Shards, not knives. Not as sharp.

Where was the knife, if not in the water?

In some landfill or arroyo miles away. Or not. By now, the police might have given up on finding it.

Find the weapon, find the killer. But maybe that was only true on TV.

As a detective, I was pretty sure I sucked.

11

When my fingertips started to look like prunes, I got out and went back to the dressing room, showered, donned my complimentary kimono and went to report for my massage. I was a few minutes early, so I sat in the waiting room and sipped more water, and watched the beautiful people go by.

There were always beautiful people at 10k Waves. I sometimes wondered if the communal tub was a pickup rendezvous, but it hadn’t ever felt like that to me. Just a place where beautiful people liked to lie around being beautiful, admiring themselves and each other.

“Ellen?”

I looked up and saw the hostess standing at the reservations podium. I went to report to her and was introduced to my massage therapist, a tall, lean, and glowing woman named Naomi. She led me to a private room and proceeded to turn my tense muscles into melted goo.

I nearly fell asleep on the massage table. Stray thoughts ping-ponged around in my head, but I was too busy appreciating the massage to give them much attention.

I was just wondering if it would ever end, when it did. So of course, I immediately wished for more. I thanked Naomi profusely, left her a whopping tip, and oozed back to the dressing room for a long, hot shower.

Back in the lobby, I surrendered my kimono and splurged on a bottle of house-brand yuzu lotion. I kept yawning on the drive home, and when I got there I went straight to bed, expecting to fall into deep, untroubled sleep.

Instead, I dreamed.

I was at the Opera, performing the role of Tosca. Victor Solano was Scarpia, but he kept paying more attention to Cavaradossi than to me, which pissed me off. The scene where Scarpia tormented Cavaradossi went on forever, with Scarpia gloating and caressing him in almost an obscene manner while I watched from upstage, with the wind blowing my long black hair around me through the open back of the stage. I got madder and madder, and started trying to plan how to swap my stage knife for a real one in Act Three, but the real knife was in the water and I couldn’t fish it out during the performance.

Then Tony showed up and halted the opera in mid-aria. Solano was angry and started arguing with him, and Tony put him in handcuffs to march him away, but he wrestled free, ran up to the top platform where I was standing, threw me a look that said “This is all your fault,” and jumped off the back of the stage.

I sat up with a gasp.

In my bed. Safe. Dark. Oh, crap.

I turned on my bedside lamp. My limbs were tingling with adrenaline-spiked fear. The room felt stuffy and warm.

The clock said three-thirty.

Knowing I wouldn’t get back to sleep right away, I put on a light robe and slippers, opened the window a crack to let some fresh air in, and shuffled to the bathroom. The image of Solano falling away from me kept returning, his mournful expression burned into my brain.

Hot milk. Cure for all ills.

I put some milk in a pan on the stove and wandered over to the window. All quiet outside; no rain, no wind. The streetlight on the corner cast shadows across the neighboring business and my garden.

What a wretched dream. It had all kinds of hits to my self-esteem: performance anxiety, rejection (in favor of a homosexual relationship, no less), guilt…

Wait a second.

Practically snogging him onstage.

Holy crap!

Scarpio and Cavaradossi. Their scene together
had
been almost caressing, in creepy juxtaposition to the torture. It had bothered me when I saw it.

Solano and Ebinger. Could
they
have been having an affair?

I wondered if Tony still had his chart.

A warning hiss sent me back to the stove just in time to rescue the milk from boiling over. I poured it into a mug, sprinkled a dash of nutmeg on top, and curled up with it in my favorite chair.

I tried to recall my brief conversation with Ebinger that afternoon. He had plainly been upset by Solano’s death, but I hadn’t thought that unusual. They were colleagues, working closely together. Now, as I thought back, it seemed obvious to me that Ebinger had been grieving. I’d even given him Mr. Jackson’s card, so I’d known it, on some level.

And Solano had apparently made a pass at Julio. So he might be gay or bisexual.

Who was it who had objected to the onstage snogging? I frowned, thinking back.

Neil. Neil Passaggio.

But why? Wasn’t he supposed to be sleeping with Sandra Usher?

My brain hurt.

I was also out of milk. I cleaned up the kitchenette and went back to bed, still trying to puzzle out the connection between Passaggio and Solano and/or Ebinger.

I woke to the thump of a car door closing outside. Turned my head to look at the clock: 6:30. Had to be Julio.

I groaned and rolled over, but I was awake and the snogging dream came back to pester me. I got up and found a notepad, scribbled down the details before I could forget them, then got dressed. Black broomstick skirt and lavender blouse. I wasn’t feeling creative.

I had time to make some tea before heading to La Fonda to meet Tony. I drank it at my desk, sorting through messages and making notes on things I wanted to talk to Tony about: Lydia something, Ebinger, snogging. When the tea was gone, I tucked all my notes into my purse and headed downstairs.

Julio and Ramon were both there. They must be carpooling, I decided. Julio looked moody but all right. He even offered me some of his coffee.

“No, thanks. I’m on my way to breakfast. I’ll be back by ten.”

“’Kay.”

I walked to the Plaza and across it to La Fonda. Despite the early hour there were plenty of tourists wandering around. It was peak tourist season, and coming up on the Spanish and Indian Markets. I had a hazy idea that one of them was the next weekend; I’d have to check my calendar.

La Fonda was full of even more tourists than the Plaza, many of them waiting for tables at the restaurant. I bit my lip, thinking we’d probably end up in the French Pastry Shop, which I hoped Tony wouldn’t mind. I couldn’t spend all morning waiting for a table.

As I approached La Plazuela, Tony rose from an armchair to meet me. He’d made an effort: black dress shirt tucked into his jeans, nice belt with a silver buckle.

“Hi,” I said. “I should have remembered it would be crowded.”

He picked up his motorcycle helmet from the floor beside his chair. “I made us a reservation.”

“You’re a genius!”

We were seated immediately and waited on promptly. Tony ordered huevos rancheros and I chose a spinach and mushroom omelet. When we had our coffee, he took out his pocket notepad.

“Remember your oath of secrecy,” he said, looking up at me under dark eyebrows.

I crossed my heart and held two fingers in the air.

“We found the Brit,” Tony said. “Name’s Richard Whitby. The people he was talking about were—”

“Solano and Ebinger.”

He gave me a grouchy look. “You knew?”

“I figured it out last night. Go on—what else did he say?”

Tony grimaced. “A lot of stuff that wasn’t to the point. This guy was flaming.”

“Oh.”

“But what was to the point was that he implied—didn’t say, mind you, but implied—that Neil Passaggio was pissed off because of jealousy.”

“Jealousy of Solano and Ebinger.”

“Yeah.”

“Because…?”

“He wouldn’t say. Claimed he didn’t know, but I think he was scared of retaliation. My guess is that Passaggio was porking one of them. Sorry.”

He gave me a swift glance. I waved it away, but frowned.

“Everything I found about Passaggio online was about him and women,” I said.

“Yeah. That’s his public face.”

“And his wife was jealous of him and Usher.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So if he was—involved—with Ebinger or Solano, why wasn’t there any gossip about it?”

“Because he didn’t want it public.”

I sipped my coffee. “Why? What harm could it do? He’s in the performing arts. Not exactly a conservative industry.”

“His wife comes from a conservative family.”

“Oh? Pardon me, but from what little I’ve seen and heard, I don’t think he would care much about what his wife thinks.”

“Oh, yes he does. She pays the bills.”

I put down my cup. “The trophy wife?”

Tony grinned. “She’s from big oil money. Went to Yale. It’s more like he’s a trophy husband.”

“They don’t seem very happy together.”

Tony tore open a packet of sugar and dumped it in his coffee. “Well, no surprise, if he’s been sleeping around.”

“And she thought it was with Sandra Usher, and even yelled at her backstage! Jeez!”

“He’s been sleeping with Usher, too.”

“What?!”

Our breakfasts arrived. We were silent until the waiter had arranged everything on the table, asked if we needed anything else, and departed.

“Are you serious?” I said softly.

He already had a mouthful of huevos. “Mm-hm.”

“Did someone tell you that, or is it just rumor?”