The Hell You Say (12 page)
“I gripped the front knob.”
Without a word, he wiped the door handle. So much for not destroying evidence.
My eyes met his for an instant before I turned to slip past him.
He grabbed my shoulder. “You’re wrong,” he said roughly. “I wouldn’t compromise an investigation to protect myself. Not even to protect you.”
I couldn’t help a bitter laugh. “This isn’t for me.”
“Jesus, Adrien. Neither of us needs this complication right now. We both know you didn’t do her, that it went down just as you said. What the fuck would be gained by going through the formality of questioning you? Why would I want to waste department time and resources checking your story out? Christ, do you want your picture in the papers again?”
I sure didn’t, but it troubled me that he was destroying possible evidence. The harder he tried to convince me that this was all in the interests of the investigation, the more I knew it was to protect himself.
He must have read my thoughts. Abruptly, he let me go. “Think what you want,” he said curtly.
I stepped out, the screen door springing shut behind me with a little bang.
The Hell You Say
71
* * * * *
But then, we weren’t trying to hide the fact that I had called Jake, we were concealing how well I knew him.
I poured myself a snifter of brandy. Actually, it was more like a soup bowl. I downed it in a couple of gulps, then refilled my glass.
I was going to have to lie for Jake, and I wasn’t sure I would be able to. I wasn’t sure I wanted to. Through the warm haze of the brandy, I listened to that whisper of rebellion, then turned down the volume.
Guy Snowden had also left a message: crisp and to the point.
“I had a visit from LAPD today. I’d like to meet with you again. I’d like to introduce you to a friend of mine.”
When I finished the brandy -- and I do mean all the brandy -- I gave Guy a call.
Predictably, his answering machine picked up.
I hesitated, wondering if he was awake, maybe listening in the darkness for one particular voice.
I quietly replaced the receiver in its cradle.
72 Josh Lanyon
Over a bowl of oatmeal and a bottle of aspirin, I watched Angus and Wanda being arrested.
The morning news brimmed with murder. Footage of Angus and Wanda being escorted out of a cabin in Lake Tahoe was replayed on every channel. Unreal. Angus and Wanda, handcuffed, trying to hide their faces, were escorted by burly sheriffs through a mob of cameras.
What would happen to them? I assumed Wanda’s family would come to her rescue, but I had never heard Angus mention any family besides this NorCal “Grampy.” He couldn’t afford legal defense. He’d wind up with some court-appointed public defender.
I changed the channel and watched Angus being guided into a patrol car once again. It was surreal. Eyes shining, the blonde reporter blabbed on with pseudo gravity to the folks at home. You’d have thought they had nabbed the Zodiac Killer.
I turned off the TV, dumped my dish in the sink. Belatedly, it occurred to me that Angus knew the truth about my relationship with Jake. How long before that came out in questioning? The minute he found out that Jake was the cop who’d discovered the body, he’d put two and two together. He’d spill. Or did Jake have a plan for keeping Angus quiet?
I considered Jake’s theory that Angus had tried to set me up the night before. It didn’t make sense. Set me up for what? It wasn’t like the cops had been waiting for me to stumble onto the crime scene. If anyone was being set up, wasn’t it most likely Angus? The body had been found in his house.
I was sketchy on the details of how he had angered his former playmates, but there was no doubt he had ticked off some unpleasant people. Then he’d compounded his offense by skipping out. Was it too much of a leap to suppose that, when they’d been unable to retrieve him through the power of negative thinking, they had decided to use the police?
The Hell You Say
73
Or to approach from another angle: Angus’s defection had posed a kind of threat to them. They had neutralized him by framing him for murder.
Granted, committing murder was quite an escalation from harassment and vandalism, but if these were the same people who had killed Tony Zellig and Karen Holtzer, then murder wasn’t anything new.
Why this girl, though? Kinsey had clearly been one of “them.”
Okay, qualify that. She had been one of the group looking for Angus. Did that mean she was part of Angus’s…what was it called? Coven? According to Guy Snowden, Angus had belonged to a harmless Wicca group. I’d met Wiccans, and they didn’t seem like the same species as Kinsey and the Poison Dwarf. Angus had been frightened of his former friends; the scariest thing about the gang at Dragonwyck was their addiction to wheatgrass.
The symbols left at the shop and the grave sites of Tony Zellig and Karen Holtzer had been inverted pentagrams -- black magic. The Wiccans had been disturbed by them. So what did that mean?
Might there be two different factions? Was there some kind of woo-woo turf war going on? It was hard to picture Angus -- the Angus I knew -- as a major player in a diabolical chess game. He could be a pawn, though.
Thinking about it made my brain hurt. Or maybe that was the hangover. I decided to let it go and get downstairs.
* * * * *
“Oh, Adrien, they’ve arrested That Boy!” She always referred to Angus as “That Boy.”
“They say he killed a girl. That he may be a serial killer!”
“That’s bull-- ridiculous,” I said. “I think he’s been framed.” First time I’d actually put the thought into words, but I realized I did believe this. I sure as hell did not believe that Angus was a serial killer, and I hadn’t noticed any of the symptoms.
“Oh, darling!” A blend of sympathy and dismay. Mostly dismay.
Cradling the phone between my cheek and shoulder, I glanced over at Velvet. She was busy addressing the shop’s Christmas cards. We’d spent an embarrassing amount of time yesterday trying to print labels. In the end we’d decided it would be faster to do it by hand.
I lowered my voice. “Lisa, would it be possible to talk to Mr. Gracen? Could something be worked out with my trust fund?”
“Have you decided about the house, then?”
“Huh? No. I was thinking of Angus. There’s no way he can afford decent legal defense.”
“Adrien, you must be joking.” Her tone was sharp. “Were it possible to lay your hands on that money, helping that boy would never be an acceptable reason.”
74 Josh Lanyon
“Is the money mine or not?”
“The money is in trust for you. The reason it is in trust is to prevent this very kind of thing.”
“Oh, right. Thirty-two years ago my grandmother miraculously foresaw that one day I might need cash to help a friend --”
“He’s not a friend, Adrien. He’s someone who works for you. Someone whom I have always said was most unsavory.
“My God, you should hear yourself.”
“What does Jake say?”
“Jake? What the hell does Jake have to do with it?” The mention of Jake made me madder than anything so far.
“Don’t swear at me, Adrien. Jake is a police officer. He has experience in these matters.
And he’s your…oh, what is it called? Your partner.”
“Jake has nothing to do with anything. Angus is my responsibility.”
“Your responsibility? How is that boy your anything?”
“He works for me. I don’t think he has anyone else.”
She answered tartly, “Rather a feudal attitude, don’t you think, from someone who thinks I’m a snob?”
“Will you help me or not?”
“I will help you by doing whatever is in my power to prevent you from accessing that money. That money is your future. You have no idea when you may need that -- that cushion.”
Right. Because -- fingers crossed -- my health might give out at any moment, thereby fulfilling Lisa’s dire predictions for the past sixteen years.
“All I needed to know,” I said crisply and hung up.
After which, I stared in disbelief at the receiver sitting there in its cradle. I’d never hung up on Lisa in my life. I don’t think I even interrupted her very often. Jeeeesus. I waited for the phone to ring.
Waited.
Slowly I expelled a long breath. I glanced over at Velvet. She looked away hastily.
* * * * *
The Hell You Say
75
“We have to talk to you about the engagement party,” said Nancy -- no, Natasha.
Natasha?
“What engagement party?”
They laughed merrily at that -- all of them, including the kid -- although I didn’t get what was so funny.
“No, but seriously,” I said. “Isn’t that kind of thing for first weddings and…well, younger couples?”
“Now you sound like Daddy,” chided Lauren, which shut me up. She spread a selection of embossed cream and white cards on the counter like a Vegas dealer fanning the deck.
“What do you think?”
I stared at the elegant assortment of invites. “But…I was under the impression that we had to…stall. That you couldn’t pull off a wedding so close to the holidays.”
Lauren nodded as though this was a good point from one who didn’t have all the facts.
“You have to look at this from Lisa’s point of view,” she said kindly.
Well, yeah. When did one not? Did they honestly think they had to explain the center of the universe to Galileo?
They continued to stare at me expectantly. I realized I was expected to cast a vote for stationery.
I pointed at a crisp white card with crisp black writing. Lauren’s fawn-colored eyebrows drew together infinitesimally. Natasha bit her lip. Emma -- initial test results continuing to prove promising -- had wandered off to explore.
“Whatever you think is fine,” I declared.
They looked relieved.
“So here’s the plan,” said Lauren. She proceeded to outline the festivities for a small intimate gathering of one hundred and eighty of the prospective bride and groom’s nearest and dearest.
“How many people are invited to the wedding?” I asked faintly.
Lauren shrugged dismissingly. “Three hundred or so, I believe.”
I blinked.
They burst out laughing at my expression. “I’m teasing,” said Lauren. “The wedding is going to be very small. Private. Family and close friends.”
“But very elegant,” vouchsafed Natasha.
I was still trying to assimilate that as they detailed the engagement party plans which included the Mondrian SkyBar, ice sculptures, scented candles, champagne cocktails, and 1940s Big Band music. So bizarre. I still had the images of the night before buzzing in the back of my brain like flies, and they were talking party favors.
76 Josh Lanyon
I think I had blanked to the Indian Head test pattern when I heard a voice pipe,
“Sooooo, what do you think?”
“Wow,” I said.
They laughed delightedly. Were they always like this, bubbly as champagne, talking all at once, finishing each other’s sentences, laughing at each other’s jokes in a kind of silvery harmony? Could they maybe be on some kind of medication?
The shop bells jangled, the door opened. In walked Jake and a lanky scarecrow of a man who had to be another plainclothes cop. They stopped short at what might have appeared to be an in-progress fashion shoot. The scarecrow brightened, scoping out my sisters-to-be.
Jake looked as tired as I felt. His eyes found mine. “Hello again, Mr. English,” he said formally. “Detective Rossini and I were hoping you would answer a few questions in connection with the Angus Gordon case.”
The Dauten Gang never moved a muscle, but you could feel the shock wave bouncing off the safety shield of their poise. They didn’t so much as exchange glances, yet I knew they were communicating telepathically, à la Village of the Damned.
“If it’s not too inconvenient,” Rossini said. He appeared to be talking to Lauren’s breasts.
“Sure,” I said. Not in front of the womenfolk, though. I turned to Lauren. “Sorry about this. Maybe we can finalize details later.”
She didn’t respond.
Emma appeared at my elbow with a tattered copy of The Mystery of Lilac Inn. “How much is this?”
“Five dollars,” I said automatically. “But for you, ten.”
She giggled, happily oblivious to the electricity snapping in the air.
I took the book, handed it across the counter to Velvet, who watched us like a favorite TV show. She looked blank. “Put it in a bag for her,” I muttered.
“Oh. Sure. Right.” She took the book belatedly.
I glanced over my shoulder. Lauren seemed to be trying the telepathy with me. I wasn’t getting the message. Jake’s message, on the other hand, was coming through loud and clear; I didn’t have to meet his eyes.
“We’re done here, right?” I said to Lauren, resorting to old-fashioned speech.
“Are we?” Natasha said ominously. Was she concerned about the police presence, or did she suspect me of trying to skip out on my share of picking hors d’oeuvres?
“Is everything all right, officers?” Lauren inquired evenly.
I wondered what Lisa had told them that led them to conclude that I might need protecting from the fuzz.
The Hell You Say
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“Everything’s fine,” I said quickly. “I’ll call you. But really, whatever you guys -- girls --
ladies --”
They laughed, though their laughter was no longer so silvery sweet. Rossini and Jake stared in fascination.
“I’m fine with whatever you work out.”
“What about the book?” inquired Emma, gazing seriously up at me with those big blue eyes.
