The Hell You Say (17 page)

“So we saw on the news that Angus was arrested for that coed’s murder.” He shook his head. “I bet you saw that coming.”

“Not at all.”

“You’re kidding. Jean and I were saying this morning that you’re probably the one who tipped the police off.”

“Why would you say that?” I can’t say I was thrilled at the notion of me as the local stool pigeon.

“It was in the papers. Your friend, that cop. He was the one who found the body, right?

Someone called and tipped him off. We thought it must be you.” He turned back to my computer, began clicking away again, fingers flying over the keyboard.

“Oh, man, I bet you laid an egg when you saw your screen go black!”

What was with the bird references today?

Grinning in geek delight, Ted added, “Of course, we always knew there was something wrong with that kid.”

I said dryly, “Did you?”

“The Barbies are back,” Velvet announced, poking her head in the office.

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I glanced up. “Who?”

“Your friends from yesterday. The fluffragettes.”

I muttered something un-familial under my breath and went out.

Lauren, carrying a Gap Kids shopping bag, greeted me. “Natalie and I were in the area, so we thought we’d nail down the details on the party -- if you’ve got a free minute.”

Natalie? I thought the middle sib was named Natasha. I tried to remember if I had addressed her as Natasha. I glanced at her, and she was beaming at me in that eerily affectionate way.

Didn’t these women have jobs? Didn’t they have other interests besides this bloody wedding?

Velvet approached, phone in hand. “Did you want to make a holiday donation to the American Family Association?”

The AFA? The people who define a family as one man, one woman, and two-point-three properly baptized biological offspring -- no exceptions?

“I think not,” I said.

Velvet moved off to convey my regrets. I watched the Dautens sizing her up with what seemed to be professional interest and felt unexpectedly protective of her brown ordinariness in the face of their air-brushed perfection.

The blue eyes swiveled back my way.

“Maybe we could run out and grab a cup of coffee?” Natalie suggested.

“Great idea!” Lauren chimed in -- as though they hadn’t run through their lines on the way over. “There’s a Starbucks a few doors down.”

“I really can’t…” My voice trailed in the face of their dismay.

“No prob,” said Velvet, from behind the counter. “I’ve got it.”

I gave her an ungrateful look.

“Great!” said Lauren.

The three of us marched out, passing Ted’s red Corolla parked on the street. Memory of the red Corolla from the day before niggled at me. The next instant the feeling was gone, Lauren and Natalie nattering happily -- about what, I have no idea.

We reached Starbucks, I took their orders for coffee-laced whipped cream, and got into line while Lauren sat and pulled out her Palm Pilot.

“Christmas Night in Harlem” was playing on the loudspeaker as I carried our drinks back to the circle of chairs, picking my way through their scattered shopping bags.

“This is so perfect!” Natalie announced, taking her nonfat mocha Frappaccino with a shot of sugar-free mint and extra whipped cream. “Thank you!”

Coffee-by-the-numbers. Myself, I prefer to patronize the independents, but with one on every corner, Starbucks lays a mean caffeine ambush.

The Hell You Say

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“So…what are Lisa’s favorite songs from the ’40s?” asked Lauren, fixing me with those china doll-blue eyes, one finger poised to type.

Did she have favorite songs from the ’40s? She was born in the ’40s. Did toddlers have favorite tunes?

“I don’t know.”

They looked nonplussed. “Well, what songs were special to her parents?” Lauren prodded helpfully.

This was awkward. Lisa never spoke of her family. I had no idea if she even had family living. I knew my maternal grandparents were dead, but that was all I knew. The few times I had pushed for information, Lisa had been deliberately vague -- even for her. I had grown up accepting that this was simply the way it was, but I could see it would seem a little weird to outsiders.

“I think she’ll be happy with…uh…the classics.”

“English classics or American classics?”

For Chrissake.

“Both.”

Incredibly, they looked satisfied with that. Lauren keyed into the Palm Pilot.

“I can’t see how you’re going to put all this together in…”

“Ten days,” said Brigadier General Lauren crisply.

“Right.”

“It’s not easy,” Natalie confided, adding reassuringly, “But the hard part’s done.”

I’d take her word for it. Lauren watched me keenly. “So you’re okay with this?”

I opened my mouth, but uncharacteristically, I failed to think of what to say. They waited politely.

“Er…yeah, why not?”

Good question. Why not? I mean, I had spent most of my life trying to evade Lisa’s overprotective clutches. This marriage was bound to give me breathing space.

“It’ll mean a lot to Lisa,” I said, trying not to sound as stiff as one of my unknown British relatives.

They uttered cooing sounds and made fluttery motions like they were about to enfold me in a group hug. Since this wasn’t physically possible given the seating arrangements, they had to settle for smiling at me and reaching over to pat my arm and knee.

“I’m so glad we were able to talk,” Lauren said. She put the Palm Pilot away.

Apparently the emergency board meeting was over.

“Are you and Lisa still quarreling?” Natalie said sympathetically, as I held the glass door for them on our way out.

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“Quarreling?” What had Lisa told these people -- these strangers? “Of course not.”

“Lisa didn’t say that,” Lauren said quickly with a quelling glance at her sister. “She only said you were not very happy with her.”

They gave me twin looks of commiseration that still conveyed that I was so in the wrong.

“She said you hate to be fussed over,” Natalie said. “But of course she can’t help it, can she? That’s what mothers do.”

What in God’s name were they talking about?

Lauren looked serious. “It must have been such a shock that boy being arrested. Did you have any idea he was capable of that?”

That Boy. Well, at least now I knew what they were talking about and where they got their news bulletins.

“No.”

“It goes to show,” Natalie said.

We hugged on the sidewalk, then they departed for more shopping. I hot-footed it back to the shop.

I stepped inside. Glanced around. A customer browsed the Gothic section. He smiled. I smiled back. I didn’t see Velvet at the counter. I glanced down the aisle, spotted another customer busily scanning the ending of a book.

I went to the office. Ted had packed and left. Velvet stood at my desk going through the drawers.

I halted in the doorway.

She had all my stuff out on the desk top. She was holding the plastic vial of my digoxin capsules, frowning at it.

“What are you doing?” I asked from behind her. She started.

Cheeks flaming, she stuttered, “I was tidying in here. I found these. They looked like you might need them.”

Tidying up inside the desk? “Thanks,” I said, holding my hand out for the vial. I kept an extra bottle in the desk in case I forgot the morning dose, although I didn’t plan on explaining that to her. “You don’t need to worry about my stuff.”

“I don’t mind,” she said eagerly.

Was she truly that dense?

“Yeah, well, I’d prefer if you stayed out of here.”

She flinched as though I’d slapped her.

“Fine,” she said stiffly. She brushed past me into the shop.

I opened the desk drawers, swept everything in haphazardly. Then I locked the desk.

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107

It seemed far-fetched to suspect her of being an agent in the Deviltry Network, but then again, she hadn’t come through the temp service -- and I hadn’t verified her references yet.

I could practically hear Jake now.

I closed the office door, pulled her application out of the file cabinet, and spent the next half hour calling her previous employers.

The two dress boutiques she had worked for would have hired her back in an instant.

She hadn’t worked long at the veterinary clinic, and they didn’t remember her well, but as the director remarked, that might be a positive.

She checked out.

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If it bleeds, it leads. By late afternoon I had declined an interview with one local news station and three local papers.

What were they hoping to hear? How I’d always known from the way Angus mixed Elizabeth Peters and Ellis Peters that one day he’d run amuck? That his bad habit of sticking price tags smack center in the face of book covers would lead him to ruin?

I ate lunch in the stockroom, catching up on paperwork and listening to the radio. Jake was correct. Angus’s court-appointed lawyer had been immediately replaced by Martin Grosser. Grosser, a high-profile defense attorney, worked as a commentator for Court TV, and pretty much reserved his services for the high and mighty. He did not typically work pro bono, but there was no way Angus could afford his fees. Not that I got how it was in Grosser’s interests to represent the latest pretender to Charlie Manson’s throne.

Angus had a bail hearing set for the following day. Personally, I thought he was probably safer in jail, judging by the tenor of most of the news stories. There was a lot of crap about Satanism on the air and the signs parents should watch for in their own children --

starting with an interest in heavy metal or New Age rock music and shimmy shimmy ko-ko bopping right on down the line to drug use and burglary.

There was a startling amount of misinformation out there.

Not that the basic tenets of Satanism weren’t startling all on their own. There were a few commonsense rules like not complaining about stuff you didn’t need to subject yourself to, but there were more troubling recommendations, like When walking in open territory, bother no one. If one bothers you, ask him to stop. If he does not stop, destroy him.

Say again? Was that symbolic destruction, or magical destruction, or a practical application like slicing and dicing classmates?

The Hell You Say

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“Did you know he was a devil worshipper?” Velvet inquired, after we had hung up on our fourth journalist that day.

No need to ask to whom she referred. “No,” I said shortly. Naturally she would be curious about her forerunner, but I didn’t want to discuss Angus like he was past tense --

jailed and the key thrown away.

“Did he ever talk about…stuff?”

“No.” That seemed a bit curt, so I added, “He wasn’t a gabby guy.”

“Did he work for you a long time?”

“Not quite a year.” And his predecessor had been murdered. I was going to have to take another look at the benefits package I offered my employees.

“I used to know a girl involved in that stuff.”

“Good friend?”

“No,” she murmured. “It’s hard to get close to people like that.”

“Why do you think that is?”

She laughed. I’d never heard her laugh before. It came out unexpectedly shrill. “I don’t know! They don’t want to be close to other people. They don’t need them.”

“It’s a lonely way to live.”

“Being alone is not the same as lonely.”

“That’s true.” I handed her the list of reserved and requested books that had arrived with that day’s shipment. “What finally happened to your friend?”

She shrugged inside her navy cardigan. “Nothing. I lost track of her. Do you think What’s-his-name is guilty?”

“No.”

She smiled. She had small, white teeth -- like milk teeth. “But you never know, do you?”

“No,” I said, eyeing her plump back as she turned away with the list. “You never do.”

* * * * *

“I need to see you right away. Can you drop by the hotel?” He sounded sober and a lot more reasonable than the last time we’d spoken. Still I was wary.

“Maybe this afternoon. We’re busy this morning.”

“It’s important that we talk. It’s about Gabe.”

“Shouldn’t you call the police?”

He said hastily, “It’s not like that. I just thought you’d be interested. Why don’t you come for lunch?”

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I glanced at Velvet and the line at the counter. “I can’t do lunch. I can try for later.

Maybe around three or so.”

“Okay, that will work. I’ll see you then.” He put the phone down with a clatter.

An instant later the phone rang again. I picked up.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” Guy inquired in that lazy semi-English accent. I heard the smile in his voice. And there was an answering smile in my own.

“Working.”

“Would you like to drive out to Oliver Garibaldi’s house in Pacific Palisades? Maybe stop for lunch?”

As far as I recalled there was no actual rule against mixing meals with sleuthing in the Boy’s Official Guide to Detection.

“Sure.”

“Be sure to bring that photo of the sigil left on your doorstep. Oliver is interested in seeing it.”

“Will do.”

“I’ll pick you up around ten tomorrow.”

I cast a guilty look at poor Velvet, innocently ringing purchases at the register. The sleuthing was becoming an obsession. Not only was it cutting into all my free time, I was actually putting it before my livelihood.

I was pretty sure that it didn’t boil down to wanting to see Guy again.

I replied, “It’s a da-- deal.” Then I couldn’t help asking, “By the way, has Betty Sansone shown for class?”

“Certainly.”

“Didn’t the police interview her?”

“I have no idea.”

“Was she there on Wednesday?”

“You sound surprised. Why shouldn’t she have been?”

Always eager to practice my diplomatic skills, I said, “I figured she might have been worn out from murdering her pal the night before.”