Wall of Glass (14 page)

“Joshua, why are you asking Silvia about the necklace? She's one of my oldest friends, and she never even knew the thing was stolen.”

“One of your oldest friends, and you never told her about the burglary?”

“I didn't tell anyone about it. Derek asked me not to. All of us, me and the children. You have to understand his sense of pride. More than anything else, I think, he was embarrassed about the theft. He saw it as a personal thing, as though it happened through some mistake of his.”

“What about the newspaper? It wasn't listed in that update they run of all the local burglaries?”

“No. Derek's got a friend down there, one of the editors, and he called him and asked him not to mention anything about the necklace.”

The Incorruptible Press strikes again.

“I don't understand,” she said, “why you're bothering Silvia.”

“Silvia knows some people who knew Biddle. I was just following up some leads.” I saw no need to tell her of Biddle's involvement with Griego. “And how are you doing these days?”

“Much better than when I left your house the other night.”

“You seemed fairly composed at the time.”

“Bravura acting. Oscar material. I was a shambles. Couldn't sleep a wink all night. I kept hearing that window of yours crashing apart. You were very brave, you know, rushing outside like that.”

“Careful,” I said. “You'll turn my head.”

“And Kevin's quite taken with you as well.”

“Yeah?”

“He's decided he wants to be a private investigator himself.”

“That should tickle your husband.”

A throaty chuckle. “Derek's out of town for a few days. Actually, that's my ulterior motive for calling. I'm getting cabin fever, sitting around all day. I was wondering if we could get together, you and I. We could have lunch—I was thinking the Toad Garden, my treat—and we could discuss your progress.” The Toad Garden, despite its name, dished up the most expensive lunches in Santa Fe.

“It wouldn't take a whole lunch to discuss my progress,” I told her. “One appetizer would just about do it.”

“You don't feel you're any closer to finding the necklace?”

“It's still too early yet. And thanks for the invitation, Felice, but I'll be busy all day today. No time for lunch. Maybe later in the week.”

“Oh drat,” she said with mock petulance. “I was looking forward to it.”

“When's your husband coming back?”

“Tomorrow. Why?”

“Sooner or later I'm going to have to talk to him again.”

“He's not really an ogre, you know. Most of the time, he can be quite reasonable. I'm sure that the two of you, given a second chance, would get along very well.”

“Let's hope so. Could you ask him to call me?”

“I shall. And give me a jingle tonight if you get tired of sitting alone while bullets come whizzing through your window.”

“I'll do that. Bye now.”

“Bye.” She put several more syllables, and several more shades of meaning, into the word than I remembered it having.

I hung up and noticed that the green indicator on the answering machine was lit, telling me that urgent messages, maybe even Clues, awaited me on the tape. Just as I was reaching for the rewind switch, the phone squawked again.

“Mondragón Agency.”

“I am not going to get angry.” Rita's voice, cold and flat, precisely enunciating every syllable.

“Good for you.”

“You have every right in the world to make a total and utter fool of yourself.”

“Says so right in the Constitution.”

“If you want to get your brains, such as they are, splattered all over some barroom floor, it's really none of my business.”

“I'm glad you're being reasonable about this. And I truly admire the way you turn a phrase.”

“I spoke to Hector this morning.”

“And he finked on me.”

“He told me what happened last night.”

“Like I said.”

“Hector was less than straightforward, but I gather, reading between the lines, that if he hadn't shown up there last night, you'd probably be dead today.”

“A bit of an exaggeration, Rita.”

But not by much. Killebrew had drawn back his leg for the kick, and, lying there groggy and immobile, all I could do was watch it happen and know that when it did, my head would snap like a football off a tee, spinning up toward the goal post.

And then, behind him, someone had called out, “
Freeze!
”

The crowd parted and Hector was standing there. He wasn't holding his gun, but his sports coat was open and if he wanted to, all he had to do was reach inside and slip it from the holster. Most of the people, like Killebrew, who have an interest in these things know that the Santa Fe Police Department favors the Smith and Wesson 586, and they know that the magnum .357 load it carries will do some fairly serious damage to bodily organs.

A fair fight, everyone had said as they gathered around, most of them grumbly and querulous, disappointed that Killebrew hadn't scored the extra two points. After hauling myself to my feet, I had refused to press charges against Killebrew, who still hadn't lost his wide yellow grin. Hector had walked me out to my car, explaining that he had had second thoughts about my going to the bar alone. I had thanked him for those. A bit incoherently, but profusely.

Rita said, “I thought you were going to avoid Killebrew.”

“I thought so too. Killebrew had his own ideas on the subject.”

“You shouldn't have gone there,” she said.

“You're right, dear.”

“Someday you'll go off somewhere and Hector won't be around.”

“Yes, dear.”

There was a silence on the line, and then she said, “Joshua.” Her tone turned the word into a warning.

“Yes, dear?”

“
Stop it
.”

I laughed.

“You think it's
funny?
”

“Moderately, yeah. Rita, I'm all right. I appreciate your concern, and I'm grateful for it, but I'm sound in mind and body, and I feel tip-top, absolutely hunky-dory. I've already filed away the thing last night as a learning experience.”

“I'm not so sure about the sound-in-mind part.”

“Thanks.”

“Do you still have all your teeth?”

“Sure. I'm keeping them in a cigar box in the desk drawer.”

“Joshua.” Another warning.

“I'm okay. Really. A tiny bruise, nothing else. A little Max Factor and no one will ever know. By the way, I spoke to Silvia Griego today.”

“You're changing the subject.”

“Someone has to.”

She sighed. “All right. What did Griego have to say?”

I related the conversation and my feelings about it.

Rita said, “So what you're saying is that she knows something about Biddle, something that frightens her, but it's something that may have nothing to do with the stolen necklace.”

“Yeah, that was the hit I got. I don't think she knew about the necklace. Felice Leighton never told her, and it looks to me that Biddle never did either.”

“You've been in touch with Felice again?”

“We had,” I said, “a brief but enlightening chat. She didn't know, apparently, that Biddle was seeing Griego.”

“Are you sure?”

“Fairly. From the way she talked, it was the last thing that would've entered her mind. She seemed much more interested in inviting me to the Toad Garden for lunch.”

“Trying to ply you with Perigord truffles and Dom Perignon eighty-three.”

“I refuse to surrender myself for anything less than the sixty-four.”

“A man of principle. So what are your plans for the rest of the day? Working, or sporting with the fair Felice and her magic manacles?”

“I take it back.”

“What?”

“What I said before, about your turning a phrase. Magic manacles?”

“What are your plans?”

“I don't really have any. But I suppose you do.”

“Why not talk to Silvia Griego again? So far, she's the only one who seems to know anything.”

“Yeah, but not about the necklace.”

“So find out what she
does
know and use it as leverage to learn more about Biddle.”

“And how, exactly, do I do that?”

“Exercise that notorious charm of yours. The one that's working so well on Felice Leighton.”

“Griego's busy at the gallery, setting up for an opening tomorrow. I won't be able to talk to her until tonight. What do you suggest I do until then?”

“Call Felice, why don't you, and tell her that Woolworth's just got in a new shipment of heavy-duty nylon rope.”

W
HAT I DID DO
that afternoon, after I checked the messages on the machine—three from Rita, one from Felice Leighton—was drive over to Tomasita's on Guadalupe and treat myself to a beef burrito with green chile and a Corona beer. Then I drove back to Carla Chavez's house and asked her where I could locate her brother, Benito. She was reluctant at first, but after I explained that it might help me locate whoever had killed Biddle, she gave me his address in Las Mujeres, and the name of the local bar where he often hung out. I gave her another twenty dollar bill.

I found Silvia Griego's address in the phone book, and that night, at eight-thirty, I drove over there.

She lived in another adobe compound, this one on Cerro Gordo, a long dirt road that winds through an area that the realtors like to call Santa Fe's Fashionable East Side.

In the asphalt driveway there was a BMW, bright shiny red beneath a floodlight attached to the side of the house.

I know I parked the Subaru beside the BMW; I can remember that part. And I can remember leaving the car, walking up through the piñon and juniper to the gate, unlatching it, and stepping onto the brick walkway that ran diagonally across the courtyard.

After that, what must have happened is that I walked up to the front door and found it ajar, or at least unlocked. I must've pushed it open, and probably I stood there for a moment, wondering what to do and looking fairly stupid. Probably I called out Silvia Griego's name. Maybe I heard something in reply. Whether I did or not, I must've gone into the house, and inside there, in the hallway, is where it happened.

It's called retrograde amnesia, and I'm told that it's fairly common with a sudden, concussive blow to the skull.

TEN

T
HE FIRST THING
I realized when I opened my eyes was that I was lying on a brick floor. The second thing I realized was that, any moment now, I was going to be sick. Extremely, elaborately sick. Small parachutes of pain were opening at the top of my head and fluttering down through my brain, and every time they landed at the base of my skull, my stomach gave another lurch.

I pulled myself up onto my hands and knees and looked around. A mistake; the parachutes became packing crates. I didn't know where I was—whose house, what city, what universe—and I didn't care. I stood up, head pounding, legs wobbling, and set out to find a toilet. My progress through the unfamiliar house was not lacking in dignity. I don't think I clawed at the walls for support or bumped into the furniture more than eight or nine times.

At last, down a hallway from the living room, I found a bathroom, knelt down, and got rid of dinner. I flushed the toilet. Then I stayed there for a time, forehead resting on arms and crossed atop the bowl.

After a long while, I sat back and began to take stock.

No bones seemed to be broken, but I had a welt on the back of my skull the size of a corncob. I stood up, still a bit woozy, and lumbered to the mirror. I looked remarkably chipper for someone who'd just spent a lifetime leaning over a toilet. Both pupils were the same size, and neither seemed particularly constricted. Good. Concussion, yes, but no hematomas spreading around inside there like clusters of dark gray tubers.

Not yet, anyway.

I turned on the cold water, splashed some on my face, sucked some up from cupped hands to wash away the taste of bile. Dried my face and hands with a small pink towel hanging to my right. I glanced around the bathroom and noticed, for the first time, that the toilet was pink, the same shade as the towel. So were the sink and the bathtub and the bathmat atop the blue tiled floor. The translucent plastic shower curtain was printed with a bright blue floral pattern, and it was pulled shut.

But not all the way, because a flat-soled woman's shoe was jutting out from one end, and there was a foot in it.

I jerked back the curtain.

Someone had hurt her badly. Her face had been battered, her cashmere sweater torn, a white rounded rim of shoulder poking through the rent. Silver-brown hair lay in a wild tangle across the pale pink porcelain, and to the left, just behind her temple, it was limp and wet with thickening blood. I felt for a pulse at her throat and found none. Already her flesh was losing its warmth and taking on that sad unmistakable final slackness.