Your Chariot Awaits (22 page)

I WAS RELUCTANT to tell Fitz about the call, because the more I thought about it, the dumber my having done it sounded. But I had to tell him, of course. We were in the kitchen, and he was cooking the lingcod. I'd just watered the nice pot of daisies he'd brought me and was now steaming asparagus. We'd planned to cook out on the patio, but clouds had moved in, along with a cold breeze, so we'd moved inside. We'd also invited Joella over, but she'd headed off for some doings at church.

I started with what I'd learned about Elena from Letty, then segued into the phone call and Elena's “advice.”

“I'm thinking now that calling her wasn't a very good idea,” I admitted. “Or at least calling her without a better game plan than I had.”

Fitz's silver-white eyebrows drew together in a concerned frown, but he didn't chastise me. “Sometimes investigations backfire in unexpected ways.”

“No matter what she said, I'm still not convinced she wasn't involved with Jerry.”

“And if she was, it's a pretty good motive for murder.”

Fitz turned the fish carefully in the frying pan. I checked my asparagus and started making hollandaise sauce from a packet I'd gotten at Safeway. The only time I'd ever tried it from scratch, I'd wound up with curdled glop.

“Do you think she really hadn't known about Jerry being dead before you told her?”

“I thought she sounded shocked. Maybe even scared. But I suppose I'd be shocked, too, hearing someone I'd known, even if I hadn't known him very well, had been murdered. Most people we know don't get murdered.”

“So, what are our possibilities here? Her husband found out about the affair and murdered Jerry. Or she tried to dump Jerry and he wouldn't let go, and she murdered him herself to get rid of him. Of course, one basic question remains.”

“Which is, why was Jerry here that night?” We kept coming back to that. “What was he doing in my limousine?”

“Along with, why was his computer and everything connected with it stolen? What reason would this Elena or her jealous hus-band have for doing that?”

I stirred the sauce mixture in the pan. Fitz put a couple of potatoes in the microwave to nuke.

The doorbell rang, and I stiffened like the handle on my infamous shovel. I wasn't expecting anyone. I'd had what might well be a veiled threat from the willowy Elena. Could she, or the husband—

Then I reminded myself of what I'd told Joella: murderers don't come politely ringing doorbells.

Hopefully this wasn't an exception to that rule.

23

R
yan!”

He smiled, apparently pleased that I was glad to see him. I was glad to see him again, but the enthusiasm was also relief that he wasn't a visiting murderer. His arms were filled with two big paper sacks.

“I don't know why I didn't think of this when you were at the condo, but you might as well have the stuff from Jerry's cup-boards and freezer. I'm heading home tomorrow, and I don't like to see good food go to waste. I don't think Cara would object if you have it.”

“Cara?”

“She called. She located a will that Jerry had made out back when they were first married. Since he apparently never got around to changing it, it's still in effect. It leaves everything to her, which simplifies the situation considerably.”

“Is that . . . okay?”

“Do you mean, am I upset that I won't get anything from Jerry's estate?” He shook his head vigorously. “No way. The will also names her as executor, so she'll have to cope with everything. But she does have her father to help, and he's a very capable person.”

“That's good.”

“And that stuff I said earlier about his being involved in the murder? Just forget it, okay? Ben's kind of a ruthless old codger, and I think he'd stomp anyone who threatened those grandkids, but Cara says her father and Jerry had reached a deal on a divorce settlement. Odd, isn't it, how the divorce seemed to be more between Jerry and the father-in-law than between Jerry and Cara? Anyway, ‘an amicable agreement' between them was how she phrased it. I shouldn't have sounded off about Ben the way I did.”

I had the feeling telling me this was the real reason he'd come here, and the groceries were mostly just an excuse.

“Cara's father agreed to give Jerry money?”

“I think that's the only kind of ‘agreement' Jerry would go for. I'm thinking now that the cash in the toilet tank may have been the payoff they agreed on. It'd be just like Ben to send it as a big wad of cash.”

Fitz had followed me to the door, and I realized his hands were resting lightly on my waist. I also realized Ryan was still standing there holding the heavy bags.

Embarrassed, I moved back from the door. “Where are my manners? Come on in.”

Ryan hesitated. “Perhaps I should have called first. Maybe Jerry's leftovers are the last thing you'd ever want.”

“Groceries are groceries.” And welcome, in my unemployed state. “I appreciate your thinking of me.”

“There's an odd assortment of stuff here. Jerry wasn't exactly a Hamburger Helper kind of guy, was he?”

We smiled at each other in rueful conspiracy about his brother's expensive tastes.

I led Ryan into the kitchen, and he deposited the sacks on the counter. I introduced him to Fitz. I could see Ryan was curious about who Fitz was, beyond a name, but I didn't offer details. Especially not the detail that Fitz and I had formed a sleuth-and-sidekick investigative team. Though I was still a little miffed by that sidekick status.

“There's a couple more sacks out in the car. I'll go get them.”

The minute Ryan was out the door, Fitz said, “Let's invite him to dinner. There's plenty of food. I'll just throw another potato in the microwave.”

“All because you're so good-hearted?”

“Don't you think I'm good-hearted?” Fitz drew himself up in righteous indignation. “The guy's been eating out or cooking for himself all week. He needs a solid, home-cooked meal. Isn't that being good-hearted?”

Okay, I did think Fitz was a good-hearted guy, but—“I think, at the moment, what you want to do is pick his brain while you feed him.”

“Being good-hearted and practical are not mutually exclusive,” he pointed out. “Ryan may be backpedaling on the possibility of the not-ex-wife's father's involvement, but I'm not convinced. Are you?”

No. I figured Ryan was sincere in what he said, but quite possibly mistaken. “Just be nice, okay? Ryan's a good guy.”

“Not a killer, you mean?”

I was startled. Ryan as murderer had never occurred to me. “He was way off in Denver. And he had no motive.”

“No motive that we know about.”

“I don't like being suspicious of everybody,” I muttered.

“Goes with the territory.”

Ryan returned with two more bags, and I suggested his staying for dinner.

“Fitz is cooking a lingcod he caught up around the San

Juan Islands. He's the cook on his son's charter sailboat, and they just came back from there.”

“A charter sailboat? Hey, that's neat.” Ryan smiled, some-thing I hadn't seen him do often. “Kind of like what I'd like to do when I grow up.”

He also accepted the dinner invitation without hesitation. While the men talked sailing and fishing, I put the contents of the sacks away. I felt guilty, but I was really looking forward to those lobsters from Jerry's freezer. Plus steaks and chicken cordon bleu. And there was that can of foie gras, plus a veritable treasure chest of marinated mushrooms, smoked oysters, fancy olives, and crackers, plus a lot of other stuff not on my usual menu.

Fitz's lingcod was boneless and tender, light and delicious. Afterward I dished up raspberry chocolate chunk ice cream for dessert. Well fed and relaxed, and with a little adroit encouragement from Fitz, Ryan started talking about his boyhood days with Jerry back in Colorado. Family camping and fishing trips in the mountains, shooting hoops in the backyard, and cheering for Jerry at high-school football games and track events. He'd definitely heroworshipped his big brother.

I had the feeling Ryan hadn't thought about those happy times in a long while, and it felt good to him to talk about them. I'd have preferred leaving his relationship with his brother on that upbeat note, but shadowy pictures of Jerry's dead body in the trunk of the limousine kept slithering around in my head. Along with that disturbing possibility Fitz had planted there.

Not Ryan
, I assured myself.
Surely not Ryan.
There were any number of reasons Ryan couldn't possibly be the murderer. And yet . . .

I phrased my leading comment carefully. “It's too bad you and Jerry weren't closer in recent years.”

“Yeah, it is.” Ryan's voice went flat and distant, his gaze unfocused on an empty spot beyond my shoulder. I thought he was going to stop there, but he surprised me by going on. “But Jerry changed. I don't know if it was getting involved with gambling that did it, or if he changed first and the gambling followed. But he turned harder. More ambitious and greedy.” He paused. “Less ethical.”

He stopped talking, and I refilled his coffee cup. I started to say something smalltalkish, but Fitz bumped me with his elbow. I realized what he was getting at. Sometimes silence is like a vacuum that needs filling, more effective than questioning.

“I guess the breaking point between us came when he told me he had a serious medical problem and needed money. I was glad I had it to lend to him. I'd have happily
given
him the money for a medical emergency.”

“But there wasn't a medical problem?”

“No. There was a gambling emergency. I never knew the details, but he never paid me back.”

He was silent for a moment, and I wondered if he was thinking, as I was, that if Jerry could afford a Rolex, he could surely have repaid this debt. And there was that money in the toilet tank.

“Well, I guess none of that matters now, does it?” Ryan briskly moved on to tell us that he'd been to see the guy who owned the private dock where Jerry kept his boat. “He said it was fine if the boat stayed there until Cara can sell it; then he'd like to buy it. He seemed like a really nice guy, as puzzled as the rest of us about Jerry's death.”

“It won't be easy for Cara to take care of all these details from back in Georgia,” Fitz said.

“She'll probably make a trip out here. She said her father might be interested in keeping the condo as a vacation place.

He's never seen it, but he liked the Puget Sound area when he visited here before Cara and Jerry broke up.”

“Will he come along?” Fitz asked. “Maybe he'd be inter-ested in a charter sailboat trip while he's here.”

My first thought was that Fitz was just trying to drum up business, but then I realized he had something else in mind.

“Didn't I hear something about his being in the timber business in Georgia? Southern pine, I imagine it would be. Most people don't think of the South as a timber area, but a good percentage of the country's timber is produced there now.”

Leave it to Fitz to know an irrelevant fact like that and toss it out to muddle what he was really doing, which was digging for information. He apparently thought, as I did, that Ryan would be reluctant to tell us anything about Cara's father if he thought we were still suspicious of him.

“What's his company's name?” Fitz added, as if it were an afterthought.

“Something about timber. Well, that figures, doesn't it? Southern Gold Timber, I think.”

“He didn't give the company a family name, then, like the big timber barons often did around here. Vigland Timber Products and the town of Vigland itself, in fact, are named after one of the early timber men here.”

More camouflaging facts.

“No, Cara's father is Benton Sutherland, although every-one calls him Ben. Jerry always grumbled that what he really wanted to be called was Big Daddy, like that character from
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
Remember him? But Ben's really a pretty good guy. He's sent several nieces and nephews through college.”

“Maybe he'd be interested in a tour through the mill while he's here,” Fitz said. “I took one a while back, and it was interesting.”

“If I talk to Cara again, I'll mention it.”

So there we were, smoothly in and out of the subject of Ben Sutherland. Yet what could we do with the information? Calling him up and asking if he could recommend a good hit man probably wouldn't be a productive start.

At the door we shared good-bye handshakes with Ryan. “Thanks again for all the groceries,” I said. “I'll make good use of them.”

“It's been great meeting both of you. And thanks, Andi, for helping me there at the condo.”

We watched from the door as he gave us a final wave from the rental Honda.

“What do you think now?” Fitz asked.

“I don't think Ryan had anything to do with Jerry's murder.”

Fitz nodded agreement.

“I also think Big Daddy Sutherland could have decided hiring a hit man was cheaper and more satisfactory than paying Jerry off. I have no idea where that ten thousand dollars in the toilet tank came from, but I doubt Jerry'd have settled for that amount. I think he'd have played for bigger stakes.”

“Maybe he did,” Fitz said somberly.

Right. Maybe he'd gambled and lost.

Fitz's serious demeanor changed, and he grabbed my hand. “C'mon, we're going up to the CyberClam Café.”

“But we just ate—”

“You don't eat at the CyberClam. Not if you value the inner workings of your anatomy.”

24

A
few minutes later I found out what you
do
do at the CyberClam. Several rows of computers stood off to the left side of the room. About half were occupied, the others show-ing screen savers of hurtling stars or toothy-fished predators. Hey, maybe I could come here to do some job hunting on the Internet.