Chasing Venus (9 page)

Annie’s mom.

“All right,” Annie went
on, “moving on.
 
We’ve got only half
an hour left so let’s break up into the same four-person groups as last week
and do more of the plotting exercise.”
 
Noisy jockeying for position ensued.
 
Annie raised her voice and kept
talking.
 
“Remember, you need six
elements.
 
Three main characters, a
crime, a motive, and a solution.”

Her mom didn’t join a
group but remained in place, Michael’s latest paperback abandoned in her
lap.
 
Her worried eyes were fixed on
her daughter, reading her—Annie knew—like a book.

It’ll be okay
, she communicated wordlessly to her mother.
 
This
too shall pass
.
 
She’d stayed
over at her parents’ house the prior night and told them about the FBI’s visit
to her own home the weekend before.
 
They’d hit the roof, charging harassment and corruption and who knew
what else.
 
Her new fear was that
they’d mount a protest and get five hundred of their best friends to converge
on San Francisco’s Civic Center.

Annie retreated to her
own chair and picked up the pile of student first chapters she hadn’t yet
skimmed.
 
One of the blessings of
her divorce was that she wasn’t estranged from her parents anymore.
 
For years she’d been caught in the
middle between them and Philip.
 
The
fights they’d had!
 
Her parents had
cast Philip as part of the "medical establishment," which in their
view committed such atrocities as withholding the cure for cancer so doctors like
him, and the corrupt drug companies with which he was clearly in cahoots, could
keep getting rich.
 
When Philip
stopped fuming, he’d accuse them of being straggle-haired hippies who didn’t
understand the real world and failed to grasp that the 1960s weren’t a paradigm
of political action but a pot-smoking sex fest.

Annie’s reaction was to
distance herself from her parents.
 
She regretted that now.
 
They’d been right about Philip in so many ways.
 
They were right when they said he always
put himself first.
 
They were right
when they said she was subsuming her goals and personality to please him.
 
And they were right when they said love
didn’t work that way, that it wasn’t love if that’s what was required.

“Ms. Rowell?”

She glanced up,
startled.
 
She hadn’t been aware
that someone had approached.
 
“Yes,
Kevin?
 
Have you finished the
exercise?”

“Not yet.
 
But I wanted to give you this.”
 
He handed her a small box, the size that
might hold a piece of jewelry.
 
And
it was a very distinctive, instantly recognizable box, in a particular shade of
eggshell blue, tied with a white satin ribbon.

She wasn’t sure what to
say.
 
She raised her head to look at
him.
 
He was neatly turned out as
always, clean-shaven, light brown hair trimmed, hazel eyes shining.
 
He was as fastidious a 21-year-old male
as she’d ever met.
 
“Kevin, you
bought something for me from Tiffany?”

“Well, I thought this
was a special time for you and all.”
 
He spoke quickly and looked nervous, both typical for him.
 
“You know, the book’s doing really well.
 
Which of course you totally
deserve.
 
Oh, and I wanted to tell
you something, too.
 
I’ve been
writing reviews of
Devil’s Cradle
for
you on every web site I can find.
 
Five star, of course.
 
Not
that you need them.”
 
He shifted
from one foot to the other.
 
“You’re
getting really good reviews from everybody.
 
Just tons of them.
 
Of course the book is fantastic.
 
I already told you that, though.”
 
He paused and took a deep breath, as if
he were gearing himself up.
 
“Of
course, you already know what I think of you.
 
And of everything you write.
 
It’s always just …”
 
He bobbed his head a few times.
 
“I don’t know how to say it.
 
Everything you do is just always so … so
fantastic.”

“That’s really sweet,
Kevin, and thank you, but I can’t accept this.”
 
She held the box toward him but he
stepped backward and raised his hands.

“No, no, I really want
to give it to you.
 
I saved up, I
can afford it, don’t worry.
 
But
don’t open it here, though,” he added, then glanced around as if he were concerned
someone might have heard him.
 
“I’d
rather you opened it—”
 
He
looked at the floor and shuffled his feet again.
 
“—in private.”

She feared she was the
object of a schoolboy crush.
 
But
Kevin was too old to be a schoolboy and she was too preoccupied to know how to
deal with it.
 
So she caved.
 
“Well, thank you.
 
I appreciate it.
 
It’s very generous.”

His face lit up, then
he shuffled backward and returned to his seat.
 
Annie slipped the box in her carryall
and exchanged glances with her mom, who now sported a wry smile.

Kevin
Zeering
was more groupie than student, really.
 
He showed up at many of her speeches and
book signings, even the ones out of town.
 
And though he’d been taking her classes forever, he never made
progress.
 
Annie had decided he was
the literary equivalent of tone deaf.

Mercifully the minutes
ticked past and she was finally able to dismiss the class.
 
They trudged out of the bookstore
disappointed in her, she knew.
 
It
was ironic how much more excited they’d be if they knew she was a suspect.

Her mother approached
and helped her gather her papers.
 
Annie was overcome by a surge of affection that brought tears to her
eyes.
 
“Thanks for coming today,
Mom.”

Her mother rubbed her
arm.
 
“Oh, sweetie.
 
I enjoy your classes, you know that.”

It amazed Annie how many
of her classes her mother attended.
 
Either she was genuinely interested or she was just showing
support.
 
Either way, it was awfully
nice.

“It may not look like
it but I’m actually feeling better.”

“Well, that’s
good.
 
Why is that?”

Annie hesitated, then,
“It’s sort of a stupid reason but after I got home from your house last night I
saw this TV program that did a story on the murders.”

Annie told herself that
her desire to see
Crimewatch
was
motivated entirely by interest in the case.
 
She chose not to analyze why she’d
paused more than once on shots of the host.
 
“Anyway,
 
it reminded me that cases do have to be
built on solid evidence.”

Her mother looked
skeptical.

“They do, mom,
regardless how corrupt you think the system is.
 
The cops can’t pursue a person for long
on an entirely circumstantial case.”

“They do sometimes,
though,” her mother insisted.
 
“And
I bet they’re under a lot of pressure.
 
That’s what worries me.
 
They’re
trying to come up with a scapegoat and they don’t care who it is.”

“They have to have
evidence that’ll stand up in court.”
 
She raised her voice over her mother’s protest.
 
“The main reason they’re focused on me
is that I happened to be in the right place at the right time for all three
murders.
 
But that’s not much to go
on.
 
Besides, in the story I saw on
TV, I wasn’t mentioned once.”

Her mother
harrumphed.
 
“Well, they shouldn’t
mention you.
 
Unless it’s in the
context of an innocent bystander.”

“Maybe the cops have
moved on to someone else by now.”
 
Annie shoved the last of her papers into her carryall.
 
“I just wish they’d find the damn person
who’s doing this.
 
It’s so
nerve-wracking.
 
And as bad as it is
for me, it’s twice as bad for Michael.
 
I spoke with him this morning.
 
He told me he’s got a bad feeling.
 
He’s petrified.”

Her mother made
commiserating noises as they exited the bookstore.
 
Once outside, Annie turned on her cell
to check for messages.
 
She froze
midway across the parking lot, her hand clutching the tiny phone to her ear.

“Ms. Rowell, this is
Lionel Simpson with the FBI.
 
Something new has come up and we’d like to talk to you about it.
 
As soon as possible, and at your
residence.
 
We’d like your consent
for a search.”

Annie didn’t
immediately return Lionel Simpson’s call.
 
Nor did she race home.
 
She
took her sweet time and she called Michael from the road.
 
“It may be a blessing in disguise,” she
told him.

“Because they won’t
find anything, you mean.”

“There’s nothing
to
find.
 
And it may get them off my back.”

Michael was
silent.
 
Annie could picture him on
the phone, his wheelchair rolled into the sunny kitchen of his stylish Corona
del Mar home.
 
The property was a
block or two from the ocean, south of LA in Orange County, and as beautiful a
beach house as she’d ever seen.
 
“It’s very odd they’re on your back in the first place,” he said
finally.
 
“They’ve got so little to
go on.”

Simpson’s words echoed
in her mind.
 
Something new has come up
.
 
What could the FBI possibly think it had now?
 
There was nothing in her house that was
remotely incriminating.
 
There was
nothing in her house they could even trump up into so-called evidence.

“He specifically said
he wanted my consent for a search,” she reminded Michael.
 
“Meaning they don’t have a warrant.”

“They couldn’t get a
judge to give them one.
 
They don’t
have probable cause.”

She had to chuckle,
grim as the situation was.
 
Sometimes it seemed mystery writers were as well-versed on the law as
attorneys.

She sped along 101, the
northbound lanes fairly empty.
 
Southbound was another matter.
 
People were flocking into the city to play on Saturday night.
 
Dinner, movies, maybe a baseball game,
or the theater.
 
It seemed like
another world to her and not just because the present state of her bank account
rarely allowed her to indulge.
 
Because she couldn’t relax.
 
She could sit in a cinema but the likelihood she’d lose herself in a
film was slim to none.

“So distract me,
Michael.”
 
She tried to laugh but
even to her own ears her attempt sounded feeble.
 
“How’re you doing?”

He hesitated.
 
Then, “I’m all right.
 
I’ve got dinner plans later.
 
The
Bentowicz’s
.”

She recognized the
name.
 
They were neighbors.
 
The
Bentowicz
and Ellsworth children had grown up together then dispersed around the state,
though she knew that Michael’s two girls—both married with
children—visited their father often.
 
“You don’t sound too enthusiastic.”

“They’re wonderful
people.
 
We’ve known them forever.”

We’ve known them forever
.
 
The slip reminded Annie of Renee Ellsworth, who’d died a year and a half
before.
 
Cancer, that savage beast,
had taken her.
 
Even Annie, when she
was in Michael’s home, saw Renee around every corner, heard the tinkle of her
laughter in the wind chimes dancing on the Pacific breeze.
 
Maybe, Annie thought, after so many
years, if the marriage had been happy, people wanted the reminders.
 
Maybe they comforted more than they
hurt.

Poor Michael.
 
He’d had so much to deal with the last
few years.
 
Losing Renee.
 
Suffering a resurgence in his childhood
polio and being forced into a wheelchair.
 
And now a homicidal maniac targeting bestselling authors.

It put her own problems
in perspective.
 
Almost.

“It’s just,” Michael
went on, “when I’m with a couple like the
Bentowicz’s
,
it’s hard not to feel like a third wheel.
 
Or, in my case, like a third and fourth wheel.”