Dead In The Water (Rebecca Schwartz Mystery #4) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series) (9 page)

“Has Don turned up?”

“Not yet.”

Ava had called her “cool as a cucumber,” and while it wasn’t original, I had to admit that mother certainly knew daughter. Her business suit was pretty wilted after thirty hours of constant wear, she was a shadow of herself without her Rolex, and no one could confuse a steel toilet with the seat of power. But Marty was doing business as usual, cool as a whole truckload of cucumbers—cucumbers, in fact, garnishing Pimm’s cups being served around a swimming pool. She could have been planning the financial future of the aquarium. “Has an acting director been named?”

“Warren Nowell—at least he said he expected to be.”

“Damn! I could have had a shot at it.”

“Here we go again. Look, I hate to harp on this, but you’re in jail. If you were out of jail—”

“I’m going to be, Rebecca. On Monday at the latest—and frankly, I don’t really consider Warren a whole lot of competition. What did you think of him?”

Was she trying to distract me from getting on her case, or was she really this cold? Maybe I’d been wrong about her that night in San Francisco—when I thought she was in denial about the breakup of her marriage. Maybe she just didn’t have any feelings.

“He doesn’t look like much, but he was acting okay. Using his authority pretty well.”

“Oh? I find him unprepossessing. He’s well connected, though. You’ve heard of Katy Montebello?”

I shook my head.

“The former Katy Sheffield. She’s probably the aquarium’s chief individual benefactor. Companies give more, but I doubt any one person has put up more money than Katy. In fact, she’s sponsoring our new exhibit. Anyway, Katy and Warren’s mother are best friends. He went to Stanford, but other than that, he’s a pretty weak sister.”

“What’s his job?”

“Director of education. Big deal.”

“Who’s your other biggest competition?”

She tapped her chin. “I don’t think Martin would take it—the director of husbandry. Really, unless they went outside—” she shrugged “—it’s Warren or me.”

“I met someone in husbandry today—Julio Soto.”

“Oh, shit! Esperanza was supposed to come over this morning.”

“She did. Libby sent her home.”

“I forgot all about it. That’s really unlike me. I should have had you call Julio—”

“Marty, you’re in jail. Give yourself a break.”

“This is the way I am. I run like a machine.”

I could believe that.

“Tell me, what did you think of Julio?” She smiled almost girlishly.

“He seems very nice.”

“No wonder you like fish. You’re cold, Rebecca.” Her eyes were playful.

“I did happen to notice the mustache and the eyes and the shoulders.”

She laughed. “I’ll bet you did.”

We had slipped back into our old camaraderie. Weird under the circumstances, but I supposed this was Marty’s way of coping. For all I knew it was a front. Maybe as soon as I left she’d cry into her rough blanket.

I wondered if I was relaxed enough to ask her if Julio was “J.” I tried working up to it subtly. “Was he one of Sadie’s conquests?”

She laughed. “He’s too much man for her. She went in for the Ricky Flynns of the world.”

“I met Ricky Flynn, too.”

“You really get around, don’t you?”

“He came over to Julio’s—” Too late, I realized I’d said too much.

Marty narrowed her eyes. “Oh. ‘Over to Julio’s—’”

I lied like a teenager. “I took Esperanza home. Ricky dropped by. Actually, I liked him. I see what Sadie saw in him.”

“I’ll bet he’s worried about losing his job. Warren hates him. With good reason, too. Ricky taunts him.”

“About what?”

“About being a stuffed shirt.” We both laughed, just two girls in a dorm, having a gabfest.

“So what does Ricky do?”

“He’s not even permanently on the staff. Does seasonal work, actually. I mean—not seasonal. Piecework, I guess you’d call it. He’s a model-maker.”

“A model-maker?”

“Makes models for the exhibits. You want some barnacles the size of your hand, Ricky’s your man. A life-sized elephant seal? Actually, he’s doing one of those for the new exhibit. He’s a genius, but he drinks.”

“Drinks?”

“You know, like alcohol? I think that’s why Sadie dumped him. Not that he ever was a main squeeze or anything. Ricky’s not the type you take to business parties—leave it to Sadie Stoop-Low.”

The nickname reminded me that she had said Sadie was unpopular with the staff. It was funny, I hadn’t noticed. As I got up to go, Marty called me back. “Rebecca.”

“Yes?”

She stared at the floor. “I’m really embarrassed about last night.” Mustering all her effort, she met my eyes for the big confession. “About falling apart. I’m not usually like that.”

* * *

Back at the ranch, Ava had everything out of Marty’s kitchen cabinets and on the table. Methodically, she was cleaning each cabinet, a look of utter disgust on her face.

“I’ll bet these haven’t been cleaned since they moved in. I know they were cleaned then, because I cleaned them.”

“Marty and Don are busy people.”

“Nothing wrong with those two strong kids they’ve got.”

“I guess clean cabinets are more important to some people than others.”

“Marty hates dirt. Last time I was here, I thought I’d surprise her and scrub the kitchen floor, but Don made me stop in the middle—said it was an ‘inappropriate’ time to do it.”

“Mmmm.” I could smell a grievance coming on, and I thought life would be a lot simpler if I could head it off.

She jabbed at a comer with a sponge. “Three in the afternoon and he had to start cooking dinner!”

I couldn’t help it—curiosity got the best of me. “What was he making?”

“That’s not the point—the point is, he and Marty got mad at me for trying to help. And then they had the nerve to ask me to help with dinner. Can you imagine? After that? They were having thirty people over, too.”

“Gosh.” I began to back out of the room.

“And it was my birthday. They wanted me to work on my own birthday.”

Rebecca
,
do not say it
.
Do not say a word about the voluntary scrubbing of the floor in the midst of party preparations
.
Keep your lip zipped
.

I called Judge Reyes again, felt mildly guilty that I was going sailing instead of sticking around to phone every half hour, and then absolved myself by remembering that Marty was where she was because she’d chosen not to murmur a certain word starting with “J.”

And then I went on a kid-hunt. Keil was in his room sitting at a computer screen. “Hi, Keil. Hacking away?”

“Naah. Just playing a game.”

“Want to go for a sail with Julio and Esperanza?”

He spun around in his chair, eyes excited. “Yeah! I was getting really bored.”

“I’ll go find Libby.”

“Oh. She won’t want to go.”

I shrugged. “Then we’ll go without her.”

“Grandma won’t let me—unless
she
goes.”

I’d forgotten I wasn’t in charge. “Okay then,” I said. “I’ll persuade her.”

“She doesn’t persuade easy.” He sagged in his chair, looking defeated. “She never wants to do anything.”

“Get on some warm clothes—it’ll be cool on the bay.”

“Rebecca, I
live
here.” He sounded rude, know-it-all, and obnoxious. The kid was starting to like me.

I went around the house hollering Libby’s name until I heard a nasty “What!”

From the TV room. I should have guessed.

“Hi, honey. What’s on?”

No answer.

“Keil and Esperanza and I are going for a sail—want to come?”

No answer.

I stepped between Libby and the TV. “Libby, is something wrong, honey?” I could have bitten my tongue. Only everything was wrong.

I said, “I just saw your mom. She said to give you her love and tell you she’ll be home real soon.”

Actually she hadn’t, and now that I thought about it, that was another thing that was wrong.

Libby got up and started to walk out of the room. I chugged cabooselike behind her. I said, “Young lady, you answer when I talk to you!”

She turned around and stared at me in shock. But it was nothing compared to the shock I was in. I sounded like my own first grade teacher. The horrid phrase must have been curled up, dormant, in some sort of mental cocoon. In no way did it resemble a butterfly.

Libby picked up a ceramic dish from a table that also held a lamp. She threw it hard and I feinted instinctively, a bad move—better the dish had hit me than the wall, which it did.

“Now look what you’ve done!” I couldn’t believe the sound of my own voice.

“Shithead!” shouted Libby, and my ears rang as I heard her steps pound up the stairs.

She wasn’t kidding. “Shithead” about summed it up. I literally couldn’t believe the way I was behaving. Some internal trigger had betrayed me. One cross word from a kid and I turned into instant virago. I sat down, shaking, trying to figure out what to do.

Ava came in, wiping her hands on a dishcloth. “Did I hear profanity coming out of that child’s mouth?”

“I’m afraid I made her mad. I’m sorry.”

“Where does she
get
that kind of language?”

“The playground, I guess. All the kids—” But it wasn’t a serious question.

She sat down and looked me in the eye, getting intimate.

“That child is
bad
. Has been from the first day they brought her home. Some kids just come out that way. Wouldn’t even nurse, cried all the time, woke up three times every night screaming like a banshee. It was like she was born with a mission—to drive all the adults out of their minds. When she was four years old, she’d take her bath and leave her panties in the bathroom. Can you imagine that? Four years old and still leaving dirty panties on the bathroom floor! When she was a guest in someone’s house!”

“You don’t like her, do you?”

Her brown eyes snapped hatred—whether of me or of Libby, I couldn’t tell. “Like her? Whoever heard of not liking a child? She’s like her mother, she needs discipline. She needs to have some boundaries set, and know she can’t cross them. Of
course
she wouldn’t like the person who tries to set them. It’s not that I don’t like her—that’s absurd. Everybody likes children. She doesn’t like
me
, Rebecca. No matter what I do, I can’t get her to warm up to me. My own granddaughter.”

I was reeling. First from the back-and-forth stances of victim and aggressor, which I’m sure would have taxed a psychotherapist, let alone a mere houseguest. And second, from the concept of Libby’s mother needing discipline—Marty, who resembled a calculator more than a human being while waiting for bail to be set. To Marty, that was all it was—waiting for bail, getting over the next hurdle.

I had spent a night in jail once—or most of one—and you never heard such a whining and caterwauling. I like to think of myself as no more neurotic than the average, but at the time, I was worried I’d get a venereal disease from the blankets on my bunk. Being in jail brings out the terrified child in you—unless, of course, you’ve been “disciplined” out of most of your emotions.

I was willing to bet Marty had not only picked up her dirty panties, but rinsed them and mended the lace by age four. After that she’d probably earned enough washing dishes and setting tables to buy new ones in case they wore out from too much scrubbing. And still she couldn’t appease this great maw of judgment and censure.

I stood up, feeling slightly queasy. “I’d like to take the kids sailing with a friend. Do you think you could clear off a space in the kitchen so I can make a snack for us?”

I was truly shocked at the edge to my voice. I needed to get along with this woman—she had the power to throw me out of here, and for some stubborn (probably not too healthy) reason, I very much wanted to stay right now, to see the thing through, at least till Marty was released. I had the sinking feeling of wanting desperately to help, and that frightened me, seemed inappropriate; this family had been muddling through one way or another before I came along. Who was I to play rescuer? Yet I was getting caught up in the role. And I wasn’t going to be effective if I didn’t stop offending Ava.

But I needn’t have worried. The snapping eyes had lost their focus; she was tearing up. “I guess I picked another ‘inappropriate’ time.” There was fury in her voice, but it was the frustrated rage of defeat. She was handing the power over.

I simply couldn’t believe it. Instead of using that giant head of energy she’d just worked up, shed gone all victimized and soft. Or so it seemed. Why didn’t I trust it?

Deliberately I made my voice calm and lawyer-like. “Not at all. Is there tuna fish? Maybe I could make some sandwiches. We could stop and get some potato chips and Cokes.”

“Marty doesn’t let them have sugar.”

“Juice then. It
is
all right with you if they go?”

She shrugged, still mad. “I guess you’re in charge here. I usually don’t let one go without the other. And Libby shouldn’t be allowed to go until she apologizes for using filthy language.”

“But if one can’t go without the other, that would penalize Keil.”

She turned toward the kitchen, big shoulders heaving again. “That’ll just be on her conscience, won’t it?”

I went up and found Libby. “Your grandma said you couldn’t go sailing until you apologized for calling me a shithead.”

“I don’t give a shit who I called a shithead. I told you I didn’t want to go sailing, shithead.”

I laughed and hit her with a pillow. “What’d you call me?”

“SHITHEAD!!!!”

I cupped my ear and whispered, “Could you say that again, please?”

“Shithead!”

“Oh. I thought you said
cabeza de mierda
.”

“What’s that?”

“Shithead in Spanish. Esperanza taught it to me.”

She laughed, caught herself having fun, and put her hand over her mouth. “She did not! She never swears.”

“You’re right, she didn’t. But I did see her this afternoon. Her dad took me to talk to her because she’s real, real upset about something.”

“Sadie.” Libby looked down at her coverlet and found a design to trace.