Death by Surprise (Carolyn Hart Classics) (10 page)

There weren’t many pictures of Sheila, of course. But there was one that suddenly caught my eye. I had never seen it before. That was odd. Had Amanda had the picture and not hung it until years later when I no longer came to her room? Or had it hung there all these years and I had not seen it? Refused, perhaps, to see it. I felt cold and sick. I remembered so well when that picture was made. It was just a few days before Sheila died.

The picture showed Sheila sitting on the boat dock at the lakeside house. She was holding a crayon and pointing at the heavy white plaster cast on her leg. The leg that Kenneth and I had broken, in Grace’s view. I don’t know who took the picture. Whoever it was had stood too far away to get a crisp clear picture. It was fuzzy, a little out of focus, but you could see the squiggly markings on the cast. Everyone had signed it. Everyone but me. Sheila hadn’t asked me.

It was frightful all these long years later to stand in Amanda’s room and remember those two children, so twisted by hatred.

I had never admitted that before, but it was hatred that dominated our lives.

I wondered now, looking back at it, why this had been so.

Sheila hated me.

Why?

She was the golden child, the one my mother treasured. The rest of us paled in comparison. I never thought my brothers realized how little they and I actually mattered to Grace.

Sheila knew.

The picture was warped with age and it was black and white so it didn’t show how Sheila’s golden hair had glistened in the sunlight or the dark blue depths of her eyes—or the malice that peeked out of them at me.

The sudden touch of Amanda’s hand on my arm made me jump.

“That picture,” I pointed at it, “that picture, where did it come from?”

Amanda peered at it. “I’ll take it down, Miss K.C., if it upsets you, but I thought it would be all right, after all these years. She was a sad child.”

I looked at Amanda in surprise. Sheila a sad child? Surely Amanda didn’t mean that. Or perhaps it was only the pity of age for youth that never bloomed.

“Where did the picture come from?” I asked stiffly.

Amanda looked away, wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I found it,” she said, her voice oddly defensive, “when . . . when I was going through some old boxes in the attic.”

I started to ask what had prompted her to sort through the past but then I held back. She was old and her heart ached and perhaps it cheered her to remember days when she could work without stopping and the house buzzed with noise and activity, my brothers in and out, Sheila and I and, later, Kenneth and Priscilla, racing up and down the stairs—so long as Grace wasn’t near.

“I believe I will go to bed now. Miss K.C.,” Amanda said heavily, “it’s time you went back downstairs.”

“They won’t miss me.” I helped her up into the bed and leaned over to plump the pillows behind her head.

“Now, Miss K.C.,” and her voice was sharp, “you go right back downstairs. They do need you. You can think better than any of them.” She paused and sighed. “I knew your momma was upset but I didn’t know . . . I had no idea what had happened. This Miss Boutelle, is she trying to hurt the family?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know how much malice is involved. I’d say it’s just the way she makes a better than average living. On the surface, she’s an investigative reporter, but she’s willing to sell back whatever really hot information she discovers. It’s a nifty kind of blackmail.”

“Blackmail . . .” Amanda moved restlessly and one hand plucked at the ribbon on her nightgown.

I realized suddenly and damn late that this wasn’t the kind of thing I should be talking about. Here was Amanda, having an angina attack, and the best I could do was meander on about the Carlisles and their problems, most of which, to be brutally honest, they had created for themselves.

“Don’t worry about it, Mandy,” I said briskly. “It’s not a life or death thing.”

“Your momma, she’s scared to death. Oh dear Lord. It’s awful . . . so awful . . .”

“Hush now.” I gently touched her lips. “You don’t need to worry. We’ll manage.” I shrugged. “If she prints it, it won’t be the end of the world.”

“Miss K.C., Miss K.C.—” Amanda struggled to sit up. “I must tell you . . .” Then she sagged back against the pillows, a hand clutching at her chest, and gave a low moan.

I was scared. “Mandy, be quiet now, be quiet. You are making yourself sick again. Look, this is too much. I’m going to call Rudolph. He will come.”

She lay back on her pillow, breathing hard. I called Rudolph and found him at home. When I told Mandy he was on his way, she nodded and rested with her eyes closed. I sat beside her bed, holding her hand, terrified that she was seriously ill, that she was going to die.

Megan knocked on the door, then came in and asked softly how Amanda felt. I told her I had called Rudolph and he was coming.

“That’s good,” Megan whispered. “K.C., they want you downstairs.” She was frowning, her eyes troubled. “I don’t understand what’s happening. Kenneth didn’t . . . tell me about this woman. He is refusing to have any contact with her and the rest of the family wants you to handle it.”

Amanda opened her eyes. “You go on down, Miss K.C. I’ll be fine.”

I didn’t want to leave her. She was all that remained of the best in my life. Dad was gone. I didn’t want to leave her, looking so small and ill on the big bed. “I want to stay and hear what Rudolph says.”

“I’ll stay with her,” Megan offered.

“You go down now.” Amanda spoke so wearily, as if she were a long way away. It was a sound I had never heard in her voice before. Was she frightened? Did she think she was going to die? Amanda was brave. I knew that. She had lived bravely. She wouldn’t despair at the end. I hesitated. Her dark eyes held mine for a long moment, then she nodded at me. I understood her unspoken command.

“I’ll come back in a little while,” I said.

I went downstairs because Amanda expected it of me.

They were going at it hot and heavy when I came in. Everyone, of course, had a different idea as to what should be done. I quelled them finally, but I didn’t tell them what I really intended to do. I was going to handle Francine Boutelle, but I was going to do it my way—and not in a way I intended to publicize.

“Give me until Thursday morning,” I insisted. “Put her off when she calls you, make some excuse, but don’t set up any appointments until the end of the week.”

If they had followed my advice, a great deal of trouble would have been avoided.

Edmond was skeptical from the start. “It will be ineffective to talk to that woman. The only solution is to buy the magazine.”

I shrugged. “Start buying if you want to, Edmond, but keep your mouth shut about it. If Boutelle found out, she would just laugh and offer the article somewhere else.”

Everyone agreed finally, at least on the surface, to let me handle Francine until Thursday. After that, it was anyone’s game.

I had intended to settle it quickly but it was almost an hour before I could disengage and hurry back upstairs. Amanda’s door was closed and Megan sat on a chair in the hall.

“How is she?”

“Sleeping. Rudolph came. He gave her a sleeping pill. He said she was doing all right and didn’t need to go to the hospital but he’s called a nurse to come for the night. I’m waiting for her.”

“Does Rudolph think she is going to be okay?”

Megan nodded. “Don’t worry, K.C. She just worked too hard tonight. And she seems upset about something but she didn’t want to talk. Rudolph said she was very tired and needed to rest.”

I nodded and thanked Megan and asked her to tell the night nurse I would talk to Amanda tomorrow. I left Megan at Mandy’s door. I didn’t go in to see her. I didn’t want to disturb her. I thought, of course, that I would see her in the morning.

I woke John Solomon up on Tuesday morning. A nippy wind scudded paper cups and soiled newspapers down the alley. It was eight o’clock but the sun hung behind thin grey clouds. John’s face sagged in folds like a dewlapped frog. He grimaced.

“The office opens at nine.”

“So does mine. John, I need more help.”

He gave an elephantine sigh. “The coffee’s made. Come on in.”

He shuffled ahead of me, pointing me vaguely toward his office while he disappeared down a short hall to the right. In a moment, he returned with a tray and two mugs with wreaths of steam curling over the coffee.

“Thanks, John.”

He slumped into his chair, loaded his coffee with four packets of sugar and took a deep drink.

“K.C.,” he observed mildly, “you are becoming a pain in the ass.”

“I’ll pay you enough that you can take your daughter to Lake Tahoe.”

“I’d just lose money in the casino.”

“How about Disneyland?”

“She’s seventeen.”

“Invite her boyfriend to go, too. They’ll love you, Pops.”

He managed a sour smile. “What do you need now?”

I told him.

He thought for a long time. “I don’t want to lose my license,” he said finally.

“John, that’s not a problem. Just get me the equipment, that’s all I ask.”

“But the key?”

“It could be a key to anything.”

“Breaking and entering.”

“Breaking and entering what?” I replied quickly. “Don’t ask me any questions. All you know is that you supplied me with some electronic gear—I could be planning on taping my niece’s birthday.”

“I didn’t know you had a niece?”

“I don’t.”

“Hmm.” He finished his coffee and tugged at the whitish stubble on his chin. “Hell, I haven’t even shaved.”

“That’s all right. It’s manly.”

“Shut up.” He took off his glasses, rubbed at his eyes then peered at me. “It will be expensive.”

But he knew that didn’t matter and, finally, he agreed.

“By noon,” I stressed.

“All right, if I can manage it.”

“You will.”

The day, as usual, sped. Does any lawyer ever catch up? And, if I didn’t bill some of my time pretty soon, my cash flow was going to be non-existent. There always seemed to be more important things to do than to bill.

I did try twice to call Amanda. Jason’s wife, Ophelia, answered each time. “She’s sleeping. Miss K.C.,” and “I knocked, Miss K.C., but she tol’ me to go on, she’s restin’.”

I decided that I would drop by the house in the afternoon. I needed to be sure that some additions were going to be made to the staff so that Amanda would have some permanent easing of her burden.

It was one-fifteen by the time I shook free from the office and went to John Solomon’s. He had everything ready for me. It was expensive, but clever and worth every penny.

“It will fit a dozen places,” John explained. “As for the other request you made, I can’t provide anyone with means of opening locked doors. But, I suppose if someone happened to find a key on a floor somewhere and it just happened to be useful later . . .” He took a key off his desk, polished it quite carefully with his handkerchief and dropped it on the floor near my shoe. I bent down and picked it up and slipped it into the pocket of my blazer.

Once in my car, I took a small plastic recorder out of its soft bag and very carefully polished it, too. I had already put on a pair of leather gloves.

A block from Boutelle’s apartment, I stopped at a drug store and used a phone in a back booth. Had she answered, I would have asked in a heavily accented voice if Quang Ngo lived there. It was one of the advantages of living in a community with a fair number of Vietnamese refugees.

There wasn’t any answer.

I walked slowly back to the car, not eager now. It was easy to plan something like this, but the doing was another matter.

I parked around the corner from the apartment complex. I was wearing an all-weather coat, a dark brown scarf, sun glasses, and gloves.

I could be any woman between the ages of twenty and forty.

I walked briskly around the corner and into the first courtyard entrance. The apartments were built in a square with passageways at each corner leading into a central patio. Each apartment had its own interior entrance. I walked slowly on a flagstone path across the patio. It was chilly and dreary. Leaves fluttered into the empty swimming pool.

I saw no one.

I walked up to 14-D, took the key out of my pocket, opened the door and stepped inside. I closed the door behind me very, very gently and listened.

A clock ticked.

I stood in a tiny vinyl-floored foyer and looked up a narrow stairway. Then I looked to my left into the shadowy reaches of the living room.

It was dark and quiet, only the ticking of the clock breaking the silence.

I wanted frantically to hurry, to get my job done and get out, but I forced myself to wait and to listen.

The clock ticked.

Someone, of course, could be asleep in the upstairs bedroom but should anyone stir I should hear in time to get away.

Slowly, one step at a time, I moved into the living room. Then, with more confidence, I stepped into the kitchen. I unlocked the back door then hurried back to the living room. Now was the time to move quickly, to be done.

I looked quickly around the room and studied the possible hiding sites. Beneath the wide arm of a maple easy chair. In the corner behind the love seat. Behind the thick rough trunk of the rubber tree plant.