Death hits the fan (11 page)

wasn't I? I rose from my chair at the same time as Phyllis Oberman.

Phyllis got to Mr. Quadrini first, and laid a tentative hand on his shoulder. Her touch looked gentle. At least she wasn't holding any acupuncture needles.

"Perhaps, if you allowed yourself—" she began, her voice less brusque than usual.

"I'm fine!" he shouted through his tears. So much for comfort. Then more quietly, "I really am fine. I'll be all right." And his sobs did begin to wind down. Slowly and painfully.

"I understand," PMP put in helpfully. "I understand."

Phyllis removed her nontraditional hand carefully from Mr. Quadrini's traditional shoulder, straightened her magnificent body and left not only the circle of chairs but Fictional Pleasures entirely, without another word.

The whole circle seemed to deflate, as if Phyllis had taken most of the air with her upon departure.

Winona Eads stood then too, awkwardly, her strangely skewed eyes looking at Phyllis's disappearing back longingly.

The possibility of discovering what had really happened to Shayla Greenfree seemed to be dissolving, for all of Ivan's efforts. And possibly because of Yvette's. The group approach wasn't going to work. We'd have to talk to everyone separately. I looked over at Wayne and hoped he'd received my unvoiced message.

Then I jumped up and stepped out of the circle, jogging to a position near the front door to head off Winona.

"Hey there, Winona," I said just as her long legs swept her into my speed trap. "Could I talk to you?"

"Um, I guess so," she mumbled, looking down at her running shoes.

"I mean really talk," I went on. "Maybe at your home ..." I let my sentence dribble away nonthreateningly. I didn't

want to scare her off. And I could already smell an acrid hint of fear emanating from her tall body.

"Urn, I don't know," she finally murmured. "I guess so." She angled her head so she could look at me directly. For the first time, I saw the beauty in her perfectly oval face, real beauty. One eye might have been higher than the other, but they were both exquisitely large, almond-shaped, and colored an oceanlike shade of turquoise. Her freckled skin had a milky white undertone and satin texture; her lips were lush. She looked back down at her feet. Was her awkwardness a way of hiding her beauty? But why would she feel the need to hide her beauty?

She wrapped her flannel-covered arms around herself and hooked an ankle around the calf of her other leg.

"I gotta do some stuff, errands, you know," she continued, switching legs. "But I'll be at home later, I guess."

"That'd be great," I began. "How about—"

But before I could name a time, she'd bolted out the door. The cool air floating after her felt good. And I was glad that Ivan's list had included addresses as well as phone numbers. We wouldn't need an appointment to visit Winona. We could just show up.

I surveyed the rest of the group, looking for my next victim. The circle had broken up now. Wayne was with Ted in one corner. They seemed to be shaking hands. That was a good sign. Marcia was gone from sight. Vince Quadrini had calmed down now and was wiping his eyes meticulously with a perfectly pressed handkerchief. But my own eyes stopped at Zoe and Dean, who stood near the chairs, huddled together.

Zoe hit the side of her head as Dean said something I couldn't quite hear. I moved toward them stealthily.

"I wish you wouldn't do that," Dean was saying quietly.

"What?" Zoe asked, her eyes flickering as her head swiveled his way.

"Slap yourself like that," Dean answered. "There's no call to hurt yourself."

"Oh, I'm just slaphappy," Zoe answered and laughed. "Get it, slaphappyT

Dean, I thought. If anyone knew who Shayla had been, it had to be Dean. But could I press him in his current state of grief? Should I? Dean's weathered face was more serene than Zoe's. But then Zoe was on steroids, I reminded myself. Still.. .

"Oh, Zoe," Dean murmured. "Please don't be so hard on yourself."

"Dean, you're such a softie," she replied, putting her hand on his arm. "But thanks, my friend. I'll try and cut down on the obligatory self-abuse."

My mind never made itself up. My body did. I walked the last few steps to stand in front of the couple.

"Dean," I announced. "I need to talk to you about Shayla."

"Of course," he agreed, never missing a beat. He must have seen me coming. Zoe hadn't. That much was clear from her little hop and shuffle.

"Lord knows I need to talk more about Shayla," Dean told me. "How about tomorrow?"

It took me a moment to take in Dean's ready assent.

"Thanks," I finally blurted out and turned, leaving Zoe and Dean to talk in relative privacy.

Ivan was back behind his sales counter. And Yvette and Lou Cassell were there with him. Ivan's face didn't show much, but his body was pressed to the wall in the posture of a newly apprehended felon. And Yvette was shaking her little finger in his face while her husband averted his eyes.

"Shut up!" PMP screamed. "Will you shut up, you stooo-pid bird!"

Yvette turned to shake her finger at PMP.

I averted my eyes. This was no time to chortle. And if it

came to a scream-out, I wasn't sure if I'd bet on the bird or Yvette. But I forgot the two of them completely when I saw Wayne walking toward Vince Quadrini, now alone in the circle of teak chairs. Good. Someone needed to speak to the man. But whatever Wayne said, it didn't seem to be what Mr. Quadrini wanted to hear. He shook his head violently and rose from his chair. Then he strode out the door of the Fictional Pleasures bookstore without a goodbye.

Wayne looked at me and shrugged apologetically. I looked back at him across the room and suddenly my mouth felt dry. Wayne hadn't argued with me since this whole thing had begun. He hadn't sighed his martyr's sigh. He hadn't tried to order me to keep out of the action. He hadn't told me how dangerous investigating was. What was wrong with him?

An inner voice of doom provided the answers to all of my questions. And gave my dry mouth a taste of bile to go along with the information. Wayne must have thought we were in trouble if he was going along with this. Really bad trouble.

Wayne didn't say anything to refute the voice of doom on our way out of the store to the Toyota.

All he said was, "Let's go see Ted."

Once we were in the car, I turned the key in the ignition with chilled fingers. Really, really bad trouble?

"Ted agreed to talk to us," Wayne growled as I pulled out onto the street. "He'll meet us at his house."

"Right," I said, resisting the urge to salute. "He lives in San Ricardo, doesn't he?"

Wayne nodded and we rode in silence for a while.

"Wayne?" I finally asked quietly. "Do you think we're ... we're in trouble?"

"She called out your name, Kate," he answered, his voice soft, but agitated. "I'd like to be able to handle this on my own," he added, his voice growing louder. "But I know there

is no way, damn it, no way, I can stop you. There never is. I—"

He stopped suddenly, as if shocked by his own vehemence. I could imagine why. His voice was closer to a shout than I'd heard for a very long time. I wanted to tell him to yell some more, to get it out of his system, but one glance at his burning red face told me he was already ashamed of his display. Then I felt like wailing, the way Vince Quadrini had. I wasn't sure why. Maybe for all the pain and anger and hurt that Wayne kept stored inside. But I didn't do any of that.

"Right,"" I said instead, controlling my own voice, and took the on-ramp to the highway that would lead us to Ted Brown's house.

Actually, Ted Brown's house was half a duplex, a very rundown duplex, at least on his side. Ted was already parked in front, just climbing out of an ancient VW bus when we got there.

My heart hiccupped at the sight. Was he the one who'd been following us? I shook my head. Impossible. His bus was a dirty blue-gray, not red. And it certainly hadn't been repainted recently. It probably hadn't even been washed in years.

Ted Brown shot his hand out in front of him, in an abrupt pantomime of welcome. There were no flowers along the path to his door, just dirt and encroaching weeds. But I stepped up quickly, afraid his welcome might dry up as completely as the patch where his lawn must have once been. As Wayne and I hurried toward Ted's peeling front door, I wondered what the occupant of the other side of the duplex thought of Ted's yard. A ruler could have marked the line between the two halves of property, the neighbor's green and growing lawn shorn to a perfect inch and bordered by flowering shrubs.

"Wasn't expecting company," Ted mumbled morosely as

he opened his door. Smells of old cooking and old dust drifted into my nostrils. I stifled a sneeze and stepped in, adjusting my eyes to the relative darkness inside.

Ted flipped a switch, drizzling the room in a 25-watt glow. He might as well have left it off. The inside of his home was a lot like his yard, only the dirt inside was littered with paper instead of weeds. Mounds and mounds of paper. I could just make out the lone chair, table, and word processor buried underneath. The only decoration was on the mantelpiece, along with a dead spider and an accumulation of dust that threatened to incite my nose to another sneeze. The decoration was a framed photo of a former Ted, his long face and heavily lidded eyes looking cheery as he wrapped his arm around a short, plump blond woman and a brown-haired little boy.

I walked toward the photo without thinking, holding my breath to keep from inhaling the musty air.

"Can't offer you a seat," Ted told us. He jerked out a laugh. "Unless you'd like to stack up some rejected manuscripts. They oughta be good for something."

I picked up the photo from the mantelpiece and stared. The photo seemed to be the one thing in the room that wasn't dusty. I wondered how long ago it'd been taken. Ted had changed—

"My former family," he barked. My hand jumped. I replaced the photo before I dropped it. "Dead son. Ex-wife. Any more questions?"

Oh God, now I remembered what Lou had said. The son who'd died young like Lou's brother. I didn't have any more questions. And I probably couldn't have asked them anyway. My larynx was paralyzed. And not by dust, by chagrin. Why had I picked up the picture? I would have slapped my head like Zoe, if I could have moved.

"Wanted to ask about Shayla Greenfree, actually," Wayne

put in quietly, stepping my way crabwise and reaching for my hand.

I grasped it gratefully, wondering who was comforted more by the loving touch in this arid landscape.

Ted threw back his head, almost dislodging the cowboy hat he wore over his long pony tail. He jerked out another laugh and grimaced.

"Shayla, so you want to know about Shayla?" He paused, and the departing grimace left his face somber. And thoughtful. "In a word—no, make that two words—she was a ruthless bitch. I suppose I should be able to characterize her more eloquently, especially since the witch is dead—ding-dong, et cetera—but that's all that comes to mind at the moment."

"Why 'ruthless'?" Wayne prodded.

"You didn't ask why 'bitch,'" Ted commented. "Someone else must have been talking about the woman, right? Ruthless? Is it ruthless to steal someone else's idea and rewrite it from a 'woman's perspective'? Is it ruthless to promote the idea as your own?"

"The alien left on earth who uses his psychic skills to track down—" I began, my larynx working again.

"Or hers," Ted broke in. "Don't forget her psychic skills. Shayla certainly didn't. She took my idea and ran with it."

"And made a fortune," Wayne added.

Ted looked up as if surprised to be joined in his complaint.

"Ever ask her if she'd copied you?" Wayne inquired.

"Once," Ted replied, his long face split by that bitter grimace again. "She claimed she'd never read my lousy stuff. Only she didn't actually say 'lousy'. She just ever-so-politely implied it. She was a survivor, that one. Somehow, everything she touched turned to gold. Everything I touched turned to mold."

I sniffed the air. The mold wasn't just rhetorical. I took a careful breath. At least it didn't smell like skunk.

"Did you hate Shayla?" I asked. I felt Wayne's warm hand tighten around mine and realized it was cold in this room as well as dark. Hospitality by the Addams Family. There were probably headless roses in the next room.

"Huh!" Ted snorted. "'Did you hate her enough to kill her?'" he mimicked in a falsetto. "You sound just like Yvette Cassell, our nosy little leprechaun lady."

"Yvette!" I objected. Then I really felt Wayne's hand tighten. I simmered silently. How could this man compare me to Yvette?

"Who do you think killed Shayla?" Wayne asked quietly.

And as he asked, I realized Ted hadn't answered my question. Or probably Yvette's either. His derision had its uses.

"Well," he answered, rolling his eyes upward. "Yvette's nuts . .."

I opened my mouth to object, then closed it again. Why did I want to defend Yvette? Just because Ted had compared the two of us?

"And that woman who works for Ivan, Marcia something-or-other, she's mean and nasty," he went on. "But if I were writing it, I wouldn't use either of them as the murderer. Too obvious. Yvette, jealous and nutty as a health food casserole. Marcia, mean and hiding something. Now, Quadrini, though, he'd make a good murderer. The perfect elderly gentleman. Wealthy, one of the privileged few. So what's he hiding beneath his pinstriped veneer? And Dean, so sincere, so eager to please .. ."

Ted took a pen out of his pocket, picked up a sheet of paper at random, and started making notes on the back as he ripped the cast of Fictional Pleasures to pieces with his sharp tongue. Was he going to make a book out of this? If he did, I just hoped it would sell better than his earlier ones.

By the time we'd left Ted Brown's duplex, I felt raw from

the acid of his words. And my head ached from the combination of paper, dust, dirt, and mold. Did brilliance go hand in hand with cruelty? I shook my head. I knew other writers, other artists, who weren't cruel. Who were in fact, unusually kind and compassionate. But Ted had a mean mouth on him, that was for sure. And he hadn't included himself in his scathing appraisal of the suspects. Though he'd certainly included me. And Wayne. He hadn't given us any really useful information either, for that matter. At least as far as I could tell. I was still sorting out the fact from the vitriol as we got in the Toyota and drove away.

I was on the highway, halfway back to Tarn Valley, before I could even talk again. Somehow the drive away from Ted's duplex had felt more like an escape. I could smell the scent of his dark house on my clothing.

"Do you think that's what a visit with Oscar Wilde would have been like?" I asked Wayne. "Or Dorothy Parker?"

"No," Wayne concluded after a couple more miles. "There's a difference between true wit and plain vicious-ness."