High Desert Detective, A Fiona Marlowe Mystery (Fiona Marlowe Mysteries) (41 page)

“I'll have the steak and
Lebanese salad.
Just coffee.”

“No wine this evening?” I
asked Jake.

“I'm on the wagon.”

“I should be, too, but
I
so love the taste of alcohol.” I smiled happily when the
waiter set a goblet of wine before me.

“I did, too, until it got
away from me. But that's another story. What did you think of Opal?”

“I loved her immediately.
What a smile that woman has.”

“She's something, isn't
she?”

“Yes, I was impressed. We
worked all the details out for the library redo. I'll arrange for the work crew
this weekend. By the way, she said it wasn't me that did Albert in.”

Jake laughed. “She is
something else.”

“Here's a clue for you. Did
you know that Albert had a lady friend?”

“Yes. I'm working that
one.”

I was a little disappointed
that wasn't breaking news. “Okay, how about this. The hedge around the fountain
off the solarium is clipped in the shapes of hearts, clubs, diamonds, and
spades.”

Jake tucked his face into
his neck in disbelief. “What does that have to do with anything?”

“Don't you think that’s
unusual? I mean, how many houses have a hedge of card suits?”

He shrugged like he didn't
care. “I don't see a fit.”

“It might be a clue. Did
Albert’s wife play cards?”

“Don't know.”

I thought this was an important clue, but Jake apparently didn't.
I changed tactics. “Did you notice there's no security on the front door?”

“Yes, there is.”

“No. Someone turned it off
because every time I've let myself in the front door, I didn’t have to push any
buttons to disarm the security. Albert mentioned nothing to me about it when I
met with him.”

Jake rubbed his chin. “I
never go in that way.”

“Which way do you enter?”

“Through
the back entrance.”

“I wonder why I was given
the front door key.”

He shrugged. “I'll take a
look. Thanks for the tip.”

“See, I’m helpful.”

He laughed.

“Who do you think did it?”

He shrugged. “I don't know.
Opal's convinced someone gave him the overdose, that it wasn't
self-administered.”

I told him what Opal said
about Albert being very precise about his medication.

He nodded.
“Right.
Someone very precise wouldn't accidentally overdose
in normal circumstances.”

“The key words are normal
circumstances.”

“Right.”

“Did Opal say who she
suspects?”

He shook his head. “No one
specific, but she's convinced
it’s
family. Problem is
there's so many of them, and they are all over the globe.”

“What do you mean there are
so many of them? I thought there were no children. And there's only Opal, the
sister.”

“Opal and Albert had eight
brothers and sisters, and she is the only one left. But there are lots of
nieces and nephews. Mrs. Lodge's brother in South Africa is still alive and has
three children, plus the grandchildren. There's a sister in England who has a
child. I'm doing background on all the nieces and nephews.”

“But, wait, couldn't you
narrow it down to the ones who live around here? After all, they'd have to know
Albert pretty well to know about his blood pressure medication and what would
kill him and when to do it.”

“Here's the thing. They
always had relatives visiting. Mrs. Lodge loved to have people around. She was
a lot younger than Albert and had the money to entertain.”

“And Opal made her money in
ranching?”

“She married a wealthy
rancher. No children. There's money at stake and not all of the family is
wealthy. There'll be the usual money scramble now that Albert and Olivia are
both dead. The question is who gets the money.”

“What does the will say?”

“I don't know. Opal’s
meeting with the lawyer on Tuesday.”

“Opal doesn't look like a
rancher's wife somehow.”

“She is. Has a real pretty
spread in Harney Valley,
Oregon.
God's
country out there.
That's where I met her.”

Jake and Opal had God’s
country in common. There was an interesting twist.

The food arrived and I savored the tabbouleh. I considered
another glass of wine and decided not to get too wild and crazy this early in
the evening.

“Are there any relatives in
McLean?” I asked.

“There is a married niece
living in Arlington. She has one daughter. She was a frequent visitor after
Mrs. Lodge died. She looked in on Albert to make sure he was okay though Hudson
took very good care of Albert.”

“So the niece is suspect.
Is Hudson a suspect?”

“Everyone is until I
determine who had the motive.”

“I'm still on the list.”

“Pretty
far down.
Motive is weak.”

“That’s comforting.”

At that point, my cell
phone vibrated. I looked at the caller ID.
My romance writer
friend, Olympia.
I remembered we had made plans to go to a movie this
evening. I checked my watch. We had decided on the late show of the latest
Viggo Mortensen movie.
My favorite fantasy man.

I finished my wine,
arranged my knife and fork on my plate, and smiled over at Jake. “I've got to
be going. I've got a date tonight.” Of course, I wasn't going to tell him it
was with a woman friend.

“Okay,” he said. He didn’t
seem at all disappointed.

“But let me ask again. Who
do
you
think did it?”

Jake puckered up his lips
and thought. “I suspect Albert took an overdose.”

“What?”

“I don't think he was as
happy as Opal seems to think. But I got to follow all the angles first.”

“But
why?”

“Albert was still working,
granted in a Washington think tank. Don't you think a man of his wealth
would've retired by now?”

“What's that got to do with
anything? Maybe he worked because he liked to work and didn't have any hobbies.
And some people get off on power.”

“I think he was in
financial difficulty.”

Three

I had to update Olympia on
the case. She’s one of my oldest friends, and I could tell her anything. Like
Kathy the waitress, she immediately had me romantically linked to Jake
Manyhorses. Olympia was a bestselling writer of romances. Need I say more?

The coming attractions
exploded across the movie screen. We talked in whispers, which disturbed the
solitary man in front of us with the bent up baby Huey cap. He turned around
and said, “Hey, if you broads don't shut up, I'm going to beat the snot out of
you.”

Olympia leaned forward and
stuck her face in his. “Just who do you think you are, mister? It's a free
country and the movie isn't on yet. We have important business to discuss.”

“Hey, take your business
somewheres
else, lady. This is a movie house.”

He had a point.

“I never,” said Olympia and
sat back. In a whisper close to my ear she said, “If Viggo Mortensen weren't in
this movie, I'd leave now.”

I admired Olympia’s courage
and thought to say something equally daring, but the guy was mean looking.
“We'll be quiet,” I said to the back of his head. “We don't want to
miss
Viggo Mortensen.”

“Ha,” he said without
turning around. “What a fairy.”

Olympia and I exchanged
glances and watched the movie without a peep.

It was raining when we left
the theater. At the movie's end the tough guy had hustled out of the theater
before the credits were over, lucky for us. We decided to visit the coffee
house next door to the theater. It was crowded with late night theatergoers.

“Great movie wasn't it?”
said Olympia. She was dreamy-eyed. Viggo had once again lived up to
expectation.

“Too violent for my taste,
but his nude fight scene in the steam room was superb. There isn't enough male
nudity in films these days. I don't know why Viggo does such violent films. I
wish Hollywood would stop making them.”

“
Mmm
,”
said Olympia, ignoring my riff on violence. “What buns. But tell me more about
Jake. Think he'll ask you out, I mean, on a real date?”

Interesting that
Viggo's
buns led to Jake. Olympia could get romance out of
a turnip, complete with sexy hero, fainting heroine, riveting plot and happy
ending.
Turnips,
and I'm not kidding.

I lifted a shoulder. “He
bought me dinner this evening and didn't ask me to be dessert.”

Olympia guffawed. She has
this deep, ridiculous laugh that I loved and that usually got me going. I
snorted along with her.

“
What's
he look
like?”

“A mix
between Morgan Freeman, George Clooney, and Graham Greene.”

“What kind of a mix is
that?”

“Just
that.
He looks like a big mix of something, emphasis on the big. He's a
husky guy. He wouldn’t look good in a suit. They wouldn’t fit him right. He
looks like he should be out riding the range.”

I frowned.

“What?” said Olympia,
anticipating the next plot point, I’m sure.

“I bet he worked for her on
the ranch. He should be on a horse, not driving around the suburbs.”

Olympia arched her
exquisitely penciled eyebrows. “
Oooo
, the plot
thickens.”

* * * * *

Saturday morning I slept
late. About noon I started making phone calls to get the library job going. I
called a superb carpenter and painter and left a message to call. I called
Hudson about moving the furniture out of the library, taking down the drapes,
and rolling up the Persian carpets and left a message to call me back. He
probably was polishing silver and didn't hear the phone. I called Colony
Furniture Gallery on Lee Highway to make an appointment for tomorrow afternoon.
Yes, interior designers work on Sunday. Last, I called my favorite drapery
store on North Harrison. The proprietress, my good friend Judith Brooks,
employed the most divine seamstress, a Vietnamese woman who was a genius when
it came to drape design. All I had to do was give her the faintest sketch of
what I wanted and presto she'd whip up something perfect.

Judith answered. She was a
working woman after all. “Fiona? What’s up?”

“I need some drapes.”

“Come over. Kahn is coming
this afternoon, and we'll have you fixed up in no time.” Judith was a woman of
action from New York City, replete with long frizzy hair, dyed red.

Happily, the sun was
shining when I finally hit the road. I love Arlington, but a friend who lives
in Northwest D.C. won't come here. She says she gets lost if she ventures over
Key Bridge. For the same reason she won't come, I delight in living here. Small
community neighborhoods abound like Roslyn where I live -- Westover, Ballston,
Shillington,
Clarendon
-- each with little strip
shopping centers with diverse restaurants and shops from every corner of the
world. And I’m not kidding.

Judith's store was in one
of those cute strip malls off Lee Highway. She saw me pull in, waved and met me
at the door.

“Hey, you,” she said and
gave me a big hug. “I thought you were out of town.”

“No, I'm working this redo
on a library over in McLean except I found the guy dead in the library.”

Her hand flew to her wide
open mouth. “Oh,
my gosh
. I read about that in the
Washington Post. You mean that was your job? They didn't say who found him.”

“I did, believe it or not.”

Judith led me to the big
design table she had in the back room away from the yards of fabric in the
sales room. “Sit. Talk. I want to know all about it. I can't believe you found
a dead man on the job. You don't think this is a new trend in interior design,
do you?”

I filled her in and she, a
woman of some expertise, immediately said, “The butler did it. They always do
in the mysteries I read.” She’s quite a connoisseur of the genre.

“No, it has to be one of
the nephews.”

“Why not
a niece?”

“Or a
niece.”
I shrugged. “Jake the PI is running all that down.”

“Is he married?” she said.

Driving back to my condo, I
thought about Hudson. Maybe he did do it. I mean, fifty million mysteries can't
be wrong, can they? Maybe he was broke. Maybe he was ready to retire and needed
the money. He'd know Albert's medications. Surely, Albert would have provided
for the loyal butler in the will.

I pulled into my parking
space in the underground garage. I loved having a sheltered space for the
Legend. Then I didn't have to try to find a parking place in a neighborhood
that never had any. As the elevator whirred up to the top floor, I envisioned a
quiet evening finishing the oil painting I had started of the marina basin near
Alexandria in the spring. Popcorn and a beer sounded good for dinner.

The message machine blinked
and chirped at me, so I pressed the play and listened as I emptied the grocery
sack. Six pack of the latest microbrew, jar of popcorn, two cans of canned
chopped clams, celery, and carrots, two bottles of Tabasco, and a dozen eggs.

The great carpenter said to
call him back this evening, he'd be home. Shirley at Colonial Furniture Gallery
said to come tomorrow around two P.M., she could help me. Dear Shirley, she was
a hustler and liked to push what made her the best commission. I'd have to
watch her, but she knew her stuff. Last message was from Jake. “Call me” was
the message. He was talkative this evening. No message from Hudson.

I dialed Jake's cell phone.
He picked up on the first ring.