Murder in the Marketplace (8 page)

The sound of Amy’s humming came faintly from the bedroom, and he swiveled in his chair to look at the Hide-a-bed occupying major space in the living room.

“So your niece is staying for a while.”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s nice for you.” He raised his eyebrows. “Isn’t it?” My turn for diplomatic silence. Barker gave up untying my shoes and went to sniff at the Hide-a-bed. It was just too high for him to crawl up into. He began to trot around the living room, sniffing and whining.

“Clarice is going to call my number to let you know what she decides about the puppy,” Drake said, watching Barker. “Guess it’ll go to the Humane Society.”

Barker wasn’t listening to this callous disposal of his future. He was too involved in puddling on the floor right in front of the door. I grabbed him and rushed him outside, and Drake followed.

“Great,” I muttered. “Wonderful beginning to house-training.”

“Let’s see.” Drake thumbed through his papers. “You met them both this morning. This evening you were there when Jenifer was found dead. Anything else I need to know about?”

I shook my head. “I told you I saw Jenifer before I came home at lunchtime, didn’t I?”

“Not you didn’t.” Drake sat down on the rickety bench I keep by my front door so I can look at the roses. I finished wiping up the puddle and sat on the step to talk, watching Barker sniff his way around the tiny lawn. In the dark, his black and white spots blended in, making him a moving shadow.

I knew what Drake wanted—not just the actions, or even the words, but all the sounds and smells and impressions I’d gotten while talking to Jenifer and her neighbors that day. I obliged as fully as I could.

“You thought there was someone with her,” he said when I was done.

“A person, or the radio, or some TV show she couldn’t bear to miss.” I snapped my fingers, and Barker came back from the driveway. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

“And when you were upstairs, you heard footsteps going away. Could they have been from her apartment?”

“Look, Drake, they might have been. I just couldn’t swear to any of this.”

“I know.” He was silent a moment. “I also know you observe very well. We’re left with some unanswered questions for a suicide.” He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. They looked naked and defenseless without those light-catching lenses blocking them. “She had a brother—that seems to be the only family. He lives in the city somewhere—Clarice gave me his phone number, which was all she had. She said that he would be totally broken up. But he’s not home. She offered to notify him about his sister’s death—that takes guts.”

“She looked as if she could be capable,” I murmured, remembering the Mace. My eyes still smarted.

Drake is not my boyfriend, although certain of our mutual friends would like him to be. I’ve been man-shy for a while, and he’s still getting over a previous relationship. We’re friends; at times I’ve thought that our friendship might grow warmer. But I admit that something about the way he spoke of Clarice Jensen gave me a pang of heartburn. I can’t compete for a man; I have no womanly little wiles. And like Amy, I’m still feeling that sex is gross.

“So you don’t see her as a suspect.”

He put his glasses back on. “There are no suspects in a suicide. And if it’s not, then everyone’s a suspect.”

“Including me?”

“You’re a witness. That’s different.” He shook his finger at me. “Just don’t go sleuthing around. Even though it’s suicide, people have things to hide. It’s up to the police to uncover them, not a nosy civilian.”

“The Census Bureau is paying me to be nosy.” I picked up Barker and got to my feet. “My interest, like yours, is purely professional.”

Drake put his hand on my shoulder, looking directly at me. “Be careful, Liz. Women shouldn’t be going house to house, especially in the evenings. Bad things can happen.”

“I’m just going to finish my register before I quit. People are too rude to census takers. Some jobs just don’t pay enough for the aggravation.”

“Why don’t you find some nice office job?”

“Why don’t you?” The words were out before I could withdraw them. “Looking into violent deaths isn’t the safest thing in the world, you know.”

“I know.” He got up, rumpling his already wild hair. “That’s what I'm telling you, Liz. Type mailing labels. Write a story. Plant some lettuce. But stay out of this investigation.”

Chapter 8

Amy's friends arrived before she was up in the morning. I had taken Barker out, just as I had in the night when he woke me up whining at my bedside. I had fed him, walked him briefly in the yard, and been at my desk for half an hour, hoping Amy would wake and take herself off so I could stop feeling like an interloper in my own living room.

She slept as innocents do, tucked primly into bed. I had looked twice to make sure it was the same girl. Her skin, washed clean of the white and black makeup, was incredibly fresh and dewy. Even the few blemishes couldn’t really mar it. Covering that complexion with thick makeup should have been a crime.

The knock on the door accomplished what all my keyboarding and throat-clearing couldn’t. Amy sprang out of the Hide-a-bed, shrieked, “Ohmigod, they’re here already!” and rushed into the bathroom.

I opened the door, with Barker, living up to his name, around my ankles. Eric and Randy were big, strapping fellows, I guessed around eighteen, one carrying a bulging bag of bagels, both smiling sunnily at me. “Good morning,” they chorused.

Elise and Kimberly, behind them, had already put their faces on for the outing—exaggerated eye makeup, with lots of red on the lids so they looked like they hadn’t slept in weeks. Elise’s hair was dead black, but at least she’d left the white off her face. Kimberly’s hair was an improbable cerise.

Amy emerged from the bathroom, wearing torn cutoffs and a skimpy T-shirt. Eric’s and Randy’s eyes lingered for one awed moment on the amount of bosom exposed, before politely retreating.. I didn’t blame them. She, too, had left off the dead white in favor of the sunblock she applied with a lavish hand. The bright feathers of her hair were spikily arranged.

She greeted her friends graciously. I had put a bowl of oranges on the table—there was an orange tree in Drake’s backyard from which I could help myself. These were the last of the season’s fruit, pithy and not too great, but the kids wolfed them down, along with the bagels and cream cheese they’d brought. I would have to get groceries. No, I thought,
we
would have to get groceries. If Amy was going to eat it, she was going to see it paid for.

The noise they made was considerable, and yet they weren’t talking especially loudly. In fact, I got the idea they were trying to be subdued, although not succeeding.

“Amy told us your neighbor in front is a cop,” Eric explained after shushing a burst of laughter from Elise. “We don’t want to get you in trouble or anything.”

“That’s thoughtful.” I peeled an orange myself. The young people looked very comfortable, eating and drinking around the table, but I wanted them to leave. I needed to get some of my own work done before heading off to SoftWrite for the morning. If Clarice’s account of last night’s trouble hadn’t made them decide they didn’t want me.

So I cleared my throat once more. “Where are you all going today?”

Eric was polite enough not to acknowledge this hint. "We’re just going over to Davenport,” he said, managing to chew and talk at the same time. “The waves aren’t so great this time of year anyway, so we’re just going to check it out, really.”

Randy nodded. “Brought the boogie boards along for the girls,” he said indulgently.

Elise smacked him on the arm. “I can surf as well as you,” she declared. She was the bossy one, despite her small size—she must have weighed less than a hundred pounds, and was shorter than I was, which is saying something. Beside her, Amy looked statuesque. It would have bothered me when I was her age. She seemed serene, however.

“I don’t know anything about it,” Amy announced. “Is the water nice?”

The others rolled their eyes at each other. “Yeah, nice for penguins,” Randy said. “It’s freezing. I brought my old wet suit—might be a little big for you, but better than nothing.”

“Wet suit.” That dampened Amy’s enthusiasm.

In response to some signal—perhaps that the bagels were gone—they all got up. In a few minutes the clutter of breakfast was swept into the trash—including the orange peels that I meant to compost—and they were crowding out the door.

Barker thought that he, too, was invited. Eric picked him up. “Great puppy,” he crooned, letting Barker wash his face. “Wanna go to the beach, puppy?”

"I’ve got my dog in the van,” Randy said, looking at me. “And water bowls and stuff.”

“Can he come?” Amy took Barker from Eric, nestling him into her cleavage. Once more that awed expression appeared on Eric’s face.

“Sure, take him if you want. Here’s his leash.” I handed it to Amy, who tucked it under one arm and Barker under the other.

I stood on the front step to watch them leave. Eric’s van was a nondescript Ford. He ran a reverent hand over my old bus.

“Free wheels,” he shouted, before remembering that he was trying to be quiet.

Amy looked proud. “My aunt fixes it herself,” I heard her say before the door slammed.

The van backed slowly out of the driveway and took off. I hoped that Eric was as careful a driver as he seemed. I hoped they didn’t drink a lot of beer and lose it on one of the curves along Highway 84 or Highway 9 or Highway 17, all of which are notorious.

It wasn’t yet eight o’clock. The cool morning air was laden with intoxicating scents—roses, moist earth, the pleasing sharpness of redwood foliage. I left the front door open to enjoy it while I settled to my work. I had barely gotten into rewriting the lead of my
Organic Gardening
story when Drake ran up the steps.

“You’re so popular these days.” He tossed a yellow envelope at me. “If you’re going to get more of these things, do you think they could be delivered to your front door at the crack of dawn, instead of mine?”

"Touchy, touchy.” I opened the telegram—I didn’t know they even existed anymore. It was from Renee and Andy, of course. I should have expected it. AMY STILL MINOR YOU ARE DETAINING HER AGAINST OUR WISHES STOP CALL IMMEDIATELY STOP. I handed it to Drake.

He shook his head as he read it. “You just get into more trouble.” He handed it back to me. “I’m not a lawyer, but I’d call them if I were you. Maybe they’ll send money to get her to leave.”

“She won’t go back, probably.” I was filled with foreboding and frustration. “She’ll run away somewhere we don’t know about, and they’ll blame me for it.”

“That’s about the size of it,” he agreed. “If you call before eight, it’s still night rates. And then you can pick up the message that came in this morning while I was showering. Your temp agency wants you.”

I made a face. Mrs. Rainey must have some horrible job that no one else would do, like the place I’d been to last time, where the boss had pinched me not ten minutes after I got there. My response to that had not been too harsh, in my opinion, but it had earned me a scolding from Mrs. Rainey, who felt that no matter what the provocation, a knee to the groin was overreaction.

I saved the few feeble sentences I’d managed to write and followed him across the yard to his back door. Luckily Information in Denver had my brother’s number, because I didn’t. Even luckier, I got their answering machine.

“Listen, Andy,” I told the machine. “I didn’t ask your daughter to land herself on me. If you want her back, I suggest you come and get her. Or send a nonrefundable plane ticket.” I hesitated a moment. “It might be better, though, if you let her try her wings a little. Have you and Renee gotten any counseling? Do you have any guarantee this won’t happen again? I’m not your problem, whatever it is. Fix it before you look for a scapegoat. I don’t play that role anymore.”

I was getting angry just thinking about it, so I hung up. I didn’t leave Drake’s number for them to get in touch with me. Something told me he wouldn’t like that.

He came back into the kitchen, knotting a tie, an indication of hassles to come in his office that day. Usually he gets away with pretty slobby apparel on the job.

“You should get your message.” He nodded at the answering machine. “Maybe she’s got a client asking for a jeans-wearing, groin-kneeing, tea-drinking, stray-adopting technophobe.”

“Those jobs are a dime a dozen.” I rewound the tape and listened without enthusiasm to Mrs. Rainey’s perky voice. Drake held up the teakettle, his eyebrows raised in a question, and I nodded. I would call Mrs. Rainey after my cup of tea.

“How is your investigation going?” I perched on a kitchen chair while he manipulated his espresso machine.

He yawned. “I went back to the office after I talked to you—we were up late with the paperwork and trying to get in touch with the brother. Parents are dead, evidently. Poor kid seems to have been pretty alone in the world.”

He showed me a tea bag, and I nodded acceptance—Melrose’s Queen’s Tea. I would suspect him of sarcasm for keeping that around for me, if I wasn’t grateful to be spared Lipton.

“So the brother wasn’t home last night?”

“Not in his apartment, anyway.” Drake looked stem. “Remember what I said, Liz. You keep out of it.”

“I don’t exactly find it flattering for you to treat me as if I’m butting into your case like Miss Marple,” I pointed out. “I’m younger and more beautiful, for one thing.”

He had to smile, but fought it back. “I just don’t want to see a pattern developing here.” The phone rang, and he gulped his espresso, glancing at his watch. “There’s Bruno, wondering why I’m not at the office.”

It wasn’t Bruno Morales, Drake’s partner in homicide investigations when Palo Alto has one, which isn’t often. The phone call was for me. Drake handed me the receiver and carried his cup over to the sink, noticeably eavesdropping.

“Hello, Liz?” It was a woman’s voice, slightly accented. "This is Angel Lopez, from SoftWrite. I spoke with you yesterday.”

“Yes, Mrs. Lopez.”

“Angel. You were coming in this morning to do some data entry, right?"