Shamus In The Green Room (29 page)

She bent her head over her coffee, drinking in the steam.

“Waiting for me to find the picture,” I went on.

“You certainly took your time.” Diana sat back down and

draped the red blanket over her legs. She was wearing a thin

housedress under the flannel shirt and beige lace-up shoes with

no socks. No wonder she was cold. It was clear but windy. The

newspapers were starting to blow around.

“Look at this mess!” she suddenly cried. “For god’s sake!

I can’t keep up with it anymore.”

I took the picture out of my purse and handed it to her.

“Where did it come from?”

She didn’t touch the picture. She didn’t even want to look

at it. She cocked her head at me instead. “Are you sure you’re

asking the right question, Cece?”

“What is the right question?”

“Have some coffee before it gets cold.” I took a sip. It was

thick and strong. “What’s the right question, Diana?”

“Do you know who that man is, in the picture? That’s not

the question, by the way. I’m just wondering.”

“Owen Madden,” I said.

“Owen Madden lived next door to me for fifteen years. Then

his sister moved in, lived there for more than twenty. Phoebe

Madden. But those are just names to you. You never knew these

people.”

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“No.”

“Let me tell you something about Owen Madden. He was a

good man, a good father, a good brother. He wasn’t the person

you see in this picture.” She started to shake her head. “Can

you imagine what it would be like if somebody showed you a

picture of yourself that coincided not one whit with the person

you knew you were? Can’t imagine it myself. At least you’d

know it was a lie. But what if that person showed the picture to

someone you loved? Would she know it was a lie? Or would it

change how she felt about you forever?”

“Is that the question?” I asked.

“Owen was scared,” she answered. “Phoebe told me that. Just

before he died. Phoebe couldn’t imagine what could scare a good

man like her brother so much. His daughter was safe, happy,

he’d seen to that. So what on god’s earth could shake him

enough to make him throw himself off a cliff? Once I saw this

picture, I understood.”

I thought I did, too. But I had to be sure. “You say he was a

good man. But good men can make mistakes. He was lonely.

His wife was dead.”

“You’re way off track, my dear. He didn’t care for this girl.

He wasn’t a predator. No, it wasn’t anything like that.”

“How can you know that?”

“Cece. Just look at her face.”

“You can’t know what she’s thinking.”

“Can’t I?”

“All I see here are two people in bed,” I said, “one of whom

is underage. Maybe Owen threw himself off a cliff because he

didn’t want to go to jail.”

“I didn’t know the girl,” Diana said, sighing. “I didn’t pay

much attention to her. Probably should have. I heard talk she

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was trouble. But talk is usually just talk.” She didn’t believe

that for a second, and neither did I.

“What did you hear exactly?” I asked.

“Nothing much.”

“Diana, please.”

She looked down. “Another friend of mine, her husband

sold insurance. Nice people. This girl baby-sat for them, too.

But the husband caught her strung out on drugs while the kids

were still up. At least that’s what he told his wife when he fired

the girl. Does she look like an addict to you, Cece?”

She looked like she was in the pink of health.

“I think she might’ve worked for other families, too. For a

short while, at least. Until the husbands put a stop to it.”

There were more pictures. That’s what she was telling me.

More men.

“Did May go away because she found this?” I held up the

picture again.

“I don’t know why she went away. But she left it behind.

She wanted me to see it, the way I wanted you to see it. I’m an

old woman, Cece. There’s not much I can do about this now.

Not from here.”

“You underestimate yourself, Diana.”

“That I do not. But maybe you’re speaking from experience.”

“Just what is it you expect me to do?” I asked.

“Whatever you’ve been doing. Whatever it is that brought

you here.”

My coffee was cold, but I finished it anyway. Diana held

out her arms to give me a hug good-bye. As I hugged her back,

she whispered, “Who took the picture? That’s the question,

Cece.”

CHAPTER

THIRTY-FIVE

Even if she’d been expecting me, I don’t think Lisa Lapelt

would’ve baked a cake. More likely, hired armed guards.

But I knew better than to give her any warning.

She was halfway down her driveway when I squealed to a

stop, perpendicular to her minivan. Good tires, I thought, for

a rental. I cut the engine and walked around to her driver’s-

side window. It was tinted, but Lisa knew exactly who’d come

calling.

The window went down. “Morning,” she said, attempting a

smile. “I’ve got to get my kids to school.”

“You look tired,” I said.

She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. “Is there a problem?”

“I’d say so.” I waved to the kids in the backseat. A boy and

a girl. They waved back. “We need to talk.”

“We’re done talking.” The window started to go up.

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I held up the Polaroid of Maren and Owen Madden in bed.

“I don’t think so.”

The window stopped midway, then reversed course. Lisa

Lapelt was wide awake now.

“Where did you get that photograph?” she asked.

“That’s not important.”

“I have a meeting at the school at nine.”

“You should cancel it.”

The kids were bickering. She spun around to quiet them,

then turned back to me.

“I’ll meet you back here in half an hour.”

“Nope,” I said. “I’ll follow you to the school and we’ll go

from there.”

“I don’t want you anywhere near my children’s school,” she

said, her chin trembling.

“I’m not a threat to your children.”

“Yes, you are.” Tears started to appear. “I won’t let you fuck

around with my kids.”

“Look, I’m sorry to show up like this, but you haven’t been

honest with me.”

“Oh, you’re a fine one to talk about honesty.”

“This has gone far enough, hasn’t it?”

“I hate you!” yelled Lisa’s daughter.

“I hate you more!” her brother yelled back.

“Topsail Elementary, on the corner of Randall and Matil-

ija,” she said, drying her eyes on her sleeve.

“Thank you.”

“Shut up already,” she said. “Shut the hell up!”

I hoped she was talking to me.

The school was about a ten-minute drive away. I stuck to

Lisa’s rear bumper like glue, which was a good plan in principle,

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except that it required running a red light, which I would’ve

gotten away with if not for that pesky surveillance camera. I could

see myself in the picture already. I don’t take a good picture.

The hair tends to dominate. There’d be bags under my eyes.

My apricot-colored mohair coat would look like shit. I’d

protest, of course: those red-light cameras are housed in bullet-

resistant cabinets, which means the people installing them

clearly expect them to be shot at, and isn’t it irresponsible to

place unnecessary equipment in a populated area when you ex-

pect it to attract gunfire? Not that that was going to fly.

Drop-off at Topsail Elementary was a labyrinthine process.

Lisa pulled the minivan into a driveway behind a long line of

other minivans, SUVs, and at least one Hummer. I did the

same, though I stuck out like a sore thumb. We inched for-

ward, following the directions of a man wielding a walkie-

talkie, through the parking lot, then out onto the street, where

another person, a woman, also wielding a walkie-talkie, di-

rected us to turn right and into a second driveway, this one lo-

cated in front of the school, where cheerful teachers were in

the process of helping cheerful children out of their cars and

bidding them good day.

When she arrived at the designated spot, the side panel of

Lisa’s minivan slid open and her comparatively uncheerful

children emerged, dragging backpacks bigger than they were.

Once Lisa’s door slid closed and her children were safely inside,

a teacher in a Garfield T-shirt I swear I used to own started to

approach my back door, but I put down the window, muttered,

“Private security,” and sped off behind my quarry.

She pulled out onto Torrance Boulevard. Within seconds,

she’d cut off a pickup with screen doors poking out of the rear

to get over to the far lane. Was she was trying to lose me? I cut

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off the truck, too, which I felt bad about, but I needed to stay

behind her. Two blocks later, she signaled left and pulled into

a car wash.

She had to be kidding.

I stomped out of the car, furious. “What are we doing here,

Lisa?”

“Getting our cars washed. I want you to do a really good

job on the interior,” she said to the attendant who was writing

up the ticket. “My daughter threw up in the backseat a couple

of days ago.”

“Carpets? Upholstery? Scented shampoo? That’ll run you

an extra forty-five. And it takes a good twenty minutes.”

“No problem,” Lisa said, smiling. In her grungy sweats, her

teeth unbrushed, she’d made a fool of me. Her diamond ring

sparkled triumphantly. But seeing her like that, I thought of

something.

Maybe the girl in the photograph wasn’t Maren.

Maybe it was her.

“How about you, ma’am?” the guy said to me, his pen

poised over the next ticket. “Carpets, upholstery, scented

shampoo, too?”

Like I was going to shell out a penny on a rental. “No,

thank you.”

“Just the regular?”

“No, nothing.”

“Then what are you in line for?” he asked.

I gave a sigh, then went to move my car, keeping my eye on

Lisa, who’d meandered over to the waiting area, where she

peeled off her sweatshirt, revealing her hourglass tattoo and

figure. The pink of health. The guys with the rags were staring

openly at her. She knew it, and she liked it.

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“You think you’re so smart,” she said to me as I took the seat

next to hers, “but you’re not smart at all. Smart people don’t

think they have all the answers. They don’t expect to be able to

tie things up in neat little packages. Life is messy, Cece. You try

to clean it up, but it just gets messy again.”

“Spare me the banalities, Lisa. I want to know about Owen

Madden. What did he mean to you?”

“Maren baby-sat for his daughter, May.”

“And?”

“And nothing.” She pursed her lips determinedly.

“And nothing?” I asked, holding up the picture. “Who do

you think you’re kidding? This isn’t the only one of these, is it?

There are more of these photographs, aren’t there? More pho-

tographs, with different men.”

She looked down at her lap. She was thinking about how to

spin it, but there wasn’t any way to spin it. It was what it was.

“Say something,” I demanded.

She put on her sunglasses. “Rafe is a really perceptive per-

son. Nobody ever gives him credit for that, but he can read

people. It’s kind of scary. Like you, for instance. Do you want

to know what he thinks about you, Cece?”

“I couldn’t care less what Rafe Simic thinks of me.”

“He thinks you’re arrogant. And vain.” She took in my

apricot mohair coat, which must’ve looked puce through her

blue-tinted lenses. “And I have to say I agree.”

“Want to hear what I think of you?” I asked, not waiting

for an answer. “I think you’re a person who made some terrible

mistakes when she was young. I think you and Maren toyed

with people’s lives because you were looking for kicks. Maybe

because you wanted money, maybe just because you could. But

then it got out of hand.” I couldn’t see her eyes behind her

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glasses, but there were beads of sweat on her upper lip. “Maybe

you were sorry,” I continued. “Maybe not. But you counted on

people forgetting. You didn’t count on Owen Madden saving

this picture. This picture that shamed him so badly he killed

himself. You didn’t count on me finding it. Or May.”

“May?” she asked in surprise.

“Yes, May.”

“May has nothing to do with any of this.”

“Poor kid, getting dragged along to a tattoo parlor with you

and Maren. Sounds like you put on quite a show for her. She

grew up and found this picture of her father, and now she’s

gone.”

“Gone?”

“Gone,” I repeated. “As far away as she could get from this

picture.”

“It wasn’t supposed to happen like that,” Lisa said, but I

didn’t hear anything close to regret in her voice. “We never

meant for May to see it.”

“Life is messy, remember?”

“It was her fault. Maren’s.” She spat out the name of her

best friend, her soul mate, like it was poison. “It was always

Maren’s fault. From the day I met her, she was always showing

off. I was so naive. I just wanted to be cool. Live on the edge,

you know, like she did. Oh, she had this great double life.