The Bluest Blood (17 page)

The coffee-rich air fed my anger toward my mother. She still used freeze-dried granules to make coffee, so obviously she was capable of anything, including spying on her own daughter.

I had to confirm that. “My mother hired you, didn’t she?” I demanded, as we slipped into a booth.

He sighed and nodded. He also pulled off the Russian chapeau, revealing crinkled reddish hair.

“Why on earth put
me
under surveillance?”

“I wasn’t,” he said lamely.

“What do you call following me, watching me, waiting that way?”

He looked at his fingernails and sighed with heartfelt sorrow. “I was trying to watch your…the…Mackenzie.”

Relief of sorts. My mother hadn’t put me under surveillance.

“Supposed to note where he went, what he did when he left there,” the round-faced man said.

“He’s out of town,” I said. “Didn’t you notice that? And why my school? Why were you there?”

“I’m not sure, except…I can’t put police headquarters under surveillance, can I?”

I called over the waitress and ordered a double cappuccino and a ham sandwich. My tablemate, sounding frightened, said he’d have the same. When she left, I leaned forward and spoke softly. “I mean this kindly,” I said. “But somebody has to tell you. You’re not at all good at this sleuthing thing.”

“I know.” His hands were now in a prayerful position. “But it’s better than what I did before. It’s better than telemarketing. You can’t believe how mean people are on the phone.”

Since I was super-mean when interrupted at dinner, or any other time, I could, in fact, believe it. And approve of it. “What’s your name?” I asked.

“Roland. But everybody calls me Skip—just plain Skip.”

Skippy, I’d wager, even though he was trying not to say it. Detective Skippy, bargain-basement investigator. “If you wanted to find out about Mackenzie’s past, shouldn’t you be in Louisiana?” I asked, not unkindly. “Checking records, that sort of thing? He’s been here maybe half a dozen years, that’s all.”

He nodded. “I know that. I wanted to find out about now, too. Like if he, say, was seeing anybody else, or secretly gambling, or…you know.”

Disgusting. No privacy allowed and suspicion everywhere. As if Mackenzie were Mr. Rochester, carrying around a profound secret. As if anybody I knew was. My mother had no shame.

Nor did I. “One thing,” I said. “In the course of your investigation, you undoubtedly found out his full name, what the
C
and the
K
stand for. I’d be willing to keep quiet about your less-than-subtle work—you’re not a very
private
investigator—in exchange for that information.” I couldn’t believe I’d stoop this low, but I didn’t retract my offer, either.

“I didn’t get that far yet,” he said.

Crime really doesn’t pay. “Then I suggest you do go far. As far away as possible. Stop this foolishness.”

“There’s plenty stuff to find out here, too,” he insisted.

“And have you?”

“Have I what?”

“Found anything whatsoever of interest?” I said it lightly—I wanted to feel it lightly, too. But part of me was concerned. Mackenzie said everybody had secrets, a dark side. Why had he been so adamant about that, about Peter Schlemiel?

Skippy shrugged. “Not exactly.”

“Anything? Scary sexual escapades? Cannibalistic tendencies? A history of mental problems?”

“There was a woman…”

“Yes?”

“No. Nothing. He was in college.”

I knew about her. About a couple of hers. After college, too. Dozens. But even if I didn’t…

I had a queasy feeling that I’d fallen into a cautionary fable, and I’d soon ask the one question too many, activate an evil curse made at my christening.

Maybe personal secrets that don’t affect anyone else should be the sole property of their owners. I wondered if I could convince my mother of that, make her see the wrongness of this thing she’d started in motion.

“He sounds like a nice guy,” Old Skip said. “And a good cop. Except when he got shot once, in broad daylight, by a kid—”

“I know about that.”

He shrugged again. It was almost a nervous tic. There was a film of sweat on his upper lip, on the knitted eyebrow, on his tightly clasped hands. The shrug was the anti-fear, trying to even the emotional score, convey a like-I-care patina.

“Skippy—”

His head jerked up, his eyes wide.

“Sorry. I had a friend named…anyway,
Skip,
your impression is correct. Mackenzie’s a good guy and you aren’t going to find out anything worth your time or my mother’s money. All you’ll do is be a royal pain. Why not call it quits and go home?”

“I need this job. I need, like, a track record.” His hat, Persian lamb I thought, sat on the table like a small, mute mammal.

“Was the job prepaid? Do you charge by the hour?”

“Made her a special deal. Flat rate for the…” he paused and seemed to savor the next word, “…case.”

“Can’t you consider the case closed? Listen, Skip—” I had to gulp, to swallow the missing final syllable. “I
hate
being spied on. Having you pry. Let me find things out the way I’m supposed to, through day-to-day life. Let me be surprised now and then. I know the man and there’s no evil in him, but this is offensive. This is based on the idea that you can’t trust anybody, even the person you love and live with.”

If you couldn’t trust your partner, you’d be on an emotional fault line for the rest of your days unless you kept hiring detective after detective, updating your files.

Detective Skippy stared at me with the crazed
blankness I’d hitherto thought only cats could master. If it meant the same thing it did when Macavity had the look, then there was no point trying to convince him of anything. And yet I did. I do with my cat, too. “You have to stop,” I said. “Most of all, because you’ll be ineffective from now on.” As if he hadn’t been all along.

“Why? What do you mean? I have lots of things left to do, sources to check.”

“No matter, because I’m going to tell—”

“Oh, please no, don’t! You said you wouldn’t, didn’t you?” He half stood in the booth, only settling down when the waitress put our cappuccinos and sandwiches on the table.

“I never said that.” I’d offered it only as a swap for C. K.’s full name. “And how can I not? You scared me. You’re lucky I don’t have a gun, and I don’t react the way he might.” As if Mackenzie were a trigger-happy cowboy in the Wild West. But Skippy bought the concept. His eyes bugged out. “He deserves to know,” I said.

“He? You’re going to tell
him.”
He smiled his relief.

“Who else? Oh…” And what was my answer there? Was I going to tell Ma? Have it out with her for pathological meddling? Explain that a person’s secrets were his own property. If he had them, he also had his own reasons. Let time or Mackenzie reveal them—not a detective.

I was sure my mother considered this her gift to me. A luxury I wouldn’t splurge on for myself.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t anything I wanted or could exchange. “Why is she worried?” I muttered. “If she’d stop watching daytime TV, she wouldn’t have such a warped view of the world.”

Normally, I find the humor—at least eventually—in her attempts to micromanage my life. But not this time. Not yet. It’s one thing to meddle from afar, and another to have a ridiculous man intrude and frighten.

Detective Skippy waited, jaw dangling, for the one thing that mattered to him—whether or not I was going to tell on him. In all honesty, I was still too shocked and angry to know what I’d do when I simmered down.

“This is not a normal case,” Skippy said. “It’s hard investigating a cop. It’s not like I can question his coworkers, find out if he has another wife, or life, or a criminal background.”

“He wouldn’t be a cop if he had one, would he?”

“Well, you know, he comes from another state…” His voice trailed off with the weight of that statement.

Only my mother, the benign tyrant of Florida, could live hundreds of miles away, yet hover so closely I tripped over her. The good news was that she wasn’t hard to figure out. She was, in fact, so obvious, she was almost transparent: every thought, urge, belief up on the surface pushing so hard to keep her children safe that she knocked us down and flattened us in the process.

She was the antithesis of Jake’s parents, so you’d have thought I’d approve. But what about the happy mean between apathy and overprotection?

My body temperature boiled up to the steamy equal of my coffee, and I sipped without tasting. “Skip,” I said, “close the case. Write a fake report and hand it over. That way she’s happy, I’m happy, Mackenzie’s happy, and so are you.”

“It’s not professionally ethical,” he said softly.

“Of course it isn’t. But it’s kind and sane, so it must be ethical in some other way that really counts.”

He nodded several times, as if concluding an interior argument. Then he shook his head, as if he were now hearing counterarguments.

“Think about it.” I had another question, and wanted to push my advantage while I had him at bay. I’d just proclaimed my passionate belief in the right to secrets, but I nonetheless resented his having any. “Meanwhile, tell me one thing.”

He swiveled his head so that he eyed me sideways, suspiciously. Detective Skippy was not going to be known for his poker face.

“Please don’t take this the wrong way, but even you admit you aren’t…yet…exactly expert at this.”

He sighed.

I could understand why she got excited about the idea of hiring a detective. My mother’s life lacks event. She collects gossip from relatives and friends but it doesn’t fulfill her daily drama requirements. Kind of like Macavity, who, lacking any predators, prey, or competitors, gets bored out of his mind and freaks at dust motes—back arched, tail enormous, ears back. Terrorizing himself entertains him, helps fill his time.

My mother’s that sort of house cat, too. Her entire life has been spent in pleasant, nonthreatening normality. Not a standard deviation left or right, and she wants everybody else to squeeze into that safe zone, too.

But she isn’t a dummy. And while she loves a bargain, she knows you get what you pay for. “My question is how, out of the whole world of private investigators, did my mother come to hire you?”

“I asked her to,” he said matter-of-factly. He looked so relieved by my choice of question, he was able to take a bite of his ham sandwich.

“You picked her out of a crowd? Used your telemarketing skills and made a blind call? Handed her your card? She found you in the Yellow Pages? What?”

“Don’t be silly.” He laughed, then covered his mouth and chewed.

“Okay. You asked her to hire you—but why did she agree?”

He was obviously at ease now. He picked up a fallen piece of ham and popped it into his mouth before saying, “As a favor.”

“Why? What had you done for her?”

“Me? Nothing.”

“Okay, Skip. I see you do have job-related skills, after all. You can keep information to yourself. But this is not the best time to choose to do that. Why’d my mother hire you?”

“As a family favor.”

“Family? Whose? We aren’t related, are we?” Was Skip the Peppers’ equivalent of Rochester’s madwoman in the attic? A secret until now?

“We’re not exactly related. Not so you’d—”

“Cut this out. Tell me why my mother hired you. In plain English. What family? What do you mean?”

“My mother and your mother go way back. Rolaine Belford, okay?” He nodded a few times. “That’s how come I got the name Roland. After her.”

No bells were rung. I combed through my Bea Pepper files—card-playing friends, food-buying co-op board, manatee protection committee, nearby tenants, distant relatives, former neighbors. My turn to shake my head.

“Rolf Thayer’s sister,” he said, as if that meant something. “The Thayers were all
R’s.
Rolf, Rolaine, Rebecca, Rothwell, and Regina. And next generation, there’s Rachel, Ralph, Robert, and me, Roland, even though only a couple are still Thayers.”

He smiled and stopped talking, as if he’d provided a full explanation. “Who is Rolf Thayer?” I asked.

He put down his sandwich. “You’re joking.”

This had become boring, and I was missing the gallery hours. Who cared who Rolf was, anyway? He’d turn out to be the fellow who washed her car once a month. My mother was forever collecting people like that.

“Rolf Thayer.”
Skippy said it loudly, as if I were deaf.

I shook my head.

“Your mother’s first husband.”

My brain’s control board flashed and sparked until it shut down from overload. My what? Her what?

Skippy calmly continued explaining. “My mother helped your mother when he got violent. Got Aunt Bea to a safe place. Hid her there. That kind of stuff. Jeez, I’ve known your mother my whole life from her visits.”

Aunt Bea?

“So when Mom mentioned my new career to her—”

My hand went up, like a traffic cop’s. “Wait. Halt.” I barely had the air to make the request. Something heavy pressed on my flattened lungs, my breath shallow and rapid. “Wait,” I said again, even though he was, in fact, waiting. “My mother’s—” It was difficult speaking between gasps. “My mother’s been married to my father forever. Her only marriage.”

“Except for Rolf.” He squinted at me. “Are you saying you don’t know about the elopement, your grandparents trying to have him arrested, the estrangement all those years? None of her family spoke to her. I can’t believe you don’t know.”