The Cactus Club Killings (Joe Portugal) (19 page)

“Brenda?”

“Uh-huh. Look at the signature.”

It said she was with the UCLA Department of Botany and that
if we don’t save the wild species they won’t save us
. The message itself was a response to someone who had asked some arcane question about the differences between two varieties of
Euphorbia viguieri
. Ironic, given how this whole thing had started, but certainly of no help to Gina and me.

“So?” I said.

“Just setting the stage.” She handed me another e-mail,
dated the previous December. In it Brenda was taking the plant smugglers to task, referring to them as
rapists of the landscape
and
mechanics of destruction
and various other inflammatory epithets. She ended by saying that anybody who violated CITES should be
strung up naked and have all the hairs in their body picked out one by one, until every inch of their skin is defoliated, and see how they like it

I looked up. “Very Brenda.”

Gina held out a third sheet. “Now check this out.”

This one was from someone whose moniker was Adolfwax. I smiled. “A German.”

“Yes. Read.”

The first couple of paragraphs agreed with some of Brenda’s points, politely disagreed with others. Moderately interesting, but nothing to get excited about. Until the end.
One should be careful if one makes threats one cannot carry out. To suggest the plucking of another’s hair, no matter how mercenary he who is plucked, is an idea that can only backfire on the source
.

“I like that,” I said.
“He who is plucked
. But this is probably some wienie with too much time on his hands. I don’t think what you see here represents a threat to Brenda, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“Its not. But keep going.” She pushed the rest of the stack over.

The next one was from Brenda. Very simple.
Are you trying to scare me?

Adolfwax:
Not at all. I’m only pointing out that this list is monitored by persons not as civilized as you or I
.

Brenda:
I will not, repeat, not be scared off. The fact of the matter is, I have received private e-mail far more threatening than anything I’ve seen here. These people will stop at nothing to gain their nefarious ends
.

Adolfwax:
Who have you gotten threats from?

Brenda:
It would be unwise to say
.

The last sheet was from someone whose signature identified him as the mailing lists moderator.
Will you all please take this off-line? It’s getting too close to flaming, and the group doesn’t want to hear about it
.

I looked up. “Flaming?”

“When people get into nasty personal discussions in a public forum. They start yelling and—”

“How can you yell on a piece of paper?”

“You type in all caps. Its very obnoxious.”

“The whole thing is very obnoxious. Too much technology.” I wagged the sheets in the air. “But now we know someone threatened Brenda. All we have to do is download that threatening e-mail she got and—”

Gina was giving me that pitying look she gets when one of my eight-tracks self-destructs.

“What?”

“I can’t just download Brenda’s private e-mail. That’s why it’s called private.”

“Oh. Makes sense, I guess. Would she still have it on her computer?”

“If she didn’t delete it. And I know if I got threatening e-mail I wouldn’t delete it.” She saw the look on my face. “No.”

“Why not? I’ve still got the keys.”

“What if the police are watching the place? The-killer-always-returns-to-the-scene-of-the-crime kind of thing.”

“We have every right to be there,” I said. “We’re coming to feed the birds.”

“The birds probably aren’t even there. Weren’t they going to take them off to the SPCA or something?”

“For all we know, they’re starving to death. Balling off the weakest and eating them.” I got up. “Put on some clothes.”

“Right now? You want to go sneaking through Brenda’s house at one in the morning?” “You got a better time?”

We took Gina’s car, stopped back at my place to pick up the keys, and reached Brenda’s a little before two. We parked half a block beyond the house and walked stiffly back, jumping at the tiniest noise. There wasn’t any crime-scene tape to avoid as we slunk up to the front door. I unlocked it, we slipped in, I closed it behind us.

“It’s pitch dark in here,” Gina said.

“Let me turn on a light.” I reached for the switch.

“No.” She punched me in the side.

“Ow.”

“Sorry. I was trying to grab your arm. People would wonder why a dead woman had the lights on.”

“Which people? Everyone’s asleep.”

“Not Mrs. Kwiatkowski. She has insomnia. She told me when I used her shower. She also has arthritis, severe heartburn, and loose—”

“Spare me. Why don’t you go out to the car for a flashlight?”

“Why don’t
you
go out to the car? Anyway, I don’t have one.”

“Everyone has a flashlight in their car.”

“Not me.”

We felt our way into the bedroom, and Gina turned on the computer. It gave off enough light to check the bird cage, which was deserted.

Soon she was mousing away A screen showing a photo of the Madagascar thorn forest quickly gave way to a more computerish one. “Her e-mail,” Gina said.

She poked around for a few minutes, viewing all the saved
messages. I was too antsy to look and figured she’d let me know if she came across anything. I paced. I stuck my head in the corridor to greet the cops, who were sure to burst in on us. I went to the bathroom, pointedly avoiding looking at the tub, even though it was too dark to see anything that might be in there. When I came out, hoping my aim had been true, Gina was muttering. The thorn forest reappeared. “Its not there.”

“How about something on the striped milii?”

“No, although…”

“What?”

“Ssh. Let me think.” She did, then said, “Maybe she archived it. She could have moved the threats out of the e-mail program. She doesn’t seem to have kept anything older than a month or two.”

“Can you find them?”

“Given time, but they could be anywhere on her hard disk.”

“We’ve got time. We’ve got till morning at least.” To emphasize my point I made myself comfortable on the bed.

“Yeah, but I don’t really know what I’m looking for.”

“That’s what makes it fun.”

Somebody was shaking me. “Joe, wake up.” I burrowed into the bed. “Get up now.” Go away.

“There’s a hive full of wasps in the room.”

I was on my feet instantly, flailing like I’d never flailed before. Several fun seconds later I realized Brenda’s bedroom was stinger-free.

“That was really nasty,” I said. “Being cooped up with a bunch of wasps is my worst nightmare.”

“It was the only thing that would get you up. I found them.”

“You found what?”

“Will you wake
up?
I found the old e-mail messages.”

“You did? What do they say?”

“I didn’t look yet. I wanted you to be there for the discovery.” She sat back down at the keyboard, and I knelt beside her. She clicked the mouse, and a file glimmered into life. We paged down through what appeared to be every e-mail from the previous year that Brenda’s seen fit to hide away. Things she’d said in confidence about other members of her department. A very steamy missive from somebody named Conner. Nothing the least bit threatening showed up until, in the middle of October,
You’d better stop or else
popped into view on the last line of the screen. The subject line of a message. Gina reached out a finger to bring the accompanying text into view. The doorbell rang.

Gina’s finger froze in midair. We stared at each other like Hansel and Gretel when the witch showed up. “Ignore it,” I said. “They’ll go away.”

They didn’t. Instead, they rang the bell again.

“They don’t know anybody’s here,” I said.

“Why else would anyone ring the doorbell at three in the morning? I doubt it’s a kid selling candy.”

“I’ll go look.” I stumbled to the living room, parted the drapes, peered outside.

Someone was out there, but it was too dark to see who. They pressed the doorbell again. I jumped, crashed into a bookshelf, and made a terrible racket.

“Who is that in there?” inquired the inharmonious voice of Mrs. Kwiatkowski.

I felt my way to the door and swept it open. “It’s me, Mrs. K.—Joey the Cactus Boy.”

“Joey? What are you doing here at this time of the morning?”

“I couldn’t sleep, Mrs. K. And then I thought maybe the police had forgotten about Brenda’s canaries, so I decided to come over and check on them. How did you know I was here?”

“I saw the TV in the bedroom, that’s how. Why do you have the TV on?”

“Its not the TV, its the computer. The lights don’t work in the bedroom, so I turned it on so I could see.”

“The lights don’t work?” Before I could stop her she’d swept her hand across the wall switch. Three lamps sprang to life, “The lights work in here.” Mrs. Kwiatkowski’s plump face was crowned with an assemblage of curlers that could have brought in Alpha Centauri. She wore a chartreuse robe that said QVC all over it.

“I’m sure it’s just the bulb,” I said. “Anyway, it turns out the birds aren’t here, so we can just go—”

“Where’s your truck?”

“My truck?”

“Your truck. Your white truck.”

“I walked, Mrs. K.”

“Who walks at three in the morning?”

“I do. Whenever I can’t sleep I go for a walk. And now if you’ll just—”

“Hello?”

Mrs. Kwiatkowski and I turned in unison to see who stood in the doorway It was Officer Benton. When he stepped aside, Officer Jones stood revealed.

“Not to be disrespectful,” Officer Benton said, with his hand lurking not terribly far from his gun. “But what are you two doing here?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing,” I said.

“It’s our job,” he said. “Finding lights on at dead peoples houses at strange hours.”

“Well, I came over to feed the birds, and Mrs. Kwiatkowski here came over to see what the ruckus was about.”

“You made a ruckus feeding birds? Wait minute. There aren’t any birds. We took ’em to the SPCA: We told you we’d take good care of them.”

“Yes, well, I forgot.”

“How’d you get in here?”

“I have the key.”

“Maybe we should take you down to the station.”

“Look, Officer Benton, I’d really rather not. I’ve been down to the station twice on suspicion of murder, and I hated every minute of it, so why would I do anything that would get me brought down there again?”

“I don’t know…”

Officer Jones spoke up for the first time. “Come on, Marlon, he’s harmless.”

Benton nodded slowly. “All right then. But you’ll have to leave.”

“Fine,” I said. “I’m leaving. I’m leaving right this minute.”

“And since you know the birds are in good hands, I won’t expect to see you here again.”

The four of us walked out, and I locked up. Benton and Jones drove off in their patrol car, Mrs. Kwiatkowski toddled off to her place, and I crept away down the street. I circumnavigated the block until I spotted Gina skulking back to her car. I caught up without giving her more than a small fright. “That was a waste of time,” I said.

“Not really.” She held up a computer disk.

“I don’t get it.”

“I dumped all Brenda’s old e-mails onto it while you were partying with Mrs. K.”

You’re a genius.

“Any moderately accomplished computer user could have done the same. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

We drove back to Gina’s condo. We started her computer up and stuck the disk in and found out what we had. Which was nothing.