The Man on the Washing Machine (21 page)

I took Lucy down into the garden for her evening outing, carefully locking the back door behind me. The light was failing and the garden was deserted. The fire engine's heavy tire tracks still defaced the rose garden. I expected the professor and his helpers to be cleaning up. Maybe the police had told them not to. Preventing them would practically take a court order.

I heard Nat before I saw him; he was toying with the pendant around his neck and I followed its faint, clear chiming around a shrub to find him sitting moodily on a bench with his long, elegant legs stretched out in front of him. He was holding the pendant and swinging it in front of his eyes like a hypnotist.

“Hey, Nat.”

He brightened. “Hey, English.”

“You'll put yourself in a trance.”

He dropped the pendant and it nestled into the pale pink cashmere on his chest. “And do embarrassin' things, like eat dirt or cluck like a chicken?”

“That's the idea—all inhibitions released.”

“How about releasin' your inhibitions with a drink at Chez Nat and Derek?”

I grimaced and shook my head. “I'm going back upstairs in a few minutes, lock all the doors, bar the windows, load my little gun and stick it under my pillow, and sleep for a week.”

Nat stirred restlessly. I gave him an inquiring look, but he only shrugged. I watched Lucy rustling in the flower bed. “Come back with me,” he coaxed. “Everyone and his brother is up in our flat. Derek is tellin' us all about Nicole's heroism as an activist fifteen years ago; Sabina and Helga are taking the position that activism does more harm than good, so Derek and Sabina aren't speakin'. Haruto is suckin' all the air out of the flat praisin' the virtues of Asian versus Western medicine. You'd expect Kurt to be pissed off about that, but he's just drinkin' Scotch as if he's crawled on his hands and knees out of Death Valley. I had to get out for some fresh air.”

“What does Haruto know about Asian medicine?” I said blankly.

“Turns out he's turned himself into an expert herbalist by takin' courses all over town and he and Derek are chewing the fat—if herbalists chew the fat; maybe they chew ginkgo leaves instead—like a couple of old cronies. Derek is ready to invest in anythin' to make his hair grow back.”

“Invest?”

“Emotionally speakin'.”

“Is that the only reason you wanted to talk to someone about Chinese medicine?” I felt relieved of a nagging little worry.

“I wanted to make sure he wasn't poisonin' himself. Mr. Choy told me the things he's takin' are okay. They contain plenty of
shou wu
. Or maybe they don't contain any
shou wu
. I'm unclear on the details. Whatever. He said they might even do some good. He also told me about ginkgo leaves–you cook 'em up with a bunch of other disgustin' stuff to improve your memory. He implied mine could use improvin'.”

I shook my head and smiled.

“Come on,” he said. “Bring Lucy. It's a kind of impromptu wake.”

“I'm not in the mood, especially if everyone's being crabby.”

“Come with me, or I go up to your place with you and Derek tracks me down and everyone follows him and ends up in your kitchen.”

I sighed. “Who's there again?”

“Everyone! Haruto of course—practically weepin' because he's lost all his precious compost. Sabina, too—she's taking Nicole's death hard for some reason and it's comin' out in bitchiness. She's almost invisible under that yellow thing she's crochetin'.” He gave a delicate mock shudder.

“What is it, anyway?”

“Illinois, I think. Helga suggested it was sorta shapeless and Sabina went for her throat. Let's see, anyone else?”

“It's already way too many people for me.”

“Prefer the company of one, eh?”

“Who are you talking about?” I said repressively.

“You know damn well. The handsome one with the earring. Where is he, by the way? I could invite him over.”

“He's in L.A.”

His face fell comically. “For good?”

“Overnight. Do you honestly think he's handsome?”

“Let's say I wouldn't throw him out of—”

“Jesus, Nat. Give it a rest.”

He gave me a surprised look from underneath his eyelashes, raised an eyebrow, and said thoughtfully: “Well, well, well. Today's paper said the icebergs are breakin' up. Spring is a dangerous time of year in the North Atlantic.”

I concentrated on looking noncommittal. With Nat in this mood anything I said was going to get me into trouble.

He looked disappointed. “Not playin' today, hmmm? At least you're over Dr. Kurt.”

“I've been over him for a long time.” And as I said it, I realized it was true. My heart hadn't been broken but my anger had been hard and real and hot. Not feeling it in the background was a relief of sorts.

“Come on over. I think we're all huddlin' together pretendin' not to care that some madman—” He abruptly shut up. “Sorry,” he muttered. “My springs are loose today.”

“Anyone else?” I said.

“There's no room for anyone else,” he moaned. “Professor D'Allessio called—”

“That's it—I'm not coming!”

“—but he only wanted to talk to Derek about the big secret anniversary gift, so you're safe.”

“Why wasn't I invited earlier?” I said vaguely. Why did I have the feeling that I was being stupid about something? Something about Nicole and the professor? Or did mention of him remind me of something else?

“No one was invited; they just all arrived! I was goin' to call you when it looked like you were the only person who wasn't goin' to show, but if you ask me we're all ashamed because none of us had been exactly gettin' along with Nicole lately.”

“I didn't know,” I said unhappily.

“No one wanted to upset you. Besides, if anyone had said anythin' you'd have frozen them out. You're very loyal. Upright, honest, and true,” he added with a grin.

“Nice way to put it, but what you're saying is that everyone was too polite to point out the obvious to the village idiot,” I said with a sigh.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

He called out as we walked through the French doors into their two-story living room. “Look who I found!”

A chorus of welcoming cries greeted my arrival. Everyone was already pretty well oiled, judging by the general hilarity. Derek seemed relatively sober; at least he had coordination enough to apply a tiny screwdriver to a pair of glasses from his perch on the arm of the couch. He looked up to blow me a kiss. He looked more like the frog footman than ever.

Sabina was sitting slightly apart from everyone else, crocheting busily. Her afghan, or whatever it was, flowed over her lap and onto the floor in great yellow waves.

Haruto was arguing with Kurt about—saints preserve us—the compost taken by the police.

“You wouldn't use it on the garden anyway, after—” Kurt was saying with a distinct slur in his voice. I wasn't so sure.

“Another Coke, Sabina?” Nat said.

“Sure. Thanks,” she drawled.

“Nothing stronger?”

She shook her head.

He picked up some paper cocktail napkins and a couple of empty glasses and took them out to the kitchen. He was compulsively tidying up as usual. Sabina leaned over and turned on the MP3 player. Someone sang “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted.” Haruto and Kurt wrangled about whether it was the Four Tops or the Temptations. Neither of them bothered to get up and look. I knew it was Jimmy Ruffin, who was related to one of the Temptations, but I didn't say anything.

“What shall we do about the D'Allessios' anniversary party?” Haruto said to the room at large as a pause in the chatter was in danger of letting thoughts about Nicole and her killer creep into the room.

Sabina turned to me with a smile. “Theo's here, maybe she can tell us the right thing to do.”

“What?” I took a grateful swallow of the gin and tonic Nat handed me.

“The fiftieth anniversary party,” Haruto said. “Do we go ahead as planned next week or should we postpone? Ruth D'Allessio didn't like Nicole—sorry, Theo—but she thought it might be more appropriate to postpone it, for at least a couple of weeks.”

“I guess it doesn't make much difference,” I said with a flash of temper. “No one seems to be mourning her anyway.” My sore conscience made me angry; I couldn't be said to be mourning her myself.

“At least we're not hypocritical,” Sabina said with surprising venom. But she wasn't looking at me, she was watching Kurt.

“I liked her,” Derek said, breaking the spell but with his eyes still on Sabina. “She'd still be coming round except—”

“Go ahead, blame me!” Nat said, surprisingly not making a joke of it. “Because I thought your little friend was a bitch—” His voice wavered. He took out a handkerchief and turned it into a campy gesture, and everyone laughed, if a little uneasily.

I started to get up to follow Nat out to the kitchen, but he threw me a wink over his shoulder and, not entirely reassured, I sank back into my seat. Derek finished his eyeglass repair and gave them to Haruto with a hand that shook a little. He and Nicole were friends and he was prevented from mourning her by Nat's jealousy. And Sabina's eyes were red. And Kurt was drinking in a way I'd never seen before. And Nat's nerves were jumpy. And Helga was wearing a thousand-yard stare. No one looked particularly festive. I guess we were all mourning her in our own fashion.

“Sorry, everyone,” I said contritely. “The last few days have been…”

“Yeah. They sure as hell have,” Haruto said, and everyone looked relieved.

“We could all use some chamomile tea to soothe our nerves,” Derek said, obviously trying to lighten the mood. “Remember that time Nicole made some and we decided to make rum coolers out of it? Yuk!”

We all laughed. “I remember when she was a firebrand, not a staid businesswoman with a sideline as an artist,” Derek said fondly. “We even got arrested together in art school—man, she could get a crowd revved up quicker than anyone I ever saw! Believe me, at the end of one of her demonstrations, we all needed more than chamomile tea!”

“I'd rather have a Valium. All this herbal hocus-pocus—medical science has come a ways since ground-up lizards,” Kurt said piously.

“No one gets addicted to lizards,” Derek said, looking hurt.

“Besides, medicine and surgery can't cure everything,” Sabina purred. She laughed and one or two of us joined in a little nervously. Kurt, the surgeon, didn't laugh.

I hastily brought the conversation back to Nicole. If this was a wake, dammit, she should stay in center stage. “What were her big issues when she was a student?” I asked Derek.

“She wanted to make a difference. She was ready to take on anyone over anything! The color bar at the Adelphi Club, rebuilding the Embarcadero, green spaces on the Presidio, getting toilets placed in the parks for the homeless—man, she was relentless.” He shook his head with a smile.

Helga snatched up another beer; she lifted it to the room in a little salute before drinking it more or less in one gulp. “I've got to get back to my ovens,” she said. I put a hand on her arm as she passed me. “Stay a little longer,” I said.

She looked down at me blankly. “The croissants won't bake themselves.”

“C'mon. Another half hour. What made you open a bakery, anyway? You work half the night.”

“True,” she sighed. “I was born a princess and, alas, an evil queen stole my fortune. Luckily I'm a natural night owl,” she said. “Okay, half an hour.” She picked up another beer, which she dispatched with equal efficiency. As far as I could tell they were having no effect.

“I'm sorry, honey; I know this isn't a great time for you,” I said, but it was the wrong thing to say.

Her face darkened and she sniffed, rubbing the back of her hand against her nose in an effort to stop a tear escaping. It didn't work and she looked away from me over to Kurt, who was staring at the top of Sabina's head as she concentrated on her crochet hook. Crap.

Besides the obvious there was something wrong here that had nothing to do with Nicole's murder. The undercurrents—what a poet friend once called the ocean under the sea—were dragging me in directions I didn't want to go.

Nat came back with a bottle of Scotch in one hand and gin in the other. “Forget the herbal elixirs,” he said cheerfully. “Let's all have another drink.”

So I did. And another. And a couple more. The effects of alcohol, I've been told, are exaggerated by emotional stress. I was feeling seriously stressed. I'd been asked not to mention rhino horn to anyone—even before I found it; my suspicions about Tim Callahan's death being murder were presumably
infra dig
too; I was sorrier than I could admit about Nicole, more frightened than I could admit about the idea of a killer on the loose; angrier and more worried than I could admit about Lichlyter not being on hand when I needed her. I forgot that I hadn't eaten for the best part of two days. And every time I picked up my glass it was full.

“This is a great idea,” I said at about midnight. “That damn inspector has me tied up in knots.” There was a chorus of “Me, toos” from everyone. “She's all over us like a blanket for days and when I have something to tell her, she's nowhere around.”

“What are you going to tell her? Have you thought of something?” Kurt's cheeks were bright. He waved his half-empty glass for punctuation. I got a grip on my loose tongue and shook my head casually.

Haruto, whose ponytail was shaken loose around his face so that he looked more dissipated than usual, said: “The professor was trying to tell her something this morning, but you know how he is, he gets more and more Italian and hard to understand and he blames whoever he's talking to and—” Several people laughed. “—anyway, he decided she was an idiot and refused to talk to her. He called her ‘the knows one.'”