The Secret of the Villa Mimosa (7 page)

Mahoney felt his blood pressure rising like sap in his veins. Goddammit, good old Doc Forster had gone ahead and hypnotized the girl without so much as telling him. God knew what else she had revealed besides the fact that she spoke French. He was exploding with anger. It was the first real clue they had, and he was the last to know.

He thanked Niedman, hung up the phone, and checked his watch. It was almost eight-thirty.

He stalked to the parking lot, automatically eyeballing the kids loitering on the sidewalk. They quickly melted into the night. He knew a couple of the faces, and he guessed they were up to no good, hanging around in the rain, but he was off duty and in a hurry. Tonight they had gotten a break.

His ’69 black Mustang convertible started at the first touch, and he took a couple of seconds to enjoy its finely tuned growl before taking off in a shriek of rubber and adrenaline.

Phyl Forster lived on a very smart street in a very smart building in Pacific Heights. Mahoney parked on the double yellow and surveyed the canopied entrance, the uniformed doorman, the immaculately maintained facade. He whistled. Doc Forster was doing all right.

Sticking his hands in the pockets of his jeans, he sauntered toward the entrance. The doorman stared suspiciously at him until he flashed his badge, then hurriedly let him in. Mahoney took in the marble lobby covered in about an acre of oriental rug, the huge gilt-framed mirrors reflecting crystal vases filled with fresh flowers, and the antique consoles and deeply cushioned chairs. He wondered what the doctor’s monthly maintenance bill was.

He waited while the doorman telephoned to see if Dr. Forster would see him. “You can go on up,” he finally told Mahoney reluctantly. He wasn’t used to police in his quiet, affluent building. “Apartment Ten B.”

Mahoney strode carefully across the oriental rug into the wood-paneled elevator. He checked his appearance in the mirror as the elevator zoomed noiselessly upward. He smoothed back his hair, brushed the rain off his leather jacket, and thought about what he wanted to say to the doc about Bea French. He was still simmering with anger.

The door to apartment 10B stood open, and he walked in. Phyl was wearing an oversize white terry robe, no makeup, and her black hair hung loosely around her shoulders. She was curled up on a black couch, and she looked drained and exhausted. She stared at him but didn’t get up.

“To what do I owe the honor, Mahoney?” she asked wearily. “Isn’t it a bit late for the cops to come calling?”

Unsmiling, bristling with anger, he stared back at her. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me you were going to hypnotize the girl? Why didn’t you let me know the result? How the hell is it that I’m the last person to get to know what’s going on with Bea French?”

Her sapphire eyes darkened to jet with sudden anger. “How dare you shout at me!” she yelled back. “Didn’t you tell me she was no longer your concern? Unless she died, of course. Then you could have had a field day. The clever, macho cop, the darling of the media, solving yet another homicide. Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mahoney, but she didn’t die. She’s very much alive, and now she’s in my charge. Not yours.”

He stood over her, his hands in his pockets. His eyes met hers as he said quietly, “And what do you think our murderer will do when he finds out Bea is still alive? That he didn’t kill her after all? You’re the clever one, Doc. You tell me. Whoever he is, he wanted her dead. How does the old saying go? ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again’? Take it from me, Doc, he will.”

Shocked into silence, she stared back at him. He thought she looked suddenly vulnerable, her face pinched and drained of color.

He turned away, glancing around the sumptuously simple, immaculate apartment. Everything gleaming, everything carefully arranged, everything in its place. He took off his black leather jacket and flung it onto the Eames chair that looked as though no one had ever
sat on it, and walked through to the pristine steel and granite kitchen.

He opened the refrigerator, checked the contents, and then began taking things out of the cupboards.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Her voice shook with indignation and fatigue.

“What does it look like I’m doing? I’m cooking dinner, since you don’t look as though you have the energy.”

“You’re cooking dinner! I didn’t ask you to dinner. I didn’t even ask you over for a drink!”

He threw her a mocking grin. “Y’know what’s wrong with you, Forster? You sit on your butt all day. Or maybe it’s all that lying on the couch that does it. You should be working out, training, running. Getting all those endorphins working for you. Sharpening up your brain cells.”

“Like yours, I suppose.” She flung herself from the sofa and leaned threateningly across the expanse of black granite counter that separated her from the kitchen.

He glanced up from chopping tomatoes. “You think I’m just an ignorant backstreet boy, don’t you? A guy who made it up to detective the hard way? Y’know what? You’re right. And it was tough.” He shrugged his wide shoulders expressively. “A scholarship to Berkeley, working every job I could get so I could eat as well. Graduated magna with an honors degree in English literature. My thesis was on the effect of the European Romantic poets on the American approach to human relationships today. I was in my second year as a grad student at Stanford when I decided I wanted to be a cop instead of a professor.” His eyes met hers coolly. “Just so you know who I am, Doc.”

She stared at him silently. His shirtsleeves were rolled up as he chopped tomatoes and softly whistled an aria from
La Traviata
whose title she couldn’t remember.
She sank into a chair and put her head in her hands, ashamed.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just so goddamn tired. It’s been a long day. A long week, month, year … And anyhow, you’re wrong. I’m the one up from the streets.”

He flung the vegetables into a pan with a slug of olive oil, then folded his arms, leaning against the counter, waiting gravely for her to tell her story. But her pale face suddenly looked closed and tight with a remembered pain she was not going to reveal to him. Not yet, anyway.

“I’m so busy taking care of everyone else’s problems there’s just no time left,” she said finally, shaking her head in bewilderment. “No time for myself. I bring my work home with me.”

He glanced around the cool, perfect, beautiful room. “Yeah. I can see that. It looks as though you forgot to live here.”

He took a bottle of red wine from the rack and checked the label. “Good stuff,” he said approvingly, pouring her a hefty glass. “My Italian mama used to tell me a glass of red wine brought a blush of color to a girl’s cheeks and a glow to her heart. I’ve always hoped it was true.”

She smiled as she took a sip, staring tiredly into her glass.

He walked across the room and studied her CD collection. Soon the pure sound of Callas singing an aria from
Norma
wafted through the lofty silent rooms like a refreshing breeze.

Fifteen minutes later she was sitting opposite him at the kitchen table with a fragrant bowl of pasta and fresh tomato sauce in front of her.

“Sorry, I couldn’t find any bread,” he said, pouring wine into their glasses. “Except for a wizened crust that must have been there for about a week. I guess you’re
not much of a bread eater. Always thinking about your weight, huh?”

“I am not,” she retorted indignantly. “I love focaccia,
and
olive bread,
and
sourdough. And I’m not always thinking about my figure. Thank God I don’t have to. Yet.”

He grinned at her as she wound a forkful of pasta and tasted it. She realized too late that he was baiting her.

“It’s just that I don’t eat at home that often,” she said, needing to explain. “It’s usually late and I just grab a bite on my way home.”

“So why didn’t you do that tonight?”

“I was too tired even to care,” she said honestly.

“Or too lonely,” he said, sipping his wine and watching her eat.

She glanced at him for a moment but said nothing. She watched him walk across the room as he went to change the CD. She thought he walked on the balls of his feet like an athlete. Lithe, like a panther. Only this panther stalked the jungle of the city streets. Then she remembered what he had said about the killer, and she was suddenly afraid for Bea.

He came back and sat opposite her, his elbows on the table, sipping wine, watching her eat.

She finished the pasta and sighed with satisfaction. “That was wonderful. It’s also the first home-cooked food I’ve eaten in about a year.”

She sat back, and they looked at each other. “What do you want from life, Mahoney?” she asked, suddenly curious.

He laughed off her question. “Oh, to be police commissioner one day. Or maybe run for mayor. Just like any other red-blooded cop. And?”

“And what?”

“And what do you want from life, Doc?”

She flung her arms wide, indicating the beautiful apartment, the priceless rugs, the artworks. “What
more can any woman want?” she said defensively. “I’ve got it all.”

“It sure looks like it, Doc,” he said, standing up abruptly and putting on his jacket.

She glared at him. He didn’t say it, but she knew what he was thinking. Maybe she wanted a man who loved her; children; a happy, bustling home; maybe a dog or two….

Dammit, what was she doing, letting this macho, chauvinist, poetic, opera-loving, fitness-freak cop put her life on the line? She had it all organized, everything in its place. Didn’t she?

“You’re tired,” he said, offering his hand. “Thanks for the dinner. And the company. Let me know what happens with Bea.”

It seemed odd to hear the girl’s new name on Mahoney’s lips, as though his saying it brought her to life again.

A resurrection
, she thought as she closed the door behind him.

Dr. Niedman was waiting for her the next morning. “Our patient is doing well, Dr. Forster,” he said. “In fact, well enough to be dismissed.” He glanced up from his notes. “The question is, of course, dismissed to where? I understand from Detective Mahoney that his investigations have led nowhere, and as you, too, seem to have drawn a blank, I’m at a loss to know what to do about her. I can’t see putting her into a psychiatric ward since there is nothing mentally wrong with her other than the loss of memory. On the other hand, how can she cope if we simply turn her over to welfare?”

Phyl thought about Bea with her shorn head and her terrible scars, knowing nothing about herself, not even what had happened to her. She thought of her out on her own, out on the street, and she remembered what Mahoney had said the previous night: that if the killer
knew she was alive, he might try again. Perhaps he already knew it from the newspapers. Maybe he was just waiting for her to get out of the hospital….

“Bea can stay with me,” she said quickly. “After all, I’m the one responsible for her rehabilitation.”

Niedman’s bushy eyebrows raised over his eyeglasses in surprise. “Isn’t that a bit over and above the call of duty, Dr. Forster?”

“I like her,” Phyl said defensively. “We have become friends as well as doctor and patient.”

“I see. Well, she is a nice young woman, and I for one am glad of your offer. It certainly helps resolve my dilemma. I figure next weekend, if that’s all right with you?”

Phyl went to tell Bea the good news. “It’s been six weeks,” she said. “You must be sick and tired of gazing at these four walls, so you can come and gaze at mine for a change. At least the view is better, though I can’t guarantee the food.” She thought of Mahoney’s delicious pasta and smiled.

Bea laughed delightedly. “Believe me,
anything
is better than hospital food. But are you sure, Phyl? I mean, it’s a terrible imposition, taking in a perfect stranger—”

“Hey, hey, what do you mean? A perfect stranger? Let’s not forget that right now I know you better than anyone else. Besides, I like you. And it’ll be fun having a roommate. I haven’t had that pleasure since college.” She laughed, looking around the bare hospital room. “At least we won’t be fighting over closet space.”

That night Mahoney came by again, surprising Phyl. And this time he arrived with a gift: a charming cream and chocolate Siamese kitten. It looked minute in his big hands, purring confidently, quite certain it would be loved.

“I thought the apartment was too lonely,” he explained. “A cat will keep you busy, keep you from getting
introverted. Think of her as therapy. And make no mistake, this kind of cat thinks it’s human. You do as she tells you. She wants to play, you play. She wants to eat, you serve her food. She wants to hug, baby, you get hugs. So tell me right now, Doc, if you’re not prepared for all that, and I’ll take her back to the breeder.”

“Who is the breeder?” The tiny cat’s wide blue eyes stared into her own.

“My aunt Sophia, in Sacramento.”

“You drove all the way to Sacramento to get this kitten for me?”

He looked nonchalant. “I thought you needed something to care for. It takes you out of yourself, y’know, having to think of someone besides yourself. Even a little cat.”

She looked accusingly at him. “You wanted to make me more ‘human.’”

He grinned. “I guess you could say that. Anyhow, her name’s Coco. Kinda chic, I thought. Like you.”

“This is a very personal gift, Mahoney,” Phyl said warily. The kitten was crawling up her shoulder, burying its soft damp nose in her neck, tangling its paws in her hair. She laughed. “But your aunt Sophia certainly knows what she’s doing.”

“Then you want to keep her?” He looked anxious. “Remember, she needs love and affection.”

She glanced skeptically at him. “I guess I have enough of that to give, despite what you think. And what can I give you in return?”

“Buy me dinner sometime?”

She laughed, hugging the kitten to her breast. “You drive a hard bargain, Detective Mahoney. By the way, I’m getting a roommate.”

“I know. I spoke with Niedman. When?”

“On the weekend. I thought maybe if she were here with me, I could work with her. I also remembered what you said about the killer, and I thought she would be safe. Until she remembers who she is, that is. Besides,
she has no money, though for all we know she might be an heiress.”