There Must Be Some Mistake (22 page)

I TRIED
Chantal but she didn't answer. I called again and got voice mail after two rings. That meant something. I'd seen it on a TV show. TV shows are always alerting us to things we don't want to know. Or maybe that's city life, and down in Kemah we make no distinction between voice mail after two rings or four rings.

In any case it was three
A.M.
and Chantal did not pick up so I left a message, invited her to call back when ready, and took myself to bed early for once.

Bernadette called the next morning and said she had to see me at once. I asked if we could meet later and she said no, that she wanted to meet right then. So I said fine and dressed and headed down the road to her place, which was one of the two-bedroom cottages on Smoky Lake.

Bernadette was not alone. Jean Darling was with her, and two men I didn't recognize who were introduced as police officers. All four of them were sitting in Bernadette's living room, somewhat uneasily it seemed to me. I said, “Is there some new crisis?”

“Peterson,” Bernadette said. “It appears that he died naturally.”

“The best way,” I said

“Coroner says heart attack,” Jean Darling said. “Not induced.”

“You can induce a heart attack?” I said.

“Sure,” Bernadette said. “It's all over the Internet. Full of ways. Potassium chloride, sodium gluconate—”

“Calcium gluconate,” Jean said.

“And there are others,” Bernadette said. “Air—like air bubbles in the bloodstream, that kind of thing. I saw that on TV.”

“And many more,” Jean said.

“What about Hilton?” I said.

“Do we have any reason to think it wasn't natural?” Bernadette asked. “He had a bad heart and it went.”

“That's likely,” one of the two cops said. The other one nodded agreement. This appeared to be their routine.

“The coroner is suspicious,” Jean said. “But he's a flake.”

“We were wondering about Chantal,” Bernadette said, ignoring Jean. “The rumor we've heard is that she had a, well, a relationship with Peterson. Would you know anything about that?”

This seemed odd to me, but I didn't see any way to avoid reporting my conversation with Chantal. “I talked to her after he died,” I said. “She seemed very upset. She indicated that they were close at one time. I wasn't clear on when. At least I'm not clear now.”

“Why is that?” Jean Darling said.

“I don't remember the details. I was there as a sympathetic listener.”

“Who didn't listen carefully?” she said.

“Right,” I said. “She was feeling lousy,  I was trying to comfort her, so that's what I was concentrating on, not what she was saying. I didn't take notes.”

“He didn't take notes,” Bernadette said to the two hulking policemen, who, I suddenly noticed, looked pretty much like the Blues Brothers—identical shoes, suits, shirts, ties, etc.

“What we've heard is they had a relationship and he broke it off recently,” Jean said. “And that she was not happy about the breakup.”

“She didn't seem angry. She seemed saddened, upset by his death,” I said. “But you can ask her.”

“Can't find her,” Jean said. “She's not answering her phone, she's not at her condo, and they haven't seen her at the restaurant for a couple days.”

“No kidding?” I said.

“You haven't seen her, either?” she said.

“No. I've called her, but no answer. Haven't talked to her or seen her.”

“You went with your ex-wife to see someone in the prison last week?”

“Yes,” I said. “Jilly's ex-husband Cal. He's in for—”

“We know,” Jean said. “Do you know if Chantal had any dealings with Duncan Parker? Didn't I ask you this once before?”

“Someone asked me,” I said. “You or Bernadette. And no, I don't know about any connection to Parker.”

“Or his wife?”

“She told me she'd seen the wife walking in the neighborhood, but not to talk to, I think.”

They asked more questions, pointed questions about Chantal, also about Chantal's daughter, Tinker, who had been seen around the development recently, and I said I'd met the daughter and she seemed a little strange but not strange enough to cause alarm. In fact, I was defensive about Chantal and didn't want to add fuel to the fire, so I may have edited my answers to their questions more than I might have otherwise.

“She has a lot of tattoos, the daughter?”

“I wouldn't say a lot,” I said. “But then I didn't see a lot of her. She has some tattoos in places that are ordinarily visible. Ankles, feet, hands, wrists, arms, shoulders, neck, even her face, I think she has one on her face. I don't mean she has tattoos on each of those, but those are the places I might have seen tattoos on her.”

“Any others?”

“Not that I've seen, though I suspect there are others, yes.”

“Would you say a lot?” Jean asked. “More than most people?”

“More than most,” I said. “But people with tattoos tend to, you know, get more than other people.”

“So she's a tattooed person,” Jean said. “Not like a student who got one little tattoo one night after a party or something.”

“That's correct,” I said. “My memory is she has several tattoos. Maybe many tattoos. Maybe even large and elaborate ones. So what?”

“Well,” Bernadette said. “Apparently one of the neighbors saw a tattooed girl.”

“Tinker was staying at Chantal's house, right?”

“We know,” Jean said.

“So that could be it,” I said.

“It could be, yes,” she said. “We have people looking into it.”

“A lot of people down here have tattoos, a lot of women,” I said. “I see them everywhere.”

“I have a couple myself,” Jean Darling said.

“Well, there you go,” I said. “Maybe the neighbor saw you?”

“Mine are hidden,” she said. “Not apparent to passersby.”

They let me go back home and go to sleep and I did, with a vengeance, making it all the way to three-thirty in the afternoon. There's nothing like the pleasure of waking up in mid-afternoon and knowing that the day is almost gone, and that evening is that much closer. Morgan and Jilly were both there when I made my appearance in the kitchen. Morgan was chopping up fruit and Jilly was playing a game on her iPad, and they were talking about Destin.

“She wants to go to Destin,” Morgan said. “She won't tell you that but I wheedled it out of her.”

“Thanks,” I said, going into the refrigerator to see what was there to eat.

“I didn't say that, exactly,” Jilly said. “I said it was pretty. But I like it here, too. It's more stinky-coasty, you know?”

“That's a benefit?” I'd found some chocolate pudding in the refrigerator and got a spoon and was cleansing my palate with the pudding. “I'm cleansing my palate,” I said, when Jilly gave me a look about the pudding.

“Stinky is less oppressive, more natural, whatever that is. Smells more like the water here, the bay, even the Gulf. There's that scent of seaside living here, shrimpy, but it's sort of missing over there.”

“Smells too good,” Morgan said. “And fewer people die all the time.”

“That's the ticket,” Jilly said.

“You know what I thought the other night when I was driving back?” I said. “I thought about my mother and father in heaven with my brother Raleigh, sitting up there, all three of them grinning like fools watching us down here. Like we were in the sack race and they'd already done their stint and were up there watching us tumble home.”

“More like a game of Whac-A-Mole,” Morgan said.

“You got that from me, darling,” I said.

“I'll footnote it,” she said.

“Peterson's death was all natural,” I said. “The heart attack was unassisted.”

“Who did they think did it?” Jilly said.

“They were thinking Chantal.”

“Your recent and poorly thought out six-night stand,” Morgan said.

“Who's counting?” Jilly said.

“His insta-paramour,” Morgan said. “Congratulations, Dad. Did they have you as an accessory?”

“No, and they didn't have anything on her, other than she had a thing with Peterson in a recently past life.”

“What about the other guy?” Morgan said. “The one they thought the Amazon wife killed.”

“Parker,” I said. “They asked about him and Chantal. I think they were working on a scheme deal. Multiple murder.”

“I guess you're the one who got away,” Jilly said.

“Could be,” I said.

“Well,” Morgan said, “at least he's on top of this news-gathering thing.”

I finished my pudding and placed the bowl and spoon in the sink, ran the hot water into it, and rinsed the sink. Then I got interested in cleaning the other dishes and getting them into the dishwasher, so I pumped some soap on the sponge and rinsed the dishes that had been left in the sink earlier in the day. I liked washing dishes, I'd always liked it, since I was a kid—the hot water, the visible progress, the pristine way the sink looked once the dishes were done. The way my hands felt when I dried them on a dishrag or some paper towels. “I'm still nervous,” I said. “I think you guys ought to be nervous, too.”

Jilly and Morgan looked at each other for a minute, then said, almost in unison, “Nah.”

“We're fine,” Morgan said. “These are normal things. And I never cared so much for Parker anyway. It's too bad, but, you know, stuff happens.”

“Three guys from our office died last year, remember?” Jilly said. “Thompson, McCarthy, and that other guy, what was his name?”

“Harper,” I said. “Or Piper. Was it Piper?”

“Yep,” she said. “Harper's still munching his way through the coffee-room rations.”

“And it's not
my
office anymore,” I said.

“Oh,” Morgan said. “I forgot that we are scarred forever by our mistreatment at the hands of the vicious commercial art industry.”

“We're not thrilled,” I said. “And I think it is time for me to take a shower.”

“He said, leaving the two women alone in the kitchen with their thoughts,” Morgan said.

“Let the record reflect I am leaving the kitchen as well,” Jilly said. “Candy Crush Saga summons.”

“Are we doing anything today?” Morgan said.

“Yes,” I said. “Bernadette wants to go into Chantal's condo. She may have already done it, but I told her I'd go with if she could wait for me to sleep.”

“Has she been deputized or something?”

“No, she's president of the HOA. Apparently there's a clause in the covenants that allows such.”

“Is Chantal actually missing, or just sort of, like, unaccounted for?” Morgan said.

“Nobody knows,” I said. “Now I wish I'd gone down there the other night.”

“I don't,” Jilly said. “Wish you'd gone down there.”

“What's that on your sleeve there, girl?” Morgan said.

“Thanks, Jilly,” I said. “I don't, either, come to think of it. Was a figure of speech.”

“Take your shower, Dad,” Morgan said. “Hurry up. We women want to go check out the late paramour's digs.”

Bernadette had waited, as it turned out. I called her after my shower and she said she'd been waiting for my call since one. I said I'd slept a little more than I'd intended. We went to Chantal's condo with Morgan in tow. Jilly bowed out at the last minute. Bernadette had a passkey and we went in the main door under the building. The place was immaculate, as it had always been when I had seen it before. The kitchen was spic and span, the floors looked a little dusty but otherwise clean, the windows were clean, the beds were made, the closets perfectly orderly, the baths pristine. One of the faucets in the master bath was dripping, but I remembered that it had dripped previously. The last bedroom, where we'd previewed Tinker's show,  was a bit of a wreck, hastily tidied. Her cleanup was no match for the rest of the house. But there was no sign of Chantal.

“Let's don't touch anything,” Bernadette said when we returned to the living room having passed through the rest of the place. “Just in case.”

“Doesn't look like she's been here for a while,” Morgan said.

“Probably been staying at the Velodrome,” I said. “We should go down there. Or someone should.”

“Looks like the girl cleared out, too,” Bernadette said. “I guess we can leave now. Truth is I was a little afraid we might find her in here, Chantal, I mean.”

“What, you mean, like, dead?” Morgan said.

I raised my hand. “Occurred to me, too.”

“Man, you guys are some ghouls,” Morgan said.

“It would fit,” Bernadette said. “Just saying.”

We filed down the stairs and Bernadette locked up and we walked back toward my condo. About halfway back Bernadette split off, said she was going to walk a bit. Morgan wrapped her arm around my waist and pulled me close to her.

“So, I guess things are finally on the move with Jilly?” she said. “I think that's great, you know. She's fun and smart and I like her.”

“I guess. I mean, we've talked a little. Diane pushed it, when she left. I always thought I was too old, you know. I got twenty years, nearly. But I guess that doesn't matter as much as it used to.”

“I don't think it matters at all,” she said.

“Well, you're a brazen young hottie,” I said, kissing her forehead. “Why would you think anything mattered?”

“I think all the correct thoughts, Dad. Among others. You taught me well.”

“You are a blessing,” I said.

CHANTAL WAS
gone. That was the message Bernadette left on my phone a few days later. Chantal was gone and Tinker was gone and the manager at the Velodrome had no idea what to do and the police were interested in the disappearance, and would I please call her “as soon as humanly possible.” I could and did, within hours of receipt of her message.

“There's an APB out,” Bernadette said. “And a BOLO.”

“Ten-four,” I said.

She ignored me. “Did you know that Chantal was once, you know, sort of in trouble with the authorities? Not here, but before?”

“In Mississippi and other states nearby,” I said. “Yeah, I heard that.”

“What, were you keeping that for your memory book?”

“I didn't think it was anyone's business, really.”

“How about the police?”

“Especially the police,” I said. “Besides, they knew she was here.”

“They did?”

“Yeah, I was with her once at the Velodrome when they came to see her.”

“Local police?”

“I don't know who they were. There were a couple in uniform and a couple plainclothes guys, and they had marked cars, Texas cars. They may have been state police. I didn't really get into it that much.”

“And so how did you get the story?” Bernadette said.

“She told me. There was a trial and somehow before it really got going the DA over there dropped charges. Sounded like it was a big deal over in Biloxi or someplace.”

“That's the story,” she said.

“Who told you? The cops?”

“Jean did,” she said.

“So they're still looking for Chantal?”

“Parker was shot with a twenty-two in the temple, like her husband.”

“That's silly,” I said. “Lots of people get shot in the temple.”

She laughed at that. “You a detective suddenly?”

“OK,” I said. “So I don't know that, actually. Parker shot himself, like, with the gun in his mouth, didn't he?”

“Somebody said that, but that's not where he was shot.”

“Not lucky for Chantal.”

“Any other reason you know of she would have up and left?”

“Nope. Got no clue.”

“You guys were a thing?”

“Little thing,” I said. “Not a big thing.”

“How you feeling right about now?”

“Funny,” I said. “Is the idea she had a relationship with Parker, too? I mean, both Peterson and Parker?”

“Maybe,” she said. “What Jean told me was that they were ‘interested' in her about Parker. They're reviewing Peterson, too.”

“What about the daughter?” I said. “She's a piece of work.”

“I know nothing about her and Jean didn't mention her. You know something about her?”

“She said some stuff when I met her. She was doing an art piece for a gallery up in Houston, a video performance thing. She read some stuff off the Net. And told some gruesome stories. Hard to tell what was real.”

“Stories?”

“Some guy beat her up, the usual stuff. Said she shot him. Runs in the family, apparently.”

“So the mother killed her husband, and now you're telling me the daughter did, too?”

“Didn't kill him, just shot him. The daughter.”

“We have to tell Jean, you know that,” she said.

“That's fine. I'll tell her if you want. That's all I know about it. It was supposed to be some time ago. She had the guy's car, a convertible, I think it was.”

“We better sit down with Jean,” Bernadette said. “You available now, if she is?”

“Sure. Whenever. Call me back.”

She called back within minutes and we arranged to meet at her place and I went over there and repeated the story as best I could remember it to Jean Darling, who recorded the conversation on a small digital recorder, starting with various formalities about the time of day, the location, who I was and how I was speaking willingly and without a lawyer present and so forth. I figured she knew what she was doing. I went through my meeting Chantal and our dalliance—that's what I called it, though I was embarrassed when I said that—and then about Tinker, and Tinker's story, as much of it as I remembered. As I talked about Chantal and Tinker the story seemed stranger than I thought. Fraught—that was the word I used, the only time in my life I ever used it. When we were done, Jean said she was shutting down the recorder and stated the time, date, location, my name, her name, Bernadette's name. Then she hit the
STOP
button and thanked me for agreeing to the recording and said that it probably wouldn't be the last time I had to tell the story. “They're going to want to bring you down to the station and get you to tell them like you told me today. Don't worry about it. If you remember other things, try to remember, when you're retelling the story, to tell the officers that you remembered something after we had this talk.”

“I can do that,” I said.

Later I was reading a story about the lionfish in an online magazine where it was reported that, prepared correctly, lionfish were said to make a tasty meal, but one prick from the fish's venomous spine could cause an excruciating death. Lionfish had become a problem, apparently, and the scientists that study this sort of thing were trying to figure out ways of preventing the oceans from being overrun with them. Apparently the largest lionfish were the worst offenders, as they routinely delivered many more baby lionfish than smaller siblings.

“Are you reading that article?” Jilly said, looking over my shoulder at the iPad.

“I am,” I said.

“I read it this morning,” she said. “It says we should be eating lionfish but that they are so pretty nobody wants to eat them.”

“They look grotesque to me,” I said.

“Well, so pretty or so grotesque,” she said. “Sometimes it's the same thing.”

“It says here that according to
National Geographic,
lionfish have moist, buttery meat that is often compared to hogfish.”

“Hmm,” she said.
“Darling, could you pass the hogfish?”
She came around the end of the sofa and sat next to me. “Meanwhile, about Florida. I've made up my mind. I can take it or leave it. Either way I'd like to maybe hang together and muddle through. Ditch Point Blank. I loathe and despise et cetera.”

“Great news! You'll move? You going to live in?”

“Can we get a boat?”

“Sure,” I said. “You know how to run a boat?”

“I can learn,” she said. “I'll look it up online. I'm sure there are sites that explain boat ownership. We can download some books from Amazon. How hard can it be?”

“My brother Raleigh had boats all his life and he said it was a living hell. He was always repairing this and replacing that, redoing the keel or whatever.”

“Puking over the starboard bow,” she said.

“I'm serious,” I said. “He said it was awful. Powerful people always want to go out in your boat if you have one, and they always get drunk, and then you have to be careful they don't fall out, and it's a mess.”

“Forget the boat,” she said. “I've lost interest in the boat.”

“I gather the police may suspect Chantal.”

“Of?” Jilly said.

“Parker, I was told. I guess she decided to skip. She told me she'd shot her first and second husbands. Only one died. Second one. Could have been making it up, you know, the allure of the femme fatale. She was charged, had a trial, all that.”

“She had a trial?”

“So she said. But charges were dropped. Didn't I tell you this? I can't remember who I've told what anymore,” I said. “Maybe I told Morgan.”

“She would have told me,” Jilly said.

“Anyway, I figure she decided there was too much attention and took off. Maybe she took Tinker with her.”

“Her work here was done,” Jilly said. She stretched across me and grabbed the remote and clicked the TV on, scrolled through the listings on cable. “Want to watch
Professional Hair Removal, Part Two
?” she asked.

It was a rhetorical question, I think.

The
Kemah Sentinel
reported that a former Triple-A baseball pitcher Hilton “Bones” Bagbee, seventy-four, died recently in the clubhouse at Forgetful Bay Condominiums. Bagbee played baseball professionally for nine years, most recently forty-odd years ago pitching for the Commerce Keystones. He also logged time in the Texas minor leagues with the Whips, Redheads, Quail, and Cookies, appearing in ninety-six games, mostly as a reliever, though he did make seventeen starts. The highlight of his career came early when opposing batters complained that the full-facial mask Bagbee wore to protect himself from line drives was designed to distract batters and thus make his pitches harder to hit. The Triple-A commissioner thereafter ruled that Bagbee had to stop wearing the mask on the mound, as it made him look like Jason, of hockey-mask fame, though the reporter may have had the time line screwed up there. He was often confused with another pitcher, Justin Miller, for whom the “Justin Miller Rule” in MLB was later named.

The county coroner's office confirmed Bagbee's death, and a spokesperson stated that the cause of death had been determined to be completely natural.