Voices in the Wardrobe (30 page)

“Oh, and you think I do?” Charlie spread her arms to emphasize that all she wore was her contacts and Kenny's shirt. “Where do you suppose I'm keeping it? And the keys to the truck?” She squirmed out of Roy's grip and jumped, praying one of the guys would catch her.

“Move it!” The nurse screamed it this time.

The siren screamed too. Charlie scored a hit in poor Kenny's arms. Roy stared at them wide-eyed through a double window in the door as it closed and the ambulance took off downhill.

“Anybody got a flashlight?” Mitch asked without much hope.

Charlie had nothing but a purse in her truck with another pair of shoes and a hidden key. Kenny and Mitch still had their cells. When they'd slipped out of sight of the main road to pick up Mitch's car first because it was closest, Charlie left a message for Libby on Mitch's cell. He'd had more time to check out the parking lot before their getaway and had remembered only a spa van and a couple of plain, white, unmarked, identical Chevy Blazers parked side-by-side, government issue without BORDER PATROL on the door.

Dawn threatened but not hard, there were still a lot of clouds and a rain smell to the air and little street lighting here. All the cul-de-sacs looked alike and everybody had a dog either inside the house or garage or out in fenced yards. Charlie kept squeaking her pain at stubbing bare toes. House cats prowled freely, hissing and moaning at them and each other. Porch lights came on.

Finally, Kenny picked her up again and ran after Mitch who'd spotted his car. By the time they reached it, helicopters flew low over the promontory's top. Searchlights swept across it and the Sea Spa at the Marina del Sol, searching for landing spots. Paratroopers dropped from others.

“Jeez, look at all the stuff they're wearing,” Mitch whispered as the odd shapes with two legs floated down from above. The sound of heavy vehicles grinding up the main road they'd left a short time ago and still they stood entranced by the commotion in the sky. “Man,
Jane of the Jungle
's starting to look hackneyed. You just can't outclass reality anymore.”

Mitch's cell buzzed. Libby wanted to know what to do. She had Brodie and Keegan. Keegan had lost everyone and decided to wait out in the Wrangler when he heard more shooting. Libby and Brodie found him there. “You all go back to Les Artistes, honey, and get some sleep. I'll be there soon. I'm all right and so is Maggie.”

The growing clacking and roaring waxed horrific. Houses lit up behind them, excited voices called to each other from yards, decks, porches. Even down where they were, the air filled with dust and the smell of jet fuels and smoke from flares. Still they stood and watched, Charlie thinking about all her credentials somewhere in the Sea Spa and Maggie Stutzman's too, and Luella Ridgeway's along with who-knew-how-many murdered Feds.

“You know, if they're smart they'll have a roadblock set up somewhere down the road. They don't know everybody left up there is dead and the killer is on her way to a hospital. Seems likely some of the dead communicated our names to their headquarters before she blew them away.” Mitch sighed, shivered. “All those dead Feds. Somebody's going to have to go down for this. Is poor Caroline VanZant going to be enough to satisfy egos? And won't that make for embarrassing headlines.”

Kenny shook his head. “I still can't believe it. Sweet, soft spoken, little old lady—”

“Probably only in her fifties,” Mitch said.

Charlie added, “Don't mess with mothers.”

Behind them, some guy yelled, “We being invaded?”

“Washington's invading California,” another answered.

“Yeah, they want to liberate our fruits and vegetables.”

“Send for Governor Arnie. He'll take 'em out.”

Charlie would have thought that with their homes so close to the invasion these people would have been less jocular. How could they know it wouldn't spill over into their neighborhoods? But then, they hadn't spent the weird night she had, didn't have their identifying documents up there awaiting discovery. “Let's get out of here if we can.”

Mitch's car got them down to Charlie's truck without a roadblock. They figured it would be at the juncture of the turnoff to the marina. He left them there and took his car down. He had a pass into the marina and a legitimate right to be there. Charlie started the truck down after him and he called Kenny to say there was no roadblock, so she drove him down to his car which Mitch could get out of the Marina del Sol with his guest card and the three of them decided to try to get all their vehicles away.

They'd returned to the wye, Mitch in the lead, Charlie sans license, underwear, or identification in the middle so they could try to help her out if need be, when the earth shook. Charlie's first thought was, wouldn't you know—
now
the earthquake of the century, like in a bad film. But the people on a lit balcony across the road did not appear affected and no cracks opened up around her, no buildings tumbled. A dark cloud billowed overhead, set back the dawn, and smelled like smoke.

“I knew it. There was a meth lab there and somebody blew it up.”

Forty

Charlie, still with no identification but fully clothed, sat between her mother and Mitch Hilsten on rented folding chairs in the lovely garden of the Esterhazie mansion and watched as Libby Abigail Greene—stately and gorgeous—walked out of the wedding arbor on the arm of Douglas Esterhazie, heir to a fortune built by concrete, tall and better looking by the day and perfect for her but headed for Yale and success and some vacuous Buffy while Libby cheerfully headed for disaster. They would have been perfect for each other and Charlie would have been able to sleep nights. But noooo.

They could have had their wedding here and Libby could have been safe and cared for and—Edwina Greene nudged her, handed over a Kleenex before Charlie realized she'd been sniffling. Charlie's mother'd had an extreme makeover. She didn't look younger, but she did look better, sort of. For some reason, Charlie resented it anyway.

Edwina dabbed a tissue under her own eye and whispered, “I'd always hoped it would be you walking out from that arbor.”

“Why would what's-her-name want me as bridesmaid?” Charlie was pretty sure it was Carol or Carolyn or something like that.

“I was thinking of you as the bride. You'd have been cared for, safe, and solvent. Edward could have discouraged your foolish, dangerous escapades. And I could sleep nights.”

Charlie turned to look at her mother who, like Libby, was taller than she even though the hump had set in. Wow, I'm turning into my own mother. And I'm adopted.

Looking perfect for each other from behind too, Libby and Doug climbed the stairs to join Ed and the minister in the gazebo. The string ensemble segued into the opening strains of the wedding march. The minister turned his hands palm up, signaling the guests to rise. All heads swiveled to the arbor once more as the resplendent bride, confident and happy, appeared on her father's arm. He was elderly and shaky and what's-her-name had to move carefully to keep her gown out of his path, adjust her stride to accommodate his infirmities.

Tables sat under awnings on the lawns for the wedding dinner and, except for the bridal party, the seating was open. Charlie found a seat next to the minister in search of respite from her mother and Mitch and their reveries. Servers in maroon tuxedos brought trays filled with glasses of champagne for the wedding toast.

The minister was a portly gentleman and, his duties over, he removed his tux jacket and wiped his brow with a cloth handkerchief and when that didn't do the job, the linen napkin under his silverware. She congratulated him on a “service” that had been more good-natured than inspirational. He leaned backward and to one side to smile and nod at her, raised his goblet to hers, and emptied it. Charlie did too. Observant servers had them soon refilled.

During the teasing speeches to toast the couple by the groom's son and friends and the bride's father and friends, the reverend pulled out what he explained was a medibaggy. It had pockets for morning, noon, and night and separate zip-lock openings for each section.

“They're new. You can get small boxes of them free at your pharmacy. Very handy for the traveling medicated, which seems to be everyone these days.” He proceeded to pour out one whole section into his palm, pop the handful of odd sized, shaped, and colored capsules into his mouth and wash them down with a shot of champagne.

Charlie couldn't bring herself to ask if he, by chance, suffered from dry mouth. After the week she'd had not much seemed strange today. The string ensemble continued to play, Ed and his bride did a little waltzing, Charlie emptied her champagne glass and it was refilled the minute she set it down. She was truly weary. She didn't feel like mixing. Just to sit still, fully dressed, with no need to run or hide or know terror for those she loved was such a blessing.

Doug, Libby, and Lori Schantz, had been buds all through high school and now they mimicked the bride and groom's formal dancing. The ensemble broke out in some modern thing that left the groom on the sidelines while the bride and the other kids danced in a foursome.

Betty Beesom had arrived on Jacob Forney's arm, a little wobbly but obviously enjoying it all. There was a breeze and enough chill in the air when the clouds came over the sun that the radiant heaters under the canvas canopies felt good.

Charlie had aches and bruises and bumps, but her innards had settled down after a double latte, nine hours of sleep, and two poached eggs on milk toast. None of which gave her a dry mouth. Even with her mother in the house.

Maggie and Luella were still in the hospital but recovering. Charlie, against all advice, had refused to be admitted. She figured she'd pretty well absorbed or eliminated the drugs and had no intention of having her stomach pumped.

The dinner was something of a blur, served on covered plates, no buffet style here in the midst of riches. Steak-caesar salad, lobster and crab chunks in a creamy butter sauce over rice—Charlie lost track. Suddenly the groom and Mitch were sitting on either side of her. “It was a beautiful wedding. I'm so happy for you. But I think I need another nine hours of sleep.”

“I can't believe you made it here at all after what you've been through,” Ed Esterhazie told her. “Thanks Charlie. It meant a lot to me.”

Charlie let Mitch take her home early, both expecting to be met by somebody from the San Diego County Sheriff's Department and/or various local representatives of the federal government, at least a slew of news media types. No one met them but the cat.

She crawled into her sleep tee and a fuzzy robe. Mitch made hot tea and they settled in front of the TV to watch the news. Nothing about the invasion of the Sea Spa at the Marina del Sol or its condition now. Mitch got out his laptop to check the Internet, hers still hiding at the Esterhazies'. No news there either. She'd heard nothing about the condition of Detective Solomon, Deputy Saucier or Ruth Ann Singer, and assumed Caroline VanZant was in a cell somewhere. Kenny had gone back to his room at the Islandia to wait out events and continue his investigative research.

Charlie expected to be arrested for something any minute but was too sleepy to wait up. She woke when Edwina and Libby came home. The lamp was on and Mitch asleep in the chair with the ottoman and Tuxedo stretched out on her chest.

“Think Tux knows?” Libby asked her grandmother. “I've never seen him get that close to Mom without hissing.”

“I wonder,” Edwina said.

Forty-One

A week after the wedding there was still no news on the fate of the Sea Spa at the Marina del Sol or investigations into the streak of murders there, or the invasion by helicopters—as if nothing had happened. Mitch and Kenny were both down in San Diego now and reported no obituaries except for those of Grant Howard and Dr. Judith Judd. At least their deaths were listed as “still under investigation.” A small notice of the burial of Dashiell Hammett and Raoul Segundo, both listed with cause of death as drowning and without mention of the possibility of foul play or being still under a coroner's investigation. Lone survivor for Dashiell was his mother and he was predeceased by his father, Welmer Hammett. For Raoul a daughter, Susan Rippon, predeceased by his parents and a brother, all with the surname of Jones.

The whole mess got weirder. And the weirdest of all was that when Kenny contacted the
Union-Tribune
, he was told that Jerry Parks had taken a job at another paper out of state when Kenny and Charlie and a few others knew for sure that the man was dead. And no mention of the dead Feds yet either. Charlie had seen at least four herself. It was like something hid the voices in the wardrobe as well as the pictures this time.

Plus the cat was acting funny—not that Tuxedo Greene had ever acted normally. She caught Doug and Lori, waiting for Libby to finish her makeup, watching the black feline with white chest and feet watch Charlie drag a bruised, sore, but grateful-to-be-alive-and-ambulatory bod about the living room.

Lori, a cute, short, bouncy brunette—the exact opposite of Libby—and who would leave for Cornell in the fall, said, “I think he knows.”

“I do too,” Doug agreed.

“Knows what?” Charlie demanded. “What is going on?”

The two looked at her surprised, shrugged, shook their heads, said in unison of course, “About what?”

The really strange thing was that Tuxedo Greene hadn't hissed at her since she got back from San Diego County. He didn't rub on her legs and purr or anything but he didn't bite them either. “Must be the Diazepam.”

“Oh, I took him off it, didn't I tell you? Kate said it made him insecure.” Libby left with her friends for a buddy dinner at their old hangout, the Long Beach Diner. Kate, who cleaned their house, was the “cat whisperer” of Long Beach, as well as a no-nonsense person living among a nonsensical citizenry.