Whisper Death (15 page)

“I love driving in the desert,” she said as she slipped behind the wheel of the Mercedes. “Usually I drive alone. It will be different to have someone with me.”

Following Chula Vista through Palm Springs to the interstate, she turned south to bypass the city, driving at the limit. Soon they were lost in the openness of the California desert, the sky a hemisphere of unblemished blue over a table of sand. Beyond Indio she turned west on a side-road, which stretched like a taut rope to distant low, misty mountains. “The Orocopias,” she replied to McGuire's question of their name. “I often come out here to listen.”

“Listen to what?” McGuire asked.

“Music.” She opened the centre armrest of the Mercedes and withdrew a tape cassette at random. “God, what would we have if we didn't have music?”

They were sitting in the car, poised at the rim of a steep bluff just off the roadway. Below them, the valley swept away to the mountains. They watched a car approach from the west, its progress painfully slow across the flat tableland. High above, the white contrails of a jet made a scalpel-cut across the skin of the sky. The Mercedes idled and whispered cool air while melancholy orchestral music played on the car stereo.

“Do you like that?” Glynnis asked.

“I don't recognize it.”

“It's Fauré. A French composer. He wrote such lovely music.”

“The man who called me,” McGuire said, taking his eyes from the view and turning to look at Glynnis. “I think he broke the figurine at the museum Wednesday night.”

She closed her eyes and began humming with the music.

“He knows you, he knew Crawford, and he said he had Lafaro with him,” McGuire continued.

She began to speak, then resumed humming again. Her voice was melodic and in perfect pitch.

“Mrs. Vargas, I think you know more than you're telling me. For your sake and mine, talk to me about it.”

“About what?” Her eyes were still closed, and she was smiling like a child with a secret.

“About whatever you haven't told me. About why Bunker Crawford would kill a man, then appear on your doorstep in the middle of the night, firing a gun.”

The humming ceased and she opened her eyes. “Isn't it obvious?”

“No,” McGuire said slowly. “It is not obvious.”

“The man was clearly insane.”

She backed the car away from the bluff and drove back to the interstate highway in silence, turning south to Desert Center.

“Are you hungry?” she asked, pulling in front of a small restaurant set well back from the road. “This little place sells the best burritos north of Guadalajara. If my neighbours ever knew I passed up beluga caviar and champagne to go slumming here, they would drum me off all the committees they keep asking me to join. Which might not be a bad idea. Let's go in.”

“I'm sorry if I seem uncooperative,” she said when they were seated. She reached up and removed her gold earrings, each sculptured in the shape of a weathered tree with diamond chips scattered among its branches.

McGuire watched with fascination. He was always captivated by the mundane rituals of a beautiful woman. Removing earrings. Applying lipstick. Unfastening a brassiere. “I thought you wanted this solved,” he said.

“I want it ended.” She set the jewellery in front of her and leaned toward McGuire. “This has nothing to do with me. It has never had anything to do with me. All I want is to be left alone to enjoy the things I love. My art collection, my music, my opportunity to lose myself in the desert.”

“Most people would have added something else to that list,” McGuire said. He inhaled her perfume deeply.

They were the only patrons in the restaurant, whose interior was furnished with artifacts and collectibles considered junk a few hundred miles further south. A restored
PeMex
gasoline pump, cracked pottery, bullfight posters, a weathered mileage sign to Ensenada, rusting farm implements, oversized sombreros, cracked mariachi instruments.

A waiter arrived with two margaritas, and Glynnis Vargas waited until he'd returned to the bar before replying. “And what would that be? What else would be added?”

“Companionship.”

She raised the glass to her lips and held it there, speaking over it. “A man?”

“Probably.” McGuire sipped his drink and licked the salt from his lips. “Mrs. Vargas . . .”

“Glynnis.” An order, not a request.

“Glynnis, so far you've shown me about three, maybe four different women in the past couple of days.”

She formed a rosebud with her lips and sampled her drink, her eyes locked on his. She was amused, enjoying the moment.

“One is a wealthy art patron who bought her way into a crowd of multimillionaires, billionaires for all I know. She fits in with them like flowers at a wedding. Another is this strong-willed woman who knows what she wants and won't let anybody stand in her way. To hell with elegance, this is a tough broad. Then there's the young orphan girl who set out for Hollywood full of innocence and her granny's wisdom.”

She set the glass down, smiling broadly. “I count three,” she said. “You said four.”

“I said maybe four. I can't tell. Because there's always another one in a shadow somewhere. But I can see enough of the other three to know they all have one thing in common besides being beautiful and wealthy.”

“And what's that?” she asked, punctuating it with a small laugh.

“They all love men. They love to attract men, tease men, toy with them and maybe even marry them. Which makes me wonder if your marriage to the Brazilian gem king was as full of tickles and giggles as you say it was.”

Storm clouds gathered behind her eyes and she sat back in the booth, staring at her glass as she rotated it slowly on the table. “I should slap your face for that,” she said, speaking each word as though it might shatter with the wrong inflection. “And leave you here in this hell-hole to find your own way home. But I won't. Because you have no idea how happy I was back in Brazil. Because you can never fathom just how devastated I was by my husband's death. And because you cannot understand how much I loathe these people around me in Palm Springs, the way they stumble and fawn over me when I bring them a crumb of culture, a snippet of the only kind of wealth that even aims to be immortal.”

Their food arrived, and they began eating in silence.

“Do you know,” she said, patting her mouth delicately with a table napkin, “why I invited you to the museum the other night?”

McGuire had finished his meal. “I've asked myself that a few times.”

“Because you would be an antidote to all the phoniness I expected to encounter there. And you were.” She raised her fork as though to continue eating, hesitated, and set it aside.

“Your neighbour seems interested in your happiness,” McGuire offered.

“Donald? He's interested in his own status. He doesn't even need my money. He needs somebody to add a little class to his life. God, all that money and all that power, and their lives are so empty.”

“And yours?” McGuire asked.

She was fingering her earrings. “Do you wish to explain that?” she asked.

“You live with a maid, an art collection and the memories of your husband,” McGuire said. “That can't be enough for a woman like you.”

She lifted her hands to one ear and inserted the earring. “Why don't you be more direct, Joe?”

“That's as direct as I get. Sorry.”

“And don't apologize. Apologies are admissions of failure.” She began fastening the second earring. “No one should admit failure. . . .”

“Aw, goddamn it, lady!” McGuire's voice was like the crack of a whip.

The waiter glanced across the room at them, turning away when caught in McGuire's glare.

Glynnis Vargas smiled. “Why, Joseph,” she said. “I do believe you're finally showing me another side of you.”

“Cut the intellectual crap,” McGuire said with mounting impatience. “When I met you the other night, I saw a woman who loves to play roles, whether it's art patron, philosophical guru or society cockteaser. Well, play all the roles you want, but two men are dead and one of them was my prisoner. What's more, my partner was so badly shot up he'll never totally recover, and it's only dumb luck that my head wasn't opened like a watermelon by one of those bullets. On top of that, I've been kidnapped by a couple of flag-waving Feds who'd make Ronald Reagan look like a hippie, some schizophrenic nut calls me at all hours of the night to talk gibberish, and the Palm Springs captain of detectives would like to ride my ass out of town on a lame donkey or whatever you people do with riff-raff around here. So I don't have time for role-playing. Because, Mrs. Vargas,” biting her name off in two sharp syllables, “if somebody decides to kill you like they killed Bunker Crawford, you'll be dead no matter what role you were playing. Art patron, philosopher or whore.”

He leaned back in the booth and folded his arms, awaiting her response.

Her face was flushed with anger, and her small hands formed fists like stones on the table in front of her, the veins and tendons in sharp relief. Her eyes burned into McGuire's before she turned her head to face the wall and bring a hand to her brow. Her shoulders heaved, but when she turned to look at McGuire there were no tears in her eyes. She was laughing, a light and high laugh, like wind chimes.

“McGuire, you must value honesty more than anything else in life. Certainly at least as much as my friendship with you.”

McGuire waited for her to continue.

She sat upright, still giggling quietly, dabbing at her eyes with a silk handkerchief from her purse. “No one I come in contact with any more is ever so honest. Or so abrasive. Except with their domestic help, of course. Honesty, impulsiveness—that's all considered bad form, you see.” She set the handkerchief aside and stared into his eyes. “A whore, McGuire? Why, I've known men who would kill you for calling me that.”

“I didn't . . .” McGuire began, but she reached across the table to place the tip of her finger against his lips.

“No more,” she said in a near-whisper. “Not anymore.” Her finger moved up the line of the scar, and she laughed again. “Did you notice anything about the people in Palm Springs, McGuire? Beyond their wealth, I mean. There's something else that makes them unique compared with other people. Do you know what it is? They don't have scars. Or wrinkles. Next to golf, plastic surgery is the biggest industry the town has. It's true. There are more plastic surgeons per capita in Palm Springs than dentists. Or teachers. Imagine a whole industry based on removing wrinkles, or reshaping noses, or making breasts larger. Isn't it silly, McGuire?” Her face began to crumble. “While the rest of the world is making medicines or refrigerators or computers or other things vital to life, Palm Springs devotes its energy to avoiding the semblance of aging. Not death. Not even six plastic surgeons for every hundred residents can prevent that. Just the
semblance
of dying, McGuire. That's what it all comes down to. Appearances. And another lie. That's all. Just another goddamned lie.”

Her eyes were wet with tears and her hands were shaking. McGuire took them in his and squeezed them.

“I'm . . . I don't mean to appear so mysterious,” she said haltingly, staring down at her unfinished meal. “Especially with someone who is so brutally honest. Painfully honest.” She laughed briefly through her tears.

“Just tell me the truth,” McGuire responded.

She raised her eyes to his and stared into them, searching for something hidden. “Drive me home, please,” she said. “Drive me home and I promise to be honest with you.”

It was almost midnight.

Through the skylight over the bed, McGuire watched the moon suspended like a peach in the darkness above him. He rolled on his side to draw a hand lightly along the bare, bronzed back of Glynnis Vargas and trace the line of her spine down, down, until she rose out of sleep long enough to laugh softly and roll away from him.

He lay back again, his hands behind his head, his eyes on the moon, recalling the events of the previous few hours.

She had remained silent on the journey back to Palm Springs, staring out the window at the passing landscape. When he'd stopped at the security gates in front of her home, she reached across him to press a button below the dashboard and the gates parted obediently.

Leading the way into the house, Glynnis spoke briefly to the maid, who made a short telephone call before leaving to stand in the street just beyond the security gate. Twenty minutes later, McGuire watched from the living-room window as a battered pickup truck arrived, driven by an expressionless, brown-faced man. The maid climbed aboard and the truck drove away, one fender dangling from a length of wire.

As the truck disappeared on Chula Vista, Glynnis Vargas entered the room wearing a light cotton robe and carrying a small, intricately carved wooden box. “I want you to see something,” she said, seating herself on a large sectional couch and patting the cushion beside her. “Come sit by me and look at these,” and she lifted the lid of the box.

Inside were candid photographs of Glynnis Vargas in lush tropical settings and snapshots of her on a secluded beach. In many of the pictures she was accompanied by a tall, strikingly handsome man with a full head of thick, silvery hair, a neatly trimmed moustache above a strong mouth and square jaw, and eyes that beckoned and smiled.

“Getti,” she said as she handed a stack of photographs to McGuire. “If you can assess a man by his face, surely you can begin to understand what this man was. And how much he meant to me.”

She shuffled quickly through the remainder of the pictures before dropping them in McGuire's lap.

“He looks like the kind of man you described,” McGuire said, examining them one by one.

“Look, look at this one,” she said quickly. She tapped a photograph in McGuire's hand with a long, elegant index finger. “This was taken at our villa on Itaperica. It's an island off the coast of Bahia. . . .” Her voice softened. “The most beautiful part of Brazil. So beautiful.” She pointed to the image of her husband. “It's my favourite picture of Getti. Look how happy he is. Look at the smile on his face.”

The man was indeed happy, beaming at the camera from a beach chair, his sunglasses pushed high on his forehead to reveal his laughing eyes.

“I think I want a drink,” she said suddenly.

McGuire watched her walk to a sideboard, the contours of her body moving languidly beneath the fabric of her robe. She poured herself a large glass of cognac from a crystal decanter and stood gazing out the window before returning to sit beside him again.

“I used to look at these and cry for days after Getti died,” she said, gathering the pictures from McGuire's hands and returning them to the carved wooden box. “Since I arrived here, I haven't looked at them at all. Until now.”

“Why now?”

“I'm not sure,” she replied. “Perhaps it was just to say goodbye to him.” She set the box aside. “I don't expect to look at them again. For a very long time.”

McGuire recalled something from the evening at the Desert Museum. “When I brought you home from the museum the other night,” he said, “a man met you at the door. Who was he? You were obviously more than just friends.”

She took another long sip of cognac before answering. “My cousin. From Brazil. Getti's cousin, actually. He returned to Rio the following day. I miss him already.”

“Was there something between you?”

“No.” She lowered her glass and turned away, avoiding his eyes. “Yes,” she corrected herself. “Yes, there was. But not anymore,” she added quickly.

McGuire set his empty glass on the floor.

“You never waste words, do you?” she asked when he looked back at her. She too had placed her glass on the thick carpet. Before McGuire could speak, she raised herself onto her knees and dropped her hands to the belt of her robe. “I find that so appealing in a man. So let's not waste words, shall we?”

The robe parted and, still kneeling, she brought McGuire's mouth to her breast, her hands behind his head and a soft, low moan rising from her throat.

Remembering the moment, McGuire reached to touch her again. Her body was more firm, more lithe than he had expected. And he had expected much.

Afterwards, she had cried. A small girl, sobbing on his shoulder. He had carried her in his arms across the living room, past the entrance to the Florida room, beyond the kitchen to the music room where her portrait hung, and through the white louvred doors down the darkened hall. “At the end,” she had said, her arms around his neck.

He laid her on the bed in the desert dusk, her eyes closed, one arm flung aside. After closing the drapes he returned to the bed, unsure whether to stay or remain, until her eyes and her arms both opened to him again.

Now, awake in darkness softened only by moonlight, he crept from the bed and watched her sleep for a few moments before exploring the house.

When he had carried her down the hall, he had passed three closed doors. Now he tried them, to discover that all were securely locked. A doorway leading from the music room was also secured, as were two others, which should have opened to the living room.

McGuire estimated that half the area of the house was sealed behind locked doors.

He traced his way back to the bed and lay silently for several minutes watching Glynnis Vargas sleep, reaching to stroke her body lightly with his fingertips, barely brushing her skin as though sensing the texture of an eggshell.

He awoke again to desert light leaking around the drawn drapes and flowing through the skylight. Beside him, Glynnis slept soundly on her stomach, one foot extending vulnerably from beneath the single sheet covering her.

Dressing quickly, he walked down the hall to the music room, unlocked the sliding doors and stepped out of the air-conditioned veil of the house into the warm cloak of the desert day.

McGuire skirted the pool and unlocked the rear security gate. Within a few steps he had left the green environment of the landscaped grounds and entered the harsh reality of the desert, scrambling up the steep face of the rocky hill behind the house.

He found what he expected about a hundred feet up the face of the hill.

A small hollow had been formed behind a massive boulder. The ground behind the boulder was pressed smooth with footsteps; a crumpled paper coffee cup and several food wrappers lay scattered on the ground. McGuire followed a worn path leading away from the boulder and traversing the hill until it ended at a short service road leading off Chula Vista.

He returned to the shadow of the boulder and stared down at the house with its swimming pool, the sliding glass doors off the music room, the patio running along the side of the house to similar sets of doors, and the large skylight over Glynnis Vargas's bed, where they had made love and slept bathed in moonlight.

The sliding door to her bedroom opened and McGuire watched Glynnis Vargas emerge barefoot, carrying an over-sized towel and wearing an emerald silk robe. At the edge of the pool she shrugged out of the robe and dove naked and without hesitation into the water, her body gliding beneath the surface like a bird in flight.

She swam several lengths with easy, practised grace. Then, casually towelling herself off without glancing around her, she returned to the bedroom. Only the shimmering surface of the water and her damp footprints, drying in the sun even as McGuire continued to watch, remained as evidence of her presence.

McGuire suspected he had been treated to another piece of theatre.

He found her in the kitchen, preparing coffee. Her hair was wrapped in a towel and she wore a thick terry-cloth wrap that extended just to her knees.

“I know what you're thinking,” she said as he entered from the music room. “You're thinking this is not normal behaviour for a Palm Springs widow. You're thinking I should have a cook to make my breakfast, a butler to serve it and a maid to tidy up.” She looked at him, a smile bringing out the half-moon dimples in her cheeks. “Am I right?”

“Only partly,” McGuire said. He sat at the breakfast nook in the corner of the large, brightly lit room. “I was really thinking you had better be more careful.”

“About what?”

“About appearing for your morning swim like you did just now. I was watching you from the side of the hill. . . .”

“I know,” she interrupted. “I saw you.” She opened a cupboard door. “Croissants? They were fresh yesterday.”

“Doesn't anybody surprise you?” McGuire asked.

“No,” she said, placing the croissants on a gilt-edged plate. “Not even you.”

“Glynnis, somebody has been watching you from that hill out there,” McGuire warned, gesturing over his shoulder. “And more than once. He's brought food and drink with him and for all I know binoculars and a gun. I saw him, the first day I was here. He was scrambling up the hill, probably back to a car parked on that road off Chula Vista.”

She turned to face him, the dishes in her hands. “And what do you want me to do? Remain inside like a hermit? Invite him down for a swim?”

“You could call the police, at least.”

“That's a wonderful idea, Joseph.” She walked toward him, the plates in her hand. “Then, instead of some harmless peeping Tom, I'll have an entire shift of police officers watching my every move. No thank you.”

“How long has he been doing it?” McGuire asked.

She returned to the counter for the coffee. “Doing what?”

“Watching you, damn it.”

She carried the coffee to the table and sat down before answering. “I don't know,” she said as she filled his cup. “Does it make a difference?”

“Don't you care? Aren't you concerned?”

“No. Not yet.”

“Look, this guy could be dangerous.”

She filled her cup, then began separating the croissant, pulling it apart delicately with her fingertips. “We both know, Joseph, that there are two kinds of maniacs. Dangerous ones, and the rest of us. I don't think a man who spies from a hilltop is a danger to me or anyone.”

“How can you be so calm?”

She lifted a piece of croissant to her lips. “I have had many years of practice in avoiding panic.” She chewed her food, her eyes never leaving McGuire's. “You're dying to ask, aren't you?”

McGuire forced his eyes from hers and lifted his coffee cup. “Ask what?”

“Ask what I meant a minute ago when I said not even you surprised me.”

He smiled. “So go ahead. Tell me.”

Extending a hand to his, she touched him with the tips of her long and polished fingernails. “I knew you would be that good last night,” and she smiled like a naughty little girl.

“What are you thinking?” she asked. She lay on her side, one finger tracing circles on McGuire's chest.

“I'm thinking I better decide if I should stay here in Palm Springs and help find the man who shot Bunker Crawford and my partner,” McGuire replied. “Or just leave it to the locals. It's their case. Not mine.” The skylight above him was cobalt blue. Music drifted in from the other room like the sound of the tide echoing through a seashell. His clothes were on the floor, her robe was back in the kitchen.

“If you stay, you could move in here.” She was already smiling at his answer with her eyes.

“I hadn't thought of it.”

“Good thing I did.”

McGuire shook his head. “I really should return to Boston.”

“For what?”

McGuire wasn't sure.

“I'm leaving for Los Angeles tomorrow,” Glynnis said. “There are still some things to be settled regarding Getti's estate. I'll be gone two days. Three at the most. Why not stay here? When I come back, we'll talk about your career.”

“In Palm Springs?”

“No, silly.” She patted the bed beside her. “Here.”

She followed him in the Mercedes, as he drove first to the motel to check out, then to the rental agency to return the car.

“You drive,” she said when he emerged from the rental office. She was already sitting in the passenger seat of the Mercedes. “You like driving this car, don't you?” She smiled as he slid behind the wheel.

“It's a nice car,” McGuire agreed. He checked the traffic behind him and pulled quickly away from the curb.

“You look good driving it too,” she said. “Some men look especially good behind the wheel of certain cars. You look better in a Mercedes than you do in a Ford.”

“Doesn't everybody?” McGuire punched the buttons on the car radio. He wished he could hear some vintage jazz. A little Miles Davis, maybe a walking blues by Zoot Sims, some classic Basie, a rollicking Oscar Peterson piano solo. But all he could find was Barry Manilow and syrupy strings.

“What are you looking for?” she asked.

“Good jazz.” He gave up and switched the radio off.

“Isn't that a contradiction in terms?” She laughed and touched him gently when he frowned at her. “Some day you'll have to teach me about jazz,” she said. “Anyway, not everybody looks good in a Mercedes. But you do. You look terrific.” She was watching him, her head angled, her eyes flashing. “Would you mind if I turned you into a chauffeur for a few minutes?”

McGuire said he wouldn't mind at all.

“Then stop at my bank, would you please? I have a few transactions to make.” She became thoughtful and serious. “I wonder how they're coming along with the new figurine display? I should go and inspect it, but I don't know anything about the security arrangements . . . how am I to judge?”