Christietown (19 page)

It didn’t take a Harvard M.B.A. to get that the people at AVEK were neither altruists nor environmentalists.

What they wanted was a contract.

That part was business as usual, like Teenie said.

But what about the other part?

Poisoned water going from PMC’s wells into the pipes lead
ing to the kitchen sinks of every house in Christietown?

Dov and Avi too cheap to change providers?

I kept coming back to the same question: did Liz somehow know about this? And what about Silvana? Did knowing get them killed?

Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.

Now I knew it, too.

I went back into the house and tried Lou again. Still busy. This was getting ridiculous. I had to talk to him. Maybe I could just go over there. It was late, but he obviously wasn’t asleep. I
wouldn’t keep him long. I just needed to clear up a few things. Gambino and Alexander wouldn’t even know I’d been gone.

Five minutes later, I was putting the key in the ignition. I even found an old bottle of Diet Coke rolling around on the floor. When you are addicted to caffeine, it’s best not to be picky.

On the way I realized what night it was.

Thursday.

If Liz were still alive, Gambino and I would’ve had our last dance lesson tonight.

The foxtrot.

Lou would’ve been patient as he took us through the intri
cate steps.

Liz would’ve been popping allergy pills and trying to keep a straight face. She turned off the music at ten sharp. Lou never noticed the time. If she hadn’t been minding the store, he would’ve danced all night.

I took a shortcut via San Vicente, swinging a left just past the traffic island with the sculpture of a miner panning for gold.

Midnight in Carthay Circle.

It was quiet.

Everybody had punched in alarm codes, turned on porch lights, gone to bed. This was a nice neighborhood. No loud music, no trailers in the driveways, no stray beer cans in the bushes.

But as I turned onto Commodore Sloat, I saw something that surprised me.

A white VW convertible with a license plate reading
BRDGRL
.

I’d seen this car before.

Right here, the other day.

BRDGRL
. Bird girl.

This was Wren Abbott’s car.

Parked right in front of the home of her recently bereaved employer, Lou Berman.

My first thought was, It’s a little late for a social call.

My second thought was, Wren is so devoted. The other day she’d been carrying groceries and a box from the bakery for the man in mourning. So sweet.

But Wren is a redhead. Redheads aren’t sweet. They’re fiery, impassioned. And it’s awfully dark in there. Why aren’t the lights on?

Ridiculous. Lou isn’t the cheating kind. He loved his wife.

I put my car in Park and started toward the house. Then I did an abrupt about-face. All of a sudden I felt uneasy, like I’d be interrupting something if I just walked up there and rang the bell. Something personal.

Maybe I should just bang on the door and demand an explanation. Maybe he’d deny the whole thing while she hid, trembling, behind the shower curtain. Maybe the two of them were just sitting in the living room talking.

In the dark? Who converses in the dark?

In eighteenth-century parlance, “conversation” is something two people conduct horizontally.

Just then I remembered something from
Chinatown
, an old PI trick.

Jake Gittes is tailing Hollis Mulwray, the water engineer. Hollis is parked by the ocean, watching the water. It’s been hours. Jake is impatient, but he wants to know how obsessed Hollis is, so he places a cheap pocket watch under one of the tires of his car, the idea being that when Hollis finally drives
away, the watch will break and when Jake comes to pick it up the next morning, he’ll know exactly how long Hollis sat there.

It was a good plan. Not to mention an excuse to destroy my Eiffel Tower Swatch watch.

I glanced at the house again. Still no lights. No signs of movement. Hurrying now, I unbuckled the watch from around my wrist and bent down in front of Wren’s car.

A blue Mazda cruised by. “You got a flat?” the guy called out.

A Good Samaritan. Just what I needed.

“No,” I said, smiling. “Just dropped my keys. Thanks.”

He moved on.

I fussed over the placement of the watch for a couple of minutes, finally shoving it as far under the right-front wheel as I could manage. Then I made my getaway.

In the morning I’d find out exactly how devoted Wren was.

C
HAPTER
2
9

_T
wo
A.M
.
Two forty-five. Three twelve. The drummer two doors down liked to practice in the middle of the night. He never woke me up if I was sleeping. Since I was awake, I listened to him play. He was definitely improving. An ambulance drove by, sirens blaring. A car backfired. Two alley cats went at it for a while. Mimi stood by the glass doors in the bedroom, ears pricked. She was jealous. Love hurts. I closed my eyes, but I kept seeing Liz and Lou and Wren; Agatha, Archie, and Nancy; me and Gambino; me and Richard; Richard and Jackie. I curled myself into Gambino’s chest. He stirred, then wrapped an arm around me. He was protective even in his sleep.

After that, I think I fell asleep for a while.

At five o’clock, I heard the
thwack
of the newspaper. I got up, showered, fed the pets, and made breakfast, hoping the dizzy, nauseous feeling would soon dissipate. Two cups of coffee and one English muffin later, my head had started to clear. I checked the front page. At least there were no more murders at Christietown.

At five forty-five, Alexander came trotting out in his Power Rangers underwear. I made him a muffin and got him washed and dressed. It was Friday, a school day. I had to get him home. I checked on Gambino, who was still asleep, and Alexander and I got into the car.

Half an hour later, Annie was waiting for us at the front door.

“Hi, big guy,” she said. “Thanks, Mom. You want to have a cup of kombucha mushroom tea before you go?” My thoughts on kombucha mushroom tea are unprintable.

“Can’t,” I said, already back in my car. “Busy day,” I called out of the open window. “Love you.”

I was back in town by seven.

In front of Lou’s ten minutes later.

Wren’s car was gone.

I sighed. Of course it was. I must’ve been out of my mind to think there was anything going on between the two of them. I circled the block once and parked on the side street, just in case Lou stumbled out to get his paper or something. I didn’t want him to see me. I’d just pick up my Swatch watch, see what time Wren had left, and be on my way.

The watch was lying there, not far from the curb, in the exact spot where I’d left it. I bent down and checked the time. Seven twelve. Seven twelve? That’s what time it was
now
. The
thing was indestructible. Not even a scratch. Oh, well. It didn’t

really matter. Wren had gone home.

Or so I thought.

As I turned the corner, I heard a car door slam. I turned instinctively. And that was when I realized it wasn’t just Wren’s car that was gone. It was
all
the cars that had been parked on that side of the street. I looked up at the sign posted at the corner:
NO PARKING, STREET CLEANING, FRIDAY, 8AM–10AM.

Today was Friday.

Everybody had moved their cars late last night or early this morning to avoid being ticketed.

And there they were, on the other side of the street: Hondas, SAABs, Audis.

And a white VW convertible with a license plate reading
BRDGRL
.

Lou Berman and Wren Abbott.

They were sleeping together.

Oh, Liz.

Love hurts.

C
HAPTER
3
0

t is a terrible mistake to marry a stranger.
Agatha should have known better. She’d been twenty-four years old and had given serious consideration to three different men before Archie came along on his borrowed motorbike.

All three had been properly educated, with private incomes. All three were deeply in love.

But Bolton Fletcher was too old.

And Wildred Pire, obsessed with spiritualism.

And Reggie Lucy, ever chivalrous, had gone off to India with his regiment, giving her the opportunity to change her mind.

It was a woman’s prerogative and, like a fool, she’d exercised it.

Agatha didn’t know Archie. She couldn’t predict how he would react to a word, a phrase, a look. He was scary, unknown, on a tear through her safe, sane world, and still she found herself drawn to him, like metal to a magnet.

Agatha’s mother despaired of her daughter’s romantic sensibility.

She refused to allow her to rush into the marriage, insisting upon a curative regime of French realist novels, in which the pas
sionate heroines are hurled inexorably into disaster, degradation,

and death. But the cure did not take.

Agatha and Archie married on Christmas Eve.

Scary, unknown: Agatha got what she’d bargained for, and more.

“This thing has happened,” Archie said one dark December day. “I must be with Nancy. One way or another I will be.”

Fine, then. So be it.

Agatha resumed her handiwork. She’d always been good with scissors. Today she was cutting stories out of the newspapers and pasting them in an album.

One day, they’d be yellowed with age, curled in the places where the paste wouldn’t hold. She’d study them and remember. Now their edges were sharp enough to draw blood.

Archie had said in his own defense that everybody can’t be happy, that somebody has got to be unhappy.

But why, Agatha asked herself that evening as she slipped on the silver dress and slippers she’d purchased in town, should I be unhappy and not you?

C
HAPTER
3
1

he bell rang while I was doing the breakfast dishes. I

opened the door with my pink rubber gloves.

It was Mariposa and McAllister, the former wearing his usual smirk, the latter looking like he was about to be sick.

This wasn’t going to be good news.

I had them sit down on the couch while I perched on a wrought-iron chair opposite. I peeled off the gloves and depos
ited them on the coffee table. The cool air chilled my hands.

“Strange weather,” I said, crossing then uncrossing my legs. “Don’t you think?”

“Perfectly seasonal,” said Mariposa. “Not a native, are you?”

“No, I’m not. Look,” I said, “I think we got off on the wrong foot somehow. We’re not enemies—at least I hope we’re not. Are we?”

“I don’t have any enemies.” Spoken like a choirboy.

“Why are you here then? Is it Ian?” I asked. “Did you find him? Is he okay?”

“Ian’s not the problem,” said McAllister, shaking his blond curls.

“Then who is?” Dov Pick. They’d figured it out at last.

McAllister said, “Wren Abbott was arrested earlier today for the murder of Liz Berman.”

As I sagged backward, a wrought-iron curlicue dug into my spine. I let out an involuntary gasp.

“Are you really that surprised, Ms. Caruso?” Mariposa asked.

“Sorry. The chair.” I sat up straight.

“So you’re
not
surprised.”

“Well, actually, I am.” Everybody knows if it’s not the hus
band, it’s the desperately jealous and resentful other woman. Except when it’s not.

Mariposa said, “Don’t play the fool with us, Ms. Caruso.”

“I would never do that.”

He glowered at me. “You know exactly why we’d have reason to accuse Wren Abbott of murder.”

“That isn’t—”

Mariposa interrupted, “What were you doing outside Lou Berman’s apartment in the middle of the night tampering with Ms. Abbott’s car?”

Shit.

“Yeah, I’m waiting. This ought to be good. Maybe you were getting ready to whack her, so you could be next in line for Loverboy.”

I blinked. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Mariposa, come on. Why don’t you slow down? Cute dog,” McAllister said, bending down to pet Buster. Then he turned his guileless blue eyes on me. “I’m sure there’s a perfectly good explanation, right, Ms. Caruso?”

“Yes, there is,” I said, standing up. “I was doing the exact same thing you were.”

“Oh,” said Mariposa. “Silly me. I see. And you were trained in surveillance techniques—where, exactly?”

“My father was a cop,” I said. “Both of my brothers are cops. I’m getting married to a cop. I know more than you think.”

“You’re obviously a smart person, Ms. Caruso,” said McAllister. “Maybe you want to tell us how a smart person like yourself can—”

“Act so fucking stupid!”

“Put yourself in grave personal danger,” McAllister cor
rected his partner. “We don’t want to see you get hurt.”

Sure you don’t. Their good cop/bad cop routine was wear
ing thin. McAllister was as big a phony as Mariposa was. And they were missing the point entirely.

“I want to show you something,” I said. “Excuse me for a minute.”

“Don’t flee the jurisdiction,” Mariposa said.

I ran out to my office. The envelope from AVEK was sitting on my desk. I grabbed it and raced back into the living room, where Mariposa was unabashedly leafing through my mail.

“Find anything good in there, Detective?” I asked.

“To be honest, I was hoping for the Victoria’s Secret cata
log.” He put the stack of mail back on the coffee table without a word of apology.

“Just listen to me for a second. There’s something you need to know.” I stood in the middle of the room, smoothed down my apron, then announced, “Ian and Dov have been pumping water tainted with ammonium perchlorate into all the houses in Christietown.” Breathless, I waited for their reaction.

“Now
who
are you supposed to be exactly,” Mariposa asked, “Erin Brockovich?”

“No,” I said, exasperated. What was wrong with these people? “There’s a lot more at stake here than you seem to understand. If word of this got out, Dov and all the rest of them would go under. It’s the perfect motive for murder.”

Mariposa shook his head slowly. “Hardly.”

“Here,” I said, shoving the papers at him. “Why don’t you just look at what I’m showing you? Take them. Please!” I appealed to McAllister. “I don’t want them in my house.”

“No thanks,” said McAllister, putting up his hands. Finally, he’d abandoned the act.

“Us cops, we’re putting our money on Wren Abbott,” said Mariposa. “Motive, means, and opportunity. You ever hear those three words?”

“Wren worked with Liz,” McAllister said. “She could’ve slipped foxglove into her allergy medicine anytime.”

“So could about a million people,” I protested.

“Even you, I suppose,” said Mariposa. “Is there something you want to confess to? Guilty conscience you want to clear?”

“Of course not.” I picked up the rubber gloves and started fiddling nervously with them.

“There’s more,” said McAllister.

“Yes?”

“We found some shredded-up foxglove plants in Wren’s garbage.”

Not good. I put the gloves down. “So what? Anyone could have put them there.”

“We’re going to find the place she bought them soon.”

Maybe she was going to plant them in her garden. Maybe she liked the way they looked when they were in full bloom. Maybe it turned out she didn’t have a green thumb and she got rid of them.

“We talked to your gardener,” McAllister said, thumbing through his notepad. “Javier Gomez. Wren gave Javier a call last week.”

“To talk about the murder-mystery play, I’m sure.” I’d given everyone in the cast a complete list of phone numbers so they
could get together to rehearse if they’d wanted to. As far as I knew, nobody had, with the exception of Javier and Lael, and that was another story.

“Wrong again. Wren didn’t talk to Javier about the play. She talked to him about foxglove. She had some very specific ques
tions about its toxicity.”

I paused, floored for the first time that morning. “There must be some explanation. What does Wren have to say in her defense?”

“That’s the strange thing,” said McAllister.

“She’s saying nothing,” said Mariposa. “Absolutely nothing.”

I remembered Wren bringing Lou that package from the bakery, tied up with a pretty ribbon. I remembered her eyes.

Oh, god.

Of course Wren was saying nothing.

And I knew exactly why.

The blinds were drawn at Le Palais de Danse, but I pushed

open the front door.

“Hello?” I called out. “Where are you, Lou?”

The trash hadn’t been emptied. The mirrors were streaked with grime. The lightbulbs were sputtering. Lou was the artist and Liz ran the show, but Liz was gone.

And now Wren was gone, too.

Lou shambled forward from the back room. His eyes were black holes. He was unshaven. He smelled like sweat.

“Guess you heard the news,” he said, taking a seat at Liz’s desk. “Or maybe you’re here to get a refund on last night’s lesson. Sorry about that. I hope you didn’t have your heart set on the foxtrot. It’s pretty tricky, even if you’re an expert.” He
made a show of sorting the papers on the desk into piles, but he wasn’t looking at them. He was staring into space.

“You must be feeling very sorry for yourself,” I said. “Both of them abandoned you. Left you all alone.”

He slumped deeper into the chair, like he wanted to disap
pear.

“Get up,” I said.

“I don’t want to get up,” he said. “I want a cigarette.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out a pack of Marlboros, and lit one. I watched him take the smoke in, lean his head back, blow the smoke out. “Today’s not a great day for a visit, Cece. I’m really tired.”

“I don’t care how tired you are,” I said. “I want you to get up and look me in the eye while I tell you what a coward you are.”

“No.” He shifted his weight in the chair. “I know why I feel so bad. I haven’t been dancing. Every bone in my body hurts.”

His self-pity enraged me. “I can’t believe you! How can you sit there complaining while Wren is locked up in some miser
able holding cell somewhere because she doesn’t want
you
to get hurt? Do you have any idea how much she cares for you?”

“I care for her, too.” He stubbed out his cigarette in a dirty ashtray.

“Then how can it not matter to you that she’s not saying a word in her own defense?”

“It does matter.” He blinked his bloodshot eyes. “I don’t get it.”

“Don’t you see?” I was shaking my head. “She doesn’t want to implicate you—her lover, the husband of the dead woman, the most likely suspect. She’s protecting you at her own expense.”

He turned his head away.

“Listen to me, Lou.” I stopped talking until I had his full attention, then I spoke slowly and deliberately. “You have to pull yourself together. And then go down there. And then admit to them that you’re sleeping with Wren, but that doesn’t mean she killed your wife!” I started to lose it at the end.

He was silent.

“Unless—” I stopped short, took a deep breath. “Unless you think she did kill Liz.”

“Of course she didn’t kill Liz,” he said, lighting another cigarette. “She’s a good kid.”

Jesus. “You betrayed your wife for a good kid?”

“Look, what do you want from me? I care about Wren, I truly do. But it was Liz I loved. It’s Liz I miss. It’s always been Liz. Look at this.” He yanked open the drawers of his wife’s desk. They were stuffed with Agatha Christie paperbacks:
A Murder Is Announced. The Moving Finger. A Caribbean Mystery
.
A Pocket Full of Rye. Nemesis
. “Even this little play you wrote. Liz researched her role like her life depended on it. I swear, she read every single word Agatha Christie ever wrote about Miss Marple. She didn’t want anything to get by her. She didn’t do things halfway.” His voice started to crack. “I don’t know what I did to deserve her.”

“If you loved her so much,” I asked, “then why did you cheat on her?”

He raked his fingers through his hair. “It’s complicated.”

“Meaning?”

“Look, Cece. I’ve talked to the police. I’ve told them Wren and I have been having an affair. They know all about it. And Wren knows I told them. I even offered to put up my house for the bail money, for a lawyer, for whatever she needs, but Wren
won’t have it. They’re going to stick her with some lousy public defender. I don’t know what else I’m supposed to do.”

I pulled up a folding chair and sat down on the other side of the desk. “Let me ask you something, Lou. About Liz. I know she went out to Christietown on a couple of different occa
sions, to work on her Miss Marple character.”

“That’s right.”

“Did she ever mention anything strange she encountered while she was out there?”

“What do you mean, strange?”

“I don’t know exactly. Suspicious, maybe. Something she saw or overheard?”

“She never mentioned anything.”

“Anything about a key?”

“No.”

“Anything about meeting anybody there?”

“You mean Ian, somebody like that?”

“Yeah,” I said, trying not to get excited, “Ian or somebody like that.”

“She might’ve met Ian.”

“Are you sure?”

“No, I’m not sure. And I really don’t know what you’re getting at. She never said much of anything about her visits. Just that she had to lay the groundwork. That was it. End of story.”

Great. He was no help at all.

“You should move your car, Cece,” he said, looking up at the clock. “The valets show up to take care of the lunch crowd around now. They’ll have you towed. I’m telling you, they’re ruthless.”