“How could you
not
want a girl your age back? Isolated like you were out here!”
“But if I hadn’t—I knew I wasn’t going to convince Aunt Maddie of anything. I never once had, not ever. She wasn’t going to talk to Sonora the next time either. The only difference—and I knew this, too—is that she’d be angry. But still I did it. I wanted to see Sonora. I thought after Aunt Maddie screamed at her, I could walk her partway out to the road and we’d talk and she’d understand I was sorry and we’d be, just for a little while, like friends. I just . . . just . . .”
She shifted, still more turned away than facing me. “When she came, Aunt Maddie’d had a bad day. She had a recipe that wasn’t working and she was on deadline. Plus, she’d had to get an entire side of beef because of some problem with the butcher. And using even the best knives slowed her down. She was never that good at it.” She stopped again, closing her eyes. “So she wasn’t in a good mood.”
“What happened then?” I couldn’t believe I was getting the whole story like this; it was as if a switch had been thrown.
“She drove right up to the door like she’d been invited—which she had. By me, like I said. But before she even knocked Aunt Maddie yanked open the door and started screaming. And Sonora exploded. Really. She just went off! I was so stunned I couldn’t get out of my chair—this chair, the one you’re sitting in. I was sitting right there.”
“She went off like that just because your aunt was screaming? Was your aunt shoving her, or hitting her?”
“No, just yelling, the way she did when she was frustrated. I figured she was going to be screaming at me as soon as Sonora left. I figured I had just enough time to run out the back door before she slammed the front one in Sonora’s face. Then I could run around the side of the house and tell Sonora how really, really sorry I was, and maybe she’d still hang around with me a little. I didn’t think so after what I did . . . but I hoped.
“But by the time I got there, she was standing holding the knife and Aunt Maddie was a heap on the doorstep.” Her hands were quivering but her eyes were dry as she looked directly at me. “You’re wondering how I can tell you that horrible story and not break down again, aren’t you? In the beginning I didn’t tell anyone, except the sheriff, because I’d fall apart before I got anywhere near the end. Then it got so I’d told it so many times the meaning started leaking out. It was just words and I sounded like a robot. If I’d have told reporters then they’d’ve said I’d had a lobotomy or something.”
“But Claire, why’d you tell me?”
“Because this is like normal. We’re sitting here like normal people, like we’re almost friends.”
“And?”
“Because I’m so fucking relieved.”
I could barely believe those words came out of her timid little mouth. “Relieved that Sonora’s dead?” I swallowed as hard as I ever have in my life, struggling to control the burst of fury I felt.
You’re
relieved
Karen’s dead? You were the one who lured her back here.
“Yes!”
I thought she was going to burst into tears now, but once again, she didn’t. She looked away, and when she finally turned back we were both in better control. “Ever since—all this time—I’ve never pulled open that door without being terrified. When Aunt Maddie was here, a knock on the door meant somebody wanting something from her. She’d be polite to them but there was hell to pay after. And then everything had to be perfect so she could get back into her groove. It was always in the back of my mind, the fact that every knock was like an explosion. I was never ready . . . I had no plan . . . no insulation. That’s what the shrink in San Francisco said. You know what?”
It was a moment before I realized she was waiting for my reply. “What?”
“You’re probably not going to believe this, but I was in the bin there before it even occurred to me that normal people don’t resent every knock on the door. The girl in the next room there said her family left the doors unlocked. I assumed she was delusional, I mean seriously.”
I lifted my cup and drank to give myself time to consider. Isolation like that was almost incomprehensible to me, the youngest of seven children, growing up in a house where the front door was always banging open and Mom kept stew in the fridge to heat up for any kid or kid’s friend who wandered in between meals. It was a rare dinner without a guest or without three conversations going on at once. At least before Mike disappeared.
I felt for Claire, but still, something about her story didn’t fit.
“You liked Sonora and yet you’re relieved that she’s dead?”
“Now I don’t have to be afraid she’ll kill me, too.” She shook her head. “Listen, she must have been a psychopath. One minute she was a cheerful college girl and the next she grabbed Aunt Maddie’s knife and stabbed her. So you don’t need to look at me like that. Of course she dreamed of killing me, just like she killed my aunt.” Then softly, she said, “I don’t keep big knives here anymore. None.”
She lifted her teacup with steady hands. Why wasn’t she more visibly upset? Her neck and shoulders were tight, but otherwise it was as if her emotions were on a separate circuit from her body. She was the one who’d mentioned lobotomy. But it was still Sonora—my Karen Johnson—that was the biggest question mark. What had set her off like that? So enraged her that she’d grabbed the knife and plunged it into a woman’s chest? A virtual stranger. Had it been like a blood vessel bursting without warning? Or was she truly a psychopath with such a good façade I’d missed any hint of deviance?
Except, out of the blue, stealing a police car!
Suddenly I understood only too well what Claire was not saying—and maybe not even seeing. “I’m probably the only person you’ve met who knows just what you mean. I liked her, too, I told you. We were going to meet for dinner. And then, out of the blue, she stole a police car. How can I ever trust my judgment again?”
“If only she’d just taken
our
car!”
Despite everything, I almost laughed. “It must be hard to trust people after that. I mean, second-guessing yourself.”
“Why do you think I stayed way out here, alone? I invited a woman here who killed my aunt! I never had a clue. But I’m going to tell you something. You can’t learn judgment, no matter how many years you spend in the bin. So don’t even try. Look, I let you in!”
Was she making a joke? I couldn’t tell. Did she even have a sense of humor, or was she just a mass of quirks?
But suddenly I remembered an important detail. “You and Madelyn weren’t totally alone. There was a migrant crew here.”
“That’s right.” Once again, she was regarding me warily. “But they were way out in the garden, on the far side of the house.” Then she volunteered something surprising: “There’ve always been rumors that my aunt kept a lot of cash money around, to pay people, especially once the inn got underway.”
“And it’s never been found?”
“Of course not. It didn’t exist! Aunt Maddie wasn’t a fool. She may have been suspicious of banks, but she wasn’t an idiot. But people like that guy of yours are never going to believe it. He thinks he’s going to get rich.”
“Has he been out here before, bothering you?”
She nodded.
“You could have called the sheriff.”
A slight flush colored her face.
“You didn’t because you were lonely?”
“Bad judgment. I told you you can’t learn judgment.”
“What can I say?” I was so furious at Wallinsky I could barely think straight. I picked up my cup to take to the kitchen and stood up.
“Wait. I’ll make you a sandwich. You’re hungry, right? You probably didn’t have breakfast.”
She sounded like a little kid begging for just a few more minutes of human attention.
Don’t leave me.
But I had all I was going to get here. Hanging around was just putting off driving home and calling Korematsu. “Claire, I’m sorry. I have to go back.”
She looked like she was going to cry. Like she’d been controlling herself, or trying to, the whole time I’d been here. Now, all of a sudden, it was just too much.
“Claire?”
“But I was going to make sandwiches!”
Why did the creation of food always make such a difference? Why did the food take on the whole pain? “I’m sorry.”
“Promise me you’ll come back. I understand—I really do—you’ve got other stuff. You hardly know me. There’s no reason, but, well, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m so lonely here. Days, weeks, no one comes.”
“But you could have—”
“No! She’d have found me in a city! I was safe here. This place I know. No one’s going to get me here.”
Tentatively, I put a hand on her shoulder. She flinched but didn’t shake it off. I could have reminded her Sonora Eades wasn’t going to threaten her anymore, but I just couldn’t. Despite everything, I still couldn’t make myself believe Karen Johnson was a psychopathic murderer.
But looking at Claire, seemingly about to go to pieces, it would have been impossible to say she didn’t believe it.
“But now,” she forced out, “now I don’t have to . . . I can go, do . . . Omigod, I don’t even know. It’s so scary.”
“Give yourself time.” I smiled reassuringly.
“I don’t know anyone, anywhere. The only place I’ve been is here.”
“You’ve been to town. If it weren’t for Wallinsky outside, I’d be asking you to give me a lift.”
“Sure, yes, I’d do that . . . for you. Sure. I even have a new car. I’ll show you. No one’s seen it. I mean there’s no one to show it to.” She thought about this for a moment, sighed and then, making some association, and
still hoping to keep me, said, “Tell me about your stunts. You said you were in the movies?”
“I’m doing a set now in San Francisco.” As we walked to the car, a new silver Honda that made me believe Claire really would free herself from her prison here, I told her about the set-up. “The character I’m doubling is a woman on the run from her husband’s killers. She’s being chased through the city. She—
I
—screeches around the corner onto California Street, side-swipes one cable car and hits another. Then her car explodes. That’s what I’m doing Monday night, the fire gag.”
“Fire! Will you be on fire? How do you do that?”
“Why don’t you come watch? I’ll leave your name with security. I’d like that.”
“Really? Wow, that’s . . . great!” She looked longingly at her shiny new car. “I could take you for a ride.”
“Next time. Right now I have to deal with him out front.”
“We could stop somewhere, get brunch, it’d be fun!”
Don’t leave!
“I’ll see you on the set, okay?”
I gave a wave as I loped off—glad to be moving—around the house and into Wallinsky’s steam bath of a truck. “So you lied to me again. Do you do it out of habit, or do you just lie so much you don’t remember what the truth was? Or are you just a colossal pain in the ass?”
“The latter,” he said, in a tone that proved him right. “So I’ve been out to the house here? That’s what you mean, right?”
“What else did you lie about?”
21
HE SHOVED THE passenger door open. “Get in. I’m driving.”
“Fine.”
That
wasn’t going to be my battle. “You and Claire? Just what was that about?”
For the first time he was silenced. He actually flushed a little.
“You came on to her?”
“Yeah. I needed to get close. It was business.”
“To you.”
“Me and my boss.”
“The boss, as I recall, you did
not
have. So you came on to this poor isolated girl for the purpose of getting into her house and pants?”
“Wasn’t like that.”
“Wasn’t like what?”
“Damn it, I needed to know. How was Madelyn Cesko killed? Why did Sunny—Sonora—pick up that knife?”
“
Sunny?
Omigod, you knew Sonora, didn’t you? This isn’t just a story that grabbed you, you knew her before. You—you had connections here that got you a local job. You were already poking around this town
before
Madelyn was murdered, isn’t that right?”
He didn’t answer, which I took as a yes.
“That’s why it was easy for you to find a job. Because the grocery owner already knew you, isn’t that right? Isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” He hit the gas and shot down the dirt road, his eyes straight ahead. The truck bounced like a toy. He hadn’t even thought to turn on the air-conditioning yet. I flipped the knob.
“So you weren’t here to find out about the murder. You were already after something before Madelyn was killed.”
He shifted forward, nearly into the wheel.
“Okay, Wallinsky. So, what did you come here for?”
We were doing just under 75, about ten miles more than the road could handle. Amateur drivers terrify me; they’re like nervous perps with guns. I checked the door handle location, and the roof supports. If he rolled it, I wanted a fighting chance. Then I lied. “You’re not frightening me. I do car wrecks for a living. So answer my question, or you’ll hear it every ten seconds between here and Star Pine. What were you after at Madelyn Cesko’s?”
With a great sigh, he let up the accelerator. “The migrant crews. They were virtual slaves. Nobody cared. I was hot to be an investigative reporter back then. It was a big story in my mind, but not for anyone else. Not sexy enough. But then I thought of the celebrity angle—to get some editor’s attention. Madelyn Cesko was a famous, big shot cookbook writer who was hiring them to do her vegetable garden. ‘Celebrity Cook Uses Slave Labor.’” He glanced over at me.
I nodded. It was just about plausible. But, as always with Wallinsky, something was missing in the story. There had to—“Omigod, there never was any survey—”
“Wrong!” He looked shocked by his own admission. “Of course there was a survey. Do you think their sheriff didn’t check on that? Sunny was in college, taking sociology, doing the survey, just like I told you.”