In Plain Sight

Books by Barbara Block

 

 

CHUTES AND ADDERS

 

TWISTER

 

IN PLAIN SIGHT

 

THE SCENT OF MURDER

 

 

Published by Kensington Books

The water was deep, but it wasn't very wide. Reservoir was an optimistic name. Pond was better. As I watched a few pieces of wood, dark shapes on a darker surface, floating by, it occurred to me that unless you were an infant or a cripple it would be extremely difficult to drown in a place like this. Even if you couldn't swim, most people could manage to doggie paddle to a side and pull themselves up onto land. What would it take? Five, six strokes at the most? So why hadn't Marsha been able to do it? What had prevented her?

The more I thought about it the more I became convinced of one thing.

Marsha's death wasn't an accident. You didn't come to a place like this accidentally. Even if she had though, even if she'd tripped and fallen in, she could still have reached the other side. So why hadn't she?

Because she wanted to kill herself? The problem was people don't usually drown themselves. It's too painful a way to go. When your lungs start craving air you can't help but put your head back up. And Marsha could. It wasn't as if she'd swum out into the ocean and then couldn't get back to land. But she hadn't. Why? Obviously because she couldn't.

I wound a lock of my hair around a finger. All the signs pointed to one thing.

Marsha had been murdered.

All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

Table of Contents

Although the city of Syracuse is real as are some of the place names I've mentioned, this is a work of fiction. Its geography is imaginary. Indeed, all the characters portrayed in this book are fictional and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

I would like to thank Bob Hutchison and Richard Hehir for their time and patience.

I
t was four o'clock on a dreary Friday afternoon in mid-April. I was standing near the cash register, watching the rain streaking down the windows, wishing for a Scotch, and trying to figure out how I was going to pay all my bills this month, when a figure from my past walked into the store. Time had definitely not been kind to Marsha Pennington, I decided as she closed her umbrella and came toward me. Fifteen years ago she'd been a young, thin, bubbly blonde; now she was an overweight, middle-aged, stoop-shouldered brunette.

“Robin, remember me?” she asked uncertainly as she tucked a strand of limp brown hair behind her ear. “The Crestville. Apartment 2B.” I guess I must have looked shocked because she added, “I know I've changed.”

“No you haven't,” I lied, trying to make up for the thoughts she'd read on my face.

Marsha sighed. “We had some good times back then, didn't we?”

“Yes we did,” I agreed, though what I mostly remembered were the endless hours I'd spent listening to Marsha chatter on about her china painting class or the flowers she was planning on stenciling on her bathroom wall or which grocery store had the best sales this week. Ten minutes into the conversation and I usually found myself struggling to stay awake. By the time I'd left the complex I'd taken to avoiding her whenever I could.

“I tried calling after you moved. “

“I know.” I hadn't returned them. “I'm sorry. I just got busy.” Then I flushed, embarrassed by how I sounded.

Marsha smiled sadly and changed the subject. “So this is your store?”

“As long as I can keep paying the bills.” Which these days was becoming more problematic. Thanks to a snowy winter and a soggy spring our receipts were down by thirty percent. I kept hoping the weather would take a turn for the better, but so far all it did was rain.

She pointed to a hyacinth macaw I was baby sitting for a customer.

“How much for that?”

“Twelve hundred dollars if she was for sale, which she's not.”

“That's a lot of money.”

“It's a lot of bird.”

Marsha wiped a stray drop of water off her cheek with the back of her hand. “I've read about you in the papers,” she told me. “I guess that makes you a celebrity.”

I gave a dry little laugh. “Not quite.” I'd solved a couple of homicides in the past two years and the papers had given the cases some play.

“Well, nobody's ever written about me.” Her voice contained a hint of envy. Then she gave me a long, hard look. “You've changed, too.” Her tone implied it wasn't for the better either.

I did a quick mental inventory. Maybe time hadn't been kind to either of us. When Marsha had known me my red hair had been bobbed. I'd worn short, straight skirts, silk shirts, blazers, and tons of makeup. I'd been an up-and-coming reporter at the
Herald Journal.
Now my hair was a little duller and my wardrobe consisted almost exclusively of jeans and T-shirts. As for makeup—I didn't wear any at all—not even lipstick. But the animals didn't seem to care and neither did I.

“I'm sorry to hear about your husband,” she continued.

Undoubtedly she'd read about that in the papers, too. Murphy's demise had gotten a lot of ink. I nodded but didn't say anything. I still don't like talking about his death. ODing on cocaine is not my idea of a graceful exit, and it certainly doesn't lend itself to idle social chitchat.

Marsha glanced around the store. “I like this place. I like the name, too. Noah's Ark. Very clever. Was it Murphy's idea or yours?”

“Mine.”

“I figured as much. Murphy never was very good with words.” Marsha patted her hair again. The overhead light picked up the strands of gray woven through the brown. “I have two dogs you know. Shih Tzus. You want to see a picture of them?” And before I could answer she reached in her bag, fished out her wallet and opened it. “Here they are,” she said, a proud parent passing out photos of her progeny.

I glanced at it. The picture looked as if it had been taken professionally. The two small dogs were sitting side by side in a green brocade armchair. Their top knots were both held together with gold bows. They'd been groomed to within an inch of their lives.

“They're why I came.” As she took her wallet back she looked at the photograph and smiled. Her face lit up. For a second I saw the old Marsha. Then the glow was gone. “Is there someplace we can talk? Somewhere private?” she asked as she put her wallet away. “Somewhere I could sit down?”

I shrugged. “Sure. Why not?” I mean it wasn't as if I was exactly overrun with customers. I had the time. And I was curious about what had brought her to the store.

I took Marsha into the room that passes for my office. It's a small windowless space, ten feet by twelve at the most. At one end is my desk and two chairs. Fifty-pound bags of pet food, cedar shavings, and cat litter take up the rest of the area. As I walked in Zsa Zsa, my cocker spaniel, jumped down from my desk with a sample box of pet food clamped in her jaws. The twit. When I tried to grab her she ran through my legs and scooted out the door. Marsha laughed. For a few fleeting seconds her face was animated again, and then as quickly as it had come the sparkle was gone.

“So what's up?” I asked after she and I were seated.

She fiddled with the cuff of her yellow-green blouse. The color didn't do much for her complexion. Neither did the ruffles around her chest and neck. They made her look heavier than she really was.

“I teach ESL at Wellington High now,” Marsha informed me as she shifted her weight this way and that trying to get comfortable in a chair that was too narrow for her. When I'd known her she'd been working as a typist out at GE. “It's nice teaching English to immigrants. I like it.”

“I'm glad.” Whatever it was she'd come to tell me, it certainly wasn't this, but that was okay. I could wait. To pass the time I took a Camel out of the pack in my pocket, lit it with my new toy, a gold cigarette lighter, and exhaled. I figured as long as I was waiting I might as well smoke, but Marsha didn't see it that way.

She frowned and coughed and ostentatiously waved her hand in front of her face. “Do you have to do that?” she complained.

I told her I did. After all, this was my office and my time she was taking up. To emphasize the point I took another puff and put my feet up on my desk.

“Merlin smokes, too,” she said, her face a mask of disapproval. “I could never get him to stop. Even when he said he had, he was lying. I could smell the tobacco every time I got into the car.” She started plucking at the cuff of her blouse again. “We're getting divorced, you know.”

“You've been married a long time.”

“Too long,” Marsha spat out. “I should have done this years ago.”

Actually I was surprised she hadn't. From what I remembered, Merlin was a soft, squishy man who drifted from job to job always complaining that everything that went wrong was somebody else's fault.

“Years ago,” Marsha repeated to herself. “But I'm doing it now,” she said to me.

“Good, but what does this have to do with me?” I spun my lighter around with the tip of one of my fingers. In truth, I really didn't want to hear about her lousy marriage—it made me think of my own.

“It's the dogs.” Marsha leaned forward. “He's suing for custody of Pooh and Po.” Her eyes narrowed. “And I won't let him have them. He thinks he can take them from me, but he's wrong. They're my babies.” She pounded the desk with the palm of her hand. “He hates them. He comes in and kicks them out of the way. He doesn't walk them. He doesn't feed them. He doesn't pet them. The only reason he wants them is because he knows how much I love them. But I won't let him have them. I won't. They need a special diet. I make them hamburger and rice every day. And Po has to have his heart medicine. They need me and I don't know what I'd do without them.” Suddenly Marsha's face crumpled. She bent her head, opened her pocketbook and began rummaging around for a tissue. “You must think I'm very silly,” she said a moment later as she dabbed at her eyes.

“Not at all,” I assured her. “In my experience sometimes dogs are nicer than people. “

Marsha smiled weakly at that and started plucking at the ruffle around her collar. “I just can't bear the thought of what Merlin would do to them.” Then she squared her shoulders and looked me in the eye. “Hell will freeze over before I let him have my babies.”

I took my feet off the desk and leaned forward. “I can understand the way you feel, but what I don't understand is why you're telling me this.”

Marsha put her hands on the desk and leaned forward, too. “I'm telling you this because Merlin is doing something dirty. I want to find out what it is.”

I ground out my cigarette in the glass I was using as an ash tray. Guess there was no sense in suggesting mediation. “What you need is a private detective.”

“No,” Marsha said emphatically. “What I need is you.”

“But I don't have a license,” I protested.

“I don't care. I've already been to two detective agencies. They thought this was funny.” Marsha's mouth quivered in indignation at the memory. “They thought I was some nutty middle-aged broad.”

They were right. She was. But so what? Everybody has to have something to love. Why should it matter if the objects of her affection had four legs instead of two? I started fiddling with my lighter. “What you say may be correct,” I replied slowly. “But an agency will still do a better job than I will. For one thing they have more resources.”

“It doesn't matter how many resources they have. They'll just take my money and sit around and have a good laugh at my expense. Please,” Marsha begged. “Merlin can't get my babies. He just can't. You have to help me. Will you?”

Looking back, I think I said yes because I felt guilty about the way I'd treated her all those years ago. Marsha was always happy to collect the mail and water the plants when Murphy and I were away. When she'd baked a pie or a batch of cookies she'd always given us some. All she'd wanted to do was become a friend, but I'd been too bored by her endless chatter, too self-involved to see how lonely she was.

Marsha beamed when I told her I'd take the job. “I knew you wouldn't let me down,” she burbled. “I knew it. You were always good that way. Now they'll be safe.” And she continued talking about her dogs as she reached back in her pocketbook, a scratched black leather job big enough to fit one of her Shih Tzus in, and took out a crumpled white envelope.

“I have three hundred dollars in here. I hope that's enough,” she exclaimed worriedly.

“It's fine,” I reassured her as I opened the envelope up and took out the money. The bills were all worn twenties. Cookie jar cash. I put the money back where it had come from and slid the envelope under a pile of catalogs. “Okay,” I said, getting back to the business at hand. “You said you thought Merlin was dirty.”

“I think he may be cheating on his taxes.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because of these. I took them out of his desk.” And Marsha opened her bag again, put her hand in it, and began rummaging around. “Damn.” She peered inside her bag. “Where are those papers? I know they're here.” Her rummaging became more frantic. “They've got to be,” she muttered as she dumped everything out of her bag onto my desk and began pawing through folded pieces of paper, blue exam books, old playbills, and a bank statement or two.

“Maybe you left them someplace,” I finally suggested when it was apparent that wherever the papers where they weren't in her bag.

Marsha went through everything again. “No. I know they're in here.”

“They're not,” I pointed out. “Why don't you just calm down and think.”

“You're right.” Marsha swept everything back in her pocketbook. “Of course you're right.” And she began gnawing anxiously on the inside of her lip.

Another moment, I remembered thinking, and she'd dissolve into a puddle of tears. “Maybe the papers are in your car,” I suggested after a minute of silence had gone by. “Or maybe you left them at work.”

Marsha clapped her hands. “Yes. Work. That's it. I cleaned my bag out right before fifth period.” If this was clean, I would have hated to see it before, but of course I didn't say that. “The papers must be on my desk.”

Well, at least we were making progress. “Do you want to go back and get them now?”

Marsha looked at me as if I was stupid. “Nobody is there.” I'd forgotten. It was Good Friday. Schools had the day off.

“Then what about tomorrow?” I suggested.

She shook her head again. “School will be closed till Monday. And even if it wasn't, I couldn't get the papers. I won't be here. I'm going down to Jersey to see my mother in a little while. She hasn't been feeling well lately. Her arthritis is acting up again. I promised her I would drive down for a visit with Po and Pooh. We won't be back till Sunday.” Marsha sighed. “I don't know what's wrong with me. I can't seem to get anything right anymore.”

“You're just having a bad day,” I said, trying to make her feel better.

Marsha gave a short bark of a laugh. “I'm having a bad year.” She pulled the corners of her mouth up in a lousy imitation of a smile. “I'll come by on Monday afternoon with the papers. We can talk then, if it's okay with you.”

I reached for another cigarette. “Hey, you're my client. Anything you want is fine with me. Within reason of course.”