Murder Alfresco #3 (14 page)

“Why?” he said, finally. “Why get mixed up in all this?”

Sunny made an involuntary sound like the pip of a squeaky toy. “It wasn’t exactly intentional. I did set out to try to find somebody who knew her, just to see what kind of person she was, but after that, it all just sort of happened.”

“You realize you just made the process of investigating this homicide and, should we get the chance, of prosecuting the guilty party, infinitely more complex. Now we have to go back to the houseboat and gather all the evidence from your tryst, bag it, document it, probably haul you and Chavez and this guy Hyder into the station for questioning, and possibly subpoena you for testimony if we ever get a chance to go to trial. All because you thought it would be a hoot to commune with the victim’s lingering aura.” He thumped the steering wheel with both palms. “Do you have any idea how many leads have come in that we need to track down? I’ve got people who say they saw her at Taylor’s Refresher ordering a green tea milkshake and onion rings. People who swear she was walking a dog in Crane Park Wednesday morning. People who saw her in the post office with a man she seemed to be afraid of. We’ve got thirty officers from three counties working on this case, and half of them are riding my ass night and day wanting to know did we test the grass under the tree for semen and have we fingerprinted everybody who’s ever set foot in St. Helena. We’ve interviewed close to a hundred people already. Do you think I really have time to be
waiting for you to wander home so I can ask you, implore you, beg you to please stay out of this business?”

Steve contained his irritation with visible effort. He was breathing loudly through his nose, pulling each breath in and forcing it out like a mighty bellows. “You do realize that you could have gotten yourself arrested on top of it. Officer Mills would have been well within his rights to haul you in first and ask questions later.”

“But we had permission.”

“You spoke with Heidi Romero’s next of kin?”

“Joel Hyder did.”

“Joel Hyder said he did. What do you know about Joel Hyder?”

“Not that much.”

“I happen to know that he didn’t talk with anybody in Heidi Romero’s family, and that her father has never heard of him.”

Sunny said nothing. Steve controlled his breathing with visible effort. “So, now that you’ve made your inroads in the case, what’s next?” he said, sounding casual.

“Next?”

“Yes, next. What will you do next about the death of Heidi Romero?”

Sunny looked at Steve for clues. “Nothing?”

“Not a thing?” said Steve, frowning. “Nothing.”

“Are you sure you aren’t going to stake out the harbormaster’s office to see if he killed her? Or invite Joel Hyder to dinner to see what else he might know? Or go snooping around the winery to see what you can turn up? Because you never know, those actions might all lead to valuable information.”

“Am I catching a whiff of sarcasm? It smells like somebody is serving up a little sarcasm.”

“Just answer the question.”

“No, I am not going to do any of those things.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not my job, and because I believe in the talent and persistence of the good men and women of the St. Helena police force and their associates.”

“That’s correct. It is not your job. You are a material witness in a homicide investigation, which is enough to keep most folks tucked in bed at night. With you, it’s an invitation to go making new friends with potential suspects.”

“Is Joel Hyder a suspect?”

“I didn’t say that. What I said, and perhaps not clearly enough, was if I catch you anywhere near Heidi Romero’s home, family, friends, or acquaintances again, I will come down on you like ten tons of angry muscle. Am I making myself understood?”

“Yes, completely understood. I just have one more question. Have you discovered anything to connect Heidi with the winery?”

“We’re following up on leads now.”

“That could be tricky. If there is a connection, the people involved will try to hide it. They’ll lie if they have to.”

“You mean somebody might lie to cover up their connection to a murder?” said Steve. “I’m shocked.”

“Ah, the sarcasm again. What about the harbormaster’s truck? Do you think that’s significant?”

“I think it’s significant that nothing I’ve said has come anywhere near penetrating your skull. Now if you don’t mind, I have work to do.”

It was not an entirely pleasant end to the day. Sergeant Harvey had sped away from the curb in a contained but smoldering rage. Sunny felt, and was, thoroughly chastened. Nevertheless, she had achieved success. Her longing to know something
about the girl left hanging in the tree had been sated. Heidi Romero was no longer a body, no longer a victim, but a person with a life and people who loved her. Sunny expected to enjoy a peaceful night’s sleep free from the ghost of Heidi Romero. What’s more, she had passed on all the details she had gleaned from her investigation to Steve, as well as her concerns. If any of the information she had picked up could lead to the guilty party, Sergeant Harvey would get there eventually. He had also set her mind at ease in regard to the harbormaster.

“I’ll look into it,” he had said. “He told us he was home watching TV the night Heidi disappeared. I didn’t do the follow-up personally, but as far as I know his alibi checked out. Nothing in his interview raised any red flags. In fact, he’s been very helpful. He knows just about everything that goes on in that community. But if it will make you feel better, I can put an officer outside your house for a couple of nights.”

She had declined, and she could see that Steve was relieved. His department might be swamped with visitors from other departments, but they still didn’t have the staff or the budget to keep officers up all night guarding local cottages from hypothetical threats.

She turned the lock on the front door and faced her living room. The lethargy that had weighed her down all day lifted. Her dealings with Heidi Romero were over, passed to those whose job it was to track down killers. She thought happily of getting up the next morning, going to Bismark’s for coffee, and walking into work feeling refreshed and ready to whip the restaurant back into shape. Her greatest concern would be whether or not there was mouse scat on the counter, and if there was, she would create an ingeniously humane trap to capture the culprits and escort them to a better life in the great outdoors.

It was while basking in this spirit of renewal and optimism
that Sunny prepared herself a plate of shaved bresaola, arugula, and parmesan with a swirl of olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, and three cornichons on the side. She poured a glass of Etude Pinot Noir left over from dinner Friday night and carried both to the dining room table. The last thing she’d had to eat was a slice of papaya at the houseboat. She looked at the handsome plate in front of her, took it back into the kitchen, and covered it in cellophane. She poured the wine back in the bottle and put the glass in the sink. Twilight blue still lit the bedroom when she wiggled under the duvet in her clothes and fell deeply asleep.

She dreamed of waves and woke to solid darkness. The clock read quarter to five, a good time to get up. She showered in the dark, letting her eyes wake up slowly, and dressed while the tea brewed. Mondays meant a new menu, and she reviewed it while she sipped her tea. She read the words without hearing what they meant. The waves still occupied her mind. From a bluff she had watched them rising up on the horizon, blue walls coming toward her, each bigger than the last, and finally the one that would end the dream, the towering mass of water a thousand feet tall that would sweep away everything in its path. The sky was just beginning to lighten when she left the house.

The morning radio jocks ran down the weather and traffic as Sunny turned onto Adams, then Main. It was six o’clock, time for Bismark’s to open. She pulled up to the café and parked in front. As she got out of the truck, she noticed a vehicle accelerated out of a side street two blocks up. Sunny stared at one orange tail-light, one cherry red, receding into the distance. By the time she backed out and followed, pressing the old Ford for speed it never had, she’d lost them.

An era of tranquil productivity
descended on the McCoskey quarters. Andre Morales spent Monday and Tuesday night at Sunny’s house, arriving both times before nine o’clock and chasing her to bed before eleven. The subject of Heidi Romero did not come up. No one spoke of murder, sexual deviance, or mysterious white pickup trucks. They were not cautious. They left the windows pushed up to fill the house with night breezes and cold spring smells.

Sunny went back to her old work routine, preparing plates with a passionate clarity of mind she hadn’t experienced in weeks. The tables filled with delighted guests, the staff went about their business with—there is no other word for it—blatant enthusiasm, both bussers showed up, and Rivka, through patience and careful observation, located the nest the mice had built and populated, tucked in a box of paperwork in a corner of the office, and evicted the entire family to the grassy border of the vineyard behind the restaurant, where their fate, while not guaranteed to be rosy, was nevertheless favorable to immediate extermination. Sunny convinced herself that the phantom tail-lights she had seen Monday morning had been a quirk of coincidence. There was sure to be more than one mismatched set of
taillights in the world, and now that she was watching for them, she would undoubtedly see them everywhere. She even managed to ignore the white truck with the Pelican Point Harbor logo on the door that she was certain she had seen speed by on the main road one evening as she left work. She had promptly reported both incidents to Sergeant Harvey, not expecting anything to come of it, and nothing had, other than that Sergeant Harvey had suggested in future she contact Officer Jute with her tips and insights. She could think of only three interpretations of the two sightings. If they were not merely coincidence, and therefore meaningless, they could only be related to the murder in one of two ways. The killer either had remained in the area or had come back for some purpose. She briefly considered the obvious: What if that purpose was to monitor her schedule, to learn the patterns of her comings and goings, where she lived and worked, when she was alone? The thought prickled her skin.

She refused to believe it. This was a situation in which mental discipline was required. What else could be done? Even if her observations were correct and the white truck had been waiting outside her house on Monday morning and outside the restaurant Wednesday night, what could she do about it? Did she believe she was in enough danger to close the restaurant and go away in secret? Or hire a bodyguard? And what about the logo on the second truck? If it really was the Pelican Point logo she saw, then the person driving had to be Dean Blodger.

This is what they call paranoia, thought Sunny. She would refuse to indulge it. In all likelihood she had seen a set of tail-lights and a white truck, not
the
taillights and
the
white truck. Willfully and intentionally, she put all thoughts of murder and murderers out of her head and for the rest of the week went back to the ease and comfort of everyday life.

On Friday night, she sat down to dinner with Rivka, Wade, and Monty, a sure sign that life had returned to normal.

“What’s with the hair?” Wade said to Rivka between bites.

“What d’you mean?”

“It’s different.”

“I wanted to try something new.”

“What do you call that, pigtails?”

“Very sexy,” said Monty, “in a hula hoops and popsicles sort of way.”

“Don’t perv out on me, Lenstrom.”

“Rivka puts the hair in
mujer,
” said Wade, grinning and shoveling gnocchi in his mouth.

“Are you guys still doing that?” said Sunny. “I don’t get it.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Wade. “We have more important issues to discuss, such as the agenda for tomorrow. Are you coming?”

“Where?” said Sunny.

“Infineon Raceway.”

“You mean Sears Point? Only if somebody holds a gun to my head. You know I loathe that place.”

“This is different. This isn’t Nascar, it’s vintage Ferraris and Maseratis. They’re works of art. There won’t be any hooligans.”

“Just overage hooligans with money.”

“Right. Chavez and I are going as Texas high rollers so we can schmooze our way into the VIP area. They always have a VIP area at these events. That’s where they keep the free food and booze.”

“That explains the upper lip. It seems to be some kind of epidemic around here.”

“Tux Robinson never goes anywhere without his mustache and his woman.”

“I’m wearing the bra with the built-in silicon boobs,” said Rivka, “the trashiest pair of Lucite heels you’ve ever laid eyes on, and a cubic zirconia the size of a gumball.”

“You’re both insane,” said Sunny. “What if you run into somebody you know?”

“I don’t know anybody other than you guys, and Chavez is a shape-shifter. Nobody will recognize her once she’s all tarted up, as long as she doesn’t let the birds out,” said Wade, referring to Rivka’s tattoos.