A Killer Closet (6 page)

“And Harriet?” Irene asked.

“What about Harriet?”

“What did she know?”

Adelle sniffed. “Nothing. Harriet never knows anything that's going on. She's so naïve.”

“One of you said something about Loraine's lover being someone in government.”

“Well,” Adelle said with a shrug, “that was the rumor, at least. But Susana knew. I'm sure she did.”

“Was Loraine one of your circle? She was quite a bit younger than you three, wasn't she?”

“Well…I wouldn't say she was
that
much younger, but yes, she was a little younger,” Adelle said.

“About my age, would be my guess,” Irene said.

“Maybe,” Adelle conceded.

Irene studied her mother's face. “Are you sure you don't know anything more?”

“I'm sure,” Adelle said. “And in this case, I'm glad.”

Later, with Adelle in tow, Irene maneuvered the winding, unplanned streets of old Santa Fe out of town to the fashionable Las Campanas country club neighborhood where Harriet lived and picked her up. By the time she had reached the highway that led to the mountainous area known as the Pecos Wilderness, she was certain the pale blue sedan she saw in her rearview mirror had been following her since she left the city limits.

Irene drove Interstate 25 as it turned east out of Santa Fe and skirted the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. She glanced often into the rearview mirror, searching for the blue sedan. It was still back there.

“I'm hungry,” she said to her two passengers. “Let's stop at the Bobcat and have a hamburger.” The Bobcat Café outside of Santa Fe at the foot of the mountains was a watering hole with unbelievable hamburgers popular with Santa Fean locals. She didn't really want to stop there, since it would cost precious time and ensure that the drive through the rugged, winding road through the Pecos Wilderness would be in the dark. But she'd wanted to see if the blue sedan stopped as well.

“The Bobcat has been closed for years,” Harriett said. She was riding in the front passenger seat so she could direct Irene once they turned off the highway. “The owners wanted to retire.”

Irene felt a jolt of loss. “The Bobcat? Closed?” It was something she'd thought would always be there. When Thomas Wolfe said you can't go home again, he must have been thinking about the disappearance of a place like the Bobcat.

Adelle spoke up from the backseat. “You should have eaten before we left, Irene. You never were able to plan ahead.”

Irene was about to protest that Adelle's current desperate financial state showed that she wasn't great at planning ahead, either, but she bit her tongue and said nothing.

Harriet was more compassionate. “Maybe we can find something to eat at Susana's place.”

“Tell me about Susana,” Irene said, hoping that changing the subject would dissolve the tension she felt.

“Everybody in Santa Fe knew her,” Harriet said.

“Not
everybody.
” Adelle sounded petulant.

“She was on the board for the opera and the symphony and headed up two or three charities,” Harriet said. “Seems she was invited to the governor's mansion every time there was a function there. That was because of her husband, I suppose.”

“Of course it was because of her husband,” Adelle said. “Why would Susana be invited—”

“Her husband was active in politics?” Irene asked, interrupting her.

“You could say that,” Harriet said, “Or you could just say he had deep pockets.”

Adelle's response was a sarcastic “Hmpff.”

“Didn't you tell me he was a real estate developer, Adelle?”

“Yes.” Adelle's answer was short and clipped. She'd once been the doyenne of Santa Fe society, and she obviously didn't like any hint that she'd lost the throne to another.

“Tomas was a hedge fund manager before his illness, I believe,” Harriet said. “Most of his business was on the East Coast and abroad, but he and Susana both preferred to live here. Like George and me, I guess.”

“Of course she preferred to live here,” Adelle said. “She wanted to be a big fish in a little pond. She found that it's not so easy to be a big fish in New York. When my second husband was the head of Dreyfuss Securities in Manhattan and I was on the museum board, I saw more than one upstart who found that out the hard way.”

“Was her husband ever investigated for anything? You know, like insider trading, money laundering, fraud?” Irene asked, ignoring her mother.

“Of course not!” Harriet sounded incensed.

Adelle spoke up from the backseat again. “You don't know that, Harriet.”

“I most certainly do know that,” Harriet protested. “Tomas would never do anything illegal.”

“What do you think, Adelle? Do you feel the same way?”

“I would never speak evil of a person with his malady,” Adelle said exuding false piousness.

“What malady?” Irene asked.

“Oh, I thought you knew,” Harriet said. “He has Alzheimer's. He's in an institution in Albuquerque.”

“I didn't know,” Irene said, remembering the talk in her store earlier about his being ill. She'd known him when she was a child and had seen him a few times. He'd always seemed distant—too busy to interact with Irene. Now he was in an institution. How cruel life could be.

They were now driving past the old Civil War battlefield of Glorieta Pass, where a few cars were still in the parking lot of the visitors' center. Although it was almost seven o'clock, the sun was high in the summer sky. Irene could still distinguish the traffic behind her, since there were no headlights to obscure her vision. The blue sedan was nowhere in sight.

“Were Tomas and Susana ever mixed up with anything illegal?” Irene asked as she watched road signs to find the turnoff to the little village of Pecos.

“Tomas wasn't. He was clean as a whistle, and Susana wasn't smart enough to be mixed up with anything illegal,” Adelle said.

“You're speaking evil of the dead, Adelle,” Harriet said.

“Well, she wasn't.”

Irene glanced at Harriet, who shrugged. “Maybe she wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but she was smart enough to head up all those boards, and she wouldn't dream of doing anything illegal.”

“She had an affair.”

Harriet turned around suddenly to stare at Adelle. “What?”

“Didn't she tell you? She told me.”

“Who?” Harriet said.

“I'm not at liberty to say, and anyway, I'm not the type to gossip.”

“Having an affair isn't a criminal offense, Adelle,” Irene said. “You of all people should know that.”

An iceberg of silence overtook the backseat. Harriet cleared her throat, trying to suppress a laugh. Several minutes passed before Adelle spoke.

“I need to pee.”

Irene had just exited the freeway and headed the car up the narrow mountain road that led to the small village of Pecos. “Can you wait until we get to the village, or do you want to find a bush along the roadside?” she asked.

“Don't be ridiculous. Of course I'll wait.”

Irene resisted the urge to make the same suggestion Adelle had made to her—that she should have planned ahead and used the bathroom before they left. She said nothing, however. Mothers are due respect, even when they are Adelle Daniels.

It was almost six o'clock by the time they reached the village. There were no cars in front of the town's one gas station, and when Irene drove past the front, all three of them saw the sign on the door.

Adelle was incensed. “Closed? How could they? What am I supposed to do?”

“I'm sure they would have stayed open if they knew you were coming,” Irene said.

“Don't be sarcastic, Irene. Take me to the bar across the street.”

“Are you sure?” Irene had noted the pickup trucks and low-rider cars parked in front. It was definitely not the kind of place Adelle frequented.

“For heaven's sake, Irene, do you doubt that I know when I need to pee? Of course I'm sure.”

As soon as Irene parked the car in the parking lot in front of the bar, Adelle bounded out of the car and hurried toward the front in a mincing trot. “I might as well go, too,” Harriet said.

Irene was thinking the same thing, but as she got out of the car and was about to close the door to follow the two women, she saw the blue sedan across the street, next to the gas station. The car's windows were tinted, making it impossible to see if anyone was inside. She stood outside the car, with the door still open, trying to decide what to do. Within a few seconds, she was back inside the car. If anyone got out of the blue sedan, she wanted to get a good look at them.

After several minutes, she saw Harriet and Adelle exit the bar, escorted by a man who walked them all the way to the car and opened the door for each of them.

“Bye, Rafael,” Adelle said, and gave him a flirtatious smile.

The man touched the front of the cap he wore.
“Adios, Señora,”
he said.

Irene's attention was diverted away from the blue sedan momentarily as she watched the little drama play out. When she turned her attention back to the sedan, it had moved out of the space it had been occupying and drove away on the road, headed back toward the freeway.

“I'm surprised you didn't come in with us.” Adelle's voice was a bit less frosty than it had been earlier.

“Be glad you didn't,” Harriet added.

“God, Harriet, what is it with you?” Adelle said, settling into the backseat again, while Harriet got into the front.

“I don't appreciate being treated like…I don't know…a piece of meat for sale.” Harriet said stiffly.

“What do you mean?” Irene asked, taking her eyes off the blue car she was watching in her rearview mirror to look at Harriet.

Adelle made a dismissive wave with her hand. “It was nothing. They were just flirting. You get used to it.”

“Well,
I'm
not used to it,” Harriet said.

“I'm sure you're not,” Adelle said.

The motor purred as Irene started the car and backed out of the parking space. “Which way?” she asked Harriet.

“Straight ahead into the mountains. Just stay on this road that runs through the town until I tell you where to turn.”

The road narrowed a few miles out of the tiny village, and the forest thickened with tall ponderosa pines on steep rocky mountainsides. The area was popular for families as well as for hunters and fishermen. Campgrounds dotted the area, and a few motor homes shared the road with Irene's car, along with other cars pulling trailers. Irene was oblivious to the conversation between her mother and Harriet as she watched for the worrisome blue car. So far, however, it was nowhere in sight.

“Mariposa Landing must be somewhere near here,” Irene said, as they drove past several summer homes of various sizes.

“No, it's farther up the mountain,” Harriet said.

Irene sighed. “I was afraid you'd say that.” It had been years since she'd driven in the wilderness, but she remembered how canyons and roads narrowed and became steeper and how mountain streams meandered across the road at times, making fording them difficult. She'd been a teenager the last time she'd driven here, and back then, nothing was impossible.

“Turn here,” Harriet said, pointing toward a narrow dirt road shrouded in the shadows of tall pines. Irene turned, driving slowly along the rocky, uneven path. A veil of dust swelled and undulated behind them, making it impossible to know whether or not anything was following them. Although there still would have been late-day summer sunlight in the city, it was growing dark in the mountains, where the light was obscured by both the steep terrain and the towering trees.

Before long, they reached the first inevitable crossing of the stream where it ran across the road. Irene switched on her lights and could see that the water was flowing swiftly. She stopped, uncertain about how deep the water might be and whether they should attempt to cross.

“You can drive through the water,” Harriet said. “I've been across it dozens of times with George and never seen it impassable.”

“Dozens of times?” Adelle almost choked.

“Oh, yes. They always had lovely weekend parties,” Harriet said. “You've been, haven't you?” There was no hint of smugness in Harriet's voice.

Adelle sat up a bit straighter and lifted her chin. “Why would anyone want to spend a weekend in such a remote place? I'm sure there must be bears and panthers and worse.”

Irene could not allow herself to think of bears and panthers now, as she edged her car toward the stream. She felt the front tires sink into what had to be mud, but she pushed harder on the gas pedal and moved the car forward. Water sloshed under the car, and Irene was certain she could feel it moving sideways. She was afraid they would float downstream and end up…where? Tumbling over a waterfall? She kept her foot on the gas, feeling the front end rise slightly as she drove over a rock.

More mud. Tires sinking. More pressure on the gas pedal. At last she sensed that the tires were on firm ground.

She breathed a sigh, ready now to face bears or panthers or whatever. Anything except a blue sedan, which, she was happy to see, was not in sight.

“It's only a few more miles. Maybe three or four at the most.” Harriet was obviously trying to be encouraging. “Just stay on this road.”

Adelle was leaning forward in her seat, gripping the back of the front seat. “It's hardly a road! It's a primitive trail. Poor Susana, having to live like this.”

Irene watched her speedometer and noted that they were barely averaging fifteen miles per hour because of the rocky, bumpy road and the frequent switchbacks as the trail wound itself around the mountain. The automatic headlights came on and cast eerie shadows on rocks and trees. Twenty minutes later, they all saw the huge shape looming in front of them.

“That's it!” Harriet said. “Isn't it beautiful?”

As they drew closer, Irene saw that it was, indeed, beautiful. Even Adelle sucked in her breath in astonishment. The house, built entirely of granite rocks hewn from somewhere in the Sangre de Cristo range of the Rocky Mountains that surrounded it, had gabled windows and multiple chimneys. A carefully tended lawn graced the front and sides, and native ponderosa pines towered in profusion in the grassy area and all around the house.

“It looks gothic,” Adelle said.

“
Architectural Digest
called it ‘rough-hewn elegance,' ” Harriet said. “But wait until you see the inside.”

Irene had shut off the motor but was still sitting in the car. She felt an odd reluctance to go inside. “It must have cost a fortune to build.”

“To be sure,” Harriet said.

“Some people have more money than brains,” Adelle said.

“Well, let's go inside,” Irene said again. “You do have the key, don't you, Harriet?”

Harriet assured Irene that she did have they key as all three of them got out of the car. They stood together, staring up at what Irene couldn't help thinking of as a beautiful monster.

“I can't understand why Susana would give
you
a key,” Adelle said.