A Line To Murder (A Puget Sound Mystery) (2 page)

I sat under one of the old maples and leaned against its trunk. A Mariachi troupe performed, and some small children danced uninhibitedly in front of the stage. The haunting notes of “
Celito Lindo
” filled the air.

What was Isca up to? Maybe I should take her up on her offer to find me another blind date. It’d be nice to have someone to hang out with. A group playing Klezmer music replaced the Mariachi band. I drifted into a semi-nap, rousing occasionally to brush ants off my legs. A couple of coworkers passed, but I didn’t wave. They were with their spouses and kids, eating curly fries and trying to control their dogs. Later, crossing the lawn toward home, Mrs. Wakefield and her sister, Mrs. Northover stopped me.

“Our nephew, Stan, is coming for a visit and we thought it would be nice if the two of you met.”

“Uh, sure. That would be, uh, nice. When?”

“He hasn’t told us yet, but we’ll call as soon as we know.”

“Well, that’ll give me something to look forward to.”

They beamed and I smiled. Suddenly the day didn’t seem so lonely.

At home, still no call from Isca. I sat on my balcony with a cup of coffee, the neighborhood stray cat and a book. When it was too dark to read, I took my book and a bowl of ice cream and went to eat it in bed. So much for my exciting weekend. When the ice cream was gone, I put the empty dish on the nightstand and turned out the light. I always slept well on a full stomach.

On Monday morning, the first words I heard were, “Isca’s not in.”

“Sick?”

“Don’t know. She hasn’t called.”

That wasn’t like Isca. I had some nagging unease, but I was familiar with the whole calling-in-sick process. People were usually running around asking, “What’s going on? No one’s answering my phone,” before the stock broker who took the call remembered he’d taken the message. On the occasions when I was sick, I called in as many as three times to get the word to the boss. Isca and I didn’t back each other up, so I didn’t have to do double duty, but during a quiet moment, I dialed her number. The phone line was back in order, but she didn’t answer.

After work, I drove to the neighboring town of Puyallup to put in an application for part-time work during the upcoming spring fair. When I got home, I had several hang ups and a giggly wrong number on the answering machine. Still no message from Isca.

Nothing on Tuesday, either.

Tuesday afternoon Janet, manager of the support staff—anyone who wasn’t a stockbroker—stopped by my desk. “Have you talked to Isca?”

“Not since Friday.”

A sense of something being wrong hounded my thoughts the rest of the day. At regular intervals, I dialed her number, letting the phone ring ridiculous amounts of time. Finally, just before leaving for the day, I called her ex-husband. “Andy, this is Mercedes, Isca’s coworker. How are you?”

We’d met socially a few times before the divorce and occasionally afterward in the office. He seemed to be scrambling to identify me.
Very irritating
.

“Fine.” He must have put a face to the name. “Fine. How are you?”

“I’m fine. Listen, have you talked to Isca lately?”

“No, why?”

“I’m worried. She doesn’t answer her phone and hasn’t been to work. It’s not like her.”

“Maybe she’s sick.”

“Yes, but she hasn’t called in or anything. She always calls me to go in early and handle the phones if she can’t make it.”

“Did you call Buckley—talk to her folks?”

“No. If she’s not there, they’ll just get worried. This isn’t like her.”

There was a long pause. “Well?”

“I feel like I should go to her place and make sure she’s okay, but I don’t want to ask one of our coworkers to go over with me. Isca wouldn’t like it, and I don’t want to go alone. Can you meet me later at her house and see if she’s there, if she’s all right? She could have fallen or something.”

“I don’t have a key.”

“I do. What time do you get off work?”

“Five, but I’ll have to see about daycare.”

“Well, will you or won’t you?”
What a jerk!
It had always seemed to me Andy and Isca’s divorce came suspiciously close to his getting his master’s degree after Isca helped put him through school. He also had a habit of turning and walking away when I was talking.

There was enormous reluctance in his voice. “Okay. About five thirty?”

“That’d be swell. Thanks a lot. I wouldn’t have called if I weren’t really concerned. See you then.”

Andy muttered something. I couldn’t catch the words, but there was no doubt about his tone of voice.

Jeez! Hope I didn’t put you out!
Lie. I hoped I had. He was so dang arrogant.

Since Wall Street was in New York, West Coast brokerage houses kept East Coast hours. I worked the seven to three shift and clock-watched to get out on time. Overtime pay was rarely allowed. On the way home, I picked up some fresh dinner rolls. Dinner was a green salad, the rolls and decaf coffee—not as bad as it sounded. I loaded the salad with toppings and didn’t skimp on the dressing. A shower, clean shorts, a cotton shirt and sandals did wonders to counteract the humidity.

On the way out, I remembered to grab my garbage. The cans were in the alley and when I lifted a lid, I nearly lost it. Some rotting chicken mixed with the moldy produce lying right on top was a vulture’s delight.
Jeez, the can was emptied just three days ago and the stuff’s already gone into major decomposition.
I gagged and let the lid slam shut.

Hot didn’t begin to describe the inside of my car and I didn’t have air-conditioning.
If Isca’s all right, I’ll quite frankly be pissed off at driving across town for nothing.

Chapter 2

Isca lived across town in a small house that overlooked the recently-closed Asarco plant. She already had a good view of Commencement Bay and Vashon Island, but environmentalists had more or less forced the plant’s closing, and it was being demolished. After the sprawling facility was gone, her view would be even more sweeping. I turned the corner and pulled up to the curb behind a red Honda. Andy sat sideways with the car door open.

No air-conditioning.
I was surprised. The way Isca talked, her ex-husband liked amenities. He’d taken off his jacket and tie and sat reading papers with an open briefcase on the passenger seat.

As I approached, he looked up. “There are three days of papers on the porch. I knocked. She’s not home.” His tone of voice implied overreacting female.

Maybe if he didn’t look so hot and tired, while I felt so much better in my comfortable clothes, I would have been irritated. Instead, I cut him some slack. “Unless she’s fallen or something.”

Andy sat there looking at me.

I didn’t want to go in by myself, but if he’d at least wait in the car, I guessed I could manage. I was fairly sure he wouldn’t drive away. I fished Isca’s front door key out of my purse. When I turned and started up the walk, his car door slammed. I sighed with relief. Andy was behind me when I put the key in the lock and opened the door. Rather surprisingly, he had to step in front of me and give it a push because humidity had made the wood swell. It swung back. We were instantly hit in the face with the overpowering odor of rotting meat.

“My God.” Andy stepped back a little.

“She must have left something on a counter.”

“I don’t know why she would have. Anyway, Isca has a garbage disposal. Don’t touch anything.”

“We need something to rub under our noses, like cops do on TV—Vicks, or something.”

Andy ignored the remark, and we stepped inside to look around.

Isca’s house was small by north-end standards. To the left of the short entry was the living room. Straight ahead was the dining room and to the left of that, the kitchen. A corridor to the right of the entry led to three bedrooms and two baths. My attention was caught by a birdcage near a window. In it, her miniature parrot sat on his perch looking dejected.

“Oh, you poor thing.” I started for the cage. “He must be starving.”

Andy’s hand on my arm brought me up short. “Let’s just check the rooms first, before we disturb anything. We can feed him and take him with us and leave a note.”

Andy went first and headed for the kitchen with me behind. I’m sure we both hoped to track down the source of the smell there.

Everything was tidy and the counters clean. I thought it odd he used a handkerchief to open and close cupboard doors. A garbage can under the sink held nothing but napkins, and the food in the refrigerator was fresh. On the window ledge, a few plants needed water. The smell was neither more nor less powerful there. I wrapped my arms around my torso, holding my purse against my side, trying to take in the least amount of air possible. Inhaling through my mouth made me feel I’d ingested whatever smelled so bad.

After a quick look around the kitchen and enclosed back porch, we started down the hall, pausing to glance in each room. Andy continued using a handkerchief to open closed doors. I didn’t even question it. I did, however, think it odd all the doors were closed.
Who does that?

Isca was tidy to the point of being anal. She didn’t like clutter and actually suffered a little on the alternate weekends when her son visited. Dominic was an okay kid, as kids went, but he seemed to have dozens of tiny toys, metal cars, sports figures and little plastic “things.”

“Does the smell seem stronger anywhere to you? Like from a bathroom clothes hamper or something?” Andy wiped his perspiring forehead.

“Not really, but I feel funny being here without Isca, like a voyeur or something. Let’s get this over and get out.”

By an unwritten agreement, we both spoke in hushed tones.

The first door led to a guest room. The door’s latch hadn’t completely caught, and Andy pushed it open with his elbow.

Everything was neat.

Strange. Isca’s personality was as vibrant as her red hair and freckles, but she’d painted her home in shades of cream, beige and subtle pastels. The only real color in the guest room came from several framed working cartoon drawings—cells, they were called—from the Disney studio where she once worked.

Both bathrooms were empty. Clean towels hung on the bars. The soap dishes were dry. The clothes hamper had some underwear but no towels. Nothing wet or mildewy. In the seemingly empty house, a faucet dripped slowly, breaking the creepy silence. Andy pushed open Isca’s bedroom door and looked around. “I always hated this room.”

“Huh?”

“How Isca decorated it, I mean. I felt like I lived in a rain forest or something.”

The room was unusual. One wall had a large stencil of something resembling bamboo trees, or perhaps tall fronds of kelp. Very subtle, just hinted at in the muted shades of beige, green and dusty gray. A metal semicircle hung from the center of the ceiling. From it dangled pot after pot of plants—strange succulents, ferns and ivy. Currents of air from no noticeable source moved the smaller pots in an uncanny way.

“Come on. There’s nothing here. Something probably died under the house and Isca can take care of it when she gets back.” Andy crossed the hall to Dominic’s room and pushed the door open, almost angrily. It recoiled off the wall and swung back. The heavy wood hit him on the shoulder. He froze in his tracks. I looked over his shoulder.

Isca lay in the middle of the bed. Her head, lolling slightly to one side, was propped up against the headboard. The bed covers were pulled up modestly over her chest. Dried black blood tattooed her arms. Around her neck, tied with a looping, tuxedo bow was a black phone cord. She clutched a Barbie doll with a broken neck in one hand. The other hand lay palm up by her side, as if in supplication.

There was too much horror to take in at once. It seemed obvious no small struggle had taken place. Furniture was knocked over. Toys lay broken and scattered on the hardwood floor as if swept off the shelves by an angry arm, or flung at something. Throw rugs were in wads, where feet had stumbled and kicked them. The window shades were drawn, but even in the dim light, splashes of color marred the pale-green walls—rusty-colored splats with tear-like runnels. Worst of all was Isca. A black, sticky-looking spot on her head indicated she had been hit at least once. Her eyes were bruised and had sunk back in her head. Her mouth hung open, showing her blackened tongue. Parasites had already moved in and started their families. The sight of roiling maggots was almost more than I could bear. Isca’s rotting body was obviously the source of the odor. The fetid smell was so powerful Andy and I gagged.

Andy grabbed my arm and practically dragged me down the hall. We made it to the porch and half fell over the railing, hurling into a bed of heather. Even after I had nothing left to bring up, the smell, caught in my nose hairs, made me retch repeatedly.

A car went down the street. A lawn mower started. A sweaty, red-faced jogger ran by. The sights and sounds rolled around in my brain like chips in a kaleidoscope. I started to shake.

I looked at Andy. “One of us is going to have to call the police.”

“Not from here. I’m not going back in there. Come on. Sit in the car. I’ll go across the street to the Janes’ house and call nine-one-one.”

“No!” I clutched his shirt. “No. I’m going with you. He could be here. He could be watching.”

“Don’t be an ass.” Andy’s shirt and breath reeked of vomit. I drew back. Mine probably did too. I couldn’t stop shaking.

“All right then.” Unexpectedly, Andy’s voice was gentle, and his eyes, behind his glasses, were kind. “We’ll go together, but do you have some gum or something? God.” Before I could check my purse he took my hand in a warm, comforting grip. “Come on.”

In the driveway of an older, ranch-style house, a youngish-looking man in shorts and a tank top shot baskets with three boys. At our approach, he bounced the ball toward one of them and came to meet us with an outstretched hand. “Hey, Andy. Long time no see. How’s it going?”

“Okay, Rick, and you guys?”

“Hanging in there.” He paused and looked puzzled. “What brings you to our neck of the woods?”

“There’s been an accident at Isca’s. Can we use your phone?”

Andy’s words had carried enough so that all sounds of the basketball game stopped and Rick looked at us quizzically. “Sure.” He started up the sidewalk toward the door and pitched his voice low so the boys wouldn’t hear. “Serious trouble?”

“Isca’s dead.”

Rick stopped in his tracks. “Holy shit!” He quickly dropped his voice again. “Are you kidding me? What the hell happened?”

“It looks like she had a fight with someone and came out the loser.”

“Holy shit!” He shook his head.

“Uh, the phone?”

“Oh, right. Come on.”

We followed him toward the house.

“Are you sure? I mean, who the hell would do that?”

Inside, the living room was cool and dim. I let go of Andy’s hand so he could dial 911 and fished for gum in my purse.

While Andy dialed, Rick turned to me. “Are you all right?”

“I can’t seem to stop shaking.”

“This is Mercedes, Rick. She and Isca….Yes, I want to report an accident.”

While Andy dealt with 911, Rick led me to a chair. “Here. Sit down and I’ll get you something.” He left the room and returned with what proved to be half a glass of brandy.

I took a couple quick gulps. The alcohol cursed its way and hit my stomach. I coughed. When Andy hung up, I gave him the rest and he downed it.

“A car’ll be here in a few minutes.” He put the glass on a table. “Let’s wait outside.” Our hands met and clasped firmly as we walked toward the door.

Rick followed close behind. “A fight with someone, you said?”

Andy paused on the porch. “I don’t want to scare the neighborhood or anything, but you’ll know sooner or later. It wasn’t an accident.”

“What?”

“Keep it quiet for now, huh, but you know, be on the lookout. The police will probably be around to talk to everyone. It’ll be in the papers.” Andy rubbed his hand across his face. “Thanks for the use of the phone. Come on, Mercedes. Let’s wait by the car.”

We cut across the road.

Behind me Rick said, “Hey! Who’s up for Baskin Robbins?” He settled the usual tussling over who got the front seat by making all three boys sit in back. They were halfway down the street when a police car turned the corner.

They parked behind us, and two officers got out. Andy did all the talking. I stood and watched, mutely detached and still tasting the brandy. Their conversation was brief. The officers left us outside, with instructions not to go anywhere, and went in the house. They came out in a few minutes. The older fellow made a call from their car and the younger began securing the area with stakes and yellow tape. “Crime Scene. No trespassing.”

Andy leaned against his fender, saying nothing, turning a coin over and over in his hand.

I tried my old trick of leaving my body behind and mentally going to my happy place, a practice I found useful in uncomfortable situations, such as in the middle seat on an airplane or in public restrooms. In a very short time, another car pulled up and two plain clothes officers, probably detectives, got out. The uniforms met them and they all went inside.

I didn’t remember all of the policemen’s names. They came, they secured and they turned it all over to Detectives Lucas Howard and Theodore Wade.

“Can I take Jose?” I asked after they’d introduced themselves.

“Who’s that, ma’am?”

“Isca’s parrot. Jose Carioca, from the old Disney cartoon. Isca worked there once, at the studio I mean. She did voiceovers. That was before movie stars such as Elizabeth Taylor and Michael Jackson started doing them.” I babbled. I was also, no doubt, exuding brandy fumes. “Isca could do all kinds of voices but when it became, you know, the Hollywood thing, the work started to dry up and she quit.” I hiccupped. “A neighbor gave me a shot of brandy because I couldn’t stop shaking.”

The officer looked at me briefly and made notes on small tablets. Andy and I were questioned separately. One of them told me I could wait for Jose. Rick kept the kids away quite a while. By the time he pulled back into his driveway, a fingerprint man was at work. More police cars had arrived and people milled about, conferring with each other.
It only lacks the media.

Neighbors clustered on their parking strips in little groups. Andy nodded briefly to some. No doubt they’d be questioned and advised. When two men, one with a medical bag, got out of yet another car, everyone fell silent. I sat in my car knowing I should be crying. Instead I just felt numb. I’d lost track of how many policemen and officials were present.

The sun was setting when a female officer carried Jose out to me, along with some birdseed. The crowd parted to let me put him in my car. As I poured seed into one of the empty cups, someone in the crowd sang-talked
“Did you ever think, when a hearse went by, that you’d be the next, the next to die?” Isca and I had seen
My Fair Lady
at a twenty-year retrospect and she called sing-talking
sprechgesang.
Rex Harrison, who couldn’t sing, had put it to good use.