A Line To Murder (A Puget Sound Mystery) (4 page)

Betty’s gardens were full of old-fashioned flowers, some of which had started to bloom early, thanks to the unseasonably warm weather. Their perfume came through an open window and clashed with Campho Phenique in the warm room. Across the fence sat an old canvas lawn swing and a wooden picnic table. The scene should have been as homey as a Mountain Dew commercial. It wasn’t. We were all indelibly tainted with something ugly.

Andy didn’t look good. He was pale and had smudges beneath his eyes. Though immaculately dressed, he didn’t hold himself as erect as usual. His shoulders seemed to stoop tiredly.

I glanced at a clock on the mantle and eased toward the door.
Garbo-like, I wanted to be alone.
Andy was still talking with his former in-laws when we were all distracted by a woman with a tray of coffee cups. I declined. Like a kaleidoscope, the room shifted. People got up to stretch stiffened limbs. The bathroom door opened and closed; someone flushed the toilet. The screen door banged shut and a little girl demanded a drink of water.

In the confusion, I inched through the door onto the covered porch. It had two wicker chairs separated by a small table. I sat gratefully and enjoyed the relative quiet. Bees dipped in and out of the flowers; birds alternately crowded around a feeder or took a dip in a cement birdbath. The house and yard were full of people, emotions and life.

When my sobs threatened to break out, I took a deep breath and held it. We’d been friends, Isca and I, accepting our differences, respecting, even enjoying them. We’d laughed and gossiped, argued sometimes, drifted apart and drifted back, like the last lazy recoils of a bungee cord. Inside, the extended Haines family drew together, comforted and seeking comfort from each other. For an extremely selfish moment, my loss felt greater than theirs.

“Mercedes?” Behind me, Andy closed the door and took the empty seat on the other side of the table. “Are you okay?”

I blinked the tears down onto my cheeks so I could see him better. “I was just about to leave but I did want to ask if I can I keep Jose, for a while?”

“Excuse me?”

“Jose. Can I hold on to him for a bit? I’ll give him to Dominic—he’s Dominic’s really, but he’s surprisingly good company. At least, he was when Isca had him.”

“Yeah, I guess. I mean, I don’t think anyone else has given him any thought. Parrots are choosey about the people they bond with, you know. If you think you’ve, well, bonded, then sure, hold onto him for a while.”

“Bonded!” I snorted. “What a stupid word.”

Andy put his cup of coffee on the table. “Mercedes, I need to talk to you. Did you give your statement?”

“Yes. Last night. Didn’t you?”

“Yes. Last night and again this morning.”

“Huh? How come?”

“Listen. Do you remember how careful we were not to touch anything?”

“Of course. You used that hanky. Why?”

“You remember the hanky? Good. Now, do you remember Dominic’s room?”

“I’d hardly be likely to forget.” In spite of the warmth, I shuddered involuntarily.

“The door, I mean, whether I covered my hand or not.”

I thought back. He’d seemed angry, for some reason, and pushed the door harder than necessary. He’d been impatient by then, anxious to leave. All those papers in the car probably. Then the flies buzzing in an orgasmic frenzy around the blood. The sound filling the silence as they lit and retreated, again and again. More of them, coming from nowhere, everywhere. Their wings were louder and louder….

“Hey!” Andy jumped up and pushed my head down toward my knees. “Hey, don’t faint.”

As he spoke, the buzzing sound faded. The blood was already rushing back. The scene in Isca’s bedroom began to slip away. After a moment, I sat up warily. The air felt strangely cold against the sheen of sweat on my face.

“Thank you.”

“I’m sorry.” He leaned against the railing. “I didn’t mean to upset you. But listen, I’m in trouble. I don’t think I opened Dominic’s door with my hanky. The latch never worked right and you didn’t need to turn the knob, just push the door. My print is on the door. The police found it sometime last night and came to see me early this morning.”

“It could be an old print.”

He ran his hand through his hair. “That’s why I need to know if you remember my doing that or not.”

I thought for a moment. The whole scene was still indelibly etched in my brain. Perhaps because I’d trailed several steps behind him in the hall I remembered his extended hand clearly on every door, on every door but Dominic’s. I was slightly behind his left shoulder. The knob was on his right, waist-high. The door opened quickly and bounced off a metal stop, but I didn’t see how it was opened. My eyes were riveted on the bed. The foul odor of the room and Isca’s dead body cut my soul.

I shook my head regretfully. “No, I don’t remember. I’m sorry. I guess I was too busy getting ready for the worst.”

“Well, that’s that then. I’d hoped, but anyway…Well, and now I’m doubly screwed because when the police ask if you remember, they’ll ask if I talked to you about it. You’ll have to say yes, won’t you?”

“Yes. Yes, I will. Surely you have an alibi for the weekend, though. I mean, Dominic lives with you and you can’t have a kid around without having other kids and their parents and phone calls.”

“Ordinarily yes, and always at meal time, but not this weekend. Dominic went to a kite festival at the ocean with my cousin and her husband and their kids. They camped. I worked in my office. The firm just converted to a computer system and I have my own key.”

“A computer system, wow! Jackson Johnston won’t get one until every other firm in town has tested them. Their favorite expression is ‘let them learn to shave on someone else’s face.’”

“Cute. Anyway, I worked late both nights because I’m supposed to give a presentation in Spokane later this week. When I got home, I heated a can of soup, took a shower and went to bed. I never even stopped for milk or gas.”

How lonely. His weekend made my visit to the park’s ethnic festival seem like an event with a capital E.

“So what? You didn’t hate Isca. I always thought you guys had a civilized divorce. That’s a great oxymoron, isn’t it? Anyway, you dropped Dominic off and picked him up all the time. Your prints are probably all over the house.”

“It wasn’t that civilized. I didn’t go in if I could help it. I honked and Dominic came out while Isca watched at the door ‘til he got in the car, or I dropped him off and waited ‘til he went in the front door. That was that.”

I digested his words for a bit but couldn’t come to any conclusions—highly unusual because I usually could, whether it was my business or not. There had to be a zillion different divorce relationships.

Andy leaned his elbows on his knees and stared out across the lawn, rubbing his hands. He didn’t look at me. “Anyway, there’s another reason why I’ll be the main suspect.”

“What?”

“Isca’s nine hundred phone line job. I found out about it because Dominic heard her one weekend and came home with a lot of questions. She dropped by my office to have some papers signed and I confronted her. We had a blowup.”

“And?”

“She had good reason to hate me. I told her I’d go back to family court to stop all visitations until or unless she gave up the phone sex thing.”

“Well, if the fight was in your office and the door was shut, maybe no one heard you.”

“No such luck. The walls are cheap-ass thin. She was barely out of the office before the story of our confrontation hit the company grapevine like feces in a fan. I have no doubt they’re lining up right now to tell the police about the fight.”

Chapter 4

Andy’s story about his and Isca’s very public fight reminded me of the officer to whom I gave my statement and his words about not trusting anyone. If asked the question, “How well do you know Andy?” I’d have to answer, “Hardly at all.” At the moment, though, Andy’s words and apparent anguish called for a response.

“Oh.” Not exactly brilliant, but what else was there to say?

Andy resumed rubbing his hands in a monotonous, repetitive gesture. Those hands had been warm and firm holding mine—full of strength. They were large and surprisingly rough for a white-collar worker. However, he was an amateur carpenter and that took its toll. Were they, also, the hands of a murderer?

Andy must have guessed my thoughts. “Well, do I look like a psychopath?” He glanced sideways at me.

“No, but then neither did Ted Bundy. I actually thought he was rather handsome.”

“Oh, thanks a whole lot. That’s a great thing to say.”

“Don’t be such an ass. I can’t believe for a minute the police really think you did it just because you and Isca had an argument.”
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
An unexpected dark spot of distrust had taken root and just now reared its ugly head. For some reason, I didn’t completely believe in his innocence but didn’t know why. Andy was looking at me, so I put my doubts aside. “They’d certainly give plenty of consideration to the fact you’re Dominic’s father and wouldn’t want your son to have a murderer for a dad. You were just being protective, and Isca never should have let Dominic hear her on the phone.”

“Don’t you be an ass. My fingerprints are in the house and I don’t have an alibi.”

“Of course they are. He’s your kid. You were in and out on occasion. You’re not being objective. Your son was being exposed to porn, and you tried to stop it. Do you think the police believe that after a perfectly justified shouting match you went over to your ex-wife’s place, stopping first to buy a Barbie doll, and strangled her, Isca, that is, broke the doll’s neck and then, as a final symbolic gesture, tied a phone cord around her neck in an attractive bow? That’s premeditated and I don’t buy it.”

Andy sighed and rubbed his hands under his glasses and over his face.

I’d never found his lanky Jimmy Stewart frame particularly attractive, but there was something vulnerable about the rather boney wrists protruding from his jacket sleeves.

“People have murdered over less.”

“Tell me, when you were a kid, did you abuse cats or pull the wings off flies?”

“Huh?”

“Sociopathic personality disorders often manifest themselves in childhood through animal abuse.”

Andy quit rubbing his face and looked at me with an almost-smile. “My gosh. Do you talk like that very often? Of course I didn’t pull wings off flies. I love animals. I’ve even been known to rescue a worm drowning on the sidewalk—one I can use on a fishing hook, of course.”

I laughed. “I wonder what Freud would do with that.”

He grinned weakly. However, he stopped the hand wringing. Now they were loosely clasped between his knees. We both fell silent. The sun was warm and the children’s voices muted and not unpleasant. It was all so ordinary, or should have been. Someone opened the door. Other people drifted onto the porch. Andy was gradually absorbed into groups of former in-laws. Mr. Haines was nowhere to be seen but his wife was still in the living room surrounded by people. When a decent interval had passed, I said goodbye and made my escape. As I approached my car, the word, “Enabler” showed where the sun hit it
. Crap. Am I going to
have to have the car detailed?

Most rural roads in Mt. Rainier’s foothills were unpaved with deep ditches on each side. I got in; conscious of the fact I’d be driving into the sun, I took it slow. No one was coming from either direction. The gravel seemed skiddier going down than it had coming up. Near the bottom the road made a sharp right and someone had nailed a mirror on a fir tree to show any oncoming traffic when turning the corner. I glanced up and was immediately blinded by a light reflecting off it. Unable to see, I braked sharply and the car skidded partway off the road and into a ditch. Washington was one of the dozen or so states which voted in mandatory seat belt legislation in 1986. My lap seat belt pressed painfully against my stomach and my neck snapped back and forth, but it could have been much worse. I sat where I was while fear knocked surprise out of the ring. Then I waited for my racing heart to return to the starting gate.
That was really scary
. I reversed and tried to back out. The tires spun and dirt and rocks flew, but the car remained where it was. At that moment a truck came around the corner and stopped. A teenage boy got out.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, but I can’t back out. I’ve got Triple A. I’ll have to find a phone and call.”

He hopped in the ditch in front of the car. “I’ll rock it and then push. You try backing again.”

He started pushing and the car rolled back and forth until there was some momentum going. At his nod, I hit the gas and the car shot out and halfway across the road.

“Gosh. Thanks.” I reached in my purse and pulled out a twenty dollar bill. “You saved me a hassle.”

“No problem.” He pocketed the money and drove off.

I sat quietly for a minute. I’d driven that road many times with no problems. My fingers automatically pinched the two sides of my pants together and began rubbing them against each other—a nervous gesture dating back to my thumb-sucking days when I rubbed blanket bindings. I took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. The air was dusty, but I opened the window. A squirrel ran across the road; a bird tweeted; otherwise, it was quiet. When a car started down the hill behind me, I glanced in the mirror and saw the road around the bend clearly.
Wow. Freaky
. Until I hit the Puyallup Valley’s level floor, I drove like a little old lady, gripping the steering wheel until my hands were sore.