Blood Bond (6 page)

“Maybe,” she said in a small voice.

Aidan stood, flicking out the creases in his pants with a practiced gesture. “You and me,” he said, offering his hand, helping Marva to her feet. “Off to save the day again. Right? Just like old times.”

Marva held on; how many times had she turned to Aidan for strength? She picked up her purse from the credenza, and glanced around the tidy, anonymous office one more time.

“Just like old times,” she echoed.

 

CHAPTER SIX

JOE ARRIVED FOR HIS
interview early, to see if Gail's husband was easily unsettled. But when he was shown into the room, he came face-to-face with Bryce Engler, man about town, California-style: even today, when presumably he wouldn't be going to work, the man was wearing slate-colored trousers and a sport coat, his smooth yellow shirt open a couple of buttons to reveal a few strands of silvery chest hair.

“I'm sorry to take your time today, Mr. Engler.”

Joe gestured to a chair, and the men took their seats across the interview table from one another. Engler crossed one leg on the other knee; he wore argyle socks and shoes that probably cost more than a car payment.

“I trust my wife explained that we don't really know the Bergmans that well.”

Joe pretended to read something from his notebook. Considered Engler's reaction. Not quite cold, but . . . unaffected. As though he were accustomed to houseguests dying in his driveway on a regular basis. “Yes. I was wondering, though, if you and he ever discussed things. Things like business, for instance. Did he tell you about his job?”

Bryce pursed his lips, drummed his fingers on the desktop. “I think he was out on his own, some sort of consulting, but to be honest, I don't even remember what business he was in.”

“What about his leisure activities? Did he talk to you about what he liked to do? Golf, cars, anything like that?”

“No. I don't golf, myself—no time.”

“Women?”

Bryce raised an eyebrow, gave a hint of a predatory smile.

“I assume you mean other than his wife?”

Joe knew he was being baited; people often assumed he would be prudish about sex—just one of the many puzzling facets of suburban ideas about Islam. He'd learned not to back down around these guys: used to having their way, they always seemed to hover on the brink of a challenge. “Yes,” he said coldly, maintaining eye contact and enunciating carefully. “I am asking you if Mr. Bergman had a sexual relationship with anyone outside his marriage.”

“Hell, I wouldn't know. We weren't close, and I can't imagine he'd be stupid enough to dip his wick in the neighborhood. Excuse me, I apologize. That was crude.” Engler didn't look the least bit apologetic. “I mean no offense to your, uh, religious beliefs.”

“Mmm. And things with his wife, his kids?”

“That would be more Gail's department. I think their daughter plays with our daughter Lainey—she's four. But you'd have to ask Gail.”

Joe made an
x
on his pad. It didn't mean anything, but with some guys you wanted to look like you were taking notes.

“So, the Bergmans—people you don't know well—how did they come to be invited to your home for dinner?” Joe had Marva's take on the party, but he wanted to see what Engler would say.

The man shrugged. “I'll plead ignorant again, since my wife's in charge of our social life, but I have to admit we had a bit of an ulterior motive. I'm considering a run for county supervisor.”

Engler had inherited his father's company, his lifestyle was funded, and as he said, he didn't care for golf—the county post would keep him busy and possibly set him up to be an even bigger fish in the local pond.

“And your guests could help you . . . how?”

“The campaign might get expensive, and I'm lining up support. Harold Gillette's looking good in that regard. But we invited another couple because, frankly, it makes it seem less like I'm working the guy and more like, you know, a few friends having drinks. I asked Gail to invite someone apolitical, or at least noncontroversial. That way I could steer the conversation the way I wanted it.”

“Clever,” Joe said, not bothering to keep the chill out of his voice.

“I won't apologize for the way that sounds, Detective,” Bryce said. “A guy who doesn't play the game is a guy who won't get on the ballot. And I happen to believe in my vision for Monte Vista County.”

Joe assumed that vision included plenty of development opportunities for Bryce's company, but he kept that thought to himself. “Did it work? Did Bergman make a good, what would you call it, straight man?”

Bryce's smile slid toward a smirk. “You could say that. I got an email from Harold this morning—we're talking numbers next week.”

Joe had had about all he could take of this topic and decided to switch angles.

“The body, Mr. Engler—how did you react to seeing it in your driveway?”

Bryce tilted his chair back an inch, drummed a little more. “Well, if you really want to know, disgusted. I mean, blood everywhere, all over the damn driveway. And his eyes open. I didn't care for that at all. Staring at nothing. Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” Joe said, snapping his notebook shut and standing. “Just curious.”

He went over the protest incident with Bryce, much as he had with Gail, but Bryce waved it away. “That shit's just part of doing business. My dad founded the company in 1977, and not a year goes by that someone doesn't raise hell over some project or other. You ever stop to think about how fucked-up it is to blame the guys who build the roads and put in the sewers? I mean, everyone expects to be able to flush their own toilets and get water out of the tap. Half the people in this town bought their place for a view of the mountain. But God forbid some other guy has the temerity to want the same thing.” He chuckled. “NIMBYism isn't anything new. And there's going to be guys like—what did you say his name was?”

“Dybck.”

“Yeah. Right. There's going to be guys like him when my great-grandson's running the business. Those guys typically don't have any balls, anyway. It's like that old saying: Those who can, do. Those who can't, give everyone else a lot of shit about it.”

MARVA WAS
his final interview, and he was secretly grateful the schedule had worked out that way. She was more opaque in her mood today, speaking softly to a place below Joe's chin and hesitating when he tried to reframe his questions to draw her out. He wondered what had changed: maybe a sleepless night, a pounding headache, one too many drinks to calm her nerves.

Or a caution from her sister, perhaps—the thought surfacing when he noticed again how similar and yet how different their features were. They could easily have spoken after Joe's conversation with Gail. He looked down at the notes he'd written over a quick lunch from the diner down the street.

“Is it possible that your sister's relationship with Mr. Bergman was sexual?” The question didn't come out of nowhere, exactly. Joe had considered and discarded the idea—until now, with Marva's responses subdued and filtered, the way she avoided looking at him.

The question netted him the first direct eye contact of the interview. Strange, her eyes were—blue muddied with gray radiating out from the iris.

“Of course not,” Marva said, and for the second time Joe had the sense that she was lying. It was different from the other night, when she'd explained that Gail had gone outside to summon Tom for dinner, and something had stirred Joe's doubts. Hell, maybe he'd been wrong then; maybe she'd just been exhausted and uncomfortable with the questioning, but this time he was almost certain. Marva had answered too quickly, her voice changing in timbre, and she'd looked at his chin, not his eyes.

The affair, if that's what it was, didn't surprise him. But the fact that Marva was willing to lie for her sister did. She seemed to sense his skepticism, and attempted to explain. “He wasn't the type of man to catch her attention. Gail has always liked men who were stronger than her. Not that it's all that hard to be stronger than Gail, but she liked them . . . confident? Yes. Gail likes men with a great deal of self-confidence.”

“Like Bryce.”

Marva snorted. “Yes, I suppose so, except there's a difference between confident, and overbearing and insensitive.” A second later she shook her head. “No. Wait. I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I'm just, I didn't sleep very much and . . . wow. That was really . . .”

“It's all right,” Joe said, hiding a smile. “There's nothing illegal about disliking your in-laws.”

“I really don't dislike him. All that much. I mean, most of the time.” Marva ran her fingers through her hair, dislodging the pins that had been holding it away from her face, and it sprang free and tumbled across her forehead, just like it had the other night. She didn't seem to notice, she was working so hard to dig herself out. But it was interesting that she was trying so hard to be honest now—even if it was a whitewashed version—on the heels of telling a much more significant lie.

Honest people were like that. Joe had watched people wrestle to get an inconvenient truth out, circling but never backing away from the core, because it didn't fit with their self-concept to deceive. When these people
did
lie, it was nearly always to protect someone else. Someone they loved.

“You and Gail are close,” he said gently.

To his chagrin, tears sparkled in Marva's eyes before she dabbed them away with a tissue. It was the second time in two days he'd made a woman cry, and he felt like a clod. He'd meant to comfort.

But Marva cleared her throat. “Yes. We are. We're not perfect, and we fight and get on each other's nerves, but I love my sister.”

“Sometimes,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “there are dynamics. In a family. My brother and I, for instance.”

He had her attention. She waited for him to say more. He hadn't intended to—he wasn't fond of using self-revelation as an interview technique—but he found himself talking anyway. “My brother is the son my parents always wanted. Successful, wife and kids, all that. I mean, don't get me wrong, we're all close. But there's this . . . thing. Between us.”

Not much of an explanation, but Marva was nodding. “I think I drive my mom crazy sometimes. She and Gail are always trying to set me up with these awful men. I mean not awful but not . . . Accountants and lawyers and guys who use their vacation to go to spring baseball training. It's like they haven't ever met me, you know?” She blushed, the color blooming on her face, heightening the contrast with her silver-blond curls.

“Gail did give you quite a compliment,” he said. “She said she loved having you attend her parties, because you liven them up so much.” He thumbed through his notebook, tapped the page. “
Accomplished
. That was the word she used.”

Marva seemed to diminish before him a little, her shoulders pulling inward.

“Detective,” she said. “I know my sister as well as anyone. And I know the impression she can give. She can be sarcastic and cold. Even selfish. And she's hard to get close to, that's true. There is a little piece of her that is missing. I don't know how else to say it.”

Joe waited, but Marva did not elaborate. The pain in her eyes, however, was acute, and he wished he could tell her that he'd looked her up online, seen the beautiful works she made. He imagined that Gail, with her designer wardrobe and decorator house, had never appreciated Marva's art, and that she'd been able to diminish any pride Marva might have felt with a single cutting remark.

But that wasn't his job. Instead he said, “You're answering questions that I'm not sure I asked.”

“Let me do it for you.” Marva twisted the fabric of her skirt in her fingers. “Is she capable of something like this? Is she guilty?”

Joe held up a hand. “Hey, wait, I didn't mean to imply that—”

“You didn't need to, Detective. I can see it in your face. Men react to Gail in one of two ways. Most of them are . . .” She appeared to be searching for the right word, biting her lower lip. “Smitten? Does anyone still use that word? Most men perk up when they are around her. Like they'll settle for any attention she gives them.”

“And the rest?”

“Well, that's you, actually,” Marva said, meeting his gaze and then glancing away. “A few men seem to take one look and figure she's up to no good.”

“Again, I never said—”

“You didn't have to.”

JOE STOPPED
at a taqueria in San Ramon, the next town over, home to those who couldn't swing Montair. Since the bottom fell out of real estate, you could get into a three-bedroom, two-bath in San Ramon for five hundred thousand, five-fifty. A bargain.

Joe stood at the counter that ran along the window, watching traffic in the strip mall parking lot. He ate mechanically, barely noticing the taste of the food. So far, he was floundering on this case. All he could say for certain was that someone had brought sheep blood to the Engler home—and Tom Bergman had died from a head wound. He had no idea if the two were connected, or if Bergman had even been murdered. Maybe he'd just been cursed with really bad luck. And if Joe were honest with himself, he was mishandling a key witness—and, for that matter, plausible suspect—because of his own confusing response to her.

All right. So he found Marva Engler intriguing. There was no harm in that; he'd never act on the attraction. He was involved with someone; she was part of an active case.

Marva had managed to both condemn and defend her sister—and he could practically see her wilt as she did it. Clearly, she was the one who supported the weight of that relationship. She'd probably played that role her whole life. Gail gave off an air of entitlement that was practically palpable: the air of someone who'd always had someone to look out for her, take the blame, pick up the pieces. Marva and Gail lived in the same community, traveled in the same social circles, but the tension between them was obvious.

Joe was a younger brother, but only by thirteen months. He and Omar had grown up more like twins, at least until they got to school—brawling and sparring, creating forts and battles and boxing rings in the courtyard of their parents' condo building. Their temperaments didn't veer in different directions until they were both practically grown. Maybe the close bond they'd forged as children was the secret to their relationship now, their ability to cross the chasm of their vastly different lives with little difficulty.