Desert Noir (9781615952236) (24 page)

Still smiling, Ms. Germaine sat down next to me. “Call me Bunny.” 

“Well, Bunny, I'm sure you know why I'm here. Your boyfriend needs his diamond necklace back.” 

She didn't look in the least embarrassed or frightened. Instead, her smile broadened as a voice with an English accent interjected, “You mean
my
diamond necklace, don't you?” 

I turned to see another woman emerging barefoot from the hallway. She was wrapping a pale violet robe around an obviously naked body. “My husband gave me that necklace for my fortieth birthday, and quite frankly, I think it was terribly tacky of him to loan it to Bunny. Even though she's certainly worth it.” 

Although she had to be in her fifties, the woman was still beautiful, with the perfect oval face of a china doll, and a willowy figure any twenty-year-old would envy. Her eyes, with their penetrating hazel irises, were permanently crinkled at the corners, betraying a lively sense of humor.

I was feeling more and more off-balance.
“Your
necklace?” 

The woman sat down next to Bunny and after giving her a quick nibble on the earlobe, stretched diamond-studded fingers towards me. I didn't know whether I was supposed to kiss her hand or shake it. I settled for shaking it.

Her smile was blinding. “I'm Gwendolyn.
Mrs.
Meeks, dear. Don't look all shocked on my account.”

As she told me her story, it turned out that several months back, Gwendolyn, a.k.a. Mrs. Brian Meeks, suspecting that her husband was cheating on her, had hired a detective. After receiving his report, she'd confronted Bunny herself.

It had been love at first sight for the both of them.

They'd used the Platinum Visa Mr. Meeks had given Bunny to set up their little Scottsdale love nest and were now planning a vacation in Paris. Both art lovers, they were dying to spend some time in the Louvre.

“How long did you think you'd get by with this?” I asked.

Gwendolyn shrugged her elegant shoulders. “I was hoping we'd get by with it for as long as Brian got by with cheating on me, but now that you've uncovered our dirty little secret…”—here she flashed that blinding smile again—“…I guess the jig, as you so charmingly say in America, is up.” She turned to Bunny. “Time for Plan B.”

Bunny leaned against her and giggled.

“What's Plan B?” I asked, intrigued.

“Plan B: When lies stop working, simply tell the truth,” Gwendolyn answered. “What the hell. My children are grown and have enough problems of their own to keep them from obsessing about mine. So I think it's time for me to divorce Mr. Department Store and go back to England. With Bunny, of course.” 

They treated me to a perfectly brewed cuppa before I left. Without the diamond necklace.

Once back at my Jeep, where several roller bladers had gathered to study its gleaming petroglyphs, I checked my watch and discovered that I had more than two hours left before my lunch date with Eleanor Hyath.

After interviewing Dulya Albundo, I'd grown curious about the Museum of Western Art, so I decided to swing by on my way to the Hacienda Palms. It would be interesting to see if their collection was worth the life of one old lady.

The museum was less than five minutes from Bunny's, and by the time I'd turned into the parking lot, the Jeep's seats hadn't even begun to cook. Then again, it was still early and only about 105 degrees out.

The exterior of the museum didn't bode well, I thought, as I slid my Jeep into a too-tight parking spot. The building had been purposely designed to resemble a stage set for a movie about the Apocalypse, with portions of wire netting protruding from raw concrete, and dimly lit green fiberglass panels designed to represent… Represent what?

Urban decay?

I winced and averted my eyes from the architect's “artistic statement.” I paid my fee at the front and rushed in, hoping things were better inside.

To my surprise, they were. 

Whoever had pulled this collection together, it hadn't been Clarice. One long, cool gallery after another showcased the best and the brightest of modern Western art.

In the first gallery hung a massive Paul Pletka oil which depicted a religious procession of Hispanics bearing a life-size crucifix. In brilliant deformity, each of the marchers' hands were painted twice their normal size, signifying unleashed power.

In the next room hung a bright collage by Juane Quick-to-See Smith, an amalgam of Plains Indian symbols overlaid on a gouache wash. Next to the Smith hung several Fritz Scholders, documenting that artist's evolution from abstraction to post-modernism. While providing a delight for the eye, the multi-layered glazes on the Scholders hinted at varying takes on perception.

My favorite painting, though, turned out to be the goofy Anne Coe, which showed a wry cowgirl staring at a Scottsdale pool while two steaks carbonized on a barbecue grill. Her horse stretched hungry lips towards a parboiled sun worshipper with hair the color of straw. As usual, Coe had captured the true heart of the tacky New West.

I was still laughing when an elderly docent, one of the great legions of Scottsdale volunteers, walked over to me. “Would you like me to explain the work to you?” 

I wiped my eyes. “You know what they say, a picture is worth a thousand words.” 

The docent's eyes twinkled and he said, “Yes, that's what they say.” 

I had an idea. Pulling my card from my carryall, I asked to see the curator. “If he's in.” 

“She.”

The docent took my card away and returned in less than five minutes, during which time I'd worked myself over to the haunting pastels of Lynn Taber-Borcherdt. Pastels or not, Borcherdt's work was reminiscent of William Turner, and I fell in love with a near-abstract rendering of a storm over the Santa Catalina Mountains. She'd used the same colors Turner had when he'd painted his breathtaking view of ships burning at sea.

Studying the painting, I was reminded of my Baptist foster parents, who'd once taken me camping in the Catalinas. The memories rose up before I could stop them.

Here was the problem.

Like so many foster home kids, I preferred to live in the present. Opening the door to happy memories, such as camping with the Baptists or learning color theory from Madeline, also opened the door to other memories not quite as pleasant: The foster father who'd raped me, the foster brother who'd set my kitten on fire. What lunatic would want to remember shit like that?

Being only a partial lunatic, I'd long ago decided it was pref-erable to forget all my joys as long as it meant I'd also forget all my pain.

But the siren song of painting worked like a back-alley mugger. Art knocked you over the head when your guard was down.

I'd shut my eyes against the Taber-Borcherdt when the docent returned. “Anne Amherst, our curator, has a few minutes free right now.” 

We left the main part of the building and entered a long, hushed corridor, where Anne Amherst's office took up a goodly portion of the northern side of the building. As I entered, I noticed that the large windows overlooked the remains of the orange tree orchard that had once separated the Hispanic neighborhood from their Anglo neighbors.

“Pretty,” I said, turning towards the woman sitting behind the massive desk.

Anne Amherst was leafing through a Sotheby's auction cata-logue. She was as brown and skinny as an old piece of rope and her pale blue eyes missed nothing. “But you don't approve.” 

I sat down in the chair the docent pulled out for me and wiggled my fingers at him as he returned to the galleries. “You've got a nice collection here but I'm afraid I miss the old neighborhood.” 

She winced. “Miss Jones, are you in the employ of Dulya Albundo? If so, I must warn you that I simply cannot discuss any museum business that might be part of her lawsuit. You'll have to speak to our attorneys.”

I reassured her, explaining my connection to the Clarice Kobe case. “I'm just trying to find out more about Clarice. You see, at one time I thought I knew her well. Turns out I was mistaken.” 

But hadn't that been my fault as much as Clarice's? I'd always been most comfortable with relationships that demanded little of me, preferring acquaintances to real friendship. Whenever anyone attempted to get too close to me, I withdrew. In her way, I guess, Clarice had been the perfect friend. Like the Lady of the Manor, she delivered her little gifts to Desert Investigations and then returned to her own turf, leaving me untouched, unthreatened.

Poor Clarice.

Poor me.

Amherst shocked me out of my musings. “Clarice Kobe was a heartless bitch.” 

I sat up straight in my chair.
This
from a museum curator?

She expanded on her theme. “A heartless bitch who has done untold damage to the Arizona arts community. Do you have any
idea
what she made us look like? It'll take years to recover from the bad publicity that woman's actions have caused.” 

I leaned forward, smelling blood. “Are you talking about the eminent domain order she rammed through the courts?” 

Amherst made a motion with her hand as if waving away a gnat. “Of course. And it was all so unnecessary! There was a perfectly good property up near the new freeway interchange but for some reason Clarice fixated on this one. She wouldn't listen to advice, just rode hell-bent for leather getting those poor people thrown out of their homes. What in heaven's name did the stupid woman think she was doing?” 

I spread my hands helplessly. I didn't know what Clarice had thought she was doing, either. Except that maybe the profit margin on the in-town construction was higher. I floated that theory by Amherst.

She snorted. “When you're that rich, what's a million here or there? I think Clarice wanted to run those people out of their homes simply because she enjoyed the exercise of raw power. Some people do, you know. Plus, she was the most awful bigot and the residents around here
were
Hispanic, which by her lights meant they were somewhat less than human. But fat lot of good her little power-play did the bitch. What she really wanted, in the end, was the directorship of this museum. When poor Mrs. Espinoza died, that was the end of that.”

“Clarice really believed she'd be made curator of the Museum of Western Art? With
her
taste?” 

Amherst threw me a grim smile. “In a sick sort of way, Mrs. Espinoza did not die in vain. If she hadn't been crushed under that falling wall, today this museum would be filled with Jay Kobe's vulgar crap.” 

I spent the next half-hour looking through the rest of the museum's collection, and another half-hour trying to figure out exactly which room was on top of the remains of Dulya Albundo's ancestral home. Or maybe she had given her life for the parking lot. Evan and Serena notwithstanding, I was coming to the conclusion that I didn't like the Hyath family.

When I finally climbed back into my Jeep and took off to meet Eleanor Hyath, I'd built up a full cargo of dread.

Back in my days with the Scottsdale Violent Crimes Unit, this particular type of interview had always been the most difficult for me. It was hard for me to hide my contempt for certain suspects, and when it came to child molesters or abusive parents, I damned near frothed at the mouth during interrogations. Kryzinski was always calling me out of the interrogation room to calm me down— which made me even more agitated. After a few years, though, I finally learned how to put my own emotions on the back burner and ask the questions in a normal, conversational tone.

Which is how I became a resident of Ulcer City.

Now I'd need every bit of the distance Kryzinski taught me. I despised Eleanor Hyath, both for what she had been and what she had allowed herself to become.

But I knew better than to let it show.

The Hacienda Palms is located just off Paradise Valley Road, at the base of Camelback Mountain. As the valet drove my Jeep away after giving it an admiring look, I looked up and saw the Hyaths' home perched one thousand feet up the mountain. Didn't it look like Paradise?