Last Chants (19 page)

“You wouldn't have some tea, would you?” Edward asked shamelessly.

Galen sighed. I was reminded of men I'd represented in L.A., Hollywood directors and screenwriters with egos the size of their incomes. They didn't bother hiding their smug unfriendliness, born of too many people jockeying to meet them, of having seen every ingratiating trick.

“Let's go, Edward,” I said. “We've told them what we were going to tell them. Let's leave it at that.”

Edward's brows rose. “I guess we're feeling a little unwelcome.” Jeez, was that a catch in his voice? “Well, I hope we haven't taken too much of your time.” But he was very slow to rise.

Nelson sat there impassively.

But Toni said, “Of course we have tea.” She rose, surprising me by adding, “Why don't you help me, Alice?”

I shot Edward a glare that told him how little I liked this turn of events. But when Toni reached my armchair, I had no polite choice but to stand and follow her into the kitchen.

The moment we entered, she grabbed my arm and pushed me against the wall. “You're hiding something,” she said. “What is it?”

She was so close I could see the pale down above her lip, the pores on her nose.

“I'm not,” I lied. She was taller and bigger than many men, with an intensity that would have been frightening in a pipsqueak.

“Yes, you are!” She spoke each word as if it were its own sentence. Then, in a rush: “I know you are. What is it? It's about Billy, isn't it?”

“No. Pan. We came to tell you about—”

“No, you didn't. You came to invite yourself to tea.” She scowled down at me, tilting her head from side to side as if examining a strange animal in its cage. “Your friend's a liar. And so's my husband. So we'll let them sit in there and lie to each other. And in here,”—her voice slowed to a patronizing singsong—“we'll tell the truth.”

I considered calling out to Edward.

She leaned against me, burying her fingers in my arm. “Why are you here? Are you police?”

“No!” My denial had the authority of genuine surprise.

“So you're just a liar? You came here to lie to me again?”

Under the circumstances, it was a little hard to defend my veracity. But I managed another, “No.”

“Did you know Billy?” Her eyes were bright. “Why do you keep asking me about Billy?”

I tried to recall whether Edward or I had mentioned Seawuit to the Nelsons tonight. I didn't think so.

I turned it around: “You have something you want to say? About Billy? About Stu and—”

“Were you with Billy?” Her tone was urgent. “Is that why? Were you his lady?”

“I didn't know he had one.”

“Toni!” Galen called out from the living room.

She jumped back as if she'd been struck. “What?” she called back.

“Forget the tea.”

I wondered if Edward had managed to get us kicked out.

Instead, the men pushed through the kitchen door. Edward was saying, “I didn't know you could even get it out here.”

Galen, barely glancing at us, crossed to the refrigerator. He yanked the door open, pulling out two bottles of beer.

“You want some Rolling Rock?” he asked me.

“No.”

He looked at the stove, brows rising, perhaps because the kettle wasn't on.

“Try it, Alice,” Edward urged. “It comes from back East.”

“I know.” I also knew he hated the stuff when we lived together in Boston.

Judging from his grimace when he took a sip, he still did.

“So . . . you girl-talking in here?” Edward leaned against a butcher-block counter, crossing one booted ankle over another. “But I guess ‘girl talk' is kind of a misnomer, since it's mostly about men—boyfriends, ex-husbands . . . ”

Toni turned away, snatching up a kettle and filling it.

“Speaking of ex-husbands,” Edward rambled on.

I cast him a startled look: How damn blunt could he be?

“You know, Alice, I just can't get used to the new last name,” he continued. “I knew Alice by her ex-husband's name.” To Galen: “Inconvenient all around, women changing their names. Especially if the new name doesn't sound so great with the first name. Alice Young's not bad. I like your names together, Mrs. Nelson.”

She didn't seem to care. “We were going to go downstairs,” she said, not quite nonchalantly. “Alice wants to see the drums.”

Edward gave me a congratulatory wink.

“Edward, you'll want to see them, too.” My tone was as firm as I could make it.

He shrugged.

To avert the possibility of his declining, I added, “Especially after making your own drum tonight.”

“You made a drum?” Galen didn't seem surprised. “What kind of skin?”

“Actually, chamois. First effort.” He shot me a glance.

“Chamois? It must have sounded awful. Did you treat it? How did you stretch it thin enough?” Galen obviously knew his drum-making.

“I was just horsing around. Just laced it on a hoop and beat on it.”

“I've got some very interesting ones downstairs.” He seemed
troubled. “But you know, I use it as a workroom, and I have things lying around there right now. Toni, why don't you take Alice down another time?”

“All right.” She sounded matter-of-fact, still fussing with the kettle. “We'll join you in the living room in a few minutes.” Turning to me, her face as blank as a lizard's, she said, “Come and check the selection, Alice.” She opened a cupboard.

“You know,” I said, “I think I'll have a Rolling Rock, after all.”

Galen, still by the refrigerator, grabbed another bottle, handing it to me.

I twisted the cap off, avoiding Edward's eye. I took a sip. Rolling Rock hadn't improved one bit.

I preceded the men into the living room. I sipped bad beer while Edward and Galen chatted inconsequentially. Toni Nelson didn't come back into the room.

We left as soon as Edward finished his beer. But not before he'd exhausted his small talk.

Backing the Jeep out of the driveway, he was already complaining. “You couldn't hang out with Toni five more minutes? Get that last name? Act a little more sociable?” He sounded like a husband after a boring office party.

“Don't start!” I fell into office-party counterpoint. “She attacked me in the kitchen. Thanks a hell of a lot! I should have my head examined. Why did I let you take me to visit someone who bopped me in the nose the first time I met her?”

“What do you mean attacked you tonight?” He focused on shifting gears. He was certainly not squirming with concern.

“Pinned me to the wall and snarled angry questions at me.” In retrospect, and with a little beer in me, it made me mad. “She's really out of control! If I see her again—”

“What kind of questions?”

“If I was Billy Seawuit's woman.”

“Whoa.” That got his attention. “Good work, Watson. How'd you get her onto that?”

“I walked into the kitchen with her. Subtle, huh?”

“She asked you about Seawuit, then she pinned you?” He picked up speed, zooming through a corridor of tall trees.

“No. She pinned me and stood there looking all scary. Then
she asked why I'd come—if I was a cop.” That got a big laugh out of him. “Then she wanted to know why we kept bringing up Billy Seawuit.”

“‘We' meaning you and me? You and Nelson?”

“You and me.”

“We didn't bring up Seawuit, not tonight.” He glanced at me for confirmation.

“I was having a little trouble contradicting her, since I was squished against the wall. She was asking if I was his ‘lady' when you guys walked in.”

“That's no lady, that's my fellow accessory after the fact.” It wasn't much of a joke, but he was right. “The reason we came in, supposedly for beers, was because Galen got very nervous. He was looking for a reason to check up on her.”

“And here I thought you were rushing to my aid.”

“No way. I hated to interrupt—especially since it was her idea to go off by yourselves. She obviously had something to say to you.”

“Do you think Galen Nelson wanted to stop her?”

“I sure do. It was a challenge keeping him out of the kitchen long enough for something to happen.”

“Luckily it didn't happen to my nose this time.” My shoulders ached from hunching up in fear. My legs throbbed from too much hiking. And the beer was making me queasy.

“When she asked if you were Seawuit's lady, was it like, ‘you, too?'”

“I don't know. Unlike her computer, I'm not a mind reader,” I pointed out.

“If you had to guess.”

“I don't have to guess.” But, having vented a bit of crankiness, I couldn't resist adding, “She did sound jealous.”

“Then, voilà. Information and the pleasure of watching you try to drink a Rolling Rock. What more could a man ask of a social engagement?”

“What about now? What are you going to do?”

“Drive us back.”

“I meant, are you going back to Santa Cruz tonight?” I was feeling apprehensive. And Toni Nelson hadn't exactly assuaged my fears.

“I was thinking about it. Look up Nelson's marriage certificate first thing tomorrow, get Toni's maiden name, find her divorce decree; get Stu's last name, address, all that. Maybe go talk to him.”

We drove for a while. I tried not to admit how much safer (if more annoyed) I felt with Edward around.

“But what the hell,” he said, finally. “Why break up a good party? I'll drive down in the morning.”

L
ying on the floor listening to Edward snore and Arthur wheeze, I began to hope I'd been in hiding long enough. The policeman Arthur and I had eluded in San Francisco, his memory would have faded somewhat in three days. If I cut my hair shorter and bleached it back, I could claim I'd done it last week. Though no one would confuse me with Syrinx, it should distinguish me from the long-haired blonde hostage.

And to explain my absence, I'd say I'd needed time to think through a midlife crisis. That I'd spent a few days . . . That, of course, was my problem. Where could I possibly say I'd been? Meditating alone on a remote beach? Not likely, not without my car. Off on a tryst? The only man who might possibly have agreed to lie for me was Edward, and he'd just told Surgelato he hadn't seen me.

Plus, what would Arthur say and do without me?

He'd have to come forward regarding Seawuit's murder soon.
He'd have to discuss his whereabouts. And I just couldn't imagine him covering up these days with me, not very well. He'd slip up without meaning to or knowing he had.

The ideal—if one could achieve it without spending long nights on hard floors listening to Edward snore—would be to find out who killed Billy Seawuit. If that were established, no one would bother asking Arthur where he'd been. He wouldn't have to talk to the police at all.

And I would be free to offer whatever thin excuse I could devise for my truancy.

But for tonight, at least, circumstance left me no alternative but to lie awake listening to Edward imitate a pulp grinder. Except one.

I pulled my aching bones out of the sleeping bag and slipped into my shoes. I tiptoed over the two men, Arthur in his bag and Edward in a stack of blankets. Edward's keys were on the table. I picked them up and quietly went outside.

I was both relieved and irritated not to have wakened Edward. Some watchdog he'd turned out to be.

I unlocked the Jeep and slid into the backseat. It was much softer than the cabin floor, though it didn't smell any better and probably wasn't much cleaner. I locked myself in and lay down, tossing the keys up front. Night noises—cracklings and rustlings and whistling wind—couldn't keep me awake tonight. I conked out immediately.

I awakened at dawn, certain something was wrong. Raising my head only enough to see, I peered through the moisture-streaked windshield. Someone was outside the cabin. He was too bundled up for me to identify from the back. He was looking into the windows, creeping from one to another.

I watched, hardly breathing, though he certainly wouldn't be able to hear me. When he walked to the back of the cabin, I slid out of the Jeep, leaving the door ajar to avoid a slamming sound.

One nice thing about Edward's place: A few steps in any direction provided cover. I hid behind a bushy clump of redwood shoots.

The man came back around the cabin. He crossed to the Jeep. I thanked the Great Mother he hadn't checked it first. He tried the
front doors. When he went to the back and found it ajar, I held my breath. Would he put his hand on the seat and notice it was warm?

To my relief, he merely reached in and unlocked the front passenger door. He took his time opening it, obviously trying to be quiet.

I still couldn't make out his features. From here, he looked bulky and short. He was white. He wore a cap and a padded jacket.

He leaned into the Jeep. I assumed he was checking the contents of Edward's glove compartment. He hunched over, and I had the impression he was jotting something down. Since I doubted he was leaving Edward a note, I guessed he was copying the car registration.

I was startled. Could he be a cop? But cops were supposed to knock and announce themselves, ask to see these documents. They might not follow the rules when it didn't suit them. But in this instance, it would certainly have been the easier path.

Was he a private investigator? He seemed to be investigating, after all. He didn't seem poised to break into the house, nor to steal anything from the Jeep. He seemed to be doing what was necessary to find out more about their owner.

Suddenly he straightened, glancing at the cabin. He slipped something into his pocket.

I could see movement inside now, not what I'd have expected—not a figure rising and stretching, crossing to the bathroom. I saw a dark shape maintaining a crouch, creeping toward a window. Edward had been wakened.