Meter Maids Eat Their Young (15 page)

“He was the head of the DPE.”

“Damn, this is curiouser and curiouser.”

I pulled the Altima into the driveway and killed the engine. My thoughts were a cyclone of discordant information. Curiouser and curiouser indeed.

I stepped out the car, keyed the lock and headed for the door. I was halfway there when I froze. Someone was sitting on the porch. And there was a familiar scent in the still air. This was a week for smells. First, the smell of Jaz in the pawn shop … and now? It couldn't be. I hadn't smelled that scent, except in my dreams, for years. L'Air du Temps. The perfume most favored by Robyn.

I shook my head, clearing it. The someone on the porch stood up. It was Lynn Ford, head of the research department at the paper and Robyn's best friend. Or at least she used to be her best friend. From what I knew, Robyn hadn't stayed in touch with any of the old crowd.

I'd been avoiding Lynn outside of work, though she had called several times when I first moved back to town. Those few times we had run into each other at the paper had been, for me, embarrassing and awkward. I felt there were questions hovering in the air that neither of us wanted to ask or answer; though, from all appearances, I'm not sure Lynn felt the same way.

“Lynn,” I said, stepping onto the porch. The smell of L'Air du Temps was stronger. “What are you doing here?”

“I'm sorry, Cat,” she said, calling me by the nickname I hadn't heard in years.

“Sorry for what?” I said, starting to feel a little nervous.

She took a deep breath. “I was going to call … oh, hell. Here.” She handed me a blue envelope. The fragrance was coming from it. My heart did a back-flip and started cartwheeling around in my chest when I spotted the handwriting. A Joe Cocker song began to play in my head.

“It came in the mail today,” she continued. “I think you should read it.”

Reluctantly, I took the envelope from her hand, tipped it and slid out the letter. The paper was pale blue, like the envelope. Of course it would match, I thought, suddenly angry for no reason I could think of, knowing at the same moment that I did know that anger, did know the reason for it. I had felt it often enough over the years, mixed in with all the other things that were tearing me apart. There was a time when I would have given half the blood in my veins, alcohol diluted as it was, for a letter such as this, addressed to me.

I unfolded it and read it quickly.

It fluttered from my hand as I read the last paragraph.

“She's …” I looked up at Lynn, “… she's coming to town.”

“On her birthday,” Lynn said.

I did a quick memory check. “That's … three weeks.”

“About that,” Lynn said. “She wants … she wants to know—”

“I read it, Lynn,” I snapped, and immediately regretted it. Lynn didn't deserve to be the target of my anger. “Sorry,” I said. “I didn't mean to jump on you.”

“I know, Cat.”

I felt her fingertips on my arm. My insides were shaking. I didn't know which I wanted to do more: Scream or cry. Her fingers tightened.

“I know we've never talked about, you know, about you and her,” she said. “I wanted to. I just wasn't sure, sure of, well, sure of anything, I guess. You two guys were, I mean, everyone loved you two. Most of us envied what you had together. And then it just blew apart. She got married, took off. Never contacted any of us. And you came completely undone. Jesus, Cat, those last couple of months before you left town, I mean, we were on death watch, you know? I mean, we didn't think you would, like, blow your brains out or anything, but a lot of us thought you were sure going to drink yourself to death. Or end up in jail. And then you disappeared.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Those were some rough months.” Years was what crossed my mind. “But I stayed in touch. Even if just a little.”

“You did,” she said. “And Albert filled us in on the dark periods. You know we still all go to Jilly's. You turned us on to that place. We don't party as hard as we did, but you'll always find someone from the old gang there. I mean, I know you can't really join us, but …” Her voice trailed off.

“I know, Lynn, and I appreciate it. I do. And maybe one of these days I'll be able to hang in a bar and not feel like every bottle lined up along the wall is whispering to me.”

We stood for a moment in silence then Lynn said, “She mentioned something about staying at the Lincoln Hotel. Wanted to make sure I pointed that out to you.”

I laughed, and there was even a hint of mirth to it. “Yeah,” I said. “I noticed that. Some things never change, I guess.”

When I first met Robyn, the Lincoln had been shut down, boarded up for years. It had once been a grandiose hotel, but time and neglect had transformed it into little more than a dingy housing area for the rats and the homeless.

Midway through our five years, someone bought the place and began extensive renovations. That whole area of town was in the throes of gentrification and the idea was to restore the Lincoln to its former opulence. They managed it pretty well. It opened about six months before Robyn and I broke up. Because of internal structural problems, the increased number of rooms and, I'm sure, because it looked cool and elegant, they designed external elevators for the top suites.

Robyn became rather enamored of those elevators. Of making love in them. But why the visit now? What was she up to? What did she want?

“What are you going to do, Cat?”

“I don't know, Lynn,” I said. “I really don't know.”

We chatted for a while and after she left, I went inside to record what I could remember of my conversation with Albert. Despite the turmoil Robyn's letter had caused, I managed to complete a blistering piece for Sunday's editorial page and fax it off. When the ‘sent' confirmation appeared, I called the news desk to make sure it had gone through. I don't trust technology and, on top of that, I wanted to make sure the copy was proofed before going to print. Several of the letters on my old Underwood were beginning to look more like Egyptian hieroglyphics than alphabet.

Once everything was settled, I sat back on the couch and stared at the powder blue envelope sitting on the coffee table. I wasn't sure I'd be able to sleep with the smell of that perfume in the house so I got up, grabbed a book off the shelf, put the letter inside it and carried the book out to the porch. I would deal with that bridge when I came to it.

Right now, I needed sleep.

A man was jogging down a dark, tree-lined street, dressed in a grey, three-piece suit. Robyn and I were driving down the same street in a red sports car that looked very much like my old Fiat. The top was down. I was sitting in the back seat. Harrison was sitting next to Robyn. Jim Gjerde was sitting on the other end of the seat from me. The Cars were playing on the radio, the words floating from the speaker and brushing my face like feathers. Fast cars, double lives; where in the end do they go?

The man turned while still running and stuck out his thumb for a ride. Robyn swerved, hit him full on, and swerved back onto the street. He flew end over end in the air and landed next to me. Smiling, he stuck out his hand. “I'm Forest Forrester,” he said. “I'm dead.” He looked over at Harrison and Jim. “Hey there, you two, I see they got you as well.”

Robyn turned around in her seat, the car continuing on by itself. The seat became the elevator outside the Lincoln Hotel. It rose and swept her away into the night. When it returned, Jaz was in it. Jaz smiled, kissed Harrison on the cheek and blew kisses at Jim and Forrest. Plucking a blue envelope from the air, she handed it to me.

“This came for Lynn but it's for you,” she said. “I think it's important. I think you should throw it away.”

I reached for the envelope but the wind caught it and blew it out the car. I looked at Jaz. She reached out, touched my face. “Why do I even like you?” she said. “You're a boy. I don't make love to boys.”

That was when I woke up.

I rolled out of bed and headed for the kitchen, a swirl of thoughts in my head, a swirl of hungry cats at my feet. Coffee, cat food and cleaning the litter boxes consumed the first thirty minutes. I tried to get a handle on the previous day while I worked. There were several questions nagging me, not to mention the turmoil Robyn's impending visit caused. By the time I made it to the porch, I pretty much knew what I needed to do.

I made several phone calls, disturbing more than one person mid-breakfast. Harrison had been a well-respected, well-liked guy about town because, though some were annoyed at the disruption of their morning meal, all agreed to find the information I needed as soon as they got to work.

Now there was a last person I needed to talk to and it wasn't something I could do over the phone.

When I walked into Marion's office an hour later, he was standing with his back to me, exactly where he'd been standing the last time I'd visited, watering his plants. He stiffened and turned, looking at his watch.

“You again,” he said, setting down the watering can. “I expected you a half an hour ago.”

“I guess that means my informants are working both sides of the street,” I said, seating myself.

“Make yourself at home,” Marion said, sitting down himself.

“I will, thank you.”

This warm-and-fuzzy between us was starting to make me nervous.

“So,” I said, “now that we have the pleasantries out the way, I understand you're not exactly happy with the verdict on Forrester's and Gjerde's causes of death.”

“Where did you hear that from? No, never mind. Forget I asked. I already know the answer to that one.”

He looked off in the direction of Jilly's, then back at me, his gaze stern and penetrating.

“On the record or off?” he said.

I closed my notebook and said nothing.

He took a deep breath. The corners of his mouth twitched. From long experience I knew this was as close to a smile as Marion was capable. I had a sneaking suspicion he was actually looking forward to this.

“The track suit they found Forrester wearing wasn't his,” he said.

“Not his?” I was surprised and more than a little interested in that revelation. “Are you sure?”

“As sure as I can be. Forrester was a bachelor, gay if you believe the rumors, lived alone out there. He was also a well-known obsessive-compulsive.”

“Like that detective guy on the TV program?”

“Not that bad, but close. I checked out his place. Everything in it matched, right down to the number of things. Apparently he couldn't abide odd numbers. Eight plates, eight cups, eight saucers, knives, forks, spoons: All eight in number And all real: Real wood, real china, real silver.”

“Sounds like he couldn't abide synthetics, either,” I said.

“Not if he didn't have to. And it carried over to his clothes,” Marion said. “Sixteen suits: Four blue, four brown, four black and four gray pinstripe. All wool, all the same tailor. Thirty-two dress shirts: All cotton, all the same design. Thirty-two ties: Colors to match the suits, all raw silk. Six pairs of Bontonis: All leather and very expensive. The only thing synthetic in his closet were the five pairs of Converse running shoes, six if you count the ones he was wearing. All the same design and color.”

“What about track suits?”

“Ah, now that's where the discrepancy creeps in,” Marion answered. “There were five hanging in the closet; medium gray, same size, same manufacturer, all cotton. The sixth one should have been on him.”

“But it wasn't.”

“The one he was wearing was three sizes too large. It was also a darker shade of grey, a different manufacturer and, it was a cotton polyester blend.”

“You don't think he was hit where they found the body, do you?”

Marion glanced in the direction of Jilly's again and back at me, a sour expression on his face. “Too clean,” he said. “That area is well kept; high hedges border the front of the properties along there, with a twenty foot well-maintained shoulder of grass between the road and the hedges. I found a spot about a mile and a half away where the grass was torn up, broken glass scattered about.”