Stone Quarry (19 page)

"Had they?"

"No."

"It would be a pretty stupid thing to do."

"Not necessarily. It's not that easy to unload stolen art. They might take a chance that your gallery would be interested in splitting the profits on six new paintings without having to cut you in."

"Ulrich would never do that."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure! He's a marvelous man and a good friend. If he hadn't been willing to cooperate with me in this—eccentricity—for thirty years, I could not have managed to live the way I have. The way I've wanted."

At the side of the house I dumped the garbage bag in a buried can. We walked around front. On the porch, as she unlocked the door, Eve turned to me. "Ulrich has been good to me in more ways than you can know. I don't think I like the idea of someone bothering him, possibly worrying him on my account."

If she didn't like that idea she'd hate some of the others I was having.

"Eve," I said as I followed her into the living room, "Lydia did some checking in New York, some things I hadn't asked her to do, but I'm glad she did. One of those things was a background check on Sternhagen and his gallery."

She spun to face me, her eyes flashing. "She did
what?
How dare you!"

"She told me he takes an unusually large share of the profits from your work."

Color choked her cheeks. "My arrangements with Ulrich are not your business! I hired you to protect my privacy, not to pry into my life!"

"Lydia's instincts are good," I said. "Maybe it has nothing to do with anything else, but it's unorthodox and she thought I should know. And if you can tell me, I'd like to know why."

"Who the hell do you think you are?" She was taut and trembling, the color gone from her face. The night she'd spent keeping me alive and the morning she'd had and the last six days were suddenly crashing over her like a tidal wave. She was fighting it with anger and the anger was aimed at me, and maybe I deserved it. Nothing good had happened since I'd started working for her.

I watched her struggling for control. I might have gone to her, held her, given her the illusion of safety that someone else's arms can give; but control is different from safety, though they sometimes feel the same. I turned, went quietly out the door, past Leo, who wagged his tail uncertainly as he looked from Eve to me.

I sat on the porch steps, lit a cigarette. I weighed my options, Eve's options, Tony's and Jimmy's options. On the broad sweeping lawn bare tendrils of forsythia were moving lightly in the wind. When the right time came they would flower, flaring like solid sunlight around houses all over these hills. Forsythia lived easily among us, nestling against buildings and fences. It didn't need much care, but it didn't do well alone.

The cigarette was almost gone when I heard the door open behind me. Eve crossed the porch, came and stood near me, arms wrapping her chest as though now she were cold.

"I'm sorry," she began.

"No." I cut her off. "You haven't got anything to apologize for. I'd expect you to be upset and I don't blame you for being upset with me. I haven't done you a hell of a lot of good."

She sat on the step above mine, stared into the distance. "I'm frightened." They didn't sound like words she was used to. "What's happening, Bill? Is it—am I a target for somebody?"

Admitting she was scared gave me an opening I wouldn't get again, for one of those ideas I knew she'd hate. "Eve, there's something I want you to do. Hear me out before you decide."

Her crystal eyes were uneasy. "What is it?"

"I don't want you to be alone for a while. I want to bring someone up to stay with you."

She looked at me blankly for a moment; then, unexpectedly, she laughed. "You have to be crazy," she said. "I'm the person with two
names
, for God's sake. I'm an eccentric recluse. I'm a hermit. I'm the person who'll do anything to protect her privacy, even hire a private detective!" She laughed again.

"No," I said. "Eva Nouvel is all those things. Eve Colgate is a farmer. She's the least sentimental person I've ever met. She makes decisions and doesn't look back. And she's scared."

The laugh had subsided into a smile; now the smile faded. She looked away. "I don't want this," she said.

"I know you don't."

We watched the forsythia sway with the wind. She said, "You don't think it's vandalism. You don't think it's coincidence."

"No, and you don't either."

"No." She tried a small smile. "But I was hoping you did."

"If there hadn't been a murder," I said, "if Mark Sanderson's daughter hadn't been fencing your things from a truck that rolled over the ravine last night, if everybody I met weren't so anxious to get his hands on Jimmy Antonelli, then I'd say sure. I'd say someone stole the paintings, then got curious about where they came from. They came back to have a look. Maybe they were drunk or stoned and found they could make a hell of a mess and were just getting into it when I came around." I lit another cigarette, cupping it against the wind. "And maybe that's what happened. Maybe the only thing that's tying all these things together in my head is my inability to mind my own business." I turned, faced her. "I don't think so, but of course I wouldn't. Make your own decision; but I can tell you it will affect what I do from now on."

"How do you mean?"

"If you don't let me get you some protection, I'll spend a lot more time and energy keeping an eye on you, and concentrating on the people I think might be a threat to you. That might not be the same thing as solving your case, or figuring out what the hell is going on around here."

"What if I don't want an eye kept on me?"

"Fire me."

That one dropped to the ground between us.

"Maybe the police will figure out what's going on," she said.

"Maybe they will. But they'll only figure out what they need to know to solve the crime they know about."

"You would feel more free to act," she said slowly, "if I had a baby-sitter?"

"Bodyguard."

"I can't even bring myself to say that. It's so ridiculous."

I didn't answer that. She thought silent thoughts and I smoked and the forsythia danced.

"Who?" she asked me finally.

"Lydia."

"That same detective? The one who snooped into Ulrich's accounts? Living in my house?"

"She's good," I said. "She's done this kind of thing before. She can stay by your side and keep out of your way at the same time. You'll like her."

"I don't think so."

"Eve, remember, when she checked out Sternhagen, she didn't know who my client was. She still doesn't."

"You didn't tell her?"

"No. I told her the client had lost six uncatalogued Eva Nouvels. That's all she had to go on. She was trying everything she could think of, and your gallery was a smart idea."

She stood, hands in her back pockets, and paced. Stopping, she said, "How long?"

"I don't know. I hope not long. I can't tell, Eve."

She paced some more, but not much. "All right," she finally said. "All right. Because I
am
scared. And because you didn't tell her who your client was."

"Good. Let's call her now."

She hesitated. "I've lived alone for thirty years. Now you want me to have someone with me twenty-four hours a day. I won't be good at it."

"Lydia will."

We went back inside. Eve lit the fire in the stove, put on water for coffee. I dialed Lydia's number. I said a prayer, keeping in mind the danger of answered prayers, and when the phone was picked up I got what I'd prayed for: it wasn't the machine and it wasn't her mother.

"Oh," Lydia said coolly, once she knew it was me. "Hello. I wasn't expecting you to call until later. I got Velez, but he's only just started. Should I call him and call you back? In case he has something already?"

"No, that's not why I called."

"Why did you?"

"There's trouble up here, and I need help. Can you come?"

The ice in her voice thawed a little, probably in spite of herself. "What do you mean, trouble?" she asked cautiously. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, but things are getting rough. I need someone to stay with the client."

"A baby-sitter?"

"Bodyguard."

Her voice almost smiled. "The client's right there with you, huh?"

"Yes."

She hesitated. "When would I start? Right away?"

"Yes."

She was silent. An image focused itself in my mind, Lydia in her back-room Chinatown office, cloudy light drifting in the pebbled glass window. Maybe she was looking at one of the pictures on her wall as she thought; maybe the one I'd given her for Christmas, a shadowy, somber photograph of a city street at night, the buildings dark, the people gone.

"I know you're pissed off," I said. "We can talk about it when you get here. I need you, Lydia."

More silence; then, briskly, "I'll have to organize my mother, and I'll have to rent a car. I could leave by two. For how long?"

"I don't know."

"How do I get there?"

I gave her directions.

"How long will it take me?"

"About four hours, the way you drive."

"How about the way you drive?"

"Two and a half."

"I'll see you at four-thirty."

"Lydia—"

"This isn't just a ploy to get me up there where it's rustic and isolated and romantic?"

The unexpectedness of that question stopped me, made me laugh. "If I thought that would work I'd have tried it long ago."

"You've tried everything else."

"Nice of you to notice."

"See you later."

"Lydia?"

"Umm?"

"It's been rough. It could get rougher."

"Promises, promises," she said in her sweetest tone, and hung up.

Eve brought the mugs to the counter by the phone, filled them.

"Do you want something to eat?"

"No, thanks. I'm not hungry."

"You haven't eaten since dinner last night."

"I'll get something later." I drank my coffee slowly, savoring it.

"She wasn't frightened?" Eve asked. "When you told her it was dangerous?"

"No," I said. "She liked it."

We leaned on opposite sides of the kitchen counter, finishing the coffee. She looked at me over her mug, said nothing, hid her thoughts.

I took my rig from where I'd dropped it on the cedar chest, slung it over my shoulder. I was loading up my pockets with what she'd taken out of them when the phone rang.

"Hello?" she said into the receiver; then, "Yes, in fact, he is. Are you all right?"

I stopped what I was doing, listened.

"All right," she said, half smiling. "I should have known better than to ask. Hold on." She held the receiver out to me. "It's Tony. He's looking for you."

I grabbed it. "Tony? Something wrong?"

"How the hell do I know?" Tony's voice growled out of the phone. "I'm just the messenger boy. You okay?"

"Yeah. Shouldn't I be?"

"You sound lousy."

"Thanks. What's up?"

"Your buddy Sanderson called here lookin' for you. He got kinda steamed when I said you wasn't here drinkin' at ten in the mornin'."

"He has no sense of humor. Did he say what he wanted?"

"No. Place was empty anyhow, so I closed up an' went over to your place, but you wasn't there, either. So I figured I'd check around. Nothin' else to do. Hope I didn't interrupt nothin'."

"You didn't. Thanks, Tony. Anything else new?"

"Not a goddamn thing."

"How're you holding up?"

"Great," he grunted. "Just goddamn great."

"Tony," I said, "You don't know where Frank Grice lives in Cobleskill, do you?"

"How the hell would I know that?"

"Didn't think so. Listen, I'll see you tonight, okay?"

"Yeah, whatever. What do I tell Sanderson if he calls again?"

"Tell him I'll call him when I have something to say."

"You gonna tell me what that means?" "No."

"Ah, to hell with it, an' you too. An' Sanderson."

"And the horse he rode in on. See you later."

"Yeah," he said, and hung up.