Sunset Bridge (25 page)

The kitchen yielded nothing except a phone number penned on the inside of a matchbook. She pocketed that, and went to the living room phone and dialed. Pizza delivery. She tossed the matchbook into the trash. Desk drawers held pens and little else. There was an address book, with characters in an alphabet she couldn’t read. She called Janya, who took it and shook her head. “I do not read Bengali script.”

“Do you know anyone who might?”

“That would not be difficult to find.”

“See if you can put this in one of the children’s boxes, perhaps among the books you’re taking with you.”

The living room was tiny. Maggie thought it was probably smaller than the one in her own cottage. She searched behind and under furniture, under sofa cushions, in the television cabinet and a small bookcase, shaking each book to be sure nothing was hidden between the pages. She lifted the edges of the sisal rug that covered a scarred vinyl floor. The Duttas had not been collectors. There was little to search.

Their bedroom was the next stop. In her experience, bedrooms were often hiding places. Once, she had found a pound of heroin hidden in the false bottom of a drawer filled with lacy underwear. This room, like the rest of the apartment, was sparsely furnished and remarkably clean. Kanira Dutta had apparently spent her days chasing dust. Maggie wondered if the woman had known she was soon to die, would she have chosen other pursuits? Taking her children to the park so that would be the place where they remembered her best? Watching sunsets at the beach and collecting shells? Trying one more time to mend fences with her family in India, or with her husband?

Thirty seconds into the bedroom search, Maggie struck gold. A laptop sat under the rolltop of a battered desk. She examined it and decided the computer was probably at least five or six years old, heavy by current standards and almost surely slow to load. She flipped the top and turned it on, but the battery was dead. Five minutes later, after a thorough search of the room had turned up nothing else of interest, she found a cord in a backpack in the closet. She plugged in the laptop and turned it on again, only to find it was password protected.

“Great.” At least the keyboard used the alphabet she was familiar with. She typed in Harit’s name, then Kanira’s, with no luck. She tried Vijay, then Lily, with no success either, but when she typed in Vijay&Lily, she was in.

“It’s a miracle.”

“What did you say?” Janya asked from the other bedroom, which was right next door. The walls were thin.

“I have Harit’s laptop. I wonder if the police went over it.” Maggie filed that question away to ask her father, who so far had been happy to let her know anything he could about the case.

Janya came to see what was up. “Is his book on it?”

Maggie was looking through files and directories for addresses, phone numbers, anything relevant. She was elated to find a calendar, but unfortunately it hadn’t been updated since the previous year. Obviously Harit had kept his private appointments elsewhere, perhaps because the laptop was old or unreliable.

“I don’t see the book, but…” She went directly to Harit’s word-processing program and found a large folder named Passage.

“This could be it,” she said.

“The children should have those chapters. Their father was a talented writer. They should have proof of it. If they are sent to India, no one there will ever tell them. They will grow up thinking their parents were bad people. Perhaps they will grow up thinking
they
are, too.”

Maggie was sorry Janya had to wrestle with the children’s future. She couldn’t imagine how hard it would be for her friend to lose Lily and Vijay to people who probably didn’t want them.

“Was Harit’s novel in English?” Maggie asked.

“I think perhaps it was. His grant was from a literary foundation here or perhaps in Canada. I am not certain.”

“This is it, then.” Maggie had figured out the way the
folder was organized and had pulled up what looked like a first chapter. She scanned it quickly.

“I’m going to email this whole file to myself,” she said. “It should only take a minute. Then we’ll make copies for the children. I’ll put the chapters on a CD. We can print it out, too, and keep it for them.”

“It will be important someday,” Janya said.

Maggie returned to the folder, attached it to an email to herself and tried to send, with no success. The laptop was just too old and the file too large. She went back and began sending individual files. A clock ticked inside her head. Miss Crede was due back before long, and Maggie didn’t want to be caught with the computer whirring.

At last the folder was all accounted for. She went over the rest of the files, looking for anything of interest. Clearly, though, this was Harit’s work computer. There were no letters or personal notes, or even games he had played. Harit Dutta had been serious about his writing and possibly afraid that anything else might slow the computer more. His mail folder was empty, and while Maggie knew there were ways to access deleted email from a hard drive, she was not a computer expert, and she was running out of time.

She turned off the laptop, put the cord back where she’d found it and searched the dresser. When she had finished that, she checked the little bathroom, and finally she went into the children’s bedroom to help Janya sort.

“Nothing?” Janya asked.

“Nothing’s jumping out at me. I doubt the address book will be useful. It looks like something the wife brought with her from India. Unless the murderer tracked them here, it’s unlikely it will help, and I can’t go there to interview everybody in it.”

“I am nearly done. I will leave clothes the children have outgrown. There is nothing special, nothing sentimental. Kanira was fond of ruffles, but Lily is not.”

“Do you need help with the toys?”

“I have sorted Lily’s.” Janya pointed to a toy box. “She will be happy to have some of these things to play with. Vijay’s toys are in the closet. Will you look through them?”

“You’ll know better what he likes, but I can start.” Maggie went into the closet and began to take things off a shelf system along the back wall. Books. No surprise there. A plastic case of small metal cars. A can of logs that fit together to build a house. She remembered those from Junior’s childhood. She had rarely sat still long enough to build anything herself.

She reached for the next item, trying to figure out what it might be. She stepped to the doorway, where the light was better. She was holding a small metal slot machine with Atlantis Casino emblazoned in gold across the front. The little slot machine had an arm with a red knob on the right side, and Maggie pulled it down. The reels spun, but none of the images matched. Cherries, bananas, a red balloon. She turned it in her hands and saw a slot in the back. The slot machine was a toy, but it was also a bank.

And it had Atlantis Casino painted on the front.

She’d told Janya about the dice in Harit’s effects. Now she held out the slot machine. “Look at this.” Maggie pulled the arm again to show her. “Does this seem like something his parents would have bought for Vijay?”

“No, this is a toy for an older child, and one with no imagination. Vijay would be bored very quickly, I think, and he had no money to save.”

Maggie jingled the slot machine, but there was no sound of coins clinking together inside. “
I
would be bored. But it
makes its point, doesn’t it? A slot machine. Atlantis Casino, the same Atlantis Casino the dice came from.”

“I know you think perhaps Harit gambled there, but they had no money, Maggie. And Kanira told me all the things that were wrong with her husband, but nothing about gambling.”

“I believe you. I think this came from the same person who gave Harit the dice. Perhaps somebody he knew. One of his customers?”

“Could that be important?”

Maggie doubted it. Harit had been carrying the dice in his pocket when he died, but that only indicated they’d been given to him near the end of his life, perhaps by one of the last customers whose hair he had cut. Did that mean it had something to do with his murder? Probably not.

“Why don’t you put this in a box to take home,” Maggie said. “Just in case.”

“I wish we had found something more important,” Janya said.

Maggie wished the same. “It’s usually this way. Leads are hard to come by. This case is baffling, unless it’s exactly what it looks like. An angry husband, a cheating wife, a moment when self-control disappears.”

“This will be very hard to explain to the children when they are old enough to understand.”

As hard as that conversation would be, Maggie knew Janya fervently hoped that she would be the one to have it with them. Because if she had to sit them down someday to explain that their mother and father had quarreled and both had died as a result, that would mean the children were permanent and beloved members of the Kapur household.

S
ome people believed that a baby in utero benefited from slow circular massage to the mother-to-be’s abdomen. On the day after Thanksgiving, the closest Tracy got to giving her little one a massage was sliding the waistband of her warm-up pants up and down over what was now a noticeable bump, in hopes of finding a comfortable place to tie the cord so she could get to her ultrasound appointment.

“I guess Marsh is going to be there,” she told Janya, who had a snoozing Lily on one hip and a blouse, which she’d brought for Tracy, draped over the other arm. Janya had asked about Marsh with studied nonchalance, but she wasn’t fooling her friend.

Tracy settled the pants high and hoped they would stay there. She reached for her water bottle and took a long sip. She was under instructions to drink a quart of water before the appointment, and this was the last of it.

“I texted him the date and time. Maybe he went out of town for Thanksgiving, I don’t know, but he didn’t say
anything to me. You’re sure about the blouse? You won’t miss it?”

“It has much room this way.” Janya spread her hands sideways. “It will grow with you.”

Although the blouse, a gauzy peacock blue with flowers embroidered at the neckline, was nothing like Tracy’s usual style, now it looked light and comfortable, which was quickly becoming her design of choice. “I’ll enjoy wearing it, thanks. Something tells me I’m going to be as big as a mini mansion before too long.”

“So Marsh will meet you there?” Janya asked, hanging the blouse over a chair in Tracy’s dining area.

“If he comes.” Tracy was trying to sound nonchalant, too, but it wasn’t easy. She hadn’t seen Marsh for weeks—not to speak to, anyway. Yesterday she had eaten Thanksgiving dinner with Alice, Olivia and Roger Goldsworthy, who had not poisoned her serving of white meat and oyster stuffing. In fact, he had been almost solicitous. She wasn’t sure if his demeanor was a reaction to her pregnancy or an expression of his desire to impress his lady love. Whichever it was, she thought her job was probably safe.

“You could phone him and suggest you drive together,” Janya said.

“It’s too late for that. I need to leave in a few minutes if I’m going to get there on time. And I can guarantee I’m going to. I have a quart of water hanging out in my bladder with no place to go until this thing is finished.”

“Why don’t you let me drop you off.”

Tracy realized what Janya was up to. “You are
sooo
transparent. If you drop me off, Marsh will have to bring me home, right?”

Janya wasn’t a good liar. She looked away. “I just thought
perhaps you might not be comfortable driving after drinking all that water.”

“Nice try, but I don’t even know if he’s coming. And I don’t want to get stuck there.”

“This seems like a—” Janya stopped short, struggling for the correct word, which was unusual for her. “An intimate moment,” she said at last. “The sound of the baby’s heart. Pictures of the baby itself. I am told they sometimes suck their thumbs. The baby will seem real to you both.”

“Right. And?”

“Would this not be the proper moment to talk to Marsh? To tell him, perhaps, what you are feeling?”

“What I’m feeling is annoyed. He hasn’t called or spoken to me in weeks, and I did make a point of inviting him to the ultrasound. I made the first move.”

“What move was that? The baby is his. You told him he could come with you to see what is, after all, his by rights. You did not tell him that you love him or need him, which is important in this country. You did not say you want him in your life. You only said he could, at last, be a tiny part of this miracle you carry inside you.”

“Whew.” Tracy fanned herself. “The air is heavy with recriminations.”

“No, that isn’t true. But you are my friend, and I think you might be afraid. What would be different in your life if you told Marsh you miss him? If he said, ‘Too bad, but I am a busy man,’ then you would know what you now only suspect. If he said, ‘Tracy, I miss you, too,’ then you would know something new, and it would help you make your next choice.”

“What would be different?” Tracy gave a humorless laugh. “I would look pathetic, that’s what. Like I was whining for at
tention. And it’s clear, isn’t it, that the man has no real feeling for me? If he did, I would have heard from him.”

Janya was silent for a long moment; then she shook her head. “I think it’s better the way we do things in India. We marry. We have babies. Then, if we are lucky, we fall in love. But our lives and our futures are set first. We do not hold happiness or sadness over the heads of the people we must live with. We cannot test them and hope they get a passing grade. By the time that is a question, our lives are too entwined.”

“So if Marsh and I marry and have this baby before we’re sure we’re in love, we’ll be better off? Love will just grow? I don’t see that working.”

“Is love all there is? There is a baby here, and two people who want it. Until the baby was a fact, the people were happy together. Is there not something wrong with that, Tracy? Is not something a little off, as you say?”

Tracy refused to show that her friend’s words were softening her resistance. “Your timing’s no accident, is it? You’re trying to get me riled, throw me off my game, so when and if Marsh shows up, I’ll be off balance and more apt to blurt out something stupid.”

“Will it work?” Janya asked, not denying Tracy’s assessment.

Tracy pulled her long-sleeved shirt down over the pants. It was loosely tailored, hiding the evidence. But soon she would need the blouse Janya had loaned her, and real maternity clothes, to boot.

“Gotta go. In more ways than one.” Tracy grabbed her purse and smoothed Lily’s dark hair as she passed on her way out the door. “Lock up, will you?”

“Are you going to find out the baby’s gender?”

“I’m going to see how I feel when I get there.”

“Perhaps Marsh will help you make that decision.”

Tracy kept right on walking.

By the time Tracy got to the five-story doctor’s office in suburban Palmetto Grove, the sun-flooded, palm-dotted distance to the front door looked to be ten miles long. A new tropical storm, recently named Phyllis, was said to be heading in their direction, but there were no signs of its imminent arrival in this parking lot.

Tracy shifted uncomfortably behind the steering wheel and asked herself if she could make it up to the office. From previous visits she knew there was a ladies’ room near the lobby elevator. Was she really capable of breezing right past it to the third floor? She thought maybe she’d been a little careless on the water front. She had figured four glasses of water would do it, and since that sounded like a lot, she had begun too early. She also hadn’t exactly measured the glasses. She might well have drunk a quart and a half.

And wow, did she feel every single ounce sloshing around inside her.

She had no choice, really. If she visited the ladies’ room, the whole thing was off. If Marsh had managed to clear his schedule for this, he would have to clear it again for a second try. And even though that thought gave her a little zing of pleasure, she knew it was unworthy. Besides, she had scheduled the ultrasound for today because the day after Thanksgiving was a holiday for everyone at the rec center. She wanted to save every minute of paid leave for the weeks after the baby’s appearance, and luckily her doctor’s office was open today.

She waited until the worst of the urge to pee passed; then she got out and locked the car behind her. The stroll across
the blacktop was more like a wobble, but she made it to the door and into the air-conditioning.

She rested for a moment, feeling a little better, but not for long. The sound of running water brought her up short. She’d forgotten about the lobby fountain. The building where so many of Palmetto Grove’s doctors had their offices was serviceable, but some interior designer, hoping to soothe the transition from parking lot to blood tests and X-rays, had designed a fountain against the wall opposite the elevator. It came complete with a “pond” the size of a throw rug, into which a steady stream of water fell and was recycled to fall again. And again. And…

Tracy sprinted across the hall, only to find one of the two elevators was marked Out of Service. She punched the button labeled Up. A glance at the space above the door confirmed her worst fears. The one working elevator was on the fifth floor, and it wasn’t moving.

“Great. Just great!” She punched the button again, as if that would suddenly send the car hurtling through space.

She felt someone move up beside her, and she glanced around to find Marsh not three feet away.

“In a hurry, are we?” he asked.

She told herself to stay focused. “I don’t know about we. And don’t use that word.”

“What word?”

“The W word!”

He looked perplexed. “Are you feeling okay?”

She faced him, hands on hips. He looked tanned and fit, his ponytail neat and shorter than the last time she’d seen him. He looked deliciously masculine, too, in worn jeans and a lightweight dress shirt. He also looked perplexed.

“I am not feeling okay,” she said. “I am a dam about to
burst, if you really have to know. And why didn’t you call to tell me you were coming?”

“I didn’t see any sign you wanted to know.”

“Fine. Great. Be like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like somebody with no feelings.”

“I don’t have feelings? Wouldn’t somebody have noticed that by now and told me?”

Tracy looked up and saw the elevator still wasn’t moving. She punched the button again.

“That won’t help,” Marsh pointed out. “They’re probably loading something. Take a deep breath.”

“
You
can say that because
you
don’t have a quart and a half of water inside you yearning to do what that fountain is doing!”

“Oh, got you.” He leaned over and punched the up button. “I’ll help. That should do it.”

Of course it was only a sad coincidence, but as Tracy watched, the fourth-floor light went on. The elevator was moving down.

“Damn fountain,” she said. “Whose idea was that, anyway?”

Marsh glanced up at the elevator lights. Four was still illuminated. He sighed, backed up to the fountain behind them, looked it over, then flipped a switch just to one side of the rock face. “Better?”

The hall was suddenly quiet, except for the low hum of music in one of the nearby office suites. The fountain had stopped flowing.

“That’s amazing,” she said, shifting her weight in hopes of relieving the pressure on her bladder. “You can do everything. That’s hard to live with.”

“You aren’t living with it. You refused, remember?” He rejoined her.

“I’m nobody’s charity case, Marsh. I’m doing just fine on my own.”

“Charity case?”

She looked up and saw that the elevator had progressed to three. “How many people are coming and going in this stupid building? There must be herds of them getting on that thing. We’ll be trampled when they exit.”

“I asked you to live with me because I wanted you there,” Marsh said. “How pigheaded can you be? You think I don’t know you can manage without me? You could manage on the surface of the moon. You’d find a way to manufacture your own oxygen. You’re a survivor, I know that.”

“Why did you want me there, then? Because you’re afraid I won’t take care of our baby?” The elevator was on two now. Her gaze was locked on the lights.

“I have no doubts you’ll be a good mother.” The elevator doors opened, and one old man with a walker began to slowly shuffle off. Marsh kept the door from closing, and Tracy shifted her weight from one foot to the other. Once the doorway was finally clear she bolted inside, and Marsh joined her.

She punched three and watched as the doors closed.

“This is no time to talk about past arguments.” She faced Marsh, who was leaning against the side of the car. “No point. Let’s not ruin today.”

He looked pained, as if he wanted to speak and was weighing the consequences. The elevator jerked and began to move.

“I haven’t decided if I want to know the sex,” she said.

“I like the idea, myself.”

“And that’s it? You do, so we find out?”

“Trace, why are you trying to start a fight?”

She looked at the lights over the door. They had progressed as far as the second floor. They had only moments together alone in here. She could handle that, couldn’t she? She could take the high road—particularly if it was the quickest way to a toilet.

“I just want to make it clear I have some say in this,” she said.

“Seems to me you have all the say. I’m just the invited guest. But let me point out that I can find out the sex from the technician without you needing to know. That way we both get what we want.”

“And that’s what this is all about, isn’t it?” She shifted and began to lightly stretch, hoping she was moving the ocean of water inside her to a better shore. “What?”

“Both of us getting what we want? Individually. You. Me. Baby makes three.”

There was a jolt, and the elevator stopped. The light still said two, but the elevator was no longer moving.

“We aren’t moving,” she said, hoping for once he would disagree.

“Afraid not.”

“What’s the problem?”

He leaned over and read the metal plaque to the left of the console. “The problem is we should have taken the stairs. I’m guessing there weren’t herds of people getting on. I’m guessing this car’s on its way to that rickety-elevator graveyard in the sky.”

“No!”

He seemed to realize the full import. “Not a good time to get stuck in an elevator with me, is it?”

“Not with you, not with anybody.” Tracy pondered her options; then she simply slid down the wall behind her to the floor, where she folded her legs campfire style and sat forward, elbows on her thighs.

“I’ve hit the alarm,” he said.

She could hear a bell ringing faintly somewhere in the building. “Pry open the door. They do that in movies. Pretend you’re Derek Forbes and escape through the top. Do something!”

He did. He sat down beside her, knee against hers. “I hit the alarm. Someone will come. Are you claustrophobic?”