The Metaphysical Detective (A Riga Hayworth Paranormal Mystery) (9 page)

“Good movie,” he said.  “It had a wine bottle that magically refilled itself.  Port, I think.   A bit sweet for my tastes, but this port was –”  He stopped at Riga’s look. “What?”

She stared at him, nonplussed.  “You’ve just… taken the conversational thread in a completely different direction!”

“Sorry.  You wanted to say something else about the movie?”

“Forget it.”

“No really, go on.”

“No.”  Riga struggled not to laugh.  “I don’t want to anymore.”

He sighed.  “Okay.  Let’s pretend I didn’t say anything about the wine bottle, even though it is the best part of the movie.  You said you were thinking of
The Bishop’s Wife
.  And I said, ‘really?’”

“Okay.  What I was thinking was how sad it was that when the angel left, no one remembered he’d ever been there and caused all those miracles to happen in their lives.  They thought they’d just done it themselves.”

Donovan nodded.  “I don’t think it mattered that the characters didn’t remember him.  Their lives had been changed, and perhaps it was best they thought that they’d done it themselves.”

“I suppose,” Riga said, unconvinced. “But the movie was true in one sense – that’s the nature of the metaphysical experience.  You can’t hold on to the experience, it comes and goes in a flash.  You know deep in your soul that something marvelous has happened, but you’ll never be able to prove or explain it.”  But the water spouts had repeated themselves.  Something was different.  “I wonder if I’ll remember you,” she mused.

He threw his head back and laughed.  “I’m no angel.” Donovan pushed the plates aside and lay back upon the blanket.  He wiggled his toes.  “I do miss this though.  The Sierras are remarkable, but this place has a musky sort of warmth to it.  You can almost hear the trees growing.”

Riga craned her neck back.  The redwoods soared above them, brushing the sky.  She lay back to better enjoy the view.  The wind whispered in the branches above them, punctuated by bursts of birdsong.  It seemed to Riga as if the trees were bending inward, bowing their great leafy heads, craning to hear them below. 

She wondered what she was doing here.  So far she hadn’t learned anything useful.  Worse, she was attracted to him.  He was gorgeous and manly and fun.  He was also a suspect and probably a playboy – she had to pull it together.  God she wanted to feel his lips pressed against hers, his arms around her.

Donovan rolled onto his side, closing the gap between them, and propped his head upon one hand.  His odd green eyes darkened.  “Riga—“

The dog barked once and leapt between them, its tail flicking Donovan in the chin.  He flinched, rearing back.  Riga laughed, scratching the dog’s neck.

“Dog,” he said, “you and I are going to have to come to an understanding.” 

Riga rolled gracefully to her feet.  “You two do that.  I’m going to wash the plates.”

“Why?” he asked, reasonably.

“So they aren’t disgusting when we get home.  I’m just going to rinse them, in the creek,” she explained, gathering them up and taking a cloth napkin.  “I’ll be back soon.”  Riga couldn’t stand to see dirty plates lying about, but she also wanted a moment away from Donovan.  She hadn’t liked the way her pulse had raced when he’d turned to her – she’d liked it too much.

Down at the creek, the sense of voices nearby was stronger.  Riga tilted her head, listening.  Were there people nearby?  She scanned the forest.  A log had fallen across the creek, one side green with moss.  Giant boulders lay tumbled in the water.  There was a cut in the hillside above – another trail.  The voices, for now she was nearly certain they were voices and not a trick of the water, rose and fell, never seeming to come nearer or farther.  She stood entranced, straining to hear.  A splash of water dashed against the rock and droplets hit Riga in the face.  She shook her head, the spell broken by the icy water, and rinsed the plates, using the napkin as a washcloth. 

As  she returned to the clearing she heard voices again.

“…defense mechanism?” Donovan was saying.

“Is what a defense mechanism?” Riga asked.

“The redwoods clone themselves when they’re damaged or receive some sort of shock,” Donovan said smoothly, “like a lightning strike.  It’s a defense mechanism.  You see how that tree appears to be two grown together?  It’s a clone growing out of the first.”

“And you were explaining this to the dog?”

“You weren’t here.  Besides, I think we understand each other now,” he said, giving the dog a hard look. 

The dog bared its teeth at Donovan, in warning or smile, Riga could not say.

Chapter 15: The Apollo Group

Fog rolled in from the ocean, spattering the windshield of Donovan’s car with mist.  The car seemed adrift in a sea of gray, the only relief from their monochrome world the bright pumpkins dotting the nearby fields.

“Mind if we stop?” Riga said, pointing to a roadside farm.

“For you?   Anything.”

He turned abruptly into the dirt drive and parked beside a tumbledown wooden fence.  They wandered the farm’s soggy fields, and Riga selected three fat pumpkins, stacking them in a wheel barrow.  Their bottoms were crusted with mud, and Donovan lay newspapers along the floor of his car to protect the carpeting while Dog barked at him in a steady, persistent beat.  

“He’s upset you wouldn’t let him out to see the pumpkins.”

“I can deal with muddy gourds.  Muddy paws are a different matter,” he said shortly.

Donovan drove her home.  They returned Dog to his owner and Donovan followed her into her condo.

Holding a pumpkin aloft in each hand, he looked around.  “Where do you want it?”  He arched his brow. 

She slid her pumpkin onto the kitchen counter, shoving aside the mysterious Valentine that still lay there, ignoring his double entendre.  “This will do.” 

“As you wish.”  He hefted them onto the countertop then brushed the dirt from his hands.  “I should go.” 

“Yes.”

For a moment it looked as if he would say something, but then he smiled his crooked smile and left.

Riga washed her hands in the kitchen sink, enjoying the warmth of the water, the silky feel of the soap on her chapped hands, wondering whether she’d see him again.  She thought she would. 

She took the Valentine into her study and stuck it with a magnet to the whiteboard beneath the others.  The phone rang in the other room.  She went to her purse and extracted it, checked the number.

“Dora?”

A cough.  “Did you get my e-mail?”

“I haven’t checked.”

“Do it.  I’ll wait.”

Riga went to her computer and sat before it, clicked on Dora’s e-mail.  “Got it,” she said.

“I was bored, found some stuff on Aaron Cunningham.  Thought you’d be interested.”

Riga leaned back in her swivel chair and it creaked beneath her.  “Since when do you do research for your reporters?”

“Like I said, bored.  You got anything on him?”

“You looking for a hit piece?”

“Nah.  You know me.  But Aaron’s an interesting guy.  San Francisco has its own brand of high society, and Aaron’s part of it.  He’s a big patron of the ballet and the modern art museum.  I sent you some pictures.”

Riga clicked on the attachment, saw smiling photos of Aaron with ballerinas, the mayor, and other local luminaries at various glittering events.  Aaron was handsome, Riga thought, with curling blonde hair and classical features and she disliked him instinctively and unfairly. 

Dora coughed, cleared her throat.  “Rumor has it he has plans to run for lieutenant governor.”

“Has he got a shot?”

“He’s got the connections, that’s for damn sure.  But I hear they’re worried about his love life.”

“Really?”

“Married twice.  Don’t know anything about his first wife – couldn’t find anything.  But the divorce from his second wife was ugly, high-profile.  In the end, wife number two got a fat settlement, but hadn’t much chance to enjoy it.  A week after the divorce was final, she was in a car accident.  It left her paralyzed from the waist down.”

“Huh,” Riga said, scanning the articles.  After the divorce followed a string of public romances – a ballerina, a trust-fund environmental activist, and a documentary film director all fell within his orbit.  None of them had lasted long, and Aaron had not remarried.  His divorce from wife number two, Riga noticed, had been finalized around the time of Herman’s deadly accident.

“What are you looking for, Dora?” 

“Nothing, nothing.  I just think it’s interesting that he’s crossed into one of your investigations.  Could be a scoop there.”

“Did I say that?”

Dora laughed, a raspy bark.  “Don’t keep me waiting for that article, dear.”  She hung up.

Riga sat at her desk and took more notes on the Apollo Group and its works in progress and from these developed a set of interview questions.  Then she typed Donovan’s name into the computer.  He hadn’t been joking about the casinos – he owned three, two in Vegas, one in Tahoe.  His photo popped up in the more prurient celebrity magazines, seated at a table with a famous actress, escorting a singer to an awards show. 

More interesting was an article in a business journal.  Donovan had inherited a casino when his parents, aunt, and uncle were killed in a private plane crash.  Since he was underage at the time, the estate had been put in the control of a court appointed manager.  Though Donovan was careful to place blame on the changing economy rather than the steward, the casino had not done well.  When Donovan came of age, he took over and managed to turn the place around and build two more in Vegas.  He’d also taken under his wing his younger cousins, who’d gone into foster care after the air disaster. 

Though Donovan’s quotes for the article were brief to the point of rudeness, the writer had clearly been enamored with him, concluding that when Donovan had rebuilt his empire, he’d rebuilt most of his family.  But one of his cousins, who had been a pre-teen at the time she’d gone into the system, had disappeared, run away.  Donovan never found her, though at the time of writing, he was still looking.  Riga wondered, again, why he was really here.

*****

Riga had armored herself in vintage looking clothes for the meeting with Aaron  – wide legged trousers and a sleek navy-colored knit top, with an Hermès scarf – a gift from an admirer – draped around her shoulders for luck.  She would have knotted it around her leather bag, but the scarf was too large, even for the over-sized purse which carried her essentials: wallet, a makeup bag, a mystery novel, a notepad and pen, her cellphone, and room left over for anything she might find along the way.

She met him at a private club on the Peninsula.  He rose from the table as she approached, running an appreciative gaze over her body.   He turned her hand as he shook it, placing his on top – an old sales trick to assert dominance.

Riga smiled thinly and sat down opposite him, facing the window.  The sun dazzled her eyes, creating a halo around Aaron. 

She shifted her chair.  “I’m sorry.  I can’t see you very well.”

“Of course.”  His white teeth flashed.  “The sun.  How thoughtless of me.”

Even in faded jeans and a sports shirt, Aaron radiated wealth and confidence.  She found herself wanting to look at him, as if some of his buoyancy would rub off on her.  His golden hair was untouched by gray, and curled sleekly upon his head.  His skin was tanned, from days spent on construction sites or at the golf course?  Either or both seemed likely.

They exchanged banal pleasantries and she ordered iced tea from the waiter hovering nearby. 

Riga pulled a black notebook from her leather satchel and placed it on the crisp white tablecloth before her. 

 “Ready to get down to it?”  Aaron placed his elbows on the table and clasped his hands together, resting his chin upon them.  “I looked you up.  Most reporters don’t live on Nob Hill.  Trust fund?” His blue eyes sparkled. 

“Lottery,” she lied, silently congratulating herself for keeping her agency off the Internet. 

He stared.  “Really?”

She shrugged.  “It happens.”

“That doesn’t explain your interest in my story.”  He leaned back in his chair.  “Are you here as a reporter, or as an investigator?”

“Good reporters are investigators,” she parried.

“Good reporters publish more than you have and don’t work for little Peninsula rags.  A friend told me you’re some sort of investigator.”

He knew.  How far could she play it?  “Rag?”  She uncapped her pen and opened her notebook.

“Just a figure of speech,” he waved his hand as if to obliterate the words.   “Let’s put our cards on the table.  What are you really after?”

“I’m here to write a story.  The high speed rail is controversial, and several of your developments run along its path.  I’d like to hear your side of things, though I’ll be reporting the other side as well.  I also wanted to ask you about an old employee of yours who died last year in a car accident in Hillsborough.  That won’t be in the story because I don’t believe it’s relevant.  I’m asking because I knew his wife, Helen.”

His face darkened.  “Herman.  You should put him in the story.  Embezzlers make good copy.  Not that it had any effect on operations.  We were insured.”

Her pen paused over the paper as she digested this.  Embezzlement might make a good story, but the PR was rarely good for the victimized company.  Was Aaron telling her this because he was still angry, or did he want something else?  “Then you filed a police report?” she said.  Insurers usually didn’t pay off without one.

“Of course.  Helen never mentioned this to you?”

“It’s not the sort of thing she would bring up,” Riga said dryly.

“No, I guess not.  We could never figure out what he’d done with it – where he’d stashed it.  Helen’s lifestyle didn’t seem to change.”

So he’d been watching Helen.  The insurance settlement hadn’t been the end of it for Aaron.

“How much?” she said.

“One hundred K.  There’s still a reward out for it.  The insurance company would like to get their money back.”

“I’m sure they would.”  She scribbled a note.  “Why wasn’t Herman prosecuted?”