Page 2
"Stay here," Marta Schuster told me brusquely. She pointed to the bumper of her official vehicle. She went to the trunk, unlocked it, and pulled out a pair of sneakers. She slipped off her pumps and put on the sneakers. She wasn't happy about being in a skirt, I could tell; she hadn't known when she got to work that morning that she'd be called on to tromp around in the woods. The sheriff got a few more items out of her car and went to the edge of the trees. Marta Schuster was visibly bracing herself to remember every lesson she'd ever learned about homicide investigation.
I looked at my watch and tried not to sigh. It seemed likely that I would be late for Camille Emerson's.
When she'd finished preparing herself mentally, Marta made a gesture like ones I'd seen on TV in old westerns, where the head of the cavalry troop is ready to move out. You know, he raises his gloved hand and motions forward, without looking back. That was exactly the gesture Marta used, and the deputy obeyed it silently. I expected her to toss him a Milk Bone.
I was grabbing at any mental straw to avoid thinking of the body in the car, but I knew that I'd have to face it sooner or later. No matter what Deedra's life had been, or how I'd felt about her choices in that life, I discovered I was genuinely sorry that she was dead. And her mother! I winced when I thought of Lacey Dean Knopp's reaction to her only child's death. Lacey had always seemed oblivious of her daughter's activities, and I'd never known if that was self-protective or Deedra-protective. Either way, I kind of admired it.
My calm time ended when a third vehicle pulled over to the shoulder, this one a battered Subaru. A young man, blond and blocky, leapt from the driver's seat and looked around wildly. His eyes passed over me as if I were one of the trees. When the young man spotted the opening into the woods, he threw himself along the narrow shoulder like a novice skier hurls himself down a slope, apparently intending to dash down the road to the scene of Deedra's demise.
He was in civilian clothes, and I didn't know him. I was betting he had no business at the crime scene. But I wasn't the law. I let him pass, though I'd stopped leaning against the sheriff's car and uncrossed my arms.
At that moment Marta Schuster came back into sight and yelled, "No, Marlon!" The big deputy dogging her stepped around her neatly, grabbed the smaller man's shoulders, and held him fast. I'd seen the smaller man around the apartments, I recalled, and I realized for the first time that this boy was Marlon Schuster, Marta's brother. My stomach clenched at this bombshell of a complication.
"Marlon," the sheriff said in a harsh voice. It would've stopped me. "Marlon, get ahold of yourself. "
"Is it true? Is it her?"
From only five feet away, I could hardly avoid hearing this conversation.
Marta took a deep breath. "Yes, it's Deedra," she said, quite gently, and motioned to the deputy, who let go of the boy's arm.
To my amazement, the young man drew back that arm to swing at his sister. The deputy had turned to walk to his car, and Marta Schuster seemed too astounded to defend herself, so I covered the ground and seized his cocked right arm. The ungrateful fool swung around and went for me with his left. Well, I too had a free hand, and I struck him - seiken, a thrust - right in the solar plexus.
He made a sound like "oof" as the air left him, and then went down on his knees. I released him and stepped away. He wouldn't be bothering anyone for a few minutes.
"Idiot," the sheriff said, crouching down by him. The deputy was right by me, suddenly, his hand playing nervously around his gun. I wondered which of us he'd draw on. After a second his hand relaxed, and I did too.
"Where'd you learn that?" asked the deputy. I looked up at him. He had bitter-chocolate brown eyes.
"Karate class," I said, throwing it away, not wanting to talk about it. Marshall Sedaka, my sensei, would be pleased.
"You're that woman," the deputy said.
All of a sudden, I felt real tired. "I'm Lily Bard," I said, keeping my voice neutral. "And if you all are through with me, I need to be getting to my next job. "
"Just tell me again how you happened to find her," Marta Schuster said, leaving her brother to fend for himself. She looked sideways at her deputy. He nodded. They seemed to be good at nonverbal communication. She addressed me again. "Then you can go, long as we know where to reach you. "
I gave her the Joe-Friday facts: Mrs. Rossiter's phone number, my cell phone number, my home phone number, and where I'd be working this afternoon if I ever got to leave this stretch of road.
"And you knew the deceased how?" she asked again, as if that was a point she hadn't quite gotten straight in her head.
"I cleaned her place. I live next to her apartment building," I said.
"How long had you worked for Deedra?"
The tall deputy had gone down the path with a camera after making sure that Marlon was off his tear. The sheriff's brother had recovered enough to haul himself up to the hood of his Subaru. He was sprawled over it, weeping, his head buried in his hands. His sister completely ignored him, though he was making a considerable amount of noise.
Two more deputies arrived in another squad car and emerged with rolls of crime-scene tape, and Marta Schuster interrupted me to give them directions.
"I worked for Deedra - though I'm sure her mother subsidized her - for over three years," I said, when the sheriff turned her attention back to me. "I cleaned Deedra's apartment once a week. "
"So, you were friendly with her?"
"No. " That didn't require any thought.
"Yet you knew her for more than three years," Marta Schuster observed, pretending to be surprised.
I shrugged. "She was most often gone to work while I was at her place. " Though sometimes she was still there; and sometimes the men would still be there, but the sheriff hadn't asked me about the men. She would, though.
While the sheriff gave more directions to her deputies, I had a little time to think. The pictures! I closed my eyes to contain my dismay.
One of the least explicable things about Deedra was her fondness for nude pictures of herself. She'd kept a little pile of them in her lingerie drawer for years. Every time I'd put her clean clothes away, I'd felt an uncomfortable stab of disapproval. Of all the things Deedra did to parade her vulnerability, this was the thing I found most distasteful.
I thought of those pictures lying out on a desk in the sheriff's office, being viewed by all and sundry. I felt a wave of regret, an almost overwhelming impulse to rush to Deedra's apartment ahead of the law, remove the pictures, and burn them.
Marlon Schuster slammed his hand against the hood of his car, and his sister, who was watching my face rather than his, jumped. I carefully avoided her eyes. Marlon needed to take his display of grief to another, more discreet, location.
"So, you have a key to the apartment?" Marty Schuster asked.
"I do," I said promptly. "And I'm going to give it to you now. " I abandoned any quixotic notion of shielding Deedra's true nature from the men and women examining her death. I was sure almost everyone in town had heard that Deedra was free with herself. But would they look for her killer as hard, once they'd seen those pictures? Would they keep their mouths shut, so rumors didn't reach Deedra's mother?
I pressed my lips together firmly. There was nothing I could do, I told myself sternly. Deedra was on her own. I'd set the investigation of her death in motion, but beyond that, I couldn't help her. The cost to myself would be too high.
So thinking, I worked her key off the ring and dropped it in the open palm of Sheriff Marta Schuster. A vague memory stirred, and I wondered if I knew of another key. Yes, I recalled, Deedra kept an emergency key in her stall in the apartment carport. As I opened my mouth to tell the sheriff about this key, she made a chopping gesture to cut off my comment. I shrugged. But I told myself that this was truly my only key, and that because I'd turned ov
er this key, Deedra Dean was out of my life.
"I'll need a list of the people you've seen there," Sheriff Schuster said sharply. She was aching to return to the crime scene, her face turning often to the woods.
I'd already begun to go back to my car. I didn't like being hushed with that chopping hand, it wasn't like I chattered. And I didn't like being ordered.
"I never saw anyone there," I said, my back to the sheriff.
"You . . . in the years you cleaned her apartment, you never saw anyone else there?" Marta Schuster's tone let me know she was well aware of Deedra's reputation.
"Her stepfather was there one morning when Deedra was having car trouble. "
"And that's all?" Marta Schuster asked, openly disbelieving.
"That's all. " Marlon, of course, had been creeping out of there three or four days ago, but she knew about him already and it didn't seem the time to bring that up again.
"That's a little surprising. "
I half-turned, shrugging. "You through with me?"
"No. I want you to meet me at the apartment in about two hours. Since you're familiar with Deedra's belongings, you can tell us if anything's missing or not. It would be better if Mrs. Knopp didn't have to do it, I'm sure you agree. "
I felt trapped. There was nothing I could say besides, "I'll be there. "
My involvement in the troubled life of Deedra Dean was not yet over.
Chapter Two
Camille Emerson would hate me later for not telling her my little news item, but I just didn't want to talk about Deedra's death. Camille was on her way out, anyway, a list clutched in her plump hand.
"I remembered to put the clean sheets out this time," she said with a touch of pride. I nodded, not willing to give a grown woman a pat on the back for doing a simple thing like putting out clean sheets for me to change. Camille Emerson was cheerful and untidy. Though I didn't dislike her - in fact, I felt glad to work for her - Camille was trying to warm up our relationship into some kind of facsimile of friendship, and I found that as irritating as the employers who treated me like a slave.
"See you later!" Camille said finally, giving up on a response. After a second I said, "Good-bye. " It was lucky I was in a mood to work hard, since the Emersons had made more than their usual mess since my last visit. There were only four of them (Camille, her husband, Cooper, their two boys) but each Emerson was determined to live in the center of chaos. After spending fifteen minutes one day trying to sort out the different sizes of sheets I needed, I'd suggested to Camille that she leave the clean sheets on each bed, ready for me to change. That was much better than extending my time there, since Mondays were always busy for me, and Camille had blanched at the thought of paying me more. We were both happy with the result; that is, when Camille remembered her part.
My cell phone rang while I was drying the newly scrubbed sink in the hall bathroom.
"Yes?" I said cautiously. I still wasn't used to carrying this phone.
"Hi. "
"Jack. " I could feel myself smiling. I grabbed my mop and cleaning materials in their caddy, awkwardly because of the telephone, and moved down the hall to the kitchen.
"Where are you?"
"Camille Emerson's. "
"Are you alone?"
"Yes. "
"I've got news. " Jack sounded half excited, half uneasy.
"What?"
"I'm catching a plane in an hour. "
"For?" He was supposed to be coming to stay with me tonight.
"I'm working on a fraud case. The main suspect left last night for Sacramento. "
I was even more miserable than I'd been after finding Deedra's body. I'd looked forward to Jack's visit so much. I'd even changed my sheets and come home from the gym early this morning to make sure my own little house was spanking clean. The disappointment bit into me.
"Lily?"
"I'm here. "
"I'm sorry. "
"You have to work," I said, my voice flat and even. "I'm just. . . " Angry, unhappy, empty; all of the above.
"I'm going to miss you, too. "
"Will you?" I asked, my voice as low as if there were someone there to hear me. "Will you think of me when you're alone in your hotel room?"
He allowed as how he would.
We talked a little longer. Though I got satisfaction out of realizing that Jack really would regret he wasn't with me, the end result was the same; I wouldn't see him for a week, at the very least, and two weeks was more realistic.
After we hung up I realized I hadn't told him about finding Deedra dead. I wasn't going to phone him back. Our good-byes had been said. He'd met Deedra, but that was about the extent of his knowledge of her . . . as far as I knew. He'd lived across the hall from her before I'd met him, I recalled with a surge of uneasiness. But I channeled it aside, unwilling to worry about a faint possibility that Jack had enjoyed Deedra's offerings before he'd met me. I shrugged. I'd tell him about her death the next time we talked.
I tugged the crammed garbage bag out of the can, yanked the ties together in a knot, and braced myself as Camille Emerson staggered through the kitchen door, laden with grocery bags and good will.
I was late for my appointment with Marta Schuster, but I didn't care. I'd parked my car in my own carport before striding next door to the eight-unit apartment building, noticing as I threw open the big front door that there were two sheriff's department vehicles parked at the curb. I was in a bad mood, a truculent mood - not the frame of mind best for dealing with law-enforcement officials.