Текст книги "Maximum Security"

Автор книги: Rose Connors

Соавторы: Rose Connors
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CHAPTER 11

Sunday, October 15

It’s a few minutes past nine when I pull up to Louisa Rawlings’s Easy Street antique home. The Kydd’s small, red pickup is parked at the far end of the oyster-shell driveway, near the house. True to form, he’s the first one at work—no matter where work happens to be. I align the Thunderbird next to his truck and cut the engine.

I grab Louisa’s growing file from the passenger seat before slipping from behind the wheel. A manila accordion folder with a six-inch capacity, it was sand dollar–flat on Friday, housing only the sketchy notes from my initial interview. Now it’s swollen to about half its potential with the fruits of yesterday’s labors: the Kydd’s morning of legal research, his afternoon of copious note-taking. Let’s hope we close the damned thing tomorrow, before it mushrooms.

I tuck the file under one arm as I slam my car door and head toward the house. Morning dew glistens on the roof and hood of the Kydd’s truck, tiny droplets merging and trickling like miniature rivers down the fogged windows. Through a gap in the mist on the passenger’s side, I see that the solitary bench inside is empty. He must have returned the files and books that cluttered it yesterday to the office. Good. I’ll make a point of telling him to leave them there. I want that busy brain of his focused on only one case for the next couple of days. This one.

Louisa’s husky laughter tells me they’re on the back deck. I walk east of the house, climb a trio of wooden steps, and pass the seemingly never-used kitchen door on my way to the water side. They’re seated in Adirondack chairs facing the ocean, both cradling steaming mugs, their profiles toward me. They make quite a picture in the morning sunshine, both lean and long-limbed, their postures relaxed, carefree even. Gives a whole new meaning to Southern Comfort.

Louisa twists in her chair as I approach, sends a slight wave in my direction, and then turns back to the Kydd to finish whatever she’s been telling him. The Kydd’s cheeks are flushed and I don’t think it’s because of the ocean wind. His attention to Louisa’s story is absolute, the kind a private first-class might pay if he were included in a meeting of four-star generals on the eve of war. It’s pretty clear that my arrival is lost on him.

Leaning over a small table between their chairs without missing a beat in her tale—something about childhood summers spent on Ocracoke, an island off the coast of North Carolina—Louisa fills a mug with black coffee, hands it to me, and points to the empty chair across from hers. I’m grateful for the coffee—it’s my first cup of the day—but I decline the offer to sit. She doesn’t seem to notice.

“And, of course, there,” she continues, apparently still referring to the summer island of her youth, “a person can swim once in a while. The water actually warms up for a few months each year.” She gestures toward the icy gray waves and shivers, then sets her mug on the table so she can pull her unbuttoned cardigan tight around her.

The Kydd laughs. “I know what you mean,” he says. “I haven’t been in salt water since I got here.” He looks up at me for the first time today and shakes his head.

“Is that true?” I ask. The Kydd’s been here for three summers—hot ones.

“Hell, yes, it’s true.” He plasters an incredulous expression on his face and points his coffee toward the water, as if I might not otherwise catch his drift. “You people are crazy to go swimming in that—even in August. It’s too damned cold.”

The Kydd looks a little annoyed. Apparently I’m responsible for Cape Cod’s failure to heat the Atlantic. I shift my attention to Louisa. “First of all,” I tell her, “I’d like you to walk us through the events of last Sunday.”

“But I did that on Friday,” she says, wiping lipstick from the rim of her mug with a cloth napkin. “And yesterday, too. I told you everything.”

“I know you did.” I hand her file to the Kydd. “But today I want you to walk us through it—literally. Show us where you were, hour by hour.”

“I was here. Aside from my morning at the club, I was home all day. You expect me to walk you from room to room?”

I nod. “That’s exactly what I expect.”

I also expect her to take us to Eastward Edge at some point, review the early-morning round of golf, the chitchat among the foursome. I don’t mention any of that, though. We won’t get that far today.

“Let’s start in the driveway,” I tell them both. “Retrace Louisa’s steps from the moment she got home.”

They exchange puzzled glances, but leave their chairs like a couple of compliant children.

Louisa looks over at the Kydd as they walk across the wooden deck ahead of me. She arches her perfect eyebrows, apparently wondering if he can shed any light on my peculiar request. He shrugs, pulls a legal pad from the file and a pen from his jacket pocket. The expression on his face says they’ll just have to humor me.

And they will. It’s not that I give a damn where Louisa took her midday shower or read her Sunday Times. But I’ve learned over the years that memory is a fragile, unpredictable thing. It can be blocked—or triggered—by any of the five senses. We’re going to do everything we can to trigger Louisa Rawlings’s memories today. Otherwise, it’ll happen tomorrow. When Detective Lieutenant Mitch Walker does it for us.

Scarlett O’Hara would pine for nothing in Louisa Rawlings’s quarters. Louisa apparently plucked her master suite straight from the blueprints of prewar Tara. Its pale yellow wallpaper is daintily flowered. The matching drapes are heavily ruffled. And the king-size bed is a four-poster, canopied and draped in lace. The bed is unmade, the sheer curtains drawn, the sheets and quilts a sea of tangled lilac.

Each bedside table wears a matching lilac skirt overlaid by a dainty white crocheted doily. Each doily has a cut-crystal vase centered on it. The vases hold dozens of long-stemmed pink roses, most barely open, a few in full bloom. Next to each vase sits an ivory candleholder with a single wick floating in scented oil—lavender, I think. It’s an aromatic, pastel world in here.

There’s a veranda, of course, facing the water. Louisa moves toward it, like a hummingbird to nectar, as soon as the three of us enter the room.

“Did you go out there when you got home from the club?” I ask.

She stops walking and turns to face me. “I did,” she says, smiling. “I almost never come in here without going out there. I never tire of the view.”

“Then let’s do it now.”

She shakes her head. “But I only went out for a couple of minutes last Sunday. I didn’t even sit down.”

“Then let’s go out for a couple of minutes now,” I tell her. “And we won’t sit down this time, either.”

She shrugs, looks over at the Kydd, and gestures toward the French doors. Ever the Southern gentleman, he complies. He fiddles with the locks for a few moments—there are two of them—then swings both doors open wide and moves aside. Louisa steps out first and I follow. Rhett Butler leans in the open doorway, his pen and legal pad at the ready.

Louisa clutches the wrought-iron railing and breathes in the salt air. “That’s it,” she says, looking back at me. “That’s exactly what I did out here on Sunday. That’s all of it.”

I join her at the railing and point down to the floating dock. “Is this when you realized Herb had taken the Carolina Girl out?”

“No,” she says. “I knew before I came into the house. I thought he probably had, given the glorious day, so I walked around back and checked.”

I nod and make a mental note to repeat that walk with her before we finish. When I lean against the railing beside her, she turns her back to the view she never tires of and stares at me. She seems bored with this drill. And apparently she’s done talking about this particular spot.

“I’m sorry,” she says as if reading my mind. “But there’s nothing more I can tell you.”

“What did you do next?” I ask.

Her expression brightens and she stands up straighter. “I went to the Queen’s Spa,” she announces.

“The Queen’s Spa?”

“Yes,” she says, slipping past the Kydd and back inside. She directs our attention to a door on the east end of the main room. It’s ajar. “This,” she says, entering ahead of us, “is the Queen’s Spa. I designed it myself.”

I don’t doubt it for a second. A space this size would house a family of four in more than a handful of countries. And the aggregate value of its contents would exceed the gross national product in a few more. Louisa Rawlings’s signature is all over this room.

The ceiling is at least twelve feet high and from its center hangs a fan Louisa might have salvaged from the set of Casablanca. It rotates lazily above us, emitting a barely audible hum. Two feet below, a single wooden shelf traverses the perimeter of the room. Lush greenery cascades from it, in stark contrast to the white trim and the beige painted walls. Apparently Louisa Rawlings has a green thumb.

Well, of course she does.

Twin sinks with marble vanities face each other from opposite ends of the room, each lit by two overhead, tulip-shaped lamps. The sinks host diving brass swans, each one flanked by matching faucets. The swans’ beaks are open, apparently prepared to spew water into the basins at the crank of a handle. These are the cygnets, I realize after a moment. Their mother is in between them, along the water-side wall, similarly poised to fill the hot tub.

She’s got quite a job. A six-foot oval encased in a massive marble deck, the tub is as effective an invitation to soak as porcelain can be. Candles of varying heights share space around it with dozens of vials of lotions, creams and oils. Just above the marble deck, the far wall showcases five inlaid diamond-shaped tiles, each featuring a delicately carved mollusk: distinct sand dollars at each end; a starfish, scallop, and moon snail nestled between them.

The Kydd brushes past me, crosses the room, and points into the tub as if it might be the Grand Canyon. “Look at this,” he says, turning back and gesturing for me to join him. “It’s four feet deep.”

If our client weren’t in the room, I’d break the news to the Kydd that we’re working here.

“See these jets?” he continues. “They’re all over the place.” His grin suggests he thinks Louisa might grant him a lifetime easement on her spa.

Louisa smiles at the Kydd’s enthusiasm. “Pity,” she says. “I’ve only used it once.”

“Once?” For some reason, this revelation makes me cross the room to join the Kydd, staring into the enormous marble-encased oval with him. When it comes to bathtubs, mine’s a Model T, but I drive it every day anyhow. If I owned a Cadillac like this one, I might never get out.

Louisa laughs. “Don’t worry,” she says. “We’ve only lived here a month. I’ll use it again. But I prefer the shower. So did Herb. He did say he’d like to try the hot tub sometime, though.” She pauses and sends a small smile my way. “But he never got around to it.”

Morning sunshine streams through the block-glass wall above the tub and shimmers against everything in its path: the brass hardware, the pale pink marble, the multicolored candles and vials. Even the floor, a pale oak, seems to glisten in the filtered light. Louisa crosses the room and leans against one of the vanities, beaming. She’s pleased with her creation.

“Speaking of the shower,” I say, “you took one when you got home from the club last Sunday?”

“Yes.” She shakes her head, as if clearing it, reminding herself why we’re all standing in her bathroom, and then she points to a frosted-glass enclosure opposite the tub.

The Kydd walks over and opens its door. I follow and we’re both silent for a beat as we look inside. The entire bathroom in my cottage would fit easily into Louisa Rawlings’s shower stall. A bench outlines its perimeter, and a panel of switches faces us from the wall below the showerhead.

“Look,” the Kydd says, flipping a switch. “It’s a steam room.”

No sooner does he utter the words than a circular opening near us coughs out a puff of vapor. As if taking a cue, a half dozen other metallic circles cough in unison, again and again, filling the glassed enclosure with cloud after cloud of rising steam. The Kydd grins like a five-year-old at his first amusement park.

Louisa smiles at us, obviously amused by our fascination with her plumbing. “The steam,” she says to me. “It does wonderful things for the complexion.”

Enough of the Queen’s Spa. Better to exit before our client starts sharing beauty tips. “To the sunroom next?” I ask her.

She nods and heads for the door. “With The New York Times,” she says.

Louisa leaves the Queen’s Spa and I start to follow, but I pause in the doorway to check on the Kydd. He’s still playing with the steam.

“Shut it off,” I tell him.

He actually pouts.

“And make a note,” I add, “to pull the latest warrant cases.”

The corners of his mouth droop farther and I don’t blame him. Warrant cases multiply daily, it seems. No two searches or seizures are alike, and each case offers a new wrinkle on what law enforcement can—and can’t—seize without that magic piece of paper. Warrant research needs to be updated constantly.

We’re hoping we don’t get to the point where we actually need it, of course. We’d like our talks with the Chatham police to remain cordial. We’d like Mitch Walker to perceive us as entirely cooperative, having nothing to hide. But we need to know before we start answering questions where we can legitimately draw the line. Just in case.

“I’m sorry,” I tell the Kydd. And I mean it. “I know that kills what little was left of your weekend.”

He looks almost grief-stricken for a moment, but then the dutiful associate in him takes over. He shrugs. “Weekend? What weekend? I don’t have any plans. Hell, I can’t remember the last time I had any plans. But I’m damned sure it was before I set up camp with you and Kimosabe.”

The Kydd looks sad as he closes the steam room door, as if he’s saying good-bye to an old friend. But then he brightens and points to a door across from it. “Look at this,” he says, pushing it open. “A completely separate room for the throne. Can you believe it?”

Again the grin. I turn my back on him to follow Louisa, but then think better of leaving him to his own devices in the Queen’s Spa. “Hey, Tonto,” I call over my shoulder. “Saddle up and ride.”

CHAPTER 12

The crush of tires on oyster shells draws Louisa to the beveled window above her kitchen sink. She lifts the muslin curtain away from the glass and then drops it almost at once. “Must be lunchtime,” she says, turning to face the Kydd and me. “Anastasia’s here.”

Car doors slam and, instantaneously, a high-pitched, eardrum-piercing yelping begins. It takes on a regular rhythm as it nears the house: two short, one long. Yip-yip-wail; yip-yip-wail. “Oh good,” Louisa adds, the corners of her glossy lips turning downward as her eyes roll up. “She brought the beast.”

The front door opens and then slams. Heavy footsteps clomp toward us through the living room, lighter ones following a short distance behind. Louisa doesn’t budge. She stays planted in the kitchen with us, leaning against the sink with her eyes raised to the heavens. It seems she’s not particularly pleased about her Sunday-afternoon callers. She’s in no hurry to greet them.

Anastasia strikes a pose in the kitchen doorway, one arm raised to the full height of the entry, “the beast” poking its diminutive head out from under her flowing black cape. She’s a large woman, not as tall as Louisa, but much broader, bigger-boned. Her straight black hair is parted down the middle, early-Cher-style, and it hangs well past her buttocks. Her pallid complexion is unblemished and she likes eyeliner. Lots of it.

“Jeepers, creepers,” the Kydd mumbles. I glare at him. He has the good sense not to finish his rhyme.

Louisa laughs. “My sentiments exactly,” she says in a low voice. She turns a radiant smile toward the doorway, but her dark eyes don’t participate. “Anastasia,” she croons, “what a treat.”

“Save it,” Anastasia bellows in a full baritone, “for someone who gives a damn.” She barrels into the kitchen and a slight, denim-clad fellow ambles in behind her. He wears narrow glasses and his wispy gray hair is pulled back into a skinny ponytail that hangs to the center of his shoulder blades. He’s the beatnik boyfriend, no doubt; the about-to-be, on-the-verge, any-minutenow, runaway-best-selling-murder-mystery author.

Anastasia sets her pooch free on the kitchen floor. It’s a miniature poodle, shaved bald except for black muffs above its paws and a matching pillbox hat. Jackie O would be flattered, no doubt. It scampers around the room, takes in the scent of each of us, and then scurries to the hat rack in the corner and lifts its leg.

“Oh for the love of God,” Louisa says, closing her eyes against the sight. “Get that animal out of here.”

“I’ll take care of it,” the beatnik volunteers at once. He rests a hand on Louisa’s forearm, as if that might make her feel better. Louisa glares at his hand as if it’s a branding iron, but the boyfriend doesn’t notice; he’s looking at the creature in the corner. “Lucifer,” he singsongs, “bad, bad dog.”

Bad, bad dog yawns and lies down on his stomach, his front paws stretched out toward us. He plans to stay awhile.

Louisa shuts her eyes again and the ponytailed boyfriend hustles to the opposite side of the kitchen. Without hesitating, he opens an end closet and finds a spray bottle of disinfectant and a roll of paper towels. It seems he’s done this before.

Anastasia laughs, unties her long cape with a flourish and tosses it on the counter, next to the toaster, as if it belongs there. She’s dressed entirely in black, from the high collar of her calf-length dress to the tips of her thick-soled, ankle-high boots. She settles on the edge of a stool across the counter from mine and begins removing her elbow-length gloves, one finger at a time, all the while examining the Kydd and me as if we’re for sale.

“Marty Nickerson and Kevin Kydd,” Louisa says. “This is Herb’s daughter, Anastasia.”

Anastasia has lost interest in our faces by the time the brief introductions are made. She’s pulling her long gloves across her palm, looking into our open briefcases instead, as if something of hers might be in one of them.

“And that,” Louisa continues, extending a hand toward the hat rack, “is Lance Phillips. Same as the screwdriver,” she adds, “but no relation.”

Lance waves at us, still on his knees wiping up the mess. “Pleasure,” he mumbles.

Not so, apparently, for Anastasia. Her upper lip curls back when she looks at us again. “You’re lawyers?” she asks. Her tone suggests the word is synonymous with shysters.

We both nod, guilty as charged.

She turns accusing eyes on Louisa and drops her gloves into her lap. She’s quiet for a moment, pulling her lustrous locks over one shoulder, utter contempt displayed on her face. “My father is dead,” she spits, “lost at sea. And his merry widow is talking to lawyers.”

“Don’t sputter, dear,” Louisa answers. “It doesn’t become you.”

“Why are you talking to lawyers?” Anastasia continues. “Are you worried about money? Afraid there won’t be enough to keep you in style, Mrs. Rawlings?”

“No one’s worried about money, dear.” Louisa’s voice is even, her words measured, as if she’s coaxing a toddler out of a tantrum. “There’s plenty to go around.”

Another set of tires crunches in the driveway and Louisa turns to lift the muslin curtain from the window above the sink once more. She smiles through the glass and then faces us again, but doesn’t tell us who’s here.

Anastasia gets up to see for herself. “Oh my!” she exclaims, pressing her fingertips to her cheeks in mock shock. She turns toward Louisa and glares. “What a surprise. The indelible husband.”

Louisa laughs, seemingly oblivious to her stepdaughter’s malignant stare. “Glen Powers is here,” she says to the Kydd and me. “He’s my ex-husband.”

“Ex-husband?” Anastasia shouts the word, though she’s standing almost on top of Louisa and only a few feet from the Kydd and me. Her hair billows around her like a shroud. “Ex-husbands disappear, don’t they? Or at least take a little time off?”

Louisa doesn’t react, so Anastasia tries her luck with the Kydd and me. “Not this guy,” she tells us. “Not for a goddamned minute. She divorced this guy so she could marry my father…”

Anastasia points at us for emphasis, and I notice for the first time that her fingernails are extraordinarily long, painted the color of bruised plums.

“…and what does Powers do?” she continues. “He takes her out to dinner.” She pauses for a moment and leans on the counter, winded. “And we’re not talking about a onetime event here,” she adds. “He does it every month.”

“Anastasia, you mustn’t talk out of turn,” Louisa says calmly. “It isn’t ladylike.”

“Every month,” Anastasia repeats.

“The third Thursday of each month,” Louisa says, dismissing Anastasia with a wave of her hand, “Glen and I get together for a bite to eat. Herb’s partners hold a dinner meeting on that night each month, so he never minded. In fact, Herb rather liked Glen. They were both big on the boating scene. They got on quite well.” She tosses her head toward Anastasia. “His prim and proper daughter, though, finds the whole thing scandalous.”

“It’s unnatural,” Anastasia says. “It’s sick.”

“So Glen Powers never remarried?” I ask Louisa. These are the first words I’ve squeezed in since Anastasia arrived.

“He did,” Louisa says, “a year or so after we divorced. But it didn’t last.”

Anastasia throws her arms in the air. “What a surprise! The pitiful man’s still stuck on his first wife, the one who ditched him for the rich guy. The pitiful man takes her out to dinner whenever she’ll allow it. And the pitiful man’s second marriage didn’t last.” She sends an exaggerated shrug to the Kydd and me. “Go figure.”

The doorbell rings and the sounds of the front door opening and closing tell us the caller is letting himself in. Anastasia shakes her long locks. “Make yourself at home, why don’t you?” she yells out.

Louisa closes her eyes and looks like she’s praying for patience. She leaves her post at the sink and heads toward the living room, apparently eager to greet this particular guest. Glen Powers reaches the kitchen doorway before she does, though. “Louisa,” he says, taking her hands in both of his, “I just heard. Good God, are you all right?”

Anastasia snorts and looks up at the ceiling. “All right?” she repeats, shaking her heavy tresses again. “Look at her. Does she seem broken up to you?”

Glen Powers doesn’t let on he hears. Louisa leads him into the kitchen and introduces him to the Kydd and me. He offers each of us a firm handshake and then turns to the surly stepdaughter. “Anastasia,” he says, “it’s so nice to see you—as always.”

She growls at him. It’s a real one—guttural, menacing—but Powers seems unfazed; he doesn’t even look at her. He scans the room instead, as if he expects to find someone else here. His eyes alight on the boyfriend, who’s now holding Lucifer near the scene of the crime. “Lance,” he says, giving him a short wave, “I knew you’d be in the neighborhood.”

Lance returns the wave by lifting the dainty dog and it emits another yip-yip-wail.

Glen Powers turns back to Louisa. He’s handsome, fifty-something, blue-eyed and sandy-haired, with a well-toned body that suggests it sees the inside of a gym a few times a week. “Let me help,” he says. “I’m here for as long as it takes, staying at the Carriage House.”

The Carriage House is an antique bed-and-breakfast near the center of Chatham and it’s the ultimate in casual elegance. Even now, in mid-October, Glen Powers is lucky to get a room there. If it were July, he’d have had to book a year in advance.

“Let me help,” he repeats. “What arrangements have been made so far?”

“Arrangements?” Louisa looks blank.

Anastasia smacks her maroon lips and steps closer to Glen. He backs up. “Hello-o-o?” she chants, her baritone down to a bass and her face too close to Louisa’s. “When people die, it’s customary in civilized societies to make arrangements. A wake? A memorial service?”

Louisa shakes her head. “But we haven’t found Herb yet,” she says. “We don’t have his body.”

“His body?” Anastasia plants her hands on her substantial hips and pivots toward the Kydd and me, her heavily outlined eyes opened unnaturally wide. “My father wanted to be cremated,” she tells us. “The whole family knew that.” She tosses her hair toward Louisa. “Even her.”

“That’s true,” Louisa says, “but still.” She shakes her head. “It seems like we should find him first.”

“My father’s been dead a week,” Anastasia snaps at her. “And you haven’t even begun to make arrangements?”

Louisa looks uncertain, as if she thinks perhaps Anastasia has a valid point, as if the idea of a funeral hasn’t occurred to Louisa before now.

“Well, of course you haven’t,” Anastasia continues. She turns toward the Kydd and me, and a synthetic smile spreads across her face. “You’ve been way too busy commiserating with your lawyers.”

Glen Powers clears his throat. “Maybe now’s not a good time to discuss it,” he says to Louisa. “Let’s talk over dinner.”

Louisa looks at the Kydd for a moment and then back at Glen, shaking her head. “Not tonight,” she says. “I’m afraid I’m rather exhausted by all of this.”

Anastasia laughs and turns toward Lance. “What did I tell you?” she demands. “It’s a good thing we came down here. We’ll have to take care of my father’s arrangements. His waif of a wife is way too exhausted.”

I can think of a lot of words to describe Louisa Rawlings. Waif isn’t one of them.

Lance nods a silent agreement toward Anastasia, something I suspect he does often, and the beast yips again.

“Tomorrow, then,” Glen says to Louisa. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”

“We’ll see,” she answers. “Let’s talk in the afternoon.” Her glance at me is almost imperceptible. “I have a rather busy morning.”

Glen Powers seems eager to take his leave. He bids all of us good-bye, even Lucifer, and then heads out of the room far more quickly than he entered. “I’ll see you out,” Louisa says.

The Kydd turns to me as soon as they’re gone. “I’d better get started on that research,” he says. His eyes, though, send a more desperate message. Let’s get the hell out of here, they scream. Fast.

I couldn’t agree more. I’ve had about enough of Family Feud too. I nod at him and we both stand to repack our briefcases.

Lance and Lucifer remain stationed against the far wall as we pack up, Satan’s namesake momentarily soothed by Lance’s constant stroking. Anastasia strolls to the kitchen sink, where she yanks the curtain aside to watch Glen Powers and Louisa in the driveway. When a car door slams, she drops the curtain and shakes her shiny hair. “That guy,” she says to no one in particular, “is a special kind of stupid.”