1 Portrait of a Gossip (8 page)

Mickey nodded politely at the plump woman in a red cardigan
who was a perfect smiling match for Mrs. Claus.

“Mrs. Pollack has been explaining about cat foods and I have
decided to try Marley on this one.”

Juliet held up a can. It had a picture of a Thanksgiving
feast on the label. She added, “Did you know that sometimes pet foods can be
contaminated and animals have died? This company has never had a problem
though.”

“Well then, I guess that’s a good choice. You got the other
things you need?” Mickey fished in his pocket and handed her a crumpled twenty.

“I hope so.”

“
Er
—I think those biscuits you’re
looking at are for dogs.” He pointed at the cookie she was holding.

“Mrs. Pollack says the Great Dane who lives by the dealership
is called Erik and he likes these liver biscuits. I thought I might bring him
one to get on good terms. My mother always said that you never go visiting
empty-handed.”

“That’s nice of you.” Mickey was beginning to grin. She
supposed she was acting a little strange.

Truthfully, Juliet was feeling a little overwhelmed with
responsibility. She had never had a pet as a child. Once she had brought home a
stray dog, a terrier missing an ear but very affectionate and only a little
muddy. Her father, Randall, had seemed willing enough to house the mutt, but
his wife had been horrified at the mongrel.

The dog, Elmo, had stayed with her for the weekend, a
constant companion and fast friend, but she had come home on Monday and been
told by her stepmother that he had “
run away
” while
she was at school. Juliet had only been eight, but she knew that “
run away
” was a euphemism for being taken to the pound.
Never fond of her father’s second wife, this had driven a wedge between them
that neither could overcome. That her father had been complicit in this act occurred
to her, but he was the weaker personality and she knew that getting rid of the
dog had been his wife’s idea. She never forgave Gwen.

Juliet swallowed and fiercely rejected the misery this
memory had conjured. She had refused to give in to grief then when she had
cause. Certainly she would not grieve now.

Picking up her bags before Mickey could volunteer to carry
things, Juliet headed for the door which she allowed him to open for her.

“How did it go with the sheriff?” Juliet asked Mickey as he
came up beside her, her mind again on present matters. The sheriff hadn’t said
anything about Mickey’s visit when she stopped in. He had been busy reaching
for the phone as soon as she gave him Esteban’s name. The sheriff had also
nodded when she mentioned the connection of both men with Mr.
Biggers
.

Garret also hadn’t told her to butt out and let him handle
things. That was convenient because she had no intention of sticking her head
in the sand while the sheriff worked around the periphery. As Robbie had said,
too many people had hated Harvey Allen and had too many motives for wanting him
dead. The only way this was going to get solved was by someone on the inside
noticing small shifts of patterns.

“I think everything is fine,” Mickey answered. “I don’t envy
the man though. Seems everyone from Los Angeles up and San Francisco down hated
the creature. There are just too many suspects.”

He echoed
her own
thoughts.

“So it seems. But it is often that way with people who go
out of their way to collect bad karma. We just need to see that the sheriff
gets all the help he needs from us and hope he finds the killer soon.”

“Yes,” Mickey agreed heavily. “Though I’m thinking whoever
killed Harvey had a good reason for it.”

“Yes.”
Though this was not a very
Christian sentiment for a religious man to express.
Harvey Allen had
indeed offended Mickey in some fundamental way.

“I’ll see you soon.” He patted her on the shoulder and
turned away.

“Okay. Bye.”

Undoubtedly the killer had a reason for acting. And maybe no
one would ever give them a good reason to kill again and all would be well from
that day forward.

On the other hand, maybe there would be others who annoyed or
frightened the killer. Maybe someone else would learn their secret and the
killer would murder again to keep it. They needed to find out who killed the
gossip and let a jury sort out if it was justified.

“I’m not usually a fan of the ‘he just needed killing’
defense,” Juliet muttered to the Great Dane after she watched Mickey pull away
in his truck. Erik was enthused about the cookie and quite ready to be friends.
Juliet was obliged to wipe her hand on her paint rag to rid it of slobber. “There
are too many people that it would apply to, don’t you think?”

Erik panted agreement.

“I need to go. It’s going to rain this afternoon,” she said
and ventured to pet the dog on the head. Erik seemed to like that as much as
his cookie. “I’ll see you the next time I’m in town. I may not have a cookie
though. I hope that’s okay.”

Juliet found herself humming as she drove home, part of
Harrison Peters’ opera that she had overheard him rehearsing on electric piano.
The urge for song left her as soon as the fort wall appeared.
Once the wall had been the demarcation line between the potentially
dangerous outside and the safe inside.
It wasn’t true any longer.
Chances were good that the greatest danger to her peace and happiness was
waiting inside the compound, the murderer nearby, somewhere in the shade of the
redwood trees.

She pulled into their small parking lot and shut off the
engine. Robbie Sykes was back and had opened the community room which was
unusually full of people for that time of day. Hans was there and with his
disturbed hair and tropical print shirt, the carver looked a bit like one of
the more exotic chickens roaming around town.

Her neighbors had overflowed the community room and moved
out to the benches nearest the lot. Juliet wanted to speak to Hans and Jake
Holmes both, since they were able-bodied men and capable—physically—of moving
Harvey’s body, but not with Carrie emoting in that pestilent voice. How easily
she stepped into the starring role. Narcissistic, neurotic—

Juliet stopped and examined that waspish thought. She wasn’t
jealous of Carrie Simmons, was she? She didn’t crave the spotlight. No, she was
far happier and for more able to observe what was happening from the quiet
corner of the room. She was Jane Eyre, not Emma Peel. And they were, as
artists, all craving some kind of recognition. Carrie would never get it for
her art, which was popular but anonymous. She was filling the need another way.
She should strive for compassion.
Or at least patience.

Calm again, Juliet looked over the others unemotionally.
Poor anemic Rose appeared to have been living off fingernails and valium for
the last two days, and Jake’s wife, Jillian, was looking like she had the flu.
Though possibly it was her husband’s hand-rolled cigarettes and not the death
of a neighbor that was making her appear
so
ill as she
studied the tips of her shoes and ignored the hubbub around her. No one spoke
to her, possibly because they couldn’t think what to say to a shadow.

Someone had told Juliet that Jillian had been born in
Mexico. Maybe a vacation with friends and family south of the border would put
some color back in her face. A thoughtful husband would take her, but Jake did
not strike Juliet as someone who was greatly concerned with the well-being of
others. But what did she know really? And did she want to know anything? Life
was so much easier when one kept some reserve.

Still, shouldn’t she know something after seven months? It
occurred to Juliet how little she truly knew her neighbors. It was the NSA all
over again. She had defined these people by their vocations and not considered
all the other things they might have pursued in their life. She didn’t know the
date of anyone’s birthday, couldn’t even say if any of them had children.

And she had been very careful not to let anyone know about
her past. She didn’t have people in for coffee or
barbecues,
hadn’t exchanged Christmas gifts or even sent cards. Was she maybe being
paranoid? Building fences where none were needed? Maybe living in the art
colony wouldn’t be like it had been at the NSA. Maybe people wouldn’t fear her,
wouldn’t think that if their sins were somehow found out that the inevitable
retribution of justice would follow. After all, this was an artists’ community,
not the government where everyone had a reason for being in your business.

Perhaps.
But her gut told her to
remain silent and keep her observations locked up. She had learned to pay
attention to its warnings. There were some very practical reasons for the
command to
know
thyself
.
She was still adapting—perhaps even evolving to the demands of her new life. It
was best to play it safe, at least with most of the people in the Wood and in
town. To mangle an old cliché, what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her, and
everyone could go on being comfortable and unembarrassed.

Juliet gathered up her parcels from the passenger seat and
pasted on her Teflon smile that she used to wear at business meetings. A few
remarks like “yes, the mud came off” and “I think it’s going to rain and I need
to get my easel put away” got her past Darby and the others with only minimal
conversation.

She hurried up the hill, wondering if once she was gone the
neighbors were trotting out their alibies for one another and maybe speculating
about her own. It would be the reasonable thing to do. Most people can be
fairly intelligent when it is in their own interest.
Most
people.

The higher she went, the more the trees thinned and the more
of the hazy sun she saw, and waiting on the porch like he had done it all his
life was Marley, glowing with fire-colored fur in the afternoon light.

“Meow.”

“Hello, cat,” she said fondly. “I brought you some dinner
and a mouse toy filled with catnip.”

Juliet stooped to scratch Marley under the chin and shook
her head at the slightly cooing voice she was using to address him. She had had
no trouble shutting up her heart and life all those years in Washington, but
now she found herself wanting to befriend strange dogs and buying toys for a
feline who had decided to move in with her.

She even wanted to know and trust her neighbors, to paint
flowers. What had happened to the old Juliet who was all intellect and little
emotion? Had she been a real person, or a construct invented in a time of need?
If she ever needed the old Juliet, could she find her again? Or was it too
late? She knew now that self-sufficiency and physical distance from her old
life wasn’t enough to keep loneliness at bay. Competency—even brilliance—wasn’t
enough to stop occasional melancholy.

Was that why Harvey had had a cat? If so, it was the first
human thing she had discovered about him.

*
 
*
 
*

Juliet tried relaxing by the small
fire in the potbellied stove, listening to the rain against the studio windows,
but the specter of her dead neighbor kept floating through her mind and finally
she gave up the idea of staying home and dry. It was only a little after eight.
She would go and visit someone, but whom? Not Jillian Holmes, if she was
feeling sick, and anyway she would rather tackle the couple separately. She
didn’t know Jake and Jillian all that well. They were a writing team who also
illustrated their popular children’s books. Among all the strong personalities
in the Wood, they kind of seemed like wallpaper—artists without egos. But most
couples would unite in each other’s defense if one of them felt threatened.

Perhaps she would call in on Asher
and his mother.

She still had her lemon cupcake and
Elizabeth had once told her that lemon was her favorite kind of cake. It made a
plausible excuse for a visit.

“You stay here,” she said to Marley.
“You don’t want to go out in the rain.”

But what if something happened
while she was gone? The fire was banked down and should be fine but….

“I’ll leave the door open a
little,” she said, using the brick doorstop to jam the sill. “But for goodness
sake, don’t go out and get wet unless it’s an emergency. Here, I’ll put out a
little more of your turkey feast dinner.”

She was smiling when she left her
cabin but it didn’t last. The wind made the last of the lupines dance like
ghosts in the shadows just beyond the porch light, and the urgent whispering of
the trees as the wind and rain rubbed their branches together was enough to
disturb even someone as level-headed as Juliet, so she hurried down the trail
with as much speed as safety would allow.

Away from town it was black as a
sinner’s heart once night fell, and the rain, while not especially hard, had a
tendency to gather itself on the tree branches and dump
cuploads
of cold water when shaken by the wind of passing persons.

The path hadn’t seemed so steep and
uneven in the dry of the day and Juliet had never previously thought that it
should be equipped with a railing, but she decided that night that she would
bring up the idea with Robbie the next time she saw him. The trail was a death
trap for someone burdened with her years, a flashlight, a small plastic bag of
pastry, and an umbrella. Not that the flashlight helped much. The batteries
were low and a firefly would have provided more light. Thank heavens her
neighbors were all home and wasting electricity on their porches. It might keep
her from falling off the trail.

The mud wasn’t terrible, but she
knew the rivulet of water running down the lowest part of the path was staining
her shoes and she would have to just accept that her white sneakers were to remain
rusty or else pay some enormous amount for a cleaner to get them spotless.