A Line To Murder (A Puget Sound Mystery) (19 page)

“It’s hard to be on the lookout when you don’t know what you’re looking out for, but I’ll be careful, really. Thank you for your concern.”

“Good-bye, Mercedes. God’s guidance.” She didn’t offer to shake hands. They were both clutching an amulet hanging around her neck.

Andy and I stepped into the aisle and the crowd jostled us away from Umma Grace’s stall. I turned long enough to see an emaciated elderly man take the chair I’d vacated. Umma Grace’s lips jerked in the caricature of a smile and she handed him the cards. Then we were caught up in the throngs and swept down the aisle.

A man at a Vita-Mix bar was mixing drinks. Andy ordered two.

“A green drink. Go figure.” I looked at the man. “Any chance it’s absinth? I feel like I need a stiff one.”

He didn’t miss a beat. “I think absinth is still illegal.”

Andy and I sat in a small rest area and sipped our beverages, something minty and surprisingly good. I was shaking but Andy was angry.

“God. What a load of crap.”

“I thought it was scary. How would you like to hear you were surrounded by false friends and evil and your life was in danger?”

“I’ve heard it before.”

“When you were a kid?”

“Yeah. Funny,” Andy sipped his drink and looked across the room, “until we talked with Francisco, I’d forgotten about all that stuff. Everything was supposed to be natural, you know? Long hair, plain clothes, fresh-grown food and then this other stuff came along. Tarot cards, runes, reading jewelry—I wouldn’t have been surprised if someone came up with a fortune-telling chicken. Umma Grace was always scaring the pants off us kids. She was great on Halloween.”

“What was she like then?”

“About the same. Actually, she’s not that much older than I am. She had a lover. He eventually drifted back into the real world and actually ended up with a used car dealership.”

I laughed and choked on my drink.

“There were never any children, at least that I knew of. Umma Grace stayed until practically the end. Then one day I got a letter from one of my few remaining friends at the commune saying she was gone. Just like that. Left a note and walked away.”

Andy looked at me. “You’re not worried about this are you?”

I gave a snort. “I’m full of Cornish and Irish blood, and that’s just on my mother’s side. My dad is half Scots. Genetically I’m jumbled just like this drink.” I tipped my glass slightly. “It’s not possible for me not to be superstitious. Once I did numerology on myself. The numbers said March would be a bad month, so I started worrying in mid-February and continued until late April, just in case the numbers were on something different, like the Julian calendar. I’ll be looking so hard over my shoulder I’ll trip and fall over what’s in front of me.”

“Listen,” Andy put his hand on the back of my neck and kneaded it, “Umma Grace was born Mary Grace O’Connor in New York. How Arabic and psychic does that sound?”

“Worse, Andy. Worse.” I leaned into his hand and smiled. “Second sight, you know. The Irish, Scots and Cornish are very fey.”

Andy didn’t seem to be given to public displays of affection. He took my chin in his hand and shook it a little. “Idiot.” It sounded like an endearment.

I finished my drink and put the glass down. “We’ve seen every display here and there are no Primal Scream Therapists and no one knows the vicar. Let’s go home. I’ll make spaghetti and we can try to figure out another way to find him.”

“If you’ve got the stuff, I can make a green salad.”

“You’re on.”

An East Indian holy man was scheduled to speak and people packed the building. As we squeezed through the crowd, I stopped twice, once to linger at an acupuncture booth and again at a demonstration of ear candling. I don’t even like to floss my teeth and here were all these people voluntarily letting others put burning candles in their ears and needles in their bodies.

Traffic back to Tacoma was heavy. We crept along in fits and starts. I had to fight to stay awake. Catching me nodding off, Andy grinned
.

Darn bucket seats. A shoulder to snuggle on would be nice.
I closed my eyes and leaned against the headrest.
Please don’t let me snore or drool.

We pulled up in front of my apartment in late afternoon. The park department must have approved some overtime because gardeners thatched and raked while squirrels foraged in small clumps of dead grass. Crows watched the action and I thought about the dead one I’d found. I couldn’t get my mind around the needless cruelty. Crows were so intelligent. They ate garbage people tossed and they sat on the phone lines and talked about those of us on the ground. I looked at Andy. “Do you like crows?”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.”

We walked up the front stairs and the cat, who occasionally came in the conventional way, greeted us. Together, the three of us climbed the flight of stairs to my apartment. I didn’t need my key. The lock wasn’t latched. I pushed the door open with one finger and walked in. Even before I did, I knew what I’d find. The place had been ransacked.

Chapter 17

Holy crap. On top of everything else, some scumbag had broken into my home. I stood in the doorway and waited for my brain to tell my body to react and for the reaction to take place. After the light flasher the previous night, I couldn’t bare this new assault. Andy reached around me to shut the door while I grabbed the cat.

“We’d better call the cops.”

“Let’s see if Dave is home.” We climbed a flight of stairs to his apartment and knocked. No one answered.
Of course not
. “I have a key. We can use his phone.”

I gave Andy the cat. “The phone’s in the bedroom. I’ll call.”

A
few minutes later we walked downstairs and sat outside on the porch steps in what was left of the sun. I hugged my body and rocked until Andy’s arm put a stop to it. A couple of times he cleared his throat as if to speak, but no words came out. What was there to say? Umma Grace had called the shots.

More quickly than I expected, a patrol car pulled up and Officer Hamilton got out. He greeted me by name.

“Two visits in twenty-four hours. At this rate, I guess I’ll have to put you on my Christmas card list.”

“Just so you aren’t a police groupie.”

I introduced Andy to Officer Hamilton, who had eyelashes so long they shouldn’t be legal.

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“I don’t know.” I shrugged. “I guess I’m out of the habit of sharing my problems.” I wasn’t thinking about the effect of my words, but Hamilton glanced at me. Andy may have seen it also because he scowled and took my arm.

At the door, I let Hamilton go in first. He looked around and whistled through his teeth.
“We don’t see a lot of daylight break-ins.” He opened his notebook.

“Lucky me.” I looked around. “I moved the plants on the fire escape—the safety hazard, remember? I wonder if that’s where he got in.”

Hamilton looked at me with his oddly-attractive, oak-colored eyes. “We’ll know soon enough. Don’t touch anything.” He left us in the living room and went to look around.
When a place is ransacked on TV, a few chairs are tipped over and a couple of cushions are tossed around—very sanitized. My apartment, on the other hand, had been totally trashed. It looked as if an angry animal had taken repeated swipes at everything. The phone cord was yanked out of the wall, the drawers emptied onto the floor and books taken off the shelves. The intruder had upended the boxes from Isca’s house and, unbelievably, taken the bottom out of the birdcage. The cage’s removable tray had a narrow space where things could be hidden. I would never have thought of putting something there; however someone apparently had a more innovative mind. At least the cage was still on the table.

Jose kept shifting from one leg to the other. He’d had a lot of diarrhea. However, gunk on the mirrors, though, was the strangest of all. The intruder had painted them with something white. “Looks like whitewash,” Andy said. A puddle of murky white water lay in the bottom of the kitchen sink. Had he actually taken time to wash out his brush?

Officer Hamilton—Kyle, I noticed—advised us not to touch anything and excused himself to go to his car. Even in a state of shock, I noticed his broad shoulders and cute butt. His left hand, reaching for the door, was ringless.

Shame on me! I’m on a date with Andy. Well, I can look, can’t I?

What a way to end an already weird day. I looked around. What was the mind like of someone who showed so little respect for another’s possessions? I owned nothing of value. I drove a ten-year-old Chevy and checked out movies from the library. Every spare cent I saved went for traveling.

“What’s this?
" Andy reached to pick up one picture among the many that were scattered on the floor and I grabbed his arm.

“Don’t touch it until the police say we can. Anyway, it’s for Dominic.” The glass on the frame had a long diagonal crack. “I went over to Isca’s house yesterday to help clear her things out. Her family wants the place cleaned out.” I hesitated.

“And?”

“I did a stupid thing. The phone rang while I was in Isca’s bedroom and I answered it in a Mae West voice.”

“Say what?”

“I thought it might be the vicar and that’s what he likes, old Hollywood voices. Whoever was on the other end gave this gasping sound and hung up.”

“What in the world were you thinking?”

“I don’t know. I wasn’t really thinking, I guess. Anyway, I got scared and left. When I got home, I had a bunch of hang ups on my phone and then someone kept flashing a bright light in the windows and my phone began ringing. Do you suppose the murderer is a neighbor of Isca’s? Maybe someone saw me leave and followed me home. I mean, how else can you explain the coincidence?”

Andy’s face ran the gauntlet from disbelief to frustration, to resignation. “Idiot! Anyone hanging around out front here could see you come home. It would just be a matter of waiting you out.” He put his arms around me and pulled me close. “My God, woman. Do you ever think before you act?”

“Generally not.”

“Well try to, will you, please. I don’t want you hurt.” He rubbed his cheek on my head and then tipped my chin. “Promise?”

“I’ll promise to try, but it probably won’t work.”

I disengaged myself. Kyle Hamilton joined us on the heels of Andy’s laugh. He said a fingerprint person was on the way. Then he began asking questions.

“Have you seen anyone suspicious lurking around lately?”

“I answered that question last night.”

“New crime, new report. Bear with me, here. Maybe something will surface.”

“Sorry. No one particularly peculiar. Just some of the usual park weirdoes.”

“Do you have any known enemies?”

“No.”

“Relationships that ended badly?”

I liked that one. How sanitized. Why not old boyfriends, lovers or dissatisfied tricks?
“No.”

On and on he went. Where had I been all day? The previous day? Had anything untoward happened at the Puyallup Fair? At my regular job? Did I maintain friendly relationships with my coworkers, my family and the other people in the apartment building? Did I own an expensive home entertainment center or jewelry, or anything that could easily be fenced?

No, no and no. We were both frustrated by the time I said slowly, “There are,” I shrugged, “a couple of things.”

Officer Hamilton and Andy looked at me.

“Someone used shaving cream and sprayed the word ‘Enabler’ on my car, a bright light blinded me on the way home from Buckley, I found a mutilated crow on my balcony and I was chased home one night.”

Hamilton quit writing. “Just a couple of things, huh?”

Andy looked at me in disbelief and Hamilton asked for details, ending with my being chased.

“When was that?”

“Ah, let’s see. It was last week, I think. I got home from the fair about eleven and it was really hot so I decided to take a walk. Ummm. Friday night.”

“In this neighborhood? At night? You decided to take a walk?” Hamilton shook his head.

“Yes. I try to be careful, stay where it’s well-lit, carry pepper spray. Usually I ask Dave, he’s a neighbor, to go with me, but I didn’t feel like it that night. I get antsy sometimes and need to walk out the kinks. It had been really busy at the fair. I couldn’t get the smell of French fries out of my nose. It was cool outside and I knew my apartment would be stuffy after being shut up all day. I took a quick walk over to Division Avenue. I can usually hear when M. L. King Way is heating up for trouble. At Division I crossed and walked around the Casa Blanca Apartments. I like to see the antique ceramic tiles and the gargoyle faces at night. Very old worldish.” As I talked, Andy shook his head and muttered, and the expressions on Hamilton’s face underwent a number of changes. None of which I could read.

“Anyway, I had just turned back at the corner when this person appeared about half a block or so behind me.”

“Can you describe the person?”

“No, not really.”