The Best of Sisters in Crime (30 page)

Through
the Venetian
blinds,
afternoon
sun fell in
slats
across his
chest.
How
stupid she
had been to
think that if they moved from Chicago to San Francisco, his problems would
disappear. He had found new connections within
twelve
hours and was back on the same damn roller coaster: cocaine as long
as the sun was shining, some
kind
of downer to get him through the night until it was time to start
again. A good residential rehab program was Mickey’s last chance to get clean.

Fifty thousand
dollars worth of clean.

Picking up and
leaving Chicago and coming all the way out here and now living without him for
three months would be worth it if it worked. A whole year of him nodding out
and falling asleep or being jittery and angry, a whole year of bad sex or no
sex . . . Finally, he had agreed; he didn’t want to live like that forever.

She jumped off
the bed, paced to the window, looked down on a couple dressed all in black as
they strolled, arms linked, toward Haight Street. San Francisco was such a
dismal city, gray and chilly, not like the sunny California she’d expected.
They’d arrived a month ago, at ten minutes to midnight, New Year’s Eve, and
found a dim and quiet tavern in which to toast new beginnings. The next day the
sun had shone for a total of twenty minutes.

She had gotten
her bearings quickly—it never took her long to scope out the Right
Neighborhood, the Right People—and they started working the insurance scam.
Choosing the fanciest homes, telling housekeepers that she was sent to take
pictures for insurance purposes. Mickey timed it so that he rang the bell ten
minutes after she arrived; when the maid answered the door, Cindy lifted
something—a silver this, a gold that—and put it in her camera bag.

It wasn’t a bad
scam but she hated having to deal with Vinnie. Her contacts in Chicago told her
that Vinnie could fence anything, but something about his ferret eyes made her
uneasy and contributed to her worries about the immediate future. She’d have to
figure a way to work without Mickey. A queasy feeling twisted her stomach at
the thought:
without Mickey.
Restless, she reached for the
Chronicle
and scanned the headlines, her gaze lingering on the picture on
page three.

Maybe the woman
in this picture was the answer. Maybe she could capitalize on the resemblance .
. .

“Next time we
should get Vinnie involved sooner.” Mickey came up from behind her and pulled
her against him. “He said he’d help us figure out the best places to hit. What
do you think?”

Cindy moaned and
slid Mickey’s hand down from the waistband of her jeans. “Can’t we talk about
that some other time, sweetie?” she said as she wriggled closer to him. “There
are other things to do now, better things.”

Mickey was
breathing faster now, pressing up against her. If only she could get him to
forget Vinnie—she would handle
him.
He had a soft spot—or was it a hard one? she laughed to herself—for
her since that afternoon in the warehouse. She hadn’t known
how
making it with Vinnie was going to come in
handy; she knew she’d figure it out when the time came. It had been easy
enough, afterwards, to convince him to pay her thirty cents on the dollar and
to tell Mickey it was only twenty. The extra she put in a separate account;
together with the diamond pendant she’d kept back from the last job. they’d
have enough when Mickey got out.

“Oh, Mickey,
honey, it’ll be so nice when you’re back.” Cindy unbuttoned her blouse and held
Mickey’s hand up to her breast. “It’ll really be like starting fresh.”

Back to table of
contents

Charlotte
Durning stopped at the landing to catch her breath. “But why me, Ed? I don’t
deserve all this public scrutiny, these stories about my shelties and my
claustrophobia. Now my
picture
is showing up in the
Chronicle.
On page three.” She pressed a slim, manicured hand to her bosom. “Why
am I the scapegoat? It’s terribly unfair. All I did was pass on the name of an
excellent contractor to a city official who was dissatisfied with the other
bids he’d gotten.”

His expensively
vested chest heaving with exertion, Ed Partridge patted his upper lip and
replaced the folded handerkerchief in his pocket. “I wish you would try an
elevator again. Maybe you’ve outgrown your difficulty.”

Even the thought
of an elevator—doors closing, four walls and floor and ceiling all pressing in
on her—brought a sheen of cold sweat to her face. She took another breath,
waited for the wave of darkness to pass, whispered a simple, “No, Ed. We’ll
walk.”

He nodded and
followed as she started up the stairs again. “Charlotte, my dear, the
contractor happens to be an executive of a public corporation in which you are
a majority stockholder. The city official has jurisdiction to rule that you can
add a penthouse despite the local building height ordinance. Last year, it
would have made no splash. This year, San Francisco is on an ethical government
campaign and the self-righteous bastards are out to nail you.”

Charlotte
Durning didn’t like the tone of his voice, not one bit. He was her lawyer. She
was paying him three hundred dollars an hour, more for court fees and expenses,
thousands of dollars in telephone calls. But it would all be worth it if they
won.

She
couldn’t
go to jail. She’d die.

She’d never last
a day. Even in her own home, closed doors and small spaces terrified her.
Flying was a trial to which she subjected herself, heavily sedated, twice a
year only—for the spring couture showings in Paris and then in December for
opening night at La Scala. She never drank anything before or during a flight:
those tiny closets they called bathrooms on the planes were the worst. She
refused to stay in hotels unless she could have a suite. It wasn’t an
indulgence so much as a form of self-preservation, she had explained to her
accountant.

Jail was
unthinkable.

Her throat would
swell with fear; she’d choke and die. Charlotte Durning, widow and sole
beneficiary of the estate of Preston Durning III (which she surely deserved
after putting up with the randy old fart through her best years—all of her
twenties, part of her thirties), simply couldn’t go to jail. She was counting
on Ed Partridge to get her off.

“I used up all
my peremptory challenges on single women with children, but I’m still not happy
with the jury.” An unhealthy red glow mottled his pasty cheeks and a fine line
of perspiration sprouted again on his upper lip. “Jury of your peers—hardly any
of those around. They’re all wintering in Biarritz or Aspen or Cabo.”

Well, she couldn’t
help it if she was blond, slim, and rich, could she? Surely they’d understand
that she had gotten involved in this ugly mess out of pure disinterest. She had
seen how two needs complemented each other and she’d brought them together. If
that was a crime . . .

How much would
it take—a thousand each? Ten thousand? Twelve people on a jury, that would make
a hundred and twenty thousand, which would hardly put a dent in her resources.
But, really, one juror was all she needed to delay things long enough for the
political climate in this fickle city to become more hospitable. Unless she got
caught. . .

“I want you to
be prepared. A year ago, the same facts and the same defense would have worked.
Today—” When Ed shrugged, his starched collar rose on his wattled neck— “I
think we ought to consider the prosecutor’s deal. The DA offered to reduce the
charge. You’d do three months in a minimum security facility and then it would
be over.”

Three months in jail?
She’d never survive.

Back to table of
contents

Her soup was
just the way she liked it. Charlotte Durning dipped her spoon into the steamy
saffron-scented liquid and tasted it, then sucked up a long swallow of
champagne, blinking away the fizz as she let her gaze wander through the room.

That woman, two
tables away—what was it about her? She had an oval face, a not-bad straight
brown bob; her green eyes never even looked up from the book she was reading
until her salad arrived. When the woman smiled at the waitress, a pang of
excitement lapped at Charlotte’s tummy, a little flicker she didn’t quite
understand.

Charlotte
brought the spoon to her mouth. Maybe she could cut back to three aerobics
classes a week, now that soup was the only thing she could manage to get down.
Except for champagne, of course, and coffee. They were getting her through her
days and nights. Today was Wednesday, two days after her picture first hit the
local papers, and she had reached a desperate conclusion. A straw, maybe, but
today she would suggest to Ed that the nice plumber on the jury, the one who—

The woman two
tables away pushed her salad plate to the center of the table, reached for her
book, leaned back in her chair. She swept her hair behind her left ear.
Charlotte stared.

If her hair was
blond . . .

If it curled
toward her face a bit more . . .

If her
foundation makeup was more pink, less peachy . . .

A quick
inventory: nondescript black slacks and gray sweater. Turquoise-and-silver
ring. Shoes and purse showing signs of wear. Her posture was good; she looked
the right shape.

“Charlotte,
dear, did you hear me at all?” Ed scooped up a caper and speared a flaky chunk
of salmon, stared at his fork, then popped it all in his mouth.

She could hardly
catch her breath. A rapture, like the sound of angels singing, filled her
heart.

“You must
consider your options. The DA is willing to take the reduced charge until court
opens day after tomorrow. No later.” Ed Partridge’s milky white fingers reached
for her hand. “I’m your lawyer. I’m the best in the state. But we’re losing
this one. That’s three years instead of three months, and it won’t be at the
minimum security facility. I strongly advise . . .”

But his words
faded. In the past sixty seconds, Charlotte Durning had come to see hope where
none existed before.

She stared. The
woman was getting up, plucking her scuffed black purse from the chair.

Thank God
, she thought as the woman walked toward the rear of the dining
room.
She’s going to the rest room. Mustn’t scare her.
Charlotte measured the woman’s height; surely Providence was
looking after her once again. “I’m going to the little girls’, Ed.”

She didn’t wait
for a nod or a smile from her attorney but scurried out of her seat, following
the woman’s straight-backed march past the dessert trolley to the rear of the
restaurant. The rest room door swung shut; Charlotte sniffed the air before she
walked in.
Charlie.
Good, the
right sort, the kind who might be open to a proposition.

The toilet
flushed; an eddy of fear whirled in the bottom of Charlotte’s stomach. She
reached into her purse and pulled out a comb and a tube of lipstick. The stall
door latch squeaked. Charlotte forced herself to peer into the mirror, forced
her hand to bring the comb to the crown of her head.

Footsteps.

Charlotte
stepped back to allow the other woman access to the sink. Water splashed; the
sweet smell of pink liquid soap wafted through the air.

The other woman,
hands still dripping into the rust-stained sink, lifted her head and looked in
the mirror.

Charlotte
gasped. “My God, it’s incredible,” she said, her voice a hoarse whisper. She
took a step forward.

Staring into the
stranger’s eyes in the mirror, the heat from their shoulders flicking across
the narrow space that separated them, Charlotte felt giddy. The other woman’s
mouth opened; her lips were moist, her eyes shining with excitement. Charlotte
was rocked by a sudden desire to kiss the woman on her identical mouth, to make
the difference between self and other disappear. She shuddered, reached over,
and brushed the other woman’s hair toward her face, noting the tiny lines that
netted the outer corners of the woman’s eyes. Age was right, too.

“Wow! That’s
amazing.” The other woman leaned closer, then moved out of Charlotte’s reach. “Spooky.”

There was no
wretched regional accent but her voice was thin, a little high. Well, they’d
chalk that up to nervousness. Anyone would be nervous going in to plead guilty
to bribing a public official. “My name is Charlotte Durning.”