Thicker Than Blood (9 page)

In the meantime, the old cigar box on her dresser would not be missed by a burglar. A few days ago, the notion that someone might ransack her apartment would have struck Rachel as silly. Now, she almost expected it.

Opening her handbag, she tossed the tie tack in among the jumbled contents. Since she could never find anything in that purse, she doubted anyone else would either.

After she opened the garage gates, and the cars had begun streaming in, Rachel sat in her glass booth, her thoughts as jumbled as the contents of her handbag.

Jason’s murderer no longer seemed anonymous. It was as if he had done her some monstrous personal harm. Perhaps he had. Maybe he had sold that stuff to Lonnie.

She knew little about Jason, but she was sure that behind his death was the lust for drug money. She understood too well the destruction bred by that lust. Lonnie would be only one of many casualties.

Tears pooled in her eyes and leaked across her cheek. Angrily she brushed them away, ran long fingers through hair still damp from the shower, then reached for a pad of paper and began to fill it with scrawls.

First, she would find someone to help out with the garage and locate a laboratory to analyze those packets.

Then she would canvas nearby auto-body shops. What if the Cadillac was run off a cliff or something? But it was a company car, she thought. That might be a little hard to explain. Most likely it was being repaired, and whoever moved it wouldn’t have driven it far. The E plates used by the water authority, coupled with the huge dent, might invite attention.

Then there was the water quality lab. She would have to find a way to search it. Her eyes fixed on a scratch on the booth’s glass.

A chill prickled up from her toes until the top of her head tingled as it dawned on her she had something in her possession that could unleash treacherous forces. All of them aimed at her.

She covered her mouth as if afraid she might say something reckless.

Before, if she screwed up, she might have landed in jail. Now, it could be the cemetery.

If only she could go to the cops…but she couldn’t. Unless.…

She reached for the phone book, looked up the number for Merry Maids, dialed, and asked if she could leave a message for Goldie. Then she sat, almost frozen in place, until the sound of knuckles on the booth’s glass startled her.

Between a shock of pale hair and a cleft chin, a mouth grinned at her. “Up late last night?”

She tried to smile, but her face seemed stiff.

Hank’s features melted into a look of concern. “Something wrong?”

“No, I’m fine. Just a lot on my mind.”

“It so happens, I know how to fix that.”

“I bought a lifetime supply of snake oil years ago.”

“No snakes, no oil, just a lake, a clear sky, the scent of pine trees, and a couple of fresh trout—prepared by a master chef—for dinner.”

Rachel’s eyes skidded away. “I can’t be away from the garage. Especially right now.”

“Not now, Sunday. I know you’re closed Sundays because I’ve had to park in the street.” He crossed his arms over his chest, and lowered his head as though peering at her over invisible eyeglasses. “Or do you swab the place on Sundays—maybe scrub it with a toothbrush?”

The phone began beeping. She turned her back to him and reached for the receiver.

“You going to the cops?” The voice crackled on the line like the squawking of a wet hen.

“Goldie,” Rachel interrupted, “I need your help.”

“No way. If somebody’s making drugs right there in that building where I take my kids every night, I am not going to get involved. You know how dangerous people like that are? You can’t do nothing on your own, girl. Maybe I’ll be calling the cops myself.”

“What would you tell them?”

The line went silent.

Rachel bit her lower lip. “Can we have lunch?”

“Why?”

A hand touched Rachel’s arm and she almost dropped the phone.

“I’ll pick you up Sunday, five-thirty. That’s a.m. If you aren’t down here, I’ll start yelling. Wake the neighbors.” Hank gave her a crooked grin and left the booth.

“Five-thirty,” he called over his shoulder. “We have to catch the trout first, then cook them.”

She frowned at his receding back until the voice on the phone began sputtering.

“You know the Plum Tree, in Chinatown?” Rachel said into the receiver. “Please, Goldie, meet me there at two.”

“This better be good.” Goldie hung up.

333

Rachel hurried past a store where large, rubbery sea creatures were splayed over crushed ice, past a dingy window with a poster taped to the glass lauding the merits of ginseng, and across the street to the yellow brick walls and blue awning of the Plum Tree.

Inside, a few late diners still dawdled, but most of the tables, draped in forest green then topped with a square of white linen, were empty. A tiny woman in very high heels greeted her. “I’m meeting someone here,” Rachel said.

The woman led her to an adjoining room where Goldie sat at a corner table drumming her fingers on a menu.

Another woman, delicate and wispy as a feather, took their orders.

“You said your brother is a cop,” Rachel began. “He might believe me if you told him.…”

Across from her, the dark face of her friend was troubled. Slowly, as though she had missed a no-trespassing sign, Rachel said, “Maybe I shouldn’t have asked.”

“He got shot,” Goldie said. “In the gut. A domestic dispute. The guy that killed Marcus was defending his right to beat his wife.”

“Jesus. I’m sorry.”

“He had friends on the force, I could call one of them.”

Rachel shook her head. “Thanks anyway.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Wish I knew.”

When they finished their meal, the waitress brought almond cookies.

“Ask her for fortune cookies, instead,” Goldie muttered dryly. “We could use a little fortune.” She dug a ten out of her wallet and put it on the table.

Rachel picked up the money and handed it back. “Don’t even think about arguing.”

Goldie’s laughter came out like a snort. “Honey, if I was going to argue with you I would have done it when you asked me to meet you here. You ever take a hard look at what they sell in Chinese grocery stores? Those huge whatever you call ’em, naked clams, those black mushrooms, and seaweed, for God’s sake.”

Back at the garage, Rachel anxiously surveyed each parking level. Although she didn’t guarantee someone would always be on duty, she hated to leave the place unattended.

As she was leaving level B, a slender woman emerged from the stairwell and, with the grace of a dancer, moved toward a car on the opposite side. She looked familiar, so when the car had backed into the driveway, Rachel raised her hand in a small wave.

The woman rolled down the window. “Rachel Chavez.”

Rachel tried to connect a name with the pale, heart-shaped face.

The woman read her look. “Alexandra Miller. I probably look a little different in my jogging shorts.”

“Of course.” Rachel put her hand on the car door. “Good to see you again. You probably saved my life. I don’t think I thanked you properly.”

“Don’t be silly. Anyone would have run off those thugs and dusted you off. But as a matter of fact, I was looking for you.”

“Yes?”

“I mentioned my plane that day.”

Rachel looked puzzled.

“Flying?” Alexandra added.

“Oh, right. But your plane? You have your own plane?”

“I do. I fly every Thursday. Come with me. Day after tomorrow.”

“Thanks.” Rachel straightened, a little surprised. “Thanks a lot. It sounds wonderful. But it’s really hard for me to get away.”

“You’d be doing me a favor. Truly.”

“I’d like to, but I’ve had some problems.…”

“All the more reason to get away for a bit.”

“I just don’t see how I can.” Rachel was beginning to feel guilty. The woman had certainly helped her out.

“I’ve had some problems lately, too. I’d really welcome the company.”

Two parallel lines appeared over Rachel’s nose as it occurred to her she not only couldn’t remember the last time she had any fun, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d spent any time just enjoying herself with a friend. A woman friend.

“It’ll be fun. I promise.”

Alexandra’s smile seemed so friendly and wistful that Rachel found herself agreeing.

Chapter Sixteen

As Alexandra drove off, Rachel stared after her, half annoyed with herself for giving in.

A voice rang out on the level below: “Dear girl! Are you there, dear girl?”

Rachel hurried down the ramp. “I’m here.”

“Ah, good, good.” Irene’s stout body was planted at the main entrance to the garage, her foot propped against the wheel of the supermarket cart to keep it from rolling.

“You know Rosetta?”

“Should I?”

“She’s a Gypsy, dear girl. A true Gypsy from Romania or Estonia or some such. But that don’t matter.” Irene was so full of news she sputtered. “She is teaching me to read palms. And I thought perhaps I could practice with you.”

“No.” Rachel jammed her hands into her pockets as if Irene might suddenly grab one and blurt out what she saw in the palm.

“But I assure you it is quite simple and quite accurate. Just yesterday I read Herbert’s palm. He works in the butcher shop at the farmers market. His palm said he was going to come into a good deal of money. And do you know, that very afternoon, he won five hundred dollars from the lottery. I didn’t mean that I would charge, you know, although Herbert did give me twenty-five dollars from his windfall. For you it would be free, of course.”

“Thank you, no. But I do have a money-making proposition for you.”

The woman beamed. “Ah, yes?”

“Could you baby-sit the garage for me a few hours here and there? Ten dollars an hour.”

“Of course, dear girl. Anytime.”

333

Thursday morning Alexandra Miller woke with a monster headache. Stress always brought this awful hammering just above her left ear. She called her office and took the day off.

This afternoon, she would fly. That would help. And she had invited that woman from the garage. The company would be nice.

In the meantime she would finish the yard work, migraine or no. She could have hired someone to pull the weeds, but somehow that seemed like shirking. She should like gardening. Her grandmother had loved the digging and planting, and Alexandra was, after all, executive director of Protectors of the Earth. Rooting around in earth was supposed to soothe the soul.

But today it seemed such grubby labor. Perhaps it was the headache.

She stood to survey her progress. Her white shirt was little the worse for wear, but her khaki slacks had muddy ovals at the knees. Strands of dark hair had escaped the red bandana she had used to tie it back and perspiration was trickling down her neck.

Irked, she wiped the back of her hand across her brow. Only one job left to do.

Bending over the anemones, she uprooted the weeds that were encroaching on the White Queen. There would be no buds until autumn. When most of the flower world was preparing to die, the White Queen bloomed. And what wonderful blooms they would be: tall, stately, with yellow stamens, and stems clothed in vine-like leaves. They reminded Alexandra of her grandmother. And why she herself had become an environmentalist.

At sixteen, Alexandra had discovered ecologist Aldo Leopold’s essays on the dire need for a land ethic.

When her grandmother died, Alexandra spent a little of her huge inheritance on herself—a small but elegant house, an ARV Super 2 lightweight plane, a helicopter, and, finally, a hot-air balloon.

With the rest of her grandparents’ legacy, she had founded Protectors of the Earth and dedicated herself to helping the people of farms and cities to live in harmony with each other and with nature.

POE banners read “No privilege without obligation.” Alexandra believed the slogan.

In the years since, she had learned a very great deal. For one thing, far too much privilege had been taken. Discovering that environmental concerns were a business, much like any other, she hardened into a shrewd businesswoman. And she learned to rule out nothing, to negotiate with anyone who could provide something she wanted.

Plucking the last weeds from the bed of White Queens, she tossed her hair from her eyes and stood up, relieved to be finished, but above all, proud of her job.

333

The plane banked and smoothly turned east.

Alexandra’s face lit with pure, sensual enjoyment. “Your first time?” she asked Rachel.

“In a small plane, yes,” Rachel nodded nervously, willing herself to relax. The cockpit was compact, but not at all cramped, and her companion was clearly a skilled pilot.

They quickly left the Burbank airport behind. The ocean of toy houses below seemed to stretch all the way to the horizon as they flew along the Angeles mountains.

A persistent breeze had scoured the smog from the Los Angeles basin, and the sky was the color of violets—the sort of day that made Southern Californians smug.

Rachel was eyeing the small bank of instruments feeling somehow cheated. She had supposed that a plane would require more dials than this to get off the ground and stay in the air.

Alexandra swung her gaze toward the mountains and made a slight adjustment with the lever in her right hand. “No more thugs leaping at you while you’re jogging, I trust.”

“Haven’t had much time to jog. Maybe that’s why I’m sort of stressed out.”

“Ever notice that?” Alexandra pointed ahead. “When you enter the desert, the land changes from the green of money to the color of poverty.”

Rachel peered out the window of the plane as the lush landscapes around homes gave way to desert scrub.

“But that’s natural, isn’t it? I mean it isn’t poverty, it’s just the difference between where people water the landscape and where they don’t.”

Alexandra’s laugh pealed through the small cabin. “The point is, where do they get that water? Most of our great state is desert—every square inch of the southern third certainly is.” Little spots of color had lit her cheeks. “Every morning, we get out of bed in a desert. Sixteen, seventeen million of us.”