Untitled (25 page)

   "You're angry."

   "You think?" The noise Mamie made wasn't so much a laugh as a cackle. "He cheated me out of a crapload of money."

   I glanced around the nicely decorated home and thought of Betty who'd answered the door.

   "Pardon me for pointing it out, but you don't seem to be suffering."

"That doesn't make what he did right, does it?"

"No, it doesn't."

"And it doesn't make it any of your business."

   "Right again." I swallowed hard and tried for a smile that withered beneath her laser gaze. "But maybe you'll understand when I tell you that even though it's none of my business, I've got to ask about your relationship with Brad. You see, the cops think my friend Eve killed him. And his latest fiancée, Gillian Gleeson."

   "And you're trying to prove she didn't."

   I nodded.

   "So you came here to try and prove that I did."

   When she put it like that, I guess it did sound crazy. Not to mention bold-faced, shameless, and just plain uncouth. I'd already started to apologize when Mamie cut me short.

   "Spare me, young lady. You're not sorry you're here looking for someone else to blame, because what you want to do is clear your friend's name. And I'll tell you what . . . I'm not sorry Brad's dead. I only wish I was the one who'd shoved him, but you see . . ." She pushed back from the table, and for the first time, I realized that she was sitting in a wheelchair.

   "Car accident," Mamie said. "Back in '78. Haven't taken a step since. Oh, I wanted Brad dead, all right. But I'm sorry to say, I wasn't the one who did him in."

   "I never really thought you were."

   "No." Her eyes lit. "But you were hoping."

   "Yeah." My smile answered hers. "I was."

   Before either of us could say another word, a man walked into the room. He was tall and beefy, a big guy wearing white hospital scrubs and an attitude.

   Then again, maybe he just didn't like people staring at him. And I was. Staring, that is. For the second time in as many minutes, I'd met another person with long, light hair. His was pulled into a ponytail that hung down his back.

   "This is Reggie Goldman," Mamie said. "My driver and

attendant. This young lady is a private eye. She thinks I killed Brad."

   "That's not true!" I figured I'd better make this clear. Fast. Especially since the moment he heard the news, Reggie's nostrils flared and his eyes sparked. "I never said that. And I'm not a full-time private eye. I'm a teller at Pioneer Savings and Loan over in Arlington and I'm the business manager at Bellywasher's and . . ." I was rambling and it was so not professional. I gulped down the rest of my lame explanation and tried to wrap things up with as positive a statement as I could make. "I never said Ms. Dumbrowski killed anybody."

   "Of course you didn't!" Mamie slapped a hand against her thigh and laughed. "Just thought I'd see if I could get a rise out of you. Helps pass the time, you know, when you're old and stuck in this chair."

   "Your bridge game this afternoon will help pass the time." Reggie stepped in front of me so he could go around to the other side of the room and slide Mamie's wheelchair away from the table. "You've got just enough time to get freshened up," he said. "Then I'll get you over to Mrs. Klausen's."

   I don't know where Betty was through this whole thing, but she appeared instantly at my elbow. Good sport that she was, she stood and waited while I said good-bye and watched Reggie wheel Mamie away. Maybe Betty noticed that as I stood there, I narrowed my eyes, trying to imagine what Reggie would look like if his hair wasn't as neat and he sported a scruffy beard.

   "What's he like?"

   Betty looked where I was looking. "Devoted to her, that's what he is. Been with Miss Mamie for a couple years now. Loves her like she was his own grandmother."

   "Which means he might be really pissed if someone hurt her."

   If I thought Betty was going to spill some deep family secret, I was wrong. She clamped her lips shut tight.

   I turned so she could lead me to the door. "I don't suppose . . ." We were nearly to the wide foyer, so I knew if I was going to find out more, now was the time. Yeah, it was off the subject. Sure, it was a gamble. But I had only one chance. I played the odds. "Is Reggie interested in environmental causes?" I asked.

   Betty stopped in her tracks and looked at me hard. "How do you know that?"

   "Just a wild guess. What can you tell me?"

   She looked to her left and her right, just to be sure no one was around. "Always protesting some cause or another. Global warming and saving the owls and the whales and the baby seals. That kind of nonsense. Miss Mamie, she doesn't mind. She says for all he does for her, Reggie deserves some time on his own and things to keep him interested. What she doesn't know is that a couple times, the demonstrations he's participated in have gotten out of hand. Reggie, he's got something of a temper when things rub him the wrong way. Cops who get in the way of protesters . . . well, I guess he thinks that shouldn't happen. He's been arrested. Twice that I know of. But don't you go and get the wrong idea about him. When it comes to Miss Mamie—"

   "Loves her like his dear ol' granny, yeah, I know." I wasn't sure how much longer Betty could talk, or what she'd be willing to say. I looked around, too, before I spoke again. "Does he live here?"

   Betty nodded. "He's got rooms above the garage. Takes good care of them, too."

   "And you said he's been here a couple years. Where did he live before that?"

   "Came from some hospital in upstate New York where he was an orderly. Said he needed something more peaceful where he could get to know his patient better."

   Or maybe he just needed a story to cover up those lost years setting fires in Colorado. I inched nearer to Betty. "And the day Brad Peterson died. Was Reggie around all day?"

   This she had to think about. I knew exactly the moment she remembered, because her mouth fell open. "Took the day off. Said he had some personal business to take care of. It's not like him to do that. He's here all the time. I never thought that he might have had anything to do with—"

   "I'm sure he didn't." I didn't know this for sure—in fact, I was counting on it not being true—but there was no use leaving Betty to fret about having a murderer around the house. "I'm just asking questions, that's all. It's just a coincidence."

   "Uh-huh." Betty wasn't convinced. She looked at me over the frames of her wire-rimmed glasses. "You one of them private investigator types?" she asked.

   "Yup." For the first time, I was't embarrassed to admit it. "I sure am," I told her. "So you can believe me when I tell you that you have nothing to worry about."

   I managed to keep the smile off my face until I was back in the car. "Hot'cha!" I slapped the steering wheel. "I just cracked the case!"

Or was it a conundrum?

   After Kegan's confession about his feelings for me, I couldn't imagine how I'd face him or what I'd say the next time we were together. I didn't want to see him.

   On the other hand, I was anxious to tell him about my visit to Mamie Dumbrowski's and my theory about Reggie Goldman. I couldn't wait to get to class that Monday night.

   See what I mean about a conundrum?

   I guess that's what I was thinking about as I pulled out of the parking lot of the bank and headed over to Bellywasher's for the night's class: Bar Food with a Spoon? (There were three kinds of chili on the menu—turkey, one that had dill pickles in it, one made with no beans or veggies in it at all—as well as a killer lobster bisque, cheddar cheese and potato soup, and the pièce de résistance as Monsieur Lavoie might say, a banana split so loaded with syrup and fruit and whipped cream, it was sure to send every student's daily caloric intake into hyperdrive.)

   Maybe I was thinking about that banana split.

   Either way, when I changed lanes on the George Washington Memorial Parkway and my car bucked, I didn't think a thing of it. My Saturn was a couple years old, and I'd been pretty busy lately. I was a few hundred miles past needing an oil change and—

   The steering wheel wobbled in my hands.

   I'm no mechanic, but I doubted this had something to do with my poor oil-changing habits. I held on tighter to the wheel, but even as I did, I knew it wouldn't do me any good. No matter how hard I tried to keep it going straight, the car pulled sharply to the right, and since I was in the left lane at the time . . . well, I won't bother to describe how the fellow in the car next to me signaled his displeasure.

   Like I cared?

   Right about then, I didn't have the luxury of being offended. When he saw I wasn't going to stop, the other driver backed off and repeated the gesture he'd made the first time. Good thing, too. About him backing off, not about the gesture. I veered into the right lane and did the only thing I could think to do: I jammed on my brakes.

   When my brake pedal fell all the way to the floor and I didn't slow down a bit, my stomach turned to a solid block of ice.

   There I was, surrounded by rush hour traffic and completely out of control, but not like regular D.C. drivers are out of control (which they always are, but that's because everyone's in a hurry to get somewhere and to get to that somewhere before the person next to them gets there first). I knew there was something seriously wrong. I was going sixty in a car I couldn't steer or stop. Oh yeah, and I was scared to death, too.

   My fingers gripping the wheel, I closed the gap on a red station wagon up ahead that was going too slow. I checked my mirrors and glanced over my shoulder. There was a black sedan in the left lane, not nearly far enough away, but I didn't have a whole lot of choice. I threaded the needle.

   "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I groaned, though I knew there was no way the other driver could hear me, and I suspected that even if he could, he wouldn't have cared about my flimsy apology. Besides, I didn't have much time to worry about it. There was a furniture delivery truck directly ahead of me, slowing down, its right turn signal on. If he didn't move fast enough, something very bad was going to happen. I didn't bother with my signal (a first for me who, needless to say, always follows the traffic rules), I yanked my steering wheel to the right and slid into the lane just in front of that station wagon. Of course, that didn't help at all when the furniture truck inched to the right and moved directly in front of me.

   Fortunately, though my fingers were frozen on the wheel and my heart was pounding so hard, I was sure it was going to jump out of my chest, my brain was still working. And boy, did it work! Going even faster than my speeding car, it scrambled over every piece of driving howto I'd ever heard or read.

   "Pump the brakes! Pump the brakes!" My brain sent the message, and I screamed the words, and somehow, my body obeyed. I slowed the car just enough to get over to the berm. A few more pumps, a couple more screams, and I skidded to a stop.

   Good thing, too. The next second, I heard a noise like a crack, and something snapped. The right front side of the car buckled. When it hit the ground, my teeth clattered.

   Never let it be said that D.C. drivers are not compassionate. The driver of the furniture truck must have seen my erratic stop in his rearview mirror. He blared his horn. The red station wagon zipped by, and that driver screamed something out his window. I was glad he was going fast and I didn't quite catch it. The folks in back of him, of course, slowed down to see what was going on, and going slow in rush hour in that city . . . well, nobody was happy about it. I got glared at. I was cursed. I had a couple fists waved in my direction.

   Through it all, I hardly noticed. I sat with my hands clamped to the steering wheel, my knuckles white. My heart pounded harder and faster than ever, and I swear, I never even took a breath. My lungs felt as if they were on fire.

   I guess that's how the police officer who stopped behind me found me. The lights on top of his patrol car were swirling, but I never even saw them. Not until he knocked on my window.

   "You all right, ma'am?"

   I don't remember doing it, but I guess I had turned off the car, because I had to turn it on again to hit the button to roll down the window.

   "Something happened," I said. As if he couldn't see that.

   Big points for him, the officer simply nodded and went around to the front of the car. I saw him peer at the right front tire. He bent down and took a closer look. When he stood up again, his forehead was creased, and his mouth was pulled into a thin line.

   At least I had the presence of mind to check for traffic before I hopped out of the car. I carefully made my way over to where the cop stood. I was shivering and I wrapped my arms around myself.

   "What is it?" I asked the officer. "Is there something wrong? I mean, I know there's something wrong. My tire went wonky. And my brakes wouldn't work. I mean, there's got to be something wrong, but the way you're looking at the car, I don't think your version of wrong and my wrong match up."

   "Ma'am." He'd apparently dealt with hysterical drivers in his time. He looked into my eyes and kept his voice firm and low. Like a trainer would if he was working with a really bad dog. "Take a breath."

   I did.

   "Better?"

   I nodded.

   "You sure?"

   I wasn't. I took another breath.

   He watched me carefully and, don't ask me how, but he knew I was in control before I knew I was in control. When I was ready to listen and proceed, he pointed to my front right tire. It was lying on the ground next to my car. Even in my current state, I knew this was not a good thing.