Masquerade in Blue, page 12
As I pulled onto 35, I was a little surprised at how anxious I was to see her again. Hell, it had only been a couple hours. But my anticipation dissolved into dismay when I turned into the driveway and saw the squad car parked there. I wanted to believe that Louise was the one entertaining Foxport’s finest, but I knew better.
Chapter 10
I HAD A SUDDENattack of territorial proprietorship when, laden with groceries, I stumbled into my apartment and found Ed Carver sitting on the couch with Elaine, looking like he’d just stopped by for coffee. They watched as I staggered into the kitchen and dumped the brown sacks on the counter. I shouldn’t have tried to carry two and a half bags at the same time, but I knew once I confronted Carver, I wasn’t going out the door again until after he did. And I didn’t know which bag the frozen yogurt was in.
Peanuts greeted me with more than the usual enthusiasm and kept bumping against my legs as I put the groceries away. Carver spooked Peanuts. Peanuts had once growled at him, and Carver responded by threatening to kick his furry butt down the river. Although Peanuts would never follow through on a verbal threat, apparently he sensed that Carver might. I noticed that Jeff’s notebooks were out of sight and hoped that didn’t mean they were in Carver’s pocket.
Elaine had changed into a pair of pants and a T-shirt with a coyote howling at the moon on it and was sitting on the opposite end of the couch from Carver with her legs crossed beneath her. Her contacts were in and she’d brushed her auburn hair so it shone. They were both drinking from red mugs and I wondered how long ago he’d arrived. Elaine set her mug on the table and unfolded her legs. “Let me do that, Quint.” Carver’s gaze followed her as she crossed the room.
“Chief Carver and I were just talking about Santa Fe. Did you know he used to live in Albuquerque?” She took two cans of soup from my hands and a couple more from the bag. “But he didn’t come here to see me and, besides, he’s probably tired of hearing about the catering business, so I’ll give him a break.”
“Not at all, Elaine,” Carver spoke for the first time. “Sounds like you had quite a business going there. Why’d you come back here?”
Elaine shrugged and looked away from him as she answered. “Oh, you know, things happen.” She opened a couple cupboards which were, for the most part, empty. “Do you care where any of this goes?”
“No. Just don’t move the coffee.” I poured myself a cup and stepped around the counter and into the living room, trying to place what was wrong with this picture.
Carver and I had gotten off on the wrong foot when I’d first come to Foxport. Since then, I’d won a modicum of respect from him, and we’d found a gray area where we could coexist, but I wasn’t about to ask him to start writing references for me. And in his moments of wishful thinking, I was sure Carver had me in another town. He watched me now, his gray eyes intent but calm. I guess that was what threw me. Carver was a lean, angular man who made the most of his six feet three inches, usually carrying himself as though he had a steel pipe up the back of his shirt. Or somewhere else. But here in my apartment, certainly not his favorite place in the world, he looked almost relaxed – ankle crossed over his knee, elbow resting on the arm of the couch. All I could think of was what he might possibly have on me. I couldn’t imagine what would prompt this sort of bliss in Ed Carver other than a warrant for my arrest.
“Well, I think that hell probably hasn’t frozen over, so I guess this isn’t a social call,” I said, leaning against the counter.
His eyes narrowed, but just for a second. “Good guess,” he said with a brief smile. Carver is one of those people who should forget about smiling. The expression looked about as natural on him as it would on a bird of prey.
I shrugged and waited, listening to cupboards open and close as Elaine unpacked the groceries. Totally uncertain about the direction Carver was headed in, I decided to let him lead.
After a noisy slurp of coffee, he said, “I’m bothered by some things I’ve been hearing.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Real bothered.” He paused, reflecting for a moment, then continued, “First I hear you’re the first phone call Jeff Barlowe makes. And then I hear you’re poking around making a nuisance of yourself. So I put two and two together, and I came up with something that smells pretty bad.”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
“You know you could get your licence yanked for interfering with an ongoing investigation?” His voice remained impassive as he elaborated. “Let’s say I’m just trying to warn you. What you do know can hurt you.”
I frowned. “I’m just asking a few questions. Shouldn’t bother anyone unless they’ve got something to hide.”
“I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about concealing the name of a suspect.”
As he waited for my reaction, Elaine let a little sound of pleasure escape. Carver and I turned toward the kitchen and I saw that she was holding the carton of chocolate yogurt like it was a solid chunk of gold. When she saw us watching her, she stammered something unintelligible, then held the carton up, and said, “Anyone care for some frozen yogurt? Chocolate?”
I told her no and Carver just shook his head, but, again, I thought I noticed a trace of a smile.
Before I had a chance to regroup, Carver said, “I think you know who we’re looking for and I’m here to offer you a deal.”
“Why should I know who you’re looking for?”
“How else could you be helping Barlowe?”
“I don’t need to know the identity of the Blue Fox to prove he didn’t do it.”
Carver uncrossed his leg and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. His change of position made it harder for him to look up at me, but he did. “Whatever. Here’s my offer. I’ll only make it once. When I leave, I’m taking it with me.”
I shrugged and waited.
“You tell me who the Blue Fox is, and I’ll forget where I heard it.” I guess I knew what was coming, but I still couldn’t believe it came out of Ed Carver’s mouth. I shook my head. “Can’t help you.”
“You can’t or you won’t?”
Elaine returned to the couch with a dish of chocolate yogurt. She savored her first bite, rolling it around in her mouth like it was a ten-year-old cabernet. When she saw us watching her, she raised her eyebrows and said, a bit defensively, “I asked if you two wanted any.”
Carver turned back to me. “You know you’re throwing it all away just to protect the identity of a murderer. How much sense does that make?”
“Well, I’m not convinced the Blue Fox is your killer anyway.”
“You got anything to back up your theory?”
“No, but I’ve got reason to believe I’m making someone nervous.”
“Let’s hear about it.”
From her seat on the end of the couch, Elaine was watching the exchange as if we were competitors in a tennis match.
“Try this on. Yesterday someone slashed my tires and shot out the back window on my car. So go ahead and tell me that’s not a nervous person. Go ahead.”
“Ever occur to you that maybe the Blue Fox paid you a visit?”
“I thought of that. But it’s not his style. Not a drop of spray paint.”
“Well, if you think that’s so damned important, why the hell didn’t you file a police report?” His tone was approaching dangerous and I heard the clink of Peanuts’s collar as he moved from the kitchen into the hall toward my bedroom. Carver’s gaze settled on me and darkened. “You’re trying to run the goddamned show. Aren’t you? What else are you keeping to yourself? I’ll say this again, my offer leaves when I do. And I advise you to take it. You think you know so goddamned much. You know, maybe you’re not the only one who’s been doing some digging.”
“How’s that?”
“Well,” Carver sat back, spanning the arm of the couch with one long, narrow hand, “I’m not telling you anything you won’t be reading in the paper tomorrow, but it looks like it happened just the way we thought. Novotny came in, surprised the Fox who was in the process of spray painting a message on the wall. Looks like the message wasn’t completed. The drawing of the fox’s head was only a partial.” I shrugged, unimpressed. He continued, “And then, because your reporter friend and his editor needed to be convinced, we autopsied the dead ducks.”
“You what?”
“That’s right, we autopsied the ducks. What do you think they died of?”
“Carver, how the hell am I supposed to know what ducks die of? And why should I give a – “ I broke off, realizing I was about to be had.
“They died of natural causes. Now do you think someone pretending to be the Blue Fox would bother to find ducks that had died of old age? When there are so many healthy ones just waiting to have their necks wrung?”
Frowning, I tried to think. Finally I said, “I don’t know. Have you ever tried to catch one? They can fly, you know?” Carver gave me a sour look. “Is that all you’ve got? A partial drawing and a couple old ducks?”
He smiled, holding on to my gaze, and I knew there was more. “It also looks like,” he turned toward Elaine as he was talking, “the Blue Fox is a woman.” Elaine hesitated, the spoon of yogurt inches from her open mouth, then followed through. It was only a moment’s hesitation. You wouldn’t have noticed if you hadn’t been watching for it. Unfortunately, Carver had.
I moved away from my place at the counter and sat in the director’s chair across from him. “How do you know that?”
Carver took another drink of coffee, then said, “Apparently there was a fight between Novotny and the Blue Fox. The physical kind.” The amused look on his face was his way of letting me know that I had no secrets. “We found strands of hair caught in the button on one of his shirtsleeves.” He gave that a minute to sink in before adding, “After analysis, we’ve determined it’s a woman’s hair.”
“Isn’t that amazing?” Elaine was dragging the bottom of her dish for melted yogurt. “You can actually tell the sex of a person by hair samples. I mean, it can’t just be from the length, can it? Lots of men have long hair these days.”
Carver regarded her for a moment, then said, “Length and width. Women’s hair tends to be thicker.”
She set the empty bowl on the coffee table. “Interesting. What color was it?”
“Brunette.”
“Well, I guess I’m off the hook.”
Carver’s gaze lingered on Elaine’s auburn hair, then he turned back to me, waiting.
“Gee,” I said after a few seconds, “I can’t think of any other reason for a strand of a woman’s hair to be caught in a guy’s button. What else could it be besides murder?” I shrugged. “That’s gotta be it.”
The muscles in his jaw flexed and he said, “McCauley, we’re not idiots. I don’t care what you think. If Leonard Novotny was running his sleeves through some woman’s hair, he didn’t give it away to anyone. And I don’t care how discreet you are, someone always knows.” He paused and added, “Right, McCauley?”
I conceded the point, then said, “Rebecca Novotny’s a brunette.”
“She never saw him that Saturday, but someone did. You got any idea who that might be?”
I shook my head. “I can’t help you. Sorry.”
Carver set his coffee mug down and, grabbing the arm of the couch, pushed himself up. The calm look to his eyes was gone; the chill was back. I braced myself. After twenty minutes of keeping a lid on his animosity, he was about to blow. But, his voice was quiet like the eye of a hurricane, “You will be sorry.” Then he turned to Elaine. “Nice meeting you, Miss Kluszewski. Thanks for the coffee.”
Elaine gave him a thin smile and nodded.
After he left, neither Elaine nor I spoke for a few minutes. She was scraping a drop of frozen yogurt off her T-shirt. She gave it one final brush and said, “I really blew it, didn’t I?”
“No, you didn’t. He can’t prove anything.”
“No, but he knows that we know the Fox is a woman. He saw that I knew.”
I took the coffee mugs and Elaine’s empty dish into the kitchen where Peanuts had been hiding out. “I’ve got a hunch he knew that anyway. But, like I said, he can’t prove a thing.”
She followed me into the kitchen, “Can he really do that? Take away your license?”
I opened a box of dog bones and offered one to Peanuts. He took it gently, like I’d taught him, and went into the living room to eat it on the carpet. “Maybe, but I keep telling you, he’s got to prove it.” I put my hands on her shoulders and looked into her serious eyes. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not going to happen.” When her expression didn’t change, I added, “Besides, is a little import shop going to be enough for a guy like me who craves excitement and life in the fast lane? It’ll never happen.”
“If I show up here and wind up helping turn your business into a ruin, I don’t know what I’ll do.” Her shoulders sagged and I drew her to me. Her head fit just under my chin and I held her and breathed the clean smell of her hair.
“It’s not going to happen,” I repeated. “And Carver knows it as well as I do. Who’s he going to have to kick around if I become a respectable merchant?” I hoped she bought all that but the truth was I couldn’t get a read on Carver today. He’d been so contained – so painfully contained. I had to go along with Peanuts. He spooked me.
Wrapping her arms around my back, Elaine stayed in my embrace. I could have held the position for hours but Peanuts decided what was going on in the kitchen was lots more exciting than his dog bone, and he began circling our legs, making little attention-getting snorts. It worked. Elaine pulled away first and smiled at the wriggling beast. “He wants to be hugged too.”
“No,” I said, reluctantly releasing Elaine, “he just can’t stand it when he’s not the center of the universe.”
Elaine squatted on the floor to give Peanuts the attention he craved.
“How’d you do with Jeff’s notes?”
“Okay. I was just about done when Carver showed up. I hid them under the sofa cushion before I answered the door.”
As I paged through the notes’ translation, Elaine switched on the radio and began to straighten the kitchen.
According to Jeff, Reaves stood to lose a lot of voter support if Novotny had his way with the wetland. It might not cost him the election, but it would be enough to make it an interesting race. Then there was something about Martin that Jeff hadn’t been able to follow up. Apparently he no longer worked at The Breakers, and was now employed by a place called Pasadena Pete’s, a name which didn’t exactly have a high class ring to it.
“Quint, are you listening to this?” Elaine turned the radio volume up.
The newscaster was finishing with, “Coincidentally, the Save Our Wetlands group, is holding its first fund-raiser tonight.” Elaine lowered the volume and turned to me. “Did you hear that?”
“Not all of it.”
“The army engineers, or something like that, just approved Novotny and Associate’s request to fill in the wetlands. They’re expected to start building soon.”
“That’s going to make for a lot of mixed feelings.”
“I guess,” Elaine mused, then added, “That SOW fund-raiser tonight. There might be some interesting things going on there.” She eyed me. “What does it take to get into a fund-raiser?”
“Funds. Sometimes lots of them.” Peanuts was looking at the door as though he were expecting someone. Then he glanced over his shoulder at me. Some days, when the weather’s lousy, I play dumb with him. But the sun was shining and the leaves were turning, and I couldn’t think of a reason to stay inside. “Let’s take the spoiled one for a walk.”
Peanuts raced down the bank to the river so fast I wondered how he kept his legs from tangling in a knot. “Wait’ll you see the command he’s got over these ducks.” And true to my word, Peanuts began to herd a group of them that had been minding their own business doing whatever it is that ducks do.
As we watched him, Elaine said, “What Carver said, you know, about Novotny’s killer being a woman and all, does that change anything for you?”
“Not really. You see, I never actually eliminated her as a suspect. Jeff did, but I’m not so sure he’s one hundred percent objective about all this.”
“What do you mean? Is he in love with her?”
“It’s not that.” I paused, trying to put words to my thoughts. “It’s more like he’s so caught up in the rightness of her cause – the environment – that he has trouble seeing past it.”
“You don’t agree with her methods? Is that what you’re saying?”
“You know, at first I thought that was it. But it’s not. I mean, I look at what she’s done and I can’t help but think, you know, ‘way to go,’that kind of thing. I don’t have the balls to dump a bucket of sludge on the carpet of some oil company that’s just polluted a big chunk of coastline with a spill. But I think it’s great that someone else does. I see those pictures of half-dead, oil-smeared birds and otters, and like everyone else, I feel someone ought to pay for that. And my boycotting a gas station is really only going to hurt the poor slob who owns the station, who’s got nothing to do with oil tankers and spills. So, yeah, I say go for it. Stick it to them.”
I stopped and Elaine waited. Finally she said, “So, what does bother you about this Blue Fox?”
“How can someone be so concerned about the fish and the ducks and the trees and the land and care so little about a human being – supposedly a friend, or at least an ally – who’s suffering? And she knows he’s hurting. I don’t buy this higher cause crap. She knows she can get Jeff out of jail. But she’s not doing it. That’s what bothers me.”
“Sounds to me like she’s guilty.”
“I don’t know.” I wasn’t convinced, but I wasn’t sure why.
We walked north up the bank toward one of several parks that flank the river. I was carrying Peanuts’s Frisbee, and Elaine walked with her hands in the pockets of her baggy cotton pants. She walked slightly ahead of me, watching Peanuts working the ducks, and it occurred to me that from the back, with her long legs and slim, almost boyish figure, she looked like an eighteen- or nineteen-year-old instead of a woman in her early thirties. And there was something in her movements and gestures – the way she’d shake the hair from her face or put her hand to her mouth when she laughed – that was both unsophisticated and incredibly sensual. I sighed and looked across the river at the west bank with its rows of trees reflected in the calm water.
