1 Portrait of a Gossip (10 page)

“Meow.”

“Okay. I’ll call Robbie first.”

Juliet opened her door wide so that she could watch the
trail while she telephoned. She went automatically to the crank phone but then
hesitated. She could call Robbie that way, but it would wake all her neighbors
since the phone rang at every cottage. Did she want to do that? To scare
everyone into thinking there was an emergency, since there was an unwritten
rule about using the phone after nine o’clock at night.

She went to her purse and dug out her disposable phone which
she had purchased after leaving the NSA. She hadn’t figured out how to store
phone numbers in the directory so had to pull out her address book. She punched
in the number for the caretaker, but there was no answer.

Juliet went outside and peered through the trees looking for
lights at her neighbors’ cottages. It looked like there were lights both at
Raphael’s bungalow and at Darby’s cottage. But neither of them could manage to
get up the hill, especially in the dark and rain.

“Damn it.”

Juliet chewed her lip.

“I won’t go inside the cottage. Won’t even get that close,”
she whispered to Marley. “I’ll just watch from the trees and see who leaves.
Then I’ll call the sheriff.”

That sounded safe and sensible but still required more
courage than she was used to exerting. Juliet was not the stuff of which movie
heroines were made. Many kinds of people worked for the NSA. Few were likely to
ever star in a thriller. Even the people in the field were boring, just
everyday citizens leading everyday lives and occasionally phoning in
observations of the people they were sent to watch. Then there were analysts,
the eggheads who juggled the data and found ways to apply it. That was where
Juliet had fit in the hierarchy.

“You stay here, Marley. You’ll just get wet and muddy if you
come.”

She was going to get muddy too. She would bring her
flashlight, but the umbrella was staying behind. She would need both hands for
the climb.

On such a wet night, Juliet assumed that all the forest
creatures would be safely abed, and perhaps many of them were, but not at least
one large opossum who hissed at her when she overlooked him with the flashlight’s
feeble beam and almost trampled him on the path.

At the first unearthly hiss, terror made a big bounding leap
from her head to her heart and kicked it into overdrive. She dropped her
flashlight and it rolled away as she tried to run in three directions at once. What
skin had not already prickled from the cold went goose-bumpy with terror. Gasping,
she leaned against a redwood and watched the white hump waddle away, forcing a
tunnel through the underbrush of the woods. It kept hissing recriminations.

“Stupid critter!” she whispered, knowing the need for
silence but still wanting to shriek and run away. What was she doing? Her
actions were crazy and she was going to give herself a heart attack. She should
go back to her cottage and call the sheriff. Let him come and wait in the
forest with the hissing possums and the freezing rain.
And
maybe the killer.

She froze. Floating on the air was the smell of tobacco.
Opossums might do any number of amazing things, but none of them smoked
cigarettes.

“Miss Juliet,” a voice said softly.

Juliet whipped around and would have screamed then but a
hard hand covered her mouth, stifling her cry with brutal strength. She fought
but it was useless. The hands that pulled her against the tall, hard body were
relentless and bit into her cheeks.

“Hush! It’s Esteban Rodriguez.”

Juliet stopped struggling. It was unlikely that Harvey’s
killer would pause to identify himself if he meant her harm.

The hand eased away from her mouth and she was allowed to
turn and face her assailant.

“Your door was open, a light was on—but you weren’t there.
Then I saw the light from the cottage,” the harsh voice whispered. It was very
dark but she could feel his eyes searching her face.

“Yes, someone is in Harvey’s cottage. I saw the lights too.”
She didn’t ask why he was at her bungalow or even in the compound. That would
have taken more breath than she possessed.

“And you came to investigate?” The whispering voice was
disapproving.

She drew in a few more breaths.

“I tried calling for help but there was no answer at the
caretaker’s cottage. In fact, I wonder.…” She would feel silly if it was Robbie
up there doing some kind of maintenance.

“Perhaps—” Esteban stopped and whirled toward the woods
where they both heard some rustling in the brush.

“It’s probably the opossum,” Juliet said after a second. “I
scared him—
well,
he scared me—a little bit ago.”

He listened a moment longer but there was nothing but the
sound of rain and distant thunder.

“Very well, let us go on to the cottage.”

“In a moment.”
Juliet had found
some courage. “What are you doing here?”

Esteban turned on his own flashlight. It was much brighter
than hers had been.

“Visiting with Raphael.”

“Uh-huh. Want to try again? And maybe this time you could
use the truth. Who are you really? Why are you here?
On the
hill?
In the rain?”

She expected him to say that he was Raphael’s brother or
cousin and Raphael had sent him to check on the Harvey’s bungalow.

“The truth.”
He laughed a little.
“Very well.
Since Raphael thinks so highly
of you.
I am Esteban Rodriguez, a puppet-maker. But until about three
years ago, I was also a private investigator. Mr.
Biggers
hired me to look into things up here because of all the complaints about
Harvey. It’s doubly important now to find out what he was doing since the man
is dead. Raphael is my contact. And my fee for the job is a year’s board at
Bartholomew’s Wood.”

“Okay then,” Juliet said, not sure if she believed him, but
deciding that she wouldn’t disbelieve him until after they had investigated the
cottage and gotten out of the rain. The cold was miserable.

The forest was a lot less frightening with a decent
flashlight and a strong man—armed, she noticed—at her side. It hadn’t occurred
to her to bring a gun. She needed to stop being stupid and recognize—all the
way to her soul—that her refuge was no longer safe.

No porch light glowed to light their way and they had to use
the flashlight to avoid the patio furniture which the sheriff had left in the
middle of the tiles. The door to the bungalow was shut and locked, but as
Juliet told the sheriff, the locks to the cottages were all the same and her
key opened Harvey’s door.

“Wait. No footprints.”

Their own muddy shoes had violated the clean patio but theirs
were the only prints. Whoever had been there—if anyone had been there—had taken
off their shoes before venturing on to the dry porch. If they were smart enough
to do that, chances were that they had also worn gloves.

Unless they really were dealing with a
ghost.
A spirit wouldn’t leave footprints either.

They scraped off the worst of the wet and mud and then ventured
inside cautiously and quietly, but their precautions were unneeded. Unless
someone was hiding under the bed or able to fit themselves in the small cabinet
under the sink, there was nowhere for anyone to hide.

Juliet sniffed at the air.

“What is it?” Esteban asked.

“Cigarette,” she said.
“At least some kind
of tobacco.”

Esteban also inhaled and then nodded. His face got hard and he
drew his gun. What he planned to shoot, Juliet didn’t know, but she supposed it
was better to be prepared. It also occurred to her that the noise they had
heard on the trail might not have been the possum after all and that made her
shiver.

“I’ll start over here.”

While Juliet peered under the bare mattress—perhaps the
sheriff had taken the sheets as evidence—Esteban looked into the studio. Both
spaces were empty. A quick look under the sink confirmed that no midget killers
were hiding there either.

Esteban began opening dresser drawers but they were empty.
All traces of Harvey Allen had been removed.
Except for the
framed checks on the wall.
Juliet went over to the desk near the window
where the light was coming from. The cookie jar lamp was plugged into a plastic
box with a digital display. The dim light on the low table made her shadow long
and weak.

“So, our intruder is a five-dollar electrical device,”
Esteban said, peering over her shoulder.

Juliet sniffed and shook her head.

“Not unless the timer has started smoking cigarettes. This
is recent.” She pointed at the ash that had fallen on the desk. There was black
fingerprint powder everywhere, but there was some white ash there as well. Most
had been brushed away but a streak or two remained.

“So…. What were they after? What did they think to find that
the police would leave behind?”

Juliet pointed at a small blank spot on the wall. The red-framed
check was missing.

“What was it?” Esteban asked. He was scanning the display
with interest.

“A check.
A personal check from an
actress named Charity Jones.”

Esteban thought for a moment.

“The cross-dresser who topped himself?”

“Yes. Harvey Allen was the reporter who
outed
her.
Him.”

“After she had paid him?”
The voice
sounded slightly outraged at this act of dishonor.

“Presumably.
She’d be a great
suspect for the case—except for being dead.”

The shingles creaked, caught and twisted by the wind whose
moaning sounded an awful lot like voices.

They went back to her cottage and Juliet made tea. It was
after midnight but she didn’t feel at all tired.

Nor did she bother upbraiding Marley for sleeping on her
pillow and getting muddy paw prints on the bedspread. She just took the towels
from the bed he didn’t use and handed one to Esteban and then used the other to
blot her face and hair.

She put the kettle on and then stirred up the fire. Esteban
was touring her studio, looking at her botanical drawings and her oils of the
local wildflowers which would be on some tourist’s chest by next summer. He
made no comment about her work and she was too much a veteran to ask if he
liked them. One shouldn’t ask questions one didn’t want answers to.

“How do you know Raphael?
If that isn’t
too personal a question?”
Juliet asked, raising her voice slightly to be
heard above the rain.

“Raphael,
Biggers
, and I served
together.” He did not specify when or where.

“I’ve been thinking,” Juliet said as she poured tea into
mugs and brought them to her small table. “Robbie Sykes smokes cigarettes. So
does Jake Holmes—his wife, Jillian, may smoke too. I think Rose Campion also
smokes, but not in public. Asher and Hans smoke pipes.” She didn’t mention
Mickey’s occasional indulgence. That hadn’t been marijuana smoke they’d
smelled. “Raphael smokes cigars, but he obviously wasn’t the intruder.”

Esteban nodded and cradled his tea. The mug disappeared in
his hands which were scarred with hundreds of tiny white lines. She supposed
that carving bone led to cuts in the fingers.

“Darby doesn’t smoke. I don’t think Harrison or Carrie or
Elizabeth do either. And it couldn’t be Elizabeth anyway. She is wheelchair-bound.
It was a car accident about two years ago.”

“Harrison?” Esteban asked.

“Opera composer—the new kid on the block.”

“The young black man who never looks at
anyone?”

“Yes, except Darby. They seem to be keeping company these
days.” She shook her head. “I have also just had the thought that we may not
have been chasing the murderer. You knew that Harvey had been spying on people?
Maybe even trying to blackmail some of them?”

“Yes. That was Mr.
Biggers
’ fear.”

“Well, it could just be one of his victims was making sure
that there wasn’t anything incriminating lying around.”

“Perhaps.”

“So, do we call the sheriff tonight, or wait ’til morning?”
Juliet asked.

“Best do it now.” Esteban was not enthused.

Neither was Juliet, but she dug out her phone and looked up
the sheriff’s number.

“Deputy
Hendersen
,” the sleepy
voice said.

“This is Juliet Henry up at the Wood.”

“Yes, Miss Henry. Has something else happened?” the deputy
asked, sounding much more awake.

“I’m not sure. I think there may have been someone in Harvey
Allen’s cottage tonight. I went up to check when I saw the light, but no one
was there. I wouldn’t have thought about the matter again since the lamp is on
a timer, but I smelled cigarette smoke.”

“There was no sign of a break-in?”

“No. There weren’t any clothes or linens inside. I assume
the sheriff took them?”

“Yes, we have all of them here in the evidence room.”

“Do you know if the sheriff also took the check—the one in
the red frame?”

“I—I don’t think so. There wasn’t any chance of getting DNA
evidence off of it so probably not.”

“Well, mention to the sheriff that the check is missing,
okay? I’ll talk to him in the morning if he has questions. It’s late and I’m
going to bed soon.”

“Okay. Goodnight then. You aren’t worried are you, Miss
Juliet?”

“About the intruder?
No. I’m fine.
Goodnight, Deputy.”

“Were you lying?” Esteban asked as she turned off the phone
and slid it back into her bag.

“No. I’m not worried.” Juliet had a gun and was competent
with it. Her boss had insisted that all his employees carry firearms and had
paid their monthly range fees. She hadn’t had the gun out in over a year, but
Juliet didn’t think that her skills had deteriorated all that much.