A String of Beads (27 page)

He handed her the silk handkerchief from the breast pocket of his sport coat. She
wiped her nose and dabbed at her eyes. The black eyeliner smeared on it, and she cried
some more. “I’m ruining this.”

“Keep it.” While she was occupied with staring at his handkerchief, he watched the
last of the white powder dissolve in her ginger ale.

She pivoted to face the coffee table, picked up the ginger ale, took a few swallows,
and set it down. She seemed to collect herself. “I made a mistake. You’re a wonderful
man, but I’m not in love with you.”

“I think you are, deep down. Whenever you’re not thinking, brooding over things, everything
is fine. Maybe this was too soon to start a new relationship and you weren’t ready,
as you say. Maybe we need to step back and take things more slowly. We can still see
each other, and over time—”

She was already shaking her head impatiently. “I’ve got to be totally honest. If I
thought that could be the problem, then I’d leave things the way they are, keep my
mouth shut, and wait. That’s what I wanted to do, but I can’t. This has got to be
over before the future can start.”

He took a drink of his ginger ale, trying to get her to feel thirsty.

It worked. She took another long draft of her ginger ale, stood, carried it to the
bar, and set her glass on the granite surface. “I need to go home.”

“Please don’t go back to that empty house now. It’s late. We don’t have to talk about
this anymore. I can sleep in one of the guest rooms, and in the morning I’ll drive
you back there.”

“I know it’s not fair to drag you out to drive me at this hour. I’ll call a cab.”

“No,” he said. He stood up from the couch. “Of course I’ll drive you home if that’s
what you want. Just give me a minute to pull myself together.” He walked to the arch
leading to the gallery and headed for the bedroom.

In the bedroom he checked the spots where she had always put her things on overnight
stays. She had left nothing. It occurred to him that while he’d been standing at the
bar imagining her hanging up her dress and brushing out her long blond hair in front
of the mirror, she had been feverishly stuffing the dress into her overnight bag and
gathering her other belongings as fast as she could.

He went into the bathroom and pissed, brushed his teeth to get rid of the smell of
cognac on his breath, combed his hair, went to his closet, hung up his sport coat
and returned his tie to the rack, and then took out a windbreaker. He put it on and
walked slowly back up the gallery to the living room.

She was sitting on the couch again, so he could only see the back of her head, but
it looked odd. She was slouching, leaning her head back against the top of the couch
as though she were studying the ceiling. As he came around to the front of the couch
he saw that her eyes were closed and her mouth open. He glanced in the direction of
the bar and realized that while she was waiting she must have downed the last of the
ginger ale.

The powder seemed to have taken her much more quickly than it had the first time.
He touched her neck. Her pulse was slow, but strong. He was still a little worried.
He had ordered the powder from an online pharmacy in Mexico. He didn’t know what sort
of regulation there was in another country, how strong the powder was, or even if
it was the same strength all the way through. But it was too late to undo this, and
she had been fine the first time.

He began by taking her overnight bag into the bedroom, then unpacking it. He laid
the dress she’d worn across the top of the chair and her shoes on the floor as though
she had stepped out of them. He went into the bathroom and put her toothbrush and
toothpaste, mouthwash, hairbrush, makeup case, and deodorant out on the counter by
the second sink. He ran water over the toothbrush and shook it a bit to make it seem
used. He even ran the fresh bar of soap under the faucet for a second and put it back
on the soap dish.

He went into the bedroom, opened the covers on the bed to bare the sheets, and then
returned to the living room to pick her up off the couch and carry her back to place
her on the bed. Her shorts and tank top came off much more easily than the dress had
last time. She had done much of his work for him.

This morning as he drove toward his storage facility, he remembered the rest. He went
over each detail. He had started to pull the covers over her sleeping form, but he
had made the mistake of letting his eyes linger too long on her. He was hoping she
would believe she’d relented during the part of the evening she wouldn’t remember,
and if that had happened, they probably would have had make up sex. He felt a little
guilty, but then assured himself that he had the right, after all he’d done for her.
He also knew that this might very well be the last time.

Now he wished that he could still be at home to try to guide her to the proper interpretation
of what she would see when she woke up. He had planned to be there. He had called
to give Verna Machak the day off so she wouldn’t be in the way, but a few minutes
later he’d remembered that Salamone hadn’t come to the storage office on his usual
day, so he probably would come today.

JANE DROVE PAST DAVID CRANE’S
house at eight fifteen, and on to the plaza to park her car. She returned on foot
and went through the little woods to watch the house. The Range Rover was gone, and
she knew it would be at least two hours before the housekeeper, Mrs. Machak, arrived.
She moved to the house and walked slowly and quietly, checking windows to see if the
girl Chelsea was still there.

Jane moved from window to window, but the house appeared to be empty. There were a
few rooms that she suspected only opened onto the central Japanese garden and the
broad hallway with the pillars. She moved into the garden and looked. There was an
empty office, a living room, and a couple of rooms that had no obvious purpose. She
followed the wall and realized she had misinterpreted the structure of the building.
It seemed to fold twice, to wrap itself around the garden, giving the illusion that
the garden was completely surrounded.

She saw that there was a louvered window in the pantry beside the kitchen. She touched
it, wiggled one of the louvers a little, and saw what she had been hoping for. The
sheets of glass were tempered—maybe even unbreakable—but they were mounted in an aluminum
framework that opened and closed with a crank. She took out her pocketknife and used
its blade to bend the frames holding the first two louvers, then slipped the first
one out. She removed the next and the next the same way. Soon she had all eight out
and piled neatly on the ground beside her.

Jane hoisted herself up and slithered in the window, stopped and listened for a minute,
pulled herself through and listened again, and then moved out of the kitchen. She
looked for the bedrooms first. People who had something to hide seemed to be most
comfortable keeping it close to them while they slept. The row of bedrooms was where
she had thought it would be, off the gallery on the right side where there was a view
of the garden, but the windows were shielded by the protruding front wing.

There were a couple of model bedrooms that looked as though nobody ever stepped inside
except to dust. Then she reached the master suite. She slipped inside and saw the
girl. She was lying on the bed, fast asleep, so Jane backed out and closed the door
to keep any noise from reaching her.

She went to the office she’d seen from the outside, closed the door, and began to
search the drawers of the big desk. It was an impressive piece of furniture, the top
of it made from two pieces of a large tree with a subtle pattern of whorls. In the
inside top drawer she found a Kimber .45 caliber pistol. She checked the magazine
and found it loaded.

Seeing the gun reminded her of the one she’d found in Nick Bauermeister’s toolbox.
It made her shift her search to places that might hold stolen jewelry. She didn’t
find any, or anything else that looked as though it had been hidden. The filing cabinets
were full of file folders that contained Crane’s personal financial records, mostly
monthly brokerage reports. Other drawers seemed to be duplicates of the financial
records of the Box Farm Personal Storage Company—property taxes, business taxes, and
other dull paper. She moved out of the office and worked her way through the house,
listening for sounds that would mean Chelsea was awake.

When she finished her first circuit of the rooms it was still only nine, and she had
at least an hour before Mrs. Machak would show up. She thought about the pistol. It
had been a promising find, but plenty of people owned handguns. They were legal and
common. Nick Bauermeister had been killed with a rifle, so the gun proved nothing.
She turned her attention to finding a hiding place that was long and narrow, but she
was beginning to feel discouraged. The murder weapon was probably either destroyed
or still in the possession of the shooter.

She moved along the gallery and heard something. The sound was a loud electronic beep,
unchanging and harsh. “Bee bee bee bee bee bee . . .” An alarm system?

She ran toward it, hoping to be able to turn it off. Usually home systems gave the
user thirty or forty seconds to disarm them before a telephone signal went to the
security company or the police station. She reached the place where it was loudest,
swung the door open, and found herself in the master bedroom again. She saw what it
was—not an alarm system, an alarm
clock
.

The digital clock was beside the king-size bed on an end table. The alarm was one
of those that got louder each minute or two, and by now it was painful to hear. It
began to make a different noise, like a howl, as some car alarms did, just when Jane
reached it and hit the button.

The girl had not awakened. She was still lying motionless in the bed, her head no
more than three feet from the deafening alarm clock. Jane looked closely at her. She
was sprawled on her back with one arm a little behind her. She seemed to be lying
on it. Jane saw a small downy feather from a pillow clinging to the bedspread. She
picked it up and held it beneath Chelsea’s nose. The thin filaments of white barely
moved, then were still for a count of five, six, seven, then moved again. The girl
was barely breathing.
Drugs?

The girl was in trouble. Jane shook her shoulder. No reaction. She shook her harder,
then rolled her onto her side and pulled the arm out from under her. It was cool,
and looked white as though she had been in the same position for hours. Jane got onto
the bed, straddled her, and pulled her up by the shoulders. She held her and moved
her hips back so she could keep her upright, then put two big pillows behind her.
She patted the girl’s face once, twice, then harder. “Chelsea. Chelsea, wake up.”

The girl’s eyes fluttered but didn’t stay open. “No,” she croaked. “No.”

“You took something,” Jane said. “What was it?”

The girl’s eyes opened, but they were opaque, glassy, with no understanding. They
closed again.

Jane let her lean back and hurried into the bathroom. What was it? There were no bottles
or plastic bags on any of the counters. She ran back and scanned the tops of the dressers,
the nightstands, then looked at the floors, and ran her hands over the bedcovers to
feel for a pill bottle.

She remembered seeing a bar in the living room. There had been glasses—dirty ones
left on the counter for the housekeeper to wash. She hurried into the living room
and over to the bar. She sniffed the two glasses, but smelled nothing. There was also
a cognac glass. She went around the granite bar and looked closely at the bottles,
which seemed unremarkable, and the sink. There was no residue she could detect. When
she turned to look over the bar at the room, something caught her eye. There was a
shelf just below the bar for shakers, blenders, peelers, corkscrews, and other equipment,
but there was also a small, plain cardboard box, and beside it the torn-off top of
a little envelope. It was at most a quarter inch wide and an inch long, but the trace
of white powder beside it attracted her attention. Sugar?

She knelt to look closer. The small, brown cardboard box was open at the top. Inside
was a pile of identical tan paper envelopes, about an inch and a half long and less
than an inch wide. She turned the small cardboard box. There was a very pretty, colorful
stamp with several unfamiliar birds on it, and
MEXICO CONSERVA
across the bottom.

She plucked one of the envelopes out and examined them. There was a tiny pencil scribble
on the side of each one:
GAMMA-HYDROXYBUTYRATE
.

Great. He gave her a date-rape drug.
She pocketed a handful of the envelopes and ran into the bedroom. Chelsea was in
exactly the same position she’d propped her in. She looked at her watch. It was after
ten. Where was Mrs. Machak? Would she be here in a few seconds? A few minutes? Would
she even know what to do?

Jane snatched up the telephone in the room and dialed 911.

“Nine one one, what is your emergency?”

“The address is 84792 Landover Road. There is a young woman in the master bedroom
who seems to have ingested GHB. She’s in a semicomatose state.”

“Your name, please?”

“Mrs. Verna Machak. I’m the housekeeper.”

“Do you know how she came to take the drug, Mrs. Machak?”

“I have no idea. I just came in and found her. Is the ambulance on the way?”

“Of course. Are you in the room with her?”

“No. I’ve got to get back there now.” Jane hung up and ran to the bedroom. “Chelsea.
The ambulance is coming.” She knew she should get out of the house as quickly as she
could, but she noticed again the clothes lying on the chair. Aware that what she was
about to do was foolish, she ignored the dress, snatched up the shorts and tank top,
pulled the tank top down over Chelsea’s head and put her arms through, then pulled
back the covers and slid Chelsea’s underwear over her ankles and up over her hips,
and then the shorts. People with drug overdoses didn’t have much dignity to preserve,
but the change made Jane feel better.