Deadly Dozen: 12 Mysteries/Thrillers (65 page)

Piper leaned forward eagerly. “What did she say about the fire?”

“She said she blacked out, but not from booze. Claimed she hadn’t had enough to make her pass out. She says she came to in her chair, couldn’t move a muscle, not even her head. She swore she saw someone, a man, moving around her, doing something. Then she smelled smoke and, well, she blacked out again.”

“Dr. Oates found her on the floor, not in the chair,” Piper said.

“Don’t put too much store in what she sees or thinks she sees, especially after she’s been into the cups for a couple of hours. She gets confused.”

It never occurred to Piper that the fire might have been caused by anyone other than Sybil. Now, groping, she shot questions at Vera. “Have you ever seen either of the two caregivers before? Had they been to the house? Did Sybil ever mention a Judith Avidon? What do you know—?”

“Hold it.” Vera held up a hand to stop her. “One at a time. I didn’t hear half a what you said.”

“The caregivers, had you seen them before she went to the hospital?”

She shook her head. “I only saw the one woman, the one with dark hair and eyes. But I never saw her before that day.”

“There’s a man. Asian, I think, in his mid thirties, resembles Mr. Moto.”

“Mr. Moto, huh?” Vera stared into the beer bottle as if it might supply the answer. “You know, right before the fire there was a Jap-looking guy came out to the house. The day Sybil had you over for coffee. He came to the door alone, but someone else was waiting in the car. Couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman though.”

“I take it she wasn’t expecting him?”

“Oh no, the only reason she agreed to talk to him was ‘cause he seemed to know certain things about her.”

“Did you hear their conversation?”

“Uh-uh. She was being real secretive. They didn’t talk long. She told him to move along and closed the door in his face.”

Piper recalled Sybil’s state of mind when she returned to pool side. Dazed. Bordering on shock.

“It really shook her up. She poured herself a drink right after, and it wasn’t even noon. Sybil didn’t usually start drinking till four cause once she got started she kept right on going till she couldn’t lift the glass no more. Anyway, she has me take her to the bank. And from that bank to another bank. It was all real secret-like. Then the fire happened.” Vera leaned forward, grabbing Piper’s arm. “You think this Moto guy might have something to do with what’s going on over there? Him and that snooty one?”

“Yes.”

Vera bounded up from the couch and crossed the room to the telescope. She made a clumsy attempt to look into the eyepiece before giving up and just staring out the window, hands planted on hips. “I’m going over there.”

“I doubt if they’ll let you see her.”

“They let you in, why wouldn’t they let me in?”

“I threatened to call Social Services. I don’t think threats will work now. The authorities came out and did nothing.”

“Well, I ain’t taking no for an answer.” She marched across the room, pulled a key from her purse and held it up proudly. “I never handed it over like Miss High n’ Mighty ordered me to. I said I’d give it to Sybil if that’s what she wanted.”

“Look,” Piper said, her tone becoming stern, “if you get caught using that key to get inside, you could be in real danger, especially if they had something to do with that fire. I don’t trust either one of them.”

“I got this too.” She dug deeper and pulled out a canister of pepper spray the size of a cigarette lighter.

Piper opened her mouth to protest, but Vera cut her off.

“Don’t worry, I ain’t about to stir up no hornet’s nest over there. I ain’t nobody’s fool. I just want to get in long enough to talk to Sybil and make my offer.”

“What offer?”

“My offer to move in with her. My little Nutmeg passed. Twenty years I had that sweet girl—in cat years that’s over a hundred, y’know—but now she’s gone.” She blinked tears away. “So now there’s no problem for the canaries. I can move in and take care of Sybil full-time. We’d be helping each other. I could sell my place. I got a little house not far from here. Or maybe we could find something else, something that suits the both of us.”

Piper nodded, thinking that if her plan panned out it could be the perfect scenario. Then she remembered a similar plan in the black comedy
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane
. The housekeeper and her mistress plot to relocate and set up house without the evil sister. The housekeeper is ambushed in the upstairs hallway by a crazed Baby Jane, who bashes in her head with a hammer. Piper suddenly felt cold.

“Look, it isn’t going to be that easy, Vera. Judith Avidon and her troll aren’t giving up whatever hold it is that they might have over her. Not without a fight. If I’m right, we’re talking about Sybil’s estate. Control over her
and
her finances.”

“We’ll see. Those two don’t know me. Ain’t nobody gonna mess with my friend.” She snapped the clasp on her purse and stood up.

Piper jumped up. “You’re going over there
now
?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t know, Vera. Let’s think about this. Wait for—”

“Wait for what?” she cut in. “For them to blacken her other eye. Knock out some teeth, maybe. I shoulda come back a long time ago. Shoulda never left. I just up and walked away. I abandoned her to a couple of con artists. You don’t even know her and you did more for her than me. I won’t be able to live with myself if…if anything happens to her because of them two.”

Piper couldn’t argue with her.

She walked Vera to the door. Raindrops hit the windowpanes. Piper handed her the umbrella that hung on the hook by the door. “Here, take this. You can return it later.”

Vera thanked her. “I’ll stop in to give you a report before I head home. I figure you’ll be more’n anxious to hear how it went.”

“God, yes, I won’t be able to sleep until I know.” Piper touched her arm. “Vera, be careful, okay?”

She winked, opened the umbrella, and stepped out. The umbrella scraped along the side of the stucco wall as she made her way down the stairs to the bottom.

#

While Piper waited for Vera to return, she smoked a week’s allotment of cigarettes, cursing when she ran out. She crumbled the empty pack and threw it at the door. Too much nicotine had made her queasy. She sat on the floor, her back propped against the side of the sofa, using her knees to support her head, and waited.

When she awoke, the night was dead silent. The rain and wind had stopped.

She rubbed her eyes, licked her dry lips. Her mouth tasted of stale smoke, acrid and bitter. She stretched the cricks from her neck where the muscles had bunched into tight knots. Outside, the driveway and street glistened from the rain. The VW was gone.

Piper scrambled to her knees, pressing her palms flat against the cold panes in the door. Her breath fogged the glass. She swiped at the condensation, straining to see what she knew was no longer there. When had Vera gotten into her car and left? How could she have not heard the sound of that noisy, sputtering engine?

She found the scrap of paper with Vera’s number on it, grabbed the phone and stabbed at the numbers. After seven rings, she looked at the clock on the table. Midnight. If Vera was home in bed, she might not hear the phone ringing. Three more rings and she hung up.

Why didn’t she come back here? Vera knew she’d be waiting. Knew she’d be worried. Piper told her she wouldn’t be able to sleep until she checked back.

She made a fried egg sandwich, took one bite, and chewed. Her churning stomach needed something to settle it. It didn’t help. She spit it into the sink and tossed the sandwich into the trash.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

After only a few hours sleep, Piper began the first of many calls to Vera Wade’s house at six a.m. She called every hour until four that afternoon. The drapes in the Squire house remained closed all day, the canaries’ silent. A gray haze settled over the hills.

She looked up Vera’s address on the letter she’d sent to Belle and drove in heavy rush-hour traffic to a seedy neighborhood near downtown Los Angeles. The tiny wood frame house was at the end of the block on a narrow street with wide potholes and no sidewalks. The potholes were filled with water from the previous night’s rain. She zigzagged down the street like a drunken driver trying to avoid them. Vera’s house was one of the better-kept ones in the neighborhood. At least the crabgrass was green. Pink and yellow dahlias bloomed among the overgrown shrubs bordering the house. The sight of the old VW parked in the carport should have given her a sense of relief. Instead, she felt her stomach twist into a knot.

In the yard next door, a large black dog, one of those mixed killer breeds, barked and strained to jump the chain link fence when she walked up the gravel driveway to Vera’s house. The fence shook and rattled with each thrust of the dog’s heavy body. In the shade of the carport, she touched the back of the VW, over the engine compartment. The metal was cold.

The back door was three steps from the car. Red-and-white-checked cafe curtains hung from the kitchen window. By rising up on her tiptoes, she could see inside. No sign of life in the kitchen. A coffee maker sat empty and clean. The kitchen table and sink were free of dishes. An assortment of fruit filled a hand-painted bowl.

Piper knocked with the edge of her fist, hoping Vera could hear her. She called out and knocked several more times before trying the knob. The hinges creaked as she opened the door.

“Vera?” she called out, leaning over the threshold. “Vera, are you here? It’s Piper. Piper Lundberg. Hel-lo?”

She stepped in, leaving the door open behind her. The last thing she wanted to do was frighten the woman in her own home, possibly getting a dose of pepper spray in the face. Living alone in a high-risk neighborhood, coupled with a hearing impairment, could make her even more jittery to unexpected sound or movement. As she inched her way through the house, she called out to Vera. The house was neat and clean, appearing to have had a sole occupant for many years. Surfaces worn thin or smooth from repeated cleaning. Cooking and animal odors long ago absorbed into the walls, woodwork, and fibers. A large print of The Last Supper hung above the couch. On a corner table was a shrine of sorts of Mary, Jesus, and angel figurines surrounded by candles and a large crucifix.

Piper walked down the warm, airless hallway and approached the last room in the house.

“Vera?” She pressed her cheek against the closed bedroom door and tapped lightly. “Vera, please answer if you’re in there.” She dialed Vera’s number on her cell phone and listened to it ring in both the kitchen and the bedroom. The ringing increased her anxiety. Her skin tingled. It rang ten times before she hit the End button. She paused, wondering what to do next. To open the door to someone’s bedroom, someone she’d met only twice, and waltz in uninvited seemed inappropriate and extremely risky. But she’d come this far. Something creaked, a door hinge or a floorboard. Twisting around, her heart pounding in her chest, she looked down the short hallway into the kitchen. The back door stood ajar, just as she had left it.

This is ridiculous, she told herself.
Dive or get off the frigging board
. A fly buzzed in her face. She waved it away.

Taking a deep breath, Piper turned the knob on Vera Wade’s bedroom door and pushed it open. Her first thought was that the housekeeper’s neatness stopped at the door of her bedroom. The bed was unmade, and the covers spilled off onto the floor into a rumbled heap. Several more flies buzzed in the heavy air. She took a step inside, still holding onto the knob. Above the bed hung a large framed print of a painting Piper remembered from her childhood. Guardian Angel and Children Crossing Bridge. Nana Ruth had hung a smaller version of the painting in Piper’s bedroom. The angel was so beautiful. She’d stared at it for hours before falling asleep, secure in the knowledge that the angel would keep her safe.

On the floor a cat lay curled up asleep under the twisted covers, its orange fur partially exposed. No, not a cat. Vera’s cat was dead.

Piper lifted a corner of the blanket. “Vera…” she whispered. “Vera?” she said again, louder. Unfortunately, Vera couldn’t hear her. She would never hear anything again. Her lifeless eyes, half-open and glazed over, stared up at her.

She was dead. They had killed her. Vera and her plans to interfere had cost her her life.

She touched the woman’s throat, her body, stiff and unyielding in death, was beyond resuscitation.

Piper backed away from the body. She glanced one last time at the print above the bed.
The guardian angel hadn’t kept Vera safe
. Piper turned and ran out the door, down the hall and into the kitchen, wanting to get as far away from death as possible.

She grabbed the wall phone and looked at the receiver in her hand. It occurred to her this could be a crime scene, fingerprints, footprints, fibers and whatever else it took to reconstruct a crime. She swiveled in place. What had she touched? Had she contaminated anything? The phone was contaminated. She dialed 911.

“A woman is dead. She’s Sybil Squire’s housekeeper. I think … I think she’s … been murdered.”