Death by the Riverside (5 page)

“Where’s a good bar around here?” I replied.

“What?…Oh, all right. This way. I’m probably safer with you in a bar than out on the street.” We walked a block to a wood and hanging plant type bar. It wasn’t very crowded. I ordered a beer and she ordered white wine.

“Okay, Ms. Knight. Explain.”

I handed her my private investigator’s license. She looked at it for a minute.

“You’re not police.”

“But I work for them.” I decided it was best to be honest with her.

“Prove it.”

“Tomorrow, at lunch, come with me and I’ll introduce you to my contact.” I wasn’t sure Ranson would approve of that, but I was sure she wanted to know what was in that locked drawer.

“I can’t. I’ve got to go to the bakery and get something for the party after Patrick’s show.” I gave her my there-you-have-it look and shrugged my shoulders. “I can’t believe this,” she continued. “Drug smuggling and murders are something from T.V. It doesn’t happen in my life. I’m sorry, I can’t help you.” She shook her head.

“Not real? Ever seen a junkie?”

“Well…yes, but…”

“Where do you think they get their dope? Does the stork bring it?”

“No…still…”

“How old is Patrick? And your other kid?”

“What? He’s eleven. Cissy’s nine.”

“Do you worry about them?”

“Of course, I worry.”

“About doing drugs?”

“No, I hope I’ve taught them better than that.” I looked at her, not believing that no. “Sometimes,” she admitted. “You can’t live today and not worry…I still don’t know.”

But she was wavering. I decided to try a little logic.

“Look, there’s a locked file drawer that…”

“None of them are locked,” she broke in. “I have access to them all.”

“At the end, where you found me. The bottom one under Z.”

“But that’s not used.”

“So why is it locked?” She looked puzzled, searching for an innocuous reason to explain the drawer being locked.

She finally replied, “I don’t know. Are you sure it’s locked and not just stuck?”

“Positive.”

“That’s strange,” she said, more to herself than to me. “I can’t think what might be in it.”

“There’s one way to find out. Let’s look.”

“How? It’s locked.”

“File cabinet drawers are very easy to pick, if you know how.”

She thought about this for a while before she said, “All right. But I have to be there to make sure that’s all you do.”

“If you insist. And if we find what I think we may find, I’ll let you go with me to the police. If not, we’ll probably find out what Milo’s taste in porn is.” Milo was Barbara’s boss. And possibly Mr. Big.

“You think?” She laughed. Barbara had a deep hearty laugh. I liked this woman. I was much happier making her laugh than making her scared. “Now, that would be worth all this,” she added.

“Sorry,” I said, thinking of the bruises that I must have given her. “I don’t really like tackling people in the dark.”

“Oh, I didn’t even mean that. I just meant my two years on this job. Milo can be a real pain in the neck.” She signaled the waiter for another round. “So what do you think he’s into?” she continued.

“Kinky, very kinky.”

“I almost hope it is porn. I’ll get my thrill of the…year,” she said in that slightly disparaging voice used by women who don’t think they’re quite pretty enough.

“Of the year? I don’t believe that.” I didn’t. Women with the kind of eyes Barbara Selby had should have no problem with being unwillingly celibate.

“Believe it. It’s true.” The waiter brought us our drinks. “I’m on the wrong side of forty, size fourteen, and I’ve got two kids. Men may tell you they’re interested in your mind, but only if you’ve got a body like yours to go with it.” There was no bitterness in her voice, just a shrug and acceptance. Barbara struck me as one of those people who get on with life as best they can, no matter what it throws at them.

“But you have beautiful eyes,” I blurted out, “like a horse that knows so much more than the rider she’s stuck with. That’s a compliment, although it may not sound like one. Brown and so deep you could fall into them.” That was a line Danny had used on me that summer we had been lovers. I stole it because it said what I meant better than I could.

She laughed an embarrassed laugh, like I had that summer. “Thank you. Give an old lady some vicarious thrills. Tell me about all the men you have panting after you.”

“Me?” I was too tall, too dark, and had hair that went in every direction but fashionable. I had always been left on the sidelines at school dances. Aunt Greta thinks I became a lesbian because there was no one to dance with me in high school.

“Yes, you. Now that you’ve embarrassed me about my dirt brown eyes, I need something to embarrass you about. You must have a boyfriend.”

“No.”

“In between?”

“Sort of.” The devil and the deep blue sea.

“So tell me the details of your last affair. The hot gossip among my friends concerns Little League coaches and PTA presidents. Not together.” I sat still. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Am I mucking about in something that you’re not interested in taking lightly?” She looked very concerned, mistaking my silence for a broken heart. “Why did he leave you?” she asked kindly. “Or should we just not talk about it?”

It was too much. I had to burst out laughing. I was remembering why he had left me. It was back in sixth grade. This only caused Barbara to look more concerned. Maybe I had gone crazy.

“Do you really want to know?” I asked, controlling myself.

“Yes.”

“All right. I was too tall. Tommy Jerod had asked me to go steady with him when school began. But when we showed up on the first day, I had grown five inches and he hadn’t. He told me I was too tall.”

“When was this?” She was beginning to catch on.

“Sixth grade.”

“Oh.” There was a pause. “I doubt you’re a nun. What does that leave?”

“Want to find out?” I didn’t think she did, but I didn’t think a proposition would do Barbara’s ego any harm.

She looked at me over her sliding glasses, gave a dry chuckle, then said, “I’m at the age that if I thought you might be serious, I might take you up on it.”

“If I thought you might take me up on it, I could get serious,” I replied.

“Well, this has certainly been an interesting evening,” she said, backing off a little. The next step would have been yes or no. I wasn’t sure either of us was ready for that.

“You’re a brave person, Ms. Selby. Most women would have called in the Marine Corps by now.”

“Why?” She looked genuinely puzzled.

“For protection against deviant, communistic, secular, humanist perverts, such as myself.”

She laughed at that. “So I’m supposed to be shocked? Is that what you wanted?”

“No,” I replied. “I would get along much better if no one was shocked at me being who I am.” She nodded agreement. I continued, “I’m even so bold to think that I can tell another woman, even if she’s straight and has two kids, that I think she’s very attractive.” She finished her wine and started to say something, but I broke in. “And now you’re going to say, ‘thanks, but I’ve got to be moving along.’ And that’s all right. I’ve had a good time tonight.”

“Being a proper Southern woman and all, I suppose I shouldn’t admit it, but so have I. An affair with a good-looking woman fifteen years younger than I am sounds like a wonderful adventure. I’d much rather turn it down than not have it offered.” She took a final sip of her wine. “And now I’ve got to be getting back to my kids.”

We paid the check and went out into the chilly night.

“I’m really sorry about tackling you,” I said. “I hope I didn’t leave too many bruises.”

“I’ll survive. Besides, a bruise or two tomorrow will mean that this really happened. I’ll see you then.”

“Good night.” And we parted. I watched her disappear around a corner, then I headed off. I looked at my watch. It was only eight-thirty. The evening was still quite young. I decided to hit I Know You Don’t Care, an upscale lesbian bar in this part of town. Since I had on a skirt and pumps (also a shirt, underwear, and the rest), they might let me in.

I got a drink and settled in, leaning against the wall next to yet another hanging plant. If there’s ever a revolution, I want to be on the green side. This was a good place to watch the action. Or lack of it. The bar was fairly full, but the couple next to me was discussing mutual funds and I overheard snatches of conversation about the condo market. Perhaps I could find some lovely lesbian to impress with the $13.05 in my checking account and my method of playing the stock market. I left it alone, hoping that it would leave me alone. I didn’t see any interesting women. In a bar full of women, I couldn’t find one that interested me. I was slipping. I had another drink and decided it was time to go home and finish
Pride and Prejudice
and maybe manage a fantasy or two about women with deep brown eyes.

Chapter 8

The morning was one of those rare clear cool days. I found myself whistling on the way to work. A teenage boy even asked me what the tune was. He liked it and wanted to know if he might find it at his local record store. I said yes, they might have Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” and to ask for the Ninth Symphony. He thanked me, smiled, and we parted. There’s hope for the younger generation yet.

Even a morning of slogging through boring secretarial routines didn’t change my mood. I only saw Barbara in passing. She started my day by dumping a load of stuff on my desk and asking if I could get it done as soon as possible. I said yes and asked a few questions about it. All very professional. Then she winked at me and disappeared. It didn’t hurt my high spirits to have those brown eyes winking at me.

I didn’t see her again until after lunch. We ran into each other in the bathroom.

“They’re letting us go early today,” she said as we were washing our hands together. “Due to the Super Bowl this weekend. Long lines for beer, I guess. I’ve scheduled you to work next week, so we can do what we planned,” she finished.

“Why not today when everyone’s gone?” I asked, leaving the water running to cover our voices, just in case anyone was loitering outside.

“Because I think it’s only the staff that’s leaving early,” she answered.

“I see.” No, it would not be a good idea for us to snoop around with Milo and his cronies on the premises. Someone else entered and we had to end our conversation.

Barbara came by about an hour later and told us to go on home. Nobody disagreed. As I was getting my stuff together, I noticed several men entering the front door. Some of them I had seen before, going into the locked left door. Others I had seen only as pictures in Sergeant Ranson’s apartment. They all had that look about them, dressed very well, but in a manner that wasn’t the standard corporate look. Too much gold and colors that were a little too bold. They dressed to please themselves. All except the young guy I had seen before. He still looked rumpled and out of place. Yet he was obviously here without a gun pointed at his head. Something about him said fallen accountant. Again I wondered what his story was.

I got to talk to Barbara just long enough to wish her luck at Patrick’s play. I left open the meaning of luck at a seventh-grader’s school play. She laughed and smiled and was gone until Monday. This left me with a long Friday evening and a longer still Saturday and Sunday with nothing wonderfully enticing to do.

It was such a perfect day, I couldn’t face the idea of going home. So I decided to head to Audubon Park, skirt, heels, and all. People were out strolling around. It was the end of January, everyone had been grinding since New Year, and our next big holiday, Mardi Gras, was a long way off. The city was coming up from the winter doldrums for a collective gulp of fresh air.

I realized that I was humming “Fall” from Vivaldi’s
Four Seasons.
I decided to tone down since I was walking toward one of the fountains and there were more people about. There were three boys playing with something in the water, probably a boat. I guessed they were from some parochial school since they all wore gray pants and white shirts, with blue blazers discarded off to one side. There were a number of old men and women scattered around on the benches. Off to the left there were two people engrossed in a chess game. I smiled when I realized that they were both women.

Then I heard a voice off through some trees to my right say, “Hey, stop it. You’ll drown that kitten.” It was aimed at the boys. And I was now close enough to hear a frantic “mew.” I stalked up behind them, saw that there was a kitten in the fountain and that they wouldn’t let it climb out. I grabbed the boy nearest to me by the belt and upended him into the water. The other two started to run away. I got one by the belt and the other by his collar. He got away but left me with part of his shirt. I tossed the second boy into the water and reached down and scooped up the kitten. It was wet and shivering. I used one of the blue blazers to dry it off.

“Shall I or do you want to?” said the voice that I had first heard. I looked up from the kitten. It was Cordelia; she had caught the third boy.

“Go ahead, make my day,” I replied. She dropped him in the water. The first boy was climbing out and complaining about my using his blazer for the kitten. I put my foot on his shoulder and pushed him back in. Both boys made satisfying splashes.

Cordelia and I grinned at each other. Kitten rescuers extraordinaire. She was wearing old faded blue jeans, an off-white sweater a few sizes too big, and a beat-up brown leather jacket. I am very rarely in the company of straight women who are dressed, shall we say, more comfortably than I am. She wore no makeup and had large hands and feet, somehow reminding me of a lion with its huge paws. When she walked she had a quality of stepping with a surefootedness most people, particularly women used to high heels, don’t have. It was the grace of a lion padding along her jungle path.

“Hey, give me my jacket back,” one of the boys yelled as we started to walk away.

“Wait a second, this bag holds everything,” Cordelia said. She started rummaging around in the gray duffel bag she was carrying. With a triumphant “aha” she pulled out a pair of gi pants. I bowed the proper bow to show her that I knew that they were karate pants and I threw the jacket down. I almost threw it in the water, but I figured the kid might need something dry to wear.

“Don’t be too impressed,” she said as we transferred the kitten, “I’ve only been doing it about four months.”

“What style?” I asked.

“Gogu. You?”

“Shotokan.”

“How long?” she asked.

“Eight years. We should spar sometime.”

“Haven’t we already?” she said in a manner that Jane Austen would have described as arch.

“Touché. Speaking of which, how’s Karen?”

“Spitting nails. At small children.” I laughed, because it was something that I could see Karen doing. “Can I carry the kitten for a while?” she asked.

I handed him over. He let out a breathy mew at being moved, but he didn’t seem to mind too much. Cordelia pulled her jacket around him. He was a little marmalade cat with big green eyes.

“Do you want her?” she asked.

“No, I’ve already got one cat too many.”

“How many do you have?”

“One.”

“Oh. Good. I’d like to keep her. I’ve been thinking about getting a cat. Maybe I should name her ‘Fountain,’ since that’s how I got her.”

“How about ‘Drowned Cat’? That seems more appropriate.”

“I’ll work on it.”

We walked on, a companionable silence marked by purring from the unnamed kitten.

“Who are you?” she suddenly said. I looked at her. Damn, she was a little taller than I was. “First I thought you were one of those hustlers that Karen plays with. But you weren’t after money. Now I find you saving kittens from wanton boys, dressed like a professional. Explain.”

“Twenty-five words or less?”

“Thirty or even more, if you need. To start with, what about the standard boring question, what do you do?”

“As little as possible.” That was my standard answer.

“In a gray suit and black heels?”

“Temp work.”

“Temp work?” She sounded disappointed. “Somehow, I never pictured you as an office temp. Aren’t you in the wrong city if you want to be an actress?”

“I don’t want to be an actress. I want to be what I am,” I countered.

“Which is?” Cordelia had a manner that was more no-nonsense than blunt. I actually liked it; I just didn’t like all her questions. I’m used to being the one doing the asking. For some reason it nagged me to let her think that I was a lowly office temp. Usually, the more misinformed people are about me, the more I like it. Once, for six months, I let Aunt Greta think that I was on welfare. I pulled out my license and showed it to Cordelia.

“A private investigator?” She still didn’t sound very impressed. “Do you earn any money at it?”

“Of course,” I answered, incredulous that she could doubt it.

“So why are you working as an office temp?” So that was what she thought. As this was the one time my word processing skills were actually connected to my work as a private investigator, I didn’t want her to think otherwise.

“I’m investigating the company,” I answered.

“Investigating for what?”

“That’s confidential.” She looked dubious. And I had run out of impressive things to tell her about myself. I suppose if I had been her I would have been dubious too.

“Isn’t it kind of…tawdry?” she asked. “Snooping around for dirt on one person to be used by another person.”

“Sometimes, yes.” I couldn’t deny it. “But I try to pick and choose my cases.”

“Try to?”

“Yes, try to. There’s rent to pay, cat food to buy.”

“Slave to money,” she muttered.

“Some of us weren’t born rich,” I countered. “I have to work for a living,” I added with emphasis on
have to.

“Funny, someone just said that exact same thing to me. She was a prostitute.”

“Meaning?”

“If we want to, we can find an excuse for anything. You do what you want to do, so you justify it by ‘trying to pick’ your cases.”

“Look, one of the things people pay me for is privacy, so I can’t and won’t trot out the cases that I’ve done for your approval. But I’ll bet I do more good than you do.” I stopped walking, forcing her to stop and face me.

“Think so? Why don’t you come down to Charity Hospital some time and put your good against mine?”

That shut me up. I was pissed, at both of us. I had walked into that one. Of course, she would be some nurse or doctor to outrank me on the do-gooder scale. But I had been the one to suggest ranking us. However, I bet she had no problem paying her bills. We stood silently glaring at each other. The kitten mewed.

“He’s hungry,” I said. I wanted to say,
How dare you judge me? You’ve lived your life under the umbrella of Holloway money. I wore hand-me-downs and haven’t stopped working since fifth grade when I had two paper routes.
But there was no point in it. We didn’t want to understand, only to score points.

“Yes, she is,” she answered.

“She?” I questioned, just to put a hole in her surety.

“Yes, she. I looked.”

I shrugged to show that it wasn’t important. I turned back down the way we came.

“I’ve got to get going,” I lied. “Thanks for the sparring match,” I added as I was walking away. I walked a few more yards, then couldn’t stop myself from glancing back. I caught sight of her disappearing around a bend in the path. The victorious lioness with her kitten.

These shoes were hurting my feet. It was time to go home and change.

When I got there, I kicked off my shoes and flung my gray suit in a heap on the floor. Hepplewhite, mistaking it for a new bed made just for her, snuggled in. I left her, even though I knew this was a dry-cleaning bill I couldn’t afford. I poured myself a drink and began listening to Beethoven’s Ninth. I put on headphones, turned the volume up, and sat thinking of things that I could have said. Beethoven’s Ninth is one of my favorite pieces of music and I don’t listen to it very often. I don’t ever want to get tired of it. It is a refuge, a place of solace. Soon, I stopped thinking and started listening to the music. I sat for a while even after it was over. When I finally got up, I noticed the light on my answering machine.

It was Danny.

“Kant’s categorical imperative,” was her message.

“Damn it, Danny, I’ve tried to call you,” I said to the machine.
Not very hard
, my little voice answered.

Kant’s second formulation of the categorical imperative, which is what I assume she was referring to, is, basically, to see people, including oneself, only as an end in themselves, never as the means to an end. Danny was hinting ever so subtly that I was coming up short in the means versus ends department, at least as far as our friendship was concerned. Perhaps there was a bit of truth in this. But not a truth I cared to ponder upon at the moment. I decided that I was out and didn’t get in until late and that I would deal with Danny’s phone call tomorrow.

By the time I called her on Saturday afternoon, she wasn’t there. At first, I thought I had called the wrong number because the voice on the answering machine wasn’t hers. It was Elly’s. I hadn’t realized that they had been living together long enough to be changing not just messages but voices on their machine. It also made me realize that any message I left for Danny would not be private.

“Hi, Danny, this is Michele. I called your office earlier, but you were out of town. Which formulation of the categorical imperative?” was the message that I left. I did owe her an apology, and I would give her one when I could talk to her personally. Perhaps Cordelia was right, perhaps we can find an excuse for anything.