Death in Paradise (25 page)

Bernstein, in what seemed to be the interrogative style of the Maui police, wasn't saying anything. He sagged back against the bench in that almost boneless way he had, eyes closed. Once again, he appeared to be asleep. I didn't blame him. He probably hadn't gotten any sleep and the warm sun and gentle breezes made me want to put my head on his shoulder and snooze myself. I sipped some more and thought about how good it would feel to immerse myself in a hot tub or just to curl up in a ball and moan.

"You get any sleep last night?" I asked.

His head moved slightly in what I took to be a negative gesture. "Pullman," he said finally. "What happened?"

"It was weird," I said. "Jeff has always been so warm and genial and charming and now, suddenly, this. Just before he... just before it happened, I was wondering if he was on drugs or something."

"Shock takes people in different ways."

"Jeff is a professional lobbyist, Detective. A spinmeister. His public persona is his stock in trade. His job requires iron self-control and managing difficult situations. Have I used enough clichés yet?" Bernstein didn't say anything. "Maybe it was just shock but I have to think there's more to it. Drugs or alcohol. Maybe he's taking some kind of tranquilizer to cope and is having a bad drug reaction. Everything about him was different. To use another cliché, it was like Jekyll and Hyde."

"Tell me."

Brisk, efficient, a man of few words. I guess he'd used up his caring response getting me back on my feet and loaning me his handkerchief. Normally that would have been fine. I wasn't one to expect pampering. But right now, I wanted some TLC. I didn't understand it myself, this need to be cared for and reassured. It wasn't like me. Normally, I wouldn't have expected it, especially not from a cop. The old adage, "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar," wasn't something they taught at police academies. And yet, if Andre had been here. But Andre was my lover, Bernstein my inquisitor.

He didn't say anything, but the slack body had straightened and his posture had a listening edge.

"I was rushing down the hall, late as usual. Tending to Rory—"

"Wait a minute," he interrupted, "you know about Ms. Altschuler's suicide attempt? You were up there?"

I nodded. "Jonetta and I went together. And if we hadn't gone..." I let it drop. I wasn't interested in tooting my own horn or in discussing Rory. "But then I had to leave because I was covered with blood and I was supposed to introduce the speakers and then I had to meet with Mrs. Sato about the banquet and—"

"Doesn't anyone else in your group do any work?"

"Sure. Everyone... it's just that I'm..." I skipped what I was going to say about Ms. Fixit. "We've lost Martina and Rory, and they were in charge, so we're racing around plugging the holes as best we can. I was rushing back to the seminar room and I was thinking about what had happened and not looking where I was going and I ran right into him. Jeff, I mean."

"Literally?"

"Literally. I wanted that chocolate cake, you know."

"I know. I'll buy you another one. Nihilani's right. When I'm tired, I get grouchy. It helped. You ran into him, and then?"

"I said I was sorry about Martina. He said why was I sorry, Martina had never liked me. Then he said that she, Martina, had known what we were planning to do to her...."

"Which was?"

"I've told you this. Or maybe it was Nihilani. Replace her as director of the association."

"And..."

"And he accused me... accused us... of conspiring like a bunch of witches to oust her. He implied that we had conspired to kill her to solve our problem. That her death was some sort of planned assassination."

"And that's when he attacked you?"

"Then you are willing to acknowledge that he attacked me, even if you won't let me bring assault charges?"

"Christ, Kozak, you had ten or fifteen witnesses. You want to file charges, you go right ahead. Can we get on with this?"

"Only if you call me Thea. You sound very grouchy when you say Kozak."

"It's a pretty name," he said. "Thea, I mean. Kozak is tough and gritty. Russian?"

"Ukrainian. Cossack." This guy had better watch it. He'd had a couple of human moments there.

"Then what happened?"

"He said he wondered how I was going to live with myself after what we'd done. I didn't want a fight so I didn't bother to argue that we hadn't done anything. I just walked away. Then he called after me, as though we'd just had a normal conversation instead of his litany of virulent accusations, asking if I knew where he could find Rory. He thought she might need comforting. We were standing about ten feet apart at that point, in the middle of the hallway, surrounded by people. I didn't want to have to shout out what had happened—that she'd tried to commit suicide—so I tried to get him off to a quieter place. I invited him to sit on a bench.... He refused, then started shouting and calling me names. I wasn't going to allow him to abuse me like that, so I just said, 'Maui Memorial Hospital' and walked away. That's when he jumped me."

Bernstein nodded, his blue eyes fixed on the water, not looking at me. "It might not be a bad idea if you went home early."

"I thought I wasn't supposed to leave town. I believe that's what Detective Nihilani said."

"Detective Bernstein says you may go."

"Thanks. I wish I could. There's nothing I'd like better. But there's still a lot to do and—"

"You wouldn't be the first person in history to be suddenly called away," he interrupted. "I know you like to take the weight of the world on your shoulders but you don't always have to." He checked his watch and stood up. "Just think about it, okay? Think about getting away from this thing before something worse happens."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You have a reputation as something of a crime solver, right? People here know about that. It could... you know... cut both ways."

I didn't understand what he meant, but there was something else about this conversation that bothered me more. "Wait a minute," I interrupted. "How did you hear about this so-called reputation?"

Bernstein didn't look at me. He stared out at the water, his eyes narrowed as if what he was saying pained him. "You know how it is," he said. "Like it or not, cops stick together. Look, don't be mad at him, okay? I'd do the same thing myself, if I was tied up and my girlfriend was involved." I took a deep breath, ready to argue, but he waved his hands defensively. "Now, don't get all steamed up until you've let me finish. When I say involved... I mean the way you are involved... tangentially... I mean you knew the victim and you found the body. No one thinks you had anything to do with this despite what Nihilani and I may have suggested by using the word 'corroborate.' So yes, your boyfriend called us up. You want to know what he said?"

I wasn't sure. It was such an odd idea to think of him trying to take care of me from thousands of miles away. A year ago it would have sent me into fits. Like I said, I'm hard to take care of. I'm as stubborn and independent as they come. But I also love the guy, and I've been through some scary times with him. Coming close to losing him taught me how important he is, and our arguments about my putting myself in danger have given me insight into how he feels and how he works. He rights wrongs and makes the world safe for a living. There's no way he's not going to do it for me. "Sure. Tell me what he said."

"He said you're more impossible to control and care for than a two-hundred-pound Newfoundland. He said you're slow to get mad and you'll put up with a lot but that when you do get mad, people better step back." He laughed. "I guess I found that out for myself. He said you're a lot like us... you have a deep sense of right and wrong and you keep trying to make the world right. He said you're a real champion of the underdog, the little guy, that you think it's your job to take care of people weaker and more helpless. As to your so-called detective abilities, he told us about your sister and the others. He says if you didn't have so much trouble with authority figures, you'd make a good cop."

Bernstein swallowed and looked down at his shoes. "He says that you are beautiful and good. That he worships the ground you walk on. He says he's going to marry you, make you the mother of his children, and grow old with you, and that if we let anything happen to you, he's going to come out here and skin us alive. And we're not doing a very good job of taking care of you. So will you please go home."

By this time, I was dabbing at my eyes with his dirty handkerchief. "I wish I could," I said. "It's so nice of you to ask. Usually I get asked to be the staked goat."

"The what?"

"The tiger trap. The bait. You know. It seems like one of my callings in life is to stay around and be provocative until I impel the murderer to come after me. Thea Kozak, goat girl. The human target."

"Not on my watch," he said, still talking to his shoes. "Why don't you just go home?"

Click your heels together and go back to Kansas,
I thought. I could see him being sucked up and carried away. He wouldn't fit in any better in Kansas. Bernstein was born restless and edgy. He must have driven his mother crazy, lying there in his carriage, watching the world with those restless blue eyes. "I can't leave," I said again. "Do you really think I have to be careful? I don't know anything. I haven't seen anything...."

"Phooey," he said. "People tell you stuff. You know more and you've seen more, or at least told us more, than any of your colleagues. And you've been seen with us."

"So has everyone else." I changed the subject. This one was making me nervous. There were too many reasons why I couldn't leave. Some of them involved my responsibilities to the board. We represented the organizing group of the conference and therefore had to set an example. If I were to turn tail and run, others would wonder if they should do the same, while some would wonder what I'd been up to that made me run away. So in addition to actual responsibilities with running the conference, I also had to stick around and be a role model, demonstrating that things could go on successfully in the face of tragedy.

There was a second reason not to flee that was also business related. This was a conference attended primarily by people associated with independent, or private, schools. I was a partner in a consulting firm that made its living doing work for independent schools. I had my reputation to worry about. If I suddenly vanished from the conference after Martina's death, it could give rise to two future problems—doubt about my character in case the murder wasn't solved, and doubt about my fortitude whether it was solved or not. Since helping schools in tough cases was becoming my personal specialty, it wouldn't look good if I bailed out when confronted with a situation that was tough on all of us. There was no way I could explain this to Bernstein.

"Laura Mitchell," I said. "The little girl you took to breakfast—"

"Do we ever do anything you don't know about?"

"Probably. Did she have anything more to tell you?" Bernstein didn't answer. "Oh, for heaven's sake, Detective. Does this always have to be a one-way street?"

"Leave," he repeated. "Go. I'll drive you to the airport myself."

He seemed to be regretting his lapse into humanity. Maybe it had just been a ploy to soften me up so I'd be more amenable to his suggestion when he urged me to leave. I just didn't understand the man. The incredible frankness followed by a complete stone wall. Did he care? Didn't he care? What was an act and what was real? Sure I had trouble with authority figures, but I'd tried hard this time. I'd been as cooperative as I could possibly be. I was prone to blame myself for lapses in human interaction, but wasn't it just possible that it was him and not me this time?

"I'm sure you won't understand this, but I can't leave. Not now. Not right in the middle like this. I'm a working girl and this is where I'm working right now. If you think I'm at risk, how about a bodyguard?"

"Spare me," he said, rolling his eyes. "It's not like we've got personnel pouring out our ears. We're always running short and right now we've got a murder to investigate."

"Then I'll just have to be careful. More careful than I was this morning. But Lenny..." I gave a secret, internal smile when I used his name. "I never would have expected Jeff to behave like that. He's always been so nice." He was acting like he wasn't listening again. "By the way, what's the story with Rory Altschuler?" I didn't expect him to answer. He never answered my questions. This time he surprised me.

"Maui Memorial is about thirty minutes from here, ambulance speed. She'll just be getting there now. We have people there who will let us know what's happening." He'd closed it, but now he flipped his notebook open again. "Tell me about finding her."

So I told it as best I could, and got through it without letting my own memories derail me. Got through it without getting upset. But I needed to be moving again. Sit too long and the stories in my head jump out and grab me. I couldn't take that now.

I got up to leave. Then, since Lenny and I were temporarily sort of friends, or at least there was a truce in our acrimony, I reached in my briefcase and pulled out the clippings Billy had given me about the lingerie murders. I handed them to Bernstein. "I assume you guys know about these?"

He took them and started to read, his face growing red as he did so. "Where did you get these?" he demanded, assuming the neatly neutral position of neither confirming nor denying that he'd had the information before. I thought the red face probably meant that our truce was over—the red face and the extremely displeased look on his face.

"Our public relations guy. Billy Berryman. He got them off the Internet."

"I'm trying to like you," he said through clenched teeth.

"I'm trying to be helpful," I said, not sure what his problem was.

"Who else has seen these?"

"The other board members. He gave them out at the meeting this morning."

"I thought I told you—" Whatever he'd been about to say, he thought better of it. "Who will probably have shown them to half the Western world by now." He got up, anger visible in all the lines of his long, lean body. "Try to stay out of trouble, okay?" He flipped a card into my lap. "My phone numbers. The bottom one is my pager. Use it. I do not, I repeat, do not... want to have to call a brother officer and tell him something's happened to his girl—uh—lady friend."