Roughstock (A Gail McCarthy Mystery) (20 page)

Shit. I still couldn't believe what I'd just seen. Travis was involved, in some sense, with one of Jack's exes. It
almost seemed like incest. Worse, it gave Travis a hell of a good reason for murdering Jack.

Damn. Somehow cuss words were all that seemed to come to mind. I took another sip of zin and wondered what to do next.

Well, obviously have dinner. And then visit Karen Harding, I supposed. Though talking to Karen suddenly seemed a whole lot less important. But I'd come this far, I told myself; I wasn't quitting until I'd met the last player in this cast of characters.

Taking another swallow of wine, I looked my reflection straight in the eye. The Gail in the bar mirror looked tired and disheveled-a typical end-of-the-day look. Rough strands of hair that had escaped my ponytail hung about my face. I didn't look like a successful, competent veterinarian; in fact, I looked a bare level of decency above a street person. And I certainly did not look, or feel, ready for another stressful encounter.

But a good dinner will fix a lot of things. I got a table with a perfect view of the moonlit bay and Lighthouse Point-the little toy of a lighthouse seeming a childish frivolity-pretty but useless on such a brilliant night. I ordered scallops Provencal, some sourdough bread, and another glass of zin, and started to feel better.

By the time I was done eating I felt fine. I'd even organized my approach to Karen Harding, who couldn't possibly be as soft a touch as Laney had been. Taking a few minutes in the bathroom, I combed my hair, washed my face, and practiced my professional smile. Not bad.

As I drove toward Beach Hill I put an arm around Blue and rubbed his chest as he leaned into me. "I know, I know," I told him, "you want to go home. This is the last stop, I promise."

Blue flattened his ears mildly when I parked the truck-the Cliff House condos were obvious, as Laney had said-and I rubbed his wedge-shaped head a minute as I stared out the window. The group of condos soared into the air, tall and sleek and modern, with many terraces and balconies on the upper stories that looked as though they would have good views of the bay. In the moonlight, the place appeared to be painted gray and white, but that could have been an illusion.

I got out of the truck and locked it, then walked to the bank of mailboxes. "Harding" was printed plainly next to number three. This woman, unlike Jack's other exes, had chosen to use her maiden name. And, by Laney's account anyway, she was still bitter about the divorce. I wondered if that had any significance. Surely you didn't murder someone twenty years after a divorce out of residual bitterness? But for money, I thought, maybe.

Condo number three was right on the corner, just as Laney had told me. I knocked firmly on the door and waited. In a minute I heard the sound of the peephole sliding open. I tried to look bland. A moment later the door opened a few inches, still on the chain. A woman peered out the crack. "Yes?"

She was heavy, and had short curly gray hair. She wore purple polyester pants and a lavender sweatshirt with a kitten on the front, but nothing could have been less cuddly than her expression. Harsh lines scored her face from nose to mouth and ran across her forehead; looking at the cigarette in her hand, I knew part of the reason. The eyes that looked out at me told the rest of the story; they were suspicious and wary, on the edge of hostility.

I smiled at her. "I'm Dr. Gail McCarthy. I was a friend of your ex-husband, Jack."

She listened without any response, facial or verbal, and I wondered if she heard what I was saying. I went doggedly on. "I was up at the veterinary convention and I had a conversation with him the day before he was murdered, in which he mentioned you and some money he was planning to give you. I haven't told the police about this, and I thought I'd talk to you first. "

"I have nothing to hide from the police," she said flatly, but she didn't shut the door.

"Can I come in?" I asked.

She thought about this. "Do you have any identification?" she said at last.

"My driver's license and a business card," I told her. "Would you like to see them?"

"Yes."

I fished the small wallet out of the back pocket of my jeans, showing her my license and handing her a card. She stared at this for several long moments before she took the chain off the hook and opened the door. “I
guess you can come in."

Following her into her living room, I looked around with my usual curiosity, but this room was as characterless as Laney's house had been, though a little less cute. The furniture was routine department-store stuff, the carpet, drapes, and walls in shades of gray and white. The only personal touch was the dozens of framed photographs-on the mantel, on the end tables, a few on the walls. One large, ornately framed example over the fake fireplace showed an unfamiliar landscape of rolling hills lit with low light, two horsemen in the foreground, both wearing cowboy hats and Western gear.

"That's a nice photo," I said.

"My father and brother. On our family ranch in Merced."

"Oh."

Bronc had said Karen came from a ranch family, I remembered. It
seemed sad that she'd ended up in this sterile condo.

Karen sat down on her couch, facing a still noisy TV set; I took a seat in a gray velour recliner and thought I knew why she'd decided to let me in. A tumbler of amber liquid with ice cubes in it sat on the coffee table in front of the couch; next to it was a very full ashtray. Not a foot away, perched on a stack of Ladies' Home Journals, was a picked-over frozen dinner. Karen's eyes, as she looked at me, showed a flicker of avid interest underlying the wariness, which I suspected was more habitual than personally directed against me. I'd clearly interrupted a boring evening. Perhaps-grim thought-all her evenings were like this. No wonder she was bitter.

I cleared my throat, trying to think of a graceful way to lead into my phony story, and my eye was caught by a framed eight-by-ten photograph on the table next to me. It
showed a young woman standing in front of a ranch house-the Hollister Ranch house, I realized with a jolt. The woman had long blond hair tied back in a ponytail and a youthful, shiny-eyed prettiness. The white dress was sashed at the waist and accentuated her prominent curves.

"Is that you?" I asked, trying to hide my surprise.

She laughed, a rough smoker's laugh, a sound without any humor or warmth. "I didn't always look like this, you know."

"I'm sorry," I said awkwardly. "I didn't mean to be rude." It's just, I added silently, that I hadn't realized Karen had been another pretty, curvy blonde. Jack, I now saw, had been very predictable.

"About this money," I began, not having any better ideas on how to lead into it smoothly, "I didn't want to put you in an uncomfortable position by talking to the police before I talked to you."

Karen shrugged. "Tell the police. I don't know what you're talking about anyway."

"Jack said he was going to give you some money," I said tentatively.

"Well, he owed it to me," she spat, a sudden flash of anger breaking through her reserve. Considering, she took a long drag on her cigarette and went on more calmly, "I didn't get anything out of the divorce. I can't even afford to buy a decent house. Jack owed me."

"You'll have plenty now," I said experimentally.

Karen laughed again-not a pleasant sound. ''Are you implying I killed him to get it?"

"Well no, of course not."

She puffed some more on her cigarette and looked away. "Just what are you here for, then?"

"I thought I should talk to you first ..." I began.

"You said that already." She coughed and looked at me sharply. "What's your interest?"

Having finagled my way in the door, I saw no harm in telling the truth. "My friend was out with Jack the night he was murdered. I introduced them, so I got questioned. I sort of got drug into the whole thing."

"So you're not Jack's latest floozy?"

"No."

She gave the harsh laugh. "I wondered. You're not his type."

That was true enough. Not blond, only average-sized tits, and, hopefully, a whole lot smarter.

"Have the police asked you for an alibi for the night of Jack's murder?" I asked her, wondering how far I'd get.

Apparently, I'd pushed too hard. Her face became hostile and suspicious; the brief window of curiosity snapped shut. "It's none of your business." She bit the words off. "You're not a reporter or a private detective or something, are you?"

"No, I'm a vet, like I told you."

"Well, no one thinks I killed Jack. And you'd better not be saying I did."

Her interest in me was dead. Her eyes went to the TV, which had been dinning mercilessly in our ears the whole time, some sitcom with bursts of frenetic conversation and blasts of canned laughter. I decided to make my exit before I was asked to. Karen's profile, angry and dissatisfied, didn't bode well for more cozy chatting.

"Thanks for your time," I said as I stood up.

She grunted or mumbled some response, not audible to me, and followed me to her front door. As she unbolted it, I stared at the nearest framed eight-by-ten on the wall in front of me. A closeup of three women, one of them recognizably Karen Harding, looking much as she did right now. The second woman was more or less the same age and very similar-looking. A sister? The third woman was younger-in her twenties-blond, pretty, uncannily familiar.

Karen had the door open. "Go on. I've had enough of your snooping around."

I stepped over the doorstep, started to turn around and heard the door slamming behind me. Our interview was definitely at an end. But that picture ...

I walked to the truck and unlocked it, wrapped in my own fog. The younger woman in the picture looked like the young Karen. A Karen with short, blond hair. But ...

It couldn't be, I told myself. It simply couldn't be. But I had to know. I started the truck and pulled out, reaching for the car phone as I did so, hoping I could remember the number.

It took several rings, but eventually a familiar voice said, "Hello?"

I couldn't think of a graceful way to do it. "Joanna, do you know someone named Karen Harding?"

Silence.

"This is Gail," I said at last.

"I know."

"Joanna, you'd better tell me," I said slowly. "I can find out, one way or another."

More silence.

"If I can find out, so can the cops. Joanna, is Karen related to you?"

"She's my aunt." Her voice was barely audible. "The reason I recognized Jack there in the coffee shop was that I'd seen pictures of him, that my mother had. I didn't want it to come up."

"Don't be stupid," I begged her. "It's bound to come out eventually. Why didn't you tell me? You didn't tell that detective either, did you?"

"Of course not. How do you think it would look to him? Here I am, without an extra nickel, and it turns out my aunt is going to inherit a lot of money when Jack died. And I happened to go out with him the night he was killed?"

"You knew Karen would inherit?"

"My mother told me that, years ago. She said Karen couldn't wait for the promiscuous son-of-a-bitch to kick the bucket."

"Did Jack know who you were when you went out with him?"

"No. He had no idea."

"Are you sure?"

"He never said anything, if he did."

"Have you been in touch with Karen?"

"No. I haven't talked to her in months. Like I told you, I didn't want the whole thing to come up."

We were both quiet. I had no idea what to say, or even what to think.

Joanna finally broke the silence. "I don't need any more stress in my life right now, Gail." She was almost pleading. "I'm trying to get over Todd and put my life together again, and I just want to be let alone to do it. All right?"

"I don't think it can happen like that," I said. "I think you need to talk to the cops and get this cleared up before they come looking for you."

"Well, I'm not going to. And if you're any kind of a friend at all, you won't tell them either."

Oh shit. Now she was mad. But there was one more thing I had to know. "Joanna, Karen didn't promise you any money after Jack died, did she?"

"Of course she didn't. I can't believe you said that." And Joanna hung up.

I listened to the buzz on the airwaves for a while, then slowly put the receiver back in its cradle. My thoughts were disconnected, drifting like thistledown on the wind. I made the turn onto Old San Jose Road without really seeing it and headed up the hill toward home.

Redwoods slipped by outside the truck windows; moonlight illuminated the rounded shoulders of the hills. I felt lost. I thought I knew Joanna, and yet did I? Did I know anyone, really?

Pulling into my driveway, I unlocked my front door, letting Blue and an instantly appearing Bonner inside. I thought about Karen, Laney, and Tara as I fed the two animals. Three women-so superficially different, so essentially alike. As I pulled off my clothes and wiggled gratefully between my flannel sheets, the one inescapable thought in my mind was that maybe Jack Hollister had been a lot different than I'd supposed.