Tango Key (4 page)

Eve left the room for a few minutes to turn on the flood lights in the backyard. Murphy's eyes followed her as she vanished through the door, then he glanced at Aline. "You okay?"

"I've been better. How was the boat race?"
How can I ask such a disgustingly normal question here? Now?
But Murphy didn't seem to find the question out of place, or if he did, he gave no indication.

"Pretty good. I came in eighth. I stopped by the station before going home and Roxie caught me. Right after that, she got a hold of Dobbs."

"He's here, too?"

"Outside."

"But he's vice."

"With guys like Cooper, this kind of murder might be drug-related."

A regular party, with a quarter of the summer staff present. The only person missing was Bernie. "She looks like Monica, doesn't she?" Aline said.

Murphy didn't nod, didn't say anything. He just looked down at his notebook again. The distance between them suddenly seemed enormous—a gulf, an ocean, unbreachable. Her throat tightened. She rubbed her aching temple, seeking another normal question to ask, as if the power of words alone could bridge the distance. But before she could think of anything, Eve returned.

"Let me show you those artifacts I was talking about."

What artifacts? She had obviously missed something important, but Murphy certainly knew what she was talking about, because he was already on his feet and following Eve before Aline had even risen from her chair. He stopped in the doorway and looked back like he'd just remembered she was here. A frown worked down between his walnut eyes. "You going to take a look at this stuff, Al?"

"Sure."

He waited for her in the doorway. "You okay?"

She wished he would stop asking her that. "What artifacts?"

"Cooper was an amateur archaeologist and supposedly has an impressive collection of ceramic artifacts. Pre-Columbian. Weren't you listening?"

"No, I was watching you salivate."

She shouldn't have said it. Not now. Not here, in the doorway of a house where a man had just been killed. "What the hell's that supposed to mean?" he snapped.

Like he didn't know. Like somewhere deep inside him there wasn't a small, tiny voice whispering,
She's Monica
.
She looks like Monica. She walks like Monica
. Like he was totally oblivious to the purely physical reactions of his body. She felt like weeping. She felt like pressing her face into the soft fabric of Murphy's shirt, and beating her fists against his chest like women did in the movies. Instead, she glared at him. "You figure it out." And she walked past him into the den where Eve had disappeared.

A spacious room, paneled in pine. The entire south wall was filled with law books. Along the east wall were filing cabinets and a fancy computer and printer. The north wall was home to a dozen or so artifacts that rested on a low bookcase under the window. No gold, no silver, just ceramic objects that seemed incongruous with the law books and computer, misplaced in time.

"I can print out that list of clients I mentioned, Detective Murphy," Eve said

Murphy, standing in the doorway, smiled. "Great. Thanks."

Aline suddenly hated him. She hated him and she hated Eve Cooper and she hated herself most of all for her moiling confusion, the violent swing of her emotions. She was supposed to be investigating a homicide, not measuring the temperature of Murphy's libido.

"We'll also need the name of your husband's attorney, Eve," she said.

"Carlos Ortiz."

She said it as if they would automatically know who he was, as though he were an F. Lee Bailey, a Melvin Belli, another media star. But, in fact, Aline did know who he was—and not because he was a spotlight lawyer. When you had lived most of your life in a place as small as Tango, a place whose year-round residents numbered about five thousand, you knew almost everyone by name. Ortiz was a Cuban who'd made a reputation for himself as an honest lawyer. So bully for Doug Cooper and his good taste in attorneys.

Aline watched as Eve's long graceful hands booted up the computer. A few minutes later the list of clients had been printed out and she had moved onto the business of the mysterious artifacts. She was opening a safe in the wall that had been hidden behind a rather hideous abstract painting. Aline's only thought was that it wasn't exactly an original hiding place for a safe.

"Doug's real love was archaeology. He traveled all the time. On digs, you know," Eve said.

"Alone?" Aline asked.

She shook her head; it made her shiny black curls bounce. "No, I don't think so. Sometimes I think Ed Waite went along. He's head of the archaeological foundation here on Tango. Maybe Ted Cavello went, too. I don't know."

"You didn't go on the digs?" Murphy inquired.

"No. He just got home from his last trip a couple of days ago."

"Where'd he go?" Aline asked.

"Somewhere in Colombia, I think."

You think? You don't know?

The door to the safe swung open. Inside were ceramic statues of animals and people, of birds and plants, and all of it smelled of antiquity. Eve held up a ceramic necklace, a plate, utensils, stuff so ancient that Aline was certain it would dissolve to dust before it was returned to the safe.

"Impressive," remarked Murphy.

"Yeah, I guess," Eve replied.

"Is this all of it?" Aline asked.

"As far as I know."

"How much was your husband worth, Eve?"

"I have no idea." Her lovely mouth flattened out like a dash.

"Oh, c'mon." Aline smiled. "No idea at all?"

She shrugged her thin shoulders, slipped her hands into the pockets of her shorts, tipped her head forward, shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "I know he was a multimillionaire, but I don't know specific figures."

"And his beneficiary?"

"Carlos can tell you all that. Doug was always changing his will, you know?" She looked at Murphy when she said it, as if sensing he was an ally.

"Is there anyone who could confirm that you were home all evening, Mrs. Cooper?" Murphy asked.

"I was here alone."

She stayed home alone, went to the beach alone, took drives alone—it made it sound like her name was Eve Alone Cooper, a woman whose life was lived entirely in the present tense.

"Maybe someone you talked to on the phone?"

She lifted her right foot and, with her toes, scratched at the back of her left calf. Aline thought she resembled a stork, a flamingo. One small shove and she'd topple.

Stop it.

"No. But I can tell you what shows I watched. I mean, I can describe the plots, you know?"

The eagerness in her voice was childlike and filled Aline with pathos. Eve and the TV, Eve and her sitcoms. Here she was, a woman lovelier than Aphrodite, sitting alone in her huge, expensive house, killing time. She felt a sudden urge to gather her into her arms and hold her, stroke her hair like she might a child's, and whisper that it was going to be all right. But in the next moment, when Eve looked directly at Murphy, she seemed adult, certain, coy, and Aline disliked her.

"I watched
Murder, She Wrote
," Eve went on. "It was a repeat. Does that count?"

Murphy looked embarrassed. He ran a finger over his upper lip, ruffling his dark mustache. "Did you leave the house after you got home for lunch? When Doug told you about his dinner tonight with Ted Cavello?"

She turned and closed the safe. She carefully replaced the picture on the wall. "Yeah. Let's see. I left the house again around two, I guess it was. I took the boat out for a couple of hours, and I was home by five."

Boat: the magic word. Murphy's face lit up. "What kind of boat?"

"A sloop. We've got a slip down at the marina."

Aline, anxious to steer the conversation away from boats, from anything Eve and Murphy might have in common, asked for a glass of water.

"I could fix a pot of coffee or tea or something," Eve said. "Would you guys like some?"

"No thanks," said Aline. "Just water."

"Sure," said Murphy. "I'd love some coffee."

Eve's laugh was soft, hoarse, not the laugh of a woman who'd found her husband's corpse less than an hour ago, and all Aline wanted to do was get away. She walked into the family room just as Jack Dobbs stepped through the sliding glass door from outside.

"Hey, Al."

"Is Bernie out there, too?"

"Nope. I think she's in Miami for the weekend. Roxie hounded me outta bed."

Bed this early on a Sunday night meant Dobbs was with one of his numerous ladies. "Yeah. I bet." She smiled. "You almost finished out there?"

"Just a few more pictures." Dobbs made a face and tilted his head toward the door. He and Aline stepped outside, onto the deck. "What d'you think?" he asked.

"Her alibi sucks."

Dobbs nodded and raked his fingers through his khaki hair. He had pale blue eyes, a hawkish nose, and a nice mouth, which at the moment struck Aline as severe. His broad chest and thick biceps were testimony to his greatest passion besides sailboats and women: weight lifting. "I'd say a couple of million is a pretty good motive."

"A couple of million? I think Cooper was worth a lot more than that."

"Hey, after one million, it becomes a little redundant, Al."

"She looks like Monica." Aline said this softly.

"Wrong. She's Monica's Doppelganger."

"You've seen her?"

"Yeah, when she turned on the floodlights. I nearly swallowed my tongue."

"Murphy's doing more than that."

Dobbs scratched at his temple, studied the ground, looked up again. The lines at the corners of his eyes, a seaman's eyes, deepened. "Murphy knows what's what, Al."

"Not when it comes to Monica, he doesn't."

He didn't seem to know what to say, and Aline felt foolish. Dobbs and Murphy had been friends for fifteen years. He'd been best man at Murphy's wedding. They'd been partners in vice together, before Murphy had been moved to homicide. They boated together. And here she was, maligning Murphy's judgment to his closest friend. Yeah, she was doing just terrific tonight. In fact, she was doing so great, she decided to go home. She had nothing more to ask Eve at the moment anyway, and she was sure that anything she'd forgotten, Murphy or Dobbs would cover.

"See you tomorrow, Jack," she said, and left.

July 5, 5:40 P.M.

S
he moves her cheek up and down against the dirty floor, trying to roll the blindfold off her eyes. The pine floor has spalled over the years from neglect, and now and then a thin, sharp splinter pokes into her skin. But Eve keeps moving her cheek up and down, up and down, the small movements of her head sending shoots of pain down through her neck and the right side of her body, the side she is lying on.

C'mon, you can do it.

She can do anything. That's what her old man used to tell her, especially when he was drunk. She remembers him sitting at The Dew Drop Inn in downtown Arcadia, hunched over his mug of ice cold beer, his words slurring. "Girl who looksa like you can d 'anythin' she sets her mind to. Anythin'. Your ma coulda done anythin', too, but she married me instead. Her ma shoulda tol' her it's jus' as easy to fall for a rich man as a poor man. You 'member that, Eve. You 'member that good."

She remembered it. And look where it got her.

She hears something. A car. Oh God, a car, his car. She knows it, is suddenly certain of it. She freezes, her cheek squashed against the floor, her breath coming so hard she nearly chokes on it because of the gag. Her heart slams against her ribs; her blouse is wet with sweat. She smells herself. She stinks of the hot dust in Arcadia. She starts to cry, but stops quickly because otherwise her nose will stuff and she'll suffocate. She strains to catch the smallest sound. Nothing. Maybe it was just a car passing on the Old Post Road. If it were his car, wouldn't she hear his footsteps by now? Wouldn't she hear him rapping his knuckles on the glass, saying,
Hi, babe. I'm home, babe.

The only thing she hears is the muted cries of a flock of wild parrots, flying over the island as they always do during the late afternoon. She can see them in her mind's eye, dark shapes against a saffron sky, passing directly over the farmhouse and the forest of trees around it. Where do they sleep at night? Where do they come from? Where do they go? In Arcadia, she used to ask these questions about herself, not about animals or birds. That's how far she has come, she thinks, and starts to laugh, laughs until she is crying.

No no no. No crying.

She swallows her cries, swallows them fast, tries to think of something else, something happy. She resumes moving her cheek against the floor in an attempt to roll the blindfold off her eyes.
What's my happiest memory?
The day she hitched out of Arcadia, left it behind for good. Yes, all right. She will think of that. And of her wedding. A wonderful wedding. But the two events are like islands, isolated in a sea of ugly memories. It's as if the highs were so high, the only place to go was down.