Thai Die (20 page)

They were very interested in Dorie’s immediate history of burglary and another attack—the details of which were mostly given by Phil, as Dorie wanted only to sit in a deep, silent corner of the couch, with an occasional tear sliding down her cheek. But they noted that very few people knew she was at the Diamond house, and so the attack was more likely aimed at Carmen. They advised them all to go somewhere else for the night, maybe for several nights.

“Where can we go that would be safer than here?” asked Carmen. “I won’t leave the dogs behind, because who knows how long we’d have to be gone, and they’re like identifying markers to anyone who knows us.” She was the devoted “mama” to a pair of identical white miniature poodles.

“I’ll go,” volunteered Dorie, the first thing she’d said in an hour.

“No, you won’t!” said Richard. “For one thing, we don’t know for sure if Carmen was the target. It might be you. So think how we’d feel if we put you out there and something happened. And another thing, unless you’re willing to go to jail—God forbid—there’s no safer place than here. We’ve got steel doors with deadbolt locks and even a couple of rooms without any windows.” He smiled. “Okay, two are bathrooms and the other’s a walk-in closet—but still, no windows, no outside walls. You’re our guest and we don’t toss guests overboard when things get a little tight. Which reminds me, how about a drink?”

The police refused, of course, and after promising to make extra patrols, they left.

Richard went into the dining room and began to make clinking sounds.

Doris said to Phil, “Did you call Betsy? She should know about this.”

Phil said, “Yes, I left a message, but she hasn’t called back. I’ve phoned around to see if anyone knows where she is. Goddy said she went out on a date.”

Carmen said, “I phoned and sent her an e-mail. She’ll get in touch, hon, just be patient.”

Richard came back with a tray of short, stout glasses. “Here we go!” he said, more jovially than he probably felt, setting the tray on the coffee table. He looked around, as if to see if the recent excitement had marred the room. This prompted Phil to look around, too.

The room, a big one in an old, sprawling ranch, was both comfortable and comforting, its pastel-painted walls lit by standard and table lamps. Even Carmen was wearing a soothing dress, a lightweight wool in soft lavender. The two white dogs lying on a big, flat pillow nearby were possibly the best-behaved miniature poodles on the planet. They sat up to watch Richard put the tray down, but didn’t come over to wrap themselves around his legs in an attempt to trip him, or climb up on the table to sniff the drinks, or begin barking for no discernible reason. They merely sat up, like polite little animals acknowledging the arrival of a senior member of the pack. That, too, was soothing.

Carmen smiled fondly at the pair. “Love you, babies,” she said to them, and they turned their heads in unison to grin at her.

“What?” asked Dorie, raising her head.

“My puppies are behaving well, so I told them I loved them.”

“Oh,” said Dorie. “Yes, they are sweet.”

“I always try to praise them when they do well. I think they understand when I say nice things to them.”

“Yes, they probably do,” said Phil, a trifle too enthusiastically. “She really can talk to these two,” he said to Dorie. “I’ve been watching her.”

Richard pressed a glass of scotch and soda into Dorie’s hand. “Try this and tell me if it’s okay.” He handed the other drinks around. Carmen shared a smile with her husband as she took hers.

Phil took a small swallow, and his face lit up. “Wow, this is
nice
!” he said.

Dorie took a sip of hers. “Nice,” she agreed, but absently.

“Take a bigger drink,” urged Phil. “It’ll make you feel better, I promise.”

“Nothing . . .” began Dorie, but then she obediently took another swallow. “It’s good, thank you,” she murmured.

“Doris,” said Carmen, putting her drink down untasted, “this is ridiculous. That doctor at the emergency room gave me some pills for you. The two you agreed to take are for pain, but the other two still in my purse are to make you sleep. I’m going to insist you take them. You really, really need more help to get through this than any of us, or even a whole bottle of scotch, can give you. What you need is a nice, long sleep to give you some distance from this.”

“No, no!” cried Dorie. “What if he comes back, and I’m asleep?”

“Wait right here,” said Richard as he turned and strode swiftly from the room. He was back a couple of minutes later, holding under one arm a Remington 870 pump shotgun, twelve-gauge with a barrel you could park a small automobile in, and in the other hand a big, matte black semiautomatic pistol. “Phil, do you know how to use one of these?” he asked, nodding toward the pistol.

“Of course I do,” said Phil. “I have a sharpshooter’s medal at home somewhere. Back of my sock drawer, I think. It was a while ago, but I cut my army teeth on a semiautomatic.”

Richard handed the gun to Phil, then stooped to look Dorie in the face, laying the shotgun on the floor at her feet. She stared at it. “Listen to me,” he said, and her eyes went obediently to his. “Phil and I are going to stay up while you sleep. We will lock all the doors and windows in the house, and we will walk through the house every fifteen minutes, looking into every room, out every window, checking every door. And I swear to you that Phil or I will blow away any son of a bitch stupid enough to try sneaking up to hurt you or my darling wife.”

Dorie blinked at him, but did not reply.

Darling wife Carmen said, “The dogs will stay up as long as anyone in the house is awake. They’re too little to be of much use in an actual fight, of course, but they will bark if they see or smell or hear a stranger. Nobody, nowhere, no how, is going to bother us.” She came over to kneel at Dorie’s feet, resting one hand on her knee. “I am going to sit up with you in one of those window-less rooms. I’ve been meaning to learn to knit, and I’ve got some yarn and a pair of knitting needles and a book of instructions.” She smiled. “The frustration alone will keep me awake.”

Dorie looked up and around at them, her face a white blank. “Thank you,” she said.

 

 

WEDNESDAY morning Betsy nearly shut the alarm off when it started playing classical music at five fifteen. She got up extra early on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, so that she could drive to the Courage Center in Golden Valley for water aerobics. It was the only exercise program she had ever managed to stick to, mostly because it was early enough in the morning that it didn’t put a hole in her day. Also, she’d become good friends with everyone else who participated. She was already at the bottom of the stairs when her phone began to ring, so she didn’t hear it.

At six thirty Betsy waded gratefully into breast-high warm water and began taking broad side steps, raising and lowering her arms in the water. The Courage Center’s Olympic-sized pool had flat platforms that stepped down at wide intervals, rather than the sloping bottom of most pools. There were about nine other women there, most of them her age or older, and two men, all stepping sideways, warming up. Greetings were murmured as they passed one another. Classic rock was playing, not too loud. Instructor Vicki stepped into the pool and called them to order. First head-to-toe stretches, then a slow jog, and pretty soon they were stepping lively, their heart rates at or close to where they needed to be.

Betsy was blithely doing jumping jacks while everyone else had moved on to cross-country ski movements. Vicki’s instructions were tangled up in thoughts about the Thai silk case.

Her first thought was about Doris. She recalled the bright and happy woman who had come home from Thailand, and the subdued, frightened, humbled woman who had haunted her apartment the past couple of days. Doris seemed to be suffering posttraumatic stress disorder, and small wonder. What an ugly reward for helping out an American doing business in Thailand!

“Hopscotch!” called Vicki, and Betsy came to herself and began swiftly reaching for her right foot with her left hand, then reversing the gesture.

Had David Corvis known Doris was coming to visit his silk factory? Was she somehow pointed out to him or pushed in his direction? How? And by whom? Or could it be a coincidence that David met an American woman who lived within easy driving distance of Fitzwilliam’s Antiques? Maybe he had a whole set of addresses all over the United States and would use whatever tourist he connected with who came near one of them.

Now Vicki was doing one of her strange combinations of arm movements and Betsy had to stop musing and concentrate. Vicki called the chant: “Out, out, wide, wide, up, up, in, in.”

It was a few minutes later, while doing the grapevine step across the pool, that Betsy noticed a situation forming. One of her classmates Dave Waterfill had an amusing predilection for gently nudging or splashing April and then claiming loudly that April was picking on him. But April was home recovering from surgery. Betsy saw him look around, as if searching for another victim. He was a handsome man despite his balding head, with a strong build and a captivating Kentucky accent. He came to the pool because he was facing arthroscopic surgery on his knees and wanted to stretch and strengthen his leg muscles in preparation.

Dave’s eye settled on Irene, who was stocky without being fat and who had the most beautiful smile Betsy had ever seen. Her mouth was shapely and she had deep dimples. When she smiled, everyone in range felt better. On the other hand, she was black and Dave was a southerner, so when Betsy saw him focus on her, she held her breath. Dave moved subtly out of his path to nudge her on the shoulder as they passed one another. It could have been an accident: They each murmured “Sorry,” and kept going.

But Irene evidently saw something in Betsy’s face when this happened. She flashed her smile at Betsy and continued grapevining placidly across the pool. On her way back, Irene deftly avoided another collision and flicked a few drops of water, hard, onto the back of Dave’s head. Dave saw Betsy watching and shouted, “You saw that! You saw that! First April, now Irene! Can’t get a moment’s peace in this place!” Amid the laughter Betsy was reminded that not all southerners were bigots—and that in her own concern for Irene, she was herself guilty of condescending racism.

 

 

 

BACK home, Betsy had a quick breakfast and gave Sophie her meager breakfast of Science Diet dry cat food. She was engaged in an ongoing battle with Sophie. She wanted Sophie to lose weight, and Sophie felt every ounce gained was more insurance against famine. Betsy would have won long ago, if only her customers would stop sabotaging her efforts by slipping the cat little bites of candy, bread, cheese, or whatever else they brought into the shop—some of it deliberately meant for Sophie.

She brushed crumbs off her trousers. It was going to be an overcast day, so she wore a bright pink pantsuit and matching shoes. She powdered her face lightly, darkened her eyebrows, applied lipstick, and put on her sterling-silver earrings. It was not yet nine; the shop opened at ten, so now she had time for the Internet. She usually read parts of the
Washington Post
, the
St. Paul Pioneer Press
, and James Lileks’s blog, Bleat.

But today she noted an unusual number of e-mails waiting for her, almost every one from the Monday Bunch.

The latest one, from Phil, had just an exclamation point in the subject line. She clicked it open and was confronted with an angry message:

 

Betsy pulled her clenched fists against her chest while she read the message.
She’d told Doris she was safe, but she was wrong.

The woman who came after Doris in St. Peter was dead. Who was this new person?

She hurried into the living room, looked up and dialed the number of the Diamond house.

“Hello!” said a curt male voice.

“Mr. Diamond?”

“Who is this?”

“Sorry, I’m Betsy Devonshire, Doris’s friend.”

“All right. But you can’t talk to her, she’s asleep.”

Betsy asked warily, “Is something wrong over there?”

“There better not be. Phil and I are armed and dangerous.”

Good Lord! “May I speak with Phil?”

“Hang on. Yo, Phil! Front and center!” Now he sounded like a drill sergeant.

“It’s me, Betsy,” she said when Phil answered. “And don’t yell at me, I’m just sick that I didn’t find out until now! Is Doris all right?”

“Yes. We finally talked her into taking a couple of sleeping pills the doctor gave us, and she’s asleep. Richard’s touring the house, and Carmen’s asleep—she sat up all night watching over Dorie. It was rough getting Dorie to take those pills. She was scared to go to sleep.”

“I can imagine. What happened last night?”

“Well, they told me things went to hell around eight. Dorie was in the guest room trying on a new dress, and someone shot at her through the window. The police think they shot at her reflection in a mirror instead of her—I guess the light wasn’t good. She’s got cuts and bruises all over her.”

“Why is she still there? Why didn’t they take her into protective custody or something?”

“Because they’re not sure the shooter was after her. It might’ve been Carmen, you know. She was standing with her back to the window, after all.”

“So why didn’t they take both of them?”

“Because Carmen won’t go without Richard and her dogs, and Dorie won’t go if Carmen is staying. Damn fool women!”

“Why would someone want to kill Carmen?”