The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True (99 page)
Read The Carson Springs Trilogy: Stranger in Paradise, Taste of Honey, and Wish Come True Online
Authors: Eileen Goudge
Tags: #Fiction, #General
A Carson Springs Novel (Book Three)
By Eileen Goudge
For
Susan Ginsburg:
friend and agent, from beginning to end.
Be careful what you wish for.
—Chinese Proverb
Just as she was stepping into the carriage, the good fairy said,
“Mind, whatever you do, don’t be later than twelve,” and warned her, that if she did not leave in time, her carriage would turn back into a pumpkin, her horses to mice, her coachman to a rat, her footmen to lizards, and her dress to rags …
—Cinderella (McLoughlin Bros., New York, 1897)
A
NNA
V
INCENZI HAD NEVER
seen so many reporters. Not even in the days when her sister’s every move was gobbled up by millions hungry for the smallest scrap—or in the aftermath of the accident that had left Monica paralyzed from the waist down. They swarmed like insects at the end of the drive, where it emptied onto Old Sorrento Road, jockeying for position, Minicams and boom mikes poised to strike. Lining the road were interchangeable white panel trucks sprouting satellite dishes and antennae nearly as tall as the surrounding sycamores. A blond female anchor decorously holding a microphone to her glossy lips stood with her back to the hedge in the glare of a handheld reflector while a scruffy-looking cameraman filmed her stand-up. For a disoriented instant, as the patrol car bumped its way down the potholed drive amid a boiling cloud of dust, Anna felt as though she were watching it all on TV. Then someone shouted, “It’s her!” and all hell broke loose.
Panic sluiced through her in an icy wave as bodies surged around the car, slowing it to a crawl. Knuckles rapped against her window and faces loomed into view, distorted by the sun’s glare glancing off the dust-streaked glass. A man’s voice bellowed, “Anna! Can you comment on your arrest?” Another one rasped, “Did ya do it? Did you kill her, Anna?” The cop behind the wheel, a heavyset middle-aged man with pale creases on the back of his tanned neck, swore. “Christ. Don’t they feed these animals?” Anna wanted to shout,
I’m innocent! This is all a mistake!
But when she reached for the button to roll her window down she once more became aware of the handcuffs holding her shackled at the wrists, and stopped short.
That was when it sank in: She was under arrest. Which was why, on this sunny day in April, with the daylilies in bloom and the acacia snowing yellow blossoms over the mailbox—which leaned drunkenly, a legacy from when Finch had been learning to drive—she was on her way downtown to be booked.
A wave of dizziness spiraled up and the world went pale and grainy, like the snowy reception on the old black-and-white Zenith in her mother’s bedroom. She thought,
This isn’t happening.
In fact, the past few days had been nothing short of surreal—starting early Friday morning with the hysterical call from Arcela. Even with all that had happened since, it still hadn’t sunk in. How could her sister be
dead
? It was like trying to grasp that the planet had spun off its axis.
It was 70 degrees outside but Anna was chilled to the bone. With some difficulty—the handcuffs made even the slightest movement ungainly—she drew about her a sweater that she’d grabbed from the closet on her way out the door and that was several sizes too big. She must have forgotten to pack it up with the rest of her fat clothes. Her mouth flickered in a small ironic smile. And she’d thought being overweight was her biggest worry.
The patrol car slowed to a near standstill. Vic Purdy, in the passenger seat, a veteran cop with more than thirty years under his belt—one that over time had had to be let out a few notches to accommodate his ever-expanding girth—rolled his window down to bark, “Move it along, folks! You’ll all get your chance down at the courthouse!”
A set of meaty fingers hooked over Vic’s partially lowered window and a face loomed into view, only its upper half visible: a pair of beady eyes peering from under an australopithecine brow. “Anna! Did ya do it for the money? Your sister must’ve left you a bundle.” The fingers were snatched back just in time to keep them from being caught in the window as it whirred up. The cop behind the wheel muttered another curse and gunned the engine. They jerked forward, the throng fanning out on either side, then with a final lurch over the worst of the potholes, in which every spring at least one hapless motorist became mired, they were on the road.
Hearing her name spoken—no, shouted—had had the effect of cold water being dashed over her. Ever since she could remember, it had been Monica in the spotlight, Monica they clamored for. Few had even noticed Monica’s mousy nobody of a sister—whose last name was Vincenzi, not Vincent—standing quietly off to the side. Anna might have found it exciting, that
she
was the center of attention now, if the circumstances that had placed her there hadn’t been so ghastly.
The patrol car picked up speed as it headed toward town, a pale scarf of dust twisting in its wake. Anna sat rigidly in her seat, staring out the window at the fields and pastures scrolling past. They rattled over cattle grids and jounced over potholes. Cows and horses, peacefully grazing, flashed by like storybook images from a period in her life long past. The cop seated beside her, a young Hispanic woman, asked if she wanted the air conditioner turned down. Anna, who hadn’t realized she was shivering, turned toward her, noticing her for the first time,
IRMA RODRIGUEZ
, her nameplate read. She had glossy black hair pulled back in a braid and would have been pretty if not for the acne that had ravaged her face. Anna found herself mentally counseling:
Eat plenty of leafy green vegetables, stay away from saturated fats, and cleanse with a good exfoliant.
But Irma Rodriguez wasn’t one of Monica’s fans seeking advice.
Anna recalled the last e-mail to which she’d replied, just hours before word came of Monica’s death.
From: [email protected]
RE: What now?
Dear Jolene,
What’s going to be different this time? From what you’ve told me, he’s begged your forgiveness before. If he were really sincere, he’d get help. But if he won’t, that shouldn’t stop you from doing so. If not for yourself, then for your kids. Do you want them growing up this way? Do you think the fact that he hasn’t hit them—yet—is any reason to keep from leaving him? There are other ways to damage a child, believe me.
Now she would never know how it had all turned out. Not just for Jolene, but for the countless others to whom she’d doled out big sisterly advice, everything from beauty tips to safe sex. What if they found out she had been posing as Monica? Would they feel betrayed, thinking it some sort of cruel joke, not something she’d fallen into almost by accident, the result of Monica’s indifference to her fans? The thought brought a sharp stab to the pit of her stomach. Would she get the chance to tell them she’d had only their best interests at heart?
Irma offered her a stick of gum. Anna sensed she was nervous, like someone on a first date. Crimes of this sort were almost unknown in Carson Springs. There’d been the nun murders the year before last, but Sister Beatrice was now safely locked away in an institution for the criminally insane. Other than that, the most that ever happened were Waldo Squires’s overnight detentions for being drunk and disorderly. Now, with Monica’s death, cops whose public exposure had been limited to addressing the town council about such matters as the need for more parking meters downtown found themselves thrust into the glare of the limelight.
It seemed suddenly essential to Anna that she have at least one ally. “I was home that night.” She spoke in a near whisper. “Watching TV.”
Irma’s expression remained impassive. Anna’s panic mounted. Should she have said instead that she’d loved Monica, that she wouldn’t have lifted a finger against her? Was that even true? At one time it might have been, but toward the end she
had
imagined how much easier her life would be without her sister.
“You got a lawyer?” Irma chewed her gum placidly, her jaw rotating like those of the cows in the fields.
Anna shook her head. “I didn’t know I’d need one.”
“You do now.”
Irma regarded her curiously. Anna knew she didn’t look anything like the usual murder suspect. In her navy skirt and pale blue top, the gold studs in her ears and small gold cross about her neck her only adornments, she might have been on her way to a job interview.
They turned onto the highway, where the blacktop smoothed and pastures gave way to row upon row of trees laden with oranges so perfectly round and bright that from a distance they appeared artificial, like a child’s crayon drawing of an orange grove. Here and there amid the dappled shade, fat white geese, fiercer than dogs in guarding against trespassers, strutted like pompous little generals. Amid the Technicolor landscape, they might have been creatures in an animated Disney film.
Farther off in the distance, a sprawl of green hills rose to meet the snow-capped mountains beyond, sparkling jewellike in the overturned bowl of sky that washed their valley in sunlight nearly year round. Her eyes watered with their brilliance, and she wished she’d thought to grab her sunglasses on the way out.
Always pack a hat, sunglasses, and sun block when going on a trip. You can never be too careful.
How many times had she dispensed that particular pearl of wisdom?
It occurred to her that where she was going she wouldn’t be needing any of those things. But before panic could once more take hold, she told herself,
As soon as we get there, it’ll all be straightened out.
They’d see it was a mistake, that she wasn’t guilty of anything worse than the overdue fine for a parking ticket she’d neglected to pay. But minutes later her pulse was still racing and her palms sweating as they turned off Mariposa onto the palm-lined drive fronting the municipal building that housed the police station and courthouse.
A Victorian white elephant, originally the home of the Mendoza family—descendants of the valley’s early Spanish settlers, known as the
gente de razon
—it stood four stories, with enough in the way of gables and gingerbread to employ every painter in town. It was graced with an impressive array of stained glass said to be actual Tiffany, yet as they cruised up the drive, Anna’s eyes were on the reporters clustered on the steps outside. The same ones as at the house, or was this a whole new bunch? God, how many
were
there?
The car rolled to a stop, and Irma took firm hold of her elbow as they emerged into the open. Anna instinctively ducked her head, bringing her hands up to shield her face from view. Voices shouted her name. Camera flashes sizzled between cupped fingers. She caught the mingled odors of sweat, cigarette smoke, and perfume. The heat of all those bodies crushing in sent a bolt of terror slamming through her. Her knees buckled, but strong arms held her up on either side. Before she knew it, she was inside, being hustled down a fluorescent-lit hallway.
Police headquarters, such as it was, consisted of several rows of Eisenhower-era desks crowded into what had once been a ground-floor parlor. On the high ceiling, plaster rosettes were still visible in places not covered in Sheetrock and acoustical tiles. Beige metal filing cabinets lined the wall at one end and at the other sat the dispatch sergeant at his station. She caught a whiff of fried coffee and something else, a smell she associated with institutions—schools and hospitals and standing in line at the DMV. Everyone stopped what they were doing to look up at her, and Anna had the sense of time stopping, like in a movie freeze frame.