The Man on the Washing Machine (12 page)

I put the sunglasses down and started to leave, carefully skirting the pile of plastic sandals, when unbidden, a hasty, daring little plan sprang full-formed into my mind. I ran my fingers over a display of hair ornaments. O'Brien saw me once, for a couple of minutes in the dark, when his night vision was destroyed by the utility room lights and when I was wearing glasses instead of my contacts. I picked up a pair of the sandals. But I didn't have my wallet. I automatically patted the front of my jeans. The change from lunch and my daisy purchase was crumpled in my pocket. Well, I thought with a sort of inner shrug and an undeniable tremor, maybe the thrill of the hunt was more addictive than I knew.

I picked up some of Marilyn's ridiculous merchandise on my way back to the cash register, paid for it, and asked if I could use her restroom. She nodded toward the back of the store. It was typical of the minute spaces we spare from the selling floor—two folded strollers in plastic bubble wrap took up most of it, and a gargantuan plastic pack of toilet paper rolls took up the rest. Not that I felt superior. Most of my similar facility was crowded with folded cardboard cartons and Davie's bicycle.

I ruffled my hair and worried the bangs until they stuck out at odd angles, then pulled it back at one side and checked the effect in the mirror. The change from dignified shopkeeper to wild woman was a little surprising. I made a small grin at my reflection.

I gave the orange daisy to Marilyn and left the little store with a few cents in my pocket, and the memory of her gratified, if puzzled, expression.

Four pairs of eyes glanced up at me as I walked into AcmeTax, and a man with his back to me was pouring coffee into a Styrofoam cup. The office needed some TLC—there were faint patches on the beige walls where old posters or memos had been torn off leaving little scraps of paper and tape, and a few of the floor tiles were curling at the edges. Computer cables, attached to the floor with duct tape, snaked across the aisle between the two lines of desks. The place was murmuring with the sound of tapping keyboards and it looked—ordinary.

O'Brien's black raincoat, meticulously buttoned around a wooden hanger, still hung behind his desk. His dark gray suit looked freshly pressed. A peak of pale blue in his breast pocket looked spiffy with his navy blue tie, not to mention the freshly laundered pale blue shirt with charcoal and white stripes, complete with impeccable French cuffs. He was still intent on his computer screen, but every now and again he made a little rat-a-tat on his desk with the eraser end of his pencil.

“Bay I hep yew?” the receptionist said miserably. She had “Maryanne” embroidered on the collar of her blouse.

“I'd like to see Mr. O'Brien,” I said.

Charlie O'Brien, alias Mushroom Head, aka The Man on the Washing Machine, looked up at the sound of his name, scuffed his files together in a pile as I approached, and half rose from his seat. He looked at me expectantly but, I was relieved to see, with no hint of recognition. I sat gingerly in the folding metal chair he waved me into and took a deep breath.

“I'm planning a small business and I need someone to help me with my books and taxes and so on. I happened to mention it to someone and he gave me your name.” I licked my dry lips. I was more nervous than I expected. Suppose he recognized my voice?

Folding his pudgy hands together on the desktop he simply said in a completely even tone: “What kind of business are you in?” He was resting his sleeve in a small pile of crumbs.

“Uh … small baked goods. Cupcakes. Muffins. Things like that.”

He grunted and reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a printed form of some sort.

I watched him closely. I'd never seen anyone who looked more like an accountant in my life. The lines in his face were different from the night before, slack, instead of anxious, and definitely unhostile. It made him look different. I experienced another tiny doubt. Maybe I was wrong about this. He picked a pencil from the pot in front of him and reached for a yellow legal pad. The pot was decorated with little shamrocks. And he was still wearing his shamrock lapel pin. And now I could see a bruise on his forehead where my pot of oregano had made landfall.

“And the address?”

“Excuse me? Oh. Before I go into that, I was wondering if you could give me a couple of references. Clients,” I added when he looked at me blankly. “You know, people for whom you've worked.”

He looked vaguely around the surface of his desk, as if a few of them were going to materialize next to the telephone. “Well, lemme see. Around here, d'you mean?”

I nodded. I'd been thinking about it. This guy had been skittering around on our roofs. And if Sabina's fever-induced memory was right, he'd been there more than once. Climbing up there from the street was impossible without a man lift or scaffolding; he must have been in one of the buildings backing into Fabian Gardens. So he had a client, or a friend or knew someone in the neighborhood, didn't he? I'd gotten that far when I realized I still didn't have a clear motive for what I was doing. If I didn't plan to tell the police I wasn't going to put anything I learned to any practical use. Still, he might not know it, but I'd paid him back for the fright he'd given me.

“Sure. Well—” He nibbled the end of his pencil. “I'll write down a couple and … er … I guess you could ask them if our work is okay. Is that what you mean?”

“That'd be great,” I said, and fiddled with my sunglasses.

What could he possibly have been doing in my nearly empty apartment? I was trying to look unconcerned and doing my best to read his file folder labels upside down, when I heard a vaguely familiar voice. I ducked my head and pretended to adjust my haircomb. I could feel the nylon antennae quivering and the tiny pearls bobbing around.

“Thanks a lot, Maryanne,” the voice said, and the owner of it—complete with rough profile, leather jacket, and gold earring—threw his Styrofoam cup into a wastepaper basket and started in my direction. I bent to adjust one of my new plastic sandals and he hesitated as he drew level with Charlie O'Brien's desk, but his stride picked up and he passed me. I heard him say something and the young receptionist giggled, the door closed, and I breathed easier. Not that I expected my new tenant to recognize me; we'd only met once and at that in the half dark of Coconut Harry's. Still, I was glad somehow he hadn't seen me in my fantastic plastic.

“I wouldn't get all hot and bothered, he's probably gay,” someone said from the front of the office.

I almost opened my mouth to argue before I realized the remark wasn't aimed at me.

“He id nod!” Maryanne said indignantly.

I wouldn't bet on it either, I thought. I'd have to ask Nat what he thought. And then I wondered why I cared.

“Here's a list of some of my clients,” Charlie O'Brien was saying. “I'm sure they'd give us a good reference.”

He didn't actually look all that sure; he erased one of the names, blew the eraser crumbs all over me, and handed me the list. I stuffed it in my bag and stood up.

“Good to meet you, Ms. Er—”

“Holmes,” I said. And barely stopped myself from groaning aloud.

“Good to meet you, Ms. Holmes. I hope you'll be in touch.” He held out his hand for me to shake and I took it as briefly as I could. It was soft and warm. His small brown eyes looked smug and unsuspicious. I decided I had pushed everything as far as I could. There was no point in lingering.

And then the whole charade blew up in my face.

I got halfway across the aisle toward the front door when I tripped over a computer cable. My sunglasses flew off in one direction and my haircomb in another, and both pieces of finery slithered along the floor out of reach. Maryanne picked up my haircomb.

While I was trying to grope for my sunglasses without showing my face, Charlie O'Brien took a few heavy steps in my direction.

“Hey, wait!” he said.

I pushed the glasses onto my face and turned back and he held out my plastic shopping bag—the one with my ballet slippers and Aromas apron in it.

“You forgot your bag,” he said. He was frowning. I clutched it to me hastily.

“Thanks. Thanks very much. Talk to you soon.”

“Here's your cobe,” Maryanne said. “Are you okay?” She giggled.

I grabbed it and threw it in the bag.

“Thanks. Gotta go. Thanks, everybody,” I babbled, and blundered through the door and onto the street.

Charlie O'Brien was still standing in the aisle. I saw his expression change as I ran past the window of AcmeTax.

He looked as if he'd been kicked in the stomach.

 

CHAPTER TWELVE

When I got back to Aromas, Haruto was alone in the store, sweeping something off the floor. Obviously his bamboo fence had gone well, or the surfing had been good, because he was humming to himself. He was wearing a green kimono jacket over his jeans and his ponytail was wrapped into a samurai knot with raffia. He looked up with a professionally bright smile as the doorbell jangled. His change of expression when he recognized me was comical.

“Let me know if—? Theo?”

“It's okay, Haruto. What got broken?”

“The Waterford jar of lemon soaps is no more, a hundred and seventy-four bucks, retail.”

“Damn.”

“Davie said you flew out of here at a speed a notch below supersonic—I'm paraphrasing, but that's what he would have said if he'd thought of it. Said you knocked it over as you leaped over the counter like Wonder Woman.” He grinned at me.

“Right, I remember now.” I limped into the office and collapsed into my chair. My walk home from AcmeTax had been sobering. I'd done a reality check and drawn a couple of conclusions, none of them comforting. Charlie O'Brien was a nut. Maybe a dangerous nut. If he crawled around on rooftops regularly, maybe he was the one who shoved Tim Callahan to his death—if Tim was murdered, which Lichlyter had implied was all too likely. So Charlie O'Brien was a nut and a possible murderer. And if I'd judged his expression correctly, he'd recognized me. And he knew where to find me. I groaned and put my head in my hands. I felt sick from adrenaline rush and my head was thumping.

“Theo?” Haruto's soft inquiry from the doorway made me jump. His eyebrows almost disappeared into his hairline.

I tossed my pearl-and-antennae haircomb, the lipstick, and the sunglasses into the plastic bag and pulled out my apron. My ballet slippers were ruined, so I kept the beige plastic sandals on my feet. I threw the bag and its contents into the trash basket and stood up to wrap my apron around me. Haruto filled the electric kettle. Wisps of steam were drifting from the spout by the time I'd run a comb through my hair and returned it to its everyday smoothness.

“Tea?” he said blandly.

“Please.”

I was staring into space when he put the mug of tea in front of me. I jumped again.

“Not the unflappable boss lady today,” he said thoughtfully. “Let's see. You disappear and come home disguised as a mall moll. Davie departs the scene the instant I appear with a garbled excuse about a bald washing machine or a bold washing machine. Some kind of washing machine. A large cop appears and asks me what the trouble is. I stand in the middle of the store shrugging and he stomps off in disgust. And that adds up to what exactly?” He wrinkled his brow. “Darned if I know.” He hesitated, as if waiting for me to explain.

I replayed a mental image of an enraged Charlie O'Brien throwing me off my own roof. It wasn't a reassuring image. “What do you mean?” I said faintly. “Isn't Davie here?”

“Nope. Gone with the wind.”

“Where?”

“No idea. He ran out—near mowed me down on his way out.”

The bell jangled out front. Haruto patted my hand. “I'll get it,” he said. “Drink your drink. Cool shoes,” he added with another grin on his way out the door.

But it wasn't a customer; it was Davie. I heard Haruto's half-scolding, half-teasing tones. “Where have you been, little brother? Mama's back and she wants to know what you've been doing.”

But Davie was uncharacteristically stubborn about saying where he'd been and started to get upset at Haruto's insistence. I decided I didn't care and told them to cut it out and keep quiet. While they served customers and kept my business afloat I shut myself in the office and sipped my tea and worried about Charlie O'Brien coming to—well, to do what? He knew where I lived. He knew where I worked. What was I going to do? I retrieved the list from my pocket and anxiously read through the references he'd given me. I didn't recognize any until I got to the end.

The last name and address was Aromas. Crap!

I snatched up the telephone as if jabbed by a cattle prod and called the police. I asked for Inspector Lichlyter, but she was “unavailable.” The officer I spoke to was suspicious. There's no other word for it. If I knew this man, why didn't I report the incident last night? Since I had alerted him, he might have run away, he said, managing to suggest that I had been both negligent and meddlesome at the same time. I hung up the phone, damp with apprehension.

Charlie O'Brien had asked for Nicole by name. Maybe I should start there. But she didn't pick up when I called and when I stopped off at her apartment after closing that evening, she either wasn't there, or didn't answer her door. I called again later, but had to content myself with leaving a message. I got a little heated toward the end, snarling: “Call me, damn it!”

I felt as if my nerves and my emotions were being amplified through a vaguely malevolent magnifying glass. It felt like motion sickness. I wanted someone to talk to, but all I reached was a variety of “leave a message” messages. I paced up and down through my empty apartment, with an uneasy Lucy at my heels. Her little nails clicked on the bare wood floors, and every now and again she looked up at me anxiously.