The Man on the Washing Machine (26 page)

“Sorry, Kurt,” I said firmly, “I'm not in the mood for company.”

He pushed against the door. It never even occurred to me to be concerned about a threat until he grabbed the edge of the door. The hand that curled around the edge of the door was heavily bandaged. I vividly remembered smashing down my heavy cane on the hand of my shooter and leaped away from the door as if it had suddenly sprouted cobras.

“What happened to your hand?” I shouted wildly.

He yelled back furiously: “To hell with that! Nothing. I've been worried about you—”

“What do you mean? And what did you do to your hand?” He rattled the door again. “I swear, I'll slam your hand in the door. I'm counting to three. One—”

He hastily withdrew his fingers. “For Christ's sake, what's wrong with you women!”

“What women? For God's sake, Kurt, do you mean Sabina?”

“To hell with Sabina,” he said furiously.

“Nice.”

“I meant Helga—she's a problem I don't need.”

“You're worried about someone having a little crush on you?” I said incredulously.

“It's more than a little crush, she's sending boxes of croissants to the office,” he said sulkily.

“Poor you,” I snapped. “With all that's been going on,
that's
what you're thinking about? What about Professor D'Allessio—”

“That miserable old bastard! What did he say? I told him this morning I'd—”

I felt cold. “What? Why?”

“I told him to keep quiet and mind his own goddam business or—nothing. I didn't tell him anything.”

I slammed the door and shoved on the dead bolt. After shouting my name a few times and rattling the doorknob ineffectively, he stamped down the stairs.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

I fled through the front door and half ran up to Nat's. It was nearly four o'clock and I had to dodge around middle schoolers who were taking up the sidewalk in little clumps.

“Girl, you look as if you need a hug and a cup of tea. Which would you like first?” Nat greeted me, looking handsome and immaculate, the twin-rings pendant nestled against pale yellow cashmere.

“Neither,” I growled. He took care of the first anyway, which must have been like hugging a telephone pole, and after giving me a searching look, took care of the second by putting on the kettle.

“You know you shouldn't drink, Theo. Gin ruins the complexion and puts bags under your eyes,” he said kindly. I couldn't imagine what he was talking about—and then I remembered last night's binge. It felt like a long time ago.

“You're not looking so hot yourself,” I said, knowing it sounded bitchy and not caring. Besides, it was true. He looked as if he hadn't slept. He ignored me, which is what I deserved, and I sat moodily on a tall stool at the breakfast bar. Watching him fuss around the kitchen was oddly soothing, and as he flitted around putting things away and finding a tray to hold the cups, I started feeling better. My suspicions, which had been growing every moment, began to seem like the stuff of bad dreams.

And yet Tim Callahan and Nicole had been murdered and Professor D'Allessio was near death.

“How about that earthquake, hmmm? We lost a couple of wineglasses. How about you?” he said.

“What? Oh, nothing. I guess the new shear walls worked.”

The big kitchen had a professional stove against one wall, and copper pans and exotic-looking cooking hardware dangling from an enormous pot rack. He and Derek shared cooking duty and were inclined to appear at potlucks with things like Thai spicy beef salads or Cajun peanut sauce with batter-fried catfish rolled in parsley for dipping. They showed up once with a gigantic lobster lasagna, using phyllo dough for the layers. Everyone fell on it like locusts.

He cleared away several bright and shiny pans and utensils from a drying rack. “Lamb brochette for lunch,” he said, waving the stainless steel skewers like a picador. “Derek wanted to try out a recipe from
Gourmet
. Earl Grey okay?” he added, beginning to fuss with a milk jug and sugar bowl.

“You know you're a compulsive neat freak, right?”

“Like that's news,” he muttered.

“And I love Earl Grey, you know that,” I said, then added, a little shamefaced: “How do you stand me when I'm like this?”

“Because you never are like this,” he said. “You know about Professor D'Allessio?”

I nodded glumly.

“I refuse to talk about it. Look,” he said, waving a small white paper bag, “cookies from the patisserie on Union Street; somethin' to take our minds off our troubles. Don't tell Helga.”

He tipped the contents of the paper sack out onto the tray. Each cookie was sheathed in its own little sealed paper bag. I knew from experience that they'd be fresh, spicy, and delicious. My stomach protested at the mere thought. I climbed off my stool to help him. The raw skin around my wrist stung. It was getting more painful as the hours passed and I grimaced to myself.

“Ooh! What's that?” he said, catching sight of the scrapes and the bracelet of torn skin as I reached to take the tray. He carefully lifted the edge of my cuff and looked up, appalled, as I winced.

“Jesus, Theo.”

“Part of the long, sad story of my life—or at least the last few hours of it,” I said. “Do you have any antiseptic cream? Real antiseptic cream,” I added hastily, “not one of Derek's nostrums.”

“In the bathroom. Second shelf in the medicine cabinet. Are you goin' to tell me what the hell happened?” He followed me down the hall and I found the antiseptic cream exactly where he said it would be. It was an almost new tube with Derek's name on the pharmacy label. “Is this the stuff?”

“Yeah. Those cuts from the broken mirror got red and swollen. Dr. Kurt told him the cream would take care of any infection.”

I squeezed a little on the worst patches and cautiously spread it around, catching my breath as I did so. The stinging intensified. It wasn't just my wrist; my whole hand was black and blue. I wiped the excess cream off my fingers with a tissue and dropped it in the empty wastepaper basket. It reminded me of the soap wrapper I had put there only the night before. Time was telescoping lately; it seemed a week ago. The wrapper had gone. There wasn't so much as a dried water drop on the faucets.

“So Derek heads straight for Western medicine when he's hurting, huh?” I said as we got back to the kitchen.

“I was teasin' him about that earlier,” Nat said. Then he blurted: “Damn, that looks painful.”

“It's okay,” I hastened to reassure him. “No permanent damage.”

His eyes filled with tears. “God, I already felt terrible. I couldn't go back in to work this afternoon.” He looked suddenly stricken and sniffed into a handkerchief. “I'm being self-centered again. I know it; don't try to spare my feelin's. What the hell happened to your poor hand?”

“Nat—”

“No, I mean it,” he said staunchly. “I'm just depressed. And don't tell me I'm oversensitive; events around here lately would depress Mother Teresa. Tell me what's botherin' you first. And tea isn't what you need.” He poured white wine into two glasses and added them to the tray. He carried them into the living room, where I settled into a corner of the couch and he sat in a plump, oatmeal-colored armchair.

“Let's see. Shall I start with being robbed, coshed, handcuffed, shot at, or betrayed?” I said, sipping my wine and helping myself to a cookie, to please him.

He blinked. “All that since last night? What's this about bein' betrayed? It has a nasty, biblical sound.”

I gave him an edited version of how Ben and I had spent the afternoon.

“Soooo,” he drawled. “I hope you were a good girl and took advantage of my little gift. Fluorescent orange is so your color, and like I said, it's a dangerous time of year in the North Atlantic.”

“Idiot,” I snorted. I told him about the CD and Ben's disappearance.

“And I thought he'd be good for you!” he wailed. “God, I'm a worse picker of men than I thought. One good thing about havin' Ben in the flat this afternoon—you should pardon the pun—you can alibi each other over the attack on the professor for that miserable inspector. Fortunately Derek and I were cookin' lunch. At least I can explain to the police what I was doin'.” I looked at him over my wineglass. His frivolity was covering some real disquiet. Before I could ask again, he went on: “What about the rest of your menu of woes?”

“Let's see. Nicole had some crates of rhinoceros horn that ended up in my garage and it was stolen last night. I interrupted the robbers and so did Haruto and they handcuffed us, which is where my wrist got mangled. I escaped and staggered up to bed, whereupon a gunman—”

“What?” he yelped. He had been listening with growing amazement and now his eyes were wide and horrified.

“Luckily I heard him coming and hid behind the door and managed to jam his hand in the door. He dropped the gun, thank God, and ran for it. That's it. Oh, not quite. The gun he used was my own gun. Pretty neat, eh? Lichlyter thinks I invented it all.”

His facial expression ran arpeggio-like from incredulous to furious. “Someone shot at you?” He hesitated. “How did he get hold of your gun?”

“I have no idea!”

Of all the incidents, I expected the rhino horn, being the most surreal, to appeal to him the most. But the gunman staggered him even more.

“Tell me again how he shot at you,” he said. He was wearing a slight frown.

“It was so dark—of course if there'd been more light, I probably wouldn't be here telling you about it.”

“At least you got a few blows in. Was he right- or left-handed?” he asked suddenly.

“Right-handed,” I said without thinking. “Good for you, Nat; Lichlyter didn't ask me that.”

“It's not much help. Just about everyone is right-handed,” he said uneasily.

“It would have been better if he'd held the gun in his toes,” I agreed gravely. “Now that's unusual.”

Nat giggled and I joined in, until we were both chuckling feebly, less because we were amused, than to let off some steam.

“I think the crates of rhino horn are the strangest thing of all,” I said as I wiped my eyes.

“I don't get it, Theo. What's the big deal with it?”

“Ben said the shipment was worth about a million.”

“Dollars?” he blurted. Then he added: “Ben? How does he know about it?”

“We found the stuff together.”

A small frown appeared on his lovely face and he stopped meeting my eyes. “We don't know much about him, and there's the CD or whatever…” His voice slowly trailed off and he sat looking at me like a scolded puppy.

“It's okay,” I sighed. “I've already tried to fit him into things and the whole mess fits him like a glove. He sure showed up at the right time. Tim Callahan discovers the rhino horn, so he gets thrown from the window. Nicole and Ben argue about the profits or something, so he kills her. The professor sees him burying Nicole in the compost pile and so he has to be eliminated. And I swear there's some connection between him and Charlie O'Brien.” I fell back on the couch, feeling about as miserable as I sounded.

He grimaced. “I guess I'm ignorant, but the rhino horn isn't illegal to own, right? I mean, why is it worth so much?”

“How do you know it's not illegal, you fluffy head?”

He looked confused. “I guess Mr. Choy must have told me when we were talkin' about Derek's medicines. Is he right?”

I nodded. “Apparently the big money comes in because it has to be smuggled into the port of entry. I assume that means bribing people and generally getting your hands dirty. Once it's in the country it's not illegal to have. Screwy, huh?”

“That's what he said,” Nat said.

“Who?”

He hesitated. “Mr. Choy.”

“No one's had a sudden big boost in income lately, have they?” I asked him abruptly. “At a million dollars a shipment, even with paying bribes and what all…”

“Kurt was talkin' about buying a Porsche,” he said doubtfully.

“Great. Of course, he's a doctor,” I added thoughtfully. “Although come to think of it, I guess a Western-trained doctor would be the last person to use a rhino horn medicine.”

Nat looked ever more doubtful. “I don't know, Theo. Some of the new research has found good in alternative therapies. Look at Derek and his hair tonics.”

“They're not working!”

“They might eventually,” Nat said defensively.

I sat up straight suddenly. “I've been leaving out an obvious connection—how could I be so stupid! Mr. Choy!”

Nat rolled his eyes at me. “Can you truly see seventy-year-old Mr. Choy creepin' around breakin' into your place and shootin' you, or stabbin' Professor D'Allessio?”

“Er—no, I guess not. Too bad, it sounded great there for a minute,” I said. “I've been trying to think of a reason Nicole was killed. Before all this rhino horn stuff came up, I thought it might be something personal. Suppose it still is?”

“What do you mean, personal?”

“The smuggling would be business—thieves falling out or something. But if we leave the rhino horn out of it for a moment, what reason could someone have to kill Nicole? We know about the cocaine—I suppose a drug dealer could have done it, but if
Law and Order
is right, they usually make a public example of people, so he would have no reason to hide her body. He'd want it to be left in the open as an Awful Warning, right?”

“I guess that's right,” he said slowly.

“So maybe it's not the cocaine, or the rhino horn. Maybe it's somebody who has a personal hatred.” I shook my head impatiently. “That sounds sort of medieval. Do people hate like that anymore?”