The Popsicle Tree (26 page)

“Thank you,” she said with a quick smile. “It was a gift from my daughter.”

Again I was surprised at how much alike the sisters sounded. The same inflections, the same slight accent…southern? If I had my eyes closed there's no way I could tell them apart…except for the throat-clearing. And did I detect a hint of intensified disapproval on Mrs. D'Angelo's face? Apparently she had expected her sister to be seen and not heard.

“Ah, you have a daughter.” I hoped trying a bit of small talk might get her to say…and possibly reveal…something. “Does she live near you?”

She looked at me a little strangely, but as she was opening her mouth to speak, Mrs. D'Angelo took a quick sip of her tea and said, “(
hech-hem
) Mildred, we're running late. We have to get going.” For exactly what they were running late she did not say, and the slightly puzzled expression on Mrs. Collins' face clearly showed she obviously didn't know either. Mrs. D'Angelo gave me a cursory glance.

“Thank you for the tea, and I trust you won't need to contact me further.”

Mrs. Collins took a quick bite from her almost untouched popover, and washed it down with a swig of tea, without looking at her sister. Maybe it was just me, but I got the definite feeling that it was somehow an act of very passive defiance.

I rose when they did and extended my hand to each of them, admittedly partly because I sensed it made Mrs. D'Angelo uncomfortable.

“Thank you again for meeting with me,” I said as Mrs. D'Angelo bent to pick up her purse beside her chair.

“You're welcome,” she said without smiling. And the two women turned and left.

Well,
that
was interesting,
I thought, and sat down to finish my pie.

CHAPTER 12

Angelina D'Angelo came across to me as being a pretty cold fish who wasn't particularly fond of her own son. But that she was apparently willing to bankroll his attempt to gain custody of Kelly indicated that there might be a spark of maternal warmth in there somewhere. And I suspected their personalities had a lot more in common than either of them might choose to admit.

And Roy…now there was another mystery. His motivation for wanting custody of Kelly was pretty darned vague. He definitely did not strike me as the fatherly type. But then it might be a simple case of, as he himself said, “He's mine, and I want him.” I'm sure he probably gave no thought whatsoever to what he would
do
with Kelly if he did get him. No, the more I thought it over, the more convinced I was that Roy wanted Kelly as some sort of key to his mother's bank vault. Exactly how I wasn't sure, but…

Perhaps, as Mrs. D'Angelo had said, she still had hopes—unrealistic as they may be—that Roy might straighten out, and she might be financing the custody suit to that end. But if he did win custody of Kelly, it would in effect put the kid in the position of a guinea pig in an experiment.

I suddenly thought again of Jan Houston. She and Roy knew—and apparently detested—each other, though neither of them would say why. Carlene had implied their animosity predated Carlene's pregnancy. Did Roy know Carlene had hooked up with Jan? A lot I
didn't
know, and wanted to.

I decided to give Jan Houston a call, ostensibly to see if she might have contacted Beth Erickson about being allowed to see Kelly, but primarily to see if she might give me some indication of her problem with Roy. I didn't want to bother her at work, so decided to wait until I got home.

Just as I was getting ready to leave the office, the phone rang.

“Hardesty Investigations.”

“Mr. Hardesty, this is Bonnie Bronson.” Her voice made it quite clear I probably wasn't going to like what she had to say—and I hoped it wasn't anything to do with Joshua.

“Yes, Miss Bronson, What can I do for you?”

“I think this ‘investigation' has gone on quite long enough. You've obviously found nothing, and are rather desperately looking into areas which not only have nothing to do with Miss DeNuncio's death, but are by no stretch of the imagination any of your business!”

Estelle!
I thought. Obviously, Estelle had told her of our meeting at Coffee &.
Why in the hell would she do that?

“I'm very sorry you feel that way, Miss Bronson, but as I told you before, since it was your sister who hired me, it should be she who determines when the investigation should end. I have come on a few new leads, but I assure you, as I have assured your sister, that if they do not go anywhere, I will consider the matter closed.”

“I will give you one more week, and then I will seek legal counsel on my sister's behalf.”

Wow, lady!
What the hell is your problem?

“I understand,” I said, though of course I didn't. “Again, I will consider the matter closed the moment your sister tells me to. And it goes without saying I sincerely hope that your displeasure with me won't be reflected on Joshua in any way.”

“Of course not! He has nothing to do with this and we would never be so petty as to involve him in a personal disagreement between us.”

“I very much appreciate that.”

“As long as we understand one another. Good-bye.”

And she hung up.

Oh, great!

*

We'd rather quickly settled into an at-home routine—Jonathan and Joshua usually got home shortly before I did, and Jonathan would have my evening Manhattan ready. We'd have our group hug, and I'd play with Joshua while Jonathan fixed dinner. Then more playtime for Joshua while Jonathan tried to study for his Wednesday night class. Joshua's bath time was around eight o'clock, then bed and story time. One of the things Jonathan had brought back from Wisconsin was an 8x10 framed photo of Samuel, Sheryl, and Joshua as a baby, and every night Joshua would say his prayers and kiss the picture, which we kept on the end table bedside his bed.

Okay, okay…I know a lot of single gay guys' eyes start glazing over with boredom at the very idea of such an overdose of
Leave It to Beaver
domesticity, and before I met Jonathan, I was certainly one of them. But I
had
met Jonathan, and Joshua was now in our lives, and that's the way it was. And while, to be honest, I sometimes wished I was still out there cruising the bars and picking up tricks, when I weighed that period against now, now always won.

As to Joshua, he still hadn't fully adjusted to the fact that his parents weren't coming back for him, and he talked about them often, always in the present tense. Every now and then when he'd get angry with us, he'd start crying and calling for his mother or his dad (interestingly, which one he called on seemed to depend on the cause of his anger), and he had occasional nightmares about someone coming and carrying him or his folks away, but all in all he was making as good an adjustment as we could have hoped for.

*

Around seven thirty, I looked up Jan Houston's number and dialed it, hoping it hadn't been disconnected again. It hadn't, and was answered on the fourth ring.

“Hello?”

“Jan, this is Dick Hardesty. I don't mean to bother you, but I was wondering if you'd called Beth Erickson about Kelly.”

The usual hostility was absent from her voice when she said, “Yes, I did, and I owe you. I got to spend some time with him this past Sunday, and next weekend he's coming to my company picnic with me.”

“That's great!” I really was glad for her.

“Of course Beth doesn't completely trust me yet, and I can't say I blame her, really. But Kelly was almost as glad to see me as I was to see him. He kept asking me where…his other mommy…was. That nearly broke my heart.”

“I can well imagine.” I was thinking of Joshua's asking about his mom and dad. “You do know that Roy D'Angelo is trying to get custody of Kelly, don't you?”

The anger immediately returned to her voice. “Yes, I knew. But no way in hell that bastard's going to get Kelly! Beth's family has hired the best lawyer in the state!”

So,
I thought but did not say,
apparently has Roy.

Well, I'd sort of pried the door open. Now to step in.

“I remember you saying you knew Roy, and I gather you're not overly fond of him. I was wondering about exactly how you know him, and why you dislike him so. Without him, there wouldn't be any Kelly.”

The anger was still there when she said, “Like I said, I owe you. But that doesn't mean I want you prying around in my private life. So just drop it.”

“Well, I'm afraid that once I really want to know something, I usually manage to find out somehow. Maybe from Roy.”

“Not if you know what's good for you.”

Why, Jan,
one of my mind-voices asked with mock surprise,
was that some sort of threat?
Not a very bright move from someone who still hadn't totally dropped off my suspects list.

“Jan, I'm not out to cause you grief, believe me. But I
am
out to find out who killed Carlene and why, and if that involves prying into places I probably shouldn't, I'm sorry.”

“Well you damned well should be! I had nothing to do with Car…
her
…death, and my life sure as hell has nothing to do with it—and it's none of your damned business. Now if you're through, I've got things to do.”

“Sure. I…” But she'd hung up, leaving me to ponder the fact that even now Jan Houston could not or would not say her ex-lover's name.

Why do people insist on making things so hard for themselves? If she'd just come up with some sort of even remotely plausible story and not acted like an exposed nerve end, I might have just accepted it and moved on. But I was hooked now, and determined to find out what the hell she was covering up—whether it had anything to do with the case or not.

*

We'd gotten a notice in our mailbox from the building's owner telling us that the city would start repaving the alley that same day, which would mean the entrance to the garage would be blocked and that we'd have to park on the street until at least Thursday. To add to the fun, on my way to work I discovered they'd begun major roadwork on the main route between home and my office. The detour added between ten and fifteen minutes to my driving time, depending on whether, as usually happened, I got held up by a commuter train that crossed the detour route and was one of the reasons I would not normally go that way. And the detour also involved going over a series of steep San Francisco

steep hills known as “The Hump.” I kind of enjoyed it, actually…rather like being on my own little roller coaster…but it was a real challenge for people without automatic transmissions.

*

As I sat waiting for the train to pass—I suspected the engineer just sat there, down the line, waiting for me—I continued, as I'd done since I left the apartment, thinking about Carlene DeNuncio and the entire case-that-might-not-be-a-case. I'd been pretty successful in getting about everybody involved mad at me: Roy D'Angelo, his mother, Jan Houston, and now Bonnie Bronson.

Well, if I wanted everyone to love me, I sure as hell picked the wrong profession.

Once at the office, the day passed fairly quickly with paperwork and reports and minor routine chores.

Around one thirty the phone rang.

“Hardesty Investigations.”

“Mr. Hardesty, this is Estelle Bronson.”

Ah, here comes the ax,
I thought.

“Yes, Miss Bronson. What can I do for you?”

I was afraid I knew.

“I'm sorry to bother you at work, but Joshua isn't feeling well, and we were wondering if you could come and pick him up? I tried calling Mr. Quinlan, but couldn't reach him.”

“Of course!” I was more than a little surprised by how concerned I was. “I'll be over shortly. Do you think I should call a doctor?”

I'd never dealt with a sick kid before.

“Oh, no, I'm sure that won't be necessary. There's some sort of twenty-four-hour bug going around, and I'm afraid Joshua isn't the first of our children to get it. But we do feel he'd be better off at home.”

“Thank you. I'll be over as soon as I can get there.”

I made a quick call to Evergreens to leave a message for Jonathan telling him what was going on and telling him not to worry, and then left the office.

*

Estelle met me at the door, and took me immediately into the “nap room” to the left of the entry. Joshua was curled up, asleep, on one of the mats, a thin blanket over him. I knelt down beside him, removed the blanket, and picked him up. He didn't seem at all surprised to see me.

“I don't feel good. I want my mommy!”

The poor kid really looked unwell, and I felt bad for him. My mom always used to say she could tell when I wasn't feeling well by looking in my eyes. I could tell the same thing by looking into Joshua's.