The Rainy Season (35 page)

He got out, came around the side of the car, and opened the door. “We’ll go inside, child,” he said. “Just for a moment. Then we’ll see about … about getting you home.”

“PICK IT UP,”
Elizabeth said out loud. She sat in the car beneath a streetlamp, listening to the ringing on her cell phone. Rain dripped onto the roof from lines overhead. She knew she had been on the verge of screaming at Phil when he told her what he’d done with the crystal. To the mission! What a hero. For all he knew he could have made a bundle off the damned thing, and he gives it away. Still, with a little finesse, and a good lie, she might be able to pull something off.

“Hello?” It was Appleton! He was out of breath, as if he’d run for the phone.

“I’ve got it,” she said.

“Tell me what you mean,” he said slowly. “I have the girl with me.”

“You have the
girl?
”

“Yes. And you have … ?”

“The crystal. I have the crystal. I got it from Jeanette, the woman who …”

“I know who she is. Bring it to me, Elizabeth.”

“I don’t think so. I told them that Betsy was with you, there in the shop. Phil’s on his way down there to pick her up. It’s almost ironic, isn’t it?”

“Why on
earth
did you tell them that?”

“I had no idea she actually
was
, for God’s sake. It turns out that the fat woman is a nutcase. She apparently kidnapped the girl, or was going to. Phil had called the police. I walked into the middle of it just now. I’m telling you: the girl is hot. Right now there’s no problem, but in ten minutes the shop’s going to be full of people looking for her.

“The woman kidnapped the girl?”

“That’s how I understand it. That’s why Betsy ran away from her like that.”

There was a long silence on the other end.

“Are you there?” Elizabeth asked.

“Yes. Where are
you?
”

“Out on Santiago Canyon Road,” she lied, “up past the lake.”

“Good. Find a turnout. Give me ten minutes … fifteen minutes. Then depress your brake pedal when you see headlights approaching.”

“Fine,” she said. “That’s a doggone good plan. But what about Betsy? If you were thinking about trading Betsy for the crystal, you don’t have to do that now. You can see that, can’t you?” There was no
way
she was going to jail because Appleton got funny with the girl.

“
Trade
her for the crystal?”

“Yes. You know what I mean.” She sat silently for a moment, weighing things. Clearly she had him in her pocket now. He would try to bullshit her, but he could go straight to hell with it. She spoke carefully and slowly. “What I’m saying is that if I have the crystal, you don’t need Betsy, do you? You thought you could give Betsy to Phil Ainsworth in exchange for the crystal. That way you wouldn’t have to pay him anything. You wanted me to kidnap the girl for you. You wanted me to take her out for a nice game of ball so that you could snatch her up and use her as ransom. You would have gotten off cheap, but of course I wouldn’t have, would I? I would have gotten into trouble, wouldn’t I? I would have been the patsy.”

“I can’t imagine what you’re talking about, Elizabeth. I wouldn’t have done that to you.”

“Of course not. Anyway, it didn’t work out like that. I’ve fixed it so that we can all be happy—no patsy, no problem.” Theatrically, in a Bogart voice, she said, “Here’s the deal, kid.” She stopped herself from laughing. But this was rich. The old shitbird was
hers
. “If you bring the girl to me,” she said, “I’ll give you the crystal, and then I’ll take her back down the hill and return her to Phil. Just like that. You and I will have saved her from the fat woman. We’ll be heroes. He’ll be eternally grateful, and you’ll have your daughter back, under glass. It’s simple, isn’t it?”

“Very simple,” he said. “Good work, Elizabeth.”

“Do you think so? I’ll be right up here in the canyon, call it three or four miles above the cutoff to the park, on the right-hand side. At the big turnout near Limestone Canyon. Can you find the place? I’ll be stomping on the brake pedal and wearing a red carnation. Are you almost ready to go? Got the hamster in the wheel? The rubber-band wound up? Cards in the spokes?”

“Just as soon as you’re through talking. And I am
very
grateful to you, Elizabeth. I don’t know what I would have done without you. But if Mr. Ainsworth is actually on his way down here we’d better—”

“Oh, he
is
,” Elizabeth told him, enjoying this immensely. “I can guarantee it. But there’s one more thing, so listen carefully. I’m
so
excited about it. Do you want to hear?”

“Go on,” he said, clearly getting tired.

“Okay. I have a
big
hammer with me. Do you know what a hammer is?” She listened for a moment to the silence, giving him time to think. “It’s a heavy piece of iron with a handle,” she said. “Can you picture it? A device used for striking a blow. You’re all ears now, aren’t you? You terrible old geezer, you! Here’s what
I
want. I want the money you offered. And I don’t give a flying damn if the ad was just a come-on or if you really meant to pay.
I … want … the … money.”

“Elizabeth,” he said, “I haven’t got that kind of money with me.”

“I know you don’t,” she said. “You have it at your house, in a suitcase in the closet. There’s a couple of shirts on top of the little divider thingy. The money’s underneath the flap. I want you to know that I could have taken it a couple of nights ago, but I didn’t. Aren’t you proud of me? I wanted to hold up my end of the bargain.”

“My pride in you is boundless, Elizabeth. And let me say that none of this surprises me in the least.”

“Good,” she said. “I
hate
surprises. The little girl trapped inside of this crystal hates surprises. So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to find a big flat rock out here by the road, and I’m going to put your daughter on the rock, just like Abraham did, you know? And if you don’t bring me that suitcase full of money, I’m going to pound the living shit out of her until she’s nothing but dust, just like you taught me to do, nothing but dust, just like she’d be if she’d been a
real
dead girl all these years and not a lump of glass.”

“Please,” he said. He wasn’t bullshitting her anymore.

“You don’t want that, do you?”

“Elizabeth, I want you to—”

“You don’t want that, do you?”

“No, no, I don’t. Please, Elizabeth, be calm. …”

She hung up abruptly, stabbing the off button so hard that she broke a nail. Calm! The old bastard! If she’d had the time, she would have hung on to listen to him beg. “
Please
, Elizabeth!” she said out loud. Now she started laughing, her eyes watering, unable to stop herself when she got going. She threw her head back, laughing until she got the hiccups. She’d make him crawl in the mud when he got out into the canyon! If only she had some kind of glass bottle that she could smash up on a rock! Just to give him something to think about when he pulled in! Hah! She burst out again, laughing until the tears ran down her face.

Then she caught sight of herself in the rearview mirror and stopped, her chest heaving, hiccuping softly. She found a tissue and wiped her eyes, cleaning away runny makeup, and then brushed her hair aside with her fingers.

“Hell”
, she said, giggling. She opened her purse then and looked at the pistol inside. It was Appleton’s pistol, from the desk drawer. By now he would know it was gone, that someone had taken it. That would give him something more to chew on. …

She started the car, turned around at the cul-de-sac at the end of the street, and drove up the canyon road, past the last cross street, the last houses and markets and street lamps, up into the empty hills.

MRS. DARWIN CIRCLED
the plaza twice, looking for Betsy, watching for the two insane people from the antiques store. What on earth had set them off? What was it that the woman had thought Betsy was hiding in the book bag? It was something valuable enough that the woman had thrown the inkwell at her as if it were worthless, something she was willing to fight over. And Betsy’s reaction, her running, made the woman’s behavior seem valid. The inkwell, Mrs. Darwin realized, might simply be the tip of the iceberg.

She slowed down, driving up Glassell Street through town, looking into alleys and parking lots. There were a hundred places to hide, and night was falling. The search was probably futile, and yet she couldn’t simply leave Betsy alone. And the inkwell—Betsy had the inkwell with her. She drove back and circled the plaza, past the antiques store, but there was clearly no one inside. The most disheartening thing was that Betsy had run. If only the girl had stood her ground, they might have solved their little troubles! But with Betsy missing, everything had gone to hell. The police weren’t even an option.

She reluctantly headed east, up Chapman Avenue toward the foothills and Santiago Canyon. It wasn’t
too
late yet, not quite six, and it could be that Phil hadn’t yet called the Costa Mesa telephone number and found out that there was no Bob Hansen there. Although even if Phil
had
called it, it wasn’t a disaster, just a simple error: she’d written the number down wrong, transposed a couple of digits. She was a good enough actress to cover it. Then she remembered having stopped earlier to load up Phil’s mailbox with some of the odds and ends shed hauled out from Austin. That had been unwise. Still, even this could be explained away as mere generosity.

She climbed Orange Hill now, the city spread out beneath her, lit up far and wide. It was 6:10 and the traffic crawled along, people turning off into neighborhoods of nearly identically designed homes. She stopped at the light at the top of the hill, and when it turned green, the car in front of her stalled. She slammed her hand against the steering wheel in frustration, and then honked the horn, backed up until she nearly touched the bumper of the car behind her, and then jumped into the adjacent lane in order to pass.

Readying what she would say, she turned into the driveway. The house was lit up, and Phil’s car was there. The man himself was visible through the window, talking to someone on the phone. She made a three-point turn so that she was headed out again, left her car door open and the motor running, and hurried up to the front porch, still thinking things through. The news that Betsy indeed had the inkwell would take him down a peg. The fact that Phil’s woman had stolen it would take him down even further. He was in no position to play high and mighty with her. Almost as soon as she rang the bell, Phil answered the door, standing there staring at her as if in shock. He looked past her, checked her car, the driveway …

“She’s not with me,” Mrs. Darwin said. “I’m afraid there’s been trouble. I came straight back here to you.”

“A friend of mine was just here,” Phil said. “Betsy’s safe. I’m leaving right now to pick her up downtown.”

“Thank God!” Mrs. Darwin said. “Phil, I must tell you something in order to clear the air. Betsy had the inkwell all along. I don’t mean to drag this business out into the open again, but that’s the truth, so help me God. A woman whom you know, Elizabeth something, apparently took it from her, stole it from her hiding place. Betsy and I ran into this woman down on the plaza, and there was
quite
a scene. I’m sorry to say that Betsy ran away, but I have to admit that I might have done the same thing in her case. This woman is …” She shook her head, as if unable to find the words. “Pardon me,” she said then. “I didn’t know you had company.” She looked past Phil into the living room, where Jen sat on the couch.

The expression on Phil’s face hadn’t changed. “I know all about the inkwell,” he said. “I know why Betsy kept it. I know where it came from and what it is. It was Elizabeth who drove up here to tell me that Betsy was safe. I spoke to George Benner just a few minutes ago. He seems to think that Marianne’s death wasn’t natural. Somebody gave her medications that interacted with each other. The interaction was toxic, apparently, and prompted the stroke.”

“Oh my God, I was right!” Mrs. Darwin said. “Her doctor was an idiot. I
told
her that, Phil. But even so, I can’t imagine him having made an error of this magnitude. That’s clearly medical malpractice. There’s a lawsuit in this, Phil, and if there’s
any
evidence I can supply to help you litigate, I’ll do what I can.”

“George seems to think that she was murdered, Mrs. Darwin. The problem wasn’t an incompetent doctor. Her doctor didn’t give her the medication. I think you gave it to her.”

“What in the
hell
are you talking about, you impudent … If you’re implying that I had
anything
to do with your sister’s death!
That
little remark is
actionable.
”

“I believe you killed my sister, Hannah. You killed your husband. Lord knows what’s in that pie you brought over this morning.”

“I’ll just take that little gift back right now! Call me an Indian giver if you want to, but if you think for one moment that you can talk this way to me, after the friend I’ve been to Betsy!” She opened her purse, looking inside for her hanky, saw it, and reached in after it.

“Give me just a moment, Hannah, and I’ll call the police. You can talk to them about lawsuits and about the pie both.”

He started to turn away, and she shook the hanky off the top of her little Derringer pistol. “Phil!” she said sharply, watching the woman rise from her seat on the couch, her hand going to her mouth. Phil turned, saw the pistol, and gestured at her, suddenly obedient and respectful. “You sit down, honey,” she said to the woman, who did as she was told. “And you stand right there, Phil. This gun is loaded. Now, for your information I am
not
a murderer. If you knew the
first
thing about what your sister suffered, you wouldn’t make that allegation. She was an invalid, Phil, a complete emotional invalid. She had her days when she could function. She even managed to go back to work, but it was only temporary. Her medication was simply a Band-Aid. What she chose to swallow was her business. She asked my advice and I gave it to her. But I’m not a doctor and I don’t claim to be, and the trouble she got herself into is something that I won’t be blamed for. But I’ll tell you that for Betsy’s sake, that woman either had to be cured or killed, because she was wrecking her daughter. A child can’t live with an … an
invalid
for a mother—not that kind of invalid, a psychological basket case. Up and down, up and down until the poor girl didn’t know what to think. Well, we’d all had enough, and more than once I thought to myself that Betsy would be better off with her mother dead and gone. And anyway,
I’d
been her mother, part and parcel, for years. Things turned out for the best. That’s all I’ll say. And then, after the risk I took on Betsy’s behalf, after the sacrifice I made trying to solve that problem,
you
came along and took Betsy away! You moved in like a vulture, didn’t you? Just like a damned vulture. We both know there was money in trust, don’t we? And that’ll come to you now, all that money. I can’t guess your true motives, Phil, because you’re as neurotic as your sister, living alone in this old firetrap, bringing in your women. And you go accusing
me?
God
knows
what-all you’re up to.”