Trophies (21 page)

"Do you have sufficient manpower to deliver?
That seems safest."

Sherlock paused. "To El Paso?"

"The estate."

If von Bisnon was at his New Hampshire
estate, then he'd never left for El Paso either and we weren't the
only ones cutting class. Even at that moment, I appreciated the
humor.

"Suppose I shouldn't be surprised," Sherlock
said. "In that case, I guess I can spare some womanpower."

The old man's chuckle deepened. "Even
better."

Patty crossed her arms. Her chin hadn't
relaxed and her lips pouted. I didn't look higher even though my
first furious flush was fading. She'd probably felt this same sense
of betrayal when she realized I'd hidden parts of myself from her
and besides, staying mad at Patty was a difficult chore. But even I
realized that, if our relationship was going to survive, we had to
talk.

"Robbie accidentally touched the Browning, by
the way, so the lab will have to ignore his prints on the barrel.
He also made certain it wasn't loaded." He glanced at me. "Didn't
you?"

I nodded. But brilliant and resourceful as
von Bisnon was, he still couldn't see through telephone lines, at
least not that I knew of. "That's right."

"I'll make certain they have yours, then,"
von Bisnon said.

Sherlock rolled down the top of the sack and
set it and the scrapbook on the table beside me. "I'll send Bonnie
out later this afternoon."

I flipped the scrapbook open to a random page
in the center, where three columns of newsprint had been crammed
beneath a photo of a manor house amidst a luxurious park. But I
couldn't concentrate enough to understand the words I read. I
closed it and pushed it into the table's center. "Thank you, sir. I
appreciate this no end."

Von Bisnon actually paused. "If there's
anything else, you will let me know?"

A contract on my brother, o blissful dream.
If this man couldn't do it, it couldn't be done. And the thought of
William was enough to feed my dwindling anger back to a steady
burn. "Yes, sir, I will."

After Sherlock hung up, Caren turned on the
dishwasher and brought a fresh pot of coffee and mugs to the table.
Bonnie returned with two cartons of ice cream and was forgiven her
lunchtime desertion on the spot.

"Men are so shallow," she said to Caren and
Patricia while I dug out scoops.

Sherlock ignored her. "We need to find you a
computer. I knew I should have brought my laptop, but I didn't want
to have to answer Wings Cadal's nasty emails."

I pushed a loaded bowl toward Bonnie and
raised my eyebrows at Caren. She pointed to the chocolate. While I
scooped, she turned to Sherlock. "You don't have a normal command
because no one around you is normal. And you," she turned to me,
"you don't have a normal commanding officer because no one around
him is normal and therefore he has no reason to buck the
trend."

It was such a perfect response, Sherlock and
I didn't even bother trying to answer. So much for that line.

"If you promise to take care of it," I said,
"I'll fetch my Pro from the condo."

"A Mac?" Bonnie looked at me in much the same
manner as Sherlock had looked at the telephone earlier.

"It has Linux on it as well as OSX." I pushed
Caren's bowl toward her and grabbed the last empty. I presumed it
would be mine and started dishing it out. "Or are you so locked
into Gatesland that you can't use a real computer?"

Bonnie started to answer — and I could tell
by her expression it wouldn't be pretty — but Sherlock chose that
moment to slurp the ice cream from his spoon, not quietly. She
squenched her eyes shut as if pretending she hadn't heard that
while Caren giggled over her bowl. Caren seemed to enjoy this
supposed-to-be-professional side of me, which was comforting,
considering I couldn't turn back the clock and un-introduce her to
all this.

When Bonnie opened her eyes, it was clear
she'd let the nascent argument go. "Linux will be fine."

Caren licked her spoon. I stood, scoop still
poised over the half-gallon of chocolate, and watched. She glanced
up, right at me, those tiny crinkle lines gathered at the edges of
her eyes. We held the stare for a long moment, as long as I could
bear, then I dropped another scoop in my bowl and settled down
beside her, every nerve in my body alive.

"But first," Sherlock said, reaching for the
scoop and the sad remains of the Neapolitan, "you get to run that
clothing and the Browning up to the general at his estate. Until we
know what that stuff means, we can't get a handle on the lady
herself and that's the obvious starting place here."

She grabbed the sack and left her dirty
dishes on the table. "Nice little day trip. My cell's on."

As the front door closed, Sherlock shifted
targets to Caren. "You're a counselor? A psychologist?"

I stiffened. Sherlock wondering why I felt
the need to hang around with a shrink was not a thought calculated
to ease my tension. I preferred he worry about my diagnosis as
little as possible; the possibility of being kicked off the team
remained a strong one.

"A psychiatrist, actually," she said. "Why?
Is it serious?"

"And going south fast." He handed her the
scrapbook.

She set aside her bowl, took the scrapbook,
and opened it to the first page, the photo of the intense young man
with shining dark hair and his chin held low. Seeing it sideways,
he looked like a 1930s movie star. Caren stared at the picture for
a long moment then closed the scrapbook and rested her hands on it,
looking at Sherlock gravely.

"Would you read that and prepare a report for
tonight?" Rarely had I heard his voice so humble. But then, he
didn't often need to recruit civilians into duty stations.

She nodded. "Sure."

"Thank you." He turned to Patricia.

She hadn't wanted any ice cream and sat
leaning on the table, her hands wrapped around her cooling and
barely tasted coffee. "I'm listening."

"Are you still worried about the legality of
what I'm doing?" His voice remained humble.

She shrugged. "The situation's changed a bit,
hasn't it?"

He pursed his lips. "I think so. But it's
what you think that counts."

"Well." She pushed the mug in a circle. The
coffee sloshed. "Yes. I'm still worried. But you were right to
protect the family name. So what can I do to help?"

"Can I ask what you do for a living?"

"I'm a line editor." She paused, blushing
slightly. "Well, freelance right now."

"So you're good with details, and sorting out
a lot of different elements, and such like?"

"I suppose." Patty cocked her head, as if
she'd never thought of herself in such terms before.

"Good." Sherlock looked as if a boulder had
rolled off his back. "Because I'm not, and I know Robbie, and
Theresa when she finally gets here, they don't have enough patience
for this, and I thought about asking Bonnie, but I was
really
hoping not to have to—" He quit rambling and rubbed
his chin for a moment. "See, someone has to sort out those
investment records and copies of deposit slips and all that
financial stuff we found upstairs. As I said, we need to get a
handle on Edith, and this seems to have been a big part of her
secret life — can I get away with calling it a secret life?" He
glanced at me.

"It was a secret to me," I admitted, "and she
was my role model."

"It was a secret to me, too," Patty said,
"and I lived here with her."

"Then secret life it is." He rose and started
gathering sticky bowls and spoons. "It's those copies of checks and
deposit records that really interest me, so start there, would you?
Make tables of who the money is from, how much each slip is for,
dates, things like that, okay?"

"Yes, I can do that." She rose, too, opened
the dishwasher, and started removing the now-clean lunch dishes and
putting them away. "But I want to go see Trés at the hospital
first."

The mouse was on her wheel. I slumped.

"We'll do that," he said.

I froze. Beside me, Caren silently gathered
the last of the dirties and took them to the sink, avoiding my gaze
in passing.

For another moment Patty kept working.
Suddenly she froze, too, as if she'd finally understood his words.
When she straightened, her chin had softened although her smile was
small. "We will?"

"
We
will?" Granted, it made me sound
like a Greek chorus.

He turned off the water with a tight jerk and
leaned on the sink. When he spoke, it was to Patty. "Pardon the
question, but do you know if the kid was shot from the front?"

They stared at each other across the open
dishwasher. Although his expression seemed neutral, her smile grew
and her chin lowered. The hairs on the back of my neck went
vertical.

"Yes," she said. "Yes, I believe so."

He nodded and dried his hands. "Well, then,
maybe he saw the person who pulled the trigger."

She rolled her eyes. "But he'd have told the
police—"

Was she arguing with Sherlock? Not a good
sign at all for my future serenity. I gripped the table hard.

"Yeah, but they've proven they won't share
information with us, at least not willingly."

This had lasted far too long. I had no choice
but to jump in and distract them. "Well, that part makes sense, at
least."

Sherlock turned and leaned his back against
the counter. "
Well,
let me tell you something else that
makes sense. Understanding what's going on here seems to require
understanding Edith Hunter. Am I right?"

There was something going on here, but I
wasn't seeing it. Perhaps I should have let them flirt. "I
suppose."

"Did she avoid her family?"

Simple as that, he had me. I felt the jaws of
his trap close almost physically and wondered what the odds were of
escaping the Kraut if I murdered his favorite colonel commanding.
Of course, in itself that murder was easier said than done.

Patty's smile exploded into full-blown glee.
It could be worse, I reminded myself. She could be crowing.
Aloud.

"No," she said.

"Then, if we want to understand what made her
tick, neither can you." He turned back to Patricia. "Let's leave
those dishes for now, sweetie. The kid's more important."

"Absolutely." She closed the dishwasher. "Let
me brush my hair and I'm with you." She stopped long enough to
raise an eyebrow at him. "'Sweetie?'"

His laugh seemed embarrassed. "Sorry, my
Southern comes calling at odd moments. I'll try to watch it, but
you'll have to remind me."

"Actually, I don't think I mind." She gave
him the last of her smile then brushed past me. "Coming?"

Sherlock followed her out, not ducking my
glare in passing. We'd installed him in the guest room and moved
Caren into Patricia's room with her; where Bonnie and Theresa were
going to stay, I had no idea and at that moment didn't much care. I
stared at the empty kitchen doorway, wondering who that was and
what she'd done with my mousy little Patricia.
Aunt Edith, what
in the hell were you thinking? Why didn't you leave that bloody
wedding gown to Lindsay or Miriam or the Salvation Army?

Caren finished wiping down the butcher block
and straightened, the damp rag a sodden little heap before her. I
understood how it felt.

"I'll stay here on guard," she said.

The danger of leaving her in such a position
gnawed at me. She had only a few months' experience handling a gun,
and the only pistol currently available for her use was an old
Second World War relic, manufactured when the Germans were losing
the war and substituting inferior metals into their production
runs. If the slide snapped or the firing pin jammed, she couldn't
fix it and would be helpless. Perhaps she didn't realize how brave
she was being. For a moment I thought about convincing Sherlock to
stay behind, either instead of or with her, but that would leave
Patty or Caren to do the driving. Could I protect either or both of
them if that homicidal Suburban returned and forced a crash?
Another mental overload, I decided.

"I suppose that's best."

She circled the table and laid a damp hand on
my uninjured arm. "All right, Charles?"

Her eyes were warm, dark, and deep, like
tropical water, and I fell in headfirst without a rope. My breath
caught in my heart. Without giving myself time to think, I eased
closer, until I heard our clothing rustle together. She didn't back
away — I watched for the first leaning — and her face was calm.

This looked promising. I kissed her, once, oh
so gently, then held her. With the first touch of my arms her body
stiffened. Of course she wouldn't be comfortable. But she felt so
good against me, her head tucked against my shoulder, her hands on
my chest, that now I knew I didn't want to let her go.

We stood motionless. She didn't fight and I
didn't push. My arms held her, one hand on her waist, the other
buried in the exquisite sensuality of her hair. Our touch was
somewhere between the comfort of friendship and the first
tantalizing hint of a sexual advance. The next move would have to
be hers. I was willing to earn her trust again.

The tension faded from her body one breath at
a time. With every slow heartbeat, her weight against me increased.
Finally her hands trailed down my chest, neither the direct
invitation of fingernails nor the feather touch of exploration. She
kept her palms against me all the way around my waist and held me
in return.

When Patty left her bedroom, I was waiting on
the landing, blocking her path to the stairs. She jumped when she
saw me, then gave me her dirtiest look. I ignored it, took her arm,
herded her back through the door, and closed it behind us.

"I'm not ignoring the issue, am I?" I leaned
my back against the door. "Nor am I ignoring you. Am I?"