For someone who’d flown back from her vacation in haste, Tasha was flawlessly turned out. She wore a black gabardine pantsuit with a jacket cropped at the waist. The slim, uncuffed trousers had a wide waistband and inverted pleats in front. The jacket had brass buttons and the sleeves were trimmed with a thin gold braid. Somehow the outfit suggested something more than fashion. She looked crisp, authoritative, and diminutive, the dainty, MP of lawyers here to keep matters straight.
I followed her into the library with its clusters of dark red cracked leather chairs. The red Oriental carpets looked drab at this hour. The tall leaded glass windows were tinted with the gray cast of twilight, as chilly as frost. Tasha paused to turn on table lamps as she crossed the room. Even the luster of the dark wood paneling failed to lend coziness to the cold stone hearth. The room was shabby and smelled as musty as I remembered it. I’d first met Bennet here just a week ago.
I left my handbag beside a club chair and circled the room restlessly. “Who’s the chief investigator? You said there was someone here.”
“Lieutenant Robb.”
“Jonah? Oh, terrific. How perfect.”
“You know him?”
“I know Jonah,” I said. When I’d met him, he was working Missing Persons, but the Santa Teresa Police Department has a mandatory rotation system and detectives get, moved around. With Lieutenant Dolan’s retirement, there was an opening for a homicide investigator. I’d had a short-lived affair with Jonah once when he was separated from his wife, a frequent occurrence in the course of their stormy relationship. They’d been sweethearts since seventh grade and were no doubt destined to be together for life, like owls, except for the intervals of virulent estrangement coming every ten months. I suppose the pattern should have been evident, but I was smitten with him. Later, not surprisingly, she crooked her little finger and he went back to her. Occasionally now, the three of us crossed paths out in public and I’d become an expert at pretending I’d never, dallied with him between my Wonder Woman sheets. This probably accounted for his willingness to have me on the scene. He knew he could trust me to keep my mouth shut.
“What’s the story?” she asked.
“Nothing. Just skip it. I feel bitchy, I guess, but I shouldn’t take it out on you.”
I heard footsteps on the stairs and looked up as Christie came in. She wore bulky running shoes and a warm-up suit in some silky material; the blue of the fabric setting off the blue in her eyes. She wore scarcely any makeup and I wondered if this was the outfit she was wearing when Guy’s body was discovered. The library, like the living room, was equipped with a wet bar: a small brass sink, a mini refrigerator, an ice bucket, and a tray of assorted liquor bottles. She moved over to the fridge and removed a chilled bottle of white wine. “Anybody want a glass of wine? What about you, Kinsey?”
I said, “Alcohol won’t help.”
“Don’t be absurd. Of course it will. So does Valium. It doesn’t change reality, but it improves your attitude. Tasha? Can I interest you in a glass of Chardonnay? This is top of the line.” She turned the bottle so she could peer at the price tag on the side. “Nice. This is $36.95.”
“I’ll have some in a bit. Not just yet,” Tasha said.
Mutely, the two of us watched while Christie cut the foil cap from a wine bottle and used a corkscrew. “If I smoked, I’d have a ciggie, but I don’t,” she said. She poured herself some wine, the bottle clinking clumsily on the rim of the Waterford crystal. “Shit!” she said, pausing to inspect the damage. A jagged crack ran down the side. She dumped the contents in the sink and tossed the glass in the trash. She picked up a second glass and poured again. “We need a fire in here. I wish Donovan were home.”
“I can do that,” I said. I moved over to the hearth and removed the fire screen. There were six or seven hefty pieces of firewood in a brass carrier. I picked up one and chunked it onto the grate.
“Make sure you don’t destroy any evidence,” she said.
I looked up at her blankly.
“Ted Bundy killed one of his victims with a hunk of wood,” she said, and then shrugged with embarrassment. “Never mind. Not funny. What a day,” she said. “I can’t figure out how to handle it. I’ve felt drunk since this morning, completely out of control.”
I stacked two more logs on the grate while she and Tasha talked. It was a relief to be involved in a task that was basic and inconsequential. The wood was beautifully seasoned oak. Most of the heat would go straight up the chimney, but it would be a comfort nonetheless. I flicked on the electric match, turned the key in the gas starter, and listened to the comforting whunk as the jets ignited. I replaced the fire screen, pausing to adjust the height of the flame. Belatedly, I tuned into their conversation.
Tasha was saying, “Did you ask to have an attorney present?”
“Of course I didn’t ask for an attorney. I didn’t do anything. This was just routine,” Christie said irritably. She remained standing behind the bar, leaning against its leather surface. “Sorry. What’s the matter with me? I’m completely frazzled.”
“Don’t worry about it. Who’s still down there?”
“Jack and Bennet, I think. They kept everybody separated like they did here. So absurd. What do they think, Donovan and I aren’t going to discuss it in detail the minute we can put our heads together?”
“They don’t want to risk your influencing one another,” I said. “Memory’s fragile. It’s easily contaminated.”
“None of us have anything much to report,” she said. “I drank too much at dinner and fell asleep by nine. Donovan was watching TV in the sitting room off our bedroom.”
“What about Guy?”
“He went up to bed about the same time I did. He was drunk as all get-out thanks to Bennet’s martinis.”
She caught sight of her fingertips and frowned to herself. She turned away from us and ran water in the sink. “They took prints for comparison.”
Tasha directed a brief comment to me. “After the body was removed and the fingerprint techs were finished, the homicide investigator had one of the Maleks’ housecleaning crew come over and walk through Guy’s room with him describing the usual position of furniture, lamps, ashtrays, that sort of thing.”
“Did they find anything?”
“I have no idea. I’m sure she was cautioned to keep her mouth shut. I know they tagged and bagged a bunch of items, but I don’t know exactly what or why they were significant. Now they’ve brought in additional officers and started a grid search of the grounds. Apparently, they spent a lot of time down in the pool house earlier.”
Christie broke in. “I could. see them from up in my room checking perimeter gates, any point of entrance or exit.”
“They’re still out there on the property. I noticed that when I came in. But why check the exterior? It almost had to be someone in the house.”
Christie bristled. “Not necessarily. What makes you say that? We have people all over. Maybe fifteen a week, with the gardeners and the car washers, housecleaners, and the woman who takes care of the plants. We have no idea where those people come from. For all we know, they’re convicted felons or escapees from a mental institution.”
I wasn’t going to speak to her flight of fancy. If the notion gave her comfort, let her hang on to it. “It’s always possible,” I said, “but I’m assuming none of them have access to the house at night. I thought you had an alarm system.”
“Well, we do. The police were interested in the system as well, but that’s the problem,” she said. “With all the high winds we’ve had here the past couple of days, windows were blowing open and the alarm kept going off. It happened twice Monday night after we’d all gone to bed. Scared the shit out of me. We finally turned it off so it wouldn’t happen again. Last night, the system wasn’t on at all.”
“When do they think Guy was killed?” I asked.
“Around ten, I gather. Between ten and eleven. The detective didn’t actually say that, but I noticed that was the period that seemed to interest him. Bennet and Jack were both out until late.”
A woman in a housekeeper’s uniform, with an apron tied over it, peered in at the door. She was short and round, and looked like someone whose eating habits had long ago outstripped any fat-burning activities. She was probably in her mid-forties, with dark hair pulled back neatly under a red-and-white bandanna she’d wrapped around her head. I wasn’t sure if the purpose was ornamental or meant to keep falling hair from seasoning the food. “Excuse me. I’m sorry to interrupt, but I’m wondering what time you want dinner served.”