chapter fifteen.

"Put your hands behind your head, please."

It wasn't Sonny. It wasn't Purcell. I did as instructed.

A hard hand clamped my fingers together behind my neck as another hand moved quickly and expertly down my sides, over my pants, and inside my waistband. The hand lifted my wallet. Five seconds later, my fingers were released, and the voice said, "Sorry, Mr. McInnes. Joey described you, but he also told me not to take any chances." I turned around. "Here's your billfold." The man who had pressed a gun into my back was little more than twenty. He stood about five six and had the spare muscular build and close-cropped hair of a military man.

I asked, "Who are you?"

"Randy Whittles. I work for Joey when he needs somebody protected. I do some investigating sometimes if he needs me, but I'm mostly just protection." I smiled at the idea of this mighty mouse working as hired muscle. But I knew that if Joey thought someone was tough, they were by G.o.d tough.

I asked, "Can I go inside now?"

"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. Here." He slipped a key in the door and opened it. I stepped inside. Randy called out, "It's okay ma'am," closed the door from the outside and, I guessed, went back to his hidey-hole.

Susan and Carli walked into the living room. I looked at them and said, "That was interesting."

Susan said, "Loutie says he's a Navy SEAL. Our Mr. Whittles is one very serious young man."

Carli said, "I call him G.I. Joe."

"Good. That he's serious, I mean. Not that you call him G.I. Joe." I said, "Joey says he needs Loutie to handle some, uh, surveillance I asked him to do."

Susan said, "Carli knows Purcell paid you a visit."

I asked, "Does she know about the investigator's note?" Susan shook her head. I said, "Come on. Let's go back to the kitchen where we can get comfortable and talk."

Carli asked, "What's going on?"

I said, "We've got a lot more information now. A lot of it's helpful, and some of it's disturbing. Come on. I need to fill you in."

We sat at the table, and I talked. Susan had steeled Carli for the involvement of Leroy Purcell, and my young client had, it seemed, come to terms with Purcell knowing about Carli Monroe. She was less prepared to hear that Purcell knew about Carli Poultrez. As I described finding the investigator's report under my windshield wiper, blood drained from Carli's lips. When I placed the report on the cream tablecloth in front of her, the rest of her face lost color. Her small ears, visible because she had swept her dark hair back in a ponytail, turned fiery red and made her face look even paler.

She said, "What's this mean at the bottom? 'Rus Poultreza"Contact Report.' There's nothing after it." Carli's voice caught in her throat. "It means they found my father and talked with him, doesn't it. Isn't that what it means?"

"I think it means Purcell wants us to believe his investigator met with your father. It could be nothing. Just something to make us nervous. To make you do something stupid."

She shook her head from side to side as I spoke. "The name's right. The address is right." I couldn't think of anything useful or comforting to say about that, so I pushed on and reported my dialogue with Billy Teeter. It didn't help.

Carli's eyes grew larger, and the edges of her eyelids turned bright red. "What's that stuff got to do with me? I don't care if Leroy Purcell is smuggling drugs or people or anything else. I just want him to leave me alone." Tears were streaming down her cheeks now. Her voice cracked as she spoke. "Tell him. Tell him I don't care about what he does. Tell him to just leave me alone. I'll go away. I'll go out west somewhere and forget I ever heard of him."

Susan put her hand on Carli's back to console her, and Carli pushed it away. My young client thought we had failed her. And, at least for the moment, punishing Leroy Purcella"doing the right thinga"became far less important to her than staying alive.

We were quiet for a while. I tried to think. Carli's movements grew less frenetic. Her shoulders relaxed. She wiped away the tears. The central air cycled off, and the quiet hum fell away to reveal a chorus of crickets beneath the kitchen window.

When the tears had stopped, I said, "The reason you can't just tell Purcell you'll leave him alone is thata"the way he looks at ita"he never knows when you'll show up and blackmail him to keep quiet. And, Carli, the fact that you'd never blackmail him is irrelevant. He'd do it, so he figures you would too."

Carli looked down at the tablecloth, but her eyes were focused a thousand miles away. I glanced up at Susan and went on. "Carli, even if we somehow got Purcell to say he'd leave you alone, you couldn't trust him. He's the kind of man who'll make a deal, and then stick a knife in your stomach while you're shaking on it." Carli began to cry again, and Susan gave me an angry look. "I'm sorry, Carli. I'm sorry to say it that way. But you have to understand who you're dealing with. You cannot convince yourself that you can end this with a phone call or a meeting. And, right now, we don't have enough evidence to get Purcell convicted of the murder you witnessed. We could get him arrested. Maybe. But he'd never go to jail based on what we've got. Now, under normal circ.u.mstances, we could report the crime, put it on the record that you witnessed the murder, and make it hard for Purcell to retaliate without getting in more trouble. But Carli, these aren't normal circ.u.mstances. I'm afraid Purcell would worry about getting rid of witnesses first and how to deal with your obvious disappearance down the road somewhere.

"Remember, Purcell is a violent, explosive man. He's where he is because he's crazy enough to do things that even other criminals won't do. Sooner or later, it'll catch up with him. A man can't go on forever killing and setting fires to settle disputes. But for now, he's kind of bullet proof because he is so d.a.m.n crazy."

Carli had stopped crying. Tears had drawn dark trails down her cheeks to her jawline, just as they had the first time I spoke with her. She said, "You said he's bullet proof, but he's not. I know what you mean, but he's not. A bullet would kill him."

I looked at Susan, who raised her eyebrows as if to say, Who can blame her? I let the subject drop.

Carli left to wash her face. I found bread in Loutie's wormwood cupboard and roast beef, mayonnaise, mustard, and farmer's cheese in the stainless steel refrigerator. Susan said that she and Carli had eaten. I built two sandwiches for myself and had eaten one and started on the second by the time Carli came back in the room. It was a few minutes after ten now.

Carli said, "I'm tired. This is a lot. I mean, it's a lot to think about. I'm just gonna go to bed." And she left Susan and me alone in the kitchen as the air conditioner cycled on again, deadening the mating calls of the crickets in Loutie's shrubbery.

"She does that a lot."

"What?" Susan said.

"When things get bad, she goes to bed. Nothing wrong with it I just noticed it. People in prison do that."

"Go to bed early?"

"No. Not just that. They sleep all the time because they can't stand where they are. It's like temporary suicide. If you're not conscious, you don't have to feel bad. I read about it for the first time after Watergate. Ehrlichman, I think it was, commented in an interview that all these white-collar crooks in minimum security slept their time away." I asked, "Has Carli been sleeping much during the day?"

"Some. Well, come to think of it, she takes a nap every afternoon. I just thought she was bored."

"Maybe she is. I'm just armchair shrinking to avoid some unpleasant thoughts of my own." I motioned at the door Carli had gone through on her way to bed. "It must be tough for her."

Susan said, "It's been a tough couple of days for you too. What do you say we go veg out in front of the TV? We won't even watch Nightline. We'll watch Leno or Letterman."

"It's Sunday."

Susan grabbed my hand and pulled me up and toward the living room. "Then we'll find a great old movie and forget the real world is even out there."

Rear Window and Get Shorty were still on top of the VCR from two nights earlier. Susan said, "Loutie was saying the other night when you rented Rear Window that she already had it. Apparently, she's a Hitchc.o.c.k nut." Susan opened a narrow painted-pine cabinet next to the converted antique chifforobe that held Loutie's TV and said, "Look." Every Hitchc.o.c.k I had ever seen, along with a few I didn't know existed, was lined up on rows of shallow shelves. Hitch had his own ordered s.p.a.ce on the top three racks. Loutie's other videos were there, but they were out of order and clearly subservient to Sir Alfred's body of work. Susan said, "What about Dial M for Murder?"

I said, "Pop it in," and she did.

Instead of previews, the tape started with a film lesson on Alfred Hitchc.o.c.k and his penchant for upper-crust-looking blondes. Susan disappeared. I watched Janet Leigh, Tippi Hendren, Grace Kelly, Doris Day, and Kim Novak take turns looking horrified. Three or four minutes of that went by, and Susan reappeared holding a cold bottle of Chardonnay, two tulip-shaped gla.s.ses, and a corkscrew. She said, "All part of the program. Watch what's-his-name, um, Robert c.u.mmings, and Grace Kelly smooch, drink a little wine, and see where it leads."

"You do know that there's kind of a grisly murder in the movie too?"

She said, "I can take it if you can," and sat on the sofa next to me. I performed the oddly satisfying job of cutting and peeling foil from the bottle's neck. The cork came out in one piece, and the slightly greenish spirits flowed into both expectant gla.s.ses with minimal mess. We settled back and sipped some of the b.u.t.tery Chardonnay. I'm not much of a white wine drinker, but you don't tell a woman who has surprised you with a romantic gesture that you'd just as soon have red wine, or maybe even a little scotch if she has it. We settled into the cushions as an oversized finger began to dial an old-fashioned rotary phone. Hitch showed the mechanical telephone machinery jump and shudder in response to the movements of the finger. And there she was. Grace Kelly. And she was kissing Robert c.u.mmings of all people. I said, "Now, explain this to me. She's got this dashing former-international-tennis-star husband at home, who's a p.r.i.c.k, but she doesn't know thata"not to mention that she could get pretty much any other man she wantsa"and she decides to go after Bob c.u.mmings. What the h.e.l.l is that about?"

Susan cleared her throat, and I turned to look at her. She gave me a sidelong look that said, you're ruining the mood, dummy, and took in a small sip of wine. I turned back to the movie, and, for the first time, noticed the warmth of Susan's thigh and knee against my leg where she had turned ever so slightly my way and ever so casually rested her leg on mine. Oh. And she had been resting her empty hand on my shoulder in what I thought was a friendly and comfortable way. Oh, again. I can take a hint, so long as it's sufficiently obvious and prolonged.

Susan was wearing a simple white pullover with short sleeves, a crew neck, and a squared shirttail that hung untucked over blue shorts that sort of looked like a miniskirt until you realized they were shorts. I shifted the gla.s.s to my right hand and casually, I hoped, placed my left hand on Susan's leg in what I also hoped was an intimate, as opposed to a blatantly h.o.r.n.y, gesture. When I did, she lifted her hand from my shoulder and began to stroke my hair. It felt wonderful. It felt relaxing. And I felt sleepy. Yawn now and you're a dead man. Instead, I leaned toward Susan, and she took away any chance of awkwardness by folding into me so that our lips met perfectly and softly. I wasn't sleepy anymore. Time floated as we kissed gently. We parted, and I looked for any caution or concern on her face. She looked happy.

Susan hummed. "Mmmm."

I put my gla.s.s on the coffee table and smiled. "You're pretty vocal, aren't you?"

As Susan leaned her face in close to mine, she said, "You have no idea."

This time our mouths and tongues melted together. We pulled closer, and I moved my hand over her thigh just to feel the silkiness of her legs. As I did, Susan reached down and placed her hand over mine.

I said, "Sorry."

Susan smiled. She pulled my hand up and inside her shirt and cupped it over her left breast.

I caressed her through a thin layer of cotton and, as we kissed again, slid my hand down and then back up inside her sports bra. Her breast felt hot and firm, and I could feel the tiny, rhythmic thuds of her heart beating. I desperately wanted, even needed, to move my mouth down and across her neck and collarbone and shoulders, to kiss her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and hold her nipples inside my mouth. I kissed her throat, and she pulled away just enough to click off the lamp on the end table, pull her shirt and bra over her head, and toss them aside. She lay back against the pillows and pulled me on top of her. I pushed into her mouth and moved my hands over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Susan shoved gently against my chest and tugged at my shirt and dropped it on the floor. Skin to skin now, I kissed her mouth and her nipples and every inch of skin in between. We lay there on the sofa with Dial M for Murder playing in the background and made out and touched and breathed in each other like teenage sweethearts with no bed to go to.

Susan guided my hand again, this time to her legs and over her impossibly warm smooth inner thigh and inside the blue cotton shorts. As I pushed her panties aside and my fingers found the silky places where she wanted to be touched and I wanted to touch, Susan began to unb.u.t.ton my jeans. Suddenly, she pushed away. "Come on." I sat up, and whispered, "Is something wrong?" Standing now next to the sofa in nothing but a pair of miniskirt-looking shorts and framed by Hitchc.o.c.k's glow, she said, "Let's go to the bedroom." My brain's usual blood supply was otherwise engaged, and I was a little dazed by the past half hour and by the sudden interruption. I looked at her and blinked. She said, "Hurry."

And I did. Then I didn't.

Someone, somewhere out there, rapped on a door. It went away, and then started again. This time, the rapping pushed sleep away and grew louder. Susan called out. "Carli?"

Randy Whittles' voice said, "It's me, Mrs. Fitzsimmons."

"Yes. What is it, Randy?"

"I gotta go home and catch a few hours' sleep. Loutie's supposed to be back around eleven. And, with Mr. McInnes in the house, I thought it'd be okay." He hesitated and said, "You guys must have had a late night. n.o.body's up yet."

I looked at my watch. 10:24.I smiled and showed it to Susan. She moved her eyebrows up and down like a lascivious Groucho Marx, and spoke to Randy. "Go ahead. We'll be fine."

Randy yes-ma'amed her and departed.

I said, "Wow. I haven't slept this late in six months."

Susan said, "I haven't slept this well in longer than that. This is delicious. Lying in bed on a Monday morning, enjoying the... the what, maybe the afterglow if that doesn't sound ridiculous."

"Sounds perfect to me."

Susan leaned over and kissed my lips. Then, as she turned and reached to click on the bedside lamp, she said, "Nowhere to be and nothing I have to do. And you absolutely deserve a day off."

When she had leaned over to turn on the light, the sheet had fallen to her waist, and I was conducting a thorough and thoroughly satisfying study of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I said, "You know what we could do?"

Susan gave me a look. "We could go check on Carli to make sure she's all right."

"Yeah. That's what I was going to say." Susan laughed and rolled off the bed and, from my perspective, made a very nice job of walking to the bathroom. I sat up, swung my feet to the floor, and pushed up. My jeans were in a tangle against a baseboard ten feet from the bed. I pulled them on and went to the living room with the intention of retrieving my shirt and Susan's bra and shirt before Carli found them.

Randy said she wasn't up yet. I still had a chance to be discreet.

The faint hum of Susan's shower dissipated as I moved down the hallway. On through the hall and the study and then into the living room, I found nothing but quiet. I had gathered up our clothes and started back when, for some reason, I stopped in the study and listened. And there was nothing. Almost too much nothing, and I was overwhelmed by the feeling that Susan and I were in the house alone.

I trotted across the study floor, turned away from Susan's room, and hung a left down a second hallway. Carli's paneled door was on the right. I knocked. Nothing. I knocked again and called her name. Still nothing.

"Carli? Carli! Answer me! I'm coming in now. So, cover yourself up or whatever you need to do."

The k.n.o.b twisted in my hand, but the door stood immobile. I called out again and remembered my own pseudo-shrink comment that constant napping and sleeping like Carli had been doing was a form of temporary suicide. I thought about kicking the door in but decided that might be an overreaction. And I wasn't even sure I could do it. That was two inches of antique oak between me and Carli. I ran to get Susan.

Thank G.o.d, the bathroom door was unlocked. Inside, Susan sloshed in the shower, and I could barely see through all the billowing steam stuffed into the small tiled room.

I said, "I need the key to Carli's room. She's not answering."

Through fogged gla.s.s, I could just make out Susan scrubbing suds out of her hair and rinsing foam off her face. Two beats pa.s.sed while she washed away soap and shampoo, and she said, "Maybe she's just sleeping hard." But, even as she spoke, Susan stepped out of the shower and grabbed a terry cloth robe off a hook on the door. I am ashamed to say that, even then and even under those circ.u.mstances, I was struck and aroused by all that beautiful wet skin. I am pleased to say that I did not pause to enjoy either the view or the fantasy.

Susan wasn't running, but she was moving fast. She said, "Go back and try again. Loutie keeps all the keys on hooks in the kitchen. I'll be right there."

I didn't have Susan's self-control. I sprinted, as much as anyone can sprint in an old house full of antiques, back to Carli's door.

Still, nothing but quiet.

I banged and called and banged some more. And, out of nowhere, Susan was beside me, pushing an antique skeleton key into the lock. She swung the door wide, and we stepped into the room The bed was made. The window was open. And Carli was gone.

chapter sixteen.

We stood, stunned. When we moved, Susan ran to the window, and I performed the same lame searches I had the last time Carli's bed had been unexpectedly empty. She wasn't in the closet or under the bed this time either, and neither were any of her things. But there was a penciled note on the vanity. I called Susan over, and when she turned to face me, white showed all around her bright blue irises.

The note was on the same notebook paper Carli had been using for all her drawings. On the top half of the page, Carli had sketched a picture of Susan's antique step-side pickup with tall gra.s.s all around and what looked like a rosebush covering the front wheel. On the bottom half, she had simply written, Thanksa"Sorrya"Carli.

When Susan spoke, her voice fluttered just above a whisper. "It looks like she took off last night after she left us in the kitchen."

"Probably. But after Randy left this morning would've been the best time to get away unnoticed, and she could've gotten up and made her bed before slipping out." In contrast to Susan's strained syllables, my voice sounded loud and uncouth in the abandoned bedroom. I self-consciously lowered and calmed my voice. "It had to take some time to draw this, a.s.suming she drew it at the same time she wrote the note. She may have just picked up an old drawing and written on it." I said, "Go out front and check the sidewalks. I'll check in back."

Susan turned and flew through the bedroom door. I pushed the note inside my hip pocket, put my feet through the bottom half of the tall, open window, and sat on the sill. Turning and sliding, I caught the sill with both hands and dropped the last few feet to the ground. A teenage girl could easily have done the same thing. And she had. The mud-grip tread of Carli's sport sandals was pressed neatly into the soft earth of a flower bed. She had barely missed stomping the freshly planted tulip bulbs Loutie had a.s.signed to her care when she first arrived.

Textured footprints moved off the bed at an angle. The few, diluted drops of Creek blood flowing through my veins didn't help me track her steps. I followed the angle but, after that, couldn't really tell what she had done. It seemed likely, though, that Carli had moved parallel with Monterey Street, crossing three contiguous back lawns, before being forced by a tall privacy fence to turn back toward the street and hit the sidewalk. If Randy had been focused on the street and alley, he never would have seen her scurry away.

Following my guesswork route, I circled around to the street and met Susan trotting down the sidewalk. She halted in front of me. Her wide eyes had narrowed with focus. I asked, "Have you got your pickup around here somewhere?"

Susan's voice was clear now. "It's parked around off the alley out of sight."

"You'd better get it. She's probably long gone, but it'd be stupid not to split up and cover the streets around here." We turned and walked hurriedly toward the house. Inside, Susan got dressed in less than a minute, shedding her robe, pulling on panties, jeans, and running shoes, and sliding a green T-shirt over wet hair which she didn't bother to brush. I put on last night's clothes, grabbed a mouthful of Scope, sloshed a little, and spit in the sink.

As Susan turned the key in Loutie's front door, I said, "Just drive up and down the streets looking. And take a good look at any parks you come across. I'll cover the bus stops and work my way toward downtown." I asked, "What's the code on Loutie's answering machine?"

"I don't know. Why?"