Getting lucky, p.28
Getting Lucky, page 28
“I told you I had a few things to do. We’ll still be able to talk.” Before she could start whining, I plunged ahead, “What shall I get you? You in the mood for chocolate?”
She looked up from the computer. “Why, yes,” she said, brightening.
“Chocolate chip muffin?”
“That sounds lovely.”
After delivering two coffees, a muffin and a scone I tapped open my story.
“We can talk while I’m working,” I told her.
“Good,” she said. “Did I tell you about the sketching class I’m taking at Dryden?”
“No, you didn’t.” This seemed odd; she’d never exhibited any interest in art, whether she was drawing it or hanging it on the walls. “What are you drawing?”
“Well, first it was round things.” She continued, telling me about the ornaments and the apples.
I’d been listening to my mother for long enough to be able to read and ask questions at the same time. While she talked, I read over my follow-up Cedar Ridge story. I had mixed feelings about the whole thing. Although I believed we’d managed to pull off the Cedar Ridge deception, I was no closer to knowing who killed Clair. Leoni was still a possibility, and his friend, Justin Adamo, probably wouldn’t have hesitated. But without proof, which I didn’t have, my conjectures were useless.
“Who else is in the class?” I asked when my mother seemed to run out of steam.
“Oh, some of the usual mopes.”
“Azalea?”
“No. She’s learning how to crochet.” My mother snorted softly and added, under her breath, “At her age.”
She launched into a critique of a few of Dryden’s residents. Most were either bossy or submissive. I wondered if there was a “bitchy” category. As she talked, I scrolled down to an unfinished paragraph. I still needed a quote from Glenn Patchen. I’d tried him a couple of times, but hadn’t spoken with him since the sale. He hadn’t been in on the charade, but he’d kept mum about the property long enough to allow it to happen. Although, I tended to think his silence had more to do with self preservation than anything else. I wondered what he was looking to do next. Seemed a shame to waste his talent. Even if he was a sniveling coward.
I waited until my mother stopped talking and turned her attention on her muffin. “I’ve gotta make a quick phone call, Mom.”
“Don’t let me disturb you, Dear.”
She gave me a pleasant smile as I punched in his number, and she murmured something about the traffic being rather heavy today.
When I didn’t get an answer on Patchen’s cell phone, I wondered if he’d gone back to Chicago to be with his wife. I did a search for him on the Internet and found a number. When a woman answered, I told her who I was and asked to speak with Glenn. She said, “He’s not here.”
“Is this Joanna West?”
She hesitated, then said that she was.
“Glenn talked about you. Said you’re a photographer.” Not sure why I mentioned that. I guess I was feeling a bit of a chill on the other end and wanted to know why. Then, for some reason, I added, “Clair Powell was a student of yours, wasn’t she?”
She emitted a humorless chuckle. “I don’t mean to be unpleasant, Miss …”
I repeated my name.
“… Guthrie. Glenn doesn’t live here anymore. I believe he moved into that trailer. You might find him there.”
She disconnected. Interesting. I hit End on my phone and set it beside my computer.
“What is it, Robyn?”
“Probably nothing. But this guy I need to talk to isn’t living with his wife anymore.”
“Who is he?”
“Glenn Patchen. An architect.”
She broke off a chunk of muffin and nibbled at it. “So, he’s available?”
I chose to ignore that and attempted to digest the news. I supposed this wasn’t a shock. I knew he’d spent at least one drunken night at his trailer. And then there was that tendency to get emotional when talking about Clair.
“Robyn.”
“Just a second, Mom.” I needed to think this through.
“Robyn.”
It wasn’t until I looked up to ask my mother for a little patience that I saw her attention had wandered elsewhere. Standing next to our table were Lucky Leoni and his lovely daughter.
“Hey, Robyn,” he said.
Without waiting for an invitation or even an acknowledgment, he pulled out the chair next to my mom’s and waved his daughter into it. Mercedes looked at her dad as if he were joking, apparently saw he wasn’t, then sat in the chair as though it was covered in wet paint. She regarded me with a mixture of scorn and boredom before turning to look out the window.
Leoni smiled down at my mother and said, “Who’s this lovely young lady?”
“Don’t make me blush,” my mother said with an edge that I didn’t think Leoni caught.
“That’s my mother, Lizzie Guthrie. Mom, Ed Leoni.”
He turned his smile on me and, as usual, I found the coldness behind it unsettling. “I see who you get your looks from,” he said.
I forced down my mouthful of pastry with some coffee, swallowing with an audible gulp. When I first saw him standing there, I was afraid that he’d learned that Stratford had chosen another location for the casino. While I knew that was going to happen—and probably soon—I’d hoped to be nowhere in Lucky’s vicinity when he learned of it. But now that I’d gotten over my initial panic, I realized he wasn’t being any creepier than usual. I allowed myself to relax a little.
“I keep running into you here,” he persisted. “Must be fate.”
“Or something.” I tapped open an email from “Tea of the Month Club” and pretended to read. I really didn’t want them to stay, and yet I’d come to know Lucky well enough to realize that my discomfort would not send him away. On the contrary, Lucky Leoni was a guy who liked making people squirm. So I tried my best to appear preoccupied rather than uncomfortable.
“Mrs. Guthrie, this is my daughter, Mercedes.”
My mother nodded as Leoni said to his daughter. “And you remember Robyn.”
“No,” Mercedes said, her gaze skimming past me before focusing out the window again. Leoni placed a hand on her shoulder, but he didn’t get her attention until he asked her what she wanted to drink.
“Decaf skim latte with one and a half shots of caramel and chocolate bits,” she told him. Leoni went to the counter, and Mercedes returned her attention to the street scene. I could hear her deep sigh from across the table. When I looked up, I saw that my mother was watching her with that little, tentative smile that appears innocent, but means she’s up to something.
Without looking away from the street, Mercedes said, “Why are you staring at me?”
Instead of answering, my mother reached toward Mercedes and touched the sleeve of her khaki jacket. This caused the young girl to start and draw away, regarding my mother as though she’d just spat at her.
My mother said, “Aren’t you a bit young to be drinking coffee?”
“No.” Mercedes’ lip began to curl.
“It will stunt your growth, you know.”
“No it won’t.” Mercedes looked toward the counter where her dad, waiting for their order, winked at her.
My mother settled back in her chair, smiling at Mercedes. “It’s bad for your bones.”
“That’s stupid,” she said, tossing her hair.
“It will make your hair thin.” My mother touched her own short, still thick, white hair. “And you’ll gray sooner.”
I pressed my lips together and watched Mercedes struggle to hold it together.
“Mercedes plays tennis,” I said to my mother.
“Really?” She turned to Mercedes. “Why?”
It was as though my mother had spoken in Latin or some other dead language.
“She’s a number three seed,” I offered.
“Oh.” My mother worked her jaw a couple of times. “What’s a seed?”
“It means two other people play better than she does.”
“Oh,” my mother said, giving Mercedes a tender smile. “I’m sorry.”
Mercedes’ nostrils flared and her eyes sparked. Finally, she burst out with, “You’re old!”
“Hey, what’s going on?” Leoni sat so his back was to the window, set his daughter’s frothy drink in front of her and blew some of the steam off his black coffee.
“My mom and Mercedes were getting acquainted.” From the body language displayed, it looked as though my mother had been talking to the back of Mercedes’s head.
Leoni, unfazed by his daughter’s rudeness, asked me, “What do you hear from Mr. Smith?”
“Nothing yet.”
“Yeah, I suppose I’ll know before you do.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“Who’s Mr. Smith?” my mother piped in.
“A businessman,” I told her
“I’m kind of busy here,” I said to Leoni, opening a browser in search of a subject to sidetrack him.
“We’ll just be a couple of minutes. Mercedes has her tennis lesson in a half hour.”
As the page loaded I looked up and saw my mother’s eyes widening. “She shouldn’t drink coffee before tennis.”
Just as I felt a laugh trying to escape, my gaze fell on the “Chicago Today” feature, and I sobered real fast as I read the headline: Stratford Chooses Wildwood for Casino Site. Shit.
Of course, this didn’t stun me, but I did have to marvel at the timing. I skimmed the article, which had been posted less than an hour ago. The spokesperson for Stratford, Amanda Troy, spent a lot of time praising the northwest location.
I must have made some odd noise, because when I looked up from the article, both my mother and Leoni were watching me.
“Nothing,” I said. “Just my horoscope.”
Now both my mother and Leoni looked confused.
“Dad?” It was Mercedes.
“Pisces is rising. That’s, um, usually good. Except when Mercury is—”
“Dad!” This time we all looked to see what was going on and, at the same time, I heard a crash.
My mother gasped. I jumped. It wasn’t inside the Lizard. Not that close. I saw Mercedes with her mouth hanging open and followed her gaze out the window just as I heard the noise again, Only this time there was a sort of thunk to it.
“What the—” Leoni was now standing, staring out the window onto Main Street at Justin Adamo, in his soft leather jacket, with a baseball bat raised over his head. As I watched, he brought it crashing down onto the windshield of a sable-colored Mercedes convertible. Its left fender had already taken a hit and one of the headlights had been taken out. The little car looked like it was winking at us. In the time it took all this to sink in, Leoni was out the door, hollering obscenities.
“Dad! That’s … ” Mercedes watched as her father bore down on Adamo. “… our car.” Her voice trailed off.
She hesitated, apparently saw her other choice was to stay with us, and she followed her father.
My mother took a sip of her coffee. “Is that that young man’s car?”
“Yes, it is, Mom. And we need to get out of here.”
“I haven’t finished my muffin.”
I hastily wrapped it in a napkin and shoved it into her handbag. “We have to leave.” I tried to sound urgent, but not panicked.
I closed my laptop and slipped it into my messenger bag, which I slung over my shoulder. I took my mother’s arm and led her to the small phalanx just outside the Lizard’s door, stopping short of Mercedes, who stood at the front of the crowd but didn’t seem inclined to interject herself into the scene.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Leoni lunged for Adamo’s arm and tried to grab the bat from him. Adamo twisted out of his grip and smacked the bat against the passenger side door, leaving a ball-sized dent. Leoni came at him, but now Adamo backed off a couple feet, waving the bat in front of him, almost taunting Leoni. Leoni stopped. “You wanna tell me what the fuck you’re doing?”
“You want to tell me you didn’t know about Stratford’s new casino site?”
Leoni stopped, almost rearing back. “What’re you talking about?”
I slipped my mother and me behind one of the Lizard’s taller patrons, at the same time looking for an escape route.
“What is he talking about, Robyn?”
I shushed her and didn’t check to see if I’d gotten a withering look in return. Probably.
“It’s Wildwood, asshole. Don’t tell me you didn’t hear.”
Peering around my human wall, I saw Leoni stop, raising his hands in an almost prayerful gesture. “Why are you trashing my car?”
Adamo spat on the car’s roof. “You set this up.”
That suburb was a ways north of us, and also a river town.
“No. No, man. Don’t do that.” Leoni was begging now. “I’ll fix this.”
“Then I’ll owe you for a window,” Adamo said just before he took out the passenger-side window.
Now I could hear police sirens. Coming this way. We needed to get out of here.
Just then Adamo backed up another step as though to do some damage to the trunk, and Leoni lunged at him again, knocking him off balance at the moment he had the bat raised over his head. The bat went flying as Adamo’s arms pinwheeled, and as he stumbled back another step I heard brakes screaming. I think there was a moment of recognition on Adamo’s face just before the car bore down on him. I held my mother to me. The impact sent Adamo flying like some kind of stunt dummy into the other lane. A loud honk, more screaming brakes was followed by a moment of shock-filled silence. It was as though everyone had gasped for a breath at the same second. Then there were a couple of moans, one woman screamed and the sirens got louder.
“Oh, my goodness,” my mother breathed. As I watched, Lucky turned away from the accident with his hand covering his eyes. He staggered a couple of steps, groping for something to hold onto and found his car. But when he brought his hand down on the shattered window, he recoiled, stepped back and took in the wreck that had been his beloved car. In a matter of seconds, his expression changed from shock to rage. He spun around, looking into the small crowd around the Lizard’s door.
I felt like we were standing on the tracks with a train speeding toward us, but I was powerless to turn away. But then Lucky saw his daughter—maybe she was who he’d been looking for—and he buried his face in his hands. Someone had pulled Mercedes into the Lizard and away from the scene. Her eyes were wide and she seemed in shock. I never thought I’d feel sorry for Mercedes Leoni, but I did. I really did.
But I didn’t have time to dwell on that because the cavalry, in the form of the police, pulled up to the corner. Lucky stepped back, apparently reassessing his priorities. That was when I felt someone’s hand on my arm and a voice in my ear. “Let’s get out of here.”
I looked up and saw Vrana, but I was still in frozen mode so he had to drag my mother and me a few steps before I got the hang of walking again, and I let him lead us to his little black car.
Sometimes being followed wasn’t such a bad thing.
He’d taken each of us by an arm, and my mother was the first to shake him off. “What are you doing?”
“It’s okay, Mom,” I told her. “This is Kurt Vrana. He’s a …” What was he? Stalker? Fellow collaborator? I settled for the easiest, “… friend.”
He gave her a gracious nod and a slight bow. She was pleased.
I leaned against his car, afraid my knees would give out.
“Did you see what happened?” my mother was asking, and before she got an answer, she continued, “There was this tall woman in front of me. I did see a man in the air.” She looked at me. “Are you all right?”
“I’ll be fine,” I told her, relieved she hadn’t seen much.
I was thinking I needed to call Mick, but this wasn’t the place to do it.
“Did you see what hit him?” Vrana asked as he observed the activity.
“Other than a car? No.”
He turned to me. “A Prius.” With a bob of his eyebrows he added, deadpan, “The silent, green death.”
I tried to keep a straight face, but I couldn’t.
When Vrana opened the passenger door for us, I declined and gestured across the street. “Got my car.”
My mother was studying him with keen interest. “How good a friend are you?” she asked.
Grinning, he said, “Good enough, I guess.”
He closed the door and leaned against the car. “You’ve got a different end for your story now.” He glanced toward Main Street where a police officer was signaling traffic to go either north or south. The street had been swiftly closed.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“You think Adamo killed Clair?”
“He’s got—he had—the personality for it.”
“I don’t like not knowing.”
I thought of Clair’s parents. “Nobody does.”
“Why are you still following me?” I asked.
“Force of habit, I guess.”
“Well, just to save you the effort, I’m taking my mother home now.” But I stood there, trying to think of something that had escaped me.
“What?” Vrana asked.
“There was something else I was going to do.” I shook my head. “I was just thinking about it in the Lizard. I hate that when I can’t remember something.”
“Was it about that architect?” my mother asked.
I sighed. “Yes, it was,” I said, a little distressed to find my mother’s memory exceeding my own.
“You talking about Patchen?” Vrana asked.
“Yeah. I just learned he and his wife have separated. He’s living at Cedar Ridge. In that trailer.”
“I thought you needed to see him,” my mother said.
“Later.”
Vrana stared off for a minute, then shook his head. “Tough break.”
I adjusted my bag’s strap on my shoulder and put my hand on my mother’s shoulder. “Time to be getting to back to Dryden.”
“Wait until Lionel hears about this.”
“Who’s Lionel?” I asked.
My mother started. “Oh. Just one of the residents.”
Indeed.
