P is for Peril

When I held out the brown manila envelope, you'd have thought I was offering her a bug on a tray.

"What's this?" she asked, suspiciously.

"You said you wanted a report."

She opened the envelope and peered at the pages. "Well, thank you. I appreciate that," she said, dismissing my labors with a glance. "I hope you won't object to talking in the bedroom. I'd like to unpack."

"Fine with me." In truth I was curious to see the rest of the place.

"The flight home was murder, one of those thirty-seat orange crates blowing all over the place. I didn't mind the up-and-down so much as the side-to-side. I thought I'd never get home."

"Probably wind from the storm."

"I'll never fly on one of those small planes again. I'd rather go by rail even if it takes half a day."

She picked up a makeup case she'd stashed in the hall. She barely glanced at the larger suitcase. "Grab that for me."

I picked up the hard-sided suitcase, feeling like a pack mule as I followed her up the stairs. That sucker was heavy. I watched her legs flashing in front of me as she mounted the steps. She wore stockings with seams. With her affinity for the '40s, I was surprised she didn't draw a line down the back of each bare leg the way women did during World War II rationing. We turned right at the landing and went into a white-on-white master suite, which featured a large wall of glass overlooking the road. I set her suitcase on the floor. While Fiona moved into the bathroom with her makeup case, I crossed to the windows to absorb the view.

The coastline was completely enveloped in fog, thunder heads rising like ominous mountains in the distance. The hills were saturated with green, plant life responding to the rain with a sudden burst of new growth. In the overcast, Brunswick Lake had turned silver, its surface as flat and as mottled as an antique mirror. I turned. Fiona's four-poster bed was situated so that she saw much of this: sun rising to her left, going down on her right. I tried to imagine what it would be like to sleep in a room this big. At one end of the room, double doors stood open to reveal a large walk-in closet the size of my loft. At the opposite end, there was a fireplace with easy chairs and a low glass coffee table arranged in front of it. I pictured Fiona and Dow having drinks up here on the nights when he stopped by. I wondered if they'd ever gone to bed together just for old time's sake.

Fiona emerged from the bathroom and moved to the bed, where a second hard-sided suitcase was already laid open on the pristine spread. She began to remove the articles of clothing she'd packed with such care. "Why don't you start from the beginning and fill me in." I opened my verbal recital with an improvisational medley of interviews, going back over my report in a series of beautifully articulated summations of events. I began with Detective Odessa, segued into my visit with Crystal Purcell, and then moved on to Pacific Meadows, at which point I delineated the nature of the difficulties Dow Purcell was facing. I wasn't even fully warmed up when I hit a sour note that undercut my confidence. Fiona had been moving back and forth from the bed to the walk-in closet, carrying blouses and skirts, which she hung on matching white satin-padded hangers. She said, "You might as well follow me. Otherwise, I won't hear you and you'll have to repeat. My ears are still stopped up; just one more reason for taking the train."

I moved to the closet and stood in the doorway to continue the program. "At any rate, Saturday afternoon I went up to Blanche's shortly after she phoned . . ."

Fiona turned to me. "You went over to see Blanche? Why in the world did you do that?"

"She called me at home. I got the impression you'd already spoken to her."

"I did no such thing and I can't believe you'd take such a step without consulting me. No one's to be brought into this unless I say so. I'm paying for your time. If I'd wanted you to see Blanche, I'd have given you her number."

"I thought you did."

"I gave you Melanie's, not hers. How much did you tell her?"

"I really don't remember. Honestly, I'm sorry, but she acted as if she knew all about me, so I assumed she'd talked to you or to Melanie. She said the two of them were so relieved because they'd been urging you to hire someone ever since their father disappeared."

"That's immaterial. I'll pass on information to the girls if it seems relevant, but I think it's inappropriate coming from you. Is that clear?"

"Of course," I said, stung. Having paid Richard Hevener the entire $1,500 Fiona'd given me, I no longer had the means to refund her original retainer. Deducting $50 for the time I'd spent with Trigg, I now owed her $1,075 worth of services and realized if I quit, there was no way to pay her back, short of pulling the money from my savings account.