Liberty Falling-pigeon 7 (24 page)

Patsy would get to know people in a trailer park in Yazoo, Mississippi, in the Sahara or in downtown Hong Kong without being able to speak a word of Chinese, but Anna didn't interrupt the flow with this irrelevancy.

"Hatch knows everything about me: kids, exes, favorite color, Mom's death, Dad's new Land Rover. All this time I thought we were having two-way conversations, but you know what? I don't know anything about Hatch. God. I feel awful. I just talked and talked and didn't notice. I don't know if he has family, friends. I don't even know if he's got a wife, where he goes on vacations--nothing."

Letting a sip of red wine roll around on her tongue, Anna mentally reviewed her conversations with the deceased Park Policeman. The talk had been fairly unstrained, open and honest but, she reflected, it was not personal. Hatch didn't talk about himself. He spoke of the statue, of the jobs he'd had; enjoyable but, when analyzed, fairly free of content of the kind that could give a peek into the man's heart.

"Moody," you said. The word echoed those of the Assistant Superintendent.

"Yes. He was always good as gold, polite, friendly, all that, but he'd kind of go on autopilot once in a while. You've seen the look: hiding the pain."

Anna had seen. EMTs learned to love brave patients--they weren't nearly such a pain in the ass as the whiners--but not to trust them. In the name of courage, they would hide symptoms, not ask for help when there was help hovering around anxious to give succor--or just anxious to stick an
IV
in. Less than four sticks a month and an EMT-IV lost her license.

"Like they're seeing yon through a thick piece of cheesecloth and your voice is distant and so tiny they can barely make out what you're saying."

"Yes. That."

"I take it he never did any classic suicide things: previous attempts, references to being 'too tired,' suddenly going from morose to peaceful, giving things away?"

"None of that. At least not around me."

Anna told her the story of the leaper at Golden Gate National Recreation Area while Hatch was serving a tour of duty there, of his being deeply affected by the death of a stranger and a death he, personally, did not witness. She told Patsy of the wildflowers strewn over the death site. In the telling she recalled a detail she'd put out of her mind. "There were flower petals at the base of the statue where the girl hit. I went out late that night because I am a morbid, blood-sucking voyeur, and someone had scattered
azalea
blossoms."

"Hatch?"

"Looks that way."

"Does it mean anything?"

"That Hatch was a nice guy?"

They sipped a moment. Patsy had moved on to chamomile tea. Anna was sticking with wine.

"Okay, so maybe he could have jumped," Anna said finally. "But for the sake of argument let's say he didn't. Who was on this island that night?"

Patsy threw her head back and howled like a hound after a fox. "You are incorrigible, Anna!"

"I have never been corriged," Anna admitted. "Or if I was, it was so insignificant I never even felt it."

"You were sacked out on the conference table, so that lets you out," Patsy said. "I was here. Hatch trusts me. I didn't see anybody and nobody saw me and I wasn't on the phone or anything nifty during the--what shall we call it? The window of opportunity. I was curled up in bed, dreaming of Sean Connery or, if I was feeling particularly depraved,
Leonardo DiCaprio.
Such a pretty boy
. Charlene--she's the Chief Ranger's secretary--was home. I saw her lights on next door. And her kids, fourteen and seventeen, both boys, were home. I heard the pounding bass of something totally witless. Those boys could teach the party boats a thing or two about rude noises."

"Maintenance?" Anna tried.

"Let's see. What time are we talking about? When he smoked? Eleven forty-five to midnight or thereabouts?"

"Thereabouts."

"They could have been, but if the earliest Hatch could have died is eleven forty-five they would have been minutes from catching the boat and, as you have reason to know, Dwight does not wait for stragglers."

"How about Dwight?" Anna suggested.

"You're serious?"

"Why not. Can't stoop to prejudice. Dwight is big and strong and wears a diamond stud in his ear. What more could you ask for in a murderer?"

"Well, I guess he could have come in a few minutes early, jumped ship, sprinted to the top of the pedestal, done the deed and hoofed it back. Why not Cal? He was probably deckhand that night."

It was Anna's turn to be surprised.

"See. You're prejudiced too. Because he's genteel and treats you like a lady, you think he's above murder."

"He's old--" Anna thought aloud.

"Ageism. Illegal. Cal is strong and, since he's sixtyish, I guess the word would be spry. Think about how strong his hands must be, handling and throwing line thick as your wrist all day."

"Okay. Cal, Dwight, Charlene, her boys, you, cleaning crew. How about Trey Claypool?" He'd marooned Anna at MIO shortly after ten. He could have been home in plenty of time.

"He was here," Patsy said. "Well, his lights were on and I heard his door. So I assume he was here. I
suppose it could have been a housebreaker without any sense of sneakiness."

"What time did you notice the lights, the door?" Anna demanded.

"God, girl, can I get you another glass of wine? Some Xanax?"

"Sorry. What time?" she asked again, careful to keep her voice meek and kindly.

"Better," Patsy commended her. "Beats me. I went to bed around eleven, so it must have been before then. If pressed I couldn't even swear to it. It's kind of background music, you know. You remember it but it's so unimportant and everyday it could even have been another night I'm thinking of. Repetitious events sort of acquire a timelessness. Did the sun come up August fifteenth, 1965? It must have but I don't remember it."

"True." Big events stood out--deaths, marriages, births, divorces--landmarks between the miles of sameness. Not that sameness was bad. Anna recalled the Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times." "I'll find out."

"You do that," Patsy said.

Even Patsy Silva had her limits. Anna let the subject drop.

"Bedtime," Patsy said, looking at her watch. "I wonder where Mandy is."

"I thought she was off island."

"Nope. She's here. Went out jogging. Evidently you can get a decent workout if you run around this rock enough times. I, personally, would not know. Unless Dobermans or Nazis are after me, I'm your basic stroller."

Mandy struck Anna as a stroller too, but she didn't want to draw unflattering comparisons. Not ruled by justice, she was perfectly at ease with liking Patsy's soft silhouette and finding Mandy's offensive.

In accordance with the ancient warning "Speak of the devil and up he jumps," the front door banged and Mandy stomped into the living room. Her jogging suit, lavender with narrow piping in lime green, gave her the look of an overripe kiwi. The suit was rumpled but spotlessly clean, no sweat stains. The woman's hair was disheveled and she was breathing hard, so Anna had to accept the fact that maybe she did run.

"You look rode hard and put away wet," Patsy said cheerfully.

Mandy, who'd apparently intended to go to her room--or the bathroom--without so much as a by-your-leave, stopped in the hallway and turned to face them.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Her voice was edged, her fists balled as if she was looking for a fight. Instinctively, Anna eased her feet from the coffee table and centered her weight in case some evasive maneuver might be required.

"Oh, sweetie, what happened?" Patsy asked, with such sudden sympathy that Mandy's fingers uncurled and her eyes teared up. Her hair fell back from her face and Anna saw what had triggered Patsy's maternal concern. Mandy's right eye was swollen shut, the lid as round and purple as a grape. The lower lid puffed out, revealing the thin blood-red line of inner lid. The right cheekbone was burning with an angry raised welt half an inch wide and two inches long.

One plump white hand fluttered up, exploring the damage. "I fell," Mandy said, and her voice broke like a child's. "I was running and I slipped and fell."

"Ouch," Patsy said. "You got a real shiner. Let me get you some ice to put on it." She scrambled up from the low chair and bustled out to the kitchen. Mothers bustle. Anna couldn't put her finger on the precise mechanism of locomotion that transmuted a walk to a bustle, but she'd never seen Patsy do it except when she was tending to a sick or wounded child.

Comforted by the role Patsy took on so effortlessly, Mandy followed toward the kitchen. Walking past the couch, her left profile was to Anna, the undamaged half of her face. Below her ear, halfway between lobe and esophagus, was a vicious-looking bruise about the size of a quarter.

"What did you do to your neck?" Anna asked. She thought she sounded perfectly kindly--not like Patsy, but close enough to pass muster.

Evidently not. One of Mandy's pasty little paws flew up and she clapped it over the mark with the vehemence of a woman swatting a biting horsefly. Tears dried, burned away with the heat of returning anger. She glared at Anna.

Seconds ticked by and Anna watched in fascination. From the kitchen came the sound of ice breaking from trays and chatter, as Patsy talked to an audience that had lost interest in her. Hand still glommed over the bruise, Mandy was frozen in place by some strong emotion. Hate, confusion, fear, flickered over the round face with such rapidity it was as disorienting as being caught in a strobe light.

"There was this thing," she said, searching for words. "A thing that stuck out..." Her voice trailed off and the one eye Anna could see took on a vague unfocused look. She wondered if Mandy had suffered a slight concussion.

Anna started to rise from the sofa. The movement snapped that one blue eye back into white-hot focus.

"Like I've got to explain anything to
you,"
Mandy sneered. "It's none of your goddamn business. Nothing here is any of your business. This house is as much mine as it is Patsy's, though you wouldn't know it from the parade of losers she's got coming through. But I pay the same rent as she does, and for my money, you're not welcome. Go back to Colorado and bugger a moose."

"Elk," Anna said automatically. "No moose in Colorado."

For a heartbeat, Mandy was at a loss for words. She fell back on the classics: "Fuck you," she said, and stomped down the hall. The end of the journey was punctuated by the violent slamming of her bedroom door.

Patsy appeared from the kitchen, ice cubes in a plastic bag, the bag wrapped in a soft terry cloth towel. "What happened?" she asked.

"I don't know," Anna replied honestly. "I asked her about another bruise she was sporting, and boom, meltdown. Just like that. Zero to sixty in sixty seconds. She finished up with 'Fuck you' and stormed off."

"Were you horrible?" Patsy asked, having known Anna many years. "Mean or poking or anything?"

"I don't think I was horrible. I asked as nice as I know how."

"Your nice isn't too bad. It shouldn't set anybody off like that. You're sure you were nice?"

"Intentionally, premeditatedly nice," Anna assured her.

"Then whatever it is, is her problem," Patsy said philosophically. "Want ice for anything?"

Anna didn't. Patsy dumped it into the sink, then followed Mandy's example, if less histrionically, and took herself off to bed.

Anna turned out the lights, carried the remnants of her wine to the dining table and stared out over the water to the fairy lights of the murder capital of the world. Unless Los Angeles or Hong Kong had usurped the title in recent decades. Eyes on this wonder of generated electricity, she played back Mandy's scene from captivating entrance to dramatic exit. Mandy was what Anna's mother-in-law would have referred to as "a pill," hard to take under any circumstances, so it wasn't the woman's general peevishness that struck a wrong note. Anna slowed her mental projector down, clicking frame to frame: Mandy in the doorway; turning to the hall; facing back toward the living room, anger on her face; Patsy's kind words; Mandy softening, tearing up; Patsy to the kitchen; lamblike, Mandy following; Anna seeing the bruise on the left side of her neck; mentioning it; Mandy hiding the mark; half-sentences; anger; exit.

Clearly Anna's mention of the bruise triggered a strong reaction--of fear, the need to hide something. Hence the anger.

Damage on the right side of the face.

Two-bit-sized bruise on the left side of the neck.

Mandy had said what? Anna closed her eyes and leaned her head back to listen for the past. "There was this thing. A thing that stuck out." When she'd spoken, her eyes wandered to the northwest corner of the ceiling. Her voice became a monotone.

Mandy was lying and Anna knew why. She hadn't hurt her neck in a fall. The bruise configuration wasn't new to Anna, just forgotten; she'd seen dozens like it. But not for over twenty-five years. It was a hickey. Mandy had a big fat old-fashioned hickey on her neck. Anna laughed. Time she too should be going to bed.