Veiled Threats Read online

  “Eddie, I don't know. Do you think I'm crazy?”

  “I think you're scared, but I don't understand why. If you really think somebody attacked you the other night, you should go to the police. If you don't …” He shrugged.

  “I don't know what I think, anymore. Aaron Gold's got me jumping at shadows.”

  “The reporter?”

  I nodded, and told him about Gold's warning. It all sounded silly and melodramatic to me, and obviously to Eddie as well.

  “Tell you what,” he said finally. “I'll get my stuff from the office, and lock up tight. Then I'll come down here and sack out on the couch, how about that? You get a good night's sleep, and—”

  “Eddie, thanks so much, but I feel ridiculous enough without needing a baby-sitter. You go on home. I must have been imagining things. If anything else happens, anything at all, I'll call the police and then you. I promise.”

  But nothing sinister happened, nothing at all. I overslept and woke up with nothing worse than a hangover, and called Eddie in the office right away.

  “No more trouble?” At least he wasn't laughing at me.

  “No trouble. I'll be up soon. Make the coffee strong, OK?”

  I considered calling Holt as well, but why? He didn't know about my mysterious nonexistent intruder, and I certainly wasn't going to tell him. Upstairs, Eddie made no further mention of the night's adventure, and by midday I had just about put it down to brandy and nerves. Still, I wasn't giving up on my search for the owner of the gold card case. Next stop, the 418 Club. That evening Lily and I had our delayed chicken dinner at my place, then set off.

  Compared to the Powerhouse, the 418 Club was a cinch. For one thing, they weren't playing bad music, or any music at all. For another, we were rescued before we did anything too ghastly.

  I guess I was expecting a tavern, with beer signs and crowd noise. In fact, the 418 was quieter than most libraries. The large, low-ceilinged room, upstairs from a dry cleaner in Ballard, held about two dozen pool tables in orderly rows stretching off into the cigarette haze. Each was lit with a single low-hanging light fixture, with near darkness in between. Lily and I, hesitating at the entrance, could hear the occasional murmur of men's voices and the click of pool balls, and not much else. A sign near the door said “Please No Excessive Whistling. No Noise.” I immediately resolved not to whistle, not a single note.

  “How much time, ladies?” A weedy, round-shouldered man drummed his fingers impatiently on a glass display case holding pool paraphernalia, T-shirts with the club's logo, and a selection of cigars.

  Lily was quicker on the uptake than I was. “What's the minimum?”

  “A n hour.”

  Our plan this time, after the gym fiasco, was to hang out for a while, maybe come back a couple of times, and then begin to ask around about Theo. We paid for an hour, and he handed us a black plastic tray of balls. “Table nine.”

  I almost asked for cue sticks, till I realized that dozens of them were ranged in racks around the walls. Table nine was in a remote corner near the restrooms. As we walked over, a few of the other patrons, who were all men, glanced at us in a less than friendly way. Judging from clothing, they ranged from bankers to panhandlers, but in this setting Lily and I were the odd men out. So to speak.

  We selected cue sticks, cunningly going for straight wooden ones, then surveyed our table.

  “Can you play pool?” Lily murmured.

  “Well, no, but I've seen The Color of Money. We rack up the balls like this …” The pool balls were surprisingly heavy in my hand, and made a satisfying thump as I dropped each one into the triangular rack. I scooted the wooden frame forward and back to align the balls, and they clicked like M&M's do when you scrabble in the bag for them at the movies. “Then we lift the rack away and break with the white ball, like this—”

  Unfortunately, I'd only seen the movie once. When I stroked the cue ball it popped off the green surface like a dolphin leaping from the sea. Lily lunged for it, but it sailed to the floor to land with an echoing crack. Lots of stares, a few laughs, and then a familiar voice.

  “Christ on a crutch, Carnegie! What are you doing here?”

  It was Eddie, just emerging from the men's room. He scooped up the still-rolling ball and handed it back to me, glaring indignantly through a little cloud of cigar smoke.

  “Just trying something new,” I said lamely. “Do you, um, come here often?”

  He snorted.

  “No, really, are you kind of a regular?”

  “I guess so, yes. Why?”

  “I was just wondering, do you ever see Theo in here?”

  “You've got Theo on the brain lately. What's this all about, anyway?”

  I glanced at Lily. She was studying her shoes. “Uh, Lily and I were thinking of taking up pool, kind of in private, so we wondered if we'd run into anyone we know here. Like you, or anybody else we know. Joe Solveto, or Theo, or anybody.”

  “Never seen either of them. The only familiar face I see around here is your friend the flower guy. The Russian.”

  “Boris comes here?”

  He looked at me curiously. “Yeah. So what?”

  “So … so I guess Lily and I better be going. See you tomorrow, bright and early.”

  “Good. We've got work to do.”

  THERE CERTAINLY WAS WORK TO DO, ON EACH OF OUR UPCOMING weddings, as well as marketing for new ones. I supervised the second fitting of Nickie's gown; Eddie met with Joe to wrangle over a contract for the reception dinner; and the two of us made what seemed like hundreds of phone calls, concerning everything from mosquito repellent to basque waistlines to exactly what kind of sippin’ whiskey would suit Fay's kinfolk at her rootin’ tootin’ reception. Eddie and I worked well together, conversing in a brisk shorthand and making jokes about the latest dumb movie we'd seen. In between calls, I thought some more about Boris. About Boris and that unfortunate lamb.

  One incoming call was from Lily, who reported no luck in trying to track down Crazy Mary through her list of homeless shelters. And on Friday morning, Holt called to say his calendar was clear for the party at Mount Rainier, and would it be all right if he booked a room for the night at the Glacier View?

  “I won't actually come to the wedding in the morning,” he said hastily. “I don't want to get in the way. But as long as I'm down there I'd like to hike around a little, and then I could ride home with you.”

  “That would be fine,” I told him, swiveling my chair away from Eddie to hide my ridiculous smile. “I'm out of town the night before, but I'll be back in plenty of time. Actually, I'm sure you'd be welcome at the ceremony, too. I'll mention it to Anita.”

  “Great. Where are you Friday night?”

  “Ellensburg, setting up a wedding. I'll be back by noon at the latest on Saturday. So we could leave from here about one o'clock?”

  “I'll be at your place at one. Well, I'd better let you get back to work.”

  “Yes. You, too.” I could picture him, sitting in the high-power offices of Voigt, Baxter, McHugh with his thoughts straying off to alpine meadows. “Bye.”

  I hung up the phone, humming, then stopped when I saw Eddie's sardonic eye on me. But all he said was, “So when do you see the Parry girl next?”

  “Eight A.M. tomorrow. She leaves at noon for a trip to Portland with friends. We're doing an RSVP count and a final run-through on the flowers. She keeps coming up with more relatives to pin corsages on, so we'd better order a few extra.”

  “That's your department, you and Boris. Just remember to ask her if she wants special champagne for the bridesmaids’ deal.”

  “Luncheon, Eddie. Bridesmaids don't have deals. Oh, and Fay Riddiford changed her mind again about the barbecued ribs….”

  Finally it was closing time. I pushed aside my paperwork and took a minute to leaf through an antique etiquette manual, a recent gift from Lily. “Eddie, listen to this. Not only are white wedding gowns a recent invention, but they used to dress baby boys in pink and g
irls in blue! Pink was considered a stronger color, and blue was delicate and dainty.”

  “Just like you,” Eddie snorted.

  I stretched and yawned, not at all daintily. “Anything else for today?”

  “Nope. Have a good weekend.” He paused at the doorway to the front room, unlit cigar in hand. “Carnegie, about the other night. You never found anything missing, did you?”

  I blushed and shook my head.

  “Everything was OK up here, too,” he said. “So we're agreed that it was just …”

  “Just my imagination? Yes.”

  He nodded, then went on almost gently. “So you're not worried about it anymore, not feeling nervous?”

  “No. Thanks for asking, Eddie.”

  “No problem.”

  What a sweetheart he was. Driving to the Parry estate the next morning, I marveled at my good fortune in having Eddie for a partner. Too bad most of my clients never met him, although he didn't always show well on short acquaintance. Nickie would like him, though, if he didn't growl at her. She was certainly happy to see me. She met me at the front door in a short terry cloth robe, her dark hair still wet from the shower, practically dancing with excitement.

  “Carnegie, I've got this great idea! We could have the bridesmaids’ luncheon in the rose garden instead of a restaurant! Wouldn't that be elegant?”

  She looked so young, and so inelegant, that I laughed aloud. “It would, but is there room for a table? I still haven't seen the rose garden, you know.”

  “Oh, that's right.” Her face went solemn as she remembered my injury, and she led me inside. “Is your head OK?”

  “It's fine, don't worry about it. Let's get started on the guest list.”

  “Couldn't we look at the rose garden first? I'll get dressed, I'll be right down. There's rolls and stuff in the living room.”

  In the Parry household, “stuff” consisted of Mariana's scones, still warm, and homemade blackberry jam. I was about to help myself when Douglas Parry came in, dressed informally but well, the lord of the manor on his day off. He had a sheaf of papers in his hand, and a frown on his ruddy face.

  “Ah, Carnegie, I had something to ask you about.” He seemed uneasy, running a hand over his thinning hair. “Is Nickie here?”

  “She's upstairs. Is there a problem?”

  “I hope not.” He cleared his throat. “Are you associated in some way with Aaron Gold?”

  “No! I mean, I've spoken with him, but associated, no. Why do you ask?”

  “I, ah, have been able to obtain some of his articles before publication. This one is innocuous in itself, but since you're mentioned in it …”

  I looked down at the printout he handed me. The headline read, “Seattle's Day Care Kids: The Economics of Motherhood.” I sighed in relief. There were no direct quotes from me, only a reference to the valuable work of volunteers like Carnegie Kincaid, the storyteller.

  “Just a coincidence,” I said firmly. Not quite the truth, but close enough. “I met him briefly, that's all.”

  “You know that he's been causing me trouble? All my employees are under orders not to talk to the press, especially Gold, after he came snooping around at the fund-raiser.

  You're not on my staff, of course, but I'd like to know that I can rely on your discretion.”

  “You can,” I said, returning the printout. “My clients’ privacy is important to me.” To o bad freedom of the press isn't important to you, I added silently.

  “Thank you.” Having conducted his unpleasant business, Parry became a genial host, even overdoing it a bit. “Would you like some scones? Coffee? I'll have Mariana make a fresh pot.”

  “Maybe later. Nickie wants to show me the rose garden. Would you mind if we had the bridesmaids’ luncheon out there?”

  “Not at all, not at all.” Parry beamed at his daughter as she skipped down the marble staircase. “I'll go out there with you two. We're five to eight degrees cooler here than in the city, Carnegie, so the growth cycle runs a little behind, but I've got quite a show by now.”

  He continued to talk roses as we descended from the back terrace and took the path under the clematis arbor. It was a cool, fresh morning, with the sun growing brighter behind an uneven, silvery mist. The mist, and my unfamiliarity with the place, confused me for a moment when we left the path and passed through another ornamental gate. I saw uprooted bushes, jagged holes in raw earth … was this a new section being added to the famous rose garden?

  Then an eddying breeze cleared the air, so I could see the details of the destruction around us, and the naked shock on the faces of Nickie and her father. Every rosebush had been dragged out of the ground and trampled, or hacked off to a stump. What must have been a serene, geometric pattern of glossy green foliage and neat pebbled walks was now a chaos of dirt and twisted roots and splintered branches. The roses, in their silky hundreds, had become handfuls of tattered rags, the gay crimsons and seashell pinks and buttery yellows all fading now to withered brown.

  At the heart of the ruined garden, a stone reflecting pool was fouled with mud and wilted foliage. Lying in its center, on a cruel bed of thorns and drowned flowers, was a sodden lump of something that had once been alive.

  “GUS?” NICKIE’S WHISPER ROSE TO AN INCREDULOUS WAIL. “Daddy, it's Gussie!”

  Her father tried to hold her but she darted forward to the stone lip of the pool, then crumpled to her knees. The dog's head had been smashed, his noble profile savaged into a mess of blood and bone. There was a moment's silence, then Douglas Parry began to swear in a cold, furious monotone. Nickie turned aside and retched. My own hands went clammy and my throat closed up as I held her shoulders and fumbled for a handkerchief, my thoughts plunging in a sickening spiral: such a sweet dog, this insane violence, they must have done it in the night … In the night, like the night when I came through these woods, the dark figure lifting his arms. They could have done this to me.

  Slowly, horrified, I turned back to look. Douglas Parry had pulled off his jacket and was leaning out from the stone ledge to lay it over Gus, soaking the cuffs of his monogrammed shirt as he did. It was an absurd, generous gesture, and I loved him for it. I lifted Nickie to her feet and guided her back to the house, leaving Douglas standing in the sunshine among his dead roses.

  An hour later I was still at the house, feeling much calmer and embarrassingly hungry. The tray of scones still sat on the lacquer table in the living room, but I could hardly dig in under the circumstances. Over and over, I'd watched the same series of emotions play across a different face: first Mariana, then Theo, then Alice the cook, then the maid and the gardener, and lastly Grace Parry herself, back from an early tennis date. Each one of them heard what had happened to the roses and to Gus, and each one reacted with incomprehension, shock, disgust. And finally, fear. Except for Theo, who went absolutely blank with outrage, we all showed fear.

  Grace took it hard. Douglas met her at the front door, and I watched them from where I sat in the living room with my arm still around Nickie. They murmured together, outlined by the June sunlight that sparked and flared across the black marble floor of the hall.

  “What?” Grace was incredulous, angry at the bearer of bad news. Or perhaps angry at him for permitting the squalid outside world to come so near. “What are you talking about?”

  Douglas clearly wanted to spare her the sight of the destruction, but she pulled away from him and strode past me to the terrace, her tennis dress crisply white against slim, tanned legs. Her husband began to follow, then the doorbell rang and he let her go.

  A dead dog in an ordinary neighborhood might have merited a single cop, but Douglas Parry's dead dog brought us Lieutenant Borden, the officer who had interviewed us about the Mustang crash. He was a barrel-chested, slow-moving man with an immense bald head and no expression whatsoever. He dispatched two uniformed officers to the garden and then settled himself ponderously into the largest chair in the room and began to ask questions. Nickie and I were dismissed q
uickly enough, and as I took her upstairs I heard him begin on the staff. Any strangers in the neighborhood lately? Any noises in the night? Did the dog usually sleep outside?

  Nickie began to cry again, thinking about Gus's empty bed in the kitchen. I stayed with her until Mariana joined us, and then told her I'd call her Monday. Her trip to Portland had been postponed, and Ray was on his way over. We didn't mention the bridesmaids’ luncheon. And I didn't mention Boris Nevsky, to the police or anyone else. Not yet. Not till Lily and I found Crazy Mary.

  Grace Parry returned, her knees and sneakers dirty, like a tomboy who's been roughhousing in her party dress. But the look in her eyes was far from girlish. She must have knelt down, as her stepdaughter had, to look at Gus, and her face was still pale under her tan. On my way toward the front door, I heard Douglas Parry say the name that was on everyone's mind.

  “Keith Guthridge,” he said. “No question about it. He's responsible.”

  Lieutenant Borden said carefully, “Well, Mr. Parry, you may feel certain about that yourself, but this kind of vandalism—”

  “Vandalism!” Grace Parry's voice, barely in control, cut across her husband's reply. “Is that what you call it? This isn't a broken window, for God's sake! We've had death threats!”

  “Grace, stop it!”

  At the sound of Douglas's voice I paused on the staircase, the chrome balustrade slick and cold under my hand, arrested by the tableau in the living room. Borden was immobile and impassive in his chair, with a young black policeman standing soldier-straight behind him, taking notes. Douglas Parry sat across from them on the sofa, leaning forward, reaching out to calm his wife. Grace was on her feet, one hand pointing dramatically toward the lawn outside.

  “Of course it was Guthridge!” She was nearly shouting. “He sent his, his goons onto our property, our private property, to scare us with this sickening—”