Chapter 21

 

When the phone rang, I was still standing at the kitchen sink, staring out into the blackness. It wouldn't be Ron. It would take him a couple of days to cool off enough to speak to me again. I took a deep breath and reached for the phone.

"Charlie, what's the matter?" Drake Langston's voice was low and soothing.

I didn't ask how he knew. Even though we'd had only a short time together, there was a closeness between us that I'd never had with anyone before.

"Ron just blew up at me," I told him. My voice shook as I filled him in on the soap opera situation here. As usual, he was sensible.

"Charlie, it's not your problem," he said. "Ron's a grown man, and like it or not, he's entitled to make mistakes. He'll work it out."

I knew that. Somewhere deep inside me, I'd even probably said it to myself already.

"I just hate to see a nice guy get screwed, so to speak."

He chuckled. "Always gotta help the underdog, huh?"

I felt myself get a little defensive. What was so wrong with helping the underdog, anyway?

Again, it was as though he sensed my emotion before the words came out. He tactfully swerved the subject into a different direction.

"Mack Garvey is doing a lot better," he said. "He made a point of telling me how grateful he was to you for getting him off the hook."

Mack is Drake's friend and employer on Kauai, a nice man who got himself stretched a bit too thin, and wound up being accused of murder. Another underdog.

"Anyway," Drake continued, "I guess Mack can tell that I'm pining away over here without you, so he scheduled me some vacation time next month. Would I be welcome if I showed up on your doorstep?"

I felt my heart rate pick up. "Anytime," I told him. A flash of his smile flickered through my mind, and the sensuous memory of his hands made me suddenly warm.

"Don't worry about Ron, sweetheart, he'll work it out."

Ron who? Oh, yeah. "I know," I told him. "I guess I just need to back off and let him figure it out for himself."

We talked a few more minutes. Drake sounded excited about getting some time off. I promised to have both Ron's and Sharon's problems out of my way before he got here.

I cleared the plates from the table, and loaded the dishwasher. Threw the chicken bones and corn cobs into a plastic bag, knotted the top and stuffed it into the trash can under the sink where Rusty couldn’t get to it. He settled for a dollop of mashed potato in his bowl. I put the unsliced pecan pie into the refrigerator and poured myself a cup of coffee.

Switching off the kitchen light, I carried my mug into the living room and snuggled into a corner of the sofa. Rusty padded behind quietly, subdued by Ron’s outburst. I scratched the dog’s ears and tried to focus on Drake’s call rather than the scene that had preceded it. I pressed the remote button so the TV news could work at overshadowing my problems. It droned on, only marginally effectively.

Drake, here for a vacation. Sounded nice. I wondered if things between us would be the same on my turf as they'd been on his. The tropical Hawaiian nights might have accounted for much of the romance between us, after all. Well, having him here would be one way to find out.

By ten, I caught myself dozing so I shut off the TV and went to bed.

I slept badly again that night. My mind flicked back and forth, from the pleasant anticipation of Drake's visit, to the final angry words Ron had shouted at me as he left. Sharon's financial problems were close by, too. I kept phrasing and rephrasing in my head different ways to tell her about David's dishonesty. In the end, I decided perhaps the best way to do it was to lay out the pages of figures I'd written down. She, too, was a grownup. She might not like what she saw, but she'd have to deal with it. Somewhere around two a.m. I drifted off.

At six, the phone rang. Just one ring. By the time I reached for the receiver, it was obvious that it wouldn't ring again. An early morning wrong number? Or, my first thought, Ron wanting to talk again? I couldn't help but wonder how he had slept. Had he called Vicky right away, or simply let himself stew about the problem all night?

With all hope for sleep gone now, I crawled from between the sheets, and headed for the shower. In more ways than one, I wasn't looking forward to the office today. It could be rather tense between Ron and me. Plus, I knew I'd have to face Sharon. I'd be serving her up another set of problems, but no answers. We still didn't know who had killed David.

I pulled on jeans and a cotton sweater, and decided to postpone breakfast. It was still only seven. Rusty and I headed for the Jeep, and I nosed out into the early morning rush on Central Avenue. The traffic was quite a bit lighter than it usually is at eight, and I decided to make an extra stop before going to the office.

The University Bakery was not exactly on the way, but a sudden impulse made me think that a peace offering might be in order. The best cinnamon rolls in town are made only a couple of miles farther up Central.

It's one of those places that doesn't look like much from the outside—chipped white paint, pink lettering on the sign, and a 1950s rendition of a wedding cake for a logo. But inside, the place is clean and neat. Four small tables line the walls, and the smell from the well stocked bakery cases will just about make your knees buckle. A young couple sat at one of the tables near the windows, and a sixty-ish woman wearing a lavender skirt and pink and lavender print blouse sat picking a croissant apart at the table in the far corner.

A girl dressed in white stood behind the counter. She looked about fourteen, smiling at me with a mouth full of braces when she asked if she could help me. I ordered four cinnamon rolls. Noticing that I was keeping my eye on her, she carefully chose four nice large ones with plenty of glaze, which she placed into a white box. I dug out the correct change, wondering how I was going to keep the box out of Rusty's reach until we got to the office.

It was only when I turned toward the door that I noticed the couple near the windows. They were holding hands, having coffee and muffins. The girl was Vicky.

There was no way I could walk past silently. I approached the table.

"Hello, Vicky." Icicles dripped from my chin.

She looked up at me with a blank look. Her makeup was much more refined today, her hair brushed smooth and held back from her face with two combs. She wore conservative dark slacks and a cream colored silk shirt.

"Yes?" she said.

"Come on, Vicky, cut it out. You can't pretend you don't know me."

Her face broke into a wide smile, her hand going to her chest. "Goodness, I guess you don't know," she laughed. It was a rich, healthy laugh. "I'm Veronica, Vicky's sister." She held her hand out to me.

"Sister? As in twins?" I felt a good two inches tall.

"Vicky never told you about having a sister, I guess," she said.

I remembered questioning Vicky about being at the Ruiz house after the funeral. She said her sister had attended, not she. Pieces were falling into place. Now that I gave him another look, the man was definitely the one I had seen in the kitchen that day.

Veronica caught my glance. "This is my fiancé, Steve Silverman."

I was feeling decidedly red in the face by now. When I looked carefully, there were slight differences in Vicky and her twin, aside from their taste in clothing. Veronica's beauty mark was at the right corner of her mouth, Vicky's had been on the left. She parted her hair in the center, while Vicky's had always been swept to one side. Veronica also had a certain maturity to her. Whether it was an impression conveyed by the clothing, or something definable in her face, I couldn't be sure.

"I believe I saw you in the kitchen at the Ruiz's home the day of David's funeral," I said.

"Oh? Maybe so, I left early." Did I imagine a slight blush? "Is that how you know Vicky? Through David Ruiz?"

"No, we have another mutual friend."

"Vicky and David were really close at one time. Such a shock about his death," she said.

"Yes, it was. The police said suicide, didn't they?"

"I don't think anyone close to David would believe that," Veronica said. "David's family is so religious, kind of like mine, I know they can't face the idea. Religion aside, though, I can't go for that theory either. David was a very gentle guy. I can't imagine that he'd even own a gun, much less use it on himself."

Steve spoke up. "Even if David was depressed, I'd think pills would be more his style."

"Did David have a lot of worries?" I asked. "Money, women, business problems?"

They both shook their heads. "David wasn't involved with anyone that I knew of," Veronica said. "He flirted a lot, went out with a lot of pretty ladies, but no one that he'd kill himself over."

"Maybe there was a jealous husband somewhere," I said, half jokingly.

They both smiled. "David had the kind of good looks that attracted women like magnets. But I think he had enough choices, and enough good sense, to stick with the single ones," Steve said.

"I didn't know anything about his business," Veronica said, "except that he got into that restaurant a year or so ago. We went to the grand opening for it, but that was the last time I was in there."

Steve pushed his chair back. "Sorry ladies, but I have to get going." He squeezed Veronica's hand across the table.

I apologized for taking so much of their time, and for the mixup. I wondered whether it had registered with Veronica that I had spoken rather coldly when I thought she was her sister. She hadn't seemed to notice.

Rusty was staring out the back window of the Jeep when I got back. I placed the fragrant box of cinnamon rolls under my briefcase beside me, and ordered him to stay in the back seat. His nose was working double time by the time I stuck the key in the ignition.

Ron's car wasn't in the parking lot when I got to the office, so Sally and I helped ourselves to first choice of the rolls. We were standing at the kitchen table, and I filled her in on my amazing discovery at the bakery.

"No kidding!" Her eyes were even wider than usual. "What was she like? Another ..."

Ron opened the back door at that moment, and Sally scooted back to her desk up front. His jeans and plaid shirt were rumpled.

"Cinnamon rolls," I told him. "It's a sorry-for-the-fight present. You can have two."

He reached for the box without comment. His face didn't look too great. The skin under his eyes sagged with new wrinkles, and I got the idea that he hadn't slept at all.

"Want to talk?"

He sighed. "Sure. Let's go into your office."

He plopped himself onto my couch while I turned on the lights and set my briefcase down.

"Rough night?"

He stared at a spot somewhere in the middle of the room. "Vicky had once told me not to call her after nine o'clock at night. Said it would wake up her little girl. Last night I called around ten. A sleepy sounding man's voice answered."

"Did you talk to him?"

"I just hung up," he said.

His voice had a ragged edge to it. I wanted to go over to him and give him a hug, but we'd never been that kind of family. Now I was sorry that we weren't better huggers.

"Have you talked to Vicky about it?"

He shook his head.

"Are you going to?"

He shrugged. The conversation was about over, I could tell. Ron never had been one to share his feelings. What little I knew about his heart was the part that showed on his face. The only other time I could remember it looking this way was when Bernadette left him. It made me want to cry.

"Did you know that Vicky has a twin sister?" I asked.

"I guess there are a lot of things about Vicky I didn't know," he answered in a flat voice.

He got up from the couch, his boots scraping along the hardwood floor as he crossed the hall to his own office. I felt like such a shit for being the one who had broken the news.

My briefcase sat beside the desk. It reminded me of the second shitty thing I had to do today. Sharon wasn't going to be any happier to receive her news.