The pad was sopping. Looking up at the skylight, she studied its pleated shade that had been drawn across the transparent dome. Not a sign of water stain, nor were the white walls of the skylight-well stained.
Rising, she fetched the pole with which to open the shade. When she accordioned it back, there was no spill of water, only sunlight fell more brightly into the room. Fetching a ladder from the truck she covered its ends with clean rags so not to mar the wall, and climbed to examine the Plexiglas dome at close range.
Finding no tiniest streak or discoloration, she frowned down at Hanni. "There's no leak, never has been."
Hanni stared up at her. "But the Landeaus haven't been here. And it did rain last week. Go up on the roof, Ryan. Have a look up there."
"When you called them, told them the rug was wet, what did they say?"
"My god, I didn't tell her it was wet. I just casually asked if they'd been down. She said no. I should tell that woman the roof leaks? You want her all over you?"
"But it hasn't leaked. Either they've been down or someone else has been here. Did you check for a breakin? Call her again. Make her tell you when they were here, and what happened, or if they loaned out the key." "Make Marianna tell me?" Hanni stared up at her, then went to check the windows. Soon the cats could hear her phoning. Ryan came down the ladder, telescoped it, and carried it outside where she extended it full length against the house.
Swinging onto the roof, she removed her shoes and laid them in the gutter. Walking barefoot across the glazed clay tiles, she knelt beside the skylight. She examined every inch. There was no way this baby could leak. She checked the installation of roof tiles over its two-foot apron, where the roof slanted down. There was no hairline crack in either the Plexiglas bubble or in the casing. Intending to develop irrefutable proof, she went down to the backyard, got a plastic pail from the garage, filled it with water, carried it up, and slowly poured it over the unoffending skylight while Hanni watched from inside.
Only after four bucketfuls of water and no leak was Hanni willing to call Marianna again. She came back from the phone shaking her head.
"Not home. I got Sullivan. They haven't been down. Maybe it's from underneath the floor, maybe a broken water line."
"There is no water line there," Ryan said irritably. "The water lines, Hanni, are under the kitchen and bath."
"Waste line?" Hanni said lamely.
"For a top interior designer, you awe me with your ignorance."
"Just trying to be helpful."
Ryan knelt, sniffing at the rug at close range, moving to smell several places. She looked up at Hanni. "I smell wine. Call her, Hanni. Ask her if she spilled wine. My god, if she tried to mop it up, with that amount of water-she must have spilled the whole bottle."
"I don't want to call again. Let's take the rug up."
Within ten minutes they had the wet rug up. Moving the car and truck, they spread it across the parking apron as if carpeting the driveway for royalty. While they were thus occupied, and Joe watched from the living room windows, Dulcie found Hanni's purse in the kitchen and pawed inside searching for Hanni's cell phone.
Not there.
The Landeau phone stood on the kitchen counter right above her, but she daren't use it. Even as Joe stood watch, Ryan and Hanni returned to the house.
"They were here," Ryan grumbled, coming in. "And they spilled something. Did you tell Sullivan we're laying the new rug tomorrow?"
"I told him."
"Why didn't he tell you what they did? We can't lay the rug until we know for sure what this is. The only other possibility is groundwater, and I have a deep trench clear around the hillside. Maybe Marianna came down alone and didn't tell Sullivan."
Hanni raised an eyebrow.
"Have you checked your tape again? Maybe she left you a message."
Hanni just looked at her, her short white hair catching a gleam through the skylight.
"Call your tape. Where's your cell phone?"
"Forgot to charge it last night," Hanni said. "Left it home in the charger."
"If you'd get another battery…"
Hanni shrugged, and headed for the kitchen as Ryan stepped outside to stroke Rock. The dog glanced in toward the space behind the carved chest where the cats crouched, but then he grew rigid, looking nervously around the room and pulling to get inside. Hanni returned, looking at her watch.
"Marianna called my tape half an hour ago. Said she just woke up, said she was down day before yesterday and spilled a bottle of pinot noir, that she came down to tend to some errands and to arrange a birthday surprise for Sullivan-that it was too late to call me, that she hadn't told Sullivan she was down here and she knew I wouldn't spoil the surprise. She took a lot of time explaining it all," Hanni said, amused.
Ryan laughed. "So. Cold-blooded Marianna has a lover?"
Dulcie glanced at Joe, her green eyes equally amused. Sullivan Landeau was out of town a lot, was on the boards of half-a-dozen companies. She had heard Ryan and Clyde speculating on what Marianna did for entertainment.
"She said the wine bottle spun and fell before she could grab it, that there was wine everywhere, that she sopped it up with towels, and sponged the rug."
"Can you imagine Marianna Landeau sponging a rug?"
"Dallas was on my tape too. He has the report from ballistics. He wants you to go on back to your place, he'll meet you there."
Ryan had knelt to examine the wood floor. Looking up at Hanni, she stiffened. "Why my place, why not the station when it's only a few blocks away? Why doesn't he want me to come to the station?"
"He said he'd let himself in. Shall I come with you?"
"Why do I feel so cold? I have no reason to fear the ballistics report."
"You didn't kill him, so what's the big deal?"
Ryan rose, biting her lip. As they turned to leave, the cats slipped out past them and dropped into the bushes, moving so close to Rock they brushed against his leg, startling the big dog. They were concealed among the lavender bushes when Ryan undid Rock's leash.
Crossing to her truck as Hanni locked the house, Ryan was just getting into the cab when the Coldiron truck arrived, Louise driving. Hanni waved to her. "Good shopping?"
"Awesome," the little woman said, laughing.
"You want a rug for one of your rentals?" Hanni gestured toward the ten-by-ten square of beige shag. "It's nearly new. A bit damp. It smells like pinot noir."
"Added bonus," Louise said as Eby came up the drive.
The cats watched Ryan turn out onto the street as Louise and Eby and Hanni rolled up the rug. And still they hadn't called Dallas to tell him they'd seen the old man, to give the detective the make and license of the unlikely car Gramps was driving.
"Senior citizens," Ryan told the big silver dog as she turned out of the drive, glancing back at the Coldirons. 'Tough as old boots." Of the half-dozen older people she had met since she moved to the village, the Coldirons were not unusual. Theirs was a tough generation. She wondered if her own age group could half keep up with them, or with Charlie's gray-haired aunt Wilma who walked miles every day, and could hold her own on the pistol range. Or with Cora Lee French or with sixty-some Mavity Flowers who still did forty hours a week cleaning houses. "Those folks were the depression children, the children of war, the survivors," she told Rock. 'Tough as alligator hide." And she kept talking to the big dog to avoid thinking. She did not want to go home and face, Dallas's ballistics report.