She sat unmoving at the end of the sofa, still but not stiff, a picture of composure. She brought her wineglass to her lips and took a small sip.
Her father said gruffly, “I think you’ve had enough of that, Katherine.”
“Oh, really?” Her mouth curved into a soft smile. “Then I really mustn’t drink any more, must I?”
Still smiling, she tilted the wineglass and slowly, almost meditatively, poured its contents into her own lap.
She set the glass down carefully on the table and stood up. She spoke clearly, the last word a sharp bright dagger.
“I’m very, very angry.”
She walked without hurry to the door and went out. Tom realized that his mouth was open and closed it. Alan Scherer had been startled out of his habitual courtroom calm and seemed embarrassed. He looked at Charles as though expecting him to make some comment. Charles didn’t. No one ever did. Which made a weird incident even weirder.
“Right,” Tom said, taking a deep breath. “Mac’s dead, so I’ll be moving out. I’ll need a day or two to find a place.”
Charles’s eyes were the color of stones in a river, his face as unyielding as a bridge abutment.
“Keep your goddam shirt on, you’ve got a job to do.” The tension between them was as tangible as an iron bar. Then Charles said, “Ah, hell.” He sighed. “It’s been a long, lousy day. Meeting adjourned.”
6
Tom Bell had taken the California bar exam in July; the results wouldn’t be out until after Thanksgiving. Meantime he worked as a law clerk for Morgan and Scherer, Alan’s firm. He spent the following morning, and part of the afternoon, shepardizing cases the firm was using in a brief, a job involving concentration, precision, and almost paralyzing drudgery. Then Alan told him to go and gumshoe the Fargo matter.
He drove back to the McCauley house, went into the library, and closed the door behind him. At the phone he made sure his most relaxed manner, and most engaging attitude, were both in place before he punched in the number of Needham’s Flower Shop and Nursery.
A man answered, yelled for Shannon. A woman’s voice yelled back from a distance. Tom waited. At last she said, “Hello,” in his ear, sounding rushed but sunny.
“Hello, Shannon. It’s Tom Bell. From yesterday, at the McCauley house.”
“...Oh. Yes.” Sudden reluctance. “Hi.”
“Can I see you for a few minutes this afternoon?”
“Still checking up on me?”
“Charles is still suspicious. I want to prove him wrong.”
“Because you’re only the gardener’s kid?”
“Because he’s a horse’s ass. I promise I won’t take long.”
“This afternoon’s real bad. We’re short-staffed and getting some new stock in, so I won’t have time. Could you come by my place? I should be home by six.”
He said he would be there and hung up. It was just after four. Time to kill.
It died hard. He wanted to get on with the job, and he wanted to see Shannon again — and at the same time wanted nothing to do with the job. It might mean ripping Shannon from her family moorings. He might have to coldly deceive and manipulate people. He’d never thought of himself as that kind of creep and didn’t want to become one.
In his room, he spent time reading up on wills and related law in Clark, Lusky, and Murphy’s Gratuitous Transfers, finally gave up, and went down to the kitchen to tell the cook he wouldn’t be there for dinner. While he was there Katherine came in to pirate a glass of apple juice. She was just home from UCLA, where she was enrolled as a business administration major.
She demanded, “Where are you off to?”
“Private-eye work for your dad.”
“A date with my look-alike, I’ll bet. I’ll come too, to keep you honest.”
“No way.”
Her eyes grew flinty. “Just try giving me orders, chum.”
“I work better without an audience.”
“Get used to audiences. Or how are you going to argue cases in court?”
“Maybe you don’t want me to find any answers.”
He pushed out of the kitchen and took the back stairs to his room, where he tried Gratuitous Transfers again but couldn’t concentrate. Anyway, he had no way of knowing what might be relevant to the McCauley situation. He gave up and put on a light nylon jacket and hurried downstairs and out the front door. Leaving early was better than staying in the same house as Katherine.
When he reached the garage he found Katherine already at the wheel of her red Corvette. She wore lightly tinted glasses and had a bandanna over her hair. She ignored him as he got into the Accord, but pulled out directly behind him and followed him out into the street.
The community of Topanga was cuddled in shadowy twilight. A few streets poked away from the boulevard into the surrounding hills and hollows. The low frame and stucco buildings had always looked wonderfully rustic and 1930s and inexpensive, which Topanga wasn’t, but big pieces of earth-moving equipment stood around, suggesting that a major reshaping of the landscape had been going on up to quitting time. Maybe the urban 1990s were invading. Too bad.
Just beyond the heart of Topanga, Tom pulled off the roadway and parked in the dust. The Corvette passed him and did the same. Tom got out and walked to it. Katherine was rolling up her window. She stopped when she saw him, looked up without expression.
Tom said, “Please, Katherine, remember that I have to get that girl to trust me.”
“Why should she? I don’t. That’s why I’m checking up on you. — How long will you be?”
“As long as it takes. Please don’t interfere.”
Katherine sighed. “Well, since you ask so nicely.”
“Thank you.”
He turned away before she could change her mind.
There was a low white stuccoed wall around the house with an exuberant bougainvillea spilling over it. Tom went through the low wooden gate and latched it behind him, then took the pathway between two patches of lawn up to the front porch. Beyond the porch, curtains were drawn behind the front windows. The house looked worn, old, and comfortable. It was owned by Mrs. Sarah Needham, whose son David ran the place where Shannon worked.
At the porch, the path divided left and right. He went left, then right, past the corner of the house. A few more curtained windows. Two concrete steps led to a door with a street number painted on a little wooden arm projecting from the frame.
He went up the steps and knocked on the door. Shannon opened it almost at once.
“Oh, hi.”
“If I’m too early,” Tom said, “I can go away and come back later.”
“No, no, of course not.” She stepped back, opening the door wider. “We actually got through early.”
“I took the chance because Katherine was bugging me,” he said as he stepped inside. “She even followed me up here. I just hope she leaves us alone.”
Shannon closed the door behind him. She was wearing jeans and a blue denim work shirt that had been worn and washed till they were both almost white. She looked as much like Katherine as ever.
The room was small and bright, with rock concert and environmentalist posters taped to the walls. Furniture was minimaclass="underline" a day bed, a worn armchair, a card table set up under the one window with two lightweight chairs, a few big cushions inviting people to sit on the floor. On the card table were a stiffened photo mailer, a dime-store frame with the back off, a bottle of glass cleaner, a rag.
“I got carded last time I tried to buy a bottle of wine,” Shannon said, “so I can’t offer you any.”