“So then, she could afford it.” Maybe Sochi had struggled with somebody on the balcony, and the clip fell out. There might even be fingerprints.
“And she loved to stick it to him,” Farley said. “‘What, you lost again?’ she’d say. ‘Come on, you old gook, where’s your Filipino pride? Let’s see some of that Oriental cunning.’”
I smiled. So obvious what Farley was doing, even if what he said was true. When I finally got away and up to the balcony, the clip was gone. And if I’d found it — so?
Everybody was at the breakfast table, except for Tang. He leaned against the back wall beside the burbling radio. Two separate mudslides: several people missing. We breakfasted on Froot Loops, Grape-Nuts Flakes, expired toaster waffles, half-thawed onion bagels, and bananas. In spite of everything, I was ravenous.
The phone was working intermittently. Farley gave us direct orders not to answer it. “The reporters will be on us as soon as they hear something.”
“They’re vultures. Maggots!” Leonor said. “I know all about that from my time with Tom. You don’t dare give them a millimeter.”
They slid into reminiscences about Sochi. Running away on her pony when she was ten, headed for the beach thirty miles away because her daddy promised her and couldn’t go that day. Hiding her tattoo from her dad. And her flying lessons. “I taught her to play blackjack when she was six years old,” Tang said.
“Ruben,” Evan said, getting up. “We’ve got to call her dad.”
Leonor pushed back her chair, blocking him. “Let somebody else take care of that.”
“It’s my job, isn’t it?”
“You really don’t want to do that,” she said. “Too stressful.”
“It’s my life; remember?” he shouted over his shoulder.
“Hey-hey.” Farley pointed to the radio. “Governor’s declared Napa and Sonoma Counties disaster areas. Low-cost loans? Tax relief?”
“I wonder how much she’d had to drink,” Leonor said. “She always liked her nightcap.”
“Maybe not now,” I said. “Being as she was pregnant.”
“They’ll be able to tell from the — examination, won’t they?” Jake said.
“Alcohol in the blood dissipates,” Leonor said.
“I went up to bed around eleven,” Farley said, “and she went into the kitchen to play cards, right?” he asked Tang.
“Evan and I were shooting pool,” Jake said. “Never saw her after dinner.”
“We played five-card stud till one o’clock,” Tang said. “Then she went upstairs. With all of you.”
“Maybe it was some kind of wild impulse,” Leonor said. “Even the weather can make people do things. We may never know.”
I had an itch in my brain. All of them, even Tang, had some reason to want Sochi gone. I wanted to scream. “I keep seeing her, so clearly,” I said. “In the flowered dress, with her hair piled up, and that big red clip with the curved teeth — come to think of it, I didn’t see the clip this morning. I wonder what happened to it.”
“I will go look in her room,” Tang said.
“And I’ll come and help,” I said.
Farley looked uneasy. “Maybe we shouldn’t move anything till the sheriff comes.”
“Why not?” Leonor demanded. “This isn’t television. We’re talking about a tragic accident, after all.”
It didn’t take long. Sochi’s dresser drawers were nearly empty. Underwear, two nightgowns, heavy socks, sunscreen. In the closet, a couple of robes, a down jacket, ski clothes, old aviation and skiing magazines. No red hair clip.
Tang found a dusty suitcase and started packing, over my objections. I asked him about his gambling trips with Sochi, and he turned a red-eyed glare on me. “I don’t have to explain anything to you,” he said. “I knew her from a baby.” His voice rose. “She showed me her report cards, every one. I’m like an uncle to her!”
“Hey, hey. Farley just happened to mention—”
“Farley,” Tang sneered. “That’s not even his real name.” Which was Frank, from his father, Tomase Francisco. “When he was still in school he didn’t like the dirty work; too hard. Had a big, big fight with his father, and changed it to Farley. Went down to Salinas to his mother’s brother and raised artichokes. So then Tomase only gave him a little something in his will. Tom, that was Evan’s father, got the whole thing.
“And then when Tom takes him back into the winery, what does Frank do? He steals from the company. That’s embezzlement.”
I looked toward the door, afraid we might be overheard. “Don’t worry,” Tang said. “He’s sitting on his big butt watching some game and waiting for his next meal. You figure out why old Frank wants it that Sochi would jump?”
Of course. To get rid of the new heir.
Tang closed up the suitcase. “Now I have to burn it all.”
“Why?”
“Sometimes the person’s spirit gets lonesome for their own things, and comes back looking for them,” Tang said. “As soon as they’re burnt, she will have them with her, and she can be at peace.”
I suggested he discuss it with Evan, but I don’t think he heard me. “She gave him a present,” he said, mostly to himself. “But he didn’t want it.”
The others were still in the kitchen. “No,” I told them. “We didn’t find the clip.”
Everyone scattered, and the thumping of the treadmill started overhead. The weather continued showery and uncertain, with rivers of molten silver rushing downhill in the changing light. The green countryside stretching away was like a poultice for my fevered brain.
Toward noon, as I passed the sunroom, I saw through the two layers of glass Leonor, outside on the balcony. It seemed wrong, foolhardy to be in that fearsome spot. She was rubbing her hands back and forth along the iron railing. Wiping away possible fingerprints? The thought was a warning. Leonor was so easy to dislike that I couldn’t trust my judgment of her.
Quivering, I walked out to her. “Mind if I join you? The air is so wonderful up here. In spite of everything.”
“Of course not. But I warn you, I’m not very good company.”
I waited.
“I’m angry,” she said. “I’m just so angry I can’t stand myself. That that girl would do such a thing to Evan. Try to burden him with all that guilt.”
“Then you don’t think it was an accident.”
“Absolutely not! It’s a very common cause of suicide, you know. Revenge.” Leonor leaned stiff-armed, looking down. “I’m just trying to get it straight in my mind,” she said. “Just between us, I figure she must’ve been drunk. Or possibly hysterical. Even as a little girl she was strong-willed and impulsive, anybody will tell you that. I wonder now if she mightn’t have been bipolar.”
My expression of pleasant interest felt like a cardboard mask. Be fair, I urged myself. Maybe Sochi was given to wild impulses. “Tang is certainly broken up over it,” I said. “Naturally.”
“He seemed all right after dinner,” she said. “You may have noticed that he goes off now and then. I kind of suspect some form of dementia, or possibly early Alzheimer’s, because of his sudden mood changes. Fine one minute, the next — unbelievable. Like that stunt with your heater.”
“What stunt?”
“In your room. Trying to burn up your bed, simple as that.” She smiled, waiting for my reaction.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, we went into your bedroom to get the extra heater so I wouldn’t totally congeal last night. When we left I looked back, and saw that he’d moved your lighted heater up against the bed.” She shook her head. “I suppose he’s feeling angry at these extra people to take care of. Anyway, I went and moved the heater out of harm’s way.” She shrugged. “Or who knows what might’ve happened.”