“No one’s home. Detective Flint thinks you might be able to tell us a few things if we let you look around. You know better than to touch anything. Right?”
“Of course.” I walked past him and into the living room I had seen earlier through the windows.
The rooms were beautifully done, if rather too opulent for my taste: restored antiques, heavy brocades in jewel tones of amethyst, garnet, and emerald, drapes with velvet swags. I had the feeling that anything that seemed less than perfect looked that way by design. Here and there a down-filled sofa cushion was scrunched, a few books on an end table were stacked randomly, a cashmere afghan was tossed rather than folded over an ottoman. A very old brass spyglass rested on a chair next to the window.
The only flaw was the dust that dulled the shine on the mahogany tables and on the ebony concert grand piano. I suppose there are scientific ways to measure the passage of time by the accumulation of dust. My best guess was days rather than weeks had passed since the room had been cleaned. The important thing was, the dust was undisturbed.
The other rooms on the first floor were a formal dining room, the kitchen, a breakfast room, and maid’s quarters. Each was as beautiful as the next, and all had the same fine, undisturbed layer of dust. I worried about the tracks we were all making in the dust on the white marble floor of the entry, even if no one else seemed to.
Odd as it may sound, I couldn’t feel Hillary in those graceful yet somehow sterile rooms. I had seen her piano, and could imagine her in a stiff party frock playing for the entertainment of a roomful of stiff adults. Beethoven, not boogie-woogie. No place to let down her guard. That impression changed when Mike opened the door to what appeared to be Randy’s study.
The dark and ornate gave way to scarred natural pine floors, threadbare rugs, a brick fireplace, and big comfy chairs pushed in front of a huge television set. The walls were covered with Hillary, from formal poses to fuzzy snapshots of goofy faces. Over the rolltop desk there were a framed finger painting and a crayon still life of a easeful of flowers on either side of a huge, immensely ugly paint-by-the-numbers seascape. All were signed by the adored child artist.
I nearly lost it when I saw the penciled hash marks on one wall, Hillary, age five, Hillary, age six, marked all the way up to age fourteen. And all made on the same date, November 1. The worst part was the thick line a couple of inches higher than Mike’s head. “Dad” was written next to the line, and below it were nine dates. Every year as Hillary grew, Dad had remained a measurable constant.
Mike was looking at the same marks, looking as sad as I felt. I put my arms around him.
“What do you think?” he said.
“Daddy doted on his little girl. Tough competition for a wife. Come to think of it, I don’t see any wifey pictures here at all.”
“Now that you mention it,” Mike said.
“I’d sure like to talk to Randy.”
“I have a real bad feeling about that.”
“Would it hurt anything if we peeked in his desk?”
“Sorry, kid. Much as I’d like to take a shot at it myself. That’s a private zone until we get a different warrant. But we can go upstairs. Want to see Hillary’s room?”
I was still looking around the room.
“Maggie?”
“I keep thinking about Casey and her dad. We abandon children in so many ways. Why should they ever trust us?” Mike caught my hand as I turned for the door.
“What?” I said.
“Trust me.” He kissed me, a brush across the lips that left a cool streak.
“Try it again,” I said. He’s so cooperative. There was nothing cool about any part of me when I drew away.
“Ready now?” he said, cocksure.
“Stunned,” I said, working to breathe normally. “Lead the way.” Once I had found Hillary in the house, she seemed to be everywhere. It was tough going, walking where she had walked, seeing her things. Mike had done a good deed when he embraced me.
As we approached the room where Hillary must always have slept between clean sheets, the bathroom where she could shower whenever she wanted to, I thought about the first time I had seen her. The street had been so noisy. A big contrast to the warm, quiet, orderly house.
I had to remind myself that danger comes in many guises. Sometimes wrapped in pretty packages.
I held on to Mike, because the contact made me feel better. And he made sure he was available to hold.
The carpet on the stairs was deep. It muffled the sound of our steps. All the way up I could hear the other police talking somewhere above us, and voices from outside coming in through an open window. They had grown very loud and excited, like a block party.
I looked up at Mike. “Do you think Martha has been passing around more bourbon?”
“Sounds like it.”
We turned into the first doorway at the top of the stairs and nearly collided with Mahakian on his flight out.
“Sorry,” he panted.
“In a hurry?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He sidled past us and fled down the stairs. “The outboard is coming up.”
“Oh,” I said.
“It’s bringing some shit up with it. Probably more trash bags. Those candy-ass lifeguards are screaming for help.”
We went into the master bedroom, an enormous expanse done in peach and vanilla ice cream, like Randy’s pajamas. The sheer silk draping the windows billowed in the breeze from the French doors. Very ethereal, very feminine. And very sexy.
The two detectives who had come in with Mahakian were outside the French doors, standing on a narrow balcony that overlooked the terrace below and the dock. Mike joined them.
I was far more interested in looking around Elizabeth’s room than watching the lifeguards raise Regina’s outboard motor.
The room was dramatic for its starkness. There was very little furniture to distract from the focal point: the high canopied bed covered with a puffy satin comforter. An oversize bed, with lots of room for rolling around, even for a man like Randy, who, by all accounts, was a big man.
No one was paying any attention to me, so I pillaged the night-table drawers. I was looking for something to humanize the place, define its inhabitants. The electric dildo I found helped a lot. I found it among a variety of interesting things: K-Y Jelly, many dime-store silk scarves, wrinkled as if they had been knotted, reading glasses.
In the dildo drawer I also found a copy of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. One of my favorite books. I flipped through the pages. Then I looked back at the window where the detectives were calling down to someone below. Just like a scene from Rebecca.
I tossed the book onto the bed and went on through the room to the adjoining dressing room and walk-in closets.
Her closet was bigger than his. Either closet could have been converted into a good-sized bedroom. The odd thing was, while her closet was crammed, his was absolutely empty. I knew where his things were, out there on the dock. That wasn’t the puzzler.
When my ex, Scotty, moved out, it took me a while to decide to spread my things into his closet space. A week, maybe two. Elizabeth had had a couple of months. And she really needed more closet space. Unless she was expecting Randy to come back, what was her hang-up?
I was puzzling over this when I closed the closet door behind me. I walked back into the bedroom and saw the men still leaning over the balcony railing. Just as in Rebecca when her sailboat was found at the bottom of the sea. With her in it.
“Mike?” I picked up the book and walked toward the windows. “I want to show you something.”
The noise outside crescendoed, a collective groan. The detective standing shoulder to shoulder with Mike covered his mouth, ducked away, and, green-faced, ran past me headed for the bathroom.
“Mike?” I started for the balcony.
Mike met me, blocking my way. He was green-faced, too. “What is it?” I asked.
“I think we found Randy.”