“Did she take your advice?”
“Don’t know. I saw her exactly twice. I called to make a follow-up report. I got the stepmother. She told me Hillary’s father had come and fetched her.”
“You believed her?”
The question made him very uncomfortable. I was beginning to feel like the schoolmaster grilling a naughty child. Smith very obviously was being pricked by the topic, as if he hadn’t done his homework and was being asked to recite from it.
He took in a deep breath and finally looked me in the eyes. “I didn’t believe or disbelieve. From the very first, I had been expecting Daddy to come home. I thought, as soon as the old guy got his rocks off with the new woman, he would get back to the details. Like the kid.”
“Small detail, huh?”
He shrugged. “Hillary called sometime after, left a message on my machine. She just said everything was cool, and thanks.”
“You’re sure it was Hillary?”
“At the time I was.”
“And that was it?”
“The end.”
“You have been a fount of information, Mr. Smith. I’m not sure what to do with it, but I’m sure it will help.”
“Are you?” He had gazed off toward the window again. “To tell you the truth, I’m thinking I didn’t earn the money Hillary gave me. I was looking for her daddy. But I’m thinking I should have given the Amy angle more attention. Where I let her down is, I didn’t think a kid with her background could have a problem as big as hers was. I guess I never did take her sufficiently serious.”
I gathered up the pictures again and put them away. “Just one more question.”
“Shoot.”
“When did Hillary first come to you?”
“I can tell you.” He flipped through the appointment calendar beside his telephone. “March. March fifteenth.”
“That fits.”
He thought that over for a moment. Then he looked back at the parrots on my chest.
“May I call you Maggie?”
“Most people do.”
“You’re an attractive woman, Maggie,” he said, seeming to have revived some spirits. “But more important, I think you have a fine mind. I admire a woman with brains.”
“Thanks. The point is?”
“I’d like to kick this all around some more with you. Put together everything we have, and really get down and dirty. I thought that if you didn’t have plans for dinner, we could go up to my place, order up a pizza. See what two good minds can do together.”
I stood up and hefted my bag. “I appreciate the offer, Mr. Smith. If I may call you Mr. Smith. I’m sure we could come up with something if we put our heads together. But I must decline your kind invitation. I would not want to be responsible if something happened to you.”
He stood up, too. “Don’t worry about me. I think I could go head to head with this razor-happy asshole.”
“Perhaps you could. That isn’t where the danger lies, however, Mr. Smith. If I read you correctly – and my fine mind is a real good interpreter of innuendo, subtle or otherwise – the danger would come in the form of the homicide detective who is expecting me for dinner.”
He had the grace to laugh.
CHAPTER 15
L.A. freeways don’t have a true rush hour, only times when the engorgement of cars reaches critical mass. Like constricted bowels. I headed north too late in the day to fit in stops at MacLaren Hall and Guido’s if I was going to see Mike at any reasonable hour. And getting to Mike was my first priority. As it was, the forty-mile trip took two hours and at least three years off my life.
When I opened the door of Mike’s condo I was in desperate need of strong drink, a hot bath, and some quiet before we got into anything. Mike was generally fairly easygoing, but from the tone of our last conversation, I expected him to be angry. A reflex, I guess. I was still in recovery two years after a long marriage to a human powder keg, still walking around with a lot of protective armor, according to Mike.
The living-room lights were turned down low. Ray Charles was on the CD player, loud enough to appreciate, but only just. Mike was stretched out on his back on the gray carpet wearing white sweats, a black pillow under his silver head, his eyes closed, hands resting on his stomach with a glass of white wine balanced between them.
I closed the front door as softly as I could, not wanting to disturb him. I had disliked his ex-wife’s gray-and-black decorating scheme until I saw Mike lying there in the middle of it. The tones of his hair and skin blended so perfectly with the room that I couldn’t decide whether his wife had decorated to show him off or had tried to make him invisible among the furnishings. Domestic camouflage.
I had my camera in my hand without really thinking about taking it out. More light would have been nice, but I opened the aperture all the way and took a couple of hand-held time-release shots. The texture would be interesting, I thought, if the pictures came out at all.
I was leaning over Mike for a face shot when he wrapped his fingers around my ankle and opened his eyes.
“The late Maggie MacGowen,” he said, mellow and smiling.
“Hold still,” I said.
“When you’re in the room, I can’t hold still. You move me.” His hand slid up my leg inside my jeans.
“Keep talking,” I said.
“What are you doing?”
“We have Whistler’s mother, A Study in Gray. I thought it was time for Whistler’s father.”
“My kid’s name is Flint. Does that make a difference?”
“Not to the artist.” I reached down for his glass of wine, but he held on to it.
“You want the wine? Make me an offer.”
“How about a trade?” I took Rebecca out of my bag and showed it to him.
He sat up enough to look at the title, then he dropped back down. “No deal. I read it in grade school.”
“Maybe it’s a clue. Rebecca sailed away and never came home again. Like Elizabeth Ramsdale.”
“Still no deal.” He massaged my ankle. “We located Elizabeth down in Cabo San Lucas. Arrived two days ago.”
“No lie?” I knelt on the floor next to him.
“No lie.”
“Tell me about it.” I reached for the glass again, but he held it away.
“One thing at a time here.” He slid his hand into the crook of my knee. “I believe the bidding is still open on this fine, vintage, supermarket plonk.”
I leaned over him close enough to feel his warm breath on my cheek. “I bid one kiss.”
“I’m bid one kiss. Do I hear two?”
“Nope. My offer stands at one.”
“Sold. If it’s a good one.”
I kissed him. A good – no, a magnificent – one. His fingers moved slowly up the inside of my thigh, spreading uncontrollable heat like a pot boiling over on the stove. Reduced to a quivering mass, I sat back on my heels to catch my breath, trapping his hand between my legs. His eyes were still half rolled back in his head when he passed me up his glass.
“Thank you.” My voice sounded husky, as if I had inhaled some of that heat. “What’s the next item in your catalogue?”
He raised his head into my lap. “Our next offering will cost you.”
“That’s all right.” I stroked his shiny hair and his fresh-shaved cheek. “In the currency of this auction, I’m loaded.”
“Bidding opens at one shirt with birds all over it.”
“How do I know what you’re offering is worth even one button of this fabulous shirt?”
“It’s worth it.” He tugged out my shirttail and tickled my belly with his little cookie-duster mustache. I giggled, and he grinned up at me. “In point of fact, I think I started bidding too low. Now it will cost you the shirt and the pants, too.”
“I don’t bid on closed lots,” I said. “Show me what you have.”
His hands were soft on my bare abdomen. “I found Hanna Ramsdale’s mother.”