That had been the last normal walk she ever took.
She had no idea when she’d taken off the beautiful lemon-colored dress. And was this the knife that had killed Tito? How on earth had her father ended up with them both? And what was she supposed to do with them now?
Deirdre stuffed the dress and the knife back into the torn plastic bag, shoved the bag in a closet, and slammed the door shut. Then she stumped down the garage stairs and across the garden. Back in the kitchen, she washed the dust and sour smell from her hands. If only she could erase the stench that the photographs and the stained dress had left in her head. She felt like Pandora, trying to figure out what to do with what she’d found in the box.
The answering machine was flashing “Full.” Deirdre half listened to the messages, intending to write down the names of people to call back when funeral plans were final. But instead she just sat there, staring at the machine and letting the voices wash over her.
Until the message that was not from a well-wisher. “This is Detective Martinez. I need to speak to Deirdre Unger.” Deirdre sat forward, feeling a wave of dread. She was thoroughly rattled by what she’d found in her father’s office and in no frame of mind to answer questions.
Before Deirdre could decide what to do, Detective Martinez’s voice was drowned out by the dogs stampeding out of Henry’s bedroom and skidding into the front hall moments before the doorbell chimed.
Detective Martinez’s voice on the answering machine was giving Deirdre his telephone number as she peered out the window. A police cruiser was parked out front. She stood there, unable to answer the door, listening to her own breathing and the next message of condolence on the answering machine. Deirdre’s armpits were damp, and butterflies fluttered in her stomach.
If the police do come back, you call me right away. Sy’s voice came back to her. But he’d handed his card to Henry, and Henry had gone out.
At the knock at the front door, Deirdre sank down onto the floor under the window, her heart in her throat. Moments later she heard a sharp rap at the kitchen door. The dogs were going wild, racing from the front door to the kitchen. Any minute the police would come around to the back, look through the sliding glass doors, and see her cowering. Were the doors even locked? Would the police try to open them? Would they break in?
Deirdre pulled a phone book from the drawer under the phone. She found the page that began STANDISH and drew her finger down the column looking for STERLING. Was Sy even listed?
And then, just like that, the dogs stopped making their racket. The knocking stopped. Deirdre peeked out the window. Martinez and a uniformed officer were getting back into the police car. Car doors slammed.
Could it be that easy? Were they just going to give up and drive off? Deirdre drew back and waited to hear the engine start. She was still waiting minutes later when the phone rang. She didn’t reach for it. It had to be Detective Martinez or the other policeman, watching the house and making the call from their car phone.
But when the answering machine picked up Deirdre heard a familiar voice after the beep. “Deirdre? Are you there? I don’t know if you got my earlier message. I hope the fruit basket we sent over got there—”
Deirdre picked up the phone. “Joelen?” she whispered, even though she knew the police couldn’t hear her.
“Hello?” Joelen said.
Deirdre put the receiver closer to her mouth. “Hi. I’m here. Can you hear me?”
“Yes, I . . . Is everything okay? I mean, of course it’s not. But you know what I mean. Is it?”
“The police are back. They want to talk to me. I’m here all alone—”
“Do they know you’re there?”
“No. Maybe. My car’s parked out front.”
“And they’re—?”
“Sitting outside in their car. Waiting. Maybe I should just go out there and get it over with. I have nothing to hide.”
Joelen laughed a not-funny laugh. “Honey, everyone has something to hide.”
Deirdre thought about the yellow dress and couldn’t argue the point. She heard a car pulling up in front and peered out. A bright blue van had parked behind the police cruiser. KABC-TV NEWS 7 was emblazoned on the side. A slender blonde in a dark pantsuit hopped out and went over to the window of the police car. She was chatting with Martinez’s partner when a white-and-blue KNBC van pulled up and stopped across the street.
“Shit,” Deirdre said. “Two news vans just pulled up.”
“Okay. That’s it. You need to get out of there. Now. Go out the back.”
“But my car—”
“Don’t take your car. I’ll pick you up. Go out in the alley and start walking north. I’ll be there in five.”
“But what if someone—”
But Joelen had hung up. Deirdre stared at the dead handset. She remembered a moment years ago when Joelen had climbed onto the roof of her pool house and dared Deirdre to come up and join her. Henry had been there, too, and while Deirdre was screwing up her courage, Henry shoved her into the pool.
“That’s what happens when you hesitate,” Joelen had told her when she’d climbed out. Even now Deirdre’s face grew hot, remembering how Joelen and Henry cracked up because Deirdre’s white pants had turned semitransparent.
She hung up the phone, lurched to her feet, and peered outside again. A man who must have been in the first news van was filming the pantsuited woman talking into a microphone in front of the house. The passenger door of the second van opened, and a man in a suit followed by another man wearing a T-shirt and jeans and carrying a camera got out and headed up the path to the front door.
The dogs started up again. The doorbell rang. Deirdre felt as if she were under siege. Joelen was right. She had to get out of there. Now. She grabbed her jacket and messenger bag and exited through the sliding glass doors. Crossed the yard. Took a quick glance down the driveway to where the hood of the police car was just visible.
She slipped down the narrow passageway between the chain-link pool surround and the garage. Her nose tickled with a smell, ever so faint. Was something burning? It reminded her of the once pervasive metallic smoke that backyard incinerators belched decades ago before they were banned.
It wasn’t until she was in the alley, enveloped in the smells of eucalyptus and garbage ripening in the metal cans lined up behind each house, that she realized she was wearing the Harley T-shirt and drawstring pants she’d slept in. She stayed close to the edge, careful that the tip of her crutch didn’t skid on the layer of grit and broken glass coating the broken asphalt, checking over her shoulder to see whether the police or the TV newspeople had picked up her scent.
She was halfway up the block when a dark sedan started coming toward her, kicking up a cloud of dust. A hand waved out the window and then the car pulled up alongside Deirdre and the passenger door opened. Deirdre threw in her crutch and hopped in after it. She slammed the door and sat back, resting one hand on the dash and the other over her chest. Her heart was pounding and she was sure she was about to throw up.
“Just breathe,” Joelen said, accelerating, the tires spinning on loose gravel. “Sit back and relax.” The car emerged from the alley. No cruisers or media vans were there to meet them. Joelen pulled out onto the street, stopped at a corner, and turned north. “You okay?”
Deirdre took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then blew out.
“You know,” Joelen went on, “you’ll have to talk to them eventually. The police. They don’t just give up and leave you alone. But you can do it on your own terms.”
Chapter 14
Deirdre stared out Joelen’s car window, feeling her heart slow and the sweat that coated her forehead and neck cool. Familiar and unfamiliar houses flew past. Joelen drove with her hand resting lightly on the steering wheel. She still bit her fingernails down to the quick. Though it was more than twenty years later, she didn’t look all that different from the picture that her father had taken of her in his office.