Drowned Under Read online

  “It always changes things, seeing them when they were younger than we are, doesn’t it?”

  She nodded. “So all of this is just to say, it’s okay to open the purse. I fully understand the gravity of the situation. And my mother is watching me.”

  I examined the room. “Anybody else? Are there cameras in here?”

  “On a museum budget?”

  “Right. He’s likely to be a bit of a mess. I had to improvise.” I eased the zipper open and Howard’s nose emerged, then his whole head. He yawned with his relatively enormous jaw. The scrunchie was long gone.

  “Howard? This is Mandy. She’s here to help us. Be good.” He gave me a tiny nip and propped his paws up over the edge.

  I looked at Mandy. She was crying.

  She couldn’t have been much of a crier normally, as there was no tissue box on her desk. I handed her the handkerchief that had belonged to Elliot Ness. She didn’t need to know that.

  Howard was halfway out, but still sitting in my bag. At least he seemed to like it there. She couldn’t take her eyes off him. She reached across and grabbed my hand.

  I spilled the parts of the story that were mine to tell.

  “Ron Brazil? Are you sure he’s legitimate? I thought I was up on all the animal warrior types. To be honest. Grey Hazelnut is the only person I know of who could possibly pull this off. But no one knows where he is.”

  Well, not no one. But I couldn’t blow his alias, as much as I wanted to.

  Howard climbed out of the purse, revealing my improvised diaper. I shrugged. “Desperate times.”

  I could tell she wanted to touch him, but gave him space to explore first. It made me like her even more.

  “Can we get him a bowl of water? And anything to eat?”

  As she put out the inside of a chicken sandwich, she stole looks at me.

  “Your uncle told my mum, there were only boys in the family.”

  “Yeah, well there was, until I showed up. And ever since.”

  “Do you see him very often? Your uncle?”

  “He lives with us. Him and his wife, my Aunt Helen.”

  “Oh. That must be nice.”

  “It is. Kind of.” I got up to pace, worried that the bad guys knew I was in here. Would it be safer for Howard if I were parading my purse elsewhere? I asked her. She agreed and offered to stay with him.

  “What about Christmas?”

  “I hate Christmas.” Amanda got out a spacious cage. “Acceptable?”

  “I thought all your subjects were deceased.”

  “I’ve been known to rescue a few live ones.” She brought out a blanket for the bottom of the cage and put his water bowl inside. Howard liked her. I admit, I was a little jealous. I gathered up my Balenciaga. It felt empty and a little sad.

  “Is there a back way out of this place?”

  Chapter Forty

  Howard was safe, at least for now, but I still hadn’t found the Manzonis and I still had too many suspects for Harriet’s murder—I’d crossed off Storr Bentley, but added Pierce Butler. I needed something to clear my head.

  I was three blocks from the Salamanca Market, famous for affordable opals. It was open ’til three every Saturday. I had an hour.

  Perfect. I preferred markets late in the day, when sellers were more apt to reduce the price rather than have to cart everything back home. I arrived on the wharf to see plenty of white tents still standing. Last time I’d been in a market, I’d innocently, but stupidly, bought an ivory necklace. I wanted to be responsible today. I hadn’t heard anything on NPR about “blood opals,” so I donned my barter armor.

  I moved down the first aisle, past grilling meat—I hoped it wasn’t kangaroo—local honey and tea, hand-loomed scarves, and necklaces with silver so fine they seemed spun by a Tasmanian spider. Multiple stalls featured handmade stuffed animals—wombats and Tasmanian devils. And Howards. I froze.

  Tasmanian tigers were everywhere—on magnets, tea towels, coffee mugs, coasters, and carved into cutting boards. Howard’s ancestors might be extinct, but their image was very much alive. I hoped this boded well for Howard and his siblings, but the rampant commercialism made me happy that, right now, the last male thylacine was safely in the basement of a well-guarded, alarmed museum with a woman who understood exactly what endangered meant.

  I was negotiating for a pair of drop opal earrings when I spotted a head of hair that not only screamed American, it bellowed Bay Ridge. In fact it was classic Sandra Manzoni.

  My former mother-in-law always looked as if someone had poured a bowl of noodles on her head and then squashed it. It had put me off ramen for life. I could never comprehend why certain women worked so hard to make their hair do something that was not only alien to its nature, but ugly. There was nothing more desperate than a bad perm. Accept your hair, people. It’s here to stay. End of story.

  It had to be her. No one else had that hair, the leaning, breast-forward walk, the plumber-esque calves, and the lack of consumer control indicated by the ten shopping bags she was struggling with. I veered between relief that she was alive and absolutely fury that I had put Harriet at risk for someone’s shopping spree. I stalked her down one aisle and two alleys, knowing she would not be happy to see me. I didn’t think she’d actually scream, as she was too worried about appearances, but she was a fast waddler.

  So, when she ducked into a store the size of a phone booth, I blocked the doorway with a deft placement of my Balenciaga. I watched her in the jewelry mirror. She wore a top featuring her cleavage, probably in hopes no one’s eyes would descend to her muffin top or Silly Putty-colored leggings. I noted, for my own eventual menopausal self, that it was ineffective.

  She cantilevered her cleavage toward the shop owner, who held out a particularly lovely opal necklace. “Are you looking for anything special, Miss?” Even in Tasmania, they knew the power of calling women of a certain age “Miss.”

  “Yes! Something that says ‘Available!’ ‘Back on the market!’ I just got divorced.”

  I tried to keep the gasp in, but it had a mind of its own. Sandra swung around and turned OxiClean white, completing her early Raggedy Ann look.

  “You!”

  I smiled at the shopkeeper. “Hello, how are you, sir? Please find something lovely for my former mother-in-law. She doesn’t have many nice things.”

  If a look could slap someone, I’d have wound up in the necklace case. As it was, I took out my phone and snapped a shot of her horrified, furious face.

  “That’s for Barry.” Before she started, I held up my hand, the only way to slow down a Manzoni. “He sent me, by the way. Once you were declared missing.”

  “What are talking about? I’m not missing. I’m right here.”

  “Yes, now. But you were missing enough for me to fly halfway around the world looking for you. Where’s Fredo?”

  Her shoulders fell. “I don’t know.”

  I hit her arm. I knew it was juvenile. I didn’t care. She was lucky I didn’t punch her. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

  “He’s not missing. He’s just not with me. At the moment.”

  “So you’re pretending to be divorced?”

  “I’m not pretending.”

  “Right.” The shop was so small, the owner didn’t have anywhere else to look. “Fredo is her husband of forty years. They were on their anniversary trip before she lost him. Guess I better let her only son know about this.” I reached for my BlackBerry.

  She grabbed my hand. “Cyd, please.”

  It was the first time my ex-mother-in-law had ever used the word please with me. She was desperate.

  “Perhaps it might be a good idea for you to buy me these opal earrings before we sit down and talk.” Sandra Manzoni had gone out of her way to reinforce every insult my family had ever pummeled me with. I was not going to miss Christmas
with them for nothing.

  Half an hour later, I admired my new deep brown opal earrings—with flashes of purple, and turquoise—in the mirrored door of the Hotel Grand Chancellor, until Sandra arrived with my Jack Daniels and what looked like an anemic Cosmopolitan. “They don’t even know what a Grasshopper is,” she sighed. “And I could use one.”

  She sat down with a thud, rustling all her shopping bags. I sipped my bourbon. I needed to keep my wits about me.

  “All right, spill.”

  “Fredo and I hate each other. We have for years.”

  “Everybody knows that. So?”

  “So, we both turned sixty and we said, what are we doing? Let’s split up so we can both find happiness before it’s too late.”

  That seemed very evolved for them, but okay. “Fine. Classic mid-life, or in your case, late-life crisis. It happens. But why on earth would you go on a vacation together?”

  “For cover. So no one would know. Nobody can know, Cyd.”

  “Of course people are going to know if you split up, vacation or not.”

  “No they won’t. That’s why we went to Guam.”

  “You went to Guam? Guam? Even I’ve never sent anyone to Guam. When?”

  “Three days ago. You can get a quickie divorce there. We figured we’d cruise to Tasmania, fly to Guam, then get back on the next ship that came in. The Cruise Director knew all about it. She said she’d cover for us.” She certainly had, the lying witch.

  “So you went to Guam to get a divorce no one can know about? Why not just separate?”

  “Catholic guilt.”

  “But if you don’t get divorced, you don’t have to feel guilty.”

  “Not about the divorce. Adultery.”

  “Oh.” I took a longer sip of my bourbon. “I mean no. I still don’t understand. Why?”

  “Angie got pregnant. We wanted the baby to have proper grandparents. Plus we couldn’t upset Barry. He’s been having a hard time.”

  “Well, that didn’t work. He’s tearing what’s left of his hair out.”

  “Peggy Newsome said she would let him know we were extending the trip. She didn’t?”

  “She didn’t. Barry stalked me at Chadwick’s, asking for help. Why didn’t you call him?”

  “Something happened to my cell phone.” Well, that part was true.

  “That’s not an excuse.”

  She took a sip of her own. “I thought he might hear something in my voice.”

  For a second I almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

  “How is this going to work? You’re going to go on living together?”

  “We have separate bedrooms anyway. We’d come home. We’d know we were divorced. But Barry and Angela and their baby would think everything was the same as it ever was.”

  “That makes no sense, but putting that aside, how the hell are you going to keep dating a secret in Bay Ridge?”

  “We’ve got that all sorted out. We’ll only date people in Manhattan. He gets the East Side, I get the West Side.”

  I shot the rest of my drink. “But wait, Peggy knows about all this? Guam, the divorce? She arranged it?”

  “God, no. That would be like putting an ad in the paper. She only did the cruise.”

  “Well, who booked you from here to Guam?”

  “Fredo.” Sandra up-ended her Cosmo and gestured for another. “It was all working until you. You always ruin everything.”

  “What exactly have I ruined?”

  “I missed Barry’s wedding. I didn’t get my mother-of-the-bride dress, I didn’t get to pick the cake.”

  “Best case scenario, the groom’s mother doesn’t pick the cake.”

  “And you never called me mom.”

  “You told me not to!”

  “And I didn’t get to glower over Mrs. Carpaccio.”

  “So this is why you hate me so much?”

  “I don’t hate you. You’re a Redondo, so I’m never going to like you, but I don’t hate you. It’s because you weren’t in love with Barry.”

  That stopped me. She was right. I was fond as hell of Barry, but I hadn’t been in love with him the way you needed to be in love to make something last for more than three months.

  “I thought I was.”

  “Any idiot could see you were just friends.”

  “Is that so bad?”

  “Not so bad is not good enough for my Barry. He’s a prince.”

  “Yeah, he is. Angela Hepler, though? She’s awful.”

  “She’s not going anywhere.”

  I thought about the Lanz nightgown and her terrible aim with the seven iron. “I guess you’re right. I mean she has no skills.”

  Sandra shrugged, then did her breast-forward lean. “Cyd. Is there any chance you might consider keeping this a secret? I mean, I did get you those earrings.”

  “That was a start,” I said.

  Sandra and I came to an agreement about the Masonic Lodge’s business returning to Redondo Travel and the Manzonis mounting a rehabilitation offensive for the travel agency’s reputation, starting with letting my mother host Angela’s baby shower. I had one final condition: I had to talk to Fredo and make sure he was okay, to save Barry’s Christmas.

  “Where’s Fredo, really?”

  “He’s at this place called The Fountain. It’s a spa. We went there together first and he liked it.”

  “But I was just there. They swore up and down they had never heard of you two.”

  “They’re probably just protecting our privacy. They said our privacy was paramount. Fredo stayed to talk to that man, the handsome one.”

  “Pierce Butler?”

  “Yes. About some hair treatments.”

  I rolled my eyes. “He fell for that?”

  “Why do you think we’re getting divorced? Mr. Butler mentioned some investment opportunities too.” This didn’t sound good.

  “Call him. I need to be able to tell Barry you’re both okay.”

  “I don’t have my phone.”

  I reached into my bag, found it under some Tupperware, brushed Howard’s hair off of it, and handed it to her.

  She made the call. It rang for a long time.

  “Fredo?” She sighed. “I don’t care if you’re about to go into the isolation tank. Peggy Newsome never called Barry, he thinks we’re missing. Just say ‘Hi, I’m fine’ and you can float and bloat, until hell freezes over.” She handed the phone to me. I never got a chance to identify myself.

  “Barry? I’m fine, don’t be a worrywart, it’s not manly.” Fredo hung up.

  “Okay.” I handed her back the phone. “Call your son.”

  “It might be the middle of the night.”

  “If he hasn’t heard from me, he’s not sleeping. Call. Now.”

  “What about my voice?”

  “Your voice is fine and you’re going to have to practice keeping it that way.” I gave Sandra some privacy so she could lie through her teeth in peace, and finished off my Jack Daniels, worried that Ron Brazil had not been in touch. Where was he?

  When my former mother-in-law hung up, I told her to pay the check. I still wasn’t sure what to do next. I didn’t want to go back to the museum until I had to, in case the thugs were still around. I checked with Mandy. She said all was quiet on the critical species front.

  Sandra came back from the bar. “Do you have any cash?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  “They said my credit card was denied. It’s probably some dick move by Fredo, but it’s the only one I have.” She looked back at the bartender, who glared at her. “You owe me,” she said.

  “I owe you for what?”

  “The earrings.”

  I gave a deep sigh and handed over my last emergency money. “This negates my promise of silence on t
he divorce.” She hesitated.

  I made her write out an IOU, then relented and gave her a twenty for emergencies. “Have you arranged berths for the two of you heading out on the twenty-fifth?”

  “We paid for a round trip. Peggy said we could just jump back on the next one.”

  Peggy fricking Newsome.

  “Well, you can’t. This is a completely separate cruise.”

  “We paid for it.”

  “It doesn’t work like that. Do you want me to see what I can do?”

  “Would you?”

  “Not for you. For Barry. Don’t make me put a tracker on you, because I will.”

  “Where am I going to go? I’m landlocked,” she said. In more ways than one.

  I left with a newfound pity for Sandra, if she thought she was going to get another man, anywhere, much less the West Side, with that perm. Still, stranger things had happened.

  I shook her damp hand. “Hey? What if one of you falls in love?”

  “You don’t have to be married to be in love. In fact, sometimes it doesn’t even help.”

  She was right. I was still in love with Roger Claymore and I didn’t even know where he was. I would keep her secret if I could. That baby was going to have enough to deal with, having a spoiled Junior Class Secretary as its mother, without geriatric divorce trauma too.

  Go with God, Sandra, I thought, or in this case, go with Guam.

  Chapter Forty-one

  I’d given Sandra the last of my cash and at the rate I’d been tipping, I’d need hundreds more for the rest of the trip. With unknown assailants after me, I was too vulnerable at an ATM.

  I always carried at least three hundred dollars in traveler’s checks in the bottom compartment of my purse, where I also found an Australian ten dollar bill. I used it to buy a double shot of bourbon for the hungover receptionist. She dumped it in her coffee and gave me the cash I needed. When professional courtesy failed, try alcohol. Then shoes. I was happy in this case that it hadn’t gone that far.

  I also got Sandra a bad room at the hotel, right beside housekeeping. It was the holidays, what can I say?