“I give up.”
“He bought the Honky-Tonk. Him and Bundy’s boy, Scottie, pal around together whenever Scottie’s in town.”
I said, “Really. I don’t remember meeting either one. I think both were off in Vietnam when Mickey and I were hanging out here.” In Santa Teresa, all paths were destined to cross and recross eventually. Now the next generation was being folded into the mix. “Can you think of anyone else who might know what Mickey’s up to?”
Shack studied me. “What’s my motive in this?”
“You could be helping him.”
“And what’s yours?”
“I want the answer to some questions I should have asked back then.”
“About Benny?”
“That’s right.”
His smile was shrewd. He cupped a hand to his ear. “Do I hear guilt?”
“If you like.”
“A little late, don’t you think?”
“Probably. I’m not sure. The point is, I don’t need your permission. Now, will you help me or not?”
He thought about it briefly. “What about the lawyer who represented him?”
“Bethel? I can try. I should have thought of him. That’s a good idea.”
“I’m full of good ideas.”
“You think Mickey was innocent?”
“Of course. I was there and I saw. The guy was fine when he left.”
“Shack, he had a plate in his head.”
“Mickey didn’t hit him. He never landed a blow.”
“How do you know he didn’t go after him again? The two might have gotten into it somewhere else. Mickey wasn’t exactly famous for his self-control. That was one of my complaints.”
Shack wagged his head. The gesture turned into a neck roll, complete with cracking sound. “Sorry about that. I’m going to see the chiropractor later on account of this effing neck of mine. Yeah, it’s possible. Why not? Maybe there was more to it than Mickey let on. I’m telling you what I saw, and it was no big deal.”
“Fair enough.”
“Incidentally—not that it’s any of my business—but you should’ve stood by him. That’s the least you could do. This isn’t just me. A lot of the guys resented what you did.”
“Well, I resented Mickey’s asking me to lie for him. He wanted me to tell the DA he was in at nine o’clock that night instead of midnight or one A.M., whatever the hell time it was when he finally rolled in.”
“Oh, that’s right,” he said snidely. “You never tell lies yourself.”
“Not about murder. Absolutely not,” I snapped.
“Bullshit. You really think Magruder beat a guy to death?”
“How do I know? That’s what I’m trying to find out. Mickey was off course. He was intent on the Might and the Right of the law, and he didn’t give a damn what he had to do to get the job done.”
“Yeah, and you ask my opinion there should have been more like him. Besides, what I hear, you’re not exactly one to be casting stones.”
“I’ll grant you that one. That’s why I’m not in uniform today. But my butt wasn’t on the line back then, his was. If Mickey had an alibi, he should have said so up front instead of asking me to lie.”
Shack’s expression shifted and he broke off eye contact.
I said, “Come on, Shack. You know perfectly well where he was. Why don’t you fill me in and we can put an end to this?”
“Is that why you’re here?”
“In the main,” I said.
“I can tell you this much: He wasn’t on Highway 154 hassling a vet. He wasn’t anywhere within miles.”
“That’s good. I believe you. Now could we try this? Mickey had a girlfriend. You remember Dixie Hightower? According to her, they were together that night ‘getting it on,’ to use the time-honored phrase.”
“So he was sticking it to Dixie. Whoopee-do. So what? Everybody screwed around in those days.”
“I didn’t.”
“Maybe not when you were married, but you were the same as everyone else … only maybe not as open or as honest.”
I bypassed the judgment and went back to the subject under discussion. “Someone could have warned me.”
“We assumed you knew. Neither of ’em went to any great lengths to cover up. Think of all the times you left the Honky-Tonk before him. What’d you think he was doing, going to night school? He was nailing her. Big deal. She was a bimbo tended bar. She wasn’t any threat to you.”
I swallowed my outrage, dismissing it as unproductive. I needed information, not an argument. Betrayal is betrayal, no matter when the truth of it sinks in. Whether Dixie was a threat to that marriage was beside the point. Even fourteen years later, I felt humiliated and incensed. I closed my eyes, detaching myself emotionally as though at the scene of a homicide. “Do you know for a fact he was with her that night?”
“Let’s put it this way. I saw ’em leave the Tonk together. She was in her car. He was behind her in his. Nights her hubby was home, they checked into that dinky little motel out on Airport Road.”
“Wonderful. How considerate of them. They were there that night?”
“Probably. I couldn’t say for sure, but I’d be willing to bet.”
“Why didn’t you speak up for him?”
“I would have, for sure. I’d’ve gone to the wall, but I never had the chance. Mickey turned in his badge and that was the end of it. If you can’t reach him, you can always ask her.”
“Dixie?”
“Sure. She’s around.”
“Where?”
“You’re the detective. Try the telephone book. She’s still married to whosie-face … cripple guy … .”
“His name was Eric.”
“That’s right. Him and Dixie made a fortune and bought a mansion. Sixteen thousand square feet, something like that. Big.”
“You’re kidding.”
“I’m not. It’s the honest-to-God truth. They’re living in Montebello on a regular estate.”
“How’d he do that? The last I saw he was a hopeless drunk.”
“He got into AA and straightened up his act. Once he sobered up, he figured out a way to build designer wheelchairs. Custom jobs with all the bells and whistles, depending on the disability. Now he’s added sports chairs and prostheses. He has a plant in Taiwan, too, making parts for other companies. Donates a ton of stuff to children’s hospitals across the country.”
“Good for him. I’m glad to hear that. What about her? What’s she doing with herself?”
“She’s living the life of Riley, turned into Mrs. Gotrocks. Country club membership and everything. You look ’em up, tell ’em I said hi.”
“Maybe I’ll do that.”
After I left Shack’s, I went in to the office, where I opened the mail. There was nothing of interest and no pressing business. Most of my other cases were in limbo, pending callbacks or responses to written inquiries of various sorts. I tidied my desk and washed the coffeepot. I dusted the leaves on the fake ficus. I had no reason to stay, but I couldn’t go home yet. I was restless, brooding about Mickey in a series of thought loops that went around and around. Had I erred? Had I acted in haste, jumping to conclusions because it suited me? By the time Quintero died, I was disenchanted with Mickey anyway. I wanted out of the marriage, so his involvement in Quintero’s death provided the perfect excuse. But maybe that’s all it was. Could he have resigned from the department to spare my pride and, at the same time, to avoid exposing Dixie? If Mickey was innocent, if I’d known where he was that night, the case might have gone differently and he might still be a cop. I didn’t want to believe it, but I couldn’t escape the thought.
I lay down on the carpet and flung an arm across my eyes. Was there really any point in obsessing about this? It was over and done with. Fourteen years had gone by. Whatever the truth, Mickey’d elected to resign. That was a fact. I’d left him, and our lives were irreparably changed. Why pursue the matter when there wasn’t any way to alter what had happened?
/>
What was at stake was my integrity, whatever sense of honor I possessed. I know my limitations. I know the occasional lapses I’m capable of, but a transgression of this magnitude was impossible to ignore. Mickey had lost what he’d loved best, and maybe that was simply his inevitable fate. Then again, if I’d been an unwitting accomplice to his downfall, I needed to own up to it and get square with him.
6
Forbes Run was a meandering lane-and-a-half, a ribbon of pavement that snaked back and forth as it angled upward into the foothills. Massive branches of live oak hung out over the road. There were no houses visible, as far as I could see, but a series of markers suggested that large properties branched off at intervals. I watched the numbers progress, the signs leapfrogging from one side of the road to the other, alternating even and odd: 317, 320, 323, 326. The Hightowers’ estate, at 329, was surrounded by a low fieldstone wall, accessible through wooden gates that opened electronically as soon as I pressed the button. Either the Hightowers were expecting someone or they didn’t much care who appeared at their door.
The driveway extended perhaps a quarter of a mile and conjured up visions of a proper English manor house at the far end, a three-story Tudor with a steeply pitched slate roof. What I spotted, at long last, was nothing of the kind. The house was contemporary: long and low, hugging the ground, with an oversized roofline rising to a center peak. I could see four wide fieldstone chimneys, clusters of fan palms, and colossal black boulders the size of my car that must have erupted from Vesuvius and been transported to the grounds for effect. To the right, I could see a line of four garage doors.
I parked in the large circular parking area in front and made my way up the wide, sloping concrete walk. A woman, perhaps thirty, in tennis shoes, jeans, and a white T-shirt, was already standing in the open doorway, awaiting my arrival. This definitely wasn’t Dixie, and I wondered for a fleeting moment if I’d come to the wrong house.
“Ms. Yablonsky?” she said.
“Actually, I’m not. I’m looking for Eric and Dixie Hightower. Am I in the right place?”
“Sorry. Of course. I thought you were someone else. We’ve been interviewing for staff positions, and the woman’s half an hour late. Is Mrs. Hightower expecting you?” The woman herself remained nameless and without title: parlor maid, factotum, personal assistant. I guess she felt she was under no obligation to introduce herself.
“I’m an old friend,” I said. I took out a business card and handed it to her.
She read the face of it, frowning. “A private detective? What’s this about?”
“I’m hoping they can put me in touch with a mutual acquaintance. A guy named Mickey Magruder. My ex-husband.”
“Oh. Why don’t you come in and I’ll tell Mrs. Hightower you’re here.”
“Is Eric home?”
“Mr. Hightower’s out of town, but he should be home soon.”
I stepped into the foyer, waiting uneasily while she disappeared from sight. I’m sometimes puzzled by wealth, which seems to have a set of rules of its own. Was I free to amble about or should I wait where I was? There was an angular stone bench positioned against one wall. The woman hadn’t suggested I sit and I was loath to presume. Suppose it turned out to be a sculpture that collapsed under my weight? I did a one-eighty turn so I could scrutinize the place like a burglar-in-training, a little game I play. I noted entrances and exits, wondering about the possibility of a wall safe. If I were bugging the place, where would I tuck the surveillance equipment?
The floors were polished limestone, as pale as beach sand. I could see ancient marine creatures pressed into the surface, a tiny fossil museum at my feet. A wide corridor stretched off to the right. The ceiling was twelve feet high with floor-to-ceiling windows on one side. The facing walls were painted a snowy white and hung with a series of bright abstracts, oil paintings six feet tall, probably expensive and done by someone dead.
Before me, a pair of double doors stood open and I could see into the living room, easily thirty feet long. Again, the walls on the far side were floor-to-ceiling glass, this time with a panoramic view of pines, live oaks, giant ferns, eucalyptus, and the mountains beyond. I listened and, hearing nothing, tiptoed into the room to have a better look. The wood-beamed ceiling slanted upward to near-cathedral height. On the left, there was a marble-faced fireplace with a hearth twenty-six feet long. On the other end of the room, glass-enclosed shelves showcased a variety of art objects. To the left, I could see a built-in wet bar. The furniture was simple: large armless black leather couches and chairs, chrome-and-glass tables, a grand piano, recessed lighting.
I heard footsteps tap-tap-tapping down the hallway in my direction. I’d just managed to giant-step my way across the foyer to my original position when Dixie came into view. She wore skintight blue jeans, boots with spike heels, and a buff-colored blazer over a snowy white silk tank top. Her jewelry was Bakelite, two chunky bracelets that clattered on her narrow wrist. Now forty years old, she was still extremely thin: small hips, flat stomach, scarcely any butt to speak of. The shoulder pads in her jacket made it look like she was wearing protective gear. Her hair was pulled back away from her face, an oh-so-chic mess in a shade that suggested copious chemical assistance, a red somewhere between claret and burnt ocher. Gone were the false lashes and all the heavy black eyeliner. Curiously, the absence of makeup made her eyes seem much larger and her features more delicate. Her skin was sallow and there were dark circles under her eyes, lines in her forehead, cords showing in her neck. Hard to believe she hadn’t yet availed herself of a little surgical refreshment. Even so, she looked glamorous. There was something brisk and brittle in the way she carried herself. She seemed to know who I was, using my name with an artificial warmth as she held out her hand. “Kinsey. How nice. What an incredible surprise. Stephie said you were here. It’s been years.
“Hello, Dixie. You look great. I wasn’t sure you’d remember me.”
“How could I forget?” she said. “I’m sorry you missed Eric.” Her gaze took me in without so much as a flicker of interest. Like her, I wore jeans, though mine were cut without style, the kind worn to wash cars or clean hair clots from the bathroom standpipe. In the years since I’d seen her, she’d risen in social stature, acquiring an almost indescribable air of elegance. No need to wear diamonds when plastic would do. Her jacket was wrinkled in the manner of expensive fabrics … linens and silks … you know how it is with that shit.
She glanced at her watch, which she wore on the inner aspect of her wrist. The watch was forties vintage, stingy-sized crystal surrounded by little bitty diamonds on a band of black cording. I’d seen nicer versions at the swap meet, which just goes to show what I know about these things. Hers was probably rare, recognizable on sight by those who shopped in the tony places she did. “Would you like a drink?” she asked. “It’s nearly cocktail time.”
My watch said 4:10. I said, “Sure, why not?” I almost made a joke about crème de menthe frappes, but a black guy in a white jacket had materialized, a silver tray in hand. A bartender of her own? This was getting good.
She said, “What would you like?”
“Chardonnay sounds fine.”
“We’ll be out on the patio,” she remarked, without directly addressing her faithful attendant. My, my, my. Another cipher accounted for in the nameless servant class. I noticed Dixie didn’t need to specify what she’d be drinking.
I followed her through the stone-floored dining room. The table was a rhomboid of cherry, with sufficient chairs assembled for a party of twelve. Something odd was at work, and it took me a moment to figure out what it was. There were no steps, no changes in elevation, no area rugs, and no signs of wall-to-wall carpet within view. I thought of Eric in his wheelchair, wondering if the floors were left bare for his benefit.
It struck me as peculiar that Dixie hadn’t yet questioned the reason for my unannounced arrival at her door. Maybe she’d been waiting for me all these years, rehearsing responses to num
erous imaginary conversations. She’d always known she’d been screwing around with Mickey, whereas I’d just found out, which put me at a disadvantage. I don’t often go up against other women in verbal combat. Such clashes are strange, but not without a certain prurient attraction. I thought of all the male-fantasy movies where women fight like alley cats, pulling at each other’s hair while they roll around on the floor. I’d never had much occasion, but maybe that would change. I could feel myself getting in touch with my “inner” mean streak.
Dixie opened a sliding glass door and we passed out onto a spacious screened-in patio. The floor here was smooth stone, and the area was rimmed with a series of twenty-foot trees in enormous terra cotta pots. The branches were filled with goldfinches, all twittering as they hopped from limb to limb. There was a grouping of upholstered patio furniture nearby, in addition to a glass-topped table and four thickly cushioned chairs. Everything looked spotless. I wondered where the little birdies dropped their tiny green and white turds.
“This is actually a combination greenhouse and aviary. These are specimen plants, proteas and bromeliads. South American,” she said.
I murmured “gorgeous” for lack of anything better. I thought a bromeliad was a remedy for acid indigestion. She gestured toward the conversational grouping of chairs. From somewhere, I could already smell dinner in the making. The scent of sautéed garlic and onion, like a sumptuous perfume, floated in the air. Maybe one of those no-name indentured servants would appear with a tray of eats, little tidbits of something I could fall on and snarf down without using my hands.
As soon as we sat down, the man reappeared with drinks on his tray. He gave us each a tiny cloth napkin in case we urped something up. Dixie’s beverage of choice was a martini straight up in a forties-style glass. Four green olives were lined up on a toothpick like beads on an abacus. We each took a sip of our respective libations. My Chardonnay was delicate, with a long, slow, vanilla finish, probably nothing from a screw-top bottle at the neighborhood Stop ‘n’ Shop. I watched her hold the gin on her tongue like a communion ritual. She set the glass down with a faint tap and reached into her blazer pocket to extract a pack of cigarettes and a small gold lighter. She lit the cigarette, inhaling with a reverence that suggested smoking was another sacrament. When she caught me observing her, she opened her mouth to emit a thick tongue of smoke that she then sucked up her nose. “You don’t smoke these days?”