A Sunny McCoskey Napa Valley Mystery 3: Murder Alfresco Page 16

  “Talking-talking or talking-getting-it-on-like-two-wild things?”

  “Little of both, but mostly talking-talking. You should see his body. Brown, silky muscle all over. He can toss me around like a rag doll.”

  “Is that desirable?”

  “Not if it’s too rough. But just rough enough is definitely desirable. You know, sometimes a girl likes to have her hair pulled.”

  “I knew I was missing something.”

  “I keep telling you, you should grow it out.”

  “Even if my hair was long, I don’t think I’d like somebody pulling it. Are you seeing him again?”

  “We have a date on Thursday night.”

  “Oh, good. I’ll plan to be in early on Friday.”

  “You should be happy for me! I’ve been like a turtle in its lonely shell for the last four months. How much can a woman take?”

  “Don’t be a goose, of course I’m happy for you. No one deserves the company of a loving man with big hair more than you. Speaking as your boss, I prefer the lonely and well-rested Rivka who gets to work two hours before me and channels her sexual frustration into maniacal diligence. But as your friend, I’m delighted you stayed up all night snogging with the local weed and berry man.”

  “Weed is a subjective term. Plenty of people think watercress is a weed. One man’s weed is another man’s salad.”

  “Words to live by.”

  “Guess who called me again on Saturday,” said Rivka, stirring the four-hour tomato gravy.

  “Who?” said Sunny.

  “Joel Hyder.”

  “Fascinating. What did he want?”

  “Apparently just to hang out.”

  “How many times is that?”

  “Four altogether.”

  “He’s persistent.”

  “A little too.”

  “Did you ever get to talk?”

  “No, all messages. I called him on Friday, but I got his machine.”

  “I’m not sure about him. All that stuff with Heidi freaked me out. He’s obsessed. And a confirmed liar.”

  “We’re liars too. One-sided crushes always seem creepy, but everyone has one eventually. We all get our turn to look like big, dopey losers. I think he’s okay. I’m not sure I want to hang out, but I don’t mind talking on the phone. I thought he seemed kind of interesting.”

  “I called him this morning,” said Sunny.

  “What? Why?”

  “I decided to take the direct approach. I wanted to know why he said he knew Heidi’s father when he didn’t.”

  “And?”

  “Like I said, he was obsessed with her.”

  “Obsessed or in love?”

  “That’s a judgment call.”

  No residence, no occupation, no last name, no physical description. Finding Heidi’s boyfriend, if you could call him that, was not going to be easy. In fact, it was going to be impossible unless she found something more to go on. Sunny decided to focus on questions more likely to yield answers, such as whether or not the taillights on Dean Blodger’s white pickup truck matched those she had seen the night Heidi Romero was killed. Rivka staggered through the day’s work and went home with a feeble wave. Sunny finished up, got in the truck, and headed south. A few miles down the road, Andre Morales called the mobile to say he and the venture capitalist were getting dinner around seven.

  “He’s ready,” said Andre. “We’re talking about opening the new place in Sonoma. He also likes Scottsdale. He says it’s booming out there. And New York. He says New York is still worth doing.”

  “That’s huge.”

  “It’s still just talk. You never know. If you start driving in, I can let you know where we’ll be for dinner once you get here. We haven’t picked a place yet. You should meet this guy. He’s ready to get serious about opening a new place, maybe two. He has deep pockets and he’s ready to move. He could be the ticket to expanding Wildside like we talked about.”

  “I don’t think I could make it there in time. I have a couple of things to take care of in Marin, and I’d have to go back home and change, then drive all the way back down again.”

  “What’s in Marin?”

  Her mind went blank. “Green Gulch. I want to talk with them about growing some proprietary stuff for Wildside.”

  “Interesting. Listen, I’ll give you a call when we know where we’ll be. Maybe you can come in anyway. Whatever you’re wearing is fine.”

  “I’ll keep the phone on.”

  “Hey, I left you something at your house. That item you asked me to get.”

  “The knives?”

  “I left those too, but I meant the other item.”

  “Great, thanks. Which other item?”

  “The DVD. You said you wanted to see an example of anime, so I procured one, but then after I left it I sort of regretted it. I don’t think you should watch it. It might upset you, just when you’re starting to forget about that whole ordeal.”

  “I’m sure it will be fine. It’s just a movie, and I’m curious.”

  “I don’t see what good it can do. If I’d been thinking, I wouldn’t have left it. You think you’ll come tonight?”

  “I’m not sure. Probably there won’t be time.”

  “That’s a no. What about tomorrow?”

  “Definitely. I’ll be home at the usual time.”

  “Good, because my week gets crazy after that. There are more reservations on the books this Thursday and Friday than we’ve ever had before.”

  “That’s great! Vinifera is really taking off.”

  “Yeah, things are on fire. About tomorrow, I was thinking we could drive over the hill to that little French bistro off the square in Sonoma. The one that’s even smaller than Wildside.”

  “La Poste?”

  “That’s it. La Postage Stamp.”

  “Sounds good to me. I like their deep-fried artichokes, and that weird artichoke and mâche salad they make with poached eggs and bacon.”

  “Then we shall eat artichokes. It’s been a while since we were out, just the two of us.”

  “Weeks.”

  “I’m looking forward to it.”

  “Me too.”

  She put the phone away and turned her attention to the green hills and slow traffic. The drive gave her time to think. Lift up the film of tourism, and Sausalito was still a sleepy seaside town. The tourists tended to stay on the two or three blocks of the main drag. The locals kept to different schedules and mostly different venues, and they knew each other. Somebody among the employees and regulars at Caffe Trieste would know Heidi, and they might also remember who she liked to have a glass of wine with after work.

  Joel said Heidi and Mark had been to New York, Hawaii, and on ski trips to Tahoe together. Even for the most ardent jetsetter, that implied at least two months of association, and probably more like three or four. She and Andre had been seeing each other for just over two months and they had photographs of each other, taken the day they went out to the lighthouse in Pt. Reyes. Anybody who took a romantic trip to New York would take pictures. There was the one in Central Park, the one on top of the Empire State Building, the one on Fifth Avenue. The setting was too cinematic to resist. In Tahoe, there would be the shot at the top of the summit, and the one sitting in the snow after a wipeout. Sunny tried to remember the pictures on Heidi Romero’s refrigerator. Were any of them skiing or New York? There were several beach shots, but she couldn’t remember if they looked like Hawaii or not, or if there was a man who could be Mark in any of them. Whether it was on the refrigerator or not, there was sure to be a picture of the man named Mark somewhere in Heidi’s house, unless of course the police removed them. If only she had thought to look for one when she was there. Then she thought of the aloe vera plant on Heidi’s front deck, and the key Joel Hyder had removed from underneath it.

  23

  Where there had been water, now there was mud. It had been high tide the first time she visited the houseboat, and pretty bluish-green wat
er had washed up all the way to the parking lot. Now there was nothing but ugly greenish-brown slime between the pavement and the first house. Canoes and rowboats that had tugged at their lines jauntily last time now sat askew, grounded. Sunny started down the dock carrying a bouquet of stargazer lilies. If anyone asked her, she was here to leave them at Heidi’s door as a memorial.

  To reach the tugboat from the dock, it was necessary to descend a sloped gangway to the level of the boat’s concrete mooring, then proceed along a plank walkway and finally up another sloped gangway to the level of the boat’s main deck. On the lowest part of the walkway, near the water level, something shiny attracted her attention. She paused for a better look. It was a small, rectangular piece of metal about the size of a belt buckle. The ancient lust for buried treasure awakened. She set the flowers down and kneeled on the walkway, reaching out over the turbid water as far as she could. It was just out of reach. She could reach it easily if she put one foot in the water, but that would be one foot too many. To sink into that glutinous ooze up to the ankle only to grasp a bit of tinfoil, an old Zippo lighter, a bleached beer can sticking out of the filth was too much. It might be something that belonged to Heidi, but it was certain to be of little value. Even when the tide was in, the water was shallow. If she’d dropped something important, she would have retrieved it. Buried treasure was rarely that.

  Sunny put the flowers she’d brought next to the door and looked around, pretending to take in the view. She pulled her sleeves down over her hands and lifted the aloe vera pot. The key was still there. The red door swung open silently and she slipped inside. Gold light hit the potted palms crammed into the corners and warmed the wood surfaces all around. A sublime, timeless silence filled the space. She had the urge to stretch out on the couch and study the view of Mount Tam through the French doors until she could see it with her eyes closed.

  Instead, she studied the photographs taped to the refrigerator. There were no standouts in the boyfriend category. Of the males in the pictures, one was the clearly indigenous driver of the Southeast Asian moped and one looked good to be her father. One young, attractive guy appeared in several pictures. The family resemblance and total lack of chemistry suggested a brother. The only other shots that included men was a triptych showing her being hoisted onto the shoulders of two surfers who drop her in the third frame. Neither of them looked like the kind of guy who attends board meetings in New York. They looked more like the kind of guys who attend classes at the JC. That was it for the refrigerator, which was just the easiest place to look. She hadn’t really expected to find what she was looking for there. If Joel was right and Heidi was keeping her romance under wraps, posting his picture on the refrigerator was the last thing she would do.

  The dining room doubled as the study with a wall of shelves and a built-in desk. At one end of a full-size table, tucked under the stairs that led up to the loft, were a printer, a scanner, and a detritus of cables where her laptop had been. Probably the police had removed it, a comforting thought. Their first move would be to read her recent emails and check out the web pages she’d visited. If she was chatting with anybody about meeting up for a bondage workout, they would find it. Extremely unlikely, based on what she knew of Heidi so far. She had seen nothing to suggest much of an edge, or even a hidden erotic aesthetic. The bad girls Sunny knew kept tokens of their romps around the house. There would be the tell-tale snapshot of the infamous Halloween costume if nothing else. They were the ones in the French maid costume, and there was always a picture. It wasn’t Heidi’s style.

  A single shelf of well-worn books held novels by Paul Coelho, Jim Harrison, Milan Kundera, García Márquez, and Barbara Kingsolver, plus a book of poetry translations by Robert Bly, Seven Years in Tibet, and a six-pack of spirituality and self-help paperbacks of the Buddhist persuasion. The desk was piled with mail, drawings, and magazines. Sunny lifted a few of the stacks, checking them at intervals for interesting content. The sketches were mostly still lifes of flowers and plants, boats, her guitar, and her surfboard. She grabbed a kitchen towel and opened each of the drawers under the desk, finding nothing of particular interest. One contained the usual desk supplies and odds and ends, the next paints and brushes, another computer parts and cables. The bottom drawer was crammed with cards and letters she had received. Sunny hesitated, tempted to snoop. She closed the drawer. There was no need to invade Heidi’s privacy any more than necessary, and while letters were bound to contain interesting personal information, would any of it be pertinent to her murder? Whoever killed Heidi would not have sent her a postcard beforehand announcing as much. However, the boyfriend who was away frequently might be a letter writer. He was more likely to be a text message and cell phone guy, but it was worth checking. She opened the drawer again and checked each of the envelopes and letters. Nothing from anyone named Mark.

  Having found nothing downstairs, she climbed the ladder-steep stairs to the loft. Above Heidi’s dresser was a mirror with several photographs tucked into the frame along the bottom edge. Two were the small school portraits relatives mailed out. Probably nieces. A third was a snapshot of a guy, probably in his mid-forties, standing on the deck of a sailboat. Sunny picked it up. A breeze blew back his sandy brown hair, and he was giving the camera a nice, relaxed smile full of white teeth. At first she thought it had to be Mark, except the man was wearing a wedding band. Sunny examined the photo more closely. There were no visible landmarks to indicate where the picture might have been taken, but the light was crisp and bright like a nice day in Marin. His eyes shielded behind sunglasses revealed nothing.

  She looked around the rest of the room. The bed had not been made. It still wore the impressions of Heidi’s last night’s sleep. From her perch in the top of the tugboat, she could lie in bed and watch the light change on the mountain out the window. Sunny squatted down so the neighbors wouldn’t see her if they happened to look in, and pulled the pillow off the bed. It smelled of sun and dust and only very faintly of sleep. She tossed it back in place.

  Across from the bed was a closet. Sunny examined her desire to hunt through it. At what point did the quasi-legitimate search for hints about who Heidi was seeing give way to a morbid romp through a murder victim’s effects? Rivka would certainly look. Sunny opened the closet door. Jeans, tiny T-shirts, tank tops, shorts, fleece, Gore-Tex. She dressed cute, not sexy. The sexiest item was a denim miniskirt. As for shoes, there were slaps, running shoes, sneakers, clogs, and, still nestled in their box, a lone pair of black high heels with a peek-a-boo toe. These were of recent vintage and expensive. The matching black cocktail dress was not far away, hanging next to a black cashmere overcoat with a Barney’s house label sewn into the collar. All three had no doubt been purchased in New York, either by the mysterious Mark or by Papa Romero’s Platinum Amex. Other than those three items, there was nothing new. There was also nothing excessively short, nothing constructed of string and glitter, no fur, no feathers, no outrageous heels, and nothing transparent, tight, or shiny. It was, in other words, a naughty girl’s nightmare wardrobe.

  Sunny closed the closet door and checked the bathroom. Rivka was right, there was a horde of pricey hygiene products arrayed on the counter and in the cabinet. Sunny picked up a bottle of La Mer face lotion. If working in a sporting goods store still paid like the rest of mid-range retail, it would take about three days to net enough cash for a bottle of this stuff. Clearly supplementary funding was coming from somewhere.

  Sunny looked at the picture of the guy on the boat again. It had to be Mark. He was good-looking, confident, older, and athletic. He fit the bill. This was the man who would like his new lover to wear the elegant black coat and black heels. This was the man who would appeal to a sophisticated young woman who chose to buy into the affluent lifestyle on a selective basis. He was also married. That would explain why Heidi didn’t advertise her relationship with him, and why there were no pictures of them together. Married men did not document their affairs, or at least the smart o
nes didn’t.

  She put the photograph in her pocket and went back downstairs, using the kitchen towel to remove her footprints as she went. The kitchen towel posed a dilemma. Hang it back up? It was obvious it had been used to wipe up the floor. Take it with her? Too risky. She decided to rinse it out in the sink and hang it back up where she’d found it. When that was done, she put the key back under the planter and walked down the dock as casually as possible. There was no way to know if anyone had seen her or was watching from the windows, but she didn’t run into anyone. In the parking lot, the door to Dean Blodger’s hut was open and a plump woman in a billowy purple dress stood guard in front of it.

  “Excuse me,” said the woman. “Excuse me! Is that your car?”

  Sunny looked around. “Which one?”

  “That one.” The woman indicated a silver Saturn blocking the gangway.

  “Not guilty.”

  “You know whose it is?”

  “No idea.” The woman stood with her hands on her broad hips, staring at the Saturn with indignation. She had dark, glossy skin and a direct gaze like an accusation. Sunny walked over. “Is Dean Blodger around?”

  “Dean went home. Be back tomorrow morning at six sharp. I’m going to tow that car if nobody moves it. That’s a loading zone. You can’t park there.”

  “Are you the harbormaster when he’s out?” asked Sunny.

  “I am the assistant harbormaster all the time. Vurleen Rose,” said the woman. “And you are?”

  Sunny introduced herself.

  Vurleen narrowed her eyes and looked her up and down. “I see everyone who goes in and out here. I haven’t seen you before. You visiting somebody?”

  “I was just leaving some flowers at Heidi Romero’s place.”

  Vurleen shook her head slowly. “I feel mighty sorry for that poor girl. She never did nothing to deserve to be killed. But I truly hope people aren’t going to start leaving flowers at her house. All those flowers and cards pile up and wilt and blow around. It makes a terrible mess.”