sergeant wanted to be a horticulturalist, the position guaranteed until he wished to retire. He was adamant.' Zane looked at me and shrugged.
'Did he ever mention Captain Squill?' I was still trying to figure out horticulturalist.
Zane's eyes dropped. 'I can't recall.'
'What about the fire at the NewsBeatV 'The sergeant was concerned they'd have a record of me responding to Mr. Nelson. Something the investigation might uncover. I have no idea if he set the fire.'
'If it went public Burlew's hold turned to vapor,' I said. 'But you checked the paper out yourself.'
'I drove by a couple times, just to look, think.'
Driving up I'd seen the back of the Jag in the five-bay garage. Zane started weeping. Clair sat beside him and put her hand on his shoulder. But her eyes remained on the dark clouds out the window.
'Somehow I figured this was where the action was,' said a voice from the doorway. Burlew strode into the room. Clair stood angrily. Harry stared from the piano bench. I spun to Burlew, fists clenched.
'Oh, come on, Ryder,' Burlew said. 'Grow up.'
'Sergeant, I want you out of my house this minute,' Clair said.
Burlew blinked his infant eyes and turned to Zane. 'There's no problem here, Mr. Peltier. None.'
Zane said, 'No problem? I'm about to become a laughingstock, and you're about to go to jail.'
'I don't remember a thing,' Burlew said slowly.
'You were blackmailing me with '
'I don't remember a thing,' Burlew said. 'Good words to know, Mr.
Peltier.'
I saw it coming. Zane's nostrils started twitching as though smelling fresh air from an unexpected source. 'What are you talking about, Sergeant?'
'Unless you press charges against… whoever, there's no trial. No trial, no negative publicity. No pictures entered into evidence for the world to see.' Burlew smiled, a tiny red bow. 'You know my favorite? The one I call Duckwalk, where you're '
'Out of my house, Sergeant,' Clair demanded. 'This instant.'
Harry leaned back and rested his elbows on the instrument's keyboard. A low bass note sounded. Harry smiled softly as he watched Burlew, then turned to me. 'I ever tell you about a partner I had once, Cars? Back, oh, a dozen years or so?'
Burlew reddened. 'Fuck you, Nautilus.'
Harry stared calmly at Burlew. 'You'd best giddy-up, Burl,' Harry said. 'Yee-hah, ride 'em cowboy.'
Burlew eyes widened to almost normal size and he turned apple red. He started to say something, but stopped. He spun, reteating on legs as stiff as fence posts. When we heard Burlew's engine fire up, Zane stood and shot his cuffs, consternation creeping over his face.
'Who was that fellow?' he said to no one in particular. 'What on earth was he talking about?'
Clair looked at her husband as if she was going to vomit, and strode from the room. Harry tapped my arm and craned his head in a follow-me motion. We walked a dozen feet and stopped, heads together. He said,
'So does this have to do with our case what I think it does?'
'Right,' I affirmed. 'Absolutely nothing. It's a complete sidetrack.'
Harry shook his head, cursed Burlew under his breath, and left. I retrieved the photos and quietly slipped to the door. Clair intercepted me in the foyer.
'Whatever's involved in this,' she said, 'I want it pursued like any normal case.'
'There is no case, Clair. It hinged on Zane's testimony against Burlew. There's no other evidence against Burlew except Terri Losidor, and she's riding his bus.'
Clair's laugh was humorless, metallic. 'Zane won't talk.
He's in there contriving some pathetic story to make me pity him.' She gently touched my arm. 'Following this led you down the wrong path, didn't it?'
'We were looking for an elusive someone with close ties to Nelson. We thought it might lead us to the killer, not '
'To my husband.'
I shrugged.
She shook her head. 'Does it put you back at square one?'
'We're also investigating the idea that the bodies are messengers, ava tars It's what we were looking at when we got… sidetracked.'
Clair walked outside and I followed. Mobile was eight miles across the Bay. It was raining there, sky and city connected by a curtain of gray. We walked a flagstone path through waves of azaleas and arbors of roses. 'Much of this is my fault, Carson,' she said, stopping beneath a trellis. 'My own damn, ridiculous, stupid fault.' The scent of the flowers hung in the air, counterpoint to her bitter-spoken words.
'I can't see that, Clair.'
She looked out over the cloud-gray water. 'I knew Zane was a weak man before I married him. I even suspected his bisexuality, rumors, though it's probably closer to asexuality. But he was the ne plus ultra of what girls with my upbringing were supposed to treasure and trap, Ryder: he owned wealth, position, influence…'
'Clair, you don't have to '
Her blue eyes aimed at me, and I fell silent.
'Zane sold himself as a step into that world, the one of inherited ownership and influence, instant history, and I presented myself as a unique material acquisition. You see, Zane, like most others in his world, did nothing for what he has but open his eyes. I struggled years for technical expertise, professional accomplishment. All I lacked was a stage on which to let others see how far I had come.'
'You're respected across the country, Clair. Beyond.'
She smiled sadly. 'Vanity is a cleft that widens as it's filled, Ryder. Professionally, I stood on my own, but I didn't stand apart;
I'm one of many talented and regarded people. But not in Zane's world.
There, I was an anomaly: a self-made woman in a world of glittering bubble heads whose accomplishments mirrored Zane's, inherited, purchased, or married into. But how did I get to where I could stand beside them to tower above them?'
Her eyes told me I had to fill in the blank.
'Married Zane Peltier,' I said.
She laughed without mirth. 'A wicked piper, vanity. I walked down thinking I was stepping up.'
Across the Bay the veil of rain over Mobile turned golden on its trailing edge, the sun burning through. Clair pondered it a moment.
'My introspection is recent, Ryder, occurring only since you came to me about Dr. Davanelle, Ava. After you left, I realized my first response was not, 'How can I help?' but rather, 'I can't allow a potential blot on my record.' It was despicable thinking; I'm a self-centered fool.'
I shook my head. 'I think you've set a measure mark two inches above your head so you'll never reach it, Clair. It screws up priorities.'
Clair reached to the trellis and cradled a pink rose. 'Zane's act of weakness, his submission to Burlew, has sickened me past all tolerance.
Not at Zane, at me.' She nodded toward the house. 'This was never my place, my life, this monstrous overwhelming of things. All I've ever truly loved was my work, my ability to ' She paused and clenched her fists until her knuckles turned white.
'Damn. Here I am doing it again, Ryder, the world of me. My life. My things. My job.' She turned away to dab at her eyes with a wrist.
'How's Ava? Is she going to make it? Tell me she's fine, even if she's not.'
'Clair, I think she's '
Clair put her finger to my lips before I could finish. Her perfume spun my head. Or maybe it was the roses.
'Just for today, tell me she's fine. Tell me she's going to make it.'
She lifted her finger. I said, 'She'll make it, Clair.'
Clair smiled brightly, an extraordinary act of will. 'Without a doubt.
