“How do you know her?”
“I don’t know, I just do. She’s a friend.”
“What kind of friend? Is she someone you clutch to your bosom, shake hands with or nod at uncertainly?”
“Really, Walter, does it matter? I went to see her and she was glad to see me.” Doreen dropped her stone on the sand as not worth keeping. She turned to face him. ”The police got it wrong. Harry Gould was no suicide, he was murdered.”
“Sweetheart, love of my life, he was found face down, hole in his right temple, gun in his right hand, with a suicide note nearby.”
“He just passes the bar, hangs out a shingle and gets his first big case, so he decides to blow his brains out with a gun he doesn’t own and is terrified of ever since his father used one on himself years ago.”
Byerly stopped and stared at her. “Put that way, love, you may have a point.“
“A college chum was in town visiting him. It doesn’t make any sense for him to kill himself.”
“Male or female?”
“Lorna doesn’t know, but we ought to be able to find out.”
“He or she will probably come forward to the cops-unless he or she plugged Gould. I’ll mention it to Lupe Hernandez. She’s not on the case, but she’s watching it for us.” They were near the boys now. Jamie, the abandoned one, ran over to them. He didn’t say anything, just stood there, his blue eyes soulful. Doreen knelt and hugged him. He ran back contentedly to help with the sand castle.
“He’s very insecure.” Doreen said.
“He keeps looking at me as an oddity. I don’t think he’s used to having a man around.”
She laughed. “Maybe he thinks you’re his father.”
“My urologist would be so proud.” They sat in the sand. “I have some information for you, only I’m afraid you’d add 2 and 2 and get 22.”
“That’s the right answer sometimes. What have you got?”
He hesitated, mostly for effect. “Last Tuesday morning a young woman was forced into a black limousine, apparently against her will.” He watched her eyes widen. “I knew it, a conclusion has been leapt to.”
“Last Tuesday, that’s when Jamie was…where did this kidnapping happen?”
“If you asked for the source of my information, you wouldn’t be so sure. It comes from Henry Clay, one of my homeless and not noted for his mental agility. He probably saw somebody getting into a cab beside the library.”
“He can tell colors, can’t he? A long black cab?”
“So she likes to ride around in style.”
“What did the woman look like?”
“Don’t even bother to ask. I should report to you, madam, that no one else saw this alleged kidnapping. The police never heard of it.”
“It’s Jamie’s mother. She told Karen she had a job interview, went downtown and-”
“Which gets us not one iota closer to knowing who Jamie is or what’s to become of him. Has anyone had the good sense to call Children’s Services?”
“I’m not going to if I have to keep him myself. And don’t you dare either. This is a mystery for us to solve. The woman left Jamie with Karen La Rocca, a total stranger, simply because she was going to meet-”
“Her doom?”
“Could be. She obviously tried to hide the boy from someone.”
“His real parents?”
“She knew she would meet someone who would stop at nothing to find out where her son was.”
He looked at her and grinned. “Tell me, Nancy, last name Drew, precisely why is that young man over there so valuable?”
She looked at him, eyes wide, mouth slack, then over at the boys. “I have no idea.”
“We’re losing the light, we’d better get back. C’mon, men, supper time.”
Doreen did the shoes, he helped a little, then all four walked back home in deepening twilight. It was his favorite time of day, palms, yuccas, Norfolk pines and other exotic trees silhouetted against a lilac sky. He put his arm around Doreen’s shoulder and felt her nestle against him. “Magical, just magical,” he whispered.
“Strange, though. Not a cloud in the sky and it’s supposed to rain tonight.”
A few steps further along she said, “A chorus from Handel’s Messiah keeps going through my head, ‘Unto Us a Child is Given.’ Do you know it?”
“Sure, but only the bass part. I don’t think you got it quite right. It’s Isaiah, ‘For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given’.”
“Same difference, I feel blessed.”
Was she already too attached? He decided to say nothing.
While Doreen fixed scrambled eggs for the boys, he went upstairs to shower. When he came down both were fast asleep on the couch in the den. “You finally did them in,” he said.
“Wearing out an old woman is hard work.” She looked in the fridge. “My night to cook. What will you settle for?”
“Oh, some rainy day fare.”
“What a love you are. How about a TV dinner?”
“I think our marriage is strong enough to withstand it.”
They sat at the kitchen counter swallowing the less than tasteless food. “Confess, love, did you really know Lorna Gould?”
“Must I confess?” She sighed. “All right, I knew her, more than slightly I think, enough to know she talked all the time about her son. As soon as I heard he was killed, I just had to go to her.”
“Very thoughtful of you, love-and typical.” He forked peas into his mouth, swallowed. “Among this vast circle of friends of yours, do you happen to know one Karl Kinkaid?”
“I know of him, who doesn’t?”
“I pride myself on being one of the select few. What do you know about him other than he is rich, powerful, mysterious and lives in a castle?”
“Lupe tell you that? It’s close to the mark. It seems Mr. Kinkaid owns this big estate in Montecito, but seldom uses it, largely because he’s rarely in town. I think he has something to do with politics-or maybe it’s oil, OPEC and oleomargarine.”
“Thanks a lot, I can do better on the internet. Do you happen to know a Mrs. Kinkaid?”
“I talked to his housekeeper once. She ordered flowers, roses and cymbidiums as I recall, lots of them.”
“The man can’t be altogether bad.”
“Why do you ask about him?” She listened. “If you know the ex-daughter-in-law, why not talk to her?”
“Why didn’t I think of that?”
Karen La Rocca came about 10, all dolled up and looking smashing. With her was a young man introduced as Marco Musante, dark, hirsute and bulging. He had muscles even God had forgotten, and he was proud of every one. Doreen took them into the sleeping children. Both were cooed over, then carried out to the car.
“That went well,” Doreen said. “Apparently Marco no longer minds if Karen keeps an extra child.”
“Tonight, anyway. Karen’s bod in a cocktail dress will do that to a man.”
“No accounting for lust.”
She went upstairs to shower, while he watched the news. It didn’t take long until he heard, “Got any more of that wine?”
“Just a sec. I want to hear this.” He listened a moment and laughed. “That idiot Justin Wright wants all unwed teenage mothers locked up in juvenile detention centers until they get their family values straight. Can you imagine him in the White House?”
When this earned no reaction from her, he turned in his chair and saw her standing there in a red raincoat, matching umbrella raised over her head. She twirled it like a vamp, a devilish grin on her fact.
“Don’t get wet, dear.”
He swallowed. “What do you have on under that raincoat?”
“Yours to find out.”
