Schmidt moved forward. When he had to stop again for carts, he glanced over. She was staring ahead, not seeing as people waved. It got to you after a while, the waving. He felt like flipping them the bird, but waved back.
“Rivera’s cousin did some work for Marion’s mother,” Brenda said. “She arranged for Rivera to pick me up at the airport. Pat Sweeney lives here. We gave him a lift.”
Maybe that’s when you set up the golf lesson, Schmidt thought. The last cart cleared the road, and he moved forward.
“Turn left—” She pointed. “Why didn’t he tell us?” she said. “Someone dies right here, he learns about it with us in the car. He goes there right after dropping us. I asked him, ‘Nothing serious?’ All he said was, ‘It goes with the territory.’ You’d say something more, wouldn’t you? Then, the very next day, they find another dead All Hands on Deck customer, on Marco Island. Hilda Frieslander.”
Told us. The rest of it Schmidt couldn’t follow, but the us pissed him off. “What’s he like?” Schmidt asked. “Rivera, not Sweeney.”
He sensed her looking at him, having heard the edge in his voice. “Very anxious to please,” she said. “In his late twenties. Mexican. He’s an illegal alien, but when you first meet him, it throws you. You have a certain expectation, probably it’s racist. He fits no stereotype.”
They reached the cul-de-sac and turned left. “It used to happen to me as a kid,” she said. “When I rode the subway in New York and heard blacks with British accents, from former colonies. Rivera’s like that. Perfect American English. Figures of speech, colloquial expressions. Not a trace of Spanish accent. Middle-class clothes, manners.”
Riding the subway in New York. It was a small detail from her past, about growing up. It softened Schmidt toward her. Almost a year had passed, and he still knew next to nothing about her. They had both done everything but learn about each other.
She pointed again. “Here.”
Schmidt swung up the paver drive of a ranch house identical to those on either side. He cut the engine. “Charlie?” He turned in his seat. “My call on Wednesday was stupid,” she said. “You can’t know how glad I am you’re here.”
“Good.”
“Nobody but Rayette knows this. Something’s very wrong, I can’t figure it out.”
“All right, show me.”
They got out. He followed her up the walk and waited for her to pull open the door. Brenda led him inside. “I drove over about seven—”
He looked in passing at the entry-hall table and mirror, good quality, then through open doors. “We had a drink and went outside.” They passed a dining room, Danish modern, with some kind of fancy light fixture. Everything suggested good taste, and it irritated him to feel threatened by furniture. He followed her out an open glass door wall, and down. The deck was wet, the swimming pool too full.
She crossed to a screen door and opened it. Schmidt followed her outside. “The golf balls, his clubs.” A bag of clubs was propped against the screened frame. He looked at the blanket. “That’s what they used to collect the golf balls,” she said.
“I’m glad you had that,” Schmidt said, feeling more irritated. “What’s in the trash bag?”
“Paper plates and cartons,” she said. “We ate Chinese.”
“What did you order?”
“Does it matter?”
“Just asking.” She looked at him. “Subgum lo mein?” Schmidt asked. “That’s what you usually have.”
“Some kind of chicken,” she said. “Szechuan beef, fried rice, egg roll and hot-and-sour soup. It wasn’t very good.”
“The whole thing, or just the soup?”
She turned away and walked along the screened cage. Schmidt followed. When she reached the end, Brenda pointed up. Floodlights fitted to the aluminum frame were still glowing. “He put them on,” she said. “We were out here until about ten-thirty.”
“That’s a real lesson,” he said.
“All right, Charlie—”
“I’m just saying three hours is a long time to practice anything.”
“I left and went home. I got up early, I was working on my notes. I was on the internet. Rayette had told me about his wife’s suicide, so I Googled him. He’s a retired lobbyist, there was a lot about him.”
She told him the story, and it was very bad. Awful. The kind of story anyone would be moved by. He asked no questions, listening as she described how everything had been found that morning by the groundskeepers.
She took him back inside the cage. “That’s called a pool blanket—” She pointed to a mound of quilted blue plastic heaped on the patio table. She went up the shallow steps, Schmidt after. Turning left, he now stood in what would be the master bedroom. She turned on the ceiling light, walked to the back and waited for him. The light and ceiling fan worked together, and the fan began to turn. Heaped on the bed were men’s clothes still on hangers, piles of shirts. “We found a shotgun on that chair—” Brenda pointed. “I took the gun, it’s in Mrs. Krause’s car.”
Schmidt stepped to the back and looked in.
“The pool blanket was in here,” she said. “On the floor and tacked to the walls. He had the chair in the middle with the shotgun on it.”
“But he didn’t do it.” Schmidt looked at chipped places on the drywall where the tacks has been pulled free. “Maybe it was the Szechuan beef.”
A cheap shot. Overkill. It had just come out. When he finally looked at her, she was regarding him, thinking or rethinking something. He wished he could take it back, but it was already out. He returned her stare, ready to apologize if she said something, but not ready to volunteer it.
She walked behind him. Schmidt took a last look before moving out of the room. He thought to turn off the light but didn’t. It wasn’t his business.
George Ivy had left a message with the answering service: Return my lithograph today, or I call the police. Rivera had called back to say
