Unwilling Accomplice - Barbara Seranella Page 10

  "Thank you." A small part of her brain wondered if Prozac might be the answer for her. She told herself not to consider it. She’d made it this long without chemical support. And yet . . .

  "I hope I’ve helped," he said, interrupting her speculations.

  "Yeah, you have. You’ve given me a lot to think about." Too much, probably. Jasper’s barks were growing frantic. "Maybe we could talk again about all this. Right now I’ve got a hound in distress here and I don’t want to take up too much of your time." She also didn’t want to tie up the phone. "Let me know when you set something up at Metro." She gave him her phone number, put the frozen peas to boiling, then went to see what had Jasper so upset.

  He was sitting on the back porch waiting for her. She closed the door behind her and bent to demonstrate to him that the dog door flap pushed both ways. When she pushed on it with her hand, it resisted her effort. She pushed harder, then saw the problem: the frame had twisted, causing the door to bind. Jasper rose to his hind legs and gently landed against her, like a baby seeking a hug.

  "You’ve got all the moves, don’t you?" she said, taking a moment to stroke his fur and massage his shoulder muscles. He gave her a look that was pure love and swiped her face twice with his tongue.

  "Our first kiss."

  She went back into the kitchen and got a claw hammer out of the drawer by the sink. The noodle water was boiling. She dumped in the pasta and turned off the peas.

  "Ten minutes to dinner, girls," she yelled.

  The frame straightened with three sharp strikes of the hammer. As she tested the flap, making sure it swung both ways, she thought about Charlotte’s hair in the duct tape and what Dr. Miller had said and wasn’t sure what anything meant anymore.

  Chapter 10

  The phone rang halfway through dinner. Munch left the kids to finish eating and took the call in her bedroom. It was Meg Sullivan, the woman Munch had spoken to outside the police station.

  "Have you found your niece?" she asked.

  "No, I was hoping this call would be her or news about her. "

  "I’m sorry to disappoint you then. What’s her name?"

  "Charlotte."

  "I’ll say a prayer for her. Have you made any progress?"

  Jill popped her head into the room and pointed to the phone in Munch’s hand. "My mom?"

  Munch covered the mouthpiece and shook her head. "No, I'm sorry honey. Finish eating. I’ll be in there in a minute."

  "Oh, dear," Meg Sullivan said, "have I interrupted your dinner?"

  "We were almost through."

  "Then I’ll be brief. My husband and I are offering a private reward for the return of some jewelry we lost in the burglary. It has sentimental value. We’ll pay you for any information that leads to its recovery."

  "My main concern is getting Charlotte, my niece, back safely."

  "Of course, as it should be. But I don’t think we’re on very different tracks here. As you pointed out, her disappearance and our burglary may be related."

  "Can you describe your missing jewelry?"

  "I can do better than that. I have photographs."

  More than Lisa had of her own kid. "If you bring them to your gallery tomorrow, I can swing by there after I take the kids to school. Look for me around nine."

  "I’ll look forward to it. You know, I met Steven Koon."

  "You did? When? How?"

  "His mother brought him by to apologize after he was arrested for trying to pawn my VCR."

  "Did you ask him where your other stuff was?"

  "He said he didn’t know."

  "Did you believe him?"

  "I have no idea how to read a fifteen-year-old boy. Now I feel sorry for the mother. I’ve expressed my condolences. Are the police close to catching his killer?"

  "They wouldn’t say."

  "Frustrating, isn’t it? You like to think they’re trying, but when they never tell you anything, what are you supposed to believe? That’s why we thought, my husband and I, that we should pool our resources. Maybe then we could get something going."

  "Yeah, I hate it when I have to depend on someone e1se," Munch said.

  "Listen, hon, I’ll let you go and I hope Charlotte comes home soon. We were impressed with you today. Keep up the good work. Keeping the heat on might even help catch the killer of that poor boy."

  Meg Sullivan didn’t say "Before they kill again," but Munch heard the words as clearly as if she had. She also thought Mrs. Sullivan was a little too free with her compliments, but maybe it was condescension that she was detecting, or her own distrust of people who seemed too nice.

  ***

  After dinner, Jill brought out her movies from home. Munch looked at the boxes. One was an animated Disney flick, the other a Benji movie. She opened the box for the Benji movie, but the tape inside was an unlabeled Beta. "This one won’t work on our VCR/’ she told Jill.

  "Oh," Jill said, "that’s okay, I haven't seen the other one."

  Munch put the Disney tape in the machine. "I have to make a call, and I’m expecting a call, so if the phone rings, I’ll get it."

  "No problemo," Asia said.

  "Is your homework done?"

  "Yes, Mommy dearest."

  Jill watched their exchange with unblinking concentration as if she were committing it to memory Munch could always tell with a kid when the recorder was on. Asia did it at odd times, such as once when Munch paused to close the freezer door at the market that someone had carelessly left open. Asia, at five, had said solemnly, "That was nice of you."

  Another time when Munch had backed into a pole that had dented her GTO’s bumper, she had let loose with an involuntary "Shit!" She had gotten the impression from the look on Asia’s face that her daughter would remember the moment forever.

  Munch turned to her niece. "Jill, did you finish your homework?"

  "Yes."

  "Good girl."

  "Auntie Munch?"

  "What?"

  "If my mom calls and I’m asleep, will you wake me up?"

  "Sure, honey But remember, she might not get a chance to call."

  "I know, but if she does."

  "I’ll get you up. Don’t worry."

  ***

  The following morning, Munch took the canvas cover off the limo—her fleet of one. Asia came outside as Munch was screwing in the mobile-phone antenna.

  "Do we have a limo run?" she asked.

  "No, I’m expecting some important calls so I need to be in a vehicle with a phone."

  "Cool." Asia’s legs were bare and she’d be leaving her navy blue uniform cardigan at home today. Munch had on black cotton slacks and a white shirt, looking the part of a chauffeuse. She had already called Lou and told him not to expect her today.

  The Santa Anas were blowing the hot desert air to the ocean. It was earthquake weather, disaster weather. Small brush fires burned all across Southern California, having awaited such a wind. The warmer temperatures also meant more business at the gas station, overheats and air-conditioning recharges. Munch hoped Lou wasn’t too overwhelmed.

  Before leaving the house, Munch set her home phone to forward to the Cadillac’s mobile unit, which meant the calls to Lisa’s house would also ring in the limo. She made sure Jasper had plenty of water and promised him she would be home as soon as possible. She also gave him a pair of old tennis shoes and jammed a chair against the closet knob to keep him out of there. Feeling very bourgeois and high-tech, she let the kids ride in the back and watch artoons.

  Jill rolled down the back window as they got close to her school and called loud hellos to every kid she knew. Munch opened the back door with a flourish. "Remember what I said about after school."

  "Banana," Jill said in a whisper. "I won’t forget."

  Munch kissed her cheek, thinking that Jill’s ability to adapt to the good as well as the bad was going to serve her well in this life.

  As Munch headed for St. Teresa’s, the Mark-and-Brian Show was on the radio. She listened to th
e pair every morning and sometimes dreamed they were in her living room, hanging out. They even had positions on her internal committee. She wondered how "the guys" would feel about her giving Rico another chance. Then she wondered how far she was from receiving communications through her teeth and decided that if she had been destined to go crazy, it would have stuck in her teenage years.

  "What’s a boner?" Asia asked.

  Oh, Lord, it's starting already. Munch turned down the volume. "Who’s talking about boners?"

  "I don’t know. Just something I heard. What is it?"

  "When a boy’s penis gets hard, they say he has a boner. There are other ways to say it, too. The correct word is erection."

  "Wouldn’t his pee shoot up in the air?"

  "It causes them all kinds of problems." Munch tried to remember how old she had been when she’d learned about these things. "It's what happens to a man’s penis when he’s going to have sex."

  "Sex?" Asia hooted, half-horrified, half-intrigued. She hid her face in her hands. "I don’t want to know. Yucko. I’m never doing it."

  "Works for me," Munch said.

  They arrived at St. Teresa’s just as the first bell sounded.

  Munch clipped on the name tag that identified her as a volunteer and parked in the school lot. Asia looked surprised when she turned off the engine.

  "I’m coming in for a minute," she explained.

  "I want to talk to Miss Hopp."

  "Am I in trouble for something?"

  "Any reason you should be?"

  "I don’t think so." Asia sighed, as if resigning herself to the many eccentricities of the adults in her life. "But you never know."

  Munch laughed. "I just want to ask her about something."

  They stopped first in the office at the entrance to the school grounds so Munch could sign in. This was a new policy at the school, instituted by the principal, Mrs. Frowein, after the horror of last October when Munch had found a threatening note pinned to Asia’s jacket.

  It read, U I needed to hurt you, I could, and had been left by a crazy rapist who perceived Munch as a threat to his happiness. Now, the only way into the school was through one narrow gate that was guarded by fierce nuns.

  Munch spent every Thursday afternoon from twelve-thirty to two in Asia’s classroom, reading with the kids one-on-one. She liked the teacher, Ms. Hopp, a lot. Her first name was Chrissy and although she was in her mid to late twenties, Munch felt more comfortable addressing her as her students did. This was the woman’s first class of her own, and she was a natural—combining just the right measures of sternness and compassion to make the kids adore her and behave.

  When Munch arrived at the classroom, Ms. Hopp was calling the class to order and passing out a spelling test.

  "Sorry we’re late," Munch said. "My fault."

  There was a low table in one corner with two little chairs where Munch sat when she tutored. Today that chair was occupied by a TA, a thin, young woman with acne who looked as if she weren’t out of high school yet. Munch greeted the kids she knew, starting with Brittany, a little girl with long eyelashes and a deep voice for a nine-year-old. Brittany had a way of screwing up her face and making a fist of frustration whenever she got a word wrong, even if it was the first time she’d ever come across the word. Munch felt a deep empathy and affection for Brittany. Actually each kid in the class was special hyperactive Miles, who couldn’t stop squirming, but loved books about animals; serious little Adam, who never missed a word and listened with rapt attention when Munch explained what he was reading about; Lindsey Ramsey whose little white blouses always needed ironing and who read at a maddening rate of a word a second, pronouncing each syllable in the same monotone, without ever pausing to distinguish the end of the sentence. Sometimes it was all Munch could do to keep her eyes open.

  Her job as a reading mentor wasn’t to help the kids decode the words. If they couldn’t read a word, Munch counted to four silently and then just said it for them. Her job was to make sure they understood that all those words added up to a story and that the story was what made the reading fun and worthwhile. The boys seemed to go more for nonfiction, and last year, Munch had been fascinated to learn anew how bees pollinated flowers, why the moon wasn't always full, and how planets could be distinguished from stars because they didn’t twinkle. Boy penguins had a built-in storage space and flap for keeping the couple’s egg safe and warm. Always nice to see the male of the species contributing.

  Munch credited her extensive vocabulary and a command of the language that belied her lack of formal education to her love of reading. Although it was also true that she was much more secure thinking a word than she was saying it out loud. Until recently, she had thought banal rhymed with anal.

  Then she’d heard some guy on one of those highbrow talk shows say it and learned that the word actually rhymed with cabal.

  "Did we have an appointment I forgot about?" Ms. Hopp asked.

  "No," Munch said. "I wanted to talk to you about something if you have a minute."

  "Sure." The teacher turned to her assistant. "Ms. Gunter, would you please watch the class for a few minutes while I go talk to Ms. Mancini?"

  Munch looked at the young girl with true sympathy. She knew how quickly Ms. Hopp’s well-trained students would turn into an unruly mob when their teacher stepped out. Munch showed Asia’s teacher the crumbled and ripped permission slip. "Have you noticed a change in Asia's behavior?"

  Chrissy Hopp thought a moment. "She has been clingy lately "

  "Exactly and she’s been snarly at home. Did something happen here? Did she have a falling-out with her friends? Is she having trouble with any assignments?"

  "Not that I’m aware of."

  "What would have happened if she didn’t turn in this permission slip for the trip to the harbor?"

  "She would have had to stay in the office all day."

  "Now why would she prefer that?" `

  "I don’t know. Come to think of it, she spent a lot of the field trip to the petting zoo sitting by herself on the bus. She said she was tired."

  Munch looked over Ms. Hopp’s shoulder and saw that all the students had left their seats and had descended on the TA. "You’d better get back in there. They’re starting to riot."

  "It only takes a minute. See you Thursday, uh, tomorrow."

  Ms. Hopp grinned and returned to her charges.

  Munch passed a pregnant woman on the way to her car. The woman was getting out of a Buick station wagon. Her purse was no doubt filled with credit cards and her list of housewife chores for the day. Munch smiled automatically albeit falsely feeling old Mr. Jealousy lifting his ugly head. She loved her life well enough, but sometimes utopia looked a lot like what other women had: the husband, the 2.5 kids, the family car, the house in the suburbs.

  She doubted such women lost a wink of sleep knowing they couldn't reseal their own power steering pumps.

  On her way to Meg Sul1ivan’s studio, the car phone rang. Rico.

  "I sent a unit to Lisa Slokum’s house. Did you leave the door open?"

  "No, why?"

  "It was open when they got there."

  "Did they go in?" A fire truck with siren blaring turned the corner and Munch pulled over.

  "What’s going on?" he asked.

  "I’m in the limo."

  "Where are you now?"

  "San Vicente, heading east. I just left Asia’s school and I have an errand in Westwood."

  "What kind of an errand?"

  "My ship came in and I’m picking up some dresses."

  "Very funny."

  "Actually, I’m meeting with Meg Sullivan—one of the burglary victims I met at the police station. She’s hoping I can help get some of her stuff back."

  "Good luck," Rico said.

  "So you didn’t finish telling me, did they go in Lisa’s house?"

  "Yes. No one was there. I was hoping you could meet me over there this morning and tell me if anything is missing or disturbed."<
br />
  Munch checked the clock on the dashboard. "Give me an hour. I’m stuck in going-to-work traffic."

  "Al1 right. If you get there first, don’t go in, wait for me. Be careful."

  "I pity the fool that messes with me," she said in her best Mr. T voice.

  "Yeah, I know," he said. "I’m one of them."

  Chapter 11

  Meg Sullivan’s art gallery was in a Tudor-style house with a peaked, shingled roof, dark timber support beams, and mullioned windows. Creeping fig clung to the aged brick walls. The trim front lawn sported a statue that looked Grecian. It reminded Munch of the mortuary in the Valley where she had driven a funeral party last month.

  The funeral had been an easy charter. Four billable hours and most of that time was spent waiting at the mortuary and then the cemetery. She’d even provided a box of tissues for the grieving family members who rode with her. She always tried to distinguish her service with those extra touches.

  For weddings she had a banner that she put on the limo’s bumper. On the way to the service it read ALMOST MARRIED. She then flipped it over after the ceremony to proclaim JUST MARRIED.

  She had joked with the hearse’s driver about getting him a similar arrangement. Only his would read ALMOST BURIED on the way to the funeral and . . .He said he got the idea. He hadn’t even smiled and she suspected he threw away her card at his earliest opportunity.

  Couldn’t win them all.

  Munch parked in the art gallery’s delivery lane and knocked on the back door.

  Meg Sullivan answered after a minute. "Right on time."

  "I love your shop. Do you have those pictures of the jewelry?"

  "Yes, let me get them. Come in"

  Munch stepped into another world. Treasures abounded. Glass display cases held an array of snuffboxes, antique jewelry and detailed miniatures of all sorts of household items: tiny black, pedal-operated Singer sewing machines, washboards, a full set of copper pots and pans. "My kid would love this. Where do you get all this stuff?"

  "Estate auctions, private sales. My husband and I have a few choice spots that we hit every year. Look around, browse."