Nevada Barr - Naked Came The Phoenix

"It's a possibility."

"But no one heard her scream."

"And if she was pushed in, you don't think she might have screamed?"

Caroline was silent.

Toscana said, "Do you know anything about the woman?"

"Not a clue."

"Nothing about her personal habits?"

"Meaning?"

"Did she drink?"

Caroline absorbed his words. "You think she was drunk?"

"Possibly. Wearing heavy shoes and being a bit tipsy, she could have lost her balance. If she was more than a little tipsy, her reaction time might have been off its prime, gone under before she realized she needed to do something. She might have tried to scream, but water's a pretty effective muffler."

"Did you smell alcohol on her breath when you revived her?"

"No."

"Then she couldn't have been that drunk."

Toscana sat back in his seat. "Not necessarily. What I smelled was lots of perfume and lots of mint in her mouth, like she was embalmed in wintergreen. You drink and you don't want anybody to know, what do you do?"

"You suck on a breath mint," Caroline answered.

Toscana nodded. "There you go."

"So her drowning was an accident?"

"I didn't say that. I'll know more once she's conscious-if she regains consciousness." The detective evaluated his subject. "Why are you here, Mrs. Blessing, and without a lawyer? Suddenly stricken with a bad case of conscience?"

"I thought that maybe…" Caroline looked at the ceiling. "You know, if we pull together some stuff… information… maybe we can solve this thing together."

Toscana smiled. "Now that's a great ideal Do you want a thirty-two or a Beretta semiautomatic, Annie Oakley?"

Caroline was silent.

Toscana sighed. "Look, Mrs. Blessing. You seem like a sweet kid. A real thin one, too. Why on earth are you here?"

"For my mother's sake. After Dad died, my husband…" She almost choked on the word. "We thought the trip might help get Mother through a difficult time."

"That's nice." He smiled. "That's really nice."

"The whole thing has been a disaster!" Caroline got up and began to pace. "Since my mother is the majority shareholder in this place, we both have a vested interest in solving this mess."

"Did she send you here?"

"No, she didn't. I actually came here on my own. I am capable of independent thought."

"I don't doubt it."

But he did doubt it. Caroline could see it in his eyes. "I want this to work for her. For her sake as well as my own. When she's happy, she leaves me alone."

"So what are you holding back?"

"If I tell you everything I know, will you tell me what you know?"

"Probably not. But give it your best shot… ah, the pizza." He shoved some papers off the table and onto the floor. "Put it right here, Mikey. Take a piece for yourself."

"Pizza!" Caroline cried out.

Toscana regarded her face. The woman needed a life. He slid the box over to her. "Knock yourself out."

Her eyes traveled to the postmortem snapshots. "I'm too sick to eat it now."

"Suit yourself." Toscana opened the box, took out two wedges and made himself a sandwich. "Great stuff! I can almost taste home in every bite. Go on. Give it a shot."

Dutifully, Caroline liberated a piece from the box and set it down on a napkin. She began to pick at the cheese.

"So…" Toscana swallowed and wiped his mouth. "What do you know?"

"If I talk freely, will it come back to haunt me?"

"Maybe. But if you don't talk, your conscience will most definitely haunt you."

Caroline dipped her finger into the melange of sauce, oil, and cheese and licked the tip with her tongue. "Claudia de Vries was arguing with someone the night before she was murdered."

Toscana picked up a pencil. "How do you know?"

"I overheard them fighting in the middle of the night." She perched on the edge of her chair and began the slow recount of what had happened when she had overheard Claudia talking to someone. How she had been hiding in the bushes, crouched like a cornered animal. Maybe she had been the lucky one.

Toscana regarded her with confusion. "Why were you hiding?"

Caroline felt her face go hot. "It's embarrassing."

"A tryst?"

"With a bread stick!" She looked up at him. "I had raided the kitchen for food! I was on my way back to my room when I heard someone behind me. So I hid and…" She let the words die out.

Toscana cocked his head. "You got an eating disorder?"

"No, I just didn't have enough for dinner. The portions here are very skimpy ."

"And how much did you pay to stay here?"

"Would you like me to continue?"

"Please." He finished off his pizza and started on another slice.

Caroline picked off a slice of pepperoni and nibbled on it.

"Actually, I don't have much more to say. Claudia was having a vitriolic argument with somebody. It scared me, the anger and nastiness."

"But you don't know who it was?"

"No."

"Did the voice have an accent?"

"Not that I could hear… Oh, you're thinking of Thong Guy, the Adonis who pulled Claudia out of the mud. What's his name?"

"Emilio Constanza. He was there when you and your mother entered the bathhouse. Which means he was possibly the last person around to see Mrs. de Vries alive. He's also being questioned as we speak. You all are going to be grilled. Extensively. So if you have something to tell, it's better for you if you get it out early."

The man was making it difficult. His off-putting manner only strengthened her resolve to do the right thing, whatever that meant. Coolly, she said, "For your information, I also found an empty bottle of Jack Daniel's in the brush. I know that Mr. Fondulac confessed to you that he drank some Jack Daniel's last night."

"Who told you that?"

"Mother."

"Go on."

"I know that drinking is against Claudia's rules. I was under the impression that Mr. Fondulac came here to dry out. Mother told me that Claudia had personally searched Mr. Fondulac's baggage-just to make sure he wasn't sneaking in any contraband. If that were the case, where did he get the bottle?"

"Alcoholics are wonderfully adept at hiding things."

"You've implied that Ms. Talmadge might also imbibe. So I'm suggesting that maybe the bottle was hers." For reasons she didn't understand, she refrained from telling Toscana about Phyllis and Fondulac having been in rehab with King David.

"Jack Daniel's is a popular brand of whiskey."

"A more likely explanation is that they had been drinking together."

Toscana wrote it down in his notes. "What else do you want to tell me?"

Caroline hesitated. "I know that my mother thinks Claudia was skimming off profits through Ondine."

"What do you think?"

"I don't know! I'm just a simple musician, an ex-musician at that."

"It's impossible to be an ex-musician. Just ask an old geezer like King David. Good Lord, his face looks like a truck ran over it. He is way past the prime meat rating. Some people just can't get past high school." Toscana drank his coffee. "What do you think of him?"

Caroline felt heat in her face. Toscana must have picked up on it and that's why he was questioning her about him. "He's a jerk."

"What specifically makes him a jerk in your opinion?"

"For starters, he's been bothering me, scaring me."

"Oh?" Toscana sat up. "Tell me about it."

"He told me he came here to look for something. He was certain that Claudia had it. Now, for some reason, he thinks I have it."

"But you don't know what he's talking about."

"No," Caroline lied.

"Very mysterious, Mrs. Blessing. And vague enough that I can't pin you down on anything. Why should I believe this ambiguous tale?"

"Why shouldn't I be believed?"

"Because, Mrs. Blessing, your mother has more than a little motivation for wanting Claudia de Vries dead, starting with the fact that Mom now owns the majority stake in the spa."