Faye Kellerman - Double Homicide

“Steve.”

“Working late, Sarah?”

“Always.” Santa Fe’s premium dealer in Pueblo ceramics was fifty-five, rail-thin, and glamorous, with a sheet of blue-white hair hanging down to her shapely buttocks and a heart-shaped face that needed no makeup. Her husband was a plastic surgeon, and rumor had it she’d made use of his services. Katz knew it to be a lie. Sarah had naturally young skin.

“Val around?”

“Not here, but you know where.” She glanced up the block.

“Okay, thanks.”

“Sure, Steve.” She touched his sleeve. “When she left, she was in a good mood.”

Warning him he might be intruding.

“I’ll try not to ruin it.”

The Parrot Bar was a short walk away, on San Francisco Street, between a fossil shop and a place that sold only white clothing. A Doobie Brothers cover band was playing tonight, and bass thumps poured out to the sidewalk. Oh, oh, oh… listen to the music. Out on the curb to the right of the entry, three bikers were drinking beer. Illegal, and most everyone knew Katz was a cop. They also knew he couldn’t have cared less. The bikers greeted him by name, and he gave a small salute in return.

He made his way through a throng of drinkers and shimmying dancers, up to the overly lacquered bar where Val was sure to be.

And there she was on a center stool wearing a black halter and blue jeans and boots. Sandwiched between two ponytailed guys with hunched backs. The old shearling she wore during the winter had fallen from her lap and lay on the floor, getting trampled.

Ponytail on the left had gray hair and a skimpy beard. His hand rested on Val’s bare back, partially covering the gladiolus tattoo she’d gotten last summer. Right-Side Pony’s gut hung over his belt. His stubby fingers caressed Val’s butt, but she didn’t seem to notice.

Wide butt, Katz noted. The ten extra pounds had stretched to twenty. Still distributed in all the right places, but her back had gone a little soft, bulging a bit above the top seam of the halter.

She’d cut her hair, too. Real short, almost mannish. And when she turned, Katz saw the looseness around her jaw, the beginnings of a double chin. Pale, as always. Downright pallid in the sickly light of the bar, but none of that mattered. Men flocked to her: They always had and always would. And not because she was loose. She wasn’t. In some ways, she was the pickiest woman Katz had ever known.

Maybe it was her unpredictability.

Her body, full and curvy and, let’s face it, flabby, managed to convey an intoxicating sense of sexual promise, and whether or not that would lead to anything was the big mystery. She’d been like that even when she and Katz were married.

That was it, he decided. Val was mysterious.

Screwed up, sharp-tongued, distant, plagued by bouts of low self-esteem exacerbated by genuinely low talent, but smart and funny and kind when she felt like it. A tigress when the mood hit her.

The guy on the right slipped his hand under her butt. She threw back her head, laughed, and dislodged him. Touched his nose briefly with a sharp pink fingernail.

Katz walked over and retrieved the shearling. He tapped her shoulder very lightly. She turned, then mouthed “You” over a high-decibel rendition of “China Grove.”

There was no surprise in it. No irritation, either.

Just “You.”

Katz flattered himself that she seemed happy to see him.

He held out the coat. Pointed to the floor.

She smiled, nodded, took the shearling. She slipped off her stool and laced her fingers between Katz’s and stared into his eyes.

The fools at the bar looked stunned as she and Katz left.

Val didn’t put the shearling on until they were outside and a half block from the Parrot. Her white shoulders were prickled with gooseflesh. Same for her cleavage. White breasts bouncing loosely. Katz fought the urge to put his arm around her, protect her from the cold and everything else.

As they walked, she said, “You’re fantasizing, Steve.”

He raised his eyebrows.

She stopped and stretched her arms wide. “Give me a hug. A big one.”

He complied and they embraced and she bit his ear, whispered into it, “You look good, ex-husband.”

“You, too, ex-wife.”

“I’m a sow.”

“Nothing like that at all. You women with your distorted body image-”

She silenced him with a finger on his lips. “Don’t be nice, Steve. I might go home with you.”

He drew back and looked into her deep brown eyes. A couple of zits occupied the space between her plucked brows. New wrinkles creased the corners of the eyes. His eyes took in all of it, but his brain registered none of it. All he saw was mystery.

They resumed walking. “Would that be a tragedy?” he said.

“What?”

“Coming home with me.”

“Probably,” she said. “Let’s not find out.”

She walked faster, breathing through her mouth and blowing out steam. He caught up. They reached the park in the center of the Plaza. On warm nights, kids, sometimes drunk and often rowdy, hung out here. Occasionally, the homeless occupied the benches until the uniforms cleared everyone away. Tonight it was devoid of human occupation other than the two of them. The Plaza sparkled with Christmas lights, silver-blue snowdrifts, hundreds of white diamond stars, and pure magic. Too much cheer for a man who lived in a granite yard. Katz felt suddenly depressed.

Valerie said, “Is this about Olafson?”

“How’d you know?”

“Because Olafson’s dead, and I know what your job is. What is it, Steve? Did my name show up somewhere?”

“In his Palm Pilot.”

“There you go.” She rubbed her hands together. “I could be a detective, too.”

She sat down on a bench and jammed her stiff fingers into the pockets of her coat. “Here I was, sitting in a nice warm bar, getting nice warm male attention.”

“Let’s go inside somewhere,” said Katz. “We could sit in my car, and I’ll turn the heater on.”

She smiled. “And neck?”

“Cut it out,” he said, surprised at the anger in his voice.

“Sorry for offending you.” She crossed her arms over her chest. Tight-lipped and colder than the air.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’ve been working twenty-four hours with almost no sleep.”

“All that’s your decision, Steve.”

“I’m sorry, Val. Okay? Let’s start from scratch.”

“Sure,” she said. “And while we’re at it, let’s have world peace.” She turned, studied him, and gave him a look that made him wonder if she was going to cry. What now?

“Val-”

“Been out to Bandelier recently, Steve?”

“Not recently,” he said. Sometimes on days off, he drove out to the national park and got waved in free by the ranger: courtesy from one uniform to another. When tourists were there, he hiked. On slow days, he climbed a ladder up to one of the ancient Anasazi caves and just sat, staring at the ruins of the old pueblo marketplace below. Two Moons would have laughed, but Katz truly felt at one with the spirits of the land. He’d discovered the park right after the divorce, driving aimlessly, exploring the wilderness. Unlike the Big Apple, New Mexico was replete with open space.

He hadn’t recalled telling Valerie of his trips to Bandelier. But then again, he didn’t remember too clearly what they had actually talked about.

They sat there on the bench for what seemed like a long time. Then, suddenly, she took his face in her frigid hands and kissed him hard. Cool lips but a warm tongue.

When she pulled away, she said, “Let’s go to my place.”

Val got her VW van from behind the gallery, and he followed her erratic driving to her studio apartment on an unmarked alley off Paseo de Peralta, not too far from the site of the murder. She lived in the guesthouse of a large adobe estate owned by a California couple who rarely made it to Santa Fe. Val was expected to take care of minor repairs. For the most part, she had the coyote-fenced two-acre property to herself. Once, she’d brought Katz into the main house and they made love on the owners’ big pine four-poster, surrounded by pictures of the owners’ kids. Afterward, he’d started to clean up, but she told him to stop, said she’d take care of it later.