A Stiff Critique Read online

  I got up and opened the door cautiously, the dread from last night’s visitation drying my mouth. But when I peered through the crack in the doorway, I didn’t see a murderer. I saw Carrie looking back at me, a white-toothed grin on her round, freckled face.

  “Carrie!” I greeted her, flinging open the door in my relief.

  “I’m glad you’re happy to see me,” she said as she strode through the doorway. She gave me a quick hug, then stepped back to look into my eyes. “I wasn’t sure I would be welcome.”

  “Of course you’re welcome,” I assured her as another part of my mind began to backtrack. Was she really welcome? It all depended on why she was here.

  “I left work early,” she told me. “I plan to visit each of the critique group members individually. I thought I might begin with Mave. Would you care to accompany me?”

  I pursed my lips into the shape to say “No,” and then the phone rang.

  It was my ex-husband, Craig, on the line. I mouthed that information to Carrie as he spoke. I also crossed my eyes for emphasis, feeling guilty in the next instant.

  “I’ve got some more ideas for computer-nerd gag gifts,” Craig said, his voice low and seductive. “How about I come by and show them to you?”

  “Sorry, Craig,” I answered quickly. “I’m just leaving the house with a friend.”

  I looked across at Carrie after I hung up the phone. Her molasses-brown eyes were crinkled with repressed laughter.

  “Well, get your purse, girl!” she ordered. “We are just leaving the house now, aren’t we?”

  Sitting next to Carrie as she drove up Highway 101 toward Hutton not much later, I realized that I should have asked Craig if he had been walking up my driveway the night before. But would he admit to it even if he was my nighttime intruder? I turned to Carrie, ready to ask her advice, but she spoke first as she took the Hutton turnoff.

  “Did you know that Hutton has only seven non-white residents?” she asked.

  I shook my head, still thinking about Craig as the town’s tree-lined streets came into view.

  “And of those seven people all but two are servants,” she continued.

  “Who are the other two?” I asked curiously. She had my interest now.

  “An African-American couple,” she told me. “He owns his own business. She’s a stockbroker. They are either very brave or very foolhardy. Or perhaps both. But they are very, very rich in any case, so they’ll probably do just fine.”

  We found Mave at home as expected.

  “Howdy, women!” she greeted us at the door. She was wearing a lavender T-shirt and tight purple jeans today. They looked damned good on her too. “You two come all the way to Hutton just to grill this old woman?” she asked, tilting her head.

  I swallowed guiltily, but Carrie just said, “Sure thing,” and flashed a grin at Mave.

  Mave slapped her thigh and let out a snort of laughter. “Well, come on in then!” she boomed, then turned to lead us down the hall.

  I read the words inscribed on the back of her bobbing lavender T-shirt as we followed her: “If they can put one man on the moon, why can’t they just send them all there?”

  Carrie and I must have both finished the sentence at the same time, because we were laughing in unison as we stepped into Mave’s living room.

  “Never did have much tolerance for the male of the species,” Mave commented as she turned around. Obviously, she had eyes in the back of her head. She squinted the eyes in the front of her head at Carrie as she continued. “Though Travis doesn’t appear to be such a donkey’s bottom as the rest of them, does he now, Carrie?”

  I looked at Carrie, too, wondering what exactly Mave was getting at. Was she curious about Carrie’s relationship with Travis? Or maybe she was warning Carrie off—

  “I believe Russell Wu is a pretty acceptable human being as well,” Carrie replied blandly.

  And then I wondered if Mave had left Russell out of her question on purpose, because she suspected him. I gave my head a little shake, feeling like Alice in a Wonderland of innuendo and subtext.

  “Well, sit yourselves down and we’ll talk,” Mave suggested, her bright eyes round behind her glasses.

  I just hoped I hadn’t missed any important implications as I took my seat next to Carrie on a comfortable purple couch. The whole room was comfortable, both physically and visually. I looked around as Mave sat across from us on a matching couch. The walls were a pale lavender, the windows trimmed in soft yellow and the carpet a darker lavender. The odd combination of colors was more soothing than I would have expected.

  “Did you ever find your copy of Donna’s manuscript?” Carrie asked, getting down to business.

  “No, I didn’t!” Mave exclaimed. She shook her head. “Now, isn’t that the goofiest thing? Do you really think one of those mob critters got it?”

  Carrie nodded solemnly.

  “Well, I suppose it wouldn’t have been all that hard to get in this place,” Mave murmured, her eyes out of focus behind her glasses. “I don’t lock up much. And I’ve been spending a lot of time in the back garden.”

  “Perhaps you might lock your doors from now on,” Carrie suggested.

  “You betcha,” Mave agreed readily. “Though in this case the horse is already gone.” She frowned. “You two think Donna’s family situation’s tangled up with Slade’s death?”

  “I don’t know,” Carrie answered carefully. “Though I’d certainly appreciate an answer to that very question.”

  “Me too,” Mave muttered. “Not that I cared much for Slade Skinner. He was one of those males that you think might be of another species altogether, if you know what I mean. But still and all, murder isn’t a good thing no matter how pesky the victim might be.”

  “How did you meet Slade, originally?” I asked.

  “Good golly, I’d known Slade for donkey’s years,” Mave said. She stared up at the ceiling. “Met him through some neighbors, the Atchesons. Good folks, long gone. We started this here writing group maybe ten years ago. I was doing a series of articles for the American Heritage. Slade had just published his first thriller. And Amy Atcheson was writing gardening books, bless her poor little heart. She’s dead now, of ovarian cancer. Her husband went not long after—” Mave shook her curly gray head as if to clear it. “I’ll bet you two don’t really want to hear all about Amy and the rest of the neighbors,” she finished with a wink. “Ask your next question.”

  “How did you feel when Slade challenged you about meeting Phoebe Mitchell?” I obliged.

  Mave’s head jerked back as if slapped. “I felt a mite testy,” she snapped, her eyes squinting in a fierce glare. But then her expression softened again. “Don’t you worry, though. I don’t kill folks when I’m feeling testy. And it wasn’t as if I really believed I’d met Phoebe. It was just a little white lie I’d grown fond of. Made a good story to tell. George Jean Nathan said, ‘Art is a beautiful, swollen lie.’ And that about sums it up. Wouldn’t be a whole lot of art without lies, now, would there?”

  I didn’t have an answer to that one. I turned to Carrie. But she seemed out of ideas too.

  “Want to see a picture of Phoebe?” Mave offered.

  Carrie and I nodded simultaneously. Somehow, we had become a team.

  Mave stood up and led us to the wall behind our couch. It was covered in black and white photos of women. Mave pointed and identified each of them enthusiastically. Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony, Alice B. Toklas, Gertrude Stein, “Red” Emma Goldman and Margaret Sanger were the only names I recognized. And, of course, Phoebe Mitchell. She was a handsome woman, with well-chiseled features and one impudently raised eyebrow above an eye that seemed ready to wink. I could see why Mave loved her so.

  Carrie and I made polite noises over Mave’s collection for a few more minutes and then she saw us out, pleading the need to write.

  “Well?” I asked once Carrie and I were in the car again.

  Carrie still hadn’t answered me by the time we
passed the lush lawn and beds of dahlias in front of the large redwood house next to Nan’s.

  “Look,” Carrie said, extending a finger. But she wasn’t pointing at the garden, she was pointing at the BMW parked in front of Nan’s cottage.

  “Nan’s home. Real estate sales must be slow,” Carrie drawled, sounding for a moment like Nan herself. She pulled to the curb, set the brake and turned to me, all in one motion. “Shall we?”

  “After you,” I replied.

  Our visit with Nan wasn’t much longer than our visit with Mave. Nan answered the door with an impatient, “Oh, you two,” and ushered us into her living room, ten feet by six feet of spotless bare hardwood floors and cream-colored walls with two small, perfectly matched vanilla-colored sofas and one abstract painting in shades of cream, muted blue and pale yellow above a small, neat, unused fireplace. That was it. The room was perfect, tasteful, and utterly sterile. Nan didn’t ask us to sit down.

  I managed one phrase, “Hi, we were in the neighborhood,” and she started talking real estate.

  “Carrie says you’re in Mill Valley,” Nan told me, tossing a languid gold-bangled wrist in its general direction. “Not a good place to be right now.” She shook her head, her shining blond pageboy swinging from side to side as gracefully as hair in a shampoo ad. “Prices are dropping in Mill Valley. You want to be in Hutton or San Ricardo. Ever thought about a condo? Larkspur has a great little…”

  If she was trying to avoid our questions, she had a good technique. I looked over at Carrie. She shrugged and rolled her eyes. But ten minutes later, Nan paused for a breath.

  “We were curious how you came to be in the critique group,” Carrie put in quickly.

  Nan blinked, her tan face blank for a moment.

  “Oh,” she said finally. “I took a class from Slade a few years ago. Well, he took one look at my writing and practically begged me to join his little group.” She smiled smugly, animated once more. “Anyway, Kate. I can tell you right now that Mill Valley has had its day as a real estate hot spot. The areas that are—”

  “Slade could give quite a rough critique,” Carrie cut in again, not even waiting for Nan to breathe this time. I didn’t blame her. It might have been ten more minutes.

  “Slade, rough?” Nan said, eyebrows arcing. Then she chuckled. “Not really. You just had to understand Slade’s sense of humor. Very sly, very subtle. He was really a darling man. But so misunderstood.” She didn’t have to add “by lesser mortals.” The implication was enough.

  “Have you found your copy of Donna’s manuscript?” I asked.

  “I haven’t had a single little second to look yet,” Nan told me. She shook a well-manicured finger in my direction, jangling her bracelets. “Been too busy showing hot properties. You ought to come by the office, Kate…”

  As we were leaving Nan’s, I heard a car start up behind us. The sound seemed familiar. Was it the same sound as the car the night before? I turned my head and saw a beige Honda Civic alone on the wide Hutton street about a block behind us. I couldn’t make out the features of the driver. The car was too far away. But still, I had a feeling…

  “What kind of car does Russell drive?” I asked, turning to Carrie.

  “A Honda. A Civic, I believe,” she answered. “Why?” “Because, I think he’s—” I began, swiveling my head to look behind me again. But the car had disappeared.

  - Ten -

  I stared over my shoulder in disbelief. Where had the beige Honda gone? Had it turned onto a side street? Or had I imagined the whole thing? Goose bumps formed on my arms.

  “Because what?” Carrie asked next to me.

  I jumped in my seat, wrenching something in my swiveled neck. Something that hurt. I rubbed the sore spot as I turned my head back to look out the front window.

  Hutton was still rolling by, tastefully as ever. But its well-groomed gardens and hedges had lost their appeal.

  “Never mind,” I whispered.

  “Are you all right, Kate?” she asked, her voice a little louder.

  “I’m fine,” I lied. Then I shook my head. Lying was no good. Not that I was making a moral judgment. I just knew that Carrie would see through my lie. “Fine except that someone came and stood in my yard last night,” I amended.

  “And you think that someone is Russell Wu,” Carrie told me.

  I turned to her in astonishment, wrenching my sore neck once again. “How did you know?”

  “Kate, you just asked me about Russell’s car,” she said impatiently. She threw up her hands for a moment, then grabbed the wheel again before I had time for a fresh anxiety attack. “Did you see his car last night?”

  “I only heard it last night,” I muttered. The whole thing sounded so ridiculous aloud. “At least, I think I heard it. And I think I might have seen it behind us a couple of seconds ago. A beige Honda Civic. But now it’s gone.”

  Carrie frowned as she pulled onto the highway. Was she reconsidering her choice of an investigative partner?

  “Look, I don’t know if it really was Russell, but—” That was when I noticed that we were going north on the highway instead of south. “Hey, where are you going?”

  “To Russell’s,” Carrie said. “Of course.”

  Of course.

  Russell had an apartment in San Ricardo. Or maybe it was a condo. The complex looked upscale enough. We wound our way through the landscaped grounds until we found this building alongside a patch of lilies of the Nile and climbed a short flight of stairs to his upper-story unit. He appeared at the door within seconds of the doorbell’s chime.

  “Hello,” he said without blinking. His tinted glasses looked even darker in the light of the doorway. I wondered if they were the kind that changed in the light.

  “Hi, Russell,” I said uncomfortably. “Carrie and I thought…”

  I realized abruptly that I had no idea how to finish the sentence, especially with Russell just standing there, staring.

  “We thought we might visit with you and discuss Slade Skinner’s death,” Carrie finished for me, her voice matter-of-fact. “After all, you do have a special expertise in these matters.”

  Something that might have been a smile tugged at Russell’s lips briefly. Then he turned without a word and swept his hand in front of him, motioning us inside.

  Inside turned out to be a Spartan living room with one blue-and white-checked sofa, a couple of bookcases, a stack of newspapers and a curling poster of Monet’s “Water Lilies” on the wall. I had a feeling Russell didn’t do a whole lot of entertaining.

  Carrie and I sat on the checked sofa while Russell went to get a chair. The room felt cool for July, even cold. Or maybe it was me. A pretty tiger-striped cat approached and sniffed our feet curiously, then leapt up to sit between us. I felt relieved, even warmer, as if the presence of a cat proved that Russell wasn’t a murderer. I hastily reminded myself that Hitler had liked dogs, as Russell came back with a wooden chair and sat down to face us.

  He didn’t even bother to make small talk. He just stared our way without speaking.

  “May I ask how you happened to join the critique group?” Carrie said after a few moments of silence had passed. Her voice sounded easy, unstrained. But I glimpsed her hands out of the corner of my eye. She was wiggling her fingers again.

  “I found out about the group through Vicky Andros,” Russell answered, his voice as unruffled as Carrie’s. But his body was still too, completely still as he spoke in a soothing hypnotic tone. “Vicky works as a computer programmer at a company called AB Networks. I’d done some freelance tech writing for them. Got to know Vicky. She invited me to join the group when she found out I was writing true crime.”

  There was another long minute of silence. But Russell didn’t add anything to his statement.

  “What was your opinion of Slade Skinner?” Carrie asked softly.

  Russell’s lips twitched, ever so gently. Yes, that was a smile. I was sure of it this time.

  “He could be a real s.o.b.,
couldn’t he?” Russell replied, just as softly. “On the other hand, I don’t think he meant to be cruel. He was just completely self-absorbed.”

  “In that case, why did he stay with the critique group?” Carrie prodded.

  “Good question.” Russell lifted his eyes to the ceiling for a moment. That was a relief. He had moved almost naturally. “My theory is that Slade, like many self-absorbed men, was really lonely. And he was uptight about people wanting to be his friends. Afraid they only wanted a piece of his wealth and success.” Russell brought his head back down and looked at us again with yet another twitch of a smile. “For some reason, he seemed to think writers were exempt from that kind of motivation. The group was like family to him, I think. A safe bunch of people to hang out with.”

  “Interesting,” Carrie said thoughtfully. She paused, then bent forward to ask her next question. “How did you feel about his critiques?”

  “I assume you mean his critiques of my own writing,” Russell said.

  Carrie nodded.

  “They were nasty, but they were useful too. Slade was a good writer. People got so pissed off at his critiques that they never bothered to listen to what he was saying. And some of his tirades contained damn good advice. He had an eye for what worked in writing. And what didn’t work. Especially in mine. A true-crime story should have all the elements of a good thriller. When he told me sections of my manuscript bored him out of his skull, I listened.”

  “You know, I believe you are right,” Carrie said admiringly. She leaned back on the couch, her fingers no longer wiggling. “I never actually noticed the content of his critiques because they made me so angry. Not that he actually critiqued my own work. It was hearing the comments he made about the others.”

  “But he didn’t piss you off enough to make you kill him,” Russell stated.

  Carrie leaned back and laughed. “No, he didn’t,” she agreed.

  “Me neither,” Russell said.

  They smiled at each other. And I felt the interrogation slipping away. I took a deep breath.