Last to Know: A Novel(22)
Lacey said, “I also thought I could use a new house in a location like Evening Lake, out of sight for a while, from people who might be after me, people who might want my neck in their noose.”
Len said nothing.
“I’ve managed to come into some money lately,” Lacey was saying. “I already bought a house on your lake. A ‘hideout,’ you might call it.” She paused, thinking about what she had just said. “Well, something different anyway, I’ll still be in business, just a smaller kind of business, enough to keep a girl busy.”
She pushed a heavy plastic bag across the table at Len, then she counted out five hundred, in tens, and pushed them over to him too. Len pocketed the money, picked up the plastic bag, put the paper with the address in Boca in his pocket, drained his glass, nodded abruptly at her, and walked to the door.
“Hey,” she called after him.
He turned and looked.
“See you in Evening Lake,” she said with a grin. “Me and my daughter.”
In the three months since Lacey moved to Evening Lake, Len had been “helping her out” with small transactions, such as hiding the packets of drugs, cocaine or heroin or whatever, he supposed, in plastic bags on the island where Lacey told him the people who were after her would never find them. A couple of times she’d have him deliver stuff out of state.
And now Lacey was dead and blown up in that house and Len was afraid he would be caught and charged with her murder.
16
Rose Osborne, barefoot, in old cut-off jeans and an even older soft white cotton gypsy blouse, was in her kitchen when she got the call from Harry Jordan asking if they could meet: he needed to talk to her about the young woman rescued from the fire at the lake house. He told Rose the girl was alone in the world and that both he and she needed Rose’s advice.
“Your advice as a mother of course,” Harry said, an hour later, sitting opposite Rose at her kitchen table piled with several days’ worth of newspapers as well as a jumble of flowery fabric samples. Rose was thinking of redoing the living room, but then she was always thinking of redoing the living room while never quite getting around to it. Also on the table were several half-empty mugs of cold coffee, a quart of milk in a paper carton, a pair of grubby sneakers (Diz’s), and a few old pages of typed manuscript (Wally’s).
“Make yourself comfortable, Detective,” Rose said cheerfully. “I’ll give your dog a bowl of water.” Squeeze was in his good-boy “waiting” pose on the terrace. “And as a mom I’ll tell you what little I know. For a start, there’s not a lot to know about mothering. It’s a craft, not a talent. We simply learn on the job as we go along, so to speak.”
“So to speak.” Harry nodded. Rose was a chatterer. He said, “Actually what I’ve come here to talk to you about is a girl without a mother.”
“Of course. The lake house girl.”
Rose went to put another capsule into the Nespresso espresso machine. “It’s stronger,” she explained. “I like it better than regular filtered for tough moments, like for instance what you are about to tell me. I get the feeling it’s not good,” she added, pouring the espresso and shoving a small cup across the table and sitting opposite him again.
Actually, though she did not appear to be, Rose was uncomfortable with Harry Jordan. She sort-of knew him, sort-of didn’t, sort-of liked him—well, anyway liked the interesting way he looked, hard-edged and keen-eyed and with abs to die for. She was not beyond admiring a man’s abs, that was for sure, though she no longer had much chance to admire her husband’s since he was gone so much.
Rose wished now she had at least brushed her hair instead of leaving it slopping messily around her shoulders. Besides, the twins had told her the color needed re-revitalizing, whatever that meant, more “golden” than “brown” they’d said, but never “copper.” Jeez. At thirty-eight she had to learn to reinvent herself and now she wanted to, all because suddenly she was looking at a man who was, she admitted, very fanciable. But he was here on business. About the girl rescued from the inferno.
“So, what’s happening with her anyhow?” She clutched her coffee cup in both hands and sat back, large brown eyes alert. “Poor child,” she added, “though I suppose she’s not really a child. How old is she anyway?”
“Twenty-one,” Harry said. “Good coffee, by the way.” He drained his cup and put it on the table in front of him. Rose took a sip from hers then put hers down too, suddenly nervous. She asked herself why she was behaving like a silly girl while somehow, inside, knowing the answer. Which anyway she was not going to acknowledge, even to herself. “What’s to become of her?” she asked instead.
“Her name is Beatrice Havnel. She’s a college dropout. She left to look after the mother.”
Rose sat back, astounded. “She left college to look after that harridan? I’ll tell you something, Detective, I’ve never met a woman like that, she dressed like a slut, trailing that daughter along behind her like some kind of slave, to carry her bags I suppose. Oh, I know I shouldn’t make quick judgments, after all I didn’t know her, but then nobody around here did. A woman like that, well, you know, she would not be popular with the wives.”
“The daughter is very different,” Harry said. “Whatever her mother was, she seems well brought up, good manners, a gentle quality about her. The fact is, Mrs. Osborne…”