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  When Gabi got out of her car she could hear the sound of the waves at high tide, crashing against the cliffs. She opened the tailgate and took out just enough supplies to be convincing: a bucket on wheels and a mop, and, after a moment’s careful thought, a spray bottle filled with industrial-strength ammonia. To complete the picture, she tucked a rag into the waistband of her pants.

  As she hurried along the stuccoed corridor, bucket in tow, she heard the noise. Drunken noise, crazy laughter, and something smashing. She couldn’t hear the ocean now, even though she knew it was close, maybe only twenty or thirty yards away.

  She turned a corner and there it was: the piñata party.

  The old two-story “sea-view suites” wing ran along the edge of the cliff. Gabi counted five doors below and the same number at the upstairs level. More than enough rooms for seven deadly sins.

  Windows were open and she could see and hear the partiers. But all the doors were shut, and several of the doors had guys standing in front, guarding access. Gabi felt like saying a prayer. But instead the song popped into her head:

  Dale, Dale, Dale.

  No pierdas el tino.

  Gabi had a plan. And she would not lose her aim.

  She straightened to her full height, stuck out her chin, and marched up to the line of hotel rooms. She scanned the faces of the entry guards, looking for the drunkest one.

  He wasn’t hard to find. A soft-looking boy in a pair of plaid Bermuda shorts with the fly hanging open. He was drinking from a big brown bottle, the kind you filled up at the brewery.

  “Excuse me,” she said. “I’m looking for the Chamber of Lust.”

  “You?” The kid burst into giggles and Gabi felt a spray of spittle hit her cheek.

  “Hey,” he called to another kid down the line, “she says she’s looking for the Chamber of Lust!”

  They both had a good laugh, and Gabi waited. When she had his attention again, she spoke politely but also very firmly, just the way she handled the rich kids in the houses she cleaned. “Now you listen to me. Vanessa told me to go there. It’s to clean up. What one is it?”

  “Vannie said? Oh. It’s—” and he craned his head, looking up. “It’s that one up there, the one in the middle.”

  Gabi lugged the bucket, mop, and spray bottle up the rickety old stairs. She walked along the balcony, her heart in her throat.

  The windows of the Chamber of Lust were boarded up. No one stood outside the door. But a rhythmic strobe light flashed through a gap at the threshold.

  “Dale, dale, dale,” Gabi murmured. Then she crossed herself. Because she wasn’t sure what she was going to see.

  She took a deep breath, and thumped on the door with the end of the mop. It opened immediately.

  “No admittance—huh?” The boy blocking the door was having trouble focusing his eyes. “What do you want?”

  “I’m coming in to clean. Miss Vanessa, she sent for me.”

  “Later, not now.” And he started to shut the door.

  “I’m sorry. Yes, now.” Gabi dropped the mop, grabbed the spray bottle, stepped forward and sprayed the industrial-strength ammonia straight in his eyes.

  As he screamed and fell back, she pushed her way in. And saw something she never wanted to see in her life, never ever again.

  Claudia stood in the center of the room on a chair, surrounded by a dozen kids, boys and girls. And she was on her way to being totally naked. She had no shirt on and her jeans were pulled down around her ankles. Thank God she still had on a pair of boy’s underpants. In the flash of the strobe light, Gabi saw steaks of tears on the girl’s face.

  The spray bottle was big, 32 ounces. Gabi walked up close and sprayed in the stupid drunk faces. Within thirty seconds everybody was screaming, clawing at their eyes. They were so drunk, most of them just fell down on the floor and squealed.

  Claudia bent down and yanked up her jeans. Just as she stepped off the chair, a big guy with blond hair falling in his face caught her by the arm. Gabi stepped in and squirted him so many times it would have dropped an elephant. He staggered, reaching out blindly. “I’ll kill you, bitch!” Gabi couldn’t tell if he was yelling at Claudia or her.

  Claudia grabbed Gabi’s arm. “He means it,” she cried.

  Together they pushed their way out of the room. Gabi’s trigger hand was at the ready, but the pandemonium was by now so great that no one paid them any attention.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Claudia pleaded.

  Together they raced down the steps. The occupants of the Chamber of Lust were staggering onto the balcony now, shouting and crying. Other doors were opening, the partygoers spilling out into the night.

  Hand in hand, Gabi and Claudia ran through the passageway to the station wagon. They scrambled in and slammed the doors shut.

  Gabi gripped the key. Her hands were shaking and she could barely fit it in the ignition. Finally she held her right hand with her left to steady it, slipped in the key, and started the car. She stepped on the gas too hard, and the engine roared.

  The security guard started toward her, then thought better of it. That was a good decision, because Gabi wasn’t stopping for anybody. The tires screeched as she peeled out of the cul-de-sac.

  Three blocks away, Gabi pulled over to the side of the road. She reached over to the back, rummaged around, and located the old sweatshirt she wore when she was cleaning a really dirty house. “Here, mija. I know you hate pink, but put this on.”

  Claudia buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  All the previous roses had arrived on the office steps in a variety of make-do containers: pickle jars, plastic water bottles, Styrofoam cups. This delicate beauty blossomed in a cut-glass vase. I’d never seen a rose quite like it: the petals shimmered with apricot fading to a creamy caramel center. An exquisite thing, somehow antique, it whispered of melancholy and loss.

  It was already midmorning. Where was Gabi, I wondered. Maybe the vexed owner of Sparkleberry Cleaning Service was out on a job.

  I picked up the vase and breathed in the perfume. It made me think of face powder, fox furs, and gardenias pressed between the pages of a book. Then I read the penciled label: Farewell.

  I unlocked the door and carried the rose inside. I set the vase on the corner of Gabi’s desk, and studied it.

  My business partner had been so happy, so in love. And Angel was a good solid man, the perfect ballast for her energy and enthusiasm. Farewell.… Their breakup was a crying shame.

  Of course, it was none of my business. None at all.

  So when had that ever stopped me? I hesitated for only a moment, then sat down in Gabi’s desk chair. Thank goodness Angel always used his carpenter’s pencil.

  The woman was nothing if not organized. In the center drawer, a variety of pencils, pens, and markers were arranged in a system I couldn’t work out.

  I selected a No. 2 pencil with a good eraser from Gabi’s collection. Carefully, I erased the letters “arewell” on the label, leaving Angel’s trademark, the scrolly capital letter “F.”

  Carefully, I wrote in “orever” after the “F.” Who says you shouldn’t play God?

  Pleased with myself, I decided to fire up the coffeepot. I leaned against the kitchenette counter while I waited for my first cup of joe, and thought about what to do next.

  * * *

  First, I stopped off downtown to purchase a throwaway phone. Then I continued on to the Hobsons’ home.

  I would have to break in, and there was no point in leaving an eye-catching red El Camino parked right out in front. So I pulled up around the block and walked back to the tired little house.

  As I stepped inside the wood picket fence, I glanced at the windows. The old beige curtains were tightly drawn.

  I crossed the square of sparse lawn and walked around the side. The SBPD’s calling card lay under a clump of calla lilies: a blue latex glove tossed in the dirt.

  The backyard was as barren and neglect
ed as the front. An old-fashioned clothesline, planted in a patch of rough concrete, raised its thin arms. A torn bag of clothespins hung from the crank.

  The windows at the back were all covered with yellowing blinds. I climbed the three steps to the kitchen door. Of course it was locked, but I’d come prepared.

  I withdrew my pick and a pair of gloves from my pocket, pulled on the gloves, and bent over the lock. It didn’t take much: the door popped right open.

  I turned to survey the yard again before stepping inside. What I saw gave me a start. Someone was standing just behind the side fence, watching me.

  It took me a moment to get over my surprise. I walked over to the disembodied head. “Hi, there. You’re the Hobsons’ neighbor, I guess?”

  “Yeah. Wait, I’m going to walk around.” The head dropped down. The guy must have been standing on a stepstool or something. This was one nosy neighbor.

  A minute later, a man in his late sixties shambled into the yard. His body was slack-muscled, but his eyes were sharp. A tiny Chihuahua trotted along at his heels.

  “You having a look inside?” He jutted his chin at the house. “I think she’s in there, you know.”

  “What? Do you mean Mrs. Hobson?”

  “Yeah, the old one. I know the young one got killed, I heard all about it. Too bad. She was all right, it’s the old one drives you up the wall.”

  The Chihuahua minced over and sniffed at my shoe.

  “Mrs. Hobson’s not here,” I corrected. “She has dementia, you know. The police would have seen to it that she got to a facility.”

  “Oh, they took her with them, kicking and screaming. And then they brought her right back the next day. Dementia, huh? I don’t know about that.”

  “I visited here once. I heard her. She seemed very distraught.”

  “Distraught?” The man reached into his pants pocket and scratched himself. “They used to fight a lot, if that’s what you mean. I know all about it, I saw things, you know?”

  “If you witnessed abuse, you should have reported it.”

  “Naw, nothing like that. It was more like the old lady was nagging the young one to death. ‘Do this, do that, get me this, get me that.’” He rubbed his chin. “The old girl killed my dog, you know. One before this one here. I found Tinker dead out in my backyard. Vet did an autopsy, guess what? Warfarin, that’s what. Old lady tossed rat poison over the fence.”

  He knew things, all right. And if this nosy neighbor scratched his privates one more time in front of me, I was going to give him some hurt. “Excuse me. I’ve got work to do.”

  “Sure. Mind if I look inside while you’re here?”

  What made him assume I was a cop—the latex gloves? I saw no need to correct him. “It’s against policy, sir.”

  “Thought you’d say that. Look, I always want to help the police. Maury Snyder. Knock on my door if you got any more questions.”

  He stuck out his hand, but I ignored it. No way was I going to touch that hand.

  I slipped inside the back door and locked it behind me. Then I stood still in the kitchen for a moment, taking in what I’d just learned.

  Snyder was a Peeping Tom. He knew plenty about the Hobsons, and it was possible he was right: Cheryl was bullied by her mother, not the other way around. Had Cheryl convinced herself Helen had dementia in order to keep from hating her?

  Not everything would be answered. What those two women had thought and felt—that was most likely consigned to the past.

  I surveyed the kitchen. Its contents were old and worn: a threadbare towel, now stiff, once spread on the counter to dry; a pair of pot mitts, stuffing protruding, hanging from a hook on the oven door. The sink had a bluish stain from the copper tap, where the water had dripped for years.

  And there was a cereal bowl on the table. A spoon was glued to the bottom with half an inch of dried flakes and milk. Neighbor Snyder could be right: at some point Helen Hobson may have returned. But where was she now?

  I walked through to the hall leading to the front door. “Helen? Are you here?” I listened, but nothing stirred. All I could hear was the muted roar of the freeway.

  One by one, I peered into the wretched rooms. The living room held a big old TV and a sun-faded lounge suite. What must have been Cheryl’s bedroom, at the front of the house, contained a small double bed. The comforter was made from a shiny rayon fabric, little-girl pink dotted with pale green leaves.

  The single bathroom possessed the universal odor of all neglected old bathrooms: mold laced with urine. The shower curtain was spotted black with mold, the chrome rings tarnished.

  I opened the mirrored door of the medicine cabinet and sorted through its jumbled contents. The police never put anything back the way they found it. If there had been anything of interest in there, it was now gone.

  I went back into the hall and walked down to the second bedroom. I twisted the knob, but it was locked.

  “Mrs. Hobson? Helen, are you in there?” There was no reply.

  I popped the lock with my pick. Then I opened the door—and put a hand to my mouth.

  Helen Hobson, dressed in an old cotton nightgown, lay on the bed. Her head was turned sideways, and she stared straight at me. Her hand clawed at an old ivory-colored album, and a trickle of dried blood ran from her nose down her cheek.

  I couldn’t stop looking into the old woman’s eyes. She’d been dead for maybe two days, yet she seemed about to speak.

  I opened the door all the way, and made myself enter the room. It was stuffy, hot. The air smelled of feces and decay.

  A tissue box, an empty water glass tipped on its side, and a lamp with a dusty cloth shade crowded a tiny nightstand. Three uncapped pill bottles lay on the old Afghan coverlet. A few pills were scattered about, but not many. Not many at all.

  My eyes returned to the album. It looked like a scrapbook. I had to see what it contained.

  Helen’s thin arm was still somewhat rigid. Gently, I pulled the book out from under her hand, down to the foot of the bed.

  The discolored covers were made of a heavy cardboard embossed to look like leather. They were laced to the pages with a faded brown cord. When I lifted the front cover, the book opened flat.

  The first yellowed page was blank. The second bore an inscription written in an old-fashioned hand:

  Dedicated to:

  Gary Edward Hobson

  1949–1970

  Murdered, Never Avenged.

  You might have expected a memorial, a loving tribute to Gary. But that’s not what the book was.

  Page after page, the scrapbook was filled with news articles about Gary’s death, the fire, and the police investigation. There were dozens of photographs of possible suspects. Their names, addresses, and phone numbers were added to and erased over the years. And dominating the photos were those of Rod Steinbach.

  It appeared Helen Hobson had kept track of Steinbach for decades. There was a brief article telling of his appointment to Brown University. And there was a wedding announcement: Rodney Allen Steinbach and Alice Keiko Tanaka, to wed in Santa Barbara, June 21, 1970.

  When I’d turned the last page, I closed the book. Then I lifted Helen’s thin, bony hand, and returned the album to its resting place.

  There was no point in pretending I hadn’t entered the house. Snyder would be only too happy to set the police straight on that score. But nobody needed to know I’d tampered with evidence. I rearranged the book and straightened Helen’s nightgown. Then I walked out of the room and shut the door.

  I stopped in the kitchen and pulled out my throwaway phone. Thank goodness I knew all Mike’s numbers by heart. Because he was up in San Luis, I dialed the one in his office. It went straight to voice mail.

  “Mike. I need to report a dead body. It’s Helen Hobson. She’s on her bed, in the room at the back of her house.” I stared at a big black fly buzzing at the kitchen window. I must have let it in when I opened the door. “It looks like suicide, an overdose of prescription pain me
ds.”

  My conscience wouldn’t allow me to leave Helen’s body unreported. But in any way I could, I needed to slow things down. I was counting on Mike’s habit of not checking his office messages while he was away. I needed to buy a little time before the long arm of the law reached out and grabbed me by the scruff of the neck.

  I figured Mr. Peeper would be patrolling the back fence. I confirmed that the kitchen door was locked, then passed down the hall and let myself out through the front.

  * * *

  I was latching the gate when a Crown Vic slunk up to the curb. Why was I not surprised when Deirdre Krause bounced out of the driver’s side? Troy, no doubt under orders to stay in the car, leaned out through the passenger window and fixed me with a bored stare.

  “Breaking and entering. Thank goodness, a sharp-eyed member of the public caught you red-handed.” Deirdre planted her hands on her hips. “If it was up to me, Zarlin, we’d slap an ankle bracelet on you.”

  I glanced over at the house next door. Snyder was standing beside his driveway, a dribbling hose in his hand. He hadn’t thought I was police after all.

  “Just doing my job, Deirdre. Unlike the PD, apparently.”

  “I take exception to that. I really do.”

  “Look inside. You’ll find Helen Hobson’s dead body. Your people brought her back here and left her without any care. They dumped her and left her to die.”

  For a long moment, Deirdre had nothing to say. Her round face showed surprise, then annoyance. Annoyance to an extreme. Her fair skin blushed to the roots of her hair.

  “Let’s get this straight. You broke into this house. You found a dead body. And now, without reporting it, you’re walking away?”

  “I reported it. I phoned the sheriff’s office.”

  Troy opened the car door. “Deirdre, do you want me to—”

  “No,” she snapped. “Stay where you are. Much as I’d like you to put a choke hold on Ms. Zarlin here, we’ve been told to go easy on her. The chief wants us to let her play her little games.”

  I stepped through the gate and pulled it closed behind me. “Go easy on me? Good to hear somebody likes me.” But I knew that wasn’t it.