Cafe Underground Presents
COMING UP ROSES
Book 2 -- Chapters 6
The Detective Andi Wicksham Series, by RL Bell
Copyright © 1997 RL BELL
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....author RL Bell
Andi Wicksham's INVESTIGATORY SERVICES
Chapter 6
The next morning Andi scratched restlessly at the top layer of her pending box and answered phones while Lena soared off on a round of morning errands. In fifty-five minutes she'd proof-read two reports and three out-going invoices while fielding a wrong number and negotiating payment of an outstanding balance. The morning's third call was from Ramirez.
"Wicksham here..." Andi answered, her focus still on the file before her.
"It's Ramirez...got a moment?"
Andi pushed away the file she was working on and leaned back in her chair. "Sure, what's up?"
"I heard your name was on Tyson's suicide note." the lilt in Ramirez's voice betrayed a half-suppressed chuckle.
"Yeah I found that out about three-quarters of an hour into the apparatchiks' inquisition...you could have told me..." Andi let her disapproval vent as a throaty growl.
"Sorry, Wicksham...didn't know myself..." His chuckle escaped confinement to fresh air. "...but considering all you've been through, I thought you might like to hear the latest on your project...fresh from this morning's team meeting..." He was being suspiciously helpful.
"Why not?" Andi replied dryly. "Knowing details of Tyson's murder almost brought both of us to grief. I can see myself trying to explain how I know some crucial detail I shouldn't have a clue about..."
"...they used thumb-screws and you didn't break?" Ramirez let an untold fortune in fake awe gilt his voice.
"...can it, Ramirez..."
"...you'd have been an incredible dark-side operative. It's tragic that you've peaked after CIA affirmative action and the cold war. MI-5's Smilely would have loved you...born thirty years earlier, you could have had a real career." Ramirez laid it on as thick as Columbia basalt.
Andi looked wistfully at the pile of files in her pending box, actually wishing she was doing them. "...cork-it, flat-foot. What do you want to tell me? I suspect it's something I'm going to regret knowing. You going to tell about Tyson's note?"
The note must have been on the tip of his tongue. "It was a standard typewriter sheet folded in quarters...laying at the end of the couch under the end table...fifteen inches from the body...between the window and the corpse."
"So it could have been in his hand or dropped after he was plugged ..." Andi observed indifferently, "I hope Talbert doesn't ask..."
"Allen thought it might have been on his desk, Sherlock...you could suggest he knocked it off."
"Ramirez..." Andi growled loudly.
"Hey...knowledge's a dangerous thing and it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing..." He was enjoying her dilemma far too much.
"Damn it Ramirez...I'm taking this seriously. It's probably one of my clients who offed him." She could feel her blood pressure rising.
"What? You dish it out but can't take it? You're the one who's usually off the wall when I'm beating square pegs into round holes..." Ramirez's tone turned defensive.
Andi blinked as the comment hit home. She shrugged. "...point taken. What else you got?" Andi pulled out one of her desk's drawers and leaned back with her feet propped up.
"...a few tasty, but not earth-shaking details. Forensics did a total inventory of his place. Tyson's study turns out to be a vault pretending to be a humble room. Eight-inch concrete walls, concrete floor, super-security electronic, tamper proof door locks wired into the burglar alarm. Two low-tech dead-bolts slid closed on the inside, one-high, one-low...they're supposed to mean that "A" Tyson locked himself in and "B"--the murderer didn't go out that way..."
"Supposed to mean?" Andi posed the question as she sipped coffee, she smiled to herself, smug that a quarter of million dollars worth of cop equipment and a dozen uniforms still left unanswered questions.
"...unless there's a way of sliding the bolts from the outside." Ramirez explained.
"Is there a way?" Andi practiced her own inflection-less dead-pan.
Ramirez chuckled. "None of the high-paid pros have figured it out, but no one thinks he pulled his own plug."
"...vault?" Andi prompted, jotting the word in her notebook.
"Pre-stressed concrete panels overhead, heating ducts about six-inches in diameter, it's a fortress...right down to having an arsenal and supply of food and water--a steel-backed bookcase on tracks seals the window..."
"...so he gets shot crossing the threshold, slams the door and dies thirty-seconds later..." Andi offered a solution to the unasked question.
"The slide-locks are high and low, it would have been an struggle for somebody without blood to their brain...it evidently takes a little effort..."
"OK, OK...so someone shot him from the window, he grabbed the gun, staggered back and fell dead." Andi looked up to the ceiling, enjoying herself.
"That's the best scenario anybody's had...I liked it myself. The window wasn't latched. Nimitz slid it open it from the outside before calling 911." Ramirez portioned out a dab of congratulatory tone.
"So there you have it...no blood on the carpet because there wasn't external bleeding." Andi added it up triumphantly. She waved to Lena who'd just come in the door.
Lena planted a quiet kiss on her forehead before retreating to her table and depositing two large bags beside her computer.
Ramirez continued, unaware of Andi's distraction, "You like it...I liked it, but the forensic pathologist doesn't. The bars are too close to allow a hand holding that revolver through. She's right...I saw a photo of Talbert's hand trying. The gun's too big...."
Ramirez paused to take a breath, Andi didn't interrupt, so he continued. "And...to avoid nitrate residue he'd have to be eight or ten feet from the window, the bullet's impact would knock him backwards--it broke a rib on the way in--then he'd have to stagger forward, around the furniture to wrestle a gun that was unlikely to be inside of the bars anyway."
"The bars were kind of close..." Andi admitted.
"...two inches on-center, about three quarters of an inch square, on the average leaving an inch and a quarter opening..." Ramirez sounded like he was reading.
"Thanks for the detail, Mr. Science..." replied Andi dryly.
"Any time," replied Ramirez politely, "Best bet for the window scenario...the shot fired from outside with the gun tossed to Tyson who'd have to have caught it. Why would anybody do that? There were unfired rounds in the chamber."
Andi clamped her teeth together. He was smirking and she didn't want to encourage him.
"...the pathologist claims Tyson had to have lost consciousness in well under a minute, the bullet hit an upper rib, deflected downwards and sliced the aorta wide open...no blood to his brain after the shot...he'd pass out quick. Even getting to his feet would have been difficult. Fighting for the gun's a lot to ask--military man or no..."
"Hey..." Andi insisted collegially, "...you and I agree on a scenario...that's the important thing, isn't it?"
"Yeah, you're probably right...but let me get ask Lieutenant Max's opinion, OK?" There was a rustle as if Ramirez were digging through a pile of papers. "I got another twenty-four page fax on your funny money...seems there's a super copier-printer in a back room of one of his stores...color machine, high-tech resolution...boxes of special paper."
"Neat..." Andi murmured to keep him going, then took another swig of coffee, listening to Ramirez was better than working.
"...seems they first printed a scattering of colored lines like the little threads, then the grey side, then the green, then the serial numbers...each one different. All the graphics digitally programmed, the machine comparing colors and self correcting. They even had a specially mixed toner for that peculiar green..."
"Counterfeiting meets the digital-age...what's your point?" interrupted Andi impatiently.
"The software file of the digitalized bills and most of the colored toner are missing...and so is Tyson's boy, Rex. He was seen stopping by that store yesterday morning..." Ramirez shuffled papers again. "You met him...?" he asked idly.
"Yeah..." admitted Andi guardedly. "In passing..."
"Well his full name is Rex Howard Nimitz...if you see him again...you might want to pass it on that we'd like to talk. Nobody's seem him for a day and a half."
"His real name is Rex?" she chuckled derisively. "I thought that was a house-boy nickname..."
"What?" Ramirez obviously didn't see the humor.
Andi mumbled something noncommittal and changed the subject. "So, Ramirez, if these are near exact counterfeits, how did you catch my twenties?"
Ramirez paused, then cleared his throat taking the space of a breath or two to choose his words. "I don't think I'm at liberty to say..."
"Ramirez..." Andi growled as low and menacingly as she could. "Did you hustle me for forty dollars?"
Ramirez seemed more amused than insulted. "It's noteworthy that you'd think that Wicksham...you should talk to a shrink about your paranoia." He yawned to show indifference. "Oh yeah...another thing...Tyson's house and vehicles are all owned by different business covers."
"How many vehicles you got listed?" Andi perked up and swung her feet down, Ramirez finally touched on a subject she knew something about.
"Beside the farm equipment..." the sound of rustling paper filled the moment of dead air, "...here...a classic Jeep rag-top, Subaru Legacy station wagon, silver Mercedes, a tricked-out Ford Pickup and a yellow Corvette."
"That's five...?" Andi asked, pinching the phone to her shoulder with her ear to free her hands to shuffle photos. "I can help you out...Jeep, -vette, truck...Rex is driving a dark green BMW 850...near new."
"You know that for a fact?" Ramirez asked point-blank.
"I'm looking at photos of cars that were in Tyson's garage. You didn't mention the BMW...no promises, but it was there..." Andi nervously chewed her lip, she'd been burnt trying to help. "Hang on, I'll give ya the license..." Paging back to her second visit to Tyson's she read out the BMW's number.
"Thanks...I'm going to take that and run..." Ramirez murmured distractedly, "...happy trails to you."
Andi didn't bother responding, he'd already hung up.
Lena swung around and beamed. "I stopped by and saw Jason and Tris's baby. She's so wrinkled...like a little ET." Lena wrinkled her nose. "I watched a diaper changing--it was gross..."
"You'd never seen a diaper changing?" asked Andi incredulously. "And how old are you?"
"...never did...I was youngest kid of three and not once asked to baby-sit...I guess I'm just not the type." Lena swaggered in a type of pride as she poured coffee and pulled a pint of half-and-half from their little refrigerator. "They asked if we'd like to be Aunties...meaning baby-sitters. I told them not for a million dollars..." she chuckled and gave her head a derisive shake.
"Why'd you say that?" challenged Andi crossly. "I'd like to be an Auntie...."
"Sure you would..." Lena smiled.
"I would..." insisted Andi, suddenly serious. "I think it's neat that they'd offer...I'd like a kid around."
Lena stared at her, suddenly silent and expressionless. "Is that a biological clock ticking?" She cupped her ear and pointed at Andi's mid-section.
"No..." Andi complained. "And I'm serious about Simone...I'll baby-sit. You don't have to do anything..." She counted out an eight bar phrase of six-eight silence, glaring across with irritation.
"OK..." Lena's eyes flashed disapproval, pursed her lips, shrugged and swung her chair around to answer the phone.
Andi rubbed her face with her hand and shut her eyes, wanting to say something appropriate--wishing she had a clue as to what that something could be.
Another line rang again, Lena glanced, silently reminded Andi she was tied up--Andi reached. "Investigatory Services, Wicksham here..."
"Hi...its Frank." It was Francois using his code name from a case from last year. Francois made a full-time career as a sub-rosa computer-consultant--expert in nearly everything digital, both legal and illegal--phones, computers, hacking and phreaking...one-stop, geek-tech, full-service business.
"What'er you doing awake at this hour?" Andi asked surprised. He'd always been a late-night denizen. She reflexively glanced at her watch. She'd first met Francois through Lena--used him as a consultant and now counted him as close a friend and colleague as they had.
"I've switched to early-rising...virtuously asleep by nine-thirty or ten. What 'cha want?" Francois sounded disgustingly happy.
Andi swung her feet under her desk, pulled the chair close, and reached for her files. "I want a search on a Rex Howard Nimitz..." she flipped through pages in her notebook and read Rex's particulars. "Tall, maybe six-two, wiry, obsessive self-control, crew cut; into militant right-wing affairs with military influences. Early to mid-twenties."
"How deep?" Francois asked quietly.
"There's no one at our shoulder...go deep." Andi directed without a pause. Usually she felt bad authorizing quasi-legal searches, but didn't feel anything now.
"Couple days?" Francois asked lightly.
"...immediate with anything interesting?" Andi didn't crowd. Conventional computer nerd stereotypes were nowhere close to dapper and urbane Francois.
"No sweat...that all?" Francois was all business. He was serious about being an underground cyber-space expert surfing the millennium's curl in defence of freedom and the American way.
"If you're up early these days, want to do breakfast?" She glanced over to Lena, who ignored her.
"It's a date..." Francois laughed. "When...tomorrow, the day after?"
"Tomorrow...saturday...I don't care. Give a call after seven...weekend's after ten." Andi paused, mentally weighing the purse of her clients. "Let me give you a few more names to check..." She flipped back a few pages without finding what she wanted. She kept flipping as she talked. "William Tyson, Warren Laroux, Jennifer Gould, and Elizabeth Dao." she recited the names from memory and kept looking. "...don't need to dig as far, but get us a good look into what they are. Net worth is significant especially liquid assets--let's see...addresses and numbers..." she flipped back further in her notebook and found what she wanted, "OK...ready?"
Francois grumbled that she should fax that type of detail.
Andi shrugged it off--she didn't do technology she could avoid. They chatted another minute and hung up.
Lena was still on the other line. Andi paged idly through her notebook, then dialed Elizabeth Dao. Three rings sounded before the line was answered.
"Hello, Ms. Dao...this is Andi Wicksham..."
"Hi Andi, so nice of you to get back in touch." Dao gushed chummily. "So how is our investigation going?"
"I'm almost finished the routine part. In fact that was something I was hoping you could help me with. Last time we met I neglected to get the address of your roses...I need it behind me to go on to more interesting stuff." Andi put a light and superficial spin to it.
"Oh? Certainly...didn't get the address?" Dao tisked and fussed to herself as she fiddled with her address book. "Let's see...here, ready? R.C. Light Farms, 27570 Old Grange Trail."
Andi jotted the information, reading it back for confirmation and asking the phone number. "You lease from them?" she asked conversationally.
"No, I subcontract..." Dao corrected her. "...I don't get my hands dirty..."
It took Andi a moment to take that in. Dao didn't personally fuss over what she claimed was a passion. Andi tapped her pencil eraser on the desk-top, deciding against following that line. "Thanks a lot Ms. Dao. If there's anything else, I'll call..."
"Oh yes please..." crooned Dao. "No problem at all...thank you again..." the connection broke before finishing the last "n" of the word.
Andi paused, still tapping the eraser after hanging up, pondering Dao's enigma and jotting notes. Thoughts of Dao merged with thoughts of Gould and gradually fell aside until she was thinking only of Gould.
She flipped pages, rereading marginalia on Jennifer Gould with a burgeoning sense of unease. Something vague she should remember rubbed like a prickly burr in the cuff of a sock, some hard to place detail she'd seen had been out of place--something she'd noted and discounted and now couldn't quite recall.
She glanced at the sketched-out time-line and carefully paged back through the notes from Gould's interview, paying special attention to observations of the house and yard, shutting her eyes to recall the setting, trying to recall her feelings and the sounds that would be scattered across any background to subliminally to make her notebook.
Nothing clicked--she looked at the photos of the Volvo and red Mustang as they'd waited by her house, studying the detail in the background, then, one by one, worked her way through the grainy photos of the Mustang she'd taken off the security tape.
That was it.
On the second of Gould's three trips to Darrel Feight's, there was a second person in the car. Andi pulled out her magnifying glass to look close at the photo of them leaving. The image was fuzzy, but the familiar sharp-lined nose and closely cropped head, sitting ram rod straight with an elbow out the window despite the rain was Rex--Tyson's GI-joe gentleman's gentleman. She'd check the tape for a clearer copy, but she'd no doubt that it was him.
Andi considered phoning Gould to ask why she hadn't mentioned Rex, but backed off. Better to check her facts before blundering into skeletons Gould might assume hidden. She whistled, "You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em." Give herself another day or two--she'd find a chance to talk to Gould.
Meanwhile she had Dao's roses to inspect. She gave Lena a make-up hug and peck on the cheek before driving off to inspect the farms of R.C. Light.
By first glance, the farm of R.C. Light on Old Grange Trail was a routinely professional sort of place. A simple sign at the road gave its name and address. Tightly planted rows of tulips were being harvested as she drove up the long, straight drive. A long double row of plastic-walled greenhouses marched off on her left and rows of specialty herbs filled three wide fields that alternated with plots plowed into long, rough ranks of dark-loamy furrows.
Andi pulled to a gravel-scrunching stop before an old shack whose peeling, barely-readable sign read "Office." With no one around to ask, she pulled opened the door and stepped onto a bare, wood floor crowded with a desk, two waste paper baskets and two warping tables. On the desk a radio crackled aimlessly next to a blinking answering machine. Three dirt-smudged and battered filing cabinets took up most of a corner.
"Hello..." Andi called out. A second door stood ajar. Stepping quietly over in three gliding strides, Andi cautiously pushed it open with the tip of her finger--it was a dimly lit bathroom. Retracing her steps to the front, she glanced through enough of the work littering the desk to confirm that things were addressed to the R.C. Light Farms, then stepped out and shut the door firmly behind her.
A man wheeled by on a forklift, ignoring Andi until she stepped in his way to flag him down. "Is the manager around?" she called over the un-muffled roar of the little engine.
"That way..." the man pointed to the greenhouses. "...ask for Buck..." That said, he neatly swerved around Andi, roaring on around to a pile of pallets, his wheels spitting gravel at each turn of his wheel.
Andi turned and trudged toward the greenhouses wondering if checking her client's gardens was worth the trouble. With the warning she'd given, whoever took them had plenty of time to move the damning bushes. The possibility that Dao might not have any roses at all lingered in the back of her mind.
Another bustling worker directed her into a wide temporary greenhouse--like the others in the row, made of two layers of clear-plastic stretched over arches of plastic pipe. Two figures worked on a wide, make-shift pond of water hyacinths--an older man stood making checks on his clipboard as a broad-shouldered, heavy-set woman with long, loosely-tied black hair and hip-waders worked among the shiny-green plants.
"I'm looking for Buck..." Andi said a little too loudly.
The two of them looked around. "Buck?" the man asked.
"Yeah, I'm Andi Wicksham...I've been hired to investigate the disappearance of some roses..."
"I'm Buck." interrupted the woman, slogging to the side of the pond and stepping over the wood-bound edge. "I got a call from Ms. Dao warning that you'd be by."
Andi paused, on the edge of asking a stupid question.
"R.C. Light stands for Rebecca Cynthia..." The corners of Buck's mouth twitched upwards into a smile that didn't quite reach the hardness of her eyes.
Andi took a step back and stared--that wasn't the question she had in mind--she'd wondered when Dao's call came through. She had to tilt her head to look up to Buck's face. "Great...I'd like to see Ms. Dao's roses and whatever area she leases."
Buck silently pointed to bags of hyacinths and the older man began carrying them outside.
"I don't lease...everything on my land gets done with my people..." There was a defensive edge to Buck's voice. The older man returned with a roll of wire mesh that he dropped to the ground and kicked to unroll.
"But they're Elizabeth Dao's roses?" asked Andi carefully, looking from Buck to the man and back.
"Sure, her roses, my dirt and labor. She wants cross pollination or grafting, or labeling, harvesting or pruning--we do it." Buck straightened up to emphasize the eight-inch height difference between them and seemed to dare Andi to make something of it.
"Sounds like you're a solid professional..." commended Andi smoothly, nodding appreciatively and making a conscious effort not to crack even the hint of a smile.
Buck's stiff-back attitude melted somewhat. She smiled and gestured with a broad nod of her head toward the greenhouse's door. "This way...I've dedicated a back corner to her roses."
She led down a graded road between well tended fields in various stages of growth and production. Towards the rear, in the north-eastern corner, waited tightly-planted row upon row of roses in a complex arrangement of plots. Set between access lanes, each plant sported a number of colored tags, groups were carefully marked with placards and numbered stakes and subset lots were marked for special treatment by yellow or blue plastic barrier-tape.
"Attribute-identification is crucial so I've utilized an academic model to keep order." Buck glanced sideways at Andi and smiled uneasily. "Each plant's labeled with a bar-code and colored tags key sub-groupings. I can recall group protocols or the history of any plant...we maximize cost/benefit using a model breeding scheme, then expand and adapt it as we get ideas...Ms. Dao doesn't seem to mind the cost..."
"This is more than simple farming..." observed Andi respectfully.
"I've a masters in horticulture and plant pathology from UC-Davis and love playing in the dirt." She seemed almost embarrassed at the admission.
Andi tried to beam approval with her smile. "It's neat...far more professional than the other four I've toured."
Buck chuckled, "I'm doing this on contract so I'm motivated to get everything right. I'm paid for not screwing up." Buck seemed to have warmed up somewhat, her eyes were finally sharing in the smile that graced the rest of her face. "Is there anything particular you want to see?"
Andi shielded her eyes and looked over the tops of the plants--she decided there were more than a thousand plants, the plot extended fifty to a hundred yards beyond them in three directions. "Most groups look like they have at least fifty or sixty plants...any smaller sets...say of a couple dozen?"
Buck nodded and pointed, "We mass-produce from our original stock...that divides into smaller and smaller sub-sets..." She glanced to catch Andi's eyes.
"Uhh...yeah, I guess..." Andi kicked at a dirt clod, but it stuck awkwardly to the toe of her shoe and she had to scrape it off on a wooden stake. "New plants?" she asked distractedly.
"Not much new in the last year...and nothing new since winter." stated Buck carefully. She narrowed her eyes and surveyed the tracts, slowly turning as if remembering the contents of each section. "But we've got a few cohorts around twenty..." She suddenly started off down a lane; Andi struggled to keep up. "Small groups aren't much use...they're a dead-end because we can't try a variety of downstream trials. That's the science of all this...keeping the statistical edge so fate and mistakes show up."
"I see..." replied Andi, working to keep pace with Buck's confident strides.
"Here..." Buck pointed to two groups of about a dozen apiece marked by red plastic streamers. "One's a Argentinean root stock, the other's a Vermillion, a simple-rose...kind of an antique."
Both sets were tall bushes. Andi turned and looked back. "How about dwarfs?" she asked as if it were a casual whim.
"Dwarves..." Buck turned and retraced the path they'd just come. "Ms. Dao got into dwarves and tea roses a few years back. Maybe a third of her stock are miniatures now. It's an market she's aggressively attacking. Did you know that she travels all over the world picking stock?"
"No...no I didn't know that..." Andi puffed, struggling to match her companion's pace.
"Oh yes...she's into it."
"`Aggressively,' you said?" The question came out more insistently than she'd intended.
Buck turned as if to read Andi's intentions. "To my mind...but I come with a grower's perspective. Marketing hybrids as she does is different...strains have to be developed quickly and that takes a certain attitude..."
"Do you follow all the contention and hoop-la over who owns particular lines?" Andi asked casually, taking a breath of the clean air, it was kind of nice to be out in the sticks.
"It's not my thing, but I know how big a deal it is...lots of grief, that's why I keep out of it...jealously guarded turf and all...there's big money in distinctive lines." Buck waved her hands as she spoke; tracing the edges the problem, then waving it away.
Andi nodded. "Has Ms. Dao brought in new stock in the last couple of weeks?"
Buck didn't even pause in her stride. "No...and nothing's been planted since last winter's bare-root stock...most of those we had for months..."
Andi dutifully examined the rows of dwarfs, but had already mentally moved on. She disengaged as soon as she was able, shaking hand and thanking Buck profusely before returning to her car.
Once back in the office however, it was as if she'd stepped into a vat of molasses--old business, new mail, questions, and tedious miscellany snagged, tugged her limbs menacingly and threatening to drown her in viscous, cloying clerical detail.
It was all she could do to keep her head above the surface and gasp a breath every now and again--she kicked unsatisfyingly into the spongy blandness of correspondence, then struck out in agonizingly-slow motion against a small swarm of routine reports.
It was Lena's chirpy immunity to that goo that goaded Andi on--it was frank unwillingness to admit that Lena was better suited to the work. That dysfunctional thread of pride kept her at her desk mumbling expletives long past her usual breaking point.
That was the way the afternoon passed. It was none too soon that Lena looked up and made a passing comment that it had been a productive day.
"Shall we call it?" asked Andi hopefully. "It's four-twenty..."
"Go ahead, I've got another half-page." Lena had taken a breath and kicked smoothly off into an seemingly effortless extra-lap of free-style typing.
Andi had misgivings about being perceived as a slacker, but to keep working she'd have to reach into the gaping maw of her pending tray.
She valiantly practiced self-restraint, reassuring herself that discretion was the better part of valor. She had the waste baskets emptied and coffee cups washed by the time Lena finished. Andi slid the window closed and flicked off the lights. The work-day was officially behind.
Returned to their apartment, Andi took a shower and put fifteen minutes into deciding what to wear.
Lena lay on the bed watching. "There isn't a dress code for this type of dinner," she observed casually. "I'm pretty sure..."
"You mean the traditional dinner with your mother just after she tells you she's dying?" Andi pulled out a soft cotton peasant shirt and held it before her. "Too white..." she muttered.
"It's beige..." observed Lena. "You're color blind."
Andi ignored her and pulled out a silk blouse with pockets and a high collar--too dressy. "Do you think just a plaid work-shirt would be funky?" she asked with frown.
"You mean too boyish?" Lena smirked.
"No...that's not what I mean..." Andi snapped. She glared, sank down to sit on the bed and wailed, "I don't care...I don't want to go." She looked up into Lena's eyes. "I don't want to hear about her dying...I don't..."
Lena held out her arms and Andi collapsed beside her, eyes closed, wishing she could cry.
Andi arrived at Three Doors Down with a feeling of dread; it was like entering the principal's office in junior high or starting a test knowing you studied the wrong book. Her mother beamed and waved from a linen covered table. Andi slipped into the chair across from her. "Hi Mom..." she smiled.
"You look good..." Mrs. Wicksham smiled. "Nice shirt..."
"Not too butchy?" Andi asked insecurely.
"Not for you dear..." her mother laughed. "But then maybe that's part of what I wanted to tell you."
"What?" Andi looked down in alarm at her cloths.
"That I love you and who you are...your life and decisions-- I love you. I think I've been so busy being your mother that I've forgotten to tell you that."
Andi felt a lump in her throat, she felt like a twelve years old, pretending to be grown up, knowing everybody saw through the ruse.
"So...now...wine." Mrs. Wicksham lifted her reading glasses to her nose and picked the wine list from the table. "I was thinking of a pinot gris or maybe a dry zin...do you prefer red?"
Andi looked across the table half-afraid of speaking--she shook her head "no," though she did.
"You look scared to death dear..." her mother said quietly, dropping her hands to her lap to radiate an accepting smile.
"I guess I am..." Andi acknowledged awkwardly.
"Thanks for meeting me..."
"It seemed so formal...like reading a will or something." Andi winced at her ill-chosen example and looked into her mother's eyes for forgiveness.
"Well, we haven't gone out to dinner together much in the last thirty years..." Mrs. Wicksham laughed.
"No..." Andi conceded. "But we could more often..."
"Great idea...it would do me a world of good."
"I never called Cinny..." Andi admitted.
Mrs. Wicksham waved away the problem. "It's for the best...nothing's going to happen that quickly. This'll give us a chance to get used to the idea...the two of us, I mean." she pointed back and forth between the two of them.
Andi smiled gratefully, warmed by the distinction and honored by the appeal for closeness.
Her mother paused, picked at their waiter's sleeve and ordered the pinot gris. Then she turned back to Andi, "Did you see the specials? They've got a salmon in a sweet plum sauce with potatoes and vegetable, a veal something, a sea food pasta with shrimp and fresh mussels, and a teriyaki chicken with ginger and rice."
"I'm going to have caesar salad." Andi announced immediately.
"Not an entre?"
"I've been thinking of a caesar all afternoon. They use real anchovies..." she rolled her eyes appreciatively.
Mrs. Wicksham smiled indulgently and said "Fine..." The waiter magically appeared at her elbow with wine and bread and took their order with a gracious bow.
"I've given a lot of thought to this matter..." her mother confided, she savored a sip of wine, tore off a piece of bread and lavished it with butter.
Andi held her wine glass between her palms, feeling its cool smoothness and shifting weight as she slowly swirled the wine.
Her mother leaned forward, "I'm drawn to quality over quantity. I don't want to waste life in a vain attempt to evade the inevitable. It would mean focusing on sickness instead of health...I'm told the sickness will insert itself soon enough..." She looked across as if desperate for understanding.
Andi wondered how soon that would be, forced a smile and said, "...OK." She didn't trust her voice not to break, but was resolved to support anything her mother wanted.
"I'm going to travel a little...later, I won't be able...I'd like to spend time with you...if you want, I mean..." she looked nervously across, seeking reassurance.
Andi reached a hand to cover her mother's. "I want...I have time...I want to..." She felt as insecure as she ever did in high school.
Mrs. Wicksham smiled and reached for another piece of bread. "I've decided to absolutely forget dieting...I'm going to indulge myself every way I can..." she smiled wickedly. "It's kind of fun to break the rules...do you feel that?"
"Sometimes I haven't had a choice..." Andi set her wine down and reached for a piece of bread.
Her mother tilted her head, watching with tight-lipped consideration. Then she nodded as if agreeing to some important point. "I can see that..." She caught Andi's eye and held it a moment. "...but for me right now it's liberating. I've started reading books on it..."
"...breaking rules or cancer?" Andi asked with a perky lilt. She smiled and took another sip of wine.
"...dying. There's a whole bookcase of books at Powells. Most say to live it up until the moment you're not. There's quite a Buddhist tradition you know...The Tibetan Book Of The Dead, charnel meditation and all. Evidently passing away is effortless, quite out of one's hands, so you just focus on what's before you. It's very Zen..." She grinned and raised her wine glass, but then saw Andi's face. She quickly added, "I'm sorry, that was supposed to be tongue in cheek..."
Andi had almost choked, she felt a sheen of sweat on her face and her eyes bulging--she knew her face had paled. "I'm just not used to it. It's OK, really..." There was a moment of awkward silence. "Isn't there something that you could try, some treatment, medicine, crystals...some herbs...or something?"
"What?" Her mother sat upright and looked around in alarm. "This is my daughter suggesting crystals to me?" She looked at her watch. "Did I come to the wrong restaurant? You look like Andi Wicksham...but." Her eyes narrowed and her voice dropped into a low-tenor range. "What did you do with my daughter?"
Andi blushed and wanted to throw a piece of bread at her.
"Really...crystals...Andi..." her mother shook her head in disbelief and reached out to pat Andi's wrist. "...remember the thirteenth commandment of our tradition...more wine, shall we?"
"OK, I'll bite," conceded Andi with a grin, nodding and waving her hand affirmatively toward her wine glass, "...what's our thirteenth commandment?"
Her mother filled their glasses to within a half-inch of their rims, smiling smugly to herself. "Thou shalt not be stupid..." She bit her bread and chewed while holding Andi's eyes with her own. "Appealing to magic is contrary our beliefs...I can accept being part of a natural process...not that I'd necessarily choose this year to croak...but it's OK...better than if you were still a kid."
Andi could feel tears welling behind her eyes and a heaviness in her chest. Thankfully, she was saved by the providential appearance of food.
They kept to safer subjects for the rest of the meal, sharing a cream custard and savoring rich coffee, stretching small talk over a pleasurable forty minutes.
"You know those people I asked about?" Andi nodded yes to a waitress's offer of more coffee.
"The rose people?" her mother raised a superior eyebrow and flicked a wisp of hair from her forehead with a fingernail. "I've been meaning to call Betty Dao..."
"Her friend William Tyson's dead...probably murdered. He was involved in a counterfeiting ring." Andi leaned across the table and lowered her voice when she said the word "counterfeiting."
Mrs. Wicksham shrugged. "Ever find your roses? That William-whatever...I never really knew him...even less than Darrel Feight...they were just rose friends of Betty's..." her mother dismissed them with a wave of her hand.
Andi offered a pursed-lipped smile. "I haven't found the roses...the deaths and counterfeiting eclipsed them anyway. Betty Dao and friends asked me to look into Tyson's death..." she shared a condescending sneer, "...but I get the feeling it's some kind of ruse..." Andi lifted both shoulders and eyebrows in a shrug.
"You have such an interesting life...I would have loved to have had a job like that..." Her mother's voice was warm and friendly--warm enough to be believable.
Andi made a face, then admitted. "...it's boring work on interesting subjects..." She leaned forward as if to tell a secret and whispered, "Being a professor suited you...gum-shoes don't have status...you wouldn't like it..."
Mrs. Wicksham laughed in to her napkin. "I suppose...academics at least exchanges status for boredom..." She smiled across the table, then leaned forward intimately. "It does seem to fit...you were always more of a Martina Navratilova or Nancy Drew than Vassar or Bryn Marr type..."
"Is that a complement?" Andi laughed as she reached for the check.
"Yes..." her mother paused for a moment of reflection. "...yes I think it is..."
They walked arm in arm around a block before returning to their cars.
An hour later, back at home, Andi sat facing Lena at the other end of the couch. "...aggressive chemo would make her sick and weak sooner than the cancer, so she's against it. She might try radiation to slow it down and reduce pain...maybe something called chemo-lite..." She took a deep breath and slowly let it out. "She wouldn't live as long going that route...but she could put off being bed-bound--and she doesn't want to lose her hair..." Andi beat her fist into the pillow she held on her lap. "I can't believe how calmly she discusses this stuff."
"Who else does she have to talk about it with?" noted Lena practically.
"But I'm the last person I'd have thought she'd choose. All my life I've been the weird-o who didn't fit in...the bad-daughter embarrassment. Now..." Andi waved her hands to fill in what words couldn't say.
"...never know, do we?" Lena observed obliquely, turning a page without looking down at her magazine.
"I guess not...driving home I decided to take up Tris and Jason's offer to be Simone's auntie..." Andi held her breath and looked defiantly at Lena.
Lena dropped her magazine to her lap and shook her head. "...how is a kid going to fit into our lives? We go out evenings, we're gone weekends...we don't do `kid' things."
"So? It's only every now and then. I'll stay home..." Andi argued.
Lena looked abandoned. "I've finally got my life how I like it...it's not like I haven't given it a lot of thought...babies get into things..."
"...of course, that's what they're supposed to do." quarreled Andi. "I want to do it...it's not like having her day after day or anything. I'm not talking about getting pregnant..." She stared defiantly across their intertwined legs.
"You're thinking about that...aren't you? Andi...no..." Lena stared at her wide-eyed.
"I'm just talking about being an auntie...Lena...be real. How much trouble is it?" Andi shook her head, not quite believing Lena's fervor.
"This place isn't kid-safe..." Lena waved her arms around. "It'll take up the time we spend together."
"...we could do it together..." Andi extended practically.
Lena looked across--hurt--as if Andi'd chosen between Simone and herself and she'd lost. "I'm reserving the right to say I told your so..." she warned ominously.
Andi smiled what she hoped looked like a compassionate smile. "Absolutely..." she assured straightfaced, fighting with all her might not to let out a hint of triumphant gloating. "I told you so's are OK..."
Go on to Chapter 7
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