Naked Came The Phoenix

Chapter Six

OUT OF BREATH, CAROLINE SLAMMED the cabin door behind her and then stood leaning against it, gasping.

"You never did learn to enter a room like a lady," Hilda said. "You came racing through the door like the devil himself was after you." Hilda was once more seated in the morris chair. Quickly she removed the pair of red-framed reading glasses that had been perched on her nose. She stowed them in one pocket of her pink sweats and then gathered up the sheaf of papers and photographs that had been spread in her lap. Those she shuffled back into a manila envelope. Once the envelope was closed, she used the metal fastener to hold it tight.

"Douglas called," she said.

Caroline barely trusted herself to speak. "And?" she said finally.

"He wants you to call him back. At the cabin."

"What did he want?" she asked. Even as she asked the question, it puzzled her why she was carrying on this charade and acting as though everything were normal when she should have thrown herself into her mother's arms and confided in her, telling her the awful truth-that she had already called Douglas that morning only to find another woman at the cabin. But the years of acrimony between Caroline and her mother had left too much of a void between them, too much distance to be crossed all at once.

Not trusting her knees to hold her upright, Caroline sank down into the desk chair and stared at the phone as though it were her mortal enemy.

"Well?" Hilda urged impatiently. "Are you going to call him, or are you just going to sit there all day looking at the phone?"

"I'm not going to call him," Caroline said.

"Why?"

"Because I don't feel like it." Even in her present mood, it sounded to her own ears like a childish, stupid thing to say.

"Caroline," Hilda said firmly. "You have to understand. Your husband's a politician. You need to talk to him so he can give you whatever directions you need for handling yourself in this kind of situation."

"You mean like send one of his staffers out to bird-dog me and make sure I don't say or do something that could make matters worse?"

"Yes. Of course," Hilda returned mildly. There was another unspoken part to her mother's answer, the part about now that Caroline had made her bed, she would have to lie in it. And, of course, there was no need for Hilda to say it then because Hilda had said it so often, Caroline knew it by heart.

She felt her temper rising. The whole idea was absurd. Here was Caroline, an innocent bystander to a murder she personally had nothing to do with, but both her mother and her husband expected her to agree to being led around by the nose and told how to act, what to say, and how to say it. Meanwhile Douglas was free to do whatever he wanted. He had taken a woman with him to the cabin, a cabin that was, after all, half Caroline's. He was up there now, doing God knows what and giving no thought or care to any kind of scandal. The double standard inherent in that was simply too much.

All her life Caroline had been a good girl. She'd done what she'd been told and tried her best to live up to other people's expectations. Last night she had broken into the kitchen and taken food. This time, instead of knuckling under to her mother's pressure, Caroline found the strength to fight back.

"What are we doing here, Mother?" she asked.

"Doing here?" Hilda repeated. "What do you mean by that?"

"You know what I mean."

"We've both been through so much the last few months," Hilda replied smoothly. "I thought a getaway to the spa would do us both a world of good. A time-out, as it were," she added.

"Like when you used to punish me by sending me to my room?"

"A little, I suppose," Hilda agreed. "Only with better food. Back then, you made mud pies. You could just as well have been taking mud baths," she added. "You were that messy most of the time."

"This isn't funny, Mother," Caroline continued. "And it's no time for jokes, either. Why are we here, and who paid?"

"Why Douglas did, of course," Hilda answered. "You saw the check he wrote-twelve thousand dollars."

"If you own the place now, I'm sure we could have come for free."

Hilda shrugged. "Maybe we did-come for free, that is. In fact, Claudia invited us to come, both of us. Douglas gave me his check to pay for it, and I did cash it, but I can tell you Claudia de Vries never saw a penny of that money. I made certain of that."

"What do you mean?" Caroline asked.

"Go upstairs and look in your closet," Hilda ordered.

"In the closet?"

"Yes," Hilda replied. "It came this morning. UPS delivered it to the office while we were all preoccupied with what had happened to Claudia. It was heavy, so I had the deliveryman carry it upstairs."

Without saying anything more, Caroline fled up the stairs and threw open the door to the closet. Inside, her clothing had all been shoved aside in order to make room for an enormous box. As soon as she saw the size of it, she knew what it had to be. Still, not trusting her own judgment, Caroline went into the bathroom and retrieved the fingernail shears she carried in her overnight bag. Then she rushed back to the closet. It took her several minutes to chop her way through layers of protective cardboard and plastic bubble wrap, but as soon as she saw the black case she recognized it for what it was-a cello. And not just any cello. It had to be her own cello. She recognized the worn but familiar case. She placed the case on her bed and then opened it to reveal the beautifully finished instrument inside. Tears of gratitude sprang to her eyes as she caressed the familiar lines and curves and ran her fingers across strings Caroline knew almost as well as she knew her own body. Somehow her mother had returned it to her.

Leaving the instrument lying on the bed, Caroline made her way back down the stairs. "Where did you get it?" she asked in a hollow voice.

"I remembered the name of the woman who had bought it from you," Hilda answered. "All I had to do was track her down. I offered to buy it back for four thousand dollars more than she paid you for it. Believe me, she was more than happy to make a deal. Who wouldn't be? And there went Douglas's twelve thousand dollars. Money well spent, if you ask me."

Caroline was stunned. "Thank you, Mother. I can't tell you how grateful I am, but why would you do such a thing?" she asked. "Whatever possessed you?"

"Giving up everything that's yours for a man like that-a man with that kind of power-is an entirely stupid thing to do," Hilda returned. "Surely you're not really that naive, are you?"

Even though Caroline had called herself "stupid" not an hour or so earlier, it hurt to hear her mother say the same thing. Under other circumstances she might have been overjoyed to see her beloved cello once more. Now she was overwhelmed. She bit back the tears that still threatened to wash her away.

"I have no idea what you mean," she said, still playing the game, still pretending that things were all right between her and Douglas when they were anything but.

"Maybe you should take a look at this, then." Lifting the envelope from her lap, Hilda held it out. Caroline looked at it but made no attempt to take it.

"What is it?" she asked. Her voice sounded wooden. There was an ache in Caroline Blessing's heart. She knew that whatever was in the envelope was going to be bad news, and she didn't want to touch it.

"Surveillance reports," Hilda answered. "From a private detective."

"Surveillance reports on whom?" Caroline asked.

"On Douglas, of course. Who else? Names, places, dates, times. I thought you should know all these things. And I thought you should have some idea which of your friends aren't friends at all. That's always useful information to have, to know where you stand. When it comes to this sort of thing, a woman can't afford to have too many surprises, especially in this day and age."

"You've been spying on Douglas?" Caroline managed to stammer.

"Spying's too strong a word," Hilda returned mildly. "I prefer to think of it as checking up on him. And it's a good thing I did, too. Your father certainly wouldn't have considered doing such a thing, although, in my opinion that's something fathers are supposed to do-protect their daughters. Now take it," she urged. "Even if you don't want to look at it, I still want you to have it now, before it's too late."

Caroline reached out and took the envelope. The paper should have been cool to the touch, but it wasn't. The surface of the envelope seemed to sear her skin. She held it for a moment, and then it slipped through her reluctant fingers and dropped to the floor.

"I don't want it," she said. "I don't want to know. I already told Douglas I want a divorce. I don't need to know any of the rest of it."

"You may think you don't want to know, but if you don't take this envelope and put it away, the rest of the world is going to find out all about it."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, Caroline, please don't be so incredibly dim," Hilda returned. "Why do you think I refused to talk to the detective today?"

"You said you had a spa to run."

"The detective may have been dumb enough to fall for that, but he'll get over it soon enough. I expected better than that from my own daughter. What I had to run was you," Hilda said. "I had to get you away from that man long enough to give you this so you could put it away properly before all hell breaks loose."

"All hell has already broken loose," Caroline pointed out. "Claudia de Vries is dead, and Douglas is having an affair. How much worse could it be?"

"That Detective Toscana is going to show up here any minute to arrest me."

"You?" Caroline gasped.

"Of course," Hilda said calmly. "Whom else would he come after? Even you should be able to see that I'm the most likely suspect. Once that happens, they'll get a search warrant, go through this room, and the contents of this envelope will be up for grabs. So while I go turn myself in, I suggest you do something with this. Put the envelope somewhere safe so that Toscana and his henchmen won't find it."

The fact that Caroline's mother was about to be arrested for murder was utterly unthinkable. "You're going to turn yourself in? For what?" she asked. "And what about having a lawyer there with you? Shouldn't you have one? Everyone else does."

"No need," Hilda replied. "It's nothing but a delaying tactic. I didn't kill Claudia de Vries, although, truth be known, I sure as hell wanted to. No, my turning myself in will give you time enough to get rid of the envelope. Then, when they find the real killer, they'll let me go and everything will be fine, and you'll have what you need to get yourself a great settlement. Judges don't just hand those out for no reason, you know," she added. "You have to have the goods on an erring husband in order to do that, especially when the erring husband is a member of Congress. But not to worry. You do have the goods, so take good care of them, while I freshen up and put on some makeup. If I'm going to be arrested, I'm going to be photographed. It wouldn't do for the new owner of Phoenix Spa to be hauled off to jail looking like something the cat dragged in, now would it."

With that Hilda went straight to her closet and paused there, studying the contents. "Which do you think, the navy suit or the fawn?"

"Navy would be better," Caroline supplied.

"Good," Hilda agreed. "That's what I think, too. It does a better job of showing off my hair."

Taking the blue suit with her, Hilda disappeared into the bathroom. Caroline stooped over and picked up the envelope that still lay on the floor where she had dropped it. It was addressed to Mrs. Hamlin Finch, and the postmark was dated weeks ago. From the weight of the envelope, Caroline could tell that it contained many sheets of paper. If each of them meant a separate report, then the surveillance had been going on for some time. So had Douglas 's betrayal and infidelity.

Caroline was still standing and staring at the envelope when the bathroom door opened once more. "Are you still here?" Hilda demanded. "You've got to do something with that, and you've got to do it now. Otherwise, it's going to be too late."

Nodding wordlessly, Caroline retreated upstairs to her loft. Not only had her mother bought back her cello, she had bought back the case as well. The case had a secret compartment concealed in the lid that had been known only to Caroline, her mother, and the person who had made the case. She pressed the pressure point just to the left of the topmost latch, and the satin lining sprang away from the leather to reveal a letter-sized, fold-out pouch. She slipped the envelope into the pouch and then closed up the lining.

Once the damning envelope was out of sight, the weight of all that had happened washed across Caroline and brought her to her knees. It was too much. The pain of her husband's betrayal, the shock of Claudia's death, the prospect of her mother being arrested-it was all more than Caroline could handle. She leaned against the bed with her head buried in the silky cover of her feather-soft duvet while a wild storm of weeping shook her very being. She stayed that way for a long time.

"Caroline?" her mother called up the stairs at last. "Are you still here?"

She stifled a ragged sob. "I'm here," she answered.

"I'm going, then," Hilda said. "I just wanted you to know."

"All right," Caroline managed. "Do you want me to come with you?"

"No. I'm sure you're in no condition to deal with any more stress. You stay here and try not to worry. Everything will be fine."

Everything won't be fine, Caroline wanted to shout at the top of her lungs. My marriage is over. My life is a wreck. My mother is being arrested for murder. But she didn't say any of those things aloud. Instead, she reached out her hand and touched the long, clean neck of the cello. She let her fingers trail along the smooth surface, allowing her fingers to find comfort there. When the door slammed shut behind Hilda Finch, her daughter reached over and removed her bow from its holder. Then she wrested the cello upright and carried it over to the dressing table chair.

Ignoring the ravaged countenance that stared back at her from the mirror, she planted the instrument between her sweats-clad legs and pulled the bow across the strings. The cello was so far out of tune that the shrill sound made her wince. It took her several minutes of tuning before she had it right, but when she did, she launched into the haunting strains of Camille Saint-Saëns's Cello Concerto no. 1. As the music washed over her it brought her the same relief it always had. It was through the cello that she had been able to endure all those years of arguments between her parents. It was music that had seen her through the loneliness of being an only child in an apparently loveless marriage. She had assumed, mistakenly, that once she fell in love-once she found the perfect mate-the peace granted her by music would no longer be necessary.

Wrong, she told herself grimly. Absolutely wrong.

And then, keeping her mind firmly turned away from Nero and his fiddle and the fire consuming Rome, she sat there and played her heart out, waiting for someone to come and tell her that her mother was under arrest.

Even without the benefit of practice and despite having been away from her music for months, Caroline Blessing played better than she ever had before. She played flawlessly because she meant to and because she was playing for her mother. Because somehow, Hilda Finch had known that her daughter would need that cello again. In spite of whatever difficulties had presented themselves, she had gone out and found it.

"Thanks, Mom," Caroline murmured as the last strains of the concerto died away. And then the tears came again.

Phyllis Talmadge entered the interview room, followed closely by her lawyer, Marsha Rollins. Wearing spike heels that clicked ominously on the marble floor, Rollins marched into the room with her laptop in hand and with a three-inch-deep chip on her shoulder.

"I want to object to the fact that you interviewed my client earlier under entirely false pretenses," Marsha Rollins announced. "I'm serving notice right now that anything my client said in the course of that interview will be considered inadmissible."

"Wait a minute, Ms. Rollins," Vince said calmly. "To begin with, your client came to me. I didn't send for her. She came in and spoke to me entirely of her own accord."

"She thought you were a producer," Rollins objected while Phyllis Talmadge nodded furiously. "She thought you were there to interview her…"

Vince smiled. "I was interviewing her," he said.

"… for an appearance on The Today Show," Rollins finished. "She thought this was something that had been set up by her publicist."

Vince looked past the attorney. "Why are you here, Ms. Talmadge?"

She blinked. "Because you said I had to be. Like everybody else."

"No, I don't mean why are you here in this room. Why are you at Phoenix Spa?"

Phyllis shrugged. "For the same reason everybody else is, I suppose. I have a cover shoot in a few weeks, and I want to look my best. So I thought I'd come here and shed a few pounds. Get in touch with my core being, you know. That kind of thing. In my line of work, centering is very important. Otherwise I can't tune in to the universe and learn what I need to know."

"What is the universe telling you about Claudia de Vries?"

"Really, Detective Toscana, you can't expect my client to answer…"

But Vince had hit Phyllis Talmadge where she lived, in her ability to see deep into other people's hidden lives. "Shut up, Marsha," Phyllis told her attorney. "I want to answer this question. It's important. Claudia de Vries was an evil woman. She preyed on other people her whole life. It's hardly surprising that she finally got what she deserved. In fact, what I can't figure out is why it took someone so long to come after her."

"Did she ever prey on you?" Vince asked.

"Phyllis, please," the attorney objected. "You don't have to say anything."

"She tried to," Phyllis Talmadge said, as her eyes narrowed dangerously. "But I didn't let her get away with it. I told her to back off, and she did."

"When you say prey, what do you mean?"

"Blackmail," Phyllis said simply.

"She was blackmailing you? How and why?"

Phyllis shrugged. "She knew I had had a bit of a drinking problem, years ago. Then my first book came out and she went to my publisher and tried to convince them that I was a fraud, that I had become a psychic by taking a correspondence course when I was locked up at home with three little kids. That was a lie, of course. I only had two."

"And it worked?" Vince asked. "The correspondence course, I mean."

"Sure it worked," Phyllis Talmadge replied. "It turned out I already knew how to do it, it's just that I didn't know I knew. It's like radio waves, you see. As long as the station is on the air, the waves are there. The only reason you don't hear them is you haven't turned on your receiver."

"I see," Vince said. "So do you ever help with criminal cases?"

"Detective Toscana, this is utterly uncalled for…" Marsha Rollins began.

"Do you?" Vince asked.

"Sometimes," Phyllis Talmadge said. "Not very often, mind you. But sometimes."

"Would you be willing to help us on this case?"

"You mean professionally? Not as a suspect?"

"Absolutely," Vince said. "As one professional to another."

"I'd have to think about that for a little while," Phyllis Talmadge said. "I'd have to go outside by myself. Maybe down by the lake and think about it."

"Why don't you do that," Vince said, nodding sagely. "You go think about this case. Tune in to whatever radio waves you need to in order to be able to tell me what's going on here, then you come back and tell me what you learned."

"You mean in less than eight weeks," Phyllis said. "Eight weeks is usually my limit. Any longer than that, and the results may not be reliable."

"You take as long as you need, but I'd appreciate something sooner than eight weeks. That's a little longer than I had in mind." Phyllis was nodding, and Vince knew he had her. He had appealed to her professional ego. If she knew something-incriminating or not-the woman would be stumbling all over herself and her bullheaded attorney to spill the beans.

Then, just when he should have been asking Phyllis for her verbal agreement to go along with his plan, there was a knock on the door. Damn.

"What is it, Mikey?" Vince demanded as the door opened a crack. "Don't you know I'm busy in here? I thought I told you I wasn't to be interrupted."

"Yes, sir. I know, sir, but I thought this was important."

Vince sighed. "All right. What is it?"

"There's someone out here demanding to see you."

"That's a switch," Vince Toscana said. "Somebody actually wants to see me for a change? Sure it isn't another one of them damn lawyers?"

"It's that Finch woman. She says she's come to turn herself in."

Vince turned back to Phyllis Talmadge. "I'm sorry about the interruption," he said. "There's another door over here. If you wouldn't mind, you can go out the back way. And then, after you've spent some time down by the lake, you can come back and tell me what you've learned."

She shook her head. "No, that won't be necessary."

"What won't be necessary?"

"My going to the lake. I've already tuned in. Your assistant here is absolutely right. The Finch woman-I believe her name is Hilda-is the one you want."

"You're saying she killed Claudia de Vries?" Vince asked.

Phyllis frowned. "That's still a little fuzzy. The message isn't quite coming through, but the person you're looking for is Hilda Finch. I'm quite sure."

Mike was standing in the doorway with the door half open behind him. Now someone knocked on it hard enough that it bounced off his back and the doorknob whacked him in the hip.

"Well," Hilda Finch demanded loudly, "is he going to see me or not? If he can't be bothered, I suppose I could always go outside the gate to where all those television cameras are stationed and tell the reporters there that I tried to turn myself in but Detective Toscana was too busy doing other things to be bothered with arresting me."

Toscana turned back to Phyllis Talmadge and her fuming attorney. "If you ladies would please excuse me," he said, ushering them to the back door. "This sounds important. I'd better handle it."

The detective let them out, closed the door, and then turned back to the other door in time to see a limping Mike let Hilda Finch into the room. At the crime scene, Hilda hadn't looked her best, but now she did. With a daughter in her midtwenties, Hilda had to be somewhere in the mid-fifty range, but she didn't look it. In fact, the broad looked as though she was a high-powered CEO ready to make a speech in front of a corporate board of directors.

"What can I do for you, Mrs. Finch?" Vince asked politely.

"You can arrest me for the murder of Claudia de Vries. The woman was a blackmailing bitch, and I'm glad she's dead."

"Being glad isn't the same as being guilty."

"Maybe not, but you need to arrest me anyway."

"Does that mean you're confessing?"

"Not exactly. But surely I'm under suspicion."

"Everybody here is under suspicion," Vince told her. "The problem is, at this time, I don't have enough evidence to arrest anyone, including you. Have you been advised of your rights?"

"I'm not some little wimp, Detective Toscana. I don't need my rights read to me, and I don't need an attorney present, either. I'm entirely capable of talking to you on my own."

"Why did you do it?" Vince asked.

"Do what?"

"Kill her?"

"Claudia was a very annoying woman," Hilda answered.

"You killed her because she was annoying?"

"And did you know she'd had a face-lift?" Hilda continued. "Here she is, spouting the age-reversing benefits of all these natural herbs and supplements, but she's gone out behind all her clients' backs and gone under some plastic surgeon's knife to smooth out the wrinkles. If that isn't flying under false pretenses, I don't know what is. In fact, I'd be surprised if someone didn't file suit against Phoenix Spa for false advertising practices."

"How long had you known Mrs. de Vries?" Vince asked.

"Long enough," Hilda Finch answered. "Since college."

"And how many years would that be?"

"I refuse to answer that question," Hilda answered. "It's rude to ask a woman her age like that. Didn't your mother ever teach you any manners? Anyway, it doesn't matter. I plead the fifth."

"So you'd been friends since college."

"I said we'd known one another since then. That doesn't mean we were friends."

"But you've been in business together."

"I've been in business with her," Hilda agreed. "But Claudia didn't know she was in business with me. She thought her silent partner was an attorney from Atlanta. I can give you his name and number if you like." She reached into her purse, pulled out a business card, and handed it over to Detective Toscana. He took it without looking at it.

"And now you own the business?" Vince asked.

"Something like that," Hilda replied.

"Don't you think Dr. de Vries would have something to say about it?"

"Raoul has nothing whatever to do with it," Hilda said. "Talk to my attorney. You'll see that there's an ironclad survivorship agreement. As spa physician, Raoul has been an employee here, nothing more. He's never had any ownership in the spa. I don't think Claudia thought him entirely trustworthy."

"You're aware that he's a convicted felon?"

Hilda raised an eyebrow. "No," she said. "But it's not too surprising. It also might make his continuing on here problematic. I wouldn't want Phoenix Spa's physician to have a blemished record. He might have kept it quiet up till now, but after this the world will know. That will make it difficult to attract and keep the kind of clientele we need to keep the bills paid. As you can well imagine, this isn't an inexpensive operation."

"Funny you should mention that," Vince said casually, tapping the stack of file folders he had laid out on the tabletop in front of him. "I've pulled everyone's folders, yours included. My plan is to take them back to the department to go over them one at a time. I would imagine they'll turn out to be some pretty interesting reading, wouldn't you?"

For the first time, Hilda Finch seemed to falter. Her eyes darted from Vince's face to the stack of folders and back again.

"Aren't you interested to see what is in your folder?" Vince asked.

"I have no interest whatsoever. I suppose it's all about what treatments are used and what kinds of results the client has over the course of a stay here."

"You might say that," Vince agreed. "So as a partner, even as a silent partner, you'd be aware of monies paid out over the course of time."

"I receive quarterly reports, if that's what you mean," Hilda replied. "At least, my attorney receives them, and he forwards them to me."

Vince thumbed through the folders and picked up Ondine's. "Would you happen to know why Claudia de Vries gave Ondine over a million bucks the last time she was here?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Maybe it was just a trick-or-treat gimmick, since Ondine checked in on October thirty-first. She received a hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars that day and another hundred thousand every day for the remainder of her ten-day stay. You know anything about that, Madame Silent Partner?"

"Why that low-down bitch! You mean to tell me she was skimming that much off the top and giving it to somebody else? If I'd known that, I really would have killed her-with my own bare hands."

"But you didn't."

"No," Hilda admitted. "I suppose not."

"So what's all this charade, then? What's with this I want him to arrest me crap?"

"I did want you to," Hilda told him. "I still do. So I'd be safe."

"Safe from what? What do you mean?"

"I'm afraid that now, as the new owner, I may become a target, too. I thought the best way to be protected would be for you to put me in jail."

"Sorry," Vince told her. "No can do."

"Well, then," Hilda said with a sigh, "I suppose I could just as well go back to my cabin and change into my sweat suit since there won't be any photographers after all."

Just then, they heard a scream. Vince Toscana leaped from his chair and ran to the back door. He pulled it open just as Marsha Rollins came careening up onto the deck. "Come quick," she yelped. "I can't swim, and somebody's got to help her."

"What is it?" Vince demanded. "What's wrong?"

"It's Phyllis," Marsha answered, gasping for breath. "I came back from using the rest room and found her floating facedown in the lake. I think she's dead!"