Slow Squeeze (Iris Thorne Mysteries Book 2) Read online

  “Sure, darlin’. Let’s do that.” She walked out of the room in front of Iris.

  “I’ll be right there. I need to step into the bathroom.” As soon as Barbie left, Iris quickly looked around the bedroom and in the closet. She shrugged and went back into the living room, still barefoot.

  Barbie jumped when she saw Iris. “You scared me out of my wits.” She was holding Iris’s key ring in her hand. “Darlin’, I found these on the carpet against the wall over there. You probably dropped them when you came in last night.” She held up the rectangular brass fob, which was engraved with Iris’s name. “This is nice.”

  “Thanks.” Iris took the keys and put them in her purse on the small hallway table. The purse’s zippered top was open like she had left it earlier that morning.

  “Let’s get to that tonic.” Barbie bounced into the kitchen.

  Iris followed. “Barbie, what was I crying about last night?”

  “Oh, you were upset over John. You know. How he did you dirty.”

  “A funny thing happened. I woke up this morning thinking about Alley, the mailroom boy at my office who was murdered. Was I talking about him last night?”

  Barbie twisted the lid on the jar of clam juice until the suction released with a pop. “Oh, honey. I had too much to drink myself. I don’t exactly remember what we were talkin’ about either.” She began opening cupboards and looking inside.

  Iris hopped in front of her and pressed a cupboard door closed. “Dang. I forgot. I promised my mother I’d go shopping with her. I’m late. I’ve gotta go.”

  “Oh, I’d love to go with y’all. I’d love to see your mom again.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Well, I guess because I lost my momma at an early age, like I was tellin’ you last night.” She put her hand to her forehead. “Or, like I thought I was tellin’ you. Like I said, I had a lot to drink, too.”

  “We’re going over to my sister’s house for dinner and it’s sort of a family thing.”

  “I thought you were goin’ shoppin’.”

  “After we go shopping.”

  “Sure, sure, darlin’. I’ll just put all this in the refrigerator. It’ll keep.” Barbie opened the refrigerator door and put the tomato juice, clam juice, and Tabasco sauce away. She walked into the living room, picked up her purse from the couch, then walked to the front door.

  Iris followed right behind her.

  “I’ll give you a call later, darlin’, okay?” She patted Iris’s cheek.

  “Okay. Thanks for the blouse and thanks for coming by.”

  After Barbie left, Iris turned the bolt lock and leaned against the door. “Lady, what do you want from me?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “She’s the yellow rose of Texas, da da da da da dada. She’s the…”

  Barbie set a vase of flowers on the rickety pressboard coffee table in her living room. She stood back and admired them.

  “…yellow rose of Texas, da da da da da dada.”

  She looked around the small apartment. “What a dump! That’s okay, Barbeh girl. Movin’ soon. Movin’ up.”

  She climbed the three steps that led to the bedroom area and turned left toward the closets. On one of the shelves she found a small, white cardboard box, took off the lid, and removed a square of cotton. She dipped her finger inside and crooked Art’s college ring over the first knuckle of her index finger. She held out her hand to admire it, then bent her finger up and down to test the ring’s weight. She put the ring back and poked a long, hot pink fingernail around the other pieces of jewelry. There were a pair of earrings, a brooch, and several rings, both men’s and women’s.

  She lifted her long blouse, reached into the waist of her tight stirrup pants, which seemed fuller than usual, and pulled out a gold and enamel brooch in the shape of an iris bloom. She held it in front of her by the stem, then held it up against the side of her chest to see how it would look. She set it in the box, placed the square of cotton inside, put on the lid, and returned the box to the closet shelf.

  She again raised her roomy blouse, reached her hands inside her stirrup pants, pulled out a folded square of cobalt blue cloth, and tossed it onto the bed. In her pants on the other side of her belly, she pulled out another cobalt blue bundle and shook it out. It was a suit jacket. She picked up the square from the bed and shook it out. It was the jacket’s matching skirt. She held the skirt’s waistband against herself. It barely covered half her girth. She pressed the fabric against her face and inhaled deeply, picking up a residue of Iris’s cologne. She walked to the closet and carefully hung the suit among her other clothes. She pulled out a hanger that held a man’s burgundy pullover, pressed the sweater against her face, and inhaled deeply before rehanging it.

  She walked out the open sliding glass door onto her terrace. The setting sun cast an orange glow on the water. Ripples broke the light into myriad slivers. Barbie happily listened to the Sunday sounds of boat engines, sails flapping in the breeze, Sunday sailors speaking nauticalese, bicycle wheels clicking, and people talking about nothing. The boats rocking in their slips implied opulence and spare time. Barbie threw her head back and took a deep breath, holding both arms out in a V.

  Her stomach rumbled loudly. She grabbed it. “Stick to your diet, girl. Just mind over matter.”

  She went inside, got a diet soda from the refrigerator, pulled a bar stool onto the terrace, climbed up, rested her back against the wall, hooked the heels of her sling-backs on the bar stool rungs, and happily lost herself in her thoughts. She sang a hymn in a low voice, “How great thou art…”

  The doorbell clanged its shallow ding-dong. Barbie looked at it. It clanged again. Still humming to herself, she crossed the small apartment’s living room and swung open the door without looking through the peephole.

  Her happy smile froze.

  Lorraine’s tired blue eyes traveled across Barbie’s face, and her lower lip worked up and down.

  Barbie blinked a few times. She unfroze her smile, stretched it into a broad grin, and raised her eyebrows. “Well, Rainey! I’m so surprised I could just choke a goat.” She held her arms open and Lorraine walked into them. Barbie reached one arm behind Lorraine and pushed the door closed.

  Lorraine was not dressed for the warm Southern California spring day. She was wearing a long-sleeved flannel shirt and had a rough wool sweater tied around her waist. Her denim jeans were loose around her thin waist, where they were held with a belt. She was tall, slender, blond, and pale. She wore no makeup. Her facial bones were prominent in her thin face. Her hair hung straight and lank to her shoulders.

  At Barbie’s touch, the tears that were brimming in Lorraine’s eyes spilled down her cheeks. “Oh, Charlotte.”

  Barbie recoiled slightly at the name.

  “I can’t believe I found you.”

  “You sure did, Rainey.”

  Lorraine leaned back to look at Barbie’s smiling face. “Aren’t you glad to see me?”

  “Darlin’! Doesn’t it look like I’m glad to see you?”

  Lorraine hugged her. “We’re together now.”

  “That’s right.” Barbie pulled her closer. She stared over her shoulder. “We’re together now.”

  Lorraine stood on the terrace and watched the sun’s last rays sparkle on the water. She breathed in the salty, fishy, green ocean smell. She was wearing a cotton T-shirt and shorts that Barbie had lent her. The belt from her jeans held Barbie’s ample shorts around her waist. She sipped the champagne that Barbie had poured for her from the bottle that Iris and Art had half emptied the previous night.

  Barbie walked out onto the terrace with a plate that held a sandwich and a few carrot sticks. “Here you go, honey. It’s the diet bread and it don’t have a lot of flavor, but the turkey meat’s good. You know me, always dieting.”

  “You look great.” Lorraine took the plate and sat on the bar stool that Barbie had left on the terrace. She looked up gratefully. “Thanks. I’m starved. I only stopped once the who
le way.”

  Barbie sipped her diet soda. “So, you just got in your car and drove the whole way from Salt Lake City? Just like that?”

  “I couldn’t sleep after you called me…this morning.” Lorraine looked at Barbie with amazement. “I can’t believe it was just this morning. I threw a few things in the car, got gas, and took off. It only took ten hours.”

  “How did you know where to come?”

  Lorraine smiled mischievously. She flipped one side of her hair out of her face and hooked it behind her ear. “Well, you said it was two hours earlier here, so you had to be on the West Coast. You said you were in the king’s marina. So I got out my map book, found Marina del Rey, and said, ‘This is it!’” Her broad smile lit up her pale features.

  “That’s a long way to come on a hunch, honey.”

  “You know how sometimes you just know something?” Lorraine set the plate on the terrace railing. It still held an almost complete half of the sandwich. “Then I just drove around all the apartment buildings near the water, looking for one that was woodsy with big picture windows and balconies. I saw this one and got out of the car and started walking around and I saw you sitting out here, up on the third floor.”

  “I’ll be damned.”

  “Then I rang doorbells on the third floor until I found yours.”

  Barbie shook her head. “Rainey, I never would have guessed you had it in you. Just goes to show, you think you know all about someone and, there you are.”

  Lorraine took a sip of champagne. She giggled. “This champagne’s going to my head. I’m not supposed to drink with my medication.”

  “Medication?”

  Lorraine’s amusement faded. “I guess a lot’s happened since you left.”

  “I thought you looked a little thin. What’s goin’ on?”

  Lorraine held her wrists up to the fading light. She turned them as if she were admiring bracelets. The slash marks had healed but the scar tissue was shiny, taut and bright red.

  Barbie placed her fingertips against her face. “Good Lord!”

  “After that, they put me on medication. I feel better now…most days, anyway.”

  Barbie picked up Lorraine’s almost empty glass and walked into the kitchen. “Let me get you some diet soda, honey. That sandwich is too dry to wash down with dry ol’ champagne.”

  She returned with a glass tumbler of ice and cola. She carried another glass that held amber-colored liquid and ice.

  “Thanks,” Lorraine said. “What’re you drinking?”

  “A li’l bourbon and water. A welcome drink to you.” She raised her glass toward Lorraine. “To your health, darlin’.” She took a long drink. “But sugar, why would you do such a thing?”

  Lorraine looked guardedly at the ground. She worked her face as if a response was difficult. “Well, it wasn’t the first time. I tried once before. About ten years ago.”

  “You never told me.”

  Lorraine fixed Barbie with her tired eyes. “There are things you never told me either, Charlotte.”

  Barbie gulped the rest of her drink.

  “Things were going great when we met, Charlotte. I had an apartment, a job at the insurance company, my dad bought me a car. I was dating. Things were going really well. I didn’t want to drag up all that old stuff. I wanted to put it behind me.”

  Barbie looked at the plate. “You didn’t finish your sandwich. No wonder you’re thin as a cat’s tail.”

  Lorraine’s eyes brimmed with tears. “My life hasn’t been going too well since you left me.”

  A man working on his sailboat, which was docked in a slip below Barbie’s balcony, looked up at the two women.

  “Darlin’,” Barbie picked up Lorraine’s plate. “Let’s go inside.”

  They sat on the brown plaid couch. “How’s your mother?” Barbie asked.

  “Fine.”

  “Daddy?”

  “Said he’d kill you if he ever found you.”

  “Nice talk.”

  “Well, you know my dad.”

  “Do your folks know where you are?”

  “No.”

  “But you’ll have to call them. You know how they’ll worry. But I guess you’ll see them tomorrow when you drive back home to go to work. That’s what you’re planning, isn’t it? Driving back home tomorrow?”

  Lorraine shook her head. “I don’t have to go back to work. I’ve been out on disability. Because of…” She glanced at her wrists.

  Barbie got up from the couch, walked to the center of the room, and turned to face Lorraine. She put her hands on her hips. “What do you mean you don’t have to go back?”

  Lorraine scooted forward onto the edge of the couch. “Charlotte, this was the best thing I ever did. It felt so good to get in that car and just leave. Leave all my problems. Leave everyone who’s hassling me. It made me feel powerful, like I was in charge. I figured that’s how you must have felt when you left. I was jealous of you for that. Now I’ve done it, and it wasn’t that hard. It really wasn’t that hard!”

  “But you have to go back. What about your parents and your apartment and all those things you were talking about? What about your kitty cat?”

  “Spooky got hit by a car.”

  “Honey, I’m sorry.”

  Lorraine laced her fingers in her lap and began twiddling her thumbs. “These past few months, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how things happen, how people come and go and how things change.” She rapidly rolled her thumbs around and around and stared ahead as she talked. “And sometimes things change too much and you can’t ever go back to your old life. You shouldn’t even try.”

  Lorraine stopped rolling her thumbs and began tapping the top of one thumb with the other, over and over. “These past few months I’ve been waiting for…something. A sign to guide me, to tell me what the next step was. Then you called and it was clear. You called and I knew.”

  Barbie suddenly ran toward the couch, shoved the wobbly coffee table out of the way, causing the vase of flowers to rock back and forth, and threw herself onto her knees. She pressed her hands over Lorraine’s hands, stopping her fidgeting, and looked into her eyes. “You know why I left you, sugar? You know the real reason I left? Because I’m not good enough for you. You deserve someone better than this beat-up old broad.” She laid her head in Lorraine’s lap.

  “I came home from work and you were gone. That was cold, Charlotte.”

  “I…I wanted to forget the past. I even changed my name when I came out here. I couldn’t stand being Charlotte Caldwell anymore.” Barbie raised her head and looked into Lorraine’s eyes. “I wanted to freeze our life together in time. Leave it just the way it was. Charlotte belonged to you. Charlotte will always be yours.”

  Lorraine slowly pulled her hand from underneath Barbie’s and moved it toward her head. She picked up a strand of Barbie’s black hair and drew it between her fingers.

  Barbie closed her eyes. “I always loved it when you did that.”

  Lorraine picked up another strand of hair and pulled it slowly out.

  Barbie let out a small sound of pleasure.

  Lorraine picked up another strand of hair, wrapped it around her index finger, and pulled.

  “Ouch!” Barbie scampered away from Lorraine on her hands and knees and put her hand to her head.

  Lorraine displayed her index finger with the lock of hair wrapped around it. She smiled malevolently. “Your leaving so fast couldn’t possibly have anything to do with that man who came looking for you, could it?”

  “What man?”

  Lorraine tapped her index finger with Barbie’s hair around it against her cheek. “Let me think.” She looked at the ceiling. “Just what was his name? Goins, that’s right. Jack Goins. He called you by a different name, but he definitely described you. Said he’d come to get the money that you promised to pay him when he’d stopped by the day before. He’d come all the way out from Atlanta. You told me the knock on the door was someone selling encyclopedias
.”

  Barbie rubbed the sore spot on her head. “He was a bad man, honey. I only left to protect you, to keep him from you.”

  Lorraine flicked the hair off her finger. “What kind of fool do you think I am?” She asked the question without emotion, as if she were asking the time. “No, I know what kind. A big fool.” She spoke in a quiet, staccato monotone. “I had my apartment, my car, my job, my cat and had just met a wonderful woman and I don’t know why I gave her up for you. I don’t know why I took something that was real between me and her and gave it up for”—she stretched her hands toward Barbie—“something that didn’t exist. A dream. You came into my life and filled up all the spaces. You were over all the time, calling me all the time, doing things for me, buying me gifts. I didn’t have time to think. I got to where I couldn’t imagine life without you. The shrink told me it’s like brainwashing. I thought it was the way true love was.”

  Barbie crawled over to Lorraine. “But honey, it was love.”

  Lorraine grabbed a gold charm on a chain around her neck and began pulling it back and forth. “I still believed you even when you stole from me. I wrote bad checks for you because you said you’d wired the money to my account. When I’d call the bank, they’d say the money was there but when the check hit, it wouldn’t be. So the bank would use my overdraft protection and take it from my savings account.” The charm made a whizzing noise against the chain. “When I wouldn’t write checks for you, you forged them. Then you stole my bank statements so I wouldn’t find out. The same thing with my credit cards. By the time you were done, my entire savings were gone. Thirty thousand dollars. Then you charged another five thousand on my credit cards.”

  Barbie got to her feet and rubbed her knees. She faced Lorraine with her legs apart and her hands on her hips. “Well, Lorraine. You got it right. That’s exactly what I did.”

  “I’m not done. You stole the diamond and sapphire ring my grandmother left me, didn’t you?”

  Barbie held up her hands. “You’ve caught me red-handed. But I tell you what, I’ll give you back the ring and I’ll pay you back double for everything I took. In cash.”