Ultraviolet. Nancy Bush
the first place. “I’ve been waiting for Wu to return.”
Dr. Daniel Wu was the head plastic surgeon of a group of four clinics previously owned by Roland Hatchmere, who had once been a very well known plastic surgeon himself until his personal cocaine use got in the way. With his license revoked Roland turned his talents to business, capitalizing on his still valuable reputation and garnering patients to his clinics in droves. Dr. Wu had become his business partner, though Roland held on to the lion’s share of the business until it was sold earlier this year to the consortium.
“Wu’s the one to talk to,” Dwayne agreed.
“It just means I’m stalled,” I said.
“Things’ll break.”
Like that advice was going to help me. I wanted to shout, “When? How? Would you stop looking through those damn binoculars?” Instead I just finished my meal. Dwayne was nice enough to thank me and even pay for the food. I tried to demur, but he smiled faintly and ignored me, so I pocketed the bills. I’m pretty sure I should be embarrassed by my cheapness, but I can’t stop considering it an attribute. Thriftiness is a good thing, right?
I watched him pick up the Review and start reading.
Feeling frustrated, I complained, “Wu’s not the only issue. I’m having trouble getting the Hatchmere clan to talk to me. I’ve left messages. I even dropped by Roland’s house once, but I got the door slammed in my face.”
“Who slammed it on you?”
“The daughter. Gigi Hatchmere. Or, wait…Popparockskill…”
“It’s still Hatchmere. Ceremony never came off when Roland didn’t show.” He shook the paper and opened to another page as he headed back outside.
“Have you got any bright ideas on what I should do next?” I called, but Dwayne was outside and either he couldn’t hear me or he didn’t care.
Annoyed, I pulled up my file on Violet and wirelessly sent its meager contents to the printer as I slid another look Dwayne’s way.
He’d put down the paper and was standing in the strange darkness created by the storm, staring up at the sky. I followed his gaze and saw a crack between clouds where sunlight spilled through, looking like a sheer, glowing curtain of white and yellow, the kind of odd illumination that, as Dwayne moved in front of it, surrounded him with a brilliant aura.
“Saint Dwayne,” I muttered.
“What?” he hollered.
Oh yeah, sure. Now he hears me? “Nothing.”
I headed to the printer, which is currently set up in Dwayne’s spare bedroom, and looked at the pages. It was disheartening how little progress I’d made. Nobody, but nobody, wanted to talk to anyone associated with Violet. I’d placed a few calls and gotten a few polite no’s and a few more “you’ve got to be kiddings.” One guy, some Hatchmere family friend known as Big Jim, just laughed like a hyena and hung up on me.
Gathering up the two pages of potential interviewees, I sensed a nub of anxiety tightening in the pit of my stomach. For all his inattention, Dwayne wasn’t going to wait forever. He would expect some hard answers. But Violet was anathema. And no one wanted to talk to a friend of Violet’s—friend being a stretch of the truth of our relationship—but I suspected Dwayne wasn’t going to see it that way.
“Come on out here, Jane,” Dwayne called, apparently sensing I’d returned to the living room as his eyes were once again glued to his binoculars.
He was back on the lounge, though I suspected there might be some moisture soaking into the seat of his jeans. The outdoor furniture and dock were still wet from the hail blast.
Squeezing back outside, I felt a frigid huff of wind whip beneath my black suede vest, press my shirt to my skin and generally bring me to goose bumps. Dwayne’s cowboy hat, never far from his side, was now scrunched on his head. His long, light blue denim-clad left leg, and casted right one, stretched toward the small, slatted-wood table we’d knocked over on our scramble to get back inside. I righted the table and put it beside his chair. Apart from his shirt, there was no protection against the elements, but it didn’t look like he cared much.
My eyes followed the line of his legs and I felt a twist of sexual interest. I gritted my teeth. And him being a semi-invalid. What did that say about me?
“Take a look here,” he said, handing me the binoculars. “Straight over there is Rebel Yell….” He pointed at a white two-story house across the bay and a little to our left. I looked through the lenses. “Parents, two teenage girls, lots of drama.”
“You’ve named another one?”
“Named ’em all. It’s next to Tab A and Slot B, just to the west side.”
I gazed at Tab A and Slot B, where all fall the man and woman had been cavorting into every sexual position known to humankind, and tried to keep my mind off Dwayne. He and I had done a bit of that mating dance not so long ago, nothing too serious, and then Violet had entered our world. Sometimes, late at night, when my mind whirls on a repetitive track, I remember those moments with uncomfortable inner jolts that seem to hit my heart and parts down south as well. “We’ve watched them before,” I said neutrally.
“Mm,” he agreed. “Tab A’ll be home in a couple hours. Lately they’ve been turning on their outdoor fire pit and then heading just inside the slider door and getting to work. Lovemaking by the fire. Guess it’s what you do when you don’t have an indoor fireplace.”
“Can’t wait for that.”
“Next to Rebel Yell is Plastic Pet Cemetery, where old lawn ornaments go to die.”
“The Pilarmos. With the dog.”
Dwayne nodded. “Thing howls and looks like a wolf.”
I centered my binoculars on the Pilarmos’ tired, dark blue bungalow. Kinda looked like my cottage, only worse, if that was possible. Probably worth a small fortune. I could make out gnomes and plastic pink flamingos and faux cement birdbaths decorating a large portion of the backyard. A grayish wolf-dog cruised around the corner and disappeared from view.
“Then there’s Do Not Enter.”
I moved my glasses to aim toward a shell of a house where the beams and a skin of plywood constituted the walls. The roof was covered with plywood, and half the composition shingles had been nailed on. “Why is it Do Not Enter?”
“It’s where the high school kids party. They try to keep their flashlights dimmed, but every Friday night, some Saturdays, there’s something going on. And that last house before the road curves toward North Shore is Social Security. He’s deaf and she’s bedridden and neither of ’em is too worried about Do Not Enter.”
Hearing he’d named more houses worried me anew. I had to remind myself that this, too, would pass. It was a harmless pursuit on Dwayne’s part. Something to entertain him while he recovered. If it smacked a little too much of Jimmy Stewart’s character in Rear Window, well, it wasn’t like he was going to ask me to solve a murder over there.
I handed him back the binoculars, murmured something about getting back to my job, then squeezed inside the cabana and headed to my laptop. My job—the job I was getting paid for—was to prove Violet Purcell’s innocence. Besides the fact that no one will talk to me, the bigger problem is I kinda think Violet might be guilty. She’s sensed this and has yelled, “Things aren’t always what they seem, Jane!” more times than I like to recall. And actually, I think that’s a crock anyway. Most of the time things are exactly what they seem. We just can’t accept them as they are. We want to make them better, or different, or meaningful.
But…I must remember, innocent until proven guilty. It’s difficult with Violet. She’s late forties, appears and acts over a decade younger, possesses more good looks than good sense, and has a family who took the “health” out of “mental health” in a big way. I would like