Marie looked at the rose arrangement, head tilted. ‘There’s hope for you yet.’
Steelie hoisted herself on the counter to watch Marie make salad dressing. Her gaze traveled over the room and came to rest, as usual, on the large framed watercolor that dominated the far wall, a bookcase on either side, each jammed with cookbooks sprouting bits of note paper, their colourful spines a contrast to the ephemeral quality of the watercolor. It was a portrait of Marie and Jayne when she was four years old, painted by her father, Elliott.
‘Tell me about the painting again.’
Marie looked up. ‘Again? But you know the story.’
‘Again!’
She shrugged elegantly. ‘We were in our back garden in Caracas. Nothing like this.’ She glanced out the kitchen windows. ‘Much smaller but wonderful soil. I was planting seeds I’d been experimenting with. Jayne had watched me harvest them and then decided to help me plant. I taught her how to hold the trowel and she was very good. No seeds too deep, nothing tamped down too hard.’ She smiled at the memory. ‘The plants began to grow. Everything was fine. Then one day, I went to check on their progress and discovered that she had excavated their roots. Not dug them up; no, no. She just wanted to see what was going on underground so she had simply exposed them, poor things. It was quite clinical. They never recovered.’
Steelie smiled. ‘Just think, you were the one who taught her to use a trowel. Little did you know.’
‘That’s what Elliott says.’ Marie turned back to the salad and began tossing in the dressing. ‘Little did we know our girl was going to grow up to be a forensic anthropologist. We’d never heard of such a thing.’
Steelie jumped down and came over to rescue a piece of cucumber that had fallen from the salad bowl on to the counter. She popped it into her mouth and crunched. ‘How is Mr Hall? It’s been, what, a couple of months since he was here last?’
‘Oh, he’s fast approaching emeritus level and there’s only so long the university will allow an old painter to hang on. So he’s asking himself if he can stop being an expatriate and come back to the States. It’s difficult, as being an expatriate rather suits Elliott. Has done since nineteen sixty-seven.’
‘You wouldn’t go back to Venezuela?’
‘My home is here. I am a true emigrante.’ She handed the salad bowl to Steelie and directed her toward the front porch. ‘Besides, how would the listeners of Weekends with Prentis manage without me?’
‘As your lawyer,’ Steelie called back, ‘I’d have to advise you to take the title with you at the very least.’
Marie joined her on the porch and put the roses on the table. ‘Now, do you think Jayne will be here soon or shall we begin without her?’
Steelie glanced at her watch. ‘I’m actually surprised she’s not back yet. Did you see her this morning?’
‘No, but she’d left a note in the kitchen that she was going to Carol’s.’
‘Yeah.’ Steelie pulled out her cell phone and dialled Jayne’s number. ‘Either her phone’s off or she’s out of range.’ She started to dial Carol’s home number and said to Marie, ‘Let’s go ahead; I’m sure she’ll be here soon.’
Jayne walked out to the back porch to find Steelie and Marie at the table with the remains of lunch. Half the quiche was just crumbs and the salad looked picked over. She sat down at the place setting that had been left for her and reached for the salad.
‘How’d she take it?’ Steelie’s tone was eager.
‘You know Carol – with equanimity. I tell her my apartment’s been bugged and we need her to call some TSCMs—’
‘TSCMs?’ Marie cut in.
Jayne spoke while examining the salad. ‘Technical Surveillance Counter-Measures. I can tell Steelie’s been here because there’s no avocado left and yet I can see smears of avocado stuck in the crenulations of the lettuce.’
‘They do say it’s trace evidence that gets you every time.’ Steelie didn’t sound remorseful.
Marie ignored their asides. ‘Couldn’t you have just called Carol?’
Steelie answered because Jayne had too much salad in her mouth. ‘Well, Eric said that it wasn’t always recommended to do what they did at Jayne’s apartment last night; I mean, to dismantle the bug. In a business setting, it’s sometimes recommended to leave it in, plant disinformation in it, and then see where that comes out to find the source of the spying. So in case this is all to do with the Agency and not just someone spying on Jayne, we’re not using any phones to discuss this or make the appointments with the TSCMs. If there are wiretaps at the office, we don’t want whoever planted them to take them away before a professional finds them.’
‘It all sounds rather sinister. I can see why you converged on me for the weekend.’ She stood. ‘And you’re welcome to stay for longer.’ She went inside.
Jayne looked after her, then cut a generous slice of quiche for herself. She regarded Steelie. ‘You’re having fun, aren’t you?’
Steelie threw her arms wide. ‘Why wouldn’t I? Great company, a comfy room, delicious food. My mom’s idea of lunch is tuna and potato chips on white. Followed by Jell-O on a bed of Cool Whip. And if you ask her what flavour the Jell-O is—’
‘I know; red.’
‘Yeah. I mean, that’s not a flavor!’
‘She’s just speaking a different language.’
‘How come I never hear you say that about your mom when she’s talking to you about, oh, your choice in clothing?’
‘That’s not just another language. It’s another planet.’
‘She loves you.’
‘You know she wishes I was a bit more . . . vah-voom.’
‘You’re wrong about that.’
Jayne polished off the last of her quiche and looked at Steelie. ‘This is why I don’t like leaving you two alone together. What part of my life was discussed?’
Marie arrived holding a tray with a cake on a stand and a coffee pot. ‘Your childhood, darling. And I don’t need to seek permission to do that seeing as I was there for it, too.’
She began cutting the cake, which was iced white with a coating of coconut shavings. She put a slice in front of Jayne.
‘What’s that?’ Jayne was poking at a dark line between the two layers of yellow sponge. ‘Looks like blood.’
‘Raspberry jam, as you well know.’
Steelie sniffed her own slice appreciatively.
‘Now, this particular cake,’ Marie said, ‘is ideal for a garden party. Say, when you want to introduce a special someone to your parents.’
‘But you already know Steelie.’ Jayne almost kept a straight face.
‘Layered, this cake could even work for a garden wedding,’ Marie continued.
‘Good God,’ Jayne muttered.
Steelie chimed in, ‘You’ll have to ask Scott if he minds your maid of honor wearing pants on the big day.’
Jayne glared at her. ‘Traitor.’
By Sunday morning, Scott and Eric had traded the Suburban for a surveillance vehicle. Scott turned on to Prickly Pear Close and saw the gold van parked three-quarters of the way down on the right. The street itself barely lived up to its name. A single prickly pear did exist against all odds at the corner where the street came off the main road in a T-junction but the cactus did more to catch tumbleweed than it did to establish the suburban vista envisioned by fast-talking developers in the 1980s.
Most of the houses on the street had given up all pretense of a garden, even a desert garden, as front yards had been turned into off-street parking for extended family who had moved in during economic hard times. Five of the thirteen houses on the dead-end street had some sort of camper parked in their driveways, chocked up on bricks, curtains closed against the heat. People were living in them full-time. So Scott and Eric knew it wouldn’t surprise anyone to see one more RV arrive on the street, nor would it be unusual if its sunshades permanently obscured all of its windows from the searing Arizona sun.