Dead In The Water (Rebecca Schwartz Mystery #4) (The Rebecca Schwartz Series)

it to Ricky. She forget sometime.” She frowned and tapped her forehead.
    “You were here Friday?”
    “Tha’s when all that happen. She get a phone call from somebody asking about the pearl.”
    “She did? Did you answer the phone?”
    “No, but Katy tell me about it. First, she send me to see if the pearl was missing. I go look and say it is. Then she get off the phone and she say, ‘Yolie, the pearl couldn’t have been stolen, could it?’ I say, no, I bet you give it to Ricky. She say, ‘I
knew
it couldn’t have been,’ and snaps her fingers like she remember she did give it to Ricky.”
    “Did she say who the caller was?”
    “No. I don’ think it was Ricky, though. If she give him the pearl, he wouldn’t tell her it was stolen, would he?”
    “Is that what the caller said?”
    “Tha’s what I think he said.”
    “He? Was it a man?”
    “Lemme see.” She closed her eyes and thought for a few minutes. “I don’t know. Katy didn’t say, one way or the other.”
    “I wonder. Did you know Sadie Swedlow? Could it have been her?”
    At the mention of her name, Yolanda teared up again. “Oh, Sadie! Sadie die, too, the minute I leave town. They both die.”
    It was no good reminding her that she’d been out of town every weekend of her life and they hadn’t died then. I asked again, “Could she have been the caller?”
    Yolanda shrugged, her large shoulders heaving, the gesture meant to work off some of her hurt as much as anything else, I thought. “I guess so,” she said.
    “What time did the call come in?”
    “Late afternoon. Four, five, six. I don’ know. Seven, maybe. Night looks like afternoon this time of year.”
    “But you must know. You left Friday night. Was it just before you left or earlier?”
    “I lef’ Saturday morning. The las’ time I saw Katy was Saturday morning.” Her voice was so thick with held-back tears I didn’t have the heart to go on.
    The fog came in as I drove back to Monterey, lowering the temperature, dampening the air. I usually enjoy fog, find it exhilarating rather than ominous. But I got an eerie feeling on that drive, as if things had suddenly slipped very much out of kilter. I found myself driving erratically.
    My heart was beating fast and, despite the cold, I was sweating; my mind kept slipping in and out of gear. The car, not surprisingly, nearly slipped off the road. I skidded and braked and finally brought it back under control, but in a much-sobered condition—either the brakes were going or I really shouldn’t be driving right now. I slowed down as much as I dared and, rolling into the Pelican Inn at almost a crawl, couldn’t be sure whether the brakes or I was the problem. Probably I was. I was shaking.
    I peeled off my clothes and stood in the shower for twenty minutes or more, rivulets running off my hair and into my face, trying to figure out what was wrong with me, why I had so much invested, why I should care so much, and whether I was simply being silly.
    In the end, I called Julio and said I was very sorry, I couldn’t make it, I had an emergency. I called a cab—I didn’t trust myself in the damn rented car again—and pulled on jeans and a red turtleneck while I waited for it.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
     
    Libby answered the door, but she was so engrossed in some TV show she barely gave me a cursory hug. Familiarity, I surmised, was breeding the usual thing.
    From upstairs, Marty hollered, “Rebecca? Come up a minute.”
    She was getting ready to go out.
    “Date night again?” It’s possible there was the slightest irritated edge to my voice. Marty as sweetheart of the rodeo was getting to me.
    “Committee meeting,” she said, seeming not to notice. I sat on her bed as she tried on a belt, discarded it, tried on another. Perhaps she had a date after the committee meeting. Or maybe Jim Lambert was on the committee, whatever it was. I didn’t care; in fact, I had a feeling the less I knew about her personal life, the better.
    “Is Keil babysitting?”
    “No, he’s over at a friend’s. I’m taking Libby to her dad’s before I go.” She turned away from the mirror and stared at me. “Listen, I’m running late and I have to stop by the aquarium on the way. You couldn’t run her over there, could you?”
    “Sorry. I came in a taxi.”
    “Oh. Just to visit?”
    “No. I need to know something. I just talked to Katy Montebello’s maid. She said you called Katy on Friday. In fact, she told me a very interesting