Smoke, Mirrors, and Murder

Manzy had no children together, she had a very pretty eighteen-year-old daughter from a former marriage. Dolores Mearns was a freshman at the University of Washington.
    The family lived in an apartment on the second floor of the antiques gallery. How long Raoul and Manzanita had been married, no one knew. Although she seemed to understand that her husband had to have a certain persona to attract clients to his business, she often grew weary of the many women who had decided that shopping there was the thing to do. Driving up in expensive cars and wearing the latest fashions featured at Nordstrom’s flagship store and at Frederick & Nelson, the society matrons flocked not only to ask Raoul about his merchandise but also to listen to stories of his adventures.
    Manzanita often got off the bus on Eastlake Avenue after a hard day at the bank, walked a few blocks to the shoreline in the omnipresent spring rain, only to find the first floor of her residence overflowing with what she considered “silly women.” Raoul kept odd hours in his shop—opening the doors at 6 P.M. For him, it was a social time, but his wife and stepdaughter would have preferred to have a family dinner and some quiet evenings.
    The sounds of women’s laughter floated up the stairs, and Manzanita heard her husband’s deep, rumbling voice pontificating on one subject or another. When she saw certain women returning night after night, Manzanita felt waves of jealousy. Raoul always explained that he meant nothing by flirting with potential customers and said he didn’t have the slightest sexual interest in any of the women, but Manzy wasn’t so sure.
    She had been with him long enough to know that he often exaggerated and enjoyed the attention he got from women. She had heard him exaggerate right up to the thin edge of an outright lie. More often than not, the truth wasn’t in him. When it suited Raoul, he could tell a lie as easily, perhaps more easily, than he told the truth.
    Manzanita had left her ex-husband four years before, so besotted with Raoul that she lived with him without marriage for two years until her cuckolded husband threw up his hands in defeat and gave her a divorce. Bill Mearns had allowed her to take Dolores with her but kept their two younger daughters with him. Manzanita had given up a lot for Raoul; she loved him and she would do whatever she had to do to keep him.
    Holding court in his shop, the big man, who stood almost six feet three inches tall, with broad shoulders and a barrel chest, was undeniably handsome and extremely masculine. Raoul Guy Rockwell often told his customers of his exotic past. In retrospect, how much of it was true is questionable.
    Raoul said that he was a native of Saint-Tropez, France, and spoke of being a third-generation antiques dealer. He told his eager listeners that he had come to America in 1940, when he was seventeen. Even then, his genius was so obvious that he was accepted as a freshman at the University of California almost immediately. Although he was native to France, Raoul explained, his natural talent for languages was responsible for his fluent English. Indeed, he had no trace of a French accent by the time he moved to Seattle.
    After he graduated from the University of California, Raoul said, he had spent a six-year tour of duty in the U.S. Army as a second lieutenant, engaging in battles on many fronts. This didn’t quite mesh with the dates he gave: World War II had ended shortly after he graduated, and the Korean War hadn’t yet begun. But it was technically possible for him to have participated in the last days of the Second World War.
    Where he really was between 1945 and 1958 remained shrouded in the mists of time and Raoul’s expansive imagination. Some who asked enough questions or who had a suspicious mind hinted that Raoul might have attributes that suggested he was a poseur and a flimflam man. But there was no question at all that he was brilliant, knowledgeable in his field, and a captivating storyteller. And he seemed harmless enough as he enjoyed his small kingdom on the shores of Lake Union in the center of Seattle.
    Those who bought his antiques believed they had scored extremely valuable treasures and took great pride in them. His long-suffering wife put up with his flirtations, and his stepdaughter spent most of her time on the University of Washington campus, already moving away from her life with her mother and Raoul, looking forward to being on her