Deception

"A bar."

"Which one?"

"Not here, Santa Barbara. Place called Ship Ahoy, off South State. I was there on work- Santa Barbara, not the bar. Elise was on vacation. She was all by herself and I was all by myself, we got to talking, we hit it off."

"What kind of work do you do?"

"I'm in between right now. Back then, I was a sales executive."

"What'd you sell?"

"Used to rep band equipment to schools, for G.O.S.-Gerhardt Orchestral Supply. They're headquartered in Akron, Ohio, I was their West Coast guy. The state budget for music classes got cut, my contracts started drying up. For a while, Santa Barbara was still good, it's a rich town. But then even they started holding on to their old instruments longer. I tried to switch to guitars and amps because they're hotter than trumpets and tubas. But the schools don't buy them and the mega-stores have that buttoned up. I tried to work for Guitar Center or Sam Ash, figured my experience would be a big deal. They use guys in their twenties, got eight million tattoos, pierces, heavy-metal hair extensions."

Touching his own bald head. "Before that, I used to sell truck tires, airspace for office buildings, exercise equipment, you name it."

"So when you met Elise you were on a business trip," said Milo. "How long ago are we talking about?"

"Two years, give or take."

"You two ever move in together?"

"No reason to," said Fidella. "I was traveling a lot and Elise liked her own space. Plus she enjoyed going off on her own-girlie vacations, you know? That's what she was doing in Santa Barbara. Some spa, they had a special. Elise was good at finding bargains. We didn't get possessive, you get what I'm saying?"

"Everyone had their own life."

"When we were both in the mood, we enjoyed each other's company."

Milo said, "Like that time in Reno."

"Huh?"

"There was a picture in Elise's house, you and her having a great time."

"Oh, that," said Fidella. "Jackpot day, yeah that was a fantastic day, how often does that happen?"

"Never to me."

"Me, I've had some nice experiences but not like that. Elise and me were getting eaten alive at the blackjack table, left for the buffet and walked past a dollar slot. Just for the hell of it, I tossed in a token and boom, bells start ringing, lights start blinking. Five thousand bucks. I split it with Elise, told her she was my lucky charm."

"You both like to gamble?"

"We like our games, no harm in that if you keep it under control, right?"

"Elise keep it under control?"

"Absolutely."

"Unlike her drinking."

"Yeah, vodka was a problem for her," said Fidella. "Sometimes."

"Sometimes?"

"What I'm saying is she wasn't one of those drunks, sucks it back every day. But give her a long afternoon, she's not working, she could put away a bottle of Grey Goose. Doing it slowly, you know? You wouldn't even notice unless you were with her the entire time."

"How often did she do that?"

"It wasn't binging," said Fidella. "She could control whether or not she drank. But if she felt like being a fish, she had the capacity."

"Same question?"

"Huh?"

"How often did she polish off a bottle?"

"I du

"She paced herself."

"What would happen was, she'd have spare time. Or one of those moody times. I'd say something i

"Silent treatment," I said.

"Silenter than…" Fidella let out an odd laugh-girlish, squeaky-slapped his own mouth.

Milo said, "Something fu

"Something stupid, guys. As in me. I was go

We didn't reply.

Fidella picked up his glass, finished the tequila. "Sure you don't want nothing?"

"We're fine."

"I'm sure as hell not." He got up, poured more Patron. "Guess I'm still in that denial stage. Like when my mother passed. I kept expecting to hear her voice, it went on for weeks. Last night, I dreamed about Elise, saw her walking through the door, like the whole ice thing was a stupid joke. What was the point of that? The ice?"

"That's what we're trying to find out, Sal."

"Well, I say it's weird. Elise didn't even like ice in her vodka. I don't want you to think she was some drunk, there was plenty of times, like out to di

"She'd pick the time and place to finish a bottle."

"The place was always her house."

"What about the time?"

"When she worked she needed to be sharp. Who's go

"What subjects did she teach?"

"English. She substituted at that place, anytime a regular English teacher was out, she was on call. Like a doctor."

"Did she teach anywhere other than Windsor Prep?"

"Not since I knew her. She said they made her an offer she couldn't refuse."

"Do you know the details?"

"Something like thirty grand just to be on call, then thirty bucks for every hour over ten per week that she actually worked. She was putting away decent dough. Also, she did tutoring at night, for that she got eighty, ninety an hour, more if she sniffed out the family was filthy rich."

"How much tutoring did she do?"

"To be honest, I couldn't tell you. But she was busy, plenty of times I called to go out and got her machine. The pressure worked for her."

"The pressure?"

"On the kids. She didn't tutor just dumb kids, she had smart ones, too, parents pushing on them. She told me sometimes a kid would come in with an A-minus, parents wouldn't let up till the minus went away."

"These are students from Windsor Prep we're talking about."

"Yeah," said Fidella. "She did SAT tutoring. And that other test, I forget the name."

I said, "The ACT."

"That's the one. She said all those tests were stupid and meaningless but God bless whoever invented them because rich people were so insecure they needed their kids to be perfect, she could charge 'em big bucks for something they could do themselves."

"What was her training?"

"What do you mean?"

"To tutor SATs."

"She went to college."

"Where?"

"Somewhere in the East, I don't know. The thing about Elise, she didn't like to talk about herself." He spread his palms. "I'm the kind of guy, you want to know something about me, ask. Elise was just the opposite. 'We're not going there, Sal.' She said that a lot. 'We're not going there.' But I stuck with her, she was good-looking, could be a ton of fun."

Milo said, "The times she got moody and nursed the bottle, did things ever get unpleasant?"

"What do you mean?"

"She ever get aggressive?"

"Elise? You kidding? She was a pussycat. Like I said, she'd just go into her room."

"And you left."

"No point staying."

"Did things ever get argumentative?"

"How can you argue with someone who won't talk?"

"That musta been frustrating, Sal."

"I figured it out soon enough."

"Any idea what happened to Elise's computer?"

"Huh?"

"Her computer's gone."

"Really."

"You didn't notice?"

"I was looking for Elise, not some computer."

"What kind of computer was it?"

"I du

"Laptop or desktop?"

"Laptop-a Dell, I think."

"When's the last time you saw it?"

Fidella's mouth screwed up. "Hell if I know. You're saying the killer took it? Makes sense if it was those bastards from the school."

"Why's that?"

"Maybe Elise learned something weird about some rich family, put it on her computer. That makes sense, right?"