“I’m Chandler Harris. Miss Dunning is my fiancée.”
“Okay,” Lieutenant Julio said, almost as if he was giving Chandler permission to marry me. He looked at my duffel bag. “Are you planning on a trip?”
“Yes, we are,” Chandler said. “A couple of days in Palm Springs. What’s this about? Why have you come here?” he demanded in a sterner tone. “She was just his nurse. He had . . . what?” he asked me.
“A bypass.”
“Right. So why are you interested in Miss Dunning?”
How easily Chandler could slip into his attorney persona, I thought, as easily as I could slip into my nurse identity. We were two chameleons.
I realized I was smiling, and it was not a good moment to be doing so. Lieutenant Julio stepped toward me.
“We’re going to have to ask Miss Dunning to come to the station. We’ll need fingerprints and a DNA sample,” he said.
“What? Why?” Chandler demanded.
“It’s best you get dressed and come with us, Miss Dunning,” Lieutenant Julio said, addressing me only.
“You’ll need a warrant for that,” Chandler said. “I’m an attorney with Taylor, Barnes, and Cutler.”
“So you’ll be Miss Dunning’s attorney?”
“Absolutely. Why are you treating her as a suspect? We told you she was his nurse, but did you know she saved his life?”
“How did she do that?” Detective Gabriel asked. Until then, she had appeared to be observing and learning.
“Stopped him from getting what might have been a lethal medicine. You can check on that,” Chandler told her.
“The dosage probably wouldn’t have killed him, Chandler,” I said softly. “It wouldn’t have helped, but—”
“Nevertheless, the man was so grateful that he presented her with a gift of very expensive pearls,” Chandler told Lieutenant Julio.
He looked at me and then at Chandler before he took out a folded paper from his inside jacket pocket. He handed it to Chandler, who read it quickly and then turned to me, holding his attorney face. My fiancé is fading away, I vaguely thought.
“They have a warrant,” he said. “It also permits them to search your apartment.” He spun so sharply on Lieutenant Julio that the man took a step back. “How was Douglas Thomas murdered? Why is Miss Dunning a suspect?”
“Person of interest,” Detective Gabriel corrected.
“I think it’s best for us to continue this at the station, Mr. Harris. Miss Dunning, will you get dressed, please? Detective Gabriel will go with you.”
“Why do I need her while I’m getting dressed?” I asked.
“To be sure you don’t hide anything,” Chandler answered for Lieutenant Julio.
He nodded.
I started to return to the bedroom.
“Pru,” Chandler called. I turned back. “No more answers to any questions without me present.”
I nodded and continued. I didn’t like the idea of another woman coming into my bedroom with the bed the way Chandler and I had left it. My intimacy was being invaded. Detective Gabriel’s eyes went everywhere but settled quickly on the creased silk sheets and blanket bunched at the foot of the bed. Chandler told me not to answer questions, but he didn’t say anything about not asking them.
“Are you married?” I asked as I opened my closet. I reached for a mocha-colored glitter lace jacket and then paused because I thought it was a bit too I don’t care. I took out a more elegant three-piece rhubarb-colored outfit that gave me more of an executive look.
“I’m not the center of attention here,” she replied. She stood there with her arms folded under her small bosom. She wore a light blue shirt under a gray jacket. Her knee-length skirt revealed her chubby calves. She was wearing a pair of black-laced Skechers with gray socks.
I glanced at her, started to smile, and stopped to put on my nurse’s face.
“Are you having some thyroid issues?” I asked.
“No,” she said.
I shrugged. “I suppose you have frequent physicals in your line of work.”
“Just get dressed, please, and don’t concern yourself with me. There’s a lot ahead.”
All my moves were deliberately exaggerated and slow. I took an inordinate amount of time choosing my panties and bra. Every time I looked at her, I saw she was a little nervous.
“I’ll bet you haven’t been a detective that long,” I said.
“Long enough.”
I smiled, one of those sickeningly sweet ones, put on my clothes, and then spent time choosing a pair of shoes. I finally settled on a pair of dark blue shoe boots. When we emerged from the bedroom, I saw that Chandler had put on his socks as well as his shoes, tie, and jacket. He had just finished speaking to someone on his mobile.
“You’ll have to ride with them,” he said. “Ben and I will follow. You’re not to say anything until I’m there, too, and we find out what this is all about.”
I nodded. The phone rang. I looked at Chandler. He was obviously wondering if it was Scarletta.
“It’s our forensic team,” Lieutenant Julio said, and picked up the receiver. “What’s the number for the front door?”
“Nine,” I said.
Chandler took out his mobile again. “I want my man here,” he told Lieutenant Julio. “Police have been known to plant evidence.”
“As long as he doesn’t get in the way,” he replied. If he was insulted, he didn’t show it. Experience gave you the skin of a reptile, I thought.
“Change of plan,” Chandler told Ben Mallory when Mallory answered. “You’re up here to observe while the apartment is searched for I don’t know what.”
He returned his phone to his inside pocket and then asked Lieutenant Julio for the address of the station. Before we left, two men from forensics entered, and Chandler’s private eye, Ben Mallory, followed on their heels. He and I had yet to be introduced, but Chandler didn’t make any effort to do that. Mallory looked at me and almost smiled. He was a stout, six-foot-four-inch-tall man with curly dark brown hair and an unshaven face. Wearing a black trench coat, he looked more like the traditional image of a detective than Lieutenant Julio did.
Chandler whispered something to him. They watched as Lieutenant Julio and Detective Gabriel led me out. Chandler was right behind us.
“I’d rather take the stairs,” I said when they approached the elevator.
Lieutenant Julio nodded, and all of us descended. When we stepped outside, Detective Gabriel put her hand firmly on my right arm and directed me to their black Lincoln. She opened the rear door. I glanced back at Chandler.
“I’m right behind you, Pru,” he said. He looked sick with concern. It wasn’t until that moment that I thought about our two-day holiday. At the moment, that seemed to me to be the biggest threat, not being able to go.
Was I being too frivolous?
“One moment,” I said, turning back. Chandler paused. I stepped up to him to whisper, “You know she’s done something to involve me in this.”
He shook his head. “Why would I know that?” His face brightened with soft anger. “What haven’t you told me?”
“A lot,” I said, and returned to the detectives’ car.
As we pulled away, I felt myself begin to tremble. The earthquake began in my heart and rippled through my bones.
You should have killed her the night she was out here, I told myself.
And then I leaned forward to look out the side window, searching to see if she had been watching all of this and was now smiling as we passed pedestrians.
She was there. Surely she was.
Gloating.
Scarletta
I SLOWLY FOLLOWED my father down the stairs. Obviously, he’d had quite a bit to drink at his dinner meeting. He swayed with every step and realized he had better cling to the banister, but I didn’t rush forward to help him. Alcohol had clouded his eyes. I wondered if the subject of my mother’s leaving us had come up with his business associates. If they had sympathized wi
th him, it would only have made him drink more.
At the bottom of the stairway, he hesitated, and then, without looking back, he went to the bar and poured himself what looked like nearly half a glass of bourbon. When he looked up and saw I had followed him, he stared a moment, took a long sip, and then came around the bar and sat precariously on a stool. I was still standing in the living-room doorway. There was something about the look in his eyes that kept me from drawing too close.
Behind me, my scream was still resonating. My bones continued to tremble with the reverberation. I had never yelled at my father that way. The shock on his face would linger for a long time on the doorway of my nightmares to come. Very quickly, however, his expression had changed from alarm to anger, his lips white; but when he had turned to leave me, he moved more like someone in fear than in rage or disgust. He looked like he was fleeing.
I told myself that all the whiskey and wine he had drunk was mainly responsible for his mixture of emotions swirling so quickly on his lips and in his eyes. What else would explain such a change in his usual calm, quiet manner? Normally, he would be comforting me, not trying to get away.
As we continued to stare at each other, my father wiped his mouth with his jacket sleeve, nothing I had ever seen him do. If he ever had done it in front of my mother, she would surely have howled like a wounded beast. He was always fastidious about his clothes and his habits, knowing how important that was to her. I remembered her bawling him out for spitting in our backyard once. He was raking up some leaves, and the dust probably had gotten into his mouth. He never anticipated her watching him through a window. She was like that with both of us, never missing a mistake. But I always had the sense that she was doing it to keep us from being, as she often accused others of being, common.
After a few more moments, Daddy closed and opened his eyes, nodding and looking more composed. Nevertheless, I could sense the rage still rumbling within him. His eyes were steady and his shoulders relaxed, but his fingers were so tight around his glass of bourbon that I could see his whitened knuckles straining against his skin. I anticipated the glass shattering in his hand. He was like a stranger. Cold fear washed over me. My blood felt like it was pooling at my feet.
“I know what you’re doing, Scarletta,” he said in a coarse, loud whisper. “I understand, but you’ve got to stop it.”
I shook my head slowly, hoping he would see my innocence, see that there was nothing sly or deceitful in me. “What am I doing?”
“Denying reality doesn’t help us,” he declared. He took another sip of his bourbon and looked around as if just realizing where he was. “We have to face the truth head-on, bravely and together. Have you forgotten everything we promised each other at the restaurant? I was so proud of you, proud of your courage.”
“Daddy—”
“NO!” he screamed.
Everything in the room seemed to tremble. I tried to swallow but couldn’t. I couldn’t move a muscle.
“No illusion, Scarletta. No more pretending. Bravely and maturely, you look people in the eye and say, ‘Yes, my mother is gone, but we’re fine. We’re fine.’ Do you hear me, Scarletta? Do you?”
I simply stared, almost afraid to breathe. He looked like he would leap off the stool and seize me to shake out of me what he didn’t want me to think. He relaxed, took a deep breath, his shoulders rising and falling, and then gazed around the room again.
“We should think of changing things, I suppose. It will help us both face the truth. I’ll start replacing this furniture. I have some newly designed modern pieces and more attractive colors. I don’t think either of us particularly liked her taste, but we were both afraid to utter a word. Now it doesn’t matter. It will never matter again.”
“Stop talking about her as if she’s gone for good,” I said, gathering my courage. “You even said she might call one day and beg to return. I know you’re very angry, but you would take her back, wouldn’t you? You loved her too much. Right, Daddy?”
Without answering, he finished his bourbon in one gulp and slammed the glass so hard on the bar’s granite top I was sure it would shatter. Then he leered at me. He looked distorted, with his right shoulder turned in and his back rising, like a hawk about to pounce.
I heard myself gasp. Daddy was so good-looking. How could he metamorphose into what looked more like a creature so quickly? His face was redder than before, and his eyes were ready to pop. His handsome, manly mouth was twisted, and the veins in his temples looked embossed. Any other girl would think she was gazing at a man who hated the air she breathed.
“What’ja do with her good-bye note, Scarletta?” he asked with a cold smile. “Huh?”
“I didn’t do anything with it,” I whined, now speaking through an onslaught of cold, stinging tears. “Don’t you see? If you didn’t come home and find it, then she—”
“Stop it!” he screamed, clapping his hands so sharply I winced. He sat up straighter. “Stop,” he continued in a much calmer tone. “Don’t you see? You’re making this worse than it has to be.”
“I’m not. Really, Daddy.”
He smiled, but it was a stony, hateful look. “You’re just like her right now, stubborn, stubborn, stubborn. I don’t think I changed that woman’s mind about anything in all the years we were together. She wouldn’t grant me this much,” he said, holding up his right hand and pinching his thumb against his forefinger.
I was speechless but still crying silently.
His angry face suddenly softened into a warmer, more recognizable Daddy smile. “But I loved her no matter what. You saw that, Scarletta, right? You saw it every day, saw that I would do anything and everything for her, didn’t you? Didn’t you?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
He nodded, and then his smile flew off his lips like a frightened bird. For a moment, he simply stared at me, his eyes blinking slowly, like someone fighting to keep awake. I was thinking I should stop talking and simply leave him alone. That was the best solution. He’d fall asleep soon. It was better to bring this weird conversation to an end.
But then his eyes opened fully, and he was nodding as if he was hearing someone whispering in his ear to tell him something. He was agreeing, agreeing with his own thoughts, and looking like someone who had another person inside him.
“Yes, yes, exactly,” he said.
“What?”
“Do you know what other men called me behind my back? Huh, Scarletta? Did you know? Have you heard people talking about me?”
“No, Daddy. I don’t know what you mean.”
“They called me henpecked. Some even went so far as to say your mother wore the pants in our family. How’dja like that if you were me, huh? A man who has built all this, who employs so many people, henpecked, weak? Huh? But did I stop loving her because of it? No. And now what? She’s made a bigger fool of me. And you, too! And you’re not helping any by refusing to face up to it. You’re helping her. That’s what you’re doing, helping her destroy us. Is that what you want? Are you doing her bidding?” he asked, pointing his accusing right forefinger at me. “Were you always conspiring with her?”
Tears came to my eyes. He looked so riled. I couldn’t recall him ever looking this angry at me. He might pretend to be upset about something I had done or said because my mother was, but as soon as he could, he’d wink at me. This whole conversation was better conducted in a nightmare than in real life. I only hoped I could forget it, wipe these images and words out of my mind.
“I’m not doing anything like that, Daddy,” I said softly. I was exhausted. My emotions were so twisted inside me. I felt my heart straining to break loose so it could beat and keep me alive. Maybe he saw the terror in my face now. He sat back, looking more relaxed, returning to himself.
“Your mother decided to leave us and start a new life with someone else,” he said, like a reporter describing events on television. “She’s gone. Pretending she isn’t won’t bring her back. I’m sorry. If there was one thing more I could have d
one to keep her, I would have done it, and don’t be blaming yourself, either. Don’t ever think you did anything to drive her off. Hear? You’d be sorry quickly. You’d feel like a real fool in the end.”
I took in his words like bitter medicine. He was giving me a prescription for the rest of our lives. My eyes felt like broken faucets. The tears that had come and gone wouldn’t stop coming now, and I didn’t make any attempt to wipe them away. I let them drip off my cheeks.
“Damn!” he suddenly cried. He pressed his palms against his cheeks and looked like he was trying to crush his face. Then he suddenly stopped and leered at me again, stared so long that unbridled fear rose inside me once more. Once again, he was listening to a voice I couldn’t hear. “No, no, Scarletta. It’s too soon,” he said.
I finally wiped my eyes with my palms. “What’s too soon?”
“You going to some party. It makes it look like you don’t believe this thing your mother’s done will last much longer. It makes you look all right with it because you believe it’s only temporary. Why be mournful or ashamed about what she has done if it’s just some little episode? That won’t stop you from having a good time. That’s the way people will see you. That’s what they’ll believe you are thinking.”
“But you said I should go to the party. I don’t understand, Daddy. We went to dinner to show people that we were all right. You told me to go to school and be strong. Now you’re—”
“I said too much. I wasn’t thinking straight. And that was before this. I didn’t expect you to do something like this. It’s . . . a little sick.”
“What’s a little sick? Do something like what?”
He put up his hand like a traffic cop stopping cars. “I’m tired of talking about it. You’ll come to your senses, but it takes time. I know that. I was a little blind to how it was affecting you,” he said. “I’m sorry. I was thinking too much of myself and not you. My eyes are opened now. It will be all right. I’m thinking straight again. No worries.”
He slipped off the stool and staggered. How could he be thinking straight now?
The Silhouette Girl Page 20
