Done to Death

by Charles Atkins

  ‘Not at first,’ he admitted. ‘It was Melanie’s idea and, I might add, a brilliant one.’

  ‘Did the police know?’ she asked.

  ‘No, and I’ll leave that for the lawyers to sort. That’s why Melanie didn’t tell me. She knew they’d question me and that’s all I need – to get arrested for obstruction, or some other bullshit charge. I seem to be the one they focus on, even though I haven’t been alone long enough to take a piss − excuse me, that was crass.’

  ‘It’s got to have been stressful,’ Lil said, as she followed the pink-and-white balloon’s descent.

  ‘Naah. It’s just a day at the office.’ He glanced from the balloon to the film crews in place at the landing pad, and along the path that would take Rachel from the balloon to the tents.

  Lil tried to wrap her head around what was happening. In the midst of a murder investigation Melanie deliberately faked the abduction of a woman who might easily be the killer, or a possible victim. In disbelief she muttered, ‘And the police didn’t know.’

  Barry exhaled with a sigh and pointed at Kevin Simpson in a Grenville Police blazer. Kevin was red-faced and sprinting across the lawn while speaking into his cell. ‘They do now.’

  TWENTY-NINE

  Ada would always remember the moment when hell broke loose, like watching an accident in slow motion. The chaos started when two women grabbed an antique Turkish prayer rug. It was worth several hundred dollars, possibly more. Marked twenty bucks, it had been planted, along with several other fantastic bargains, for just this reason. Neither woman was going to give ground.

  ‘I saw it first,’ one screamed.

  ‘The hell you did! It’s mine … let go!’ And the younger of the two gave a violent pull that sent the older woman tumbling forward, her momentum − and body − caught by a pair of men digging through a box of hand-wrought aluminum from the fifties.

  ‘Watch it, lady,’ one said, as he pushed her off.

  She turned and saw her competition for the rug race off with the prize in hand. ‘That’s mine!’ she shrieked, and gave chase.

  To Ada, it was as though a spark had been lit on a pool of gas. Why are there so many shoppers? There were only supposed to be a hundred, but clearly there were many times that.

  It reminded her of the annual bridal blowouts at Strauss’s, an event that would have soon-to-be brides and their mothers grabbing racks of heavily discounted dresses. She’d always been careful not to exceed the store’s lawful limit and they’d always had extra security. As she watched from her spot next to the checkout register in the center tent, she noted several things. The crowd, most of whom had waited for hours in the dark to get an early number, were like children at a birthday party who’d had too much cake and ice-cream. The actors, hired as security guards, were not intervening in the growing number of arguments and shoving matches. There were now twice as many camera crews as there’d been when they’d started that morning and something was happening that included multiple sirens.

  She looked at Tolliver, who was to be her companion through the sale, their banter about the various items being sold to be worked into segments. He shook his head, his accent − even though he was born and bred in Grenville − pure BBC British. ‘Quite the sale, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘I’d say something,’ and she caught the flashing blue of a police cruiser pulling past the tents. ‘I’ll be back,’ and, not caring that her instructions had been to stay with Tolliver at the checkout line, she headed outside.

  Her pulse raced; this doesn’t feel safe. Her eyes blinked in the bright sun, and her attention was drawn to a giant pink-and-white balloon with the LPP logo that rose mushroom-like by the pool. She saw a second cruiser surge through the crowd, followed by Mattie’s black SUV with a blue flasher in the front window.

  The noise in the tents was deafening. A man screamed, ‘That’s not fair. I had it first!’

  She glanced back to see the cameraman, boom operator and assistant director, who’d all been with her since the start of the week, a couple yards behind her. They were following Melanie’s instructions: Do not let her out of your sight. She had a moment’s pause; a week ago having a camera follow her would have seemed bizarre. Now − me and my shadow. She moved fast toward the deflating balloon and the flashing lights.

  The assistant director − a girl who couldn’t have been much older than Aaron − prompted her, ‘Ada, tell us what you’re seeing and what you’re doing. Keep up a steady stream.’

  As her heels sank into the lawn she thought of what she’d learned about FWC, and here she was. Fine; if this was the job, she could play along. If Tolliver was going to be BBC British she’d play the crazy fifties housewife shtick to the hilt. ‘Quite the exciting day at the estate of Lenore Parks, and it looks like we have an unexpected visitor.’ She stopped, faced the camera and made a game show hostess wave in the direction of the rapidly deflating balloon. She smiled for effect, feeling the heavy sapphire earrings brush against her neck.

  The assistant director gave her a thumbs up, and then she gasped. Ada looked at her, and then at the cameraman, who for the first time that morning went against Melanie’s instructions and shifted the focus off of her to something, or someone, behind her.

  Ada turned. ‘Oh my God. Lenore − Rachel.’ Coming toward her, flanked by police – including Mattie and Jamie – was Rachel Parks, who from a distance looked just like her mother, from the carefully coiffed auburn locks to her tightly cinched waist and full figure artfully draped in a breezy pink-and-white striped A-line.

  Ada stood transfixed as Rachel, shielding her eyes from the sun and ignoring her retinue of police, camera crew and a few autograph-seeking shoppers, waved.

  For the briefest of moments Ada wondered if this was a dream. But no, dreams made sense. Rachel had gone missing; there’d been blood and a police search. Now, dressed and sounding like her mother, she’d dropped from the sky in a balloon.

  ‘Ada!’ Rachel shouted.

  She wondered what would happen if she answered, Lenore. ‘Rachel, you’re safe.’

  Rachel broke into an easy jog, as did her growing entourage. She seemed oblivious to the questions being fired at her by Mattie, who was clearly flustered by the cameras and this unpredictable girl ignoring her.

  ‘Ada!’ Rachel shouted, as though they were long separated lovers in a made-for-TV movie. ‘Ada,’ and she swept Ada into a tight embrace.

  ‘You’re OK,’ Ada whispered. She tried not to stiffen, reminding herself of all this poor girl had been through. All she was going through, a murdered mother and brother, a pregnancy which, if the truth were known, could turn her into a societal pariah.

  ‘I’m fine, silly,’ Rachel said. She pulled back and looked at Ada, and then toward the tents, which were being entered by uniformed Grenville officers and state troopers attempting to control the shoppers. ‘How wonderful.’ She stared wistfully toward the estate. ‘People showed up. Do you think we’ll make a lot of money?’

  Not missing a beat, Ada said, ‘Without doubt. I just hope no one gets trampled to death.’

  Rachel’s eyes lit up. ‘There is something so exciting about all of this! And just think of how many children this will help.’

  ‘Absolutely.’ She caught Mattie’s eye; the detective looked pissed off. Her face was flushed, and not just from chasing this out-of-control heiress. Ada nodded in her direction, knowing what had to be done. Just say the mantra: what would Lenore do? The answer was obvious: anything, as long as it’s on camera. ‘Rachel,’ she said, taking the girl’s hand. ‘You’ve got to tell me where you’ve been. We’ve been so worried.’

  Rachel stopped and swept a hand across her brow. ‘I just had to get out …’ She sighed. ‘So much sadness. I needed to be alone and do some thinking.’

  Right, Ada thought, realizing that this stunt had been orchestrated. ‘Completely understandable,’ she said, playing along. ‘You’ve had a lot of people worried.’ Knowing she ran the risk of triggering one
of Rachel’s mood swings, she pressed. ‘There was blood, and last night you called me sounding so frightened.’

  ‘I was.’ She put a hand to her mouth. She glanced toward one of the cameras and gave a signature Lenore shrug and head tilt. ‘I cut myself shaving my legs.’

  ‘No one saw you leave,’ Ada pressed, anticipating the questions Mattie needed answered.

  ‘I called someone to pick me up,’ she said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Let’s not talk about this. I want to go into the tents.’

  ‘Let’s do that,’ Ada said, ‘but I’m dying to know how you snuck out so successfully.’ What she felt like saying was, You crazy bitch, we were worried to death that someone had murdered you and dumped your body in the lake.

  ‘Well, if you must know, one of the producers helped.’

  ‘Of course they did,’ Ada chuckled, noting how Mattie’s face was now bright red. She wondered why the detective didn’t detain Rachel and close down this insanity. But Mattie was sharp and Ada realized that she knew that Rachel would be more likely to give up the goods if she were doing it for a television audience. She caught the detective’s eye and thought, the ball’s in my court. ‘I’m guessing it was Melanie.’

  ‘Right in one. Has anyone bought any of the big-ticket items?’ she asked. ‘I keep thinking of all the children this will help.’ She smiled at the camera and winked. ‘Let’s go in.’

  One of the officers pressed through. ‘Ms Parks, I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

  ‘Oh please,’ Rachel said. ‘It’ll be fine,’ and before anyone could stop her, she grabbed Ada’s hand. ‘Let’s go.’

  In the minutes Ada had been out of the tent, the sale had turned into a melee with the police attempting to maintain control.

  Tolliver was backed against a tent pole, his British accent gone, trying to explain to an enraged dealer with a bow tie and a bad comb-over, who was clutching a pair of silver candlesticks and a box of bubble-wrapped porcelain, that there were no discounts for the trade. ‘The prices are firm,’ he said.

  ‘This is bullshit!’ the dealer spat back. ‘This whole show is a sham. I can’t believe it’s legal. And you,’ he jabbed a candlestick into Tolliver’s chest. ‘If you think this is going to help your overpriced store, you’ve got another think coming.’

  Ada recognized the dealer and knew that he’d auditioned for Final Reckoning and been turned down. She’d seen several such wannabes shooting angry glances toward her and Tolliver.

  ‘If you don’t like the prices,’ Tolliver said, ‘then leave. No one’s forcing you to buy anything.’

  ‘This is rigged!’ the dealer screamed. ‘You think people are going to watch this shit?’

  And that’s when things went from bad to beyond bizarre.

  ‘People!’ Rachel shouted. ‘PEOPLE!’ She’d grabbed a chair and, using it as a step stool, climbed on to a table covered in pink Depression glass.

  Ada turned as a hush spread through the tent.

  ‘I wanted to thank each and every one of you for coming to my … I mean, my mother’s estate sale. Lenore would be thrilled.’

  Ada watched as people paused in mid grab and shove to get a look at the celebrity. Hundreds of cell phones were out and raised overhead as people filmed, clicked, tweeted and posted to Facebook. On the one hand, Rachel looked young and attractive in her pink-and-white get-up, her wrist scars concealed beneath chunky silver cuff bracelets. On the other, she was a ringer for Lenore circa 1980.

  Ada looked around and, with the crowd in Rachel’s thrall, she spotted Lil at the edge of the tent. Her camera was out, likely in video mode. Next to her was Barry Stromstein, who was starring at Rachel. At one point he turned to Melanie and pointed. She smiled. He shook his head.

  Ada wondered if Barry knew about this stunt. How could he not? Although … as the crew had described the principles of FWT − sometimes FWC − a key element was the surprise, to throw people off balance and capture their reactions on camera.

  Through the tent opening she spotted Rose in the distance chatting with Barry’s little girl and his gorgeous wife. The trio seemed removed from the chaos of the tents and Rachel’s dramatic entrance. There was something idyllic in their little picnic with her white-haired mother, the titian-haired beauty and the little girl with her toys. An idea formed, fueled by Lil’s What would Lenore do?

  Her train of thought now shifted to Rachel’s tabletop soliloquy.

  ‘Every fifty dollars is a little boy or girl whose cleft palate will be repaired,’ Rachel said with an impassioned throb. ‘Two hundred dollars fixes an infant’s life-threatening heart condition.’ She paused and took a deep breath. Her voice cracked with emotion. ‘And a thousand dollars is a prosthetic leg for a young victim of a landmine in Afghanistan.’

  Ada watched and thought, It’s the second coming of Lenore. But something about the girl had both calmed the crowd and ennobled their pawing through her mother’s possessions.

  She spotted Melanie looking on, a woman who’d had an affair with, or at least slept with, Lenore, whether by choice or career necessity Ada didn’t know. So perhaps it wasn’t just What would Lenore do, but WHO would Lenore do?

  Finished with her spiel, Rachel gave the crowd one final exhortation. ‘Now go out there and shop for the children!’ Her smile was bright as she stepped down on to a chair and then to the ground. ‘What do you think?’ she asked Ada.

  ‘I think you did good,’ she replied, knowing that was what Rachel needed to hear.

  ‘You think so?’ Her every word and movement was captured by multiple cameras.

  ‘I do,’ and Ada moved in close, as she’d learned over the past few days of filming. With the fabric of their dresses touching, Ada and Rachel strolled through the packed tents, like a pair of generals surveying a battlefield. With two camera crews in front of them and one behind, Ada scanned the activities. Rachel signed autographs and reminisced over the merchandise.

  ‘That was Richard’s bike, I remember when he first got that. He taught me how to ride.’

  Tolliver and his film crew had made their way through the crowd, and he interjected a few quick sentences on whatever object Rachel picked up. ‘A lovely nineteenth-century Imari punch bowl made for the European trade.’ He flipped up the tag. ‘Priced to sell at three hundred dollars.’

  At this a woman in the crowd shouted, ‘I want it!’

  Tolliver nodded as a camera framed the excited woman, who was already burdened with several bulging totes slung across her back and shoulders. He handed over the colorful porcelain. ‘Enjoy, it’s lovely.’

  As they walked, Ada felt as though her mind had been split in two. She kept a smile on her face, aware of the cameras and how she needed to keep in tight frame with Rachel, while behind that facade her thoughts skittered over more dangerous realms. Something evil lurked below the surface, something that had led to two murders. Another of Lil’s truisms, this one a hand-me-down from her physician husband, popped to mind: pus under pressure must be lanced. Lenore had kept secrets. She had used people in despicable ways and had ruled her empire through the manipulation of fear and desire. It was time to lance that boil. It was time for her own FWT.

  ‘So Rachel,’ she said, her expression pleasant, ‘other than within the inner circle, why did Lenore never come out as being gay?’

  Silence spread through the crowd, like ripples from a pebble dropped into a pool. The shift was eerie, as shoppers whispered and strained to hear.

  Rachel’s eyes widened as she looked from Ada to the camera.

  ‘My mother wasn’t gay.’

  ‘Yes she was,’ Ada said, her tone matter of fact. ‘And more than that, she used her fame and her position to get young women to sleep with her.’

  Amid the stunned silence Ada saw dozens of phones raised in the air and pointed in their direction; others were more subtly held, as though the operators were too embarrassed to admit they were filming such an awkward moment.

  ‘W
hy are you saying this?’

  Ada wondered if she’d miscalculated. Perhaps the things Peggy had told her were lies, but Peggy wasn’t the only source. The rumors and jokes at LPP were rampant. If she’d been Lil writing a story she’d have had someone get confirmatory proof. ‘Rachel,’ she said, turning to the young woman, whose eyes were bugging out, ‘it’s OK … or maybe it’s not. But for all of her supposed openness and honesty, your mother kept some big secrets.’

  Rachel’s Lenore-like mask crumbled. Tears welled in her eyes. ‘It is true,’ she said. She looked from Ada around at the crowd. Her gaze took in the cell phones, some of them already uploading this to the Internet. ‘It is true,’ she repeated. ‘There were lots of women, young women.’ She found her camera and spoke directly into it. ‘I don’t think they were all gay, and some of them didn’t want to. She didn’t think that Richard and I knew … that we saw … that we heard.’

  ‘What did you hear?’ Ada asked.

  ‘The deal being struck,’ Rachel said. ‘Although I don’t know if deal is the right word. With Lenore, there wasn’t much negotiation.’

  ‘Do you remember specifics?’ Ada pressed, noting the silence.

  Rachel looked past her camera. She pointed. ‘There’s one. Melanie, Melanie Taft.’

  Ada looked as the field producer stared back. Her eyes were wide, her jaw hung open and she was shaking her head.

  Ada watched as camera phones shifted to catch a glimpse of the attractive brunet.

  Time hung suspended. Melanie looked at Rachel. She nodded. ‘Yes.’ She swallowed and seemed uncertain of what to do.

  Ada had no such uncertainty − pus under pressure must be lanced − ‘Was it your choice to sleep with her?’ she asked.