Trashy Chic

by Cathy Lubenski

  They rode in silence to the lobby where the pugnacious guard waited with a night stick in his meaty hand. Bellingham’s presence appeared to put a damper on his evening of fun, beating the crap out of them.

  “That will be all, Frank. We’re leaving. Please make sure the building is locked up.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Bellingham led the way to the double glass doors then abruptly stopped. “I forgot my keys upstairs,” he said. “Frank will see you out of the building.”

  The burly guard unlocked the door and watched till they cleared it, then locked it again with a resounding click.

  Bertie looked back and caught a sly look on R2’s face. He looked so much like his father in that split second that she almost gasped. Then he and the guard disappeared into the elevator.

  The three of them stood at the top of the steps, exhausted. The sky showed a tinge of light over the horizon, not yet dawn, but the dawning of dawn. In the covered walkway, though, the dark was thick with shadows.

  “Well,” Katie said.

  “I have to agree,” Bertie said. “Well.”

  “What do you think, Katie?” Gene asked. “Can he be trusted?”

  “My gut feeling is yes. We have the dirt on him, I don’t think he’ll risk letting it get out.”

  “So we know and he knows,” Bertie said. “If he killed his father, how do we know he won’t get us?”

  “If one of us is murdered, the other two would go straight to the cops. He has to know that,” Katie said.

  “He might know that, but it would still leave one of us dead! That doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence,” Bertie said. “But I guess you’re right, he wouldn’t try anything without the rest of us yelling bloody murder.”

  “You’ve seen the stuff he makes with the fur, haven’t you Bertie? What’s it like?” Katie started down the steps with Gene behind her.

  “It’s pretty God-awful, but they’re probably making a fortune out of it. And you know they’re probably paying pennies to some desperate women in a Third World country to knit them.”

  Bertie stood for a second longer on the top step. “By the way, Katie, how did you get to be such an expert on bull moose balls?”

  Bertie had her foot raised to start down the steps when she felt a hand in the small of her back give her a hard shove. She had a sudden moment of weightlessness, then she was falling. Her surroundings were a blur as she started going down. It all happened so fast, she didn’t even have time to scream.

  Hard, skull-breaking concrete rushed up at her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  Gene and Katie turned in slow motion to look at her. The fear of falling inbred in humans took over, fueled by adrenaline. Bertie flailed, her left hand coming into contact with the ornate wrought-iron railing. She grabbed and held on. Her lower body fell, but the hand gripping the railing anchored the upper part to the step she’d been standing on.

  Blinding pain shot up her arm and into her shoulder, almost knocking her out. She hung there, spread out on the steps.

  “Bertie, oh my God, are you all right?” Katie rushed to her, leaping the three steps to her side. The pain in her shoulder left Bertie gasping, unable to speak. Katie pried her fingers loose from the railing and Bertie slumped to the steps.

  She lay there stunned. “Oh my God, Gene, she’s dead,” Katie said. She was feeling for a pulse in her neck and her hands were cold.

  “No, I only wish I was,” Bertie croaked. She moved gingerly, but the pain seared up her arm again. She felt woozy; no, there must be a stronger word than woozy to convey the agony she was in.

  She didn’t move again. The orange-gold-blue sky looked the same from this vantage point, she discovered.

  “What happened?” Katie asked. “Should we call 911?”

  Bertie, who’d been holding her breath, exhaled and said, “No, don’t. I fell. I’ll be all right, I just need a minute.”

  Gene hurried to her side. “I’m a doctor, I can tell if we need to call an ambulance. Show me where it hurts.”

  “It’s her shoulder,” Katie said. “She grabbed the railing as she fell.”

  “You’re studying to be a vet, Gene,” Bertie said.

  “Animals have shoulders, too.” He gingerly manipulated her arm. Bertie gasped and bit her lip so that she wouldn’t scream.

  “It’s not dislocated, just badly sprained,” he said.

  “I think someone pushed me,” Bertie said, still stunned.

  The lock on the double doors clicked and Bellingham and the guard came out. At the sight of Bertie sprawled on the steps they stopped, and hovered over her like guardian angels gone bad.

  “What happened?” Bellingham asked.

  “She was pushed, and now her shoulder is severely strained,” Kate said, on the attack. “It had to be you, or your stooge here. You’re in big trouble, mister, you know that? Gene, call the police.”

  Bertie was gasping “No, no, no,” in the background, but was mostly drowned out by Katie.

  “Don’t call the police. I didn’t push anyone. Frank, tell her—we were together the whole time. I couldn’t have pushed her.”

  “It’s true, ma’am. We went upstairs to get his keys and came back down. That’s it. I didn’t even go to the bathroom. Just up and back. Neither one of us did it.”

  “And we’re supposed to believe you?” Kate asked. “You work for him!” She’d pushed up to him in a belligerent stance that would’ve been more threatening if her jaw had reached higher than the top button on his shirt.

  “Look, ma’am, she’s not even sure she was pushed. What are you making such a big deal about?” Frank said.

  “Yeah,” Bellingham agreed, pulling out his wallet again. “I’ll pay for all her medical expenses and her salary for any days lost at work. It’s a sprain, for God’s sake, take an aspirin,” he added impatiently.

  “It’s OK, Kate. I just want to go home and lie down. I’m fine, really.” Bertie reached up with her good arm for assistance getting up. Gene, on her bad side, and Kate on the other, got her upright while Bertie gasped in pain, while Frank and Bellingham watched.

  Bertie stood for a moment or two, catching her breath, then walked to her car, holding her left arm close to her body.

  “Frank, drive her home, then take a cab back.”

  “No!” Bertie said. “I can drive, honestly. Kate, I can drive, see?” She put the car in gear with her right hand, then put it on the steering wheel. “See?” she repeated.

  “Nice try,” Kate said. “I’ll drive your car and Gene will follow in his. We’ve had a lot of practice following each other tonight. He can wait while I help you get to bed and drive me back here,” Kate said.

  “Frank will drive your car back to where you live, if you give us the address,” Bellingham said. Kate looked at him consideringly, then said, “If he could drop it off at the kennel, I’d appreciate it. You already know where that is.”

  Even in the half-light of dawn, Bellingham’s blush was visible.

  The happy little party broke up and another, shorter parade made its way to Bertie’s apartment. Kate and Gene helped her in and then Kate found some heavy duty pain meds left over from a dental procedure that Bertie gulped with a cup of tea.

  “Were you pushed, Bertie? The truth,” Kate asked her.

  “The truth? I don’t know. Honestly, I can’t remember. I don’t know why I said I was because it’s all a blur”

  “If you were pushed, we need to call the police, you know that, right?”

  “I really don’t think I was, now that I’ve had time to think about it. It was just the shock of the fall, that’s what made me think I was.”

  “Are you up to talking a little?”

  “About the whole thing? I think that family is nuts. Seriously, they are snortin’-hog-in-the-mud nuts.”

  Kate sighed. “I think you’re right. I can’t believe he’s been breaking into kennels, especially mine! It would’ve been so much easier to ask.”

>   “Actually, given the family’s income level, I can almost understand why he’d rather steal than come right out and ask. People with obscene amounts of money are newsworthy. Couldn’t you see this story on some snarky entertainment TV show? Are you going to keep the money he gave you?”

  “Oh, hell!” Kate said. ŠI tried to give it back to him and when he ignored it, I stuck it in my pocket. Her certainly kept shoveling it out, didn’t he?” She pulled a wad of bills out of her jeans pocket and counted. “Bert, it’s a thousand bucks! Look!”

  But Bertie’s eyes were closing. Kate called Bertie in sick and left, making sure the door was locked behind her.

  Around 1 p.m., the phone rang, waking Bertie.

  “Hey, how are ya?” Shawn asked. “I went by your desk and saw your computer was shut down. Someone said you called in sick.” She could hear the sound of computer keys tapping in the background and the low murmur of someone doing a phone interview.

  “Not sick exactly. I fell and wrenched my shoulder. I’m giving myself a day to get over the worst of the pain. I hope,” Bertie said. She was touched that he’d called.

  “Shouldn’t you see a doctor?”

  “I did. He said it wasn’t dislocated, just sprained.” The gospel according to Gene, the more-or-less doctor.

  “Well, that’s good. Hope you feel better. You know, I was thinking about the Bellingham murder after we talked and I decided to call back East to find out more about Bellingham’s past.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah. You’re good for me, Bertie. You make me think, instead of just perform.” Bertie didn’t ask in what context he meant perform.

  “Anyway, I talked to a friend at the paper in the town where Bellingham used to live and she told me that his first wife committed suicide.”

  “I don’t want to sound flippant, but I can understand why. Knowing that you spawned those kids with that man would be enough for me.”

  “Wait, you gotta hear the rest. The first Mrs. Bellingham took a dive off the roof of the family mansion.”

  “She was on the roof?”

  “Yeah, they had a little rooftop garden up there with a table and chairs. But—and this is the part that never got out—little Bobby was with her when she jumped.”

  “R2! How old was he?”

  “Around 7 or 8, I’m not sure. Big enough to have given dear old mom a little help off the roof.”

  “What?”

  “My friend found an old-timer retired from the police department and he told her that Robert Bellingham, the first, not the second, paid big time to have it hushed up. There was no evidence that Bobby-baby actually did it, just a lot of whispering.”

  “So what did R1 pay for?”

  “To keep the police from investigating any further and to get the official cause of death listed as suicide on all the papers.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah, wow. The thing is, the old-timer never thought Bobby did it. The kid was all broken up about his mom’s death, cried and cried. He saw a therapist for years after that.”

  “So, R1 paid to have a murder that might not have happened hushed up. I’ll bet he let Bobby know that he thought he killed his mother.”

  “Could be. But it also helped to shift the blame, however unofficially, to someone else. He was in the house, too, with no witness to back up his version of what he was doing.”

  “Let me get this straight: He paid the police to hush up his son’s involvement in a murder that he might have committed? Or, it could’ve just been a suicide. Yeah, that sounds like Bellingham.”

  “That’s what I think, too.”

  “So, do you think R2 did it, Shawn? Killed his father, or his mother for that matter?”

  “Dunno. What’s the difference what I think?”

  Bertie sensed he was getting distracted.

  “You must have an opinion about who killed Robert Bellingham.”

  “I think it’s just like in the books, Bertie—the person you least suspect did it. Gotta go. Feel better and I’ll talk to you soon.”

  Bertie sat thinking after she hung up. The news about R2 was a blockbuster. Could he have killed his mother as a 7-year-old? Could the old man have killed her? Could R2 have killed his father as an adult because he suddenly remembered he’d killed his mother? Too many pronouns.

  She pondered Shawn’s suggestion that the murderer was the person least suspected. What an old chestnut. That one went back to Agatha Christie—maybe before—and “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.”

  But if it was the least suspected, who would it be? She sat up suddenly, shock rushing through her.

  “Delia. Delia Bellingham.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  “Bertie, this is real life, not a book,” Kate said. She’d come over to check on Bertie that evening, armed with chicken soup. Kate was an atrocious cook—there was a skim of grease on the soup’s surface—but Bertie was happy for the company.

  “You can’t accuse someone of murder because there’s no evidence against them.”

  Bertie’s arm and shoulder were still extremely painful, but she was energized by the possibility that Delia Bellingham was the murderer.

  “Well, if you’re going to put it that way, of course it doesn’t make sense. But look at the set-up: She’s providing an alibi for the main suspect, but he’s providing one for her, too. Clever, huh? And she could’ve figured out that she had to lay low after the murder. Just keep her mouth shut and go on about her business. That’s the hardest thing to do. Look at Scott Peterson, if he’d just shut up after Laci’s murder, he might’ve gotten away with it.”

  Kate sat silently for a minute, thinking. “Maybe. What do you know about her?”

  “Hardly anything. I think I read somewhere that she was from a prominent Southern family, but that’s all. And she certainly is beautiful, even when she was tackling two grown men I could tell that.”

  “Of course, she has the same alibi as the gardener,” Kate said. “So what if they did it together? They were close, they both gained by his death.”

  “I think Gardener might’ve been better off if the old man had lived. But Delia... yeah, she could’ve kept her hubby and her stud and her plushy life. I think I’ll check on the life and times of Missy Delia tomorrow.”

  Gene called early the next morning to see if her nose was wet and her tail was up, then gave her permission to go to work if she wore a sling and was kept her arm immobile.

  Although her arm and shoulder still hurt, she opted not to wear a sling. She didn’t feel like making up a new batch of stories to explain it, and the truth just wouldn’t fly..

  Work was piled up on her desk and she had a story due, but she took a few minutes to search the Internet for information about Delia Bellingham’s past.

  Her great-grandfather, Royce Pomeroy, had made a fortune growing peanuts in the South, and left his entire estate to his eldest son, who passed it on in turn to his eldest son, Delia’s father. Gilroy Pomeroy spent a lot of it fighting his younger brother for control of the business. After the lawyers sacked the estate for their fees, Gilroy ran Pomeroy’s Peanut Plantation until the peanut market went bust. Other growers were moving their businesses to Third World countries where nuts were plentiful.

  The headline in the Wall Street Journal read “Nut Baron struggles to keep going.” The New York Post was less kind: “Pomeroy loses his nuts.”

  Mrs. Nuts, who was an impoverished New York socialite when she married, left him for the cashew king. Gilroy died a pauper, but not before marrying his beautiful only daughter Delia off to Robert Bellingham II, heir to millions.

  Bertie delved deeper into cyberspace and found an obscure gossip site that said R1 despised his daughter-in-law’s father and refused to help him financially. Delia would slip him a few thousand when she could, but her husband had tattled on her to his father and she had to be careful.

  “Hmmmm,” Bertie thought. A beautiful young woman married off to a pudgy, unattractive man with�
��to put it in the kindest possible light—an eccentric family. A husband who may or may not be a mommy murderer. A daddy-in-law who prostituted her for information.

  Delia was starting to move up the suspect hit parade from least likely to No. 1.

  Bertie’s day was a mix-and-match combo of twaddle, tedium and tomfoolery. Most people thought that a reporter lived a fast-paced, exciting when in truth, it was just like every other job in the world. There were vast periods when nothing much happened except the everyday slog through routine.

  She was throwing away the worst of the debris on her desk before leaving when the phone rang. The end-of-the-day dilemma: Should she answer it, or just let voice mail pick it up?

  She was going home to ice packs on her shoulder and leftover fried spaghetti. She answered it. Bertie was astounded to hear GiGi Bellingham’s voice at the other end.

  “Hello, Bertie,” she said. “It’s Gigi Bellingham. How are you dear? It’s been awhile since we’ve spoken, hasn’t it?”

  “Gigi, hello. I’m fine. How are you?”

  “Grieving. Yes, dear, I’m still grieving.”

  The conversation, brief as it was, petered off into silence.

  “So, Gigi, what can I do for you?” Bertie finally asked.

  “I don’t know if you remember, but when you were at the mansion, I mentioned an opportunity that might benefit both of us. Do you remember, dear?”

  Bertie remembered.

  “I’d like to pursue that offer with you a little further, if you’re still interested. Now. Right now.”

  Bertie knew a good deal when she heard it. “Sure, I can leave now and with traffic, I can be at the mansion in, oh, maybe 45 minutes.”

  “No, not the mansion. I’m not at the mansion. Please come to the Chadwick Arms. Do you know it?”

  “Yes, I do. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  The Chadwick Arms? Considering that Bertie had never heard of the place before a few weeks ago, it was looming large in her life lately. She did not want to go back to the Chadwick Arms, but had to consider the odds of Lester Lomax lightning striking twice in the same place. It didn’t seem likely.