Almost Dead

by Lisa Jackson

  Don’t go there, Cissy warned herself. You’re divorcing him, remember? What do you care who he knows? Besides, it’s Gran’s funeral gathering. Pull yourself together.

  Still, she couldn’t help being aware of Jack and Gwen as she spoke to several women from Gran’s bridge group, all bright-eyed women over seventy who were genuinely sad to have lost a good friend and “ruthless” contract player.

  Cissy moved through the crush of people who were either pouring themselves cups of coffee and tea from urns in the dining area or picking up glasses of wine set on a table in the nook. Deborah, who had arrived from the cemetery, had taken charge, making certain that the food and drinks were never lacking, grabbing coats that she handed to Lars as people entered. Windows steamed, glasses clinked, the smell of candles burning and coffee brewing filled the rooms, and the buzz of conversation was like white noise echoing in Cissy’s head.

  “Is Beej still sleeping?” she asked Tanya as the nanny passed her with an empty tray.

  Tanya nodded, wisps of hair falling from the knot at the base of her skull. She looked flustered and a little frantic, and for once Cissy didn’t blame her. “I checked on him a little bit ago. He just fell asleep when the first guests arrived. He was tired. He should be down for another hour or so.”

  “Good. And Coco?”

  Tanya’s expression changed to irritation. “In her kennel in your office.” She had to raise her voice to be heard over the din as more guests were arriving and the noise level escalated. Each time the door opened, the candles flickered, but the cool air was a relief as the temperature in the house was climbing with the combined body heat and newly operational furnace.

  Tanya began arranging a platter of tiny puff pastries filled with mushrooms while Diedre placed skewers of oriental chicken around a bowl of peanut sauce on yet another tray. All the while Rachelle stacked bite-sized tea sandwiches on the mirrored shelves of a three-tiered server.

  Saying “Hello” and “Nice to see you again” and “Thanks for coming,” Cissy found her way to the foot of the stairs, catching a glimpse of Jack as he gathered coats and umbrellas and purses. Carrying two leather jackets and a scarf, he followed her upstairs, adding the coats to the growing pile of outerwear on her bed.

  “See anything you like?” he asked. “I bet we could make a fortune on eBay.”

  “I thought Lars was handling the coats.”

  “He couldn’t keep up. Eugenia had a lot of friends.”

  “More than I even realized. A better idea would have been to hold this in the church hall,” she said, “but it was booked for a wedding reception, and I didn’t want to go up to Gran’s place.” She hadn’t been back to the big house where her grandmother had died since the day after her death.

  “We’ll muddle through,” Jack assured her. His gaze found hers, and it was so sincere, so caring, she almost believed him, believed there was a chance for them.

  He’s a player, Cissy. Just like his father. Identical to his brother. You know that. Don’t be fooled again.

  “I saw you talking to Gwen.”

  “Gwen Crandall? The trainer.”

  “My trainer.”

  “Yeah, your trainer.”

  “How do you know her?”

  He gazed at her hard, as if he couldn’t believe they were having this conversation, especially at this point in time. “I met her when I scouted several gyms for an article on exercise clubs in and around the city. Her club was featured. Don’t you remember? We were comparing ‘all-guys’ boxing gyms to those women’s circuit training franchises and to hotel athletic facilities and private clubs.” He stopped, then said, “I hope you’re not asking for the reasons I think you are.”

  “She’s beautiful.”

  “Uh-huh. I know a number of beautiful women.”

  “Well…” She turned away, feeling slightly foolish. “We won’t be married much longer.”

  “Oh hell!” He suddenly grabbed her. Just yanked her into his arms and kissed her so hard she couldn’t breathe. She gasped and tried to push him away.

  “Let go of me!”

  “You really want me to?”

  “Yes!”

  She could feel the tears she’d fought all day well in her eyes, and she angrily dashed them away. Jack had the audacity to kiss her cheek and fold her into his arms. “Oh, Cissy,” he sighed, his breath ruffling her hair. “Why do you try to be so damned tough? Why won’t you let anyone get close, anyone love you?” She let out a little sob and hated herself for it. “Why don’t you think you deserve it?”

  Her fingers were curled over the lapels of his jacket, as if she were clinging onto him for dear life. Horrified, she released her grip. She looked up at him and shook her head. “You’ve got it all wrong, Jack. I know I deserve love. And I want it. From a husband who is faithful to me. That’s the kind of love I want. The forever kind. I know we got married on the fly, in a rinky-dink ceremony at a chapel that made you wonder if the ceremony was even legal, but I meant those words I said. I meant every word of those vows, and I thought—hoped—you did too.”

  “I did. I do.”

  “Well, you have a helluva way of showing it!” she said, pulling away from him. The day was enough of an emotional roller coaster as it was; she didn’t need to go through any more heart-wrenching scenes with her estranged husband.

  “Cissy.”

  “No, Jack,” she said emphatically. “Not now. Not today.”

  “Then for God’s sake, let’s declare a truce. Just for today. You don’t accuse me of screwing everything that moves, and I won’t try to convince you otherwise. What do you say?”

  Cissy drew a breath. “Oh…I don’t care.”

  “Oh, you do, Cissy. You care plenty. You just don’t want to.”

  “Don’t try to psychoanalyze me.”

  “Then don’t try to find ways to hate me.”

  “I’m not trying to—”

  “You’ve been building a case against me for over a month, and, just for the record, I did not sleep with Larissa. I came damned close, yeah, I admit it. But I didn’t, and you know why?” he demanded. “Because I’m in love with you.”

  After that he strode away, leaving her trembling, fighting tears and wishing that she dared, even for a moment, to believe him.

  Why not, Ciss? Why not give him another chance?

  Trying to get a grip on herself, she walked to her baby’s room, half-expecting Jack to return. But he didn’t, and she felt disappointed as well as relieved.

  Why won’t you let anyone get close, anyone love you?

  His words echoed through her brain. Is that what he really thought?

  She stepped close to the wooden crib and found her son sleeping peacefully, his eyes closed to show off impossibly long eyelashes resting upon his rosy little cheeks.

  Just looking at him, some of her sadness dissipated. She curled her fingers over the top railing and smiled down at her son. Whispering a soft “I love you,” she finally walked out of the room, partially closing the door behind her. She was almost at the staircase when she heard something and turned, looking down the long corridor with the doors, all ajar, opening from it.

  Her heart stuttered.

  Had she imagined the sound?

  You’re just distraught. Expecting the worst.

  She retraced her footsteps to check on Beej, whom she knew was fine; she’d been in his room seconds earlier. Of course he was still sleeping, his room as she’d left it.

  How odd.

  Unconvinced, she walked farther along the corridor and pushed open the door to the guest room. It was empty, the bed untouched. Across the hall was the exercise room and her little office, and inside, as Tanya had said, she found Coco inside the crate, a bowl of water next to her scruffy white body. The little dog thumped her tail and looked up expectantly through the mesh of the kennel’s door. “You’ll be fine,” Cissy said and decided the terrier had been the source of the noise.

  She turned into the bathroom and
glanced at the mirror over the sink, cringing at the sight of her reflection. Red eyes, streaked mascara, flat and stringy rain-soaked hair. As quickly as possible, she executed a speedy makeup repair. With a wet cloth, she swiped away any trace of running mascara and tilted her head back as she added Visine to her eyes. Once some of the veins had disappeared in the whites of her eyes, she brushed on some waterproof mascara, then ran a tube of pink lip gloss over her lips and dusted her pale cheeks with a thin layer of blush. Finally, she rubbed a dab of hair gel through her bedraggled tresses. The result was somewhere between a 1980’s grunge rocker and someone who just woke up from a restless sleep, but it would have to do.

  The truth of the matter was everyone expected her to look like hell today. She only had to get through another couple of hours.

  In the hallway she nearly ran into Lars carrying up a stack of what she hoped was faux fur coats. She sidestepped him then headed downstairs. Halfway down she spied Jack, grinning, holding a glass of wine and talking with a woman who stood with her back to the staircase. Instantly Cissy’s neck muscles tightened. She would recognize that wavy auburn hair anywhere as belonging to Larissa White.

  She felt the blood drain from her face as she walked down the remaining steps.

  What in the world was Larissa doing here?

  “Talk about brass balls,” a voice said as Cissy reached the main floor. Turning, she spied her sister-in-law, Jannelle, sipping wine at the foot of the stairs. Jannelle too was observing the interaction between Jack and Larissa. “You might want to piss on your husband, you know, like a dog, to mark your territory.”

  “Last time I saw you, you made a crack about my pending divorce, so there’ll be no territory marking,” Cissy reminded her coolly. If anyone could give lessons in being an A-one bitch, it was her sister-in-law.

  Jannelle lifted an eyebrow. “Touché. Guess I’d better extract my foot from my mouth and find another glass of wine.”

  “Do that,” Cissy said, irritated. But since this was her house, and Jack was still her husband, she snagged a glass of wine for herself and walked up to Jack and Larissa, bold as brass.

  Larissa took one look at Cissy, and the smile fell from her face. “I’m so sorry,” she said while Cissy’s guts churned. “You know I worked with your grandmother a lot at Cahill House, and she…she was such a great lady.”

  Cissy nodded.

  “I just wanted to pay my respects.”

  “Really?”

  Larissa looked uncertain at Cissy’s cool tone. “Well, I’ll see you later,” she said to both of them, casting a last glance toward Jack.

  Cissy took a long gulp of her Chardonnay, her teetotaling grandmother’s drink of choice on the rare occasions when Gran actually broke down and had a sip of something alcoholic.

  “I didn’t know she was coming,” Jack said.

  “Odd, don’t you think?”

  “She did know Eugenia.”

  “That’s not what it was about, Jack, and we both know it. Paying her respects.” She snorted. “Larissa could have done that at the church. She came here to make a statement.”

  “About what?”

  “You,” she said and took another sip. “She’s staking her claim.”

  “That’s nonsense,” he said, but watched as Larissa hurried upstairs to retrieve her coat.

  “Don’t think so.” Cissy spied Dr. and Mrs. Yang heading her way and took advantage of the chance to break off the conversation that was quickly escalating into an argument.

  Not here. Not now. Not in front of all these people.

  Any heated discussion with Jack would just have to wait, but she was thankful to see Larissa stuff her arms into the sleeves of a long leather coat, wrap a scarf around her neck and walk to the front door.

  Jack didn’t seem to notice, not even when she paused to look over her shoulder as she searched for him. Instead, her gaze met Cissy’s, and she didn’t even bother to smile, wave, or say good-bye, just opened the door and stepped outside.

  “Good riddance,” Cissy said under her breath, not realizing that Sara had walked up to her.

  “I can’t believe she had the nerve to show up here. What was that all about?” Sara sipped from her drink and glanced toward the door. “I went through this twice, you know. Both my exes couldn’t keep their hands off other women. But then none of those women had the guts to show up at my house.” She tossed another look at the closed door. “A good thing too. If any one of them had, I would have killed her.”

  Chapter 11

  “Let me guess, Marla didn’t show up at the funeral,” Quinn said when Paterno, after long hours at Eugenia Cahill’s funeral and grave-site service, returned to the station.

  “Doesn’t look like it,” Paterno grumbled. He’d spent two days doing surveillance at the funerals—yesterday Rory Amhurst’s, a small, private affair for the family, and today the larger, grander event held at the Presbyterian church Eugenia had attended, followed by the interment at the cemetery. He’d attended all of the events. Of course, he hadn’t really expected that Marla would show her face, but with that woman, who knew? He wasn’t going to take the chance that she might appear and that he wouldn’t be there to nab her. He scanned each crowd, searching for anyone who resembled her, or the composite sketch of Mary Smith. The artist had interviewed everyone at the Harborside Assisted Living Center and come up with a composite drawing as well as a computer-enhanced picture, but no one who had attended Eugenia’s or Rory’s services looked like the chubby woman in the print dress. Nor had any other Mary Smith who attended the church shown up.

  An alias.

  A disguise.

  But not Marla.

  Paterno walked to his desk and tried not to notice that his feet were cold from standing in the rain. He shook the water from his coat, hung it on the peg near his desk, then grabbed a cup of coffee and tried to connect Marla Cahill’s escape to the killings. Who was her accomplice? One of the people he’d seen at the services?

  The autopsy report on Eugenia Cahill confirmed that she’d had some Valium in her bloodstream, but she’d also been prescribed the drug.

  Valium was also found in Rory Amhurst’s veins, but he hadn’t had a prescription. Traces of Valium were in the soda can left in his room, a soda can that had no fingerprints other than his own. The ME decided he had died from asphyxiation, the result of anaphylactic shock, a reaction to what he’d ingested. An examination of his stomach contents showed chocolate laced with some kind of seafood.

  Paterno’s bad stomach acted up just thinking about it. He reached into his drawer for an antacid and frowned. The two murders were different—the old lady pitched to her death, the handicapped man poisoned. But in both cases the killer knew where they would be, was brazen about killing them, had the murder planned. Why not poison Eugenia? he thought, picking up his pencil and tapping the eraser on the desk. Because the murderer had to get in and out fast and didn’t know if she had any allergies that would kill her. Hence, whoever had iced Rory Amhurst had an intimate knowledge of him. Either a nurse or family member. And someone no one at the facility recognized.

  He took a swallow of his coffee.

  It had to be someone linked to Marla.

  But who?

  Who the hell was close enough to want to spring her, then help systematically kill people related to her? He thought of her daughter, but as sharp-tongued as Cissy Holt was, she didn’t strike him as a killer.

  Who stood to gain from the killings?

  Once again Cissy Holt’s name loomed front and center.

  He couldn’t scratch her from the list of potential suspects, but he would be surprised if she were the actual murderer.

  But Marla Amhurst Cahill…She would be in the money, if she could ever retrieve it. That would prove to be quite a trick, considering she was a fugitive.

  No, Cissy would be the more likely candidate. Unless the will and insurance policies weren’t the reason Rory and Eugenia had been killed. Maybe there was another
motive, one he just hadn’t yet uncovered, one so strong it would force someone to help Marla escape and kill the people close to her.

  So if Cissy wasn’t the killer, and Marla too hadn’t actually murdered her brother and mother-in-law, then who?

  He spread the autopsy reports on the desk with Marla Cahill’s case file. Pictures of Eugenia’s broken body, Rory’s corpse, and Marla’s mug shot stared back at him.

  How were they connected?

  Eugenia and Rory are connected to each other THROUGH Marla.

  So what?

  He tapped his fingers and shook his head. He’d scoured Eugenia’s date book, looked into the woman who couldn’t drive her to church the day of her death, Marcia Mantello. Marcia’s story was legit as far as he could tell. He’d also checked through everyone else listed in Eugenia’s book. And he’d gone through the logs at the care facility and interviewed the staff and residents as he had with all of Eugenia’s friends and relatives. So far he’d come up with a great big goose egg. Nada.

  His stomach was really roiling now, and he hoped the antacid would kick in soon.

  Looking out the window to the building across the street, he tried to figure it all out.

  He knew he was missing something. He just didn’t know what.

  Cissy finished another glass of wine and told herself she’d probably consumed enough for the day. She was feeling a little light-headed as it was and still needed to keep it together. At least for a little while longer.

  The crowd was thinning, and though Lars tried vainly to get each person’s coat as he or she left, people were going up and down the stairs, retrieving their own wraps. She could hear them walking around upstairs. Doors opening and closing. Snooping. Peering into her life. Two women from Cahill House had come down the stairs and declared the baby’s room “adorable,” as if they had a free pass to take a tour of the upstairs.

  Soon it would be over.

  Fewer and fewer guests were talking, visiting, noshing, or making noises of sympathy.

  Unfortunately some of the people who were still hanging around weren’t her favorites. Though most of Eugenia’s friends had left, the remaining mourners were either tied more closely to Cissy than to Gran, or were unlikely attendees whose appearance had been a total surprise. Selma, for instance. What the hell was the woman from Joltz doing here? She’d come up, said she was sorry, hung out in the kitchen with Diedre and Rachelle, and was finally getting ready to leave. Cissy didn’t even know her last name.