Passion, Betrayal and Killer Highlights

by Kyra Davis

  “She probably has, but not Bob. Bob would rather be strung up by his toes than partner up with a woman like that.”

  “We’ll see,” I said. I studied Mr. Katz who was now sharpening his claws on my bookcase. “There’s another woman, too.”

  “Oh, really? And who would that be, Dianne Feinstein?”

  “Erika Wong.”

  Leah’s smile disappeared. Her right hand made a clutching motion over her heart. “No,” she whispered, “she wouldn’t…Bob wouldn’t…”

  “It’s obvious that she was very close to Bob,” I pointed out. “God knows she’s distraught over his death.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything. She worked for him, and they were close, but that doesn’t mean…”

  “She’s pretty bitter about his affair with Bianca, and it’s clear that she has some beef with Taylor—”

  “But her problems with Bianca have to do with her loyalty to me. Erika and I have become friends, for God’s sake!”

  I forced myself to meet her eyes. “When Anatoly and I were talking to her the other day, Erika dropped a wine cork that she’s been carrying around in her purse.”

  “Yes, she’s been carrying that around for a while,” Leah explained. “She said that it was from a magical evening with a special someone.” She squeezed her hands together. “She was talking about someone else, though, I’m sure of it.”

  “The vineyard was Chateau d’Yquem.”

  Leah blinked and looked away. “It’s a big coincidence, but that doesn’t mean—”

  “Have you checked out Erika’s jewelry lately?”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “She’s got a tennis bracelet, and I’m pretty sure it’s from Tiffany.”

  Leah’s mouth set in a thin straight line. “That backstabbing bitch.”

  I nodded. “You got that right. And here’s the kicker—she doesn’t have an alibi for the night Bob died.”

  Leah’s entire being looked like it was ready to explode into an impressive display of fireworks. She walked past me, grabbed her purse and headed straight out the door.

  “Wait!” I shouted after her. “You can’t go see her!” I struggled to get my boots on again, but when I wasn’t able to do so fast enough I simply held them with my left hand and raced down the stairs after her.

  “Leah!” I screamed as I stepped out onto the sidewalk. She was almost a block away. How the hell was she able to make that kind of time in those heels?

  She stopped next to her car and pulled her keys out of her bag.

  “Oh, shit,” I moaned. I sprinted forward and caught up with her as she was turning over the engine. I threw open the passenger side door and tumbled in just before the car screeched onto the empty street.

  “Leah, you need to rethink this.”

  “You should have heard Erika when I told her about Bianca!” Leah took a sharp turn in the direction of California Street.

  “Uh-huh, tell you what, why don’t we find a Starbucks and you can tell me all about it over a couple of Frappuccinos.”

  “At first she started making excuses for Bob, talking about how the heart works in mysterious ways and I should try to be more understanding—” Leah made another sharp turn. She was definitely heading toward the freeway.

  “Okay, forget the Frappuccinos. How ’bout we go somewhere and get those cocktails we were talking about? You want a cocktail, Leah?”

  “Then when I told her that the woman he was leaving me for was twenty-one, she just freaked out. Erika asked me over and over again if I was sure I had heard him correctly.”

  “Hey, I know! We can buy drugs! A little weed and this whole thing will be funny.”

  “Are you hearing me?” Leah demanded. “Before I recited Bob’s description of Bianca, Erika thought he was leaving me for her! After everything I’ve done for her, that little witch tried to break up my family!”

  I seriously doubted that Leah had done a lot for Erika, but that was hardly the issue at the moment. What was important was that we were clearly headed straight for Erika’s Daly City home.

  “Leah,” I said carefully, as she merged the car into the lane that would take us to 280, “Anatoly specifically told me that we shouldn’t make our theories known to Erika or Taylor. Right now, we have the upper hand because they don’t know that we know about the affairs…but if you confront them—”

  “I have no intention of confronting Taylor Blake. I hardly know the woman. In fact, the only thing I do know about her is that she wasn’t sleeping with my husband. But Erika, ooh, she’s going to be sorry she messed with me.”

  “Is she, Leah? What exactly are you going to do? Kill her? The threat of a life in prison isn’t enough for you? You want to try for the death penalty now?”

  “I’m not going to kill her.” Leah pulled the car onto the freeway. “But I am going to give that little hooker what-for.”

  “Give her what-for? You’re going to risk everything just so you can give her what-for?”

  “I’ve made up my mind, Sophie.”

  “And what if she’s the killer?” I flinched as Leah cut in front of a Lexus SUV, barely missing its bumper. “As far as we know Erika could still have Bob’s gun. She could shoot us, Leah!”

  “Don’t be silly—Erika’s not the type.”

  “Are you serious? Ten minutes ago you didn’t think she was the type to sleep with your husband!”

  Leah narrowed her eyes. “If she did kill him—if she actually had the nerve to both sleep with Bob and then shoot him in my house…I swear to God I—I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  “Well, you could always give her what-for. I hear that makes a real impact on the cold-blooded killer.”

  Leah fell into an icy silence and put a little more pressure on the gas pedal. Maybe she’d attract the attention of the California Highway Patrol. Then she’d have to stop. On the other hand, that might not be so great, either. The last thing Leah needed was for the police to see her at her most insane.

  We continued our journey until we finally reached the Daly City Freeway exit, which I assumed was nearest Erika’s home. Leah pulled onto a residential street with cookie-cutter houses in pastel shades. The neighborhood was completely quiet, the glow coming from behind a few curtained windows being the only sign of conscious life.

  I took a deep breath and tried one more time to stop my sister. “Leah, if you could just take a moment to calm down and think about this, you’d see that we would be in a much better position to make Erika pay for what she’s done if we bide our time a little. I mean, how much fun would it be to see her taken away in handcuffs? It would probably make the news, and you could tape it and re-watch it whenever you needed a lift.” I gave her a half smile.

  Leah stopped in front of a pale pink house. “Sophie, I am a woman scorned. You don’t ask a woman scorned to bide her time.”

  “Are you kidding? Have those years of watching All My Children taught you nothing? The women scorned always bide their time.”

  Leah got out of the car and stormed up to the front door of the house. I ran up to her side and grabbed her arm.

  “Listen, you’ve done some stupid things in your life but this could easily take the cake. I mean, this actually tops the time you agreed to go out with Seymour Dickman….”

  Leah yanked her arm away and started to knock on the door. But when her fist made impact with the wood, the door creaked open. For a second I forgot that I should be talking Leah out of destroying her life. Why wasn’t Erika’s door closed and locked? It looked like a decent neighborhood, but still…

  Leah was much less fazed. She pushed the door open and stepped into the entryway. “Erika,” she called, as I quickly closed the door behind us. “Erika, I know you’re here. There are a few things that I’d like to discuss with you.”

  There was no answer. I glanced around. The only light was coming from the street lamp outside. “I think it might be a good idea if we left now,” I whispered. “You can give her what-for
tomorrow.”

  “You know this can’t wait.” Leah marched ahead of me. “Erika? Where are you?”

  She stepped into the living room with me right on her heels. There was a strange smell that I couldn’t immediately identify, but that for some odd reason reminded me of the days I hung out with Leah during the early part of her pregnancy.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Leah muttered. “Aren’t there any lights around here?” She reached over and switched on a large lamp resting on one of the end tables.

  The place was in shambles. There was a roll-top desk in the corner with every drawer open and papers littered all around. Pictures had been taken off the wall and the cushions of the love seat and couch had been removed. There was an empty bottle of Baileys lying horizontally on the coffee table, along with two glasses that looked recently used. Someone had thrown up on the couch (which explained the memories of Leah’s first trimester) and on the floor between the couch and coffee table lay Erika. She was on her stomach, and her face was hidden by her hair, which also had traces of vomit clinging to it. But there was something about the awkward way she was positioned that set her apart from the average passed-out drunk. She was so still. I couldn’t see her back rise and fall with breathing. I stepped in front of Leah and bent over Erika to examine her more carefully.

  “Erika?” I whispered.

  Behind me I could hear Leah clucking her tongue.

  “My God, she’s really fallen apart, hasn’t she,” she said flatly. “Do you think this little breakdown is due to the fact that she’s lost the love of her life, otherwise referred to as my husband?”

  From the corner of my eye I could see Leah wandering around the room. “Look at this place. She must have thrown quite the party here and now she’s passed out like a common drunk. I guarantee you Bob never saw this side of her.”

  I was tempted to turn around and slap some sense into Leah. I don’t know what kind of parties Leah had been going to, but in my circles people didn’t usually get trashed and then ransack their host’s file cabinet.

  “Oh, damn it, I just broke a nail.”

  I didn’t acknowledge Leah’s manicure problem. Instead, I reached my hand out and pushed aside a few of Erika’s raven locks so I could see her better. Her eyes were open.

  I shot up and stumbled back, crashing into Leah.

  “Ow! You just stepped on my foot!”

  “Leah, she’s dead.”

  Leah looked at me like I was insane. “Of course she’s not dead. She just drank herself into unconsciousness.” She stepped around me and glared at the body. “Erika, wake up! I’m not leaving until I speak my mind!”

  The silence that followed her words was unbearable. Leah hesitated and walked around to the other side of the body. “Oh, my God.” Leah’s mouth dropped open and she looked up at me with a new, terrifying comprehension. “But she…but…I don’t…”

  The horror that had paralyzed me disappeared and was replaced by a powerful survival instinct. I spotted a box of Kleenex next to the lamp and gingerly pulled out several sheets. I handed half of them to Leah. “I’m going to get your fingerprints off the lamp—you go work on the door.”

  “But—”

  “Now, Leah!”

  Leah numbly took the Kleenex, but didn’t move. I resisted the urge to shake her, and carefully wiped off the part of the lamp she had touched. I then turned it off and pushed her toward the front door. I wiped the doorknob and the entire area around where she had first tried to knock. Then I peered outside. No one was around to see us.

  Unless, of course, the murderer was watching.

  The thought spurred me to hurry. I half pulled, half pushed Leah to the car and shoved her into the passenger seat before jumping behind the wheel. It took all of my self-control to obey the speed limit as we drove away from the scene of yet another crime.

  CHAPTER 10

  “The problem with telling someone to drop dead is that there’s always the chance they might comply.”

  —Words To Die By

  Leah was silent as we rode along on the freeway. Then again, I didn’t exactly try to engage her in conversation. The image of Erika was still vivid enough to make my heart beat an unnatural rhythm. Someone had been there moments before we had arrived, and killed her. Or worse yet, they had still been in the house when we found her.

  But fear was only one of the emotions I was experiencing. I was also seriously pissed off at my sister. All we had had to do was stay home and wait for Anatoly to give us instructions. Had that been so much to ask? Was it really necessary to confront her late husband’s mistress facing an impending murder charge?

  I glanced over at Leah, who was now staring blankly out the car window. “Leah,” I said a little too sharply.

  Her only response was a slight shake of the head.

  “Leah, can you abandon your catatonic state for a few minutes so we can go over our story?”

  “All I wanted to do was tell her off.”

  “Yeah, that didn’t work out so well, so let’s come up with a different strategy.”

  “Sophie, do you think I’m a witch?”

  I let out an exasperated sigh. “No, Leah, you’re not a bitch. Although you do have a tendency to fly off the handle, and you didn’t think things through—”

  “Not a bitch—a witch. You know, the kind that flies around on a broom.”

  I glanced over at her quickly before looking back at the road. “Please don’t lose it on me right now. In a few weeks you can go crazy, but not now, okay?”

  “I’m not crazy,” Leah said. “It’s just that when Bob told me he was leaving me I had some horrible thoughts. I wanted him to suffer. And then I came home and he was dead. And now, no sooner do I find out about Erika and want to give her what-for, then she turns up dead.”

  “So you think you’re an ethnic version of Carrie?”

  “This isn’t funny, Sophie!” Leah pulled her newly highlighted hair back with a jerk of her hands. “Two people I was angry with are dead. Mama always told us that people thought our grandmother was a witch. Maybe we shouldn’t have been so quick to laugh those stories off.”

  I took the Sixth Street exit and drove through downtown. “If every person you disliked automatically died from violent causes, Cheryl would be decapitated, our elementary school music teacher would be stabbed to death, and every hardcore Raiders fan would be lying at the bottom of some river.”

  “You have a point.” She looked over at me, a slight smile playing on her lips. “And you’re still alive, so my powers must not be that strong.”

  “Yeah, but I’m invincible. After the nuclear holocaust, it’s gonna be me, Cher and the cockroaches.”

  Leah laughed, but the tone was a tad on the hysterical side. I gave her a sidelong glance and some of my anger melted away. Reaching over, I put my hand over hers and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I know what you’re feeling but I need you to suppress it for a few hours. If you can pull it together, I would like to take you to Redwood. They should be busy tonight.”

  Leah stopped laughing and shot me a look of disbelief. “We just found the dead body of my late husband’s mistress, and you want to go clubbing?”

  “It’s a bar, not a club. I think I can get some of the employees and patrons to remember us without being able to recall exactly what time they saw us or be able to swear to how long we were there. It’s a weak alibi, but it’s better than none.”

  “I can’t go to some trendy bar right after losing my husband!” Leah said, suddenly concerned about her image. “I didn’t even go to bars when he was alive! No one will believe it!”

  “Is there anyone who would have believed that you would go and buy yourself a skintight leather skirt?”

  Leah took a moment before answering. “Do you think we’ll find street parking?”

  We did end up going to Redwood. Leah managed to pull off the role of the depressed widow being dragged to bars by her well-meaning sister. That didn’t exactly make her Meryl Str
eep, but it did help us to establish an alibi without making it appear that she was celebrating her hubby’s sudden demise.

  When we got home around midnight we found Anatoly sitting on my doorstep.

  “Where have you two been? I’ve been trying to reach you for over three hours.”

  “Really?” I said, checking my watch. “I must not have heard my cell ring—we were at Redwood.”

  “Redwood—as in the forest?”

  “As in the bar.” I pulled out my keys, opened the door and ushered in Leah, who was studiously keeping her eyes on the ground.

  “You took her to a bar?” Anatoly scooted in after us before I had a chance to close the door. “Are you trying to find a way to make the defense attorney’s job a little more challenging, or are you both just insane?”

  “I prefer the term eccentric.” I looked over at Leah, who was now ringing her hands again. She was clearly having a flashback to our discovery earlier in the evening. I put a hand on her back and pushed her up the stairs. “I figured she might as well get some mileage out of her new look.”

  I opened the door to my apartment and let Leah in ahead of me, then stood in the door frame blocking Anatoly’s admittance. “It was a bad idea,” I confessed. “She had a miserable time and so did I. What we both really need is some shut-eye. Do you mind if we talk tomorrow?”

  Anatoly didn’t look very sympathetic to my fatigue. “Did you ask Leah about Erika?”

  “No!” I said a little too adamantly. “I think we may have been wrong about that. Let’s just keep our suspicions to ourselves…no need to smear Erika’s reputation for no reason.”

  Anatoly’s brow creased. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing. Why would you ask?”

  “You’re keeping something from me.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Okay, you got me. I didn’t have a horrible time at Redwood. It was actually fun. Are you happy now?”

  Anatoly was beginning to look alarmed. “That was one of the worst lies you have ever told me.”

  I hesitated for a moment. “Was it the lie itself that was bad, or was the problem in the delivery?”