The victim’s great-grandfather, Carsington Phipps Lowell, was an influential architect and designed many of the city’s public buildings.
An investigation is underway and anyone with information is urged to contact the police.
I stared at the paper. That was it? First off, I could write better headlines with my eyes closed. Second, the article didn’t actually say anything. Well, aside from the fact that Bobby was dead and that he’d been shot. They must have received the information right before they went to press. When they had more, Bobby would be front page news.
My vision blurred and I swiped at my eyes with the back of my hand.
An elephant had somehow gained access to the house and was careening down the back stairs—that or Grace was wearing Dr. Scholl’s sandals on the hardwoods.
She burst back into the kitchen with a deafening clatter and a mug in her hand. “Is there any more coffee?”
I jerked my chin toward Mr. Coffee, who was keeping half a pot warm.
“Mom, you’re crying.”
“I am not.” A fat tear plopped onto the newsprint. “I was just reading about Bobby. He was shot.” Bobby’s dying face filled my gaze. “Had he been dating anyone?”
“Not that I know of.” Grace slipped out of her sandals, and walked barefoot and quiet to the coffee pot as if a loud noise might set me sobbing. She poured. “Why?”
“He asked me to tell her he loved her, but I don’t know who to tell.”
She walked toward me, bringing the coffee pot with her, and filled up my mug. “I’ll find out and let you know.”
Kim, Debbie and Peggy stampeded down the steps—all in Dr. Scholl’s sandals, all unaware that between the slapping of their heels and the knock of wood on wood, they sounded like a herd of pachyderms.
“Hey,” Grace said. “Was Bobby dating anyone?”
The girls looked at each other. It wasn’t a we’re-teenagers-and-adults-(even cool ones like Grace’s mom)-just-don’t-understand-and-we-must-keep-this-secret-forever look. It was more of a what-the-heck-is-she-talking-about look. Two heads shook.
Kim’s did not.
“Do you know anything?” I asked her.
Her “no” came a second too late and too loud to be convincing.
“You’re sure?”
She looked me straight in the eye. “Positive.”
Maybe she was telling the truth. Maybe she wasn’t.
“I should go. Thank you for having me, Mrs. Russell.” Then Kim and whatever she knew walked out of my kitchen, leaving me no closer to finding Bobby’s mystery girlfriend.
Four
I hobbled up the long, bricked walkway that led to CeCe Lowell’s door. The Parisian salesgirl had sniffed and told me that pain was a small price for beauty. My feet disagreed. That the navy of my pumps exactly matched the navy of my dress was of little import to toes crammed into pointy shoes. They’d stopped whispering their discontent. They were yelling.
I ignored them and rang the bell.
CeCe answered it herself.
The poor woman looked as if she hadn’t slept. She also looked disappointed, almost as if she was expecting someone else. It was a fleeting impression. One I dismissed when she grabbed my good wrist and pulled me into a hug.
She released me. “Thank you for coming.”
“I tried to call.” Five times over the course of an hour I’d received a busy signal. Then the need to find the name of the girl Bobby had loved and to offer CeCe my condolences had compelled me to don my too-tight shoes and drive to her home.
“I left it off the hook.” She rubbed her red-rimmed eyes. “She kept answering it.”
Who? One of CeCe’s sisters? “If now is a bad time, I can come back later.”
“No!” She snatched at my wrist again. “I mean no, of course not. I’m glad you’re here. Come in. May I offer you coffee?” She led me toward the living room.
Something was off. Wrong. Grief thicker than fog wrapped around her yet she seemed manic, desperate. I understood why when I crossed the threshold into CeCe’s living room.
Kizzi and Alice Standish shared a flowered couch.
Kizzi lived behind a curtain sewn from dry gin martinis. Her daughter Alice was nuttier than the little bowls of mixed almonds and cashews the club puts out for bridge snacks. Word on the golf course was that Howard Standish was considering having them both committed—to different facilities, of course.
Alice launched herself off the couch and into my chest. Her arms circled my neck and she buried her face against my shoulder.
“You found him,” she wailed. “Did he say anything about me?” She released her lock on my neck and took a miniscule step backward. “Did he say anything about me before he”—she brought her hand to her throat and dragged in an audible breath—“before he passed on?”
Bobby loved Alice? I closed my eyes, tried to picture it, and couldn’t. Boys like Bobby fell in love with homecoming queens with golden auras. They fell for class brains who magically transformed into Charlie Girls as soon as they removed their glasses and loosened their ponytails. They even, on occasion, fell for funky, artsy girls who carried guitar cases wherever they went so they could sing about peace. Boys like Bobby Lowell didn’t fall for unstable waifs with heavily kohled manic eyes nearly hidden by a dark fringe of hair. Did they? Maybe I had it all wrong. Maybe Bobby preferred a girl with knobby knees and gangly limbs like the one who’d half-choked me with her embrace.
“Alice, give Mrs. Russell room to breathe,” said Kizzi. She lifted a glass of clear liquid to her lips. Gin?
Alice backed away, a tiny step. “Bobby loved me. That’s why I had to come over and keep Mrs. Lowell company. I knew he’d want me to be here.”
“Have you been here long?” I asked. Poor, poor CeCe. As if Bobby’s death wasn’t traumatic enough, she’d also endured a morning of sheer crazy? No wonder she looked as if she was four-fifths of the way to a nervous breakdown. Even if Bobby had adored Alice, that didn’t mean his mother did.
“I came over a few hours ago.” Alice glanced over her shoulder at Kizzi, who’d made a decided dent in the level of liquid in her glass. “Mother came to get me but I convinced her we needed to stay.”
“That’s very thoughtful of you,” I deadpanned.
Alice simpered. Apparently, she was immune to sarcasm.
Where the hell was Howard Standish? How had he let his family invade CeCe’s grief? “CeCe, may I please use your phone, just for a minute?”
“Do you want to use the one in the kitchen? It’s more private there.”
“Lovely. Thank you.”
My crumpled toes and I limped into CeCe’s harvest gold kitchen, picked up the phone and dialed.
Flora answered in three rings. “Walford residence.”
“Flora, it’s Ellison. May I please speak with Mother?”
A few seconds later Mother was on the line. “Is it true?”
I leaned against the counter and breathed deep. “I found him.”
“Ellison, you simply must stop enmeshing yourself in these scandals. You ought to be—”
“Mother!” I didn’t need her advice, didn’t want it. But that never stopped her. She probably had a monologue of helpful tips for avoiding dead bodies ready. “I’m at CeCe Lowell’s and Kizzi and Alice Standish are here. Is there any way you can track down Howard? He needs to come get them. I don’t think CeCe can take much more.”
I listened to a moment’s worth of silence. Mother was probably weighing the satisfaction of telling me how to run my life with the joy of having a purpose. Thankfully, joy won. “He’ll be there in thirty minutes if I have to drive him myself.”
He would be too. Once Frances Walford decided upon a thing, it was as good as done. “Thank you, Mother.” I hung up the phone.
I returned to the living room, my toes c
ringing with pain at every step. Alice had returned to her mother’s side where she daubed beneath her eyes with a crumpled tissue. Kizzi still perched on the edge of the couch with her drink locked into her hand. CeCe looked as if she might start drinking straight vodka. I didn’t blame her.
I claimed a flame-stitched wingback chair. “Alice, are you a sophomore or junior this year?”
She daubed again. Sniffled. “Sophomore. Same as Bobby was.”
“Are you enjoying school?”
“Enjoying school? My whole world has crumbled and you want to know if I’m enjoying school?” The tiny bit of her eyes visible beneath her heavy bangs narrowed. “How can you ask me something like that?”
Kizzi roused herself enough to try to pat her daughter’s knee. She missed. For one ephemeral instant she leaned forward in space and hung there—a lob shot in tennis, a perfect chip in golf. In the next heartbeat, she fell, wedging herself between the brass coffee table and the couch with her glass still firmly gripped in her hand. The contents sloshed, but not a single drop spilled.
I gasped. CeCe did too. We both rose from our chairs.
Not Alice. She crouched. “Oh, Mother. How could you?”
I wondered the same thing and more. How could Kizzi let Alice intrude on CeCe’s grief? How could Kizzi come here and get sauced? How could she not see that her daughter was disturbed?
With an ease that spoke of heartbreaking regularity, Alice shoved her forearms beneath Kizzi’s armpits and stood, lifting her mother with her. When they were both standing, Alice pushed her mother back onto the couch then offered CeCe and me an apologetic smile. “Mother has a problem with balance.”
Mother had a problem with gin. “Perhaps you should take her home?” I suggested.
Kizzi patted her hair. “I just slipped.”
Alice nodded. “She’s fine. Besides, we couldn’t leave.”
CeCe made a sound that might have been a sob—probably was a sob—then sank back onto her chair.
I glanced at my watch. Mother still had fifteen minutes.
I could have asked them to leave. Should have. But Kizzi Standish’s mother-in-law, Alice Anne Standish, scared the hell out of me. Not just me. She scared everybody. Maybe even Mother. Alice Anne possessed all the delicacy of a Sherman tank. She flattened people in her campaign to remake the world the way God should have made it. Her way.
I shifted in my chair and cast about for something—anything—to talk about.
Alice beat me to it. She leaned forward, rested her elbows on her knees and said, “Bobby and I were in love.”
Not that.
“It’s true.” She nodded as if the bobbing of her chin could convince me she was telling the truth. I didn’t need convincing. She was telling the truth—sort of. She believed Bobby had loved her. She definitely had loved him—if delusion counted as love.
CeCe covered her mouth with her hand. From where I sat, it appeared she might be biting the palm. To keep from screaming? Kizzi held up her empty glass and stared at it in wonder. Where had the liquid gone? I squirmed in my chair.
How had CeCe allowed a sixteen-year-old girl to hijack her living room sofa and her grief?
“I had everything planned.” Alice sat up straight. Her chin resumed its nodding. “We were going to finish high school, go to college, then get married. That girl meant nothing to him.”
I knew it! Alice couldn’t be the girl Bobby had loved. She was simply too odd. “What girl?” I asked.
Alice shrugged. “No one important.”
“If that’s true, why mention her?” I asked.
She scowled at me. The expression in her eyes was…feral, frightening, predatory.
I shivered, suddenly chilled.
“Bobby knows—knew,” she corrected, “I wouldn’t stand for him and another girl.”
The sound of my heart thudding in my chest echoed in my ears. I gripped the arm of the chair. Had Alice Standish killed Bobby Lowell?
The doorbell rang and CeCe sprang from her chair. “I’ll get that.” She rushed from the room leaving me with the girl who might have killed the boy who rejected her.
A moment later, a man’s voice drifted down the hall. I crossed my fingers in my lap. Then I heard a second voice—Mother’s. I owed her. No doubt she’d collect.
Howard Standish strode into CeCe’s living room. “Kizzi, Alice, it’s time to go home.”
His wife and daughter stared at him.
I did too. There was a trace of lipstick on the collar of his white shirt. Red lipstick. A shade similar to Rouge Chaud. Where had Mother found him? And with whom?
“I don’t want to go,” said Alice. “Mrs. Lowell needs me. Bobby would want me to be with his mother.”
“Bobby would understand, Alice.” CeCe stood in the doorway. Her voice was soft but determined, almost as if Mother’s arrival with Howard Standish had given her strength. “Besides, I’d like to be alone for a while.”
“Fine,” Alice huffed. “But I’ll be back.”
I stared at Howard. Mother cleared her throat and muttered his name.
Howard found a backbone. Finally. “No, Alice. You and Mrs. Lowell both need space to grieve. You’re not to come back here.”
Alice raised her pointy chin. “And if I do?”
He leveled his gaze on her. “Then you won’t go to the funeral.”
She muttered something about wanting to see him try and stop her, but she stood. She even pulled her mother to a standing position.
Howard Standish ushered his family away.
CeCe turned to Mother. “Thank you, Frances. I couldn’t get them to leave and—” Her voice hitched. “Thank you.”
Mother gave CeCe one of her tight, controlled, almost hugs. “Don’t mention it. The next time Alice shows up, don’t let her in.”
“Bobby asked her out once. One time.” CeCe held up her index finger and jabbed it into the air. “I think he did it to be kind. He came home and said that compared to Alice’s family, Rob and I looked like Ward and June Cleaver.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth and looked up at the ceiling.
While CeCe had better pearls than June, she hadn’t possessed a husband who came home every night. If the talk around the bridge table was true, sometimes he failed to come home for weeks at a time.
“That poor girl needs professional help.” Mother shook her head. “Lorna told me they’ve had her to several doctors but as soon as they hear bipolar they walk out of the office.”
“She’s not dangerous, is she?” asked CeCe.
Someone cleared her throat and as one, Mother, CeCe and I looked toward the entrance to the living room.
Alice stood there, crackling with crazy, dark, bone-deep anger. She raised her nose in the air, marched past us, bent and picked a small black handbag off the rug by the couch. “Mother forgot her purse.”
She’d heard everything we said. How else to explain the drawn brows, the narrowed eyes, the tightening around her lips? She looked positively frightening.
Had Alice killed Bobby? Whoever had knocked me down by the football stands was tall. I stared at the teenage girl who was trying to murder me with just a look. Alice was tall enough to knock me flat, but...
Without another word, Alice turned and stalked out.
Mother—brave, brave Mother—followed her.
CeCe and I stood frozen and quiet, caught in a surreal tableau where children were murdered and teenage girls looked guilty.
Mother returned, tsked and shook her head. Hard to tell if she was exasperated or sympathetic. “They’re gone. Howard and Kizzi shouldn’t let that girl out of the house.” Exasperated.
“Thank you, Frances, for bringing Howard, for coming to my rescue. And Ellison, thank you for calling the cavalry.” CeCe took a deep breath. “Every time I asked them to leave, Alice insisted she had to be
here.”
Mother reached out and took one of CeCe’s hands in her own.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” murmured our hostess.
Mother made a vague clucking sound in the back of her throat.
I stepped forward and rubbed a small circle on CeCe’s back. I hated to say anything, but I felt honor-bound to fulfill Bobby’s last wish. CeCe would want that too. “Bobby’s last words were ‘Tell her I love her.’ I don’t think he meant Alice.”
CeCe choked, the sound halfway between a laugh and a sob. “He didn’t mean Alice.”
“Who?” My voice sounded too eager, as if I was in a hurry to discharge Bobby’s request and move on with my life. I was. I was also terribly shallow. Poor CeCe would grieve for a lifetime. I rubbed another circle on her back, lowered my voice and said, “Do you know who it was?”
“He’d met a girl and he was head over heels in love with her.”
“What’s her name?” I leaned forward.
“No idea.” Again, CeCe’s voice caught.
Why was nothing ever easy?
She wiped her eyes and sniffled. “He said she was perfect. He seemed...happy. Everything about him changed. It was like the old Bobby had returned. He met her at the beginning of summer, right about the time…” Her face flushed.
Right about the time my husband got himself murdered.
Mother tsked. I don’t think she can help it. She does it every time anyone comes close to mentioning Henry.
CeCe covered her eyes with the tips of her fingers. “Thank you for not saying anything about love while Alice was here. The girl needs help.”
Both Mother and I snorted. The girl needed a mental institution.
“Did he…did Bobby…” CeCe didn’t look at me. Maybe she couldn’t. Maybe the blank wall really was fascinating. The muscles in her face looked frozen, taut, almost painful.
“He didn’t suffer at all. It was like he was falling gently asleep.” My nose itched like hell.
Mother gave me a short nod—she at least knew I was lying—then she draped her arm around CeCe’s shoulders and led her to the couch. “Ellison, would you please get CeCe a cup of coffee? Or would you prefer tea?”
Guaranteed to Bleed Page 4
