by Ed Gorman
He reconstructed, or tried to: Susan Richards had attempted suicide but had failed and had then confessed to Todd Ames that she'd killed the four people. Then Tobin, sad because it was Susan, had gone to get drunk. "Scoobey-doobey-doo" kept playing in his head. That and Kent cigarettes. He definitely (well, sort of definitely) recalled buying a package of Kent cigarettes and smoking them. One by one till they were all gone.
He lay there then and pressed the remote control on his nightstand. He might as well be viewing while he was preparing himself for the enormous task of emptying his bladder and taking a shower.
No easy thing to move your leg and put your foot on the floor and then get up and go into the bathroom.
And then for no reason he thought of his daughter (the way fragments of memory assault you during a hangover) and how her hair had looked so red in the sunlight at her cap-and-gown graduation and how he'd hugged her and…
The movie was Death Wish 9 in which Charles Bronson, now an octogenarian, is dedicated to keeping safe the lives of his fellow prisoners in an old folks' home.
They'd managed to get sex into the film by having the extremely sexy day nurse wear a see-through uniform.
Finally, he couldn't take it any longer-not the movie, his bladder.
He forced his leg off the bed and then his other leg and then he went and had himself a shower.
When he came out he opened a beer left over from last night's frolic and was just having his first sip when the phone rang.
It was an operator and she wanted to know if he was the Mr. Tobin who had called the residence of a Mr. Sanderson and Tobin said he was and then she said go ahead please.
"Mr. Tobin, this is Everett Sanderson's brother. You were supposed to call me this afternoon." He sounded angry.
"Damn, I completely forgot. I'm sorry."
"You called last night and was asking the missus some questions about my cousin who died in that trailer fire."
"Yes, I was, Mr. Sanderson."
"I'd like to know why."
"I wanted to know why your brother was on the cruise ship."
"Did they find out who killed him yet?"
"Yes."
There was a long pause. Then a noise that might have been a sob. "There ain't nothin' bad enough that can happen to that man."
"It's a she."
"A woman?"
"Yes."
"Bullshit. No woman could kill Everett."
Given the circumstances, Tobin decided to overlook the ridiculous remark.
"What the hell did she have to do with Everett?"
"He knew about Ken Norris skimming the money from the 'Celebrity Circle' cast. She didn't want that known."
"I don't know what you're talkin' about."
"Your brother was working with a woman named Iris Graves from a newsstand paper called Snoop."
"Snoop. Everett read it all the time but he sure as hell didn't work for it."
"You're sure?"
"My brother went on that boat to talk to Mandy Nichols."
"Who?"
"Mandy Nichols. She was married to a cousin of ours." Then he mentioned the name of the man in the newspaper clipping-the one who'd been burned to death in the trailer fire.
Tobin leaned back against the headboard. "Why would he be trailing Mandy Nichols here?"
"Because she killed our cousin-and damn near killed their little girl right along with him."
Tobin explained about the newspaper clipping he'd discovered along with Everett's personal effects. "Why didn't it mention a little girl?"
"They didn't find her till next day. She'd crawled away from the fire, then collapsed out in the woods. They'd assumed at first that Mandy had taken her along." He cursed. '"Course Mandy with her fancy notions didn't plan to take nobody along. My cousin was the kind of man who woulda tracked her down and she knew it. So she tried to kill both of 'em-her husband and her daughter."
"And Everett's been tracking her all these years?"
"Yes. Till about a year ago when we found her."
"Mandy?"
"Right."
"Where was she?"
"Hollywood. That was always her thing. To live in Hollywood. Couldn't sing, couldn't dance, couldn't really even act much based on what I saw in her high school plays. But she did have a good face and a good body. I gotta give her that."
"So Everett confronted her?"
"He tried. She had him arrested several times. He tried to tell the police what had happened-how she'd hooked up with these so-called actors who were down here on location and the three of them helped her douse the trailer with gasoline and then set it up."
"You're sure it was the actors?"
"Positive. It had rained three or four hours after the fire and the sheriff found four sets of tracks in the morning-three male ones and then Mandy's."
"So Everett tracked Mandy down after all these years."
"He sure did. We run this small investigation agency but every chance he'd get to work on the case, he'd take it. He'd keep going to the sheriff but he said we needed more evidence-then they started saying the case was so old they couldn't do anything about it even if they'd wanted to."
"So why did he board this cruise?"
"Because something new had come up."
"What was that, Mr. Sanderson?"
There was a pause, and then Sanderson told him. And then Tobin had to move very, very quickly.
43
7:41 P.M.
"I need to see Susan Richards," Tobin said, pushing through Captain Hackett's door without knocking.
The captain, dining alone at his desk, looked up abruptly and said, "What the hell's wrong with you?"
"I said I need to see Susan Richards."
"Why?"
"I want you to call the steward who's standing guard and tell him I'm going to be there in fifteen minutes and that I'm being permitted to go in and talk to her. But first I need a key to her cabin."
"I put her in the cabin two doors down from where she was staying-for safekeeping. Care to tell me what the hell's going on?"
Tobin said, "I don't think she's our killer."
The captain put down his fork. "Do you know what the hell you're talking about?"
Tobin shook his head. "I'm afraid I do, Captain. I'm afraid I do."
44
7:52 P.M.
Susan Richards's room smelled of gentle perfume and cigarette smoke. The blinds were drawn, the bed properly made, all her cosmetics neatly arranged on the bureau.
Tobin started first in the bureau drawers. He found nothing except the expected lingerie, blouses, scarves.
He closed the final drawer and moved on to the closet. He paused once and clipped off the light because he heard somebody coming down the corridor. The footsteps were loud, squeaky with leather. Then they moved on past.
Tobin resumed his search, finding two leather suitcases set side-by-side in the back of the closet.
He turned on the light again and hauled both suitcases to the bed.
The first suitcase was stuffed with more cosmetics. Running to wrinkle cream, and moisturizer, and Scandinavian elixirs that promised all sorts of miracles, they were sad reminders of how uncomfortably many beautiful women deal with impending age.
In the second suitcase he found the two things of note: the small black and white photograph he'd seen Susan Richards holding the other day by the swimming pool and a folded letter identical to the one that Cindy McBain had seen stuffed under Kevin Anderson's door-the one with the Xerox of the infant. The one all the "Celebrity Circle" panelists had received.
Tobin compared the small photograph to the Xerox image on the paper. They were identical.
He knew now that everything Everett Sanderson's brother had told him on the phone was true.
He picked up the phone, dialed the Farris cabin.
Alicia Farris answered, "Hello."
"Hello, Alicia. This is Tobin."
"Oh. Hello." She did not sound the least happy to
hear from him. After this afternoon he was hardly surprised.
"I need to speak to Jere."
"He's resting."
"It's important."
There was a pause. "Susan Richards is being charged with these murders. The scandal will destroy the show. What the hell more do you want, Tobin?"
"I want to speak to Jere."
"You sonofabitch."
But she did not hang up. In the background she could be heard telling her husband who was on the phone. Jere cursed. Bedsprings squeaked. He said, "What the hell do you want?"
"I need you to answer a question for me very carefully."
"Why should I?"
Tobin sighed. "It's important, Jere. That's why."
Ice rattled in a glass, which helped explain why Jere sounded half-bagged. "What's your question?"
"The night before last, did Joanna Howard push a love letter to you under your door?"
"Why the hell would that be any business of yours?"
"Answer me. Please."
"No."
"That's all I wanted to know."
As he was hanging up, he heard Jere sputtering another angry response.
45
8:02 P.M.
"You always look so bundled up," Cindy said. "Slacks and long-sleeve blouses. You should let yourself go, especially on a cruise like this. You've got a nice shape."
They were in Joanna Howard's cabin and drinking wine. White wine and lots of it. Too much of it, in fact. Cindy felt positively drunk.
Late this afternoon she'd run into Joanna in one of the lounges. They'd had a steak sandwich together and then they'd come back to Joanna's to relax. Joanna reminded Cindy a bit of Aberdeen. She was full of questions about Cindy's life. The men she'd known and the places she'd gone and the best dresses she'd ever owned-but mostly about the men she'd known. Cindy felt like a movie star being interviewed by a slightly agog reporter-just the way Aberdeen always made her feel. But Cindy knew what Joanna was doing. She was trying to get over a broken heart because just this afternoon Jere Farris had informed her that he was breaking off their relationship.
Cindy sneezed.
"Catching cold?"
"Allergies. They just come up."
"Need a Kleenex?"
Cindy rooted about in her purse. "I've got one here." She waved it like a tiny white flag of surrender, then applied it to her nose. She filled it in a single blow.
"I'm sorry about Jere," Cindy said.
She sat on the couch with her feet on the coffee table. Joanna sat across the room, scrunched up in an easy chair.
"It's just as well," Joanna said.
The funny thing, Cindy thought, was that even though Joanna was throwing back the wine, she didn't sound drunk at all.
"It sure is," Cindy said, trying to sound brave on Joanna's behalf. "You'll find somebody twice as nice. Twice as nice."
Joanna touched her stomach. "Need to go to the bathroom. You want some more wine?"
"I can get it, hon. You just take care of your bladder."
Joanna grinned. She had a perfectly wonderful grin. "You're so nice."
"So are you."
On the way to the bathroom, Joanna passed by Cindy and touched her on one of her big toes. "You're a good friend of mine."
"Well, considering that you work with TV stars all day and I'm just a secretary, I consider that a compliment."
"An executive secretary."
"Well, yes, I guess that's true. An executive secretary."
"Be right back."
As soon as the bathroom door closed, Cindy sneezed this huge sneeze and then found herself with a wet nose and no Kleenex.
On unsteady feet, she got up and began looking for a box of tissues.
She opened the first bureau drawer she came to and while she did find a box of Kleenex Boutique, she also found something else.
She was staring at the something else when she heard the bathroom door open up.
"Cindy. What the hell are you doing in my bureau?" Joanna said. She didn't sound cordial anymore. Not at all.
"I was just looking for Kleenex and I found…" And then her eyes dropped to the small black and white photograph.
She had seen a copy of this in the envelope slid under the door in Kevin Anderson's cabin and-
"My God," Cindy said. "You're the one who…"
But she didn't have time to finish the rest of the sentence because Joanna had magically produced a gun.
Cindy stared at it in disbelief.
She was a secretary from Kansas City (well, all right, an executive secretary) and guns just weren't a part of her life.
Not at all…
46
8:20 P.M.
"She's your daughter, isn't she?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"What did they do to make her want to kill them?"
"Who?"
"You know who. Ken Norris and Kevin Anderson."
"I thought we were friends, Tobin."
"We are friends, Susan. I'm trying to stop anybody else from being killed." He paused. "She's your daughter, isn't she, Joanna Howard?"
"No."
"You're lying."
"As I said, I don't know what you're talking about."
"You thought she died in the trailer with your husband but she didn't. I talked to Everett Sanderson's brother-she crawled away from the blaze and the police found her in the morning."
"I'd like a cigarette."
"I don't have any."
"Why don't you ask the steward outside the door?"
"In a minute."
Susan sighed and let her head drop. Even in a loose gray workshirt and wrinkled jeans-and utterly without makeup-she was still beautiful. Fading as she approached her mid-forties but beautiful nonetheless.
They were in the cabin where Susan was being held. Sometimes people passed by in the corridor. Some of them whistled and some of them laughed. It seemed to
Tobin that at this moment no one on the entire planet had any right to whistle let alone laugh.
He stood three feet away from her. There was no doubt at all that he was her inquisitor. He wished it did not have to be this way but there was no choice. Not any longer.
He said, "You did a good job when you ran away from the trailer, Susan. Just enough plastic surgery that nobody back home would recognize you. Not right off, anyway. But you didn't count on the Sanderson brothers and you didn't count on your own daughter."
Susan looked up finally. Her face was ruined in the way a stroke victim's face is sometimes ruined. A look carved into the face forever. She said, "She's crazy, you know." She was starting to choke and cry.
"They helped you, didn't they-Ken Norris and Kevin Anderson-they helped you burn down the trailer, didn't they?"
She nodded, continued crying.
"They came to a small town to make a movie and you were dazzled-only your young husband was a very jealous man and wouldn't let you go when they made you promises about Hollywood-and so the only way out you could see was to burn down the trailer. Along with your husband and your daughter-and start all over again as Susan Richards."
He got up and she came at him and he could see now she was just as crazy as she'd accused her daughter of being.
He slapped her across the mouth once, with something like expertise, and pushed her on the bed.
He stood over her and said, "That's how you got your start in Hollywood, wasn't it? You were sleeping with them and they helped you burn down the trailer and so you were all locked in together. They had to help you succeed. Did they know your daughter was in the trailer that night?"
"No," she said softly. "I told them she and her father were out of town. They just thought they were helping me get a new start-burning down the trailer and sneaking out in the middle of the night. I was… crazy. All I could think of was getting rid of my daughter and husband and-" She rolled over on her stomach and put her head down and the sobs were so hard that the entire bed bounced.
/> He wanted to go over and slide his arm around her-he could not imagine how you could hold in your mind the fact that you had tried to kill your own child-and offer her whatever mixture of hatred and pity he felt for her.
But instead he said, "Jere Farris was a part of this, too, wasn't he? The other night Joanna tried to tell me she'd slipped a love letter under his door-but it was a Xerox of her baby picture, the one she left with Norris and Anderson before she killed them. She killed Sanderson and Iris Graves because they'd figured out who she was too. She didn't have any choice."
There was a knock.
Tobin kept his eyes on her as he went to get the door. When he opened it, the room was filled with the scent of the ocean. The steward stood there. "The captain asked me to check with you after ten minutes. To see if everything was all right." The steward carried a formidable walkie-talkie.
"Tell him everything's fine."
The steward nodded and closed the door.
When Tobin turned back, she was gone. He went over and sat in the easy chair and listened to her pee in the toilet.
When she came out she said, "Can you imagine her life, Tobin? Can you imagine how I've destroyed it? Her own mother trying to kill her."
"I know." Suddenly he was tired of her self-pity. It was her daughter who should be pitied.
"I want you to tell her that I don't expect her to forgive me. But that I do ask her to understand that I was very young and that her father was very cruel."
"She was your daughter."
"Just tell her that, Tobin. Just tell her that."
He got up and put his hands in his pockets and began to pace.
He turned abruptly for the door.
"Where are you going, Tobin?" she said.
"Where the hell else?" he said. "To find your daughter."
47
8:51 P.M.
"Where's Jere?"
"Went for a walk," Alicia Farris said at her cabin door. "What the hell do you want with him?”
She was drunk.
He ran the length of the deck and found no sight of Jere Farris. He found a phone in a lounge and called the captain. He explained as concisely as he could who Joanna Howard really was. "Find her before she kills Farris," he said.
