by Rachel Brady
I saw a white undershirt, stretched over an impressive paunch, and an eyeball. That was it.
The eyeball, overcast with an unruly brow, scrutinized. Judging by the ruddy complexion and deep lines surrounding it, I guessed its owner to be in his late sixties.
“You’re p-pretty.” He spoke with a pronounced slowness. “But you’re n-not allowed in.” His eye was glassy and a little too red in the corners, like maybe he had a cold. Behind him, Patti Page’s “The Tennessee Waltz” ended and immediately began again. “My name is William Henry S-Saunders the third.”
“Emily Locke.”
“The third?”
“No, the first.”
He regarded me a moment, then shut the door. The deadbolt thumped.
I tapped on the pane. “William?”
On the other side, his blurry white undershirt rocked back and forth, back and forth.
“Please open the door, William. I won’t come inside.”
My phone squeaked out a hurt noise, some vague semblance of a ring, and I fished it out and checked the Caller ID, which had only garbled characters.
I flipped it open, rapped on the door again.
“William?” and into the phone, “Hello?”
It was Vince.
I pressed nearer to the door. “My father was a third, William.”
“A third what?” Vince sounded amused. “Who’s William?”
On the other side of the glass, the rocking stopped.
“I’m trying to coax an interview from William Henry Saunders the third. What’s up?”
“You sound stressed.”
William opened the door—the same three inches as before—and his single visible eye scowled at my phone.
I flipped it closed. Vince would understand.
“Thanks for coming back,” I said.
“What was his n-name?” He hesitated at the beginning of each word, framing it on his lips before his reluctant voice followed.
“Joseph Alan Hennessey the third.” Three-fifths true.
“Did he watch f-football?”
I nodded.
“What team?” He pushed “team” out with effort.
Dad had been a lifelong Browns fan. “Oilers.”
“Their last game—” it was a struggle for him to get out “last” “—was December 22, 1996. I didn’t go.” He raised a finger, concentrating. “M-mother’s birthday.”
“William,” I said, “Did you know Dr. Platt, the man who lived next door?” I pointed toward the empty home.
William blinked. “He was not a th-third.”
“Ever talk to him much?”
William shook his head. “Mr. B. wouldn’t like that.” His eye scanned the sidewalk behind me. “He w-wouldn’t like you either. Strangers aren’t safe.”
“Who’s Mr. B.?”
“He t-takes care of me.”
“Is he here? Can I talk to him?”
He studied me. “No.”
I wasn’t sure which question he’d answered.
“I’m going to write down my phone number for Mr. B., William. Would you give it to him?” I fumbled in my purse again for a pen and paper.
“No.”
I looked up from my bag.
“Why not?”
“I’ll g-get in trouble for talking to you.” He shifted his weight and a Ford Mustang horse logo flashed on the left side of his chest and then disappeared again. I doubted William could drive.
I printed my contact information on a notepad. “Then I’ll leave this in the mailbox instead. He can find it later. How’s that?” I ripped the sheet from its miniature spiral binding. Another question came to mind.
“Did Dr. Platt have a dog?”
“No. Dogs are loud and they sh-shed and make m-messes in your yard.” He paused. “Joseph Alan H-Hennessey the third liked the Houston Oilers.”
I smiled. “It was nice to meet you, William. Thank you for talking to me.”
He closed the door with no goodbye and turned the dead bolt. I descended the steps, careful of my footing in the unsteady high heels. At the end of the walk, I slipped my note into the mailbox, where I hoped Mr. B. would find it.
A smoky barbecue aroma somewhere on the block gave me dinner ideas. I opened my phone, hoping to catch Vince, but my display was dead.
***
The first office supply store I visited didn’t have the software package required to open Diana’s surveillance files. The second had the right package, plus cookies and punch near the register—a bonus. I passed on the offer to apply for an in-store credit card, but helped myself to a cookie anyway. I even grabbed a couple for Jeannie before paying and going home.
The sun had set an hour ago but summer heat and humidity pushed down hard on me anyway. I swung my apartment door open, cookies in hand.
“Got something here for—”
The cool blast of A/C was divine. But instead of finding Jeannie, I was met by six gray-haired African American women drinking cocktails in my living room. At once, their faces brightened and they rushed toward me, spraying wild colors of silly string.
“Happy Birthday!”
“Surprise!”
It was surprising, indeed. I didn’t know a single one of them.
People I hadn’t noticed at first, but thankfully recognized, started streaming from my kitchen with wide, goofy smiles. Richard and Linda. Florence, my neighbor. Jeannie. When Annette came barreling around the corner, arms extended, even the sight of Nick and Betsy Fletcher trailing behind her couldn’t bring me down.
She leaped into my arms, “Happy Birthday, Emily! We have cake!”
I hugged her close and picked her up. She wrapped her legs tightly around me in a full body kid hug.
“You’re home early.” I kissed her cheek. She smelled like high-dollar perfume.
“It was a trick,” she said. “We were always coming home today so we could be at your party but we told you we weren’t coming home until Friday. The cake is chocolate.”
I glanced at Betsy, who’d followed her from the kitchen, and mouthed my thanks.
“You smell nice,” I said, trying not to sneeze.
“I know! Aunt Jeannie has the best stuff. And I like your new hair.”
With an open palm, she stroked the side of my head as one would pat down a horse. “And your dress,” she added. “I love pink.”
It couldn’t have been more than a few hours and she was already talking like Jeannie.
I kissed her again, and she squirmed out of my arms and raced back to the kitchen, where she tugged on Jeannie’s sleeve. I nodded to let Jeannie know I’d make my way back there shortly.
My neighbor Florence pushed some kind of apricot brandy drink into my hand. “Hope you don’t mind,” she said, nodding to the unfamiliar ladies gathered in my living room. “I brought the girls.”
She introduced me to her senior citizen Bunko group who, it seemed to me, had already enjoyed a few brandies.
Florence leaned toward me, somewhat conspiratorially. “My friend’s been quiet lately.”
She was speaking of the ghost that allegedly haunted her shower. This topic always made me uncomfortable. Not believing in ghosts, I couldn’t go along with her. Yet I adored her too much to outwardly say I thought she was loopy.
“Maybe he’s gone for good.”
She took back the brandy she’d given me and raised it to her crimson lips. “Here’s to that.”
I made my way to the kitchen where Jeannie was kneeling on the floor, penciling in Annette’s eyebrows.
“Jeannie.” I thumped her on the head. “She’s five years old.”
“Can’t start too early.”
“Aunt Jeannie’s giving me definition.” Annette was careful not to move.
I knelt on the tile beside my friend. “You did all this for me?”
She cut her eyes at me and then returned them to the task at hand. “Yes. And you called me a faker.”
The doorbell rang.
I s
tood to see who it was and Florence opened the door for Vince. He stepped in, removed his cowboy hat, and smiled at me across the narrow living room. The Bunko crowd looked him over and one grinned her approval at me. From behind his back, Vince produced a single red rose and began the short journey around the coffee table to bring it to me, but Annette—eyebrows slightly reminiscent of Mr. Spock—swooped in for the interception.
She took the flower and hugged his leg, then squeezed past me again on her way back to the kitchen, presumably looking for a vase.
Vince squinted at me, confused. “What happened on your head?”
“On my head?”
“Your hair.”
“Yeah, I get it. But on my head?” He laughed in his infectious, sexy way and I couldn’t take offense. “You don’t like it?”
His only response was to wink at me. “Great dress.”
“Jeannie’s Armani.”
Vince gave it another look. “You should wear dresses more often.” He scooped me into a delicious hug and slipped a second rose into my hand. “I’m getting better at juggling two women.”
The faint scent of sawdust lingered on him and I knew he’d left an important job to come to the party. I raised my head and kissed him lightly, thinking that Jeannie was right. It’d been four months since we’d met and I knew he was a keeper. Still, there was Annette to consider. Even less time had passed since I’d met her.
The doorbell rang again and I turned my head in time to see Florence reluctantly admit a very prim and sour-looking Diana King.
Chapter Seventeen
“Why were you in my office?” Diana glared at me across the room. She made no effort to be discreet. “Who let you in?”
The living room quieted.
I stole a quick glance at Jeannie but the oh-shit look on her face told me she’d be no help.
“Needed a phone.” I shrugged. “That’s all.”
She stepped nearer. The heels on her stilettos disappeared into my shag carpet. Florence stayed at the open door, apparently unwilling to close Diana inside.
“That’s not all,” Diana said. “We both know it.” The scent of her Danielle Steele perfume enveloped the space around us. It reminded me of Platt’s funeral.
I wanted to get her out of there before Annette caught on that something was wrong. “Let’s go outside.”
Vince touched the small of my back as I stepped toward the door. His simple gesture fortified me.
I followed Diana outside to the landing, curious how much she knew. She was talking before I closed the door.
“You got into my office with a key. Where’d you get it? What were you doing?”
“Where I got it isn’t important.” I kept my voice level and matter-of-fact, placed a hand casually on the banister railing to give the illusion I was calm.
“The hell it isn’t. I’m calling the police.”
“To tell them what?”
“That you broke into my office.”
“I didn’t. I used a key. You just said so.”
“A key that you stole.”
“You gave me that key.”
“What?”
I shrugged. “Your word against mine. I don’t have it anymore. If you want, I’ll pay to change the lock.”
She looked at me impassively. The key wasn’t what was bothering her.
“I went into your office to copy security footage from last Thursday.” Maybe frankness would neutralize her. “What can you tell me about those files?”
She blinked and shook her head in visible disbelief. “What would I…Wait a minute.” Her expression hardened. “Why Thursday? Who do you work for?”
“Do you know something about Wendell Platt’s murder that the police don’t?”
“You work for that tramp.” She spoke in the defeated way of the exhausted. “That makes me sick.”
She turned for the stairs.
“You think she did it then?”
Diana stopped, looked me in the eye. “Of course.”
“She thinks it was you.”
Diana scoffed. “She’d say anything. She’s a liar and a whore.” Her tone, calm and smooth, seemed ill-suited to the conversation but consistent with everything else about her. It was ninety-five degrees and, even in a linen dress and with hair loose around her shoulders, Diana’s face wasn’t even shimmering.
“Did your husband gain anything business-wise when Platt died?”
“I’m not having this conversation.” She walked down the stairs, her stride as soft as her voice.
“Or did you?” I said to her back. “Was he a tyrant to work for? Not the nice guy everyone painted him to be?”
She didn’t look back, just directed her answer into the thick, sticky night air. “I adored Wendell and so did Chris. That woman will burn in hell.”
“Why are you sure it was her?”
She stopped and looked up at me. “The fingerprints, the murder weapon, the e-mails…Frankly, I can’t see where there’s room for doubt.”
“How much do you know about those e-mails?” I asked this as if I had an inkling what she was talking about.
“Enough to know she was off her rocker. An obsessed has-been, pining for a man who’d never give her the time of day.”
I chewed on that a moment. “Assume you’re wrong about Ms. Gaston and that she’s wrong about you. Who else might have had a score to settle?”
I’d have felt a whole lot better about the exchange if I’d had a chance to look at Thursday’s videos first. As things stood, Platt’s killer might have been standing on my front steps at that very moment, plotting how to break into my apartment later and kill me with a screwdriver.
Diana surprised me.
“Don’t come back to the club.” She muttered this from what seemed like a far off place in her mind, as if too distracted to put forth much effort. Then she pulled her keys from her purse and walked to her Mercedes in the distracted way of a person who’s tuned out her surroundings.
***
I returned to find Florence and her friends trying to teach Annette the Bunny Hop, though all she wanted to do was spin in circles. Someone had slipped a sequined doo-rag onto her head and applied a crooked line of orange lipstick over her tiny mouth. She looked like a twirling gypsy midget.
I joined Betsy on the loveseat. “Thanks for bringing the dancing queen.”
We watched Annette copy Florence’s moves. She stomped and swayed off-beat and clapped so eagerly her hands missed once.
“She’ll sleep great tonight,” Betsy said. I felt her turn to look at me, but pretended not to notice, keeping my eyes on Annette instead.
“What was that about before?” she said a moment later. “With the woman at the door?”
“Just work.”
“What are you working on?”
“Richard took a new case. He’s helping a defense lawyer try to clear a client.”
“Of what?”
I glanced at her, weary. “Homicide. I’d rather not talk about it. It’s draining.” Plus, it’s none of your business.
She shifted her weight on the cushion next to me and everything about the motion made me uncomfortable. I feared she was as determined to press the issue as I was determined to drop it.
She started in again. “Please don’t take this the wrong way…”
To be polite, I looked at her and forced a tolerant smile, or what I hoped would pass for one. I tried to seem genuinely interested in whatever was coming, but really I wanted her to leave. I wanted everyone to leave. Then I could watch the security footage and try to piece together Diana’s role in the whole mess.
“Do you think this is an appropriate line of work?” Betsy wanted to know. “With Annette in the mix, I mean. Seems dangerous.”
She had Annette’s interests at heart. I knew that. Still, I was so totally jealous of this woman—this imposter my daughter had grown up loving as Mom—that anything she said felt like a thinly veiled judgment or criticism.
“It
’s not in the cards forever,” I said, a bit terse. “Right now it pays the bills and the flexibility’s a must.”
“We know that,” she said kindly, and I grew edgy with the knowledge that she was speaking for both herself and Nick now. “It’s commendable that you’d sacrifice your career to make more time for Annette.”
I didn’t consider my hiatus from a career in chemistry to be a sacrifice, but I wouldn’t share that with Betsy. She waved for Nick to join us from his post at my kitchen counter. He was using a plastic “spork” to pile blueberry cobbler onto his plate, a chore that required multiple scoops. When he finally finished, he came over.
“Tell her about Steve,” Betsy said.
Nick grinned. “The perfect job for you, Emily. Dow Oil and Gas. Buddy of mine has an open position. He’ll consider the part-time arrangement too.” He used the edge of his spork to try to cut through the cobbler’s crust, but it wasn’t working. “I’ll put you in touch.”
I watched his ineffective sawing and wondered what was wrong with me. Nick and Betsy were only trying to help. They were nice people. Too nice.
Maybe that’s why they irritated me.
No, I thought. It’s not because they’re nice. It’s because Annette loves them better.
From the front of the room, she squealed. “Mommy, watch me spin!”
Betsy and I both looked. The proud little grin that I loved so much wasn’t directed at me.
Richard caught my eye and I knew he wanted to talk about Diana’s visit. Before he could bring it up in front of Betsy, I excused myself saying I was thirsty. We met in the dining room—unfortunately only a few steps away from the couch—and I nodded discreetly in Betsy’s direction. Richard got it.
“You know anything about e-mails between Claire and Platt?” I asked in a low voice.
Richard, crunching an ice cube from his drink, only shook his head. After swallowing, he asked what I was talking about.
“Diana said that Claire sent a bunch of stalker-like e-mails to Platt. I’m not sure what to make of that. Claire said they’d never met.”
“How does Diana know about the e-mails?”
“Suppose Platt told her? It sounds like they were friends.” I thought about the missing computers at Claire’s house. “Or maybe the police found the e-mails at Platt’s house.”
