Sprayed Stiff

by Laura Bradley

  “Too bad.”

  I looked at Charlotte, but she just shook her head helplessly. Great, just when I needed a verbal boost, Motormouth went mute.

  “Okay, Lexa, let’s say you don’t have a boyfriend. Then tell me why you’ve gone designer on me.”

  Unexpectedly, Lexa opened the door and put out a leg. “You like it?”

  On closer inspection, the suit’s mango-colored silk was even finer than I’d thought. Certainly no ordinary Chanel. Or was that an oxymoron? As I debated that, I noticed Lexa’s calves. Had they been shaved? She was wearing actual pantyhose and mango and black Ferragamo pumps. The Prada bag of many colors looked brand-new.

  “Mother always wanted me to dress this way, so now I’ll dress this way. It’s the least I can do for her. It will be my own personal memorial.”

  “I don’t think they’ll let you wear Chanel in jail, Lexa,” I pointed out.

  She shrugged.

  Uh-oh. Guilt was setting in. But guilt for what? Not being there to prevent the murder, for never being the daughter Wilma wanted, or something more sinister? “Where did you get all this stuff?”

  “I went to Saks Fifth Avenue today.”

  Shopping instead of planning the funeral. I’m sure that looked good to the police. No wonder Scythe was after her ass.

  Charlotte was nodding. “Therapeutic shopping. I do that all the time.”

  Along with therapeutic eating. But, hey, I did that too, along with therapeutic snipping sometimes. Face it, we were all head cases in one way or another. Some of us just hid it better than others.

  “But I doubt the visit to Saks made you feel any better, did it, Lexa?”

  She drew her mouth into a tight line and pivoted on the seat, slamming the car door. “I’m going to do what Mother would’ve wanted me to do. I should have done it all while she was alive. Then maybe she’d still be alive.”

  “What else are you going to do now—go to law school or marry a lawyer, or both?”

  Lexa threw the Jag into drive. I knew I was being pushy, maybe a bit cruel, but I had to be. The police thought her behavior was something like that of the Munchkins in The Wizard of Oz who danced around singing “Ding-dong, the wicked witch is dead,” but this weirdness was really something else altogether. She felt terribly guilty, that was clear, but I could’ve sworn her actions were atonement for past sins, not for the murder. How could I explain that to the domestic-murder fans along with whatever she was hiding?

  “I guess your boyfriend could go to law school and solve the whole dilemma for you.”

  The tires squealed on the cobblestones as she peeled out. Charlotte, ever the overly dramatic, screeched and jumped back. I just stood there and nearly got my toes run over, watching her zoom down the driveway only to have to wait for the gate to open with the speed of a sloth. Kind of ruined the effect of a burned-rubber getaway.

  Reality. Sometimes it really sucked.

  Especially when I was gypped out of my shot of Cuervo Gold.

  The Carricaleses were no help with clarifying the hims and hers who were doing this and that to each other. Maria looked nauseated that she’d blurted out the whole thing in front of the potential murderer (me), and José looked sorry that I cared what any of it meant (because I was a nice girl and needed to be home doing cross-stitch or something, whatever nice girls do). Even emphasizing that I was trying to use their information to help keep Lexa out of jail didn’t sway them. I guess they trusted the guys in blue more than they trusted me. Or maybe Percy paid them to keep their traps shut. Go figure. Oh, well, we got something out the deal anyway. I got to taste some hundred-year-old brandy, and Charlotte got to eat a couple pieces of chocolate torte.

  I delivered Charlotte back to her car at the Hanson compound and headed home to meet her friend, who’d stipulated that Charlotte not be there. She won big points with me for that, since Charlotte had a mouth with no sensors. If she’d been present, whatever this girl told us would end up as part of gossip central in no time. I pulled up in front of my house, and felt that little rush of pride I still got whenever I saw the sign for Transformations.

  I’d let the dogs in, underwent Char’s guilt trip, Cab’s adulation, and Beau’s studied apathy, and fed them when the doorbell rang. The dogs went wild, nails scraping on my polished oak floors, racing to be the first at the front door.

  I held them back and opened up to see a tall young woman whose skin was the color of my morning coffee with a generous splash of cream. She wore her hair about a quarter-inch long, which just complemented her flawless features. By anyone’s standards, Annette Hastings was lovely, even though her tight expression and severe dress set her beauty on edge. She wore a heavily starched white cotton blouse tucked with military folds into tailored black slacks so sharply creased they looked capable of slicing cheese. She wore no makeup or jewelry other than a stainless steel watch that told time in at least four time zones and probably went on the Internet, too.

  “I guess you’ve never had a break-in,” she observed as she entered, kicking out at the dogs as they tried to greet her. Cab and Char kept trying, but Beau looked slitty-eyed at her and hung back, keeping the unfriendly interloper in her sights.

  “You’d think that,” I said, closing the door and ushering the group down the hall in the kitchen. “But I have had a guy break in.”

  Her eyebrows rose, but she didn’t ask for details. That was good, since she’d never believe how it happened, anyway.

  Annette refused my offers of a drink and asked me to close my wooden blinds. I thought it was a little paranoid, but I complied.

  “No one can know I came here.”

  “Charlotte knows.”

  “I’m aware of that, but she’ll keep quiet.”

  I must have looked skeptical, because she added, “I have dirt on her.”

  I held my look. She added, “I had a dozen bagels same-day FedExed from Brooklyn, then videotaped her eating the whole package. Her parents think she’s on the Atkins diet. If she falls off the wagon, they say they’ll send her to that famous fat farm up in Dallas.”

  “That’s cruel,” I said, aghast, and she just nodded.

  “Mr. Barrister told me not to tell anyone what’s been going on at the office. Not even the police,” she said as she claimed the window bench. She had a model’s body but moved like a toy soldier. I’d say Annette had issues. Driven to a fault would be one of them, I imagine. Having no perspective beyond her own goals would be another. I certainly would not ever want to be in her way.

  “Why did Percy say that?”

  She looked down at her watch. Wondering what time it was in Bolivia, maybe? “I don’t know. He is a secretive man with an extremely controlling nature. I imagine the fact that the police and media will be into his affairs because of Wilma’s murder is making him nervous.”

  “You think that’s all it is?”

  “Maybe. Or something he did led to her murder.”

  “You think so? Why don’t you contact the police anonymously?”

  Annette shot me a glare that made me flinch. Then, when I didn’t back down, she shook her head. “I can’t. I know Mr. Barrister has at least one cop on his payroll. Don’t ask me why—I won’t tell you. Don’t ask me who—I don’t know. But I can’t risk Mr. Barrister finding out I talked. I grew up on the east side without a dime, raised by my grandma. I’m saving money to get into law school, and with my college record, my test scores, and his recommendation and contacts, I’m a shoo-in for a full scholarship at St. Mary’s. I will not jeopardize that. Not for anything.”

  I believed her. Percy could come in and murder Annette’s grandmother in full view, and Annette wouldn’t rat on him and mess up her plans. She was going to make one helluva lawyer. Compromise wasn’t a concept she understood, even in conversation.

  “Come on, Annette. Why not come clean to the cops now and get it over with? After all, do you really think you’re going to get that scholarship if your mentor is arrested for killing his w
ife?”

  “You didn’t grow up here in San Antonio, did you?”

  “No.” I watched her closely, not sure where this was going.

  Annette sniffed. “No wonder you don’t get it. In the circles we’re talking about right now—big-time back-scratching, oh-nine zip codes, and eight-figure net worths—life is very incestuous. Everybody owns everybody else somehow, whether it is through marriage, knowledge, favors, sex, or money. What happens between the cops and my boss won’t change what happens inside the circle. Whatever he is owed and how the scholarship pays that particular debt won’t change. If he knows I disobeyed his orders, however, he will find some other way to call in payment that doesn’t benefit me.”

  “So why talk to me at all?”

  “Because, despite what you may think, I do have a conscience.”

  No she didn’t. She was telling me this for some other reason. Annette saw skepticism in my face and shrugged. “Fine. I have to protect myself on all sides. If Percy Barrister is arrested and convicted, then I want to look like I told the truth to someone. I can always say later—after the scholarship is mine, after he is behind bars—that I didn’t go to the police because I’d been threatened by him. If what I tell you prevents any more murders, then it makes me look even better in the end.”

  She was using me, but finally being honest about it. Okay. I could live with that. “You think there are going to be more murders?”

  “Maybe. They say things happen in threes.”

  Now, that creeped me out. The superstitious statement was completely out of character for this woman. She knew something. Probably not what she was about to tell me, but she had juice, no question.

  “Okay, Annette, you can tell me whatever you want the police to know, and I will make sure they won’t find out where it came from. You have my word.”

  “I checked you out by another source, or I wouldn’t have come.”

  “Who was the other source?”

  “Jon Villita.”

  “How do you know Jon?”

  The way she smiled, I decided I didn’t want to know how she knew Jon, my gentle friend. The thought of him knowing this tough cookie was scary.

  “I have something on him, too,” Annette said with a cold smile, “something that, if you turn on me, I will make public.”

  What could she have on Jon, a Boy Scout if I ever met one? I had a fertile imagination and I couldn’t conjure a single possibility, that’s how squeaky-clean this friend was. I guessed by checking me out with Jon and Charlotte, she’d determined that I was fiercely loyal. An Achilles’ heel I was proud of. An Achilles’ heel that had almost killed me once.

  Before I could mull her threat any further, she got down to business. “So we understand each other?”

  Annette apparently understood me better than I understood her, but I nodded. She began: “About a year ago, Mr. Barrister started to get what became a series of odd packages. In retrospect, they started coming after his first visit from a pair of men from south of the border—they were well dressed but low-class.”

  “Trying to make themselves silk purses out of sow’s ears?” I asked.

  Annette cocked her head at me. Oops, sometimes you couldn’t take the country out of the girl. Maybe she understood me less than she’d first thought.

  “Anyway,” Annette continued, “despite their designer suits, these cats were dangerous. You could feel it when they walked into the room.”

  “The kind that carry guns under their coats?”

  Annette shook her head. “The kind who carry switchblades in their shoes.”

  “I’ve only known one man like that. He was caught gutting small animals for fun.”

  “Uh-huh. I think that was just a warm-up for these cats. Anyway, they arrived unannounced and met with Mr. Barrister, and he was a nervous wreck for a week after they’d gone. Then a couple of weeks later I go out to lunch and a package is outside the door to our office. It’s addressed to Mr. Barrister, but it hasn’t come through the mail system. With all the mail bombs. I thought I better not pick it up, even if he is only a tax lawyer. There’s not much people get more worked up about than money, which is what taxes are all about. I called him. He went ghosty white, picked up the package, and locked himself in his office without another word. I have to admit, I didn’t wait to see if it was a mail bomb or not, because I figured I’d hear it from the restaurant if it was.”

  “That’s cold,” I couldn’t help saying. “You didn’t care if he got blown up?”

  “I guess that’s the difference between me and you. You’d probably blow yourself up before you’d stand around and watch someone you know get rearranged, huh?” Her tone said I was an idiot.

  “That’s true. I’m proud to be that way.”

  That set Annette back a second or two. I’d bet she wasn’t used to people getting one up on her, especially idiots. She cleared her throat and continued, “When I got back from lunch, there was no sign of the package. We got a couple more visits from a pair of Mexican men, different ones, but the same in that they were dangerous and well dressed, and one spoke impeccable English, the other none. The packages would come a short time later. Same scenario, but twice Mr. Barrister called me to dispose of something in a garbage sack that felt like animal body parts. The last package I did see by accident, because I walked in when he was opening it….”

  Annette paused and swallowed hard. Even the memory rattled her. That was saying something, as she was the most self-possessed woman I’d ever met. I gave her a minute to compose herself. She cleared her throat and straightened her spine. “It was a photo of the Barrister family when the kids were in high school. The glass on the frame had been shattered, blood splattered over the photo.”

  “Uh-oh, that sounds like a threat to me. Are you sure these Mexican guys were the ones who sent it?”

  “Where and how they left it, the brown paper wrapping, even the writing was the same.”

  “Did you tell Percy he ought to call the police then?”

  “I did. He just shook his head, went into his bathroom, and vomited for about ten minutes, then told me to throw the thing away in a Dumpster on my way home, which is what I’d done with the other packages.”

  “When did the bloody frame arrive?”

  “Less than a week ago.”

  “Where did you drop it?”

  “At a strip mall across from the theaters along I-10. You know a lot of those places lock up their Dumpsters, so I had to wait until someone came out to dump something and went back in for more. That’s when I slipped the frame in there. It was the third Dumpster in the row.”

  “So it sounds like these Mexican guys were the most likely suspects—either they were blackmailing Percy over some secret, or he was involved in some dealings with them that went sour.”

  “Maybe.” She reviewed her perfect, unadorned nails.

  “You don’t sound certain. You have a better suspect?”

  “Well, I have to say that Mr. Barrister’s girlfriend—”

  I slapped my hands down on the table in surprise. “Percy has a girlfriend?”

  “He always has a girlfriend.”

  The unibrow troll must have some major pheromones I didn’t detect. Or maybe a lot of women were in dire need of some free tax-law advice. Wouldn’t the old gals from the Junior League be surprised that Percy did more than look? “Any of his old girlfriends jealous of the new one?”

  “They aren’t bitch-slapping each other in the lobby over his affections or anything like that. Frankly, if they won’t let go when he’s done with them, I think he threatens to send the IRS after them.”

  One way to cut off an affair. “How chivalrous.”

  She shrugged. And waited.

  I had to nudge her again. “I’m sorry I interrupted. You were saying about his current girlfriend?”

  “She may be the real deal. He’s been different with her. He’s really in love this time.”

  “So maybe Percy took care of Wilm
a to clear the way for happily-ever-after for him and his sweetie.”

  Annette shook her elegant head. “Mr. Barrister wouldn’t have done that. He was too afraid of Wilma and too used to having all her money. Tax law doesn’t necessarily pay well enough to keep up the standard of living that Wilma’s family inheritance did. I overheard him on the phone a couple of weeks ago, telling his girlfriend that if Wilma preceded him in death, all but an allowance for him and the children goes into a trust for future grandchildren.”

  I’d bet Annette overheard a lot that went on in Percy’s life. Poor man had better nominate her for the scholarship, or else. “Kind of an odd conversation to have with a girlfriend. Although if she was considering killing Percy’s wife, I guess that would’ve thrown a damper on her plans instead of inciting them.”

  “Not necessarily,” Annette argued. “She might have just wanted Wilma out of the way. And when you think about it, Mr. Barrister’s allowance and salary probably are enough for her, a working-class girl. The news said Wilma was shot and left in a degrading position. While it could’ve been Mr. Barrister’s Mexican visitors, I also think Shauna Rollins could’ve shot her with no compunction.”

  “Where can I find her?”

  “She’s got a converted cottage she uses as an office on North New Braunfels. From what I hear, she’s an expert of sorts, plans to start traveling all over the country.”

  “Expert in what?”

  “Makeup.”

  Eleven

  BY THE TIME ANNETTE LEFT, in her convincingly coldhearted way reminding me she knew where I lived, how much I loved my dogs, and who all my friends were, it was after midnight. I was itching to go see Shauna Rollins, but doubted that she’d be doing somebody’s makeup at the witching hour, unless it was another customer in Wilma’s state of unbeing. And if that was the case, I didn’t want to be walking in on the two of them.

  Besides, when I sat down on the couch to plan my sleuthing around my next workday (hey, I had to make a living) and how I should diplomatically relay all the goodies I’d learned to Scythe, I zonked out. After all, I had been awake about forty hours straight. Even the leftover moo goo gai pan I’d taken out of the freezer to thaw couldn’t keep me awake.