by J. A. Jance
"I was getting even," she answered with a shrug. "Guy threw me out. Once he saw her, he thought I was fat and ugly and old. You can fix fat, but there's not much you can do about old and ugly, is there. Guy dumped me on the garbage heap like an old shoe-and for a slut like that!"
"God in heaven! You didn't have to kill them."
Marjorie paused long enough to pour more gin into the glass. "Didn't I?" she returned scornfully. "If I didn't, who would? You must know what they were by now, or you wouldn't be here."
"It still wasn't up to you," Fraymore insisted doggedly. "Sooner or later, the law catches up with people like that."
"No, it wouldn't," she replied. "The statute of limitations ran out on most of Daphne's criminal activity long ago, and although you may not be willing to do it yourself, there's no law against ditching a worn-out wife."
Fraymore's massive shoulders drooped. "Why didn't you tell me what you knew? If you found out, it couldn't have been that much of a secret."
Marjorie picked up the glass and took a long pull on it. "Oh, it was a secret all right. They really covered their tracks. I found out because I made it my business to find out, because I made it my life's work. It took a long time. It took a lot longer to find the girl."
"What girl? Tanya Dunseth?" I asked. Speaking, I moved into the circle of light. I wanted Marjorie to know there were two of us-that she wouldn't be able to talk her way around Gordon Fraymore and get off scot-free. She dismissed me with barely a glance.
"As soon as I found Tanya, I knew she was a gold mine."
"As in blackmail?"
Marjorie regarded me over the rim of her glass. "That too," she allowed, "but also as bait. With Guy's theater connections, it was easy to get them down here when I wanted to."
"What about Tanya? Was she in on it?"
Marjorie smiled. "The only thing Tanya did was become an actress. Many of them do, you know."
"Do what?" I asked.
"Become actresses," she answered. "Incest victims become actresses so they can turn themselves into someone else, so they can live some other life. They often go a little crazy, too," she added with a laugh. "Tanya's crazy as a bed bug. You probably picked up on that."
For the first time, I noticed a slight slurring in her words, but I chalked that up to the gin. She was hitting the water-glass-sized tumbler pretty hard. In the course of that few minutes of conversation, she had drained it once and was filling it yet again. Once the alcohol hit home, I knew we'd have a roaring drunk on our hands. Subduring her and dragging her back to Ashland in Fraymore's ill-equipped Montego would be a real chore. I wasn't looking forward to it.
While she poured more gin, I saw a reflection on the table where firelight glinted off the pearl-handled revolver that lay on the table within inches of her glass. Armed and dangerous is bad enough. Armed and drunk is doubly so.
"You do understand what I'm saying, don't you?" she continued with amazing unconcern. I confess I had totally lost track of her train of thought, if any. In a situation like that, the whole idea is to keep the person talking. About anything.
"No, we don't," I said quickly, pulling Gordon Fraymore back into the exchange. "Why don't you try explaining it."
"Well," she said, her tongue much thicker now. She framed her words slowly and with some difficulty. "You seem like a smart man, Mr. Beaumont. I suppose you know what incest is."
"Tanya told us about her father," I said.
"Which one?"
"What do you mean?"
Marjorie giggled. "The real one or the ones she made up?"
"I'm not sure. We haven't quite sorted all that out."
"You don't need to. I already took care of him, too. The real one, I mean. He was for Tanya. Guy was for me. That's fair, don't you think?" She raised her glass in a mock salute.
Fraymore almost collapsed under the weight of her words. Obviously, there was another still-unnamed victim, someone else we didn't know about.
"How many are there, Margie?" he asked hollowly. "How many besides Guy and Daphne Lewis and Martin Shore?"
"That's all." She tossed the answer off with an air of nonchalance, waving her glass crookedly at him before taking another drink. "Three is all. Martin Shore's like the special of the week-two for one. I got 'em all down here and took care of all of 'em at once," she added with a giggle. "Like in that old story about the guy who killed all the flies on his bread. Remember that one? What's it called? ‘Seven at One Blow,' I think. Yeah. That's it."
I was listening closely, trying to follow and make sense of her drunken rambling while at the same time keeping close watch on the gun. I was so preoccupied that I almost missed the crux of what she was saying as she edged closer to the terrible truth.
"Two for one," I repeated. "What does that mean?"
She looked at me and shook her head. "Mean to tell me you two smart boys still haven't figured it out?" She started to laugh in dead earnest then, pointing a taunting finger first at Gordon Fraymore and then at me. "Two big, clever detectives…" she choked helplessly "…two whole detectives and you still…don't know…"
"Don't know what?"
"The man's her father, stupid," she announced shortly, and laughed some more.
It was as though all the air had been sucked out of the already thin atmosphere around me. I hadn't seen Dinky Holloway's video and didn't care to. Gordon Fraymore had. His jaw dropped. "You mean Martin Shore is Tanya's real father?" he asked hoarsely. "Was Daphne her mother then?"
"Stepmother, but close enough. Before I stuck the knife in him, Shore kept asking me how I got hold of that tape, but I didn't tell him," she said before dissolving into yet another fit of drunken laughter. "Don' hafta tell 'em all my secrets."
"But she told us Martin Shore took her away from her real father, that he was the one…"
"I already told you! Aren't you listening? She's C-R-A-Z-Y. As in loco." With effort she had spoken clearly for a moment, now she lapsed back into mumbling, dropping so many consonants it was difficult to understand her. The heavy dose of alcohol must have finally penetrated her brain.
I emerged from my stunned silence. "I thought Tanya was your friend, but you tried to kill her, too."
"I doan have any frien's, do I, Gordy? Not even you. Sunshine maybe. It's a bith…" she attempted, but was not able to say the word. "It's a bi…Can't say it, can I? Mouth won' work."
Once more her throaty laughter floated through the forest. The sound sent chills up and down my spine. I had warned Fraymore that I thought Marjorie was crazy. Here she was trying to tell us Tanya was, while her haunting, husky laughter provided inarguable proof that she was, too.
Gordon Fraymore dropped heavily onto the bench across from Marjorie, sagging forward across the table. "I don't believe it. Martin Shore was her real father?" He repeated the words as though he still couldn't accept them as true.
"Tha's righ'," Marjorie mumbled drunkenly, "…the real one. Izza a…bi…bi…bitch, isn't it?" She laughed triumphantly when she finally managed to say the words properly.
With visible effort, Fraymore sat up and straightened his shoulders. "What all's in the glass, Margie?" he asked. "Is it really only gin?"
Marjorie's deranged laughter ceased abruptly. "Why'dya wanna know?" she demanded, pulling the glass toward her, guarding it from his hand. "I jus' wanna take a li'l nap. Time for a li'l siesta."
She moved abruptly to one side. For a single, heart-stopping moment I thought she was going for her gun. Instead, she flopped clumsily down on the picnic-table bench and closed her eyes. "Jus' lemme get a li'l sleep. Tha's all."
For several long seconds, neither Fraymore nor I moved. When Marjorie cut loose with a deep, lung-rattling snore, he reached across the table and swept up the gun. "Check her pockets," he ordered.
I hurried to comply. Inside her leather jacket, I found the sleeping pills, or rather, I found the brown plastic child-proof tube. It was open and empty. Without a word, I handed the container over to Fraymore, who held
it up to the firelight. With a confirming nod, he wrapped it in a handkerchief and stuffed it in his pocket.
"Seconal," he said.
I put both hands under Marjorie's shoulders, preparing to lift her and take her back to the car. With the potentially lethal combination of booze and pills she'd ingested, we didn't have much time. Even if we took off right then and drove like hell, there was little chance we'd make it to the hospital before she went into either cardiac or respiratory arrest.
"You get her feet," I urged. "Hurry!"
"Sit down, Detective Beaumont," Fraymore said. "Sit down and let her be."
I couldn't believe my ears. "You mean we're not even going to try?"
"This is what she wanted," he returned gravely. "Her choice. I say we wait."
"How long?"
"Long enough."
He propped both elbows on the table and buried his face in his hands. What he was suggesting wasn't exactly aiding and abetting, but it wasn't preventing, either. Only Gordon Fraymore and I would ever know whether or not we had arrived at the campsite before it was all over.
"I don't want her to have to go to jail," he added raggedly. "I don't want her to have to stand before a judge and jury. We'll just say it's a failure to appear and let it go at that."
It was Fraymore's call, not mine. Cops are trained not to second-guess another guy's deal. Without a word, I lowered Marjorie's shoulders back to the bench and went around the table to sit next to Fraymore. He was crying openly by then. I couldn't fault him for his decision. When you're faced with impossible choices, one terrible alternative is probably as good as another.
"All right," I said. "We'll wait."
We sat there together for what seemed like forever. Every once in a while, Fraymore's shoulders would heave, and his whole body would shudder. I let him cry and didn't look over at him. A man deserves at least that much privacy.
Eventually, Fraymore stood up. He walked over to the fire and picked up one end of Sunshine's leash. "Come on, girl," he said softly. "Let's go for a walk."
With a weary but compliant sigh, the old dog sorted herself out and staggered clumsily to her feet. Fraymore walked slowly to the edge of the firelight, leading the limping dog. I knew what he was planning to do. My heart constricted, even though I couldn't fault him for that decision, either. I figured it was a kindness for both Marjorie and the dog-a fitting end for both of them to go together.
I waited in the dark another long while, expecting at any moment to hear the sharp report of Gordon Fraymore's heavy-duty. 38. Despite spreading warmth from the fire, I was chilled. My teeth rattled in my head. A breeze sprang up. Off to the west, I was aware of vague flickerings of lightning as a heavy storm rolled in from the Pacific.
Then, finally, when I was beginning to wonder if Fraymore had fallen off a cliff and broken his neck, I heard the crunch of footsteps coming back up the path. He was still leading the dog.
"I couldn't do it," he said brokenly. "Call me a wimp if you want to, but I just flat couldn't do it."
He left the trembling dog standing beside me-between me and the fire-then turned and stalked off alone into the darkness. When I reached down to pat Sunshine, the coat on the back of her neck was soaked with moisture, even though the coming rainstorm was still miles away.
And sometime in between, silently and without any notice, Marjorie Connors-the discarded, crazed woman who had once been Maggie Lewis-stopped breathing and slipped peacefully into oblivion.
CHAPTER 21
It must have been one-thirty or two when I got back to Oak Hill B amp; B. Under the circumstances, Fraymore couldn't very well take Sunshine home with him. I don't think his wife would have approved or understood, so I brought the dog home with me. It was raining like hell by then. I guess I could have left her on the front porch but somehow that didn't seem right.
Oak Hill's posted rules say NO DOGS ALLOWED, but Florence doesn't encourage babies, either, and we'd been dragging Amber around with us for days. In a case like this, I figured it was easier to beg forgiveness than it was to ask permission. So I smuggled Sunshine upstairs to our room, relieved that Florence's noisy Natasha was shut away in some other part of the house.
I planned on waking Alex and explaining everything, but I didn't have a chance. Alex wasn't there. Neither was Amber. Alex's clothes, luggage, shampoo, and toothbrush had also disappeared. A terse note on my pillow announced that she was going to stay with Dinky. She said she had already made alternate arrangements for a ride back to Seattle, so I shouldn't worry about how she was getting home.
Damn!
Which is how I spent yet another romantic night in Ashland, sleeping in a bed with a damp old dog. Sunshine had impossibly bad breath, and she commandeered more than her fair share of the queen-sized mattress. I don't know about Sunshine, but I slept like a baby.
In the morning, I waited until everyone was at breakfast in the dining room, then I slipped Sunshine downstairs and outside. After a walk on the grass, I put her-muddy feet and all-in the backseat of my rented Lincoln, where she had the good sense to lie down immediately and go back to sleep. Nobody was the wiser, no thanks to tattletale Natasha. She barked like crazy the whole time, but no one, including Florence, understood what all the fuss was about.
I tried calling Alex at Dinky's, but she refused to talk to me, so I went over to the Ashland Hills to consult with Ralph Ames. As usual, his wise counsel was greatly appreciated. He couldn't provide any assistance as far as the problem with Alex was concerned, but he did have a suggestion about Sunshine.
He directed me to Jeremy and Kelly's new apartment in Phoenix, Oregon. It was a cute little duplex, actually, with a small but totally separate fenced yard. Once I explained the situation to Jeremy, he readily agreed to keep Sunshine with them. Because of the torrential rainstorm, we had no choice but to hie ourselves off to the nearest hardware store to locate a suitably dry, igloo-shaped doghouse.
On Thursday Painting Churches was onstage in the Black Swan, which meant Jeremy had the afternoon off. The weather was bad enough that by noon people at the Festival were already talking about canceling the outdoor performance in the Elizabethan that night.
I had spent part of the morning in Kelly and Jeremy's apartment and had seen the meager selection of cast-off dishes and furniture he was trying to pull together in order to have a place to bring Kelly and the baby the following afternoon. Finally, about eleven in the morning, I called a halt.
"Look," I said, "let's climb into the Lincoln, drive up to Medford, and take care of some of this stuff, shall we?"
And we did. It was a massive shopping trip. The Lincoln may be your basic land barge, but it wasn't nearly big enough for what I had in mind.
The whole time we were racing through Sears in Rogue River Mall, Jeremy kept telling me I shouldn't be doing it-but by then we were both having too much fun. We quickly advanced beyond the crib, high-chair, and car-seat stage to what-the-hell-let's-do-it. That attitude moved us into really serious shopping-as in couch and chair, queen-sized bed, towels, bedding, dishes, silverware, and pots and pans. I threw in a washing machine and dryer for good measure. In my mind, diapers and automatic washing machines go together.
A visibly salivating store manager and a platoon of helpful but wondering salespeople trailed us from department to department. When I wrote out a check for the full amount and asked if it would be possible to have the entire truckload delivered that afternoon, the store manager called my bank, verified the funds, and then said those wonderful words, ones that are always music to the ears of every cash-paying customer. "No problem," he said. "What time do you want it there?"
Jeremy and I finally stopped at a hamburger joint late in the afternoon. He took a bite from a double cheeseburger with bacon and grilled onions and grinned from ear to ear.
"Kelly's going to be surprised, isn't she?"
"Because you're eating hamburger instead of eggplant?"
He blinked. "You won't tell her, will you?"
"No."
"I mean she'll be surprised about the furniture."
"I hope so."
He took another bite. He was long and skinny. His prominent Adam's apple bobbed up and down when he talked or swallowed.
"I had a great time, Beau," he said, calling me by my first name without any prompting. "I haven't had this kind of fun with my own dad since Mom died."
I frowned. "I didn't know your mother was dead," I said.
He scowled back. "I thought I told you about that, about how Kelly and I met. In Natural Helpers."
I knew something about Natural Helpers. Lots of schools have them. They're sort of a grassroots, student-run counseling organization. Natural Helpers activities seem to bear some passing resemblance to twelve-step programs in that kids who have a problem of some kind can go there and talk confidentially to other kids who have already dealt with similar kinds of difficulties.
In my mind, I guess I had it pegged as a quasi-A1-Anon for kids. If you're a problem drinker, it's easy to assume that all the problems in the world stem from that. I remembered Jeremy had mentioned something about Natural Helpers in passing, and I had jumped to the hasty conclusion that someone in his family must have a drinking problem.
"No," I said. "I don't think you did."
He looked at me. "My mother died of cancer," he said. "Three years ago. I got into Natural Helpers years earlier, right after she got sick. I was about to graduate from college, but I went back to my old school last year to help with a Natural Helpers' leadership program. That's when I met Kelly. We ended up talking because…" He paused and shrugged. "Well, you know. She was going through the same thing."
Even then I still didn't understand, not right away. "What same thing?" I asked stupidly.
Tears brimmed suddenly in Jeremy Todd Cartwright's eyes. His young face filled with a look of compassion that went far beyond his tender years. "You still don't know, do you?" he said.
"Know what? What's going on?"
"Mr. Beaumont," he said softly. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this. I thought you knew. Kelly's mother has cancer. She's had it for more than a year."
