“Wayne…”
He squinted at her, as if the light hurt his eyes. “Laurel, how kind of you to come.”
She walked into the house. People were clustered in the living room. “I’ll just take this tray back to the kitchen.”
Wayne nodded vaguely. Laurel went to the kitchen where two women who looked to be in their mid-thirties nearly pounced on her. “Oh! More food.” One looked closely at the platter. “Cold cuts. How clever of you to choose something easy. Jane and I were up half the night baking a ham and cherry and apple pies and banana bread.” Laurel pretended not to notice the intended insult to her unambitious offering.
“Isn’t this just awful?” the one named Jane piped. “Denise and I were so close. And poor Wayne—he’s just shattered. I heard there was nothing left of Denise’s face—”
“I heard that, too!” the other added avidly. “Someone said it was done with a tire iron and there were at least twenty blows. She was just beaten to a pulp. There will have to be a closed coffin, of course. Have you heard any more details?” she asked Laurel.
“I don’t know anything,” Laurel muttered, her stomach clenching. She felt like picking up her metal deli tray and hitting the egregious pair over their stupid heads with it. “I have to go.”
“Who is she?” Laurel heard one ask as she turned and rushed from the kitchen.
“I don’t know. I think I saw her at the party. I can’t say much for her manners. She probably just came to find out what she could. She didn’t even cook anything, for God’s sake.”
Laurel was surprised when Wayne stopped her in mid-flight from the kitchen to the front door. “Come upstairs with me,” he said softly. “I want to talk to you.”
Laurel saw people in the living room curiously watching them climb the spiral staircase together. Wayne led her into a large blue and white bedroom and closed the door. She knew what was coming before he uttered the words.
“Laurel, do you have any idea who might have done this?”
What do I say now? she wondered. Tell him that yes, I think it’s someone seeking revenge for the death of Faith Howard? No. That was out of the question and she truly didn’t know who committed the murders of Denise and Angela. “No, Wayne, I don’t know who killed Denise.”
“She changed so much this past week. Nervous, short-tempered, having nightmares, not eating. Something was troubling her, but she wouldn’t say what. Do you know what she was so upset about?”
“Angie’s death,” Laurel said quickly. “She and Angie weren’t close anymore, but you know how childhood friendships are. You’ve spent so many formative years together, made so many memories…”
Laurel knew she was doing nothing except spouting clichés, but Wayne didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe he just wasn’t listening.
“She never talked about you girls very much,” he said. “I never even heard of Monica until the party, but I guess you were good friends.”
“At one time, yes. But that was a long time ago.”
Wayne paced restlessly around the room, picking up a silver-backed brush. “My mother’s. She gave it to Denise.”
“It’s lovely.”
“My parents loved Denise. They’re dead, you know. They were older when I was born. I wish they were here, though. I need them so much.”
“Where are Denise’s parents?”
He smiled wryly. “One of those seniors tours of Europe. In the winter, can you imagine? I thought they were crazy to go, but Denise’s mother was determined. She said the rates were better than in summer. She gave me an itinerary, but it’s all screwed up. I can’t find them. They don’t even know their daughter is dead.”
“Wayne, how is Audra?”
“She and Denise were both flirting with the flu last week. All that exposure last night broke the rest of Audra’s resistance. She’s not in good shape today. I wish to God someone had put her in a warm car or taken her to the lodge. She might not have gotten so sick. She also might not have seen—”
He made a strangling sound and Laurel was beside him in an instant, holding his head against her shoulder. “Wayne, I am so sorry.”
“I just don’t understand,” he sobbed. “I know something was wrong, something other than Angie’s death. Denise wasn’t sleeping well. Did I tell you that?”
“Yes.”
“She kept tossing and muttering about a barn and a fire and faith. Faith? What was she talking about?”
“Faith Howard was a friend of ours. She died when she was seventeen.”
Wayne drew back, staring at her. “She’s the one that locket belonged to!” Laurel nodded. “How did she die?”
“Suicide,” Laurel said promptly. “She hanged herself in a bam. Then the barn caught on fire. That was what was on Denise’s mind, probably because of Angie. The three of us were good friends.”
He stared at her with baffled eyes. “I never heard of Faith Howard before the night of the party. Why wouldn’t Denise have told me about her?”
“Because she was devastated by Faith’s death. I guess it’s just something she didn’t want to talk about.”
He shook his head. “No. No, it isn’t making sense. Why didn’t Denise ever mention Faith? Why wasn’t she closer to you after we moved back here? What the hell was that scene at our party about? What nut came into my house pretending to be a ghost and frightened my baby?”
“I don’t have any answers, Wayne.” It was a lie. She did have some answers, but she knew how desperately Denise wanted to keep the truth about Faith’s death from Wayne. She wanted it so desperately she may have died because of it. The truth would come out someday, but now was not the time. Wayne was clearly a wreck. She didn’t know him well, but Denise had seemed convinced he couldn’t handle the truth about Faith’s death. It had been an accident, but the Six of Hearts had kept the details of Faith’s death a secret. Wayne might react as Kurt had done if he learned that his wife had participated in Satanic rituals, even if she were just a kid, and then withheld important information from the police. That’s what Denise had feared most—Wayne’s total disillusionment with his wife. The least Laurel could do for Denise at this awful time was to keep her secret. “I’m sorry, Wayne,” she said in a dry, wooden voice, “but I’ve told you all I can.”
3
After Laurel left the Price home, she went to work. She was surprised to see Mary in the workroom. “Are you sure you’re up to this?” Laurel asked.
“Oh, yes.” Mary smiled. “We thought it was best if Penny manned the counter. I don’t want to scare anyone with my appearance.”
She still bore some noticeable bruises, but she seemed in good spirits. “I’m sorry about your friend.”
“Oh, good Lord, that’s all people have been talking about today,” Norma broke in. “You didn’t tell me any details this morning, Laurel. That poor woman. She had a little girl. How is she?”
“She’s in the hospital suffering from exposure and shock. She saw her mother’s body.”
“Oh, how awful!” Norma’s eyes filled with tears. “Sometimes things like this make you wonder if there really is a benevolent god looking out for us.”
“Of course there is!” Mary flared. “He looks after good people.”
“And you think that woman wasn’t good?” Norma snapped.
“She must have done something to deserve what she got.”
“And what about that little girl?” Norma demanded. “What did she do?”
“I don’t know,” Mary floundered. “Sins of the father.”
“Oh, hogwash!”
Laurel raised a silencing hand. “Ladies, please, lower your voices.” I sound like one of the Lewis sisters, she thought as Mary and Norma stood glaring at each other. “I don’t think anyone really knows why these things happen. I mean…well, it’s just so hard on the family.”
“And the friends.” Norma was instantly contrite, patting Laurel on the back. “You’ve been through a lot lately, honey. Why don’t you go home and get som
e rest?”
“No, I think I’d be better off here.” Mary was jabbing daisy stems into Instant Oasis, obviously still angry. “I haven’t done much designing for a few months. I’ll work back here until closing time. Do we have many orders?”
“More than you can shake a stick at,” Norma informed her. “Mostly Christmas stuff, thank goodness.”
Laurel knew what she meant. The orders for Denise’s funeral hadn’t begun to come in yet. They would tomorrow when the funeral arrangements appeared in this evening’s newspaper.
While she worked, Laurel tried to keep her mind off Denise, but it was difficult. She kept asking herself if going to the police sooner would have made a difference. She also worried about not being honest with Wayne. But what would that have accomplished? It wouldn’t help either one of them figure out who murdered Denise.
After work, when everyone had gone home, Laurel placed a quick call to Kurt. She got his answering machine. Maybe he wasn’t home yet. She’d try again later. She had to tell him about seeing Faith’s mother and about the noose in the Pritchard barn.
It was six when she left the store and drove to the hospital. She didn’t know if Audra was allowed visitors, but she at least wanted the child to know she’d stopped by. She was surprised when a pretty, dark-haired nurse said she could see Audra for a few minutes.
Audra lay propped on pillows, deathly pale, her brown hair spread around her mournful little face, her eyes fixed blindly on a cartoon show rattling annoyingly on the television opposite her bed.
“Audra?” she said gently. “Audra, it’s Laurel.” No response. She neared the bed and held out a bud vase. “April and Alex each sent a pink rose with some baby’s breath. They thought you might like pink roses.”
The child’s big brown eyes moved for the first time. She reached out a tentative finger and touched a petal. “Pink roses are my favorite.” Her voice was scratchy. “Did they come with you?”
“They would have, but dogs aren’t allowed in hospitals.” Laurel put the roses beside Audra’s bed and sat next to her. “How are you feeling, honey?”
“Not so good.” A tear trickled down her cheek. “My mommy’s dead.”
Laurel’s throat tightened as she hugged the child who felt so slight in her grasp. “Your mommy is in heaven, honey. Heaven is a wonderful place with pink roses and puppies and kittens and big, fluffy clouds and beautiful angels.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.”
Audra suddenly went into a coughing jag, then moaned slightly. Laurel wiped her nose with a tissue and gave her a drink of water. “Are you warm enough?”
“I’m way too hot. Could you take the blanket off?”
“I don’t think we should do that. It’s your fever making you hot. Just try to hang on. You’ll feel better in a couple of days.”
“No I won’t. I’ll never feel better. Laurel, I heard a nurse in the hall say it’s my fault Mommy’s dead.”
Laurel’s anger ignited so violently it shocked her. “That’s ridiculous! Who said that?”
“A tall nurse with lots of yellow hair. She said if that little brat had stayed in the car, nobody could’ve killed Mrs. Price.”
“That is not true.”
“But it is. Mommy was grouchy and I got mad and ran out of the car. I wanted to scare her.” Tears brimmed in Audra’s eyes. “Instead she got killed and it’s my fault.”
Laurel’s instinct was to coo and comfort, but something told her that wasn’t the way to approach Audra. She was a tough, smart little girl. Logic would appeal to her more than coddling. “Audra, did you kill your mother?”
The child’s eyes widened. “No! Honest!”
“Then her death is not your fault. Her death is the fault of whoever killed her. Doesn’t that make sense?”
“Kind of. But I was out there running around…”
“Did anyone try to kill you?”
“No.”
“That’s because they weren’t after you. Whoever it was wanted to hurt your mommy and if they hadn’t done it that night, they would have done it some other time. I’m not just trying to make you feel better, Audra.” She looked straight into Audra’s bloodshot eyes. “I know what I’m saying. Do you believe me?”
Audra frowned, still sniffling. “Well…I guess.”
“Good. That nurse doesn’t know what she’s talking about. I do, so you have to believe me. You also have to believe that your mother is in a beautiful place and she’s looking down on you and loving you just as much as ever.”
“But I’ll never see her again,” Audra quavered.
“Yes you will, sweetheart. I guarantee it. Now you just concentrate on getting well. April and Alex are looking forward to seeing you as soon as you get out of here.”
“Really?”
“My word of honor. You’re their favorite person.”
“Except for you.”
“That’s just because I’m the one who feeds them.”
Finally Audra smiled slightly. “Give them kisses for me.”
“I will,” Laurel promised.
When Laurel left Audra’s room, she went to a phone in the hospital lobby and called Kurt’s number. Still the answering machine. She looked at her watch. Six forty-five. She knew he was home by now. Maybe he was still so mad at her he just wasn’t answering her calls. But she had to talk to him.
Ten minutes later she pulled up in front of his apartment house. She remembered her last trip here. She’d been frightened senseless by whoever had chased her down the hill, trying to push her car off the road. Kurt hadn’t been home, but he’d certainly been angry with her for coming there instead of going to police headquarters. He’d been right. It was a stupid move. But this evening was different.
Laurel entered the building and tapped on his door. No answer. She tried again. Right on cue, Mrs. Henshaw threw back her door and stepped into the hallway. “You after him again?” she asked rudely.
Laurel tried to hold on to her temper. It seemed she’d been losing it all day. “I really need to speak with Kurt and I can’t seem to reach him by phone.”
“Thought you was his girlfriend. Looks like he’s avoidin’ you.”
I will not get mad, Laurel said to herself as she looked the woman up and down. She wore double-knit pants strained at the seams in the hip and thigh area, a sweatshirt with sequined poinsettias stretched across her ample bosom, dirty running shoes, and a green velvet clip-on bow in her salt-and-pepper hair. She also had a rim of chocolate around her mouth and Laurel heard a television game show playing noisily in the background. Bells and whistles were going off while the audience clapped wildly.
“Mrs. Henshaw, has Kurt been in this evening?”
“How would I know? What do you think I am? A snoop or somethin’?”
“I just thought you might have heard him.”
“Can’t hear anything in my apartment with the door shut.”
“You heard me knocking on his door.”
“You was poundin.’”
“No I wasn’t.”
“Well, I don’t know nothin’ about him.” A slightly crafty look passed over her round, boneless face. “I’m manager of the buildin’, though. I’ve got keys to all the apartments. If it’s real important…”
“It is,” Laurel said firmly. Kurt was avoiding her, but he had to know a few things she’d found out. “I’m going in for just a moment to leave him a note,” she told Mrs. Henshaw. “If you see him later, will you tell him I was only here for a couple of minutes?”
Mrs. Henshaw retrieved the key and gave it to her with a conspiratorial wink that sent waves of dislike through Laurel. “Sure I’ll tell him. You can count on me.”
Laurel didn’t like counting on Mrs. Henshaw for anything, but she had no choice. The woman had seen her. No doubt she would report to Kurt as soon as he set foot on the upstairs landing.
Laurel had been in Kurt’s apartment a couple of times, and then only briefly. It was utilitaria
n, almost Spartan, with only a vinyl-covered couch, a couple of cheap, scratched tables, a small bookcase, and a worn recliner chair lined up opposite the television in the living room. Only a double bed and a walnut-veneer dresser occupied the bedroom. “I don’t need much and I’m saving money for my dream house,” Kurt explained the first time she was here and had badly concealed her surprise at the barren look of the apartment.
Right now Laurel wasn’t at all concerned about his furnishings or lack of them. She glanced at his answering machine. The red light did not blink, which meant he’d listened to and erased her two earlier messages. She picked up his receiver, dialed her number and code. There were no messages on her machine. He hadn’t returned her calls.
Okay, fine, Kurt, she thought. If he didn’t want to talk to her, she wouldn’t force him.
Looking around, she saw no notebooks in the living room—nothing but a scratch pad beside the phone. A pencil lay beside it. She picked up the pencil and began to write, immediately breaking off the lead point. She fished in her purse for a pen. She got out “Dear Kurt, I” before it went dry.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake!” she muttered. She looked around the room. On the bookshelf sat a cup full of pens and pencils. As she went for one, she couldn’t help noticing Kurt’s scant library. No one could accuse him of being an avid reader. He owned two of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer novels, three of Ed McBain’s, Benchley’s The Deep and White Shark, Ken Follett’s The Key to Rebecca, a Clive Cussler, and a book of Shakespeare’s sonnets.
Laurel did a double-take. A book of Shakespeare’s sonnets? Could it be a leftover from high school? If so, Kurt hadn’t kept any of the other books they’d read in school. Besides, their senior English class Shakespeare book had contained plays as well as sonnets.
Overcome by curiosity, she withdrew the book. It was bound in brown leather, obviously a fairly expensive edition. A bit of dust on the top showed that it hadn’t been read for a while, which didn’t surprise Laurel. She couldn’t imagine Kurt lounging in his easy chair reading Shakespearean sonnets.
In the Event of My Death Page 20
