Foxy Roxy

by Nancy Martin

  “Hey,” he said, surprised. “It’s Kaylee.”

  “Who the hell is—?”

  At least Trey had the presence of mind to drop the gun into the open mouth of the Aztec pot before he opened the door.

  Midknock, a young woman tottered into the foyer on a pair of high-heeled shoes tall enough to make her interfere with incoming airplanes. Her toes looked blue with cold. She was almost as tall as Roxy and skinny in a pair of stovepipe jeans. A pink sweater the color of bubblegum slid off one shoulder. Mascara smeared her face. A cloud of cigarette smoke engulfed her figure like exhaust from a tractor trailer.

  “Trey!” She threw herself into his arms.

  He barely dodged getting his ear burned on her cigarette, but he hugged her automatically. “Kaylee—”

  She burst into sobs. “He’s gone! Dead! What are we going to do? Everything’s ruined!”

  “It’s okay.” Trey patted her bare shoulder. “But we have to be smart now.”

  Tears poured out of her like water from a faucet. “Oh, God. I miss him already! What will I do?”

  “Take it easy. Calm down.”

  “I had to get out of there. I ran away. I saw—I saw—”

  “You did the right thing.”

  The girl had a baby-doll voice, ratched up high and strangled. “Oh my God, I’m so scared!”

  “I know. Me, too.”

  “I ran away. I took a bus back to my place. I can’t believe it! He’s really—”

  “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

  “No, it isn’t!” She hit Trey on the chest with her fist. “How can you say that? Julie—my Julie!”

  “Easy now.” He tried to subdue her with a tighter hug.

  But she fought him, punching harder, eyes squished shut. “No, no—it’s awful! He’s gone!”

  Trey dodged blows. “Kaylee—”

  She stopped fighting just as suddenly as she’d started. “Wait a minute. Who is she?”

  She looked over Trey’s shoulder at Roxy, and her tears dried up. But her one hand remained knotted in a fist. The other managed to hang on to her cigarette.

  Roxy said, “Let me guess, Trey. This is your big brother’s pop tart.”

  Roxy had read the newspaper and seen the pictures of Julius Hyde’s manicurist girlfriend—the one he’d been wining and dining the night his wife came home early and discovered her marriage was kaput. Since then, the local media had had a field day with Kaylee—the barely adult sex kitten who’d slept with a man old enough to be her grandpa.

  Gently, Trey disengaged himself from the hysterical girl. And he finally zipped up. “Roxy, this is Kaylee, my brother’s—uh—friend.”

  “Fiancée,” Kaylee corrected, frowning at Trey as he snapped his fly.

  “Right. She’s—Julius was very fond of her.”

  “He loved me.” Kaylee took a puff of her cigarette and blew a stream of smoke out the side of her mouth while she did the math of Trey’s zipper and Roxy’s presence in the loft.

  “You were there tonight?” Roxy asked. “At the house when Julius was killed?”

  “I wasn’t anywhere.”

  “You’ll need a better story than that one, honey.”

  The girl suddenly lunged as if to claw Roxy’s face with her pink talons. “You bitch! Who do you think you are?”

  Trey managed to hold her back. “Kaylee, please. Roxy’s a friend. She can help.”

  Roxy had a hard time imagining what a man like Julius Hyde might see in a teenybopper, let alone one with a hair trigger. “Now what, Trey?” she asked. “Is this temperamental cutie a part of your inheritance?”

  Trey pinned the girl’s arms to her side. “That’s not the way it is. Kaylee’s just a friend.”

  “Who are you, exactly?” Kaylee asked with a sneer. “Besides badly dressed? I think my brother wears those boots.”

  “Does he use them to kick your ass? Because—”

  “Please.” Trey raised his voice before a catfight broke out. “We’re all upset. It’s been a terrible night. Let’s take a deep breath, shall we?”

  “How can I calm down?” Kaylee broke into tears all over again and slumped against Trey. “My Julie is gone!”

  Roxy saw the fat tears spurt down Kaylee’s face again and figured they were fake. She was no theater critic, but the scene didn’t exactly look like an authentic family drama.

  Trey spun the girl gently around. “Kaylee, why don’t you powder your nose?” He gave her a harder push in the direction of the bathroom.

  “Before I do,” Roxy muttered.

  Kaylee threw an anatomically impossible suggestion over her shoulder, but she went into the bathroom. Her jeans rode low enough that the tattoo on her lower back was revealed—a tramp stamp with Chinese characters and an arrow pointing down the crack of her butt. Like an invitation.

  When the door closed behind her, Trey turned back to Roxy. “Baby, listen.”

  “I don’t think so.” Roxy zipped up her sweatshirt tight around her neck.

  “I don’t know what she’s doing here, but I’ll get rid of her. Give me ten minutes. Please. I need you. What if the police come? What will I tell them?”

  “Oh, so this is why you called me? Not for slap and tickle. You want my special insight into crime prevention.”

  “Hey, I only thought—”

  “I know what you thought.”

  “What do I know about this kind of stuff? What should I do?”

  “For one thing?” Roxy hooked her thumb at the jar containing the gun. “The cops will be here faster than you think, and the first thing they’re going to find is your weapon. So get rid of it.”

  He blinked, surprised. “It’s brand-new. My grandfather had a big collection at our summer house. He always said the Colt .45 models are the best investments. I want a collection of my own.”

  “I don’t care if it’s a priceless family heirloom, idiot. Lose it. Permanently. Don’t hide it or sell it, either. Throw it in the river. Make sure it’s gone for good.”

  “Will you take it for me?” Trey grabbed her by the arm. “Please, Roxy?”

  Roxy recoiled. “No way!”

  “Please. I’ll do it wrong, I know I will. Take it.” He let her go and reached into the pot to pull out the Colt. “Get it out of here before Kaylee sees it. Please, I’m already in a jam.”

  “And you’re pulling me in.”

  “You’re already in. You were there tonight. But I won’t tell the police.”

  His tone wasn’t quite right, and Roxy’s temper rose. “What are you saying, asshole? You’ll keep me out of this if I take the gun for you?”

  “Hey, I’m not threatening. I just— Please. Here. I trust you.”

  Against her better judgment, Roxy took the gun from his hand and checked it. Unloaded, thank God. She glared at him. “You’ll forget I was at the house?”

  “Sure, anything.”

  “I’m going to regret this. But I’ll get rid of your toy. If you double-cross me, though—”

  “I won’t, I swear.”

  She tucked the weapon in the back of her jeans and pulled down her sweatshirt to cover it. Better to have the gun than knowing Trey might be waving it around and blabbing. She gave him one last quelling glance and turned to go. “Have a good time with your little friend.”

  Kaylee gave a wail from the bathroom, causing Trey to turn.

  While he was distracted, Roxy scooped his cell phone off the pedestal and slid it into her pocket, too. She went out and pulled the door closed behind her. Then she took the stairs and walked out of the building into the rain.

  In her truck, as she drove across the Sixteenth Street Bridge, she rolled her window down. She pitched Trey’s cell phone over the railing and into the river. No sense helping anyone pinpoint who the murder victim’s screwy brother had called right after ditching his bloody clothes.

  The gun, though, she kept.

  5

  On Saturday morning, Henry drove across the suburbs to Teed Off
, a golf shop owned by a former stockbroker. The broker had already made his millions on a sweet retirement bonus and now spent his days telling other golfers what was wrong with their game. After picking up his golf clubs subsequent to their being regripped, Henry listened to a condescending lecture on his backswing. Fortunately, a more important customer soon entered the store, and the owner hurried off to bully that poor slob into buying the latest and greatest titanium driver.

  Henry took a leisurely browse through the new selection of Calloway shoes before putting his clubs into his trunk and climbing back into his BMW.

  His dad had been a cop, back in Buffalo. Sitting in his car with autumn sunshine warming him through the windshield, Henry thought again about how Dad might have started an investigation. He tried to summon up the voices of Dad and Uncle Rodney at the dinner table on Saturday nights, bitching about the job. But it was no use. The two brothers had inevitably squabbled about their gambling debts—they took turns owing big money to someone Henry knew only as “Sal”—while getting stupid on Miller Lite. Had they ever talked about procedure? Ways of tracking down information? If so, the memory had been washed away long ago.

  Henry took out his cell phone and made a few calls. Then he stopped at a strip mall liquor store for a fifth of Glenlivet and dropped in on a friendly judge. The whiskey helped take care of Dorothy’s injunction.

  Finally driving into the city, he tracked down Monica Hyde by cell phone. She agreed to meet him at the museum, where she had been allotted a small office. In the years before she’d met Julius, she’d been a pretty little divorced church mouse transplanted from Texas and working in the museum. Some department or other required her to write catalog copy and entertain a lot of big donors at cocktail parties. She’d encountered Julius at a splashy museum function. The clever minx must have danced nude on a tabletop, because he dumped his previous wife and married Monica faster than most men get off a golf course in a thunderstorm. The museum graciously allowed her to keep the office—perhaps a reward for landing the biggest donor in the institution’s history.

  By the time Henry reached the museum, Monica wasn’t in her office as she’d promised. On a hunch, Henry bought a ticket and followed a throng of parents and their yelping tots as far as the turn to the dinosaur exhibit. Henry proceeded a little farther down the cavernous corridor and found Monica standing in the hall of architecture at the back of a group of committee ladies who were discussing plans for decorating Christmas trees. The ladies all carefully ignored Monica and instead focused with intense concentration on their committee chairwoman.

  Monica was looking fierce, but a little weepy around the edges.

  Nips, tucks, Pilates, and an impressive force of will had kept Monica’s true age at bay so far. She looked about forty, which meant she was at least fifty. Her absurdly conservative tweed suit was a uniform of political wives or women under suspicion of murder. She had a diamond pin lanced through one lapel, and a stately string of pearls tangled around her throat with the folds of a silk Hermès scarf—perhaps too much froufrou for a petite woman, but she was making an effort to carry off the look. On her forearm she steadied an ugly handbag no doubt worth thousands. Being from Texas, she likely carried a lady derringer in it.

  Monica snuffled up her tears when she laid eyes on Henry.

  She reached out, seized his arm, and pulled him around a pillar for some privacy. “Henry, I’m so glad to see you.”

  “I couldn’t stay away.” He cupped her elbows to convey steadfast support. “Monica, you shouldn’t be here. Let me take you home where you won’t be on display like this.”

  She trembled with suppressed emotion. “Things are so awful at the hotel where I’ve been staying. The press has staked out the place. They’re always shoving microphones in my face. But it’s even worse here. My so-called f-friends are acting as if I k-killed my husband with my b-bare hands.”

  She began to lose her considerable composure. Botox prevented her forehead from crumpling, but her eyes filled with woeful tears. A cooler head needed to prevail.

  Henry tucked her hand into the crook of his elbow and drew Monica out of the hall of architecture and away from the eavesdropping committee. He kept his voice low. “I’d have come to you last night, you know. You should have picked up the phone, Monica.”

  “The last thing I need right now is to be seen with another man, right?”

  “I—”

  She suddenly blushed. “Oh, Henry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—I’ve never thought of you as—well, you’re a friend. A family lawyer and a—my good friend.”

  “All of the above,” he said stoutly. “I’d have a heart of stone if I stayed away. I’m sorry about Julius. You must be devastated.”

  “I am.” She stopped in the middle of the doorway and made a good show of devastation—stiff and trembling. It was a display of emotion as unnatural to her social class as stripping off her clothes in the middle of a city intersection. She looked up at him tearily. “But I’m angry with Julius, too. That old fool got himself killed, and—and now I’m a pariah!”

  “Well, you look wonderful. Have you lost weight since I saw you last?”

  With a little sob, she bowed her head. “That’s what catastrophe does to a woman like me. It’s honed me down to bone and sinew.”

  Henry gave her his handkerchief.

  He had bonded with Monica during several of the marathon weekends Dorothy insisted everyone in the family attend to hear speeches by financial planners. There were dry, tasteless meals, too, and long hours of sitting around listening to Julius—supposedly the male head of the family—wrangle with his mother about The Trust and The Will and The Shares. Then Quentin, the second son, would get in on the act about The Company. While the more vociferous family members argued, Henry managed to find a spot to sit in the background—on the same window seat with Monica, both of them sipping sherry and endeavoring to look interested in the proceedings, but actually stealing small smiles at each other as if sharing witty bon mots but being too wise to say them aloud.

  It had been a strategic flirtation.

  Today, despite the tears, Monica’s mouth looked juicy—plumper, perhaps—maybe the result of some kind of injection that made Henry squeamish just to think about. But his mind wandered involuntarily to the possibility of sex with the newly minted widow fifteen or more years his senior.

  While Monica dabbed her lashes, she surprised the hell out of him by looking up into his eyes and saying with a lot of southern honey, “Somehow I knew you’d be the one to come to my rescue. I need help so desperately.”

  Henry took her hand again. Time to get her away and explore the possibilities. He set off leading Monica to the privacy of her office.

  He said, “I’m not a litigator, Monica. But I can help you find an expert team. You’ll need someone who can protect you if you’re questioned by the police.”

  “If I’m questioned by the police? They practically used rubber hoses last night! They think I killed Julius! They had to let me go while they check my alibi. Can you believe it? I need an alibi! But now I’ve got even bigger problems.”

  “Bigger problems than a murder charge?” Not to mention the whole issue of setting fire to her home with her husband inside.

  “It’s Samson.”

  Henry missed a step. “Who?”

  “Julius’s chauffeur thinks he can wrestle custody away from me. He called this morning. He says I’m an unfit mother!”

  Henry’s brain sputtered like a faulty lawn mower. “I—I didn’t realize you had children, Monica.”

  “He’s not a child, he’s Samson! I raised him from a puppy, brought him home on a plane myself from a Great Dane breeder in Bavaria.”

  With another sob, Monica headed for the elevator. A gigantic vase of flowers sat in a niche, lighted from above and scattering pollen on the marble floor. Monica touched the call button. She said, “I know Julius was plotting to steal him away from me in our divorce settlement, but this is too muc
h!”

  “Divorce settlement?”

  “Well, of course. Long before the fire, Julius and I were preparing to separate. Naturally, I’ve kept that a secret from everyone.”

  “A wise decision.”

  “But then I caught him with his little paramour, and I could hardly stay married another minute, could I?”

  They stepped onto the elevator. Henry adjusted his tie as they wooshed upward. “I’m surprised you were leaving your husband, Monica. The golden goose, so to speak. But then, you’re a woman of high principles.”

  She took the compliment like a largemouth bass grabbing bait. “I am. Honestly, Henry, I understand a man’s pursuit of youth, but couldn’t she have a few IQ points more than a tortoise? It’s very insulting.”

  Henry wondered if Monica had told the police about her coming divorce. If so, they might rightfully assume that Monica had knocked off her husband before the divorce was final—the better to inherit her prenup-decreed portion of his gargantuan share of the Hyde family fortune as a widow instead of an ex.

  “Did the tortoise cause you to lose your self-control last night, too, Monica?”

  She gave him a suddenly frosty glance. “Are you inquiring whether or not I killed my husband?”

  “Forget I asked. It was rude of me.”

  Monica softened and took his arm to step off the elevator. Her composure under control again, she steered Henry past the executive offices and the desk of a wan young secretary who was dressed entirely in black, including her nail polish. Monica didn’t acknowledge the girl—who might very well be holding down the same job Monica had before her advantageous marriage—and she pushed open the door to her own office and snapped on the desk lamp—Tiffany school, with dragonflies.

  The office overlooked a courtyard with a fountain and sculptures. An expensive view, Henry decided, probably paid for by the Hyde donations. Furniture included a petite lady’s writing desk with a modern chair behind it and a pair of leather armchairs for visitors in front. All of the furniture had probably come from a Hyde house. On the desk stood a promisingly sensuous piece of Venetian art glass, the color of arterial blood.