Too Rich and Too Dead

by Cynthia Baxter

  This hardly struck her as the mostly likely place for a romantic interlude.

  From where she stood, she could see that Dusty and his female companion were standing amidst the collection of plastic trash bins with their backs to her. But she still had a good enough view that she saw Dusty slip his friend a small plastic bag filled with something white. As soon as he did, the woman handed him a wad of bills, which he unceremoniously jammed into the back pocket of his jeans.

  “You're the best, Dusty,” the woman told him, grinning. “And so is what you're selling.”

  Cocaine? Mallory thought, astonished. Dusty is a dealer?

  The realization hit her like a bolt of lightning.

  She didn't dare wait around a moment longer. Her heart pounded with jackhammer speed as she quickly turned and hurried back in the direction from which she'd come. She veered off onto the next side street she encountered, anxious to keep Dusty from spotting her as he and his happy customer emerged from the alley.

  As Mallory half walked, half jogged away, her mind raced even faster than her feet or her heart.

  If Dusty is this middle-aged woman's friendly neighborhood drug dealer, she thought, does that mean his relationship to Carly was the same?

  It would certainly explain what he and Carly were doing all that time Juanita reported they spent behind closed doors. It also gave her a good idea why Carly would have been anxious to keep her association with him a secret from her husband. As for Autumn—who Mallory believed really was Dusty's girlfriend—Mallory suspected that the girl was simply covering up for him, feeling it was safer for people to think Dusty was motivated by an active libido rather than to figure out he was selling drugs.

  The more Mallory thought about it, the more sense it made. As she continued along the sidewalk, by now slowing her pace, she remembered something else that had struck her about Carly: her high level of energy. Mallory could picture how she'd looked the night she gave her talk at the Wheeler Opera House. Her eyes had been bright, her cheeks flushed. But rather than simply seeming excited, she'd appeared almost manic.

  At the time, Mallory had thought all that energy was simply proof that Rejuva-Juice really was the wonder drug Carly claimed it was.

  Now, it occurred to her that maybe a different drug had been responsible.

  The more she thought about it, the more sense it made that Carly's relationship with the twenty-something ski dude had had nothing at all to do with sex.

  But as she mulled over what to do next, one question plagued her: If Dusty was Carly's dealer, rather than her lover, did that make him less of a suspect in her murder or more? After all, drug deals were notorious for going bad. And if Dusty was helping himself to his own wares, that could have contributed to erratic behavior—and perhaps even resulted in the impulse to kill.

  “It is not down in any map; true places never are.”

  —Herman Melville

  The more Mallory pondered her hypothesis about the true nature of Carly's relationship with Dusty—one which cast everything she had learned so far into a totally new light—the more eager she was to find out if it was correct. And if there was one person who had known Carly well enough to verify her newfound belief about the true source of Carly's sparkle, it was Harriet.

  The fact that Harriet also happened to hold a very high ranking on her list of suspects made Mallory wary of seeking her out to ask about Carly's secrets. But at the same time, she was glad to have an excuse to talk to her again. Mallory was anxious to see what Harriet's reaction would be when she confronted her with her findings about what Dusty Raines was selling besides ski wax and goggles.

  She rifled through her purse until she found Harriet's business card, then dialed her office number at Tavaci Springs.

  “Come on, come on,” she muttered. “Answer, Harriet!”

  After the twelfth ring, she gave up.

  Where else would she be? Mallory had barely asked herself the question before she answered it: at home.

  It was certainly the most likely possibility. The only problem was that she didn't know where Harriet lived.

  Her first impulse was to call Cass-Ber and ask Juanita over the phone. But given the Bermans’ housekeeper's attitude, she decided she had a much better chance of getting what she wanted by talking to her in person.

  As she drove up the mountain road, keeping an eye out for the turnoff, she pondered the best way of ferreting out the information she was seeking. By the time she pulled into the driveway, she decided to play up to Juanita's vanity—namely, the key role she had played in the Bermans’ life. If there was one impression she had formed about the woman, it was that she wanted to be treated with respect.

  “What you want?” Juanita demanded, looking her up and down suspiciously as she stood in the doorway, guarding the entrance to the Bermans’ home. Tucked under one arm like a giant football was Bijou. The poodle's eyes were bright and her tail wagged nonstop, as if she was thrilled to see someone who wasn't too busy moping around the big, silent house to play with her.

  Just as Mallory had feared, Juanita didn't seem to feel the same way. In fact, she looked about as happy to see her as if she were a door-to-door salesman.

  “Hello, Juanita,” Mallory said evenly. “I dropped by because I hoped you'd be able to give me Harriet Vogel's home address.”

  The housekeeper narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “I don't geev out information to nobody!” she insisted. “Meester Berm, he ask me questions. The cops, they come to the house and they ask me questions. But I say the same thing to all of them: I don't know nothing—”

  “The police questioned you?” Mallory asked, thinking, Of course they did. If there's anybody who knows about everything that ever went on around here, it's Juanita.

  “Sure,” Juanita replied with a proud toss of her head. “They come here. But I don't say nothing. I answer their questions, because I don't want no trouble. But I don't tell them nothing else.”

  For someone who prides herself on saying nothing, Mallory thought crossly, Juanita certainly says a lot.

  “What did the police ask you?” she asked, curious about what the cops had managed to get out of her.

  “Ees like on TV,” Juanita replied. She still showed no sign of budging from the doorway long enough to let Mallory inside. “Where I was when poor Mees Berm is killed, where Meester Berm was that night…” Narrowing her eyes, Juanita added, “I tell them I don't know nothing 'bout Meester Berm. I was in my room with the door closed the whole time.

  “But when I try to tell them I have my own ideas about who killed Mees Berm, they don't want to hear.” She snorted before adding, “I think the police are not so interested in what a housekeeper thinks.”

  “I'm interested,” Mallory told her eagerly. “Juanita, who do you think is the murderer?”

  Juanita held up her hand. “I don't say noth—”

  “Juanita,” Mallory said in a low, even voice, “what you think—what you know—may not be important to the police, but it's important to me. After all, you were one of the people who was around Carly the most. You knew her very well, maybe better than anybody else. You saw and heard everything that went on around here.”

  “Ees true,” Juanita agreed. Mallory was glad that her expression had softened. Her voice, too. “Ees like I am invisible. When I come into the room, most of the time people don't even notice.”

  “Exactly,” Mallory said firmly. “When in fact what you are is knowledgeable. Which is why I'm really interested in hearing what you think.” Taking a step closer, she added, “Maybe I can come in so we can talk.”

  Juanita finally moved aside to let Mallory in. As she did, she seemed lost in thought.

  The two women were silent as Mallory perched on the edge of the woolly white couch. Juanita finally released Bijou and lowered her substantial frame into one of the wooden chairs with leather cushions. The poodle glanced back and forth between Juanita and Mallory several times, obviously trying to decide which one was more
likely to pay attention to her. When she chose the newcomer, Mallory complied, reaching down and scratching the dog's ears.

  “Now,” she said, fixing her gaze on Juanita. “Tell me what you think.”

  “As soon as I hear what happened, I know who killed Mees Berm,” Juanita said, nodding enthusiastically. “I was here—right in this room!—when I hear the whole thing the other night.”

  Mallory stiffened. “What ‘whole thing’?”

  “The big fight.”

  “Between Carly and her husband?” Mallory asked. She remembered only too well the argument she had overheard outside the dressing room at the Wheeler Opera House. Carly and Brett, yelling at each other…

  “No. Those two, they fight all the time. Like cats and dogs. But they always make up. I talking about the big fight between Mees Berm and that accountant of hers.”

  Mallory's heart pounded furiously. “You mean Harriet?”

  “They have beeg fight, Harriet and Mees Berm.” Juanita reported. “Yelling and screaming… I hear all of eet. Thees time, I don't turn on the TV.”

  “And what were they fighting about?”

  Juanita shrugged. “I don't hear every word. And sometimes, when people talk fast, my English ees not so good.” Her eyes burning into Mallory's, she added, “But there ees one word even I understand. Lawsuit.”

  Mallory gasped. “A lawsuit? I had no idea anything like that was going on!”

  Juanita nodded smugly. “That's right. And whenever people get lawyers involved, ees always bad news.”

  “What exactly were they saying about this lawsuit?” Mallory persisted.

  “I hear Mees Berm say something like, ‘If thees and that happens, then I have no choice but to go through with thees lawsuit.’”

  “And you're certain it was Carly—Mrs. Berman—who was making that threat, and not Harriet?”

  “Of course!” Juanita replied indignantly. “I know her voice, even eef they are yelling like—like wild coyotes. Eef there ees one thing I am good at, ees listening in on other people's conversations!”

  I don't doubt it, Mallory thought.

  But her thoughts were racing. “And you're certain that Carly was talking about suing Harriet and not someone else?”

  “Like I say, I don't understand every word. But I know from what they are saying that they are very, very angry weeth each other.” Juanita sighed. “The next thing I know, Mees Berm is dead.”

  Mallory felt as if the room was spinning. “Juanita, when did this fight take place?” she asked.

  “A few nights before you come here for dinner. Two, maybe three.”

  In other words, Mallory thought, not long before Carly's murder.

  Which meant the timing was right.

  Still, Mallory wasn't one hundred percent convinced that Juanita's theory was correct, even if the conviction with which she presented it certainly went a long way in making her lean in that direction.

  But she was determined to find out for sure.

  “Juanita, I really need Harriet's home address,” she said. “I want to talk to her myself.”

  “What, you think I am wrong?” Juanita asked indignantly.

  “As a matter of fact, I think you're probably right,” Mallory told her. “But I want to see if I can find evidence that she's guilty. Do you know where she lives?”

  Juanita hesitated for a few seconds. “I never been to Harriet's house. But I theenk I know where Mees Berm keeps her address book.”

  I'll just bet you do, Mallory thought as Juanita scurried off to retrieve it. After all, her sense that Juanita didn't miss a trick was turning out to be right on.

  And Mallory was finding the housekeeper's revelations most illuminating. After all, learning that Carly had planned to initiate a lawsuit against the quiet accountant certainly provided Harriet with a motive. That, combined with the angry note from Harriet that even the police thought implicated her, made for pretty strong evidence that she was the killer.

  Now, all Mallory had to do was prove it.

  By the time Mallory got back into her rental car, she was clutching a sheet of cream-colored stationery embossed with the name Tavaci Springs. Neatly handwritten on it was Harriet's home address.

  Next stop, she thought ruefully, glancing at it as she backed out of the driveway.

  As she drove down the mountain road, she contemplated the fact that so much of what she'd learned about what had happened in the days before Carly was murdered pointed to Harriet. And the note the police had found, insisting that an urgent matter be cleared up right away, was just the beginning. Even more compelling was Harriet's strange behavior after she was released from police custody—namely, going out to lunch with someone she had sworn she despised, rather than contacting Mallory, whom she'd treated like her only means of salvation. Then there was the guilty way she acted as she hurriedly locked something away when Mallory came back to her office more quickly than expected.

  And now this. Juanita was one of those individuals who seemed to have been born with eyes in the back of her head. And that made her report that she had heard Carly and Harriet heatedly arguing about a lawsuit just a few nights before Carly was killed all the more believable.

  Harriet really played me for a fool, Mallory thought bitterly. She is the murderer—yet she was crafty enough to talk me into investigating the murder and trying to pin the blame on someone else.

  She held the steering wheel tightly, furious with herself for being duped. Still, as preoccupied as she was, she made a point of checking her rearview mirror every few seconds to make sure no diabolical pickup trucks were following her down the narrow, twisting road.

  She was still gripped with rage as she turned on Harriet's street. She purposely parked half a block away from the house she identified as the accountant's, glad that rental car companies specialized in the blandest vehicles imaginable. Then she walked down the street, trying to act casual. When she reached the house, she saw there was no fence around the property, no BEWARE OF DOG signs, and no other obstacles that might make it difficult for her to approach the front door.

  The small, two-story Victorian house was modest but well maintained. While its owner hadn't exactly gone overboard with making it seem homey, there were a few personal touches that made it welcoming. Half a dozen flower pots edged the wooden steps that led to the front porch, where a wooden swing with what looked like a fairly fresh coat of paint swayed gently in the early afternoon breeze.

  Mallory recognized the Ford Escort parked in the driveway as Harriet's. But there was another car right behind it, one she didn't recognize. That one also had Colorado license plates. The fact that it blocked Harriet's car led Mallory to believe that the visitor didn't expect to stay long.

  As she lingered in front of the house next door, planning what she would say once she rang the doorbell, the front door suddenly swung open, banging against the shingles loudly. Mallory slipped behind the thick trunk of a large tree, her eyes widening as she peered around the side.

  “A deal is a deal!” she heard Harriet cry.

  “Not when the terms change,” a man grumbled.

  He was stocky and dressed in clothes so wrinkled they looked as if they'd spent the night balled up on the floor. His head was completely shaved, and he wore a single gold earring. The glint of the metal matched the glint in his eyes.

  “Keep your voice down,” Harriet insisted. “Or do you want every one of my neighbors to hear us?”

  “I don't give a rat's ass what your stupid neighbors think,” the man growled. “I want more money. This job turned out to be a lot dirtier than I thought. I had no idea this was going to end up all over the news!”

  Mallory grabbed onto the tree trunk to steady herself. Was it possible that Carly's murder had been the result of a contract killing? Had Harriet hired someone to kill her employer?

  Her head was spinning from what she had just seen and heard.

  But she was sure of one thing: Confronting Harriet to find out what s
he could learn about either Carly's real drug of choice or the lawsuit no longer seemed wise.

  If Mallory was going to find out what it was all about, she was going to have to do it herself—without Harriet knowing.

  The other times Mallory had come to Tavaci Springs, the secluded spa had seemed like a glamorous enclave for those who possessed too much time, money, and vanity. Now that Mallory was here alone, however, it struck her as downright eerie.

  The isolated grounds were silent except for the chirping of birds, and the large windows that linked the indoors with the outdoors seemed to be staring at her blankly. As she walked through the property, her shoes crunched loudly against the gravel, causing her to look around nervously, hoping no one was watching her.

  From what she could see, she was completely alone.

  She held her breath as she tried the door of the back building, hoping that the events of the past few days hadn't prompted the staff to change the security codes. But as soon as she punched in the numbers she remembered Harriet using, 5–5–2–2, she heard a beep. When she tried the knob, it turned easily in her hands.

  She hurried through the dark hallway, glancing from right to left. But the building was even more silent than the outdoors, with no birds singing and no gravel colliding against the soles of her feet.

  As she stole into Harriet's office, her heart pounded so hard she felt nauseated. She could hear the blood throbbing in her temples as she prepared to do something she found painful.

  I really like Harriet, she thought miserably. The last thing I want is to find out that she actually is a murderer.

  But not only did she want justice to be served. She was also desperate to know whether she had been set up from the very start.

  Mallory was reluctant to turn on any lights, so she was glad there was enough natural light coming through the window. Her goal was to find out what Harriet had been so anxious to hide the day before—and to get out before anyone spotted her. Then, once she had seen enough to convince her that Harriet was indeed the killer, she planned to go to the police. As for the details of how she would convince them, she had yet to work that out.