“I stopped by your house and the housekeeper said you were here.”
Mistress K knew where I lived? Where Grace lived? Henry had a lot to answer for. “What do you want?”
“You sent a cop to my club.”
Her expression reminded me of Mrs. Carlson, my fifth grade teacher. She enjoyed rapping knuckles with rulers, delighted in humiliating children who spoke without raising their hands, kept a switch in the corner of her room even though the principal had forbidden her from using it. The one time she caught me out, she made me spread my hands across the desk. The wooden ruler hovered above them, the anticipation of pain more terrible than the pain itself. I swallowed, looked her in the eye and said, “I wouldn’t.”
“Oh?” Mrs. Carlson smiled, an evil, sadistic curl of her thin lips, and then she brought the ruler down on my knuckles. The sound, wood and metal connecting with skin and bone, made me cringe. The sharp pain brought tears to my eyes. Blood welled across three or four of my fingers.
I stood, stumbled my way to the principal’s office and demanded that she call my mother. Mrs. Carlson was gone before the end of the day.
The woman standing in my hospital room could be Mrs. Carlson’s daughter. I swallowed, looked her in the eye and said, “I didn’t send anyone.”
She must have heard the challenge in my response. Something dark and angry flashed in her eyes and her fingers twitched as if they were searching for a flogger or a ruler. “Then how did he know to come?”
“Blame Henry.”
“Henry is out of town.”
Yes, I knew that. I’d even gone into her hellhole club to try and find out where he was. “He left one of your matchbooks in our kitchen drawer. We found it while a homicide detective was there.”
She raised a disbelieving brow. “Henry doesn’t smoke. Why would he have a matchbook?”
“I don’t know but there’s no other way a matchbook from your club could make its way into my house.”
We stared at each other. A battle of wills. The seconds ticked by. Finally, she smiled a predator’s smile. I didn’t know if she was ceding a tie or if she thought she’d won. “It’s ironic.”
“What?”
“You were worried I’d hurt Roger and you’re the one who ended up in the hospital.” The menace in her voice was clear. She held her hand out, examined her blood red manicure. “He came back. Last night. He wanted his belt.”
I closed my eyes. I wanted to cover my ears and chant la-la-la at the top of my lungs.
“I gave him the belt. Then I gave him the flogger and then he asked me to go to Madeline’s funeral with him.”
Roger asked a date to his wife’s funeral? Not just a date, but the woman who’d spent last evening...I shuddered. Oh, to be a fly on the wall in church this morning. I couldn’t help it, I laughed.
“I imagine any number of people will be surprised to see me there.”
She might be a sadistic bitch but at least she had a sense of humor. “I imagine you’re right.” I took a swig of coffee. How well had Mistress K known my missing husband? “You told me that Henry played mind games with his...” What was I supposed to call them?
“Submissives,” she provided. The Big, Bad Dominatrix was playing a game of her own.
I pulled a metaphorical red cloak tightly around me and took comfort in the fact that in every version of the story, Red wins. “Has it occurred to you that Prudence or Kitty might have killed Madeline?”
She shrugged. Madeline’s death wasn’t her problem unless it brought Detective Jones to her door. “If so, why did Henry disappear?”
“No idea. You said he played them against each other. With Madeline gone, won’t one of them take her place on that apparatus?”
“It’s called a Berkley horse.”
Who cared what it was called? “Isn’t that motive for murder?”
She tilted her head to the side, regarded me with eyes that looked as if they’d seen every depravity known to man. Old eyes. Tired eyes. Wise eyes. “Henry really was wrong about you.”
Like I needed reminding that my husband had discussed me with a dominatrix. He was so divorced. “Don’t you have a funeral to get to?”
“Roger will save me a seat.” Her lips quirked. “Don’t you want to know what Henry said about you?”
Of course I did. “No.”
“Do you want my advice?”
Life coaching from a dominatrix. It sounded like the title of a Cosmo article. Maybe a whole series of articles.
“No.”
“Suit yourself.” She walked to the door and grasped the handle. A welcome indication she was going to leave. She stopped and looked over her shoulder. “The people who come to my club are there because they want to be. Some of them even need to be. I’d prefer not to see the police there again.”
“I didn’t send them.”
“I believe you.” There was another flash in her eyes. “Just make sure you never do.”
She was gone before I could think of a zingy comeback. Then again, I wasn’t as sharp as usual. I had a head injury and a night of no sleep. It was barely nine and I’d already had to deal with a sadistic nurse, a match-making mother, and a dominatrix who tossed veiled threats like children tossed water balloons on a July afternoon.
Did Mistress K have something to do with Madeline’s death? Had I just been conversing with a murderess? Just because she hadn’t knocked me in the head didn’t mean she hadn’t drugged Madeline and dumped her in a pool.
Somehow, I couldn’t see Mistress K dragging Madeline to the country club to drown her. That particular twist seemed more worthy of Prudence or Kitty or any one of the wronged wives who discovered open marriages were less attractive in practice than they were in the pages of a magazine.
Could it be Henry? Lord knows the murder was cold and dispassionate enough. Was Henry a murderer?
Was he a cheating low-life? Definitely.
An arrogant prick? Unquestionably.
A cold-blooded killer? Doubtful. Maybe it was all a tragic accident. Perhaps she’d overdosed and he’d panicked. Except Henry didn’t panic. He was all about control and clear thinking. If Madeline overdosed while she was with him, he’d dump her in an emergency room not a pool. It couldn’t be Henry. It just couldn’t.
My thoughts skated figure eights—endless loops that led nowhere. Right in the center of one of the loops, a horrible thought held up its hand and bounced in its seat like a third-grader who wants his teacher to call on him. I skated past—once, twice, twenty times. I skated until the thought vibrated in my aching brain. I skated until there was no denying it.
I didn’t want Henry to have murdered Madeline so I was ignoring anything—everything—that suggested he did.
Eleven
I’d been reduced to watching game shows. The Price is Right, Let’s Make a Deal, and Match Game 74. That Brett Somers was a funny woman. Charles Nelson Riley was no slouch either.
The phone rang, loud enough for me to miss Gene Rayburn’s Dumb Dora question, loud enough to make me long for a painkiller. Who had made it past the steel curtain of my mother’s no call list?
I answered it.
“Ellie, honey, that you?”
“It’s me, Daddy.”
“Are you okay, sugar?”
My throat swelled with all the things I wanted to say and never would. Come home. Protect me. I need you. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’re in the hospital and your mother is fit to be tied. She hasn’t been this upset since she found out what your sister’s husband did for a living.”
Wow. That was saying something. Mother’s head had levitated from her shoulders when she found out about Marjorie’s fiancé. Words had been exchanged. Mother was that upset and I hadn’t even guessed? Then again,
my head hurt like sin and Mother is hard to read.
“How are you really feeling?”
I should have repeated the lie and told him I was fine. Instead my eyes filled and the fears that I’d been keeping at bay snuck past my defenses. What if Grace had come home and interrupted the burglar instead of me? What if I’d died and Henry made Grace’s new mother wear a dog collar around the house? What if Henry murdered Madeline? “I’ve been better.”
“I’m cutting my trip short. I’ll be home tonight.”
The week he spent in Carmel playing golf with his cronies had to be his favorite time of year. After all, one thousand eight hundred and fifty six miles separated him from Mother. He could drink scotch, smoke cigars, and eat bacon—all the things forbidden by his cardiologist. All the things Mother kept out of their house. “You don’t need to do that, Daddy.”
“Of course I do. We’re going to get this mess straightened out and no one is going to lay another finger on you or Grace. I promise.”
What he didn’t say—if that son-of-a-bitch husband of yours had anything to do with this, I’ll kill him—made it from California to Missouri loud and clear.
Maybe it’s true. Maybe a girl’s father is the only man she can ever count on. “Thank you,” I said. Two little words to express infinite gratitude.
“Keep your chin up, Ellie. You have any idea where Henry is?” Daddy really was going to kill him, I could hear it in his voice.
“No idea.”
“Well, you let me know if you hear anything. When you get to feeling better, we’ll play a round.”
The only time Daddy asked me to play golf was when he wanted to discuss something serious. Maybe if he didn’t murder Henry, he had the name of a good divorce attorney.
“I’d like that.”
“I’ll be home soon, sugar.”
When I hung up the phone, I felt marginally better. That lasted all of thirty seconds.
Prudence burst into my room with all the subtly of a tsunami. “Where is he?”
“Who?”
“Henry!”
I studied her from my nest of pillows. She wore a dark dress that didn’t suit with an Hermes scarf tied around her neck. Her skin was pale with the exception of two spots of high color on her cheeks. Bad make-up or emotion?
My fingers inched toward the nurse’s call button. “I already told you, I don’t know where he is.”
“I expected him to be back for Madeline’s funeral.”
If I’d thought about it, I would have expected him too. Not that I’d admit that to Prudence. “Why?”
The spots on her cheeks grew brighter. “Don’t play dumb.”
But playing dumb was surprisingly fun. “You seem awfully worried about his whereabouts. Surely there’s a bank in New York that will loan you money.”
“What?” She looked at me as if the bump on my head had loosened my brains. “What are you talking about?”
“The apartment. The one you’re buying in New York.”
“Oh. That.” She ran her fingers through her hair. A mistake. Between the color of her cheeks and the mess atop her head, she looked like an escapee from the psych floor.
I closed my fingers around the call button just in case she actually was psychotic then said, “I know everything.”
She staggered as if I’d just hit her with a fireplace poker and her hand clutched her chest as if she was having a heart attack.
I knew she’d been boinking my husband. I hadn’t expected such a strong reaction when I confronted her. Had she done it? Had she killed Madeline?
Prudence lowered herself into a chair and fumbled with her pocketbook. She withdrew a pack of cigarettes and lit one.
“Please don’t. Put it out.” Already the smell had sent my stomach into a series of somersaults. It wasn’t doing my head any favors either.
She jabbed the cigarette into an ashtray. “I need to talk to Henry.”
Had they killed Madeline together? Had Henry left Prudence holding the proverbial bag? “You were at that club the night Madeline died.”
Her lip curled. “What of it?”
I tightened my grip on the call button. “You were one of the last people to see her alive.”
She stood. “I don’t have to listen to this.”
“Where did she go?”
Prudence marched toward the door then stopped and turned to glare at me. “I have no idea.”
I might have believed her but she scratched her nose.
She’d been gone no more than a minute when Powers, bright as a firecracker on the Fourth of July and twice as loud, burst into my hospital room.
“Darling, I’ve been positively fixated on seeing you all morning but I had to go to that dreadful service. Are you all right? Does your head hurt? Did you see the brute that did this to you? You must tell me everything.”
Too many questions. I asked one of my own. “Where does one find a fuchsia tie?”
“At the snootiest boutique in Manhattan, so be careful what you say about it.”
“You wore a fuchsia tie to Madeline’s funeral?”
Powers’ lower lip worked its way forward and his forehead puckered. “It wasn’t really a funeral. More of a memorial service.”
“What do you mean?”
“Apparently the police haven’t released her body. No body, no funeral.” He fingered his tie. “No one even noticed this lovely.”
I’d imagine not. Not when Roger took Mistress K as his date.
He threw himself into the chair, stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles. “I don’t want to talk about my tie or the service. I want to talk about you. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re sure? You don’t look all right. Is there no one here who can help you with your hair?” He sounded way too much like Mother.
I patted the rat’s nest. Turns out, combing through it was remarkably painful. Every tug on every snarl brought tears to my eyes. “My hair is fine. Tell me about the memorial service.”
“It was packed. Standing room only. I bet half the people there just wanted to make sure she was actually dead. The other half wanted to see who showed up.” His brows rose and his eyes sparkled. “You’ll never believe what happened.”
“Roger brought a date.”
He screwed up his face, stuck out his tongue, and his gaze cut to the phone. “Who have you been talking to?”
“No one. Lucky guess. Tell me more.”
“Do you remember the part in The Wizard of Oz when the witch is dead and the Munchkins start singing? Think that kind of happiness. I swear every woman there was ready to break into song. Maybe a few of the men too.”
“I thought men liked Madeline.” I knew men liked Madeline.
Ever dramatic, Powers looked over his shoulder then lowered his voice. “Not to speak ill of the dead...”
This was going to be good.
“But she wasn’t above a spot of blackmail.”
That I knew. That everyone knew. She’d tried to blackmail Topper Buckley a couple of years back and it had backfired. Badly. He told everyone he knew, including his wife, that he’d made a terrible mistake with Madeline and that she was a lousy lay...not sure if he told his wife that part. At any rate, Madeline was furious and everyone else quietly cheered and made sure the Buckleys were invited to more parties. “Old news.”
He waved one of his long fingers like a metronome and smiled a smile worthy of Mephistopheles. “The new scuttlebutt is that she was blackmailing Stanton Wilde and Prudence Davies.”
The scuttlebutt was wrong. Whatever nasty bit of information Madeline had on Stanton Wilde was anyone’s guess. Maybe he cheated on his taxes or his wife but he wasn’t cheating with Prudence. Henry was cheating with Pru
dence. Poor Prudence. If anyone found out Madeline had been going to Club K, she’d toss her hair and invite them to join her there. If anyone found out about Prudence, she’d be ruined—kicked out of the altar guild and the Junior League.
“Did you see her there?” I asked.
“Prudence?” He nodded. “She had on the most God-awful dress you ever saw and she turned positively green when Roger came down the aisle with his date.” He rubbed his chin. “I wonder if Pru has designs on him. Rich widower and all.”
I doubted it. She probably hadn’t expected to see the owner of Club K walking down the aisle with him or that her two lives might intersect beneath the apse of St. Michael’s Episcopal.
“What about Kitty Ballew?”
“She was there with John. She looked pale but then again, when doesn’t she? Dreadful hat.” He tilted his head to the side. “Do you know something? Spill.”
Clever, urbane Powers, who belonged in New York and stayed in Kansas City to keep Bitty Sue happy, loved a scandal. I wasn’t going to provide him with one.
“I don’t know a thing.” I ignored the itch on the tip of my nose.
He stared at me, probably searching for tells. I stared at the truly awful watercolor someone had hung on the wall and thought about the seventh hole at Pebble Beach. The view of the Pacific was awe-inspiring.
After a moment, he ceded defeat. “Everyone was speculating on who killed her.”
“Who’s the lead suspect?”
Powers flushed and his grape green gaze dropped from my face to his lap.
I was the lead suspect. At least among the country club set. My breath whooshed out of my chest and I collapsed against the stack of pillows behind me.
“No one blames you. Everyone thinks she had it coming.”
“I didn’t kill her.”
“Of course you didn’t.” He reached forward and patted my hand then his nose twitched.
Oh dear Lord. If Powers didn’t believe in my innocence, what hope had I that anyone else would? If Detective Jones didn’t catch the murderer, I’d spend the rest of my life under a cloud of suspicion.
THE DEEP END Page 8
