THE DEEP END

by Mulhern, Julie

  “Ellison, I believe I’ll step inside.”

  My father stood to make room for her to pass. I glanced at Detective Jones. His forehead was wrinkled, his lips were parted. He looked almost wistful. Almost like he wanted a battle-axe mother who never had a hair out of place. He wouldn’t if he had one.

  “Jones,” one of the policemen shouted from his post atop my hostas, “over here.”

  “Excuse me.” Detective Jones left me with my father.

  We sat in silence, unsure of what to say. Finally, Daddy asked, “What killed him?”

  “Golf club. A three-iron.”

  Daddy’s lips quirked—so slightly I almost missed it. He wouldn’t mourn Henry. I touched the cheek my husband had slapped. I wouldn’t mourn him either. Mother might. Grace would.

  The medical examiner chose that moment to load my husband’s body into the back of his station wagon. He really was dead. In life, Henry would never have ridden in a station wagon.

  “It’s a left-handed club. It looks like a MacGregor.”

  My father and I have been playing golf together since I was old enough to swing a golf club. He knew my clubs. His gaze settled on the growing mob on the sidewalk across the street. “Lots of people play MacGregors.”

  “Their spouses are still alive.”

  “Not Madeline Harper.” Daddy rubbed his hands together as if he’d discovered the secrets of cold fusion. “Roger Harper plays MacGregors.”

  “Is he left-handed?” I asked.

  Daddy thought for a moment, probably playing through Roger’s swing in his mind. Then he nodded. “He is.”

  I couldn’t see Roger as a murderer. A man who’d willingly put himself in Mistress K’s clutches didn’t have the strength of character to kill two people. Did he? Did it take strength of character to commit murder? Did committing murder suggest a gaping lack of character? I shook my head, unsure of the answer.

  Daddy looked like he might be ready to lay out a case against poor Roger when we were distracted by a flurry of activity at the base of the drive. A moment later, Hunter slipped past the policeman who kept the curious at bay at the bottom of the driveway.

  “Your mother will be thrilled.” Daddy spoke through the side of his mouth, barely moving his lips. “Although, you might want to go clean up a little. If she knows Hunter is here with you looking like...like you’ve had a rough morning, her head will spin.”

  Me? Rough morning? My husband was dead. My legs were bloodied. I’d agreed to move back to my parents’ home. Frankly, seeing Mother’s head spin might lend the proceedings some much-needed comic relief. I kept my seat on the front stoop.

  “Harrington.” Hunter acknowledged my father then turned his gaze to me. “Ellison, how are you?”

  “Fine.” The lie was getting easier with repetition.

  Hunter rolled his eyes. “Uh huh. What happened to your knees?”

  “I tripped.”

  Mother emerged from the house, her hair perfect, her shirt neatly tucked in to the waistband of her skirt, order restored. When she saw Hunter, her lips stretched into a smile. “Thank God Ellison had the good sense to call you.”

  Neither Hunter nor I corrected her about my lack of good sense.

  “How much longer do you think they’ll be?” She waved her hand at the policemen combing through the remains of my hostas.

  “I couldn’t say,” Hunter replied.

  She nodded as if he’d provided her with a satisfactory answer. “I believe someone ought to warn the neighbors.”

  Daddy, Hunter, and I blinked. I spoke. “Warn them about what?”

  She sighed as if my slowness was a heavy cross to bear. “Someone needs to tell them there’s a killer on the loose.”

  “They think it’s me,” I whispered. My lips barely moved.

  “Yes, dear. And they’ll keep on thinking it’s you unless we offer them an alternative. When these policemen,” she waved again, “go talk to them, don’t you want your neighbors to say something besides Henry was a terrible husband. Ellison did it. Did you know Roger Harper spent the night with her on Tuesday?”

  “Did he?” Hunter asked.

  “He passed out on the front stoop. I didn’t know he was here until morning.”

  Daddy grunted. “Man never could hold his liquor.” For my father, such a weakness was unforgivable.

  Mother descended the stairs. “Lovely to see you, Hunter. I hope you’ll stay for breakfast.”

  Mother had lost her mind. If I hadn’t been arrested by breakfast, I’d be comforting Grace over the loss of her father. I scowled at her.

  She ignored me and swanned down the drive toward the milling mob eager for news.

  Behind me, the door opened. Every muscle in my body tensed in anticipation.

  “Mom, what’s going on?”

  There was the question I’d been dreading all morning, and I didn’t have anything like a good answer. I felt as flattened as my hostas, but I stood, took my daughter’s hand, and led her inside to tell her that her father was dead.

  Twenty-One

  Telling Grace her father had been murdered was the worst experience of my life. Worse than finding him in flagrante in the coat closet with Madeline. Worse than swimming into Madeline’s body. Worse than running over Henry’s.

  Grace sank onto the living room sofa as if her body was too heavy for her knees to hold. When she was sitting, she brought those knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around them, and rocked. An egg about to crack. A girl about to shatter.

  I should have spent the hours while she slept preparing, found the words to soften the blow, put aside my disbelief and fear and thought of nothing but my daughter. Too late now.

  She rocked. She keened. Tears ran unchecked down her cheeks.

  I had nothing to offer but the dubious comfort of my arms around her shoulders, my hands smoothing her hair, my voice whispering soft lies. It will be all right. It wouldn’t. He didn’t feel any pain. For all I knew it had hurt like hell. I hoped it had. He loved you so much. That at least was true.

  I don’t know how long she cried. Long enough for the bars of sunshine on the carpet to grow bright, to move from the club chair by the fireplace to the mahogany table my great-great-grandfather brought to Kansas City in a covered wagon, to the couch where we sat wrapped in grief.

  I hated whoever had caused Grace so much pain, and I hated Henry for getting himself killed. Whoever was responsible had to pay. Each tear that filled Grace’s reddened eyes hardened my resolve.

  Finally, her sobs lessened. She crawled into my lap as if she was six instead of sixteen and rested her head on my shoulder. “What happens now?” she asked.

  “Now we go and stay with your grandparents.”

  She shuddered. “Why?”

  “I don’t think it’s safe for us to stay here.”

  Her body stiffened. “Who would do this?”

  Anyone with their name on an envelope in Henry’s safe. Maybe even Roger. “I don’t know.”

  When we emerged from the living room, my parents had gone home. The policemen still poked around the remains of my hostas, and some helpful souls had lifted my car out the shrubbery and put it back on the driveway. Detective Jones had gone. Hunter had not. He stood when we entered the foyer.

  Grace ignored him and trudged up the stairs. “I’ll go pack.”

  I nodded. “I’ll be up in a minute.”

  When Grace had disappeared upstairs, Hunter said, “The police want to talk with you again.”

  No surprise there. I expected nothing less. “Have they opened my trunk?” I asked.

  Hunter cocked his head to the side, not sure what I was talking about.

  “To my car. Did they open the trunk of my car?”

  “I don’t think so. Wh
y?”

  I looked at the crown moldings, I looked at the turned spindles of the banister, I looked at the stack of mail on the bombé chest. “There’s a possibility,” I mumbled, “that the golf club used to kill Henry is mine. My clubs are in the trunk of my car.”

  Hunter rubbed his chin, said nothing. Nothing. The silence lengthened like moonbeams across midnight water. Lovely, ephemeral, hiding a dark secret. His eyes, usually bright and observant stared into the middle distance, unseeing. Finally, he spoke. “You have to tell the police.”

  Like hell I did. I wanted to know what was in my trunk before I told them anything. “I need a cup of coffee.”

  Hunter followed me into the kitchen. “Detective Jones is no fool. He’ll be back to look for golf clubs.”

  I located the filters and scooped grounds into the Mr. Coffee. Its cheery yellow and white seemed entirely inappropriate. Why didn’t they make them in gray? Or black? Then again, who cared as long as it produced coffee? I pushed the button and waited for ambrosia. While the pot filled, I considered Hunter’s point. It was a good one.

  I would look exponentially guiltier if I said nothing and the police discovered the clubs in my car.

  Damn it. Grace was upstairs crying. I ought to think about her not Henry’s death or the appearance of guilt or innocence. It shouldn’t matter how things appeared. I hadn’t killed him. If my golf club had, my innocence wouldn’t make any difference.

  Appearances were what mattered.

  I’d found Madeline’s body. Madeline’s husband and his car had spent the night at my house. My husband and I had a loud, violent fight in front of half the country club. Now he was dead. I appeared very, very guilty.

  If I hadn’t been whacked on the head I’d probably be drinking my coffee in jail. Did they have coffee in jail? I opened the cupboard, grabbed two mugs, filled them, handed one to Hunter then took a bracing sip. “Fine. I’ll tell him.” After I’d looked.

  The doorbell rang. It did that way too often of late. I took another sustaining sip of coffee then headed to the foyer.

  When I opened the door, a fresh-faced policeman said, “We’re done for now, Mrs. Russell. Detective Jones asked me to give you his card. He wants you to call him to schedule a time to go down to the station and answer some questions. Today if possible.” He held out a small, innocuous piece of paper.

  Hunter reached around me and took it. “Mrs. Russell will call him shortly.”

  “Thank you, officer,” I said.

  The policeman nodded and turned his back, walked down the drive, climbed in to a police cruiser and drove away.

  My yard was trampled, my hostas were a memory, and Aggie’s car still sat in the drive, the colorful constant to the scene. The neighbors had given up watching my yard in favor of jobs or swim practice or a weekly tennis game. My Triumph now faced the other way. I could drive straight down the drive rather than backing up. Was there a subtle message in its position? Doubtful. With the exception of Detective Jones, the police hadn’t displayed much subtlety.

  “We can look in the trunk now.”

  I descended the front steps, walked oh-so-innocently to the trunk of my car, and pushed on the latch. Nothing happened. I pushed again, harder. Nothing. I pushed on the latch and tugged at the same time. The stubborn metal didn’t budge.

  Could it be locked? Had I for once actually locked my trunk? I dug in my pocket for the keys. It was empty.

  Where were they? I’d started the car. I’d even run over my husband. They had to be around somewhere. Mentally, I retraced my steps. The rush up the front steps, the house key’s stubborn refusal to open the door, success and then the keychain skittering across the floor.

  I brushed past Hunter, who wasn’t doing much but staring at me with lawyerly disapproval, and went inside. I dropped to my knees and reached an arm under the bombé chest. My hands closed on something soft. I pulled out Henry’s favorite slipper. It had been missing for months. Part of the heel had been gnawed off—some of Max’s best work. I reached again. This time my search yielded a letter addressed to Henry. It had not been chewed. I tossed it atop the chest with the rest of the mail and reached again. My fingers closed on something soft—a dust bunny that had grown to dust lion size. Yuck. Where were the damn keys? My hand slid across the smooth boards. There. The edge of something metal. Just out of reach.

  I rested my cheek on the floor and extended my arm. Damn it. I inched closer to the chest.

  Behind me, Hunter exhaled. It sounded like the whiff of a golf club—that horrible whooshing sound no one ever wants to hear. Then it occurred to me. My head was on the floor. My ass was in the air. I’d been wiggling it, trying to get closer to the blasted keys.

  Fortunately, Hunter couldn’t see my face. The blood rushed to my cheeks. They were probably a lovely shade of napthol scarlet.

  I lowered my whole body to the floor and reached again. My fingers closed on the keys but I didn’t move. I gave my cheeks a second or two to return from the color of a Coke can to flesh tones. When I stood, I didn’t so much as look at Hunter. I couldn’t. Instead, I fumbled for the key to the trunk. When I had it, I hurried outside, opened the trunk and began to count.

  One, two, three...all the way up to fourteen.

  I wasn’t that lucky. I counted again while ignoring Hunter’s presence at my side.

  “I count fourteen,” he said.

  “Me too.”

  “You only carry fourteen?” he asked.

  My gaze flew to his face. Except, it wasn’t a gaze, it was a glare. One worthy of mother. “Of course I only carry fourteen. Those are the rules.”

  He grinned as if I’d confirmed every supposition he had of me. I was an ass-wiggling, rule-following widow whose three-iron was mercifully in the trunk of her car and not in police evidence.

  Relief washed over me—as invigorating as diving into a pool of chilly water, as satisfying as driving a shot straight down the fairway. My three-iron had been locked safely in my trunk. I grinned back. Well, for a moment anyway. Until I considered that someone had enough foresight to bring a golf club to my home to kill Henry. Then my grin faltered.

  “Could it be Henry’s club?” Hunter asked.

  I shook my head. “Henry didn’t play golf. Too many variables he couldn’t control. Tennis was his game.”

  Hunter gazed at the clubs in my trunk. “You’re a golfer?”

  “I am.”

  “What did the two of you have in common?”

  “Grace.”

  He stroked his chin. “So she’s the reason you stayed with him.”

  I nodded. It didn’t matter now. Henry was dead. There would be no contentious divorce, no embarrassing details aired in court, no sharing my daughter with Henry’s latest girlfriend.

  “The kinky stuff Henry did,” Hunter’s cheeks darkened a shade or two, “any lawyer would have won you full custody.”

  I shrugged. “Grace loved her father.” Her dead father. Grace needed me, and I was yammering in the driveway. “Will you go to the police station with me?”

  “Of course. When would you like to go?”

  Never. “I need to move Grace to my parent’s house. After that, I’m free.”

  “You’re going too. To stay with your parents?”

  I nodded then closed my eyes and saw my future. Mother wouldn’t like what I wore or my hair or Grace’s hair. We needed to look exactly right to welcome the flock of Bundt cake carrying women who would swoop in like a murder of crows. I would sit on the edge of the velvet-covered settee with my ankles crossed and a lace-edged handkerchief clutched in my hand. Every so often, Mother would touch her eyes—a reminder for me to dab at my own. I’d accept condolences, avoid questions, and wish I was someplace else—anyplace else—even a police station. What about Grace? If I defied Mother and went to the po
lice station, could she handle being left alone at Mother’s? I bit my thumb knuckle so hard it hurt.

  “You’re worried about your daughter?”

  “Yeah.” The understatement of the decade. Well...maybe not the decade. Maybe just the year.

  “Your father said something about horses and taking her out to their place in the country for the rest of the day.”

  Daddy was a genius. If the outside of a horse was good for the inside of a man, it was an absolute balm for a teenage girl. Nothing could be better than fresh air and horses and thirty miles between Grace and the biddies who’d descend on Mother’s house, who might be circling it this very moment, driving around the block with their Bundt cakes in the passenger seats until someone else parked so they wouldn’t be the first to arrive. Maybe Grace and Daddy could spend the night out there. Maybe I could drive out and join them.

  “Would you please call Detective Jones and see if we can go this afternoon?”

  Hunter nodded. “Of course. What else can I do?”

  Gratitude made me attempt a smile. It never reached my lips. “Figure out who murdered Henry.” Of course, he wouldn’t. That was Detective Jones’ job. Or mine.

  Hunter didn’t seem to think I was joking. He rubbed his chin, surveyed the neighborhood and asked, “How did Henry get here?”

  He was right. My husband’s car was nowhere in sight.

  “Is his car parked behind the house?” I asked.

  We followed the curve of the driveway to the rear of the house. No car. No sign that Henry had been there recently. We stared at the reassuring sight of untrampled shrubs in silence.

  Hunter hadn’t asked the right question. It didn’t matter how Henry got home—Prudence or Kitty could have easily given him a ride. The right question, the real question, was why he’d come home.

  I knew the answer. Three hundred thousand dollars and a safe full of incriminating envelopes.