Before Grace and I went to Mother’s, I had to do something about that answer.
Twenty-Two
When Max was hungry, he’d whap his bowl with a gigantic paw. If he was really hungry, he’d whap me. If that didn’t get my attention, he’d lay his head on my knee and stare at me with amber eyes. If I still failed to fetch his kibble, he’d circle my legs like a cat, making it impossible to move in any direction but toward his dog food.
Fear and Max have a lot in common. First and foremost, they don’t like being ignored.
There’s no ignoring a dead husband.
Now that fear had my attention, it wanted sleepless nights and fuzzy mornings. It demanded I listen to every noise in the neighborhood and assess it for danger. It insisted I look over my shoulder—constantly.
I didn’t much like its plan.
The killer’s name was in Henry’s safe, scrawled on an envelope, waiting to be discovered. I was sure of it. All I had to do was make a list of the names and figure out which one was a murderer. Yeah, right. When I was done, I’d fix the recession and find a new source for crude oil.
I could look at those names, I could even look inside the envelopes, and I’d still have no idea who’d killed my husband. I needed help.
Hunter Tafft stood next to me—strong, solid, and handsome as Paul Newman. I took a second to admire my undamaged hostas, sucked a large breath into my lungs, swallowed and said, “I’ve never given you a retainer.”
“No. You haven’t.”
“If I give you one, everything I tell you is confidential, right?”
“It is anyway.” He offered me a movie star grin, the kind the hero gives the heroine right before she melts into his arms.
I didn’t have any inclination to melt, not while my husband’s body was on the way to the morgue, my daughter was upstairs grieving, and the memory of my disastrous marriage still ached worse than a bad case of tennis elbow. “I’d feel better knowing everything is legal and binding. I’d like to write you a check.”
He blinked. “Your mother already did.”
Of course she had.
What other reason could there be for a lawyer who billed at God-knows-what an hour to sit around my house all morning? It wasn’t concern for Grace or me, it was billable hours. I felt a twinge in the vicinity of my heart. Wounded pride? Wounded feelings? It didn’t matter. Hunter Tafft was my lawyer—not my friend.
It was better that way. Friends drank too much wine and repeated your secrets at cocktail parties. They told you that you looked fabulous in a dress that made you look like a pregnant elephant. They borrowed your favorite sweater and forgot to return it.
The thought of Hunter Tafft in a soft, pink, angora sweater tickled some long-forgotten funny bone. A sound, somewhere between a giggle and snort, escaped me. “Come with me.” I led him back into the house and Henry’s study, swung the painting away from the wall, and begin to spin the dial on the safe.
“I thought you didn’t know the combination.” One eye narrowed. The brow above it dipped. Hunter looked even more like a lawyer when his expression was wry.
“Turns out I knew it after all.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Lying to the police can get you into trouble.”
“Pish.” Someone had murdered my husband and left his body in the driveway. Lying to the police was the least of my worries.
“Pish?”
“Pish. I don’t care about the police. I care about Grace. If I gave what was inside here to the police, Grace and I would have to move to Timbuktu just to escape the fall-out.” I turned the dial to the last number and opened the safe.
It was all there. The money. The envelopes. The sinking dread.
I stepped aside so Hunter could peer into the abyss.
“What is all this?” he asked.
“Henry and Madeline were blackmailing everyone they knew.”
“What’s in the envelopes?”
I shuddered. “I only opened two. I’d say they hold proof of indiscretions.”
“How many are there?”
“Twenty.” Twenty not counting Daddy. As far as I was concerned, Daddy would never be counted. His envelope would remain hidden, unopened until I had a chance to destroy it. “I think one of these people probably killed Henry. We need to find out which one.”
“You need to turn these over to the police.”
“Look at the names.”
He did.
Two judges, a congressman, four company chief executives, a philanthropist, the mayor, and a past president of the Junior League were among those whose names were listed. If I gave the envelopes to the police, I’d ruin the lives of so many innocent people. Well, maybe not innocent—but definitely influential. If I gave their files to the police, I could count Grace and myself in the number of ruined lives.
Hunter flipped through the envelopes and seemed to grasp the gravity of my situation. At least his brows drew together and his lips thinned. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to help me figure out who murdered my husband. Quietly.”
He reached into the safe, pulled out the federal judge’s envelope, and stared at the name. “I’ll need Aggie.”
“Aggie? My housekeeper?”
“She’s a good investigator. Better than her husband was.”
“If she’s so good, why is she cleaning houses?”
“She got tired of digging into people’s dirty laundry.”
So she decided to do the laundry instead? “You’re sure?” I asked. Somehow, Aggie with her knocking car and purple muumuu and dangly earrings seemed an unlikely investigator.
“Sometimes not looking the part is an asset.” It was like he could read my mind, or maybe my face. “People underestimate her.”
I wasn’t about to argue anymore. “What next? Should we make a list of the names?”
His lips quirked. “Are you likely to forget any of them?”
Never. Not as long as I lived. “No. What should I do?”
“Take Grace to your parents. Meet me at the police station at two.”
I glanced at the open safe.
“I’ll close it when I leave,” Hunter said. “You can count on me.”
Henry said that once. My heart cannonballed into a pool of dread. Had I done the right thing telling Hunter? Fear sat quietly in the corner. It wasn’t whapping me or staring at me or trying to direct my steps. I figured that was as close to the right thing as I was going to get.
The tanned skin on the back of my hand looked yellow, almost jaundiced in the fluorescent light of the interview room. It rested on a scarred table next to an empty Tab can.
On the other side of the table, Detective Jones glanced at his watch.
I shifted my gaze to the mirror that hung behind him.
After convincing me I could count on him, Hunter was late. Not sorry I couldn’t find a parking spot late. That kind of late came and went thirty minutes ago. Hunter had passed into the realm of is he even coming? late.
“I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than sit here with me,” I said. After all, the detective was investigating two murders. Surely there was a more profitable use of his time than listening to me not talk.
Detective Jones just smiled like sitting in silence was the most fascinating thing he’d done in years.
I went back to looking at my hands. I needed a manicure. Maybe some moisturizer. Where the hell was Hunter?
The silence stretched longer than the thirteenth fairway at Augusta.
“Why did you leave San Francisco, Detective Jones?” My voice startled us both.
“The job.”
“Really? Were you a detective there as well? Grace is half in love with Michael Douglas. You know, on The Streets of San Francisco.” Lo
ok in the dictionary under idiot. You’ll find my picture.
His lips quirked. “Television shows don’t have much to do with reality.”
He hadn’t answered me. Detective Jones, man of mystery. I didn’t know anything about him, not even his first name.
“Did you always want to be a policeman?” I asked.
He tilted his head as if he couldn’t quite believe I was still trying to question him. He was the one with the questions. Who killed your husband? Why? Except, he wasn’t asking them. He was actually waiting for my lawyer. Detective Jones was an honorable man. A man who followed rules. One who colored inside the lines.
The honorable man shrugged. “Or a lawyer.”
“Why did you pick policeman?”
“I didn’t like law school.”
It was my turn to quirk a brow.
“My father is a professor at Stanford. He cared about education.” The tone of his voice suggested he wasn’t exactly open to any more questions.
I ignored his tone. “What does your father teach?”
“Politics.”
“What about your mother? Does she work?”
“She’s an artist.”
I pondered that for a moment. “What kind?”
He laced his fingers together. “A sculptor.”
“And you’re a policeman...”
“Is that a question?” The detective raised a brow.
“Not exactly,” I ceded. “Do you see them often?”
“No.”
I felt rather like I’d dived into a pool and hit the bottom. Jarred by the sudden harshness of his voice. Almost bruised by the unforgiving hardness of his face. No more questions about his family. Got it. I picked up the empty pink can and stared at the white lettering. “What’s your first name?”
He stared at me like I’d suddenly turned into Marvin the Martian from a Bugs Bunny cartoon.
“You want to know my name?”
“Seems only fair. You know mine.”
“Everyone calls me Jones.”
I put the can back on the table. The aluminum made a hollow sound.
“What do your parents call you?”
He mumbled.
“Pardon me?”
He mumbled again.
“Did you say Anthony?”
“No.” He glanced over his shoulder at the mirror then leaned forward and whispered, “Anarchy.”
I had to have misheard him. “That’s not a name.”
“It is in San Francisco.”
No wonder he went by Jones. Detective Follow-the-Rules was named Anarchy? “How?”
“My father wears his politics on his sleeve.”
Professor Jones advocated for the abolition of law. Detective Jones enforced them.
And I thought I had problems with Mother.
My fingers, quite of their own volition, reached across the table. I stopped their progress before they touched Detective Jones’ hand.
We both stared at them, my hand hovering an inch above his. It was as if some magnetic force was drawing me to touch him, to connect. My gaze traveled to his face, tanned, lean, a frame for the nicest brown eyes I’d ever seen. Those eyes looked into mine.
We sat, opposite sides of the table, our hands almost touching, our questions forgotten.
Then I remembered who we were. Detective Jones didn’t need empathy from a murder suspect any more than I needed sympathy from the man who might arrest me. My husband was dead. My daughter was grieving. I pulled my hand away.
Anarchy Jones, police detective, honorable man continued to stare at me and my throat went dry.
“No more questions?” Was his voice regretful or amused?
Why couldn’t I tell? I shook my head. I’d asked personal questions and learned more than I bargained for. “No.”
“I have questions.” He offered me a wry smile. “I don’t think your lawyer will object to them.”
I glanced at my watch for the umpteenth time. Where the hell was Hunter? “Go ahead.”
“What does ‘rah’ mean?”
“Raw?”
“No. R.A.H. Rah.”
“Where did you see it?”
“On the golf club that killed your husband.”
R. A. H. Roger Ainsbrey Harper. Had I been wrong? Had Roger killed Madeline? Had he killed Henry?
“It’s a monogram.”
“Roger Harper’s?”
“Yes. And probably a lot of other people’s too.”
“Anyone you know?”
“No.” Damn it. Just Roger’s.
“How did Mr. Harper feel about your husband’s involvement with his wife?”
My shoulders stiffened, I folded my hands into my lap and crossed my ankles. “You’d have to ask him.”
Detective Anarchy Jones’ brown eyes flashed. “Two people are dead, Ellison.”
“I don’t think Roger killed them.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
What if I was? I looked at the dingy ceilings, the cream walls with paint gone sepia from too many years of cigarette smoke, the state of my cuticles. “Madeline was having an affair with my husband. I already told you that.”
“You didn’t tell me how you or Mr. Harper felt about it.”
“Don’t say a word, Ellison.” Hunter stood in the door. He didn’t look apologetic or sheepish or even embarrassed at being an hour late. He looked lawyerish—not a single silver hair was out of place, his tie quietly shouted don’t mess with me, and his lips, thinned to a stern line, showed not a hint of humor.
“The golf club they found—it might belong to Roger Harper,” I explained.
“Then clearly the detective should be talking to Mr. Harper and not you.” Hunter glared at Detective Jones. Detective Jones glared back.
“Perhaps a question or two about last night?” Detective Jones clasped his hands behind his neck and leaned back in his chair. “To help us establish the timeline.”
Hunter offered the slightest of nods.
“What time did Mr. Foster leave last night?” Anarchy asked.
“Around eleven-thirty.”
“And you went directly to bed after he left?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
“You didn’t hear anything? No cars in the driveway, no doors closing, no voices?”
I’d fluffed my pillow then listened to Grace breathe. I hadn’t heard anything else. “Nothing.”
“What kind of car does your husband drive?”
“A Cadillac.”
The man with the nice eyes had been replaced by the no-nonsense detective. “We found it parked around the corner from your house. Any idea why?”
It took all I had not to glance at Hunter. He knew the answer. Henry had planned on sneaking into our house, emptying the safe, and disappearing into the night. Someone had killed him instead. “No idea.” My nose itched. Terribly. I squeezed my hands together and tried to look honest.
“That’s not a timeline question, detective. If that’s all?” It wasn’t a question, and Hunter didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he clasped my elbow, hauled me out of my chair, and half-dragged me through the door. When we reached the hallway, his whisper in my ear was furious. “You are the worst liar on the face of the planet. If you can’t tell the truth, don’t say anything. It’s a wonder that cop didn’t arrest you based on your suspicious expression.”
Anarchy wouldn’t do that. Anarchy? The man investigating my husband’s murder was no longer just Detective Jones. He was Anarchy, a man who had as many issues with his father as I had with my mother.
“What? What are you thinking about? You look like you sucked a lemon.” Hunter hadn’t let go of my elbow and he gave it a small shake.
“Come along. I’ll see you to your parent’s house.”
All things being equal, I wished he would have left me with Anarchy.
Twenty-Three
There were three Mercedes, a BMW, two Volvos, and four Cadillacs parked in front of Mother and Daddy’s house. The Bundt cake brigade had arrived in full force.
I was tempted to drive right on past.
A glance in my rearview mirror at Hunter Tafft’s car made me pull into the drive, throw my car in park, and hurry inside. I didn’t want another lecture on lying to the police nor did I want to know the contents of the envelopes in my safe.
Bitty Sue Foster met me in the foyer. “You poor girl. How are you doin’, sugar?”
I dredged up a weak attempt at a smile. “I’ve had better days.”
“Ain’t that the truth? Your momma has the ladies well in hand. Why don’t you go freshen up?”
It was a nice way of telling me I looked like hell.
I snuck upstairs, powdered my nose, combed my hair and twisted it away from my face, then gave my lips a swipe of sea orchid pink. I was ready. Prisoners on their way to face a firing squad were more eager to face their fates than I was.
I tiptoed down the back stairs, the ones that would deliver me to the kitchen, and earn me another minutes’ respite. Voices stopped me. Not the voices of Penelope, Mother’s long-suffering housekeeper, or Frank, Penelope’s husband who served as additional help when Mother entertained.
Instead, I heard Prudence Davies’ unmistakable bray and Kitty Ballew’s squeaky response. “I don’t know, I just can’t see her doing it.”
“Who then?” Prudence sounded stuffy, almost as if she’d been crying.
“Maybe Roger. Maybe you.” There was a pause then the click of high heels on hard wood and the gush of the tap. Whatever Kitty said next was lost behind the sound of running water.
The tone of Prudence’s answer carried up the stairs although not the words themselves. Anger, sadness, outrage. Then the tap was turned off and I could hear again. “She was a bitch and she deserved what she got. But Henry? Never. I,” Prudence’s voice cracked, “I loved him.” A sniffle followed. “You could have done it. It could have been you.”
THE DEEP END Page 17
