THE DEEP END

by Mulhern, Julie

  “No.”

  “Then I’ll finish up out here.”

  The sound of water rinsing gore followed me into the house where the ring of the telephone greeted me.

  I answered without thinking, a habitual response to its jangle. “Hello?”

  “Ellison Russell?” No hello. No identification. Nothing but a woman’s voice.

  “Who’s calling?” I asked.

  “Is this Ellison Russell?” Each syllable was higher than the last, the ell of my last name nothing more than a squeak.

  “Who’s calling?”

  The woman at the other end of the line took a deep breath. “This is Kathleen O’Malley. I need to speak with Ellison Russell.”

  “Kathleen who?”

  “It’s you, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I’m afraid I don’t know a Kathleen O’Malley.”

  “Yes, you do. You know me as Mistress K.”

  Mistress K had a name suitable for a Catholic schoolgirl? Unbidden the image of her dressed in black leather and tartan plaid popped into my brain. Oh dear Lord. “What do you want?”

  “Come to Roger Harper’s house. Now.”

  What the hell? “Why would I do that?”

  “Because I told you to.”

  “I don’t play your kinds of games, Miss O’Malley.” The name tasted sweet as revenge on my lips. Miss O’Malley sounded like a typist or a third grade teacher or a secretary. So different from Mistress K who flogged grown men. “Goodbye.” I hung up the phone.

  It rang again within seconds.

  My hand hovered over the receiver. To answer, or not to answer, that was the question. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune had been particularly sharp of late. If I answered, would I be stuck again? If I didn’t, would I wonder forever what she could possibly have wanted? Maybe she knew something about Madeline and Henry’s deaths. Maybe if she needed something from me, I could find out. I picked up the handle. “Hello.”

  “Please. Come. I need you. Roger needs you.”

  I let the silence play out. No wonder my father had used it against me—I could almost hear her weighing her options.

  “I’ll tell you about your husband and his women.”

  “I only want to know if one of them killed him.”

  There was no answer. Apparently two could play the silence game.

  No way was I losing to Kathleen O’Malley or Mistress K. I examined the cuticles of my free hand, made a mental list of the things I needed to pack, and when the silence continued to spin, I picked up the handful of ignored mail and flipped through it.

  Bills. The dusty letter from beneath the bombé chest. Catalogs. Magazines. Silence.

  She cleared her throat, a clear sign of weakening.

  I studied a perfume advertisement. A model with killer cheekbones strode toward a private plane, a confident smile on her crimson lips. I flipped the page.

  “Fine.” One word, clipped and sharp as if she’d cut it with a knife.

  Victory.

  No need to gloat. We both knew I’d won. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.” I tossed the mail back onto the chest.

  Out front, Aggie was still spraying. I waved to her. “I have to run a quick errand.” I climbed into my car and drove the four blocks to Roger’s house.

  Mistress K opened the door before I had a chance to knock.

  Had she trussed him so tightly she couldn’t loosen the ropes? No. Her face lacked its usual surfeit of confidence. The dominatrix’s forehead was wrinkled and her eyes seemed too big for their sockets.

  She reached outside, closed her hand around my wrist and hauled me into the Harpers’ foyer. “This way.”

  She pulled me toward the kitchen.

  Harvest gold and pumpkin orange assaulted my retinas but what burned them was the pajama-clad body kneeling on the floor with its head in the oven.

  “Oh my God.” The words slipped through numbed lips. “Is it Roger?”

  Mistress K bit her lower lip and nodded.

  “Have you called an ambulance?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Gas.”

  “Do you smell any?” I knew the answer. No. Madeline’s oven was broken. It hadn’t worked in years. She didn’t cook so she’d never bothered to have it repaired.

  “He wrote a note.”

  Sure enough, a single sheet of white paper lay on the counter. R.A.H. was embossed in gold across the top. On it, Roger had scrawled I’m sorry.

  Bullshit. If Roger were going to kill himself, he wouldn’t do it by sticking his head in a gasless oven. I bent over his body, grabbed a handful of seersucker robe, and pulled him free of the broken appliance.

  His skin was cool and grey but he wasn’t dead. At least I didn’t think he was. “Call an ambulance.”

  She picked up the phone and dialed zero.

  I tapped Roger on the cheek. Gently. Then with more force.

  Behind me, the dominatrix snorted.

  “Roger!” The tap became a slap. He didn’t move. Maybe he was dead. I dug in my purse for my compact and yanked it open, accidentally sprinkling him with powder. Then I held the tiny mirror over his mouth and nose.

  Fog.

  He wasn’t dead.

  “Tell them to hurry,” I said over my shoulder.

  Mistress K rolled her eyes. Now that she wasn’t dealing with a dead body by herself, her natural contempt for me had returned. “It’s not like ambulances drive slowly.”

  “Just tell them.”

  “Hurry.” Her voice was as flat as a deflated beach ball.

  What a bitch.

  She hung up the phone.

  “What are you doing here, Kathleen?”

  Her nostrils flared at my use of her first name. “Roger was late. I came to punish him.”

  That explained the leather pants and the whip that hung from her belt. It didn’t come close to explaining who’d tried to kill Roger and make it look like a suicide.

  “How did you get in?”

  “Roger gave me a key.”

  Roger wanted to be punished. I kept my lip from curling with distaste. Barely.

  Instead, I stood, picked my purse up from where I’d left it on the counter, then rooted through it until I came up with Detective A-is-for-Anarchy Jones’ business card.

  “What are you doing?” Kathleen asked.

  “Calling the police.”

  The dominatrix edged toward the door.

  “If you leave, I’ll tell them you were here,” I said. “They’ll wonder why you left.”

  Emotions flickered across her face. First shock—her crimson lips formed a circle and her eyes grew big, then anger—brows drawn, lips thinned, then something sly, like she believed she could tell me some pretty lie and leave me to be discovered with a third body in a week. Not.

  “I called you because I thought you could help. I thought maybe I could stay out of this.”

  Did she think I couldn’t recognize cow manure? “Then you thought wrong. Someone who didn’t know that oven was broken tried to stage a suicide. You’re staying to talk to the police.”

  “If you’d just let me explain. I—”

  I held up my hand. “Shush.” I needed to think, not listen to her jabbering. Kathleen could have left Roger. She’d thought he was dead. No one would have found him for days. Why had she called for help? Could it be that deep beneath the leather and floggers there was a decent human being? More likely someone at her club knew she’d come here. They might wonder when Roger was reported dead.

  “Do you think Kitty or Prudence could have done this?” I asked.

  She stared at me.

  “Kitty Ballew or Prudence Davies
. Could either one have done this?”

  “Maybe. But why would they?”

  The murderer had staged a suicide. They’d wanted the police to believe Roger had killed Madeline and Henry and then himself. Two murders neatly tied up. The end of the investigation. Seemed like a good reason to me.

  I picked up the phone and dialed the number on the card. “May I please speak with Detective Jones?”

  “This is Jones.”

  I narrowed my eyes and glared at Mistress K who was inching toward the door. “Detective Jones, this Ellison Russell, I’m at Roger Harper’s house with Kathleen O’Malley. Someone tried to kill him.”

  “Another body?” The voice on the other end of the phone was incredulous.

  That’s me. The woman who finds corpses. “He’s not dead.” Yet. “The ambulance is on its way.”

  “So am I, Mrs. Russell.” He hung up.

  Mrs. Russell?

  Shit.

  I put the receiver in the cradle, lifted it again then dialed. “Hunter, it’s Ellison. I’m at Roger Harper’s. Someone tried to kill him and I think you’d better come over here.”

  To his credit, Hunter didn’t question, didn’t wonder aloud about my propensity for finding bodies, didn’t call me Mrs. Russell. “I’ll be there in ten. If the police get there before me, don’t say anything.”

  It was déjà vu all over again.

  Twenty-Five

  No way had Madeline spent any time in her kitchen. She probably hadn’t even known where it was. Say what you will about her non-existent morals, her sexual proclivities or her talent for causing trouble, the woman had possessed good taste. She’d had no hand in the harvest gold and pumpkin orange wallpaper or the dated cabinets. The kitchen was dreadful. Add a comatose middle-aged man in his bathrobe and a leather-clad dominatrix and it was downright awful.

  I stopped noticing the walls when the ambulance arrived. I was too busy shrinking into the breakfast nook while men with blood pressure cuffs and needles and a gurney swarmed around Roger.

  “Is he going to be all right?” I asked.

  One of the paramedics grunted and then they all ignored me. They had a harder time ignoring the leather-clad dominatrix. Only the man monitoring Roger’s vitals kept his eyes on his work, the rest ogled.

  I tried to shrink further into the nook when Detective Jones arrived, but a dying Swedish ivy in a macramé hanger whapped me between the eyes. It hurt like hell. Turns out cursing in a crowded room is a fairly effective way of gathering all the attention you don’t want. Lesson learned.

  Kathleen O’Malley tittered, Detective Jones glared, and I closed my watering eyes and rubbed the bridge of my nose.

  “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” the detective asked.

  There was an option? If I didn’t want to tell him, I could leave? I’d go to the farm and move in. Grace could spend her summer in horse heaven, Max could chase varmints to his heart’s content, and I could paint. If wishes were horses...

  I opened my eyes to find a very stern Detective Anarchy Jones standing in front of me with his arms crossed. The fingers of his left hand drummed against his right bicep.

  “Miss O’Malley stopped by to visit Roger. When she found him with his head in the oven, she called me.”

  The fingers drummed faster. “Why did Miss O’Malley call you?”

  “You’d have to ask her.”

  Arms still crossed, Detective Jones turned toward Mistress K. “Why?”

  Her smile was kitten sweet. “Mrs. Russell introduced me to Roger.”

  Oh dear Lord, what a bitch. I attempted to mimic her kittenish smile then abandoned the effort. It wasn’t working and even if it did, I wouldn’t look sultry or sexy, I’d look like a simpering fool. The distant, chilly smile I’d spent years perfecting at the country club slid into place. “That’s not exactly correct. Mr. Harper met Miss O’Malley before I did. I did not introduce them.”

  “How did you meet Miss O’Malley?”

  My cheeks warmed, but I kept the chilly smile on my lips. “At her club.”

  “That’s where, not how, Mrs. Russell.”

  Mrs. Russell, again. I searched his face. Same dark hair, same lean cheeks, same brown eyes. Except, those eyes didn’t look remotely nice anymore.

  My chilly smile slipped away. “Mr. Harper wanted to see where his wife and my husband had been spending their time.” My cheeks weren’t warm anymore. Nope, they flamed hotter than a barbeque grill. I covered them with the tips of my fingers. “We drove there together.”

  Detective Jones shifted his gaze back to Miss O’Malley, Mistress K. He assessed the black leather pants, the stiletto heels, the bustier barely containing an abundance of rounded flesh, the whip on her left hip, and the flogger on her right. So did the men who were taking an unconscionably long time cleaning up after wheeling Roger to the ambulance.

  My skirt, a navy wrap that reversed to a ladybug print, was long enough to cover the scabs on my knees. Coupled with a white linen camp shirt, it felt downright dowdy. I fingered the bow tied at my waist.

  “I take it Mr. Harper returned to your club?”

  The tip of Mistress K’s pink tongue moistened her already glistening lips. “Take what you want.” She tried the kitten smile again.

  “Yes or no, Miss O’Malley?”

  She gave up on the smile. Instead her lower lip, pouty, red, and as full as a down sofa cushion extended. “Yes.” Somehow, she managed to make that one word sound like an invitation and a promise.

  “Did Mrs. Russell return to your club?”

  Heat rose from my toes to my hairline. How could he think such a thing? Ask such a thing?

  “You’re serious?” Mistress K snorted. “Look at her. Henry told me the most adventurous thing she’s ever done is go to a swingers’ party. Even then she left as soon as she figured it out.” When Mistress K laughed her breasts looked like they might spill over the top of her bustier. “She fished their keys out of the bowl and left. Henry was furious. Well, at least until he ended up in a threesome. Then it became an amusing story.”

  I remembered that night and the skin-crawling realization that Henry was willing to let another man have me so long as he got access to that man’s wife.

  Of course, I’d walked out.

  I was stodgy. I was boring. I believed in monogamy. I believed marriage should be a partnership not a power exchange. I forced myself to look into Detective Jones’ brown eyes. Let him judge me, I wasn’t backing down from who I was or what I believed.

  His eyes were marginally nicer, almost like he felt bad for embarrassing me in front of a room full of lingering paramedics. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe he didn’t feel bad. Maybe I saw pity.

  I swallowed around the lump in my throat, took one very deep breath, then picked up my handbag from the breakfast table. “When I arrived here this morning, Miss O’Malley led me to the kitchen. Roger’s head was in the oven and she showed me the note on the counter.” I pointed to the piece of paper. “She thought Roger was dead from gas, but the Harpers’ oven has been broken for months. I pulled Roger out of the oven, determined he wasn’t dead, and called an ambulance.” I tightened my grip on my handbag. “Someone staged Roger’s suicide. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to see my daughter.”

  I stepped out of the nook, sidled past a gawking paramedic, and achieved the doorway without looking over my shoulder.

  “Mrs. Russell, wait.” Unless he arrested me, I wasn’t listening to Detective Jones anymore.

  I kept walking.

  “Ellison.” Even with my back turned I could sense Mistress K’s eyebrows rise at his use of my first name.

  My damn foot paused in mid-air. Fortunately, Hunter chose that moment to arrive. He wore a navy suit, a striped tie, and polished wingtips. Safe. Familiar. Just
stodgy enough to limit his sexual adventures to one woman at a time. I hurried toward him. “Please. Get me out of here.”

  Hunter glared down the length of the hallway, closed a hand around my elbow, and led me into the morning sunshine. His steps slowed. “Are you okay? Who in the hell was that?”

  He didn’t mean Detective Jones. “That was Kathleen O’Malley.”

  “Who?”

  “Mistress K. Henry and Madeline frequented her club.” Roger had too. Three people, two of them were dead, and the third looked like he might join them at any moment. Had I overlooked a suspect? Was Mistress K a killer?

  He shuddered. “Dreadful looking woman.”

  I studied his face. The corner of his lip was curled and his nose was wrinkled as if he’d smelled something distasteful. He meant it. Hunter didn’t find Kathleen, her leather, her whips or her over-taxed bustier remotely attractive. I smiled at him. Not the chilly smile.

  “What happened here?” Hunter asked.

  “Someone tried to kill Roger Harper and make it look like a suicide.”

  Hunter froze for an instant. If I hadn’t been walking next to him, I might not have noticed the sudden stillness and then the return to movement.

  “What?” I asked. “What’s wrong?”

  He glanced toward the front of the Harper’s colonial home. The hunter green door was closed, the shades were drawn and still he whispered. “I’ll follow you home and tell you about it there.”

  Aggie opened the front door as soon as we pulled in the driveway. “Your mother just called, Mrs. Russell. She wanted to know what you were doing at the Harpers’.”

  God save me from nosy neighbors. They were everywhere. I glanced at my car. Perhaps I should invest in something less distinctive. Maybe a blue Volvo station wagon like half the mothers at the country club. Perhaps a Mercedes sedan in boring black. My British racing green Triumph was far too distinctive.

  “Your sister called,” Aggie continued.

  Marjorie? It was official. Hell had frozen over. After Mother’s less than warm welcome of Marjorie’s husband, communication with my sister was as rare as an honest politician.