Murder Among Friends Page 19

  In the King Lion District even garbage cans had been evaluated until we went to automated trash collection. The garbage cans were large, square, and brown. Recycling containers were blue and the same size. Some of the individuality had disappeared, but none of the angst.

  Now, instead of worrying someone would steal the top of his trash can, Tom worried some miscreant might walk off with one of our city owned trash containers, thereby making us liable for the replacement.

  Before the change, Linda always had pristine metal cans. The Rolls Royce trash of the neighborhood. I missed those cans, glinting at the back of her house.

  I missed her.

  I hated that our last meeting had been so filled with chaos. I hated that she'd pushed me down the stairs. I hated, even more, that her last thoughts of me had been filled with anger.

  Would I ever be able to look at her house and not think of that day? I doubted it. But stranger things had happened.

  The gray paint of her house fit in well with the gray day. Dusty cotton balls filled the sky, obscured all but tiny slices of blue. We were in for a storm or a change in weather.

  We were evidently in for more change than that. A huge moving van was parked in front of Linda's house. Dorothy really was leaving.

  Had I misjudged her as badly as I almost had Maude?

  I dried my hands and turned. Sally was still settled beneath the kitchen table. I left her where she was, grabbed my jacket from the closet, and picked up a cane, one with a dragon head, complete with blood red jeweled eyes. I didn't need it as much for balance as I did for defense.

  I've never been a confrontational person, and despite my vow to change, I found it panic-inducing to be direct, especially to Dorothy. She scared me a little and after the beat down she tried to give me at Linda's house, I wasn't sure I trusted her.

  But I owed her the courtesy of listening to what she wanted to tell me.

  The moving van, Two Men and a Truck, was half full of Linda's best furniture. Annoyance sliced through me before I realized I was being silly. However much I didn't like Dorothy, she was Linda's daughter. Maybe people had disliked Barbara and tolerated her because of me.

  I walked to the rear of the truck, hoping Dorothy would be there, directing the placement of her mother's possessions. I didn't want to walk up those steps. I didn't want to go into Linda's house again.

  Dorothy wasn't there, but a handsome young man with bright blond hair and a toothy smile was, dressed in a t-shirt two sizes too small and too thin for the blustery day.

  We greeted each other, and I explained I was a neighbor, and asked if he'd seen Dorothy lately.

  "I think she's up there," he said, gesturing to the second floor. "Want me to tell her you're here?"

  I nodded my agreement, watching as he took the steps two at a time, his magnificent rear end making an impression on my libido.

  I followed him, but only to the steps where I sat, staring at the For Sale sign, A few weeks had made a momentous difference in my neighborhood. Both Evelyn and Linda were gone and both houses now for sale. The explosion in Paul's studio had damaged the trees in the rear of the property and they could be seen from here, looking as if they'd been trimmed from the top by a giant with a pair of sheers and a bad attitude. Tom and I were divorcing, and our house might well be on the market, too.

  Dorothy was dressed all in black, her square face pale and drawn. Instead of wearing blood red lipstick, I think it was black or dark blue. She was my age, and the look was for a teenager.

  Today, she sported an eyebrow ring. My mind immediately did a flashback to when Barbara was a baby and I couldn't wear pierced earrings. Her little baby fingers would do a death grip on anything shiny, and I'd be lucky to emerge from the battle with my earlobes intact.

  What would a baby do to an eyebrow ring?

  Dorothy didn't say anything, merely sat beside me on the steps.

  "So you're really moving," I said, a question only slightly elevated from talking about the weather.

  "I don't have a choice," she said. "I can't afford the house, and I haven't found a job."

  If it had been anyone else, I would have said something positive and uplifting, but I had the feeling Dorothy enjoyed being depressed.

  "I was wrong not to let you attend my mother's funeral," she said. "I wanted to tell you that."

  I nodded.

  "But you're not fucking going to tell anyone I stole from her." She turned and glared at me with red rimmed eyes.

  I gripped my cane hard.

  "I didn't do anything to hurt my mother, and I'll fucking sue you if you say it again."

  I could feel Tom perched on my shoulder whispering to say something conciliatory. For the life of me, I couldn't think of a damn thing.

  "Okay," she said, her hands with their midnight blue nails flapping in the air like miniature crows, "maybe she spent a little more money than she should have, paying my bills. I didn't ask her to."

  "But you didn't stop her."

  The misery slipped from Dorothy's gaze like a lizard's eyes, revealing a rage that made me clench my cane tighter.

  "No, I didn't stop her. But I didn't know she'd sold all of her things. And I didn't take out a mortgage on her house."

  I didn't like Dorothy. I thought her attempt to act twenty years younger was ridiculous. But, for some reason, I believed her.

  "What about Paul?"

  "What about Paul?"

  I felt like Evelyn's ghost shouldered me to ask the question.

  "Were you having an affair with him?" Dorothy would have just come out and said, “Are you fucking him?”

  She shrugged.

  I waited. I was an expert at waiting for pissed off people to speak.

  "No, I wasn't," she said finally, staring down at her clunky boots. "He told me he didn't have room for another woman in his life."

  It hadn't been love that had made her cry that day, but humiliation. That emotion I could understand all too well.

  I stood, looking down at her.

  "Where are you going?" I asked, compelled by the fondness I'd had for Linda to care about her child.

  "To live with Bobby," she said, naming one of her brothers. "He's going to pay me to look after his kids. Can you believe it? Me? A nanny?"

  No, I couldn't, and I wondered if the poor children would have nightmares for years about Aunt Dorothy.

  I turned to walk away, then stopped, compelled to be polite at the end. I hated that about myself.

  "I hope everything works out," I said.

  She stood, nodded, and ascended the steps, leaving me without another word.

  I was on my way back to my house when I heard my name being called. I stopped and turned, to find Velma coming after me.

  "Dorothy gambles," she said, when she reached me. “It wasn't just that she lost that job of hers. She never had time to go look for a real job, but she always had an hour or two for the computer. And she goes to Lake Charles to gamble on the boats.”

  The revelation was surprising but from the redness of Velma’s eyes she mourned for Linda, too.

  "Did she talk Linda into getting a second mortgage on the house? Or did Linda do it on her own?"

  Velma shook her head. "I don't know. Linda didn't have no life insurance and the money she got from her husband stopped with her death. The house was all she had left to give her children."

  She turned, staring at the For Sale sign in the yard. "I don't think she would have touched it, not with her being so sick and all. Now, it belongs to the mortgage company. She would have been sad about that."

  I was back to square one, not knowing anything for sure other than that Evelyn had been poisoned.

  "That ungrateful child nearly ripped out her mother’s heart. Linda was never the same after Dorothy came home.”

  Velma wiped her face with the palms of both hands and glared at me, but her anger was directed at Dorothy. “It was murder. Murder in the worst way. Greed killed Miss Linda. Greed and an ungrateful chi
ld.”

  Before I could say any words of comfort – as if I had any – Velma turned and left.

  I blew out a breath, looked up to the sky. The day was turning even grayer. A yucky day, Barbara would have said.

  Talbot's car pulled to the curb and parked.

  31

  “I've started patrolling this block," Talbot said, getting out of the car. "I seem to have adopted it. You called me."

  I nodded. "Where's the money?"

  He stopped on the curb, watching me with that level stare of his.

  "If Paul was guilty of stealing Evelyn's identity and making off with hundreds of thousands of dollars, where is it? Is it in his account?"

  He still didn't say anything. Instead, he approached me, grabbed my sleeve and although he didn't pull me down the sidewalk, let's just say he urged me forward. He stopped at a large oak left undamaged by the explosion, released me, and leaned one palm against the trunk.

  "You need to just stop this."

  "Why?"

  "Because, this is police business. Besides, you could get hurt."

  "Why, because I know too much? Well, they'd have to hurt Army, Frank, and the rest of the Murder Club, too."

  He was glaring at me now and Talbot had a really impressive glare.

  "Which means you're not going to stop this."

  I glanced down at the sidewalk, my gaze tracing all the cracks. I wondered, for the first time, just how old these sidewalks were. Finally, I forced myself to look up at Talbot.

  "Evelyn was my friend," I said softly. "It's important to me that she gets justice."

  "And you think I won't give it to her?"

  It was his job to seek justice. This quest was something more for me.

  "Don't tell me I can't do anything," I said. "I have to do something."

  He studied me for a long moment, just like he'd studied me in the past, under different circumstances. As if he was deciding whether I was a fit mother to Barbara. As if he weighed whether or not to leave her in my care.

  Suddenly, I knew what I had to say.

  "You tried," I said. "With Barbara, you tried. Even though the odds were against you. Even though your experience taught you she was on a dead end road, you still tried to help her."

  He didn't speak, but something flashed in his eyes. Compassion? Or a measure of his own grief? I wanted to know, again, why he'd come to our tiny city.

  "Well, I've got to do the same thing. For Evelyn."

  He nodded, dropping his hand, turning to stare at Linda's house.

  “Are you sure Linda had a heart attack?" I asked.

  A frown creased his forehead. "What is it with you? She was an old lady, for God’s sake."

  "It's awfully convenient for her to die now."

  His frown deepened. "I'm not doing a tox screen on her. She had a bad heart."

  I was willing to concede she might have died of natural causes and said so.

  "But people are dropping like flies," I said.

  He retreated into silence again. He was good at that, too.

  "Do you use forensic accountants at the King Lion District Police Department?"

  He sighed, obviously annoyed. "Now you're asking if I even looked for the money. We haven't found it yet," he said, staring at me in that way of his. As if he was trying to figure out how little to tell me to keep me satisfied.

  That was just insulting.

  The only man who didn't annoy me at the moment was Army.

  "Did you ever get a description of the sister?"

  He made a sound that wasn't the least bit complimentary. "I've been doing this for awhile, Jennifer. I don't need directions from an amateur."

  It was my turn to give him a look. Evidently, I wasn't doing annoyed well enough, because he started to smile.

  "You didn't think Evelyn was murdered," I said, in my guise of the new, more assertive Jennifer. "Until I practically made you do that enhanced tox screen."

  "Jesus, you're irritating."

  "Same to you, Talbot."

  I turned and walked toward my house, Talbot following me.

  "She's a short, petite blond, or a tall woman of Italian or Hispanic descent." His smile broadened. "People aren't generally good witnesses, especially when they didn't see her often."

  "Evelyn's mortgage was taken out in August," I said. "Paul was still around in October. Why? Isn't that a change in his MO?"

  Talbot rolled his eyes.

  "Okay," I conceded, "too many episodes of Criminal Minds. But you have to admit, it is a difference."

  He nodded, but it looked reluctant.

  "Of course, Linda's mortgage was taken out around the same time," I said, thinking out loud.

  He looked at me with a flat stare. The cop was surfacing. Or did he ever really disappear?

  We were at my house. I turned to face him.

  I didn't glance away, but met his gray eyes with a steady gaze.

  "Do you think I'm trying to solve Evelyn's murder for Evelyn or for me?"

  The question stopped him in mid-stare.

  "I don't have a clue," he said. "Does it matter?"

  I nodded. "I think so," I said. I took a deep breath. "I loved her. She was my best friend. But her murder did something to me. Something I didn't expect." Just how much was I going to give Talbot? I decided to give him all of it, part of the new Jennifer. "I feel like I was asleep, in a fog. And now I'm not. I wonder if I would have ever surfaced from that fog if Evelyn hadn't been murdered."

  "Maybe something good can come from all this," he said, his voice soft and unbearably kind. He placed his fingers on my shoulder, gave me a light tap before turning and walking back to his car, waving his hand in the air.

  "I've got to go do some police work," he said. "Find crooks, that sort of thing."

  "And murderers," I added.

  "And murderers." he said.

  "And money," I called out after him.

  He turned and gave me a look, prompting my smile.

  As he drove away, I realized I'd stopped seeing him as my nemesis. Not a friend, exactly. But not an adversary, either.

  I went into my house, into the kitchen, reading the note from Maude that she'd gone to the grocery store. Sally greeted me, stretching. Downward facing dog, in yoga parlance.

  After we did our backyard thing, and an obligatory round of fetch, I entered the office, putting my notes into some type of order before I tackled the contract again.

  When I heard a sound, I tensed. Too many people had died in my neighborhood for me to be sanguine about an unexpected noise.

  Going to my office door, I called out, "Who is it?"

  Tom appeared at the end of the hall. “It’s me, Jennifer.”

  I felt a sense surge of relief followed immediately by one of irritation. I didn't have time for him. Not right now.

  I went back to work, knowing he'd be at the door any moment. He didn't disappoint me.

  "Come for more of your things?" I asked. "Feel free. Mi casa es su casa."

  "I don't want to leave, Jennifer."

  I froze. Slowly, I turned and looked at him.

  "I don't want a divorce," he said.

  I had to struggle to keep my voice even. "What, the newness has worn off Claire?"

  He strode to my window, stood staring out for a long time. It's remarkable how endless a minute can seem.

  "A divorce won't hurt your chances of being a judge," I said. "Everybody's divorced nowadays. Who knows, it might even make you more human."

  He glanced over his shoulder at me.

  "I want a chance to do it over," he said. "A chance to do it all over."

  I began to smile. "You wouldn't work as long. You'd pay more attention. You'd talk to Barbara more. You'd be more insistent. You'd get her help sooner."

  He turned, frowning.

  "Are you ridiculing me, Jennifer?"

  I shook my head. "Don't you think I've thought the same things, Tom? Don't you think I've worked it all out in my mind how it should
have been?"

  He didn't answer.

  "It is what it is. We can't go back, Tom. Not for Barbara. Not for us."

  "You don't think we deserve another chance?"

  "Even if we made it work, Tom, I'd always remember you thought I was to blame for Barbara's death. Even if you changed your mind. I'd always remember that, for a very long time, you hated me."

  "I never quite hated you, Jennifer."

  I waved my hand in the air. "Then whatever comes just before hate."

  I stood and went to him, stroking my hand up and down his suited arm. I'd loved him with all my heart once. I'd wanted his understanding. I'd prayed for his compassion. Because of all those emotions, along with an endless empathy, it was time for the truth.

  "I hated you, too," I said. "Or whatever comes just before hate. I hated you because I was fighting you and Barbara. I thought if you'd just understood, if you'd just loved me as much as you'd loved her, it would have been so much easier."

  His expression was stark, the first time he'd ever revealed the extent of his pain.

  "I don't hate you, now, Tom." I didn't feel anything for him. I no longer resented him. If anything, I pitied Tom for his pain, for his inability to understand, for his powerlessness. I'd felt all of those emotions myself. "We shouldn't have had to lose our child. But it happened and wishing it different won't make it different."

  "I love you, Jennifer."

  No, he didn't and he hadn't for a long time.

  But instead of calling him a liar, I only smiled and patted his arm.

  A moment later, I moved back to my desk.

  "You don't want to try and make it work?" he asked. "I know I've made a lot of mistakes."

  “Bless you, Tom, for you have sinned. Is that what you want? Well, you're not going to get absolution from me. I’ve made enough mistakes of my own. I couldn’t begin to judge someone else.”

  A few moments later, he left my office. I sat there, unseeing, staring at my monitor, listening. When I heard him leave the house a few minutes later, I sagged, as if all the breath had left my body.

  Something should have sounded in that moment: a bird's song, a muted trumpet, a scream. Something to indicate the closing of a chapter of my life, the end of something that had once meant a great deal to me.