Accessory to Murder (3 page)

“The scarf designer,” Josie said, and upset her cranberry martini. Neither woman noticed the red liquid dripping on Alyce's floor.

Halley's photo flashed on the screen. She could have been Alyce's sister—her thinner, stylish sister. Halley's skin was pale as orchid petals. Her platinum hair was long and straight and set off by a scarf of infinite blue.

Halley. The woman who made silk scarves of heartbreaking beauty. She'd been shot down in a mall parking lot.

Suddenly, the world seemed much uglier.

The news of Halley's murder spread through Alyce's subdivision with the speed of sound. Cell phones chirped and computer keys clicked. Husbands were called out of do-not-disturb meetings. Wives opened vibrating phones in checkout lines, saw the personal emergency codes, and took the calls at the cash register, a cardinal sin for polite suburbanites.

Josie and Alyce were still staring at the TV in stunned disbelief when the women of Wood Winds responded to the emergency. They ransacked their kitchens to whip up luscious cakes and hearty main dishes. Disasters this close to home could not be faced on empty stomachs.

Some women cooked special family meals, as if brewing a personal charm to protect their loved ones. The cooking wine came out for husbandly favorites, such as beef bourguignonne, and if the cook had a few slugs, well, she needed to steady her nerves.

Halley was dead. A member of the Wood Winds Christmas dance committee was murdered at the mall, shot during an innocent shopping trip. If golden, good-luck Halley could be killed, it could happen to any of them.

While some Wood Winds women felt the urge to protect their homes, others reached out to their neighbors. One of them ran straight to Alyce's house. Alyce was stacking the luncheon plates in her kitchen, carefully stepping around Mike the plumber. Josie was mopping up her spilled martini and trying not to stare at Mike's well-shaped rump wiggling under the sink.

The kitchen doorbell rang and a soft voice called, “Alyce, are you home? It's me, Joanie.”

“Who's she?” Josie whispered.

“My neighbor Joanie Protzel,” Alyce said. “She has the place with the mansard roof, right next door to Halley's house. She may know something.”

Alyce opened the door and Joanie bustled into the kitchen with two huge trays. She was so upset, she didn't even notice Mike.

Joanie was about thirty, one of those tiny women who could lift a sofa by one leg to vacuum underneath. She'd hauled in half a deli, but she didn't have one brown hair out of place.

“I just heard about Halley,” Joanie said. “I couldn't sit home alone. I had to talk to someone. I brought over two shivah trays.”

The mourning food took up the entire granite island.

“Joanie's family owns Protzel's Deli in Clayton,” Alyce said.

“We're sending food to Halley's family, too,” Joanie said. “This is just a nosh.”

Some people say it with flowers. Joanie said it with food. She believed in comfort food—if you ate, she felt better. Josie didn't think she could eat anything after Alyce's frittata, but she took a small nibble of the corned beef. Then she took a big bite. Soon she'd downed several slabs of meat.

The turkey looked like it had been sliced off a real bird. Josie hated the processed junk that tasted like wet Kleenex. She helped herself to a small piece. Yum. Juicy. She tried a little more. Then a lot more.

How can I eat like this when a woman has been murdered? Josie thought.

Because death makes you hungry for life, she decided. She piled life-giving salami on rye.

“I never thought someone from this neighborhood could be carjacked,” Alyce said. “We don't even lock our doors in Wood Winds.”

“It didn't happen here,” Joanie said. “It was at the Dorchester. We've all heard the stories about that mall. My friend Kay's sister was mugged there in broad daylight. Kay won't go there, not even for the white sales.”

“Jake doesn't want me shopping at the Dorchester, either,” Alyce said.

Josie spread chopped chicken liver on citzel bread. The rye bread rolled in cornmeal had an incredible crust. It would be a shame to waste it.

“That's because Jake loves you,” Joanie said.

Josie wondered why love meant saying no. She reached for more chicken liver and saw big holes in the deli platter. Josie hoped she wasn't responsible for them all. She was relieved to see Alyce demolishing a beef-stuffed kaiser roll as big as a hubcap.

“Have a little hand-sliced Nova,” Joanie urged, heaping a poppy-seed bagel with cream cheese, capers, and half a pound of salmon. She handed it to Josie.

Josie ate the salmon. It was only polite.

“Jake says you wouldn't believe how bad the crime is at that mall,” Alyce said. “He says there have been muggings, purse-snatchings, even rapes in the parking garage. They put in more security cameras because of the crime. Josie and I were mystery-shopping there Friday and we saw an armed robbery. Well, we saw the aftermath. That poor store manager was shaking like a leaf.”

“You're a mystery shopper?” Joanie gave Josie a big smile. “I've always wanted to get paid for shopping.”

“It's a lot more than shopping,” Alyce said before Josie could answer. “It's hard work. Josie is part actress and part undercover cop. She really cares. She thinks women shoppers are laughed at.”

“We don't get any respect.” Joanie piled more salmon on a bagel for Alyce.

Alyce took it without hesitation. Murder killed all thoughts of dieting. Why be thin today if you were dead tomorrow? “Josie has all these disguises, so she can go into any store and look like a regular customer. Sometimes she wears tube tops and sometimes she dresses like us. Today, she looks like a trophy wife.”

Josie was wearing her Fashion Victim outfit again.

“The job must pay well if you're wearing Escada,” Joanie said.

“I got it at a garage sale,” Josie mumbled through a mouthful of salmon.

“The shoes are torture,” Alyce said. “Look at the pointy toes on those Pradas. The wigs are pretty uncomfortable, too, but that's her own hair today. You usually wear your blond wig with your Fashion Victim outfit. Where is it?”

“I washed it and it was still wet this morning,” Josie said. “I didn't have time to dry it.”

“At least it's not that black thing,” Alyce said. “I've worn some doozies on our trips.”

“You go with her?” Joanie said.

Josie could almost feel the admiration radiating from the tiny woman.

“Sometimes, if she needs a partner. But I don't get paid,” Alyce added quickly. Wood Winds wives must never look like they needed money.

“Alyce is my best disguise,” Josie said. “Nobody sees two housewives.”

“They don't even see one,” Joanie said. “You'd think I was invisible in some of those stores.”

“Someone must have waited on you. That's a nice necklace,” Alyce said.

“It's from Chico's,” Joanie said.

“I rest my case.” Josie crunched a dill pickle.

“What's that mean?” Joanie said.

“We were talking about St. Louis fashion earlier today,” Josie said. “I said that Alyce's friends shopped Chico's and Ann Taylor. They don't buy Halley's scarves.”

“Not for a thousand dollars,” Joanie said. “No, thank you. I'd rather spend that money on my family. I've always said Halley would be happier in New York.”

For a moment, Joanie's small, heart-shaped face clouded and her brown velvet eyes filled with tears. “It's so pointless,” she said. “The TV said the police have the killer in custody. A young man seventeen years old. What did he get for his murder? Nothing. And Halley is dead. Beautiful, talented Halley.”

Suddenly, Josie wasn't hungry. She put the remains of her sandwich back on her plate.

“That poor family,” Alyce said. “Her little girl will grow up motherless. What's Cliff going to do without Halley?”

“The way I heard it,” Joanie said, “he was going to do without her, anyway. They were splitting.”

“No!” Alyce leaned in closer. So did Josie. The gossip was almost as delicious as the deli.

“Cliff and Halley fought,” Joanie said. “Like cats and dogs. Alan and I could hear them, and you know our house sits on a big lot. They were shouting so loud. The sound carried right through the yew hedge and the privacy fence.”

“What were they fighting over?” Alyce said.

“Cliff didn't want the divorce,” Joanie said. “He wanted couples counseling. Halley said no. She was sick of the suburbs. She was going to New York. I can't tell you how many nights they went round and round on that. Then they fought over their little girl. That fight was last night. They argued over who got custody.”

“Halley wanted her daughter to live with her in New York?” Alyce said.

“No!” Joanie said. Her voice dropped to a whisper. She could hardly say the words. “She didn't want Brittney at all.”

“What mother would give up her child?” Alyce was shocked.

Me, on the wrong day, Josie almost said. When Amelia was instant-messaging her friends and had the radio blaring, Josie felt like handing her over to the first person who asked. She stuffed a forkful of coleslaw in her mouth just in time. Mothers in Wood Winds did not joke about their children.

“Halley said Brittney could stay with her father and go to school here,” Joanie said. “She said St. Louis was more of a family city than New York.”

“Well, that's true,” Alyce said. “But couldn't she wait until Brittney was out of high school? She's what—five now? It's not that long.”

“Cliff said that and Halley went ballistic. She said she'd wasted enough of her life in this backwater. She couldn't stand St. Louis another minute. Halley was too talented to live here. We were nothing but a bunch of hicks.”

“You're kidding,” Alyce said. “She sat there and smiled during the dance committee meetings, and all that time she despised us.”

“She said such cruel, unforgivable things,” Joanie said. “And her husband Cliff's a good guy. A little stodgy, but nice. He didn't deserve that. I just hope that little girl didn't hear her mother. It will scar her for life.”

There was an awkward silence. They all knew if Joanie had heard Halley, so had her daughter.

“What did Cliff do when Halley said that?” Alyce finally said.

“Cliff went crazy. He started…bellowing. That's the only way I can describe it. He was like a mad bull. He called Halley terrible names. Then he threw something. Glass, or china, I couldn't tell. We heard it break. Halley screamed, but this time, it was fear, not anger. I think she was afraid he'd hit her. We were going to call the police and report domestic violence when suddenly, they were absolutely quiet.

“A little later, we heard a door slam and a car start up. Cliff's Mercedes. He must have gone for a drive to cool off. Cliff didn't come back until three in the morning. He woke us up when he opened the garage door. He left for work today at seven like always, but he slammed the door so hard the windows rattled. They didn't make up. I bet he never kissed her good-bye that morning. Her death has to be hard on him.”

“I'd never guess they were breaking up,” Alyce said. “They always seemed happy. Cliff was so proud of her. He bragged about her accomplishments. He was always smiling and hugging her. I never saw him angry.”

“Cliff is one of those men who takes it and takes it and then one day lets loose,” Joanie said. “Last night, something broke and he let her have it.”

“Can you blame him?” Alyce said.

“That carjacking was a terrible, terrible thing,” Joanie said. “But it could have been worse.”

“What could be worse than Halley's murder?” Josie said.

“If they'd had another fight, Cliff would have killed his wife. He was that angry. I'm not sure anyone could have stopped him,” Joanie said. “Then where would that poor child be, with her mother dead and her father a killer?”

“Cliff would never kill his wife,” Alyce said. “That doesn't happen here. This isn't the big city.”

Josie felt her temper flare. She lived in the city of St. Louis—or close enough. How come her neighbors could be criminals, but not Alyce's?

Easy, she told herself. Alyce is your best friend.

It was an unusual friendship. Josie knew that. Alyce was rich and she was poor. Alyce was married. Josie was a single mom with no sign of a husband. Alyce was a full-time homemaker. Josie was a mystery shopper. Alyce liked the calm safety of her suburb. Josie preferred the frenetic pace of the city.

They'd always enjoyed each other's differences, or so Josie thought.

It's the shock, Josie told herself. Alyce doesn't really think city people are violent, does she? A small worm of doubt burrowed into Josie's brain.

Alyce's phone rang before Josie could ask.

“It's Claire, over on Wood Winds Way,” Alyce said to Josie and Joanie. “I'll just be a minute.”

Joanie excused herself and went into the living room, where she made her own cell phone calls. Josie needed the time to cool down. She picked at the deli platter and tried not to eavesdrop. But above the crunch of kosher pickles and kaiser rolls, she could hear every word.

“It's dreadful, Claire,” Alyce was saying. “It's too early for Cliff to have plans for a service. They can't have a funeral until there's an autopsy. Why? Because it's murder. I know she's beautiful, but they have to autopsy her. Please don't cry, Claire.”

Alyce hung up. “Poor Claire,” she said. “She was on the dance committee with Halley. She's taking her death very hard. A carjacking. This sort of thing doesn't happen.”

Josie thought she heard the rest of that sentence: “to people like us.” She made a show of checking her watch. “Look at the time. I have to pick up Amelia at school. Tell Joanie good-bye for me.” She ran outside before the wrong words slipped out.

Back in her car, she fumed. Did Alyce really believe that money could protect her from crime?

As Josie backed out of the four-car garage, she could hear Alyce's phone ringing again. Probably another neighbor. The Wood Winds women were stunned by Halley's murder. Their reaction was more than the shock of sudden death. They could not believe one of their own could be carjacked. Mindless, brutish murder didn't happen to them. They'd spent a fortune to live in mansions with unlocked doors. Josie thought they'd bought false security. She didn't believe any place was safe, even with armed guards at the gates. She always locked her doors.

She drove past the châteaus, villas, and palaces of the Estates at Wood Winds, and waved good-bye to the pointless guard. It was a brilliant December day, with a heartbreaking blue sky. The lawns were still green in the mild winter. Wood Winds looked peaceful as a postcard.

Josie's mood seesawed between anger and shame. How could you even think those things about Alyce? she asked herself. When you needed help, Alyce was there, no questions asked, no lectures given. You have no business criticizing your best friend. The day you sent your daughter to the Barrington School for Boys and Girls, you planted one foot in Alyce's elegant, sheltered world.

The other remained firmly in Maplewood, land of lunch boxes and redbrick houses. Except these days, Maplewood was becoming trendy. How ironic was that? It was hard to decide which 'tude to use. Should I be blue-collar, upper-class, or hopelessly hip? Josie thought.

She pulled into the curving driveway of the Barrington School. Her little gray Honda was lost in a herd of Lincoln Navigators, Cadillac Escalades, and Hummers. She felt like a workhorse running with the thoroughbreds.

Josie wondered if she'd made the right decision to send Amelia here. She'd wanted the best for her daughter. When Amelia won a full scholarship to Barrington, Josie was thrilled, even though she still had a hard time affording the school. But did the richest mean the best?

You're giving your daughter opportunities you never had, Josie told herself. Then Amelia burst through the school doors like a dark-haired bomb, her backpack bumping behind her, and Josie's doubts vanished. Her daughter's socks were sliding into her shoes. Josie thought that might be genetic. When Amelia yanked the car door open, Josie saw her daughter's soft skin with the drizzle of freckles across her nose, like tiny drops of chocolate.

Amelia still had that sweet little-girl smell. Josie knew she'd turn into a surly teen soon. But for now, Josie could enjoy her. Amelia jumped into the car and Josie waited for the delicious perfume of—

“Cigarettes!” Josie said. “Amelia Marcus, have you been smoking?”

“No, Mom.” Amelia's eyes were wide and innocent.

“You're lying.”

“You're holding up traffic, Mom.”

Josie looked in the rearview mirror. She had the driveway blocked. She waved sheepishly to a mother in an Escalade and got an insincere smile.

“Don't change the subject, Amelia.” Josie pulled out onto the street and wondered what was the fastest way home. Traffic was heavy this afternoon.

“You left early for work this morning and Grandma fixed me breakfast,” Amelia said. “She was smoking.”

“That smell wouldn't last until two thirty in the afternoon.”

“I swear I didn't pick up a cigarette, Mom.”

Josie looked at her daughter. That statement was too carefully worded. The kid could be a lawyer. “But you were with someone who did, and she gave you a puff while she held it. You've been hanging around with Zoe, and she's smoking.”

Amelia's eyes bugged and she said, “How—?” then stopped. Score one for Mom.

“I can read you like a book,” Josie said. It's what I did at your age, she thought. What was the old parental curse? Someday, you'll have a daughter just like you. At least it helped Josie stay one step ahead. For now, anyway.

Zoe was the bane of Josie's existence. The kid was nine going on thirty-nine. She was the first one in Amelia's class to wear makeup and high heels. She was also the class sex instructor, dispensing wildly inaccurate information mixed with enough authentic detail to scare any parent.

“What have I told you about Zoe?” Josie said. The line of cars at the stop sign was backed up for more than a mile. They wouldn't get home until midnight.

“Oh, Mooom.” Amelia rolled her eyes, one of Josie's least favorite habits.

“Amelia, we've talked about smoking. It causes cancer. It can kill you.”

“Zoe says that's never been proven. She showed us that on the Web.”

“Only an idiot believes that,” Josie said.

“You think Grandma's an idiot?”

The conversation had veered into dangerous territory. Josie took a deep breath, counted to three, and tried to tiptoe around that land mine. “Grandma is sixty-eight. She's made a decision about her health that I disagree with, but she's an adult and aware of the consequences. You have your whole life ahead of you.”

“But it's my life.”

“When you have your own house, then you can live any way you want,” Josie said. “But as long as you're under my roof—” Was she really saying this? She sounded like her mother.

“It's Grandma's roof,” Amelia said.

“It's my home under Grandma's roof.”

Traffic was hopelessly snarled. Josie craned her neck, but couldn't see a thing. There must be an accident at the intersection. She saw a wide driveway on the left, then a long stretch of woods. It was now or never if she was going to get out of this mess. Josie made an abrupt U-turn. Her daughter did the same thing.

“What's a lesbian do?” Amelia asked.

Josie slammed on the brakes and the car behind her hit the horn. Amelia often asked embarrassing questions in the car, so she wouldn't have to look at her mom.

Josie stalled for time. She tried to remember the advice from the parenting magazines: Don't give your child too much information, but don't tell her anything inaccurate or misleading. It sounded so simple when she read it. It was different when she was trapped in a little car with a big question. It would be just like her smart little girl to ask an awkward question to distract Josie from the hot topic of smoking.

“Uh, a lesbian is a person, I mean, a woman who likes women,” Josie said.

“Yeah, I know that, Mom. But what does she do? Zoe has a lesbian lawn service. She says all dykes are into lawn care.”

“Amelia, don't use that word. That's a ridiculous statement. Lesbians can be anything—doctors, lawyers…” She ran out of occupations, and looked around wildly for inspiration. She found it outside her car window. “Truck drivers.”

So much for stereotyping.

“How do you know if you're a lesbian?” Amelia said.

Where was this going? What if she gave the wrong answer and warped her child forever? Amelia could wind up on some shrink's couch because Josie said the wrong thing. Did her daughter have feelings for another girl?

Ohmigod. What if she fell for Zoe? It would be just like that precocious little creep to experiment with lesbian sex. Should Josie give the “you can have feelings for another woman, but not be gay” speech? Or the “I'll love you no matter who you choose to be” speech? She decided to keep her mouth shut until she knew more.

“How do you know you're a lesbian?” Josie bought time by repeating the question. Her mother used to do that, too. “Well, if you're a lesbian, you like to be with women more than men.”

“Are you a lesbian?” Amelia said.

“What!” Josie's heart slammed against her ribs.

“You're with Alyce all the time.”

“That's different. Alyce is my best friend. But that's all. We're just friends.”

Terrific. Now I sound like an actress in some tacky tabloid, Josie thought. It was a chilly December afternoon, but a big drop of sweat plopped on her sweater. Her palms were wet. She was panicking. Take a deep breath and answer calmly. Amelia is only nine. Kids get strange ideas.

“A woman can have a female friend and not be gay,” Josie said.

“You don't go out with guys anymore, Mom,” Amelia said. “Not for a long time.”

Had it really been so long? Josie remembered her last hot night with Josh and blushed. If her daughter knew about that, she wouldn't worry about Josie's sexual orientation. But Josh had hurt her so badly, she'd banished him from her bed. Too bad she couldn't lock him out of her bruised heart. There was still a place for Josh, alongside her failed romance with Amelia's father. It hurt so bad to think about Josh, she couldn't even drive past the coffeehouse where he worked.

“Things didn't work out with Josh,” Josie said. “I decided it was better to wait awhile, so I didn't make another bad decision. But I'll go out again.”

When I get over him. In twenty or thirty years. Maybe I can have bingo dates, like my mom. Maybe Mom and I can double-date.

“Grandma says Alyce's husband, Jake, is an arrogant son of a bugger,” Amelia said.

“Amelia!” For once, Josie agreed with her mother, although she couldn't say that. Jake was an arrogant SOB. How did they jump to the subject of arrogant men? Did this have something to do with Josie's failed love life or was it part of the lesbian question? Josie could not follow the twists and turns of the nine-year-old mind. Amelia was amazingly adult one moment, and a little girl the next.

The silence was nearly as long as the line of cars creeping along Manchester Road. They were in the heart of Maplewood. Josie could almost walk to their flat on Phelan Street from here. She wanted to abandon her car in the traffic and run home.

Normally, she enjoyed this part of the drive. Downtown Maplewood looked like a scene from a vintage movie. She expected to see Jimmy Stewart having dinner in a restaurant or shopping for an engagement ring for Donna Reed in the Paramount Jewelers. Then the couple would go hand in hand to the model-train store and the spice shop.

Of course, normally, she wasn't trapped in a car with her daughter, answering scary questions about sex.

“Grandma said it,” Amelia said. “I heard her talking on the phone with her friend Verna.”

“You shouldn't listen to your grandmother's conversation.”

“I couldn't help it, Mom. She was right next to me on the couch.”

“You should have left the room to give Grandma some privacy.”

“But we were watching
Code Lyoko
.”

Amelia couldn't miss an episode of the hottest kid cartoon. She'd be a social outcast.

At last. The turnoff for their street. They were home, thank God, and there was her neighbor Stan on the front porch. Dear Stan, who bled her radiators every fall and checked her air-conditioner filters on the first warm day of spring. Stan, who could talk about why it was cheaper to use two squares of one-ply toilet paper than one square of two-ply. Aliens had abducted him and put an old man's mind in his thirty-five-year-old body.