Authors: Rosemary Stevens
B004183M70 EBOK (36 page)
"Okay," I said and gave her my
address. "Buzz me when you get here."
"I'll be right there."
I took shallow breaths after talking to
her. Was it the flu, or was I having a nervous breakdown? I couldn't even
return the receiver to its cradle. Instead I left it on the kitchen floor and
crawled over to the door. With effort I lifted myself enough to unlock it, and
then sat down underneath the intercom to wait for Debbie Ann.
When the buzzer sounded, I pressed the
button for the downstairs door to open, then crawled over to the sectional. I
didn't want Debbie Ann to see me on the floor. She might do something rash like
call an ambulance.
I had just lain down, clutching Bradley's
scarf, when Debbie Ann came in, still in TV makeup, her lips very red, wearing
a striped shirtwaist dress. I moved my legs to make room for her, and she sat
down near my hips.
"You don't look at all well,
Bebe."
"Think I need a doctor?" I got
out, finding it harder to breathe.
"If only you'd eaten all the cookies I
laced with cyanide it would all be over. I wouldn't have had to risk coming
over here. But no one will remember an ordinary woman like me."
My head swam. "Huh?"
Debbie Ann's red lips curved. "You'd
be in heaven now, following a rather unpleasant death, I admit. I despise
rodents and always keep rodenticide." She laughed. "You are a rodent,
are you not, Bebe? Toying with things weaker than yourself."
She pulled something thin, sharp, and shiny
from her black pocketbook and held it over me. "If only I knew exactly
where to place this, you wouldn't have to suffer. It's just as well. Messy
stabbings happen frequently in New York."
"Why?" I couldn't understand.
Debbie Ann was going to kill me? Poison. The cookies were poisoned.
Her face turned into a mask of rage.
"You filthy girls and my Petey. None of you are good enough for him. Do
you think I don't know what you've put him through, Bebe? He fancies himself in
love with you and you've played with him, hurt him. After last night, I begged
him not to see you anymore, but Petey wouldn't listen, said he'd win your
love."
"Petey?"
"Pierre, you fool, my son. We changed
his name when we moved from West Virginia. He always cries on his mother's
shoulder, and I take care of him, all to his good. I knew you'd have to die
when he told me how much he loved you, but that you'd turned on him and tried
to make him say he'd killed that hussy Suzie. He's forgiven you already and is
determined to make you his."
Piddlin'. A Southern phrase Pierre had used
at dinner last night. That's what had bothered me. And the photograph in
Pierre's bedroom of a family with the mountains in the background.
"Pierre's parents . . . dead," I got out, forcing back nausea.
"I saw the talent in Petey, the
greatness. I knew he'd be our ticket out of poverty if we moved to New York and
Petey made a name for himself. His father thought I was crazy. I killed him
first, making it look like a suicide, so Petey wouldn't be angry. Then Petey
and I were free. Now we're both successful, and I won't let any woman hurt him
or interfere with his greatness."
Through the dizziness, the headache, the
nausea, I began to comprehend. Terror gripped me.
"Petey ... a good photographer,"
I said, breathlessly. I had to be strong. I had to save myself.
"He's the best," Debbie Ann
snarled. She relaxed her arms for a moment, lowering the thin blade. "We
contrived that story about his being French. So much more high-class than West
Virginia. The orphan angle coaxed people into feeling sorry for him. He honed
his craft from them, until we were ready to take New York."
"You did," I said, buying time
like they always did on TV.
She laughed. "Both of us did. But
where I was able to avoid the pitfalls of the chains of marriage, Petey was an
idiot when it came to models. At first there was nothing serious, nothing for
me to worry about. But as he got older, Petey started having long affairs that
only hurt him and distracted him from his work. I tried to tell him, but he
wouldn't listen to me."
"Kiki?"
She gave me a withering stare. "You
know even more than I thought. No girl who took cocaine was good enough for my
son! She was out of her mind with the drug, so surprised to learn Pierre really
had a mother, so willing to show me her pretty flowers, so easy to push off the
building."
I tried not to reveal my horror.
"Lola."
Debbie Ann tsked. "She was no threat.
Drunken whore. Petey and I talk about everything—well, almost
everything."
Pierre didn't know his mother had killed!
Suddenly, through my dizziness, my pounding head, came one word:
"Suzie."
Debbie Ann's features contorted. "That
lying, whoring bitch! Petey and I fought constantly about her. I hoped Williams
would take Suzie away from Petey, but their affair had the opposite effect on
him."
"How?"
"Suzie had my boy under her control.
Her control! Petey bought her a ring, intending to marry that trash. I kept a
constant watch on her, waiting, waiting for the right opportunity. When I saw
Suzie and Williams go into her apartment building, I followed dressed as a
cleaning woman. When Williams left, I knocked on the door. Suzie opened it,
naked. I could have strangled her with my bare hands, but instead I saw the
scarf. The one the newspaper said Williams gave her. Petey believes Williams
strangled Suzie."
She broke off and tilted her head at me.
"I'm glad you've kept me talking, Bebe. You've served me well." She
placed the knife back in her purse.
Relief swept me. She wasn't going to kill
me.
"You're in love with Williams. I know,
because ever since you came to Ryan, there's been gossip about the two of
you."
Her hand darted out and she snatched
Bradley's scarf from me. She twisted the blue wool until it was tightly wound.
"Two women strangled with scarves from Williams. How utterly
perfect."
"Scarf. Not. Bradley's."
She laughed. "Your Bradley will get the electric chair
for double murder. My Petey will never come under suspicion. We'll go on,
mother and son. I'll help Petey get over his grief."
At those words, a current of adrenaline shot through me.
I reached out for the conch shell on the coffee table,
grabbing it just as she wrapped the scarf around my neck.
With all my might, I let the heavy shell come crashing down
on her head.
Stunned, she slumped over on top of me. I gripped the shell,
but Debbie Ann's weight crushed the breath from me.
The front door swung open.
"Bebe!" Bradley yelled.
"Gun. Darlene. Underwear." The room went black,
then came into focus again.
Debbie Ann regained consciousness. She pulled the knife back
out of her purse.
"Drop it, Debbie Ann, or I'll put a bullet through your
back," Bradley commanded.
"You're the one who's going to die!" she screamed
at him, her head turned away from me.
I brought the shell down again. This time when it made
contact it shattered.
She fell to the floor.
Bradley rushed over. "Darlene had these in her drawer
too," he said, holding out some handcuffs. He snapped them on Debbie Ann's
wrists.
Then he gathered me up into his arms. Carrying me into the
kitchen, he bent down, holding me close, and picked up the phone. "Hang
on, sweetheart; you're going to be fine."
"Sorry. Photos. Forgive me," I said, and once again
the blackness rushed toward me.
Two days later, Friday, the doctor let me out of the
hospital. I'd had to have my stomach pumped, and all sorts of nasty injections,
but I was completely healthy again. The doctor said I hadn't had a lethal
amount of poison in my system, but if I had eaten all of Debbie Ann's cookies,
things might have gone a different way.
I didn't remember Bradley calling the
ambulance or much about my first night at the hospital. One of the nurses told
me later that he stayed until four in the morning, when the doctor finally
declared I was out of the woods.
Bradley called me Thursday afternoon and
asked if he could visit, but I told him I'd rather wait to see him when I was
home again. Actually, I didn't want him to see me without makeup in an ugly
hospital gown. That could leave a lasting impression on a man. Darlene, who'd
been with me most of the time, agreed.
Instead, Bradley sent me a dozen pink roses
with a card that read, %quotMeet me at Tiffany's at noon on Saturday."
At first, visions of us picking out my
engagement ring flashed in my head. Then I realized Bradley would never propose
marriage that way. Darlene had said, "He's probably going to return
Suzie's bracelet and buy you something."
Also on Thursday, Detective Finelli
visited.
"Landed yourself in the hospital this
time, Miss Bennett," he said gruffly, dropping a box of chocolates on my
tray. "Those aren't poisoned."
"You're so kind, Detective. Tell me
everything."
"While you were dying, Pickering
called Williams and instructed him to hurry to my office. Williams rushed in
and the two of them met with me. Pickering had done a background check on
Pierre Benoit per your boss's request. Williams hadn't seen it yet."
"Pickering found out Pierre is a
phony?"
"Yeah, his name is Peter Benson, and
another of his girlfriends, Kiki, died under questionable circumstances. Her
death was ruled a suicide, but we're reopening the case."
"Debbie Ann told me she pushed Kiki
off the roof of Peter's building."
Finelli pulled out his notepad and wrote.
"Williams flipped out, saying that you had gone home sick. Took the two of
us to calm him down. Pickering went on to say that Peter's mother is actually
Debbie Ann Allard, aka Debbie Ann Benson. Her husband, Chuck Benson, shot
himself back in the fifties. At that point, with Williams breathing down my
neck, I called the Charleston, West Virginia, police. A detective there said
they had suspected Chuck Benson may not have been the one to pull the trigger,
but without proof they couldn't hold Debbie Ann in the state."
"Debbie Ann told me she killed her
husband."
Finelli jotted down more notes.
"Williams and I took a patrol car, lights flashing, and sped to find Mrs.
Benson at Ryan, but she was gone. Your boss was like a wild man, Miss Bennett.
He told me he intended to go to the photographer's studio immediately, yelling
that either Peter or Debbie Ann was the killer and that you could be in danger.
Your boyfriend looked like he would have a stroke at any minute."
"He's not my boyfriend," I
murmured, imagining Bradley acting like "a wild man" over me.
"So you say. I went with him for
Benson's protection. When confronted about his background, Benson first tried to deny it, but Williams had the papers from
Pickering."
"What did Pierre—I mean Peter—say
then?"
"First he cursed Williams for invading
his privacy and demanded to know why he wasn't in police custody for Suzie
Wexford's murder. Then, under pressure, Benson admitted he and his mother had
contrived the story of his being from France, but insisted they'd done no
harm. Benson said they came to New York so he could make a name for himself and
that his mother was the only woman in the world he trusted. He asked us not to
reveal their little deception."
"So Peter had no idea his mother had
murdered anyone?"
"Not a clue."
"I hope you didn't tell him his mother
murdered his father."
Finelli shook his head. "No. I didn't
know she had at that point. I only knew that the West Virginia police suspected
her."
"Good."
"Instead, I grilled him about Kiki's
and Suzie's deaths, telling him he was the connection between the two women,
both of whom were now dead. He furiously denied killing anyone. Williams
pointed out that Benson had lied about his identity, and that now he was lying
about killing Suzie. The two men almost came to blows. That's when I called for
backup. Officers arrived at the scene and took Benson to jail."
"Is he still there?"
Finelli held up his hand. "Do you want
the whole story or not?"
"Yes!"
"With Benson safe in the slammer, I
was telling Williams that I would put out an APB on Debbie Ann Benson when he
shouted your name and shot out of there like a man on fire. He could run in the
Olympics."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Williams saved you from Debbie
Ann. You'd blacked out when I got there. When I told Debbie Ann we had her son
in jail on suspicion of murder, she broke. I've got a full confession for Suzie
Wexford's murder. Sheesh, that woman went on and on about how I'd ruined her
plans for a future with Benson in the French Riviera."
"What will happen to her now?"
