Death in a Funhouse Mirror (14 page)

"Right."

"I have a map for you someplace around here," he said, crossing to his briefcase and rummaging through it. "Here it is. I've marked my building in red. Oh... and Thea?" I waited. "Eve might make some odd suggestions... about me. Don't encourage her, please. It's just her own way of dealing... No. Never mind. Forget it." He turned his attention back to Ansel, dismissing me. I wasn't supposed to have noticed the urgent gesture Ansel had made which stopped whatever he'd been about to say.

I took the map and stuck it in my bag. "Thanks. I'll see you tomorrow then." I was in the front hall when someone tugged on my arm.

"Thea. Wait." Eve dragged me into the little powder room and locked the door behind us. "I was afraid you'd gone. There's something I have to tell you. I mean something I want you to do for me," she whispered.

"Sure, Eve. Of course. But why all the secrecy?"

She put a finger to her lips. "Quietly, please. You'll understand soon enough," she said. "Cliff says he's going to have you do some work for him? Up at Bartlett Hill?"

"We're going to discuss it."

"Good. So you'll be working there?"

"Maybe. If we take on the project. Why?"

"I want you to spy on Cliff and Rowan for me."

"You what?" I burst out.

"Quiet. Please. Look, I'm sorry for the mysterious act. I might as well just come out with it. But it's hard. You see..." She leaned against the sink, breathing hard, her eyes downcast, then said with a rush, "I think Cliff... my father... killed Helene."

"Eve, that's absurd." It was the same thing she'd said on Saturday. Then I'd assumed it was just the product of hysteria. Now I didn't know what to think. She seemed deadly serious.

"Look at him," she said, "does he seem like a grieving man? Sitting in there holding hands with that wretched Rowan at his wife's funeral! And hasn't he already called you up and invited you to do business? I told you how he left her at the hospital to go..." She choked on her words, steadied herself, and went on.

"...to go walking with Rowan. He did the same thing at dinner on Saturday. You were there. You saw him. Just a bland 'excuse me, I've got to go walking with my friend now.' How could he? How can he? How can he not mourn? What kind of a man is he?" She stopped, breathing like a runner at the end of a race.

"I'll tell you what kind of man he is—a happy one. Freed of the burden of her disapproval, her challenges, her causes. All you have to do is look at him to see it. He's not bowed down by the sadness of her loss, he's a man who has had a great weight lifted from his shoulders."

"Eve," I interrupted, "it's natural for people to turn to their friends...."

She raised her eyes from her study of the nondescript carpet. "Not like this. Not holding hands and looking happy!" Her voice rose, shrill and unsteady. "I need your help, Thea. I want him found out. I want my mother's murder avenged." Though she seemed wildly out of control, I didn't doubt that she believed what she was saying.

"People sometimes show their grief in odd ways," I said.

"Yeah. Right. By smiling and curling up with their lovers."

"That's what you're doing," I said.

"Exactly my point. In his case, it's completely inappropriate. He is... was... married. To Helene. To my mother. He shouldn't have a lover to curl up with. She wanted him to give up Rowan, so he killed her."

There was no way to make her see how absurd her accusations were, so I tried a different tack. "If you really believe Cliff was involved, it's not me that you want, it's the police. Why not tell this to Detective Florio and let him handle it?"

"Sure," she said bitterly, "and make myself the laughingstock of the entire psychiatric community. They'd dismiss me as hysterical or as having unresolved Oedipal conflicts or something. Cliff would manage it beautifully and I'd come off as an overwrought fool. Besides, he has those two cops wrapped neatly around his finger. They think he walks on water just like everyone else does."

I hadn't observed any such thing. To me, they'd seemed skeptical of everyone.

She gripped my arms, her nails digging deep into my skin. "You're the only one who can help me. You can understand... and you know what to do. You found Carrie's killer when no one else could. This is so perfect, don't you see? You'll be right there. You can ask questions, look through his things, watch what he does. See how far this thing with Rowan has gone. Don't you see, Thea? There's no one else I can ask. I don't have a whole lot of friends. You know how I am. You've got to do this for me. I can't live with this awful doubt. I have to know if it was really him."

When Andre had insisted that I call her, he'd had no idea what he was getting me into. I'd forgotten how irrational and demanding Eve could be when she was emotional about something. She was clinging to my arm, nails dug deep, her eyes glued to my face. I felt claustrophobic, shut up in that tiny bathroom with her hysteria. "Look, Eve," I said, "I know this has been very stressful for you. You're upset and you're worried." I broke her grip and put my hands on her shoulders. "I don't mean to diminish or devalue your feelings but right now you are in no state to make decisions about something like this. You need to calm down and consider this rationally. In a few days maybe we can talk about this again."

She shook me off. "Don't patronize me, okay? I'm not some pathetic, anxious admissions director who needs to be soothed. I have a reason to be upset. My mother has just been slaughtered. I'm telling you that I'm afraid my father did it. All I'm doing is asking for some help. Don't try to placate me with a pat on the head. I am not a pet. Either say you'll help me or say you won't, but can the smarmy bullshit, okay?"

She jerked the door open. "Go ahead. Leave. You can call me in a few days and give me your answer after
you've
had time to calm down and consider this rationally. I'm in the book." She stalked out without looking back. A few people who were standing in the hall stared at me curiously as I left.

 

 

 

Chapter 8

 

It had been a thoroughly unpleasant day. It had left me feeling grouchy and overburdened and it wasn't over yet. I wanted to go crawl under a rock but I had to go back to the office to catch up on the "affair Valeria," and do some work for tomorrow. Luckily, I knew exactly how to revive my unwilling body. There was a new health club in the businessman's hotel near our office which offered a series of afterwork aerobics classes to help counter the spread of the desk-bound butt. They also had a weight room, a lap pool and a whirlpool. I had just enough time, barring another traffic jam, to suit up and make the 5:30 class. All that bouncing and leaping and panting was great for working the poisons out of my system, even if the instructor was an irritatingly enthusiastic young thing with great hair and perfect nails who had probably never tipped the scales at more than 103.

I rolled into the parking garage at 5:15, grabbed my gym bag out of the trunk, and raced down to the locker room, pausing to give my membership number to the sleek blonde behind the reception desk. Deftly, I spun the dial on the lock, jerked the door open, stripped off my business clothes, and hung them in the locker. Then I transformed myself into Lycra woman. I fastened my hair back with a blue band, and raced upstairs. I had a particular place I liked to stand, and if I didn't get there early, someone else would take it.

I knew most of the people there by sight and we exchanged the casual greetings of people who share a common interest but don't even know each other's names. The conversation died out when an ad-agency handsome man in a gleaming white version of a 1920s bathing suit glided in, loading his music, and turned to dazzle us with his blazing white teeth.

"Good afternoon, ladies, my name is Aaron, and I'm going to be your instructor today."

I heard a low moan from the young mother behind me. "Just what I needed," she said softly, "I can't cope with my two left feet if I have to stare at that adorable little ass." I tried to keep the grin off my face. I knew how hard aerobics could be if you were distracted. I have to watch myself pretty carefully. Someone my size can do a lot of damage in a small room full of bodies.

The dazzling Aaron started the music and glided to the front of the room. "All right, ladies," he said, "let's start warming up." It was immediately clear that he wasn't going to baby us. Fifteen minutes into the class, I already had a large circle of sweat around my navel and my hip flexors were threatening rebellion. When he bared his perfect orthodontia and told us we had only five minutes left before we began the cool down, I could have hugged him, even though he was glistening with sweat.

It wasn't the usual sweetly rhythmic cool down, either. Aaron's version of a cool down was a "serious upper body workout," as he called it, since women's upper bodies tend to be underdeveloped. I glanced down to where my feet were barely visible below my underdeveloped chest. I knew that wasn't what he meant. He meant that in the lats, pecs and delts area, I'm bony rather than bulgy. No knotted ropes of muscles ripple the surface of my skin. By the time he finally allowed us to drop our weights and get mats for floor work, I had sweated Valeria, Andre, and Eve's strange request right out of my system along with about two gallons of water. Afterwards, in the locker room, Aaron was the hot topic.

I emerged from the shower limp as a wet noodle, but feeling spiritually revived, pulled my funeral suit on over my trembling limbs and dragged my weary body out to the car. I've read that vigorous exercise is supposed to suppress the appetite but it sure doesn't work like that with me. Foremost in my mind was the image of a gigantic hamburger. Like a weary pilgrim, I followed that vision to Burger King and bagged a large coffee, a Whopper with cheese and a large fries. Clutching my booty and my briefcase, I climbed the stairs to the office, unlocked my door, and fell into my chair, greedily stuffing a handful of fries into my mouth as I picked up the stack of pink message slips Sarah had left for me.

Beneath them was a lengthy memo from Suzanne, responding to my phone call, suggesting some approaches for my meeting with Cliff Paris, and updating me on steps she'd taken in anticipation of Valeria's harassment complaint. The last line of her memo was, "Call me as soon as you read this." I set the memo down and picked up the phone. She answered on the first ring.

"Hello?"

"Hi," I said, making my voice low and gruff, "this is Paul and I'm calling the whole thing off."

"I almost wish you were," she said, "and I almost wish you would. Call it off, I mean. I am reduced to dealing with the most excruciating mountain of minutiae. Which is why I asked you to call. Did you get your shoes?"

"Shoes?" I said.

"That's what I was afraid of. Paul's sister reacted exactly the same way, like I was saying something both inappropriate and offensive. Since when has shoes been a dirty word?"

"Since about one minute ago," I said. "Look, I'm a busy woman. The many and varied problems of independent schools are weighing heavily upon me and you want to talk about shoes? I don't have time to sit around and worry about elusive and nebulous concepts like shoes. What exactly is it about shoes that you wanted to discuss? I have fewer pairs than Imelda Marcos, even after she left the Philippines. I wear a nine narrow and I like expensive ones. What else is there?"

"There is whether or not you have a pair dyed to match your dress?"

"No. I do not. Am I supposed to?"

"Why else would I ask?"

"Good question. Okay, I'll stop giving you a hard time. When and where am I supposed to get these shoes?"

"They were supposed to come with the dress. You do have your dress, don't you?" There was an edge in her voice that suggested imminent breakdown. It was time to stop kidding.

"Calm down. You know I have the dress. You were with me when I picked it up. You picked yours up at the same time, remember? And I did go home and try it on, so I know that it fits. But there weren't any shoes. I'll go by tomorrow and ask them where the shoes are."

"That's the problem, Thea," she wailed. "They say they don't have the shoes. They insist that they gave you and Connie the shoes when you picked up the dresses." I'd be glad when the wedding was over. Suzanne doesn't wail, and she doesn't usually let herself be browbeaten by anyone. Cast in the role of the frazzled bride-to-be, Suzanne was acting the part beautifully, but it didn't suit her. It wouldn't be helpful, right now, to tell her to pull herself together. She already knew that's what she should do.

"How many pairs of shoes are missing?"

"Three. Connie's, yours, and a pair for Paul's daughter, who is going to be a junior bridesmaid."

"What colors and sizes?"

"Green in nine narrow and seven medium, and rose in a size five."

"They'll be on your desk by noon tomorrow." She didn't argue, just thanked me and hung up. I pulled out my calendar, wrote in my breakfast meeting with Detective Florio at eight, and between that and my eleven o'clock meeting I wrote SHOES. Then I got the files I needed and started preparing for tomorrow's meetings. Sarah, anticipating me, had left a new yellow pad and a stack of sharpened pencils.