Death in a Funhouse Mirror (22 page)

 

I wasted no words getting to the point. "Eve, I am not your personal private detective, and I want you to stop giving my name to people. I don't think your father killed Helene and I don't want to get involved. Can't you understand that?"

"I thought you said you'd help me."

Eve in a nutshell. I'd said I wouldn't, but she'd decided I had to help her, and in her own mind transformed that desire into my consent. I couldn't begin to count the number of double dates, unwanted restaurant meals, and movies I'd endured because Eve had decided I should. Ann Landers says people can't make you do things if you don't let them. She's right, of course. And I had to admit that some of those times I'd had fun, but there was no way what she wanted this time could be fun. I tried to shut the picture of her disappointed face out of my mind. "No, Eve. You weren't listening. I said I wouldn't."

"You haven't talked to them yet," she said, "or you'd understand. You have to help me. I need you. I'm afraid he'll come after me next."

"Eve, don't be ridiculous...."

"You don't understand, Thea," she said. "I'm serious this time. I'm scared. Come to dinner tonight and I'll explain everything. I promise after you hear what I have to say it will all make sense to you. About seven, okay? I'll make that stuffed cabbage casserole you like."

Not even her "heartburn special," which I adored, was sufficient inducement, but I felt I owed it to her to spend a little time listening, and besides, she wasn't going to give up until I said I'd come to dinner. "Make it seven-thirty and you've got a deal." That would give me time for aerobics, which I needed for my emotional well-being as well as to hold the flab line. I hung up with the uncomfortable feeling that I'd neither given her a piece of my mind nor gotten myself off the hook. Oh well. Tonight I would.

Friendship is a funny thing. To outsiders, my relationship with Eve might seem strangely one-sided. Maybe it was, right now, but I don't keep score, and Eve and I had been young together when we were hatchlings fresh from the nest, supporting each other as we moved from home and college out into the world. She could be demanding, frustrating and impossible— but she was also a great listener and a kind, supportive friend. There had been laughter and tears, confessions and closeness. She'd nursed me through a broken heart, I'd tried my best to help her with Padraig. We had a history and that counted for a lot with me.

Sarah brought me the memos I'd dictated, along with the ones for Bobby. I called him in and spent an hour going over what I needed him to do. Then I put on my thinking cap and started working on a proposal for Cliff. I was immersed in a sea of yellow sheets containing my notes when Suzanne came in to tell me she was leaving. "I won't be in tomorrow," she said. "Don't forget the rehearsal, and we're having dinner afterwards at Cipio's. Try not to run into any more doors between now and Saturday, okay?"

"I'll do my best," I said, wondering how a person might behave who truly wanted to avoid doors. Stay in one room, maybe? Suzanne's departure was quickly duplicated by Magda and Bobby, but Sarah showed no signs of leaving. "You can go if you want," I told her.

She grinned. "Nope. Told Brad I had to work late, so he's picking up the kids and taking them to his mother's for dinner. And I'm going shopping. Guess I should have realized by now that no one is going to give me what I want except me. So tonight is 'be good to Sarah' night. I'm going to get exactly what I want to eat, and then I'm going to buy myself a birthday present. Can you believe that asshole forgot my thirty-fifth birthday?"

"Going alone?"

"No way!" She laughed. "My friend Jeannie told her husband she had to work late, too. We're going to work very hard at shopping. I'm going to use that gift certificate you gave me for something completely frivolous." She checked her watch. "Gotta go. Don't work too late. I don't want to come in tomorrow to a mountain of typing." She waved a hand at me. "Don't want to break my nails, you know." She scooped up her coat and purse and left.

It was so blissfully quiet after she departed I decided to skip aerobics and work on my proposal instead, even though I could feel my thighs spreading, my bottom drooping and my biceps and triceps growing weak. Against my better judgment, I'd let Cliff talk me into a three o'clock meeting tomorrow. For a while I worked quite hard, identifying for myself the similarities between the service Cliff had to offer and what a private school had to offer, trying to identify the sources he needed to reach to attract new clients, and determining what methods he might use to reach those sources. It was a start, but I'd need a lot of help from him, and a much better understanding of how Bartlett Hill worked, how the staff, patients, and their families perceived it, and how it was perceived by the referring community.

I could see Cliff sitting there in his chair, rubbing his forehead, struggling to follow what I was saying, and gradually drifting off to sleep. Seeing Cliff so vulnerable had unnerved me. It's not that I don't want to grow up, or be responsible, or any of that stuff. I like being a grown-up. I hate it when anyone calls me girlie or acts like I'm mindless or tries to tell me what to do.

I also secretly believe in another group I call the "real grown-ups"—the people like Cliff and Helene, and Uncle Henry and Aunt Rita, who have been grown-ups as long as I've known them. I want them to stay ageless and infallible forever. I know better, of course. I know my parents have feet of clay. Their behavior after Carrie died was a real eye-opener for me, and now I loved them but with a more realistic view. But Cliff? I suppose that like all of his female patients, and like any insecure young girl exposed to such a charismatic man, I was more than a little in love with Cliff Paris at one time. All that was left now was some gratitude to him, for making me feel beautiful and special and worthy when I otherwise felt like such an ugly duckling, and from that gratitude, an urge to protect him.

That was my conflict and why I'd agreed to have dinner with Eve. I felt a need to set things right by convincing Eve that her father couldn't have killed her mother. Very early on, my family assigned me the role of the "fixer." "Thea will fix it" was practically a family motto. It meant that I was called in to mediate family disputes, sort things out, pick up the pieces, do the dirty jobs that no one else would do. Michael was moody, lazy and inflexible; Carrie insecure, silent and rebellious. I was the good kid, and after a lifetime of being expected to sort things out, I found it hard to shake off the yoke of responsibility, even in a situation I wanted to avoid as much as this. What I wanted was to be left alone to do my work and live my life, but Eve and Cliff, two people I cared about, were locked in a struggle that could destroy their relationship forever.

My reverie was interrupted by the phone. "Knew I'd find you there," Florio said. "Thought I'd better give you guys directions."

"I hope this won't break your heart, but there's no us, just me," I said.

"I'm sorry I won't see him, but my heart's fine. What about yours?"

"Bruised," I said.

"I'm sorry." He sounded like he meant it. "Guy must be crazy. What does he want?"

"A little woman at home, and a player to be named later, I guess."

"Glad to see you've still got your sense of humor," he said. "I don't suppose anyone has called you up and confessed to Helene Streeter's murder yet?"

"No, Dom. All the people who are calling me say someone else did it."

"Seriously," he said, "people are calling you up, other than your friend Eve, I mean?"

"I'm afraid so. Eve is organizing a whole cadre of people who are supposed to tell me why they think Cliff Paris did it. Except some of them don't seem to think he did."

"So that's what she meant," he said with a sigh.

"What's what who meant?"

"Say again?"

"What's what who meant?"

"Gotcha. For a minute that sounded like a foreign language. The neighbor across the street said she'd rather talk to Eve's detective. I suppose that's you?"

"Involuntarily. I'm being impressed, shanghaied, hijacked, entrapped. You get my drift?"

"Not exactly."

"Eve keeps calling people up and telling them I'm helping her out and giving them my number so they can talk to me."

"Why?"

"I don't know why. Because she wants me to help her prove Cliff did it, and I won't. This is her way of getting me involved. First it was look around at Bartlett Hill, now it's this."

My watch said ten past seven. Time to go. "Better give me those directions, Dom, I've got a date."

"You work fast," he said.

"With Eve."

"Got a pencil?"

"Does a bear... oh, never mind, of course I've got a pencil." He gave me the directions. "Thanks, Dom. I'll see you Sunday. Can I bring something?"

"An appetite. Rosie does great breakfasts." There was a silence on his end, then he said, "Maybe you should talk to them."

"You mean be a spy for the cops?"

"Why not?"

"We already talked about this. Because I don't want to get involved. Because I'm busy. Because I don't want to hear the sordid inside story of the Paris-Streeter marriage. And because I already got involved in one murder investigation, one I had a whole lot bigger stake in than I have in this, and I almost got myself killed. I may like the excitement of living a little close to the edge, but I draw the line at murders. Besides, Uncle Dom told me not to. He said just listen."

"How else are you going to convince Eve that her father didn't do it?" It sounded like Uncle Dom had changed his mind.

"What makes you think that's what I want to do?"

"Isn't it?" he shot back. That's the trouble with good cops, they tend to be mind readers, and Florio was a good cop.

"Don't mess with my head, Florio," I said.

"Thought I had a read on that." He sounded pleased with himself.

"I hate it when people try to manipulate me."

"Golly gee, Miss Thea, was I trying to do that or were you referring to Miss Eve?" he said, in a high, singsongy voice.

"I have to go now. I'll see you Sunday."

"Just think about it, okay?" he said, and hung up.

"What do you think I've been doing?" I told the empty line. I grabbed my jacket and stuffed the jumble of yellow papers into my briefcase. In my car, I slipped in a disk, opened the sunroof, and headed out into the tail end of the rush hour traffic, glad that Springsteen and I were "Born to Run." At least, I was. I plunged through two yellow lights and one red, swore at other drivers at least six times, gave an older woman the finger—I could imagine what my mother would say about that—and beat out another car for the last space on Eve's street. By the time I rang her bell, I had committed enough bad acts to flush most of my irritation with Florio out of my system.

Eve gave me a warm hug, which I returned. Her still-damp hair smelled like coconuts. I'd forgotten all about him, but Eve's new hunk, the hulking, brooding Waldemar, was sitting in her living room with headphones on, singing along loudly and badly to the inaudible music. After she let me in, she went over and waved a hand in front of his face until she had his attention, then pointed at me. He gave me a broad grin that showed about seventy-five teeth, shook my hand, and went back to his music. "He writes music reviews for
Aftermath;
it's a new alternative paper," she said. "He's got a deadline, or else he'd take those things off. Sometimes it's like living with an alien."

"Sometimes living with any man is like living with an alien."

"I know. I'll bet they feel the same way. Must be that all of us have a fascination with the unknown," Eve said. "The guys I've been involved with have all been so different from me, and so different from each other. Where'd you meet Andre, anyway? He seems almost human, for a cop."

"He was the investigating detective when Carrie was killed."

"Not the greatest way to meet someone, huh? She was such a sweet kid. You still miss her?" I nodded. Carrie's murder still wasn't something I could talk about. Eve could tell. She changed the subject. "Come in the kitchen and have some wine while I finish making dinner."

She had an open bottle sitting on the counter with two glasses. She filled one and handed it to me, then poured one for herself. The kitchen was filled with the delicious smell of baking sauerkraut, the principal ingredient in the heartburn special. She started putting things out on the counter. "You make the salad dressing, okay? Just like the other night. That was great. I'm sorry I was such a bitch."

I hung my jacket over a chair and made the dressing while Eve unwrapped a loaf of pumpernickel bread, stuck it in the oven, and started tearing up lettuce. It was pleasant to be hanging around a kitchen, cooking with a friend. It was something I didn't do enough of. I'd let myself become such a hermit.

Eve looked like her old self tonight, no longer pale. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks rosy, and she was bustling around with her usual energy. "I'm sorry about the way I behaved after the funeral," she said. "I know I didn't handle things at all well. And I know," she peered at me from under her bangs, reminding me once again of a small, black-capped bird, "that you're annoyed by the people who've been calling you. But you can really help me here, and you're the only person I know who can."

She took a cucumber out of the refrigerator. "Look, I know you're worried about divided loyalties. You've always admired Cliff, and he was nice to you when you thought no one should be. But that wouldn't be a reason to let him get away with murder, would it?"

"What about the stranger people saw lurking in the bushes, Eve? Why are you so sure that it was Cliff? He's a doctor. If he was going to kill her, he could have found some neat, undetectable way to kill. It doesn't make any sense for him to do it out on a public street at a time of day when there were likely to be people around. In his own neighborhood. Besides, if he didn't want to be married anymore, he could have just gotten a divorce."

"It wasn't just a killing, Thea, it was a slaughter. It was done in anger, and it was done so that the killer could be certain that she would die. By someone who intended to kill and knew how to kill. And who knows the human body better than a doctor?"