Death in a Funhouse Mirror (27 page)

She sliced the tart and put a generous wedge on my plate. "Would you like coffee?"

I was stunned by what she was saying but I forced myself to respond. "No, thanks. I drank too much of it already. Getting back to the men, did you notice makes of car or license numbers or anything like that?"

"I'm just a neighbor, not a spy. I didn't keep a journal on her comings and goings, I just noticed things."

I'd offended her without meaning to. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. It's just that on the phone you said you didn't think Cliff was the killer, so I wondered if you suspected one of Helene's lovers."

She shook her head. "No, I'm afraid not. I see what you mean, though. It might easily have been one of them, mightn't it? But I didn't keep track. No. It's not that I have any idea who did do it, only that I don't think Cliff did it. That's why I agreed to talk to you. I assume she's going to listen to you—after hiring you and all. Tell her that Cliff's no killer. I've known him a long time and he isn't the type. He's really quite a gentle man. Some days... now I know this is hard to believe... but some days, when she'd come back early in the morning... she'd be dead on her feet. Staggering. And that poor man would go out and help her into the house. Once or twice he even carried her. That was quite a sight. The man was practically a saint. Well, I suppose he loved her so he was willing to put up with a lot."

She took a bite of tart, chewed it thoughtfully, and nodded in satisfaction. "Helene gave me this recipe. She was a wonderful cook until she got that foolish notion into her head that if she cooked it was a sign she was inferior. She had some strange ideas. Not, you understand, that I don't agree with a lot of the feminist positions. But Helene took things way too far. She was never satisfied. James said that Cliff was just a pussy-whipped fool, but I always admired his tolerance." She sighed, cut another bite with her fork, and pushed it around her plate without eating it. "I wonder what it's like to be beautiful."

"Helene thought it made it harder to be taken seriously," I said. "She was probably right about that. Did Eve tell you why she wanted you to talk with me?"

She nodded. "To help you prove that Cliff killed her mother."

"Any idea why she thought you could help?"

"Eve has some stubborn notions about loyalty. I expect you already know that. She believes that if it is important to her, her friends should consider it important, too. Eve is..." She searched for a word. "Obsessed. That's the word I wanted. She's obsessed with the idea that Cliff was having a relationship with another man." She stopped and looked nervously about, as though we might be overheard. "Personally, I didn't believe it. I think the poor man was just lonely and sad, after the way she—Helene, I mean—treated him, and needed a friend. Why shouldn't the man have a close friend? Look how much time Helene spent with her women friends, but that didn't make her a lesbian, did it? Of course not."

She shook her head emphatically. The rigid hair didn't move at all. "Even if it was true, even if Cliff does have a... uh... male lover... so what?" she said. "Of course James would be delighted if Cliff turned out to be a faggot. He's never liked Cliff. But as I say, I don't care. It doesn't seem like a good enough reason for murder, especially such a gruesome murder. I mean, if he already had what he wanted, and she had what she wanted, and they both still had the facade of a respectable marriage, what more did they need? I don't suppose Cliff wanted to marry the man?"

I just shrugged. I couldn't imagine it any more than she could. But I was still confused about why she'd been anxious to talk to me. Was it loyalty to Eve? Had she felt compelled to tell someone about Helene's odd behavior, but couldn't bring herself to talk to Meagher? Or was it because she wanted to defend Cliff? I was betting on the latter. I returned to something she'd said earlier that seemed odd. "You said you noticed Eve watching the house? More than once?"

"Yes. A couple of times."

"Recently?" She nodded. "Did she just sit there? Did you ever notice Eve following her mother?"

She thought about that. "I don't know. Because I didn't watch, exactly. I didn't want them to see me snooping. So I'd just look out from time to time and see what was happening. Anyone looks out their window once in a while," she finished defensively.

"Of course they do. So you looked out once and saw Eve, and when you looked again she was gone?"

"Exactly," she said, nodding vigorously, "so I wouldn't know whether she followed Helene or not."

"I'll have to ask Eve, won't I?"

"Oh, dear." She had resumed tugging at her hair. "I'd rather that you didn't. She'll think I've been disloyal and then she'll get mad at me. She expects me to be giving you the dirt on her father."

"Well, we detectives have some pretty subtle ways of asking our questions. She doesn't need to know the information came from you." I felt like a complete phony as I said it, but it was exactly the right thing to say. Part of the reason she was talking to me, it was clear, was that she relished the excitement of being part of a real live mystery. Too reserved to talk to the police the way she'd talked to me, but under that stiff exterior, James hadn't completely succeeded in reducing his wife to a cipher. "Do you think Eve knew about Helene's other men?"

She shook her head. "I'd like to think she didn't, but I don't know. Certainly not when she was younger. She was more naive then. As for now? Who knows? In that family they told each other everything. Maybe Helene told her."

"Can you think of any other reason she'd be watching the house?"

"Unless it was her father, rather than her mother, that she was spying on." She shrugged. "Who can say? She always had such a high opinion of her mother. All I know is she's never said anything about it to me and a blunt kid like Eve would have said something if she suspected."

"But you think Cliff knew about the other men?"

She nodded reluctantly. "How could he help it, the way she was behaving, having to help her into the house like that. I told you. The man is a saint."

Knowing how she felt about Cliff, I could predict her answer to the next question but I asked it anyway. "You said Eve expected you to implicate Cliff in his wife's death. Do you have any reason to think he might be involved?"

"Other than the way his wife behaved?" She shook her head. "I do not. Much as she provoked him, he was a gentle man and it was a brutal murder."

I got up and took my dishes to the sink, thinking that it was time to go if I wanted to keep my appointment with Dom. I didn't really want to see him, but he was enough like Andre so that I knew what would happen if I didn't. He'd track me down, show up somewhere, and demand my attention. Better to keep the control in my hands. "Thank you for the lunch, Mrs. Coffey. It was delicious. May I call you if I have more questions?"

"Of course, dear," she said, "though I don't think I have anything else to tell you that could possibly be useful." She followed me into the living room, watching as I picked up my jacket and briefcase. "That shade of green suits you perfectly. A cute style. Swingy, is what I used to call it. Of course, Mandy would die if she heard me say that." She tapped her jaw with a finger. "Was there anything else? I did tell you that Helene and Cliff used to have huge fights sometimes, didn't I? Great loud brawls in the yard, shoving each other and calling names? Not often, mind you. Perhaps three or four times over the years. Very embarrassing. Everyone watched and then we'd gossip about it for weeks. Oh, and you know that flashy redhead Eve used to date? Who beat her up? The one she dumped when she moved to Arizona?"

"Padraig?" I said.

"That's the one. He was one of Helene's visitors." She glanced at her watch. "Oh dear, I'm late. Hate to rush you like this. I almost forgot it's tennis day." She held out her hand. "Nice to meet you, Mrs. Kozak. And good luck."

I was out the door and it had shut behind me before I realized what was happening. Martha Coffey was an odd duck and a whole lot more complicated than I'd given her credit for. I could picture her inside, watching me covertly from behind her staid blue drapes, smirking over the explosive effect of her parting bombshells. Her husband James might think he had the upper hand but I wasn't so sure.

 

 

 

Chapter 17

 

The constant barrage of murder and death and intrigue was beginning to take its toll and my sleepless night wasn't helping. Between work and the wedding, I had enough to do. I didn't need this wild-goose chase for Eve as well. If I asked myself what I knew now that I hadn't known before, the answer was plenty, but if I asked myself what earthly good it did, or whether it made things clearer, the answer was none and no. Unless Dom was in a better mood than I was, we were about to waste the next half hour yelling at each other. I didn't know whether he was going to fuss over me, as he'd done on the phone, or press me to continue to help Eve so I could gather information for him. I wasn't feeling very receptive to either approach. I can be very unpleasant when I'm overtired.

As I walked from my car to the door, little warm currents of air teasing at my hair and skirt, I was struck by the depressing realization that I was letting the lusty month of May, one of my favorites, slip by while I raced around like a rat in a maze. I paused in a patch of warm sunlight, closed my eyes and savored the warmth, so weary I could have curled up on the pavement and gone to sleep.

Someone grabbed me around the waist and pulled me roughly sideways. "Jesus H. Christ, Theadora, what are you trying to do, commit suicide? This is a parking lot."

"Good to see you, too, Dom," I said as I regained my footing. "Nice to know there are still people like you around to rescue maidens in distress."

"Happy to oblige, ma'am. We live only to serve and protect, as you know."

"Yeah. So where were you last night around 3:00 a.m.?"

He ignored the question. "You hungry? Or you just want coffee?" he asked, steering me through the door and into a booth.

"Just coffee. I've come from a delicious lunch with Mrs. Coffey."

"Oh no." He frowned and ran a hand through his graying hair.

I felt a flicker of anger, but I was like a lighter low on butane today. Not much spark. No charm, either. I'd used the last of it on Martha Coffey. "What do you mean, 'oh no'? Aren't you the guy who thought I should help you folks out, talk to people, ask a few questions? You want to know how many things I've learned that I never in my life wanted to know? Plenty, mister, that's how many. Why in hell don't you catch this guy so I can get back to a normal life."

But Dom was concentrating on the first thing I'd said. "Well, I don't want you involved anymore. That was before last night. Suppose these things are connected? Suppose someone doesn't want you asking questions?"

"But you told me to..." I stopped abruptly as the impact of his words hit me. "Connected? I never thought... I mean, I was upset by the knife because Helene was killed with one, but I never thought about a connection. Why should anyone care if I'm asking questions? It doesn't make sense, and anyway, I wasn't asking questions until today."

He shrugged. "Eve has told half the world you're her detective. Say it's not related, you have some other enemies who should be checked out?"

I thought about that. Last night, the idea that it was personal hadn't occurred to me. I just figured it was some stranger. A robber. But that was before the phone call. Whoever had called me at work had aimed their threat specifically at me. There was at least one person I could think of who might be crazy enough to do something like that. Valeria. Once I thought of it, I was astonished that it hadn't occurred to me before. Too much on my mind, or too many irons in the fire, as my mother might have said. "There is someone," I said, "an employee we just fired." I told him all about Valeria and her threats, my encounter with her former employer, the affidavits, and her bizarre behavior during her visit to the office.

He nodded. "Sounds like a possible. I'll pass that information back to Harris. You got an address and phone?"

"At the office. But I'm not going back there for a while. I've got another meeting. You can call my secretary, Sarah, and she'll give them to you. Tell her I said it was okay."

"Seems to me you've got more meetings than the president. Aren't you the one who told me you've gotta stop and smell the roses?"

The idea of Dom stopping to sniff roses made me giggle. Maybe I was just getting a little punchy. "Got no roses to sniff right now, Dom. It's a whole lot easier if I just keep busy." The waitress brought my coffee. I bent over it and inhale the steam, wishing the introduction of fumes directly into my head would work some sort of a miracle. My brief pause in the sun, before Sir Galahad knocked me off my feet, had left me stunned and sleepy. Not a good state to be in when I was facing a meeting with Cliff and his board.

"That sounded a lot like self-pity," Dom said. "Are we feeling sorry for ourselves?"

"I don't know about you, Dom, but I am."

"About Andre?"