Death in a Funhouse Mirror (4 page)

"Who is Rowan?" Andre said.

Eve was crying too hard to answer. I took her in my arms and held her tightly, rocking her like a baby. She cried a long time. When the sobs finally died away, she wasn't calm. She started talking, her voice becoming shrill and loud again, like it had downstairs in the kitchen. "She can't be dead, Thea. I'm not ready. I mean, I know sometimes I didn't even like her, I know I resented her for being beautiful and admired, but I always loved her." She clung to me frantically. "She was my mother. What will I do now? I need a mother. I need my mother back. Please! Please! Tell me she's not dead!"

I turned to Andre, who, true to his word, was waiting patiently. "Can you go down to the living room and get Cliff, please? He's the bearded one in blue," I said. "I think she needs a sedative. This isn't doing her any good."

Andre left. I heard his footsteps going down the stairs, and then footsteps coming back. Cliff appeared and stood in the doorway, watching. In my arms, Eve was tossing and moaning, crying for her mother. "I'm sorry, Thea," he said, "I thought you could handle it. I had no idea she was this bad. I'll be right back." He hurried out, the door banging behind him. Andre had followed him in quietly and was standing by the door, watchful and unobtrusive.

Suddenly Eve's raving stopped. "Rowan is my father's lover," she whispered. "That's why he killed my mother." Just as quickly as the clarity had come, it was gone and she was whimpering for her mother again. Cliff came back with a hypodermic, swabbed her bare arm with alcohol, and gave her a shot. She cried out as the needle went in, but almost immediately her body, which had been stiff in my arms, relaxed. I eased her back against the pillows and stood up. "Have a rest, Eve," I whispered.

"How long will she sleep?"

"An hour or two," Cliff said.

"I guess we should go then. When she wakes up, please tell her it's okay to call me anytime. Anytime. I'm sorry about Helene. I don't know what to say... I admired her so much...."

Cliff wasn't listening. He stood beside the bed, his shoulders bowed, staring at the syringe in his hand. "Thank you," he said. "I think I'll sit with her a while. Would you tell the gentlemen downstairs?"

"Of course." I picked up the tray. Andre opened the door for me, and we went down to the kitchen together. I stopped in the living room to relay Cliff's message. One of the men, an attractive blond who was rather too delicate for me, said he was leaving and asked one of the others to tell Cliff he'd be back. The others said they'd wait.

I cleaned up the dishes while Andre made a pot of coffee. The smell brought two of the men into the kitchen. Recognizing Andre as one of the brotherhood, they accepted coffee and stopped to chat.

I decided that as long as he was occupied, I'd stay and make the soup. Eve's behavior, so unlike her, had upset me. Maybe some nice therapeutic cooking would help. Her revelation about her father, if true, was nothing short of astonishing. But it didn't seem possible. They hadn't been demonstrative, but Helene and Cliff always appeared to have a good relationship. She appreciated his advice and enjoyed his solicitous attentions; he seemed respectful and supportive of her political agenda. From all that Eve had told me, professionally they were both well established and admired. They entertained frequently and seemed to have lots of friends.

I got one of Helene's aprons and tied it on. If they had so many friends, I thought as I cut up the vegetables and threw them in on top of the chicken, why hadn't the phone been ringing? When my sister Carrie died, the phone at my parents' house had screamed like a cat in heat, incessant and demanding. Just about everyone in the neighborhood appeared at the door, offering food and comfort. Where were these neighbors? Were they too intimidated by the policeman at the door? Except for the men in the living room, two of whom had turned out to be cops, this house was quiet. I threw in a bayleaf and a handful of salt, turned the flame to simmer, and put the lid on the pot. I chopped up some more vegetables to go in the finished soup, wiped down the counter, and went to see what the guys were up to.

In the breakfast alcove, where they were having coffee, I sat down beside Andre. He put an arm around me and pulled me close. "Thea Kozak, Detective Steve Meagher and Detective Dom Florio." We shook hands. I hadn't spent enough time around the police yet to recognize them. When Andre and I were together, we mostly kept to ourselves.

If I'd seen Florio on the street, I would have assumed he was an accountant. He was tall, middle-aged, graying and unexceptional. His hair was receding and his eyes were hidden by glasses. A second look showed me that behind them were piercing, intelligent eyes. Meagher I would have taken for a bodybuilder. He was thick necked and muscular, with arms that bulged out of his short-sleeved shirt and a massive chest. He had gold chains around his neck and glossy dark hair cut short on top and long and wavy in the back—the classic townie mullet. He would have been handsome if he hadn't looked chronically dissatisfied.

I could tell they'd been telling war stories because the conversation died as soon as I joined them. "Don't let me disturb you guys," I said, "just pretend I'm a fly on the wall."

Meagher leaned forward with a predatory grin. "Honey," he said, "it would be hard not to notice you."

"Thea," I said.

He looked puzzled. "What?"

"My name is Thea, not Honey."

Andre gave me one of his looks, the one that says "put a lid on it, Thea, sometimes you have to compromise to get along with people." I ought to know that look. It has preceded many of our less harmonious discussions. I usually explain that I know how to keep my mouth shut when it advances my own interests, and he usually explains that it would be helpful if I'd occasionally consider doing it to advance his interests. Or just to make his life easier. Sometimes now I even cooperate, because I know he's right, but for jerks like Meagher, I won't.

We don't really need to have the discussion anymore, we just give each other the looks. It's kind of like that old joke about the prison where there is only one joke book in the library and everyone reads it. The inmates are so familiar with them they don't bother to tell them anymore, they just refer to them by number and everyone laughs. One day at dinner, a new guy who's just read the book says a number and no one laughs. One old timer says to another, "Some people just don't know how to tell a joke." Andre and I are at the point where we just need to say the numbers.

Meagher didn't notice the exchange anyway. He'd given my face a quick once-over and settled his eyes on my chest like a hungry man staring at someone else's sandwich. We all chatted for a while, Meagher addressing all his remarks to my chest. Finally, he slid his coffee cup toward me. "Any more coffee, hon... Thea?"

Andre picked up the cup before I could answer. "I make the coffee on this team," he said. "The stuff she makes would take the enamel off your teeth. Black?" Meagher nodded. "You want some, Dom?"

Florio smiled. "I'm fine, thanks," he said. "I was just thinking about asking this young lady for the recipe for that soup. Sure smells good." He had a pleasant, engaging smile that was probably very effective getting nervous witnesses to trust him. I liked him. Like Andre, he had a patient, watchful quality. He struck me as someone who would listen and observe, think about what he'd learned, and come to understand the situation. Meagher, on the other hand, was the type to bull his way through things, pushing people and demanding answers. I didn't have to like Meagher to admit they probably made a good team.

Behind the Clark Kent glasses, Florio's quick blue eyes missed nothing. He'd caught the whole interplay between me and Andre, and I was willing to bet he could summarize my opinion of Meagher better than I could. Right now I was getting the full benefit of those assessing eyes. "How do you know Eve Paris?" he asked.

It was irrational since he was obviously a detective on the case, too, but I didn't want to talk about Eve in front of Meagher. "I have to check the soup," I said.

"Mind if I tag along and asked you some questions?"

"Not at all."

Florio followed me back to the stove and stayed there, lounging against the butcher block island, as comfortable as if he watched people cook every day of his life. I set a colander on top of a stockpot, dumped in the chicken and vegetables, and put the strained broth back on the stove, putting the burner on high to reduce it and make it richer. I flicked on the fan to pull the steam out of the kitchen. As I worked, I answered his questions about how I knew Eve, Helene and Cliff. While the chicken cooled, I put the carrots, celery and onions I'd cut up in a glass dish with some melted butter, and threw them into the microwave.

"You're going to put those in the soup?" he said. I nodded. "My grandmother would die if she saw you do that."

"So would my mother," I said, "but I've tried it both ways and I find the quick and dirty route usually tastes just as good." He didn't seem to find it strange that I'd come to comfort Eve and ended up in the kitchen. I often deny it, but I have a lot of my mother in me. If she were here, she'd be doing exactly the same thing, both because neither of us can bear to be still and because feeding people is an important part of social interaction.

It was impossible not to cook in Helene's kitchen. It was the best room in the house. She'd redone it several years ago, pushing out the back wall and installing a huge greenhouse window extending about five feet back into the roof. Outside was a terrace surrounded by blooming azaleas, where Helene had planted masses of annuals in big terra cotta pots. Inside, there were acres of counters, a huge double sink, and fancy european appliances. A kitchen where things had to turn out right. It made me feel like Julia Child. I've always had an affinity for Julia. She's even taller than I am.

All those expensive renovations were absurd because Helene seldom cooked. She could cook. She was a fabulous cook, but she considered cooking political. If she cooked, she acknowledged she was the one with the obligation to care for the others. She believed that it was women's acceptance of the nurturing role that had led to them being devalued in a world which valued independence rather than interdependence. So Helene built her beautiful high-tech kitchen and then let the housekeeper cook. Even though the housekeeper was also a woman and not a very good cook.

Florio seemed puzzled when I told him what I knew about Helene and Cliffs lifestyle, staring at me quizzically as I stripped the meat off the bones. We must have looked very odd, Dom in his suit and I in my red oilcloth apron—portrait of a homicide detective at work. "Don't look at me like that," I said. "I'm just answering your questions. I'm not saying her behavior made sense. All I can tell you is that it made sense to her and I assume it made sense to Cliff. I never heard him complain. Of course, they presented a unified front to the world. I don't know what their relationship was in private."

I turned down the heat under the pot, threw in the chicken, the vegetables, and several handfuls of noodles, tasted it and added more salt. It was almost dinner time. I couldn't speak for anyone else, but I was hungry. Andre was always hungry. I didn't know about Cliff. I was surprised that he hadn't come into the kitchen at all, at least to see what Florio and Meagher were up to.

The soup didn't seem like quite enough. I explored the refrigerator and the cupboards, and found the ingredients for my friend Fran's luscious, high-cholesterol muffins. I shifted into hyper-speed, trying to get the muffins in the oven so they'd be done when the soup was ready. Dom followed me around, passing me things as I needed them, asking his questions and listening carefully to my answers.

"How did Eve get along with her mother?"

"That's a loaded question."

"I don't think so," he said. "I just want your opinion. I'm going to ask other people the same questions I'm asking you. You know that."

"Right," I said, "I'm an expert informant in murder cases. Trained by old what's-his-name himself." He frowned at that, and I was sorry I'd said it. It wasn't that I didn't want to help, it's just that what the police saw as routine questions I saw as an invasion of privacy. A necessary invasion, I knew, but I still hated to be the one to answer them. It's not easy to share the details of a friend's personal life with a stranger. "I'm sorry. I'm not trying to be difficult. I'm just not very comfortable with this whole scene. Talking about Eve here in her own house, so soon after..." I said.

"The first few days are critical," he reminded me, so I tried to answer his questions.

"Anyway, Detective, it's not a short-answer question. And I can only speak for the past. I haven't seen much of Eve the last few years."

"You're not expected to produce the correct answer," he reminded me, "just information."

"It isn't easy to be the daughter of a beautiful woman," I said, "and Helene Streeter was beautiful. It isn't easy to be the daughter of two shrinks, and both of Eve's parents are... were... shrinks. It isn't easy to be the only child of two parents who feel obligated to produce a psychologically perfect specimen. And it isn't easy to be the daughter of a strident feminist. Eve and Helene had disagreements. Helene pressured Eve to confide in her; she wanted to know the details of Eve's life. When Eve was younger, Helene tried to run her life. She and Cliff both wanted to have a dialogue about everything. They discussed things to death, demanded confidences and intimacy when Eve needed privacy and independence. It was more complicated than I'm making it seem. I'm sure you realize that. They were also busy professionals and Eve was alone too much. It was sort of an all-or-nothing thing. Eve dealt with it by lying. She told them what they wanted to hear. Their relationship was no picnic, but whatever their differences, Eve loved her mother."

I switched the oven to 425, got out a muffin tin, greased it, and dumped stuff into a bowl, stirring the blueberries in carefully so they wouldn't turn the muffins gray.

"What is that stuff?" he asked, looking over my shoulder.