Death Was the Other Woman (14 page)

“I'M CONFUSED,” I
said to Dex as we blazed southward into the night. I was driving, for the moment. I'd seen how much of the amber liquid Dex had consumed while he was wagging chins with his pal. I insisted, and Dex finally gave in, but he told me he'd take over if I got tired.

“What are you confused about?”

I thought for a moment before answering. “Well, everything really. We find a dead body. Fine.” It hadn't been fine, but there were degrees of everything. “Then witnesses said he was alive. And now he's dead again.”

“And there's no question about the man's identity,” Dex said. “His wallet was still in his pocket. His I.D. said who he was, plain as day.”

“Right,” I agreed. “So what happened?”

Dex shrugged. “Beats me. But ours is not to reason why—”

“Don't quote Tennyson on me, Dex. It's too damn early in the morning.”

Dex grinned at me sleepily. “It's funny when you curse.”

“Another thing I was wondering,” I said, ignoring him. “Your pal, the doctor, back in Frisco?”

“What of him?”

“Well, you seemed a little cagey around him.”

“I did?” Dex sounded genuinely surprised.

“You did,” I said, nodding. “Back in the ... in the crypt. I got the distinct impression you didn't want me to say anything in front of him.”

“Oh, that,” he said. “Sure. That was because I didn't want you to say anything in front of him.” looked at Dex to see if he was teasing me. And he was, but only just.

“See, it wasn't about my friend, kiddo. Just anyone. You and I know things no one else knows. When you think about it, a lot of things. Like only you and I seem to have seen the dead man in the tub. Next thing you know, everyone says he's right as rain and visiting in San Francisco.”

“And now he's dead again,” I supplied.

“Right. And that he owed money to some pretty serious muscle in Los Angeles. People knew
that”

“And that someone shot at you outside the Town House the other night. That's probably related. Because you were asking questions, right?”

“Right. But it's not just knowing one thing, Kitty. It's knowing all the individual things, then putting them together. So now Dempsey is dead, and it looks like our case is closed again. But you still hold on to the pieces. In case knowing them later is a good thing.”

I wasn't quite sure I followed exactly, but it did remind me of something else.

“I've got another piece, Dex. Last night, at the club with the girls, I'm pretty sure I saw Rita Heppelwaite.”

Dex suddenly looked interested.

“Why didn't you tell me before?”

“I forgot, more or less. What with you coming in and rousting me out of there.” I told him about going into the back room with Morgana, about what we'd seen then, and—more importantly—what we hadn't seen.

“The gunsel at the door knew her. But he knew her as Rita Mayhew, which kinda got me. Why would she have a different name?”

Dex looked thoughtful. In the dim light of the car's interior, I could see the lines on his face deepen while he considered my words.

“Lots of reasons,” he said finally. “Most of them to do with not wanting to leave too strong a trail. But which is the real name? That might be an important thing to know. Which is the trail she's trying to cover up? Ah, well, it doesn't matter now, does it? Not to us anyway.”

It was my turn to contemplate quietly. While I did so, I focused tightly on the road in front of us. The way the car's headlights seemed to swallow the white lines between lanes, like it was hungry for the miles we were covering.

I struggled for some type of answer, but then a sound in the car made me realize I didn't need to worry about answers for the moment. A sort of light snore echoed out of my boss, and when I looked at him, I realized he was fast asleep.

I thought about waking him, but decided he needed to sleep as much as he needed to sleep it off. I pushed on for another hour or so, but not far south of Santa Cruz, the urge to sleep caught up with me as well. I thought about waking Dex to take over the driving, but I knew it hadn't been long enough for the alcohol to have worked its way out of his body. When I saw a small road leading down to the ocean, I pulled the big car off the main highway, pulled over to the side of the road, killed the engine, and gave in to the demands of my body. The day had been too long. I told myself I needed ten minutes of rest. Maybe fifteen. I think I fought sleep for about a minute. But when the urge became too strong, I gave up the fight.

“WAKE UP
, sleepyhead.” It wasn't the voice that woke me, but a gentle poke in the ribs.

I looked around groggily. It was not full day, but it would be soon. Light was exploding across the ocean in front of us. Somehow, in the full dark and in my sleepy state, I'd managed to park the car facing the ocean full on. The gold and red lights of dawn were chasing away the remnants of night across an endless sea. It was beautiful. Before I said anything at all to Dex, I just sat there for a moment and drank it in.

The day was going to be hot; you could feel it in the way the sun belted off the car. But for the moment, it was cool enough to be comfortable, and the scent of the ocean chased the stale smell of Dex's booze out of the car.

Dex got out and stretched his legs, then walked around to the driver's side and opened the door. “Here,” he said, “skootch over. We've gotta get a move on. And if I don't get some coffee soon . . . well, I don't know what I'll do, but neither of us wants to find out.”

“Santa Cruz isn't far back,” I said, while I did as he asked. “Maybe ten or fifteen minutes.”

He started the engine. “Naw, I'd rather not go in that direction. I'd rather not go back. We'll find something along the way.”

And we did. Another roadside diner, this one looked like it was a haven for the trucks that increasingly plied the three-year-old highway, offering food and gas twenty-four hours each day.

We cleaned up, ate up, and gassed up all in under half an hour. We were back on the road by seven. I didn't ask what the big hurry was simply because I was still too tired to formulate the question. And I don't think we'd been on the road ten minutes before I was fully asleep.

Once again it was the cessation of movement that woke me.

“We're here,” Dex said, as he saw my head come up.

“Where's here?” It felt like a replay of the previous day's stop at the diner on our way to San Francisco. Though, if possible, this time I was even more disoriented than I had been then. We weren't at my house. And we weren't at the office. It took me a moment, and then I recognized our surroundings. “We're at Lafayette Square?” I groaned.

Dex nodded. “I told you, I wanted to tell Mrs. Dempsey straightaway.”

“You told me?” I thought for a moment. “No. No, you didn't. I'd have remembered that.”

“Maybe you were asleep,” Dex admitted, as he got out of the car. “Anyway, I stopped at Port Harford and called her. She's expecting us.”

Before I followed, I pulled the rearview mirror toward the passenger seat and peered cautiously at myself. My pale and tired face peered back. Just as I'd feared, I was completely beyond hope. My hair looked as though . . . well, as though I'd slept in a car. And the cosmetics Morgana had applied so carefully the night before were doing nothing to help the situation. Dex stood outside the car impatiently, but I wouldn't budge until I'd at least pulled a comb through my hair and taken a couple of swipes at the bruised makeup.

“You could have dropped me off at home before we came over here,” I groused, while we waited for the door to open. When it did, all thoughts of grousing were swept away. Though it was not yet six o'clock at night, Lila Dempsey was wearing a peignoir with a fur-trimmed collar and little else. Her getup

didn't leave much to the imagination. The pale lilac material clung to her like a shimmery skin.

“Mr. Theroux,” she said, ignoring me completely. “It's very good of you to see me at home. Please come in.”

She led the way from the huge foyer into an even larger sitting room. The entrance was through one of the hallways on the right that I hadn't chosen on the night Dex and I had been there. It was a dramatic room done in shades of ivory and rose. A woman's room, I thought, wondering if
Mr.
Dempsey's sitting room was somewhere else in the big house. Or maybe he'd have a smoking room or a den or a trophy room or some other such room marked with an appropriately masculine name.

“Please,” she said, standing in front of a rose damask davenport with a couple of armchairs in the same pale fabric. A coffee table stood in front of it; a crystal ashtray and some matching glasses and a decanter holding amber liquid sat upon it. “Have a seat.”

We did as she asked, Dex and I each taking an armchair, while Lila Dempsey half reclined on the davenport. “Can I offer either of you a drink?” she asked, indicating the decanter. I think she asked us both, but her eyes never left Dex's while she spoke. It was an offer, but to my ears it sounded like an invitation as well.

Dex accepted, then shot me a look that said I should do the same. Perhaps he thought that accepting her offer of good bootleg whiskey was the least we could do, considering the news we brought. I shrugged and asked for a small one. After all, I didn't have to actually drink it.

Lila Dempsey poured an inch or so of whiskey into each of the crystal glasses. She handed one glass carefully to Dex, pushed one unceremoniously across the coffee table at me, then took a sip of her own drink.

“So Mr. Theroux,” she said, reaching for a cigarette from a dispenser on a side table. “The fact that you're here makes me think you have news for me.”

She sat on the sofa expectantly, the unlit cigarette poised in her hand. Dex obligingly plucked a crystal lighter from the coffee table and lit it for her, then helped himself to one of the cigarettes. Since Lila Dempsey hadn't acknowledged my presence at all, besides the moment when she slid my drink over to me, I felt invisible. That was fine. Considering the news we'd brought, invisible was probably a good place to be. I settled into the big chair and watched the scene unfold.

“Mrs. Dempsey, I take it you haven't been notified yet?”

“Who?” she said. “Who hasn't notified me of what?”

Dex took a deep breath and plunged ahead. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I don't know quite how to say this. I suppose you might already have surmised from this personal visit that our news is not good.”

“What?” She looked genuinely surprised. She took a long drag from her nearly new cigarette. Then, like a proper lady, she dropped it whole and still smoking into the ashtray. Dex looked thoughtful while he picked it up carefully and extinguished it for her. I could tell he was thinking about just what to say.

“Your husband . . . your husband appears to have gone to San Francisco, just as you supposed he had.”

Lila Dempsey nodded. Leaned forward slightly. “Yes . . . and?”

“I was not able to ascertain the entire extent of his business there.” Dex spoke so carefully I wondered if
I
even knew everything that he did. “But. . . well, Mrs. Dempsey, there's just no sweet way to say this. I'm afraid your husband is dead, ma'am.”

I was watching Lila Dempsey closely while Dex broke the news. I was looking, I guess, for signs of either guilt or lack of surprise. I saw neither. The woman's face registered genuine shock and distress, which I thought was rather at odds with the fact that she'd seemed disappointed that Dex hadn't come alone.

Now, with word of her husband's death new and raw, she finally acknowledged my presence. Her eyes sought mine out; something plaintive in them. “Is this true?” she asked, as though hoping I'd refute it.

“I'm afraid so, Mrs. Dempsey,” I said. “I saw him with my own eyes.”

“I'm surprised the coroner's office up there hasn't called you already.”

“I've been out a lot the last few days,” Lila said. “I might have missed the call.”

“Expect a call from them then,” Dex said, not unkindly.

“And I would imagine they'll want you to come and identify the body,” Dex added, “but at this point I don't think there's really any doubt.”

I don't know how I expected Lila Dempsey to act when we told her the news of her husband's death—I hadn't expected her to fall to pieces or anything—but her reaction was different than I thought it would be. It was the quiet devastation that impressed me most deeply. And in that moment I realized that, for whatever reason, the flirtatiousness with Dex had been an act.

After Dex told her that her husband was dead, Lila Dempsey didn't scream at an unforgiving god; she didn't rend her clothes or pull her hair. Nor did she say, “What shall I do now?” But I heard it, just the same. I heard it in the helpless movements of her hands, like the useless flight attempts of small, damaged birds. And I heard it in the pulse I could see jump at the base of her pale throat. I heard it in every movement, every motion, every breath she took. It was as though her center had been pulled away. One thing was clear to me from this quiet, drama-less display: whatever else she was or had been, Lila Dempsey hadn't known about her husband's death.

While Mrs. Dempsey flailed with these new emotions and Dex did his best to comfort her, I excused myself. Lila didn't look up when I told her I was going to use the powder room, and as it was, I didn't need directions.

In the champagne-and-rose-colored bathroom I locked the door, and then, steeling myself against images of the dead man, I stepped right into the tub. I'd seen the corpse myself. And what had Dex's friend said? The bullet had gone right through him. That meant that if he'd died in this room, there would be some evidence.

I found what I was looking for about halfway up the wall. I found a place where the perfect tiles were even more perfect. One was a little more rose, another slightly less champagne, and unmistakably, the grout between them was brighter, newer. I wouldn't have bet my life on it, but it looked to me as though those tiles had been recently replaced.

I used the bathroom uneasily, uncomfortable even drying my hands on the towel. I ran my brush through my hair and rubbed my finger on my teeth, but I knew that the balance of my own repairs would have to wait until I got home.

Back in the sitting room, Dex looked up gratefully when I came into the room. I didn't want to stay any longer, and I could see he didn't want to either. There wasn't any reason. The cat-and-mouse game Lila Dempsey had enjoyed with Dex was over now. It was clear the fun had gone out of it for her. We could see that she needed and wanted to be alone, perhaps to lick her wounds and figure out what came next.

She let us out herself, but at the door she put a hand on Dex's arm to stop him.

“I can't face it alone, Mr. Theroux,” she said. I could see that her nails were buffed to a dull shine, but they were without color.

“What's that, Mrs. Dempsey?” he said, his hat still in his hands.

“San Francisco, Mr. Theroux. Identifying the body, as you said. I can't... I couldn't bear it. And I'll need to make arrangements for . . . for the body to come ... to come back home. Will you come with me? Please. I'd pay you, of course. Your usual rates.”

Dex agreed, of course. It wasn't like he had a million other things to do, and what the hell, he was probably thinking, he already had a car.

They arranged that he'd pick her up the following day.

I didn't try to get included in the trip. Genuine grief or no, I figured I'd had enough of Lila Dempsey to last me a lifetime.