Femmes Fatal (18 page)

“Do I get to turn over now?”

“ ‘Patience is a virtue,’ ” I quoted, “ ‘possess it if you can. Found seldom in a woman and never in a man.’ ”

“Ellie.”

“Oh, all right.” I watched him flip over on his back and then his smile faded to a look of blank horror. “What’s wrong?” I cried.

“I feel so tacky!”

“Darling!” I gurgled a laugh. “We’re married!”

“I’m stuck to the sheet!” He tried to sit up but it was as though he were held down by rubber suction cups. “What the hell have you done to me? What
is
that stuff?” He sounded every bit as outraged as Hercules must have been after donning the lion skin smeared with lethal gook.

“It’s body lotion.” Picking up the pink bottle, I began reading from the label. “ ‘A pleasing blend of nature’s finest wild cherry blossom and rose hip syrup for your …’ ”

“Continue.”

“Well … it does say here ‘for your bath,’ but I’m sure it’s really an all-purpose—”

“Bubble bath!” He shot up with a ripping sound, which could have been the sheet or the skin being torn from his protesting body. “For crying out loud, Ellie! How could you make such a stupid mistake? Couldn’t you have looked?”

“Before I leaped all over you? Is that what you mean?” Yanking my negligee out from under his elbow with another ferocious rip, I got up, screwed the lid back on as tight as it would go, and banged the bottle down on the dressing table. “Next you will be accusing me of forcing my unwanted attentions on you.”

“My dear, I don’t deserve this!”

“If you had an ounce of humour!”

“Thank God I don’t, or I’d have died laughing at those damn silly horns.” Wrapping his dressing gown around his manhood, towel-fashion, Ben stomped out of bed. “Look, sweetheart, I’m sorry, but this has been a long day.”

“And you’re the only one who works?” Chasing after him out the door and into the bathroom, I snarled, “For
you
I disrupted my busy schedule, for
you
I bathed and primped!”

“Thanks for making it sound such a bloody chore!” Turning on the shower, he vanished into a cloud of steam which swiftly turned to cherry-pink foam. I was heading into the hall when his voice drew me back. “Ellie?”

An apology so soon? Wonders would never cease. I turned.

“Yes?”

“I forgot to ask if you heard from the vicar. I sent round a box of—”

“Ginger biscuits.” I didn’t get to explain that I had attained this information from Mr. Spike after nearly running him down this morning.

“Not just any ginger biscuits,” came the disembodied voice. “They were anatomically correct gingerbread men.”

“You didn’t!”

“To the pure all things are pure. And we can assume Reverend Spike and her spouse have the most pristine of minds.”

Fury choked me. I knew why he had done this! Vanity of vanities, thy name is man. On hearing the vicar boast of her husband’s culinary prowess and the accompanying blue ribbons, Ben had seen in Mr. Spike a rival to be bested before he gained ascendancy in the kitchens of Chitterton Fells. But at what cost?

The spectre of excommunication loomed large, especially if Freddy’s escapade leaked out. For the first time it occurred to me that the reason Miss Thorn had looked right through me in Doctor Melrose’s office that morning might be because she had spotted my dear cousin dressed up as the vicar and suspected me of being in
collusion with him. Perhaps she had used the excuse of returning Ben’s hanky to come round this afternoon and have it out with me. Whatever her feelings for the new vicar, Miss Thorn might well have been outraged on Bunty’s behalf.

In the last couple of days my life had turned into a quagmire. For that I could not entirely blame Fully Female. But it did occur to me as I stood in my Turkish bathroom that there were dangers inherent in becoming the Woman He Always Wanted. Already we had Mrs. Huffnagle accidentally or otherwise frizzled by an electrical appliance. This evening I had almost gone up in flames and—

The ringing of the telephone brought me out of my reverie. I hastened to pick up the extension on the landing before the babies woke up. All prepared for a wrong number, I was shocked when a feverish voice blasted: “Ellie Haskell?”

“Yes—”

“You must come
at once
.”

“Who is this?”

“Jacqueline Diamond. Please! Don’t ask any questions. Just get here. Twenty-one Rosewood Terrace. Hurry! And whatever you do—don’t bring anyone with you!”

The desperate urgency of the plea numbed my brain. If I ran to tell Ben I was leaving, he would ask all sorts of questions which I couldn’t answer. He would insist on going with me, despite instructions to the contrary, which would mean getting the twins up and taking them down to Freddy at the cottage. By the time I had worked out this scenario and voted it impossible, I was in the estate car and backing out of the stable in a roar of exhaust. The gravel driveway vanished under my wheels and I was out on Cliff Road, racing through the night on my way to an unknown house at the request of Mrs.
Norman the Doorman. That I was on the verge of meeting my children’s idol never crossed my mind. Nor did I fret that my green negligee was unsuitable attire for so momentous an event. Neither curiosity nor apprehension wracked my soul. The desperate urgency of Jacqueline’s plea had driven all caution from my soul. I have no sense of direction, but I drove to Rosewood Terrace as if I had a map etched in my brain. If memory served me correctly, Miss Thorn lived on this street. A year or so ago she had invited me over for tea, and we had talked about twins. Prophetic … and quite irrelevant at this moment.

Number Twenty-one was a detached Tudor-style dwelling set back from the road in a garden dense with fir trees. Having parked at the curb, I hurried up the narrow path, my bare feet impervious to the chill of concrete, but the rest of me aware of a prickly sensation that was only partially due to those pine trees brushing up against me with their needles. A strip of light showed from an upstairs room but otherwise the place was uncompromisingly dark. The covered porch might have been welcoming in daylight, but the damp had brought out the smell of cats who had left their calling cards. By feel and error I found the doorbell and heard its peal invade the dim interior. No scurry of answering footsteps, but I thought I heard a distant voice call, “Ellie?”

Feeling came back as I stubbed my toe on a rock by the door. The dam was broken. Terror poured over me like sweat. Something was seriously amiss within these walls. Bending down, I picked up the rock with the intention of smashing one of the glass panels, but fortune was with me. I didn’t have to resort to breaking and entering. A stray streak of moonlight pointed out the key which had been hidden under the rock. I slipped it into the lock and with a mixture of relief and dread stepped into the unlit hall.

“Jacqueline?”

“Up here!”

My hand found a light switch and I mounted the stairs as fast as I could—given the fact that I was weighted down by legs borrowed from a convict in irons.

“I’m in here.”

What a coward! I longed to turn and flee from whatever torment of the soul lay behind the door now staring me in the face, but I grasped the crystal knob and walked into a room dominated by an iron bedstead. On it lay Mrs. Jacqueline Diamond, bound hand and foot—
gasp!
—and naked as the day she was born, save for a pair of cowboy boots and a leather holster.

Speechless, I looked at the telephone half on and half off the bedside table, the receiver dangling by its cord. Moving towards her—wishing I had a scarf, a handkerchief, anything to cover her embarrassment—I almost pitched over the caped figure sprawled on the floor.

“I would kill for a cigarette …” Jacqueline rammed her knuckles against her mouth.

Poor dear, I am sure she wanted to bite off her tongue, for we hadn’t needed a medical dictionary to clue us in that Norman was dead. She had staggered frantically to her husband’s side the moment I had undone her constraints. When I knelt beside her to drape a blanket around her nakedness, she was trying to find a pulse, but her hand trembled so violently she couldn’t hold it down. Norman’s face was as kind in eternal repose as it had been when talking to children on television. His fixed stare looked upon a distant place where he saw them still … young Marcie and Andrea, Philip and John. Surely wherever he had gone there would be a position available for a man who made little ones smile.

“He has climbed the ladder to the moon,” I said.

His wife, now his widow, sat huddled on the bed,
her ash-blonde hair dragging on her shoulders, her mascara smeared, her cowboy boots protruding below the hem of the blanket. A fat lot of use I was, standing shivering in my stupid negligee. I knew I should right the telephone and call a doctor or the police, but it seemed inhuman not to first fetch her a glass of brandy or a hot drink.

“Third drawer, dressing table.” Her raspy voice jolted me into action. I assumed she wanted me to fetch her something to wear, but she had belatedly remembered a hidden cache of cigarettes.

“Thanks.” Taking the packet I handed her, she tapped out a king-size filter tip and asked for the lighter on the black oak tallboy. “Want one?”

“No thanks.” In all honesty, I—who had never stuck a cigarette between my lips, unless you count those kiddy candy ones with the sugary pink tips—would have given my left lung for a puff. Anything to block out the realization that death is always waiting in the wings, a black-cloaked figure … like the one sprawled at our feet.

“Norman was always after me to quit smoking. He didn’t like me swearing either. But what the hell, doesn’t count now, does it?” She screwed up her Lauren Bacall eyes against the smoke rising in a small cloud and looked at the phone. “It took me forever to work my hand loose, and almost as long to reach the operator with the butt of the receiver.” Another puff of smoke. “You must be wondering why you’re the one I phoned.”

“I do see it had to be someone in Fully Female.”

“You bet.” Her cigarette voice held a wheeze of humour. “And who was it, Ellie Haskell, who suggested at Marriage Makeover that I liven up my marriage by playing the part of a poor little dolly in need of rescue by Norman the Doorman?”

Gripping the iron bedpost, I hung on for dear life.

“Wipe that look off your face; I’m not blaming you.” She ground out the cigarette in a crystal dish and immediately lit up again. “All I meant was yours was the name which leaped to mind. What scared the piss out of me was thinking you might have an unlisted number. Luckily the operator didn’t even ask me to spell the name.” Jacqueline hoisted the blanket up over her shoulders. “Want to know how it happened?”

“Should we take the time?” My mind was backing away like mad from invading the final moments of Norman the Doorman. What had happened in this room to bring about this tragedy should remain sealed within the heart of his spouse, at least until the police and the medical examiner dragged the story out of her. “Don’t you think I should telephone …?”

“Not yet.” Jacqueline was on her third cigarette. “Telling you will get things straight in my head. I took the idea of dressing up in the boots and holster from the Fully Female manual.”

“The Ranch Dressing,” I interpolated, “to accompany the Bird of Paradise Fondue.”

“Norman doesn’t … didn’t care for chicken. What shocked me was that he went for my fantasy fling-ding in a big way. Not so much as a peep out of him about what his kiddy audience would think if they knew he was up to high jinks. Normie was always at his happiest in the Land of Let’s Pretend. The moment he tied me to the bed, I became Babbsie Bang-Bang, kidnapped from her plastic ranch house by the terrible Toy Snatcher. Before I could grow one goose bump, Normie had donned his mask and cape and was scaling the armoire … with a leg up from a chair …”

“But didn’t you tell me the other day that Norman was afraid of heights?”

“So he was.” She looked away from me.

Removing Jacqueline’s cigarette before it dropped
two inches of ash on the floor, I ground it out on the bedpost and waited for her to continue. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Norman’s hand, fingers spread wide as if making one last desperate clutch at life. Awful as it was to be discussing the man while he lay not a yard away, it was worse to think that Jacqueline’s voice fell on dead ears.

“Normie was crouched on top of the armoire, caped arms spread, ready to leap onto the bed and rescue me when I aimed the water pistol I had cupped in my hand. You know how it was on the show—Norman the Doorman could only be destroyed by soap or water—and I thought it would be cute to add an element of surprise.”

“But surely Babbsie Bang-Bang wouldn’t hurt Norman?” My interruption was a wild pitch to ward off the inevitable.

A smoky laugh. “I’d been brainwashed by the Toy Snatcher. When Norman leaped, I fired. He was bloody surprised all right. The old dear missed the bed … end of show.” The harshness of her voice didn’t fool me. The woman was … had to be … choking on misery and remorse. I could see the blue plastic gun peeking out from under the bedside table.

“I killed him.”

“No.” Sitting down on the bed, I put my arm around her. “Jacqueline, you mustn’t do this to yourself. It was an accident.”