Murder at the Book Group (23 page)

I thought of Trudy's friend Ronnie threatening to turn Annabel over to the police, citing knowledge of Annabel's fingerprints in several library books. Two similar fingerprint stories in one week had to be more than a coincidence. I located the account of Stella Nickell's case,
Bitter Almonds,
in the library database and reserved it online. More searching on the cyanide subject turned up accounts of Nazis, the Peoples Temple of Jonestown, and James Bond movies among others.

The ringing of the doorbell startled the cats and me. I went to the window and looked down at the front door, seeing only the back of a wheelchair and a long gray braid. That was enough to identify my two callers as Sarah Rubottom and her husband, Den. I couldn't recall Den's last name but it wasn't Rubottom. I wondered what prompted their unexpected visit.

When I opened the door, Sarah got right to the point. “I just
know
this shindig at Helen's is going to be a memorial service. We
had
a memorial service. At the church. And I just
know
Helen will have a Bible at her side and want to read passages, lead us in prayer with our hands held.”

I asked if they'd like to come inside. “No, no, no, no, no,” Sarah protested, waving her hand from side to side. “We just stopped to say hi. Your car was in the driveway so we figured you were home. Right, honey?”

“Right, honey,” Den agreed, but his eyes didn't leave mine. As usual, his mischievous smile hinted at sexual invitation. He was a man who loved women; regardless of age, race, size, hair color, he loved them all. No matter how unattractive a woman considered herself, she was bound to feel special when Den bestowed that smile on her.

I doubted they stopped just to say hi. True, they lived down the street so their coming by the house wasn't unusual. But Sarah's need to vent was a more likely reason. Not wanting to let the cats out, I popped the latch and closed the door, standing on the front steps in my socks. “Please excuse my appearance.” Why did I need to ask unexpected visitors to excuse me for wearing sweats and no makeup in my own house? Sarah and Den's sweatshirts and jeans fared little better on the classiness scale.

“Why would we care?” Sarah echoed my thoughts. “Getting back to Helen, I have no idea why the woman even bothers to attend book group. Our politics just aren't compatible.”

“We've all wondered about that.” The rest of the group ran moderate to liberal. I considered myself to be moderate, but if I toppled off the political fence I'd land on the left side. “She might regard us as personal challenges.”

Sarah went on, “Even though I'm a Republican too, Helen and I are light-years apart. We agree on fiscal issues, but we never talk about them. No point, I guess. It's the social issues—I can understand her pro-life stance because I'm on the fence about that—but how can she think the way she does about stem cell research? And she doesn't want to discuss her opinions, or defend them, just wants to make proclamations and that's it. Period.” Sarah paused to take a breath. “Of course, I suspect she's one of those women who doesn't think anyone of our gender knows anything. Likely she gets her opinions from men, like her minister, or from cable TV.”

I remembered Art's puzzling revelation that his mother had moved to Richmond because of Jerry Falwell. That spokesman for religious conservatives had an authoritarian manner. And maybe Helen's husband had been a bossy sort, although I knew nothing about the man. Had she ever mentioned him? Had Art ever referred to his father?

Aloud, I said, “Another reason it's curious that she comes to our book group. Except for Art, we're all women.”

“Go figure.” Sarah rolled her eyes. “But getting back to politics, I was quite liberal in my youth, during my years at Berkeley. But somewhere along the way—”

Thinking that if Sarah wanted to chronicle her political passage we could do it indoors over tea and maybe she'd reveal something useful about the investigation into Carlene's death, I repeated my invitation to come inside.

“Oh, no. We have to get going. Just wanted to get out and enjoy the beautiful day.”

“Well, getting back to the praying, I wouldn't worry about it, Sarah. We can suggest having a moment of silence and say our own prayers. Or not.” I wasn't the most religious of persons, but I believed in the power of prayer, thought it a good practice. Sarah, on the other hand, branded herself an agnostic.

When I said the meeting's purpose was to discuss the group's future, Sarah said, “Yeah, well, I doubt that we have a future.” I suggested that she forgo the meeting, reminding her that it wasn't, after all, a command performance. She shrugged.

Wanting to move on, I asked, “Was there anything in Carlene's second book that hinted at suicidal thoughts?” Carlene hadn't cared for critique groups, but trusted Sarah for thorough and constructive criticism and proofreading.

Sarah touched her fingers to her forehead, a classic thinking pose. “I don't think so, but I'll give it some thought.”

“Have you seen anything of Carlene's third book?” At her no, I said, “I'm intrigued about the love fugitive idea.”

“Me too. But she never showed anything to me—probably hadn't reached the critiquing stage.” We described the love fugitive idea to Den.

Den turned the conversation to the memorial service, with each of us agreeing it was lovely, a nice send-off, so to speak.

“Carlene was one beautiful woman.” Den shook his head in sorrow, but the hint of a playful smile remained. “I'll miss her.”

I wondered at Den's choice of words,
I'll miss her
. Apart from the turkey dinners, when had he and Carlene seen each other?

Sarah rolled her eyes. “Yes, I'm
sure
you'll miss her, honey.”

Sarah's edgy tone wasn't lost on me. Had there been something between Den and Carlene? Was he another notch on Carlene's bedpost? If so, it sounded like Sarah was not only on to it, but grudgingly accepting. At this point,
Carlene
and
affair
went together. The question was, despite Den's charm and provocativeness, could he, um,
deliver
? I didn't know the extent of his injuries, and Carlene had been one adventurous woman. And so, yes, Den could deliver
something.
Feeling that a paraplegic character with alternative sexual gifts would add spice to my work-in-progress novel, I hoped to hold on to the idea long enough to record it once I got back in the house.

“We have to go,” Sarah announced. “We're having in-laws over for dinner.” I stood watching them walk and roll down my walkway, wondering what the abrupt departure was all about. Maybe Sarah wasn't crazy about her in-laws. I thought of Evan's cold parents. The parents and siblings of my other husbands had been considerably nicer, but our acquaintance had been too brief to get to know them. Then I realized what prompted the hasty good-byes—Sarah might have realized that despite the brevity of our conversation, she and Den had revealed too much. If Carlene did have an affair with Den, that provided Sarah with a motive to kill her. And Sarah had told Carlene that she had no towels in her bathroom. Easy enough to arrange an outage and remove Carlene from the kitchen for as long as it took to sprinkle white powder into her mug. I sighed at the prospect of adding yet another book group member to my suspect roster, but I couldn't ignore the fact that Sarah had just cast even more doubt on the suicide verdict. For the time being I made her an “understudy” suspect, to borrow theatrical lingo.

I toyed with the idea of going for a walk. The temperature hovered at about seventy-five degrees, my cutoff point for comfort. But walking required shoes—too much trouble. Back inside the house, I remembered my idea for a paraplegic Don Juan and looked around for my recorder. Keeping track of the recorder, intended to aid me in my writing, presented a perpetual challenge. As I jotted down the Don Juan idea on the back of a receipt, I remembered using the recorder, tucked away in my dressy purse, at the memorial service. I'd had a lofty notion of capturing someone's murder confession. But I didn't want to take the time to listen to at least three hours of recording and, besides, I needed a diversion from death and its aftermath. At the moment, cleaning loomed as a viable, if not welcome, one.

Even though Vince and I didn't stand on ceremony, the place needed at least a light cleaning, and light it would be. Starting with the important rooms, my bedroom and bath, I spent the better part of an hour sprucing up the place. My next e-mail check still yielded nothing from Jeanette, but the messages from the book group had multiplied. The general consensus on the book group meeting was that Tuesday worked better than Monday. My eye fell on Helen's home address. Something struck me as being familiar about it. Of course, I'd been to her place many times over the past couple of years. But something else prompted the recognition. I laughed at my need to find significance in the smallest detail. The smallest detail could break this case wide open. That's the way it worked in murder mysteries. The fictional kind, I reminded myself.

As she had a few days before, Annabel sent an e-mail that didn't include Kat as a recipient. “Yesterday, Kat told me that Carlene ended her life with cyanide. It was in her tea. How very, very sad.” Annabel was likely paraphrasing because I doubted that Kat used the phrase “Carlene ended her life.” Just how sad did Annabel find Carlene's death? She ended her missive with “And weren't you all talking about cyanide at the book group right before I got there? Where would she get the stuff?” So far no one had replied. I didn't either.

Jeanette finally came through. Looking at the photos, I realized she was right—Linda's midnineties persona recalled Morticia Addams, with her Gothic-looking long, dark hair and tight black dress. If I had Photoshop, it would be child's play to produce a present-day Linda. It was a simple matter of painting white stripes on her hair and adding digital meat on her bones.

As for the man sitting next to Linda, B.J. Miller, Jeanette was also right about his bad-boy looks and bedroom eyes. His look stirred a feeling of familiarity, but I couldn't place him. Besides, he could be anywhere and may or may not still have the mustache and beard. My efforts to remove hair and add years via mental Photoshop fell short. Besides, for all I knew he might still be in Chicago, or wherever he and Linda moved to all those years ago.

Carlene, aka Carlotta, wearing a glittery holiday sweater, stood off to the side, auburn hair flowing over her shoulders in Art Nouveau–type waves. Age-wise, she looked much the same as she had five days before. While Linda chose not to smile, Carlene wore a big grin, whether from precoital anticipation or postcoital bliss depended on whether the photo was taken before or after the desk incident. B.J.'s similar smile fueled my suspicion that he was the desk guy. Jeanette had included a photo of Carlene by herself and one of her with the suited and celibate fiancé.

I sent the photos to Kat and asked her to call me when she got them. I debated with myself about sending them to Helen and Art, asking them if B.J. could be the man in the car. But how would I explain Linda's presence in the photo? They probably wouldn't even recognize her, but I took the precaution of cropping her out of the picture before sending it to them. Maybe I'd get a break and get a match on B.J.

But the break wasn't coming that day, at least not courtesy of Helen and Art, with whom I exchanged a few rounds of e-mails. Neither of them could identify B.J. as Carlene's parking lot companion with any degree of certainty. “Art and I barely saw him when he was sitting on the bench. And when they were in the car we couldn't actually see him.”

Art asked the inevitable question: “How did you get this photo?”

“I was talking to this friend of mine from L.A. who knew Carlene years and years ago. She thought I'd be interested in some photos of Carlene and e-mailed a few to me. When I saw them, something made me think the guy with her could be the man you and your mom saw her with that night.” Apparently my explanation sufficed, as I heard nothing further from Helen or Art.

When Kat called I gave her a lightly edited version of my conversation with Jeanette. I figured she'd appreciate the desk sex bit.

I was right. “Still amazes me,” she said with a chuckle. “These are good pictures of her. She hadn't changed a bit over the years. Ageless.” I heard a catch in her voice. “Really ageless now,” she said ruefully. “As for Linda, she looks, I don't know . . . anorexic? And B.J.'s her ex, you say? He looks familiar. I think. But you said this picture was taken nine or ten years ago, so it's hard to be sure.”

“Yeah, and he might have a lot of gray now, or maybe he's bald. And he may not have the beard and mustache anymore either.”

Kat turned away from the phone to blow her nose. “I just can't put a name with his face. But I know one thing—I wouldn't mind taking a tumble with him. Maybe I did—maybe that's why he seems familiar.” I “heard” a smile through her tears.

I had to face it—the man in the car could remain an eternal mystery.

“WELL, CARLENE CERTAINLY
didn't change over the years.” Vince echoed Kat's assessment. “You say this is from 1995?”

“Thereabouts. Maybe ninety-six.”

Vince sat next to me at my computer. Both cats competed for his attention, Daisy walking around on his lap, with Shammy licking his hand. As we studied the photograph describing the triangle formed by B.J., Linda, and Carlene, I gave him a rundown of my conversation with Jeanette. When I got to the part about the desk sex, Vince looked at me and I looked at him.

Our dinner plans fell by the wayside—unless we counted the pizza we had delivered and ate in bed, scrutinized by cats looking for handouts.

When I told Vince about Sarah and Den's visit much later, I took care to qualify my remarks. “Of course, we don't
know
that Carlene and Den had an affair.”