Murder Can Rain on Your Shower (11 page)

‘‘How ya doin’, Lorraine?’’ He permitted himself a

quick glance down the front of her dress. ‘‘Youse two

know what you’re havin’, or you wanna see a menu?’’

‘‘I think we’d better see a menu, Rocky.’’

‘‘Sure thing.’’ And with this he removed the two

menus that had been tucked under his arm and

handed one to each of us. ‘‘Be back witcha in a few minutes,’’ he declared as he lumbered off.

‘‘What’ll it be, Dez?’’ Lorraine asked when I’d fin

ished studying the breakfast specials.

‘‘I’m going to have number four.’’

‘‘Me, too.’’ She glanced around for Rocky, who was

hovering next to an empty table not more than five

or six feet behind us. A crook of her finger brought him over faster than I’d have thought possible. Lor

raine gave him the order, and as soon as he left us she had a question, one I felt she could barely wait

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to put to me. ‘‘I figure that if you wanted this meeting,

you must be fairly certain that someone other than the

Almighty sped Bobbie Jean on her way. Am I right?’’

‘‘Let’s just say I strongly suspect that to be true. Incidentally, on Sunday you said something about a

rumor that Bobbie Jean had been poisoned. Who told

you that?’’

‘‘Nobody, actually; I overheard two women talking.

But no doubt they were merely speculating. Listen,

those of us who really knew Bobbie Jean always fig

ured that the chances of her dying in her sleep some

day were pretty piss-poor.’’

‘‘Would you mind telling me who the women

were anyway?’’

‘‘Not at all—only I have no idea.’’ My skepticism

must have shown on my face. ‘‘Honestly,’’ Lorraine

maintained, ‘‘I’d never set eyes on either of them

before.’’

‘‘All right. Well, did you, by any chance, notice any

thing suspicious that afternoon?’’

‘‘ ’Fraid not.’’

‘‘Let me ask you this: Who among your friends and

acquaintances had cause to want Bobbie Jean dead?’’

‘‘Enough of them, trust me.’’

‘‘That would include Grace Banner and the Fre

mont ladies.’’

‘‘That would include a lot of people,’’ Lorraine re

sponded evasively.

‘‘Were any of the others at the shower?’’

‘‘Look, if you want me to supply you with names,

forget it. All I’ll say is that Bobbie Jean spread her special brand of sweetness around. And if there wasn’t

anyone besides me at that affair who’d have liked to see her laid out on a slab, I’d be very much surprised.’’

‘‘You hated her a great deal, didn’t you?’’

‘‘Like poison—if you’ll pardon the expression. If I’d

had this same opportunity thirty-three years ago,

which is when she screwed me over, I can’t swear

I wouldn’t have been responsible for her consuming

something lethal. As it is, though, while I’m still angry

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as hell when I think about what she did to me, I just don’t think about it that much anymore. And I can’t remember the last time I shed any tears over it.’’

‘‘I know this can’t be pleasant for you, but I’d ap

preciate your filling me in on what happened between

you and Bobbie Jean. All right?’’

‘‘That’s the reason I’m here, isn’t it?’’

‘‘I hope so,’’ I responded with an insipid little

chuckle.

‘‘Okay. I should begin by telling you that Allison

and I were roommates at college—until Allie dropped

out of school because she was with child. Mike, as it turned out.’’ Suddenly Lorraine’s eyes opened wide.

‘‘Oh.’’

‘‘Is anything wrong?’’

‘‘Maybe Allie would have preferred me to keep that

to myself. It was ages ago, though. Besides, she and Wes were already gaga about each other by then, and

they had every intention of getting married way before

she became pregnant.’’

At this point our food arrived, courtesy of Rocky.

We continued to talk about the dead woman while we

ate, Lorraine having vetoed my suggestion to table

any further discussion about Bobbie Jean until we fin

ished breakfast. ‘‘I can’t stay long,’’ she’d apprised me.

‘‘Something came up after we spoke yesterday, and I

have to be at work soon.’’

Well, this is the kind of thing I try to avoid. I’m referring to having murder-related conversations dur

ing a meal (even if, as in this instance, murder is only a strong—albeit a really strong—possibility). I mean,

they certainly don’t do much for a person’s appetite. But what choice did I have?

‘‘Allison and I have been the best of friends since our Radcliffe days,’’ Lorraine was saying now. ‘‘So I got to know Bobbie Jean early on—in fact, while she was still a teenager. In the event you haven’t been informed, she went to live with Allison and Wes when

her father died, which was soon after they were mar

ried. At any rate, when I visited them, Bobbie Jean

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would frequently be there, too. And we became pretty

close, Bobbie Jean and I. That’s what makes me re

gard what she did as such a betrayal. I actually saw myself as a sort of big sister to the fucking little bitch.’’

She interrupted her narrative to ask whether I was

offended by her language.

To make her feel comfortable, I assured her that

when the occasion warranted, I’d been known to use

a few expletives that could induce a longshoreman to put his fingers in his ears.

Lorraine grinned. ‘‘Listen, I’m always interested in

expanding my vocabulary, so maybe you could teach

them to me sometime, okay? Unless, of course, they’re

already a part of my everyday speech—which is more

than likely. But to go on . . .

‘‘During my senior year in college, I fell completely,

insanely,
stupidly
in love with a man named Kevin Moore, and within three months we were engaged.

Then right after the engagement, Kevin’s firm trans

ferred him to San Francisco, and in June, with college

over, I got a job out there to be with him. We in

tended to make it legal in the fall—until Bobbie Jean showed up.’’

‘‘Just like that?’’

‘‘Oh, no, I invited her—her and a girlfriend of hers.

Bobbie Jean had just graduated from high school, and

she wrote to tell me that in August she and this Mi

chelle would be coming to California for a month. For

most of the vacation they’d be bunking with an aunt of Michelle’s living in Oakland, which, as you’re no doubt aware, is just outside Frisco. Anyhow, in her

letter Bobbie Jean asked if it would be all right if she stopped by to say hello. And I—being totally non

compos mentis—practically insisted the two of them

spend a few days with Kevin and me. And that’s all that goddamned nymph needed—a few days.’’

Pressing her lips together, Lorraine shook her head.

Even after all these years, it appeared that she still hadn’t forgiven herself for this unfortunate gesture of hospitality. ‘‘I suppose I have to take my share of the

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blame for what happened that summer. The truth is,

I’d heard plenty of gossip about Bobbie Jean by then;

I just hadn’t wanted to believe it.

‘‘But don’t get me wrong. I’m not excusing Kevin

for having his brains between his legs. Not for a min

ute. I’d bet my last dollar, though, that Bobbie Jean was the one to seduce
him,
something I base on her extensive history of similar situations.

‘‘At any rate, to sum it all up, the engagement went

pfft.
Less than a week after the girls went back to stay with Michelle’s aunt, I came in from work one evening

to find Kevin—and all his stuff—gone. There was a

note on the kitchen table informing me that it was

over between us and that he’d gotten his own place. Down the line I discovered that Bobbie Jean had

moved in with him the day he left me.’’

‘‘Were they together long—Kevin and Bobbie

Jean?’’

‘‘Don’t be silly. She dumped him three weeks later

and went home to Allison and her brother, Wes, both

of whom had been under the impression she and Mi

chelle were on an extended visit with Michelle’s aunt all that time she’d been playing house with Kevin.’’

‘‘When did they learn the truth?’’

‘‘When I did. A mutual acquaintance of Kevin’s and

mine laid the whole thing on me when I ran into her at the beginning of September. Until then I hadn’t a clue that while that little nymph was
my
guest,
she’d been out to hook the man I was planning to marry.’’

‘‘And you let Allison know about this?’’

‘‘You betcha.’’

‘‘I imagine she must have been terribly disturbed

by what Bobbie Jean did to you.’’

‘‘She was. From what Allie said, even Wes—who’s

always been so damn protective of Sister Dearest—

reamed her out pretty good. And she acted
terribly
remorseful—although the way she told it,
she’d
been a victim herself, Kevin being so much older and more

sophisticated than she was. How’s that for chutzpah?

I ask you. At any rate, she claimed—tearfully, of

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course—that he’d refused to leave her alone, phoning

her day and night when she returned to Oakland. Ac

cording to Bobbie Jean, that awful man had been so

persistent that for a while he’d had her convinced that

this was true love. She came up with another doozie, too. Supposedly Kevin confided to her that he and I

had been having problems well before she entered the

picture and that he’d been trying to work up to calling

it quits with me anyhow.’’

‘‘
Had
you been having problems?’’

‘‘That was plain bullshit,’’ Lorraine said heatedly.

‘‘Either Kevin lied to Bobbie Jean about us or—and

this is far more probable—Bobbie Jean lied to Allison

and Wes. It really didn’t matter to me what the truth was, though. The only thing that mattered was that

my fiance´ had suddenly become my
ex
-fiance´.’’

‘‘Uh, did you ever see or hear from him again?’’

‘‘I got a brief letter from him sometime in October saying that he was sorry—
sorry!
—and that his lawyer would be contacting me about his financial obliga

tions—you know, with regard to the apartment lease,

things like that.’’

‘‘You never considered calling
him?
’’

‘‘In the first place, I didn’t have any idea how to reach him. Not initially. But more than that, I was too

anguished, too
raw
to even think about picking up a phone—especially once I got wind of the Bobbie Jean

connection. The only way I could deal with the situa

tion was to convince myself that I was better off with

out the louse—which was undoubtedly true. A couple

of years later, though, I went to a concert with a girl

friend. I spied Kevin in the lobby at intermission, and

I’m sure he spotted me, too. He was with another

man, and I debated with myself about going over to

him. But while I was still trying to make up my mind,

he turned his head, whispered something to his buddy,

and they both walked away.’’

‘‘You’re positive he saw you?’’

‘‘
Absolutely
positive.’’ Lorraine had a bite of toast and washed it down with a sip of coffee before con

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cluding with a lopsided smile, ‘‘So that was the end of that.’’ And picking up a piece of bacon with her fingers, she nibbled on it slowly.

I didn’t know what to say. I could have cried for

the woman. I was searching my sluggish brain for an

other topic when she took me off the hook. ‘‘You

want to hear what finally got me past the Kevin/

Bobbie Jean thing, Dez? My job.’’

‘‘What is it you do?’’

‘‘I’m a talent agent. I changed careers and went into

the biz eighteen years ago, getting my feet wet with a small outfit in San Francisco. My work gives me a