Murder Can Rain on Your Shower (17 page)

to mine. Then once she was seated again she cupped

her hand to her mouth and spoke in a voice that was barely above a whisper. (I’m surprised the woman

didn’t check under the table, too, while she was at it.)

‘‘Carla’s been dating this very nice young man lately.

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He recently became a member of Silver Oaks—pri

marily for the golfing facilities. And we . . . umm, wanted to have a look at the place.’’

Well, considering the nature of that smile Robin

had flashed me before, along with this hush-hush atti

tude of hers, I put two and two together. ‘‘Does this mean that Carla and her beau are thinking of getting married at Silver Oaks?’’

My hostess seemed to instantly regret having shared

any confidences with me. ‘‘I’ve already said too

much,’’ she muttered, looking agitated. ‘‘Carla will
kill
me if she ever finds out I mentioned Len to you. The two of them aren’t even close to that stage yet,

honestly.’’

I clasped her hand for a moment. ‘‘I’m glad Carla

has somebody she cares about again. And don’t worry.

I’ve already forgotten that I ever heard the name Len.

Let’s talk about the other guests at the shower for a couple of minutes, okay? Are you aware of anyone

else who had it in for Bobbie Jean?’’

‘‘I don’t doubt that a pretty sizable portion of the women who were present that day had reasons to de

spise her.’’

‘‘I presume this would include Grace and Lorraine.’’

‘‘I guess. But take my word for it, they weren’t the only ones.’’

‘‘Can you be more specific?’’

‘‘Uh, not really. I wish I could help you out, but I’m just going by what I know of Bobbie Jean.’’

‘‘Let me ask you another question. Did you happen

to see anyone either entering or leaving the dining

room before we were called in to lunch?’’

‘‘No, I didn’t.’’

‘‘All right, then. Was there
anything
that struck you as being odd or maybe a bit unusual?’’

‘‘Nothing,’’ Robin answered ruefully.

Well, this seemed as good a time as any to find out

a bit more about that other matter Allison had

touched on last Tuesday. ‘‘By the way, didn’t you

yourself have some kind of quarrel with Bobbie Jean

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at one point? Apart from this thing with your son-in

law, I mean.’’

Robin chuckled. ‘‘As a matter of fact, I did. I had almost forgotten about that. It wasn’t what I’d con

sider a quarrel, though. I just wouldn’t have anything to do with her after what occurred.’’

‘‘And what
did
occur?’’

‘‘One day—and this dates back more than twenty

years—I caught Bobbie Jean in our backyard engaging

in a little me´nage a` trois with our fifty-five-year-old gardener and this young kid who was doing some

work on our pool.’’

Now, I didn’t want to reveal that this wasn’t exactly

news to me, so I feigned shock. ‘‘Good God!’’ I ex

claimed. I even waited a few seconds (which I figured

I’d have needed in order to regain my composure)

before saying, ‘‘And Bobbie Jean and her playmates

carried on like this when you were at home?’’

‘‘Actually, I
came
home. Only they had no idea I’d returned, so they figured the coast was clear. Cliff, my

late husband, was in Florida visiting his mother that weekend—this was on a Saturday. And Carla and I

had left to catch a train into Manhattan. We were

planning to go to the circus. But while we were at the station, Carla complained of nausea. So we turned

around and went back to the house. Luckily, we used the front door; otherwise, my preteen daughter would

have been treated to the same disgusting spectacle

that I witnessed a short while later. And—’’ Suddenly

Robin broke off and glanced at me quizzically. ‘‘But how did you find out about this, anyway?’’

‘‘I didn’t,’’ I stated firmly. ‘‘All I heard—and I can’t

even recall who mentioned it—was that there’d been

some unpleasantness between you and Bobbie Jean a

long time ago. But you were telling me . . .’’

‘‘Yes. Well, I’d just made Carla some tea when it

began to rain, and she remembered that she’d left her

brand-new sweater on the patio. So I went to get it—

and got the shock of my life. There were the three of

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them, oblivious to the weather, rolling around on the grass in all their natural glory.’’

‘‘Were they aware that you saw them?’’

Robin actually giggled now. ‘‘They had to be. I

screamed bloody murder.’’

‘‘Did you ever say anything to Allison and Wes

about this?’’

‘‘I’d decided not to. Bobbie Jean was responsible

for enough friction between them as it was. Oh, I

didn’t mean—’’ And now Robin’s entire face turned

crimson. ‘‘There was never any real trouble between

Allison and Wes, Desiree,’’ she hastily put in. ‘‘They loved each other a great deal—they still do. But Wes has—
had
—a tendency to be overprotective of that sis

ter of his, who, I assure you, was hardly deserving of his loyalty. And every once in a while his attitude got

on Allison’s nerves. Look, it got on
my
nerves, and I wasn’t even living with him.

‘‘At any rate, eventually it was Bobbie Jean herself who

forced me to turn snitch. The little witch had gone ahead

and related the incident to Allison, just in case the story

should get back to Wes. Only she put a slight twist on things. In her version
I
was the female member of the threesome, and
she’d
caught
me
in the act. And listen to this. She also said I’d threatened that if she ever went to

her brother or sister-in-law with what she’d seen, I would

claim I’d caught
her
in that compromising situation.’’

‘‘A resourceful soul, wasn’t she?’’ I commented.

‘‘What did she say she was doing at your house in the

first place?’’

‘‘She told Allison that she’d come over to borrow

something or other—my turquoise earrings, I think.

And when I didn’t answer the doorbell, she went

around to the rear to see if I was on the patio.’’ Unex

pectedly Robin grinned. ‘‘But you know what
really
gets me, Desiree? Bobbie Jean was just visiting Alli

son and Wes that day—she was close to thirty by then

and had already taken her own place. So why didn’t

she carry on in
her
neighbor’s backyard?’’

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I grinned, too. ‘‘Good point.’’

‘‘But seriously, that incident didn’t cause any real

damage. Allison came to me with Bobbie Jean’s story

in order to learn the truth about what had gone on that morning. She didn’t believe Bobbie Jean’s balo

ney for a second.’’

‘‘And Wes?’’

‘‘As far as I know, he never heard anything about

it.’’

‘‘Well, I think that about covers everything,’’ I an

nounced soon after this. ‘‘I really appreciate your co

operation, Robin.’’ I pushed my chair back from the

table. ‘‘Oh, and thanks for the delicious lunch.’’

Robin positively beamed at that.

Like I’ve said many times, truthfulness is not always

a virtue.

Chapter
16

Just as I left Robin Fremont’s, the rain let up. Still, making it home wasn’t the breeze it should have been.

The thing is, I got lost twice attempting to find the parkway, and driving around in circles can really eat up the clock.

The prolonged trip did allow me to do plenty of

thinking, however. Which, in turn, provided me with

the rationale that I was too preoccupied with the in

vestigation to pay attention to where I was going.

I began with a close look at the Fremonts, mother

and daughter—although I didn’t regard the poisoning

as necessarily a joint venture. Now, it had been seven years since Roy ditched Carla for Allison’s sexpot

sister-in-law. And as Robin pointed out, both she and

Carla had had ample opportunity to send Bobbie Jean

heavenward or—and this was much more likely—

somewhere-elseward way before last Sunday. More

important, Carla currently appeared to have a serious romance in her life. So I had some trouble accepting that she and/or her mother would have murdered

Bobbie Jean at this juncture. And as far as that nasty little lie the dead woman had told about Robin twenty

years earlier, that’s exactly what it was: a nasty
little
lie. It didn’t amount to diddly when you measured it against all of the heavy-duty unhappiness Bobbie Jean

had been generating for so long. In fact, I didn’t feel that this incident was even worth taking into account. Next I examined Lorraine Corwin’s status as a sus

pect. The suffering that the victim had caused this

woman was pretty much ancient history by now. I

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mean, if Lorraine had wanted to do in Bobbie Jean,

why hadn’t she gotten in her licks ages ago? Yes, I know, until fairly recently Lorraine was living in San Francisco. But she could always have come east for a visit and, armed with a dose of something lethal, got

ten herself an invite to some earlier function at which

Bobbie Jean had been a guest. Listen, while they say that revenge is a dish that’s best served cold, keeping your hostility on ice for thirty-three years is ridiculous.

And let’s not forget that Lorraine had opened her

own company only last year. What I’m saying is that, as with the Fremonts, the timing seemed strange to

me. Why would the woman strike out at Bobbie Jean

just when she appeared to be really hitting her stride career-wise?

Finally there was Grace Banner to consider. It was

a decade since the Banners had entered into that part

nership with Bobbie Jean. And less than a year later, she’d accused them of fraud. Well, even allowing for the pokiness of our legal system, Bobbie Jean’s civil action against the pair probably went to court within the next two or three years at the outside. And Grace

told me that their suit against her was disposed of two

years after that. So if Grace Banner
was
the one who tinkered with our girl’s salad, then she, too, had been sitting on her hands for a while. (Although, of course,

this could hardly compare to her pal Lorraine’s put

ting a thirty-year-plus grievance on hold.) But setting this aside, I went on to examine Robin’s suspicion—

which was probably valid—that a couple of years back,

when Wes was given that surprise party, Grace still

couldn’t bring herself to come face-to-face with the

dead woman. So I put a question to myself. Would a person who wasn’t even up to
seeing
her adversary have been capable of killing her? Well, let me say this:

I would imagine that to find the courage to commit

murder, Grace Banner would have had to swallow a

lot more than the 0.5 milligrams of Xanax she claimed

she required in order to merely show up at Ellen’s

shower.

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So where did all of my ruminating leave me? Not

very satisfied, I’ll tell you that. And now I was struck by the unthinkable.

Was
it
actually
possible
that
all
four
of
these
ladies
were
innocent?

I started to get this queasy feeling that seemed to crop up whenever the possibility of broadening the

investigation entered my mind. Then I remembered

that I hadn’t even spoken to the younger of the Fre

monts yet. Maybe Carla would shed some new light

on things when we got together on Monday. That was

certainly conceivable, wasn’t it?

Of course it was. And jutting out my jaw, I elected to remain positive.

At least for another two days.

Chapter
17