Murder Can Rain on Your Shower (27 page)

without my sticking it to him like that.

‘‘So you see,’’ he said, a new intensity in his voice,

‘‘the Fremonts had what could be regarded as a
very
recent motive for killing my sister. And they’re not the only ones. It wasn’t that far in the past that Lor

raine Corwin had a wrenching disappointment to deal

with, for which it’s likely she also holds Bobbie Jean responsible.’’

‘‘I assume that this had nothing to do with losing

her fiance´ to Bobbie Jean.’’

‘‘I suppose I’d have to say that the two matters are interconnected. You see, what the fiance´ never learned was that Lorraine was pregnant when he left her for Bobbie Jean—Lorraine herself wasn’t aware of it at

that point. At any rate, she went ahead and had the baby, subsequently giving him up for adoption. Well,

a number of years later she attempted to contact the boy. But apparently the adoptive family had moved

out of state somewhere or perhaps out of the coun

try—I’m not certain of the details—and she was un

able to locate him. Then about three years back she became positively obsessed with this desire to see her son again. I’m not a psychiatrist, Desiree, but Lorraine

had just entered menopause, and I believe the realiza

tion that this was the end of her capacity to bear chil

dren might have contributed to her obsession. To

continue, though . . . It took quite some time, but a private detective she hired eventually found the son

living in Idaho—he’s a young man now, of course, and

he has children of his own. Sadly, however, the fellow

absolutely refused to see her. It put Lorraine into a deep state of depression—even causing her to leave

her job.’’

‘‘And then a year and a half ago, she pulled up

stakes and came back east,’’ I remarked.

‘‘That’s right. Ostensibly to make a new start.’’

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‘‘ ‘Ostensibly?’ ’’ I echoed.

‘‘I don’t consider it too far-fetched to speculate that

this failure to initiate any sort of meeting with her only child might have revitalized Lorraine’s old hatred

for Bobbie Jean. After all, if she and her fiance´ had remained together, they would have raised the boy

themselves. I think we’d be remiss in not considering the possibility that Lorraine either moved here spe

cifically to murder my sister or took advantage of the opportunity when it arose.’’

‘‘You’re right,’’ I agreed.

‘‘And recently little Grace Banner, too, had some

thing additional to lay on my sister’s doorstep. I as

sume you’ve been advised of her husband’s failure to land a position equal to the one he held before enter

ing into that partnership with Bobbie Jean.’’

‘‘Yes, Grace told me about all of that. She said that

Karl’s employment difficulties were a result of Bobbie

Jean’s charging them with fraud.’’

‘‘I suppose that’s true enough,’’ Wes conceded un

happily. ‘‘I’d venture to say, however, that there was something Grace didn’t tell you. This winter Karl was

found to have developed cardiac arrhythmia, although

fortunately not too serious a case—not as yet, anyhow.

His doctors feel that his condition is very likely stressrelated. Now, I don’t deny that this stress
might
be attributed, at least in part, to the reversals in the fel

low’s professional life—I understand that he views his

present job in particular as well beneath his talents. But I’ll wager Grace hasn’t the slightest doubt that her

husband’s illness stems directly from that unfortunate partnership of a decade ago.’’

‘‘Tell me something. Do
you
believe the Banners were guilty of fraud?’’

‘‘No, I don’t. But I believe Bobbie Jean honestly

thought they were. Not that this excuses her—she

should have made sure of her facts before leveling

that sort of an accusation. But her actions were

prompted by extremely poor judgment, Desiree—and

not by malice, as many people seem to think.’’

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‘‘I’m confused,’’ I declared then. ‘‘Allison had to be

aware of her friends’ latest troubles. I mean, I’m tak

ing it for granted that she’s the one who kept you informed. Am I right?’’

‘‘You are—with one exception. But I’ll explain about

that in a moment. The only thing she didn’t mention to me was the extent to which those women held my

sister responsible.’’

‘‘She didn’t say a word about any of this when she came to see me yesterday, though. And obviously she

wasn’t any more inclined to enlighten Chief Porchow.’’

‘‘No, she wasn’t. I’ve been knocking myself out try

ing to persuade her to tell the man what she knows, but she won’t hear of it. My wife can be pretty stub

born when she wants to be.’’ And now Wes smiled

for the first time since he’d walked into my office. It was a faint, but unmistakably indulgent smile. ‘‘Allison

maintains that if this Porchow could erroneously tar

get
her
for Bobbie Jean’s murder, he might do the same to one of the others. And she says that she

couldn’t bear to have that on her conscience. Also,

she insists that the police will eventually recognize her

innocence on their own. Naturally, she made me swear

that I wouldn’t contact the authorities, either.’’ An

other smile. ‘‘So I contacted you instead.’’

‘‘You realize that the time may come when I’ll have

to go to the police myself.’’

‘‘It’s certainly occurred to me. But I’m confident

that you won’t supply them with the source of your

information unless you have no other option. At any

rate, I still feel that I’ve done the right thing in filling you in on all of this. At least I’ve provided you with new areas to pursue in your investigation. And De

siree? I’m counting on your promise not to reveal to Allison or Mike that we’ve had this meeting.’’

‘‘I’ll do everything I can to keep this between the two of us.’’

Wes looked at me gratefully. ‘‘Thank you.’’

‘‘I have a question, Wes. Allison told me that you

were the one who let Chief Porchow in on the griev

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ances the women had against your sister. So why

didn’t you yourself bring up Lorraine’s son at
that
point? And Carla Fremont’s busted romance? And

Karl Banner’s heart condition?’’

‘‘I only found out last weekend that Carla and this Len had ended their relationship prior to Ellen’s

shower. It was the first Allison had heard about it, as well—that was the exception I just spoke about. Alli

son and I were doing some food shopping on Sunday,

and we ran into the woman who’d introduced the

two—she’s the fellow’s cousin and a former neighbor

of ours. Greta—our former neighbor—was in town

visiting her brother. She lives in Chicago at present. At any rate, we stopped to chat, and during the con

versation she said how terrible she felt when Len

phoned her a few weeks back and told her that he

and Carla were no longer together.’’

‘‘So Robin hadn’t confided this to Allison,’’ I

mused. ‘‘Were you surprised?’’

‘‘Very. As a rule, there’s virtually nothing Robin

doesn’t talk to her about. But Allison was genuinely stunned. Now, let’s assume for a moment that neither

of these ladies is culpable in Bobbie Jean’s death.

Robin might initially have been hoping this parting

was a temporary one, so she decided to keep that

unfortunate development to herself for a while. Or

else Carla prevailed upon her not to say anything. In any case, though, after Bobbie Jean was poisoned,

their purpose in altering the timing of the split was as

you and I agreed a few minutes earlier.’’

‘‘No motive at the time of the murder.’’

‘‘Exactly. And of course, if one or both of these

women had had it in mind to kill my sister, it would have been all the more reason to hold off disclosing the breakup and then lie about when it occured.

‘‘Now, as for Karl Banner, it didn’t enter my mind

to mention his ailment to the Forsythe police, espe

cially since we can’t be certain the condition is even indirectly related to those old accusations of my sis

ter’s. Nevertheless, I can appreciate that it was a stu

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Selma
Eichler

pid oversight on my part not to call this matter to the

attention of Chief Porchow. Until this business with

Allison, however, I had no idea that a current motive would have any greater significance for the police than

one that had been festering for years. I never thought

about it, I guess. Just plain stupid, as I said,’’ he muttered.

‘‘And Lorraine Corwin—the same reasoning holds

true there?’’

‘‘Pretty much. But, in addition, there was the fact

that some thirty-odd years ago Allison had sworn me

to secrecy about Lorraine’s pregnancy. And if I was

to be true to my word, I had to continue to remain silent about the son she’d given birth to.’’

And now, for what must have been a full minute or

two, Wes stared down at his hands, his forehead

pleated up like an accordion, the deep furrows on ei

ther side of his nose becoming deeper still. At last he told me, ‘‘Who am I kidding, though? If I’m being

honest with myself, I have to admit that there’s an

other reason I didn’t bring up Lorraine’s grief with Porchow. Or Karl’s heart condition, either.’’

‘‘What’s that?’’

‘‘Look, I’m not claiming that Bobbie Jean didn’t

make her share of terribly wrong decisions.
More
than her share, most probably. But I believe one should

take into consideration—although I’ll spare you the

particulars—that my sister’s childhood left her with

some deep emotional scars. And incidentally, despite

what you may have heard, she wasn’t without admira

ble qualities, a great many of them, actually. I couldn’t

have asked for a more devoted sister—or a better

friend.

‘‘I imagine it’s a case of wanting to have it both ways, Desiree,’’ an obviously embarrassed Wes con

fessed. ‘‘Because as anxious as I am to see her killer brought to justice—and God knows it’s on my mind

every waking minute of every day—that’s how much

I wanted to ensure that the police didn’t come away with the wrong impression of my sister.’’

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The
wrong
impression?

‘‘I grant you that her conduct as it pertained to

those ladies was hardly commendable. But this
was
in the past. And you have to admit that she couldn’t

possibly have foreseen that her actions would cause

the repercussions they did. More importantly, how

ever, I did feel that I’d provided the authorities with all the facts they would require. So . . . well . . . I just couldn’t bring myself to include what I regarded as

some extraneous information. The sort that might lead

them to determine that she was . . . that might make it sound as if . . . as if Bobbie Jean weren’t a nice person.’’

Chapter
28

Only minutes after Wes left, I picked up—probably

for the hundredth time—the file labeled BOBBIE JEAN

MORTON. Today, however, I was fired up. Maybe,

thanks to Wes’s information, I would look at this file with entirely new eyes.

Still, I didn’t immediately open the folder. Instead, I pondered for a bit over some of the things that had passed quickly through my mind during the meeting

with Wes.

When he had talked about Carla Fremont, I’d been

puzzled by her decision to postdate the breakup. I

mean, hadn’t she been at all concerned that the police

would learn the real facts from her rat ex-boyfriend?

Now, however, I reasoned that there’d been little

chance the authorities would interrogate him. Besides,

if he did put a lie to her story, Carla could always maintain she was fearful that the truth might have