Murder Can Ruin Your Looks (31 page)

‘‘And there’s no way you can convince him to be straight

with the police, either?’’

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‘‘There doesn’t seem to be. And believe me, I’ve tried—

and tried some more. I’ll give it another shot tomorrow, but only because I don’t know when to lay down and die.’’

‘‘Maybe if you threatened to resign from the case . . .’’

she offered tentatively.

‘‘He’d let me do it.’’

Ellen wasn’t so sure about that.

‘‘Look,’’ I explained, ‘‘compared to being barred from the hospital, losing my services wouldn’t be that big a deal.’’ And then I cited the amethyst ring and how Peter had even been trying to use it as a bargaining chip.

‘‘How did that ring suddenly happen to turn up after all this time, anyway?’’

‘‘Good question. I wish I knew.’’

‘‘Well, why don’t you ask Tim?’’ she suggested.

‘‘Because right now Tim isn’t really Tim,’’ I answered. Chapter 28

You know how most of the time when something’s really bothering you, you can forget about falling asleep, no mat

ter how tired you are? But then, there are other times that you’re just as upset and sleep is like an escape; you drop off the second you hit the pillow? Well, anyway, that night I made my getaway as soon as I closed my eyes.

I was in such a deep sleep that when the telephone jolted me awake, I had no idea where I was. Or even if it was night or day. I glanced at the clock at the same time I lifted the receiver: 6:47.

‘‘I hope I didn’t wake you,’’ a familiar voice said cau

tiously.

I sat up in bed instantly. ‘‘Is anything wrong, Ellen?’’

‘‘Oh, no, not a thing. Please don’t be angry at me for calling so early, but I
had
to talk to you. I have an idea about why Peter wouldn’t tell you where he was that night.’’

‘‘Couldn’t it have waited a couple of hours?’’ I growled. I don’t remember when I was less kindly disposed toward my favorite and only niece.

‘‘I guess so. It’s just that I was so anxious . . .’’ It was apparent I’d hurt her feelings.

‘‘Okay, shoot,’’ I said a little less harshly.
But
this
better
be
good!

‘‘Well, after I spoke to you yesterday, I kept trying to think of a reason Peter might feel that way. And then, at about three o’clock this morning, it finally came to me.’’

I counted myself lucky. At least she’d held out till now.

‘‘What came to you?’’

‘‘That he was afraid you’d be disappointed in him.’’

‘‘Oh, I don’t see—’’

‘‘Just listen a minute, okay? So then I thought about what would
make
you disappointed in him. Well, what

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would
?’’ Ellen demanded. She didn’t wait for an answer that I didn’t have anyway. ‘‘A woman!’’ she announced, her tone suggesting that a flourish of trumpets might have been appropriate.

‘‘A woman?’’ I said, repeating the words as I usually do when I’m trying to absorb something.

‘‘If he’d been out somewhere cheating on his fianceé, he wouldn’t want you to know about it; I’m absolutely positive of that.’’

I was just about to pooh-pooh her little theory when I recalled that, for all of Ellen’s ingenuousness, she often displays this knack for putting her finger on the things the rest of us tend to overlook. ‘‘Maybe you’re right,’’ I told her. She hung up happy when I concluded with: ‘‘I’m cer

tainly going to check into it.’’

Peter got a call from me at eight o’clock. ‘‘Can I come over this morning? Or can you stop by the office? It’s important.’’

‘‘It won’t do any good,’’ he answered softly, obviously anticipating another round of badgering.

Well,
here
goes
. ‘‘Look, Peter, I already know it was an

other woman.’’

Silence.

‘‘Peter?’’

Then, in something very close to a whisper: ‘‘When do you want me at your office?’’

When I got to work an hour later, Peter was already there, just taking a seat alongside my desk. He looked like he was about to be executed.

I confronted him as soon as I sat down myself: ‘‘I think it’s time you finally laid it all out for me, don’t you?’’

‘‘Uh . . . how much do you know?’’

‘‘Enough. But now I’d like to hear it from you.’’

His face immediately lost what little color it had come in with. ‘‘I probably would have said something in a day or two anyway,’’ he told me quietly. ‘‘I don’t think I could have held out much longer; it’s really hell, being cut off from Mary Ann like this.’’ And, after a long pause: ‘‘How did you find out—about the woman, I mean?’’

I shrugged. ‘‘I have my sources.’’ Then I remembered my manners. ‘‘Would you like some coffee?’’

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Peter shook his head. ‘‘No, thanks. I might as well get on with it, huh?’’ And, without meeting my eyes, he began. . . .

‘‘There’s this woman in my building,’’ he said, ‘‘an older woman—past forty.’’ I winced. ‘‘I used to be pretty friendly with her and her husband—not socially or anything but, you know, in a neighborly way. Frankie—that’s this woman—is a great cook, and she knows I’m a bachelor, so every once in a while, she’d bring in a piece of cake or pie or some cookies—even zucchini soup one time. And, to reciprocate, I’d give her and her husband theater tickets or movie passes or baseball or hockey tickets—I get a lot of that stuff through the office. But then, about six months ago, Scott—he’s her husband—just split. I found out later on from Frankie that he had something going with this young secretary in his office. Anyhow, after that, Frankie pretty much kept to herself, and I didn’t see her around for quite a while.

‘‘Then, this one day, we both came home from work at the same time. I couldn’t believe how thin she’d gotten!

She’d always had a really good figure, but now she looked like one of those pictures you see of the starving people in Africa. You should have seen how drawn her face was.’’

There was a brief time-out here while Peter nervously licked his lips. ‘‘Anyhow,’’ he went on, ‘‘she told me she’d cooked this pot roast the night before, and she said, if I wasn’t busy, she’d really like some company for dinner. Well, I felt very sorry for her, and I didn’t have any other plans because Mary Ann was going shopping with Meredith

that night, so I accepted.’’

Licking his lips again, he abruptly halted the narrative.

‘‘Uh, is there a water fountain here?’’ he asked. ‘‘I could really use a drink of water.’’

Poor Peter. He was having an awful time getting through

this.
Well,
I thought,
it
serves
him
right!
(Of course, I know I had no business being judgmental, but since when did that stop me?) I directed him down the hall, and in a few minutes he was back, reluctantly picking up exactly where he’d left off.

‘‘I ran down to the store and got a bottle of Beaujolais, and by the time we were through with dinner, we’d pol

ished off almost the whole bottle between us. All of a sud

den, when we were having coffee, Frankie said, ‘Scott stopped finding me attractive a long time ago, and you have

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no idea what that does to a woman.’ Something like that, anyway.’’ Peter’s expression seemed to be growing more miserable by the second. ‘‘We were both pretty crocked by then,’’ he explained, his voice so low I had to lean forward to hear him. ‘‘Otherwise, what happened would never have

happened in a million years.’’

He took a moment to compose himself before continu

ing. ‘‘Well, I told her that husband of hers was nuts, that she was very attractive. And then she asked if I was just saying that to be kind. And before I even realized it, we were kissing. And then one thing led to another and, well, you know.’’

Now, all through this recitation, Peter had been looking at his hands, at the floor, at the ceiling—everywhere but at me. But at this point his eyes locked with mine, pleading for some understanding. ‘‘I realize the wine was no excuse,’’

he said plaintively, ‘‘but—I can’t explain it—it made me feel like the whole thing was happening to someone else; like I was outside of myself, just watching, you know?’’

I couldn’t think of anything to say, so I just nodded.

‘‘When we’d . . . afterwards, she cried and told me her husband hadn’t made love to her for months before he left her. And then she thanked me—
thanked
me
! For a minute there, I even felt less guilty about things. But it didn’t last very long.’’

Peter must have thought I was going to make some kind

of comment then (which I wasn’t), because he put in quickly, ‘‘I know what you’re going to say, but Mary Ann and I weren’t actually engaged yet.’’ An instant later, he conceded unhappily, ‘‘Although I guess, in a way, we were engaged from the night we met.’’

Suddenly I was confused. ‘‘You weren’t engaged yet?

Then your . . . uh . . . your dinner with this woman
wasn’t
the night of the shootings?’’

‘‘Oh, no! It was
months
before that.’’

‘‘Now you’ve
really
lost me.’’

‘‘Please. Bear with me a minute.’’

‘‘Sorry. Go on.’’

‘‘Well, except for once or twice just in passing, I didn’t see Frankie for months after that. I suppose she wanted to forget what happened as much as I did. And then the night Mary Ann and Meredith were shot, she stopped off at my apartment after work. She told me she’d gone to her gyne

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cologist at lunchtime, and she found out she was pregnant. She said she hadn’t been with anybody since me and that it . . . uh . . . had to be my baby, and she thought I should know about it.’’ Peter took a deep breath. ‘‘Well, how could I leave things like that? I called my ex-roommate back—I was on the phone with him when she rang my doorbell—

and canceled these plans we had to get together for dinner that night. Then I went to Frankie’s place to talk things over.’’

Another deep breath. ‘‘Anyhow, she said she’d more or less made up her mind to get an abortion, but first she wanted to know how I felt about it. I told her it was her decision but that I’d certainly support the baby if she changed her mind and decided to have it. By the time I went back to my own apartment, though, she was definite about the abortion. She just wanted me to go with her when she had it done, and I promised her I would.’’

Aside from everything else, I was just incredulous at how careless Peter had been. ‘‘Didn’t you even use a condom?’’

I all but shouted at him. ‘‘With AIDS and everything, you really have to be an
idiot
not to!’’

‘‘I
am
an idiot,’’ a thoroughly dejected Peter admitted,

‘‘or I’d never have gone to bed with another woman in the first place.’’ And then he mumbled so softly the words were barely audible, ‘‘You must really think I’m scum.’’

‘‘I don’t think you’re
scum,
but in my book, betraying someone you’re supposed to be committed to isn’t exactly admirable,’’ I told him self-righteously. To be absolutely honest, though, at that moment, Peter’s cheating on Mary Ann wasn’t what was bothering me. What was really stick

ing in my craw was how he could do this to
me
! I mean, I’d known this kid way back when he was
little
Petey,
for God’s sake! And the only reason I’d taken this lousy case was because he pleaded with me to and because I believed every damn word he told me. In fact, I trusted him so much I hadn’t even
considered
checking out his alibi. Which, of course, made me just as big an idiot as he was. Well, it didn’t take long, before I could have kicked my

self all the way to China. The world did not revolve around Desiree Shapiro, I reminded myself. Besides, where did I come off acting like such a sanctimonious prig? The poor kid was feeling rotten enough without my help in underlin

ing his transgressions. I tried to lighten things up a little

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then. ‘‘Hey, we all do dumb things sometimes,’’ I said. ‘‘It’s probably hard to believe, but I’ve made a mistake or two thousand in my life, too.’’

Peter looked at me gratefully. ‘‘Thanks, Desiree.’’