Murder on the Bride's Side (27 page)

With my heart pounding in my ears, I eased my bedroom door open. Just as I did, David stormed out of his room and disappeared down the hall, his unsteady gait confirming his drunkenness. I sank back against the wall in relief, the hair dryer hanging from my limp arm. I shook my head—what the hell did I think a hair dryer was going to do? Although, I suppose to a man as hair-obsessed as David, threatening to dry out his follicles might slow him down a bit.

Cautiously tiptoeing down the hall, I gently rapped my knuckles on Claire’s door. There was a brief pause, during which I could hear her blow her nose, before the door cracked open an inch. One red eye peered cautiously out at me.

“Oh! Elizabeth, it’s you,” Claire said in a remarkably normal voice. Hearing it, my heart twisted in sadness. Claire was obviously no novice at having to hide the pain David caused. “Is everything all right?” she asked.

“Actually, that’s what I was going to ask you. I . . . uh . . . I heard what happened, Claire. Can I get you anything?”

The eye blinked several times before filling with fresh tears. Letting out a sigh, she stepped back, easing the door open a few more inches. Her eyes were red and puffy from crying. Her left cheek was red as well, although I knew crying wasn’t the source of that irritation. Giving me a weak smile, she shook her head, saying, “Oh, that. I’m fine. Really. It was just a silly misunderstanding. I’m sorry if we woke you.” She moved as if she was about to close the door, so I stuck my foot out and pushed my way into the room, shutting the door quietly behind me.

Surprised, she fell back a step. “Elizabeth! What are you doing? I said I was fine.”

“Claire, I’m sorry, but you are anything but fine. I heard David hit you.”

Her face crumpled at my words and she sank down onto the ottoman, the one that Bridget and I had noticed was being used as part of a makeshift bed. For some reason, that made me all the angrier. Not only was David a bullying drunk, but he’d co-opted the bed as well.

“Claire, do you want me to call the police? I’d be happy to
tell them what I heard. We would get him away from you—at least for a day or so. It would give you enough time to decide what you want to do.”

“No!” she cried, a note of real panic in her voice. “Not the police! Whatever you do, please don’t call the police.”

The violence of her reaction startled me—until I remembered her lie. I sat down on the edge of the bed and faced her. “Claire,” I said as gently as I could, “I know that you lied to the police about seeing Avery that night. Is David threatening you with that fact? Just because you lied doesn’t mean that he gets a free ticket to use you as a punching bag.”

With a half sob, Claire buried her face in her hands. I let her cry for a minute, before moving off the bed and onto the chair beside her. Putting my arm around her, I said, “Please let me help you, Claire. You can’t let this go on!”

“Can’t let it go on?” she repeated with a bitter laugh. “It’s been going on for years. He’s not going to stop now.”

“Then you make him stop. Call the police. Leave him. Bash him in the head with something heavy. Do
something
.”

She lowered her eyes. “If I do, he’ll tell the police about Avery.”

My hand involuntarily tightened around the hair dryer’s handle and I half wished David was still in the room. Very few things would give me as much pleasure as bashing in his adulterous, abusive head. Taking a deep breath, I said, “Claire, do you really think that Avery would want you to endure this for his sake?”

She rubbed her hands over her face. “Of course not. But that doesn’t change anything. I won’t go to the police.”

“Tell me about that night. What happened? Why did you lie?”

Beneath my arm, I felt her body stiffen. Raising her head, she looked at me, her brown eyes wary. “How do you know about this, anyway? I’m not sure I should even be talking to you.”

I nodded at the light switch on the wall. “You told Detective Grant that you went down to talk to Avery but changed your mind because you saw that he was sleeping. As none of the wall switches are working, you couldn’t have seen anything by just opening the door. You would have had to go into his room and turn on a lamp. But you said you just stuck your head in, saw he was sleeping, and left.”

Claire’s face paled. “Oh, God. How stupid of me.”

Through the door, I thought I heard the sound of a creaking floorboard. Was someone in the hall listening? Had David returned? I eyed the door anxiously, wondering when he would come back. I wanted to find out why Claire lied, but I knew that once David reappeared, she’d clam up. “Claire, maybe we should go somewhere else,” I began.

She raised confused eyes to mine before my meaning sunk in. “Oh, don’t worry about David. He won’t be back. He’s downstairs drinking himself into a stupor. I usually have to go down in the morning before everyone else wakes up and drag him back to our room.”

“Oh,” I said, relaxing my grip on the hair dryer. “Maybe you should tell me about that night.”

Claire said nothing for a long moment. “I guess you’re right,” she finally said. Taking a deep breath, she looked at me, the
beginnings of a steely resolve flickering in her eyes. “I suppose I should start with the fact that Roni was screwing my husband.”

I tried to react with genuine surprise at this, but Claire saw through me. “Christ. Are you kidding me? You knew? Does everyone know?”

“No,” I said hurriedly. “I happened to overhear something between them and, well, wondered. That’s all.” I couldn’t tell her that it had actually been Bridget’s deduction that David and Roni were having an affair. To do so would only add salt to the wound.

Claire eyed me skeptically but continued. “I figured it out about a month ago. David came home late one night, drunk as a lord and reeking of that god-awful perfume of hers. He claimed he was at a client dinner. Obviously, I didn’t believe him, so I checked his secretary’s appointment book. There was no mention of it, and she writes down
everything
. Well, that was the proverbial straw for me. It made me sick. For the love of God, she’s his sister-in-law! It’s practically incest! I mean, I knew that David had . . . well,” she broke off, embarrassed.

“Did Avery know?” I asked, hoping to save her from another embarrassing confession about her marriage.

“I don’t think so. But seeing the way Roni went after Harry—hearing her threaten him—I couldn’t take it anymore. I wasn’t going to sit idly by while she destroyed another person in this family. After I brought David upstairs that night, I went back down to tell Avery everything. But . . . but when I got to his room, he wasn’t there. His light was on, but the room was empty. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but later, after we found out that Roni had been killed, Avery told that detective
that he’d been in his room all night. I didn’t know what to do!” She grabbed my hand hard and looked at me, her eyes beseeching. “I didn’t want to tell the police the real reason I went to talk to Avery—it would give Avery a motive for her murder! And on top of that, he’d lied about being in his room!” She dropped my hand and looked away. “Besides, if he did kill Roni, well, who am I to blame him? There were times when I could have cheerfully murdered her myself. That’s when I decided that I would back up Avery’s lie. I would protect him.”

“How did David find out?” I asked.

“He was awake when I came back up. I was still angry and I stupidly told him that I’d gone to tell Avery but he wasn’t in his room. I told David that I still planned on telling Avery. I’d had it. But then later, David realized that Avery had lied about being in his room all night and what that meant. David is many things, but he’s first and foremost an opportunist. He threatened that if I told anyone about the affair, he’d tell the police about Avery’s lie.”

In my mind’s eye, I saw David lean in toward Claire during Detective Grant’s questioning of her. At the time I thought there was something menacing in the movement; it appeared I had been right.

“So once you saw that Avery’s room was empty, what did you do?”

“That’s when I heard the thump. It sounded like it came from upstairs. I thought that David had fallen. He’s done that before. He’s always too drunk to hurt himself, of course, but I didn’t want him waking everyone else.”

“So you ran back upstairs and then what?”

“And then nothing. David was in bed. If he had fallen, he’d already pulled himself back into bed. Anyway, I decided to wait until morning to talk to Avery. I went to sleep soon after.”

I sat quietly, thinking about what she had said. “Did you see anything or anyone when you were downstairs?” I asked.

“No. Well, other than seeing Chloe in the kitchen when I went downstairs. But she wasn’t in the kitchen when I came back up.”

I stared at the floor trying to puzzle out what all this meant. Could Avery have found out about Roni and David and snapped? And if he had, was it physically possible for him to stab her in the chest while sitting in his wheelchair? I rubbed my hand across my face, suddenly very tired and very confused.

“None of this makes sense,” I said. “Especially when you add the fact that Roni’s necklace ended up in my bureau.”

“I don’t know how that happened. I swear.”

“That makes two of us,” I said with a sigh. “But Detective Grant sure as hell thinks I do.”

Claire suddenly stood up. Clutching the edges of her green terry cloth bathrobe tightly together at the neck, she looked down at me, her expression inscrutable. “I wish I could help you, Elizabeth, I really do,” she said. “But I don’t see how telling Detective Grant that Avery wasn’t in his room will do you any good. It’s not as if Avery could manage the stairs, anyway.”

The memory of Avery struggling to push himself out of the chair to face David’s and Millie’s horrified reactions floated before me. Was Claire’s assertion true? Was Avery really bound to the chair? Caught up in that memory, I did not immediately respond.

She continued, a note of urgency in her voice. “I appreciate your concern, Elizabeth, I do. But I’m okay now.” Giving me a rueful smile, she added, “Unfortunately, I’ve been through this before. The drama is over for the night.”

Pushing aside the possibility that Avery might actually be able to walk, I focused on the more important matter of Claire’s safety. “Are you sure you don’t want to sleep in my room tonight? Claire, I don’t like leaving you like this.”

“I’ll be fine, Elizabeth. Really. If anything, it’ll be worse if he comes back and finds you here.” She opened the door. There was nothing left to say. Reluctantly, I pulled myself to my feet. “Well, if you’re sure,” I said.

“I’m sure.”

I cautiously peeked out into the dark hallway. I paused in the doorway and turned around to say good night. Claire looked at me, a defiant tilt to her chin. “Elizabeth?” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Yes?” My voice dropped to match hers.

Claire paused. “I think you should know that if you tell anyone about what happened tonight, I’ll deny it.”

“Claire, you can’t pretend that David isn’t abusive!”

“I’m not talking about David,” she said. “I’m talking about Avery. I’ll modify my story about the lights if I have to. But if Avery did have something to do with Roni’s death, I will do whatever it takes to protect him. He’s my brother,” she said simply.

“Claire . . .”

“No, Elizabeth. Roni was a terrible person. She hurt everyone in this family. Avery is a good man. I’m sure he had his
reasons for . . . well, for telling the police that he was in his room all night. He’s been through enough. I will not add to his misery by contradicting what he said.”

Looking at her now, I realized that Claire had inherited some of her mother’s toughness after all. Her eyes held that same steely firmness that I’d seen displayed in Elsie’s hundreds of times. “I wish I could help you,” she continued, “but I just can’t.” She abruptly stepped toward me. Instinctively, I stepped back, out into the hallway. With a decisive movement, she shut the door in my face. Standing in the empty hallway, still clutching my hair dryer, I heard the soft click as she turned the lock.

I was halfway back to my room when something Claire said hit me. She had said that she usually got up early and went downstairs to drag David back to their room.

Had she done that the morning after the wedding?

Getting out of bed in the morning is an act of false confidence.

—
JULES FEIFFER

I slept late the next morning. Megan was already gone. I was glad to not have to talk to her right then, and I couldn’t help wondering if her absence had something to do with the discovery of Roni’s necklace. Whether that “something” was a suspicion I had actually taken it or personal knowledge that I hadn’t wasn’t a detail I felt up to dwelling on at the moment.

I glanced out the window over my bed; the weather matched my mood. Rain spit at the glass, and the sky was an endless blanket of gray. I couldn’t blame the weather for my bad temper, though. Who needed a mass of storm clouds to make you feel lousy when you had murder, betrayal, spousal abuse, and lies to do it for you? Pulling myself into a sitting position, I rested my head against the bed’s wooden headboard and tried to mentally organize questions I had about the night of the murder.