Puppet (19 page)

“He took the kids out of school?”

Hayley shakes her head. “The kids are home-schooled.”

“That isn’t a lot of work for you?”

“No. I enjoy it.”

Amanda nods understanding, although she has no understanding whatsoever of mothers who enjoy their children. “So, okay,” she says, trying to piece together what few facts she has. “You and your children accompanied your husband to Toronto so that you could have a little holiday while he settled his mother’s estate.”

“That’s right.”

“Who was his contact?”

“His contact?”

“Do you know the name of the lawyer he was dealing with?”

“No.”

“No one’s been in touch with you since the shooting?”

Hayley shakes her head. A strand of silky black hair catches on the side of her prominent bottom lip and stays there. She makes no move to wipe it away.

“How long were you in the city before your husband was shot?”

“Just a few days.”

“Did your husband have any visitors during that time?”

“No.”

“Did he make any phone calls?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Did he ever mention a woman by the name of Gwen Price?”

The little color that had returned to Hayley’s face immediately disappears. “No.”

“He never mentioned her back in England?” “No. Never.”

“She wasn’t someone from his past?”

“My husband had no past to speak of,” Hayley insists, her voice more forceful than it’s been since she opened the door. “His parents divorced when he was very young, and he moved with his father to England when he was four years old.”

“He never came back to visit his mother?”

“No.”

Amanda nods. That a child has no wish to visit his mother is finally something she understands. “And you’re sure he never mentioned anyone by the name of Gwen Price?”

“Very sure.”

“And yet she shot him.”

“Yes.”

“Can you think of any reason why?”

Hayley shakes her head, dislodging the stray hair from the side of her mouth. “Well, she’s obviously crazy.”

“You think she’s delusional?”

“What other explanation is there? One doesn’t just go around shooting complete strangers.”

Exactly, Amanda thinks. “Where were you the day before your husband was killed, Mrs. Mallins?” she asks, suddenly switching gears.

“What?”

Amanda knows she’s heard the question, that her “What?” is simply a way of biding her time while she decides how to answer it. “I asked if you and your family went anywhere the day before your husband was shot.”

Hayley’s eyes reflect her concentration. “We went to the CN Tower, and then to the museum. Spenser wanted to see the dinosaurs.”

“And then you came back to the hotel?”

“Yes.”

“Have the police told you that my … that Gwen Price was having tea in the lobby at the time of your return?”

“No. How do you know that? Is that what she told you?”

“No. Unfortunately my client is too upset to tell us much of anything.”

Hayley Mallins shudders, her breath escaping her lungs in a series of jagged gasps.

Amanda wonders if she’s about to have some sort of attack. “Are you all right, Mrs. Mallins? Would you like some water?”

“I’m fine,” Hayley says, although clearly she is not. “So, what exactly is it you’re getting at?”

Amanda takes several seconds to formulate a response. “According to an eyewitness who’s just come forward, Gwen Price was having tea in the lobby bar
when she saw you and your family enter the hotel. She became very agitated. The next morning she returned and waited in the lobby all day until she saw your husband. Then she pulled a gun from her purse, walked over, and shot him.”

“Well, there’s your answer,” Hayley states, rising to her feet and pacing between the chair and the door. “She must have mistaken him for someone else.”

Is it possible? Amanda wonders. Is it feasible her mother was confused, that she mistook John Mallins for another man? No, she decides, answering her own question. Her mother is many things, but confused definitely isn’t one of them.

“She hasn’t said anything to you?” Hayley asks. “About why she did it?”

“Nothing.”

Hayley shakes her head. “Is that all then? Because I really should get back to my children.” She glances at the closed bedroom door.

“How are they coping?” Amanda asks, stalling for time.

“They’re all right, I guess. Obviously we’re all in shock.”

“If there’s anything I can do …”

“If we could just go home …”

“It shouldn’t be much longer.”

“I don’t understand why they need an autopsy at all.” Hayley Mallins folds her arms across her chest, tucks her shaking hands inside her armpits, begins rocking back and forth on her heels. “It’s obvious how my husband died. What do they need with an autopsy?”

“I’m sure it’s just a matter of routine.”

“Well, I think it’s barbaric. Isn’t it enough that my husband was shot? Do they have to cut him all up as well?” A deep sob escapes her throat.

Amanda quickly rises to her feet, walks toward Hayley Mallins, folds the smaller woman in her arms. “I’m very sorry for your loss,” she says. You don’t know how sorry, she thinks.

Hayley rests for several seconds against Amanda’s shoulders, her plaintive cries disappearing into the black wool of Amanda’s coat. Amanda catches several stray sounds, but it isn’t until she’s left the room and is standing in front of the elevators that those sounds form words, and she understands their meaning: “Dear God, what will become of us now?”

A
MANDA’S
head is spinning and her stomach is rumbling as she opens the door to her hotel room and propels herself toward the desk, pulling off her coat and tossing it on the bed as she reaches for the phone. “I have got to get something to eat,” she announces to the empty room, dialing room service as she kicks off her boots and flips through the large leather-bound menu.

“Good evening, Ms. Travis,” the voice answers. “How can we help you tonight?”

“I’ll have the New York steak, medium rare, a baked potato with the works, and a Caesar salad. Extra dressing.”

“Anything to drink?”

What the hell. “A glass of red wine.”

“We’ll try to have that to you within thirty minutes.”

Amanda hangs up the phone and heads for the bathroom, begins running the hot water for a bath. She has half an hour. Just enough time for a good soak. She strips off her clothes, wondering whether she should call Ben and tell him what she’s done. “He’s not going to be happy,” she says to her reflection in the bathroom mirror. He’ll tell her she had no business going to see Hayley
Mallins without him. “Can’t help it,” she says defensively, feeling Ben’s presence in the swirl of steam rising from the tub. “I’ve gotten used to doing things without you.” Maybe if he hadn’t been in such a damn hurry to see Jennifer …

And what did you learn from this ill-advised visit? she hears him interrupt.

“Not much,” Amanda is forced to admit. She walks naked back into the main room, plops down on the edge of the bed, trying to gather her facts together to present them with the best possible spin. “I learned that poor Mrs. Mallins is as clueless as the rest of us. That she’s never even heard of anyone named Gwen Price and has absolutely no idea why she killed her husband. How am I doing so far?” She jumps to her feet, begins pacing between the bed and the desk, in much the same fashion as Hayley Mallins had earlier.

The woman has a nice face, Amanda is thinking. Under happier circumstances, and with a little bit of makeup, she might even be considered beautiful. No question her daughter will be a beauty. And the little boy, with those big, sad eyes. A future heartbreaker. Poor kids. Coming all the way from England, carefree tourists one day, grieving relatives the next. Some vacation.

Except they weren’t really here on vacation, were they? No. John Mallins was here to settle his mother’s estate.

Immediately Amanda is on her knees by the side of the bed, pulling the heavy Toronto phone book from the bottom drawer of the nightstand. Lowering her bare bottom to the plush carpet, she flips through the book’s pages until she finds
M
, her eyes flitting quickly across Malcolm, Malia, and Malik, then Mallin, Malling, and Mallinos. “Mallins! Yes!” she shouts, counting a total of six.

Great. Now what?

“Think.”

According to Hayley Mallins, other than his deceased mother, John Mallins had no family here. There was no reason to assume that any of the six Mallinses listed here were in any way related to the dead man.

Except that Mrs. Mallins had been somewhat less than forthcoming when it came to discussing why the family had chosen Toronto as a midwinter vacation spot, and it was only Amanda’s stubborn prodding that had revealed the underlying reason for the trip. So maybe there was more Hayley Mallins wasn’t telling.

Or more she didn’t know.

One thing Amanda knows for sure: her mother shot John Mallins for a reason.

One just doesn’t go around shooting complete strangers.

“There you have it,” Amanda repeats in Hayley’s elegant British tones. She stares at the list of names—Mallins, A.; Mallins, Harold; Mallins, L.… “Oh, my God, the bath!” A dense fog is already seeping into the hallway as Amanda slices her way through the steam to turn off the water that is cascading over the side of the tub. “No, don’t do this,” she implores, trying to soak up the water from the floor with all the towels at hand, seeing the clothes she discarded earlier serving as unwitting blotters. “Oh, great. This is just great.”

It takes ten minutes to clean up the mess and wring the water from her sweater and pants. Amanda hangs them over the shower bar to dry out, but she suspects they’re already ruined. Doesn’t she deliberately buy clothes that specify
Dry Clean Only?

She wraps herself in the white terry-cloth robe the
hotel graciously provides and returns to the bedroom. The phone book lies open on the floor. “I don’t have time for any fishing expeditions,” she tells it, flipping it closed. “I’m leaving tomorrow.” Or maybe Tuesday, she amends, inching the book back open, watching the pages fall one on top of the other, as columns of names blur into a shapeless, gray mass. Might as well stay until the mother of all mothers pleads guilty to murder and is locked away for the rest of her life.

C, H, L, M
 …

Malcolm, Malia, Mallinos …

One just doesn’t go around shooting complete strangers.

Mallins.

Who the hell is John Mallins?

The police might not need to know the answer, Amanda thinks, but she does.

Mallins, A.; Mallins, Harold; Mallins, L.…

She picks up the phone, punches in the first number, wondering what on earth she’s planning to say to Mallins, A.

“You have reached Alan and Marcy,” the recorded message begins. “We’re either working, walking the dog, or out eating.…”

Amanda hangs up the phone, calls the second number.

“You have reached the Mallins residence. We can’t take your call at the moment, but if you’d leave your name, number, and a detailed message after the tone, we’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”

“Just how much detail would you like?” Amanda asks as she hangs up the phone, pressing in the numbers for Mallins, L.

“Hello,” a voice answers on the third ring. The voice is young and male.

“Hello, my name is Amanda Travis, and I—”

“Hah, hah. Fooled you,” the voice interrupts. “I’m Lenny Mallins, and this is a recording. If you have nothing better to do, leave your name and number after the tone.”

Maybe there
is
something to be said for killing total strangers, Amanda decides, proceeding to the fourth name, listening to her fourth recorded message, this one coming at her first in English, then in fractured French. She wonders briefly where all the Mallinses are, if it’s possible they’re all together at some huge family gathering. Maybe at a wake for Mallins, John, she thinks, calling the fifth number on the list: Mallins, R.

“Hello,” the woman says, picking up immediately.

Amanda says nothing for several seconds, half-expecting another burst of rude laughter.
Hah, hah. Fooled you.

“Hello,” the woman says again. Then, “Oh, fuck you.”

The line goes dead in Amanda’s hand. Quickly, she calls the number again. Again it’s answered almost immediately.

“You got some sort of problem?” the woman says instead of hello.

“Mrs. Mallins?”

“Ms.,” the woman corrects.

“My name is Amanda Travis.”

“Yes?”

“I’m calling about John Mallins, the man who was—”

“Well, well, well.”

“Excuse me?”

“I was wondering when you bozos would get around to calling me.”

“You were?”

“It’s taken you long enough.”

“Yes, it has,” Amanda agrees, deciding this is probably the simplest, and best, course to take. “I was wondering if I could come over and talk to you.”

“Sure. But you’ll have to get here pretty quick. I’m leaving for the Bahamas tomorrow morning and I’ve got a lot of packing to do.”

“You’re leaving town?”

“Just for a week. Hey, I booked this holiday six months ago, and I’m not canceling just because you guys suddenly woke up. You want to talk to me, you be here in half an hour.” For the second time in as many minutes, the line goes dead in Amanda’s hand.

The cab drops Amanda off in front of a tall, brick building that is virtually indistinguishable from the other tall, brick buildings in the area. “Welcome to Yonge and Eglinton,” the cabdriver announces, as if he were auditioning for a job as a tour guide. “You know what they call this part of the city, don’t you? Young and eligible,” he answers with a chuckle when Amanda fails to respond.

Amanda pays the driver and gets out of the cab, checking her watch and noting that she has five minutes before her deadline is up. Pretty good, she thinks, pulling open the heavy glass door to the small front entrance, then scanning the long list of occupants’ names on the wall to her left, searching for Mallins, R.

It took her five minutes to get dressed, another five minutes to fix her hair and makeup, four minutes to stand in front of the phone debating whether to call Ben, one minute to dial his number—
This is Ben Myers. I’m not
home right now, but if you’ll leave your name and number after the beep
—another minute to let loose a string of expletives, most of them unflattering epithets involving anyone named Jennifer, and five minutes to wolf down the dinner that arrived just as she was about to leave.
(God, what happened in here? I’ll send someone from housekeeping up right away.)
Luckily, a lineup of cabs was waiting near the door to the hotel, and the driver assured her he could get her to her destination in no time flat.