The Goodbye Body (23 page)

I realized that I could not fall asleep until I shook off my macabre thoughts. My best hope might lie in a drop of brandy and one of Dolly’s travel books from the bookcase in the living room. Surely looking at photographs of Amazon wildlife would distract me. I might find recipes for piranha potpies and deep-fried tapir tails. Rather than lie awake all night wondering if I’d incurred the wrath of notorious New York mobsters, I could worry about where to find the necessary ingredients. I’d never noticed packages of fresh piranha at my grocery store, but I’d never really looked. I could change my name, move to California, and open a restaurant. Caron and Inez would be my dancing waitresses. We would all wear brightly colored skirts made of handwoven cotton and pretend to speak Portuguese.

I went downstairs and into the living room, where I found a book I’d sold Dolly a few weeks earlier. Caron and Inez had found more tango music and were squawking at each other about who’d stepped on whose toes first. I went to the kitchen for brandy, and was on my way upstairs to mentally decorate my cafe with wood carvings and other native paraphernalia when the doorbell rang.

The brandy glass slipped out of my hand, rolled down the carpet steps, and shattered on the tile floor of the hall. The tango music stopped.

“Who is it?” called Caron.

“Don’t answer it,” added Inez.Déjà vu all over again, or for those slightly more fluent in French than Portuguese, déjà vieux.

“It’s probably Peter,” I called back, frowning at the shards of glass that glinted like piscine teeth. I hadn’t bothered to put on bedroom slippers. Even if I were inclined to answer the door, I had a bit of a predicament.

Caron came out of the den. “What if it’s not Peter?”

“Yeah,” said Inez, hovering behind Caron. “What if it’s somebody else?”

The doorbell rang again.

Just a minute!” I shouted in the direction of the front door, then told Caron and Inez to find a broom and a dustpan in the pantry. Neither of them looked enthusiastic, but they did as told and cleared a path for me to come downstairs. One stood behind me with the broom raised, the other with the dustpan, as I opened the door a scant inch.

“Oh, Claire!” said Lucy Hood. “Thank goodness you’re okay! Daniel and I have been so worried about you. I don’t want to tell you what went through my mind while we waited out here. Daniel thought he should call 911.”

“She thought I should, anyway,” said Daniel. “I said you were likely to be in the bathroom. Do you mind if we come inside?”

I gestured to my bodyguards to back off, then opened the door. “Why have you been so worried about me? I’ve been right here all evening.”

Lucy glanced at Caron and Inez. “Then you don’t know what happened? Is there somewhere we can talk privately?”

“Let’s go in the living room.” I knew perfectly well that the girls would be able to hear everything from the den, saving me the bother of having to repeat it. “May I offer you something?”

Daniel held Lucy’s arm as he steered her toward the living room. “Would you mind if we had some brandy? Lucy’s so shaky that I was afraid she was going to pass out on me while we were waiting outside. She’s always been emotional.”

She shot him an annoyed look, then laughed and said, “Daniel’s always been one to exaggerate. When he had a minor sinus infection last year, he insisted that I take him to Walter Reed so they could rule out a brain tumor. To this day, he still believes it was encephalitis.”

“Do allow me to fetch the brandy, Mother,” said Caron, stopping short of a curtsy. “Inez, will you be so kind as to assist me in the kitchen?”

Lucy studied them as they left the room. “What nicely behaved girls. Most of the teenagers these days are incredibly boorish. I simply cannot shop at any of the malls anymore.”

I waited until they settled on the sofa, then said, “So why were you so worried? As I said, I’ve been here all evening.”

“Because of the body, of course,” she said.

“The body?” I echoed.

“Up at the country club,” said Daniel. “Don’t you know about it?”

“I know that a body was found there earlier, but that’s all I know.” An unappealing image of Petti lying spread-eagled on the eighteenth green, his spectacles glinting in the moonlight, flashed through my mind.

Lucy poked Daniel. “See? I told you we needed to come over here.” She gave me a solicitous look. “I’m appalled that the police haven’t seen fit to inform you, considering your involvement. There should be a patrol car parked outside. Daniel, we really must complain to the police commissioner about this.”

Caron appeared with a tray holding a decanter and three snifters. Inez carried a plate with an artistic splay of wafers. Silently, they placed their offerings on the coffee table in front of the sofa, gave us a little wave, and vanished into the den. It was an interesting presentation of indecipherable motivation, I concluded as Daniel splashed brandy into the snifters and distributed them.

“You haven’t really explained anything,” I pointed out.

“I suppose we haven’t,” said Lucy as she fortified herself with a sip. “I need to start at the beginning. We had a barbecue this evening, as you know. Very informal, just a dozen or so of the people in the nearby condos. After they left, Daniel and I decided to take a stroll. We were in the vicinity of the clubhouse when we saw blue lights of several police vehicles and an ambulance.”

“On the service road behind the building where they keep the golf carts,” added Daniel. “We wandered over to get a better look. There were police officers with flashlights crawling all over the area, looking for evidence. When we got closer, we saw a body being removed from a red Mercedes.”

Lucy smiled. “Your lieutenant was there, giving orders. He’s quite handsome, isn’t he? That photograph in the newspaper did him an injustice.”

“Whose body?” I asked, refusing to be distracted.

“The girl with the long dark hair,” said Daniel. “We didn’t dare get too close, but from what was being said, it sounded as though she’d been shot in the head. Instead of putting her on a gurney and rushing her away in the ambulance, they zipped her up in a body bag. Guess that says it all.”

I put down the snifter. “Could it have been suicide?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, but I had the impression the officers were looking for the weapon.”

“And the car key, I heard one of them say,” said Lucy. “Why would she park on the service road, throw away the key, and then shoot herself? How far could she throw the gun after she’d shot herself in the head? I think it’s obvious someone killed her.”

I was too stunned to debate postmortem possibilities. Sara Louise Santini claimed to have come to Farberville on a lark, but it hadn’t been much fun. She’d been assaulted, then murdered. Petti Mordella had not fared well, either. It seems probable that Madison Hayes might meet the same fate, if she hadn’t already. Dolly had been wise to leave town. I wondered if Caron, Inez, and I should do the same, if only up the road a few miles to Waverly, where we could stay in a cheap motel and watch Silkie simper on the local news.

“Let me get you some more brandy,” said Daniel, rising.

“No, I’m fine,” I said, although I wasn’t. I’d spoken to her father only a few hours earlier and casually implied she’d wandered off on an errand. He, and presumably her mother, were expecting her to call. I’d left the same message for Caron at Inez’s house too many times to count. Caron hadn’t always called back, but Sara Louise never would. I went over and stared blindly at the neat rows of books on a shelf by the doorway. Without turning around, I said, “Sara Louise was young and terribly arrogant, but she was brought up with too much money. She had prestigious degrees and was ready to take on the financial world from her corner office in her father’s company. Her newly decorated corner office, that is. Still, there might have been a twinge of humanity under her designer clothes or in the glove compartment of her Maserati. Someday she might have used some of her wealth to build a hospital in a Third World country.”

Lucy’s eyes welled with tears. “I know this is a terrible shock for you, Claire, but you have a responsibility to take care of yourself and your girls. You should demand twenty-four-hour protection by the police.”

“And that’s a damn shame,” said Daniel. “All you did was volunteer to house-sit. Dolly Goforth needs to come forward and explain all this before someone else gets killed. As far as I’m concerned, she’s just as culpable for these murders as the person who pulled the trigger—or more so. She must have had some idea of what was going to happen, or she wouldn’t have taken off like she did. Does Lieutenant Rosen have any clue where she’s hiding?”

“Miami, as of this afternoon,” I said.

Lucy came over to clutch my hand. “Miami? Didn’t you say she was in Dallas?” She squeezed my hand more tightly. “You have to think, Claire. You’ve known her for six months. Did she ever mention anyone in Miami, like an acquaintance or a relative in a retirement community? If you can come up with a name, I’ll call Information and try to get a telephone number for you. Daniel and I have some friends who moved there several years ago. They might be able to help.”

My fingers were throbbing. Before they could split like hot dogs in boiling water, I removed her hand and stood up. “She never mentioned anything about Miami. I’m sure Lieutenant Rosen is using all of his resources to find her, and eventually he will.”

Daniel pulled Lucy to her feet. “Come along, dear. There’s nothing more we can do.”

“But I’m still worried about you,” Lucy said to me, looking as if she might fling her body over mine to save me from shrapnel, should a hand grenade be lobbed through a window. “There could be somebody hiding in the backyard and watching everything that goes on inside. Would you like Daniel and me to stay here with you? We wouldn’t be much use if someone attempted to break into the house, but at least it would make it seem like there are a lot of people here. The presence of a male always helps, too. That’s not to say Daniel could go one-on-one with an assailant, but someone might think twice before charging inside.”

I shook my head resolutely. “It’s kind of you to offer, but I have no reason to think anyone will bother us. The gate is padlocked and there are patrol cars in the area. Now that Lieutenant Rosen has identified the victim, it’s likely he will assign a couple of officers to watch the house.” 1 moved toward the door, hoping they’d take the unsubtle hint. “I can assure you that the girls and I are perfectly safe. Thank you for coming by.”

“I just don’t like it,” said Lucy, doing her best to dig her heels in the Oriental rug. “I could have Gary come over and stay with you. I’m sure he won’t mind sleeping on a lounge chair on the patio.”

“We’ll be fine.” I opened the door and waited until Daniel had propelled her to the hall. My hand twitched, but I restrained myself from applying it forcefully to her back. “Thank you for coming by,” I repeated, although less cordially.

“Come on,” Daniel said, holding Lucy’s elbow. “When we get back to the condo, you can bake more brownies.”

She made a grab for my hand, but I put it behind my back. “Well, I suppose so, but I feel uncomfortable about leaving you and the girls by yourself. Will you promise to call us if you hear anything suspicious? We can be here in fifteen minutes. Let me find something to write the number on. Daniel, do you have a pen?”

Daniel pulled her out to the porch. “Goodnight, Claire.”

“Goodnight,” I said, then closed the door and locked it. I switched the alarm back on, then went into the living room to peek out a window until they left. If Lucy had her way, it was possible I might discover her, Daniel, and Gary camped out on the patio the following morning, along with a small detachment of retirees armed with golf clubs and fondue forks.

“What a pair of loons,” Caron said as she and Inez came into the room. “When did they appoint themselves your guardian angels?”

I sighed. “Yesterday morning. They’re only trying to be helpful. Did you hear what they said about Sara Louise being found in the Mercedes?”

Caron’s face began to crumple. “This is scary, Mother. First that man—Petti whatever—and now her. She was pretty nasty, but still …”

“What does it mean, Ms. Malloy?” asked Inez, her glasses so fogged up that her eyes were indistinct. “Are you sure no one is going to break into the house? Maybe we should go to a motel, after all.” She looked over her shoulder at the den. “There are so many windows here. Somebody could be watching us right now.”

“I understand how you feel,” I said. “Do both of you want to go somewhere else?”

Caron wrapped her arms around her shoulders. “I don’t know. I mean, we could get shot while going to the car—or we could be followed. Then we’d be in a crummy motel with a cheap lock on the door, and in even more danger.”

“I don’t know, either,” I admitted. I wasn’t nearly as confident as I had sounded when I’d assured Lucy that we were safe. However, there’d been no indication that anyone had illicit access to the house. Petti’s appearances had been limited to the backyard and the garage. Sara Louise and Madison had been attacked in the front yard. The alarm system appeared to be functioning. I had a feeling that a 911 call from me would provoke a swift response. I realized Caron and Inez were waiting, and said, “All right, how about this? We leave on all the lights down here, and go upstairs to your room to watch TV. I expect Peter to call fairly soon. If he says we ought to leave, then he can send a patrol car to escort us. Otherwise, we’ll stay here but with officers outside the house the rest of the night.”

Caron and Inez conferred in low voices. Finally, Caron said, ‘That’s okay with us. If we move to a motel, we can’t work on our talent show act, which means Rhonda Maguire will have a lock on the spring election.”

“Then let’s go upstairs,” I said before she lapsed into the litany. “Shall we take some ice cream with us?”

“By all means,” Caron said, resigning herself to a fate only marginally less ghastly than being seen with me at the mall. “We’ll put on our jammies, paint our toenails silver, and watch Nickelodeon. Maybe we’ll get lucky and there’ll be a
Gilligan’s Island
retrospective. Ooh, and we can make prank calls to Rhonda Maguire.”

“Or 911,” suggested Inez, smiling just a bit. “We can get a stopwatch and bet on how long it takes them to show up this time.”

I told myself that I could handle this response more easily than I could tears and terror. I sent them ahead of me, then loaded a tray with pints of ice cream, spoons, a package of cookies, sodas, and the brandy I’d ignored when the Hoods had invaded.

Peter called an hour later. He was not amused that I already knew the identity of the victim, the location, and the probable cause of death, and even less amused when I told him why. He’s never been fond of tourists at crime scenes. Once he quit mumbling, he agreed to send two officers to remain on the property until daylight. Due to teenaged ears straining to hear every last syllable, I politely thanked him for calling, hung up, and asked the girls to lead me into the murky depths of MTV. It proved to be an error.