Triple Shot (22 page)

‘You know it’s possible that . . . I’m not saying your symptoms are psychosomatic, but I was quite depressed after my divorce.’

‘Really, Maggy?’ Riordan studied my face. ‘I had no idea.’

‘Hey, Elaine, we’re women. We’ve learned how to be good at hiding things and just soldiering on.’

She was nodding. ‘You’re so right. And . . . well, I honestly hadn’t considered the possibility that depression might be the reason I was feeling so awful physically.’

‘But you just told me you’re better now?’

‘So much better,’ Riordan said, holding her hands palm-up. ‘It’s like a great weight has been lifted from these shoulders.’

‘Being active makes a huge difference,’ I agreed. ‘Throwing yourself into new projects. I mean, so long as you don’t do something stupid.’

Like quitting your corporate PR job and opening a coffeehouse.

‘That’s exactly it, Maggy. These past couple of weeks, I have taken control of my life again. It’s made all the difference in the world.’

'In the game,' as MaryAnne had put it.

I patted Elaine on one now-lighter shoulder. ‘Being part of something unusual like this –’ I pointed to the knot of reporters gathered around Ward Chitown, now holding court just outside the board room – ‘has to be a real upper.’

Hell, even I was stoked, despite having my red dress in the car but no Pavlik to see it.

‘Holding one’s head high and looking forward instead of backwards.’ Riordan rose. ‘I feel empowered, even reborn.’

I laughed and stood, too. ‘We’d better stop there or we’ll break into a chorus of “I Am Woman”.’

Riordan laughed as well, then retrieved her handbag. ‘God bless that Helen Reddy? She gave us an anthem for the ages.’

‘For
all
our ages. Can I at least give you a hand with that?’

Riordan had the strap of her big purse resting in the saddle of her left shoulder, but each time she leaned down to pick up the typewriter, her bag slipped down as well, landing with an audible ‘clunk’ on top of the ancient Underwood. ‘I . . . just can’t seem . . .’

I gently nudged Riordan aside and scooped up the typewriter. No mean feat, either. The thing had to weigh nearly fifty pounds. ‘Where to, Elaine?’ I asked, trying not to gasp or whimper.

‘To my car, if that’s not too far?’

‘Of course not,’ I lied.

Riordan led our way out the front door of the restaurant. Street parking had been prohibited for the night – unless, of course, you were a broadcast media company with enough bucks to keep a driver behind the steering wheel so a given vehicle was never really ‘parked’.

I followed her across Junction Road to a public lot used during the day by Kate McNamara’s newspaper,
The Observer
. Riordan’s little beige car was parked just an aisle away from my Escape. I’d drop off the typewriter, grab the bag with my dress and change in the restroom.

Assuming I even made it to her car. Damn, but the Underwood was heavy. And awkward to carry. I shifted the thing, letting the bottom bite into other sections of my palms.
So
much better. And the temporary pain even made the persistent itching of my rash-covered hand recede from conscious sensation.

Chitown should be the one with the itchy palm. He’d found the long-lost money, though the pursuit of that particular rainbow – leading to a resurrected television career – might prove more lucrative than the proverbial pot of gold itself. Good thing, because given the back taxes owed on the slaughterhouse, I wasn't sure Chitown would see a cent of the 'treasure' anyway.

‘Oh, Maggy. Thank you so much.’ Elaine was sniffling as she unlocked the trunk of her little car.

‘Happy to help. Are you sure you don’t have allergies?’ I asked, as I hefted the typewriter up and over the lip of her trunk. ‘They can cause headaches, you know.’

Riordan’s signature afghan was folded neatly in one corner of the trunk and as I settled the Underwood in, the luggage compartment was nearly full. Her big handbag – Kleenex box and all – would have to go into the cabin of the car itself. And, given the presumed weight of the leather tote, it probably should have an airbag of its own.

‘You’re a really good person, Maggy, and I’m not talking about just carrying the typewriter. I enjoyed our talk.’ She slung her handbag onto her left shoulder and hugged me in an awkward way, like she didn’t engage in the gesture very often.

Holy shit, I thought. Maybe MaryAnne was right. I
am
a mensch.

Nah.

‘You might want to put something around the typewriter to protect it,’ I said. ‘If an antique Underwood really is worth something, you wouldn’t want it getting bounced around.’

I picked up the only other thing in her trunk – the afghan – and shook it out of the plastic bag it had been stowed in to check for ‘padding’ capacity. Happily, no ball of yarn fell out.

‘Oh, I’m sure it’ll fine as is,’ Riordan said, reaching for her handiwork.

She grabbed one edge and the thing stretched to its full length, displaying a roughly circular hole larger than I thought the loose crochet could account for.

‘Uh-oh,’ I said, fingering it delicately. ‘You have a tear here or maybe you just missed a stitch.’ Or three, given the size of the hole.

I rubbed my thumb and forefinger together. In the illumination of the overhead street lights, I could see a trace of black and the acrylic yarn felt melted and crusted around the edges of the circle, like someone held a cigarette to it.

‘Maggy, thanks ever so much for your concern, but it’s truly nothing,’ Riordan said. ‘Just a burn. Once I wash the afghan and mend it you’ll barely notice.’

I had my doubts, but that
was
the nice thing about synthetics. They do launder well. I let my end of her afghan go.

Only my fingers came away . . . sticky?

Chapter Nineteen

Astonishing how many things can flash through your mind in no more than an instant.

For example, the zigzag pattern of the crocheted afghan and the irregular pattern of stippling on the side of Gabriella Atherton’s face.

The easy-care fabric that, given Elaine Riordan’s all-consuming responsibilities since yesterday, hadn’t been washed and therefore had to be stashed in the trunk of her car.

And then there was Gabriella Atherton, herself, the woman Riordan had caught in her own marital bed with her then-husband, Robert.

The woman who was about to marry that now ex-husband, leaving Riordan with almost nothing, not even health insurance.

And the other women? They were the trees that hid the forest. Or vice versa. Either way, ‘Gabriella was the real victim.’

Riordan had turned away to bundle the afghan into her trunk and it was only when she pivoted back that I realized I’d said the last aloud.

‘Gabriella, a victim? It's women like you and me who are the "real victims" of the Gabriellas of this world, Maggy. And I was damned if I was going to let her marry my Robert.’ Riordan clutched her handbag like it was the man she couldn’t let go.

‘But what difference would it make whether they married or not? The damage has been done. You and Robert are divorced.’

‘Only because of her,’ Riordan said. ‘You see, with Gabriella out of the way, Robert will come back to me. He and I will have a second wedding. And honeymoon.’ A weird smile creased her mouth. ‘Especially when I tell him I’m sick, as anyone can plainly see.’

Depended on what you meant by ‘sick’. I shrugged. ‘And are you?’

‘Sick? I told you.’ Riordan slammed down her trunk lid, but it bounced right back up. ‘I lost weight. My hair even started to fall out and I was getting headaches. I knew I had cancer and I was going to die. I had no insurance.’

I remembered that Robert had said his ex texted him, asking about COBRA coverage from his employer. Which she’d let lapse, given the crushing expense of each premium. ‘Did you go to a doctor?’

‘No.’ Riordan was shouting now. ‘I
told
you: I don’t have insurance. If I’d been diagnosed, even Robert’s company insurance policy might not have taken me back.’

Pre-existing condition. God help her – and us – she was probably right on that point. ‘Please don't tell me you took four innocent lives just to get
insurance
again?’

‘Four . . . ?’ Elaine shook her head, violently. ‘I killed one guilty home-breaker to get my
life
back again.’

Gabriella, I could see. Elaine Riordan had a vendetta against her.

Brigid, who knew? The woman reportedly came on to anybody with money and a pulse. Maybe that included Robert Riordan.

But . . . ‘Elaine, did you even know the first two women?’

‘Of course. They were horrible to me. Ridiculed me, laughed at me not just behind my back, but to my face. You can ask anyone.’

Like Sarah, who had said Riordan was an embarrassment even to the Broker Barbies. But that didn’t mean they should be shot, execution-style, like a professional killer would the objects of his or her contracts.

I said, ‘So they had to die, too?’

A look I’d never seen before crossed Elaine’s face. I couldn’t even call it an expression, because it ‘expressed’ nothing. Even her eyes showed no emotion, just two glazed buttons, displaying depth but not emotion. ‘Better them than me, Maggy.’

A shiver rippled up my spine. ‘How did you get Gabriella to MaryAnne’s?’

‘“Where are you, honey?”’ Riordan’s voice was suddenly stronger, the Southern lilt more pronounced. A perfect mimic of MaryAnne. ‘“I’ve changed my mind on listing the house. Honey, can you come right on over?”’

The cellphone call Atherton had received in Uncommon Grounds, the one with the ‘poor connection’. That explained why Gabriella told Jane Smith her new client was MaryAnne. Atherton genuinely believed that’s who she was going to meet.

‘MaryAnne told me you stayed with her for a while after your divorce. You would have had a key to MaryAnne’s house.’

A cackling laugh. ‘I even tried to give it back, but she is just such a generous person? She insisted I keep it, just in case.’

‘And you repaid her kindness by killing a person in her swimming pool and leaving the gate open to hide the fact the killer had a key?’

‘No, Maggy. Not a “person”. Gabriella Atherton. Home-breaker . . . slut!’

The red ‘slut’ dress in my own car flashed through my brain.

‘Besides –’ Riordan shrugging now – ‘MaryAnne didn’t have to actually
deal
with the mess. I mean, she
does
have a pool boy.’

A glimpse of the pre-divorce Elaine Riordan. When she had her pride and enough money to indulge it.

Riordan used the pause after ‘pool boy’ to dip into her massive purse.

I, on the other hand, took advantage of the brief pause to turn away.

And run. I’d make it an all-out, fist-pumping . . .

But I stumbled right out of the box, toe catching heel, putting me down in a heap on the parking lot’s gravel.

I swiveled my head. In her right hand, Riordan held a little gun, its barrel not more than a couple of inches long.

‘Let me . . .’ My voice quavered. ‘Let me guess, Elaine. A twenty-two caliber?’

She nodded. ‘Manufacturer, Beretta. Model, Bobcat. The perfect self-defense weapon? Which, of course, is what I was doing.’

The woman was a sociopath. Nothing mattered but her goal, obstacles in the way toward it be damned.

God knows I could identify with that, but . . . I had people whose well-being I put before mine. Most important of all, my son Eric.

Riordan waggled her gun. ‘Now get to your feet. Slowly.’

I complied, less than three feet separating us. Riordan put her free left hand on the still-raised trunk lid. ‘Now get into the car. We’re going for a ride.’

There was no way I was going anywhere with this woman. ‘Don’t you want to take the afghan out before you close the trunk? That way you can throw it over my head before you shoot me through the temple, like you must have done with the others.’

Riordan cocked her head to the side. ‘Why, Maggy. That is such a
fine
idea. I admit it does help a little lady like me to get the drop on someone. That, and I'm afraid I'm such an embarrassment when I go to digging though my voluminous bag, it's not unusual for people to turn away.’

Like Sarah had, when Riordan's yarn made a run for it just before we discovered Brigid Ferndale's body.

In contrast, Elaine managed to keep her eye on me just fine as she reached for the afghan with her left hand. The 'voluminous bag,' though, slipped off her shoulder just as it had earlier that night and, weight thrown forward, she instinctively put her gun hand out to steady herself on the typewriter.

That’s when I jumped as high as I could, spread my hands, and devoted every ounce of me to slamming the trunk lid closed.

Chapter Twenty

The damn thing came right back up again, but this time because it had bounced off Elaine Riordan’s right forearm.

So I slammed the lid down thrice more, my lungs screaming bloody murder the whole time.

I still don’t remember whether Riordan did the same.

Ironically, it was Kate McNamara and her media brethren who first came to my aid.

Not to restrain Riordan, mind you, but rather to photograph every angle of my wrestling the lightweight, bone-fractured Barbie to the ground and then sitting on her – literally – until real help arrived in the form of the two sheriff’s deputies, Pavlik’s representatives, who had still been inside the slaughterhouse.

They took one look at me, and the older brought out a cellphone. He, like me, had Pavlik on speed-dial.

‘Good job,’ said the sheriff an hour later as we sat side-by-side on the rear hatch of my open Escape, a safe distance away from the insatiable hordes of media – both print
and
broadcast now – who had descended on the area.

Or who, like Kate, thanks to her undeserved great Luck of the Irish, was already there.

‘Good job? ’ I repeated. ‘Please Pavlik, know this is
one
fight I did not go looking for.’

He reached up and pushed an errant lock of hair behind my ear. ‘Since you’re all right, I’ll admit that in this case I’m glad you were involved. Elaine Riordan was not on our radar screen and she should have been.’