Coming Unclued (14 page)

I walked over to the window and opened it. A gust of cold air blew back at me and for a moment I reconsidered my plan. Only for a moment though. I gave the screen a poke and it popped right out. Typical of Julie and Andrew. Anyone could break into this house. I tossed the backpack out the window along with the warm coat I’d borrowed from Andrew and eyed the opening. Was I going to be able to fit through it? Even thirty pounds down, my buttocks were still on the fleshy side. I pulled the night table over to the window and carefully climbed up on it so I was just the right height for squeezing out the window. The very small window that led to the very dark yard. I took a deep breath and stuck my head out. Jesus! It was freezing. I forced my right shoulder through the opening and then wiggled around so my left shoulder was released into the outdoors. Halfway done. My hands were already aching. I should have worn gloves. I wiggled along the ground until my body was halfway out. Damn! My ass was stuck. Really stuck, as in not moving an inch. I could hear a dog barking a few yards over. What was a dog doing outside this time of night? What if it got loose and came over and started gnawing on my face? I tried to pull my body forward but it was really stuck. Should I give up? Go back inside and wait until morning for the police to march up to the door and escort me down to the station? I pulled as hard as I could on my hind quarters and felt some movement and a good deal of pain as my lower back scraped against the outer window frame. One more good pull and I was lying on the frozen ground.

I was pretty sure I had removed a few layers of skin, but the adrenaline shooting through me helped to mask the pain. I sat up, grabbed the coat and put it on and bent down to shut the window behind me. And there it was. Sitting on the bed. My purse. My purse that contained my wallet that contained my cash and bank card. I wanted to cry. I think I did cry a little. My lower back was throbbing, my hands were numb and my goddamn wallet was inside on the bed.

What to do? How far could I go with no money? Not very. I limped around the side of the house and up the front steps. The cop across the street didn’t get out of the car. There was no indication that he even saw me. I rang Julie’s doorbell. Had to. My key was in my purse. I waited a few minutes and then rang the bell again. What was her problem? Andrew’s snoring was probably drowning me out. I was freezing. How could she be sleeping so soundly when her best friend was lying in the basement, her life on the line? After an interminable wait, I saw Julie’s face peer out of the curtain, and she quickly yanked open the door.

“What the hell are you doing out there?” she asked.

“I was escaping, disappearing into the night, but I forgot my wallet. Let me in. I’m so cold.”

Julie stepped aside. “What do you mean escaping? You were just going to flee — not even tell me?”

“I didn’t want to incriminate you.”

“Well that’s big of you. Is that Alice’s backpack?”

“I’ll take good care of it. Look, sorry I woke you up. I just have to run downstairs and get my wallet. Oh — and do you have any dental floss? I’m out. Oh, and maybe a roll of toilet paper. Just in case.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake,” snapped Julie. “I’ll put some tea on.”

A few minutes later I’d collected my wallet and we were settled in the living room having a cup of tea and delicious chocolate almond shortbread cookies. “Where, exactly, were you planning to go?” asked Julie.

“A hotel. A nice safe hotel with no police parked outside.”

“Safe until the police start checking credit card records. It would probably take them about ten minutes to find you.”

“It was a temporary plan. I only need the room until I find the real perpetrator.

“So — what — you figure that will take you a day or two? Anyway. You’re being ridiculous. You have the best lawyer in the city.”

“Hah! You think he is going to be looking for the real killer?” I took a contemplative bite of my cookie. “I am a desperate woman trying to make the best of things and I could use a little support.”

“I am supportive, but you are acting crazy. You can’t just run away.”

“Why not?”

Julie looked stymied for a moment. “Well it’s illegal for one thing.”

“I haven’t been officially charged yet. I just had kind of a gentleman’s agreement with the police to stick around, but this is no time for gentleman.” I looked Julie in the eye and put my hand on her arm. “You are my best friend and there is no one else I can depend on. I am not crazy. I’ve actually thought this through quite thoroughly.”

And this was no time for telling the truth.

“If you thought it through, why the hell did you crawl out the basement window when you could have just walked out the back door?”

The back door. I forgot about the door. “I was overcome by the moment. I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Well snap out of it. If you’re going to save yourself you need to stop being a bonehead. Your face is out there. You think you can just go check into the Holiday Inn? And how exactly are you going to find the true perpetrator? Do you have some hidden investigative skills?”

God she was insufferable. “As you have mentioned many times, I am often the first one to know who done it in a movie.”

Julie closed her eyes and gave a dramatic sigh. “I mention it because you always insist on spilling the beans and ruining the movie for me, but I’ll admit that you do have some talent for piecing a puzzle together. I’ll get some paper and we’ll formulate a game plan. Because you’re right, the police are not looking for the real killer and it doesn’t appear they have any intention to do so. We need to look at our options.” She began digging through a wicker basket by the fireplace and pulled out a black marker. “I know there’s some paper in here somewhere.” Julie sat back down on the couch with a piece of pink construction paper with a child’s drawing on it.

“Is that one of Alice’s pictures?”

Julie looked at it. “I’ve got to go through that basket. This thing must be fifteen years old. Remember she used to draw pigs all the time?” She looked at it for a moment with a smile on her face. “Cute. I miss her.” She then turned it over and looked at me with a business-like expression. “Let’s get to it. What’s first?”

“Find the real killer. Write that down.”

“I’m writing. I think we’ll need some sub-categories under that one.”

“Enemies. He had to have had enemies. I need to find out who. Write down enemies and then draw some arrows kind of shooting out from it and we’ll fill in the names. And I have to find out who saw me leave with him. Why the hell did I leave with him? Could someone please tell me why, why I would take Mr. Potter back to my condo? Where was Sophie? Why couldn’t she have come pick him up from the party?”

“Who’s Sophie? The wife?”

“The widow. What was she doing while I was heading home with her husband?” I gasped a little as I was struck by a revelation. “Do you think it was her? Maybe she’d wanted to kill him for years. Every time he leaned over to kiss her or she saw him naked she probably thought, “Some day I’m going to kill you.” Probably saw herself sitting at the funeral in her designer black suit, everyone commenting on what an attractive widow she was. Maybe she dropped by the restaurant to pick up her horrible, grouchy drunk husband, saw him leave with me and knew she had her opportunity. She kills him, I get the blame and she gets the money. It’s the perfect crime. Write her down on the enemy list.”

Julie chewed on the marker as she thought about it for a few seconds. “How did she get into your apartment? That’s a big one. Actually how did anyone get into your apartment? That’s a bit of a pickle.”

“We’ve discussed that. I was drunk! Maybe I let someone in and then went back to sleep. Plus we need to talk to that cab driver. That was an excellent idea Heather had, you’ve got to admit. Put Sophie down as suspect number one.”

Julie wrote down Sophie’s name in her British boarding school scrawl and then squinted at me. “Who else?”

All the adrenaline I’d felt earlier suddenly left me. I was exhausted and just wanted to curl up on the couch and go to sleep and be woken in the morning by Andrew bringing me a warm scone. “I’m fried.”

“Too bad. You’ll have plenty of time to sleep in jail. That’s what we’re trying to avoid.”

“This is so hard. I can’t think. How the hell do you begin to solve a mystery? I mean where exactly do you begin?” I picked up the TV remote from the coffee table and turned on the television.

“What are you doing?”

“There might be something on.
Murder She Wrote
or
CSI
or something. I’m so edgy I can’t think how to go about this. Maybe if I see what Angela Lansbury does I’ll get a revelation.”

Julie grabbed the remote from me and turned off the TV. “Here’s a revelation. You need to concentrate. I can’t believe I’m even encouraging you in this. Once the police know you’re on the run they’re going to go nuts. It could be dangerous for you.”

“Dangerous how? Do you think they’d shoot me? What if they taser me?” I was horrified. I’d never contemplated that possibility.

“Well there’s a reason criminals always show up at their lawyer’s office and arrange for the lawyer to bring them in to the station. What if some cop gets trigger happy when he gets a glimpse of the St. Nick Knifer?”

“Would you stop calling me that? Just shut up. Let me think.” We were both quiet for a moment. “I can’t think.” I started to panic. “C’mon — write something down. You’re supposed to be helping me.” I got up and started pacing around the room. “Old rich guy. Who hates old rich guys? Maybe he had a mistress. Write down mistress. How would I find that out? My God, Mr. Potter with a mistress. What a thought. You’ve seen him. What woman could bear it? Apart from Sophie obviously – if indeed she was bearing it. We have to look into that. Hey — what if he stole some money? Maybe he screwed somebody out of their life savings and used the money to start his own company and this person has just now decided to come back and make him pay the ultimate price.” I flopped back down on the couch.

Julie reached over and started rubbing my hair between her thumb and index finger. “The ultimate price? We have to do something about your hair. If we cut and colored it we could really change your look. Everyone is going to be looking for a middle-aged woman with thin, shoulder length brown hair. If we change how you look we might be able to buy you a couple of days, and honestly you really do need to do something with it.”

“How fortuitous then that this has come up. If I hadn’t been accused of murder how would you have worked up the nerve to mention my lank hair to me?”

“Oh I would have mentioned it. One can be silent for only so long. Alice left some hair dye behind. While we’re brainstorming why don’t we work on your hair?”

Ten minutes later I was sitting at the table, my head covered in dye that according to the box was going to turn my hair a lovely shade of ash blonde. “It’s time you went lighter anyway,” said Julie. “Dark hair is too harsh for middle-aged skin.”

“Like I said, fortuitous. Could you please check if that cop is still out there?”

Julie went over to the living room window and peeked out. “Still there. What a tedious job — hope he has an Ipod or something.”

“Yes, I feel for him. It’d be a shame if he got bored. Perhaps we could take him out a book on tape and some shortbread. Why is he parked there anyway? Where do they think I’m going to go?”

Julie turned and gave me a bemused look. “You did crawl out the basement window. You were planning to escape until you screwed it up.”

“They don’t know that. I certainly don’t seem like a prime candidate for doing a runner. They’re just wasting our tax dollars doing ludicrous stake outs.”

“Too reiterate, if you’d been more competent you’d be holed up at The Holiday Inn right now.”

I got up from the table and picked up the piece of construction paper containing our master plan, our modus operandi that was going to lead the police to the true murderer and allow me to return to my humdrum life. So far it read:

FIND THE REAL MURDERER

ENEMIES

MISTRESS

MONEY

CAB

Sophie

So we were getting somewhere. We weren’t completely without ideas. I waved the paper at Julie. “This isn’t enough to go on.”

“That isn’t anything to go on,” said Julie. She sat down in a chair by the fireplace and put her feet up on the coffee table. She was wearing white fuzzy slippers with sheep’s heads bobbing on the toes. “When we were in England last spring,” she said, “there were sheep everywhere, little baby sheep just littering the countryside and I was besotted with them.” She wiggled her slippers. “So this is what Andrew buys me for my birthday. He thought he’d finally found the perfect gift and that my heart would swell with happiness when I opened these lovelies.”

“Jack was an adept purchaser of gifts but he was a dick. So there you go. No man is an island.”

“I don’t think that is the metaphor you are looking for, but you’re right. Andrew is lovely and Jack was an ass. Is an ass.”

“Okay. Back at it. Enemies. And are you watching the clock? I don’t want my hair to turn orange.”

Fifteen minutes later, when we rinsed out the dye, our enemies list still consisted of only one name and I had orange hair. Not red, not a reddish blonde that looked a little off in a harsh light, but full on orange. “This looks so much better with my middle-aged skin tone,” I said as I stared, aghast, into the mirror. “Long stringy orange hair is such an improvement over my regular drab brown.”

“Oh shut up,” said Julie. “I’m going to cut it and you’ll look fine. I guess brown to ash blonde was too much of a jump for a box of ten dollar dye.”

I looked in the mirror again and started crying. Not great racking sobs, but my eyes welled up and I snorted a couple of times. “You’re crying over your hair?” asked Julie. “That’s what you cry about? Your hair is the least of your problems.”

“I know that! But look at me, I’m so ugly. Pippi Longstocking as an old woman.” I grimaced into the mirror. “Look at my teeth. Look how yellow they are. I think the orange hair is reflecting off them.” At that point I really started crying. “And don’t get snippy with me after you ruin my hair. As if my life wasn’t bad enough already.”