DEATH COMES TO AN OPEN HOUSE (6 page)

Dad!

This thought, with all its associated emotions, engulfed her. Her father, dead on the white and black tile floor of their bathroom. The only other dead body she had ever seen.
Stop it!
she ordered, but the image of her father kept flashing in her mind as she stared at Theresa. Jean put a hand over her mouth, afraid of the churning in her stomach. She had run to her father to find some sign of life. That was what she should do now. But there had been no blood then. Nor had there been this smell, sweet and nauseating. It took a lot of blood to smell like this. Theresa must be dead, too. Was there an obligation to make sure? Not possible to let Theresa die while she stood watching.

There was barely room to walk along the left side of the dark form. Her heart pounding so hard her fingertips tingled, swallowing constantly to keep down the cookies and juice she had shared with the Powers, Jean moved slowly past the sturdy shoes, the pale tan hose and navy blue suit and knelt down, holding her breath at the end to avoid the stench. Theresa’s nearest arm was under her body and the other, holding a piece of paper, was out of reach above her head. That was good. There was no obligation to touch the undoubtedly dead wrists. Even less possible to search for a pulse where the terrible silver shaft stood upright in the red neck.
Perhaps a finger
under Theresa’s nose to see if she was still breathing?
Maybe that was possible. Jean reached across the back of the jacket, past the red, the awful red, and put her index finger in front of Theresa’s upper lip.

No breath came to meet it. Jean forced herself to wait, eyes closed, frozen in position, to make sure.

There was no moving air, no warmth.

Jean dropped back against the cabinet behind her, her eyes glued to what she now recognized as the handle of Theresa’s elegant silver letter opener. Its silhouette began to blur. She could go to the car now. But getting up seemed much more difficult than getting down had been.

Kevin should have protected her. But maybe Kevin … How much courage have I? Can I look for Kevin?
The front door was locked, the back door open. Surely the killer has gone. I have to look for Kevin. Maybe it’s Kevin who is wounded, needing help.

There was very little hope in that thought.

Her legs weren’t working properly. Pulling herself up by the handle of the stove was unreasonably difficult. Then her eyes needed to focus. Blinking helped. One foot in front of the other in measured pace, Jean retraced her steps past the inert form, holding on to the counter, then lowered her head briefly, took another deep breath, swallowed hard, and made her way slowly into the living room and on and on through both floors, her breathing fast and shallow, her eyes taking in each room in minutes that stretched unreasonably in time.

Furniture. Just furniture, pictures, decorations.

It was a small house without attic or basement. Two bedrooms. Back in the living room, she stared at the oversized TV and forced herself to breathe properly
.

Why isn’t Kevin here? Or is
Kevin hiding?

She nodded. This was good. She was thinking logically. It was necessary to go back, calling his name to let him know it was safe to come out, and check closets, the bathtub, unlikely places, under the beds and behind the couch. All the places she had hidden when she was a child. Children learn how to hide.

At the end, she nodded again, approving. She hadn’t called his name. Somehow, speech was impossible. But she had looked. Kevin was not in this house. It didn’t matter why. There was no other body, no need to see or touch death again.

There was no rush now. Back in the neat living room with its two vases of welcoming flowers, Jean stood motionless for some time before dropping onto the black leather couch. It was time to call someone.

Her cell phone was in her jacket pocket. That was good. Nodding approval of its presence, she took it out and pressed the number for Ed. Surely he would answer now.

He did.

She couldn’t.

“Hello?” Ed repeated.

Everyone tried again with cell phones.

Jean managed some sort of sound.

“Yes? Who is this?”

She tried to form the “T” of “Theresa.” Somehow, it was a very difficult letter to articulate.

“Me,” she managed. “M” was easier.

“Jeannie? This is Jeannie, right? You need me at the DeLucca’s, darlin’?”

No. That’s wrong. Where is this?

Another slow breath.

“College.”

That was much better.

“College? College Park? Theresa’s listing? Is that where you are? Why—what’s wrong? Why isn’t Theresa—”

Ed’s voice changed.

“Oh, my God! I’m coming. But I have to know. Do we need an ambulance? Is anyone hurt?”

Jean shook her head “no.” There was no need for an ambulance now.

“Jeannie?”

“Dead.” For some reason, this word fell out easily, as if it had been waiting. “Dead, dead, dead …”

She kept repeating it as the hand holding the phone fell to her side.

 
Chapter 11

Jean sat very still in the corner of the enveloping couch, legs curled under her, hands grasping her upper arms, waiting, watching through the bay window.
I unlocked the door, didn’t I? Yes. I remember turning the knob. Nothing must keep Ed from coming in. And the police. Ed would have called the police. I should have, but Ed would have taken care of that. He was the
boss
. She remembered the biting loneliness from the time she had called 911 for her father. Then, as now, there seemed to be no one she could call to be with her. Kevin was supposed to be here. Rita would be good, but it didn’t seem right to call friends. Vivian would be more appropriate, motherly and an owner of the company, but Jean didn’t feel free to call her, either. Ellie wasn’t even a consideration. Ed would have to do. At one point, she felt a pang of guilt that her concerns were about herself, not Theresa, but there was nothing to be done for that dark elongated form seeping blood onto the white floor. Jean closed her eyes, as though that would shut out Theresa’s sightless stare. She opened them again quickly. Closed, there was nothing to see but the memory. Both the memories.

There were birds in the tree by the curb.
A maple tree, isn’t it? Yes, a maple
. The birds and the tree were much better to think about, the birds, small, dark and not in Jean’s short list of known varieties and the green leaves caressing each other.

A car stopped in front of the house. People got out. A man and a woman. Uniforms. Police. They came up the walk.

A loud sound made her flinch. One hard rap on the door. No need to get up. The two darkly clad people came in anyway. There were two more behind them. That seemed a lot. None of them were Ed. They came over to her and showed her things and said names and then two of them went away.

The small black woman knelt in front of Jean, put a hand on her arm and said to the man, “She’s in shock, Mike.” She turned back to Jean. “Are you hurt, honey?”

Jean looked at her, wondering why she would ask that.

“Someone has died here?” the woman persisted.

Jean nodded. “Where is Kevin?” she asked, surprised at the smallness of her voice.

“Who is Kevin? Is he the one who is dead?”

Jean shook her head. “No, it’s … it’s Theresa.” It was still hard to say the name. “Theresa,” she said again more firmly, to make sure they knew. “And Kevin’s not here.”

“Kevin,” the policewoman echoed.

Jean nodded. “He’s not here. I looked.”

One of the men appeared in the kitchen door and said, “in here, Mike.”

The man standing over them turned and left.

“The suit,” Jean said. A hiccup of a nervous laugh came out.

“The suit?”

“Yeah. On TV, they call them ‘suits’. Detectives. Sometimes. You have a uniform.”

“Are you cold, honey?”

“Am I? I have a jacket on. But I am. That’s funny.”

There was a small red quilt on the back of the sofa. The woman was wrapping it around Jean’s shoulders as Ed came in. He walked quickly to Jean and sat down, putting an arm around her and pulling her to his shoulder.

“It’s okay, Jeannie. It’s okay.”

It wasn’t okay, but the words helped anyway and so did Ed’s arm around her. Her father, loving, but never physical, had rarely held her like this. It was nice. Ed’s hand was patting her shoulder as if she were a child as he and the woman talked. After a few minutes, tears began, cold, sympathetic fingers, stroking her cheeks.

“Good,” Ed said. “That’s good. You just cry.”

The “suit” came back, bringing one of the dining room chairs with him. He placed it beside the woman and sat down. He and Ed said some things to each other. It didn’t matter what they said. They weren’t talking to her.

Then the woman left and the other “suit” took her place, squatting in front of the couch, a notebook and pen in his hands. They told her their names again and asked if she was able to answer questions.

“Sure,” she said.

She had to tell them about the offer, the time of the unanswered phone call, when she arrived, the open back door. They didn’t ask her anything more about Theresa. That was good. She didn’t want to think about reaching across … Jean blocked out the memory and looked at the birds again. Ed explained why she had mentioned Kevin. She had no idea where he was. There wasn’t much to say, really. It was surprising how calmly she was able to tell her small story. The pressure of Ed’s arm around her was really nice.

They took her fingerprints. That was all right. They needed to know which ones were the killer’s.
Why on TV did innocent people make such a fuss about fingerprints?

Vivian came through the front door and, with only a sympathetic look at Jean, silently took a seat on the other side of the room. Her presence seemed reasonable. She was Ed’s wife. But, when the detective said Jean could go, Vivian came over, one hand reaching out, her face crumpled with sadness. Ed turned her over to Vivian.

“I’ll take you home, Jean,” she said in voice that seemed to have some of Jean’s tears in it.

By then, this scene seemed less like a dream and more like reality and Jean realized these two were taking care of her. For some reason, that made her cry. She dabbed her eyes with the handkerchief Ed had given her.

“My briefcase,” she said. “In the kitchen. There’s an offer on the DeLucca’s house in there, Ed.”

“Are your keys in your purse?”

“Keys? Oh. To the car. Yes. In my purse.”

“I’ll take care of everything, Jeannie,” Ed assured her. “Don’t worry about anything. Viv will take you home and stay with you. Or take you wherever you want to go. I’m sorry you had—well, considering your history, it’s a shame it wasn’t someone else who found her.”

“Come on, Jean,” Vivian said softly. “We’ll go home. We’ll have a cup of tea and I’ll stay with you as long as you need me.”

That, Jean thought, would be a very long time. Her father was dead. And now the woman who was supposed to be her new mother was gone, too.

 
Chapter 12

It was Monday. Rita and Jean, still in pajamas at noon, were in Rita’s living room. Rita sat on the intricately patterned Persian rug, her legs bent back on either side, pale, bare feet with fuchsia toenails projecting from under black silk pajamas, her face obscured by a waterfall of reddish-brown curls that almost touched the laptop computer below them. Jean, barely awake on the tapestry seat of the Chippendale sofa, felt an almost painful gratitude for this strong friend who last night had listened to her disjointed ramblings, comforted her, provided aqua silk pajamas and tucked her into a heavily carved mahogany four-poster bed some time in the early hours of the morning.

“I’m finished! I love computer tables, don’t you?”

Rita gestured toward her laptop with a raw baby carrot.

“Not really. Hand me the sunflower seeds, would you?” Jean dropped a lazy arm toward her friend.

“Here. Sunflower seeds. Have some vegetables. Or grapes. Too many nuts are constipating. Now.” The carrot was in the air, poised for a decision. “We have to fill in the blanks.”

“I think you’re nuts with this chart thing. Just because Theresa’s letter opener was …”

Jean couldn’t finish the sentence.

“I know. You don’t think someone from the office killed her.”

“That other murder on an open house—”

“Might be connected, true.” Rita tilted her head to one side. “Definitely weird. But the letter opener came from our office.”

“Someone from outside could have stolen it. Always on her desk. And a lot of people knew about it. Hua said Theresa used to carry it with her to show it off until Harold made it so sharp it scratched the inside of her briefcase. And those same torn cards!”

“I know. But there’s no way we’re going to solve the other murder or the attempted one. All we’ve got is Theresa killed by an item that never left our office. That’s where we start. The torn cards are obviously an attempt to connect her murder with the first one. But that doesn’t work, not with that damn letter opener. I’m going with this chart of mine! One of
us
!”

“Or someone who came into the office on Saturday.”

“Ah, true! Got to call Ed about that.” Rita hunched over the computer and smiled approval of her own creation. “We know everyone and their feelings about Theresa better than the police do. Besides, it’s fun. You cried most of last night. Time to get over it.”

“You don’t get over … over the death of a friend in one night!”

Rita studied Jean’s face.

“Theresa you can get over in one night,” she said flatly. “Do you remember you said it was almost a relief you didn’t need to have Theresa review the offer? That her criticism was hard to take?”

Jean put her hands over her face.

“That was awful. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“But it was true.
In vino veritas,
girlfriend.
”

It was true. The memory of finding Theresa still brought little waves of nausea, but Jean was beginning to realize this was not at all like her father’s death. The pain of grief just wasn’t there, even when she tried to find it. What was painfully there was the image of Theresa’s body and the memories of her father it brought back.