Marked Fur Murder (9 page)

“I don't know—maybe one of the other guests? What time did she go down to the pool?”

“She left our room around eleven.”

“Kind of late for a swim. Was it a habit of hers?”

He looked away. “No. We'd been arguing, which I'm sure comes as no surprise. She left as much to get away from me as anything.”

“Don't blame yourself,” I said.

“I can never sleep after a fight with my boyfriend,” I said. “I always wind up going for a long walk to straighten things out in my head. And, you know, reargue the points I didn't make in the first place.”

“Yes, well,” he said, staring into his glass. “There didn't seem to be anything else to say. I thought maybe in the morning things would be better, so I just went to bed. But I was wrong, wasn't I?” He drained his glass. “Things weren't better at all. They were just … over.”

[So he was alone. No alibi.]

If he's telling the truth,
I pointed out silently. “That was quite the …
disagreement
you had with Teresa Firstcharger.”

His reply was almost a snarl. “Disagreement? That's one way to put it. The unbelievable
nerve
of that woman … saying those things right to Anna's face.”

“Then they weren't true?” I kept my voice neutral.

He glanced at me sharply. “That's beside the point. Shoving Anna's face in it like that, in front of complete strangers—the woman has no class, no class at all.”

I refrained from pointing out that having an affair in the first place didn't show much class, either. So did Whiskey and Tango, but then animals don't always have the same view of monogamy that humans do.

“Anything that happened between Teresa and myself was a private matter,” he continued. His posture changed, his shoulders pulling back and his head coming up as he tried to express his offended dignity with his body. “Doesn't she know how that sort of thing looks … what that …
appearances,
you know…”

And then something happened.

His body rebelled. All that manufactured outrage ran into the high brandy content in his bloodstream and they fought it out. Normally, the outrage would have won; it was used to dealing with brandy, after all.

But this time the booze had an ally, a great hulking brute named grief. It pounded that outrage flat with one thump of its fist; Hayden's shoulders slumped and his face crumpled. “Oh, hell,” he said. “What does it matter now? Who cares what's proper, or how things appear? She's gone. Just
gone
.”

His voice was different, too. It was puzzled and sad and very, very weary. “I tried to be a good husband. I wasn't, but I tried. I don't know if that counts for anything or not.”

I didn't say anything. Often, pain bleeds honesty, and anything I might say would just stanch the flow.

“It was exhausting, being married to Anna. Having to say the right things, meet the right people, act the right way. She chose me, you know. She could have married anyone, but she chose me. I used to think it was for love, but that was naive. No, with Anna it was always about control. The golden rule.”

“The golden rule?”

He gave me a bitter smile. “The one who has the gold makes the rules. She had the money, you see. I had the proper upbringing, but my family suffered some extreme reversals in the financial crash. She more or less rescued me; Lord knows I wasn't ready to fend for myself.”

[She adopted him?]

“That must have been difficult for you,” I said.

He poured himself another drink. “
Emasculating
is the word you're looking for. And yes, it was. But the funny thing is, I wasn't even aware of it until I met Teresa. She was the one who made me see the bars on my cage. No matter what you might think of me for cheating, I didn't go looking for it. I thought I was happy.”

“But you weren't?”

“No. I wasn't. I was
comfortable,
you see. Not the same thing.” He gestured at me with his drink, a little amber liquid sloshing out. “Happiness is …
wilder
. Unpredictable. Or that's how Teresa made me feel, anyway. Maybe it was just a case of the grass being greener on the other side of the bed.”

No money of his own, and a mistress who brought out his wild side. Hayden was looking more and more like my prime suspect, though Teresa Firstcharger wasn't exactly off the list, either. “Were you and Anna going to split up?”

He stared into the distance with haunted eyes. “I don't know,” he whispered. “It's not what I wanted, no matter how things might look. I told Teresa we were through.”

“Oh? What happened to happiness?”

He took another quick drink and looked away. “Sometimes comfort has to be enough,” he said quietly. “Or maybe it's just that the fear wins. That's the way Teresa sees it, anyway; she thinks I'm a coward. I've lost both of them now.”

Maybe,
I thought.
It's surprising how fast forgiveness shows up on the heels of a fat inheritance.

[Indeed.]

Pain tends to give people tunnel-vision—all they see is what's right in front of them, and what's sitting there is their own suffering—but Hayden surprised me. “How's Ben doing?” he asked.

“He's angry.”

He nodded. “So am I. I'm just not sure at whom, or why.”

“Try Efram Fimsby.”

He frowned. “Fimsby? Why?”

“Because he's the reason you and Anna are here. Anna met him in Australia, and they cooked up this get-together between them. Any idea why?”

Some not-very-nice things I should point out right about now: questioning someone who's been drinking gives you an advantage. Questioning a drunk who's emotionally vulnerable gives you a bigger one. Hitting an emotionally vulnerable drunk between the eyes with a surprise revelation is like shooting fish in a teacup.

Boom.

His eyes widened in shock. If he was faking it, he was awfully good. “What? But—I thought this was one of your employer's salons—”

“Yeah, no. ZZ was in on it, but Ben wasn't. It had to do with all three of them, though—Anna, Ben, and Fimsby. Fimsby won't tell me anything, Ben doesn't know, and Anna's dead.
What was the reason, Hayden?
”

“I—I don't know. She didn't tell me everything. She started acting strangely just before her trip to Australia.”

“Strange in what way?”

“Nervous, distracted. Odd mood swings.” He hesitated, thinking. “She seemed very sensitive to the weather. She'd cry when it rained, and stop when it was over. I was worried she was having some sort of breakdown. But she seemed better after she came back. You're saying she was hiding something?”

I knew the reason for Anna's behavior, of course: She'd just discovered she was a Thunderbird, descended from a line of ancient, god-like beings who could control the weather. But I couldn't tell Hayden that, and it wasn't the secret I was after anyway.

But sometimes, when you pounded on a door long enough, you got results. Not necessarily the ones you wanted—it might just be someone opening a window and yelling at you to go away—but results just the same.

I saw the look that crossed his face, though he tried to hide it. “You say Ben is part of this,” he said. “And ZZ.”

“Yes. Though Ben's just as much in the dark as I am, and ZZ—well, let's just say ZZ is being dragged into this very reluctantly and leave it at that.”

“Leave it? When it seems she was instrumental in arranging this whole thing? No. No, I don't think I will.” He put down his glass with the exaggerated care of the inebriated, and lurched to his feet. “I will have words with the woman, by God. Yes, I will.”

I got up, too. “Hold on. Words about what? What are you talking about?”

He glared down at me, but I didn't back off. “I'm talking about the
secret
. The one Anna knew and Ben didn't. The one ZZ doesn't want to talk about. I should have known—appearances, just like I said. Everybody's so concerned with bloody
appearances
.”

He tried to step past me, but I was both quicker and completely sober. I stayed in his face like a dance partner who's forgotten how to go backward. “
What
secret, Hayden? If this involves Ben, I deserve to know. Maybe you and Anna kept secrets from each other, but we don't.”

That stopped him like a slap to the face. I hated playing the your-wife-is-dead-but-my-boyfriend-isn't card—hell, I wasn't even sure it was really a card, or just a piece of cardboard with some crayon squiggles on it—but I was desperate. Also a little worried Mr. Brandy might steamroll right over me if I didn't get him to shift into neutral.

“Very well,” he said. His breath was combustible. “I suppose you have that right. You know, of course, the story of how Ben came to work for ZZ.”

I did. ZZ had found Ben slinging hash in a hole-in-the-wall diner off the interstate, and after sampling one of his omelets hired him as her personal chef.

What ZZ was unaware of was that Ben wasn't quite the diamond-in-the-rough that he appeared to be. In fact, he'd grown up just as privileged as ZZ, was classically trained as a chef, and had been running his own restaurant only six months prior—right up until he'd had a fight with his father (also a chef) over creative differences and had quit in anger. He'd taken the diner job not out of desperation, but simply to prove to himself that he was his own man and could make it without his father's help.

“Sure,” I said. “So what?”

Hayden fixed his bleary, red-rimmed eyes on mine. “So it's a lie, Foxtrot. A total, complete lie.”

 

C
HAPTER
S
IX

“What do you mean?” I said to Hayden. “Are you trying to tell me that never happened? That Ben made it all up?”

Hayden swayed slightly on his feet, but his voice was steady. “No, Foxtrot.
That
part of the story is entirely true. It's how it came about that's false. I'm surprised you didn't figure that out for yourself.”

“Figure
what
out?”

“That the wealthy all know each other. Look at all the different kinds of guests ZZ gets. Know what they all have in common? Lots and lots of money. When you're rich, the whole world's your private club.”

“That's not true,” I said. “ZZ has plenty of guests that aren't rich. Scientists, activists—”

“Oh, you can invite anyone you want to
visit
your little clubhouse. But only the members get to enjoy all the privileges. Only the members do
favors
for each other.”

That wasn't exactly true, either—but the meaning behind those words was. And
that
truth was suddenly, horribly obvious.

I sank back down onto my chair. “ZZ wasn't in that diner by accident. She knew exactly who Ben was.”

“Of course she did. Did you really think the Montains would let their only son slave away in a greasy spoon? Not that they cared about his welfare—they were just thinking about appearances. About how his actions—his
status
—would reflect on them.”

Despite their stubborn pride, cats can be very pragmatic when it comes to their own comfort.

[It's a matter of honor, Tango. He thought he earned his rightful place in the pack, and he didn't.] Dogs, on the other paw, while normally very practical, have a keen understanding of social protocols.

“So that's what she couldn't tell me,” I said. “She said I'd understand if I knew. And I guess I do.”

“Do you?” Hayden seemed to abruptly remember he no longer had a drink in his hand, and set about correcting that. “I'm not so sure. It's a very odd thing, to be a kept man in our society. Makes you question your own worth. Your own ability. I've been one for so long I'm not sure what I'm going to do now that I'm on my own.”

Whatever you want,
I thought.
Maybe you'll just find another strong woman to tell you what to do. Maybe you already have.

But I wasn't entirely unsympathetic. I'm used to dealing with big egos in both sexes, and I know how fragile the male one can be. Hayden may have gone into his marriage with his eyes open, but Ben was blissfully unaware he was being manipulated. He'd set out to prove he could make it on his own, and the fact that the exact opposite was true would be like a punch in the face. Or maybe lower down.

Hayden, having poured himself another shot and drained it, then demonstrated the kind of immediate, impulsive decision making that alcohol loves to fuel. “He has to know,” he declared. “He must be
told.
”

He lurched forward, glass still in hand, his intentions a lot clearer than his thinking. I leapt to my feet to try to block him, but he was already past me. I grabbed his arm and tugged, trying to slow him down. “Wait! What about Fimsby?”

He staggered to a halt. “Fimsby? What's Fimsby got to do with this?”

“Exactly. What does Fimsby have to do with this? He's an Australian meteorologist. Think about it.”

His brow furrowed as he did. “That makes no sense.”

It did, but only if you knew what I knew. “I
know
. And until we figure out how he fits into all of this, it would be
extremely
unwise to just charge in, hurling accusations. I mean, an
Australian meteorologist
. Think of the ramifications!”