Murder Can Rain on Your Shower (30 page)

mood. And since the man had employed me—in a

manner of speaking, that is—to probe the murder of

his aunt, I was quite certain that if he
were
in posses

sion of such a troubling piece of information, he’d

have deemed it relevant to pass this on to me. What did surprise me a little, though, was his not bringing up the investigation at all. But then I decided he prob

ably figured that if there’d been any new develop

ments, I’d have gotten in touch with him. Mike’s

lighthearted demeanor also gave me the feeling that

he was unaware of the state of his parents’ marriage. Which would make sense. I mean, I couldn’t see either

Allison or Wes being anxious to confide something

like that to their loving son.

At any rate, once we’d finished dessert and cleared

the table—I’d turned down both my guests’ offers to

help with the dishes—we vacated the dining room and

moved on to the living room. Which was not much of

a move, being that in my apartment these are one and

the same.

The instant she sat down on the sofa, Ellen reached

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into her handbag and whipped out three of those fa

miliar yellow Kodak envelopes.

‘‘My, Ginger did shoot a bunch of pictures, didn’t

she?’’ I remarked, taking a seat next to her.

‘‘Yes, didn’t she?’’ Mike agreed, smiling. He was

sprawled in one of the club chairs opposite us, those long legs of his extending so far they were only about

an inch short of my toes.

‘‘There’s one of you that I’m just crazy about,’’

Ellen told me, riffling through the snapshots. ‘‘Wait’ll you see it.’’

‘‘Don’t bother, Ellen. I’ll come across it eventually.’’

She passed me the contents of the envelopes and

then, as I began going through them, leaned over me,

studying every single picture as if she’d never set eyes

on it before.

Anyway, about those photos . . . I should probably

mention that Ginger didn’t give Annie Liebowitz any

reason to start peeking over her shoulder. Of course, to be fair, Ginger’s equipment—one of those little

point-and-shoot things—wasn’t exactly state-of-the-art.

In any case, many of the photographs were blurred,

some to the extent that initially I didn’t even recognize the subjects. Still, there were a few beautiful shots of Allison, whose near-perfect features, I imagine, don’t present a photographer with much of a challenge. And there were I-don’t-know-how-many pictures of Bobbie

Jean, most of them so clear as to belie the fact that it was Ginger behind the camera. In these, the victim alternately smiled, mugged, scowled, and in one

pose—complete with hands on hips—conveyed total

exasperation. I found myself pretty much zipping

through all the prints of Bobbie Jean. It was hard for me to see her so full of life on film without being affected by the realization that this life was soon to be stolen from her.

I did go fairly slowly with the rest of the batch, however, making an effort to say something compli

mentary whenever this didn’t stretch credibility too

194

Selma
Eichler

far. At one point Ellen grabbed my arm to induce me

to linger over one of the prints even longer. It was a really nondescript likeness of me talking to a couple of women whose backs enabled me to identify them

as Barbara Gleason and Harriet Gould. ‘‘Was I

right?’’ my niece exclaimed. ‘‘Didn’t I tell you there were some terrific pictures of you?’’

Well, I had no idea what she was seeing that I

wasn’t. The best you could say for that picture was that it wasn’t completely out of focus. But, lucky for me, I was able to avoid coming up with a response by

a loud, jolting sound. And I’m talking
loud
. I mean, I damn near bolted out of my seat.

A glance at Mike—who was now fast asleep—

marked him as the source of this eruption. ‘‘Mike

snores sometimes,’’ Ellen advised me, stating the

very obvious.

Anyway, the next print was of the Fremont ladies,

who were evidently whispering to each other, much as

when I’d first seen them at the shower. Now, though, their heads actually appeared to be touching. They

were a real study in contrasts, those two, Robin’s fash

ionable attire only serving to accentuate Carla’s slip

shod grooming habits. Later I came across mother and

daughter again. Here, they were standing with Allison

and me, undeniably false smiles pasted on both faces. (The camera, apparently, had been a lot more percep

tive than I had.) A third photo, which was about as unflattering as you can get, captured Carla for all

time—stuffing a stuffed mushroom into her mouth.

There were also three snapshots of Lorraine Corwin. In the first, taken from much too close up, her entire top half was cut off. But the long white gloves and that obscenely large ring left no doubt that this was Lorraine. She fared slightly better in the second picture—her head had been spared, and there was

even a glass of champagne pressed to her lips. In the final shot Lorraine was gesturing expansively to

Grace Banner.

It struck me how similar Grace’s expression was in

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that photograph to another one in which she was all by herself, leaning against the wall, and to yet another showing her engaged in conversation with an extremely large female with a beehive hairdo. Grace Banner had the identical frown on her face in all three photographs.

‘‘Very nice,’’ I said to Ellen when I’d looked

through all of the prints. I attempted to return them to her, but she shook her head.

‘‘Oh, no. This is your set. Mike and I have our own.

And we’re making up two more besides, one for his

parents and one for mine. But listen, Aunt Dez, let’s get the dinner dishes out of the way now.’’

I firmly refused the assistance. Ellen had just begun

to protest when Mike awoke with a start.

‘‘Geez, I must have dozed off,’’ he mumbled, rub

bing his eyes. ‘‘Fine company I’ve been, huh, Dez?

I’m so sorry about this.’’

‘‘Don’t be silly. It’s understandable, considering the

hours you put in at the hospital.’’

‘‘How’d you like the photos?’’ he inquired.

I repeated what I’d told Ellen. ‘‘Very nice.’’

Mike’s grin was almost conspiratorial. ‘‘Yeah, I

know. Ginger’s not too talented with a camera, but

she loves taking pictures. And Ellen’s really thrilled to have these.’’

About ten minutes later Ellen and Mike left for home.

Very slowly I made for the kitchen, shuddering at the thought of what awaited me there. I can’t say there were

that
many dirty dishes to deal with (although, from my point of view, there were certainly enough). The big problem, though, was that by then I was in imminent danger of falling asleep standing up. And the thing is, I must be one of the only people in Manhattan—or maybe

the entire country—who doesn’t own a dishwasher. But

there just isn’t room in that cramped little area for both

a dishwasher and an additional cabinet, and I’d opted for the extra storage space.

Tonight I thoroughly regretted that choice.

But not for long.

Chapter
31

Standing at the sink (and yawning), up to my elbows in soapy water, I thought about those shower pictures.

Probably because it beat thinking about all the crudencrusted dishes still stacked up on the counter. It occurred to me then how nifty it would have been

if Ginger’s snapshots had given me a clue to Bobbie Jean’s killer. Not that I’d expected anything of the sort, you understand. Which was just as well. Because

all they showed me was that Carla and Robin Fremont

had false smiles, that Lorraine Corwin wore long white

gloves (a real revelation), and that Grace Banner was

not at all happy to be present that day.

Tomorrow I would
definitely
—I mean no matter

what—study my notes on that conversation with Wes.

Although I certainly wasn’t counting on any dazzling

insights there, either.

And now it struck me that my handling of this case

might have been torpedoed by my own myopia. I’d

spent most of these past couple of weeks examining

motive. And while I grant you that the
why
had to be a crucial factor, the truth is, I’d never moved very far beyond it. Other than questioning some of the Silver Oaks staff members—which should have been merely

a first step—I hadn’t so much as
attempted
to learn who was where between the time the salads were

placed on the tables and the moment when we were

called in to lunch. Inexcusable, really. After all, I’ve been in this business long enough to recognize that

opportunity is often the key to the solution of a crime.

And what about checking into the possibility that one

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of my suspects was familiar with poisons? Frequently

possession of some specific knowledge is—

Possession
of
some
specific
knowledge!

Suddenly I was wide-awake, every nerve in my body

quivering like crazy. Grabbing a dishtowel and drying my dripping hands along the way, I made a beeline

for the living room—and the file in my desk.

Hurriedly, I skimmed through my notes until I lo

cated all of the verification I was searching for.

Restricting my focus to a single individual at this

point, I began to examine the facts in my head. And as a result of the information I had just uncovered, what followed was a rapid—and almost inevitable—

progression. I mean, I was practically forced to recog

nize the vital piece of evidence that until now my clut

tered little brain had failed to absorb.

I don’t know why, maybe because it afforded me a

certain satisfaction, but immediately after this I went through that batch of photographs of Ginger’s. Then

taking a good, long look at one of them, I nodded. Chief Porchow could expect a call from me in the

morning.

Chapter
32

Sunday or no Sunday I was up at seven. After all,

these were very special circumstances.

I was so wired last night that I did something I’ve never
ever
even considered doing before. I left the dirty dishes strewn all over the kitchen—some of them

in the sink, the rest on the counter—and went into

the living room to watch TV, hoping to unwind a little.

I was pleased to find a favorite movie of mine,
All
About
Eve
, on one of the cable channels. It didn’t matter that the film was already close to halfway over.

I’d seen it enough times (dozens, easily) to have no trouble filling myself in on what had transpired earlier.

I must have conked out almost at once, though. The

last thing I remember is Margo Channing (Bette

Davis) warning everyone to fasten their seat belts be

cause it was going to be a bumpy night.

When I opened my eyes again there was an infom

ercial on the screen. Some young pitchgirl (she looked

to be barely out of her teens, so I refuse to call her a pitchwoman) was selling this miracle cream that was

guaranteed to protect me from wrinkles for the rest

of my days—or my money back.

I dragged myself off to bed.

And now I wasn’t able to sleep. It must have been

about six in the morning before I finally dropped off—

only to waken an hour later.

The funny thing is, though, I wasn’t tired at all. In fact, I’d rarely felt so completely energized. I had fi

nally fingered Bobbie Jean’s killer!

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I just had to convince the police that I knew what I was talking about.

It required muscles I didn’t know I owned to re

move all that nasty crud from yesterday’s dinner