THE DEEP END (21 page)

Powers sat back. “But he was already dead.” He sounded almost disappointed.

I nodded. “For hours.”

“Who do you think killed him?”

I glanced at Mother. She was deep in conversation with Bitty Sue, not paying the least bit of attention to me or Powers. A good thing since speculating on your husband’s murderer was well outside the prescribed bounds of polite conversation at an afternoon tea. Then I searched the room for Kitty and Prudence. Kitty wore a sour pickles expression and sat next to Laura. Prudence looked miserable, but whether that was due to Henry’s death or Lorna’s talons dug deep into her arm was debatable. “I have no idea.”

Powers cast a glance toward Mother and Bitty Sue then lowered his voice. “I think Roger did it.”

How could he think it was Roger? Then again, he didn’t know all about Henry and Prudence or Henry and Kitty. “Roger?” The tone of my voice expressed my doubts.

Powers nodded, his chin moving up and down, as fast as the pistons in Roger’s jag. “Who else? I think he got tired of her cheating on him.”

Maybe Powers was right. The golf club that had caved in Henry’s skull bore Roger’s monogram. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to see Roger as a murderer. “Why would he kill Henry?”

Powers raised a brow, lowered his chin, and crossed his arms, a classic don’t-be-dense look.

I scowled back at him. I wasn’t dense, I was doubtful. “Madeline cheated on him with half the men at the club.”

“You have to admit she stayed with Henry longer than most.”

I lifted my shoulders and let them drop.

Powers raised a finger and wagged it. “Mark my words, Ellison. Roger did it and I bet everything comes out in the next day or so.”

He was only half right.

Twenty-Four

That night Mother and I ate slices of Bitty Sue’s ham, an anonymous casserole, and Bundt cake at the kitchen table.

After dinner, I called Grace. “Honey, you okay?”

She answered with a sniffle.

My heart contracted. “I can drive up there. Tonight, if you want.” I ought to be with my daughter not my mother. The guilt I’d failed to feel over Henry roared into life. I’d been so busy yammering polite replies to the Bundt cake brigade I hadn’t worried nearly enough about Grace. I should have. Guilt weighed on me.

“How about tomorrow?” Her voice was tiny.

“Done,” I promised.

Another sniffle.

This time my heart didn’t just contract, it twisted.

“Mom?”

“What is it, honey?”

“Would you bring my jods? I forgot them.”

The pain in my chest loosened. If Grace was worried about riding pants, perhaps things weren’t entirely dire. “Of course. Anything else?”

“We forgot food for Max.”

“Is your grandfather feeding him table scraps?”

“He’s in heaven.”

Of course he was. All the squirrels and rabbits he could chase, no fences to worry about, and people food. He’d achieved doggy Nirvana. At least one Russell was happy.

When Grace and I hung up, Mother caught my chin between her thumb and index finger then turned my head from side to side. “You look like ten miles of bad road.” She put a valium in my hand and closed my fingers around it.

“Take it,” she ordered.

“But—”

“One won’t hurt you. Besides, you need to rest.”

I took the pill with a large glass of water and the certainty it wouldn’t work. I slept without dreaming and woke at eight instead of five. Refreshed might be too strong a word, but I did feel able to face the coming day.

I shuffled downstairs for coffee.

Mother waited for me in the kitchen. “Did you sleep?”

“I did. Thank you.”

“I thought we’d go pick out a casket.”

“No. I’m going to the farm.”

Her lips flattened. “Don’t be silly, Ellison. You can’t go gallivanting off to the country.”

Last evening, after running over my husband’s corpse, being interrogated by the police, and facing the Bundt cake brigade, I hadn’t felt much like standing up to Mother. After a decent night’s rest, I did. “Watch me.”

Her mouth dropped open. She snapped it shut. “I don’t know what’s got into you lately.”

Really? “I’ve discovered two dead bodies in a week.”

“That’s no excuse.”

“Maybe not for you. For me it works just fine.” I took a large sip of coffee and waited for an explosion.

It didn’t come. Instead, Mother issued one, small, put-upon huff. Then she sniffed and wiped under her eyes as if she was about to cry.

Guilt.

Two could play at that game. “I can’t believe you want me to look at caskets when Grace needs me.”

“You can’t bury Henry in a pine box.”

I could, but we both knew I wouldn’t. “You pick something. Whatever you want.” She could have carte blanche at the funeral home. She could plan the funeral, pick the hymns. For all I cared she could give the eulogy. I didn’t care. “I’m going to run home and pick up some things for Grace. I’ll call you when I get to the farm.”

Gratitude swelled somewhere in my chest when I pulled up in front of my house and saw Aggie in the driveway with a hose. At her feet, rivers of red tinged water ran into the grass and disappeared into the earth.

She didn’t ask how I was or express her sympathy or rearrange her features into some warm, supportive expression she didn’t feel. Not Aggie. Aggie picked up the hose and washed away my husband’s blood. The woman was worth her weight in purple muumuu covered gold. When she saw me, she crimped the hose, cutting off the flow of water.

“Thank you.” I managed to wave at the driveway without looking at it.

“I didn’t figure you’d want to deal with this.”

She was right. More than right. I tried to convey my gratitude with a smile. My cheeks were too brittle and stiff to manage the expression but Aggie seemed to understand. She smiled at me.

“I came home to pick up a pair of jodhpurs for Grace and food for Max.”

“Do you need any help?” Aggie asked.

“No.”

“Then I’ll finish up out here.”

The sound of water rinsing gore followed me into the house where the ring of the telephone greeted me.

I answered without thinking, a habitual response to its jangle. “Hello?”

“Ellison Russell?” No hello. No identification. Nothing but a woman’s voice.

“Who’s calling?” I asked.

“Is this Ellison Russell?” Each syllable was higher than the last, the
ell
of my last name nothing more than a squeak.

“Who’s calling?”

The woman at the other end of the line took a deep breath. “This is Kathleen O’Malley. I need to speak with Ellison Russell.”

“Kathleen who?”

“It’s you, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I’m afraid I don’t know a Kathleen O’Malley.”

“Yes, you do. You know me as Mistress K.”

Mistress K had a name suitable for a Catholic schoolgirl? Unbidden the image of her dressed in black leather and tartan plaid popped into my brain. Oh dear Lord. “What do you want?”

“Come to Roger Harper’s house. Now.”

What the hell? “Why would I do that?”

“Because I told you to.”

“I don’t play your kinds of games, Miss O’Malley.” The name tasted sweet as revenge on my lips. Miss O’Malley sounded like a typist or a third grade teacher or a secretary. So different from Mistress K who flogged grown men. “Goodbye.” I hung up the phone.

It rang again within seconds.

My hand hovered over the receiver. To answer, or not to answer, that was the question. The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune had been particularly sharp of late. If I answered, would I be stuck again? If I didn’t, would I wonder forever what she could possibly have wanted? Maybe she knew something about Madeline and Henry’s deaths. Maybe if she needed something from me, I could find out. I picked up the handle. “Hello.”

“Please. Come. I need you. Roger needs you.”

I let the silence play out. No wonder my father had used it against me—I could almost hear her weighing her options.

“I’ll tell you about your husband and his women.”

“I only want to know if one of them killed him.”

There was no answer. Apparently two could play the silence game.

No way was I losing to Kathleen O’Malley or Mistress K. I examined the cuticles of my free hand, made a mental list of the things I needed to pack, and when the silence continued to spin, I picked up the handful of ignored mail and flipped through it.

Bills. The dusty letter from beneath the bombé chest. Catalogs. Magazines. Silence.

She cleared her throat, a clear sign of weakening.

I studied a perfume advertisement. A model with killer cheekbones strode toward a private plane, a confident smile on her crimson lips. I flipped the page.

“Fine.” One word, clipped and sharp as if she’d cut it with a knife.

Victory.

No need to gloat. We both knew I’d won. “I’ll see you in a few minutes.” I tossed the mail back onto the chest.

Out front, Aggie was still spraying. I waved to her. “I have to run a quick errand.” I climbed into my car and drove the four blocks to Roger’s house.

Mistress K opened the door before I had a chance to knock.

Had she trussed him so tightly she couldn’t loosen the ropes? No. Her face lacked its usual surfeit of confidence. The dominatrix’s forehead was wrinkled and her eyes seemed too big for their sockets.

She reached outside, closed her hand around my wrist and hauled me into the Harpers’ foyer. “This way.”

She pulled me toward the kitchen.

Harvest gold and pumpkin orange assaulted my retinas but what burned them was the pajama-clad body kneeling on the floor with its head in the oven.

“Oh my God.” The words slipped through numbed lips. “Is it Roger?”

Mistress K bit her lower lip and nodded.

“Have you called an ambulance?”

“He’s dead.”

“How do you know?”

“Gas.”

“Do you smell any?” I knew the answer.
No.
Madeline’s oven was broken. It hadn’t worked in years. She didn’t cook so she’d never bothered to have it repaired.

“He wrote a note.”

Sure enough, a single sheet of white paper lay on the counter. R.A.H. was embossed in gold across the top. On it, Roger had scrawled
I’m sorry.

Bullshit. If Roger were going to kill himself, he wouldn’t do it by sticking his head in a gasless oven. I bent over his body, grabbed a handful of seersucker robe, and pulled him free of the broken appliance.

His skin was cool and grey but he wasn’t dead. At least I didn’t think he was. “Call an ambulance.”

She picked up the phone and dialed zero.

I tapped Roger on the cheek. Gently. Then with more force.

Behind me, the dominatrix snorted.

“Roger!” The tap became a slap. He didn’t move. Maybe he
was
dead. I dug in my purse for my compact and yanked it open, accidentally sprinkling him with powder. Then I held the tiny mirror over his mouth and nose.

Fog.

He wasn’t dead.

“Tell them to hurry,” I said over my shoulder.

Mistress K rolled her eyes. Now that she wasn’t dealing with a dead body by herself, her natural contempt for me had returned. “It’s not like ambulances drive slowly.”

“Just tell them.”

“Hurry.” Her voice was as flat as a deflated beach ball.

What a bitch.

She hung up the phone.

“What are you doing here, Kathleen?”

Her nostrils flared at my use of her first name. “Roger was late. I came to punish him.”

That explained the leather pants and the whip that hung from her belt. It didn’t come close to explaining who’d tried to kill Roger and make it look like a suicide.

“How did you get in?”

“Roger gave me a key.”

Roger
wanted
to be punished. I kept my lip from curling with distaste. Barely.

Instead, I stood, picked my purse up from where I’d left it on the counter, then rooted through it until I came up with Detective A-is-for-Anarchy Jones’ business card.

“What are you doing?” Kathleen asked.

“Calling the police.”

The dominatrix edged toward the door.

“If you leave, I’ll tell them you were here,” I said. “They’ll wonder why you left.”

Emotions flickered across her face. First shock—her crimson lips formed a circle and her eyes grew big, then anger—brows drawn, lips thinned, then something sly, like she believed she could tell me some pretty lie and leave me to be discovered with a third body in a week. Not.

“I called you because I thought you could help. I thought maybe I could stay out of this.”

Did she think I couldn’t recognize cow manure? “Then you thought wrong. Someone who didn’t know that oven was broken tried to stage a suicide. You’re staying to talk to the police.”

“If you’d just let me explain. I—”

I held up my hand. “Shush.” I needed to think, not listen to her jabbering. Kathleen could have left Roger. She’d thought he was dead. No one would have found him for days. Why had she called for help? Could it be that deep beneath the leather and floggers there was a decent human being? More likely someone at her club knew she’d come here. They might wonder when Roger was reported dead.

“Do you think Kitty or Prudence could have done this?” I asked.

She stared at me.

“Kitty Ballew or Prudence Davies. Could either one have done this?”

“Maybe. But why would they?”

The murderer had staged a suicide. They’d wanted the police to believe Roger had killed Madeline and Henry and then himself. Two murders neatly tied up. The end of the investigation. Seemed like a good reason to me.

I picked up the phone and dialed the number on the card. “May I please speak with Detective Jones?”

“This is Jones.”

I narrowed my eyes and glared at Mistress K who was inching toward the door. “Detective Jones, this Ellison Russell, I’m at Roger Harper’s house with Kathleen O’Malley. Someone tried to kill him.”

“Another body?” The voice on the other end of the phone was incredulous.

That’s me. The woman who finds corpses. “He’s not dead.” Yet. “The ambulance is on its way.”

“So am I, Mrs. Russell.” He hung up.

Mrs. Russell?

Shit.

I put the receiver in the cradle, lifted it again then dialed. “Hunter, it’s Ellison. I’m at Roger Harper’s. Someone tried to kill him and I think you’d better come over here.”

To his credit, Hunter didn’t question, didn’t wonder aloud about my propensity for finding bodies, didn’t call me Mrs. Russell. “I’ll be there in ten. If the police get there before me, don’t say anything.”

It was déjà vu all over again.