Too Pretty to Die (15 page)

I
was mistaken?

Oh, really.

I stood there, blinking at her, not sure what to say without insulting her. As if I would hallucinate seeing a computer on a coffee table. Was the photo on the screen a figment of my imagination? Had I dreamt I’d put the laptop in sleep mode so it would go dark?

Yeesh.

Brian came up beside me and slung an arm around my shoulders. “You hanging in there?” he asked.

“By my fingernails,” I said, frowning.

I watched Anna Dean take off in her marked vehicle without even turning on her bubble lights, much to Brian’s muttered disappointment.

Well, if the deputy chief didn’t believe me about the laptop, I guess I couldn’t blame her, considering my parentage. Cissy was nothing if not a colorful figure in the Park Cities, and my own life was routinely bizarre, though I could pin that as well on the nuts stuck on my family tree.

No use fretting over something I couldn’t change.

Brian and I shuffled over to the front stoop, and I patted the heads of the whitewashed terra cotta lions standing guard on either side of the front door. I’d named them Bert and Ernie when I was a kid, though that wasn’t exactly public knowledge.

Hey, everyone had secrets they took to the grave, didn’t they? Mine were probably meek compared to most. I wondered if Miranda had died with deep, dark secrets she’d tried to keep.

I’d barely touched my finger to the doorbell when the portal was pulled wide and Sandy Beck let out a “Thank goodness it’s you, Andy!”

Then she hustled me and Brian inside.

I could hear voices beyond the foyer, and before she shepherded us in their direction, Sandy worried the pearl buttons on her dove gray cardigan and whispered, “Cissy appears to have whacked a hornet’s nest, hasn’t she? The deputy chief was just here—”

“I know,” I butted in. “I ran into her outside.”

“And Janet Graham’s in the den.” Sandy put a hand to her heart. “Good Lord, what happened to that poor girl’s lips? Was she in an accident?”

“Not exactly,” I said, knowing as I did that Janet’s newly enlarged lips were no accident. “I believe it was, um, an allergic reaction to something she ate.”

Don’t ask why I lied. It just came out that way.

Sandy looked satisfied. “Well, Janet has planted herself on the sofa and I doubt she’ll leave until she gets something extremely gossipworthy out of your mother, though I daresay Cissy should be nearly tapped out after the show she put on this morning at the police station.”

Whoa.

My eyes went wide with shock. Sandy rarely ever criticized Mother, even sideways, so I could tell she was upset.

She sighed and tapped her chin. “I wonder if Janet will be staying for dinner. Should I set extra plates for y’all, too? Oh, dear, but I’ve no idea what that dear girl’s allergic to. Perhaps I should ask in case she’s here too much longer?”

“I have a feeling we’ll all be gone before supper, Sandy, so I wouldn’t worry about Janet or anyone else if I were you.”

Heck, if I had my druthers, Malone and I would be out of Mother’s house in ten minutes flat, after I set the record straight.

I thought of something else and asked Sandy, “Is Stephen here? I saw his car out front.”

She cocked her head toward the kitchen. “He’s interviewing the private investigator your mother is thinking of hiring.”

So the dinged-up old Ford belonged to a P.I.?

I exhaled, the air lifting my bangs from my forehead.

Either the dude didn’t like to spend extravagantly on cars or he wasn’t very good at what he did. Perhaps he was someone Mother was using simply to keep the local police on their toes. As if they needed prodding.

“Oh, he appears to be a very nice man,” Sandy said, though I hadn’t asked. “I’m heading back to the kitchen myself, to see if they need more coffee, then I’m ducking into my room and locking the door for a while. It’s been a rather hectic day, as you can imagine.”

Sandy did look frazzled. Her normally placid face—warmly etched with lines from a life well lived—had the glazed look of someone who needed Calgon to take her far, far away.

“You go on,” I told her. “I’ve got a few words to say to Mother, as you can imagine.”

“Bad words?” she asked, raising fuzzy gray eyebrows.

“If they are, it’ll be the bare minimum, I promise. Not enough to send me to hell in a hand basket,” I assured her, and she patted my hand before she headed off.

Locking herself into her room, huh?

Sounded like a smart choice to me.

I’d always said that Sandy was a genius.

Tempted as I was to grab Malone and leave so we could play hermit at the condo until this latest debacle blew over, I knew I had to straighten out my mother. I felt like she’d used me to get a point across, when this situation involving Miranda DuBois had zip to do with me. If Cissy’s intention was to support Debbie Santos in her quest to find out exactly why her daughter had died, I had nothing against that. She just had to leave me out of it.

“You can do this, Andy,” Brian said, giving me a gentle nudge. “You can stand up to your mother. I’ve seen you do it before, and without use of deadly force. Don’t let her intimidate you.”

“If she’d only just mind her own business, I’d never have to argue with her again,” I said, and he laughed, shaking his head.

“Like that’s ever going to happen in our lifetime.”

I wanted to say something like,
I’m sorry my mom’s such a nut
ball
or
Maybe this’ll be the last time she makes a mess I have to clean up
, but he clearly already knew how things stood after nearly five months of dating
moi
.

“If you need me to throw a block for you, just give me the high sign,” he offered, hardly looking very tough with his button-down shirt and crew neck Polo, with that cowlick of brown curled upon his forehead. Imagining him throwing a body block was cause enough to soften my hard heart the tiniest bit.

“Thanks,” I said, and laced my fingers with his, gripping as I pulled him forward. “Now, for your viewing pleasure, come watch me ever so gracefully kick my mother’s derriere. Figuratively speaking.”

Without hesitation, he followed me down the hallway toward the den where the lions congregated, and I squared my far-from-broad shoulders, gearing up to face them.

When I stepped through the transom, a floorboard creaked underfoot. The jabber of voices quieted and all eyes turned to me.

Then, as quickly as they shut up, they started yapping again, throwing out questions with the intensity of ticked-off tribesmen spitting blow darts.

“Andy, how
could
you keep such a huge secret from me? Not telling me you were with Miranda before she died? Or about the fact that she didn’t off herself like the police believe? My gosh, how long have we been friends? Since before puberty?” Janet rattled all this off without a breath between. She sounded wounded—heck, she
looked
wounded, with those fattened chops of hers.

My mother simultaneously kicked in a pink-cheeked apology: “Sweet pea, I
tried
to explain what I meant when I said you had proof that Miranda didn’t kill herself, but I think Janet needs to hear it from the horse’s mouth, as she obviously doesn’t believe me. . . .”

Where were the plagues of locust when you needed them?

If I could’ve blinked and had them swarm the room, I would’ve done it.

Instead, I took in a deep breath, let go of Malone’s hand and rounded the overstuffed sofa, to stand in front of the great marbled fireplace that centered the room.

I cleared my throat, which had no effect whatsoever, and then I said—very loudly—“Would the two of you, please, just shut up for a second and listen to me?”

My mother and Janet fell silent, and I was finally able to have my say without having to resort to covering their pie holes with duct tape.

M
alone shot a
Do you need me
? look from across the room, but I shook my head. I might be a soft-hearted marshmallow when it came to my emotions, but there were times when I simply had to stand up for myself.

This was one of them.

I turned my attention to Cissy and Janet, my mother in a brown suede skirt and taupe silk turtleneck, Janet in a blinding magenta suit (with matching magenta lips); both of them glared at me, and I sighed, the frustration I’d felt only seconds ago seeping away, sadness in its stead.

“I don’t know what you want from me,” I told them, my voice strained. “All I tried to do was help out Miranda, and now I’m under suspicion for—” I hesitated, having no idea exactly. “—all sorts of things.”

When no one uttered a rebuttal, I continued, “The only thing I’m sure of about Miranda’s death is that I wasn’t there when she breathed her last. So I can’t say what happened. If you want to figure it out, I’d suggest you call a medium who can channel the nearly departed and get Miranda’s perspective.” I tossed my hands in the air, letting go of my angst and my guilt, because I was through feeling responsible. “I have no clue whether or not she killed herself, though I’d like to think she didn’t. Except the alternative is . . . well, it’s not any better, is it?”

There, I’d said it.

I felt relieved and unsettled at once.

“But, Andy,” Janet piped up, “Cissy said you had proof that Miranda didn’t take her own life. So ’fess up. What is it?”

“Astoundingly, Mother was exaggerating,” I told her, fixing my gaze on Cissy, who in turn glanced up at the ceiling, as if spotting a damp spot where none existed. “I don’t have any kind of tangible evidence, just a strong gut feeling.”

My mother lost interest in the ceiling and chimed in, “We should listen to our intuition more often. It’s what God gave us women to make up for not installing an inner compass. Though the automobile industry’s taken care of that one, haven’t they, with On-Star and talking maps?” She plucked at invisible lint on her suede skirt. “I do so love that little voice that tells me when to turn right and left. It sounds so much like Meryl Streep. Do you think it’s her, perchance?”

“I don’t know, Mother,” I said, fighting hard the temptation to roll my eyes. Cissy came up with the darnedest things sometimes.

“I guess it could be Lauren Bacall,” Mother went on inanely. “Sometimes it does sound like the old Tuesday Morning commercials.”

Brian coughed behind his hand and pretended to study the signed Ansel Adams photographs hung on the wall above Mother’s cherrywood desk. He must’ve decided I didn’t need his protection, as he excused himself, giving me an
I’ll be waiting outside
glance before he beat it.

I ached to follow him, but stayed put.

“So your evidence is just instinct?” Janet prodded. She had a pad of paper balanced on her knees, and a pen in her hand, and I knew that anything I said might very well end up on the Society pages of the
Park Cities Press
in an expose about Dr. Sonja, the shooting at the Pretty Party, and the suspicious death of a local debutante slash beauty queen turned news anchorwoman. “You don’t have anything tangible?”

My God, she was as bad as Anna Dean, who’d wanted me to swear to God and the world in a police report.

“If there was any tangible proof that Miranda didn’t kill herself, I would’ve turned it over to the cops already, Janet,” I said, sounding huffy. Heck, feeling huffy. “It’s just that Miranda didn’t seem like she wanted to chuck it all after what happened at Delaney’s. I got the feeling she was mad as hell.” I went ahead and told her, “Miranda sounded like she wanted revenge, not a way out.”

“Andrea?” my mother piped up. “While I’m thinking of it, if you wouldn’t mind, there’s something I need to talk to you about. It’s most urgent—”

“You’re darned right there is,” I replied, but I held up my hand. “When I’m done with Janet, it’s your turn,” I said, and she frowned, tight-lipped, but let it drop.

Thank heavens.

“But the police seem to think Miranda killed herself with her own gun, isn’t that right?” Janet said. “So
they
must have proof that’s what happened.”

Perhaps I should’ve just shut up then and there.

But I didn’t exactly have a reputation for being the strong, silent type. Could be I was more like Cissy than I wanted to admit.

“If it went down that way, someone from Delaney’s party must’ve stopped by and dropped off Miranda’s gun after I left her duplex,” I said, wrestling aloud with the only scenario that made sense, “because I could swear that someone else snatched up the .22 when Miranda dropped it on Delaney’s living room floor, and I’m pretty danged certain she didn’t have it on her when I took her home.”

“Cissy wasn’t lying, then?” Janet nearly gasped, and my mother sat up ramrod straight, her smile smug. “Not full throttle anyway. You
saw
something. That’s some kind of proof. You’re a witness.”

“I didn’t witness Miranda’s death,” I reminded her, “only how things played out beforehand. As for whether or not my mother lied, she stretched the truth a smidge by implying I had something concrete,” I said, then added more quietly, “so, I guess, it wasn’t a total fabrication, if you put it that way.”

My heart pounded a mile a minute after I was finished, because I’d admitted flat-out what I’d told Anna Dean about Miranda’s gun, and it was the truth as I knew it. Even though I realized Janet might use it in an article questioning the police spin on Miranda’s death being a suicide.

“I would never flat-out lie. I was raised better than that,” my mother drawled, “though there’s nothing wrong with an occasional truth stretching, particularly when one’s intentions are good. Such as that time when Bunny Beeler asked how her Versace gown looked at the Cattle Baron’s Ball, and I didn’t want to tell her the lime-green sequins made her appear rather like a large stalk of celery, so I tweaked my honest opinion into a whispered, ‘Bunny, you look good enough to eat,’ since I was rather hungry and a stalk of celery with a little cream cheese would’ve been a lifesaver.”

My mother is a loony tune
, I thought, and blotted out Cissy’s voice as she meandered into another story about some little white lies she’d told.