Widows' Watch (25 page)

Monday, October 11, 4:45 P.M.

Margaret Forrest lived in an older ranch house in the Mission Hills district on the Westside. Elena wondered enviously how she kept her grass so green. It looked like emerald velvet, although the huge, fruitless mulberries must keep the yard in shade all day. There were beds of asters and chrysanthemums and impeccably trimmed bushes. Well, this was the woman who, because she wanted to pinch her chrysanthemums back, had left Dimitra to find the body alone. Elena had to admit that the pinching results were spectacular. Huge globes of luscious yellow.

Elena knocked at the door, was admitted after a short wait, and offered a cup of tea. In Margaret's living room were antiques that had been lovingly tended, probably with beeswax, by generations of women.

“I don't know what I can tell you,” said Margaret as she poured from a silver teapot. “I haven't remembered any more about the day Potemkin died. That is what you wanted to talk to me about?”

“That and other cases.”

“Really?” Looking surprised, Margaret offered Elena almond macaroons on a hand-painted china plate.

“Surely you've noticed that three other men besides Boris Potemkin were killed while their wives were playing in your bridge group.”

“Yes,” said Margaret.

It had been a fishing trip, an attempt to confirm that Mercedes Castro and Marcia Cox had actually been playing with the same three women.

“If I believed in such things,” said Margaret, “I'd say we're jinxed. However, my husband died a natural death—cancer.”

“I'm sorry,” said Elena politely. She was finding it hard to ask questions while juggling her teacup, napkin, and cookie.

“I was at his bedside at the hospital, not at the center playing bridge. So a jinx theory wouldn't quite work. And let's see. Emily's husband is still alive, Portia never married, and Lydia—her husband had a heart attack but then seemed to be getting better. He and Lydia took walks, rode bicycles.”

Bicycles? Elena's cup rattled in the saucer.

“Stationary, of course.”

Damn!

“Couldn't have him falling down in the street or attempting hills. Unfortunately, he had a stroke six months later, but Lydia wasn't at the center. They were both at home. Ambrose died after becoming terribly angry that evening about something on TV. Another macaroon?” Margaret passed the plate. “Of course, if you are a choleric person with high blood pressure, anger is a killer.”

“Can you see any other connections between these four deaths beyond the fact that the wives were substituting in your bridge group?”

Margaret looked thoughtful. “No, not really. The men were all killed in the course of robberies, but I'm sure you know that. Do you think the robbers somehow found out that the husbands would be alone?”

Elena had had that thought and dismissed it.

“Frankly, if I were a robber, I think I'd choose a day when the wife was alone, not the husband.”

“Umm,” Elena murmured. “There is one more case. The death of a Mr. Herbert Stoltz.”

“Well, yes,” said Margaret. Her face darkened. “But his wife wasn't playing bridge with us,” she said grimly. “Frances was dead.”

“I understand she was friendly with all of you.”

“We went to school together. Same class. Except for Emily, who was several years younger.” Margaret sighed. “Lydia was heartbroken. She's not a woman to show emotion, but she wept inconsolably at the funeral, and it took her quite some time to recover.”

“Mrs. Forrest, do you think Frances Stoltz was a battered woman?”

“Of course.”

Ah, thought Elena. Now we're getting somewhere.

“He killed her, didn't he? That's the ultimate battering.”

“Before that?”

“I wouldn't think so. But you know situations like that are best not talked about. At least, in my opinion.”

“Where they're not talked about, the wife often ends up dead,” said Elena.

“Perhaps, but there was no indication that Frances was abused before Herbert shot her, and we all know why that happened. She wanted to leave him, and he objected. He was the sort of man who had to have his way in everything.”

“So perhaps on earlier occasions when she disagreed with him, he hit her,” Elena suggested.

“Lydia would have known. She and Frances were closer than sisters.”

“Were any of the women whose husbands died”—how should she put it?—”the object of attentions from T. Bob Tyler. You know, the—”

“Of course, I know T. Bob. He's been going to the center as long as any of us. Every woman is the object of T. Bob Tyler's attention. The man adores women. He brings flowers, though I've often wondered how he can afford them. My guess is that he's on a tight budget. Not that he ever says anything. Too proud. If you're thinking T. Bob could have killed those husbands, in some sort of love triangle, that's ridiculous. The man's harmless.”

Much you know, thought Elena, remembering all the assaults. “Perhaps out of a chivalric instinct to defend a battered woman.”

“Goodness, we don't know that any of those women were battered.”

“Even Dimitra? There's her broken hip.”

“I wouldn't want to accuse Boris Potemkin without evidence, and Dimitra never said that he was responsible.”

“Her country-dancing fling with T. Bob Tyler was certainly ended by the broken hip.”

“My dear young lady, you're clutching at straws. I hope you can find better evidence than wild guesses and gossip if you plan to arrest anyone.”

That was the end of the interview. Elena climbed into her car and wound her way up the mountain to King's Hill, where Portia Lemay had a small condo furnished in Early American.

“I understand you've found condos and sold houses for some of the women whose husbands died,” said Elena midway into the interview.

“Yes, I did,” Portia agreed, “although I was semiretired at the time and acting out of friendship and sympathy. We all have to do what we can for others. Margaret, for instance, cuts flowers from her garden and puts them on the graves or gives the flowers to the widows to do so. Flowers can be very expensive if you have to buy them.”

Margaret hadn't mentioned that, thought Elena.

“I don't know why women marry,” Portia was saying. “A woman can save herself a lot of heartache by remaining single.”

“Do you think the women whose husbands died had difficult marriages?”

“I don't discuss people's marital problems with them. I was thinking of the shock of having a husband murdered. Are the police doing anything to catch those robbers?”

“We're trying,” said Elena.

“I don't see what good it does to interview me. I don't know any robbers.” Portia Lemay did not take T. Bob Tyler any more seriously than Margaret Forrest had. “What a funny man,” she commented. “I know he'd love to get married. He's even proposed to me, but the chances of anyone accepting T. Bob are slim. After all, who wants to marry a Western stereotype? And I'll wager he doesn't have a penny, not even social security. Goodness knows where he lives. I once offered to find him an apartment, and he said no thank you, that he was quite happy with his present lodgings. But he doesn't strike me as a man who's living comfortably. I can look at a person and tell whether they're well housed.”

Uh-huh, thought Elena. The way Mom can look at a person and tell whether they're happy.

Elena's last appointment of the day was with Emily Marks, who lived with her husband in Chaparral Park on the Westside, white brick and green shutters with a steep, shingled roof. Not very Southwestern—inside or out. The living room was a riot of flowered chintzes and fussy furniture, Emily herself fluttering about as if she were entertaining a celebrity.

“I'd invite you to dinner,” she apologized, “but George isn't here, so I've already had a TV dinner. Isn't that terrible? If my sister Frances were alive, she'd say, ‘Emily, if you don't eat well, you'll never live to a ripe old age like Mama.' Our mother lived to be ninety-two. She outlived Frances.” Emily blinked back tears. “I don't suppose I'll live as long as Mama. I like sweets too much, petit fours particularly. I can eat a whole box at one sitting, and then I have to diet for a month. I like to keep my figure. For George's sake. Of course, George says he'd still love me if I weighed three hundred pounds, but I always ask him if he'd still want to take me to the dinner dances at the country club.”

Elena decided that she had to overcome her familial strictures and interrupt Emily. “You mentioned your sister, Frances. Her husband was killed in a daylight robbery, I believe.”

“And he deserved it too,” said Emily. “He killed Frances.” Emily began to cry. “How could anyone kill a woman as sweet as Frances? She was always so good to me. And Lydia was devastated. I don't think she's ever got over Frances' death. They were best friends from girlhood. Both married military men and kept in touch all those years when their husbands were at different posts. Then they moved back here when their husbands retired, so happy to be together again. They saw each other every day.” Emily smiled through her tears.

“And then Herbert killed my sister, and they didn't even send him to jail. Lydia was just furious,” Emily confided. “She attended every day of the trial. I couldn't. I kept crying, and the judge made me leave. But Lydia went. If looks could kill, Herbert would have been dead long before that robber shot him. Poor Frances. It wasn't fair.” Emily sighed and blew her nose into a dainty handkerchief which she had extracted from the pocket of her blue-flowered dress. “We try to comfort each other—Lydia and I. We both lost a sister in Frances.”

Elena had begun taking notes as soon as Emily talked of her sister's death. If Herbert was the first victim of a serial killer, she wanted to know as much as she could about him. “Do you think her husband ever hurt your sister before he killed her?”

“You mean like Boris Potemkin did Dimitra?” asked Emily. “I'm sure Frances would have told us—Lydia or me—but she never said anything.”

“You're saying Boris Potemkin hurt Dimitra?” That wasn't what Emily had said at the center. Everyone Elena interviewed had waffled on that point.

“Of course he did. No one wants to talk about things like that, but he pushed her downstairs and broke her hip.”

“You're sure of that?”

“Well, we weren't there, of course, but that doesn't mean he didn't do it. When Lydia heard, she went as white as a sheet. Who wouldn't? Broken hips are dangerous. Life's dangerous,” said Emily, looking very upset. “People getting hurt and killed. I try not to think about it. George tells me not to fret over what I can't change.”

“Actually, Mrs. Marks, I'm looking into the deaths not only of Boris Potemkin but of several other men who were killed while their wives were at the center.”

“Exactly.” Emily shivered. “It makes me so nervous, I bought George a gun for his birthday. I told him to keep it right beside him when I wasn't home. In case that robber tried to kill my George. Of course, George just laughed. He doesn't know anything about guns, and I'd forgotten to get bullets. George said, ‘Am I supposed to carry it to the grocery store?'—George does the grocery shopping since he retired—and he said a gun would ruin his golf game.” Emily giggled. “George is so funny. I never think of any jokes, but he said even if he had a holster for the gun, it would make him slice or—what's the other word for hitting the ball the wrong way?” “Hook,” said Elena. They were all aware that men were getting killed while they played bridge. Well, why wouldn't they be aware? Murder wasn't exactly an everyday event in the lives of older middle-class women. But they all believed robbers to be at fault. Elena didn't.

“Did T. Bob Tyler ever show any interest in the widows of the men who were killed?”

“What a strange question!” Emily squirmed on the flowered upholstery of her sofa. Elena gripped her pen, thinking some important revelation might be coming. “I just can't stand it,” said Emily.

She knows something, thought Elena, elated. Finally, a real breakthrough.

“Would you like a chocolate-covered cherry?” Emily jumped up and rushed to an ornate cabinet, opened a door inset with leaded glass, and pulled out a box of candy. “I promised myself I wouldn't eat any more until tomorrow, but when I have them in the house, I just can't resist.” She whipped off the lid and offered the box to Elena.

Disappointed when it turned out that Emily was fighting a desire for chocolate rather than a desire to reveal some secret about T. Bob Tyler, Elena selected a cherry, which was terrific, bathed in some kind of tasty liqueur, covered with rich, dark chocolate, stem sticking out the top so you didn't get your fingers sticky when you picked one up.

“Have another,” said Emily. “Aren't they scrumptious? Let's see. You asked about T. Bob. Well, of course he was interested in the widows. Poor T. Bob wants to get married in the worst way. He keeps asking women out, not just the women whose husbands were murdered.”

“Did he date Marcia Cox?” asked Elena, wondering if a man would kill a husband in order to free the wife for courtship.

“Well, he asked.” Emily giggled and pulled another cherry off the stem with small white teeth. “Marcia told him that it was much too early for her to consider dating. So he asked her about six months later. You know, she stopped coming so often to the center after that. I expect she didn't want to go out with him. He's a sweet man, but I'm sure he hasn't a dime. Women have to be careful they're not married for their money, you know. Especially widows.”

“What about Chantal Brolie? Did he ask her out?”

“Oh, yes. He even took her French class before her husband was killed. Can you imagine a cowboy talking French? Everyone knew it was because he was sweet on her. And he asked her out when Hank died. Chantal does date, so she couldn't very well use that excuse, so you know what she said?” Emily's delighted laugh tinkled into the air, which smelled of potpourri. A small basket of it sat on the coffee table, making Elena's nose itch. “She said she really couldn't understand him well enough to consider dating him. His accent was beyond her. T. Bob was terribly disappointed, but he does have a country accent. Our teachers at the Arland School wouldn't let us have accents. I don't sound like a Texan, do you think?”