Suspicion of Malice (10 page)

She stumbled backward. "Get away from me."

The door slammed behind her, and the lock
turned.

Chapter 6

She found Dub in bed already, lying on top of the satin comforter watching CNN, holding a glass of
bourbon on his belly. He always wore V-necked
white T-shirts to bed, and they rode up at the waist.
Cigarette smoke drifted through the shade on the
cut-glass lamp.

"Did you give him the heave-ho, warden?"

Liz kicked off her sandals and shoved them into
her closet. "I
told
Sean I didn't want him associating with Bobby. Every time they're together, Sean starts
in with the mouth, like some . . . ghetto kid. He
never got into trouble until he met Bobby Gonzalez. He's a menace. If I could think of a way to send him
back to Puerto Rico, I'd do it."

"I think he was born in New York, Lizzie."

She tossed her bracelets and watch into her jewelry
box. "You don't take this seriously, do you?" Gold
earrings followed.

"Bobby's all right, except . . . don't you think it's
a little weird, a kid from his background, running
around in ballet slippers?" Dub waggled his fingers.

"He isn't
gay.
Diane assured me of that."

"Since when is she sleeping with Bobby?"

Liz shook a cigarette out of her husband's pack. "They dated a couple of years ago. Don't you pay
attention to anything? Now she apparently likes
older men. Where's the lighter?"

Dub switched channels, pausing at an ESPN replay
of a Sammy Sosa home run. "If you mean Jack, I
don't buy it."

"She ran back over there in a damned hurry, didn't
she? And the night Roger was killed they were in
his house together. Talking? Please." Liz clicked the
gold lighter and stared at the flame. "Maybe Diane
lied to the police." She inhaled smoke and tossed the
lighter back on the nightstand. "Do you think that's
a possibility, Dub?"

Ice cubes rattled as Dub sipped his bourbon. He put the glass back on his stomach. "What do you
mean? Jack might've killed Roger?"

"Hasn't it crossed your mind?"

"Can't say it has." Dub pressed the remote
through several commercials. "Why would Jack do
that?"

"Oh, twenty or thirty million dollars." Liz laid her cigarette beside his in the ashtray and pulled her red
knit shirt over her head. "Claire's rich in her own
right, and she'll inherit all of Porter's money, too.
Who's she going to leave it all to, now that Roger
is dead?"

"Not good enough. Claire's going to be around for
a long time."

Liz unhooked her bra. "Porter won't. Jack will start working on Claire to let him sell Maggie's paintings. Think what it would do for his business." Liz tossed shirt and bra to the chaise longue, then unzipped her
pants. "It's just my little theory, and Jack certainly
isn't the only one who could have done it."

When she stepped out of her underwear, Dub's
glance didn't waver from the television screen. It an
noyed her. Even at fifty-four, a man should at least
have the courtesy of looking. Dub drank too much, she reminded herself. The doctors had told him to
stop, and he wouldn't. He had bottles stashed all
over the office. At least he had never been violent. He didn't yell at her or the kids. He would just get
drunk and go to sleep.

Liz knew about alcoholics. Her mother had been one—the violent kind. At sixteen Liz had moved out
and put herself through night school. At eighteen
she'd gone to work at Cresswell Yachts sanding
pieces of fiberglass. No air conditioning in the boat sheds, fans going, eating her lunch out of a bag, lis
tening to loud Cuban voices. She learned Spanish
quickly, did her job without complaining, and moved up to shift supervisor. Then one day she stayed late, and Charlie Cresswell followed her into the tool shed
and closed the door. She got her revenge by de
manding a job in the sales department. She had no
ticed his younger son working there.

"Are you going to share your little theory with the
police?" Dub asked.

Naked, Liz pulled a green silk kimono off its pad
ded hanger. "God no. Let them figure it out. They
don't need my help." Belting the robe, she looked at the floor by the closet again. The gold-framed paint
ing she'd propped against the wall was gone. "Hey,
where's that painting? It was right
here.
Did you move it?"

"I haven't seen it, Liz."

"Goddamn it. She took it. Diane came in here and
stole it on her way out!"

"So what? You said it didn't look like her."

"That's not the point! Porter
gave
it to us, and she
stole it! Don't you
care
if that girl is a thief?"

Dub took a sip of his drink. "Jesus."

"I do my best for this family, and all I get from
her is sarcasm and hostility. Sometimes I think she
hates us."

"She was mad because we didn't go to her performance tonight."

"I'm surprised
she
went. It showed such disrespect
for Porter and Claire. Oh, I don't want to talk about
it. It's been a hideous day. I hate funerals." She
scooted across the bed, sliding on satin. "Pass me the
ashtray, will you?" He put it between them.

Lying crossways, propped on her elbows, Liz
watched Bette Davis in a big-shouldered coat and a hat, knocking frantically on a locked door in a seedy hotel.
Richard! Richard, let me in! It's me, darling. It's
Helen.
Dramatic music played on the sound track.

Dub asked, "What do you mean, 'Jack isn't the
only one'?"

Liz tapped her cigarette on the ashtray. "Only
one what?"

"The only one who could have done it. What did
you mean?"

"Oh, I don't know. Roger was such a prick. Even
Porter was outraged. He double-crossed his own fa
ther, for God's sake."

"Double-crossed?"

"Roger promised him he wouldn't make any big changes, but the minute Porter was gone, bam. No
more of these wallowing luxury boats, no sirree, let's
make them lighter and cheaper and sell twice as
many! A good idea in theory, but my God, you just don't stop a production line in its tracks! The money we lost! Porter was absolutely livid. 1 could kill you! You're trying to destroy everything our family stands
for.' Yes, I could believe that Porter had shot him."

"The only kid he had left?"

"He's a lunatic. If he can't have it his way, he destroys it. Remember last month the men found a
crack in one of the fuel tanks? They could have fixed
it, but Porter came after it with a fire axe!"

Dub was apparently still chewing on her previous remark. "Not everybody looks guilty, Liz. Claire
couldn't have done it."

"I agree with you there. Claire couldn't see Roger's faults. Claire is the queen of denial. A pretty little
windup toy. 'Yes, Porter. No, Porter.'” Liz rolled
over to lie on her back. Her silk kimono came open, only the belt spanning her bare waist. "Let's not talk
about this anymore."

"You started it."

"I'm sorry I did. Turn off the TV. Please, Dub."

"What about Nikki?" He flipped to another channel. David Letterman was making jokes with the bald guy who led the orchestra. "The wife is the first per
son the police look at when the husband gets
whacked. That's what I've heard."

Liz made a low laugh. "Watch yourself, Duncan." She stretched out, arms over her head. The kimono slid off her breasts. Cool air from the vent made her
nipples stand up.

Colors flashed on the ceiling, and the speakers
popped every time Dub pressed his thumb on the
remote.

He had considered hiring someone to follow his wife, see if she was cheating, but
knowing
would be worse. Which one of the engine salesmen or sun
burned lift operators? Who was getting sawdust or machine oil in his wife's panties? Who was looking at Duncan Cresswell and smirking? It was more peaceful not to know. He wasn't even sure he cared.

In five years he had accumulated over two million
dollars. He'd never made as much as Porter, so a
little creative accounting was his way of evening
things out. Roger had started sniffing around, but he
hadn't known how to read the books.

Dub considered it his rainy day fund. If one day
Liz tried to fuck him over in court, or if he woke up
and decided he couldn't stand hearing Spanish or fighting traffic anymore, he could pack a bag, grab
his passport, and . . . go. He had the destination
picked out. Anguilla, in the French Antilles. He'd
been down there fishing last winter. As the boat had
headed back to the marina, he'd looked out at the
white spume off the stern and thought of Liz. He'd seen her slipping overboard. He'd seen her getting smaller till her head was a black dot. Then nothing.

He took his cigarette out of the ashtray. "I could
fire you. Do you realize that, Lizzie? Maybe Roger
was right. It would be a lot more peaceful in the
office if you weren't around."

"Would you fire me, Dub? Would you?"

She scratched her nails along the waistband of his
shorts. What she ought to do, Dub thought, was
show him a centerfold photo of his bank statement
from Caledonia Bank and Trust, Ltd., on Grand
Cayman.

On the television, Jay Leno was talking to an actress with long curly hair, someone he didn't recog
nize, plugging her new movie, which he'd never
heard of. Jay saying,
Let's show a clip, can we?
Dub
thumbed the remote. A music video from India,
women singing in warbling voices, dancing in a line in flowing saris. He pressed buttons at random. The Nashville Network. HBO. The Weather Channel.

Her hand was moving on him, squeezing, long
nails occasionally catching his flesh, but nothing was happening down there. Dub lifted his cigarette to his
lips. He wanted to touch the end of it to the sleeve of that silk robe, see what she'd do.

First time he'd seen her she'd been polishing fiberglass with a disk sander. Face mask on for the dust, gloves, long smock, hair all white, nothing
showing but those cocoa-brown eyes. Within a year she'd been wearing a short dress and high heels, run
ning a calculator in the sales department. He still
didn't know how she'd managed that transformation.
She did a boat show with him, and he wound up in
the forward stateroom with her head in his lap. Six
months later she was pregnant with Patty, and they
got married.

She'd picked up the boat business fast, and she'd
known how to get the most out of the workers. Any
idea she had, she let Dub take the credit, and when the old man died, he'd given Dub a share—only a
third, but without Liz, he'd have gotten zip. Now he had half—on paper only. Porter still made the deci
sions. Dub didn't care. He had his bank account.

'Turn the TV off, Dub."

"In a minute."

She grabbed the remote, jabbed at it, then flung it across the room. It hit the armoire, and the batteries
fell out.

Dub stared at the blank screen. "I guess I don't get
any tonight."

"Up yours."

"What about you, Lizzie? Why did you want
Roger dead?"

"I didn't say that."

"Come on. You started this game."

Her hair was in her eyes, and she swept it back and held it. "Me. Well, why did I want him dead?
His ideas weren't bad, but he was such an asshole.
Roger never listened to me, and I've been there for twenty-four years! Does that count, Dub? Wanting to
kill someone because he ignores you?"

Dub reached into the drawer for his pint of bourbon. "Roger wanted to fire you. He said you were
overstepping your authority."

She hooted a laugh. "Let's call it saving the com
pany from bankruptcy."

Liquid flowed into the glass. "Lady of leisure.
What would you have done all day? Get yourself a
regular massage. Go to ballet parties with Claire.
Maybe find a tennis instructor who likes mature,
foxy women."