THE DEEP END (11 page)

Three men began to shift and squirm and gaze longingly at the door. I gazed at it too, hoping they’d get the hint and leave. Detective Jones actually took a step toward the door just as Harriet barged through it.

If she noticed my distress, she gave no indication. Instead, righteous indignation radiated from her pores. In fact, a halo of it surrounded her. She planted her hands on her hips. “I hope you don’t expect me to clean this up.”

I had.  She was the housekeeper. Cleaning was part of her job description. I’d even planned to slip an extra hundred into her pay envelope. In the face of her withering anger, I made a noncommittal noise deep in my throat and blew my nose again. Later, without an audience, I’d discuss restoring order to Henry’s study with her. Not now. Not with her anger and my headache and Powers’ avid interest.

Blustering at me wasn’t enough. She rounded on Detective Jones. “If you think I’m going downtown to be fingerprinted like some criminal you’re wrong.”

He offered her a placating smile. “We need your fingerprints strictly to eliminate them. No one thinks you’re a criminal.”

She harrumphed, focused her baleful gaze on Powers and pursed her lips. “Don’t you even think of smoking in this house.” She wagged a finger beneath his nose.

Powers actually retreated, then crossed his hands over his heart. “I wouldn’t dream.”

Harriet harrumphed again. “Someone did. This room reeked when I got home yesterday.” Then she glanced at Hunter. Apparently unable to find fault, she returned her attention to me. “No one ate the chicken salad. There are orphans starving in Africa and all that chicken salad went to waste.”

How in the name of all that is holy had I hired someone whose personality so closely resembled Mother’s? Unreasonable anger? Check. Taking said anger out on whoever was unfortunate enough to be close by? Check. Blaming world hunger on me? Check.  Although with Mother, it was the orphans in Bulgaria who were starving.

At the ripe age of six, I offered to send the orphans my Brussels sprouts. Mother was not amused. I sat at the table staring at sodden green lumps until bedtime. I thought I’d won until they were served to me for breakfast. Somehow, I forced the cold, slimy, dirty-sock-tasting pellets down my throat. Then I vomited on Mother’s new pumps. While her feet were in them. She wasn’t amused by that either.

I should have stuffed Harriet’s chicken salad down the disposal. Between finding bodies, escorting Roger Harper to a kinky club, and being hospitalized, I hadn’t gotten around to it.

“This is your housekeeper?” Hunter asked. He sounded appalled.

I nodded.

“And I am your lawyer?”

I nodded again.

“I have the authority to act on your behalf?”

“I suppose.”

“Excellent.” He looked at Harriet standing there with steam rising from her ears. “Mrs. Russell no longer needs your services. You may go.”

Hard to say who was more shocked—Harriet or me. I gasped. She clutched at her heart.

Detective Jones looked uncomfortable. Powers looked like he wanted an imaginary soda to wash down his imaginary popcorn. Hunter, damn him straight to hell, crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe.

The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.
Shakespeare had the right idea. I scanned the room for a weapon. The fireplace poker was sadly missing. Then I tried to shoot flames from my eyes like Mother. I might have achieved a cinder.

Hunter flicked it from the sleeve of his immaculate navy blazer.

“He can’t fire you, Harriet.” I glared in his direction. I couldn’t manage without Harriet. I didn’t clean. I was a terrible cook. The last time I did laundry, I turned all Henry’s white boxer shorts pink. If Harriet left, my impending breakdown might last longer than the hour or two I’d originally planned. It might last a day or two—or a week or two. Damn Hunter Tafft and the Mercedes he rode in on. What gave him the right to fire my staff?

One of my housekeeper’s hands was still splayed over her heaving left breast. Her other hand raked through her hair. Getting fired had only increased the amount of steam curling from her ears. Her face was an undiluted cadmium red. “You’re right. He can’t fire me.” Her eyes narrowed to slits. “I quit.”

Sweet nine-pound baby Jesus.

She stomped out of the room, a study in righteous indignation and injured pride. All because we called for Gung Pao instead of eating her chicken salad. She put grapes in her chicken salad. I hate grapes in chicken salad. And nuts. I hate nuts in chicken salad. Harriet sometimes added cashews. It was just wrong. I wouldn’t miss her chicken salad.

I would miss her.

Maybe I could offer her more money to stay. I’d make it up to her...

Wait a minute. What was I thinking? Where was the new improved Ellison? The one who walked out of the hospital only an hour ago? Faced with a trashed study and the prospect of dirty laundry the new Ellison caved? Absolutely not. I took a deep breath, sent another glare in Hunter’s direction, then began to write a mental list of requirements for my next housekeeper.

Whoever she might be, she would be a purist. She’d add nothing to her chicken salad but celery. She wouldn’t yell, she wouldn’t complain when she had to clean the bathrooms, and steam wouldn’t rise from her ears when she got mad. All around, she’d be better. Yeah, right. Those kinds of housekeepers were just waiting around for me to hire them. In my dreams.

I rounded on Hunter, lifted a finger and poked him in his very pompous, very interfering, very solid chest. “You are going to conduct all the interviews to replace her.”

His unruffled expression faltered.  Good. The man was damn lucky that Detective Jones had presumably taken my entire fireplace set into evidence. I bet I could do real damage with that miniature shovel. Hunter ran a finger under his collar. “If you gentlemen will excuse us, I need to speak with my client.”

Detective Jones looked from Hunter to me and back again. His lips tightened, almost as if he was trying not to laugh. I swear I heard him mutter, “Your funeral.” Then he headed for the door. “Hope you feel better, Mrs. Russell.”

“Thank you, detective.”

Putting aside his imaginary snacks, Powers followed him into the front hall and I got to glare at Hunter in privacy.

“She’d forgotten who worked for whom,” he said.

“Be that as it may, she cooked, she cleaned, she did the grocery shopping and the laundry and the ironing—”

“We’ll find you a housekeeper who does all that without scolding you.”

I flushed and focused my gaze on him.

Mother was delusional. Chiseled jaw, charming smile, twinkling eyes. Bleh. No way would I ever find Hunter Tafft remotely attractive. No wonder my sister dumped him in high school for Tuck Bancroft.

“I was trying to help,” he said.

“You want to help?” I asked.

He nodded. “I do.”

“Then you,” my voice rose an octave or two, “can clean this mess up.”

Hunter Tafft gave me a not-going-to-happen roll of his eyes then stuck his perfectly coiffed silver head into the hallway. “Are you going to be much longer, Detective Jones? Mrs. Russell wants to start cleaning up.”

“We’re done here,” Detective Jones’ voice carried from the hallway.

“Ellie, I must fly. I’ll call you later,” Powers called. “You still owe me a dinner at the créperie.”

The click of the front door closing echoed through the house.

I opened my mouth to suggest that Hunter join them and he held up his finger for silence.

Arrogant much?

He crossed to the drapeless front windows and watched them drive away.

“Are you going to open the safe or not?” he asked.

I froze for half a second then I swiped at the end of my nose. “I don’t have the combination.”

His smile still charmed, his eyes still twinkled, but his voice sounded as hard as the business end of a nine iron. “It’s a bad idea to lie to your lawyer.”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s a bad idea to fire other people’s staff.”

“What’s in the safe, Ellison?”

It’s hard to pretend disinterest when you’re dying to know something, but I tried. My shoulders lifted then dropped. “No idea.”

“Wouldn’t you like to know before the detective gets himself a warrant?”

Of course I would. “Isn’t that evidence tampering?”

“Only if you actually tamper with the evidence. Nothing wrong with looking at it. I’d like to know what I’m dealing with.”

“I didn’t kill Madeline.”

“There may be something in Henry’s safe that proves that.”

I trusted a charming, handsome man once. I glanced around Henry’s destroyed office. It hadn’t turned out well. “I don’t have the combination.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself.” He glanced at his watch. “Are you all right to be here alone?”

“Fine.”

His gaze settled on the locked safe. “I guess I should go.”

I didn’t argue.

He left. I watched him drive away then I locked the front door. I went to the kitchen and checked the lock on the back door. Someone had made coffee. I drank a cup, took two aspirins, and watched the minute hand on the oven drag.

When fifteen minutes had passed, I went to the mudroom and dug out a pair of gloves. Then I returned to the study.

I stood in front of the safe and thought about all the reasons I shouldn’t open it. I wasn’t so sure Hunter was right about evidence tampering. It was a huge violation of Henry’s privacy and I wasn’t one hundred percent certain I wanted to know what was hidden within. None of that mattered because I needed to know. My fingers spun the dial and I peered inside.

Pandora’s Box held fewer evils.

Thirteen

I stared into Henry’s safe and contemplated bound stacks of hundred dollar bills. Thirty of them. Three hundred thousand dollars. What in the hell? What was Henry doing with that kind of money? In cash. That much money should be invested—unless it had to remain hidden.

A queasy,
oh shit
feeling took hold of my stomach.

I closed my eyes, counted to ten, and prayed that my head injury had conjured the obscene number of hundreds into Henry’s safe. When I opened my lids, the cash was still there. Neatly stacked. Uniformly green. Utterly wrong.

I pushed the money aside.

Large, innocuous-looking envelopes rested against the back of the safe. They were held upright by Henry’s gun and a box of bullets.

I pushed the gun aside and my fingers closed on an envelope. I pulled it toward me and read the name scrawled on its face. James Kensington—husband, father, stockbroker, scratch golfer. I loosened the flap and pulled out photographs and a strip of negatives.

James and Madeline would have been bad enough. James and Madeline and another man was infinitely worse. James’ wife Lydia would take everything he had—the kids, the house, the vacation home in Vail, the stock portfolio. I shoved the pictures back into the envelope with clumsy fingers.

Back when Henry and I got along, we’d often played mixed doubles with James and Lydia.  James had a strong backhand. Apparently, he liked a strong backhand. Count that among the things I wished never to know. I rubbed my eyes and reached for another envelope.

Evan Platt, the club tennis champion. With shaking fingers, I opened his envelope and withdrew a photograph. A naked Evan was on his hands and knees with a bit in his mouth. Somehow—and the how didn’t bear thinking about—someone had attached a horse’s tail to his hindquarters. I stuffed the photograph back in the envelope.

Next was Arch Archer’s. I didn’t open that one, or Spencer Wilde’s, or any of the others. I saw these people regularly. At the club. At parties. On the golf course. I didn’t want to know what they did in the bedroom. I didn’t want to know about their predilection for fetishes or kinky toys or pain or ménage.

So many envelopes. So many names. The queasiness in my stomach shifted to full on nausea. My husband was a blackmailer. There could be no other explanation for the ridiculous amount of cash or for the retina burning contents of the envelopes. Henry and Madeline had cooked up some kind of scheme using sex.

While the people on the pages of
Cosmo
might be open about their sexual experiences, the old guard in Kansas City was not, especially not when those experiences included handcuffs or whips or Berkley horses. I had to believe that the men and women whose names appeared on the envelopes had paid small fortunes to keep the pictures hidden from their business associates and more importantly, from their spouses.

Like an alcoholic reaching for another drink, I couldn’t stop myself from reaching for another handful of envelopes. I read the names through a haze of disbelief. Stanford Reemes—a judge. What the hell had he been thinking? Baker Carmichael—the managing partner in the city’s largest law firm. Harrington Walford.

Harrington Walford?

Daddy?

My stomach, already upset, fell faster and harder than a kid doing a cannonball off the high dive. Everything I’d ever known or counted on plummeted with it. Henry’s destroyed study swirled around me in a dizzying whirl of fingerprint dust, emptied drawers and books with bent pages.

My husband was blackmailing my father. I leaned my head against the wall, waited for the world to stop spinning and tried to wrap my brain around the idea.

Hunter’s voice played louder in my head than Grace played her Rolling Stones albums—
It’s only evidence tampering if you actually tamper.

I shoved the envelopes that didn’t matter back into the safe and slammed its door shut. The clash of metal on metal echoed through the room and my brain. The envelope with my father’s name remained clutched in my hands and I wished for January’s cold winds and a blazing fire suitable for burning things I never wanted to see. I could have found charcoal and lighter fluid and barbequed the envelope, but the effort to locate even matches seemed overwhelming.

Instead, I dragged myself upstairs to my room and settled onto the edge of my bed. I dropped the envelope to the floor, stripped off my gloves and lowered my aching head into my hands. What in the hell was I supposed to do? Was it really evidence tampering if I knew Daddy had been in California when Madeline was murdered? Did Mother know?

Christ in a Cadillac.

Had Mother killed Madeline? She couldn’t have. If Mother killed someone, she wouldn’t leave the body in the one place her daughter was sure to find it.

I listed to the side until my cheek touched the pillow. The lavender scented linen was smooth and cool and comforting against my skin and I closed my eyes. Just for a minute. Then my eyes started to leak. I let them. I finally allowed myself to cry.

I cried because my head hurt. I cried because everyone I knew was a murder suspect—including me. I cried because my husband was a blackmailer. Most of all, I cried because I’d been wrong—a girl couldn’t count on her Daddy.

I wallowed in misery for a full fifteen minutes before I got up and stashed the envelope with my father’s name on it in my safe. Then I got back into bed and cried myself to sleep.

The ring of the telephone woke me and I lifted one lid and squinted at the clock on my bedside table. Three hours of uninterrupted rest. I pulled a pillow over my head and cursed whoever was calling. When I was asleep, I didn’t have to face the repulsive fact that my husband was a blackmailer who made his money by targeting our friends. When I was asleep, I didn’t have to think about what the envelope with my father’s name on it might hold. If I thought about that, I’d convince myself there’d been a mistake. I’d have to look inside just to prove myself right. And if I was wrong, the photos could never be unseen.

I ignored the phone and landed a couple of good hard thumps of my fist against the uncaring mattress then dragged myself into the bathroom and stared at the mirror. The woman looking back at me had puffy, splotchy skin, crazy hair, and a look of desperation usually reserved for the squirrels and rabbits Max chased through the neighborhood. I stuck my tongue out at her.