THE DEEP END (24 page)

Twenty-Seven

I got one day at the farm. A respite of riding horses with Grace and sitting on the porch to watch the sun set over the hills with Daddy. A single day to hug my daughter and wipe away her tears. A brief twenty-four hours to pretend there wasn’t the mother of all messes waiting for me at home. One day, thirteen phone messages from Mother, eleven from Aggie relaying messages from friends, four from Powers, three from Anarchy Jones, and none from Hunter Tafft.

Mrs. Smith, the female half of the nice old couple who took care of the farm for Mother and Daddy, noticed. “You never get calls up here.” She handed me a second stack of neatly written messages.

I flipped through the notes, cream stock with Mother’s monogram in navy at the top, then I handed them back to her. “You could stop answering the phone.”

She tittered. She didn’t realize I was serious.

Thirty plus calls to return. Fourteen if I counted Mother, Powers, and Detective Jones at one each and ignored the new stack.

“These are for Grace.” A second stack was shoved into my hands.

I’d hoped the farm might be an escape for both Grace and me. Southwestern Bell was making that impossible. As if to prove my point, the phone rang.

Mrs. Smith answered it with a cheery greeting, listened to a lengthy response, then paled to the exact shade of a new golf ball. “Yes, Mrs. Walford.” The poor woman mouthed
I’m sorry
then held out the receiver.

I tamped down the inclination to run away and took it from her hand. “Hello, Mother.”

“Ellison Prentice Walford Russell, you have a lot of explaining to do.”

All four names. I planted my feet, squared my shoulders, and braced myself for a tsunami of vitriol. Wave after wave washed over me, so dark and murky it was a struggle to breathe.

I mimed drinking a glass of water to Mrs. Smith and she had one in my hand in seconds flat then she disappeared into the laundry room. I took a sip of water, leaned against the kitchen counter, and waited for the unlikely possibility that Mother might stop for breath.

“Do you want to explain what in God’s name you were doing at Roger Harper’s house? Do you have any idea how it looks?” She drew out the last word.

I’d swum into a body, run over my husband’s corpse and pulled a man out of an oven, and Mother cared about appearances? Wasn’t she supposed to care about me? My throat swelled with unwelcome emotion. “I don’t care,” my voice, damn it to hell, quavered, “how it looks.”

“You should care. It’s a reflection on your whole family.” She meant her.

I took a sip of water to wash away the quaver. “Mother, no one with half a brain would think there’s anything between me and Roger Harper. Besides, the woman he took to the memorial service was there too.”

I could
hear
her shudder. “Someone told me that woman runs a sex club. She’s some kind of deviant who’s preying on poor Roger.”

“I think Roger likes it.”

“Ellison!”
She drew a ragged, scandalized breath.

“What?” I said sharply enough to be disrespectful.

Mother paused, presumably wavering between taking umbrage with my tone or my content. Content won. “That she was there while you were makes it even worse. Have you no shame?”

Me? Shame? I knew it all too well. Shame burned hot as a pool deck on a July afternoon. Hot enough for children who’d forgotten their sandals to jump like crickets in a skillet to avoid burning their little feet. I knew. When Henry and Madeline were caught in the coatroom at the Christmas party, shame had nearly charred the skin off my bones. What I felt now wasn’t shame. “I guess not.”

She drew another ragged breath then she made a sound somewhere between a sniff and a sniffle. “You’re so lucky. Your daughter has never disappointed you.”

Unlike me. My poor, put-upon mother endured disappointment after disappointment, my pulling a pajama-clad Roger Harper’s head and shoulders out of a non-working oven being only the most recent.

I rolled my eyes. “I’m so very sorry if you’re disappointed, Mother.”

“There’s no need for sarcasm.”

There was
every
need for sarcasm. The alternative was to tell my mother to go to hell. No one would blame me for it either. After all, I’d been listening to a comprehensive list of my failings for—I checked my watch—twenty minutes. “You’d prefer I speak plainly?” I closed my eyes and took a large step onto a bridge I’d never thought to cross. “You’re my mother and I love you, but you don’t have the right to say anything you want to me.” The damn bridge was made of rope and half-rotted board and it swayed beneath my weight. I took another step anyway. “What’s more, my mistakes and my successes are my own. They don’t reflect on you.”

“Of course they do.” She’d ignored my first point entirely. “You’re hopelessly naïve if you think any differently.”

It was as if we were speaking different languages. Either she couldn’t understand what I was saying or she didn’t want to. I snorted and the sound propelled me further along the bridge. It tilted from side to side.

“As for saying what I think. Well, someone has to tell you when you make a mistake. It’s for your own good.”

I took another step.

“Telling me I’m a disappointment is for my own good?”

“I never said that.”

We were talking, but we weren’t communicating. The whole conversation was pointless. Somehow, without noticing any progress, I’d passed the bridge’s halfway point. “Mother, I have to go.”

“I’m not done talking.”

“But I am.” I straightened my spine, took a breath of clean country air deep into my lungs and held it for a moment. Then I exhaled and raced toward the far end of the bridge. The damn thing swung as wildly as a five year-old with her Daddy’s three-wood. My stomach lurched accordingly. “Goodbye, Mother.”

“Ellison, don’t you dare ha—”

I am woman, hear me roar. My roar was quiet but effective. I dropped the receiver into its cradle. Behind me, the bridge burst into flames.

The phone rang again immediately. I ignored it. Instead, I listened to the happy crackle and pop of fire eating old wood and frayed rope. Maybe I ought to roar more often.

Mrs. Smith opened the laundry room door. “You’re not going to answer that?”

“No. If it’s Mother, I’m not available.”

Mrs. Smith, a brave soul, left the safety of bleach and starch and the smell of a hot iron and answered the phone. She listened for a moment then said, “I’ll see if she’s available, Detective Jones.” She raised an inquiring brow.

What now? I took the receiver from her hands. “This is Ellison Russell.”

There was a brief pause—just long enough for him to decide whether to call me Ellison or Mrs. Russell. Detective Anarchy Jones did neither. “Roger Harper has died.”

Roger? Dead? “The oven was broken. How could he be dead?” Suddenly I didn’t feel like roaring.

Detective Jones cleared his throat. “We’d like you to come back for questioning.”

I took Max home with me. Daddy insisted. For some reason he thought the dog might act as protection. My assurances that Max had been less than helpful the last time an intruder made his or her way inside my house fell on deaf ears. Then again, Daddy’s request that I call, apologize to Mother, and stay at their house did too. I’d sooner book a room at the Hanoi Hilton. Hell, I’d rather stay with Kitty or Prudence, and there was a real chance one of them might murder me in my sleep.

Max loved driving in my convertible. The wind caught his lips and blew them back along with his ears. He was in doggy heaven. Me, I’d just left heaven for a warmer clime.

If Detective Jones hadn’t requested my presence, I might have stayed at the farm forever. No murder. No mayhem. No Mother. Instead, I pulled into my driveway.

Aggie opened the front door. She wore a black muumuu brightened with lurid Hawaiian flowers and sleeves edged with hot pink puff balls that clashed with her hair. No wonder I’d underestimated her. She looked like a lunatic with her muumuu and wild hair and false eyelashes that looked like a proliferation of long-legged spiders. Her appearance hid a sharp mind.

“Welcome home.” She scratched Max behind the ears and offered me an apologetic smile. “You have a couple of messages.”

Of course I did.

“Your father called. He asked that you call him when you arrive safely.” Aggie tried to tuck a curl behind her ear but it sprung free the moment her fingers let it go. “Mr. Foster has called twice. When I said I expected you this afternoon, he said he’d like to take you to dinner.”

“I’m meeting Hunter at the police station, and I don’t know how long they’ll keep me there.”

“Mr. Foster said he’d be happy to play things by ear.”

Powers was probably dying to hear all about how I’d found Roger’s body. If I could tell the police, I could tell Powers. I glanced at my watch. It wasn’t even noon and all I wanted was a nap. Burning bridges and roaring were exhausting. “Would you please call him, Aggie? Tell him to stop by for a drink around five.” Surely Detective Jones would be done questioning me by then. “We can go to dinner after that. Also, would you please call Mr. Tafft and ask him to join me at the police station in about an hour?”

Aggie nodded.

I trudged upstairs to comb my hair and change. For some reason, one I didn’t care to examine closely, I wanted to look my best when I sat next to Hunter Tafft and across a table from Anarchy Jones.

“Thank you for coming, Mrs. Russell.” Anarchy Jones crossed his arms over his chest like I was the last person he wanted to see sitting across from him.

I wasn’t exactly thrilled to see him either. We sat in a dingy interview room that reeked of stale cigarette smoke and old sweat. The dress I was wearing, a brand new Diane Von Furstenberg that wrapped then tied at the waist, would probably have to go to the dry cleaners to get rid of the smell. “You didn’t leave me much choice.”

Next to me Hunter glowered and looked lawyerly.

Detective Jones opened the file that rested on the battered table that separated us. “I have some questions about how you came to find Roger Harper’s body.”

I shifted in my chair. “Kathleen O’Malley found Roger then she called me.”

“How did you come to know Ms. O’Malley?” he asked.

“Haven’t we been through this before?”

Detective Jones’ lips thinned ever so slightly. “Humor me.”

“After Madeline died, Roger was distraught.”

Detective Jones lowered his chin so that his expression looked almost disbelieving. “Distraught?”

I bet Detective Jones had never been distraught in his whole life. “Distraught,” I repeated. “He passed out on my front stoop. I brought him inside and gave him coffee. He cried.” 

“And then?”

“Roger knew Madeline and Henry had frequented Ms. O’Malley’s club and he begged me to go there with him. He wanted to see it for himself.”

Detective Jones cocked his head to the side. “Did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Did you want to see Ms. O’Malley’s club?”

If the detective was trying to embarrass me, he was following the wrong path. I could have lived happily ever after without seeing the interior of Club K. I pasted on my chilliest smile—one that would do Mother proud. “Not particularly.”

Detective Jones glanced at his notes. “But you went anyway?”

“I did. I felt sorry for him.”

“What happened at the club?”

A vision of the Berkley horse danced in my brain and I shook my head in a futile attempt to erase it. “Roger decided to stay and get to know Ms. O’Malley better.”

“You let him?”

What would he have me do? Drag Roger out against his will? “He’s a grown man.”

“You said he was distraught.”

Hunter shifted in his chair. “Where is this going?”

Detective Jones scowled and looked at the legal pad that lay in front of him on the table. “Was Mr. Harper in the habit of taking valium?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“We found a massive quantity of diazepam in his blood.”

“I’m sorry.” I shook my head. “I don’t know. When he came to my house, the day we went to the club, he’d been drinking.”

Detective Jones flipped a page in his yellow pad. “You only met Ms. O’Malley the one time?”

“Twice,” I said.

“The second time?” His eyebrow rose.

“She came to see me in the hospital.”

“Oh?” The damn eyebrow rose higher.

“She warned me not to talk about her club to the police.”

Detective Jones didn’t even pretend to consult his notes. “And you didn’t.”

Hunter cleared his throat. “Mrs. Russell was under no obligation to tell the police about where her husband conducted his affairs.”

Detective Jones rested his forearms on the table. His lips thinned. “I would think as a concerned citizen, Mrs. Russell would have come forward.”

I clasped my hands in my lap to keep them from twirling a piece of hair or picking at cuticles or doing any of the other things they did when I was nervous. “I didn’t have any reason to talk about it.”

Detective Jones’ snort was disbelieving. “You didn’t think the police would be interested in knowing that a murder victim frequented a bondage club?”

I shook my head. “Madeline was drugged and drowned, not tied and whipped.”

Hunter snickered. Detective Jones scowled again.

I clasped my hands so tightly the knuckles whitened. Good thing they were hidden by the table. “There were scads of people who disliked Madeline. Any one of them could have killed her.”

“Which one? Do you have any idea who did it?”

I glanced at my hands folded neatly in my lap, at the faded paint on the wall, then  at Hunter. I ought to tell Detective Jones about Rand Hamilton. If I did, Grace would forever be known as the daughter of a blackmailer. I shook my head. “No idea.”

Of course, he didn’t believe me. The eyebrow rose like someone had pulled it with a string. “Mrs. Russell.” Detective Jones ran a hand through his hair. “Ellison. There’s a murderer out there. If you know something, you need to tell me. For your own safety.”

“Mrs. Russell has already stated that she doesn’t know who killed those people.” Hunter leaned back in the uncomfortable wooden chair and narrowed his eyes. “Trying to scare her won’t change her answer.”

Detective Jones narrowed his eyes too.

They stared at each other like they wished looks could kill.

Maybe they were just competing to see who could look the most like Clint Eastwood. Detective Jones won. Hunter looked too civilized to pull off physical menace. “Do you have any more questions, Detective Jones?” I asked.

He tore his gaze away from Hunter. “Why did Ms. O’Malley call you?”

It was a good question. One I still didn’t have an answer for. “I don’t know.”

“Guess,” said Detective Jones.

“Don’t guess, Ellison.” Hunter’s eyes were still narrowed. “If you want to know why Ms. O’Malley called Ellison, I suggest you ask her.”

“Can you think of any reason Ms. O’Malley might have had to harm any of the victims?”

Did he suspect Mistress K? Did he think I was in cahoots with a dominatrix? I could narrow my eyes too. “I hardly know her.”

“That’s why I can’t help wondering why she called you.”

“If you have nothing further...” Hunter scraped his chair across the worn tile floor.

Detective Jones didn’t move. “Three people are dead. If you know something, you need to tell me.”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry, Detective. I can’t help you.”

“Can’t or won’t?”

Hunter’s hand closed on my elbow. “Let’s go, Ellison.”

I didn’t argue. I rose from my chair. I walked to the door and paused, just for a second, to look back at Detective Jones. He’d rested his forehead against the heel of his hand. Lines etched his tanned face. I’d never seen anyone look more worried.