Through the plate glass I could see Woody Ban-marching diagonally across the street toward my street-front office, crewcut and broad shoulders canted six degrees forward of his normal head up, shoulders back, get-the-hell-out-of-my-way erectness.
About right. Tomorrow night at eleven would make a week since Alfie Moser had been shot as he was about to enter his car after leaving the house of his mistress, and when the sheriff couldn’t immediately wrap one big fist in the collar of the miscreant who murdered one of his constituents, he sagged about a degree a day.
He pushed open the door, ignored Marvelous Mary’s bright “Good morning,” and glared at me.
“Got a minute?”
Mary’s eyebrows went up as she reached for a pad. Probably making a note for a future lawsuit.
I grinned. The two came from opposite ends of the spectrum. To Woody, a woman’s place was in the home. He’d probably never married because he’d never found one willing to stay there. As far as Mary was concerned, God had always intended women to rule the world but had been too busy straightening out the mess men had made to put His plan into effect.
Not wanting any furniture broken, I said, “Why don’t you take a coffee break, Mary?”
She sniffed at Woody as she passed, and we watched her float by the window. She moved gracefully for a stocky woman.
“How you can work with that woman is beyond me,” said Woody.
“That’s because she probably set fire to your animal pelt in a previous existence after you bopped her because dinner wasn’t ready. She’s intelligent, articulate, sensitive, tenacious, and a born saleswoman. I assume you’re here because you’re still floundering around.”
“Floundering. Good word. See that editorial this morning? About the only one Adams didn’t use ranting about why I haven’t yet arrested the killer of one of the town’s wealthiest and most prominent citizens. And comparing me to the politicians who have forgotten why they were elected.”
Ah. That was why he was here. Comparing Woody to a politician could be dangerous, but instead of punching Adams in the nose, he’d come to me. There had been past occasions when the facts weren’t the facts and the truth wasn’t the truth and I’d helped him sort them out, so he wanted me to look into this one. Wouldn’t come out and ask, though. A great deal of pride filled out that tan shirt along with the muscular chest.
An opening to volunteer came a half hour later.
“Look, Woody, I’m going up on the hill this afternoon to check out a new listing. Any objections if I look around while I’m there?”
“If you think you can learn anything, go ahead.”
A returning Mary held the door for him as he left, knowing, of course, that little act of equality would help ruin his day.
She looked around. “Sure he took his club and loincloth with him?”
I grinned. “I’m having an early lunch so I can run up and have another look at the Ronstead house.”
“If you find anything we didn’t notice before, let me know real quick. I have someone coming in about it this afternoon.”
The attorney handling the estate had turned it over to me only yesterday, and while I was still debating how much we could get for it, she probably had it sold.
Marvelous. Showed I’d made no mistake in judgment the day she walked in six months ago with her new broker’s license and announced she was going to work for me. Children grown and husband busier than ever, damned if she’d sit around the house. She was short, a bit heavy, combed her hair straight, wore clothes that ignored fashion trends, had a round pleasant face, soft brown eyes, and a smile that wrapped itself around you like a warm blanket. Luckily I’d had enough sense not to ask why she’d selected me or to say no.
In the coffee shop around the corner, I was pleased to see Norma back from her romantic, sun-filled, spring cruise on the glorious Caribbean.
She smiled at me. Until she’d gone, I hadn’t realized how much I’d looked forward to seeing that smile each day.
I settled back in a corner booth, munching on both a tuna on rye and the problem of Alfie Moser, and hoping that no one spotted me and stopped to chat. This was a time for thinking, not conversation.
Alfie had been a short man on the wrong side of fifty with more girth around his waist than his chest and a very bad hairpiece he wore combed forward to show he was a “with it” kind of guy, which he reinforced by using words like supportive, stress, the pain of, I’ll be there for you, take charge of your life, and bonding. You couldn’t go to any sort of civic function without finding him at the head table, spouting social cliches and insisting his was the only way to do things.
He’d fiddled around for years trying to make his fortune until he acquired the first Japanese car franchise in the county. People laughed. Another loser. Who’d buy those little boxes when you could buy a real car? Twenty years later, he had three dealerships and was sneering at all of us, bad hairpiece and all.
He also had an ex-wife, a present one, and a mistress — a true role model for budding entrepreneurs everywhere.
The primary people the law scrutinizes are always those close to the victim. In this case, Number One was Marji Sutton, Alfie’s mistress, but several people had said they’d seen the porch light of her house come on and Marji run from the house after hearing the shot, so it appeared that Marji was out of it.
Number Two was Alfie’s ex-wife, Maggie. Now an underpaid, undertipped waitress, she didn’t blame her own appalling lack of judgment, faith in her husband, or both, for her low quality existence. With an ex-wife’s logic, she blamed Alfie, and let it be known that one of these days she intended to ship him to the Great Crusher in the Sky like one of his battered trade-ins.
Number Three was his present wife, Peggie. As specified in the Millionaire’s Handbook, she was the younger, prettier, mandatory blonde.
When Peggie learned of the mistress, she publicly declared she’d drop Alfie into oblivion before becoming a pit stop on the road to the goal stated in boldface on page 49 of the Handbook — arriving at age seventy-two with a nineteen-year-old Miss Universe contestant on your arm.
I finished the tuna and picked up my cup as Norma walked by, the quivering of her clinging dress turning the coffee into nectar.
Number Four was Hamilton Endicott, an erstwhile salesman at one of Alfie’s dealerships. He’d been romantically involved with Marji Sutter until Alfie convinced her that an older luxury model with all the options and a great deal of mileage left in it was preferable to a newer one that offered only a five-speed transmission and quick pickup.
Ham was handsome, six feet tall, his head and face covered with hair more suitable to a mountain man than a car salesman. Presently convincing customers to buy American at an Olds dealer, he’d been heard many times to predict Alfie’s imminent demise at his hamlike hands. Those who knew said his enmity was due more to losing access to Marji’s money, rather than Marji.
None of the suspects had alibis, but Woody couldn’t prove any was near the scene of the killing. He also faced the possibility that the killer had been a freelance holdup artist Alfie had unwisely resisted. Or even a disgruntled employee or a dissatisfied customer. Alfie was of the school that believed both were always wrong.
His principal witness was Mrs. Guidron — nee Neubeir — octogenarian widow of the town’s leading obstetrician. Anyone who read anything but the sports pages had come across her name and picture at one time or another. She had first voted in 1932 to help sweep her father into the mayor’s office on the coattails of FDR. Not one to sit at home while her husband delivered babies, she had worked for many years in the D.A.’s office. D.A.’s came and went, but she went on and on, testimony that while political influence could get you a job, you need competence and ability to keep it.
Living alone almost directly across the street — stoutly refusing to employ live-in household help she could certainly afford — Mrs. Guidron told Woody she’d been dozing in a chair near the window. Roused by the shot, she looked out in time to see a dark figure run down the areaway between the Lutheran church and the house next to it. She then observed the robed and barefooted figure of Marji Sutter appear on her porch and run down into the street, where her screams woke the rest of the neighborhood. Mrs. Guidron tottered out to join her at the prostrate body of Alfie.
Paying Norma, I cocked what I considered a romantic eyebrow.
“Cruise deliver as promised? Glorious nights in the arms of a handsome fellow traveler under an enormous subtropical moon while the ship’s orchestra played softly in the background?”
The blue eyes would put the Caribbean to shame, and the face, showing just a hint of tan, would never peddle shampoo or dentrifice in a TV commercial but would look good at any hour of the day or night and twenty years hence. So would the short, gleaming, honey-colored hair.
“Five nights, five men,” she said. “Did you miss me?”
“The thought of suicide crossed my mind several times.”
“I missed you, too. The ship was really loaded with gray-haired widows and twenty-five-year-old merengue dancers.” She allowed her fingers to linger on my hand as she handed me my change.
I managed enough control to say, “Talk to you later.”
“You know where to find me.”
I floated to my car. She’d come to town from some vague place out West a year ago — exactly the type of quiet, attractive widow to make a widower’s house seem emptier than ever. I wasn’t the only one in the chase, but I was beginning to feel I had the edge.
The hill on the west side of town where the rich folks lived had wide streets lined with elms, oaks, and sycamores, and huge houses built during the twenties that required plenty of ready cash to maintain.
It hadn’t been available at the Ronstead place. In a story familiar to all, Mrs. Ronstead’s income had been adequate enough when her husband died, but remained static while everything else went up. Gradually the choice became one of maintenance or eating, really no choice at all, and the attorney settling her estate said she hadn’t even been well fed when she died.
I wandered through the empty rooms. What remained was walnut, oak, brass, solidity, and craftsmanship. It would take a bit of money to make it good for another twenty years, so the prospect list was very small. Yet Mary already had someone coming in. No wonder I called her Marvelous.
I locked up and drove to what is always termed the scene of the crime.
Circumstances there were different. Marji had not only inherited the house but, as a Sutter, plenty of cash to keep it up. Enough, it was said, that she’d be wise to extract a prenuptial agreement from big-spending Alfie, if the romance ever got that far. She worked as a cashier at one of his dealerships because it amused her, not because she needed the salary, which, knowing Alfie, had to be minimal.
Beautiful young woman with a B.A. degree, Woody said, but still in junior high as far as life was concerned.
I parked across from the church and lowered a mental shade over the sunlight to imagine what the street was like at night. The old pole-mounted street light at the corner would keep the Lutherans from stumbling on the steps of the church, but the budding curbside trees would kill the yellow light before it went very far. Someone running into that light would become clearer with every step, but the night deficiencies of Mrs. Guidron’s ancient eyes would have required the assistance of a battery of floodlights. Lack of detail in her description of the figure was only to be expected.
I’d asked Woody why someone would wait for Alfie. Wouldn’t it be likely he’d spend the night? Anyone who took the trouble to look into it would know he never did, Woody had said. While she might tolerate his infidelity, Peggie still demanded an appearance of propriety.
Some marriage arrangements puzzled me.
I followed the route the figure had taken. To my left, a head-high hedge above a low stone wall kept the people in the house next door from seeing what the Lutherans were up to. Woody’s men had examined every leaf and probed every inch of the soil beneath it, in addition to scouring the entire neighborhood and searching every corner sewer inlet to be certain the gun hadn’t been thrown away as the killer fled. The heavy granite of the church sat on my right.
At the rear, a sharp-spiked ornamental wrought-iron fence separated the church from a narrow alley that had once served for trash and garbage collection until the trucks had become too big to fit. Running into it at full speed in the dark would have turned an unaware perpetrator into instant human shish kebab. Woody believed the killer had turned right, his car parked on the street only fifty or sixty feet from the gate in the fence. I turned left.
High fences, low fences, small lawns, others with garden plots showing the signs of early spring attention, walks leading to flights of wood steps and small back porches. Marji’s house was no different. Utility was the architectural watchword for the rear of the homes of that era.
I came out onto a strictly residential cross street and returned to my car, looking at the church and wondering if I’d overlooked something.
“Hey!”
A small white-haired woman wearing gray sweats and white walkers glared down at me from the wide verandah of the big brick house. Even at that distance, the glare was enough to quick-freeze a large steer.
“Looking for something?”
I ambled up the walk and beamed my most charming smile up at her.
“Don’t stand there grinning like an imbecile! I asked you a question.”
The white hair was thinning, but it still maintained its natural waviness and she kept it cut short to highlight a face with very few wrinkles, the skin stretched over fine bones. The hazel eyes were certainly not cataract-dimmed and were still sharp enough to get into a man and look around.
“Mrs. Guidron? I’m working with Sheriff Barr. I’d like to talk to you about the murder.”
“I know you. You’re no cop. You’re a realtor.”
“I’m undercover today. Out for your two mile run?”
“Hell, no. I’m undercover, too. As an active person. What are you really up to? Looking for bargains?”
“Looking into the murder, as I told you. I help Woody out once in a while as a civic duty. Sort of a two heads are better than one deal.”
“As a politician’s daughter, I’m always suspicious of people who talk about civic duty. What’s in it for you? The town has to rehab one of your termite infested houses?”
“You’re talking to The Last Remaining Patriot. My services are absolutely free. I understand you saw the killer running away.”
“Hey, in detective novels private eyes have to pay for information.”
“You got it, babe. Do I slip you a Hamilton or a Jackson?”
She hooted. “If I wanted money, you’d need a Cleveland. Follow me.”
She led me up the driveway to the rear of the house. No maintenance problem here. The lawn was clipped, shrubbery trimmed, flowerbeds mulched, wood trim painted. She pointed at a large black plastic trash container at the head of the porch steps.
“Drag that to the curb for me. Tomorrow is trash day.”
I bumped the heavy container down the stairs, hoping I didn’t acquire a slipped disc or double hernia. “What’s in here? A discarded lover?”
“I ran out of those years ago. It’s a bit heavy because I decided I no longer needed my utility bills from 1950 to 1970.”
I dug my heels in and pulled the container after me. “Seems to me you’d hire someone for these little chores.”
“Lord, if you aren’t a real busybody — she comes in twice a week but doesn’t move trash. Doesn’t do windows, either.” She wagged a forefinger. “Stop complaining and pull. As I told Barr, I didn’t see much. Heard the shot, opened my eyes, and saw a figure disappear alongside the church. Didn’t know what had happened, of course, because I couldn’t see under the trees. Minute or two later, Marji’s porch light came on. Then I heard her scream. When I got to the street, she was standing over Moser, in her robe and barefooted, and still screaming.”
I settled the container into position at the curb. “You know Marji?”
“My family and the Sutters have always been friends. I suppose they’re all spinning in their graves — Marji taking up with a middle-aged, fat little man with fake hair. You’d think she’d have shown better judgment. Not criticizing what she did, understand, but who she did it with. She was brought up to show better taste.”
“My sensitive side tells me you didn’t like him.”
“Potbellied, arrogant little jerk. Strutted in and out of the house as if he owned it, whether she was there or not. Giving a man a key is always a mistake. When the romance dies, you have to get the key back or change the locks.”
She sounded as though she’d learned the hard way. “Whether she was there or not? Why? No attraction in an empty house.”
“As the boss, his time was his own, you see, but she was an employee, so on the nights the dealership was open late she’d have to stay until closing. Coworkers may not mind if you’re shacking up with the boss, but you’d better not take advantage of it by not doing your share of work. He was there first that night.”
“What time did she get home?”
“I have no idea. I may be nosy, but I don’t make a career of it. What difference does it make? You and the sheriff go find the man I saw running away.” She held out a thin hand. “Thank you for the assistance. I really don’t have anything important to do, but deluding myself that I have a heavy schedule keeps my blood flowing, so goodbye.”
The ex-marine in Woody would have been proud of the way she marched into the house.
In the office, I found Mary ready to leave with a couple dressed as though the best they could afford was one of the small, old houses along the river. Until they’d won the lottery, it had been. Now, with an annual income of two hundred thousand for the next twenty years, they wanted something better. Who wouldn’t? The one I’d intended to show them came with five acres, a three car garage, a driveway a quarter mile long, state-of-the-art security, five bedrooms, a swimming pool, spa, and hot tub, and so many bathrooms no one had yet found them all, and she knew it.
She held out her hand for the Ronstead key, smiled at the look on my face, and said, “Trust me.”
When they pulled up outside several hours later, I could see that everything was settled except for signing papers. The woman actually hugged Mary and kissed her on the cheek.
She settled at her desk, expression smug, lighted a cigarette, and held it with her fingertips, watching the smoke curl upward. She smoked only when she made a sale. The real estate business being what it was, there were occasions when her pack grew stale.
“It’s called know your client,” she said. “The house you had in mind wasn’t for them. They wanted something they could live in, not display their good luck. Five kids. She took one look at that big kitchen and saw herself getting them off to school. One look at the dining room and she saw all her relatives there for dinner. One look outside and she saw all the room she wanted for her roses. Him? One of those husbands who doesn’t give a damn where he lives as long as she’s there. If she wanted a tent, he’d buy the biggest one he could afford.”
“Do me a favor,” I said. “Go home and humiliate someone close to you.”
Even if this had been one of those evenings we held the office open, I’d have closed it to celebrate. You don’t often move a house like the Ronsteads’ in one day. I turned the door sign to “Closed” and walked to Woody’s office in the basement of the municipal building down the street.
Woody leaned forward, elbows on his desk. “Well?”
“I looked the scene over and talked to Mrs. Guidron. What time did Marji get home?”
“Never asked. Is it significant?”
“Who knows? Moser had a key. He let himself in to wait for her that night. Common practice, according to Mrs. Guidron. Also, in deference to Alfie’s chosen field, have you considered that you’ve been stalled for a week because someone sold you a car with a hidden defect?”
He let that stir around in his head until he translated it. “You mean someone is lying. Mrs. Guidron?”
“Not necessarily, but I’ve talked to no one else.”
“Why should she? When I got there, she was propping up the Sutter girl, and when I asked, she could have simply said she’d seen nothing. How would I have known anything different?”
“That’s your problem. Mine is talking Norma into having dinner with me this evening.”
“Helluva friend you are. Come in here, spout nonsense to get me more confused than I already am, then take off in lustful pursuit of the most attractive widow in the county.”
“Lustful pursuit? It will be my first date in two years.”
He grinned. “Motivation doesn’t change because you’re a slow mover.”
When the entree grows cold and the wine grows warm because the conversation is so interesting, you have to figure the parties are compatible, but before dessert arrived, Norma was well on her way to Preferring to Have Stayed Home and Watched Lousy Television.
Halfway through the meal, my brain began trying to tell me something, behaving like Dr. Frankenstein’s lab; liquids gurgling, sparks crackling, lights flashing.
I couldn’t have concentrated on pleasant conversation even if Sigourney Weaver had been seated across from me.
Norma’s eyes had moved from the Caribbean to the Arctic, telling me this budding romance was one step from being administered the coup de grace. She dabbed at her lips with her napkin. “I hope the ers, ahs, and how about thats have nothing to do with me.”
Since I had no idea what my brain was trying to tell me, I could only mumble something about Woody and Alfie Moser.
“It seems to me that a man who abuses a woman ought to be shot.”
“I’m not sure Alfie could be classified as abusive.”
“Naturally. You’re a man.”
I’d heard that before, of course, but she delivered the line with the viciousness of a karate chop. I don’t talk well at all when stunned.
One message my brain had gotten through was “go look at the scene at night, dummy,” so after I dropped her off, I drove back to the hill. A line of trash containers and bags had joined Mrs. Guidron’s twenty year collection of old utility bills at the curb to await the morning pickup.
Big problem these days — trash. Time was when all our back yards had a perforated fire barrel, primarily for burning leaves but also very handy for disposing of anything combustible — like old utility bills. Environmentalists had killed that.
The lab in my mind was still gurgling, flashing, snapping, and crackling.
On the night Alfie had died, the trash trucks would have already been through. Anything you wanted to get rid of since then would have to await tomorrow’s pickup after which it would disappear forever in a landfill. Bodies had been known to disappear into landfills.
I looked at the forlorn, halffull trash bag on Marji’s curb and at the heavy container on Mrs. Guidron’s.
Boom! The lab exploded. Twenty years of old utility bills? Which could have been discarded at any time. Why now? Possibly to help conceal something in a container only half-filled because she would normally generate only as much trash as another single person like Marji? I’d always told Woody that if I wanted to get rid of something, I’d wrap it well, bury it deep in a trash bag, and be reasonably sure it would never be seen again, which couldn’t be said for dropping it in a river or burying it somewhere.
I left the car, lifted the lid, and queasily slipped my hand into the dark interior. If I was wrong, my only reward would probably be some heretofore unknown disease that would send the entire country into another spasm of health hysteria.
My fingers worked their way through dry sheets of paper — among other wet and slimy things I dreaded even to speculate about — until they felt a plastic bag holding something soft and yielding. I pulled it out and kneaded it. Beneath the softness was something very hard. Like metal. And although its wrapping prevented sharp definition, it felt suspiciously like a gun.
I sat on the curb under the soft yellow light of the street lamp, holding it in both hands and looking at the church across the way. Behind me, I knew she was watching. Impossible for anyone to sleep until that empty trash container hit the sidewalk the next morning.
The gun was an old Luger wrapped in a white sweater and a dark blue skirt. The labels said they could only have come out of Maison de Jeanine — the mandatory local chic shoppe for the elite.
She’d looked at them in Woody’s big hands and smiled. No, she didn’t want her lawyer present. Nothing he could do for her.
The two families were always very close, she said softly, lives intertwined in a kinship as close as blood. The others scattered, she and Marji were the only two left here, so she felt she had to look out for her.
Her living room was so huge that the polished furniture faded into the shadows. The grand piano in the corner was probably worth more than some of the houses farther down the hill. There were framed photos everywhere of solemn people, laughing people; studio portraits and snapshots, many yellow with age. I had the feeling that all were still somewhere in the house.
A banker friend told her Alfie was using Marji. Cars hadn’t been selling, and the banks were threatening to take over his dealerships. He was talking Marji out of enough money to hold them off. Fine. It was her money, but he was bragging he’d found an enjoyable way to stay out of bankruptcy at the cost of a little time. Once he’d drained her dry, he’d leave. No point in talking to Marji. She wouldn’t have believed her. So when she saw the weasel leave the house, she went down and talked to him. She told him that if Marji’s father was alive, he’d shoot him. He laughed. Her father is dead, he said. I’m not, she said. And shot him with the Luger her husband had brought back from the war in Europe. She went back to the house and came out again when Marji began to scream.
She shrugged. “What can the justice system do to me? Send me to a women’s prison? At least I’ll have someone to talk to during the day.” She waved at the room. “Holding conversations with memories puts you in a white coat eventually, sheriff.”
Woody turned off his tape recorder and sighed. Women committing crimes made him uncomfortable. He preferred his perpetrators to be men.
“I’ll have this typed up for your signature,” he said.
“Don’t waste your time,” I said. “It’s a good story, Mrs. Guidron, but let’s start again. To the sheriff, you’re the dignified descendant of one of our old families, whose father was once mayor. Too honorable to lie. But I know what you’re trying to do and why.”
She frowned at me. Woody leaned forward, looking stunned.
“I hate to do this, but in loco parentis has its limits. If you’d killed Alfie, you’d have no reason to mention a running figure at all, much less one that disappeared alongside the church. Which means there was a figure. Unfortunately, you told Woody before you figured it out. You knew that eventually he’d ask himself, as I did, why the killer ran under the light of the street lamp with a dark neighborhood to choose from. Answer — only that route would take him where he wanted to go. Not to a car. No point in parking around the corner when it could have been parked in the darkness down the street. So he didn’t turn right. He turned left. Why? To get to the back door of Marji’s house and then out the front. I thought of it, but dismissed it because of the people who saw her emerge robed and barefooted. Very clever of her. She gave them what they expected. But no one is equipped with X-ray eyes. What was under the robe? Sexy nightgown? Nothing?”
Her glare could have brought on another ice age.
“Marji might have been naive, but she isn’t stupid. When she decided to shoot Alfie for making a fool of her, she certainly didn’t want attention focused on her. She knew he’d leave at about eleven whether she was there or not. So she waited and walked up to him. If she sensed things weren’t quite right, Alfie would get an apology and a goodnight kiss instead of a bullet. But afterward? The shot could wake someone up, so she needed a little misdirection. She zipped past the church, through her back door, stripped off shoes, stockings, and skirt, messed up her hair, and threw on a robe. Two or three minutes later she was screaming over the body. Barefoot woman in a robe. How else would one be dressed after entertaining her lover? Who would think for a moment she hadn’t been inside? Or connect her with the running figure? I’m sure you didn’t. At the time.”
Her silence was enough.
“Neither would a cop. And even if he did, he’d never have the nerve to peek under the robe of a screaming, weeping woman. I know I wouldn’t. But Marji said or did something that gave her away. You picked it up.”
Her lips tightened almost imperceptibly. I smiled.
“That was it, wasn’t it? When you helped her into the house, you noticed she was half dressed. When she told you how she planned to dispose of the clothes and gun, your experience in the D.A.’s office told you it was risky. You had a better idea. Why not put them in your trash? If the container had been at the curb that night, it would have been searched, but a week later? Not likely. And if someone did, your story was ready. Better your life, almost over, than hers, just beginning. No prints on the gun? You’d know enough to wipe them off. The clothes? Perhaps not your exact size, but close enough.”
I waited again. “No protest? Good. Determining who bought and wore the clothes should be no trouble at all.”
The glare had subsided into resignation.
“Don’t hold it against me,” I said. “If I didn’t like you, I wouldn’t have said a word.”
She almost smiled. “No need to become maudlin just because I allowed you to put out my trash.”
A little research showed the Luger had been brought back from the ETO by Marji’s grandfather, not Mrs. Guidron’s husband. The sweater and skirt had indeed come out of Maison de Jeanine on Marji’s charge card. The blood and gunpowder stains proved whoever had been wearing them had pulled the trigger on Alfie, and the pH factor or hair or face powder or perfume or Lord knows what, said it had definitely been Marji.
Woody had asked why I hadn’t bought Mrs. Guidron’s confession.
Because, I said, Marvelous Mary reminded me not to leap to conclusions and to give some thought to the kind of people we were dealing with. Marji was a mixed up, volatile kid, but Mrs. Guidron’s life had been honesty, honor, and all the good things. Years ago she’d have horsewhipped Alfie, but she’d never kill him. To protect Marji, however, she’d say she did and never blink an eye. Simple.
It was apparent that the D.A. would make some sort of deal. Finding twelve unbiased car buyers wouldn’t be easy, and one of those big, expensive names attached to long hair and courtroom histrionics had been imported for Marji’s defense. He’d already linked the case to wife beating, abandonment, deadbeat dads, comparative pay scales for men and women, and gender-based corporate promotion policies. By the time he was through, Alfie would no longer be just your everyday, run-of-the-mill sleaze, of whom we’ve always had an abundance, but a monster of inhuman proportions. Brushing the long gray hair away from his metal rims, he’d solemnly announced the case had Great Social Significance.
“Crap,” said Marvelous Mary, succinctly and surprisingly. “If she’d popped him in a fit of anger, I could buy it, but she planned it like a shopping trip to Philadelphia. She’s a disgrace, not a heroine.”
Not everyone felt the same.
Norma stopped at my table as I was having lunch. “I understand you were responsible for the arrest of that poor Sutter woman.”
I almost choked at the sharp, accusatory tone.
“Poor Sutter woman? She murdered a man to salve her wounded ego.”
Silence, except for the sound of thirty pairs of lunchtime jaws munching away. Must have been the wrong thing to say. I tried again.
“If you’re feeling sorry for her, don’t. She not only killed him but was very willing to let an elderly family friend go to prison.”
Her face was frozen. “Nevertheless.”
Nevertheless? Mentally, I threw up my hands. I was guilty and Marji only an innocent victim and I had no idea why.
“See you tomorrow,” I said when I paid my bill.
“I’ll be here.” Her tone said she wasn’t looking forward to it.
I went out remembering how lifeless Mrs. Guidron’s voice had been as she poured the tea. “I told her she should have come to me. We could have ruined him financially. Not punishment enough, she said.”
Alfie hadn’t been the only one Marji had destroyed. Why in the world would Norma defend her? And condemn me? Stretching sisterhood under the skin to the nth degree? There was a great deal of that going around.
When in doubt, ask an expert. In the office, I sat on her desk and asked Marvelous Mary, who’d carry a sign in any parade anywhere at any time, to explain it.
Fingertips tented, she considered what I’d told her.
“Did she ever tell you how her husband died?”
“No, and to my knowledge, she’s never told anyone else, either.”
The palms went together and the fingers pressed to her lips as though she was praying.
“It’s only a guess, but—” she said softly.
Outside, the brilliant spring day suddenly dulled; nothing to do with nature at all but caused by the gray pall that sometimes descends on the human soul when something or someone dies.
Only a guess. For her. Not me.
I was never more sure of anything in my life.