Death Wears a Beauty Mask and Other Stories

by Mary Higgins Clark

  “I’m afraid I’m beginning to, Betsy,” Henry replied. “Look, I’ll get back to you. I’ve got to get my man on this right away.” He broke the connection and swiftly dialed Marvin Klein.

  “Marvin,” he said. “I’ve got a hunch about Secretary Shipman’s housekeeper, Lillian West. Do a complete check on her. Immediately.”

  • • •

  Marvin Klein did not like to break the law as he would be doing by penetrating private computer records, but he knew that when his boss said “Immediately,” the matter had to be urgent.

  It was only a matter of minutes before he had assembled a dossier on fifty-six-year-old Lillian West, including her rather extensive record of traffic violations and, more to the point, her employment history. Marvin frowned as he began to read. West was a college graduate, had an M.A., and had taught home economics at a number of colleges, the last one being Wren College in New Hampshire. Then, six years ago, she had left there and taken a job as a housekeeper.

  Since then she had held four different positions. Her references—citing her punctuality, her high standard of work, and her cooking ability—were good but not enthusiastic. Marvin decided to check on them himself.

  Less than a half hour after Henry’s call, Marvin was on the phone to the former president, who was still winging his way back from Florida. “Sir, the records indicate that Lillian West, while employed in various college-level teaching positions, had a history of troubled relationships with her superiors. Six years ago she left her last teaching job and went to work as a housekeeper for a widower in Vermont. He died ten months later, apparently of a heart attack. She then went to work for a divorced executive, who unfortunately died within the year. Before she went to work for Secretary Shipman, her employer was an eighty-year-old millionaire; he fired her but gave her a good reference nonetheless. I spoke to him. He said that while Ms. West was an excellent housekeeper and cook, she also was quite presumptuous and seemed to put no stock in the more traditional relationship between the head of the house and the housekeeper. In fact, he said that it was when he became aware that she had set her mind on marrying him that he decided she would have to go, and shortly after that he showed her the door.”

  “Did this man report ever having any health problems?” Henry asked quietly as he absorbed the possibilities that were presented by Lillian West’s troubled history.

  “I did think to ask him that, sir. He said that he is in robust health now, but that during the last several weeks of Ms. West’s employment, specifically after he had given her notice, he experienced extreme fatigue, followed by an undiagnosed illness that culminated in pneumonia.”

  Tommy had spoken of a heavy cold and overwhelming fatigue. Henry’s hand gripped the phone. “Good job, Marvin. Thanks.”

  “Sir, I’m afraid there’s more. According to the records, Ms. West’s hobby is hunting, and apparently she is very familiar with guns. Finally, I spoke to the president of Wren College, where she had her last teaching job. As he remembered it, Ms. West was forced to resign. He said that she had displayed symptoms of being deeply disturbed but refused all attempts at counseling.”

  Henry ended the conversation with his aide as a wave of anxiety swept over him. Sunday was on her way right now to see Lillian West, totally unaware of any of the background Marvin had uncovered. She would unwittingly alert the housekeeper to the fact that they were looking into the very strong possibility that someone other than Thomas Shipman had murdered Arabella Young. There was no telling how the woman might react. Henry’s hand had never shaken even at summit meetings, but right now his fingers could barely punch the numbers to reach Sunday’s car phone.

  Secret Service agent Art Dowling answered. “We’re at Secretary Shipman’s place now, sir. Mrs. Britland is inside.”

  “Get her,” Henry snapped. “Tell her I must speak to her.”

  “Right away, sir.”

  Several minutes passed before Agent Dowling was back on the phone. “Sir, there may be a problem. We’ve rung the doorbell repeatedly, but no one is answering.”

  • • •

  Sunday and Tommy sat side by side on the leather couch in the library, staring into the muzzle of a revolver. Opposite them, Lillian West sat erect and steady as she held the gun. The persistent pealing of the front doorbell did not seem to distract her.

  “Your palace guard, no doubt,” she said sarcastically.

  The woman is crazy, Sunday thought as she stared into the housekeeper’s wild eyes. She’s crazy and she’s desperate. She knows she has nothing to lose by killing us, and she is just nuts enough to do it.

  Sunday thought next of the Secret Service agents waiting outside. Art Dowling and Clint Carr were with her today. What would they do when no one answered the door? They’d probably force their way in, she reasoned. And when they do, she will shoot Tommy and me, she thought, her level of alarm increasing. I know she will.

  “You have everything,” Lillian West said to Sunday, her eyes fixed on her prisoner, her voice low and angry. “You’re beautiful, you’re young, you’ve got an important job, and you’re married to a rich and attractive man. Well, I just hope that you have enjoyed the time you’ve had with him.”

  “Yes, I have,” Sunday said calmly. “He is a wonderful man and husband, and I want more time with him.”

  “Too bad, but that’s not going to happen, and it’s your fault. This wouldn’t be necessary if you’d just left well enough alone. What difference would it make if he”—Lillian West paused, her eyes cutting momentarily to Tommy—“if he went to prison? He’s not worth your trouble. He’s no good. He tricked me. He lied to me. He promised to take me to Florida. He was going to marry me.” She paused again, this time turning her full glare on the former secretary of state. “Of course, he wasn’t as rich as the others, but he has enough to get by. I’ve gone through all his papers here and I know.” A smile played on her lips. “And he’s nicer than the others too. I liked that especially. We could have been very happy.”

  “Lillian, I didn’t lie to you,” Tommy said quietly. “Think back over all that I ever said to you, and I think you’ll agree. I do like you though, and I think you need help. I want to see that you get it. I promise that both Sunday and I will do everything we can for you.”

  “What, by getting me another housekeeping job?” Lillian snapped. “Cleaning, cooking, shopping. No thanks! I traded teaching silly girls for this kind of drudgery because I thought that somebody would finally appreciate me, would want to take care of me. But it didn’t happen. After I waited on all of them, they still treated me like dirt.” She directed her gaze again at Tommy. “I thought you were going to be different, but you’re not. You’re just like all the rest.”

  While they had been talking, the pealing of the doorbell had stopped. Sunday knew that the Secret Service men would be looking for some way to get in, and she had no doubt that they would succeed. Then she froze. When Lillian West had admitted her, she had reset the alarm. “We don’t want one of those reporters trying to sneak in,” she had explained.

  If Art or Clint tries to open a window, the alarm will go off, Sunday thought, and once that happens, Tommy and I are goners. She felt Tommy’s hand brush hers. He’s thinking the same thing, she realized. My God, what can we do? She had often heard the expression “staring death in the face,” but it wasn’t until this moment that she knew what it meant. Henry, she thought, Henry! Please don’t let this woman take away our life together.

  Tommy’s hand was closed over hers now. His index finger was insistently jabbing the back of her hand. He was trying to send her a signal. But what? she wondered. What did he want her to do?

  • • •

  Henry stayed on the line, anxious not to break the connection to the Secret Service agent outside Tommy Shipman’s house. Agent Dowling was on his cellular phone now, and continued to talk to the former president as he carefully worked his way around the house. “Sir, all the draperies are drawn, in virtually every room. W
e’ve contacted the local police and they should be here any moment. Clint is at the back of the house, climbing a tree that has branches that reach near some windows. We might be able to get in undetected through there. The problem is that we have no way of knowing where they are within the house.”

  My God, Henry thought. It would take at least an hour to get the special equipment over there that would enable us to follow their movement inside the house. I’m just afraid we don’t have that time to spare. Sunday’s face loomed in his mind. Sunday! Sunday! She had to be all right. He wanted to get out and push the plane to make it go faster. He wanted to order the army out. He wanted to be there. Now! He shook his head. He had never felt so helpless. Then he heard Dowling swear furiously.

  “What is it, Art?” he shouted. “What is it?”

  “Sir, the draperies in the right front downstairs room just opened, and I am sure I heard shots being fired inside.”

  • • •

  “That stupid woman provided me with the perfect opportunity,” Lillian West was saying. “I knew I was running out of time, that I wouldn’t be able to kill you slowly, the way I wanted. But this was just as good, really. This way I not only punished you but that dreadful woman as well.”

  “Then you did kill Arabella?” Tommy exclaimed.

  “Of course I did,” she snapped impatiently. “It was so easy too. You see, I didn’t leave that evening. I showed her to this room, woke you up, said good night, shut the door and hid in the coat closet. I heard it all. And I knew the pistol was there, ready for use. When you staggered upstairs, I knew it would be only a matter of minutes before you lost consciousness.” She paused and smiled mischievously. “My sleeping pills are much more effective than the ones you were used to, aren’t they? They have special ingredients.” She smiled again. “And a few interesting viruses as well. Why do you think your cold has improved so much since that night? Because you haven’t let me in to give you your pills. If you had, your cold would be pneumonia by now.”

  “You were poisoning Tommy?” Sunday exclaimed.

  Lillian West stared indignantly at the younger woman. “I was punishing him,” she said firmly. Then she turned again to Shipman. “Once you were safely upstairs, I went back into the library. Arabella was rummaging around on your desk and was flustered at first by having me catch her. She said she was looking for your car keys, said that you weren’t feeling well and had told her to drive herself home, that she would be back with the car in the morning. Then she asked me what I was doing back there, since I had told you both good night. I said I had come back because I had promised to turn your old pistol in at the police station but had forgotten to take it. The poor fool stood there and watched me while I picked it up and loaded it. Her last words were, ‘Isn’t it dangerous to load it? I’m sure Mr. Shipman didn’t intend that.’ ”

  Lillian West began to laugh, a high-pitched, almost hysterical cackle. Tears ran from her eyes and her body shook, but through it all she kept the gun trained on them.

  She’s working up to killing us, Sunday thought, for the first moment fully realizing that there was little hope for escape. Tommy’s finger was still jabbing the back of her hand. “ ‘Isn’t it dangerous to load it?’ ” West repeated, mimicking Arabella’s last words, her own voice cracking with loud, raucous laughter. “ ‘I’m sure Mr. Shipman didn’t intend that!’ ”

  She rested her gun hand on her left arm, steadying it. The laughter ended.

  “Would you consider opening the draperies?” Shipman asked. “At least let me see sunlight one more time.”

  Lillian West’s smile was mirthless. “Why bother with that? You’re about to see the shining light at the end of the tunnel,” she told him.

  The draperies, Sunday thought suddenly. That was what Tommy had been trying to get across to her. Yesterday when he had lowered the shade in the kitchen he’d mentioned that the electronic device that worked the draperies in this room was defective, that it sounded a lot like a gunshot when it was used. Sunday looked around carefully. The control for the drapes was lying on the armrest of the couch. She had to get to it. It was their only hope.

  Sunday pressed Tommy’s hand by way of indicating that she finally understood. Then, as a prayer raced through her mind, she reached out and with a lightning-fast movement pressed the button that would open the drapes.

  The sound, loud as a gunshot, just as promised, made Lillian West whirl her head around. In that instant, both Tommy and Sunday leapt from the couch. Tommy threw himself at the woman’s lower body, but it was Sunday who slammed West’s hand upward just as she began to pull the gun’s trigger. As they struggled, several shots were fired. Sunday felt a burning sensation in her left arm, but it did not deter her. Unable to wrest the gun from the woman, she threw herself on top of her and kicked at the chair so that it toppled over with all three of them on it, just as the shattering of glass signaled the welcome arrival of her Secret Service detail.

  • • •

  Ten minutes later, a handkerchief wrapped securely over the superficial wound on her arm, Sunday was on the phone to a totally unnerved ex-president of the United States.

  “I’m fine,” she said for the fifteenth time, “just fine. And Tommy is fine too. Lillian West is in a straitjacket and on her way out of here. So stop worrying. Everything has been taken care of.”

  “But you could have been killed,” Henry said, not for the first time. He didn’t want to break the phone connection. He didn’t want to let his wife stop talking. This had been too close. He couldn’t bear the thought that he might ever not be able to hear her voice.

  “But I wasn’t killed,” Sunday said briskly. “And, Henry, we were both right. It was definitely a crime of passion. It was just that we were a little slow in figuring out whose passion was the cause of the crime.”

  The Man Next Door

  The man next door had known for weeks that it was time to invite another guest to the secret place, the space he had fashioned out of the utility room in the basement. It had been six months since Tiffany, the last one. She had lasted twenty days, longer than most of the others.

  He had tried to put Bree Matthews out of his mind. It didn’t make sense to invite her, he knew that. Every morning as he followed his routine, washing the windows, polishing the furniture, vacuuming the carpets, sweeping and washing the walk from the steps to the sidewalk, he reminded himself that it was dangerous to choose a next-door neighbor. Much too dangerous.

  But he couldn’t help it. Bree Matthews was never out of his mind for an instant. Ever since the day she had rung his bell and he had invited her in, he had known. That was when his growing need to have her with him became uncontrollable. She had stood in his foyer, dressed in a loose sweater and jeans, her arms folded, one high-arched foot unconsciously tapping the polished floor as she told him that the leak in her adjoining town house was originating from his roof.

  “When I bought this place I never thought I’d have so much trouble,” she had snapped. “The contractor could have redone Buckingham Palace for what I paid him to renovate, but whenever it rains hard, you’d think I lived under Niagara Falls. Anyway, he insists that whoever did your work caused the problem.”

  Her anger had thrilled him. She was beautiful, in a bold, Celtic way, with midnight-blue eyes, fair skin, and blue-black hair. And beneath that she had a slim athlete’s body. He guessed her to be in her late twenties, older than the women he usually favored, but still so very appealing.

  He had known that even though it was a warm spring afternoon, there was no excuse for the way perspiration began to pour from him as he stood a few inches from her. He wanted so much to reach out and touch her, to push the door closed, to lock her in.

  He had blushed and stammered as he explained that there was absolutely no possibility that the leak was coming from his roof, that he’d done all the repairs himself. He suggested she call another contractor for an opinion.

  He had almost explained that he had work
ed for a builder for fifteen years and knew that the guy she had hired was doing a shoddy job, but he managed to stop himself. He didn’t want to admit that he had any interest in her or her home, didn’t want her to know that he had even noticed, didn’t want to give anything about himself away. . . .

  A few days later she came up the street as he was outside planting impatiens along the driveway, and stopped to apologize. Following his advice, she had called in a different contractor who confirmed what she had suspected: the first one had done a sloppy job. “He’ll hear from me in court,” she vowed. “I’ve had a summons issued for him.”

  Then, emboldened by her friendliness, he did something foolish. As he stood with her, he was facing their semidetached town houses and once again noticed the lopsided venetian blind on her front window, the one nearest his place. Every time he saw it, it drove him crazy. The vertical blinds on his front windows and those on hers lined up perfectly, which made the sight of that lopsided one bother him as much as hearing a fingernail screech across a blackboard.

  So he offered to fix it for her. She turned and looked at the offending blind as if she had never seen it before, then she replied, “Thanks, but why bother? The decorator has window treatments ready to put in as soon as the damage caused by the leaks is repaired. It’ll get fixed then.”