That was why she was so popular. She never told how she knew. And she certainly hadn’t told her fiancй; otherwise, he wouldn’t be sucking up to Martin. He’d be avoiding him as though Martin were a leper.
“Thanks, Lizanne,” I said in almost as low a voice. Suddenly curious, I asked, “Why are you telling me?”
“You helped me the day my parents were killed.”
I nodded, and pressed her hand. I had never been sure Lizanne had been aware of my presence or my identity on that horrible day. She and I gave each other a look and drifted apart, and I strolled over to my mother, my wineglass clutched in a death grip.
“Where’d you get the earrings?” she asked instantly. “They’re gorgeous.”
“Martin gave them to me tonight,” I said numbly, turning my head from side to side so she could get the full effect, all the time wondering what I could do to prevent tomorrow from happening.
“He did?” Mother raised her perfect brows. “But you’ve only known each other such a short time!”
I shrugged.
“Oh, you have got it bad,” she said darkly. “But at least he does, too. They’re very nice, dear.”
“What are you admiring, Mrs. Queensland?” Patty Cloud, in her favorite pink, this time a rose shade, appeared at my mother’s shoulder, trailing a delicate cloud of expensive perfume and a staggeringly handsome date, some man from Atlanta she’d met at a Sierra Club meeting, she managed to let me know. I talked to them for a few minutes of stultifying conversation about white-water canoeing before Martin rescued me.
“How’d you get along with Bubba Sewell?” I murmured as we went to our places around the table.
“He’s on the rise,” Martin said thoughtfully. “I won’t be surprised if he makes U.S. Senate some day.”
“Really?” I tried not to sound skeptical.
“He’s doing everything right. A lawyer, but not a criminal lawyer. Comes from a local family with a clean record, worked himself through law school, practiced for a while before running, going to marry a beautiful wife who can’t possibly offend anyone. She’s planning to quit work and stay at home, producing the right picture, and I bet they have a baby before they’ve been married two years. It’ll look good on the campaign poster, a family picture.”
I tried to think about this, to care about Bubba’s career, all the while turning nonsensical schemes over in my mind. I should tell Martin. Then he could brace himself. Or run. (I staved that thought off.) I should not tell Martin, so he would show unfeigned surprise when the police came to Pan-Am Agra. I pictured Martin being taken from his office, his humiliation; at least the people who worked for him would see it as humiliation. I checked the rein on my imagination; surely the police could not arrest him without warning, on the little or no evidence they had. But still…
Of all the people I knew, the one best qualified to fend for himself was Martin. Why was I worrying?
I yanked myself out of this anxious silent yammering to introduce Martin to Franklin Farrell and his date, who were seated across from us. Franklin must have been calling his reserve list, the day he’d called me; maybe this woman had been next, in alphabetical order. She was in her late forties, remarkably well groomed and dressed. Physically she was a good match for the immaculate Franklin. She glittered in a hard way, and her practiced conversation aroused my instant distrust. Her name I didn’t catch, but she was full of glib comments that gave no clue to her character. She was playing up to Franklin in a rather desperate way, and I could tell they hadn’t been out together before. He was being courteously cool.
The meal was served, and I talked to Mackie on my left, and Martin on my right, and Franklin and Miss Glitter across the way, though what I said I couldn’t have told you afterward.
Even through the worry, I could tell Martin and I were attracting a certain amount of attention. The tables had been arranged in a large U. Martin and I were seated on the outside of one arm of the U, and as Franklin bent to retrieve his lady friend’s napkin, I realized someone across from us at the far side of the U’s other arm was staring. With some amazement, I recognized my former flame Arthur Smith sitting with his wife, homicide detective Lynn Liggett Smith. Who on earth had invited them? Arthur was looking at me with all too apparent concern, his fair brows drawn together and his fingers drumming on the table. Lynn was eating and listening to Eileen Norris, who had come in with Terry, announcing to the room at large that the single ladies had just decided to come together.
I raised my eyebrows very slightly, and Arthur looked down, flushing red.
I knew then that Lizanne was right. Martin was under suspicion. Perhaps I hadn’t been quite sure Lizanne had gotten the true word before, but I knew it now.
“Are you all right?” Martin asked me.
“I’m all right. I need to-” I started to say “talk to you later,” but what an irritating thing that is to do to someone. “I’m fine,” I said clearly. “Do you like this salad?”
“Too much vinegar in the dressing,” he said critically, but his sharp look told me he knew something was in the wind.
Somehow I did the right things through the meal, but when Bubba got up to make his address about new legislation for the real estate industry, I was able to tune out completely. In fact, it was hard to keep my eyes aimed in the right direction. I gnawed at my problem, poked at my fear, which was like a monster with many faces; I was afraid of Martin’s getting arrested, afraid of losing him, afraid of what it would do to his job and self-esteem to be questioned at the police station; and maybe afraid he was guilty.
My eyes traveled across the faces around the Carriage House’s elaborate wine-and-cream banquet room. All these faces, almost all familiar. One of these people was most probably the person the police really wanted, if I could just make them see it.
The murderer was a realtor, or connected with realty in some way-someone who’d known how to get the key replaced.
The murderer had been able to arrive at the Anderton house without a car and had been part of the scenery while doing so-someone who ordinarily walked or jogged or biked in the evening.
The murderer had to be someone Idella Yates trusted, someone she’d been willing to risk a lot for, since it seemed pretty certain Idella had replaced the key.
I looked at Mackie’s dark neck as he turned his face politely to the speaker. His date beyond him was picking at her nails, though she, too, was keeping a courteous face turned in the right direction. Across the room, Eileen was dabbing her lips with her napkin. Beside her, Terry, in a dark blue dress with big fake diamond buttons, was listening to Bubba with a skeptical lift to one corner of her mouth. Mark Russell and his wife were sitting with the practiced posture of those who listen to many speakers; his partner, Jamie Dietrich, a lanky man with a huge Adam’s apple, stifled a yawn. Patty was all attention, though her date was doing something surreptitious under the tablecloth that brought a tiny secret smile to her face. Even young Debbie Lincoln, more beads woven into her hair than I would have thought possible, was turned to Bubba and trying to pay attention, though her date was openly, elaborately bored. Conspicuously alone, Donnie Greenhouse had deliberately left an empty chair beside him to remind people that he was a brand-new widower. Somehow I’d known he wouldn’t miss an opportunity to star in a public drama, even if he had to point it out himself.
Close to Lizanne, my mother inclined her head regally to one side, her resemblance to Lauren Bacall especially pronounced. John was resting his arm on the back of her chair. John looked ready to go home. Across the table from Martin, Miss Glitter appeared riveted. Franklin was listening with slightly drawn mouth, his long, thin hands arranging and rearranging his cloth napkin.
He pleated it, unpleated it. I returned my eyes to Mackie’s neck, prepared to plunge back into my fears and my dreadful burden of love. Then my attention shot back to Franklin. He pleated, unpleated. Then he folded the napkin into neat triangles, triangles that got smaller and smaller but never less neat. H
is long white fingers smoothed the napkin out. Then he pleated it. Then again, the triangles. Meticulously neat triangles. Where had I-?
His eyes began to turn toward me, and I instantly looked forward, my heart thumping.
Through no great feat of ratiocination, I, Aurora Teagarden, had solved a mystery.
Franklin Farrell was the murderer.
He was folding and refolding his napkin in the same curious way Tonia Lee’s clothing had been treated. It was as unmistakable as a fingerprint.
Franklin Farrell.
Chapter Fifteen
I COULDN’T jump up and scream and point to him. I had to force myself back down in my seat. I gripped my hands together, willing them to be still.
Charming, handsome Franklin, who’d had so many conquests they must have become boring and routine by now. Franklin, with a house we all entered only once a year for his annual party, a house that could be full of things stolen from homes he was showing.
Franklin could have had Tonia Lee just by crooking his finger, and his legendary charm could have persuaded lonely and shy Idella to do something she must have known was incredibly suspicious. How had he persuaded her to return the key to the key board, or to give him a ride from Greenhouse Realty to his house? He must have told her that he had arrived at the Anderton house to find Tonia Lee already dead-though what explanation he could have given her for going to the Anderton house at all I couldn’t imagine.
Maybe he’d told Idella that putting back the key would lessen the chances of his being suspected of something he hadn’t done, but Idella couldn’t stand up to the heavy secret she carried, the guilt she felt. I remembered her crying in the bathroom of Beef ‘N More, the day of her death. And Franklin, of course, could tell Idella was cracking. Even if she couldn’t face the fact that Franklin was almost certainly the murderer, she would feel terribly conscious that she had lied to the police. And to her employer.
“Roe? Roe? Are you all right?”
“What?” I jumped.
Martin was leaning toward me, his incredible light brown eyes full of concern. His innocent light brown eyes, I thought with a swelling heart.
“Um, as a matter of fact, Martin, I don’t feel too well.” People were getting up, chatting. Time to go.
“Let’s get you home, then.”
Martin retrieved our coats while I sat at the table, afraid to look up for fear I’d meet Franklin’s eyes. He and his date were still sitting across from me.
“Let’s leave, honey,” she was saying.
“Want to stop at The Pub for a drink?” he asked, his voice warm and inviting as a crackling fire on a freezing night.
“Sure. Then we’ll see after that,” she said teasingly.
There wouldn’t be much to see, I thought. It was already a case of my-place-or-yours. And, my mind raced, I was willing to bet it would be hers. Franklin probably still had the vases from the Anderton place in his house. Somewhere. He’d be afraid to sell them in Atlanta, surely, with the case still so fresh. On the other hand, I argued with myself, keeping the vases in his house would be so dangerous! His car would be an even riskier place, though…
I slipped into my coat without even thinking about Martin, who was holding it for me.
How could I get the police to search Franklin’s house?
Martin’s arm was around me. “Are you going to make it to the car?” he asked, concerned.
“Martin, I’m thinking,” I told him. He looked at me oddly.
“Honey, I’m going to get the car. I’m worried about you. I’ll bring it around as quickly as I can.”
I nodded absently, and was only vaguely aware when he left.
“It was so nice to meet you,” a voice at my elbow said with routine courtesy.
I looked up at Miss Glitter. “Enjoyed it,” I said automatically. I tried not to look at Franklin, standing at her elbow. Terry Sternholtz and Eileen came up, Terry looking very pretty in the dark blue, her curly red locks tamed into a striking hairdo. It felt strange to realize that Terry had dressed up as much for her date with Eileen as I had for my date with Martin.
“I’ll be late Monday,” Terry told her boss. “I have an early appointment with the Stanfords.”
“I’ll be in Atlanta all day,” Franklin said casually. “I’ll see you Tuesday.”
But as Eileen, Franklin, and his date walked away, I gripped Terry’s arm. I must not have been gentle; she looked surprised as she asked me what I wanted.
“Terry. Do you remember saying, when we were at the Greenhouse’s, that a self-defense course wouldn’t have helped Tonia Lee? Because she had been tied up?”
Terry groped in her memory. “Sure,” she said finally. “I remember. So?”
“Do you by any chance remember who told you Tonia Lee had been tied?”
“Oh. Yeah, it was Franklin, next morning at the office. I get sick at grisly stuff like that, but Franklin gets into it.”
“Thanks, Terry. I was just curious.” Terry looked at me doubtfully, but then Eileen called her impatiently from the door, and she left, giving me a suspicious glance.
Donnie Greenhouse’s stupidity had maybe saved his life. He’d heard Terry make the comment about Tonia Lee’s being tied and realized its significance long before I did-well, maybe he wasn’t so dumb after all. He’d probably been plotting some elaborate revenge against Terry, never thinking to ask her where she’d gotten that damning piece of information. All the time, it had been secondhand.
I stood lost in thought until I realized Arthur had taken my hand. His wife was across the room talking to my mother.
I was eager to tell Arthur what I’d seen; okay, napkin-folding can’t be used as evidence, but at least I’d get a message to Lynn surreptitiously, an indicator that the police should look Franklin’s way very quickly.
But Arthur had his own agenda, and in a particularly maddening gesture I remembered vividly from our relationship, he raised his hand when I started to talk.
“Roe, that guy is bad news,” he said, fixing me with his flat blue eyes. His voice was low and steady and absolutely sincere. “Because of the good times we had together, I’m warning you. Get away from him, and stay away. This isn’t sour grapes on my part. We’ve done a background check on him, and he’s not…”
“Arthur,” I said with great force, to stop whatever he was going to say. I was thrown completely off-track. “I appreciate your concern. But I am telling you that I am in love. Now, you listen to this…”
“If you won’t shuck him, I can’t make you.”
“You are so right…”
“But you have to know that that man is dangerous.”
“Who’s dangerous?” asked Martin with a ferocious cheerfulness.
“Mr. Bartell,” Arthur said, hostility in his voice. “I’m Arthur Smith, a detective on the local force.”
Martin and Arthur shook hands, but looked as if they would just as soon have arm-wrestled.
If they’d had fur around their necks, it would have been standing on end.
“Glad I met you,” Martin said enigmatically. “Roe, I brought the car around.”
“Thanks, honey,” I said, and Martin slid an arm around me and we turned to go to the car.
“Tell Lynn I need to speak to her,” I told Arthur over my shoulder.
“What’s‘happening, Roe?” Martin said after we’d left the Carriage House parking lot. “Are you really feeling sick?”
“No. But something happened tonight, and we have to talk about it.” Who else was more qualified to handle dangerous situations than Martin? He was dangerous himself. Maybe he would have an idea.
“Does it concern that policeman? Is he someone you’ve gone out with?”
“He’s married and has a baby,” I said firmly. “I went out with him a long time ago.”
“Was he warning you about me?”
“Yes, but that’s not what I want-”
“He said I was dangerous. Do you believe that?”
“Oh, yes. But-”
And suddenly we were in the middle of our first argument, which I couldn’t quite figure out. Somehow he was angry because Arthur had enough feelings for me to want to warn me off Martin, and I gathered it wasn’t the warning but the feelings that upset Martin. And then also, he felt that Lizanne’s engagement ring had overshadowed the beautiful earrings he’d given me, and he was mortified. And I was trying to tell Martin I loved the earrings and wouldn’t have taken an engagement ring if he’d given it to me, which was completely untrue and a very stupid thing to say. If we had fallen in love like teenagers, we were quarreling like teenagers, and if we had been a little younger, I’d have given him back his letter jacket. And his class ring.
And then, just as we pulled into my parking lot, his beeper went off.
Martin said something truly terrible.
“I have to go.” He was suddenly calm.
“I have to tell you something,” I told him urgently, “about Franklin Farrell. Before tomorrow!”
“I can’t believe I said all those things.”
“Please come back.” I was almost crying. I’d been through too many emotions in one day, and they were seeking their natural vent.
“As soon as I handle the situation at the plant, I’ll come back.”
“Wait a second,” I said as I slid out of the car. I ran to unlock my back door and ran back to the car. “Here’s my key.” I put it in his hand and closed his fingers around it. “I have another I’ll use. Come on in when you get back.”
We looked at each other searchingly. “I’ve never given anyone a key to my own house before,” I said, slamming the car door and running into the townhouse.
Madeleine was standing curiously in the cold draft from the door I’d left open, and she rubbed against my legs as I stood in the kitchen area wondering what on earth I was going to do.
I wandered up the stairs, pulling off my finery with little regard for my hair. I left my earrings in, and sat at my dressing table admiring them absently while I tried to figure out what to do.
Three Bedrooms, One Corpse Page 17