(3T)Three Bedrooms, One Corpse

by Charlaine Harris

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  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 un- der 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 criti- cally, 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 Car- riage 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 re-

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  alty 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 pick- ing at her nails, though she, too, was keeping a courte- ous 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 some- thing surreptitious under the tablecloth that brought a tiny secret smile to her face. Even young Debbie Lin- coln, 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, elabo- rately bored. Conspicuously alone, Donnie Greenhouse had deliberately left an empty chair beside him to re- mind people that he was a brand-new widower. Some- how I’d known he wouldn’t miss an opportunity to star in a public drama, even if he had to point it out himself.

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  Close to Lizanne, my mother inclined her head re- gally to one side, her resemblance to Lauren Bacall es- pecially 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. His 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

  A

  Icouldn’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 crook- ing 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 ar- rived at the Anderton house to find Tonia Lee already dead—though what explanation he could have given ~ 2 0 9 ~

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  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 re- membered 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 mur- derer, she would feel terribly conscious that she had lied to the police. And to her employer. ìRoe? 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 freez- ing night.

  “Sure. Then we’ll see after that,” she said teasingly. There wouldn’t be much to see, I thought. It was al- ready a case of my-place-or-yours. And, my mind

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  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 au- tomatically. 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.”

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  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 Greenhouses’, 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 fi- nally. “I remember. So?”

  “Do you by any chance remember who told you To- nia Lee had been tied?”

  “Oh. Yeah, it was Franklin, next morning at the of- fice. 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.

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  But Arthur had his own agenda, and in a particu- larly 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 ab- solutely sincere. “Because of the good times we had to- gether, 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

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  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 han- dle dangerous situations than Martin? He was danger- ous 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 argu- ment, 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 over- shadowed 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 let- ter 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.

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  “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 fin- gers 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 town- house.

  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.

  What if I called the police station and said there was a kidnapped woman in Franklin’s house? Wouldn’t they be obliged to break in to see?

  Maybe not. I could hardly call Arthur to find out. Report a fire?

  Well, the firemen wouldn’t recognize the vases, as indeed most of the policemen wouldn’t. Of course, we

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  didn’t have photographs of them, and my mother had only a general memory of their shape and position on the night tables.

  Tomorrow Martin would be taken in for question- ing if I couldn’t draw attention to Franklin now. Day after tomorrow, Franklin would take the vases to At- lanta and sell them or drop them in the river on the way, if he hadn’t done it already.

  He’d be out of his house tonight, with Miss Glitter. I stood there in the bathroom with my fists balled, trying to steel myself against the decision I was about to make.

  Okay. I’d have to do it.

  Thinking harsh thoughts about how incredibly stu- pid I was, I pulled on heavy socks and blue jeans and a T-shirt and a sweatshirt. I zipped up my black boots and found an old jacket with deep pockets. I found a knit scarf that had a hood for the head and then two long ends that tossed around the neck, which I pinned so I wouldn’t have to keep fooling with them. Every- thing I had on was black or dark brown or navy blue. I looked like someone who’d dressed with only a tiny amount of light in the closet, just enough to pick out dark colors, but not the right dark colors. Amina would have a fit, I thought wryly.

  I did keep on my beautiful earrings.

  Downstairs I trudged, terrified and determined, to stuff my pockets with screwdrivers and anything that looked as if it might be helpful in breaking into Franklin Farrell’s house.

  I added a heavy, fist-sized rock to my collection of potential burglary tools. I’d brought it home as a sou-

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  venir of a t
rip to Hot Springs, and it was dark with a protrusion of clear crystal. Then I remembered a crow- bar in a box of Jane Engle’s tools I’d had stored in my extra bedroom.

  I dumped everything into the car. It was eleven o’clock, my dashboard informed me. I am a law- abiding person, I told myself grimly. I don’t litter. I don’t even jaywalk. I never park in handicapped spaces. I pay my taxes on time. I only lie when it’s polite. Lord have mercy on me for what I’m about to do. That thought, from my saner self, sent me right back inside. I took a piece of paper and a pencil and wrote, “Martin: Franklin Farrell is the man who killed Tonia Lee Greenhouse. I am going to go break into his house and get back the vases he took from the Anderton place. Eleven o’clock. Roe.” Somehow writing this note made me think I was being much more prudent, a totally unjustified feeling. But I locked the door to the townhouse before I shut it, thus burning my bridges behind me, since I’d forgotten to get my extra key and Martin now had mine.

  I left my car two blocks south and one block east of Franklin Farrell’s house, which was inconveniently lo- cated (for me) on a main thoroughfare, where no parking was possible. Franklin had an older home on a street that was now almost all commercial, but he had painted it an eye-catching combination of dove gray and yellow, and tricked it up with expensive antiques and gadgets until it was now one of the town’s notable homes. Entrance to it was very restricted, though. Franklin entertained women there sometimes, it was generally understood, but had only one social gathering a year in his home. It was

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  carefully planned, lavish, and invitations were much prized. Otherwise, Franklin entertained clients and other business associates at restaurants. He never asked unin- vited guests in, no matter how attractive they were, a quirk of his that was much discussed and secretly envied by those who were too cowardly to do likewise. All this I knew about Franklin. All this, and now much more.