(3T)Three Bedrooms, One Corpse

by Charlaine Harris

  I probably wasn’t particularly silent as I stole across his backyard and up to his back door. But in that cold, who had their windows open to hear? I was shivering as I tried the back door knob, just for the hell of it. Of course, the door was locked. Franklin’s car wasn’t there, so I assumed he and Miss Glitter were having a good time. I hoped it was real good, and that he’d stay the night. I had no plan to conceal the break-in, because I thought I’d be damned lucky to get in at all, much less try to be clever about it. So after an attempt or two with the screwdrivers, I just smashed a pane in the kitchen door window with my souvenir rock, which I popped back into my pocket. I reached in carefully and un- locked the door. It should have opened then, but it didn’t. Though my coat and sweatshirt gave my arm some protection, I became worried that the glass re- maining in the frame would cut me as I prodded around inside, trying to discover what was still holding the door. Finally I risked using my flashlight. With my face pressed against an upper pane and flashing the light up and down the inside of the door, I discovered at long last that Franklin had put a sliding bolt at the top of the door. The moment I saw it, I switched the flashlight off. I was too short to reach the sliding bolt.

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  I took a few deep breaths and poked through with the longest screwdriver. I stood on tiptoes. I closed my eyes to concentrate. The tip of the screwdriver finally touched the knob of the bolt. With every bit of stretch I could summon, I pushed the bolt back. I had to crouch down and shake for a minute when the door finally yielded. I took a deep breath, stood, and entered.

  This is dumb, this is dumb, my more intelligent side was insisting as I stepped inside. Get out. But I didn’t listen. I examined the kitchen as care- fully as I could by flashlight. Then, through the dining room, the hutch full of an impressive array of gleaming silver. Then into the living room, color-coordinated to a depressing degree in creamy shades, with cranberry wallpaper. The fireplace across the room was flanked on either side by windows, and matching sofas faced each other in front of them. My flashlight flicked over the furniture, the gleaming hardwood floor, and the marble fireplace. And came back to the fireplace. The vases were on the mantle. I caught my breath at the sheer gall of it. Placed as carefully as if they were le- gitimate, they looked lovely on either end, with a dried- flower arrangement in between. If they’d been stashed in a closet, they’d have seemed much more suspicious. I walked up the alley formed by the two sofas to exam- ine them more closely. These were the right ones. I re- membered the pictures of rivers and valleys that had so entranced me as a child.

  Hah! I could feel myself smiling in the dark, though the insistent pulse in my brain kept telling me, This is dumb, this is dumb.

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  And it was, too, because just then Franklin turned on the light.

  ìIdidn’t hear you pull up,” I said lamely after I swung around to face him.

  “That’s obvious,” he said. “I saw a light dancing around in my living room from two blocks away, so I left my car parked on the street.” If he’d seen me through the open curtains, someone else could, too, I thought hope- fully. Franklin reached out one arm casually and pressed a button. Behind me I heard the curtains electronically swish shut.

  Of all the damned gadgets.

  We stood looking at each other. I was wondering what happened next. Maybe he was, too.

  “Why on earth did you do this?” he said almost wearily. The handsome face drooped on its elegant bones. He tossed his overcoat over the back of the sofa as though he were about to sit in his favorite chair and open the newspaper. Instead, he pulled a long, thin scarf from his overcoat pocket.

  “Oh, you just carry one with you now? Just in case you run across someone who needs killing?” The words popped out before my brain could censor them. “Tonia Lee was a piece of trash, Roe,” he said coldly. “But she was clever enough to spot some things in my house that she shouldn’t have. She was willing enough to keep quiet for some—exotic—rolls in the hay. Unusual places. Being tied up. Tonia Lee liked that kind of thing. But I got tired of obliging.” I pictured him sitting at the foot of the bed while Tonia Lee was

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  tied to it, talking to her while methodically folding her clothes, Tonia Lee knowing all the while that she was going to die. “A piece of trash,” he repeated. He wasn’t slotting her in a social class or giving a character assessment. He was dismissing her as nonhu- man, inconsequential. On a par, perhaps, with a mole that was making ridges in his lawn. It made me sick. “What about Idella?” I asked involuntarily. “She was so easy to get to bed after I’d finally con- vinced her to just go out with me. I was glad I’d gone to the trouble of overcoming her scruples at dating a man with my reputation with women, because when I needed her to put back that key, it wasn’t hard at all to persuade her. I told her it would ruin my business if I had to tell the police I’d been in the house with Tonia Lee’s body. I told her I’d had an anonymous call that I should hurry over to the Anderton house, that the caller said it was Idella who was hurt there. How could Idella refuse to help me after that?” He raised his eyebrows mockingly. “Obviously, someone wanted to frame me for Tonia Lee’s death, someone who knew I’d go rushing to help Idella. It was after she had time to think that she became difficult. She sensed—some implausibility. She was scared of being single, scared of being alone; but she became even more scared of me,” said the man who was quite happy with being alone because he was so fond of himself. “And me?”

  “You’re a little different,” he conceded. “But now you know about me, and no one else does. No one else even suspects. Why did you have to do this?” “Why’d you have to come home? I thought you were all set for the night.”

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  “Oh, Dorothy?” He actually thought for a moment. “You know,” he said almost musingly, “I just couldn’t be bothered.”

  He stepped toward me. I glanced at the front door, since Franklin was between me and the back door. The front door was locked and had a similar bolt at the top. I would take seconds reaching it, and more seconds stretching up to the bolt. There was no way. The door- way to my left was shut, but it might be a coat closet, for all I knew. And probably was, because right by it was an ornately carved openwork umbrella stand, ap- propriately holding a fancy umbrella with a long fer- rule.

  “I had to do this,” I began, moving slowly to my left around the end of the sofa, compelling him with all my will to watch my face and not my feet, “because to- morrow the police were going to get Martin.” “Martin—oh, the new boyfriend. The reason you wouldn’t go out with me.” His voice held a mild inter- est as he came closer. “Why are you edging left, Roe?” I pulled the umbrella from the stand. “Because I hope to hurt you some before you hurt me.” I gripped it determinedly with both hands, pointing the sharp ferrule in his direction.

  He laughed. He really did. Wrapping the scarf around both hands in a practiced move, he held out the taut length so I could admire the shine of the blue silk. “This is Terry’s scarf. I think I’ll leave it on you so maybe they’ll think Terry killed you because Eileen had the hots for you. What a hoot.”

  Ha ha. “Martin will kill you for this,” I said with absolute assurance.

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  “Your latest honey? I think not.”

  And before this could go any further, I charged at him with all my strength and yelled as loud as I could, which was pretty damn loud.

  I was short and he was tall, and I was bent over in my charge.

  I caught him just in the pit of his stomach. Actually, a little lower.

  He shrieked, his arms flew up linked by the scarf, and he began to double over. I reeled back from the im- pact, staggered, went down on my face.

  He fell right on top of me.

  I fought to get hi
m off, though the air had been mostly knocked out of me. I bucked and pushed and heaved, but he was too heavy. He was growling now, a horrible animal sound, and the glimpse I caught of his face was terrifying, if I could have been any more fright- ened than I was. He had apparently never been hurt be- fore, because he went berserk with rage. He’d let go of one end of the scarf. He was tearing at any part of me he could get hold of, and I heard a rip and then some clinking, rolling sounds as one of my pockets was ab- solutely torn off my coat, its contents spilling out. He grabbed my mass of braided hair and banged my face against the hardwood floor. For a moment of blinding pain my brain went dark, and I heard a crack- ing sound I couldn’t understand. Then he lifted himself on his knees to get a good swing at my head, and I seized the second to turn over. Now I had one free arm, but he came down on the other one. When I tried to bite him, his suit coat prevented me. He grabbed my hair again and banged the back of my head against the

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  wooden floor. I had another moment of darkness, and then with the little energy I had left I grabbed his ear with my one free hand and pulled and pulled, though he tossed and twisted to shake me off. My other arm, trapped between our bodies, hurt dreadfully, though I had no time to think about that.

  I realized I was losing consciousness, the weight of him pushing the air out faster than the struggle was letting me take it in. I dug my fingernails into his ear to mark him, since I was losing, and had the satisfac- tion of feeling wetness under my fingers. But it almost made me lose my grip on his ear. He’d remembered the scarf now, wrapped it around his free hand, and then put it around my neck. I had the wooly scarf pinned there, though, and the collar of my coat, too. But I began to feel myself blanking in and out, like a flickering picture on a black-and-white television. My hand finally lost its grip and slipped to the floor. My fingers landed on a rough lump. My souvenir rock. I forced my fingers to curl around it, and with my last strength I swung the rock and made direct contact with the side of Franklin’s head. The sound was dull and nauseating.

  The weight on top of me went limp. There were some oddly peaceful moments, because of the silence, the stillness; most of all the cessation of fear. Then I be- came aware of hearing noise again. Was someone talk- ing to me?

  “Let go,” said a fuzzy voice, urgently. Of what? I wondered if I was barely clinging to my life. Should I let go of it? I wanted it. “Let go of the rock.”

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  It was a voice I could trust. I let go, moaning at the sudden pain in my cramped fingers.

  I heard sounds, sort of—dragging sounds, and some- thing bumped down the length of my body. Franklin Farrell’s head, as someone dragged him off me. I tried to focus, but achieved only a blur.

  “I can’t see,” I whispered.

  “It’s me, it’s Martin, Roe. Lie still.” Now that I could do.

  “I’m going to call the hospital.” Footsteps retreated and came back. At some point. Everything was fuzzy and blurry and vague.

  “Did I hurt him bad?” I mumbled through thick lips. They also hurt. I was finding that a lot of things hurt as my adrenaline ebbed.

  I heard a choked sound.

  “I called the ambulance for you.” “Why can’t I see, Martin?”

  “He broke your glasses. They cut your face. Maybe your nose is broken. Maybe your arm, too.” “Oh. My eyes okay?”

  “They may be once the swelling goes down.” “Did—I—kill him?” I was having some difficulty enunciating.

  “Don’t know. Don’t care.”

  “Tough guy,” I mumbled.

  “Tough woman,” I thought he said. I would have snorted derisively if my face hadn’t hurt so badly. “Hurts, Mar’in,” I commented, trying not to whine. “Go to sleep,” he advised.

  It was surprisingly easy to do.

  Chapter Sixteen

  A

  Rubber soles against tile. Trays banging against a metal cart. A voice over a public-address system. Hospital sounds. I turned my head.

  “You’re making a habit of this, Aurora,” my mother said sternly. “I don’t want to get one more call from the hospital in the middle of the night telling me my daughter’s been brought in beaten up.”

  “I promise I won’t do it again,” I mumbled painfully. “For a librarian, you are . . .” And her voice faded out. But when I was all there again, it was still going on. “John and I are not as young as we were, and we need our sleep, so if you could just get beaten up in the daytime . . .” She was stomping around verbally, be- cause ladies couldn’t just stomp around. “Mother. Am I hurt bad?”

  “You’re going to feel terrible for a while, but no, no permanent damage has been done. You may have some ~ 226 ~

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  scarring around the eyes from the cuts your glasses caused, but it’s probably going to fade. By the way, I called Dr. Sheppard this morning to get a new pair made up. They had a record of what frames you ordered the last time, so they’ll be just like your other glasses. He promised he’d have them later today. To continue—the muscles and ligaments in your left arm are strained badly, but the bones aren’t broken. Your nose, however, is. Your lips are cut and swollen. Your whole face is black and blue. You look like hell on wheels. You have an engagement ring on your left hand.”

  “. . . What?”

  “He came in and put it on this morning—he got it right after the jeweler’s opened, he said.” I couldn’t lift my arm to look. It was taped or bound somehow.

  “You’re not supposed to use that arm for a while,” Mother said sharply. “Wait a minute. I’m going to push the button to raise the head of the bed.” I opened my eyes cautiously and saw blurry pale blue walls and my mother’s arm. It really was daytime. Then as the angle of the bed moved, I was able to see down without shifting my head, which felt as if it might fall off if I did so. My pale left hand was sticking out of a sling, and on it, sure enough, glittered a dia- mond bigger than Lizanne’s.

  Of course he would get one bigger than Lizanne’s. “Where is he?” I mumbled through my swollen lips. “He had to stay at the police station this morning, to talk about the man his foreman caught stealing last night, and about—Franklin.” My mother’s voice said the name reluctantly.

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  “There’s some doubt about Franklin’s bail hearing,” she went on more cheerfully, “because you hit him hard enough to put him in this hospital—right down the hall, with a policeman in there with him and his arm handcuffed to a bedrail.”

  Franklin’s arm, not the policeman’s, I assumed. “You hit him with a rock, I believe,” my mother said remotely.

  “Vases,” I said urgently.

  “Yes, they know those are the vases from the Ander- ton house. The senior Andertons had some pictures taken of their more valuable doodads and stored the pictures in their lockbox, and Mandy just now got around to opening the things she had shipped from Lawrenceton to Los Angeles. When the police here called her about the vases being missing, she mailed the pictures, and they arrived yesterday. There’s proof. They’ll nail that bastard.”

  I’d never heard my mother say that particular word. But I wondered if they could find proof to stick the murders to him. Besides what he’d said to me. I would have to appear in court. Again.

  I heard a light knock, and my mother called, “Come in.”

  “Oh,” she said rather stiffly. “All finished at the po- lice station?”

  Martin.

  He murmured something to her.

  “I’ll just leave for a minute to get a cup of coffee, since you’re here,” she said with assumed offhanded- ness.

  The door swished again, and I heard him approach

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  the bed. I wiggled the fingers of my left hand, and he laughed.

  “Do you like it?”
he asked quietly.

  He came into my field of blurry vision then. I had a good right hand, and though any movement was not without its cost, I reached out and placed it on his chest. Then I patted my left hand with my right. “You’re cocky,” I mumbled.

  This was so romantic.

  “I didn’t want to take any chances. For all I knew, the doctor might be a former flame who took this chance to rekindle the relationship.”

  I giggled, which was quite uncomfortable. “Roe,” he said more seriously, “why did you do it? Why did you place yourself in danger like that?” I was amazed he didn’t know. Somehow, I’d assumed the police would tell him. Of course they wouldn’t. I beckoned him to bend over with my good hand, so I wouldn’t have to talk as loud.

  “They were going to question you.”

  “You—” He walked away from the bed, stared out the window for a minute, stalked back. “You did that because you thought I might be arrested?” I nodded. “I had it from some reliable sources. I re- alized at the banquet that Franklin was the killer. No proof.”

  “You crazy woman! He could have killed you. If I hadn’t been able to settle the problem at the plant in record time, get back and read your note, find out where the hell Franklin Farrell lived . . . at least I still had the map of Lawrenceton in my glove compartment that the Chamber of Commerce gave me when I moved

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  here. You could still be lying there with him on top of you.”

  I wondered hazily what would have happened. Would he have regained consciousness before I’d man- aged to crawl out from under him and get to a tele- phone? I was glad I hadn’t had to find out. Martin was still running on. “Did it strike you that I might be able to find the damn vases? Did you think of telling me? I would have broken into his house.” And possibly been arrested, and lost his job . . . “It never occurred to me,” I enunciated with some difficulty, “to ask you.”