by Joan Hess
“An excellent plan.” I helped her to her feet and steered her into the living room, wondering how many more babies I would encounter before I could stop singing “The Rockabye Blues” on a regular basis. “You’ll feel better in a couple of hours.”
“You are my best friend,” she mumbled as her eyes closed.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
As Adrienne’s best friend (a temporary designation, clearly), I carried all the bottles into the kitchen and left them on the counter for Adrienne’s best cleaning service to deal with. I had a good idea why she’d banished the housekeeper, who might have been an inconvenience on afternoons when Anthony was at a construction site and Randy’s schedule allowed him to leave the campus.
I remained in the kitchen to call the condo. Luanne answered almost immediately. “Claire?”
“Yes,” I said mildly, in that I was, above all other roles, a mild-mannered bookseller. “Have you spoken to Caron?”
“No, and I think I should do something. Miss Parchester is still snoozing, and Jillian’s promised that she can stay here. Baybergen never showed up. I went to the platform and gathered up all her clothes, and then put them in the dryer downstairs. The sleeping bag’s too sodden, but Jillian says she has one in her garage. Why aren’t we trying to find Skyler?”
“Because we don’t have a clue where to look for him. Caron must, though, and she’s more likely to figure out where Inez might have taken him than the two of us could. What do you suggest we do—drive up and down Thurber Street, yodeling like displaced Alpine hikers?”
Luanne snuffled. “I just feel as though I should be doing something.”
“So do I.”
“What happened at the villa?”
I told her about Adrienne’s engagement with enough alcohol to stock a bar on a Friday night. “She’s asleep,” I added, “but I’m really worried about Chantilly. Adrienne slipped up and used the past tense several times. I don’t think she dug that pit you mentioned, but I have a bad feeling. Any suggestions?”
“You’re not going to like it.”
“I don’t like anything that’s happened since Miss Parchester climbed that damn tree five days ago.”
“Call Peter. He needs to know that Chantilly’s not just shacked up in a motel room.”
I gazed wistfully at a bottle of scotch I could never afford to drink. “He’s just a bit annoyed with me, Luanne. If I call him—”
“Call him. I’m going to leave Jillian in charge of Miss Parchester and swing by my shop, your bookstore, and your apartment. Caron is more than capable of not answering the phone if she doesn’t think it’s in her best interest at the moment. Her reasoning can be murky, as you well know.”
I told her the number where I was, then sat back and nibbled carrot sticks until I found the nerve to call the police department. If I was lucky, the same dispatcher would give me the same runaround, and I could subsequently gloat in the knowledge I’d tried my best. Modestly, of course.
I was put through to Peter immediately. “Hey,” I said, “I was wondering if you located Daphne.”
“Where are you?”
“With Adrienne. She’s asleep at the moment. After everyone left, she decided to tidy up the surplus liquor by drinking it. Did you take Daphne into custody?”
“We delivered her to the hospital for a seventy-twohour evaluation. The psychiatrist on call ordered sedation and rest. He doesn’t think she has any major problems!”
“So all you have to do is wait in the hallway until you can drag her back to jail? If someone sends her a cake with raspberry glaze, examine it carefully.”
“I’m beginning to wonder if you need a vacation in a room with padded pastel walls. She claimed she never had a baby. There’s no record at the hospital, no birth certificate on file. Who was the attending physician?”
“No one working the obstetrics wing,” I said. “Have you located Chantilly?”
Peter let out a long-suffering sigh, which I’m sure he felt made him deserving of canonization, if not instantaneous sainthood. “Adrienne seems to think she just took off in the Jaguar. Chantilly hasn’t committed a crime, since she was authorized to use the car. If it turns up in a used car lot in Amarillo, Adrienne may be able to press charges for theft.”
“How mad are you?” I asked in a meek voice, hoping to soften him up before I asked for a favor. I strongly oppose the use of feminine wiles unless they provide some direct benefit. When I had time, I vowed to myself, I would go split wood and catch rattlesnakes barehanded. Afterwards, I would have blisters and festering wounds, but a clear conscience.
“On a scale of one to ten, I’d say I was hovering between eight and nine,” Peter said. “You’ve reached a new personal best in evasiveness. Why do you insist on seeing me as an adversary? Don’t you trust me?”
This was not the time to explore the question in painful detail. “I’m going to trust you now,” I said. “Find a way to escape the vigilance of KFAR and come out here. I’m beginning to think I know where Chantilly is. The last thing we need is Jessica Princeton and a camera crew.”
“Too graphic for the six o’clock news?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Then wait at the house. I’ll be there as soon as I can get away from the captain, who’s been apoplectic since yesterday morning and is on his third pot of coffee since noon today.”
“Okay, I’ll wait,” I said, then hung up and went out to make sure Adrienne hadn’t crawled off the sofa in search of a drink. She seemed peaceful, and unlike Miss Parchester, in no danger of pneumonia or anything else more threatening than a significant hangover, replete with the gastric aftereffects of too many stuffed mushrooms. The cleaning service might have its professional expertise challenged, but I wouldn’t be around to watch.
I went upstairs and looked in Chantilly’s bedroom. I could see no indication that anyone had moved so much as a pair of panty hose. Two sisters, one passed out on the sofa, the other—where?
As I went downstairs, I briefly toyed with the idea that Howie, who was also missing, might be involved, but it was beyond me to come up with anything that even verged on making sense. Women such as Chantilly did not dally with arrested adolescents such as Howie unless there was significant monetary compensation. He must have gone home, as Miss Parchester had suggested.
Chantilly was either long gone or not gone at all. I decided to investigate the latter premise while I waited for Peter. I took one of the umbrellas from a stand by the front door, but the rain had stopped and the clouds were dispersing. I avoided puddles as I made my way down the road in the direction of what I assumed would be the barn. This might have been construed as standard gothic heroine foolhardiness, but it was only late afternoon and I was hardly investigating the sounds of a chain saw in the cellar.
And I didn’t have any idea of whether or not the barn had indeed ended up at the bottom of a gully, along with a mule or two and Mrs. Zorelli’s jars of pickled okra and spiced peaches. I was feeling as intoxicated as Adrienne (well, not quite that much) as I savored the aroma of the aftermath of a spring storm. Sunlight sparkled on foliage beaded with raindrops. No one demanded that I produce a cast of characters and their whereabouts. No one pointed out the flaws in my hypotheses, as numerous as they were. The only sounds were of birds and insects reclaiming their domain after a tactical retreat. I found myself hoping the road would lead nowhere and I could just keep walking until all the issues were resolved.
I was almost expecting a bluebird to alight on my shoulder and break into an anthropomorphic song when I saw the barn. To my dismay, I realized there were tire tracks on either side of me.
“It’s the truth, it’s actual,” I said under my breath as I pushed open the weathered door. The Jaguar was hard to miss, even in the dim light. My pulse began to quicken as I went inside. There was no body in the car, or visible smears of blood. I stopped for a moment to take deep breaths, and then, most tentatively, forced myself to stare into the dark reaches of
the barn. The loft had collapsed, possibly decades previously, which I gratefully interpreted as an excuse not to have to crawl up a ladder into a sequestered community of spiders, rats, and bats.
I froze as I heard a thumping noise. “Is someone here?” I whispered.
“Whmp!”
It seemed I had elicited a response. I picked up a piece of a broken rake handle and moved cautiously toward the back of the barn, hoping that I could actually swing at someone if the situation demanded it.
“Whmp!”
“Calm down,” I said. “I’m not very good at this. Give me a minute.”
“Whmp!”
“I said I’m coming, for pity’s sake.” I edged around what I supposed was a defunct tractor and saw a figure seated on die floor, legs outstretched. The ash blond hair provided an eerie frame around her face. “Chantilly? What are you doing?”
“Whmp!”
I moved forward until I could see the duct tape across her mouth. More duct tape was wrapped around her ankles and wrists, and even more bound her to an upright beam. I kneeled next to her and gingerly removed the tape from her mouth.
“That bitch!” she croaked. “Get me out of here.”
I removed the rest of the tape and helped her to her feet. “Can you walk?”
“Yeah,” she said, then began to wobble so violently that I had to steady her. “I’m okay. Do you have any water?”
“No, but maybe we can find a container of rainwater.” I held on to her arm as we went out the barn door. She jerked free of my grasp and sank to her knees by a puddle to scoop up water with her hands. It was, I was sure, the first time she’d slurped liquefied mud, and most likely the last.
She finally sat back. “I thought I was going to die, which is exactly what that bitch intended. She just didn’t have the nerve to do it outright.”
“Adrienne?”
“Oh, yeah. When I find her, I’m going to carve her up like a turkey, but I’m going to do it slowly so she doesn’t bleed to death too quickly. I’ll start with her fingers and toes, then—” She broke off with a sob. “How could she do this to me? My own sister?”
I wiped the mud off her chin. “How did she get you to come here?”
“Whenever it was—yesterday afternoon—she told me that Anthony had a red Corvette convertible stored here that he’d meant to give to Daphne before she dared to disobey him. Adrienne said I might as well have it, so we drove over to have a look at it. She tricked me into going to the back of the barn and then smacked me with something. When I came to, I was taped up and she was gone. What time is it?”
“About five. You stay there while I see if the keys are in the car. We might as well drive back to the house.” Where I would be an eyewitness to a very nasty scene, if not a gory homicide. “Maybe I ought to take you to the emergency room. You must be dangerously dehydrated.”
“Looking like this? Don’t be ridiculous. All I need is a Bloody Mary and a butcher knife. Afterwards, I’ll take a shower and put on clean clothes, and you can take me anywhere you damn please.”
Adrienne had left the keys in the ignition. I backed out, waited while Chantilly got in on the passenger’s side, and then drove very slowly while I tried to decide what to do. She was regaining her color, and although she was small, I wasn’t at all sure I could protect myself if I attempted to continue past the house. She’d had twenty-four hours to refine the details of her revenge.
“Why did Adrienne do this to you?” I asked.
“Because she’s a greedy, hateful, conniving bitch.”
“You tried to blackmail her, didn’t you? You knew the terms of the prenuptial contract and the will. Did you demand half of her inheritance?”
“Nowhere near that much,” Chantilly said sulkily. “I pointed out nicely that she would inherit at least a million dollars, and it wouldn’t hurt her to be generous. I covered for her plenty of times when we were growing up. I even took the rap for a drunken driving charge. She showed the cop my license, and we look so much alike that he bought it. Guess which one of us spent eight hours in traffic school, then got grounded for a month? I took her SATs so she could get into college.” She opened the glove compartment and found a box of tissues. “I am absolutely filthy, and I stink so bad I could peel paint. She’s going to pay for this.”
I was still debating what to do as we came into view of the house. The Mercedes was no longer parked in front of the garage, which was both the good news and the bad. The homicide—or, to be more precise, sororicide—would have to wait, but it also seemed likely that Adrienne had stumbled out to the car and driven away. This would be one case of drunken driving for which no one else could take the responsibility.
Even though the car was still moving, Chantilly opened the door and stepped out. “Thanks for the ride,” she said as if I’d dropped her off after a tennis date.
I parked, and was trotting after her when Peter drove up and got out of his car. “Oh, good,” I said. “We have either a crisis or a disaster. Go arrest somebody.”
“Would you care to be more specific?”
“Later. Now go inside and make sure Chantilly hasn’t grabbed a butcher knife from a kitchen drawer. Approach her carefully; she’s pumped with adrenaline and blind rage. A bad combination.”
“I thought Chantilly was missing,” he said.
“Not anymore, but Adrienne may be. She was here half an hour ago, but now the car is gone. Nobody else was inside the villa. Well, somebody could have been upstairs. I didn’t do more than take a quick look.” The sound of a gunshot from inside the house stopped me before I could add that I’d searched the Armstrong villa so many times I knew the color and placement of the soap dishes. “What do we do?”
He thrust his cell phone at me. “You are going to stay here, call the department, and tell them what’s happening. I told the dispatcher where I was going, so she’ll believe you. Ask for backup and Jorgeson, if she can track him down.”
I almost dropped the phone as another gunshot echoed. “Why don’t you stay here with me?”
“Get in my car and wait,” Peter said. “Don’t even think about going into the house.”
Which is exactly what I did think about after I’d obediently made the call. During the terse conversation, I’d heard two more gunshots. No one appeared in the doorway or at a window. If the Mercedes had been present, I could have imagined Adrienne and Chantilly in a classic Western showdown, although both of them merited black hats. Chantilly had attempted to blackmail Adrienne, who’d attempted to murder her in retaliation. Atypical family dynamics, to say the least.
I’d gotten out of the car and was inching toward the house when Jorgeson drove up. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“Peter and I were standing here when we heard a gunshot. He went inside to investigate.”
“While you stayed out here. I’m impressed, Ms. Malloy. Just who’s in there beside the lieutenant?”
“Chantilly. I don’t think Adrienne is, but I could be wrong.”
“I can assure you that Mrs. Armstrong is not. Anybody else?”
I shook my head. “Shouldn’t you be doing something, Jorgeson?”
“What I should be doing is staining the deck, which is what I was doing before I got the call to come out here. Do you ever take a day off, Ms. Malloy?”
“Are you planning to stand here and discuss extracurricular activities?”
“We should all have interests. I’m giving serious consideration to putting in a lily pond near the deck. At the nursery, I saw a very clever waterfall pump that recirculates the water so that the algae doesn’t build up.”
“Jorgeson, Peter is inside that house with someone who is armed. Will you please go do something about it!”
“Lieutenant Rosen doesn’t like me to interfere. Here come a couple of uniformed officers. Maybe you can persuade them to blunder inside and get their heads blown off.”
Two officers scrambled out of their vehicle. “What’s going on, Sergeant Jorgeso
n?” asked the older. “Gunshots reported from inside the house, we were told.”
“That’s most of it. Lieutenant Rosen went to find out what’s happening. Ms. Malloy and I were discussing lily ponds. I was thinking I could start with some cheap goldfish, and if they survive, maybe invest in some of those fancy Japanese ones.”
I was ready to smack him when the front door opened and Peter emerged, his hand clamped on Chantilly’s elbow. I noticed she’d washed her face and changed clothes.
Peter did not look as if he’d been dodging bullets for the last fifteen minutes. He stopped on the porch and said, “Miss Durmond expressed her frustration by shooting several panes in the conservatory. No person or plant was injured. She needs to be taken to my office and given a beverage. I’ll be there shortly to take her statement.”
Chantilly meekly allowed herself to be placed in the backseat of the patrol car. As the car turned around in the driveway, Jorgeson took Peter aside for a conversation. I perched on the hood of Peter’s car and waited, my expression sublimely dispassionate despite the questions careening around my head.
Peter finally sent Jorgeson inside and joined me. “Adrienne’s been found. According to what Jorgeson could patch together, she showed up at the Farberville Fitness Center about twenty minutes ago, stumbled inside, shot the guy at the desk, then drove away and wrapped her car around a tree. The tree survived.”
“Oh,” I murmured. “The guy at the desk being Randy Scarpo?”
“Is there anything you don’t know?” he said, exasperated.
“Nothing very important, considering. Did she kill him?”
“He’s being transported to the emergency room, but he lost a lot of blood and the prognosis is poor. Could you please explain why she shot him? As far as we know, he’s just some college kid who lives at Oakland Heights.”
“With his wife and baby. Has anyone notified her?”
“Jorgeson sent an officer to take them to the hospital. I’m waiting for an explanation, Claire.”
I told him what I suspected about the affair, then added, “If you question his wife, I think you’ll find out that he didn’t really have an alibi for the time of the shooting. He was probably planning to leave the fitness center at eleven-thirty, kill Armstrong, and be at home well before Adrienne and Chantilly arrived. However, his wife called and insisted that he come home early to help with their fussy baby. As soon as she went to bed and the baby quieted down, he must have come here and killed Anthony Armstrong. Adrienne must have been planning it for a long time, but she needed to wait until she could utilize Chantilly as her witness. Two sisters, exercising and then going out for drinks. So innocent.”