And worst of all, when Tad comes home, I’d have to tell him how I’d gotten involved, even though he’d warned me not to. How did all this happen? Well, to hell with it. From now on, let Bert work this show herself. Get her own brother out. And to hell with Teddi and her stupid obsession. My father means too much. I would tell Bert tomorrow that friend or not, I’m out.
Dad rose from the stoop and stretched. With his arms out, he resembled an eagle ready to soar against the night sky. He lowered his arms slowly and beckoned.
“Come on.”
“Where?”
“Back to the party. I want to tell Blaine I’m taking a rain check. The folks’ll have to make do with his albums.”
I stared at him, unable to move. I could not face Edwin Michaels and I could not let my father go back there without me.
“Couldn’t you phone?”
“No. He’d never understand that. My name’s on that invitation. I need to see him.”
Which meant that Dad was going to tell him about Edwin, Thea, Rita, Henderson Laws, and the letter. He was going to tell everything. Blaine Thomas and my father went back a long way. You couldn’t tell half a story to a forty-year friend. He’d guess the other half before the telling was over.
I rose to my feet, prepared to follow him even though my legs were shaking.
We had not taken two steps when the door opened and Blaine rushed out and sprinted to the door of a waiting Cadillac. Behind him, two men hurried out carrying a woman. Her feet did not touch the steps. They placed her in the backseat and Edwin Michaels followed, quickly closing himself behind the darkened windows.
People crowded the foyer, whispering as the car pulled away. At the corner its dome light and siren came on as it cut into the traffic of Eighth Avenue.
“What the hell happened?”
Blaine turned to face us, his expression one of blank surprise. “It’s Anne. She’s unconscious. They’re taking her to the hospital. She opened the cabinet in the library and drank almost an entire bottle of Scotch. This woman never touched a drop of alcohol in her life. Can you imagine?”
I knew then that Anne had been the one in the window, and even if she hadn’t heard every word clearly, she surely heard enough to confirm her worst suspicions. She had watched her husband smooth Rita’s hair, touch her face, and kiss her.
Through her tears—there had to have been tears—Anne had watched him stroke a woman who had murdered for him.
chapter twenty-one
When Gladys called, I should have refused. I was not up to returning to Thea’s apartment, but I had been so willing to help earlier that I couldn’t back away now. And I was still struggling with what to do about Rita. For the last twenty-four hours, the three of us—Dr. Thomas, Dad, and I—had a running argument about what I’d overheard.
Dr. Thomas felt I should go to the police. I felt confused and wished I’d never heard of Rita Bayne, wished I’d never stepped into that garden.
I couldn’t go to the police, not yet anyway. Suppose she hadn’t really done it—just told Edwin that tale to keep him close. Suppose it had only been those martinis setting fire to her imagination. And suppose it had been someone other than Anne at that window. That person had seen me leave with Dad. I’d made up my mind to keep quiet, even if it meant having a sleazy politician win the election. Worse folks have been in office. Michaels was no different. I repeated this argument until I was dizzy, but still couldn’t convince myself that I was doing the right thing. I also had not called Bert, and now here I was going back to the apartment of the woman who had started all of this.
When I arrived, Gladys was already upstairs in the living room, where two packing boxes lay open near the fireplace.
“A lot of this stuff will have to be stored until her estate is settled,” she said.
“Did Thea leave a will?”
“Yes. And some interesting surprises as the dead are wont to do.”
I took a seat on the ottoman and waited as she brought an armload of clothing from the larger bedroom.
“Surprises like what?” I asked.
“Like her income, for one thing. One thousand a month from her husband, one thousand a month from her boyfriend.”
“Not bad,” I said. “I suppose most of it went to furnish this place.”
“Oh no. I went with her to set up an IRA, and another time to purchase certificates of deposit. I thought it was a one-time thing. I had no idea that her income was so … steady.”
I didn’t answer. Roger and Edwin gave her two thousand. Who was shelling out the rest? Laws? Or maybe it was Roger and Laws for certain and Edwin was the wild card. I shuffled the names around in my head. Edwin told Rita he was expecting some money soon. And one hundred thousand wasn’t about to fall in his lap from a tree. I nearly smiled at the thought of him stealing his own money back—and someone else’s as a bonus.
“Did Roger ever mention how much he was sending her?”
“No. I haven’t spoken to him since the service. She mentioned it in her notebook.”
“How come the police didn’t find that book?”
“Thea had hidden it in a box of sanitary napkins.”
“Did Roger or her boyfriend have a key to this place?”
“I’m not sure. Why?”
“Well, until you get everything cleared up, you might want to change these locks. When I was on the force, I saw whole apartments emptied out while the relatives were at the funeral. Truck backed up to the door and even took the food intended for the wake.
“I also saw a sister have her brother arrested for wiping out their mother’s checking account while the woman’s body was still at the undertaker’s. Not even in the ground yet. People can do wonders with a computer and an ATM these days. All they need is a Social Security number. So if Thea had any accounts …”
“You’re right. I’ve been so busy I didn’t think of it.”
I left her and wandered into the small bedroom. The chest and dresser drawers were open and empty, and I moved beyond them to stand near the bed.
“Who designed this?” I asked, running my hand over the quilted headboard. Gladys had poured two drinks and followed me to the doorway, and extended a glass to me. I couldn’t decide if alcohol was part of her daily diet or a temporary crutch to get through this period.
“A boyfriend,” she said, “had that piece custom-made.”
“It’s unusual,” I said, still running my hands over the surface. My fingers slid down the side and came to rest on the zipper. “What’s this?”
“What’s what?” Gladys stepped into the room and leaned over the bed. “Well, damn. I’ll be damned.”
I pulled the zipper back and expressed surprise. “It’s empty.”
“So it appears,” Gladys said, more to herself than to me.
“I don’t want to sound paranoid,” I said, “but maybe that’s where she kept her jewelry and—”
“Thea had very little jewelry. Said she never wanted to sell or pawn anything. She believed in cash and money in the bank where she could see the figures.”
Gladys walked to the window, then moved slowly back to the living room, where she rummaged through her bag and pulled out her cell phone. She made two brief calls, then returned to the room and slipped her fingers into the empty space.
“Edwin had this bed made up for her. He knew what was in here.” She turned to me, frowning. “Edwin’s not smart; he’s slick, but not too bright. And he’s a pussy hound. That’s what’s going to bring him down eventually. I don’t know how his wife puts up with it.”
“Maybe she loves him too much to leave,” I said.
“And look where it got her. In the hospital drifting in and out of a coma.”
In the living room, Gladys continued to pack the boxes.
“Who do you think killed Thea?” she asked.
The question took me by surprise, and when I didn’t answer she stopped packing, sat down on the sofa, and picked up her glass again. She studied t
he amber liquid and squinted as if the answer was floating somewhere under the ice cubes.
“You know what I think, Mali? I think she murdered herself.”
“Really?” It was my turn to sit down now. “She didn’t commit suicide.”
“No, no. By that I meant she had absolutely no interest in living.”
“Did Thea—did she talk often about how she felt about her life?”
“Well, that notebook you saw, and those letters … The notebook was filled with nothing but heartache. Page after page after page. She hated everybody, most of all herself.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. The writing was so disjointed I couldn’t get past the first few pages. It didn’t seem like the Thea I knew, so I stopped reading.”
“Where’s the book now?”
Gladys rose from the sofa and walked to the foyer, then retraced her steps. The silence was broken by the small clicks of the ice cubes in her glass.
“Where’s the book?” I asked again.
She stopped moving but did not look at me.
“Mali, I … wanted to preserve my memory of her. And my sanity. So I destroyed it, along with the letters.”
I stared at her. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Memory! Sanity! Gladys, there may’ve been something in that book to prove Kendrick didn’t kill her!”
“Well, I’m sorry. I’m sorry about that. What’s done is done. I wanted to preserve her memory as is, Mali. You’ll never understand. We were beautiful. We were queens, if only for a minute. And for her to die that way—in some filthy alley with half her face gone. That’s not the Thea I want to remember.”
“Even if an innocent man may have to spend perhaps the rest of his life in jail?”
She did not answer but placed her drink on the coffee table and resumed filling the boxes. I watched her work, and the urge to hit her was so strong I turned and walked to the bathroom to be out of her way. I looked in the cabinet at several jars of makeup and I opened each one. I thought of the dim lights in the club and the smoky scene at the Half-Moon. Makeup that was laid on heavy looked normal in those instances, but here was jar upon jar—some barely touched, others deeply gouged—of makeup shades radically different from her natural complexion. As if she had been searching for just the right mask.
I heard the doorbell ring, then Gladys called me from the living room, and I closed the jars. A locksmith had arrived. As he worked, I went from room to room for one last look around. When I left this time, I knew I wouldn’t be back.
chapter twenty-two
On Saturday morning, three days after the party, Rita Bayne swallowed a fistful of diet pills and sleeping pills and washed them down with a half a fifth of vodka.
The news spread like a wave as people worked the connection between Michael’s wife and his assistant—both hospitalized and both in critical condition.
Dad hung up the phone after speaking with Dr. Thomas. “We should’ve gone to the police. Blaine thinks it’s a suicide attempt, but I think somebody’s trying to shut her up.”
I put down the coffee cup and squeezed my eyes shut. I had known something was going to happen. But not this way. An overdose. I wondered if Michaels was behind this, trying to clean up. And I wondered if Rita had given up the letter.
“She’s in Harlem Hospital,” Dad continued. “Poor thing. Got into this mess way over her head, and then ends up like this. Michaels is gonna pay for it.”
Indeed he will, I thought, but how? When?
Despite Wednesday night’s promise—to mind my business, to lay off and let Bertha handle whatever was going to happen—I found myself dressing quickly, and fifteen minutes later I walked into the crowded lobby of the hospital.
The information clerk tapped the computer and read from the screen: “Critical condition, not receiving visitors.”
“What room is she in? I’d like to send flowers.”
“Room 401.”
“Thank you,” I murmured. I walked across the lobby to mingle with a small group heading toward the elevator.
“Miss?” The guard signaled and I smiled, pointing toward the group. I knew there were several conference rooms on the second floor, and I said, “I’m here for a meeting.”
He waved me on and I managed to catch the elevator just as the door was closing.
I stepped off on the fourth floor. Marian Prince was walking toward me, and I watched her walk past the nurse’s station in the center and glance up, distracted by the sound of activity. A second later, she moved on, gliding in the slow silence of a sleepwalker. I waited near the elevator until she pressed the button, and when it arrived I stepped inside with her.
“Miss Prince?”
She looked up as if I’d startled her out of a dream.
“Yes? Oh! You … were at that party. Your eyes … I recognize …”
The door opened on the third floor and a crowd pushed their way in, separating us. Marian leaned against the far wall and was silent until we stepped into the lobby.
“You were at that party,” she said again, “and weren’t feeling well when I saw you.”
“Yes. I’m Mali Anderson. I’m sorry about Rita. I was just coming to visit her.”
Marian nodded as if trying to shake herself out of a daze. “Yes. I arrived at that party very late. Did anything happen before I …” Her voice trailed off and I waited a second before I answered.
“I was talking to Rita near the buffet table and she seemed to have gotten a little upset about something. She disappeared, and the next thing I hear, she’s in the hospital. How’s she doing?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t get in to see her. She’s my sister and—”
“Your sister?”
“Yes. And there’s a guard outside her room. He wouldn’t let me near her. I mean it’s not as if she has AIDS or that new TB or something. Why have they isolated her? I’m going to see the administrator about this. I—my sister is in critical condition and someone needs to tell me what’s going on.”
People moved around us toward the lobby doors, the elevators, the information booth. The neon above the entrance to a McDonald’s flashed like a rainbow, but Marian seemed rooted to the spot, her eyes fixed in the distance.
“Come on,” I whispered, “we’ll have a cup of coffee.”
“No. I can’t leave here. Not until someone tells me what’s going on.”
“Maybe,” I said, “the administration decided to bar all visitors considering the circumstances … you know—Anne Michaels’s situation and now this. The media’ll try to get to your sister. They’re like vultures. They’ll fly through the window to get to her no matter what shape she’s in. And you have a different last name. You—”
“I married and divorced,” she snapped. “I kept my married name, but I can certainly prove I’m a Bayne. And who are you? A cop or—”
“No. No ma’am. I’m just a friend who’s concerned about what happened.”
Her expression softened and she regarded me for a minute before she spoke again. “I’m sorry. You can see how upset I am about this. How well do you know Rita?”
The voice had not softened entirely and I decided to be only half-truthful. “I met her a few days ago in the Pink Fingernail. A friend of mine owns the place.”
Marian nodded. “Oh yes, Vivian. She did a makeover.”
“And I spoke to Rita quite awhile at the party. She seemed nervous but I thought it was because of the crowd, the event itself. You know: Some folks just don’t like that sort of excitement.
“She had two martinis while we talked, but when Edwin Michaels walked in, she left me to go find the bathroom. I went looking for her, thinking she’d gotten sick. It was a while before I found her.”
“Where was she?”
“Out in the garden.”
“With Edwin?”
“Yes.”
“Shit! I knew it!”
Marian looked away and I knew she wanted to ask me what I’d heard or seen.
“Come on,” she said, heading for the door.
“Where?”
“Across the street. Singleton’s restaurant. We can’t talk in here.”
The lunchtime crowd had not arrived yet so we had a choice of tables. We took one in the back, ordered the lunch special, and as soon as the waiter disappeared Marian held her head in both hands. “I … don’t know where all this will end. Or how. From the start, that bastard took advantage of my sister. She’s young, was only out of college a few years when she went to work for him. I saw it coming, but she was in a love fog and couldn’t see two feet in front of her. Couldn’t see the man’s wife, or that bitch Thea.
“Sometimes I think Rita has cried more about Thea than about the fact that Edwin is married. And she sees how badly he treats his wife. Why does she think he would treat her any differently? She’s in a real fog.”
“Love will do that,” I said, trying to keep my voice even. I had no intention of telling what I’d overheard. Rita had killed a man and now she was hospitalized, probably hanging on by a thread. If she went, her secret would go with her, or at least I wouldn’t be the one to tell it.
The waiter returned with two oversize plates of fried chicken wings, collard greens, and potato salad.
Grief usually suppressed the appetite, but Marian dug into her plate as if this were her first meal in a week.
“Were you at the Half-Moon that night?” I asked.
“When Thea was killed? Oh yes.”
Between bites, she continued. “You see, I try to get to as many places where I know Rita’ll be. I sort of drop in. Especially where there’s bound to be alcohol, because when she’s stressed she can’t, as the old folks say, hold her liquor. That’s why I was at Dr. Thomas’s house. I’m not one of those political high rollers on someone’s A-list. I showed up there because of my sister.”
A Toast Before Dying Page 16