“She’s dying!” Randolph squeaked in a pitch usually reserved for teenaged girls screaming at movie stars or musicians.
The obstetrician on the floor next to Hammie didn’t argue.
“Help her!” Tears formed in Randolph’s eyes. “Please. Help her.”
Anarchy Jones donned his cop face—hard-edged, suspicious, and intimidating. “We need a surgeon.”
Mother brought her hand to her heart. “A surgeon?”
“Emergency tracheotomy. Does anyone have a pen?”
Mother swayed on her feet.
For a moment it looked as if she might join Hammie on the glittery carpet but she straightened her shoulders, eyed the ballroom full of people, then shifted her gaze to her dying friend. “Fine. I’ll get you one.” She disappeared into the crowd but she went the wrong way.
Bruce Collins was to the left.
I ran to his table and tapped him on the shoulder. “We need you!”
To his credit, Bruce didn’t ask questions. He stood and followed me back to table sixty-two where Glen was shaking his head and Randolph was shaking.
Glen shook his head. “It’s too late.”
Too late? It couldn’t be too late. I’d been talking to Hammie not five minutes ago. Except her chest wasn’t moving and the desperate rasp of her breathing had stopped.
I fell to my knees next to Randolph and dared put my hand on his shoulder. Silent sobs racked his body. With his right hand he rubbed his chest and then his left arm.
“Glen. Bruce.” I jerked my chin toward Randolph, who showed symptoms of a heart attack.
Both men shifted their attention to someone who needed them. Together they helped Randolph into a chair.
Anarchy touched my arm, pulling me away from a discussion of Randolph’s possible heart attack. “What did she eat or drink before this happened?”
“Nothing. Just water.” I pointed to the two water glasses at Hammie’s place. “See?”
“Where did the second glass come from?” he asked.
“It’s mine. She drank all of hers and still had a tickle in her thro…” My voice died. The ability to speak slaughtered by the expression on Anarchy’s face.
“This is a crime scene.” Anarchy’s voice was as dangerous as his expression. He turned his rather scary gaze on Glen and Bruce.
Glen opened and closed his mouth like a goldfish. Bruce flushed.
Mother rushed back to the table, pale, regal, and pen in hand. “I have a—”
“She’s dead.” If Virgil himself had taken Randolph by the hand and led him to the gates of Dante’s inferno, the poor man couldn’t have sounded more hopeless.
Mother stared at Hammie for a moment then shifted her gaze to the full ballroom before settling her icy stare on me.
Anarchy, who didn’t know how to read Mother’s mind, didn’t realize she’d just affixed blame for the destruction of her gala on me. If he had, perhaps he wouldn’t have said, “This is a crime scene. No one touches the body or the table. Make sure of it.” Then his hand circled my wrist. “You’re coming with me.” He dragged me past a few tables.
I pulled against him. “Wait. What? Where are we going?”
His narrow-eyed, dangerous expression hit me right between the eyes. “She died after drinking your water. We’re calling for backup.”
I stopped dead in my tracks, processing the idea that poison meant for me had killed Hammie. Nearly pushing a statue on top of me was one thing—it spoke of sudden anger or a spur of the moment decision—but poison? It couldn’t be. He was wrong.
Anarchy tugged on my arm. “I have to make that call, Ellison. Come on. Now.”
“Problem?” Hunter’s voice combined urbanity and possessiveness. So did the expression in his eyes.
Anarchy tugged again. “Someone tried to kill Ellison.”
I jerked my head. Anarchy was wrong. He had to be. I looked at Hunter as if he could change the last few minutes. “The allergic reaction—” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Hammie died.” Over the course of five words her death became real. All the air whooshed out of my lungs and stars danced around my head—a galaxy waltzing past my eyes.
Hunter’s hand on my back was warm. “You need to sit down.”
I did. My legs had lost the strength to hold me.
Hunter turned toward the nearest table. “Martin, Ellison isn’t feeling well. Would you mind giving up your chair for a moment? Please?”
Hunter and Anarchy helped me to Martin Bishop’s chair. Someone offered me water.
I pushed it away. Closed my eyes.
Hammie was dead. I’d been talking to her, she’d coughed, drank two glasses of water, and died.
I felt stares—felt them as actual touches. Some were concerned. A few were gloating (delighted to see me—or Frances Walford’s daughter—in distress again). Most were curious.
Hunter knelt on one side of my chair, Anarchy on the other.
Their stares felt different from the rest. That difference…I shifted in my chair, opened my eyes. “Does anyone have any scotch? I just need a sip.”
Martin Bishop (bless him) put a half-empty old-fashioned glass in my hand. I drained it.
“I have to call this in.” Anarchy looked at Hunter. “You’ll take care of her.”
Hunter answered with a curt nod. “I will.”
They stared at each other for another few seconds—some silent, testosterone-fueled communication I couldn’t hope to understand.
“I’ll be back,” said Anarchy.
Hunter grimaced. “I know.”
Anarchy strode away.
I sat and stared at the empty scotch glass.
“Ellison—” Hunter brushed a strand of hair away from my cheek “—what do you need?”
I needed to stop finding bodies—although strictly speaking, I hadn’t found Hammie’s.
I glanced around the ballroom. The ripples of distress that had started at table sixty-two had spread. Everyone knew something was wrong. Mother’s party was ruined. Not just ruined. Ruined in tragic fashion. And she blamed me. “I think I’d like another scotch.”
Things really couldn’t get any worse.
Why? Why? Why do I keep thinking things like that?
Eight
The magic of northern lights on the ceiling, silvered tree branches dripping crystal icicles, and glitter strewn across the carpet—all that faded. That’s what happens when you’re locked in a ballroom with seven hundred restless people.
Glamor turns tawdry in no time at all.
Of course, watching both Hammie and Randolph being wheeled out on gurneys didn’t exactly add to the party atmosphere. There’s nothing less glamorous than dying by asphyxiation or having a heart attack. At least Randolph was headed to the hospital and not the morgue.
And then there was Mother. She stared at the ballroom as if its existence was an affront. She looked ready to murder someone. Maybe me. Maybe Anarchy. Definitely Anarchy. He was the one who’d insisted every person in the ballroom be interviewed before they could leave.
Her guests, CEOs and doctors and lawyers and their wives, were now murder suspects—or at least material witnesses.
Mother’s lips were so pinched she was in danger of giving herself permanent wrinkles. Thank God she was pretending I didn’t exist. I sank lower in my chair and longed for something alcoholic.
The hotel staff had wheeled in a few portable bars but the lines for a drink were nearly as long as the line to talk to the police. Hunter braved a line for me. Maybe for himself as well. When he arrived at the table, his drink looked more scotch than water.
He handed me a glass of amber-hued escape. “I have a few clients here.”
A few was probably an understatement.
“They want me to be there when they talk to the police. It won’t take long
. Will you be all right?”
I sipped, nodded, and sipped again.
Somewhere on the other side of the ballroom, a woman had hysterics.
The lines around Mother’s lips deepened.
Hunter dropped a kiss on the top of my head and disappeared into the restless crowd.
Just when I thought I’d get a moment’s peace, Aunt Sis claimed the chair next to mine. She’d somehow commandeered a whole bottle of scotch so I didn’t complain.
I held out my glass and she topped me off.
“Mother is never going to forgive me.” I drank.
She patted my knee. “How could she possibly blame you?”
I snorted softly.
“Don’t be silly, Ellison. They may look annoyed now, but these people are thrilled. Being interviewed by the police is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to ninety-nine point nine percent of the people in this room. They’ll dine out on tonight for decades. This party will live forever. Frances will get over her snit when she realizes that.”
I stared at my aunt. Did she really not understand? There was an enormous difference between a party remembered because it was perfect and a party remembered because someone died at the dinner table. Not just died—died horribly. Mother’s gala might live forever—but it would live in infamy. Whoever wrote I wonders for the society magazine was going to have a field day at Mother’s expense. I felt my own lips pinch.
Aunt Sis leaned forward. Her eyes glittered and her breath smelled strongly of Johnny Walker. “I mean it. Everyone is secretly thrilled. The closest any of these people have come to walking on the edge is voting for George McGovern.”
Aunt Sis was wrong. My late, lying, cheating, no-good husband had proved that. His legacy included a safe stuffed with files on our friends and neighbors. Those files included scandalous predilections, infidelities, theft, and even a secret baby. Just try having a conversation with your insurance man when you know his underwear is probably lacier than yours. As soon as it got cold enough to justify a fire in the hearth, I planned on burning everything. Until then, only Hunter and I knew of their existence. I didn’t reply to Aunt Sis’s specious claim. Instead I sipped my scotch and longed to be tucked safely in bed.
Marjorie wandered over. Apparently even she realized that shameless flirting at a crime scene was de trop. She sat on the other side of Aunt Sis.
Aunt Sis nodded a welcome then brushed some glitter from her caftan. “It was very handy having a homicide detective here, don’t you think?”
Because you never knew when you might need one?
Marjorie snorted, saving me the trouble.
“I think he’s charming.” Aunt Sis offered me a telling look.
Charming?
Handsome? Definitely.
Bossy? Absolutely.
Charming? I knew for certain that Mother wasn’t charmed.
My neck prickled, the same something-wicked-this-way-comes feeling I’d had at the grocery store. I looked over my shoulder at a room full of people. Joan Hanes glared at me, probably upset because I’d managed a painting for Mother’s auction but not hers. Prudence Davies didn’t glare. She looked as if she was battling a thoroughly inappropriate grin, one that would reveal her horse teeth and her dislike for me and my family. Truly, her parents should have named her Schadenfreude.
“Here’s your drink, Marjorie.” A man’s voice claimed my attention.
Kinky stood next to my sister. He offered her a very full glass of clear liquid with two limes floating in its depths then dropped his hand to her bare shoulder.
“Thank you.” She leaned against him.
His hand slid from her shoulder to the back of her neck.
True they’d known each other since they were four, even dated each other in high school, but their actions spoke of intimacy and not of Kinky angling for another gaze down the front of Marjorie’s dress.
The prickling on my neck grew more…prickly. I looked behind me again.
Cassie LeCoeur wore a look that might have turned a more aware husband to stone.
Oh dear Lord.
I turned back to my family. “Aunt Sis, have you met Kenneth LeCoeur?”
Kenneth removed his left hand from my sister, transferred his drink, and held out his right hand. “Pleased to meet you…” His voice faltered. I’d done a poor job with introductions and he didn’t know her last name.
My aunt extended her hand. “Call me Sis. Everyone does.” She wore the polite mask that will get its wearer through most any situation—even a there’s-just-been-a-horrific-death-and-my-married-niece-is-carrying-on-with-a-married-man (what a shame they’re not married to each other) situation.
“Marjorie tells me you live in Majorca,” said Kinky.
“I keep a house there.” Polite but cool, that was Aunt Sis.
“I’d like to visit Spain. I’ve never been.” Kinky snuck a not very sneaky look down the front of Marjorie’s dress.
Really? He wanted to ogle Marjorie’s breasts and talk about vacation plans? Hammie had died not thirty feet from where we sat.
Aunt Sis tsked. She sounded enough like Mother to make Marjorie jump in her chair. She sounded enough like Mother to drag Kinky’s avid gaze away from my sister’s bosoms.
“Have your travel agent book you into a hotel on the beach.” Aunt Sis’s gaze landed on Kinky’s wedding ring. “I’m sure you and your wife would enjoy it.” Her polite mask morphed to downright chilly.
Mother and Aunt Sis are as different as a Chanel suit and a Thea Porter caftan, but when it comes down to it, the cloth they’re cut from is the same.
“Is your wife here?” Aunt Sis made a show of looking around the ballroom. “I’d love to meet her. I can offer her all sorts of recommendations.” Something in her voice made it sound as if those recommendations might include advice on what to do with a wandering husband.
A dull flush rose from the crisp white collar of Kinky’s tux and stained his cheeks. “She’s around somewhere.”
She was twenty feet behind us, probably wishing she could snatch Marjorie bald-headed and take a pair of pruning shears to Kinky. In her shoes, that’s what I’d be thinking. Poor Cassie. Perhaps she could take comfort in the fact Marjorie leaned forward and offered an unimpeded view of her cleavage to every man she met. Gold bands be damned.
But having a husband who flaunts his dalliances can curdle one’s soul. I know firsthand.
Kinky extended his hand. “It was nice meeting you, Sis.” He jerked his chin in my direction. “Ellison, always a pleasure.” Then he walked away.
Aunt Sis still wore her polite mask. She crooked a finger at Marjorie and my sister leaned toward her. “Have you lost your mind?” Aunt Sis asked.
Marjorie blinked. Three times.
A moment passed.
“I’d like an answer.” Aunt Sis put both her bottle and her glass on the table, leaned back against her chair, crossed her arms, and waited.
Marjorie stared at the crocuses blooming in ersatz snow. “We’re not…”
When we were kids, Marjorie’s left eye would twitch whenever she fibbed. It didn’t twitch now.
Either she’d improved her lying skills or I’d been wrong and she and Kinky were not dallying.
Yet.
“If you’re not, you’re thinking about it.” Aunt Sis took a long drink of scotch. “You’re risking everything—your husband, your children, the life you’ve built, for that?” She tilted her head in the direction Kinky had disappeared. “Grow up, Marjorie.”
“You don’t understand.” Marjorie’s voice was small.
“I bet I do.” Aunt Sis waited for a response. When Marjorie said nothing, Aunt Sis waved her arm in an expansive gesture. Too bad that hand held a glass of scotch. She didn’t seem to notice that a quarter of its contents mixed with the glitter on the carpet. “Life
is passing you by. Other people are living and you’re just existing.”
Marjorie’s shoulders stiffened but she remained silent.
“You were the one who was supposed to have a successful life but your sister is living one. She’s famous and, now that her husband is dead, men surround her like bees to honey. Jealousy has either rendered you stupid or blind. Maybe both.”
Marjorie’s lips quivered.
I reached out and touched my aunt’s arm. “This isn’t the time or the place.”
She shook me off. “She has to hear this. Marjorie—” Aunt Sis positively speared my sister with her gaze “—if he leaves his wife, you get to spend the rest of your life with a man you know will cheat if given the chance. If he doesn’t leave her, you’ve destroyed your marriage for nothing.”
My sister grabbed a napkin from the table and daubed at her eyes. Was she hiding tears or twitches? “There is nothing between us.”
I wasn’t sure I believed her. Nor, apparently, was Aunt Sis. She regarded my sister with an expression that could only be called “baleful.”
A man cleared his throat.
I looked up at a uniformed police officer.
“Mrs. Russell?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Detective Jones would like to speak with you and your mother.”
“Together?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Damn. All things being equal, I’d rather watch Aunt Sis scold my sister. All things being equal, I’d rather swim into a corpse than spend time with Mother in her current mood.
I took another fortifying sip of scotch and stood. “There’s my mother.” I nodded in her direction.
She stood alone, as cold and remote as a marble statue—if marble statues could seethe. Mother was definitely seething.
The poor man approached her and said something I couldn’t hear.
She answered.
He ran a finger under his collar and paled.
We followed the now pasty police officer through the ballroom. I swear, a cold wind blew off her shoulders, freezing all around her.
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