Killer Image

by Tyson, Wendy

  “Were you scared?”

  She shrugged.

  “I imagine you’re scared for Ethan.”

  “He didn’t do it. And neither did I. We were together that night.” She looked up at Allison. “Daddy and I had had another fight. I left without asking. My mother knew, she saw me go. But I made her swear not to tell.”

  “Would your mother cover for you?”

  “She’s scared of Daddy. I told her I’d tell her secrets if she opened her mouth. She told anyway, of course. She’s such a mouse.” Maggie frowned. “But I won’t tell on her. My Wiccan oath and all. It was just a bluff.”

  Allison was dying to ask what secrets Sunny McBride was hiding, but she figured some things were best left unknown..

  “Udele never came home.”

  This was news. “Where did she go?”

  Maggie said, “We don’t know. She hasn’t been home all week.”

  “Really? Aren’t your folks worried? Given the circumstances surrounding Mr. Feldman’s murder, I’d think they’d be very concerned.”

  Maggie shrugged. “Daddy filed a missing person report. He’s convinced Udele stole something and ran. Only nothing’s missing.”

  That did seem odd. Udele hardly seemed like the fly-by-night type or a thief, for that matter. What would make her suddenly leave the family she’d been with for decades? And with no warning? And why would McBride say something like that about a woman he’d known so long?

  Maggie looked around the room. “Where’s all your furniture?”

  “You’re sitting on a couch.”

  “Yes, but there are no chairs. Or tables.”

  “My ex-husband took some stuff. I haven’t had time to buy new things.”

  “When did you get divorced?”

  “Two years ago.”

  “Aren’t you an image consultant? Wouldn’t you want the house to look all fancy and put together?”

  “I don’t entertain much.”

  “Two years is a long time. Aren’t you lonely here by yourself?”

  “No.”

  “It feels so empty. Like no one lives here.”

  Allison stood up. Enough questions. “Why don’t you take Brutus for a walk?” She walked to the window and looked outside. “The drizzle stopped.”

  Maggie tilted Brutus’s face up and looked in his eyes. “Would you like that, boy?” His tail stump thumped against the floor.

  “The leash is over there.” Allison pointed to a hook on the wall by the front door. “He pulls. And he isn’t good with other dogs, so be very careful. If you see another dog, go a different way.”

  “Aren’t you coming?”

  “I have work to do.”

  “Come on, just for a little while? You’re already dressed for it.” She pointed to Allison’s yoga pants and t-shirt. “Besides, I don’t know my way around here.”

  She was right. It probably was better if Maggie didn’t go alone. Brutus could be a handful, and there was no telling what trouble Maggie could find on her own. The presentation she was working on for an upcoming workshop could wait. Only so much one could say about interview etiquette, anyway.

  “Fine. Let’s go.” She grabbed an anorak from the closet while Maggie clipped the leash to Brutus’s collar.

  Outside, the air felt damp and cool. She watched Maggie and Brutus canter down the driveway, toward the sidewalk. Maggie’s hair, flat and loose today, curled around her face, making her look younger than her fifteen years. She still wore her school uniform, knee socks slouchy around her ankles, and no coat.

  “Do you want a jacket?” Allison yelled after her.

  “No way! Come on!” Maggie yelled, and stuck out her tongue. “You can’t be that slow!”

  “Oh yeah? Race me to the corner!”

  Allison took off, running as fast as she could go, which wasn’t particularly fast. Maggie, pulled along by a very excited Brutus, beat her by a few inches.

  “Ha!” Maggie bent over, breathing hard. “I win.”

  “Want to go another round?”

  Between breaths Maggie said, “No way. I always fail gym. Can’t you tell?”

  Allison laughed. Brutus was straining on the leash, and the three walked slowly so Maggie could catch her breath. The lenses of Allison’s glasses were covered with a fine mist, and she wiped them on her t-shirt. She had forgotten to take them off earlier. Habit.

  “So, are you like blind without them?” Maggie said.

  “These?” Allison held up her glasses and smiled. “Want to know a secret?”

  “Sure.”

  “I have almost twenty-twenty vision.”

  Maggie stopped walking. “Then why wear glasses?”

  “They make me look older and smarter.” Allison slipped them off, looked at Maggie, and then slipped them back on again. “See?”

  “Sneaky.” Maggie laughed. “But you’re right, they do.”

  They walked past a few more houses: large, newish homes with neatly landscaped lots. Allison knew the neighborhood couldn’t compete with Maggie’s, but still, she always felt a stab of pride when she considered how far she’d come.

  “So why do you care what people think?” Maggie said.

  The question caught Allison off guard. “It’s my job to care, Maggie. Image is important. Without the glasses, the people I work with might not take me as seriously.”

  Maggie threw her a sideways glance. “No offense, but that’s really sad. You’re basically saying you’re a fake.”

  Allison stepped over a small muddle puddle in the center of the sidewalk. “I’m not saying that at all.”

  “You have a big house with nothing in it. You wear glasses you don’t need. You run a business teaching losers like me how to look and act like winners. Doesn’t it get to you?”

  “You’re not a loser.”

  “You know what I mean. Don’t you sometimes wonder what’s real?”

  Allison looked up at Maggie, surprised by the question. Of course she knew what was real. Rules of etiquette were real, posture and syntax were real, color and fabric were real. What were not real were relationships and hopes and dreams. Just look at her mother, boxed in by the walls of a twelve-hundred-square foot house, any happy memories erased by Alzheimer’s. Or Violet, dreaming of being an artist, only to have it all end because her therapist was too stupid to see the signs that she was about to do something dangerous. No, real meant tangible, tenable, and safe. Allison lived for real.

  But that was something some people would never understand.

  “Um, Allison—”

  Allison looked up slowly. Too slowly. Across the street was old Mrs. Briar and her miniature poodle, Peaches. Before Allison could react, Brutus lunged. He pulled Maggie off the curb and onto her knees. Maggie howled, then let go of the leash.

  Brutus sprinted across the street, right for Peaches and Mrs. Briar’s cashmere-cloaked form.

  “Brutus! No!” Allison helped Maggie up, and they both dashed across the street.

  “Get that monster away from Peaches this instant!”

  Brutus, fifteen inches taller and seventy pounds heavier than poor Peaches, was trying to mount her. Thankfully, Peaches would have none of it. Allison tugged at the leash. Brutus, obstinate as ever, held his ground, despite his lack of success. “Brutus! No!”

  Maggie grabbed his collar and pulled. On the third pull, Brutus stopped humping the air over an anxious Peaches and sat on the pavement, an innocent expression on his face. Mrs. Briar swooned. Allison grabbed her arm.

  Mrs. Briar looked at Maggie and Brutus in turn, then at Allison. She scowled, bent down, and picked up Peaches. Mud and saliva dotted the fur on Peaches’s backside where Brutus had tried to have his way with her.

  “I would have expected better from you, Ms. Campbell,” Mrs. Briar said. She pushed a
lock of stiff, white hair off her forehead, and nodded toward Maggie. “Peaches and I came to this neighborhood to escape the hooligans.”

  “I didn’t introduce you. Mrs. Briar, meet Maggie McBride. Congressman McBride’s daughter.”

  This time, Mrs. Briar’s eyes widened in surprise. She backed up, stumbled and smiled apologetically before turning to leave. “Forgive me, dear,” she said over her shoulder. “I didn’t recognize you. I left my glasses inside.”

  Back inside Allison’s house, Maggie fell on the foyer floor and let out a howl of laughter. “Did you see Brutus trying to do it with that silly little dog?”

  Allison laughed. She had to admit, the whole scene had been pretty funny. And she’d never really liked Mrs. Briar anyway. Allison’s clothes were dripping. No use getting the rugs dirty. She peeled off her anorak and t-shirt, both now splashed with water and mud, and stood in the hallway in her black yoga pants and a teal sports bra. “I’ll be down in a minute, Maggie. I’m going to change. Stay there and I’ll throw some towels down for you and Brutus.”

  Maggie stopped laughing. “What’s that?”

  Allison turned around. Maggie was pointing to her back. It took a moment to realize what Maggie was talking about. Her scars.

  “My father. I told you, Maggie. He used to beat us.” She shrugged. “He was particularly fond of the buckle side of a belt.”

  “Jeez, you weren’t kidding before.”

  “I would never kid about a thing like that.”

  Maggie looked thoughtful. She twirled her pentagram necklace around between her fingers. Allison stood on the bottom step and waited for Maggie to make some sarcastic remark. By now she should have built up immunity to Maggie’s comments.

  Instead, Maggie surprised her by saying, “I’m sorry.”

  “For what?”

  “For assuming you were one of them. I didn’t realize you were a misfit, too.”

  Twenty

  “Gabrielle, move your left arm about an inch. That’s good. Stay like that.”

  Sunny adjusted the lamps in her attic studio so that soft light fell across her model’s bare breasts, leaving her face in shadows. Gabrielle was not a beautiful woman, but she had a lush, womanly figure and flawless skin. Sunny’s paintbrush made her high cheekbones and almond eyes sing on the canvas.

  Sunny had two regular models, Gabrielle and Elise, a younger woman with white-blond hair and pale skin. Sunny liked to paint them together. Next to each other, naked, they were the yin and yang of womanhood: one dark and voluptuous and knowing, the other the lithe embodiment of female innocence.

  Each of them was sworn to secrecy, given a cell phone that was to be kept on at all times so that Sunny could reach them when the need to paint was strong and Hank was away. She paid them in cash, an hourly rate that would have made her husband weep, and told Hank the money went for social lunches and charity events. She knew Gabrielle and Elise would keep their promises, for they loved to be adored as much as she loved to capture them on canvas.

  She mixed ochre with white and blotted her brush on the palette. “Almost finished. Open your legs, just a little bit. I want to tease.”

  Sunny watched Gabrielle shift slightly on the cushions, her breasts heavy against red silk brocade. A curl of black pubic hair hid her lips, and it was this promise Sunny wanted to capture.

  Sunny’s more recent paintings, the ones she was known for, were nothing like the abstracts hanging in the foyer and hallway. Those paintings were sanitized, fit for Hank’s conservative bedfellows. These were magnificent: brazen and sensual, paintings meant to stir up the beast inside. Hank would kill her if he knew.

  Sunny painted the last bit of shadow and hair, stepped back to take in the finished piece, then placed her signature “Tournier” in the corner. Tournier was her grandmother’s maiden name. But Hank didn’t know that, either.

  “Tomorrow?”

  Sunny shook her head. “Hank will be back.”

  “How do you put up with that trou de cul?”

  “That asshole, as you say, pays for these sessions.” Sunny handed Gabrielle her jeans and sweater, which had been thrown across a bench in the corner. Gabrielle slipped them on over bare skin. “Besides, he has his secrets, and I have mine.” She kissed Gabrielle on the lips. “I’ll call you next week.”

  “Will you sell this one?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “He will find out eventually.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “He could find this studio. It’s in his house, after all.”

  Sunny smiled. “You worry too much.” She stroked Gabrielle’s cheek—let her fingers follow the curve of her jaw, trail down her neck and under the swell of her breast. “He never comes up here.”

  Gabrielle arched her back against Sunny’s touch. “Udele could say something.”

  Ah, Udele. Where was that blasted woman, anyway? Sunny had too much to do, with the wedding coming up and Catherine’s demands. She needed the housekeeper now more than ever. She pulled her hand from Gabrielle’s breast and said, “Udele isn’t here right now. Anyway, she knows better than to say a word.”

  Not that it mattered. Hank had three mistresses and two illegal offshore accounts. And those were the things Sunny knew about. But Hank could be rough. Her wrists still smarted where he’d grabbed her for not making Allison sign the contract. She rubbed her wrist now, absently. But if he should decide to snoop...well, he’d better think twice before giving her an ultimatum. She had her own insurance. People would pay to know his secrets.

  Gabrielle shrugged. Her nipples stood erect under her cotton sweater, and Sunny longed to reach under the thin material and stroke them. But Maggie would be home soon, and it was no good starting something she couldn’t finish.

  “I’ll see you out.”

  Sunny opened the attic door and Gabrielle followed her down the steep, narrow steps, then through the upper hall. The evening was turning gray and the cold, damp spring air seeped under the windowsills. She reminded herself to call a contractor to have the windows replaced. The chill seemed ever-present in this old house. She did wish Udele was around, to start a fire in the study and heat some soup. Instead, she and Maggie would be on their own tonight.

  Downstairs, she picked up her purse from the foyer table and opened her wallet. She handed Gabrielle three hundred dollar bills, then opened the front door.

  “You’re forgetting I’m parked around back. You need to open the gate.”

  Damn. She’d have to go out into the cold. Sunny grabbed a shawl from the hall closet and wrapped it around her shoulders. She stuck her feet in a pair of Catherine’s slippers. Then she picked up the key ring they kept in a small bowl on the table. The two women walked around the side of the house.

  A sharp wind rattled the tree branches. The gloom depressed Sunny, almost as much as the thought of an evening alone with Maggie. At least Hank would be away for another night. That was some consolation.

  Sunny unlocked the carriage house. Gabrielle’s Honda sat next to the carriage house, which contained the Mercedes and Hank’s Porsche. He only drove the two-seater in the summer, on winding back roads away from the city grime and traffic. And even then the weather needed to be perfect. In truth, Sunny resented that car. Hank treated it special, the way he treated her when they’d first met.

  “You promised you’d show me the Porsche one day,” Gabrielle said. There was a petulant tone to her voice Sunny didn’t like. “I want to go for a ride.”

  “Not now. Maggie will be home soon.”

  “Just a quick trip around the block.” She put her arms around Sunny and nibbled at the skin on her neck. Sunny shivered.

  “Not here.” She pushed Gabrielle away gently. “I’ll just show you the car, okay? We’ll go for a ride another day.”

  Hank allowed no one but him in the Porsche, but she certainly wasn’t going
to pour salt in Gabrielle’s wounds by saying that now. Sunny opened the carriage house door and flipped on the lights. She noticed a smell, faintly sour and rotten—dead mice, no doubt— and reminded herself to call their handyman, too.

  Sunny watched as Gabrielle, grinning mischievously, peeled the cover back from the Porsche, exposing red paint and sleek lines. Gabrielle gasped.

  Then she screamed.

  It took Sunny a moment to understand the reason for Gabrielle’s hysteria. Udele’s body sat slumped against the steering wheel. Her unseeing eyes bulged from her bloated, purplish face. Dried blood was smeared across the driver’s side window in the shape of a pentagram. Sunny’s breath came in short, tight gasps before she, too, started to scream.

  “You’ve really done it now, you little delinquent.” Catherine hissed in Maggie’s face.

  She grabbed Maggie’s arm and pulled her toward the door. Allison moved between the sisters. “Stop. You’re going to hurt her.”

  “Not your problem,” Catherine said. But she let her go.

  Police cars lined the congressman’s street, red lights slashing into a tin-colored sky. Yellow tape cordoned off part of the McBride’s driveway, its cheery shade a sharp contrast to the horror it symbolized.

  Allison watched a boy on a blue Colnago park his bike next to the curb and stare, eyes wide, at Maggie. She turned and caught a glimpse of a neighbor’s curtain moving to the side. A set of eyes looked out at the street, taking in some rare excitement in this corner of town.

  Sunny came outside. She looked gaunt, her beautiful face haggard and gray. Next to her, a dark-haired, dark-eyed woman hovered possessively. Allison wondered about her relationship to the family.

  “Ms. Campbell.” Sunny nodded curtly before turning her attention to her daughter. “Maggie, you’re wanted inside.” Her tone was brusque, and Allison was quite sure being wanted was not a good thing.

  Catherine said, “I tried to tell you, Mother. What did you do, Maggie? You couldn’t wait till after the wedding to cause more trouble?”

  Catherine again grabbed Maggie and pulled her toward the open front door. Maggie’s eyes searched Allison’s for a few seconds before she gave in and followed her sister. Allison looked on helplessly.