Sisters On the Case

by Sara Paretsky

  ‘‘Lonnie says it’s impacting his quality of life. He’s real serious, Kylie.’’ She clasped her hands and added soulfully, ‘‘He says it’s him or Julia Roberts.’’

  As we were speaking, Julia Roberts herself sauntered into view, her tawny tail held high. She was followed by the plump, indignant form of Lonnie Moore, our technical wizard and sufferer of severe feline allergies.

  ‘‘Jules, have you been wicked again?’’ I asked her. ‘‘You know very well you’re not supposed to go into Lonnie’s office.’’ Julia Roberts gave a quick, contemptuous flick of her tail. She never took criticism well.

  Lonnie sneezed, blew his nose on a tissue he snatched from Melodie’s desk, then declared, ‘‘Either that cat goes, or I do.’’ His soft face was grim. ‘‘I really mean it.’’

  This was a true dilemma—I loved Jules dearly, but Lonnie was absolutely invaluable to Kendall & Creeling. I had talked Lonnie around before, but this time his militant expression showed I had my work cut out for me.

  ‘‘Injections,’’ I said.

  Lonnie looked horrified. ‘‘I don’t want her killed— just out of my hair.’’

  ‘‘I’m talking about desensitization. For you. It’s a course of injections giving you a tiny bit of what you’re allergic to, and your body gets used to it so you don’t get a bad reaction anymore. I’ll spring for the cost, and any time off you need, if you give up the idea of getting rid of Jules.’’

  ‘‘Kylie, you know I don’t like anything medical. I can’t stand the sight of blood.’’

  ‘‘There won’t be any blood. You’ll hardly feel a thing.’’

  ‘‘Well . . .’’

  Melodie said helpfully, ‘‘And Lonnie, you wouldn’t have to be looking out for Julia Roberts every moment of the day, and you wouldn’t be sneezing all the time and you wouldn’t—’’

  ‘‘All right! All right! I’ll do it.’’ He glanced at Julia Roberts, who had one foot up in the air as she washed her nethers. ‘‘It’s not that I hate her or anything. It’s her rotten personality. I swear it amuses her to torment me.’’

  ‘‘Speaking of personality,’’ I said, ‘‘I was at the Berkshire mansion this morning, checking on Arnold. He’s a bonzer little dog.’’

  ‘‘Love that show!’’ Melodie exclaimed. ‘‘Larry, my agent, says when auditions open for the new series of Professor Swann’s Spooks, he guarantees I’ll get a part. Like, with my psychic abilities, I’ll be in sync with Arnold.’’

  ‘‘Arnold is no more psychic than you are,’’ Lonnie snorted. ‘‘He’s just a dog doing whatever his trainer tells him to. Anyway, I hear he’s on the way out. Taking early retirement.’’

  ‘‘I am too psychic,’’ Melodie snapped. ‘‘And Arnold’s so cute, no one could replace him.’’

  Lonnie was an authority on showbiz gossip, so he probably had the good oil. I had a sinking feeling that Arnold was in danger. ‘‘He’s got a stunt double called Dopp,’’ I said. ‘‘Paul Berkshire spoke very highly of him when I was there this morning.’’

  Lonnie smiled cynically. ‘‘If that’s the case, I don’t need to be clairvoyant to predict that Arnold’s retirement will be a short one. And when he dies, the Beverly Hills estate and all the funds dedicated to Arnold’s welfare will go to Berkshire. The sooner the guy bumps the dog off, the sooner he gets his hands on it.’’

  Melodie, scandalized, said, ‘‘Are you saying he’s going to murder Arnold?’’

  ‘‘As long as Arnold is unique, and working in the biz, he’s raking in the dollars big-time, so Berkshire can afford to wait. But if Arnold can be replaced— it’s good-bye doggie.’’

  I told them about Arnold’s change of attitude towards Paul Berkshire.

  ‘‘Awesome,’’ said Melodie, impressed. ‘‘Like, it’s practically mystic.’’

  ‘‘So what about Rhea?’’ I asked Lonnie. ‘‘Is it definite her death was accidental?’’

  He shrugged. ‘‘At the time there was lots of smoke but no fire. It could have been an accident—she was a heavy drinker and could have got confused about how many sleeping tablets she’d taken. Maybe the dog knows for sure, but he’s the only witness, and he can’t tell anyone.’’

  ‘‘I think he’s been trying to,’’ I said. ‘‘I’m going back there, right now.’’ They both stared at me. ‘‘Premonition,’’ I announced. ‘‘Psychic flash.’’

  Melodie nodded wisely. ‘‘I have those all the time.’’

  I left Lonnie chortling and marched back to my car. ‘‘I’m coming, Arnold,’’ I said.

  When Berkshire opened the front door he was scowling. ‘‘Forget something?’’

  ‘‘ ’Fraid so. I missed filling out a whole page of my checklist. Can’t write my report until I’ve got all the info.’’

  ‘‘Jesus,’’ he said, ‘‘can’t anyone do anything right these days?’’

  ‘‘Sorry. I’ll only be a mo.’’

  ‘‘Lisette!’’ he yelled over his shoulder. ‘‘Get up here, fast.’’

  He beckoned me in and closed the door. ‘‘I’ll be upstairs if you want me, but I’m not expecting you to.’’

  I watched him mount the long curving stairway. It was like something out of Gone with the Wind, except, of course, Clark Gable had been even more good-looking.

  ‘‘Yes, dear?’’ said Lisette, hurrying up to me. ‘‘What’s wrong?’’

  ‘‘Do you get the feeling Arnold’s been trying to tell you something?’’

  She seemed uncomfortable. ‘‘It’s just my fancy.’’

  As she spoke, Arnold appeared, trotting down the hall towards us. He had a determined, focused manner, and when he reached us, he sat down and fixed us with an unblinking stare.

  ‘‘Would Arnold be telling you something about what happened to Rhea?’’

  Lisette’s lips trembled. ‘‘I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried sick about it all. I took Rhea’s death hard— we’d been together for so many years—so I think I’ve exaggerated things in my own mind, to the point of believing Arnold was a witness to murder.’’

  She said the last word in a harsh whisper. It was almost melodramatic, the way we both looked up the stairway. On cue, Paul Berkshire appeared at the top. ‘‘What the hell’s going on?’’

  ‘‘Arnold,’’ I said, ‘‘I’m sorry. I can’t do anything. If only there’d been someone else there to bear witness.’’

  Arnold shook himself, as though he’d been dunked in water, then dipped his head at me. Paul Berkshire had started down, swearing. ‘‘Get the hell out of here.’’

  Arnold sighed, then shot like a furry bullet up the stairs. Paul Berkshire yelled, ‘‘Fuck!’’ then tumbled down, a flaccid doll bouncing obscenely until he came to rest on the marble floor, his neck at an unnatural angle.

  Lisette rushed over to him. ‘‘Oh, my God! He’s dead!’’

  Arnold came down at a leisurely pace, stopped to sniff the corpse, then came over to me. I said, ‘‘That wasn’t an accident, was it, Arnold?’’

  Fair dinkum. That little dog cocked his head—and smiled at me.

  Lady Patterly’s Lover

  by Charlotte MacLeod

  ‘‘We’d be doing him a kindness, really,’’ said Gerald. ‘‘You do see that, Eleanor?’’

  Lady Patterly ran one exquisite hand idly through the thick, fair hair of her husband’s steward. ‘‘I’d be doing myself one. That’s all that matters.’’

  Born beautiful, spoiled rotten as a child, married at twenty-one to the best catch in England, wife at twenty-three to a helpless paralytic, bored to desperation at twenty-four; that, in a nutshell, was Eleanor, Lady Patterly. When old Ponsonby had retired and her husband’s close friend Gerald had come to manage the Patterly estates, Eleanor had lost no time in starting an affair with him. Discreetly, of course. She cared nothing for the world, but she was vain enough to care greatly for the world’s opinion of her.

  Gerald had been only too willing. As handsome
as Eleanor was lovely, he had the same total lack of scruple, the same cold intelligence, the same passionate devotion to his own interests. He took the greatest care of his old friend Roger Patterly’s property because he soon realized that with Eleanor’s help he could easily make it his own. It was Gerald who suggested the murder.

  ‘‘The killing part is the easiest. A pillow over his face, a switch of medicines, nothing to it. The big thing is not getting caught. We must make sure nobody ever suspects it wasn’t a natural death. We’ll take our time, prepare the groundwork, wait for exactly the right moment. And then, my love, it’s all ours.’’

  Lady Patterly gazed around the drawing room with its priceless furnishings, through the satin-draped windows to the impeccably tended formal gardens. ‘‘I shall be so glad to get out of this prison. We’ll travel, Gerald. Paris, Greece, Hong Kong. I’ve always had a fancy to see Hong Kong.’’

  They would do nothing of the kind. Gerald was too careful a steward not to stay and guard what would be his. He only smiled and replied, ‘‘Whatever you want, my sweet.’’

  ‘‘It will be just too marvelous,’’ sighed the invalid’s wife. ‘‘How shall we go about it?’’

  ‘‘Not we, darling. You.’’

  After all, it would be Eleanor, not he, who would inherit. Unless he married her afterwards, he hadn’t the ghost of a claim. And suppose she changed her mind? But she wouldn’t. With the hold of murder over her she could be handled nicely. If he were fool enough to do the job himself . . . Gerald was no fool.

  ‘‘I shall continue to be the faithful steward. And you, my dear, will be the dutiful wife. A great deal more dutiful than you’ve been up to now.’’

  Lady Patterly inspected her perfect fingernails, frowning. ‘‘What do you want me to do?’’

  ‘‘I want you to start showing some attention to your husband. Don’t overdo it. Build it up gradually. You might begin by strolling into Roger’s room and asking him how he’s feeling.’’

  ‘‘But I do, every morning and evening.’’

  ‘‘Then do it again, right now. And stay for more than two minutes this time.’’

  ‘‘Oh, very well. But it’s so depressing.’’

  ‘‘It’s not all jam for old Roger either, you know.’’

  ‘‘How sententious of you, darling. Shall I hold his hand, or what?’’

  ‘‘Why don’t you read to him?’’

  ‘‘He loathes being read to.’’

  ‘‘Read to him anyway. It will look well in front of the nurse. That’s our objective, Eleanor, to create the impression of devotion among the attendants. You must be able to act the bereft widow convincingly when we . . . lose him.’’

  His mistress shrugged and turned toward the stairs.

  ‘‘Oh, and Eleanor.’’ Gerald lowered his voice yet another pitch. ‘‘We’d better postpone any further meetings until it’s over. We mustn’t take any risk whatever. And don’t be surprised if I start a flirtation with one of the village belles.’’

  She arched one delicately pencilled eyebrow. ‘‘Have you picked out anybody special?’’

  ‘‘One will do as well as another. Protective camouflage, you know. It’s only for a few weeks, darling.’’ He turned the full force of his dazzling smile on her, and went out.

  Eleanor stood for a moment looking after him. It was hard on Roger, of course. Still, she had her own future to think of. Her husband had offered her a divorce as soon as the doctors had told him the sports car smashup had left him paralyzed for life. Naturally she had refused. It wouldn’t have looked well, and besides, the settlement he’d offered was not her idea of adequate support.

  No, she would have it all. She and Gerald. It was clever of Gerald to have found the way. She arranged her features in exactly the right expression of calm compassion and went to visit her husband.

  Day by day she increased the length of time she spent in the sickroom. It was less tedious than she had anticipated. For one thing, Roger was so glad to have her there. She took to bringing him little surprises: some flowers, a few sun-warmed strawberries from the garden. She had the gramophone brought into his room and played the records they had danced to before they were married. Nurse Wilkes beamed. Marble the valet scowled distrustfully.

  Eleanor found herself looking forward to her visits, planning the next day’s surprise, thinking of new ways to entertain the invalid. The weeks went by and Gerald began to fidget.

  ‘‘I say, don’t you think we ought to be getting on with it?’’

  ‘‘You said we mustn’t rush things.’’ And she went past him into Roger’s room, carrying a charming arrangement of varicolored roses she’d got up early to pick with the dew on them.

  As had become her habit, she took up the book she was reading aloud to him and opened it to her book-mark. Her eye, now attuned to Roger’s every expression, caught a tightening of the muscles around his mouth. She put the book down.

  ‘‘You hate being read to, don’t you, Roger?’’

  ‘‘It’s just that it makes me feel so utterly helpless.’’

  ‘‘But you’re not. There’s nothing the matter with your eyes. From now on, you’ll read to yourself.’’

  ‘‘How can I? I can’t hold the book, I can’t turn the pages.’’

  ‘‘Of course you can. We’ll just sit you up, like this—’’ Eleanor slid one arm around her husband and pulled him up. ‘‘Nurse, let’s have that backrest thing. There, how’s that?’’

  She plumped a pillow more comfortably. ‘‘Now we’ll prop the book up on the bed table, like this, and lift your arm, like this, and slip the page between your fingers so that you can hold it yourself.’’ A pinching between the right thumb and forefinger was the only movement Lord Patterly could make. ‘‘And when you’ve finished with that page, we just turn it over. Like this. See, you’ve managed it beautifully.’’

  ‘‘So I have.’’ He looked down at his hand as though it were something miraculous. ‘‘That’s the first thing I’ve done for myself since . . . it happened.’’

  For the next half hour, Roger read to himself. Eleanor sat at his side, patiently moving his hand when he signalled that he was ready, helping to slide the next page into his grasp. She found the monotonous task strangely agreeable. For the first time in her life, she was being of use to somebody else. When Marble brought in the patient’s lunch and Nurse Wilkes came forward to feed it to him, she waved the woman away.

  ‘‘He’ll feed himself today, thank you, Nurse.’’

  And he did, with Eleanor setting a spoon between his thumb and forefinger and guiding his hand to his mouth. When he dropped a morsel, they laughed and tried again. At last Lady Patterly left Nurse Wilkes clucking happily over a perfectly clean plate and went to get her own lunch. Gerald was waiting for her.

  ‘‘I’ve got it all figured out, darling,’’ he whispered as soon as they were alone. ‘‘I’ve been reading up on digitalis. The doctor’s been leaving it, I know, on account of that heart of his. All we have to do is slip him an extra dose and out he goes. Heart failure. Only to be expected in a helpless paralytic.’’

  To her own surprise, Eleanor protested. ‘‘He is not helpless. He’s handicapped.’’

  ‘‘Rather a nice distinction in Roger’s case, don’t you think, sweet? Anyway, there we are. You’ve only to notice which is the digitalis bottle, watch your chance, and slip a tablespoonful into his hot milk, or whatever they give the poor bloke.’’

  ‘‘And what happens when Nurse Wilkes notices the level of the medicine’s gone down in the bottle? Not clever, Gerald.’’

  ‘‘Dash it, you can put in some water, can’t you?’’

  ‘‘I suppose so.’’ Eleanor pushed back her chair. ‘‘I’ll have to think about it.’’

  ‘‘Think fast, my love. I miss you.’’

  Gerald gave her his best smile, but for some reason her heart failed to turn over as usual. She got up. ‘‘I’m going for a walk.’’

 
She started off aimlessly, then found herself heading toward the village. It was pleasant swinging along the grassy lane, feeling her legs respond to the spring of the turf under her feet. Roger had loved to walk. For the first time since the accident, Eleanor felt an overwhelming surge of genuine pity for her husband.

  She turned in at the bookshop. It was mostly paper-backs and greeting cards these days, but she might find something Roger would enjoy now that she’d found a way for him to manage a book.

  That was rather clever of me, she thought with satisfaction. She liked recalling the look on Roger’s face, the beaming approval of Nurse Wilkes, the unbelief in old Marble’s eyes as he watched His Lordship feeding himself. ‘‘There must be any number of things I could help him do,’’ she mused. ‘‘I wonder how one goes about them?’’

  She went up to the elderly woman in charge. ‘‘Have you any books on working with handicapped people? Exercises, that sort of thing.’’

  ‘‘Physical therapy.’’ Miss Jenkins nodded wisely. ‘‘I do believe there was something in that last lot of paperbacks. Ah yes, here we are.’’

  Eleanor rifled through the pages. ‘‘This seems to be the general idea. But don’t you have any that go into greater detail?’’

  ‘‘I could always order one for you, Lady Patterly.’’

  ‘‘Please do, then, as quickly as possible.’’

  ‘‘Of course. But—excuse me, Lady Patterly—we all understood His Lordship was quite helpless.’’

  ‘‘He is not!’’ Again Eleanor was startled by her own reaction. ‘‘He was sitting up in bed reading by himself this morning, and he ate his own lunch. You can’t call that helpless, can you?’’

  ‘‘Why . . . why no, indeed. Good gracious, I can hardly believe it. Nurse Wilkes said—’’

  ‘‘Nurse Wilkes says entirely too much,’’ snapped Eleanor. She would have a word with Nurse Wilkes.

  She walked back slowly, studying the book page by page. It seemed simple enough. Manipulating the patient’s limbs, massage, no problem there. If only they had a heated swimming pool. But of course Roger wouldn’t be ready for that for ages yet. And by then she and Gerald . . . Gerald was getting a bit puffy about the jawline, she’d noticed it at lunch. Those big, beefy men were apt to go to flesh early. He ought to start exercising, too. No earthly good suggesting it to him. Gerald made rather a point of being the dominant male. Roger was much more reasonable to deal with.