Murder Melts in Your Mouth

by Nancy Martin

  “Would you mind getting into the van?” she asked. “I can’t get any closer to you.”

  She popped the automatic lock on the passenger door, and I opened it. Leaning in, I said, “I’m sorry, Brandi. I really can’t chat right now. My sisters—”

  “I know,” she said. “You’re busy. Nobody has time to talk to me. But if you could spare just a minute…”

  She pushed my guilt button again. I automatically climbed into the van. It was a large, clumsy sort of vehicle. I could see the shapes of equipment in the back, including the bulky mechanism of a lift for the wheelchair.

  “If you could close the door,” she said, “the air-conditioning won’t leak out. My chair gets very uncomfortable in the heat.”

  The van was equipped to accommodate her wheelchair so that she could manage the steering wheel and all the other controls that had been fitted out for a handicapped person.

  I closed the door.

  Brandi smiled at me. “Thanks.”

  She rolled up the window and put the van into gear. Her hand fumbled on the control—rather like the throttle of a motorcycle. Suddenly the van gave a neck-snapping jump. “Sorry. I’m still learning how to drive this thing. I’m a little clumsy.”

  “Brandi,” I said. “My sister needs me. She’s not feeling well and—”

  “This will only take a minute. We need to talk about Hoyt.”

  Instinct told me to open the door before the van sped up too much for me to jump out. But I discovered the door had locked automatically. I yanked on the handle and rattled the lock, too. No use.

  “This van is kid-proofed.” She laughed unsteadily. “You can’t get out without my permission.”

  The sound of her laugh sent prickles up my neck. I decided to launch an attack. “Brandi, have you been following me?”

  “No!”

  “A friend of mine saw you. He says you were driving down the street after the concert.”

  “It must have been a pigment of his imagination.”

  “Figment,” I snapped before catching myself. “Sorry. You were seen, Brandi. Following me in broad daylight. Can you explain yourself, please?”

  She shot me a nervous glance. “It’s not against the law. Yes, I’ve been surveillancing you. I almost lost you tonight. Your sister is a dangerous driver. She needs to slow down.”

  “What’s on your mind, Brandi?”

  She wrestled with the steering wheel to angle us around a loop, but hit a pothole with a bone-jarring thump. Then the van sideswiped some bushes. Her driving was much worse than Libby’s.

  I clasped the seat belt around myself. “Is something wrong?”

  “You know there is. You’ve been trying to figure out what happened in Lexie’s office, haven’t you?”

  “I want to be sure the police find out who pushed Hoyt off the balcony, yes.”

  “Don’t you know already?”

  “Was it you?”

  I surprised her with that. “How could I have done it? I can’t get out of this chair without help!”

  “But you were there, in Lexie’s bathroom after the meeting broke up. Just before Hoyt died. I found your compact.”

  She glanced over at me. “Oh, good. Hoyt gave it to me. He gave me a lot of presents—momentos. I’m glad you found it.”

  We had left the top of the park and had wound our way down toward the river, where the trees and the hillside created a foreboding darkness. Even scarier was Brandi’s erratic driving. She struggled with the throttle and couldn’t maintain a steady speed.

  I said, “I know that Schmidt isn’t your real name. And you were related to Hoyt.”

  Her hand faltered on the controls again. “How did you—? Never mind. What else did you find out?”

  I cursed myself for leaving my handbag in Libby’s car. Without my cell phone, I felt helpless. All I had was a can of Diet Coke. Talking to Brandi seemed my only choice.

  I faced her across the seat. “You just said Hoyt gave you a lot of presents. Did he create your investment accounts, too?”

  “He was very generous. If you circumcised the whole world, you wouldn’t find anyone more generous than Hoyt.”

  “So he gave you money,” I said.

  “It hardly matters now. Since he stole it away from me. He used my life savings to make himself feel like somebody important.”

  “You must have been angry to discover he’d taken it all back.”

  “I was furious,” Brandi said. “I almost wanted to kill him for it.”

  She bashed a curb, and the van lurched violently again, throwing me against the door. Any minute, she might drive through a guardrail or into a culvert.

  “Why don’t you pull over?” I asked, trying to squeeze the rising panic from my voice. “We can talk better if you’re not distracted.”

  “I’ve only been driving the van for two weeks,” she whined. “I can’t be expected to be an expert right away.”

  “I understand. Just—pull over when you see a place to park.”

  She drove the lumbering van down onto the highway and turned into the first opening she came to. It was a boat launch. The gate was closed, fortunately, because for a split second I thought she might drive the vehicle straight into the river. But at the last second she pinched the brakes hard. Flung forward, I braced my hand against the dash. We stopped with a jerk. In the light from the expressway across the river, we could see the current rushing southward. The water was black and quick.

  Brandi left the engine running. The van remained pointed at the river. Only the chain-link fence stood between us and the swift current.

  She touched a button, and her window rolled down several inches.

  To get her talking again, I said, “Was Hoyt your cousin?”

  “Uncle,” she answered. “Or aunt, I guess.”

  She sneaked a look at me to gauge my reaction.

  Calmly, I said, “You knew Hoyt’s true gender?”

  “Sure. I didn’t know him when he was a she, but my mom knew all about it. When I was in college, she let it slip.”

  “Is that when you decided to extort money from him?”

  “It wasn’t like that,” she said, defensive. “Hoyt was already rich! And I needed help to pay my school fees, and he said he’d help. We had a nice, plutonic relationship for a while.”

  “But?”

  “But after graduation I couldn’t get a job. I wanted to work in broadcasting, and nobody wants to hire a woman in a wheelchair. I worked as an intern at a cable station for a while, but I needed a real paycheck.”

  “So Hoyt intervened on your behalf?”

  “Yes. He said he’d try to get me a job at a TV station. But it took too long. I got desperate.”

  “So you threatened him? You threatened to make his gender public?”

  “It didn’t happen like that,” she said, but there was no vehemence in her voice. Brandi looked at the water.

  “All right, out of the goodness of his heart, Hoyt got you a job here in Philadelphia.”

  “Yes. But I’ve tried to make my own way ever since. I did my job, and I even tried to be active in the community. Hoyt helped me a little, I guess. He got me on the Music Academy board. But my boss at the TV station keeps saying that I have to improve my on-air performance or he might have to fire me. And they had to buy this expensive van for me, and now he says I need to think about their investment. How can I do a good job under that kind of pressure valve?”

  “I know what you mean.”

  She swept on as if I hadn’t spoken. “My salary is pathetic. I have lots of expenses. Do you know how much it costs to keep your hair looking good for television? And all the other women—even the ones younger than me!—are getting face-lifts. So I needed more money from Hoyt.”

  “He opened an investment account for you?”

  “Yes.”

  She had pressured him with her knowledge of his secret. Over and over, he must have paid for her silence. It must have been infuriating. But surely
not a dire drain on his finances—not if he had stolen nearly a hundred million dollars.

  Brandi said, “At the meeting at Lexie’s office, they told me my account was empty. I couldn’t believe he’d do that to me—irregardless of how I got the money in the first place. So I went back into the office to ask him why. But he was very upset. I guess it was the wrong time. He snapped.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “Why do I have to tell you? Lexie already explained, right? That’s why you were so upset when you left her house the other night. I saw you. I saw you have the fight with that man outside her house.”

  Brandi must have witnessed my argument with Michael, I realized. “You were watching?”

  She nodded. “Lexie said you were asking questions, trying to figure out what happened.”

  Surprised, I said, “You’ve spoken with Lexie?”

  “A couple times. She wants me to keep quiet.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “She told you, didn’t she?” Brandi turned to look at me again, her dark eyes wide.

  With dread building in my chest, I said, “How about if you tell me, too?”

  Brandi shook her head as if to dispel an ugly memory. “It all happened so fast. Lexie called all of Hoyt’s clients to a meeting, so I went. And when she said he’d taken all our money, people got really upset. When Hoyt came into the room, everybody started yelling. I could see he was sorry for what he’d done. He really was. Giving all that money to charity? It was an ego thing, that’s all. Who doesn’t want to feel famous once in a while? He was doing nice things for people!”

  “So everyone shouted at him…”

  “Yes. That’s when Hoyt punched her painting.”

  “Why did he do that?”

  “I don’t know, but he did. And Lexie went crazy. She told everybody to get out of the room. But I stayed.”

  “You stayed with Hoyt?”

  She nodded. “And when Lexie came back—”

  “Wait, Lexie left the room?”

  “Yes, she went to call the police, and when she came back, Hoyt was—okay, he was really mad at me.”

  “About what? Blackmailing him?”

  “No, no, I said he should get some help. That he’d had problems all his life—you know, because of being a girl? Maybe he needed to see a doctor. And he said he was seeing plenty of doctors now. He didn’t need any more doctors. Anyway, I kinda got hysterical. So he—he slapped me.”

  I tried to imagine the scene. Shouting clients in the next room, Lexie leaving to phone the police. Brandi and Hoyt arguing.

  Brandi said, “He was very upset. He grabbed my dress and—and pulled me partway out of my chair. He hit me.” She touched her face where Hoyt’s hand must have struck her.

  “Then what?” I asked.

  “Lexie came back just as he slapped me.”

  “Wait a minute—”

  “She saw what he did.” Brandi dashed a tear from her eye. “It happened really fast. I don’t know what she thought, but—”

  “You’re lying.”

  “You know I’m not! She told you, didn’t she? That’s why you’re trying to find somebody else to blame.” Brandi had begun to cry. Her face was blurred with tears. “But it wasn’t me. I didn’t do it. And it wasn’t really her fault, either. It just happened.”

  I knew what Lexie thought she’d seen as she reentered her office. A powerful man hurting a young, helpless woman.

  “So you have to stop,” Brandi was saying. “You can’t ask any more questions. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t my fault. You’re just making it worse. And now that Hoyt’s gone, I need to get money from someplace. So Lexie has to stay out of jail.”

  “Brandi—”

  I think she meant to hit the steering wheel with her fist. But she missed and struck the hand controls of the van. The vehicle jumped forward and crashed against the chain-link fence of the boat launch. Brandi grabbed the accelerator to stop it, but she pushed the throttle the wrong way. The engine roared, pushing the fence to its limit. The river rushed just beyond the hood of the van.

  “Brandi, stop!” I unfastened my seat belt and lunged at her.

  “I’m trying!”

  The fence collapsed with a scream, and the van hurtled sideways down the concrete ramp, throwing me back into the passenger seat. The wheelchair came unmoored and slammed sideways, pinning me to the seat. Brandi thumped against me, too—deadweight as the van plunged down the launch ramp.

  We hit the river with no splash, just a tremendous hissing roar. The nose of the van sank fast, and Brandi and I tumbled against the dashboard. Black water began to gush through the open window. Brandi screamed.

  In slow motion, the van nose-dived into the darkness. The lighter rear end of the vehicle rose, tumbling both of us in a tangle against the windshield. Around us, the water sloshed as if in a washing machine. I lost all concept of up or down, just thrashed against the weight of Brandi and her heavy chair and the gushing black water. Libby’s rubber boots filled with water, sandbags on my legs. I kicked free of them and strained for air.

  “Help!” Brandi unsnapped her seat belt just as the water closed over her head.

  Then the can of Diet Coke hit me in the head. I grabbed it without thinking.

  But the water enveloped us. I took a breath just as it seized me.

  I’m not sure how I found the half-rolled-down window. Maybe it was by the tiny red glow of the dashboard lights. But with one hand splayed against the window, I brought the can hard against the glass. I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t see.

  But I smashed the can with all my strength against the window. Once. Twice.

  Again and again. With a slamming blow that took all my strength, it broke. Underwater, there was no sound of breaking glass, only an explosion of glittering chunks like puzzle pieces that swept past me on a surge of water. I smashed the remaining window with the can until it burst in my hand, instantly turning to flimsy aluminum, and the water ripped it from my grasp. Then a concussion—the engine or the water or my own bursting heart—as the van struck the bottom of the river with a terrible, shuddering impact.

  My lungs were exploding. Brandi’s hand clung to my ankle. But I felt her grip weaken and begin to slide away.

  I coiled back and grabbed her arm. I kicked her free of the wheelchair. I dragged myself through the window and tried to yank her with me.

  The darkness. The cold. The confusion of water, movement and heavy, heavy weight.

  “My first husband proposed to me at a Burger King,” Libby said.

  Michael’s voice. “I promised him a beer later.”

  “Can I go to Beverly Hills?”

  “But here,” Tierney was saying, “I’m some kind of freak.”

  “Maybe you and the Love Machine get all googly-eyed with each other, but that’s not my style.”

  “Thank you,” Lexie said. “For believing in me.”

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Someone with strong hands pulled me from the water. I heard his voice, but not his words. I sucked in hot air as he dragged me up onto the concrete ramp. I flopped like a fish. The blackness cleared from my mind, but I couldn’t quite see yet.

  I heard Brandi choking, coughing. She was alive. Someone ripped her from my grasp. I heard her crying, saw her white, helpless legs.

  “I called 911!” Another voice, hysterical. “I saw the van go into the water. I couldn’t believe it!”

  “Take it easy, miss.”

  A person wrapped a dirty shirt around me. It smelled like sweat. I said, “I left my shoes in Libby’s car.”

  Maybe I fainted. I know my brain stopped functioning for a while. Strangers can be very kind, though. I remember someone petting my hair. Someone else brought me a pair of blue Keds without the laces. They were too big on my feet. I wondered what happened to Libby’s rubber boots.

  A police car came. And an ambulance. The red lights flashed on the water, but they might as well have been pulsing in my
brain. Then huge, colorful explosions burst in the sky—fireworks, I realized. For tomorrow. The Fourth of July. They were louder than thunder. Everyone stopped moving to look up. Just for a moment. And then they were kind again.

  I said to someone, “I lost my sister’s boots.”

  The paramedics carefully placed Brandi on a stretcher and fastened straps around her. They talked to her and asked her name and talked about television news. They were excited to have a celebrity in their care. I heard her voice, not crying anymore.

  “Come on, miss.” Someone put his hand under my elbow. “Let’s go to the hospital and get you checked out.”

  “No, thank you. I’m fine. My friend lives close by.”

  The paramedic insisted. It was only because Brandi’s hysterics bubbled up again that he left me. And I slipped away.

  The Schuylkill River runs down past Fairmount Park to Boathouse Row, where all the houses were lit up with tiny lights. Most nights, it’s very picturesque. But the rowing clubs were quiet this evening. No parties. With the fireworks over, the night was strangely silent.

  I walked. Along the side of the curving highway, I trudged in a stranger’s blue Keds, stumbling on the gravel sometimes, and feeling the whoosh of air as cars went by.

  The lights blazed inside Lexie’s house.

  She answered the door. “Nora!” Surprised to see me. “Is Michael with you?”

  She came outside and got a closer look at me, and her voice went up an octave. “Oh, sweetie, what’s wrong? What happened?”

  “There was an accident. I went in the river.”

  “Oh dear God, God, God. Are you okay? Is anyone hurt? Come inside.” She put her arm around me and pulled me into the house. The air-conditioning hit me like a winter blast. On the floor, my sandy, dirty shoes made a crunch.

  Four suitcases stood by the newel post. An umbrella leaned against the tallest one.

  “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “Oh, sweetie.”

  I faced her. She was dressed in summer-weight trousers, flat sandals and a black T-shirt. Her airplane clothes, I recognized. Her hair was combed. Her makeup flawless. Her diamond earrings reflected the same dark emptiness that shone in her eyes.