“I’m ’sposed to make sure the bar stays full of booze, the wine rack’s full, and the freezer always has steaks and fish in it. If I knew for sure he was coming, then there was a list of fresh stuff I had to get from the store.”
“Was there a list of hard liquor and wine and beer, too?”
“Yeah. But mostly I went by what was opened. I just bought more of that. He let me have the opened ones for myself.”
She was familiar with Phillip’s strange behavior. He never liked to use food from open containers. Once a bottle or jar had been unsealed, it would either be given to staff or thrown away. The contents would never pass Phillip’s lips. Sandra was sure there must be a psychological name for it. That was one of the things that had always irritated her about him. He was so wasteful.
She found herself remarking to Bubba, “On the few occasions I went out with him and my mother, he made the restaurant staff bring him the unopened containers of condiments for his examination as well as the uncooked cuts of meat so that he could test for freshness.” Bubba looked at her sideways, like a bird. She suddenly realized that she had gotten sidetracked. It was hot and humid out there. She needed to get some answers and get back into the air-conditioning as soon as possible before she began to smell like Bubba.
“Did Mr. Phillip leave cash for you to make those purchases or did you have charge accounts?”
Bubba glowered at her. “Neither one, lady. There was a checking account, which he put money in weekly. You know, you’re starting to make me mad with your sinuations.”
Sandra ignored his outburst. “Let’s get back to where you were on the night of Mr. Phillip’s death. You say you were at The Cantina on the seawall?”
“Yeah. That’s right.”
“From when to when?”
Bubba’s face puckered up like an old pair of lips. “Don’t know exactly. From some time after you left here till they closed at two.”
“Anybody see you there?”
“You know, Miss Sandy, if you’d a asked the cops, they could of told you all this.”
“Anybody see you there, Bubba?”
“The barmaid, Sue Ann Lopez.”
“Anybody else?”
“They might of, but Sue Ann’s the one who brought me my beer.”
“What can I expect her to say if I speak to her?”
“That I stayed there until the joint closed.”
“Anything else?”
Bubba shifted about on the bench. “Naw.”
“And when you got home, was Mr. Parker’s body already on the ground?”
“I told you. No.” He stood up and put one foot on the space where he’d been sitting, as if to push off. “Anything else?”
Sandra kept her seat, trying to rein in her impatience. “Yes. Are you sure you didn’t hear anything after you got home? You didn’t hear any more hollering or cussing like before you left?”
Shaking his head, Bubba walked away.
“Now wait a minute,” she hollered at his departing back. “You can’t have it all your way. Either he died before you got home and you found the body, or he died after you got home and you heard everything and know who did it, or else . . . you killed him.”
“You’re full of shit.” Bubba drained his beer can, twisted it up like he had the other, and flung it back toward the metal bucket. “You ain’t got nothing on me, Miss Sandra Salinsky, or you’d go to the police. What did you come out here for anyway?”
Sandra felt a bit frightened but didn’t want him to know it. She stood up and stretched. “For one little thing, Bubba. To find out what you stole from Mr. Phillip.”
He stepped in her direction and then apparently thought better of it and turned his back on her again. She tried goading him into saying something more, but when she couldn’t get anything other than a scary glance, she figured she’d better pack it in and head back to town. Once she was in her car, he stared at her all the way to the street. She lost eye contact as she drove away.
Erma had phoned Lizzie and made a lunch date at Petronelli Brothers. The restaurant was situated in the historic part of town on The Strand, just a few blocks from Erma’s home. She allowed the valet to park her car but was forced to rely on her cane to climb the stairs, glad that Sandra wouldn’t be around to observe her.
Lizzie had beaten Erma there and was in the bar. She rode a tall stool, stared at her reflection in the mirror behind the bar, and sipped from a martini when her eyes locked with Erma’s.
“Goddamnit it, Lizzie, you’re not sloshed already, are you?” Erma said as she struggled to get up on a stool.
“Erma. Erma, Erma, Erma.” Lizzie leaned over and draped an arm around Erma’s neck. “What are we going to do without him?”
Erma patted Lizzie and pushed her back toward her stool so she wouldn’t fall off. “Gimme a bourbon straight up, Sam,” she said to the brown-headed woman behind the bar. “How long have you been here?” she said to Lizzie and saw Sam’s eyebrows shoot up.
“Oh, I don’t know. A few minutes.”
“Enough to get loaded, I see,” Erma said. She swallowed from the glass that had been set in front of her and muttered, “You couldn’t have sat in one of those wicker chairs while you were waiting; you had to climb up here. Thanks for nothing.”
“Erma, what am I going to do?” Lizzie took another swallow.
“Well, for one thing, eat lunch.” She motioned to the bartender. “Get us a table, will you?”
The bartender walked into the dining room and returned with a waiter, a tall Middle-Eastern Omar Sharif-looking man. “If you would be so good as to accompany me, Ms. Townley,” he said, offering his elbow for Erma to hold as she made the difficult transition from barstool to floor. She downed the remainder of her drink and let him guide them to a table. “Come on, Elizabeth, goddamnit, he’s not going to wait all day.”
Lizzie frowned at Erma and then at her martini. Grasping the stem of the glass as though it were a lifeline, she slid down from the stool onto her stiletto heels. She balanced herself before bringing up the rear.
The smell of garlic hung in the room, as strong a presence as the brocade draperies on the windows. Erma felt hungry for the first time in several days, her mouth watering as they grew close to the food. Once they were settled at a table near the lunch buffet, Erma saw the smear of red lipstick on one of Lizzie’s front teeth. It gave her a bloody-looking smile. As she arranged her napkin on her lap, Erma couldn’t help but wonder whether just a few days ago there would have been a smear of blood on Lizzie. She had stayed out of Phillip’s and Lizzie’s lives, out of their business, for years; minding her own was enough for one person. Now there were things that she needed to know.
“That’s better,” Erma said as she watched Lizzie get settled. “Isn’t this an improvement?”
Lizzie wore a pout. “You always thought I wasn’t good enough for Phillip, didn’t you?”
“Goddamnit, Lizzie, where did you ever get an idea like that?” She glanced at the waiter who stood at her elbow. “I’ll have iced tea and the buffet, young man, if you’ll be so kind as to fix my plate. I don’t think I can get back up just now and it does look so awfully good today.”
“It would be my pleasure, Madam. And you?” He looked at Lizzie.
“Water and another martini.”
Erma said, “She’ll have what I’m having, but she’ll get her own food. Thank you.”
“What right do you have—”
“Did you drive down here, Lizzie? If you did, then it is my duty as your friend to see that you don’t drive back in a drunken state.”
“Since when have we been friends?”
“Tsk tsk.” Erma shook her head. Lizzie was understandably angry and defensive. Erma knew that the woman was scared. She would be, too, if she’d always depended on someone else to take care of her. “You and Phil have a fight the other night?”
“You know we did. Everyone knows we did.” She glanced at the buffet. “I’m going to get my fo
od.”
Erma watched as Lizzie pushed back her chair and flounced toward the food. Could it be possible that last Friday night Lizzie had gone outside to cool off? Had she perhaps stood under the house, out of Kitty’s sight, and stepped in when the opportunity presented itself, finishing Phillip off?
Lizzie, in a jealous rage, would have been strong enough to beat the hell out of someone. And having been drinking the whole evening, her thinking would certainly have been impaired. So, the possibility of Lizzie being the killer was not so farfetched. Statistics showed that in most cases someone who knew the victim committed the murder. In this case, everyone at the party knew Phillip, but statistics also said that most often the perpetrator was a spouse or a boyfriend or a girlfriend. Lizzie would definitely be the most logical suspect. But, and here was the clincher, could she, Elizabeth Haynes, find it in herself to wield a weapon repeatedly against Phillip’s face until she had smashed it to smithereens?
Anxious to question Lizzie about her whereabouts Friday night, Erma drummed on the table and watched Lizzie’s movements.
“Here you are, Madam,” the waiter said as he placed a tall glass of iced tea before Erma, along with a long spoon, one at Lizzie’s place, and turned toward the buffet.
“No goddamned broccoli, waiter,” Erma said. “I hate the sight of the stuff. Pick it out of those mixed vegetables. And plenty of pasta, that beef, and a side plate of salad with Italian dressing. Oh, some of those little cubes of cheese, especially that one with jalapeno in it.”
“Yes, Madam,” the waiter replied and hurried to the far side of the buffet as if to escape.
“And crackers. Don’t forget the crackers.” Erma poured sugar into her tea, squeezed two lemon slices, stirred vigorously, and drank half of it.
After Lizzie sat down, Erma noticed that Lizzie’s hands shook. Was it nerves or the d.t.s? She waited for the appropriate moment to ask, but it didn’t come. An uncomfortable silence arose between them as the minutes ticked by. Erma said, “Go ahead, eat. I’ll join you in a minute.”
Lizzie released a deep breath and stabbed at her food. Finally, the waiter returned and gave Erma her plate. Both of them ate in silence for a few minutes, Erma observing Lizzie like a bug in a bottle, Lizzie, head down, forking food into her mouth.
“Liz, if you don’t mind, I’d like to know what you and Phillip fought about last Saturday night.” Erma thought she’d phrased the question fairly, non-aggressively, and smiled as she poked a piece of lettuce into her mouth and chewed as she waited for Lizzie’s response.
She remembered earlier days when Elizabeth Haynes had been a beautiful woman. Phillip first brought her around the house on a couple of Friday nights, as if for approval. Erma remembered telling Sandra that she hoped Lizzie would bring some happiness into Phillip’s life. And she had. But in the last few years, things had soured. Phillip had behaved badly toward Lizzie in front of other people. He didn’t always treat her with respect. Erma had wanted to say something, but such wasn’t the nature of their relationship.
Lizzie could still be a beautiful, albeit older, woman if she didn’t drink and get hysterical. The red highlights in her natural strawberry blond hair shined under the fluorescent lighting. All the makeup in the world couldn’t hide the fine lines around her eyes, though. The effect of too much alcohol was evident in the puffiness she tried to hide with thick makeup. She also had black circles under her eyes that Erma could only assume were from sleepless nights and hours of grieving. She felt intensely sorry for her.
“He was meeting that slut,” Lizzie said suddenly.
Erma glanced up, saw a look of hatred in Lizzie’s eyes, and waited for her next words.
“After I gave him the best years of my life.” She cupped a hand over her eyes like a valance. Erma couldn’t see her face clearly, but she suspected Lizzie was on the verge of a crying jag.
“Um, this salad is delish. Have you tried yours?”
Lizzie sniffed and blotted her nose with the mauve cloth napkin from her lap. “I’m sorry. I know this must be unbearable for you. You had known Phillip a long time also.”
“Listen, Liz,” she slid her hand over Lizzie’s and held it, “you need to know a few things right off the bat here. One, Phillip was my best friend, but, goddamnit, I didn’t always approve of the way he behaved. Two, Kitty has been charged with his murder. Three, Sandra—our firm—has been retained to represent Kitty. And four, Kitty is his biological daughter.”
“ ’Cuse me?” Lizzie shouted in an ear-bursting timbre.
People at nearby tables stared at them, but there wasn’t much Erma could do about it. She whispered, “Goddamnit, Lizzie, keep your voice down. What I’m saying is that Kitty wasn’t exactly fixing to split the sheets with the man.”
“I don’t believe it. Phillip would have told me if he’d had a kid.”
“Just like he told you that he had been married once years ago and never got a divorce?”
Lizzie’s face screwed up as she grew angrier by the moment. “That’s outrageous. How dare you suggest such a thing.”
“I’m not suggesting it, goddamnit. It’s true. His wife didn’t divorce him and, as best I can tell, he didn’t divorce her either. That’s why he never married you, Lizzie. He wasn’t free to get married.”
“This whole thing has got me so confused.” She swallowed the last of her martini. Her anger had petered out as quickly as it had come.
“I apologize. I thought you had read the papers. They reported that Kitty has been arrested and that Sandra is representing her.”
“Never read ’em. Gave it up long ago. Too scary.” She stabbed her salad and stuffed a huge forkful into her mouth.
“At least you ought to feel better knowing that the only reason Phillip didn’t marry you was because there was an impediment to his doing so.”
Lizzie chewed for a few moments and then swallowed. “Yeah. I would if I knew what that meant.”
“That he couldn’t legally have two wives.”
“Erma? Does this mean I can’t inherit anything from him?”
“No. It all depends on the will.”
“The will.” She stared down into her food. “Erma?”
“Yes, Lizzie?”
“When will we get to see what’s in the will?” She raised her brimming eyes to Erma’s.
“Uh, soon, Lizzie, real soon. Arrangements are being made to have a reading at Phillip’s office.” She patted Lizzie’s hand. “Soon,” she said again, not wanting to admit that she was in charge of the estate.
“Erma?”
“I’m still here.”
“Why were you asking me what Phillip and I were arguing about? If Kitty killed him, what difference does it make?”
“Uh, Lizzie, goddamnit, I’m trying to figure out just what happened last Friday.”
“You don’t think she did it, do you?” She nibbled on one of those tiny ears of corn. Erma thought for a minute that Lizzie might pick it up and eat each row like she’d seen Tom Hanks do once in a movie. From the way Lizzie looked at it, Erma wondered whether Lizzie was thinking the same thing.
“Now, Lizzie, have you ever known Sandra to represent a guilty person?”
“I didn’t kill him, Erma, if that’s what you’re after. If you ask me, if it wasn’t Kitty, it was that creep, Bubba.”
“Oh. Yeah. All fingers point at Bubba. Now why do you suppose that is, Liz?” Erma made a production out of cutting her beef and putting it into her mouth. She was trying not to be accusatory. She knew she came across harshly sometimes and wanted to keep Lizzie talking.
“ ’Cause we don’t like Bubba. Besides, I’ve seen him eyeing Phillip’s watch and ring.” She glanced from her empty glass to the bar. “I bet he kilt him and stole it.”
“Lizzie, how did you know about the watch and ring?”
“Oh—Stuart told me. Don’t you think Bubba did it, Erma?”
“It’s a real possibility.” She put another bite into her mouth. She figured i
f it had been Bubba, it was after Kitty had knocked Phillip over the side of the balcony. What a perfect opportunity for a robbery. The victim already has an alleged perpetrator to accept the blame. The victim is the sort of person who, with his demanding behavior, practically asks for it. The perpetrator has an opportunity. What better criminal than Bubba? They needed to find that watch and ring in the worst way if they were to win Kitty’s case.
“I don’t know who did it,” Erma said. “That’s what defense lawyers do; they try to figure it out. By the way, where did you go after you left Phillip’s room?”
“Me? You don’t seriously think—”
“I’m just asking where you were, that’s all.” Erma sipped some iced tea and watched Lizzie’s face. She thought Lizzie was hiding something. She probably would never know what it was.
Lizzie tossed her head but didn’t do a very good job of looking haughtily angry at being accused. “Went down to one of the spare rooms. Sandy must have told you that, Erma. She came in there and talked to me on Saturday morning.”
“Hmmm. That’s all you did? You didn’t leave the room afterward?”
“Why would I have done that?”
Why indeed, she wanted to say, but kept quiet. Their eyes met. Erma quickly averted hers.
“I got undressed and went to bed,” Lizzie said.
“And stayed in that room all night?”
“I don’t like your tone of voice, Miss Erma Townley. You know how upset I get. I—I guess probably I drank too much, that’s all.”
“Okay, Liz. If you say so.” Erma shrugged and motioned to the waiter.
Lizzie picked at her food for a moment. “I still say it was Bubba. That watch and ring are worth a fortune. Besides, how long is a man supposed to put up with someone like Phillip?”
Erma looked at her. “So he didn’t treat Bubba right, is that what you’re saying?”
“Shit, Erma. You have to know how he treated him. A whole lot worse than he treated Raymond, and I’m sure you’ve heard of that!” She got up to go back to the food bar. “Bubba had every reason to take what he could and get away.”
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