Killer Heels

by Sheryl J. Anderson

  I have to admit, it was kind of cool having the detectives pick me up. I was standing on the sidewalk, gulping outside air, willing my Sigourney cheekbones into full being, when the car screeched up. Detective Lipscomb was driving a very clean but very plain Oldsmobile and he laid on the ocean liner–size horn and cut off two taxis and a BMW to pull to the curb. The other drivers started screaming and flipping him off, then Detective Lipscomb got out and flashed his shield at them. The taxi drivers stopped screaming and went away. The BMW guy kept screaming, but he drove away, too.

  Detective Edwards got out and opened the back passenger door for me. I could tell that everyone on the sidewalk was watching and I figured, the way the night had been going, that I’d trip and fall flat on my face three feet from the car. I was wearing unfamiliar shoes, after all, and slender heels at that. But I imagined les cheekbones buoying me aloft and I walked with what I hoped was grace and poise to the car. Detective Edwards stayed at the door so it was clear to all the onlookers that I wasn’t being arrested. I’m sure there was a lot of speculation going on as to what my story was and it was kind of cool to be the object of speculation, since I’m usually the speculator.

  I mean, don’t you see things in passing that make you wonder, “What’s that all about?” A couple quarreling in a restaurant, a man running down a crowded sidewalk, a woman weeping as she hails a cab—we see all these fragments of other people’s life stories as we pursue our own. And I often get sidetracked by those fragments and try to fill them in, imagine what led to that moment and what might happen next. Maybe it’s the journalist in me. Maybe it’s because it’s easier than attending to my own fragments.

  I got up to the car and looked Detective Edwards right in the dazzling blue eyes. “Thank you,” I said, trying to make it sound layered with many meanings.

  “No, thank you,” he replied with a wry smile as Yvonne popped her head out from the back seat.

  “Molly! Thank. God.” She held her arms out to me, but there was no graceful way to embrace her without getting in the car first. So there was this uncomfortable tangle of arms and legs that I hoped the speculators on the sidewalk missed and somehow, I was in the back seat with Yvonne. Detective Edwards closed the door behind me, got in front with his partner, and we screeched away.

  “Ms. Forrester,” Detective Lipscomb growled in greeting.

  “Detective Lipscomb,” I returned as pleasantly as I could, given that Yvonne was twisting my hands into pulp.

  “Oh. Molly.” Yvonne has bleached her hair so many times that it has acquired a faint lavender undertone and an odd scent not found in nature. She hugged me to her and I had to twist my neck as far as possible to keep my nose from being buried in the platinum Brillo pad on top of her head.

  I struggled to sit up. Why was everything making it so hard to breathe tonight? “Yvonne, I know you’re upset, but it’s not going to help Helen if you show up hysterical.”

  “You’re right! So right!” Yvonne was still wringing my hands and I had to pull them out of her grasp while the skin was still attached. “So glad you’re here!”

  I glanced up at the detectives to see if either of them seemed glad I was there. Detective Lipscomb was concentrating on his driving, but Detective Edwards was looking back at us. More precisely, he was looking at Yvonne, and it was clear from his expression that he was growing less fond of her by the moment. His eyes slid over to meet mine for just a moment and a hint of a smile played across his face. Then he turned back around and I was left to consider the possible implications of the smile.

  “I want you to come in tomorrow morning. This morning. Whatever,” Yvonne raced on. “Help me tell everyone! Need to plan a service. Write an appreciation.”

  “Yvonne, let’s take this one painful step at a time. Let’s talk to Helen and see what we can do for her. Then we’ll figure out what we need to do for the magazine.”

  “Yes!” Yvonne leaned forward and poked Detective Edwards in the shoulder. “Told you! Best advice columnist there is. Didn’t I?!”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Detective Edwards replied.

  I considered advising her to be more careful about poking armed homicide detectives, but I decided to let it go. There were no doubt going to be plenty of opportunities to correct Yvonne as the night progressed and I would have to conserve my strength and choose my battles.

  We reached Helen and Teddy’s building way too quickly. They owned a condo on West 82nd and Detective Lipscomb must have made every green light between Django and there. It was an older building with a crumbling grace to the sandstone exterior. I had no idea what I was going to say or do and was, in fact, beginning to have grave doubts about Yvonne’s and my being there at all. But the detectives assured us that it was helpful to have a familiar face on hand when they broke the news, so we followed them as they showed their shields to the doorman. He was an older man, with deep smile lines at the corners of his mouth. He wasn’t interested in giving the cops any attitude and he figured things out pretty quickly when Detective Lipscomb said we needed to see Helen Reynolds.

  “How bad’s Mr. Reynolds?” he asked as he ushered us into the lobby. It was heavy on the dark wood paneling and someone had overcompensated with an area rug with way too much orange in it, just this side of painful. When no one answered him right away, the doorman knew exactly what that meant. He picked up the house phone and, as he dialed, asked, “Who should I say wants to see her?”

  “Molly Forrester,” I blurted, wanting to give Helen the extra few minutes it would take us to get up to her apartment before she found out she was a widow. And I was determined to keep Yvonne as quiet as possible.

  The doorman announced me to Helen, then held out the phone to me. “She wants to talk to you.”

  I took the phone and was amazed that my hands weren’t shaking more visibly than they were. “Helen?”

  “Molly,” she said groggily, “it’s almost two o’clock.”

  “I know and I wouldn’t be coming by at this hour if it weren’t important. I’m so sorry, but I need to come up.”

  “Teddy’s not here, Molly.”

  “I know.”

  I could feel the quality of silence at the other end of the phone change. “Okay,” was all she said. The line went dead.

  I handed the phone back to the doorman. He replaced it gently in the cradle, then called the elevator for us. We stood together in uneasy silence until the elevator doors opened. “Mr. Reynolds was a good man,” the doorman said as we filed past him. We all nodded in agreement.

  Upstairs, Helen was standing in the doorway, watching the elevator. I got off first and she glared at me, her mouth compressed into a thin, white line. Then Yvonne and the detectives got off the elevator, too, and Helen’s look of anger collapsed into confusion. I grabbed Yvonne’s sleeve to keep her from sprinting down the hall and engulfing Helen. The hallway suddenly seemed very long and yet somehow, not long enough.

  Yvonne started to sniffle. I yanked on her sleeve as inconspicuously as possible as we drew within reach of Helen. I started to say something, I’m not sure what, but Helen cut me off, pointing to the detectives. “Who are they?”

  “Mrs. Reynolds, I’m Detective Edwards—”

  Helen screamed. That made Yvonne scream. I grabbed Helen, Detective Edwards grabbed Yvonne, and Detective Lipscomb herded us all into the apartment. No need to wake the neighbors; Helen had enough to deal with for the moment.

  We got Helen to the couch in the living room. She had clearly had a free hand in decorating the apartment. Everything was soft floral prints and rounded corners and highly polished woods. All the furniture had plump cushions topped with firm throw pillows. Laura Ashley without the benefit of English restraint. I wondered if we were going to be able to sit down or if we would just slide off the shiny rounded surfaces and land with a soft thud on the plush patterned carpet. I was willing to bet that she made Teddy take his shoes off before he put his feet on the hassock, with its skirt of infinite pleats. I co
uldn’t quite picture him being comfortable in such a room. His office was just this side of chaos and he seemed to revel in it. Was it a reaction to all this precision? It was becoming clear that I didn’t know Teddy as well as I thought I did. Was I getting in over my head here?

  “He’s dead,” Helen gasped as though she needed to say it before anyone else could. Was it any less awful that way? Or was she hoping someone would correct her?

  Instead, Yvonne responded with, “Stabbed. Right in the—”

  “For God’s sake, Yvonne,” I implored. Yvonne looked like she was about to take offense, so I sent her into the kitchen for a glass of water and a box of tissues. The detectives sat across from Helen, giving her a moment to collect herself. I was kind of amazed how they hadn’t had to say anything and she knew why they were there. Who knew the angel of death wore such a cheap suit?

  “When you called … from downstairs … I thought …” Helen struggled to get the words out between the tears. Her face already had a light gloss to it, probably night moisturizer. It smelled like Oil of Olay. I’d seen Teddy and Helen’s wedding picture a million times—it sat on Teddy’s credenza, facing out the door of his office. And even though I’d seen Helen countless times, I’d never compared her to the young woman in the picture. Since they’d gotten married almost twenty years ago, Teddy had filled out and Helen had contracted. The angles in her small, pale face were sharper, her brown hair had gone from a cap of curls to a severe bob, and she seemed almost bony. Was this maturity or had something deeper taken its toll?

  Yvonne came back with the tissues and water and we let Helen help herself. Yvonne plopped herself on the other side of Helen but, to her credit, wrung her own hands instead of Helen’s. Helen blew her nose and took a deep breath. “You said you knew he wasn’t home,” she said finally. “I thought you were coming to tell me you were having an affair with him.”

  Me and Teddy? Never happen. That was my first thought, but thank God I didn’t blurt that one out—or laugh. Though it did explain Helen glaring at me as I got off the elevator. It was actually very moving to imagine Helen thinking of Teddy having an affair, with me or anyone else. Poor rumpled, sweaty Teddy wasn’t exactly a poster boy for passion, especially with male models and wannabes wandering through the office hallways all the time. But I guess Helen figured we could all see in him what she saw in him—whatever that was.

  Maybe that’s the sign of a good relationship, that you see your partner as being as desirable to any other woman as he is to you. I’ve never had a very good handle on the whole jealousy issue, but I’ve heard the theory that if you’re not a little jealous, you don’t care enough. On the other hand, did a wife being jealous or suspicious ever stop a husband from messing around? A man who’s going to stray is going to find a way, my grandmother used to say. I hope that didn’t have any relevance to my grandfather, but who knows. My Grandmother Forrester was one of those women who whispered when she had to say “cancer” and arched her eyebrows instead of saying “sex” or “menstruation,” so it’s not like we got a lot of straight information from her. Not that we really wanted it. The only thing weirder than trying to imagine your parents having sex is trying to imagine your grandparents having sex. I think there’s actually a rule against it in the Old Testament.

  “You suspected your husband of having an affair?” Detective Lipscomb spoke gently. The transition from officer of the law to father confessor caught me by surprise.

  “No, not really,” Helen fumbled. “It was this bizarre thought, when Molly called, and I was half-asleep, I don’t know what I was thinking …” She looked to me for reassurance and I gave her my sagest nod. But at the same time I found myself thinking: She’s blurting. But not the way I’d been blurting all night. More the way a child will blurt out a story to explain how the lamp got broken or who ate the last piece of chocolate cake without asking. Had she actually suspected Teddy?

  Could Teddy have been having an affair? I scanned my mental images of Teddy in the office, which was really the only place I ever saw him. Had his behavior changed? Had his routine changed? I thought as carefully as my jangled emotions would let me, but I really couldn’t see anything that would point to an affair. Except the diet. Teddy had been a big guy and it had never seemed to bother him until the last month or two. He told everyone that he was dieting because his doctor had read him the riot act. But what if the motive was romantic, not medical? What if he figured there was no need to slim down for Helen because she loved him no matter what, but there was now someone in his life worth making the effort for? Someone who might not love him no matter what, someone he had to get buff for? Who was Teddy sleeping with? Or maybe even, trying to sleep with? Poor Helen.

  “Were you home all evening, Mrs. Reynolds?” Detective Lipscomb continued.

  “Just. One. Minute.” Yvonne was working herself up into a fit of righteous indignation. She was fond of the grander emotions and the chance to defend a friend was as irresistible to her as a lingerie sale at Saks, I’m sure. But I snaked a hand behind Helen’s back and nudged Yvonne as hard as I dared because I could see the detectives were in no mood for her theatrics. I was pretty done with them myself.

  “Mrs. Reynolds?” Detective Lipscomb repeated, but his voice was gentler. Yvonne sat back a few inches, like a snake recoiling.

  “I got home from work a little after eight. I ordered dinner from Costa del Sol and if they don’t time code the orders, I paid with a credit card.” Helen straightened up a little, her own brand of indignation distracting her from her sorrow. “Then I made some phone calls and spent some time online, both of which you can also check on. Unfortunately, I went to bed about eleven, so you’ll just have to trust me from there.”

  Detective Lipscomb wasn’t bothered in the least by Helen’s mounting fury. I’m sure they saw this all the time—a newly minted widow looking for some way and any reason to release the searing pain growing in her. “We have to ask the questions, ma’am,” Detective Edwards explained quietly.

  “Don’t lecture her,” Yvonne snapped. “The woman just lost her husband! For. God’s. Sake.”

  Detective Lipscomb nodded in patient understanding and paused a moment before continuing. “Was it unusual for your husband not to be home by eleven, Mrs. Reynolds ?”

  “Not unusual, but not a regular thing. Every once in a while. He goes through these bouts of insomnia and he feels it’s more productive to stay at the office and work if he has the energy, rather than pacing around here all night.” Her voice faltered toward the end, as though she’d lost faith in the story as a result of saying it out loud. She was still referring to Teddy in the present tense, but it didn’t seem like the sort of thing you correct. Helen tightened her grip on my right hand and I patted hers with my left, wishing I had cool, tiny hands like Tricia, even with the chipped polish. My hands were feeling pretty wrung out and clammy at this point and I was developing a very distracting urge to crack the knuckles in the hand Helen was squashing. And all I could think was, who was Teddy sleeping with?

  “True, true!” Yvonne flung herself into the fray. “I’m a bit of a night owl myself! Teddy and I often bumped into each other. In the office. In the wee hours.” Yvonne smiled broadly, as though she’d won the third grade spelling bee. She was actually handling this better than I had feared she might on the ride over. She wasn’t trying to appropriate Helen’s grief and she deserved a gold star for that.

  “Did your husband call to say he’d be late?”

  Helen folded her mouth back into that thin line. “Sometimes.”

  They let that hang in the air for a moment. Detective Lipscomb jotted something down and Detective Edwards just looked at Helen. He really had amazing eyes. Such a bright blue, and a direct, piercing quality without being cold or harsh. Helen looked back at him and the pressure on my hand eased up. She was relaxing as she gazed into Detective Edwards’ eyes. Almost as though he were willing her to.

  I nearly jumped as I realized what he was doin
g. He was seducing her. Okay, maybe that’s a step too far, but he was definitely lulling her into a sense of comfort and safety. He knew he had great eyes and he was using them. He wanted her to trust him, be willing to say anything to him. Then he added the voice to the mix, gentle and rich and smooth. “But not tonight.”

  Helen’s breath caught and my hand instinctively went to her shoulder. “We had an argument. I told him not to call. I told him …” A huge sob convulsed her. Yvonne retreated slightly in the face of so much genuine emotion and I drew Helen to me as best I could. The detectives leaned forward solicitously.

  “Take your time,” Detective Lipscomb said.

  Helen couldn’t hold it in. She straightened back up, pulling away from me. “I told him not to call. I told him I didn’t care when he came home.”

  “What did you fight about?” Detective Edwards asked.

  Helen laughed bitterly, even as she wiped her eyes with already sodden tissues. “About his working so late! And I said such …” She shook her head hard, trying to dislodge the memory of those last angry words. “It’s stupid now, but it seemed important then.”

  Both detectives nodded. “This had been a problem for a while?” Detective Lipscomb proceeded gently. “I know my hours have bugged my wife since day one.”

  “No, it’s just been the past several months. Maybe six.” Helen looked down at the rug as though it would help her do the math. “Maybe a little longer.”

  “We had a big advertising slump after 9/11. Everyone did. Teddy’s been working so hard to build us back up,” Yvonne volunteered.

  “Everything else has been okay?” Detective Edwards asked.

  “Yes,” Helen answered defiantly.

  “Do you have children?” he continued.

  “No,” Helen answered, but the defiance wasn’t there, just a slight hollowness that everyone could hear and tried not to react to.