Killer Mousse

by Melinda Wells

  The crisis came during Shannon’s thirty-first birthday party. Her voice ringing with accusation, she demanded to know why I had invited Charles Manson to dinner when I knew that Manson was planning to kill her. For a moment I thought she was joking, but then she started screaming. She pointed to Mack and threw a wineglass at his head. She swore with absolute conviction that Mack wasn’t Mack at all, but was really Charles Manson and that we had to kill him before he killed all of us.

  Shannon refused to go to a hospital and fought John when he tried to take her to the car. He had to call for an ambulance. Shannon spent the next six weeks in a lockdown mental facility.

  As horrible as those weeks were, for Shannon and for those of us who loved her, she was finally diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. John wouldn’t take the word of just one psychiatrist anymore, so he called in two others. Separately, they concurred: paranoid schizophrenia. We learned that this particular mental illness typically shows itself somewhere between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four. Shannon was twenty-nine when the symptoms began. The wrong diagnoses had wasted two years when she could have been helped.

  In the hospital, the doctors experimented with several medications and dosages. Finally the right combination brought her symptoms under control, and she was judged well enough to come home. But John made sure she was never again alone with little Eileen.

  John was patient and loving, but he couldn’t be with Shannon twenty-four hours a day. Sometimes she’d forget to take her medication or only pretend to take it. Then, as was typical with a patient like Shannon, “the voices” that commanded her would return. She’d have an acute attack and need to be hospitalized again.

  Over the years, as the effectiveness of one medication diminished, another was prescribed. Shannon had seemed much better over the past several months, and much more often she seemed like the Shannon I’d first known. She’d told me that her group therapy sessions were helping her understand the disease and were teaching her to function in a healthy way. When I’d visited her last week, she was talking about working again. Not going back to being a paralegal, as she was when she met John; that work was too stressful. What she had in mind was starting a home-based business by making novelty sweaters to sell in boutiques. She knitted beautifully.

  My favorite sweater is the one she’d created for me as a Christmas present last year: sky blue, with a V neckline and a replica of Tuffy on the front. As a tribute to Shannon’s new ambition, I was wearing it tonight with a plain denim wrap skirt.

  Shannon greeted me at the door, fairly shimmering with energy. Her red curls sparkled from a fresh shampooing. An emerald green headband held the hair back from her pretty oval face. The color of the headband matched her eyes, and the flowing caftan she wore.

  “That sweater looks gorgeous on you!” She seemed almost giddy with delight, admiring her creation. “But it’s a little off-center.” She made a minute adjustment to the way the sweater sat on my shoulders. “Perfect. Come in! Come in! You’ve got to see my workshop!”

  Shannon closed the door behind us and guided me through the archway from the foyer into the long gallery-like living room. It was done in warm southwestern hues, with Native American rugs and wall hangings and artifacts. Shannon had grown up in New Mexico, and had collected furniture and pottery from that part of the country. The ambiance she’d created was relaxed and pleasing to the eyes.

  But something new had been added. At the far end of the room a knitting machine had been set up. Beside it was a gateleg table covered with stacks of colorful yarn and little baskets full of buttons, sequins, and beads. She made a sweeping gesture. “Ta da!”

  “Very professional,” I said. “You’re serious about making novelty sweaters to sell.”

  “Absolutely! Eileen’s working up a business plan for me: how much I’ll need to spend on materials, what I should charge, what to do about taxes—all that stuff.” She smiled happily. “I’m lucky to have a daughter who’s a business major. By the way, she tells me she’s doing the same thing for you.”

  “It’s just an idea she’s had. She wants me to go into the mail-order fudge business,” I said.

  Shannon laughed. “Maybe we can sell packages of your fudge with each of my sweaters. But if the customers eat your fudge, they probably won’t look so good in my sweaters.”

  “I admit, you’ve got a point.” I smiled at her, but I couldn’t help wondering if she was a little too up, or just more enthusiastic than she had been in a long time. All at once I realized how painful it would be for Shannon, and how unfair to her, if she knew I was scrutinizing her for signs of the old problem. Resolutely, I decided to forget about her illness and simply enjoy her excitement about this new project.

  Indicating her workshop, I said, “You’re already set up. I haven’t had time to even think about making fudge commercially. Right now I’m too busy cooking for the TV shows.”

  “Speaking of—let’s have dinner,” Shannon said. “The order was delivered a few minutes ago, and I don’t like cold Chinese food. Besides, after dinner, I have to get busy and sketch some new designs.”

  Shannon’s kitchen continued the southwestern theme, with whitewashed walls, terra-cotta pots holding a variety of cactus plants, and an aged wooden sign that said “Shannon’s Cantina.”

  We sat at her handsome pine trestle-base table inlaid with strips of cactus. Until Shannon bought that table years ago, I told her that I’d never thought of cactus as “wood.” She’d explained that the natural death of cactus wood takes years, and during the period of decay, it’s exposed to scorching desert sunlight and battering by the wind and sand. Nature’s brutality gave the cactus wood its mellow golden tones.

  Her description of how a dead cactus came to be turned into the beautiful surface of this table was the first time I’d thought of wood as something that died. Of course I knew that trees were cut down and new trees planted, but I never made the connection between lumber and death.

  I forced myself to shake off the melancholy notion as Shannon spooned portions of rice, beef with snow peas, and sweet-and-sour chicken onto bright red crockery plates.

  Before I’d swallowed the first mouthful, Shannon said, “Going into business is important because it will give me something interesting to talk to John about. For so long it’s seemed as though the only subject we had in common was my health. He never shows it, but he’s got to be bored out of his mind.” She gave a mirthless little laugh. “‘Out of his mind.’ That phrase must sound strange, coming from me. I mean, because I actually have been out of my mind. Believe me, the real thing is nothing like that cliché we throw around.”

  “You’ve overcome so much. John must be very proud of you.”

  Even though we were alone, she lowered her voice to a near whisper. “I’m afraid I’m losing him.”

  “Oh, Shannon, no. That’s not true.”

  “No one knows my husband better than I do, Della,” she said sharply. “He’s kind to me, but his heart isn’t here anymore. I think there’s someone else. Do you have any idea who it could be?”

  I reached for her hand to comfort her; her skin was icy cold. “John loves you. He’ll never leave you.”

  Shannon’s eyes glistened with tears she was fighting to hold back. I heard the sadness in her voice as she said, “Loyalty and love are two separate things.”

  The visit with Shannon had shaken me. I felt so guilty about my feelings for John that I knew I had to do something radical to stamp them out, and I knew what that was. As my brother, Sean, the navy man, might say—or he might have said it if he was drunk and in the middle of World War II—“Full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes.” Before I could change my mind, I found the card NDM had given me and phoned him.

  He answered on the second ring. When I said hello, he recognized my voice.

  “I want to see you,” I told him. “But not in public. Where do you live?”

  “You want to come over here?”

  “Unless you’re
busy with one of your built-for-speed blondes.”

  “I don’t bring them home.” He gave me his address.

  NDM lived in the bottom half of a townhouse in the Larchmont section of Los Angeles, a residential area of sidewalks and slender trees that were surrounded by cement. It was more typical of New York City than of Southern California. I found a parking place several numbers down from NDM’s building.

  My heart was pounding, but determined to go through with my plan, I rang the bell.

  He opened the door. I walked past him into his living room and said, “I’m calling your bluff.”

  “What bluff?”

  During our marriage I’d initiated sex many times with Mack, but now I did something I’d never done when I was single: I kissed a man before he kissed me first.

  It surprised him, but his reflexes were good; he caught up quickly. Just as I was about to break the kiss, his arms went around me, locking my body against his with a fierceness that made me gasp. Our mouths met again, but this time in a fully mutual joining of lips and tongues. I felt him swelling against me.

  I had no concept of time or place. All I knew was that I was in the arms of a man who kissed me as hungrily as I kissed him. Hands roamed over bodies. Fingers fumbled with clothing, items fell to the floor. Then I was naked, lying on a couch, holding and caressing a naked man who was caressing me. My eyes were closed, but all of my other senses were heightened. The skin of this man’s back was smooth; his scent was a pleasant amalgam of soap and sweat…. His body was strong and welcomed.

  We finished—spent but not exhausted. Without speaking, he took my hand and led me into his bedroom. Under oath, I could not say what the room looked like—only that the sheets were fresh and clean. We melted into each other again. And again.

  Afterward, lying beside NDM, my pulse began to return to normal. His eyes were closed and his breathing deep and even. Thinking that he was asleep, I carefully eased myself out of the circle of his arm and moved to the edge of the bed.

  With his eyes still closed, he asked, “Where are you going?”

  “Home.” These were the first actual “words” we’d spoken since I’d kissed him.

  He opened his eyes. Looking puzzled, he propped himself up on one elbow. “Why are you leaving?”

  “I have to walk my dog, then get up early to bake two different kinds of meat loaf and a broccoli casserole.”

  He sat all the way up and stared at me. Ridiculous as it sounds, I felt embarrassed that I was standing in front of him without any clothes on. It was one thing to be kissing in this state, and another to be having a conversation in the nude. But I’d acted outrageously tonight; it was too late to be modest.

  “Don’t you leave your girls and go home when you’ve…after you’ve…?”

  “It’s a little different,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Ask me when I’ve had a chance to figure it out.”

  “Good-bye,” I said, backing toward the living room door. “I had a wonderful time.”

  He looked thoroughly nonplussed. “What happened here tonight?”

  “You proved your theory that I’m built for endurance.”

  “Don’t throw that stupid remark in my face.”

  In the living room, I scooped up my panties, sweater, skirt, and shoes from where they’d fallen and slipped into them at warp speed. Not wanting to delay an extra few seconds fumbling with the clasp, I stuffed my bra into my handbag and was out the front door.

  26

  The next morning Eileen was up and off to an early class when I called Liddy and asked her to come over as soon as Bill left for his office. Now Liddy was drinking coffee and watching me assemble ingredients for the TV taping while I told her about practically ravishing NDM last night.

  “What in the name of Paula Deen were you thinking?” Liddy demanded.

  “I wasn’t thinking. It was pure lust.”

  Her eyes twinkled with humor. “He must have thought Santa came early and brought him a man’s favorite thing.”

  “He couldn’t have been more surprised if I’d come down his chimney. If he had a chimney. I didn’t notice.” I tried to visualize his living room and couldn’t, but I had the vague impression that it was neat.

  “What triggered that Vesuvian eruption of hormones?”

  I described my visit to Shannon and how terrible I felt when she talked about getting herself in shape and staying on her new medication so she could have a real married life again with John. “She said she was afraid she was losing him.”

  “Do you think she knows how John feels about you?”

  “She suspects he’s developed feelings for someone. She asked me if I had any idea who it might be.”

  “Of course you said no.”

  “I told her I believe absolutely that John loves her, and I do.”

  “A nonanswer answer.” Liddy glanced meaningfully at the plant stand next to the refrigerator, where the pumpkin she’d carved for me sat with the profile of the elephant facing us.

  “Shannon’s smart,” she said. “You’re a widow now; the four of you were close for years. Propinquity. I think she invited you over to probe a little.”

  “I told her that I hardly ever saw John, but that I knew he was working with Detective Hall on what the papers are calling ‘The Cable TV Murders.’ She wanted me to tell her everything I knew, so she could talk to John about his work. I told her some, but not about being chased through Brentwood and calling John from Fred Priestly’s carport.”

  “Be careful around Shannon,” Liddy said. “We know what happens if she goes off her meds. Okay, let’s get back to the reporter. How was he in bed?”

  “Terrific. He did everything to make sure I enjoyed it as much as he did.” I sat down opposite Liddy, refilled her cup, and poured coffee for myself. I wasn’t comfortable talking about this, but I needed to. “Mack and I had a really good sex life. It transitioned naturally from that early couldn’t-keep-our-hands-off-each-other heat to the luxury of making love whenever we felt like it. We had our fights and problems, like every couple, but we were happy, and well matched in bed. I had no idea how much I missed sex.”

  “Sex and credit cards—my two favorite parts of marriage,” Liddy joked.

  “When I felt those stirrings toward John, it was like I’d had amnesia and suddenly all the memories came flooding back.”

  “Bill and I are in that first stage again, now that the boys are out of the house. There were a lot of years there when the kids had to come first, and it seemed as though they always needed something. Even though they were twins, they never got sick at the same time.”

  I smiled. “Double jeopardy.”

  “No kidding. Bill and I used to fantasize about checking into one of those cheap motels on La Cienega under a phony name. Enough about me. I want more details about last night.”

  “I told you the sex was great.”

  “But what did you talk about?”

  “We didn’t talk,” I said.

  “Not at all? No little jokes in between the moans, no sweet murmurings of ‘oh, you’re so beautiful’ and ‘oh, you’re so hard’?”

  I shook my head. “From the moment I walked in and kissed him until I finally got out of bed, we didn’t talk to each other.”

  “That’s weird,” Liddy said.

  “I didn’t know what to say, and apparently he didn’t either. But he cooperated physically—more than cooperated. After all, that’s why I was there.”

  “So it was an erotic exorcism. You exorcised John O’Hara by getting erotic with Nicholas D’Martino. Now what?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When are you going to see him again?”

  “I don’t plan to. Last night was a kind of sexual collision. Out of bed, I don’t even like him.”

  “The trouble is, you’ve released the beast,” Liddy said. “Now it’s going to want to be fed. Last night you just might have created a bigger problem than you think you solved.
”

  27

  By midmorning I’d finished making a broccoli casserole, my breadless meat loaf, a very different kind of meatloaf baked in a round of sourdough bread, and organized the ingredients for a heavenly pink ambrosia. The first three were the make-ahead dishes I’d be displaying at this afternoon’s TV tapings. The ambrosia would be assembled on the set. I carefully packed all of those items and a package each of fresh spinach and spinach fettuccine into two grocery boxes. Finally, dressed in the simple dark green sweater and black slacks I’d wear for the first taping, I was ready to leave for the studio. A short garment bag contained the blouse and skirt I’d change into for the second show.

  Tuffy was ready to go, too. He’d eaten his breakfast, and I’d taken him for a walk, brushed his shiny black coat, slipped his automobile safety harness over his head, and clipped his red leash to his red cloth collar. He’d always had soft collars because I would never put either a hard leather collar or a chain around his neck.

  Leaving one of the two boxes, the garment bag, and Tuffy just inside the closed front door, I hefted the first box and started along the side path that led to my carport. I was thinking about Lulu, once again going over our conversation of Monday night, hoping that I’d discover something useful to catching her killer, a hint that I missed previously.

  I hadn’t succeeded in getting her to tell me whom she thought Mimi’s mystery lover had been, but she’d come close to giving it up. She’d only stopped short of revealing the name because she said she wasn’t completely sure, and didn’t want to hurt someone. The name of the mystery man might have nothing to do with Lulu’s murder, but I was willing to bet that Lulu and Mimi were killed by the same person. What better motive for murdering Lulu than fear of exposure? I was sure that the person who killed Lulu must believe she knew something that put him or her in jeopardy. Apparently, everyone at the channel knew Lulu liked to talk. I’d heard her say that to Detective Hall the night of Mimi’s murder. Yesterday, Stan Evans told me that Car Guy referred to Lulu as the station’s own National Enquirer.