“That’s it!” Whitey had said. “I ain’t havin’ you go down to the basement just because you can’t control your habit.”
“But we don’t have a basement, dear,” she’d reminded him.
“We don’t have to have a basement for you to know what I mean. No more boats!”
He’d forbidden her to go to any casino anymore. That had been months ago, before she discovered the Home Mall and that angel Claire Hunt. Sometimes it seemed to her as if Claire were speaking directly to her. The other women in her Shopping Club felt the same way. They all loved Claire!
That reminded her. Picking up the phone, she called Louise, one of the women in her club. She had to tell her about the lace shell, two items ago—as if Louise wasn’t also sitting in front of the TV.
When Whitey came back into the room, his wife was on the phone. He stood there long enough to determine she was talking to one of her girlfriends, and then he went into the kitchen to nuke his dinner.
Chapter 20
Armed with the addresses of both Mary Dunn and Susie Kennedy, Gil and Claire decided to go to the Dunn residence
first.
“Do we know if she had a husband?” Claire asked.
“No,” Gil said, “I never asked.”
“Neither did I.”
Claire was driving her Tercel and Gil had the chance to watch buildings and highway foliage go by. They were on Highway 44. When they hooked up with I-55, they’d be going south, toward South County. Mary Dunn had lived in an apartment complex in Mehlville. Although this was not within the St. Louis city limits, Gil knew Detective Holliday and his partner, Longfellow, had ended up with the case because they were from the Major Case Squad, which handled all violent crimes in the St. Louis area, regardless of whether they took place in the city or county.
They took I-55 and got off at the Lindbergh Boulevard exit.
“We go right?” Claire asked.
“Left.”
She made a face. Even though she knew her way around the city, something seemed to happen to her sense of direction whenever she was behind the wheel and Gil was in the passenger seat.
It took them several more wrong turns before they found the development. They circled the area for a while before finally finding the right building.
“I hate these complexes,” Claire said, parking the car. “Whatever happened to neighborhoods? And front porches? No wonder people act like animals when they’re caged up in these kinds of prison-type compounds. Square brick buildings, all in a row. A human being needs to live surrounded by nature; I haven’t seen one tree around here. And look how the management put black numbers on top of the black trim over the doors. Don’t you think they would have thought to use gold or silver?”
“It certainly would be easier to find people,” Gil said, nodding as they got out of the car.
“I’m bitching, aren’t I?”
“Just a little.”
She buttoned up her suit jacket. “I’m nervous. What are we going to say to these people?”
“I don’t know; guess we’ll just have to wing it.”
“You’re better at that than I am.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked. “You work in live television, in front of a camera, almost every day.”
“That’s different. I can be the wittiest, most charming person while I’m on the phone with some customer in Nashville, talking about her new quilt and matching pillow set. But I don’t know even how to start asking someone face-to-face about a loved one they’ve lost.”
“All right,” he said, “you’ve convinced me. I’ll do the talking.”
“Thank you, Gil.”
“You’re welcome. Now let’s do this, before I lose my nerve.”
“Sam Spade,” she said, “my hero.”
Gil rolled his eyes as they walked up the steps to the door of the building. Once inside, they found themselves in a small hallway.
“Do we know the apartment number?” Claire whispered.
“No, but we can check the mailboxes.”
They found the name Dunn on a battered set of eight small metal doors mounted low on a wall. The family they sought lived in apartment D, which turned out to be on the first floor in the back.
“Here we go,” Gil said, and knocked. Trying to reassure Claire, he was surprised at his own nervousness.
When no one answered, Gil knocked again.
“There’s a bell,” Claire said, leaning on it. They heard the chimes inside. Gil wondered how he could have missed it.
Finally, somebody opened the door. It was a woman who appeared to be in her early forties. Her face was pale and drawn, which Gil and Claire attributed to grief.
“Can I help you?” she asked.
“Uh, Mrs.—Miss—Ms. Dunn?” Gil stammered.
In that moment, seeing her husband so ill at ease, Claire thought how much she loved him, and she felt a sudden protective, self-assured attitude come over her.
“I’m sorry, you want my sister. She’s not—oh God—” She started to cry.
“No, no . . .” Gil began, not knowing how to proceed.
Stepping neatly into the lead, Claire said, “It’s all right,” and she put her arm around the woman’s shoulders. “We know what happened to your sister Mary.”
The woman wiped her eyes with her hands and asked, “Then why are you here?”
“We just want to talk to someone—a relative perhaps.”
“What about?” Suddenly, the woman became suspicious. Stiffening, she pushed Claire away. “Who are you?”
“My name is Gil Hunt; this is my wife, Claire.”
“Claire—”
“I work for TBN,” Claire interjected.
The woman’s eyes widened. “That shopping channel. Why, you’re the one on the tape.”
“That’s right,” Claire said.
“Miss Dunn—is it Dunn?”
“It’s Mrs. Nolan,” the woman said. “I’m . . . a widow. My husband died two years ago, and now . . . now my sister.”
She seemed to wilt then, and Claire put her arm around the woman again.
“Maybe you better sit down. Come on.” Claire guided her into the apartment.
Gil hesitated, then followed.
Chapter 21
Claire ushered the woman to a long sofa covered with a crocheted afghan. Mrs. Nolan sat down heavily, her arms dangling between her legs, her shoulders slumped.
“I’m supposed to be cleaning up,” she said to them, “but I’m having a . . . a hard time dealing with . . . with all of it.” Claire sat next to the woman. Gil looked around, spotted a rocking chair, and pulled it over to sit.
“We understand.” Claire tried to comfort her.
The woman sniffled, then looked up at them each in turn. “W—why are you here?”
“To tell you the truth, Mrs. Nolan—”
“Bonnie,” she told Gil, “just call me Bonnie.”
Gil started again. “Bonnie, we’re not sure why we’re here.”
“It’s about those tapes, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes,” Gil said. “We’d like to find out how one of them ended up here—uh, in the apartment, when, uh . . .” He took in the apartment while he stammered. It was small. They were obviously sitting in the living room, and from it he could see the kitchen, dining area, a small bathroom, and a doorway leading to what looked to be the only bedroom. In fact, he remembered seeing a sign when they had driven in that said the complex offered only one- and two-bedroom apartments.
Gil looked over at the television and noticed a VCR on top of it. Mary Dunn must have been sitting on this sofa when she was found.
“Mrs.—Bonnie, do you mind if we ask you a few questions?” he asked.
“Why aren’t the police asking them?”
“Haven’t you spoken with them already?”
“Well, yes,” she said, “a man and an extremely unpleasant woman interviewed me.”
Gil and Claire exchanged a meaningful g
lance before Gil said, “We just have some questions of our own.”
“After all,” Claire said, “it’s me they’re finding on those tapes at the site of the . . . killings.”
Now Bonnie looked at Claire very closely. “My sister always liked you. She even wrote you a letter once.”
Claire smiled. “I know; I still have it. She sent me a photo, too. She looked like a very nice person.”
“She was. Kind and generous but so . . . lonely. She never married, or had children. After my husband died, we became very close again. She was my best friend when we were kids, but after I got married, we sort of . . . drifted apart.”
“That happens,” Claire said. “The focus of your life changes. Do you have children?”
She shook her head. “My husband and I were never able to conceive.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“You don’t have to be,” the woman said. “We were very happy for twenty-one years, until he . . . he passed away.”
“How did he die, if I may ask?” Gil questioned.
“He just went to sleep one night . . . and never woke up. They said it was a massive cerebral hemorrhage and he never knew what hit him. I suppose if it’s your time to go, that’s the best way. But then this happened to . . . to Mary. I can’t bear the idea of her suffering.”
Hoping to divert her attention before she started to cry again, Gil asked, “Bonnie, did Mary have any tapes of Claire?”
She looked puzzled. “Why would you ask that?”
“Well, I was just wondering.”
Bonnie thought a moment and then said, “Well, Mary did tell me that she would tape the Home Mall whenever she had to go out, or to the boat. ...”
Gil sat up straight and quickly asked, “The riverboats?”
“To gamble?” Claire asked.
“Well, she did, before she joined Gamblers Anonymous. She was hooked on those boats—not so much on gambling. She didn’t play the lottery; she didn’t play poker or go to Vegas or even Atlantic City. She just loved the boats.”
“Any one in particular?”
“No.” Bonnie said. “She alternated. Or if she felt hot at one boat, she’d keep going there until her streak broke.”
“Did she win much?”
Bonnie smiled a little smile, the kind someone gets when they recall a fond memory, and said, “She didn’t win much at all; she just liked to play. I finally got her to go to GA, but she quickly replaced gambling with television shopping.”
“The Mall show?” Claire asked.
“That was local. She also shopped QVC and the Home Shopping Network—I’ll tell you a secret if you won’t tell anyone else.”
“We promise,” Claire said.
Bonnie leaned forward. “Once or twice, she ordered something from the Spice Channel.”
Gil and Claire looked at each other. The Spice Channel was a Pay-Per-View channel that offered semi-hard-core porn movies. In between the movies, they demonstrated and sold sexy lingerie, massage oils, and sexual paraphernalia.
“Do you know what that is?” Bonnie asked, lowering her voice.
“We know,” Gil said. “Hey, to each his own.”
“My sister certainly was old enough to do as she pleased; I never meant to imply otherwise.” Bonnie sat back, folding her arms across her chest.
Claire didn’t want the woman getting defensive before they were finished talking with her. “Bonnie, do you know the names of the other two women who were killed?”
“I read them in the newspaper,” she said, “but no, not offhand.”
Gil refreshed her memory, then asked, “Do you think your sister knew them?”
Bonnie thought a moment and shook her head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t know. I can’t remember her ever mentioning them.”
“Was your sister . . . seeing anyone?” Gil asked. “Did she date?”
“Not very much. She had a gentleman she would go to dinner with every so often, an older gentleman.”
“How much older?” Claire asked.
“Well . . . Mary was the elder one of us; she was forty-five. This man is . . . uh, sixty-eight, I think.”
“Sixty-eight,” Gil repeated.
“There was nothing sexual going on between them,” Bonnie hurriedly added. “They were just friends. He usually called her, and he always paid. It worked for both of them.”
“Could you tell us his name?”
“I could, but I don’t know where he lives, or even his number. I looked in the phone book and called information, but I can’t find him; maybe he doesn’t live in St. Louis.”
“Why were you trying?” Gil asked.
“I just thought he should know what . . . what happened.”
“If you tell us his name,” Gil said, “and we find him, we could make sure he knows.”
“Well . . . all right. His name is Jack Buxton. That’s really all I know about him.”
Gil took out a small notebook and wrote the name down. When he was finished, he and Claire exchanged another glance. Without saying a word, he knew that neither of them had any more questions.
Then Gil thought of one.
“Bonnie, one last question. Was Mary afraid of anything the last time you saw her?”
“Afraid?”
“Did she say anything about being followed, or watched?”
“N-no, nothing like that. . . .”
“When did you see her last?” Claire asked.
“Two days before she died. We went to a movie.”
Claire looked at Gil and he stood up.
“Thank you so much for talking to us, Bonnie. Guess we should be going,” Claire said, “so you can get back to . . . what you were doing.”
Bonnie shrugged. “This is what I was doing. Just sitting here. I’ve come every day this week to clean up, and I end up sitting here, staring at the damned TV without even turning it on.”
“That’s not good for you, Bonnie,” Claire said.
“I know that.” She looked down at her hands. “I know that . . . I know it. . . .”
When she wasn’t looking back up at them, Gil moved toward the door and Claire reluctantly followed. Somehow, she felt she should stay with the woman. Gil took her hand and shook his head, and they left, closing the door softly behind
them.
Outside in the parking lot, Gil said, “You can’t help her, Claire.”
“That poor woman. First her husband, and now her sister.”
“Maybe . . . she has other relatives.”
“Somehow I don’t think so, Gil.” She looked at her husband. “I just don’t think so.”
Chapter 22
“Well,” Claire said when they were back in the car, driving home, “that didn’t go very well.”
“It was the first time for us. We just have to learn from it.”
“Learn what?”
“The subtle art of interrogation.”
“Is that what we’re doing? Interrogating people?”
“It’s what we did just now, and we still have more to go.”
Claire massaged her neck. “I don’t know if I can talk to another grieving family member.”
“I’ll do it, then,” Gil said. “Besides, you have a job.”
“And you have a bookstore to run.”
“I’m going to talk to Allyn and see if he can work more hours for a while.”
“Gil—”
He stopped her. “Claire, we have to do this.”
“But the police are investigating. Maybe we should just leave them to it. They are professionals, Gil, and remember what they say.”
“All right, I’ll bite. What do they say?”
She smiled. “Don’t try this at home.”
He knew what she was trying to do, but why couldn’t she understand that he was scared, that he was only trying to protect her? “Do I have to remind you that at least one of the investigating officers wants you to be guilty of murder?”
“That woman, Longfellow. I wonder wh
y she dislikes me?”
“I have no idea.”
“And what about Holliday? He sure seems to like you.”
“I’m going to get him some Tom Clancy novels.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I,” Gil said, “but I know what you mean. He’s been very helpful, but how do we know his motives? Maybe he thinks he’s giving us enough rope to hang ourselves. Maybe this is his way, and hers, of playing that old good cop/bad cop routine.”
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“We can only trust ourselves, Claire. We have to find out what’s going on, and then we can turn it over to Holliday.”
“Well, we better uncover something before all of this starts
to affect my work,” Claire said forlornly. “How can I go on TV and be friendly if I’m terrified someone is going to be killed because of me, or if I'll end up dead.”
“Something keeps coming up,” Gil said as Claire steered them onto I-55 north.
“What?”
“Your Mall program is not the only thing these women had in common.”
“What else was there?”
“Two of them used to go to the riverboats.”
Claire thought a moment. “Bonnie just told us about her sister, but how do you know—”
“Millie told me that Susie Kennedy went to St. Charles to play the slots.”
“So we know that both women shopped the Home Mall and gambled on the boats.”
Gil rubbed the course hairs on his chin. “Right.”
“What about the other woman? The first victim?”
“Kathleen Sands? We don’t know anything about her, yet.”
“Yes we do,” Claire said. “We know she didn’t shop the Mall. Ben didn’t have any records of her making a purchase or even calling in for a membership number.”
Murder Is the Deal of the Day Page 8