It brought the house down. Suffering from delight and relief, Susan laughed so hard, tears came to her eyes. She scrounged in her purse for a handkerchief, noticing that Jed seemed to be equally delighted by Agatha’s performance.
“Now, I don’t know about you all,” the older woman continued, speaking directly to the audience, “but I think that when a man is accused of something, he should be allowed a few minutes to defend himself. Maybe our mayoral candidates will allow Mr. Henshaw to speak for himself about this Maloney … Malone … well, whatever the name of the dang fund thing is!”
“I certainly agree,” Anthony Martel said quickly, backing away from the podium and motioning for Jed to take his place.
There wasn’t much that Bradley Chadwick could do but graciously agree.
Susan covered her mouth with her handkerchief, took a deep breath, and offered a tiny prayer for her husband.
Either her prayer was heard, or he didn’t need it. Jed did just fine. He took a moment to explain how and when he had invested in the Malloy Fund. He was slightly self-deprecating about his inattention to his holdings, but, after all, he reminded them, he wasn’t a particularly wealthy man. He worked at an advertising agency, and it was his job, his family, and his community that dominated his time and his attention. He came across as successful, caring, and civic-minded—also succinct. Remembering the speech she had blown away on his computer last night, Susan was amazed. Jed had always told her that he used speech writing as a jumping-off point, but she had never really believed him. Forgetting the misery of the past few days, she wondered for a moment if not starting him on a political career years and years ago hadn’t been a mistake. The next question, however, kept that pink bubble from floating in the air.
“What precisely does Jed Henshaw’s wife have to do with the ongoing investigation of the murder of Ivan Deakin?”
Anthony Martel got up from his seat and resumed his place at the podium.
“Don’t they have any questions for Bradley Chadwick?” Susan whispered angrily to Kathleen.
“It will be his turn soon,” Kathleen said soothingly.
Jerry looked around her and smiled at Susan. “Don’t worry,” he whispered. “Bradley will get his.”
Anthony Martel was busy explaining that he wasn’t privy to any more information about the investigation than everyone else and that, as far as he knew, Mrs. Henshaw was doing nothing in this investigation that she hadn’t done before.
“Of course, that’s not saying much. After all, no one actually knows what she has done before,” someone whispered.
“You’re right. Even Lyman once said that she just makes herself sound like a one-woman police department. She probably just gets the publicity because she’s a female. And Chief Fortesque, because he’s such a gentleman, doesn’t bother to tell the truth,” came a whispered response.
Susan sat up straighter, wondering to whom the voices behind her belonged.
“Don’t move!” Kathleen whispered urgently. “I’ll wait a few minutes and turn around and find out.”
What a friend, Susan thought. Not only could Kathleen read her mind, but she did exactly what Susan would have asked of her without Susan asking.
“I—” Susan began before realizing that Jed had been called back up to the podium to speak for himself—or for his family, as the case may be.
This time Jed didn’t do quite so well. Susan wasn’t surprised. He was angry. It had apparently been one thing to attack his business sense, but it was another to attack his wife. He was practically sputtering and, in fact, what could he really say?
Susan found herself wanting to get up and defend herself, but the next words from the woman behind her grabbed her attention.
“You know,” the voice said, “I think that Brett Fortesque calls Susan Henshaw in on a case at times when he wants to muddy the waters.”
“Sure. Especially times when the murderer is his new girlfriend.”
“Or maybe Jed Henshaw himself.”
At this point Susan gave up any pretense of civility, swung around in her seat, and glared at Penelope Thomas and Rosemary Nearing.
TWENTY-TWO
As it turned out, Kathleen came through again.
“Don’t say anything,” she whispered to Susan. “Half the eyes in this place are on you. You’ll only give them something else to talk about—and Jed won’t benefit.”
Susan swung around in her seat until she was again facing the front of the room. She was so furious that she was quaking. The next few questions were about the Landmark Commission. But Susan couldn’t relax. She passed the rest of the debate in a blur of rage, which had only increased by the time the candidates were shaking hands and chuckling together like members of the same men’s club.
Susan stood up stiffly, having no idea where to look. Jed had seemed to be studiously avoiding her eyes during the last part of the debate. The whispering behind her back had continued, but had become unclear. Within moments, she was surrounded by friends and well-wishers, and their assurances cheered her up a bit. Peering around the shoulders of friends, she realized that Jed was also surrounded by people and she hoped he, too, was finding support. She noticed Penelope Thomas still standing beside Rosemary Nearing, but neither Lyman nor Foster Wade seemed present. But the biggest surprise was Chad leaning against the back wall of the room.
“Kath, Chad’s here!” Susan said, grabbing her friend’s arm.
“Good for him!” Kathleen said. “I gather you didn’t know he was going to come?”
“No. And this will thrill Jed,” Susan told her. “He’s been hoping both the kids would get a little more involved in his campaign, but Chrissy is away and Chad’s busy with his own life—and Jed was convinced they should volunteer instead of being forced to do anything.”
“Why don’t you grab Chad before he gets away?” Kathleen suggested to her husband.
“Sure will.” Jerry took off and Susan turned back to her friends. Kathleen was accosted by Alex’s first-grade teacher and moved off to one side of the room to chat.
Susan, returning to the role of good candidate’s wife, chatted, smiled, and allowed herself to be assured that the Martel ticket had been the winner in the debate. Once again, she glanced around the room as unobtrusively as possible. She noticed that Jerry had found her son and the two of them were chuckling together. Brett was also near the back of the room. He was listening to a woman who was holding his attention by physically putting a hand on his arm. As Susan watched they turned slightly and she saw that his demanding companion was Theresa Martel.
“Oh, there’s Theresa Martel … I have something to tell her,” Susan said to the people she was chatting with. “Would you excuse me?” Actually, she wanted to ask Theresa about the call she had made to Erika Eden.
“Sure, we’ll let the candidates’ wives commiserate with each other.” Dan Hallard chortled. “They probably want to talk about what they’re going to wear at the victory party on Tuesday night.”
Susan loved the man. He was a good neighbor, friendly, unfailingly helpful in a crisis—so why was he always saying the type of thing that drove her nuts? She smiled at him and headed toward Theresa and Brett.
The crowd in the auditorium was thinning out, most of the spectators hanging around chatting with friends and neighbors. The debate over, almost everyone appeared to be having a good time. Everyone but Brett, that is. He was looking uncharacteristically tense. Susan wondered if that meant he had heard from Erika or if it meant that he hadn’t—or, possibly, if it was only an indication that Theresa was driving him crazy.
Certainly, she realized immediately as she approached the couple, Brett was happier to see her than he usually was.
“Susan, I was going to look for you,” he called out when she was still halfway across the room. “I need just a few minutes of your time.”
Giggles and whispers greeted his remark, which had obviously recalled, for some, the question about Susan and the police chief’s relat
ionship that had been asked during the debate.
“I must speak with Susan alone for a minute,” Brett continued to Theresa.
“But you understand what I’m telling you, don’t you?”
Susan heard the anxiety in Theresa’s voice, but was unprepared for the sight of the misery that was readily apparent on the woman’s face. Theresa looked like she hadn’t slept for days. Poorly applied makeup didn’t disguise the dark circles under her eyes, her thick hair was lank and stringy, and she seemed to be eating the lipstick from her lips as though starving.
“Of course.” Brett smiled kindly at Theresa. “Don’t worry. I’ll look into it.” He paused. “But right now I really must speak with Mrs. Henshaw.”
“Theresa, I thought the debate went pretty well, didn’t you?” Susan asked, trying to be friendly.
“I—I suppose so.” Theresa looked anxiously at Brett, ignored Susan, and then walked off, heading not to her husband, who remained on stage with the other candidates, but toward the doors at the back of the auditorium.
“You wanted to talk to me?” Susan asked, moving closer to Brett so that their conversation wouldn’t be overheard.
“What do you know about that woman?” Brett asked, looking at Theresa Martel. “She seems to be falling apart.”
“I know. She’s drinking—and she started smoking after quitting years ago,” Susan explained.
“She told me some sort of strange story about not being able to get rid of something her husband said—or wrote and didn’t say. She doesn’t make much sense.” Brett frowned. “Do you think she might be dangerous? I sure hope it’s just a case of the d.t.’s.”
“I hope so, too,” Susan said. “Have you checked out the carriage house again? Erika hasn’t returned, has she?”
“Not that I know of. But I was hoping you might go over there and check things out. I’d send a man, except—”
He stopped. Susan understood that he wanted to keep his other officers away from his personal life—and Erika’s—as long as possible. “I’d be happy to check it out. I won’t be able to get out of here right away, though—I really have to see Jed,” she added, knowing he would understand.
“Sure. Here’s the key. And please call me. At home, if I’m not down at the station …”
“Of course. Did Theresa say anything else?” she asked quickly.
“She has some sort of strange idea about the murder. I think she’s just trying to convince me that her husband couldn’t possibly have done it,” Brett said, explaining nothing.
“But—”
“I’ll tell you about it later,” Brett promised. “There’s someone on the other side of the room that I have to see.”
“Fine,” Susan said, knowing there was no point in protesting. She could push him to tell her later when they spoke more privately. And it was time for her to see Jed.
Chad was standing on the stage with his father, broad smiles on both their faces. Susan hurried up. “So why didn’t you tell us that you were coming?” she asked her son.
“You must be kidding. You didn’t actually think I would miss this, did you?” her son answered.
“Chad promised Chrissy that he would report to her—just in case I said something embarrassing,” Jed said, smiling at his son.
“I thought—” Susan began.
“He was pretty great, wasn’t he, Mom?” Chad interrupted. “I mean, I was really surprised.”
“Thank you,” Jed said sincerely.
“Of course, that question about Mom and the murders was out of left field, wasn’t it? I wasn’t at all surprised that you got so mad over it. I hate it when people talk about that.”
“I—” Susan tried again.
“How about getting some pizza?” Jed suggested to his family.
“Great!”
“I … I have something I have to do,” Susan managed an entire sentence.
“That’s fine. Dad and I will just stop at the pizza place on the way home, won’t we?” Chad insisted, adding, “I’m starving.”
“So am I,” Jed agreed. “I haven’t had anything to eat since lunch.”
“Oh, then, Jed, I’ll come home and make you something more nutritious,” Susan offered.
“No. Pizza sounds great. And Chad and I haven’t had much time together,” he reminded Susan.
She took the hint. As he grew older Chad and his father had become closer. Susan felt this was the way it should be, but she still missed the closeness she’d had with her son when he was younger. “I thought it all went pretty well, didn’t you?” she asked her husband.
“I don’t know.” Susan realized that he sounded tired—and irritated.
“Hey, you were great, Dad,” his son repeated.
“Thanks,” Jed said again. “But, you know, there is something about this election that … that I just don’t get.”
Susan would have loved to hear more about this, but Anthony Martel was heading their way. “Jed, I want to thank you. You did a wonderful job—and you took the brunt of the lousy questions.”
Susan started to ask how the questions had been chosen, but was afraid that it would be morning before they got out of there if Anthony began explaining. “I saw Theresa a few moments ago,” was all she said.
“Really?” He looked surprised. “When I left home tonight she said she wasn’t going to attend. She wasn’t feeling very well,” he explained further. “She thought she might be getting a cold or something.”
“There’s a lot going around,” Jed said heartily.
“There certainly is,” Susan agreed.
Chad looked like he thought his parents were complete dorks—or whatever the current insulting term was. “It’s Friday, the pizza place is going to be jammed,” he reminded his father.
“Would you like to come with us?” Jed asked his wife, more from politeness than any real desire for her company, she suspected.
“No—but if you get home before I do, be sure to take Clue around the block—and bring the pooper-scooper. We don’t want you to lose the election because you didn’t pick up after the dog again,” Susan kidded her husband.
“You’re not going to be late, are you?” Jed asked.
“I have to see someone—nothing serious. If I’m going to be late, I’ll call,” she answered. It shouldn’t take long for her to check out Erika’s home—if she got going.
The parking lot was almost deserted when she went out to her car and she was on her way to Erika’s without further interruption.
The owners of the large house to which the carriage house belonged were obviously giving a party, and Susan pulled her Cherokee in behind a long line of cars parked on the street and walked up the driveway to her destination.
The lights from the main house were bright enough for Susan to see the keyhole in the door and she gained entrance to the carriage house without any trouble. Long drapes that she hadn’t noticed before hung on the wall of French doors; Susan pulled them closed and turned on the light by the couch. The room, which had been charming with daylight streaming through the many windowpanes, was equally appealing in lamplight. Susan walked around slowly, realizing that Brett had offered her an almost impossible task. She had only been here twice before. How could she possibly know if anything was different now?
She wandered about, picking up magazines and putting them down, removing books from the shelves and glancing at them. Since Brett had searched the top shelves, Susan had not noticed the many Italian gardening books that were collected there. She resisted opening some herb guides and cookbooks, reminding herself that she wasn’t there to read.
She confined herself to a quick glance around the kitchen, decided it was unlikely that Erika had stopped in to fix herself a small snack, and headed upstairs on the circular stairway. Mindful of the people in the house next door, she again pulled the curtains across the windows before turning on the lights.
She was sure a woman as organized as Erika would have a reading lamp placed by her bed, so
Susan was sitting on the bed with her hand still on the light switch when she realized that the sticky feeling beneath her was rosy-red blood.
TWENTY-THREE
Later Susan couldn’t actually remember dialing the phone beside the bed, and she had no idea how she managed to pull Brett’s home phone number from the recesses of her mind. She did, however, remember thinking that Brett was crazy when he ordered her to touch nothing. No one had to tell her that, she thought, running back down the circular stairway. She would wait for Brett as far away from that mess as she could possibly get without leaving the carriage house.
Her heart was still threatening to explode when a young policeman that Susan didn’t recognize appeared at the door. “But Brett—” she began.
“Chief Fortesque is on his way. He called the station house and I just happened to be cruising nearby. Where’s the blood?”
Susan raised her soiled hand. “Upstairs on the bed—”
“Do we need an ambulance?” he asked quickly, taking her hand in both of his. “Hey, you’re not wounded!”
“No, no one is. The blood is upstairs on the bed—but there isn’t anyone up there. That I saw,” she added quickly, realizing that she hadn’t gone into the bathroom or really searched that floor at all. “Do you want me to go up with you?”
“No. You stay here and wait for the chief.”
Susan was fairly sure she could do that—barely. She sat down on the bottom step and put her head in her hands. She looked up as Brett burst in the door. “Brett, there’s another officer here. He’s—”
“Your face. What happened to you? I thought you said—”
“I’m fine,” Susan assured him. “There’s just so much blood on the bed that I smeared some on me—what’s wrong?”
Brett was looking at her, frowning.
“Oh, my God,” Susan said, panicking. “AIDS! I never thought …”
“You don’t have anything to worry about. I don’t think you can catch anything from this,” Brett said, touching her forehead with a clean handkerchief and sniffing it. “This isn’t blood.”
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