DEATH COMES TO AN OPEN HOUSE (24 page)

Why, oh why did I take the Powers’ offer to Theresa’s open house? Dad loved calm, his easy job as a bookkeeper, books and television, a few close friends, an evening walk. It seems I am like him, but there is no peace for me. Is all my life going to be like this?

Jean dropped her briefcase and purse on one of the two sofas and sat down beside them, trying to decide what to do. Beside her was the frame abandoned earlier. When Rita had called this morning, Jean was about to take the five by seven picture of her father from its black plastic frame and put it into the elegant silver one. He deserved a better setting. The two frames lay side by side now on the table beside her. The photograph of the loved face offered her a gentle smile. Jean smiled back, touched the glass with her hand and then turned it over and began bending back the little metal tabs. They were fragile, some of them already broken off.

Then she picked up Theresa’s frame, wondering what her husband had looked like. “Handsome” was an inadequate description. Was he someone who would be noticed entering the open house to kill Theresa? Only a blank piece of tan cardboard looked back at her. The tabs on the silver frame were newer, more difficult to bend. Under the velvet covered backing were the usual two layers of cardboard and, between them, two small pieces of paper. The cardboard must not have provided enough padding, Jean thought. Unfolding the white one, she found it was from one of Ed’s office notepads, his name and that of the office, its address and phone number at the top. She read the familiar scrawl:

Frank – I’ve had it! Wait

till the others have gone.

I Need to talk to you. Ed

Had it? Was this just before Frank left? Had Ed thrown him out? The last two months had made it clear that Jean knew little of what had gone on in the office before she came. The second note, on a thin blue sheet of paper, had a far different tone:

My darling, darling Vivian,

last night was delicious! You

are the sunshine of my life!

If only Ed was—best not said.

Frank.

The implications of “darling, darling Vivian” were not comfortable. “Delicious” was worse. Those words seemed to define what was meant by “if only Ed was.” Jean tried to find another explanation, but nothing worked. Frank and Vivian must have been having an affair and Frank wished Ed wasn’t in the way. And the note from Ed. He had found out. Who in the office had said Ed and Frank fought a lot? Hua. Hua had said that. Jean had assumed it was about Frank’s thefts, but could it been about Vivian?

Almost reluctantly, Jean finished putting her father’s picture in the new frame, turned it over and looked at his familiar, lost face, leaned over it and cried. It had been a while since she had cried for her father. Maybe she was crying for Ed and Vivian, too. Maybe for herself.

Did her father’s picture belong here? Dismissing the thought as another of her foolish flights of imagination, Jean reached for her phone to call Rita with this latest peculiar and distressing bit of news.

“You’re kidding! Frank and Vivian had an affair?”

Jean wished Rita didn’t sound quite so delighted.

“Well, I don’t know if it was an affair. It was at least once.”

“But it doesn’t tie in with Theresa’s murder. Frank was trying to keep Vivian on his side. I mean, be honest! She’s no beauty. He needed her. Ed wanted to fire him. She was the one who didn’t want to, remember?”

“But why would Theresa would have hidden those notes?”

“Divorce, silly! You told me Hua said Frank was a spender. Theresa would have wanted to get rid of him.”

Rita was laughing at her.

“Divorce?”

“Isn’t it obvious? Ed was going to fire him for having an affair with Viv. Theresa wanted to get rid of him and get a good settlement, right? So she kept proof of his infidelity. Maybe he gave up and left, ran out of money and came back to kill her and inherit. This long gap in time makes him a less likely suspect than if he turned up to claim his inheritance right away. People will forget if he was with them or not. Nobody ever said he was stupid.”

“Rats! Why are you so much better at this than I am? Still, we haven’t figured out how he could have gotten into the office.”

“Nope. But the police have the same problem. These four were knotted together in lots of ways we didn’t know and they probably don’t, either. Now we know why Vivian wasn’t pitching in all those years. Not until now, when Theresa was gone. You keep those notes! They’re evidence against Frank. The important thing is more stuff is still turning up. Rita’s voice became lower and threatening. “Who knows what evil lurks in the minds of Realtors?”

That went over Jean’s head.

“What
are
you talking about?” she demanded.

Rita laughed again, that joyous, free sound that Jean envied.

“
The Shadow
. A radio show my grandfather loved. Used to quote that line all the time. Only the ending is supposed to be ‘men’. All I’m saying is stuff keeps turning up we don’t know about. Get what you can out of Vivian, kid.”

 
Chapter 45

On one of those golden afternoons that October offers, Jean and Vivian were cutting down the stems of tiger lilies in the back yard. The weather was ideal, a perfect blue fall sky with cotton ball clouds, late blooming pink roses with well chewed leaves, begonias spreading their joyous colors well beyond the areas for which they were intended, heedless of the coming, killing frost. As often happened, Jean’s thoughts led to speculation about Theresa, that once clear, strong personality that had become splintered into incongruous shards. Vivian was slightly broken, too. Jean found it difficult to believe she would fall for a man like Frank. There was no way to approach the subject directly

“I can’t imagine Theresa married,” she ventured.

By now, Vivian was accustomed to Jean’s curiosity about her mentor and answered promptly as she gathered a pile of stiff stalks in her sturdy hands and threw them into the garden cart.

“She shouldn’t have married. Ever,” Vivian said emphatically. “There was no flexibility in her. But Frank needed her money and he was too handsome to resist.”

This meant more to Jean than Vivian realized.

“It seems marriages too often don’t work out,” Jean said wistfully.

“True. But I think you’re thinking of Wayne.” Vivian looked at her with sympathy. “There are lots of hurts that come with love, with or without marriage. Even if Wayne wanted marriage, there would have been rough spots. There always are.”

“Always?”

“Oh, yes. Even with Ed and me.”

Jean closed her eyes.
Rita’s speculation was accurate, then. More information I don’t want.

“Oof!” Vivian threw up her hands. “Enough! Let’s sit down a bit. I’m getting too old for this.”

“You’re not old.”

“Old enough to be grateful you’re here to help since Ed can’t. Bad back, bad heart. Too much yard for us now, but it’s certainly not the time to sell. Sit,” Vivian said as she dropped onto the wrought iron garden bench and patted the empty space beside her.

Jean obeyed the order and pulled off her damp garden gloves, not sorry to stop. Cleaning flower gardens in the fall wasn’t nearly as much fun as creating them in the spring, she presumed. Her hand was drawn to the holly next to her and she pressed a finger into one of its points.

“You can have that,” Vivian said, looking at the leaf.

They laughed. Jean pulled it off and continued to play with it.

“Ed seems so healthy now,” she said. “When I first came to the office, he seemed stressed, the kind of person you’d expect to have a heart attack, but now …”

Vivian reached her arms over her head and bent forward, stretching tight muscles.

“Since Theresa was killed, you mean. Yes. That was …” Vivian stopped abruptly. Her arms dropped to her sides and her gaze was on the sky, not on Jean. “She created a lot of stress, yes, but a good producer. Are you and Rita still looking for the killer?”

Vivian was trying to sound casual, but it was obvious she wanted the answer to that question.

“We ran out of suspects,” Jean said.

“Ran out? Entirely? That seems unlikely, given Theresa’s somewhat powerful personality.”

“It was the access to the, you know, the letter opener. That limited the list.”

“The list? You had a list?”

With the growing closeness between the two of them, it seemed right now for Jean to tell the story of Rita’s chart and their summer’s investigation, the lines gradually crossing off the names.

“So you have no idea who might have done it, Jean?”

“I guess it’s me.”

Jean tried to sound flippant. It didn’t work. Vivian turned to her, eyes wide, mouth slightly open.

“My dear child! Why on earth would anyone suspect you?”

Because I was there when there was no point in rushing the offer to Theresa. Stupid. And I had that inheritance and I could get the letter opener. No one else has all that.”

Jean pricked her finger with the holly, drawing blood.

“It’s okay, Viv. The fear is kind of going away. It’s been almost three months now. But it still comes back sometimes, mostly at night. If they find Frank and he has an alibi—that’s the only thing, I think, that’s kept them from arresting me.” Jean shrugged. “Not really much hope there.”

Vivian turned away. Two starlings flew to the garden cart and perched there.

“Nasty birds,” Vivian said, her eyes on them.

“Are they?”

Vivian didn’t answer. After a few seconds, she took a deep breath and said “We thought it was your father or breaking up with Wayne, those times when you sat alone on this bench looking so sad, so very unhappy, my dear. We thought we should leave you alone. But we shouldn’t have.”

Jean reached over and touched the older woman’s arm reassuringly.

“It’s all right, Viv. I didn’t want to tell you or Ed. I knew it would worry you.” Jean shook her head. “I don’t know why I’m telling you now. I shouldn’t have, but it helps to dump on someone, doesn’t it? Selfish. I’m sorry.”

Vivian turned her head away.

“You’ve been afraid all this time,” she said, her voice revealing how difficult it was for her to accept this fact. She paused for several seconds, staring into the multi-colored trees before she added, “This has gone on too long.” There was another long pause before she added, “Yes. I have to do this.”

She turned to Jean.

“I have to tell you a story. I’ve practiced it many times. For the police. I never imagined telling you or anyone, really, but I can’t have you living in fear.”

It took a deep breath and visible determination for her to continue.

“This is partly going to be a plea for your understanding. So I have to go back to the beginning. It starts with Frank. He was a thief, you know. No.” Vivian shook her head slightly. “You probably don’t know.”

Jean started to say that she did, that Hua had suspected as much, but Vivian was intent on her story.

“So easy for an agent to steal small things from houses on the market. Ed saw Frank pocket a ring when we were touring a house and connected that with several reports from the Board. Can you imagine what it would do to our business if the news got out that one of our agents was stealing? A lifetime of work against making amends for petty thefts? They had been only petty thefts, Jean, according to Board reports. Ed was going to fire him, but Frank talked him out of it, promised to stop. Maybe not the right moral decision, but we weren’t the only ones that would be hurt. The office reputation and, by association, our staff. It seemed a lot of punishment for a few small financial losses. In the end, Ed just warned him.”

“So that’s why he went away,” Jean said.

Vivian closed her eyes without responding.

“And you didn’t have the issue and Theresa didn’t have a shopaholic husband,” Jean concluded.

“Yes. She’d done what she could to protect her assets, but he kept spending, pawning and selling possessions. She should have divorced him, but divorce settlements can’t be predicted.”

“How awful for Theresa,” Jean said. “There was a time when I lost sympathy for her, but with an awful husband, an awful financial situation, I feel so bad for—”

“Don’t!”

The interruption was emphatic and startling. Jean didn’t need to ask why. The answer was provided immediately.

 
Chapter 46

“She killed him.”

It was said calmly, almost as if that fact should be obvious. It didn’t register.

“She? Theresa? Killed …”

“Frank.”

“Theresa killed Frank? No! Everybody said he left.”

“I know. Theresa told everyone he left. Easy for people to believe of a man married to her. Only three people know that isn’t true. Ed and I and now you. And now you’re wondering what this has to do with Theresa’s death.”

Jean felt cold. It wasn’t the dying October day. Words had chilled her. She didn’t want any more words right away.

“Aren’t you wondering why we haven’t told the police in all these years?”

Again Vivian was a step ahead of her. What already had been said was overwhelming.

“You will. It won’t take long for you to ask yourself how we know and why we haven’t told the police. She killed him with Ed’s letter opener, the one he got when we gave them out to our top producers. Stabbed him and buried it with him. That’s why she flaunted hers. She was rubbing our noses in it.”

Blood was still coming from Jean’s finger. She dropped the holly to the ground.

“There was more than the letter opener. She could have stolen that. Not damning by itself. Theresa said she had more proof, some note Ed wrote to Frank that sounded threatening and a letter Frank wrote to me that implied we’d had an affair, a note I never got. Frank said he just left it on my desk, so Theresa got to it first. Probably in Frank’s usual gushy style. Easily misinterpreted.’

Rita was wrong! Ed’s note had nothing to do with Vivian. It was about stealing.

“Theresa was always snooping, trying to find things that would give her some control over someone. Anyone,” Vivian said,