Don't Be Afraid (8 page)

When that was done, he took a piece of her jewelry as a remembrance of their time together. Karen Chang always wore a gold ring shaped like a flower with a small ruby at its center. He slipped it off the stiffening finger of her right hand.

For many years the photos and mementos had been enough to relive the experience. Recently, though, he’d needed more. He chose the left ring finger for all its ancient significance. The Romans thought a vein from that finger ran straight to the heart. It was a tangible sign of his love to take that finger.

Of course, after Violet things changed. Now taking that finger symbolized the severing of any connection. These women were heartless, adulterous, whoring bitches. He removed their wedding bands and their rings so the world would know what sort of women they were.

When Guy was finished with lunch he carefully cleaned up his mess before putting on a Mozart CD and taking the newest box from the freezer.

The soprano’s voice soared in the aria and he opened the box slowly, as if it were a present he wanted to savor. He stroked the finger lightly and was transported back to the bedroom and how he’d stepped from the shadows to confront Sheila. He could see her face, hear her scream, relive the panicked begging and the feel of her body sagging in his arms. He closed his eyes and rocked with the memory, enveloped in the swell of music and the sweet scent of dead skin.

All too soon it was time to put the box away. Already the sensations were fading. Soon the finger wouldn’t be enough to hold him. He could feel the dull ache in his head that signaled the need for more. Soon, very soon. It was coming. He just had to be patient. He didn’t know who and he didn’t know when. The only thing he could be sure of was that he’d need to kill again.

Sheila’s funeral was well attended. Amy wanted to believe it was because of Sheila’s success in real estate and because of the good work she’d done for the battered women’s shelter, but she knew the crime had also brought them here.

The funeral was being held at St. Andrew’s, which surprised Amy because she knew that Sheila hadn’t been a practicing Catholic for years. She wondered whether Sheila had wanted this because of her relationship with the single-parent support group, or whether this was the work of Sheila’s mother, who sat stoically in the front row, comforting her grandsons.

Amy was in the pew behind Sheila’s surviving family, sitting between star realtors Hope Chiswell and Poppy Braxton. She’d been afforded this place of honor because she’d been such a close friend of Sheila’s. Hope focused on what the other mourners were wearing, leaning past Amy to hiss in Poppy’s ear that “lavender is so passé,” an apparent reference to the suit worn by some hapless mourner.

Father Michael presided at the altar and Amy tried to focus on what he was saying, but her eyes invariably strayed to the walnut coffin standing in the center aisle. Sheila was in there, or what was left of Sheila’s body. Amy would never hear that laugh again or catch her eye across a room, knowing that they were sharing the same joke.

The whole event felt like a monstrous joke. Amy half expected Sheila to sit up in her coffin and wink. How could it be that one day there was Sheila and then she was completely and utterly gone?

The lilies piled high on the coffin filled the church with their cloying scent. Father Michael came down from the pulpit waving a metal orb on a chain and incense swirled around the coffin. It competed with the flowers and this pungent perfume filled the church, leaving Amy nauseous and lightheaded.

When the service ended, she stepped out into the sunlight, blinking and shivering in her thin black suit. Poppy, the de facto head of Braxton Realty now that her father was approaching eighty, knew the press and how to use them. She and Hope welcomed the swarm of reporters and Amy slipped into the crowd.

She spotted Detective Juarez and he nodded at her, but before she’d made it past the crush to ask if he had any leads, Douglas Myers caught her.

“There you are!” he said loudly, as if she were a child who’d escaped a nanny’s care. “Why aren’t you standing with the illuminati?” He nodded in the direction of Poppy and Hope. “You’re one of them now, at least for the day. Celeb du jour, that’s you.”

She shook her head, trying to move past him, but he took her arm and came in close. “You should take advantage of it,” he hissed uncomfortably close to her ear. “A little media exposure is good for sales.”

Mercifully, someone called his name, and he disappeared into the throngs of mourners. The detective had also disappeared. Damn. Amy stretched up on her toes to see above the crowd, but she couldn’t find him.

“Amy, sweetie, I’m so, so, sorry.”

She turned to find Audrey, another member of the single-parent support group, standing with opened arms. Amy couldn’t refuse her sticklike embrace. Fortunately, it didn’t last long. Sheila had once compared Audrey to a praying mantis, tall and pencil thin with large eyes and arms constantly sawing the air. They were moving now, as Audrey described how she’d learned of Sheila’s death and how horrified she’d been and continued to be and who could do such a thing and wasn’t it so, so sad?

Amy nodded, but she could barely comprehend what Audrey was saying, so acute was her pain at Sheila’s absence. In June, the oldest realtor at Braxton had died and Sheila dragged Amy with her to the funeral.

“I hate funerals,” Sheila had confided as they were walking out afterwards. “All those platitudes about what a great person the deceased was and how much she’ll be missed. Everyone knows that Edie was a first-class bitch and all the realtors are glad she’s out of the business for good. When I die, I hope they’ll be honest—here lies Sheila who sold more properties than I did and thank God she’s gone.”

“Don’t you agree, Amy?” Audrey patted her arm, calling her attention back.

“Agree?”

Audrey laughed, a nervous trill. “I said don’t you agree that Richard would look hot wrapped in nothing but a palm leaf.” She nodded her head and Amy turned to see the best-looking member of the support group standing alone, leaning against a pillar.

“I think I’d like to see him without the palm leaf,” Amy said, feeling as if she were channeling Sheila, and Audrey offered her nervous trill again.

Once she started looking around, Amy realized that everyone from the support group was there: Penelope, who didn’t need a funeral to look depressed; Jackson, wearing a suit jacket as if he were a bear who’d been stuffed into unaccustomed clothing; Bridget, in vaguely funereal-looking earth mother garb, complete with Birkenstocks; and Charlie, who looked suspiciously red-eyed and kept swiping his nose with a Kleenex.

“Allergies,” he explained when he made his way through the crowd to Amy’s side. “Not that I didn’t care for Sheila, but it’s the changing season that’s causing this reaction.”

“So who did it?” Richard said in his typical blunt fashion when he deigned to join them. Amy had seen him in conversation with a good-looking blond woman, but then he’d caught her eye and made his way over to them. She tried to suppress the little flutter of excitement she always felt in Richard’s presence. “Pure sex appeal,” Sheila had declared. “They should bottle him.”

“They don’t know who killed her,” Amy answered him. “But they think it might be her ex.”

“Ultimately, she couldn’t escape him,” Penelope said in a mournful voice. She wore a voluminous purple dress that covered her billowing figure and ended somewhere around her ankles. “Men are such shits.”

Charlie sniffed loudly, looking offended, but Richard gave her a short, hard smile. “I don’t think the shit factor is limited to the male species, Penny.”

“It’s Penelope,” the woman said. “I don’t like Penny, I never have.”

“Too small a name?” Richard said.

Penelope sniffed. “I’ll see you tonight,” she said and stalked away, her dress gently swaying against her large hips.

Audrey tittered and slapped at Richard’s arm. “Oh, that was cruel.”

“Only if you think there’s something wrong with being large,” Richard said. He managed, as always, Amy thought, to keep everyone at a distance, maintaining the illusion that his interest in everything extended only as far as his own amusement.

Amy spotted Detective Juarez talking to Douglas. She wanted to move closer, hoping she could overhear that conversation, but Jackson blocked her view.

“You gave my name to the police?” he demanded.

“They asked me for the names of Sheila’s friends,” Amy said, but he cut her off.

“You should have asked me first,” he said, scowling. “I don’t need police calling and asking me questions.”

“I’m sorry,” Amy said, “but they asked me for names.”

“So you served all of us up as suspects?” Charlie said. “Thanks a bunch.”

“I’m sure you’re not suspects,” Amy protested, but she knew it wasn’t true. They were all suspects until Sheila’s killer was caught. She wondered again about Trevor. Could he really have taken those photos? It seemed so unlike the man that her friend had described.

“I thought you said they were looking for Trevor?” Audrey said. “I don’t want them asking me questions. I’m no good with that sort of thing. I feel guilty when I haven’t even done anything. This is all so, so strange.”

Poppy Braxton hailed Amy with a fluttery wave and she excused herself and fended her way through the crowd to the older woman’s side. There was no small talk or cheek bussing with Poppy, no matter how sweetly Waspy she might look. “Meredith Chomsky just called me,” she said without preamble. “I don’t have to tell you what that means, do I?”

“I talked to her yesterday.”

“Well, she says you’re not doing enough. She says you promised to have the fliers for the open house done three days ago.”

“I was a little distracted by Sheila’s murder,” Amy said, making sure the irony was in her voice.

“I know, I know,” Poppy said. “I’m just telling you what she told me. Oh, and she says there’s still no sign on her lawn.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Today, okay?” Poppy gave her the winning smile of a skilled businesswoman. “I really don’t want to get another call from her.” She paused. “If you can’t handle it, Amy, you could turn this one over to another realtor. Everybody would understand.”

“I can handle it.” Amy needed this commission. With the Towle sale in question, she couldn’t lose this one.

“I hope so, Amy, because Meredith is a big client and we don’t want to lose her to another company. If you fail to make this sale, it reflects on all of us at Braxton.”

 

 

Meredith Chomsky, née Rubin Maxwell Sloane, took another sip of her mocha latte and contemplated the list she’d made of other realtors. She was tied to Braxton for two more weeks, but if things didn’t start moving that was definitely the end of that relationship. How much crap was she expected to put up with?

“Gloria, the flowers in the foyer need to be replaced,” she said to her housekeeper, who slowly polished the granite countertops with a dishcloth.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And check the flowers in the bedrooms before you order the new ones. They might need to be replaced, too.”

Gloria nodded, moving with a slowness that Meredith found irritating. It was a mystery how the little Puerto Rican ever managed to get anything done, but she did, so Meredith didn’t complain. Out loud.

“I’ll be at the gym for a few hours and then I’m getting my hair done, so I won’t be back for lunch. Oh, and could you call Phyllis Simon and tell her I won’t be able to make it to her party. The invitation’s on the board.”

Gloria continued down the long row of granite, her eyes focused on the honey-colored stone. Meredith wished she’d pause and make eye contact, but the last time she’d mentioned that, the look in Gloria’s eyes had scared her.

“Did you get my clothes from the dry cleaner yesterday?”

Gloria shook her head. “No, ma’am.”

“I told you I needed that dress today, Gloria.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Maybe you need to keep a list of things that need to get done, Gloria.”

There was no response.

“Don’t you think that would be a good idea, Gloria?”

“I didn’t forget, ma’am.”

“But you didn’t pick up the dry cleaning.”

“The dry cleaner was closed yesterday, ma’am.”

Was it Meredith’s imagination or did she see a hint of amusement in Gloria’s eyes? The housekeeper seemed to relish these exchanges. The problem was that Henry had hired Gloria and she’d worked for him for a year before Meredith accepted his proposal of marriage. It didn’t help that he was still visiting at least once a week, ostensibly to pick up things he’d left behind, but Meredith knew it was mainly to piss her off. Gloria seemed to enjoy that almost as much as he did. She’d fire her, but then she’d have to find and train another reliable housekeeper. Better to put up with the crap you know, especially if it was just for a while.

As soon as the house sold, she could rid herself of Gloria, of Henry, of Steerforth and its boring residents, and start a new life where people understood the meaning of the word “fun.”

She took a last sip of mocha latte and carried the open Starbucks cup over to the counter, deliberately slopping it so the liquid spilled over the edges and spread onto the freshly cleaned granite. “Oops,” she said with a little laugh. Two could play at this game. Gloria showed no reaction, but moved slowly over to mop up the spill.

Meredith took the front stairs to the second floor, her bare feet sinking into the plush carpeting, trying to survey the house with fresh eyes. Why was it taking so long to sell? It wasn’t priced too high; the people in Steerforth were just Yankee cheapskates. She’d done everything she could to make sure the place was spotless whenever there was a showing, even hiring an extra cleaning service to keep up with the demand. It was exhausting and it was taking a toll on her physically.

The lights surrounding the vanity in the master bath were shockingly bright. Meredith traced the lines at the corners of her eyes and turned sideways to survey the cellulite on her outer thighs. She hadn’t had time for a full spa treatment in months, and with the divorce she’d had to cut down on facials. The biggest asset she’d gotten was this house, which had seemed like a great thing at the time. But if it didn’t sell soon she wouldn’t be able to keep the gym membership, much less have the money to quit this town.

She’d met Sheila at a spin class and she’d been confident that the bubbly, effervescent, and hardworking real estate agent would be able to sell her house. And it had almost sold in the first week. Sheila had a buyer in from Texas and he’d been to see the house twice, even bringing his wife in to approve his choice. But then they’d brought in a home inspector. Five thousand dollars for French drains later, the buyers had found someplace else they liked better and Meredith still had to pay a small fortune for a landscape crew to come and prettify the mud piles left behind.

Sheila called it a “small setback,” but that was before the neighbor next door decided to contest the survey she’d done to sell the house. Another couple of thou to have the survey redone, plus the lawyer’s fees for battling the neighbor. It just went on and on. This house was sucking her dry and wasn’t it just her luck to have her realtor get murdered? Nobody believed her when she told them.

Of course, the powers-that-be at Braxton had been apologetic and assured her that this would not slow down the sale and that Sheila’s close friend and fellow realtor would make it her highest priority. They kept reminding her how “shocking” Sheila’s death was and how “devastated” everybody was at the office. As if they needed to remind her that Sheila had been killed. Like she wasn’t well aware of that. She didn’t lack sympathy, but for God’s sake, this was business.