High Heels Are Murder (19 page)

“Gemma heard her mom talking on the phone this morning. Gemma’s mom said Celine had a seizure and she went into a coma. Gemma’s mom said it was a good
thing she died, because Zoe’s sister would have been a vegetable. Is it good that Celine died?”

“It can be,” Josie said, and felt the panic tearing her insides.

Now what do I say? Josie wondered. What words of wisdom can I give Amelia that might save her when she’s sixteen?

How do you make your daughter understand there are fates worse than death? How do you tell your child that some impulsive moments can never be changed—like the one that had created her?

How do you know when you are changing your life forever?

If Josie didn’t have those answers at thirty-one, how could her daughter know them at age nine?

Click
.

Josie pulled out her camera and snapped Cheryl when she dropped the baby off at Bonnie’s house again on Monday morning.

“Why are you doing that?” Alyce said. “Her mother knows she uses a sitter.”

“Her husband doesn’t,” Josie said. “Cheryl gave me the idea. She said I didn’t have any photos of her gambling. Now I will.”

Click. Click
.

Josie photographed Cheryl going into the Prince’s Palace.

Click. Click
.

Josie captured Cheryl frantically feeding a flashing slot machine. Josie took other pictures, including one of Elvis’s guitar mounted on the casino wall.

“Why are you photographing a guitar? Cheryl’s nowhere near it,” Alyce said.

“So I’ll look like a tourist.”

“You look like a tourist from Festus,” Alyce said.

Today Josie wore sensible flat shoes, a blue polyester pantsuit and a short gray grandma wig that added twenty years to her age. Alyce, in her suburban matron suit of beige cashmere and blond hair, looked young enough to be Josie’s daughter. Cheryl didn’t pay them the slightest attention. No one did.

Click. Click
. More photos of Cheryl at the slots.

“Her mother knows Cheryl gambles,” Alyce said.

“It’s one thing to hear her daughter gambles,” Josie
said. “It’s another to see her sitting at the slots like a zombie.”

“Zombie is right,” Alyce said. “Cheryl lost again, but there’s no expression on her face.”

Yesterday, the slots had magically spewed out money for Cheryl. Today, the fickle machines gulped it down, ten dollars at a time. By eleven thirty, Cheryl had lost five hundred dollars.

“Game’s over,” Josie said. “She’ll have to sit out till the next session.”

“Maybe she’ll get some lunch,” Alyce said. “I’m hungry.”

But Cheryl went outside, making calls on her cell. She talked quickly as she walked with small, swift steps to the valet parking area. Then she turned flirtatious, laughing and smiling into the phone. She seemed dressed to meet a lover. On this gray November morning, Cheryl wore a tight black suit with a flirty skirt, black stockings and high patent heels with ankle straps.

“I thought you weren’t supposed to wear patent leather after Labor Day,” Alyce said.

“Better call the fashion police,” Josie said.

“No, I think it’s odd, that’s all. It wouldn’t mean anything if I wore patent leather. But someone like Cheryl pays attention to those things,” Alyce said.

They watched Cheryl snap her cell phone shut and tap her foot, waiting for the valet.

“We’d better hike to the parking lot,” Josie said. “We don’t want to lose her.”

They virtually ran to Alyce’s car—or rather, the car Alyce was using—an ancient 1980 Ford she’d borrowed from her housekeeper. The car had patches of gray Bondo, like mange, and a rumbling muffler, but it started right up.

“This car is more embarrassing than yesterday’s wig,” Alyce said.

“You’re smart to drive it,” Josie said. “Cheryl might notice your SUV the third day in a row.”

Cheryl’s car arrived. She tipped the valet and headed for the highway exit.

“Must be motel time,” Josie said.

“At least we have the right car for that sleazy place,” Alyce said.

But Cheryl didn’t go to the no-tell motel. They followed her SUV to a turn-off near the airport. Billboards for cheap long-term-parking lots dotted the road.

“She’s going on a trip?” Alyce said. “She wouldn’t leave her baby with a sitter overnight.”

Without signaling, Cheryl swung into a residential street lined with neat, boxy apartments, anonymous places rented mostly by pilots and flight attendants. Airplanes roared overhead, low enough that Josie could see their landing gear. The noise was deafening.

“How can anyone live here—or sleep here?” Alyce said.

“I had an aunt who lived near the airport. You get used to it,” Josie said. “After a while, you don’t even hear the airplanes.”

Cheryl turned into an apartment complex lot and parked in a resident’s space. She pattered inside on her patent-leather heels. Alyce and Josie circled the block, then drove back to the lot and parked at the opposite end in a guest spot.

“This is weird. Does Cheryl have an apartment here?” Josie said. “Why? These are mostly studios and one-bedrooms.”

“Maybe someone else has the apartment,” Alyce said.

Josie waited five minutes, then entered the lobby. Like the building itself, it was neat and anonymous. “The elevator stopped on the fourth floor,” she said.

They watched through the glass lobby doors as a man about forty swung a sleek black Lexus into the lot. As he climbed out, Alyce said, “Omigod, it’s Hal Orrin Winfrey.”

“You know him?”

“He lives in our subdivision. His wife and I are on the Christmas party committee. I can’t let him see me here.”

Alyce pushed Josie through the fire stairs door. She cracked the door and watched the lobby.

“Don’t get excited,” Josie said. “Hal could be here for a perfectly legitimate reason.”

“Name one,” Alyce said. “That slimeball. His wife is home with two kids and he’s fooling around with Cheryl. I knew I never liked that woman.”

Hal entered the building whistling. He was about six feet tall and well tailored. His face was round and open. His eyes were an innocent baby blue. As Hal punched the elevator button, Josie snapped his picture through the crack in the door. They could still hear him whistling as the doors closed.

“The elevator stopped on the fourth floor,” Josie said.

“We’ve got him,” Alyce said. “He’s meeting Cheryl. I know he is.”

“No, you don’t,” Josie said. “He could be taking a nap or doing some work.”

“You don’t whistle when you go to take a nap. Hal has no business here. He belongs in West County with his wife and children, or in Clayton at his office.”

Alyce’s floaty hair stood almost straight out and her face was red with indignation. She was angry, Josie thought, not just for her friend, but for all duped wives. Including, perhaps, herself.

“I can’t wait for that snake to slither on down again. Mr. Hal Winfrey is going to tell us all about his love nest.”

They waited for nearly an hour. Josie found a newspaper in the lobby and brought it back to the stairwell. She and Alyce paged through it, but neither was in a mood to read. The Mel murder story had slipped off the pages.

“I’m glad I brought my camera. This rendezvous will make for primo photos,” Josie said. “I’ll show Cheryl these photos later on, and she’ll talk or else.”

They watched a mail carrier fill the lobby boxes. A cable TV repairman went to the third floor. Alyce’s stomach growled.

“I’m starving,” she said.

Josie ransacked her purse for a pack of peanuts. They ate them, then took turns drinking from the lobby water fountain. Finally, the elevator hummed, the doors opened, and Cheryl stepped out.

Sinning—if that’s what she’d been up to—had no more effect on her than winning. Cheryl looked exactly the same as when she’d pressed the elevator button an hour ago. She did not have a hair out of place or a wrinkle in her sleek black suit. Her makeup was perfect. Her pale skin was not flushed with pleasure or anything else.

Josie snapped Cheryl’s photo as she opened the lobby door and clicked outside in her high heels.

“That’s weird,” Josie said. “She’s wearing black heels, but not the patent-leather ones.”

“Do we want to follow her?” Alyce said.

“I’ll bet everything I own she’s going back to that casino,” Josie said. “Let’s brace Hal before he leaves.”

“You mean go up to his apartment and surprise him?” Alyce said. “I’d like that.” Alyce smiled, but it wasn’t pleasant. Josie’s large blond friend looked like a Valkyrie going to war. Josie had good reasons to dislike Cheryl. Alyce seemed to have developed an instant hate-on for the woman.

“My guess is he’s waiting fifteen minutes so he isn’t seen leaving the building with his love muffin,” Josie said.

“His what?” Alyce said. “Cheryl’s more like a stale cupcake.”

“Meow,” Josie said.

There were two white doors on the fourth floor. One had a twig wreath decorated with orange ribbons and yellow silk flowers. “Someone lives in that apartment. Hal’s love nest is the one with the blank door,” Alyce whispered.

Josie nodded her agreement, then knocked.

“Are you back for more, Muffin?” a man’s voice called through the door.

“I told you,” Josie mouthed. Alyce wrinkled her nose in disgust.

Hal threw open the door wearing a towel and a smile. Josie shot him with her camera. The smile slid off. The towel stayed.

At first, Hal’s face was blank with shock. Then it was
creased with rage. “Alyce Bohannon, what are you doing here? Why are you spying on me?” Hal tried to gather his dignity, but it was gone.

“Bluster won’t work, Hal,” Alyce said. “Explain yourself or your wife Mattie gets that photo.”

Hal seemed to shrink before their eyes. He’d just stepped out of the shower. His wet hair, plastered to his head, looked thin. He must have had a good tailor. Seminaked, Hal had narrow shoulders, nice legs and too much belly fat.

“Can I put on a robe?” he said.

“Where is it?” Josie said. “I’ll get it for you.” She wasn’t going to let him escape out the back way.

“On a hook in the bathroom.”

The apartment must have been rented furnished. It was hard to imagine anyone deliberately choosing the plain beige furniture and no-color carpet.

Josie threw Hal a blue velvet robe. He shrugged it on, then sat down heavily in a square beige chair.

“It’s not what you think. I swear I never slept with her,” he said. Despite his recent shower and the November cold, sweat poured off his forehead.

Alyce looked at the tousled bed. “I believe you, Hal. There wasn’t any sleeping going on in that bed.”

Josie took a picture of the rumpled sheets.

“No!” shrieked Hal. “You don’t understand. There was no sex. She won’t do sex.”

“So what will she do?” Alyce asked.

Hal said nothing. His face was dangerously red.

“Tell me or tell your wife,” Alyce said. It was the voice of judgment and justice.

Hal looked at his bare feet. “I paid her to walk on me in patent-leather heels,” he said.

Josie bit the inside of her mouth to keep from laughing. Alyce looked like grim fury.

The silence made Hal even more frightened. “Here, I’ll show you,” he said.

He opened a closet in the living room. Women’s shoes, all size seven, were stacked on six shelves. Some were red, others were clear plastic, most were black. All had outrageously high, skinny heels and needle toes.

Hal pointed to a pair of four-inch patent heels with ankle straps.

“You’re one of Mel’s shoe freaks,” Josie said.

“Please,” Hal said. “I’m not a freak. I have special needs.”

“How can Hal go home to his wife with another woman’s footprints on him?” Alyce said.

Josie started giggling. Then she was laughing and couldn’t stop. She sat in the housekeeper’s beat-up car in the dreary apartment lot and laughed until she had tears on her face.

“What’s so funny?” Alyce demanded. She was still furious and hopped up on adrenaline after her encounter with the half-naked Hal.

“Everything,” Josie said. “Hal in a towel. Hal’s closet full of high heels. The fact that he pays Cheryl to walk on him. It’s all funny.”

“I’ll walk on him,” Alyce said. “I’d like to kick him in his—” A low-flying jet drowned out the rest of her words.

“He’d probably enjoy it,” Josie said. “He might even pay extra. This is so bizarre. Hal looks like a normal executive. He lives in your subdivision. You had no idea he was into anything weird, right?”

“None,” Alyce said. “He’s like all the other husbands. He plays golf and tennis at the club. He buys furnace filters at the Home Depot. He chaired the pumpkin fund-raiser for our church. Now I wonder what he did with those innocent Halloween pumpkins.”

“Nothing, unless they wore Pradas,” Josie said. “I can see why Mr. Suburban Dad would have a secret shoe-freak apartment out by the airport: None of his set lives there. If anyone he knows should spot him on these roads, they’ll think he’s parked in some long-term lot.
But here’s what I don’t get: Why is he paying Cheryl—someone from his own world—instead of a hooker or a woman he picked up in a bar?”

“Oh, I can answer that question,” Alyce said. “A hooker could blackmail him, especially if she saw his picture in the paper as Businessman of the Year. A single woman might make demands. She’d be dangerous, unpredictable. She might pressure him to leave his wife and get a divorce. She’d probably see him as a rich target and want to break up his marriage.

“But if Cheryl is from his own set, she has as much to lose as he does. If anyone knew about Cheryl stepping out with—or on—Hal, she would lose her house, her husband and maybe her child.”

Alyce was really wound up on the subject. “Cheryl’s protected, too,” she said. “Hal’s going to keep his mouth shut. He won’t brag to the boys in the locker room. He’d be laughed out of the country club. None of his golf buddies would share a locker with a spike-heel lover. They might slap him on the back if he was having an ordinary affair, but this is the Saturday-morning missionary crowd. They don’t like anything strange.

“His wife, Mattie, certainly wouldn’t stand for it. She’d give Hal the boot and tie him up with an expensive, career-damaging divorce.”