High Heels Are Murder (27 page)

“Why did you run?”

“There was nothing I could do for Mel. I was afraid I’d get blamed somehow. No one would believe I’d passed out and found him dead. I saw my bloody footprints on the floor and cleaned them up. Then I ran out of there. I was in a total panic.”

“Who do you think killed Mel?”

“Not Fiona. She’s too scared to do anything. She’s terrified her husband Trip will find out. She says he has
an awful temper. Paladia might have. Mel was really pressuring her, worse than either of us. But the killer could have been one of Mel’s foot friends. They fought about things.”

“What things?”

“Prices. What we did. Hal wanted more fantasy nights. Hal was like an addict for those fantasy nights. He almost punched out Mel once when Mel said he couldn’t risk them because of the nosy lady next door.”

“What nosy lady?” Josie said.

“The neighbor to the east,” Cheryl said. “She hated Mel. She thought he was holding drug parties. She kept some kind of diary to show the homeowners association all the cars at Mel’s place. Mel was afraid of her.”

“Do you think the neighbor woman killed Mel?”

“I wish,” Cheryl said. “She’s eighty if she’s a day. She can barely hobble to her front door.”

“So you have no idea?” Josie said.

“Everyone keeps asking me who killed Mel. If I knew, I’d tell them and make this go away. The cops aren’t going to look for the real killer now. They think I did it.”

That was the sad truth. They both knew it. Josie sneaked a glance at her watch. Visiting hours were over in five minutes. Josie had nothing more to say to Cheryl, and nothing to lose. She might as well ask the one question that nagged at her.

“Cheryl, why did you keep the shoes?” Josie said.

“Which shoes?”

“The ones with Mel’s blood on the soles. The murder shoes. If you’d tossed them, the cops might never have connected you to his death.”

“Oh, I couldn’t throw them away,” Cheryl said. “They were brand-new Bruno Maglis.”

We have an amazing ability to transform ourselves from swans into ugly ducklings—a real genius for ruin.

I did a pretty good number on myself, Josie thought. But Cheryl does everything better. She’s the grand winner in the screw-up sweepstakes. The perfect wife and mother transformed herself into a gambler, a housewife hooker, and murder suspect. No way I could beat that.

Cheryl’s destruction frightened Josie. She fled the county jail as if hounds were after her heart. Once outside the Justice Center, she breathed in the cold November air, great gulps of it, even if it was tinged with carbon monoxide fumes from the downtown Clayton traffic.

Cheryl had talked. She gave Josie the information her mother wanted so desperately. But what good was it? How would it help Cheryl? If anything, it made her seem even guiltier.

Mrs. Mueller believed her daughter was innocent, but Josie hadn’t seen any evidence to support that theory. So what did she do now?

Josie needed to think. She needed coffee. She needed to see Josh. That man was a bigger addiction than caffeine. She positively craved him. Her car seemed to drive itself to Has Beans.

When she pulled into the coffeehouse lot, her heart slipped. There was no sign of his car. She’d have to do without her Josh fix today. Well, she’d come this far. Might as well get some coffee.

Josh was not only at the store, he was alone.

“Where’s your car?” Josie said. “I didn’t see it. I thought you weren’t here.”

“So that’s why you stopped in,” he said. “You don’t really want me, just my coffee.”

“I want you both,” she said. “I need your brew and I admire your brain.”

“Too bad you like my fine mind,” he said. “I have other awesome attributes.”

Josh bounded over the counter with that one-handed pirate leap and gave her a deep kiss, running his fingers through her hair. He makes me feel like an actress with a long, gorgeous mane, Josie thought, instead of a working mom with plain brown hair.

“Harrrumph!”

The man cleared his throat like he’d swallowed a Roto-Rooter. But when he spoke, his voice was as small and prissy as he was. “I can always go to Starbucks if you’re too busy to wait on me,” he said.

Josie pulled away from Josh, her face flaming. She’d never heard the guy walk in. She blundered to the lumpy couch, hiding her red face in the paper. This time, she read Cheryl’s news more carefully. Sure enough, where it jumped to the inside page, there was a short interview with Mel’s neighbor, Adela Quimby Hodges, who’d lived in Olympia Park all of her eighty-three years.

“I knew something improper was going on next door,” she told the reporter. “I warned the homeowners association about that man. They thought I was an old crank. Now we have a murder, the first one in Olympia Park history. What’s that going to do to property values, I ask you?”

“Your mocha java, sir,” Josh said.

“Thank you,” the man said and slammed the door behind him.

“I have something hot for you, too, ma’am,” Josh said. He started to leap the counter again.

“Whoa. Saturday’s only two days away,” Josie said. “Maybe we’d better wait.”

“I wish you weren’t right all the time,” Josh said. “Your espresso is ready. How hot is the murder investigation?”

While she sipped her coffee, Josie told him about her talk with Cheryl. “Did you ask her if she left the dead rat on your porch?” Josh asked.

“What good would that do?” Josie said. “She’d clam up and never tell me anything.”

“I think she did it,” Josh said.

“The murder or the rat?” Josie said.

“Both,” he said.

“You’re probably right,” she said. “But I promised her mother I’d try to find a way to exonerate her. You were telling me about your car.”

Josh seemed confused. “Uh, right. My car. My car’s at the body shop. I’m having the rust fixed and the body painted midnight black. It’s a classic Z. Should be ready by Saturday night.
Vroom. Vroom
.”

The bell rang and a young man called, “Yo, Josh, I need what you got!”

“I need to go,” Josie said, leaving her cup on the counter. “See you Saturday night.”

Outside in her car, she opened her cell and called Alyce.

“I saw the morning paper,” Alyce said. “Looks like we don’t need to do surveillance on Cheryl. We know where she is.”

“What a mess,” Josie said. “I feel sorry for her. I never thought I’d say that. Her life is ruined.”

“How’s her mother?” Alyce said.

“Mrs. Mueller is convinced Cheryl is innocent. She wants me to find some way to prove it. I’ve got an idea.”

“It better be a good one,” Alyce said. “Cheryl looks beyond help to me.”

“I’d like to know exactly who was at Mel’s house the night of the murder,” Josie said.

“And the cops are going to tell you?” Alyce asked.

“Not a chance,” Josie said. “But Mel’s nosy neighbor will. Adela Quimby Hodges was in the morning paper. She kept a diary of the goings-on at Mel’s. Disapproved of them deeply.”

“You called her for an appointment?” Alyce said.

“No, her line is busy. I’ve tried several times. I figure she’d hang up on me, anyway,” Josie said. “You don’t
get to be eighty-three by talking to strangers. But she might talk to one of her own kind.”

“Who?”

“You,” Josie said.

“Josie, I’m not in the Olympia Park circles,” Alyce said.

“Sure you are. You belong to the Junior League. You talk the talk and walk the walk. I can sort of dress like your crowd, but Adela will know I’m not one of you. Please, please come with me.”

“How are you going to get past the guards at the gate without an appointment?” Alyce said.

“Charm?” Josie said.

“Not after a murder. Not when Adela’s shot off her mouth in the newspaper. We’ll take my husband’s electronic pass. He goes there all the time on business. He has a gate card for preferred visitors.”

“And he’ll lend it to you?”

“No, but he keeps it in his car. I’ll just swing by his office and borrow it, then put it back,” Alyce said. “He’ll never know it’s gone.”

The guards waved benignly when Alyce breezed through the “residents only” side of the gate. Why shouldn’t they? Big, blond and utterly at ease, Alyce seemed to belong.

Mrs. Adela Quimby Hodges welcomed her, too. Mrs. Hodges was a tiny woman with a shining mass of white hair and a pronounced dowager’s hump, partly concealed by tailoring. She leaned on a black cane with an elegant silver heron’s head.

“Did you say Junior League?” she said.

“Yes, I did,” Alyce said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get through to you. There seems to be something wrong with your phone. You probably knew my mother, Katheryn Hellespond.”

“She was your mother? Oh, my, yes. Very active in the community. Very active indeed. Her death was a great loss. There’s nothing wrong with my phone. I had to take it off the hook ever since I talked to that young reporter. It’s been a nuisance, but it was my civic duty. Follow me into the parlor.”

They passed large framed bird prints, delicately drawn yet vibrantly colored.

“Nice birds,” Josie said.

Mrs. Hodges looked at her oddly, then said, “Those are Audubons, dear.”

Josie felt like an idiot.

“My late husband was a birder. He left me those, as well as an excellent pair of field glasses. I use them for my hobby.”

“You’re a birder, too?” Alyce said.

“I watched the odd birds who turned up at Mel Poulaine’s house. No one would listen to me, but I was right about that young man.”

The living room was furnished in a stiff forties style, with flowered curtains, piecrust tables, huge silver bowls of cigarettes and bulbous lighters. There was even a long-handled silver silent butler to empty the ashtrays into. Josie hadn’t seen one in years.

Alyce and Josie sat across from Mrs. Hodges on one of the oddly rectangular couches.

“I’ll ring for tea.” Mrs. Hodges gave orders to a woman nearly as old as she was in an honest-to-God maid’s uniform. “Now, what was I saying? I’m little forgetful these days. And a tad tired. This is too much for an old lady.”

“You’re much too sharp to call yourself old,” Alyce said. “You were telling us about your neighbor, Mr. Poulaine.”

Adela’s face turned pink with excitement. “It was disgraceful what went on in that house,” she said. “Women and men, in and out all hours of the day and night. Drugs, I thought. But it was prostitution, which was just as bad. And now, murder. I don’t understand why Zinnia stayed on there as housekeeper. She is a respectable woman.”

“Did you ask her?” Josie said.

“I don’t associate with servants,” Mrs. Hodges said sharply.

Josie resolved to let Alyce do the rest of the talking.

“My housekeeper, Mrs. Simmons, told Zinnia she was endangering her reputation and any future employment.
Zinnia became quite defensive and said her employer didn’t do anything while she was there. That was quite true, quite true. Mel held his most outrageous parties on Zinnia’s days off.”

“Did he have a party the night he was killed?” Alyce said.

“No. But he had several visitors. I kept a diary. The police took it, though,” she said.

“Oh.” Josie couldn’t keep the disappointment out of her voice.

“But I kept a copy on my computer. My great-grandson, Trey, told me to always have a backup.”

Adela stumped over to a dark wood secretary with gold oval handles and took out a leather folder. Josie and Alyce waited impatiently while the old woman made her slow progress back. Just as she settled in, the ancient maid arrived with a tea cart and there was more fussing.

Alyce offered to pour, which speeded things up somewhat. After the great issues of sugar, milk or lemon were decided, Adela was finally ready to talk.

She opened the folder and proudly showed Josie the detailed list of cars, license-plate numbers, times of arrival and departure, and descriptions of Mel’s visitors. “Man 5 feet 8 with gray suit and red suspenders, drives black Lexus. Man, bald, overweight, with yellow tie, black Lincoln Towncar. Driver is Judge Summers Harlan.”

“Amazing,” Alyce said.

“That list reads like a who’s who of St. Louis business,” Josie said. “Look. There’s the head copywriter at a major ad agency. Three surgeons and an ENT specialist. A big brewery executive. Enough lawyers to start a white shoe firm. Oh, dear. There’s a bishop.”

“Not from our church,” Adela said. “I rejoice in the knowledge that no clergy from the Episcopal church were involved in Mel Poulaine’s antics. My great-grandson tracked down the plates from the state. He can do that on the computer. Very clever boy.

“I complained to the board of Olympia Park, but it did no good. One of those license plates belongs to an Olympia Park trustee, I’m sorry to say. He told the
board I was an old busybody. That’s why I couldn’t get the board to do anything about the shenanigans at that house. Melvin’s mother must be turning in her grave. She was a Veiled Prophet maid of honor.’

“What year?” Alyce asked.

“I believe it was 1938. Or was it ‘39? No. I think it was 19 and 37. Somewhere in the late thirties. When it was still an honor instead of a farce.”

“May I see your diary for the night Mel died?” Josie asked.

Josie looked at the list of names. Mel had been busy on his last night on earth. Paladia had been there. So had a prominent surgeon, “silver hair with bald spot in back, green scrubs.” Josie wondered if he’d met Paladia for fun and games in the pretend shoe store. Fiona—or at least her car—had stopped by for forty-five minutes. Did Fiona tell her hubby she was running to the grocery store? Cheryl had been there the longest, Josie noted.

“You say Cheryl arrived at seven p.m. and stayed until nine thirty,” Josie said.

“She kept her car hidden in the garage, but I saw her drive in and I saw her leave,” Adela said.

Mel was long dead by then, if the coroner was right, Josie thought.

There was one more notation: “Black car. 8:17 to 9:01.”

“No license plate on the black car?” Josie said.

“It was covered with mud. Deliberately, I think.”

“No make?” Josie said.

“It was hidden behind the bushes in the driveway. I couldn’t see it clearly. All those modern cars look alike to me, I’m afraid. I’m not as good at distinguishing them as my great-grandson. When I was young, you could tell an Oldsmobile from a Buick. Cars had character.”