Matchpoint (26 page)

“He could have had one of his henchmen do it,” I said reasonably.

“Where was Belinda the night of the murder?” Spencer asked me. He tossed the handcuffs in the air and caught them. Suddenly I knew what he was doing, why he brought me with him to the hospital. The police couldn’t get Belinda to talk, but Spencer thought I could. He figured I had some influence on her and could get her to say where she had been that night. I wasn’t so sure. So far, she was pretty independent, even going so far as to make her own matches.

“And there’s the issue of the flowers,” Spencer said.

“What’s wrong with flowers?” I asked.

“Belinda’s flowers are all poisonous,” he explained.

I blinked. “What do you mean, poisonous?”

“I mean, every one of the beautiful flowers Belinda grows at Bliss Dental could kill a man,” he said.

“Every flower?”

“Every flower,” Spencer said.

Belinda was doing a good impression of a deer in headlights. She took two steps back, cornering herself in the hospital room.

I was creeped out and disappointed in myself. I had pegged Belinda as a nice, unassuming person, not a gardener of death. “So?” I said. “Big deal.”

“The toxicology report is due any minute, but it looks like one of her flowers may be the culprit.”

“He had no face!” I yelled. Why did everyone forget about the face?

“The face was done postmortem. Where was Belinda the night of the murder?”

“Hold on,” I said. I took Belinda by the arm and ushered her out of the room.

“It can’t be that bad,” I told her. “You have to tell me where you were. Your life is on the line.”

Tears streamed down Belinda’s face, leaving a trail of black mascara.

“I can’t tell,” she sobbed. “I can’t.”

“Why not? Are you ashamed? Is it porn?”

“No,” she said, catching her breath through her cries. “I can’t tell you.”

“Spencer is about to arrest you, Belinda. Tell me before it’s too late.”

“I love flowers,” she said.

“I know you do.”

“It started out with some calla lilies, and then a couple elephant ears. Before I knew it, I had the largest private collection of poisonous flowers in the Southwest.” She broke down in long, wrenching sobs.

“I understand,” I said, patting her back. “I collected Cabbage Patch dolls for a summer when I was fifteen.” Try sleeping with twenty Cabbage Patch dolls staring back at you. Not easy.

Belinda wiped her nose on her sleeve. “You don’t know what it’s like to be me,” she said. “You have a boyfriend.”

“I think the word ‘boyfriend’ may be a stretch.” A huge stretch. An NBA stretch. I had blown it with Holden, and the bloom was off that particular love affair. I wondered if there was a way I could make it right with him.

“I’ve never had a boyfriend,” she told me. “I’ve never been loved.”

“I’m sure that’s not true.”

“It’s true, Gladie. Do you know what it’s like not to be loved? The only thing rubbing my thigh is my other thigh!”

She broke down in more tears. I didn’t know how to console her. Grandma would tell her to shut up and give her a cookie and the name of her true love. But I didn’t have a cookie, and I didn’t know who to fix Belinda up with. Maybe because I didn’t really know Belinda.

Obviously, Grandma was wrong about me. I wasn’t like her. I didn’t have her instincts, and I was a failure as a matchmaker.

“I have to pee,” I said.

“Me too,” Belinda said. We giggled, probably happy to talk about something as normal as peeing.

“They have communal toilets in jail,” I pointed out. That sobered her up quick. She stopped crying and took a deep breath.

“The morning of Dr. Dulur’s murder, I got an email.”

“From who?”

“I don’t know. He called himself ‘the Evil Queen,’ you know, like the one with the poison apple.”

“How do you know it was a man?”

“I could tell,” she said. “He said nice things about how I looked, the way a man would.”

“So, what did he want?”

“He wanted to meet me,” she said. Her breath hitched, as she swallowed a new wave of sobs. “He had a certain
flower to give me, one that’s not strictly legal, Gladie. One I could get in trouble for.”

I knew nothing about flowers or plants or gardening in general. I had worked at a tree farm in Minnesota for one day. Then a giant spider jumped on me from the branch of a Marshall ash tree, and that was the end of my burgeoning horticultural career.

“Why did he offer you an illegal flower?” I asked.

“I don’t want to go to jail, Gladie.”

“Belinda, Spencer wants to arrest you in the No-Face Case. Dubious flowers come a distant second. You know what I mean?”

Belinda swallowed, making a gulping sound. “I sort of advertised for it. You know, on an Internet forum. I’m kind of a celebrity in the poisonous-flowers online world.” She beamed with pride. “It was a crucial flower for my collection.”

“So you agreed to meet a stranger.”

Belinda’s face dropped. “I guess I’m sort of dumb. Anyway, he never showed up. I went way out of town to an empty parking lot and waited two hours for him. I was so mad, being made a fool of like that. But I was relieved after, because I was supposed to do the books at work that night. If I hadn’t been waiting for that jerk in the parking lot, I might have been another victim.”

My skin crawled like the Marshall ash tree spider was on me again. “Wait a minute. You were supposed to be at Bliss Dental that night?”

“Yes, to do the books.”

“Do you still have the emails from the mystery man?”

IT WAS a flimsy alibi, but it was a start. Spencer had a couple cops escort Belinda home and told her to come in to the police station the next afternoon to give her statement.

The gun was taken into custody, as well, to test against the bullet extracted from Holly’s neck. It turned out it was a .38 caliber and a good candidate for being the gun that did the deed.

Spencer and I stopped in to see Holly on our way out, but she was unconscious and had a tube down her throat, helping her breathe and preventing her from getting pneumonia. Miraculously, she was going to live.

Her face was peaceful as she lay in bed. Smooth, but not the usual waxy look she had when she was awake.

“I wonder what she wanted to tell me,” I said.

“If she wakes up, she’ll tell us,” Spencer said.

“You weren’t going to arrest Belinda, were you?”

Spencer smirked his annoying smirk.

“You wanted me to get her alibi out of her. You used me,” I said.

“You make it sound cheap.”

“We have a strange relationship.”

“Oh, Pinkie, don’t use the ‘R’ word. You know it gives me hives.”

“There is no hope for you,” I said.

“Still, it is a weird coincidence about Belinda’s gardening habit and the use of the scarecrow,” Spencer said. “I wouldn’t say she’s entirely in the clear.”

On the way to the elevator, we found Nathan Smith wandering the halls. He looked shell-shocked, pale, and exhausted.

“I was trying to find Holly,” he said when he saw us.

“She’s still unconscious,” I said. “You want a ride home?”

“My car’s out front.”

We walked out together. It was a peaceful night. Quiet. Chilly. I folded my arms in front of me to brace against the cold.

“What a week,” Nathan commented. “Who would
ever guess working in a dentist’s office would be hazardous?”

“Are you okay to go home alone?” Spencer asked.

“Yeah, sure,” Nathan said. “I got a double lock on my door.”

It never occurred to me that Nathan would be afraid for his safety, but it made sense. He had been one of the killer’s victims. He was lucky to be alive after suffering a blow to the head. It was reasonable that he feared the killer would try to finish what he started.

“Hey, Nathan,” I called after him as he made his way to his car. “If you ever want to talk or just want company, come on over to my grandmother’s house and see me. The door’s always open.”

I DOZED on and off on the way home. Spencer parked in the driveway. He was no longer in hiding and didn’t care if people knew he was at my house.

I unlocked the front door and Spencer followed me in. His duffel bag was packed and waiting for him in the foyer.

“Oh, good, you’re leaving,” I said, eyeing the bag.

“Huh,” he said, running his hand through his hair. “Your grandma must have packed my stuff.”

“I’ve got the bed all to myself!”

“Don’t sound so gleeful, Pinkie, about kicking me out of your bed.”

We walked into the kitchen, and I took out a box of frozen waffles. “I’m not shedding any tears, Spencer. I’m sure you’ll find another bed within the hour.”

“No, not me. I’m taking a break. Women are a lot crazier than they used to be.”

“Duh. That’s because you make them that way. It’s the Spencer effect. You turn women into psycho lunatics.”

Spencer popped open two root beers and handed me one.

“At least Rosalie has been subdued,” he said.

“You sound happy about being hated.”

I poured maple syrup over a waffle and took a bite.

“You know what?” he said, cutting into his waffle.

“I’ve discovered being hated is better than being loved. Safer.”

“Well, then you are the safest man in America, Spencer.”

“Amen to that.”

“Nathan’s injury couldn’t have been self-inflicted, could it?” I asked.

Spencer put his fork down and swallowed. “Where did that come from?”

“I want to be safe, too. And Nathan looks spry, like he could outrun you.”

“According to the doctors, it’s not a self-inflicted wound,” Spencer said. “Also, he was very lucky it wasn’t a fatal blow. At the very least, it knocked him out, and there was no weapon left at the scene. So the poor bastard was another victim. He ran; the killer knocked him out and left him for dead and then went back to the dentist to finish him off and butcher him.”

I pushed my plate back. “Can I have your TV?”

IT WAS the middle of the night before I finally got into bed. I had taken a long, hot shower, deep-conditioned my hair, and slathered my feet in Vaseline and covered them in clean, thick athletic socks that Spencer had forgotten under my bed. I changed my sheets, put on a pretty linen nightgown, snuggled under my covers, and turned on the TV to the old-movies station. I was asleep in five minutes.

I woke up a little before dawn to Rhett Butler giving
Scarlett the business. What a man. Why did hats go out of style? Clark Gable wore them well.

I felt someone watching me, and I jumped when I noticed a figure sitting on the chair next to my bed.

“I’m sorry I startled you,” he said softly. Holden’s long body sat rigid and his expression was serious.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m saying goodbye.”

I TURNED off the television and sat up in bed.

“Goodbye?” I stopped breathing. My jaw clamped shut, and my tooth pain returned with a vengeance. “I’m sorry about Spencer. I didn’t want him to kiss me. It was his idea, not mine.”

Holden moved to the bed, sitting by my side. He put his hand on my leg and caressed me through the covers.

“No, pretty lady. I don’t care about Spencer. I don’t think of him as a threat. Truthfully, if I did, I would have beaten the hell out of him long ago.”

“Is it me? I’m sorry about my hair.”

“I love your hair.”

“I started drinking Chinese tea.”

Holden laughed. “Your body is perfect. The first time I saw you, I wanted you.”

“You first saw me at night in the dark.”

“I saw your silhouette. Your breasts. Your hips. And I wanted you.”

I wanted him, too, like a diabetic wants a chocolate chip cookie. I took his hand and rubbed his palm with my thumb. “And now you’re saying goodbye.”

“I’ve traveled around the world at least a dozen times,” he said.

“I went to Epcot Center once,” I said.

“I’ve paddled down the Amazon, followed in John Hanning Speke’s footsteps to the source of the Nile, sailed from Tahiti to Hawaii with only the stars to guide me, and climbed the heights to Tibet. I’m an explorer, Gladie. That’s how I’ve made a living since I was sixteen years old.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“Am I what?”

It occurred to me that Holden might have been drinking his organic shampoo. “I’ve had a lot of jobs in my life,” I told him. “I never knew you could make a living exploring.”

“I wrote about it, took photos,” he explained.

“The women in town have been trying to figure you out. They guessed the craziest things. Bird thought you shot Osama bin Laden, but Bridget thinks you were a butt model. Nobody guessed explorer,” I said.