Murder by Candlelight (17 page)

"Weather-wise," it was a perfect
August night, low clouds, but no threat of rain, a cool,
woodsy-scented breeze rustling the trees.

Rolling through the outback parking
lot, Z pulled into a slot beside a large, bent-up (but newly
painted) green dumpster behind Susan's building. Switched off the
engine and killed his lights.

Leaving the lot, he climbed a
four-step wood stairway that led to a log bridge spanning a
moat.

Going down the other side, Z entered
the breeze way bisecting Susan's quad; then hooked left to Susan's
front door.

Susan's privacy -- to say
nothing of her
safety
-- was "guarded" by the cheapest possible door, the hollow
kind today's builders put on all apartments and most high-priced
homes. (High dollar didn't mean high
quality
like it used to.)

Z had installed a deadbolt for Susan.
But if the door itself shattered ...?

He knocked. Two thuds.

Sounded ... timid. If you tapped just
twice, it seemed like you were afraid to disturb the occupant -- in
this case, close to the truth. An aggressive, four-time knock,
heralded either a cookie-wielding Girl Scout or two Mormon
missionaries. Knocking three times sounded ... just right. Z
wondered why.

The door opened, a dark-haired young
woman peeking out, a girl he'd never seen before. Did he have the
wrong ...?

"Mr. Zapolska?" she ventured timidly,
her small face screwed up like a baby with the colic.

"Yeah."

She brightened. "Susan's busy in back.
Asked me to answer the door. Come on in." In spite of the impact of
Z's looks, she was now able to smile.

Stepping inside the tiny, wallpapered
entranceway, Z saw that the woman -- girl, really -- was dressed in
what looked like a World War II sailor suit, round canvas gob-hat
on the back of her head. She had on a navy blue pea jacket (except
in summer-weight material and cut shorter than its seagoing
counterpart,) the jacket altered to become an open vest. A white
neckerchief was slip-knotted around her throat to support what
looked like her high school ring. Dark blue pants, flared at the
ankles over white canvas "deck" shoes.

She was wearing perfume. Something ...
fruity.

Pretty, but without
Susan's figure ... or length of leg. She
did
have a cute, button
nose.

Even though the girl looked brighter
than the normal "insurance toiler," she had to be one of the
"colleagues" Susan had spoken about inviting.

Another step took them into the living
room.

The apartment was the same -- formal,
in an ultra-modern way. Blue and black. Steel and glass, Z feeling
that Susan had decorated the apartment like this because she
associated her former, more comfortable, residence with her maniac
husband -- now safely dead.

Closing out that sad period of her
life, she'd needed radical change. In living quarters. And, lucky
for Z, in men.

Z hoped this cubist phase would
eventually wear off, Z longing for the day Susan would go back to
restful furniture, to thick rugs before the hearth, to sofas
suitable for romance.

Meanwhile, with brief apology, the
girl had disappeared, probably to help Susan "in back."

The doorbell buzzed. ....

That's right!

There was a
button
out front.
Somehow, Z had never learned to use it. Had always knocked.
....

Could this be why Susan
seemed to know when it was
Z
at the door?

Feeling a little foolish, Z walked
back to the door and opened it to find another woman-girl, this one
looking about as scared of him from the outside as the first girl
had been from within. Big and ugly did that to people.

"Susan's busy. In back," Z said. "I'm
Bob Zapolska."

"Oh, yes. I've ... heard about you.
The detective." She managed a wan smile on her thin but pleasant
face.

"Come in," Z said, standing aside for
her.

Stepping inside, then into
the living room, the woman's rapid appraisal of the place told Z
this was the first time she'd been invited. "This is ... nice," she
said appreciatively. Since Susan was older, had been with the firm
longer, Susan no doubt made more money than the girl -- was what
she really meant. Not that
any
of the company serfs were paid a fraction of what
the top guys made: executive salaries, plus perks, plus bonuses all
"earned" by cheating the little guy.

This young woman was taller than the
first one, though shorter than Susan. Slender, more because she was
young than because she was exercise-firm. She had straight,
semi-long blond hair that curled under at the edges, dark eyes, and
an aristocratic -- sometimes called Roman -- nose. Was wearing a
pink, boat-neck sweater of summer-fluffy rayon and slim khaki
slacks. Inch-and-a-half loops of lacquered brass dangled from her
ears, a single serpentine of gold around one wrist.

She smelled like ... girl.

Pretty classy for a
secretary.

Z was beginning to think
he should get to know
more
of Susan's friends.

"I see you've met." No longer "in
back," breathtaking Susan had slipped into the room. Tonight, she
wore a softly draped, gray/green linen dress, with long sleeves
cuffed at her slender wrists. Open-throated, convertible collar.
Flap, chest pockets ... looking delightfully full. The dress
buttoned halfway down to be cinched at the waist with a two-inch
belt, its hem cut well above the knee to show off a considerable
length of shapely leg.

Giving Susan's outfit an
appreciative look, Z concentrated on the
real
Susan. He loved her hair --
vinyl-shiny black. Shoulder-length. Gently curled in a rumpled sort
of way. Her eyes were so deep a blue they could look black at
night. Her lips, generous -- in more ways than one. Teeth, not
perfectly straight, the kind that spoke of sincerity and making it
on your own.

As usual, she looked fit
and tanned; tan, her natural color. Susan never
tanned
.

"We haven't met formally," the second
girl said. "I'm June." The girl bravely stuck out her
hand.

Z shook, carefully.

"This is Z," Susan said.

"I know."

The first girl now came in from "the
back."

"Rachel, this is Z."

While not offering to shake, Rachel
did manage a nice smile.

"We might as well sit down," Susan
said, encouraging them to do so by sitting herself on one end of
the blue, uncomfortably low-backed divan.

Feeling he should do something to
help, Z sat on the other end of the sofa -- squatted on, would be
more like it, the sofa's iron frame digging him just below the
shoulder blades when he tried to lean back.

The other women picked rigidly
straight chairs, drawing them up on the other side of the steel and
glass coffee table, then perched in them gracefully, as much at
home in these anti-human seats as birds on power lines.

Silence.

A silence that gave Z hope. Maybe
Jamie would do the decent thing and not show up. If that happened,
the four of them now present would spend an hour in pointlessly
polite conversation -- like people did who didn't know each other
-- after that, the two insurance girls going home.

Leaving Z and Susan
unchaperoned!

"Would you like something to drink?"
Susan asked nervously. Z shook his head. Though his mouth was as
dry as toast, he didn't think he could swallow ... air.

"I had a late supper," June said, also
shaking her head.

"You got any gin?" Rachel
asked.

"Uh ... No. I don't think
so." Like Z, Susan wasn't much of a drinker. "The best I can do is
white wine. And, of course, Coke ... Diet Coke," she said, looking
apologetically at the women, then grinning down the sofa at Z to
remind him she stocked the nasty stuff for
him
.

"Wine would be great," Rachel said,
with a toss of springy curls.

Susan scrambling up to disappear "in
back," the other women were trapped with Z in the silence of the
room.

Z never knew what to say to
women.

Just as clearly, the women didn't know
what to say to Z. Did they ask him about his cases? If so, what was
the polite way of going about that? He could see thoughts like that
whirling behind their eyes.

If the women knew
each
other
, they
apparently thought it impolite to talk shop in front of Z, meaning
that, without Susan to bridge the gap between her guests, Z and the
women would remain, forever, mute.

As Z was considering an poignant
comment about the weather, Susan returned, a glass, corkscrew, and
magnum-sized wine bottle in one hand, a tray of uncooked vegetables
and toy sandwiches in the other -- and Z's diet coke, in a glass,
no less -- Susan putting the tray on the coffee table, the women
making the proper murmuring noises about the variety of food and
how good it all looked.

The wine ceremony took another minute,
Susan corkscrewing the stopper, popping out the cork, pouring a
full glass, Rachel accepting the medium-sized tumbler to drain the
contents in four gulps, handing the glass back so Susan could pour
her another drink before Susan sat down. Z's judgment was that, if
Jamie didn't get here soon, Rachel might be sleeping over. Under
the couch.

Putting the bottle within easy reach
of thirsty Rachel, Susan sat down again. "We're all here, but ...
the guest of honor." Susan tried to smile.

Silence. Except for the sound of
Rachel swallowing.

The hostess with the duty of
jump-starting the party, Susan tried again. "What did you do at
work today?"

"Nothing," Rachel said,
reaching for the bottle to fill her "flagon." (Remembering the
dated word
flagon
reminded Z of a bit of silly movie dialogue that went: "The
chalice from the palace has the brew that is true, but the flagon
with the dragon ....")

"Me, either," June was saying, the
girl looking at the ceiling.

Z knew what was wrong.
Rachel and June were nervous. And why not? They were about to
experience something (the seance) that was completely foreign to
them. Attending a seance -- seeming like such fun at work, in the
daytime -- now struck them as a little ... frightening.
People
talked
about how much "fun" it was to have "new experiences," but
found it more enjoyable to
talk
about flying to Tahiti, boating in the
Everglades, or eating Mongolian "cuisine," than to actually
do
it. Most people found
"new experiences" more frightening than pleasurable.

Z wasn't worried about the
seance. Mostly, he had to admit, because on the nights he and Jamie
had worked together on the ghost house case, he'd learned that
Jamie, girl ghost hunter, thought all that supernatural stuff was
bunk!
Z's
fear
was caused by his having no idea what little
Jamie
had in mind for this evening's
"entertainment." Always uncertain about
any
woman's desires, Z was terrified
by what might be the imaginative needs of Jamie Stewart!

The doorbell buzzed.

So much for Z's prayer that the ghost
hunter had a change of heart about this evening's
torture.

Getting up quickly, Susan crossed the
room to enter the "foyer."

An exchange of "Hi" at the door had
the two women appearing in the living room, Susan towering over
Jamie Stewart.

Jamie. Same short blond hair. Same
perky, blue-eyed face. Same "endowed" look on top. And yet
....?

What was different about Jamie was
that she was wearing a dress, a slinky, black, long-sleeved dress.
V-necked. Plain. The skirt flaring dramatically into princess
pleats, the hem swishing just below the knee. (While Jamie's legs
were certainly pleasing to ... look at, the girl didn't have
Susan's fashion model "gams.")

"Working" with Jamie at
the "ghost house," the two of them tossing the Kunkle place, he'd
never seen Jamie in anything but shirt and slacks. (At the ghost
house, he hadn't seen her in much of
anything
.)

"Hello," Jamie said to the others in
the room. Her voice low. Seductive.

Though Z had never noticed it, Jamie
and Susan had identical voices. Could it be that the "sound" of a
woman attracted Z as much as her looks?

What Z
didn't
need was more distracting
thoughts than he already had!

"Jamie, this is Rachel. Rachel
Roberts." Susan indicated the sailor suit, the "middy" draining her
fourth glass of wine so she could nod at the newcomer. Z wondered
if Rachel could still talk. Wondered if something about sailor
suits drove whoever wore them to drink. .....