Murder Can Rain on Your Shower (16 page)

kitchen, she’d also have run a pretty big risk of being spotted if she tried slipping in that way. So what does

that leave?’’

This was how I had it figured, too. ‘‘The side door,’’

I said, nodding in agreement. It was really the murder

er’s only sensible choice.

Follow me for a minute.

At one end of the Minerva Room (you know, where

we’d had our cocktails and hors d’oeuvres) a left turn

brings you to a hallway that provides access to the dining room via a side entrance. Across from this en

trance and about six or seven feet beyond it is the ladies’ room. So about five minutes (more or less)

before lunch was scheduled to be served, Bobbie

Jean’s killer could—and no doubt did—sashay down

that corridor looking to all the world as if she had nothing more sinister in mind than powdering her

nose.

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Selma
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Door to

Hallway

Ladies Room

to Parking Lot

Exit

Room

va Room

Hallway

Dining

Miner

Doors to Kitchen

Hallway

to seating area

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I’ve done a very rough sketch to make it easier for you to visualize the layout. Keep in mind, though, that

my skill at drawing fits right in with my talent for the piano and my proficiency at Rollerblading.

I had just gotten to my feet preparatory to leaving when Ellen suddenly turned somber. ‘‘Something just

occurred to me,’’ she murmured. ‘‘If it hadn’t been

for my shower, maybe she would be here today. What

I’m saying is, the shower presented one of the people who hated Bobbie Jean with an opportunity to poi

son her.’’

‘‘You could be right, Ellen. It’s possible that if not for the shower Bobbie Jean
would
still be with us. But if so, that would almost certainly not hold true for very long. Listen, considering the way that woman

lived her life, she practically
asked
to be murdered. And sooner or later, whoever did the job on Sunday

would have had another chance to accommodate her.’’

Ellen appeared to relax a bit.

‘‘Trust me,’’ I assured her, hammering the message

home. ‘‘The only thing in doubt here is when.’’

Chapter
15

I’d been advised that, traffic permitting, Saturday’s

drive to Greenwich, Connecticut, should take slightly

under an hour. So just to be sure I’d make that twelve

thirty lunch at Robin Fremont’s, I’d left my apartment

at ten thirty. And no, my math may not be anything to brag about, but it isn’t
that
bad. First, there was that ‘‘traffic permitting’’ business to allow for. And then, my sense of direction being what it is, I had to tack on some additional time for an unintentional de

tour or two.

Still, I was late.
Extremely
late. If ever you could legitimately lay the blame on an act of God, however,

this was it.

I’d no sooner picked up my Chevy at the garage

than it started to drizzle. And before long, those gen

tle little drops morphed into a genuine torrent. Which,

I suppose, was nifty for our reservoirs, but it was hell on all of us who were behind the wheel that morning.

I mean, I can’t even count how often I had to pull onto the shoulder of the parkway because I couldn’t

see a foot in front of me.
And
thank
you,
WLTW,
for
that
‘‘sunny
and
78
degrees
with
a
chance
of
showers
toward
evening’’
weather
prediction
of
yours.
At noon I called Robin from my cell phone to ap

prise her of my whereabouts and suggest that she eat without me. But she insisted on waiting until I got there.

‘‘Listen, I love to cook, and I rarely have a chance to fix anything for anyone these days,’’ she told me.

‘‘Whenever Carla—my daughter—visits, she’s on an

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other silly diet, so she seldom has more than a couple

of carrots and a stalk of celery here.’’

Well, since the woman put it that way. . . .

It was past two before Robin and I finally sat down

in her lovely pink-and-white circular dining alcove—

and I valiantly attempted to get down a lunch the

memory of which still makes my stomach turn over.

Somehow the woman had managed to screw up

chicken salad, which I regard as a real challenge.

Never before, however, have I tasted so much dressing

on so little poultry. I mean, that poor bird’s parts were

drowning in a sea of wine vinegar. Plus, the chicken chunks, while few in number, were extra-large—and

so tough that my teeth started to ache. But it wasn’t only the salad that was a minus 10. The accompanying

cherry Jell-O mold—and I’m not much for Jell-O

molds to begin with—might have been made by Goodyear. The croissants were burned almost to the point of incineration. And dessert was a lumpy custard of

some kind that smelled like Shalimar Perfume. (I

swear!) But if all this wasn’t enough to induce a per

son to consider fasting, there was the pie`ce de re´sis

tance: a cup of the only coffee I’ve ever experienced that’s on a par with my own. A fitting finale, I sup

pose, to what had preceded it.

I could now appreciate why Carla was always on

‘‘another silly diet.’’

Anyhow, my hostess and I had agreed to postpone

any talk of Bobbie Jean until we were through eating.

But once the meal was blessedly over and the table

was cleared, we got down to business.

Robin was the one to kick things off. ‘‘So Bobbie

Jean’s salad was poisoned,’’ she said matter-of-factly.

‘‘I see the word has traveled.’’

‘‘Allison told me. And then yesterday I got a call

from that police chief, who also let me know she’d

been murdered. What’s his name again?’’

‘‘Porchow.’’

‘‘Yes, Porchow. He’s paying me a visit this evening.

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I gather somebody informed him that Bobbie Jean

and I weren’t on the best of terms.’’

‘‘Would you mind telling me what happened be

tween the two of you?’’

Robin didn’t answer at once. And when she did,

there was bite in her voice. ‘‘My feelings about Bobbie

Jean have nothing to do with anything that happened

between the two of
us.
They’re the result of what she did to Carla. The woman not only wrecked my

daughter’s marriage but ruined her health in the pro

cess.’’ And now Robin focused her attention on the

few crumbs remaining on the tablecloth. With the side

of her palm, she swept those that were within her

reach into a neat little pile in front of her before add

ing, ‘‘Carla and Roy were happy together, too—until

Bobbie Jean came along.’’

I shook my head in commiseration. ‘‘How did they

meet, Bobbie Jean and your son-in-law?’’

‘‘They enrolled in the same class—some sort of pho

tography course. She was quite a bit older than Roy, but evidently love closes its eyes to wrinkles. Because it didn’t even take a month for Roy Connell to aban

don his wife of only two years and move out of their home. Carla, as you might expect, was a physical and emotional wreck after Roy left her. In fact, she was barely functioning. She stayed with me for eight

months, you know. But eventually she got back to

herself again, thank God.’’

‘‘And moved to Manhattan,’’ I contributed.

‘‘That’s right. She was determined to make a fresh

start. So she took a job there and found a cute little one bedroom not far from her place of employment.

She resumed using her maiden name, too. In the

meantime, Roy had obtained a quickie divorce, and

he and that miserable woman made it legal.’’ A mo

ment later Robin tagged on defiantly, ‘‘And I don’t

care if she
is
dead—she was still a miserable human being.’’

‘‘I was informed that your former son-in-law died

in an automobile accident.’’

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‘‘Yes. Before Roy and Bobbie Jean were even mar

ried a year. I understand that not only had he been drinking that night, but that he’d been boozing it up for months because he and Miss Hot Pants weren’t

getting along that well anymore.’’

‘‘Tell me something,’’ I said. ‘‘Had Carla and the

victim ever been friends?’’ (I asked this not because it was really relevant, but because I’m really nosy.)

‘‘No. Naturally, they were acquainted with each

other. Bobbie Jean used to live right next door—with Allison and Wes. And even after she got her own

place, she still spent a great deal of time there. But she and Carla were too far apart in age for there to be any sort of friendship.’’

‘‘Well, I can appreciate why you and your daughter

had such bitter feelings toward Bobbie Jean,’’ I

commented.

‘‘Listen, there’s something I want to make clear.

Although neither of us ever forgave Bobbie Jean for

what she did, we had nothing to do with her death. It’s been seven years since Roy walked out on Carla, and she’s been over him for ages. She has a new life now, and there’s a new man in it, too. Believe me, if Carla or I had wanted to slip whatever it was into Bobbie Jean’s salad, we wouldn’t have waited this long

to do it.’’

‘‘Well, the victim did live abroad for quite a while,’’

I pointed out.

‘‘Yes, but on and off. She was back in the States

often enough. Even when she made her home in Eu

rope, she’d visit her brother about every six months.’’

‘‘I’m assuming that Sunday wasn’t the first time you

were in her company since she ran off with your sonin-law.’’

‘‘No, it wasn’t. Over the years we would occasion

ally bump into her at various functions.’’

‘‘When did you see her last? Prior to the shower,

I mean.’’

Robin frowned in concentration ‘‘I think it must

have been about two years ago, when Carla and I

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attended a surprise birthday party for Wes. Bobbie

Jean was there with her newest acquisition, that poor Geoffrey Morton. They’d just relocated to this country

from some London suburb.’’

‘‘Her presence must have made it pretty awkward

for you—you and Carla, I mean.’’

‘‘It did. A little, anyhow. But we weren’t seated

anywhere near Bobbie Jean, so it wasn’t too bad.’’

‘‘This birthday party—were Lorraine Corwin and

Grace Banner also there?’’

‘‘No. Lorraine was living in California. As for

Grace, she sent a very nice gift and her apologies, claiming she’d come down with the flu. But if you ask

me, the real reason she didn’t attend was that she still

wasn’t up to any contact with Bobbie Jean. To be

honest, I half-expected that she’d be a no-show at El

len’s shower, too.’’

‘‘Speaking of the shower, it couldn’t have been very

comfortable there, either, for you and Carla. Particu

larly since it was held at Bobbie Jean’s country club, and, in a way, that made her one of the hostesses.’’

‘‘We never regarded her as any hostess. Of course,

we’d have preferred her being anyplace but. We man

aged to avoid her, though. Look, it was a shower for Mike’s fianceé, and neither Carla nor I would have

dreamed of missing it. Besides’’—and Robin smiled

here—‘‘it was an opportunity to see what Silver Oaks was like.’’

Now, there was something very sly about that

smile—you really had to be there to appreciate what

I’m talking about. But at any rate, I got the strong impression that Robin was holding back something of

significance. So I gave her an ‘‘Oh?’’ which almost

unfailingly produces a response.

Sure enough, she got up and moved her chair closer