Murder Can Rain on Your Shower (19 page)

thing extra. What
did
disappoint me—in spite of my resolve beforehand
not
to be disappointed—was that nobody who’d been working the shower last Sunday

had spotted any of the women entering or leaving the

dining room before lunch was served. Actually, not

one of them saw or heard anything at all that could add to the pathetically little I already knew.

I stopped at Kathy Marin’s office to thank her for

her assistance before I left.

‘‘Any luck?’’ she asked.

‘‘None.’’

‘‘Well, there’s always Dominick.’’ But she didn’t

look that encouraged herself.

‘‘Dominick?’’

‘‘Dominick Gallo, one of our waiters. Janice—Ms.

Kramer—said that if by any chance she didn’t return

by the time you were finished, I was to give you his name and home telephone number. Dominick’s the

only employee who was in last Sunday who isn’t here today. Oh, and Janice said to tell you that she was right; he’s expected back at work a week from

Monday.’’

Well, having scored a big zero with my questioning,

I no longer held out any real hope for tomorrow’s

interview with Carla Fremont, either. I’ll tell you how

discouraged I was at that moment: so discouraged that

even the fact of Nick’s phone call failed to buoy my spirits. I took the slip of paper Kathy extended to me and stuffed it into the jacket pocket of my yellow linen

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CAN
RAIN
ON
YOUR
SHOWER

119

suit.
A
fat
lot
of
help
Dominick’ll
turn
out
to
be,
I groused to myself.

If I had a tail it would have been between my legs when I left the Silver Oaks Country Club that day.

Chapter
18

And don’t think my mood was any better Sunday eve

ning. I was depressed with a capital D. By now I was actually dreading tomorrow’s meeting with Carla Fre

mont, certain it would be another total washout. I’ll tell you something. If it were somehow possible to

leave myself behind me, I’d have been out of that

apartment in a flash.

Anyhow, at a few minutes to eight, I was curled up

on the sofa trying to decide which awful TV show was

a little less awful than the rest of them, when the phone rang.

My heart jumped into my throat.
Nick!

Wrong.

‘‘Is this Desiree Shapiro?’’ a man inquired. He had

a perfectly nice voice, but since it wasn’t Nick

Grainger’s voice, my heart resumed its proper place

in my anatomy.

‘‘Yes, it is.’’

‘‘This is Chief Porchow over in Forsythe, Ms. Sha

piro. We’ve gotten the autopsy results on Ms. Mor

ton.’’ His tone became almost confidential. ‘‘She was

poisoned. But maybe you’ve already heard.’’

‘‘As a matter of fact, I did hear. Mrs. Morton’s

sister-in-law—Allison Lynton—told me.’’

‘‘I’d like to check out a couple of points with you, if you don’t mind. According to the information you

provided to Officer Smilowitz, you barely knew the

deceased.’’

‘‘That’s right.’’

‘‘Could you elaborate a little on the ‘barely’?’’

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ON
YOUR
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‘‘Well, Mrs. Lynton and I were the ones who gave

that bridal shower; it was for my niece, who’s engaged

to Mrs. Lynton’s son. Bobbie Jean—Mrs. Morton—

was a member at Silver Oaks, and she arranged for

the affair to be held there. She met us up at the club twice to help us organize things.’’

‘‘And those were the only times you were in her

company?’’

‘‘Yes.’’

‘‘So I don’t suppose you could have had much of a

motive for wanting her dead.’’

‘‘None at all,’’ I said flatly.

‘‘Would you have any idea who might have had ill

feelings toward the victim?’’

Well, since Wes had already fingered Allison’s four

buddies for the chief, I figured there was no reason for a lie here. (Which is something I only resort to out

of absolute necessity—or, on occasion, compassion.)

‘‘Actually, from what I’ve gathered, there was an un

pleasant history of some sort between Mrs. Morton

and some of Allison Lynton’s close friends.’’

‘‘And who would those friends be?’’

I ticked off the names.

‘‘Anyone else, Ms. Shapiro?’’

‘‘No one I’m aware of.’’

‘‘I have just one more question for you.’’
Now,

where
have
I
heard
that
before?
‘‘Did you see anyone going in or out of the dining room prior to lunch being

served?’’
God,
it
felt
strange
listening
to
my
own
words
coming
out
of
someone
else’s
mouth.

‘‘No, no one.’’

‘‘Then let me ask you this. Did you notice anything

at all of a suspicious nature that day?’’

This
made
it
two
questions,
but
I
should
talk.
I really felt for the man at having to give him another no, but

what could I do? ‘‘Umm, no,’’ I admitted sheepishly. He seemed to take this in stride. Obviously, it was a response he’d become pretty much accustomed to

with this case. And, boy, could I empathize with that!

The brief interrogation concluded with Chief Por

122

Selma
Eichler

chow’s extracting my promise to contact him if any

thing pertinent should occur to me.

I’d fallen asleep watching television (that’s how

stimulating a show it was) when the telephone jarred me awake.

Nick!
I thought, ever hopeful.

It was Ellen.

‘‘I just got a call from the Forsythe chief of police,’’

she said anxiously.

‘‘I’m certain he’s getting in touch with everyone

who was at the shower,’’ I assured her.

‘‘Honestly?’’

‘‘Honestly.’’ I wasn’t positive, but I imagined I

heard a sigh of relief. ‘‘You weren’t concerned that he might consider you a suspect, were you?’’

‘‘Of course not.’’ But my niece isn’t nearly as ac

complished a liar as I am.

‘‘He phoned me this evening, too,’’ I informed her.

‘‘Oh.’’ And this time I knew I heard a sigh of relief.

‘‘Did you mention that you’ve been investigating the

murder on your own?’’

‘‘Uh-uh. I didn’t see any point in it. Besides, I hated

to ruin what was left of the man’s day. So I decided to keep my mouth shut—for the present, at least.’’

‘‘You think he would object to your looking into

things?’’

‘‘What do
you
think?’’ I countered.

‘‘I think he wouldn’t have been overjoyed by the

news.’’ And she giggled. Well, Ellen’s infectious little giggle hadn’t punctuated a conversation of ours since Bobbie Jean’s death. And I was inordinately pleased

that it was making its return.

‘‘How’s Mike?’’ I asked then.

‘‘Pretty good—considering.’’

‘‘And his parents?’’

‘‘Allison’s okay, but Wes is still very depressed.

He’s going in to the office tomorrow, though. He says

if he doesn’t get back to work he’ll drive himself
and
Allison crazy.’’

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CAN
RAIN
ON
YOUR
SHOWER

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He was probably right, too.

Soon after Ellen and I finished talking, the phone

rang for the third time that evening. It was past ten by now, and having been wrong twice already, I

wouldn’t even let the name ‘‘Nick’’ enter my head. So

I wasn’t that disappointed to find my friend Pat on

the other end of the line.

She and Burton had come home from the movies a

couple of minutes ago, she reported, and there was a message from the Forsythe Police Department on her

machine. She was asked to contact Chief Porchow in

the morning. ‘‘I was wondering what it could be about.

Any ideas?’’

‘‘They simply want to verify the information you

gave Officer Smilowitz. For instance, they’ll probably

ask you again how well you knew the victim. And

now that it’s been established that a murder was com

mitted, they’ll naturally want to find out if you spotted

anything out of the ordinary that day. That kind of thing.’’

‘‘Just what I figured,’’ Pat declared, although I’d

definitely detected a hint of uneasiness in her voice. And believe me, Pat Wizniak’s nerves are a whole lot

steadier than Ellen’s.

But it’s a funny thing. It seems that even when peo

ple are innocent and have nothing whatever to hide,

getting questioned by the police is liable to make them

squirm a little. I probably shouldn’t admit this, being a PI and all, but under other circumstances that call from Chief Porchow might have made me the slightest

bit jumpy, too.

As it was, though, I was too depressed to let it

affect me.

Chapter
19

When I woke up on Monday I immediately convinced

myself to wait until after tonight’s seven p.m. meeting

with Carla Fremont before sticking my head in the

gas oven. And once again I began looking to this last of my suspects to provide some encouraging input.

Listen, I was trying really hard for optimism.

Anyhow, in the meantime I had a one-third-decent

day. The decent part being that I was unusually pro

ductive, transcribing a large portion of my notes. As for the two-thirds that weren’t so decent, first, Jackie and I had lunch at a new Italian restaurant that really

showed some promise—until a damn fly did a damn

swan dive into my minestrone. Then, when we were

walking back to the office, I succumbed to a silk scarf

that seemed to wink at me from the window of this

little boutique. Even on sale—a
nonrefundable
sale—

that scarf was ridiculously expensive. But I was a hun

dred percent positive it would be perfect with my light

blue suit—only to discover later that it did not go with

the suit at all. Or with anything else in my closet, for that matter.

But about that get-together with Carla . . .

On the way home from work I did some shopping

in preparation for her visit. Remembering Robin’s re

mark about her daughter’s penchant for celery and

carrots, I marched right past the cheese store in favor

of the greengrocer’s, where I painstakingly selected

the freshest and most appetizing assortment of

vegetables.

When I got upstairs I made some dip—and then

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CAN
RAIN
ON
YOUR
SHOWER

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suddenly my poor excuse for a brain actually started to function. I mean, hadn’t I speculated on Saturday that Carla’s rejection of her mother’s cooking might

not have been attributable to a diet at all—but to an innate desire for self-preservation? I hastily took the onion tart out of the freezer—you know, that same

onion tart that had so obviously failed to impress Alli

son last week.

I’d just removed it from the oven when the doorbell

sounded. It was seven o’clock on the button.

As soon as she walked in, Carla Fremont reinforced

what I’d concluded at the shower: She was definitely

no slave to fashion. The faded navy sweatshirt she

wore was at least two sizes too large for her skin-and

bones figure. (Compared to Carla, my niece Ellen was

a candidate for Weight Watchers.) Also, the girl’s tan chinos were frayed at the bottom, and there was a

large spot in the middle of the left leg. They did fit okay, though, being only slightly baggy. (In my book, slightly baggy is definitely preferable to slacks so tight

you don’t have to wonder about what type of panties a person has on underneath—assuming a person is

even wearing panties, that is.)

Carla obviously didn’t patronize the cosmetics

counters any too often, either. Her only makeup was

a touch of lipstick—although skin as pasty as Carla’s practically cries out for some camouflage. And it