The Good Girl's Guide to Murder (28 page)

Something Beth Taylor had said about Kendall swam into my head.

“
She could’ve gone into sudden cardiac arrest. It would’ve looked exactly like a heart attack on autopsy, and no one would’ve been the wiser
.”

It would’ve looked like a heart attack.

A natural death.

No one the wiser
.

And I wondered if someone close to Marilee had hoped to get away with murder, by betting she, like Kendall, had the potentially fatal arrhythmia.

Someone who stood to profit from Marilee’s death, particularly if he were romancing Marilee’s confused and emotionally needy daughter—perhaps mesmerizing the girl with talk of a future, of marriage.

Someone like Justin Gable, perhaps?

Mother had nearly demolished her second glass of brandy when my cell started ringing. I figured it was Malone, wondering what was going on, but it was Deputy Chief Dean, and she didn’t sound any too happy.

“Ms. Kendricks, would you mind driving over to the Mabry residence,” she said, sounding a lot like my mother when she states a direct order in the guise of a question.

“What’s wrong?” I scooted to the edge of the wicker seat, and Cissy’s tear-filled eyes peered at me over her snifter.

“Kendall’s been asking for you. Said you’re the only one she can trust since you saved her life.” Deputy Dean cleared her throat. “Um, she refuses to believe her mother’s dead. Said she wants to talk to you. That she trusts you.”

“Oh, wow.”

“I wouldn’t bother you, Ms. Kendricks, except she’s adamant, and Dr. Taylor thinks it best you come. Kendall’s refusing to allow the doctor to administer a sedative until she sees you.”

“I’ll be right over.”

“There’s just one other thing.”

I waited for her to finish.

“You haven’t heard from Mr. Gable lately, have you?”

“Justin? No.” It’s not as if we were pals or anything.

Anna Dean hesitated. “The thing is, we can’t seem to locate him anywhere. Looks like he packed up in a hurry and took off for parts unknown.”

Talk about a heart-stopper.

Justin Gable was MIA?

To quote the Farmer in the Dell when he stepped on a fresh cow patty:

“Shit.”

I
left my mother in Sandy’s capable hands—after refusing to take her with me—and I headed over to Marilee’s address in Preston Hollow, only about a five- or ten-minute drive, depending on traffic.

Then I hit the Mockingbird and Hillcrest intersection and saw a backup that looked like the lines at the emissions testing facility.

I smacked a palm against the steering wheel in frustration, then rolled down my window and craned my neck out to see the holdup. Squinting through the sun and inhaling exhaust, I finally spotted the accident smack in the middle of the cross streets.

A bright yellow Hummer had apparently rear-ended a relic of a Chrysler, turning the Chrysler’s trunk into an accordion. No one seemed to be injured, though the driver of the rusty sedan apparently had a few words to share with the driver of the Hummer, choice words, if his hand gestures were any indication.

At least the police were already on the scene with their flares and orange cones. They were doing what they could to restore order to the busy cross streets. I figured they’d have a lane open before the tow truck showed up. Or so I hoped.

I ducked my head back inside the Jeep, rolled up the window, and grabbed my wildly colored M. Avery Designs handbag from the passenger seat. Snatching out my cell phone, I speed-dialed Brian Malone, since he’d told me he’d be working at home all day.

Two rings trilled, then three, before someone picked up.

“Hello?”

The voice that chirped those two syllables wasn’t Malone’s unless he’d gone soprano since I saw him that morning. “I’m sorry, I must’ve hit the wrong button. I was looking for Brian Malone.”

“Oh, no, you’ve got the right number. He’s here, just buried in briefs.” I could hear the laughter in her voice, and I bristled. “Can I ask who this is, please?”

Like she couldn’t tell from the Caller ID?

“It’s Andy . . . Andy Kendricks,” I said impatiently and took a page from Carson Caruthers, asking, “Just who the hell are you?” But she wasn’t listening anymore, she was calling out to Brian in a too perky tone, “
Bri . . . hey, Bri, it’s someone named Andy . . . a girl
.”

I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel, gritting my teeth, not in the mood for anything even remotely like this. I needed support, and I wanted Malone to provide it. So who was the bimbo who’d picked up his phone?

All I knew for sure was that it wasn’t me.

Finally, Malone came on the line. “Hey, Andy, I was just . . .”

“Buried in briefs, I know,” I tried not to snap. “I thought you were
working
.”

“I am . . .”

“So who’s that? Your answering service?”

“Naw, it’s Allie Price. She’s an attorney at ARGH. We’re on a case together, Bishop v. Bishop? Remember? I told you about it. Two brothers who used to be in partnership, doing a little money laundering on the side, until one of them slept with the other’s wife and suddenly they’re at each other’s throats . . .”

Take a breath
, I told myself. Chill.
Don’t say anything stupid that you’ll regret later when you’re not so shaken up
.

“She sounds blond.” I already pictured her looking very much like Reese Witherspoon. “She is, isn’t she?” It came out before I could stop it. So much for my good intentions.

“Who? Allie?”

No, Toad, the Wet Sprocket
.

“Yes, Allie”—for Pete’s sake—“unless there’s another woman in your apartment besides her.”

“No, no, of course, there’s not . . . and, yeah, she’s blond, but what does that have to do with anything”—he hesitated, cleared his throat—“Whoa, Andy, you almost sound like you’re . . .”

“Upset? Because I am upset,” I ran right over him before he could piss me off any more than I was by using the dreaded “j” word. “I just came from Mother’s, and it was no garden party, Bubba.”

“Bubba?”

“I said I’d call you if someone died at the Diet Club taping, right? Well, they did. Marilee Mabry. So if I seem worked up, that’s why, okay? I’m on my way over to see Kendall, because the police are there with her, breaking the news.”

“Marilee Mabry is dead?”

“Yeah, Bri,” I sneered, “she’s roadkill. And now I’m stuck in traffic on the way over, and Kendall won’t let Dr. Taylor sedate her until she hears the bad news from me, because she thinks they’re all lying . . . and, to top it off, Justin Gable is missing . . . which makes him look guilty as hell . . . for all we know, he could’ve murdered Marilee. But never mind.” I felt tears prick my eyes, and something caught in my throat. I had to swallow hard to get rid of it. “I won’t keep you another minute, since I’m sure you and your associate are chomping at the bit to get back to your briefs.”

Malone started to stammer out a response, but I was finished.

I hit the “end” button, switched the ringer off, and tossed the phone onto the passenger seat.

For crying out loud. What had I just done?

Bad move. Really bad move, I decided, but it was too late to take any of it back, and I honestly didn’t care. A minor tiff with Malone meant little compared to what I was sure to find at Marilee’s house.

I dropped my head and pressed the balls of my hands against my closed eyes to keep from crying. I had kept it in at Mother’s, for her sake as much as mine, and suddenly I felt the trembling begin.

Don’t crumble now, Kendricks
, I told myself.
No wimping out, you hear? Kendall needs someone to lean on. And you’re it
.

Horns honked behind me, and I raised my chin to see the police waving traffic around the accident scene. From the persistent
wonk-wonks
, I realized the line of cars behind me wasn’t any too happy with my slow response.

My hands shaking, I put the Jeep in gear and lurched ahead, sweating buckets despite the AC spewing cool air at me.

As I drove toward Douglas Street, I kept catching my eyes in the rearview, telling myself I could do this.

Courage, I reminded myself, was my first—not my middle—name, at least according to Daddy.

I would be strong if it killed me.

After taking enough deep breaths to qualify for a Lamaze certificate, I felt calmer, saner, and as much in control as I was going to be under the circumstances. My mind kept running over everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours, trying to figure ways that I might’ve changed the turn of events, to stop them from falling like dominoes until Marilee was dead, too preoccupied to notice the mansions I passed on the way to the wrought-iron gates that marked the entrance to Marilee’s property.

If Ross Perot had been out on the sidewalk in an undershirt, walking his dog, it would hardly have registered.

I sped up the length of pebbled driveway toward the sprawling house that resembled a Mediterranean villa only in some greedy builder’s mind. A tiled roof and a splashing fountain did not a villa make. It was a Dallas palace, pure and simple.

I didn’t bother to aim for a shady spot, merely jerked the Jeep to a stop squarely beneath the merciless sun, right behind two squad cards from the Highland Park Police Department and a Mercedes S-series with vanity plates—
DOC TEE
—that had to belong to Beth Taylor.

My eyes scanned the rest of the drive. The silver BMW Roadster wasn’t visible. I don’t know why I’d expected to see it, since Justin had taken off.

Snatching my keys from the ignition and grabbing my purse and cell from the passenger seat, I left the Jeep to boil and strode through a smaller set of iron gates to the enormous carved front doors. I pushed my finger on the bell once, then again, until I heard the click of the lock.

One side of the arched pair of doors pulled inward, and I found myself nose to nose with the deputy chief. Her slim brow wrinkled beneath her no-nonsense salt-and-pepper hair.

“Hit traffic?” she asked, which sounded nicer than “took you long enough to show up.”

“Accident at Mockingbird and Hillcrest.”

“Oh, yeah, heard that one radioed in after we got here.” She gestured for me to enter, and I stepped past her into Marilee’s home, the first time I’d set foot in the residence.

“How’s Kendall?” I asked as she shut the huge door behind me.

“She’s in denial, won’t even speak to us.”

My chest ached, knowing that, no matter how much Kendall had fought with her mother, she would miss Marilee like hell. As much as Cissy drove me insane, I couldn’t imagine the day when she would no longer be around.

“Where is she?”

“Upstairs. Dr. Taylor’s with her.” She grabbed my arm as I started for the stairwell. “First, Ms. Kendricks, would you mind coming with me. I just want to make sure we’re on the same page.”

Though I desperately wanted to see Kendall, I didn’t argue. She had a gun and a badge, and I had neither. My mother hadn’t raised a fool, that’s for sure.

So I followed Anna Dean into an enormous living room area with high ceilings painted with frescoes and expansive paned windows that looked out onto Marilee’s kingdom. Just an acre, Carson had told me, but it reminded me of visiting Colonial Williamsburg when I was a kid.

“Impressive, huh?” Deputy Dean said.

“Yeah, very.” I would never have expected to find such an extensive backyard farm in such a posh section of North Dallas. Though I’d seen photographs of Marilee’s spread on the Web site for
The Sweet Life
, it was pretty amazing to finally view it with my own eyes.

She’d gotten permits from the city to raise geese for pâté, chickens for eggs, honeybees, and even organic catfish in a pond that sparkled beneath the late day sun. What had Carson said? That the pond was as big as the pool at the Y. I realized now that he hadn’t exaggerated. There were rows, too, of organic vegetables. Plenty of them. I recalled from the Web site that, among other things, Marilee grew potatoes, French beans, tomatoes, Japanese eggplant, arugula, Thai basil, and cucumbers.

Quite a spread, I mused, for a woman who never had a hair out of place or a chip in her manicure, despite dipping her fingers into plenty of pies. Which reminded me of another comment Carson had made, that Marilee had done little of the work herself on her backyard farm, like on the set, always leaving the dirty work to someone else.

“Did she give her staff the day off?” I asked, because I hadn’t detected anyone else around, except a few blue uniforms.

“According to young Ms. Mabry, an animal caretaker came by this morning, and we’re trying to track him down,” Deputy Dean told me. “Apparently, a number of the staff had worked the party at the studio, and she let them off until tomorrow as compensation.”

“So no one else is in the house but Kendall?”

“Yep.”

“Which means no one saw Justin leave?”

“Unfortunately, no.” The deputy chief set her hands on the back of a wing chair, looking past me out the windows. I followed her eyes and spotted a few of her officers out back, poking around the henhouse. “Before Kendall clammed up, she did say that he brought her home from the studio once the crew had packed up and taken off for your mother’s. She claims she went upstairs to lie down and promptly nodded off. When she got up several hours later, she couldn’t find him. She noted the drawers and closets in his room were tossed. That’s, uh, his quarters as opposed to the room he sometimes shared with Mrs. Mabry. A large Coach duffel bag is allegedly missing and so is Mr. Gable’s car. We’ve got a BOLO out on him now.”

The only “bolo” I knew about was the string tie Paw Paw Kendricks had worn around his neck.

My bemusement must’ve been easy to read, because Anna Dean clarified, “A be-on-the-lookout-for.”

“Ah.” I rubbed my arms as regret washed over me. I found myself thinking how different things might’ve been today if someone had called the police last night from the hospital. It was one of those rare times when I wished I’d listened to my mother. “So you think Justin knew what would happen at the taping this afternoon? That he”—I wet my lips, finding it hard to get out—“may have caused her death and had his escape route planned ahead of time? I know he’s a gigolo, but do you really think he’s a killer?”