The Good Girl's Guide to Murder (29 page)

I considered that my mother and her cronies could’ve gotten sick if they’d done more than pick at their own slices of Death by Chocolate. Though I wondered how much damage a high dose of ephedra could’ve done to an otherwise healthy heart, as opposed to Marilee’s badly wired one?

“As for whether or not Justin Gable is responsible for Marilee Mabry’s demise, your guess is as good as mine.” She shrugged epaulet-covered shoulders. “I try not to deal in the hypothetical. I prefer to wait until I have solid evidence pointing to a suspect. But Justin Gable is certainly acting guilty by running. We’re doing a quick check of the house and grounds now, with Kendall’s consent. We found some interesting items in the kitchen and Justin’s bath. Seems Mr. Gable was in such a hurry to scoot that he left a stash of his herbal supplements. If tests link them to the cake that Marilee Mabry was eating when she died, I’d say he’s in big trouble.”

Death penalty-type trouble, I imagined.

Was there any kind worse?

“We also located his passport and around a thousand dollars cash stuffed down into a pair of Tony Lamas in the closet.”

“His passport?”

Anna Dean rubbed her jaw. “Makes you think he’s either coming back or not going far, doesn’t it?”

Or that he hadn’t planned this out very well. And he was supposedly so good at cutting and running.

I stuck my hands in the pockets of my shorts, just to have something to do with them.

“Has anyone contacted Gilbert Mabry?”

“That’s my next stop,” the policewoman confirmed. “I want to tell him myself. Sometimes a person’s reaction to such news can be very, uh, enlightening.”

I nodded, but my thoughts weren’t on Gilbert Mabry or the possibility that he’d break down and confess to poisoning a cake. “So Kendall wants to see me alone? Will Dr. Taylor stay in the room with me, just in case?”

I was still afraid for Kendall’s health. I couldn’t begin to imagine what it would do to her when it sank in that Marilee wasn’t coming back.

“Don’t worry. Dr. Taylor and I will be waiting outside the door.”

“Okay.”

She pushed away from the wingback chair. “Let’s go.”

She strode purposefully toward the foyer and began to ascend the stairs.

At the bottom of the steps, I froze for a moment, taking in a deep breath, trying to slow my racing heart.

You can handle this, Kendricks
.

My daddy had always told me that I could handle anything, if I had to.

Courage
.

I reached for the carved mahogany balustrade and went the way of the deputy chief, marching upward until we reached the plush-carpeted second-floor landing.

“She’s in her mother’s room,” Anna Dean told me before we reached a closed door with an officer standing outside it. He pushed it open for Deputy Dean and me to enter.

The bedside lamps glowed softly, but no other lights had been turned on. With the drapes fully drawn, the room seemed far from cheery. A suitable gloom, I thought as I took a few steps in and saw Beth Taylor rise from a chair near the king-sized canopied bed. My gaze quickly focused on the girl who sat beneath the gauze canopy, pillows plumped behind her and covers drawn over bended knees.

The doctor and the deputy chief exchanged nods. Beth squeezed my shoulder as she passed, but didn’t say anything. The door clicked softly after their exit, leaving me there with Kendall, alone.

“Hey,” I said tentatively, feeling my chest ache as I approached and her face came into focus in the gleam of the scallop-shaded lamps. Shadows underscored her dark eyes. Her hair fell in lank waves on either side of her face. She looked like a street waif, weary and impassive, as if she’d bottled up all her emotions to keep her heart from shattering.

I settled beside her on the edge of the bed, close enough to touch her hand. But I didn’t. “I wanted to come over even before I heard that you were asking for me. I figured you could use a friend.”

She drew her arms up to her chest, clutching tight to a battered Snoopy doll that appeared to be missing the black ball of his nose.

“I can’t believe it, Andy,” she whispered. “I can’t believe that Mummy’s dead. It doesn’t make sense. I saw her before she went to Cissy’s, and she was her usual old self, bossing everyone around, yelling at Carson for this or that. Maybe they made a mistake. Maybe it wasn’t her at all.”

“I’m sorry, Kendall.”

“I trust you, Andy. Mummy told me that I would’ve died if you hadn’t gotten me help last night.” She hugged the Snoopy even tighter. “I’m so used to people lying to me, but I know you wouldn’t do that.”

I saw the flicker on her face, the desperate hope that I would change fate with a few words. But I couldn’t.

“Yes, it’s true about your mother. She’s gone. I was there when it happened. I’m so sorry,” I said again and reached for her then, caught one of the hands that clutched the Snoopy and drew it into mine, holding fast.

“She’s gone . . . she’s really gone. She’s not coming back?”

“No.”

She pressed her lips together, nodding to herself, admitting to herself that it was so, that her mother was gone for good. Her fingers trembled in my grasp, but I saw no tears yet. I was sure they would come. I just wasn’t sure when.

“I’m here for you, okay? Please, believe that.”

“Are you?” Fear rounded her eyes. “Because it’s not like anyone’s ever stuck by me before.”

“Yes,” I told her. “I am.”

“I want to believe you,” she said softly. “But I believed Justin, too. He made plenty of promises and then he left me, just like Mummy. He swore he’d stay with me forever, but he lied.” Tears welled, and I waited for her to let loose, but she didn’t.

“Maybe he was scared.”

“Of what?”

I bit my lip, not certain of how to respond. I finally told her, “Justin seemed very frightened when you were in the hospital. He was worried that you’d taken too much of the ma huang, and he thought people would blame him. Do you remember what happened, Kendall? Was it his fault or yours?”

“Justin said I took too much?” Her forehead creased. “But I don’t remember taking any yesterday, Andy. I was feeling too jumpy already, because of the party and all. Justin knew I didn’t like the ma huang, that it made my heart race. Sometimes it made me so dizzy I’d nearly fall down. Mummy wouldn’t take it because she said it made her feel bad, too.”

“Really?”

“She didn’t even like caffeine in her coffee. Even your mother knew that, Andy. Everyone on Mummy’s crew knew.”

Hello
.

That’s certainly not what Justin had told Dr. Taylor at the hospital. It made me wonder what kind of smoothies he’d concocted for Kendall to drink without telling her what was really in them. And if he’d done that, what else was he capable of?

“
I’d rather cut off my right arm than harm a woman
.”

What a bunch of hogwash, I mused, considering what I knew about him already. Justin’s modus operandi did little else but hurt susceptible females. Honestly, the guy should’ve gone to Hollywood. His performances were deserving of the Oscar. Or at least the Oscar Meyer, since the guy was so full of baloney.

I wondered what it felt like, to be such a smooth liar. To have it come so easily that you didn’t blink, didn’t even flinch, when you looked someone in the eye and told untruth after untruth.

“Justin wasn’t who you thought he was,” I said, perhaps recklessly, but part of me believed she needed to hear it. It would come out sooner or later, wouldn’t it? In the Tuesday edition of the Park Cities paper, as a matter of fact. “There are things about him you don’t know.”

I nearly said, “
Things your mother never knew
,” but that wasn’t the truth. According to Cissy, Marilee had known about Justin all along.

She shut her eyes. “I don’t want to hear.”

“He was a con man, Kendall. A gigolo. He slept with rich, older women to get money and cars and whatever else they’d give him. He’s done it all over the state, maybe beyond the border. He’s the male equivalent of a bimbo . . .”

“Stop.” She jerked her hand from my grasp and dropped the Snoopy to her lap, putting her palms over her ears. “Stop, please, stop.”

So I did.

Gently, I took her hands and peeled them away from her head, and I didn’t let go.

“Look at me,” I said.

She blinked and tears splashed past her lashes, running fast down her cheeks and onto the Snoopy doll.

“You love him, don’t you?” I asked, watching the way her face crumpled, the way the tears fell harder still as she nodded. “He took care of you.” Paid attention to her when no one else would.

“Yes.”

“You figured he’d marry you someday, didn’t you?”

“Who told you that?” She blinked and glanced down in her lap. “He said it would work out with us,” she whispered, “that he’d take care of things with Mummy, that it wouldn’t be long until we could be together for always.” Her eyes lifted again, and the pain in them was all too clear. “I believed him, Andy. I’m such a fool.”

Take care of things with Mummy, huh?

Or just “take care” of Mummy?

My guts twisted inside, and I hated Justin for what he’d done, for lying to someone barely old enough to understand what love meant. Kendall was no middle-aged woman with a passel of failed relationships in her past. Hadn’t he even fathomed the kind of damage he could do to her? The kind that couldn’t be undone.

Did he betray her?

Hell, yes.

But I couldn’t say it, not when she was so obviously hurting.

“It doesn’t matter now, does it? He’s gone forever,” she choked out. “And Mummy’s gone. How? How can that be possible? It can’t be real . . . it can’t be. I would feel it if she were dead. I’d know it in here.” She pressed a hand between her breasts.

I felt my own eyes prick with tears. I hated being so helpless.

“Why did this happen?” she cried, her skin flushing purple. “Mummy didn’t have to die . . . she didn’t have to go and leave me all alone. Why, Andy?
Why?
”

She suddenly came uncoiled, springing up to throw herself into my arms, grabbing onto me and burying her face against me, so that I could do nothing but embrace her as she cried uncontrollably, ripping out my heart with every broken sound.

“Hush”—I smoothed her tangled hair—“sweetie, hush.”

“
Hurt . . . me. Mummy . . . help
.”

The garbled words she’d whispered from her hospital bed suddenly seemed to make sense. Kendall was hurting, deep inside, and had needed her mother to help her. Only Marilee had more important things on her mind. And now she was dead.

My skin prickled with gooseflesh, and I fought to maintain what composure I had left as I curled the rumpled bedclothes into my fist.

“
Don’t leave me
,” she wailed. “
Please, don’t leave me alone
.”

“I won’t,” I said and meant it. I would take her back to Mother’s. I couldn’t leave her in this house. Someone had to watch her, to make sure she didn’t do anything rash, make sure she took her medication.

Cissy was right. I was doing it again. Picking up strays, getting attached to them out of pity, unable to walk away.

I was in over my head with Kendall Mabry, I realized. Way too deep.

And I didn’t know how to get out.

I
called ahead and warned my mother that I was bringing Kendall back to the house on Beverly. The girl had nowhere else to go, and I wasn’t about to desert her in that big old empty mansion. Cissy was worried that it might upset Kendall more to be under the same roof where her mother passed, but I knew it wouldn’t matter, not tonight. Especially not after Beth Taylor administered a sedative once I’d gotten the girl tucked into my old bed.

“I’ll check on her in the morning, ladies,” Dr. Taylor assured us before she went home.

Ready to hit the road myself, I promised my mother and Sandy that I’d be back early, too. I felt bad about leaving Kendall, but there wasn’t much room in my tiny condo. And Sandy was a much better nursemaid than I could ever hope to be. Besides, I aimed to get down to Mother’s before Kendall even woke up. She wouldn’t have a chance to miss me.

Sandy kissed my creased forehead and told me not to worry so much.

Cissy gave me one of her long looks and sighed. “I feel like I’m operating a halfway house.” Okay, so it wasn’t the first time she’d done this kind of favor for me, and I’m sure she’d find a way to make me pay her back. She always did. “Why don’t you stay overnight, too, Andrea? I don’t think you should be driving home. It’s late, and you’re tired.”

It wasn’t even eight o’clock. The late summer sky was still awash with blue. It wouldn’t blush pink for another half hour.

“I’ll be fine,” I said, because it wasn’t the hour that worried her or how exhausted I was. It was seeing me go after what had transpired. If she could, I knew, she’d guard me like the hounds of hell for the rest of my life.

“See you in the morning,” I said and hugged her, and she hung on tight. I could smell her Joy on my skin even after I drew away.

“Be careful,” she called from the door. “Put on your seat belt and drive slowly, please.”

Her concern was enough to make me tear-up. But I slipped on my Ray-Bans, hiding my eyes, and waved as I steered the Jeep around her circular drive.

I saw her figure in the rearview until trees obscured it. I had a feeling she would stand there for a few moments after.

When I pulled onto my street in Far North Dallas a good twenty-five minutes later, a red Acura coupe sat in my parking spot. Lucky for Malone, it wasn’t the last space, so I pulled into the empty slot beside it.

He perched on my front steps, his face flushed with perspiration. His green Polo shirt sported widening stains. God knows, there wasn’t an antiperspirant made that could stop a man from sweating in the Texas heat.

He stood as I approached. I was glad he didn’t lift a hand to wave.

“How long have you been here?”

“About an hour,” he said, mopping sweat from his cheeks as I unlocked the front door. “I tried to call your cell, but you weren’t answering.”

“Oh, yeah, that.” I pushed wide the door and he followed me in.