Time of Death (15 page)

PJ had already gotten a glimpse of May’s self-serving attitude, and it wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine her as part of a killing team if there was something in it for her. Motive was the problem. It seemed like killing Arlan would be slumming for her.

PJ and Mary Beth ended up in the staff kitchen, a cozy place no bigger than PJ’s own kitchen but containing upscale appliances and granite counters. There was a separate area where Chef worked, and he scolded the staff if they went in to raid his refrigerator, so this place was a refuge. They sat on stools around an island with a gleaming sink. Mary Beth looked like she was glad to be off her feet for a time. PJ was more comfortable in the relatively modest surroundings in the kitchen than in parlors with grand pianos.

“What do you think of May’s sister?” PJ asked.

Her companion hesitated before answering. “You can say what you want, there’s nobody listening here. Is there?”

Mary Beth laughed. “Even the Missus isn’t that paranoid. There’s no hidden microphone in the flowerpot. It’s just that I don’t quite know what to think of June. She comes over often, but I think it’s not so much to visit her sister as to visit the house.”

“She’s jealous, then.”

“Not exactly. It’s more like she’s shopping for ideas, things May’s done that she can adapt to her own life.”

“Ever heard them fight?”

“Never.”

“I noticed a control panel by the front door,” PJ said. “Is that for the security system?”

“Yes, there are several of them in the house. Each room has a panic button, too, even the bathrooms and the walk-in closets. The kids get a kick out of pressing them. We have the cops out here at least once a month. Used to be more often. I’ve never heard Nanny lecture them about it, though. Those kids do pretty much what they want.”

“She’ll pay for that later, or at least the Nanny will,” PJ said. “Is the security system operating all the time?”

“When the Mister is home, he makes a good effort, although he gets distracted about it sometimes. The Missus, well, a couple of times I’ve reminded her, and who knows how many times the alarm’s been off that I haven’t noticed. Not my job. You’d think people living in a place like this would pay more attention. Whenever I remind her, she gets stiff with me for a couple of days. So there’s nothing in it for me. Makes my eyes tend to slide right by those panels, if you know what I mean. Besides, if a burglar got in here, I can’t see that he’d make a beeline for the maid’s quarters. Nothing valuable in there, with what I get paid.”

Mary Beth got up and took a beer from the refrigerator, telling PJ to help herself.

Opening the refrigerator, PJ spotted a bottle of water that looked good. She’d been having way too much caffeine. Something else caught her eye, twin stacks of bright red egg cartons, six dozen eggs altogether.

“Wow,” she said. “Somebody around here isn’t too concerned about cholesterol.”

Mary Beth laughed. “Would you believe that’s only two weeks’ worth? We get a new batch every two weeks, and throw out any that are left. The family doesn’t use any other kind. Wouldn’t dare bring anything else into the house. Chef put up a fuss, a little power play, because he didn’t want the red eggs, that’s what he calls them, pushed on him. But he’s got the same kind in his kitchen.”

“Really? What’s so good about these? Should I be buying them, too?”

The cartons were old-fashioned cardboard, and had a distinctive hatching chick design on top.

Mary Beth took an unladylike gulp of her beer before answering. “They come from Old Hank’s farm. It says so on top. Missus May’s parents used to buy eggs from him, and she continued the tradition. Miss June does, too. In fact, it was Mister Arlan’s turn last week to do the buying for both families. It was quite a ritual. The husbands never missed their turns. If they did, the wives would chew them out. You gotta wonder about these family traditions. Who’d get that worked up over eggs?”

“What day was Arlan’s turn?”

“Last Wednesday, I know for sure. I remember him coming here with the eggs like usual, and being in a hurry because he was leaving for Chicago and wanted to get through downtown before rush hour.”

“Do you remember the time of day?” PJ asked, trying to keep her voice casual.

“It was a little after four in the afternoon. I remember telling him I didn’t think he had a chance of missing the traffic.”

“Did you actually see him leave?”

“No, I had work to do. I left him stacking the eggs in the refrigerator, but how long could that take? He must have gone a few minutes after I saw him.”

That was after he’d finished having lunch with his partner. Fredericka thought he’d left town immediately afterward, but instead he went on an errand to buy eggs.

It looked like Mary Beth was the last person to see Arlan Merrett alive, except for the killer.

Driving back to Headquarters in her Rabbit, PJ approached the stoplight at the busy corner of Lindell and South Grand, near St. Louis University, just when it turned yellow. It was lunchtime, and both car and pedestrian traffic was heavy. Grumbling about how she always seemed to be first in line at a stoplight because she didn’t run the yellow or even red light like others did, she used the wait time to look through papers scattered on the passenger seat. Then she felt her car bumped from the rear, and begin moving. She was being pushed out into the intersection!

PJ smashed the brake pedal down as far as it would go, and fumbled for the emergency brake lever, which was between the seats. There were papers in the way, and her gloves, and her briefcase, and her sunglasses, and an empty White Castle bag. Her car groaned but kept moving forward. She heard horns honking, looked to her left, and saw a southbound truck bearing down on her on Grand. She heard brakes squealing—the truck’s or her own, she didn’t know. She glanced in her rearview mirror. The car immediately behind her was so close she couldn’t see any part of it but its windshield, and it had no driver.

Disjointed thoughts and images ran rapidly through her head.
That driver’s jumped. Jump? No, go!

She took her foot off the brake and stomped on the gas pedal instead, hoping to shoot through the intersection ahead of the truck. The Rabbit lurched and responded, but not enough to avoid the collision completely. The truck clipped the back end of her car, sending it spinning toward northbound traffic. She shifted violently to the side in her seat, but was held in by the shoulder harness. Through the blur of motion, her mind focused on the shower of pebble-like pieces from the tempered glass of the broken driver’s window, like crystals afloat in the winter sunlight, each with its own rainbow.

I
PARK A FEW
blocks away on Waterman, near a school, and stroll over to May’s place on Lindell. It’s pleasant enough, for a December afternoon, with sunshine lighting my way occasionally, as the clouds clot, skid apart in front of the wind, and then regroup.

Every time I take a swing at May, I miss.

It’s like she’d got some invisible shield around her, a non-stick coating so that things would just slide off her, like water drops on a newly-waxed car.

I frame her for Arlan’s murder by using her knife. Her knife, mind you, from her own greenhouse that Frank is barely aware exists. How am I to know that the stupid knife had his fingerprints all over it and May hasn’t touched it? It’s her greenhouse, her knife, ergo she’s the killer. The police don’t see it that way, though. Imagine arresting Frank! Why couldn’t he have had an alibi, been thrashing around in a mistress’s bed or schmoozing donors for his goddamned kids’ charities?

And to think the disgusting prick was in the house when I replaced the knife. If I’d known that, I might have gotten double use out of that knife.

I approach the house, pretending that I’m walking to the bus stop at Lindell and Kingshighway. Metrobus Route 93, westbound, 3:43 p.m. Checking my watch, I see that I could actually make the bus if I pick up the pace a little.

My coat from Goodwill smells a little funky. That used smell never goes away, the soaked-in perspiration, hopes, and disappointments. I find myself wondering about the coat’s former owner. She may have walked in my same footsteps, heading for the same bus stop, wanting nothing more than to rest her tired legs and hoping that she gets a seat on the bus. I have a scarf over my head, the kind European peasant women wear, flat-soled black shoes, gloves I literally picked out of a trash can, and a shopping bag so worn the handles are taped on. Nobody even glances at me. My clothes and my beaten-by-society, slumped shoulders are my shield of invisibility, a different kind than May has but just as effective.

The Simmons home looms. I can see Frank’s metallic blue BMW 760Li jauntily parked in the circular drive. Bond was posted, surprise, surprise, and the errant hubby whisked quickly away from the jailhouse pervs. I make a confident left turn and head across the lawn toward the backyard, like I’m heading around the back for the servants’ entrance. I feel no eyes boring into the back of my head. In seconds, I am in the yard, walking in the shadows of the home, heading toward the greenhouse that juts out into an island of sunshine.

It’s not the conservatory that would be expected with a house like this. The green thumbs of previous owners had to do with money, not plants. May had this one built a few years ago, a metal and glass structure with expansive views of the grounds. It holds an assortment of plants that she talks to more than her children.

When my plans started to take shape, I busted one of the single pane glass panels with a rock. The gardener was accused of kicking up a stone with his riding lawn mower. Frank was out of town, deliberate timing on my part, so May had to take care of it. She had the glass replaced, but, as I thought would happen, didn’t notify the security company. So all but one of the panes of glass in that greenhouse have sensors connected to the system. All but one big, juicy, removable pane of glass.

May is out shopping and the nosy, oh-so-smart police shrink is out of the way. Frank’s home alone, except for the staff. I’m not worried about them. I know exactly where they’ll be. Chef in his kitchen, Nanny in the children’s suite, Maid in the staff kitchen, probably taking a nap, resting her head on the cool, exquisitely-veined, green granite counter. The second maid only comes in three days a week for heavy cleaning, and this isn’t one of them. I know all the details.

I check the target window carefully, looking for new foil wire that would make the glass part of the alarm circuit. None.

Out comes the putty knife. I’m getting quite good at this, even with gloves on. Removing the pane the first time was hard. It had been professionally installed and had these sharp metal mangles under the putty, which I now know are glazier’s points. Faulty research on my part
—
I wasn’t expecting those. I managed to keep from dropping them into the grass and losing them, thank goodness. After sneaking the knife back into the greenhouse, I put the glass pane back, complete with points and putty, hoping it wouldn’t rattle or fall out.

I’m good at it now. Fast. Straight putty lines. I can get in and out of May’s house so easily I might as well have put in a doggy-door.

The pane is out. I slip off my shoes and ease my way in. A cold wind eases in behind me, sending shivers through the orchids.

There are motion sensors in the house, but they are only turned on at night. I head for the back stairs, the one used by servants, making sure I
don’t
run into one of the staff or a child who has temporarily escaped Nanny’s grasp. My feet, clad in the same brand of stockings that May uses, know the way all by themselves. Upstairs, I head straight for the gun. May took shooting lessons. I know everything she does.

It’s in her nightstand, unloaded because of the kids. The bullets are in the top drawer of her lingerie chest, under the push-up bras. I guess she thinks kids are unable to open drawers. Or have a fear of lingerie. It is rather startling to open that drawer and see those shapely cups in pairs, as if they’re waiting for Noah to summon them. I leave the drawer open and scatter some bullets on the floor, as if they were handled in haste or fury.

I took shooting lessons, too.

Hugging the impressive down pillow from May’s side of the bed, I approach the study. Classical music is playing. My heartbeat races with the delicate notes of the flute, the blood in my veins vibrates with the strings of the cello. Opening the door just a little, I check to see that no one else is in the room. Interrupting a meeting with, say, a group of cops buying new computer hardware would not be a good thing.

He can’t see the gun. What he sees is me, holding a pillow across my belly. I squeeze the trigger. Down puffs out of the pillow, and a little
“pop!”
buries itself in the music’s crescendo. A lucky shot, considering that I can’t use my sexy, two-handed stance. A hole opens just below his hairline, and blood, guided by the furrows between his brows, flows down to drip on his papers. Before he can topple forward, I send another bullet into his chest.

Music falls on his dead ears.

I set the pillow and gun on the floor of the study and pull the door closed. May’s going to have a nasty surprise when she gets home. Her gun, her pillow, her secret stash of bullets, her dead husband.

Can’t fail this time. It’s a swing and a home run. Even the police aren’t so thickheaded as to botch this. They’ll arrest May by dinnertime.

Out through the greenhouse, shoes on, glass puttied, quick, quick. I can’t help giving myself a little hug of congratulations. Blocks away, I’ll drop the old coat, gloves, and scarf I’m wearing into the school’s Dumpster. Can’t be too careful about things like down from the pillow or gun residue on gloves.

Rounding the corner of the house, I see May’s black Mercedes SL600 Roadster coming west on Lindell. The timing couldn’t be better. I should go, but I can’t help myself. I linger nearby, ready to bolt through the neighbor’s yard if I have to. The car turns in, and to my surprise, a hideous orange vehicle turns in after it.