Death Was the Other Woman (3 page)

He laughed and I hoped I didn't detect a note of pity in that laugh. Then he surprised me by touching my hand very gently and squeezing it so softly I might not have felt it at all. His hand was back to his side of the table and lighting yet another cigarette so quickly, I almost doubted my recollection.

“Listen, kid.” He reached inside his breast pocket and pulled out a creamy business card, which he handed to me. “Bury your father,” he said kindly. “Do what you need to do. But like I said, my friend needs a secretary. And I figure maybe you need a job. A smart girl like you—who knows how to do needlepoint
and
make a souffle—should have no trouble answering his phones and figuring out how to type. Call me next week if you're interested.”

And then he was gone. I looked at the card. MUSTARD, it said in raised black letters. And underneath: CLinton 2519. I figured maybe I'd call.

I'VE GOT A SPECIAL AFFECTION
for Lafayette Square. By rights it should have been my neighborhood. George Crenshaw and my father had some business interests together at the time Crenshaw developed the Square. Right around then, Bunker Hill was starting to get a bit shabby, and the apartment buildings that have begun to take it over were starting to go up.

Crenshaw worked and worked on Father to be one of the first people to buy a lot at Lafayette and build a big house there. Father actually gave in and bought one on Victoria Park Drive, then hired the architect Paul Williams to design a house.

I remember driving out there with Father when I was a little girl, walking around on the lot with him and Mr. Williams while they waved plans around and talked about what would be where: the garden here, the summer kitchen there, and so on. Even a reflecting pool, which I was very excited about because I thought it meant we'd have frogs and lily pads. Maybe we would have too. I've thought about that on occasion.

When it came time to break ground though, my father found he didn't want to leave our home, increasingly shabby neighborhood or not. I suspected his reluctance had something to do with my mother. They had envisioned raising their family there, in the beautiful house my father built for her on Bunker Hill. My mother had died, but I suspect that some of the dreams they'd shared lingered on in the home they'd created. And so we stayed put.

All of that meant I knew where Lafayette Square was. And I knew my way around, at least a little bit.

I didn't have much trouble finding the address Rita Heppelwaite had given to Dex. He motioned for me to keep driving past the house—a low-slung pile with a lot of white plaster that looked more like a plantation house than a Los Angeles mansion. I looked at Dex questioningly, but did what he asked, strong-arming the big car slowly back around the Square. About a half block before we reached the house again, he indicated with a flick of one elegant index finger that I should pull over. I did.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Now nothin',” he said, cracking his shiny new bottle of Jack and taking a pull that he chased with a sigh. He offered the bottle across to me, out of politeness I guess, though I figure he'd maybe remember the look I gave him and think twice before he offered the booze again. I do
not
drink bourbon. I'm not opposed to it for any moral reasons, and like a lot of people, I think Prohibition is a bit silly and not long for this world. But to me bourbon tastes an awful lot like gasoline, which is another substance I don't drink. And if I
were
to drink bourbon— or gasoline, for that matter—it wouldn't be straight out of the bottle. A girl has to have limits, has to know where they are.

When I prodded him, Dex told me that the house we were sitting more or less in front of belonged to one Harrison Dempsey, the “boyfriend” the Heppelwaite broad had talked about. She'd told Dex that she suspected ol' Harry was stepping out. She wanted my boss to spend a few days tailing this Dempsey character, then report back to her. Where did he go? What did he do? And most importantly, who did he see? All pretty much one-two-three for a shamus. Tailing unfaithful lovers is the bread and butter of most private investigators' business.

From Rita, Dex had Harrison Dempsey's address, a description of his heap—a ‘29 Packard, of a green so dark it was the color of the head of a duck—and the address of his office in the Banks-Huntley Building downtown.

Dex said Dempsey was a real estate developer and general deal maker, which I knew could mean a lot of things. But whatever it was Dempsey did, I figured he was good at it because both his girlfriend and his house looked expensive.

We could see the green Packard parked sort of willy-nilly in front of the house, like the guy who drove it had been in a hurry. Or maybe like he just didn't care.

Dex told me we'd settle here until Dempsey got in motion. “Rita said he goes to the Zebra Room in the Town House Hotel on Wilshire every evening at eight without fail. So we know he'll leave a little ahead of that, maybe sooner.”

“Why not go straight to the Zebra Room and wait for him there?”

“We could,” Dex agreed, “but then that wouldn't be tailing him, would it? She wants me to find out what he does, who he sees. Best place to figure that out from is here.”

“And it's five now. If we know he doesn't go to the Zebra Room until eight, why not just show up here at seven-thirty and follow him then?”

Dex looked at me in a way that let me know I was trying his patience, but when he spoke, his tone was unchanged. “My instructions weren't to follow him to the Zebra Room, Kitty. My instructions were just to follow him. Period. I don't know what he does before he goes to the Zebra Room, or that he goes straight there or what. I only knew he'd be here at this time . . . and then he'd be there. Everything else is a mystery, which is why she needed to hire me, get it?”

“So what do we do, Dex? Just sit here until then?”

Dex smiled. “Pretty much, kiddo. Hey, you're the one who wanted to come along. If you're bored with our little picnic, pack up your basket and go.”

I didn't say anything, nor did I point out to Dex that it wasn't so much that I'd wanted to come along, but that I hadn't been sure he was in any condition to drive. And I knew he'd been kidding about the picnic, but now that he'd mentioned it—and it looked like we might be camping out here for some time—I figured a picnic would have been a pretty good idea. I made a mental note that next time I followed Dex on a stakeout, I should pack a lunch.

It was October, but it was warm enough that we didn't need the heater running to stay warm, even without a fur coat. We didn't have a lot to talk about one-on-one, Dex and me. Anyway, he had his new friend Jack to talk to, and they were getting better acquainted by the minute.

We sat there, silent for a while. I wasn't aware of any traffic noise floating over from Crenshaw Boulevard, and the neighborhood itself was silent, almost dead. The only sound for a while was the easy rhythm of Dex's breathing and his regular swigs from the bottle. When after maybe half an hour Dex spoke, his voice startled me.

“You remind me of her sometimes, you know. Have I told you that before?”

I looked across the car at him, taking in his red-rimmed eyes, the slight shake of the hand that held the bottle. I knew he was at least slightly drunk. But I also knew I had nothing to fear. Dex could occasionally be a maudlin drunk, but I'd never seen him dangerous.

I shook my head. “You've never said that. Who? Who do I remind you of?”

I might not have spoken. “She was as young as you are now when we met. Younger maybe. But it's not just that. Something in the tilt of your head. And now and then, the sound of your voice.”

“Who?” I repeated. Softly this time.

“Zoe,” he said, just as softly. He wasn't looking at me, but at some point above my head. I knew he was looking back. “Zoe,” he said again. “My wife.”

I blinked at him without saying anything. Once, twice, three times perhaps. I must have done, because I didn't have words. It was the first time I'd heard even a whisper about a wife.

“Your wife?” I said, still softly, not wanting to shatter his talkative mood.

Another swig from the bottle. Another hand over the growing bristle on his chin. “I met her when I was in France. During the war.” He was quiet so long I thought he might not say anything else. Just as I was about to give him a gentle prod, he spoke again. “I was injured pretty much as soon as I got off the boat.” He gave a small laugh, but I could hear something more. “I was at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, the first one, in nineteen fifteen. Have you heard about it?”

I shook my head.

“It was the first battle of the war for the Canadians. The Americans weren't there yet. They wouldn't be, either, for another couple of years. It was ...” Here his voice drifted away, as though he were struggling for words or managing his thoughts; I couldn't tell which.

“I was injured,” he said finally, indicating his thigh. “Took a bayonet right there. Went clean through my leg.” I could feel myself grimace, but I didn't say anything. “I was lucky too,” he went on. “Like I said, it was early. We didn't understand the scale of the thing then. We didn't know what it would be. So many men died that day. Good men. Bad men. They all died the same.”

Dex told me that Zoe's family had a farm near the little town of Neuve Chapelle. It was here that the Allied forces brought their injured, and Zoe's family had pitched in to help. What else, she asked in her labored English, could you do when war broke out almost in your backyard?

Comparatively speaking, Dex's injury had been slight. Within a few days he was hobbling around behind Zoe, helping her help.

I had some trouble with this image at first. Dex as the doting helper, that is. But then I mentally shaved fifteen years off him, trimming away the jaded air along with the lines. I imagined him fresh off the boat and probably scared as hell. The tall, gawky, smooth-faced young man, not much more than a kid, trailing behind an earnest and beautiful young woman like a pup.

“Every leave I had, I'd come back to her. To Zoe. I was just a kid—just nineteen. But we fell in love.” He spread his hands as though this had been an inevitable thing. Inescapable. “We were married at a church near her home early in nineteen sixteen. Didn't have much of a honeymoon. All of Artois was pretty torn up by then. It was a crazy thing to do, marriage in that dangerous time. But I loved her, Kitty. I would have done anything for her. I would have laid down my life for her.”

The sound of my name startled me. I hadn't even been sure Dex was aware I was still there. His voice was hypnotic, or hypnotizing; I'm not sure which. But it was as though the world outside the big black car had ceased to exist, and the torn-up French countryside was more real to me—perhaps to both of us—than the upholstered seat we shared.

“There was a small house on her family's farm ...” Here his voice broke slightly. I looked at him quickly, but I could see no sign of it on his face; only the slight unevenness in his tone betrayed emotion. “After Zoe and I were married, her father gave me a good price on renting the land from him ... Do you want to hear this?” he said suddenly, breaking the spell. “I can stop now if you like. I don't even know why I'm telling you.”

I hadn't spoken for so long that I needed to clear my throat before I could answer. Or maybe emotion held me back. “No, please,” I said, when I found my voice, “go on.”

He looked at me a long moment before he continued. Another swig. Another hand through unruly hair. He seemed to debate with himself before he continued, but continue he did. By now I knew it was more for his own sake than for mine.

He took a long pull from the bottle and turned to face out the window. I had the feeling he didn't want me to see whatever might be in his eyes.

“My son was born in the summer of nineteen sixteen.” Now there was joy splashed in with the pain. “I wasn't there. It was around the time of the Battle of the Somme. We called our child Raymond, because it was a name we thought would work in both languages—English and French—and I knew someday I'd want him to see my home. It would be part of him. Raymond.”

A son, I thought. Born in 1916. He would be around fifteen now. An adolescent. Surely the age when a son needed his father most. I waited for the rest of the story. I waited for a long while. There had been long pauses already in Dex's tale. I gave him the space he needed to think about it all, to pull out the last painful bit. I had no doubt that it
would
be painful, that Dex's story didn't have a happy ending. It would explain a lot. The hurt I'd heard in his voice as he told the story. And all those tortured days slumped in his chair in the office. Everything was a little clearer, or so it seemed at the time. So I waited quietly, feeling as though an answer was at hand.

After a while though, I realized that the end of the story wasn't going to come. At least not today. Dex's head slumped forward slightly, and his breathing evened out. There were no more painful pulls on the bottle. I wanted the end of the story— so badly, I wanted it, you can't imagine—but a part of me was glad. For the moment, for Dex, there was no more pain.

I didn't have the feeling of falling asleep. I was aware of Dex's even breathing and the heavy smell of bourbon in the closed car. I thought about the things Dex had told me, and while I did, it felt as though I turned some mental corner and was transported.

I WAS RUNNING THROUGH
a vineyard in France. It was beautiful. I was aware of colors—the vivid greens of the vines, the intense brown hues of the earth, the bright blue canopy of the sky—and I even felt the sun on the back of my neck, on my hair.

I turned a corner and I saw a boy—a beautiful boy—ahead of me on the path. He looked over his shoulder at me, and the light danced in his eyes. He laughed and he ran faster. I laughed then too. That was the sound that woke me: my own real laughter piercing my dream, calling me back.

When I opened my eyes it was dark. Dex was still on the passenger seat next to me, one hand on his precious bottle— half empty or half full, depending on your perspective. His head was lolling back at an angle I knew would give him hell when he woke up. Or sobered up. I wasn't ready yet to find out which it would be.

As I tried to shake some life into my legs, I saw a car leave Harrison Dempsey's driveway. Fast. I thought maybe the car had awakened me as much as the laugh. The sound of the motor or the lights coming on, or both. It wasn't the green Packard though. That was still parked willy-nilly, just as it had been before. The car that left was all black, which didn't exactly make it a rarity. And I couldn't see the driver and I didn't think to get the plate.

I lifted Dex's arm to get a glimpse of his watch. Half past ten. I tried not to think about how long we'd been sitting there. Hours. Hours and hours. The big house was in darkness. It didn't look like anyone was around. According to Dex, it was well beyond the time Dempsey would normally have been at the Zebra Room.

“Dex.” I said his name, softly at first. Then repeated it a little more loudly. “Dex!” I shook him gently. All I heard from him was a muffled “Mrrph.” It didn't feel like he was going to wake up anytime soon.

I sat back deeply in the driver's seat, contemplating our options. Or really
my
options, because I knew I wasn't going to get any big ideas from Dex.

We were supposed to be tailing this Dempsey guy. But in all likelihood, we'd blown our chance on making good on the job by falling asleep—quite literally—at the wheel. I figured Dempsey had probably hooked a ride with some pal, and through all the shut-eye, we'd missed seeing him leave in the car that had just left his place. I figured that the sensible thing to do was go check out the house, make sure it was as empty as it looked, then maybe drive over to Wilshire. By then Dex would be sober enough to put one foot in front of the other into the Zebra Room and make like the big shamus he was supposed to be.

Like I said, that's what I figured. And it all seemed like a good idea at the time. But once out of the car, I felt desperately alone. Traffic was light here, but I could hear more of it echoing over from Crenshaw. Los Angeles sometimes snoozes, but it never really sleeps.

In the car with Dex I'd felt safe, even slightly cozy. The sound of Dex's light snores and the angel's share of the bourbon drifting through the interior of the car. And here's the thing: my boss was currently inebriated. Some would argue that he was flat-out drunk. But he was carrying a gun, and he knew how to use it. In a pinch I figured his instincts would kick right in.

Outside the car though, I felt exposed, like some small rodent or maybe a bug. I don't know what I was afraid of exactly. But some secret part of me knew there was something of which to be afraid. Call it a feeling in my bones.

My bones. As I got closer to the house, I thought I could hear them creak. I don't know why silence seemed important to me then, but it did. As though I should be creeping up on the house. As though it might see me or feel me and somehow fend me off. Ridiculous imaginings, I know. But it was late, it was dark, and I felt completely alone.

I trotted up the front walkway cautiously, careful not to step on any crack. A goofy precaution, but you can't be too careful in situations involving the unknown.

There was no porch light on, so I couldn't see a doorbell or even determine if there was one. I reached out, intending to deliver a firm knock, but the door swung open to my touch.

I stood there for a couple of minutes. At least it felt that long to me. I stood on the front step with the door open, listening to the cicadas call and catching the ripe, sweet scent of honeysuckle and a whiff of the distant sea.

Right inside the door was a big marble-floored foyer framed by a couple of elegant winding staircases. A half dozen hallways led from the foyer to adjacent rooms. I could see all of this just by the illumination of the streetlights, because there didn't seem to be a light on in the whole place.

“Hullo?” I called out. I didn't think anyone was there, but it seemed like the thing to do. “Hullo?”

There was no answer, but for the tiniest echo of my own voice off the marble. And then it came to me, maybe it was even the reason I'd engineered this trip from the car to the house: after drinking coffee all day at the office, followed by all those hours of sitting in a car, I really, really needed to find a powder room.

One more try: “Hullo?” And when there was still no reply, I put a tentative foot onto the marble. And then another. The place was so quiet, I could hear my steps echoing around me. It was as though I was in a museum.

“Hullo?” My voice was a little weaker now. A little less confident. Standing in the middle of the foyer, I felt more exposed than I had in the open doorway, when everything inside the house was mere possibility.

Faced with half a dozen openings veering off in different directions, I had a choice to make. I knew I didn't want to spend all night touring the house while I looked for the powder room. On the other hand, finding it felt like an increasingly good idea.

I became aware of the scent of a woman's perfume, lingering but still present. I couldn't place it, but it struck me as deep and rich and faintly cloying. I ignored it and moved on.

“Hullo?”

All six of the hallways leading off the foyer were dark. I could have turned on a light. But somehow scuttling around looking for a place to relieve myself seemed like violation enough without adding the glare of electricity. Also, in the semidark I felt slightly invisible, like a little kid playing hide-and-go-seek who closes her eyes and thinks she can't be seen.

I don't know how it happened that I picked one dark hallway over another, because from where I was standing those hallways all looked pretty much alike. Still, I reasoned, they were all bound to lead to a bathroom eventually. And lacking a sign with an arrow that said, “Ladies Room, 26 Steps to the Right,” I'd just have to take my chances on a shot in the dark.

I wasn't quite sure when I became aware of the smell. And unlike the lingering perfume in the foyer, it wasn't an odor I could put my finger on, not right away. Not on any conscious level. On some other level—from some deep, instinctive place— I knew what it was from the first second.

It smelled metallic. It smelled dark. And as I put one foot carefully in front of the other on the highly polished wood floor of my chosen hallway, I tried to both identify the smell and block it out. It would have been a neat trick if it had worked. But it didn't.

When I found the bathroom, I was too frightened to use the facilities in the continued dark. I snapped the light on pretty much as I headed for the commode, illuminating a large, beautifully appointed bathroom done in delicate shades of rose and champagne.

The light brought a sliver of comfort, but only a sliver. It was an odd feeling: relief and fear seemed to become one emotion, the first spurring the second and back again.

I washed my hands in the echo of the flush, then went to dry them on a towel that was hanging on a bar. I looked at my hands in confusion as I tried to dry them. Confusion because what I saw there made no sense. Where my hands had been wet with water, they were now the sticky red of drying blood.

I screamed then. I screamed as I turned and looked for the first time toward the bathtub at the other side of the room. No longer blinded by the needs of my body, I saw what I hadn't noticed before. The heavy opaque shower curtain was pulled shut. Not odd in itself, but there was an oddness to the way the curtain lay against the inside edge of the tub. As though it were leaning against something. I couldn't guess what that something might be, but I was pretty sure it was not the edge of the tub.

Every instinct instructed me to get out of that big, echoey, empty house. In fact, my feet started doing just that, all on their own heading toward the door. I grabbed the edge of the sink to stop myself, turning on the tap and letting warm water shoot over my hands. If I'd had any doubt before, I didn't now. The pale pink that swooshed from my hands and down the drain was blood, sure as anything. A woman knows.

Unwilling to go back to the blood-spattered towel I'd dropped on the floor, I dried my hands on the edge of my skirt, not even bothering to check if any residual blood might stain the pale fabric. Not even caring in that moment, truth be told. I was intent on the shower curtain. On the bulge in the shower curtain. It still hadn't moved.

Before I pulled it back, I stood with my hand high up on the curtain, steeling myself. Yet when I pulled it back I was not surprised. Shocked perhaps. Certainly weak in the stomach and in the knees, but at some level I'd known what I would find. It seemed so cliche, I could have laughed. But I did not.

There was a man in the bathtub. Not old, perhaps in his middle thirties. He was wearing a dark suit of some shiny fabric, a tie with a dull maroon pattern, and a white shirt, though the front of the shirt was streaked with blood. I could see that he'd been shot in the chest. A good shot, I guess, because he was as dead as could be. I didn't check his pulse; didn't have to. His mouth was open, as were his eyes. The emptiness there was immense. And he was pale. So pale. I hope never again to see a human so completely lacking in color. I didn't need a doctor to tell me: this guy had checked out.

I managed to see all of this, to note all the details, because my feet were, quite simply, rooted to the spot. It was as though I were attached to the cool tiles of the bathroom floor. A part of my brain instructed, “C'mon, get the lead out. The dead guy in the tub means danger isn't far off.” But my body responded not at all.

I heard a noise nearby, and at the same time, the invisible roots released their hold. I would have run, but between the bathroom door on one side of me and the grisly inhabitant of the tub on the other, there was no place to go.

While I considered my options, my heart fluttered in my chest like a frightened bird. As I stood there trying to calm myself, I heard footsteps. And they were getting closer.

And then I heard a sound I'd never thought would almost make me cry out in relief.

“Kitty?” And then more insistently and blessedly even closer: “Kitty!”

“I'm here.” My voice had ceased working and I stopped to clear my throat. “I'm here, Dex, right here.”

Dexter J. Theroux was miraculously restored when he entered the bathroom. I couldn't see the day's hard drinking on him, but for some extra creases around his eyes and a puffiness in his jowls. His step was steady and the hand on his gun looked firm. When he saw me, the relief in his eyes was obvious. I could tell he'd feared the worst.

“I thought I heard you scream,” he said simply.

“You did,” I replied, then motioned to the body in the tub.

Dex let out a clear low whistle. It came out of him as though pulled from deep inside. “What have we here?” he asked, while he holstered his gun.

“He's . . . he's dead, Dex.”

“Yes, Kitty. I do believe you're right. It doesn't look like he stopped off for a bubble bath.”

He leaned over the body and pulled out a billfold, drawing out the man's driver's license and checking his name.

“Looks like you were right, kiddo,” Dex said. He settled back on his haunches while he struck a match on the grout between tiles and lit up a cigarette. He looked at the corpse in the tub thoughtfully while he exhaled a tight plume of smoke.

“I was right? How's that?” I asked.

“We won't need to be tailing Harrison Dempsey,” he said, holstering his gun. “I could have done this job in a Red Car after all.”