Dying in the Dark (11 page)

Annette Sampson's house needed some serious work. A coat of
Benjamin Moore would have done it some good, and three coats would have done it better. The front porch sagged, and birds had built a nest in a corner of the roof. The lawn, if you could call it that, was mostly dirt, and winter had turned last summer's effort at a garden into mud. My place in East Orange, with all its faults, was in better shape. But location is everything in real estate, and if this house were put on the market it would have brought in big bucks. If it had been perched on certain streets in Newark, she couldn't have given it away.

“I grew up here. The house belonged to my father,” Annette Sampson told me as we settled down on her couch, a yellow plastic number that would be hot as hell in the summer. The glass coffee table was chipped, and a leg on one of the chairs was missing. Old newspapers and magazines were strewn around the room like nobody gave a damn. It was hard to imagine this messy place housed the elegant woman in the stunning silk suit I'd seen at Morgan's on Saturday.

“My father was chauffeur/handyman for a rich pharmacist, who owned a string of drugstores, which is probably why I ended up marrying a pharmacist,” she continued. “I know I need to put some money into this house, but money is something I don't have at this point. But it belongs to me. It's all
mine,
and that sure feels good.” Her emphasis on “mine” clearly summed up her relationship with her husband.

She made a pitcher of Bloody Marys and poured the mixture into two remarkably pretty crystal glasses. Crackers and cheese were carelessly arranged on a matching platter, and I suspected the hastily thrown together snack was an excuse to serve the drinks. I took a sip
of mine, which was heavy on the vodka, then held the glass up to examine it.

My family hadn't gone in much for fancy glassware. My father usually drank his liquor out of a mayonnaise jar, and the rest of us used whatever cheap, mismatched things my mother picked up from the sales table at the A&P. I didn't grow up seeing a lot of good crystal.

“I have only two of these beautiful glasses left,” Annette said, noticing my interest. “My mother gave them to me as a wedding present. They're Steuben. Tres expensive. I had six once, but I threw two at my ex-husband in a rage. Celia broke one, and I dropped the fourth on the way to the kitchen last week. These are the only two I have left. I never use them when I'm alone, I only use them when I have company, which is rare these days. When I'm alone, I drink out of a plain old, ugly water glass.”

‘A water glass?” I didn't hide my surprise, and she laughed at my response.

“These dainty little things don't hold enough booze if I want to get seriously drunk. But I like things to match when somebody visits me. I need to have order, and matching glasses and dishes keep me from feeling like my life has dissolved into chaos.”

“I know what you mean,” I said as if I did. Truth was, my life stayed in chaos, and all the matching glasses in the world wouldn't straighten it out. As a matter of fact,
nothing
in my kitchen matched. Not glasses, dishes, spoons, or forks, and I was too busy and broke to give a damn one way or the other.

“So you threw one at your husband? That's something I always
wanted to do to my ex,” I said. But if I'd aimed something at De-Wayne Curtis it would have been a damn sight deadlier than a glass.

‘Actually he's not my ex yet. Despite everything that has happened between us, we haven't begun divorce proceedings.”

“Is there any chance of reconciliation?”

Her answer was in the look she shot me as well as in her laughter, and I found myself laughing with her. Suddenly, I could see what Celia might have seen in her. She had a mischievous, seductive edge that broke through her tight middle-class veneer as subtly as the black lace teddy peeking from her white Gap blouse.

“So Celia broke one of your glasses, too?” I veered back to the reason for my visit. “How did that happen?”

“She didn't throw it at me, if that's what you're asking. Celia wasn't the type to throw things. I'm the type to throw things.”

I took a nibble of cheese and a sip of my drink. She poured herself another one and raised it in a toast.

“To Celia,” she said.

“To Celia.”

She finished it off and dabbed her lips with one of the linen cocktail napkins on the tray. They, too, must have been left over from her former life.

“I've had enough,” she said, which surprised me since she'd just pegged herself as a drunk, and I knew from life with father that drunks never got enough. She went into the kitchen, filled a glass with ice water, came back, and set it next to the one that had contained her drink. “I've been drinking too much these days,” she confided as if we'd been friends for years.

“Then you'd better toss out those water glasses and get yourself some juice glasses instead,” I suggested.

“You're probably right,” she said with a good-natured smile.

“Maybe you're still grieving the loss of Celia,” I offered, and she nodded that it was the truth.

“I know I have to stop drinking and get back to living, but it's harder than it sounds.” She looked disconcerted for a moment, and I took the lull in our conversation to glance at the key words I'd scribbled in my notebook: Celia Jones, Drew Sampson, Rebecca Donovan, Aaron Dawson.

I rarely take notes during an interview. I have a good memory and if I've written down key words, I can always recall what was said. I decided to start with “Celia” and work my way down the list. I closed my book and dropped my pen back into my bag, as if the interview were over and we were just two women sitting around talking about nothing.

“You're right about Celia,” I said. “She wasn't the type to throw things, even in high school.”

She looked surprised. “So you knew Celia, too. I thought that you were simply involved with her case on a professional level.”

“No, Celia and I were best friends in high school. We were inseparable.”

“Funny, she never mentioned you, and she told me almost everything about her life.” She was suspicious, and I remembered what Larry had said about how possessive she'd been.

“We grew apart over the years, but I still cared about her. I was very distressed to hear that she'd been murdered, particularly in the
way it was done.” I watched her closely, but there was no indication of feeling, not even grief.

“I loved her,” she said after a moment or two with no change of expression. ‘And it was a complete surprise to me to fall in love with another woman. I don't think I'm a lesbian or anything. I mean, up until my affair with Celia, I always liked men, but I fell in love with her spirit, the thing that made her Celia, and that went beyond gender.”

‘And what made her Celia?” I asked because I had begun to wonder myself. Although Larry Walton said he hadn't been in love with Celia, his feelings ran deep. I wondered how the wild, young Celia I'd known could evoke such strong emotions from two such different people—and from the person who had shot her womb full of holes.

Annette shifted her attention to a drawing that hung on the wall, and my eyes followed hers. It was a drawing of Celia, but it was unfocused and vague. I wondered if this dreamy rendition represented her fantasy of Celia, or a lack of skill.

“Celia gave me everything I needed,” she said quietly, as if she'd forgotten I was there. “I loved her because she made me aware of parts of myself that I didn't know I had. Knowing her made me more aware of myself. She gave me a sense of who I could be, what I could do. She was the light of my life.”

As she spoke, memories of what Celia Jones had meant to me came back. Celia had always been the daring one, the one who called the shots, made everything seem simple and possible. Her impish, dare-you-to-try-it grin never failed to convince me to do forbidden, dangerous things, but it also prodded me to take risks I never would have taken on my own, and those risks often paid off. When we were
girls, Celia's reckless spirit took root in my own and eventually gave me the strength to become the woman I am. Even though we'd parted ways, it was Celia's courage, coupled with the memory of my brother, that led me to become a cop, leave DeWayne Curtis, and start my own detective agency. Recalling Celia's passion for life made me smile, but that smile was shadowed by sorrow. How could my old friend have ended up like she had?

“I married young. My life basically belonged to my husband and son, and if you've met my husband, you know what that was like. I was a cliche, stay-at-home mom, rich husband, nothing in my life,” Annette continued, drawing my attention back to her.

‘A lot of women would envy that.” My long hours and low finances often made me fantasize about some Prince Charming swooping down and taking care of me. What I'd seen of Drew Sampson, though, hinted that her “champagne and roses” life had been more like tap water and dandelions.

“What about your husband? Was he involved with somebody during your marriage or is he now?”

“Drew? Have you met him? All he cares about is his business.”

“He must have been pretty angry when he found out about you and Celia?”

She laughed and rolled her eyes. “Pretty angry is putting it mildly. I've never known him to be so mad. He is still very bitter about it.”

“Is there any chance—”

“That he killed Celia?” she said, not letting me finish. “Believe me, I've thought about it, and it scares the hell out of me. What people don't know about the great Drew Sampson is that he has an evil, violent temper that very few people see. I sure saw enough of it,
though. He never hit me, but there was always the threat of it in his voice. He loves his son, I'll give him that, and he would do anything to protect him. I know he would never hurt Drew Junior. But I wouldn't put killing Celia or anybody else who he finds threatening beyond him.”

“So you think he could have killed Celia?”

“Yeah. He could have done it.”

I took her answer with a grain of salt. Ask half a dozen women that question about their ex-husbands, and they'd say the bastard is capable of anything. Yet I couldn't entirely dismiss her feelings. I wondered what Larry Walton would say if he heard them.

“So when Celia came into your life everything changed?”

“Not at first. I wasn't sure how I felt about her. She was kind of vulgar and crude. Not at all the kind of woman my mama would approve of.”

I smiled to myself. Even as a kid, Celia had a sewer mouth and a collection of dirty jokes that could make my brother blush.

“How long were you and Celia together?”

“We had this, I guess you could say, flirtation about a year before we actually got together. I left my husband and Celia moved in here about a year ago. We broke up four months before she was killed.”

“So how did you meet her?”

“Rebecca Donovan.”

Now
that
surprised me. I took a sip of my drink and nibbled meditatively on a piece of cheese before I asked for more. “Mrs. Donovan mentioned that she was involved in a shelter for abused women. So you worked in the same shelter?”

“No, not at the shelter. Rebecca has always had a bit of the social worker about her.”

I smiled to myself, remembering how Larry Walton had used nearly the same words to describe Annette's attitude toward Celia.

“I was in a show.” She picked up the puzzled look on my face and gestured to the drawing of Celia I'd noticed earlier. “I like to draw. I'm an artist,” she added with a defiant shrug as if daring me to contradict her, and I realized that this self-definition was probably one that she had only recently begun to use. “I haven't studied art formally or anything, but I've always loved to draw. My husband calls my efforts amateurish, and maybe they are, but I love to do it, and I know I'll improve. I'm determined to get better.”

“Good for you,” I said, and meant it. She spoke with a pride and self-assurance that reminded me of those times I'd defied all odds to accomplish what I wanted. Maybe Celia had given her that spirit, too.

“So you and Rebecca Donovan are good friends?”

“Yeah, after all these years. As a matter of fact, we still get together, usually at the beginning of the month. An early breakfast usually. We always see each other on holidays, too, like Thanksgiving or Christmas, or we call from wherever we are. Always early, when everybody else is in bed. It's an old tradition. We were kind of like sisters when we were young because we were both only children. When we were kids we had to get up to go to sunrise service. And they meant sunrise.”

“Sunrise!” My voice betrayed my penchant for late mornings.

Annette laughed. “Yeah, sunrise! Becky and I go back, way back. Our parents belonged to the same church.” She gave an exaggerated shiver and picked up the drink she'd sworn off a few moments earlier.

“I take it you're no longer a member.”

“You don't miss a trick, do you, Ms. Hayle?” she said with a grin. “That place, and a couple of other things, probably drove me to drink. I doubt if Becky is still a member, but she is always so rigid, maybe she still is. Becky took everything much more to heart than I did. I used to call her the little nun, because she had such a firm notion of good and evil and that people should always get their just deserts.”

“Just desserts? That means peach cobbler to me.”

“I'm with you, but Becky was serious about justice. Maybe that's why she married a judge.”

“So what was your church like?”

“When I think back about it, it was more a cult than a church. Services three and four times a week. All day in church and meetings afterward. Maybe it had more of an influence on both of us than we realize. Negative on me, maybe that was why I ended up in a ‘sinful’ relationship with Celia. God knows, I would have ended up in hell for that one. But all the good works that Becky did may have come from that, too. She was always doing something good for somebody, which is why she got involved in Celia's life in the first place, and how I met her.

“She came to the show because she wanted to support me in my art, and brought Celia to expose her to the quote better things in life.”

“You said you didn't like her at first.”