If Looks Could Kill (41 page)

I had been in the bathroom too long, and I didn’t want to arouse any suspicion. As I found my way to the solarium, my legs
felt floppy with fear, like two pieces of fabric. Clyde was already seated at one end of the wrought-iron table, opening a
bottle of red wine. Leslie was in the process of setting a mixed green salad on each placemat. She told me to take a seat
on the long side of the table and lowered herself into a chair at the end opposite Clyde.

“I hope you like cilantro,” Leslie said. “I put a lot of it in the dressing.”

“I love it,” I said. I was so anxious I’d barely gotten the words out. Somehow I was going to have to summon a way to seem
normal.

Leslie took the first bite of salad, the hostess indicating it was okay to start, and Clyde and I followed suit. Though I
had a tough time swallowing, it was actually tasty. I suddenly thought of what Darma had said—that she and Leslie had worked
together at the food magazine. If Leslie knew about cooking, she could have easily made the truffles.

“How did you find the place out here?” I asked, trying to sound casual.

“Clyde found it, didn’t you? Tell Bailey the story.”

“There’s really nothing so special about it,” he said dismissively. I was getting a good glimpse of their marriage tonight—and
it wasn’t very pretty.

“Of course there is,” she insisted.

He rushed through a story about attending a party at the house while he was in college and years later being shown it by a
real estate agent—to his surprise.

“You went to college in the area?” I asked.

“In the general area. Yale. Did you and Cat meet in college? Leslie tells me you two are old buddies.” He said “old buddies”
in a kind of negative way, as if he were saying “old biddies.”

“No, we met around seven years ago, working at a magazine.”

“And you’re helping her now? Leslie says you’re looking into the death at her home.”

Oh boy, here we go. “Well, I’ve tried to help,” I said. “I’ve made a few inquiries on her behalf.”

“And have those inquiries proven fruitful?” he asked, unsmiling.

I took another bite of my salad to give myself time to form an answer. I wanted to keep him talking, but I didn’t want to
let on that I knew more than I should.

“I’m probably overstating it,” I said. “Mostly I’ve been a shoulder to lean on. This has been very hard for her.”

“By this I take it you mean having someone die violently in your home.”

“Yes, and having someone die who you cared about.”

“Oh, did Cat care about her nanny?” he said, his voice thick with sarcasm. “I’d never heard her say as much.”

“Of course she did,” Leslie interjected. I’d been watching her out of the corner of my eye, and up until this moment she had
been sitting quietly, pushing the baby lettuce leaves around on her plate. “No one’s going to kid themselves and suggest that
their relationship was all warm and fuzzy, but Cat was concerned about Heidi’s welfare when she was living under her roof.
And she’s sick about what happened—that Heidi died because someone was out to get
her.”

No mention of my Heidi theory from the other night. Apparently she hadn’t shared
that
with Clyde. As I set my fork down, I glanced over at him. He was staring at Leslie, not bothering to comment on her defense
of Cat.

“Well,” Leslie announced with a faux chirpiness. “Why don’t I serve the chili now.”

Refusing my offer to help, she cleared our salad plates and set them on a side table against the wall. That’s where the chili
was, in a large red pot, being kept hot by a Sterno candle. She transferred it over to the table, onto a hot plate, along
with small bowls of grated cheese, sour cream, and chopped onions. As we passed our plates to her, she spooned a large helping
of chili onto each of them. We took turns passing and added the toppings. Clyde was going along with the program, but he had
grown silent as a stone.

“Oh, good,” Leslie exclaimed, again taking the first bite. “I was afraid I’d gotten it too spicy, but it’s fine. Do you cook,
Bailey?”

“Some,” I said, breaking off a piece of bread from a loaf in a basket on the table. “But I don’t have any special talent for
it.”

I finally took my first bite. It seemed sweet for chili, if anything not spicy enough. With my second bite I suddenly felt
an intense throbbing in my throat, like instant strep, a pain that went all the way back to my ears. A second later the swelling
began in my lips and my tongue and my throat. I had eaten peanuts somehow, within the last twenty seconds. I stared at the
plate of chili, uncomprehending. Then I jumped out of my seat, knocking my chair backward to the floor.

“What’s the matter?” Clyde exclaimed.

“My purse,” I gasped. “I need my purse.”

I half ran, half staggered out of the room, terrified, as I felt my throat swelling tighter and tighter. My purse was where
I’d left it, on the hall chair. Clyde was calling out something to me, but I just kept moving. I grabbed my bag, turned it
upside down, and watched everything splatter onto the floor. At first I didn’t see it, the “EpiPen,” the syringe of epinephrine,
but as I frantically pushed stuff aside I discovered it, under my checkbook. I knocked off the top, pulled up my shirt, and
jabbed the needle into my stomach.

Closing my eyes, I lay back on the floor, waiting for the epinephrine to work. It felt as if I had a loaf of sopping wet bread
stuffed in my throat. I couldn’t swallow and could barely catch a breath. Finally, in seconds that seemed like minutes, I
felt my heart begin to jump like a pogo stick, as if it had been defibrillated. But the swelling in my throat was beginning
to go down. I opened my eyes and saw that Clyde and Leslie were standing over me.

“Are you okay?” Clyde asked. “What should we do?” He looked frantic. Leslie just stared, her face blank.

“Peanuts,” I said. My tongue was still thick, and it was hard to talk. “I’m allergic.”

“Peanuts?” Clyde exclaimed. “What do you mean?”

“Oh dear,” Leslie exclaimed. “There’s peanut butter in the chili. It’s an old family recipe. I had no idea you were allergic.”

But I bet she
did
know. I’d made it known when I first arrived at
Gloss
. And I bet Leslie had urged me to come tonight so she could try to kill me.

“Here, let me help you,” Leslie said shrilly, reaching for my hand.

“Don’t touch me,” I said to her, trying to catch a breath. “Clyde, please, you’ve got to help me. Don’t let her near me.”

“What’s going on?” Clyde asked me, baffled.

“She killed Heidi,” I said. “And she tried to kill me.”

He spun around toward Leslie. “
You
killed her?” he exclaimed, in a state of total bewilderment.
“You?”

Before I could say another word, Leslie dropped to one knee and, pinning my arms down, grabbed around my neck with both hands.
She squeezed as hard as she could and shook my head back and forth like a doll’s. I panicked as I fought to get a breath and
couldn’t and my brain seemed to bulge with blood.

“Shut up,” she screamed. “Just shut up!” Her kidney bean nostrils were so close I could see the hairs in them. I pulled up
my knee and struggled to knock her off me. Finally, as my head felt ready to explode, Clyde grabbed her by the shoulders and
shoved her away. She regained her balance and ran off, down the long center hallway toward the back of the house. I thought
suddenly of all those swords mounted on the walls of the study. Clyde stooped down and lifted me into a sitting position.

“You okay?” he barked.

“Yes. No. I need to get to a hospital. The stuff I took only lasts thirty minutes.”

“What’s going on? Why did you say that—about Leslie and Heidi?”

From far off, on the other side of the house, I heard what I thought was a door slam. I took as big a breath as I could, forcing
air into my lungs. “I put two and two together,” I said. “Somehow Leslie found out about your affair. She killed Heidi but
made it look as though someone wanted to hurt Cat. And she tried to kill me tonight because she thought I was close to figuring
it out.”

It seemed to take him a second to process what I’d told him and then his face filled with rage. He rose and turned on his
heels. He was going after her.

“Don’t leave me,” I pleaded. “I need your help.”

He yelled something as he flew down the hall, but I couldn’t make out what it was. If I didn’t get medical treatment within
the next half hour, the swelling would start again and I could easily suffocate to death. There was no way I was going to
call 911 and wait in this house for an ambulance to come after me. I was going to have to try to drive myself to a hospital.
Though I had no clue where the nearest one was.

I rolled over onto my knees, grabbed my car keys from the mess on the floor, and scooted my wallet back into my purse. I struggled
to my feet. As I tried to steady myself and catch another breath, I heard a door slam in the back of the house and then the
sound of footsteps clomping toward the front of the house. It was the sound of a woman. Leslie was coming back for me.

B
UT IT WASN’T
Leslie. Suddenly, Cat Jones was standing in the middle of the front hallway.

I didn’t even think to ask what she was doing there. I blurted out as much of the story as I could—Leslie had killed Heidi,
Leslie had tried to kill me—and told her I had to get to an ER. She grabbed my arm to help me and hurried me through the front
door of the house. As we raced across the wet lawn to the driveway, Cat told me she’d discovered neither Leslie nor Clyde
in the back of the house but that she’d seen a car peeling down the road as she’d approached the house, and she thought it
had come from the driveway. I figured it had to be Leslie.

Once in the car, neither of us said much. Cat concentrated on driving like a demon. I felt too shaky to talk. I lay with my
head against the door, eyes closed, keeping as still as possible, willing my throat not to swell again. At one point I heard
Cat call Jeff on her cell phone. She told him what had happened and warned him not to let Leslie in if she came by the house.
The trip seemed interminable, but as we pulled into the entrance of the Sharon ER I saw from my watch that we had made it
in less than twenty minutes. I felt a wave of relief just walking through the entrance.

I only had to say, “Peanut allergy,” to the triage nurse and I was ushered back to an examining room, leaving Cat to show
my insurance card somewhere. A doctor hurried in, looking like a graduate of the Doogie Howser school of medicine. I didn’t
go into any of the sordid details, just told him I’d eaten chili with peanut butter in it, never imagining it could be an
ingredient. He gave me both Benadryl and steroids and told me to lie still for a while. Cat found her way into the room as
he was shooting something into my arm. As soon as he left the room, she stepped closer again and squeezed my hand.

“Cat, we need to call the police,” I said. “Can you do it?”

“Sure, but I’ll have to find a pay phone. You’re not supposed to use cell phones in hospitals.”

“Don’t call the local police, though—at least not yet. I think you should first call Farley and ask him how to proceed. And
you better get hold of Clyde. Tell him where we went and to be careful. Who knows what Leslie will do now.”

As she stepped away, I reached out and grabbed her arm.

“Wait a sec,” I said. “What were you doing at Leslie’s tonight?”

“The doctor said you need to rest. I’ll tell you later.”

“No, tell me now.”

“It was something you said this afternoon. You told me that Leslie had said I’d brought up the Tucker Bobb connection. But
it was Leslie who had brought it up to
me
. And then tonight—she seemed so adamant about your coming. I started to get a weird feeling. I called Leslie’s house once
we got to my parents and the machine picked up, which seemed odd. I made Jeff leave right away.”

“Is Tyler okay?”

“He had another meltdown when I left him and Jeff off at our house, but two-year-olds forgive you.”

“God, Cat. You came to my rescue.”

“Well, don’t get used to it,” she said with a smirk. “You better rest. I’ll make the calls.”

As she slipped through the door, I closed my eyes. I tried to make my body relax, but it wouldn’t obey my command. Everything
that had happened during the night kept replaying itself over and over in my head, especially the terror I’d felt in the hallway
as my throat began to swell, as Leslie’s hands closed around it and squeezed. How lucky that I’d brought the EpiPen. Over
the years I’d gotten a little sloppy about carrying it around, but because I’d been going away for the weekend, I’d made a
point of tossing it into my bag. If I hadn’t, I’d be dead. And I might be dead if Cat hadn’t come striding down that hall.
Tears began to squeeze out from under my lids.

I dozed off, but I wasn’t sure for how long. When I opened my eyes, Cat was sitting in a chair, leafing through a magazine
without really reading it.

“You got through?” I asked.

“Yeah. New developments,” she said. “I called Clyde first—just to see if there was anything I needed to include for Farley.
Leslie was in an accident. She hit a guardrail or something. I’m not sure of all the details because he was fairly incoherent.
She’s in the hospital. Busted her leg—but she’s not serious.”

“She’s not
here
, is she?”

“No, no. Farther south. She’s been admitted. So then I called Farley. He sounded flabbergasted. He wants to talk to you as
soon as possible. I told him you weren’t well enough to talk tonight, and he said he wants you in New York tomorrow. No excuses.”

“Did he give you any indication of what they would do?” I asked.

“He said he’d handle it. It was clear he was going to talk to the police here. And he said that the local guys would probably
want a statement from you before you leave tomorrow.”

Doogie came back in at this point to check on me. They took my temperature and pulse again and dismissed me. As Cat pulled
the BMW out of the hospital parking lot, she called Jeff on her cell phone and told him we were on our way—and that Leslie
was no longer roaming the countryside.