Booby Trap (18 page)

“It’s stupid and juvenile, I know.”

“Did you sleep with Mason?”

She shook her head. “No. I thought about it, but it seemed too complicated to involve him. He was young and my employee—and, it turns out, gay. It was easier to follow my husband’s example and sleep with clients.” She swallowed hard. “At least until now. I ended my last affair as soon as I realized that all the victims had ties to me and my business.”

“All except Laurie Luke?”

“No.” She dabbed her eyes with her hankie again. “Even the Luke girl is connected. I was in the middle of decorating her future in-laws’ home when she was murdered.”

“Are you still working for the Thomases?”

“I couldn’t. I turned the remainder of the project over to Mason. He has his own design company now, and I knew he would finish the job to their satisfaction.” She smiled tightly. “I’m not in the habit of giving work away to competitors, but I knew I could trust Mason’s work.”

Running a finger up and down the cool glass in front of me, I processed this new information, blending it with what Steele had told me about Jane’s past. A possibility crossed my mind and I went for it, not caring if it upset Jane or not.

“Were you one of Brian’s patients once upon a time? Is that how you met?”

Jane Sharp’s eyes widened, then narrowed, going from surprise to anger without a blink in between.

“How I met my husband is none of your business.”

I laughed lightly. “Jane, none of this is my business, and frankly, I’d rather not know about your extensive sexual activities. But Lil asked me for a favor, and getting to the bottom of things is part of that favor.”

I narrowed my own eyes back at her. “My guess is that you were a patient and somewhere along the line had an affair with Dr. Eddy, eventually marrying him. Was he already married at the time?”

She looked horrified at the question, but in a fake how-dare-you way.

I continued. “Six years ago, he may have had an affair with a patient, but it wasn’t the first time, was it? Maybe you were afraid he was shopping for wife number two, so you started shopping for a backup yourself?”

Jane looked towards the door to the kitchen, but Lil was nowhere in sight. Seeing that we were alone, she sat back down at the table and leaned forward. Her tragic appearance was gone. In its place was the cold and calculating predator Steele had observed.

“It’s true. Brian did do my surgery and, yes, we did end up getting married. But he was single and so was I. I started sleeping around to get back at him, that’s all it was.” She quickly dropped her eyes and started up the waterworks again. “I’m so ashamed.”

“I heard you were quite a party girl back in college—that you specialized in high-profile jocks and married professors. What was your motivation for that behavior?”

Before I knew what had happened, my face was soaked with iced tea.

Okay, maybe I deserved that.

I grabbed napkins Lil had left on the table and started blotting my face and clothing. Fortunately, Jane’s glass had been nearly empty when she tossed its contents at me.

Jane Sharp and I stared at each other—she with open hate, me with curiosity. I had obviously struck a nerve, making it worth getting soaked with tea. But whatever her reasons were for sleeping with every Tom, Dick, and Mike Steele, I honestly didn’t think it had anything to do with Brian Eddy being or not being the Blond Bomber, or even with his prior indiscretions.

Finished with my mop-up, I headed in another direction with my probing. “Maybe instead of looking to your husband as the killer, you should be looking at your competition.”

“You really believe Mason Bell would do such a thing?” Her voice was tight, but at least she was still talking to me.

“I don’t know Mason Bell, but anything and anyone is a possibility. All of the murdered women had ties to you or your business, but only Amber and Crystal Lee Harper had ties to Brian that I know of.”

Jane didn’t say anything more, and she was a hard read. I could tell she was tossing information around inside her beautiful but crazier-than-batshit head, but I couldn’t tell which way she leaned theory-wise.

“Whoever the killer is, Jane,
you
seem to be the common denominator.”

With a clear and
definite connection between Jane Sharp and the Blond Bomber, more possibilities came to light. The killer could be a competitor, such as Mason Bell, or a spurned lover. And there were still good reasons to suspect Brian Eddy. He might have a bone to pick with his wife’s promiscuity, hence the word
whore
written across the bodies. Or he could very well be jealous of her growing business and the time it took away from him and was trying to sabotage it. And he admitted to Perfect4u knowing a couple of the victims from being online. Although no connection between Sharp Design and the murders had yet been made public, if it ever was, Jane’s company would be poisoned. I wondered if this connection was one of the things the police were keeping out of the media. I’d have to ask Dev.

And then there was Amber. Amber had no decorating connection to Jane that I knew of. She was Dr. Eddy’s employee and his mistress. The pattern of killing women attached in some way to Sharp Design was broken with her death, except that she did know Jane personally.

Mentally, I fanned out the information about the victims and their connections to the possible suspects like a dealt hand of cards and began moving them around. I discarded Laurie Luke because although she had a connection to Jane, I was almost positive she’d been killed by Gordon Harper.

If Amber wasn’t killed by Dr. Eddy, then I’ll bet whoever killed her knew she was his nurse. She’d been carefully selected either to discredit the doctor or to send a message to his wife, or both, whereas the others seemed only to be targeting Jane.

Before leaving Lil’s, I asked Jane if Dr. Eddy knew that Amber had called her.

“Yes, I told him.” She’d set her jaw as she spoke. “I also told him that while I knew he’d been having affairs, same as I had, that sleeping with that office tramp was the height of indiscretion. That he should choose his bedmates better.” She got up and went to the window again, where she paced nervously. “He said he never told Amber he was going to marry her and was planning on ending it. That was a couple of days ago. That same night, we decided we couldn’t go on like this and should get a divorce. It was the only civil thing to do.”

“Did Amber have any involvement with your company? Or was she only connected to your husband’s work?”

“Amber never had anything to do with Sharp Design.” Jane stopped abruptly and raised an elegant hand to her mouth. “Except that I redecorated my husband’s office shortly after she was hired. But that was two years ago, maybe more.”

A thoughtful silence fell over us as we considered this information. Lil slipped back into the room and leaned against the door to the kitchen, quiet as a mouse. Her eyes were red. If she noticed my hair, face, and clothing being damp, she didn’t say anything.

Jane looked at her mother-in-law. “I told Brian that I would tell Lil about the divorce. She and I are quite close.” She paused. “Although he loves her very much,” she emphasized the words for Lil’s benefit, “Brian can sometimes be rigid with his mother.” Jane gave Lil a small, sad smile. Turning back to me, she continued. “Because of Amber’s death, however, we’ve decided not to make our separation public just yet. We don’t want any unnecessary suspicion cast on Brian.”

“But I thought you believed him to be the killer.”

“I do have my own suspicions, yes. But if Brian is not the killer, and I pray he’s not, then I don’t want him or his business suffering needlessly. The police questioned him extensively about Amber. If they decide he’s a suspect, let them be the ones to ruin him, not me.”

Jane looked suddenly small and defeated. Her elegant clothing appearing suddenly rumpled and too large, as if the confession and spent anger had shrunken her frame, leaving behind a delicate shell.

“In spite of everything, I still love my husband.” She began crying softly. Lil moved to her side and began gently stroking her hair.

Her hair.

“Jane, why did you change your hair? It was long and blond, like the victims’, in photos on your website.”

“I changed it for exactly that reason, Odelia. It was spooking me that the victims looked so similar to me and were connected to clients. So about two weeks ago, I changed my look. The physical similarity was one of the reasons I suspected Brian.”

“Lil told me once that Brian was out of town when most of the victims were killed. Is that true?”

She nodded. “It’s the thread of hope I cling to as evidence that he’s innocent. I’ve double-checked his calendar, but I don’t have all the information. On the downside, I do know that most of those trips were within California and didn’t cover the entire time the women were missing.”

Without her saying, I knew what Jane was thinking. Travel within the state meant that it was possible he could have done the killing and still had time to get wherever he was going, within reason, or go there, come back to kill, and return to wherever he was on business. The police would spot the holes instantly and would look into them.

“Jane, I could be wrong, and I could be very naïve about this, but I still don’t think your husband is the Blond Bomber. As for the Luke woman, the police are pretty positive that whoever killed her was not the killer of the other women.”

I thought briefly about telling Jane and Lil that I had proof of who killed Laurie Luke, but something made me hold my tongue. If Jane had been sleeping with Kirk’s father during the decorating of the Thomas home, I didn’t want to run the risk of her going back to Mr. Thomas with information that might be premature and interfere with the police investigation.

I left Lil and Jane huddled together for support and started my journey back to Newport Beach. It was time to collect Lisa from the hospital and get her settled in our home in Seal Beach. Another half-day shot for Woobie. But at least I’d be home a little early and could make something decent for Lisa’s first dinner with us. One way or another, I was determined to make a home-cooked meal this week. In my murder-sodden brain, it seemed imperative to have that touch of normalcy in our lives.

I was almost on the ramp to the freeway when my cell phone rang. It was Greg.

“Where are you?” His question came as soon as I said hello.

“In Laguna Hills, about to head to Hoag Hospital to pick up Lisa. Why?”

“Pull over, sweetheart. I don’t want you driving while we talk.”

“Greg, what’s happened?” Worry coursed through me like an electrical current.

“Pull over and stop the car. We don’t need you getting into an accident.”

I obeyed, pulling into the parking lot of a strip mall near the entrance to the freeway.

“Okay, I’m parked.” I felt my stomach tense.

“Horten’s at Memorial.”

My heart stopped on a dime. “My father’s in the hospital?”

“He’s going to be okay, Odelia. He fell and hit his head and is going to need a few stitches. The doctor’s running some tests to make sure the fall wasn’t caused by a stroke or blackout or something like that.”

“Did Dad call you?”

“The hospital called me. They found an emergency card in his wallet.”

Both Greg and I were listed as my father’s emergency contacts. Even though I was the daughter, Greg’s name was first because his office was closer to my father’s home geographically.

“In his wallet?” I felt my blood pressure rising. “Didn’t Gigi or someone go with him to the hospital?” My stepmother, Gigi, was an evil ditz, a woman who could have given the Wicked Witch and her horde of flying monkeys a run for their money. Her loser son, JJ, lived with Gigi and my dad.

“The hospital said no one came in with Horten. Apparently, he walked in through the ambulance entry and passed out as soon as he stepped over the threshold. I’m the only one here with him.”

“How did he get there? By cab?”

“No one seems to know.”

I was about to pass out myself. “I’ll be right there, Greg.”

“Sweetheart, calm down. Take a deep breath, and sit still for a minute or two. I don’t want you driving all worked up.”

“But he could have been killed, Greg.”

“I know that, Odelia, but he wasn’t. He has a nasty gash and possibly a concussion, but he seems to be fine otherwise. Let’s wait for the test results before panicking.”

Greg was right. But it wasn’t my father’s accident that had me in a lather. It was the fact that although my father lived with Gigi and JJ, neither of whom worked, and Gigi’s daughter Dee was close by, my dad had arrived at the emergency room alone.

Taking Greg’s advice, I tried to calm down. A fast-food restaurant was located at the edge of the strip mall. I ducked into their ladies’ room to use the toilet and to press a cold wet towel to my forehead, cheeks, and the back of my neck. It helped.

My father is in his eighties; stuff like this is bound to happen. Right after Greg and I were married, he’d had a heart attack scare. It wasn’t his heart, but it put us all on pins and needles. I wanted him to come live with us, at least until he felt better. I know Gigi doesn’t look after him, and JJ just adds to his anxiety. But as Greg often tells me, my father is a grown man with all his faculties. He knows if he ever wants to leave Gigi that we would welcome him, but it has to be his decision. And Greg is right, of course. It’s just that I’ve wanted Dad to leave Gigi for thirty years, ever since I left his house and struck out on my own at eighteen. But that’s not Dad’s style. My father’s one glaring fault is his passivity. Maybe that’s why I’m such a bull in a china shop. I watched my mother verbally abuse him until she kicked him out, and now I watch Gigi and her brood do the same. My father just doesn’t seem to have any
cojones
when it comes to women.

Before pulling out of the parking lot and heading for Memorial Hospital, I called Zee and told her about my dad. Immediately, she wanted to go with me, but instead I asked her for another favor. She agreed to pick up Lisa Luke and take her to my house. Next, I called Dev and told him about the change in plans. He told me not to worry about Lisa, he and Zee would make sure she was safe.

The last call I made was to the office. I spoke to both Jill and Tina Swanson, explaining about my father. I told them I’d let them know if I needed to take the next day off. Jill was assigned the enviable task of alerting Steele.