Countdown (19 page)

‘I’m afraid you might asphyxiate from the smell of those roses,’ Jean said, backing away from the small table.

‘I’d rather have the forest room. You wanna trade?’ Jewel asked.

‘No, thank you. I’m beginning to see the merits of my little slice of forest,’ Jean said. ‘How about the bathroom?’

‘I haven’t found it yet. Should be one of these two doors,’ she said.

The bedroom was a mirror image of Jean’s, so Jean pointed to the door that matched the location of her own bathroom entry. ‘There,’ she said.

Jewel opened the door. Unlike Jean’s bathroom, this one did not carry on the rose theme – as much. It was just blazingly white. Everything – the tiles covering the floor and the walls, the marble counter top, the two white basins, the claw-foot tub, the shower surround, towels, shower mat, everything – was white, including the white vase filled with white roses, their green leaves the only hint of color in the room.

‘Now you’ve got to trade with me,’ Jewel said. ‘As pale as I am, I’ll get lost in here!’

Jean laughed. ‘Take your cell phone with you and call if you need help.’

Jewel turned quickly to her sister-in-law, a big smile on her face. ‘You think the rest of these rooms are themed? Maybe we should look!’

Jean grinned back. ‘We’ve got time,’ she said.

T
hat night I got my first call from my wife up in Kansas City. ‘So how’s it going?’ I asked, after we exchanged all the ‘I love yous’ and ‘I miss yous’ the moment required.

‘Well, little did I know, but Paula came from serious money. This place is a mansion,’ she said.

‘You still at her mama’s house?’ I asked.

‘Hum …’ She started, then stopped. ‘Here’s the thing, honey,’ my wife said in that tone of voice she uses to placate me. I’m not fond of that tone of voice. ‘Mrs Carmichael – Vivian – canceled our hotel reservations and insisted that Jewel and I stay here.’

I felt my heart skip a beat. My wife planned on outing a pedophile while probably staying in the same house as him. Not good. Not good at all. ‘Thank her kindly,’ I said, somewhat stiffly, ‘and go back to your hotel.’

‘She canceled the rooms, Milt. And there’s a big festival in town through the weekend – there’s not another hotel room to be had,’ she said.

‘Then come home. Now.’

Jean sighed on the other end of the phone. ‘I’ll tread carefully, honey, I promise. But I can’t leave right now. The viewing is tonight, with a catered buffet afterward, then the funeral is tomorrow. I’m obligated, Milt.’

‘Bullshit!’ I said. ‘You’re not obligated to get yourself killed! And my sister, too—’

‘You’re the one who insisted I bring her—’

‘I wanted you to bring Jasmine – with a loaded gun! Now you’ve got a barely five-foot-tall housewife as back-up!’

‘Milton, don’t make me hang up on you!’ Jean said. Not very productive for a debonaire psychiatrist, I thought.

I sighed, trying to calm down. ‘Honey,’ I finally said, ‘just don’t out this person if you find him. Not there anyway, not now. Come home, then call someone back there and tell them. It can all come out while you’re safely here with me.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ she said.

And that was just about the gist of the conversation. We were at a stand-off, with her probably deciding not to keep me abreast of her situation, and me wanting to run up to KC and drag her ass back home.

Jean and Jewel rode in the family’s chauffeur-driven limousine to the funeral home with Vivian and Constance. Mr Carmichael remained in his rooms as he could not comprehend the fact that one of his daughters was gone, nor did Vivian require or even want his nose-picking presence. As she said, ‘God only knows what he’d pick in front of a roomful of Kansas City’s elite. Probably his ass.’ Which, of course, made Constance respond with her usual, ‘Mother!’

Jean was afraid that Paula’s abuser would be the most likely suspect – her father. If that was the case, there would be nothing Jean could do, even if she could find evidence of it. The man was beyond caring and it would be more than cruel to out an Alzheimer’s patient. But she was determined to check out possible suspects at tonight’s viewing – other family members, long-time family friends, business partners … anyone who would have had access to Paula as a child.

As the first ones to the funeral home – a beautiful turn-of-the-twentieth-century Victorian – the Carmichael women and their guests were allowed access to the viewing chamber for a private few minutes with the deceased. Vivian, being pushed in her wheelchair by the chauffeur, had him park her at the back of the room, far away from her daughter’s current resting place. Jewel sat in a chair near the old woman as Constance and Jean went up to the casket.

‘Doesn’t she look natural?’ Constance said, quietly touching the back of her hand to her sister’s cheek.

No, she didn’t look natural. Jean had never seen a body at a funeral that did. She looked like a wax dummy, ready for Madame Tussaud’s. The clothes were obviously ones her mother had sent to the funeral home as they weren’t the ones Jean had given the coroner in Longbranch to dress her in. She’d found a business suit Paula had obviously brought for her interview in Houston in her suitcase. It still had tags on it and Jean had removed those before sending the clothing on. But now Paula was dressed in a fussy pink Laura Ashley-type dress, complete with buckled white shoes, which made her seem even more dummy-like. Jean thought righteously that Paula wouldn’t be caught dead in such an outfit – then had to amend her thought. She’d been caught. Paula’s short gray hair had been replaced with a longer blonde wig, and the make-up that adorned her face was out of character for the bare-faced woman who had died in suite 214.

Jean hadn’t noticed much of a resemblance between the two sisters until now. Like the body in the casket, Constance’s hair was a little too blonde, her face a little too made up, and her dress, although the proper black, was a little too feminine and frilly. Jean had to wonder at Constance’s ability to consider that she and her sister
both
looked ‘natural.’

Jean simply nodded her head at Constance, unable to verbally agree. She moved to the chair next to Jewel, who took her hand in hers and squeezed it. Jean smiled at her sister-in-law, thankful to have their little adventure with the rest of the third-floor wing to think about, rather than the caricature of Paula now lying in a casket in front of them.

And it had been fun, their little adventure. Starting with the room next to Jean’s, they’d opened each door and peered inside, giggling like schoolgirls and coming up with an ‘appropriate’ name for each room. For a room sporting fake palm trees and Adirondack chairs, they assigned the name ‘Beach Blanket Bingo.’ For the room that was several different shades of blue with celestial bodies covering the ceiling and walls, they decided on ‘Blue Monday.’ ‘Cabin Fever’ was their vote for a room decorated in early American chic, and ‘Pasta Primavera’ for the room decked out like a Tuscany villa. Some of the rooms were empty, sporting only stepladders and paint cans. These they dubbed ‘Visions of a Horrible Future.’

They’d clambered to their rooms when they heard the elevator stopping on the third floor. Penny had been sent up to check on them, she’d said, and had brought bottled water and bags of nuts – like you’d get on a plane. Jean had begun to feel like she was in an over-the-top hotel with a really, really bad decorator.

The four women were alone for about ten minutes before the doors were opened by the funeral director and people began to parade in. Their voices were hushed, which was appropriate, their attire subdued, which was appropriate, and the curiosity and expectancy on their faces, Jean admitted to herself, might be appropriate at the viewing of a murder victim. Only Jewel and Constance stood to welcome the arrivals, but all four were greeted, hands shaken, an occasional hug for Vivian and more for Constance. Jean studied their faces.

A man was introduced as Walter Carmichael’s business partner for over forty years – Mitchell Sewell and his wife, Lana, a big woman who towered over her husband. The man was much shorter than Jean and had a weak handshake. He had the look of a man who might feel a need to overcompensate for his size. Could that overcompensation include the abuse of someone even smaller and more vulnerable than himself?

Then there was Uncle Max, Walter Carmichael’s younger brother, with a woman at least thirty years his junior. Although well into his sixties, Uncle Max was strikingly handsome and obviously enjoyed the company of younger women. Could that have included a very young niece? His handshake was firm, and Jean couldn’t help noticing how he lingered over Jewel’s hand, giving every indication he was about to kiss it, before the woman with him yanked him onward.

‘That’s his fourth wife – Serene,’ Constance whispered to Jewel and Jean. ‘Looks like he’s eyeing Jewel as a replacement.’

‘Humph,’ Jewel said, as more people came down the line.

Two young women were next and Constance left her station to hug them both. Turning to Jean and Jewel, she said, ‘These are my daughters, Megan and Dru—’

‘Stepdaughters,’ the one named Dru said as she shook Jean’s hand.

‘Nice to meet you,’ Jean said.

‘Aunt Paula talked about you,’ Dru said. ‘She said you were the only friend she ever had. She said she was really looking forward to seeing you on her trip to Houston. Too bad you got her killed.’

‘Dru!’ Constance said, taking her stepdaughter by the arm. ‘I believe you need to sit down.’

‘Come on, Dru,’ the other stepdaughter, Megan, joined in. ‘Just hush.’

‘Yeah,’ Dru said, ‘don’t let Drusilla talk – God only knows what truths might escape!’

The man behind the two stepdaughters was shaking his head and laughing. ‘I know they aren’t actually blood relations, Constance, but that Dru reminds me so much of Paula!’ He leaned down to hug Vivian and then in turn hug Constance.

‘Yes,’ Constance replied, smiling stiffly at the man, ‘sometimes there is quite a resemblance.’ Turning to her house guests, she said, ‘Jewel, Jean, this is our next-door neighbor since forever, Neil Davenport.’

Jean shook his hand. A firm handshake from a large, beefy man. Probably an athlete in his younger days, age had caught up with him, sagging his jowls, dropping his gut over his belt and thinning his hair. Jean’s thoughts went something like this: right next door. Easy access. Probably good-looking when Paula was a child. Possible abuser?

‘This is my wife, Emily,’ he said, indicating a small woman Jean had not noticed until Davenport had pointed her out. And still, she was almost invisible. Pasty skin topped by fading blonde hair, eyes the color of fog, and decked out entirely in beige. Straight away, Jean’s instinct told her that she was surely the type of woman who’d be easy to cheat on, because even if she knew she’d do nothing about it. Not even if it was a child.

Jean knew she was making snap judgments about these people, but that was all she had time for. She needed to sum these people up quickly and try to see who could be a possible candidate for the abuse Paula had suffered as a child. Because it was no longer just a theory, as far as Jean was concerned. It was fact. The more she thought about it, the more she studied Paula’s family situation then added to that what Jean already knew about Paula’s promiscuity, she was sure that her diagnosis of child sexual abuse was on the nose. Now all she had to do was figure out which one of these assholes had hurt her friend.

Saturday I awoke to a downpour, although it wasn’t attached to another tornado, thank God. And speaking of tornadoes, the reason I woke up in the first place was because the dog, Tornado – or Nado – was standing with his front feet on either side of my head, one of his hind feet next to my hip and the other on my balls. He was also licking my face like it was smeared with kibble.

‘Get!’ I said, shoving at him as I doubled over in pain. ‘Get off, you brute!’

‘Hey, Dad,’ Johnny Mac said from the doorway from Jean’s and my bedroom to the kitchen. He had a spoonful of peanut butter that he was licking like a lollypop. I had to assume that Johnny Mac had opened my door, allowing the giant dog inside. Otherwise, I’d have to believe that the beast had learned to open the door, with no (visible) imposable thumbs. And that just put the fear of God into me.

‘Get. This. Dog. Off. Me,’ I said succinctly.

‘Hey, Nado,’ Johnny Mac said, ‘come on.’

The dog jumped off my bed and followed Johnny Mac into the kitchen. I got up gingerly and went into the kitchen, finding a dish towel and some ice before going back into the bedroom to tend to my balls. Come on, that dog’s gotta way a hundred pounds easy!

After the pain had subsided I went into the bathroom, took a shower, shaved, brushed my teeth and did all those things one does upon rising, even on a Saturday. My job being what it was, just because it was Saturday didn’t mean I wouldn’t wind up at the shop taking care of business. I went back out to the kitchen to find Johnny Mac alone in the breakfast nook. I looked out of the sliding glass door that led to the backyard and saw Tornado dancing in the rain like he was on LSD or some other hallucinogen. I’m telling you, that was one strange dog.

‘Started the coffee for you, Dad,’ Johnny Mac said.

I looked at my son and grinned. ‘You’re trying hard to make up for that stunt you pulled last Saturday, huh, boy?’ I smiled and nodded my head. ‘You keep this up,’ I said as I grabbed a cup and poured myself some coffee, ‘and you should be out of the doghouse by the time you’re ready for college!’

I ruffled his hair as I sat down at the table. My brother-in-law, Harmon, wandered into the room. He obviously didn’t do the same things I did upon rising on a Saturday. He was wearing a white T-shirt, plaid boxer shorts and a robe I happened to know belonged to my wife since it was a gift from me last Christmas. It was blue silk with a dragon on the back. His hair was suffering from extreme bed-head, his beard had what looked more like two weeks’ growth rather than just overnight, he was barefoot and, as he passed the breakfast nook on his way to the coffeepot, I could smell him – it wasn’t pleasant. I figured I’d have to get Jean’s silk robe to the dry cleaners before she got back – and then lock it away somewhere where Harmon couldn’t find it.