Deadly Dues (4 page)

We still looked at him expectantly.

There was a further hopeful pause.

“That's it?” said Geoff.

“Yes!” hissed Bent so violently that we all shrank backward into the booth, plastering ourselves against the battered leather to escape the “s” sound in the word.

I sort of wondered who he thought was going to discover the body and report it before the morning papers were delivered, but I wasn't inclined to argue.

Gretchen was uncharacteristically silent on the drive home. She lived in the house her parents had left her, a decaying mansion in the upscale Glenwood community, which emanated the scent of old money.

Back in the good old days of Doggie Doggie Bow Wow, I had picked up the tab for all of us a good part of the time. Geoff had been in a slump. And Pete had been working with a co-op theatre, which was good for the soul, but meaningless to the bank balance. Then Geoff had scored the lead in a TV movie, and he had shared the hospitality with me for a while. When Pete's jolly plant commercials had aired, he kicked in. Bent contributed the minimum, and we understood. His income was consistent but rock-bottom, and he was doing his best. But Gretchen never bought for anybody. I think it just never occurred to her. Everybody else always paid for her. I guess that's what it's like when you are a slim blonde with points in all the right places.

I pulled into the winding driveway in front of Gretchen's house, which she could easily have rented to film production companies as a set for horror movies—a looming hulk in major disrepair, scrawny tree branches flapping in the wind against the dirty windows. It was hard to tell if the white patterns inside the windows were curtains or cobwebs.
Couldn't this woman buy a Swiffer?
The house was separated from its more manicured neighbours by large, neatly trimmed hedges. Something told me Gretchen wasn't doing the trimming, even though she had the equipment. I suspected that the neighbours saw her as a beautiful witch, to be placated but never contacted.

I couldn't figure out how Gretchen could live there. One peep from a bird in the middle of the night, and I would be running down the driveway screaming.

Gretchen sat for a moment. She almost looked as if she were thinking.

“Somebody killed Stan,” she said finally, running her ragged little nail along the edge of the car seat.

Yeah. Duh.

“Do you really think it was one of us?” she sighed.

“I was hypothesizing. I was presenting possibilities. Possibilities that any of us could be suspected of having done it, not that we had.”

“I knew that,” she said quickly. “And I would never say anything against Geoff—or any of you.”

I stared at her. What sort of loyalty, faith and support is that from a person who has been downing Stingers, Sidecars and Manhattans on our tab for the past ten years?

“Gretchen,” I said, in dismay. “Spell this. Loyalty. L-O-Y-A-L-T-Y.” The spelling part kept me from cuffing her on the head, the only part of her that wasn't pointed. “Just because you and Geoff had an unfortunate disconnect, you shouldn't think he is fair game to be set up as a killer.”

Gretchen glanced at her darkened house, as if I had never spoken. Gee whiz, is she so cheap she can't leave on a few lights? The trees surrounding her decaying ancestral home swayed wildly in the wind. One good smack from an overenthusiastic branch, and that house would be a pile of firewood.

I persisted. “We're loyal to you. You owe us the same. Friendship is like business. You have to pony up what is owed. And you owe us, even Geoff, the same loyalty we give you.”

This was a very high-minded speech, which disappeared into the space where all well-intended, but ineffective, pontifications go.

She seemed nervous. My inspiring pep talk had failed, so now I wanted her to get out of the car and stop depressing me. I was depressed enough, what with dead bodies and demented fans.

I was relieved that she didn't ask me in for tea. She always served weird herbal teas purportedly from the Amazon or South Africa, but which I was convinced the local health food store ground up out of the compost heap, dried, then packaged for megabucks.

“What a night. I am
sooo
beat.” I revved the engine (such as it was) delicately to remind her that I was using up precious gas while she was accusing people of murder.

She looked at me reproachfully, and I felt a split second of guilt. She opened her door, slid elegantly out of the car and floated swiftly to her door. I waited until she had turned the key, stepped in, turned on the dim hallway light and closed the door before I drove away.

Lu, you are a louse. Maybe poor Gretchen wanted a little company.
I reproached myself for not offering to visit for a while.

Well no,
I answered.
I have a life, too. I have a bottle of Chardonnay in the fridge, a needy dog and an overwhelming need to be alone with my thoughts.

In ten minutes I was on Rockvale Drive, heading to the condo that I couldn't afford anymore. Although, I reminded myself, with Stan gone . . .
Stop that, Lu, stop that. Not nice
.

The landscaping along the condo complex entrance was soothing, with bushes flanked by fading flowerbeds, leaves rustling in the street and, prominently, a giant carved boulder, which served as the Rockvale Estates sign. A bit pretentious, given the reality of the complex, which was more a mid-scale condo development and as much like an estate as Paris Hilton resembles Meryl Streep, but, hey, I enjoyed it.

I loved my condo. I had bought it as soon as the first cheque from Bow Wow hit my mailbox. I knew I had arrived. To me, as an actor, to have a two-storey townhouse with a dishwasher and a recycling service as part of the package was heaven. I had furnished it with flea market finds, garage sale treasures and a bonanza of bargain shopping, and I loved every cluttered inch of it.

I pulled into Rockvale Gardens, where ten condos were grouped in a cul-de-sac, like friends linked in a chain. Realistically, my only friend in the area was the ancient Mrs. Lauterman, who lived in an apartment condo building in the neighbouring seniors complex. By leaning over her balcony, which overlooked my townhouse, she could wave greetings to me and keep tabs on my social life.

The Sunfire churned up the driveway, giving a pathetic groan. I put it out of its misery by turning it off. It gave a little chug of thanks. I hauled myself out of the car, and my back creaked, another reminder that my handbag was putting on weight.

Soon I would have to invest in a lighter cell phone. Life was easier when all I had to do was check my answering machine and pretend that I hadn't been home if I had to deal with a particularly annoying message—for example, a contract negotiation that I needed to forward to Mitzi. Or an unpleasant call from the bank. Now cell phones ruled the world. Especially with actors, who needed to be on call day and night for the unexpected, but mostly welcome, audition. And even more happily, the call to the set.

I also brooded briefly on the thought that my battered Sunfire was depreciating the property value of the cul de sac unless I hid it in the garage. So, like a good girl, I walked back, started it up and drove into the garage. It gave another little sigh of relief. Maybe it was embarrassed to be out in public, attracting the sneers of my neighbours, who mostly drove BMWs and Lexus, except for Mrs. Lauterman, who steered a high-tech walker.

I checked for muggers, closed the garage and trudged up my walk, trying not to hyperventilate about the events of the evening.

The light in front of my door was out. I never remembered to change the bulb unless I was coming home in the dark, and after I got into the condo I forgot all over again. Until a year ago, I had been able to afford a handyman who turned up on call, flailed about with screwdrivers, hammers and drills, and fixed whatever household mysteries needed attention. Those days were gone. I knew I had to haul out my ancient stepladder and put in a new bulb, but other things, like watching
Law & Order
or reading the latest Janet Evanovich, always got in the way. Why couldn't I be like Evanovich's Stephanie Plum, with hot men at my beck and call?

The only man at my beck and call was my plumber, Jake. He is six foot two and three hundred pounds, with a wisp of a moustache and a sweet smile. He charges an alarming amount per hour. I tried to be sincere in my congratulations when he told me he had just bought two vacation properties in the mountains, one for himself and his wife, and one as an investment. To his credit, he invited me out for his house-warming. “After all, Lu,” he said, “you helped me buy it.” This was one of the thoughts that flitted through my mind sometimes when I was dishing out loads of fries at McDonald's.

I trudged up the walk, fumbling my keys out of my bag, fighting the wind.

I shivered. Something rustled behind one of the bushes by my front door, and it wasn't any lousy leaf. Horatio woofed behind the door, and I automatically shushed him. He woofed again, and I shushed him again, before I realized that maybe I should have let the dear boy bark as ferociously and as long as possible. Was something lurking by my front door? Just because I told Horatio to shut up, did he have to listen? Over a hundred dollars in Bow Wow Dog Food every month, and that big lummox of a dog couldn't take his job seriously enough to bark when there are lurking things in the front yard?

Halfway up the walk, I knew I had to make a decision: either scream like Fay Wray in
King Kong,
or be a grown-up and pretend there was nothing wrong. So many unfamiliar cars parked on the street, and nobody in sight. I decided to rise above the nervousness induced by the nightmarish events of the evening. I was in Lulu life, after all, not a Hitchcock movie. Right?

The door looked different as I rummaged for my key. Could that be a shadow? Something or someone was behind me. Right behind me.
Oh great universe, don't let me die,
I prayed.
I have more to do. And in the morgue, they'll see I have gained a few pounds and missed a few spots shaving my legs, and make vulgar jokes about it while I lie on the slab, unable to rise with a snappy comeback.

I hate it when heroines in scary movies are frozen and helpless. What wimps. Grab the plant pot, find the rolling pin, hoist that cast-iron frying pan, and bonk the baddie on the bean. But here I was, a total wimp, feeling my knees get white and weird and weak, and myself beginning to—
oh no
—faint? I should grab the plant pot. My eyes almost closed and as I looked down, I didn't see a plant pot. What I saw was the garden gnome my friend Jerome had given me years ago as a bad-taste joke. I used it as a doorstop in the summer.

I smoothly slid out of my faint and swooped down, got sort of a grip on the gnome's ears—
damn, these things are heavy
—and whirled around. I didn't have the muscles to get the gnome as high as the lurker's head, but I managed to heave it into his midsection.

He gave an anguished squeak and fell back into what was left of the geraniums. The gnome rolled off his stomach and down the walk, with an interminable series of thunks and rumbles.

“Damn you, Lu!” gasped Geoff. “Are you trying to kill me or what?” He was flat on his back, bedraggled geraniums sprouting between his legs and under his arms. His head was resting in the artistic little fountain pool from which Horatio liked to slurp. He tried to say more, but he had trouble getting his breath.

Mine came back, with part relief that I was not in danger and part horror that I might have severely damaged one of the great Lotharios of low-budget independent film.

Meanwhile, the gnome continued its torturous rolling and thunking down the path. A light came on in the condo across the alley. Another across the street.

Geoff was still trying to breathe. He sounded like an old-fashioned vacuum cleaner, roaring in air, then expelling it. It was almost as loud as the excruciating gnome noise.

The gnome finally rolled off the last step, and landed in the little gulley by the main road.

In a minute, we were flooded with light. Mrs. Lauterman, from her upper window in the next condo, kept a high-powered searchlight in her bedroom for just such occasions. A circle of blazing white surrounded us.

“Lulu, are you all right?” shrieked Mrs. Lauterman's high-octane soprano. I looked up. She was silhouetted in her window. She had recently traipsed her eighty-two-year-old self into Raptures, the super-trendy hair salon down the street, and her once white hair was now neon green and sticking up in spikes around her head.

“Lulu?” she called again. Geoff rolled his eyes upward. He looked like a helpless fish.

“I'm fine, Mrs. Lauterman,” I called upward, hoping that no more lights would go on in the complex. “Thanks for caring.”

Mrs. Lauterman was very interested in my non-life. I picked up groceries for her once a week, and she responded with a proprietary (and not unwelcome) interest in my well-being. By standing on tiptoe at her window, or leaning precariously over her balcony, she had an excellent view of my front door and my patio entrance. She had bought the searchlight in order to improve her monitoring of my movements.