Payton brushed windblown auburn hair from her face. “Have fun.”
Claire thought how pretty it looked. When her own hair got all windblown, even though it was short, she thought it made her look like a mad woman.
They separated, saying they’d see each other later. Payton crossed Main Street. Claire continued on to the art gallery, but Mamie wasn’t at her easel. Voices echoed from the back room. She found Mamie and a handsome looking Italian, whom she assumed was Miles Arenheim, standing on the back stoop. He had a cigarette in his hand, which explained why they were outdoors. As hesitant as Mamie usually was around people, she would never allow anyone, even someone as suave and famous as this man, to sully the gallery air with cigarette smoke.
“Claire, hello.” Mamie turned to Miles. “This is my friend Claire Bastian.”
Miles blew smoke out his mouth, self-confident, well-educated and obviously rich. Other than the round eyeglasses that lent a mousy expression, he could give Aden Green a run for his money in the looks department. “Nice to meet you,” Claire said.
“Same here. Mamie speaks often, and highly, of you.” The moment he spoke, Claire felt a surge of dislike for the man. The soft-spoken sentiment never reached his eyes. She always believed her grandmother’s tenet, that eyes were the “mirror to the soul.” People could disguise their emotions with words, Grandma said, but couldn’t keep the truth from their eyes. This man didn’t mean a word he said.
“I’m sorry, I won’t be able to have lunch with you today,” Mamie said. “Miles and I are going to Payton’s to make a list of things we need to ready it for the exhibit.”
“Don’t worry about it. Have fun. I’ll see you at my place for dinner.”
Outside, the sky had turned a sodden gray. Funny how fast the weather could change. Drizzle blew off the harbor and slammed her in the face. She hadn’t gone twenty feet down Main Street when the sky erupted. Claire dodged a pickup and raced across the street. She was sopping wet by the time she flew inside
Payton’s Place
. Payton looked up, startled, from the front counter. Claire realized the vision she must have presented to the always-impeccable Payton, and before Payton could laugh at her, she said the most inane thing she could think of, “It’s raining.”
“Would you like a bar of soap?”
Chapter 12
Wouldn’t Mamie ever finish eating? Bone after bone got piled on the woman’s plate. A second and third helping of potato salad. Endless one-sided conversation about Miles Arenheim’s delight with Payton’s house. Finally, she pushed back from the table and patted her round tummy. “I could really go for a cup of herb tea.”
Claire leaped up. “I’ll get it. Why don’t you go watch television and I’ll bring it.”
Mamie patted her stomach again and waddled out of the room. The television came on.
Minutes later Claire placed the steaming cups of tea on the coffee table.
“There, finished.” Mamie turned the easel so Claire could see. “What do you think?”
Mamie was undoubtedly the worst painter in the world. Everything was one-dimensional, unimaginative. Which made being her friend very hard at times like this. Claire wanted to be honest, but Mamie loved to paint more than anything else. Once, Claire had lied and said how great the thing was, then received the damned thing as a Christmas present. She stole a glance at the painting on the far living room wall, a wild landscape of the arctic tundra with a polar bear chasing a frantic seal. It wasn’t as though it had been given to her by a far-away relative and could be relegated to a spot in the spare bedroom. Mamie came here often, and Claire was faced with looking at it day in and day out.
Claire went for a closer inspection of Mamie’s work-in-progress. “You’ve really captured the mother’s love for her pups. Do you have a buyer yet?”
Mamie sighed. “Claire, you know no one ever buys my paintings. I’m a terrible artist and everyone knows it.” She gave a wistful smile. “It’s just that I love it so.”
“That’s what’s important.”
Mamie stood and arched her back. “I’ve got the munchies. Got anything sweet to eat?”
Claire nearly lost her balance and toppled into the wet painting. “How can you be hungry after what you just ate?”
“It’s probably the excitement of the gallery opening.” By now, she was halfway down the hallway.
“I don’t have anything in the house. You told me you were cutting back on sweets, so I didn’t make anything.”
Claire heard cabinets opening and shutting and launched herself from the room as total silence descended upon the house. She ran, choking down a mouthful of panic similar to the feeling of waking to the sound of a wailing smoke detector. She stopped dead in the doorway; Mamie stood on a chair clutching Sean’s cake in her chubby hands. She narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean you don’t have anything in the house?”
Was it too late to pray? “That’s…ah, for the potluck tomorrow.”
Mamie stepped down from the chair holding the cake at eye level turning it this way and that as if it were a pair of shoes in a store. She brought the plate to her nose and sniffed. “Yum. Come on, let’s have a slice.”
“Mamie, I just told you…”
“If you made it for the group, why is there a slice missing?”
“I-I ate one. I hid it in the cabinet to remove temptation.”
“In that case, it shouldn’t matter if I have just a skinny little piece.” She set the cake on the counter and plundered the silverware drawer.
Claire vaulted into the room. The unexpected movement shot pain up her leg. Her ankle went out from under her and she crashed to the floor.
Mamie slammed the drawer. “Goodness, are you all right?”
“Twisted my ankle again.”
“Did you hurt anything else? Can you get up?”
Claire allowed Mamie to help her up. She braced herself with one hand on the doorframe. Oh god, there was chocolate frosting in the corner of Mamie’s mouth!
Claire stood for a moment, testing the ankle. Finally she’d delayed long enough and shook off Mamie’s hand. She limped to a chair and dropped into it. One corner of the cake wrapping gaped open. A three-inch scrape marred the frosting on one side. “Mamie! I told you that cake was for the sailing club.”
“Sorry. I couldn’t help myself. Your cakes are to die for.”
Mamie reached out a pair of fingers to take another swipe at the frosting. Claire’s hand thrust out and slapped her arm. Mamie reeled back.
“Oh God, I’m sorry, Mamie.”
“It’s not like this is the first time we’ve had to make another dessert.”
“I know. I just…”
“Okay, okay. It’s your damned cake. Do what you want with it.”
“Mamie, don’t be mad. It’s just a cake.”
“Exactly my point.”
Their eyes met in a silent challenge/apology. Mamie was the first to break the gaze. She took two plates from the dish drainer and fumbled in the drawer for several seconds. “Where’s your cake knife?”
She opened the dishwasher and uttered a gratified grunt. Claire’s blood went sour. She bounded out of the chair. Her ankle turned and she fell forward clawing the air. Her fingers found only the edge of the cake plate. They closed around it. She went down, banging her chin on the counter and taking the cake with her.
Mamie knelt on the floor beside her friend, now painted psychedelically in brown and red. Claire’s insides were a bundle of pain. Blood trickled from a gash on her chin. A wad of chocolate cake clung to her left ear. Mamie removed it with an index finger and started to put it in her mouth.
Claire batted it away.
“What the hell’s gotten into you!”
“Help me up.” Claire struggled to rise, deliberately slipping and sliding and mashing the cake into brown goo on her once-spotless tile floor.
Chapter 13
Wordlessly she and Mamie cleaned up the chocolate mess, somehow without Mamie attempting to eat any more. Through the dessert-less evening, Claire watched her friend for signs of poisoning even though she’d been reasonably sure Mamie hadn’t eaten more than a few fingerfuls of frosting. What if she
had
eaten cake and the poison hadn’t worked? Not that Claire would want it to work on Mamie, but it raised uncertainty in her mind.
She’d fended off another apology for ruining the cake, several offers to help make another and finally closed the door against her friend’s round backside at 11:30.
Claire brewed herself a cup of tea and went to the living room to sip and let the worries of the past few hours ebb away. Mamie’s newest painting gaped at her: a nondescript mother dog standing over a basket of yellow pups depicted as a swirling mass of yellow fur, hard to tell where one ended and another began. Claire tried to count the tiny black noses, no easy feat since the blanket in the basket was black and white polka dots. The expression on the mother dog’s face was the only redeeming quality. She gazed adoringly at her pups like Madonna over her brood. Claire rotated the easel to face the wall.
She sat again and leaned her head back on the handmade doily. Her lids felt so heavy. She’d just close them for a second.
Claire bolted upright, adrenaline pumping so hard she could barely see that she’d slept three hours. Time to go. She limped upstairs to don dark colored clothes. Her ankle throbbed with each step. Where had all that good luck gone?
****
Sean’s car sat in his driveway. Claire drove to the end of the block, made a U-turn and went past again. All quiet. She turned and went partway back, parking under the overhanging branches of a lilac two houses away. The luminous dial on her watch said 3 a.m. She hadn’t been outdoors at this hour in many years. The sky was inky black. No stars or clouds. The moon a mere slit. She touched the flashlight on the seat, comforted by its presence. It had fresh batteries and a new bulb.
Claire’s heart slammed against her ribs as though it were trying to escape. Her hands sweated so badly she feared not being able to hold the plate. She took in enough breath to fill her lungs. She held it, then let it out slowly. Calm. Be calm. Everything will be fine.
Sean’s house was a long ranch with a breezeway and an attached two car garage. Both doors were closed. Sean’s Grand Am sat in front of the right-hand side. The front porch was a small cement stoop, wide enough for one person. The light to the right of the screen door was on, bright, probably 60 watts. Too bright.
A screened breezeway, picture window in the living room, two windows to the right. She didn’t know which one was Sean’s room, or which was MaryAnn’s. Considering their situation, he and MaryAnn were hardly likely to be sharing a room—if she still lived here. Regardless, except for the porch light, all was dark. Not even a television flickered.
Claire rolled down her window. Most of the houses along this street were bordered by lilac bushes. The air was laden with their heady aroma. The hedge-like shrubs would make good cover.
She opened the door and stood beside the vehicle. A streetlight illuminated Sean’s entire front yard. Hopefully the breezeway door wasn’t locked. Claire had read all the Lawrence Block’s
Burglar
series, but none of Bernie Rhodenbarr’s lock-picking talent had rubbed off on her. She should have sought out MaryAnn and asked discreet questions that wouldn’t raise eyebrows, like whether they had a dog or were insomniacs. Too late now.
Claire wiped her palms on her slacks, put on gardening gloves, dropped the flashlight in her pocket and picked up the plate. She pushed the car door closed, till the dome light shut off but kept the latch from clicking shut. She stepped out of the arc cast by the streetlight and into a black corridor between the house and the lilac border. Unfortunately the space ran below what had to be bedroom windows. But Claire had surprise on her side and knew how to be quiet. The dewy grass soaked her canvas sneakers as she tiptoed across the shaggy lawn. She stopped till her eyes adjusted to the darkness.
Darkness had never been one of her favorite things. Her father always laughed and forced her into dark forbidding places, a beefy hand securely set against her backside should she balk, saying she would “get her over it,” but he’d been wrong.
Only the tiniest bit of light penetrated the shadows. Enough to give bulk to objects she hoped were just bushes. Her father’s invisible hand pressured the base of her spine. Claire groped for obstacles with her left foot, then slid the right to meet it, wishing she dared use the flashlight. The backyard was just as dark as the side lawn. The outline of a stairway with a narrow railing of some sort—a kitchen window to the left, a smaller window to its left, probably the bathroom. She leaned against dewy shingles trying to hear through the wall, dizzy with excitement.
Sean Adams had cheated his last person, beaten up his last woman, purloined his last empty storefront. Claire swallowed her guilt and forged on. Holding the cake in gloved hands that seemed to glow in the dark, she stepped to the large black rectangle of the back door. The stoop was cement, three stairs. She tiptoed up and touched her fingertips to the handle of the screen door. A cheaper model, coarse aluminum with a single square of screen at the top. She pulled on the small lever handle. It unlatched easily. No rattle, no metallic squeak or even a click.
Claire opened the door inch by tedious inch, propped the door against her hip and touched the inside knob. It was cool metal and turned easily. Best of all, it wasn’t locked. She twisted it so slowly that if anyone had been in the kitchen in broad daylight, they wouldn’t have seen movement. The house was silent—deadly silent.