"Dolly." She gasps. "You hit me. What's happened to you?"
Gerard steps forward, taking handcuffs off his belt. "Dolores Combs, you are under arrest for the murder of Cedric Martin Lubowitz." He reaches to turn her around, but she swings at him, too. He dodges the blow, but she is running away, down a long living room where a Bosendorfer grand stands glossy in stained-glass gloom. Bohannon takes after her. Oriental carpets slide under his boots. She has reached French doors at the end of the room and is tugging at the latches before he can grab her. She is strong and flails and kicks, but he gets her arms behind her, finally, and swings her— she's a good weight, is Dr. Combs— back toward Gerard, who now manages to cuff her wrists. Behind her, as if she were some L.A. street tough.
He half nudges, half lifts her down the room, toward the front door, droning the Miranda warning, grunting with the effort she is costing him. Bohannon goes ahead to gather up the jeans and shoes from the floor. He reaches out to Mary Beth for the sweater. She hands it to him, but she is listening to the outraged Dr. Combs.
"This is grotesque," the big woman says. "Why would I kill Cedric Lubowitz? Why would I kill anyone? No jury in the world will believe Dr. Dolores Combs is a murderer. When Judge Willard hears— aah! Let me go. You're hurting me."
Mary Beth begins beating on Gerard with her little fists. "Stop it," she says. "Stop hurting Dolly." Bohannon pulls her off the lieutenant. She clutches his arms. "Where are you taking her?"
"Just down to the sheriff station." Gerard grunts, wrestling the large woman through the doorway, out onto the porch. "For a nice talk."
"I'll come, too," Mary Beth says. "Dolly, what shall I wear?"
"No, dearest," the handcuffed woman says. "You stay here and feed the cats." And she goes with Gerard down the plank steps to the path, no longer resisting, lumpish, defeated.
The little pink and white girl of sixty gazes wanly after her. "When will you come home, Dolly?" Her question drifts off into the noon silence of the woods, as sad a sound as Bohannon has ever heard.
* * *
It is sundown. T. Hodges is washing down Twilight, while Mousie stands by, reins loosely knotted to a post of the long stable walkway. Before Bohannon has fully stopped the truck, Kelly is out of it, running to help the deputy. She smiles at him, hands him the sponge, walks toward Bohannon, wearily brushing a strand of hair off her face.
"Boy, am I glad to see you." She gives him a hug.
"You okay?" he says.
"I think," she says thoughtfully, taking his hand and walking toward the ranch house, "you work much too hard for a living."
"I'm sorry I stranded you here." They go along the house porch and in at the kitchen screen door. "I didn't know so much would happen so soon. And Gerard wanted me there for the interrogation."
"It was Dolores Combs, then?" She drops onto a chair. "Oh, am I going to be sore tomorrow."
"It was Dolores Combs." Bohannon fetches Old Crow and glasses and sits down opposite her at the table. "She thought we'd never guess, so she didn't bother to hide her bloodstained clothes." He pours whiskey into the glasses and hands her one. "She just threw them in the trash."
"How did she get him to drive her up the canyon?"
"Some romance about Mary Beth being stranded up there. I don't know why he believed her. But he did. And took along his gun."
"Odd." She frowns. "A man like that carrying a gun."
"One of his fellow stockbrokers got mugged and badly beaten recently. It upset the firm, and Cedric Lubowitz not least. Another lesson for society. Leave the guns to law enforcement. But they won't learn."
She tastes the whiskey and again reaches for Bohannon's cigarettes on the table. "And the prowler Steve Belcher shot at?"
"Combs. After she'd driven halfway down the canyon, she worried whether he'd find the gun and pick it up. She turned the car around and drove back. Well, he'd found it all right, hadn't he?" He gives his head a wondering shake. "She and Kelly must have missed each other by inches, running away in the dark."
She laughs briefly, grows somber again. "We know why she hated Steve. Why did she hate Cedric Lubowitz?"
"
Fear
is the word you want." Bohannon stretches an arm and switches on the lamp. "She was convinced, as Mrs. Madison, the girls' mother, had been, that that Jew scoundrel only married Rose for her money."
"Please, Hack. Belle Hesseltine says the Lubowitzes were rich."
"If you want to hate Jews, sweet reason is meaningless, Deputy."
She sighs. "I guess so. So… Dolores was convinced once Rose was dead, and Cedric came up here, and immediately started wining and dining Mary Beth, he meant to marry her and take over her fortune, too?"
Bohannon nods. "And put Dolores Combs out to starve and freeze in the cruel world. And she didn't want to give up the beautiful house, the antiques, the jewelry, the Cadillac, the parties and banquets. And most of all the power. Money is power, Deputy. Ever hear that before?"
"Mary Beth's love didn't count for anything?"
Bohannon shrugs, sighs. "Who knows? Maybe once long ago. But Dolores learned how nice being rich was, and, face it, she didn't do much with all that talent she kept raving about this afternoon." He adopts a plummy elocutionary voice. " 'I could have been an international star. But I gave that up for Mary Beth. Stayed here in this backwater…' et cetera, et cetera." He resumes his normal voice. "Hell, a backwater was what she needed. Organizing her little ensembles, festivals, concerts. She swayed around here like a duchess. You've seen her."
"And she thought Cedric Lubowitz would end all that?"
"Thought so enough to kill him," Bohannon says.
T. Hodges sits studying her hands around the glass for a long minute. "It's pitiful," she says. She raises her head, looks into his face. "And Mary Beth? Mary Beth worshipped her. What will she do now?"
"Wait for her to come home," Bohannon says.
Christine Matthews
Character Flaw
ROBERTA STANTON,
a crazy lady P.I., was born out of a real-life situation and made her first appearance in the anthology
Deadly Allies II
. Her creator, Christine Matthews, is a veteran short story writer with more than fifty to her credit. Her mysteries have appeared in dozens of anthologies, and the best of them were recently anthologized in the short story collection,
Gentle Insanities and Other States of Mind
. An erotic thriller,
Scarred for Life
will be released later in 2001. "Character Flaw," first published in
The Shamus Game
, has Roberta at her wild and woolly best.
Character Flaw
Christine Matthews
I
f it hadn't been for the blood matted in her hair, I would have noticed Skye Cahill's turquoise eyes first.
"Miss Stanton?" she asked in such a calm voice. "Are you
the
Roberta Stanton? The one from TV?"
"Yes."
"I just killed someone— well, not just someone… I'm pretty sure he was my father."
I stood back from the door. "Get out of the hall." I let her into my apartment so easily. I wasn't the least bit frightened. Not even after noticing the gun in her right hand.
I guess I was at that raw patch in my life. There didn't seem to be a clean spot left on my body or psyche that hadn't been hurt. It felt like I'd been frightened for years. Then one day I just got pissed off. But the terror returned. In tidal waves. Then suddenly… it passed. All of it— the good and the bad. Nothing mattered. And it was at that point in my life I let a frightened stranger enter my apartment.
She stood in the middle of the kitchen, unsure where to turn. Like a dog circling until he finally plops down for a nap.
I pointed to a dining room chair. "Why don't you sit there?"
"Yeah. Okay… I'll do that… I'll…"
"How about if I take this?" I reached for the gun hanging from her limp hand.
"Okay." No struggle. She let me take it and then eased herself onto the stiff chair. "Could I have some coffee? A Coke? I need caffeine. All the way over here I felt so tired, like I was going to fall asleep. Isn't that crazy?" She looked at me, realizing how her last word stung and quickly added, "Sorry."
I laid the gun on the counter, in plain sight, but closer to me just in case I needed to go for it. Then I poured last night's coffee into a clean mug and set it in the microwave. "Well, I did spend time in a mental hospital."
She took the coffee from me and shrugged. "So you hired a hit man, big deal. If I had the money, I wouldn't have had to kill my father myself."
"But I was messed up back then…"
"That's why I came to you. I remembered reading all about your trouble growing up, how they took your license away, and how you finally got out last year. I knew you— of all people— would understand how I feel."
I sat down across from her, folding my hands on top of the table. "Understand what?"
"That it was
his
fault, not mine."
Before we got any deeper into our new relationship, I thought it best to tell her, "I have to call the police, you know. If what you're saying is true and you killed a man?"
She looked at me like I was an idiot. "Of course. But I came to hire you first."
I picked up my cordless, curious to see her reaction. "I make the call first and
then
we talk while we wait."
"Fine." She gulped the hot coffee down; I wondered how she managed without burning her throat. "Call."
* * *
"I figure we've got at least ten minutes— tops," I told her after hanging up.
"It won't even take that long," she said, reaching for her purse.
I jumped for the gun then, and she grinned like I'd fallen for the punch line of a tired old joke. While I held it on her, she groped around in her tote bag.
"I made this on the way over here." She handed me a cassette tape.
I took it with my free hand. Turning it over, I asked, "What is it?"
"Details. I thought it was important you have my side of the story before you go investigate."
"So you're hiring me to establish the fact that you killed your father? I don't get it." I put the gun back on the table, feeling foolish pointing the thing at her that way.
"No, I want you to check out the man. You'll find his body at the address I wrote on the tape. I can stall the police for a while. You go there, look around… to make sure."
"He's dead, right?"
She nodded.
"Then I still don't get it."
Suddenly she was a little girl. "I need you to tell me that there is no doubt— whatsoever— he was my father."
Before I could ask any more questions, the police were knocking at my front door.
Reaching in her pocket, Skye pulled out two hundred-dollar bills. "Here" —she thrust them at me— "for gas, your time, whatever. Please."
I lied… so sue me. I managed to convince the police that Skye Cahill and I had been friends for years, explaining we were practically sisters. I handed over the gun, and they took her in for questioning. Then I promised to come down after I could arrange bail. Another lie? It all depended on what I found at the address she'd written on the tape.
* * *
Elkhorn is a small town about twenty minutes outside of Omaha. The only thing I had ever heard about the place concerned its strip clubs. Since time was definitely not on my side, I decided the quickest and straightest shot would be Maple Road, which I steered toward while listening to Skye's voice coming out of my cheap car speakers.
My name is Skye Louise Cahill, I'm twenty-five years old. I'm a filmmaker and I live in Los Angeles— in the Valley. The only way I know how to do this effectively is to pretend this recorder is a camera. Maybe if I distance myself, you can understand better.
Her voice took on a tone that was both detached and informative. I felt as though I was listening to a documentary.
The trailer sits by itself in a vacant lot. There are no trees for shade, not one blade of grass for color. It's gray now, but she assumed it used to be silver.
I was taken by surprise when she referred to herself in the third person but soon got used to it.…
A small window on the side that faced her had a box pushed against it, blocking anyone from looking inside. The only thing adhering to the structure was dirt. No antennas, no paint, not even an address.
She stood a few feet from the door, kicking a large dirt clump, watching it crumble into the air. Trying unsuccessfully to walk a few feet without stepping into a hole, she made her way to the side, to an entrance. It took her a few more minutes before she knocked.