Death by Surprise (Carolyn Hart Classics) (13 page)

“I have a precarious hold on my self-control. The smallest nudge may push me over the edge.” She glared at me balefully. “It’s all your fault.”

“My fault?”

“Trying to get the goods on that damn Boutelle woman.”

It turned out that Pamela had tracked down Francine’s hairdresser. As any woman knows, the way to a hair stylist’s heart is through her pocketbook. Pamela signed up for the A Number One First Class bleach job which took two hours. In two hours, it is possible to learn a great deal about a beautician’s customers, their sexual preferences, social pretensions, and career aspirations.

“What did you find out?” I asked eagerly.

“Francine is madly in love.”

“Who is he?”

“Clairabel was vague on that but he is, according to Francine, a really big deal. Handsome, exciting, a man on the move.”

“Francine didn’t mention his name to Clairabel?”

“No.”

“He must be married.”

“Why do you think so?” Pamela asked.

“It isn’t natural for a woman to be so damn circumspect with her beauty-shop operator. You know how women talk. It’s unconscious. George said this. George and I are going to the lake. George is so exciting.”

Pamela shrugged. “If you make your living exploiting other people’s private lives, you might be a little secretive about your own.”

I was sure there was more to it than that. The identity of Francine’s lover might be just what I needed.

“I don’t care what you have to do to find out, but find out quickly. Put more operatives on it.”

“K.C., your bill is already . . .”

“It doesn’t matter.”

When Pamela left, I considered calling Francine, putting off our meeting until later in the week. But I had the tape recorder in place, ready to roll at seven o’clock. It would be taking too big a risk to try and get it back, then plant it for another evening. After all, the important thing was to get our conversation down on tape, a clear-cut attempt at blackmail. That was the way to fry Francine’s goose.

At seven p.m. I was sitting at my breakfast-room table, toying with a salad and watching the second hand sweeping around the kitchen clock. Had the tiny recorder hummed into action? Was it even now recording the slam of a door, the squeak of a chair?

My appointment with Francine was at eight. I left my apartment at twenty minutes before the hour. I wasn’t able to park as close as I had Tuesday afternoon. The night was damp and raw. I pulled my all-weather coat closer, ducking my head into the whippy little wind. When I reached the courtyard, it was much warmer, the wind blocked by the building.

Light spilled cheerfully from Francine’s front bay window. I pushed the doorbell.

No one came.

I jabbed the bell again, held it longer. Come on, Francine, I’m ready for you.

Maybe the bell was broken.

I knocked, hard. The door moved inward under the pressure of my knock. I gave the door a push, then jumped back, startled, as her cat flashed through the narrow opening and out into the night.

Why was the door ajar? What had frightened the cat?

I stepped into the foyer, still intent upon confronting Francine, trapping her. I looked into the living room where a lamp shone brightly.

“Francine . . .” My voice died in my throat.

The living room was a shambles, papers dumped out of the desk, books strewn on the floor. I looked past the disarray to a love-seat. A silly name for an odd-sized piece of furniture. Not comfortable for making love but called a love-seat. Meant for two people. Sitting upright. Francine was not sitting upright. She took up almost the whole seat, sprawled backward, her long sleek blond hair shining in the lamplight, her head tilted at an impossible angle, her arms flung backward, her legs spread gracelessly wide.

She was very, very dead.

My eyes jumped away from her face, mottled and bluish. Her tongue protruded dreadfully from her half-open mouth. Red and black bruises marked her throat.

Nausea swept me. I stood dumbly in the living room doorway, appalled and sickened.

How dreadful. How horrible.

I wanted to turn and run.

Instead, I stood rooted, unable to look away, the soft cerise of the expensive silk dress an awful contrast to her swollen and disfigured face.

I must call the police.

I moved, one leaden foot after another, toward the telephone which sat on the desk so terribly near that sprawled dead body.

It was going to be awkward for me to explain why I was here. What was I going to tell the police? Not, of course, that I had come, hoping to trap Francine Boutelle in the act of blackmailing me on a tape . . .

Oh my God. The tape recorder. I must get it. I couldn’t tell the police about the tape recorder.

I swung around, hurried to the rubber tree plant. I was pulling the leaves apart, reaching for the recorder when the harsh command came.

“Turn around.”

It startled me so much that I stumbled into the stand holding the plant and bruised a knee. Frantically, I whirled around, at the same time trying to back away.

My sense of fright lessened. He didn’t look dangerous.

Frightfully sure of himself, perhaps. Accustomed to command. But not, surely, a murderer running rampant.

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded.

I took a deep breath, my heartbeat began to slow.

“I might ask the same of you,” I replied.

He glared at me, his grey eyes icy beneath thick black brows. He was fortyish. A successful fortyish in a tan cashmere jacket, a yellow polo shirt, and dark brown slacks. His face could have been handsome except that he obviously didn’t spend his spare time practicing ingratiating smiles before the mirror. He had a tanned lean face with a strong nose and black hair flecked with silver.

He wasn’t looking at me now. He was looking at Francine. He didn’t change expression. That made him all the more forbidding.

His eyes swung back to me, looked me up and down but without the subtle reflection of admiration I could usually expect from a man. He looked over my shoulder at the rubber tree plant. Without a word, he strode across the room, moved past me and pulled down a thick green front. He studied for a long moment the shiny black plastic recorder taped to the rubber tree trunk.

“How did you know it was there?” he demanded.

So he went right to the point.

I lifted my chin. “I heard a humming noise. I wanted to see what was causing it.”

He bent his head a little, listened.

There was no humming noise.

Those icy grey eyes looked at me again.

“Carlisle,” he said abruptly. “K.C. Carlisle.”

It was my turn to look sharply at him.

I didn’t know him. I was sure of it. He was not a forgettable man. I was quite sure I had never met him.

“What are
you
doing here?” he asked.

I hesitated, then answered. “I had an appointment with Miss Boutelle. I came. The door was open. I found her.”

“You walked right in?”

“I knocked. The door came open. I expected her to be here so I stepped inside—and this is what I found.”

We both looked again at the couch.

“Have you called the police?”

“No. I was going to . . . and I heard that humming noise.”

I certainly hoped John Solomon and I had polished that recorder well enough because now I had a story and I was stuck with it. It could have been true.

“Who are you?” I asked abruptly. I would prefer that this obviously intelligent man not think too long about that recorder.

“Harry Nichols. I own
The Beacon.”

That laid it on the table all right.

So this was Harry Nichols, who didn’t like the Carlisles. Of course, it was his father who had begun the vendetta. But he had continued it, witness the attacks on Kenneth during the campaign.

We looked at each other warily.

“How did you know me?” I asked.

“You were elected president of the Young Lawyers last month. I remember your photograph.”

“It’s nice to be memorable,” I said pleasantly.

He didn’t smile. “I was thinking about the Carlisles as I drove over here tonight.”

“Really?”

He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a letter. “This came in the mail this morning.” He tossed it to me.

I held it. “Do you want me to read it?”

He nodded.

It was concise, pointed, and, for Kenneth, unfortunate as hell.

Dear Mr. Nichols,

If
The Beacon
wants the real low-down on what kind of person Kenneth Carlisle is, so the voters can be protected, come to my apartment tonight at eight-fifteen.

It was signed by Francine Boutelle in a flashily flowing script.

I folded the letter, slipped it back into the envelope.

“And, of course, with the
Beacon’s
known fondness for the Carlisles, you came hotfoot.”

He didn’t rise to it. “I came. I didn’t know what to expect.” He looked again at Francine. “I didn’t expect this.”

“Neither did I,” I said wearily.

He called the police, carefully using a handkerchief to hold the receiver and a pen to move the dial. We waited five minutes for a patrol car and twenty minutes for the detectives.

Arrivals and departures continued over the next hour, the medical examiner, several squad cars, the photographic unit, more detectives, and finally, an ambulance. I didn’t watch as the expressionless young men swiftly rolled Francine onto the cart, slipped over a canvas cover, and wheeled her out into the night.

Harry Nichols and I waited in the foyer, in the way, but not, of course, free to go.

“Did you know her well?” he asked me.

I shook my head. “Not at all. I had met her once.”

“Had you ever met her?” I asked a little later.

“No.”

“So you came because of the letter, hoping to scare up some scandal against Kenneth.”

He wasn’t defensive. “Not precisely, Miss Carlisle.” He looked at me dispassionately. “I wouldn’t have minded learning something embarrassing to Carlisle.” For a moment, Nichols looked exasperated. “Going after your cousin isn’t especially easy, Miss Carlisle. He is too rich and successful to be involved in anything disreputable. The most you can say about Kenneth Carlisle is that he will bore you to death.”

That stung me to a reply. “Then why do you attack him, day after day, Mr. Nichols?”

“He is Robert Carlisle’s son. As far as I’m concerned, that will always be reason enough.”

“Not a particularly defensible position, I would think.”

“I don’t ever find it necessary, Miss Carlisle, to defend my positions.”

He was so sure of himself. Answerable to no one. A bad enemy.

Another siren cut through the night to die in the street outside. Through the propped-open door, I saw a man get out of the back of yet another police car and start up the walk.

It was clear, the way other police scurried around him, that this man was in charge.

“Who’s that?” I asked Harry Nichols.

He looked past me and his eyes flickered with interest.

“That’s Nelson Farris. Chief of detectives.”

Farris was tall and bulkily built. He wore dark slacks and a navy pullover sweater. As he came nearer, I saw that his face was blunt and hard. He wore his hair in a fairly long crew cut. He looked tough and competent.

Farris moved past us into the living room. The men there reported to him. Then a chubby-faced patrolman turned and pointed toward us.

Farris’ dark, heavy-lidded eyes studied us for a moment. He began to walk toward us.

I felt a rush of fear.

“I want to talk to you.” Farris’s voice was hoarse and tired. Too many cigarettes and too much whisky for a lot of years. “Let’s go into the kitchen where it’s a little quieter.”

We followed him, stepping carefully around the paraphernalia of the cameramen and fingerprint experts. One man, on his hands and knees, was slowly scooting a small vacuum cleaner around the base of the love seat.

My mind was a frantic whirl of indecision. I could not, of course, lie to the police. But, on the other hand, I was under no compulsion to tell everything I knew. How to balance the fine line between deception and minimal cooperation was going to take a lot of judgment.

Farris motioned us to sit in the booth opposite the kitchen range. Harry Nichols politely waited for me to slide in first, then he sat beside me. Farris took his place across from us. He pulled out a small notebook and a pen from his briefcase.

For a long moment, it was absolutely quiet in the kitchen as Farris looked at us.

“Anything you say may be used in evidence against you,” he said abruptly. His raspy voice reminded me of a cat clawing a screen. “You have the right to have a lawyer present.”

The Miranda warning. I recognized it for what it was, a necessary protection to the investigation, a formality to keep evidence untainted. Still, it was a shock to hear it.

Nichols was shaking his head impatiently.

Farris looked at me. “Miss Carlisle?”

“No.” My throat felt dry and parched. “No, I don’t need a lawyer.”

“All right then. I understand, from Patrolman Fisher, that you found the body. How did it happen?”