Death in a Funhouse Mirror (5 page)

"Clogged arteries and cardiac arrest," I said. "Is there any coffee left?" The uneasiness I'd been trying to avoid with my bustle wouldn't stay away any longer. I was upset by seeing Eve so distraught and disoriented. I didn't understand what she meant about her father and Rowan killing Helene, unless it was all just the product of hysteria. My attempts to distract myself by cooking weren't working. What was I doing here, determinedly cooking for no one in particular, in Helene's kitchen? I'd just swept in and taken over, in my usual "Thea will fix it" way, but I didn't belong here. I'd come because Eve was my friend, but she was asleep. She didn't need me right now and this wasn't even her house. I had no idea how Cliff felt about my being here, all I knew was that he hadn't been overjoyed to see Andre. Suddenly everything seemed too strange.

I burned my finger hurrying to get the muffins into the oven, and the pain cut through my diversionary bustle and confusion like a plunge into cold water. I was still here because I didn't want Eve to wake up alone. I didn't want to leave until I saw that she was okay. The cooking was just something to do to pass the time.

"Rub this on it," Dom said, handing me a rubbery little green thing. "Aloe. It's good for burns."

"You don't miss much, do you?" I said.

"I hope not."

Cliff Paris came into the kitchen, carrying some empty glasses, looking lost and confused. "Something smells good, Mariah," he said. "Is that dinner?" He stopped and stared at me, his eyes narrowed with suspicion. "Thea? You're still here? I thought you left when Eve fell asleep. I was hoping that good smell meant dinner. Where's Mariah?"

I shrugged. "I don't know where Mariah is, Cliff. I don't even know who Mariah is."

"Of course you do," he said impatiently. "Mariah. Our housekeeper. Been with us for years. Excuse me." He stepped past me and toward the sink and tried to set down the glasses he was carrying. The first one teetered on the edge of the sink and fell in. The second missed the counter completely, shattering on the floor at his feet.

"But your housekeeper's name is Norah."

"I know that," he yelled, wheeling to face me. "I know that, dammit. Norah. Mariah. One of those gloomy Irish, wind-sighing-in-the-trees sort of names. What's the difference? Don't you be condescending to me in my own home. Why don't you leave? Eve and I don't need you." He took a step toward me, his hand raised in a fist. Dom stepped forward to intervene, but stopped when I shook my head. Suddenly Cliff's body sagged, like a puppet when the strings go slack. His hand dropped limply to his side. "What am I going to do without her?" he whispered. I put out my arms, and he came to me like a child seeking comfort, burying his head in my shoulder.

 

 

 

Chapter 3

 

It was one of the strangest dinner parties I'd ever attended. The menu was perfectly ordinary—my chicken soup, which had come out just right this time, rich, oily and sustaining, Fran's blueberry muffins, steamy and fragrant, saved from being commonplace by just a hint of lemon rind, and a deceptively simple salad laced with peppercorns and mustard, all accompanied by a cool, buttery Chardonnay Cliff had produced. It was the company that was odd. The guests were Andre and the two homicide detectives; Cliff Paris, restored, after his brief lapse, to his normal, charming self; and Eve, pale and disoriented, stunned into silence by the responsibility of sitting in her mother's place.

Around us, the mirrored walls gave us back multiple images of ourselves and brought me unwanted memories of other, happier meals in the room. Outside, the glorious day went on and on, an insistent reminder that summer was coming. It seemed impertinent. The sun should have known better than to shine so blatantly onto this house of grief.

Cliff made a few attempts at conversation, but after we got through the routine comments about the food, things lapsed into silence. No one wanted to talk about Helene, and no other subject seemed appropriate. We sat in an awkward circle, the quiet punctuated only by the tinkle of ice on glass, the rattle of silverware, the quiet slurping of soup, with an occasional murmur when someone asked for something to be passed. I thought, fleetingly, of the beer and fried clams I was missing. Across the table, Andre looked as uncomfortable as I felt, and weary as well. He'd had a difficult three weeks and today hadn't been the relaxing day we'd planned.

Finally, Eve broke the silence, tossing her soup spoon into her bowl with a clatter. "This is ridiculous," she said. "If Helene were here, she'd be laughing at us. She wouldn't have put up with this. She would have chosen a topic and made us talk. She would have sat here in this chair, tossed back her hair, and laughed at us. 'Nature abhors a vacuum,' she would have said, and then suggested a topic." Eve planted her forearms on the table, clasped her hands over her plate, and looked at us all expectantly.

"Delicious dinner, Thea," she said. "I think one of the best gifts a person can have is a friend who makes soup. It's not the first time you've rescued me with soup. I think I floated to my graduate degree on a wave of your soup. Soup and common sense. But we've already talked about soup. Let's talk about infidelity. Detective Florio, are you married?"

"Eve, don't," Cliff said. "You'll just get yourself upset again."

She tipped her head slightly sideways, reminding me again of a bright little bird. "It's just conversation, Cliff," she said. "I'm not going to get upset." She shifted her gaze back to Florio. "Detective?" There was a teasing note in her voice, but it wasn't playful teasing, it was malicious teasing. You don't grow up with two parents skilled in dissecting every remark without learning the skill yourself.

"Yes, I'm married."

"Is your wife faithful?"

"Eve," Cliff said, "intrusive personal questions are not appropriate table conversation."

"My mother would have..."

"Your mother would never have done anything like this!" he said.

"Helene had a tongue like a lancet," Eve said. "She might have been more subtle, but if she wanted to know something, she persisted until she got what she wanted."

"Eve, I wish you wouldn't... wouldn't try to intrude on the personal lives of complete strangers. It's just not appropriate..."

Eve cut him off. "Oh Cliff, you've been wishing I wouldn't do whatever it was I was doing since I was about nine. That's the last time I remember pleasing you." She shifted so her shoulder was toward her father. "Besides, these guys have been squatting here all day like a pair of toads, intruding on
our
personal lives, and I don't see them apologizing. Detective Florio, does the question bother you?"

He smiled neutrally. "It's not a conversation I'm used to having. But the answer to your question is I hope so."

She didn't like his answer. "Oh, come on, Detective, you mean when you and the other guys are sitting around some greasy spoon, talking about whatever crime of passion you're investigating, you never talk about yourselves, about how you'd react in the same situation?"

"Damn straight," Meagher said. "You see some guy who's nuts about a girl, and she's cheating on him seven ways to Sunday. He just can't take it, and he blows her away. You say to yourself, man, some bitch did that to me, I'd drop her like a hot potato. Trouble with some of these guys is, they just can't let go, you know what I mean? Like little kids on the playground. They've gotta have the last word. But when we look at our own lives, we know better. We don't think about killing people just because things don't go our way. That's one difference between the good guys and the bad guys."

"So you do talk about it," Eve said.

"You know we do, Ms. Paris," Meagher said. "Now let me ask you a question. Why do you want to talk about infidelity?"

"Oh, I was just making conversation," she said, sounding petulant, which was as unlike Eve as everything else I'd seen her do today.

"Right," Meagher said, "and I'm the Good Humor Man."

"Are you? I hadn't noticed."

"Does anyone want more to eat?" I asked. There were no takers and I got up to clear. Andre rose to help me. In the kitchen, we stacked the plates in the sink. "Since you make the coffee on our team," I said, "why don't you do that while I cut the cake. I'd hate to take the enamel off anyone's teeth."

"You know what that was about."

"I do. You were trying to stay nice while that lout was eyeballing my chest." I stopped bustling and hugged him. He still smelled faintly of soap. I thought of his broad hairy chest, hidden by that utterly respectable shirt, and how I'd rather be running my hands over it than serving coffee to two edgy homicide detectives and Eve and Cliff. "A nice man I wish I had someplace dark and private."

He arched his eyebrows. "Ma'am," he said, "you shouldn't be talking to me like that. I'm a policeman."

"So arrest me, mister," I said, holding out my hands to be cuffed.

"Later, honey," he said. "When we're alone. Then I'll let you play with my handcuffs."

"Ooh la la. I just love it when you call me honey." He was taking advantage of the fact that I had my hands full, and I was experiencing an urge to drag him down under the table and assault him. "Are you married, Detective Lemieux?"

"No. But I'm big on fidelity. Your friend Eve always like that?" he asked.

"No. Sometimes death brings out the worst in people, you know that."

"I sure do. Where'd the cake come from? Did you make that, too, while I was chatting with the workout boy?" Andre has an awful sweet tooth. He was pleased by the idea of cake.

"Distracting him while Dom gave me the third degree, right? I found it in the refrigerator. You know how it is. Cakes are drawn to death like iron filings to a magnet."

"That's a pretty nasty simile."

"I never said I was nice. I said you were nice."

"Dom didn't give you a hard time, did he?"

"Florio? He's a hard man, that one. Didn't even flinch when I tore that chicken to shreds. Most men can't watch staff like that."

"I expect he's seen worse."

I got out the cake and a cake knife, six small plates, coffee cups and silverware. It was an impressive cake. Didn't look homemade, though. Not too many people sit around their kitchens on Saturday mornings making perfect swirls in the fudge frosting, or shaving chocolate onto the whipped cream rosettes. I assumed a neighbor had dropped it off, but I didn't know. If so, it was almost the only sign of neighbors and friends. Maybe the psychiatric community believed in self-healing.

I stuck everything on a tray and carried it into the dining room. I didn't know what had gone on, but Eve was sulking and Cliff looked angry. "Well, here we are," I said, imitating my mother's perky style and feeling like the exhausted hostess at an out-of-control birthday party, "is there anyone who doesn't want cake?"

"I don't," said Eve, "and it was supposed to be my birthday cake."

Why did she have to make everything so difficult, I thought unsympathetically. It was too late to take the damn thing back and stuff it in the trash. "I'm sorry, Eve. I didn't know. Do you mind if we eat it?" She shrugged. An ambiguous gesture. I blundered on, still trying to fix things. "I know we can't pretend this is a celebration, but maybe next week sometime we could go out. Just the two of us?" She just stared at the cake. "Do you want me to take it away?" I didn't know what she wanted. She'd already said she wanted a mind reader and I wasn't qualified for the job. She was unreadable today.

She shook herself like someone trying to wake up. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to make a fuss. It's only a cake. We can eat it." I cut the cake and handed it out, while Andre served the coffee. Cliff sat and stared at his cake, but the two detectives ate theirs the same way they'd eaten dinner, like sensible men glad to get a good meal, recognizing that they wouldn't always be so lucky.

Cliff poured himself another glass of wine, drank most of it, and leaned back in his chair. "Are you still working for that education consultant, Thea?"

"Yes. In fact, I'm a partner now. Suzanne made me a partner last fall."

"There's still business, even with the current state of the economy?"

"Plenty of business, Cliff. We've been very busy this year."

He fingered his beard thoughtfully. "I'm not sure I understand exactly what it is that you do, though I'm sure you've told me. What sort of consulting is it?"

"We advise independent schools..."

"Which is another name for private schools?" he interrupted.

"Yes. Mostly we give them advice about marketing, about how to attract the students they want."

"I always thought they had no trouble getting students. I thought there was intense competition. That parents worried from the time their children were born about getting them into the right schools."

"That's true. The top schools don't have problems. But private schooling has gotten very expensive. Costs have grown a lot faster than inflation—like college tuition—and at the high school level, at least, there's been a shrinking pool of applicants. Even now that the population is growing again, schools still need advice, or at least we hope they want advice, about how to attract the applicants they want, or how to convince the desirable applicant, who may have two or three schools to choose from, to select our client's school." I sounded like I was reading from a brochure but Cliff seemed interested.