Dying in Style (13 page)

So what? she thought defiantly. Why should I promise anyone anything? Josh is a fantasy man. There’s nothing real about him or his promises.

“Josie, are you there?” Alyce said.

“Alyce, I don’t need a lawyer. I don’t live in your world,” Josie said. “Rich people have lawyers. Poor people don’t. The cops wouldn’t think twice if you had one. They’d expect it. But they’ll wonder why Josie from Maplewood is lawyering up.”

“Please,” Alyce said, “listen to me.” Her friend was begging. Was she crying, too? “You think I’m a sheltered little suburbanite, but I do know something about the law. Don’t do this.”

“The police aren’t going after me, Alyce. I’m Miss White Bread.”

“So was Martha Stewart.”

“I’m a mom,” Josie said.

“Exactly,” Alyce said. “You have a daughter to consider. What if you’re arrested? How will Amelia take that?”

Josie saw Amelia’s frightened little face, the sweet sprinkle of freckles standing out on her pale skin like tiny drops of cinnamon. If I go to jail, Amelia will be brought up by my mother. Jane will take my daughter out of Barrington. She’ll make her eat soy burgers. Amelia will never go on another guerrilla gorilla expedition again.

“That’s why I have to fight this my way,” Josie said. “I’ve always told Amelia she has nothing to fear if she tells the truth.”

“If Amelia accidentally broke a lamp, she wouldn’t be punished for telling the truth,” Alyce said. “But this isn’t the same. Get real, Josie. The truth won’t set you free. It will put you in jail.”

“I’ve got to go now,” Josie said.

“Why are you being so damn stubborn?” Alyce said. Now Josie was sure she was crying. “You owe me that much. Tell me. I’m your friend.”

“It bites my butt that I’ll have to pay some lawyer two hundred an hour to tell me to shut up when I haven’t done anything wrong,” Josie said. “I don’t have the money for that.”

“You won’t have to pay two hundred an hour,” Alyce said. “Jake will help you.”

“Worse. I’ll be beholden to your husband.”

“Josie, this is what friends do. They help one another. If you’re worried about the money, I can lend it to you. You can pay me back at ten dollars a week.”

“I don’t want your money,” Josie said. “I told you when you married Jake and moved to the Estates at Wood Winds, if we were going to stay friends we’d have to be equals. That means we go Dutch at lunch and you don’t buy me expensive presents because I can’t afford them.”

“I agreed because of your crazy pride,” Alyce said. “But money means nothing to me.”

“It means everything to me,” Josie said. “When you don’t have it, you know how important it is. I have a reasonable explanation for why my fingerprints are on that belt. All I have to do is tell the police. I don’t need a legal babysitter.”

“The police have an equally reasonable explanation,” Alyce said. “They think you killed Danessa.”

“No, they don’t. They haven’t Mirandized me,” Josie said.

“Yet,” Alyce said.

“Thanks for being worried about me,” Josie said, “but I’ll be fine.”

“Is there anything I can do to change your mind?”

“Nope,” Josie said.

“Promise me you’ll call when the police leave,” Alyce said.

Josie could keep that promise. She drove down her street as if she were seeing the redbrick houses for the first time. Her mother’s white Buick was gone. Good. That meant Jane was picking up Amelia at school. Her neighbor Stan was not home, but Mrs. Mueller was. Her lace curtains were twitching. Josie was tempted to flip the old biddy the bird, but she refrained for her mother’s sake. She did wave at the Mueller windows and the curtains stopped twitching.

Parked in front of Josie’s house was a plain gray car that could only be an unmarked police vehicle.

Josie’s home was a narrow two-family flat with two windows upstairs, one down. Josie had lived there most of her life: upstairs with her mother until she went to college, downstairs after Amelia was born.

At age nine, she’d pulled weeds in the yard for a dollar a bucket. At sixteen, she’d run over the peony bush when she was learning to drive. She’d been photographed on the porch with Les Steinberg, her high school prom date. Les was so young and embarrassed in his rented tux, a red carnation pinned crookedly to the lapel. Josie had felt sophisticated in red lipstick and a black dress.

Her mother’s geraniums bloomed in pots on the porch. The concrete statue of the Blessed Virgin was whitewashed and planted with yellow-orange mums for fall. Josie hated their odd acrid smell. Jane may have let her own appearance slide, but the house was painted, planted and properly mowed for the neighbors.

Josie stumbled on the uneven concrete sidewalk, and her gut tightened. She hadn’t felt this scared in more than nine years. The last time was when she’d told her mother she was pregnant, she wasn’t marrying the baby’s father and she was dropping out of college to be a mystery shopper.

“You’ve ruined my life and yours,” her mother had wailed, as if Josie was dead instead of knocked up.

That crisis seemed mild now. Her mother, after the first shock, stood by her daughter. When Josie had carried Amelia home from the hospital, her personal disaster had turned into a triumph.

But Josie didn’t think she’d have a happy ending waiting at the end of this walk. Two homicide detectives were sitting in her living room.

I’ve been a stubborn fool. I should have called a lawyer, she thought. But she couldn’t bring herself to spend nearly a week’s pay so a pin-striped suit could sit beside her.

I’m smart enough to watch what I say. I do that all day at my job. How many tense situations in the stores have I talked my way out of? Then an old saw of her grandmother’s drifted into her mind: If you are your own lawyer, you have a fool for a client.

Josie shook off her misgivings and opened her front door. The slanting afternoon sun was cruel. She saw that the entrance hall needed a coat of paint. The beige carpet was worn. Amelia had dropped a sweatshirt and her pink inline skates by the door. She could hear the air conditioner wheezing and rattling. The air was warm and humid.

The detectives were sitting on Josie’s couch, side by side, with the air of small boys who’d been up to something. Everything in the room seemed slightly off kilter. She wondered if they’d done an illegal search.

Josie offered them coffee. They said no thanks.

“We just want to ask you a few questions,” the handsome Detective Yawney said. The balding, square-headed Detective Waxley said nothing, but he watched Josie until she felt like a bug under a microscope.

“We’d like to begin by advising you of your rights,” Detective Yawney said, and the bottom fell out of Josie’s stomach.

You’re not a suspect until they Mirandize you,
Josh had told her.

“Am—am I a suspect?” Josie said.

“It’s just a formality,” Waxley said. His baby-bald head gleamed innocently.

His partner began the familiar chant that she’d heard so often on TV. Josie’s mind scrambled desperately to make a decision. Should she call a lawyer? Was this really only a formality? Why did Detective Yawney remind her of the guy who sold her that overpriced dining room set for only forty-eight easy payments?

If I wait for a lawyer, I’ll be late for the Barrington book sale. My mother will have to work my shift. She’ll wear one of her polyester pantsuits and Amelia will hear the giggles and snotty little remarks.

“I don’t need a lawyer,” she said firmly.

It seemed to Josie that the detectives stayed for years. They were there so long, she examined her living room down to the last detail. She’d never realized how small, boxy and badly proportioned it was.

The ceiling was too high. The molding was too dark. The tiny stained-glass window by the fireplace had a crack in the green pane. A cobweb went from the lamp to the wall. And the walls. They seemed to move in on her.

“Tell us about the snakeskin belt,” Detective Yawney said.

His eyes crinkled when he smiled, but Josie didn’t trust that smile. She tried to explain the display, a red belt artistically arranged like a striking snake. Her words poured out, awkward and unconvincing even to her. Not so much talk, she reminded herself. There. She could handle this. That’s what any lawyer would tell her: Keep her answers short and honest.

“Wasn’t Danessa known for selling purses?” Detective Waxley asked, as if fashion was a mystery to him. It probably was. His white shirt was gray from too many washings. The stitching along the pocket had puckered. He could use a pocket protector, Josie thought, and nearly giggled. She caught herself and gave a short, serious answer.

“Yes.”

“Then why didn’t you ask to see a purse?” Waxley said.

“The snakeskin belt display looked like the most difficult to dismantle,” Josie said. “The saleswoman had ticked me off and I wanted to make her work a little.”

That sounded impossibly petty, but she thought it had the ring of truth.

“Did your job assignment specifically direct you to choose a belt rather than a purse?” Detective Waxley asked.

“No. It could be any product sold in the store.”

“Why that particular belt?” he said. “Do you wear twenty-seven-hundred-dollar belts? Are you familiar with how they should look and feel?”

Of course Josie wasn’t. The detectives could look around the room and know that.

She’d bought the sagging couch for three hundred dollars at a garage sale. The tables and lamps were new from Target. She doubted if all the furniture in her flat came to twenty-seven hundred dollars, and that included the fourteen-hundred-dollar dining room set.

“I’m familiar with high-end goods from mystery shopping,” she said.

“We found your fingerprints on the belt,” Detective Yawney said. There were no smile crinkles now. Josie saw that he’d missed a small, dark patch of beard near his left ear.

“I told you. I tried it on. My fingerprints would be on it.”

“Trying it on would be a good excuse to get your fingerprints on the belt,” he said.

“And you think I’d do that? You think I’m that clever?”

“Well, let’s think about that.” Detective Yawney’s handsome mouth took on an ugly twist. “You tell lies for a living. You wear disguises. For most people, mystery shopping is a part-time job that brings in a few thousand a year. But you earn a living at it.”

Not a good one, Josie wanted to say, looking at her shabby living room. But she was too frightened to speak. Detective Yawney knew way too much about her.

The homicide cop was still talking. “So, yes, you’re clever. Maybe this time you were too clever. Didn’t you tell us that the store was cleaned up when you came back at ten at night? Why didn’t the staff wipe your fingerprints off the belt?”

I’ve trapped myself, Josie thought. I volunteered too much information.

“Why don’t you ask them?” she said.

“We did. The salesperson, Olga, said she wiped down everything on direct orders from Danessa. Including the snakeskin belt.”

“Of course she’d say that,” Josie said. “She’s not going to tell you she did a sloppy job and skipped the belt.”

“Did you touch other things when you mystery-shopped?” Detective Waxley said. His mild eyes blinked rapidly.

Did I? Josie wondered, wildly searching her memory. Wait. Yes! “I bought three eyeglass holders. I stood at the counter while the salesperson rang up my purchase, so there might be some fingerprints there. When I came back at night, I took two autographed photos from the basket on the counter.”

“We didn’t find your fingerprints anywhere else in the store,” Detective Waxley said. “Just on the belt.”

“Tell us about that snakeskin belt,” Detective Yawney said again. Josie tried to remember what she’d said the first time, but her words seemed to run away and hide.

The detectives asked Josie the same questions over and over until the walls came together and the air left the room.

Finally, they asked a new question: “Would you consent to a polygraph test?”

Oh, God, Josie thought. They think I’m lying.

Chapter 13

“When?” Josie said.

That one word dropped down with the finality of a guillotine blade, cutting off all hope. The police wanted her to take a lie detector test. They didn’t believe her. The walls in her drab living room leaned inward. She felt like she was in a cell already—lightless, airless, doomed.

“When do you want me to take the test?” Josie’s voice shriveled to a whisper.

You had the right to remain silent, she thought. But you had to talk. You’ve talked your way into prison because you didn’t want to spend two hundred dollars. That’s the old Maplewood way: Squeeze a penny till it screams for mercy, then lose thousands because you’re too cheap to spend it. How long will it take you to make two hundred dollars stamping out license plates in prison?

“We can go right now,” Detective Yawney said.

How could Josie have thought anyone so cruel was handsome?

“We can have you back home in about three hours,” he said.

Josie sneaked a glance at her watch and was surprised to see it was only three thirty. She’d be back by six thirty. But she had to be at the Barrington School at five.

“I can’t take a lie detector test right now. My daughter—”

“Is with your mother,” Yawney said.

Those words terrified Josie more than the lie detector test. She couldn’t fail Amelia. She had to put on her Rich Suburban Lady outfit and pretend to be a normal mother helping out at the school book sale. She couldn’t embarrass Amelia by being hauled off to police headquarters for a lie detector test.

Josie looked around wildly for something to hit Yawney with. She would take the two detectives by surprise. They’d never expect it. She’d knock out Yawney and Waxley with the green table lamp—that color was a mistake anyway—and make a run for the Barrington School.

After she served her time in the book room, the cops could take her away for assaulting the homicide detectives.

Josie pushed away that crazy plan and began to plead. Her daughter’s future depended on her argument. “Detective Yawney, do you have children?”

Yawney shifted in his chair but didn’t answer.