Murder at the Book Group (6 page)

“But Annabel's pretty accomplished already. She had a head start on Carlene.”

“Don't forget Annabel's the one who found Carlene and could easily have deposited the note by her chair. And”—I shook my finger when I remembered yet another reason to implicate Annabel—“there was the business with her husband.”

“But she was never tried for that or even arrested—” The sound of the doorbell startled us. Lucy stood and walked through the kitchen to the hall. “It's Kat.”

I removed a protesting Daisy from my lap, stashed the envelopes under a cushion, and walked to the front door. Just before Lucy opened it, I stage whispered, “Let's be careful what we say, in case she did it.”

“So who the hell killed Carlene?” Kat demanded as she charged through the doorway.

Then she burst into tears.

“KAT, WE'RE SO SORRY,”
I said. Lucy echoed my sentiments. We exchanged hugs before Lucy shepherded us into the morning room. “Coffee?” I offered. When Kat nodded wordlessly I went to the kitchen to get a mug. Kat's willingness to accept refreshment struck me as pretty trusting. After all, coffee served the same purpose as tea as a vehicle for poisoning. Of course, if Kat poisoned Carlene's tea she had nothing to fear from anyone else's beverage offerings. If she was innocent, maybe any danger hadn't yet occurred to her.

“I'll get more tissues,” Lucy said as she headed for the downstairs bathroom. I poured coffee into Kat's mug and handed it to her, thinking as I caught her miserable expression that if she was the killer, she was either racked by guilt or a consummate actress. I admonished myself not to get carried away with this killer business. I couldn't dismiss the suicide conclusion out of hand.

Lucy returned with a box of tissues and placed it next to Kat. As we sat, I took a moment to inventory Kat's wardrobe. I think that anyone who met the woman, regardless of the circumstances, shared my fascination with her flamboyant style. But the first detail I noticed was one made conspicuous by its absence—something leopard. Her usual black prevailed in her leather jacket and leotard with plunging neckline. Tight stretchy pants clung to her slim, well-developed legs and flared at the bottom. Her mass of blond curls seemed slightly flatter, her abundant eye makeup smudged beyond repair after what looked like a lot of tears. Kat was still “out there,” just not as far as usual.

Lucy looked her usual elegant self in her periwinkle robe with a satin shawl collar. My contribution to this fashion show of sorts was a pair of sweats purchased long ago at a California swap meet and socks with holes at the heels.

Kat sat on the end of the sofa and looked down at her lap. “I hope you don't mind me barging in on you like this. I'm meeting Evan and Dean at eleven to discuss the . . . arrangements.” Dean Berenger was Kat's father, an affable sort whom I'd met at Evan and Carlene's turkey dinners. He'd spent most of his time standing in the driveway with a can of soda and a cigarette. “In the meantime I couldn't bear being alone.” At that her voice broke and tears flowed down her cheeks. My eyes filled and soon the three of us were off on a crying jag.

“I can't believe the whole thing. I can't take it in,” Kat sobbed. Then she grabbed my arm with a hand decorated with at least ten rings. “So how are you doing after last night?”

I whispered, “I'm okay.” Then, my voice restored, “And Evan?”

“Evan doesn't know what hit him yet. As for Dean, he's full of regret about the past—useless regret, in my opinion. Carlene never really forgave him or her mother for all the hurts of her childhood.” Kat blew on her coffee. “I tried to get her to go to Al-Anon but she refused.”

“What about her parents? Did someone let them know?” Lucy asked.

“Both dead.”

“How did Evan find out?” I asked. “Who told him?”

“He found out because he called Carlene and—” Kat's voice broke again. After a ragged inhale, she continued. “Can you imagine, she died right when they were
talking
.” I had forgotten the male voice yelling through the phone.

Kat continued. “When no one responded, naturally he was frantic—he was at a conference in Northern Virginia, two hours away. He called Janet, their next-door neighbor, to find out what was going on. Thankfully, she has a listed number and Evan knew her last name. By the time he reached her, all hell had let loose, what with the ambulance and police and all. Janet called the police, who of course wouldn't tell her anything, but she told them how to get in touch with Evan.” Kat grabbed a wad of tissues from the box. “Then he had to drive back here and be interviewed by the police. So he's had no sleep.”

Lucy went to the kitchen and came back with a bowl of fresh fruit and placed it next to the basket of muffins. Kat's tears streamed down her face, making the smudgy black spots under her eyes fade. I couldn't remember a time when Kat wasn't fully made up. She looked younger now, almost innocent. Shammy jumped up on her lap. “Cats know when you need them,” she said as she stroked Shammy, who rewarded her with an adoring look. “My Leopold is a huge comfort to me right now.”

Kat mopped at her eyes and cheeks. “I'm sure I look a fright,” but seemed unconcerned as she sipped her coffee and seemed to take strength from it. “Anyway, Dean's trying to find Hal. We have no idea how to get in touch with him.”

“Oh, Carlene's brother,” I said, remembering the sullen-looking boy in the family photograph.

“He's more or less a hermit, holed up in a cabin out in Montana, Wyoming, some godforsaken place. At least that's the last anyone heard. He always was a loner.” Unfortunately that description recalled the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski, a hermit who lived in an isolated cabin in Montana until his eighteen-year career of bombing by mail ended in arrest.

“Until last night, I didn't even know she had a brother.” I told Kat and Lucy about the photographs in Carlene's den.

“He probably won't show up, but he needs to know, so Dean's contacting the park rangers out there. Hal is, after all, family.” Family—I had to remember that Kat was family, and I was not. Ex-family is what I was. But as I felt like family, I felt left out.

“What I want to know is this: who the hell killed her? And don't say it was suicide.” When I saw the set to Kat's jaw, I wouldn't have challenged her even if I did believe it was suicide. “You mark my words, someone killed her, and I'm going to find out who it was. It was the tea . . . something in that tea.”

For a moment, no one spoke, just ate. Suddenly ravenous, I scarfed down two muffins. Kat bit into one, spraying crumbs.

“Carlene and Evan were separated, you know.” Kat looked at both of us in turn. “Judging by your lack of surprise, I guess you knew that.”

“Yes, I ran into Evan at Target and he told me.” Lucy shot me a warning look but she needn't have worried. I had no intention of offering up details on the Target encounter. “He didn't say for how long—do you know?”

“About a month or so.”

“Where's he been staying?”

“With what's his name . . . Warren.”

“Oh, yes, Warren Oglesby—a classmate from Rochester and best man at our wedding.” And the reason Evan picked Richmond when he took his lottery winnings and left Rochester to launch his teaching career, having visited Warren often over the years. “He's supposed to have a nice place.” Warren, a hotshot lawyer, and his family lived in Richmond's prestigious West End, overlooking the James River.

I wondered how often Evan returned to the house he'd shared with Carlene. After all, he might have needed a certain shirt or tie. Or a try at reconciliation. Or a chance to doctor his wife's tea mug— Stop! I ordered myself. The idea of Evan as wife killer was unbearable. And wasn't poison the weapon of choice for women? I chided myself for thinking in sexist stereotypes.

I lit on safer thoughts—why had they separated? Who had initiated the split? All questions I should have asked that day at Target, but Evan's unexpected dinner invitation put the kibosh on further discussion.

I was about to ask Kat about the separation details when she posed her own questions.

“Have you talked to Vince? Or are you guys in off mode?”

“I haven't talked to him.”

When I offered nothing about our current mode, Kat shrugged. “So—my question remains unanswered. Who
did
this? Who killed Carlene?” Kat cursed a blue streak.

I held my hands out, palms up, in a beats-me gesture. At this point, the question was rhetorical. I started carefully. “So you're determined that—”

Kat cut me off before I could get out the “S” word. “Don't say suicide! Carlene did
not
commit suicide.”

“Georgia agrees.” I described my earlier conversation with Carlene's friend, including their recent spa weekend.

“You see? And Carlene and I had our birthday lunch last week. We went to the Grapevine. She was
fine
.” Kat fixed me with a defiant look. “People in my family don't kill themselves.” If I needed convincing that Carlene didn't do herself in, that last rationale didn't do the trick.

I tried another tack. “Did you see anyone near Carlene's mug last night? Did you see anything odd at all?”

“No!” she wailed. “Not a thing.”

Changing the focus, Lucy asked, “What about Linda? What do you know about her?”

Kat drew her brows together. “You think she did it?”

“Not necessarily. I'm asking because you seemed to know her and the rest of us didn't.” Lucy described her sighting of Linda at the signing and Art's account of the conversation between Linda and Carlene.

“I met her at the signing. She said she knew Carlene from L.A. She asked about the book group, and I started to tell her about it but her husband was pacing around outside. So I gave her my card and she rushed off. She called me a couple of days ago, asking where the group was meeting. Then she showed up last night.” Kat opened her hands, palms up. “That's all I know about her.”

“Did you talk to her last night?”

“No. Art cornered me and I wound up showing him some exercises.” Kat gave a long-suffering sigh.

“At the signing, did Linda say how she and Carlene knew each other in L.A.?”

“No. I meant to ask but, like I said, hubby was in a hurry so our conversation was pretty brief.”

Lucy picked up her knitting. Looking thoughtful, she asked, “Kat, were you and Carlene always close?”

Kat laughed and that fond tone people assume when they reminisce about the recently departed came into her voice. “We weren't close at all when we were growing up. My brother and I stayed with her family when my mom went on trips with her boyfriends. I was the classic wild child and Carlene the classic Goody Two-shoes. I embarrassed her to no end. Then she went away to college while I went to the local community college. After graduation she moved to L.A. and I stayed in Virginia. We were out of touch for years.”

“How long did Carlene live in L.A.?” I asked.

“Twenty years or so.” Kat played with the silver earrings—how many were there? Five? Six?—dangling from her right ear.

“She never wanted to talk about L.A. and I always wondered why. After all, I lived there too, and we were both computer programmers, so we might have known people in common. But whenever I'd mention anything about the place, she changed the subject.”

Kat shrugged. “Then I guess she didn't want to talk about it. Carlene was a forward thinker, didn't like to dwell on the past.”

“Yes, well, that's a good way to be. Still, it struck me as odd.” I waved my hand and said, “Go on.”

Kat started turning her mug around in her hands as she took up her story. “I didn't know that Carlene was back in Virginia until my mom told me. One day I called her and we started getting together for lunch, especially for birthdays. I think I still embarrassed her, but maybe she figured people were too busy looking at me to notice her. Probably true. We also had family holidays together—Thanksgiving, Christmas. She and my daughter, Stephie, hit it off. Maybe it was being middle-aged, but we both seemed to have discovered the importance of family, however dysfunctional ours was with all the alcoholism and drugs. We still had little in common, but that didn't matter as much anymore. We didn't hang out together, just developed a kind of mutual fondness.

“In 1999 a lot of things changed. First Carlene's mother drank herself to death. Not long after, Dean retired from teaching and moved down here from Fairfax. The two of us finally owned up to our drinking problems and sobered up together. I was busy with him and didn't see Carlene as much. And I met Evan and we started our relationship. We were never really serious, but . . .”

“Evan?” Lucy and I blurted out at the same time. “Evan Arness? You and Evan dated?”

“Yes—oh—I guess you didn't know that. We didn't exactly date—but we had a lot of really hot sex!” She waved her red talons in a parody of a blaze, then covered her mouth with the same talons. “Oh, Hazel, I'm so sorry. I totally forgot that you and Evan were married or I wouldn't have said anything.”

I had a vision of Kat and Evan ripping off each other's clothes in their passion. Strewn on a path to the bedroom would be her leopard prints and black leather with his polo shirt, khaki pants, and penny loafers. I snapped out of my clothing reverie and waved her apology aside. “It's okay. Evan and I are ancient history.”

Lucy, now recovered from her surprise, said, “Tell us about you and Evan. I have to say, I'm simply floored. How long did your relationship last? But first, do you want more coffee?” Kat had stepped up her mug twisting.

“Oh, yeah, sure. Thanks.” Now with a full mug, Kat went on. “Our relationship lasted about six months or so. Then, on my birthday in 2000, Carlene, Georgia, and I were having lunch at Chez Foushee—you know that place downtown?” When we nodded, she said, “Evan came in with another guy. I made the introductions. A few days later Evan told me he wanted to ask Carlene out, and would I mind. I did mind but didn't want to admit it. Then Carlene called and said Evan had asked her out and would I mind. I still minded and still didn't want to admit it. They got married six weeks later. Small wedding, just family and a few close friends. They had the wedding brunch downtown at the Kent-Valentine House.