(3T)Three Bedrooms, One Corpse Read online

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  years of townhouse living for that. If I was going to own a house, I wanted privacy.

  The next house had four bedrooms, which I liked, and a poky kitchen with no storage room, which I didn’t. The third house, a two-story in a rather run-down part of Lawrenceton, was most attractive. It needed some renovation, but I could pay for that. I loved the master bedroom, and I loved the breakfast area over- looking the backyard. But the house next door had been divided into apartments, and I didn’t like the thought of all the in-and-out traffic—there again, I’d had enough. The fourth house was a possible. It was a smaller house in a very nice area of town, which meant it cost the same as a larger home elsewhere. But it was only ten years old, was in excellent shape, and had a beautifully landscaped, low-maintenance yard and lots of closets. Also a Jacuzzi in the master bath, which I eyed with in- terest. It was over my price limit, but not too drastically. By the time we pulled up in front of the fifth house, Eileen and I had learned a lot about each other. Eileen was intelligent, conscientious, made a note to find out the answer to each and every small query I had, tried to stay out of my way as I considered each property, and was in general a really great Realtor. She at least pre- tended to consider that not knowing exactly what you wanted was normal.

  I was trying to overlook things that I could do some- thing about if I were really interested in the house, and concentrate instead on things that would absolutely knock the house out of the running. These things could be pretty nebulous, though, and then I felt obliged to come up with a concrete reason to give Eileen.

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  The fifth house was the killer. There was nothing wrong with it. It was a three-bedroom with a pleasant yard, a small but adequate kitchen, and the usual num- ber of closets. It was certainly big enough for one per- son. If toys were any evidence, it was not quite big enough for a couple with several children. It was very similar to its neighbors . . . the exterior was one of three or four standardly used in this subdivision. I was sure anyone on the street would have no trouble finding her way to any particular room or closet in any house. “I hate this house,” I said.

  Eileen tapped her fingernails absently on the imita- tion wooden-block Formica of the kitchen counter. “What is it you dislike so much, so I won’t waste our time showing you anything else with that feature?” A reasonable question.

  “It’s too much like all the other houses on the street. And everyone else on this street seems to have little children. I wouldn’t feel a part of the neighborhood.” Eileen was resigning herself to the fact that I wasn’t going to be the easiest sell she’d ever had. “This is just the first day,” she said philosophically. “We’ll see more. And it’s not like you have a time limit.” I nodded, and Eileen dropped me back at my place, thinking out loud the whole time about what she could line up to show me in the coming week. I listened with half my attention, the other half wrapped up in my date tonight. I was trying to keep my mental screen ab- solutely blank, trying not to imagine any scenes from the evening, trying not even to conjecture on its outcome. Of course, I still had time to kill when I got home, and with the house clean and my clothes selected, noth-

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  ing to kill it with. So I turned on the television, and when that failed, I tried to concentrate on an old Catherine Aird, counting on her never-failing blend of humor and detection to get me through a couple of hours. After ten minutes of concentrated effort, Aird worked, as she always did. I even forgot to look at my watch for minutes at a time.

  Then I remembered I hadn’t done my exercise video that morning. Madeleine came to watch with her usual amazement, and I worked up quite a sweat and felt very virtuous.

  Finally it really was time for a shower. I hadn’t scrubbed myself this much since my senior prom. Every atom of my skin and inch of my hair was absolutely clean, every extra hair was shaved from my legs, and when I emerged I slapped everything on my- self I could think of, even cuticle cream on my messy cuticles. I plucked my eyebrows. I put on my makeup with the care and deliberation of a high-fashion model, and dried my hair to the last strand, brushing it after- ward at least fifty times. I even cleaned my glasses. I wiggled into my incredible underwear without look- ing in the mirror, at least not until I pulled the black slip over my head. Then, very carefully, the teal dress, which I zipped up with some difficulty. I switched purses, put on my high-heeled pumps, and surveyed myself in Jane’s mirror.

  I looked as good as I possibly could, and if it wasn’t good enough . . . so be it.

  I went downstairs to wait.

  Chapter Seven

  A

  The doorbell rang exactly on the dot.

  Martin was wearing a gorgeous gray suit. After a moment I stepped back to let him in, and he looked around.

  Suddenly we realized we weren’t observing the amenities, and both of us burst into speech at once. I blurted “How’ve you been doing?” as he said “Nice apartment.” We both shuddered to a halt and smiled at each other in embarrassment.

  “I reserved a table at a restaurant the board of direc- tors took me to after they’d decided to hire me for the job here,” Martin said. “It’s French, and I thought it was very good. Do you like French food?” I wouldn’t understand the menu. “That’ll be fine,” I said. “You’ll have to order for me. I haven’t tried to speak French since high school.”

  “We’ll have to rely on the waiter,” Martin said. “I ~ 96 ~

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  speak Spanish and some Vietnamese, but only a little French.”

  We had one thing in common.

  I got my black coat from the coat closet. I slid it on myself, not being ready for him to touch me. I lifted my hair out of the collar and let it hang down my back, acutely conscious that he watched my every move. I thought if we made it out the door it would be amaz- ing, so I kept my distance; and when he opened the door for me to pass through, I did so as quickly as I could. Then he opened the patio gate and the door of his car. I hadn’t felt so frail in years. His car was wonderful—real leather and an impres- sive dashboard. It even smelled expensive. I had never ridden in anything so luxurious. I was feeling more pampered by the moment.

  We swept imperially through Lawrenceton, attract- ing (I hoped) lots of attention, and hit the short inter- state stretch to Atlanta. Our small talk was extremely small. The air in the car was crackling with tension. “You’ve always lived here?”

  “Yes. I did go away to college, and I did some grad- uate work. But then I came back here, and I’ve been here ever since. Where have you lived?” “Well. I grew up in rural Ohio, as I mentioned last night,” he said.

  I could not picture him being rural at any point in his life, and I said so.

  “I’ve spent my lifetime eradicating it,” he said with some humor. “I was in the Marines for a while, in Viet- nam, the tail end, and then when I came back, after a while I began to work for Pan-Am Agra. I finished

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  college through night school, and Pan-Am Agra needed Spanish speakers so much that I became fluent. It paid off, and I began working my way up . . . this car was the first thing I got that said I had arrived, and I take good care of it.”

  Presumably the big house in Lawrenceton would be another acquisition affirming that he was climbing the ladder successfully.

  “You’re—thirty?” he said suddenly.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m forty-five. You don’t mind?”

  “How could I?”

  Our eyes moved simultaneously to a lighted motel sign looming over the interstate.

  The exit was a mile away.

  I thought I was about to give way to an impulse— finally.

  “Ah—Aurora—”

  “Roe.”

  “I don’t want you to think I don’t w
ant to spend money on you. I don’t want you to think I don’t want to be seen with you. But tonight . . .” “Pull off.”

  “What?”

  “Pull off.”

  Off the interstate we rolled at what seemed to me in- credible speed, and suddenly we were parked in front of the bright office of the motel. I couldn’t remember the name of it, where we were, anything. Martin left the car abruptly, and I watched him reg- ister. He carefully did not turn to look back at me dur- ing the interminable process.

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  Then he slid back into the car with a key in hand. I turned to him and said through clenched teeth, “I hope it’s on the ground floor.”

  It was.

  It rained during the night. The lightning flashed through the windows, and I heard the cold spray hit the pavement outside. He had been sleeping; he woke up a little when I shivered at the thunder. “Safe,” he said, gathering me to him. “Safe.” He kissed my hair and fell back into sleep.

  I wondered if I was. In a practical way I was safe, yes; we were not stupid people; we took precautions. But in my heart I had no feeling, none at all, of safety. The morning was not the kind that ordinarily made me cheerful. It was colder, grayer, and puddles of muddy water dotted the parking lot of the motel. But I felt good enough to overcome even the faint sleaziness of putting back on the same clothes I’d worn. We ate breakfast in the motel coffee shop, and both of us were very hungry. “I don’t know what we’ve started,” Martin said suddenly, as he was about to get up to pay our bill, “but I want you to know I have never felt so wrung out in my life.”

  “Relaxed,” I corrected smilingly. “I’m relaxed.” “Then,” he said with raised eyebrows, “you didn’t work hard enough.”

  We smiled at each other. “A matter of opinion,” I said, quite shocked at myself.

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  “We’ll just have to try again until we’re both satis- fied,” Martin murmured.

  “What a fate,” I said.

  “Tonight?” he asked.

  “Tomorrow night. Give me a chance to recoup.” “See, you do know some French words,” he replied, and we smiled at each other again. He glanced at his watch as we drove back. “I’m usually working at the plant alone on Sunday, but today we’re having a spe- cial meeting at twelve thirty, followed by an executives’ lunch. It’s a kickoff for our next production phase.” “What will they say if you’re a few minutes late?” I asked him softly when he kissed me good-bye at my townhouse door.

  “They won’t say anything,” he told me. “I’m the top dog.”

  For the first time in a long time, I was going to skip church. I staggered up the stairs and stripped off all my clothes, pulled a nightgown over my head, and after turning off the bell of the phone, crawled in bed to rest. I began to think, and with an effort turned off the trickle of thought like a hand tightening a faucet. I was sore, exhausted, and intoxicated, and soon I was also asleep.

  My mother called at eleven, as soon as she got home from church. The Episcopalians in Lawrenceton had a nine thirty service, because Aubrey went to an- other, smaller church forty miles away to hold another

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  service directly after the Lawrenceton one. I was drowsing in bed, trying to think of what to do with the remainder of the day, persuading myself not to call Martin. I felt so calm and limp that I thought I might slide out of bed and ooze across the carpet to the closet. I barely heard the downstairs phone ringing. “Hello, Aurora,” Mother said briskly. “We missed you at church. What have you been doing today?” I smiled blissfully at the ceiling and said, “Nothing in particular.”

  “I called to find out about the annual Realtors’ ban- quet,” she said. “Would you and Aubrey like to come? It’s for families, too, you know, and you might enjoy it, since you know everyone.” Mother tried to get me there every year, and the last year I’d broken down and gone. The annual Realtors’ banquet was one of those strange events no one can possibly like but everyone must attend. It was a local custom that had begun fif- teen years before when a Realtor (who has since left town) decided it would be a good thing if all the town professionals and their guests met once a year and drank a lot of cocktails and ate a heavy meal, and af- terward sat in a stupor listening to a speaker. “Isn’t the timing a little bad this year?” I was think- ing of Tonia Lee.

  “Well, yes, but we’ve made the reservations and se- lected the menu and everyone’s kept that night free for months. So we might as well go through with it. Shall I put you and Aubrey down? This is the final tally of guests. I’ll be glad when Franklin’s in charge of this next year.” Each agency in Lawrenceton took the task in turn.

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  “He’ll leave most of the arrangements to Terry Sternholtz, the same way you left them to Patty,” I said. “At least it won’t be our agency that looks ineffi- cient if anything goes wrong.”

  “Nothing’s going to go wrong. You know how effi- cient Patty is.”

  “Lord, yes.” My mother sighed. “I sense you’re put- ting me off, Aurora.”

  “Yes, actually I am. I just wanted to sort of tell you something . . .”

  “ ‘Sort of’?”

  “I’m trying to glide into this.”

  “Glide. Quickly.”

  “I’m not dating Aubrey anymore.”

  An intake of breath from Mother’s end.

  “I’m really just . . . I think . . . I’m seeing Martin. Bartell.”

  Long silence. Finally Mother said, “Were there any

  bad feelings, Aurora? Do John and I need to skip church for the next couple of weeks? Aubrey was a lit- tle somber today, maybe, but not so much that I thought anything about it until I talked to you.” “No bad feelings.”

  “All right. I’ll have to hear the whole story from you sometime.”

  “Sure. Yes, well, Martin and I will come, I think . . . maybe.” I had a sudden attack of insecurity. “It’s next Saturday night, right?”

  “Right. And Tonia Lee will be buried Tuesday. Don- nie called today. The church service is at”—Mother checked her notes—“Flaming Sword of God Bible Church,” she finished in an arid voice.

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  “Golly. That’s out on the highway, isn’t it?” “Yes, right by Pine Needle Trailer Park.” Mother’s voice could have dried out the Sahara.

  “What time?”

  “Ten o’clock.”

  “Okay. I’ll be there.”

  “Aurora. You’re okay? About this change in beaus?”

  “Yes. So is Aubrey. So is Martin.”

  “All right, then. See you Tuesday morning, if not be- fore. I think Eileen mentioned she had some more properties to show you this afternoon; she should be calling you soon.”

  “Okay. See you.”

  I took a quick shower, pulled on a green-, rust-, and brown-striped sweater, the matching rust-colored pants, and my brown boots. A glance outside had shown that the day had not brightened, but remained resolutely cold, windy, and wet.

  Downstairs I found my answering-machine light was blinking. I’d been too tired to glance that way this morning.

  “Roe, this is Eileen, calling on Saturday evening. I have two houses to show you Sunday afternoon if it’s convenient for you, in the afternoon. Give me a call.” A moment of silence between messages.

  “Roe, are you asleep?” My face flushed when I heard Martin’s voice. He’d probably called while I was in the shower. “I’m calling from work, sweetheart. I can hardly wait until tomorrow night. I can’t make it to Atlanta that night since I have a meeting early Tues- day morning, but we can at least go to the Carriage

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  House.” That being Lawrenceton’s best restaurant. “I want to see you again,” he said simply. “You made me very happy.”<
br />
  I was pretty damn happy myself.

  I called Eileen back to make an appointment for two o’clock, then decided to treat myself to lunch some- where. On impulse, I punched the number of my re- porter friend, Sally Allison, and we arranged to meet at the local Beef ’N More.

  Thirty minutes later we were settled opposite each other, after waiting in line through the Sunday church crowd. Sally was working on a hamburger and a salad, and I had virtuously opted for the salad bar only, though I could certainly get enough calories from what was spread up and down its length.

  Sally was older than I by more than twelve years, but we’re good friends. She was a Sally who wouldn’t tolerate a nickname. Sally had bronze hair, never out of place, and she bought expensive clothes and ran them into the ground. She was wearing a black suit I’d seen on her countless times, and it still looked good. For once, she had some news to impart before she started digging for more.

  “Paul’s working today. He and I got married last weekend,” she said casually, and the cellophane pack- age of crackers I was trying to open exploded. I hastily began to gather up the crumbs.

  “You married your first husband’s brother?” “You know we’ve been dating for a long time.” “Well, yes, but I didn’t know it was going to result in a marriage!”

  “He’s great.”

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  We chatted away. I was dying to know what the first Mr. Allison thought of this new situation, but was aware I really must not ask.

  The third time Sally was explaining to me how won- derful Paul was (she knew I’d heard while dating Arthur Smith that Paul had never been popular with his fellow detectives), I was sufficiently bored and skeptical to look around me. To my surprise, I spied Donnie Green- house eating lunch with Idella. They were sitting in one of the few places in the steak house where you could talk without being overheard. Donnie was leaning over the table, talking earnestly and quickly to Idella, whose delicate coloring was showing unbecoming blotches of stress. Idella was shaking her head from side to side. What an odd couple! It was a little strange to see Donnie out in public, even though I dismissed that reac- tion on my part as uncharitable. But with Idella? “They certainly look put out with each other,” Sally said. She’d followed my gaze. “I don’t think this is a widower on the rebound, do you?”