Evelyn's dark eyes blazed. 'So you were listening on the extension.'
'Mr Runyon, Mother. I want you to tell me about him. And I want you to tell me what Arthur Halliwell has to do with all of this.'
Even this late in her life, Evelyn Daye Tappley had a firm and shapely body. In the dainty silk pajamas, the body looked thirty years younger than its owner.
On Evelyn's lap was a photo albumall color photos, of courseof Peter's ninth and tenth summers. Evelyn had been an inveterate documenter of her children's young years.
'He was a handsome boy, wasn't he?' she said dreamily.
'Yes, he was. Now tell me about Runyon.'
'You know, his birthday is coming up. Peter's, I mean.'
'I know.'
'I assume you'll go to the mausoleum with me.'
'Perhaps, Mother. But first'
Her mother glared up at Doris. 'You know what? The older I get, the more I wonder if you weren't jealous of Peter. I wonder if you weren't jealous all these years and I didn't understand it until recently.'
'You're changing the subject, Mother.'
'If you weren't jealous, you'd go to the mausoleum with me.'
'There's paying respectand then there's morbidity.'
'And I'm morbid?'
'You're there every day, aren't you?'
'And that's morbid?'
'Of course it is.'
Doris did not realize until it was too late what her mother had just done. There was a button on the side of the bed for summoning a servant. She had just pressed it. Martha would be here soon. Evelyn would have Martha stay with her so Doris couldn't ask any questions.
'You're very clever, Mother.'
Evelyn smiled. 'I like to think so, anyway, dear.'
'We're going to talk about Runyon.'
'Are we?'
'Jill doesn't deserve this.'
'You know what I just said about you being jealous of your brother?'
'Don't be ridiculous.'
'If you weren't jealous then you'd agree with me that that little bitch should be punished.'
'She's a decent woman. She did everything she could to save her marriage.'
Evelyn smirked. 'Oh yes, Jill Coffeya veritable saint, isn't she?' But she was angry now and could no longer control it. Her eyes grew wild again. 'Don't ask me about Runyon. Runyon is entirely my business, not yours. And I don't want you snooping around in my desk anymore, either.'
'I just can't believe that Mr Halliwell would have anything to do with this.'
'You're naive about people, Doris, and you always have been.'
A soft knock. Martha came in.
Evelyn said, 'Why don't you fluff my pillows and straighten the blankets and help me get ready for bed?'
'Yes, ma'am.'
Evelyn smiled at Doris. 'I'm sorry, dear, but with Martha here, I'm afraid we can't talk.'
Doris and Martha glanced at each other. Martha was wise in the ways of Evelyn Daye Tappley.
'I'll talk to you in the morning, then, Mother,' Doris said, and turned away from the bed.
As Doris left the room, Martha gave her a weary little smile.
CHAPTER 46
Jill heard the noise about 2 a.m. She eased herself out of bed so as not to wake Mitch, and went to the window. In the alley that ran along the side of her house, she saw the darkened shape of a police cruiser. No headlights. Two uniformed officers with long flashlights. Walking to the dumpster. Opening the lid. Aiming the beams inside. One of the officers pulling on a latex glove. Reaching down into the dumpster. Feeling around like a kid searching a treasure box at a grade-school ice-cream socialfeeling around blind for the best prize.
While the one officer, a woman, held the beam, the other, a man spent the next few minutes rummaging through the dumpster. Not a job Jill would want. The officers made faces at each other sometimes, indicating that the dumpster did not exactly smell of Chanel No. 5.
She knew they were looking for something to tie her to the murder. Mitch had once told her that the police frequently spent a lot of time going through garbage cans and dumpsters during the course of murder investigations. Something reliable often turned up.
The male officer found something.
His partner brought the light in closer.
He dug deeper.
Then he lifted something up for inspection.
Even from here, she recognized it. Her electric-blue, sandwashed blouse. But now there were dark stains all over it.
The officer folded it and put it in a large clear evidence bag.
Then he went back to the dumpster.
Behind her, Jill heard, 'What's going on?'
'Police,' she said softly.
Then Mitch stood next to her, smelling of sleep, his big hands on her thin shoulders. He felt warm and safe.
The female officer went back to shining her beam straight down inside the dumpster.
This took a few minutes longer than the blouse had, but eventually the male officer fished out another piece of her clothingher blue wraparound skirt. From this distance, Jill was unable to tell if the same dark splotches stained the skirt.
The officer placed the blouse carefully inside another evidence bag.
'Is that yours?' Mitch asked.
'Yes,' Jill said.
At this point, the female officer returned to the patrol car and made a call on the two-way. Her colleague came over and listened to her talk. When she'd finished, obviously having received instructions of some kind, the two officers started walking up and down the ancient brick alley, deep in shadow and lined with dumpsters and stoops, shining their lights along the ground. They might have been astronauts on the moon on some arcane mission that civilians couldn't comprehend.
But Jill comprehended all right: they'd found her electric-blue blouse and her royal-blue skirt, and now they were looking for more evidence.
'He's already decided that I killed Eric. Sievers, I mean.'
'I didn't say he made his mind up that fast, Jill. He's a very competent cop.'
'They found my blouse and skirt in the dumpster.'
'I know, but'
'I think there was blood all over the blouse. There may have been some on the skirt, too. This is crazy, Mitch. I didn't wear either that blouse or skirt tonight. Somebody's trying to make it look as if I killed Eric.'
'What did you wear?'
She told him.
'Did anybody see you in that outfit?'
'I wore a long coat. They couldn't see what I had on.'
'Not even the skirt?'
