booze.”
“Don’t use that term,” Judith urged, but was quick to follow Renie out of the lobby. “Did anything happen in my
absence?” she asked when they reached the dining room.
“No, just a lot of maundering about poor Andrea,” Renie
replied, unplugging the big urn on the buffet table. “Her
husband was a lazy dreamer, she was the breadwinner, all
Alan Roth ever wanted was a meal ticket, she wouldn’t divorce him because she was Catholic.”
“Sounds familiar,” Judith murmured, heading for the kitchen. “After nineteen years of marriage to Dan, I can sympathize with Andrea.”
“I’ll bet you can,” Renie said as Judith firmly shut the door
behind them.
“That’s not all,” Judith said, pressing her back against
the door. “Much as I hate to say this, coz, I think Andrea
was murdered.”
Renie winced. “I hate to hear you say that,” she breathed,
“but why am I not surprised?”
“Because we’re in the middle of a bloodbath, that’s why.”
Judith closed her eyes for a moment, then squared her
shoulders and walked over to the counter where she sat down
on one of the tall stools. “First of all, Andrea wasn’t the type
to commit suicide. Even if she was in love with Leon
Mooney—and we don’t know that for sure—the Andrea
Piccoloni-Roths of this world do not kill themselves.”
Renie perched on one of the other stools. “It didn’t sound
right to me from the start.”
“This isn’t just amateur psychology,” Judith went on.
“I hope not. Bill hates competition,” Renie said, referring
to her husband’s staff position at the university. “Bill says
that besides being simplistic and superficial, most non-professionals…”
Judith held up both hands. “Stop! Your husband’s brilliant,
but this isn’t the time for one of your long-winded wifely
essays. I’m talking
one—there was an empty Halcion bottle on the nightstand
next to the bed. Fact number two—the water glass, which
you gave Andrea last night, was in the bathroom. Now who
swallows pills in the bathroom with the water glass, and
then takes the bottle with them into the bedroom?”
“Is ‘nobody’ the right answer?” Renie had assumed her
middle-aged ingenue’s air.
“Right. Fact number three,” Judith continued. “The note
said what Ava told us—‘Leon, I’m coming to join you.’ Andrea undoubtedly wrote that, but I’ll bet she wrote it last
night to slip under Leon’s door. It simply meant that she
was going to meet him in his room, which is where we found
her when we went to tell her about Leon. But now she’s in
her own room, next door. My guess is that the killer found
that note—probably on Leon—and used it to fake a suicide.”
“Clever,” Renie remarked. “And fortuitous.”
