Chapter 25
“Luke is taking the housekeeper home,” Desiree said when she opened her front door.
Helen froze. Was she alone here with Desiree? Surely not. A place this big had to be infested with servants. But the mansion was silent as a midnight grave. The bride wore a black dress that could have passed as a nun’s habit if it had a cross. Her flat shoes belonged on a woman of sixty. There were no makeup circles under her eyes tonight.
Desiree lived in a 1920s pink stucco palace a few blocks and several light years from the Coronado. It was done in the Early Funeral Parlor style favored by Florida’s old money. The gloomy entrance hall was dominated by a vast marble-topped table and a weeping fern in a black urn. The hall opened onto even larger rooms. Helen expected brass signs to announce “Wescott viewing, Parlor A.”
“It’s a lovely evening. I thought we could have tea in the garden. Unless you’d rather have cocktails.” Desiree seemed suddenly concerned about a salesclerk’s needs. At her wedding, the bride wouldn’t let Helen have a cup of coffee. Instead, she threw it on her crystal dress.
“I’d like that very much,” Helen said fervently. It would be easier to escape if she was outside. “Tea is fine.”
Helen didn’t plan to drink anything, including the tea. She didn’t trust anything Desiree would serve.
She followed Desiree across several acres of carpet and through the French doors. Tea, iced and hot, crust- less sandwiches, and tiny cookies waited on a glass-topped table. The garden was a dreary expanse of dark green bushes clipped into fantastic animals and wrought-iron flamingos. Helen guessed the rich didn’t buy pink plastic flamingos, but they would have brightened up the yard.
While Desiree busied herself with the tea things, Helen reached into her bag and flicked on the tape recorder.
“How are you feeling?” Helen said.
Desiree’s eyes teared. Helen suspected that no one had asked her that question, not even Luke.
“The funeral was a nightmare,” Desiree said, handing Helen a nearly transparent cup painted with yellow flowers. “I don’t remember most of it. The worst part was finding something for Mother to wear. I had to choose her clothes for all eternity.”
Desiree paused at this solemn thought, then put six sugary cookies on her plate. “I finally decided on the pink dress she wore when we shopped for my wedding gown. It had so many memories.”
All of them bad. “That day was unforgettable,” Helen said truthfully. She wondered if Kiki was buried with or without her underwear.
“I really wanted to bury her in the rose dress,” Desiree said. The cookies had disappeared, with only a powder-sugar trail marking their place on the plate. She helped herself to six more. Helen ate nothing, but Desiree didn’t seem to notice.
“The dress she died in?” That was creepy.
“She loved it so,” Desiree said. “But the police wouldn’t release it. They said it was part of the ongoing investigation. Luke said I couldn’t do it, anyway. He said you couldn’t close the casket on that hoop—if you squash it down, it pops back up.”
“He’s probably right,” Helen said.
“Do you know who killed my mother?” Desiree reached for more cookies.
“I have my suspicions,” Helen said, “but I wanted to talk with you first, to clear some things up. I heard your mother also fought with Luke.”
“They had a disagreement. It wasn’t serious.” Desiree studied her teacup. She wouldn’t look at Helen.
Helen’s next words were cruel, but she had to say them. “Luke said he wouldn’t marry you if your mother didn’t let him act in that movie.”
“He didn’t mean it!” Desiree said. “She makes people say terrible things.”
Makes. Kiki still lived in her daughter’s head.
“Luke loves me. He could have had richer and prettier women, but Luke married me. He’s so beautiful. You don’t know what it’s like to be plain and to love pretty things. I like to look at him. Even his feet are pretty.” Desiree’s thin lips were trembling. The drab skin underneath folded oddly into her neck.
“Oh, Desiree,” Helen said. “He’s not a statue.”
“But he is a work of art. He’s also an artist. And he’s mine.” Her eyes glittered with greed. Helen knew then that Desiree would kill to possess the man she wanted. She would murder her mother to make Luke happy. Once Kiki was dead, Luke could have his career.
Desiree started flinging accusations wildly. “I think that chauffeur, Rod Somebody, killed Mother. He thought she’d left him a million dollars, but she didn’t. Or it could be Jason. Mother laughed at him when he couldn’t, you know . . . perform. You remember the famous Sex on the Beach case, where that guy strangled his girlfriend because she laughed at him when he couldn’t do it?”
“That’s two suspects,” Helen said. “Which one is it—Rod or Jason?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care. She’s dead. Nothing will bring her back.”
At least you hope so, Helen thought. She wanted to see how far she could push the bride.
“Desiree, I don’t know how to say this, but what if Luke killed her?”
“He didn’t!” the bride said. “It had to be the other two. I know Luke didn’t do it. I know for a fact!”
Because you did it, Helen thought. But she pushed a little harder. “If anything happens to you, Luke would be a very rich widower.”
“I’m not like my mother,” Desiree said. “I won’t stand in his way. I’ll give him everything. What else could he want?”
Helen looked at the chinless little face, the drooping hair, the muddy skin. She thought how Desiree clung to her husband and how he pried her fingers off his arm. She’d killed for that man, but he couldn’t stand her touching him.
“His freedom,” Helen said. She heard the crunch of gravel and thought Luke might have returned. It was time for her to go.
“I don’t like you.” The handle of Desiree’s teacup snapped in two. “You better watch what you say.”
“I’ll be very careful,” Helen said. “Starting with this statement: I know there’s a murderer in this house. I have the evidence. I will ruin the killer.”
“I don’t believe you. But if you really have the evidence, you can show it to me now,” Desiree said. “I’ll pay good money for it—more than you’d make in a year.”
Triumph leaped through Helen like an electric charge. Gotcha! “You’ve proved my statement,” Helen said. “I think I’d rather show it to the police.”
“Say one word, and I’ll sue you for slander,” Desiree said.
“That’s the advantage of being broke,” Helen said. “I’ve got nothing to lose.”
Her bluff worked. Desiree was the killer. Helen knew it. Why else would she try to buy Helen’s evidence? She patted the cassette recorder. She thought that tape would make the police detectives start asking the right questions.
As she headed home with quick, sure strides, something nagged at her. She couldn’t quite get at it. What was it that Desiree had said?
Maybe the little bride was protecting someone besides her husband. Her father, perhaps, driven to the brink of bankruptcy by Kiki’s wild spending.
Helen did not believe Kiki’s murder was premeditated. She probably said something cruel and her killer exploded in rage, reaching for the wedding dress and pressing it down on her face to shut her up. Then the killer shoved her body in a closet.
Fast, quick, and deadly.
But who did it?
Jason, with his monstrous actor’s ego, believed Kiki should help him because she was rich and he was pretty. She’d turned him down and laughed at him. But Desiree wouldn’t protect him. Unless he was blackmailing her.
