Читать книгу The Secret Lives of Doctors' Wives - Ann Major, Ann Major - Страница 12

“There’s damn sure no page-turner as good as reading about the vicious murder of your ex, is there?” Yolie said, fluffing her spiky blond hair.

Yolie’s big white house was located in a posh, central Austin neighborhood. Todd, her seventeen-year-old son by Pierce, occupied the pool house when he was in town, which wasn’t often, since he went to boarding school. Darius, her twenty-five-year-old stepson, Pierce’s son from Vanessa, his first wife, who’d killed herself, stayed in the pool house as well on the rare occasions when he was in Austin. A college dropout, he did a lot of drifting.

The sun beat down on the pool as Rosie swam frantic laps. Yolie avidly read the newspaper in a chaise longue next to the pool house, which the maid was readying because both boys had called and said they would be arriving soon due to their father’s demise.

Yolie looked up from the paper. “Hey, can you believe this? It says right here that Michael Nash is the detective in charge of the case. Wasn’t he the guy you used to date, the hottie who gave you that ticket last year?”

Yolie tossed a section of the newspaper onto the ground and grabbed another.

At the mention of Michael, Rosie felt sick and faint as she emerged dripping from the pool. She toweled off before sinking back onto her own chaise longue. “There’s something I’ve got to tell you.”

“You damn sure got your wish. You should be a happy camper.”

“What?”

“Pierce getting himself murdered and all. It’s what you wanted.”

“No. How can you say that?”

“You do remember telling everybody you wanted his head on a platter?”

“I was joking.”

“Frankly, I loved the image.”

“Yolie! Listen to me! I went over there last night. To Pierce’s! And then Michael Nash…who must have already known about Pierce by then…answered the call about Alexis.”

Slowly, Yolie set the paper down and stared at her.

“Pierce called me. Not Jennifer. I…I let Harry think it was Jennifer.”

“You went over there? Were you out of your mind?”

“He owed me money.”

“That is so lame. That’s not why you went over there, and you know it.”

“He was alive and furious at me, but he was searching the house for an intruder when I left him.”

“What time did Nash show up over here?”

Rosie froze. “I…I think he already knew. I think that’s why he came. He kept asking me if I’d seen Pierce…And I lied.”

“You should talk to a criminal attorney first thing,” Yolie said in that maddeningly decisive way of hers—like there was no other opinion in the universe.

Despite the intense heat, Rosie shivered. “A criminal attorney?” She moaned. “But I didn’t do anything!”

“But the police—that Michael guy—obviously thinks otherwise. You were there last night. Lucky thing Joe Benson’s right next door.”

Joe Benson was both a criminal attorney and the stepfather of Jennifer.

Rosie flung the last of the articles about Pierce she’d devoured earlier onto the litter of newspapers that lay between her chaise longue and Yolie’s. At least there’d been no mention of a bra or panties being found at the scene.

Guilt struck her. She should be with her mother, not lying out by the pool under the leafy shade of the towering pecan trees, consumed with fear for herself.

How could all this be happening at once? Pierce calling her? Going over there and stupidly quarreling with him when she should have just walked out? His getting himself stabbed? Michael being involved? Not to mention Hazel’s having another breakdown?

Oh, God! This meant Michael would be back in her life big time. What if he found out about Carmen, too?

Rosie’s nerves began to jump. Her inner thermostat went haywire. Suddenly she felt as if she was freezing.

“So, tell me, why do I need to see Joe?”

“For advice, sweetie. Just for advice.”

“Which will cost a bundle.”

“You’d rather have free room and board in prison?”

Rosie’s chest went tight. “I really should go check on Hazel.”

“Forget Hazel. She’s got round-the-clock doctors and nurses.”

“They are not her daughter. She wants me. Only me.”

“You were the last person to see your murdered exboyfriend alive!”

“Except for whoever really killed him.”

“What exactly happened at Pierce’s?”

Rosie hissed in a deep breath. “Okay, like I told you, he called about eleven.”

“And you just had to run over there.”

“When I saw his name in the Caller ID window of my cell, I popped the rubber band on my wrist three times. I swear I tried not to answer. But Ticia Morgan had already told me Anita had left Pierce, and maybe I wanted to gloat a little.”

Yolie nodded almost wearily. “Ticia? John’s child bride?”

John Morgan was Pierce’s new plastic surgery partner.

“Yes. So, Ticia called yesterday to tell me that Anita had phoned her. Apparently, Anita was telling anybody who would listen that Pierce was an obsessive-compulsive, alcoholic monster.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Anita kept screaming that he’d threatened to send her daughters back to Guatemala because they wouldn’t follow all his nit-picky rules.”

“What did they do—wear their shoes in the house?”

“Yes, and they wanted credit cards, cell phones, driver’s ed lessons, television sets, and cars, too.”

“Hello? Why did he think they married him? Still, you should never have talked to Ticia. Or Pierce.”

“I know.”

“So, what did he want?”

“He wished me a happy birthday. He said he couldn’t stop thinking about me. He said Anita was a mistake and that he wanted me back.”

“He wanted you back? After you sent him that painting where you made his Mr. Willie look like a shriveled peanut, and his entire staff laughed when he opened it? He wanted you back? And you bought it?”

“Well, not at first, but he was totally sober.”

“You could tell that over the phone?”

“He said he wanted a new warehouse key. And I said he’d have to pay the rent. He said he would pay it.”

“This from the man who won’t pay for his wife’s kids? And you went over there?”

Rosie nodded miserably.

“And?”

“We drank some champagne.”

“Not good. How much?”

“He kept my flute full while he gave me a tour of the house, so I didn’t really count.”

“Did he touch you? Did anybody take anything off?”

Rosie flushed as she remembered their first kiss on the stairway beneath the chandelier. They’d still been dressed then. Even though their mouths and bodies had fit just like always, something had felt wrong to her. She’d kissed him harder, searching for what she’d once thought she’d had with him, but the soul-deep wrongness had persisted.

So why had she ended up naked in his upstairs guest bedroom? If it hadn’t been for her hearing that noise in the master bedroom and getting spooked, no telling what might have happened.

“Pierce refused to pay the rent, so I left.”

“That’s it? You were there an hour. No funny stuff?”

Rosie remembered quarreling with Pierce when she’d heard that sound in the next bedroom. She’d accused him of inviting her over to make Anita jealous. He’d sworn they were alone. Then she’d heard another sound and had grabbed her clothes and had made him go check the rest of the house. Rosie had left too fast to locate her underwear.

Rosie rubbed the back of her neck where the muscles had begun to tighten. Then she drew a deep breath.

“Okay. I get it. There was some funny stuff.”

“I didn’t go to bed with him!”

“Since he’s dead, I think you’d better get your story straight before you say something really stupid to Nash. Make an appointment with Joe. Besides being my next-door neighbor, he’s an old, old friend of mine.”

Translation: a favorite lover.

“You remember, he came to the Christmas block party.”

And got soused on the bourbon-laced eggnog and left a bruise the size of an apple on my left butt cheek when he pinched me.

“Just don’t talk to the police without him being there. He knows his stuff.”

“The police?” Rosie squeaked. “You really think they’ll…that Michael will think…that I…”

“I think it’s wise to consider worst-case scenario.”

Rosie swallowed. No sooner had Yolie said that than the image of her own slender neck on a chopping block sprang up in her mind.

“A high-profile murder like this? The cops have got to pin this on somebody, sweetie-pie. Who better than the girl who tried to mow him down with her Beamer? Don’t you think it’s odd that he died on the night you say he wanted you back?”

“Okay, he got me naked.” A shiver of remorse traced through Rose Marie. “I got cold feet, though. We had a fight. When I left, I…I couldn’t find my bra and panties.”

“So, they’re at Pierce’s?”

They stared at each other. Or the police have them was the thought that ran through their minds.

Rosie lay back down on the chaise longue and stared up at bright spots of blue through the trees. “I never thought people we actually know—respectable people—got themselves murdered. Handsome, wealthy plastic surgeons, not even jerks like Pierce, don’t get hacked to death by some knife-wielding maniac.”

“Too bad for Pierce the murderer didn’t read your little rule book.”

“This whole thing is making me sick.” Rosie shivered. At the same time, the more stories she read about his glamorous ex-wives, including Yolie, the more she began to feel ignored, invisible. It was a feeling she’d experienced growing up poor in East Austin. She hated it.

“I was his fiancée. But do I merit so much as a footnote?”

“Be careful what you wish for, sweetie-pie.” Yolie flipped a newspaper page and then sighed in disgust. “Where do these yokels get their information? ‘Austin has lost a self-sacrificing missionary…’ Self-sacrificing, my ass. Those surgeries he did in Central America on all those kids with cleft palates were all about his precious image.”

“You don’t know that for sure. I went with him on lots of those trips.”

“And you never doubted his motives?”

“He was a doctor with valuable skills. I just assumed—”

“When are you ever going to wake up? Pierce was so aware of appearances,” Yolie continued. “When I started gaining the weight, he was on me all the time about it, taunting me about other women, wanting me to do liposuction. All he ever cared about was making money and getting his name on the front page while squiring some stick-thin stacked bimbo around.”

Very conscious of her C-cup boobs that Pierce had enhanced, Rosie glared at her.

“Sorry.”

“He taunted me because of my low-class background,” Rosie said.

“Looks like he finally played his little games on the wrong woman.”

“So, who do you think killed him?” Rosie asked.

“Lots of people probably weren’t exactly thrilled with him. But to kill a person with a knife, you’ve got to get up close…and get ugly.”

“There was that guy who sued him because he wasn’t thrilled with his penile implant.”

“Not to mention Pierce had four wives, and God knows how many other women. And that’s just his sex life, which wasn’t really all that hot, now was it? But who stabs a lousy lay? I mean, why bother?”

Yolie’s analysis was making Rosie increasingly uncomfortable.

“And then do you ever wonder why Pierce was so hard to get to know?” Yolie continued. “Remember how he used to have to control every damn conversation? When we went out to dinner, we always had to discuss some bullshit story he’d read in the New Yorker instead of real life. Intelligent conversation, he called it. Whatever it was, it was impersonal as hell, and he had to be in control. I was married to him for a lot of years, and I don’t think I ever really knew him. Do you ever wonder if there was anything there…beneath his external glamour? It was scary, in a way.”

“What are you saying?”

“You don’t just get murdered for no reason. What if there was some dark secret in his past? Or a secret vice or addiction? I mean, why was he always as closedup as a damn clam—if he wasn’t hiding something?”

“That’s so melodramatic.”

“Hey, getting your head nearly chopped off is pretty melodramatic.” Yolie stabbed a fingernail at a front-page article. “It says right here he grew up in Beaumont. He never said a damn thing about Beaumont to me. Did he ever talk about his childhood to you?”

Rosie shook her head. But then, she’d never talked about her childhood, either.

“So, he’s either a blank disc or there are plenty of secrets on the old hard drive,” Yolie said. “He had a quick temper and a sharp tongue and the endearing quality of abusing his women when he was in a certain mood…at least verbally. That we know. Then there’s the drinking. Not to mention his mysterious disappearances.”

“Are you going to the memorial service?”

“I’ve got a son by the arrogant bastard and no alibi. Of course I’m going! In situations such as these, appearances are everything.”

“Alibi?” Rosie’s heart jumped to her throat and began to thump.

“The cops are going to want to know where everybody was if his killer doesn’t walk into the police station and hand them the bloody knife. Except for talking to you on my mobile, you and I’ve got zip for an alibi.”

Rosie shivered so hard her teeth chattered. “At least you weren’t actually there! You’ve been happily divorced from him for years. That’s hardly a motive.”

“I hated the son of a bitch. Does that count?”

“I, on the other hand, ran out of his brilliantly lit mansion braless and pantyless on the night he died. Anyone, a neighbor, a jogger, might have seen me. What if he or she misinterpreted what he saw? What if the cops find my bra and panties?”

“Then your underwear is hanging out in plastic Baggies. Call Joe. First thing Monday.”

Feeling too hot, Rosie got up and dived into the pool. She didn’t come up until her lungs were burning for air.

If Michael had her underwear in plastic Baggies and he found out about Carmen, which he would if he hung around at all, he’d nail Rosie just to get revenge.

Unless she solved the murder for him.