Out in Belinda’s kitchen, Maris suddenly realized that she really only had one option. She couldn’t just sit in Belinda’s apartment for another two weeks. She couldn’t just act as if nothing had happened, and she had some repair work to do. She got a thick white coffee mug out of the cabinet and put a spoonful of Taster’s Choice coffee in it. She put the little kettle on to boil and waited until it began to whistle through its spout. She filled the mug half full of water.
Then she got the Chanel No. 5 bottle out of her bag and filled the mug half full of gin. She stirred the whole thing with a spoon and took a long drink off the top of it. Her throat felt scalded. Her nerves felt calmed. She took the mug into the living room and sat down next to the phone.
Belinda was always talking about how expensive the phone calls were, but this was an emergency. Maris had to make a long-distance call, and she didn’t have a calling card anymore since AT&T had taken hers away. They’d taken her Universal Card away, too, in one of those periods when Maris was having a hard time remembering anything, and didn’t remember to pay her bills. Right now, though, she did remember the number of the office and, more importantly, the number for Debra’s private line. She didn’t want to be stuck on the phone waiting while the others put her on hold and discussed whether Debra was willing to talk to her at all. Without Betsy in the office to rein them in, they were as likely to hang up on her as to help her out—and Betsy had not been as enthusiastic about disciplining them lately as she had been in the past. Still, Maris thought, they had to talk to her. Until Betsy told them not to, they had to.
The phone was picked up on the other end and Debra’s voice said, “Elizabeth Toliver’s office.”
“It’s Maris,” Maris said. “And don’t you dare try to lecture me. I’m a wreck. We’re all a wreck. I need to know where she is.”
“You need to know where who is?” Debra said.
“Oh, cut the crap. I need to know where Betsy is, and you know it. She left me stranded out at her mother’s house this morning, without a phone, without any means of transport, surrounded by hostile press—”
“Liz Toliver never left anybody stranded in her life,” Debra said. “Not deliberately. And especially not you. And you know it.”
Maris took a long drink of coffee. “I take it you talked to her. She knows she left me stranded. They all took off out of there and just left me asleep in the basement. Doesn’t she want to know where I am?”
The pause on Debra’s end was even longer than the one Maris had taken to fortify herself with gin. “She did mention that she didn’t know where you were. And that she was worried about you. I don’t know why. God takes care of drunks and little children.”
“I need to know where she is and I need a number where I can reach her,” Maris said. “You probably don’t realize it, but there’s been another one. Right down the street from where I am. I want to get out of here.”
“Another what?”
“Another murder.”
“Well, she couldn’t have committed that one, can she?” Debra said. “No matter what you try to make it look like. She’s been in full view of half a dozen people all day.”
“How the hell am I supposed to know who committed it?” Maris said. “I just don’t want to be in the middle of it, which is what I am right now, because it happened just half a block up the street from me. I want to know where she is and I want a number where I can get in touch with her.”
Debra paused again. “No,” she said finally.
“What?”
“No,” Debra said again. “There’s no use screaming at me. I’m not authorized to give out that information. What I can do is to call her and tell her where you are and to give her the number you’re calling from so that she can call you back. Then she can decide what to do about you herself. But the information you want is privileged. I’m not going to give it out unless she’s given me direct instructions to give it out.”
It was obvious that Debra expected her to argue, but Maris was better than that. She knew that Debra was telling the complete truth—it was Debra’s job, as Betsy’s personal assistant, to guard information, even from close friends and relatives.
“All right,” Maris said. “Tell her I’m at Belinda’s. That’s 555–2627. She ought to know that number by now, but she probably doesn’t.”
“I’ll call her right away.”
“You do that.”
“I will call her right away, Maris. It isn’t everybody who thinks her responsibilities are a joke. Sit tight where you are for a few minutes.”