Three Bedrooms, One Corpse(23)

“Um—how many times have you been married?” I asked apprehensively.

“Once.”

“Divorced?”

“Yes. We had been married for ten years . . . we had a son, Barrett. He’s twenty-three now . . . he wants to be an actor.”

“A chancy profession.” I thought of my mystery- writer friend, Robin Crusoe, now in California writing a television movie script based on his latest book, and wondered how he was making out.

“That’s what I told him. Funny thing—he already knew it!” Martin said wryly. “But he wanted so much to try, I gave him the money to get started. If he doesn’t

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make it, he at least needs to know he gave it his best shot.”

“You sound as though you didn’t get the encourage- ment you needed at some point.”

He looked surprised for a moment. “I guess that’s right. Though it’s hard to say what I really wanted to do. I don’t know that I ever formulated it. Something big,” and his hands made a circle in the air. We laughed. “It had to be something I could leave my hometown for.”

“I’ve never wanted to leave my hometown,” I said. “Would you?”

“I’ve never had a reason to. I don’t know.” I tried to remember what it had been like when I went to college: not knowing anyone, not knowing where anything was, the first two weeks of uncertainty. The waiter came up at that moment to see if we needed anything. “Will you be wanting any dessert to- night?”

Martin turned questioningly to me. I shook my head.

“No,” he told the waiter. “We’ll have ours later.” He smiled at me, and I felt a quiver that went down to my shoes.

Martin paid the bill, and I realized I hadn’t said a word about it being my turn. Something about Martin discouraged such offers. We would have to talk about that.

But not right away.

We were quite ready for dessert when we got to my place.

Chapter Ten

A

ìMartin,” I said later in the night, “can you go with me to the Realtors’ banquet Saturday night?”

“Sure,” he said sleepily. He wound a strand of my hair around his finger. “Do you ever wear it up?” he asked.

“Oh, sometimes.” I rolled over so it hung around his face like a curtain.

“Could you wear it up Saturday night?”

“I guess so,” I said warily.

“I love your ears,” he said, and demonstrated that he did.

“In that case,” I said, “I will.” A thud on the foot of the bed made Martin jump. “It’s Madeleine,” I said hastily.

I could feel him relax all over. “I have to get used to the cat?”

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“Yes, I’m afraid so. She’s old,” I said consolingly. “Well, actually, middle-aged.”

“Like me, huh?”

“Oh, yes, you practically have one foot in the grave,” I said.

“Ooo—do that again.”

So I did.

ìIhave to go out of town late this afternoon,” Martin said over toast early the next morning. He had stowed some extra clothes and shaving gear in his car, so he was ready for work.

“Where to?” I tried not to feel dismayed. This rela- tionship was so new and perilous and fragile, and I was so constantly afraid Martin did not feel what I felt, so often aware of the differences in our ages, experiences, goals. “Back to Chicago, to report on the plant reorgani- zation to the higher-ups. I’ve been cutting out a lot of deadwood, finding out the weak points in the plant management. That’s what I was brought in to do.” “Not a popular job.”

“No. I’ve made some people mad,” he said matter- of-factly. “But it’s going to make the plant more effi- cient in the long run.”

“How long will you be gone?”

“Just Wednesday and Thursday. I’ll fly back in Fri- day morning. But why don’t we have lunch today? Meet me out at the Athletic Club at twelve thirty, and we’ll go from there, if that suits your plans.” “Okay. But please let me take you to lunch this time, my treat.”

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The look on his face had to be seen to be believed. I burst into giggles.

“You know, that’s the first time a woman ever of- fered to take me out,” he said finally. “Other men have told me it’s happened to them. But never to me. A first.” He tried very hard not to glance around at my apartment, so much humbler than any place he’d be used to living in since he’d climbed the business ladder. “We don’t have to go to McDonald’s,” I said gently. “Sweetheart, you don’t have a job—”

“Martin, I’m rich.” Gosh, that word still gave me a thrill. “Maybe not what you would think of as rich, but still I have plenty of money.”

“Inherited?” he asked.

“Uh-huh. From a little old lady who just wanted me to have it.”

“No relation?”

“None.”

“You’re just a lucky woman,” Martin said, and pro- ceeded to demonstrate just how lucky I was. “You’ll mess up your suit,” I said after a moment. “Damn the suit.”

“You told me you have an appointment at eight thirty.”

He released me reluctantly.

“See you later,” he said.

I gave him a light kiss on the cheek. “Twelve thirty,” I said.

had an unpleasant task to face that morning. I had Idecided I should go see Susu. All the people who

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wrote in to “Ann Landers” and “Dear Abby” com- plained that they felt neglected when someone in the family had serious legal problems or went to jail, that people tried to act as if it hadn’t happened or stayed away entirely. While Jimmy hadn’t exactly been ar- rested, I didn’t want to be a fair-weather friend to Susu, though time and circumstance had certainly cre- ated a gulf between us. So I pulled on a bright sweater and black pants, and red boots to go with the sweater. Cheerful, casual—as if it were an everyday catastrophe that had befallen the Hunter family.

It took me a second to recognize Susu when she came to the door. Her veneer was stripped away, and so much of Susu depended on that veneer. Her shoulders sagged, her eyes were red-rimmed, her clothes were—it seemed—deliberately shabby and old. She looked as if she’d reached back in her closet for the things she was saving to pull on when she painted the carport. There were dirty dishes piled up in the sink. Susu was not only genuinely a woman in the midst of a crisis, she was also acting out the part.

“Where are the kids?” I asked cautiously. “I sent them to my sister in Atlanta.” As if she’d put them in a box and taken them down to the post office. “You’re here all by yourself?”

“Not a soul has come by except our minister.” “What’s the story on Jimmy?”

“He’s down at our lawyer’s office right now. They kept him all day yesterday. I think they may arrest him today.”

“Susu, you think he did it!”

“What else can I think?”

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“Well, I don’t think he did it.” “You don’t?” She sounded amazed.

“Susu! Of course not!”

“His fingerprints were in the Anderton house.” “So? Hasn’t it occurred to you there are several ways they could have gotten there without him having been the one to kill Tonia Lee?”

“Like how, Roe? Just tell me how!”

“Maybe some other Realtor showed him over the house. Maybe Tonia Lee did show him the house, and then he left and her date showed up and killed her!” “Jimmy must have been having an affair with her, Roe. Then she threatened to tell me or the kids and he killed her. He must have just lost his temper.” “I could kick you in the rear, Susu Hunter. You are making up things you can’t possibly know. You get yourself into that shower upstairs and get your nice clothes on and put on your makeup and go down to your lawyer’s office and you ask him yourself.” I was probably doing exactly the wrong thing. Susu would get down there and Jimmy would say, “Yeah, I did it. And I had been having an affair with her, too.” Saint Aurora, I told myself sardonically. But Susu was actually doing it. She went up the stairs at a pace a little brisker than her previous sham- ble. She was patting her hair absently, doing some damage-control evaluation.

I washed the dishes. I left them in the drainer to irri- tate Susu into putting them away.

She came down in thirty minutes, looking more like herself.

“When is he supposed to have done her in?” I asked.

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“Well, Wednesday night.”

“But he took your son to karate practice, or some- thing, that evening, didn’t he? And he was at work un- til then, right? After practice, he came right home to supper?”

“Yes.”

So much for it having been Jimmy’s car Donnie had seen.

“So when did he find time to go over to the Ander- ton house, screw Tonia Lee, and kill her?” I asked. “That’s true,” she said slowly. “I guess I was just so quick to believe he did it because he’s been acting so funny lately.”