The Fortieth Birthday Body Page 10

  “ ‘Poor Colin’ nothing! Do you know what he told me the night before last?”

  “The night of the party?” Kathleen asked quickly.

  “Yeah, that’s the night.” Maureen pushed her hair back again, moved slightly closer and lowered her voice a fraction of a decibel. “He told me that he had an affair with Dawn Elliot! Do you believe that?”

  “No!” That was Kathleen. Susan didn’t know how to respond. Certainly, something like “Your husband? Mine too!” while appropriate, wasn’t acceptable.

  “Do you believe it?”

  “How long ago?” Kathleen asked with what Susan thought was a lack of sympathy.

  “Oh, years, that’s probably why I’m so calm about it—that and the Valium I took before leaving the house.”

  “But when … ?”

  “I can’t believe the stupidity of that man,” Maureen interrupted. “Here’s Dawn Elliot dead as a doornail and never going to tell me about it and he does. You would think that seeing her dead would be a great relief. But not for Colin; now that no one is around to spill the beans, he does this trite confession scene. You know, the whole bit: I love you, but I strayed. Do you believe it: He actually used the word strayed like some little puppy who wanders off to pee in the neighbor’s yard instead of a grown man who probably had to connive and sneak and plan to get into a neighbor’s bed. Not that I only blame him. It was that bitch’s fault too. After all, she wasn’t driven to forget her inhibitions and fall into bed with Colin. He hasn’t inspired that type of response since the Yale-Harvard game of ’68. She’d go to bed with anybody. I’m glad she’s dead! And I’m not the only woman in town who feels that way,” she added, seeming to realize that gloating over someone’s murder might be dumb, at least before the murderer was caught.

  “Who else?” Kathleen was quick to ask.

  “I’m not going to name any names,” said Maureen quickly, moving off. “They’re opening another line,” she added, “I’d better get going.” And, cutting off the cart of an elderly man, she made her way to the newly opened checkout number 5.

  “That’s interesting,” Kathleen said. “It’s just what we need to know.”

  “Kathleen …”

  “What time do you want Jerry and me to arrive tonight?” she interrupted Susan.

  “Around five or so? I thought …”

  “I’ll tell Jerry that I’m coming over to help you out early and I’ll be there at four. He can drive over later. See you.”

  “Kathleen!” Susan called after her departing friend.

  “We’ll talk tonight. I have work to do!” Kathleen waved good-bye and headed out the automatic door.

  “I …”

  “If you’re not going to move up, may I have your place?” asked a voice from behind her. Susan saw that the line had moved on, leaving her next to unload her groceries.

  “I’m just starting,” she assured the woman behind her and did just that.

  IV

  “Which do you like better? The 928 S 4 or the 911 Carrera Cabriolet?”

  Susan peered at the pictures of the lima bean-shaped cars that her son was holding out to her. “They look pretty similar to me, Chad.”

  “Mo-om!” His voice rose and fell at least an octave and a half during the one word. “They’re not at all alike. The 928 S 4 is the fastest production Porsche made. The Carrera Cabriolet is completely different: It’s a convertible, for goodness’ sake.”

  Susan rubbed her herb-covered hands together over the sink, the bright bits of green falling down the garbage disposal. “Just let me get the meat in the oven and I’ll sit down and look at them more carefully,” she promised.

  Chad looked up from his magazine and seemed to notice what she was doing for the first time. “I don’t have to eat that stuff, do I? I don’t see why I should have to suffer just because you’re having company.”

  “I don’t think eating seven-ninety-nine-per-pound prime beef is suffering, Chad. But,” she added before he could interrupt, “your father is going to take you and Chrissy to the deli for sandwiches before the company gets here. In fact, why don’t you ask him to do that now?” she suggested, noticing Kathleen’s car pulling into her driveway.

  “You promised you would look at these cars,” he reminded her. “Why did you buy me this magazine if you weren’t interested?”

  “I bought it for you, not for me. That’s what buying presents is: Buying something that you think the person who is receiving it will like, not what the giver likes.”

  “Like Dad buying you the Volvo instead of the BMW 325i that he was drooling over,” Chad agreed, sitting down at the table and spreading the magazine open at the pages he found interesting.

  “The what?” Susan slammed the oven door.

  “This great little BMW. A fantastic little car. It’s sort of flashy—a convertible.”

  “And your father liked it?”

  “Loved it,” Chad agreed. “He really liked it in ‘cinnabar red,’ but I liked ‘salmon silver.’ Chrissy liked the ‘alpine white.’ I think maybe Dad thought you were too old for a convertible, though,” he added. “Are you going to look at these? You said you would.”

  “Yes,” she answered, trying to stay calm; it wasn’t her son’s fault that his father was a …

  “Do you want me to take the kids downtown now? I’d better get going if you want me back to set up the bar,” her husband suggested, sticking his head in the kitchen door. “And Kathleen’s here,” he added as there was a knock on the front door.

  Susan didn’t look up from Chad’s magazine; her husband knew her too well to expose her face to him. He’d insist on talking and they really didn’t have the time now if she was going to get this dinner ready. Kathleen’s entrance gave her an excuse not to answer immediately.

  “Hi.” Kathleen walked in and, from her position, she couldn’t miss Susan’s face. “What’s wr—?”

  “Jed is taking the kids for sandwiches,” Susan interrupted, not wanting any questions.

  “Let me help you with this,” Kathleen offered, slipping out of her fur, dumping it on a kitchen chair and grabbing an apron off a nearby hook. The apron proclaimed her to be forty and horny. She, noticing the inscription, removed it and, putting it back on, turned the words to herself. “I don’t really want anyone to think I’m either right now,” she explained.

  Chad giggled appreciatively.

  “Everything in the house seems to say something about my birthday. I have mugs, pencils, pillows, stationery, an umbrella—you name it—that tells the world I’m forty.”

  “The baby boom’s getting older—there’s a big market for things like that,” Kathleen commented, washing her hands.

  “We’ll let you two manage here and I’ll take the kids out. Anything I need to pick up?” offered Jed.

  “No, just hurry back. I’ll look at the magazine with you tonight, Chad,” Susan promised as the males in her family departed.

  “An umbrella?” Kathleen asked, grabbing a towel, and returning to the original conversation.

  “That’s not the worst,” Susan said. “I didn’t want to say anything with Chad here, but I also got bras, panties, and two nightshirts with what passes for clever sayings.”

  “Show me later. Let’s get down to work.” She sat down at the kitchen table, pushing aside a basket of homemade crackers.

  “Down to work? I thought you were here to help me?” Susan said, looking around the kitchen. Wineglasses stood next to a rare Tomasi Amareone 1973; the roast, its outside crusted with freshly cut herbs, sat on a rack in a shiny rectangular pan; two bouquets of fresh flowers sat in the middle of the kitchen table; cheese and crackers were displayed upon leaves on straw trays.

  Kathleen glanced at where she was looking. “Where did you get the leaves?” she asked, referring to this last item.

  “The big rex begonia in the window in the study. I sure hope it isn’t a poisonous plant.” She unwrapped and added another goat cheese to the pile on the tra
y while speaking. “So, if you’re not here to help with the food, what are you here for?”

  “Information.”

  “This is beginning to sound like a broken record. Do you think you could wash the salad greens while you ask questions?” She motioned to the sink, full of leaves.

  “Just as long as you let me tape-record everything.”

  “You brought a—” Susan stopped. After all, what difference did it make? And it might help her get dinner on the table. “Fine. Anything you say.”

  Kathleen rolled up her sleeves and, pressing the record button on the Walkman she’d brought, set to work. “I got two very interesting calls this afternoon. The first was from Martha Hallard. The second from Brigit Frye. Both Dan Hallard and Guy Frye were involved with Dawn Elliot.”

  Susan found the cheese knives in her drawer before answering. “I’d suspected Dan,” she said, referring to her next-door-neighbor and gynecologist. “He and Martha have a pretty traditional marriage in some ways—I mean, he thinks of her as the perfect little woman and she thinks of him as the big strong man. Even though Martha is a power in the politics of Hancock and owns her own real estate agency, she’s still very conservative …” She stopped talking and gathered her thoughts. “It’s just that they have the type of relationship where I can imagine the husband going out and having an affair. Of course,” she added, soberly, “it seems that Jed and I do, too.”

  “Except that Dan told Martha about his affair.”

  “He’s more honest than Jed,” Susan said sadly to the fork in her hand.

  “No, he was so mad when Dawn dropped him that he exploded and told Martha about it.”

  “Oh?” Susan found her prurient interest aroused.

  “Yes. Evidently he was so mad that he had to tell someone about it and he told Martha.”

  “He’s not very bright,” Susan said. “I’ve often wondered how he made it through med school.”

  “You go to him,” Kathleen reminded her.

  “Well, I started before I knew him well, and I hate to change doctors.”

  “Anyway. He had an affair with Dawn for almost six months about four years ago. In the spring and summer,” Martha said.

  “That was right before she and Jed …” Susan started. Had this woman gone in order around the block? she wondered. At the same time, she was slightly flattered that Dawn had had the sense to prefer her husband to Martha’s. Oh, that was just sick! She put down the plates she held and turned to Kathleen. “Martha called and told you all about this?”

  “You know Martha. She was direct and complete. She called and told me about Dan and Dawn, gave dates, explained how she knew about it, explained what she knew about it, and asked if I thought the police should be informed. Needless to say, I told her the same thing I told you: Tell them.”

  “Neither she nor Dan …”

  “Saw fit to inform the police. Right.”

  “So I guess Jed and I aren’t alone.”

  “I’m beginning to think that if everyone in town who hadn’t told the police that they or their spouses had slept with Dawn Elliot were laid end to end they would look like the people we see every day in the summer lying around the pool at the Club.”

  “And are they going to tell the police?” Susan asked.

  “Yes. I told Martha what I thought and she agreed. She and Dan were going to the police station this afternoon to explain everything.”

  “But it’s different for them. They’ve already talked about it. They’ve already made their peace with each other over Dan’s affair,” Susan said.

  “True. According to Martha, it’s been so long that the Mercedes he bought her for penance is ready to be replaced. I found myself wondering if, when she gets a new car, he gets a new woman.

  “Is this done right?”

  “What?” Susan asked.

  “The salad,” Kathleen explained. “Is this the way you wanted it?” She motioned to a large wooden bowl brimming with shiny lettuce and spinach.

  “Great. Could we move this conversation to the dining room? I want to set the table.”

  “Sure.” Kathleen grabbed her recorder off the counter. “Have Walkman, will travel.”

  “Take these bowls too, if you can. I can manage the silverware and the china is already out there. I assume,” she continued, pushing open the swinging door between the kitchen and dining room with her foot, “that you told Brigit that she and Guy should tell the police about his relationship with Dawn, too?”

  “They already did. In fact, that’s what they were worried about.” She put the bowls on the buffet at the side of the room and turned to look straight at Susan. “Brigit and Guy both told the police about Guy’s affair with Dawn.”

  “When?” Susan was setting the places at the table and did not look up at Kathleen.

  “Immediately after the murder. They drove over to the police station together and decided in the car that they would have to admit it. That’s not the problem.”

  “Then what is?”

  “Brigit says that Guy knows about two other men who slept with Dawn.”

  “So?”

  “Those two other men didn’t tell the police about their affairs—at least that’s what Brigit says.”

  Susan froze, knives in her hand. “And?” She looked straight into Kathleen’s eyes.

  “And Brigit wanted to know if I thought she should go to the police with the information that Guy has. Well,” she continued, “you can see her point. If the police think that only Guy Frye slept with Dawn, that makes him a prime suspect. If they know about the others it … well, it muddies the water somewhat.”

  “Is Jed one of the men?” Susan asked.

  Kathleen sighed. “I don’t know. I asked who the men were but Brigit wouldn’t tell me. She said something about not wanting to spread rumors.”

  “That sounds just like Brigit. She not wanting to spread rumors. Baloney. She just wants to keep the information to herself.”

  “That really doesn’t sound like Brigit,” Kathleen said gently.

  “No, it doesn’t, does it? Okay, what did you tell her to do?”

  “I told her that she and Guy should confront the men he suspects and give them a chance to tell the police themselves. Actually, that way the police know and it does help Guy out of a tight spot and it looks better for Guy: He isn’t just saying ‘look, they did it too,’ which could be construed as being too defensive.”

  “Is that what they’re going to do?” Susan asked, finishing up the place settings.

  “I don’t know. I really tried to get her to tell me who the men were, Susan.”

  “I know you did,” Susan assured her friend. “I’m not blaming you. I suppose Guy had told Brigit about the affair back when it happened?” she asked, trying to sound casual.

  “Not really. She caught them together.” Kathleen smiled.

  “I don’t think that’s funny,” Susan protested, remembering her experience at the hotel in the city.

  “Actually, this is. You see, she ran into them at the desk checking into the Blackbird Inn up in Mountainville.”

  “I still don’t see why that’s so funny,” Susan repeated, the feeling she had gotten watching Jed and Dawn get on the elevator returning.

  “Because Brigit was there with another man.”

  “You mean … ?”

  “It seems that both she and Guy like afternoon sex—with someone other than their spouse, at least in this case.”

  “Jed has always said that Brigit looked like a Norwegian sex goddess,” Susan said, then started to think about what that might mean. “Kathleen, you don’t think that she and Jed … ?”

  “I think that you’re going to have to talk about Dawn with him before you stop trusting him altogether,” Kathleen replied firmly. “Anyway, it seems that Brigit and Guy have what used to be called an open marriage back before people got more conservative and worried about AIDS. They’re pretty casual about each other’s sex life—unless it ends up making
them look like the major suspects in a murder case.”

  “I need the flowers for the center of the table,” Susan said, moving a fork and straightening the napkin on which it lay.

  “I’ll get them,” Kathleen offered, thinking that her friend needed to be alone.

  “Thanks.” Susan turned away and looked out the window. It was beginning to sleet. “What a miserable March this has been,” she said, more to herself than Kathleen.

  Her friend returned to the kitchen, knowing that platitudes wouldn’t make Susan feel any better.

  V

  “ ‘A little fire is quickly trodden out; Which, being suffered, rivers cannot quench.’ Henry the Sixth. Act Two or Three. I cannot remember at this moment. Ah, that tells of my grief, does it not? To forget the Bard. I ask you.” Richard Elliot removed his hands from where he was warming them in front of the fireplace and, with a dramatic waving, spread them to the room in the form of an appeal.

  Susan, who had forgotten her former neighbor’s tendency to quote Shakespeare at any opportunity, no matter how inappropriate, smothered a smile and, like a good hostess, looked around the room at her guests. Everyone seemed to be well taken care of. And she’d been right when she predicted Richard’s reaction to Kathleen. He was playing all his best lines to her like she was a critic, front row center.

  “I think a fire is the only compensation for this miserable weather,” Kathleen said, having realized that Richard didn’t really care what anyone said to him, just that they listened to him.

  “Truly,” Richard agreed with her. “Many’s the evening that my dear Dawn and I spent just staring into the fire, silent perhaps, yet in communion, if you know what I mean.” He dropped his forehead down onto his hand.

  Susan, thinking of all she had learned of Dawn’s activities in the last few hours, considered the possibility that she had been too tired to do anything else. “You’re going to miss her,” she said aloud.

  “Terribly,” he agreed, glancing in her direction momentarily before returning his attention to Kathleen. “You didn’t know my wife?”