Vows, Vendettas and a Little Black Dress Page 20

  “But it could still be Fawn, right?” Mary Ann asked as she dabbed her eyes with a cloth napkin. “We don’t really know for sure if it’s Rick.”

  “At this point anything is possible,” I said grimly. “Still, Fawn’s not the one claiming to have heard Dena’s name on the news before the media released it.”

  “Mmm, true.” Marcus drummed his fingers against the table. “Still, I’m with Mary Ann on this one. That Fawn girl’s weird.”

  “How is she weird? She was acting a lot more normal than Rick just now.”

  “You think?” Marcus rotated one of the coffee mugs so the Cheshire cat was grinning right at me. “Can’t-keep-his-penis-in-his-pants Rick was practically drooling over Mary Ann right in front of Fawn. It should have been one of those marvelous hair-pulling moments but Fawn’s fur didn’t start standing up until Mary Ann accused her of shoving stuffing up some dead animal’s butt. That’s not normal.”

  “Oh…God, you’re right.” We all fell into silence as we thought about that.

  “Maybe she cares more about dead animals than she cares about Rick?” Mary Ann suggested.

  “Well, if she wasn’t dating him I’d say that would mean she has her priorities straight,” I said, “but Fawn is sleeping with Rick and as far as we know she’s not sleeping with the roadkill.”

  Marcus giggled but Mary Ann just looked vaguely repulsed.

  “Why was she here, anyway?’ I asked. “Did Rick ask her to come? Or did she find out that Rick was going to come here without her and she insisted on tagging along because she wanted to keep an eye on him?”

  Again we all shut up as we contemplated everything. The only sound in the room now was that of Marcus softly drumming his fingers on the white tablecloth. There were so many suspects and I didn’t have any idea how to narrow it down. I had no plan.

  “Didn’t you tell me that Leah knew Chrissie through the opera fundraising committee?” Marcus asked.

  “Symphony fundraising,” I corrected.

  “Kiwis and kumquats, darling.” He pulled his iPhone out of his jacket pocket.

  “What about kiwis and kumquats?” Mary Ann asked as she craned her neck in an unsuccessful attempt to see what he was typing.

  “Things that are different are like apples and oranges,” Marcus explained although he was distracted now as he typed messages into his phone. “But the symphony and the opera are more like kiwis and kumquats.”

  “I get it!” Mary Ann chirped. She always found it soothing when she understood something without having to have it explicitly explained. “Kiwis and kumquats are both small citrus fruits high in vitamin C!”

  “Yes, and like the symphony and opera they’re both vaguely gay,” Marcus added, his eyes still on his iPhone. “Ah! I knew it! According to the Google gods demonic-church-lady Chrissie is a member of quite a few cultural committees and boards. In fact it would seem that she is on the board for the Academy of Sciences.”

  Mary Ann shrugged, which was her way of questioning the significance of the information. But oddly enough I was beginning to see where Marcus was going with this.

  From the chaos of my mind I could feel a plan taking shape. “We all know how we all feel about Chrissie,” I said slowly.

  “Hate her!” Marcus sang.

  “But if she is innocent of this crime then no one else could have a stronger incentive for wanting to find the real shooter.”

  Again Mary Ann shrugged but Marcus smiled. We were on the same page.

  “And if the shooter’s Fawn—”

  “Fawn the taxidermist,” Marcus added.

  “Fawn the roadkill butt-stuffer,” Mary Ann added stoutly.

  “Fawn who dreams of having her work shown in a major museum,” I continued, “she might just be receptive to a visit from someone connected to the San Francisco Academy of Sciences about now.”

  “Because at the Academy of Sciences,” Marcus said with a smile, “there’s always a piece of exotic roadkill that needs its butt stuffed.”

  “But…” Mary Ann shook her head. For once her confusion was totally justified. Marcus and I weren’t making any sense…and yet I knew exactly what we were talking about and I clung to my newfound clarity as if it was a life preserver.

  “Chrissie knows she’s the prime suspect. She’s got to be looking for someone else to pin this on and I think I speak for all of us when I say that it would be best if she pins it on the person who’s actually guilty.”

  “So we’ll give her Rick’s and Fawn’s names,” Marcus said. “And we’ll tell her about Fawn’s professional aspirations. If Chrissie is as cunning as you girls think she is she’ll easily be able to use that to her advantage. She’ll do the investigating for us and we’ll sit back in the safety of our own homes drinking pomegranate martinis and watching Project Runway.”

  “Well, yes, but it’s not as if we’ll be able to sit back and let her do all the work,” I hedged. I was still pretty sure Marcus and I were on the same page but maybe we were on different paragraphs. “I mean we can’t just give Chrissie ammunition and then let her loose.”

  “Of course we can. No use trying to restrain evil. Better to just navigate it in the right direction.”

  I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. “Yeah, see I think we need to give the restraining evil thing a try.”

  Marcus raised his eyebrows.

  “Look, Chrissie has proven herself to be something of a genius when it comes to revenge but she does tend to overdo it.”

  “You mean like trying to get someone to punch her so she can have her husband arrested on a trumped-up domestic violence charge?”

  “Yeah, like that. And she doesn’t care who gets caught up in the crossfire. Chrissie used me when I was upset.”

  “Honey, she allowed you to punch her. That doesn’t make her a user, just a tad masochistic.”

  “Right, but still…it wasn’t cool. And then there are all those people who believed they were doing something righteous by joining MAAP. She’s using their deeply held convictions to advance her own wacky agenda. And then there’s Tim’s mother who won’t be allowed to see him if Tim’s father disowns him. That doesn’t bother Chrissie at all.”

  Marcus sighed and sat farther back in his chair. “What you’re saying is that Chrissie is an ends-justifies-the-means kind of girl. If it’s more convenient to pin this crime on Fawn than it is on Rick…even if Rick did it—”

  “Which he probably didn’t,” Mary Ann chimed in.

  “Then she’ll pin it on Bambi girl. Or if it’s easier to pin it on Rick then she’ll do that.”

  Mary Ann’s eyes widened. “That’s so mean!”

  “And if we’re wrong and Chrissie really is the shooter she could make a horrid mess of things,” Marcus finished. He turned the coffee cup again and stared into the black cartoon pupils of the Cheshire cat.

  “So what should we do?” Mary Ann asked.

  Marcus sighed. “We’ll give Chrissie the ammunition and then we’ll stand by her side and make sure she uses it prudently.”

  “So we’re going to be, like, babysitters?” Mary Ann asked uncertainly.

  “From what I’ve learned about Chrissie I think we’ll be more like demonsitters but yes, that’s the general idea.”

  “You realize that all this is a long shot,” I said quietly. “Chrissie might not even agree to talk to us.”

  “We’ll figure that one out soon enough.” Marcus wiggled his phone in the air. “Let’s call the little Mata Hari now.”

  CHAPTER 18

  I love my enemies…I love them the way a black widow loves her mate.

  –Fatally Yours

  Chrissie was easy to reach and once again she didn’t resist a meeting. This time we opted to convene at Starbucks. My hope was that the public setting would keep me from punching her and her from shooting anyone. I might have forgotten to mention that it wouldn’t just be the two of us.

  When she arrived I was holding the table while Mary Ann and Marcus wait
ed by the counter for our drinks. She spotted me quickly and then stared pointedly at the three empty chairs, one of which had Marcus’s coat draped over it. With her car keys still in her hand and her sunglasses on she approached. “If you’re setting some kind of trap you’re not being very smooth about it.”

  “I’m not setting a trap.” I sighed. “My friends Mary Ann and Marcus are here. I asked you to come because…well, I’m beginning to think that you didn’t shoot Dena.”

  “Why? You no longer think me capable?”

  “No, no, I’m fairly sure you’re capable of killing someone if it benefited you but I think you would have gone about it differently. I think you’d make it look like an accident or at the very least like someone else did it. I don’t think you’d shoot someone if you thought you’d be the main suspect.”

  “So you think I might not be a complete idiot.”

  “Actually I think you’re very smart. And evil,” I added quickly. “You’re a smart, evil woman and I think we can help each other.”

  “Are you wearing a wire?”

  “No. Should I be? Are you going to be confessing to any crimes?”

  “No.”

  “Then it shouldn’t really matter if I’m wearing a wire or not…although for the record I’m not.”

  “That would be for the record that doesn’t exist, right? Because this isn’t being recorded.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, are you going to sit down?” I snapped.

  Chrissie hesitated for a beat and then lowered herself into a chair as she pulled off her glasses. Her eye didn’t look as bad as I had expected although a heavy layer of concealer and foundation were clearly helping matters. “So how do we begin?” she asked. “Shall we start with some inane pleasantries?”

  I felt myself recoiling from her ever so slightly. There was absolutely nothing about this woman that I liked. “How’s Tim?”

  The corner of Chrissie’s mouth twitched as if she was biting back a laugh. “Now that wasn’t a pleasantry at all, was it? That was a dig which of course is much more appropriate considering our relationship. Shall I play, too?” She leaned over the table. “How’s Dena?”

  I felt my hands curl into fists. “You’re not going to try to get me to hit you again, are you?”

  Chrissie looked down at her perfectly manicured nails. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Marcus came to the table with Mary Ann in tow. “Looks like the gang’s all here,” he sang and quickly introduced himself and Mary Ann before handing me my Frappuccino. “Did I miss anything juicy?” he asked as they both claimed a chair.

  Chrissie studied Marcus for a moment, the sound of the café’s blender momentarily blocking out the hum of the other conversations in the room. “You’re gay?”

  “Darling, you offend me,” Marcus said with a smile. “The very fact that you have to ask shows that I’ve become entirely too butch. Now I’ll have to go back to wearing feather boas and cosmetics for men.”

  A short burst of nervous giggles escaped Mary Ann’s lips as Chrissie’s eyes narrowed to little slits.

  “Chrissie, the three of us have been talking,” I said, trying to bring us back on point. “We think Dena might not have been the intended target for the shooting.”

  “According to the police Dena was the only one in the living room at the time of the attack. What other target could there be?”

  Mary Ann raised her hand. “Maybe me.”

  “Dena was shot in Mary Ann’s apartment,” I explained. “If the gunman was nervous and he didn’t expect Mary Ann to have company he or she might have fired before really looking at who he or she was firing at.” I launched into a brief explanation of who Mary Ann was and who Rick and Fawn were and then gave her all the reasons why we suspected them.

  “So you think this is all a case of mistaken identity. That the shooter was so emotional he shot the wrong girl.”

  “It’s a theory,” I said. “Emotion makes us careless.”

  “Doesn’t it though,” Chrissie said quietly. She brought her hands down to her lap and for a moment she just stared into space.

  “I shouldn’t have written that stupid article,” she said. “All I wanted was for Tim to be uncomfortable. I wanted him to know that if he left me for that whore every person in the country would know about it. I would have posted one of those videos on YouTube detailing all his faults and his fondness for wearing women’s underwear.”

  Mary Ann did a quick double take. “Did you say—” But I cut her off with a look. I didn’t want to throw Chrissie off her train of thought.

  “I’d have made a good one, too,” Chrissie went on. “My video would have gone viral. His humiliation would have been complete.”

  “My, my,” Marcus clucked, “that is just so Denise Richards of you.”

  “I’m the bad guy?” Chrissie laughed bitterly. “You know, all this time I thought Dena was the problem! I’m sure Dena wouldn’t blink an eye if her husband put on a French maid’s costume and asked her to pinch his nipples! Women like her are pretty rare and for a man like Tim she’d be hard to resist. For him she was the personification of temptation. I figured if I could ruin her I could keep him.”

  She turned her head away and ran her fingers through her thin wisps of hair so that it partially concealed her profile. For a moment we were silent as we tried to figure out the significance of her quasi-emotional confession.

  “Sooo,” Marcus said as he toyed with one of his locks, “Tiny Tim likes to dress up like a French maid?”

  Chrissie focused her cold blue eyes on Marcus before turning them back to me. “I lied to the police about where I was the night Dena was shot and now they know about it.”

  I felt my heart plunge to my stomach with the same speed as the color was draining from Mary Ann’s face. Maybe Chrissie was a would-be murderer after all.

  “What was the lie and what is the truth?” I asked. My voice trembled slightly and I wanted to slap myself for exposing my nerves.

  “I said I was alone at home all night. But I wasn’t. Tim called me that night and told me he was working late. But when I called the office no one was there. So…I went to Guilty Pleasures. And when I saw Dena leave alone I followed her.”

  “Oh, my God,” Mary Ann whispered. “Did you follow her to my place?”

  Chrissie shrugged. “I followed her to some apartment on Lake Street. When she went in I circled the block and looked for Tim’s car. I didn’t see it so I waited for a while to see if he’d show up.” Chrissie shrugged again. “He didn’t of course so I went home. There was no one on the streets when I got back to my place so when the police came calling I assumed I could safely tell them that I had been tucked in bed reading a book.”

  “But they did find out?” I asked.

  “My neighbor saw me come home.” She swallowed hard and looked away. “Now he’s talked to the cops.”

  “Wow,” I breathed. “You’re fucked.”

  “So my lawyer tells me.” Again she ran her hands through her hair. It was a nervous gesture but her face remained impassive.

  “Chrissie, you did bait me into hitting you, right?”

  For a second I wasn’t sure if she had heard me. She adjusted her position in her chair and casually checked her watch.

  “I asked—”

  “Tell me again you’re not wearing a wire.”

  “Do you want me to flash you in the ladies’ room?”

  Chrissie studied me for a moment. “That’s not necessary,” she finally said. “I did purposely bait you into hitting me, Sophie.”

  “I knew it!” I slapped the table in triumph.

  “I had no choice,” Chrissie continued. “I knew I was on my way to becoming the main suspect. I also knew it would be easy to expose Tim’s obsession with Dena. All I had to do was get the police to believe he was capable of violence and they would realize that he was a more likely suspect.”

  “You think your husband shot Dena?” Mary Ann squeaked.r />
  “Well, I didn’t do it,” Chrissie snapped. “Listen, I don’t want to lose Tim to another woman but if I have to lose him to prison in order to maintain my own freedom then I’ll do what I need to do.”

  Marcus laughed at the pure audacity of the statement but Chrissie ignored him.

  “Did it work?” I asked as I forced myself to swallow my repulsion.

  “For a brief time. But now, while my account of my where-abouts has been disproved, Tim has actually come up with a legitimate alibi.”

  “Who?” Marcus asked.

  “His mistress!” Chrissie hissed. “He’s sleeping with some college student now! Apparently Dena isn’t the only woman he’s willing to stray with! And that means I have a much bigger problem than I thought, don’t I?”

  “So Tim—” Mary Ann started but Chrissie cut her off.

  “He’s pathetic! But that was the point. I thought I had married a man who was pathetic enough to be thankful just to be with me. But I can’t even keep the attentions of a twit like Tim! The problem isn’t Dena. The problem is with me and the choices I’ve made. The problem is with who. I. Am.”

  “Yes,” I said carefully, “that is a problem.”

  “Um, it’s really awful that Tim has been unfaithful and everything,” Mary Ann said carefully. “But you did try to set him up for a crime just to save yourself so…I don’t know. That kind of seems like a bigger deal.”

  “A man should want to protect his wife at all costs,” Chrissie said calmly. “I was only helping him fulfill his husbandly duties.”

  Both Mary Ann’s and Marcus’s mouths dropped open. I simply shook my head. “You don’t have a lot of…how shall I put this…human emotions. You have virtually no human emotions.”

  “I have them,” Chrissie said smoothly. “I just keep them bottled up. Expressed emotions give you wrinkles.” She sat up a little straighter. “Anyway, why are you people attacking me for my tactics when the whole reason you called me here is because you want me to use those tactics on somebody else?”

  Marcus, Mary Ann and I exchanged guilty looks.

  “You want me to see if I can make a scapegoat out of this…what’s her name, Fawn?” Chrissie went on. “You think that if I dangle my connection to the Academy of Sciences in front of her I’ll be able to reel her in?”