Dead Man Docking - Mary Daheim [105]
“You sound skeptical,” Renie said bluntly. “What do you figure? Jim will do what so many doctors do, and let wife number one—or in this case, fiancée number one—put him through medical school and then say, ‘Take two suitcases and don’t call me in the morning’?”
“Serena,” Connie said with mock severity, “you ask the most embarrassing questions!”
Paul smiled ruefully. “She does that at business meetings, too.”
Renie shrugged. “Well? My cousin and I sense trouble in paradise.”
“Really?” Connie frowned. “I didn’t think it showed that much.”
“Show and tell,” Renie said.
“Really?” Connie leaned forward on the sofa. “Such as what?”
Renie looked at Judith, urging her to take up the tale. But Judith refused to betray Anemone’s confidence. “Let’s merely say that we suspect there’s Someone Else.”
Paul tipped his head to one side. “Ah.”
Connie took a deep sip of wine. “You’re right. There is.”
“That’s not surprising,” Judith said. “Anemone and Jim are very young. She’s been so sheltered. It’s only natural that her first real love wouldn’t turn out to be the man she marries.”
Connie stared at Judith. “Are you suggesting that Anemone isn’t in love with Jim?”
Judith was taken aback. All along she’d assumed that Anemone was meeting another man at Neiman Marcus, even if it hadn’t turned out to be Ambrose Everhart. “Well…I mean, if she hasn’t dated much—” She stopped, realizing that she was mistaken and unwilling to say more.
Connie laughed shrilly. “No, no! It’s Jim who isn’t in love with his betrothed. He’s fallen head over heels for CeeCee Orr. Anemone suspects the truth, and if Erma finds out she’ll kill him.” Wide-eyed, she put a hand over her mouth. “Oh, my God! What am I saying?”
Not another corpse was what Connie meant—but Judith wasn’t going to say that out loud, either.
TWENTY
“JIM’S AN IDIOT,” Renie declared as the cousins rode home in a taxi from the Marina district. “Not only is he risking his expensive education, but can you imagine CeeCee at an AMA convention? The only socializing she could manage would be playing doctor, not behaving like the wife of a real one.”
“I don’t know about that,” Judith said, “but it makes sense. Not the falling-for-CeeCee part, but what Anemone was doing skulking around Neiman Marcus. We know CeeCee was there that day because she bought the red dress I saw in the salon. I’ll bet CeeCee may have gone there with Jim, or else planned to meet him after she finished shopping. No wonder Anemone was too embarrassed to tell me.”
“So which one of them killed Émile Grenier?” Renie asked, keeping her voice down, just in case the uncommunicative Turkish cabdriver could understand them. “Anemone? CeeCee? Jim? Or somebody else?”
The taxi rocketed along Lombard and zoomed down Van Ness as if the driver had a date with destiny. He wove in and out of traffic, honking the horn and making the occasional obscene gesture. The cousins stopped talking, certain that they were going to meet their own kismet. There was construction on California Street, and although no one was working on a Sunday, there were several traffic barriers. The cab ran them like an obstacle course before starting the steep—and swift—descent on Powell. Pedestrians scattered; a double-parked limo was missed by less than an inch; a U-Haul truck barely escaped collision. By the time the driver screeched to a halt in front of the St. Francis, Judith had turned white and Renie had dug her fingernails into her hands so hard that she broke the skin.
“Thanks,” Judith gasped, not bothering to look at the meter. She yanked a bill out of her wallet and dropped it onto the front seat.
“That was a fifty,” Renie said as they reeled into the hotel. “Are you nuts?”
“A fifty?” Judith grimaced. “Oh, well. At least we arrived alive.”
“Good point,” Renie agreed. “What’s our next move?”
Judith poked the elevator button. “Rest. Think. And call Joe. Maybe that’s first.”
Upon arriving in their suite, Judith noticed that the message light was blinking on their phone. There were three calls: Rhoda St. George, Flakey Smythe—and