Philadelphia Noir - Carlin Romano [58]
Bess stood by the fireplace, a glass of champagne, incredibly, in her hand. She smiled at Meg and raised her glass a fraction of an inch, a vestigial toast between friends. In her look there was a trace of something more, a hint of a question, a challenge. Meg, her eyes clear, calmly nodded back. Friends. More. Sisters.
Michelle and her drunken husband had evidently gone home. Most of the police were gone as well. Henri, shattered, had been led out in handcuffs, his leather coat draped raffishly over his shoulders. Henri’s wife Paula, distraught and incoherent, had been bundled out by a female officer before Henri was led away.
Poor Paula. Poor Henri. Megan knew that Henri had not killed this girl. Henri, guilty of many unsavory things, had killed no one.
Oh, he believed he had. His confession had been genuine and it would be accepted as fact. He would receive his punishment, his marriage over, his life, and Paula’s, in ruins. But actually he hadn’t done it, Meg knew. Meg didn’t care. She knew it was callous of her, but she just didn’t.
Her heart was with her friends, the Daggers. The Daggers of Bryn Mawr. The beautiful blond Dagger sisters and their families. Her sisters. Her friends. Bess. Dear Bess, standing by the fireplace, drinking champagne, looking so soignée.
Meg had known it wasn’t Henri from the moment she heard his touching, sad, rambling, French-accented confession—“So I left the bedroom, my beautiful little chérie untouched on the bed. But I must have killed her. Shook her too hard. Her neck must have snapped, you know?”
But it hadn’t been Lulu on the bed. He had left his beautiful little Carrie there. Not chérie, Carrie. Passed out, or just pretending, teasing him. He shook her, yes, but when Meg had glanced in she was sure she had seen the girl stirring. And while Henri might have been drunk enough to confuse the two beautiful college girls, Meg wasn’t. It was Carrie on the bed, alive and well. And although the police had probably asked Henri repeatedly how the body ended up in the den, Henri would only demur, shrugging, maintaining that he didn’t know. Had no idea. It didn’t matter. They had a confession.
Meg knew that Henri hadn’t done it. But who had?
Standing there watching the family, Meg carefully replayed the evening in her head. It passed before her eyes like stills from a movie. Celia outside a bedroom sobbing, calling her boyfriend’s name. Why? Someone had surely lured the hapless college boy into a dark bedroom. Lulu, smug and tipsy, wiping her mouth, heading downstairs. Had Celia killed her in a drunken, jealous rage? She stared at Celia, mousy and red-eyed. Hard to believe.
She thought of Bess coming out of the darkened den, angry at something or someone. The den. Lulu was killed in the den right where she was found. She had fallen to the floor beside the sofa and lay there until Anise found her and scooped her onto her lap, in a mother’s anguish for her lovely daughter. She had indeed been shaken by someone quite angry. Shaken until her neck snapped.
Meg looked at Bess. She could see how it had happened. Bess, protective of her nieces, furious that Lulu had come on to poor Celia’s handsome, spineless boyfriend, had confronted the drunken college girl in the den. Angry that a gorgeous little interloper would come in to the fabulous Dagger family and hurt even the least of its members, the weakest sister, poor little Celia.
No one spoke for a long time. Finally, Thom roused himself. “I’ll make breakfast,” he announced flatly.
And so, life goes on, Meg thought, reaching up to brush her hair away from her eyes.