Three Bedrooms, One Corpse

I COULDN'T jump up and scream and point to him. I had to force myself back down in my seat. I gripped my hands together, willing them to be still.

Charming, handsome Franklin, who'd had so many conquests they must have become boring and routine by now. Franklin, with a house we all entered only once a year for his annual party, a house that could be full of things stolen from homes he was showing.

Franklin could have had Tonia Lee just by crooking his finger, and his legendary charm could have persuaded lonely and shy Idella to do something she must have known was incredibly suspicious. How had he persuaded her to return the key to the key board, or to give him a ride from Greenhouse Realty to his house? He must have told her that he had arrived at the Anderton house to find Tonia Lee already dead--though what explanation he could have given her for going to the Anderton house at all I couldn't imagine.

Maybe he'd told Idella that putting back the key would lessen the chances of his being suspected of something he hadn't done, but Idella couldn't stand up to the heavy secret she carried, the guilt she felt. I remembered her crying in the bathroom of Beef 'N More, the day of her death. And Franklin, of course, could tell Idella was cracking. Even if she couldn't face the fact that Franklin was almost certainly the murderer, she would feel terribly conscious that she had lied to the police. And to her employer.

"Roe? Roe? Are you all right?"

"What?" I jumped.

Martin was leaning toward me, his incredible light brown eyes full of concern. His innocent light brown eyes, I thought with a swelling heart.

"Um, as a matter of fact, Martin, I don't feel too well." People were getting up, chatting. Time to go.

"Let's get you home, then."

Martin retrieved our coats while I sat at the table, afraid to look up for fear I'd meet Franklin's eyes. He and his date were still sitting across from me. "Let's leave, honey," she was saying.

"Want to stop at The Pub for a drink?" he asked, his voice warm and inviting as a crackling fire on a freezing night.

"Sure. Then we'll see after that," she said teasingly.

There wouldn't be much to see, I thought. It was already a case of my-place-or-yours. And, my mind raced, I was willing to bet it would be hers. Franklin probably still had the vases from the Anderton place in his house. Somewhere. He'd be afraid to sell them in Atlanta, surely, with the case still so fresh. On the other hand, I argued with myself, keeping the vases in his house would be so dangerous! His car would be an even riskier place, though ...

I slipped into my coat without even thinking about Martin, who was holding it for me.

How could I get the police to search Franklin's house?

Martin's arm was around me. "Are you going to make it to the car?" he asked, concerned.

"Martin, I'm thinking," I told him. He looked at me oddly.

"Honey, I'm going to get the car. I'm worried about you. I'll bring it around as quickly as I can."

I nodded absently, and was only vaguely aware when he left.

"It was so nice to meet you," a voice at my elbow said with routine courtesy.

I looked up at Miss Glitter. "Enjoyed it," I said automatically. I tried not to look at Franklin, standing at her elbow. Terry Sternholtz and Eileen came up, Terry looking very pretty in the dark blue, her curly red locks tamed into a striking hairdo. It felt strange to realize that Terry had dressed up as much for her date with Eileen as I had for my date with Martin.

"I'll be late Monday," Terry told her boss. "I have an early appointment with the Stanfords."

"I'll be in Atlanta all day," Franklin said casually. "I'll see you Tuesday."

But as Eileen, Franklin, and his date walked away, I gripped Terry's arm. I must not have been gentle; she looked surprised as she asked me what I wanted.

"Terry. Do you remember saying, when we were at the Greenhouse's, that a self-defense course wouldn't have helped Tonia Lee? Because she had been tied up?"

Terry groped in her memory. "Sure," she said finally. "I remember. So?"

"Do you by any chance remember who told you Tonia Lee had been tied?"

"Oh. Yeah, it was Franklin, next morning at the office. I get sick at grisly stuff like that, but Franklin gets into it."

"Thanks, Terry. I was just curious." Terry looked at me doubtfully, but then Eileen called her impatiently from the door, and she left, giving me a suspicious glance.

Donnie Greenhouse's stupidity had maybe saved his life. He'd heard Terry make the comment about Tonia Lee's being tied and realized its significance long before I did--well, maybe he wasn't so dumb after all. He'd probably been plotting some elaborate revenge against Terry, never thinking to ask her where she'd gotten that damning piece of information. All the time, it had been secondhand.

I stood lost in thought until I realized Arthur had taken my hand. His wife was across the room talking to my mother.

I was eager to tell Arthur what I'd seen; okay, napkin-folding can't be used as evidence, but at least I'd get a message to Lynn surreptitiously, an indicator that the police should look Franklin's way very quickly.

But Arthur had his own agenda, and in a particularly maddening gesture I remembered vividly from our relationship, he raised his hand when I started to talk.

"Roe, that guy is bad news," he said, fixing me with his flat blue eyes. His voice was low and steady and absolutely sincere. "Because of the good times we had together, I'm warning you. Get away from him, and stay away. This isn't sour grapes on my part. We've done a background check on him, and he's not..."

"Arthur," I said with great force, to stop whatever he was going to say. I was thrown completely off-track. "I appreciate your concern. But I am telling you that I am in love. Now, you listen to this ..."

"If you won't shuck him, I can't make you."

"You are so right..."

"But you have to know that that man is dangerous."

"Who's dangerous?" asked Martin with a ferocious cheerfulness.

"Mr. Bartell," Arthur said, hostility in his voice. "I'm Arthur Smith, a detective on the local force." Martin and Arthur shook hands, but looked as if they would just as soon have arm-wrestled.

If they'd had fur around their necks, it would have been standing on end.

"Glad I met you," Martin said enigmatically. "Roe, I brought the car around."

"Thanks, honey," I said, and Martin slid an arm around me and we turned to go to the car.

"Tell Lynn I need to speak to her," I told Arthur over my shoulder.

"What's happening, Roe?" Martin said after we'd left the Carriage House parking lot. "Are you really feeling sick?"

"No. But something happened tonight, and we have to talk about it." Who else was more qualified to handle dangerous situations than Martin? He was dangerous himself. Maybe he would have an idea.

"Does it concern that policeman? Is he someone you've gone out with?"

"He's married and has a baby," I said firmly. "I went out with him a long time ago."

"Was he warning you about me?"

"Yes, but that's not what I want--"

"He said I was dangerous. Do you believe that?"

"Oh, yes. But--"

And suddenly we were in the middle of our first argument, which I couldn't quite figure out. Somehow he was angry because Arthur had enough feelings for me to want to warn me off Martin, and I gathered it wasn't the warning but the feelings that upset Martin. And then also, he felt that Lizanne's engagement ring had overshadowed the beautiful earrings he'd given me, and he was mortified. And I was trying to tell Martin I loved the earrings and wouldn't have taken an engagement ring if he'd given it to me, which was completely untrue and a very stupid thing to say. If we had fallen in love like teenagers, we were quarreling like teenagers, and if we had been a little younger, I'd have given him back his letter jacket. And his class ring.

And then, just as we pulled into my parking lot, his beeper went off.

Martin said something truly terrible.

"I have to go." He was suddenly calm.

"I have to tell you something," I told him urgently, "about Franklin Farrell. Before tomorrow!"

"I can't believe I said all those things."

"Please come back." I was almost crying. I'd been through too many emotions in one day, and they were seeking their natural vent.

"As soon as I handle the situation at the plant, I'll come back."

"Wait a second," I said as I slid out of the car. I ran to unlock my back door and ran back to the car. "Here's my key." I put it in his hand and closed his fingers around it. "I have another I'll use. Come on in when you get back."

We looked at each other searchingly. "I've never given anyone a key to my own house before," I said, slamming the car door and running into the townhouse.

Madeleine was standing curiously in the cold draft from the door I'd left open, and she rubbed against my legs as I stood in the kitchen area wondering what on earth I was going to do.

I wandered up the stairs, pulling off my finery with little regard for my hair. I left my earrings in, and sat at my dressing table admiring them absently while I tried to figure out what to do.

What if I called the police station and said there was a kidnapped woman in Franklin's house? Wouldn't they be obliged to break in to see?

Maybe not. I could hardly call Arthur to find out.

Report a fire?

Well, the firemen wouldn't recognize the vases, as indeed most of the policemen wouldn't. Of course, we didn't have photographs of them, and my mother had only a general memory of their shape and position on the night tables.

Tomorrow Martin would be taken in for questioning if I couldn't draw attention to Franklin now. Day after tomorrow, Franklin would take the vases to Atlanta and sell them or drop them--in the river on the way, if he hadn't done it already.

He'd be out of his house tonight, with Miss Glitter.

I stood there in the bathroom with my fists balled, trying to steel myself against the decision I was about to make.

Okay. I'd have to do it.

Thinking harsh thoughts about how incredibly stupid I was, I pulled on heavy socks and blue jeans and a T-shirt and a sweatshirt. I zipped up my black boots and found an old jacket with deep pockets. I found a knit scarf that had a hood for the head and then two long ends that tossed around the neck, which I pinned so I wouldn't have to keep fooling with them. Everything I had on was black or dark brown or navy blue. I looked like someone who'd dressed with only a tiny amount of light in the closet, just enough to pick out dark colors, but not the right dark colors. Amina would have a fit, I thought wryly.

I did keep on my beautiful earrings.

Downstairs I trudged, terrified and determined, to stuff my pockets with screwdrivers and anything that looked as if it might be helpful in breaking into Franklin Farrell's house.

I added a heavy, fist-sized rock to my collection of potential burglary tools. I'd brought it home as a souvenir of a trip to Hot Springs, and it was dark with a protrusion of clear crystal. Then I remembered a crowbar in a box of Jane Engle's tools I'd had stored in my extra bedroom.

I dumped everything into the car. It was eleven o'clock, my dashboard informed me. I am a law-abiding person, I told myself grimly. I don't litter. I don't even jaywalk. I never park in Handicapped spaces. I pay my taxes on time. I only lie when it's polite. Lord have mercy on me for what I'm about to do.

That thought, from my saner self, sent me right back inside. I took a piece of paper and a pencil and wrote, "Martin: Franklin Farrell is the man who killed Tonia Lee Greenhouse. I am going to go break into his house and get back the vases he took from the Anderton place. Eleven o'clock. Roe." Somehow writing this note made me think I was being much more prudent, a totally unjustified feeling. But I locked the door to the townhouse before I shut it, thus burning my bridges behind me, since I'd forgotten to get my extra key and Martin now had mine.

I left my car two blocks south and one block east of Franklin Farrell's house, which was inconveniently located (for me) on a main thoroughfare, where no parking was possible. Franklin had an older home on a street that was now almost all commercial, but he had painted it an eye- catching combination of dove gray and yellow, and tricked it up with expensive antiques and gadgets until it was now one of the town's notable homes. Entrance to it was very restricted, though. Franklin entertained women there sometimes, it was generally understood, but had only one social gathering a year in his home. It was carefully planned, lavish, and invitations were much prized. Otherwise, Franklin entertained clients and other business associates at restaurants. He never asked uninvited guests in, no matter how attractive they were, a quirk of his that was much discussed and secretly envied by those who were too cowardly to do likewise.

All this I knew about Franklin. All this, and now much more.

I probably wasn't particularly silent as I stole across his backyard and up to his back door. But in that cold, who had their windows open to hear? I was shivering as I tried the back door knob, just for the hell of it. Of course, the door was locked. Franklin's car wasn't there, so I assumed he and Miss Glitter were having a good time. I hoped it was real good, and that he'd stay the night. I had no plan to conceal the break-in, because I thought I'd be damned lucky to get in at all, much less try to be clever about it. So after an attempt or two with the screwdrivers, I just smashed a pane in the kitchen door window with my souvenir rock, which I popped back into my pocket. I reached in carefully and unlocked the door. It should have opened then, but it didn't. Though my coat and sweatshirt gave my arm some protection, I became worried that the glass remaining in the frame would cut me as I prodded around inside, trying to discover what was still holding the door.

Finally I risked using my flashlight. With my face pressed against an upper pane and flashing the light up and down the inside of the door, I discovered at long last that Franklin had put a sliding bolt at the top of the door. The moment I saw it, I switched the flashlight off.

I was too short to reach the sliding bolt.

I took a few deep breaths and poked through with the longest screwdriver. I stood on tiptoes. I closed my eyes to concentrate. The tip of the screwdriver finally touched the knob of the bolt. With every bit of stretch I could summon, I pushed the bolt back.

I had to crouch down and shake for a minute when the door finally yielded. I took a deep breath, stood, and entered.

This is dumb, this is dumb, my more intelligent side was insisting as I stepped inside. Get out.

But I didn't listen. I examined the kitchen as carefully as I could by flashlight. Then, through the dining room, the hutch full of an impressive array of gleaming silver. Then into the living room, color-coordinated to a depressing degree in creamy shades, with cranberry wallpaper. The fireplace across the room was flanked on either side by windows, and matching sofas faced each other in front of them. My flashlight flicked over the furniture, the gleaming hardwood floor, and the marble fireplace. And came back to the fireplace.

The vases were on the mantle. I caught my breath at the sheer gall of it. Placed as carefully as if they were legitimate, they looked lovely on either end, with a dried-flower arrangement in between. If they'd been stashed in a closet, they'd have seemed much more suspicious. I walked up the alley formed by the two sofas to examine them more closely. These were the right ones. I remembered the pictures of rivers and valleys that had so entranced me as a child.

Hah! I could feel myself smiling in the dark, though the insistent pulse in my brain kept telling me, This is dumb, this is dumb.

And it was, too, because just then Franklin turned on the light.

"I didn't hear you pull up," I said lamely after I swung around to face him.

"That's obvious," he said. "I saw a light dancing around in my living room from two blocks away, so I left my car parked on the street." If he'd seen me through the open curtains, someone else could, too, I thought hopefully. Franklin reached out one arm casually and pressed a button.

Behind me I heard the curtains electronically swish shut.

Of all the damned gadgets.

We stood looking at each other. I was wondering what happened next. Maybe he was, too.

"Why on earth did you do this?" he said almost wearily. The handsome face drooped on its elegant bones. He tossed his overcoat over the back of the sofa as though he were about to sit in his favorite chair and open the newspaper. Instead, he pulled a long, thin scarf from his overcoat pocket.

"Oh, you just carry one with you now? Just in case you run across someone who needs killing?" The words popped out before my brain could censor them.

"Tonia Lee was a piece of trash, Roe," he said coldly. "But she was clever enough to spot some things in my house that she shouldn't have. She was willing enough to keep quiet for some-- exotic--rolls in the hay. Unusual places. Being tied up. Tonia Lee liked that kind of thing. But I got tired of obliging." I pictured him sitting at the foot of the bed while Tonia Lee was tied to it, talking to her while methodically folding her clothes, Tonia Lee knowing all the while that she was going to die. "A piece of trash," he repeated.

He wasn't slotting her in a social class or giving a character assessment. He was dismissing her as nonhuman, inconsequential. On a par, perhaps, with a mole that was making ridges in his lawn. It made me sick.

"What about Idella?" I asked involuntarily.

"She was so easy to get to bed after I'd finally convinced her to just go out with me. I was glad I'd gone to the trouble of overcoming her scruples at dating a man with my reputation with women, because when I needed her to put back that key, it wasn't hard at all to persuade her. I told her it would ruin my business if I had to tell the police I'd been in the house with Tonia Lee's body. I told her I'd had an anonymous call that I should hurry over to the Anderton house, that the caller said it was Idella who was hurt there. How could Idella refuse to help me after that?" He raised his eyebrows mockingly. "Obviously, someone wanted to frame me for Tonia Lee's death, someone who knew I'd go rushing to help Idella. It was after she had time to think that she became difficult. She sensed--some implausibility. She was scared of being single, scared of being alone; but she became even more scared of me," said the man who was quite happy with being alone because he was so fond of himself.

"And me?"

"You're a little different," he conceded. "But now you know about me, and no one else does. No one else even suspects. Why did you have to do this?"

"Why'd you have to come home? I thought you were all set for the night."

"Oh, Dorothy?" He actually thought for a moment. "You know," he said almost musingly, "I just couldn't be bothered."

He stepped toward me. I glanced at the front door, since Franklin was between me and the back door. The front door was locked and had a similar bolt at the top. I would take seconds reaching it, and more seconds stretching up to the bolt. There was no way. The doorway to my left was shut, but it might be a coat closet, for all I knew. And probably was, because right by it was an ornately carved openwork umbrella stand, appropriately holding a fancy umbrella with a long ferrule.

"I had to do this," I began, moving slowly to my left around the end of the sofa, compelling him with all my will to watch my face and not my feet, "because tomorrow the police were going to get Martin."

"Martin--oh, the new boyfriend. The reason you wouldn't go out with me." His voice held a mild interest as he came closer. "Why are you edging left, Roe?"

I pulled the umbrella from the stand. "Because I hope to hurt you some before you hurt me." I gripped it determinedly with both hands, pointing the sharp ferrule in his direction.

He laughed. He really did. Wrapping the scarf around both hands in a practiced move, he held out the taut length so I could admire the shine of the blue silk. "This is Terry's scarf. I think I'll leave it on you so maybe they'll think Terry killed you because Eileen had the hots for you. What a hoot."

Ha ha. "Martin will kill you for this," I said with absolute assurance.

"Your latest honey? I think not."

And before this could go any further, I charged at him with all my strength and yelled as loud as I could, which was pretty damn loud.

I was short and he was tall, and I was bent over in my charge.

I caught him just in the pit of his stomach. Actually, a little lower.

He shrieked, his arms flew up linked by the scarf, and he began to double over. I reeled back from the impact, staggered, went down on my face.

He fell right on top of me.

I fought to get him off, though the air had been mostly knocked out of me. I bucked and pushed and heaved, but he was too heavy. He was growling now, a horrible animal sound, and the glimpse I caught of his face was terrifying, if I could have been any more frightened than I was. He had apparently never been hurt before, because he went berserk with rage. He'd let go of one end of the scarf. He was tearing at any part of me he could get hold of, and I heard a rip and then some clinking, rolling sounds as one of my pockets was absolutely torn off my coat, its contents spilling out.

He grabbed my mass of braided hair and banged my face against the hardwood floor. For a moment of blinding pain my brain went dark, and I heard a cracking sound I couldn't understand. Then he lifted himself on his knees to get a good swing at my head, and I seized the second to turn over. Now I had one free arm, but he came down on the other one. When I tried to bite him, his suit coat prevented me. He grabbed my hair again and banged the back of my head against the wooden floor. I had another moment of darkness, and then with the little energy I had left I grabbed his ear with my one free hand and pulled and pulled, though he tossed and twisted to shake me off. My other arm, trapped between our bodies, hurt dreadfully, though I had no time to think about that.

I realized I was losing consciousness, the weight of him pushing the air out faster than the struggle was letting me take it in. I dug my fingernails into his ear to mark him, since I was losing, and had the satisfaction of feeling wetness under my fingers. But it almost made me lose my grip on his ear. He'd remembered the scarf now, wrapped it around his free hand, and then put it around my neck. I had the wooly scarf pinned there, though, and the collar of my coat, too. But I began to feel myself blanking in and out, like a flickering picture on a black-and-white television. My hand finally lost its grip and slipped to the floor. My fingers landed on a rough lump. My souvenir rock. I forced my fingers to curl around it, and with my last strength I swung the rock and made direct contact with the side of Franklin's head. The sound was dull and nauseating.

The weight on top of me went limp. There were some oddly peaceful moments, because of the silence, the stillness; most of all the cessation of fear. Then I became aware of hearing noise again. Was someone talking to me?

"Let go," said a fuzzy voice, urgently.

Of what? I wondered if I was barely clinging to my life. Should I let go of it? I wanted it.

"Let go of the rock."

It was a voice I could trust. I let go, moaning at the sudden pain in my cramped fingers.

I heard sounds, sort of--dragging sounds, and something bumped down the length of my body. Franklin Farrell's head, as someone dragged him off me. I tried to focus, but achieved only a blur.

"I can't see," I whispered.

"It's me, it's Martin, Roe. Lie still."

Now that I could do.

"I'm going to call the hospital." Footsteps retreated and came back. At some point. Everything was fuzzy and blurry and vague.

"Did I hurt him bad?" I mumbled through thick lips. They also hurt. I was finding that a lot of things hurt as my adrenaline ebbed.

I heard a choked sound.

"I called the ambulance for you."

"Why can't I see, Martin?" "He broke your glasses. They cut your face. Maybe your nose is broken. Maybe your arm, too."

"Oh. My eyes okay?"

"They may be once the swelling goes down."

"Did--I--kill him?" I was having some difficulty enunciating.

"Don't know. Don't care."

"Tough guy," I mumbled.

"Tough woman," I thought he said. I would have snorted derisively if my face hadn't hurt so badly.

"Hurts, Mar'in," I commented, trying not to whine.

"Go to sleep," he advised.

It was surprisingly easy to do.