Миранда Джеймс - File M For Murder

Helen Louise grimaced. “I hadn’t heard that. Poor Laura. Is there anything I can do?”

“Not at the moment,” I said. “She’s doing okay, all things considered. But unfortunately, there’s more.”

Helen Louise sipped at her coffee and nibbled her éclair as I related the events of the day. Had the attack on Laura happened only this morning?

“What was the person after?” Helen Louise’s eyes blazed. “I’d love to get a hold of whoever did it.”

“You’ll have to get in line.” I smiled briefly. “We think the person was after a thumb drive that belonged to Connor.” I told her the rest of it, the real version, not Laura’s made-up one. I trusted Helen Louise implicitly, and I valued her perspective on things. She had been a lawyer before chucking it over in order to follow her dream of opening her own French-style bakery.

“Kanesha may string you both up before she’s done with you.” Helen Louise frowned. “I wish Laura hadn’t been so impulsive and taken that blasted thing to begin with. This isn’t going to look good when Kanesha finds out the truth.”

“I know.” I sighed. “Laura is usually so levelheaded, but I suppose the shock of finding Lawton like that knocked her so off balance that she didn’t think clearly about the implications.”

“No, she probably didn’t. Did she have strong feelings for him?”

“They were engaged briefly,” I said. “A fact I didn’t know until recently. Laura swore up and down she wasn’t in love with him any longer. In fact, she seems to be infatuated with a young man in the Theater Department, Frank Salisbury. Do you know him?”

Helen Louise nodded. Of course she knew him—she knew practically everyone in Athena. “He’s a fine young man. His mother, a widow, goes to my church, and Frank often attends with her.”

“I’m glad to hear that, because Laura seems serious about him, even though they’ve only known each other a couple of weeks.” I shook my head. “And he seems just as besotted with her. I don’t know what will happen when the time comes for Laura to go back to Los Angeles.” I had two more bites of my éclair and wanted to sigh from sheer pleasure.

“They’ll work it out, never fear.” Helen Louise chuckled. “Who knows? Laura might decide to chuck Hollywood and settle down here with Frank.”

“I wouldn’t mind that, I have to admit.” I sipped my coffee. “I worry about her out there. You hear so many stories of bad things happening to young actors.”

“You and Jackie reared her well.” Helen Louise patted my hand. “She has a strong foundation, unlike a lot of those kids.”

“Thank you.” I liked to think that my late wife and I had done our best with our two children. “I have to confess, though, I’m really floored over this situation with her lying to Kanesha. And Kanesha knows Laura is lying about something. She told me that.”

“Laura has a valid reason, at least in her mind, for doing what she did.” Helen Louise regarded me with a thoughtful expression. “I’m sure she’ll eventually tell you what that reason is.”

“I’m sure she will, but in the meantime, what must Kanesha be thinking?” I tore the remainder of my éclair into several pieces. “She hasn’t said so, of course, but Laura is probably her chief suspect.”

“She has to consider Laura.” Helen Louise’s tone was matter-of-fact. “She wouldn’t be doing her job properly otherwise. You know that.”

“Yes, you’re right,” I said. “But that doesn’t make it any easier. I know my daughter did not kill that man.”

“Are you sure someone killed him? That it wasn’t an accident? He was a heavy drinker, by all accounts, and couldn’t his death have been alcohol poisoning of some kind?”

“Kanesha told us she is treating it as a homicide, more or less. He was an unpleasant man, and I’ve no doubt several people might have wanted him dead. Laura wasn’t one of them.”

“He was not the sort to endear himself to anyone.” Helen Louise shook her head. “He came in here frequently, and with several different women. His behavior toward them was not gentlemanly, to say the least.”

“Was one of them Damitra Vane?” I described her to Helen Louise.

“My lord, yes, she was with him a couple of times. She’s about as dim as a three-watt bulb, and he treated her like dirt.”

“She claims she was in love with him, and he with her. In fact, she’d been threatening Laura to stay away from him.” I drained my coffee and set the cup down.

“She’d have had to threaten several other women as well.” Helen Louise snorted in disgust. “I couldn’t see the attraction myself, but evidently that type of man appeals to some women. Even women old enough to know better. Married women, in fact.”

“Like who?” I scented possible leads. The more suspects Kanesha had, the more likely she was to back off from Laura. Or so I hoped.

Helen Louise leaned closer. “Magda Johnston, for one. They came in here together four or five times, and the way they were carrying on it was all too obvious they were having an affair. And Ralph Johnston is the jealous type.”

TWENTY-SIX

Ralph Johnston detested Connor Lawton—I had seen evidence of that myself yesterday morning. At the time I had thought it based on Lawton’s behavior in his professional role. But if he and Magda Johnston were having an affair, and Ralph knew about it—that added another dimension to the situation.

“Do you think Ralph knew?”

Helen Louise grimaced. “I imagine he did, because it’s not the first time Magda’s strayed. Nor the second or the third.”

“It always amazes me how you know so much of what’s going on in this town.” I shook my head. “I guess running a business like this, you tend to see all kinds of things.”

“That’s true.” Helen Louise laughed. “Throw in the beauty parlor and church, and that pretty much covers everything. Magda goes to the same beauty parlor I do, and what those beauticians and their customers don’t know about what’s going on in Athena isn’t worth knowing. Same with the altar and flower guilds and the senior women’s Bible study class.”

I had never really thought about the sources of Helen Louise’s information. I’d simply come to rely on her knowing who was who and what was what in Athena. “I’ll take your word for it.” A stray memory surfaced. “I thought I heard somewhere that Ralph and Magda were divorced, or were getting divorced.”

Helen Louise rolled her eyes. “They’re always on the brink of divorce. They’ve actually been divorced twice. They’re on their third marriage.”

“That’s nuts.” My mind boggled at the idea.

“Tell me about it. They have their lawyers on speed dial, I’m sure.”

I had to laugh at that. The situation sounded truly bizarre. Then I sobered. “If they’re that crazy, then do you think one of them might be willing to kill? If they thought someone else posed a serious threat to their warped relationship?”

Helen Louise shrugged. “Anything is possible. Ralph does have a temper. He tried to beat up one of Magda’s boyfriends once. Didn’t work out too well for him, though, because the guy was a jock and hurt Ralph enough to put him in the hospital.”

“If they have a history like that, then I reckon Kanesha must know all about it.” That thought cheered me. With two loons like that to consider, the deputy ought to look at Laura as a much less serious suspect.

“They’re well known to both the police and the sheriff’s departments,” Helen Louise said. “Not to mention their neighbors. I’d sure hate to live next door to them.”