Charlaine Harris - Shakespeare’s Trollop

I’d already begun to go back to my car. I didn’t like being hushed with that chopping hand, it wasn’t like I chattered. And I didn’t like being ordered.

“I never saw anyone there,” I said, my back to the sheriff.

“You… in the years you cleaned her apartment, you never saw anyone else there?” Marta Schuster’s tone let me know she was well aware of Deedra’s reputation.

“Her stepfather was there one morning when Deedra was having car trouble.”

“And that’s all?” Marta Schuster asked, openly disbelieving.

“That’s all.” Marlon, of course, had been creeping out of there three or four days ago, but she knew about him already and it didn’t seem the time to bring that up again.

“That’s a little surprising.”

I half-turned, shrugging. “You through with me?”

“No. I want you to meet me at the apartment in about two hours. Since you’re familiar with Deedra’s belongings, you can tell us if anything’s missing or not. It would be better if Mrs. Knopp didn’t have to do it, I’m sure you agree.”

I felt trapped. There was nothing I could say besides, “I’ll be there.”

My involvement in the troubled life of Deedra Dean was not yet over.

Camille Emerson would hate me later for not telling her my little news item, but I just didn’t want to talk about Deedra’s death. Camille was on her way out, anyway, a list clutched in her plump hand.

“I remembered to put the clean sheets out this time,” she said with a touch of pride. I nodded, not willing to give a grown woman a pat on the back for doing a simple thing like putting out clean sheets for me to change. Camille Emerson was cheerful and untidy. Though I didn’t dislike her-in fact, I felt glad to work for her-Camille was trying to warm up our relationship into some kind of facsimile of friendship, and I found that as irritating as the employers who treated me like a slave.

“See you later!” Camille said finally, giving up on a response. After a second I said, “Good-bye.” It was lucky I was in a mood to work hard, since the Emersons had made more than their usual mess since my last visit. There were only four of them (Camille, her husband, Cooper, their two boys) but each Emerson was determined to live in the center of chaos. After spending fifteen minutes one day trying to sort out the different sizes of sheets I needed, I’d suggested to Camille that she leave the clean sheets on each bed, ready for me to change. That was much better than extending my time there, since Mondays were always busy for me, and Camille had blanched at the thought of paying me more. We were both happy with the result; that is, when Camille remembered her part.

My cell phone rang while I was drying the newly scrubbed sink in the hall bathroom.

“Yes?” I said cautiously. I still wasn’t used to carrying this phone.

“Hi.”

“Jack.” I could feel myself smiling. I grabbed my mop and cleaning materials in their caddy, awkwardly because of the telephone, and moved down the hall to the kitchen.

“Where are you?”

“Camille Emerson’s.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve got news.” Jack sounded half excited, half uneasy.

“What?”

“I’m catching a plane in an hour.”

“For?” He was supposed to be coming to stay with me tonight.

“I’m working on a fraud case. The main suspect left last night for Sacramento.”

I was even more miserable than I’d been after finding Deedra’s body. I’d looked forward to Jack’s visit so much. I’d even changed my sheets and come home from the gym early this morning to make sure my own little house was spanking clean. The disappointment bit into me.

“Lily?”

“I’m here.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You have to work,” I said, my voice flat and even. “I’m just…” Angry, unhappy, empty; all of the above.

“I’m going to miss you, too.”

“Will you?” I asked, my voice as low as if there were someone there to hear me. “Will you think of me when you’re alone in your hotel room?”

He allowed as how he would.

We talked a little longer. Though I got satisfaction out of realizing that Jack really would regret he wasn’t with me, the end result was the same; I wouldn’t see him for a week, at the very least, and two weeks was more realistic.

After we hung up I realized I hadn’t told him about finding Deedra dead. I wasn’t going to phone him back. Our good-byes had been said. He’d met Deedra, but that was about the extent of his knowledge of her… as far as I knew. He’d lived across the hall from her before I’d met him, I recalled with a surge of uneasiness. But I channeled it aside, unwilling to worry about a faint possibility that Jack had enjoyed Deedra’s offerings before he’d met me. I shrugged. I’d tell him about her death the next time we talked.

I tugged the crammed garbage bag out of the can, yanked the ties together in a knot, and braced myself as Camille Emerson staggered through the kitchen door, laden with grocery bags and good will.

I was late for my appointment with Marta Schuster, but I didn’t care. I’d parked my car in my own carport before striding next door to the eight-unit apartment building, noticing as I threw open the big front door that there were two sheriff’s department vehicles parked at the curb. I was in a bad mood, a truculent mood-not the frame of mind best for dealing with law-enforcement officials.

“Take a breath,” advised a cool, familiar, voice.

It was good advice, and I stopped to take it.

“Marta Schuster and her storm trooper are up there,” Becca Whitley went on, stepping from her apartment doorway at the back of the hall to stand by the foot of the stairs.

Becca Whitley was a wet dream about three years past its prime. She had very long blond hair, very bright blue eyes, strong (if miniature) features, and cone-shaped breasts thrusting out from an athletic body. Becca, who’d lived in Shakespeare for about five months, had inherited the apartment building from her uncle, Pardon Albee, and she lived in his old apartment.

I’d never thought Becca would last even this long in little Shakespeare; she’d told me she’d moved here from Dallas, and she seemed like a city kind of woman. I’d been sure she’d put the building up for sale and take off for some urban center. She’d surprised me by staying.

And she’d taken my place as the highest-ranking student in Marshall’s class.

But there were moments I felt a connection to Becca, and this was one of them. We’d begun a tentative sort of friendship.

“How long have they been up there?” I asked.

“Hours.” Becca looked up the stairs as if, through the floors and doors, she could watch what the sheriff was so busy doing. “Did they tell you to come?”

“Yes.”

“What about Marlon?”

“He was at the crime scene bawling his eyes out.”

“Ew.” Becca scrunched her nose in distaste. “He’s the one been seeing her so hot and heavy.”

I nodded. I wondered how well the sheriff would investigate her own brother.

“Do you have your key?” Becca asked.

“I gave it to them.”

“Good move,” she said. “They got my copy of her key, too.”

I shifted from foot to foot. “I better go up. I’m supposed to tell them if anything’s missing.”

“See you tonight,” she called after me, and I lifted my hand in acknowledgment.

Deedra’s apartment was the right rear, just above Becca’s. It overlooked the paved rear parking lot, not an inspiring view. It held a carport divided into eight stalls, a Dumpster, and not much else. I wasn’t sure who, besides Deedra, lived on the second floor now, but I’d known many of the people who’d passed through. Claude Fried-rich, the chief of police and a friend of mine, had moved from the second floor to the first after a leg injury. I figured he and Deedra had been the in the building the longest. Generally, the eight units of the so-called Shakespeare Garden Apartments stayed full because the units were a nice size and fairly reasonable. I was pretty sure Becca had gone up on the rent as the leases ran out, because I had a faint memory of Deedra complaining, but it hadn’t been an outrageous increase.