Perfect Little Ladies Part 18

Manny nodded. He was a nice man, she was sure she'd been right about that. She guessed his family was lucky to have him.

Then he said, "But Poppy, help me understand. Does your husband really think he can get away with the blackmail? These trinkets are pretty, but they're hardly worth five hundred thousand."

"Oh, they're just the beginning," Poppy replied. "He over heard me talking to Momma about our big secret one day, about how it was me, not Momma, who killed the gardener."

Manny didn't flinch or squirm or even look aghast. "What gardener?"

"It was a long time ago, but I killed him all right. Momma took the blame. She said he was peeping in the window. At me. Alice. Elinor. CJ."

"But he wasn't?"

"No. We'd been there earlier, but we'd gone down to the lake. He wasn't there then. By the time he arrived, he saw Momma. She was on the couch having s.e.x with Mr. Harding, Elinor and CJ's father."

Poppy paused for a breath. Manny said nothing.

"I forgot my movie star magazine, so I went back to the cottage to get it. I saw Sam Yates peeping through the window. I came up behind him and saw what he saw. He was laughing and muttering something about his ticket 'straight to retirement.' Then he spotted me. He raised his rake and tried to hit me. But it got tangled up in my hair. I grabbed the pruning shears. I stabbed him in the back." Saying it out loud was not as difficult for Poppy as she'd once thought it would be. She'd never told a single, solitary soul, not even her therapist. Momma had made her promise; she'd said it was for Poppy's own good, that Momma would handle confinement much better than Poppy could.

Manny stayed silent.

"Don't you see?" Poppy asked. "Momma let them arrest her. She served five years in jail. Poor Momma!"

"And your husband heard all of this?"

"I told him he misunderstood. But he knows about these little trinkets. And I think he also knows how to use other people's indiscretions to his advantage." There was no need to reveal that each time he had asked for more money, Poppy had been afraid to say no. "Don't you see?" she went on. "If he doesn't get what he wants now, he'll expose Elinor's secret. If you arrest him for blackmail, she should be safe."

"So it won't matter to you what he says about you?"

Poppy shook her head. "It's time I paid for my crimes. But Elinor doesn't deserve this. It's not like she killed anyone." She didn't add that Duane wouldn't even have known Elinor if Poppy had listened to Momma and not married him.

Alice waited in the kitchen until eleven o'clock, until the lamb chops had dried up and the fresh mint had wilted. It wasn't like Neal to be so late without calling.

Four times she had tried to reach him, but his BlackBerry had only connected to voice mail. She would have sent him a text, but she didn't know how. When Kiley Kate had tried to show her, Alice had pooh-poohed it. Texting was only for kids, wasn't it?

She poured another gla.s.s of club soda and wished it was wine. But she'd learned long ago that flying with a hangover was like stuffing one's head in a sock.

At 11:36, she heard the garage door go up. She stiffened her hold on her gla.s.s.

"I thought you'd been in an accident," she said coolly when her husband walked in. "I thought you were dead."

He laughed, dropping his briefcase on a tall chair at the breakfast bar. He loosened his tie. She detected the faint scent of bourbon.

"I thought you were gone," he said.

"Gone?"

"Where are you going this time? Phoenix? Orlando?"

"Orlando. But for heaven's sake, Neal, I'm not leaving until tomorrow."

"Oh," he replied and helped himself to her soda without asking.

"Have you had dinner?"

"Sliders at Max's." He took off his jacket and draped it over the chair. He'd pick it up later, Mr. Self-Sufficient.

"Alone?"

He laughed again. "No, Alice, I wasn't alone. I was with five women from the office who've been dying to f.u.c.k me. They drew straws tonight. They all won."

Neal was only crude when he'd had too much to drink or had played a good round of golf, which, for some reason, seemed linked to testosterone.

Alice stood up. "I'm going to bed."

"Aren't you going to ask me?"

"Ask you what?"

"If I've found a date for the dinner with Tang?"

"No, Neal, I'm not going to play games tonight. I'm tired and my flight leaves at ten."

He raised his right hand in a mock salute. But as she pa.s.sed by him, Alice caught another aroma that smelled a lot like Bijon mixed in with the bourbon.

CJ slipped off to bed just before midnight. She'd waited until Mac was in his office, monitoring in real time the Asian pharmaceutical markets as Elinor once said he often did. Or, CJ suspected, he might have simply been waiting for her to retire, to avoid an awkward "Good night, CJ," "Good night, Malcolm" exchange.

She turned off the light and wondered if she could possibly sleep, what with her naps during the day and Mac in the house. She stared at the red digital numbers that read 12:13.

Sleep is the poor man's Prozac, Cooper had written in one of his plays. The line was delivered by a middle-aged woman who reluctantly contended with an elderly uncle who visited each afternoon and napped in the living room chair. After all, the old goat had money. The niece and her husband and their kids shaped their comings and goings-indeed, their lives-around Uncle Sol, turning up the volume on the remote to drown out his snoring, acknowledging to one another that some day it would be worth it. At the end of the third act, the poor man was dead. In his pocket was a diary, an amusing journal of daily observation about his niece and her husband and the kids who'd tolerated him in hopes of inheriting his money, of which, it turned out, he had none.

It was a comic tragedy on the human condition.

The play had been brilliantly written, had won several awards, and had been produced in many major locations around the country.

CJ had been so proud of her husband. They'd celebrated by making love each opening night in every city and town: Phoenix, Des Moines, Wichita.

She'd gotten pregnant in Albuquerque.

She tried not to think of what had followed. It had been so long since she'd felt loved.

The red digital numbers flipped to 1:00. CJ closed her eyes, then a moment later she heard the door handle turn.

She sensed a soft light spill in from the hall.

She tried to breathe normally, then wondered why she felt a need to avoid Mac.

Why...when Elinor had been cheating on him?

Why...when Elinor's charade involved so many others that she didn't seem to care if she hurt?

Why...when CJ deserved happiness, too. Didn't she?

She wanted to push back the covers and let Mac in. Let him into her bed and into her heart once again. But as CJ started to stir, the door gently closed, and he was gone.

Thirty-one.

Manny said he wasn't going to drag Poppy to the station in handcuffs. At that hour she'd have to share a cell with the hookers and junkies, and he said there was no need for that. She was a lady, after all.

He also said he couldn't put her under house arrest at his house because the kids would make her nuts. She suggested that his wife might keep them under control, and he countered by saying he didn't have one of those. Not anymore, anyway.

So instead of incarcerating her in Brooklyn, Manny drove Poppy upstate to New Falls, to Yolanda's.

He parked on Main Street. The shop stood in Victorian splendor in the quaint little hamlet where only the very rich once trod-until Yolanda had moved in with her shampoo and mousse. Manny had a key to the front door. They crept in quietly, so as not to awaken Yolanda or Belita, who were no doubt sleeping soundly upstairs. Inside, the only light spilled in from the streetlamps.

Poppy followed Manny past the pedicure spa chairs and the upright hair dryers and the sinks and the stylist booths. It reminded her of a time thirty years ago when she and Alice and Elinor and CJ had crept into the study that had been Poppy's father's but Momma had locked up the day he had died. It had been Elinor's idea.

"Maybe he left you a letter or a special present," Elinor had coaxed. She'd been reading a lot of Nancy Drew then, and she'd thought mysteries loomed everywhere.

So they'd crept in one night when Momma was out. The room had the same feel of trespa.s.s that Yolanda's did now, as if the lights would flash on at any moment, as if her father might leap from his leather-backed chair and scold her for breaking in.

But he hadn't leaped or scolded-not that she would have minded. Instead, the room was quiet and dusty and no longer smelled of his pipe tobacco, and Poppy retreated to her bedroom for days.

"s.h.i.t," Manny whispered now.

Poppy stopped tiptoeing. "What?"

"I don't have the key to the apartment upstairs."

"We could go up and knock."

"Her bedroom's in the back. Besides, I don't want to wake up Belita."

Poppy studied his silhouette. "Well then," she said, "you'll have to lock me up down here. I could use a manicure after all this commotion."

He laughed softly. "You're something, you know?"

Poppy didn't know how to respond.

"At least let's sit down so I can figure out what to do next."

They sat in twin chairs in front of a long mirror that reflected the streetlamps. Poppy's eyes grew accustomed to the dim light. It was, she thought, rather romantic.

"So," Manny said, "what shall I do with you, Miss Veronica?"

"You could kiss me," she heard herself say.

And so he did.

And she was surprised.

And it felt really nice.

And it felt really safe.

Elinor had shut her eyes hours ago, but she still hadn't fallen asleep. If she'd stayed at a five-star instead of a two-star, she could have ordered brandy from room service and drunk half a fifth and then fallen asleep.

As it was, the refreshments were confined to a small bottle of "spring-like" water that had been shipped in from the States.

When the sun finally rose, she decided to dress and go for a walk on the beach. There had been no word from CJ yesterday, no calls on her cell. No news, in this case, was simply no news. She had no delusions that the blackmailer would suddenly vanish.

Outside, the morning air was dry and already warm. She walked past the boarded-up vendor stalls, past a few tourists jogging; they must have been tourists-would islanders jog? Certainly not in new shorts and matching lycra tops. She wan dered past a few delivery vans and a stray dog or two. She counted seven blocks to the beach.

The tide was high, which would make walking uncomfortable in the soft sand. Elinor found a big rock and sat down. She wanted to cry, but she dared not. There was too much to do to lose her cool now.

Pulling her cell phone from her pocket, she stared at the keypad. The blackmailer had called her on her cell. How had he found the number?

Then she had a thought.

The cell phone.

Didn't it record the phone number of the person who'd called?

"Oh, G.o.d," she said out loud. She stared at the b.u.t.tons. Wasn't there one that could show her calls sent, calls received? If she were younger, like Jonas or Janice, surely she would have thought of it sooner.

She began to perspire the way Alice did.

Then she pushed one b.u.t.ton.

Another.

Another.

And then there it was.

TUES 4:12PM.

212555-7974 Her hand was shaking. Did she dare make the call? Of course. She had nothing to lose.

Nothing.

But everything.