Three Bedrooms, One Corpse, page 2
“That’s very remarkable,” Mr. Bartell said unemphatically.
And it surely was.
I stood there rooted, thinking how atypically everyone was behaving. I would have put money on Barby Lampton screaming hysterically, and she hadn’t squeaked after her first exclamation. Martin Bartell hadn’t gotten angry with us for showing him a house with a corpse in it. My mother hadn’t ordered me to go downstairs to call the police, she’d done it herself. And instead of finding a solitary corner and brooding, I was standing stock-still watching a middle-aged businessman examine a naked corpse. I wished passionately I could cover up Tonia Lee’s bosom. I stared at Tonia Lee’s clothes, folded on the end of the bed. The red dress and black slip were folded so neatly, so oddly, in tiny perfect triangles. I brooded over this for some moments. I would have sworn Tonia Lee would be a tosser rather than a folder. And any dress subjected to that treatment would be a solid mass of wrinkles when it was shaken out.
“This lady was married?”
I nodded.
“Wonder if her husband reported her missing last night?” Mr. Bartell asked, as if the answer would be interesting, no more. He straightened up and walked back over to me, his hands in his pockets as though he were passing the time until an appointment.
My brain was not moving so very quickly. I finally realized he was doing his best not to touch anything in the room.
“I’m sure we shouldn’t cover her up,” I said wistfully. For once, I was wishing I hadn’t read so much true and fictional crime, so I wouldn’t know I was not supposed to adjust the corpse.
Martin Bartell’s light brown eyes looked at me very thoroughly. They had a golden touch, like a tiger’s.
“Miss Teagarden.”
“Mr. Bartell…?”
His hand emerged from his pocket and moved up. I tensed as though I were about to be jolted by electricity. I lost the technique of staring at his chin and looked right at him. He was going to touch my cheek.
“Is the body in here?” asked Detective Lynn Liggett Smith from perhaps three feet away.
Downstairs, at least thirty minutes later, I had recovered my composure. I no longer felt as if I was in heat and would rip Martin Bartell’s clothes off any minute. I no longer felt that he, out of all the people in the world, had the power to look underneath all the layers of my personality and see the basic woman, who had been lonely (in one particular way) for a very long time.
In the “family room,” with my mother and Barby Lampton to provide protective chaperonage, I was able to collect all my little foibles and peculiarities back together and stack them between myself and Martin Bartell.
My mother felt obligated to hold polite conversation with her clients. She had introduced herself formally, gotten over her surprise on finding out that Mr. Bartell’s companion was his sister, not his wife, and had established the fact that Martin Bartell had received good impressions of Lawrenceton in the weeks he’d spent here. “It’s been a pleasant change of pace after the Chicago area,” he said, and sounded sincere. “Barby and I grew up on a farm in a very rural area of Ohio.”
Barby didn’t seem to enjoy being reminded.
He explained a little about his reorganization of the local Pan-Am Agra plant to my mother, a born manager, and I kept my eyes scrupulously to myself.
We waited for the police for a long time, it seemed. I heard familiar voices calling up and down the stairs. I’d dated Lynn Liggett’s husband, Arthur Smith (before they married, of course), and during our “courtship” I’d become acquainted with every detective and most of the uniforms on Lawrence-ton’s small force. Detective Henske’s cracker drawl, Lynn’s crisp alto, Paul Allison’s reedy voice… and then came the sound I dreaded.
Detective Sergeant Jack Burns.
I turned in my chair to group myself protectively with the other three. What were they talking about now? Martin Bartell had said he’d been at work every day of the three months he’d spent in Lawrenceton, and had invited Mother to tell him about the town. He couldn’t have asked anyone more informed, except perhaps the Chamber of Commerce executive, a lonely man who worked touchingly hard to persuade the rest of the world to believe in Lawrenceton’s intangible advantages.
I listened once more to the familiar litany.
“Four banks,” Mother enumerated, “a country club, all the major automobile dealerships, though I’m afraid you’ll have to get the Mercedes repaired in Atlanta.”
I heard Jack Burns shouting down the stairs. He wanted the fingerprint man to “get his ass in gear.”
“Lawrenceton is practically a suburb of Atlanta now,” Barby Lampton said, earning her a hard look from my mother. Most Lawrencetonians were not too pleased about the ever-nearing annexation of Lawrenceton into the greater Atlanta area.
“And the school system is excellent,” my mother continued with a little twitch of her shoulders. “Though I don’t know if that’s an area of interest-?”
“No, my son just graduated from college,” Martin Bartell murmured. “And Barby’s girl is a freshman at Kent State.”
“Aurora is my only child,” Mother said naturally enough. “She’s worked at the library here for what-six years, Roe?”
I nodded.
“A librarian,” he said thoughtfully.
Why was it librarians had such a prim image? With all the information available in books right there at their fingertips, librarians could be the best-informed people around. About anything.
“Now she’s thinking about going into real estate, and looking for her own home at the same time.”
“You think you’d like selling homes?” Barby said politely.
“I’m beginning to think maybe it’s not for me,” I admitted, and my mother looked chagrined.
“Honey, I know this morning has been a horrible experience-poor Tonia Lee-but you know this is not something that happens often. But I am beginning to think I’ll have to establish some kind of system to check on my female realtors when they are out showing a house to a client we don’t know. Aurora, maybe Aubrey wouldn’t like you selling real estate? My daughter has been dating our Episcopalian priest for several months,” she explained to her clients with an almost-convincing casualness.
“Episcopalians have a reputation for being generally liberal,” Martin Bartell remarked out of the blue.
“I know, but Aubrey is an exception if that really is true,” Mother said, and my heart sank. “He is a wonderful man- I’ve come to know him since I married my present husband, who is a cradle Episcopalian-but Aubrey is very conservative.”
I felt my cheeks turn red in the cold room. I ran a nervous hand under the hair at my neck, loosening the strands that had gotten tucked in my jacket collar, and tilted my head back a little to shake it straight.
Thinking about Tonia Lee Greenhouse was preferable to feeling like a parakeet that is extremely excited at the prospect of being eaten by the cat.
I thought about the loathsome way Tonia had been positioned, a parody of seductiveness. I thought about the leather thongs on Tonia’s wrists. Had she been tied to the ornate wooden headboard? Old Mr. and Mrs. Anderton must be turning in their graves. I thought about Tonia Lee in life- tall, thin, with teased dark hair and bright makeup, a woman who was rumored to be often unfaithful to her husband, Donnie. I wondered if Donnie had just gotten tired of Tonia Lee’s ways, if he’d followed her to her appointment and taken care of her after the client had left. I wondered if Tonia had been overcome by passion for her client and had bedded him here in the invitingly luxurious master bedroom, or if she’d had an assignation with someone she’d been seeing for a while. Maybe the house-showing had been a fictitious cover to let her romp in one of the prettiest houses in Lawrenceton.
“Mackie brought her the key yesterday,” I said suddenly.
“What?” asked my mother with reproof in her voice. I had no idea what they’d been talking about.
“Yesterday about five o’clock, while I was waiting for you in the reception room, Tonia Lee called your office and asked for the key. She said she’d been held up-if anyone was getting off work, she’d be really obliged if they could drop it off here; she’d meet them. I handed the phone to Mackie Knight. He was leaving just then, and he said he’d do it.”
“We’ll have to tell the police. Maybe Mackie was the last one to see her alive-or maybe he saw the man she was going to show the house to!”
Then Jack Burns was in the doorway, and I sighed.
Detective Sergeant Jack Burns was a frightening man, and he really couldn’t stand me. If he could ever arrest me for anything, he’d just love to do it. Luckily for me, I’m very law-abiding, and since I had come to know Jack Burns, I’d made sure I got my car inspected right on the dot, that I parallel-parked perfectly, and that I didn’t even jaywalk.
“If it isn’t Miss Teagarden,” he said with a terrifying affability. “I declare, young woman, you get prettier every time I see you. And I always do seem to see you when I come to a murder scene, don’t I?”
“Hello, Jack,” said my mother with a distinct edge to her voice.
“Mrs. Teagarden-no, Mrs. Queensland now, isn’t it? I haven’t seen you since your wedding; congratulations. And these must be our new residents? Hope you don’t feel like running back north after today. Lawrenceton used to be such a quiet town, but the city is reaching out to us here, and I guess in a few years we’ll have a crime rate like Atlanta’s.”
Mother introduced her clients.
“Guess you won’t want this house after today,” Jack Burns said genially. “Ole Tonia Lee looked pretty bad. I’m sure sorry you all ran into this, you being new and all.”
“This could have happened anywhere,” Martin said. “I’m beginning to think being a real estate agent is a hazardous occupation, like being a convenience-store clerk.”
“It certainly does seem so,” Jack Burns agreed. He was wearing a hideous suit, but I’ll give him this much credit-I don’t think he cared a damn about what he wore or what people thought about it.
“Now, Mr. Bartell, I believe you touched the deceased?” he continued.
“Yes, I walked over to make sure she was dead.”
“Did you touch anything on the bed?”
“No.”
“On the table by the bed?”
“Nothing in the bedroom,” Martin said very definitely, “but the woman’s neck.”
“You notice it was bruised?”
“Yes.”
“You know she was strangled?”
“It looked like it to me.”
“You have much experience with this kind of thing?”
“I was in Vietnam. I’ve had more experience with wounds. But I have seen one case of strangulation before, and this looked similar.”
“What about you, Mrs. Lampton? You go in the room?”
“No,” Barby said quietly. “I stayed on the landing outside. When Miss Teagarden opened the doors, of course I saw the poor woman right away. Then my brother told me to go downstairs. He knows I don’t have a strong stomach, so of course it was better for me to go.”
“And you, Mrs.-Queensland?”
“I came up the stairs just after Aurora opened the bedroom doors. I actually saw her swing them open from downstairs after I started up.” Mother explained about the Thompsons and her delegation of me to open the house for the Bartells. “Excuse me, Mr. Bartell and Mrs. Lampton.”
“You’re his sister,” Jack Burns said, as if trying to get that point quite clear. He swung his baleful gaze on poor Barby Lampton.
“Yes, I am,” she said angrily, stung by the doubt in his voice. “I just got divorced, my only child’s in college, I sold my own home as part of the divorce settlement, and my brother invited me to help him house-hunt down here out of sheer kindness.”
“Of course, I see,” said Jack Burns with disbelief written on every crease in his heavy cheeks.
Martin Bartell’s hair might be white, but his eyebrows were still dark. Now they were drawn together ominously.
“When was the last time you saw Mrs. Greenhouse, Roe?” Jack Burns had switched his questioning abruptly to me.
“I haven’t seen Tonia Lee to speak to in weeks, and then it was only a casual conversation at the beauty parlor.” Tonia Lee had been having a dye job and a cut, and I’d been having one of my rare trims. She had tried the whole time to find out how much money Jane Engle had left me.
“Mr. Bartell, had you contacted Mrs. Greenhouse about looking at any homes?” Jack Burns shot the question at the Pan-Am Agra manager as though he would enjoy beating the answer out of him. What a charmer.
I could see Martin taking a deep breath. “Mrs. Queensland here is the only realtor I have contacted in Lawrenceton,” he said firmly. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, Sergeant, my sister has had enough for this morning, and so have I. I have to get back to work.”
Without waiting for an answer, he got up and put his arm around his sister, who had risen even faster.
“Of course,” Burns said smoothly. “I’m so sorry I’ve been holding you all up! You just go on, now. But please, folks, keep everything you saw at the scene of the murder to yourselves. That would help us out a whole bunch.”
“I think we’ll be going, too,” my mother said coldly. “You know where we’ll be if you need us again.”
Jack Burns just nodded, ran a beefy hand over his thinning no-color hair, and stood with narrowed eyes watching us leave. “Mrs. Queensland!” he called when Mother was almost out the door. “What about keys to this house?”
“Oh, yes, I forgot…” And Mother turned back to tell him about Mackie Knight and the key, and I walked out into the fresh chill of the day, away from the thing in the bedroom upstairs and the fear of Jack Burns.
And right into Martin Bartell.
Over his shoulder I saw Barby was in the front seat of the Mercedes and buckled up already. She was dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. She’d waited until she was outside to shed a few tears; I admired her control. I felt a sympathetic tear trickle down my own face. One way or another, the morning had been a dreadful strain.
I was looking at a silk tie in a shade of golden olive, with a white stripe and a thin sort of red one.
He wiped the tear from my face with his handkerchief, carefully not touching me with his fingers.
“Am I imagining this?” he asked very quietly.
I shook my head, still not meeting his eyes.
“We have to talk later.”
I couldn’t speak, for once in my life. I was terrified of seeing him again; and I would rather have shaved my head than not see him again.
“How old are you? You’re so tiny.”
“I’m thirty,” I said, and finally looked up at him.
He said after a moment, “I’ll call you.”
I nodded, and walked quickly over to my car and got in. I had to sit for a moment so I could stop shivering. Somehow I had his handkerchief clutched in my hand. Oh, that was just great! Maybe he had an old high school letter jacket I could wear? I was mad at my hormones, upset about the awful death of Tonia Lee Greenhouse, and horrified at my own perfidy toward Aubrey Scott.
There was knock on my window that made me jump.
My mother was bending, gesturing for me to roll the window down. “I’ve never met Jack Burns in his professional capacity before,” she was saying furiously, “and I pray I never do again. You told me he was like that, Aurora, but I couldn’t quite credit it! Why, when I sold him and his wife that house, he was just so polite and nice!”
“Mom, I’m going to go to my place.”
“Why, sure, Aurora. Are you okay? And poor Donnie Greenhouse… I wonder if they’ve called him yet.”
“Mother, what you have to worry about, right now, is how that key got back on your key board. Someone at Select Realty put it there. The police are going to be all over your office asking questions just as quick as quick can be.”
“You definitely have a mind for crime,” Mother said disapprovingly, but she was thinking fast. “It’s that club you were in, I expect.”
“No. I was in Real Murders because I think that way, I don’t think that way because I was in the club,” I said mildly. But she wasn’t listening.
“Before I go back,” said Mother suddenly, “I was thinking I should ask Martin Bartell and his sister-I can’t believe a woman that age is answering to ‘Barby’-” This from a woman with a name like Aida. “-I should get them over to the house for dinner tomorrow night. Why don’t you and Aubrey come?”
“Oh,” I said limply, horrified at the prospect. How was I going to excuse myself-“Mom, this guy I just met, well, if we see each other again, we just may have at it on the floor”?
My mother, usually so sharp, did not pick up on my turmoil. Of course, she had a few more things on her mind.
“I know you have to ask Aubrey first, so just give me a call. I really think I should make some gesture to try to make up to them-”
“For showing them a house with a dead realtor in it?”
“Exactly.”
Suddenly my mother realized that the Anderton house was going to be impossible to move, at least for a while, and she closed her eyes. I could see it in her face, I could read her mind.
“It’ll sell sooner or later,” I said. “It was too big for Mr. Bartell anyway.”
“True,” she said faintly. “The house on Ivy Avenue would be more appropriate. But if the sister is going to live with him, the separate bedroom suites would have been great.”
“See you later,” I said, starting my car.
“I’ll call you,” she told me.
And I had no doubt she would.
Chapter Two
An hour after I’d gotten home I began to feel like myself again. I’d huddled wrapped in an afghan, with Madeleine the cat purring in my lap (an effective tranquilizer), while I watched CNN to feed my mind on impersonal things for a while. I was in my favorite brown suede-y chair with a diet drink beside me, comfortable and nearly calm. Of course, Madeleine was getting cat hairs all over the afghan and my lovely new dress; I’d had to resist the impulse to change into blue jeans when I got home. I still felt my new clothes were costumes I was wearing, costumes I should doff when I was really being myself.
