Murder Outside the Lines

“Mags is always impeccably dressed,” said Coralue stiffly.

Gene guffawed. “If we’re making an effort to say nice things about her, I shall second that.”

“She’s a dreadful woman,” said Coralue. “She asked Gene to accompany her to a party before she had even split with her husband.”

“And what a split that was,” added Gene. “When he left on a business trip, Mags hired a couple of handymen to remove all her husband’s possessions from the house and then she changed the locks. Everything was piled in the driveway for two days like trash. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if some items had gone missing before he found out.”

“Can you imagine coming home to that?” asked Coralue. “At the very least she could have put it in storage for him or given him some notice. He’s lucky it didn’t rain. His furniture would have been ruined.”

“I’m almost afraid to ask why they separated,” I said.

“I don’t like to gossip, but—

“For pity’s sake, Coralue,” Gene interrupted. “It’s not idle gossip. It’s fact. He works for de Gama Pharmaceuticals. It’s spiraling downward and everyone is fleeing like rats on a foundering ship. No one is going to hire him. He’s done.”

“What Gene is trying to say is that Mags likes money. And her husband will not likely have any in the foreseeable future.”

“She’s husband hunting,” explained Gene.

Coralue moaned. “I really don’t like to speak ill of people, but Gene is right. She hasn’t even bothered to make a secret of it. She’s coarse and rude, and just plain hateful.”

Gene tried to suppress a smile. “That pretty much sums her up.”

It dawned on me that the professor’s lunch with Mags and Jacquie’s lunch with Gene probably weren’t coincidences. I had a sneaking suspicion that Mr. DuBois had a hand in those arrangements.

“How is Hayes doing?” I asked.

“Fortunately, his practice hasn’t suffered from all this non-sense.”

“I heard Balthus was one of his patients,” I said casually.

Gene raised his eyebrows.

“Now, how could you know that?” asked Coralue. “Hayes wouldn’t even tell me if Balthus went to him.”

“If I were Balthus, I think I would change my last name,” muttered Gene. “That case will take years to settle and he’ll be haunted by the de Gama name.”

I checked my watch. “I need to bring these cookies over to Cyril. Will you call me if you hear anything about Manny?”

They assured me they would, and I walked briskly in the other direction. When I approached Cyril’s house, I focused on the window I had broken. The repair job was perfect. No one would have known anything untoward had happened there. It was open, which wasn’t particularly surprising, given the lovely autumn weather. The sun shone high in the sky and the temperature was heavenly with no humidity. I suspected a lot of people were enjoying open windows to let fresh air into their houses.

But when I raised my hand to grasp the knocker, I heard voices. Or one very loud voice.

Roxie was saying, “I won’t have it. Do you understand?”

Someone, probably Cyril, responded in a muted tone. I couldn’t make out what he said.

“I don’t care what your intentions were,” shouted Roxie. “Don’t you ever do that again.”

More murmuring from Cyril.

“No! No, no, no. What a mess. I’m so ashamed. I have to straighten this out. Ugh! Now I feel like I have to spy on you. How could you do that to me?”

I could hear Cyril’s soft tone and then a door slamming.

Maybe it wasn’t the best time to pop in on them. I scurried out to the sidewalk and walked away as rapidly as I could. Given that Cyril had once hired a PI to follow Roxie, I wondered if he had made such arrangements again following the attack on him.

I stared at the cookies I held. Once again I changed directions and walked a few more blocks to the building where Frieda and Maury lived. I knocked on the door.

This time it was Frieda who opened the main door.

“I brought some home-baked cookies. I hope you’ll share them with Maury and Linda.”

Frieda acted as if I had brought them a four-course dinner. “What a lovely gesture.” She lifted the wrap on them. “And they smell so good! I’m glad you stopped by. We said such ugly things about Manny. Of course, they were all true. But when we heard what happened to Balthus, it dawned on me that we didn’t tell you anything about him. I want you to know how kind he was to us. When Maury sprained his ankle, Balthus came by every day. He picked up groceries and wouldn’t even let us pay for them! I’ve read about his family’s corruption. But Balthus isn’t like that.”

“Thank you, Frieda.” I walked home thinking about the fact that Roxie, Frieda and her friends, and Veronica liked Balthus. But the pumpkin seeds and guts in his shoes still troubled me. When he recovered, maybe I should just come right out and ask him about that.

My phone rang. It was Eric confirming dinner. I strode faster. As soon as I entered the house, I set the table and preheated the oven. I had a little extra time to make French apple cake for dessert.

At six, there was a knock on the door and it opened. “Am I too late for dinner?” asked Eric.

“Perfect timing.”

After a lovely romantic kiss, I offered to make him a drink.

He picked up Peaches and snuggled with her. “No alcohol for me, thanks. Water or iced tea would be fine.”

“Are you planning to go back to work tonight?” I asked, pouring iced tea into tall glasses.

He set Peaches on the floor. “No, but I’m standing by in case I get a call. Cyril and Balthus are both out of the hospital.”

I gasped and nearly dropped the iced tea I held. “You think someone is going to try to finish them off?”

“I don’t know what to think. There’s a good chance that the attack on Cyril was just a burglary gone very wrong. But Balthus is terrified.”

“I’m surprised they released him. He wasn’t conscious this morning.”

Eric gulped iced tea. “Apparently he was trying to fool everyone because he didn’t want to go home.”

I didn’t blame him. “Have you seen his new apartment?”

“Yes. I swung by when they were collecting evidence. It’s pretty sad. I’ve lived in some holes-in-the-wall myself, but at least they had decent windows. Somehow, though, I don’t think it’s the architecture that worries Balthus.”

“Then you think the murders and the attacks on Cyril and Balthus are connected?” I chopped a red pepper and threw it into a bowl of fresh greens, followed by halved grape tomatoes.

Eric washed his hands. “Did you say pork chops?”

“I did.”

The son of a chef, Eric always jumped in to help in the kitchen. He was, in fact, a far better cook than I was. While he sautéed the pork, I added crunchy pecans and sweet apple slices to our salad.

“The answer is that we don’t know if all or any of the events are related. By the way, that was some fancy footwork on your part tripping the guy who came out of Balthus’s place.” He grinned at me. “You okay?”

“My shoulder is a little bit sore. Nothing I won’t get over. Did you arrest him?”

“He claims Balthus listed a Bose music system for sale on Craigslist. He was going over to look at it. When he arrived, the door was unlocked and Balthus was lying on the floor. It spooked him because he thought it might be some kind of sicko setup to hurt him. Then Roxie arrived and he felt trapped, so he bolted up the stairs to get away and you tripped him.”

“Do you believe him?” I asked.

“He had Balthus’s contact information as well as the ad where Balthus had indeed listed a Bose for sale. When Balthus came around, he confirmed that he’d made an appointment with the guy. Everything fits in place.”

I felt so guilty! “Is he okay?”

“Oh, sure. He didn’t have anything worse than scraped hands and knees. He’ll be fine.”

I set the table and asked, “Do you think Balthus knows who attacked him?”

“If he does, he hasn’t told us. But I can tell you this, he’s scared of something.”

“Or someone,” I added.

“Did I mention that we found chloroform in the broken bottle?”

I gasped. “Are you going to arrest Hilda?”

“Not yet. There’s no evidence she was ever in Balthus’s apartment. The bottle belonged to her, but it’s loaded with fingerprints.”

Eric brought the pork chops to the table. During dinner our conversation drifted to more palatable subjects. But when I brought after-dinner decaf coffee and French apple cake topped with sweetened whipped cream to the sofa, I found Eric looking through my sketchbook.

I settled next to him.

“Aside from admiring your art, I always find it interesting to follow your sketches. They’re like a story in pictures. Something tells me you’re not fond of Hilda.”

“It’s not that I dislike her. I don’t trust her. You would have to agree that her vision of a murder and a foot in a rug is a little bizarre. Right?”

“It’s certainly unusual, especially since it happened. But almost everyone has some uncanny moments. Haven’t you ever thought of someone and later learned that they were in surgery at the time? Or maybe you dreamed about a dear friend and when you woke, you learned that he had died?”

“Kind of like déjà vu?” I murmured.

“Not exactly, but I suppose it might fall into the same category simply by being inexplicable. I don’t know quite what to make of Hilda, either. In any event, Manny wasn’t dead at the time and she has an airtight alibi for his murder.”

“Could someone else have done it for her?” I asked.

“It’s possible. He was dating Hilda’s niece, Kaya. Manny’s family thinks Kaya’s family knocked him off and Hilda was in on it.”

“Is that what you think?” I asked.

“I think we have no evidence suggesting that’s the case.” Eric flipped the page. “Coralue Throckmorton,” he said dully. “There’s another one.”

“What do you mean?”

He smiled and pointed at the image in the window that I thought I had seen. “I trust she told you in great detail about all the ghosts haunting her house?”

“I thought there was only one. The Russian ambassador’s widow.”

“What disturbs me about Coralue,” said Eric, “is that she’s smart. She knew Cyril, Manny, Ellis Willoughby, and Balthus. Every single one of them. Her attorney, Gene Germain, is quick to point out that she’s quite petite, not young, not particularly athletic, and not likely to have been physically able to have inflicted the wounds they suffered.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you but I have to agree. I couldn’t have slit Cyril’s throat with a knife from behind. But Coralue does have a son.”

“I presume he’s in here.” Eric paged forward. “Hayes Throckmorton. Local heartthrob, martial arts enthusiast, and beloved chiropractor—”

“Really?” I interrupted.

“So I’m told. But no matter how popular he might be with his patients, Hayes knows how to crack your spine and break your neck.”

“Was someone’s neck broken?” I asked, thinking I had missed something important.

“No. My point is that he knows how to kill someone. As a chiropractor, he’s well informed on what not to do so he won’t hurt you.”

I sat back and stared at Eric. I was reading between the lines, of course, but the way he spoke led me to think Hayes was his top suspect.

Speaking as casually as I could, I asked, “What do you think of the Boyles?”

“You know there are things I can’t tell you.”

“Like the fact that Ellis Willoughby was hired by Mr. Boyle’s ex-wife to find their missing son?”