Foolproof (Iris Thorne Mysteries Book 4) Read online

  “Hi, Aunt Iris.” Brianna casually turned the pages of her book. “I can read this book. A lot of it, anyway.”

  “You’re very smart, Brianna.” Iris reached to scratch Stetson’s head when the dog raised his muzzle toward her.

  “Did you move into your new house?”

  “Tomorrow. After I move in, you can come and spend the night with me.” Iris stroked the child’s long, wavy hair and swallowed hard to keep down the tears prickling in her throat. “Would you like that?”

  She nodded.

  Iris ran her fingers through the little girl’s hair again. Brianna sat impassively, as if enduring yet more attention from adults. Iris sensed this and rose from the chair, using her hand to dislodge it from her backside. “Bye, Brianna.” She gave the dog a pat.

  Iris made a tour through the house, saying good-bye. She was glad to see that the cheesecake she’d brought had been discovered and partially devoured. Natalie insisted that Iris take food home with her and set about wrapping up selections from the dining room table in aluminum foil and salvaged Cool Whip and margarine containers.

  “You must be busy packing for your move. You don’t have time to cook.”

  “That’s kind, Mrs. Tyler, but I’m not much for cooking anyway.”

  Natalie resolutely set her jaw as she worked. Her movements were brusque. After a long silence, she spoke on a subject that seemed constantly on her mind. “One thing I know, if Kip gets out of jail, I’m going to fight to have Brianna live with Joe and me. It’s not because I don’t think Kip’s a good father. It’s not that at all. He’s always been an excellent father to Brianna, but he plans on living in that house. He told us he won’t sell it. That can’t be good for our granddaughter.”

  Iris shook her head with dismay. It was just like Kip to be stubborn about something like that.

  Natalie ladled chili from a Crock-Pot into a plastic container that appeared to have been warped in the microwave. Her lips were pressed firmly together. “I hate to say it, Iris, but I have to. I’m afraid for Brianna. She saw the murderer.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “The murderer doesn’t know that either. Whoever killed Bridget will always wonder whether what Brianna saw will come back to her one day. I don’t trust Kip to properly protect her. Especially if…” Natalie ran her thumb around the container’s lid, sealing it. “You know.”

  Iris remained silent.

  Natalie packed the containers into the shopping bag that Iris had brought with her. “I appreciate your giving Kip the benefit of the doubt. I know Bridget would too. But damn it, if Kip didn’t murder my daughter, then who did?” She held the handled bag toward Iris.

  Iris took the bag from her. “The police will find out,” she said with more confidence than she felt.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Iris awoke from a restless sleep sometime in the middle of the night and made her way into the bathroom by the thin light that filtered through the miniblinds. There, she turned on the overhead light, which glowed harshly, making her squint. She stood over the sink and looked at her face in the mirror. “It’s going to be all right,” she said to the image, which was cast in hard shadows. “You were a good friend. You’ve always tried to do the right thing and will now.” She spoke lovingly. “It will be all right. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.” Iris realized she wasn’t controlling what was coming out of her mouth. She tried to stop talking, but couldn’t. She stared at the moving lips, barely hearing the words that went on and on in a soothing tone, the message repeated over and over like one would speak to quiet a child. “I’m fine. Worry about yourself and Brianna and Kip.”

  As she stared at the face and the moving lips, the image morphed into Bridget’s face. “Don’t be sorry,” her friend murmured. “Don’t feel guilty. You couldn’t have stopped it.” Slowly the image transformed back into Iris’s own face and she was talking to herself in the mirror; she could stop when she wanted. Blinking, confused, she did.

  Iris awoke at what was a late hour for her. She didn’t remember the dream immediately. It suddenly came to her as she was busy making final preparations before the movers arrived. She walked to the bathroom mirror and peered into it, trying to recapture Bridget’s image. She even touched the cold, silvery glass as if she could penetrate it, but her friend was gone.

  It was near the end of the two-hour time window the movers had provided and they still hadn’t arrived. Iris didn’t have much to move. She’d never replaced the living room furniture from her condo that had been drenched by a broken water pipe during the earthquake. She’d furnished the downtown apartment she’d moved to after unloading the condo with bare necessities that she’d picked up cheap. The living room contained a plain couch, a TV sitting on a plastic crate, and a ginger-jar lamp she’d bought for $15 at Thrifty. Another plastic crate served as an end table. All her crystal and china had been destroyed in the quake, and she’d replaced them with cheap nothings. She did have a dining room set, however, bedroom furniture, and a furnished office. And she had clothes. Lots and lots of clothes.

  The Bunker Hill apartment she’d lived in for the past year was just a few blocks from her office. In true L.A. style, she drove to work anyway. She saved many commuting hours but couldn’t get used to living downtown. It was full of people during the day, but grew deserted shortly after 6 P.M. except for multitudes of street people. Downtown L.A. was set up for people to work, not to live. Simple tasks became a hassle since there weren’t any dry cleaners or grocery stores downtown and the surrounding residential neighborhoods were shabby and unsafe. There was a terrific view from her fifteenth-floor apartment of the L.A. skyline. The swooping, clean lines of the Harbor Freeway, lit at night with a river of white lights in one direction and red in the other, was like a living work of art. But after a few months, the advantages of downtown life faded for her. She felt smothered by asphalt and concrete and longed to get back to the coast.

  As she waited for the movers, she logged onto the Internet and accessed some of the chat rooms for computer-games aficionados. Several were devoted to Pandora, and Iris lurked in a few until she found an especially lively conversation in one room.

  “SUCKERS FINISH LAST is AWESOME!!! Free the Kipmeister!” GameGeek.

  “Kip’s a gone man. He totally immersed himself in the game life. The dude couldn’t tell cyberspace from reality.” Errorprone.

  “WRONG! WRONG!! WRONG!!! Kip’s not the man. Kip couldn’t be the man. Get a clue people!!!” Arsenal.

  “What about the slingshot? No one’s talking about the slingshot!” MindF.

  “It was the tenth-level battle played for real.” GameGeek.

  “The slingshot was a brilliant touch, don’t you think? It was the boss monster’s move in a larger game.” MindF.

  Iris finally typed in a comment. “What slingshot?” ITGirl.

  “What slingshot?!? Stupid bitch! If you’re not with the program, get lost!” Errorprone.

  Iris persisted in spite of having been flamed by Errorprone. Chat room etiquette was exacting and unforgiving. Participants were expected to be well versed on all the previous conversations and not to ask obvious questions. “Someone please tell me about the slingshot.” ITGirl.

  “Word of mouse is the murderer put a slingshot in Bridget’s hand. The police are trying to keep it out of the press. Ease up, Errorprone, you snert.” GameGeek.

  “Take a flying fuck,” Errorprone.

  “Some secret! Any Websurfer can find out about it. Cops are idiots!” MindF.

  “What’s the significance of the slingshot? Does it have something to do with SUCKERS?” ITGirl.

  “ARRGGHHH! NO WAY!! BEGONE, ITGirl!!!” Errorprone.

  “What’s the significance of the slingshot? :-)” ITGirl. Iris tacked a happy face drawing onto the end of her message as a cheery response to Errorprone’s relentless flaming.

  “Fucking female! Do your homework, ITGirl, and stop wasting our time. Download SUCKERS FINISH LAST and p
lay it to the end, and then and only then attempt to chat here.” Errorprone.

  “What’s up with the tenth level? Kip Cross, you freak!” Arsenal.

  “Free the Kipmeister!” MindF.

  “The boss monster’s made her move. Let’s see if Kip can get out of this trap.” GameGeek.

  “Wait a minute. We’re talking about real people and a real murder, not some computer game.” ITGirl.

  “Oh really? Duh. I didn’t know that.” Errorprone.

  “That’s why it’s so much more fun. Isn’t this what Kip wanted all along?” MindF.

  “One thing’s for certain. If Kip goes down, Pandora’s going down. Kip’s irreplaceable. He’s the master. After him there will be no other.” GameGeek.

  Iris’s phone rang. The movers were downstairs.

  “Lily, I raised you and your sister on my own. Don’t tell me how hard it is. I know,” Rose Thorne said authoritatively.

  “I know you know, Mom. And I appreciate your opinion, but I’m going to make my own decisions, okay?”

  “It’s not good to raise kids in an unhappy home. It was hard at first when I divorced your father, but I did it and you can too.”

  “Mom, I’m not divorcing Jack. We’re having a rough spot right now and we’re going to work through it.”

  “You don’t know men, Lily. I’ve been around longer than you. They never change.”

  “Mom, you’ve known one man.” Lily’s voice was muffled as she spoke with her head deep inside a kitchen cupboard. She struggled with a rectangle of adhesive shelf paper and finally managed to press it flat. She withdrew her head, wiped a lock of damp hair from her forehead, and carefully moved onto the step stool from where she had been kneeling on top of the sink. “And Dad wasn’t the best example of a loving husband and father.” She used a tape measure to mark another length of shelf paper which she then began to cut. “And frankly, I’m not certain you and Dad couldn’t have done more to work it out.”

  Rose Thorne was sitting on the floor straddling a drawer in which she was awkwardly laying shelf paper. She was wearing black-and-white polka-dotted pants with an ample, long-sleeved black top that covered her once shapely figure. Her white sandals set off her pedicure. Her dyed red hair was carefully styled and she wore dramatic makeup, including false eyelashes. She never allowed herself to be seen without full makeup and perfect hair, even if the circumstances, like today, warranted something more casual. She came of age during the glamour days of Hollywood and never left the style behind.

  She twisted to look at her eldest daughter. “You’re not trying to insinuate I did the wrong thing by divorcing your father, are you?”

  “I’m just saying you made what you thought were the best decisions for your life, and I’m going to make what I think are the best ones for me and my family.” Lily Rossi was wearing blue jeans, tennis shoes, and one of her husband’s navy blue, single-pocket T-shirts which came down low over her hips. Her ash blonde hair was cut in a short, layered style and had a wiry, dried-out texture from too many home dye and perm jobs.

  “Mom, I feel like you’re pressing me to get divorced because it would validate that you made the right decision with your life.”

  “That’s ridiculous! I just want you to face facts. Once a marriage is gone, it’s gone. Why beat a dead horse?” Rose fiercely plowed a pair of eight-inch scissors through the shelf paper. “All you and Iris talk about is how bad you had it growing up. There’s lots of kids out there who had it worse. Kids will survive their parents getting divorced. You did.”

  “Let’s see what Iris thinks,” Lily chirped when her sister came into the kitchen.

  “See what Iris thinks about what?” Iris asked suspiciously. She rifled through some plastic shopping bags that were scattered on the floor and pulled out two rolls of blue shelf paper printed with seashells and starfish.

  Rose summarized. “About whether Lily should leave Jack because he’ll never change and she’s still young enough to find someone else, or whether she should continue to let Jack walk all over her.”

  “And I think Mom’s negative about marriage in general and wants to justify her own life.”

  Iris looked from Rose to Lily who both petulantly waited for her response, clutching the rolls of paper more tightly in her arms as if they might shield her. “I’m going to work in the bathroom.”

  “Coward,” Lily spat.

  “She agrees with me,” Rose said smugly. “She just didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

  “She did not!” Lily protested. “Tell her, Iris.”

  “I’m trying to stay out of this,” Iris yelped.

  “Well, you’re in it!” Rose snapped.

  “Mom, you need to get a life so you’ll stop being so involved in Iris’s and mine.”

  “I think I hear someone at the door.” Iris tried to slip from the room.

  “Get back in here,” Lily ordered.

  “Iris doesn’t accuse me of ruining her life, do you Iris?” Rose demanded.

  “No one’s said you ruined our lives, Mom,” Lily insisted. “You always go off the deep end. No one can tell you anything.”

  “Mom, it’s harder to try to work something out than it is to leave,” Iris finally said.

  “See there!” Lily said triumphantly.

  “Hellooo?”

  “Neither of you girls was there.” Rose was annoyed. “You can’t judge me.”

  “We weren’t there?” Lily said incredulously.

  “Hel-looo?”

  “Why do we have this same conversation over and over again?” Iris loudly complained. “Is there no getting past this issue?”

  Lily saw the woman first. “Oh! Sorry. We didn’t hear you at the door.”

  “I heard her,” Iris corrected.

  “I’m so sorry to have startled you, but I rang the doorbell. You might want to have it checked because I don’t think any sound came out. The door was ajar and I heard voices and thought I’d come in. I brought you some sandwiches.” The woman carried a silver platter lined with a paper doily and piled high with sandwiches cut into finger-sized rectangles with the crusts removed. “I’m Marge Nayton. I live next door. Which one of you is my new neighbor?”

  Iris took the tray from her and set it on the counter. “I’m Iris Thorne.” She shook the tiny hand that the woman extended. “I’m pleased to meet you at last. Unfortunately, your name came up when I was talking to the police about Bridget Cross’s murder. You helped them confirm the time that Kip said he went jogging. The Crosses are…friends of mine.”

  “Ghastly business, isn’t it?” Marge Nayton stood just over five feet tall and couldn’t have weighed more than ninety-two pounds. She was smartly dressed in a beige suit with a hip-length, shawl-collared jacket which she wore buttoned to the neck, a slim skirt, and bone-colored high-heeled pumps. She was delicate and blonde with a heart-shaped face. Her hair was carefully coiffed in a smooth style that was teased high and round in back and curved into a wave on one side of her face. Several jeweled rings that appeared to be the real thing glittered from her bony fingers. She might have been in her seventies.

  “My condolences about Bridget. On a happier note, I’m thrilled to meet you, Iris, and I want to congratulate you on your new home.” Marge spoke slowly, carefully enunciating each word, smiling all the while.

  “Thank you,” Iris said. “This is my mother, Rose Thorne, and my sister, Lily Rossi.”

  “I’m very pleased to meet you,” Marge said. “And I’m glad that this charming house has found a good owner. I always thought it was just the sweetest thing.”

  “I’m so proud of Iris,” Rose gushed. “She’s still single, but she hasn’t let that stand in the way of her making a home for herself.”

  Iris glowered at her mother.

  “We ladies need to know how to live on our own.” Marge fastidiously ran a manicured finger across the wave in her hair. “Men are wonderful when you have them, but they just don’t last.”

  “Th
at’s what my daughters and I were discussing when you came in,” Rose said enthusiastically, thinking she had a reinforcement for her side. “I’ve been divorced for many years and my daughter’s headed that way.”

  Lily scowled but said nothing.

  “Are you married, Marge?” Rose was never one for subtlety.

  Iris glared at her mother to no avail. Rose ignored her.

  “Oh, noo.” Marge widened her eyes.

  “I’m divorced, too,” Rose offered.

  “When I said that men don’t last, I meant literally.” Marge chuckled and pressed her fingertips against Rose’s arm. “You see, I’ve been widowed three times. I was married to three of the most wonderful men in the world. Lost them all.”

  “They died?” Lily asked. “What happened?”

  “Lily!” Iris was consistently mortified by her family’s lack of manners and good taste.

  “Oh, I don’t mind, love. I married my first husband, Ely, just before the war. I helped him establish his business, Nayton Manufacturing Company. He made nuts, bolts, screws, and such. It was very prosperous during the war. I ran it while he was overseas, fighting in Europe. We built our house, the one next door to you, in ‘48. We had a son in ‘50. Shortly after that, Ely died. Dropped dead of a heart attack.”

  “Poor thing, left to raise a child on your own,” Rose commiserated. “I know how hard that can be.”

  “I married Herb in ‘76. He died in ‘87. Heart attack.” Marge leaned forward as if to divulge a secret. “Happened when we were having sex.” She paused. “Most embarrassing. But I was glad that Herb died happy. Then I married Dub in ‘89. Pour soul wasn’t around too long after that.”

  “Heart attack?” Iris ventured.

  “Oh, noo, love. He drove his car off the bluff one night. I told him his night vision was failing, but he was too proud to admit it.” With her thumb and middle finger, Marge turned a gold watch that was loose on her thin wrist so she could see the face. “I’ve got to skedaddle. I have a million errands to run.” With a swoop of her hand, she gestured toward the platter of sandwiches, like a game show hostess. “I made an assortment of sandwiches—cucumber, watercress, egg salad. I hope there’s something there for everyone.”