Chapter 28. Nelson
His guarded voice had always betrayed him: it usually meant he wasn’t alone.
“I’m at The Coaching House,” she said. “Room 412.”
“Really?” His voice changed immediately. Panic? Longing? Fear?
“Honey’s been killed.”
It was decisive. He said, “I’ll come immediately.”
All the rooms at the Coaching House looked the same, and like Pasteur’s dogs, she had learned to slaver in every one. Would she again? It was hard for her mind to imagine, but the body doesn’t forget.
She sat on the bed in the nondescript chamber, under a blurry painting of The Four Zoas and tried to think what she would say to the man who had once been her lover. How much could she tell him, when what she told Honey had gotten her friend killed?
He didn’t even know Honey. They had never met, but they cordially loathed each other from a distance while they struggled for the rights to Jacquetta’s soul.
He wore a suit; she should have been expecting that; after all, it was a workday. She preferred him naked; but she shouldn’t allow herself to think about that. She had to let him in at the door; that meant they were close enough to hug. At once her disloyal body woke up, just like a dog, re-playing so many delicious feedings from the master’s hand.
She backed away in disarray, sitting down on the single armchair; why hadn’t she met him in the coffee shop for God’s sake? Why a hotel room? Because she craved privacy to cry, to shriek, tear her hair, throw herself down on the carpet wailing…
He sat on the bed.“What happened?”
She was going to have to tell him. She simply could not do this alone.
“If I tell you, your life’s at risk too,” she said first, knowing he never cared for things like that. The interesting part was watching the disbelief in his eyes give way to a kind of confused sadness; how could even the most outrageous statements be taken for hyperbole when Honey was dead?
“I accept everything,” he said finally, “I thought I told you. Just tell me what happened.”
“Coming back from my last day of work I met an old lady on the train and we fell into conversation. She said she was impressed–“ Jacquetta finally had the grace to blush, “with the whole monastery thing and she wanted to consult me about a problem with an evil person in her life. One of us mentioned the word, “sociopath.”
“Probably you,” he said. Same old Nelson. “Accepting everything” obviously didn’t mean agreeing with her, promoting or even soothing her ego. Jacquetta had ignored this as much as she possibly could in the past and she wasn’t going to make an exception now.
“She invited me to lunch to talk, but before we could meet, she – died.”
He picked up on her intonation. “Murder most foul?”
“Nothing else makes sense. But before she died, she put me in her will and left me six thousand dollars.”
Ironic skepticism – his natural pose – surfaced beneath his patient, listening expression and struggled a moment for dominance. She ignored it.
“She also left me a library of books on stained glass where I think she hid a message – but one of the books was destroyed before I could get to it.”
“No other personal directive?”
She could see how this was going to go; he would play lawyer.
“No. It was Beatrix Rainbeaux – one of the Glasstown founders.”
“So, rich,” he put in. “Powerful.”
“Yes. I met the family at the will reading and they are a nasty bunch.”
“But if she didn’t actually disinherit any of them doesn’t that mean –“
She ignored him.
“I sent –“ This was the hard part and her voice faltered – “I sent Honey to Iridium, the Rainbeaux house, to search for something.”
Now he gasped. “How’d you do that?”
I’m going to cry, thought Jacquetta and if I cry I’ll never get this out. She made a monumental effort. “She was excited about playing detective. She met Avalon Powell –“
“Avalon Powell?”
She wasn’t going to ignore his astonished expression.
“You know her?”
“Well…” she hated watching him equivocate while she had undressed her whole soul; “She’s…everywhere. She’s hard to ignore.”
“How well do you know her?” She raised an eyebrow.
“Not THAT well. I’ve met her,” Nelson admitted. “She…wants publicity. And her husband needs it.”
Well, that was true. So far as it went. Rather than believing or unbelieving she moved on. If she didn’t unburden herself, if she didn’t pass this torch to a healthy runner, she’d go under.
“Honey impersonated a home buyer, and I called Avalon to tie her up so Honey could snoop. She found Miss Rainbeaux’s date book and that told us two things more.”
He poured himself a glass of water. She refused one.
“Apparently the day I met her Miss Rainbeaux was coming back from looking up a D.L. LeRoi in Brooklyn, so I thought I ought to look her up, too.”
“Her?”
There was that lawyer again.
“The landlord told me the room was rented by a pretty brunette who described herself as the secretary of Roxelle Shields.”
“Roxelle Shields!”
“You know her, too?” Jacquetta commented sourly.
“Everyone knows her. Everyone male,” he conceded.
“Well, Honey had heard of her.” The very name was difficult to say. She soldiered on. “I called the bar Shields owned but they wouldn’t let me talk to her and they said she doesn’t have a secretary.”
“We should still pay her a visit,” said Nelson.
Jacquetta relaxed the tiniest bit. At least he was offering to help. He would try to take over of course – that was his nature – but she knew she couldn’t do this alone. It was unsafe, for one thing.
“The apartment was empty. It looked like a love nest to me.”
“What does an empty love nest look like?” He was trying not to smile. Already she was out of love with him.
“Satin sheets? Massage oils?”
“Hardly empty,” he defended himself.
“They were in the trash, along with a box of stationery and a broken anklet with Avalon’s initial. Then I went to Avalon’s Open House and I…took a piece of mail.”
“You stole a piece of mail?”
“I don’t know if it’s stealing when the person is deceased.”
“It is,” he corrected, “But I’ve done worse.”
“Her datebook said she was meeting with a “Benson” every week for months. But there are a lot of Bensons in the world. The letter was a returned one of Miss Rainbeaux’s to a private investigator who turned out to be dead, too.”
That slowed him down! All he could say was, “Wow.”
“Wow. Right. She was sending him an anonymous letter she had obviously received. I’m guessing he asked her to send any more letters on to him.”
“But he died?”
“Shot with his own gun and his office was burned down.”
“Holy cow,” said Nelson, “Do the police know any of this?”
“Thy don’t have it connected up,” said Jacquetta. “They probably don’t know about the letters.”
“So then -?” his face fell. He knew it could only get worse.
“The au pair told me Avalon was having an affair with Neil Dettler, the family lawyer.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. I’d guess there’s a long list of Mrs. Powell’s passions.”
Mrs. Powell’s Passions sounded like a sixties rock band. Jacquetta thought she personally would be surprised to find out Avalon loved anything but lucre, but why bring that up at this point?
“And his wife, Penny Dettler, said she received one of the anonymous letters.”
“So, we don’t know how many people got them.”
“We don’t. And I just got back…just got back today and…” this was a struggle – “Honey was dead.” She wept.
He came to sit beside her. “God, I’m sorry,” he said.
“The apartment as all torn up but – I have the letters. Maybe they got the datebook, I don’t know. The police hustled me out of there.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I don’t know how to tell them anything. They’re looking at Honey’s boyfriend, for God’s sake.”
“I’ll help you,” he said. “We’ll do it together.”
He was taking over, like he took over her body. Right now. But why fight it when she wanted – when she needed him so much? She wanted to be whirled away, outside the reach of her sore brain. She clung to him as to a life raft to prevent her from drowning.
Alysse Aallyn 
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