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There were no window coverings and the light spilled in through a haze of construction dust. The powder blue wall-to-wall shag carpeting had been installed recently, because I could still see bits and pieces-tufts and scraps-left behind by the flooring guys. The couch and two matching chairs were upholstered in a cream-colored chenille. On the coffee table, she’d arranged a stack of decorator magazines, a centerpiece of pale blue silk flowers, and a cluster of color photographs in silver frames. The three girls portrayed were variations of their mother-same eyes, same smile, and the same thick blond hair. Their ages seemed to fall within a six-year range. The oldest was probably thirteen, braces gleaming on her teeth. The other two girls stair-stepped down from eleven to nine. The middle girl was decked out in a majorette’s uniform, a baton held aloft.
Kathy returned to the living room with a tumbler of ice water in hand. She found a coaster and moved toward a conversational grouping of navy blue club chairs with a glass-topped table in the center as though for a conference of some kind. I pictured a meeting of the neighborhood association during which other people’s tacky yard ornaments would come under fire. She took one chair and I sat across from her, taking a mental snapshot without having to stare. I pegged her at a youthful forty-eight or forty-nine. She was thin in a way that suggested strict attention to her weight. She seemed high-strung, but having caught her on the back end of a workout, I knew her energy level might have been the result of an hour of strenuous exercise. She looked as though she’d spent the summer working on her tan, and I imagined an above-ground pool in the backyard of the house she’d just left.
“Those are your daughters?” I asked.
“Yes, but the pictures are out of date. Tiffany was twelve when that was taken. She’s twenty-five now and getting married June of next year.”
“Nice fellow?”
“A doll. He’s in law school at UCLA, so they’ll be living down there.”
“And the other two?”
“Amber’s twenty-three; she was a majorette in her junior high school band. She’s technically in her senior year of college, but she’s taking a year off to travel. Brittany turns twenty next month. She’s at Allan Hancock,” she said, naming the local community college.
“They look just like you. Must be quite a crew.”
“Oh, they’re great. We have a good time together. You want to see the rest of the house?”
“I’d love to.”
She got up and I followed her.
“ When did you move in?”
“A week ago. The place is still a mess,” she said, talking over her shoulder as we moved down the hall. “I’ve got half the boxes unpacked and most things in place, but some of the rooms won’t be furnished until god knows when. I need to find a decorator I can get along with. Most are so pushy. Have you ever noticed that?”
“I’ve never worked with one.”
“Well, don’t if you can help it.”
She walked me through the house, pointing out the obvious: the empty dining room, butler’s pantry, eat-in kitchen, mud room, and laundry room. Through the kitchen windows I could see the backyard, which consisted of a poured concrete patio sitting like an island in a sea of raw dirt. Upstairs there were five bedrooms-a master suite, a bedroom for each of the girls, and a guest room, devoid of furniture. She chattered on and on, her prime interest focused on her decorating schemes. I found myself making chirpy, insincere remarks. “Oh, I’ve always been crazy about Louie the Fourteenth. That’ll look great in here.”
“You think?”
“Absolutely. You couldn’t do better than that.”
Tiffany’s bedroom walls were painted a pale cream. The furniture was in place, but I got the impression that she wasn’t moving in. Her sights were set on the future, when she’d be married and coming back for holidays with her husband and kids in tow. Amber’s room was stark purple and had the same unoccupied air. Brittany, at nineteen, still clung to her collection of stuffed animals. The color scheme she’d chosen was pink and white-stripes, checks, and florals. Everything had ruffles, including the dressing table, the bed skirt, and the canopy that arched over her four-poster bed. Kathy detailed a number of triumphs each of the girls had chalked up, but I’d tuned her out by then.
Tramping down the stairs, I said, “The house is wonderful.”
“Thanks. I like it,” she said, flashing me a smile.
“What sort of work does your husband do?”
“He sells cars.”
“Like your father.”
“He works for Daddy.”
“Great. I’ll introduce myself. I’ll be going by the dealership in the next couple of days to chat with your father about Violet. Didn’t he sell her that car?”
“Yes, but I doubt he can tell you any more than I can.”
“Every little bit helps. It’s like working on a jigsaw puzzle without the picture on the box. Right now, I don’t even know what I’m looking at.”
Returning to the living room, Kathy sat on the couch and I took a matching upholstered chair. She picked up her glass and rattled the ice, drinking off the half an inch of water that had accumulated in our absence.
“How well did you know Violet?” I asked.
“Not well. I was fourteen years old and never had much to do with her. My mother hated her guts. The irony is, six months after Mom died? Daddy married a woman who looked just like Violet-same dyed red hair, same white-trash ways. Caroleena’s pushing forty-five, three years younger than me, if you can believe that. I’d hoped it was a phase, but they’ve been married twenty years so I guess she’s here to stay. More’s the pity.”
I said, “Ah,” for lack of anything better.
She caught my tone and said, “It’s embarrassing, but what’re you going to do? I guess I should be glad he has someone to look after him. Saves me the aggravation. Of course, I’d be willing to bet if he ever gets sick, Caroleena’s heading out the door.”
“What’s the age spread between the two?”
“Thirty-six years.”
“Wow.”
“‘Wow’ is right. When they married, he was sixty-one and she was twenty-five. Don’t even bother asking me what’s in it for her. She lives well and she knows how to get anything she wants,” she said, rubbing her thumb against her index finger, indicating money.
I felt my brow lift, wondering if the ‘new’ Mrs. Cramer would be acing Chet’s only daughter out of her inheritance. “What about Violet? You must have had some sense of her.”
“Oh, please. I had the same opinions my mother did. She made sure of that. Violet was flashy, but that was about it. Men followed her around like a pack of dogs so I guess she had something. Whatever it was, it went over my head.”
“You went to the fireworks that night?”
She straightened the edges of the decorator magazines. “Yes. Liza and I were supposed to go together, but Violet asked her to babysit so that was that. I think Liza went over there at six o’clock to get Daisy bathed and ready for bed.”
“Did you happen to see Foley at the park?”
“Sure. For a while, he was talking to my mom. He’d stopped off at the Blue Moon and he was drunk as usual, so he and my mom got into it.”
“About what?”
“Who knows?”
“Did you talk to him yourself?”
“Not me. I was scared of him as it was and I didn’t want to have anything to do with him.”
“Did you ever keep Liza company when she was babysitting?”
“Once in a while. I’m glad Mom never found out, or she’d have had a fit. She was a teetotaler who thought all the evil in the world came out of a bottle.”
“What was it about Foley that scared you?”
“What didn’t? His violence, his temper, the way he lashed out. With him, you never knew what was coming next. I figured if he was willing to hit Violet, why not Liza or me?”
“Did you ever see him hit Violet?”
“No, but I saw the evidence after the fact. That was good enough for me.”