The third was the quiet one. Her name was Rachel and she took herself out of the picture quite literally, standing off to the side so Mary had to turn her head to see her. She had black hair and a worn face but a body that Mary would kill for.
“So, what, you’re his niece, you said?” the leader, Helen, said.
“That’s right,” Mary said.
“So what do you want? We told the police everything we knew.”
“And what was that? What did you know?”
“Can’t you ask the cops for all that?” Helen’s voice was deep and stern. This woman could have been an Admiral in the Navy, Mary thought.
“I know this is shocking, but they just don’t seem to enjoy sharing everything they know about murder cases with civilians.”
The other two women glanced at Helen, as if curious to see how she would react to someone actually standing up to her.
“You don’t have to get snippy,” Helen said.
“I’m not asking the cops,” Mary said, her voice softer but not to the point of pleading. “I’m asking you to help me. Someone murdered my uncle, and I’d like to help find out who. Is there anything you ladies can tell me?”
“Nothing,” Helen said. “At least, nothing useful. The cops pretty much told us that.”
“Well — ” Fran started to say, leaning her head to the side as if she were walking a tightrope, looking for her balance.
“Shut it,” Helen snapped. She glared at Fran then turned her gaze back on Mary. She took a sip of her Cosmo and watched Mary over the rim of the glass.
Rachel, who so far hadn’t said a word, walked over to the dining room table where a glass pitcher sat, nearly empty. She poured some into a glass, then came over and refilled Helen’s. Mary wondered if that entire pitcher had been full and if so, how recently.
“She’s probably with the police,” Fran whispered to Helen. She widened her eyes for emphasis. “Maybe she works in the drug department.”
“Oh, Christ!” Helen shot back. “Why don’t you just go play with your vibrator?” Helen then spoke to Mary. “Just ignore her. Look, this is a small community, everyone knows everyone at Palm Terrace. Hell, we could all probably show the cops a thing or two when it comes to surveillance. But we really don’t know anything.”
Fran got up and paced behind the couch. Mary watched her and thought, Come on, crack, Fran. Crack.
“So why did the police talk to just you three?” Mary said. She had no idea if that was true, that they hadn’t questioned anyone else at the building, but if she was wrong the ladies would correct her.
They didn’t.
Mary put the thousand-yard stare on Fran, the weak link.
Helen drained the last of her Cosmo in one long swallow. She started to speak but then Mary saw a shudder run through Fran’s body. Fran wheeled on Mary.
“It’s our fault!” she said.
Helen slammed down her glass and jumped to her feet. “Goddamnit!”
“I can’t survive in prison!” Fran shouted back. “Do you know what those big nasty guards would do? I’ve got a nice ass! They’d be all over me trying to…”
“…trying to get you to shut the hell up!” Helen shouted.
“Are you with the drug people? The AFT? The ATM? What are they called?” Fran asked Mary.
“No, I’m not with the police or the government. But I do like drugs. All kinds really,” Mary said. “I sniffed a bunch of glue on my way over here, actually.”
Now the quiet one, Rachel, spoke up. “Hah! She’s a smart-ass, just like Brent!”
“I’m just going to come out and say it,” Fran said.
“Here she goes…” Helen said, shrugging her shoulders and walking toward the kitchen.
“We illegally…” Fran started to say.
“Hit me,” Helen said to Rachel, who had put together a fresh pitcher of Cosmos and now dutifully refilled Helen’s glass.
“…filled Viagra prescriptions,” Fran finished.
Mary closed her eyes. She hadn’t really been expecting these ladies to confess to her uncle’s murder, but still. Viagra?
“Are you going to arrest us?” Fran said.
“They were for my uncle, weren’t they?” Mary said. “That’s why the police talked to you?”
“We were his harem,” Helen offered. Apparently, now that Fran had dumped the goods out for all to see, she had thrown in the towel, too.
“Okay?” Helen said. “We all took turns. We shared him. But it started to get to be too much for him. And we were at each other’s throats because say, if Rachel did Brent in the afternoon, he couldn’t get hard for me in the evening…”
“Please…” Mary started to say.
“…he’d be a goddamn limp noodle for me,” Helen said, glaring at Rachel.
“We had his schlong on timeshare,” Fran said, her nervous energy rapidly changing into giddy relief.
“And his balls, too,” Rachel said, her words now slightly slurring.
“He had a nice tool,” Helen said, a wistful note in her voice.
“And he sure knew how to use it,” Rachel said.
“Ladies!” Mary said. “I don’t need the details. I really don’t.”
“So we had to come up with a system for Viagra,” Helen continued. “Because his prescription wasn’t enough. So we got another guy here to have his doctor prescribe it, then we reimbursed him, plus we’d give him a little something extra for his effort.”
“But you didn’t have anything to do with his murder,” Mary said.
“Not unless you count trying to screw him to death,” Rachel said. Both Helen and Fran giggled.
“Not unless you count sitting on his face and trying to smother him,” Rachel said, on a roll.
“Stop, okay?”
The ladies were barely able to stifle their giggles.
“No, I don’t believe any of that would hold up in court as attempted murder,” Mary said. “Did you have anything else to offer the police?”
“Just the last time we saw him, which was Rachel,” Helen said.
“Well, technically,” Rachel said. “I didn’t see him because he was behind me the whole time.” Rachel thrust her hips forward and made an ass-slapping motion with her hand.
“Why do I feel like I’m in a locker room?” Mary said.
“When we did it doggy, he used to do this trick…”
“With his thumb, right?” Fran said.
“Thank you, ladies!” Mary pulled out her card. “Call me if you think of anything not involving details of my deceased uncle’s genitalia.”
“We’re always here to help,” Helen said with a straight face. “But we’ve got nothing else to tell you.”
Mary opened the door.
“Come back anytime, Mary!” Fran called out.
Chapter Eighteen
“You sure that’s all you want, baby? Information?”
Mary leaned against the door frame of the dressing room, if you could call it that, behind the stage at the Leg Pull. Cecil, the manager, hadn’t lied to her about when the comedian who might know the identity of Brent’s ‘friend’ would be performing.
She looked at Jimmy Miles, a fifty-ish black guy wearing a glittery shirt and shiny black pants. A half a bottle of Jheri Curl had to be in his hair.
“Liberace know you’re wearing his shirt?” she said.
She had come directly from her office where she’d tied up some loose ends on another case, filed paperwork, and cleared her e-mail. She’d also tried to erase from her memory banks the X-rated information she’d received from the three Senior Nymphs at Palm Terrace. It wasn’t an easy thing to do.