Read Online A Flower in the Desert by Walter Satterthwait - Free Book Online Page A

seeing.”
    Another sour smile. “Roy’s full of shit. Melissa couldn’t care less about that bimbo.”
    â€œWhich bimbo might that be?”
    â€œShana Eberle. Christ. Talk about a star-fucker.”
    â€œYou know her?”
    â€œEveryone in town knows her. Has known her, in the biblical sense. She’s humped everyone but Lassie.” Another smile. “And we’re not really sure about Lassie. She’s keeping mum.”
    â€œYou’re saying Melissa isn’t a jealous woman.”
    â€œJealous of Shana Eberle?” Amusement and scorn showed in the wide red mouth, the dark green eyes. “She thought it was a joke.”
    â€œIs she normally a jealous woman?”
    â€œNo more than most.”
    â€œHow jealous is that?”
    Her face tightened slightly in annoyance. “What’s jealousy got to do with anything? She was divorced from the scumbag, the marriage was over, she was getting on with her life. And then she found out what her asshole ex-husband was doing to Winona. It tore her up. It would’ve torn anybody up. What Roy did to Winona was vile. But I can tell you one thing, she wasn’t jealous of Shana Eberle.”
    â€œAll right,” I said. “She isn’t a jealous woman.” But I assumed, from all the smoke Edie Carpenter was putting out, that she was. Perhaps she hadn’t actually been jealous of Shana Eberle; but if she had been, I wouldn’t learn about it from Edie. “What kind of woman was she?”
    She frowned. “How do you mean?”
    â€œWhat’s she like? I don’t know her, Mrs. Carpenter. I need to get some kind of a handle on her. I need to know who she is. Maybe then I can figure out where she’s gone. The two of you were friends.”
    â€œFriends, but not all that close.”
    â€œWhat’s she like?”
    â€œShe’s a do-gooder. Your typical kindhearted cheerleader. Very sincere, very sweet, and just a teensy-weensy bit boring.”
    Friends, but not all that close.
    I asked, “How did you meet her?”
    She smiled. A small, self-amused smile that told me she was keeping secrets, and didn’t mind letting me know that she was. “At a party.”
    â€œWhat kind of party?”
    She shrugged. “Who can remember L.A. parties?” But the smile, although diminished now, was still there. I was supposed to guess why, apparently.
    I said, “She was married to Roy at the time?”
    She nodded.
    â€œDid you ever meet her sister, Cathryn?”
    She shrugged lightly, dismissively. “Once. She joined us for lunch. Mousy little thing. A librarian.”
    She said this as though the single word somehow encapsulated the woman’s entire life. As though it were an epitaph.
    I started disliking her again. “You do know,” I said, “that she was murdered last week.”
    Nodding, she said, “I read about it. This town is getting worse than Chicago in the thirties.”
    â€œWere Cathryn and Melissa close?”
    â€œThey were sisters. They kept in touch. But close? It looked to me like Cathryn wasn’t close to anyone.” Abruptly she narrowed her green eyes. “You don’t think that Cathryn’s getting killed has anything to do with Melissa?”
    I said to her the same thing I’d said to Bradley, the homicide cop. “One sister disappears, the other’s killed a few months later. It’s possible there’s a connection.”
    She looked off for a moment, thoughtfully. For the first time I believed that what she was doing was genuine and not a performance. Then she shook her head, looked back at me. “People are getting killed in Los Angeles all the time.”
    â€œBut they’re not related to Melissa Alonzo.”
    â€œHow could what happened to Cathryn have anything to do with Melissa?”
    â€œI don’t know yet. Maybe it doesn’t.”
    â€œIt doesn’t,” she