took a zip 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. Had that pitcher been full? Mary wondered.
“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 about Brent that has to do with his murder.”
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. “Goddamn you, you stupid bitch!”
“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 fuck 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 spoke up. “Hah! She’s a smart-ass, just like Brent!” Rachel said.
“I’m just going to come out and say it,” Fran said.
“Here she goes…” Helen said, shrugging her shoulders and walking toward the bar with the empty pitcher.
“We illegally…” Fran started to say.
“Hit me,” Helen said to Rachel, who had the last remains of a pitcher of more Cosmos and dutifully filled Helen’s glass again.
“-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 fucking harem,” Helen offered from the kitchen where she’d splashed together another pitcher of Cosmos. 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 fucked 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 cock 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 cock,” Helen said, a wistful note in her voice.
“Nice balls, too,” Rachel said. “I loved his balls.”
“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 fuck 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.”