The Real Werewives of Vampire County - By Alexandra Ivy Page 0,85
Thing One and Thing Two from The Cat in the Hat, sans the red suits—racing up and down the front sidewalk, screeching at the top of their lungs like stuck pigs. Oh, and they were smiling. It would seem they were making that noise for the hell of it.
Immediately, I unchecked the Have Kids box on my mental Ultimate Things to Do list. With my luck, my kids would possess supersized lungs like these two lovely angels. And the energy of a pack of hyenas.
As I was about to go back inside, a serene-looking Samantha strolled onto her porch. Seeing me, she smiled and waved.
Before I could ask her whom the little monsters belonged to—thank God, that could’ve been a bad thing—they started trotting toward her, yelling, “Mama!”
Poor woman.
As I watched them bounce around her like jumping beans, knocking flowerpots over and trampling the petunias, I concluded she was either an angel or on Valium. There could be no other explanation for how she maintained her cool while chaos erupted all around her.
I returned her wave when she glanced my way, and in she went, following on the heels of Things One and Two. The blissful silence returned.
There wasn’t anything interesting to watch now, so back in I went. I headed down to my girl-cave and got to work. Roughly an hour later, I heard the doorbell. Being a girl who had lived in the city for years, I was starting to have some serious people-withdrawal. All this quiet, the solitude, the peace, it was getting to me.
I opened the door. Samantha. Smiling. As usual, she was wearing pristine vintage clothing—Chanel today—and her hair and makeup were flawless. If I was going to start spending a lot of time with this woman—which was still very much in question—I was going to have to do better than sloppy sweats and a ponytail. After all, I was a clothing designer. “Hello, are you busy?”
“Nope. Come in.” I ushered her inside, to the kitchen. “Something to drink?”
“No thanks.” She settled on a bar stool and watched as I poured myself a diet cola. She waved away a second offer at a glass.
I sat beside her. “Your children are very ... energetic. Very cute.” I wondered where they were now.
“Thank you. They’re napping.”
“Ah.” I sipped my cola, wondering if Samantha had come over for some adult time or if she wanted to talk about something specific.
“Have you had any luck with your little investigation?” she asked.
Aha, so there was an ulterior motive. “I have. I learned Jon has an airtight alibi. But that’s as far as I’ve gotten. I don’t even know what sort of evidence was found when the police arrived.”
“I do,” she said. “I came to return Michelle’s Cuisinart. She’d loaned it to me a few days before. I was the one who found her.”
Hadn’t Jon said he was the one who discovered her? Had he lied? Or forgotten?
“Okay, so tell me. What did you see? Blood? Signs of a struggle?”
“No, none of those.” Samantha spun the swiveling stool around, so her back was facing the counter. “She was right there, lying on the floor, a wire dog cable hanging around her neck.”
“And ... ?” When Samantha didn’t add any more details, I asked, looking up, at the ceiling, wondering how the former Mrs. Stewart had hung herself. “Is that all?”
“Yes, that’s all.”
“Am I missing something? A broken window? Signs of a struggle?”
“No. There was none of that.”
“Then what makes you think it wasn’t suicide?”
“First, the cable wasn’t attached to anything. It was just looped around her neck. Did she strangle herself by holding it there? Can you do that? Second, can you think of anyone who has killed herself in the middle of her kitchen? It’s such an odd place to pick. Could you imagine her strolling around her house, that cable knotted around her neck, and her stopping right there saying, ‘I think I’ll die right here,’ and pulling the chain? And third, Michelle would never do anything so ... dirty ... in her kitchen. She was a germ-aphobe, especially when it came to Joshua. He’d been sick a lot that summer. She was bleaching and Lysoling everything. If she ever thought to kill herself, she’d do it someplace safe, somewhere easy to clean, like her bathroom. And I told the detective that.”
“Strangled?” I stared at the floor, almost able to picture Michelle Stewart lying there, her sightless eyes staring back at me. I shivered.