Caught In The Act. Gayle Roper
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at all those lights,” Jolene said in disgust.
“They’re wonderful,” I said, mesmerized.
She gave her unladylike snort. “Arnie loves lights. When he was a kid, they didn’t have any money. I mean none. His mother would only let them have one light on at a time, and that was a sixty watt. Now he puts on every light in the house, all a hundred watt. You need sunglasses at midnight! ‘I can afford it,’ he yells. ‘Don’t you turn a single switch off!’”
I grabbed my camera from the backseat. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about using a flash.
“Has the paper ever done a feature on this place?” I asked. I could see it as the first in a series of Great Homes of Chester County, some new like this, some historic, some remodeled places like the barn over on Route 322. I’d have to talk to Edie Whatley, the home page editor. This was more her territory than mine, but I’d love to do such a series.
I stopped halfway up the walk and stared at the magnificence of it all. “Why live at your condo when you have this?”
“Because Arnie goes with this.”
I’d never met Arnie, but how bad could the man be if he could provide all this electricity? “Why did you two break up, Jolene?”
“Irreconcilable differences.”
“Yeah? What about?” I leaned to the left, peered into the dining room and admired the crystal chandelier over the mile-long cherry table. I stared at the silver tea service sitting on the sideboard. Like Jolene ever served tea.
Suddenly I could hear my mom, loud and clear.
Merrileigh Kramer! What are you doing, asking such personal questions about the demise of Jolene’s marriage? How rude can you get? Apologize right this instant!
It’s the opulence, Mom. It threw me.
It’s greed, Merry. And poor manners-which you never learned from me.
I placed a hand on Jo’s arm. “I’m sorry. I had no right to ask what went wrong. That’s your private concern.”
“I don’t care,” she said. “Everyone asks. Even my parents.” She turned and opened the door.
I blinked. Even her parents? If I ever separated from a husband, should I ever actually get one, my parents would be first in line asking why. And I’d better have a very good reason, too.
I followed Jolene inside, my heels click-clicking on the parquet floor of the entry foyer. Ahead of us, rising to the second floor in a great curving sweep, was a staircase worthy of Scarlett and Rhett.
The foyer walls were covered with a yellow and cream floral sateen with thin navy stripes running through the pattern. I reached out a finger, and it bounced on the batting beneath the fabric. This was real class.
Jolene ignored the beauty of it all and kept talking. Of course she’d seen it all before.
“Arnie and me had differences over everything.” She waved at the foyer chandelier. “Electricity. Me working. Eating dinner at my parents.” I knew Jolene ate there every night. “Where to go on vacations. What wallpaper to pick. Can you believe he hated this?” She pointed at the fabric.
Arnie was obviously a philistine.
“Then we couldn’t decide whether to buy a weekend place down the shore or up the mountains. And he couldn’t decide on fidelity.”
I was so busy photographing the yellow living room with its pale yellow carpeting and its accent wall of navy paper patterned with white daisies that I almost missed Jolene’s last comment.
I lowered my camera and looked at her with compassion and sympathy, but she was stalking across the foyer toward the back of the house, apparently uninterested in my commiseration.
“Arnie!” she bellowed. “Where are you? I haven’t got all day. Dinner’s waiting and you aren’t invited.”
I followed her, my head swiveling as I walked. Suddenly I stopped before a painting of a Chester County stone farmhouse surrounded by snow-laden evergreens. I checked the bottom right corner, though I already knew what I’d see. Curtis Carlyle. GTG.
“Jolene, you’ve got an original Carlyle! How come you never told me?”
She stopped and turned to look at the picture. She shrugged. “I forgot. But I’ve got a question for you. What’s that GTG thing in the corner after his name?”
“He puts that on all his work. It stands for Glory to God.”
She looked at me without comprehension, then at the picture.
“It means that he’s thanking God for the talent and opportunity to paint,” I explained.
“Oh.” She looked at the picture once more, shrugged again, and continued her trek across the vast expanse of foyer.
I stretched out my hand and traced Curt’s name and the GTG. What a great guy he was.
I turned back to Jolene just as she entered the kitchen. In profile she was as beautiful as she was full on. I raised my camera, flicked the switch to continuous exposure, and pressed.
As the lens click-clicked, she stopped abruptly, frozen. I heard a quick intake of breath and saw a flash of tightening jaw through the viewfinder. Then she let out an unearthly shriek.
“Arnie!” She ran into the kitchen, out of my line of sight. “No! No! Arnie!”
The hairs on my arms rose at her tone, and I ran into the kitchen myself. I froze for an instant, too.
On the floor by the stove lay Arnie, staring upwards, blood puddling beneath and beside him on the yellow tiles. Jolene knelt in the blood, shaking him, calling him, trying to rouse him.
She would never succeed.
THREE
Poor Arnie. He would never need all his lights on ever again.
I set my camera on the table, ran to Jolene and caught her by the shoulders.
“Jo, come on away from him,” I said softly. “The police won’t want us to touch him or move him.”
“Merry, we’ve got to help him!” Her brown eyes shimmered with tears and pain. “CPR! Do you know CPR?”
I knelt and hugged her. I could feel the sticky blood beneath my knees. “Jo, it won’t help. He’s dead.”
“No, he’s not!” She reached for him again. “He’s still warm.”
I pulled her hands back. “He’s dead,” I repeated softly. “Someone has killed him. We don’t want to move him or do anything that would cover up evidence.”
She stared at me. “Someone killed him?”
We turned together and looked at Arnie. He stared blindly at the ceiling, gravity pulling his eyelids back into his skull. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to the elbows and one pant leg was crumpled about his calf. There was a round hole in the left lower chest area of his tan button-down shirt, not far below his heart. Blood had soaked his shirt front, though it wasn’t flowing anymore. Arnie’s heart no longer pumped.
I didn’t want to think about the exit wound beneath him from which blood must have rushed in a torrent. It was hard to comprehend that the great pool of it covering the yellow tiles had recently flowed through his veins as surely as mine swept through my body.
“Come away, Jo.” I stood and pulled her up with me. “We need to call the police.”
I led her to the kitchen table and pushed her into a chair. I grabbed the wall phone and dialed 911.
“Jo,” I said as I hung up in spite of the fact that the 911 voice wanted me to stay on the line. “Is there someone else we should call?”
She looked