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“You fought with her all the time,” Leslie said.
“If you didn’t like Felicia, you fought with her, there wasn’t much in between. And we didn’t like each other. Besides ladies …” There was a mocking tone in her voice, a look in her eye as if she was imagining the two detectives in bondage. “ … I was at the club the night she died, you can check that with the crowd there, they know me well. Even the police, as inefficient as they are, have already figured that out.”
“The club?” Robin asked.
“Sapphos In Chains,” Jane replied.
Robin had heard of it.
“And those ropes,” Jane continued. “Anyone can tie expert knots in minutes. It’s hardly an art.”
“If you didn’t commit the crime, who do you think did?” Robin asked.
“Any of those dames in the big house, who’s to say? Probably Betsy, she may look like an innocent little thing, but she’s a hellion at heart.”
“You know firsthand?” Robin asked.
“Wish I did, but no. I could have really given that wench a good time, better than Felicia. Miss High Horse always pressed people too hard; she didn’t understand tact, and timing and how to use a little gentleness with her obsessions. Then again, that’s likely what killed her, the obsession made her lose her judgment, not that she ever had good judgment, she’d just run out of lives. You know, like a cat, she was on the ninth.” Even as she spoke of Felicia with a healthy degree of scorn, a trace of melancholy remained in her voice.
“Thank you for your help,” Leslie said, with a hasty grin.
The woman nodded and returned to her work.
Leslie and Robin meandered toward the garden on their way to their cars. Stopping at a small patio at the center of the wild vegetation, Leslie eyed an attractive stone fountain, unused, and now filled with dark shiny leaves floating with algae on top of the stagnant water. Rising from the center of the decaying piece, was Venus, naked, standing in an alluring pose of beckoning, with downcast eyes and a facial expression that betrayed her lust.
“Felicia posed for it,” Robin said.
“Why does that not surprise me,” Leslie said, while admiring the simplicity of the well-carved stone. It had once been a lovely statue.
“I watched her for two weeks, standing stock still in the middle of this garden, exactly where the fountain stands now. There was some cosmic reason for that, which escapes me now,” Robin explained, “she was quite stimulating, shivering here with nothing on. It was fall, just before the bad weather, when the days are still warm. I remember the leaves, like they are now, beginning to fall, the red and orange and brown making the picture look as sad as any autumn day. She insisted on posing nude like that even when it was getting too cold. She had to have the work finished by spring, although she was really mad that she couldn’t find a female stone cutter, and all her secrets were carved by a man. Just goes to show that Felicia didn’t always get everything she wanted.”
“What did she want?” Leslie asked. “I mean, for all her wild lifestyle, what was she looking for?”
“I’m not really sure,” Robin answered with a bit of a melancholy sigh, “I certainly don’t think she knew. I suppose if you asked her, she’d tell you what she wanted for that instant. But whether she got what she really needed? I doubt it.”
“So what do you think?” Leslie asked. “Give me the answer: Will we have this wrapped up by the end of the week?”
Robin shook her head, “No. This one is going to take some time. If everybody has their airtight story, we’re going to have to find the flaws, and that’s going to take some searching. One of us needs to check on Jane, the other on the ladies from Maine, and that little tart from New Orleans. If she’s spent two weeks in New Orleans I’d be surprised,” Robin added with a caustic twist.
“I’ll check the club,” Leslie volunteered.
“Really?” Robin looked at her surprised. “I thought you’d leave that to me.”
“No, not on this one, I’ll be more objective. You might end up being the entertainment, rather than getting the information we need.”
“Yeah sure, that’s not my style. I don’t play around in public clubs. But you go ahead and check the place out, it will do you good.”
“What’s that suppose to mean? I’ve been to places like Sapphos before.”
“This time, maybe you’ll appreciate the games, get into them a little, it might help you understand Felicia, and this case, and her killer.”
Leslie considered for a moment her feelings about the S&M scene, one she’d viewed with a good deal of distaste and a dash of judgment, even though she always tried to have a ‘live and let live’ point of view.
“You might understand me better too,” Robin added sardonically.
“I’ll keep that in mind. So what do you have in mind for those three inside?”
“I have a few hunches on the others I want to follow. And I’ll need to talk to Betsy. I haven’t really gotten the flavor of things between all these women yet. There was obviously a lot of fucking around going on, but we’ve got to get behind that to what’s not so apparent between them.”
