Who is Maud Dixon?(85)

Helen started walking unsteadily through the bedroom, toward the hallway. “Didn’t you learn anything from my story, Florence?” she asked over her shoulder. “You can’t shoot someone in the back and then claim self-defense.”

Florence watched helplessly as the distance between Helen and herself widened. “Stop,” she said again.

Helen paused just beyond the doorway, still facing away from Florence so that a bullet could only enter her body from behind. “What a waste,” she said quietly. “I would have made Florence Darrow great. But you? You’re no one. No one.”

Florence took a deep breath.

No more half measures.

She strode across the room in three long, quick paces. Helen stood just a foot from the railing above the drop down to the courtyard. Florence put her hands on Helen’s back and pushed. Hard.

Helen teetered, windmilling her arms wildly, trying to regain her balance. Then her whole body tumbled over the railing.

A dull thud sounded from below. Florence peered over the edge. Helen lay face-up on the tiled floor, her eyes open and unseeing.

Suddenly, Helen let out a low moan.

Florence hurried downstairs. A circle of blood was growing around Helen’s head like a halo. Her eyes caught Florence’s. There was real fear in them.

“Help,” she said wetly, licking her lips. “Help me.”

Florence stepped briefly into the living room. When she returned, she told Helen, “Everything’s going to be okay.”

“Doctor?”

“No. Sorry. I meant everything’s going to be okay for me.”

Florence lifted the pillow she’d taken from the living room couch and held it over Helen’s face. Helen tried to struggle, but she was too broken. She was like a beetle trying to get off its back. Florence stayed in that position for what felt like a long time, growing nervous and stiff. This would be an inopportune moment for Idrissi to arrive. Finally, Helen’s spasmic clutching quieted and she was still.

Florence pulled back the cushion. Helen’s eyes were open and glassy.

Just then she heard car tires crunching on the gravel outside.





46.



Ramzi’s broad silhouette appeared in the doorway, and Florence threw herself into his arms. The policeman accepted her embrace with obvious discomfort.

“Thank god you’re here,” she cried.

Florence felt his muscles tense as his eyes fell on Helen’s inert form on the ground behind her. He gently but firmly pushed Florence away from him and approached the body. Kneeling, he put two fingers on her neck. He stayed like that for a full minute, occasionally moving his hand a millimeter or two. Then he slowly looked back over his shoulder at Florence. She saw sadness, and horror, in his eyes.

Idrissi stood up and made a short phone call. Putting his phone back in his pocket, he said to Florence, “This is your friend. The one who went back to Marrakesh.” She couldn’t tell whether he was asserting this fact or asking her.

“This is Helen Wilcox,” she responded.

He looked again at the body, then back at Florence.

“And who does that make you?”

“Florence Darrow,” she said in a whisper. And then louder: “I’m Florence Darrow.”

*



Half a dozen officials traipsed in and out of Villa des Grenades that afternoon. Dan Massey arrived from the embassy a couple hours after Idrissi. He’d brought Helen Wilcox’s passport with him, the one he’d confiscated from Florence two days earlier.

His knee cracked loudly as he knelt down to compare the photograph to the dead woman. From the way he snapped it shut and clenched his jaw, Florence could tell that he realized he’d been wrong about Florence. She wasn’t Helen Wilcox after all.

Florence sat with Massey and Idrissi in the living room for close to an hour, explaining what had happened. Helen had tried to kill her to steal her identity, because she knew the body on her property in New York would be discovered. First she’d staged a car crash, then she’d come back to finish the job. And nearly succeeded.

They made her go through the story several times, but Florence knew her facts stayed consistent because she was, incredibly, telling the truth. She made only one omission and one alteration. She never mentioned the name Maud Dixon, and she said Helen had fallen over the railing as they grappled for the gun.

“So you thought your boss had died in that car accident, but you said nothing?” Idrissi asked at one point. “To anyone?”

Florence shrugged.

“What if she had survived? What if she could have been saved?”

“But she wasn’t even in the car,” Florence responded, allowing herself a small, serene smile.

Idrissi just stared at her.

“Tell me again what happened in the corridor upstairs, during the argument,” he demanded.

She went through it all again. “She was pointing the gun at me. I lunged at her. We struggled. In the process, Helen fell over.” Her voice cracked. She rubbed her eyes until they were red and raw.

Idrissi continued to glare at her.

“Listen,” Florence said more forcefully. “She’d already tried to kill me once, in the car accident. She’d already killed her best friend. I wasn’t about to underestimate her again.”

Massey cut in. “We were all pawns in her game,” he murmured.