ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA
Chapter 40
GOOD LORD, SHOW ME THE WAY

The Willson estate buzzed with the social activities that follow death. Relatives who had long been crossed off the Christmas card list overstayed their welcome. Political cronies sent flowers but kept their distance.

Everyone on the Hill knew without a doubt that Willson was deeply in trouble. Barbara Hagopian was unusually quiet, reserved, and hard to pin down. In fact, the good old boys on the Hill were as silent as a Sioux war party during a surprise attack.

Margreth’s bridge club showed up. Not because she was a friend who’d be missed, but because they were nosy bitches.

In the busy kitchen, Gloria collapsed, slumping onto a kitchen chair with her legs spread wide. She was taking a break from her endless rounds through the parlor, carrying heavy trays of sandwiches and delicate pastries. She was also hiding from the leering stuffed shirts and roly-poly bridge women, whose noses were held so high they might drown in a drizzle. Her feet ached, and she was cranky.

“Did you hear what they did to the Missus?” Arnella Maybrey beat a bowl of egg yolks into a thick yellow froth. “They nearly decapitated her. Scalped her.”

“Nonsense,” Digby’s voice boomed. “Pure hogwash. You two should be ashamed—talking trash about Mrs. Willson. Don’t we have better things to do?”

“We? You gonna help us out here, Mr. Digby?” Arnella’s face cracked into a beautiful chocolate smile.

Gloria scowled at him. When the butler’s back was turned, she made a face.

“Gloria,” Digby said pleasantly, even though he saw her grimacing reflection in the window. “Please bring a pot of tea and some scones to the library. I’m sure you’ve got something going on tonight, so after you’ve done that, head out. Have some fun.”

“Thanks, Diggity Dog,” she hissed, but she was smiling. Because Digby was, after all, the nicest man in the house.

The butler left, causing the door to flap back and forth until it finally shut.

“You sure ‘nuff give that man the business,” Arnella said. “Digby’s saved your job more than once, Missy.”

“You’re only saying that because you’re attracted to him.”

“Digby Brown? Not on your life. I think he’s a little funny, you know what I mean? He never even looks at me.” Arnella patted her ebony hair, caught in a stiff hairnet.

“Like I told you before, make the first move. Men like it when you’re assertive.”

“Well, honey, you should know. I heard you’ve fried Remington’s potatoes a time or two. You’d better take Digby’s advice and move on. We’re going to have hundreds of these uppity folks after the funeral, and these white folks eat like they’re starving. I’m cooking up a mess of turkeys and hams. You keep an eye on the silver.”

“That woman in her bridge club, the one with the wiglet that looks like a bird’s nest—she already has the cake server in her handbag already.”

“The missus sure did truck with some funny womenfolk,” Arnella said. “And I wish Mr. Willson all the best, but that Harley Quinn is up to something. It just doesn’t sit right. Jesus wept, Gloria. This place is full of snakes and demons.”

“Just don’t worry about the Senator, Arnella. I’ll be your boss at this time next year. I know things!” Gloria tossed her head, blond hair bouncing.

“Ha, you know things, do you? Well, you better be mighty careful, or you’re going to be looking for your head, too,” Arnella advised, squeezing a lemon on the reamer with gusto.

Exhausted, Gloria lifted the tea tray and headed for the library.

Twenty minutes later, Gloria Imbriago climbed the stairs carrying a supper of cold chicken. Her fourth-floor room was at the far end of the hall, tucked into a corner where the roof sloped down. She couldn’t stand fully upright at her window, but that only bothered her when she wanted to be seductive. After all, she couldn’t do a striptease hunched over like a troll. She shared a bathroom with Arnella and had a nice little refrigerator and a hot plate. It wasn’t a bad setup.

“This time next month,” Gloria crowed. “I’ll have that nice suite downstairs, thanks to the laundry chute intercom. I’m going to seal that sucker off, first thing!” She munched a chicken leg.

“This calls for a drink.” Gloria opened the fridge and found a carton of spoiled milk, some cider that had turned to vinegar, and a bottle of Chablis. She poured wine into a glass.

Gloria slipped her uniform over her head and put on a sexy silk nightie. Then, lying back on a pile of pillows, she sipped her drink and thought about what the future might hold.

A knock on the door interrupted her daydream. It’s Remington, ready to dance the night away.

“Come in,” she called in a sultry voice. She tweaked each nipple to make them stand at attention beneath her negligee.

Unfortunately, it was the bathroom door, not the hall. Arnella had wrapped a bandana around her kinky hair and traded her uniform for a purple housecoat and slippers so fluffy they made her feet look like lilac fuzz mounds.

“Oh, it’s only you. I was just thinking.”

“Honey, you’re dreaming. Don’t go after any shooting stars; they’re always falling, you know.”

“I know what you’re thinking, Arnella. But I have a secret weapon. I know things that nobody else, not even Digby, knows.”

Gloria drank the wine eagerly. It burned down to her stomach. She was buzzed.

“Digby Brown knows more than you realize, young lady, and so do I. I know you’ve been snooping, and I guarantee you’ll be sorry if you aim for the Senator.”

“Just think,” Gloria hiccupped. “I’d look so beautiful in those designer clothes.”

“He’s already ditching her duds, Gloria. He sent them off to Goodwill right after the police left. I thought it was a bit hasty myself,” Arnella looked out the window, watching a group of fancy-dressed ladies getting into a limo.

“Those highfalutin bridge friends are finally heading home. Did you see Senator Oldham’s widow? She was really trying to stir up the Senator’s passion. Shameful, just shameful.”

“I’ll handle the stoking, Arnella. I’ll straighten his putter, if you catch my drift,

Arnella let the curtains fall shut and helped herself to a glass of wine, drinking it all in one gulp.

“Lord, save me,” she cried mournfully. “I can’t listen to this depravity without a little medicine.”

“I thought you were Remington. He’s hot,” Gloria licked the rim of her glass. “Really hot.”

“My Savior’s Bones, don’t be telling me this filth.”

“And hung like a horse, too.” Gloria slurred her words, the effect of wine and too little food.

“You’re headed straight to Hades.”

“I am not. If anyone’s headed to Hades, it’s that Holmstead fellow. He gives me the shivers.”

“Hush, now. We shouldn’t be talking this way. I’m going to bed, and that’s that.” Arnella poured herself another glass of wine, telling her conscience it was only medicinal.

“You get some sleep. Tomorrow’s a busy day. You’re such a pretty young thing. You need to find yourself a nice young man. And not Remington. He’s as slippery as a greased weasel.”

“I’m going to marry Senator Willson,” Gloria announced. “I got my tricks, Arnella. I could tell you stuff that would straighten that kinky black hair of yours.”

“That’s enough of that nasty talk, missy. You sleep off this fruit of Satan and get your head on straight. The Senator—well, let me put it kindly, child. He’s in a bad way. He has some nasty habits I don’t condone. I’ve got a notion to leave a Bible in his room.”

“Arnella, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Money talks and bullshit walks. And I’m going for the money, sweetie pie. I’m going to be the lady of the house by Christmas!” Gloria tipped her glass, draining the dregs of white wine.

“Have it your way, child. But mark my words; sinning is like smoking crack. You just can’t get enough—you got to kick the habit and make Jesus your best friend.”

Arnella walked through the bathroom into her room. Gloria was still mumbling as Arnella locked the bedroom door and tuned her radio to the Christian station.

She emptied her glass in a toast to Jesus. As the strains of Beulah’s Land washed over her, erasing the world’s iniquities from her mind, she drifted off.

Gloria, on the other hand, kept talking. “If it’s a tossup between a chauffeur with car wax under his nails or a Senator with a little gambling problem, who do I pick?” No reply came. She looked up; Arnella had vanished like a ghost. “She went to bed, I guess.”

Gloria threw her wine glass onto the floor. The sound of breaking glass made her giggle.

“Which will it be? Remington or William—William or Remington? Harley, William, or Remington? Oops, Harley won’t be coming. Maybe Digby.”

Picturing the old butler buck-naked sparked another round of laughter. She rolled out of bed, searching for more wine.

“Ouch!” she hopped on one foot, a shard of glass sticking from the other. “Son of a bitch.” Sobered by pain, Gloria sat on the bed and pulled the piece of thin glass out easily. Only a few drops of rich red blood dripped from her sole. She grabbed the broom and cleaned up the glass.

“That was stupid,” she admonished. Then she thought she heard a noise and froze. A branch brushed the window, and the tension eased.

“Drat,” she said. “It would frost my melons if they both came.”

Gloria had dallied with the chauffeur for the past two years. Remington was a Greek god, and he had a classy name. She did not know that five years ago his name was Robert Sloan, before that Phillip Thorvaldsen, and at birth, Almarr Afaz Nabeel.

Gloria twirled in the full-length mirror, admiring her long, tan legs. The floor was dotted with blood stains from where her injured foot had landed. Suddenly, she felt exhausted. She climbed into bed, hoping that Remington would crawl in beside her as soon as the guests left.

“William will marry me because I know all his secrets! Then I’ll fire Harley Quinn and sleep with Remington whenever I want. Who said you can’t have your cake and eat it too?”

She admired her reflection in an elegant silver mirror. Her former employer had given her the dresser set, and she’d promptly had it appraised. It was more valuable than her mother’s trailer.

Gloria brushed her long blond hair and re-applied her lipstick. She waited impatiently, but no footsteps echoed in the outer hallway. Bored, she turned on the TV and watched a Humphrey Bogart movie. Just as it began to hold her attention, she heard the door creak open.

“Come on in, sweetie. I’m watching this movie, Petrified Forest, it’s called,” she didn’t look up. “I wish I knew what petrified meant, though. That’s when you’re really scared, isn’t it?” Nobody answered.

She looked up and didn’t see the handsome chauffeur or the silky-smooth senator.

“Who?” Her eyes blinked, refusing the sight. “Where did you?”

She had no time to finish her thought. Her intruder held a rope garrote in one hand and handcuffs in the other. Gloria gasped, unable to move. Her mouth gaped into a soundless scream. As he turned the volume on the television to an ear-splitting roar, she found her voice. A fist to her midsection elicited a groan.

Somehow, as her vision faded, sounds seemed louder. Humphrey Bogart moved in on Betty Davis with that voodoo he did so well, just as Arnella’s radio started a lively chorus: so I’ll cherish the old rugged cross.

Gloria’s spasmodic breaths stopped as the garrote twisted, crushing her throat with a crunch and snap.

She couldn’t see the knife, but she felt the searing pain as it pierced her side. She went to the brink of death rapturously, as her lovers had once lifted her to the pinnacle of joy. Blood soaked into the bedclothes and spattered the floor.

Her mind was still alert. Gloria sought to leave something, anything that would lead them to her killer. It was her last painful grab at lady justice. She felt the skin rip below her breast and the hiss of air as her lung burst. The rush of captured gases that could not escape the garrote pushed toward freedom through the gaping hole in her chest.

Only moments, she told herself. She used a blood-soaked finger to print on the white plaster wall: HARLEY Q . . .

Her assassin’s frenzied adrenaline rush made him oblivious to the artistry influenced by the beat of the dagger.

Arnella awoke, disturbed by the cacophony of Bogie’s charm to the beat of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” . . . comin’ for to carry me home . . .

Aggravated, she pounded fiercely on the wall and stuffed her earplugs deep. She kept these on the nightstand in case Gloria had noisy night guests. Then she dozed off.

The murderous hands released the garrote, entrapped in the folds of Gloria’s fragile neck. Using the tip of his knife, he lifted each eyelid. The pupils, blown wide as black caves, revealed Gloria Imbriago had finished her dance of death.

The stiletto went back into its case. After watching Bogie swagger for a few minutes, Harley Quinn switched the television off. The ensuing silence was louder than the TV had been. He eyed Arnella’s door, visible through the bathroom.

Best not take a chance, he thought.

He tested the knob. Locked. He closed Gloria’s door softly. Harley went down the hall to Arnella’s room. That door was locked as well.

Taking the back stairs, he moved swiftly, leaving a remnant of blood-soaked rope that had caught in the hasp of the door. Harley left the estate at the same moment Gloria’s last drop of blood soaked into her mattress.

Arnella snored. She dreamed of swaying wheat fields, a cabin surrounded by flowering thistle, and a wooden porch swing. She and Digby watched the brilliant sunset and shared tall, cool glasses of iced tea. A shaggy brown dog lay at their feet.
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The end is in sight. No Tour Guides in Hell is entering its final chapters.
The full novel remains free to read through March 31. After that, it vanishes—but the story continues. The paperback and ebook will be available on Amazon, alongside two additional books in the trilogy. Thanks for being part of the journey.

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