Catch a Falling Knife

well brought up…”
    Eric seemed to run out of things to say. When he paused, I said, “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. You said that Donna came here several times when you were alone.”
    “Twice. Maybe three times. No more.”
    “What did you two talk about?”
    “I believe I told you. She wanted to team up with Elise. She would be the songwriter, Elise would be the singer.”
    “Who would write the music? I believe Donna writes words but not music.”
    “Elise wrote some music. And I think she knew somebody who wrote music.”
    “Of course, singers usually sing songs written by many songwriters. For instance, Frank Sinatra was partial to Cole Porter, but he sang songs written by many other songwriters, as well. I guess my real question is, why did Donna discuss this with you? Why didn’t she talk to Elise about it?”
    “Oh, she did. All the time. But she felt that Elise was distancing herself, putting on airs, as she called it. I got the impression Donna thought Elise thought she was better than Donna. Of course she was…”
    I had better get to the point. “So what did Donna want you to do? I mean, she didn’t just come here to cry in her coffee, did she?”
    “You’d make a good detective,” Eric said, with a smile. “Donna asked me to convince Elise that they belonged together. She wanted me to go to bat for her.”
    “Which you did?” I waited for Eric to tell me something new.
    “I talked to Elise. I put in a word for Donna. Donna was nice to me. Don’t take this the wrong way, but she would sit on my lap, being careful not to hurt my leg, of course. She had beautiful…manners. She recognized my needs. June just treats me like an invalid. Say, you won’t tell June I told you this, will you?”
    This was new, but I had better not dwell on it. “Of course not. But tell me more about how you think Donna felt about Elise—about their relationship. I know they were friends and all that, but if Donna came to you it must have been because there was a problem between them, or at least in her mind there was a problem between them. Elise was pulling away; isn’t that what you said? Okay, that sort of thing happens. If Elise didn’t want to team up with Donna she just had to make other plans.”
    “Donna envied Elise…maybe she felt she was nothing without Elise. She almost seemed to be desperate to hold onto her.”
    “That sounds like a love affair gone wrong.”
    “Donna isn’t one of those lesbian dykes, if that’s what you mean. And my baby was normal too. But…I can’t ever be friends with Donna again. Not after what she did at Club Cavalier. Seducing men, breaking up families…”
    In another minute the human race would be doomed to an early extinction. I said, “Donna is smart and talented, in her own right. She doesn’t need Elise for validation.”
    “I’m no headshrinker. I don’t know what Donna needs. But she’d better watch out.”
     
    #          #          #          #
     
    We ate lunch in the Crescent Heights College cafeteria. Mark said that as far as he knew he hadn’t been suspended from using the cafeteria. Several students said hello to him as we went through the line and one wished him well. After we sat down I told him about the conversation I had had with Eric. I wanted his opinion about Donna.
    “Donna appears to be a manipulator,” Mark said as he swallowed a bite of hamburger. “Strippers manipulate men. And she certainly has old Eric where she wants him.”
    “He told me Donna sat in his lap,” I said. “She must have been watching the lap-dancers at Club Cavalier. Or maybe she participated.”
    “And don’t forget the possibility that Eric may be impotent. That leg injury may be more than just his leg. Maybe she keeps Eric on her side by letting him taste her strawberries. Maybe that’s all he can do.”
    I laughed. “Which may be one game more than June will play. But the real question about Donna is whether her ‘desperation’ about Elise, as Eric called it, was enough for her to kill Elise.”
    “It’s possible. And in spite of what Eric told you, there may be more to their relationship that we don’t know about, or that he doesn’t know about.”
    “Implying what?”
    “Nothing. Or everything. Young women, even well brought up young women, sometimes go through periods of experimentation. At least that’s what I’ve heard. But even if there was nothing physical between them, it’s