Thirteen Diamonds

Silver Acres are slim.”
    “Something like the odds against getting dealt 13 diamonds?” April asked. She was now on her feet and bouncing around as if nothing had happened.
    “Not quite that bad,” I said. “Let's get out of here.” Then I took a look at the chair, which had fallen over along with the gymnasts. It had a cracked leg. We weren't going to get away with this, after all.
    “We'll take it with us,” Mark said. “We can get it fixed and return it to Ellen anonymously.”
    “I don't mind taking the cards,” I said, “because she'd never dare complain about those, but the chair...”
    “We can't leave it because she might not see the crack and she might try to sit in it. I know a furniture repair place. I'll take it there.”
    “But she'll miss it for sure...”
    “One of the chairs to this set is being stored in the back of the closet to save room,” Mark said. “If we bring it out it will take her a while to figure out that one is missing—maybe long enough to allow us time to get it fixed.” He went into the closet and brought out the extra chair.
    Mark had too much sense for someone his age. And too much integrity. When he mentioned the chair in the closet, my first thought was just to switch chairs and not take the broken one with us, but I found I couldn't suggest that in front of him. He picked up the broken chair and we left, hoping that if Ellen found her chair missing she wouldn't suspect me. We took a circuitous route to my apartment, but it probably wasn't necessary. Doesn't everybody carry a chair around with them?
     
                       *    *    *
     
    “Lillian, I need to explain something to you.”  Mark shifted his gaze from April's car to me as it rounded the curve and disappeared from sight. She was on her way to the Raleigh/Durham Airport to fly back to San Diego.
    “I'm the one who should do the explaining,” I said. “Why I jeopardized you two kids for the sake of a deck of cards. Now I wish I hadn't.”
    “No; you had to do it. I know the feeling because I'm like that. And you're tightening the noose on Ellen, however circumstantial your evidence.”
    “I may never have enough to go to the police. I may just have to satisfy myself that I know she killed Gerald.”
    “Perhaps. But what I want to explain to you is about April. April is pretty and smart and...sexy, and I enjoy her company, but...”
    “I don't blame you. She's a lovely girl.”
    “Yes, but what I'm trying to say is, although I enjoy the company of women, looking at them, flirting with them, and hope I still will when I'm 60...”
    “I hope you still will when you're 80.”
    “...my heart...my heart belongs to Sandra.”
    “You don't have to tell me this.”
    “I know, but...I want to. Because you're her grandmother and I want your respect.”
    “Mark, you're going to have me in tears in a moment. Give me a hug and get back to your dissertation.”
    “Okay, but just promise me you'll wear a green dress at our wedding. You look good in green.”

CHAPTER 20
     
    I'm not the sort of person who gets pleasure from confronting people with their faults, especially when one of those faults is murder, but in a way I felt I owed it to Ellen to talk to her before going to the police.
    For one thing I felt compassion for Ellen; after all, Gerald did pull a dirty trick on her husband, possibly even defrauding him out of a share of a Nobel Prize, and Ellen out of reflected glory, not to mention the money that goes with it.
    I guess I hoped there could be a resolution other than throwing Ellen in jail for life. Perhaps she could plea bargain and get off with probation.
    Tess wouldn't go with me; she had even less stomach for this confrontation than I did and she fervently hoped that Ellen hadn't murdered Gerald.  She still hoped that he hadn't been murdered.
    I called Ellen and told her I needed to talk to her and that I would be right over. I didn't give her a chance to say no. She didn't say much of anything.
    When I knocked on the door to her apartment she opened it, still not speaking, ushered me in and pointed to the couch, under which April had found the deck of cards. I checked the chairs in her dining area as I walked by. There was no sign that prowlers had been there.
    Ellen didn't offer me anything to eat or drink, but I wasn't expecting hospitality. She sat straight as a ruler in a chair, opposite me, and said, “Well?”
    Well, here goes. I said, “Ellen, I