“She bought a convertible at the end of her first year,” Inez contributed. “Over spring break she went to Cozumel and made enough money while she was there to pay for the entire trip. She did sessions right on the beach.”
Caron disappeared behind the self-help rack, but the barrier in no way diminished her voice. “Pippa’s mother helped her a whole bunch in the beginning by having parties and persuading her friends to have sessions. Her mother has lots of friends because she’s a past member of the Junior League, an active Kappa alumna, something in the hospital auxiliary, and something else at the country club. Decorations chairperson, I think.”
“While you’re burdened with a mother who has to earn a living,” I said as pleasantly as I could. “Perhaps you can drum up some business at Rhonda’s tonight.”
Caron peered over the top of the romances. “After we limbo?”
Inez blinked with the solemnity of a small brown barn owl. “Rhonda’s got this thing about the limbo. It’s almost like an obsession, and if you say you don’t want to or even lock yourself in the bathroom, she’ll literally drag you into the living room and push you under the broomstick.”
“How low can you go?” oozed a disembodied voice from the direction of the cookbooks. “No one can go as low as Rhonda, because she carries all that excess weight on her hips and her center of gravity is lower than everyone else’s.”
“Enough!” I said. “I’ll be back in an hour or so. Don’t take candy from strangers and don’t take one red cent out of the cash register unless you’re making change. You can still go through the yearbook to find victims; odds are good that no one will disturb you in my absence. In truth, the odds are excellent.”
I put a notebook in my purse and was on my way through the door when Caron said, “That man called again.”
“When?” I demanded. “What did he say?”
She’d moved behind the counter and was eyeing the cash register with an enigmatic glint. “It was so dumb. When I answered the phone, all I heard was this heavy breathing. I didn’t want to waste my time, so I asked if it was an obscene call, and he-”
“You asked if it was an obscene call?” I said carefully. “Why should the line be tied up if all he was going to do was breathe, Mother? Someone might have been trying to call to arrange a My Beautiful Self session. Anyway, he kind of harrumphed and said it certainly was not and he didn’t appreciate being accused of tacky behavior I pointed out that he was the one doing the hyperventilation bit, not I. He said he was thinking about what to say. I told him he should have done that before he called, and then I hung up.”
“But he called back,” Inez inserted bravely, then faded behind the science fiction rack. Caron, like any temperamental star, does not care to be prompted by an understudy.
“He called back?” I said.
Caron had taken a compact from her purse and was examining the tip of her nose with the intensity of a microbiologist. When I repeated my question, she snapped it closed and sighed. “About two minutes later, if you can believe it. He did admit that he should have decided what to say before he called, although he was still huffy about my perfectly reasonable question.”
Her perfectly reasonable mother was too bemused to do more than murmur “And…”
“He said that if you didn’t stop butting into his affairs you’d find yourself on the sidewalk selling burnt offerings. It was So Dumb. I mean, hasn’t he ever heard of fire insurance? You do have adequate insurance, don’t you?” Her green eyes turned the precise shade of mint ink. “Would there be enough left over to buy a used car?”
“No! There most definitely would not be enough left over to buy anything. I have some insurance, but-” I held in a groan as I looked at the old, dry wood of the rafters, the numerous racks of flammable paper products, the cardboard cartons stacked alongside the wall, the stacks of invoices and order forms, the catalogs. I could have renamed the place Tinder Box Books, had I been in a whimsical mood. I was not. “Did this man say anything else?”
“Not really,” Caron said, still appraising the possibilities of a lovely check from the insurance company. “He said something about if you had the negatives, you’d better give them to him.”
“What negatives?”
“He didn’t say, and frankly, I was getting pretty tired of him. I said I wasn’t your private secretary, told him to call you himself if he had any more obtuse messages, and then Inez and I left before he could call a third time. That’s why we were late getting here.”
“What about his voice?” I said. “Could you tell anything about his age? Did he have an accent?”
“He wasn’t a kid, and he didn’t have an accent. He was trying to be clever by talking in a whisper, which meant I had to keep asking him to repeat things until I was ready to scream. If you don’t have decent manners on the telephone, you shouldn’t be allowed to use it.” She crossed her arms and gave me a cold look. “Don’t you need to go do whatever it is? Inez and I don’t have all afternoon, you know. We’re supposed to be at Rhonda’s at six, and we have to do our hair”
I walked back to my apartment in a daze of confusion and anger. Who was this anonymous jerk? I resented being threatened in such a manner; if nothing else, it wasn’t sporting. I could do nothing in retaliation until I knew who he was. I didn’t have his damn negatives-of what? It was possible Ed Whitbred had them, or had them until Arnie was turned loose once again on an insufficiently leery society. There were other cameras in Farberville. There were plenty of cameras in the Kappa Theta Eta house, if the number of coy photographs was indicative.
I sat on the edge of my porch. If the prowler was also my caller, he might have been searching the third floor of the sorority house for the mysterious negatives. Was he being blackmailed by one of the girls who’d gone home for the summer? The last thing I needed was another Kappa Theta Eta cluttering up my admittedly tenuous scenario.
Next door, Winkie came out onto the porch, holding an unhappy cat. She looked almost comical in a fussy pink broad-brimmed hat that seemed to have settled on her head of its own accord and refused to leave. After carefully locking the door, she headed for the sidewalk.
“Any word from Debbie Anne?” I called as I approached her I stopped out of reach of Katie’s teeth, although I was in range of her malevolent gaze.
“No, nothing at all. It’s been three days now, and I do hope the police will take her disappearance more seriously. Her mother has been calling me at ail hours of the day and night, and there’s nothing I can tell her Rebecca and Pippa are quite sure Debbie Anne doesn’t have a boyfriend. I called those few girls who were her friends during the year. They could suggest nothing, and none of them has heard from her This is by far the most inconsiderate stunt she’s ever pulled. That girl will never be a Kappa.”
“Do you have a copy of her class schedule? I thought I might speak to her professors and see if any of them have any ideas.” I held my breath and smiled with the shiny expectancy of a rushee.
“I suppose I do, but it’s inside and Katie has an appointment at the vet’s office.” She hesitated, then said, “I’ll go get you a copy. It certainly can’t hurt to speak to them, and if we don’t find her soon, I’m going to lose my temper and be brusque with Mrs. Wray. You hold Katie while I go back inside.”
The cat was thrust into my arms in a manner not unlike that I’d utilized with the camera. “Don’t do this! Please!” I said, but Winkle was already on her way to the door, muttering about late-night calls and inconsiderate girls. It took the eat only a few seconds to realize what treachery had befallen her, and she let out a yowl of outrage that emphasized her shared ancestry with jungle cats. Less than a second later, she bit me on the hand so viciously that I instinctively flung her to the ground as I stumbled backward.