I remembered something Debbie Anne had told me. “What about the ritual closet?”
“How do you know about that?”
“I just assumed all sororities have them,” I lied smoothly “I’m not going to count the candles or divulge the color of the high priestesses’ gowns, but I think we ought to take a quick look. If Debbie Anne heard us coming, she might be hiding in there now.”
“Don’t be absurd! It’s already been explained to you that she couldn’t have a key in the first place. Winkie has the only key. At noon the day of meetings, she gives it to the president so the room can be prepared, and it’s returned to her right after the meeting. Pledges never touch the key.”
“But Jean Hall had it for several hours every week,” I pointed out. “If she had a copy made, she might have kept it in her purse. The purse disappeared the night she was killed. You’re convinced Debbie Anne is the culprit, so why couldn’t she have taken Jean’s purse and now have her key?”
Rebecca stewed on it for a moment, then shrugged and allowed me to reenter the room. “Let’s get this over with, okay?” she said as she headed for a door along the back wall. As we wound through the chairs, she slowed down and eventually stopped, her nose twitching like that of an amorous rabbit. “What’s that nasty smell?”
I could smell it, too, and it brought back memories of my torturous tenure in the Farberville lockup. “It seems to be coming from the closet,” I said, measurably less eager to explore the sacred room. “Maybe we ought to call the authorities.”
“National would have a fit if they found out the police were in the chapter room, let alone if they were allowed to look inside the ritual closet.” She wound her hair around her neck and stared at the door, her mouth flattened unattractively as she seemingly considered the available options.
I held out my hand. “Give me the key, Rebecca. It’s likely that an ammonia-based cleaning solution spilled inside the closet. Tomorrow you and Pippa can mop it up without any illicit tourists to unsettle you.”
She complied, then edged away as I fit the key into the lock and opened the door. The stench roiled out like tear gas, causing my eyes to flood. I made myself stay long enough to see the body on the floor, then shut the door and retreated as far as I could within the room.
Rebecca coughed and said, “What is it?”
“Arnie Biggies is in there,” I said, gulping for air. “He’s unconscious but not necessarily dead. We’ve got to pull him out and do what we can until an ambulance can get here.” I wiped my eyes and cheeks and ordered my stomach to stop convulsing. “We’ll both stand by the door When II say so, you open it and I’ll grab him. As soon as I have him out, shut the door and go call for an ambulance.
It was not something I want to remember, this extrication, but it was accomplished and Rebecca ran out of the room, alternately gagging and whimpering. The worst of the stench was contained within the closet, but Arnie’s jeans were soaked with urine and a veritable plethora of new smells made me feel as if I’d been whisked to the Dismal Swamp.
As I studied Arnie’s inert form, saliva bubbled out of his slack lips. He wiggled into a more comfortable position and began to snore. I came to the cold-hearted conclusion he was drunk. How he’d managed to end up in the Kappa Theta Eta ritual closet was a bit of a poser, but Arnie was a man of amazing slyness, and I wouldn’t have checked myself into the butterfly farm if I’d found him in a baptismal font-or in Eleanor Vanderson’s bed.
I retreated to the hallway to wait for the paramedics and campus officers to come storming down the stairs to collect a despicable drunk. Ed Whitbred had said Arnie had not come to his apartment since his arrest. How had he gotten from a locked cell to a locked closet?
A low, throaty growl interrupted my futile thoughts. I looked over my shoulder. At the top of the stairs sat Katie the Kappa Kitten, her fuzziness silhouetted by the foyer lights, her amber eyes unblinking as she considered how best to rid the Kappa Theta Eta house of this latest intrusion of vermin.
14
I was sitting in Winkle’s suite when the paramedics and campus cops arrived. Rebecca had dressed and taken charge of the proceedings, which was fine with me. I could hear her cool, decisive voice from the foyer, but I made no effort to follow any of the conversations. A wine bottle and mismatched glasses were on the coffee table, and Katie was clutched in Pippa’s arms.
“I might as well pack my bags,” Winkie said morosely, but with a lack of sincerity that made me wonder if she was less than horrified by the idea-or secretly confident that it would not happen. “This is inexcusable. Men in the chapter room, and that besotted fool in the ritual closet. Eleanor will be on the phone to National in the morning, and I’ll be out on the street by noon.”
Pippa nuzzled the captive cat. “I just don’t understand how that man got in there, unless he…
“Took the key from Jean’s purse,” I said.
Winkie hiccupped, and with a giggle touched her lips with fluttery fingertips. “Which means he and Debbie Anne are in this together, doesn’t it? One or the other, perhaps both of them, ran Jean down, stole her purse, and used her key to get into the chapter room and the closet. ‘What an odd place for him to choose to hide, if that’s what he was doing.” She hiccupped and giggled once again. “Are you certain Debbie Anne wasn’t in there with him? The two might have found it exciting to come up with a few rituals of their own.”
“I think we’d have heard about it,” I said dryly. My wits were dulled by now, but I battled back a yawn and replayed her remarks-hers and Rebecca’s and someone else’s. “It’s possible there are several keys to the chapter room. You have the original. Jean Hall had a duplicate made. But doesn’t Eleanor Vanderson have a complete set of keys?”
“Of course not,” Winkie chided me. “She has keys to all the exterior doors, the bedrooms, and the main-floor storage rooms, but National allows only one key for the basement. Security is vital, quite vital.”
Pippa’s dimples were mere shadows on her pale cheeks, and she spoke with the solemnity of an IRS auditor. “And you’ve got to promise not to ever tell anyone what you saw in there, Mrs. Malloy.”
As if the world’s citizens were panting to know how many folding chairs were in the Kappa Theta Eta chapter room, I thought sourly. I was about to expound on this when a campus cop stepped into the doorway. To my delight, he was middle-aged, paunchy-and unfamiliar.
“We’ve sent the trespasser to the detox unit at the city hospital,” he said. “According to his driver’s license, which was revoked eight years ago, his name’s Arnold Riggles and he’s itinerant. He’ll be interrogated whenever he’s sobered up, and if he remembers anything, he can tell us what he was doing here. Miss Faulkner took a quick look around and said nothing had been disturbed. She claims she doesn’t know how he got there or why. Do any of you ladies have anything to say that can’t wait until the morning?”
We shook our heads, and Katie sneezed her denial. He said the investigation would continue in the morning, stressed the need to make sure the house was secured, and promised frequent passes by patrol cars. After a bit more thumping and muttered comments in the foyer, the front door was slammed and Rebecca joined us.
“Have you put a curse on the Kappa Theta Etas?” she asked me as she poured a glass of wine and curled up at the end of the couch, regarding me with the same meditative glint I’d seen in Katie’s eyes. “Up until last week, nothing much happened. Now, every time I leave the house for an audition or to shop, I find myself wondering if I’ll return to a pile of ashes.”
“Rebecca!” Winkie said. “You of all people-”
“I was joking, Winkle,” Rebecca cut in.
Pippa dumped the cat and stood up. “I’m going to bed. I have a really tough exam in Abnormal Psych in the morning. Good night, all.”