“She would say something like that, wouldn’t she?” As she made sure the window was locked, she added, “She stole things from us, ran down Jean in the alley, and now is hiding as if she fancies herself to be a maligned victim. I’m not at all surprised to hear she lied to her mother. Let’s finish this up, if you don’t mind. I have an audition in the morning, and I need to study my lines.”
I went to Jean’s door and waited while she unlocked it. The dead girl’s clothes and personal effects had been placed in suitcases and cardboard boxes stacked in the middle of the room. The bed had been stripped, and the pink cats were gone.
“Debbie Anne Wray tried to destroy Kappa Theta Eta,” Rebecca said from the doorway. “We did our best to mold her into one of us, but she couldn’t cut it. I don’t care if they never find her. I hope she’s hiding in the woods, and the bears get to her first.” She backed across the hall and leaned against the wall, her face mottled with anger and her hands curled so tightly that her fingernails might have drawn blood. Turning away, she began to cry.
I decided to ignore her outburst and get out of the place before I lost my temper Even the mildest of mild-mannered booksellers can turn militant if provoked. I went around the cartons, made sure the window was locked, and was on my way out of the room when I noticed a scattering of items that had been left on the dresser, presumably unworthy of being packed. There were bobby pins dusted with powder, an empty pack of menthol cigarettes, plastic pens, paper clips in a chain, and a white cap from a shampoo bottle. And a matchbook from a motel called Hideaway Haven. I slipped it into my pocket. “Who packed up Jean’s things?” I asked Rebecca.
“I offered to do it, but looking at her things was too painful and I just couldn’t go through with it,” she said, trying to stanch the tears that slinked down her cheeks. Unlike most of us, she cried delicately, with no puffiness of her eyelids or redness of her nose. “I think Winkie told the cleaning woman to finish, or maybe she did it herself.”
“Did you find a packet of negatives?” I asked ever so artfully.
My question dried up her tears. “Negatives of what, Mrs. Malloy?” she said. Her hair hid her expression, but the coolness of her tone was unmissable.
“I have no idea,” I said, although the matchbook in my pocket was glowing like an ember and I was beginning to see some possibilities. They were downright nasty ones, too. “Everything’s secure, so you can go study for your audition and I’ll stop by Winkie’s on my way out.”
I’d hoped she might leave me in Jean’s room, but she waited while I turned out the light, closed the door, and joined her in the hall. She went into her room, and rather than snooping through Jean’s possessions, I was reduced to doing as I’d promised. Winkie was asleep in the rocking chair, and Pippa was dangling a pink ribbon for Katie’s amusement. She assured me that she would help Winkie to bed and thanked me for being so concerned.
I wasn’t, but I nodded wearily and went back to my apartment. Earlier, the steamy hot water had been so intoxicating that I was relaxed and anticipating bed. Now, thanks to the Kappa Theta Etas, my mind was sizzling with chaotic thoughts, most of which had to do with blackmail. I wished I could talk to someone, but the someone who came to mind was not an option. This was going to be a solo effort, and not until my solution was tied up with a pretty pink bow would it be presented to the appropriate authorities.
I sat down and looked at the advertising on the matchbook. The Hideaway Haven, a dumpy place west of town that I’d noticed but failed to visit, offered its clientele “adult” movies and king-size waterbeds. I suspected it also offered not only weekly and monthly rates, but an hourly one for those who availed themselves of certain services indigenous to truck stops. What could I do with this concrete bit of evidence-other than light candles and sit around in their glow? Peter kept candles in his dining room, living room, and bedroom, and was forever muttering about my pragmatism when I flipped on a light to avoid stubbing my toes. Officer Pipkin was likely to be able to see more keenly in the dark than a cat.
Admittedly, I was brooding, a useless and deleterious pastime that was beginning to stir up a goodly amount of self-pity. I realized I was in real danger of putting on a Johnny Mathis record and sniveling throughout the night. Physical action, if not exertion, was called for, I decided as I stuck the matchbook in my purse and started through the kitchen to the back staircase that led to my garage. Considering how to pose questions to the night manager about his college clients, I had my hand on the doorknob when it occurred to me that I wasn’t driving anywhere unless I hot-wired my car.
I dropped my purse on the table and began to paw through drawers in search of a spare car key. By the time I found a key that might qualify, it was well after midnight. With a chortle of triumph, I went to bed.
Early the next morning, Caron and Inez dragged in while I was drinking coffee. They both had bloated faces, red-rimmed eyes, and surly expressions, all symptomatic of a sleepless night. Things thudded to the floor in Caron’s room, and I was hastily finishing my coffee as they came into the kitchen.
“I am never leaving this place as long as I live,” Caron announced. “I will stay in my room until my hair turns gray, my teeth fall out, and my skin is overcome with liver spots and hairy, disgusting wafts. Little children will creep cautiously into the yard, whispering and pointing at my window, but at the slightest twitch of my curtain, they’ll scream and run. I shall become a legend in Farberville, but one day everyone will cease speculating and forget about the pathetic old hag who resides in the attic.”
“You said your room,” Inez began, then stopped out of consideration for her continued well-being.
“There is an attic,” I said. “I’ve never been up there, but a couple of summers ago the landlord had someone spray for wasps. There’s a trapdoor in the ceiling of the hall closet.”
“You are not amusing.” Caron lay down on the floor and closed her eyes, her arms crossed in the classic pose of the dearly departed. “Rhonda Maguire is nothing more than a garden tool,” she said in a doomed voice. “I don’t care if I never see her again for fifty years, but she’d better watch out after I’m dead. I’m coming back as a carnivorous zombie.”
I frowned at Inez. “A garden tool?”
She nodded soberly at me, looked at the body attempting to decompose on the kitchen floor, and tiptoed to the nearest chair. She mouthed something at me, but it could have been almost anything, from a malediction to a sonnet.
“A hoe, Mother,” Caron said impatiently. “Are these hot flashes impairing your ability to relate to your current culture?”
“Most definitely.” I swallowed the last of the coffee and stood up. A benign parent would have slipped away soundlessly, or perhaps inquired with such sympathy that she would be regaled with the entirety of the tragedy. “So, how’d the limbo go? Win any prizes, or did Rhonda’s center of gravity prevail?”
“The minute Louis Wilderberry walks onto the patio, Rhonda grabs him and starts telling these really incredible lies about how I claim to be the ultimate fashion dictator of the century, even the millennium. Everybody-Present Company Included-giggles and snickers, and then Rhonda goes, ‘Why don’t we all chip in so Miss Perfect Palette can do a My Beautiful Self analysis of Louis?’ He was so embarrassed that he literally ran back to his car. This was deemed Too Funny for Words, and I heard about it right up until the rooster crowed three times at dawn.”
Inez slid down in her chair until her eyes were on the plane of the table top. “I didn’t say one word, Caron. I thought Rhonda was being really stupid about it, but I still say you went too far when you locked yourself in her room for over an hour.”