Better Off Dead (19 page)

It was a mistake to have pushed for more
information. Brookhouse stared at me for just a moment too long
before answering. "Last night," he said. "Why?"

Well, shit... why indeed? "I just wondered
if it was something in my reports," I improvised. "Maybe I screwed
up?"

He dismissed me with a wave. "Your reports
are fine. Just follow instructions. I'm having a secretary call the
subjects and let them know they have to report to the lab on
Thursday nights for an interview as well."

"Okay," I said. Mine was not to reason why.
Mine was but to do and die. Or, hopefully, not die.

I was back at Helen's by early evening,
half-fearing that Ferrar had stopped by to question her. It turns
out he had called, and she had told him not to bother. I guess he
believed her, as Bobby D. confirmed no one had showed up all day.
They'd spent the afternoon playing cards—and eating, of
course—without incident.

All that changed after dinner. I was in the
kitchen, helping Burly scrape the remains of chopped pork barbecue
into a bowl for Killer, when the doorbell rang. Certain it was
Detective Ferrar, I stayed put and prepared to dash out of sight,
if need be. I did not want to be grilled by him again.

Fanny answered the door with her usual
fluttering friendliness. "Helen," I heard her call into the living
room. "A gentleman wishes to see you." She knew better than to let
Brookhouse in the door, so who the hell could it be. Ferrar? No.
Even Fanny could peg him for a cop and know to alert me or
Bobby.

My curiosity compromised my caution. I crept
into the hall and peeked into the foyer. Professor Lyman Carroll
waited on the doormat, holding a bouquet of flowers. Helen stood in
the living room doorway, staring at him.

"Helen," he said.

Her left hand trembled at her side.

"I know you've been..." His voice faltered
as he groped for a tactful way to word the disaster of her recent
life. "...under the weather." This had to be the understatement of
the year thus far.

"It's been a difficult time for me," Helen
said. Her voice was soft, but held more strength than I had
expected. "What are you doing here, Lyman? I haven't seen you in
almost a year and a half."

Carroll extended the flowers toward Helen.
"I brought you these," he explained. "Along with my apologies for
not... standing up for you. For not being there when you were going
through all that trouble. I was a lousy friend. I'm sorry."

"Why tonight?" she persisted. Helen was
smarter than I'd given her credit for.

He stared at his feet. "Did you hear about
that other woman?" he asked. "The one who got killed on east campus
last night?"

Helen nodded. "It was on the news."

"I thought maybe it might have reminded you
of what happened. I thought you might need some moral support or
something."

"That's very thoughtful of you," Helen said,
seconds before she was interrupted by her mother.

"Who is it, Helen?" Miranda trilled from the
top of the stairs in her contralto actress voice. Her accent had
turned inexplicably Deep South. "Do we have another gentleman
caller?"

Oh, god. Miranda was so looped she thought
she was in a Tennessee Williams play. This I did not want to miss.
I took the back door out of the kitchen, waving away Burly's
questioning look, then slithered through the bushes until I reached
the edge of the front porch. If I hung off the railing backward, I
could see into the living room. Bobby and Fanny waited at the card
table, their heads turned toward the hallway. Tapping lightly on
the glass, I attracted Fanny's attention. She trundled over to the
window and peered out, her face lighting up when she saw me. I
pantomimed opening the window.

She raised it a few inches then whispered,
"What are you doing in the bushes, dear?"

"I need to see what's going on," I whispered
back. "But I can't let that man see me. I work for him at the
college."

"Oh," she said, three syllables worth. Her
face brightened further at the thought of such intrigue. "Leave it
to me."

I couldn't hang around—or off—the porch all
evening. If I moved to one side, I would pretty much be hidden in a
camellia bush. I found a plastic milk crate Hugo used to tote tools
around in, upended it and dragged it into place. Standing on it, I
peered into the living room and watched as Fanny swept into the
hallway in a flurry of oohs and cooing. Nearly sixty years of
hostessing in the South had imbued her with unstoppable authority.
She shooed both Lyman Carroll and Helen into the living room,
motioning for them to sit. Behind them, framed by the doorway,
Miranda was in the middle of an excruciatingly dramatic grand
entrance down the stairway. An entrance being ignored by one and
all.

I now had a great view of the entire
proceedings and would have been able to watch in peace, had Hugo
not crept up behind me and put his hand on my arm. I jumped and
bumped my head on a hanging plant that dangled from the eaves.

"Damn it," I whispered. "Don't do that."

"What are you doing?" he hissed back. "You
trampled through my impatiens like an elefante."

"Sorry," I mumbled. What the fuck was an
elefante? If it was what it sounded like, I was going to trample
him next. "This guy is up to no good."

"What guy?" he asked, trying to elbow me
aside.

I elbowed him back. "If you want to see him,
go inside and see for yourself."

He took my advice and headed for the front
door, reaching it just as Miranda stepped off the last stair and
started a sweeping arc into the living room, arm outstretched. She
was wearing her purple caftan again and a cloche hat. Her unsteady
gait told me she'd been hitting Fanny's special Mai Tais pretty
dang hard all day. "How lovely to have visitors," she slurred.

I watched the scene unfold before me as if
in slow motion, knowing what was about to happen before it actually
did. Hugo flung open the front door. It flew forward on its hinges
with brutal efficiency, slamming straight into Miranda's face. She
dropped like a rock in a pond. No dramatic crumple, no anguished
cry. She just keeled over like she'd been shot. As everyone
stampeded toward her, I saw Burly edge up the hallway in his
wheelchair. He took one look at the scene, then hastily backwheeled
out of view, heading for sanctuary in the kitchen. He had decided,
wisely, to stay out of it.

All I could see was a bunch of butts
sticking up in the air as everyone clustered around Miranda. There
was a general commotion and much useless suggesting of water,
alcohol and nonexistent smelling salts. Finally Bobby settled the
matter by hoisting Miranda aloft. He half-dragged, half-carried her
to the couch and flung her onto it. When she landed in an artistic
drape, I knew she was milking her injury for all it was worth.

"Oh, you're fine, Mother," Helen said with
disgust, flopping into an armchair. She rolled her eyes. Miranda
groaned and put a hand to her forehead, where a goose egg was
starting to emerge beneath the pancake makeup. The door had won
that round.

Fanny hurried out of the room with a promise
to bring back ice and some of her special Mai Tais. Miranda yelped
her gratitude with such overwrought anguish, it sounded as if
someone had just stomped on a Chihuahua. That did it. Not only did
I no longer object to Fanny spiking her drinks, I began to
fantasize that she'd replace the Valium with some Mexican brown
heroin. Uncut. Miranda was going to play this one to the hilt. She
was gunning for an Oscar.

Lyman Carroll looked thoroughly confused,
and who could blame him? The house was packed with strangers, Helen
had been unwelcoming and a gothic Blanche du Bois had descended
down the staircase only to be soundly KOed by a terrified-looking
Mexican yard boy. Hugo hovered in the doorway, looking stricken and
confused.

"Lo siento, lo siento," he mumbled over and
over, unable to meet Miranda's eyes.

The old bat gave Hugo a diva glare, but her
heart was not in it. She was enjoying the drama too much.

Lyman Carroll perched on the edge of a
folding chair, staring uncertainly at everyone staring back at
him.

"Lie," I silently willed Helen. She picked
up on my vibe.

"This is my aunt and uncle," she said
smoothly. "The woman on the couch is my mother."

Miranda extended a languid hand, too plowed
to notice Helen’s lie, and pressed her other arm over her forehead.
Camille meets Cruella De Vil.

The bouquet had been trampled in the melee.
Hugo began to pick the flowers up off the floor, smoothing out
stems and leaves. Petals covered the entrance rug. Not much was
left, just a few crippled daisies and a dangling gladiola that had
sustained such a severe crick in its stem it looked like the upper
half of the flower was desperately trying to escape. Hugo looked
the same way. He gathered the remaining blooms, mumbled something
about a vase and fled.

I stood outside in the dark, shaking my
head. Too many cooks. This soup had been spoiled and then some.

"What brings you here?" Miranda quavered as
she tilted her head coquettishly at Carroll. She actually batted
her eyelashes when she spoke, which was disconcerting since they
were fake and trembled on the edges of her eyelids like a pair of
tarantulas dancing.

"I was just checking in to see how Helen was
doing," Carroll stammered. Clearly, he had never met Miranda
before. He looked terrified of her.

No one knew what to do. Miranda stared at
her daughter. Helen stared at the floor. Bobby D. stared at Lyman
Carroll.

Thank god for Bobby. He took over. "What did
you say your name was?" he thundered, sounding every inch like Big
Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Miranda perked right up, sensing
more drama. I knew Maggie the Cat would make her entrance at any
moment.

"I worked with Helen at the university,"
Carroll explained defensively. "We were friends."

The "were" hung in the room. Fanny
interrupted the silence by reentering with drinks all around. I
could only hope that the one spiked with Valium did not go to the
wrong person—not that there was anyone in that room who would have
refused a sedative at that point. But Fanny finessed it well. She
handed Miranda a drink, then thrust the tray at Carroll. Without
hesitation, he took a pink concoction topped with a paper umbrella,
as if being served such a drink were standard fare in your typical
Southern home. He sipped at it tentatively, clamped his lips
together afterward, then set the drink on the card table, where it
languished.

"Lyman and I worked together at Duke," Helen
explained to the room. A new silence fell. Not even Fanny knew what
to say.

"What are you?" Bobby finally demanded.
"Some kind of a professor? A graduate student? Janitor? Speak
up."

His gruffness surprised me. Bobby had been
so passive for the past few weeks, his heart problems subduing him
greatly, that I was taken aback at this glimpse of his old
feistiness. What was it in Lyman Carroll that had inspired him?

"I'm a professor," Carroll answered
peevishly. "Helen was my graduate assistant at one time."

Until, I knew, she had left him to work for
David Brookhouse. This unspoken information hovered between the two
of them until Fanny broke the awkward silence.

"What brings you here tonight?" she
chirped.

"Oh, we all know the answer to that one,"
Miranda interrupted in a husky drawl. She attempted a suggestive
laugh, producing a chuckle that was creepy enough to turn a sailor
on shore leave toward celibacy.

Carroll glanced at her, his eyes lingering
on her sheer caftan. A tremor passed over his face. His eyes
narrowed and he stared at his shoes.

Fanny, as always, rescued the situation. "It
was lovely of you to stop by. Helen gets so few visitors."

Carroll surprised me. "That's because we're
all cowards," he said, as he got to his feet. "I came tonight
because I thought maybe with the other woman being killed you might
need a friend. Or some company. But it looks like you're
covered."

"Oh," Helen said, her voice faint. She
shielded the scar on her throat with a hand. "I'm fine. But I am
glad you stopped by."

"Have you thought about pursuing justice in
other ways?" Carroll suddenly asked.

"What do you mean?" Helen said.

"Hiring someone to look into what happened
to you on their own? That sort of thing. I wouldn't blame you if
you did."

I knew then that Lyman Carroll's girlfriend,
the anthropology professor, had told him that a private
investigator had stopped by her house and talked to her about David
Brookhouse. He had connected the P.I. with Helen, but had he
figured out who I was or that I was posing as a student in his
department? More than anything, I needed to stay out of his sight.
I crouched down, unable to see into the window, barely able to hear
their voices.

"I hadn't thought about that," Helen
lied.

There was a silence. I imagined the anxious
glances being exchanged across the room.

"What is going on?" Miranda suddenly
demanded.

When no one answered her, Fanny changed the
subject. "Come with me, dear," I heard her say to Miranda. "We'll
make you another drink in the kitchen."

I heard a cry. I risked glancing through the
window. Miranda had risen from the couch and was starting toward
Lyman Carroll when she stopped, frozen, an arm outstretched toward
him, falling slowly to the ground. I thought for a moment that
Fanny had done it: she'd finally drugged Miranda over the edge. But
no, it was that idiotic fake heart attack act again. As Carroll
rushed to Miranda's side, she collapsed against him, rolling her
eyes and clutching him for support.

"Call an ambulance," Carroll shouted,
staring at the others.