Better Off Dead (9 page)

Now, there are some people in the South who
would have followed this touching scene by whipping out a frying
pan, conking the squirrel over the head, then skinning and eating
the creature. I am thankful to say Hugo was not one of them. He
crouched down a few feet from the squirrel and solemnly handed the
little fellow a new peanut every time he finished his old one.

What a softie. I tapped on the window and
Hugo looked up, waving when he saw me. I waved back, laughed and
shook a finger at him. He looked away, embarrassed at being
caught.

When a commercial blared loudly,
interrupting the television movie, Miranda deigned to glance my
way.

"Darling," she croaked. "Would you have that
precious Fanny make me another one of her special drinky-poos? That
woman can make a sensational Mai Tai. I've never tasted anything
like them. They pack a terrific punch."

"Fanny makes a sensational Mai Tai?" I asked
skeptically.

"Who would have thought it?" Miranda held
out her empty glass in an imperious, yet curiously laconic,
gesture. She seemed to be moving in slow motion. I took the glass
obediently and returned to the sitting room to find Fanny. If the
old dame wanted to get soused to the gills, who was I to stop her?
With any luck, she'd pass out by noon.

Helen and Bobby were arguing over a recent
hand, while Fanny beamed at them in approval.

"Uh, Fanny?" I asked.

"Yes, dear?" She tossed an opening card out
with great élan.

"The dragon lady in the other room claims
you make a sensational Mai Tai. She wants another one."

"Does she now?" Fanny had a peculiar smile
on her face. "I must make her another one, then. At once." She saw
my look and smiled beatifically. "All in the interest of harmony,
my dear."

Fanny excused herself from the table and
swept into the kitchen. I scurried after her like a duckling in
search of its mom. Something peculiar was going on. There was a
smirk in the air, as if everyone were in on the joke but me.

Fanny opened the refrigerator and took out a
pitcher filled with a virulently pink liquid.

"That's not antifreeze, is it?" I asked.

Fanny laughed. "God, no. I sent that lovely
Hugo out to the grocery store this morning for some very special
ingredients. It's cherry and pineapple juice, some lemonade,
grenadine and fresh fruit soaked in Everclear. Plus two kinds of
rum. That we did not need at the store. I do believe Miranda is
determined to pickle herself as her next anti-aging strategy."

"Fanny," I said, shocked. She had never said
anything remotely nasty about another person in my presence, at
least not until Miranda. I can't say as I blamed her.

I watched as Fanny refilled the tumbler with
fresh ice from the freezer. Then she turned her back to me and
fumbled with something in her dress pocket.

"What are you doing?" I demanded. I was at
her side in an instant. She was unscrewing the top of a
prescription pill bottle. A yellow, round pill with a V-shaped
notch in the center fell out: Valium, a ten-milligram dose. I ought
to know. It's been one of my favorite recreational drugs for going
on twenty years now. Other drugs may come and go, but Valium will
always have a special place in my muscular system.

Fanny cut the pill precisely in half with a
steak knife, then carefully crushed one section with the back of a
spoon. She scraped the powder into a Mason jar, added some of the
red punch mixture, then screwed the top on it and began to shake it
vigorously.

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked. She
had a faraway smile on her lips and seemed to take no notice of
me.

"Fanny?" I asked in a low voice.

"Damage control," Fanny answered calmly. She
unscrewed the top, dipped a finger in to taste it and smiled.
"Perfect. The touch of pineapple juice disguises the bitterness
quite nicely." She poured the concoction over the ice in the glass
and added a handful of fresh fruit cut into cubes on the top.

"Are you crazy?" I said. "You could kill
her."

"Nonsense. I estimate her weight at one
hundred and thirty-five pounds. I have checked her medicine chest
and bedroom drawers carefully, and she is on no conflicting
medications. And I am limiting her dose to five milligrams every
two hours." She looked up at me proudly. "I know what I am
doing."

"Fanny," I protested. "You can't drug a
person without their knowledge."

"Of course you can, dear. I've been doing it
since eight o'clock this morning. She got up early simply to annoy
me. It's working quite well, I assure you."

"I can't believe you would do that."

"My dear," Fanny said, patting my hand.
"When you have lived as long as I have, you come to recognize a
desperate situation quickly. That poor girl, Helen. It's bad enough
what happened to her, but to be trapped in this house with that
creature." She shivered. "I could not abide to see her suffer so.
Not to mention the pitiful flirting she tried to trick Robert into.
The simple truth is, she had to be stopped or we would have all
gone insane. You weren't here. It was either distribute Valium to
everyone else—or give that raging harridan the dosing she deserves.
I simply do not have a big enough supply to shower my pills
willy-nilly on a household full of shell-shocked people. Believe
me, what I am doing is the best idea I've had since I divorced my
husband."

I was too dumbfounded to say anything else.
Not that it mattered to Fanny. She wrapped a gaily printed napkin
around the tumbler and headed for the television room. Miranda's
eyes lit up when she saw the glass topped with fruit.

"Yummy," she purred. "You're such a dear. I
can't think of why we weren't better friends in school." She gulped
greedily. "Heavenly," she pronounced.

"Enjoy," Fanny said with a cheerful wave. "I
really must get back to my card game." Without a shred of
conscience, she marched back into the sitting room. I followed hard
on her heels, not sure of what to do.

When Fanny sat back in her chair, Bobby
began shuffling a new hand. Helen was happily checking the math on
a long line of match scores.

"Fanny," I began, pulling a chair up to her
elbow.

“Trust me on this one," she interrupted
firmly.

"Trust you on what?" Bobby asked.

"Nothing, darling," Fanny said. "Now deal,
would you? You are going to eat the queen of spades this time
around. I plan to make you beg for mercy."

Burly arrived a little over an hour later.
By then, the card players had switched into high gear. Miranda was
still in the other room, snoring on the couch, her honking-loud
rasps a dramatic touch more in line with a foghorn than a diva.

Before I could greet Burly, Hugo appeared
from behind the house. He took in the special van and electric side
lift with quick eyes. After greeting Burly at the window, he began
talking rapidly and gesturing toward the front steps. Burly
answered back, his hands waving. I detected testosterone trouble
and hurried outside.

I was wrong. I saw Burly shrug just as
Weasel hopped out of the van and accompanied Hugo toward a large
garage. An overweight basset hound sort of plopped to the ground,
trying to follow Weasel. Killer—the dog I share with Burly— had
come along for the ride. He lay in the grass for a moment, resting
his fat, then rolled to his feet and trundled after Weasel.

"What's up?" I asked Burly, giving him a
kiss that let him know I was happy he was there to help, even if I
had balked at first. It took me a moment to make my point. One
thing about Burly: since kissing is the bulk of his repertoire, he
takes it very seriously and never rushes a single one. By the time
we came up for air, the boys and Killer were back, dragging their
tails behind them. Or, more specifically, dragging a long wooden
ramp behind them.

"This fellow says the place used to be a
rest home," Burly explained. "They had a ramp in storage."

"Karmic," I said, wondering at how perfectly
the invasion of Helen's home had come together. And wondering what
it would all mean.

Within minutes, Burly was inside the house
and Weasel and I were toting in his computer equipment. Finding a
phone line was no problem, the place was more wired than a sorority
house. We finally set him up in one of the extra back bedrooms,
where the whoops and hollers from the card game would not disturb
his concentration.

"I thought you told me she was depressed,"
Burly said as he checked a connection and examined a compact disc
to see if it had been scratched in transit.

"She was," I said, "but it seems she is a
card freak. They're going nuts in there playing hearts."

"Hearts?" Burly's head jerked to attention.
"No shit? I love hearts." He started to wheel toward the door.

"Hey," I complained. "Work first. Then
play."

"I'll play a couple hands for you," Weasel
offered. "Just to set them up for the sucker punch. You can take
over my spot tomorrow."

Before we could stop him, Weasel was on his
way to play cards and I was left to help Burly network fifteen
thousand dollars' worth of equipment. It didn't take long. He was
off and searching before mid-afternoon arrived. He promised me
class lists and schedules, new addresses and background information
by midnight.

After a while, the card game quieted down
and I wandered in to see why. They were eating, or stuffing
themselves, to be more specific. Hugo had apparently been sent out
to fetch a carload of submarine sandwiches from American Hero.
Killer lay at Helen's feet, gazing at her lunch with mournful eyes.
That dog was one opportunistic little bastard. He was always on the
lookout for a new sucker to con.

"One of those sandwiches better be mine," I
warned them.

Helen nodded and shoved a foot worth of food
my way. I was glad to see her eating. Already, the gauntness of her
face had softened around the edges and she seemed unaware of the
scar around her neck. Weasel was being very attentive to her,
sliding her napkins across the table, handing her fresh ice tea. He
caught me watching, blushed and glanced away. That Weasel. He'd
have made a hell of a nurse. He ought to be working with people
instead of computers.

I brought Burly food, then returned to the
sitting room, determined to get my plan under way. Over a late
lunch, I explained what I wanted to do. Fanny, mindful that she
owed me one for my silence, was quick to agree.

"I am sure it can be done, my dear," she
said. "I give quite a bit to their alumni fund and I know a lovely
young woman in the registrar's office. She helped me out with a
teensy problem when my youngest was an undergraduate there." Teensy
problem probably being that her megabucks ex-husband had failed to
pay said child's tuition.

"Can she swing it so it looks like I've been
enrolled all along?" I asked.

Fanny nodded. "Probably. But you'd better
pick a large class, so it isn't so obvious."

"Good point." I left to pester Burly for
David Brookhouse's class schedule. He already had it printed and
waiting for me on the dresser.

"I'm impressed," I admitted, nibbling on his
ear. He did not even look up from his computer screen, which was
filled with a long list of names and addresses. He had cracked the
psychopathology graduate school registration rolls and was
searching for the name of one of the rape victims.

"You are an amazing man," I said. "Please
strip naked so I can prove it."

Burly didn't blink.

"Four dozen naked women are on the front
porch and there's a gang of methamphetamine freaks on their bikes
outside who wish to kick your ass."

He still did not look up. I left him to his
superhuman powers of concentration and took the class list back to
the sitting room.

"Abnormal Psychology 152," I decided,
passing it over to Fanny for a quick look. "It must be a huge
lecture class, there are nearly one hundred students. It meets in
early afternoon three times a week."

"Perfect," Fanny agreed.

Bobby was too busy eating to butt in. He
nodded his approval, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and
reached for another sandwich.

"When are you going to get tired of those?"
I asked. He was eating BLTs again.

"Tonight," Fanny promised, "when I make
chicken and pastry."

We all perked up at that one.

The card game was put on hold for a far more
entertaining exercise: deciding just how I could disguise my
thirty-six-year-old face and body so I could pass as a student.
This was not as easy as it sounded. Not only was I unfashionably
sturdy for today's waifish coed look, I regret to say that my face
clearly showed signs of various hard knocks that ranged from a
disastrous first marriage to occasional fistfights and too many
years baking under the Florida sun.

"When my oldest girl attended Duke," Fanny
said helpfully, "the girls always wore those nice Laura Ashley
dresses."

Weasel started laughing so hard he choked on
his lunch. I kicked him in the shins viciously enough to dislodge
the chunk of ham blocking his traitorous throat, then explained to
Fanny that I did not believe an eighties-era sorority look would
work for me.

"What about that add-a-bead shit?" Bobby
suggested. "You could fix those roots of yours and flip your hair
out and wear a tight sweater with them."

"You wish." I gave him a withering look.
Bobby and his tight sweaters. "The straight approach is out," I
said firmly. "I'd look like Madonna searching for yet another new
look."

"A lot of girls were into grunge a few years
ago," Helen suggested, getting into the swing of things. "Blue
jeans low on their hips, straight hair to their shoulders, ugly
flannel shirts."

"I can't pull that off," I said regretfully.
"When I wear a flannel shirt and blue jeans, I look like Elly May
Clampett on a bad day."