Damsels in Distress (34 page)

“I didn’t do it,” I said.

“Do what?” Peter growled, in my opinion rather brusquely for one greeting his betrothed.

“I have no idea, but I’m innocent all the same. The only things I’ve done today are have a double latte, read the newspaper, and sell a book on dog grooming to a man with a nasty little poodle that piddled on the floor. He didn’t apologize, nor did the dog.”

“We have a problem,” Jorgeson said.

“So do I,” I said. “Can’t you smell the urine?”

Peter crossed his arms. “A body, at Salvador Davis’s house. Michelle Galway, also known as Serengeti. After the interview at the PD yesterday, she asked for a lift to a coffee shop near the campus. She must have walked the rest of the way. This morning I sent a couple of officers to the house to collect the boxes of comic books and graphic novels. They found her in the studio.”

“Oh, dear.” I sat down on the stool before my knees buckled. “What happened to her?”

“Her throat was slashed with a utility knife,” Peter said. “There were several in a drawer. Artists use them to cut mat boards. Very sharp and nasty.”

“When—when did it happen?” I asked.

Jorgeson’s cell phone chirped. He glanced at Peter, then headed outside.

Peter waited until the door was closed, then said, “The medical examiner thought six to eight hours before her body was found. After midnight, at the earliest. She was wearing bizarre makeup, like a ghoul. One of the officers had to dash into the nearest bathroom.”

“It must have been awful. I’ve seen her in the goth makeup. She told me that she wore it so that Salvador wouldn’t recognize her, but he’s beyond recognizing anybody. I guess it was a way to cover up her scar.” A vague idea began to slither into a recess of my mind, but I couldn’t quite verbalize it. “Do you have any idea who did this?”

“It could have been a burgler who thought the house would be empty. He might have been looking for something of value in the studio when Serengeti surprised him. He panicked and grabbed the utility knife.”

“She certainly could have had that effect on a nervous intruder,” I said. “Do you want some coffee?”

“No, thanks.” He ran his fingers through his adorably curly hair. “We’ve already had a word with each member of that Renaissance club. No one has much in the way of an alibi, except you, of course.”

“I hope you didn’t make Corporal McTeer sit in my yard all night.”

“She was relieved at midnight by another officer, who said that unless you climbed out a back window and slid down a drainpipe, you were home.” He consulted his notebook. “Benny Stallings, Edward Cobbinwood, and Fiona Thackery claimed they were in their own beds, alone. Anderson and Lanya Peru sleep in different bedrooms. Julius Valens lives with his parents, but he has an apartment in the basement with a door that leads outside. William and Glynnis Threet aren’t likely suspects, but either of them could have slipped away. He takes out his hearing aid at night, and she finally admitted she sleeps in the guest room because he snores like a motorboat. An Evinrude, to be precise. As for motive, who knows? They’re all peculiar.”

“None of them ever mentioned Serengeti to me,” I said. “Maybe it was random. There hasn’t been an obit in the newspaper, but everybody in Farberville is aware of Salvador’s murder. He had an expensive house and car. Someone might have assumed the rich leave cash and jewelry scattered around like bread crumbs. Was the house locked?”

“Jorgeson made sure it was locked when they left yesterday, but it was open when the officers went by this morning. We found the Galway woman’s fingerprints all over the house, and a lot of others. From what I’ve heard, he entertained both downstairs and in his bedroom. There’s no way we can identify the majority of the prints, unless he hosted meetings of Felons Anonymous.”

“Not quite his social circle.”

Peter’s eyes narrowed. “Corporal McTeer told me about your outing last night, or as much as she knew. Why on earth did you go to Edward’s apartment, and what does Julius Valens have to do with it?”

I related the sorry story and showed him my scratches. Sympathy was not forthcoming, although he did wince when I mentioned that the telltale bra was under the coffee table when I left. “I was home before ten o’clock. I have no idea what happened after I left,” I added virtuously.

“Edward told us that Benny had been there,” he said, “but he forgot to mention Fiona. I suppose I’d better hunt them down again. And you"—he jabbed his finger at me-”need to keep your nose out of it. Two people have been brutally killed in the last three days. Consider yourself grounded until I say otherwise. You’d better be here or at home. Don’t go to the beer garden with Luanne or to her apartment. She can visit you.”

“Grounded?” I said, miffed. “Don’t be absurd. I shall go wherever I please.”

“I can charge you with interfering with an investigation and keep you in custody for forty-eight hours.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” I sputtered, now outraged.

Peter glared at me. “Wouldn’t I?”

“I am a card-carrying member of the ACLU. Do you want them to organize a protest at the PD? Better yet, at the mayor’s office? As reluctant as I am to become a
cause célèbre
, I will accept the burden to fight back against a totalitarian police state.”

“You’re making absolutely no sense, but you’re quite sexy when your face turns pink and your eyes flash.”

“My face is not pink.”

“Is too.”

“Is not!”

Regrettably, Jorgeson came back inside in time to hear my schoolyard retort. “Tut, tut, children, play nice. Lieutenant, the captain’s waiting for you. From what I could hear, the office is packed with Japanese reporters and cameramen, all demanding a statement about their idol, Stark Reality. Because of their accents, it took the captain ten minutes to figure out who they meant. He tried to tell them that we didn’t know about any stalkers. It’s what you might call a madhouse.”

“Don’t blame that on me,” I said, still sulking.

They left without further ado. I grabbed the feather duster and attacked the poetry rack. Dust was billowing (poetry is not among my bestsellers) and I was sneezing convulsively when my science fiction hippie ambled in. If he found my behavior curious, he did not feel the need to make any comments regarding it, but instead hunched down in front of the fantasy paperbacks.

I stowed my weapon under the counter and sat down, feeling somewhat calmer. “What do you know about this guy called Stark Reality?”

He popped into view. “The guy who got killed at the Ren Fair? Man, that was gruesome. There was a scene in
Zormurd in the Tomb of the Wizards
where one of the zombie warriors attacked Zormurd with a battle-ax. Zormurd caught him in a death grip and ripped his head off. It exploded like a puff ball. Very cool.”

“I’m sure it was. Did you know that Salvador Davis was the author?”

The hippie sank out of view. “Yeah, I heard it a few years ago at a con in Omaha. These computer whiz kids can find out most anything. All this business about privacy is a farce. If one of the little smart-asses cared, he could get your Social Security number, SAT scores, all your tax returns, the location of your family burial plot, and your dog’s name. I had a dog, name of Rabelais. I don’t remember what happened to him.”

I refused to be sidetracked. “Weren’t you curious about meeting the author?”

He reappeared at the end of the rack. “Why would I be?”

“Well,” I said, floundering, “he wrote these graphic novels you seem to enjoy. He was a luminary in the genre.”

“We are all luminaries in our own genres. You know, I think I’ll go look for that dog. He could be around somewhere.”

I cut him off at the door and held out my hand. He gave me a paperback, shrugged, and wandered out the door and up the street. He probably had another one tucked away somewhere, but I let it go. Instead, I called Luanne and explained that I was weak from hunger but not allowed to leave the premises under threat of incarceration. She agreed to show up with taco salads within the hour.

Between customers, I pondered the idea that had occurred to me. Serengeti had said something even more peculiar than usual. However, speculation without proof was pointless, as well as annoying. I went so far as to clean out the top desk drawer in my minute office, but I was too distracted to do more than toss out pens that had quit working years ago and gather up loose paper clips. I had several utility knives that I used to open boxes of books. They had modified razor blades that were wickedly sharp. It would require little effort to grab someone from behind and make a fatal incision. Weight or height would not be a factor—only surprise.

I could not bring myself to envision the scene between Serengeti and the intruder.

A random act of unplanned violence—or a premeditated murder? I wondered if the ARSE members were aware of her occasional presence. She’d been in the living room the night of the cocktail party, but Luanne and I had not seen her when we arrived. Or hadn’t noticed her, anyway. Black on black.

When the phone rang, I stared at it. If it proved to be Peter, checking on me, I might feel obliged to respond with justifiable hostility. If it was Luanne, wanting to know if I preferred hot or mild sauce, I didn’t care. I finally picked up the receiver.

“Mother,” Caron said, “can I keep the car for the rest of the day? Emily, Carrie, Inez, and I want to go to the lake, even though we’ll have to sit on the rocky beach instead of going out on a party barge. It’s so boring around here that Inez’s mother offered to teach us how to knit, and I almost agreed.”

“I suppose so,” I said, then stopped to think. “Here’s the deal, dear. In the briefcase in the living room is a photo of a woman. Before you go to the lake, I want you to get the photo and hunt down any one of the fairies who went to the dance class. It doesn’t have to be Rhonda Maguire, who’s likely to be too busy booking a Mediterranean cruise on a private yacht. Find out if the woman in the photo taught the dance class. If she’d didn’t, get a description of the woman who did. Then call me.”

“That could take hours,” she groaned. “It’s peak tanning time right now.”

“Knit one, purl two.”

“You are Totally Insufferable. Emily’s mother is making us sandwiches and brownies. Inez is putting ice in a cooler.”

“Then you need to hurry,” I said. “And don’t dare leave the city limits until you’ve called me, or I’ll apprentice you to Sally Fromberger until you’re eighteen.”

“I cannot believe this!”

She hung up, as did 1.1 had the glimmer of another idea, hardly substantial but worthy of investigation. If Rosie Neely had taught the dance class, then I was wrong—but I would have bet a taco salad that I wasn’t.

Luanne arrived with both hot and mild sauce. After we’d settled down to eat at my desk, I told her about Serengeti.

“That pitiful creature?” she said as she popped an olive in her mouth.

“I think she had less than benevolent reasons for posturing as she did. She told me she was an old girlfriend who was out for revenge. She wore the makeup so Salvador wouldn’t recognize her.”

“Okay,” Luanne said, “but from what you’ve said, she was one of many.”

“She’s also the one who happened to show up just when Salvador’s life was about to take a hit from a missile. Don’t you think that’s too much of a coincidence?”

“Coincidences happen. Read Jung if you don’t believe me.”

“I know they do, but this one’s glaring. I don’t know how to follow up on my idea, though. Do you know any computer hackers?”

Luanne wiped sauce off her chin. “Yeah, but it’ll cost you. Remember that guy I was dating last year?”

“The rich man, the poor man, the beggar man, or the thief? How on earth could I keep track of all the men you date?”

“The one who stood me up on Valentine’s because his fourteen- year-old son found a way to hack into the Department of Defense’s top secret documents. They were having so much fun that he didn’t call me for three weeks. I dumped him for an accountant who was indicted for tax fraud a month later. It was a bleak winter.”

“How much will it cost me?”

Luanne giggled. “A six-pack of Mountain Dew and several bags of Doritos. Do you want me to call him?”

“Please do,” I said. “Can you drive? Caron and her friends are going to the lake, so I won’t have the car until at least seven.”

She refused to agree until I told her what I had in mind, as improbable as it was. She called the kid, who agreed to see us at four o’clock. After we’d finished eating and she left, I pulled out the ledger and immersed myself in cash flow. Even Moses might not have been able to part my red sea, I thought glumly. When the phone rang, I lunged for the receiver. “Caron?”

“Yes, Mother,” she said in the plaintive voice of a martyr. “I finally caught up with Martha Ellen at her hairdresser’s. She goes to this guy named Riccardo, who was offended that I interrupted him in the midst of his delicate artistry. It was a haircut, for pity’s sake, not the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.”

“Did you show Martha Ellen the photo?”

“Riccardo made me wait fifteen minutes while he trimmed her ends. I was ready to attack him with his hair dryer when he finally stepped back to admire his work. Martha Ellen said it wasn’t the woman who taught the dance class. Her description of the woman who did was lame, but Martha Ellen can’t tie her shoes in the dark. She had to spend her sophomore year abroad. She told everybody she went to boarding school in France, but nobody believed her. Can we go to the lake now?”

“What did Martha Ellen say?”

“That the woman looked like a transvestite clown. A dreadful yellow wig that swallowed her face, bright red lipstick, blotches of rouge. She wore a swirly robe with orange and pink flowers, and jabbed them with an umbrella whenever they missed a cue or tripped. Martha Ellen said when she got home, she had bruises on her butt. She and several others wanted to quit, but Rhonda convinced them not to because of that preposterous midterm paper. Now they’re all worried that Miss Thackery will make them write it anyway. Martha Ellen doesn’t know a footnote from a footprint.”

“Remember to take sunscreen to the lake,” I said, “and be home before dark.”