Loose Lips (14 page)

“Oh.” Rhonda, obviously not buying this at
all, smiled.

“But,” Bev interrupted. “We heard Phyllis
had turned up and were wondering if Lucy knew how to get a hold of
her.”

All three women looked at me.

I thought I’d already answered this. Just to
make sure, I answered again. Same answer. “I don’t.”

Kristi leaned forward. “Really? Because I
know she thinks so highly of you. I can’t imagine she would go too
long without talking to you.”

Bev interrupted her. “We also heard that the
police found something in your car. Something that had to do with
Phyllis?”

Her wide–eyed innocent look didn’t fool
me.

We talked for another thirty minutes or so,
and by “we” I mean Rhonda, Kristi, and Bev. I considered sharing
how my visit with Rachel had gone, but since I didn’t feel that I’d
truly learned anything of use, and I was fairly certain that I had
been tracked to Rhonda’s with the clear intent of turning Bev onto
me/Phyllis, I instead sat in my chair and waited for them to
realize that I wasn’t going to pull Phyllis, or even any
information on Phyllis, out of my pocket any time soon.

Finally, after Rhonda made a big production
of uncovering and turning a compost heap that she had started the
previous fall, the two uninvited women stood to leave.

Kristi stopped on her way out of the gate.
“By the way, did you have time to...” She glanced at Bev and then
continued in a whisper. “Stop by that business we discussed?”

My jaw clenched, I didn’t reply.

Bev leaned forward and sniffed the air in a
very good imitation of a malamute onto an open bag of chips that
you’ve just stashed under your car seat.

Kristi smiled and spoke louder. “If you
do
see Phyllis, you will let her know that it’s very
important that I speak with her.”

It wasn’t quite a request, but it wasn’t
quite an order either. I gave her begrudging nod.

When we were sure they were gone, Rhonda
pulled the tarp back over her compost and stood up. “You know what
this means.”

I did.

Time for Phyllis to talk, and this time, for
real.

o0o

Rhonda and Betty helped me stake out
Phyllis’s townhouse. We parked a block away. Rhonda wrapped a scarf
around her red hair and got out. She walked down the street, past
Phyllis’s and back again. When she was sure no one was watching the
house, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed my number.

I didn’t bother answering.

Betty took the next leg. Dressed in a black
coat, dress, and hat, and carrying an umbrella, she looked like a
depressed Mary Poppins.

The umbrella had been her idea. She said it
went with the outfit. I didn’t understand her reasoning, but I
didn’t argue.

At the front door of Phyllis’s townhouse,
she adjusted her hat, pulled out a stack of flyers that we had
picked up at a gas station and rapped on the door with her
umbrella.

Shockingly, there was no answer.

We hadn’t really thought there would be.

Betty opened her umbrella. My signal, I
guessed, to spring into action and for Rhonda to move to step two
of her role.

Resisting the urge to roll my eyes, I crept
between two other townhouses and along their back fences. I could
hear Betty rapping again.

The townhouses had apparently come standard
with not only six–foot tall wooden privacy fences, but also
Beware of Dog
signs that were institutionally plain enough
to actually be intimidating. I hesitated, but only for a second.
Phyllis did not have a dog, and I was smart enough not to be fooled
by such obvious trickery. I grabbed hold of the top of the fence
and scrambled upward until I was balanced on my stomach on the
top.

That’s when I saw the dog. He was big and
brown with long ears and longer teeth, and he did not look
happy.

“Lucy, what are you doing? Go over before
someone sees you.” Rhonda, who had left her detail to help with
mine, grabbed my ankle and tried to spin me so my body would be
even with the fence instead of my current perpendicular
position.

The dog bounded forward, gums and ears
flopping.

I squeaked, “Stop.” But it was too late.
Rhonda’s “help” had done its job. I toppled over the fence and into
the yard with the dog.

Five seconds later, Rhonda landed on top of
me.

Struggling to knock my best friend off my
body, I umphed out a panicked warning. “Dog.”

“Shh,” she warned. “People will hear
us.”

Hoping someone heard us before the hellhound
I’d seen ripped our throats out, I opened my mouth to scream.

Rhonda, obviously thinking I was addled from
the fall, slapped her hand over my mouth. “What is wrong with
you?”

“Dog!” I yelled, twisting to a stand, just
as the dog, a bloodhound I realized, bolted toward us.

Rhonda, on her feet too, let out a very
unladylike curse and spun, ready to race back to the fence, which I
knew we would never get back over, not at least before a pair of
big toothy jaws sank into one of our legs.

When chased by a dog, don’t run. Don’t
run... I repeated the mantra, realizing it sounded a whole lot
better when you weren’t facing a creature the size of a small pony
that had the obvious intention of eating you for lunch.

Rhonda was wearing her favorite crunchy
Granola sandals. Great for slouching around looking earth
conscious. Not all that great for sprinting away from sure
death.

Some would take this as good news. I
figured, just like with bears, the first rule of surviving a dog
attack had to be being faster than the person behind you.

It didn’t give me a lot of comfort, however.
I was, after all, kind of fond of my best friend.

Besides, I wasn’t going to run. That would
be... the dog lunged closer... my foot, developing a mind of its
own, slid forward. My body leaned too.

The mind was strong, but the body was
scared—

“Beauregard!” a voice bellowed.

I spun to see Phyllis, dressed in a fluffy
pink housecoat and carrying a lowball glass filled with something
mint green, waving a white towel above her head. Or a
kind–of
white towel. The thing had seen better days.

Either way, I hoped she wasn’t throwing it
in and was instead using it to come to our rescue.

It appeared she was doing the latter. The
dog, Beauregard, I presumed, lowered his head in sullen shame and
ambled toward her.

After giving Rhonda and me looks that
dripped with judgment and disbelief, Phyllis took a sip of her
drink and bent down to wipe the strands of spittle that dangled
from the beast’s mouth.

The back door to the townhouse opened, and
Betty walked out. She took in the scene with one sweeping glance.
“Seriously, Phyllis? A bloodhound? And what is that get up? Could
you be anymore cliché?”

Realizing that Betty was right, and that
Rhonda and I had just dropped into a scene straight out of
Tennessee Williams, I shook my head and wondered yet again, what I
had done in a previous life to deserve this one.

Betty, however, done with her pronouncement,
settled right in, filling a glass with a green drink of her own and
stretching out on one of two unoccupied chaise lounges. She took a
sip and choked. “What is this? Not a mint julep, that’s as sure as
Shanghai.”

Phyllis took her place on the other lounge.
“Green smoothie. They keep my skin wrinkle free.” She analyzed
Betty’s profile. “You should drink more of them.”

Before Betty could fire back, I launched
myself onto the end of Betty’s lounge chair, grabbed the glass she
was holding and handed it to a welcoming Rhonda.

I didn’t watch as she drank it. Betty did.
She shivered.

“So,” Phyllis said. “You found me.” She
crossed her legs at the ankle and fluttered her filmy wrap over
them.

Betty, obviously still insulted by the
drink, put her feet on the ground and leaned forward. “We did. What
were you thinking, leaving Lucy—”

I placed a hand on Betty’s knee and
interrupted. “I didn’t know you have a dog.” I was changing the
subject to keep things from getting violent, but that wasn’t all.
If Phyllis had kept her dog ownership from me, of all people, what
else had she kept hidden? Did I know the woman at all?

“He’s a puppy,” she explained, sounding more
than just a little grudging for having to admit that she had been
caught in this lie of omission. “My parents raised bloodhounds.
When my mother passed last month, Beauregard was willed to me. He
only arrived today.”

“Really?” It was all the response I could
come up with. I’d had no idea that Phyllis’s mother had died. I’d
had no idea Phyllis’s mother had still been alive. And so far as
the dog only just arriving, it seemed darn convenient to me, but
calling this out as a lie would only antagonize her. The dog looked
happy and healthy enough, now that he wasn’t all teeth and gums and
rushing toward me with the obvious intention of sending me back
over the fence in bite–sized pieces.

“He’s gorgeous,” I added, and he was.
Again... without the snarling teeth.

This seemed to please her. “His father was a
Grand Champion.” She smiled and adjusted herself a bit more in the
chair.

“So—” Betty started again.

I elbowed her.

She ignored me. “Why were your pills in
Lucy’s rig? Did you kill that Cutie?”

Rhonda and I blanched. Phyllis, however,
seemed unfazed by the accusation. She rotated in the lounge chair
until her feet were firmly on the ground and she was facing her
accuser. “I did not kill that girl. I would be hurt that you would
think such a thing, if I thought you truly believed it, but I know
you don’t.” She paused, obviously giving Betty the opportunity to
agree.

Betty squinched one eye closed. I could tell
she was weighing whether to let Phyllis off the hook.

After a few seconds, Phyllis gave a dramatic
roll of her eyes and settled back into the chair. “I did not kill
that girl, and I have no idea how my pill bottle got in Lucy’s
Jeep. I hadn’t seen it since—” She cut off whatever she was going
to say next.

“Since what?” Betty prompted.

“Since...” Phyllis squished up her face.
“The night we used them to make it easier for the Cutie to share
information with us.”

I wasn’t sure which word in that barrage to
attack first.

I decided to let the appearance of the pill
bottle in my Jeep go for now. “Us?” I prompted.

“Those
WIL
women, I’m sure,” Betty
said. “Bunch of holier–than–holy–water busybodies.”

Phyllis didn’t disagree.

Rhonda spread out her skirt and positioned
herself cross–legged in the grass. “How exactly did you make it
easier for her to
share
?”

“And share what?” Betty interrupted.

Phyllis tapped one finger against the lounge
chair’s armrest. “Well, now that is the part where things get
difficult.”

We waited.

“You see, we knew that kiosk couldn’t just
be selling coffee, but we had no proof. We’d staged the protest and
Kristi, even though she wasn’t sure about the protest to start
with, asked that nice young TV reporter to come over and cover it,
but she was busy and that Daniel...” She shook her head. “Did you
see his article? He made it sound like we were bullies picking on
these poor innocent young girls.” She made a pffting sound. “But we
had no proof and we needed proof.”

She looked at each of us, obviously
expecting our agreement. I gave a weak nod. It seemed to be
enough.

“So, Phoebe had the idea that we should get
inside the kiosk and go through their records. Then we’d have proof
that they were doing something other than just selling coffee.”

Betty’s eyes widened. “So you broke in?”

“No, of course not. I would never do such a
thing.” Phyllis’s outrage was palpable. She lifted on shoulder. “We
drugged her.”

We inhaled as a group. I recovered
first.

“You what?”

“Drugged her.” Seeing our expressions, she
waved off our horror. “Nothing dangerous. You saw the pill bottle.
Just a sedative. Just something to make her... less resistant to
sharing with us.”

Betty looked at me. I could see what she was
thinking. We’d been wrong. Phyllis had killed the Cutie.

“I did not kill that girl!” the accused
declared.

Her vehemence was laudable, but I feared
misguided.

“Phyllis,” I said, calmly, like I try to
speak to all crazy people who I encounter. “She is dead. She died.
I’m sure you didn’t mean to kill her. No one thinks that—”

Phyllis rose to her feet, housecoat
swirling. “I did not kill her. I didn’t even give her the pills,
but it doesn’t matter because she was alive when we left.”

I grabbed hold of the lifeline. “We?”

Phyllis, still in a snit, gathered her
housecoat around her and sat down. “Yes.” She glanced at Betty. “It
was
WIL
.”

Betty only gloated a little.

“All of them?” I asked, trying to imagine
the whole crew crowding into the tiny kiosk.

“No, just Phoebe, Laura, Kristi, and
me.”

Four of them? Still a pretty big crowd.

“Laura slipped her the pills. She has that
all American you–can–trust–me face. Kristi and I waited in my car.
And Phoebe went through the files.”

Again, I weighed which question to ask next.
This time Betty beat me to it.

“What was in the files?”

Phyllis pursed her lips. “Nothing.”

“How long were you there?” I asked.

“Not long, at least not long after the kiosk
closed. We didn’t think that would ever happen. It was past two in
the morning when that girl finally shut off the outside lights. I’d
dozed off, and by the time I was fully awake, Laura and Phoebe were
already halfway across the parking lot.”

I held up my hand. “So, you never went
inside the kiosk?”