Paula K. Perrin - Small Town Deadly (7 page)

“Hey, Liz, how’re you this
morning?” Sheila called, sticking her head over the louvered half-doors
that led to the kitchen.  She’d recently colored her hair blonde.  She looked
nice enough, but I missed the familiar grey.

“Disorganized.  I forgot my
purse.  Will you let me in?”

“Oh, sure, hon.”  She came
out of the back, wearing, as always, a black skirt, a white blouse, and a pink
apron that matched the pink napkins on the tables.  She set a mug shaped like
an elephant’s head in front of me, the coffee sloshing to the rim but not
over.  A cobalt blue mug saying “Imagine a World Beyond War” held her
coffee.

She sat down across from me. 
“So I heard you found Andre’s body,” she said, her blue eyes
expectant.

There was no use resisting
Sheila.  Years ago she’d ruled the high school cafeteria, and there was not a
kid who dared leave so much as a paper napkin on the table or the next day
Sheila served Brussels sprouts.

Yet any kid who forgot his lunch
money, and some like Alisz who simply had no money, never went hungry while Sheila
was in charge.

While I told Sheila about finding
Andre, several people came in, got themselves menus from the pile next to the
cash register and seated themselves.

“Who do you think done it?” she
asked when I’d told her all I could think of.

“I can’t imagine any of us doing
it.”

“Victor’s got my vote.  Never did
like that guy.”

“From what I’ve heard he’s more
interested in theater stuff than anything else.  Why would he kill—”

“Victor’s no stranger to
using his fists.  I seen his wife with shiners more than once, poor little
thing.”

“Then she should divorce
him.  No one should stay in that kind of relationship.”

She patted my hand, “That’s
right.”  She rose and said, “So what do you want for lunch?”

“What’s the soup?”

“Vegetable beef.”  After
years of clam chowder on Fridays, Sheila had declared she would never serve it
again.

“That sounds great.”

Sheila gathered orders on her way
to the kitchen, moving quickly now that she’d gotten her ration of gossip.

I wanted Fran.  I needed to
apologize.  She and I had never had an argument before, not even in Mexico when we were beset by Montezuma’s revenge in a shared room with a single bath.

I went to the pay phone in back
and got answering services at her apartment, the paper, and her cellular phone.

She’d been gone when I came out of
the station.  That meant she hadn’t talked to Gene.  What was she up to?

When I returned to my table, the
soup was waiting.  I’d just picked up my spoon when Kirk walked in.  He’d
changed into a purple Hawaiian shirt, jeans and Nikes.  He glanced around, said
a general hello to the others in the room, and crossed to me.  “Mind if I
sit?” he asked.

Another inward sigh.  “Be my
guest,” I said.

“Do you know where Meg
is?” he asked just as Sheila arrived.

“I seen her this
morning,” she said.  “With Little Bunny Foo Foo.  Glad to hear you
people’re shortening that name—what a burden to a dog.”

“I hope she had him on a
leash,” I said.

“A rope.”

“What time was that?”
Kirk asked.

“About seven.”

“Did she say where she was
going?” Kirk asked.

“Nope.  She had her some
coffee and a roll and left.”

“She must be home by
now,” I said.

“No, I just went by.  Your
mother hasn’t seen her.”

I was surprised Kirk hadn’t
invited himself for lunch.  He often arrived at our house at mealtimes.

Sheila asked him if there was any
further news about Annamaria’s death.

Not having gone to high school
under her reign, he managed to give little information.

After she took his order and left,
I asked him why he wanted to find Meg.

He hesitated, before saying,
“Patricia could use her support.”  Sheila brought his soup, and he
began to eat, almost, it seemed, with relief.

Eventually Kirk broke the silence,
“Do you know what religion Andre practiced?”

“Paganism, probably,” I
said.  “Why?”

“I’ve been wondering about
his funeral.”

I shrugged.  “Barry was an
atheist by the time he died.  He didn’t believe AIDS could exist in a world in
which there was a god.  But I don’t remember Andre ever expressing an
opinion.”

“He owned the rectory and the
church.  I believe it would be right to hold a service for him there.”

“I thought the church owned
the church and the rectory,” I said.  The Bishop’s Committee, the advisory
council for our church, met in our house monthly because Mother was a member,
but I never paid attention to the business end of religion.

He shook his head.  “No, he
bought them when the Catholics moved.  He intended to open a restaurant or
boutique or offices, but he agreed to let us rent when it was decided to start
a mission here.”

“What’s going to happen to us
now?”

“We’ll just have to wait and
see what’s in his will,” he answered.

“Maybe we’ll have to close
down.  Are there enough people to sustain—”

“We’re not going to give
up!” Kirk said.  “I’ve—we’ve worked too hard to get established
here.”  He spoke so vehemently I was surprised.  His manner was always
calm and rational—and passive.

We both addressed our soup.  Today
there seemed to be unexpected conflict no matter what I said.

I finished my soup quickly, said
good-bye to Kirk and thanked Sheila.  “I’ll come by later to pay
you.”

“When you get around to it’s
fine, hon.”

As I walked away, I smiled at how
horrified Mother, with her morbid fear of debt, would be to know I’d just eaten
on credit.

I walked down to the library.  Meg
worked there on-call, and I thought maybe I’d find her, but Laurel said she
hadn’t seen her.  Today she wore an extremely short black skirt with a demure
white Victorian blouse, her strawberry blonde hair piled on her head, pearl
earrings in her ears.

Her thin arms covered in goose
bumps as we stood in the shaded entry, Laurel sighed.  “My staff hates
me.  I’ve had them phoning all morning to let everyone know the play is
postponed.”

“You’re going to go ahead
with the play?”

“Well, Sibyl wants me to
cancel it, but Alisz said Annamaria would want us to have the play go on. The
trouble is going to be finding someone willing to play the corpse.”

I cut across the high school
grounds.  Big mistake.  I’d gone to this high school as had my brother George,
and, on the same grounds but in a different building, so had our father before
us.

My father walked out of our lives
on a cold, rainy December night the year I was fifteen.  Mother and he had had yet
another “discussion,” as Mother called them.

Dad had slammed out just as he
always did, to take a walk and cool down, only that time he’d stomped down the
hall, right past me where I crouched on the stairs, and he’d slammed out the
front door.  Always before, he’d gone out the back.  He never returned through
either door.

Just before Christmas Mother
discovered that Dad had been taken in by an investment scam and had lost most
of her money.

George had been furious.  He’d had
visions of being a big man on campus, and to him, that meant plenty of spending
money.  He’d had several football scholarships to choose from, but none of them
were as generous as he wished them to be.

Mother said, “My children
will go to college, make sure of that.”

And so we had, though Mother never
revealed how she’d managed it.  She lost my grandfather’s store but hung onto
the house.  She went back to her maiden name of Macrae.  George stuck with
McDowell.  On the Fourth of July that year, I switched to Macrae.  Insofar as
it was possible, I never thought of my father again.

Now Gene was asking about Dad. 
Why?

I passed the gym where muffled
shouts, squeaking shoes, and bouncing balls gave evidence of life within.  I
crossed Parkway, skirted the white wall of the bowling alley and plunged into
the shade of towering sickly pines, remnants of a forest that used to be.  I
emerged into the glare of sunshine on cement in Warfield Retirement Center’s broad driveway.

Beyond the retirement center lay
the cultivated strip where Mother allowed the retirees to garden.  It was the
only property in town, besides our house, that I knew for a fact my mother
owned.  And I knew that only because the retirees had asked her permission for
their garden.

Dad had wanted to develop the land
Mother had inherited.  Mother would not allow it.

My head ached, the glare on each
blade of grass stabbing my eyes.  I rubbed my forehead.

Gene’s questions made a big neon
arrow pointing straight to Meg.  I bit my upper lip.

Every vague feeling of unease
suddenly crystallized into certainty:  In her fragile mental state, Meg would
not survive the threat of jail let alone its reality.  All the things I’d been
denying—her lethargy, her inability to choose the simplest things, even what
to have for breakfast, her gaining weight and wearing the same sweat suit day
after day—came together into a frightening picture.

Whatever else was wrong with her,
whether she’d lied about drug use or not, Meg was severely, perhaps suicidally,
depressed.  What if I’d waited too long, lulled by her interest in the play,
hoping she’d get better, that she’d reveal, in her own time, what was wrong?  I
had to do something.  If it came to clapping her in a mental hospital before
the police could get their hands on her, that’s what I’d do.

I was breathless by the time I
burst into our kitchen which was fragrant with the aroma of chicken and
mushrooms sautéed in wine and butter.

Mother’s voice came from her room,
“Liz?”  She was resting on her bed, the radio on her nightstand tuned
to the classical station.

“Has Meg come back?” I
asked.

“No, I haven’t seen
her.”

“I have to find Meg.”

“That’s what everyone’s
saying today.  Kirk came to find her, Fran dropped by again and asked for her. 
She left your purse on the stairs.  A policeman I hadn’t met before came
by.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing.  He just wanted
Meg.  You’ve seen Gene?”

I nodded.

“Does he have any information
about the murder?”

“If he does, he’s not
saying.”  I bit my lip and winced.  “Where was Fran headed?”

“I don’t know.  She was
upset, asked for Meg, and when I said I didn’t know where she was, she said
she’d go upstairs and put your purse in your room.”  She pushed at a couple of
pins that held her hair up.  “I told her since she was under suspicion of being
an envelope thief, she couldn’t go up there.  She gave me such a look.  As if I
were serious!”

Mother smoothed the grey comforter
that lay across her lap as she said, “Everyone is acting strangely!”  She
looked tired.  “Don’t forget you said you’d take the casseroles by,” she
prodded.

“I will,” I said as I
shut her door.  I scooped up my purse and ran up the stairs to my room and
closed the door.  My answering machine had hit its capacity—all the messages
were from eager newshounds.  I tried calling Fran and still got answering services.

I rubbed my forehead, frustrated.

Outside my open window birds sang
in the apple tree right over the bright red, yellow and white primroses on Mr.
Dickens’ grave.  The birds’ chirping sent little shards of glass through my
ears to attack what was left of my brain.

I went into the bathroom, crossed
the black-and-white checkerboard linoleum to the sink and splashed cold water
on my face.  For the first time the poppies on the shower curtain seemed too
bright a red.

Where had Meg gone?
I asked
myself, picking the red bath rug off the floor and folding it neatly on the end
of the claw-footed tub.

Meg’s telephone rang.  We never
answered each other’s phones, but under the circumstances, I was tempted.  A
moment later mine rang.  I ran to get it, willing it to be Fran or Meg.  It was
Patricia Vico asking for Meg.

I wondered if Jared and Meg had
gone climbing and remembered Gene’s comment about it being an expensive sport. 
I gave her a weekly allowance, but it wasn’t much because I hoped privation
would force her into school or a real job.

I stood on the landing,
contemplating the blank white face of Meg’s bedroom door.  She never used to
close it; now it opened only to allow her passage.

Sunshine poured in through the
window on the other side of the landing.  I felt suffocated.  I walked over and
opened the window.  Beside the window stood a door to an exterior staircase. 
During his senior year in high school, after Dad left, George used to sneak out
that door and down those stairs to meet his friends.

Late one night I’d heard the
familiar, oily sound of the doorknob turning, but no sound of the latch
popping.  The door rattled in its frame as George shook it and cursed.

I went out on the landing to join
him in staring at the jagged end of the key Mother had somehow broken off in
the lock.  The filigreed head of the key lay on the floor.  The door had never
been opened since.

I turned and stared at Meg’s
door.  I feared that if I went into her room, 19 years of trust would go out
the window.  But I needed to know more.  I needed to find a way to help Meg.  I
barged through the door.

The first thing I noticed was how
many posters of climbers and sheer rock walls Meg had tacked up.  Hilary
Clinton, Eleanor Roosevelt, Rosa Parks, her former idols, lay buried under tons
of rock.

Multi-colored ropes, a harness
hung with gleaming carabiners, climbing shoes, T-shirt and shorts reeking of
old sweat, covered the seat of an oak armchair.  So she wasn’t climbing.

Her open suitcase heaped with
clothes lay on the floor in front of her closet.  She was planning to run
away!  I waded through the clothes littering the floor and saw that dust coated
the inside lid.  Apparently she’d never finished unpacking when she came home.

Pushing aside Grandmother
McDowell’s wedding ring quilt, I sagged onto Meg’s unmade bed.

No one knew Meg as I did.  She had
been mine since she was four months old.  How could I have let all these days
since her return go by without doing something?  Because she’d been so angry
when I tried.  How could I have let her anger intimidate me so?  Because I was
so afraid of losing her.

Her old library table was the only
piece of furniture not piled with stuff.  Other than a thick layer of dust, it
held only a stack of heavy beige envelopes addressed to Meg in black ink.  They
were from Benjamin Montrose at Harvard.  Fran and I had met him on our trip
back east last fall.  He and Meg had been so much in love.

The top envelope was unopened.  So
were the others beneath it.  The three letters on the bottom of the stack had
been addressed to Meg at her Wellesley dorm.

Meg had said she and Benjamin had
broken up, giving the impression it had been his idea.  Why would he have
written all these letters?  I slipped my fingernail under the tip of one
envelope’s flap.  I withdrew it.

I looked around.  Maybe a trained
detective could find a clue to where she’d gone today, but I couldn’t.

I closed her bedroom door behind
me, grabbed my purse, and ran down the stairs.

“Liz?  You haven’t forgotten
the casseroles, have you?” Mother called from the kitchen.

I had.

I didn’t feel like dealing with
the casseroles after sitting in that room full of despair upstairs, but the
only plan I could come up with was to ask around town for Fran and Meg, anyway.

“Now, take them right away. 
They have chicken in them, and you know how fast that spoils.”

“Yes, Mother.  If Fran calls,
will you ask her where I can reach her?”

“Certainly.”

“And if Meg comes home, keep
her here.”

As I drove back to the Vico’s I
kept a sharp eye out for Fran’s Mustang and Meg’s little white cabriolet. 
Annamaria’s sister opened the door, and I thrust the first casserole into her
hands and fled.

I went back to the car, picked up
the second casserole and walked toward Alisz’s where the weedless lawn stretched
fresh and green to the border of small pink azaleas against the brick facade. 
A small, pastel sign announcing a new line of cosmetics seemed a decorative
rather than a commercial detail in one corner of the sparkling front windows.

I sighed as I went up the walk,
hoping Alisz wasn’t home, but she jerked the door open almost as soon as I rang
the bell.

She wore a calf-length denim
skirt, white Nikes, and a short-sleeved khaki blouse.  Why did she always
choose colors that heightened her sallowness?  “I just got back from my
walk,” she said.

I held up the casserole. 
“From Mother.”

“How nice,” Alisz said,
starting down the hall, leaving me to follow.

My first impulse was to just drop
the darned casserole there in her entry way, but I obediently followed her down
the hall, my flats clacking against the hardwood floor.

She continued on to the family
room.  I turned left into the kitchen and smacked the casserole onto her
white-tiled counter.

It had always been my opinion that
Hugh had brought too much of his doctor personality into this house.  The
kitchen, with its white cabinets, white appliances, white floors, could have
been an operating room, or, with all the mini blinds drawn as they were against
the bright day, a morgue.  I snapped on the kitchen lights and walked around
the cooking island to the dim family room.

Alisz sat in an oversized tan
corduroy chair, smoke curling from the cigarette she held in her left hand, her
engagement ring managing to catch light even in this subdued environment.

I rubbed my arms.  “It’s cold
in here,” I said.

“Because you have not been
exercising,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear.  “I’m a little
warm.”

One of Jared’s biology texts had
been left open on the arm of a brown and white plaid couch overburdened by
needlepoint pillows.  “It must have been lonely, walking without
Annamaria.”

She took a long drag on her
cigarette, making the tip glow, then blacken.  “She only walked two or
three times a week.  Often there was something else she had to do.  I walk
every day, so I am used to going alone.”

“I’m sorry about Annamaria. 
I can only imagine how you feel.  There’s nothing like a best friend.”

The smoke from Alisz’ cigarette
masked her face.

The house was utterly still.  Not
even the sound of birds or children playing penetrated the drapes.

“Laurel said you were
arranging to continue with the play,” I said.

“You find that in bad
taste?”

I shrugged, stood up, walked to
the empty fireplace, studied the needlepoint reproduction of Van Gogh’s
sunflowers over the bare mantel.  “Mother was saying just the other day
you hadn’t stopped by in a long time.”

“The play has taken a lot of
time. Everyone has invested a lot.  It can be a tribute to Annamaria.”

I turned.  “And Andre.”

“Of course.  In any case, Claire
could come visit me.”

“You know how hard it is for
her to leave the house.  She only goes out for church and doctor’s
appointments.”

“And funerals.”

The last time I’d been in this
house was with Mother on a hot, bright day last summer when this room had been
packed with Hugh’s friends and noisy with the frantic conversations of a wake.

“If she can make it up the steps
to your church, this house, all on one level, cannot be so difficult.”

“It seems so funny Andre
agreed to be in the play,” I said.  “I’d have thought he would be
totally obsessed with his run for the senate.”

It was her turn to shrug. 
“It was an easy part, no lines, just—”  She paused, head cocked in
thought.

“Ad-lib?”

“Yes, thank you,” her
voice was acid, “you’ve always been so kind to give me the correct
words.”

I stared at her.

She concentrated on stubbing her
cigarette out in the amber glass ashtray.  She lit another cigarette.

“Do you mind if I open a
window?” I said, crossing to the patio door, pulling back the ochre drape,
and sliding the door open.