Paula K. Perrin - Small Town Deadly (9 page)

I drove west on Main Street, to the parking lot of The Bird.

When James and Fran moved to
Warfield and bought the paper nine years ago, the previous owners of
The
Warfield Warbler
made it a condition of sale that the name of the paper
remain unchanged.

The sign the Egans then erected,
was, in Warfield’s view, their revenge.  On a narrow strip of ground holding
white azaleas, they set a sign three feet high and six feet wide that read, in
elaborate script,
The Warfield Warbler
.  On top of that perched an
enormous wooden bird that looked more like a tubercular roadrunner than a
self-respecting warbler.  As one old-timer said, the Egans gave us the bird,
and the nickname stuck.

Usually the sign made me smile.  I
drove to the end of the warehouse-sized building and parked in front of Fran’s
apartment.  Her Mustang was not among the cars in the lot.

I used the key Fran had given me. 
As soon as I stepped through the door, I knew from the faint odor of lemon oil
and the lack of clutter that Fran’s cleaning lady had recently concluded her
weekly visit.

Originally, there’d been three
rental offices on the south side of the building.  After James died, Fran sold
their luxurious house and converted the offices into one large, comfortable
apartment, sawed a door through into the newspaper offices so she never got wet
on her way to work, and settled in.  For a while rumors flew that the city
council would kick her out because of zoning, but she got around that somehow.

Her front door opened into the
living room/bedroom done in soothing cream and pale aqua with touches of
peach.  I grabbed a half-empty decanter from the sleek desk in the corner and
poured Chivas into a crystal tumbler.  I found one of my Canadian Brass CD’s
tucked in the back of her music collection and cranked it up till the brilliant
notes threatened to soar through the ceiling.

I went into the bathroom, kicking
off my flats as I went, the tiles cold against my feet.  I put my glass on the
low mosaic shelf that surrounded the sunken hot tub, uncovered the tub, and
turned the jets on.

When I shrugged out of my jacket,
little white blobs of drying bread dough fell to the floor.  I folded my
clothes and placed them on a Romanesque chair.  I took a quick shower and
hurried into the tub, sucking in my breath as its scalding waters closed around
my calves.

I got all the way in up to my chin
and reached for my drink.  I took a sip, letting it rest on my tongue, leaned
back and closed my eyes, pushing all thoughts way, way to the back.

In the midst of “Amazing Grace,”
cold air from the opening bathroom door roused me.  It took a bit of effort to
focus on Fran.

“I’ve been looking all over
town for you, and you were here in my tub?” Fran said, looking down at me,
arms wrapped around a limp, wrinkled grocery bag.

“I’ve been looking for
you!” I said.  My tongue felt uncooperative, my diction not as crisp as
one might wish.  “I’m sorry I got mad.”

“Don’t worry.”  She waved
dismissively.  “I shouldn’t have left, but I got hungry, and when I got
back, you were gone.”

She turned and drew a multitude of
jars, tubes, and bottles out of the bag and placed them on her dressing table.

“Did you leave any beauty
potions for the rest of us?” I asked.

“Nope.  You are all condemned
to ugliness and age.”  She tapped the white plastic caps of two small
bottles, one red, one green, she’d placed side-by-side.  “Magic guaranteed
to stop aging.”

“It’s a good thing you’re
rich and can afford your neurosis.”

“Just you wait, crone, one of
these days your soap-and-water routine will catch up with you and you’ll stop
looking ten years younger than you really are.”

“So you claim to be looking
for me, but in reality you were out feeding your vanity,” I said.

“You’re such a witch.  I was
looking for you, but I was going places you hadn’t been yet, and then places
you had.”  She stood a pink tube on its cap.

She stripped off her navy slacks
and sweater, then her undies, leaving them in a heap on the floor, pinning her
braid into a coil on top of her head and stepping into the shower.

“Fran, I’m really sorry for
the way I acted,” I said as soon as the water stopped running.

“It’s okay.”  Water
glistened on her skin and fell unheeded to the floor as she left the room.

The Canadian Brass suddenly fell
silent, replaced by Clint Black.  She returned with two bottles of spring
water.  She crouched next to me, tugged the Chivas out of my fingers and handed
me a cold bottle.  She put my glass on her dressing table amidst her potions
and then plopped into the tub on the opposite side with a satisfied
“Ahh.”

Hot water smacked me in the face. 
“Hey!”

“I might let you buy your way
back into my good graces with an indecently expensive dinner,” she said.

“Name the place.  I really am
sorry.”

“I understand how much Meg
means to you.  I shouldn’t have pressed you when I’d just given you such bad
news.  Say no more, although it is comforting that you’re as hard on yourself
as you are on everyone else.”

“What do you mean?”

“Your standards are so high,
Lizzie, how do you expect us ordinary mortals to please you?”

I sent a wave of water into her
face, she retaliated, and soon water was everywhere.  In self defense I pulled
myself out of the water to sit on the edge of the tub.

“Chicken!” Fran said.

“That’s what Gene said, that
I dished it out but couldn’t take it.”

“So your interview’s out of
the way?  That’s good.”

“Have you done yours?”

“Yeah.  He wanted me to tell
him your pen name.”

“You didn’t, did you?”

“Of course not.”

I exhaled with relief, then asked,
“Did you get everything cleared up with Gene?”

“Look, I know I didn’t kill
Andre, and I don’t know who did, and anything else is none of his
business.”

“He’d give you more of a
break than anyone.”

She laughed.  “You are such
an innocent!”

“Oh, yeah, what about all
those pheromones buzzing around the kitchen last night?”

Her mouth turned down a bit before
she took another sip of water.  “They were all mine except maybe a couple
of strays.”

I felt my eyebrows jump in
surprise.

“It was never serious between
us.  He wouldn’t let it be.”

“His wives get in the
way?”

“Why are you so bitter?”

I shrugged.

“Maybe some of those
pheromones last night were yours,” she said.

“Give me a break!” I
said, kicking water.  “But speaking of pheromones, guess who I saw
together?”

“Who?”

“Laurel and Victor!”  I
told her about following Laurel.

Fran studied her polished nails. 
“No romance left between those two,” she said, twisting her silver
bracelet on her wrist.

“You sound definite.”  I
looked at her more closely.  “Fran!  Victor’s got three little boys.”

“He didn’t want ‘em.”

“Well, he’s got them.”

“Don’t get crazy,” she
mumbled, “nothing’s happened yet.”

I rubbed my forehead.

We were quiet for awhile, the
rushing water the only sound as the CD changed tracks.

“Gene’s a really nice guy,
Liz.”

“If he’s so nice, why do you
think he won’t give you any slack?”

She smiled.  “Because he’s
seen through me.  He would expect the worst.”

“I thought you said I always
expected the worst.”

“No, it’s that you’re so
badly hurt when the worst is revealed.  You always expect the best from those
you love.”

“Oh, God, Fran!” 
Suddenly the steamy room was too cold.  I slipped back into the water.

“What?  Are you all
right?”

“No.”  I told her what had
happened at Sheila’s.

Fran drained the last of her
bottled water.  “I don’t think that means anything.  They’d probably already
considered me because I’m tall, you because of your affair, Alisz and Jared
because they climb, too, Kirk because he’s strong, Laurel because she’s
familiar with the high school—they were just speculating.”

I felt dizzy.  “That darn
Gene, all this time collecting rumors and gloating—”

“No, Liz, it’s probably been
eating away at him like the fox in the Spartan kid’s tunic.  Poor guy.”

“Are you still going to feel sorry
for him when he drags Meg off to jail?”  I wrapped my arms around myself. 
“I can’t figure where she’s disappeared to or why.”

Fran played with the links on her
bracelet.  “Remember she called us liars last night?”

“No.  It was ‘secrets,’”
I said.  “Anyway, she doesn’t have any money, she can’t run far.”

“Unless Claire gave her some?”

I shrugged.  “I doubt it, but then
with Mother, one never knows.  What’s the penalty for matricide in Washington, anyway?”

Her slender fingers, tipped with
shell-pink nails, kept playing with her bracelet.  “If you got the right
combination of people from Warfield on the jury, they’d let you off Scot
free.”

I thought she was kidding until
she glanced up, embarrassed.  “I like Claire, but lots of people resent
her.”

“What could anyone else have
against her?  She hardly ever leaves the house.”

Fran took a deep breath. 
Releasing it, she sank lower in the water.  “Liz, you really should get
away from your computer more often.”

“Come on, tell me.  I don’t
get it.”

“First of all, you guys live
in the nicest old house in town.”

“It’s just a place my
grandfather built as a getaway from the pressures in Portland.”

“But that’s just it!  It’s a
great house that was someone’s weekend cottage.  That implies there was a genuine
mansion in the background.”

“But we never owned that—my
uncle got it.  Good grief, we were nearly homeless after my father’s investment
scheme went bad.  How could anyone begrudge us our home?”

“Because your mother chose to
keep the house and a lot of property rather than keep the store going.  People
lost their jobs over that.”

“But her arthritis—”

“Your mother can do what she
wants to do and has a great excuse for everything else.  Her arthritis wasn’t
crippling when the store was at issue.  She could have saved it.”

“Why do you think that?” I
demanded.  “You weren’t here then.”

Her smile had a grim edge.  “You
wouldn’t believe how much information comes my way.”

“Well, what if she could have
saved the store?  Surely it was her choice.”

“Yes, as owner, she could do
what she wanted, but the people who worked for her couldn’t.  This was a small,
isolated town with few jobs.”

“But the store didn’t have
that many employees.  How can there be many people who don’t like my
mother?”

“There’s the way she holds
court.”

“People come to visit because
she can’t go out,” I protested.  “She has a lot of friends—she’s
lived here most of her adult life.”

Fran shook her head. 
“Lizzie, do you pay attention to anything that’s not on your computer
screen?  The people who come to see your mother mostly aren’t friends, but
people who need something.”

“But she hasn’t got
anything.”

“She has enormous influence,
Liz.  She’s more the mayor than the mayor is.”

She concentrated even harder on
her bracelet as she said, “James got curious about her and looked over
property records—she owns a lot.  Your mother is a very big cheese.”  She
looked at me, eyebrows raised.  “I’ve never understood how you couldn’t
know that.”

“I never paid attention.”  I
sighed.  “There are lots of things you just don’t talk about to Mother.” 
I sat up on the rim of the tub.

She pulled herself out of the
water, too.  She took the hairpins out, and her braid fell over her shoulder
and along her breast.  She undid the elastic band and began to separate the
strands of her braid with her fingers.  “Your family reminds me of the
feudal system.  Spies bringing in reports, serfs out tilling your soil, knights
crossing the moat to your back door at midnight.”

“Idiot!” I said.

“Ah, yes, me as the court
jester in the kitchen.”

“Fran!  Maybe Mother plays
the lady royale, but I never have.”

She laughed.  “You’re the
vague eccentric in the attic, above it all.”

I kicked water at her.  “Have
I been snotty?”

“You float around on a fluffy
little cloud of privilege and never really focus.  I bet that started after
your dad left, didn’t it?”

I shrugged.

“No one knows how hard you
work.  Or that you work at all!  Can you see how people would think you feel
you’re better than everybody else?”

“But I don’t,” I
wailed.  I got up, wrapped one of Fran’s lush bath sheets around me like a
sarong, and went into the living room.

Wearing a jade green velour robe
and carrying her hairbrush, Fran followed.

I collapsed in the far corner of
the couch against a peach pillow.  “I’m not a snob,” I whispered.  My
chin quivered.

Fran sat, one long leg bent under
her, at the other end of the couch.  She began brushing her Rapunzel hair. 
“You know what we should do?  We should push up our trip to New Zealand.  I don’t have the money yet, but you can front it, can’t you?”

“You’re always boom or bust.  I
learned a lot from that financial management course.  I’d be glad to—”

“Don’t bore me with bottom-line
talk!  Come on, live a little!”

“Aren’t you forgetting
Andre’s murder?  Gene would suspect us both if we took off now.”

“He didn’t tell us not to
leave town, did he?”

“No, but probably only
because he didn’t think we would.  It’s crazy, Fran.  Besides, I can’t leave
Meg until I get things straightened out.”