The Best of Sisters in Crime (13 page)

The three other
women at the table obligingly giggled at Sylvia’s comment. Marjorie, already
damp with perspiration in her rumpled polyester pantsuit, flapped a pudgy hand
as if to dispel any lingering aura of naughtiness. “You are such a joker,” she
said. “I don’t know how you think of these things.”

“I would imagine
it comes from hanging around outside the locker room,” Bitsy said. Her eyes,
heavily accented with mascara and undulating ribbons of blue and gray shadow,
closed for a moment as a curtain of black hair fell across her face. She took a
sip of beer, wrinkled her nose, and pushed aside her cup. A Christian in the
Colosseum could not have looked less delighted.

“Better than
hanging around inside,” Sylvia said, “unless we’re discussing some little jock’s
strap.”

Anne busied
herself replenishing their plastic cups with beer from the pitcher, keeping her
face lowered in order to hide her expression. Sylvia’s jokes were always crude.
Most of the teachers at the school avoided the lounge whenever Sylvia sailed in
for coffee and conversation; Anne had discovered she preferred to stay in the
library rather than listen to the barrage of gossip and off-color humor. A
thermos of coffee sufficed. But tonight she found herself taking a certain pleasure
in Sylvia’s company. A certain pleasure, yes.

The Happy Hour
Saloon was swelling with a large and raucous crowd. The music blared from
omnipresent speakers, too loud and senseless for Anne’s taste, forcing voices
to compete in shrieks. The throbbing, repetitive beat seemed to stir the two
hundred or so women, however, with promises of erotica, of good times to come.
Lights flashed in a dizzying pattern that lacked discernible organization,
changing faces from red to green to blue as if they were hapless chameleons.
The tables were littered with cups, pitchers, ashtrays heaped with cigarette
butts, and spreading wet circles that glittered like kisses as the lights swept
across them.

“Isn’t this a
hoot?” Sylvia demanded of the table. “I went to one of these last year, and it
was beyond my wildest imagination.” She flung her blond hair over her shoulder
and studied the barnlike room with a complacent smile. “This crowd looks a lot
worse. We are in for quite a time this evening, ladies. Quite a time.”

Marjorie drained
her cup and pushed herself to her feet. “If Hank’s going to kill me, I might as
well die happily. I’m going for another pitcher, after a trip to the can to
powder my nose. Anyone else interested?”

Bitsy picked up
her purse and tucked it under her arm. “I’m tempted to stay in the ladies’ room
until the show is over,” she said acidly. “I cannot believe I’m actually here.
I don’t know why we let Sylvia coerce us into this low-class display of
vulgarity, although I can understand why it might appeal to her.”

Waggling a
finger at her, Sylvia said, “It’s time you saw something more exciting than a
kindergarten classroom, my dear. You’re beginning to look like one of your
five-year-olds.”

Bitsy pursed her
lips into a pout. “This whole thing is nauseating. I should have stayed at my
apartment and washed my hair. Let’s go, Marjorie. The ladies’ room is probably
filthy, but I’m not accustomed to beer. Scotch is less fattening, and so much
more civilized than this swill.”

Once Marjorie
and Bitsy found a path through the crowd of women and vanished around the far
corner of the bar, Anne gazed across the table. “I can’t believe I’m here
either. It’s a good thing Paul’s out at the cabin this weekend. Maybe by Sunday
night I’ll have worked up enough courage to tell him about it.” Or perhaps she
might whisper it in his ear, while he lay in a coffin at the funeral home. Even
tell him she’d changed her mind about the divorce—he could file it in hell or
wherever he ended up. She bit her lip to hide a quick smile. The irony was
delicious.

“What’s he doing
at the lake?” Sylvia asked. She lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply.

“He said he had
a lot of work to do and wanted to put fifty miles between himself and a
telephone. He’s been under such stress lately; I hope he has a chance to relax.”

“You still don’t
have a telephone out there? God, Anne, it’s halfway to the end of the world.”

“That’s why Paul
bought it. I don’t really enjoy staying there, but he seems to find ways to
amuse himself. I haven’t been there in months.” She crossed her fingers in her
lap. She’d been there two days ago, when she’d called in sick and then taken a
little field trip, although hardly in a fat yellow school bus. “He asked if I
would drive up this weekend. I told him I absolutely had to finish the semester
inventory at the library, but that’s only partly true. In all honesty, he’s
been in a rotten mood for several months, and I have no desire to be cooped up
with him in the middle of the woods.”

“Maybe he’s in
mid-life crisis. My ex went crazy when he hit forty. His shrink said he’d get
over it, but I divorced the bastard on general principle. When men get to that
age, they don’t seem to know what they want—unless it’s a combination of cuddle
and sizzle.”

“He’s not having
an affair,” Anne replied firmly. “Paul is much too straitlaced to do anything
to threaten his stuffy law practice. I do wish he didn’t have to work so hard;
we haven’t had a proper dinner in three months.” He had, though. She’d opened
the bill from the credit card company. Lots of restaurants, but she hadn’t been
invited for any cozy little dinners with elegant wine. She’d been at home,
putting gourmet meals down the garbage disposal.

“The old
working-late-at-the-office bit?” Sylvia raised two penciled eyebrows. “Well, if
you’re not going to worry about it, then neither am I, but I think you’d better
keep an eye on him. Paul’s an attractive man, and he knows it. Did you hear
what happened this morning in the teachers’ lounge when the toilet backed up?”

Anne forced a
smile as Sylvia began to relate a bit of gossip that would, without a doubt,
end on a crude bark of laughter. The music drowned out a major part of the
story, but she didn’t care. Sylvia didn’t require more than a superficially
attentive audience. The bitch. So she was surprised there was no telephone at
the cabin. As if she didn’t know. Of course what she and Paul did at the cabin
didn’t require a telephone—only a mattress. Or any flat surface, for that
matter. Her smile wavered, but she tightened her jaw and willed it into
obedience.

“Hank is going
to kill me,” Marjorie said as she set the pitcher on the table and sat down
beside Anne. “So when do we see the boys?”

Sylvia consulted
her watch. “In about ten minutes, I would guess. The management wants to give
all of us time to drink ourselves into a cheerful mood.”

Bitsy slipped in
next to Sylvia and glared at the rowdier elements of the crowd. “
Cheerful
is hardly the adjective, Sylvia. Nasty and foulmouthed might be
closer to the truth. Where do all these women come from? I’ve never seen so
many women about to burst out of their jeans or pop buttons off their blouses.”
She shifted her eyes to Sylvia’s ample chest, which was distorting a field of
silk flowers.

“This isn’t a
Sunday prayer meeting,” Sylvia said, grinning. “Now you and Marjorie could
sneak in the back door of the church if you wanted to, but Anne and I came to
have fun. Isn’t that right, Anne?”

“Oh, yes,” Anne
murmured. Oh, no, she added to herself as she once again held in a smile. She
had come to put the plan in motion. Sylvia needed to know where Paul was, and
how lonely he might be for his cooperative slut. She decided to reiterate the
information once again, just in case Sylvia had missed it. “You should have
convinced Hank to go fishing with Paul, Marjorie. The poor baby’s out at the
cabin all by himself for the entire weekend, with no one to entertain him. And
he’s been acting very odd these last three or four months; I’m worried he might
be on the edge of a nervous breakdown.”

“So worried that
you felt obliged to come to this horrid show instead of bothering to be with
him?” Bitsy said coolly.

Anne winced as
she struggled to hide a flicker of irritation. It was, she lectured herself, an
opening to produce her alibi, even if it had been provided in a self-righteous
tone of voice. “He told me he preferred to be alone, Bitsy, and I can’t go to
the cabin this weekend, in any case. I’m going to spend the next two days
locked in the library with Bev to do the semester inventory. We agreed we’d
work until midnight Saturday and Sunday if we had to, and send out for
sandwiches. Paul will enjoy a chance for relaxation and total solitude.”

“Total solitude?”
Sylvia echoed, laughing. “Maybe he’s having an affair with some nubile specimen
of wildlife.”

“That’s not a
very nice thing to say,” Bitsy said. “Just because your husband chased every
skirt in town doesn’t mean that—”

“Paul’s banging
a raccoon? My ex would have; he banged everything that breathed.” Sylvia
laughed again, then finished her beer and lit another cigarette from the
smoldering butt in her hand. Next to her, Bitsy coughed in complaint and
pointedly fanned the air with her hand. Anne covertly studied Sylvia’s face,
searching for some sign that the blonde’s thoughts were centered on the poor
lonely husband in the conveniently remote cabin.

Marjorie had
managed to mention her impending demise three more times before the music
abruptly stopped. A middle-aged man in a pale blue tuxedo bounded onto the
stage, a microphone in one hand. The crowd quieted in expectation, as did the
four women at the table next to the stage.

“Are you ready?”
the man demanded.

“Yes!” the women
squealed.

“Are you ready?”
he again demanded, leering into what must have resembled a murky aquarium of
multicolored faces.

The crowd
responded with increased enthusiasm. The ritual continued for several minutes
as the emcee warmed up the audience. Anne could not bring herself to join the
frenzied promises that she was indeed ready, even though, at a more essential
level, the decision had been reached and the plan already set in motion. This
man seemed too manipulative to merit response, too crassly chauvinistic—too
much like Paul. Sylvia had no such reservations, of course. Marjorie was
mouthing the sentiments of the crowd and clapping; Bitsy stared at the tabletop
as if she were judging kindergarten finger paintings for potential van Goghs.

“Do you want to
meet the men?” the emcee howled. The crowd howled that they most definitely
did. The emcee mopped his forehead, assured them that they would in one teeny
minute, but first they were going to have the opportunity to order one more
round of drinks. Waving good-bye, he bounded off the stage and the music rose
to fill the void.

Sylvia began to
dig through her purse. “Damn it, I just had that prescription refilled last
week,” she said as she piled the contents on the table. “Tranquilizers aren’t
cheap.”

But the gaunt
blond divorcée was, Anne thought. Too bad she couldn’t find her pills, but they
had been removed earlier in the week, when Sylvia had negligently left her
purse in the lounge. They were a part of the plan, a major part of the plan
that would end with a wonderfully melodramatic climax. The other climaxes would
occur earlier—in the bed, under the kitchen table, wherever the two opted to
indulge their carnal drives.

She really didn’t
care anymore. Her marriage was a farce, as silly and shallow as the night’s
entertainment. It would be over by Sunday, and she would be free from Paul’s
overbearing hypocrisy and Sylvia’s treacherous avowals of friendship. A
colleague had told her about seeing the two of them at a restaurant. Although
the news had initially paralyzed her, she had begun within a matter of days to
devise the plan. It had taken several weeks to perfect it; the invitation from
Sylvia to the male revue had seemed such a lovely, ironic time for the
countdown to begin.

“You really
shouldn’t mix barbiturates with alcohol. The combination can be lethal,” she
said, hoping she sounded properly concerned. The advice was based on many hours
of research, after all, done while sipping coffee from her thermos. An
elementary school library held so many fascinating books and magazines. From
both sides of the table, Bitsy and Marjorie nodded their agreement.

Sylvia shrugged
and began to cram things back in her purse. “It’d take a handful of the things
to do any damage. I must have left them in the bathroom at home, or in another
purse. Damnation, I feel a really ghastly tension headache coming on; I’ll have
to drown it in beer.”

Just wait, Anne
added under her breath. By Sunday night, Sylvia and Paul were going to be far
past the point of feeling anything. The bottle was in the liquor cabinet at the
cabin, a brand she knew Paul always kept well stocked. The drifting sediment at
the bottom would not prevent the contents from being savored, and the effects
would take several hours to be felt. By then, it would be much too late.

Sunday night, or
perhaps Monday morning, she would telephone the sheriff’s department and in a
worried, wifely voice ask them to check the cabin. The suicide note she had
typed on Paul’s typewriter would be found in her bedside drawer, his illegible
signature scrawled across the bottom. It was really quite nicely written, with
pained admissions that he could no longer bear a life without Sylvia, that he
had taken her pills earlier in the week so they could gently pass away in each
other’s arms. A bittersweet postscript to his wife, begging her forgiveness.
She suspected she would shed a few tears when the police showed it to her. Her
friends would all assure her that he had had a nervous breakdown, that he hadn’t
known what he was writing. They would be right, but she wouldn’t tell them
that.