A Conventional Corpse: A Claire Malloy Mystery

by Joan Hess

  “No point in bringing you pants,” Bettina said wryly. “We don’t wear the same size.”

  Arnie returned and helped get Wal-Mart to her feet, allowing me one last chance to hold the baby. We cautiously went downstairs, keeping an eye out for campus security, and made it into the car without being pinned down by blinking blue lights and loudspeakers.

  “You can find the shelter?” I asked as Bettina drove toward the campus.

  “In my sleep. Maybe I oughta let you off at the corner by the mansion. I’m not willing to spend the night in a cell without my toothbrush.”

  Arnie was trying to persuade the girl to rethink her decision regarding the baby’s name. I shushed him, leaned over the seat to take a last look, and forced myself to get out of the car. I stood beneath the streetlight until the taillights disappeared on the far side of the railroad bridge.

  I was wondering how long I’d been gone as I started walking toward the Azalea Inn. Surely not more than half an hour, I decided, although that was quite long enough for Peter to have called in the APB. I could think of no plausible explanation for my absence that would not result in a raid on the skyboxes. I would be charged with jeopardizing the welfare of a minor by failing to act in a responsible manner. Guilty, Your Honor.

  I had resigned myself to doing hard time when I reached the walk leading to the Azalea Inn, then froze as I saw a figure scuffling through the weeds at the top of the embankment. Although there was minimal light, the figure bore an eerie resemblance to my daughter.

  “Caron?” I said as I went across the street. “Where have you been? What are you doing?”

  “Looking for the cat. I feel as though I’ve spent my entire life looking for the cat. If I were to fall over-dead, I’d spend all eternity looking for the cat.”

  I gave her a tight hug, then held her back. “You’re caked with mud. What on earth happened?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it, but I can assure you none of this was My Fault. How was I supposed to know the cat was in the bathroom, poised to snarl at me and then dart between my legs? You’re lucky you won’t have to pay a plastic surgeon to reconstruct my face.” She stopped and took in my clothes. “I may have mud on me, Mother, but you look like you’ve been scavenging along the highway. That sweater is beyond description.”

  “Let’s get you inside and cleaned up.”

  “What about the cat? Sherry Lynne Blackstone’s just as scary as the cat, and a lot bigger.”

  I put my arm around her and nudged her toward the inn. “I was really worried about you, dear.”

  “Which is why you chose this designer outfit? I’m not sure I see the connection.”

  I said nothing as we crossed the street. The red dot on the porch warned me that Jorgeson was there, smoking his cigar and waiting for us. Despite an urge to shriek at Caron to take cover before we were slaughtered in our tracks, we continued to the bottom of the porch steps.

  “So the prodigal mother and daughter have returned,” said a voice that belonged not to Jorgeson, but to his insufferable superior.

  “I wouldn’t mind a fatted calf sandwich,” I said. “This is the second day in a row that I’ve subsisted on crumbs of cheese.”

  He stubbed out the cigar. “Would either of you care to explain?”

  “I wouldn’t,” Caron said as she pulled free of my arm. “I am sick and tired of being blamed for everything!” She ran past him and into the house. The door slammed as a less-than-subtle warning not to follow her.

  “Goodness,” I said under my breath, thinking of the days when she would have cried on my shoulder and told me everything. She might have been wearing diapers at the time, but her candor had been heartwarming.

  “How did she leave and where has she been?” asked Peter.

  “She hasn’t told me,” I admitted. “Can I please ask Lily to fix me a cup of tea and something to eat? I don’t know when I last had something. Thursday, probably, or maybe yesterday morning.”

  “Go ahead,” he said with a sigh. “The convention people have gone to their homes and hotels. The authors are in the parlor, drinking tea and arguing who had better sales this evening.”

  “Even Sherry Lynne?”

  “I don’t know. Jorgeson spotted her cat in the yard and managed somehow to grab it. She took it upstairs.”

  “And Jorgeson?”

  “I told him to go on home and tend to his scratches. He looked as if he’d flung himself face-first into a thicket of particularly nasty thoms.” His eyes widened as I moved under the porch light. “You’ve changed your clothes since I last saw you.”

  “I’ll explain later after I’ve spoken to Lily. I’m so hollow that my stomach isn’t rumbling—it’s echoing.”

  I left him on the porch and hurried by the doorway that opened into the parlor. I heard voices from within, but my name was not called. Lily was in the kitchen, washing wineglasses at the sink. She was not pleased with my request, but agreed to fix me a sandwich.

  “Your daughter’s taking a shower in my bathroom,” she added. “She and her friend are supposed to meet some girls shortly. I offered to let her borrow a shirt and jeans from me. The key word is ‘borrow.’ I expect the clothes to be returned no later than tomorrow night.” She winced at my current fashion statement, which seemed to be screaming at everyone. “Very interesting. You look like one of those white-haired ladies who paint watercolors in the central plaza in Santa Fe. They are almost always accompanied by neurotic little dogs that snap at ankles and soil the sidewalks.”

  I decided to make one more effort to coerce Caron into explaining what had happened. “I’ll collect her dirty clothes and take them with me.”

  As I reached the open door, Lily said, “The door to my office and bedroom is on the other side of the refrigerator. That’s the door to the basement.”

  “What’s down there?”

  “The washer and dryer, the furnace, canned peaches and tomatoes from last summer, a few boxes of junk, an old bicycle. Look for yourself if that sort of thing amuses you. There’s a light switch just inside the door. I usually take a flashlight with me in case the mice have nibbled through the wires, but I couldn’t find it earlier.”

  I turned on the light, which was dim at best, and descended the wobbly wooden steps. My garage and storage area were piled high with boxes overflowing with old magazines, clothing destined to be donated to a thrift shop when I got around to it, empty jars and coffee cans, and piles of newspapers. Lily’s basement was tidier than my living room. The boxes purportedly containing junk held tools and jars of nails. The peaches and tomatoes were labeled with neat, hand-printed dates. The washing machine was churning serenely. The dryer was the only possible place to hide Ammie’s notebooks and manuscript. I opened it with the tiniest tingle of adrenaline and found a jumble of warm towels.

  I turned off the light as I came back into the kitchen. “Is Caron still in the shower?”

  “I think I hear her blow-drying her hair. Don’t bother with her clothes. They can go in with the next load of tablecloths. Your teacup and sandwich are on a tray in the parlor. If you don’t mind, I’d like to take off my shoes and lie down. I’ll tell Caron and Inez where you are.”

  The kitchen darkened behind me as I went into the sunroom. The conversation from the parlor was not as acrimonious as I’d feared; the debate over book sales had subsided and the topic seemed to be which of them was being most inconvenienced by remaining another night at the Azalea Inn.

  “So I left a message with the publicist telling her to call Larry King’s people,” Allegra was saying to an indifferent audience, “but I’m screwed.”

  “And I’ll miss the state dinner at the White House,” Laureen murmured.

  They all stared at me as I came into the room. ‘It’s a long story,” I said as I sat down next to Dilys and stuffed half the sandwich in my mouth. I’d never had tastier sprouts (if I’d ever had sprouts; I wasn’t sure).

  “Are you all right?” asked Sherry Lynne.
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  “Yes. How about your friend upstairs?”

  Walter stood up and pointed his finger at her. “Is your cat up there? I should have known when I started wheezing in the hall. Lily assured me that—”

  “More importantly,” Dilys interrupted smoothly, “is Caron all right? I was coming downstairs when she came in from the porch, as muddy as a soldier in the trenches. I’m quite sure there were cobwebs in her hair. This is very mysterious, you know. Earlier, Earlene was skulking about and watching us as though she was convinced one of us would drag her out to the cistern. An hour later, Inez began asking if anyone had seen Caron. Laureen and I had, of course, but before the attendees arrived.”

  Allegra picked up a teacup. “Lieutenant Rose told me that there were police officers at both doors.”

  “A fascinating twist on the locked room mystery,” Walter said as he sat back down. “Rather than a lone corpse lying on an Oriental carpet in the library, we have over a hundred people locked inside the allegorical room. How did Caron manage to leave without anyone seeing her? She could hardly have flung open a window, knocked off the screen, and toppled into the shrubbery. Some of us are more astute than others”—he gave Dilys a pointed look—”but surely someone would have noticed her curious behavior and commented on it.”

  “Shouldn’t you be more concerned with why?” said Allegra. “I’d expect at least one theory about repressed memories or hysteria brought on by ‘female problems.’”

  Laureen put down her teacup and yawned. “I’ll carry a few of these to the kitchen, and then retire.”

  “But it’s so Gothic,” said Dilys, clearly disappointed by Laureen’s unwillingness to participate in idle plotting. “I think we should ask Lily for candles, turn off the lights, and explore the house. If anyone should lag behind, however, all that will be left of him”—her pointed look at Walter was a good deal sharper than his had been—”would be a muffled cry of pain, and then silence.”

  “Agatha Christie’s already written that one,” Sherry Lynne said. “But I suppose we all steal plots from wherever we can.”

  Laureen began to stack saucers and teacups. “Sometimes unwittingly.”

  “Plots may linger in the subconscious,” Walter said in a voice that must have put many an undergraduate to sleep on a hot afternoon. “We are unable to differentiate that which we have experienced, even vicariously, from what we believe are spontaneous creations.”

  “Does anyone know if Lieutenant Rosen is still here?” I asked.

  “I believe all of the police officers have left,” said Dilys. “Lieutenant Rosen may be hoping we murder each other in our beds, thus saving himself from further investigation. One would think that anyone whose duty is to investigate crime would enjoy possible scenarios, but he became very grouchy when I brought up the likelihood of a pirate in the basement.”

  I finished the last bite of sandwich. “I looked, Dilys. No pirate, no bottle of rum.”

  “Have you considered a full frontal lobotomy?” Walter asked her.

  “Why, no. Was yours successful?”

  “Children,” Laureen said wearily, “I think I’d better send you to your rooms. There will be no creeping around once the lights are off. Put on your pajamas, brush your teeth, and go to bed.”

  “Let me help you,” I said to her. “Caron’s still here, and I want to talk to her before she heads for the pizza place.”

  “No, dear, you’ve had a hard day.” She refilled her teacup. “You stay right where you are. As for the rest of you, don’t force me to behave like a stern nanny from one of Dilys’s books.”

  Everybody trooped out of the room. I sank back, noticing for the first time that my knees were stained with blood. None of the authors had commented, but perhaps they’d described too many bloodstains to find them of interest.

  I could hear footsteps upstairs and a low buzz of voices. However, the Azalea Inn seemed to sigh in relief at the prospect of a quiet night. I was musing about Skyler’s perfectly sculpted features when I heard Caron scream.

  Chapter

  16

  I scrambled down the hall, looked wildly around the sunroom, then barged into the kitchen just as the overhead light came on. Caron and Inez were hanging onto each other, their faces immobilized with shock. Lily skittered into view behind them.

  “What’s wrong?” she demanded.

  Caron held up a wobbly hand and gestured at the basement door. “There’s something in there.”

  Inez nodded so vehemently that she had to grab her glasses before they flew off her nose. “That’s right, Ms. Malloy.”

  “What makes you think there’s something in there?” I asked, trying to introduce an element of sensibility to what felt like the set of a bad movie.

  Caron let go of Inez’s arm, but stayed where she was. “We were on our way to go to the pizza place. All of a sudden, the door started creaking open. I am normally not this immature, but after all that’s happened today, I lost it. I mean everybody knows there’s a murderer loose in the house!”

  I eyed the door, reminding myself I could not have overlooked a laboratory in the basement, replete with an array of coils, Bunsen burners, and vats of pickled body parts.

  Lily joined the girls. “Aren’t you going to open the door?” she asked me.

  “I don’t live here,” I said. “You open it.”

  She sneered. “What do you think you’ll find—a modern-day version of Frankenstein’s monster?”

  “Don’t be absurd.”

  We were at a standstill, literally as well as figuratively, when we heard a series of squeaks, followed immediately by a distinct thump.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Caron said to Inez. “We’re already late. I’ll be home by midnight, Mother.”

  I held up my palm. “Nobody goes anywhere.” Nobody went, but nobody seemed inclined to join me as I crept across the kitchen and slowly opened the door, recreating the creaks that had frightened the girls. The room was inky, but I caught a glimpse of an expanse of white, as if the basement had experienced a blizzard.

  I flipped on the light and looked down at Laureen Parks, who was sprawled on the floor amidst hundreds of sheets of paper. “Are you hurt?”

  “No, but I could use a hand to get up and navigate the steps. I gave up my aspirations of joining the U.S. Olympic Gymnastics team on my sixteenth birthday. I was informed that trifocals were not allowed on the balance beam.”

  Caron, Inez, and Lily followed me downstairs. Lily and I pulled Laureen up and held onto her as we started back to the kitchen. I considered asking the girls to gather up what I knew were the pages of Ammie’s manuscript, then decided to leave it to the police.

  “Run along,” I told them. “Caron you need not concern yourself about our houseguest, who has found other lodgings. I’ll expect you home by midnight. Lily, will you please make a pot of tea and bring it to the parlor?”

  Laureen tried to smile. “And a side order of aspirin, please. Any flavor will suit me.”

  “What were you doing down there?” asked Lily.

  I wasn’t sure how much she knew of what had happened, but Laureen was trembling and I wanted to get her to a comfortable seat. “I’ll explain later,” I said, then helped Laureen to the parlor and deposited her on the sofa with various cushions propped around her.

  “Can you explain it?” she asked me.

  “I think so, but I doubt I can outline it easily enough so that it can be used for a plot for one of your novels.”

  “Why my novels instead of, say, Allegra’s or Dilys’s, or even Walter’s?”

  “You didn’t mention Sherry Lynne’s, but of course the cat was a player. She’s the one most likely to have a book out next year titled, The Murder at the Azalea Inn.”

  “I’d tackle it myself,” she said with a shaky laugh, “but I won’t be writing another novel. I’m exiting the stage with a bang, or at least a whoosh.”

  “You might have gotten away with it had it not been for Wimple. He’s
caused you problems since you saw him sniffing around the cistern after you pushed Roxanne into it. Were you unable to pull the lid back into place?”

  “I have a weakness in my hands and wrists. Pushing it open was difficult, but pulling it all the way back proved impossible. I really wasn’t too concerned until I saw the cat. I was afraid he might decide to leap in, then be unable to claw his way up the stone sides. I would never harm an innocent creature.”

  “Unlike Roxanne Small, who had no reservations about harming Ammie, who was as innocent as they come. Allegra left her purse on the sofa when she went looking for wine. Did you see Roxanne take out a few sleeping pills?”

  “Not at all. I simply deduced it when we were told of Ammie’s otherwise inexplicable accident. Roxanne was the only one among us with a motive.”

  I nodded. “Because of Ammie’s manuscript. You heard enough about it in the garden to realize there were some elements of it in Allegra’s book.”

  “Quite a few, actually. What Roxanne didn’t feed Allegra for the first book will show up in her next, which has been bought by a production company and is likely to splash down at the top of the New York Times list in November.”

  We both stopped as Lily came into the room with a tray. She clearly looked as if she intended to stay, but I shook my head and said, “I promise to have a cup of tea with you in the garden tomorrow.”

  “I am entitled to know what goes on in my own establishment,” she said coldly.

  Laureen sighed. “No matter how hard you glower, you are no contemporary Medusa and no one’s turning to stone to gratify your delusions. Now run along and watch sitcoms, or better yet, read one of my books.”

  Once she was gone, I said, “I suppose Roxanne had never given Ammie a second thought until last evening. To her, Ammie was just some drab little thing who had dropped out of school to bury herself in a backwoods town. Then, out of nowhere, there she is, goggling at the famous authors. Roxanne must have realized Ammie was likely to buy one of each author’s books to have it signed.”

  “So she had to be prevented from returning to the convention today.” Laureen’s hand shook almost uncontrollably as she tried to pour tea. “Could you do this, Claire? I’m awfully tired and my back is beginning to stiffen. There are some things a woman of a significant age should not do. Falling down stairs is one of them.”