Polished Off

by Lila Dare

  “His sister, actually,” I said as she fitted the key into the door of the neighboring apartment.

  “I don’t know about her,” the woman said, “but Mick’s over there.” She nodded sideways toward the pool.

  “Great. Thanks.”

  I had to walk to the far side of the pool to find the gate. It protested when I pushed it open and a couple of the mothers looked over at the squeal. Mick Smith didn’t so much as wince. Chlorine fumes burned my nostrils and eyes and I wondered how the kids swam without goggles. When I got close to the lounger where the man lay, I called, “Mick Smith?”

  Nothing. I took another couple of steps until I was looming over him. “Mr. Smith? Can I talk to you for a moment?”

  His arms hung off the sides of the lounger, hands limp on the broiling concrete. A Stephen King paperback lay close to his right hand and a bottle of Corona was within reaching distance of his left, in clear violation of at least two rules posted not a foot away: “No glass containers in pool area” and “No alcoholic beverages allowed.” Two o’clock seemed early to be knocking back the brewskis, but maybe he worked a night shift or something. He was thin enough I could see the suggestion of ribs, and fine dark hairs led from the small of his back into the elasticized waist of his forest green swim trunks.

  “You’re blocking my sun,” he said without opening his eyes.

  I hopped back, startled. “Sorry.”

  His hand groped for the beer bottle and he brought it to his lips, swallowing awkwardly with his face still mashed against the lounger.

  “I’m looking for your sister,” I said. “Eryca. Do you know where I can find her?”

  One eyelid peeled back a hair and a green eye scanned me lazily. “What do you want her for?” His eye drifted shut again.

  It didn’t seem polite to say I thought his sister might be sabotaging the Miss Magnolia Blossom pageant to get revenge for being ridiculed out of it. “I just want to meet her, okay? Your mom gave me this address.” I hoped that invoking the power of mom would prompt his cooperation.

  “Shit.”

  Apparently not.

  “I need another beer.” He slipped his hand into the scruffy deck shoes aligned under the lounger and pulled out a key ring. He tossed it in my direction and it clattered to the ground. “In the fridge. Bottom shelf.”

  I stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment and then anger wormed its way through me, flushing my skin. Did he think I was a cocktail waitress? I opened my mouth to tell him to get his own beer, but shut it without saying anything. Something about his air of entitlement tickled my funny bone. If fetching a beer would get me the info I needed, I could hike back to his apartment and grab a beer. I stooped to retrieve the keys and headed for the gate. Mick Smith appeared to have dozed off again.

  The lock opened easily and the apartment breathed out cool air scented with old pizza when I pushed the door open. I found myself in a room with a sofa and big-screen television on one end and a dinette with two chairs at the other. Textbooks stacked on the table suggested either Mick or Eryca was taking a class or two. A pair of ladies’ running shoes stuck out from beneath the sofa and a basketball huddled under the coffee table. Other than that, the place was empty of personal belongings. I didn’t bother locating a light switch; I just marched through the dimness to the kitchen attached to the tiny dining area. A pizza box, lid up, contained a single piece of pepperoni pizza, dried up and curling at the tip. Someone had balanced empty Corona bottles atop each other on the counter to form a huge triangle against the wall. All in all, the place wasn’t as gross as I expected—Eryca’s influence, maybe.

  I opened the fridge door and yanked out a Corona. Opening it with a church key magneted to the fridge door, I locked the apartment behind me as I left. The cold bottle felt wonderful and I held it between both hands as I returned to the pool enclosure. This time, I deliberately blocked Mick’s sun. “I’ve got your beer,” I said.

  He held out his arm sideways.

  “Uh-uh,” I said, holding the beer aloft. I shuddered to think what the women at the other end of the pool thought was going on. One of the kids cannonballed into the pool behind me and water splashed my ankles and shins. “Not until you tell me where to find your sister.”

  He opened one eye, decided I was serious, and said, “She’s practicing.” The eye closed.

  “What? Where?”

  He heaved a huge sigh. “D’you know St. Elizabeth?”

  “I’m from there.”

  “Great. Well, on the way into town—about two miles off the interstate—there’s a dirt road on your left. Follow it down almost to the river. You’ll hear her. I mean see her. Beer.” He waggled his fingers.

  I debated pouring the cold liquid over his back but let my better self win out. I thrust the bottle into his hand. He drank half of it in a noisy sideways guzzle, burped, and said, “She doesn’t go by Eryca anymore, y’know. She’s using her middle name. Tell her her half of the utilities bill is sixty-eight dollars.” He set the beer carefully on the concrete and relaxed into the lounge chair’s webbing again.

  “What name?”

  No response and a delicate snore suggested he’d fallen asleep. Whether or not he was sleeping or just pretending, I’d gotten everything I was going to get from Mick Smith. I moved the beer three feet away so he’d have to get off the lounger to grab it, and left.

  MAKING THE TURNOFF MICK MENTIONED, I BUMPED down a dirt road under an arch of trees that fanned from either side of the road and met in the middle. Old pines and deciduous trees labored under the burden of kudzu vines trying to bend them down to the forest floor. The leaves blocked most of the sunlight and only a forceful beam or two penetrated to the ground, where ferns and ivies—including poison ivy and poison oak, I was sure—provided a breeding ground for ticks and other creepy-crawlies. The Satilla River flowed just out of sight, giving the air a water scent I loved.

  About three-quarters of a mile in, I saw a newish white pickup parked in a small lay-by. I pulled in beside it, unsure where to start looking for Eryca. Could she be hiking by the river? A faint path led off in that direction. I started down the path, wishing I were wearing hiking boots instead of sandals. Red dirt scuffed under my toes and I was bending to dislodge a pebble when a shot startled me. I ducked even lower. Three more shots rang out in quick succession.

  My heart beat faster and I stayed in a crouch, feeling particularly foolish when a squirrel scampered down a tree and eyed me contemptuously before grabbing an acorn. I straightened and continued down the path in the direction of the gunshots. Mick had said Eryca was “practicing,” right? And that I’d hear her. I wasn’t surprised when I rounded a bend and found myself looking at a makeshift shooting range with targets nailed to trees at varying distances and a woman standing with her back to me, leveling a rifle at a silhouette of a deer. She was tall and trim from the back, wearing camouflaged pants and boots that could’ve come from a military surplus store and a pink tee shirt that showed off slim but muscular arms. Dark hair spilled from beneath a ball cap held down by ear defenders. She fired and the target jerked.

  Before she could bring the rifle to her shoulder again, I called loudly, “Eryca Smith?”

  She spun, automatically pointing the rifle at the ground, and I found myself looking at M16 Morgan, the Miss Magnolia Blossom contestant. Her dark hair set off light olive skin and full red lips. Not an ounce of fat blurred the lines of her fit body; no one would believe she’d ever been chubby.

  We stared at each other incredulously for a second until I blurted, “Morgan?”

  “I don’t go by Eryca anymore,” she said at the same time, pulling off the ear defenders.

  I couldn’t think what to say. She had easy access to the theater and all the things that were sabotaged: sprinkler system, Kylie’s mats, judges’ water bottles. And she had a gun. That fact, even more than my surprise and confusion, kept me silent.

  “What are you doing here?” Morgan asked, regaining her
equilibrium quicker than I had. Her dark brows drew together in a suspicious frown.

  “Your mother says she’d like you to visit,” I said. “And your brother says you owe him sixty-eight dollars for the electric bill.”

  Her mouth dropped open a half inch. “What?” Her frown turned to a look of total confusion. “How do you know my mom and Mick?”

  “I don’t really know your mom—we just talked on the phone. Look, could you put the gun down?”

  Morgan looked at the rifle like she’d forgotten it was there. “Sure. Let’s walk back to the truck. I’m done for the day.”

  I made a gesture for her to precede me down the path like I was polite or something; really, I didn’t want her behind me with the gun. “What are you practicing for?” I asked, stopping a thin branch from slashing into my face.

  “There’s a marksmanship competition at Fort Benning,” she said.

  We reached the lay-by and Morgan retrieved a gun case from the back of the cab. Walking around to the tailgate, she lowered it, sat on it, and began to wipe the rifle with a cloth. “So,” she said, looking at me from under the bill of her ball cap, “tell me why you tracked me down. And how you knew my first name.”

  “Well …” I wished I’d thought this through a little further. “A friend of mine told me she thought you’d been in the pageant before. I was curious, so I looked through some back issues of the Gazette and found your photo. I almost didn’t recognize you.”

  “I’ve lost some weight,” Morgan acknowledged. Her hand stroked the stock of the rifle absently as she fixed her dark gaze on me. “But your story is total bullshit.”

  She had me there. Maybe honesty was the best policy. “Okay, I heard from Jodi that an overweight girl got laughed out of the pageant a few years back. It struck me that she—you—might have a good reason for wanting to … to get back at the pageant.”

  “You think I murdered Miss Faye?” Shock slammed her features. Her grip tightened convulsively on the gun, making me nervous.

  “No, no,” I said. “I thought you might be responsible for the sabotage, though. For revenge.”

  “Oh, I’m out for revenge, all right,” Morgan said with a humorless bark of laughter. “But my idea of revenge is to win this candy-ass pageant and throw their trinkety crown into the nearest Dumpster. Or crush it under my boot on the stage. Can’t you just see Tabitha’s and Miss Keen’s faces?”

  Actually, I could, and the image made me laugh. Morgan joined me and our mirth startled a dozen sparrows taking a dust bath in the roadway. They fluttered to the safety of nearby branches.

  “You can sit,” Morgan said, patting the tailgate. She laid the rifle in its case and closed it up.

  “So, how did you lose all that weight?” I asked. I hopped backward onto the warm metal of the tailgate.

  “The abuse I took from the girls in the pageant was the last straw,” she said. “They were cruel and mean and hateful, but they were right. I was a blimp. I joined Weight Watchers. When I’d lost twenty pounds, I joined a gym. When I started working out, the weight just melted off. I was within fifteen pounds of my goal weight when I graduated and talked to an army recruiter. I signed up for the U.S. Reserves and went off to boot camp. Twelve-mile marches with thirty-pound packs, running, obstacle courses … if you want to slim down, I’m here to recommend boot camp.” She laughed. “That’s where I discovered I could shoot, too.”

  “Why take another stab at the pageant, then?”

  Her eyes drifted to the right and she stared into the woods as she thought. One leg kicked out and swung back and forth. “Well, the guys in my unit thought it would be funny and … I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to prove to those girls—the ones who made fun of me—that I could do it. Maybe I needed to prove it to myself. That I’m not Fat Eryca anymore. I’m Lean Mean Fightin’ Machine Morgan. And I don’t take crap from anyone.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  DRIVING BACK TO MOM’S AFTER TALKING TO MORGAN, I pondered the girl’s answers. She’d seemed confident and she’d had reasonable answers to my questions, but I wasn’t sure she hadn’t been the saboteur. She admitted she wanted revenge, and even though she made a joke of it, I’d seen the hurt in her eyes. Embarrassing a girl like Tabitha by sawing through her bathing suit strap must be almost irresistible to someone who’d been the butt of fat jokes from pageant princesses just like her. A disturbing thought niggled at me: Morgan was comfortable—and proficient—with guns. And Barnes had been shot. Could Morgan be a murderer? I shook my head and my hair whisked the back of my neck.

  My cell phone rang as I was pulling up in front of the salon. Addie McGowan started talking before I even said hello.

  “Grace, listen up. After we talked, I thumbed through a couple more issues, looking for articles about the pageant. I found one that talked about that poor girl who died. When I saw her photo, I remembered the story. And I got to thinking about what you said about someone having it in for the pageant.”

  Electricity tingled through me. “Leda something, right?”

  “Leda Wissing. Says here she died of a heart attack. Survived by her parents, Thad and Stacy Wissing of Kingsland, three grandparents, two sisters, one brother, and a niece. And a partridge in a pear tree. How do you ever come to terms with that as a parent?” she wondered rhetorically. “With your child dying so young and in such a freaky way.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Maybe you don’t. Maybe you look for someone or something to blame.

  MAPQUEST GOT ME TO THE WISSINGS’ HOUSE IN Kingsland half an hour later. Their address was in the phone book and Stacy Wissing had told me to come on over when I called and said I wanted to talk about Leda. She didn’t even hesitate; I got the feeling that she welcomed any excuse to talk about her daughter. Now, I sat in my car in front of their two-story brick house wondering what I was going to say. “Hello. Poisoned any beauty pageant judges lately?” Somehow, I didn’t think that would work.

  I got out of the car, smoothing my khaki skirt over my hips, and walked to the door. A weeping willow draped over the portico, its shadow making it feel like dusk rather than mid-afternoon. They’re such beautiful trees, but their name is so melancholy; I don’t like thinking of their leaves as tears.

  A woman opened the door. “You must be Grace,” she said. “I’m Stacy.” Still under fifty, I’d guess, with expertly dyed blond hair and a complexion beginning to show signs of sun damage, she offered a friendly smile and a firm handshake. She was tall and still slim. “Do you mind if we talk on the patio? I’m deadheading the roses.” That explained the dirt stains on her white tee shirt and the secateurs pulling down the pocket of her shorts.

  “It should’ve been done a couple months ago,” she said, leading me down a wide, carpeted hallway to a kitchen with maple cabinetry, an island, and French doors leading to the backyard. We stepped over the sill and onto a brick and sand patio surrounded by flower beds. A fountain dribbled gently in the middle of the yard and the scent of cedar mulch and mown grass perfumed the air. “But we were traveling some this summer—my son and his wife just had their second baby—and what with one thing and another I haven’t gotten round to it.”

  “Congratulations on your new grandbaby,” I said. “Boy or girl?”

  “A precious little girl. They named her Leda Elizabeth.”

  She actually smiled when she said it, so I assumed she had gone on with her life. Not that she was over her daughter’s death, but that she had tucked the grief away somewhere and didn’t let it color her every waking moment. She certainly didn’t come across as a psychotic, revenge-seeking lunatic. I told her about my role in the pageant and about talking to the protestors and their poster of her daughter.

  She pulled the clippers out and snipped at the brown clumps of petals, letting them drop to the mulch. “I read about Audrey Faye’s death, of course,” she said. “And that other man. I didn’t know either of them. A woman named Keen was running the pageant the year Leda entered it.”


  “She’s taken it over again since Audrey died,” I said.

  Moving to another rosebush, Stacy snipped at more dead blooms. “Are you thinking there’s some connection between their deaths and Leda’s? I just can’t see it. Leda’s heart gave out—a tragic consequence of her eating disorders. There was nothing criminal about it.”

  “She had eating disorders?” I hadn’t heard that.

  “Anorexia and bulimia both. We had her in a residential treatment facility when she was just fourteen, and she seemed to be getting better for a few years after that. But when she went off to college, we think she fell back into old habits. We tried desperately to talk her out of entering the pageant—even threatened to quit paying her tuition—but she was over eighteen. We couldn’t stop her.”

  I thought about a woman throwing her body so out of kilter through starvation and vomiting that her heart seized up. Tragic. “So you think being in the pageant killed her?” I tried to read Stacy Wissing’s face, but her back was to me as she gardened.

  She cast a sharp look at me over her shoulder. “Of course not. She—”

  A gate on our left creaked open and a man strode into the yard. In a suit and tie, he looked out of place. “I got here as soon as I could,” he said. “Is this her?” He frowned at me.

  Stacy sighed. “Thad, I told you there was no need to come home. I’m okay talking about Leda. You know that. And, yes, this is Grace Terhune.”

  I held out my hand but he ignored it. He had a heavy brow bone that overhung his eyes and sunken cheeks like a marathoner. “How do you know she’s not a reporter?”