by Lila Dare
“She’s not a reporter,” Stacy said. “Go back to work, honey.”
“Not with her here.” He frowned at me. “Do you have some sick fascination with death? Do you get off on people’s grief? What are you really doing here?” His hands balled into fists at his sides, he advanced toward me.
I stepped back as Stacy Wissing slipped between us. “Thad!”
“I’m not leaving until she’s gone.” He glared at me over his wife’s shoulder.
“You’d better go,” Stacy said to me. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “I’m sorry for disturbing you.”
“You’ll be sorry,” Wissing muttered.
I slid back through the French doors as Stacy hugged her husband. His shoulders shook like he was crying. I retraced my steps to the front door, taking one wrong turn that landed me in a living room. I was about to back out of the room when I noticed a family portrait over the fireplace. A smiling Thad and Stacy stood behind four children—three girls and a boy—who ranged in age from maybe twelve to eighteen. A golden retriever with a gray muzzle flopped at their feet. I pegged the oldest girl, a blond goddess who looked a lot like Stacy must have in her youth, as Leda. The photo must have been taken a year or two before her death. She looked happy in the picture, the sun making a nimbus of her blond hair, no trace of anguish or illness in her shining blue eyes or smooth complexion. What a waste. I was halfway back to the door when something struck me. I returned to the photo, studying the other children. Something about the middle girl … It took me a moment, but I finally figured out where I knew her from.
I DROVE AIMLESSLY FOR A FEW MINUTES, NOT SURE where I was going. I was almost certain Daphne, the protestor, was Leda Wissing’s sister. Was it possible that she was out for revenge against the pageant or did she really just want to warn other young women about the pitfalls of being obsessed with your looks, as pageant contestants had to be? I felt sorry for her. It must have been dreadful losing her older sister in such a way, and clearly her dad wasn’t helping the family get over their grief. Now, Thad Wissing struck me as a more likely candidate for revenge. His anger bubbled at the surface like geothermal pools I’d seen once at Yellowstone. Weird algae thrived in the high temps and turned the pools orange and acid green and blue. Maybe something similar was happening to Wissing; the heat of his grief was allowing revenge fantasies to bloom.
I found myself in front of the Oglethorpe before I knew it, scanning the sidewalks for the protestors. No one. The place looked utterly deserted and I figured it would remain that way until the girls started arriving for the evening’s competition. Jodi and Marv had probably finished the tech check and were stealing a few minutes for a nap, a meal, or a workout before returning to the theater. No one else had a reason to be there since the contestants had taken their gowns home.
Chewing at my lower lip, I pulled the car to the curb and dialed information. They had no listing for a Daphne Wissing. Of course, it couldn’t be that easy. She might share an apartment with a friend and the phone could be in the friend’s name. She might not have a landline. Or, heck, she might still live at home. I lived with Mom until I married Hank, except for my two years at UGA. I could call Stacy Wissing and ask for Daphne’s number, but after the way Thad behaved, I didn’t want to risk getting him on the phone.
I drove to Mom’s. She and Althea were unloading groceries in the kitchen when I arrived. They seemed overdressed for grocery shopping: Mom wore a blue flowered dress with a square neckline and Althea had on a long mustard-colored tunic embroidered at the cuffs over baggy pants. I hugged Mom and greeted Althea self-consciously, uncomfortable with the information Marty had given me about Kwasi. Should I tell her? Not now. Grabbing three bags out of the trunk, I lugged them into the kitchen.
“I just got back from the Piggly Wiggly,” Mom said, depositing a bag on the counter. Celery peeked over the top.
“And I showed up just in time to play pack mule,” Althea grumbled. She carried a box of detergent to the laundry room. “I think that’s the lot. We need to get going, Vi, or we’re going to be late. Which wouldn’t be all bad. I hope they don’t play any of those stupid games, like guessing the poor girl’s waist measurement. I can’t abide those games.”
“We’re going to Euphemia Toller’s granddaughter’s baby shower,” Mom said. “What are you up to?”
I quickly filled them in on my morning while Mom stacked cans in the cupboards and Althea stowed produce in the fridge. I folded the reusable bags and put them back in the pantry.
“I can’t believe that sweet little Daphne had anything to do with the goings-on at the pageant,” Althea said.
“Maybe she didn’t,” I said, “but I’d sure like to talk to her. I could tell Agent Dillon, I guess, and let him track her down, but it seems unfair to sic the police on her when she might not even be involved.”
“Call Kwasi,” Althea said.
I looked at her, puzzled.
“The gal’s in his class, right? Call him and get her phone number.” She looked at her watch. “Oh, wait. He’s in class now. But he should be done in twenty minutes. You can call him then.”
“Maybe I’ll just drive out to GCC,” I said, thinking I’d take advantage of the opportunity to query Kwasi about the argument with Audrey that Rachel had overheard.
Mom gave me a long look but Althea merely said, “He’s in the Chandler Building, office number 214.” She stiffarmed the screen door open and held it for Mom. “Let’s get this over with,” Althea said. “We don’t want that baby to pop out before his mama’s got wipes warmers and a baby backpack and forty-two precious little outfits that he’ll only wear once. Back in my day …”
Chapter Twenty-seven
THE GEORGIA COASTAL COLLEGE CAMPUS LIES JUST south of SR 42 before it meets the interstate. Three or four years ago, it consisted of one classroom building and an administrative building/student union. Now, it boasted multiple classroom buildings, a gym complex, and two dormitories. A pond ringed by cattails reflected the brick and glass façade of Danner Hall, where the administrative offices, bookstore, and student union were housed. Parking in one of the few slots that didn’t require a student, faculty, or staff parking sticker, I asked a passing student where I could find the Chandler Building.
“Cut through the coffee bar in Danner and Chandler’s right behind it.” He pointed.
Following his directions, and stopping for a cup of tea on the way, I found Chandler, a three-story collage of stone, glass, and asymmetric angles. In mid-afternoon on a summer Friday, not too many students clogged the walkways, but one or two lazed on the lawns, textbooks open, eyes shut. It made me nostalgic for my own college days at UGA. Part of me wished I hadn’t quit after two years to go to beauty school. Something about college campuses felt separate from the real world, safer, like living in a protective bubble.
A wide staircase led to the upper floors of Chandler and I climbed to the second level, figuring that’s where I’d find office 214. Bingo. I studied the half-open door for a moment, where Kwasi had his office hours posted, along with a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip and the Winston Churchill quotation about not quitting. I knocked.
“Come.”
Kwasi sat behind a battered wooden desk, grading a paper with quick slashes of a red pen. He looked up as I entered, studying me over the rims of his rectangular glasses. He wore a coarsely woven indigo blue shirt with sleeves that belled slightly at the wrist. His window looked out onto the parking lot and the interstate beyond. Tall bookshelves crowded with books and carvings of wood or stone took up most of the space. A couple of textile pieces and a ferocious-looking wooden mask at least two feet tall decorated the walls. “Hello, Grace.”
He didn’t sound surprised to see me.
“Althea called to tell me you’d be stopping in.”
Ah. Mystery explained.
“Did she say what I wanted?”
He shook his head. “No, just that it was something about a student?
” He raised his brows questioningly, creasing his freckled forehead. “Please.” He gestured toward a straight-backed rattan chair positioned in front of his desk.
I sat and a lone photo on his desk caught my eye. It showed Kwasi and Althea standing on the deck of a small boat, strings of fish hanging from their uplifted hands and huge grins on their faces. Althea looked radiant with happiness and the flush of sun.
“You and Althea went fishing?” I asked, thinking that it was sweet he kept the photo on his desk. He must really be serious about Althea.
“Yes, we had a most successful day, as you can see.”
“I didn’t know Althea fished.”
“That woman is up for anything,” he said with a real smile. “It is one of the things I particularly appreciate about her.”
It just goes to show that no matter how long you know someone, you never really know them. I didn’t have time to process this new idea of Althea—or of an appreciative Kwasi—so I put it away for the moment. “What I came by for,” I said, “is Daphne Wissing’s phone number.”
The creases deepened on Kwasi’s brow. “I don’t have a Daphne Wissing in any of my classes. There’s only Daphne Oliver.”
It had to be the same girl. How many college-age Daphnes were running around St. Elizabeth? Maybe the Wissings were a blended family. “She’s one of the demonstrators, right? About twenty, with sandy hair?”
He nodded reluctantly. “What is your interest in Ms. Oliver?”
“I just need her phone number,” I said, not wanting to color his opinion of his student by mentioning she might be sabotaging the pageant.
“I can’t give it to you, Grace,” Kwasi said in a reproving tone. “The students have an expectation of privacy.” He pursed his lips.
Reluctantly, I explained why I needed the number. “It’s important. What if she’s planning something for tonight’s competition? Someone could get hurt. If you don’t give me her number, I’ll have to give her name to the police.”
He shook his head. “I have trouble believing that Ms. Oliver is a threat to anyone, but if you believe she is, then you should take your concerns to the authorities. I will not betray her trust by giving you access to her personal data.”
It’s a phone number, I wanted to say, not her social security number or her diary. I switched tacks. “You knew Audrey Faye better than you let on, didn’t you? Someone overheard you arguing, heard Audrey say something about ‘what happened at Berkeley.’ Why haven’t you told the police about your prior relationship with her?”
He stiffened and his eyes narrowed. “You take a lot for granted, Grace. My relationship, or lack thereof, with Audrey Faye or anyone else is none of your business. Ditto for what I may or may not have told the police. If you must know, I was surrounded by students from late afternoon until well past the time of Audrey’s death. I believe several of them have already corroborated this for the police.”
The coldness in his voice intimidated me, but I kept on. “Does Althea know why you left Berkeley?”
He removed his glasses and polished them with a cloth he took from a desk drawer. “Are you implying you do?” he asked, pushing the glasses back up his nose.
I didn’t answer.
A sardonic smile twisted his lips. “Whatever you may have heard, I repeat: it’s none of your business.”
“Althea’s my friend,” I said heatedly. “I don’t want her to get hurt.”
“If you were really a friend, you would respect her enough to trust her judgment.”
This was not going the way I had planned. Trying to come to grips with Kwasi was like wrestling the greased pig at the county fair. Every time I thought I had a grasp on him, he slid off in another direction. Time was zipping past and I still didn’t have a way to reach Daphne.
“Can you please just give me Daphne’s phone number?” I asked, tacitly giving up on discovering what lay between him and Audrey. If she knew about his plagiarism and was threatening to reveal it, that would give him a darn good motive to kill her since it might well cost him his job. Still, it sounded like he had a rock-solid alibi. “Althea’s the one who suggested you would have it.”
“Are you implying that you’ll tell Althea whatever you think you know about my sojourn at Berkeley if I don’t give you the number?” His thumb tapped rapidly against his desk.
“Of course not!” I stood up angrily, accidentally knocking a stack of papers off the corner of his desk. They cascaded to the floor and I felt like a clumsy idiot. Damn. “I’m sorry!” I didn’t like having to apologize when I was furious with him.
“It wouldn’t matter if you were,” he said, shooing me away from the papers when I bent to pick them up. “You won’t get Daphne’s—or any other student’s—phone number from me.” He managed to make his stubbornness sound as noble as a freedom fighter’s refusal to give up his comrades under torture.
I spun around and left, not even bothering with a goodbye. The man was infuriating, even though I couldn’t help admiring—a teensy-weensy bit—the way he stuck to his principles. The concept of an ethical plagiarist made my head hurt. The way he refused to give me any information … wait a minute! He had given me an important piece of info: Daphne’s real last name. I fumbled for my cell phone and called information, netting a phone number and address for Daphne Oliver. Hah!
I CALLED DAPHNE’S NUMBER BUT GOT NO ANSWER. Darn the girl. If I hadn’t simultaneously felt so sorry for what she’d been through and worried about what she might do, I’d have dropped it. Instead, I drove to the Davenport Apartments, just blocks from the college, and knocked on the door. Cream paint was peeling from it, revealing a puce layer beneath. Tiny balconies fronted the second-floor apartments, and Daphne’s first-floor abode had a cement patio with a George Foreman grill and an aluminum folding chair. I was about to knock again when I heard footsteps. Hallelujah.
But my celebration was premature. The girl who opened the door was not Daphne. She was about Daphne’s age but was shorter and African American, wearing shorts and a tube top that emphasized a thick waist and generous bosom. A weighty biology textbook rested in the crook of her arm. “Yes?”
“I’m looking for Daphne. Is she here?”
“No.”
Miss Monosyllable started to close the door, but I asked, “Do you know where she is? I really need to talk to her.”
She shifted the book and sighed heavily. “What’s today? Friday? She doesn’t have class. And I don’t think she’d be at the library on a Friday afternoon.”
Great. She was going to list all the places Daphne was not, one at a time.
“She might be over to the theater with those protestors.” She put a verbal sneer into the last word.
“You don’t agree with her about beauty contests?”
“Do I look like beauty pageant material?” Thankfully, she didn’t wait for an answer. “Damn straight I don’t. So if I were to protest beauty pageants, it would look like I was just envious of girls who were ahead of me in line when they were handing out Barbie bodies and long eyelashes. I’m a straight-A student and I’ve been accepted to Wharton for my MBA. I don’t have time for pageants or protesting. Try the theater.”
I stared at a bouncing curlicue of peeling paint on the closed door. Fine. I’d tried to help Daphne, but I had limited resources for my detecting. It was time to let the professionals in on it. I dialed Agent Dillon’s number as I returned to the car.
“We’ve talked to the Wissings, of course,” he said when I explained my fears. “In fact, Thad Wissing was on our short list before we nabbed Michaelson; he blames the pageant and everyone associated with it for his daughter’s death and he has no alibi for either murder.”
I was relieved but a bit deflated to realize the police were ahead of me. “So what about Daphne?”
“I didn’t realize there was another daughter in the area,” he admitted. “The son lives in Arizona and has a rock-solid alibi for the time of Faye’s death. His last name’s Oliver, too.
All the kids except Leda kept their dad’s name when their mom remarried. The youngest daughter’s doing a semester abroad in New Zealand.” He hissed air through his teeth. “I don’t like it that the Wissings didn’t mention this Daphne.”
I didn’t like it, either. “Do you think the same person is responsible for everything—ruining the gowns, the skunk, the murders?”
“The jury’s still out on that,” he said. “Michaelson looks good for the murders but I can’t see him hacking up ball gowns. Unless, of course, he’s trying to muddy the waters.”
I told him about Morgan Smith being hounded out of the pageant the year Leda died. I felt a bit like a snitch, but couldn’t reconcile it with myself not to mention her when she had motive, means, and opportunity.
“Sounds like a long shot,” he said dismissively, “but I’ve heard stranger motives. I’ll put her name on the to-do list for when one of my guys has time. Maybe I’ll see you at the pageant tonight.”
And with that he hung up, leaving me uneasy. Dillon’s planning to be at the theater told me he was worried that something might happen. He could add two and two just as well as Marty and I and could figure out that the sabotage incidents were getting more extreme. On impulse, I drove to the theater again, pulling around to the lot in the back. No cats lingered near the Dumpster today and there were no cars in the lot. I drove slowly past the back of the building, looking for reassurance that the theater was secure and no surprises awaited us that night. Something shiny winked from the newly weed-whacked grass near the door I’d found open the day before. Marv must have mown it when he put on the padlock. With a little trepidation, I put the car in park but left it running, getting out to see what had caught my eye.
A lock. I nudged it with my foot. A brand-new padlock with the shackle twisted in two, probably by the bolt cutters lying almost concealed against the building. I crept to the door which hung open a bare inch. The raw scent of gasoline stung my nostrils and I cringed back. I was turning away, headed for my car and my cell phone, when a faint voice inside the theater yelled, “Help!”