Pretty, Nasty, Lovely

by Rosalind Noonan

  “Are you being psychic, or is that just common sense?”

  “A little bit of both.”

  Isabel pressed her fingertips to her lips, panic approaching. “Oh my God, should we call the police? What if the killer got to her?”

  “No. There’s no reason to panic.” There rarely was, but try to tell that to a nervous butterfly like Isabel. “The danger is not immediate. It’s a threat. Like distant thunder.”

  “How do you know?” Isabel checked her phone, then tossed it back onto the table. “I’m going to get sick about this.”

  “No. You’re going to stay calm and have some tea and smoke if you want.”

  Isabel hugged herself. “I don’t do tobacco.”

  “You smoke weed, and Arabic tea and hookah go together like peanut butter and jelly. Try it.” Defiance lifted the teapot and began pouring. The subtle aroma mixed with the smoke to awaken her senses, stoking the blue flames of vision. “I’m going to do a reading for myself. But really, I’m thinking about Emma, so my question will be about her.” As she explained the basics of tea-leaf reading, Defiance added two spoons of sugar to her tea, stirred, and began to meditate on the tea and the question.

  What was Emma’s danger?

  She thought about Emma as she sipped the tea, sensing a heaviness surrounding her friend. She imagined a warrior princess limping from a battlefield, injured but determined, wounded but not mortally. Not in danger of dying, at least, not in this moment.

  Letting her vision blur, Defiance sipped the tea and gave herself up to watching for the threat to Emma. Here was the line between tea reading and psychic vision that Defiance’s mother so hated; the bad reputation of so-called gypsy fortune-tellers swindling people out of money and throwing curses on those who crossed them. Mama didn’t understand, but Kizzy had taught Defiance how to look in the shadows and delineate the movement of life.

  At last, she swirled the cup, drained it, and glanced down at the minced leaves.

  “Oh, I see a magnificent dragon.” She showed the cup to Isabel.

  “Actually, it looks more like an alligator to me. All teeth, no wings.”

  “Both are signs of danger. There is a threat coming to Emma, but it’s still in the dark, behind a curtain. She can’t see it now.”

  “You’re scaring me.”

  “Stay calm. Wisdom is knowledge.” Despite her reassurance to her friend, Defiance knew she would not be able to shake her concern until she could warn Emma of the threat. She turned the cup this way and that, waiting for other shapes to emerge.

  It was a hard cup to read. “I see a man and a woman, standing together.” The shapes were rough, like the signs on restrooms. “A bride and groom?”

  The wedding cake figurines in the teacup were Lydia and Graham; she was sure of it, but she didn’t understand it.

  “Was Lydia engaged to marry Graham Hayden?” she asked.

  “She wanted to,” Isabel said. “He was one of her big crushes.”

  “Was it his baby she was carrying?”

  Isabel’s eyes opened wide. “You knew?”

  Defiance shrugged. “Most of my cousins and all of my sisters are married with children, and some of them needed extra space in their wedding gowns for the baby bump. A big secret, of course, but you start to see the signs.” She tried to relax as she inhaled from the hookah. Walls were coming down between Isabel and her. If only they could have talked of this months ago. “I could see it in the way she walked. And the glow. Her face was like the moon. But I never talked about it with her. We never talked. Lydia believed I wasn’t good enough for her.”

  “She was snobby to a lot of girls,” Isabel said. “The only reason she was nice to me was because I found out her secret. We had a class together across campus last spring, and she was always leaving to go to the restroom. Twice I found her throwing up in there. I thought she was bulimic at first. I offered to help her, and then she told me.”

  “So we both knew, but never said.” Defiance stared at Isabel through the dark hair that had fallen into her right eye. “We should have come clean about this earlier.”

  “You had just transferred here in September, and I don’t like to spread rumors. I’ve had enough girls backstab me. I won’t go there.”

  “But it’s not a rumor if it’s true,” Defiance said.

  “I guess. Lydia said the baby was the best thing that ever happened to her. She figured she would have to leave school after her fall term, but she didn’t mind because she was getting married. She was engaged to marry Graham, but it was a secret.”

  “A secret, or a fantasy?” Defiance was skeptical. “Why did this never happen? He broke up with her after the baby was born? Or maybe she was making up the whole relationship. In those last days, sitting around in her bathroom, Lydia was crumbling from the inside out. I don’t know what happened to her baby, but it looked like her dreams were far from coming true.”

  Isabel shrugged as her cell phone buzzed. “I guess we’ll never know.” She frowned as she scrolled down the text message. “Angie hasn’t heard from her, either. She texted Rory. He’s still at the mountain, not coming back until tomorrow. But they texted this afternoon, and Emma seemed fine.”

  “Where is she?” Defiance looked down into her empty teacup, but she couldn’t see the answer in the leaves.

  * * *

  “We need to talk to someone about the infant’s body found in the ravine,” Finn told the desk officer. “Can we talk to someone working on that case?”

  “Hold on a second.” The cop left Finn waiting at the desk in the police precinct, while Eileen veered off to sulk in a chair in the waiting area. Goddamn her!

  It had taken Finn three hours to convince her that she had to come here and retract the false information she had given to the police regarding Emma. Eileen’s face and neck sparkled with some sort of makeup, as if she’d fallen in a vat of glitter, and he had to bite back commentary as he made his case. He had started arguing logic, then moved to morality and common decency. When that had failed, he had pointed out that it was against the law to lie to the police. Obstruction of justice. Did she want to go to jail? That had frightened her, though not enough to get her to the station. Finally, he had to stoop to her level. He vowed that he would not see Wiley again unless she went to the police and told them the truth.

  It had taken an iron will to hold his temper down as he’d corralled Eileen and Wiley into the car, dropped the kid with Eileen’s mother, and driven to the police station. The whole time Eileen had been harping about plans for Christmas. “Would you come back to us if we went to visit your family in Oklahoma?” she asked him. “It could be a healing holiday. And Wiley needs to get to know his other grandparents.”

  She never stopped.

  He had kept silent, chanting the mantra in his head. No, no, no.

  Now they were being directed to a desk in a large room down the hall, where a trim, fiftyish cop in uniform introduced himself as Officer Glenn Kunkel and asked them to take a seat.

  “Thanks for coming in. I understand you folks have new information for me?”

  “Actually, it’s a retraction of information you were given.” Finn introduced himself and Eileen, then explained how Eileen had called in information about the baby in the ravine that she’d thought was true at the time. “But it’s false. Isn’t that right?”

  Eileen tilted her head at the cop, leaving a lock of blond hair dangling over one eye in a gesture she probably thought was sexy. “I thought that girl was trying to break up my family,” she said. “You can understand where I was coming from.”

  Screw the family! Finn wanted to shout. “Just tell him the truth. She claimed to have evidence that one of my students committed a crime. Tell him.”

  “I never saw Emma Danelski carry a baby down into the gorge.” As Eileen leaned forward, specks of glitter on her face caught the light. “I made that part up. Or maybe I dreamed it. I thought she was having an affair with my husband.”

 
“I’m not your husband. We’re not married.” Finn stared at Kunkel, trying to engage him. “We never were.”

  Kunkel frowned as he turned back to Eileen. “So you called in a tip on this student because you were pissed off? That is against the law, Ms. Culligan. You’re screwing around with our investigation.” He shot a look at Finn, adding, “Against the law, and just not cool.”

  Thank you, Finn thought. Finally, after hours of Eileen’s warped hysteria, the voice of sanity.

  CHAPTER 36

  Killer, killer, killer . . .

  The word sprang from my chest in sync with my frantic heartbeat as I paced the jail cell like a caged bird. It was cold in here, but the shivers that racked my body had little to do with temperature and everything to do with the fear that shook me to the marrow of my bones. The realization that I was in this alone. The fear that I would never get out of this place.

  Did they have enough to charge me with murder?

  How much had Tori told Detective Taylor about Halloween night at Theta House?

  My baby . . . she’d said the baby was mine. God, I was so stupid not to go along with that in front of Detective Taylor.

  My hands balled into fists as I thought of the jabbering sisters on the Rose Council. Courtney, Tori, and Violet. They’d been quick to point the finger at me. They had made a Theta Pi promise to keep the secret—a serious oath—but in the process of protecting one sister they had thrown me to the lions.

  What had Detective Taylor said? Someone had called in an anonymous tip. More like anonymous lies. That I’d hooked up with Dr. Finn? It gave a sick taint to a relationship that had nothing creepy about it. Which lovely sister had made that call?

  With arms crossed against the insidious chill in my bones, I cut a path between the empty bunks and the stainless-steel toilet as I tried not to freak out about being in jail and facing murder charges. What would happen with my finals . . . the rest of the term? My student loans? In the back of my mind I remembered a counselor warning me that everything would go to shit if I got arrested. And I’d given her that bland smile, dismissing the notion as ludicrous.

  I’d been a fool.

  Why hadn’t I gone along with the lie? If I’d told the detective that I’d been pregnant, if I’d gone along with my sisters’ lies, I could have told them where the baby was. I’d been so stupid! I needed to start owning that lie, not so much to protect myself but to protect the baby. Rebecca.

  Her new, hopeful life was the only bright spot in this mess. I didn’t want to use her, but I needed to own that lie to protect her.

  I turned toward the cell door, a thick, transparent Plexiglas barrier with bars in the middle. Detective Taylor and Officer Caldwell had tried to get me to talk, but I had closed up like a clam and asked for a lawyer. That was the last exchange we’d had, probably hours ago.

  What the hell were they doing out there?

  Where was the encouraging, bespectacled attorney who always showed up to defend suspects on TV shows? And what about that single phone call? They had taken away my cell phone and wallet, offering me nothing in return.

  Eventually, that door would open and they’d either call in a lawyer for me or escort me to a phone.

  Would I call my father and lay my troubles down on him? That was pointless. Neither he nor my brother, Joe, had the resources to pay a lawyer. G-Dan may have been a cool dude on the jazz scene, but I couldn’t count on him to bail me out.

  And now here I was, a twenty-year-old sophomore in college, and I had no lifeline. Granted, I had my sisters, some of them closer than others, but this wasn’t like borrowing a sweater or asking for the answers to the Astronomy quiz. Bail money? Like that would ever happen.

  I turned away from the scratched-up door and, breaking my resolve not to touch anything in this cell, sat on the edge of the bunk. The wooden bedframe pressed through the thin wafer of mattress. Everything in here was hard and cold, devoid of softness.

  A deep breath did nothing to calm me as my heart beat sickeningly against my ribs. Liar, liar . . . Someday I would learn to be a better liar.

  * * *

  When she was in high school, a boy had accused Defiance of having ice in her veins. She had laughed, which pissed him off even more. That had been the end of that romance. Tonight, she used that innate calm to stay rational. That was why, when her friends wanted to form a search party and send all the sisters out looking for Emma, Defiance had decided to call the police first. The notion that you had to wait twenty-four hours was a myth, and she knew the police here in Pioneer Falls to be responsive to the needs of college students, their bread and butter.

  “I’m calling to report a missing person,” she told the cop who answered the phone. “She’s not answering her phone and she missed an appointment.” When she gave the name, he repeated it and told her that Emma wasn’t missing after all. “Your friend is here at the downtown precinct.”

  He made it sound so casual, like students popped into the police station every day. “What is she doing there?”

  “Well, right now she’s being held for an investigation.”

  Trouble. Defiance had seen it coming. “You’ve arrested her?”

  “I’m not at liberty to give information right now.”

  “What do we need to do to get her released?”

  “The procedure is that she’ll be arraigned by a judge tomorrow.”

  She ended the call, looking from Isabel to Patti to Angela to Darnell. “Emma needs our help.”

  * * *

  My eyes opened when I heard the noise at the door of the jail cell. I must have dozed off at one point because now the clock on the wall said that it was 2:25. The blur on the other side of the Plexiglas door turned out to be Detective Taylor.

  “Come with me,” she said. Back to the interview room with its pockmarked ceiling and camera. She offered me water or soda. I wanted tea to ward off that middle-of-the-night chill. I settled for water.

  Detective Taylor seemed to have softened, but then maybe that was just exhaustion fraying her concentration. “I did some checking on you,” she said. “How come you’re not telling me the whole truth?”

  It was a complicated question, one with too many answers. I stared down at the table, wondering how much she had found out. How bad was it?

  “I tried to reach your father. He’s a hard man to track down. But I did get to speak with Mr. Joseph Danelski.”

  I let out the breath I’d been holding. Maybe it was awful . . . or not so bad at all.

  “Your brother, Joe?” she prodded. “He told me that you did have a baby late Halloween night, just like your sorority sisters said. There was no documentation on the birth because everyone was afraid to go to the police or the health center. But your baby didn’t die. You brought her up to Tacoma on the train and left her under their care on November first. He and his wife are in the process of legally adopting her.”

  My baby . . .

  This time I jumped on the fabricated story. The gift of a lie that Tori and Violet and Courtney had given to me.

  “That’s right,” I said quietly. “I had a baby in the sorority house. Lydia helped deliver it.”

  That day in the gorge, something wickedly creative came over me as I considered the future of the baby girl. Who would take care of her? Who would love her, not in that storybook way, but in the real day-to-day grit of kissing her grubby hands and allowing her to tumble so that she could learn to take her first steps and learn to walk? Would a clinic or police station connect her to a mother and father who would love her to the moon and back?

  Maybe. But that would take time, and I couldn’t let her suffer a single minute without love when I knew where to find it.

  The hike out of that gorge with the weight of her on my chest had been like climbing to heaven. Difficult, yes, but exhilarating. Courtney had accidentally left her wallet in the pocket of the backpack, and I used her cash to buy diapers in town. At the school bookstore, I found an extra-small T-shirt and a Merriw
ether beach towel to swaddle her in. The last of the cash went to a bus ticket to Portland.

  Without blinking I evolved as a criminal, from kidnapper to thief. In Portland, I used Courtney’s credit card to pay for the train ticket north as well as chicken noodle soup for me. At a pharmacy near the train station I found disposable bottles already loaded with infant formula. The baby didn’t seem interested in drinking, but I was glad to see a small bit of the liquid disappear. Mostly, she wanted to sleep. I got that. We napped together as the train rocked us into her future.

  “Emma.” Taylor’s voice brought me back. “How come you didn’t tell me the truth, when it would have gotten you off the hook? And don’t tell me it’s because of the shame involved in teen pregnancy. I get that, but would you go to jail for it?”

  “I had to protect her,” I said. That much was true. “The baby, Rebecca is her name. She needed an advocate.”

  “But you could have come to us when she was born. We would have gotten you both medical attention. I know a social worker who handles adoptions.”

  “I . . . I just couldn’t.”

  “Now I know there’s embarrassment about teen pregnancy. And I can’t imagine the trauma of giving birth in a damned sorority house with a bunch of squealing girls. But there’s no shame in what you did, Emma. No shame in bringing a baby into the world.”

  I closed my eyes, but that didn’t stop the tears from spilling down my cheeks. If only that were true; if only things were that simple. I had not given birth to baby Rebecca. My baby had been gone before he or she was the size of a peanut. A process that had brought me tons of relief, and an ocean of regret.

  She pushed a box of tissues across the table.

  “While it’s highly irregular to take a newborn across state lines without a birth certificate, it sounds like your brother and sister-in-law have helped you work that out.”