Paula K. Perrin - Small Town Deadly

by Paula K. Perrin

  Was it possible Sybil or someone connected to her campaign would have killed Fran to get these back? You’ve been watching too much TV. I got up, thinking I should go tell Gene, when I realized these photographs would be almost as bad for his campaign as for Sybil’s. Not as bad in our boys-will-be-boys atmosphere, but almost. And if he suspected Fran had them—I sank back in my chair.

  “What am I going to do?” I whispered.

  “Talking to yourself again? You’ve got to watch that,” Gene’s cheerful voice said behind me. “Nice office, mind if I come in?”

  I swept the photographs into a pile, laid the envelope over them, and swiveled to face him.

  He looked awfully large looming in the doorway.

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” he said.

  Ignoring my racing heart, I said, “No problem.”

  He began moving along the wall, looking at the things I had posted on the cork-covered walls and the elephant figurines on the shelves beneath them. “Quite a collection you’ve got here.”

  I stood and took a step toward him. “I’ve been bringing them back from trips for years.”

  He fingered a pair of glass elephants with their trunks raised. “So you’re the one who got Grandma Douglas’ elephants. I always kind of wanted them.”

  “Your mom gave them to me when she was clearing out her father’s house because the great-grandmother—or was she a great-great—?”

  He shrugged.

  “Anyway, because the grandmother who first had them was named Elizabeth. I didn’t ask for them.”

  He moved on, then stopped abruptly and stared at the brightly-colored cover proofs for my books that I had pinned on the cork board. They were alike, though the woman portrayed might have hair of spun gold and the man of darkest umber, or the woman have hair of flame and the man the gold of a Spanish doubloon. Sure as rain falls downward, each woman had a nearly bare and heaving bosom and the man’s shirt was ripped open or discarded altogether. And each one had my pseudonym in large letters.

  “Aha!” Gene said, turning, smiling. When he saw my face, he said, “I’ll never tell, Liz.”

  “Why did you come up here?”

  “Did you get hold of Fran’s family?”

  “No one was home,” I lied to cover the time that had passed while I looked at those awful photographs.

  Gene studied my face. He said, “You’ve got a lot of books.” He strolled over to the floor-to-ceiling bookcases that covered two walls, circling around the love seat to get close to them. “You’ve filled up a whole shelf with your own. Guess you work pretty hard at it.”

  “Some of them are the same book, foreign editions.”

  “Do you know if Fran had a will?” he asked, coming around the love seat, pretending he wasn’t trying to look around me.

  I backed up a step, pressing into the desk, acutely conscious of the pile of photographs hidden only by a 9x12 envelope. “She made a new one after James died.”

  “Know where she kept it?”

  “Safety deposit box,” I said. It’d be silly to tell him I had a key.

  “Which bank?”

  I told him.

  He moved closer. “What else is in the box?”

  “Her passport. I don’t know what else.”

  “Do you know what’s in her will?”

  “As a matter of fact, she left everything to me except for a few mementos to her family.”

  “Everything? Including The Bird?”

  I sagged against the desk. “Oh, God, yes.”

  He stepped closer. “She left nothing to her family?”

  “She said they had everything they needed.”

  “Apparently, so do you,” he said, taking another step.

  I hoisted myself onto the desk and sat on the photos. “Does Fran’s will make me a suspect?” I asked.

  “What are you sitting on, Liz?”

  “None of your business.”

  “You look guilty as sin.”

  One part of me wanted to show him the pictures and ask for an explanation. But I was afraid, now, so I took the tack that never failed and said, “Why don’t you quit invading my privacy and get to work solving these murders? Or as a concerned citizen, do I need to call the sheriff’s office and express doubts about your abilities?”

  His blue eyes narrowed. He took a step closer, crowding me, but I held still. “I’ve been trying to help you out because Fran and you were so close, but you haven’t given anything back.” His hand came up, but it was only to sweep the hair off his forehead.

  “No more slack, Liz. From now on you get treated the same as anybody else. And that might mean a search warrant since you just moved up on the suspect list.” He nodded at the desk, “You want to turn that over to me now?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, don’t try to hide it or destroy it.” He looked around my quiet, ordered study, his eyes narrowed slits. “I just might have to tear things to pieces looking for it.” He turned on his heel. His boots thudded down the stairs and across the porch, and a moment later the cruiser started with a roar.

  I pressed the heels of my hands into my burning eyes. I never cried. Just too many things piling up. So what if Gene were mad at me? I’d seen Gene angry before.

  But I’d never seen that vicious look in his eyes, never heard that tone in his voice. Could he suspect what I’d found? If he knew of the photographs’ existence and if he’d looked for them amongst Fran’s things and didn’t find them, he’d suspect she’d hidden them with me. And the questions about the safety deposit box—he must be after the photos.

  Once again I wondered about the casting for the play. Who’d been recruits and who’d been volunteers?

  I stood up and stared down at the pictures. The one of Sibyl smiling up at Gene was now on top. Had he ever refused any woman?

  I felt drained. I looked around my study, my serene cocoon.

  I wound the rubber bands around the photos and negatives, put them in the envelope, and sealed it.

  I turned to scan the room for hiding places. My heart nearly stopped when I saw Meg and Kirk in the doorway.

  Meg’s eyes were vacant, her head tilted, as she said, “I’ve always loved this piece of music. It’s so elegant.”

  Kirk said, “Who’s the composer?”

  “Telemann,” Meg and I said as one.

  “Nice,” he said. “We came to see if you wanted to go over to the church with us.”

  I stared at him, guiltily aware of the envelope I was holding.

  Used to my blankness when I was working, Meg ignored that but noticed the envelope. “Oh, you finished your proposal. Want me to mail it while I’m out?”

  I clutched the envelope tighter. “No, thanks, I have to go out anyway.”

  “Do you have time to come with us?” Meg asked. “We’re going to choose music in case Kirk does a service for Andre. And I think we should have a service for Fran, too, whether her family chooses to have the funeral in California or not. Finding the right music is something I’d like to do for her.”

  At that moment all I could think of was getting rid of them, so I said, “You’ll do a great job. Don’t forget she loved country and western.”

  Meg wrinkled her nose.

  Kirk asked, “Did you get hold of her family? Will the funeral be in California?”

  “Oh, no, I didn’t get them,” I said.

  “Shall we try again?”

  “All right,” I said calmly, sacrificing tooth enamel as I ground my teeth. I crossed to the desk where I’d left my phone book open.

  Fran’s mother answered on the first ring. To my surprise, in a crisis, Fran’s mother was as warm and gracious as Fran had always been. They’d decided that Fran’s funeral should be held in Warfield before they took her body home.

  I told Kirk and Meg they had a provisional okay to plan the music and the service; the Maddoxes would call later with their ideas.

  After they’d left, I realized Meg had given
me the perfect idea. I’d mail the photos to the post office box I kept in Vancouver. I’d gotten it when I first started writing so Mother wouldn’t see my rejected manuscripts.

  This way the photographs would be in transit at least over the weekend, and by Monday I’d have come up with a plan.

  It also occurred to me that if Gene came looking for what I’d hidden, I could save my office by planting a decoy. Gene thought the biggest secret in my life was my romance novel writing, so I turned on the computer and printed out the last love scene I’d written. For his sake, I even added the thrust of a “male member.”

  “Take that, Gene Cudworthy!” I said, placing the manuscript pages on the desk.

  I looked out the window. Kirk and Meg, with Bunny trotting beside them, were walking down the sidewalk toward the church. Oh, my God—I’d placed Meg in Kirk’s hands.

  It was so hard to get used to suspecting everyone.

  Grabbing the envelope, I dashed down the stairs. As I opened the front door, Mother called from her room, “Liz, Kirk and Meg are going to be back in a few minutes, will you put the teakettle on?”

  I walked to the door of her room. “You thought it was all right for Meg to go alone with him?”

  “Don’t start that again.”

  “But we don’t know who the killer is.”

  “It isn’t Kirk. And if it were, he’d hardly do anything when we both know she was with him, would he? For heaven’s sake stop acting like a crazy woman!”

  “I have to run an errand.”

  “You’re not going to help plan Fran’s service?”

  “I’ll help later, I just can’t now.”

  As I crossed the back porch, my eye fell on Squeaky, the rusty red three-speed bike my grandfather had given me on my twelfth birthday. I put the envelope in the bike’s basket. Never in my life had I so needed to burn off frustration.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  After dropping the photographs at the post office, I felt strange: relieved, but literally dizzy with the thoughts that chased each other through my head. I’d actually pedaled a block down Main Street toward Fran’s when I realized she wasn’t there to help me straighten this out. My bike wobbled, and a horn blared behind me as brakes squealed and rubber burned.

  I lugged the bike up onto the sidewalk and stood there shaking.

  “God damn it,” I said, the phrase coarse and ugly and exactly right for a world where Fran no longer existed. “God damn it,” I repeated, slowly and distinctly.

  “What is happening, Liz?” a voice said. “That car didn’t touch you, did it?”

  I looked up through blurred eyes to see Alisz.

  I blinked.

  Her hazel eyes were narrowed in concern. She examined me closely. “You look close to collapse.” She placed one cool hand on my arm just above the elbow. “Come, we’ll give you a ride home.”

  Numbly I let her propel me around the corner to where Jared had moved the Cadillac. He’d gotten out of the car and was leaning against it. I suddenly realized he was even handsomer than Hugh had been. And the look in his eye—did Meg realize the shy little boy who’d followed her around like a puppy had grown into a full-fledged wolf?

  Alisz said, “Come put Liz’s bike in the trunk for her.”

  “No,” I said, “I need to exercise, I’m too restless.”

  “You and Mom both,” he said. “Jumpy as fleas. You better be careful, you were all over the road, practically inviting that Toyota to hit you.”

  “You could have practiced your doctoring skills.”

  He grinned. “You’re making me sorry they didn’t get you.”

  Alisz said, “You should be home resting after the terrible shocks you have had.”

  “I’m going to find out who killed Fran,” I said slowly. “I don’t know enough about Andre’s life to figure out who killed him, but nobody knew Fran as well as I did.” Behind us the post office flag snapped in the breeze. “I’ll know what doesn’t fit. I’ll see the mistakes the killer made.”

  “Then Gene has discovered Fran was murdered?” Alisz asked.

  “Leave it alone,” Jared said. “It could be dangerous. If Fran was killed, that means someone has already killed twice. Another body probably won’t matter to him.”

  “I don’t care. Whoever did it is going to fry.”

  “Not in this state.” He put his hands around his throat and made ugly gagging noises.

  “Stop it!” Alisz slapped Jared’s shoulder.

  I rolled the bike away from her. “Thanks for stopping. I’d better let you get on your way. Where are you going, anyway?”

  “I don’t know,” Jared said, “Mom couldn’t sit still, and she dragged me out with her.”

  “You like movies? Come, we’ll go to a movie.”

  “No thanks,” I said.

  “Let’s go to the climbing gym,” Jared said. “That’s good exercise. Okay, Mom?” Jared prodded.

  Alisz nodded absently, then said, “We’ll take Meg with us. Is she home?”

  “Yes. She and Kirk and Mother are—working together, but she might like to break away and climb.”

  I’d straddled the bike and Alisz had nearly reached the driver’s side door when I said, “By the way, whose idea was it to cast Sibyl and Gene in the play?”

  “Are these your suspects?”

  “I’m just trying to get a picture of how people got involved in the play.”

  “And if Gene is the killer? You will feel bad at exposing him?”

  “If he killed Andre and Fran, he’s crazy, he’s dangerous. He’d be a mad dog to chase down and shoot for the protection of innocent people.”

  “But he is your cousin—

  “A very distant cousin.”

  “—and friend for all of your life.”

  Her words brought a vision of Gene in prison, his long, eager stride turned into a shuffle, his friendly grin turned wary and placating. My hand pressed against my chest, but I said, “If he killed Fran, he deserves the worst that can happen to him.”

  Her mouth tightened. “Always you have had this rigid streak in you.” She shook her head. “No mercy.”

  “Mercy? Mercy!” My fingers clenched the handlebars. “What if you found out Annamaria had been murdered? Wouldn’t you want the person responsible to pay?”

  A white line appeared around her mouth as her lips compressed even further. “I would want the person truly responsible to suffer, yes.”

  “Then you know how I feel.”

  “Yes, perhaps I do,” she said, her mouth relaxing. “All right, I will help with your detective business. After Fran asked Andre to be in the play, Laurel realized it gave Andre more exposure to the public in a good cause than her boss Sibyl and so she hurried to include Sibyl.”

  “Who asked Gene?”

  “That was Victor’s idea, I believe.”

  “And who invited Victor?”

  Jared piped up, “He invited himself after Andre agreed to be in the play. The idiot thought Andre might help him out in Hollywood.”

  “I was relieved to have someone step in as director,” Alisz said. “The production made me too busy.”

  I pushed with my left foot to get the bike rolling and waved without looking behind me. I headed north past cheaply-constructed townhouses. I pedaled past the new Catholic church, then fields, farm houses and an occasional Christmas tree farm.

  As my legs worked, my brain ceased its frenzy, and I was able to think. If Fran had been killed because she had those photographs, then they were the key to discovering who’d killed her. The most likely suspects were Gene and Sibyl. If they’d kill her over the pictures, they’d kill me. As long as no one knew I had seen them, I’d be safe. So the trick was to find out how threatened each of them might feel without giving away what I was after.

  I puffed up a long hill to the top where the cemetery lay amongst its silent pines. Usually I stopped to visit the McDowell clan. Today I kept on past the cemetery, past the convent on a narrow, twisty ro
ad that passed properties holding 40-year-old, rusted-out trailers as well as acreage hosting brand-new mansions.

  I scanned mail boxes as I passed, unsure which house I wanted. I still hadn’t found the name I was looking for when I saw a Chinese-red gate set in a 10-foot-tall hedge of laurel. “Bingo!” I said.

  No houses in view except the vaguely oriental one behind the gate. The other side of the road was a mass of trees, the houses set back from the road where they could not see anyone standing here.

  I was reaching for the latch when a noisy, faded green van with a handicapped parking notice hanging from the rear-view mirror came around the curve, up the same route I’d just ridden. Its music system was cranked up so high that the bass notes throbbed through the air between us. I stepped into the road facing it.

  It slowed and came to a halt five feet from me. Sibyl and I stared at each other through the windshield as the Righteous Brothers wailed. I stepped up to the driver’s side window. The music died abruptly, leaving only the noisy engine.

  She straightened and smiled at me. “Lovely day for a ride, isn’t it?” she said through the closed window and began to roll forward.

  “Wait!” I said. “I came to talk to you.”

  “If you’ve come about rescheduling the play—” the rest was lost to her engine’s growl.

  “What? I couldn’t hear you,” I yelled. “Can you roll down your window?”

  She hesitated. Raising her voice, she said, “Meet me at my house.” She pointed. “Next one down.”

  She gunned her engine. She scraped the side of the van against the hedge as she turned into her driveway.

  She stopped in front of a huge, two-storey log cabin with a marvelous, wrap-around porch. She jumped down and began briskly brushing at her red suit.

  “Dogs?” I asked, assuming she was brushing pet hairs away.

  She stared at me blankly. “We only have cats,” she said, pulling the pins out of her tidy chignon. As she shook her head, allowing the long, straight hair to cascade down her back, I caught the scent of marijuana.

  My heart began to thud as I remembered finding the marijuana cigarette in Andre’s car. Don’t get excited, I chided myself. Lots of people smoke it. I noticed the uncertainty in her large, dark eyes.