The Lone Star Lonely Hearts Club: A Debutante Dropout Mystery

by McBride, Susan

  Okay, maybe that wasn’t going to happen; but, at the very least, he’d think Mother had gone off her medication, and I was aiding and abetting her delusional bender.

  I shrank into the booth’s corner, waiting for her to finish. If the man had any sense at all, he’d do what the rest of us did on really awful setups: make the usual excuse that he had to use the rest-room, then he’d flee like a bat out of hell.

  Only this guy didn’t seem to be budging.

  After Mother finished her sob story about seeking peace by tying up the loose ends in the lives of her two deceased friends, Stephen palmed her hand in his and patted gently, saying things like, “there, there,” and offering use of his pickup truck to haul Bebe’s and Sarah’s packed-up personal effects to FedEx.

  By the time I was able to drag Mother out of the IHOP, it was nearly three o’clock. She’d decided to have a chef’s salad, while Stephen had ordered a burger, and I’d sat in the corner of the booth munching on a plate of onion rings, debating if I actually had the ability to turn invisible. I felt like it, the way the two of them ignored me so completely for a solid hour.

  While Cissy went to use the powder room so Stephen could settle the check at the register (he had insisted, believe it or not), he caught my elbow and reiterated, “If there’s anything I can do, Andrea, you let me know. Your mother’s a good woman, and I’d like to help her, if I could.”

  I wasn’t as sure as Mother that this Stephen Lloyd Howard could be trusted, but it wasn’t because I thought he’d dusted Bebe and Sarah Lee. My resistance had more to do with Cissy slipping him her unlisted home phone on a napkin (yes, right under my nose). It’s not the kind of thing a daughter wanted to see, particularly one who was such a loyal daddy’s girl.

  Still, I squashed my misgivings, because I had something I could use a hand with, and Stephen Howard seemed the perfect guy for the job. If he could pin down the nonexistence of Miriam Ferguson so quickly, then he could surely find the answer I needed in a snap.

  “As a matter of fact, Mr. Howard . . .”

  “Stephen, please.”

  “Okay, Stephen. There is one thing you could do,” I said and proceeded to explain, writing down two names on the back of my business card, circling my cell number and asking him to call ASAP.

  I had a weird sense that someone else wasn’t who she was supposed to be either.

  After Mother and Stephen had exchanged “goodbyes” in the parking lot, I put the IHOP in my rearview. I switched on the radio, but Cissy shut it off again, preferring instead to relive each moment of her pancake house encounters with Tom and Stephen, coming to the conclusion that neither could’ve harmed her friends.

  So she was fluctuating between Elvira and the bug spray man.

  I considered tossing Colonel Mustard and Miss Scarlet into the mix, but instead I kept my eyes on the road and just drove.

  Chapter 18

  As far as I was concerned, we couldn’t reach the gates of Belle Meade soon enough. After I waved to Bob at the guardhouse, Cissy insisted we go straight to Bebe’s place. I wondered if Mrs. Pinkston would be expecting her to return to Sarah Lee’s, but Mother didn’t seem to care. She wanted to take off her wig for a while and, as she put it, “let my head breathe.”

  I think she really wanted to lie down and nap.

  Which was okay by me.

  I wanted her to stick around the house for a while, anyway, until I heard back from Stephen. When my cell phone rang not long after Cissy had ascended the steps to upstairs, I thought it might be him.

  Instead it was the doctor’s wife, Patsy Finch, who’d gotten my number from Annabelle. She’d had a chance to go through the medications I’d dropped off earlier and claimed I’d left something out.

  “I emptied their medicine cabinets, Patsy. There wasn’t anything else,” I assured her. “What you’ve got is what they had.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure.”

  Did she think I’d snatched a vial of pills, or a bottle of Maalox?

  For crying out loud.

  “I’m not accusing you of anything, Andy, really, that’s not it.” Still, she sounded worried enough. “But it’s . . . odd, that’s all. Can you take another look around, see if there’s anything you might’ve overlooked?”

  “What’s going on, Patsy?” I wanted to know. “What’s so odd about missing a few vials?” Both women were gone. It’s not like they’d need more pills.

  “I’ve got patients waiting for pickups, but maybe you could come by in thirty minutes. After you give Mrs. Kent’s house another pass, okay?”

  “All right.”

  She hung up, and I stood with the phone in hand, staring at it for a minute. That pang of uneasiness settled in my belly again, only it felt stronger than before. Like something was really off, and I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

  I slapped my cell shut and trudged upstairs to Bebe’s bathroom, opening cabinets, rummaging through drawers, even checking out her night tables, merely scoring a metal tin with Bayer aspirin.

  Surely, this couldn’t be what Patsy had been so concerned about.

  I crossed the hall and made my way to the guest bath, where Mother extricated bobby pins from her hair, after having removed the Wig from Hell.

  “Is there something you need, darling?” she asked, as I maneuvered around her, searching nooks and crannies, finding extra bars of soap and tiny shampoos stolen from hotels around the world, but little else.

  “Patsy Finch said all of Bebe’s medications weren’t in the bag I dropped off this morning. Have you seen any other prescriptions lying around?”

  “No, sweetie, can’t say that I have.”

  Regardless, I went back downstairs, combing through the marble-filled bath off the foyer, tackling the kitchen after that. I managed to add a couple bottles of vitamins to the Bayer, which I dumped in another baggie.

  I yelled up to Mother that I’d be back in a bit and please not to go anywhere.

  “Where would I go without my hair?” she called down from the top of the steps, holding the black bird’s nest in one hand and a brush in the other. “I’d blow my cover.”

  “I like you better as a blonde,” I told her.

  “That’s what Mabel said this morning.”

  “Mabel?” Uh-oh. “Why would she say something like that? Did she see you last night when she delivered our dinner?”

  “Oh, no, it wasn’t that,” Cissy assured me. “She merely suggested I’d look better blonde than brunette. That’s all. Don’t be such a worrywart. The woman is perfectly harmless.” She held the wig to her chest and stroked it, as if it were a cat. “I do feel sorry for her, Andy. When she pushed up her sleeves while we were packing, I saw those awful scars on her arms, and I told her I knew a fabulous plastic surgeon who could do wonders for her. But I think she was embarrassed.”

  “Not everyone believes plastic surgery is a cureall, Mother.”

  “And they are so wrong, darling.”

  I shook my head, and she grinned.

  “Keep the door locked,” I told her. “And stay put.”

  I took off in the Jeep for the main house, driving faster than the eleven-mile-an-hour limit. She’d be fine, I told myself, figuring I wouldn’t be gone long besides.

  The pharmacy was part of the clinic where Dr. Finch saw his patients, in the same wing as the gym, physical therapy, and the salon.

  A chime went off softly as I entered, and Patsy peeked through a cutout in the wall.

  “Good, you’re right on time. The doctor only has a few minutes before his next appointment,” she said and gestured that I come around through the door marked PRIVATE, which led to a rear office.

  Behind an imposing walnut-stained desk sat Dr. Finch in white lab coat, the dozen or so vials I’d previously delivered spread out before him, along with a pair of patient charts.

  “Did you find anything?” Patsy asked, coming in behind me and closing the door, so that I felt a bit like a cage
d rat.

  “Just these.” I handed her the baggie with the aspirin and vitamins, which she eyeballed then shook her head.

  “That can’t be all of it.”

  “But it is,” I insisted, as she scurried over to her husband’s side, showing him the baggie and eliciting an even deeper frown. “I looked everywhere humanly possible, and there wasn’t anything else. So why don’t you tell me what’s up? Maybe I can do something about it.”

  “Go on, Arnie,” Patsy said and nudged her husband. “She’s a smart girl. Maybe she can help.”

  Dr. Finch cleared his throat. “We seem to be missing the same medication from both Mrs. Kent’s supply and from Mrs. Sewell’s.”

  “What if they ran out and didn’t get a chance to refill?” I suggested.

  They exchanged a glance. Then Finch told me, “No, that’s not the case, Miss Kendricks.” He tapped the manila folders. “Our records show that refills were delivered to each of the women very recently.”

  “How recently?”

  He cleared his throat again. “Just before the patients died.”

  Hello!

  “What was it? Narcotics, sleeping pills?” I walked up to the desk, gazing at the multitude of vials scattered on the green blotter. “Could they have overdosed?”

  I wondered if Mother had been right about her friends dying before their time, only getting the “how” part wrong. Maybe it wasn’t murder at all, but suicide.

  “It wasn’t narcotics or sleeping pills,” Patsy said, the grim set of her mouth at odds with her childlike features and sky-blue headband. “What’s missing is an antihistamine, Andy, a generic drug called hydroxyzine hydrochloride. Mrs. Kent and Mrs. Sewell both took ten milligrams at bedtime for allergies.”

  I laughed, despite their serious expressions. “Allergy pills,” I repeated. “That’s what you’re so freaked out about?”

  Arnold Finch opened his mouth, but Patsy squeezed his shoulder, and he clamped his lips shut, like a ventriloquist’s dummy. “It was hydroxyzine Pamoate, in this case,” she said. “It comes in oral suspension, drops that can be mixed with liquids. It’s easier to swallow, as some of our patients have trouble taking so many pills.”

  “Drops, like you give kids.”

  “Just like that, yes.” Patsy nodded. “The drug is very effective for allergic reactions, but they’re also used as tranquilizers. Around fifty to one hundred milligrams is often given to patients to sedate them before surgery.”

  “That sounds dangerous,” I said. A little too much of your allergy meds and you were ready for the OR.

  “No, no, the medication’s safe enough for babies, but at a low dosage. Particularly since geriatric patients may have increased reactions. We warn them not to drive when they’re drowsy, and not to use alcohol, which can heighten the drug’s effect.”

  “So this hydroxy—whatever—that’s missing. If it’s not narcotic, why all the fuss?”

  Patsy paused, and I saw her grip tighten on her husband’s shoulder. “The refills delivered to Mrs. Kent and Mrs. Sewell each contained a three-month dosage. We’re just concerned that those bottles haven’t turned up.”

  “Three months? Is that enough to knock someone off her feet?”

  “Enough to knock a horse off its feet,” Arnold Finch said with a snort.

  Whoa. That didn’t sound good.

  Tranquilizer. High sedative effect. Increased reaction.

  The words went round and round in my head, and I was putting together a picture that I didn’t like at all.

  “Okay, I have a question.” I wet my lips. “How big a dose would be fatal?”

  Arnold worked his tie loose, like he was having trouble getting air. “Unfortunately, Miss Kendricks,” he intoned, “the PDR doesn’t cite a lethal dose.”

  “What’s the PDR?”

  “Physician’s Desk Reference,” Patsy explained. “Basically, the bible for approved drugs. Which is all to say, we don’t know how much is lethal. And it’d be impossible to find out, because there’s no way to assay the quantity of the medication in one’s system after it’s ingested.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  It was hard to imagine such a thing. I thought all drugs had some kind of limit, a point of no return that everyone agreed was dangerous.

  The next thought that popped into my head: What if someone out there knew what that lethal limit was?

  I hung on tightly to my purse, fully understanding why the Finches were so rattled. “You said the refills were delivered shortly before each woman passed away.” Dr. Finch was avoiding my eyes, so I looked squarely at Patsy. “Did you deliver them yourself?” I could still picture her on the bike, pedaling away from Bebe’s that morning. “Was there anything odd about their state of being? Did they seem despondent? Suicidal?”

  Dr. Finch rolled his eyes, like I was an idiot.

  “If they’d wanted to die by their own hands, Andy, they wouldn’t have gone for an overdose of antihistamines.” Patsy picked up a vial from the desk and shook it, so I could hear the pills rattle inside. Lots of them. “Not when Bebe Kent had Hydrocodone left over from a hip replacement in the spring, and Sarah Lee Sewell had a regular prescription for Xanax.”

  “Hydrocodone. That’s codeine, right?” And I knew what Xanax was, considering Mother’s uptight crowd popped those babies like candy.

  “Yes, it’s a codeine derivative.”

  I squeezed my eyes closed then opened them, trying to get a fix on this. “You never answered me, Patsy. Did you deliver those refills? Or was it someone else? Was it Mabel Pinkston?”

  Talk about hearing a pin drop.

  “Please tell me you didn’t send her on any more deliveries today, not with any more of that drug, if she’s misplacing things.”

  “Personnel matters are private, Miss Kendricks, and any conjecture about what happened to the hydroxyzine is best pursued by us. So I’d say we’re done here.” Dr. Finch shot up from his chair. “This discussion is over. I think you should go.”

  Bing! A light went on.

  “You’re afraid, aren’t you?” I said. “Of getting sued.”

  If Mabel Pinkston had anything to do with this mess, then they’d be in deep doo-doo, as would Annabelle and Belle Meade itself.

  “Leave now, Miss Kendricks.” Dr. Finch had his hand on the telephone. “Or I’ll call security.”

  “You’re not going to brush this under the rug, are you?” I looked at Patsy, pleading. “What if the medications were involved in those women’s deaths?”

  Dr. Finch began punching buttons on his telephone.

  “It’s all right,” Patsy said. “I’ll walk Andy out.” She came around the desk to take my elbow, forcibly guiding me from Dr. Finch’s office.

  Lawsuits, missing meds, rinsed-out glasses, two women dead.

  “Patsy, talk to me,” I begged her, as she ushered me through the “private” door and past several ladies perusing magazines in the waiting room. “You know about the lawsuits, about Bebe and Sarah Lee’s threats, so what if there’s some connection to the missing meds?”

  She practically shoved me through the clinic’s doors, murmuring, “I’m sorry, Andy,” before she closed them in my face.

  Well, I never!

  Okay, maybe once or twice.

  But still, how rude to throw me out like that when I’d done them a favor, scrounging through dead people’s medicine cabinets.

  My cell rang in my purse.

  I snatched it up and flipped it open.

  “Yes,” I snapped, my hackles up, whatever hackles were.

  “Andrea?” The voice was tentative. “Andrea Kendricks?”

  “Mr. Howard, is that you?” I was heading down the hallway, toward Annabelle’s office.

  “My friend got what you were looking for. Those names you gave me? They belong to the same person.”

  “The same?” I stopped, listening as he filled me in.

  “You’re sure?” I asked when he
was done. “No doubt about it.”

  “Thanks, Stephen. You’ve been a big help.” I ended the call and dropped the phone in my purse, not certain of what to do.

  Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear.

  It was starting to make sense, things that were said, gaping omissions. But I hadn’t put all of it together before, couldn’t have pieced it together until Stephen’s call.

  And still I wasn’t sure.

  What came to mind, strangely enough, was Mildred Pierce reciting the promo blurb from the movie posters, all those years ago:

  “A mother’s love leads to murder.”

  Maybe it had.

  And maybe Annabelle knew it.

  I kept walking, passing people and doors and framed oils on the walls, hardly aware of my surroundings.

  When I reached the door to Annabelle’s office, it was shut, but I went in without knocking.

  She hung up the phone abruptly as I entered, eyes wide when she saw who it was.

  “Great balls of fire, Andy, I just heard from Arnold Finch, who said you were in his office, throwing around words like ‘lawsuit’ and ‘liability.’”

  “What about murder and missing sedatives? Did he mention those, too?”

  “I’m worried about what being here is doing to you, Andy. I think you’re starting to believe in Cissy’s mixed-up theory.” Annabelle chewed her lip. “You know, perhaps it’s best for all concerned if you and your mother leave Belle Meade tonight. I’ll call you when the blood tests on Mrs. Sewell return. So could you turn in your keycard and badge? No hard feelings, right?”

  She wanted to kick us out?

  Without hearing a word I had to say?

  Well, damned if I were going anywhere until she listened up.

  “You asked me before if I thought something was wrong . . . even you had a feeling there might be something to Mother’s suspicions. Well, guess what? I think so, too. In fact, I’m almost sure of it.” I marched up to her desk, slapping my palms down hard enough to set her pencil holder rattling. “The worst part about it is what’s wrong begins and ends with you.”

  Her cheeks turned scarlet. “What’s that supposed to mean, Andy? You think I’m responsible for what happened to Mrs. Kent and Mrs. Sewell?”