by Joan Hess
"I think you're better off with the warm milk story," Estelle said from within the bathroom, where she was trying to stabilize her hair without bruising her elbows every time she moved her arms.
"You've said that about a million times already," Ruby Bee said, sighing. "I jest don't know what all Arly and Durmond told the policeman. If you hadn't gone and said something about visiting a porn shop, then Arly wouldn't have figured out what I was doing in the first place. She'll be smirking the rest of her born days, at you for shopping at such a place and at me for doing what needed to be done to win ten thousand dollars. It won't matter one bit to her that I planned to use part of my winnings to buy her some decent clothes." She wiggled around on the bed, trying to find a comfortable spot. She might as well have been lying on a corncob mattress. "Now that I think about it, what all did you buy at that place?"
There was a moment of silence in the bathroom, followed by a muttered response.
"You'll have to speak up. I didn't hear you," Ruby Bee said real nicely.
"I said there's not enough room in here to turn around. My poor knees are gonna be black and blue, and I still can't get the bobby pins in at the right angle."
Ruby Bee got to her feet and crept over to Estelle's suitcase. "I'll bet that outhouse behind Robin Buchanon's cabin is a sight bigger," she called as she squatted down and began to rummage through the dirty laundry that had accumulated over the last few days. "I can't imagine how Dahlia and Kevin managed to spend all those hours locked in there the night they thought a killer was after 'em. They must have felt like the stuffing in a Thanksgiving turkey, don't you think?"
"I'll thank you not to go pawing through my personal belongings," Estelle said from the doorway. She waited until an abashed Ruby Bee scuttled back to the bed, then added, "I was thinking about something more important than a couple of silly souvenirs, Miss Snoopy Britches. I was recollecting about how Durmond came to be bucknaked in your bed and you had to go and shoot at the police."
"All I did was pick up the gun," the accused said sullenly. "I came into the room, and there he was, all bloody and indecent. Then out of the blue there's footsteps and pounding on the door and yelling like a bunch of drunks in my parking lot. The gun was right there on the floor. I picked it up and was going to answer the door when it liked to explode in my hand. Things took a downward turn after that."
"I'll say they did," Estelle muttered as she sat down on her bed and took out an emery board. "The thing is, I myself heard the shot as I stepped off the elevator. I was right there in the hall when the policemen took to butting the door until they broke the lock, which is why I was there to see them tackle you like they did. You ought to get yourself a lawyer and sue 'em for it, if you ask me."
"What's your point?"
"Didn't you hear what I just said? I swear, Adele Wockerman listens better than you do, when she ain't got her hearing aid tuned to her favorite Martian station." With an aura of smugness she knew would irk Ruby Bee, Estelle began to file her nails.
"You were yammering worse than a schoolmarm who's found a frog in her drawer. I heard everything you said. I just didn't find it all that earth-shattering." Ruby Bee picked up the travel guide and made a production of flipping through it. "This says there are some real quaint stores in Greenwich Village. If the contest is canceled like Arly says it'll be, maybe we ought to shop there tomorrow."
"I said I was coming out of the elevator when I heard the shot. Not one day later, Durmond's telling everybody he had to take the stairs on account of the elevator was broken. If it was so all-fired broken, how come I could sail right up to the second floor in it?"
"Maybe it was temporarily broken," Ruby Bee offered.
"And that snooty manager grabbed his tool kit at ten o'clock at night and climbed the cables like a darn monkey to fix it? " Estelle put down the emery board and frowned something fierce. "There's something real fishy about Durmond's story, if you ask me."
As reluctant as she was to do so, Ruby Bee said, "You may be right. If the elevator was working, he must have gone up the stairs for another reason. He doesn't strike me as one of those fitness freaks who think it's fun to dress up in pastel underwear and run alongside the road, or ride a bicycle in the living room. It wasn't like he had to wait more than a few seconds for the elevator to come; there's no one else staying here but us, and we're all on the second floor."
"Are we?" Estelle said, rolling her eyes toward the ceiling.
All Ruby Bee could see were cobwebs and some patches of bare plaster, but like Estelle, her eyes were aimed at a higher target.
Chapter Thirteen
Staring at the ceiling produced nothing more illuminating than an awareness that it needed new sheetrock. Oh, I'd posed some fascinating questions to myself, but unlike "Jeopardy!" contestants, I was shy on answers. I decided to forego this beginning business and focus on the corpse.
Jerome had been killed in the kitchen. In theory, the kitchen was locked and Kyle Simmons had the only key. It had been in his possession from the moment the four cases of Krazy KoKo-Nut arrived until, I assumed, the police took it away from him in order to secure the scene.
I forced myself to replay the hour or so we'd spent preparing for the contest. The key had been in the lock when I entered the kitchen, and when we left…it had been left as well. Kyle had returned several hours later, at which time Geri had berated him for not having left the key at the hotel. But he had-and in a rather obvious place for it.
Clutching my pillow, I muddled for a while and came up with a tenuous idea. Someone had chanced upon the key in the lock, removed it for a period of time, and then replaced it before Kyle arrived with the bags of utensils. And unless Kyle had unlocked the door for Jerome in the middle of the night, there was now another key floating around in someone's pocket.
Who had borrowed the key long enough to have a duplicate made? Ruby Bee, Estelle, Durmond, and I had been busy making total asses of ourselves in various locales along Fifth Avenue. Catherine and Frannie had departed for a beauty salon; later in the afternoon, however, Frannie had returned laden with shopping bags and mentioned that Catherine was napping. Implying she'd been in her room, Brenda had come looking for Jerome-implying he hadn't.
He was a candidate, although no stronger a one than a boyish Democrat confronting a rich Republican incumbent. Geri had been in the hotel, but she needn't have bothered to go through convolutions to get a duplicate key; all she had to do was keep the original. Excluding the workmen, the only other people within spittin' distance were Rick and the enigmatic doorman, Mr. Cambria.
I was approaching a full-scale migraine, but I squeezed my eyes closed and continued my mental meanderings. Rick had been seriously perturbed when Geri demanded the key. In fact, he'd been on the verge of combat when twinkly ol' Mr. Cambria had suggested that he cooperate. And what had provoked this sudden interest in the not especially interesting kitchen? The arrival of four cases of Krazy KoKo-Nut.
No one had admitted a fondness for soybean flakes, tinted or otherwise, and it was more than challenging to come up with a reason why anyone but a full-fledged wacko would kill for them. Yet an awful lot of people were behaving oddly over something Ruby Bee'd sworn was unfit for a sow (okay, a pedigreed sow, but still…). Interspace Investments, Inc. had bought the company and were enthusiastic enough to move up the date of the contest and host it in their own hotel. They'd rounded up replacements when the three original contestants had dropped out…with a broken leg, a severed finger, and a sudden desire to explore the Alaskan coastline for several months.
Gawd, I hated coincidences almost as much as I hated the island on which I was currently prone. I dealt with the latter by standing up, gazing sullenly at my reflection, and heading out the door to find Lieutenant Henbit and impress him with my insightful logic.
This proved to be a veritable piece of cake as the elevator doors slithered open and he and Durmond came out. "Ah, Ms. Hanks," he said, politely ignoring my gasp, "I was on my way to
your mother's room to have a word with her. Several words, to be more accurate. Mr. Pilverman has convinced me that her discovery of the body in the kitchen was…well, not fortuitous, but perhaps serendipitous. However, neither of you has an explanation for her untimely presence. Let's hope she does." Durmond looked in need of a dry cleaner's establishment, and not just for his clothes. He was watching me with such gloominess that I had to restrain myself from tweaking his cheek and assuring him everything was just dandy. "I'm going to lie down for a few minutes," he said to both of us, and then to me, "but you're welcome to join me for a drink later."
"I don't know," I murmured, not at all pleased with the emotional turmoil he'd managed to stir up with his morose eyes and smile. "I'll have to see how I feel, but now I'd like to have a word with Lieutenant Henbit." I waited until Durmond went into his room, grabbed Henbit's arm, and dragged him down the hall toward the higher numbered rooms.
"Ms. Hanks," he said as he removed my hand, "I really have more important things to do than to play secret agent with you. I'm aware that you're the chief of police of your little town in Arkansas. I have no doubt you're skilled in the art of running speed traps and tracking down foxes in the chicken coops. This, however, is not Arkansas, and I must insist you-"
"Wait just a goddamn minute, Lieutenant Henbit! I'm getting sick and tired of being dismissed as a two-bit cop from a one-bit town. I'm coming to you with valuable information, possibly what you need to determine who killed Jerome Appleton and why." I held up my palms and moved backward. "But if you're too busy to listen, I'll run along and have myself a high ol' time with a bug zapper and a six-pack of beer. Golly, I may jest go git myself another tattoo." His jaw was out and trembling just a tad, but he took a breath and said, "What information do you have?"
"I think it's likely that the cases of Krazy KoKo-Nut contain contraband of some sort. Based on several oblique references to Florida and the Caribbean, I'd suggest you test the contents for drugs."
He gave me an indulgent smile. "We have. The lab tests aren't completed yet, but the preliminary word is that the four cases contain nothing more than foultasting, rubbery soybean flakes with artificial flavor and artificial color, all packaged in unsullied plastic bags. It ought to be illegal, but it's not."
"Are you sure?"
"I just told you this was preliminary, so in that sense we're not sure. Why don't you go take a nice nap like Mr. Pilverman, or even with him, if that appeals? I need to ask your mother some questions, and then go back to my office to see what kind of progress we're making on the current whereabouts of Mrs. Jerome Appleton." With a nod, he went down the hall toward Ruby Bee's room, leaving me to stand there gawking like a damnfool tourist in the mean streets of the city.
And to think I'd skipped lunch to concoct my brilliant theory that had explained a helluva lot of things-perhaps not every itsy-bitsy bugaboo, but some of them, anyway. I was leaning against the wall, watching Henbit knock on Ruby Bee's door, when I heard voices and footsteps in the stairwell. I eased open the door in time to hear a male voice assessing the chances (not good) the Mets would win the pennant. A second male voice concurred.
They continued down and presumably out into the lobby. I went to the landing and confirmed as much, then twisted my neck and looked up at the seemingly endless stairs leading into the darkness. With all the confidence of someone walking into a subway tunnel, I went to the third floor, where the remodeling supposedly continued.
The door was not locked. I opened it far enough to stick my head out and ascertain the existence of a table saw, a pile of mismatched lumber, a rusted air conditioner surely on its way to its burial, and other debris appropriate to a remodeling job. It was pretty much what I expected, and I was about to duck back into the stairwell (and go find some lunch) when I heard the unexpected from around a corner.
"Then you think lead pipes are the answer?" said Rubella Belinda Hanks of Maggody, Arkansas. "I always thought copper was the way to go."
"Well, the rust factor's what you got to worry over," said a genial man, identity and hometown unknown.
"Ain't rust just a royal pain in the butt!" chirped Estelle Oppers of Maggody, Arkansas.
They were heading in my direction. I let the door click shut, hesitated long enough to scratch my chin and frown, then scurried up to the next landing and waited.
I was gratified when the door below me opened and the two adventuresses began to descend. "All I can say is that it's a good thing he works for that magazine at night!" Ruby Bee said with a sniff. "Imagine not knowing your copper pipes from your lead pipes."
Estelle sounded equally disdainful as she said, "I doubt he knows his spigots from a hole in the ground! I'm glad we don't have to count on him when pipes start bursting in the winter."
"I should say so. Do you remember back in 'eighty-six when we had that hard freeze right before Christmas and-"
"It was 'eighty-seven, the same year my cousin Carmel was electrocuted in the bathtub. His wife said he always played the radio, but she was seen at a bar less than a week later and dressed in jeans so tight-"
The door banged closed on yet another diverting incident in the Chadwick Hotel.
*****
"I told you to make sure you had the maps," Dahlia said, her tone as deflated as her chins. "Right before we got in the car at that horrible motel, I asked point-blank if you had the maps, and you said you did, even though the maps were in the room and your head was up your behind. I was gonna make sure, but then you had to go and drop my suitcase so everyone in the parking lot could see my underwear just a-flutterin' in the breeze. Right then and there I should have told you to take me home so I could call a lawyer and git myself a divorce."
Kevin tried not to whimper from under the chair where he'd gotten himself wedged more 'n an hour ago. Sweat was gathering in his eyes and leaking into his ears something awful, but there wasn't anything he could do on account of being tied up. "I guess I deserve it," he said, trying to be brave like a frontiersman surrounded by hostile Indians and down to his last bullet. "It's all my fault, my darling. I dun everything wrong from the minute we hit the highway leading out of Maggody."
"You're darn right it's all your fault," Dahlia said. "If someone like Ira was here, he'd know what to do about it. I keep asking myself why I had to be kidnapped with you instead of a real man who ain't afraid to protect his woman from danger."
Marvel, who was once again in the kitchen making sure the cops weren't getting ready to do something stupid, eased away from the window, and took the last piece of bread from the wrapper. Shit, he thought, they were running out of food. Big Mama wasn't much fun, but there'd be hell to pay if she found out they might have to make do on water and crackers. He could order another pizza, he supposed, but just remembering her reaction to the anchovies was enough to make his stomach go sour.
"Beloved," Kevin whined from the front room, "if I was a policeman or an FBI agent, I'd just gnaw my way out of these ropes and shoot that fellow until there weren't nothing left of him."
She responded to that, but Marvel wasn't listening. He was thinking, and after a minute, he hurried to the front room and picked up the telephone on the counter. He punched for the operator and said, "I want to talk to someone at the police station in whatever this hellhole is called. If you don't put me through, I'll kill one of the hostages and kick the body out the back door."
"Kevin," said Dahlia, although in a tone that suggested he engage in volunteerism rather than heroics, "do something."
Marvel pointed the gun at her until she subsided. "Okay, listen up real good," he said into the receiver.
"I'm fed up with this and ready to negotiate. Thing is, I don't trust you honky rednecks. I want you to get a dude from the FBI and send him in here to work out the details. What's more, my man, I don't want some local asshole putting on a three-piece suit and claiming to be a fed. The only man I'll deal with is gonna be a brother." He listened for a moment. "Yeah, a black man, and I don't care how you'r
e going to get one. All I can say is that if he doesn't come up on the porch at precisely nine o'clock, his arms in the air and his credentials between his teeth so I can read 'em, I'll shove my gun up one of the hostages' noses and splatter brains and blood on the wall.
"Kevvie…" Dahlia wailed, covering her face (and nose) with her hands and slumping across the table. He couldn't see any of this, wedged as he was, but he could hear the distress in his beloved's voice and it was worse than being poked in the eye with a sharp stick.
"And while we wait," Marvel said, "why don't you send over a big bucket of fried chicken and some biscuits and gravy?"
To Kevin's relief Dahlia's wails dribbled off with a hiccup or two.
*****
As I came out of the stairwell, the door of 215 opened and Frannie, after a hushed word over her shoulder, came into the hallway. "Catherine's resting," she said. "I thought I'd find out what we're supposed to do about food, since the kitchen's off-limits and we're not allowed to leave the hotel. I really don't know what to think about this whole thing. Brenda seemed like such a pleasant woman. Jerome was beastly, but I can't imagine her actually going so far as to…"
For some reason I couldn't define, I shot a quick frown at her door before I said, "He was brutal during the press reception, wasn't he?"
"But Geri certainly upstaged everyone," she said with a dry smile.
"She's worse than some of the teenaged girls back home. She doesn't have half the poise your daughter's shown these last few days, although Catherine did seem…excited last night. Whatever did she mean about the little piggies?"
Frannie eased me away from the door. "She's not accustomed to alcohol, and she was unable to handle it. This is our first visit to Manhattan, and what with the pressure of the contest and meeting the media, she was simply not herself. She told me afterward that she was trying to lighten everyone's mood with a silly joke."