by Joan Hess
I went upstairs, out the door, and back to the sidewalk, heading in the direction of my apartment, but even in the sunshine I felt as if I were still in the dark, dreary basement tunnel. Peter presumed Maribeth had lied; Joanie suggested I presume she had told the truth—as she perceived it.
“Peter,” I said aloud, startling a trio of fraternity boys on a bench, “has the better argument: the potassium was truly potassium, and the potassium was in bottles rather than where it should have been, which is in Maribeth. The doctor at the hospital said she had a potassium deficiency. Her behavior confirmed his diagnosis.”
“You lost, lady?” one of the boys said, snickering.
I certainly felt as if I were, but I shrugged and continued, still mumbling under my breath like an escapee from the banana-nut-bread bakery. “If Maribeth wasn’t lying, then she thought she was taking potassium three times a day.” I slowed down, and finally stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, ignoring the students forced to step around me. She thought she was taking potassium—but she wasn’t. Ergo, she indeed was taking a substitute, as I’d originally hypothesized.
Peter had said tests had been done. However, he’d only told me a few hours ago, which meant the tests weren’t necessarily ordered until several days after the accident. Whoever had switched the potassium could have switched it back before the CID had bestirred itself to send the bottles to the lab.
I jarred myself back into motion in time to avoid being trampled by a herd of serenely oblivious sorority girls and hurried to my apartment, feeling very much better. All I had to do was determine who could have made the exchange, and the man who cohabited in the house seemed likely to have access to the cabinet. A bit of proof might be required before I called Peter, I supposed, but I could cross that bridge when or if I ever found myself in the general vicinity of it.
Lunchtime had come and gone by this time, so I grabbed an apple and went back to the Book Depot, hoping this had not been the first time ever that zillions of book buyers had converged on the store, checkbooks bulging, and been confronted with the CLOSED sign. I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to devise a solid case against Gerald and/or Candice, but I had no luck and was merely moping when Caron and Inez came by.
“Are you feeling better?” I asked, determined to sound properly concerned if not totally sympathetic.
“Yeah,” Caron muttered, “so I guess we’ll go again tonight, although I’m not convinced that Bobbi person knows everything there is to know about joints and stuff. It can’t be healthy to jump up and down like a pogo stick for fifteen minutes.”
Inez nodded. “Caron and I wondered if it might be bad for our ankles, Mrs. Malloy. But we did lose three pounds each.”
“I’d do better if I had a decent leotard,” Caron added, studying me for the faintest crack of financial vulnerability.
“Forget it,” I said. “There’s a minor complication if you’re intending for me to drive you to the fitness center tonight. My car’s in the shop with brake problems.”
Caron glared at me. “Minor? Are we supposed to walk all the way there, jump around for an hour, and then walk home?” When I shrugged, she lapsed into martyrdom and said, “Inez’s parents have gone to another pet thing and won’t be home until late tonight. I suppose”—a windy sigh—“I can ask Peter if he can take us. Maybe he’ll let me drive his car.”
“Don’t do that,” I said. “Let me call the shop and find out when the car will be ready.” I dialed the number, asked to be put through to the service department, identified myself, and inquired if they had located the brake problem. I was informed that they had indeed: the cotter pin was missing, which had caused the pivot pin to work loose, which had caused the brake pedal to collapse against the floorboard.
“The cotter pin,” I repeated carefully, although I had no idea what it might be. “What could cause the cotter pin to fall out?”
“Nothing. They don’t fall out by themselves; they have to be pulled out with a pair of pliers. There were some scratches on the pivot pin that looked like someone had done just that.”
Aware of the girls’ scrutiny, I swallowed back a few hysterical questions and asked when the car would be available. The mechanic promised to have it the next morning, and although he was obviously curious about the pin and the scratches, I said I’d be there and cut him off in mid-question.
“Joanie should be home by now,” I said, trying not to sound like someone who’d just learned of an attempt on her life. “I’ll see if I can borrow her car and take you to the aerobics class.” That would give me most of an hour to go to the Galleston’s house, break and enter, search for potassium caplets that were not potassium caplets, and pick up the girls. It was a long shot, in that the substituted caplets most likely had been replaced, but I’d decided earlier that Maribeth might have left part of a bottle in her bedside drawer or in her bathroom. Furthermore, it was the only thing I could think of to do, and I loathe idleness.
“But if Peter took us, I could drive,” Caron muttered.
I sent them away with a stern order not to call Peter, then called Joanie and asked if I could borrow her car to take the girls to their class at six o’clock.
“Is that the only place you’re going?” she said suspiciously.
“It’s apt to be the last time I have to take them,” I said, neatly averting the question. “They’re entitled to two free classes, and then it costs money. Neither one of them is enjoying the class enough to actually pay for it. They’ll decide they’ve reached their optimum weight, which will be whatever they weigh at the time.”
“You’re not going to Maribeth’s house?”
It was her fault. After Peter’s call that morning, I’d abandoned my admittedly screwy plan to search the house, but after her question in the fine arts basement, I’d changed my mind. This convoluted reasoning allowed me to say, “Of course not. Will you be home a little before six?”
“No. I’ll leave the car key in your mailbox—if you’re quite sure you’re not planning anything Peter would disapprove of, Claire.”
“Me?” I chuckled at the very idea.
“All right, then, as long as you’ve promised. I was in such a rush earlier that I didn’t tell you what Betty Lou’s daughter said about Gerald Galleston.”
“You asked her about him? The last thing we need to do is make him suspicious, Joanie.”
“I’m aware of that,” she said in a haughty voice. “I merely asked if she knew about poor Maribeth Galleston’s condition, an innocent question. She said she’d heard something, but that Gerald rarely mentions his wife and never brings her to faculty functions. I was more than discreet; she was the one who offered the information.”
“Did she say anything else about Gerald?”
“Only that he may need the Farber trust fund by the end of the spring semester, because his drinking problem is interfering with his academic duties and he’s liable to find himself at a cocktail party for his successor.” She paused to allow me to make a thoughtful noise. “What’s more, she knows one of the trustees of the fund, who told her the approximate amount of money coming to Maribeth. It’s in the range of twelve million dollars, give or take a few hundred thousand.”
My mouth fell open, and it took me a moment to regain control of it. “Twelve million dollars? I don’t know what I thought the figure was, but I think I was underestimating Thurber Farber’s business acumen. There are a lot of people who’d steal their grandmother’s cotter pin for that kind of money.”
“And prefer to be married to an heiress in a coma rather than to one in an attorney’s office inquiring about the daily special on divorces. As long as you’re not plotting anything illegal, I’ll leave the car key for you, but if you’re lying, then you can kiss off any hope of an exquisite hand-built vase on your mantel.”
“I never lie,” I said mendaciously. I thanked her, then hung up and waited until the last moment to lock the store and walk home. Dr. Brandisi had not returned my call, but I wo
uldn’t bet more than a nickel, give or take a few cents, that the receptionist had put my message on his desk. When I reached the duplex, the key was in the mailbox, the girls were in their shorts and T-shirts, and, if all was right with the world, Gerald Galleston was in Betty Lou’s daughter’s dining room, sipping sherry and hurling trick questions at the candidate.
I dropped the girls off and drove to the Galleston house, which was dark. I parked on the street, but as I approached the gate, an elderly woman in a long overcoat, scarf, and thick-soled shoes came around the corner, or, more accurately, was dragged around the corner by a fierce German shepherd at the end of a leash.
“Are you planning to visit Mrs. Galleston?” the woman chirped. She yanked at the leash and said, “Sit, you filthy animal.” She looked back at me, her eyes brightly inquisitive.
I had no idea if the woman knew that Maribeth was in the hospital. “I was just dropping off a few things for her, ah, Avon products she ordered last week.”
She took in my empty hands. “Isn’t that nice,” she said, yanked again on the leash, and trudged ahead. The dog looked back at me, his expression as skeptical as his mistress’s.
I felt silly as I walked up the driveway, but I had no time to run back to the woman and further fray the situation with a garbled explanation. The doorbell rang hollowly, as it had before, and I waited a prudent five minutes before testing the front door. It was locked, a very un-Farberville-ish gesture. The windows along the side of the house were locked, as were the back door and the windows on the other side. According to cop shows and PI novels, all one had to do was slip a credit card into the lock, but I’d left home without it.
It was almost six-thirty; I’d wasted nearly half of my allotted time. The whole scheme was seeming madder by the minute. I returned to the back door and rattled it, then noticed the window above it was open partially. To be precise, the second-story window. Of an older house, with very high ceilings.
There was a ratty shed behind the house, and it looked like a perfect place to keep a ladder. Offering a silent prayer to the god of propitiousness, I yanked open the door and squinted into the dim interior. There were cardboard boxes filled with yellowed newspapers, a stack of tires, a small forest of battered gallon paint cans, several rolls of chicken wire, and in the far corner, a cobweb-coated ladder. It took several sneezes, a bruised shin, a close encounter with a dead mouse, and more than ten minutes to extricate the ladder, but eventually I dragged it to the back of the house and propped it beneath the window.
Trying not to dwell on my aversion to heights, I crawled up the ladder and opened the window wide enough so that I could slither through it. I landed on the floor of what I brilliantly deduced to be a bathroom of nineteenth-century vintage, complete with a bathtub on claws, a rusted gas heater in the wall, and buckling linoleum.
It was as good a place to start as any. I had less than twenty minutes left if I wanted to be at the fitness center at seven o’clock to pick up Caron and Inez, and any inconvenience on their part would be broadcast loudly to anyone who would listen, including Joanie Powell and Super Cop.
The shelves behind the mirrored medicine cabinet contained ancient tubes of toothpaste, an encrusted disposable razor, a book of matches, and a box of Dr. Browning’s Digestive Powder. The cabinets below the sink held a toilet brush, a pile of rags, a copy of Life magazine with Eisenhower on the cover, a book on auction bridge by Ely Culbertson, and a dog-eared copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Thurber Farber had had eclectic taste in reading material.
I opened the door and peered in both directions down the shadowy hall. There was no sound from downstairs to indicate anyone had entered in the interim; the house seemed to be holding its breath, as was I. Resolutely reminding myself that I had to be in Joanie’s car in ten minutes, I went to the top of the stairs, listened intently for a squeak or footstep, then went down and hurried to the kitchen.
In the first few cabinets, I found pots, pans, spices, and canned vegetables, but in the one next to the sink I found Maribeth’s Ultima products: vitamins, packets of protein mixes (chicken soup, orange-flavored drink, and vanilla pudding, none of which sounded especially appetizing). I presumed the police had taken the bottles of potassium caplets. I glanced at my watch, then looked frantically around the kitchen, trying to think of a reason why Maribeth might have misplaced a bottle. My eyes landed on a bulging plastic garbage bag.
I bent over it and began digging through soursmelling beer cans, whiskey bottles, coffee grinds, eggshells, greasy chicken bones, limp, oily lettuce, and all those delightful things one tends to discard over several weeks of riotous living. My fingers brushed a smooth plastic surface; I forced myself to plunge my hand all the way through the disgusting depths and grappled for it.
I came up with a plastic bottle. It had the Ultima label and through a patina of catsup and speckles of coffee grinds I could make out the word POTASSIUM. I shook it and was rewarded with the smallest rattle of what I dearly hoped was a solitary caplet. It was too late to dally in the kitchen for a round of self-congratulations. The bottle firmly in hand, I headed for the front door, debating whether to return the ladder to the shed or simply leave it there.
I unlocked the front door and opened it. Gerald Galleston stared at me, a key in one hand and a briefcase in the other.
“What are you doing in my house?” he demanded harshly.
ELEVEN
I stuck my hand behind my back and forced a smile. “Oh, good, you’re home early,” I said, willing myself not to retreat down the hall. “I was hoping you’d get here before I had to leave, but now I’m afraid it’s gotten late and I’ve got to pick up the girls at the fitness center. They’re likely to be sweaty and exhausted, so I’d better run along.”
He said exactly what I’d have said in the face of the above incoherent sputtering. “Huh?”
“The teen exercise class,” I elaborated while assessing the amount of space on either side of him. “Bobbi makes them bop until they drop, or so Caron said. Or was it Jody? Now that I think about it, Bobbi may have told me that herself. In any case, I really must run along now.”
Although he was not a large man, he managed to fill the doorway. Weaving just enough to keep both sides blocked, he said, “You still didn’t explain why you’re in my house. How’d you get in, anyway?”
“Didn’t I explain all that? I … ah, came by to pick up a few things for Maribeth. A nightgown, maybe some cosmetics. In case she wakes up and wants to freshen up for her visitors. The door was open, but it was very naughty of me to come in like that, wasn’t it?”
I tried a conspiratorial little laugh, but he wasn’t in the mood. The more I studied him, however, the more I realized that he was weaving not to block any escape attempts but from a faulty balance mechanism, most likely produced by alcohol. His eyes were wandering in opposite directions; he kept blinking and squinting in an attempt to control them, but he was having little success.
“Door was locked,” he said at last. “Whaddaya got behind your back, Claire?” He wrinkled his nose, then stepped back and snorted. “You stink worse than a month-old skunk carcass in the middle of the road. Holy Moses, I’ve been in slaughterhouses that smelled better than you do.”
I did not point out that any residual redolence was from his garbage, not mine. “I was in such a hurry I skipped my morning shower.” I ostentatiously looked at my watch and gasped. “It’s seven o’clock! I absolutely must leave, Gerald, so I’d deeply appreciate it if you’d let me by. Caron’s beastly when she’s kept waiting.” I feinted to the left, then back to the right, but he somehow managed to anticipate my ladylike lunges and counter them.
“Why do you think I’d do something to Maribeth?” he demanded in a burst of belligerence. “I’m the last person to want her dead, damn it. She’s getting more than ten million bucks in half a year. If she’s not around to collect it, it goes to some fool charity or other, and I’ll stay in genteel poverty the rest of my life. You think it’s easy t
o live on what they pay at this pissant college? My father makes more than I do, and he works for a trucking company. A trucking company. Ha!”
“Perhaps your book will bring in a great deal of money.”
He sagged against one side of the doorway and let his head fall to the side, but he was watching me with a sly expression. “Real ironic, isn’t it? You kick and fight and step on people and do everything possible to get above a blue-collar existence, but then you find out all it means is bigger bills and bigger headaches. Farther to fall. Take a wild guess what the hotshot candidate from Toledo just published.” He grabbed my arm and shook it so violently I could hear the caplet rattle. His voice menacing, he said, “Go on, take a goddamn guess.”
“Something on international trade regulations?”
“Says it’s definitive. Says it got great reviews all over the damn place and already’s been adopted at several major law schools.”
“What a pity,” I murmured, realizing I’d been coerced into backing most of the way down the hall. As I tried to decide how best to handle the unnerving situation, he took a step toward me, gave me a surprised look, and slowly crumpled to the floor.
I stepped over him, went back down the hall, conscientiously closed the door behind me, and fled to Joanie’s car. If Gerald had been the least bit sober, I would have been obliged to come up with a halfway plausible explanation for being in his house. By the time he roused himself he might have forgotten the encounter, but I couldn’t rely on that. The ladder was under the window, and there might be a muddy footprint or two in the upstairs bathroom. If Gerald called the police, it would result in a most uncomfortable confrontation, if not a felony warrant.
But I had the bottle tucked in my purse. As I pulled away from the curb, I saw the old woman and her filthy beast in the next yard, she feigning no awareness of what was happening to a neighbor’s japonica. I waved. She stared. The dog continued its business.
I drove as quickly as I dared to the fitness center, trying to formulate an excuse that would mollify Caron. I was working on a story involving a runaway train as I pulled up in front of Delano’s and parked. No one impatiently paced on the sidewalk. Assuming they were impatiently pacing inside, I opened the door and braced myself for a torrential outburst of music and acrimony.