by Diane Hoh
Margaret winced. He was just kidding. He was.
“Dr. Judge said if you weren’t so feisty … his word … you probably wouldn’t have made it. Too much smoke. And you were losing a lot of blood from that cut on your knee.”
Smiling, Margaret said, “Dr. Judge? Isn’t that redundant? So, which is he, a doctor or a judge?”
Mitch laughed, too, but then said sternly, “Don’t change the subject. Are you ready to talk about what happened to you last night? Or do you want to wait for Eddie? I warn you, he’s going to have a ton of questions for you.”
“Did you see anyone in the alley last night?” Margaret asked, settling back on the pillows. Her head had stopped aching, but her knee felt as if it were on fire, like the Dumpster. “Anyone at all?”
He sat back down on the bed. “No. Not a soul. I had to run to the restaurant to get help opening that Dumpster. Someone had jammed a metal file into the lock. Couldn’t get it out.”
Margaret’s mother came back into the room, carrying a tray. “It’s hospital food,” Adrienne apologized, “but I know you. When you’re really starving, you’ll eat anything.”
When Margaret had taken a few bites and swallowed, easing the hollow feeling in her stomach, she asked Mitch, “Did you know I was in there? In the Dumpster? Or were you just trying to put out the fire?”
“I knew.” Remembering made his voice shake slightly. “I saw your shoe. It was on the ground outside the Dumpster. The black one? You complained about those shoes at the funeral, said they were too loose, remember? I was looking for you, couldn’t find you, and then I smelled and saw the smoke. Ran over to the Dumpster, and there was your shoe, lying right there in front of that flaming mess. So I knew. Listen,” his voice shook again, “I almost lost it right then and there. But I didn’t. I knew I had to get you out of there. Doc says we did it just in time. A few more minutes …” His face went very pale again.
Adrienne shuddered.
But Margaret felt a twinge of pride. It had worked. Kicking off the shoe had worked, just as she’d hoped it would. If she hadn’t done that, if the shoe hadn’t been there, would Mitch have known to hunt for her inside the Dumpster? Probably not.
“It was the only thing I could think of to do,” she said.
His eyes widened. “You kicked off that shoe on purpose? I thought it fell off.”
Margaret nodded. “Um-hum. Last desperate measure, I guess.”
“You’re one smart cookie,” he said admiringly. He glanced over at Adrienne. “This is some clever girl you’ve raised.”
“Yes, I know.”
Margaret laughed hoarsely. “Not that clever, or I wouldn’t have ended up inside that thing, would I?”
“Listen,” Mitch said, “before you tell us any more, let me go get Eddie. I can tell that talking hurts your throat, so you shouldn’t have to tell the story twice. Be right back.”
Jeannine, Lacey, and Caroline all trailed along behind Eddie and Mitch when they returned. They sat on the floor, and Margaret told her story.
She tried to spare her mother the most gruesome details, but now that the medication had worn off, she remembered every moment in such clear detail that when she was finished, Officer McGill had very few questions to ask. She had told him about the saucer of milk and the cat, and his first question when she stopped talking, rubbing her throat, was, “You throw that carton out?”
“Um-hum. It was empty. I put it in the trash. So it’s probably burned to a crisp by now.” Why had he asked?
“Maybe not. Everything in the Dumpster didn’t burn. We’ll take a look.” When he was satisfied that she’d told him all that she remembered, he folded his notebook, replaced it in his breast pocket, told her to get better quickly, and got up to leave.
“Officer,” Margaret asked impulsively, “did you … well, did you find anything besides my shoe next to the Dumpster?”
He retrieved his notebook, flipped through a few pages, then said, “Nope. Just the shoe.” He sent Margaret a questioning look. “Why? Should there have been something else there?”
Margaret had been thinking of the silver Quartet pins. One had been found on the observation deck at the lighthouse after Stephanie was attacked. Tonight, just a few days later, Margaret had been viciously attacked. So she had half expected McGill to tell her another pin had been found at the Dumpster, making a connection between the two attacks. But she’d been wrong.
Margaret wasn’t sure whether that was good news or bad news. Either the first pin had meant nothing after all, or the attack on her had no connection to the attack on Stephanie. How could that be? There couldn’t be two maniacs loose in Toomey, could there?
“We’ll get to the bottom of this,” Officer McGill assured her, and left the room.
Mitch followed him.
“He’s going to ask Eddie how soon they’re going to catch the guy who did this,” Margaret told her mother with a weak smile. As long as her attacker was still out there, she could never feel safe. Never.
“Well, I’d like to know that, too,” Adrienne said anxiously. Tears of pain for her daughter’s ordeal stood in her eyes.
Everyone else sat in silence. The horror of what Margaret had gone through had stricken them all mute. Finally, Lacey said, “Margaret, I can’t believe you went through all of that! It must have been so terrible.”
“Well, I can’t believe there’s someone like that out there!” Jeannine exclaimed. “Someone who would do something so horrible. It has to be the same person who killed Stephanie.”
“I’m not so sure,” Margaret said. “There wasn’t any silver Quartet pin. I mean, if that first one, up on the deck, was left there on purpose. There wasn’t one this time.”
Jeannine brushed a lock of frizzy hair aside and said, “Oh, that silly little pin probably didn’t mean a thing. Someone just dropped it, that’s what I think. Listen, Margaret, none of us suspected at first that someone had killed Stephanie. But now we know that’s what happened. The police are sure about that. And we wouldn’t have believed that someone would toss you into that Dumpster and set it on fire, but someone did. Those are not rational acts, Margaret. Now what are the chances that we’ve got two unbelievably insane people running around loose in Toomey? Doesn’t it make more sense that they would be one and the same person?”
Exactly what Margaret had been thinking.
Adrienne waved a cautionary hand in the air. “Girls, please, you’re upsetting Margaret. Could you talk about something else now, please? We can hash this all out later, when the police have found out something. But not now.”
Margaret knew her mother was still trying to deal with what had happened last night, just as she was. And neither of them had any way of knowing whether or not it was over, did they? “So who’s minding the store, Mom?”
“I closed it. The news about what happened to you is all over town already, so no one will expect us to open today.”
“Your silent partners will have a fit. Closing eats into their profits, Mother.”
Adrienne smiled. “Think they’ll starve?” she asked lightly. “If they’re worried about it, they can go down and open Quartet. See what it’s like, working for a living.” Then she added seriously, “When I do re-open, I’m going to see about some kind of security, Margaret. Maybe hire a retired policeman as a watchman, or install an automatic alarm system. I’d never thought about it, because Toomey is so safe … was so safe. Now, I don’t know. I don’t think I’ll ever feel comfortable having you work alone in the store again.”
“I wasn’t in the store, Mom. I was outside.”
“I know, but …”
The doctor returned, ordering Margaret’s friends from the room while he checked her out again. It allowed Margaret the opportunity to ask him the all-important question. “Am I going to be able to dance on this knee in two weeks?”
“Absolutely. No permanent damage. Get the stitches out in a week. Give you another week to limber up.” He listened to Margaret’s chest
again, nodded with satisfaction and said, “I heard about the shoe. Good thinking. I have a feeling that if you really want to dance in two weeks, young lady, you’ll dance.”
When he left, her friends returned, and Adrienne went downstairs for coffee.
“I can’t believe you’re smiling,” Lacey said, taking a seat. “You must be just sick about missing the prom.” She was wearing bright yellow shorts and top, which reminded Margaret, with a sickening lurch of her stomach, of Stephanie, floating … Margaret pushed the ugly thought away.
“Well, I would be if I were going to miss it,” she said. “But I’m not. The doctor was just here. He says I’ll be fine in plenty of time.”
“That can’t be right,” Lacey protested. She had plopped down on the white tiled floor. Jeannine sat beside her, nervously fingering the straps on her denim overalls. Caroline, her blue flowered skirt spread out around her, had taken a seat on the windowsill. “Mitch said your knee was a bloody mess,” Lacey continued. “So we were sure you’d be missing the prom. Now you say you’re still going. How can you possibly dance on it so soon?”
“That would be stupid, Margaret,” Caroline agreed. “If you put that much stress on a knee that was cut practically to the bone, you could end up crippled or something.”
“I think Margaret should go to the prom and dance up a storm,” Jeannine disagreed quietly. “If the doctor says she can, then she can. She’d be crazy not to go. I’d do it — if I had the chance.”
“Yeah,” Lacey said, sighing, “who are we kidding? We all would, knee or no knee.”
“Well, I wouldn’t!” Caroline cried, jumping up from the sill. “But if Margaret wants to risk crippling herself over some stupid, silly dance, I guess that’s her business, isn’t it? I just thought she was smarter than that!” And she stalked out of the room, her head high.
But Margaret had seen the tears sparkling on Caroline’s lower lashes. She thought about mentioning Scott’s phone call about Caroline to the others, but decided not to. If she were Caroline, she wouldn’t want anyone to know that someone was calling her friends to tell them she’d been crying her eyes out.
“So,” Margaret said with artificial brightness, “did you guys do anything fun last night?”
“I hit the books,” Jeannine said. “Wanted to go to a movie, but no one else did. Caroline studied, too, but she didn’t want to get together to do it. Said she thinks better alone. Me, I like company when I’m trying to memorize. It helps if they quiz me. So,” waving a hand toward Lacey, “I talked our friend here into grilling me.”
Margaret reached for a glass of water on her bedside table. “Did it work?”
“I won’t know for sure until finals. Anyway, Lacey didn’t stay very long.”
Lacey shrugged. “I was beat. That horrible funeral yesterday, and then that horrendous time at Stephanie’s house. Everyone was crying and it was just such a bummer. I was glad to get out of there. Poor Michael. He’s not even going to the prom. Taking his finals early and leaving for Utah to spend the summer with his uncle. I think he feels guilty about not treating Stephanie better than he did. He’s taking her death awfully hard. So are her friends. Beth didn’t say a word to anyone except Michael yesterday, and Liza looked like she was still in shock, and Kiki never stopped crying.”
“I noticed you did your best to cheer up Michael,” Jeannine said dryly.
“Like you didn’t? If you weren’t hoping he’d change his mind about leaving for Utah before the prom, I’ll eat one of those Quartet pins.”
Jeannine laughed. “You can’t. You lost yours.”
“You lost yours, too. But there are more at the store.”
“Everyone loses them,” Margaret said. “They’re cheap. The catches don’t work very well.” That reminded her of the pin found on the lighthouse deck. “Have the police found out anything more about who might have pushed Stephanie off the lighthouse deck?” If they caught that person, wouldn’t they also be catching the maniac who had thrown her into that Dumpster and set it on fire? Then she’d be safe again.
“Not that we’ve heard.” Lacey stood up. “Listen, we’ve got to go to the decorating committee meeting. Sorry you can’t make it. But there’s one tomorrow afternoon, too, and one on Wednesday. We’ll keep you posted on what goes on. Can we bring you anything if we come back tonight?”
“Something to read, maybe. I’m being sprung tomorrow, so don’t make it War and Peace, okay? Maybe a magazine.” Although it would be impossible to concentrate on reading anything.
Jeannine stood up, too. “You’re being released tomorrow? I thought they’d keep you here a lot longer. I mean, with the smoke inhalation and your cracked skull …”
“I heal fast. I might even make it to the meeting. Now go find Caroline and cheer her up, okay? She’s really bummed out about the prom.”
Jeannine’s thin face twisted with cynicism. “You’re asking us to help? Isn’t that like asking someone who’s never skied to teach you how to slalom? We can’t even get dates for ourselves.”
“I didn’t say you had to find her a date. I said, cheer her up. You can do that. Make her laugh.”
They promised, but Margaret wasn’t expecting much. It would take more than a little joking around to cheer up Caroline these days.
How could anyone in Toomey be cheerful now? Wasn’t everyone having nightmares these days? Toomey had always been so peaceful, so safe. Until now …
Margaret hoped the doctor had ordered medication for later, after visiting hours. A pill or a shot that would keep her own nightmares away. She hadn’t a shred of hope that they wouldn’t be there, lying in wait for her the second she closed her eyes. Even in the bright sunshine of daytime, she kept feeling those cold hands on her ankles again, felt herself being lifted up, and thrown into that greasy, smelly mess, and lighting it on fire.
Even though she was in one piece, even though she hadn’t died like Stephanie, she would be reliving last night’s terrible experience for many nights to come.
Chapter 17
MARGARET’S ROOM WAS BUSY with activity all evening. She welcomed the company. As exhausted as she was, she was grateful for the distraction. It helped keep the demons of shock and fear at bay.
Caroline returned during visiting hours with Jeannine and Lacey. She apologized for her earlier outburst, but Margaret could still feel the tension in the air.
I know what she wants, Margaret found herself thinking as Caroline and Lacey began discussing Stephanie’s death and how weird it was that her dress had been taken from Quartet after she died. Caroline wants me to say I won’t go to the prom if she’s not going. She wants me to say: We’ve always spent prom night together, having fun, and since this is our very last prom night at Toomey, I want things to be like they’ve always been. I want you to spend it with the rest of us.
But I’m not going to say that, Margaret vowed. She could be going, too, if she weren’t so stubborn. And then prom night would be different for both of us, but it would be a good kind of different.
“What I want to know is,” Jeannine said, “who polishes shoes to wear to a picnic? The cops said they found black shoe polish in those cuts and scratches on Stephanie’s knuckles. I don’t know anyone who polishes their shoes. Most of us wear sneakers ninety percent of the time. Even if someone wore black sneakers, they wouldn’t polish them first.”
“Kiki Pappas would wear shoes that need polishing,” Lacey said. “And she’d make absolutely sure they were shining like the sun before she took one step outside, even if it was only to a picnic.”
Margaret found herself nodding agreement. Kiki was Toomey’s fashion plate. She wore the most expensive, fashionable clothing and her outfits were always perfectly coordinated right down to her shoes, belt, and jewelry.
“That’s crazy,” Jeannine said. “Kiki was one of Stephanie’s best friends. Why would she kill her?”
“How should I know? I don’t have any special insight into the criminal mind,” Lacey said.
Margaret remembered Mitch telling her that the police always looked to the closest person to any murder victim … a spouse, a relative. Would “close” include best friend?
Sure it would. In high school, who was closer than a best friend?
Impossible to imagine cool, beautiful Kiki committing as vicious an act as the one that had taken Stephanie’s life.
But then, Margaret told herself, everything that’s happened would have been impossible to imagine just a few days ago. Being locked in a Dumpster? It would never occur to any rational human being that such an obscene thing could actually happen. If she hadn’t been there, she wouldn’t believe it herself.
Her friends had barely left the room when they were replaced by a trio whose arrival was so stunning, Margaret was rendered speechless. She was glancing through the fashion magazine that Caroline had brought her when a voice said, “Can we come in, Margaret?”
She looked up to find the Pops standing in the doorway smiling at her. Liza was carrying a small white wicker basket filled with flowers, Kiki a box of candy, and Beth a magazine.
Margaret was so shocked, she almost burst out with, “You don’t look the same without Stephanie in the middle.” It was true. They didn’t. They had been a quartet. Now they were a trio. But pointing that out would be too cruel.
When she did find her tongue, all she could manage was, “Oh. Hi. Sure. Come on in.” She could not believe they had come to see her. What on earth were Pops doing in her room?
“We were worried about you,” Liza said, plopping down in the seat Caroline had just vacated and handing Margaret the flowers. They were beautiful. “We don’t want poor Mitchell to end up alone on prom night. But he promised us that you’re going to be fine in plenty of time.”
She’d been talking to Mitch? Margaret felt a pang of jealousy, and then reminded herself that the two were just friends.
“You know, Margaret,” Beth said solemnly, “when we first heard, we were afraid the same thing that happened to Stephanie had happened to you. We were so relieved when Mitch told us you were okay. He did say you were hurt. But okay. Not … not like Stephanie. How are you feeling?” She lay the magazine on the bed. “I read it first,” she apologized. “Hope you don’t mind.”