by Joan Hess
Optimist that I was, I tried again. “If there was as much blood as you claim there was, no one except a band of elves could have accomplished all that in the short amount of time.”
“It wasn’t all that short an amount of time.” Ruby Bee gave Estelle a nervous look. “I’d say we discussed what to do for a little while before we decided we’d better tell you about what I saw in the kitchen.”
“We didn’t want to disturb you,” said Estelle, trying to act as if that were one of their priorities.
I knew them too well. “How considerate of you. Exactly how long did you dangle on the horns of this particular dilemma before you came to my room?”
“It could have been most of an hour,” Ruby Bee mumbled. “I believe I’d like another donut. How about you, Estelle? The ones with the lemon filling are nice and tart.”
“An hour?” I said wonderingly. “You debated the delicate issue of disturbing me for an hour? I am impressed, ladies. Ruby Bee’s been known to call during the first sneeze to tell me she’s coming down with a cold. But a body covered with blood—hey, let’s take plenty of time.”
“Shhh!” Estelle said, gesturing at the others in the room, all of whom were hearing enough of our conversation to look worried, if not scared sick.
Or then again, they might have spotted Geri striding down the sidewalk and through the lobby door. Maybe they could hear her grinding her teeth. Those with telepathy might have been hearing some colorful language, if her fierce scowl was any indication of her thoughts.
She slammed the briefcase down on a table, took out her clipboard, and in a voice nearly primal in its hostility said, “Let’s get this damn thing over with, shall we?”
CHAPTER TEN
Geri remained rigidly angry as she repeated what Kyle had said concerning the schedule, nodded grimly when Frannie presented her case for inclusion, and ordered the contestants to follow her to the kitchen.
“Isn’t this exciting?” Frannie said as she, Ruby Bee, Gaylene, and Durmond trooped out the door. No one answered.
I refilled my cup and sat down across from Estelle. “Okay, we’re here all by ourselves. I’m not saying Ruby Bee found a body in the kitchen, but if she did—what was she doing down there in the middle of the night?”
“You’ll have to ask her why she went there. I ain’t her psychiatrist, for pete’s sake, and I gave up a long time ago trying to second-guess her motives for most everything she does.”
“Don’t try to spoonfeed me that nonsense. Why’d she go to the kitchen at three in the morning?”
Estelle took a compact and a tube of lipstick from her purse. “Maybe she was looking for a glass of warm milk. I myself was asleep, so I didn’t even know she was gone until she came back and pounded on the door.” She deftly outlined her lower lip in a shade I would have dubbed “Virulent Cerise,” clicked the compact shut, and dropped it and the lipstick back in her handbag. “I wonder how long they’re gonna be in there? I was thinking we might try again to go to the Statue of Liberty and—”
“You didn’t ask her why she’d been creeping around the hotel in the middle of the night? Get off it, Estelle. I don’t know what you two are—”
“Has either of you seen Jerome this morning?” Kyle asked from the doorway. We shook our heads. “Brenda’s locked herself in the bathroom of 211 and she won’t come out. She’s not making much sense, but she sounds really upset about Jerome. You don’t think she’ll … do something, do you?”
“I have no idea,” I said uneasily.
Kyle groaned as if someone had crunched on his toes. “Oh, God, this is the last thing we need. Has Geri come yet?”
“She took the contestants to the kitchen about five minutes ago,” I said. “If Brenda’s locked in the bathroom, how’d you get into her room?”
“I got a passkey from Rick.” He stared down the hallway, his expression increasingly bleak as he no doubt visualized the likely scenario. “Maybe you two could go up to her room? She might be more willing to talk to women. I’d call Jerome’s office to see if he’s there, but I don’t even know where it is. They live out on Long Island somewhere, so his office could be there or in the city or almost anyplace, and I have no idea what the name of the firm is.” His knees buckled, and he grabbed the back of a chair to catch himself. His voice rose in pitch and volume as he gazed imploringly at us. “Please see if she’ll talk to you. I don’t know what else to do. If she harms herself, the police will investigate and I might as well go ahead and slit my own throat.”
“We’re going,” I said before he wet his pants in front of us. “Take it easy, Kyle. Brenda and Jerome were bickering last night. I didn’t hang around for the finale, but it’s likely that he stormed away to his house, or to his office, or even to another hotel. Of course she’s upset about it. That doesn’t mean she’s going to end it all by drinking an entire bottle of Pepto-Bismol.”
“She sure was upset at the reception,” Estelle contributed thoughtfully. “She might be depressed enough to slash her wrists like Fizzy Westend did when his third wife ran off with that janitor at the high school. I can still see him staggering down the road like a three-legged calf, and bleating like one, too, while the blood spurted out like ribbons.”
I grabbed her elbow and hustled her to the stairwell before she could come up with any more bright ideas. I knew we were both thinking about the purported corpse and the missing man, and I was not ready to dismiss it as a whimsical coincidence—if there had been a body. Estelle was convinced Ruby Bee had seen one, but she was as gullible as the local girls who swore you couldn’t get pregnant if you were drunk. We have a lot of youthful mothers in Maggody.
I opened the door of 211 and cautiously said, “Brenda? Are you okay?”
Opting for the less delicate approach, Estelle pushed past me and knocked briskly on the bathroom door. “Brenda, honey, it’s Estelle and Arly. Kyle said you were upset, and we thought we’d better come up and see if there’s anything we can do for you.”
The only response was the flushing of the toilet. While Estelle continued to make soothing noises to the scarred door, I ascertained that the only clothes hanging in the closet were Brenda’s. All the shoes were pastel pumps. There were no manly items on the top of the dresser, and only one bed had been disturbed.
“He’s gone,” I reported quietly. “It’s obvious he packed his bags and left at some point last night. We’re dealing with a straightforward marital problem, not some dark mystery. They fought, he left, and she’s crying her eyes out in the bathroom.”
Estelle nodded, then raised her voice. “Brenda, there’s no point in staying in that little bitty room for the rest of your life, just because your husband walked out on you. Why doncha come out? You could call your daughters. Wouldn’t it make you feel better to talk to them?” She waited for an answer that failed to arrive, and she tried a new approach. “If I have to, I’ll stay out here beating on the door the rest of the day. Unless you want to be responsible for some bruised knuckles, you wash your face and come out here on the double, you hear?”
The door opened, and Brenda emerged, her face blotched and puffy, her eyelids so swollen they were almost closed. Her hair was damp, as was her nightgown, and she was shivering despite the feebleness of the air conditioner.
Estelle took her arm and solicitously placed her on the bed. “That’s being more sensible. You want me to dial the telephone for you?”
“I don’t want to call them,” Brenda said dully. “It’s not going to make me feel better to tell Vernie and Deb that their father’s a satyr and a sadist. They probably know it, but I’m not going to be the one to say it aloud.”
“Oh, honey,” Estelle said, sitting beside her to hold her hand, “you and Jerome just had a spat, that’s all. All married couples do, even newlyweds on their honeymoons. He’ll come back before long, his tail between his legs, and apologize for being such a brute. I’ll bet he’s already sitting at his desk, feeling guilty and fretting over what to say when
he calls you. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if he showed up real soon with flowers and a box of candy.”
“I would be,” she said in the same listless voice. “For one thing, he and his girlfriend are on an airplane to some city in South America … Rio, I think. I can just see them with their champagne and caviar, chuckling about how poor, stupid Brenda never knew a thing until he was packed and halfway out the door. All I can say is she’d better keep an eye on him, or she’ll find herself replaced by the next young thing that rumbas into the room and snuggles in his lap.”
“That’s awful, but maybe it’s for the best. You’ve still got your girls, and your house, and your bridge game, and your volunteer work. You’ll stay so busy you won’t even miss him.”
Brenda toyed with her wedding ring but sounded a bit brighter as she said, “Jerome insisted on watching ball games on television every night. I’ve always been fond of those exotic nature programs, myself.”
“Like the mating rituals of insects?” Estelle suggested. “I saw the most amazing thing …”
I let myself out of the room, relieved we hadn’t found Jerome wrapped in a shower curtain and Brenda attempting to drown herself in the commode. As I’d tried to tell Kyle, it was nothing more than a man with a midlife crisis and a sudden interest in the mating rituals of younger women. Not all of them flew to Rio to play out their pathetic fantasies; I personally knew of one who’d settled for a seedy residential hotel two blocks away from his paramour until she could dispose of her spouse and free up some closet space.
I went to my room and lay down on the bed to think—not of the maladies of marriage but of more current events. Jerome was not missing, in a manner of speaking, and therefore no longer qualified as our mischievous corpse. Perhaps Ruby Bee had been sleepwalking, I proposed to myself. She’d managed to get outside the room, gripped by her bloody vision, and awakened when she found herself in the corridor. It had taken her an hour to persuade Estelle to buy her story, and then they’d come knocking on my door.
As for the missing cases of Krazy KoKo-Nut, it was more likely that Geri or Rick had arranged for them to be moved to a less obtrusive location, such as the pantry. All the other odd little things that had happened didn’t matter one damn bit. Durmond had been mugged by an overly conscientious sort who wanted to make him comfortable in Ruby Bee’s bed. Mr. Cambria was a doorman in Miami, and this was a busman’s holiday. Magazine reporters were earthy.
The telephone rang. Remaining supine (mentally as well as physically), I fumbled for the receiver and said, “Yes?”
“Oh, Arly, it’s awful!” Eilene shrieked, nearly piercing my eardrums. “There was gunfire at the café last night! Nobody’s real clear what happened, but the police haven’t seen either of the kids this morning!” She began to hiccup so loudly that I could barely understand her. “The killer’s not dead, though. The police know that much.”
“How do they know that?”
“He ordered a pizza. A large supreme with anchovies and extra cheese. The delivery boy had to take it right up to the door, hand it over, and then run for his life. The deputy said the poor boy had the tip clutched in his hand so tightly they had to pry his fingers open.”
I searched the ceiling for guidance, but all I saw were waterstains, one of which bore an eerie resemblance to a pizza. “Well,” I said weakly, “it sounds as if everybody’s okay. They’re certainly not starving if they’ve got pizza.”
“But, Arly,” she wailed, “Kevin hates anchovies!”
It occurred to me that despite my earlier bout of self-congratulatory analysis, I didn’t exactly have things under control.
Mrs. Jim Bob figured no one could possibly recognize her, not dressed as she was in a shapeless tan raincoat, drab scarf, and sunglasses. She’d driven all the way to Fort Smith just so she could do her business in private. In that she was the brightest beacon of the congregation, along with being the president of both the Missionary Society and Citizens Against Whiskey, she didn’t want to risk letting any of the more impressionable members get the wrong idea.
She parked on the far side of the lot on the off chance someone might see her car and start speculating about why it was parked in front of a store called “Naughty Nights.” Clutching her handbag with the tenacity of a quarterback, she darted across the lot and into the store, and only when she was well away from the window did she take a breath.
“Hi,” said the teenaged girl seated behind the counter. She put down a magazine and idly tried to guess why the woman was dressed like a Russian spy. “Need some help, ma’am? All the teddies on that rack are on sale this week, and we just got in a new shipment of peekaboo bras.”
Mrs. Jim Bob recoiled, but managed to stammer, “I—I don’t believe—no, not anything like that.” The girl merely waited. “I’m looking for—a gift. It’s for a niece who’s getting married. I don’t approve of this kind of thing, naturally, but her mother said it was exactly what she—the bride, not her mother—wanted.”
“What exactly does she want?”
“Not a peekaboo bra,” Mrs. Jim Bob said, getting hold of herself. “Something to wear on her honeymoon to make her look”—she struggled but couldn’t bring herself to say the pertinent word—“romantic. Cut kind of low and with lace, made out of material you can almost see through.”
“Would she prefer black, scarlet, or apricot cream?”
This was harder than Mrs. Jim Bob had anticipated. Here she was in a store with shameless underwear, being forced to choose from colors that sounded filthy. But she had vowed to herself to do it to save her marriage. She was on a Christian mission, even if it might look otherwise to ignorant busybodies, and she wasn’t going to allow the snippety clerk to deter her. “Black will do nicely,” she said.
The girl went over to a rack laden with perverted merchandise. “What size does your niece wear, ma’am? Does she prefer long or short? These little nighties are cute, and they come with bikini-cut panties.”
“Long, I should think, and without any bikini-cut anythings,” Mrs. Jim Bob said, proud of her steady voice. “She’s about my size, so she ought to take a medium.”
Various gowns, all long and black, were pulled out for consideration, and within a few minutes one had been selected and whisked to the back room to be gift-wrapped. Mrs. Jim Bob kept an eye on the door, but she righteously avoided letting the other eye drift to racks that might have items like peekaboo bras and bikini-cut panties.
“Here we go,” the girl said as she returned with a box wrapped in silver paper and a white ribbon. “Will this be cash or charge?”
“Cash.” Mrs. Jim Bob took out her wallet. “How much is it?”
“Thirty-seven fifty. With tax, it comes to forty dollars and twelve cents. There’s no charge for gift wrapping.”
She counted her cash, then sighed and took out a credit card. “Use this, I guess.”
“Sure,” the girl said as she accepted the card and read the name. “If you’d prefer, you can put it on your charge account, Mrs. Buchanon. That way you can settle it with one check at the end of the month.”
“My charge account?”
“Your husband opened one more than three years ago; he’s one of our best customers. Haven’t you ever noticed the gold NAUGHTY NIGHTS stickers on our boxes?”
“Yes, of course I have,” Mrs. Jim Bob said with a tight smile. “The gold stickers with the name of the store, right there on the boxes for the last three years. I forgot all about it, but indeed, let’s put this on the charge account. In fact, before you ring it up, maybe I’ll take another look. My cousin Sharon in Shawsville has a daughter who’ll be marryin’ soon, and this way I can save myself another trip. Why, now that I think about it, the McIlhaney girl’s engaged and so is the oldest Riley girl.”
Mindful of her commission, the clerk came out from behind the counter, and an hour later she was in the back room, gift-wrapping half a dozen lacy gowns of all lengths, a silk teddie with a little satin bow, and a single black p
eekaboo bra for some cousin or other with an approaching birthday.
Mrs. Jim Bob nodded when she was presented with a charge slip. “Four hundred twenty-seven dollars and eighty-two cents,” she murmured as she wrote her name very carefully. “But worth it, don’t you think? This will save me so much bother down the road.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the clerk said dutifully.
“Yoohoo,” Estelle called as she knocked on my door. “Brenda’s feeling chipper enough to go down to the kitchen. You want to come with us? Ruby Bee ought to be finishing up afore too long, and if she’s not supposed to make her cake till later in the afternoon, I thought we might do some more sight-seeing.”
“No,” I called back, too appalled at the idea to lift my head, much less unlock my door. “I think I’ll take a nap.”
“Suit yourself. Come on, Brenda, Miss City Slicker is too high and mighty to visit the Statue of Liberty.”
I listened to their voices until they faded, then rolled over on the bed and burrowed my face into the scratchy bedspread. Despite the temptation to call the airline and find out when I could catch the next flight south, I was reluctant to do so. Or perhaps too cheap, since I might get a call from Estelle the minute the plane landed in Maggody, and find myself in the identical position I’d been in two days earlier—but this time with a depleted bank balance.
A noise from beyond the adjoining door caught my attention. It had occurred to me that Geri might not react well if the cases of Krazy KoKo-Nut had disappeared without a flake. She was angry enough to turn on Kyle, who was dangerously tense. We very well might end up with more than one bloodied body in the kitchen, this time along with a handful of witnesses.
I went to the door and tapped. “Durmond? I was wondering how it went in the kitchen.”
There was no response. I told myself it was a helluva lot more sensible to go downstairs and see for myself, then eased open my door and gave his a tiny push. Marveling at my lack of judgment, I opened his door and said, “Durmond? Are you here?”