Darlene Franklin - Dressed for Death 02 - A String of Murders (15 page)

“I can’t believe it. Magda—dead! Who would want to kill that sweet old lady?” Pink hair drooping, Dina sounded like she had lost a favorite aunt. Most of Grace Gulch would respond the same way.

“I didn’t know her all that long, but she was always nice to me.” Peppi sounded a bit forlorn. Magda had that effect on people.

I thought of the threatening e-mail Magda had received and the scene with Gene. It must have some connection to her death, but I didn’t want to discuss it with the girls. They didn’t know about that particular blackmail note, and I wanted to keep it that way. I would discuss it with Audie—once he had been informed of Magda’s death and the police had finished with us.

“What’s going to happen to the play now?” Peppi voiced her concern about her first production with the theater. “Magda was the star. And poor Gene. And Cord. And the mayor—no one will want to continue.”

“The show must go on.” The words came out before I could stop myself.

Peppi burst into tears.

“Cici!” Dina’s voice was half scold, half laughter. She patted Peppi’s back and handed her tissues. “I can’t stop thinking about those pearls. They were Magda’s, weren’t they? Someone must have taken them from the theater this afternoon, stole them from props since the last time I checked. I can’t believe it’s happened again.” Last fall, the gun that had killed Penn Hardy had been taken from the theater. “I should have kept them with me until tonight.”

Peppi kept crying, well down the road to hysteria. Dina blamed herself for not taking better care of the pearls. I wanted to leave, but we couldn’t. We could be stuck there for hours. The police wouldn’t get around to interviewing us until after they finished with the crime scene.

I refused to spend the night rehashing the sad events.

16

From: Elsie Holland ([email protected])

Date: Saturday, April 19, 9:35 PM

To: Dina Wilde (DWilde_GGHerald @ggcoc.net)

Subject: Newsworthy?

You will interview Magda Grace Mallory soon about an old news story.

While she talks to you about what happened forty years ago, ask her about what happened eighteen years ago, as well.

Expect further communication from me on this subject.

Saturday, April 26

But what else could we do? I had promised Frances that we would wait.

First things first. Since everyone was hungry, I called for pizza delivery. Next we needed something to distract us from the horrible sights we had all witnessed; and I knew something that might work.

“While we’re waiting, you might as well help me set up my new window display.
I didn’t give them a choice; they might decline. I waltzed over to an old-fashioned turntable with an automatic record changer where I played vinyl records of period music. Using a real record player instead of CDs made it seem authentic, another “vintage” item to go along with the clothing.

I rifled through a stack of recordings and chose six to start with, tunes that always set my toes tapping and put a smile on my face. Big band music and swing dance should cheer us up, songs like “In the Mood” and “Chattanooga Choo-choo.”

“You’re doing the ’40s!” Dina caught the drift of my plans.

“You think?” I pointed to the outfit I had laid out to wear on the following day. “Meet Senior Cadet Nurse Cecilia Wilde from the Public Health Service, circa 1943. I’ll be showing uniforms of the many branches of the military where women served.”

“Our grandmother’s uniform.” Dina touched the summer uniform with reverence. “I would have liked to have served. Although I might have preferred the WACS.” Dina held the appropriate dress uniform against her body and studied her image in the mirror.

“Nah. That olive green clashes with your coloring. Maybe you could be a WAFT.” Peppi held up a dress blue which did look good with Dina’s fair skin. Not that the Air Force would allow its women to have punk pink hair, even today.

My plan was succeeding. Peppi calmed down a bit. I decided on a little fun. “Now that army uniform would look well on you. Try it on.”

“Oh, may I?”

I laughed and waved both of them into the changing rooms. My reasons were not entirely altruistic; pictures of the young women in uniform would make excellent advertising for the store.

I spent a few minutes in front of the mirror, taming my hair into a bun appropriate for a serious nurse cadet in the PHS. Lots of hairpins later, it stayed more or less in place. I took the uniform into my office and changed.

The Andrews Sisters were belting out “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” when we all returned to the showroom.

“Hey, I took swing dance lessons. I can show you how to do the jitterbug.” Dina, dark blue cap settled on top of her slicked back pink hair, moved her sneakered feet to the intoxicating rhythm. Well, it was too much to expect her to wear matching pumps.

“Whoa, slow down. Show us one step at a time.”

The pizza arrived, and between food, music, and dance, we laughed as hard as lonely soldier boys did at USOs far from home, as scared and uncertain as we felt after our discovery. It’s a good thing the stores around us had closed; during business hours, they might have complained about the noise.

Peppi took to the jitterbug like a natural. She and Dina decided to try a flip; her arms looked strong enough to hold Dina’s weight. Maybe her workout sessions at the gym made a difference. They didn’t quite make it. Dina landed on her bottom and slid across the floor, stopping feet away from the door. The doorbell rang. Laughing, Dina stood up, brushed off the dust, and unlocked the door to greet Chief Reiner and Frances.

Reiner touched his Teddy Roosevelt mustache and looked my sister up and down. Then he glanced at me. “So we meet again. After another murder.” Somehow the way he said it made me feel guilty by association. The happy mood I had worked so hard to create vanished with the crack of his voice.

“Would you like something to drink, Chief?” I asked. My hair had escaped the hairpins after the second twirl in the Jitterbug, and I knew I looked a mess, but proprieties are proprieties, after all.

He ignored the niceties. “I need to speak with you. Now. Peppi, come this way.” He led her into my office.

While we waited, my mind wandered. What would have happened if I had been alone when I discovered Magda’s body? They say that the person who reports the crime is often the suspect. I was glad I went with Dina and Peppi. Even Reiner couldn’t think the three of us were in it together, though he might suspect that one of us had killed Magda and returned with a group in order to deflect suspicion.

I considered that possibility. I didn’t suspect Dina, even if I had included her in my steno pad; but what about Peppi? She was an unknown, and that was exactly why I didn’t suspect her. She hadn’t lived in Grace Gulch long enough to have a reason to murder anyone. But she might be related to that cantankerous Mrs. Lambert in the nursing home. I couldn’t discount her as a possible suspect.

Reiner asked about my movements earlier in the day.

I gulped. “I was here.” Before he could voice his follow-up question, I added my answer. “Alone.” Unlike most weekdays, no one could verify my whereabouts for the afternoon. The store remained closed.

“And what were you doing at Mrs. Mallory’s home this evening?”

Straight to the heart of the matter. Should we tell the police about Suzanne, or not?

“She invited Dina and Peppi over for an interview. I tagged along for moral support.” We must have created a crime scene expert’s nightmare, with all of our footprints and fingerprints overlaying anything the murderer might have touched.

“What was the interview to be about?”

The police had to know about Magda’s illegitimate child. And the blackmail threat.
I knew several things that the reporters did not. I had already delayed too long in telling the police. “Dina and Peppi don’t know the whole story about Magda.”

“And you do?” The corner of Reiner’s mustache twitched, as if in disbelief.

“Not the whole story, of course not, but I do know something most people don’t.” I explained about finding the blackmail notes at the theater, though Audie had already given them that evidence. “We were concerned for Magda, so we went to visit her after rehearsal last night.” After one final deep breath, I finished with the revelation that Suzanne was Magda’s illegitimate child, and Magda’s decision to give an interview to Dina and Peppi. Reiner asked me a few more questions and warned me not to tell anyone else.

The office door opened and Audie rushed in. “What’s happening?”

Reiner looked him up and down. “Where were you this afternoon between, say, one and two?”

“At the theater.” The question didn’t ruffle Audie, the picture of innocence.

Reiner grunted and muttered something about no one to confirm his presence. “We’ll be back in touch if more questions arise.” He touched his mustache in a goodbye gesture and left, Frances trailing behind, the two of them in whispered conversation. Perhaps Frances enjoyed the hunt as much as I did.

That left the four of us in the store. “Want some pizza?” I popped the remaining slices into the microwave without waiting for Audie’s answer.

“Cic!” Audie only shortened my name when he was frustrated. Well I couldn’t blame him.

“Cici!” Dina repeated my name. I knew what she wanted to know. What did you tell the police?

“Girls.” I wanted to redirect their energy. “Don’t you need to take the story to the paper?” My eyes challenged Dina. I can’t talk about it
.

“C’mon, Dina. We’re in the way now that your sister’s shining knight has arrived.” Peppi winked at me to let me know she was teasing, and they headed to the changing rooms.

“Eat.”

“I’m not hungry.” Even so, Audie ate the two slices on auto pilot while the girls changed out of the vintage uniforms in record time and left us, at last, alone.

Audie swallowed the last bite of pizza and downed a can of coke. He wiped his mouth clean. “What happened to Magda?

“Who said anything about Magda?”

Did Reiner’s prohibition against talking about what happened apply to Audie? I decided that it didn’t. Audie already knew a lot of it, and the chief had already asked for my fiancé’s alibi.

“C’mon, Cic. You know Grace Gulch. The news has reached the farthest corners of Lincoln County by now.” Audie stuffed the empty pizza box into a trash can. “You went there. I want to know the details.”

“She’s. . .oh, Audie. She’s dead. Murdered.” The tears that I had held at bay ever since I saw Magda’s body spilled out.

Audie took me into his arms and rocked me. Oh, how I loved the man, his strong arms and tender heart. Bit by bit, I gave him the details of our grisly discovery. We comforted each other, arms locked in silent grief, memories of a special woman flowing over and around us.

“Am I interrupting something?” Dina had entered the store without us noticing.

Startled, we drew apart. I confess I was irritated.

“You didn’t expect me to stay
away, did you?” Dina already had her steno pad in hand. “Peppi had to get to work at the library. What was Magda going to talk to us about? C’mon, Cic, give.”

Audie and I carried on a silent conversation with our eyes. I felt like an old, married woman. Out loud he said, “She wanted to let people know. We’re not betraying a confidence.”

“But—” I considered the chief’s warning and decided it didn’t apply. Magda intended to tell Dina and Peppi the truth. “Magda had an illegitimate child when she went to Chicago all those years ago.”

“I already know that much.” Dina shook her pencil at me. “The question is, who? Is it someone in Grace Gulch? Does that give that person a motive for murder?”

“It’s Suzanne Jay.”

That silenced Dina for about fifteen seconds, and then the barrage of questions began. Did Suzanne know? Yes. Who was the father? We didn’t know. Did Gene know? Yes. He just found out
.
The one detail I kept back was the threatening e-mail. I felt like that was police business.

Dina repeated my description of what we had seen at Magda’s house, about the awful blue face, the pearls scattered on the floor.

He drew in a sharp breath. “The pearls?
Magda’s
pearls?”

“That makes it even worse. I’m pretty sure they were her pearls. I recognized the clasp. . .” I stopped, unwilling to go on.

“That means—”

“It was someone from the theater. Again.”

I thought about my notes about suspects in Spencer’s murder and considered showing it to Audie and Dina. No
.
My conscience pricked me. Dina and Audie didn’t need to know they appeared on the list.

“I’ll have to call the cast and tell them that rehearsals have been suspended until—until ….” His voice faltered. How could this production get over murder in the midst? And what would happen to Audie’s position with the theater?

“It will all work out. Everything works together for good and all that.”

Audie gave me a quick hug. We locked up the store at nine, earlier than we usually left the theater after a rehearsal, but I felt as tired as a bronco after breaking.

In spite of the exhaustion, I had work to do.