Joan Hess - Arly Hanks 06 (17 page)

“You mean the tenthousand-dollar prize,” Ruby Bee said, softening softening the reproach with a grandmotherly smile.

“In a way.” Kyle consulted his watch, then ran his hand over his hair, wiped his palm on his trouser leg, and busied himself with the remainder of his coffee.

“Shit, I wish the other contestants would get here. I called and told them to meet here at ten. It’s already a quarter till. You people are on time. How hard can it be to take the elevator down one entire floor?”

“Real hard when it doesn’t work,” Gaylene said as she came into the dining room. She wore skin-tight shorts and a gossamer blouse, and her ash-blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail. “It’s a good thing I didn’t twist an ankle coming down those slippery ol’ steps. How could I play the slots on crutches?”

It must have been a rhetorical question, in that she headed for the coffee urn without waiting for our opinions. Ruby Bee and Estelle agreed to allow me to bring them coffee and donuts, and we were all settled as Frannie and Durmond came out of the stairwell door and came across the lobby.

“That makes four—no, three,” Kyle muttered, oblivious to the crumbs on his chin and lapels, and also to the smudge of powdered sugar on the tip of his nose. “All we need are Brenda and the kid, and we’ll be set.” He rapped his cup on his saucer. “Listen everybody, Geri should be here any minute to take charge, and please don’t give her any grief. Do whatever she says, okay? She’ll take you on a tour of the kitchen, at which time you can check your individual boxes to make sure you’ve got everything you need. The boxes will then be sealed, and no one will be allowed in the kitchen until it’s his or her turn to prepare an entry. Only the contestant and Geri will be in the kitchen from that point on. As each entry is finished, it will be locked in the pantry under Geri’s supervision, and she’ll have the only key.”

“Did you look in this pantry?” Ruby Bee whispered at me, then caught Kyle’s beady stare and sat back. I nodded, even though I hadn’t.

“I’ll have to stay with Catherine when she prepares her recipe,” Frannie said.

Kyle gulped at her. “Impossible.”

“She has asthma,” Frannie countered with a shrug. “I have to be there with her inhaler and her tablets. I’m the only one who can judge the severity of an attack and give her the proper dosage. In fact, she had an attack last night and I told her to stay in bed until the actual time of the contest.”

Kyle tried to stare her down, but eventually conceded. “Yeah, as long as you don’t help her prepare her entry. Nobody else has any medical problems, right?”

We all shook our heads, and I hoped I was the only one who heard Ruby Bee mutter, “Except for that man in the kitchen. I’d call being dead a downright serious medical problem.”

Kyle glanced our way, but merely said, “Well, then, why don’t you have more coffee while we wait for Geri. She said she’d be here at ten.” He looked at his watch, and then at the window. “I’d better check on Brenda. I think it’ll be better if we’re all here when Geri comes. She’s still a little upset after last night’s reception.”

I watched him as he walked across the lobby, futilely punched the elevator, and disappeared into the stairwell. He was uncomfortable in his role as drill sergeant, but he was doing fairly well. Sure, he’d ruined his tie, and his jacket was so sprinkled with crumbs that he might have been in the throes of terminal dandruff. To his credit, his voice was breaking no more than every third word and his eyes were slightly less panicky than those of an animal caught in a steel trap. It was only a silly contest, I told myself as I finished my coffee. He’d been tense the day before, but now he was so wired that he might detonate any minute.

“What’s bugging that Kyle fellow?” Ruby Bee said, paraphrasing my thoughts. “It ain’t like he has to run the contest by his lonesome. Geri’s coming back, so all he has to do is toady around and pretend he’s important.”

Estelle nodded sagely. “He’s acting like someone stuck a piece of dynamite up his rear and struck a match.” She made sure Durmond and I were the only ones paying any attention, then lowered her voice. “Maybe he had something to do with that corpse in the kitchen … The first time I laid eyes on him, I knew he was a sneaky sort. After all, a ferret ain’t nothing but a domesticated polecat.”

“Neither he nor Geri is staying in the hotel,” I pointed out. “Rick may have conceded the kitchen key, but I can’t see him handing over the key to the hotel. They weren’t even here at four in the morning.”

Durmond, in a whisper almost as theatrical as Estelle’s, said, “And there was no corpse in the kitchen. Arly and I checked very carefully.”

“There most certainly was!” Ruby Bee protested.

I managed to control my temper, for the most part. “No, there wasn’t, dammit! Not unless he waited for you to leave, and then hopped up, grabbed a mop and a dishrag, got everything cleaned up, and wandered out the door with four cases of Krazy KoKo-Nut in his pocket!” For the most part, as I said.

I might as well have been arguing with Particular Buchanon—after his funeral. Ruby Bee thought for a minute, and said, “I think you’re on to it. Somebody came into the kitchen after I left, moved the body, and cleaned up that awful mess. Who’d do a thing like that?”

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?”

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 …”