Paula K. Perrin - Small Town Deadly (10 page)

“We’ll take her with us.  A
change of scene might be exactly what the kid needs.”

I sat up straight.  “That’s
not a bad idea.  We’d get her out of Gene’s clutches, and while we’re gone, if
he’s any good at all, he’ll find the guilty party.”

“And we won’t have to go to
the funerals.”

I groaned.  “We won’t be able
to walk down the street without each and every citizen laying a guilt trip on
us.”

“Small town etiquette can
kill you.  Screw ‘em all!”  Her green eyes sparkled, her blonde hair
swirled around her as she leaped to her feet and spun in a circle.  “How
soon can we go?  You don’t mind lending me the money, do you?  I’ll call
Annama—”  Her eyes dimmed, and she stilled.  “Damn, I’m going to
miss her.  I’ll call her travel agency.”

I held up my hand.  “Wait. 
We’d better think this out.  I don’t want to be dragged back across the
International Date Line in handcuffs.”

“Oh, Liz, don’t think this to
death.  Let’s just go.”

I bit the inside of my lip and
winced.  “What if we humbly asked Gene’s permission to leave town?”

Fran’s stomach rumbled.  “Bad
idea.  He might not think to warn us not to do it, but if he knew—”

I shrugged.  “I
suppose.”  I got up, crossed to the CD player, and turned off Hank
Williams, Jr.  “He is the most self-pitying man—how can you listen to
that junk?”

“I like the stories.  You
should understand that, you used to write confessions.”

“Oh, yeah, go for the
jugular,” I said.

She grinned, then rubbed her
stomach.  “Let’s go get some dinner.  You owe me something
spectacular.”

“Okay.”  I crossed to
the phone.  “I’d better tell Mother I won’t be home for dinner.”  I
stopped, my hand on the cold beige plastic. 

“Don’t want to talk to
her?” Fran said, coming to rest an arm across my shoulders.

I looked up at her.

She grinned “That’s why a vacation
is such a good idea.”

“You never give up.”

“Nope.”  She gave me a
gentle push.  “Go get dressed.  I’ll call her.”

I crossed to the door in the
corner and entered Fran’s huge, walk-in closet.  I didn’t want to get back into
my suit.

For a moment Fran’s voice was just
a vague murmur.  Then sharply, “I can’t, I’m busy.”  A murmur.  “Yes, I’ll
tell her.”

I poked my head out of the
closet.  “I don’t want to know.”  I held up a short-sleeved lavender
silk shift.  “May I borrow this?  Is it going to be ridiculously
long?”

“I have just the thing,” she said
as she crossed to a lacquered cabinet and rummaged through a drawer. 
“I’ve got a long scarf you can use as a belt.  About time you quit hiding
that lush figure of yours.”  She plucked out a long scarf in iridescent
blues and silver.  “You’ll look beautiful in that lavender as you play
bouncer.”

“What?”

“Laurel’s going crazy with people
arriving for the play.  She needs help.  Claire said you’d go.”

“Why me?” I moaned,
beginning to dress.  “If I go, you go.”

“Can’t.  I have to go to the
travel agency.”

“That can wait.”

“You don’t want mean old Gene to
snag Meg, do you?”  Her green eyes sly, she said, “Tell you what.  I’ll go help
Laurel if you’ll do the travel agency.”

“You know how I hate that—too
many options—which flight, which hotel.”

She patted my head.  “Now you
leave everything to Auntie Fran,” she said.  “It’s Friday, bon voyage
night, they’ll be open late.”  She stopped, finger on her cheek.  “Or
will they be closed because of Annamaria, do you think?”

I shrugged.  “They may have
canceled the punch and cake, but people who haven’t heard about Annamaria will
still drop in expecting to pick up tickets and stuff.”

She turned away, unbelting her
robe.

I held out a restraining hand,
“But—”

She turned back.  “I’m just
going to gather information, that’s all, but then we’ll be set if we do want to
go.”  She planted her hands on my shoulders, “Liz, promise me you won’t do any
work tonight when you’re through with traffic control.”

“I’ve got to.  I’m overdue—”

“You’ve had a terrible 24 hours. 
Rent a movie or take a long bath.  Come on, promise no work.”

“Oh, all right.”

“Don’t forget our date at the
rock gym in the morning.  We should have thought of this before:  no matter
where Meg’s been hiding, she’ll show up for that.”

“Yeah, the way she’s been
chortling over winning that bet and getting us down there.”  Suddenly I
felt better.  “We’ll pick you up at eight.”

“No, I’ll come get you.”

“You have no idea how much
stuff Meg lugs with her.  We’d better take the station wagon—you can give up
just a little bit of control, can’t you?”

“Just for being so nasty, you
have to buy my ticket to New Zealand.”  She grabbed my hands and swung me
around in circles to the door.  “We’re going to have so much fun!”

She opened the door and pushed me
through.  “Hey, Liz, know what would be even more relaxing than a video?”

“What?”

“Getting laid.”

“Fran!”

“Put this celibacy shit aside and
go for it.”

“Could you say it a little
louder so the whole town can hear?”

She grinned, standing tall and
beautiful in the light spilling through the doorway, elegant despite her
disheveled hair.

I shivered.  The early evening air
was cool after the long soak in the hot tub.  “Maybe you’re right about
getting away,” I said.

“Shall I make
reservations?” she asked eagerly.

“Air fare is going to be so high,
doing it at the last minute,” I said, “maybe we should wait—”

She groaned.  “Don’t be cheap,
Lizzie.”

“I’m not cheap!”

“‘Just cautious,’ I know, I know,”
she said.  “But don’t be just this once, okay?  I’ll make res—”

“No.  Just get the
information.”

Her face fell, then she
brightened, “I’ll talk you into it.  I’ll get you when your muscles are
all jelly after climbing around in that gym.”  She smiled even wider,
“Or maybe when Meg’s got you dangling twenty feet in the air on a thin
little rope.”

I shivered again.

She laughed.  “See you in the
morning, little Lizzie,” she said, stepping back and closing the door.

Only Jared’s maroon truck was in
the high school parking lot.  I spotted him sitting on a cement bench, hunched
over a book.

The yellowish lights of the
covered walkway made his sallow skin sickly.  “It’s about time,” he said.

“Where are the hordes Laurel couldn’t cope with?  And for that matter, where’s Laurel?”

He set his book down and
stretched.  “She’s at the library in case anyone shows up there.”

“Couldn’t she have put up a notice?”

He pushed the lank brown hair off
his forehead.  “All I know is, when I got home, Mom had agreed I’d come over
here to help.”

“Mothers,” I said.

We exchanged a rueful look.

He picked up his biology text. 
“Gotta go.”

He balanced the book on one finger. 
“Mom wants me to help her at the travel agency—she’s gotta make sure things go
all right—” he bounced the book off his finger and caught it one-handed as he
started toward his car.  “Oh, Laurel said to tell people to watch The Bird for
rescheduling information.”

“Do you think people would
still come?”

He turned back.  “You
couldn’t keep them away with spear guns.  Will you finish the play with
us?”

“I’m sure your mother will be
able to find someone else.  If it were just dancing, that’d be okay, but I know
I’ll blow my lines.”

“Is it that or because you
think one of us killed Andre?” he asked, walking back to me.

“I can’t believe any of
us—”

“Who’s your candidate for the
role of murderer?”

“I don’t want—”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if
Victor did it,” he said.

“Why?”

“He was brown-nosing Andre at
the early rehearsals, hoping to get in on Andre’s old Hollywood connections. 
As if an interior decorator from Podunk, USA, could—”

“Don’t be such a snob,”
I said.  “Victor’s done wonders with the community theater.”

Jared shook his head.  “Andre
made it clear that he wasn’t impressed, and Victor’s pretty
hot-tempered.”  He looked at his watch.  “I’m late.”

After he drove off, I sank onto
the hard, cold cement bench where he’d been sitting, thinking of what he’d
said.  Why did I keep finding how little I knew the people I thought I knew?

Behind me a bush rustled.  I
jumped a mile.  I turned just in time to see a possum pulling back out of
sight.  What was I doing sitting here alone, barely 24 hours after a murder had
occurred? Why did “sitting duck” sound so apropos?

I drove over to the library where Laurel stood shivering by the book return boxes.  I unrolled the window.  “I’m leaving, and
you should, too.  It’s stupid to be out here alone.”

She looked haggard, with dark
circles under her eyes, one pearl earring missing, her blouse untucked on one
side.  “I think I’m safe here, so close to the street, don’t you?  And you’ve
got Jared.”

“No, he’s gone over to help
Alisz.”

“Please stay, just till 7:30.”

“Sorry.  Considering what’s
happened, I think it’s a crazy thing to do.”

“But people will think—”

“If you’re worried, put up signs,
but leave it at that.”

She wrapped her thin arms around
her body and stared at the pavement.

“Would you like me to stay while
you put up signs?” I asked.

A martyr’s sigh.  “No, go on home
if you’re scared.”

I thought of arguing “scared”
versus “good judgment,” but rolled up my window and hit the gas instead.

I drove to our house, but as I
passed our driveway, I saw Meg still hadn’t returned.  Tired but restless, I kept
rolling around the corner.

I drove down to Vancouver, and
walked into the movie that was just starting.  It turned out to be about a
virus threatening to take over California and then the world.  As I walked out
into the cool evening, the only single in a sea of couples, I decided that
though the plague set the action going, the movie was actually about principled
humans being brave and working together to overcome deadly peril.  It cheered
me up, and when my stomach growled, announcing a jumbo bag of popcorn was not
enough dinner, I cheered myself further with a couple of tacos before going
home.

When I got there, I couldn’t pull
into the driveway because Meg’s Cabriolet sat sideways, partly on the driveway,
partly on the grass, and partly in the street.

I leaped out of my car, heart
hammering.  Her driver’s side window was rolled halfway down.  I opened the
door and saw her keys in the ignition.  I leaned on the seat as I reached for
the keys, the car rocked, and the empty wine bottles on the floor clinked
together.

I straightened up, Meg’s keys
digging into my clenched hand.  The kitchen door was ajar. I tiptoed into the
kitchen and down the hall toward the stairway.  Mother’s light spilled into the
hallway through her open doors.

I crept like a panther.  My foot
was on the first stair when Mother’s voice said, “Liz?”

Her voice held an edge of fright
when she said, “Liz, is that you?”

“Yes, Mother.”

“Meg came home.”

“I saw her car.”

“I’m afraid she was quite
inebriated.”

I didn’t reply.

She said, “Will you come in
here, please?  I don’t like talking to the invisible woman.”

“I’m going to look in on
Meg.” 

I snapped on the hall light. 
Bunny sat at the top of the staircase watching me ascend.  His paws and legs
were dark with mud.  A twig was snarled in the beige hair of his right ear.

Even before I reached the landing,
the acidic stench of vomit assaulted me.

The poodle walked beside me to
Meg’s door.  I snapped on the light.

Meg didn’t stir.  Her shoes had
smeared mud across Grandmother McDowell’s quilt.  Perhaps she’d tried to lean
off the bed when she got sick, for there was vomit on the quilt at the edge of
the bed.  It had dripped and formed a pool on the floor.

Disgust caught at my throat.

I listened to her deep breathing. 
It would be better to discuss things in the morning over coffee.  She’d be
excited about the climbing gym—perhaps that would hold her temper in abeyance,
and I’d be able to get some answers even if I dreaded what they might be.

I felt a little pity for the hangover
she was bound to have.

Then I thought that maybe the news
of Annamaria’s death had caught up with her.  They had loved each other.  Even
with three daughters of her own, Annamaria had made room in her family for my
niece.  Maybe consuming all that wine was Meg’s way of coping.

I felt dizzy from the carousel of
emotions swirling through my head.  “Sufficient unto the day—”  I
whispered.  But hadn’t I already left things too long?  No more excuses, no
more putting off an uncomfortable encounter.  “Meg,” I said, “wake up.”

Her head lifted an inch then sank
back.  “Go ‘way,” she moaned.

“Get up,” I said, “we
have to talk.”

Her head lolled back against the
bed and her eyelids inched up enough to show her unfocused eyes.  A sly,
contemptuous smile formed on her crusted lips.  “Ol’ Aunt Lizzie,”
she singsonged, “so outta touch—” her voice died away as her eyes
drifted shut.

A moment later they flew open and
she said, “Sick!”  She struggled out of bed and staggered to the door.

Bunny stood in the doorway, his
body rigid.

Meg swerved, and I grabbed her arm
and guided her across the hall.  Just as we reached the door of the bathroom,
she suddenly stiffened and spewed hot, stinking liquid over my shoulder and
chest.

I gagged, my eyes streaming, and
pushed her away.  She reeled sideways.  Time froze, and I saw what would
happen.  She would stumble, loose-jointed as a scarecrow, across the
checkerboard floor, the tub would catch her at the knees and she would fall
into the tub and crack her head open.

“Meg,” I moaned, and
reached for her, moving through those nightmare molasses you never expect to
encounter in a waking moment.

Her legs hit the old claw-footed
tub, she started to fall backwards, and I couldn’t get to her.  I couldn’t get
across the black-and-white floor in time.

And then, as Meg fell, she
clutched at the shower curtain.  For just a second, she hung suspended, and
then POP, POP, POP, the curtain tore loose from its rings.  She fell, but
slowed enough by her encounter with the curtain that even her sluggish reflexes
allowed her to grab the side of the tub.  She fell sideways, her head hitting
the thick red bath rug slung over the end of the tub.

I collapsed beside her and gripped
her hand.

After awhile I realized Mother was
calling our names.  I called to her in a shaky voice, “We’re all
right.”

Bunny stood nearby shivering. 
“It’s okay,” I said, reaching to pet him, but he slunk away from my
touch.

I shook so hard my teeth chattered.

The ends of the shower curtain had
floated down around her as she fell, leaving her face exposed, but wrapping her
body like a shroud.

“Meggie …”

“Go ‘way,” she said,
reaching up to run her hand through her tangled hair.  Her fingers stopped
where they encountered long strands stuck together.  “Go away,” she
screamed.

“Let me help you up, let’s
make sure you’re all right.  Then we’ll clean up, and—”

“Clean it up, clean it up. 
Tha’s all you know, lil’ neat packa … packa … bundles all tied with
ribbon.  Never show anything, just lil’ skellons in the closet all tied up…”

“Meg, let me help you. 
You’re drunk, and—”

“No lie!”

I got to my feet.  I held my hand
out to her and said, as though she were a little girl again, reluctant to cease
splashing in the tub, “Come on, Meg, it’s time to go to bed now.”

She laughed shrilly.  “You
sound like a mother.  But guess wha?  You’re not my mother.  You never were my
mother, mush as you like to preten’ it.”

My hand went to my mouth. 
“Meg.”

She peered at me.  “You don’t
wanna hear.  Famous Macrae tradishun—don’t hear what you don’ like, an’ keep
your secrets dry.”  She giggled.

“Honey, I know you’re upset. 
Let’s not worry about a bath, just let me help you get into bed.”

“Leave me alone,” she
screamed.  “I never wanna see you again.”

I stumbled to the door, the dog
skittering out of my way as I went into my room and sank down on my bed.  I
started to reach for the phone, saw the dark stain on my sleeve, jumped up,
pulled off Fran’s lavender dress and iridescent scarf.  I threw them into a
corner.  I reached into the closet and pulled out an oversized Save the
Elephants sweatshirt.

I went back to the phone and
punched out Fran’s number.  “Hi, this is Fran.  Sorry I’ve missed you.  No
doubt at some point I’ll stop having fun and come home and call you. Wait for
the beep, okay?”

But when the beep sounded, I
couldn’t speak.

I wasn’t aware I was crying until
a tear dropped off my chin.  I put my hands up to wipe away the tears.  My
hands stank of vomit.

I pulled on a pair of sweat pants
and went back into the bathroom.  I got Meg tucked into bed.  I checked her
pupils and felt her limbs and head.  No bumps.  So I left her to sleep.  I took
the quilt into the bathroom, dumped it into the tub, and left it soaking.

I couldn’t go to bed. Despite the
weariness, my muscles felt twitchy.  I pulled on some socks and my Nikes and
padded quietly down the stairs.

Mother’s light still shone, so I
stopped in her doorway.  She looked up from her book.  “What
happened?” she asked.  “I heard something fall.”

“Yes.”

“What was it?”

I hesitated.  “Mother, I’m
tired.  Nothing was broken, and I don’t feel like talking about it.”

Her dark eyes narrowed.  “I
think I deserve an explanation of things that happen in my own house.”

I didn’t want to stick around for
what was bound to happen next.  I said, “I’m going out for a run.”

“At this time of night? 
That’s foolish, Liz, even in Warfield.”

“I’ll be fine,” I said,
walking away.  I didn’t much care if I made it back or not.