The Pink Flamingo Murders (18 page)

Not again. Not . . . oh, no. This time it would be Margie. She was dead. I knew it. I knew that argument Margie had with Caroline last night would send the woman over the edge. I tried to put on some clothes, but I kept dropping things. I dropped my jeans. I got my arm tangled in my T-shirt. I couldn’t find my sandals. I looked under the bed for them and hit my head. I did not want to see Margie’s body, but I couldn’t stay away.

I ran all the way to North Dakota Place, but I seemed to move in slow motion, like one of those bad dreams where you run and run and get nowhere. Police cars and emergency vehicles were parked crazily up and down the street from Dale and Kathy’s all the
way to Margie’s house, but the activity seemed to be centered around Caroline’s side yard.

I saw the neighbors huddled in a small, shrunken cluster. There was blond Dina, barefoot and lost in baggy shorts and and an inside-out T-shirt. Dale and Kathy were once again sharing pajama parts. Tall, lean Patricia looked scrawny and washed out. Even her startling blue eyes seemed dull and pale today.

I didn’t want to look at Margie. I was glad I couldn’t get near her body. The scene was blocked off with yellow tape and crawling with cops, some in uniform and some plainclothes. But I could see a woman lying on the grass, and she wasn’t moving. The medics weren’t making any effort to revive her. Even from where I stood I could see her skin was flat and gray-green, and I could see thick, dark blood on her head and chest. I remembered Margie yesterday, laughing and dancing with her pink plastic flamingos. Now one was stuck right in her body. Whoa! Was that right? I looked again. The skinny metal legs were planted in her chest. The flamingo implant swayed slightly in the breeze, looking horrible and harmless at the same time. My stomach gave a heave, and I almost lost it right on the lawn.

“She was killed by a pink flamingo?” I said.

“Flamingos don’t kill people. People kill people,” Dina blurted in a parody of the gun lobby slogan, and collapsed into shrill laughter. She laughed until tears ran down her face. Finally she wiped her eyes and got control of herself. “I found the body when I went out for my
New York Times
this morning. Sorry, Francesca.”

Why was she apologizing to me for finding the body? Wait, she wasn’t. Dina was apologizing for subscribing to the
Times
instead of the
Gazette
. Join the crowd, Dina.

“She wasn’t killed by a flamingo,” Dina said.
“There’s something wrong with her head. It’s all bloody and squashy on one side.” Her teeth were chattering, even in the warm morning air. Shock must be setting in.

Kathy paled and buried her head in Dale’s shoulder, although he didn’t exactly look like a tower of strength. He wrapped his arms around her, mostly to keep himself upright.

“What the hell is going on here?” said a croaking rasp, and there was Margie, standing before us in her lumpy pink bathrobe, looking like the walking dead. Her eyes were sunken. Her skin was flabby and loose. But she was definitely walking and talking. I gave a startled yelp, then realized Margie wasn’t dead, just so hung over she probably wished she was. But if Margie was alive, who was the dead woman on the lawn?

“It’s Caroline,” Dina said, shocking Margie into silence. “She was hit on the head with a big pipe wrench. It’s right next to her. I think that’s what killed her. Then someone stuck the flamingo in her body. Pushed it right in her chest. It was horrible.” Dina was wide-eyed, teeth still chattering, and she was shivering now, too, as if she’d been pulled from an icy stream.

“Someone?” Patricia said, turning toward Margie with an accusing stare. “We know who it was.”

“Not me,” said Margie. She was trembling, but I didn’t know if it was from the awful news or the hangover. “You’ve got to believe me. It wasn’t me. You’re my friends.”

Patricia looked at her contemptuously. “Friends,” she sneered. “I heard how you took the plaster off your walls, friend. You hit it with a pipe wrench and screamed ‘Take that, Caroline.’ You were practicing until you could swing at the real Caroline. We heard you screaming at her last night. You said you’d kill her, and you did. You killed my friend,” she hissed. “I’m glad this is a death-penalty state. I hope you’ll fry.”

“Uh, I think she’ll get stuck,” Dina said, teeth clicking like castanets.

“Huh?” said Patricia, spoiling her dramatic moment.

“I don’t think Missouri has the electric chair,” Dina said. “I think we have lethal injection. Margie will get a lethal injection. Sort of like when the vet puts your dog to sleep.”

“Oh, for chrissakes,” Margie rasped. “I’m not going to do either one. I didn’t like the woman, but I didn’t kill her. Do you think I’d be dumb enough to kill someone after I
said
I’d kill her?”

We all stared at Margie. Patricia turned on her heel and stalked toward her home. Dina looked uneasy. Kathy and Dale hung onto each other like they were drowning. I had goose bumps. I remembered Margie pounding the wall with a pipe wrench and screaming, crazy with hate, “Take that, Caroline. And that, and that.” Of course, I also remembered myself hitting the same wall and pretending it was Charlie. Would I kill him? In a minute, if I thought I could get away with it. But I’m the kind who always gets caught.

Finally Margie’s rasp sawed through our thick silence. “I’m going to make some coffee and clean up,” she said. “If anyone wants to arrest me, I’m in my kitchen. Dina, you want some coffee? You look cold.” Dina obediently pattered behind Margie. They didn’t get very far. A uniformed officer stopped them. Dina had already been questioned by the police, but the officer was definitely interested in talking with Margie.

I heard the officer ask, “What is your business here? Where do you live?” She must have invited him back to her house, because they were heading toward her steps. The woman was desperate for coffee.

I was, too. But it would be a while before I got a cup. Another officer had the same questions for me. The street was swarming with officers, uniformed and
plainclothes, knocking on doors or questioning neighbors standing on the sidewalk. Police were also videotaping the crowd. Police photographers, in between photographing Caroline’s body, also took pictures of the crowd. Mayhew had told me before that the killer often liked to return when the body was discovered. I looked at the neighbors in pajamas, hastily pulled-on shorts, and inside-out T-shirts, and wondered which one was the killer.

Finally I’d answered the cop’s questions to his satisfaction, and I was free to go. I needed coffee, and lots of it. I walked home, found a blouse that had all the buttons and a suit with no visible stains, grabbed my briefcase, car keys, and purse, and slipped away before Mrs. Indelicato in the confectionary downstairs quizzed me. I’d been avoiding her, and she knew it. When she finally caught me, I’d be grilled like a ham steak.

At Uncle Bob’s Marlene didn’t greet me with any snappy remarks. She showed so much concern it was unnerving. I must really look bad. “You look like death on toast,” Marlene said, confirming my suspicions. “What happened now?”

“There’s been another death on North Dakota Place, and nobody made this one look like an accident,” I said. I told Marlene about Caroline’s bizarre death.

“I think this calls for real coffee instead of that unleaded stuff you drink,” she said.

“No, give me decaf. My body’s easily fooled, just like the rest of me.” I was wrong about Caroline, but I couldn’t see how. I had everything: motive, means, and opportunity. Except my killer turned out to be a victim. I tried to eat my eggs, but when I stuck the metal fork tines into the eggs, I thought of those metal flamingo legs pushed into Caroline’s chest. I put the fork back down. I really wasn’t hungry. Maybe I’d stick with coffee.

“This dead woman is the one you and Mayhew were arguing about?” Marlene asked.

I nodded. “Yeah. I told Mayhew she was a murderer. I said she’d killed Otto, the drug dealer, and Johnny Hawkeye the jogger. Now she turns up dead in her own yard.”

“But if she’s dead,” Marlene said, “who killed them? And who killed Caroline? And why?”

Those were the questions I couldn’t answer.

All the way downtown Marlene’s questions went round and round in my mind, spinning uselessly, like a car wheel stuck in a mudhole. I got nowhere. Worse than nowhere. I got to the
Gazette
. The newsroom was restless, and there was a constant low buzz, like flies on dead meat. It was the office rumor mill, grinding away. There was going to be “an important staff announcement” tomorrow, according to the memo waiting at my desk.

I saw a radiant Nails sitting at her new desk in the All Business department, surrounded by enough flowers for Princess Di’s funeral. She was wearing a triumphant smile, a very loose jumper, and a blouse with a pussycat bow. I had a feeling the next Reign of Terror was about to begin at the
Gazette
, and I knew I was one of the first names on Nails’s list. Oh, well, too late to do anything about it now. I spent most of the day trying to write a column. About five
P.M
., I finally gave up and went through my mail. Press releases. Jokes. Story ideas. Funny letters from readers. And wouldn’t you know it, there was another bizarre postcard from Erwin. “My Mother is gone and she shouldn’t be,” he wrote. “You are here, but you shouldn’t be. You don’t care.”

Erwin was getting weirder. I figured I couldn’t put off calling Pam Klein any longer. She knew immediately who I was talking about.

“Erwin,” she said, “is definitely a strange one. He’s
about forty. He lives with his mother, and he doesn’t date. He’s not unattractive, he’s just very, very odd. He’s sort of lumpy-looking, with narrow shoulders and a thick waist, like he shoplifted a pillow. He wears baggy pants and those clingy knit shirts that make him look like he needs a bra. I’ve never seen him go anywhere without his mother. He drives her Buick everywhere. I don’t think he has his own car.”

“What’s he do for a living?” I said.

“He’s a high school science teacher,” Pam said. “Don’t get me wrong. He’s not a bad teacher. He’s just different. And very close to his mother.”

His mother. That’s another reason why I was making this call. To see if this psycho was Norman Bates. “His mother is okay?”

“I guess so,” Pam said. “I haven’t seen her all summer. She’s visiting her sister in New Jersey.”

I could hear alarm bells ringing. “Did she tell you that?”

“No,” Pam said, “Erwin did. It was sometime in May, I think. I know I hadn’t seen his mother in a week or so and asked him if she was okay, and Erwin said she was in New Jersey, visiting her sister Gail.”

“You didn’t see Erwin’s mother off to the airport? You haven’t talked with her on the phone since she left?”

“Why would I do that?” Pam asked. “We aren’t close friends.”

“Would anyone do that?”

“No,” Pam said. “I don’t think so. She’s a very nice woman, but she’s not friendly with anyone in particular. Kind of keeps to herself. It’s just her and Erwin.”

“It may be just Erwin,” I said. “Listen, I’ve been getting some very bizarre postcards from Erwin, and I’m kind of concerned.”

“Oh, Erwin’s harmless,” Pam said. “He always writes weird letters, mostly to the Letters to the Editor
column. He thinks the Kennedy assassination was a conspiracy between the state of Mississippi and the Mafia.”

Great. That didn’t make me feel any better.

“Can I ask one more question?” I said. “Has Erwin been doing any digging in the basement? Have you noticed any unusual activity around his house?”

“You really think Erwin’s gone bonkers, don’t you?” Pam said. “Look, if it will make you feel any better, Erwin has
not
been digging in the basement. Or mixing small batches of concrete. He hasn’t bought an ax, a power saw, or a wood chipper. He’s spent all summer in plain view in his backyard, working on his new vegetable garden.”

“He dug a garden after his mother left?” I said, my suspicions rising.

“No, he started one a few weeks before,” Pam said. “It’s a nice big one for such a small yard,”

She said goodbye so cheerfully, I felt cold. Nearly as cold as Erwin’s mom. He
was
Norman Bates, after all. He’d buried his mother under the broccoli. I just had to prove it. I certainly couldn’t go to Mayhew with my suspicions. He didn’t believe me about Caroline—and with good reason, as it turned out. I’d just have to find the body myself. The question was, how? Maybe I’d go over to Erwin’s house and snoop around a little today. I wondered if he was home now.

The telephone rang. It was a terrified Margie. “You’ve got to help me, Francesca,” she said, rasping plaintively, like a lovesick cicada. “The police think I did it. They talked to me for hours. They asked about my fight with Caroline. They took my fingerprints. They said my fingerprints were on the flamingo in her chest.”

“Of course they were,” I interrupted. “You touched most of the flamingos. You picked them up and danced with them.”

“I said that, but it didn’t make any difference,” Margie said. “They read me my rights. I asked if I was a suspect and they said everyone was a suspect right now. They asked if I wanted a lawyer to be present.”

“Did you call your lawyer?” I said.

“No,” Margie said. “I thought it would make me look guilty. And it would cost money. As it is, after they talked to me I was so scared I got a lawyer, anyway, and she said I was dumb to talk to the police without her. They haven’t arrested me, but they did tell me not to leave town. I’m scared, Francesca. I’m really, really scared. You have to do something.”

“What does your lawyer advise you to do now?” I asked.

“Shut up and don’t say anything,” Margie said.

“Then why are you talking to me?” I said. “I’m a newspaper columnist.”

“You know I didn’t do it. You’ve got to help me, Francesca. You’ve solved other murders.”

“No, I didn’t,” I said. “I just blundered around. I’ve been wrong every time. I do think you’re innocent, Margie, but with my track record, that’s probably a bad sign. Look, was the police detective who questioned you named Mayhew?”

“I think so.”