by Joan Hess
A large percentage of my arrows had missed the target. Once I recovered from the shock and could move, I left the building and drove to the hospital, trying very hard not to dwell on the images that came to mind. Miss Dort would be caught eventually, and the school administration would not be impressed with her afternoon schedule. Thud was hardly a model of discretion, and Paula Hart was hardly the sort to give up gracefully. I was comforted with the knowledge that I would no longer be around the high school when the gossip started. Again. Rosie’s journalistic integrity would be put to the test.
As I entered the hospital, I glanced around for undercover policemen and little old ladies in disguise but saw neither. Either I was wrong, or everyone was enjoying some degree of success. As I took the elevator upstairs, I prayed for the latter. Peter was waiting for me by the nurses’ station.
“Miss Parchester can’t possibly sneak in here,” he said. “I’ve got men all around the building.”
“She was here earlier this afternoon, apparently not too long after we were here. Did your men happen to notice her?” When he shook his head, I sweetly pointed out that she’d managed to avoid his men for a week, without having to miss any of her social obligations or school functions.
I was telling him about her escape from Happy Meadows when Mrs. Platchett and Miss Bagby came out of the elevator. They acknowledged our presence with nods. We all trooped into Miss Zuckerman’s room and positioned ourselves around the bed.
“How exciting to have so many visitors,” she said. “It’s almost a party, isn’t it?”
“We’re expecting one more,” I said. “I think Miss Parchester will be here shortly.”
The Furies exchanged looks. Mrs. Platchett at last cleared her throat and said, “Emily is a good and true friend, and she has been determined to spend as much time as possible with Tessa.”
“Not that I have much time,” Miss Zuckerman contributed. She looked at Peter. “I doubt you’ll have an opportunity to arrest and detain me, Lieutenant, but I shall gladly sign a confession if that will assist you in your paperwork.”
“For one murder-or for two?” I asked gently.
“Why, for two. I didn’t intend to poison Mr. Weiss, but I seem to have done so anyway. I certainly intended to poison Mr. Pitts. I used exactly the same number of tablets.”
“You couldn’t have, Miss Zuckerman,” I said. “You might have put the tablets in the whiskey, but you couldn’t have taken it to the teachers’ lounge and left it there.”
She turned her head to one side. “But I did, Mrs. Malloy, and I insist on taking full responsibility.”
At this point we heard a squeak outside the door. Peter and I stepped into a corner and watched as a green-clad orderly with a surgeon’s cap and mask came into the room, pushing a wheelchair. It would have been more convincing if the orderly had not been wearing fuzzy pink slippers.
Mrs. Platchett and Miss Bagby tried to warn her, but Peter closed the door and positioned himself in front of it. “Miss Parchester, I’m Lieutenant Rosen of the Criminal Investigation Department. We’ve been looking for you.”
“So I’ve noticed.” She took off the cap and mask, then sat down in the wheelchair. “You really ought to speak to your men about their behavior, Lieutenant; it has bordered on police brutality. At times my civil liberties have been endangered by their youthful enthusiasm.”
“We were discussing the identity of Pitts’s murderer,” I said as I came out of the corner. “Miss Zuckerman claims responsibility, but that’s impossible.”
“I did put Laetrile in the whiskey,” Miss Zuckerman said in a firm voice that had stopped many a student in midstep. “I put one dozen tablets in the bottle. I would have put in a few more for good measure, but that was the last of them.”
“Pitts was despicable,” Mrs. Platchett said.
“He corrupted the students,” Miss Bagby said.
“He had to be stopped,” Miss Parchester added from the wheelchair. “Tessa’s actions were warranted, even if they did violate his constitutional rights. The judge was always harsh with criminals, especially those who were a threat to society.”
Peter joined the circle around the bed. “But Miss Zuckerman did not buy the whiskey; someone else did and brought it to the hospital to be laced with poison. Someone then took it to the lounge where Pitts found and drank it. Either knowingly or unwittingly, one of you three ladies is an accomplice to murder.”
The three looked back steadily, with nary a blink. One steely-eyed cop was no match for one hundred sixty collective years in the front of a classroom.
“One of you is guilty,” he persisted, although with an increasing air of hopelessness. When he received no response, he looked at Miss Zuckerman. “Which one of your friends helped you murder Pitts?”
“If one of them is indeed an accomplice, she is guilty of no more than doing a small favor for a dying friend-and a major favor for the students of Farberville High School.” She smiled, then closed her eyes and let her cheek fall against the pillow. We all tiptoed out of the room.
Miss Parchester announced that she needed to return the wheelchair before it was missed. Miss Bagby opted to ride, and the three squeaked toward the elevator, leaving an unhappy policeman and a bemused amateur sleuth in the hallway outside Miss Zuckerman’s room.
“Do you know which one did this ‘small favor’?” he asked me. “It doesn’t really matter,” I sighed. “Miss Zuckerman conceived and executed the plan; whoever delivered the bottle did so for her. You’re not exactly loosing a homicidal maniac on the town.”
He glanced at the closed door. “I suppose not, but what if they decide they don’t like the new custodian? They can’t be allowed to take matters into their own hands every time they encounter a potential source of corruption in the corridors of the school.”
“Have a talk with them about retirement,” I suggested. “I doubt you’ll get an argument, and the three of them can take a nice bus tour of southern gardens in the spring. I’ll check into watercolor classes.” Of the three, I was fairly certain Miss Parchester needed the busiest schedule.
“I may check into Happy Meadows,” he grumbled, but without heat. We walked out to his car and drove back to my apartment. I entertained him with an account of Miss Dort’s intentions, and the likelihood of retaliation from Paula Hart. The teachers’ lounge would continue to be a hotbed of gossip and intrigue, I concluded as we went upstairs.
“But you won’t have to be there, or take it upon yourself to solve whatever mysteries arise,” Peter murmured.
In that he was murmuring into my ear, I did not feel compelled to point out that I had solved the murders for him. In the midst of further murmurs, the telephone rang. It proved to be Sherwood Timmons, bubbling with the news about his manuscript. I let him bubble for a minute or two, then interrupted with congratulations.
“Thank you, dear sleuth,” he said. “I shall cherish ad infinitum the memories of our minor escapade in crime.”
“You had a key, even if it was an unauthorized copy,” I reminded him. After all, Supercop was in my living room.
“I’ll mail it to Miss Dort, accompanied by a note begging her forgiveness. She will make a terse note on her clipboard, but we will not have to listen to her crackly voice over the intercom or watch her lips purse with displeasure over-”
“We?” I inserted before he lost control of himself completely.
“Evelyn and I. I have proffered vinculum matrimonii, and she has consented.”
I congratulated him once more. After he said good-bye (carpe diem, actually, but I ignored it), I joined Peter on the sofa and told him about the impending matrimonii. He gazed at me for a long time, looking terribly enigmatic. I opted for nonchalance.
“Claire,” he at last said, “I can think of only one way to keep you out of trouble, and that’s to-”
I stopped that nonsense. And with great charm, I might add.
Joan Hess
Joan Hess is the author of both the
Claire Malloy and the Maggody mystery series. She is a winner of the American Mystery Award, a member of Sisters in Crime, and a former president of the American Crime Writers League. She lives in Fayetteville, Arkansas.
***
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