Pride v. Prejudice

by Joan Hess

  “That would be lovely.” I sat down on a stool and tried to remember Luanne’s number. It was on speed dial on both my landline and my cell; I didn’t remember when I had last dialed it. Abbie gave me a pitying look as she set a glass of iced tea within reach. I was still frowning when she slid over a plate with a lemon bar.

  “You poor thing,” she said.

  I couldn’t quibble with her assessment. No one could feel sorrier for me than I did. I was scratched, sore, hungry, in the company of a killer, unable to go home to my husband, and wanted by the FBI. I willed myself not to fling my arms around Abbie’s neck and bawl, and concentrated on Luanne’s elusive telephone number. It occurred to me that it might be on the cell phone that Peter had grudgingly given me. Regrettably, I’d declared that said phone was at the bottom of the river, so pulling it out of my purse (yes, I’d clung to my purse despite everything) would not be politic.

  I politely inquired if I might freshen up, and was given directions to the bathroom. I did not have time to sit on the edge of the bathtub as I’d done at Miss Poppoy’s house. I found the phone, hit the appropriate button to access contacts, and softly crowed when I found Luanne’s name and number. I repeated the number until I’d etched it into my mind. I kept muttering it while I washed my face, carefully avoiding the mirror above the sink.

  “Thank you,” I said as I came into the kitchen. Abbie nodded as she poured a bottle of fruit juice into a punch bowl. I dialed Luanne’s number, mindful that what I said would be overheard, and tried to think how best to present my dilemma tactfully.

  “Hey,” I said when she answered. “I need a bit of help.”

  “Now what?” Luanne said. “Sweetie’s going to be here in an hour. I need to bathe and decide what to wear. I’m torn between the black negligee and the red teddy.”

  “That man you and I were looking for earlier today … I found him, but it did not go well. Can you pick me up?”

  “Where’s your car?”

  I glanced at Abbie, who pretended she wasn’t listening. “Unavailable. I really need you to pick me up, Luanne. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important.”

  “Are you in trouble?”

  “More than you can begin to imagine. Please?”

  “All right,” she said, “but I may be wearing the negligee. Where are you?”

  I asked Abbie for her address and directions to her house, then said to Luanne, “I’m at 1450 North Anger Road. ‘Anger’ rhymes with ‘danger.’ Take the first left after the E-Z convenience store and go about three miles. I’ll be out by the road.”

  “Alone?”

  “No, I’m fine,” I said, smiling at Abbie. “A very kind woman took me in and gave me iced tea and a lemon bar. I’ll see you shortly.” I hung up before I had to field more questions. “My friend should be here in fifteen or twenty minutes. I see you’re busy getting ready for the baby shower, so I’ll wait outside.” I picked up the lemon bar and took a bite. “This is delicious. When my life is calmer, I may call and ask for your recipe.”

  “Are you in some kind of trouble with the law?”

  “Me?” I scoffed. “I own the Book Depot on Thurber Street. The most heinous crime I commit is selling those yellow study guides to students who can’t be bothered to read War and Peace. Thank you so much for letting me use your phone.”

  “You’re welcome,” she said, eying me suspiciously.

  I went through the living room, across the porch, and along the road until I came to the fence. Roderick was nowhere to be seen. I wasn’t feeling overly fond of him, but he was Sarah’s alibi. He also might be able to identify Tricia Yates as one of the members of SAC. The photo on her driver’s license was difficult to discern.

  If I could find him and borrow Luanne’s car, it might be time for an unannounced visit to the notorious apartment complex.

  15

  I looked back at the farmhouse to make sure Abbie wasn’t watching from her porch before I said, “Roderick?”

  He appeared at the edge of the woods. “Any luck?”

  “I called a friend who’s on her way to pick us up. As much as I’d like to leave you here, I need you to see if you can identify someone. Tuck was having an affair with a woman using the name Tricia Yates. I believe she was a member of SAC. She could have escaped, or she could have served out her sentence and been released.”

  “Did she kill Tuck?” he asked as he crawled through the strands of barbed wire. He remained at a prudent distance from the road. “Does Sarah’s lawyer know this?”

  “I called to tell him, but he was worried that his phone was tapped. He said he’d received an anonymous tip about a motel.” I stopped to think about it. “Did you and Sarah rent a room that night?”

  “At a cheap motel on the highway. She was afraid that if we went to her house, Tuck might come home because he’d been bitten by a mosquito and needed medicine for malaria. He was a sorry mess.”

  So was I, although I wasn’t about to admit it. “What time did you leave the motel?”

  “Sarah left around midnight. I stayed the rest of the night, watching TV and drinking wine. The mattress was lumpy, but it beat a sleeping bag on the ground. I split at seven the next morning. There were cop cars and a news van at her place. I got this crazy idea that the feds were onto her and Tuck, so I went on to Zach’s place and packed my crap in case I needed to run. When I drove to a gas station, I heard about the shooting on a local radio station. No details, just that the sheriff was investigating the homicide at their house and the victim was male.”

  A car came down the road, driven by a woman with pink cotton-candy hair. We exchanged cheery waves. I glanced over my shoulder, noting that Roderick had retreated, and waved again as another car packed with baby shower guests drove by. Feeling conspicuous, I started walking toward County 102. Roderick’s muttered curses suggested that he was having a more difficult time in the brush line. Two more cars passed me, their drivers and passengers gaping at me like guppies in their air-conditioned aquariums. I could only hope that Abbie was too occupied serving punch to call the sheriff’s office.

  Luanne finally appeared in her silver Jaguar. She’s never offered any information about her financial situation, but Secondhand Rose was not the pride and joy of the local chamber of commerce. I knew she’d gone to boarding school in Switzerland and to a women’s college that charged tuition equal to the gross national product of a small country.

  She pulled up next to me and put down the window. “I’m Butch Cassidy, you’re the Sundance Kid. Get in the car before the posse arrives.”

  “Our ride’s here,” I yelled as I opened the car door.

  Luanne gave me a perplexed and not especially friendly look. “Please don’t tell me that you’re with that guy who escaped from prison.”

  I shrugged as “that guy” came out of the woods and once again crawled through the barbed-wire strands. “I’m not going to tell you anything, okay? The less you know, the better. The only thing we’re going to talk about is the weather.”

  Roderick looked distinctly scruffy as he traversed the ditch, but he was not salivating copiously, rolling his eyes, reciting religious scriptures, or scratching his privates. I waited until he got in the backseat, then sat in the passenger’s seat and said, “Let’s get out of here.”

  Luanne made maneuvers worthy of a trained professional, and within seconds we were racing down the road as if we were being pursued by the Batmobile. She seemed disinclined for conversation, as was I. When we reached the county road, she whipped out without so much as glancing at the stop sign. She navigated through the minimal traffic, and we arrived at her apartment in a matter of minutes. I exhaled.

  “Now what?” she demanded.

  “Go upstairs, flip the steaks in the marinade, take a shower, and douse yourself with seductive perfume,” I said. “I need to borrow your car. If anyone calls to inquire about me, respond in French and hang up.”

  “As in Peter?”

  I got out of the car and
waited while Roderick squeezed himself out of the backseat. “Peter won’t call you. I’m in trouble with the FBI. They want to speak to me, but I’m not ready to speak to them.”

  Luanne looked at me. “Are you going to be okay, Claire?”

  I went around the car and hugged her. “Yes, eventually. Have a lovely evening with Sweetie.”

  “Should I bring the baked beans to the county jail?”

  “I’ll let you know, but it’s not unthinkable. We need to leave, so run along. I promise to drive carefully.”

  “Do you think I care about my car?”

  I shooed her away before I became teary. Once I was in the driver’s seat and Roderick was beside me, I said, “Let’s drop in on Tricia Yates.”

  He did not respond. I pulled onto Thurber Street and drove by the campus to the apartment complex. Its official name was Skull Creek, and it lived up to its seedy reputation. Although it was late Sunday afternoon, parties were in progress, some on balconies and others around the pool. Music blared in a cacophony of atonal screeches. Shirts and shoes were not required. I stopped and searched my purse for the piece of paper I’d taken—well, stolen—from the church files. “We’re looking for 221-B.”

  Roderick was staring at the students as if he were at a zoo (and on the preferred side of the bars). “Wow, this is a blast. Maybe I shouldn’t have wasted my time at protests and demonstrations, trying to bully the Pentagon into noticing to us. I could have hung loose by the pool with semiclad women, smoking pot and guzzling brew.”

  “Really?” I said grimly, searching the buildings for signs.

  “No, not really. We were vehemently opposed to a senseless war in an obscure country seven thousand miles away. Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon spewed out propaganda about saving the world from communism.” His voice rose. “Do you think the five million people who died during the Vietnam War cared about politics? What about Laos and—”

  “Calm down. It was a long time ago, and you did everything you could. We need to find Tricia’s apartment.” I spotted a B on one of the buildings and parked as close as I could. “Look at this photocopy of her driver’s license. Is there anything familiar about her?”

  He was still breathing heavily as he took the paper. “I don’t know. Maybe, maybe not. She looks like someone is tossing a grenade at her.”

  “The DMV camera is programmed to capture that expression. If I’m right about Tricia, you haven’t seen her in forty years. Her car’s parked over there, so she’s home. Try to be inconspicuous, okay?”

  “As I get out of a silver Jaguar that costs eighty grand? People are already staring.”

  “See if there are sunglasses in the glove compartment,” I said.

  “That’ll fool ’em.”

  I put the car keys in my purse and opened the car door. Roderick was wearing a pair of Luanne’s designer sunglasses when he came around to the front of the car. It was not an effective disguise. He kept his face lowered as we climbed the exterior staircase and walked along the balcony to Tricia’s apartment. Two boys with their feet on a cooler blocked our way but politely moved their feet.

  “Whassup?” one of them said without interest. The other was too busy chugging a beer to ask much of anything.

  “Yo, dudes,” muttered Roderick.

  I knocked on Tricia’s door, waited a minute, and knocked again. “She has to be here,” I said. “I’m sure that’s her car.”

  “She could be out by the pool,” he suggested, looking over the rims of the sunglasses at the fifty or so students surrounding it.

  “She has short silver hair. I don’t see her. She’s not fond of her neighbors, so she wouldn’t be partying with them. Poisoning the water in the pool or stalking them with an assault weapon is—” I stared more carefully at the partygoers, then leapt behind Roderick and said in a low, urgent voice, “Give me the sunglasses.”

  He held them over his shoulder. “What’s going on, Claire?”

  “I thought I saw Frank Norton cuddling up with the brunette in the orange bikini. Could this be a setup?”

  “Who’s Norton?”

  I muttered an expletive as I peeked around his arm. “He’s a deputy in the sheriff’s department. He’s been popping up at inconvenient times and places for the last three days. He must be following me.”

  “He’s damn quick if he is,” Roderick said. “In the time it took us to walk up the stairs, he changed into his swimming trunks, dashed to the pool, and picked up a hot girl. Did his badge come with superpowers?”

  “It didn’t even come with average powers. I don’t see him now, so I guess I was mistaken. Tuck’s paranoia must be contagious.” I banged my fist on the door and shouted, “Tricia!”

  “She may not want to talk to you.”

  “Then she’s out of luck.” This time I banged like a jackhammer ripping through concrete. I noticed that the two beer drinkers were watching us, and smiled at them. “Have you seen Tricia Yates this afternoon?”

  The more talkative one said, “I saw her go inside when we went out for food at about one. Haven’t seen her since then, but we don’t exactly hang out together.”

  “Hell no,” mumbled his cohort. “Be like getting drunk with my grandmother.”

  During the exchange, Roderick had nudged me away from the door. “It’s not locked,” he whispered. “Now what?”

  The two boys continued to watch us. They may not have been physics or math majors, but they might find our behavior suspicious if we simply opened the door and went inside. I turned my head and looked intently at the door. “It’s Claire and … Oliver, Tricia. Sure, we’d love to have some iced tea.” I looked at Roderick. “She says she was in the shower and has to get dressed, but wants us come on in.”

  I grabbed Roderick’s arm and pulled him inside the apartment. “For a prison escapee, you’re not very quick-witted. Haven’t you ever had to improvise?” Without waiting for a rebuttal, I called Tricia’s name. There was no response. With the blinds closed, the living room was as shadowy as a basement. There were liquor bottles on the counter of the kitchenette and pans haphazardly piled in the sink. A card table supported a computer and piles of books and papers. The door to the bathroom was open; the square footage inside it was minimal.

  “Creepy,” Roderick said in a low voice. “I’m expecting someone or something to leap out at us.”

  “Try not to swoon.” I moved cautiously toward the bedroom door. “Tricia, it’s okay. I just want to ask you a few questions. There’s no reason to hide. I’m not going to leave until we talk, and I mean it. Please don’t make me search for you.”

  I pushed open the door—and clamped my hand across my mouth to muffle a hysterical squeal. Tricia was draped across the bed, a large knife protruding from her chest. Her shirt and the bedspread were soaked in blood. Her eyes were open, glazed and unseeing. I backed out of the doorway and stumbled to the nearest seat. “She’s dead,” I said hoarsely.

  Roderick took a quick look. “Oh, yeah. Not cool. Not cool at all. Let’s get out of here fast.” He retreated so quickly that he tripped over a footstool and fell backward in a tangle of arms and legs.

  I closed my eyes and took several deep breaths to fight off a wave of nausea. I concentrated on an image of my handsome husband’s face, his molasses eyes gazing into mine, his hand on my shoulder, his forehead creased as he opened his mouth to lecture me about my rashness and inflated sense of civic duty. He was in the middle of pointing out that I could face prison when I erased him with one fell swoop of my equally imaginary eraser.

  “Stop wiggling on the floor and find a place to sit,” I said sternly. “We don’t have time to panic. If you want to grab a liquor bottle, I won’t object. This is beyond not cool. This is very, very bad.” The last three words seemed to echo in the room.

  Roderick got to his feet and went to the counter. A minute later he put a glass in my hand. “Drink this. We can’t go racing out the door without those college boys noticing us. As implausible as it may be, t
hey might decide to investigate. If the door’s unlocked, they find the body. If the door’s locked, they get suspicious and call the manager, who finds the body. We’re screwed either way. They’ll claim the woman was alive when we arrived because you spoke to her through the door.”

  “Why would I kill her? I don’t have a wisp of a motive.” I took a swallow of something that scalded my throat. Tricia’s budget had precluded all but the cheapest brands of booze, obviously. This was not the opportune moment to complain to the maître d’. “We have to think. Go take a careful look at her face and decide whether or not she might have been one of the SAC demonstrators.”

  “Shouldn’t I make some gingersnaps first?”

  “Funny, Roderick. Go see if you recognize her.” I forced down another swallow of 90 proof swamp water. I couldn’t tell if it was marketed as wine or whiskey.

  He puckered his lips and glared at me as if I’d snatched away his favorite toy. “All right, but I’m doing this under protest. You’ve made up this fantasy about her. She was likely to be whoever she said she was, an old lady working as a church secretary and plotting to burn down the church if she had the chance. What are we going to do when I don’t recognize her?”

  “Stop stalling.”

  “I’m not stalling,” he said huffily. “I’m merely considering the possibility that you’re wrong. Has no one ever done that before?”

  I aimed my finger at him. “You are the most cowardly killer I’ve ever met. You shot an undercover FBI agent, and later escaped from prison. Now I feel as though I should hold your hand while you determine if you’ve ever met the woman. For pity’s sake, didn’t they teach you anything at Folsom Prison? Did you guys sit around all day and sing Johnny Cash songs?” I could hear the pitch of my voice rising to a height perilous to fine crystal. I forced down another mouthful of whatever it was. “Sorry, I’m a little bit upset. Please look at her, Roderick. Once you’ve done that, we’ll have to figure out what to do. This may be the only place the FBI isn’t watching, but I’m not willing to hide out here.”