by Joan Hess
“I am worried sick about this,” Imogene Wray said, having identified herself as such in a twangy drawl identical to her daughter’s. “The police calling, and then Brodie-he’s the deputy sheriff-coming by to make sure Debbie Anne wasn’t under the bed or out in the barn. My husband’s ulcer flared up so bad he finally went over to the drugstore to buy another bottle of that gooey pink medicine. I can’t imagine what’s gotten into Debbie Anne. She’s always been so sweet and respectful, never ever in any kind of trouble. You can ask any of her teachers at the school, and they’ll tell you the same thing.”
“I want to help her, but I don’t know where she is or how to find her. Has she ever mentioned any friends who live in Farberville and might let her stay with them?”
“I don’t reckon she has any friends outside the sorority,” Imogene said promptly. “That’s all she ever talks about, how they had a party or played cards or went to the picture show together. They seem to keep her awful busy when she’s not studying, but I guess the reason for joining a group like that is to have girlfriends who are as close as sisters.”
I told Mrs. Wray that I’d let her know if I found Debbie Anne and replaced the receiver It appeared that Debbie Anne had failed to communicate the true nature of her relationship with her sorority sisters, but that was understandable and by no means proof that she was generally mendacious.
What I needed was not estrogen therapy, but a clear idea of Debbie Anne’s personality. And of Jean Hall’s, I added as I wrote each name on a discarded envelope. Presumably, they were opposites, but I had no idea which personified good, which evil. Winkie and Eleanor had made their position known, and Rebecca and Pippa were likely to concur Imogene Wray dissented, but she was biased. Peter didn’t care. I seemed to be the only person willing to defend Debbie Anne, although I wasn’t going to do it until I had more evidence about her.
Unable to rally the energy to play devil’s advocate, I tried a scenario in which she was nothing more complex than a soggy-nosed ninny. If this persona accidentally hit Jean in the alley, she would have leaped out of the car and dashed inside to call an ambulance. She might have been distressed to the point of hysteria, but if she’d panicked, she would have gone no farther than my apartment to sob on my shoulder (if I let her, and since it was my scenario, I instead made her sit at the kitchen table) and whine about her troubles.
Her telephone call added to my confusion. If she had been telling the truth, she hadn’t been driving her car, and had gone into hiding for another reason-one that had to do with illegal activity instigated by that lovely girl Jean, who was in no condition to be questioned.
The anonymous call was equally bewildering. Arnie? The man-in-the-moon prowler? Some unknown figure who lacked the imagination to come up with an innovative threat? After all, I was minding my own business, or at least what business there was on a Sunday afternoon in June; it was hardly my fault that prowlers kept popping out of the Kappa shrubbery like possessed prairie dogs.
A growing sense of petulance provoked me into closing the bookstore several hours earlier than I’d intended. I took the long route home in order to avoid passing the sorority house, although I couldn’t prevent myself from glancing at it as I approached my porch. Rebecca and Pippa sat on the top step, surrounded by unopened textbooks, notebooks, bags of chips, and cans of soda, clearly more interested in painting their fingernails than in the quest for knowledge.
I veered across the lawn and said, “Have you heard from Debbie Anne?”
Rebecca shook her head. “I’m not sitting here waiting for her to walk up the sidewalk so I can give her a welcoming hug. After what she did to Jean, she’d better have taken the first bus home to her little redneck enclave amid the pigsties and chicken coops.” Her lovely blue eyes brimmed with tears, and her lovely voice with bitterness. “Jean and I were best friends since our first semester, and we shared a room until last year when we both moved into private rooms. It was going just great- until that pious little bitch pledged Kappa Theta Eta and ruined everything!”
“Pious?” I echoed.
“She didn’t approve of anything, not even some of the boring public relations stuff the pledge class has to do every year. Apparently in her hometown, nobody ever smoked a cigarette or drank a glass of decent French wine, much less partied past midnight. Right before spring break, Jean bribed one of the Betas to take Debbie Anne out and get her good and drunk, but she drank half a martini, gagged on the olive, and threw up all over his front seat. What’s that supposed to do for our reputation?”
I had no answer for that. “Debbie Anne did tell me that she was pressured to do things she felt were wrong.”
“Such as?” Rebecca said with a faint sneer that reminded me of Jean.
“She said she couldn’t tell me because I wasn’t in the sorority. Her faced turned red, however, and she implied they were things that would upset her preacher”
Pippa giggled. “She was probably thinking of the Bedroom Olympics weekend. What a prude!”
“You have to consider her background,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound prudish. “But you’re convinced she was driving her car when Jean was struck?”
Rebecca leaned back and regarded me coolly. “Winkie tried to convince us it was an accident, as did Mrs. Vanderson, but I won’t buy it. There’s light in the alley, and it’s too narrow for someone to be driving very fast. It’s obvious that Debbie Anne did it on purpose. She murdered Jean out of jealousy.”
Trying to mask my surprise, I said, “I would have said it was more a case of wistfulness than of jealousy.”
“Everybody in the house knew how jealous she was. She stole silk blouses from Jean on at least two occasions, and she pretended to be overcome with astonishment when Jean’s tennis bracelet just happened to turn up in her desk drawer Maybe in the beginning she just wanted to be like Jean, but became so obsessed that eventually she had to be Jean. When she realized she couldn’t, she slandered her and finally killed her.”
I certainly had no need to probe delicately to ascertain her opinion of Debbie Anne. I shifted my attention to Pippa, who was not dimpling.
“It might have been an accident,” she said in response to my implicit question, “but Debbie Anne’s awfully moody and reserved. She never contributed to the conversation or told jokes, and it was like a total waste of time trying to teach her to play bridge. One night I found her hunkered in the shower as if she were in a catatonic stupor. A real spook, if you ask me.”
“A real bitch,” growled Rebecca.
“And neither of you has any idea where she might be?” I asked with faint optimism.
Pippa gave me a facetiously sad look. “And neither of us cares. Mrs. Malloy, I don’t know if Caron’s said anything to you, but you really shouldn’t wear black. It tends to emphasize all those wrinkles around your nose and chin, and it makes your complexion look ashy.”
“How nice of you to notice,” I said as my fingernails dug into my palms. “Caron mentioned that you were thinking about dropping out of school for the remainder of the summer I presume you’ve changed your mind?”
“You what?” Rebecca turned on her so abruptly that fingernail polish splattered on her knee and dribbled onto the porch like viscous pink blood. “You’re damn well not going to split for the summer, honey! We’re both going to stay right here at the Kappa Theta Eta house for the duration, especially after what happened to Jean.” She caught my bright-eyed look and forced a melancholy smile. “I lost one of my best friends, and I cannot bear to lose another so soon.”
It sounded like a line from Tennessee Williams, and the setting was appropriate: decaying mansion, dusty summer afternoon, sisterhood gone awry, tumultuous emotions poorly disguised. All we needed was a surly male in a stained undershirt and a clattering streetcar.
I hesitated, but Rebecca was wiping the polish off her knee with a tissue and Pippa was shriveling into the woodwork. To the latter, I said, “It was kind of you to lend Caron your color analysis kit.�
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“Oh, it was nothing, and I feel sorry for her. I know what kind of psychological damage can be caused by feelings of economic deprivation, and it’s important to feel a part of one’s peer group at such a vulnerable age. I just hope she can make enough money this summer to buy a car and successfully integrate herself into her self-perceived community.”
I repressed the urge to point out that Caron was neither economically deprived nor noticeably vulnerable, despite her incessant complaining to the contrary. Her relationship with the infamous Rhonda Maguire was the root of all evil, and I was disinclined to listen to a spate of psychobabble from someone who dimpled- sympathetically, no less.
“Please let me know if Debbie Anne comes back,” I said and headed for my apartment. I was halfway through the downstairs door when a cacophony of rumbles, rattles, wheezes, and clanks caught my attention. The green truck pulled to the curb, and visible through the bug-splattered windshield was none other than Arnie Riggles. He lurched across the passenger’s seat and disappeared, but after a moment the window on that side began to descend in tiny jerks.
I had several questions for him, and it seemed an auspicious moment to pose them. Before I could rally sufficient enthusiasm, however, Rebecca hurried down the sidewalk and began to converse through the window. She spoke rapidly and urgently, pausing for what had to be responses from the pit of the passenger’s seat, and then reacting with increased urgency. Stunned, I could only watch as she stepped back and Arnie resurfaced behind the steering wheel and drove past my house and around the corner. I looked back in time to see Rebecca and Pippa entering the sorority house. What on earth could strikingly beautiful, perfectly packaged Rebecca have to discuss with someone as vile and oily as Arnie?
This was the second time he’d slipped away before I could inquire into the parameters of his involvement, and I decided it was high time to have a little talk with him. The mere thought was enough to make my skin itch as if I’d rolled in poison ivy and the pustules were emerging. Rather than retreat to the bathtub, I reminded myself that I was the only person with any desire to help Debbie Anne, whether or not she deserved it.
Arnie was not listed in the telephone directory. The last time I’d been unfortunate enough to encounter him, he’d been living in a storage room at the city animal shelter He’d subsequently been fired-for just cause-and I had no idea where he currently lived. I could have spent the remainder of the afternoon turning over rocks in the woods or crawling under bridges in hopes of finding him, but even I had limits (although Peter Rosen would be the last to acknowledge it).
I made a pot of tea and sat down on the sofa to rely on deductive prowess rather than physical exertion, being a fan of the armchair-detective genre. Reading about the women private eyes with brass bras and testosterone for brains had always left my fingers gritty and my eyes dazed with images of violence. Tea and intuition were… my cup of tea.
Arnie was employed by a remodeling contractor, more specifically a painter whose name I’d heard and dismissed as unworthy of notice. If I asked Winkie for his name, Rebecca might hear about it and realize I’d seen her talking to him; I wanted to confront him before he could be waned. Under no circumstances would I ask a certain cop to track down Arnie’s address.
In the middle of the second pot of tea, it occurred to me that Eleanor Vanderson would know the painter’s name, if not the details of Arnie’s squalid personal life. There was only one Vanderson in the directory, and she herself answered on the third ring.
“This is Claire Malloy,” I said, “and I was hoping-”
“Did Debbie Anne call you again? Do you know where she’s hiding?”
“Sony, but no. This has nothing to do with the horrible accident in the alley. I’ve been thinking about having the interior of my apartment painted, and I wanted to know the name of your painter-if you’ve found him competent and reliable, of course.”
There was, as Caron would say, A Distinct Lull. “Why, I suppose I could give you his name, but thus far they haven’t started painting. I’m afraid Winkie overstepped her authority when she promised the job to him and his assistant. National requires that we take bids in order to choose the most competitive rates, and I’m waiting to hear from several other contractors before I can finalize anything. Based on my one conversation with that man who claimed to know you, I’m as reluctant as you were to offer a recommendation. He’s quite a character, isn’t he? He’s so”-she hesitated to find a phrase suitable for a dean’s wife-”earthy and uninhibited.”
Or dirty and crude, some of us might say. I instead said, “I might as well take bids, too. His name?”
“I’ll have to find the folder.” Papers shuffled in the background as she continued to talk. “My husband is forever complaining about the piles of paperwork and the amount of time I dedicate to the chapter, but now that my children have moved away and married, it helps to fill the void. Sometimes I wonder if it’s immature of me to engross myself in what’s basically a college activity, but it was so vital to me then and I want to do everything I can to ensure that the girls still have a memorable experience. And it is something for which I have a talent.”
Serial killers had talent, too. “As long as you enjoy it,” I murmured inanely, having agreed with her supposition that it was immature to devote one’s energy to something that was indeed a college activity. It wasn’t simply the response to a vacuum, I suspected, but a need for power. Her children grown, she’d replaced them with a group of girls who were depleted each spring but replenished each fall during rush.
“Here it is,” she said with a laugh. “I feel as if I’ve been scuba diving through the paperwork. The primary contractor is Ed Whitbred.” She spelled it for me, gave me a telephone number, then said, “Bear in mind I’ve not yet hired him, although his bid is the lowest I’ve received. Winkle has attested to his character, but as house corps president, it’s my obligation to interview him personally and assure myself that’s he’s reputable and honest.”
“I don’t suppose you have Arnie’s address?”
“I believe I do. I needed to send some bidding forms to Mr. Whitbred’s office, but Arnie didn’t know that address and gave me his.” Papers again began to rustle like dried leaves; it was easy to imagine towering stacks of folders, each emblazoned with Kappa Theta Eta and of a uniform color. She made little noises of exasperation for a long while, then congratulated herself and said, “It was in the wrong folder. He lives at the Airport Arms Motel, which one can only assume is in the vicinity of the airport.”
“One can only assume.” I thanked her for her time and wished her a pleasant afternoon. Mine was less likely to be that, especially if I spent it tracking down and interrogating Arnie. Then again, if I stayed where I was, Caron and Inez were apt to appear to share medical insights about my deteriorating body or regale me with the details of Mrs. Verbena’s analysis. Peter certainly wouldn’t come by to visit.
Anyone who could find the airport could find the Airport Arms Motel. I picked up my purse and went to look for Arnie.
8
The Airport Arms Motel sat far back from the highway, fronted by a gravel parking lot that was sparsely populated by squatty cars, pickup trucks with gun racks, and an enormous motorcycle with improbably high handlebars and enough chrome attachments to intrigue NASA. The building, weathered to gray and as bleak as a military barracks, was a two-story structure with six apartments on each level. As I pulled into the lot, an airplane came thundering over the treetops and continued its descent onto the runway across the highway. Several seconds passed before I was able to sit up, lick my suddenly parched lips, and park near a battered car that was similar in breadth to Debbie Anne’s lethal weapon.
Arnie’s green truck was not there, but I’d driven several miles on my mission and it would be silly-all right, cowardly-to leave without any attempt to find him. Hoping there was a parking lot behind the building, I climbed out of my car and went to the double row of rusty mailboxes. Although the n
umbers of the boxes had• been written in crude numerals, the few scrawled names were too faded to be legible.
It was, I decided uneasily, a bit like Russian roulette. Behind the splintery doors were twelve apartments; any one of them might be Arnie’s. The eleven others belonged to the owners of the vehicles in the lot. I looked back at the motorcycle, squared my shoulders, and knocked on the nearest door.
The woman who opened it was less than excited by my presence. She had a beer in one hand and a half-eaten sandwich in the other, and kept her eyes on the television blaring across the room and filling the room with flickery blue shadows. Only one side of her mouth moved as she said, “Whaddaya want?”
“I’m looking for Arnie Riggles, and I was told he lived at this address.”
‘Why you lookin’ for him?”
“I want to discuss a job,” I said semi-truthfully.
She cackled at something on the screen, drained the beer and crumpled the can in one fluid motion, and said, “Never heard of him.”
The door closed inches from my nose. No one was home in the next two apartments, and from within the fourth I heard sounds of marital discord heading for a crescendo that might drown out the next incoming airplane.
Surely no one would cohabit voluntarily with Arnie. I continued down the row, interrupting another woman who was watching the same television show and had never heard of Arnie, and a swarthy Middle Eastern male who trembled in response before he slammed his door.
I returned to the middle of the building and went up the creaky staircase to the balcony, where six more doors awaited me. I knocked on the end door perhaps with less vigor than previously, and backed into the railing when my worst nightmare opened the door
Dressed as he was only in boots and faded jeans that rode low on his hips, I had an overwhelmingly excessive view of his body hair, all black and curly on his chest and belly, straggly and streaked with gray on his head, and sprouting in thickets on his jaw and upper lip. His nose and cheeks were rosy, his mouth almost feminine. There was nothing feminine about his arms, however; they were so densely tattooed that virtually no flesh between his wrists and his neck retained its original hue. He seemed to realize I was taken aback, and with a wry smile he said, “Be careful, ma’am. The railing’s rotten and it’s a long way down. Something I can do for you?”
