Poisoned Pins

by Joan Hess

  “Company?” I said, although I did leap to my feet and follow him down the corridor.

  “I believe he mentioned something about Lieutenant Pipkin. It’s none of my business, Ms. Malloy; I’m just following orders.”

  “That was an inadequate defense at Nuremberg, Jorgeson. Who’s this Lieutenant Pipkin? Is he on the CID squad?”

  He stopped so abruptly that I narrowly avoided a collision, and he pulled me aside as another of my coconspirators from the Dew Drop Inn was escorted to a cell. “Like I said, it’s none of my business what Lieutenant Rosen does when he’s off duty. We sometimes have a beer or go to the college baseball games, but for the most part we go our separate ways. My wife and I were watching a video and I’d like to get home so we can finish it before midnight. If you’re curious about Lieutenant Pipkin, call her yourself. She’s on the campus security force.

  Despite the unruliness of my thoughts, I remained impressively impassive as Jorgeson did the necessary paperwork to gain my release, drove me to the Airport Arms, and waved as he pulled onto the highway. Ed Whitbred’s motorcycle was not there, and I felt a little guilty as I realized he wouldn’t have been in the Dew Drop den of iniquity had he not escorted me there. Arnie deserved everything that happened to him, and a good deal more, but Ed had been minding his own business- until I’d shown up.

  I opened my car door, then glanced at the second story Ed’s apartment was dark, as was the one next to it; I knew where the renters were, and were likely to be until their arraignments in the morning. Would I take advantage of the fortuitous circumstances that had led to my premature release? Would Oral Roberts accept a blank check?

  I went upstairs and along the balcony to the penultimate apartment. Back in the Airport Arms’ heyday, a renter might have been able to lock the door to protect himself from his feral neighbors, but now the knob felt loose enough to come off in my hand with only a minimal yank. It was just as well; Arnie would have lost a key as easily as he did consciousness. I opened the door a few inches and said into the darkness, “Hello? Is anybody here?” If anyone was there, he or she was not in a congenial mood. I went inside, closed the door, and felt for the light switch, trying not to think about the last time I’d been in a similar situation. Arnie’s environment was more likely to host rats.

  I flipped on the light and hastily pulled the drapes together. Although the light was visible, I hoped that anyone bothering to notice would assume the tenant was home. The living room was squalid, to be charitable, and decorated primarily with beer cans, plates of petrified food, teetery piles of yellowed magazines and newspapers, and furniture that looked downright dangerous. I knew I was in the right apartment.

  The kitchen was filthy, the bathroom more so, and the bedroom surely had been the target of an invasion of the magnitude of Desert Storm. Like the Kappa Theta Etas, Arnie preferred to utilize the floor rather than the closet, although there were no pink cashmere sweaters amid the paint-splattered overalls and dingy gray jockey shorts.

  It was hopeless. If there was anything to explain his involvement, I was not going to stumble across it without several hours of intensive search through nasty stuff. I opened the dresser drawers, looked inside the closet, and forced myself to kneel for a quick peek under the bed. If I’d been hunting for dust bunnies and liquor bottles, I would have been incredibly successful, but as it was, I reminded myself of the inanity of my mission and returned to the living room.

  On the inside of the doorknob hung a camera on a black plastic strap. I wasn’t any more familiar with cameras than I was with male rites of spring, but I examined it and concluded a roll of film remained inside it. Would one shot be of a startled bookseller, her mouth agape, fingers splayed to block the blinding flash? And, more interestingly, of whom or what would the others be? Arnie was not an amateur engaging in his hobby beneath the windows of the Kappa Theta Eta house. Earlier I’d opined that he was not a murderer, but this was in no way to imply that I’d ever doubted his capacities as a voyeur. Or a blackmailer, in which case the film was likely to hold his evidence.

  After a series of futile attempts to disengage the roll of film, I decided to borrow the camera long enough to have one of the nice young people at the one-hour photo service assist me. I switched off the light and opened the door.

  Ed Whitbred blocked my way, intentionally or otherwise. “‘Sometimes they shut you up in jail-dark, and a filthy cell; I hope the fellows built them jails, find ‘em down in hell.’ E. F. Piper, of course.”

  “Of course,” I echoed lamely. “I’m delighted that you’ve been released, Ed. It was my fault that you were at that place, and I want to apologize to you. If they end up pressing charges, I’ll certainly testify on your behalf.”

  “And I won’t have to call you at an office in Washington, D.C., will I? I can drop by your upstairs apartment next to the sorority house, or catch you at the Book Depot on Thurber Street.”

  I was disturbed not only by his faintly sardonic tone, but also by his undeniable bulk, which seemed to have taken root on the balcony outside Arnie’s door. “Any time, Ed. Thanks for the motorcycle ride. It was the first time I’d been on one, and it really is a special sensation of its own, isn’t it?” My hands were sweating as I clutched the camera, but it was a little late in the scenario to put it behind my back. ‘Well, I’d better run along home now. My daughter will be worried, and my brief time in jail has left me ravenous, and of course a cup of tea will be divine. You won’t believe this, but I was thinking about using my call to order a pizza when… they released me. Isn’t that silly?”

  He was unmoved by my dithering. “What were you doing in Arnie’s apartment, Ms. Malloy? The only thing worth stealing is his fancy new camera. It took me more than a week to teach him how to use it, but he finally got the hang of it.”

  I couldn’t force my way past him, and I had no desire to retreat into the apartment behind me. It was something of a stalemate. We stared at each other for what seemed a long time, neither of us commenting on the incriminatory object in my hands. I finally decided it was a checkmate and thrust the camera at him. “I simply wanted to assure myself that no one disturbed Arnie’s apartment during his absence. When I saw this, I was concerned that someone might steal it, so I thought I’d keep it for him until his return. However, as long as you’re here, you might as well assume responsibility for it.”

  As he reached for the camera, I shoved it into his belly hard enough to throw him off-balance, and darted past him. I clattered down the staircase, fumbling in my purse for my keys, and did not look back until I was inside my car, the doors locked, the windows rolled up tightly, and the key in the ignition switch.

  The balcony was deserted. A light shone from behind the curtains in his apartment. While I’d escaped like a gawky heroine, gasping and moaning, imagining his thick fingers encircling my neck or jerking me off my feet, Ed Whitbred had gone inside and most likely opened a beer. If he was to be a villain in the piece, he definitely needed to work on his role.

  9

  “And he quoted Milton?” gurgled Luanne as she fell back against the bench, laughing so hard that beer sloshed out of her glass. “Why? Did you ask him why?”

  I knew what she meant, but I chose to misinterpret it. “I’m sure he felt that the occasion demanded it.”

  It was noon of the following day, and we’d met at the beer garden to picnic at our preferred table. Nothing had happened after I’d returned from my disastrous outing to the Airport Arms. Caron and Inez were huddled in the bedroom, too concerned with finances to notice my absence, and Peter Rosen must have been too busy with his distaff counterpart from the campus security force to worry about me.

  Jorgeson had called earlier in the morning to tell me that my name had been deleted from all reports of the raid and I need not appear at the arraignment. I spurned his offer to send me my mug shot as a souvenir. There’d been no sign of activity at the Kappa Theta Eta house when I’d walked to the Book Depot, and neither Debbie Anne
nor my anonymous caller had deigned to interrupt the ensuing hours of idleness.

  Luanne wiped tears from her cheeks and attempted a more decorous voice, although little noises that resembled muffled sneezes erupted periodically. “Here’s this Hell’s Angel with the exterior of-I don’t know-the interior of a comic book, but undeniably with the soul of a poet. Having escaped from the local penal colony, the two of you meet on a moonlit balcony. Do you flutter your eyelashes and softly say, ‘Good night! Good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow that I shall say good night till it be morrow’? No, you knock him into the railing and run downstairs. You ought to give up those dreary mystery novels, Claire. Read some romances! Surely Azalea Twilight did one about the raw and primitive pleasure of the motorcycle between one’s thighs, the wind caressing one’s breasts, the taciturn yet incredibly virile hero… No, the guys usually have mysterious scars, not elaborate needlework.”

  I frowned at her. “Ed’s no damn easier to characterize than anyone else in this mess. I can’t decide if he’s a potential party guest or a killer, but why should I have any more luck with him than with any of the others? None of the character references have come from what we might consider unbiased sources. The Kappas adored Jean and loathe Debbie Anne. Mrs. Wray espouses the mundane maternal line. Vouching for Ed Whitbred is none other than Arnie, who’d profess adoration for a barnyard animal if there were anything in it for him. Why can’t I have a nice group of disinterested parties?”

  Luanne finished her sandwich and wadded up the paper wrapper. “Like some of the professors at the college?”

  “I was about to say that very thing.”

  When I got back to the bookstore, I called the apartment and let the telephone ring until Caron acknowledged defeat and answered it with a drowsy snarl.

  “I need you to watch the store this afternoon, dear I said. “Be here in thirty minutes or kiss your evening plans goodbye.”

  “And pass up a Totally Tedious slumber party at Rhonda’s? You mean I can’t do the limbo and run around all night in pink sponge curlers? Dine on generic chips and onion dip made out of the same chemicals as napalm? Make prank calls to the football team? Please don’t throw me in that brier patch, Br’er Mother.”

  I was impressed with the quickness with which she went from somnolence to sarcasm. “Just be here,” I said and hung up before she reached her optimum pitch. I needed Debbie Anne’s class schedule. In the past I might have called Peter to see if I could wheedle it out of him with my usual dexterity. Now I would sooner have arranged for an amputation. The registrar’s office would refuse in the middle of my first sentence, citing student privacy. Lieutenant Pipkin of the campus security force would be no more forthcoming-and would report my request to her newest boyfriend.

  I called Eleanor Vanderson, who did not obligingly answer the phone on the first ring or any of the next fifteen. She was apt to be lunching on chicken salad with the faculty wives, or playing bridge. I suspected she would be very good at the latter-and would never touch the former unless it contained homemade mayonnaise and slivered almonds. No one answered the phone at the Kappa house.

  “I Cannot Believe you’re doing this to me, Mother” Caron said as she and Inez dragged into the store an hour later “Although this country was founded on the economic necessity of indentured servants and slaves, I seem to think Mr. Lincoln put a stop to it more than a hundred years ago. I was planning to go through the yearbook and make a list of potential My Beautiful Self clients. Pippa said she did that when she was getting started. Do you know how much money she’s made in the last three years?”

  “She bought a convertible at the end of her first year,” Inez contributed. “Over spring break she went to Cozumel and made enough money while she was there to pay for the entire trip. She did sessions right on the beach.”

  Caron disappeared behind the self-help rack, but the barrier in no way diminished her voice. “Pippa’s mother helped her a whole bunch in the beginning by having parties and persuading her friends to have sessions. Her mother has lots of friends because she’s a past member of the Junior League, an active Kappa alumna, something in the hospital auxiliary, and something else at the country club. Decorations chairperson, I think.”

  “While you’re burdened with a mother who has to earn a living,” I said as pleasantly as I could. “Perhaps you can drum up some business at Rhonda’s tonight.”

  Caron peered over the top of the romances. “After we limbo?”

  Inez blinked with the solemnity of a small brown barn owl. “Rhonda’s got this thing about the limbo. It’s almost like an obsession, and if you say you don’t want to or even lock yourself in the bathroom, she’ll literally drag you into the living room and push you under the broomstick.”

  “How low can you go?” oozed a disembodied voice from the direction of the cookbooks. “No one can go as low as Rhonda, because she carries all that excess weight on her hips and her center of gravity is lower than everyone else’s.”

  “Enough!” I said. “I’ll be back in an hour or so. Don’t take candy from strangers and don’t take one red cent out of the cash register unless you’re making change. You can still go through the yearbook to find victims; odds are good that no one will disturb you in my absence. In truth, the odds are excellent.”

  I put a notebook in my purse and was on my way through the door when Caron said, “That man called again.”

  “When?” I demanded. “What did he say?”

  She’d moved behind the counter and was eyeing the cash register with an enigmatic glint. “It was so dumb. When I answered the phone, all I heard was this heavy breathing. I didn’t want to waste my time, so I asked if it was an obscene call, and he-”

  “You asked if it was an obscene call?” I said carefully. “Why should the line be tied up if all he was going to do was breathe, Mother? Someone might have been trying to call to arrange a My Beautiful Self session. Anyway, he kind of harrumphed and said it certainly was not and he didn’t appreciate being accused of tacky behavior I pointed out that he was the one doing the hyperventilation bit, not I. He said he was thinking about what to say. I told him he should have done that before he called, and then I hung up.”

  “But he called back,” Inez inserted bravely, then faded behind the science fiction rack. Caron, like any temperamental star, does not care to be prompted by an understudy.

  “He called back?” I said.

  Caron had taken a compact from her purse and was examining the tip of her nose with the intensity of a microbiologist. When I repeated my question, she snapped it closed and sighed. “About two minutes later, if you can believe it. He did admit that he should have decided what to say before he called, although he was still huffy about my perfectly reasonable question.”

  Her perfectly reasonable mother was too bemused to do more than murmur “And…”

  “He said that if you didn’t stop butting into his affairs you’d find yourself on the sidewalk selling burnt offerings. It was So Dumb. I mean, hasn’t he ever heard of fire insurance? You do have adequate insurance, don’t you?” Her green eyes turned the precise shade of mint ink. “Would there be enough left over to buy a used car?”

  “No! There most definitely would not be enough left over to buy anything. I have some insurance, but-” I held in a groan as I looked at the old, dry wood of the rafters, the numerous racks of flammable paper products, the cardboard cartons stacked alongside the wall, the stacks of invoices and order forms, the catalogs. I could have renamed the place Tinder Box Books, had I been in a whimsical mood. I was not. “Did this man say anything else?”

  “Not really,” Caron said, still appraising the possibilities of a lovely check from the insurance company. “He said something about if you had the negatives, you’d better give them to him.”

  “What negatives?”

  “He didn’t say, and frankly, I was getting pretty tired of him. I said I wasn’t your private secretary, told him to call you himself if he had any more obt
use messages, and then Inez and I left before he could call a third time. That’s why we were late getting here.”

  “What about his voice?” I said. “Could you tell anything about his age? Did he have an accent?”

  “He wasn’t a kid, and he didn’t have an accent. He was trying to be clever by talking in a whisper, which meant I had to keep asking him to repeat things until I was ready to scream. If you don’t have decent manners on the telephone, you shouldn’t be allowed to use it.” She crossed her arms and gave me a cold look. “Don’t you need to go do whatever it is? Inez and I don’t have all afternoon, you know. We’re supposed to be at Rhonda’s at six, and we have to do our hair”

  I walked back to my apartment in a daze of confusion and anger. Who was this anonymous jerk? I resented being threatened in such a manner; if nothing else, it wasn’t sporting. I could do nothing in retaliation until I knew who he was. I didn’t have his damn negatives-of what? It was possible Ed Whitbred had them, or had them until Arnie was turned loose once again on an insufficiently leery society. There were other cameras in Farberville. There were plenty of cameras in the Kappa Theta Eta house, if the number of coy photographs was indicative.

  I sat on the edge of my porch. If the prowler was also my caller, he might have been searching the third floor of the sorority house for the mysterious negatives. Was he being blackmailed by one of the girls who’d gone home for the summer? The last thing I needed was another Kappa Theta Eta cluttering up my admittedly tenuous scenario.

  Next door, Winkie came out onto the porch, holding an unhappy cat. She looked almost comical in a fussy pink broad-brimmed hat that seemed to have settled on her head of its own accord and refused to leave. After carefully locking the door, she headed for the sidewalk.

  “Any word from Debbie Anne?” I called as I approached her I stopped out of reach of Katie’s teeth, although I was in range of her malevolent gaze.