by Joan Hess
“Have you considered therapy?”
“At the moment, I’d prefer a lobotomy. I’m going to the stadium, and after that… I don’t know. If Arnie stole a car, he and Daphne could be anywhere. The police will have a better chance of finding them than I will. I’d better leave before a meter maid calls the police department to let Lieutenant Peter Rosen know that my car’s parked out front. For some silly reason, he thinks I’m withholding information.”
“You could rat out Joey,” said Luanne.
“But only as a bargaining tool,” I said virtuously. I crouched over the basket to stroke Skyler’s cheek, promised Luanne to report back, and went out to my car. Caron and Inez would be released from Farberville High School in a matter of hours (if the former was not in restraints in the school nurse’s office). Both would be hysterical when they learned Daphne might be in a position to snatch Skyler away from his temporary sanctuary. If they didn’t already know. Caron has assured me on numerous occasions that she is The Only Person at the high school without a cell phone—except for Inez, of course, and a few dorky freshmen.
I drove to the stadium and slowed down as I looked at the tier with doors leading to the skyboxes. Remodeling and renovations were underway; workmen swarmed the balcony, toting lumber, tools, rolls of carpet, and bathroom fixtures. Arnie was no longer a landlord, at least for the time being. It was likely that evidence of illicit occupancy had resulted in a better security system, as well as a physical exorcism of lingering contamination. The president of the college could never pass the port to a generous alumnus who might leave the skybox with fleas and lice.
But I had no idea where else to look for Arnie—and, by extension, Daphne. If he had indeed stolen a car, which was possible if his persistent lack of sobriety had not precluded it, he could be anywhere in the city, or even the county. I did not think Daphne could have been persuaded to abandon Skyler and allow herself to be driven into the sunset, or as far as she and Arnie could go before they ran out of gas. If he was even involved.
Sheila was the only person who might have heard from Daphne. Hoping the police had already departed, I drove up Thurber Street and turned the corner. Willow Street appeared charmingly benign. Gray-haired residents were walking dogs. A few college students were sitting on a porch, sharing a quart bottle of beer. Three young mothers were pushing strollers as they chatted. I was about to pull over in front of Sheila’s house when I saw the nondescript white car and its two nondescript white occupants. If I so much as slowed down, my license plate would be verified with DMV in a matter of seconds, and Lieutenant Rosen would have me handcuffed and hauled to the PD in a matter of minutes.
I decided to go home and phone her. As I turned into the alley behind my duplex, I noticed a cab parked just beyond the garage. Farberville has a small, unreliable cab service. Big cities have gypsy cabs; here we have cabs driven by gypsies (or so council members claim when the moon is full). If the downstairs tenant had called, the driver would be waiting at the front curb. None of the Kappa Theta Etas in the sorority house next door would be caught dead in such a bourgeois mode of transportation.
I parked in my allotted half of the garage and went upstairs. I was somewhat surprised to find the back door unlocked, but I knew Caron might have made herself a sandwich and left without bothering to lock the door— or closing the refrigerator door, for that matter. The shower might still be dribbling. Ill-tempered remarks, might be written in lipstick on the bathroom mirror. I set down my purse and picked up the telephone directory to find Sheila’s number. I was not prepared to find a guest in my living room, his filthy shoes on the coffee table, bread crumbs and beer cans scattered on the floor.
“Yo, Senator. How’s tricks?”
“How did you get in here, Arnie?” I demanded.
“Well, it’s like this,” he said, pausing to scratch his head, “I found this little screwdriver that you can poke in the lock. It doesn’t work with deadbolts, but with that cheap thing you’ve got, it took me less than five seconds. You ought to get yourself one, Senator. You could be using the president pro temp’s private bathroom while he’s presiding on the floor. Say, what’s your take on this WTO business?”
I took a deep breath. “Allow me to rephrase the question. What in blazes are you doing here? Does this have anything to do with Daphne Armstrong?”
“Happens that it does,‘though I’ll always think of her as Wal-Mart. When I found her out behind the pool hall, her belly was swollen but her arms and legs were skinny as match-sticks. The first time she tried to eat, she threw up. I had to put her on clear liquids for twenty-four hours so her stomach could readjust to solid food.”
“Let’s save our maudlin memories for another time. I now know how you got in here, but not why.”
He pulled a grimy handkerchief from his pocket and blew his nose. “Even though she didn’t name the baby after me, I still think of him as my godson, Arnie Junior. Maybe when he grows up I’ll take him to a football game and point out the skybox where he was born. I can tell him all about how it was a dark and stormy night, or at least late afternoon, when—”
“See the telephone, Arnie? That’s what I’m going to use to call the police if you don’t answer my questions. This does qualify as breaking and entering, doesn’t it? And the cab downstairs might result in a charge of grand theft auto. We’re not talking the county jail here. It’s going to be a long, hot summer weeding turnip fields at the state prison. Guards on horses, chiggers and ticks, bad food, no CNN.”
“You must be a real tiger when debating tax relief on the Senate floor. What’s your position on these new proposals to modify Social Security? Are IRAs going to be safe what with all the flux on the stock market?”
I crossed my arms and glared down at him. “I’m trying to decide if I should call the police or whack you with the directory and push you down the stairs. Shall we debate that, Arnie?”
He gave me a wounded look. “Don’t get all testy. It so happened I was watching the news the other night when Daphne was arrested. I couldn’t imagine someone so puny shooting anybody, much less her father. I’ve been sort of keeping an eye on things ever since. You know what’s been most puzzling, Senator?”
I had a very good idea, but merely said, “Why don’t you tell me?”
“That snooty reporter never mentioned the baby, and that’s something she would have jumped on like a hairy oF tarantula. No mention of him in the newspapers. It’s like no one’s even heard of him, much less noticed he’s gone missing. So I asked myself, I said,‘Arnie, who’s the most likely to know where the little fellow is?’ Believe it or not, you were the first to come to mind.”
“What about that black woman who offered to drive Daphne and the baby to a shelter?” I said, aware I sounded defensive. “She could be living in a little apartment down the hill from the stadium and operating a day-care center to pay the rent.”
“She left town the next day, and I’d know if she was back on account of owing her a small sum of money. What’s more, before you got here, I looked through your garbage and found soiled diapers and empty cans of formula. That stirred the flames of suspicion in the very soul of Arnie Riggles.” He belched loudly enough to be heard across the campus. “You got any more beer?”
“Skyler is not here.”
“Yeah, I know. Your daughter, by the way, has more dirty dishes under her bed than your standard diner has soaking in the sink. How‘bout a shot of scotch? A little hospitality might keep me from calling that lieutenant of yours and telling him what I know.”
“Arnie,” I said through teeth clenched so hard I could barely spit out the words, “we are not going to play this game. Let’s up the ante. This morning you were responsible for helping Daphne escape. That lieutenant of mine, as you call him, will be very perturbed. He takes aiding and abetting even more seriously than he does grand theft auto. You might end up learning how to make license plates in Sing-Sing.”
He went into the kitchen and opened a cabine
t. “I may have had something to do with that, but my only motive was to reunite a mother with her baby.”
“What precisely did you do?”
“This guy I know, Billy Beowulf, got into a spot of trouble the other night and ended up at the jail. Knowing from personal experience that everybody in custody would be brought to the courthouse this morning to be arraigned before the weekend, I visited Billy yesterday and gave him a note to slip to Daphne while they were on the bus.” He returned with the bottle of scotch, flopped back onto the couch, and took a swig. “The note told her to fake stomach cramps and demand to go into the restroom, where she’d find sweatpants and a jacket. I guess she figured out the rest of it on her own. Now as to the identity of the person who set off the fire alarm, I can’t say for sure. Could have been most anybody in the courthouse. People were coming and going like there was a Christmas sale inside.”
“Were you waiting outside in the cab?”
“I only borrowed it an hour ago. There it was outside the Tickled Pink Club, just begging to take a li’l spin.”
I sat down on the far side of the room, where his body odor was less oppressive. “So you don’t know what Daphne did after she escaped? You have no idea where she is? She’d save herself a lot of grief if she turned herself in, Arnie.”
“You, Daphne, and me might all be looking at some grief. We could be sing-singing three-part harmony in the future.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Have you spoken to her in the last three days?”
“I don’t recall.” He finished the scotch and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Guess I’d better be going. Don’t you back off on campaign reform, Senator. All this soft money is corrupting the electoral process.”
“Where is Daphne?”
“All I know is she ain’t calling a cab. If you could spare twenty bucks, I’d be inclined to go back out to the Tickled Pink Club and save Wanita from losing her job. She’s got three little boys, and her husband was last seen getting on a bus to Biloxi. I solemnly swear I’ll give Wanita the money so she can say she had a fare. You can come along if you want, just so you’ll know Arnie Riggles is a man of his word.”
“You are a man of many words, but they all have four letters.” I went into the kitchen and opened my wallet, but all the cash was gone. “I’ll tell you what, Arnie,” I said as I blocked his exit, “why don’t you give me back all but twenty dollars and I’ll forget about this. Don’t make me start thinking of inhumane things to do with cooking utensils. The meat thermometer comes to mind.”
He shoved a wad of bills (mostly ones, mind you) into my hand, winked, and went out the back door. I picked up the beer cans, what crumbs I could, and the empty bottle, and dumped it all in the trash. Then, after washing my hands with scouring powder, I called Luanne.
“A development,” I said, then told her about Arnie. “I think he knows where Daphne is, but I doubt I could have gotten it out of him with tongs and a pancake turner. He admitted he planned her escape. He must have been waiting for her when she left the courthouse. Then again, he might have been telling the truth about the cab. When he’s been drinking more than usual, he slips up sometimes.”
“So Daphne covered the jumpsuit with civilian clothes before she took off. Could she have made it to her mother’s house?”
“No more than fifteen minutes before the police did, and they would have searched the house thoroughly. Now they’ve got it staked out. I’ll call Sheila, but I doubt she’s any more coherent on the phone than she is in person.”
Luanne assured me that she and Skyler were plotting a lovely afternoon at the mall. I hung up, gulped down two aspirins, and steeled myself to call Sheila. No one answered, but I’d been told she walked to a grocery store and liquor store as her needs dictated. Perhaps the undercover officers had offered her a lift—or more interestingly, opted to follow her at a discreet distance. Which would leave the house without scrutiny.
Miss Parchester’s house was only a few backyards away. Her dogs had been temporarily relocated to the countryside. There were other dogs, of course, and retired residents who might be planting their gardens and pruning their petunias. But it was possible I could park at the library and find a way to Sheila’s house without being seen from the street. Even if Daphne was not there, I could look around for the albums Joey had mentioned, or any other indication of what they had believed would make them rich.
I changed into a more serviceable outfit of jeans and a T-shirt and drove to the library. Patrons were coming and going, and children were playing on the lawn in front of the brick building. I would have sat on a bench and appreciated the idyllic scene had I not been intent on committing a felony.
There was a neglected alley behind the houses on Willow Street, and I had little problem approaching the back of Sheila’s house. Most of the yards had fences. Garages faced onto the alley. A few dogs barked, as expected, and an elderly woman came out onto her porch to stare at me. I waved and smiled, and she reciprocated, although she seemed to be intent on memorizing my features.
“Looking for my cat,” I called in a neighborly fashion.
“I do not care for cats in my yard. I am hoping that the purple martins will nest here this year.”
“I’m sure they will.” I ducked my face and hurried on. Two more backyards and I was looking at a rusty chain-link fence covered with some sort of vine that had yet to begin to bloom. A car was parked in the garage, indicating that Sheila was on foot, sound asleep inside the house, or merely too caught up in a neurotic fantasy to bother to answer the phone. I glanced both ways, assessed the potential handholds, and managed to scramble over the fence and fall onto a pile of soggy leaves. When nothing much happened, I stood up and hurried to the back porch. Still no voices ordering me to stop, no sounds of weapons being cocked, no barking of ferocious dogs about to be loosed on my person.
The door was locked. For a second, I wished I’d taken away Arnie’s handy-dandy screwdriver, then gave the knob a good shake. It obliged me.
“Sheila?” I called as I stepped into a kitchen of sorts. The sink was filled with dishes, and the linoleum on the floor was brown with grime. The refrigerator was significantly older than I was. Cereal was scattered on the counter. Two empty milk cartons, wadded paper napkins, and a half-melted stick of butter cluttered the surface of a breakfast table. The herbs in pots on the windowsill above the sink were yellow, most likely brittle. I could understand why Sheila limited her forays into the kitchen to pouring vodka.
I continued into the living room, prepared to find her snoring on the sofa or passed out on the floor. Still calling her name, I went upstairs and quickly searched the two bedrooms and antiquated bathroom. All were as unappealing as the kitchen but unoccupied as well. I came back downstairs, went to the window, and eased back the curtain. The nondescript car was no longer parked across the street. I had no idea what I would say if she were to come through the front door; it would be hard to sell my runaway cat story, even to someone as harebrained as she. Cats are seldom accused of picking locks, even those in mystery fiction with the ability to tapdance on keyboards to provide clues to their witless caregivers.
There were several photo albums piled sloppily on the coffee table. I considered the idea of snatching them up and exiting through the back door, but I was aware that Sheila might be too emotionally fragile to deal wife their disappearance. Life was surely perplexing for her at the moment, with her ex-husband murdered, her daughter arrested, and her alimony checks imperiled.
I sat down on the sofa and opened the top album. Sheila, dressed in an ankle-length white dress, with daisies in her hair. Anthony, less bulky, perhaps less tense. In that I’d never met the man, it was hard to tell. An asymmetrical wedding cake that Sheila must have made herself. Guests in embroidered shirts. A band composed of three drummers and a ponytailed guitar player. Jugs of wine. A retro wedding, I thought, shaking my head.
I flipped though pages with photographs of runnynosed children and glazed adult
s. Depictions of Daphne in a receiving blanket, and later in a bathing suit in a wading pool. Anthony, washing a car. Sheila, mugging at the camera. Daphne, in an Easter dress and straw hat. Anthony and Sheila on the deck of a cabin. Daphne, in a tutu, her hair pinned up and her smile taut.
There was nothing in the album that suggested cash on demand. I set it aside and opened another, which seemed to focus on Anthony’s successes in civic affairs and his propensity for posing with heavy machinery. Cutting a ribbon at an apartment complex. Standing in front of a fountain. Shaking hands with what I supposed was the mayor or a councilman. Accepting a golf trophy. Standing on a pier beside a large fish. Sheila was rarely at his side.
I wasn’t sure how far away the grocery store or liquor store might be, but I figured the clock was ticking. I picked up a third album and opened it. The photographs were much older, and after a bit of squinting, I determined that they were of Sheila’s family. Most of the people in the earliest black-and-white compositions were rigid and expressionless. Their clothes were durable, no doubt, but uninspired. A ramshackle barn in the distance looked as though a heavy rain might send it sliding down the hillside, taking a mule and several chickens with it. A few pages later, I found a wedding picture, the groom in an olive drab uniform, the bride in a knee-length beige dress with a lace jacket. When Sheila began to appear, first as an impish child and then as a teenager, the backgrounds were filled with station wagons and barbecue grills. Her parents had achieved middle-class nirvana in the form of three bedrooms, one-and-a-half baths, and a tiny patio.
