I flinched and touched my cheek as if he’d slapped me. “I was just trying to be helpful.”
Detective Peters grunted.
I pulled the plate of cookies out of his reach. No I didn’t. I wanted to.
When Detective Peters left, I hurried upstairs to my third floor studio and grabbed a sketch pad and mason jar full of colored pencils off the refectory table that stood in the center of the room. I settled into one of the cushy armchairs near the window and drew.
I didn’t need Detective Peters’ photo. I could draw Leslie’s portrait.
The pencils skated across the paper. Clean lines. Pure color. Not just a drawing, but a way for me to handle grief. Heart-shaped face. Wide mouth. That poor girl. Hazel eyes. Dark hair. What a horrible place to die. Within thirty minutes I had a portrait that looked more like Leslie than the Polaroid.
I tore the sheet out of the pad and descended the stairs to the kitchen where Aggie sat at the counter making a list.
“Grocery list?” I asked. “I think we’re running low on cream.” The only thing worse that running out of cream would be running out coffee.
“No.” She shook her sproingy curls. “It’s a to-do list for identifying your mother’s ashes.” She looked at the paper in my hands. “Is that the dead girl?”
I nodded and handed over the picture of Leslie. “How much did you hear?”
“Most of it.” She studied the drawing. “Pretty girl.”
“Yes.”
“I wonder who killed her.”
“Me, too.” I glanced at Mr. Coffee. His pot was full as if he knew I’d need comforting. I poured myself a cup and added a jot of cream. “To be left in a downtown alley. It’s tragic.”
“No teenage boy did that.” Her voice was hard-edged and sure.
“No.”
“Detective Jones didn’t come.” Her voice was soft-edged and sympathetic.
“No.” I took another sip of coffee and changed the subject. “What’s on your list?”
“I thought I’d start with reading the obituaries.”
“Mother hasn’t cleaned that closet in four months. That’s a lot of obituaries.”
“I’ll have to go downtown and use the library.”
“Do you want some help?” Reading four months’ worth of obituaries seemed a daunting and depressing task. “Two sets of eyes are better than one.”
We left Leslie’s picture on the kitchen counter, bundled up, and drove downtown.
The library lot was half-empty and I parked near the building. Even so close, the short walk to the door included blowing trash and smells I didn’t care to identify.
We paused just inside the door. “Brrr.”
My voice was too loud for a library. A bespectacled librarian wearing a sour-pickle expression looked up from her desk and glowered at me.
We walked toward her and I realized I was wearing noisy boots. Each hit of my heel against the floor sounded like a hammer.
“Excuse me,” said Aggie. “We need to review microfilm of obituaries.”
The librarian’s mouth twisted as if she didn’t approve of talking—or obits. “Second floor.”
The heels of my boots sounded like gunshots on the granite stairs that led to the second floor. I ascended the last ten steps on my tiptoes.
Aggie marched up to a second librarian—one who made the woman downstairs look like a congeniality winner in a beauty contest. The librarian on the second floor looked like the woman in American Gothic by Grant Wood: close-set eyes, marionette lines that dragged the corners of her lips into a frown, and a long, thin neck. The expression in those close-set eyes could have scared General Westmoreland into immediate surrender. I made a silent vow not to utter a single word.
“We’d like to look at microfilm for obituaries for the past four months,” Aggie whispered.
“Is there a specific obituary?” The librarian’s rusty voice had a martyred quality. “Do you have a date?”
“No,” said Aggie. “We’re just browsing.”
Barely-there brows rose. Browsing obituaries? Then, with a scowl that might have given even Mother pause, the librarian pointed us in the right direction.
Aggie threaded my film and showed me how to move the viewer forward and backward and how to make the print bigger.
“Look for members of country clubs, garden clubs, the Junior League, Society of Fellows members, and people who attended church at—”
“Shhh!” The furious sound came from the terrifying librarian at the desk. I couldn’t see her or her furious scowl but I was certain it was firmly fixed on her furious face.
I sealed my lips, wrote the names of two Episcopal and two Presbyterian churches on a slip of paper I found in my purse, and handed it to Aggie.
The first half-hour was passably entertaining. I figured out how to control speed and type size. But after the mechanics were mastered, I was left with scanning back issues of the newspaper for people who’d died.
The ashes who used to be a person did not appear in the first reel. Nor the second. Nor the third.
By the fourth reel, the words ran together in a sepia soup. There! Patrick Conover. He’d belonged to a country club. Not our country club, but a country club. Apparently he’d been a scratch golfer. He’d attended Princeton and started his own law firm specializing in real estate and contracts. He was survived by his adoring wife of thirty years, Susan, two grown children, a grandchild, and his mother, Gertrude Conover. Dollars to donuts Mother knew Gertrude. Was it him? I read on. Patrick Conover had attended one of the churches I’d written down for Aggie. His funeral service was held there with an interment immediately following. An interment. Patrick Conover was not the man in Mother’s closet.
I paused. I should have heard about Patrick Conover’s death. A tidbit over the bridge table. A quick rumor over cocktails. I hadn’t. I checked the date. October. Last October I’d been more concerned with dead clowns than dead lawyers. I made a mental note to find out his story and spooled on.
Betty Daniels had belonged to the right country club, the right garden club, and the Junior League but she was buried at Forest Hills Cemetery.
Evan Holmes was one of Daddy’s cronies. He dropped dead on a golf course in Palm Desert. Of his death, Daddy had said something along the lines of, “We should all be so lucky.” There had been a memorial service followed by a reception at the club. Had Evan Holmes somehow ended up in Mother’s front closet? I dug in my purse, found a small notepad, and wrote his name down as a possibility.
I kept going. Kept spooling. The smell of hot film and the gentle whir of the machines didn’t help my focus. Quite the opposite. Keeping my eyes open was a struggle. And my vision was getting worse. The edges of the film looked black.
I lifted my head and blinked. Three times. Then I returned my gaze to Myra Ollinger’s obit. A member at one of the right clubs. A member at one of the right churches. No mention of an interment. I jotted down her name.
“You’re on fire,” Aggie whispered.
My list was longer than hers.
“Fire,” she repeated.
I glanced her way. “Pardon me?”
“You’re on fire!” Now her voice was almost loud enough to attract the librarian.
And she didn’t mean my growing list of names. She meant fire. Smoke wafted up from my machine. A cigarette-break’s worth. An oh-dear-Lord-I’ve-melted-the-reel’s worth.
I waved my hands as if their flapping might cool the overheated celluloid. “Fire!”
“Shhh!” The librarian’s shushing traveled the stacks.
“No,” I called, louder this time. “Fire!” I turned off the machine but the smoke still rose. Acrid and unwelcome.
The librarian arrived silently and quickly and out of nowhere. Elizabeth-Montgomery-wiggling-her-nose out of nowhere. “What have you done
?” she sounded massively put out—using the same tone Mother did whenever I found a body.
“I don’t know what I did.”
She looked over the rims of her glasses and the corner of her lip curled into a sneer.
“I’m so sorry,” I murmured.
Her long, narrow face tightened and she crossed narrow arms over her narrow chest. “Didn’t you smell the film getting hot?”
“Yes. But I had no idea it would spontaneously combust.”
A few library patrons looked our way then quickly averted their gazes. The librarian with steam rising from her ears was that scary.
“If melting the reel is a possibility, there ought to be a warning of some kind.” Aggie made an excellent point.
The librarian paled. Her cheeks went white. Her lips went white. The knuckles on her hands went white. I’d seen corpses with better color. “A five-year-old could use these machines without mishap.”
“Why would a five-year-old want to use this machine? Can five-year-olds read?” Legitimate questions. Questions best left unspoken. Especially to an indignant librarian who stood a good foot taller than me in her stocking feet.
“Move,” the librarian said, her voice an irate whisper.
I pushed away from the machine and the librarian stepped forward and removed the reel.
“It will have to be spliced.” She shook the damaged film in my general direction.
“I am sorry.”
“Shhh!”
She got to talk about five-year-old savants spooling through reels and I didn’t get to apologize? “It was an accident. You can’t think I came in here intending to melt the film.”
“Shhh!”
“If you spent less time shushing and more time showing people how to properly use the machinery this wouldn’t happen.”
Which is how I got kicked out of the public library. Mother must never know.
Four
The next morning, Aggie returned to the library without me. I lounged on the family room couch with my feet on the coffee table. I sipped coffee, half-reviewed Anne Smith’s logistics report, and half-watched The Today Show. Barbara Walters ought not wear beige against the beige background of the set. It washed her out terribly.
“Ellison?” Mother’s voice carried from somewhere in my house.
Oh dear Lord. What necessitated a trip to my house? Mother usually called.
Max whined softly.
“Some guard dog, you are,” I whispered before I sat up straight, put my feet on the floor, and called, “In here!”
A few seconds later, Mother appeared. She’d fully recovered from finding the ashes in her closet. Her hair was its usual perfect helmet and she wore her favorite pearl pin on the collar of a navy wool dress. A mink coat was folded over her arm.
“You look nice.” More polite than what are you doing here? I stood. “Would you like some coffee?”
“Please.”
I led her into the kitchen, poured her a cup of Mr. Coffee’s perfect brew, and refilled my own cup. “Cream?
“How fresh is it?”
“Aggie bought it yesterday morning,” I lied.
With a regal nod, she assented to the addition of cream to her coffee. “Where is Aggie?”
“At the library, looking at obituaries.”
Mother looked less pleased with this news than she should have. “Why?”
“To see if she can identify the ashes.”
“I can tell you who’s died.”
“Suppose you don’t know the person in the closet?”
“You mean a stranger? In my house?” She sounded horrified.
“Maybe. Or it could be Evan Holmes.”
Mother tilted her head as if I’d given her something new to consider.
“Perhaps it’s Myra Ollinger.”
Mother’s expression clouded. “I certainly hope not. I never liked her. I’d hate to think she’s was freeloading at my house.”
“Freeloading?” If it was Myra, she’d hardly been taking advantage of the meal plan.
“Taking up valuable shelf space.”
“Ah.”
“Don’t be smart, Ellison. It doesn’t suit you.”
I wiped all expression off my face. “Aggie may come home with some additional possibilities.”
Mother sniffed. The sniff said quite clearly that she hoped for better options than Myra Ollinger.
“I have a question for you.”
Mother took a small sip of coffee. “Oh?”
“How did Patrick Conover die?”
She muttered something into her coffee mug. Mother never muttered.
“Pardon me?
She looked up and her eyes narrowed, daring me to argue. “I said there’s one body you didn’t find.”
“What? He was murdered?”
“Patrick Conover was shot. You were so busy interfering in the Harney murder investigation, you missed it.”
“Who killed him?”
“The murderer was never caught.” Her eyes narrowed to slits. “Don’t be getting any ideas about investigating. Patrick Conover’s death is none of your business.”
“Agreed.”
There was a time when I capitulated to all of Mother’s demands. That time had passed and she’d become accustomed to arguments. She looked almost surprised that I’d agreed without a single objection.
“What’s on your agenda for the day?” Mother eyed my jeans and turtleneck with distaste. Mother did not own a pair of jeans.
“I’m reviewing all the committee reports for the grand opening.”
She gifted me a small smile. Chairing grand opening galas was on her list of approved activities. “You inherited quite a committee.”
Because I’d come late to the game, the committee chairmen had already been in place. “They’re trying hard. Except for Joyce Petteway. If that woman doesn’t make a decision about the food soon, we may be eating Chinese take-out.”
Mother rubbed her chin. This was her milieu—difficult committee members and the need to create an event so memorable that people talked about it for years. “You decide the menu and tell her what it is.”
“I don’t want to step on toes.”
“Joyce will dither until she’s given you gray hair. That woman can’t make a decision to save her life. If you don’t choose something, we’ll be eating egg rolls.”
I nodded. “I’ll call the caterer and have him send over the proposed menus.”
Mother looked properly gratified. I’d agreed with her twice in one morning.
“Where are you off to today?” I asked.
“Bridge.” She put her coffee cup down on the counter and looked at her watch. “I ought to be going.”
That was it? She hadn’t driven out of her way just to ask about ashes. She could have called for that. Mother’s unannounced trips to my house usually meant the sky was falling. “Is everything all right?”
“Fine,” she said quickly. “Everything is fine. Aside from the ashes, I mean.”
I didn’t believe her. “You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure,” she snapped. “Everything is fine. I have to go.” With that she swung her coat around her shoulders and marched down the front hall. A few seconds later I heard the front door open and close.
I looked over at Mr. Coffee. He sat on the counter—reliable, dependable, perfect in every way. He had no comment on Mother’s strange behavior.
“Whatever it is,” I told him, “everything is not fine.”
Brnnng, brnnng.
Aggie was at the library and Grace was at school. That left me to answer the phone. “Hello.”
“Ellison! You know that favor you owe me?”
Did I owe Libba a favor? “What do you want?”
“Are you free on Fr
iday night?”
I didn’t need Madame Reyna to see where this was going. “No.”
“Of course, you are.”
“I just said I wasn’t.”
“You only said that because you’re worried I’m asking you to join Bill and me on a double date.” Bill was the latest man in Libba’s life. On the surface, he seemed almost perfect. A transplant from Charleston, South Carolina, he had courtly manners, gainful employment, and no wife. But Libba’s track record with picking men suggested there was a problem—a big one—somewhere.
“So you’re not calling to ask me on a double date?”
“What if I am? You’re not seeing anyone. You need to get out there.”
“I have plans.”
“The Rockford Files and Police Story don’t count as plans, Ellison.”
As if I’d watch Police Story. I needed no reminders of Anarchy Jones. “You’re wrong.”
“Fine. You’re watching the ABC Friday night movie. Sitting in front of a television is not the same thing as having plans.”
“Bad things happen when we double date.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
I wasn’t.
“Bill’s friend will be staying in the Presidential Suite at the Alameda. He’s invited us up for drinks then dinner at the rooftop restaurant.”
It sounded safe enough, but I knew better. “No.”
“Don’t say no. Think about it and call me later.”
“Hmph.”
“Also, Madame Reyna called me. I know you think she’s a terrible fraud but she insists someone named Leslie wants to talk to you.”
There’s a ride at Worlds of Fun, the local amusement park, called the Finnish Fling. One stepped inside a barrel and the barrel spun. Spun so fast that when the floor dropped, the riders stayed plastered to the wall. I rode it one time. Grace insisted. My stomach dropped with the floor and the sensation of being out of step with time and space and gravity left me ill for hours. I felt that way now. “She what?”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry I dragged you over there. I told her you didn’t know anyone named Leslie.” Libba paused. “You don’t, do you?”
I opened and closed my mouth but no words came out. No breath came out. There was a strange buzzing in my head—like a swarm of bees only louder.
SHADOW DANCING Page 4
