Murder on a Bad Hair Day

by Anne George

  “Then who killed Ross?”

  “I’m not sure. It could have been a hunter. He was the one vandalized Claire’s house and came at her with the knife, though. He painted that little picture I showed you last night. You remember him telling us he always thought of Claire as the Lady of the Lake with a lily in her hand?”

  “No.”

  “Well, he did. And that’s what the picture is. It’s of a pale, black-haired woman, actually three of them, on biers on barges floating to Camelot. It’s actually the Lady of Shalott, not the Lady of the Lake, but it’s easy to get them confused.”

  “I can understand that. It’s hard to tell one beer on a barge from another.”

  I chose to ignore her. “But what he was trying to do was set Claire up. He wanted it to look like she had vandalized her own house and stuck the knife in the door. And he figured everyone would think she had painted the little picture even though he had done it because he wouldn’t do anything so obvious.”

  “Right,” Mary Alice said. “Get some coffee before you run this by the police.”

  “Hey, Ross Perry did it.”

  “Could be. Let me know.”

  I got a cup of coffee, put on my sweats, and went out to walk Woofer. It was a cold, sunny morning, and the Iron Man on the mountain was mooning us with a vengeance. I gave Woofer plenty of time to investigate every lamppost and tree while I tried to decide how I would convince Bo Mitchell that Ross Perry was the murderer. I certainly hadn’t convinced Mary Alice, but she hadn’t seen Claire’s house, the knife slit in the door, or the little painting. It was too well planned, made to look like Claire had done it trying to set up Ross. Which meant that Ross had really done it.

  “It was Ross,” I explained to Woofer. “He wanted to look so guilty that everyone would think it was Claire.”

  Woofer hiked his leg and marked a tree. “That was an ugly remark,” I said. “But have you considered the fact that only the kitchen wasn’t damaged? Only a man would think the kitchen unimportant enough to do something to.”

  Woofer squirted the tree again.

  “Enough,” I said, pulling slightly at his leash and making my hand throb.

  The chilly morning air had cleared the cobwebs from my brain and made me hungry. After I put Woofer in the yard with some treats, I fixed myself a bowl of oatmeal, poured a small package of raisins in it, and sat down at the sunny window to look at the morning paper. Haiti, Iran, Iraq. Hadn’t I read this same paper five years ago? Ten? Twenty? I turned to the funnies and read my old favorites. I particularly admire Mary Worth, who grows younger, slimmer, and sharper-looking every year. Not bad for an old lady who sold apples during the Depression. Gives us all hope.

  I finished my cereal and looked at the phone. Surely there was a whole team of policemen working on Mercy’s murder. Unfortunately, the only one I knew was uncommunicative, sometimes sarcastic Bo Mitchell. I dialed the number.

  Officer Mitchell wasn’t in. If this was an emergency, Officer Black was available. If not, leave a number and Officer Mitchell would return the call. I left the number.

  The sweatshirt I was wearing was hot. I pulled it off and slipped on a T-shirt that had a picture of van Gogh’s cat on it. The yellow tabby looked at the world from the vividness of a van Gogh painting. On its left ear was a bandage. Sister had brought it to me from London, and she and I had laughed until we cried when I unwrapped it. Fred didn’t think it was funny at all, which made us laugh all the harder.

  The dining room was ready for the holidays except for decorating the antique sideboard, which had belonged to Grandmother. I have a large ceramic reindeer I put in the center and I cut magnolia leaves and holly at the last minute and lay the greenery down the length. The china, crystal, and silver were ready, though. Today I was going to concentrate on the guest bedrooms.

  I opened the windows and let the cool air sweep through the rooms. I changed the beds, dusted, and vacuumed. I gathered up all the old magazines that tend to collect in these rooms and put them in a garbage sack to take to the library. I Windexed the windows inside and, reaching under, as far as I could on the outside. Some day, I told myself, I would splurge and get some of those fancy windows that flip over so you can wash them on both sides. Finally, I opened a new package of Christmas potpourri and put a small amount in a bowl on each dresser.

  “Ready,” I said, admiring the shining, sweet-smelling rooms. A Tiffany would be nice, but there was a lot to be said for cleaning your own house.

  I dragged the heavy sack of magazines into the kitchen. I’d get them to the library that afternoon. Right now, I had worked up a sweat and my hand was hurting. I had ignored it while I was cleaning, but now I took the Ace bandage off and saw that it was swollen badly as well as discolored. I probably should go to the doctor, I thought.

  I was standing at the kitchen sink drinking a glass of water and wiggling my fingers, all of which worked, when the doorbell rang.

  “I got your message, and I was in the neighborhood,” Bo Mitchell said.

  I held the door open for her. “I’m cleaning house. Come on back to the kitchen.”

  “Like that shirt, girl.”

  I grinned. “Thanks.”

  The opened newspaper and my cereal bowl were still on the table. I moved them and motioned for Bo to sit down. “How come Mary Worth gets younger every year?” I asked.

  “Beats me. I’m still worried about what happened to Mickey Mouse’s tail.”

  “You want some coffee or Coke?”

  “Some Coke would be nice.”

  I fixed two glasses and brought them with napkins to the table. “You think I ought to go to the doctor with this hand?” I held it out so Bo could see.

  “It hurt bad?”

  “Off and on. The cleaning this morning didn’t help.”

  “Wiggle your fingers.”

  I did, but they didn’t move as easily as they had before I had removed the bandage.

  “Better go,” Bo advised. “Now, what can I do for you, or is this just our daily visit?”

  I sat down at the table and held the cold glass against my hand. “I know who killed Mercy Armistead.”

  “Well, do, Jesus.”

  “No, I’m serious. Don’t start that smart-aleck stuff.”

  Bo stirred the ice in her glass with her finger. “Okay, who killed Mercy Armistead?”

  “Ross Perry.”

  “Unh-huh.”

  “I mean it. You know that little painting on the bedroom wall? The only thing that made sense? The one of a redheaded woman painting a picture in a field?”

  Bo Mitchell nodded.

  “Well, I know what it means. Ross Perry always said Claire Moon reminded him of the Lady of the Lake and that’s what that painting is. It’s a picture of Mercy painting Claire and the twins.”

  “I don’t remember a lake.”

  “There wasn’t one. There was a river, and the three women, Claire and her sisters, are on biers on barges floating down to Camelot, dead for love of Lancelot. Ross just got the legend a little mixed up. They were really the Lady of Shalott or maybe Elaine. My bet is on the Lady of Shalott.”

  Bo Mitchell put her glass down. “You know, Mrs. Hollowell, something tells me what you’re saying probably makes sense somehow. But I got lost back there drinking beer on a barge.”

  “Not drinking beer. You know, laid out on a funeral platform. That kind of bier. It was very romantic.”

  “Sounds like it.”

  “Wait a minute.” I went into the den and got Victorian Poetry from the bookshelf. “Here,” I said, opening it to Tennyson’s “The Lady of Shalott” and handing it to Bo Mitchell. “Read that.”

  “You want me to read Tennyson?”

  “It won’t kill you. Just read enough so you’ll know what I’m talking about.”

  Her head bent automatically at my schoolteacher glare. In a few minutes she looked up. “Oh, my, that’s so sad. And all that damn Lancelot said was she had a pretty face.”


  “That Lancelot caused a lot of trouble,” I agreed.

  “Some men are just born that way.” Bo looked back at the poem. “‘Singing in her song she died.’ That’s pitiful.”

  “Well, you see what I’m talking about, don’t you? How this fits the picture on Claire’s wall? It has to be connected with Ross Perry calling her the Lady of the Lake.”

  “Could be. Who is Claire’s Lancelot?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe Thurman Beatty. But I don’t think the picture is supposed to fit the whole story. It’s just to lead us to Claire as a suspect.”

  “But Ross painted the picture.”

  “Yes, but it’s so obvious he did it, we’re supposed to think Claire did it, trying to lay the blame on Ross. See, he was too smart to have done anything that blatant unless he had an ulterior motive, which in this case was making himself look so much like the prime murder suspect that you would blame someone else.”

  Bo Mitchell drank some of her Coke and looked at me. “I’m still back drinking beer on the barge,” she said.

  “Ross killed Mercy. Put the DMSO in her hair spritzer hoping it wouldn’t take effect for several hours, which is what happened. He left the party and went to Claire’s where he cut up the furniture and wrote on the walls. He also did the little painting, which was just like signing his name. You with me?”

  Bo nodded that she was.

  “Okay. Claire comes home and Ross goes for her with her kitchen knife. But he never intends to kill her. He sticks the knife in the door, being careful to hold the end so he won’t wipe off her fingerprints. He’s wearing gloves, you understand. Claire runs and he leaves. You, the police, come in and say, ‘Nobody tried to kill this girl. She did this herself, and look here, here’s a painting like Ross Perry would have done. But he’s too smart to have done that. She’s trying to frame him.’ Right?”

  Bo ran her fingers across her lips. “One minor detail. Who killed Ross Perry?”

  “Hey,” I said, “I can’t do everything. You’re the one getting paid for this.”

  “Not enough.” Bo pushed her chair back. “Can I borrow this book?”

  “Sure. Yeats is my favorite.”

  “Thanks.” Bo walked down the hall with me following right on her heels.

  “What do you think? About my theory? It could be right, couldn’t it?”

  Bo turned and looked at me. “Could be,” she said, “but don’t start setting odds just yet.” She opened the door and walked to her car, turning to give me a little wave. I went to call the doctor to make an appointment, giving a little triumphal skip on the way.

  He put my right hand in a cast. My right hand, two weeks before Christmas, ten days before the family would descend on me. My Christmas cards weren’t addressed, my shopping wasn’t finished, I couldn’t even make another batch of fruit drop cookies because I couldn’t stir the batter.

  “It’s to keep the hand immobile,” he said. “That’s about all we can do with knuckles.”

  Worst of all, I was going to have to tell Fred the truth about how I hurt it. And admit I’d lied to him. There was no way I could keep up the car door story for a month.

  There was a message to call him when I got in. Might as well bite the bullet. I picked up the phone and discovered immediately that you can’t even punch the buttons on a phone with a cast on your hand. The ends of my fingers were free, but the cast kept hitting the phone.

  “Metal Fab!” he barked into the phone. Fred’s business is a small metal fabrication shop he has owned for twenty-five years. His shop deals in a lot of special items that are hard to find, and his customers range from the utility companies to strip joints. For the latter, he provides the metal poles the dancers slide down. They have to be brass and shiny. And smooth. God knows those poles have to be smooth. The nature of Fred’s business means emergency orders sometimes. Not often, and he’s paid well for them.

  “It’s me,” I said. “You mad at the world?”

  “Just busy. How are you, honey?”

  “Okay.” I could tell now was not the time to mention my hand.

  “We’ve got a rush order for some valves for Chatham Steel, and when we finish, we’ve got to get the chemistry run on them. So don’t count on me for supper. I’m not sure what time I’ll be home.”

  “Don’t work too hard.”

  He would. But he thrived on these emergencies. Adrenaline was crackling across the phone line.

  I put on my jeans and turned the Christmas tree on. It was almost three o’clock and I realized I hadn’t had any lunch. I fixed a peanut butter and banana sandwich and a glass of milk and went into the den to watch Oprah.

  Oprah is like Mary Worth. She’s getting younger, slimmer, and sharper-looking all the time. Today she was talking about help for abusive parents, which reminded me of the Needhams. Could they, at some point, have been helped? Probably. At least the children could have been removed earlier.

  I finished my sandwich and wiped peanut butter from my cast. Damn. It was even going to affect my eating.

  “I had no control,” the man on television was saying. I crumpled up my napkin, thinking for the millionth time how lucky Mary Alice and I were. Occasionally Daddy would swat us on the behind when an “attitude adjustment” was called for. Mama would make us stand in the corner, the equivalent of today’s “time-out.”

  Last night’s lack of sleep, the morning’s work, and the trauma of the doctor’s visit were catching up to me. I stretched out on the sofa and closed my eyes. I awoke an hour later to feel someone against my feet. I came up with a start.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Sister asked.

  “I thought you were the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

  “Not yet. I see you went to the doctor.”

  I held up my hand for her inspection.

  “Hurt much?” she asked.

  “Off and on. I used it too much this morning washing windows.”

  “That’ll do it. There’s nothing like washing windows with a broken hand.”

  “How would you know?”

  “I can imagine.” Mary Alice propped her feet on the coffee table. “Did you tell the police you had solved Mercy’s murder?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did. Bo Mitchell took it very seriously.”

  “She took the bier on the barge seriously?”

  “She did after she read the poem. She even took the book with her.”

  “Well, I guess stranger things have happened. But Ross Perry figuring out that weird way to kill Mercy? And spraying Claire’s walls to make it look like she was framing him? To tell you the truth, Patricia Anne, I don’t think he was that clever.”

  I shrugged. “He was.”

  “Maybe so.”

  “Are you and Bill working at the mall tonight?”

  “We sort of lost our job. Bill’s scratching made the parents nervous.”

  I laughed. “Did they make you give up your electric shirt?”

  “I’m afraid so. I’m going to miss that shirt.” Mary Alice grinned. “That’s where I’m going now. Out to Rosedale to take our costumes back and pick up some presents they ordered for me at McRae’s.”

  “You want to eat supper at Morrison’s? Fred’s working tonight.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Then just give me a few minutes. How about feeding Woofer for me? You can even walk him around the block if you want to.”

  “I don’t want to. It’s too cold. By the way, did you know they’re predicting snow flurries again tomorrow?”

  “A white Christmas!” I squealed. “Can we stop by the grocery?”

  “Of course.”

  Things get set in motion by the most innocent things. There we were, two old ladies having supper at a mall cafeteria on a cold winter night. Vegetable plates. Macaroni and cheese, turnip greens, black-eyed peas, and corn bread. Egg custard pie. A walk to the mall office to return the outfits. A stop at McRae’s to pick up Mary Alice’s purchases. Some browsing through the Christmas swe
aters. One that Sister wanted me to buy, a Victorian couple sitting by a fire. It was Fred and me, she said. But I demurred. Too expensive.

  We stopped and checked out the new Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus.

  “Too skinny,” Mary Alice declared.

  “Ho, ho, ho,” Santa said weakly as a fat twelve-year-old kid sat on his lap, double-dog-dared by a group of friends who laughed on the sidelines.

  We bought a cup of cappuccino and sat by the fountain watching the crowd.

  “Don’t burn yourself,” Sister cautioned me, noticing how awkwardly I held the cup in my left hand.

  It was a night like thousands of nights Mary Alice and I have shared except I remember the details clearly. I remember someone had thrown a Susan B. Anthony dollar in the shallow, clear wishing pool, probably thinking it was a quarter. I pointed it out to Sister.

  It wasn’t late when we came out into the well-lighted parking lot. Maybe seven-thirty or eight. Mary Alice tossed the packages onto the backseat and we headed for the interstate. I looked to see if any clouds were rolling in, but there was too much light.

  “I’m going to call and see if Fred’s home yet,” I said. “I should have gotten him some supper.”

  “Fred needs a Lean Cuisine. He’s getting a pot.”

  “He is not.” I plugged the phone into the lighter and dialed my number. My own voice answered with “You have reached the Hollowell residence. We are unable to come to the phone—” I hung up. “God, I sound stupid.”

  “You need to get some of those seasonal messages.”

  I didn’t answer that.

  We were on the elevated part of the interstate that overlooks the old bottling plant that for one night was the Mercy Armistead Gallery. In the distance, the Sonat Building’s wreath and Christmas stocking shone, and on Red Mountain, Vulcan held up his torch. Traffic was not heavy.

  “Look,” Mary Alice said. “Somebody’s at the gallery. The lights are on. I’m going to go get you that picture quilt of Leota Wood’s that you admired so.”

  “Do you remember how much that thing cost?”