Guess Who's Coming to Die?

by Patricia Sprinkle

  I had to clear my throat before I could answer. “I think Willena would want us to go ahead.” I spoke loud enough for Wilma to hear.

  She dithered around a minute, then went to the table up front. “Very well. Who has a suggestion about what we should invest in this month? And I’ve forgotten. How much do we have to spend?” Poor Wilma, I couldn’t remember her ever being elected president of a club before. That was usually Willena. Wilma was usually secretary because she was a whiz at keeping detailed minutes. No wonder she was nervous.

  MayBelle stood. “Nancy had to leave. She wasn’t feeling well. But she’s left me her report.”

  When we’d elected officers, Nancy Jensen had been re-elected financial partner, their fancy name for treasurer. I remembered seeing her talking with MayBelle, and then, about the time Wilma had joined Grover and me, she had looked around the room and gone out the door. I had passed her coming back in as I went out. Her face was flushed and damp.

  Was she returning from killing Willena? The thought chilled my soul.

  MayBelle moved toward the table, consulting a sheet she held. “We took in eighteen hundred tonight and have the four thousand we carried over. Do you want to discuss the matter that came up before the break, or wait until Willena gets here?”

  “I’d like—” Cindy began, but Wilma interrupted.

  “Since we’re running late — I’m sorry our refreshments took more time than usual—” She stopped.

  As an actress, Sadie Lowe was used to speaking on cue. “They were simply delicious,” she breathed. “Well worth the wait.”

  “Thank you.” Wilma gave her a tight little smile that approved of the sentiment, if not of Sadie Lowe herself. “So, since we are running late, I suggest we divide tonight’s money equally between Microsoft and Southern Company, which we already own, and hold our discussion of the carry-over funds until next month’s meeting.” Nobody who had ever served on a committee with Wilma was surprised that she made her own views known rather than asking for other people’s. Wilma always knew best.

  Rachel objected. “Last month we discussed buying some medical stocks, to diversify our portfolio, and you asked me to look into several. I’d like to recommend—”

  I stopped listening. I didn’t care what they did with my hundred dollars. I was hearing Chief Muggins’s siren scream closer through the night. I was also trying to remember who had done what during the break.

  Seemed to me as if everybody had come and gone at one time or another, but all I could remember clearly was Nancy, because she and I had passed at the door, and Wilma, who had buzzed in and out of the kitchen like a little bee. That image was reinforced by the yellow cotton pantsuit she wore with a black-and-yellow-striped silk scarf and yellow flats. Wilma had shoes to match each outfit.

  She also had three full-time maids, so I’d been surprised to see her doing the kitchen work herself. I had asked whether Linette, her housekeeper, was sick, and she had said that Linette and Lincoln—Linette’s husband, who was Wilma’s driver and general handyman — had gone down to Dublin to visit their son. “Besides,” Wilma had added with her tight smile, “my crabmeat cheese puffs and the punch are family recipes that I don’t share even with Linette.”

  She had refused my offer (halfhearted as it was) to help her before the meeting, telling the custodian to carry stuff in from the car and asking Willena to assist her briefly in the little kitchen that adjoined our meeting room. At the beginning of the break Wilma had hurried back to the kitchen to put the cheese puffs in the oven and mix up the first batch of punch. She had called coyly as she left, “Don’t be insulted that I’m shutting the door, but I don’t want you all taking notes.”

  MayBelle called through the shut door, “You know we’re all dying to put that punch recipe on the Internet.” To us, she had whispered, “Wanna bet there isn’t a drop of liquor in it?”

  We’d stood around and waited for more than ten minutes. Some folks went to the ladies’ room at that point, but I couldn’t remember who. When Wilma came out, she’d boasted that she had put black-walnut brownies in the oven as soon as the cheese puffs came out, and they’d be ready in a jiffy. After that she had trotted back and forth spreading a feast of fruit, raw vegetables, dips, and the cheese puffs. But she had never been out of our sight more than a few seconds except when she was mixing the second batch of punch.

  Anybody but Wilma would have used the community center’s trays and their perfectly adequate punch bowl, but she had brought silver trays from home, along with a silver punch bowl and ladle. Like I said, Wilma was the fussiest woman God ever made.

  “Bless her heart,” I had murmured to Gusta, “if serving refreshments puts Wilma in such a dither, I hate to think what being senior partner will do. How on earth did she get nominated?”

  Gusta leaned close so nobody else could hear. “We rotate the position one year at a time. Her election was a mere formality.” I did some calculations and figured out that I had Augusta and Cindy between me and the time when I’d have to decide whether to decline or resign.

  MayBelle was right about the punch: It was strictly teetotal. Still, it was cold and delicious, although it tasted a lot like one in our church cookbook, which was nothing but bottles of chilled ginger ale and strawberry soda and a big can of pineapple juice poured over pineapple sherbet. We had finished off the first batch pretty fast, being so thirsty from eating nuts while waiting for the crabmeat cheese puffs, but Wilma cooed, “Isn’t it lucky I brought enough ingredients for a second batch?” and went to mix some more while the brownies baked.

  It was while she poured that second batch into the punch bowl that she had noticed me talking to Grover and had sashayed over to join us. Poor Wilma, she was flushed with happiness tonight, between getting elected senior partner and the success of her refreshments. I hated that her special evening was about to get spoiled.

  The picture rose before me: Willena lying on the floor with her skirt hitched up and the backs of her white knees bared, her gold high-heeled sandals gleaming in the fluorescent light. Her evening had gotten spoiled, too.

  Earlier I had complimented her dangly earrings, thinking they were green and white glass chips. She had said, “Aren’t they nice? They belonged to Grandmother Sarah.” Now I decided they must have been emeralds and diamonds, and wondered if they were still in her ears.

  She had clutched her cardigan around her. “Is it cold in here, or is it my imagination? I’m freezing.” The cardigan was tawny cotton, appliquéd with palm trees and tigers to match the jungle print of her skirt, and with it she’d worn a ruffled white blouse.

  “I feel fine,” I told her. “Maybe you’re coming down with something.”

  “Maybe so. Listen, have I given you the latest petition about saving the wolves?”

  In the last few years, Willena had gotten Concerned About the Environment, with capital letters. She had joined the Sierra Club and liked to corner people at inopportune moments to encourage them to save various endangered species.

  “I am all for saving whales, manatees, and rain forests,” I told her, “but I’m a bit ambivalent about wolves. Besides, we don’t have many of those in Hope County. Can I interest you in saving a few impoverished children? We have a number of those.”

  She shrugged. “They can always get a job.” She opened her purse and rummaged around in it. “I have a copy of the petition here somewhere.”

  Catching a glint of steel, I inquired, “I hope you have a permit for that gun?” It seemed odd to me that somebody who talked about saving endangered species would carry a weapon designed to maim or kill her own.

  “Of course.” She found what she was looking for and handed me a sheet of folded paper. “You can duplicate this and hand it out to as many people as you want.”

  Willena could be pushy, narrow-minded, and hard to get along with, but I couldn’t imagine who hated her enough to kill her. Besides, whoever had done that murder would have ended up spattered with blood from head to toe.
I looked at Wilma in her pale yellow cotton, MayBelle in her sleek tangerine linen, Sadie Lowe in a stark white crepe pantsuit, Meriwether in a mint green cotton sweater and matching skirt, and Rachel and Cindy, elegant in black and white. It was inconceivable that any of them had committed a vicious, bloody murder. Maybe for once Charlie Muggins had what he usually expected: a murder committed by a wandering tramp.

  But how did a tramp unlock the front door? Dexter Baxter, the community center custodian, had manned the door and greeted us each by name. Surely he had locked the door once we were all inside, for he had said he’d be down in what he called “my office,” the janitor’s room near the kitchen. I suspected he was watching a movie on a cast-off VCR somebody had given him, and I’d heard he was partial to horror movies. Would he have left the center doors unlocked?

  The siren wailed to a stop outside. Everybody but me darted quick, uneasy looks toward the door. Five minutes later by my watch, heavy boots clumped our way. Chief Muggins is small, but walks like a man of stone.

  All that time, Wilma plowed ahead with the business at hand. She had just repeated, “Remember, we only have eighteen hundred to invest this month. I suggest we buy more Microsoft and Southern Company. We don’t want to spread ourselves . . .” when she trailed off. Chief Muggins had strutted into the room, thumbs hooked in his gun belt.

  Someday he is going to lose his pants that way. I sincerely hope I am there to see it.

  “Evenin’, ladies.” He swept off his hat, and his thin yellow hair shone in the light. “What kind of meeting is this you all’re havin’ tonight?”

  Gusta drew herself to her full and most regal height. “We are the Magnolia Ladies’ Investment Club.”

  Chief Muggins is not generally a respecter of women. His ex-wife went to live in Atlanta after he hit her once too often. But in that instant I could see him registering the faces in that room and tallying up the financial worth of the group. He gave a deferential nod all around. “Sorry to disturb you, ladies, but we have a little matter of murder in the bathroom down the hall. I have to request that you not leave until we’ve secured the building and I’ve been able to ask you a few questions.”

  I don’t think anybody but me heard a word after murder.

  Necks craned. Eyes darted around the room. Gradually it began to sink in that we were still one member short.

  “Who . . . who is it?” Wilma’s voice quavered, and she leaned her hands on the table in front of her for support. A low rustle of whispers moved around the circle.

  Chief Muggins crossed the room and laid a hand on her arm. “I’m afraid it’s your cousin, Miss Willena.”

  Nobody looked real guilty, that I could see. Most gasped. Rachel exclaimed, “Oh, my God!” like New Yorkers are prone to do. Sadie Lowe dropped her purse and bent to pick it up. Cindy and Meriwether both grew pale. Gusta sat ramrod straight and regal.

  Wilma staggered with a little cry, and would have fallen if MayBelle hadn’t caught her and steered her to an empty padded chair. She lowered Wilma into it, then asked the chief, “Are you absolutely sure she’s . . . gone?” The last word was obviously MayBelle’s second choice.

  “Absolutely.” His eyes roamed the refreshment table. “Did you all have wine?” When we all shook our heads, he added with his customary tact, “She seems to have been killed with a silver corkscrew.”

  Wilma keeled sideways. Her head hit another chair with a thud.

  5

  MayBelle knelt beside Wilma, rubbing her temples. “Somebody get me some water.”

  When I jumped up, Chief Muggins ordered, “Don’t leave this room.”

  “The kitchen is right there.” I pointed to the closed door. He jerked his head toward the punch bowl, which was still half-full. “Get some of that.”

  I grabbed a cup, filled it with Wilma’s family recipe, and rushed it over to MayBelle. She was now giving Wilma’s cheeks sharp little pats, like some trainer on a televised boxing match. Without looking to see what was in the cup, she flung its contents into Wilma’s face.

  Wilma pushed her away and struggled to sit up, gasping. “Look what you’ve done! You’ve ruined my clothes!” She glared at MayBelle, then must have remembered why she’d fainted in the first place. “Is it true? Willena’s dead?”

  MayBelle nodded. “I’m afraid so, honey.” Her hands trembled and her eyes were frightened.

  Wilma covered her face and seemed to shrink in her chair.

  “No discussing the crime,” the chief commanded, then immediately broke his own rule. “Did any of you see anybody come in or leave this building?”

  We exchanged blank stares and shook our heads in unison.

  “Did any of you leave the room since the meeting began?”

  An uneasy silence fell.

  “You went out,” Sadie Lowe reminded Cindy. “You were gone the whole time we were having refreshments.”

  The chief swung around in Cindy’s direction like a chimp ready to pounce. Cindy’s dark eyes burned with indignation. “I went to call my children, and I had to go all the way outside to get a signal. This building is hopeless for cell phones. But I didn’t see anybody out there.”

  “Did you go to the bathroom?” he barked.

  “N-no.” I wished she had sounded more definite.

  “How long were you gone?”

  “Fifteen minutes? Maybe twenty?”

  Sadie Lowe looked at her watch. “More like thirty. We had a long break.”

  “Standing out in the rain?” Chief Muggins demanded, hard to convince.

  Cindy bristled at his tone. “I had my umbrella. It’s in the front hall now, drying off.”

  Charlie looked around at the others. “Anybody here able to verify she was outside the whole time?”

  Nobody could. I got up and moved over near Cindy, who looked like she expected to mount the steps to the guillotine any minute. When I took her hand, she flinched. “Don’t let him get to you,” I whispered. “He’s big on intimidation.”

  “Sadie Lowe, you went out, too,” MayBelle remembered.

  Sadie Lowe shrugged as if we were discussing a trip to the beauty parlor. “I did go down to the bathroom, but Willena was alive when I left her, throwing up in one of the stalls. I left her some cream to take off her mascara. It had run,” she added to the chief, as if that explained everything.

  Meriwether spoke up. “I went into the ladies’ room as Sadie Lowe was coming out.”

  Sadie Lowe leaned toward Meriwether. “But we all know you didn’t kill Willena. Why should you?”

  Meriwether looked pale. “Of course I didn’t. But Willena came out of the stall while I was there and said she’d eaten something for dinner that disagreed with her. I helped her wash her face. She was repairing her makeup when I left and said she’d be right back.” Her voice shook on the last phrase.

  “Anybody else leave this room?” the chief snapped.

  Wilma raised one hand weakly while the other still covered her face. “I was in and out of the kitchen all evening, fixing refreshments. It was my turn to furnish them.”

  “Did you go to the bathroom?”

  “When would I have had time?” She made it sound like she had personally prepared and catered a meal for hundreds, but she did have a point. She started rubbing her hands together as if they were cold. They made a dry, whispery sound in the silent room while the chief looked over the group.

  “Okay, anybody else?” he finally asked.

  Nobody spoke, but Meriwether turned and looked at MayBelle, as if waiting for her to say something.

  MayBelle’s lips twitched with annoyance. “Okay,” she admitted, “I ran to the bathroom for a few seconds. Wilma was heating up cheese puffs in the oven, and I figured it might be a while before she got the table ready. Meriwether was leaving the bathroom as I went in.” She added in a defiant tone, “Willena was still alive and bitching when I left. Her hands were shaky, and she was having trouble getting her mascara on straight.”

  “You were
gone a long time,” Gusta remarked.

  “I went to see if Dexter had fixed the toilet in the men’s room. It’s been running, and he had said he would fix it today, but he still hasn’t.” That year MayBelle chaired the committee that ran the center. She looked at Sadie Lowe. “You were gone a long time, too. You weren’t here when I got back.”

  Sadie Lowe shrugged. “I went out on the porch to have a smoke.” She turned and raised one eyebrow in Rachel’s direction. “Right after I saw you go out the front door.”