Paula K. Perrin - Small Town Deadly

by Paula K. Perrin

  “What?”

  “Promise.”

  “Well, of course I promise.”

  “Remember I told you the cops found something under Andre’s body but Max couldn’t see what it was? Well, he found out. It was a string of sequins from Meg’s costume.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I went ice-cold. “Not Meg,” I whispered. “He was hit so hard.” My voice rose. “I saw his brain!”

  Fran clutched my shaking hands in hers. “We’d better start calling lawyers.”

  “She couldn’t have done it.”

  “I don’t want to think so, either, but remember what you told me after Andre ran over Mr. Dickens?”

  “Oh, God.” Meg had made such a terrible scene when Andre killed her beloved old cat. “Even so, Fran—it’s been months.”

  “Six weeks.”

  “Whatever, you don’t kill a man because he ran over a cat.”

  “No, a normal person wouldn’t, but you’ve told me repeatedly that Meg’s been strange—”

  “No, Fran! No! It’s obscene that you’d even think it!” I pushed open the car door, struggled with the seat belt release, and staggered up onto the curb.

  She leaned over the passenger seat and peered up at me, saying, “Calm down, Liz, I’m only trying to help!”

  “Help? When you’re suggesting—” my throat closed.

  Fran came around the front of the car and reached for me.

  I drew back. “Don’t you dare breathe those foul suspicions to anyone just to divert attention from yourself and whatever you were up to last night.”

  Tears shimmered in her green eyes. “Liz! Please. I’d never do anything to hurt Meg—”

  I turned and ran across the sidewalk and up the steps to the police station. I yanked open one of the glass doors and told the receptionist I was there to be fingerprinted. Millay, standing behind her, said he’d do it. She buzzed me through the security door, and I followed him down a hallway between cement block walls. Small, square light fixtures recessed in the ceiling shone patches of glare on the cement floor. Our steps echoed as we walked to a brightly lit room.

  After the prints, as I tried to scrub off the black ink with the rough paper towel Millay handed me, he said, “Gene wants to talk to you.”

  “I need to wash my hands.”

  “Okay, down the hall, first door on the left after the lobby.”

  I headed down the hall. Gene pounced on me from a door on the right. “Let’s talk,” he said. Dressed in his blue uniform, he wore his gun at his hip today. His red hair was carefully combed, his boots glossy.

  “In a minute.”

  “I haven’t got a minute to spare this morning.”

  I held up my blackened fingertips. “I need to wash.”

  “It won’t kill you.” He pulled me into his office.

  “You’ve always been a bully.”

  “No. I was never a bully. I might have scared people because I didn’t do a great job of handling my temper, but it was never with the intention of intimidating anyone. You, on the other hand, routinely bully people.”

  I pulled away and stared up at him. “Obviously we’re working with different definitions.”

  “See, you’re doing it now—trying to intimidate with a raised eyebrow. You ought to use your fists. That’s honest.”

  “Ah, the Neanderthal mentality. Fits you well.”

  He laughed. “You just can’t stop, can you?”

  The blood roared in my ears. I’d always hated him. He and my brother George and the group of boys known as “George’s Gang” always teasing, taking my dolls, my books, my microscope, whatever they pleased, waiting for me to beg to have them back.

  When we were young, there’d been occasional truces, mostly on hot summer afternoons when I was recruited for games with a stern warning from George not to cry. I never did, not through a sprained ankle, black eyes, or the concussion that caused my mother once and for all to forbid me to play with the boys.

  I wanted to walk out of Gene’s office and keep on going, but after what Fran had said about the sequins from Meg’s skirt, I had to appear cooperative. Possibly Gene would tell me something I could use to clear Meg.

  I took a deep breath and walked over to one of the chairs facing Gene’s desk. It had a tubular metal frame and a green plastic seat and back. It was every bit as uncomfortable as it looked.

  Gene surprised me by taking its twin rather than the chair behind the desk.

  His lips stretched beneath his moustache. It was supposed to be a smile, but it looked like he was contemplating where to sink his big white teeth. “We’re cousins, we ought to be friends.”

  “We’re cousins so far removed that I’m more closely related to Darwin’s monkey than I am to you.”

  He snorted and shook his head, “Jeez, Liz, you never make it easy.”

  I looked around, groping for a conciliatory manner. The office was nearly filled by the large, institutional grey desk. A computer screen and keyboard shared the desktop with a phone, neat black in-and-out trays stacked with papers, coffee mugs, and a lush piggyback plant.

  Off center, to the right on the wall behind his desk, was a reinforced-glass door with a red alarm bar across it. Sunshine streamed in through the door, bathing the two red geraniums that hung from the ceiling. On the floor crouched wicked-looking cacti in terra cotta pots, among them one as large as a man’s head with long, evil spines.

  “I take it you don’t use that door frequently,” I said.

  “Never. It got left there when they remodeled. If I did have to use it, I’d step real high.”

  I laughed. “You have quite a green thumb.”

  He said, “You can take the boy off the farm, but you can’t take the farming out the boy.”

  “Last night you said you’d shaken the shit off your shoes.”

  His lean cheeks turned red. “I believe I was a little more refined than that.”

  “Sorry if your efforts went unnoticed.”

  His blue eyes glittered, and I felt like smacking myself. Getting him riled was no way to help Meg. I took a deep breath. “Sorry.”

  He took a deep breath of his own then asked me to tell him exactly what had happened from the time I arrived at the high school last night. He didn’t interrupt until after the part about meeting Fran, Meg, and Kirk in the hallway after finding Andre’s body. He said, “What did Fran do then?”

  My heart started to pound. “She said she had to call The Bird and find Max.”

  “So she went up into the library to call.”

  “To the checkout counter.”

  “When was the next time you saw her?”

  I looked down at my white-knuckled hands clasped in my lap. I forced them to relax. Fran had told me to tell the truth. I knew she was intending to tell Gene a big lie. I wished I knew why.

  “Liz? This is a murder investigation. I know Fran left the library last night. Don’t try to protect her. You might end up hiding something I need to know.”

  The soft, smooth flesh inside my upper lip was sore from me biting it. Once again I felt near tears, and it made me furious. I never cried. “So you’ll arrest me for impeding your investigation?” I sneered.

  “Obstruction of justice. No, Liz, I said that because I was mad.” He ran his long fingers through his hair. “Don’t you see I have to be impartial here? It doesn’t matter what I want to do or who I want to believe; there are things I have to do and evidence I have to believe.”

  A river of ice poured through me. Was that a warning about Meg? I rubbed my fingers across my forehead. Why hadn’t I woken Meg last night after Fran left and demanded to know what she’d been up to? Having failed to do that, why hadn’t I confronted her this morning when I heard her yelling for the poodle? Now I admitted it to myself for the first time: I was terrified that Meg had killed Andre. It should seem as impossible as I’d told Fran it was, but Meg had become someone I didn’t know.

  She’d always been vibrant and energet
ic, passionate about causes, but with that had been inexhaustible goodwill. Now she was depressed, sullen, with occasional, unpredictable bursts of violent anger. Two weeks ago, she’d thrown Mother’s hobnailed pitcher through a window. Then she’d smiled. She’d known that Mother loved that pitcher more than anything in the world except Meg herself.

  When Andre had run over Mr. Dickens six weeks ago, Mother had truly believed Meg would do him serious injury. I hadn’t been home, but Jill Ferguson had seen the whole thing.

  Meg had been turning the compost pile. Her old tiger-striped cat Mr. Dickens was frisking around the yard, glad to have Meg home again. Then, he’d gone into the street. There’d been a squeal of brakes, a terrible shriek from the cat, and the gold Mercedes had come to a stop halfway down the block from the limp, crushed body of Mr. Dickens. Meg ran into the street screaming at Andre, using words Jill said would make a sailor blush.

  “She pulled him out of the car!” Jill said. “It was like a police movie—she slammed that man against the car and started beating him!”

  Mother came onto the porch and called to Meg. Andre was trying to defend himself but getting hurt. Mother made her way to them as quickly as she could.

  By the time she reached them, Andre had managed to get hold of Meg’s wrists and was holding her away. She kicked him.

  Mother said, “Margery Macrae, you stop that right now! I hope to never hear such language from a woman again! You go into the house this minute.”

  “She almost swore at your mother!” Jill told me. “But your mother’s face was something terrible—it would have taken paint off a barn! Meg stood there a moment, her face so white, and then she said to the man, ‘I’m going to kill you,’ as calmly as if she were inviting him in for tea. Then she pulled away and without looking back went into the house.”

  Andre had said, “Thanks, Claire, I thought she was going to tear me apart.”

  “It’s Ms. Macrae. And you’d deserve to be torn apart. That cat you just ran over was more a gentleman than you’ll ever hope to be.

  “Now I’ll thank you to go around the back of the house to our garden shed and get a shovel while I get a box, and we’ll give this cat a proper burial.”

  Meg had never again referred to the pet she’d brought home when she was seven, but she planted primroses on his grave and often sat beside it.

  Even allowing for Jill Ferguson’s melodramatic nature, I had seen that Meg’s behavior had frightened her. Had Meg kept that promise? Had she accepted a part in the play for easy access to Andre in order to kill him?

  The picture of Andre’s ruined head rose in my mind again. My cold hands covered my eyes as I groaned.

  “Are you all right?” Gene asked.

  I dropped my hands. They made fists in my lap.

  “You look sick.”

  “I’m all right,” I said. It came out a whisper.

  “Let me get you some coffee.” He went to the doorway, called to someone. A little later he thrust a mug into my hands.

  I took a sip, nearly burning my tongue. “This is wonderful,” I said in surprise.

  “Millay takes his coffee seriously,” Gene said.

  “But in books they always say how wretched the coffee is in police stations.”

  “That’s fiction. Jeez, Liz, get a grip.”

  I laughed.

  “Can we go on now?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I sighed.

  “Okay, when was the next time you saw Fran?”

  Dear God, please forgive me. “At the house after I got Bunny.”

  “How long would you say she’d been gone?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He glared at me.

  “It seemed like things would go fast, then as if time stopped. All I know is when I last saw her and when I saw her next, and I’ve told you that.”

  He sighed. He smoothed his moustache. “Okay, now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” He grinned like an executioner who’d just offered his client a place to rest his head.

  CHAPTER NINE

  “There’s something I’d like you to clear up for me,” Gene said. He cleared his throat. “A lot of people around town have wondered about Andre’s sexual orientation.”

  I laughed.

  He shrugged. “His assistant Barry was definitely light in the loafers.”

  I scowled at him. “The word is gay.”

  “Whatever. They lived together.”

  “Barry had his own apartment over the garage.”

  Gene shook his head impatiently. “I want to know about Andre. What was your impression?”

  “My impression was that he enjoyed women very much, in every way imaginable.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not going to give you details,” I snapped.

  “I’m trying to learn as much about the victim as possible, and I need to know this. You dated him. Did you have sex with him?”

  I broke eye contact and got up, paced around his desk, and looked out the glass door into the parking lot beyond. “I think Barry was in love with Andre, but I don’t know what Andre felt about him beyond a close friendship. They’d known each other for years, since Hollywood.”

  “I hope you took adequate precautions.”

  I whirled and glared at him. “That’s going way beyond what’s any of your business.”

  His face reddened, but he persisted, “If Andre swung both ways, and Barry died of AIDS—” He stood. “Look, Liz, I know you’re smart, and I hope you take care of yourself. But how can I know what you know? If it’d been me, I wouldn’t have gone near a guy I wasn’t sure was completely straight.”

  “This is great coming from a man who’s slept around as much as you have.”

  “That’s been exaggerated, and not that it’s any of your business, I’ve been extremely careful.”

  I gripped the back of his worn black chair. “Look, I want to get out of here. Ask me what you need to about Andre’s murder and let me go.”

  “Do you know of anyone else who had an affair with Andre?”

  Reluctantly, I named a couple of women.

  “Do you know if Andre had any enemies?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know of anyone with a motive to kill Andre?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know anything about his political campaign?”

  That was easy. “No.”

  “Do you know if he had any enemies?”

  “No.”

  “How did Meg feel about him?”

  “She was angry—” I stopped, looked down at the ugly black naugahyde chair. Nasty, personal comments about Gene swirled in my mind, but I clamped my lips shut. He’d suckered me. All I could do was minimize the damage. Besides, Jill Ferguson would surely detail that scene for Gene as soon as she heard about Andre’s death. “Andre ran over her cat six weeks ago, and she was angry at the time.” I looked up and stared into his eyes, “But she came to realize it had been an accident and forgave him.”

  Gently he stroked one of the piggyback plant’s leaves. “She was late for rehearsal last night, did she tell you why?”

  “I didn’t think to ask.”

  “Did you see her around the school before rehearsal started?”

  “No.”

  “Has she ever worked at the high school? As a cleaning lady, maybe?”

  “Of course not. Why on earth are you asking me that?”

  He ignored my question and said, “I remember hearing her ask Annamaria at one of the early play meetings if she’d help her make her costume. Do you know anything about that?”

  My heart pounded with dread. “I didn’t know about that. She and I bought a black jumpsuit for her to wear.”

  It was almost a relief when he asked, “How did Meg feel about your affair with Andre?”

  “She didn’t know about it. I was with him after she’d gone away for her first year at Wellesley. We suspended our relationship during her vacations.”

  “You don’t think an
yone told her about it?”

  “We were discreet.”

  “I heard about it.”

  I shrugged. “I didn’t think anyone knew.”

  “You didn’t tell Fran or your mother?”

  I laughed. “No, I did not tell my mother. Yes, Fran and I talked about it, but she wouldn’t have told anyone. Perhaps people saw us together and drew their own conclusions.”

  He sat down. “The same way people have drawn the conclusion that you and Fran are lovers?”

  “Which people are these?”

  “It’s a rumor that doesn’t go away.”

  I shrugged.

  “If you and Fran are lovers, it gives her a motive to kill Andre, especially if there’s a virus involved.”

  I turned and looked out the glass door.

  “Are you and Fran lovers, Liz?”

  “There are so many good things about living in a small town,” I said. “But this part I hate.”

  Rumors could hurt people so badly. Like after James died, the rumors that Fran had hastened his death with a mix of painkillers and sleeping pills. It was pretty well known that Fran and James’s marriage was not a happy one. James was nearly 20 years older than Fran, a cold, intellectual man used to being catered to.

  He’d died on a hot summer day when the doctor had expected him to live for another six weeks or so. He’d had a lot of painkillers and sleeping pills in his system, and rumor said that Fran had given them to him.

  Fran confided only in me. She believed James simply couldn’t take any more pain or another look in the mirror and chose that way out.

  I had said, “It must have been an accident, Fran, he didn’t leave a note.”

  “No, he wouldn’t have done that. He wouldn’t want people to know he’d given up.”

  “But he must have seen that you’d be blamed.”

  She shrugged, a sad, hurt look in her green eyes, and I remembered how, near the end, I’d sometimes seen something close to hatred in James’ face as he looked at her young, beautiful, vibrant body.

  Now Gene was saying, “People will talk.”