Paula K. Perrin - Small Town Deadly

by Paula K. Perrin

  As I waited at the signal at Parkway, I saw Alisz, bundled against the chill, walking south, back toward her home. I wished I had her discipline. Running was a hit-or-miss affair with me, walking daily a passion for her. A white Cabriolet stood in the library’s lot. I made sure it was Laurel’s, not Meg’s. As I passed the post office, I saw Gene’s green pickup turn toward the police station.

  My spirits plummeted when I reached The Bird. Meg’s car was not there. Had she already picked Fran up? No, Fran wouldn’t go without calling me.

  Meg would show up. Even if she was mad at me, she wouldn’t exclude Fran. She’d be here any minute.

  I walked back along the building. Moisture beaded the glossy finish of Fran’s black Mustang. I rang her doorbell and waited. I rang again. I knocked, then used my key. “Ollie, ollie, oxen free,” I called, opening the door just a crack so that anything she threw could not hit me.

  Silence. Maybe Fran had gone with Meg?

  “Darn it,” I said, pushing the door wider. It stopped with a little thud after opening only a few inches. I looked down to see a pale hand with long, slender fingers and shell-pink nails. “Fran!” I cried and pushed the door. It bumped again, and I realized with horror it was bumping against her head.

  “Fran,” I sobbed. I leaned down and reached around the door, pushing at her cool, bony shoulder. The door opened wider. I slid through.

  Fran lay nude, face down. Her hair spread in a golden mantle across her back. I sank to my knees. I knew, I already knew, but I touched her wrist, felt for the pulse that wasn’t there.

  My hand went to her upper arm to turn her over, but it drew back when my shocked senses registered the purplish hue of her face, chest, and stomach.

  Tears blurred my eyes. “Fran, please, please—” I had to call someone, but who? She was dead, an ambulance wouldn’t help. I got up to go to the phone on the end table. But I couldn’t leave Fran like that. I lifted the peach duvet from where it lay half-on, half-off the couch-bed. I let it float down onto her.

  I felt sick. I rushed into the bathroom, tripping over the navy slacks and sweater and undies she’d left in the middle of the floor yesterday. I stumbled a few steps and fetched up hard against the wall. I took a deep breath, and the nausea faded.

  I walked back across the room, stopping when I noticed my glass of Scotch sitting on the dressing table where Fran had left it yesterday.

  I reached over all the little pink jars and bottles and tubes, grabbed the glass, and took a big swallow. The Chivas made a warm track to my stomach while the rest of me stayed cold. I shivered.

  The telephone shrilled. I walked to it. I picked up the receiver and held it to my ear. A strange voice whispered, “How does it feel?”

  “What?” I said.

  “You heard me. How does it feel?”

  “Fran’s dead,” I protested. My knees turned to mush, and I sat on the side of the bed.

  The person on the other end made a funny sound. A laugh quickly stifled? No, it couldn’t be that. It must be a gasp of surprise, of shock.

  The phone went dead. Obviously someone intending to play a prank on a friend had dialed the wrong number and had hung up in dismay.

  I watched my shaking hand reach out, over the glossy brochures promoting New Zealand, to punch 9-1-1.

  Eventually I heard sirens. I realized that people would be coming in by the door, bumping Fran. I closed and locked it, then went to the door that led into The Bird’s office, and unlocked that. I walked through the cool, quiet office, and out the paper’s front door.

  Two police cars screeched into the parking lot. Gene, in the passenger seat of one, jumped out and ran towards me. “Where?” he demanded.

  I stared at the ambulance pulling more decorously into the parking lot.

  Gene’s hands took a bruising grip of my shoulders. “Liz, where is she?” His voice quivered with tension.

  I pointed.

  He took off.

  The ambulance people unloaded equipment. They seemed to be taking a long time. I thought that if someone were dying, it might even be too long a time.

  I turned and followed quietly after Gene. I couldn’t leave Fran alone with them.

  Gene knelt beside her body, touching her neck. His shoulders trembled, then he went still.

  Footsteps, voices, creaking leather, clanking, and suddenly the room was full of cops and paramedics.

  I sat on the arm of a chair keeping an eye on them all.

  A man started pounding on the apartment door and yelling, “Fran, Fran!” It was probably Max, The Bird’s only full-time reporter.

  Gene surged to his feet and roared, “Godammit! What’re you all doing in here? Isn’t there anyone out there keeping people away? What the hell’s wrong with you?” His finger stabbed at Lofty. “Get out there now!”

  More time passed while people spoke in soft voices and moved about, writing things down, going out, coming in. A woman wearing thick glasses and carrying a big case arrived and consulted with Gene. She put her case down and opened it.

  Gene came over, “Liz, you need to go outside now.”

  “No.”

  “You can’t do anything for Fran here.”

  The woman had put on gloves and was taking things out of her case. I stared, my throat convulsing.

  Gene leaned down, bringing his strained face close to mine. “All that’s left is details,” he said in a calm, quiet voice. “Fran’s not here, Liz, and all we can do for her is find out why she died.”

  “I don’t want her to be dead.”

  “I know. Come on.”

  “What are they going to do to her?”

  “It won’t help to know.”

  Officer Millay called from the office doorway, “Gene, come look at this.” Millay led us to the table provided for the paper’s clients to sit at to compose ads. James’ antique Underwood had been taken out of its display case. A piece of paper had been rolled into it, and typed onto the paper, in faint, greyish ink, were the words, “I can no longer live with what I have done.”

  Gene whistled.

  Millay said, “Looks like Andre’s homicide is solved.”

  “No!” I said. “No!”

  “Now, Liz—”

  Rage sliced through my shock like a sword through a shroud. “Fran didn’t do it. Don’t you dare do this to her.” I glared at them.

  “Liz, we have to investigate every possibility.”

  “But you’ll start from the wrong premise. Someone killed Fran. They murdered her,” I stopped as a sob caught in my throat. I gathered a deep breath. “It was impossible for her to commit suicide.”

  Millay said doubtfully, “You think because of religious reasons—”

  I laughed, the sound startling. “Fran was the least religious person I know. But, you see, whoever killed her didn’t know her very well—he’s made a mistake. She was terrified of being dead. Even if I believed she’d kill Andre, I know she couldn’t kill herself.”

  Their faces still showed doubt.

  “What’s more, she wouldn’t have used James’ typewriter, and you know yourself that except for working notes, she couldn’t leave a written message at one sentence.” I waved my fingers at the note. “If she’d really written this, it would’ve been several pages long at least.”

  A grin split Gene’s face then quickly died. He and Millay looked at each other. Gene said to Millay, “Make sure no one touches this or the case until they’re dusted. Keep on top of things. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He pulled me toward the door and past Officer Hicks’ rigid back.

  The fog had thinned enough to cause a nasty glare.

  Max Williams accosted us. “Is it true? Is Fran dead?” he asked. His jeans and T-shirt were rumpled, his gingery hair on end, and a crusty white trail of sleep tracked down his left cheek.

  “We’ll answer your questions later,” Gene said, still pulling me.

  The crowd gathered around the emergency vehicles parted to let us through. Gene ignor
ed the questions hurled at him as he hustled me into one of the police cars, turned north, drove half a mile, and pulled onto the shoulder of the road next to three cedar trees. Silence enveloped us except for the swish of grass as a couple of cows ambled away from us.

  He turned toward me. “You’re right about the note. That’s not Fran’s style at all.” His hand smoothed the moustache over the thin, arrogant mouth. “I don’t know about the rest.” He held up a large hand as I began to speak. “For the moment, I’ll take your word for it.”

  His fingers scrubbed through his red hair. He sighed. “If she didn’t die of natural causes—”

  “She was perfectly healthy—”

  “Except for her allergy to penicillin,” he said.

  “But she’d never take any of that! She knew how deadly it was to her—she wore that silver bracelet every moment of her life.”

  “But we can’t rule that out until after the autopsy.”

  “Not an autopsy,” I protested. “Oh, Gene, you don’t know how frightened she was of that. Please, can’t you protect her?”

  “I can’t, Liz.”

  “Her uncle used to tell stories about the bodies, the things they did, what they said, the horrible jokes. Oh, God—” my eyes filled with tears.

  “The best I can do is attend the autopsy. I’ll make sure they treat her—” his voice guttered out and tears filled his eyes, too. He swiped them away with his wrist. “I’ll make sure they do it by the book, that there aren’t any jokes.”

  I touched the cold, white-knuckled hand that gripped the steering wheel. “Thanks, Gene.”

  He nodded.

  We sat silently. He wasn’t in uniform this morning. He wore a blue flannel shirt with jeans. A nick from this morning’s shave marked the side of his jaw underneath the muscles that bunched, relaxed, and bunched again.

  A couple of raucous crows erupting suddenly from trees further up the road broke the spell of silence.

  “I don’t know what’s going on, Liz,” he said. “I’m going to assume for the moment that if Fran was murdered, it has something to do with Andre’s murder and with what she did when she disappeared from the library. If you know where she went and what she did, you’ve got to tell me now.”

  “She wouldn’t tell me.”

  He looked at me speculatively. He took a deep breath and slowly released it. I caught the minty scent of toothpaste. “Liz, you’re the one who’s discovered both bodies.”

  I jerked in surprise. I drew away from him, the armrest digging into my back as I twisted on the seat to face him. “You’ve known me all your life. You can’t think I’d—”

  “After awhile in this business, you can believe anything of anybody, but no, not you. But I can’t ignore the fact that you were the one to find both Andre and Fran. Why?”

  I shrugged.

  “Look at it this way: someone had a motive to kill Andre. If Fran was murdered, someone had a motive to kill her. If the same person did both those killings, maybe that someone also had a motive to involve you.” He scrubbed at his hair in frustration. “Did someone arrange for you to find them?”

  Nausea roiled in my stomach. I opened the car door and got out. I breathed in the sweet scent of grass and the tang of the cedars.

  Gene came to stand near me, resting a hip against the patrol car. “Anyone in the play would have known that the person in your role would find Andre. But it should have been Annamaria who found him; it was an accident that you were there in her place.”

  He stopped, a startled expression on his face. “Unless her death … unless she was killed so that you…” He straightened and looked at me, his blue eyes fierce, “Who knew you’d be at Fran’s this morning? Who’s out to get you, Liz?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Meg.

  For a moment I was terrified I’d said it aloud, but Gene continued to watch me, waiting for an answer. I turned away, taking a few steps along the road, watching the black-and-white cows tearing at the grass.

  I couldn’t believe Meg would plot anything this ugly, that she could kill Fran or possibly want to hurt me like this, but she was the only one who knew my plans for this morning. We’d kept it a secret between the three of us that we were going to the climbing gym. It would have driven Alisz nuts to think that her actors were chancing a broken ankle on the biggest day of the fund-raiser.

  I shivered. Maybe, maybe, Meg could have killed Andre, but she couldn’t have hurt Fran. But who else knew I’d be there to find Fran?

  “If you’re right—”

  Gene said, “For the moment, let’s go with it and see where it leads. Who knew you’d be here this morning?”

  “No one.”

  “Why did you come so early? Fran hated to get up early.”

  What was Gene going to find out anyway? What could I combine with that to make a plausible lie? And then I had it—the truth would serve.

  “We were planning to go to New Zealand.”

  “What?” His face turned red. “Dammit, Liz, I told you both you couldn’t leave town.”

  “Actually, you didn’t.”

  “Oh, jeez.” He glared down at me. “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard of. I’d have had to get you extradited or whatever, and the evidence against you would look twice as bad. That could get you hung in this state, you know!”

  “Hanged.”

  “Godammit, Liz!”

  “You don’t need to swear.”

  Silence fell between us.

  If I’d responded to Fran’s red-hot desire instead of my grey caution, we’d have been on a plane over the Pacific right now.

  Gene took a faded bandanna out of his pocket and handed it to me.

  “Thanks,” I said, dabbing at my eyes.

  Gene shifted restlessly. “I should get back.”

  “Okay,” I said, reaching for the handle. The sun broke through, highlighting a long streak on the window.

  He didn’t move but said in a low voice, “Maybe I should call in someone else to investigate.”

  “Someone with more experience?”

  “Millay and I are well trained, and the others are no slouches.” He frowned, “Of course, Lofty’s got a lot to learn—”

  While Gene worked on his problem, my mind wandered. Fran was so secretive about what she did Thursday night. I’d never seen her like that. If I knew where she’d gone, then maybe I’d have a link between the two murders.

  What hadn’t she wanted me to know? And why?

  Gene’s monologue snagged my attention. “This is my town, my case.”

  In the bright sunshine the lines around his eyes were as apparent as the strands of grey hair at his temples.

  “So what are you going to do?”

  He sighed. “Well, first, let’s go through the people who were there when Andre died. You tell me if any of them had a reason for wanting you to be the one to find Andre and/or Fran dead. Let’s see, how about Laurel or Sybil?”

  “I don’t see why. Sybil became director after I stopped working for the library system. We don’t know each other. There was another librarian between me and Laurel.”

  “She put a hell of a lot of time into the play.”

  Remembering what I’d seen yesterday, I said, “Maybe it was just an excuse to spend time with Victor?”

  Gene shrugged. “Depends on who was recruited first, doesn’t it? Did Laurel know Victor had a role?”

  “I approached Laurel with the offer to write the play months ago. She asked me to include a small part for her. I don’t think Victor was cast yet. You’d have to ask Alisz, she’s the one who’s been in charge of production.”

  “What about Victor, you have any dealings with him?”

  “No. I’d seen him at community theatre plays, but I’d never talked with him until dress rehearsal.” I hesitated, rubbed my thumb against the streak on the window.

  “What?”

  “Sheila says Victor’s violent with his wife.”

  “Yeah.”
>
  I shivered at the disinterest in his tone. Or was it matter-of-factness, his daily lot in life to deal with volatile domestic situations?

  “Okay, how about Alisz? She had plenty of reason to hate you. Maybe Jared believes in feuds?”

  I looked down at the lapis lazuli and gold bracelet on my left wrist and fingered the cracked stone. I glanced up at Gene. He looked grim.

  It must be really hard on him to suspect people he’d grown up with. “Why would she hate me? She’s the one who ended up with Hugh.”

  “After you threw him back into the pond.”

  I shrugged. “If anything, you’d think she’d be grateful to me, then, wouldn’t you? She did really well for herself.”

  A sly grin stretched his mouth. “You never did much like her, did you?”

  “I’ve always been nice to her,” I protested.

  “Yeah, I remember when she was a kid she dressed in a lot of your hand-me-downs,” he said.

  “That was Mother’s idea, not mine. It embarrassed both Alisz and me. It was a cruel thing to do in a town this small.”

  Both of us were quiet for a moment remembering the bow-legged little girl with the big hazel eyes who’d arrived in the middle of second grade. Her parents were refugees, and the only word of English Alisz spoke at first was “pleezz” with a huge question mark after it. She’d been teased unmercifully. Her home life hadn’t provided any respite—she’d had to take care of two younger brothers and a sister as her mother went mad.

  Gene kicked at a rock and it rolled into the ditch.

  “I’ve always respected her,” I said. “She’s worked so hard for what she wanted.”

  “You mean Hugh?”

  “Not just that, although her campaign would have made Napoleon proud, but going into the travel business with Annamaria, managing Hugh’s medical practice. She’s always going into a new business venture and making a profit.”

  “What about Jared?”

  I shrugged. “I’ve always gotten along with him.”

  “Even when you tried to stop him from dating Meg?”