Lies in White Dresses

by Sofia Grant

  Virgie held her chin up as she left, but the knowledge that she’d been dismissed burned. Everyone thought she was just a dumb kid, even though she could tell them things that would shock them. She was probably twice as observant as the younger cop, who didn’t even know that his fly was unzipped.

  On the way out of the suite Virgie nodded stiffly to Mrs. Samples and cast a sympathetic look at Mrs. Meeker, who had slumped further into the chair, clutching a tear-dampened handkerchief to her cheek.

  She had reported to her mother that she’d delivered the tea and that Mrs. Meeker looked well enough, considering, and that the cops were almost done searching the suite. Then Virgie announced she was going to return a library book, but instead she doubled back and slipped into the pantry and waited half an hour to make sure the cops were gone before sneaking up the back staircase.

  Now she listened to Mrs. Meeker cry and grew madder and madder. Mrs. Meeker obviously loved her friend very much, and her heart was broken, and all the while Mrs. Samples had just sat there pretending to care! Where were her tears, if they were really cousins? Virgie hadn’t yet figured out why they were traveling together, but something fishy was definitely going on: when they returned from the morgue, Mrs. Samples was wearing one of Mrs. Carothers’s dresses, a scarlet serge Virgie recognized from exploring Mrs. Carothers’s closet the night before while babysitting. It took a lot of nerve to steal from a dead woman, in Virgie’s opinion, but underneath Mrs. Samples’s shy, timid act there appeared to be a cool, calculating mind at work.

  And there was another thing. Mrs. Samples had asked another guest, an older lady from Utah, to watch Patty while she went to the morgue with the cops and Mrs. Meeker. Why not ask Virgie, since she was right there and had done such a good job last night? Mrs. Meeker had even given her an extra dollar as a tip and called her babysitting kit “clever”!

  The obvious reason Mrs. Samples asked someone else was that she was onto Virgie. Virgie had been careful, but maybe she’d disturbed something in Mrs. Samples’s room while she was investigating last night. Mrs. Samples might have even set a trap, like the one described in her treasured copy of George Barton’s Great Cases of Famous Detectives, where a crook had rigged a thread to his desk drawer that would break when it was opened, so he would know if someone had searched it.

  Though why would anyone take such care to trap an intruder but not hide the loot better? Maybe it was because Mrs. Carothers was waiting for Mrs. Samples to go out to dinner, so she had to just stash it the first place she could think of—her ratty old vanity case on the shelf in the bathroom, hidden under her toothbrush and cold cream.

  Which brought up one more angle of the mystery: What was with Mrs. Samples’s old, worn luggage and the ragged dresses hanging in her closet? If Mrs. Carothers had bought a new wardrobe for her stay in Reno, it might explain why Mrs. Meeker hadn’t noticed that Mrs. Samples was wearing her friend’s clothes, since they were very close in size. But if Mrs. Samples was so down on her luck, where had she gotten the outfit she’d worn last night? Was she just pretending to be poor?

  Virgie knew better than to leap to conclusions, but everything she was learning was starting to point to a very sinister explanation for Mrs. Samples’s behavior. Virgie dug out her notebook and started making a list.

  Mrs. S is pretending to be Mrs. C’s Long Lost cousin.

  Also she is pretending to be POOR. Because she wants to steal from Mrs. C but she needed to Gain Her Trust. So she Lied and said she was getting a Divorce when she found out Mrs. C was getting Her Own Divorce so Mrs. C would let her stay with her.

  She saw her chance to Steal the ring when Mrs. C took it off in the Bathroom and put it in her train case. Because it didn’t go with her dinner outfit??? Since Mrs. S found it in the Bathroom she put it in her own case but she was probably planning to move it later but when she got back it was GONE.

  Now she can’t leave until she gets it back. And also if Mrs. C saw it was missing she would tell the police and they would know Mrs. S took it because No One else was in the room.

  “Except for me,” Virgie said out loud, chewing on her pencil. “And Mrs. Meeker.”

  DID MRS. S KILL MRS. C?????

  Is Patty even her real baby? Why does Patty cry so much and Also she doesn’t look like Mrs. S.

  Why did she steal a baby?

  Virgie stared at the list. These were shocking conclusions, but Virgie had heard Mrs. Meeker telling the police that Mrs. Carothers couldn’t swim. All Mrs. Samples would have had to do would be to invite her on a late-night stroll, and when they got to the bend where the water was deeper, push her in.

  Virgie was getting a very bad feeling.

  If Mrs. Samples had killed Mrs. Carothers to keep her from calling the police about the ring, what would she do to her? Virgie was going to have to be very careful from here on. Now that she thought about it, it was for the best that Mrs. Samples had found another babysitter—Virgie needed to avoid being alone with her.

  She had a sudden, terrible thought. Mrs. Carothers certainly looked ill when she arrived, and she was too thin. What if Mrs. Samples had been slowly poisoning her, like the woman in England who’d put tiny amounts of arsenic in her husband’s tea for weeks until he died? But then why steal the ring now when she could have just waited until Mrs. Carothers was dead?

  Mrs. Meeker’s sobs were subsiding into a muffled moan. Virgie knew how these things went, how you could tire yourself out crying. Soon she’d fall asleep.

  Virgie opened the door a crack and checked up and down the hall before leaving the room. She patted her pocket, where she’d stashed her book. She still had time to get to the library to return it before her mother expected her back.

  Chapter 16

  Francie

  The police allowed Mrs. Swanson to drive them back, but insisted on coming upstairs to search Vi’s room, saying it was standard in a case like this. Like what? Francie had asked, distraught at the thought of them going through her things, but the police officers had glanced at each other and declined to answer.

  She and June sat silently in the living room as the officers moved around the suite. Virgie came by with cookies sent by her mother, but Francie couldn’t even muster a polite thanks, and the girl soon left. Mercifully, the search was mostly focused on Vi’s bedroom and didn’t take long.

  “Are you finished?” she asked when they came out.

  “For now,” Officer Crandall said. “We’ll be in touch if we need anything more from you. And you should call if . . . anything else occurs to you.”

  “And that’s it? You’ve decided it was an accident?”

  “That’ll be the official report, yes.” Crandall looked at her meaningfully. “It’s for the best.”

  “We, uh, saw her rosary,” Franklin said quietly.

  Defeated, Francie gave up and ushered them out of the suite. They were right—ruling Vi’s death a suicide would cause a scandal among her family, her church, everyone she knew. And it wasn’t like the police could have told her anything she didn’t already know.

  “I’m going to take some of her things to my room,” she said to June once they were gone. “It’s not that I don’t trust you—you must know that. I just . . .”

  She just wanted them close. She’d make sure it all got back to Harry—or rather, to the boys—but she needed something, anything of Vi’s now.

  “I understand,” June said. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say. Is there anything I can do?”

  “No, but thank you,” Francie said, starting to go through Vi’s purse. She’d watched the cops go through it already, and there was nothing she hadn’t seen a hundred times before. She took the wallet and Vi’s address book and dropped them in her own pocketbook.

  She checked the bathroom, but there was only Vi’s train case sitting on a shelf next to June’s old, worn vanity case. Francie opened it and took her bottle of Ma Griffe—the only scent Vi ever wore—and sprayed a bit on her wrist before putting the perf
ume in her purse. Francie was about to leave the room when she spotted Vi’s hairbrush with a few strands of her hair caught in the bristles. She picked it up and smelled it—and a sob escaped her; when she closed her eyes, Vi might as well have been standing right there, asking her to zip her dress.

  She slipped the brush in her purse with a feeling of shame. No one would understand why she had to have it—she wasn’t sure she understood herself.

  In the bedroom, she was disappointed to find nothing personal, just Vi’s clothes, a book that looked as if she hadn’t even opened it, a water glass with an inch of water and a smudge of lipstick on the rim. Francie looked over her shoulder to make sure June hadn’t followed her into the room, and then she drank the water.

  She was looking for clues, but Vi had left no trace of herself here. Whatever secrets she’d kept had died with her.

  “I think I’ll go lie down,” she said when she came out, not meeting June’s eyes. “I’m sorry you got caught up in all of this.”

  “Oh, please, don’t say that,” June said, wringing her hands. “Please don’t worry about me at all.”

  “Goodbye,” Francie said, then stopped herself at the door. “What about Patty? Don’t you need to go get her?”

  “Yes, but I thought . . . I didn’t want you to be alone.”

  The poor girl, she’d probably been worried sick about her daughter. “That was very thoughtful, but I’m fine.”

  Francie wasn’t the least bit fine, but it wouldn’t do to burden June, who, despite her kindness, was a stranger. She couldn’t think of anything else to say and so she went downstairs without even waiting for June to lock the door. Francie was aware that she was being rude, but she couldn’t help it—the social grace that had become second nature after all these years had deserted her.

  The minute she was alone in her room, she called Arthur. When she heard his familiar, kindly voice, she burst into tears.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked in alarm.

  Francie managed to compose herself enough to get the story out—the official version, that it had been an accident. Arthur was shocked, of course—and terribly sad; he and Vi had always been close. But he immediately started trying to console her; he’d always been good at making people feel better.

  “I’ll come as soon as I can,” he said.

  “Oh, Arthur, you needn’t rush. You’ll come for the service, of course—it would mean a great deal to the boys. But there’s so much to do, so many people to notify, and all that travel and lodging to arrange . . . you do think it’s the right thing to do, don’t you? Lay her to rest with her parents?”

  “Yes, if that’s what she wanted. Although Harry may disagree.” Arthur had always tried to conceal his dislike of Harry, but for decades the two men had almost nothing to talk about. “But her wishes are all that matter, I suppose.”

  “I know people will talk—but I just can’t bear the thought of her lying next to him for eternity, when he’s been carrying on right under her nose all this time.”

  “Let them talk.” Brave words, coming from Arthur. “Shall I tell the children?”

  Francie hadn’t thought that far ahead. Vi had been part of the family—of course the children should know right away. “If you would . . . Tell them I’ll call with the details of the funeral just as soon as I can. Oh, and please ask Alice to find my black crape. And she’ll need—never mind, I’ll call her myself tonight.”

  “I’ll talk to them. And I’ll make arrangements for John to take over, so I can take some time off.” John was Arthur’s most trusted employee, someone he was grooming to run the printing business when he eventually retired.

  “Really, you should take your time. I’ll be fine.”

  “You know I don’t mind, Francie. Just because we’re . . .” His voice trailed off. Both had avoided saying the word divorce whenever possible; it had hung between them like an impending surgery, something necessary but dreaded. “You know I would never let you go through this alone.”

  Francie sat in silence for a while after they hung up. She was new at shouldering burdens without Arthur—for decades they had shared every sorrow and joy. Getting through the coming days without him was unthinkable; returning to San Francisco as a single woman and living alone in that big empty house, unimaginable. For a moment she wondered if she’d made a mistake in giving him the divorce.

  But in the next moment she thought of how his eyes had filled with cautious hope when she proposed the idea, how even as he assured her that he would always love her, that they would always be close, she could hear in his voice that already he was moving away from her toward his new life. She could not take that away from him.

  She went into the bathroom to splash water on her face. There was much to be done.

  Chapter 17

  It took three calls, fifty dollars, and more than two hours to reach Harry Carothers—and when Francie finally did, she was immediately reminded of what an important person he considered himself to be.

  She’d called his San Francisco office first, and Eugenia—a grandmotherly woman with an unfortunate birthmark on her cheek, whom Harry had hired as penance after Vi found out about his affair with her predecessor—had given her the phone number of the hotel where he and the boys were staying in Las Vegas. Eugenia also confided that the police had called not an hour before with the terrible news and that she’d been trying to reach Harry before they did, to no avail.

  The girl at the front desk at the El Rancho Vegas told Francie that all three Mr. Carothers had left that morning for the test site in the desert, where they were overseeing the grand opening. There was no way to reach them by phone, but Francie was unwilling to have Charlie and Frank find out the news from a stranger. Knowing better than to make her case to someone with no power to help, she politely asked the girl if she could be connected to the hotel manager, adding that she’d be sure to tell him how efficient his front desk staff was.

  The hotel manager came on the line and asked how he could be of service and Francie summoned her most imperious voice and explained that a tragedy had taken place. Mr. Carothers must be notified as soon as possible, she explained, even if that meant the hotel manager had to drive into the desert himself. When she explained that she was willing to pay handsomely, the manager called the valet supervisor, who promised that he’d leave immediately.

  Then Francie waited, pacing the room and smoking. As the minutes turned into an hour, and then another, despair caught up with her. She lay down on the bed and hugged the pillow to her chest and whispered Vi’s name and started crying again. She tried to muffle the sound with a pillow, but the grief poured from her and there was no way to contain it; it seemed to expand to fill the room—and then, gently, the tide turned, and the tears dried up and she was left spent and exhausted.

  She’d been lying like that, the pillowcase damp beneath her cheek, when the phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Francie, it’s Harry. How on earth did you convince that kid to drive out here? I had to hitch a ride to a lumberyard forty-five minutes away just to find a phone.”

  “Harry,” Francie said, remembering that Harry had an irregular heartbeat and also had loved Vi in his own selfish, thoughtless, cruel way. She pictured him out on that sweltering stretch of sand, about to have his world turned upside down. “Are the boys with you?”

  “Frank’s back at the site—I sent Charlie out to fetch lunch.”

  “I’m afraid I have some terrible, terrible news.”

  “What? Yeah, I know. Cops showed up an hour before the fellow from the hotel. Reno cops called up, had the Vegas chief send a couple of guys out here.” Somewhat belatedly, he added, “I can’t believe she took a chance like that. Poor Vi.”

  He knew? “A chance like what?”

  “Getting too close to the water. She knew she couldn’t swim. Cops said the banks are soft from the rains right now—probably just gave way right under her and she slipped.”

  “They don’t kno
w that,” Francie said, and then regretted it. If the cops hadn’t mentioned the possibility that Vi had gone into the water on purpose, that she’d . . . Francie couldn’t bear to think about it. But it would be better if the boys never knew.

  “Slipped, fell, tripped, does it matter?”

  Of course it mattered. And shouldn’t he be consoling their sons right now?

  “She’s dead,” she said. “Do you understand that, Harry? Vi is dead. She’s not coming back.”

  A sob escaped her, an ugly, gulping sound. She hadn’t meant to cry—she didn’t want to cry in front of Harry. He didn’t deserve her tears!

  “Francie?” Harry said. She could hear the wind in the background. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, rooting through her pocketbook for her handkerchief and wiping her nose savagely. “Have you told the boys?”

  “Of course I told the boys. I told them as soon as I heard.” Now he sounded affronted. “They’re taking it like real soldiers.”

  A memory of the two of them one long-ago Easter came to mind—Frank was a little man of seven, so proud of his Easter suit, and Charlie was a chubby, disheveled six with a headful of russet curls. The Carotherses had come for dinner, and afterward, as the adults finished off their lemon merengue pie, Charlie had fed Alice an entire chocolate bunny and she’d thrown up all over his pressed white shirt and his little tie. She’d been only four at the time, but she’d already loved Charlie.

  Everyone loved Charlie—but none so much as Vi. She’d adored both her boys, but Frank had been the apple of his father’s eye and Charlie was often left behind. He was kind like his mother, and generous, and if his father thought him soft, Vi had seen through to the quiet strength inside. He was built to endure, just like she was.

  Until she apparently couldn’t endure anymore.