A Really Cute Corpse

by Joan Hess

  I introduced her to Peter, who was mildly perplexed, then suggested the three of us go down to the dressing room. I heard the sound of a hammer and a muttered curse as we went through the auditorium, and I hoped Mac was not venting rage on the audio system—or its operator. Peter blinked at the damp, dreary basement wall, but said nothing.

  I tapped on the construction-paper star. “Cyndi, Eunice is here, and the police would like to have a word with you.”

  It seemed to be my week for lack of response. I tried the door, which was locked, then tapped again. Once I had pounded loud enough to rattle the dentures of the dead, I turned around and gave Peter a timid smile. “I guess she wandered away, too. I should have insisted she stay in the office, right?”

  He ignored the rhetorical question, although I suspected I would hear a lengthy exposition later. “What time will she come back tonight?” he said in a noticeably grim voice.

  “I always have her arrive two hours before the pageant,” Eunice cut in. “Some of the girls who arrive at the last minute look harried on stage, and the judges don’t care for that. It simply isn’t poised, and poise is everything, especially in the Big One.”

  “You could go talk to the Senator,” I said. “Or get Cyndi’s address from Eunice and run by there to talk to her.”

  “I don’t want her to be any more upset before the pageant,” Eunice declared firmly. “The judges can see that, too. Even though Cyndi’s not a contestant, she’s liable to encounter the same judges at other pageants. Concentration is everything. You may talk to her after the preliminary tonight, Lieutenant.” She hurried down the hallway and went up the stairs.

  Peter managed not to sputter, but his voice was strained as he said, “This is all very new to me, and I don’t seem to have a feel for proper pageant procedure. It would be very helpful, Mrs. Malloy, if you were to sit down with me and explain it.”

  “Over food?” I said.

  “A good idea, indeed. What time do you need to be back at the theater in order to oversee the preliminary round?”

  “By six,” I said, although the words turned to acid in my mouth. I thought up several incredibly wicked things to do to Luanne Bradshaw as we went upstairs and out into the real world.

  SIX

  Peter agreed to pick up Chinese and meet me at my apartment. I drove over to Luanne’s house, parked in the driveway, and hurried to the front door. I knocked, rang the doorbell, and was peering through the window when she at last came across the living room and opened the door.

  “My goodness,” she murmured, “are we gripped with pageant fever?”

  “Not exactly. I’ve been trying to call you for an hour to tell you what happened during the parade, but there was no answer. As usual, I assumed you were comatose on the floor and rushed over here to perform last rites and choose clothes for the mortician to dress you in. I was debating between the blue silk and the off-white linen, although the latter is a bit frivolous.”

  “I unplugged the telephone so that I wouldn’t be disturbed by calls from siding salesmen and incoherent assistant pageant directors. Come have a cup of tea and tell me your big news.”

  I noticed her cheeks were flushed and her eyes bright. As she turned away and limped toward the kitchen, I could see how thin she looked, almost gaunt and bony. It was not the result of a sprained ankle, I told myself as I trailed after her.

  “Do you have a fever?” I asked while she fiddled with the teapot.

  “No, I left the electric blanket on the highest setting when I napped. I’m out of food except for a box of crackers and a can of tuna fish. And zero-calorie celery, of course.”

  “Are you on a diet? You look like an inmate from a prisoner-of-war camp, you know. Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  “Of course, there are things I’m not telling you. If you knew all the despicable details of my life, you’d never take me to lunch. It’s an ephemeral response to all those svelte, petite girls with their skin-tight leotards and flabless thighs. It brings back memories of sleeker days, and I’ve always had a terror of turning into a lard pot. I promise I’ll be ready for nachos the day after the pageant. Tell me what happened at the parade.”

  I gave her a brief synopsis, delayed only by her laughter when I repeated the confrontation with dearly departed Arnie and my subsequent humiliation on Thurber Street. She sobered when I told her about the shot that had been fired as we started up the hill, but was again convulsed with laughter when I related the awkwardness that resulted from leaving the keys in the evidence.

  “Oh, my God,” she said. “This is incredible, just incredible. Who do you think fired the shot?”

  I took a sip of tea while I considered the possibilities, which immediately became limitless. “It depends on who the intended victim was. Steve is convinced it was initiated by the union, in which case the police will never find a clue to the sniper’s identity. The media were enchanted with that theory, naturally—it’s political intrigue, and in a dull election year.”

  “But what about the mishaps that have happened to Cyndi the last few days … the nail, the weight, and the nasty message written on her mirror?” Luanne said, frowning. “Do you think those were attempts on her life?”

  “To her chagrin, Steve dismissed all that with the undeniable truth that she is a small-town beauty queen and therefore unworthy of such attentions. She may have bested other girls in the pageant circle, but she’s a medium frog in a very small puddle. If the Senator were not so newsworthy, the local media might pick up the story, although it’s pretty weak.” I stuffed a cracker in my mouth. “Peter’s meeting me at home, so I’d better run. I’ll pick you up at five forty-five, unless you decide to stay home and saute your svelte body under an electric blanket.”

  “I’ll be ready. I arranged to meet the florist, the coach with the escorts, and the concession workers at six. The girls ought to be drifting in to get ready about then. Are the technical crewmembers planning to appear?”

  I shrugged, then went to my car and drove to my apartment, the top floor of an older house across from the campus. The rooms were small and the plumbing whimsical, but it had a nice view of the lawn stretching down from revered Farber Hall, an official landmark that had been condemned years ago for obvious reasons. Carlton, my deceased husband, had been assigned a fourth-floor office and worried for years about being killed by a chunk of plaster. A chicken truck got him first, but he probably had a valid cause for concern.

  I left my coat on a chair and went into the kitchen, where I found Peter, Caron, and Inez engaged in an epicurean frenzy. White cardboard cartons cluttered the table, along with cellophane packages of soy sauce and plastic tubs of hot mustard.

  “Having fun?” I asked while I made myself a stiff drink.

  “I must speak to you, Mother,” Caron said through a mouthful of bamboo shoots. “Inez and I have decided that Mac is overbearing, rude, abusive, and not the least bit grateful for our assistance. There was no reason for him to call me all sorts of tacky names simply because I tried to familiarize myself with the equipment.”

  Inez nodded. “He wasn’t very nice, Mrs. Malloy.”

  “We were both Shattered, absolutely Shattered,” Caron said. “We are thinking about spending the evening at the college library. After all, we are volunteers—not slaves to be screamed at by your heavy-handed slave driver.”

  Peter gave me an amused look, but had enough sense to stay out of the situation. As I’ve mentioned before, he does have a rational side. I, on the other hand, was close enough to the edge to rush in where angels wouldn’t even tiptoe.

  “You and Inez are not going to the library tonight. You are going to the theater because we cannot stage this nonsense without you. This nonsense happens to be very important to Luanne, who has already agreed to give you an inappropriate black dress and a beaded purse. She bought your soul, my dear, and you will deliver it to the theater.”

  Inez blinked at Caron. “A black dress?”

  �
��I was going to let you wear it,” Caron said, dismissing the treachery with a wave of her chopsticks. “We’ll go to the theater—if you promise to have a word with that man. You look awfully haggard, Mother. If I had my learner’s permit, I could drive so that you could rest.”

  I dumped the contents of a carton on a plate and picked up a fork. “I have a hard time imagining myself dozing serenely with you at the wheel.”

  “Moo Shu pork?” Peter said, trying not to smile.

  “Won ton very much,” I said. I had no difficulty not smiling.

  When we were done, Peter said he was going to Senator Stevenson’s hotel to discuss the incident during the parade. He agreed to personally deliver the senator/ judge/emcee to the theater at six-thirty, thus ensuring the continued well-being of a vital element of the pageant. I allowed Caron to sputter and Inez to whimper about the treatment they’d received from That Man, then ordered them to the car. We picked up Luanne and drove to the theater, all of us subdued by personal demons.

  The door was locked. I tapped with my car key until Mac came through the adjoining lobbies and unlocked the door for us. Caron nudged me forward and hissed that I’d promised to have a word. Inez hid behind her. As Luanne hobbled away to the office, I smiled at Mac and said, “The girls are truly sorry if they damaged the equipment. They wanted me to offer their apologies.”

  “Mother!” gasped a voice behind me.

  “What’s more,” I continued blithely, “they are willing to listen very carefully to your instructions and touch nothing except that which you indicate.”

  “That’s a comfort,” he said. His blue eyes swept coldly across the two cowerers, then alit on their protectress. “Now what was all this crap with the reporters and the police this afternoon? I didn’t agree to spontaneous press conferences in my theater, nor to policemen crawling all over the stage like a bunch of damn cockroaches. Some fool wasted a good half-hour of my time wanting to know where I was during the parade.”

  “And where were you?”

  “On the roof of a building, trying to put a bullet hole through Miss Thurberfest’s forehead. My only regret is that I missed her—and that pompous excuse for a politician.” He stalked off, muttering under his breath like a pouty locomotive.

  Caron and Inez began squawking at me. A man laden with flower arrangements came through the door and asked for Mrs. Bradshaw. A bulky man in a baseball cap and two dozen young brutes swarmed the lobby. Caron and Inez stopped squawking, but made no move to follow Mac in order to be lectured on the equipment. Cases of popcorn appeared mysteriously. A man with a dolly of sodas asked me where they went, lady. A sextet of beauty contestants came giggling through the door, then halted to giggle some more at the horde of escorts. The team made several crude remarks. A second group of contestants giggled in.

  It was showtime. Or almost, anyway.

  People were dispatched here and there. The would-be queens retreated to the basement to ready themselves; the escorts were escorted to the greenroom to receive instructions from their leader, along with sharp comments about fast hands and virgin territory. Caron and Inez stared longingly as Julianna breezed through the lobby, but stumbled away with much grousing to find Mac. The smell of popcorn competed with the redolence from an increasing number of flower arrangements. Music began to waft out of lobby walls. It seemed to be going so well that I was actually smiling as I went into the office.

  Luanne was on the telephone. I sank down on the couch and opened the notebook to make all sorts of checks, feeling optimistic that somehow we might survive the preliminary round without any devastating developments. Ho, ho.

  There I was, smiling and checking and relaxed and pretty damn pleased with myself, when Julianna and Chou-Chou’s trainer came into the office.

  “Mrs. Malloy,” Julianna said, her face pale under patches of blusher, “I think there’s something really, really wrong downstairs.”

  “That’s right,” Heidi breathed. “We didn’t want to upset the other girls, so we thought we’d better tell you.”

  “Low-wattage bulbs in the dressing room?” I said brightly, still firmly entrenched in my own little Wonderland.

  Julianna shook her head. “You’d better come, Mrs. Malloy. Maybe I was just imagining it, but I thought I smelled gas.”

  “And Chou-Chou wouldn’t stop barking until I put him in his traveling box,” the other girl said. “He just hates his box, but he was like driving everyone absolutely crazy. Dixie said she would drown him in the toilet if I didn’t make him be quiet.”

  Luanne covered the mouthpiece of the receiver. “I don’t like the sound of this, Claire. You’d better go with the girls and make sure everything’s okay.”

  I wasn’t especially pleased with Julianna’s premise that she might have smelled gas. I shooed them out the door and we hurried to the basement hallway. “Where did you think you smelled gas?” I demanded grimly. Julianna pointed at Cyndi Jay’s dressing room door. I continued to the end of the hallway and knocked. “Cyndi? Are you in there?” No one answered and the door was locked. I sent Julianna to get a key from Mac, then bent down and sniffed the keyhole. It was impossible to miss the smell of gas drifting through the round, black opening.

  I spun around and grabbed Heidi’s arm. “Run to the office and tell Mrs. Bradshaw there’s a natural gas leak in the dressing room. Have her call the emergency number for the gas company. Now!”

  Several of the contestants came out into the hallway. I told them to evacuate the basement until the leak was stopped and the cramped rooms were aired. Despite their protests about hair to be curled, makeup to be redone, and costumes to be secured with safety pins, they trooped up the stairs to wait in the auditorium.

  I tried the metal doors that led to the alley, but they were held closed by a chain and a padlock. Mac surely had a key, I thought in an increasingly panicky voice. We could cut off the gas, which was most likely leaking from the space heater, open the metal doors, and rig fans to blow out the gas. The girls could reassemble in time to do whatever they needed to do and be finished in time for the grand opening number.

  I was about to go to the stage and yell for Mac when same loped down the stairs, the key ring jangling harshly in his hand. He brushed me aside and bent down to jab a key in the lock. “What the hell’s going on?” he growled as he struggled with the key. “Did that airhead go off and leave the heater on?”

  The lock clicked and he shoved open the door. We both recoiled at the wave of gas that washed over us and filled the hallway. I managed to croak something about the metal doors, then stumbled backward, my eyes watering and my throat afire. I started to back up the stairs, then stopped as a horrible idea flashed across my mind. Mac was fumbling with the padlock as I dashed back down the hall and into the dressing room. Cyndi was slumped in the chair in front of the table, her head lolling against her chest. I slipped my hands under her arms and tried to lift her. She may have been petite, but she was damn hefty, I thought as I fought to hold the breath in my lungs.

  Just as my lungs threatened to explode, Mac came into the room, slung the body over his shoulder, and grabbed my wrist. I allowed myself to be dragged into the hallway and shoved through the open metal doors into the cool night air. I stumbled and fell, but stayed contentedly on the gravel as I fought nausea and hysterics. I succumbed to the first. Once I’d lost the lovely Chinese food, I sat back and stared at Mac. He was bent over a supine figure that was very still.

  “Call an ambulance,” he said.

  “Is she … is she okay?”

  “She’s alive, but she won’t be for long if you sit there and bat your eyelashes. Call an ambulance. Tell them to haul ass.”

  I ran around the building to the front door and through the lobby to the office. Luanne held the telephone receiver in her hand, but I snatched it from her, hit the disconnect button, and dialed 911. Once I was assured help would arrive within minutes, I told Luanne to send the paramedics to the alley behind the building and dashed back thro
ugh the front door. As I reached the sidewalk, Peter’s car pulled to a stop in front of me. Senator Stevenson sat in the passenger’s seat; Warren and a woman were in the back.

  I went around to Peter’s side and managed to croak out an abbreviated version of what had happened. Then, ignoring his spurt of questions, I ran around the corner and along the sidewalk to the back of the building. Mac was still bent over Cyndi’s body, his mouth covering hers as he administered resuscitation. I told him the ambulance was on its way, and was standing there helplessly as Peter came into the alley.

  “How is she?” he demanded.

  “Mac said she was alive. I ought to do something—but I don’t know what to do. I—I didn’t know she was in her dressing room. We should have unlocked her door earlier this afternoon. None of this should have happened. I feel—I feel responsible.” The hysteria I’d resisted earlier caught up with me. My voice collapsed into gulping sobs and my knees buckled. Peter caught me and held me tightly against his chest as blue lights flashed in the alley. A siren deafened us momentarily, then faded in a whining spiral. Men scrambled from the ambulance, barking questions. Equipment materialized. A radio from inside the ambulance crackled with static fury. A police car added to the confusion. A curious crowd gathered at the top of the alley, babbling and pointing at the body surrounded by kneeling paramedics.

  Mac, relieved of his job, moved away from the circle of paramedics. I forced myself to find some vestige of control, and fumbled in Peter’s pocket for his handkerchief. Once I’d wiped my face, I let Peter join the fracas and walked over to the edge of the alley where Mac stood, his hands in his pockets and his expression flat.

  “Thanks for dragging both of us out of there,” I said. “I couldn’t get a good grip on Cyndi, and I was about to pass out from the fumes.”

  Ignoring my expression of gratitude, he took a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one. He took a long drag as he studied the paramedics clustered around Cyndi. In a bemused voice, he said, “I don’t know how this happened. It wasn’t supposed to happen. Damndest thing that it did.”