A Really Cute Corpse

by Joan Hess

  The emcee offered his congratulations, then peered myopically through red-rimmed eyes at the card in his hand. “Wasn’t that wowsy? Now our next contestant has the cutest little pooch you folks are likely to see. Let’s have a big welcome for Heidi and Chou-Chou!”

  “Heidi’s the tall one,” I whispered to Peter as two pink-clad performers came onto the stage. One had a hula hoop and an optimistic expression; the other had beady black eyes and a defiant glower. To the audience’s surprise ( and perhaps disappointment) , the former coaxed the latter through the hoop without a single drop shed on the stage.

  Once the applause faded, Heidi put her hands on her hips and glared at the light booth above our heads. “See?” she snapped. “The only reason Chou-Chou had problems before was that one of the contestants was so jealous she kept feeding peepee pills to poor little Chou-Chou. It wasn’t his fault at all, Mr. Meanie!” She snatched up the dog and stalked offstage.

  “Peepee pills?” Peter said incredulously.

  “Diuretics. Dixie, the clarinetist, wasn’t supposed to be in the theater after the parade, so she couldn’t admit that was when she heard a male voice in Cyndi’s dressing room. She called me last week and we had a long talk. She cried, and I tried very hard not to laugh.”

  Luanne was on the other side of me. She caught my eye and tried very hard not to laugh. We were both snorting away as Julianna came on stage and flashed shiny teeth at the judges. In the wings, Eunice Allingham watched with a satisfied expression, her eyes on the contestant but her mind fifteen hundred miles away at the Big One. I could almost hear her humming.

  The awesome display of talent subsided, and while the contestants changed into evening gowns, the emcee told several off-color jokes that would have played better at the Dew Drop Inn. In the more sedate confines of the Thurber Street Theater, the silence was eloquent. Mayor Avery’s ears turned pink, and Ms. Maugahyder’s hand froze in middoodle. A bray of laughter floated down from the light booth.

  “What’s going to happen to Mac?” I asked Peter.

  “Not nearly enough. Although he could have been of great assistance to the prosecution, it seems someone has rekindled his political aspirations. We’ll try to peg him for obstruction and a few pesky charges, but we’re getting a lot of pressure from the Governor’s office and higher powers that be to stay away from him. Patti Stevenson’s father carries a very big stick. Not big enough to protect her entirely, but adequate to keep things very quiet. The prosecutor has hourly migraines.”

  The girls swirled back onstage to field demanding questions from the emcee. Julianna said in a steady voice that she wanted to speak for her generation, fight poverty, and help make the world a better place. Dixie admired Mother Teresa and Madonna. Lisa I and Lisa II both aspired to spread understanding and love throughout the country via modeling. Bambi wanted to feed all the underprivileged people, and then model. Dixie also wanted to be the spokesperson for her generation, thus bathing us all in peace and understanding and brotherhood and that sort of thing, you know. Heidi wanted us to know how really much this all had meant to her and Chou-Chou.

  After more swirling and simpering, the girls huddled in the center of the stage while the judges scribbled, passed notes, whispered, scribbled, and looked up every now and then at the would-be queens. The audience wiggled around restlessly. The emcee turned his back, but I saw the flash of a flask moving from pocket to mouth and back to pocket. A faint howl came from the greenroom.

  I poked Luanne. “You’re going to the therapist every day, right? If you let me down, you know how hard I’ll blotch.”

  “Every single day,” she said in a low voice. “I had the bulemia licked for years, but the pageant set it off again. I haven’t binged since the morning after the second murder. I’m doing heavy-duty vitamin therapy, and following the shrink’s orders down to the last stalk of celery.”

  “Will you swear to that on your neighbor’s vine-ripened tomatoes? As much as it would interfere with my long hours of inertia at the Book Depot or my ever so cheerful chats with my accountant, I will find you three times a day to make sure you’re following orders. Damn it, Luanne, I care about you. Bulemia’s serious. It can do dreadful things to your stomach, throat, and mouth. It plays havoc with your body chemistry. How will Caron Malloy run around in inappropriate black cocktail dresses if you’re not there to clothe her over her mother’s protests?”

  “I know, I know,” she murmured. “It’s a dangerous, potentially fatal compulsion. I started when I first began participating in the beauty pageants, where one’s body is everything and every ounce of flab is an enemy. After a while, my body became my enemy. It’s going to take intensive therapy to work that out, but I do intend to hang around if for no other reason than to clothe over protest.”

  “I feel guilty that I didn’t figure out what you were doing behind locked bathroom doors, but I associate bulemia with younger women. You’ve already had your midlife crisis, my gray-headed friend. You should be fighting an urge to overdose on Mah Jongg or lithe young gigolos with sunlamp tans.”

  “While you, of course, are decades away from a midlife crisis?” she whispered tartly.

  Before I could respond, Mayor Avery gave the emcee the envelope. While the audience held its collective breath, we worked our way from sixth runner-up to first runner-up. Julianna shrieked, burst into tears, and was swarmed by her court. Caron Malloy, a child of many talents, appeared with a crown and stuck it into Julianna’s upswept hair. Eunice’s arms remained crossed as she gazed at her gal, but her eyes glittered more brightly than all the Vasolined teeth on the stage.

  Miss Thurberfest reigned supreme.

  “What was all that muttering about midlife crises?” Peter asked once we were on the sofa in my living room.

  I poured two glasses of wine and handed one to him. “It’s an excuse adults use for behaving in an adolescent manner. A rationale for irrational behavior. Teetering on the brink of middle age doesn’t give one a license to abandon responsibility for a few cheap thrills.”

  “Oh,” he murmured, trying to sound wise. “Then we’re too old to change our ways, huh? We’ll just trudge along in our respective ruts until we drop?”

  “Who’s in a rut? A lifestyle isn’t necessarily a rut. It’s order and continuity. It’s a sense of comfortableness, of knowing what you want from life and how best to acquire it.”

  “Not even one little cheap thrill?”

  I looked at the broad grin, the hint of gray in the curls over his temples, the deceptively mild color of his eyes. “Can I help it if I have reservations?” I said, shrugging.

  “I know you have reservations,” Peter murmured, moving in with great charm. He nibbled here and there, then added, “I suppose I’ll have to trudge along in the rut until I wear you down.”

  “For these reservations, you need a passport.”

  THE CLAIRE MALLOY MYSTERIES BY JOAN HESS

  STRANGLED PROSE

  THE MURDER AT THE MURDER AT THE MIMOSA INN

  DEAR MISS DEMEANOR

  ROLL OVER AND PLAY DEAD

  A DIET TO DIE FOR

  A REALLY CUTE CORPSE

  DEATH BY THE LIGHT OF THE MOON

  POISONED PINS

  A HOLLY, JOLLY MURDER

  A CONVENTIONAL CORPSE

  OUT ON A LIMB

  THE GOODBYE BODY

  Available from St. Martin’s Paperbacks

  PRAISE FOR JOAN HESS AND HER CLAIRE MALLOY NOVELS

  “Fast paced … the ending should surprise you.”

  —Winston Salem-Journal on A Really Cute Corpse

  “Joan Hess fans will find a winning blend of soft-core feminism, trendy subplots, and a completely irreverent style that characterizes both series and the sleuth, all nicely onstage.”

  —Houston Chronicle

  “Whether she’s hammering my funny bone or merely passing a feather beneath my nose, Joan Hess always makes me laugh. Murder only raises Joan Hess’s wicked sense of humor. Enjoy!”


  —Margaret Maron, author of Storm Track

  “Definitely entertaining. Hess deftly sprinkles red herrings and odd characters throughout.”

  —Library Journal on

  The Murder at the Murder at the Mimosa Inn

  “Dear Miss Demeanor is great fun … Hess’s poniard is tipped with subtle wit.”

  —Chicago Sun Times on Dear Miss Demeanor

  More …

  “Hess’s theme is a serious one, but she handles it with wit. Claire is an appealing character, and this is an engaging mystery for anyone who likes crime mixed with comedy.”

  —Booklist on Roll Over and Play Dead

  “Hess’s style—that of a more worldly Erma Bombeck—rarely flags. Amiable entertainment with an edge.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Joan Hess is one funny woman.”

  —Susan Dunlap

  “Joan Hess is the funniest mystery writer to come down the pipe since England’s incomparable Pamela Branch. And oh, how well Joan writes.”

  —Carolyn G. Hart

  “Hess is not only witty, but has a lot of insight into human motivation that moves the story along in fine fashion.”

  —Mysterious News

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  DAMSELS IN DISTRESS

  Coming soon in hardcover from St. Martin’s Minotaur

  “Good morrow, Kate, for that is your name, I hear.”

  I blinked at the young man in the doorway. “Well have you heard, but something hard of hearing. They call me Claire Malloy that do talk of me.”

  “You lie, in faith, for you are call’d plain Kate, and bonny Kate, and sometimes Kate the curst, but Kate, the prettiest Kate in Farberville. Kate of Kate Hall, my superdainty Kate, for dainties are all Kates, and therefore—”

  “Mother,” Caron said as she came out of my office, “who is This Person?”

  “I have no idea,” I admitted.

  The peculiar man came into the bookstore and bowed, one arm across his waist and the other artfully posed above his head. He was dressed in a white shirt with billowy sleeves, a fringed leather tunic, purple tights, suede boots with curled toes, and a diamond-patterned conical cap topped with a tiny bell. His brown hair dangled to his shoulders, rare among the traditionally minded Farber College students. “Perchance miladies will allow me to maketh known myself?”

  “This milady thinks you ought to maketh known thyself to the local police,” Caron said, edging toward me. “Start with the Sheriff of Nottingham.”

  He stood up and swept off his cap. “Pester the Jester, or Edward Cobbinwood, if it pleaseth you all the more.”

  “Not especially,” I said. “Would you care to explain further?”

  “Okay, I’m a grad student at the college and a member of ARSE. I was assigned to talk to all the merchants at the mall and on Thurber Street about the Renaissance Fair in two weeks. We’d like to put up flyers in the store windows and maybe some banners. Fiona is hoping you’ll let us use the portico in front of your bookstore for a stage to publicize the event.”

  “A Renaissance Fair? I haven’t heard anything about this.” I noticed Caron’s sharp intake of breath and glanced at her. “Have you?”

  She nodded. “I was going to tell you about it when you got home this evening. The AP history teacher sent a letter to everybody who’s taking her course in the fall. We have to either participate in this fair thing or write a really ghastly midterm paper. I don’t think she should be allowed to blackmail us like this. Inez and I are going to get up a petition and have everybody sign it, then take it to the school board. I mean, summer is supposed to be our vacation, not—”

  “I get your point,” I said.

  “Look not so gloomy, my fair and freckled damsel,” added Edward Cobbinwood. “It’ll be fun. We put on a couple of Ren fairs when I was in undergraduate school. It’s like a big costume party, with all kinds of entertainment and food. ARSE will stage battles, and perhaps a gallant knight in shining armor will fight for your honor.”

  Caron glared at him. “I am perfectly capable of defending my honor without the help of some guy dressed in rusty hubcaps.”

  “What’s ARSE?” I asked.

  “The Association for Renaissance Scholarship and Enlightenment. It’s not a bunch of academics who meet once a year to read dry papers and argue about royal lineage or the positive side of the feudal system. Anybody can join. The country is divided into kingdoms, counties, and fiefdoms. The local group is Avalon. There are just a few members in town this summer, but when the semester starts in September, Fiona says—”

  “Fiona Thackery,” Caron said with a sigh, not yet willing to allow me to dismiss her imminent martyrdom. “The AP history teacher. I’m thinking about taking shop instead. I’ve always wanted to get my hands on a nail gun. Or if I take auto mechanics, I’ll learn to change tires and … tighten bolts and stuff like that. That way, when your car falls into a gazillion bits, I’ll know how to put it back together. That’s a lot more useful than memorizing the kings of England or the dates of the Napoleonic Wars.”

  “You’re taking AP history,” I said. “If you want to work at a garage on the weekends, that’s fine with me.”

  She gave me a petulant look. “Then you can write the midterm paper. Compare and contrast the concepts of Hellenism and Hebraism in The Divine Comedy and The Canterbury Tales. Cite examples and footnote all source material. Five thousand word minimum. Any attempt at plagiarism from the Internet or elsewhere will result in a shaved head and six weeks in the stocks.”

  I cupped my hand to my ear. “Do I hear the lilting melody of ‘Greensleeves’ in the distance?”

  “The only recorder I’m playing,” Caron said sourly, “will have a tape in it.”

  Edward seemed to be enjoying the exchange, but fluttered his fingers and strolled out of the Book Depot to bewilder and beguile other merchants along the street. He must have had a recorder tucked in his pocket, because we could hear tootling as he headed up the hill. It may have been “Greensleeves,” but it was hard to be sure. I hoped he wasn’t a music major.

  “Goodness gracious,” said Inez Thornton as she came into the bookstore. Her eyes were round behind her thick lenses. “Did you see that weirdo in the purple tights?”

  Inez has always been Caron’s best friend through thick and thin ( aka high crimes and misdemeanors) . Caron, red-haired and obstinate, faster than a speeding bullet except when her alarm clock goes off in the morning, able to leap over logic in a single bound, is the dominant force. Meek, myopic Inez is but a pale understudy in Caron’s pageant, but equally devious. Encroaching maturity tempers them at times. There are, of course, many other times.

  “Tell me more about the letter from your history teacher,” I said.

  Caron grimaced. “This Renaissance Fair sounds so juvenile. Everybody has to dress up as something and go around pretending to be a minstrel or a damsel or a pirate or something silly like that. There’s a meeting tomorrow afternoon at the high school so we can get our committee assignments. It’s like Miss Thackery thinks we’re already in her class. She shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this. It’sit’s unconstitutional!”

  “That’s right,” said Inez, nodding emphatically. “Aren’t we guaranteed life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?”

  “I’m not sure reading Chaucer and Dante will make you all that happy, but you never know,” I said. “You’ll find copies on the back shelf. Help yourselves.”

  Rather than take me up on my
generous offer, they left. I would have felt a twinge of maternal sympathy had they not been muttering for more than a month about how bored they were. I’d never been to a Renaissance Fair, but I supposed it was similar to a carnival show, with tents, booths, and entertainment—not to mention men clad in armor made of aluminum foil, bashing each other with padded sticks.

  Pester the Jester did not reappear, to my relief. I’ve always been leery of men in tights, especially purple ones ( tights, not men) . The few customers who drifted in were dressed in standard summer wear and more interested in paperback thrillers and travel books than in Shakespeare. Business is sluggish in the summer, when most of the college students have gone home and their professors are either wandering through cavernous cathedrals in Europe or sifting sand at archeological digs. The academic community as a whole comprises nearly a quarter of Farberville’s population of 25, 000 semi-literate souls. Their civilian counterparts tend to do their shopping at the air-conditioned mall at the edge of town when the temperature begins to climb.

  At 6: 00 P. M. I locked the doors and went across the street to the beer garden to meet Luanne Bradshaw, who owns a vintage clothing shop on Thurber Street. It could have been a hobby, not a livelihood, since she not only comes from a wealthy family on the East Coast but also divorced a successful doctor and left him barefoot in the parkor, at least, penniless in the penthouse. However, she chose to rid herself of most of her ill-gotten gains via trusts and foundations, dumped her offspring on the doorsteps of prestigious prep schools, and headed for the hinterlands. Farberville definitely falls into that category. Despite being in the throes of a midlife crisis that may well continue until she’s ninety, she’s disarmingly astute.