“Not that long. About eight or nine years.” I stopped at a water fountain. My mouth felt dry. I could be standing here talking with a murderer in this great hollow hall and my guardian angel seemed to have abandoned me.
“Your job takes you all over the campus, so you must have a pretty good idea of what goes on. Do you know if the girl who drowned and the one who fell from the Tree House had anything in common with D. C. Hunter?”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t know nothin’ about that.”
“What about boyfriends? Were Rachel Isaacs and the Martinez girl seeing anybody in particular?”
Londus frowned. “Martin who?”
I repeated the name. “The newspaper account said you found her body beneath the Tree House. Remember?”
He nodded, shoving his handkerchief in his back pocket. “She fell. That girl fell. Sure were a sad thing.”
“Some people think she might’ve been meeting somebody that night—a boy, maybe. And what about the girl who drowned? A pretty girl like that must’ve had a boyfriend.”
Londus clutched his mop with both hands. “I didn’t pay no mind to them,” he said. “But that girl they found in the shed—what’s her name, B.C.?”
“D. C. Hunter.”
“Yeah, her. I’m real sorry for what happened to her, but I seen what she was doin’, and she weren’t no better than she oughta be, sneakin’ out and meetin’ that man thataway. And he weren’t neither.”
I nodded solemnly. “I guess you must notice a lot that goes on here.”
Londus cleared his throat and blew his nose as if he could get rid of all the bad things at Sarah Bedford College. “More than you’d think,” he said. “More than you’d ever believe.”
“I wonder what he meant by that,” I said to Augusta, who waited on the stairs. I knew she’d overheard every word.
She paused briefly to glance at her reflection in the mirror that hung on the landing. “It seems to me that Londus Clack knows more than he’s letting on,” she said.
I repeated the question to Celeste and her roommate, Debra, later that afternoon, after telling them about my conversation with Londus. The weather was mild and the three of us sipped Cokes on the sunny steps of Emma P. Harris Hall.
“Londus doesn’t miss much,” Celeste said. “He not only sees who you go out with, he knows what time you get in, if you keep your room neat, or if you’ve sneaked beer into the dorm.”
“Well, if he knows anything, he’s not telling,” I said. “Another student died several years ago, apparently from a fall from the Tree House, and Londus was the one who discovered the body. I asked him if the three girls had anything in common, but I couldn’t get to first base with him. Claimed he didn’t know anything about that.”
Debra frowned. “I never knew there was another death. Do they know what caused her to fall?”
“Are they sure she fell?” Celeste wanted to know.
“That’s what everybody thought—still do, I guess,” I said. “The three girls who died were all new to the campus. Two of them were freshmen and D.C. was a junior, but she’d been to school in England until this year. That’s the only thing I can see they had in common.” I leaned against the brick pillar at the foot of the steps. “I realize D.C. was unpopular, but did she have any special enemies?”
Celeste grinned. “Do you have a phone book?”
“She and Leslie Monroe were having it out down in the laundry room one day not long ago,” Debra said. “I thought they were going to start punching each other. Kinda freaked me out.”
“What started it?” I asked.
“D.C. wanted to use the dryer, so she threw Leslie’s clean clothes on the floor. Leslie had to wash them all over again.”
Celeste turned the can of Coke in her hands as if studying the label. “I heard she pitched a hissy fit at rehearsal one night. Actually threw a script at Katy Jacobs.”
Debra’s eyes grew wide. “What happened?”
“D.C. was late, so Mrs. Treadwell—that’s the director,” Celeste told me, “put Katy in her role for the first scene. Katy was the understudy, you know, and D.C. had to wait until it was over to take her place. Made her mad enough to snag lightning, they said.”
“When did that happen?” I asked.
“I think it was about a week before she disappeared,” Celeste said. “Katy says she feels funny about playing that role now.”
Debra drained her drink and scooted down a step into the sun. “That girl made more people cry than a bushel of onions. I don’t see how her roommate could stand her.”
“I guess she just got used to her,” Celeste said.
Debra made a face. “Shoot! You could get used to hanging if it didn’t kill you.”
We were still laughing when somebody screamed.
“Oh, dear God, what’s happened now?” Celeste jumped to her feet and started running toward the sound.
“Sounds like it’s coming from the cafeteria,” I said.
Debra looked at me and shrugged. “I asked Mrs. Benson not to serve that leftover spaghetti again!” And she took off after her roommate.
I hurried across the quad behind them as girls streamed out of dorms and classrooms, collecting on the leaf-strewn campus in a jittery chattering mass. Joy Ellen Harper rushed from her building, running toward the cafeteria faster than I would have thought possible, and I waded through a crowd of students to see what was going on. Please, not another murder! I thought, looking about frantically for Leslie Monroe. Across the campus, Blythe Cornelius stood on the steps of Main Hall with a bewildered-looking Dean Holland leaning on her arm.
“What’s going on, Miss Lucy?” Paula Shoemaker worked her way over to me, remembering, no doubt, her own screams of only a few days ago. “Do you think there’s been—”
I put an arm around her shoulders. “Let’s hope not,” I said, wishing Augusta were nearby. We could use her tranquil influence now.
“It’s Pearl!” The girl they call Troll appeared beside us. “You know—that lady who works in the cafeteria? The one who laughs a lot.”
But Pearl wasn’t laughing now, and when we reached the steps of the building I saw why.
Willene Benson stood in the doorway with her frail arms part-way around a large hysterical woman. On the floor at their feet lay a big white apron like the ones we wore to boil pokeberries, only this one wasn’t stained with berry juice. It was spattered with what looked a lot like blood.
If the scene in front of us hadn’t been so frightening, it would have been funny. Pearl, who was at least six inches taller and about seventy pounds heavier than Willene, stood crying into the smaller woman’s shoulder, and her sobs had now reached the hiccupping stage. To my surprise, Willene seemed to have overcome her customary skittishness and, at least for now, was holding her own. Still, her face was almost as white as the uniform she wore and her eyes held a dazed expression. “It’s all right,” she whispered to the other woman. “It’s all right now, Pearl…it’s all right.”
It didn’t look all right to me.
Pearl, I learned, had discovered the grisly apron at the bottom of a hamper of soiled towels and aprons used by the kitchen staff while gathering items for the laundry.
Joy Ellen had the presence of mind to summon the police and attempted to shoo away the curious onlookers, but it didn’t do much good. I was relieved to see that one of them was Leslie. The rest of us waited in the cafeteria while Pearl sat with her feet propped on a chair and sipped water. The cooks had been preparing chicken pot pie, and the smell of it made me feel queasy.
“What makes you think it’s human blood?” I asked Willene, taking her aside. “Couldn’t it be beef or chicken—something like that?”
She turned a shade paler and looked away. “Look at it, Lucy—the way it’s spattered…it wouldn’t be like…that.”
I didn’t want to look at the ghastly thing, but it was hard to look anywhere else. The stain dotted the apron from top to bottom like a big question m
ark.
“Lucy.” Willene spoke softly as we watched the local police winding through the gathering outside. “I’m not feeling well at all. Would you mind staying here with Pearl?”
Before I could answer, she had scurried out the back way.
I recognized Captain Hardy, who was accompanied by Weigelia’s cousin Kemper Mungo and Sheila Eastwood, two of Stone’s Throw’s finest. Pearl, more composed now, was able to show them where she had found the apron in the narrow room behind the kitchen where soiled laundry was collected.
“When I seen what was on there, I dropped it like it’d been a snake!” she told them. “Willene—she brought it out here so she could look at it in the light.” Pearl mopped her eyes and braced herself on Kemper’s sturdy arm. “Do-law! I wouldn’t touch that thing again for a million dollars!”
Wearing gloves, Sheila Eastwood carefully placed the apron in a large plastic bag. When she lifted it from where it had been spread on the floor, something fell out of a pocket and landed with a clank, while another, smaller object rolled against my foot.
Not thinking, I reached down to pick it up, and I would have it Kemper hadn’t stopped me.
“Don’t touch it!” Using a pen, he held the thimble up for us to see. It was hand-painted with tiny blue violets, and on the floor near where it had fallen was a pair of embroidery scissors.
Joy Ellen sank into a chair and looked up at me with shock-glazed eyes. We both knew the thimble and scissors belonged to Blythe Cornelius.
Chapter Nine
The phone was ringing when I finally got home that afternoon. “Thank goodness I caught you!” My daughter-in-law Jessica sounded as if she’d been in one of her marathons—she runs at least three mornings a week and weighs about fifteen pounds soaking wet.
My heart jumped into a reggae beat. “What’s wrong? Has something happened to—”
“No, no! Nothing like that. It’s just that Roger and I were planning to take in dinner and a concert at the college tonight, and our sitter just canceled on us. I wondered if you’d mind keeping Teddy for a while?”
“Well, of course not! And you might as well plan to let him spend the night, since you’re bound to be late getting home.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Jessica said. “It is a school night, though, so he’ll need to get to bed early—and if you would, he’ll probably need some encouragement to finish his homework.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll encourage,” I told her.
“I hope it won’t be an inconvenience…” Jessica hesitated. “I mean, I wouldn’t want you to have to cook anything special.” Meaning, I knew: “Don’t feed my son any junk food!”
“Teddy is never an inconvenience,” I told her. “And of course I’ll give him something special.” Like the peppermint ice cream—my grandson’s favorite—I keep hidden in the freezer. I sniffed. Augusta was making her savory fish stew in the Crock-Pot and I knew Teddy wouldn’t touch it, but that’s what macaroni and cheese is for. He only likes the disgusting kind that comes in a box.
“I really appreciate this, Lucy, and I’ll pick him up in plenty of time for school in the morning.”
“There’s no need, Jessica. The grammar school’s only a few blocks away. I can walk him there in five minutes.” Our two children had walked daily to the two-story red brick building, as had I, and I looked forward to it being a part of my grandson’s growing-up experience as well.
“If you’re sure it’s okay…?”
“I’m sure. Why not spoil yourself and sleep in tomorrow?” I suggested, although I knew she wouldn’t. If the automobile industry could figure out how to harness one-tenth of my daughter-in-law’s energy, we wouldn’t have to depend on foreign oil.
“What’s this?” Teddy frowned at the mysterious lumpy red mixture I had ladled into his bowl.
“It’s stew. And it’s good, just try it,” I urged.
My grandson shoved the offending bowl away. “I don’t like stew. It’s all smushed together.”
I broke off a piece of French bread and dipped it into mine. “Mmm…sure tastes good to me!” The macaroni and cheese waited out of sight on the stove, but he didn’t know that yet.
Teddy drew his bowl a little closer and sniffed. Behind him, Augusta stood with her arms crossed, smiling.
“Smells good, too, don’t you think?”
“It’s okay.” I could see he was weakening, so I broke off another piece of bread and gave it to him. “Dare you!” I said.
He made a face and dipped timidly into the stew…once…twice, then went at it with a spoon. “Hey, this is good!”
“There’s some of that macaroni and cheese you like on the stove,” I confessed finally.
“No, thanks,” he said. I threw it in the garbage.
After ice cream we tackled the reading lesson, which went quickly since Teddy has always liked books and so have I. Math was another matter. I don’t remember arithmetic being that complicated when his dad and aunt Julie were in the first grade.
Discouraged, Teddy put down his pencil. “I don’t see why I have to learn all this stuff. Baseball players don’t need to know math, do they?”
“Of course they do,” I told him. “How else are you going to know how to add up all the money you’re going to make?”
Teddy nodded solemnly. “Yeah, I guess you’re right, Mama Lucy.”
After assuring him I would be sleeping upstairs in the room next to his, we progressed through the familiar rituals of bath, pajamas, story time, bed and prayers, and I had just kissed him good night for about the third time when the telephone rang.
I knew it was Ellis on the other end. She’s the only person I know who can make a telephone sound impatient. “I was about to give up on you!” she said. “Phone must’ve rung five times.”
“Teddy’s staying over tonight and I was just getting him tucked in. What’s up?”
“What’s all this I hear about Blythe Cornelius and a bloody apron? I just came from circle meeting and that’s all anybody talked about.”
“Circle meeting! I forgot all about it,” I said.
“That’s okay. We put you down to polish the brass for December.”
“Thanks a bunch. Just for that, Ellis Saxon, I ought not even tell you what happened today!”
“Oh, simmer down. I signed up to polish with you,” she said. “Did those things they found really belong to Blythe?”
I told her what I had seen. “Of course somebody else could have put them there.”
“Mama Lucy…?” Teddy stood at the top of the stairs.
“Teddy Pilgrim, you get back in that bed this minute. It’s way past your bedtime. Ellis, I’ve got to go. If Teddy sleeps through school tomorrow we’ll both be in big trouble.”
“Okay, but I wanted to let you know I won’t be at The Thursdays Monday. I’m going to the doctor with Susan to see her ultrasound.”
“I’m serving Mimmer’s banana pudding,” I said, referring to my grandmother’s recipe, but I guess I can’t compete with that.”
“Tempting, but I’m on a diet,” Ellis said.
“Since when?”
“Since I looked at myself naked in the mirror this morning.”
“Mama Lucy!” Teddy called again. “I’m hungry. I think I’d like some of that macaroni and cheese after all.”
“I still can’t believe it,” my cousin Jo Nell said. “Not Blythe Cornelius! Why, I’d just as soon suspect the preacher of stealing from the collection plate.”
“Well, that’s been known to happen,” Zee said. “They haven’t arrested her, have they, Lucy Nan?”
The meeting of the Thursday Morning Literary Society had come to order, and refreshments having been served and duly consumed, the members got right down to the business of the day, which, of course, was the discovery of the bloodied apron at the college.
“Not that I know of,” I said, “but they did take her in for questioning. Had to, I guess, but it seemed so senseless. What a horrible thing for poo
r Blythe to have to go through! You should’ve seen her trying to assure those girls they had nothing to worry about, but I could see she was having a hard time holding back her own emotions.”
Idonia shook her permed red curls. “Bless her heart! Wonder how those things did get in that apron pocket.”
“I don’t know, unless somebody put them there to make her look guilty,” I said. “Blythe says she never saw that apron before, and I believe her. She was looking for those scissors when I was there just the other day.”
“Why would anybody want to do that?” Zee asked.
Claudia Pharr spoke up. “Why, to throw the police off the trail, of course—and away from the real killer.” Claudia watches every detective show on television, so I didn’t argue with her. Besides, she had a point.
“I wish you’d get on another subject,” Nettie said. “I can hardly sleep at night as it is for worrying about Leslie being over there.” She helped herself to another cup of coffee from the pot on the sideboard. “Good coffee, Lucy Nan. Is this one of those special blends?”
“Nope, just added a few drops of vanilla.” (A little trick I’d picked up from Augusta.)
“Then whoever planted those things there is a fool!” Idonia persisted. “Why in the world would anybody wear an apron to commit a murder, then leave incriminating evidence in the pocket? Give the woman credit for a little sense, for heaven’s sake.”
“But if Blythe didn’t do it, who did?” I said. “You read the papers this morning. That was D. C. Hunter’s blood on there. Whoever killed her was familiar enough with the college to know where the laundry was collected.”
Zee St. Clair leaned forward. “It could be anybody,” she said, speaking barely above a whisper. “One of the students, a member of the faculty—why, it might even be R. U. Earnest himself,” she added, referring to the president of the college.
“Well, it couldn’t have been Blythe who killed her. She was at the infirmary all night with that girl who was sick.” I turned on a lamp in the living room window, making it seem even darker outside.
The Angel and the Jabberwocky Murders Page 8
