by Anne George
“Most gorgeous place I’ve ever seen in my life,” Frances announced. “When I say my mantra, I’m supposed to imagine myself in a beautiful location. I’m going to be in that pink house from now on.” She had turned around in the Stampses’ driveway and we were headed back toward the highway. We waved at the guard, who was back on duty, and at Lolita, who was standing on the porch of the log cabin. “That’s going to be my place from now on.” Frances’s voice was determined. “Yep. You can bet on it.”
“Hey,” Mary Alice said that afternoon. “Where have you been?” I had just gotten off the elevator, and she was unlocking the condo door.
“Guess.” My arms were full of grocery sacks. I went into the kitchen to put them down.
“How did the workshop go?” Haley called. “Is the guy going to get medical help?”
“I hope so. The instructor read my story to the class. Everybody laughed.”
“It’s a funny story.” I put the yogurt into the refrigerator. “You want some grapes?” I held out the bowl.
Sister shook her head no. “I went by, but Laura’s not at home. Then I stopped in to see Fairchild. I’m fixing to go over to Emerald Waters for him. I just stopped by to get a beer and go to the bathroom.”
“What are you going to Emerald Waters for?” I folded empty grocery sacks and put them in the pantry.
“Fairchild doesn’t think Emily Peacock knows about Millicent’s death. She’s in Savannah visiting her sister, but the number up there doesn’t answer. I told him I’d go check with the neighbors and see if they know if she and her sister were going somewhere else.”
“I’ll go to Emerald Waters with you,” I said. It would give me a chance to tell Sister about my talk with Laura. That, plus the fact that Elizabeth Taylor was gasping her last breath again on TV. Time to return that video to Delchamps.
“She said what?” Sister asked. We were about halfway to Emerald Waters and I had just gotten to the “we’re all in serious trouble” bit.
I repeated Laura’s words.
“See, Mouse? I told you how melodramatic she is.”
“Hmm.” Sister hadn’t seen her face; I had.
We pulled through the gates of Emerald Waters and into the crowded parking lot. Built a couple of years after Gulf Towers, this apartment complex was caught by the dune laws that required all construction to be behind the natural dunes. So Emerald Waters was farther from the water and there was no seawall. Its architecture was similar to that of Gulf Towers, though, the only difference being that there were six apartments on each floor opening onto an outside corridor.
“E. Peacock. Eleven-o-six.” Mary Alice turned from the directory and examined the lobby, which was all rattan furniture, huge potted plants in oriental urns, and some nice seascapes on the wall. “This place is nicer than Gulf Towers,” she announced.
“Hmmm.” Yes, it was, but I was planning on a future.
“I think those Japanese pots came from K Mart. We need to get some for our lobby.”
“It would be nice,” I agreed. “Are you going to ask the resident manager, or just go up to the eleventh floor, or what?”
The decision was made by an empty resident manager’s office.
The view from the eleventh-floor corridor was spectacular. We were looking down on a series of rainbow-colored shops that are called The Mediterranean Village. Across 98, children were zipping down the water slide at Big Kahuna’s.
“She has a better view, too,” Mary Alice said.
Apartment 1106 was the one on the western end of the building, the corner one, which meant that Emily probably did have a better view. “Hmm,” I said.
Sister marched up to 1105. “Mrs. L. Snodgrass,” she said, and knocked. No answer. I watched the children at Big Kahuna’s.
“Let’s try the next one,” Sister said. “You know what Fairchild said his blood pressure was this afternoon? Two-hundred-twenty over one-ten. I hope some of these folks know where Emily is. Take one worry off him.”
I turned to trail along behind her, and that’s when I noticed that Emily’s door was slightly ajar.
“Sister,” I said. “Emily’s door’s open. Maybe she’s back.”
“Oh, good. Knock.”
I did, and there was no answer.
Sister opened the door and called, “Emily! It’s Mary Alice Crane!”
No answer. This, of course, is when we should have turned around and left, located the security guard. This, of course, is not what we did.
“Emily? You here? You okay?” Sister walked through the open door with me right behind her.
The foyer in these apartments is formed by the kitchen wall. One has to turn right into an L-shaped eating area and living room with a wall of windows opening onto a balcony.
“Emily?” Sister called again. And then we were in the living room and Emily Peacock was slouched against the end of the sofa, her head turned as if she were looking at the water and the sun. But she was looking at nothing; the hole in her right temple guaranteed that.
“Oh, God!” Sister said. She rushed past me, and I could hear her being sick in the kitchen. But I walked the length of the room, opened the balcony doors and walked out into the fading sunlight. I sat in a plastic, stackable chair and watched parents herding tired children in from the beach, sailboats headed toward the pass, and gulls walking along the sand. The body behind me on the sofa was as unreal as the body on the beach had been.
Sister came onto the balcony. “I need a mint or a piece of gum.” I reached in my purse and handed her a package of Certs. “We need to call 911.” she said. “Go call them, Mouse.”
“You know what I’ve been thinking?” I asked. “I’ve been thinking that Fred and I need to take a long vacation. Maybe a cruise to Alaska. If he really closes this deal on Metal Fab, we can do a little traveling and I think we should. Don’t you?”
Sister’s normally olive skin was pale green. “Go call 911, Patricia Anne.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, ‘no’? There’s a dead woman, a very dead woman, sitting in there.”
“I’m not going back in there,” I said. “I’m just going to sit here and think about Alaska. I’ve given myself permission not to be drawn into any more of your traumas.”
“My traumas?” Sister’s hand went for my upper arm. When we were children, she perfected a pinch that is very painful but doesn’t leave a bruise. The secret is in the twist. She hasn’t used it in a long time, but with Mary Alice, one always has to be prepared.
I jerked my arm back just in time. “That’s childish.”
She sank down onto a chair and put her head in her hands. “I’m sick,” she said, rocking back and forth.
She looked sick. Her hands were shaking, which frightened me. I got up and looked through the sliding doors at Emily Peacock; sightless eyes stared back at me. A few strands of gray-blonde hair had stuck to her cheek as blood had welled from her temple. Not as much blood as one would have imagined, but God only knew what was on the other side of her head, the side that we couldn’t see. One thing was certain, the essence that had been Emily Peacock was gone. All that was on that sofa was a hull.
I did the decent thing; I went inside, holding my breath as long as I could, and called 911. Then I scooted back to the balcony and Mary Alice.
“The rescue squad is coming.” And, sure enough, just as we had two days before, we heard the sirens again in the distance as the crew left the fire station and headed down Highway 98. “At least this time the body’s not wet. We won’t have to wait on the Marine Patrol.”
Mary Alice shivered but didn’t say anything.
“I think she committed suicide,” I said. “There’s a pistol by her on the sofa.”
Mary Alice looked up. “You saw a pistol?”
“Right by her side.”
“Why would she do that?”
“How should I know? I hardly knew her.” I thought for a moment. “Upset about her best friend Millicent’s death?”
Mary Alice shrugged.
“You feeling any better?” I asked in a moment.
“I guess so. Are you?”
“I wasn’t sick.”
“Just doing your wandering off into never-never land like you always do when there’s an emergency. I swear, Patricia Anne, I don’t know how you raised three children.”
“Hey,” I said. “There’s a big difference in stumped toes and dead bodies. Besides, I don’t drift off into never-never land.”
“Of course you do. It’s like you change channels. Click, here’s the Travel Channel. Doesn’t Alaska look like a fun place! Click, and look how beautiful Greece is.”
“Shut up!”
Mary Alice started rummaging through her purse, which is huge. She confided to me once that a big purse can make you look like you’ve lost twenty pounds. Which is fine. The only problem is that she can never find anything, such as a package of mints.
“What are you looking for?” I asked.
“A Kleenex. Oh, look what I found.” She held up her tiny cellular phone. “I forgot about this. We could have called 911 from out here. I’m sorry.”
I sighed. The sirens were getting closer. “Maybe you should call Haley and Frances and tell them we’re going to be tied up here a while. Don’t tell them why. Just tell them to go on out to dinner and not wait on us.”
“Don’t be silly. There’s nothing we can do here. As soon as the policemen come, we’ll leave.”
I snatched the phone away from her and called Haley.
“Hi, Mama,” she said, “what’s up?”
“Not much,” I said truthfully, hoping my voice wasn’t shaking so much she would notice it. “I’m with your Aunt Sister and we’re running a little later than we planned. Y’all don’t wait on us for dinner.”
“Fine. Tell Aunt Sister that Berry West is here from Birmingham. He and Frances are out on the balcony having drinks. He’s real nice. Jason Marley’s here, too.”
“Your Aunt Sister says that Berry’s an Adonis.”
“Like I said, he’s real nice.”
I said goodbye, handed Sister the phone and smiled pleasantly. “Berry West and Jason Marley are there. They’re on the balcony having drinks with Frances.”
“Snake shit!” Sister grumbled.
The same rescue squad, firemen, and policeman answered this call that had answered the one from the beach.
“What is this?” Lisa Andrews said, stepping onto the balcony. “Y’all made this call, too?”
We admitted that we had.
She called back into the living room, “Buddy! It’s the same women found the body on the beach.”
Buddy stuck his head out. “Y’all ain’t invited to any of my parties.”
“They wouldn’t want to come, anyway.” Lisa Andrews got out her notepad and flipped back a couple of pages. “Okay, let’s see. You’re Mrs. Crane and Mrs. Hollowell. Right?”
We nodded yes.
“And you,” she pointed toward Mary Alice, “Mrs. Crane?” Another nod. “You have a place at Gulf Towers, and you, Mrs. Hollowell, are visiting.”
“We’re sisters,” I said.
“You sure don’t look like it.”
“Well, we are,” Mary Alice narrowed her eyes. “And we came over to find out if anybody knew where Emily Peacock, who happens to be lying in there dead, shot in the head on her own hide-a-bed, might be. We came because Fairchild Weatherby asked us to and his blood pressure is sky high. He was worried she didn’t know about Millicent’s death, and we found her lying in there dead as a door nail. Dead as a door nail.” She caught her breath.
“Wait a minute. I can’t write that fast.” Lisa Andrews flipped over a page in the notepad. “How do you spell Peacock?”
“P-E-E-C-O-C-K.”
“P-E-A,” I said, giving Sister a hard look.
“Thanks. And you didn’t get to talk to her?”
“I tried, but she had trouble answering,” Sister said.
This time it was Officer Andrews who narrowed her eyes.
“Have you touched anything? Moved the body at all?”
“Lord, no, we haven’t moved the body.” I said. “The door was ajar and we called and came on in. I guess we touched the doorknob and my sister was sick in the kitchen sink.” Officer Andrews smiled a little at this piece of news. “Oh, and I called you from the phone. Other than that, we’ve been out here.”
Lisa Andrews looked up, looked at the salmon-colored sky, the darkening bay water. “It’s a nice view, isn’t it?”
We hadn’t exactly been siting there admiring the view. But Lisa Andrews was right. Lights were being turned on along the beach and we could hear voices. I didn’t turn to see what was going on behind us, though I sensed busyness.
“Know anything about her family?”
“She was supposed to be visiting a sister in Savannah,” Mary Alice said. “She was a widow when she moved down here. I really don’t know.”
“Lisa!” A man called from inside.
“Coming!” She closed her notebook. “Listen, y’all go on home. I’ve got your address and phone numbers. You ladies might even do us a favor and stay home for a few days.” She turned and started into the condo. “We’ll be in touch.”
“Who’s going to tell Fairchild and the rest of her friends?” I asked.
“Y’all can do it if you want to.”
“Smartass,” Mary Alice muttered. I’m sure Lisa Andrews heard her.
We wasted no time getting out of there. Several people were crowded around the door, drawn by the commotion of the rescue vehicles and the sheriff’s department.
“Is something wrong with Emily?” an elderly woman asked.
“Dead,” Mary Alice announced. The spectators gasped, parting before her six feet, 250 pounds like the Red Sea before Charlton Heston.
“Lord, Sister,” I said, running to catch up. “You could have been a little more tactful. That lady could have had a heart attack.”
Mary Alice hit the elevator button and looked back at the crowd. “You mean break it to them gradually? Like that old cat on the roof joke? Emily’s up on the roof?”
“Something like that.”
“Emily’s dead, Mouse. Dead as she’ll ever be. And I think I’m going to be sick again.”
Fortunately, that didn’t happen. Nor were we the ones who had to break the news to Fairchild about Emily’s death.
Chapter 9
Traffic was heavy between Emerald Waters and Gulf Towers; it seemed to take forever to get home.
“You okay?” I asked Mary Alice, who kept rubbing her hand across her throat.
“You mean am I going to pull a Pukey Lukey? No.” Pukey Lukey is a cousin of ours who was the bane of our vacations during our childhood. Show him a car and he got carsick.
“I’ll drive if you need me to.”
“My Jaguar? Good God, no!”
“It’s just a car,” I said huffily. “And I’m a damn good driver.”
“You’re a terrible driver.”
“I’m an excellent driver.”
“You’re not.”
“Yes, I am.” I felt the sting of tears. I wiped them away angrily.
We rode in silence for a few minutes. I closed my eyes and saw Emily Peacock’s sightless eyes staring through me, staring straight into the setting sun.
“I could never shoot myself,” I said.
“Me neither. And right on her new living-room sofa.” Mary Alice pulled into the turn lane. “Did you notice that floor in the foyer? I’ll bet that parquet’s going to be hard to keep up at the beach.” Mary Alice pulled into the turn lane.
“It looked like it had an acrylic finish on it.” I thought for a moment. “You know what? She was looking out at the bay. She wanted her last look at the world to be a beautiful one.”
“If she still thought the world was beautiful, how come she killed herself?”
I couldn’t answer that. My whole body felt heavy, achy, as if I were
coming down with something. We parked, went into the lobby, and waited for the elevator.
“What are we going to tell Fairchild?” Sister asked. “No telling what this will do to his blood pressure.”
What was this “we” business? Then it just popped out: “You could tell him Emily’s on the roof.” In a moment the elevator opened and the young couple who got off were greeted by the sight of two old sisters hanging on to each other, laughing and crying.
The note on the refrigerator said that everybody was at The Flamingo and we should join them when we got in.
“The Flamingo? I don’t think so. Not tonight.” Mary Alice took the note down and threw it in the garbage. “I wish I had some ginger ale. Remember, Mouse, how Mama always gave us ginger ale when we were sick to our stomachs?”
“I could drive over to the grocery in your car and get you some.”
“A Coke will do.”
“I’ll fix it. I need one, too.”
When I brought the drinks out to the balcony, Sister said, “I’m serious. I don’t know how I’m going to tell Fairchild about Emily’s’s death. Do you think I ought to call the doctor downstairs to go with me?”
I handed her her Coke. “Wouldn’t hurt.”
“What’s his name?”
“I have no idea, but Eddie and Laura called him, didn’t they? Maybe he’s a personal friend.”
“Maybe.”
We sat quietly for a few minutes. There was still a tiny streak of orange on the western horizon.
“You know,” Sister said, “chances are that the two deaths are connected. I just don’t see how.”
“Emily was distraught about Millicent’s death and just couldn’t take it?”
“She didn’t even know about Millicent’s death.”
“Maybe she did. Maybe she was the one who killed her.”
Sister rolled her damp glass across her forehead. “Cut her throat like an animal? I don’t think so. Emily was one of the sweetest people in the world.”
“You can’t go by that.”
“I know.” Sister shivered.
“Did you get to talk to Major Bissell today?”
