by JOAN HESSS
Humming under my breath, I studied the room for a clue, although I wasn’t at all confident that I would recognize one if it crawled up my neck to kiss me on the ear. Beyond the clutter on the dresser, the room was surprisingly neat. Suzetta looked the type to drape clothes on the chair and dangle nylon stockings from the shower rod, but the only signs of occupancy in the bathroom were a blue toothbrush beside a tube of toothpaste rolled neatly at the bottom, and the wisp of a bikini hanging from a towel rack.
I opened the closet door, expecting chaos. Instead, I found a raincoat, a tightly furled umbrella, a row of dresses arranged in order of ascending skirt length, several pairs of shoes, and two empty suitcases. No canoe paddle with bits of blood and hair. A sneeze of disappointment exploded from my decidely sore nose; I was liable to be asked to guide a sleigh if the case wasn’t solved soon. I closed the door and leaned against it while I waited for inspiration.
If Suzetta had not gone outside in the middle of the night to dispose of her corpse, then she had gone for another purpose. Wonderful, Claire. I forced myself to recall the scene in detail. There had been a rumble in the parking lot shortly before Suzetta slipped out the back door. More wonderful, but not helpful; Suzetta hadn’t been the rumbler. But it did mean that someone else was on the prowl at the same time.
“Nickie!” I said aloud, charmed by the success of my mental gymnastics. Obviously, Suzetta was the student whose extracurricular activities were of interest to Peter. One of them had been obliged to silence Harmon. Suzetta had subsequently slipped outside to do the sculling, and Nickie had taken his car to meet her when she came out of the woods. It wasn’t particularly gallant of him, but he could not be accused of chauvinism. Maybe he had no experience with small craft. Something like that. In any case, she had indeed gone outside to dispose of her corpse.
It was as good as any explanation for all the midnight activity. Bella was quite simply wrong. The illicit drug activity was the motive for Harmon’s murder, and Mimi could be cleared before Eric slithered into total depression. Now all I needed was evidence to confirm the brilliant deduction. A tiny capsule would be adequate.
I dropped to my knees and began to crawl around the perimeter of the room, asking myself where I would be if I were an amphetamine. After five fruitless minutes, I determined that I would not be on the floor. I then confirmed that I would not be in the bathroom or in a plastic vial amidst the perfume bottles, nor in the suitcases in the closet. The dresser drawers remained.
I was digging through a pile of brightly colored scarves when the bedroom door opened behind me. I sat back on my heels and gazed into Suzetta’s surprised—and displeased—eyes.
“I came by to ask you something,” I said brightly, “but you weren’t here.”
Suzetta continued to stare down at me, her arms crossed and her lips squeezed into a white line. The brainless giggles were more than absent; they were a contradiction that now seemed incredible. I would have welcomed a hint of a simper or a flutter of the patently false eyelashes. The woman was far too pissed to oblige.
I tried again. “I did so admire the scarves that you wore to the costume party, Suzetta. You must tell me where you bought them.” When she failed to lapse into the familiar routine, I leaned forward and ran my fingers through the silk rainbow.
We both saw the glint of metal, a cold, bluish-gray glint totally unsuitable for jewelry. It was, however, perfect for a gun. I jammed a red scarf over it and scrambled to my feet.
“Thanks for letting me look at your scarves. I’ll see you at breakfast,” I said, moving around her toward the door.
Unfortunately, Suzetta arrived at the door first. Holding the knob with white knuckles, she said, “I don’t want you to rush off like this, Claire. I haven’t told you where to find the scarves, and I can see how much you admire them. Why don’t you sit over there?”
It was not an invitation. Reminding myself that we were equidistant from the lethal contents of the drawer, I did as told. “Where did you get the scarves, Suzetta?”
“From a discount house, although I doubt that you’ll race out to buy them anytime soon.” She sat down on the bed to study me with a detached coldness. “What were you searching for?”
Oh, dear. It did not seem wise to tell her that I was searching for her stash of illegal substances, but the scarf story did sound weak. Then again, I wasn’t going to learn anything if I scampered out of the room like a puppy that had piddled on the rug. As long as the gun—why did she of all people have a gun?—remained in the drawer, I was safe. Surely.
I leaned back and crossed my legs. If I’d had my knitting bag, I might have whipped out a half-finished bootie à la Miss Marple and clicked away. “I saw you sneak out of the inn last night after everyone was supposedly tucked in bed.”
“And … ?” she drawled, not noticeably distressed.
“I thought it was suspicious.”
“That hardly explains why you decided to search my room.”
A valid point. I uncrossed my legs and put away the mental bootie. “I was looking for evidence.”
“Evidence of what?”
It was not going well. Suzetta was not in tears, eager to confess her evil business with a drug dealer. She wasn’t admitting to a tryst, or looking particularly guilty, for that matter. To my annoyance, she seemed to be increasingly relaxed. I was going to be forced to go for the jugular—if I wanted a confession.
“Evidence of what?” she repeated in the maddening drawl.
“Evidence of your illegal drug trafficking!”
Her mouth fell open, and her eyelashes did a second’s worth of the old flutter. “My illegal drug trafficking? You must be kidding!”
“I am not kidding. Look, Suzetta, Lieutenant Rosen already knows that you’re the link between Nickie Merrick and the students at Farber College. There’s no point in trying to avoid any reprisal, but I think the Lieutenant might be willing to negotiate. I’m sure the whole scheme was Nickie’s idea, and …”
Suzetta had managed to close her mouth and restrain the flutters. In the midst of what I felt to be the most inspirational moment of my sermon, she had also managed to reach the dresser. I ran out of kindly advice when the gun was pointed at my face. The round hole at the end of the barrel was larger than one might have suspected, and very black.
“Get up,” she said. “We’re going for a little walk.”
“You wouldn’t dare shoot me,” I countered calmly. This is not to say that I was feeling especially calm, and I hoped she couldn’t hear my heart rotating as if it were impaled on a spit.
Suzetta flicked the gun at the door before centering it once again on my nose. “Get up, Claire. You might discover that you have no idea what I will do.”
Indeed. I walked to the door. After draping a sweater over the gun, she jabbed it into my side and said, “Don’t do anything heroic. We’re going to walk downstairs and through the back door to the stable to continue this absurd conversation. If you make any signs or try to escape, you’ll find your internal organs have become external.”
“What a tacky thing to say.”
“But true …”
I marched out the door, refusing to acknowledge the painful little jabs to my spine. As I passed my bedroom door, I willed Caron to open it so that I could at least try to communicate the situation. I could have wished for a pig in a tutu to pirouette past me—and had better odds.
A door did open as we reached the top of the staircase, but it was not my ideal choice of a rescuer. Mrs. Robison-Dewitt came out of her room, snorted as she saw me, and nodded regally to Suzetta. Had she known the danger I was in, no doubt she would have applauded. In oblivious splendor she continued down the corridor, knocked on a door, and was admitted without further ado.
I glanced back at Suzetta. “Mrs. Robison-Dewitt will remember seeing us together. You’ll never get away with this, so you might as well put down the gun and—” I broke off to grasp at the sudden jolt to my ribcage. “I was trying to help
.”
“You’ve already helped too much,” Suzetta said coldly.
We went downstairs and turned toward the back door. The door to the office opened, and Peter stepped into my path. “Where are you two going?”
“Out for a walk,” I croaked. I received a jab as a reward.
Ignoring my rather strained expression, Peter smiled benignly. “What a nice idea. Well, I’ll see you later, girls. Enjoy your little walk.”
I doubted that I would enjoy the little walk for long. Since it was hopeless in any case, I closed my eyes, took a breath, and screeched, “Arrest her, Peter! She has a gun on me!”
Contrary to all expectations, a bullet did not rip through my back to modify my organs and carry me into the great unknown. The pressure was released, and suddenly I heard a most startling sound: laughter, coming from behind me. Gleeful, lilting laughter, as if the clowns had just catapulted their cream pies.
I whirled around. Suzetta was making helpless noises as tears rolled down her cheeks. The gun swung about in an aimless pattern, its owner too convulsed to concern herself with the display of incriminating evidence.
“What is going on?” I demanded.
“She was searching my room,” Suzetta sputtered. “I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t help myself.” She lapsed into laughter again, although she did lower the gun before Aunt Beatrice’s chandelier was decimated.
“What is going on?” I repeated, ready to choke off the laughter with my bare hands.
Peter produced another benign smile. “I believe you’re under arrest, Claire.”
TEN
It was preferable to being shot, but only by a narrow margin. I waited until Suzetta choked out a final laugh, then raised my eyebrows and politely said, “Would someone care to explain?”
“Why don’t we go in here?” Peter said, holding open the office door. “It’s—ah, complicated.”
We went in the office and found chairs. Peter was clearly loving every minute of it, and Suzetta let out an occasional chuckle. I, on the other hand, was neither delighted nor warmed by the merriment I had unwittingly afforded them.
“Exactly how complicated is it?” I said when we were as cozy as a trio of cowboys around a campfire. It came out rather nicely, considering the proximity of the coyotes and/ or rattlesnakes.
“Miss Price works for me,” he said. He smiled at the blonde, who dimpled and produced a flattering blush. When I blush, I am slightly less attractive than a withered geranium, and the only dimple I possess is not conveniently situated for public admiration.
“That’s correct, I’ve been under cover on the drug operation for over eight months. Lieutenant Rosen is my boss.” And her idol; we could all hear the unspoken words.
“How fascinating, for both of you!” I said. “First, you were a retarded secretary, who turned into a private eye, who turned into a student, who turned into an undercover cop. How utterly, utterly fascinating. However, this is not the land of Oz, and I don’t believe in Munchkins or tap-dancing scarecrows.” I stood up and stomped toward the door.
“Claire, please come back and sit down,” Peter said. Sincerity oozed from his voice.
I forced myself to comply. Not out of any desire to cooperate, of course, but from a need to pump as much information out of the two baboons as possible. If Suzetta didn’t kill Harmon, then I needed a new direction. And for once, I could play the aggrieved victim.
“Well?” I said in a sour voice.
“Let Suzetta tell me what happened first,” he said with another dollop of sincerity
Suzetta briskly reported finding me in her room and repeated verbatim the subsequent conversation, although she embellished my bewilderment and my final ill-judged conclusion. She managed to maintain a professional tone, but it was obvious that she had found the whole scene much more entertaining than her last birthday party.
When she was done, Peter looked at me. “I thought you promised to stay out of the investigation, Claire.”
Back on the carpet in front of the principal, who was growing weary of reprimanding me. It was mutual. I shrugged and said, “I was trying to clear Mimi before Eric cracked up. You know that she didn’t bash Harmon over the head.”
Suzetta laughed. “Is she under cover, too, Lieutenant Rosen? I thought I knew everyone in the CID.”
“Claire’s beyond ‘undercover.’ She’s Farbervile’s most—”
“Sorry to interrupt,” I interrupted, my blood back to a simmer. “Shall we discuss something more pertinent—such as Harmon’s murder or even the identity of Nickie’s campus pusher? If you weren’t sneaking out last night to take a shipment of drugs from Nickie or to transport Harmon, then what were you doing?” I asked Suzetta.
Peter nodded to her. She said, “I went to search Bruce Wheeler’s room for evidence of drugs.”
“Where was Bruce at the time?”
“Bruce drove Harmon’s car down the road and parked it. Harmon was supposed to sneak away from the boathouse to meet him and then drive home. He was worried that he might be seen if he went to the stable to get his car, when the script called for him to be already dead.” Suzetta held up a finger to cut off my question. “No, I did not find any evidence that linked Bruce to Nickie. It seems as though I’d better try to search Eric’s bedroom.”
I muttered a perfunctory protest. Suzetta was no longer available to fill in any roles in my hypothesized plot. I did not want to consider the possibility that Mimi was a murderer and Eric a drug dealer, although it was looking more likely every minute. Sighing, I looked at Peter.
“Bruce did what he was supposed to do?”
“He left the car about a half mile down the road, and waited almost an hour for Harmon to appear. Harmon couldn’t make it, for known reasons. Eventually, Bruce gave up and went back to his room.”
“What happened to Harmon’s car?”
“I was examining it this morning when the Audubon group spilled out of the woods in a twitter. Later, it was examined again, then brought back to the stable. Mrs. Crundall now has the keys.”
“I don’t suppose the trunk was filled with drugs?” Grasping at straws in a hurricane, I admit.
Peter dismissed Suzetta, who gave me a wink as she strolled out of the door. I did not reciprocate. Across the desk, Peter grimaced and said, “The trunk was empty, Claire. I don’t want to arrest Eric on a drug charge, and I would prefer to see him and his wife cleared of any suspicion. But my job is harder when I have to spend a certain amount of my time rescuing you from a variety of sticky situations.”
Familiar and tedious. I retreated to the offensive position that had worked earlier. “Why did you allow that woman to terrorize me with a gun, and pretend she was going to blow my head off and bury me in a pile of manure in the stable”?
“Her reactions were spontaneous. I did not instruct her to pull a gun on you, should she find you in her room,” he said, all teeth and honey. “I did warn her that you might decide to visit, however.”
“Good for you; maybe you can retire from the police department and earn a living as a gypsy fortune-teller.”
“Maybe I ought to. It might be easier than putting up with your attempts to emulate Miss Marple. Is there anything else you’ve discovered in your amateur, unauthorized, harebrained investigation?”
I grudgingly repeated my conversation with Nickie. “He must have gone outside to meet his contact,” I concluded, “although the person in question stood him up. It was undoubtedly Mrs. Robison-Dewitt; she has the aura of a felon.”
“But not of a student.” Peter stood up and escorted me to the door. “Claire, please let me handle this. If you insist on continuing, I may suggest to Suzetta that she file burglary charges.”
“I thought the Gestapo was disbanded at the end of World War II.”
“That’s the current theory,” he murmured. The door closed firmly in my face.
Mentally composing prickly comments about eavesdroppers and supercilious cops, I went into the drawing room
and sat down to plan the next siege. I dismissed the drug mess for the moment and turned my thoughts to the murder. The door to the porch had been a revolving door between ten o’clock and midnight. Suzetta, Mimi, Eric, and Bruce had all left on various scripted missions. Nickie had gone to meet a no-show, who might have been any of the mentioned or someone else. Harmon was in the boathouse, playing out his wonderful scenario. Bella was in her bungalow, drinking tea and brandy. I was in the parlor, sleeping through the movie. All I needed was a blackbird to snip off my nose, if the sneezes didn’t do it first.
I decided I ought to drop a tactful word of warning to Eric. I found him in the kitchen, perched on the same stool that Mimi had occupied earlier. He was pale, too tired to do more than twitch his mouth in greeting as I joined him.
“Mimi called from the sheriff’s office,” he said. “She told me that she would probably be there all night and to call a lawyer in the morning. What can I do, Claire? She didn’t—she didn’t—kill Harmon. Why would she have done that?”
“Everyone knows about the option, Eric. It gives both of you one of the more mundane motives in homicide cases: self-preservation.”
“But Harmon wasn’t going to exercise the option,” Eric said. He sagged so violently, I worried he would topple off the stool. “I told him that. I mean, I told the sheriff that. Oh, hell, I don’t know what I told anybody … .” His voice died in a plaintive whisper.
“If you and Mimi want to keep the Mimosa Inn, you’re going to have to pull yourself together,” I said sternly, not at all sure that I could lift him off the floor if he continued in this vein. “Bella told Peter that Harmon intended to use the optioned property for a subdivision to be called Harmony Hills. That doesn’t sound as though he was planning to let it expire.”
“She’s lying,” he mumbled.
“Why would she lie about it? And while we’re on the subject, where is this infamous option? Mimi said that it was to be burned and the ashes used as clues. Suzetta found a blank option and burned that without giving it much thought. So where is it now?”
