Mean Sisters

by Lindsay Emory

  ‘When did we meet?’ I asked, tentatively, since he didn’t look like we’d been close.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ he spat out. He reached for the door handle. Oh no he didn’t. He didn’t get to walk in here, be both suspicious and annoying and then walk out.

  ‘Why did you come over here?’ I had the distinct feeling he hadn’t told me everything yet. ‘And what did you mean by further tests?’

  Maybe I wasn’t good with names. But I was pretty damn good with remembering details about my sisters.

  Ty Hatfield looked at me long and hard. Under other circumstances, with those baby blues, it was something I could get used to. Right now, I felt like he was about to bring out the handcuffs. And not in the good way. ‘There’s been some inconsistencies with the preliminary report on Ms McCarthy’s death.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like they haven’t determined a cause.’

  I frowned. ‘Is that normal?’

  Ty folded his arms. ‘You tell me.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ I said in exasperation. ‘I don’t know why you don’t like me, but I’m not a bad person. I’m just trying to help. That’s my job. Helping people.’

  Ty looked around the room. ‘This is her office?’

  I had a bad feeling. ‘Filled with confidential sorority information,’ I said quickly.

  He lifted an eyebrow. ‘Any objection to me looking around?’

  ‘Objection,’ I said clearly. Big time objection.

  ‘I could get a warrant,’ he said.

  ‘You could, if there was something illegal going on.’ Don’t mess with the Law & Order mega fan. I knew all about warrants. Then I gasped when a thought occurred to me. ‘Is there something illegal going on?’

  I saw when Ty Hatfield decided to sort-of trust me. ‘The medical examiner doesn’t think the death was natural.’

  My mouth formed an ‘O.’ Because if it wasn’t natural, that meant it was … ‘Murder?’ I whispered.

  ‘They’re doing additional tests,’ Ty repeated, not acknowledging the ‘m’ word.

  I sank back down in the chair. Here in Liza’s office, I was surrounded by her things. It seemed unreal that someone who had sat here just hours before me was now dead and that she may have been murdered. I shivered.

  ‘Nothing’s conclusive,’ Hatfield said.

  ‘It’s not possible,’ I said, sounding pretty confident that it was true.

  ‘Why?’ Ty’s eyes sharpened. For a small town cop, he was pretty intense.

  ‘I was there,’ I said quietly. ‘We all were. We would have seen something, heard something. Liza couldn’t have been murdered. Not in front of fifty witnesses.’

  Ty lifted a shoulder. ‘One person’s witnesses are another person’s suspects.’

  I was so caught up, remembering the moment of Liza’s passing that his words didn’t fully impact. But then they sank in.

  ‘Excuse me?’ I said that a lot around Ty Hatfield, it seemed. ‘Are you implying …’

  ‘Nothing’s conclusive.’

  I couldn’t even wrap my brain around the idea, the accusation, the thought …

  ‘She was our sister!’ I finally said.

  ‘The medical examiner’s report shows no sign of natural death. No hemorrhage, no heart attack, no stroke.’

  ‘We have standards!’

  ‘The people I talked to last night all said that Liza was here, in the house, all day before the meeting. According to the sociology department, she had no classes on Mondays because she saved Mondays for chapter work. The security log from her parking garage shows she left her apartment Sunday night and never returned.’

  ‘We have morals,’ I hissed at the policeman, coldly rattling off facts like he knew what he was talking about.

  ‘The only people Liza McCarthy saw in her last day alive were all here, in this sorority house.’

  It was too much. ‘You obviously don’t understand sororities, Officer Hatfield.’

  ‘It’s Lieutenant Hatfield,’ he said. ‘And I’m pretty sure I do.’

  ‘So are you arresting someone? Are you getting a search warrant?’ There was a hesitant look in his eye. He didn’t have as much as he thought he did.

  I took a stab in the dark. ‘No one believes you. Is that it?’

  ‘The tests are inconclusive,’ he bit out. ‘And yeah, no one at the college or in town are going to call this murder until it’s slapping them in their face.’ He took a deep breath. ‘That’s why I need your help.’

  Ah. A cat-eating-the-canary grin settled across my face. Someone needed my help. Now we were getting to it. ‘What exactly do you need, Lieutenant Hatfield?’

  His jaw tightened before he threw an arm towards the desk. ‘Information. Liza’s records, notes, letters, phone calls.’

  They were things he couldn’t get without a warrant. Especially if I was sitting in the Chapter Advisor’s seat.

  ‘Let me get this straight,’ I said slowly. ‘You’ve basically insinuated that Liza McCarthy was murdered by someone in this chapter, by one of her own sisters. And you want to review confidential sorority information to confirm your suspicions?’

  Muscles twitched in his jaw and around his eye. ‘Yes.’ He cut me off before I could answer. ‘Don’t you want justice for your ‘sister’?’

  That hit me harder than I thought it would. Of course I did. I wanted justice for all. That was in the Delta Beta creed. Or was that the pledge of allegiance? It didn’t matter. They were pretty much the same thing.

  I looked around the office at the piles of papers and books. It looked like Liza had used the office for her doctoral studies and not just chapter business. I recognised some of the official Delta Beta handbooks and policy manuals. But there were scribbles on notepads, sociology tests and journals that I did not recognise. Sorting through Liza’s papers was going to be necessary, no matter any impending investigation. As her sister I had a duty to get her affairs in order, to protect the chapter and to ensure justice was done.

  Ty must have seen the look on my face. ‘Let me guess. You’re objecting.’

  I held up a hand. ‘I’ll make you a deal.’

  His eyebrows shot up. ‘A deal? You’re trying to make a deal … with the police?’

  ‘Sure. Why not?’

  ‘Your arrogance is impressive.’

  I drew back. I was pretty sure he meant something else. Like confidence. Or competence. Or fashion sense. Whatever. I went on. ‘Obviously, I can’t just let you go through sorority papers, willy-nilly.’

  ‘Obviously.’

  ‘I have to go through all this first.’ I waved my hand at the piles of paper around the room. ‘And I’ll let you know if I find anything … interesting.’

  ‘What’s the deal?’

  I looked at him squarely in the face. ‘You do the same for me. I need to know the truth about Liza’s death as soon as you know it.’

  ‘You’re not the next of kin.’

  He really didn’t understand. ‘I’m the next thing to it,’ I said sadly.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  After Ty Hatfield left, I needed something positive to focus on. So I headed back to the chapter room where the pledges were having their weekly meeting. The Sutton Delta Beta chapter had had an exceptional rush this year. Not only was the pledge class larger than usual, but they were fantastically good looking. And I’m sure they were all made of a good moral cloth. But you can’t judge that just by looking at someone.

  The women sat in a circle on the floor of the chapter room. Only initiated members could sit in chairs. That’s not hazing, that’s just Deb tradition. Each had a notebook and pen in hand. Cheyenne, the pledge trainer, sat at the top of the circle next to an easel with posters stacked on it.

  Cheyenne pointed at a poster. ‘Leticia Baumgardner.’

  A pledge busted out with the answer. ‘Who is the founder of Delta Beta?’

  ‘Correct.’ Cheyenne smiled at the girl and pointed back at the poster. ‘Wa
lnut Valley College.’

  ‘What is the college where Delta Beta was founded?’

  ‘Correct again.’

  Oooh. It was Deb Jeopardy! I loved this game.

  ‘Frisky Friedman,’ Cheyenne offered to the room.

  A tentative hand went up. ‘Who is a guy we should never date?’ Giggles erupted around the circle.

  Cheyenne was patient with the little joke. ‘No. Who is the Delta Beta Olympic gold medalist,’ she answered.

  ‘Bonus points,’ I chimed in. ‘Who knows Frisky’s Olympic event?’

  No one seemed to know.

  ‘C’mon guys, it was decathlon,’ I said.

  Pens were picked up and notes were scribbled. Pledges didn’t just learn this stuff for fun. They were tested on it. If they didn’t get a perfect score, they weren’t initiated. It wasn’t hazing. It was education.

  ‘What kind of a name is Frisky?’ A dark-haired pledge asked.

  ‘It was a nickname, one she picked up as a pledge. It has nothing to do with boys. Or cats,’ I hastily added.

  The pledges looked impressed at the breadth of my knowledge of Delta Beta trivia.

  Cheyenne moved on. ‘Dorothy.’

  ‘Oh! Oh!’ A petite Asian girl on the floor said, waving her hand in the air. ‘The original name for Busy Bee, our mascot.’

  Cheyenne scrunched up her nose. ‘I’m sorry, your answer has to be in the form of a question.’

  ‘Fun fact!’ I interrupted again. ‘Does anyone know why a Bee was picked to be the Deb mascot?’

  Hands shot up around the circle. ‘Because its colours are black and gold?’

  ‘Because they’re really small and petite?’

  ‘Because they sting like a bitch?’

  ‘Sort of,’ I said. ‘Because bees work hard, play hard and always listen to the queen.’

  Cheyenne and I exchanged a knowing smile. I could tell we both liked being the queen.

  ‘Have you all gotten your Busy Bees yet from your big sisters?’ I asked the pledges.

  The pledges all smiled and nodded, pleased that they had been involved with such an important Deb tradition. Delta Beta big sisters always gave their little sisters their first plush Busy Bee. It was a cherished item that the little kept with them for the rest of their lives. And since it wasn’t a teddy bear or a bunny, there was nothing juvenile about it in the least.

  Of course, I still had my Busy Bee from Amanda, back in my room at my parents’ house in Florida. Because I travelled full time for Delta Beta, it never made sense for me to get an apartment in Atlanta when I was only there six weeks of the year, so most of my personal belongings had sat in boxes for the past six years.

  ‘Did you give a Busy Bee to your little sister?’ The Asian girl on the floor asked me. She couldn’t know that she had touched on a sensitive subject.

  ‘I never had a little sister.’ It was the brutal truth. And six plus years hadn’t made the pain of that truth go away.

  The pledges’ eyes widened in shock. I bet they’d never heard something so disturbing. ‘I really don’t like to talk about it,’ I said. ‘But know from my example, that you can be a proud, strong Delta Beta even if your little sister dreams don’t work out like they should.’

  As an initiated member, Cheyenne understood better than the pledges what my admission meant. Compassion and support were in her eyes before she picked up her tablet and started again on the training process.

  I pulled a chair to the back of the room and listened as facts and figures that I knew so well were repeated and memorised by a new generation. This is what it was all about: sharing history and learning traditions. This was the fabric of our lives.

  The pledges finished Deb Jeopardy and Cheyenne told everyone to pull out their Pledge Manuals and open to page fifty-five.

  I knew what that was. The beginning of the standards and morals sections. Standards and morals were so vital to every sorority. Pledges were first gently corrected on bid day if they drank beer from a bottle or smoked in their letters. But it wasn’t about the silly little rules. All the silly little rules contributed to something larger, something more important, reminding the pledges that their conduct reflected on the sorority as a whole, on their friends and sisters. Personally, I thought it was a lesson that more young women needed to learn these days. And not to smoke and walk at the same time. That was just common sense.

  After they had all gotten to the correct page, Cheyenne resumed her presentation. ‘Now, last week we discussed some of the academic rules, the required GPA, the mandatory study hours and the expectation that all Debs will turn over their class notes at the end of a semester for other sisters to use in subsequent semesters. This week, I’d like to go over your morals. Can anyone tell me why good morals are important to Delta Beta?’

  The petite Asian girl raised her hand. ‘Because it’s in our creed?’

  ‘Sort of, but I think it’s in our creed because it’s important to the sorority, not vice versa. Anyone else?’

  ‘Because we’re not Tri Mu?’ That came from the back of the room and resulted in almost everyone snickering.

  ‘That’s sort of true, too,’ Cheyenne said with a wink. ‘But good morals define your character. Anyone can follow a rule just because it’s a rule. That doesn’t mean they’re moral people. They just don’t want to suffer the consequences when they break a rule. Morals are how you live your life when there are no rules. Morals are how you live when nobody’s watching.’

  ‘I thought that was dance,’ a tall girl with thick auburn hair half-joked.

  ‘Yeah,’ another pledge nodded. ‘You’re supposed to dance like no one is watching.’

  ‘That’s so lame,’ a pretty cheerleader type scoffed. ‘The whole point of dancing is to make sure people are watching you.’ Some of the other pledges nodded in agreement.

  ‘It’s the same principle with morals,’ I said to the room. ‘Yes, you can dance for performance’s sake, for your dance class, or for your parents who paid for the lessons. But if you dance while no one is watching, you’re wilder, crazier. You reveal your true self then, just when it’s you and the music. Morals are the things you do when no one is watching. You’re sharing class notes; you’re forming a study group; you’re showing up for work on time. These are the things that shape your character.’

  This is what Ty Hatfield didn’t understand about the Delta Beta code. It was why I preserved the sanctity of our rituals. It was why I would always put my sisters first. It was why I knew a Deb could never kill someone on purpose. It would go against everything we stood for.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Wednesday morning, I got up with a renewed sense of purpose. After dressing and eating a quick breakfast, I headed to the Chapter Advisor’s office and locked the door of the office behind me. It was a rather futile, maybe even immature, action, but somehow I felt the need to lock myself in the Advisor’s office. Hatfield’s visit the night before had given me a lot to think about, on top of the pile of to-do’s I already had.

  The suggestion that Liza McCarthy had been murdered was bad enough. The suggestion that a sorority sister was the murderer was untenable. Ty Hatfield did not understand how sororities worked. Sorority women were a lot of things, but we weren’t murderers.

  When I sat back down to get to work, Ty Hatfield wouldn’t leave my head. As cute as he was, he did seem to be a diligent cop and rather distrustful of women. It was a shame. Women had so much to offer men.

  I focused on organising the office. The first round was clearing all sociology papers from the room. This was fairly easy and in thirty minutes I had a nice pile of books, tests and papers that one of the chapter members could return to the sociology department. As a doctoral candidate, it looked like Liza had taught some classes and the department would probably need these ASAP.

  During the next pass, I focused on collecting the standard Delta Beta materials. The chapter bylaws and the pledge manual went on the bookshelf as I had all that committed to hear
t. Since I had thoroughly reviewed the monthly reports to HQ, with the GPA’s and membership numbers, I shoved those up there, too.

  Then I was left with the details. I set aside the order forms for the house’s kitchen, intending to temporarily delegate those decisions to the house cook. There were several piles of receipts for various chapter expenses that I placed in a large envelope. I’d have to assume that they were all legitimate expenses and if I later discovered that I needed a receipt, well, I knew I’d find one in a large brown envelope marked ‘receipts.’ I’m fairly organised that way.

  Hatfield had mentioned notes and letters. Sadly, there weren’t many of the latter. I found a few birthday cards that made me want to cry. I took down the pictures of Liza and various chapter members off the bulletin board, in case one of the sisters came in to see me. I didn’t want them to have to look at Liza’s face. Unfortunately, there were tons of notes. Half-scribbled on pieces of paper ripped from some spiral notebook, copies of Panhellenic agendas with her doodles all over them, even napkins with lists of names and numbers. I couldn’t make sense of them, as haphazard as they were. I kept digging until I found notes I did recognise on the official forms of the Delta Beta Standards and Morals office.

  Standards and Morals was the worst part of the job anywhere in the Delta Beta sorority organization, but it was a duty essential to the proper development of young women. Every sorority kept its own standards for membership, some lower than others (cough, Tri Mu, cough) and when sisters failed to live up to those standards, they sat through hearings in front of the standards and morals director, the Chapter President and the Chapter Advisor. Consequences ranged from financial penalties, to work penalties, to the ultimate discipline: yanking a sister’s pin.

  I’d been in attendance for two such hearings as Chapter President and again as S&M director. It was heartbreaking to permanently cancel a sister’s membership, but often it was necessary to maintain the high moral standards of the institution.

  I recognised these forms on Liza’s desk, which detailed the violations of one sister and scheduled a date for her hearing in just three days’ time. It looked like I’d be overseeing another hearing, which was disheartening to say the least. I found a folder for the S&M forms and placed them in a desk drawer. It seemed appropriate, like they deserved their privacy.