She pulled open the door and hugged me immediately. A long, tight hug, which on any other day I would have relished. Today, however, I winced at the pain and held my breath so as not to infect her with the beastly bug.
“You made it!” she gushed. “How was the drive?”
I suppressed a cough. “Fine. You know. Driving.” I unscrewed the bottle top and polished off the last of water to quell the urge to whoop all over her. “Are parents allowed to use the bathroom?”
Callie laughed. “Of course. Down the hall.”
“Be right back,” I croaked, making my way to the door.
“Mom, are you okay?”
“Yes. Why?”
“You’re limping.”
Well, truthfully, I wasn’t really limping. Limping implies one foot works better than the other. In my case, I sort of doddered because both feet were on fire. At least Callie wasn’t onto my influenza. I choked back another cough. “It’s the boots. They’re new.”
“Why don’t you take them off for a few minutes and give your feet a break?”
Good idea. I raised a really smart daughter. Shuffling to her bed, I eased down and sighed in relief. They still burned, but now at least it didn’t feel like ten thousand mini-ninjas were stabbing them with ten thousand mini-ninja swords.
I pulled off the first boot and Callie gasped. “Is that blood?”
Dark red blood had oozed through my white sock. “That wasn’t there the last time I took them off. Oh, wow. It feels good to have that off my foot.” I pulled the other boot off. More blood.
“Mom, you can’t wear those.” Callie dug through her desk drawer. “It’s a ten-minute walk to the rotunda and you might have to stand most of the day.” She retrieved the dorm-appropriate first-aid kit I’d sent with her when she moved in. “It’s pretty crowded over there with everyone coming to watch the filming.” She produced an alcohol wipe first. “Take off your socks and clean that up.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Both big toes bled at the nail where they’d been pinched so tightly. “See, I told you that first-aid kit would come in handy.” I cleaned up the toes, applied antibiotic cream and bandaged them both up. “There, that’s a little better. They still sting, but I don’t feel like an amputation is in order.”
“Don’t you know you never try to wear in boots when you’re going to be doing a lot of walking?”
“You’d think so, right? It’s been kind of crazy up our way, as you know. They’re cute though, right? Fifty percent off.”
“Did you bring a back up pair—walking shoes hopefully?”
“Um, no.” That was a problem she and I both knew was bigger than it sounded. See, I have unusually large feet. While I’m not extremely tall and large boned like my own mother, I did get her monstrously large shoe size. My size-eleven dwarfed Callie’s precious size-seven. That’s why I liked the boots so much, their design made my feet appear smaller than they really were. “I don’t suppose you have any size eleven walking shoes laying around here for just this type of emergency, do you?”
She shook her head.
“What size is your roommate?”
“I don’t know—a three maybe. She’s only five feet tall.”
Oh yeah. I'd met her roommate. She was a tiny pint of a thing. My feet probably wouldn’t even fit in the box her shoes came in. “What do I do?”
“I have an idea.” Callie reached under her bed. When she plopped her idea on the bed, I groaned. Her favorite shark head slippers. “This is all I have,” she said. “Shark attack.”
“No, not shark attack. I’ll look stupid. And crazy. I’ll look stupid crazy. Meryl will be there.”
“Meryl Streep is not going to ever lay eyes on you, and no one around campus is going to care.”
My face felt flushed with rising fever. Probably from the stress of knowing I’d have to walk across a college campus with sharks on my feet while pretending I wasn’t infirm. It was a vicious cycle. “Was there any pain reliever in that first-aid kit?”
“No, sorry. You can get some at the bookstore later, but we need to get going now. A girl I know has a dorm room right by the rotunda. It’s a dream-spot for watching the action, but if we don’t get there soon, she’s giving up our spot to someone else.”
I didn’t need to hear that twice. The slippers went on and I was up. A little dizzy, but up. “Let’s get this train moving, then.”
“Your cheeks are all red,” Callie said.
I stopped and held my breath, expecting her to question my health.
“Is it a hot flash?” she asked.
Crisis averted. Sometimes old age came in handy. I made a big show of fanning myself. “Yeah. Darned hot flashes.”
I followed her out the door, still shuffling, because that was the only way a person could walk in shark head slippers.
Through some sort of mind-over-matter trick, I managed to reach our destination without raising Callie’s suspicions. Luckily the walking allowed me to talk downwind of her so as not to spread germs.
The rotunda is an impressive structure that is the very heart of the University of Virginia. Designed by Thomas Jefferson, the domed building lies at one end of a grassy lane known famously as “The Lawn.” The Lawn is flanked on both sides by dormitory rooms dating back to the founding of the university in the early 1800’s. Nowadays, the dorm rooms on the lawn are prestigious and difficult to come by, so the mere fact that we had an “in” was a miracle.
Arriving at The Lawn, we had to squeeze through hordes of bodies to reach her friend’s room where students crowded outside on the brick terrace. Introductions were made. I’d never remember all of the names, but they seemed to be nice kids.
The area was covered with cameras and dollies and lighting equipment. A couple official-looking people ran around with clipboards and headphones barking orders at other people.
When I asked where all the actors were, a young man said they were on a lunch break.
Callie looked at her phone. “Mom, I have class soon, followed by a lab. Let’s meet back at my room, say, five?”
I nodded in agreement, but inwardly, I could tell my mind-over-matter trick was falling apart. I was falling apart. Pretty soon, I wouldn’t be able to hide the fever or suppress the cough. I needed cough syrup and a fever reducer, and I needed them ASAP.
Thankfully, Callie noticed my discomfort, even if she did mis-read the reason why. She whispered something in her friend’s ear and her friend nodded. “Mom, Ashley says she’ll keep your spot here if you want to run to the bookstore and buy some pain reliever.”
Run? Yeah, not literally, because who could run in these ridiculous slippers. But I was appreciative. “Which way?”
She pointed in a direction behind the dorms, and gave instructions that, at the time, seemed easy enough to remember. I’d walked the campus many times. I knew my way around.
She waved, I waved, I thanked her friend, and off I shuffled in the shark-head slippers, down a small cobble-stone alley between centuries-old buildings. Chilled again, I pulled my jacket tighter. A cool wind had picked up, so I wasn’t sure if it was me, the air, or both. My chest tightened. I barked a couple of deep, painful coughs.
Reaching a concrete sidewalk, I stopped for a minute to recall Callie’s directions. Was it left at the sidewalk or right? I couldn’t remember, but somehow, left felt right. Or maybe right was right.
No, I decided, left. Definitely left. Having committed to my decision and moving forward, I heard someone humming “Purple Rain” again. It was the same hum from earlier, I was sure of it.
A male hum. Purple Rain Man hum. I spun around, but did not see a familiar face. Was I hallucinating? Can you hallucinate a hum? While scanning the crowds for Purple Rain Man, I wandered off the sidewalk and stepped into a puddle, soaking the slippers.
“Frick and frack,” I mumbled to myself. Cold, wet feet just weren’t going to do, so I yanked the slippers off, shoved them under my arm, and continued on barefoot, hobbling slowly up the sid
ewalk.
The world around me grew hazy. Was I going in the right direction? I’d been to the bookstore before, but nothing looked familiar. I needed to stop someone and ask if I was heading the right way, but everyone seemed to be moving so fast. Faces that passed me all began to look like Purple Rain Man with gigantic beaky noses.
The sidewalk began to sway up and down and up and down. I smelled cigarette smoke and heard a woman cackling like Vivana Buttaro.
No! I had to run far, far away! Spikey-heeled, chain-smoking, gun-toting Vivana Buttaro had followed me to the University of Virginia to exact her spiteful revenge. Only, I couldn’t run. My feet were heavy as lead. I trudged on and on, but weakness was overtaking me. I couldn’t continue.
I turned up another alley, a coughing fit wracking my body. The world spun, and I fell against the brick wall, clutching the wet sharks. Unable to hold my own weight, I slid down the wall. The cigarette smoke thickened like a heavy fog and a woman cackled while a man hummed and hummed and hummed.
Just when I thought I couldn’t take it anymore, a woman’s voice reached through my flu-soaked stupor. “Do you need help?” she asked kindly.
I lifted my gaze. An angel had appeared. A halo of light surrounded her blond head of hair. Was that church bells I heard? “Meryl?” I asked. “Meryl Streep? Have you come to save me?”
She knelt down and felt my forehead. “You’re burning up. What’s your name?”
“Barb,” I answered. “My name is Barb. I came to see you today, but I have the flu.” I tried desperately to focus, but her head became two heads, then three, then two again. “Meryl, listen, this is important. I never drank the flu bomb. Everyone is sick and Pickle was murdered and Moyle can’t twist and Vinnie VanGo rapped a song, an awful, awful song, and now Purple Rain Man and Viviana Buttaro are trying to kill me.”
“Are you the Barbara Marr everyone is tweeting about?” she asked much too calmly.
Meryl Streep didn't comprehend the magnitude of danger involved here. It was my job to make her understand. I grabbed her by the collar, pulled her close, and screamed, “Code red, Meryl Streep! Code red!”
Chapter Fourteen
At home in bed, I downed two aspirin while watching a Meryl Streep interview on Entertainment This Day. They showed footage of her holding my hand while EMTs lifted my gurney into the ambulance. All the while, I was shaking Callie’s shark head slippers and hollering, “Code red, Meryl Streep! Code red!”
I wanted to curl up and die. I had finally met Meryl Streep—not just Dream Meryl, but the actual, living, breathing Meryl Streep—and now it seemed like a dream because I had been running a hundred and five degree temperature. I take that back. It felt like a nightmare.
Peggy and Roz, finally back to normal, showed up with soup and sympathy. I clicked off the television set, disgusted with myself. “I need Moyle here to twist me back in time so I can reverse that debacle.”
“What are you talking about?” Peggy asked. “You’re the most famous person I know now. Everyone thinks it is so cool that you are my friend. First you scold Vinnie VanGo on national television and now Meryl Streep has rescued you.” She set a tray on the bed with a steaming bowl of chicken noodle. “Here’s soup.” She crossed her arms, looking pleased. “I’m just so proud of you.”
“Thanks.” The soup smelled good, although I wasn’t sure how much I’d be able to manage. “Was Guy’s interview broadcast nationally?”
Roz lifted an eyebrow. “More like globally. You didn’t hear about the tweeting firestorm? His mother, ‘At VinniesMama’, laid into him. She told him publicly that he’d better apologize to you or else.”
I blew my nose and threw the tissue into a trashcan beside my bed. “An apology would be nice, but I’d rather he just unpublished the song.” I reached for the spoon. “Can you guys stay and keep me company for a while?”
“Sure, I can stay for a little while.” Peggy sat on the edge of my bed and Roz took up residence on the bench at the foot.
Roz checked her watch. “I can stick around a few minutes. How are you feeling today?
“Better. My temperature still hovers around a hundred and I ache all over, but far better than two days ago.” I slurped soup, then rested my spoon in the bowl so I could grab another tissue for my drippy nose.
“It’s a nasty flu,” Peggy said. “I’m still dragging.”
Roz nodded. “Me too. Man, you were one busy woman while we were sick. What the heck happened?”
“Murder. Mayhem. You know, the usual,” I said.
“So, it wasn’t a dream that Howard issued a Code Yellow?” Roz asked.
I shook my head and began my story. “It all started when I found Pickle by the Nature Center pond, resting in an Adirondack chair, a knife in his chest.” I recounted the resulting murder investigation, the return of Moyle, Sharon Forrest’s ‘that Barbara Marr’ comment perpetuated nationally by Guy Mertz’s tweet, my experiences with Purple Rain Man and fears that Viviana Buttaro was back to do me in. “And now,” I said, ending the gruesome tale, “Nature Center volunteers are vanishing like ghosts.”
“Wow,” Peggy said, “I can’t believe we missed it all. How did you end up in Charlottesville?”
“While all of that was going on, Callie invited me down to watch Meryl Streep film a movie on campus.”
Roz cocked her head at me. “And you went even though you were sick?”
“In my defense, I didn’t start to feel badly until I was on my way. It hit me fast.”
“Tell me about it.” Peggy moved the soup tray to my dresser. “So they still don’t know who killed Mr. Pickle?”
“Not Mr. Pickle, just Pickle—short for Rick Pickleseimer. And I don’t know if the police found the murderer or not. As of Halloween night, they hadn’t. I have this uncomfortable feeling that Moyle is involved somehow.”
“You think he killed this Pickle guy?” Peggy asked, cleaning up all the wadded tissues on the floor where I had missed the trashcan.
“No, not involved like that. On Halloween Moyle told me he’s been dreaming about Pickle and two other volunteers—Bernie Ford and Ed Sigmund.”
“I know Ed Sigmund,” Peggy said. “He’s in my thriller writing critique group.”
“When was the last time he showed up to a meeting?”
She cringed. “I couldn’t tell you. It’s a little embarrassing. The writer’s block is terrible, so, I’ve skipped a few.”
“A few meetings?”
“A few years.”
“Then I hate to break the news to you, he’s not attending meetings anymore either.” I gave her a sympathetic look. “He’s dead.”
“No! How? He looked great the last time I saw him.” Peggy’s red hair bounced as she shook her head in disbelief. “That man was a marathon runner.”
“Heart attack, I think.”
“Wow,” said Roz. “Just goes to prove you can eat right and exercise and still kick the bucket like that.” She snapped her fingers.
The doorbell rang. Roz stood. “I’ll get it.” A moment later she returned with Olga at her side. The small woman carried a colossal gift basket.
“This is from all of us at the Nature Center. A thank you for helping us out and a get well because the flu catch you. If you take my advice and have the vodka, this would not be, but here is your gift basket anyway.” Olga set the cellophane-wrapped basket on my bed.
I thanked her several times as she pointed out the treasures of chocolate, dried fruit, cookies and other yummies. Then I introduced her to Roz and Peggy.
“I’ve been a little unconscious for a day or so,” I told her. “Did Eric arrest anyone in Pickle’s murder?”
Olga shook her head. “This police investigator catch your flu.” She clicked her tongue. “More people should try my flu bomb, this is all I am saying. Okay, I go now.” She stopped at the door and turned back. “Forgot to tell you, Bob says hi ya.” In a flash, she was gone.
“Bob?” Peggy questioned.
I waved it off. “Moyle. He has a pseudonym, apparently. Long story.”
“I should go too,” Roz said.
“Wait.” Peggy stopped her. “Not yet. I have a favor to ask. Since I was sick, the Queen postponed her trip. She’s coming on Sunday. We’re meeting at a restaurant, probably in the Town Center. I’d love for you guys to come along.”
The request seemed a little odd, I’ll admit. I mean, Peggy, Roz, and I are bosom buds, but we weren’t in the habit of tagging along on each other’s social meet-ups. I shrugged. “Maybe. If I’m feeling better, I suppose.”
“Why?’ Roz asked. She was more direct.
“You are my best friends.” Peggy divided her attention between me and Roz. “I want her to meet you both.”
You couldn’t argue with that.
“Okay,” Roz said.
I awoke the next day feeling human again. The recovery was no miracle. Howard made me a large pot of flu bomb which I finished off in record time. A lingering cough reminded me I had been sick, but I felt renewed and ready to be productive.
Howard had taken time off to run the house while I was sick, but this morning he headed out before sunrise. After getting the girls on the bus, I drove to the store for more flu bomb ingredients. I thought I’d experiment with the recipe a bit—make it tastier for Eric’s palate. While I delivered the brew, he could catch me up on the investigation if he felt like sharing.
I’d just pulled back into the driveway when Colt’s car parked at the curb. I hefted my floral grocery bag over one shoulder and waited for him to cross the front lawn.
“Out of bed finally, huh?” he asked. “You know, I have this great mixture you should try. I’ve heard it helps boost your immune system so you don’t succumb to the flu. I’ve been drinking it every day and look how healthy I am.”
“Ha ha.” I sniffed self-righteously. “I was so busy taking care of other people, I just forgot to drink my own, thank you very much.”
Dial Marr for Murder Page 10
