Prom Date

by Diane Hoh

  “Mom?” Margaret called, hurrying over to the van. “What are you doing here?”

  To her amazement, her mother grabbed her, threw both arms around her and hugged her so hard, Margaret couldn’t catch her breath. “You’re all right, oh, thank goodness!” Adrienne babbled.

  Margaret could feel her mother’s body shaking. “Mom, what’s wrong?”

  Adrienne pulled away then, looked into Margaret’s face. She seemed to be drinking it in, as if she couldn’t believe it was real. “I saw that ambulance and I thought … I don’t know what I thought, but it wasn’t good. You sure you’re okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine.” She couldn’t tell her mother just yet what had happened. That would have to wait until they got home. “What are you doing here? I told you Mitch was bringing me home.”

  “I thought I was taking you home,” Caroline said petulantly. “Weren’t we going out for pizza?”

  Margaret had forgotten. She had made plans to do just that with her friends following the meeting. But that had been last Tuesday, thousands of years ago, before the picnic, before Stephanie, before the Dumpster, before Mitch.

  “Margaret,” her mother said, her voice trembling, “the police were at the house. Just now. Two officers. They said the milk you gave the cat was poisoned. Poisoned, Margaret! Some kind of deadly insecticide. And it was in our fridge in our store. Margaret, practically everyone in town knows I’m severely allergic to milk. I’ve made jokes about it in the store, remember? Lots of people know.”

  “Mom …”

  Her mother put a hand up. “So the police are certain that poison was meant only for you. For you, Margaret! That’s why I got so hysterical when I saw the ambulance pulling away just now. I thought you … you … Margaret, I am trying to tell you that someone tried to poison you!”

  Chapter 22

  THE TWO POLICE OFFICERS, one of whom was Mitch’s brother Eddie, were waiting when Margaret’s mother brought her, along with Mitch, Caroline, and Scott, back to the house. When a still-shaken Adrienne had made coffee and brought a tray into the pretty blue-and-white living room, questions were posed to Margaret. Questions she couldn’t have answered even if her mind hadn’t been foggy with shock and disbelief.

  Did she know why anyone would want to harm her? Poison her?

  No, she didn’t.

  The poison used was a strong insecticide. Did she know anyone who gardened? “No, but my mother does,” Margaret said through lips that felt numb.

  Adrienne, sitting between Margaret and Mitch on the blue striped couch, sent her a questioning look. “I do?”

  “The silent partners. I thought you said they all belonged to the Toomey Garden Club. Liza’s mother grows great roses, you said, and Beth’s mother’s specialty is chrysanthemums, and Kiki’s mother has the best gardener in town, right?”

  “Oh. Them. Yes, that’s true. I thought you meant friends of mine. None of my friends have time to garden. But yes, the partners do have beautiful gardens.” Adrienne pointed to a lush spring bouquet of yellow, blue, and white flowers sitting on the coffee table. “They often bring flowers into the store. I keep them there a few days, and then bring them home to enjoy them.” She smiled wanly at Caroline. “And your mother grows lovely flowers.”

  “Yeah, she does. But I don’t think she uses insecticide. I think she does that organic thing.”

  “Could you give me the names of these people?” Officer McGill asked, pencil poised over his notebook.

  The other officer said, “I know their names. Except that last one. Her name was?”

  Caroline’s flush deepened. Margaret knew why. It was as if he had said the other three women were well-known, but her own mother wasn’t anybody important.

  The partners, Margaret thought cynically, must donate some of their truckloads of money to the Policemen’s Benevolent Association. She hoped that didn’t mean they’d get special treatment. Not that she thought any of them had tossed her into a Dumpster. She almost laughed aloud then, at the vision of the chic, well-coiffed women lurking around in the alley.

  It wasn’t funny, though, was it? Someone had been lurking in the alley, expecting Margaret to drink that poisoned milk and die. Die! When the cat had died instead, the plan had to be changed, so she’d been thrown into the Dumpster and it had been set on fire. Someone had tried to kill her.

  “Who else has access to the store? I mean, who has keys?” an officer asked Adrienne.

  “Let me see.” She began ticking off on her fingers. “I do, of course, and my daughter. I keep several extras around, here at the house and at the store, just in case. I’m not one to lose things, but you never know. Then there are the partners. Each of them has a key, although as far as I know they’ve never used them.”

  “I have one,” Caroline said, “because I work there. And sometimes I lend it to Scott if he has an early pickup or delivery.”

  “You do?” Adrienne looked surprised. “I didn’t know that. I really don’t want you loaning the key to anyone, Caroline. Not even Scott. If he has an early delivery, I’ll be at the store to let him in.”

  Unperturbed, Scott nodded, but Caroline lowered her eyes in chagrin. “Sorry,” she murmured.

  “Anyone else?” McGill asked.

  “No. I think that’s it.”

  “Mom,” Margaret felt compelled to point out, “the key ring hangs right beside the cash register. You said yourself you keep extras. Do you count them every night to make sure they’re all still there?”

  Doubt appeared in her mother’s face. “Well, no, not every night. But …”

  “The store’s been really crowded lately, Mom. Like a zoo. Anyone could have slipped one of those keys off the ring while we were busy away from the register.”

  “But I do count the keys,” Adrienne protested’. “Not every single night, maybe, but often enough. I counted them this morning. They’re all there.”

  The older officer’s voice was noncommittal as he said, “Someone could have made a copy. Slip the key off the ring, take it to a locksmith and have a copy made, bring it right back, slip it back on the ring. Wouldn’t take more than a few minutes.”

  Adrienne was very pale. “And that’s how you think someone managed to slip the poison into the milk carton?”

  “Not necessarily. I’ve been in your shop. It’s small, with easy access to the back rooms and that room upstairs. Could be, when you were busy like your daughter says, someone walked right into that back room with the fridge, opened it up, dumped the insecticide in and walked back out again. Someone who was already inside the store.”

  “Maybe,” Margaret said. “But they couldn’t have stolen Stephanie’s dress, the one my mother was working on, while we were in the shop. We’d have noticed them leaving with it. So, since there wasn’t any broken lock after that dress was missing, they must have used a key.”

  She hadn’t realized until she saw the puzzled look on the officers’ faces that her mother had failed to report the stolen dress. An explanation was required. Adrienne handled it. “I didn’t report it,” she finished, “because the dress wasn’t expensive enough to make it grand theft. With everything else that was going on, I didn’t think petty theft was worth the attention. Should I have reported it?”

  “Only because it might be part of the whole picture, ma’am,” Officer McGill said.

  “I think it is,” Margaret said firmly. “And I don’t think the attack on Kiki had anything to do with the money. It’s got something to do with the prom.”

  She was instantly sorry. The officers looked uninterested, but Adrienne bolted upright on the couch, alarm in her face. Margaret could practically see the images in her mother’s mind: an explosion at the gym the night of the prom, a fire, mass murder …

  “But maybe not,” Margaret added hastily. If Adrienne became convinced that the insane acts were related to the prom, even she, who had ardently wanted her daughter to attend, might change her mind and make that daughter stay home. “I’m sure,”
Margaret added weakly, “that the poisoning attempt has nothing to do with the prom at all. That’s too silly. How could it?”

  The officers stood up. “We need to find out where that insecticide came from,” one of them said. “When we know that, we’ll be able to give you some answers. Meantime, we’re still working on that girl’s death out at the Point.” He looked at Margaret. “Lucky that milk carton and the saucer didn’t burn in the Dumpster, or we wouldn’t even know this thing had happened. You’d be out there without a parachute, miss, like that other girl, the one who died, not knowing someone had it in for you. At least you’ve had some warning. You take care now, you hear? We’ll get back to you soon as we know something.”

  Does it really matter, Margaret wondered wearily as her mother led the officers to the door, why this is happening? Even if the prom isn’t involved, Stephanie will still be dead, Kiki will still have a face that looks like she fell from a twelve-story building onto cement, and I will still be scared half out of my wits. Correction, completely out of my wits.

  Caroline and Scott left, but Mitch hung around all evening. Margaret could see that he was reluctant to leave her, even if she was safe in her own home. His obvious concern warmed her like a wool sweater.

  “You have to go home,” she said shortly after eleven. They were sitting on the porch swing. The temperature hadn’t dropped, and the motion of the swing provided them with a balmy breeze. A three-quarter moon overhead acted as a faint lamp. Adrienne had tactfully withdrawn to her own room, but Margaret knew she probably wasn’t asleep. “We’ve got school tomorrow. I don’t want you dragging into your classes with bags under your eyes.”

  “Why not?” His worried look was momentarily replaced by the hint of a grin. “I’ve already got a date for the prom, so I figure I can slack off now. Are you so shallow that you’d break a date with me just because I’m not my usual drop-dead, gorgeous self?”

  Margaret didn’t laugh. “Please don’t mention the prom,” she said softly, leaning back against his chest.

  “Sorry.” His arm tightened around her shoulders. “You going to be okay? Look at me, Meg.”

  She turned her head, and he repeated, “You’re going to be okay, right?”

  She couldn’t very well say, No, I’m not. She said yes. “Yes, I’m going to be just great,” was what she said. But her mind was not at all convinced.

  Before he left, he said, “Look, everyone knows about that Dumpster business. So people will be watching out for you. Not just me, lots of people. You won’t be alone, I promise. I’ll pick you up and take you to school, and bring you home afterwards, or to the store if that’s where you want to go.”

  “Caroline picks me up every morning.”

  “I’m bigger than Caroline,” and now he really did grin. “She won’t mind. She’ll want you to be safe, right?”

  Margaret wasn’t so sure Caroline wouldn’t mind. But the truth was, she would feel safer with Mitch. Maybe that was sexist, but she couldn’t help it.

  She would have to call Caroline later. Probably wouldn’t be a great conversation.

  “And Eddie knows how I feel about you,” Mitch said after he kissed her good night, “so he won’t let anyone ease up on this case, okay?”

  Those were the words that finally carried Margaret off to sleep in the wee small hours of the morning. “Eddie knows how I feel about you.”

  Caroline hadn’t been angry when Margaret called. She had said she understood, and was glad Margaret had Mitch “watching out” for her. But then she had added wistfully, “Wish I had someone like that.”

  Margaret had wanted to tell her that her mother was saving the turquoise dress for her, but she didn’t. Caroline had to ask Scott because she wanted to go with him, not because she wanted to wear a particular dress. That wouldn’t be fair to Scott.

  School was grim. Finals were racing toward them. Everyone knew they should be concentrating like mad. Impossible. Normal anxiety about grades had been compounded by a very real fear of physical danger. It was in countless faces as Margaret walked through the halls, always with Mitch or Caroline, Scott or Lacey or Jeannine at her side. She saw it everywhere. Fear. Atmosfear, she thought, realizing that the looks sent her way contained some measure of awe because she’d survived an attack and wasn’t even in the hospital. But what she also saw in those faces as they passed her was a wariness, a knowledge that she might very well be the target of an additional attack. Unless they were willing to risk being caught in the crossfire, they’d be wise to steer clear of Margaret Dunne.

  It was weird. Four years of high school almost over and only now, in the last two weeks, did everyone know who she was.

  I would rather still be anonymous, she thought, and knew that it was true.

  She learned via the school grapevine that Kiki hadn’t been able to identify her attacker. Couldn’t even tell if it was a guy or a girl. The words that had been whispered in her ear had been repeated so many times around school that they had become an exaggerated version of the truth, including a bizarre threat to “cut off her toes and mail them to her in a box if she attended the prom.”

  Of course she wasn’t going. That word, too, circulated very quickly. Kiki had tearfully broken her date with David. She was terrified, and even if she hadn’t been, everyone who knew her knew she wouldn’t appear in public until her face was completely back to normal.

  Handsome, popular David Goumas, like Michael Danz before him, no longer had a date for his senior prom. But this time, Margaret’s friends were careful not to rejoice while she was present. When Lacey asked her at lunch if there were any prom dresses left at the shop, she did it so casually, almost lazily, that Margaret refused to make an issue of it. “Yes. A dozen or so.” She did not mention David Goumas.

  And later, when she spied Caroline and Lacey talking sympathetically to a despondent David, Margaret kept right on walking with Mitch. She wasn’t about to say to her friends: “Be careful what you wish for. If I were you, I wouldn’t be so anxious for a prom date now. Look what’s been happening to those of us who are going.” Because even if she could be absolutely positive that was the reason behind the attacks, she knew they wouldn’t listen. No matter what, they’d still want to go. They wouldn’t believe that something as awful as the attacks could happen to them. Impossible to believe until you actually feared for your life, as she had in the Dumpster. If someone had told Margaret Dunne that accepting Mitch McGill’s invitation meant that someone would try to poison her, would she still have accepted? Or would she have said no?

  If I had really believed it, she told herself, I would have said no. I’m no masochist. The trouble is, I wouldn’t have believed it. It would have sounded totally insane.

  It still did.

  There was no announcement that the prom was being canceled. Stephanie’s mother replaced the missing funds, accompanying the check with a note that said her daughter would have wanted her to, and generously wishing everyone a good time.

  When Mitch dropped Margaret off at Quartet shortly after three, Adrienne was waiting at the door for her. Her face was strained, her mouth pursed in an anxious line.

  It must have been hard for her all day, Margaret thought, giving her mother a hug. I should have called her more than that once at lunchtime. Tomorrow I will.

  But in the next moment, she learned that it wasn’t only her safety that had her mother upset.

  “Margaret, it’s happened again,” Adrienne said in a low voice to avoid being overheard by a handful of customers in the store, which included a few Pops and, Margaret saw, Lacey and Jeannine, browsing among the remaining prom dresses.

  Margaret’s initial reaction was that her mother meant there had been another attack. Her heart began racing. “Oh, no! Who is it this time?”

  Adrienne shook her head. “No, no, not that. No one’s been hurt. But another dress is missing. One of those three I had to replace? It’s not here. Like the other one, it was finished, hanging by the register, and ready to b
e picked up, although I hadn’t called and told her yet. But it’s gone.”

  Confused, Margaret said, “No, that can’t be right. Stephanie’s dress disappeared after she was … killed. Like her attacker was sending a message or something. Kiki Pappas is the girl who was attacked at school yesterday, so it would be her dress that’s missing. But … Kiki didn’t buy her dress here, Mom. She went to the city, just like she always does. So how could her dress be missing?”

  “I know Kiki didn’t buy her prom dress here, Margaret. I’m not talking about her. But one of the dresses is missing. It’s the blue one. That pale blue slip dress. The one Beth Andrews bought. It’s gone. It’s simply gone. I can’t find it anywhere.”

  “Beth? Beth’s dress is missing?”

  Adrienne fixed apprehensive eyes on Margaret. “I don’t like this, Margaret. I don’t like it at all. That girl could be in serious danger.”

  Chapter 23

  “MAYBE BETH CAME IN and got the dress, Mom,” Margaret suggested. “When you were at lunch?”

  “I didn’t go to lunch today. I never left the store. And there’s something else.” Adrienne pointed to a vase of flowers sitting on the counter. “Kiki’s mother brought those in today. I asked her if she uses insecticide, and she said of course, but it was the oddest thing, she’d had a brand-new bottle in her garage and when she went out to garden today, the bottle was gone. She said the last time she noticed that it was there was the day of the funeral, when Beth’s boyfriend came over to pick up small bouquets of flowers she’d put together for Stephanie’s friends to carry at the funeral. She and the boy went into the garage to find a small box to put them in. She said the insecticide was there then.”

  “Lucas? She thinks Lucas took the insecticide?”

  “She didn’t say that, Margaret. But they keep their garage locked. If he was the only one in there … I’m calling the police. Beth could be in danger.”

  Of course Beth is in danger, Margaret thought. Aren’t we all? She kept the thought to herself. “It’s weird that my dress wasn’t stolen.” Or … “It wasn’t, was it?” she asked nervously.