Open Season

by Linda Howard

  “Good idea.” He sighed, looking down at the small bundle. Death didn’t just make a body motionless; it reduced it to a lump, devoid of the tension and inherent grace that the sheer force of life imparted to muscles. He didn’t see how anyone could ever think a dead person was asleep, because the whole aspect of the body was so different. Alive, the girl had been a beauty, with an innocent spark that would have brought the money rolling in. Dead, she was nothing.

  “I’ll call Phillips, let him know what happened, and what we’re doing about Mitchell.” Temple didn’t look forward to the call, because he hated to admit when he’d made a mistake, and the decision to hire Mitchell had been his.

  Well, it was a mistake that would soon be rectified. Mitchell had dosed his last girl with GHB.

  FOUR

  Daisy stood in the rain and stared at the small, shabby house on Lassiter Avenue that was her last hope. The white paint was peeling, the few scraggly shrubs desperately needed trimming, the weed-choked yard looked as if it hadn’t been mowed all summer, and the roof over the front porch sagged. The screen on the door was torn loose from the frame on one side, and one window sported a giant crack. On the plus side, the small backyard was fenced. She tried hard to find some more pluses, but came up blank. On the other hand, it was available.

  “Let me find the key and we’ll go inside,” the owner, Mrs. Phipps, said as she dug in her voluminous shoulder bag. Mrs. Phipps wasn’t quite five feet tall, was almost as big around, and her hair was arranged—or maybe it grew that way—in huge white puffs that looked like wispy clouds. She puffed as she made her way up the broken sidewalk, skirting one section that was completely gone.

  “It’s nothing fancy,” she warned, though Daisy wondered why she thought any warning was necessary. “Just a living room, kitchen, two bedrooms, and a bathroom, but me and E. B. raised two kids here just fine. When E. B. passed on, my kids bought me a trailer and we put it in back of my oldest boy’s house, so I have somebody close if I take sick or something. I didn’t want to get rid of this old place, though. It was home for a long time. Plus the rent money helps out.”

  The sagging wooden porch seemed to give a little more under Mrs. Phipps’s weight; Daisy hung back, in case she was needed to go for help in the event Mrs. Phipps fell through the floor. But she reached the door without incident, and wrestled with the recalcitrant lock. Finally the key turned, and Mrs. Phipps heaved a grunt of accomplishment. “Here we go. I cleaned up after the last bunch cleared out, so you don’t have to worry about trash or anything like that.”

  The house was clean, Daisy saw with relief as she stepped inside. The smell was musty, of course, but it was the odor of emptiness, not of filth.

  The rooms were small, the kitchen barely big enough to cram in a small table and two chairs, so she couldn’t imagine how crowded it had been with a family of four. The floors were all cracked sheet linoleum, but they could be covered with area rugs. The bathroom was small, too, but at some point the tub had been replaced with a blue fiberglass tub and shower unit that didn’t match the white toilet and sink. A small space heater jutted from the wall.

  Silently she walked through the rooms again, trying to imagine them with lamps and curtains and cozy furniture. If she took the house, she would have to buy window units for air-conditioning, rugs for the floors, kitchen appliances, and furniture for the living room. She already had her bedroom furniture, thank goodness, but unless she bought the cheapest stuff she could find, she could expect to spend about six thousand dollars getting the place habitable. Thank God she didn’t live in a section of the country where the cost of living was high, or she would be looking at an expenditure of at least twice that amount. She had the money—that wasn’t a problem—but she’d never spent such a large sum in her life. Her stomach clenched in panic at the very thought.

  She could spend the money, or she could retreat to her mother’s house and live there until she grew old and died. Alone.

  “I’ll take it,” she said aloud, the words sounding strange and faraway, as if someone else had said them.

  Mrs. Phipps’s chubby pink face brightened. “You will? I didn’t—that is, you didn’t seem like the kind. . . This used to be a right nice street, but the neighborhood’s gone down, and...” She ran out of steam, unable to express her astonishment.

  Daisy could sympathize. Only a week ago—goodness, even yesterday!—she couldn’t have imagined herself living here, either.

  She might be desperate, but she wasn’t pathetic. She folded her arms and put on her best librarian’s face. “The front porch badly needs repairs. I’ll handle it for you, if you like, if you’ll take the amount of the repairs in lieu of the same amount of rent.”

  Mrs. Phipps crossed her arms, too. “Why would I do that?”

  “You’ll be out that amount of ready cash, true, but in the long run your property will be worth more and you’ll be able to charge more rent the next time.” Daisy hoped Mrs. Phipps was one who could see the long-term benefit, rather than thinking of only the rent money. Daisy had no idea how much the repairs would cost, but the rent was just a hundred and twenty dollars a month, so Mrs. Phipps could be looking at several months without any rent income.

  “I don’t think I can go without the extra money for that long,” Mrs. Phipps said doubtfully.

  Daisy thought quickly. “How about every other month? Could you handle that? I pay for the repairs now, then I pay no rent every other month until I recoup my money. Or you pay for the repairs and raise the rent a little.”

  Mrs. Phipps shifted her weight. “I don’t have that kind of cash to throw around. Okay, we’ll do it your way. But I want it in writing. And I want the first month’s rent; then we’ll start that every-other-month thing. None of the utilities are included, either.”

  For a hundred and twenty dollars a month, Daisy hadn’t assumed they were. She beamed and held out her hand. “It’s a deal,” she said, and they shook hands on it.

  “Kinda small,” Aunt Jo commented early that evening as she and Daisy’s mother inspected Daisy’s new digs.

  “It’ll do just fine,” Evelyn said stoutly. “A coat of paint and some nice curtains will work wonders. Anyway, it isn’t as if she’s going to live here for very long. She’ll find someone special in no time at all. Daisy, honey, if there’s anything in the attic you want, just take it.” She took another look around the little house. “Just what sort of decor do you have in mind?” she asked doubtfully, as if she couldn’t think of anything that would truly help the looks of the house.

  “Cozy and comfortable,” Daisy said. “It’s too small to try for anything else. You know, overstuffed chairs with afghans thrown across them, that kind of thing.”

  “Hmmph,” Aunt Jo said. “Only afghan I ever saw wouldn’t stay put unless you tied him down. Stupidest dog in the world.”

  They all began giggling. Aunt Jo’s sense of humor tended to the absurd, and both Daisy and her mother greatly enjoyed the flights of fancy.

  “You will need a dog,” Evelyn said suddenly, looking around. “Or burglar bars on the windows and an alarm system.”

  Burglar bars and an alarm system would add another thousand to her growing expenses. Daisy said, “I’ll start looking for a dog.” Besides, a dog would be company. She had never lived alone, so a dog would help ease the transition. Having a pet again would be nice; it had been eight years—my goodness, that long!—since the last family pet had died of old age.

  “When do you think you’ll move in?” Aunt Jo asked.

  “I don’t know.” Doubtfully, Daisy looked around. “The utilities have to be turned on, but that won’t take long. I’ll have to buy kitchen appliances and have them delivered, shop for furniture and rugs, put up curtains. And paint. It definitely needs a new coat of paint.”

  Evelyn sniffed. “A good landlady would have repainted after the last tenants left.”

  “The rent is a hundred and twenty a month. Fresh paint doesn’t come with the deal.”
>
  “I heard Buck Latham is taking paint jobs on the weekends for extra money,” said Aunt Jo. “I’ll call him tonight and see when he can do it.”

  Daisy heard another cha-ching in her bank account. “I can do the painting myself.”

  “No, you can’t,” Aunt Jo said firmly. “You’ll be busy.”

  “Well, yes, but I’ll still have time—”

  “No, you won’t. You’ll be busy.”

  “What Jo means, dear, is that we’ve been thinking, and we think you need to see a fashion-and-beauty consultant.”

  Daisy gaped at them, then smothered a laugh. “Where am I supposed to find one of those?” She didn’t think Wal-Mart had a fashion-and-beauty consultant on staff. “And why do I need someone to tell me how I want to look? I’ve already been thinking about that. I want Wilma to cut my hair, and maybe put in some highlights, and I’ll buy some makeup—”

  Both Evelyn and Joella slowly shook their heads. “That won’t get it,” Aunt Jo said.

  “Get what?”

  Evelyn took over. “Dear, if you’re going to do this, then do it right. Yes, you can get a different hairstyle and start wearing some makeup, but what you need is style. You need to have a presence, something that will make people turn and look at you. It’s presentation as much as anything else, and you aren’t going to find that in the health and beauty section of the drugstore.”

  “But I’m already going to be spending so much money—”

  “Don’t be penny wise and pound foolish. Do you think General Eisenhower could have established a Beachhead on Normandy if he’d said, ‘Wait, we’re pending too much money, let’s only send half as many ships’? You’ve saved your money all these years, but what good is money if you never use it? It isn’t as if you’ll be spending everything you’ve saved.”

  Daisy could be convinced, but she couldn’t be bull-dozed. She gave their proposition a moment’s thought. “I want to try it my way, first. Then, if I’m not satisfied, I’ll find a consultant.”

  Having known her all her life, both mother and aunt knew when she’d made up her mind. “All right. But don’t let Wilma do anything to your hair just yet,” Aunt Jo warned. “The damage could be irreversible.”

  “Wilma does your hair!” Daisy said indignantly.

  “Honey, I don’t let her anywhere near me with chemicals. The things I’ve seen in that beauty shop would make your blood run cold.”

  Daisy had a sudden vision of how she would look with green frizz, and decided she’d wait before booking an appointment with Wilma. Maybe she should go to one of the bigger cities to have her hair done, even though that would mean a trip every month for maintenance, and even more money. Wilma might be bad, but she was cheap.

  On the other hand, Wilma might be cheap, but she was bad.

  “Remember Normandy,” she muttered.

  “Exactly,” said her mother in a tone of satisfaction.

  Daisy was stubborn enough that she stopped by the drugstore on the way home and spent an astonishing amount on a small bag of makeup. Mascara, eye-shadow, blush, lip liner, and lipstick barely amounted to enough weight for her to feel them in the sack, but she was twenty-five dollars lighter in the pocket and she hadn’t even bought the good stuff. This project of hers was turning into a real money pit.

  She also spent some time researching the beauty magazines, and chose one that seemed to give the most instruction on makeup application. Anyone who could read could learn how to do this, she thought with satisfaction, and went home with her goody bag and instruction manual.

  “What did you get?” Aunt Jo demanded as soon as Daisy walked into the house.

  “Just the basics.” Daisy listed the contents of the bag. “I don’t want to try anything complicated, like eyeliner, until I get the hang of the other stuff. I’ll put all of this on after supper, and we’ll see how it looks.”

  Because it was her birthday, supper was one of her favorites: meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and green beans. She was too on-edge to do justice to the meal, though; a lot had happened that day, and her nerves wouldn’t seem to settle down. After the kitchen was cleaned up, her mother and Aunt Jo settled down in front of the television to watch Wheel of Fortune, and Daisy went upstairs to put on her brave new face.

  She studied the beauty magazine first, studying the correct way to apply eyeshadow: lightest shade under the brow, medium on the lid, dark in the crease. That sounded simple enough. There were diagrams using Audrey Hepburn-type doe eyes as an example. Daisy opened the little container and stared at the four shades of shadow, in various shades of brown. Brown was so dull; maybe she should have gotten the blues or greens, or even the purples. But if she’d gotten the blue, it wouldn’t have matched her green eye, and if she’d gotten the green, it wouldn’t have matched her blue eye. She couldn’t even imagine the purple, so she’d settled for brown.

  It seemed as if she’d settled for brown a lot in her lifetime.

  She carried her little trove into the bathroom and lined everything up on the vanity. The eyeshadow applicator was a tiny foam-tipped wand; she picked it out of the slot and swiped it across the lightest shade of shadow, then swabbed the color under her eyebrows as directed. She eyed the result in the mirror; well, that was practically unnoticeable. Relief warred with disappointment.

  Okay, the next step was the medium shade. There were two medium shades, but she didn’t suppose it mattered which one she chose. She swiped one of the medium shades across one lid and the other on her other lid, so she could compare the two. After a moment of critical examination, she decided she couldn’t tell much difference between them. Her eyes looked more dramatic, though; kind of smoky. Feeling a little excited now, she used the darkest shade in the crease of her lids, but she misjudged the amount of shadow she needed; the resultant dark stripe looked like some kind of tribal marking. Blend. The magazine said to blend. Daisy blended for all she was worth, trying to spread that dark stuff around.

  Okay, so now she looked more like Cleopatra than she did Audrey Hepburn. All in all, that had been fairly easy. She’d just take it easier with that dark shade the next time.

  Mascara came next. Mascara, according to the magazine, gave eyes impact. Enthusiastically she twirled the wand around and around in the tube, then began swiping it on her lashes.

  The end result looked as if caterpillars had crawled up on her eyelids and died.

  “Oh, no!” she moaned, staring in the mirror. What had she done wrong? This didn’t look anything like the models in the magazine! Her lashes stood out in thick, clumpy spikes, and whenever she blinked, her upper and lower lashes wanted to stick together. After she had pried them apart the second time, she did her best not to blink.

  She would be a coward if she stopped now, wouldn’t she? She had to see this through. Blusher couldn’t be as bad as mascara. She swiped the small brush across the oblong of color, then carefully applied it to her cheeks.

  “Gracious,” she whispered, eyeing the little container of color. How could it look so much darker on her face than it did in the container? Her cheeks looked sunburned, except sunburn never attained that exact shade of hot pink.

  Grimly she applied the remaining items, the lip liner and lipstick, but she couldn’t tell if it helped the situation or made it worse. All she knew was that the end result was hideous; she looked like a cross between a rodeo clown and something from a horror movie.

  She definitely needed help.

  Grimly she went downstairs, where Wheel of Fortune still spun. Evelyn and Jo stared at her, eyes round and mouths agape, stricken into silence.

  “Holy shit,” Aunt Jo finally blurted.

  Daisy’s cheeks burned under the blusher, making the color even brighter. “There has to be a trick to it.”

  “Don’t be upset,” her mother begged, getting up to put a comforting arm around her. “Most young girls learn by trial and error in their teens. You just never bothered, that’s all.”

  “I don’t have time to learn b
y trial and error. I need to get this nailed down, now.”

  “That’s why we suggested a beauty consultant. Think about it, honey; that’ll be the fastest way.”

  “Beth could show me how,” Daisy said, inspired. Her younger sister didn’t slather on the makeup, but she knew how to make the most of her looks. Besides, Beth wouldn’t charge her anything.

  “I don’t think so,” Evelyn said gently.

  Daisy blinked. Big mistake. Prying her lashes apart, she said, “Why not?”

  Evelyn hesitated, then sighed. “Honey, you’ve always been the smart one, so Beth staked out being pretty as her territory. I don’t think she’d handle it very well if you asked her to help you be pretty as well as smart. Not that you aren’t pretty,” Evelyn added hastily, in case she’d hurt Daisy’s feelings. “You are. You’ve just never learned how to show yourself to advantage.”

  The idea that Beth might be even the teensiest bit jealous of her was so alien that Daisy couldn’t take it in. “But Beth always got good grades in school. She isn’t a dummy. She’s both smart and pretty, so why wouldn’t she help me?”

  “Beth doesn’t feel as if she’s as intelligent as you. She finished high school, but you have a master’s degree.”

  “She didn’t go to college because she married her high school sweetheart when she was eighteen and settled down to raising a beautiful family,” Daisy pointed out. In fact, Beth had what she herself had always wanted. “Not going was her choice.”

  “But you always wonder about the choice you didn’t make,” Aunt Jo pointed out, underlining Daisy’s last thought. “Evelyn just means you shouldn’t put Beth in that position. She’ll feel bad if she turns you down, and if she helps you, it’ll be like wearing wool during the summer: miserable and itchy.”

  So much for that idea. Luckily, she had another one. “I guess I could go to a department store in Chattanooga or Huntsville, and let them do my makeup.”

  “Actually,” said Aunt Jo, “we thought of someone right here in Hillsboro.”