All Hallows Evil

by Valerie Wolzien

  Susan turned her attention to the track. Rebecca, arms up, legs stretched to cover the macadam as quickly and efficiently as possible, looked like an illustration of the ideal woman runner. As she watched, Rebecca was joined by three other women. Suddenly, Rebecca’s entire body changed; from confident athlete, she became the stricken widow. Her shoulders dropped, her eyes fell, it looked as if her hair lost some of its sheen. After a few minutes of conversation, Rebecca jogged slowly back. (To the tempo of an unheard funeral march? Susan wondered.)

  “There’s no way I can do this today. Those women practically accused me of being a heartless bitch. Let’s get out of here,” Rebecca suggested.

  They headed around the track and back to Susan’s car. As they passed the other women, Rebecca slumped slightly. Susan didn’t know if it was an intentional gesture or not. But when they were almost at the car and, certainly, far enough away not to be heard, Rebecca spoke.

  “Damn them! Don’t they know that if I stop for a day, if I don’t keep at it, someone else will have my job? And I won’t let that happen! Jason wouldn’t have wanted that,” she added, almost as an afterthought.

  Susan unlocked the car, and they slid into their seats. As they backed out of the parking space, Rebecca angrily pulled the band out of her hair. “Damn,” she repeated. “Do you know anywhere I can rent a treadmill? I guess I’m going to have to avoid the public until after the funeral.” She leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes.

  “When’s that?”

  “What?”

  “When’s the funeral?”

  “Oh, they think it should be on Monday. The police need to do an autopsy, and that gives Jason’s family time enough to get out here—maybe someone can convince them to stop in the city and get some decent clothing. Poor Jason. He would have hated it if he’d known that his mother was going to be at his funeral—in all her polyester glory.”

  “His family is from the Midwest?” Susan asked.

  “His family is from nowhere Indiana—nineteen fifties style. I’ve never been able to figure them out. I go on publicity jaunts all over the country. Everyone’s chic these days. You can buy decent clothing in Plains, Georgia, for goodness’ sake. But Jason’s mother and his sisters are practically an illustration for the word hick.”

  “And his father?” Susan hoped Rebecca wouldn’t think she was prying.

  “He’s dead. He died a few months after Jason was born. So Jason was raised by his mother and three older sisters. How those women managed to produce an intelligent hunk like Jason is beyond me.”

  “Really?” Susan hoped it was an encouraging word. She had just realized that she knew almost nothing about Jason Armstrong.

  “Hmmm.” Rebecca’s eyes were closed, and she was resting her head on the back of the seat, but she kept talking. “Jason must have been born asserting his independence—it’s the only explanation I can think of. When I flew out to visit them, we spent the first night of the visit going through the family albums, and from the beginning he was different from everyone else. The pictures when he was just a toddler show this little blond boy standing as tall as possible in front of four dumpy short women. They all look alike—really—let me tell you, when the girls (they call themselves ‘the girls’—can you believe it?) turn gray there will be absolutely no way to tell any of them from their mother. But Jason always stood out.

  “He won all the awards in high school and was captain of every sport, and they took a picture of the entire group each time. You can watch him grow up in those albums. Jason just got smarter, stronger, and better-looking. They just faded farther and farther into the background of the pictures.”

  “They must have been very proud of him,” Susan suggested.

  “I suppose.” Rebecca admitted it was a possibility. “But he outgrew them. He went off to college, and they stayed behind. He changed and grew, and they didn’t. By the time he arrived at the network, he had nothing in common with them.”

  “Did they attend your wedding?”

  “Well, we certainly couldn’t not invite them, could we?”

  Susan wondered if that meant Rebecca would have liked to. And Jason?

  “But we kept the wedding party very small. Only one attendant each—so Jasmine and Jonquil and Juniperberry or whatever the youngest sister’s name is—didn’t feel left out for not being asked to be bridesmaids.”

  How sensitive of you, Susan thought, turning a corner. They were in the process of covering every street in town to get home, but Susan didn’t care. She was learning too much to end this trip.

  “We did buy them appropriate outfits, however. And I convinced my own hairdresser to make the time to cut and style their hair. Jasper—the youngest girl, I can never remember her name—looked quite nice. The other two were impossible, and his mother wouldn’t even think of altering her gray bun. She claims never to have had a haircut. She brags about being able to sit on her hair, it’s so long. Only who would want to sit on such a stringy, lank old thing? Ugh.” She opened her eyes and glanced at Susan. “You probably think I’m not being very nice, don’t you? But they were holding him back. And Jason was very ambitious. He planned on being one of the anchors of the evening news one day—in prime time.” She closed her eyes again. “Fortunately, People magazine didn’t include a picture of that woman in the article they wrote about us—just a tasteful photo of the small farmhouse he grew up in.”

  “Rebecca …” Susan paused a moment, reluctant to ask any questions that might stop her talking. “What about your family? Will they be coming to the funeral?”

  “I don’t have any family. My parents died when I was in college—an auto accident—and my only brother and I haven’t spoken to each other in almost twenty-five years.”

  Susan noticed that Rebecca didn’t appear distressed by this break with her brother. Perhaps he wasn’t photogenic either.

  “Isn’t it taking an awful lot of time to get to your house?”

  It was lucky Rebecca had her eyes closed. They had been circling four large blocks for a while now. “Almost there,” Susan lied cheerfully, turning the car in the right direction. Time to ask the biggie. “Rebecca, why was it so important for you to stay in my house? After all, you didn’t even know … Damn!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “We’re being pulled over by one of Hancock’s finest.” Susan steered her car to the curb and glanced at her passenger. Was Rebecca relieved by the interruption?

  Rebecca was smiling. “It’s Brett,” she said, turning around in her seat. “Isn’t this convenient? I’ll just tell him about Mitch right now. That will make things so much easier.”

  “Isn’t he going to think it strange that you didn’t admit to knowing Mitch before?”

  Rebecca shrugged. “That officer didn’t really ask me if I knew him,” she insisted. “I know a little about this type of thing, Susan. The networks get sued all the time. You never answer questions that aren’t asked. You never volunteer information.”

  It wasn’t her problem, Susan decided, opening the car window as Brett walked up. “Am I getting a ticket?” she asked sweetly.

  “There’s no legal minimum speed in Hancock—at least none that I know of” was the answer. “I hope I didn’t really scare you. I pulled you over because I saw that Mrs. Armstrong was your passenger. I’d like to speak with her—if you don’t mind,” he added to Rebecca. “I can drive you to wherever you were headed at the same time.”

  Rebecca opened the door and got out of the car. “Anything I can do,” she assured him. “Jason would have wanted me to help your investigation.”

  As she drove off, Susan, looking in her rearview mirror, saw that Brett was staring at Rebecca’s long bare legs as he helped the bereaved widow into his patrol car. She wondered where they were going. She knew where she was going, where anyone with unexpected houseguests went: grocery shopping.

  Susan didn’t like shopping without a carefully prepared list. She’d found that trying to organize a
full meal in her head usually led to a second trip to the grocery store. “Keep it simple,” she advised herself, following a grocery cart into the store. She didn’t even know how many people were going to be around for dinner. She headed toward produce. Salad was good and simple: three kinds of lettuce, two varieties of mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, maui onions.… Surely there was good Danish blue cheese in the refrigerator at home, and there were olive oil and vinegar in the cupboard. Spaghetti was easy and quick, and she had made James Beard’s marinara sauce so many times that she had the list of ingredients in her head. Let’s see, she needed ground beef, ground pork.… She headed for the butcher.

  Susan was at the checkout, unloading three loaves of Italian bread and the aluminum foil they would be wrapped in when they were transformed into garlic bread (Chad would like this meal even if no one else did!), when Amy Ellsworth snuck up behind her.

  NINE

  Amy Ellsworth did not, in fact, make any effort at all to surprise Susan. It was just that when Susan was particularly busy, she worked hard to avoid people like Amy, people with too much time in the day.

  “Susan! Do you believe how frantic everyone has been ever since the murders?” she cried loudly, bumping Susan with her grocery cart. “Oh, I’m sorry. Did I …”

  “I’m fine,” Susan insisted, continuing to unload her groceries onto the conveyor belt. “I …”

  Amy was watching intently. “I’ll bet I can guess what you’re having for dinner. But don’t you think spaghetti made with ground meat is sort of nineteen-fiftyish? Why don’t you make a pasta primavera? Just toss some vegetables in oil, a little cream sauce.… What could be easier?”

  Susan continued to unload her cart, thankful Amy couldn’t see her face. “So how was your conversation with Charles Grace?” she asked casually.

  “Susan! That was confidential committee business. I can’t talk about it with just anyone—or just anyplace.” She glanced around the grocery store; the expression on her face suggested that she saw spies everywhere, you just never knew. “Although there is something I would like to speak with you about. I think,” she lowered her voice, “that maybe someone is out to get Charles Grace.”

  “To … you mean to kill him?”

  “Kill … ?” Amy squealed. One or two of the women around them glanced in their direction; most of the shoppers were in too much of a hurry to finish, get home, and start cooking to bother. Amy lowered her voice anyway. “What are you talking about? You must have murder on the brain. This is something much more subtle. I suspect a conspiracy.”

  Susan had to pay for her groceries. The conspiracy theory would have to wait until later. Except Amy wasn’t very good at waiting. “You won’t believe what has been going on,” she insisted, starting to unload canisters of diet meal mix. “Chocolate crème, cherry vanilla … these women are trying to ruin Charles Grace, and I don’t think we should let them! Strawberry swirl … It’s going to be difficult to convince people that it was all an accident, a coincidence, of course, but when you consider most popular novels today, I don’t think it’s so unlikely … I thought I’d bought banana mint … Oh, there it is!” She swept down upon the missing container and reached across the cart for Susan’s arm. “Don’t leave without me. This is really important!”

  “I have to get home and start dinner. Why don’t you come on over, and you can tell me all about it?”

  “Excellent idea. Who knows who might be listening in here?” Amy glared at the woman behind her, getting only a blank stare in return. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” she called to Susan’s retreating back.

  Susan waved over her shoulder and continued on her way.

  Amy didn’t show up while Susan was stirring tomato sauce, and she didn’t show up while Susan was telling Jed about finding her library card, but Susan wasn’t worrying about Amy. She was too busy worrying about where Chad was and what he was doing.

  She was still worrying later while her husband and guests were consuming the meal she had prepared. They were five at dinner. Rebecca had brought Brett home with her. Hilda Flambay was the only other representative of the network; the rest of the public relations department had disappeared. Chrissy had called right before they all sat down and explained that she had been invited to eat at a friend’s house, but everyone was halfway through the meal and Susan still hadn’t heard from her son. Jed said not to worry, but Susan did. Chad was not without his faults, but he was very prompt and always called to explain if he was going to be delayed.

  So where was he? Susan swirled pasta around her fork and ground her teeth.

  “You’re not eating.”

  Susan started. “Excuse me?”

  Brett was leaning across the table. “I just noticed that you weren’t eating. It’s very good, too,” he added, glancing at his empty plate.

  “Let me get you some more,” Susan insisted. “And there’s more garlic bread.”

  “I’d love some. This is the first home-cooked meal I’ve had in ages—and only the second meal I’ve managed to get today.”

  Susan passed the platters and the bread basket and explained her mood. “I’m sorry. I was just wondering where Chad is. He never misses a meal without calling and …”

  “Oh, you don’t have to worry about him,” Ms. Flambay insisted. “His coach scheduled an extra soccer practice. He’ll be home around eight-thirty.”

  “I … How do you know?” Susan asked.

  “He called this afternoon. I was busy talking on the other line and simply forgot about it. Good thing you mentioned him,” she said, seeing no need to apologize for her oversight.

  “You should have told me about Chad’s call earlier. I can’t imagine that you thought it wasn’t important,” Susan said.

  “Heavens, he’s not a small child,” Hilda protested. “I assumed you wouldn’t panic over him being a little late for dinner.”

  “I am not panicked,” Susan began, and then gave up. So what if Hilda considered Susan overprotective? Chad was safe and accounted for, and that’s all that mattered.

  “Well, I certainly don’t blame you for worrying.” Brett spoke up while placing two large hunks of garlic bread on the side of his plate. “Some pretty strange things have been going on in the last two days. Murders, muggings, reports of rampant obscenity …”

  “Sounds like it would make a successful miniseries,” Hilda muttered, taking a sip of her wine.

  “Obscenity?” Jed asked. “Is Jesse Helms coming to town or something?”

  “No, this has to do with the library—I don’t know that much about it. There was a pile of messages on my desk about some sort of obscenity at the library. I didn’t get a chance to sort through them. I guess I’m a little tired. I probably shouldn’t be saying anything about it.”

  “Does this obscenity charge have anything to do with Jason or Mitch’s deaths? Because if it does …” Hilda began.

  “I don’t see how it could,” Brett answered, accepting another helping of spaghetti. “It’s just a few elderly, conservative women who apparently haven’t come to terms with some of the conventions of the modem novel—such as explicit sex.”

  “And they’re planning to burn the books in the town square,” Hilda suggested.

  “No, but they want the head librarian to resign,” Brett answered.

  The library again! Susan glanced at Brett. Could this be a coincidence? She knew that Brett didn’t feel any more comfortable with coincidences in a murder case than she did. And, of course, this might be the crisis that was apparently obsessing Charles Grace. If, that is, Charles Grace was the type of person who would take the time to worry about his own job during a murder investigation. It didn’t take Susan more than a second to decide that he was just that type. Amy Ellsworth was probably in the middle of it, too. This situation had all the ingredients of something Amy would enjoy: prurient interests, character assassination, and censorship.

  “Book burning? Censorship?” Rebecca mulled over the words. “Might be an i
nteresting story here,” she suggested.

  Jed refilled his guests’ glasses with wine. Susan took a sip of hers and considered Rebecca. The consummate professional, Susan decided. The day after her husband was murdered, Rebecca was working to maintain her appearance and considering possible story ideas for the show. The suggestion seemed to strike other people in other ways.

  “On ‘This Morning, Every Morning’?” Amy Ellsworth appeared in the doorway to the room. “You’re right! It would be a wonderful story! Significant, topical, important … On the other hand, it has to be handled in just the right way. You certainly wouldn’t want to damage Charles’s career. After all, these women are really just archaic. A lot of very fine literature has graphic sex. Where have these people been all these years? And poor Charles!” Amy pulled a spare chair up to the table between Susan and Brett and sat down. “He says something like this could end his career.”

  “I don’t understand …” Susan started.

  “Apparently I’ve been getting calls about it all day,” Brett interrupted. “Why don’t you tell us all about it—unless you think that would be indiscreet.”

  “Not really. And a piece on ‘T.M.E.M.’ ”—Susan noticed that Amy had immediately latched onto the show’s nickname—“would certainly help Charles.”

  “We don’t do pieces to help people,” Hilda spoke up. “News is always a search for the truth.…”

  “Shut up, Hilda.” Rebecca spoke up. “This is a dinner table, not a courtroom; you don’t have to do your shtick here.”

  “Would you like a glass of wine, Amy?” Jed already had a crystal goblet in his hand, anticipating her answer.