Poisoned Pins

12

Shortly before seven o’clock, I parked in a strategically chosen spot on a street perpendicular to Washington Avenue, and slouched in the seat in the tradition of a jaded private eye resigned to a boring and bitterly cold night of surveillance (it was a balmy evening, and we had two hours of daylight to go, but I was, as Caron would say, In A Mood). The Vandersons’ Mercedes was parked in the driveway under the protection of an ancient magnolia tree, and as I watched, the car I’d seen in front of the Kappa Theta Eta house pulled in behind it. My quarry hurried into the house.

I was dressed not in a trenchcoat and fedora, but in a becoming green dress. I’d gone so far as to don pantyhose, heels, and faux pearls for the occasion. Having never hosted a federal judge, I wasn’t sure when the festivities would begin, but I was praying I had a few minutes to speak in private to the dean.

My prayers went unnoticed. Before I reached the house, a black Cadillac stopped at the curb, followed by an entourage of imported vehicles. Those who emerged were dressed to kill, in the figurative sense, and were chattering amiably as they started for the house. Adopting my contingency plan, I slipped through the group and tucked my hand under the arm of a man with the white hair of a televangelist, the deceptively trustworthy eyes of same, and a hawkish red nose-and therefore the man most likely to be the revered judge.

“Isn’t this lovely of John and Eleanor?” I said as I propelled him to the porch.

He squeezed my hand. “And of you, my dear. I don’t believe we met at the reception. Are you on the faculty?”

“I waved at you from across the room, but it was so crowded, wasn’t it? Let’s do make an effort to have a nice little talk tonight, Your Honor”

The front door was open and we streamed into the house like starlings to their roost. Eleanor greeted her guests with professional aplomb, transferring coats and wraps to a waiting maid, welcoming us with warm smiles and gracious words. Most of us, anyway. “Judge Frankley, I’m so honored and delighted you were able to come tonight, you and…“ She dribbled to a halt. A tiny wrinkle appeared between her eyes, and a few more at the corners of her mouth.

“Claire,” I prompted her politely. “I think I see the bar, Judge Frankley. How about a martini?”

He rumbled happily as we continued into a living room right out of a glossy magazine spread. High ceilings, polished wood, antiques, dollies protecting table tops, a basket of pine cones next to the fireplace, an afghan draped over the arm of the sofa-the whole Americana bit.

“How long are you staying in Farberville?” I asked my abductee while we jostled for position in front of a table lined with bottles, a silver ice bucket with silver tongs, and crystal bowls of olives and citrus slices.

I missed his answer John Vanderson was frozen in the doorway to the dining room, regarding me with such panic that he appeared on the verge of an apoplectic attack. I smiled and wiggled my eyebrows at him. He stumbled out of sight. Was this any way for a proper host to act?

… little party at my hotel later,” the judge was saying. “A very select group, of course. I’ll be absolutely heartbroken if you refuse, my dear” He squeezed my hand more firmly. “I might have to hold you in contempt of court.”

“I wouldn’t dream of missing it,” I said. After a brief struggle, I disengaged my hand. “Excuse me, but I must have a word with Dean Vanderson. Why don’t you sit right there on that cozy loveseat, and when I come back, you can tell me all about your clever decisions.”

I slithered through the crowd and into the dining room, where the glare from silver-wear and crystal was enough to blind me momentarily. Dean Vanderson apparently had escaped through the door on the far side of the room, so I headed that way. The kitchen was a crowded, bustling place, and none of the staff responded to my question. I moved on, hoping I wouldn’t find myself at the top of the basement stairs-or the bottom of the attic stairs. The room beyond the kitchen proved to be nothing more horrifying than a sunroom with windows that looked out on a landscaped yard and a swimming pool.

I was about to try the next door when I saw Dean Vanderson in a corner, his head bowed and his shoulders drooping. I approached him as I would a wounded animal (although, of course, I value my extremities far too much to do such a thing), reasonably sure the kitchen staff would come to my aid if he flung himself on my admittedly alluring carotid artery. “We need to talk,” I said gently. “We can do it in private, or we can do it in front of your wife and your guests.”

“Shall we take a stroll by the pool, Mrs. Malloy?”

“I’m a competent swimmer,” I warned him as we went down stone steps to the yard. Azaleas and rhododendrons bloomed in studiously casual confusion, and honeysuckle vines swarmed over the crumbling brick walls of an old well. I’d read too many mysteries not to take a quick look into the shaft. It was less than ten feet deep, the ground appeared undisturbed, and Debbie Anne was not cowering at the bottom.

“Were you on the guest list?” Dean Vanderson asked, having observed my detour with mild perplexity.

“No, and I’ll fade away unfed as soon as you answer my questions. I’m not sure exactly how you’re involved with the Kappa Theta Etas, but I have some fairly plausible guesses that I will share with the police, if necessary. I don’t know if they’ll stand up in court, but they will cause you a great deal of trouble.” I halted at the edge of the pool and made sure no bodies were adrift near the drain. All I saw was a magnolia leaf curled into the shape of a devilfish.

He pulled together two aluminum chairs and gestured for me to sit. “Indiscretion may have occurred, but it was in the past and has nothing to do with the girl’s death. I will admit I pushed you down this afternoon. Coming upon you so abruptly, I was startled and reacted without thinking. For that, I apologize most sincerely. I trust there was no serious damage?”

“I don’t want to talk about this afternoon, Dean Vanderson. I want to talk about Jean Hall.”

He shivered despite the sunshine, and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe his forehead. “Ah, yes, I hired her to run errands and do office chores. Her salary was in line with our tight budget, so as an added inducement, I arranged for her to sit in on some of the lectures in order to help her prepare for law school in the fall. Eleanor informed me of her accidental death. A terrible tragedy for her, for the driver, and for the sorority in general.”

“She was murdered,” I said bluntly.

“Do the police concur?” His pale eyelashes were almost invisible as he blinked at me. “Eleanor said they’d concluded it was an accident, caused by one of the pledges.”

“Who came here to hide.”

“Here? That’s impossible. If she came here after the accident, Eleanor would have counseled her to turn herself in, even have driven her to the police station, and surely would have mentioned it to me. I have a position to maintain in the academic community, Mrs. Malloy, and the sorority means everything to my wife. Neither of us would jeopardize our achievements by harboring a fugitive.”

“John!” Eleanor called from the door “What are you and Claire doing out there? In case you failed to notice, we have guests. Judge Frankley is asking for you.”

I smiled at her, and in a low voice said, “Where shall we discuss the negatives-here or on the loveseat with Judge Frankley?”

He regarded me for a moment, as if assessing my alleged swimming ability should I find myself in the proximity of the drain. “Here, I should think,” he said resignedly, then called to his wife, “I shall be there shortly, dear. Just tell everybody there’s been a small crisis at the law school that must be resolved before I leave in the morning.”

Eleanor didn’t look convinced; I could think of no reason why she should. However, after a minute she nodded and disappeared into the house to appease her guests with cocktails, canapés, and little white lies.

Dean Vanderson was struggling to radiate judicial dignity, but he looked more like a small boy on the verge of tears, his mouth puckered, his eyes downcast, his porcelain forehead beaded with sweat. Patting him on the shoulder, I said, “Come on, you can tell me. If you cooperate, I promise not to go to the police.”

“Jean approached me last fall. I’d seen her at sorority affairs”-he cringed at his ill-chosen word-”such as luncheons and teas, but we’d only made small talk. However, on this particular occasion, a football brunch at the house, Jean asked me if she might make an appointment to elicit my advice about law school. She came to my office several times, always with catalogs and questions, and I was more than happy to offer her what assistance I could.”

“And also at the Hideaway Haven?”

He gaped at me, then managed to swallow what must have been a most unpleasant taste. “You appear to be well informed, Mrs. Malloy.”

“Thank you,” I murmured, accepting his compliment with a modest nod-and wishing it were deserved.

“I will not deny that I am aware of an establishment known as the Hideaway Haven. Whatever may have taken place there can be best described as a series of perfectly harmless dalliances. My wife has become more and more involved with her volunteer work, her various clubs, and, of course, her Kappa Theta Eta responsibilities. Often she is exhausted by the time she arrives home. Eleanor is an attractive woman and an exemplary hostess, but when we manage to… retire together, she responds so distractedly that I suspect she’s mentally making out guest lists or contemplating menus. I find this frustrating.”

I tried to keep the disgust out of my voice, but I may not have given it my personal best. “You have a beautiful wife, a lovely home, a respected position at the college and in the community. Federal judges drink martinis in your living room. Uniformed cooks crowd your kitchen. Students scribble down your opinions, and faculty members beg you for pennies to buy legal pads and paper clips. Why would you risk the culmination of a lifetime of hard work and ambition to have an affair with a student in a sleazy motel?”

“It’s difficult to explain,” he said, wiping his neck. “It was flattering, you see. I’ve never been attractive. Eleanor married me for my family connections and my potential for success; I married her for similar reasons. When I was in law school, I became obsessed by the handsome young studs with their wavy hair, smoldering eyes, some as bright and disciplined as I, others less so but destined to succeed in their future endeavors simply on the strength of their physical attributes. I retreated into academia, where I could wage war on an intellectual level, but even now, when I address a class or interview applicants, I find myself…“ He made a gesture with a taut white hand. “This is not the time to present the defendant’s closing statement, is it?”

“I’m not the one with a houseful of guests, but I’m willing to acknowledge these psychological ravages of your past and move right along. You and Jean met at the Hideaway Haven. Someone took a photograph of you in the midst of this indiscretion and has been blackmailing you since then. How am I doing?”

He gave me an odd look, no doubt impressed by my acuity and acumen. “To some extent, you are correct in your suppositions, Mrs. Malloy. Approximately three weeks ago, a distressing depiction of activities that need not be detailed was sent to me, accompanied by a peculiar construction-paper cutout and a handwritten request that I make a private endowment. I was able to do so without undue problems. A second followed, and a third only yesterday. It became clear that I am to be hounded in perpetuity by a member of Kappa Theta Eta with the alias Katie. I’ve begun to dream of strangling that cat, of burning down the house, of penning a suicide note and disappearing into the wilds of Canada.”

I remembered Officer Pipkin’s remark about cloistered nuns as I leaned back in the squeaky chair and crossed my arms. “But hasn’t it occurred to you to confess and accept whatever punishment is meted out by your wife and the administration? Blackmail is a particularly nasty crime. Are you willing to allow the perpetrator to continue on her merry way? Aren’t you committed to justice and all that stuff?”

“John!” Eleanor called sharply from the doorway. “Judge Frankley is still asking for you, and dinner is ready to be served. What can you and Claire be discussing that must be resolved while the quail toughen?”

“I’ll be there in a moment,” he called back, waited until she was gone, and then gave me the look of a harshly chastised puppy who’d savaged a slipper. “I must see to my guests. I made a mistake, and it seems I am to pay for it. There’s your justice, Mrs. Malloy.”

“But you do admit you searched the sorority house for the negatives of the photographs of you and Jean?” I demanded as he rose to his feet. “Did you search her purse, too?”

“After I ran her down in the alley?”

I stopped congratulating myself on the guile of my leading question. “Something like that,” I admitted with a shrug.

“Allow me to correct some of your hazy, unsubstantiated, and fallacious ideas. I did have an appointment with Jean Hall the night she was killed, and we met in the enclosed patio of a fraternity house that borders the alley. At that time, she acknowledged that she was the blackmailer and informed me that larger endowments would be required, although none so outrageous that I could not comply without arousing suspicion. Negatives were to serve as my receipts. She took one out of her purse and an exchange was made.”

“You’re positive she had her purse with her?”

“Do try to listen, Mrs. Malloy. She took the negative out of her purse and showed it to me. Less than a minute later she put an envelope full of twenty-dollar bills into her purse.”

I attempted to envision the scene, but what flashed across my mind was not this icy entrepreneur in the patio but the bloodied body in the alley. And something was missing. “Was she wearing her sorority pin?”

“I was not concerned with her accessories, but I seem to remember thinking how ostentatious it was. Please do not quote me on that. In any case, I left her sitting on a bench, licking her lips in a disturbingly contented fashion. I never saw her again.”

“You drove by the house later. I saw you from my bedroom window.”

“After I’d had time to consider the situation, I decided to suggest to Jean that we terminate our contractual relationship with a single payment in exchange for all the negatives. I went by the house to propose it, saw the police cars in the alley, and went home. Only when Eleanor returned did I learn what had happened.”

“But now someone else is blackmailing you,” I said encouragingly (if one can use the term in that context). “You were searching the third floor, presumably with no success. How did you get in?”

“Eleanor has a full set of keys, in case an emergency arises that requires the immediate presence of a plumber or an electrician. I borrowed them from her desk, and replaced them as soon as I was home.” He gave me a reproachful smile. “I’d intended to work my way from the top floor to the basement, but you had the pinched look of a police informant. I haven’t found sufficient nerve to go back and continue my search.”

“Jean’s room is on the ground floor.”

“I wasn’t aware of that, but she wasn’t the sort to put her damning evidence in her dresser drawer or leave it lying on her desk. She implied the negatives were hidden somewhere in the house. I am by nature a methodical man, Mrs. Malloy.”

“Who do you suspect has the photographs of you and Jean in the Hideaway Haven?”

“They’re not of Jean and me, Mrs. Malloy.” Dean Vanderson replaced his handkerchief in his back pocket and looked down at me as if I were a sluggish student. “Earlier in the week I wondered if you had them, but now I see that you don’t. I never said I’d had an affair with her. She merely arranged introductions to some of her nubile young friends who enjoyed the companionship of… shall we say, experienced older men.”

“She what?” I leaped to my feet so suddenly that I was in danger of an unscheduled swan dive. “She was pimping for you?”

“She merely arranged introductions,” he repeated patiently.

I battled to regain my balance in all senses of the phrase. “She arranged introductions to girls with whom you subsequently had sex? Her nubile young friends? At the Hideaway Haven with its porn movies and waterbeds? Why don’t you tell me your definition of a pimp, Dean Vanderson?”

My words had been spewing out rather raggedly, but he seemed to get the gist of them. “Jean was providing a service, and until I conceded to the first blackmail demand, I’d given her nothing but avuncular advice and a part-time job. Actually, Eleanor suggested that. As for the girls, I often insisted on showing my appreciation for their youthful enthusiasm and lack of inhibitions. One particular girl was so delightfully inexperienced and reticent in her attempts to be introduced into the sweet mysteries of love that I rewarded her most handsomely. I’m an educator and aware of the importance of positive reinforcement in learning situations.”

I clutched my hands behind my back to restrain myself. “Were all these girls Kappa Theta Etas?”

“They did not wear their sorority pins, Mrs. Malloy.” He brushed back the pale peach fuzz on his head and nodded at me. “I really must attend to my guests. I have met the conditions you stipulated, and I hope you intend to adhere to our arrangement.”

“Take one more step and I’ll go sit in Judge Frankley’s lap and tell him the entire story,” I said, still so appalled that I was trembling. “Do you admit you called my house and made threats to my daughter?”

“She has a very disconcerting manner on the telephone. If I may ask, what precisely constitutes a color analysis? Is there truly a reason why I should pay ten dollars when I wear dark suits and white shifts every day? The only item that ever varies is my tie.”

It was sheer lunacy, I thought, as well it should be. I was standing beside a pool conversing with the man in the moon, who was worried about his palette. Romping with coeds thirty years younger was not a problem, and blackmail was pesky-but the color of his tie? Was dark red too adventurous? Dare he try green and navy stripes?

“I’ll check and get back to you,” I said numbly, then went past him and through a gate to the driveway. I made it to my car, rolled up the windows and locked the doors, and rested my forehead on the steering wheel. I waited to see if I was going to laugh or cry, but at last decided I was much too confused to do anything at all.

I’d been told Jean Hall kept the pledge class busy with picnics, parties, and community activities. No one had mentioned less innocuous but more profitable endeavors. Was Dean Vanderson the only self-righteous satyr on the campus? And, most important, did National know about this? Was it right there in the pledge handbook, along with the rules, regulations, and secret whistle? Was it a sanctioned fund-raising activity for the spring semester?

A fist knocked on the window. Before I could scream, which I fully intended to do, a concerned male voice said, “Are you all right, ma’am?’

I exhaled and determined the voice belonged to a policeman barely out of his teens. “I’m fine, thank you. I was just thinking for a moment before I drove home.”

He drew circles with his finger until I reluctantly rolled down the window. “Would you step out of the vehicle, ma’am?”

“Under no circumstance will I step out of the vehicle, sir. That would make it impossible to drive home, and as soon as you move back, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

“I’m asking you again to step out of the vehicle,” he said with a good deal less cordiality in his voice. “If you refuse to comply, I’ll be forced to take action against you.”

“You’re going to drag me out of my car and sling me on the pavement? Is this because you don’t think I parked close enough to the curb, or because ordinary, law-abiding citizens are not allowed to sit and think, but must instead cater to whatever idiotic whim overtakes an officer of the law?” It was good, but based on his deepening scowl, not good enough. I continued, “And why are you here, anyway? This is a residential neighborhood, not a housing project with crack dealers and fences and gang members on every corner. Look right there, Officer. Is there a vicious killer on that deserted corner? I think not.”

“I’m on a security assignment because of a prominent public figure visiting in this area. I’m going to say this one last time. Step out of the vehicle, ma’am, and keep. your hands in sight at all times.”

I did as requested, but I expressed my vexation in colorful detail throughout the time it took him to find that I could indeed walk a straight line, touch my nose with my eyes closed, and watch his fingertip flitter in and out of view. My driver’s license and registration were examined carefully, and verified via his radio. All the while, I wanted to tell him there was a philandering potential killer inside the yellow house not a hundred yards away, dining on quail and conversing with a prominent public figure on genteel subjects such as torts (but not, I should think, tarts).

“This never happened to Miss Marple,” I snarled as I took back my license and registration. “She didn’t have to deal with overly zealous policemen who ought to be home with a baby-sitter rather than out harassing the citizenry.”

“Do us both a favor and move to St. Mary Mead,” he said as he went to his car.

Grumbling like the boiler at the Book Depot, I drove home and parked in the garage. There were no traces of successful decomposition on the kitchen floor, nor in the child’s bedroom. A note on the coffee table informed me that her resolution to never set foot outside had been cruelly undermined by an invitation to accompany Inez and her parents to a triple-header at the drive-in movie theater. I made a drink and flopped across the sofa, the evening’s events swirling in my head like brown water gurgling down the drain.

The Kappa Theta Etas with their expansive gums, even teeth, bright eyes, pink cashmere sweaters, expensive athletic shoes, and twenty-four-karat gold pins were not quite as nice as their reputation purported. Some of them were earning their dues and tuition at the Hideaway Haven, while at least one of them was immortalizing the climactic moments with a camera. Dean Vanderson had mentioned the blackmail cutouts; did one “Katie the Kappa Kitten Says Thanks!” include a handwritten “For being such a generous old goat”?

Had Jean Hall been too greedy? Vanderson claimed to have met Jean shortly before her death and given her whatever sum she demanded. He’d left her in a patio, supposedly alive and well and significantly richer. She’d tucked her ill-gotten gains in her purse and walked down the alley toward the Kappa Theta Eta house. Someone driving Debbie Anne’s car had run over her, either accidentally or with purposeful malice. A second blackmail victim? As far as I knew, Jean’s purse was still missing, and more strangely, her sorority pin. This implied an extraordinarily composed hit-and-run driver had gotten out of the car, grabbed the purse, and then dallied long enough to take the pin off the chest of the corpse. It seemed more likely that either Dean Vanderson was wrong or I’d failed to notice it. There had been a lot of blood, I reminded myself with a shudder. It certainly could have been as blinding as the cluster of jewels and chains.

Also missing was Debbie Anne Wray. Had she answered the telephone at the Vandersons’ house-or had I suffered a mild concussion? Dean Vanderson had sounded truthful in his denial that she’d ever been there. Eleanor was at her garden club at the time. Could Debbie Anne have broken into the house? Those in the midst of committing burglaries rarely pause to serve as social secretaries, but no one, including myself, had accused Debbie Anne of being Mensa material.

I needed to talk to Eleanor, but I doubted I could sidle into the dining room and ask my questions while I nibbled tough quail and sipped champagne.

And there was the minor predicament of what to do with this new information. Dean Vanderson seemed to feel we had a contract, and he was the lawyer, not I. I hadn’t precisely sworn not to divulge his story, but perhaps I’d implied as much. If he was telling the truth, his crimes were indictable only by the guardians of morality and good taste. I finally decided to wait until I’d talked to Eleanor before I called Lieutenant Peter Rosen and related what I knew…, or at least what I felt he deserved to know.

“Those damn Kappa Theta Etas,” I muttered as I went to my bedroom and looked at their house. Lights shone from the ground-floor windows, and the faint sound of music wafted from one. Surely it was time for someone to scream. It had been nearly twenty-four hours since the last blast, after all, and they knew the agenda. Where was our reliable prowler?

Inexplicably irritated by the lack of an uproar next door, I changed into more comfortable clothes, snatched up a paperback, and returned to the living room to swill scotch and read something that made a semblance of sense.

It ended with a tidy denouement in the drawing room of the country house, seconds before the constable came through the door, delayed as usual by the impenetrable snowdrifts. The villain, overwhelmed by the relentless logic of the wily amateur sleuth, had crumbled like a chunk of feta cheese and confessed all. Maybe I ought to move to St. Mary Mead and take up knitting, I thought as I put down the book and went to fetch another from my bedroom. I could knit Caron a Camaro.

I was contemplating my next foray into felonious fantasy when I heard what sounded like an airplane landing in the alley. Smiling at the absurdity of the idea, I selected a book and reached for the light switch. As the noise sputtered to a stop, I recognized it. The alley was not too narrow for a motorcycle, not even one the size of Ed Whitbred’s behemoth.

I peered out the window, but what little patch of pavement I could see was as deserted as the corner of Washington and Sutton streets. The motorcycle had not stopped behind my house, and it sounded as though it had gone past the sorority house. But it had not gone all the way down the alley and dwindled into the distance as its driver turned onto Thurber Street.

II switched off the light, returned to the sofa, and tried to re-immerse myself in a charmingly ordinary pastime. After I’d read the same page three times, I acknowledged that I was listening for the motorcycle-or, more ominously, for footsteps on my stairs. Blaming my nervousness on my reading matter, I put aside the book and made sure my doors were locked. All the fraternity and sorority houses were closed for the summer, with one notable anomaly. The Baptist student center, incongruously set between two of the rowdiest fraternity houses, was also closed.

I’d characterized Dean Vanderson as a wounded animal, but I was pacing like a caged one. Why had the motorcycle stopped in the alley-now more than an hour ago? Was someone breaking into one of the unoccupied houses?

There had to be a thoroughly innocent reason why the motorcyclist was parked somewhere in the alley. However, if he didn’t start his engine and drive away soon, I was in peril of pacing to death. I wasn’t going to relax until that second proverbial shoe hit the asphalt.

Twenty minutes later, berating myself with a goodly amount of acrimony, I went out the back door and down the stairs to the alley.