Poisoned Pins

15

The manager and his unseen pal Doobie did not rush out to ask me if I was all right, and in fact did not so much as poke their noses out of the back room to ascertain if the window was shattered and the floor splattered with blood from my mangled corpse.

Massaging my shoulder with one hand while picking gravel from my elbow with the other, I made it to my car and eased awkwardly into the driver’s seat. Once the doors were locked, I inventoried the innumerable throbs, and concluded nothing was broken or even seriously damaged, with the exception of my amiable nature and sense of humor What a lovely target I’d made, I thought angrily as I removed a chunk of gravel from my raw knee. Had I been invisible to a pie-eyed drunk or had someone tried to frighten me-or kill me in the same fashion he or she had killed Jean Hall?

A station wagon pulled in next to me. Two teenage girls, both dressed in skimpy shorts and skimpier halters, tramped into the office, banged on the silver bell, and exercised their magenta-lined lips until the manager emerged from the back room. After some discussion and a great deal of hilarity, a second man came out the same door, his arms laden with beers and his porcine face contorted with a leer

If he was Doobie, then neither of the men had exited through a back door and attempted to run me down. Then again, it had taken Doobie a suspiciously long time to determine that he didn’t recognize any of the Kappas. It had certainly been long enough to call someone. But who? I hadn’t caught so much as a glimpse of the driver, and I was fairly sure no witnesses would come out of the motel rooms to offer a description of the car or its driver Calling the police might lead to momentary amusement when they demanded the names and addresses of the Hideaway Haven clientele, but it ran the real threat of obliging me to explain all sorts of complicated things… to Lieutenant Rosen.

The little party in the office was well on its way to an orgy by the time I went inside, politely ignoring Doobie’s hand inside a halter and the semi-seduction in progress on a noxious red plastic couch, and announced, “Someone tried to run me down in the parking lot. I insist that you call the police right this minute.”

“Oh, honey,” said one of the girls, her fake eyelashes fluttering like moribund spiders, “look at your poor knee. Doobie, why doncha take your hand off my tit and get the first-aid box for the lady? Can’t you see she’s bleeding like a stuck pig?” She gave me a solicitous smile as she guided me to a chair and settled me down as if I were an errant patient from the nursing home. “I’m taking a course in home nursing this summer If Doobie’ll get his lazy butt in gear, I’ll fix you up in no time flat.”

Perching on the counter, the other girl popped her gum as if she were chomping down on a firecracker. “Why’d somebody try to run over you? Did you like have a fight with your boyfriend or something? Me and my boyfriend had a fight last week, and he showed up drunk at my house and tried to rip out all my hair. I learned him a lesson or two.”

Doobie and the manager were conferring nervously behind her. My would-be nurse repeated her demand for medical supplies while her friend described in gruesome detail how she’d dealt with someone named Billy Bob or Bobby Bill or whatever, who reputedly was limping. I simply sat and waited for the two men to figure it out, and after a final exchange of bellicose whispers, they did.

The manager came across the room and thrust out his hand. “Lemme see those pictures again.”

The girls attached themselves to his arms and oohed and giggled as he flipped through the photographs. Shrugging them off; he said, “Yeah, a few of them have been here, but I dint ask for names or anything. This is the sort of place where everybody’s name is Smith, and the only thing I care about is the color of the cash.”

“Which girls?” I asked with commendable composure. He handed me half a dozen shots. “Some of the others may have been here, too, and stayed in the car while their friend paid for the room. Sometimes I happen to see ‘em when they come out to get sodas from the machine, if I’m looking.”

Four of the girls were unknown to me. I was less than astonished to find Pippa among the crowd, but my jaw dropped as I gaped at Debbie Anne Wray wiggling into pink shorts. “Are you sure about this one?”

He looked over his shoulder at Doobie, who nodded sullenly. “That one,” he said, sucking on his lower lip, “was staying here up until yesterday. I dunno what she was doing, but she paid for a full week and dint bother anybody.”

I rose slowly out of deference to both my knee and a bout of dehabilitating bewilderment. “How did she get here? Did she have any visitors? When she left, did she say anything about where she was going? Who picked her up?”

“This ain’t a Girl Scout camp,” he said, beginning to retreat as I closed in on him. “She showed up middle of the afternoon on maybe Friday, no suitcase or anything-but that’s nothing new. Once I saw her going across the highway to a convenience store, another time at the soda machine. The only reason I know she split is that the door was open in the morning and I went over to see if she’d dropped dead. There wasn’t nothing in the room but cups and hamburger wrappers.”

“I saw her getting in a truck,” volunteered the girl who’d popped her gum so bombastically. “Darlene and me were hanging out here while Doobie went to buy us some beer, and the only reason I noticed was that the truck was green like Doobie’s and I was gonna be pissed if he’d forgotten to get our beer on account of some simpery whore.”

“That’s right,” Doobie said from the doorway. “She left with some clown and never came back. Look, lady, the girls came by to have a little fun, and unless you’d like to join us in the back room, why don’t you run along?”

I was moderately confident that I would not be assaulted in view of the highway, but his tone held enough menace to suggest distasteful possibilities. I wished them a pleasant evening, darted to my car, and drove away from the Hideaway Haven as briskly as the law allowed.

Once I’d parked in my garage, I sat in the dark and examined this most peculiar story. Debbie Anne had appeared at the motel on Friday, the afternoon of Jean’s death, and remained there until the previous morning, when she’d gotten in what had to be Arnie’s truck and found a new burrow. Based on what little I’d heard, she’d done so with no visible coercion or intimidation. And where had the photographer who would be chauffeur taken her? Not to the sorority house. Ed Whitbred had mentioned that Arnie had not been home since the raid, and presumably he would have noticed if Debbie Anne had been hiding next door

If she’d moved to another motel, I’d never find her- and I was beginning to feel it was imperative that I did. I preferred to think someone had tried to frighten me; whoever it was had succeeded. Suddenly, the dark recesses of the garage seemed more a hiding place for aspiring killers than a storage area for broken tennis rackets, brittle newspapers, and furniture that would never be refinished.

I made sure the bolt on the kitchen door was firmly in place before I snapped on a light and called for Caron. Her failure to answer did not prove she wasn’t there, but a quick search did. I was by no means surrounded by silence, however. The bottle clinked against the rim of the glass as I poured myself a stiff drink, and the ice cubes rattled as I went into the living room and settled on the sofa. Nocturnal birds chirruped in the trees, as did tree frogs and crickets. The woman who lived below me was watching television. An occasional car drove past the house, its headlights flashing on the ceiling.

No motorcycles thundered in the alley, nor could I hear music and/or screams from the Kappa Theta Eta house. Eleanor must have supervised its orderly evacuation by now, I thought as I sipped scotch and studied the ceiling for celestial inspiration.

Eleanor might be a nonpareil of efficiency, but she had been wrong about her husband. The manager of the Hideaway Haven had recognized him, and it was impossible to imagine it as a site for seminars and faculty banquets. Had she also been wrong about his itinerary? Instead of being in the midst of a legal convention (or a hand of blackjack), could he be in the midst of searching the now vacant sorority house for the damning photographs?

I went to my bedroom and peered hopefully for a pinprick of light from a bobbling flashlight. No light appeared, nor did a disembodied white face drift across a window pane like a reflection of the man in the moon. Only one side of the house was visible, and there was no reason to think he’d be accommodating enough to show himself on command.

All I’d do was circle the house from a prudent distance, I told myself as I went downstairs and paused in my yard to dredge up an ounce of courage. Foolhardy heroines might creep around attics and dungeons, but I’d had a minor problem with that in the past-and only the arrival of the police had allowed me to remain in any condition to relate the highlights to future grandchildren.

Impressed by my singular display of common sense, I strolled along the sidewalk, my eyes darting furtively at the windows on the upper stories. Once past the house, I cut through the yard of a fraternity house and emerged in the alley, ascertained no cars were lurking in the shadows, and moved cautiously along the side of the sorority house.

At the edge of the porch, I stopped and retraced my path back to the alley, scanned the windows on the back facade, and then went into the area of the yard that adjoined my duplex.

Five minutes later I’d completed the circle and seen absolutely nothing worthy of my stealth. I leaned against the porch and acknowledged the possibility that John Vanderson was in Las Vegas, Debbie Anne and Arnie were at the Dew Drop Inn, Winkle and Ed were cruising down a moonlit country road, Rebecca and Pippa were entertaining men at the Hideaway Haven, Eleanor Vanderson was on the telephone with a neurologist, and I was a failure as an amateur sleuth. A bruised and battered failure, approaching forty, accused of being menopausal, with a daughter already embroiled in a life of crime. And able to alienate a man in a single bound.

A small white form streaked past me and disappeared into the shrubbery. Gulping back a shriek, I stared as it clawed its way up the side of the house to the windowsill, and, with a yowl, squirmed beneath the screen and vanished. Katie had chosen to ignore Eleanor’s eviction orders, or some inkling of instinct had compelled her to return home.

If the cat wanted to prowl through the house all night, it was not my concern. Winkie would know where to look and come back for it in the morning. My charitable impulses were confined to my own species, and I had teeth marks on my hand and ankle to reinforce my absolute lack of interest in the cat’s well-being. Right.

Loathing myself, I pushed my way through the hostile shrub, lifted the edge of the screen, and gracelessly slithered over the windowsill and onto the table in Winkie’s kitchen.

“Katie!” I whispered, lacking the sibilance to hiss.

No amber eyes appeared in the dark. Repeating her name softly, I squirmed across the table and managed to get my feet on the floor without banging my head in the process. There was enough light from outside for me to see that Katie was not in the immediate vicinity. The doors to the bedroom and bathroom were closed, precluding her escape into those rooms. I went into the living room. The furniture remained, but personal effects had been removed.

I glumly noted that the front door of the suite was ajar, thus allowing the cat access to the entire house. And I, too, had access to the entire house, I realized as I spotted Winkie’s key ring on the coffee table. Beside it was a pink paper cat with the standard saccharine message and a handwritten note explaining how sorry Winkie was that in her haste to move she’d not had the opportunity to deliver the keys to Eleanor’s house. Wh4 a shame, I thought as I picked up the key ring and went to the foyer, reminded myself of my mission, and dutifully called the cat as I roamed through the kitchen, living room, lounge, dining room, and hallway of the wing where the girls had lived.

I stopped outside what had been Jean’s room. The last time I’d been in there, all of her possessions had been packed in boxes and suitcases and piled in the middle of the room. Eleanor could have arranged for them to be sent to California, but she might have overlooked this chore in her haste to empty the house.

I tried more than half the keys before I happened upon the right one. Inside the room was adequate light to determine that the boxes and suitcases were still there. Jean wouldn’t have hidden the packet somewhere else in the sorority house, I thought as I sat down on the edge of the stripped bed and propped my chin with my hand. Even the ritual closet would be risky, since the sorority sisters went in and out of it on meeting nights. I recalled what I could of Jean’s possessions, trying to envision each as a receptacle for photographs featuring the dean of the law school in ignominious disarray. When enlightenment failed to strike, I turned on the light, sat down on the floor and opened the first box.

More than an hour later, I knew that none of the books had been mutilated to provide a hiding place. Nothing had been tucked in a shoe, a pocket, a cosmetics case, a briefcase, or anything else with tuckability. She’d accumulated a daunting number of pink paper cats with coy handwritten messages, but they seemed to be her only concession to college memorabilia.

Except for the incriminating photographs, which she’d been selling. It occurred to me that Rebecca might have found them when she packed Jean’s possessions, and was settled in a new apartment busily modifying a payment plan for John Vanderson-one that precluded dark alleys.

I’d searched in a neat and efficient fashion, conscientiously replacing items once I’d examined them. I gathered up the stuffed cats and lobbed them one by one into a box, wishing I could gather up Katie as easily and return her to her mistress. The cats made quite an armful… as did the beers Doobie’d served to the girls… and the used textbooks that Debbie Anne Wray had brought to the Book Depot on what Caron would describe as a Fateful Day.

New textbooks cost a fortune, and used ones were worth a decent amount of money. Selling them wouldn’t generate as much as the return of a coat that had been shoplifted from a mall store, nor would their resale be as lucrative as that of a personal computer or a portable television.

The stuffed cats tumbled from my arms as I returned to the bed and lay down. Were the Kappa Theta Etas, under the leadership of Jean Hall, raising money not only from prostitution and blackmail, but also from theft? I remembered what Peter had said about Arnie’s patronage of a known fencing operation. With the owner of the pawnshop in prison, had Arnie taken over the business? It would explain his newfound ability to pay rent and buy beer at the Dew Drop Inn, and it would explain why he and Rebecca were acquainted, why he’d parked in the alley at midnight, and why he’d been outside the house and able to avail himself of occasional photo opportunities. Like any ambitious businessman, he’d provided curbside pickup and delivery service.

Finally I had something that I had to tell the police, even if it meant facing Peter Surely he and Officer Pipkin would be so grateful for the tip that they could restrain themselves from physical intimacy long enough to congratulate me on my brilliance. The serial numbers on the computers stashed in the upper-story rooms would prove my hypothesis, and Arnie could be surprisingly compliant when invited to confess to various crimes. The police would question the entire membership of the sorority, and the girls would break down eventually and incriminate each other with the enthusiasm they evinced for the Kappa hymn, as would Winkie if she was aware of what her young thoroughbreds had been doing. Debbie Anne was apt to turn up along the way, especially when the manager of the Hideaway Haven and his buddy found it expedient to adopt a more cooperative and loquacious attitude.

And then, I told myself as I arose from the bed and again gathered up the cats, I would take the Herodian approach and wash my hands of the entire business.

As I tossed the last stuffed cat into the box, I decided to make a quick search for the animate one, then exit in a more dignified fashion and call Peter from my apartment. If I interrupted anything, I would offer not a single word of apology but would simply relate everything I’d learned over the last few days, efface his name from my mind, and inquire about real estate prices in St. Mary Mead. Caron could join me when she was paroled.

I noticed a stray cat under the desk and picked it up, and had started back to the box when I realized that it might serve a more important purpose than interior decor I examined the cat’s seams for indications that it had undergone surgery on at least one occasion. It had not, but I dragged the box next to the desk and methodically examined all the cats. A particularly pink one with a dumbstruck expression proved to be a pajama bag with a pouch that contained a nightgown, a pair of lacy underpants, and a thin packet of photographs.

Feeling as dumbstruck as the cat feigned to be, I dropped it in the box and opened the flap of the packet. There were four prints and strips of film encased in cellophane sheaths. I swallowed several times, trying to convince myself that I was in no way behaving pruriently, but I finally slipped the packet into my pocket and decided to wait until I was home before I discovered just how depraved Dean Vanderson and the Kappas could be.

I flipped off the light and went into the hallway. Before I could take a step, I heard the front door close with a faint yet discernible click. It was not a welcome sound. I’d allowed Jean’s door to lock behind me, and I knew how long it would take to find the right key and stay inside the room until whoever was in the foyer was gone. Too long.

Trying to convince myself that a campus officer had dropped by to check the house, I waited for him to turn on a light in the foyer. Instead, I saw the sweep of a flashlight at the end of the hallway. “Oh, dear,” I mouthed silently as I crept across the hail and into the bathroom, where no exterior light glinted on the pink tile surfaces.

Earlier I’d scorned the addle-brained gothic heroines who forever put themselves in peril. I’d assured myself I was much too clever to be stalked in a brooding manor house. What a pity I hadn’t listened a little harder, I thought as I strained to hear footsteps in the hallway-or the sound of someone leaving through the front door

Something brushed against my leg. Terrified that I was in the company of a rat or someone’s pet boa constrictor that had escaped in the house, I clamped my hand over my mouth and looked down. The very same cat that had bitten me twice and eluded me all over the house now had decided that my left ankle was its best friend. It slinked and slithered around me, caressing my leg with its tail, then abruptly began to purr like a vacuum cleaner.

“Ssh!” I hissed. If anything, it purred more loudly as it circled my leg. Feline psychology was not my field, and all I could do was stare helplessly at it.

The overhead light came on. No longer in the mood for affection, Katie scampered out the doorway. I was too startled to do anything more than gape at Eleanor Vanderson, who appeared equally unnerved.

“Claire?” she said in a shaky voice. “Oh, thank goodness it’s you. I was afraid I was about to encounter-I don’t know. I’m so relieved it’s you.” She came into the bathroom and leaned against a sink, her carefully applied makeup doing little to counteract her paleness. My reflection in the mirror behind her indicated I fared no better; the whiteness of my face above the black shirt gave me the appearance of a character in a freeze-frame from an old movie.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

She turned around, twisted the tap, and splashed a scant handful of water on her face. Glancing at me in the mirror, she said, “I came by to make sure the house was locked, and noticed a light in one of the windows in this wing. I assumed one of the girls had been negligent, but there’ve been so many prowlers and trespassers of late that I thought I’d better check.”

I told her how I’d seen Katie enter the house and gone to the rescue, omitting to elaborate on my subsequent actions. The words echoed off the ceramic surfaces, sounding hollow and even less probable as they faded. “I panicked when I heard the door, and came in here to hide,” I concluded.

“It’s very kind of you to worry about Katie, Claire, but it may have been foolhardy on your part. I’m certain that I saw a light. Someone else may be in the house at this moment.” Shivering, she glanced at the hallway, then tried to give me the standard Kappa smile. “There’s no need to be melodramatic, is there? It’s probably Rebecca or Pippa coming by for something overlooked during her packing, or even Winkie. In fact, she may have come to search for our runaway kitty, had no luck, and left through the back door by the time I came in the front.”

“I didn’t see anyone, but there are a lot of rooms and hallways,” I said truthfully. “I don’t know why I thought I could find the cat in this labyrinth.”

Eleanor had recovered enough to glance at her watch, shake her head, and day, “Well, let’s make sure the light is out, then we can both go home. John promised to call me from his hotel room at eleven, and he’ll be frantic if I’m not there.” She took a key ring from her purse and sailed out of the bathroom, confident that I would accede to her plan.

She hesitated only a second, then zeroed in on the door of Jean Hall’s room and utilized her flashlight to pick out the correct key. “How peculiar7 she said as she turned on the light and frowned at the pyramid of suitcases and boxes. “I thought Winkle had sent the poor girl’s things to her parents. It was only a matter of telephoning one of the moving-van firms and arranging for them to include all this in their next shipment to California. I wonder why she never did.”

I was about to point out that Winkie had been busy when the front door in the foyer opened and the floor creaked as someone crossed the threshold. Eleanor grabbed my arm and yanked me inside the room, closed the door, and switched off the light. Her ear pressed against the door, she whispered, “Someone else is here.”

I sat down on the edge of the bed. “Are you certain that your husband is in Las Vegas?”

“Why wouldn’t he be?”

“I’m afraid his fantasies have some element of reality,” I said carefully. “I spoke to the manager of a motel that’s known to be a place where… adults consent, and he reacted as though he recognized your husband from my description. He also identified some of the Kappa Theta Etas as regular patrons.”

She stopped listening at the door and stood up. Her face was indecipherable in the shadows, but her voice was skeptical and unfriendly. “What exactly are you saying, Claire? I explained about John’s condition, and I thought you understood me. He is not well. Th be candid, he’s physically incapable of doing what you’ve implied, even if there was the slightest reason to consider the possibility. As for the girls, we have strict rules about where they can be seen in public, and they’re aware of the severity of their punishment should they disobey. The only one of them that would set foot in a place like that is Debbie Anne Wray.”

“Who set foot in it last week, and stayed there for several nights,” I said. “A second witness saw her get into a green truck and leave yesterday morning.”

“A green truck?” Eleanor sat down beside me, her purse crinkling in protest as she squeezed it. “That dreadful man found in the ritual closet drives a green truck, doesn’t he? I don’t understand any of this. Debbie Anne has been hiding at a motel, and that man picked her up and took her someplace else? He’s just a painter. There’s no reason she would know him, much less trust him enough to go away with him.”

Hoping she didn’t subscribe to the kill-the-messenger school of retribution, I said, “There may be a reason that she and some of the other girls know Arnie. I suspect they’ve been transacting business with him since the spring, using him to fence stolen property.”

“Stolen property?” she echoed in a stunned voice. “But these are Kappa Theta Etas, not common girls who struggle through high school and marry factory workers and stay pregnant for fifteen years. We can’t be as choosy as we’d like, but we do examine their backgrounds and scholastic records before we accept them, and once they become pledges, we do everything we can to train them in appropriate behavior. First you slander my husband, and now you accuse us of theft and promiscuity!”

“I’m sorry, but I must tell the police what I’ve discovered. When Arnie sobers up, he can tell us where Debbie Anne is. She seemed a reluctant participant in all this, and I won’t be surprised if she’s willing to spill the whole sordid story. The motel manager might want to bargain, too.”

“The police are going to believe those three? A known drunk, a farm-girl, and an employee of the Hideaway Haven? I’d give more credence to the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker.”

“None of whose daughters could ever be Kappa Theta Etas,” I said in defense of the working stiffs of the world. “In any case, it’s going to be out of our hands, and we’ll have to see what happens. I don’t know who’s prowling in the house, but I really don’t care if it’s your husband searching for the photographs or Winkie for the cat. I’m going home.

She followed me to the hallway, talking faster than I was remotely capable of walking. “I wish you’d reconsider before you call the police with your wild accusations, Claire. You’ve no evidence of any of this, nothing but your own convoluted ideas and less than credible witnesses, but rumors will leak out and have a disastrous effect on rush. This will be our first time to have someone from the National Board with us. It’s vital to make a good impression on her so we can be sure of continued financial support until we can get our budget straightened out.”

I slowed down. “Winkie mentioned that someone was coming to audit the books at the end of the summer. I wonder if the reports of theft and shoplifting shot up the day after the girls learned an accountant would be looking at their ledgers? Jean Hall would have been the most alarmed. Yale might retract its invitation if it learned she’d been embezzling from her sorority, and National sounds like a group that would press charges.”

“Embezzling?” Eleanor said, apparently content to repeat my more startling words and phrases.

“I doubt it would be overly taxing to a business major Float some bills, dip into one account to cover deficits in another, exaggerate an assessment for party favors, tamper with invoices-all so very simple until a trained auditor appears. Jean had to scrounge up enough money to cover what she, Rebecca, and maybe Pippa had been using to update their wardrobes and pay their house dues.” I went to the foyer where there was no sign of the newest arrival. I was vaguely aware that Eleanor was continuing to plead with the oiliness of a lawyer but a couple of insights had occurred that led me to think I needed to leave immediately.

“She took my keys,” said a chilly voice.

I kept heading for the door as Winkie stepped out of her suite and gave me a disapproving look. There was nothing charmingly childlike about her now; she was as malevolent as a gnome from one of the more gruesome fairy tales.

“And she searched Jean’s things,” said a downright icy voice from within the unlit living room.

I may have faltered just a bit as Rebecca came into the foyer. She swept her hair back and continued, “You’d better hope she didn’t find anything, either”

“Not me,” I said as I reached for the doorknob. And heard the sound of a gun being cocked. And froze.