Die Job (23 page)

“Stop asking questions. Or you will end up like this squirrel.”

The ugliness of the words hit me and I dropped the note, catching it before it fluttered to the ground. I read it again. The words were printed in a generic font on a plain sheet of bond paper. No signature. Duh. I started to call the police but thought better of it. I wasn’t in immediate danger; there was nothing the police could do. Instead, I dialed my mom’s number. No answer. Maybe she was out with Althea or Walter Highsmith. Wandering away from the stoop toward
the comforting light streaming from Mrs. Jones’s windows, I called Vonda.

“Ick,” she said when I explained what had happened. “I’ll be right over. Ricky can man the fort here.”

While I waited for her to arrive, I stepped over the squirrel again, repressing a shudder, and entered the apartment. Grabbing a trash bag, rubber gloves, and barbecue tongs, I returned to the stoop and gingerly tweezed up the squirrel, depositing it into the bag and pulling the ties tight just as Vonda drove up in the old station wagon with a “Magnolia House” logo magneted to the door.

“Is that it?” she asked, nodding toward the bag.

“Yes.” Vonda followed me as I carried the bag to the rear of Mrs. Jones’s house, where two covered rubbish bins sat, and plopped it in.

“Maybe we should have given it a decent burial?” Vonda suggested.

“Vonda!”

She held her hands up in apology. “You’re right. Sorry. I brought a little pick-me-up.” She pulled a bottle of
Jeremiah Weed, a bourbon liqueur, out of her purse. “Remember?”

I had to laugh. The first drink either of us had ever had was Jeremiah Weed liberally mixed with 7Up. We’d been on a church-sponsored retreat and one of the youth leaders had supplied the bottle, along with a case of beer. We’d both gotten royally sick and thrown up in the church van, as had a couple of the boys chugging beer. The youth leader had plenty of time to regret his stupidity as he hosed out the van. I don’t think we ever told on him.

“This may be the same bottle,” Vonda said, examining it. “I found it in the back of the pantry when I was setting mouse
traps last week and I’ve been meaning to bring it over.”

As she talked, we walked toward my apartment. “I don’t see any blood,” Vonda said, scanning the cement stoop. “I guess it wasn’t killed here, which is a good thing. You don’t want someone performing animal sacrifices at your front door.” Light from my living room illuminated her hair, which was back to the bright red she’d had me dye it a couple of weeks back. No more vampire black. Her bangs were long and swept to one side, emphasizing her big brown eyes.

“I think it was road kill,” I said, stepping over the spot where the squirrel had lain, even though nothing remained to mark where it had been. I’d examined the poor critter when I bent to pick it up, and it seemed to have a greasy tire track pressed into its fur.

“I guess that’s better,” Vonda said doubtfully. “Why do kids get up to such sick pranks every Halloween?”

“I don’t think it had anything to do with Halloween.” I led her through the apartment and into the kitchen where I poured liberal measures of Jeremiah Weed into orange juice glasses. Then I caught her up on events and showed her the note. “Thanks for coming over,” I added.

She gave me a hug and handed back the note. “Succinct,” she said. “Are you going to tell the police?”

“I might drop it by tomorrow. It’s not like they’re going to open up a major investigation. They don’t have time to follow up on penny-ante stuff like this.”

“Hank would give it special attention,” Vonda said archly.

“Another reason not to take it in.”

She laughed.

We headed for the small living room and I sat in my recliner while Vonda settled onto the love seat. Vonda took a long swallow of the amber liquid and held her glass up to the light. “Liquor doesn’t go bad, does it?”

“It gets better—and more expensive—with age.” The liquor warmed my throat and opened my nasal passages as I held a small mouthful for a moment. Swallowing, I leaned back in the puffy chair. My muscles ached, my scrapes burned, and I felt about as energetic as an overcooked spaghetti noodle. I was glad Vonda was here.

“Any idea who left it?”

“Not really.” I tried to focus my tired brain. “Lonnie? Seems a step down from pulling a gun on me and Althea. Glen, because I’m asking about what happened in
LA? Doesn’t seem like his style, and besides, he’d hardly have had time to put it there before I got home. Coach Peet? Dr. Solomon, because I’m asking about the drug study? One of the students? Could be any of the kids who were at the ghost hunt.” I sighed and took another sip of the liquor.

“Maybe you should drop the whole thing,” Vonda suggested. “Let the police find out who killed Braden.”

“But I feel responsible,” I said, blinking back tears. “I was there. I was supposed to be keeping those kids safe. And I didn’t.”

“Making the murderer nervous by asking questions all over town won’t bring Braden back.”

I shrugged, not convinced. I didn’t have the energy to argue with her. “What’s new with you?” I asked to distract her.

“The only thing going on in my week is a gaggle of Hollywood people staying with us.”

“Avaline Spirit Whisperer and friends.”

She stared at me, her eyes round. “Are you psychic? How did you know?”

I explained about Avaline’s offer to interview me for the TV show.

“Lucky you,” Vonda said. “Will they have a real Hollywood makeup artist do your makeup? Do you think you could work in a mention of Magnolia House? Do—”

“I’m not doing it.” I poured a little more bourbon. It was making me feel pleasantly woozy.

“I’d do it,” Vonda said enviously. She ran a hand through her short hair. “Anyway, things have been hectic with the B and B. Lots of hurricane prep to do, you know. Ricky wanted to shut the place up and evacuate, but then
The
Spirit Whisperer
people showed up and rented every room in the place, and we decided to ride it out.”

I knew Vonda and Ricky were barely breaking even with the B&B since business had slowed during the recession, so I was glad to hear they were making some money off Avaline and her crew. “Has the spirit summoner communicated with any phantoms at Magnolia House?” I asked.

A grin split Vonda’s pixie-ish face. “No. She looked like she was going to give it a go last evening—started to look all trancey and mystical—but I started vacuuming the living room and she went up to her room. Ricky’s always thought being able to say the house was haunted would bring more clients, but I can’t imagine that people would want to
stay
in a house infested with ghosts. Visit one, maybe, but not stay. Speaking of which”—she set her empty glass down with a clink—“I’ve got to go. RJ’s running a little fever and I promised I’d be home to read his bedtime story. He’s really into the Percy Jackson books—the ones with the kid who’s half god, half mortal. I tell you, reading
them with him has helped me brush up on my Greek mythology.”

“Ever useful,” I said, rising to give her a hug.

“Show the cops that note in the morning,” she said.

“I will,” I promised.

[Wednesday]

SLIGHTLY HUNGOVER THE NEXT MORNING, I DRAGGED myself to the police station before showing up at the salon. The officer on duty took the note and jotted a couple of lines about what happened but didn’t promise anything would come of it. “Likely just a prank, miss,” he said. “Do you have teenagers? Sometimes kids leave weird notes and stuff for each other.”

I left, depressed that the officer thought I looked old enough to have teenagers. I was barely thirty. Maybe the cop was working from data that said teen pregnancies had increased in Georgia in recent years. Yeah, that must be it. We’d had a woman in the salon just last week who bragged about being a grandma at thirty-two. Ye gods. I crossed Bedford Square, noting that fewer cars than usual were parked at the meters and only a couple of Doralynn’s tables were full when I peered in the café’s window. St. Elizabeth was
turning into a ghost town, at least temporarily. At Mom’s, I clumped up the stairs to the veranda before noticing the “Closed” sign on the door. Not really surprised after the dearth of business yesterday and how empty the town looked with so many people having evacuated. I traipsed around the side of the house to the kitchen door.

Mom and Althea looked up as the screen door banged shut behind me. “Hi, dear,” Mom said, giving me a hug and a kiss. She was in the blue cotton robe that hugged her rounded figure and made her periwinkle blue eyes look even bluer. “Tea?”

“Thanks.” I dropped into a chair at the table, catching my reflection in the copper pots that hung from a rack overhead. I hoped my complexion wasn’t really that green.

“You look like something the cat yakked up,” Althea said.

“I can always count on my friends to make me feel better.” I added honey to the mug Mom handed me. She disappeared into the walk-in pantry.

“Just saying,” Althea said with a shrug. She pursed her lips to blow on her coffee. “Since we’re not making anyone beautiful today, I thought maybe I’d experiment with a new hand cream I’ve been thinking about for Althea’s Organic Skincare Solutions. Glycerin, maybe some sandalwood oil and ginger to give it a more exotic scent . . .” She made a note on a lined pad.

“Did you hear from Loretta yesterday?” I asked Althea casually, aware of my mother shifting cans in the pantry.

Althea’s eyes slanted toward the pantry door. “That boy never came home last night,” she said in a low voice. “Loretta’s worried sick about him.”

I wondered if I should mention that Dillon had wanted the police to bring Lonnie in. Maybe he hadn’t shown up at home
because he was in jail? No, if that were the case, someone would have let his aunt know.

“Said several folks had been by asking for him and Loretta didn’t like the looks of any of them.”

“Did you mention the—” I made a gun with my hand.

Althea nodded heavily. “I thought she should know. If she gets a chance, maybe she can talk some sense into him.”

“Into who?” Mom asked, emerging from the pantry with a can of crushed pineapple in her hand. Not waiting for an answer, she said, “I thought I’d make some pineapple upside-down cake. Just in case we lose power tomorrow, it’ll be good to have something special to eat.”

“Good idea.” I finished my tea, feeling much better, and stood. “I’m going to find Rachel and see how she’s doing.”

“She’ll be at school, dear,” Mom pointed out.

“Oh.” I’d forgotten. “Well, then I’m going to read through the rest of my Rothmere letters and maybe talk to Lucy to see what she’s knows about Clarissa’s fate. Can I come back for dinner?”

“Of course. Spend the night, too, if you want. The forecasters say Horatio should make landfall late tonight. You’d rather be here, wouldn’t you, than in that dinky old carriage house?”

“Absolutely. We can play Crazy Eights and Spades if the electricity goes out.”

“Yippee,” Althea said with a marked lack of enthusiasm.

Mom and I laughed. I kissed them both and headed out, feeling strangely at loose ends.

The copies of the Rothmere letters were still in my car, so I walked home, the wind nudging me from behind. A big clump of pampas grass planted beside the Rivingtons’ driveway, taunted by the wind, reached out to slap me with its
long blades as I passed. Retrieving the pages from my Fiesta, I shut myself into my apartment and sorted out the ones I’d already read. The next one that came to hand was from Clarissa to her friend Felicity.

Clarissa’s illness was beginning to worry me. Maybe she had ulcers. Or a mid-nineteenth century version of IBS. Another thought occurred to me and I smoothed a hand down the copied page, irritated by its textureless modernity, wanting the rougher, richer paper that Clarissa had written on. Could Clarissa’s symptoms be explained by a poison of some kind? Hadn’t ladies used lead in their makeup in those days? I couldn’t remember. Could she have been exposed to some household toxin that was making her ill?