Strangled Prose (19 page)

As he scribbled in his notebook, he said, “You see, you can tell me things if you try. It didn't hurt too badly.”

“Why don't you try a little reciprocity?” I said. “Did you figure out how Douglas made it to his house and back without being seen by either Sheila or me? Caron saw him between three-fifteen and three-twenty, when I was on the railroad tracks and Sheila on Arbor Street above me.”

“Twiller insisted that he had not been there, despite Caron's statement to the contrary. To my regret, he was strangled before I could pursue the problem.”

“Your regret, Lieutenant Rosen?”

His expression would have wilted a head of lettuce. “I discussed the problem with Miss Belinski only this morning. Around three-twenty, she turned the corner and came in this direction to look for Miss Holland. Twiller must have waited until the sidewalk was empty, then hurried back to the Book Depot. He went in the back, waited until he heard your voice, and then strolled up the aisle from the office.”

“How did he get there in the first place?”

“He must have gone straight out the back door and down the railroad tracks. According to your story, you stayed at the reception for a few minutes before you flounced out.”

“Strolled out,” I corrected him coldly.

“Whatever. He did have time to make it home.”

“Why? Why did he lie—when all he had to do was say that he wanted to go home to see how Mildred was? It makes no sense whatever, unless he planned to murder his wife! If he did, then who murdered him? I don't understand!”

Lieutenant Rosen blinked in the face of the hurricane. “I don't understand, Jorgeson doesn't understand, and Mildred Twiller in her grave probably doesn't understand. Why should you?”

Abruptly I was in the eye of the hurricane, where it was ominously calm. The first order of business was to rid myself of the lieutenant. “I'm sorry. You're the detective. After you and Jorgeson are satisfied, you can come to show-and-tell. I've got to go back to the store now; there are a lot of customers early in the afternoon.”

I stood up, found my purse, and shooed him downstairs and out the front door to his car. Although he seemed suspicious, he eventually pulled away from the curb and disappeared around the corner. I held my ground in case he went around the block and came back to see what I was doing—which I wasn't about to share.

Five minutes later I could no longer bear to wait. I hopped in my car and drove toward the cemetery to find Inez. Where else could she be? Not at home or at school, not at my apartment. The child had a very narrow range—and a vivid imagination, coupled with an Azalean obsession. Once Caron betrayed her, she would head straight for a marble block adorned with cupids: Mildred Twiller's grave.

There were no limousines this time, nor any subdued mourners circling the fresh mound of dirt. I peered into the trees as I approached the area, but there was no figure cowering into the shadows as there had been previously.

“Fiddlesticks,” I grumbled, deflated by failure. It had been such a wonderful theory, logical and precise, dictated by knowledge of the girl and her mind. She really ought to have been there.

I perused the stone, compelled as always to read the written word, no matter where it was. Mildred had been fifty-seven when she died, I computed with a sigh. And she had
Flown to That Place Where Love Is Eternal,
according to the gothic script below her name. Touching, in a silly way. Mildred would have adored it.

As I bent down to rearrange a vase of chrysanthemums, a flash of light caught my attention. I tossed the cardboard vase aside and pushed back a layer of dried rose petals. The medallion glittered at me from under a clump of dirt.

Dirt, to my knowledge, doesn't take fingerprints. I could have called the police station to report my discovery, I suppose. But Lieutenant Rosen had just searched my apartment to see if I had Inez's body in a suitcase; I wasn't feeling terribly kindly toward him. Also, if Inez had stolen the medallion, then Caron might have lied earlier. I wasn't sure whether or not it was a crime to lie to the police. I was sure, on the other hand, that it was not a particularly good idea to incense the lieutenant. I knew that much from personal experience.

I picked up the medallion and put it in my pocket. I looked about once more for Inez, now convinced that she was nearby. A figure shuffled into view on the far side of the cemetery, a bulky man in a dark blue navy surplus jacket and a knitted cap. He was raking leaves from between the rows of white marble teeth, as though he were some sort of macabre dental hygienist.

“Hey there,” I called as I approached him.

He gave me a leery look but stopped raking and waited. His eyes were pink and watery, his mouth slightly agape. Except for his face, every bit of exposed flesh was covered with thick black hair. Not the most astute source of information. I decided, but capable of a grunted response—which he made.

“Did you see a teenage girl over that way?” I asked.

“Over what way, lady?” He leaned on the handle of the rake and smacked his lips.

“By the new grave. There, on the hillside just this side of the dogwood trees.”

“Dogwood trees? I don't know nothing about trees, lady. Except they have a lot of leaves that have to be raked up and burnt.” The smacking accelerated.

“Where's your supervisor?” I demanded.

“He'll be back at five o'clock to pay me for raking the leaves. He'll dock me if I don't get done. Costs me money to talk, lady.”

Message received. I took the lone five-dollar bill out of my purse and waved it under his nose. “Did you see anyone in the cemetery this afternoon?”

He reached for the bill, but I retreated and tightened my grip. I repeated the question.

“Yeah,” he said, “there was a girl over there by them dogwood trees when I got here. Sitting by a grave, moaning and rocking.”

We repeated the dance. He reached; I retreated. I let it flutter temptingly for a second, then said, “What did she look like?”

“A girl.” He shrugged and stared ravenously at the bill. I could almost feel his wet lips on my fingers. Yuck to the max.

“How long ago did she leave?”

He gave me an indignant look. “I was raking leaves, lady. I don't make enough money to buy fancy watches on minimum wage. I can barely afford wine with dinner.”

Wine
was
dinner, I thought with a grim smile. I doubted I would hear anything more enlightening, so I handed him the five and turned to leave. Dark, smoky clouds had rolled in since the morning, and now a sudden gust of wind caught the man's pile of leaves and sent them tumbling away. Behind the distant mountains, thunder rumbled.

I left the man to chase his leaves, hoping that it would take at least five dollars worth of added energy. My fingers curled around the medallion in my pocket, I angled past Mildred's grave for a final glance, then went to my car before the rain could catch me.

I sat there for a long time. Where in God's name was Inez? She had been at the cemetery and, from the guttural description, had been more than a little miserable. Who wouldn't be—sitting on a fresh grave under a dull gray sky?

She had, apparently, returned the medallion in a typically Inez fashion. No doubt she had recited some of her favorite passages and scattered rose petals for effect. But now where had she gone? A tap on the window almost gave me a heart attack.

“Lady,” my simian snitch yelled, gesturing at me to roll down the window. He held the rake like a scepter, the emperor of autumn. His fingers were all thicker than my big toe.

“Yes?” I managed to say.

“There was someone else.”

“Someone else?” I goggled at him. “Who?”

He rubbed his fingers together in an age-old sign that implied a necessary exchange, money being my contribution. I looked in my wallet. It was empty, except for a glueless postage stamp and Caron's library card. In the bottom of my purse I found a few pennies, dimes, and nickles. I dug them out.

“Is this enough?”

His lips moved as he counted the meager collection of coins. When he arrived at a total, he gave me a wounded stare. “Eighty-nine cents? You've got to be kidding, lady. I wouldn't tell you your mother's name for eighty-nine cents.”

“You don't know my mother's name. Besides, it is possible there is a cold-blooded killer after that girl.”

“It was more likely your mother.” He turned around to stalk off, his massive shoulders hunched with anger. I couldn't blame him; eighty-nine cents is not exactly an IRA. for old age.

“Wait,” I howled in desperation, “will you take a check?”

He stopped to consider, while I glared at his back with all the venom I could muster. At last he turned around slowly to study first my battered car and then my distorted expression. “How do I know your check is any good?”

“It's better than nothing,” I retorted. When he shook his head, I decided to risk it all with a grandiose gesture. I switched on the engine and let the car roll a few inches. “A twenty-dollar check,” I called in farewell.

“You have identification?” He was moving toward me like a carnivorous dinosaur advancing on a vegetarian sibling.

“A driver's license and two credit cards,” I countered. “You'll have to settle for that, unless you take MasterCard, buddy.”

“Yeah, I suppose I'll take a check,” he conceded. “Leave the name off; I'll write it in myself. I don't want no trouble from my supervisor.”

He waited until I had written the check, then peered suspiciously at the name and address in the corner, perhaps expecting to see the name of a mental hospital. Fighting back an urge to rip whatever he knew from between his ears, I fumed until he seemed satisfied.

When the check disappeared, I said, “Well? Who else was here with the girl?”

“Another girl.” He found that highly amusing, if the gurgled snorts were to be interpreted as laughter. His shoulders started to heave; his eyes disappeared into folds of flesh; his mouth could have sheltered a hibernating bear. The noise sent a flock of sparrows into a treetop.

I tried to convince myself that he hadn't meant Caron. The world was populated by millions of girls, from the pigtail variety to those with sequined glasses and henna rinses. Farber College enrolled three thousand of them every year. The public schools were rife with them. Caron had called from school, and that was where she was. She could not have come to the cemetery. I was being hysterical, to put it mildly.

Quasimodo finally ceased the gurgles and started to walk away. “Come back here,” I said in the voice that stops even Caron. “For twenty dollars, I think I deserve more than two words.”

“Hey, lady, it was some girl in a raincoat and a scarf. She had a regular face, arms and legs, all the normal stuff. She sat down next to the first one and they had a long talk, then they got up and left together. They did not come over to where I was raking to tell me where they were going.”

“What color was her hair?”

“Blue.”

I wondered if I had anything in my glove compartment that might serve as a weapon. “Blue?” I repeated, raising my eyebrows.

“She had on a scarf, lady. All I saw was blue.” Again, he started to lumber off, my check clutched in his paws.

“The information wasn't worth eighty-nine cents,” I said to his back.

“Raking ain't worth minimum wage. Life's tough, lady.”

At this point, I was furious enough to leap on his back and cling with grim determination until he told me the entire story. I had opened the door when another car pulled in behind mine. Guess who? Lieutenant Rosen climbed out, waved to me, and walked up to the gorilla.

“Well, Hendrix?” he murmured.

I scrambled out of my car and stomped across the gravel. “Hendrix? Hendrix?” I screeched.

Lieutenant Rosen smiled. “Mrs. Malloy, this is Corporal Hendrix, one of our plainclothes officers. Corporal Hendrix, Mrs. Malloy. Now, if you'll excuse us, Mrs. Malloy, I'd like to hear the report…”

“He's a cop?” I was still screeching, despite the social niceties. “Is he allowed to take bribes from innocent citizens? He has twenty-five dollars of my money. In payola, or blackmail or something! I want him arrested right now!”

“Let me hear his report first, and then we'll discuss financial matters.” He took the man's arm and tried to escape. Hendrix gave me a look that was, no doubt, supposed to suffice as an apology. It did not come close.

I raised my voice to its maximum volume. “You come back here! I want to hear the report, too, or I'll—I'll call the FBI and tell them about the bribe! I cannot believe that you permit this swamp creature to lie to citizens who are merely trying to—”

“Yes?” Sherlock said encouragingly. “Trying to—?”

Well, there wasn't a clever way to finish the sentence; we both knew that. I decided on a new ploy. “Please, I'd like to know if my daughter was in the cemetery with Inez Brandon.” Miss Manners would have been proud of me.

When Rosen nodded, Hendrix said, “I couldn't see the second girl well enough to determine any identifying factors. Sorry. When I moved closer, they left.”

“But the first girl was Miss Brandon?” Supercop asked.

Hendrix looked at the distant grave. “I'm fairly sure that it was Miss Brandon. Brown hair, glasses, slender, and sort of—”

“Cowering?” I suggested.

He seemed pleased to find the perfect word. “Cowering, that's right. Can I go back to the station, Lieutenant? I think I'm getting a blister.” He held up a paw to show us, noticed the check, and handed it to me with an embarrassed look.

“Why were you so impossible?” I said coldly.

“Orders, ma'am.”

After he was gone, I stared at Lieutenant Rosen. “Orders?”

“Indeed, Mrs. Malloy.” He turned on the smile, but his eyes contradicted the warmth. “You have a nasty habit of showing up wherever you're not wanted. I realize that you're worried about your daughter, but this is a murder investigation—and I'm in charge. You're likely to end up with a scarf around your neck, too.”