Strangled Prose (20 page)

So he had the nerve to think I was the one who was interfering! I snorted disdainfully and spun on my heel to leave. “A pity, Lieutenant Rosen. And just when I was prepared to tell you where Inez is at this moment and with whom. But if you don't care to listen to my theories, then I'll go back to my little store to peddle my little books. Good-bye!”

He should have stopped me. He should have apologized for the insulting remarks and begged me to share my insights. He should have fallen to his knees and pleaded with me.

“Good-bye,” he said.

TWELVE

Caron was hovering at the door when I arrived home. She grabbed my arm before I could take off my coat. “Did you find Inez? Her mother came by the school, and then some policeman had me paged to the office to ask if I knew where she was. I couldn't tell them anything, Mother. I haven't seen Inez in days and days and days.” She seemed to feel she was describing centuries at the very least.

I disengaged my arm to put down my purse. “I just came from the cemetery, where I found this.” I took the medallion out of my pocket to show it to her. “Inez left it on poor Mildred's grave, as some sort of gesture. I don't know where she is right now, but at least I know where she's been in the last few hours.”

“She was at the cemetery?” Caron yelped. “Creepy.”

“Earlier this afternoon;” I said. “Apparently she sat next to Mildred Twiller's grave and did a mourning routine. Then she hid the medallion under a sprinkle of rose petals.”

“Inez is flipped out about Azalea. She was totally offended when I trashed my collection. You would have thought I had thrown away some old saint's bones or something.”

“Did she take my autographed copy of
Professor of Passion,
along with the copy on my desk?”

Caron's head bobbled like that of a deboned hen. “Yours, and about twelve others. When we were cleaning up the Book Depot, we found a bunch of copies hidden in funny places. There were three behind the toilet and one stuck in the fern. Four more were in the nonfiction rack. Inez thought she was in heaven, for Pete's sake!”

“So she did take the medallion,” I said to myself, imagining the girl pining over her pitiful booty.

Caron's head switched from vertical to horizontal bobbles. “I've been trying to remember exactly what happened, and I don't think she did. I think I saw it in the box just as we went out the bedroom door, and she didn't go back later. She was with me the rest of the afternoon at the Book Depot and then at the library.”

“So she didn't take the medallion,” I mused, frowning. Then the other girl at the cemetery had brought it and allowed Inez to bury it under the rose petals. They had left minutes later, when Hendrix—the vile gorilla—tried to creep near them.

I made a pot of tea and sat down at the kitchen table to think. Despite my show of bravado at the cemetery, I only suspected I knew where Inez was. The other girl—thank God, not Caron—had to be one of Douglas Twiller's objects of passion, the one who became Stephanie in his final opus. The invisible character. The one my hippie had described as “quite a bitch.”

But I had been concerned about Douglas's most recent slate of women, which I suddenly realized was irrelevant.
Professor of Passion
had been written at least nine months ago. Submission, editing, minor revisions, and then a period of time to be published—the book was a historical rather than a current-events exposé.

No one, not even Hercule Poirot himself, can easily recite the months backward. I found a calendar in a drawer and flipped back ten months. January, give or take a month. How on earth could I find out whom Douglas was tutoring in bedroom techniques that long ago? Perplexed, I sat and idly read all the scribbled notations on the calendar while I tried to think of my next move.

January had been a lean social month. Britton's name appeared in a few places, along with times for cocktail parties and dinner dates. We hadn't attended anything of importance, except for a few college functions and the inescapable gallery openings, mandatory for the faculty whenever a new set of paintings or sculptures is moved in. During the month, the Twillers had not invited us over one time to meet Douglas's current paramour.

“I guess I'll have to go and see for myself,” I said under my breath. I drank the last of my tea, put on my coat, and went to the door of Caron's bedroom. “I'm going out for a few minutes. If anyone calls, take a message.”

She lowered a copy of
Wuthering Heights.
“Are you going to find Inez?” she asked in a thin voice.

“Probably not, but I'm going to try.”

On that dismal note, I left the apartment and walked down the hill toward Arbor Street and the railroad tracks. I turned left at the bridge, passed the second bridge, and ultimately stopped in front of the Twiller house.

It rose behind the fence like a black monolith. I assumed that Camille had scuttled away to different lodgings once the police had finished with her; considering the proliferation of bodies in the house, I should have done the same. The window on the second floor of the carriage house was dark. The gardener, too, had gone. Twilliam had no doubt been incarcerated at the pound, or whatever is done with orphaned dogs.

I opened the gate and went up the sidewalk to the porch, feeling increasingly silly. I had expended most of my courage to get this far; Inez was nearly twenty-five years younger than I and a good deal more timid. My theory of Inez's whereabouts was turning to lace—full of holes. But, I scolded myself, I certainly could check to make sure the house was empty before I slithered away like the craven coward I was.

The front door was locked. I went down the steps and around to the side yard, squinting at the black holes that were, in previous days, windows covered with delicate, fluttering sheers. No ghastly white face looked back at me. I would have instinctively dived down a snake hole had that happened. I hate snakes, but I hate ghastly white faces more.

I continued to the backyard. The furniture on the patio had been put away; the concrete surface glistened like an ice rink. I cupped my hands on the glass door to peer into the living room. There, the furniture was already shrouded. A poor choice of words.

Eventually, I made my way completely around the house, still very much on the outside. By this time, I did not believe there was anyone on the inside, but I had regained a bit of courage. Tapping my foot, I glanced around for the most likely place to hide the spare house key. We still do that in Farberville, despite the national trend to the contrary. After all, one does get locked out on occasion. The trick was to fool the potential burglars without tricking oneself.

I fumbled around in the dark, checking various rocks and flowerpots. I found the key under a pot of shriveled geraniums. Mildred wasn't terribly imaginative; my own key is taped under an eave on the porch. Don't mention that to swarthy men in pseudo-leather jackets, please.

The discovery left an ambivalent taste. I finally persuaded myself to unlock the door and tiptoe into the foyer. The den was on the right, I remembered, and the living room on the left. The stairs were visible in the faint glow from the streetlight, wide and inviting. Nancy Drew would have dashed right up them. I went into the living room to look around.

“Inez?” I whispered. I dodged a table and went to the kitchen. The counters were bare; the refrigerator silenced by the removal of its lifeline. No one sat at the dining room table to greet me. In that I would have had a stroke, I was not dismayed.

The ground floor was vacant. That left the upstairs—the white boudoir that wasn't mauve and pink. “Okay, Nancy Drew,” I muttered, biting my lip unmercifully, “let's take a look.”

I managed to produce a few murmured
Inez?
's as I crept up the stairs. I did not hear a faint
Yes?
whispered in response. I didn't hear anything, and I didn't care for the situation one bit. I despise books in which the heroine strolls into danger, humming the national anthem and not bothering to sweat. Totally unrealistic, I told myself as I wiped the copious sweat out of my eyes. I don't even like brave spies. I prefer sensible people who wait for the police. Why wasn't I at the nearest pay phone?

All this drifted around inside my head as I reached the second floor. I wasn't feeling particularly brave, but, to be frank, I wasn't planning to meet any monsters—or murderers—on the landing. I had reached the stage of feeling downright silly as I murmured a final, “Inez?”

“Mrs. Malloy?” Softly, frightened.

I grabbed the banister. “Inez?” I managed to croak without keeling over on the shag carpet.

“Mrs. Malloy?”

We were not making admirable progress. Rather than respond once again with her name, I opted to find the source of the panicked answer. I sidled down the hallway to the last door, eased it open, and said, “Inez?”

No luck. I retraced my path, peering into the dim interiors for a sign of life. I found a closet with folded linens, a bathroom, a guest room, and finally the boudoir. It resembled the internal cavity of a great white whale. For the umpteenth time I hissed, “Inez?”

“Mrs. Malloy?”

“This is not blind man's bluff,” I snapped testily. “If you're in here, I'd appreciate a signal. I'm tired of trailing a leaky tire.”

She gulped wetly and said, “Mrs. Malloy, I'm in here. I'm sorry that I can't get up to say hello.”

Inez would probably apologize for labor pains, if she lived that long. I stumbled into the room until my shin found a chair. “Are you on the bed?”

“Yes, ma'am. I'm sort of tied up.”

“Sort of tied up, Inez? That's similar to sort of pregnant or sort of dead. You either are or you aren't.” It wasn't terribly sympathetic, but it was terribly realistic. The cowering girl was responsible for a great deal of embarrassment, beginning with the police station and ending in the cemetery with Officer Hendrix. It wasn't totally her fault. Not more than ninety-five percent, anyway.

“Very tied up,” she murmured from the darkness that had assailed my shin. “Ropes, and a belt.”

“Perhaps I should untie you?” I started toward the disembodied voice, my hands held in front of me.

A voice from behind me stopped me in midstep. “Ah, Mrs. Malloy, you've finally joined us. How lovely; I was hoping you might come.”

Lieutenant Rosen's voice would have been welcome, despite my incessant gripes. On the contrary, Sheila Belinski's voice sent a shiver down my spine, as though she'd drawn an icicle along it.

“Sheila,” I said, “what are you doing here?”

Inez whimpered, but I thought it prudent to leave her where she was. I turned around to peer into the blackness to locate the slender figure with murderous intent.

“The girl and I came here to make sure that someone had taken care of Twilliam,” Sheila said. “We're the only two that care about Azalea Twilight, aren't we, Inez? Azalea loved little Twilliam, and we were very worried about him.” Her voice had the sibilant quality of a three-year-old, but the sarcasm was ripe with age.

Inez wasn't any Einstein, but she knew enough to mumble, “That's right, Mrs. Malloy, we came to see if someone had taken care of Azalea's puppy.”

“And when you didn't find Twilliam, you decided to tie yourself up on the bed?” I said calmly. Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright.

“Inez is very observant,” Sheila snickered from the impenetrable shadows. “She asked me precisely when I had picked up the stupid medallion. It seems she had toyed with it just before Mildred was murdered, and she couldn't understand why I had it. Inez inquired so nicely that I told her.”

She took a deep breath, as if to crow. And crow she did, although with modest restraint. “I picked it up after I strangled Mrs. Twiller, naturally, but I didn't want to tell Inez that until she was properly positioned. I just let her play her melodramatic game at the cemetery, then brought her here to wait for you. I knew you'd come.”

It was time for a demonstration of my innate authoritativeness. “And why was that, Sheila?” I demanded in a stern tone.

“Because I wanted you here,” she said smugly.

I didn't like that at all. The damned woman was implying that I was a marionette on a conveniently long string. She held the end. Twitch, twitch; hello, Mrs. Malloy.

“Congratulations, Sheila, I am indeed here. Now that you've shown your cunningness, why don't we turn on a light so that I can untie Inez?”

“Because I don't want to,” she said. An audible gloat drifted out of the darkness. “The switch is behind me, Mrs. Mallory; I doubt that you could find it in time.”

“Why involve me in all this?” I asked.

“Oh, you're very much a part of my play. In fact, you'll have the starring role in the final scene!”

I shrank from the voice. “I fail to see how Inez is involved, Sheila. After all, she didn't really see anything. She only appeared in the wrong places at the wrong times.”

As Nancy Drew, I was supposed to distract the deranged killer until the police burst through the door, brandishing guns and shouting Miranda cautions. The major flaw in my plot was that the police, unless they were clairvoyant, were probably drinking sodas in their plastic lounge. Poor planning on my part. I sent a word of apology to Lieutenant Rosen—in case he was listening. His record to date was not good.

Sheila seemed to read my less-than-encouraging thoughts. “No one knows that we're here, Mrs. Malloy. Once I take care of you and the girl, I'll go back to my dorm room and pack my bags. No one will even notice that I'm missing.”

“Get off it, Sheila!” I snapped. “You're forever claiming that no one notices you. I noticed you, for God's sake. And”—I stopped to take a breath—“Douglas Twiller noticed you, too. About a year ago, I would guess?”