Paula K. Perrin - Small Town Deadly (3 page)

Gene threw the door open so
violently it hit the wall with a crash.

Millay and Jankowski popped out of
their rooms.

“You okay?” Jankowski
asked.

“Peachy.”  Gene glared
at me.  “Dammit, Liz, get in here.”

As I crossed the stage my
footsteps thumped hollowly.  I mounted the steps toward the computer room. 
Gene loomed larger and larger.  My heart pounded.  Not having Sybil’s prestige,
I lacked that advantage in dealing with him, but I had another.  Our mothers
were distant cousins.  Over the years they’d compared notes.  Hard to hold a
man in awe when you know how difficult he’d been to potty-train.

He stood aside to let me enter the
room and indicated a grey secretarial chair beside a student work station.  I
sat.  He straightened some papers and set them face down on the table.  His
hands trembled slightly.  If I hadn’t been looking for it, I wouldn’t have
noticed.  Operating under a full head of steam, as Mother would say.

I’d had a Clouseau kind of
detective in mind when I wrote the play, but someone cast Gene to be himself,
the chief of police, innocently attending a variety show when a murder is
discovered.

He’d loosened his tie.  The top
button of his shirt was undone, his sleeves rolled up.  The red-gold hair on
his arms glistened.

Jankowski walked down to get Meg. 
I tensed.  After her trouble with the police back east this winter, I was
afraid she’d be hostile, but as she passed, I saw her calm face, mouth gently
curved.  Angelic.

She began to chat with the
policeman.  What if she said something that implicated her in the murder? 
Should I demand a lawyer for her?

Gene cleared his throat, startling
me.  I turned and saw his denim-blue eyes examining me.

I stared down at my lapis lazuli
and gold bracelet.  I ran my finger over a cracked stone as I decided any
protective action on my part would make Meg suspect.

Gene said, “Okay, I want you
to tell me how you discovered the body.  Every detail.  Start with when you
left Kirk at the checkout counter.  Tell me everything you noticed.”

“I’m not sure I noticed
anything—I was having trouble with my lines—I only had today and—”

“Yeah, yeah, Annamaria
getting sick,” he said.  “I know that part.  Tell me about finding
Andre.”

“Well, the hall lights were dimmer
than I’d expected, and the spotlight in the closet was off.  I could barely
see—”  My hands began to do some shaking of their own.  I felt sick as I
relived finding him.  I told Gene everything up to encountering Kirk, Fran, and
Meg on the ramp except about the lipstick and about throwing up.

He said, “So Meg ran into the
library to get me.  Did Kirk and Fran stay with you or did they go to the
body?”

“They stayed with me.”

“And after I went to look at
the body?”

“Kirk stayed with me until we
heard sirens.  Then he went to show your people the way.  You know—Lofty, he
was only a year or two ahead of Jared and Meg in school.  He’s awfully young,
must be inexperienced, isn’t he?”

“He’ll learn.  You were going
to tell me about Fran.”

“Oh, yes.  She said she had
to call Max.”  I’d been slumping in my seat with my arms crossed over my
chest.  Now I sat up straight.  “Are you sure you shouldn’t call in the
Sheriff’s Office?  You’ve never handled a murder case before, and I’ll
bet—”

“Ain’t gonna work, Liz.  Tell
me where Fran went.”

“She wasn’t feeling well.  She was
looking for a restroom.  I told you that.”

“So even though a murder had
just been committed, she went wandering around alone in the dark,” he
said, his voice expressionless.  “And you let her go.”

“Fran’s brave as a lion, you
know that.”

“Yeah.”  His gaze was
steady.  “Okay, Liz, hold on a minute while I make some notes.”

I sat quietly while he wrote in a
large, bold hand.  He wrote on and on.  I couldn’t believe I’d said that much.

His head still bent over the paper
he said, “Did you observe anything unusual among the people here
tonight?”

“Unusual?”

“Did anyone act in ways you
wouldn’t expect?”

“No.”

“Was anyone angry?”

I hesitated.

“What?”

“It was nothing.”

“Let me judge that,
okay?”

“I met Alisz here an hour
early so we could go over the set and practice.  Kirk came to set up chairs. 
Victor got here a little before seven—Alisz was irritated because he’d been
supposed to get here earlier to help.  Fran arrived next, changed in the
restroom, and when Alisz saw her in costume, she hit the roof.”

“Why was that?”

As if he hadn’t noticed. 
“The blouse.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. 
“Did they argue?”

“I don’t think they would
have, but Victor ratcheted it up by complaining Fran’s jacket covered all the
good parts.  Alisz started screaming about the play being a community event and
Fran’s lack of moral fiber.  I haven’t seen her like that since we were
kids.”

“What did Fran do?”

“She said this was theater,
after all.  Finally Kirk suggested Fran wear a teddy under the blouse for the
performances.”

“Was Fran okay with
that?”

“She wasn’t happy, but she
let it go.  And Alisz agreed.  But I don’t see what that has to do with Andre,
he wasn’t even here yet.”

“What time did he get
here?”

“I don’t know.  I was working
with Victor on the blocking.  It seemed like one minute there were just a few
of us, and the next everyone was here—”  The words hung in the air.  Both
Meg and Jared, and for that matter, Gene himself, had been late and rehearsal
delayed, though Meg had been the latest.

Gene ignored my hesitation and
asked, “When was the last time you saw Andre alive?”

I thought.  “At the end of
the second scene Kirk and Jared and Andre were standing together.  I think
that’s the last time—”  Tears stung my eyes.

“Take it easy.”  He ran
his hands through his hair.  “What was your relationship to the deceased?”

“He was an
acquaintance.”

Gene’s eyes met mine.  “I
heard you were dating him.”

I rubbed at my bracelet. 
“Yes, for awhile.”

His gaze sharpened.  “Any
strong feelings left over?”

I stood up.  “Gene Cudworthy,
you can’t think I did it!”

“I can’t rule it out without
some facts, and if you’re going to cover up for your pal Fran, I’ve got to
think there’s something going on.”  He stood.

I wished I had Fran’s height.  I
was looking up almost twelve inches.  I said, “How dare you accuse me of
lying!”

“The manure fell off my shoes
a long time ago.”

“How charming.”

“You’ve always been an awful
snob, Liz.”

I glared at him.

He ran his fingers through his
hair again.  “My temper got me after all.”  He sighed.  “Look, I
need to know if you had a motive to kill Andre.”

I took a deep breath.  “I
was—unhappy for a while after we stopped dating, but who could hold a grudge
against Andre?  I haven’t talked with him since Barry’s funeral.”

Gene sighed.  “Okay.” 
He looked down at the paper he’d been writing on.  He walked over to the table
heaped with clothes, rummaged around, and pulled my tooled leather purse out. 
“All right to look inside?” he asked.

I nodded, grateful I hadn’t hidden
the lipstick there after all.

His search over, he opened the
door for me.  “You’ll need to come into the station tomorrow morning to be
fingerprinted.”

I passed him without a word.  I
approached Lofty.  “Has Meg gone home?”

His shoulder hunched and he
glanced at Gene.  “She’s gone, Ms. Macrae.”

“Thanks.”

I looked down at the empty rows of
chairs.  I walked outside, my footsteps loud in the covered walkway.  I took a
deep, trembling breath of the fresh, cool air.  A light spring rain drifted
down, just enough to mist windshields and make the pavement glisten in the glare
of the parking lot lights.

The police cars were still
helter-skelter in the south parking lot.

As I passed between my red station
wagon and the car next to it, a movement inside the other car startled me.  I
whirled to face it.

“Oh!  Little Bunny Foo Foo,
you scared me,” I said to the sleepy beige poodle who’d stood up on the
front seat.

I turned my back on him and opened
my door.  I started to get in.  “Oh, heck,” I said.  I looked back at
the dog.  He’d put his front feet on the arm rest and was fogging the window
with his breath.

“What’s to become of
you?” I asked.

He whined softly.  He had belonged
to Barry Kemp who’d been Andre’s assistant for years.  After Barry’s death a
few months ago, Andre had kept the dog as he had promised he would.  Little
Bunny Foo Foo had a pedigree that went back to Charlemagne and a little red bow
stuck in his top knot.

“You’ll be okay,” I said
and got in my car.  I put my key in the ignition.

The dog watched me, head cocked to
the side.

“I hate poodles.”

He dropped back onto the seat and
out of sight.

I rubbed my forehead.  I’d lied to
Gene.  I’d been extremely angry at Andre.  Looking back, I could see I’d had no
reason to believe that while he was with me, he’d eschew other women, but that
hadn’t stopped it from hurting.

But there’d been the good side,
memories that lingered and made me smile:  afternoons in the walnut sleigh bed,
green and burgundy sheets rumpled, Andre and me lying there together, not quite
asleep, Little Bunny Foo Foo yapping somewhere outside, Barry’s cajoling voice
barely heard.

Andre had always been an elegant
man.  I thought of his crushed head, the horrible mess.  It wasn’t fair.  My
chest ached with grief.

A knock on my window made me
yelp.  Little Bunny Foo Foo barked ferociously.  I rubbed the tears out of my
eyes with the back of my hand.

Kirk said, “I’m sorry, Liz. 
Didn’t mean to frighten you.  Is there anything I can do to help?”

I opened my car door and stepped
out.  “Quiet!” I said to the poodle.  He barked once more, then subsided.

“It just hit me all over
again.”

Kirk patted my shoulder.

“I don’t know what to do
about Little Bunny Foo Foo.  It was so important to Andre to take good care of
him, and I feel—” my throat closed up.

“I suppose the police will be
in charge of him, don’t you?”

“But, Kirk, what will they do
with him?”

“Let’s go ask.”

Together we walked back to the
library, Kirk a solid presence at my side.  The door was locked.  Through the
glass doors of the lobby, I saw the cops standing together.

Kirk knocked.

The men turned to look at us. 
Gene said something, and Lofty came over and unlocked the door.

We followed him in.

Kirk said, “Andre’s dog is
out in his car.  Can you tell us what you’ll do with him?”

“We’ll call animal
control,” Officer Jankowski said.

“Wouldn’t one of you like to
keep him?”

Lofty shook his head.  “Nah. 
He’s a poodle, isn’t he?”

The tough cop said, “Good for
target practice.”

A little sound of protest escaped
my throat.  The tough cop grinned.  “Can’t someone take him?” I asked.

“Sure.  You want to?”
Millay said.

“I can’t.”  I looked at
Kirk.

Kirk’s ruddy skin grew redder. 
“I can’t, Liz, you know the rules at the rectory.”

I looked around.

Millay said, “Divorce city if
I look at another stray.”

“He wouldn’t survive Oscar,”
Gene said.

“He has a pedigree, you
know,” I said.

“You want us to bury it with
him?” asked Toughie.

“You don’t think they’ll put
him to sleep at the pound, do you?” I asked.

“They’ll keep an appealing,
friendly dog as long as they can, and like you say, he’s a pedigreed poodle, so
that gives him pretty good odds,” Millay said.

I sighed with relief.

“Of course adult dogs don’t
have as good a chance as puppies,” he added.

I looked around the circle of
implacable male faces.  I sighed.  “Mother’s going to kill me,” I
said.

Lofty’s skill with a slim jim was
awesome.  The poodle barked himself into a frenzy trying to keep the Mercedes
safe despite my pleas for him to be a good dog.

When the lock popped, Lofty stood
back and said, “It’s all yours.”

Gene said, “Touch as little
as you can.  We’ll dust inside the car.”

Little Bunny Foo Foo showed
surprisingly big teeth.

I hesitated.

Gene reached for the door handle
saying, “I’ll get him.”

“No!” I said, grabbing
his wrist.

He stopped, but tension vibrated
through him as he snarled, “What now?”

“It’s just that his biggest
sin is running off if you don’t have a leash on him.  He’s a real escape
artist.”

Gene sighed.  “What do you
suggest?  He looks ready to bite.”

“It’d help if you all get
away from the car.”

They retreated to the roofed
walkway.

“Now, Little Bunny Foo Foo,
I’m going to open the door.  You remember me, don’t you?” I said.

He was quiet, though he didn’t
back away from the door.

I touched the handle, and he
barked again.  “Look, this is your only chance to escape the dog
catcher.”  I said what Andre had always said as he got in the car,
“Now get back.  Back, back, back.”

He turned and hopped onto the
passenger seat, but as I opened the door and slid in, he yipped.

“You know, dog catchers are
nasty fellows,” I said.

Little Bunny Foo Foo cocked his
head.

I looked on the passenger side’s
floor.  “Now where’s your leash?  Andre never took you anywhere without
it.”

I leaned over and felt under the
passenger seat.  Little Bunny Foo Foo growled.

I twisted and looked in the back. 
No leash.

The poodle’s cold nose touched my
hand where I’d absentmindedly rested it on the steering wheel.

I leaned over and felt under the
driver’s seat.  My middle finger encountered something small and dry just as my
ring finger touched the leash.  I pulled both objects out.  Besides the leash,
I held a skinny, crumpled, half-smoked cigarette.  I supposed it was marijuana.

Little Bunny Foo Foo growled. 
Right outside the window, Gene’s voice said, “What’s taking so long?”

I jumped, and the cigarette sprang
out of my fingers.  I left it for the police.

I leashed the dog, and he hopped
out and stayed at my heels as if he never would have considered a wild dash
anywhere.

He settled onto the passenger seat
of the station wagon as I drove out of the parking lot.  Kirk, in his old VW
bug, was right behind me.  It was after eleven.  Most houses were dark.  I
passed two cars on Main Street, their headlights shining on the wet pavement. 
After a few blocks, when I turned left onto Macrae Avenue at the corner where
the Episcopal church stood, the bug turned into the rectory’s driveway.

I said, “He could have taken
you.  Every time there’s something he doesn’t want to do, he cites the rules
and regulations of the church.  As if we’d kick him out of the rectory for
having a dog!  That was lame.”

Fran’s new black Mustang was
parked in front of our house.  I pulled around the corner and into our
driveway, my heart sinking when I saw Meg’s car wasn’t there.

I walked Little Bunny Foo Foo
around to the front.  Our house was a northwest bungalow built by my
grandfather in 1923 as a country getaway.  I’d lived in it all my life. 
“Act as if you belong,” I said to the poodle as we passed the rose
bushes and mounted the steps to the porch.

The light from the porch fixture
gleamed on the dark green paint of the porch’s floor.  At Mother’s request, Meg
and I had painted the house last summer.  Mother wanted it white.  Again.  We’d
given in on that, but when it had come to the steps and the floor of the porch,
we refused to repaint them grey.

Too much of the house had become
grey over the years, Mother’s bedroom, the parlor, the hallway.  When I was
little, those rooms had been painted yellow and peach.

I peered through the etched-glass
panel before I opened the door.  The poodle’s nails clicked on the hardwood
floor of the dark, narrow hall.

The kitchen had retained its
yellow paint because its one small window faced north and the room was always
dim.  Little Bunny Foo Foo sniffed at the worn linoleum floor.

Mother and Fran sat at the round
oak table, bone china cups of tea and plates of gingerbread before them. 
Tendrils of steam rose from the teapot’s spout.

“Where did you go?” I demanded.

“I had an errand,” Fran said, one
green eye closing in a wink.

Mother caught the gesture but did
not react.  Tonight she wore her long hair up in the same Gibson-girl style as
Fran, piled softly on her head.  Only Fran’s hair was golden, Mother’s iron
grey; Fran’s face flawless, Mother’s so lined with years of pain and anger that
the dimple on her right cheek had been engulfed by creases.

Little Bunny Foo Foo sniffed
Mother’s orthopedic shoes.

Fran’s gaze shifted quickly from
me and my companion to Mother.

Mother disappointed her. 
“Get yourself a cup and join us,” she said.

I crossed to the glass-fronted
cupboards, the poodle clicking along beside me, and chose a mug.  I helped
myself to a square of gingerbread from the pan on the counter and crowned it
with whipped cream from a blue bowl.

When I sat at the table, Little
Bunny Foo Foo sat at my feet.

Mother glanced at the mug
disapprovingly as I poured my tea.  It was her belief that tea belonged in
proper teacups.  “Where’s Meg?” she asked.

“I expected her to be here.”

“That girl!  Since she’s come
home, you never know where she’s going to be, day or night.”

I nodded.

Fran said, “How are you
holding up?  Finding Andre that way had to be—”

“It was the most horrible thing
I’ve ever seen.  How could someone do that to another human being?”

“Drink your tea, Liz,” Mother
said.  “It’s the new people moving into town.  None of us would do such a
thing.”

“Did Max pick up any
information?” I asked.

“He said they all got pretty
excited when the body was moved, there was something under him, but Max
couldn’t see what.  Gene’s being protective of his case.  You probably know
more than any of us, tell, tell.”

“Oh, Fran, I don’t want to
think about—”

“Pretty please.”

I sighed, knowing she wouldn’t
leave me alone until I satisfied her curiosity.  Little Bunny Foo Foo sighed
too and lay across my feet, his small body warm and strangely comforting.

“If I tell you tonight, will
you keep Max away from me tomorrow?”

“Oh, Liz, come on, you found
Andre, I have to run an interview with you.”

“Write it yourself, then,
from what I’m saying now.”

“Promise not to talk to
The
Columbian
before we come out on Tuesday?”

“No problem.”  As if I
wanted to talk to reporters!

Fran went to the pile of paper on
the counter under the wall phone.  As she sorted through newsletters, ads,
catalogues, and unsolicited credit card offers, she said, “Don’t you think this
stack is getting out of hand?”

Mother sniffed.  “I don’t dare
touch it.  Liz has ever-expanding ideas on what can be recycled.”

“Do you want trees for your
great-grandchildren or not?” I asked.

Fran nudged the pile of papers,
and it wobbled.  “Remember what happened when man conceived the Tower of Babel?”

I glanced at Mother.  Her fingers
pressing against her lips didn’t quite hide a smile.

Fran picked a pen out of the
elephant mug and took notes on the back of an envelope as I told them about
finding the body, everything except finding the lipstick and the joint.

Mother’s gnarled hand shook and
her tea cup clattered against its saucer.  “How terrible.”

My hands shook, too.

Fran put a gentle hand on Mother’s
arm.

Mother sat up straighter. 
“Not that he was one of my favorite people,” she said.  “He had
the morals of a cat.”

Fran glanced at me.  I didn’t
move.

Fran tucked the envelope on which
she’d taken notes into her jacket pocket.

“Gene should turn it over to more
experienced investigators,” I said.

“Gene will be fine,” Mother
said.  “He’s quite intelligent, though you never give him credit for it,
Liz.”

“I don’t see that having
three ex-wives is any sign of intelligence.”

“Two,” Fran said,
“the latest divorce isn’t final.”

Little Bunny Foo Foo jumped up
barking.  The back door opened.

“Little Bunny Foo Foo!”
Meg cried.  His tail wagged.  She snapped her fingers, pointed at her chest,
and said, “Fly!”  The dog jumped straight at her, the leash trailing,
and she caught him in mid-air.  “Good dog.”

He licked her face as she hugged
him.  “Do we get to keep him, Grandmother?” she asked, her dark eyes
shining.

“His name will have to be
changed.  No creature should go through life burdened by something like
that.”

“We’ll just shorten it to
Bunny.  That’s easy, and he’ll still recognize it.  Won’t you, Bunny?”

He wriggled ecstatically.

“But if you’re going to live
with us, no more of this,” Meg said, pulling on the red bow stuck in his
beige topknot.  She rummaged in one of the drawers.

“Not the kitchen
scissors,” Mother cried.

“Too late,” Meg said,
snipping the bow from the topknot.

“Meg—”

“I’ll put alcohol on the blades,”
she said.  She nuzzled the poodle.  “Not that you’d have a germ on your
precious little hide, would you?”

I had been in a state of shock
since Meg had gotten Little Bunny Foo Foo to jump through the air to her.  No
one but Barry and Andre had ever done that trick with him.  How did Meg know
it?

I’d been so shocked I hadn’t
noticed until now how Meg was dressed.  “What happened to your clothes? 
What’s that you’ve got on?”

Meg spread one arm wide, holding
the poodle against her with the other as she pivoted to model.  “They gave
it to me in jail when they took my clothes away.  It’s a genuine prison
jumpsuit!”

“You’ve been in jail?”
Mother cried.

“How did you escape?”
Fran asked.

My heart thumped frantically. 
What had Gene and his men found?  Had there been something of Meg’s besides the
lipstick by Andre’s body?  What had I missed?