Poisoned Pins (26 page)

“Oh, Claire,” she said as she came to the counter and squeezed my hand, “you must be ready to bulldoze down the sorority house—and I wouldn't blame you one bit if you'd already arranged it. It's been one nightmare after another for you, hasn't it? The screams, the purported prowlers, that dreadful accident in the alley, that pledge pestering you with her calls, and now this incident last night!”

I eased my hand out of reach and folded my arms to cover my incriminating lists (which, regrettably, incriminated only me). “It's not been an auspicious beginning for the summer,” I said, aware that I was mirroring her superficial smile and speaking with an identical undertone of sisterly sympathy. They were finally getting to me, I thought with an edge of hysteria as we continued to twinkle at each other. I'd seen the chapter room. I'd seen the ritual closet. I'd toured the house and eaten their spaghetti. I was becoming Kappa Theta Eta-ized, and before long I would crave pink cashmere. The bookstore would be home to a fluffy white cat. I would become increasingly distraught that Caron had not selected a silver pattern shortly after her birth. Had Eleanor clutched my hand with the secret handshake? Were her lips puckered just a bit? Would I need gum augmentation?

She must have sensed that I was not a sane woman, in that she retreated a few steps and gazed thoughtfully at the store. “This is so charming, Claire. I can't think why I've never been here before, but I certainly will make a point of coming by in the future. I love the way you've arranged all this to create a warm, cozy feeling.”

“Thank you.”

“There's something I'd like to discuss with you,” she continued, “but it's very painful for me and I'm hoping we might find a place with complete privacy, a place where we won't be disturbed.”

“This may be it. No one has set foot in here all morning, and I have no reason to believe anyone will in the foreseeable future.”

“I'm so sorry to hear business is slow, but surely things will pick up before too long. Would it be inconvenient if we sat in your office?” She gave me the look of a poster child from a Third World country.

I led her to the office, took a dozen books off the chair and dumped them in a corner, squinted unhappily at the blackened crust in the coffee pot, and finally settled behind the desk to regard her over a stack of invoices, a cup filled with stubby pencils, several self-help books on the gentle art of organization, and a scattering of dried roaches.

“This is so difficult.” Eleanor took a handkerchief from her purse and dabbed the corner of her eye. “After the party ended last night, I asked John what you two had been discussing out by the pool. Initially, he refused to tell me, but I persisted, and this morning, while I was driving him to the airport, he finally related the gist of it. Oh, Claire, I can imagine how you must have felt as he told you those . . . repulsive stories, but surely you realize what they were.”

“Surely,” I said obediently, if also blankly.

“I suggested he cancel his trip to Las Vegas, but he became so upset that I reluctantly kissed him goodbye and let him go. I've already spoken to his physician, and the very first thing we'll do when John returns is schedule a complete evaluation of his medication.” She dabbed the other eye, then gave me a brave, quivery smile. “I'm so glad you understand, Claire. These last few years have been a living hell for me, and sometimes I wonder if that's why I've immersed myself in the sorority. My grandmother never tired of reminding me that the best cure for personal troubles is a worthwhile charity in need of a chairperson.”

“You're saying that what he told me . . . ?”

“Is nothing more than a pathetic fantasy. John is a brilliant scholar and has published hundreds of articles in the most prestigious journals across the country. He successfully argued in front of the United States Supreme Court on two occasions. There's a rumor afoot that the new wing of the law building will be named after him.” She paused to allow me the opportunity to gasp in awe, but I managed to restrain myself. “Five years ago he began to develop a few mild eccentricities—nothing too bizarre at first, but later they became more obvious. I eventually took him to the medical complex in Houston, which diagnosed a degenerative neurological disease that impairs him both physically and mentally. He functions well most of the time, but every now and then he does or says something that has absolutely no basis in reality.”

I considered this for a moment. “He sounded perfectly normal when he told me about his assignations at a motel. I didn't demand details, naturally, but he seemed to have a vivid memory of . . . what took place and with whom.”

“He sounded perfectly normal when he explained to our daughter that he'd joined a convent and henceforth was to be called Sister Beatrice.” She shook her head and sighed. “Thus far, we've been lucky that these episodes have been isolated and have occurred outside the university community. But to tell a virtual stranger that he . . . Well, it's clear he'll have to submit his resignation as soon as he returns home.”

Trying not to envision Dean Vanderson in a fetching black habit, I said, “Then he had no assignations with sorority girls at the Hideaway Haven and Jean Hall was not blackmailing him?”

“Oh, Claire, I knew you'd understand!” Eleanor replaced the handkerchief in her purse and once again rewarded me with a dose of sisterly sympathy. “You'll be relieved to learn that I've decided to close the Kappa house for the remainder of the summer. Winkie,
Rebecca, and Pippa have been told that they must be out by six o'clock today, and they were looking at the classified ads and calling various apartment complexes when I left. It will be inconvenient for me to drop by every day to supervise the remodeling, but I'll just have to do it.”

Although I was cheered by her news, I wasn't ready to dismiss Dean Vanderson's revelations as the ravings of a neurological degenerate. “If your husband wasn't being blackmailed, why was there a pink paper cat in his office?”

“You were in his office?” she said, politely incredulous.

Since I hadn't exactly arrived at the law school with a search warrant, I bypassed her question and said, “Yes, and I found a cat hidden under a computer. It looked like your basic blackmail note to me: terse, ominous, slightly obtuse. I came to your house last night to ask him about it.”

“How odd,” she murmured as she found a gold compact and made sure her mascara had not dribbled down her cheeks during her less than histrionic confession of her husband's disability. After she'd flicked off an invisible speck, she snapped the compact closed. “Unless, of course, he wrote it as additional proof to himself that he's not only virile and sexually insatiable, but also an actor in some dark soap opera unfolding around him. He's become childlike these last few years, and this is the sort of thing that would appeal to his need to see himself as anything other than a pale, plump, middle-aged law professor.”

I did not leap to my feet, point an accusatory finger at her, and utter words to the effect that John had no access to pink construction-paper cats. “And you have a drawerful of the things at home?” I asked in a resigned voice.

“I keep them in a carton in my study, along with the correspondence with National, confidential reports from alumnae, and the endless files. You and I seem to wage the same battle not to drown in all the
paperwork, don't we?” I nodded as she stood up. “There is one thing more I must beg of you, Claire. It's terribly important that what I told you not become a topic of gossip. John is not well, and were his reputation to be tainted by lurid and unfounded accusations, it might kill him. I can trust you, can't I?”

I assured her that she could, escorted her out to the street, and resumed my seat at the counter. I now was withholding from the authorities enough information to alphabetize it and publish a set of encyclopedias. On the other hand, the fact that John Vanderson had not carried on with sorority girls and therefore had not been blackmailed was not likely to overwhelm anybody.

The afternoon dwindled along, as did my attempts to put a lot of seemingly unrelated tidbits into tidy little compartments. No one called to threaten me or my child, and no one called to inquire if I was meddling in an official investigation—if there was one. The police were satisfied with an accidental death and a fugitive who would appear sooner or later. Although I could vindicate myself with the revelation that Ed Whitbred and Arnie Riggles had indeed prowled in the bushes outside the sorority house, I could find no other reason to tell anyone. With the house closing, Winkie would have to find an apartment for the summer, and she and her hairy Don Juan could dally in a more routine fashion. John Vanderson would resign from his position at the law school and perhaps occupy his time writing fiction. No doubt the New York publishing house that purchased
Nebrasque
would be enthralled by juris-imprudent porn. Caron would throw her sixteenth birthday party for the benefit of her fellow inmates; I would celebrate my fortieth birthday alone, toasting myself in the mirror while monitoring the ravages of menopause.

It was a splendid foray into self-pity, and I was enjoying myself enormously as I walked home late in the afternoon. As I went past the soon-to-be-vacant sorority house, however, I realized there was a minor glitch
in Eleanor's explanation of her husband's peculiar behavior. He had been on the third floor several nights ago. I tried to tell myself he was engaged in a fantasy, playing detective rather than cowboy or astronaut, but my arguments failed to convince me. He had been there, just as he had stopped at the curb the night of Jean's death. Eleanor might wish desperately to believe her husband was delusional, that what he'd told me was nonsense—but she could be wrong.

Miss Marple-Malloy was back in business. I hurried home, found the directory, and called Ed Whitbred. “I presume you heard about Arnie,” I said without wasting a precious second of sleuthing.

“Winkie told me,” he said. “She's upset about the house closing, but I think she's better off getting away from those leeches. This morning she and Eleanor had a major row over the chapter-room key. Winkie swears her key has been in her possession since the last meeting of the semester, back in May, and Eleanor finally conceded that saintly Jean Hall must have made a duplicate.”

“Will Winkie keep her job?”

“She thinks so. I told her I'd help her look for an apartment, so I'd better—”

“Did you have the film from Arnie's camera developed?”

“I dropped it off at the drugstore on Thurber Street, but I forgot to pick it up after work. How about I bring it over tomorrow when I—”

“That'll be fine, Ed. Happy hunting.” I hung up, then went to Caron's bedroom to see if there were any messages concerning bail or impending court appearances. All I found were dirty glasses, a crumpled potato-chip bag, fuzzy dishes under the bed that might lead to a Nobel Prize in biochemistry, and her calendar. The last item indicated that Gretchen was slated to have her palette adjusted within the hour.

Idly speculating why Caron's friends had relented, I made a drink and wandered to my bedroom to stare at the Kappa Theta Eta house. The shadows from
the scaffold resembled long diagonal bars across the weathered surface. The effect was fittingly sinister.

When it began to grow dark, I drove to the drugstore. After a spirited debate with a genderless dullard regarding my lack of a receipt versus my willingness to stand there all night and argue, I proffered money for a packet of prints. Once I was in the car, I took a deep breath and pulled out the product of Arnie's arcane activities.

He'd been thorough, capturing not only Pippa in gleeful admiration of her breasts, Jean halfway out of a shirt, Rebecca brushing her hair in a diaphanous gown, and Debbie Anne in a struggle with a pair of overly tight shorts, but also a dozen more of unknown girls in varied degrees of undress. The backgrounds contained enough pink to identify them as Kappa Theta Etas. Apparently our aspiring
Penthouse
photographer had lurked in the bushes prior to the end of the spring semester.

Arnie had occupied a position on my list of potential blackmailers, but I mentally drew a line through his name and relegated it to a newly established list of voyeurs. It was odd that he'd selected this particular sorority, I thought as I pulled out of the parking lot and headed for the highway. It was the only house open this summer, but during the previous semester he could have chosen any of the sorority houses on campus, some of which would provide stimulating photo opportunities from less prickly sites. Was it just another damn coincidence?

I drove by the Hideaway Haven twice before persuading myself to bounce across the pockmarked lot and park at what was optimistically designated as the office. Through the dusty window I could see a stumpy orange-haired man in a stained T-shirt and plaid shorts. A cigarette smoldered between his lips, and ashes trickled down his belly. He appeared to be reading a tabloid, although it was as likely that he was unable to
meet the literacy challenge and was merely looking at the pictures.

There was no delicate way to handle it, I told myself as I cowered in the car and perspired like a woman eighteen hours into labor. Not even one of my role models from a cozy novel could find a way to transact this distasteful business without some tiny slip of her composure. I slunk down further as a car pulled in beside me. Its driver seemed familiar with the process and was in possession of a key within minutes. His buxom companion sauntered after him as he hurried to a nearby room. The lack of luggage suggested professional services rendered at an hourly rate.

I, on the other hand, had all the time I wanted to explore my motives for sitting in my car outside the office of the Hideaway Haven. Was I in the throes of a quest for truth and justice? Was this indicative of my dedication to law and order? Was I genuinely concerned about Debbie Anne Wray—or any of the blasted Kappa Theta Etas, their lovers, or even their painters? Or could it be that I was going to show Lieutenant Peter Rosen that I was not the least bit interested in his extracurricular activities and was perfectly content to meddle in someone else's official investigation?