Polished Off (20 page)

“Ouch.” I winced just thinking about it.

“But why?” Mom asked again.

“For the publicity, I should think,” Dillon said. “That’s how the reporters got there so fast. He called them before he staged his little attack. He was trying to drum up more of an audience for his film; instead, he spooked a killer.”

“You think his bragging on TV yesterday about his film prompted the murderer to go after him?”

Dillon nodded. “Yep. Tying up loose ends. The murderer didn’t know what was or wasn’t on the film, but he—or she—obviously isn’t one to take chances. He’s dangerous. The skunk makes it look like he’s got a real thing against beauty pageants.”

“Skunk?” Mom asked. “You lost me.”

I remembered the odor in the theater. “What about the skunk?”

“It was left on a counter in the Green Room with a note that said, ‘Beauty pageants stink. Stop the killing.’ ”

Mom looked horrified. “How sick. Well! I’m sure they’ll cancel the pageant.”

Dillon was shaking his head before she finished. He clicked his fork rhythmically against the plate. “I talked to Jodi Keen and then to the folks responsible for the Miss Georgia Blossom pageant at the state level and no one is willing to shut it down. A couple of the girls have withdrawn, though. I had my team contact all of them to make sure they were aware of the danger. Best I could do.” He looked at me. “Keen denied there was a threatening note until I showed her the scrap you saved. Then she tried to laugh it off as a prank.”

“Big surprise,” I muttered.

“Grace Ann, I think you should quit the pageant,” Mom said. “And Stella, too. They can get along without a hair stylist and manicurist.”

“Good idea,” Dillon approved.

I wasn’t so sure. First, I couldn’t see the killer fixing on me or Stella as targets—we were pretty peripheral to the whole pageant thing, not like the contestants or the coordinator. Second, if I quit, I’d lose my best chance of finding out who killed Audrey. I needed to be on the inside.

Stella agreed with me when she came downstairs moments later, dressed in a navy blue blouse and with her hair French braided. She hesitated at the sight of Dillon but said a civil good morning. “I don’t want to quit,” she said when we told her what was going on. “We’re going to need the money for Darryl’s defense if it comes to a trial.”

Mom had on her stubborn look, peering at me over her glasses. “I can’t stop you from staying with the pageant, Stella, although I think it’s foolish. But Grace—”

“You can’t stop me, either,” I pointed out evenly.

She gripped her lips tightly together but said nothing. “Thank you for breakfast,” I said to her back as she began to stack the dishes in the sink.

The dishes clanked against each other, making me fear chips. She turned on the spigot and water gushed over them.

“I’ll stop by later,” I said.

“Suit yourself.”

Mom didn’t often get mad, but when she did it was a quiet, freeze-you-out mad. I’d talk to her later, without an audience. Stella and Dillon thanked her for breakfast, earning a curt “You’re welcome,” and we left by the screen door.

AGENT DILLON TOOK OFF BEFORE I COULD PULL HIM aside and ask if the news about Audrey’s pregnancy was true. Stella looked more resolute than yesterday, so I figured she hadn’t heard the rumor. Stella gave me a lift to the nursing home where the contestants and judges had their first “community photo op” of the day. They’d go from there to the humane society and finish up at the marina. The point of the exercise was to assemble one of those video montages that show the contestants interacting happily in the host community, the way Miss America contestants cavort on the Atlantic City boardwalk and some other pageant’s contestants throw craps in a Las Vegas casino.

“What did Simone think of Darryl’s case?” I asked as we pulled up in front of Happy Meadows Retirement Community. Talk about being put out to pasture. The main building had a faux historical front, with pillars I was pretty sure would collapse if you leaned against them, and happy yellow paint. The “happy” theme continued inside with all the staffers wearing smiley-face buttons with their names on them, and a Disney medley playing softly over speakers. The smells of bleach and incontinence took the cheery right out of the atmosphere, however. I saw no residents; maybe they were all at breakfast.

“She thinks the prosecutor has a weak case. It’s all circumstantial. Nothing pins Darryl to the scene—no fingerprints or hair or fibers or anything. I didn’t understand all the technical details, but she said that’s good. And he doesn’t really have a motive. Affairs end all the time, Simone said, without anyone getting killed. She said
I
had a better motive than Darryl.”

Stella tried to smile and I could tell that talking about the affair hurt her.

“And she said that Kevin Faye is coming into a five-hundred-thousand-dollar life insurance policy.”

I whistled softly. “That sounds like a real motive.”

“Exactly! Anyone could see that, don’t you think? Simone says we can use that to cast reasonable doubt.”

Ted Gaines, the weatherman judge from channel nine, all gelled hair and white teeth, brushed past us, deep in conversation with Renata Schott, her hair in an elegant chignon and her makeup flawless. Guess she wouldn’t be asking for my help today. A cameraman trotted after them, reminding me of Sam Barnes. Five or six contestants straggled in and I saw more getting off a van that had pulled into the circular drive. I guessed Jodi was making sure all her charges stuck together by ferrying them to their various appointments. Marv, the theater owner, climbed out of the van last, awkwardly maneuvering a large, wheeled cooler.

“What are you doing here?” I asked as he pulled the red cooler into the lobby, biceps and tattoos bulging from a sleeveless shirt. “And what have you got there?”

He hitched up his worn jeans. “With the theater closed by the cops again, I didn’t have much else to do today,” he said. “Ms. Keen was looking for a driver and I volunteered—for a nice hourly wage. These”—he nodded toward the cooler—“are just bottled waters and snacks for the ‘celebrity’ judges.” He hooked his meaty fingers in the air. Looking back toward the parking area, he sighed. “I’m also supposed to be security and keep them away.”

“Them” were the protestors, jumping out of a large van driven by Kwasi Yarrow. The college kids looked vigorous and rested, ready for a fun-filled day of placard waving. Whatever happened to disc golf and binge drinking as student entertainment? Those had been the big things when I was at UGA. Althea climbed down stiffly from the front passenger seat wearing a yellow caftan with black zigzags and a red and yellow patterned scarf wrapped around her head.

“What’s Althea doing here?” Stella asked, watching the newcomers set up under a tamarind tree.

“Dr. Yarrow is her new boy toy.” I immediately felt ashamed of myself for joking about the age difference. “He’s her significant other,” I amended.

“Get out,” Stella said, wide-eyed. “I would never have pictured them together.”

“Why not?”

“Well . . .” She thought about it. “Althea’s always cracking jokes and laughing. I haven’t seen that guy so much as smile all week.”

She had a point. Dr. Yarrow did come across a bit on the serious side. But maybe he was a bundle of laughs when he was “off duty,” as it were—out of the classroom and away from his students.

“Grace, Stella!” Jodi beckoned from a linoleum-lined hallway. “We’re on a tight schedule today.”

 

 

WE’D BEEN ALLOTTED AN EMPTY BEDROOM AS OUR temporary beauty parlor, and although it was disconcerting working next to a hospital bed with a stainless steel bedpan on the unmade mattress, we cycled the girls through in record time. Of course, only eight girls remained in the pageant after Sam Barnes’s murder, including Rachel, Elise, Brooke, Morgan, Tabitha, and three others whose names I couldn’t keep in my head. Hayley wasn’t there and I wondered what Agent Dillon had learned from her and whether she was still a suspect. I couldn’t see her luring Sam Barnes to the theater and shooting him.

When the contestants were all beautified and dressed in their casual resort wear, graciously supplied by Filomena’s Fashion Cove (as a large sign in the dayroom announced), they trooped down to the dayroom where the Happy Meadows residents were gathered for their visit. Elderly men and women sat on couches or in wheelchairs, some with an air of eager expectancy and others with dazed or zoned-out expressions. A couple were sleeping. The judges, sipping designer water and making nice with the patients, were already in the room when the contestants arrived. A feisty nonagenarian with no teeth was whupping Renata Schott at checkers, cackling as his king jumped six of her pieces in a row. She looked happy to excuse herself when the contestants filed into the room, followed by the cameraman.

“Mingle, girls, mingle,” Jodi urged, throwing up both hands.

As the contestants began making conversation with the residents, another girl and a young man slipped into the room. It took me a minute to recognize the sandy-haired protestor, Daphne, and her friend Seth. The poster gave them away. “We’ve come to visit my grandma,” she said when Marv, at a frantic sign from Jodi, tried to hustle them out. “I’ve got a perfect right to visit her.”

Marv hesitated and she slid past him, advancing on the most out-of-it-looking resident in the room, a frail woman with thinning white hair wearing a blue cotton dressing gown. “Grandma!” Daphne said, swooping down on her and hugging her.

The woman smiled uncertainly and the suspicion that she’d never laid eyes on Daphne crossed my mind. Daphne settled beside her, patting her clawlike hand, making sure her anti-pageant poster was angled so it was almost impossible for the cameraman not to include it in his shots. Seth stood behind them. Pretty clever, I thought, semi-admiring their tactics.

I leaned back against a wall, out of camera range, and watched the girls work the room. Rachel settled beside a pleasant-looking woman in a wheelchair and chatted with her. From her hand gestures, I thought she was talking about cutting hair. Tabitha moved from resident to resident, doing little more than smiling and letting them admire her. Brooke advanced on a pair of African American women playing cards and they dealt her in. The others, including the judges, eased into conversations. After a few awkward moments, the residents seemed to be enjoying themselves and I thought it was a nice idea—Jodi’s?—to visit the nursing home. The cameraman circled the room, recording it all.

Just as Jodi clapped her hands and asked the contestants to gather around and sing a couple of songs, the weatherman lurched to his feet. His face was a sickly green color. “I feel sick,” he announced.

A nursing aide moved toward him with a glass of water, but he brushed her aside and threw up on the floor.

“My tummy’s very sensitive, too,” a woman piped up in the loud tones of the hard-of-hearing. “Can’t abide cabbage or brussels sprouts or—”

“I’m afraid—” Renata Schott began, putting her hand to her mouth. She dashed toward the door and barely made it to the hall before she upchucked. The third judge sank to his knees and vomited into the container holding a potted palm tree.

Jodi, the contestants, and the residents gazed at each other with bewilderment turning to fear. The stench was unbearable.

“Gross. I’m out of here,” Tabitha announced, wrinkling her nose and heading for the door.

Gaines, on his knees, raised his head weakly after another round of vomiting. “Get a doctor,” he croaked. “I’ve been poisoned.”

AN HOUR LATER, SOMETHING RESEMBLING ORDER had been restored. Jodi had the contestants corralled in the cafeteria at the far end of the Happy Meadows complex. Aides had escorted the residents to their rooms. The retirement home’s on-call doctor was treating the judges and they were recovering. Crime scene technicians were collecting samples—double ick—to determine what caused the judges’ sudden illness. One of them had carted off the cooler and the empty bottles. The protestors were waving their signs and chanting “Ban beauty pageants! Ban beauty pageants!” probably in hopes of getting some airtime from the cameraman who had tired of recording his sick colleague. He was roaming the grounds, camera pointed at the police, the protestors, and random visitors who came to see Pop-Pop or Great-aunt Nellie and almost stroked out at the sight of the police vehicles and crowded courtyard.