Polished Off (27 page)

I got out of the car, smoothing my khaki skirt over my hips, and walked to the door. A weeping willow draped over the portico, its shadow making it feel like dusk rather than mid-afternoon. They’re such beautiful trees, but their name is so melancholy; I don’t like thinking of their leaves as tears.

A woman opened the door. “You must be Grace,” she said. “I’m Stacy.” Still under fifty, I’d guess, with expertly dyed blond hair and a complexion beginning to show signs of sun damage, she offered a friendly smile and a firm handshake. She was tall and still slim. “Do you mind if we talk on the patio? I’m deadheading the roses.” That explained the dirt stains on her white tee shirt and the secateurs pulling down the pocket of her shorts.

“It should’ve been done a couple months ago,” she said, leading me down a wide, carpeted hallway to a kitchen with maple cabinetry, an island, and French doors leading to the backyard. We stepped over the sill and onto a brick and sand patio surrounded by flower beds. A fountain dribbled gently in the middle of the yard and the scent of cedar mulch and mown grass perfumed the air. “But we were traveling some this summer—my son and his wife just had their second baby—and what with one thing and another I haven’t gotten round to it.”

“Congratulations on your new grandbaby,” I said. “Boy or girl?”

“A precious little girl. They named her Leda Elizabeth.”

She actually smiled when she said it, so I assumed she had gone on with her life. Not that she was over her daughter’s death, but that she had tucked the grief away somewhere and didn’t let it color her every waking moment. She certainly didn’t come across as a psychotic, revenge-seeking lunatic. I told her about my role in the pageant and about talking to the protestors and their poster of her daughter.

She pulled the clippers out and snipped at the brown clumps of petals, letting them drop to the mulch. “I read about Audrey Faye’s death, of course,” she said. “And that other man. I didn’t know either of them. A woman named Keen was running the pageant the year Leda entered it.”

“She’s taken it over again since Audrey died,” I said.

Moving to another rosebush, Stacy snipped at more dead blooms. “Are you thinking there’s some connection between their deaths and Leda’s? I just can’t see it. Leda’s heart gave out—a tragic consequence of her eating disorders. There was nothing criminal about it.”

“She had eating disorders?” I hadn’t heard that.

“Anorexia and bulimia both. We had her in a residential treatment facility when she was just fourteen, and she seemed to be getting better for a few years after that. But when she went off to college, we think she fell back into old habits. We tried desperately to talk her out of entering the pageant—even threatened to quit paying her tuition—but she was over eighteen. We couldn’t stop her.”

I thought about a woman throwing her body so out of kilter through starvation and vomiting that her heart seized up. Tragic. “So you think being in the pageant killed her?” I tried to read Stacy Wissing’s face, but her back was to me as she gardened.

She cast a sharp look at me over her shoulder. “Of course not. She—”

A gate on our left creaked open and a man strode into the yard. In a suit and tie, he looked out of place. “I got here as soon as I could,” he said. “Is this her?” He frowned at me.

Stacy sighed. “Thad, I told you there was no need to come home. I’m okay talking about Leda. You know that. And, yes, this is Grace Terhune.”

I held out my hand but he ignored it. He had a heavy brow bone that overhung his eyes and sunken cheeks like a marathoner. “How do you know she’s not a reporter?”

“She’s not a reporter,” Stacy said. “Go back to work, honey.”

“Not with her here.” He frowned at me. “Do you have some sick fascination with death? Do you get off on people’s grief? What are you really doing here?” His hands balled into fists at his sides, he advanced toward me.

I stepped back as Stacy Wissing slipped between us. “Thad!”

“I’m not leaving until she’s gone.” He glared at me over his wife’s shoulder.

“You’d better go,” Stacy said to me. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “I’m sorry for disturbing you.”

“You’ll be sorry,” Wissing muttered.

I slid back through the French doors as Stacy hugged her husband. His shoulders shook like he was crying. I retraced my steps to the front door, taking one wrong turn that landed me in a living room. I was about to back out of the room when I noticed a family portrait over the fireplace. A smiling Thad and Stacy stood behind four children—three girls and a boy—who ranged in age from maybe twelve to eighteen. A golden retriever with a gray muzzle flopped at their feet. I pegged the oldest girl, a blond goddess who looked a lot like Stacy must have in her youth, as Leda. The photo must have been taken a year or two before her death. She looked happy in the picture, the sun making a nimbus of her blond hair, no trace of anguish or illness in her shining blue eyes or smooth complexion. What a waste. I was halfway back to the door when something struck me. I returned to the photo, studying the other children. Something about the middle girl . . . It took me a moment, but I finally figured out where I knew her from.

 

 

I DROVE AIMLESSLY FOR A FEW MINUTES, NOT SURE where I was going. I was almost certain Daphne, the protestor, was Leda Wissing’s sister. Was it possible that she was out for revenge against the pageant or did she really just want to warn other young women about the pitfalls of being obsessed with your looks, as pageant contestants had to be? I felt sorry for her. It must have been dreadful losing her older sister in such a way, and clearly her dad wasn’t helping the family get over their grief. Now, Thad Wissing struck me as a more likely candidate for revenge. His anger bubbled at the surface like geothermal pools I’d seen once at Yellowstone. Weird algae thrived in the high temps and turned the pools orange and acid green and blue. Maybe something similar was happening to Wissing; the heat of his grief was allowing revenge fantasies to bloom.

I found myself in front of the Oglethorpe before I knew it, scanning the sidewalks for the protestors. No one. The place looked utterly deserted and I figured it would remain that way until the girls started arriving for the evening’s competition. Jodi and Marv had probably finished the tech check and were stealing a few minutes for a nap, a meal, or a workout before returning to the theater. No one else had a reason to be there since the contestants had taken their gowns home.

Chewing at my lower lip, I pulled the car to the curb and dialed information. They had no listing for a Daphne Wissing. Of course, it couldn’t be that easy. She might share an apartment with a friend and the phone could be in the friend’s name. She might not have a landline. Or, heck, she might still live at home. I lived with Mom until I married Hank, except for my two years at UGA. I could call Stacy Wissing and ask for Daphne’s number, but after the way Thad behaved, I didn’t want to risk getting him on the phone.

I drove to Mom’s. She and Althea were unloading groceries in the kitchen when I arrived. They seemed overdressed for grocery shopping: Mom wore a blue flowered dress with a square neckline and Althea had on a long mustard-colored tunic embroidered at the cuffs over baggy pants. I hugged Mom and greeted Althea self-consciously, uncomfortable with the information Marty had given me about Kwasi. Should I tell her? Not now. Grabbing three bags out of the trunk, I lugged them into the kitchen.

“I just got back from the Piggly Wiggly,” Mom said, depositing a bag on the counter. Celery peeked over the top.

“And I showed up just in time to play pack mule,” Althea grumbled. She carried a box of detergent to the laundry room. “I think that’s the lot. We need to get going, Vi, or we’re going to be late. Which wouldn’t be all bad. I hope they don’t play any of those stupid games, like guessing the poor girl’s waist measurement. I can’t abide those games.”

“We’re going to Euphemia Toller’s granddaughter’s baby shower,” Mom said. “What are you up to?”

I quickly filled them in on my morning while Mom stacked cans in the cupboards and Althea stowed produce in the fridge. I folded the reusable bags and put them back in the pantry.

“I can’t believe that sweet little Daphne had anything to do with the goings-on at the pageant,” Althea said.

“Maybe she didn’t,” I said, “but I’d sure like to talk to her. I could tell Agent Dillon, I guess, and let him track her down, but it seems unfair to sic the police on her when she might not even be involved.”

“Call Kwasi,” Althea said.

I looked at her, puzzled.

“The gal’s in his class, right? Call him and get her phone number.” She looked at her watch. “Oh, wait. He’s in class now. But he should be done in twenty minutes. You can call him then.”

“Maybe I’ll just drive out to GCC,” I said, thinking I’d take advantage of the opportunity to query Kwasi about the argument with Audrey that Rachel had overheard.

Mom gave me a long look but Althea merely said, “He’s in the Chandler Building, office number 214.” She stiffarmed the screen door open and held it for Mom. “Let’s get this over with,” Althea said. “We don’t want that baby to pop out before his mama’s got wipes warmers and a baby backpack and forty-two precious little outfits that he’ll only wear once. Back in my day . . .”

THE GEORGIA COASTAL COLLEGE CAMPUS LIES JUST south of SR 42 before it meets the interstate. Three or four years ago, it consisted of one classroom building and an administrative building/student union. Now, it boasted multiple classroom buildings, a gym complex, and two dormitories. A pond ringed by cattails reflected the brick and glass façade of Danner Hall, where the administrative offices, bookstore, and student union were housed. Parking in one of the few slots that didn’t require a student, faculty, or staff parking sticker, I asked a passing student where I could find the Chandler Building.

“Cut through the coffee bar in Danner and Chandler’s right behind it.” He pointed.

Following his directions, and stopping for a cup of tea on the way, I found Chandler, a three-story collage of stone, glass, and asymmetric angles. In mid-afternoon on a summer Friday, not too many students clogged the walkways, but one or two lazed on the lawns, textbooks open, eyes shut. It made me nostalgic for my own college days at UGA. Part of me wished I hadn’t quit after two years to go to beauty school. Something about college campuses felt separate from the real world, safer, like living in a protective bubble.

A wide staircase led to the upper floors of Chandler and I climbed to the second level, figuring that’s where I’d find office 214. Bingo. I studied the half-open door for a moment, where Kwasi had his office hours posted, along with a Calvin and Hobbes comic strip and the Winston Churchill quotation about not quitting. I knocked.

“Come.”

Kwasi sat behind a battered wooden desk, grading a paper with quick slashes of a red pen. He looked up as I entered, studying me over the rims of his rectangular glasses. He wore a coarsely woven indigo blue shirt with sleeves that belled slightly at the wrist. His window looked out onto the parking lot and the interstate beyond. Tall bookshelves crowded with books and carvings of wood or stone took up most of the space. A couple of textile pieces and a ferocious-looking wooden mask at least two feet tall decorated the walls. “Hello, Grace.”

He didn’t sound surprised to see me.

“Althea called to tell me you’d be stopping in.”

Ah. Mystery explained.

“Did she say what I wanted?”

He shook his head. “No, just that it was something about a student?” He raised his brows questioningly, creasing his freckled forehead. “Please.” He gestured toward a straight-backed rattan chair positioned in front of his desk.

I sat and a lone photo on his desk caught my eye. It showed Kwasi and Althea standing on the deck of a small boat, strings of fish hanging from their uplifted hands and huge grins on their faces. Althea looked radiant with happiness and the flush of sun.

“You and Althea went fishing?” I asked, thinking that it was sweet he kept the photo on his desk. He must really be serious about Althea.

“Yes, we had a most successful day, as you can see.”

“I didn’t know Althea fished.”

“That woman is up for anything,” he said with a real smile. “It is one of the things I particularly appreciate about her.”

It just goes to show that no matter how long you know someone, you never really know them. I didn’t have time to process this new idea of Althea—or of an appreciative Kwasi—so I put it away for the moment. “What I came by for,” I said, “is Daphne Wissing’s phone number.”

The creases deepened on Kwasi’s brow. “I don’t have a Daphne Wissing in any of my classes. There’s only Daphne Oliver.”

It had to be the same girl. How many college-age Daphnes were running around St. Elizabeth? Maybe the Wissings were a blended family. “She’s one of the demonstrators, right? About twenty, with sandy hair?”