Gail Oust - 'Til Dice Do Us Part

I hugged my cardigan tighter around me. Marietta Perkins liked to keep the rec center’s thermostat set on shiver. Some speculated she got a kickback from the utility company. Many complained, but to no avail. When it came to dictators, she was right up there with Adolf Hitler and Idi Amin. Well, that might be a slight exaggeration, but you get my drift.

As I strolled down the hall, I peeked into the exercise rooms. Mats were rolled up and shoved against the wall in readiness for tomorrow’s aerobics classes. Yoga, stretch and tone, and Tai Chi were usually conducted in the smaller of the two rooms. Having to drive Krystal to the diner early every day had put a significant crimp in my weekly routine. I was glad the Honda was once again up and running. I’d sorely missed attending Tai Chi on a semiregular basis. I missed the glare of Marian, our instructor, when I zigged instead of zagged. I wasn’t sure I still remembered how to Repulse the Monkey. My Chi was dammed up and refused to flow. With all the worry over Claudia, I’d lost my inner calm. Where, oh where, did my dantien go? Where, oh where, did it wander?

A man toting a duffel came out of the workout room, mumbled good night to Marietta at the front desk, and shoved through the exit, letting in a blast of cold air.

Brrr! Shivering, I stuck my hands into the pockets of my cardigan for warmth and felt something hard and smooth. I reached in and pulled out an earring-a large gold hoop. For a moment I stared at it, puzzled. Then it dawned on me. I’d picked it up from the floor of the restroom the night of the shooting, slipped it into my pocket, and promptly forgotten about it. Until now, that is.

I examined the hoop more carefully. On closer inspection, it appeared to be real gold, probably valuable. No doubt someone had been frantically searching for a missing earring, and the whole time it had been snug in my sweater pocket. There were still two minutes left of my five-minute break-time enough to turn this into lost and found.

“Yes…?” An unsmiling Marietta peered at me through retro cat’s-eye glasses. Someone needed to tell her they made her look like a witch. But that person wasn’t going to be me. My bravery had its limits.

I extended my hand, palm out. “I found this earring a couple weeks ago in the ladies’ room.”

“And you’re just now turning it in?” Her pursed lips and dark scowl reminded me of Mother Superior’s expression after catching my best friend and me smoking behind the gym in tenth grade.

“Ah, sorry, I forgot. It was the night of the shooting,” I added in a feeble attempt to expiate my guilt.

“Hmph,” she muttered. “Poor excuse.”

I almost begged her not to call my mother. Parochial schools are fertile breeding grounds for guilty consciences. No offense is too big or too small to make you grovel and beg forgiveness.

She plucked the earring from my upturned palm, examined it, then nodded with satisfaction. “The owner of this earring had me turn the rec center upside down looking for it”-she gave me the evil eye-“and all the time it was in your pocket.”

“Ah, I have to get back to rehearsal. Please tell her how sorry I am.”

“Mrs. Peterson will no doubt be pleased to have her earring returned,” Marietta said, reaching for the phone. “As a matter of fact, I think I’ll call her right now.”

“Peterson? Nadine Peterson…?”

“That’s right. Do you know her?”

Before Marietta could stop me, I retrieved the earring. “Nadine lives just across the street from me. I’ll return it in person.”

“Just the same, I’ll call to let her know you have her earring.”

Sheesh! As if I’d be tempted to keep it. What did the woman think I’d do with a solitary gold hoop? I suppose one could always have another hole pierced in one’s ear. Piercings-along with tattoos-seemed to be all the rage these days.

I started to walk away but turned back. “I don’t suppose you recall when Mrs. Peterson lost her earring?”

“Of course I do,” she sniffed, obviously offended by the question. “There’s nothing wrong with my memory. I’m not subject to those ‘senior moments’ so many of you people complain about.”

She might as well have come right out and called me the despised E word-elderly. “Well…?” I prompted, doing my best to ignore the insult. “When did Nadine lose her precious earring?”

“She lost it the same night Mrs. Connors-I mean Mrs. Ledeaux-shot Mr. Ledeaux.”

“Are you sure?”

She gave me a look that would have wilted fresh flowers. “I’m positive. Mrs. Peterson was new here. She came in and demanded a guided tour of the facilities.”

“Then you were with her the entire time?”

“People think I have nothing better to do than sit at the desk all night and twiddle my thumbs. That’s simply not the case. Mrs. Peterson assumed I was a one-woman Welcome Wagon. Well, I’m not. I have phones to answer, people to check in and out, and next month’s schedule of activities to update. I don’t get paid enough to be a tour guide and babysitter.”

“So you didn’t stay with her?”

“Isn’t that what I just said?” Marietta snapped. Once again I was reminded of Mother Superior. Had she left the convent and been reincarnated as an irritable assistant manager? “I told her to feel free to look around,” she continued. “I’d be happy to answer any questions she might have.”

“Did she have any questions?”

“No.” The frown deepened. “Matter of fact, in all the commotion, I didn’t see her leave. She came back the following afternoon, however, and made a big fuss over losing that damn earring. Claimed it was a gift from her daughter.”

At that moment, a woman I recognized by face if not by name-blame it on a senior moment-approached the desk with a question for Marietta about the mixed bowling league. Pocketing the gold hoop, I decided to take my leave.

My brain was running at warp speed.

According to Marietta Perkins, Nadine had been present the night Lance was shot. Added to that, I was reasonably certain Nadine was the woman I’d seen arguing with Lance behind the Piggly Wiggly. And what about the envelope from Tennessee’s Premier Detective Agency, Down with Deadbeats? Was Lance Ledeaux Nadine’s personal deadbeat?

Did this make Nadine Peterson a person of interest? Or did it simply boil down to a case of circumstantial coincidence?

I was mulling this over when Janine’s strident voice interrupted my pondering. “Kate McCall! You’ve kept all of us waiting. Where on earth have you been?”

Mother Superior vs. artistic director? It was a tough call.

Bill shot me a sympathetic look while Gus Smith scuffed a sneaker along the floorboards and seemed to share my embarrassment. The rest of the cast and crew were clearly annoyed by my tardiness.

Not that I was keeping score, but I seemed to be doing an awful lot of apologizing in a relatively short period of time. “Sorry,” I mumbled.

“All right, everyone, get into the space.”

We shuffled about until we found our marks on a stage littered with props on a half-finished set.

“Make it look natural,” Janine directed. “Don’t do the furniture dance.”

Janine was at it again, talking in play-speak only she could understand. I picked up the feather duster Myrna needed in act two. I could hardly wait for rehearsal to be over and detective work to begin.

I booked out of rehearsal the instant it was over. Janine would probably have a conniption that I hadn’t stuck around for her customary cast meeting, but she’d just have to deal with it.

As soon as I got home, I tossed my coat over the back of a chair and headed straight for the computer. I drummed my fingers on the desktop as I waited for it to boot. I was on to something. I could feel it clear to my toes-a kind of tingly sensation. Some might associate this sort of symptom with the onset of neuropathy, but not me. I was getting closer to the truth. What would I do if-when-I found something? Run to the sheriff? Unless I had something solid to go on, he’d laugh me out the door. He already had Claudia tried and convicted for Lance’s murder all because, even though there was no physical evidence she’d substituted a live round for a blank, six people witnessed her pulling the trigger. That, of course, and a couple other trivial details-details such as her rat-fink husband’s stealing her blind.