Joan Hess - Dear Miss Demeanor

Caron was enchanted with the idea of playing detective. She suggested a disguise; I ruled it out and suggested she pose as an innocent teenager. She announced that she would he utterly terrified to go alone. I agreed that Inez was the perfect co-detective for the stakeout. I refused to think up a cede word, then hung up in the middle of a melodramatic sigh.

When I came out of the office, Doctor was hovering nearby, his fingers in a hopeless snarl. “I suppose we’d better call the police,” he said, “even though the publicity will be most detrimental to our program. The newspapers will delight in hearing we’ve let a patient slip out of our care, particularly an elderly one in inadequate clothing, but I suppose it can he avoided no longer. I shall have the Matron place a call to this Lieutenant Rosen.’’

I shrugged a farewell and went out to my car. On the way home, I drove down Miss Parchester’s street and then past the high school. Several little old ladies were out cruising, but none of them were slipper-shod. I pulled up in front of the house, planning to wait by the telephone in case Caron or Miss Parchester called, but I could not force myself out of the car. I knew who the first caller would be, if he didn’t come by in person to harangue and harass me. Withholding evidence. Conspiracy to aid and abet an alleged felon. Bad attitude. Lack of trust. Tuts and sighs.

“Phooey,” I muttered as I pulled away from the curb and drove back to the high school. Maybe Miss Parchester would attempt to find sanctuary with one of her old chums, who was apt to be a comrade. if I could get in the building, I could get addresses from the files and make unexpected visits. It was preferable to positioning myself for the inevitable, tedious, sanctimonious lecture. Some of which, I admitted to myself, just might be justified, if one ignored the humane element. I wouldn’t, but others might.

There was a single car in the faculty lot. The main doors were locked. I took out my car keys and tapped on the glass until I saw a figure glide down the hall toward me. The sound had been adequate to rouse the dead; I hoped I hadn’t. The figure proved to be Bernice Dort, clipboardless and less than delighted to let me into the building.

“Whatever are you doing here, Mrs. Malloy?” she asked once I had been admitted a few feet inside.

A bit of a poser. After a moment of thought, I said, “I came by to pick up the pages for the layout. I seem to have left them in the journalism room yesterday afternoon. So silly of me, but I’m a novice at this yearbook business.”

She gave me a suspicious frown, but finally nodded and adjusted her glasses on her nose. “I presume it won’t take long for you to fetch the pages and let yourself out this door. Make sure it locks behind you. I shall be in the third-floor computer room should you require further assistance. In the middle of tragedy, Mr. Eugenia continues to muddle his midterm data cards.”

I waited until she had spun around and marched upstairs, her heels clicking like castanets in a Spanish café. “Thank you, Mr. Eugenia,” I murmured as I hurried down the hall to the office.

The room directly behind the main office was crowded with black metal filing cabinets. As I expected, one was marked “Faculty/Staff.” I was tempted to settle down with a stack of folders, but I was afraid Miss Dort might click into view at any moment. I found the two marked “Platchett” and “Bagby,” copied the home addresses on a scrap of paper, and eased the drawer closed with a tiny squeak.

My mission complete, I decided I’d better find a handful of layout pages (if I could identify them) in case I encountered Miss Dort on exit. The stairwell was gloomy, but not nearly as gloomy as the basement corridor. Some light filtered in through the opaque windows of the classroom doors, and an “exit” sign at the far end cast a red ribbon of light on the concrete floor. A boiler clanked somewhere in the bowels of the building.

I reminded myself that outside the sun was shining, birds were chirping, good citizens were going about their business. My fingers may have trembled as I turned the knob, but I did not intend to meet any psychotic killers or even any adolescent bogeymen. I switched on the light, snatched up a pile of old newspapers and a few pieces of graph paper, switched off the light, and started for the stairs and daylight.

When I heard music.

Country music, those wails of lost love and broken dreams in the best Nashville tradition. It came from the far end of the hall, in the proximity of the teachers lounge. Screams, groans, or howls would have sent me leaping up the stairs like a damned gazelle. Nasal self-indulgence did not.

Frowning, I crept down the hail and stopped in front of the lounge door. The music was indeed coming from the lounge, and below the door there was a stripe of light. The music faded, and a disc jockey reeled off an unfamiliar tide and a tribute to some dead singer. A female vocalist began to complain about her womanizing lover.

It was not the stuff of which nightmares are born. As I opened the door, I considered the possibility that Miss Parchester had chosen the lounge as her port in the storm, and I prepared a bit of dialogue to convince her to return to the meadows.

There was a congealed, half-eaten pizza on the table. An overturned glass lay beside it. A puddle of glittery stickiness looked, and smelled, like whiskey. Another smell hit me, a very unpleasant one that was familiar. An image of Weiss vomiting during the lethal poduck flashed across my mind, unbidden and decidedly unwelcome.

“Miss Parchester?” I croaked. “Are you here?”

The female vocalist began to wail with increased pathos for her plight. I snapped off the transistor radio. “Miss Parchester? It’s Claire Malloy, and I’ve come to help you.”

Silence. The smell threatened to send me out to the corridor, but I gritted my teeth and moved toward the rest room doors. The men’s room was empty. The ladies room was not. Pitts, the reptilian, slimy, disgusting, filthy, incompetent custodian, would never again be berated for failing to wipe down a chalkboard or mop a floor.

I went upstairs to the office and dialed the number of the police station. I asked for Peter, naturally. I told him what I’d found in the teachers lounge, then suggested he trot right over before I had hysterics. I hung up in the middle of the eruption and went to find Miss Dort in the great unknown called the third floor.

We were at the main door when the police armada screeched up, blue lights, sirens, ambulance, and all. Peter shot me a dirty look as they hurried past us, but he did not daily to congratulate me on my discovery and quick-witted action. Jorgeson settled for an appraising stare; he did not seem especially surprised to see me. One would almost think Peter had mentioned me on the way over.

Miss Dort and I followed them down to the lounge. She was white but composed, although her lips were tighter than a bunny’s rear end. “This is dreadful,” she said as we entered the room. “Pitts was despicable, but he did not deserve this any more than Herbert did. Someone is on a rampage and must be stopped. The students will be panicked by-” She broke off as Peter came out of the ladies room. “Mrs. Malloy seems to think Pitts was also poisoned with cyanide, Lieutenant Rosen. Is this true?”

“Mrs. Malloy has many thoughts; however, she seldom shares them with me,” he answered. The smile aimed in my direction lacked warmth, as did his eyes. His voice might have halted a buffalo stampede.

“I called you immediately,” I pointed out.

“Did you consider calling me from the Happy Meadows Home?”

There was that.

“Of course I did,” I lied smoothly. “The doctor there said he would call you; it would have been redundant.”