Joan Hess - Dear Miss Demeanor

“The clinic in Mexico?”

“Yes, but the doctors there said it was too late to control the malignancy. I followed the diet and took the vitamins, enzymes, and tablets, hoping for a miracle. It did not occur. Now, if you don’t mind, I think I’d better rest.” Her eyelids drifted down with a faint flutter. She began to snore in a quiet, ladylike way.

Peter moved forward, but I caught his arm and pulled him out of the room. “Would you explain?” he snapped as we started for the elevator. “Am I correct in assuming Tessa Zuckerman murdered Weiss?”

“She did, although she was actually after Pitts. It was her farewell gift to the school.”

“She ‘happened’ to have cyanide in her purse?”

“Laetrile, made from apricot pits. You remember the controversy about it in all the newspapers several years ago, don’t you? The proponents claimed it was the ultimate cure for cancer; the medical authorities claimed it was quackery to exploit those poor souls too terrified to pass up any possibility. Ultimately, those who chose to try it had to go to clinics in Mexico, where it was legal.”

“And Miss Zuckerman went to such an establishment, and brought home a supply of Laetrile tablets, along with a travel poster,” Peter said. “When she decided to rid the school of its dope dealer, she crushed a few tablets and popped them in the compote?”

I nodded. “She made the hole in the women’s rest room so that she could spy on Pitts to determine if he was indeed the villain he was rumored to be. He was telling the truth the day he claimed he hadn’t made the hole, although I imagine that once he discovered it, he did use it to eavesdrop and report to Weiss. He lacked the acumen to realize that it could be used two ways.

“So Miss Zuckerman observed a transaction and decided to poison him,” Peter said. “It didn’t work out as she intended, although she did not seem inordinately disturbed by the result.”

“Married men with families should not have affairs,” I said, shrugging. “It might prove dangerous-or fatal.”

“I’ll note that in the report,” he said. He rewarded me with a glimpse of his teeth. It was unsettling.

We drove hack to my apartment. As we reached the top of the stairs, Caron hobbled out the door, caught sight of Peter, and froze in a posture reminiscent of Pout’s lead guitarist in a moment of spasmodic bliss.

“Oh,” she breathed at us.

I tried to move around her, but she held her ground in the middle of the doorway. “You’re supposed to go to the station,” she said to Peter. “Right away, because of some emergency. They said to go right away.”

“I’d better call in and see what’s happening,” he said.

“You don’t have time to call. It’s a terrible emergency, and they want you to hurry there without wasting any time on the telephone. Besides, Inez is talking to her sick grandmother in Nebraska.”

He gave her a suspicious look, told me he’d call later, and left to face whatever dire trouble my Cassandra was so eager to predict. Once the front door closed below, said oracle stepped back and said, “Thank God we got rid of him, Mother. I wasn’t prepared for him to be with you, and I couldn’t think what to say.

“You made up that story? He’ll learn the truth in about ten minutes, Caron, and he won’t be amused.” I went into the living room and stared at Inez, who was huddled in the corner with the telephone. “Why did Inez find a sudden compulsion to talk to her grandmother in Nebraska, for that matter? What on earth is-?”

“Miss Parchester,” Inez whispered, pointing at the receiver. “Caron told me to keep her on the line until you got here, Mrs. Malloy. I think she’s getting suspicious; you’d better take over now.”

I grabbed the receiver. “Miss Parchester?”

“Mrs. Malloy, it’s so lovely to have this opportunity to speak with you again after all this time. How are you?”

“I’m fine, Miss Parchester. Where are you?”

“I’m fine, thank you. I’ve seen you here and there, but it’s been quite impossible to actually have a word in private. I seem to keep running into policemen wherever I go; it’s so distressing.”

“Where are you?” I repeated, determined to stay calm. “If you’ll tell me where you are, I’ll come right over and we can have many words in private. I have lots of things to tell you.”

“I’d be delighted to have a little conference with you, since I realize you’ve worked hard on the investigation, but”-there was a long pause, during which I prayed she wasn’t taking a discreet nip or two-”I do fear the presence of the police. They have been following me, and they may be following you, too. An undercover officer in a bizarre disguise literally attacked me at the hospital, but I was fortunate to elude him.”

I was worried that Peter would storm up the stairs at any moment to discuss deception with my daughter. If I could only find Miss Parchester and allay her fears, then I knew I could persuade her to present herself at the police station. My track record wasn’t very good, but I am an eternal optimist.

“Miss Parchester,” I said with great earnestness, “I know who murdered Mr. Weiss. I know who fiddled with the journalism ledgers, and I know why. Don’t you want me to come tell you about it?”

“I know all that, my dear,” she giggled. “I’m a trained reporter, as you know, and I’ve been doing a little snooping. I feel incredibly akin to Miss Jane Marple. We’re of a similar age.”

As I gaped at the receiver, Caron tapped me on the shoulder. “Ask her if I can have an exclusive interview, Mother. We can put it on the front page of the Falcon Crier , with a byline, naturally, and maybe a photograph.”

I made a face, took a breath, and searched my mind for the proper response to Miss Parchester’s blithe assurance that she knew all that, my dear. My mind failed me. “You do?” I said.

“I’ve enjoyed our chat, Mrs. Malloy, but I’d better run along now,” she said with the faintest hiccup. “I have an errand, and soon it will be teatime.”

Before I could wiggle my jaw, the line went dead.

“You didn’t even ask about the interview,” Caron said, her lip inching forward in preparation for a scene. “Aren’t you at all interested in my future in journalism?”

“I have a camera,” Inez contributed sadly.

“You’d better worry about the immediate situation,” I said as I headed for the liquor cabinet. “Once Peter returns, you may not have a future.”

The girls discovered the necessity of retiring to the college library to work on reports for American history. I sank into the sofa and tried to find satisfaction in having identified Weiss’s murderer, but it didn’t leave me tingling with self-respect. Miss Zuckerman was too near death to be disturbed by the police; Peter would hide the report until she was gone, then file it away for posterity.

Miss Zuckerman had murdered Weiss, albeit in a haphazard manner. She had then been wheeled to the hospital, and had been incarcerated there ever since. Which led to an inescapable problem: Who poisoned Pitts? The memory of Miss Parchester’s giggle began to haunt me. She seemed to be well informed of the identities of various players in the cast. Had she stumbled across the identity of the second murderer? Was she in danger?

She certainly couldn’t defend herself with a fuzzy pink slipper. On the other hand, she had managed to avoid an entire police force for most of a week, so surely she could avoid a killer as well. If she wasn’t one.

“She’s innocent,” I said, pounding the pillow. A lapse into alliteration, but justified. Where was she? I hew she wasn’t at Mrs. Platchett’s house, or at Miss Bagby’s. She wasn’t at home, the school, the police station, or the Book Depot (yes, I had looked). Peter had warned me that he had men at the hospital, but I decided she had enough of her wits left to avoid there. Happy Meadows would have turned her in like a shot, since “we” didn’t want any problems with the police.