Joan Hess - Poisoned Pins

“The police will find out as soon as possible.” I went to the window. The body had been enclosed in a bag and was being placed in the ambulance, and as I watched, a tow truck pulled up next to the white car. Turning back, I said, “Where are the other girls tonight?”

“I don’t know,” she said blankly. “They come and go as they wish, and there are no curfews anymore. When I was in school, we had study hall every evening during tile week and had to be in the house by midnight on the weekends. Now they all have their own keys, although we do have the locks re-keyed at least once a semester, since one of the girls inevitably loses hers. I switch on the security system at midnight. This requires the girl to punch in a four-digit code, as well as use her door-key. Very often she’ll have had too much to drink and will forget the code or hit the wrong button. Either results in the alarm going off, and the girl has to explain her thoughtlessness to the standards committee.”

I was about to ask if the committee could pass down the death penalty when I heard increasingly strident voices from the foyer. Peter’s was easy to recognize; the other was more elusive, and I frowned as I strained to identify it.

“Eleanor Vanderson,” Winkie said without enthusiasm. Her theory was confirmed as the woman thus tagged came into the room, her heels clattering like a machine gun. She was dressed more casually than she’d been the night we met, but her jacket and trousers were by no means shoddy and her hair was impeccable. “What is going on, Winkle?” she asked unsteadily. “Are those men who they say they are? Has something happened to one of the girls?”

“There was an accident, Eleanor Jean Hall was hit by a car in the alley.” Winkle made an effort to stand, but sank back down and covered her face with her hands.

Eleanor froze as Peter and Jorgeson passed through the room and disappeared into the kitchen. “Jean Hall? Are you sure? I can’t believe… Could you please explain this, Mrs. Malloy?”

Beginning to feel like a cassette player, I told her what had happened to Jean.

“But that’s dreadful,” she said as she sat down next to Winkie and patted her back. “Jean was such an asset to the chapter, always enthusiastic and cooperative, eager to organize activities for the pledge class. DO you remember her initiation, Winkle? She looked angelic in her white dress, didn’t she? When she sang the Kappa Theta Eta prayer, I nearly cried.”

“Why are those police cars parked in the alley?” demanded Rebecca from the doorway of the lounge.

“They strung yellow tape all over the place and wouldn’t let us through,” Pippa added indignantly, standing on her toes so she could see over Rebecca’s shoulder. “When the ambulance came by, we literally had to stand in the ditch.”

I waited for a brief moment to see if Debbie Anne Wray might appear over Pippa’s shoulder with additional complaints, but she did not. I left Winkle and Eleanor to tell them what had happened, went out the front door, and cut across the lawn to my porch. Only a short time earlier I’d been within forty feet of it, lost in a reverie of food and drink, but I’d been sidetracked into violence and death.

I was halfway up the stairs when I realized I’d forgotten to tell Peter about my encounter with Arnie, maybe because it had had such a dreamlike quality-or nightmarish, anyway. Why had he been hiding beside the Kappa house? He’d admitted he was in what he called a sticky situation, but I couldn’t imagine what it was. I doubted he’d stolen Debbie Anne’s car and run over Jean as she approached the house. Arnie was an ambulatory catastrophe, but he was motivated by the preservation of his pickled condition rather than by innate wickedness.

I went to my bedroom window and looked at the sorority house. All of the lights were ablaze on the ground floor, including those in Winkie’s suite. The top of the screen was visible within a bush. I’d also forgotten to tell her what I’d done or ask Peter to have one of his men replace it. My lapse would allow Katie to sneak back in after a night of terrorizing the town, however, and Winkle would surely notice its absence in the morning.

A campus police car stopped in front of the house. It was too dark to tell if the two officers were the ones I’d encountered previously, but it seemed likely that Peter had sent for them to get a full report about the prowlers. As they disappeared beneath the roof of the porch, yet another car pulled up to the curb. Hoping it might be Debbie Anne returning with a date and an alibi, I waited for someone to materialize.

The driver’s door opened and a man stepped out of the car I caught a glimpse of a round white face and a bald head that glittered in the bath of the streetlight. Massaging his chin and mouth with one hand, he stared at the house for a full minute, then climbed back into his car and drove away.

I went to my kitchen, where I found a note from Caron that stated she was spending the night at Inez’s house. I made a pot of tea, heated the fettuccini, and retired to the living room to eat. I wasn’t confident that Peter would appear before morning, but I was eager to find out if they’d located Debbie Anne. It could have been an accident, I thought as I envisioned her behind the wheel of the white car. The alley was dark and narrow, but the college kids drove down it as if it were an interstate, and on more than one occasion my hatchback had been imperiled.

However, I had no notions where she might go, nor was I inclined to walk the streets until dawn, plaintively calling her name in hopes of coaxing her out of a shadowy hideout. Assuring myself that Farberville’s Finest would do just that, I went to bed.

Peter did not appear at the Book Depot until nearly noon. He hadn’t shaved, I noted with a wince as he nuzzled my neck, although he had changed into a fresh shirt and another of his expensive Italian suits. “Let’s go away next weekend,” he said, displaying a goodly amount of seductive charm. “A loaf of bread, a jug of wine…

“Did you find Debbie Anne?”

He released me and folded his arms. “No, we did not find Debbie Anne, my dear snoop. She didn’t return to the sorority house last night, and hasn’t shown up as of now. She didn’t go to her classes, the library, or her parents’ home.”

“How could she? You’ve impounded her car.”

“It’s one of those official things we do, along with the yellow tape and the fingerprints. The captain saw it on some television show and decided we ought to try it.”

“Whose fingerprints were on the steering wheel?” I asked, refusing to react to his sarcasm. I had more important things on my meddlesome mind. “What about prints on the door handle? Did you find her purse?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know, and no.” He gazed at me with an expression not unlike that of a condemned man on the gallows. “Ml you did was have dinner at the sorority house, Claire. It’s evident that you didn’t like them then, and I can think of no reason why you might have changed your mind. They’ve interfered with your sleep, burdened you with their personal problems-and their cat bit you, for pity’s sake!”

“So what’s your point?”

“Furthermore, as far as we know, we’re dealing with involuntary manslaughter rather than a baffling mystery resplendent with red herrings and subtle, provocative clues. Debbie Anne Wray accidentally ran over the Hall girl, and now is sobbing at a friend’s apartment until she gets up the nerve to turn herself in. This is not something in a mystery novel.”

I contemplated mentioning it was right up my alley, in more ways than one, but instead nodded meekly and said, “I suppose not. Did you reach Jean’s aunt?”