Joan Hess - Poisoned Pins

“What?” I gasped. “Tell me exactly what he said.”

“I just did, Mother. A rather poor choice of clichés, if you ask me, but the whole thing was probably a wrong number I mean, why would some man call you? Do you have any diet sodas stashed in here? I’m about to Die of Thirst after all that work.”

Inez had edged behind the travel guides, as if she feared my purported hot flashes might escalate into an incendiary eruption. “We don’t have much time,” she called to Caron. “You have an appointment in less than an hour and it’ll take us a while to walk over there, especially if we go by the Kappa house to get the kit.”

“Who’s the victim?” I asked her.

“Mrs. Verbena, the art teacher at the high school. I don’t think she was all that enthusiastic, but she finally said Caron could come by and explain it.”

“She’s an Elegant,” Caron said as she returned empty-handed. “Of course, I won’t tell her until she agrees to pay me. My Beautiful Self consultants have to watch out for sneaky people who try to weasel free advice.” Her eyes narrowed as she regarded my jeans and black T-shirt. “Some of us certainly could use some, free or otherwise. Come on, Inez, we have to go all the way to the Kappa house, and then turn around and go all the way back to Mrs. Verbena’s house. If I had my own kit, we wouldn’t have to walk the extra six blocks, but no one would lend me the money for one crummy week so I could get it. That’s why we have to go all the way to the-”

“So Pippa didn’t leave?” I asked before we reheard the entirety of the itinerary, which in her mind seemed to require miles of walking barefooted on glowing coals.

“If she’d left, I wouldn’t be able to borrow her kit, would I?” She jabbed Inez. “I need to go home and change clothes. This forest green is good, but my royal-blue blouse really demonstrates how effective the analysis is. If you’d stop being selfish about your new earrings, I could probably do an accessory awareness, too. Come on, it’s going to take at least half an hour to get the kit and find Mrs. Verbena’s house. If we’re seconds late, she’ll make up an excuse to leave and we’ll have hiked All Over Town for nothing.”

Inez trudged after her, but turned around and came back to put her hand on my arm. ‘Why don’t you call my mother, Mrs. Malloy? I’m sure she’ll be happy to give you the name of her doctor”

“I’ll think about it,” I said through clenched teeth. Once they were gone, I sat on the table and stared at the cobwebs on the rafters, wishing I’d stayed in bed with the Sunday newspaper and countless pots of tea-or with the blanket pulled over my head. First Peter, then the girls, and to top off the afternoon, an anonymous threatening call.

After another bout of sniffling, I bestirred myself and dialed the number Debbie Anne had given me. This time a woman answered, and I told her who I was and why I was calling.

“I am worried sick about this,” Imogene Wray said, having identified herself as such in a twangy drawl identical to her daughter’s. “The police calling, and then Brodie-he’s the deputy sheriff-coming by to make sure Debbie Anne wasn’t under the bed or out in the barn. My husband’s ulcer flared up so bad he finally went over to the drugstore to buy another bottle of that gooey pink medicine. I can’t imagine what’s gotten into Debbie Anne. She’s always been so sweet and respectful, never ever in any kind of trouble. You can ask any of her teachers at the school, and they’ll tell you the same thing.”

“I want to help her, but I don’t know where she is or how to find her. Has she ever mentioned any friends who live in Farberville and might let her stay with them?”

“I don’t reckon she has any friends outside the sorority,” Imogene said promptly. “That’s all she ever talks about, how they had a party or played cards or went to the picture show together. They seem to keep her awful busy when she’s not studying, but I guess the reason for joining a group like that is to have girlfriends who are as close as sisters.”

I told Mrs. Wray that I’d let her know if I found Debbie Anne and replaced the receiver It appeared that Debbie Anne had failed to communicate the true nature of her relationship with her sorority sisters, but that was understandable and by no means proof that she was generally mendacious.

What I needed was not estrogen therapy, but a clear idea of Debbie Anne’s personality. And of Jean Hall’s, I added as I wrote each name on a discarded envelope. Presumably, they were opposites, but I had no idea which personified good, which evil. Winkie and Eleanor had made their position known, and Rebecca and Pippa were likely to concur Imogene Wray dissented, but she was biased. Peter didn’t care. I seemed to be the only person willing to defend Debbie Anne, although I wasn’t going to do it until I had more evidence about her.

Unable to rally the energy to play devil’s advocate, I tried a scenario in which she was nothing more complex than a soggy-nosed ninny. If this persona accidentally hit Jean in the alley, she would have leaped out of the car and dashed inside to call an ambulance. She might have been distressed to the point of hysteria, but if she’d panicked, she would have gone no farther than my apartment to sob on my shoulder (if I let her, and since it was my scenario, I instead made her sit at the kitchen table) and whine about her troubles.

Her telephone call added to my confusion. If she had been telling the truth, she hadn’t been driving her car, and had gone into hiding for another reason-one that had to do with illegal activity instigated by that lovely girl Jean, who was in no condition to be questioned.

The anonymous call was equally bewildering. Arnie? The man-in-the-moon prowler? Some unknown figure who lacked the imagination to come up with an innovative threat? After all, I was minding my own business, or at least what business there was on a Sunday afternoon in June; it was hardly my fault that prowlers kept popping out of the Kappa shrubbery like possessed prairie dogs.

A growing sense of petulance provoked me into closing the bookstore several hours earlier than I’d intended. I took the long route home in order to avoid passing the sorority house, although I couldn’t prevent myself from glancing at it as I approached my porch. Rebecca and Pippa sat on the top step, surrounded by unopened textbooks, notebooks, bags of chips, and cans of soda, clearly more interested in painting their fingernails than in the quest for knowledge.

I veered across the lawn and said, “Have you heard from Debbie Anne?”

Rebecca shook her head. “I’m not sitting here waiting for her to walk up the sidewalk so I can give her a welcoming hug. After what she did to Jean, she’d better have taken the first bus home to her little redneck enclave amid the pigsties and chicken coops.” Her lovely blue eyes brimmed with tears, and her lovely voice with bitterness. “Jean and I were best friends since our first semester, and we shared a room until last year when we both moved into private rooms. It was going just great- until that pious little bitch pledged Kappa Theta Eta and ruined everything!”

“Pious?” I echoed.

“She didn’t approve of anything, not even some of the boring public relations stuff the pledge class has to do every year. Apparently in her hometown, nobody ever smoked a cigarette or drank a glass of decent French wine, much less partied past midnight. Right before spring break, Jean bribed one of the Betas to take Debbie Anne out and get her good and drunk, but she drank half a martini, gagged on the olive, and threw up all over his front seat. What’s that supposed to do for our reputation?”

I had no answer for that. “Debbie Anne did tell me that she was pressured to do things she felt were wrong.”