Doing It at the Dixie Dew (22 page)

We took the stairs, running, still carrying the tray and teapot. “If we run into anyone,” Malinda said, “you douse him, I'll whang him then we run like hell.”

At the top of the stairs, we hesitated, then took the hall to the left, both of us seeing what looked like light at the end of it. We tried locked door after locked door until we reached an open one, stood in the doorway and caught our breath. Verna lay asleep on the bed. At least she looked asleep … as Miss Lavinia had looked asleep. At first. Death was the ultimate deceiver. “You don't think…?” I asked.

“She's sherried out,” Malinda said. “Look.”

I saw the mole on Verna's chin quiver as she suddenly sucked in a snore.

We went back the way we'd come, taking the other hall this time, the carpet so worn and dry it cracked like leaves under our feet. Dust rose and dried our throats, coated and filled our nostrils.

We turned the corner and saw more stairs. “I'm not going up any more,” Malinda said, and we turned to go back, this time with me leading, only to find a heavy wardrobe blocking the way we'd come. “Damn, damn, damn.” I leaned against it, beat it with my fist.

“Maybe we can move it.” Malinda grabbed an edge, pushed with her weight against it. Nothing moved. “It's solid as cement.”

Somebody had moved the wardrobe, shut us in like cats in a cage. We'd die slowly here, clawing walls and screaming until we were too weak to breathe. No one would hear us. No one would come looking. Or if they did, not a thorough search. Miss Tempie would tell some half-witted tale like “the dear girls only stayed half an hour. So impolite, and young people these days have no time for manners and graciousness.” Nobody would go looking through this monster of a house checking every hall and door.

“The stairs,” I said. “There was a door at the top.”

We ran down the hall again. This time we took the stairs to the third floor and ended up in a small room with a huge Palladian window arched like a church. “Lord,” said Malinda, “I thought I'd never see daylight again.”

There were double glass doors and we ran toward them and pulled.

“Stuck,” I said. “Probably haven't been opened in fifty years.”

“They're going to open now,” Malinda said, and shoved her hip against them.

The doors stayed stuck.

“Hit it,” I said, and with the teapot I started breaking glass.

Malinda hit it with her tray, fast and furious. The glass fell in front of us as we aimed blows and leaped backward, let the shards crash and splinter in jagged tears and deadly stalagmite crystals at our feet.

When most of one door had been cleared of glass, we broke the wooden frames and stepped onto a small, round porch.

“A damn balcony,” Malinda said. “And I bet it's as rotten as the rest of the house.” She put her hand out to hold me back. “It may be too much for both of us. Wait.”

She eased to the rail and looked down. “If we crawl over, then drop, we'll be on the front porch with no broken bones.”

Malinda hiked up her skirt and swung a leg over the rail.

I heard a muffled thump, the shifting of something large behind us. “Hurry,” I said. “There's somebody in the hall.”

Malinda was over the rail. From the balcony I heard a soft thump below, and Malinda said, “After you, Nancy Drew.”

I grabbed the rail that wobbled in my hand and sent splinters prickling into my fingers. I banged one knee, but I was over and hanging free by my hands. Then I let go and slid through cool air. I landed on my feet with a hard plunk that sent me off balance and rocking for a minute. But I was okay. Nothing broken, nothing damaged.

Malinda snatched me up beside her, close against the house. “He can't see us under here,” she whispered. “When he goes back in, we run for the cars.”

“But not on the gravel,” I whispered. “Let's take it a cedar at a time.” I pointed to the cedar spires, casting green-black pyramids of shadows beside the driveway. The shapes were large and would hide us quickly, completely.

Overhead we heard the boards in the balcony creak. Grit and filth rained down. Through the cracks, we saw soles of large shoes, heard the boards groan until the footsteps stopped at the rail, then give and groan again as he returned to the house. Only this time was another sound. A small sound that felt like glass at my chest. The clink of metal. A gun? Was Rolfe carrying a gun? Had it hit against the glass as he went though the door and back into the house? Or did he still carry that damn shovel and plan to hit us over the head before he buried us in that “garden of earthly delights”? “Run,” I told Malinda. “Run faster.”

Chapter Twenty-four

We made it to the first cedar, a tall, wide pyramid of deeper dark in the night shadows. There we paused a second and breathed hard before dashing to the next giant cone, then the third. We paused behind each cedar briefly and listened.

“Fifty more to go,” Malinda said, and sprinted on with me behind.

That was when I thought I heard a shot. Something cracked in the dark. Then silence.

We zigzagged from cedar to cedar now and didn't pause. I could barely make out Malinda in front of me, and once Malinda stepped on a limb and said, “Damn,” under her breath. My legs felt wobbly, and weak, as though they'd melt under me. I'd fall, have to crawl. But I'd do it if I had to. Crawl on my hands and knees to get away from this place.

Weeds and briars beat at my legs and I stepped into a wild rabbit's nest. The rabbit let out a surprised squeal that sliced the silence and scared me so I started shaking. I felt hot and cold at the same time. My chest felt huge, hollow as a balloon. Yet I ran.

The end of the road didn't seem to be anywhere in sight. But it had to be close. We had been running continually downhill. The backs of my legs ached. They felt knotted and tight, being pulled tighter. I'd get a cramp and go down if we didn't get to the cars soon.

Almost as if Malinda read my mind, she called back, “There. We're almost there!”

I saw the spiked iron of the gates. The gates were still open, thank God, and beyond them waited the cars, safety and escape. Cramp or no cramp, I could crawl the rest of the way if I had to.

We were going to make it.

I heard Malinda's footsteps hit the road first, soft thuds, steady … getting there. Getting away.

I climbed the ditch and started around my own car when I ran into someone solid as a brick wall. “Ummpf,” I said, then almost screamed, except the body started to feel warm and familiar and comforting. “Scott. Oh, Scott.”

“Get in the truck,” he said. “Quick.” He hugged me for a moment, then held me around the waist and nudged me forward toward the truck door.

“But … Malinda, where's Malinda?” I grabbed the cool metal of the door handle.

“In,” Scott said. “Now. She'll meet us back at the house.”

He turned and headed out the way we'd come.

Scott drove the quiet streets where old trees made sinister shapes around the streetlights. I hugged myself and shook. I couldn't stop shaking.

Scott pulled me close. He drove with one hand, rubbed my arm with the other. “You're all right.” He felt so warm and I felt so safe.

I nodded, then realized he couldn't see me. I said, “Just scared.” The truck felt good, so good, like salt and skin and a sweetness from leather and oiled tools. I sighed and leaned back.

“Relax,” he said, and turned the corner.

In the houses we passed, I saw lighted rooms that looked so ordinary. Comfortable. Safe. Houses that sat in the middle of green yards and looked quiet and normal. Normal, ordinary; good people going about their lives.

I hated Miss Tempie and Rolfe, for the evil they lived in. The ugly evil that had killed Lavinia Lovingood, Father Roderick and had tried to kill me.

Malinda waited at the curb in her Jeep in front of the Dixie Dew while Scott parked in back.

“So what do we do now?” She stood in the drive.

“We get some of Miss Margaret Alice's blackberry wine in us and pull ourselves together.” He held the door for me and kept his arm around me up the steps and into the hall. I hadn't even locked my own door. Old habits die hard, or had I locked it and someone had unlocked it?

Scott steered me toward a wing chair and went into the dining room. Malinda took the sofa and dropped hard like something with weight had been suddenly let go. She sank into it, leaned back her head and closed her eyes.

I heard Scott open the sideboard. There was a thunk of bottles and then glasses clinking on a tray.

“When you guys didn't get back”—he came into the room—“I unlocked the house and waited inside. It started to get dark and I decided your tea party must have included something more unexpected.”

He set the tray on a low table in front of us, poured three glasses, handed one to Malinda and one to me.

Malinda took a deep swallow, the wine staining her lips dark as ink. “Lord, that's good. Heat it up and I'll drink a quart, curl up here on this sofa and not go home till next week.”

“You're not going home tonight, anyway,” I said. “He's still out there and he may have a gun.”

“Gun?” Scott asked. “Who?”

“Rolfe,” I said. “Miss Tempie's hired man, hired gun and number one killer. I
thought
I heard a shot as we ran. I heard metal hit glass. But I was so scared I could have heard anything. Limbs breaking, twigs cracking.”

“Back up,” Scott said. He finished his cordial, poured another and refilled Malinda's and my glass, too. “Tell me from the beginning.”

Malinda took off her shoes and rubbed her feet. Her skirt was torn and she had scratches on her arms and legs. Her hair looked tangled and wild.

My skin stung from scratches, but I didn't care. It felt too good to be home. Here with Scott and Malinda, having a normal conversation. Except it wasn't normal. It was about a murder. Or two. Or three?

“Miss Tempie killed Miss Lavinia,” I said. “She and Verna sat at the table talking about it like last week's bingo game.”

“It was absolutely unreal,” Malinda said. “Hard to believe. Those two little old ladies … killers.”

“Like something out of
Alice in Wonderland,
” I said. “The two queens battling back and forth and Miss Tempie lecturing on manners, pouring this god-awful tea.”

“Yik,” Malinda said, and poured more blackberry wine. “And Rolfe was the one who shut Beth into the mausoleum.”

“His hand,” I said. “His hand was bandaged. The one I cut with the X-ACTO knife.”

“Sounds like Ossie DelGardo needs to pick up some people,” Scott said. “That's the least he can do. You two have done the rest of the work for him.”

Scott left to call Ossie. “He's probably in bed, but I don't think this ought to go on a minute longer.”

“And whose bed might he be in?” Malinda started to giggle and couldn't stop. She bent in the middle, shook her head and laughed.

I laughed, too. The idea of the portly, saintly, sanctimonious Ossie DelGardo jostled from a tryst was too much. “You know something you haven't told?” I asked.

“Juanita.” Malinda wiped her eyes and lay back limp on the sofa. “He was always checking her locks.”

“Sure he was,” I said. “Just doing his duty.”

“Overtime,” Malinda said, and started laughing all over again. “She makes his lunch on a hot plate in her upstairs apartment.”

“Oyster stew,” I howled.

“Only in the
r
months.” Malinda screamed with laughter. “Won't get any next month, will he? Maybe we better leave town, not have to be around with all his nastiness. Bet you been thinking he was just born naturally mean. We don't know the half of it.”

“Okay.” Scott returned from the hall. “I couldn't get Ossie, but I got Bruce and he said what you two got would have to be considered hearsay evidence. He said he can't go around arresting somebody just because somebody
said
they murdered somebody. He'll consider Miss Tempie and Rolfe persons of interest and bring them in tomorrow morning, question them, get everything on tape, nice and legal. Meanwhile, he wants you two to mind your own business.” Scott sighed. “And quit bothering the trained ‘professionals' in this town.”

“Trained professionals! My ass. Underneath he's really implying who is going to believe a woman crazy enough to start a bread-and-breakfast in a little Podunk town and a pharmacist who trips and falls in slime pits.” I was mad. Mad at myself for even going to Tempie's tea. Mad at getting involved. Why did I ever think I could come home again? Could anybody, ever?

“Didn't trip,” Malinda said. “And who told him? Barbershop gab. Blah.”

“That's Bruce with his hip holster for you,” I said. “And his billy.”

“He's always got his billy. It's monogrammed.” Malinda slapped the arm of the sofa. “Carved with snakes to scare the bad guys away.”

“Miss Tempie will go peacefully,” I said. “But they'll have to wait while she packs her cosmetics bag.”

“Then they'll be waiting until next week,” Malinda said. “If she puts on her makeup. Oh, that woman and her vanity. Poor old thing.”

“Poor old thing had us next on her little death list,” I said, suddenly sober. “And she was checking us off.”

“I called your mama.” Scott turned to Malinda. “Told her you were staying here overnight.”

“Thanks!” Malinda called back from the hall where she was headed toward the bathroom. “You can make up my bed.”

“There's four empty bedrooms upstairs!” I called. “Take your pick!”

“Three,” Scott said. “Rupert Murchison came.”

“Oh.” I cupped my hands over my mouth. “I forgot all about him.”

“No problem. I was here when he came. I signed him in and so on.”