Murder Makes Waves (6 page)

Fairchild shook his head. “She drowned.”

“Get out of the hall, everybody,” Sister demanded. “This is like playing sardines.”

We all followed her except Frances, who told me she was going to go find the aspirin, maybe a Valium, maybe several of each, and headed next door.

Fairchild and the Stampses sat on the sofa and the rest of us gathered around. There was a half-played game of solitaire on the coffee table, and a Gilligan’s Island rerun was playing loudly on TV. Lieutenant Bissell reached for the remote and turned it off.

Sister leaned forward. “Fairchild, Millicent didn’t just drown. She was killed. We found her body on the beach at
the end of Holiday Isle. That sandbar down there where all the herons are.”

“Millicent was killed?” Fairchild still looked puzzled.

“You mean murdered?” Eddie Stamps asked.

“Yes, sir.” Lieutenant Bissell’s voice seemed to boom in relief that the word had finally been spoken. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh, God!” Laura put her head in her hands, and Eddie put his arms around her shoulder. A large man whose white hair drew a perfect circle around a tanned scalp, his arm seemed heavy on her thin shoulders.

“Excuse me,” Fairchild said. He got up and made a dash for the bathroom.

Laura began to sob. “We were going to see if Fairchild and Millicent wanted to go to dinner.” Eddie’s fingers tightened on her arm.

“Let’s get out of here, Mama,” Haley whispered to me.

I looked around Millicent’s living room. This morning she had walked into this room and allayed Fairchild’s fear; it would never happen again. Suddenly, the fact that she had not come home last night loomed as an important piece of information that Fairchild would have to tell the lieutenant.

“Lieutenant,” I said, “you don’t need us for anything, do you?”

“I’ll need to talk to you later.”

“We’re going next door, then.” I looked at Mary Alice who had reached over and was moving a red four to a black five on the solitaire game. “Mary Alice?”

“I think I’ll stay a while, see if Fairchild’s going to be all right.”

“Okay. If you need us just holler.”

“All of a sudden, I couldn’t breathe in there,” Haley said as I closed the door behind us. She shuddered. “I knew exactly how Fairchild felt when he opened the door and saw
us standing there with the policeman. We didn’t have to say a word. He knew, just like I did with Tom.”

I nodded.

“And then when he found out she was murdered!” Haley began to cry.

“Come on, honey,” I said. “Let’s go see if Frances has taken all the aspirin and Valium.”

“I’m so glad you didn’t see her, Mama. Who would have killed Millicent like that?”

“God knows, honey.” I led my weeping daughter into Sister’s condo where my best friend sat on the sofa with an afghan over her head. “Frances?” I said. “What are you doing?”

“Saying my mantra and freezing.”

“Why don’t you turn the air conditioner up?”

“You mean down?”

“Whatever. So it’s not so cold.” I’ve never figured out if that’s up or down.

“I did turn it down.” Frances’s voice was muffled. “I think I’m in shock.”

“No you’re not,” Haley said, wiping her cheeks with the back of her hands.

“Yes, I am.”

“No, you’re not. I know what shock’s like.”

Lord! “I’m going to make some hot tea,” I said. I went into the kitchen and put the water on to boil. Then I reached up in the cabinet, took down a bottle of bourbon, and put it on the tray with the tea cups.

“Did you take any Valium?” I asked Frances as I brought the tea to the living room.

She lowered the afghan. “No.”

“Then pour a slug of this into your tea. And you, too,” I said to Haley.

“It’ll taste awful,” she said.

But Frances was already lacing her tea with the bourbon. “I had an aunt used to do this.”

“So did I,” I said. “A toddy for the body.”

“And another aunt drank paregoric.” Frances sipped the tea and made a face.

“One of my great-aunts did,” I said.

“Which one?” Haley asked.

“Aunt Ida. You know, Haley, the one who got hurt when the fish hit her on the head. Came right through the window. Nobody would have believed her if her brother and his wife hadn’t been standing there. A three pound big mouthed bass. Whack, right on the side of her head. Knocked her cold.”

“Where did it come from?” Frances draped the afghan around herself like a cape.

“Best they can figure, a little twister sucked some of the fish from the pasture pond. There were several out in the yard just flapping around.”

Haley poured some bourbon into her cup and held it up. “To Aunt Ida,” she said.

“To all the Aunt Idas,” Frances said. “Bless their hearts.”

By the time Fred called, we had each eaten a sandwich, and we were in the middle of a three-hand bridge game that none of us could concentrate on. He sounded very excited about the Metal Fab merger. Everything was going to be great, better than great. Check and see if any of the condos in the building were for sale.

“Ha,” I said, and didn’t tell him about Millicent Weatherby. What I told him was to be careful, that I loved him.

I had just hung up when Mary Alice came in. We all wanted to know how Fairchild was.

“Dr. Harris down on the second floor came up and gave
him a sedative,” she said. “Laura’s called some people and they’re beginning to come in. Bless her heart. She’s so upset, I thought we were going to have to get the doctor to give her something, too.”

Mary Alice looked tired. “How about a toddy for the body, Sister?” I asked. “And I’ll fix you a sandwich.”

“Thanks, Mouse.”

“Did Lieutenant Bissell ask Fairchild any questions?” Haley wanted to know.

“A few. He was very nice. He’ll get around to being tougher, though. Poor Fairchild.”

“I wonder where Millicent spent last night,” I said from the kitchen. “Who she spent the night with.”

“You know what puzzles me?” Sister said. “She had on the same clothes, the same clothes she had on at the Redneck and this morning. Now wouldn’t you think if she had slept in that outfit like she said, that she couldn’t wait to take a shower and change? Millicent was meticulous. She certainly wouldn’t have gone to work in those clothes.”

“Seems to me that after a night like that she would have just gone to bed and caught up on sleep.” Haley said.

Mary Alice sighed and propped her feet on the coffee table. “I told Major about the clothes. He made a note.”

“Major Bissell?” I stuck some bread in the toaster.

“Uh huh. He’s having a story critiqued at the writers’ conference, too. I hope he doesn’t get so tied up on this case that he doesn’t get to come to it.”

“If Millicent was having an affair, maybe Fairchild did her in,” Frances said.

“Not Fairchild,” Sister said emphatically.

But I knew what Frances was thinking. Anybody is capable of doing anything if they are pushed too far. I had taken the same psych courses she had.

The phone’s ringing startled me. Haley looked up expectantly, but it was a neighbor from downstairs. That was the first call. In the next hour there were at least ten more, residents of the condo and friends of Millicent who had heard about the circumstances of her death and our discovering the body.

“I’m unplugging the phone,” Sister said finally. And she did. We watched the late news and heard that a woman’s body had been found on the beach at Holiday Isle, that identification was being withheld pending notification of the next of kin.

A woman’s body. Such cold, uncaring words. Tears stung my eyes. Millicent Weatherby, you were a good old broad from De Funiak Springs. How could you have met such a violent death?

A
fter Haley and I were in bed, we heard the elevator open and close several times. The sound brought the dream I had had the night before popping up from my unconscious. The memory was so vivid that I asked Haley if she had heard anything out in the hall the night before.

“Like what?” she asked, looking up from her book.

“Like two people arguing. One was calling the other one a stupid bitch and saying to get on the elevator.”

“You heard two people arguing out by the elevator?” She put her book down, interested. “Was it a man and a woman?”

“I don’t know,’ I admitted. “I think one was a man, but it was like a dream, a real clear one.”

“I didn’t hear anything,” Haley said. “What were they arguing about?”

“I have no idea. It probably was a nightmare.” I picked
up my book and began to read again. In a moment, Haley did the same. After about five minutes, though, she pushed her cover back and announced that she had to go make a phone call. I don’t know how long the call lasted, but I certainly knew who it was to. By the time she came to bed, I was sound asleep.

“Psst!” Sister said into my ear. “Psst, Mouse!”

I came straight up. “What’s the matter?”

“Are you asleep? I thought you might like to take a walk on the beach.”

“Are you crazy?”

“Shhh. Don’t wake Haley up.”

“What time is it?” I whispered.

“Don’t know. I didn’t look.”

“Yes, you did. It’s the middle of the damn night. What time is it? Two? Three?”

“It’s late,” Mary Alice admitted, “but I can’t go to sleep. Come on, let’s go down to the beach.”

“Absolutely not. I’m going back to sleep.” I pulled the sheet over my head.

“What’s the matter?” Haley mumbled.

“Do you want to go for a walk on the beach?” Sister asked her.

“Now?” Haley’s voice sounded confused. “What time is it?”

“God knows. “I said, uncovering my head. “Go back to sleep, honey.”

“Y’all are missing the Perseid meteor shower,” Sister said.

“That’s not until August. Go away.”

She did. I heard the bedroom door close, heard Haley’s breathing resume the pattern of sleep, heard the elevator door open and close. Shit! Sister didn’t have a bit of business going to the beach by herself in the middle of the night. I
scrambled out of bed, fumbled around in the dark for some clothes, and tiptoed from the room. Sister was sitting on the living room sofa reading a magazine.

“Oh, good,” she said. “You changed your mind.”

Ten minutes later, we were walking barefooted along the great shallow sea that is the Gulf of Mexico. There were no waves tonight, simply a curling of warm water around our ankles as our feet sank into the sand. Haze haloed the lights over the stile behind us.

“Everybody on the sixth floor is awake,” I said, looking back toward the building where the four apartments were a streak of light across an otherwise dark building.

“A sad night,” Sister said. “The people in the end apartment, the one next to Eddie and Laura, may be getting ready to go to work, though. They both work for Delta Airlines. He’s a pilot and she’s a flight attendant. Maybe vice versa. Anyway, they’re real nice. Remember I told you about them, Mouse? When they moved in back in the spring?”

“They’re the ones with the teenage daughter?”

“Uh huh. Jack and Tammy Berliner. Their daughter’s name is Sophie.”

“And they fly out of Atlanta? That’s not exactly commuting distance.”

“They’ve got a Cessna, I understand. And they don’t work every day. They’ll make a flight and then be off for a couple of days. It seems to be working out okay. Millicent says the move was mainly for Sophie and she thinks it’s done her good. She’s not quite as weird.” Sister stopped walking. “Oh, my. Poor Millicent.”

We stood at the edge of the water. Beyond us, some flounder fishermen were shining their lanterns into the water. Above us, the stars wheeled hazily.

“I hope he was good,” Sister said.

“Who?”

“The man Millicent was with last night.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Maybe she just went to sleep like she said she did.”

“I hope not. I hope she was with some strong, virile man who made love to her all night.”

I was getting caught up in this. “A sweet and gentle man.”

“I got a big one!” one of the flounderers shouted.

“To each his own,” Sister said.

The next morning, it was about nine o’clock when I woke up. Haley’s bed was empty. I put on my robe and went to see what was going on. Haley and Frances were sitting on the balcony drinking coffee and passing a pair of binoculars back and forth.

“Good morning,” I said. “What are y’all looking at?”

“Porpoises,” Haley looked up. “There’s a whole bunch of them out there. How’s your tailbone?”

“Not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Did your Aunt Sister get off to her writers’ conference?”

“Bright eyed and bushy tailed. She’s been gone a long time,” Frances said. “She left you a Post-it on the refrigerator.”

I headed into the kitchen, bleary eyed, amazed as always at my sister’s energy. She couldn’t have had more than three or four hours’ sleep and she was bright eyed and bushy tailed? I took the Post-it from the refrigerator. It said, “Patricia Anne, please take care of Fairchild.”

Take care of Fairchild? What was I supposed to do to take care of Fairchild? I poured a cup of coffee and went back to the balcony.

“She wants me to take care of Fairchild,” I said.

“I know. I saw the note.” Haley handed Frances the binoculars. “Look, Frances, right to the left of that bait boat. See the fin? Reckon that could be a shark?”

“Could be. I swear I haven’t been more than ankle deep in the ocean since I saw
Jaws
. Frances trained the binoculars in the direction Haley was pointing.

“I guess I’d better get dressed and go see about him,” I said. “See how he fared last night.”

“Mary Alice checked before she left. She said he’s doing pretty good. Still wrought up, of course, but who wouldn’t be?” Frances handed the binoculars back to Haley. “It’s a porpoise.”

“You’re probably right.” Haley put the binoculars on the table. “If he’s real wrought up, Mama, maybe that doctor that lives downstairs needs to check him out again.”

“I’m still pretty wrought up, myself, from finding the body yesterday,” Frances said. “I sure didn’t sleep much last night.”

“You could have gone for a walk on the beach with Mary Alice,” I grumbled. I went to get a shower and get dressed. Fairchild was one of my favorite people. I didn’t need a reminder from Sister or a description of him as “real wrought up,” whatever that meant, to go see about him.

Fifteen minutes later, as I stepped into the corridor, I almost bumped into a beautiful blonde woman who was carrying a covered dish toward Fairchild’s door. A quick dodge and some juggling saved the contents.

“I’m so sorry!” I said.

“It’s okay.” She smiled at me. “We almost had breakfast pizza all over us, didn’t we?”

“I should have been more careful.”

“No harm done.” She smiled again. “I’m Tammy Berliner. I live down the hall.”

“It’s nice meeting you, Tammy. I’m Patricia Anne Hollowell, Mary Alice Crane’s sister.”

“It’s nice meeting you, Mrs. Hollowell. I’ve heard her talk of you.”

“Don’t believe a word. And call me Patricia Anne, please.” I motioned to the pizza. “You on your way next door?”

She nodded. “I can’t believe this has happened. Can you?”

“No,” I said. “I can’t. We’ve known Millicent for twenty years, the nicest person you’d ever meet. Fairchild, too.”

“I know. Can you knock on the door for me?”

I did, and Laura Stamps answered. My first thought, as usual when I see Laura, and which I had the decency to feel guilty about, was that it was a shame they hadn’t invented sunscreen years ago. Laura’s tanned, leathery skin looked like a mask this morning. With cracks in it.

“Come in,” she said, taking the dish from Tammy and nodding toward the living room. “Fairchild’s in there.”

“How is he?” I asked.

“More hungover from what that fool doctor gave him last night than anything else.” Laura disappeared into the kitchen.

“That’s breakfast pizza, Laura,” Tammy called. “It’s for eating right now if anybody wants some.”

It sounded good to me. I hadn’t had anything but a cup of coffee but didn’t feel comfortable diving into his food without speaking to Fairchild first. So I stepped into his living room where women were perched everywhere, on the arms of the sofa, on the footstool; those young and thin enough were sitting on the floor. Fairchild sat in his recliner, looking dazed. Or panicked.

“Hey, Fairchild,” I said, stepping over several women to
kiss him on the cheek. Mary Alice’s cryptic message had suddenly become clear. “I came to get you. There’s a policeman next door who wants to talk to you.”

He looked up in surprise. “Now?”

“He can wait if you can’t come now.” I looked straight at him and saw him catch on.

“I’ll come.” He came up out of the recliner with an agility that was amazing in a man his age. “Right now.”

“Good,” I said. Nobody seemed to think it strange that a policeman would be next door to question Fairchild, and no one saw me grab the breakfast pizza on our way out.

“Thanks, Patricia Anne,” he said as I opened Sister’s door.

“You’re welcome. You want anything to eat?”

“I just want to go to the bathroom and rest a while.”

“Well, we can arrange that. There’s the bathroom and you can take a nap on Mary Alice’s bed.” He seemed to brighten a little at that idea.

Haley and Frances had disappeared, probably had gone to the beach. While Fairchild was in the bathroom, I made up Sister’s bed, got a pillow from the linen closet, put a fresh pillowcase on it, and located a light cotton blanket.

“Oh, my,” Fairchild said, stretching out. I think he was asleep by the time I left the room.

I headed for the breakfast pizza which was nothing but mega fat grams and cholesterol: ham, cheese, bacon, eggs. Delicious. Haley and Frances showed up in time to help me finish it, Haley saying at least ten times between bites that our arteries would never be the same.

“Y’all be quiet,” I cautioned them when they came in. I told them what had happened in Fairchild’s apartment and that he was napping on Sister’s bed.

“All those women in there consoling him? You sure you didn’t pull him out of the briar patch?” Frances asked.

“I’m sure. The ladies of Gulf Towers are formidable consolers.”

Haley took another piece of pizza. “Good cooks, though.”

“This came from the lady at the end of the hall, the one who moved in this spring, Tammy Berliner. She’s a beautiful blonde, probably just a little older than you, Haley. She’s a flight attendant for Delta.”

“She commutes to Atlanta?” Frances asked.

“She and her husband both. He’s a pilot. Or else she’s the pilot and he’s the flight attendant. One or the other. Sister says they have a teenager named Sophie. I love that name, don’t you? Sophie Berliner. And I’ll bet she hates it. Probably wishes she had her mama’s name.”

“Everybody hates their name,” Frances said. “It’s a given.”

“I hate mine,” Haley said cheerfully, her mouth full of cholesterol.

I took the last piece of pizza. “Sorry. We should have gone with Letitia Maude, your papa’s first choice.”

“Letitia Maude Hollowell,” Haley mused. “I’d have been a completely different person.”

“You would have been a perfectionist,” Frances said. “A Letitia Maude would do everything just so.”

“Like dresser drawers. All my dresser drawers would be straight. And my closets. A place for everything.” Haley dribbled water down her shirt from a glass that had condensation on it.

“Letitia Maude wouldn’t have done that,” Frances said.

“You’re right,” Haley giggled, wiping her shirt with the back of her arm. “And you know what? In Letitia Maude’s kitchen, even the roach motels would be lined up perfectly.”

Frances giggled, too.

I didn’t feel like playing along with them. My eyes were
still puffy from lack of sleep, I had a slight tail-ache, and I was worried about the nice man asleep on Sister’s bed who had just lost his wife so violently. I got up, went into the kitchen, and was putting on another pot of coffee when someone knocked on the door. Expecting Laura Stamps, who would be wondering where Fairchild was, I was startled to see the small, black-clad figure that looked up as I opened the door.

“Is my mother here?” she asked. “Tammy Berliner? She’s not next door.”

“No,” I said. “You’re Sophie?” The question wasn’t a rhetorical one; I truly wasn’t sure. That the blond, golden-skinned Tammy could have given birth to this child was indeed questionable. Standing before me was one of those big-eyed, waifish children you see on velvet paintings. Long black hair hung limply against the palest skin I’d ever seen. And the outfit she had on was a loose robe that reached the floor and seemed to be made of black gauze.