OUT ON A LIMB (8 page)

“So do I,” I said. “Any news about the injunction?”

“Constantine’s still at the federal courthouse, waiting for a ruling. If you’ll excuse me, I need to keep the line free.”

“One more thing. Is it true that you have the only key to the padlock that prevents Miss Parchester from leaving the platform?”

Baybergen did not answer immediately. I was on the verge of repeating the question when he said, “Good point. I’ll go out there this evening and have her lower the basket so I can send up a newspaper. Taped to it will be a copy of the key. If I am arrested, so be it. Maybe I can teach in a community college in Costa Rica. The rain forests are extraordinary, I’ve been told. Goodbye, Ms. Malloy.”

“Adios, Assistant Professor Baybergen,” I said to the dial tone. I replaced the receiver, then fuddled about, selling a few books, dusting the stock, and glumly flipping through invoices. Caron did not appear. I was not yet alarmed, although I was a bit worried. We were going to have to sit down and sort all this out, despite the convolutions and complexities. I doubted she knew why she was reacting so emotionally, and I wasn’t sure I did, either. Dr. Spock wasn’t available, and Mr. Spock would not beam me up.

Inez appeared at five o’clock. Skyler was fast asleep, no doubt worn out from his encounters with butterflies at the park.

“He is such a good baby,” Inez whispered.

“But not ours,” I reminded both of us as I locked the front door and prepared to leave.

“Did Caron come by?”

I shook my head. “She’s probably at home. Do you want to come along?”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Neither do I,” I acknowledged while we transferred Skyler once again to the car seat. “I suppose I could call Rhonda’s mother and offer some sort of glib excuse for being caught in the act of buying diapers. What do you think?”

Inez handed me some change. “Rhonda’s mouth runs in only one direction, and that’s downstream.”

“Well, then,” I said inanely. We drove to the duplex. Caron was in her room, with music resonating so loudly that I hoped we would not hear complaints from the androgynous downstairs tenant. Inez pounded on the bedroom door while I settled Skyler on a blanket on the sofa, then poured myself a drink. It had been a stressful twenty-four hours. Skyler seemed to be the only one who was oblivious.

Inez came into the living room. “She won’t let me in.”

“She’ll come out sooner or later. Go on home.”

“But I feel as though I should—”

I gave her a kiss on the forehead. “We both do, but we’ll have to wait for Caron.”

Inez left. Skyler slurped down a fair amount of formula, observed me while I changed his diaper, and then seemed reasonably agreeable to watching the local news. Jessica’s segment was a replay of the noon press conference interview. Mr. Ferncliff would have to wait until ten o’clock for his fleeting moment of fame.

Caron emerged an hour later to stick a frozen entree in the microwave. “You heard?” she said from the kitchen as she punched buttons.

“Inez told me.”

She came into the living room. “What am I supposed to do? I can’t tell the truth. If I do, the police and social services will get involved, and Skyler will be whisked away. On the other hand, if I keep my mouth shut, every last person at the high school will think he’s my child. Any Ideas, Mother?”

“Can you hang in another day?” I asked her as she sat down across from me.

“And sacrifice my chances of being a cheerleader? Whatever will happen to me?”

“I never envisioned you with pom-poms. The moment I laid eyes on you, I assumed you’d be a rocket scientist or a brain surgeon. Well… or at least a cancer researcher or a marine biologist out to save the dolphins. Watching you do cartwheels on a football field never entered my mind.”

“You could call me in sick.”

I resisted the urge to mention the dreaded algebra test, which she would have to make up in the next day or two. “Is that what you want?”

“As opposed to listening to whispers and snickers when I walk down the halls? Gee, tough decision.”

“If you’ll look after Skyler.”

“I suppose so,” she said. “Did you talk to Peter?”

I gave her a report of all that had happened, tactfully omitting the three girls who’d come into the Book Depot. Caron listened, but she was too distracted by her own problems to do more than nod occasionally. I let her go to her room, then settled down next to Skyler and tried to immerse myself in a novel. I had marginal success, since I couldn’t prevent myself from listening for someone coming through the front door and tiptoeing up the stairs to my landing. Or gypsies sneaking up the back steps. Or trolls scaling the back side of the house to wait in the attic until we’d fallen asleep.

I finally put down the book and went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. As I put fresh water in the teakettle, I realized it was beginning to rain. Poor Miss Parchester, I thought as I took out a mug and a spoon. Not only was she sitting alone in the tree, she was in for a decidedly uncomfortable night. I hoped Papa was proud of her, wherever he was.

I knocked on Caron’s door the following morning. “You need to get up, dear. I’ve called the school. Skyler has been bathed, dressed, and fed.”

She opened the door, her expression wary. “What if somebody shows up while you’re gone? What am I supposed to do?”

I couldn’t advise her to spend the day at the park, since rain was still coming down. I doubted babies were welcome in the college library. The mall was not an option, since it was likely that more than one of her classmates would be playing hooky.

“Keep your music low, and the same with the volume on the television. I
’
ll be at the Book Depot as usual, so no one will come looking for me here. Don’t answer the phone. If you start getting stir-crazy, call Luanne. The car seat will be on the back porch. She can take you and Skyler out for a hamburger or something. Just don’t drive by the high school—I told them you’d be in a parenting class all day.”

“How thoughtful of you, Mother. I must think of a way to return the favor one of these days.”

“Skyler’s on a blanket on the living room rug. Call me if you have any problems.”

I drove to the bookstore, made a pot of coffee, and sat down behind the counter to read the newspaper. I was still perusing the front page when the phone rang. Praying Caron was not already in crisis after a scant half hour, I picked up the receiver.

“Have you listened to the news on the radio this morning?” demanded Luanne in her charmingly brusque fashion.

“No. What happened?”

“Anthony Armstrong’s dead. There wasn’t much of a story, just that his body had been found around midnight last night. Foul play is suspected.”

“Murdered?” I said with a gulp.

“It comes to mind. That’s all the announcer said, except that detectives were investigating. Peter will be in charge, won’t he?”

“That doesn’t mean we can buy him a beer and hear all the details. He seems to have a misconception that I meddle in official investigations, which we both know is completely fallacious. We’d have better luck with Jessica.”

“Or Finnigan Baybergen, although it’s hard to imagine his gang of senior citizens committing mayhem of this magnitude. Now, if somebody had let the air out of the tires on Anthony’s Mercedes or canceled Adrienne’s hair appointment…”

“I wonder what this will mean in Miss Parchester’s case,” I said. “Surely Phase Two will be in limbo for a long time.”

“I have no idea,” said Luanne. “I assume you have Skyler with you. Do you want to bring him here at noon so that we can watch the news? I’m sure Jessica will be standing under an umbrella, coming to us live with all the latest hearsay and speculations.”

I explained the situation, adding, “I think I’d better stay here and visible. I don’t want someone going to the duplex to look for me. If Caron calls you, put her off until after you’ve watched the news and called me.”

She agreed and hung up. I tried to read the newspaper, but my mind refused to focus on national politics and international civil wars. Anthony Armstrong’s death could be the result of an unwise decision to investigate a burglary in progress in his house. He could have slipped while going downstairs. He could have come home inebriated and inadvertently taken too many pills. It could have been a coincidence.

And I could have failed to notice I was pregnant and given birth to Skyler while reading a mystery novel.

The morning crawled by minute by minute. A few students purchased the slim yellow study guides that just might get them a passing grade in their lit classes. A sorority girl admitted she had no idea what was on her reading list, so I loaded her up with paperbacks that she would never read. Sally Fromberger went by twice, dressed in a utilitarian raincoat and a plastic bonnet.

By half past twelve, I was staring at the telephone. Anthony Armstrong’s death was none of my concern. I was worried only about Miss Parchester, whose sturdy shoes might begin to squish as the rain continued, but all I wanted to hear was that she’d come down from the tree and gone to her house in a quaint neighborhood in the historic district. Finnigan Baybergen had sworn he would send her up the key.

The telephone finally rang. “What?” I said as I snatched up the receiver.

“Breathe deeply,” Luanne said, then refused to answer my disjointed questions until I subsided. “Jessica doesn’t know much. Adrienne found Anthony’s body when she arrived home last night at midnight. He’d been shot twice in the chest. She called 911. We may or may not hear the tape on the six o’clock news, depending on the whim of the prosecutor’s office. She has been questioned, as has another family member. Jessica’s hair, by the way, looked as though she’d draped a weasel over her head.”

“Another family member?” I said.

“That’s about it.”

“And Miss Parchester?”

“None of that came up. Adrienne choked out a few sentences, then dashed away when her mascara began to dribble.”

“Why did she come home at midnight?” I asked.

“She didn’t say,” Luanne said with an exasperated sigh. “Don’t you have enough to deal with as it is? You are not Nancy Drew.”

I gazed at the rack of mystery novels. “I could have been, if I’d had a blue roadster and a boyfriend named Ned Nickerson.”

“Why don’t you worry about a boyfriend named Peter?”

“One of these days, I will,” I said uncomfortably. “Have you heard from Caron?”

“Six times, thus far. Is this the first time she’s ever laid eyes on a baby? I used to baby-sit every weekend before I went off to boarding school. The pay wasn’t much, but the perks were good once the brats were in bed. I experimented with every brand of makeup available in the poshest department stores, as well as a few outfits. Some of those silk negligees were downright scandalous.”

“I’m one hundred percent cotton,” I said. “Can you see after Caron and Skyler?”

“Cheeseburgers and shakes in half an hour. We’ll have a diaper drill before we go. Listen, Claire—Anthony Armstrong’s death is none of your business. It’s likely that Miss Parchester will come down from the tree now that the project is halted until all this is resolved.”

In that I can be a patient woman when I choose, I waited forty-five minutes before I hung up the Closed sign and drove to Phase Two. The KFAR van was not present. A few unprepossessing cars were parked in the lot. Signs alerting us that we were trespassing had been placed along the back of the parking lot. The rain had stopped, but the sky remained gray and unfriendly.

“Miss Parchester?” I called as I approached the tree. “How are you?”

Howie emerged from behind a building and cut me off. “Don’t make me have you arrested,” he said. “Everybody gets mad at me, especially Miss Parchester. I’m just doing my job, you know.”

“And how many noble souls have been arrested thus far?”

“One yesterday afternoon, and three more later. I was warned to expect a lot more today. I guess the rain’s been keeping them away.”

“But Anthony Armstrong is no longer issuing orders,” I pointed out.

“The word I got is to keep seeing that trespassers are arrested and taken to the police station,” he said. “Mr. Armstrong’s wife showed up about nine o’clock this morning. She told me what was going on, then said to follow orders. Miss Parchester and me talked about it, and she seemed to think I should do what I was told. I’m making twice minimum wage for doing nothing more than patrolling the area.”

“Twenty-four hours a day?” I asked.

“Naw, I leave at midnight and come back at eight. Nobody’s supposed to know that. Every couple of hours, I go over to the construction shed and take a break for half an hour or so. It ain’t like commandos are crawling up the bluff or anything. If they were, Miss Parchester would take care of them.”

“Then why don’t you take a break while I visit her?”

Howie studied the ground for a moment. “I wish I could oblige, but what with Mr. Armstrong’s death and all, I’m kinda nervous. The last thing I want to do is get fired.”

“Did Mrs. Armstrong seem upset?”

“Her eyes were red and her face was all puffy like she hadn’t gotten any sleep. I don’t see how she could have, with police in the house all night. She said they were still there and driving her so crazy that she was going to her athletic club for an hour just to get away. Can’t blame her.”

I opened my wallet and took out a ten-dollar bill. “Howie, why don’t you take a hike around the perimeter in case Jessica and her cameraman are sneaking up through the woods?”

“I’ll be back in five minutes,” he said as he put the bill in his shirt pocket.

I did not point out that I had surely purchased ten minutes, but instead waited until he’d trudged around the corner of the condos and out of sight I headed for the tree at a brisker pace.

“Miss Parchester?” I called.

She peered down at me. “Why, Claire, how nice to see you so soon. I hope you don’t feel as though you must bring me lunch every day. Some degmse of deprivation strengthens my will to maintain the vigil. The rain was a bit much, I must admit, but as you can see, I’m still here.”

“Did you hear about Anthony Armstrong?”