The Goodbye Body (9 page)

There wasn’t much point in worrying about it, I concluded. Remembering my offer to appear poolside with cheese and crackers, I went into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. The shelves were crowded with containers of leftover Thai delicacies, cold cuts, cans of soda and beer, a curling piece of pizza, jars of pickles and relishes, and so forth. I found packages of cheese in a lower drawer. I took out what I preferred, along with a jar of olives and a salami, arranged a platter, and was about to go outside when I realized I hadn’t seen any steaks. When I’d last seen Madison, she’d been on her way to the freezer in the garage, but apparently had lost her way or allowed herself to be distracted by the heady redolence of detergent in the laundry room by the door.

I put down the platter and headed for the garage. I wasn’t sure how many steaks we’d need, since Sara Louise was unavailable for comment. Madison would surely drag herself back in time for dinner, though, which meant we needed at least four. I’d forgotten to stop by the grocery store, but Caron and Inez would not mind an excuse to drive Dolly’s car.

In painful contrast to the garage at my apartment, this one was fastidious. Hoses were neatly coiled around hooks on the wall, and the few gardening tools were aligned on a metal shelf. No stacks of newspapers or boxes of books cluttered the floor, which looked as though it was scrubbed on a weekly basis. And, of course, no rodents scurried out of sight or eyed me with disdain.

The freezer was large. I had no idea of cubic feet or whatever measure was used to gauge capacity, but this one had lots of them. I raised the door, then stopped as a blast of arctic air engulfed me. My eyes bulged in a most unattractive fashion.

For the first time, I had a decent view of the body Caron and Inez claimed to have seen. And this time, he wasn’t going anywhere.

I dropped the freezer lid and backed into the pantry, fighting the primal instinct to dash through the kitchen and out the front door, squawking in a most unseemly manner. My knees were wobbling so badly that I had to grab the edge of the counter to steady myself. I stared at the freezer as if I were expecting to see the lid slowly rise of its own accord—or propelled by an icy, misshapen hand. I grabbed the door, slammed it closed, and locked it. Only then was I able to exhale the gulp of air that had crystallized inside my lungs.

I’d seen dead bodies before, in that my modest attempts to assist the police had at times led to sticky situations of a somewhat gothic disposition. But none of them had been so ghastly as the man in the freezer, his skin gray, his eyes flat, his face reflecting only minimal surprise, his arms curled around his bent legs. He was loosely wrapped in some sort of transparent plastic. And, as Caron and Inez had claimed earlier, he had a small wound ringed with blackish blood in the middle of his forehead.

Still unsure of my gelatinous knees, I risked letting go of the counter and made it into the kitchen, where I sank down onto a stool. From the patio I could hear the girls cheerfully prattling about ads in the fashion magazines. Could the person or persons who’d done this be in the house? I’d looked around for Madison, but I hadn’t opened closets or peered under furniture. With its gazebo, shed, pine trees, and bounteous azaleas and rhododendrons, the backyard could have provided cover for a platoon of malefactors. I began to shiver, either from shock or the sudden realization that we might all be in danger. I tried to yell Caron’s name, but all I could produce was a strangle , croak.

I finally forced myself up and went to the sliding door that led to the patio. “Girls,” I said evenly, “come inside now.”

“Yeah, okay,” Caron said without looking up. “Well be there in a few minutes.”

“Come inside now,” I repeated.

Inez turned her head. “Goodness, Ms. Malloy, is something wrong? You look like you’re about to throw up.”

Caron snickered. “She probably found Madison in the butler’s pantry panting with the butler.”

“We have a butler?” said Inez, glancing over her shoulder as if Jeeves might be bearing down on them with a plate of sticky buns.

I bit down on my lower lip for a moment, then said, “Both of you, now. Inside.”

They put down the magazines and came across the patio. “You do look pretty awful, Mother,” said Caron with the faintest flicker of concern. “Has something happened?”

I nodded. “I’ve found your missing body. Go upstairs to Sara Louise’s room, lock the door, and stay there until I come get you.”

Inez’s eyes widened. “He’s in the house?”

“All you have to do is wait five minutes,” said Caron, “and then he’ll vanish. I know how this works, Mother. Trust me.”

I was not amused. “I’m going to call 911, and then Peter. If I don’t hear you lock the bedroom door before I pick up the receiver, I will drag you upstairs by your hair and fling you inside. Understand?”

“Don’t get all huffy.” Caron went past me, with Inez trailing after her. “So where’s the body this time—watching a movie in the den?”

I reached for the cordless. “Think of the money you’ll save on shampoo and conditioner.” After they’d trotted up the stairs, I punched in the numbers, waited until I heard a voice, and then said, “I’ve just found a body in the freezer. Please send someone immediately. I’m afraid the perpetrator might still be in the house or yard.”

“On Dogwood Lane.” The dispatcher groaned. “Third time this week, right?”

“Send someone immediately!”

“Look, Ms. Malloy, I realize you’re the lieutenant’s girlfriend, but this is getting old. The officers on duty have more important things to do than come chasing up there whenever one of you claims to have found a body that turns out not to be there after all. Why don’t you have yourself a stiff drink, then call me back if the body hasn’t taken a hike?”

“Then you’re not going to send a patrol car?” I said, grinding out each word.

“If I send a patrol car every time some nutcase hears Nazis in the attic or sees little green men in the backyard, I wouldn’t have anyone available—”

I hung up, then dialed the more mundane number of the police department and asked to speak to Peter. I was informed that he was gone for the day. I called his house, but no one answered. He could have stopped to pick up a pizza or Chinese—or taken Madison on a scenic drive to a country inn for an intimate dinner, despite the fact he was old enough to be her father (presuming she’d been conceived on his prom night).

I’d about decided to take the dispatcher’s advice and have a stiff drink when a bedroom door opened and Caron called, “What on earth is going on, Mother? If we’re all going to be murdered, I’d like to change into something more flattering.”

“No one will notice if you’re wheeled out in a body bag,” I replied.

“I’m talking about the crime scene photos, with the victim awkwardly sprawled on the carpet. Did you call 911?”

“Yes, I did. Now get back inside the room and stay there.”

“While you do what?”

I was very nearly hysterical, and the conversation was not helping. Her question was a good one, though. What did I think I was going to do? Sit on the top of the freezer to prevent someone from retrieving the body? Go outside and scream until one of the neighbors called the police? Search the house while clutching a corkscrew to defend myself? Make spaghetti for dinner, since steaks were off the menu unless I rolled aside the body to fetch a package of sirloin strips?

What I needed to do was go back to the garage, open the freezer, and make sure that I hadn’t mistaken the body for a side of beef—which I knew perfectly well I hadn’t. On the other hand, I really didn’t want to so much as unlock the door to the garage.

I was in the hallway, dithering, when the front door opened and Peter came in. “I hear you found the body again,” he said in a conversational tone, as though commenting on the traffic. “The dispatcher started worrying and paged me. I assured him I’d look into it.”

“How kind of you,” I said in an altogether different tone. “I do hope this isn’t interrupting your baseball game.”

“It doesn’t start for another half hour.” He went into the kitchen. “I assume the freezer is back here somewhere. Would you care to show me?”

“It’s in the garage.” I wanted to stay where I was, but reluctantly led the way. My hand began to shake as I unlocked the door to the garage, but I managed to do so. “Right there.”

Peter lifted the freezer lid, then stepped back and let out a low whistle. “Any idea who he is?”

“According to what Caron and Inez said earlier, it’s the same man. It would be too much of a coincidence if it weren’t.”

He lowered the lid. “I suppose it would be a stretch “ He continued across the garage to a door that led to the side yard. “It’s not locked. Anyone could have come in this way.”

“Anyone lugging a dead body,” I said. “Are you planning to do something more useful than counting the rakes?”

He put his arm around me and took me into the kitchen. “Wait here while I make a call.” After barking orders at the dispatcher (who deserved a great deal more than that, I thought acerbically), he returned. “Where are Caron, Inez, and those two girls?”

“Madison has been gone all afternoon. The others are in a bedroom upstairs, waiting for me.” I blinked as my eyes began to burn. “I wasn’t sure there might not be someone hiding in the house. I’m still not, for that matter. Maybe you should—”

He put his hands on my shoulders. “It’s okay, Claire. Officers should be here in a minute. I’ll have them do a thorough search of both the house and the yard. After that, I’ll have to deal with the crime boys and the medical examiner. It’s too bad you couldn’t have waited until the game was over.”

“This is hardly my fault. I’ve never been consulted about the scheduling of baseball games. If that were the case, they’d all start at midnight.” I moved away from him and leaned against the refrigerator, my arms crossed. “Up until now, it could have been some sort of twisted practical joke. Maybe he was a friend of Dolly’s and was acting out scenes from a movie or a mystery novel they’d enjoyed together. Or he could have been an enemy, trying to frighten her. He wouldn’t have known she went out of town or that we’re house-sitting. Once she decided to go to Dallas, she made a reservation and left the next day. Dolly did not dillydally.”

He saw the glass I’d left on the counter. “Is this yours?” When I nodded, he put it in my hand and made sure I had a grip on it. “I hear cars out front. Please join the girls for a few minutes. As soon as the house has been searched, you can all come downstairs and wait in the den. I don’t think you’ll be having steaks tonight, but you can come in the kitchen long enough to find snacks to hold you. At some point, I’ll have to get statements from everybody, but it shouldn’t take long.” He paused and gave me an appraising look. “Unless there’s something you’re not telling me.”

“Something I’m not telling you? I’ve told you every last blasted detail of what I know, which isn’t much.” My voice began to rise. “Are you insinuating that I’m withholding information? I cannot believe this, Lieutenant Rosen. Here I am, being terrorized, and you have the nerve to even think such a thing!”

“If you recall, there have been investigations in which you went to extremes to do exactly that.”

“I never lied to you,” I said.

“I didn’t say you did, but you certainly withheld evidence.”

“I never withheld anything that you couldn’t have discovered on your own—if you hadn’t been so pigheaded. Some of us see the forest, while others of us insist on blundering into trees. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go upstairs.”

I swept out of the kitchen, seething. By the time I was halfway upstairs, I realized I’d overreacted in a posttraumatic bout of suppressed hysteria. A fine diagnosis, worthy of a veritable babble of psychologists, but nevertheless requiring an apology. However, I could hear voices in the hallway, and I knew I would encounter unsuppressed hysteria in Sara Louise’s bedroom if I didn’t explain what was happening.

Inez unlocked the door and dragged me inside. “What’s going on? Is there a murderer in the house? All I could find to use as a weapon is a nail file.” She held it up like a diminutive carving knife. “I don’t know if I could actually poke somebody. I guess I could.”

Sara Louise was sitting up in bed, looking pale and bewildered. “There’s a body downstairs—and a murderer? This really doesn’t make any sense, Ms. Malloy. I feel like I’m in a hazy dream. Did somebody get shot? The same guy as last night? Where’s the body?”

“In the freezer in the garage.”

“That is way creepy,” said Inez as she set aside her weapon of less than mass destruction. “Is he frozen?”

“Frozen stiff.”

Inez gave me a wary look. “Are you sure you’re okay, Ms. Malloy?”

Caron turned away from the window. ‘The cops took their sweet time getting here, didn’t they?”

“Calls from this house lack credibility, I’m afraid,” I said. “Peter saw it this time, so we won’t be subjected to ridicule again.” I told them how I’d come to find the body in the freezer, then glanced at Sara Louise. “Do you know where Madison is? I can’t believe she’d wander away without her purse.”

She pushed her hair out of her face. “I was asleep all afternoon. Do you think something’s happened to her?”

“I don’t know what to think. She was fine when I saw her at noon. You know her better than we do, Sara Louise. Has she met any men in Farberville whom she found attractive? You did say something about the golf pro’s son, after all. Does she pull that kind of stunt often?”

Caron waggled her eyebrows. “The golf pro’s son? What did she do with him? Hold up caddy shacks?”

Sara Louise blinked at her, then said to me, “To be frank, Madison’s gotten herself into trouble on several occasions. We haven’t met any especially attractive men, but I was in the emergency room or being wheeled off for X-rays most of the morning. I suppose she could have encountered someone and made a date. She tends to be … spontaneous.”

“That’s not what it’s called at the high school,” murmured Inez.

A police officer knocked on the door and identified himself. “The lieutenant wants you all downstairs for questioning.”

“Can you make it?” I asked Sara Louise.

“I may need a little help. The pain’s not as bad as it was last night, but I’m still sore. What are you going to do about Madison?”

“It’s not even seven o’clock,” I said. “We need to tell Lieutenant Rosen about it. I don’t see what he can do, though.”

“She probably saw the perps putting the body in the freezer,” said Caron. “They grabbed her and took her to a meat locker. By now she looks like that Neanderthal some scientist found frozen in an iceberg at the North Pole.” She held up her hands, fingers contorted, and screwed up her face in a mockery of a silent scream.

“Is she for real?” said Sara Louise.

“Let’s go downstairs,” I said, giving Caron a sharp look. “All we need to do is tell the lieutenant everything we know. Sara Louise, put your arm around me. We’ll take it one stair at a time.”