Murder on a Bad Hair Day (7 page)

I turned left and headed toward home. I was still trying to absorb the knowledge of Claire’s disappearance. She had been sedated, not heavily, but certainly enough to impair her judgment. She had no money with her, no coat, no shoes. She was hooked up to an IV. Had she been so out of it she walked out of the hospital into a stormy, freezing night? I didn’t want to think of the alternative, that someone, possibly the knife wielder, had abducted her, carried her out. It would be possible. She was so small, so fragile. Why on God’s green earth hadn’t they watched her better!

All the way home, I had my fingers crossed that maybe, just maybe, Claire had managed to get back to my house. She hadn’t. Woofer rushed out of his igloo to greet me and then rushed back inside. No fool, he. I checked the phone
messages and there weren’t any, which always depresses me. I dialed Mary Alice.

“Crane residence,” a bright young voice answered.

“May I speak to Mrs. Crane, please. This is her sister.”

“I’m sorry. Mrs. Crane isn’t here at the moment. This is Tiffany with Magic Maids. May I take a message?”

“Just tell her I called.”

“I’ll do that. Bye-bye, now.”

“Bye-bye, now.” I hung up the phone and stared at it for a minute. Tiffany with Magic Maids? A Tiffany scrubbing toilets? A Tiffany getting rich. And more power to her. It was time housecleaning was recognized as the respectable hard work it is. But a Tiffany?

My own house desperately needed a Magic Maid Tiffany. I pulled on some jeans and got to work. I changed the bed and put a tub of clothes on to wash. I swished disinfectant around the toilets and got out the vacuum. I was just about to plug it in when the phone rang.

“Mrs. Hollowell? Officer Mitchell here. You called?”

“Can it, Bo Peep,” I said. “I know you lost Claire Moon.”

“You’ve been to the hospital.”

“And talked to Connie. What the hell’s going on?”

“Don’t know.”

“You knew yesterday that Mercy Armistead had been murdered, didn’t you? And you figured the same person was after Claire.”

“It’s possible.”

“What do you mean, it’s possible?” The light dawned. “Somebody’s there with you and you can’t talk. Right?”

“Right.”

A second light came on. “The police took Claire from the hospital, didn’t they? Put her in a safer place.”

“That’s negative.”

“Then where could she be? She’s sick, Bo Peep.”

“We understand that.”

“I’m beginning to wonder. Look, call me back when you don’t have to talk like a robot.” I hung up the phone,
plugged the vacuum in, and gave the carpet a vicious cleaning. Tiffany the Magic Maid would have approved. I dusted, put the clothes into the dryer, and considered addressing a few Christmas cards. But I wasn’t in the mood for that. I turned on the Weather Channel and saw the temperature had dropped to 38. Cookies, I decided. I would make the fruit drop cookies the boys always demanded for Christmas. They would stay fine in the freezer.

I glanced out of the kitchen door, hoping, I suppose, that Claire would be sitting on the steps. She wasn’t, of course. I fixed a cup of spiced tea and set to work on the cookies. As soon as I got out the plastic cartons of fruit I could feel my mood improving. The colors of candied fruits are awe inspiring, no colors that exist in nature. The red and yellow are close, but the green! A work of art!

I reached for my biggest mixing bowl so I could double the recipe. My family won’t eat fruitcake, but the fruit drop cookies with the same ingredients disappear like magic. It was quite possible, doing them this far ahead, that I would have to make another batch before Christmas.

There have been no great cooks in our family, so I have nothing to live up to, which is nice. Mama could fry great chicken, and her cornbread dressing, which made an appearance only at Thanksgiving and Christmas, was why Fred said he married me. She had no recipe, but I had watched her so much, I thought I knew how to make it. I didn’t. The first Thanksgiving after she died was one of those standout moments when you realize somebody is really gone. We grieved all day wanting the smell of the dressing cooking. Wanting Mama. With Grandmama, it was the sweet potato pie with meringue. None of us ever got that right, either. Other than those specialties, they fed their families adequately and that was fine.

The fruit drop cookie recipe has been in the family for as long as I can remember. I take the card out each year and follow the instructions written in Mama’s precise handwriting. The last sentence says, “It is best to make this with a friend because of the stirring.” More fun than a Cuisinart,
certainly, but that was what would have to suffice today. I took a sip of tea, turned the radio to the Golden Oldies, and started chopping dates, cherries, pineapple, and pecans.

I hummed along with Doris Day while I creamed butter and added vanilla, lemon, and orange extract. Good baking music, Doris. Why aren’t you still making records? In went the cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and sugar. The flour. Into the mixing bowl with the chopped fruit. Stir, friend Cuisinart.

I dumped the first batch into the big mixing bowl and began another. The local news update came on and was nothing but the murder of the internationally renowned artist, Mercy Armistead; the questioning of her All-American husband, Thurman Beatty; and the arrival in town of the former Miss America, Betty Bedsole, the mother of the renowned international artist, Mercy Armistead, wife of All-American Thurman Beatty, son-in-law of the beautiful former Miss America Betty Bedsole, etc., etc.

“Dear God.” I reached over and turned the volume down until I was sure the music was back on again. Mercy Armistead was young, beautiful, and talented and should have had a whole lifetime ahead of her. However renowned she was, and that was questionable, was beside the point. And her family deserved the right to grieve in privacy regardless of who they were. A right which it looked like the press was going to deny.

I turned the oven on preheat to 325 degrees and dropped the dough by teaspoonfuls onto cookie sheets. I set the timer, fixed another cup of tea, and went into the den to read. I had every intention of rereading
King Lear
for my Great Books study group. But I couldn’t resist the new Tony Hillerman that was on the coffee table. I knew what happened to King Lear anyway.

Twenty-five minutes later, the oven timer roused me from the Navajo Nation. I put the book down reluctantly and went to take the cookies out. They looked great, just slightly crispy on the edges. Who would bake Christmas cookies for Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn out there on the reservation, I wondered, now that his beloved Emma was dead?

The ring of the front doorbell startled me back into the real world and almost made me drop the sheet of cookies. A glance out of the window told me the rain had not slackened and that the afternoon was darkening. A UPS package, I thought, or maybe Bo Peep Mitchell. I wiped my hands on a dishcloth and went to see.

“Mrs. Hollowell?”

At first I didn’t recognize the woman standing there, understandable since I’d only seen her once, at the gallery opening.

“I’m Liliane Bedsole. May I come in?”

I was startled. “Of course.” I opened the door.

“I’m wet,” she said, hesitating. She had on a red hooded raincoat that looked straight out of a fairy tale but was more likely straight from some exclusive designer. In her hand was a red-and-white-striped umbrella that dripped onto the porch.

“There’s an umbrella stand right here,” I said. “Come on in.”

She closed the umbrella and stepped inside. “What a beautiful piece of furniture,” she said, admiring the hall tree as I placed the wet umbrella into it.

“It was my grandmother’s,” I said. “May I take your coat?”

She slid the Red Ridinghood coat and hood off and I got a good look at her for the first time. Her face had a drawn look, not the drawn look of multiple face-lifts but the look of worry and lack of sleep. Her eyes were red-rimmed as if she had been crying recently. She looked old and totally exhausted. Against a black turtleneck sweater, her skin was splotchy and her hair, which had once probably been a strawberry blond, was definitely orange.

“I know you’re wondering why I’m here,” she said.

“You can tell me in the den,” I said. “I’m having some spiced tea. Would you like some?”

She sighed. “That would be wonderful.”

I led her into the den, where she sank onto the sofa. “It smells so good in here,” she said.

“I’m making fruit drop cookies for Christmas.”

“Oh, don’t let me stop you.”

“I’m at a good stopping place,” I said.

Liliane Bedsole nodded. I went into the kitchen, turned the kettle on for tea, and took the spatula from the drawer. Each cookie popped up perfectly. I tasted one. Delicious. I put several on a plate to carry to the den.

“What a wonderful Abe.”

I turned to see Liliane Bedsole standing in front of my picture.

“His daughter gave it to me,” I said.

“Look at that hair. I saw it from the sofa and told myself it couldn’t be, but it is. It’s incredible.”

“Thank you.” I wished Fred could hear this. I poured the tea, put the cups and the cookies on a tray, and took them into the den.

“How nice.” Liliane Bedsole came back and sat on the sofa. She picked up a cookie and looked at it. “My mother used to make these,” she said.

I sat down beside her. “An old Southern recipe.”

“Yes.” She took a bite of cookie and so did I. She took a sip of tea and so did I. She looked up at the rain running down the skylight.

And I blurted out, “You’re looking for Claire, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“I have no idea where she is.”

Liliane sighed. “Claire’s my foster daughter, you know. I was hoping you might have heard from her. I know she came here yesterday and that you took her to the hospital.”

“Ms. Bedsole,” I said, “I have no idea why Claire came here. I taught her ten or fifteen years ago and hadn’t seen her again until night before last at the gallery.” I put my cookie down. “I was sorry to hear about your niece’s death.”

Liliane Bedsole studied her tea as if she were reading fortunes. “Thank you. I still find it hard to believe that Mercy’s gone.” She was silent for a moment. Then, “Tell me about
Claire. The policewoman I talked to said she was in a state of collapse.”

I wished I could tell her what the paramedic had told me: Claire’s stress signals were stuck. That described her condition perfectly. But Liliane deserved more. I told her the whole story except the graffiti on Claire’s walls. Let Bo Peep Mitchell fill her in on that. I just mentioned vandalism.

Liliane Bedsole listened quietly and without a question. When I finished, she leaned over and put her teacup on the table. “What do you think about her condition, Mrs. Hollowell?”

“Not good,” I said. Another person asking me what I thought? Suddenly, I was angry. “You’re the one should know about her condition, Ms. Bedsole. She’s your foster daughter.”

Liliane Bedsole turned and looked at me. “She’s my niece, Mrs. Hollowell.”

“I thought Mercy was your niece.”

“She is. Was. They both are. Were.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well, most of the people involved are gone, and in today’s society things that used to be skeletons in the closet don’t matter anymore.”

I looked at Liliane Bedsole and waited. I had no idea what she was talking about.

“Mrs. Hollowell, my brother, Amos Bedsole, ran off and married a girl he met when she was waiting tables at the Elite Cafe. He was eighteen. She was a pretty little thing. I only saw her once, the night Amos brought her home. Her father was a coal miner, not even American. Yugoslavian or something like that.

“Anyway”—Liliane sat forward—“the marriage was annulled almost as soon as they said ‘I do.’ Daddy probably paid them off, though I doubt that was what the girl was after. Amos went off to college and then he married Edna and they had Betty. Came into Daddy’s business and eventually was running it. To tell you the truth, I’d all but for
gotten the girl. Her name was Dania. Pretty little thing,” she repeated.

Liliane was quiet for a moment, seeing a distant Dania. She took a deep breath and continued. “Then, sixteen, maybe seventeen years ago, Dania showed up in Amos’s office. She was dying of cancer and told him they had a daughter. You can’t imagine how Amos felt. He was a good man, Mrs. Hollowell, and would have been there for her if he had known. And then it turned out that Dania wasn’t there about her daughter, but her granddaughters. She’d been living in Florida for years so she hadn’t known the extent of the abuse in her daughter’s marriage. She told Amos she had called the juvenile authorities when she saw the children and realized they needed help. They recommended counseling. Can you believe that? Starving, battered, and they recommended counseling.” Liliane shook her head. “The abuse was even worse than Dania imagined. Amos always said it was a blessing that she died before she found out.”

“What did Amos do?” I asked.

“Told Edna first. She was a good woman, Mrs. Hollowell. Then he got Youth Services out there before the day was over. You probably know the rest.”