Strangled Prose Read online

  Inez would probably apologize for labor pains, if she lived that long. I stumbled into the room until my shin found a chair. “Are you on the bed?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m sort of tied up.”

  “Sort of tied up, Inez? That’s similar to sort of pregnant or sort of dead. You either are or you aren’t.” It wasn’t terribly sympathetic, but it was terribly realistic. The cowering girl was responsible for a great deal of embarrassment, beginning with the police station and ending in the cemetery with Officer Hendrix. It wasn’t totally her fault. Not more than ninety-five percent, anyway.

  “Very tied up,” she murmured from the darkness that had assailed my shin. “Ropes, and a belt.”

  “Perhaps I should untie you?” I started toward the disembodied voice, my hands held in front of me.

  A voice from behind me stopped me in midstep. “Ah, Mrs. Malloy, you’ve finally joined us. How lovely; I was hoping you might come.”

  Lieutenant Rosen’s voice would have been welcome, despite my incessant gripes. On the contrary, Sheila Belinski’s voice sent a shiver down my spine, as though she’d drawn an icicle along it.

  “Sheila,” I said, “what are you doing here?”

  Inez whimpered, but I thought it prudent to leave her where she was. I turned around to peer into the blackness to locate the slender figure with murderous intent.

  “The girl and I came here to make sure that someone had taken care of Twilliam,” Sheila said. “We’re the only two that care about Azalea Twilight, aren’t we, Inez? Azalea loved little Twilliam, and we were very worried about him.” Her voice had the sibilant quality of a three-year-old, but the sarcasm was ripe with age.

  Inez wasn’t any Einstein, but she knew enough to mumble, “That’s right, Mrs. Malloy, we came to see if someone had taken care of Azalea’s puppy.”

  “And when you didn’t find Twilliam, you decided to tie yourself up on the bed?” I said calmly. Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright.

  “Inez is very observant,” Sheila snickered from the impenetrable shadows. “She asked me precisely when I had picked up the stupid medallion. It seems she had toyed with it just before Mildred was murdered, and she couldn’t understand why I had it. Inez inquired so nicely that I told her.”

  She took a deep breath, as if to crow. And crow she did, although with modest restraint. “I picked it up after I strangled Mrs. Twiller, naturally, but I didn’t want to tell Inez that until she was properly positioned. I just let her play her melodramatic game at the cemetery, then brought her here to wait for you. I knew you’d come.”

  It was time for a demonstration of my innate authoritativeness. “And why was that, Sheila?” I demanded in a stern tone.

  “Because I wanted you here,” she said smugly.

  I didn’t like that at all. The damned woman was implying that I was a marionette on a conveniently long string. She held the end. Twitch, twitch; hello, Mrs. Malloy.

  “Congratulations, Sheila, I am indeed here. Now that you’ve shown your cunningness, why don’t we turn on a light so that I can untie Inez?”

  “Because I don’t want to,” she said. An audible gloat drifted out of the darkness. “The switch is behind me, Mrs. Mallory; I doubt that you could find it in time.”

  “Why involve me in all this?” I asked.

  “Oh, you’re very much a part of my play. In fact, you’ll have the starring role in the final scene!”

  I shrank from the voice. “I fail to see how Inez is involved, Sheila. After all, she didn’t really see anything. She only appeared in the wrong places at the wrong times.”

  As Nancy Drew, I was supposed to distract the deranged killer until the police burst through the door, brandishing guns and shouting Miranda cautions. The major flaw in my plot was that the police, unless they were clairvoyant, were probably drinking sodas in their plastic lounge. Poor planning on my part. I sent a word of apology to Lieutenant Rosen—in case he was listening. His record to date was not good.

  Sheila seemed to read my less-than-encouraging thoughts. “No one knows that we’re here, Mrs. Malloy. Once I take care of you and the girl, I’ll go back to my dorm room and pack my bags. No one will even notice that I’m missing.”

  “Get off it, Sheila!” I snapped. “You’re forever claiming that no one notices you. I noticed you, for God’s sake. And”—I stopped to take a breath—“Douglas Twiller noticed you, too. About a year ago, I would guess?”

  “We loved each other. When we first met, our hearts cried out as if they were a single voice. He treasured me, called me his precious flower.”

  Inez was grunting and groaning, but not in pain. Azalean fantasies were shallow nursery tales compared to the real-life romance taking form in the inky boudoir. She loved it; I could hear her eyelashes fluttering.

  Before she could contribute any snippets of kindling, I said, “You also had a more prosaic relationship with Douglas Twiller, didn’t you? The typical affair, bed included amid the poetic avowals?”

  Sheila made a noise not unlike the noises coming from the bed. “It was more than an affair, Mrs. Malloy. Douglas loved me, and he wanted to spend his life with me. He was caught in his wife’s vicious snares, however. It was all that stood between us and happiness.”

  “Mildred’s snares?” I laughed crudely. “Mildred Twiller couldn’t snare a handicapped hamster. If Douglas told you that, then he was lying. He was worried about the chairmanship of the English department—they prefer Puritans to satyrs.”

  Sheila’s voice seemed closer as she said, “I finally realized that, Mrs. Malloy. When you told me that he was with another woman, I decided that he was no longer worth the threat he imposed. I took care of him, too.”

  Behind me Inez was positively percolating, which wasn’t going to help. Swatting at her with my hand, I said, “But why did you kill Mildred Twiller? Divorce court would have been easier.”

  “Douglas swore that a divorce would destroy her. I tried to point out that that was the idea, but he was too softhearted,” Sheila hissed, closer. “We were in love, Mrs. Malloy. Not the tawdry sort of love he described in trashy books; it was a pure, unsullied love. There was never any physical anxiety; we wanted only the spiritual bonds to bring us together.”

  That and the Easter Bunny, I told myself. The affair with Sheila must have been a classic in manly deception. It began a year or so ago, I added with a flicker of insight, after a gallery opening. Sheila, thrilled over her pots; Douglas, properly flattering. A hushed conversation in a corner of the gallery, a request to visit her studio, eyes meeting over the rims of plastic champagne glasses. One thing, without fail, had tumbled into another. But Douglas hadn’t made quite the commitment Sheila had.

  I decided that I was obliged to keep her talking, so that the CID could have time to slither up the stairs. Again, a nagging problem. No CID. I took a deep breath and said, “Then why did you kill Douglas, Sheila? Surely your love could have risen above the latest cheap affair. If he was such a great lover—?”

  “He was a coward!” she snapped. “I showed him how to get rid of his wife. We put everyone in the stupid book, so that all of you would have a motive to kill her. I told him everything he needed. All he had to do was tie the knot and get back to the scuzzy bookstore before anyone noticed he wasn’t in the office. But, nooooooo, he chickened out. He couldn’t do it—so I did!”

  “Did he tell you he couldn’t go though with it when he met you on the sidewalk?” I leaned back to fumble for Inez’s binding. Inez wasn’t going to be much help, but there wasn’t a Mountie within a thousand miles. Inez Brandon and Claire Malloy take on King Kong—a late-night classic. A classic disaster.

  “The wimp!” she said scornfully. From the near shadows. Much too close. Much too sibilant.

  “So you went on to the house, tidied up for him, then swore you hadn’t seen him,” I suggested, clawing at the knot around Inez’s ankles.

  “That’s correct, Mrs. Malloy. After all the planning, I couldn�
��t let all those motives fade away. It worked beautifully; you, Britton Blake, and Maggie were all furious enough to strangle Mrs. Twiller. What a shame the detective couldn’t pin it on any of you. I did try to drop a few hints, but he couldn’t follow any of them.

  “A shame,” I agreed. The rope was loosened, but I couldn’t find the belt buckle that kept Inez’s hands behind her back. Once free, I prayed the two of us could do something worthy of the sisterhood—a tackle to the midriff, hair-pulling, whatever.

  “I have a gun,” Sheila said in a conversational voice. I opted to forget the physical ploys. Something subtle.

  “So what?” I said, laughing as if my life depended on it.

  “I’m afraid I have few options, Mrs. Malloy. If I don’t shoot you and Inez, then you’ll tell tales to that horrid detective. If I do, then—why, no one will suspect me. After all, I wrote the final scene for you and you alone. Inez is simply an extra who should have stayed in the wings.”

  I unbuckled Inez and finally found the last knot on her ankles. Since I couldn’t give her any advice without being shot, I squeezed her shoulder and straightened up. “It won’t work, Sheila. I found the medallion at the cemetery and gave it to Lieutenant Rosen. He’ll be here in a matter of minutes.”

  “He knows we’re in the Twiller house?” She chuckled merrily, albeit with a brittle edge. “How quaint, Mrs. Malloy. He doesn’t know we’re here. The house is dark, the door locked. No one knows we’re here—except for us. In the immediate future, there’ll be only one of us to know even that much.”

  She wasn’t including Inez or me in the count. One—and two dead bodies. I shoved Inez hard enough to roll her off the far side of the bed. Then I said, “The CID is on the way, Sheila. The best you can do is run for it. Inez and I will promise not to say anything until you’ve had a chance to get away.”

  “You read too many novels, Mrs. Malloy,” she said. Droplets of moisture splattered on my neck. “We’re alone, and I’m getting bored. If you’ll sit down on the bed—”

  The light flashed on, harsh and unanticipated. My eyes saw nothing but great white circles that slowly dimmed to red as I blinked furiously. Sheila, on the other hand, must have seen the guns and scowls long before I did.

  I was still blinking when she said, “Here, take it. I wasn’t going to shoot anyone. I was just…”

  Going to strangle them, I added silently. Lieutenant Rosen finally came into focus, his feral teeth adding to the glare. Sheila was whisked away by the omnipresent Jorgeson, no doubt to find herself in thumb screws on the petite rack. Inez was under the bed, whimpering. It was a good thing she hadn’t had to fling herself into battle.

  Minutes later, Inez was also whisked away to her mother’s comforting bosom. That left me—and Sherlock.

  By tacit agreement we went to the liquor cabinet in the living room. I poured a shy eight ounces of scotch, then went to the shrouded sofa and sat down. Lieutenant Rosen dug around until he found whiskey; I suspected the man was a barbarian the first time I heard his accent. Now it was confirmed.

  “So you knew where Miss Brandon was hiding?” he said, watching the golden liquid slosh in his glass. It caught the light from the fixture above and glittered in a lazy whirlpool.

  “I didn’t know; I only wondered. It seems I wondered well,” I retorted. “If you had bothered to ask me at the cemetery, I would have told you. But Sherlock has to solve the case without any help from a mortal…” The scotch scalded my throat divinely, all the way from my tonsils to my toes.

  “And the medallion?”

  “How did you know that I—? Hendrix, right?”

  He nodded and held out his hand. I found the thing in my pocket, tossed it in his direction, and sunk further into the shroud. “It was on poor Mildred’s grave,” I said. “Sheila must have carried it around in case she could use it to frame someone. Inez was the best she could find. That must have been a graver disappointment than the boudoir color scheme.”

  “Why give the medallion to Miss Brandon?”

  “She must have felt the need to implicate Inez further. She followed her to the cemetery, offered the medallion, and then lured her here with some nonsense about rescuing Twilliam.”

  “Then tied up Miss Brandon and wafted into the shadows to wait for you, Mrs. Malloy. Having made sure that you were aware of Caron’s involvement, she knew you would come. Did it occur to you that you might have told me what you suspected?”

  “And where is Twilliam, by the way?”

  “Jorgeson’s wife has filed adoption papers at the pound. Jorgeson has been mumbling about a barbecue; I think I’ll pass up that invitation.” He studied the medallion for a moment, then added, “You might have been eliminated, you know. The whole thing was arranged to ultimately get to you.”

  “Me? Mildred and Douglas would beg to differ, if they could,” I retorted, trying not to squeak. “Why me?”

  “Because of what your husband did to Sheila’s sister eight years ago,” Lieutenant Rosen said calmly, as if he hadn’t mentioned my demise in an unnecessarily light tone. “Your husband had Sheila’s sister with him when they had the wreck. Although the girl survived, she was terribly disfigured. She ended up in a nursing home, and three years ago she killed herself.”

  “Not Britton’s girlfriend’s sister?” I continued in the same shrill voice. Reality, where is thy volume control?

  “She is thirteen years old. Farber wouldn’t enroll her unless she had perfect SATs to go along with the tuition. And not even Douglas Twiller would mess with her—she has braces.”

  “You interviewed her? Braces and all?” It hadn’t been a particularly good theory, but it had been my best. Some of it had been correct. Sheila, a sister with vengeance on her mind. All that effort, coming to Farber in the fine arts program, meeting Douglas and allowing him to seduce her, while stalking innocent little me all that time. The shudders got the best of me.

  Before I could voice a protest, Lieutenant Rosen swooped down to grasp my shoulders. “Are you planning on hysterics? I suppose I ought to slap you or something.”

  “If you slap me, you’ll eat cheek for a week,” I said as I yanked myself free. Hysterics? A display of surprise, perhaps, and even a bit of disquiet. I do not have hysterics. Ever. I have scotch instead. I tossed off three inches in a discreet gulp.

  The lieutenant edged out of range. “Is there anything else you’d like to know before we settle down to paperwork? The problem with the disappearing copies, anything at all?”

  “No, thank you. I knew all the answers hours and hours ago. I just wanted to give the woman a chance to explain,” I said haughtily.

  “And shoot you,” he agreed with his damned smile. His ego forced him to elaborate, since I didn’t. “When her sister committed suicide, Miss Belinski swore revenge on the entire Farber faculty—and on you in particular. It took several years to put the plan in motion. She completed an undergraduate degree, applied to Farber, and was accepted in the graduate school. Between throwing pots she listened to campus gossip and learned that the Twillers were friends of yours. It was not difficult to wiggle her way into Twiller’s bed, as countless coeds will attest. Pillow talk inspired the scheme. She readily supplied the information about your husband and his affair. I think she realized that you would not respond by going into seclusion to sulk.”

  “I do not sulk,” I corrected him sulkily.

  “In any case, she then perched on the edge of her web and watched. With Carlton, Caron, and Inez involved, she knew you’d trot into her parlor sooner or later. In the meantime, the faculty was indeed squirming over the book, which amused her no end.”

  “Why did Douglas agree to write the book?”

  “Amiable Mr. Twiller had motives of his own. He had known for several months that his pen name was in jeopardy; if Mrs. Twiller actually refused to continue, he didn’t particularly need her any longer.”

  “So he was willing to strangle her out of convenience?”

  “In theory. A di
vorce would have hurt his chances for the promotion, and he would have been in no position to negotiate for the division of wealth. So he obediently wrote the book to Sheila’s specifications, throwing in all kinds of nasty things about their cast of suspects. However, he backed out at the vital moment, and Sheila decided to see it through. Twiller was caught; he couldn’t admit he was a part of the scheme to murder his wife.”

  “So he scurried off to bed with a new coed, just for appearances. I blabbed to Sheila, and then she killed him, too.” I licked the rim of my empty glass. “My fault, I suppose.”

  Lieutenant Rosen shook his head to absolve me from the sin. “Twiller was waist-deep in it; he was at best an accessory to the murder of his wife, and he knew it. He just couldn’t figure how to keep writing those trashy books without a front. The chairmanship of the English department would have eased his transition into the middle class.”

  “How did you and the Mounties manage to arrive at the crucial moment? Sheila had just announced she was getting bored when you stormed in. Ten seconds, and Inez and I would have been able to discuss the mess with Douglas and Mildred—in person.”

  “Caron called the police station. When you left the house on foot, she hung out the window long enough to see you reach the corner. Unfortunately, she couldn’t tell which way you turned. We went by the Book Depot first.”

  “My daughter called you?”

  “As any law-abiding citizen would do in the same situation.”

  I stared at him. “While you were fumbling around my bookstore, I might have been hurt. Of course, you should have known who was behind the scheme. Any detective worth his salary could have spotted the coincidence of the name and asked Sheila a few questions about her sister.”

  “Belinski came from a brief marriage. Her maiden name was Stephens, but nobody thought to ask. I should have realized that Twiller wasn’t devious enough to pull off the murder; he couldn’t carry on an affair without it being common knowledge on the campus. The only person who couldn’t see through him was his wife.”