A Conventional Corpse: A Claire Malloy Mystery Read online

  “Claire.”

  “That is my name,” I said as I plucked the bottle out of his hand and opened the front door. “If you don’t mind, I have a difficult day in front of me. Go home and call Leslie—unless, of course, she’s at your house, waiting for you to commence activity. She doesn’t sound like the sort of woman to greet you in flannel pajamas and face cream. Good night, Peter. If we meet anytime soon, it will not be at my instigation.”

  “Leslie and I are not going to remarry.”

  “Then I shall be spared the necessity of finding an appropriate wedding present. Cobras are expensive and hard to wrap. Good night.”

  Peter stood up. “It’s the genetic thing. It has nothing to do with my feelings toward you.”

  I willed my lips not to so much as quiver. “Congratulations on your impending fatherhood. I’m sure you’ll make a wonderful Little League coach. Will you please leave?”

  The moment the door closed, I collapsed on the sofa and grabbed the telephone. “Luanne,” I shrieked when she answered. “What have I done? What has he done? What am I supposed to do about what he has or hasn’t done? Has he really done it? We are not talking petri dishes here.”

  Luanne took a minute to assimilate all this, then sighed and said, “Would you care to elaborate?”

  Chapter

  6

  I was not in the best of moods the next morning as I went into Old Main and down the hall to Room 130. The door was locked, to my chagrin but not my surprise.

  Earlene was seated behind a card table at the far end of the hallway, passing out packets to a line of conference attendees. “The panel’s in the room behind me,” she said as I approached. “None of the authors have shown up yet, but I guess they’ll be along.”

  “Caron’s on her way to the Azalea Inn,” I said. “Not everyone can squeeze into the car at one time, but it’s only a three-minute drive. Do you have the key to the room where the signings are supposed to take place?”

  She gave me a stricken look. “No, but maybe Sally knows where to find one. If you’ll take over registration, I can call her.”

  “That’s not necessary,” I said in the tempered voice of a mild-mannered bookseller whose ex-lover was likely to be in the process of inseminating his ex-wife out of exaggerated concern for the genetic health of the next generation. “Let’s assume that someone will appear to unlock the door between now and the first break.” It occurred to me that the person responsible to do so might be Arnie, in which case I might as well ask Earlene to call Sally and find out how best to locate a crowbar.

  I was pinning on my badge when Sherry Lynne, Allegra, and Dilys came down the hall. “Is the inn comfortable?” I asked.

  Sherry Lynne grabbed my arm. “How’s Wimple? Is he eating?”

  “He was a bit distressed last night, but he settled in,” I said. “He’s most certainly eating.”

  Dilys raised her eyebrows. “You ought to buy a child next time you’re at a pet store, Sherry Lynne. They’re cheaper to feed and better at expressing their sources of dissatisfaction. They’re not terribly good at catching mice, but they can be trained to clean their own litter boxes. Most of them, anyway.”

  “Oh, no,” Allegra said with a groan, “please don’t pull out photos of your grandchildren again.”

  “They are particularly attractive,” Dilys said to me. “Wilmont’s head is on the large side, but the pediatrician says this indicates superior intelligence.”

  “Wilmont is walking at the remarkable age of seventeen months,” Allegra added. “If he ever starts talking, it undoubtedly will be in fluent French.”

  Dilys gave her an icy look, then turned around to speak to fans carrying armloads of her books. Sherry Lynne was surrounded as well by fans with shopping bags filled with her backlist. Allegra waited for a moment, then went into the ladies’ room.

  A few minutes later Walter and Roxanne came down the hall. Neither had visible claw marks, but I gathered the three-minute ride had not been amiable. Caron did not appear in their wake; odds were she had crawled under the car and was begging pedestrians to release the emergency brake.

  “Roxanne,” I said, “I hope you’ll contribute to the discussion.”

  “Of course I will, Sally,” she said as she squeezed my hands. “I want to do everything I can to make Farber College’s first mystery conference successful. The reception last night was delightful, and I so enjoyed the lentil soup and sprout sandwiches. My system will be exuberant by tomorrow.”

  “While mine shall be authenticating an entirely new definition of writer’s block,” Walter said as he went into the seminar room.

  Despite the fact it was most clearly none of my business (which has never stopped me yet), I was about to ask Roxanne about Walter when I saw Jorgeson tromping down the hall. This was not good, in that Jorgeson is Peter’s minion and never drops by with a bouquet of flowers and a free movie pass. He and Peter focus on criminal investigations, not fraternity pranks and parking tickets. The possibility that something dire had happened to Peter flitted across my consciousness but was not allowed to light.

  “What’s up?” I asked him as we moved into a stairwell.

  “Bad news,” he said. “One of the people signed up to be here was killed last night. Most likely it was an accident, Ms. Malloy, but we have to ask. You know how it is.”

  “I suppose I do,” I said as I leaned against the wall.

  He took out a notebook. “Her name was Amelia Threety. Age thirty, unmarried, ran a hardware store in Hasty. She had a car wreck last night on the highway. A track driver stopped and tried to help, but there wasn’t much he could do. She died before the ambulance got there.”

  “Oh, God,” I said, sinking onto the floor.

  “You saw her last night?”

  “Yes. She was burbling with enthusiasm over her college days. She’d found the inspiration to go home and rededicate herself to becoming a writer. She may not have been the brightest star in the constellation, but she was so imbued with optimism.” I wiped my eyes. “What happened?”

  “According to the truck driver, she missed a curve, ran off the road, and smacked into a tree. No one was following too closely, and no one was coming from the other direction with headlights that might have momentarily blinded her.”

  “So why are you here?”

  “We understand she was at a wine and cheese reception last night for this conference.”

  “At the Azalea Inn,” I said, nodding. “I saw her with a glass of wine early in the evening, but when I left, she was having coffee with the authors and an old friend of hers. I had no sense she’d been drinking too much.”

  “The medical examiner ran a blood alcohol test, and it was well under the limit. Thing is, he also did a basic drag screen, and there was some kind of barbiturate in her system that might have interacted with as little as one glass of wine. The sheriff’s deputies talked to her parents, and they swear she wouldn’t so much as take an aspirin unless she was in bed with the flu and running a temperature. Parents don’t always know what their children do, but the sheriff asked us to look into her activities last night.” Jorgeson’s bulldog jowls sagged. “And there was your name, Ms. Malloy. When I die and go to heaven, is Saint Peter gonna tell me I have to wait on a bench outside until you meddle into the cause of death?”

  Both of us wished he had not uttered Peter’s name, but we did our best to ignore it. “Most likely, Jorgeson,” I said briskly, standing up. “The person you should speak to is Earlene, whose last name I don’t know but whose whereabouts I do. She agreed to take Ammie to her car after the reception.”

  “Speaking of Peter . . .”

  “Unfortunately.”

  “The lieutenant said he was going to talk to you.”

  “He came by my apartment last night.” After a short battle, my self-respect succumbed to baser instincts. “Do you know anything about the lovely Leslie? Is she in Farberville buying a layette? Shall I send a silver spoon?”

  �
�I don’t know what’s going on, Ms. Malloy. All I know is the lieutenant’s moping around the office and mumbling to himself like a drank. He’s more miserable than the guys we find living in makeshift tents at the edge of town.”

  I held back a smug smile. “I suggest that you have a word with Earlene, who may well have been the last person to speak to Ammie. Perhaps Ammie asked her for a pill to counteract cold or allergy symptoms. Pharmacology is not my area of expertise.”

  He gave me a rueful look. “And mine’s not counseling.”

  I impulsively leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “You’re a sweet man, Jorgeson. One of these days I may decide to call you by your first name. What does your wife call you?”

  His face turned red. “That, Ms. Malloy, is between her and me.”

  Rather than embarrass him by pressing for details, I went out to the registration table. “Earlene,” I said, “someone needs to handle this while I have a word with you. Are there any other committee members here?”

  “I’ll do it,” said a woman in wire-rimmed glasses and a broad-brimmed flannel hat. “It can’t be harder than checking out books after story hour. The beasties are always drooling on their library cards, if not chewing on them.”

  Earlene reluctantly allowed me to pull her into the stairwell, where I told her as gendy as I could about Ammie. She sat down on a step and bowed her head for a long while, then looked up.

  “I feel just awful,” she said. “If I’d for one second thought she shouldn’t drive herself, I would have taken her home. She seemed fine, though. She thanked me for taking her to her car, said something about how much she’d enjoyed the reception, and offered to volunteer today if we needed anyone. The last thing she said to me was that next year she’d sign up for a committee and help however she could. I don’t know what we should do, Claire.”

  I gave her a tissue from my purse. “Well, we’re not going to call Sally. She’s dealing with enough stress as it is.” I glanced back at Jorgeson. “I should tell the people who were having coffee with Ammie last night. Is that a problem?”

  He shook his head. “It was on the local television news this morning. What I’d like to know is if anyone gave her something that might have caused the reaction. It was most likely done as a kind gesture. The only reason I’ve been assigned is to clear up the details. Once we find the source of the barbiturate, the matter will be closed.”

  “I didn’t give her a pill,” Earlene said, beginning to sniffle. “If she’d asked, I might have checked to see if I had anything, but she didn’t say a word. She was so happy, Claire.”

  “I know,” I said in an ineffectual attempt to comfort her. “Why don’t you take a walk? Registration’s under control.”

  Jorgeson and I watched her go out the door at the end of the hall. I glanced at my watch, then said, “Those who had coffee with Ammie are in the panel room, but so are a hundred people who’ve paid to listen to them speak. Is there any chance you can come back at eleven?”

  “I don’t see why not, Ms. Malloy.”

  “They have an hour-and-a-half break before the luncheon. I’ll ask them to wait here so that you can talk with them.”

  I went into the seminar room. The authors, at this point without Laureen, had taken seats at the table in the front of the room. Dilys and Allegra were chatting. Sherry Lynne was staring at her folded hands, possibly uttering a quiet prayer for Wimple’s well-being or for Dimple and Doolittle, cruelly abandoned for the weekend, although no doubt boarded at an establishment more expensive than the Azalea Inn (or possibly the Ritz-Carlton). Walter was arguing with a woman in the front row, who seemed ready to leap to her feet and thump him with her book bag.

  As reluctant as I was to interrupt a promising scenario, I went behind them and said, “I have some sad news. Ammie was killed in a car wreck on her way home last night. The attendees have already spent money to travel here and stay in hotels, so there’s no way we can cancel the conference. I’ll make the announcement, ask for a moment of silence, and then we’ll proceed as planned. Is this all right with everybody?”

  I’d been expecting a show of emotion, but they all nodded and resumed what they’d been doing. I looked out at those seated in the audience and at those coming through the door with their packets and badges. Roxanne deserved to be told privately, but she wasn’t in the room. The woman who’d worried about leaving early the previous evening wasn’t there, either, but she’d mentioned getting up early to go to work, possibly in a situation that involved deeply distressed poultry. She’d probably been there for the free wine.

  At nine o’clock, I took my position behind the podium and made the announcement. Varying degrees of grief crossed the audience’s faces, and a few tissues were taken out to wipe away tears. I stressed that the police were investigating it as an accident, gazed at the grainy wood of the podium for a minute, then cleared my throat and asked the panelists to voice their opinions about amateur sleuths.

  An hour later, no one at the table had actually descended to the level of physical savagery, although Dilys had accused Walter of pomposity, Sherry Lynne had scolded Allegra for gratuitous violence against defenseless creatures, Walter had used the word “insipid” eleven times and “fatuous” eight times, and Allegra was clicking her pen in a most ominous fashion. Members of the audience had attempted to ask questions, but they’d been drowned out by the arguments among the authors.

  The door banged open and Laureen came into the room. “Darlings,” she said as she came forward, “you are babbling like the mob in A Tale of Two Cities. If a guillotine needs to be brought into the room, I’m sure Claire will arrange it. In the meantime, let’s do stay on topic.” She sat down in the chair left vacant for her and beamed at the audience. “The amateur sleuth dates back well before the Golden Age of British mystery fiction, but did not really achieve significant popularity until the advent of the contemporary gothic heroine novels. In my first novel, written quite a few years ago, I introduced a plucky young woman willing to defend her virtue and her inheritance. In order to do so, she was required to face peril with strength and sensibilities.”

  Laureen managed to retain control for the next hour, reducing her colleagues to mute glowers. I was delighted to sit back and watch as she ran the show with the expertise of a besequinned Las Vegas emcee. We may have lacked albino tigers and nubile women wearing little other than feathers, but the threat of bloodshed evaporated. At eleven, she called the session to a close and reminded everyone that a luncheon would be provided at the student union ballroom.

  “Wait!” I said, leaping up. “These delightful authors will be available to sign their books in room one-thirty in five minutes.”

  Earlene waved from the back of the room. “I just checked and it’s still locked. Maybe we can have the signing after the second session.”

  A woman in the second row stood up. “Will you sign the ones we brought with us? I’ve got every book Ms. Parks wrote, all the way back to The Maze at the Manor.”

  I gestured at the audience to go for it, then caught up with Earlene before she could find a telephone. “I’ll call maintenance,” I said. “We’ll have books available for sale before and after the second session. If the authors attempt to leave the room, please mention that Sergeant Jorgeson will be here shortly to have a word with them about last night. Afterwards, Caron and Inez will be outside should anyone prefer to be driven to the student union rather than stroll over there.”

  I left Earlene poised to tackle any of the authors who tried to flee, and went up the staircase to the English department office. I had expected to find it locked, so I was a bit surprised to find the secretary clicking away on her keyboard.

  “Am I disturbing you?” I said.

  “Why would barging in and asking me a stupid question disturb me? The only reason I would come into the office on a Saturday morning is to make out my Christmas wish list. I would never come in just because Dr. Shackley called and told me he wants verification of references of
all the applicants for teaching assistantships for the fall semester on his desk first thing Monday morning. If that’s what I was doing, you would be disturbing me.”

  “May I please use your telephone?”

  She hit a couple of keys. “Be my guest. I’m torn between a Bentiey and a Rolls-Royce. I’ll have to think about it while I go pee.”

  Wondering who had the courage to cohabitate with her, I waited until the door closed, then called the maintenance extension. No one answered. There had to be an emergency number for weekend crises, I told myself, and the loss of significant book sales was certainly more critical than a mere explosion in a chemistry lab. I called the college operator and politely requested the emergency number.

  “I do not have that number,” intoned the operator.

  “There has to be one. What if the elevators in one of the dorms quit operating? No one could expect the residents to walk up to the ninth floor for two days.”

  “Which dorm is experiencing this problem?”

  “None of them. That was hypothetical.”

  “Hypothetically, which dorm is experiencing this problem?”

  “What difference does it make?” I said, trying to remain calm. “Let’s say the freshman girls’ dorm, okay?”

  “We no longer segregate students by gender due to federal statutes forbidding discrimination by race, creed, color, national origin, age, or sex.”

  “Pick a dorm, any dorm. If a crisis arose, whom would you call?”

  “What is the address of this hypothetical dorm?”

  I banged down the receiver. I had a feeling the department secretary would not take up my cause, so I went down to the first floor. Jorgeson was heading into the seminar room. I followed him.

  The remaining attendees had the last of their books signed and filed out. Jorgeson smiled as he sat down oh a chair in the first row. “Nobody should be concerned about this investigation.”

  “Investigation?” Laureen echoed.

  I realized she’d missed the original announcement. “Ammie was killed in a car wreck last night,” I said.