“Dean Vanderson is in a meeting,” a secretary informed me. “Then he has appointments all afternoon, and a reception at five for a federal judge. After that, he’s hosting a dinner party for the judge and some of the faculty. Tomorrow he leaves for a week-long legal symposium in Las Vegas. If you can catch him, say hello for me.”
I waited a moment to see if she’d finished reciting the litany. “This can’t wait for a week,” I said.
“Neither can final approval of the grant proposal that’s due on Friday, nor can the editor of the Law Review, nor can the coed with a sexual harassment charge, nor can the faculty adviser of the judicial committee.” She hung up.
Humph, I thought as I went to the door and gazed at the traffic rattling over the train tracks. It didn’t sound as though I would be able to regain access to Dean Vanderson’s office as easily as I had the night before, not with a Medusa in the front room turning students and visitors alike to stone. Even if I were to risk such a fate, I was leery about running into the unfriendly custodian.
The mock Mrs. Vanderson decided to see what she could wheedle of the legitimate one. I resumed my seat, looked up her number and called it, hoping it was too early for the luncheon circuit to have begun.
“Vanderson residence.”
I was shocked into silence, wildly wondering if my brain had been turned to stone. I gulped, blinked, and finally said, “Debbie Anne? Is that you?”
“No, it isn’t!”
My entire body must have been turned to stone. I was unable to do anything except listen to the dial tone until a series of beeps nudged me into a semblance of consciousness. I numbly redialed the number. After a dozen plaintive rings, I replaced the receiver and considered the five words that she’d said. The twangy nasality of the voice was distinctive, and she had identified the residence. Had I made a mistake that offended the responder so deeply that she’d stalked out of earshot of the telephone? Or out the front door? If it had indeed been Debbie Anne, why had she reacted with abruptness? And what on earth was she doing at the Vandersons’ house?
I jotted down the address, locked the store, and ran to my car, congratulating myself on having driven to the bookstore on the off chance I might need to meet Dean Vanderson in a remote spot. “Just stay there,” I muttered as I pulled onto Thurber Street and headed for Farberville’s historic district.
I’d repeated the plea a hundred times as I crept down Washington Avenue, looking for the house number Enough of the historically correct occupants had numbers affixed to their porches to allow me to home in like a Scud missile and park in front of a well-preserved yellow Victorian house with a turret topped by a brass eagle. It and the lawn surrounding it were immaculate. There were no cars in the driveway.
No more than fifteen minutes had elapsed since the call, I tried to reassure myself as I hurried to the porch and knocked. No skinny girls had been walking on the sidewalks, and I knew she hadn’t driven away in her car. I knocked again, then spotted an old-fashioned doorbell and twisted it vigorously. I could hear it grinding within, pleading for someone to heed its call and answer the door No one did, however, and I finally let my hand drop.
“Are you looking for Eleanor?”
I looked back at a blue-haired woman wearing a raincoat and holding a leash with a gloved hand. At the end of the leash was a cocker spaniel dancing with excitement. “Yes, I am.” I struggled not to look as if I’d been considering breaking into the house with the brick at the edge of the porch. “Do you know when she’ll be back?”
“She’s at her garden club, and then I believe it’s her afternoon at the gift shop at the hospital.” The woman glanced at the brick. “I live next door, and I’ll be happy to let her know you dropped by for a visit.”
“That’s so very kind of you. Actually, I’m looking for one of the Kappa Theta Eta pledges who’s staying here.”
“Eleanor didn’t mention that she and John have a houseguest. Last summer her niece came for two weeks, but she’s an alumna rather than a pledge. A lovely girl, I must say, and very clever She has a degree in business administration, but what with the twins and her fundraising efforts on behalf of the sorority, she’s put her career on hold. Her husband is an orthodontist.”
“Isn’t that interesting,” I murmured mendaciously. I waited, but the woman clearly intended to remain rooted to the sidewalk. Her dog had collapsed at her feet and was licking her shoe, out of either affection or starvation. “So you haven’t noticed a tall, thin girl with brown hair?”
“They’re all tall and thin these days, aren’t they? When I was a gal, we were encouraged to have a few curves, but now they all strive to look like matchsticks.” She yanked on the leash. “Stop that, Brandy. Are you a Kappa Theta Eta, dear? I myself was a Chi Omega; I had so many legacies that I was almost carried through the door and bestowed on a throne on the first day of rush. My granddaughter’s pledging this fall at my very own alma mater.”
She was a formidable opponent. I conceded her the win, smiled vaguely at the dog, and said I’d try to catch Eleanor at another time. She was still standing on the sidewalk as I drove away, more because of the entanglement with the leash than out of suspicion-or so I hoped. I drove past the library and up the hill, gnawing on my fingernail and considering what to do. I knew what I should do, of course. There was no question that I was teetering at the fringe of propriety, of what I could justify even to myself. Peter would listen to me (in between his ever so tedious remarks about my propensity for meddling), and he would be able to question the Vandersons, search the house, and eventually determine if they were harboring a fugitive. I, in contrast, had been stymied by a woman with a dog. A boot-licking cocker spaniel.
Short of storming the garden club to take Eleanor hostage, I was at a loss for ideas. I finally parked in a site popular with moonsick lovers, cut off the engine, and let my head fall back against the seat. Jean Hall had coerced Debbie Anne into doing something-something that related to the boutique at the mall? Why dash away instead of acknowledging the mistake and heading for the proper store? Had Dean Vanderson stashed Debbie Anne in the attic and gone to the sorority house to get the negatives? Negatives of what? It was frightfully irksome that the anonymous caller preferred to deal with Caron, I thought with a sigh.
My next move was obvious, if not pretty.
12
Shortly before seven o’clock, I parked in a strategically chosen spot on a street perpendicular to Washington Avenue, and slouched in the seat in the tradition of a jaded private eye resigned to a boring and bitterly cold night of surveillance (it was a balmy evening, and we had two hours of daylight to go, but I was, as Caron would say, In A Mood). The Vandersons’ Mercedes was parked in the driveway under the protection of an ancient magnolia tree, and as I watched, the car I’d seen in front of the Kappa Theta Eta house pulled in behind it. My quarry hurried into the house.
I was dressed not in a trenchcoat and fedora, but in a becoming green dress. I’d gone so far as to don pantyhose, heels, and faux pearls for the occasion. Having never hosted a federal judge, I wasn’t sure when the festivities would begin, but I was praying I had a few minutes to speak in private to the dean.
My prayers went unnoticed. Before I reached the house, a black Cadillac stopped at the curb, followed by an entourage of imported vehicles. Those who emerged were dressed to kill, in the figurative sense, and were chattering amiably as they started for the house. Adopting my contingency plan, I slipped through the group and tucked my hand under the arm of a man with the white hair of a televangelist, the deceptively trustworthy eyes of same, and a hawkish red nose-and therefore the man most likely to be the revered judge.