Eleanor might be a nonpareil of efficiency, but she had been wrong about her husband. The manager of the Hideaway Haven had recognized him, and it was impossible to imagine it as a site for seminars and faculty banquets. Had she also been wrong about his itinerary? Instead of being in the midst of a legal convention (or a hand of blackjack), could he be in the midst of searching the now vacant sorority house for the damning photographs?
I went to my bedroom and peered hopefully for a pinprick of light from a bobbling flashlight. No light appeared, nor did a disembodied white face drift across a window pane like a reflection of the man in the moon. Only one side of the house was visible, and there was no reason to think he’d be accommodating enough to show himself on command.
All I’d do was circle the house from a prudent distance, I told myself as I went downstairs and paused in my yard to dredge up an ounce of courage. Foolhardy heroines might creep around attics and dungeons, but I’d had a minor problem with that in the past-and only the arrival of the police had allowed me to remain in any condition to relate the highlights to future grandchildren.
Impressed by my singular display of common sense, I strolled along the sidewalk, my eyes darting furtively at the windows on the upper stories. Once past the house, I cut through the yard of a fraternity house and emerged in the alley, ascertained no cars were lurking in the shadows, and moved cautiously along the side of the sorority house.
At the edge of the porch, I stopped and retraced my path back to the alley, scanned the windows on the back facade, and then went into the area of the yard that adjoined my duplex.
Five minutes later I’d completed the circle and seen absolutely nothing worthy of my stealth. I leaned against the porch and acknowledged the possibility that John Vanderson was in Las Vegas, Debbie Anne and Arnie were at the Dew Drop Inn, Winkle and Ed were cruising down a moonlit country road, Rebecca and Pippa were entertaining men at the Hideaway Haven, Eleanor Vanderson was on the telephone with a neurologist, and I was a failure as an amateur sleuth. A bruised and battered failure, approaching forty, accused of being menopausal, with a daughter already embroiled in a life of crime. And able to alienate a man in a single bound.
A small white form streaked past me and disappeared into the shrubbery. Gulping back a shriek, I stared as it clawed its way up the side of the house to the windowsill, and, with a yowl, squirmed beneath the screen and vanished. Katie had chosen to ignore Eleanor’s eviction orders, or some inkling of instinct had compelled her to return home.
If the cat wanted to prowl through the house all night, it was not my concern. Winkie would know where to look and come back for it in the morning. My charitable impulses were confined to my own species, and I had teeth marks on my hand and ankle to reinforce my absolute lack of interest in the cat’s well-being. Right.
Loathing myself, I pushed my way through the hostile shrub, lifted the edge of the screen, and gracelessly slithered over the windowsill and onto the table in Winkie’s kitchen.
“Katie!” I whispered, lacking the sibilance to hiss.
No amber eyes appeared in the dark. Repeating her name softly, I squirmed across the table and managed to get my feet on the floor without banging my head in the process. There was enough light from outside for me to see that Katie was not in the immediate vicinity. The doors to the bedroom and bathroom were closed, precluding her escape into those rooms. I went into the living room. The furniture remained, but personal effects had been removed.
I glumly noted that the front door of the suite was ajar, thus allowing the cat access to the entire house. And I, too, had access to the entire house, I realized as I spotted Winkie’s key ring on the coffee table. Beside it was a pink paper cat with the standard saccharine message and a handwritten note explaining how sorry Winkie was that in her haste to move she’d not had the opportunity to deliver the keys to Eleanor’s house. Wh4 a shame, I thought as I picked up the key ring and went to the foyer, reminded myself of my mission, and dutifully called the cat as I roamed through the kitchen, living room, lounge, dining room, and hallway of the wing where the girls had lived.
I stopped outside what had been Jean’s room. The last time I’d been in there, all of her possessions had been packed in boxes and suitcases and piled in the middle of the room. Eleanor could have arranged for them to be sent to California, but she might have overlooked this chore in her haste to empty the house.
I tried more than half the keys before I happened upon the right one. Inside the room was adequate light to determine that the boxes and suitcases were still there. Jean wouldn’t have hidden the packet somewhere else in the sorority house, I thought as I sat down on the edge of the stripped bed and propped my chin with my hand. Even the ritual closet would be risky, since the sorority sisters went in and out of it on meeting nights. I recalled what I could of Jean’s possessions, trying to envision each as a receptacle for photographs featuring the dean of the law school in ignominious disarray. When enlightenment failed to strike, I turned on the light, sat down on the floor and opened the first box.
More than an hour later, I knew that none of the books had been mutilated to provide a hiding place. Nothing had been tucked in a shoe, a pocket, a cosmetics case, a briefcase, or anything else with tuckability. She’d accumulated a daunting number of pink paper cats with coy handwritten messages, but they seemed to be her only concession to college memorabilia.
Except for the incriminating photographs, which she’d been selling. It occurred to me that Rebecca might have found them when she packed Jean’s possessions, and was settled in a new apartment busily modifying a payment plan for John Vanderson-one that precluded dark alleys.
I’d searched in a neat and efficient fashion, conscientiously replacing items once I’d examined them. I gathered up the stuffed cats and lobbed them one by one into a box, wishing I could gather up Katie as easily and return her to her mistress. The cats made quite an armful… as did the beers Doobie’d served to the girls… and the used textbooks that Debbie Anne Wray had brought to the Book Depot on what Caron would describe as a Fateful Day.
New textbooks cost a fortune, and used ones were worth a decent amount of money. Selling them wouldn’t generate as much as the return of a coat that had been shoplifted from a mall store, nor would their resale be as lucrative as that of a personal computer or a portable television.
The stuffed cats tumbled from my arms as I returned to the bed and lay down. Were the Kappa Theta Etas, under the leadership of Jean Hall, raising money not only from prostitution and blackmail, but also from theft? I remembered what Peter had said about Arnie’s patronage of a known fencing operation. With the owner of the pawnshop in prison, had Arnie taken over the business? It would explain his newfound ability to pay rent and buy beer at the Dew Drop Inn, and it would explain why he and Rebecca were acquainted, why he’d parked in the alley at midnight, and why he’d been outside the house and able to avail himself of occasional photo opportunities. Like any ambitious businessman, he’d provided curbside pickup and delivery service.
Finally I had something that I had to tell the police, even if it meant facing Peter Surely he and Officer Pipkin would be so grateful for the tip that they could restrain themselves from physical intimacy long enough to congratulate me on my brilliance. The serial numbers on the computers stashed in the upper-story rooms would prove my hypothesis, and Arnie could be surprisingly compliant when invited to confess to various crimes. The police would question the entire membership of the sorority, and the girls would break down eventually and incriminate each other with the enthusiasm they evinced for the Kappa hymn, as would Winkie if she was aware of what her young thoroughbreds had been doing. Debbie Anne was apt to turn up along the way, especially when the manager of the Hideaway Haven and his buddy found it expedient to adopt a more cooperative and loquacious attitude.