Poisoned Pins

“Take one more step and I’ll go sit in Judge Frankley’s lap and tell him the entire story,” I said, still so appalled that I was trembling. “Do you admit you called my house and made threats to my daughter?”

“She has a very disconcerting ma

It was sheer lunacy, I thought, as well it should be. I was standing beside a pool conversing with the man in the moon, who was worried about his palette. Romping with coeds thirty years younger was not a problem, and blackmail was pesky-but the color of his tie? Was dark red too adventurous? Dare he try green and navy stripes?

“I’ll check and get back to you,” I said numbly, then went past him and through a gate to the driveway. I made it to my car, rolled up the windows and locked the doors, and rested my forehead on the steering wheel. I waited to see if I was going to laugh or cry, but at last decided I was much too confused to do anything at all.

I’d been told Jean Hall kept the pledge class busy with picnics, parties, and community activities. No one had mentioned less i

A fist knocked on the window. Before I could scream, which I fully intended to do, a concerned male voice said, “Are you all right, ma’am?’

I exhaled and determined the voice belonged to a policeman barely out of his teens. “I’m fine, thank you. I was just thinking for a moment before I drove home.”

He drew circles with his finger until I reluctantly rolled down the window. “Would you step out of the vehicle, ma’am?”

“Under no circumstance will I step out of the vehicle, sir. That would make it impossible to drive home, and as soon as you move back, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

“I’m asking you again to step out of the vehicle,” he said with a good deal less cordiality in his voice. “If you refuse to comply, I’ll be forced to take action against you.”

“You’re going to drag me out of my car and sling me on the pavement? Is this because you don’t think I parked close enough to the curb, or because ordinary, law-abiding citizens are not allowed to sit and think, but must instead cater to whatever idiotic whim overtakes an officer of the law?” It was good, but based on his deepening scowl, not good enough. I continued, “And why are you here, anyway? This is a residential neighborhood, not a housing project with crack dealers and fences and gang members on every corner. Look right there, Officer. Is there a vicious killer on that deserted corner? I think not.”

“I’m on a security assignment because of a prominent public figure visiting in this area. I’m going to say this one last time. Step out of the vehicle, ma’am, and keep. your hands in sight at all times.”

I did as requested, but I expressed my vexation in colorful detail throughout the time it took him to find that I could indeed walk a straight line, touch my nose with my eyes closed, and watch his fingertip flitter in and out of view. My driver’s license and registration were examined carefully, and verified via his radio. All the while, I wanted to tell him there was a philandering potential killer inside the yellow house not a hundred yards away, dining on quail and conversing with a prominent public figure on genteel subjects such as torts (but not, I should think, tarts).

“This never happened to Miss Marple,” I snarled as I took back my license and registration. “She didn’t have to deal with overly zealous policemen who ought to be home with a baby-sitter rather than out harassing the citizenry.”

“Do us both a favor and move to St. Mary Mead,” he said as he went to his car.

Grumbling like the boiler at the Book Depot, I drove home and parked in the garage. There were no traces of successful decomposition on the kitchen floor, nor in the child’s bedroom. A note on the coffee table informed me that her resolution to never set foot outside had been cruelly undermined by an invitation to accompany Inez and her parents to a triple-header at the drive-in movie theater. I made a drink and flopped across the sofa, the evening’s events swirling in my head like brown water gurgling down the drain.

The Kappa Theta Etas with their expansive gums, even teeth, bright eyes, pink cashmere sweaters, expensive athletic shoes, and twenty-four-karat gold pins were not quite as nice as their reputation purported. Some of them were earning their dues and tuition at the Hideaway Haven, while at least one of them was immortalizing the climactic moments with a camera. Dean Vanderson had mentioned the blackmail cutouts; did one “Katie the Kappa Kitten Says Thanks!” include a handwritten “For being such a generous old goat”?

Had Jean Hall been too greedy? Vanderson claimed to have met Jean shortly before her death and given her whatever sum she demanded. He’d left her in a patio, supposedly alive and well and significantly richer. She’d tucked her ill-gotten gains in her purse and walked down the alley toward the Kappa Theta Eta house. Someone driving Debbie A

Also missing was Debbie A

I needed to talk to Eleanor, but I doubted I could sidle into the dining room and ask my questions while I nibbled tough quail and sipped champagne.

And there was the minor predicament of what to do with this new information. Dean Vanderson seemed to feel we had a contract, and he was the lawyer, not I. I hadn’t precisely sworn not to divulge his story, but perhaps I’d implied as much. If he was telling the truth, his crimes were indictable only by the guardians of morality and good taste. I finally decided to wait until I’d talked to Eleanor before I called Lieutenant Peter Rosen and related what I knew…, or at least what I felt he deserved to know.

“Those damn Kappa Theta Etas,” I muttered as I went to my bedroom and looked at their house. Lights shone from the ground-floor windows, and the faint sound of music wafted from one. Surely it was time for someone to scream. It had been nearly twenty-four hours since the last blast, after all, and they knew the agenda. Where was our reliable prowler?

Inexplicably irritated by the lack of an uproar next door, I changed into more comfortable clothes, snatched up a paperback, and returned to the living room to swill scotch and read something that made a semblance of sense.

It ended with a tidy denouement in the drawing room of the country house, seconds before the constable came through the door, delayed as usual by the impenetrable snowdrifts. The villain, overwhelmed by the relentless logic of the wily amateur sleuth, had crumbled like a chunk of feta cheese and confessed all. Maybe I ought to move to St. Mary Mead and take up knitting, I thought as I put down the book and went to fetch another from my bedroom. I could knit Caron a Camaro.