Irregardless of Murder (Miss Prentice Cozy Mysteries) (12 page)

“Look for a green and yellow parka,” I instructed Vern, pointing. “She was headed that way.”

Cruising along the street at five miles per hour, jammed in traffic, and scanning the ever-shifting crowd, we spotted perhaps six green jackets and at least four yellow ones. There were many other color combinations as well, but the only green and yellow coat we could find was on an infant in a stroller.

“Unless she’s a master of disguise,” Vern cracked, his good spirits returning, “I don’t suppose that could be Marie.”

We were nearing the JJ Peasemarsh parking lot. I sighed. “Come on, Vern, let me run my errand, and we’ll head on over to the hospital.”

Finding a parking space at JJ Peasemarsh was tricky at the best of times, but the annual giant pre-Halloween Fall Bonanza Sale was always widely advertised and heavily attended.

“There’s one!” I cried, pointing to a space just ahead.

“No, it’s not. There’s a car in it.”

“But look, that woman’s about to get in and drive away.”

“You think so?” Vern put on the brakes, and we waited for a harried-looking shopper to drop her burdens, paw through her purse for keys, load up, climb in, and back out of the much-coveted space.

“Come on, come on,” Vern muttered.

Behind us, the logjam of increasingly irritated drivers moved forward as we turned in the empty spot. I could almost hear the grumbling behind the rolled-up windows.

As I emerged from Lily’s car, I caught another glimpse of green and yellow through the front door of the store. I slammed the car door and set out briskly towards JJ Peasemarsh. As I did, it occurred to me that I was getting awfully tired of walking among parked cars.

“Hey! Wait up!” Vern called.

“I saw her again!” I said over my shoulder.

“Then don’t lose her!” he called back.

Marie, if that’s who it was, had disappeared into the store. I was two car rows away from the entrance, moving rapidly with Vern close on my heels, when a car door opened in front of us, effectively blocking our way. I stopped abruptly, and Vern slammed into my back, causing a mild contusion to my ankle and no doubt an irreparable hole in my hose, but there was no time and no room to examine the damage.

We were about to turn around and take an alternate route when a blue-gray head emerged from the driver’s seat.

“Why, Amelia,” said Judith Dee, smiling in her warm, grandmotherly way, “are you here for the sale, too?”

Vern snorted impatiently. I poked him with my elbow and greeted her in what Dad used to call Mother’s Sunday dinner voice. “Hello, Judith. Yes, we are.”

Judith stepped forward, lifted my bangs, and examined my bandage. “Any better?”

I smiled and nodded. “Getting there.”

Suddenly, she grabbed my wrist and lowered her voice to a whisper. “Did you hear what happened to Lily Burns?”

“Yes, I did.” I tried to rearrange my purse on my arm so she would let go, but her grip only tightened.

“How do you think it happened?” Judith glanced over both shoulders. “I’ve heard she likes a drink now and then. Her father had that liver, you know.”

“No way!” said an outraged Vern. “It wasn’t even nine, and all she had was a cup of coffee!”

Judith’s hand went limp and slid, snakelike, off my arm. Her eyes widened as her attention shifted to Vern.

“Were you there?”

“Er, um, well,” he said. “You know, I’ve got a really important call to make. Excuse me. Catch you inside, Amelia.” He loped away toward a phone booth in front of the building.

“Vern and I both happened to be on the ferryboat this morning, that’s all. We didn’t really see it happen.” Which was true, as far as it went.

“Have you heard any more about what happened to poor Marguerite?” Her eyebrows knit together sadly.

I shrugged. “No. You know as much as I do.”

“You taking good care of that wound?”

I laughed and waved vaguely at my head. “Trying to.”

“Well, let me know if you need anything for pain.”

“Sure will.”

How on earth was I going to get away and continue my search for Marie? Should I enlist Judith’s help? Right away, I discarded the idea. It would take up too much time in explanation, for one thing.

“Listen, Judith . . . ” I began my departure speech.

“I’m sorry, dear,” she said, patting my arm. “I’m going to have to run along now. I’ve got a long shopping list.” She patted her purse and walked away.

“What kind of place is this anyway?” Vern asked as I joined him at the front of the store. We took our place in line at the entrance turnstiles.

“It started out as a factory outlet store for Peasemarsh Brothers of Boston. You know, the suit manufacturers.” I had to raise my voice over the din of the crowd.

Vern shrugged.

“It was before your time, I suppose. Well, they’re out of the suit business now. Anyway, they started with just men’s suits, but later began carrying seconds from all kinds of companies: work clothes, lingerie, even shoes and formals. At least half the evening dresses at our high school prom come from here, though the girls would rather die than admit it.”

I spotted determined-looking Hester Swanson in line several rows over. “There’s someone I’ll bet knows where all the real bargains are.” I waved.

She frowned in my direction, then smiled weakly.

“Don’t remember where you’ve seen me before, do you?” I muttered. I turned back to Vern. “As I said, everybody comes to this sale.”

Vern worked his way through the turnstile ahead of me. “It’s a mob scene, all right. What does this Marie look like again?” He stopped and scanned the crowd from a superior height, then stooped to hear my answer.

“You’d probably recognize her if you saw her. About my age, a little over five feet, curly black hair, round face. Rather pretty, but looks a little apologetic around the eyes.”

“And a green and yellow jacket, I know. Hey, doesn’t she work at the university cafeteria?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, I know her, then. Listen, you go get—” he waggled his fingers vaguely, ”whatever—for Mrs. Burns and I’ll scope out the place. See ya!”

He plunged into the milling crowd. I could see his head bobbing above the rest.

I sighed, hitched my purse a few inches up my shoulder, and made my own dive into the mass of bargain-hungry humanity. The aisles between the racks of clothing were filled, but not yet jammed, and the usual sense of polite New England reticence among strangers still reigned, at least for the time being.

“Excuse me,” said one woman whose arm jostled mine.

“I’m so sorry,” said a man who had backed into me.

Later, things would be different. I knew this from hard experience. The last few hours before closing on sale day the law of the jungle went into effect, and if one was determined to remain until that hour, I strongly recommended helmets and knee protectors.

In all the years JJ Peasemarsh had existed, its basic floor plan never changed. Ladies’ clothes to the left, men’s to the right, shoes in the center. Sizes were numerically arranged by racks, curtained fitting stalls stood along the right and left walls, and checkout counters were at the front and rear exits. A highly effective, time-tested system. Neat but not gaudy.

I made my way to the left on tiptoe, so absorbed in trying to spot Marie, I completely bypassed the rack of nightgowns in Lily’s size. I had to turn around and retrace my steps.

“Excuse me. I’m so sorry.” It was me offering apologies this time as I made my way upstream back to the size eights.

“Hello, again!” called Judith Dee fleetingly as we passed each other in parallel rows of lingerie.

I smiled and made a great show of examining a piece of nearby merchandise, which turned out to be an extremely provocative brassiere.

“Hmmm. Purple with black tassels—it’s so YOU,” said Vern in my ear. “Sorry. No luck so far.”

“I’ll be finished here in a minute,” I said. “Why don’t you look over there at that row of stalls and see if she comes out of any of them.”

“Will do.” Vern saluted and was gone.

The selection of size eight nightgowns in any shade of pink had already dwindled. I was forced to choose between a garish floral print that resembled something in a Tennessee Williams play and an old-fashioned, high-necked flannel number. I had just decided that Lily would rather be Blanche DuBois than Laura Ingalls when Vern interrupted me once more.

“Come on! I found her. She’s over here. Hurry!”

He plunged ahead, moving so rapidly that I was hard-pressed to keep up. In desperation, I parted hangers, plunged directly through a rack of designer jeans and popped up in the middle of a French-speaking family group.

“
Excusez-moi
,” I said, backing into a bin of garter belts and nearly falling in.

Vern reached out a hand and steadied me. “Look!” he said, pointing to a curtained stall. “Isn’t that her jacket—on the floor?”

I could see what he meant. The sleeve of a familiar green and yellow parka poked out from just beneath the hem of the stall’s curtain.

“Well, what do we do now?” Vern whispered.

I stepped forward. “Marie?” I called softly. “Marie LeBow?”

A dozen faces turned my way, and several heads popped curiously from behind other curtains, but there was no answer from inside the stall.

I leaned closer to the curtain and called again, “Marie? It’s Amelia. Are you in there?”

Still no answer, though the curtains twitched slightly and the telltale sleeve disappeared from the floor.

Vern and I looked at one another. He shrugged.

“Marie, yesterday you wanted to talk to me,” I whispered into the curtain. “Won’t you come out?”

Still no response. I frowned at Vern. If it wasn’t Marie in there, surely the occupant would have poked her head out to correct my mistake. We were stymied. People were staring at us suspiciously.

Vern pulled my arm.

I retreated, but only for the moment.

“It’s not her,” Vern whispered to me behind a tall rack of feather-trimmed peignoirs, his eyes still glued to the curtain in question.

“She.”

“Huh?” he asked, his eyes still on the stall.

“It’s not she. Your grammar—oh, forget it. That’s Marie in there, Vern! I can feel it.”

“Well, whoever it is hasn’t come out yet.” He stifled a sneeze. “Drat these feathers! I haven’t taken my eyes off that curtain for a second.”

“What can we do?” I whispered desperately. “We can’t just barge in there!”

“I know! We’ll do a stakeout.”

“You mean, like the police?”

“Sure. We’ll wait her out. You stand over there, and—omigosh! She just flew the coop!”

Vern sprang forward in hot pursuit. As best I could, I followed his blond head through the crowd until it abruptly disappeared.

Where was he? Had he caught up with Marie? I wondered as I shouldered my way through the crowd. How could we detain her once we found her? After all, she wasn’t a fugitive, and stakeout or not, we definitely weren’t the police.

Several rows ahead, there was a strangled cry and a muffled crash.

Just beyond a rack of terrycloth bathrobes, Vern’s long form was stretched out on the floor.

“Should I call 911?” offered a man in the crowd.

“No, thanks,” said Vern, slowly rising to all fours. “I’m okay. Just tripped, is all. Ouch!” He rolled over and winced at his bloody left knee.

He looked up at me balefully. “I’m sorry, Amelia. She’s gone. I lost her.”

Some minutes later, as I pulled Lily’s car out of the parking lot, heading to the hospital, Vern speculated on what caused his downfall. “It was probably one of those hanger things. My feet seemed to get all tangled up, and boom!” He groaned with pain as he shifted in the bucket seat. “Look at that. What a mess!” The torn, bloodstained denim material had been cut away from his wound, leaving a large hole in one leg of his pants.

I reached for my purse. “Don’t you want a pain pill? That’s what Judith suggested.” Fortunately for us, Nurse Dee had materialized from behind a bin of men’s sweater vests and applied her medical knowledge and a stout bandage to Vern’s knee.

“Nope. Even aspirin makes me sleepy. I hate that. I’ll just tough it out.” He lifted his knee to a more comfortable position with both hands. “What really gets me is we lost Marie. It really was her—I saw her!” He punched the dashboard in disgust.

“It’s all right, Vern. Obviously, she didn’t want to see me, after all. I can respect that. Marie’s just lost her daughter. She’s entitled to act a little strange. Now that I know that she’s all right, I can let it go.”

Vern smiled. “Well, anyway, they gave you that nightgown thing and I got a free pair of jeans.”

“It was nice of the Peasemarsh people, wasn’t it? I suppose they’re just hoping you don’t sue them. You’re not badly hurt, are you?”

“Naw,” he said jauntily. “It’s just a little scratch. My knee’s a lot tougher than your head. Look, I wish you’d let me take over. You drive like Mr. Magoo.”

“And just what is that supposed to mean?”

He hunched his back. “Well, you kind of lean over the wheel like this, see? And squint at the traffic. And you’re only going about—” He tilted his head to regard the speedometer. “Twenty-eight? C’mon, Amelia, pull over. At this rate, it’ll be midnight before we get there. My driving leg’s okay, see?”

He lifted a huge sneakered foot and waved it over the dashboard for my inspection. He was limber, that was for sure.

“But I know the way,” I began to protest. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, all right!” I pulled into the parking lot of a fast food restaurant. “All this griping has given me a dreadful headache.”

My feelings were hurt. “I’ve never even had a ticket,” I muttered under my breath and opened the car door. “Wonder if you can say the same.”

“Welcome aboard,” Vern chirped as I marched around the car and he slid gingerly behind the wheel. “Make sure your seat belt is fastened and your tray table is in an upright position. Thank you for choosing Vern Airlines.”

“Oh, shut up.” He wasn’t going to jolly me into a good mood this time.

Once in the passenger seat, I grabbed the door handle to give it a vigorous slam, but someone stepped in the way. Someone in a green-and-yellow parka.