How would you feel if someone rooted through your belongings?”
Marina tapped her lips with her index finger. “You’re right. I wouldn’t like it.”
“No one would. I’m glad—”
“Which gives me real incentive to clean out my underwear drawer. Come along, my dear.”
I trailed along in Marina’s wake. The living room was filled with October air. I shut windows while Marina flipped through the stack of magazines on the coffee table.
“You make it sound as if there’s something wrong with learning.”
“All learning and no fun makes Agnes—and Beth if she’s not careful—a dull girl.” She put her hands on her hips. “Speaking of dull, this furniture defines the word.”
The couch and armchairs were covered with the beige-est of beige fabrics. The material was the velvety stuff that parents of young children avoided due to its amazing ability to attract food and drink stains. The oak coffee table, end tables, and entertainment center were stained a medium honey shade. The drapes looked as if they’d come from a midpriced motel room.
Marina opened the entertainment center. “Take a look at this. Can you get more boring than Frank Sinatra, the Andrews Sisters, and Perry Como? The newest singer she had in here is Paul Anka.”
“Just like her cleaning closet,” I said, then had to explain.
Marina hunkered down to look at the videocassette titles. “Same thing here. No movie made after 1975. The woman was frozen in time.”
“The magazines are current.”
“Bet she read new stuff only so she wouldn’t come across like a freak.” She pushed herself to her feet and grinned. “Didn’t work.”
“Oh, Marina.”
“Yeah, yeah. Don’t speak ill of the dead. But why? We didn’t like her when she was alive, so why should we go all hypocritical and pretend we like her now?”
“It’s unkind. The poor woman was murdered. She deserves better.”
Marina didn’t look convinced. “You’re afraid, aren’t you?”
“Of what?”
“That her ghost is going to haunt us for saying bad things about her.” She lifted her hands, wriggled her fingers, and made Hollywood ghost noises. “Ooooo-OOOoo.”
“Quit that.”
“OoooOOoo . . . Boo!”
I jumped back from her shout.
“Gotcha.” She laughed.
“Funny. Fifteen minutes and I have to leave. Are you going to spend it playing Casper?”
“You could leave me the key.” She put on a wheedling tone. “Pretty please?”
“No. Gloria told the police I’d have the key. If I leave and you’re here without me, you could get in trouble.”
“Oh, please.”
“Fourteen and a half minutes.”
“You’re such a worrywart.”
“It’s what makes me such a fine secretary for the PTA.”
“Zing!” She licked her finger and made a sizzling noise as she set the finger on an invisible iron. “Good one. Now, let’s go.”
She hustled out of the room and down the hallway. Another tendril of hair popped out and bobbed alongside the brightly colored scarf. Marina didn’t notice; she was on a mission.
First door on the right was a bathroom. Marina flicked on the overhead light. “Holy cats,” she said. “Would you look at this?”
“If you’d move, I would.”
She moved aside and made Vanna White moves. “And here, ladies and gentlemen, you have an incredibly hideous bathroom. The idea that anyone paid money for this makes you doubt that the world will ever spin the right way.”
“Oh, my,” I said. While the fixtures weren’t of the harvest gold or avocado green vintages, they must have been born in a related era. “This is really . . .”
“Pink?” Marina suggested.
“Pink,” I agreed.
The sink, toilet, toilet paper holder, and bathtub were that light pink favored by grandmothers of infant girls. The shower curtain was cloth and patterned with pink flowers; the soap was pink. Agnes had even found pink toilet paper.
Marina started to open the medicine cabinet. “Ten minutes,” I said.
“Well, drat.” Her hand hovered. I’d never known how many women sneaked looks into other people’s medicine cabinets until Marina and I had taken a quiet poll of friends and relatives. I’d bet dinner and a movie that only one out of ten peeked. Marina had bet nine out of ten. I still had occasional nightmares about the fate of the rabbit in
She sighed and let her hand drop to her side. Though I was glad she’d given up on the medicine cabinet, I was also a little sorry. Maybe, just maybe, we would have seen something that would have helped. Silly, of course, when the police had been through the whole house, but wasn’t it possible that two eagle-eyed women could reach conclusions that law enforcement wouldn’t see?
Marina tried to tuck her hair back into the scarf. “Let’s keep moving. I want to see how many interior design faux pas one house can hold.”
The guest room was as bland as the living room: beige carpet, medium oak nightstand, and dresser. The white chenille bedspread was as much of a statement as the room made.
We trooped down the hallway to the master bedroom. “What do you think?” Marina asked. “More pink? More beige? Or, be still my heart, do you think there might be a
“You’d better. I don’t have time to administer first aid.”
Agnes’s bedroom was mild mannered and polite with a quilted bedspread in an inoffensive paisley print, pale yellow dresser, mirror, and nightstand. Marina poked her head into the small bathroom. “White. Whew!”
I looked at the books on the nightstand—the Bible and a set of specifications for the Tarver Elementary School addition. “I wonder. . . .”
“What?”
“Well, if the addition had anything to do with the murder.”
“Don’t be silly. People don’t kill each other over buildings,” Marina said. “Time?”
“Seven minutes.” But what was worth killing over? Nothing, as far as I was concerned, but then I was the kind of person who carried spiders outside rather than squishing them.
She pushed past me. The last door off the hallway was to a small study. Crowded bookshelves filled three walls, and a desk filled a fourth. An opaque curtain kept any sunshine at a distance. The room, covered with dark wood paneling, felt too tight for two people. Especially when one of them was a bigger-than-life redhead.
“Holy camoley. Do you see what I see?” Marina’s voice was full of wonder. She picked up a piece of paper from the desk. She held one corner with her index finger and thumb, pinching her nose shut with the other hand. “I think I need to bathe in disinfectant,” she said nasally.
I took the paper from her and read aloud. “‘Dear Mrs. Mephisto: Thank you for your very generous donation—’ ”
“You’re the world’s worst detective.” Marina flicked the top of the sheet. “Look at the letterhead.”
“ ‘The National’ ”—I stopped and looked at my friend—“‘Republican Party.’”
“Agnes,” Marina said solemnly, “was a closet conservative.”
