used to being interviewed, handled it well. He was agreeable, without giving them much information. I saw him that night on the news.
Unfortunately, they weren’t looking hard enough at Robin to prevent one of them spotting me when I got home. I might think it my duty to talk to the police, but I didn’t have to talk to these people. One of them was holding an early copy of the paper, and as I got hesitantly out of my car, stupidly determined on going into my apartment and taking the longest, hottest bath on record, he held it out to me. He said something, I didn’t know what, because I was so appalled at seeing the picture of poor Lizanne I couldn’t listen. I felt surrounded, and I was, though the three men of the news team were in my mind magnified to thirty.
I was just worn out and couldn’t deal with it.
“I don’t want to say anything,” I said nervously, and I could tell the camera was running. The newsman was a looker with a beautiful smile, and I wanted him out of my way more than I’d ever wanted anything. I felt I was teetering dangerously on the brink of hysteria.
Robin decided to rescue me. He loomed up behind them, and motioned me to just walk between them. I wondered for a moment if they’d let me, but they parted and I scuttled by straight for Robin. He wrapped his arm around me and we turned our backs on the news team and headed for the patio gate.
I knew the camera was running still (the mystery novelist and his librarian landlady have adjacent apartments) and I had a flash of sense and a jolt of guts. I swivelled to face the camera.
“This is private property. It belongs to my mother and I am her representative here,” I said ominously. “You do not have my permission to be on it. This is against the law.” I said that like it was a magic charm. And indeed, it seemed to be. For they did pile in their van, and left! I was incredibly pleased with myself, and I was surprised on looking up to see Robin beaming like a fond daddy.
“Go get ‘em, Aurora,” he said admiringly.
“I appreciate your sheltering me out there in the parking lot, Robin,” I said, “but dammit, don’t you patronize me!” I did a little independent swivelling and got in my back door without bursting into tears.
That night Arthur called me, to tell me the gloomy story of the Ratkill. “Whoever this asshole is, he’s playing games and he just went too far,” Arthur said savagely.
I would have thought murdering the Buckleys was going too far, myself.
After I’d commiserated as much as I decently could, I told him about the media problems I was having. I’d gotten several phone calls during my wonderful hot bath, effectively ruining it. Only the chance someone I might want to hear from would call me was keeping me from taking the phone off the hook. For the first time in my life, I was wishing I had an answering machine.
“I’m getting calls, too,” Arthur said gloomily. “I’m not used to being the direct subject of all this news attention.”
“Neither am I,” I said. “I hate it. I’m glad librarians don’t have to have press conferences as part of their job. Do you think you’re clear now of any suspicion?”
“Yes, I’m not on suspension or anything like that. At least I’ve built up enough respect here for that.”
“I’m glad.” And I was. I felt like I had someone on my side in the police force as long as Arthur was there. If he’d been suspended, not only would I have felt bad for his sake, I would have felt powerless.
“Go on and take the phone off the hook,” Arthur advised me now. “But first call your mom and get her to put a big sign at the entrance to your parking lot that says in great big letters, ‘Private Property, Trespassers will be Prosecuted.’”
“Good idea. Thanks.”
We said goodnight uneasily. We were both wondering what would happen next, and who it would happen to.
My mother woke her handyman up with a phone call that night and told him she’d pay him triple if he had the sign in the parking lot by 7:00 the next morning. She begged me to leave town, or come to stay with her, until somehow this situation ended. She’d known the Buckleys, and was horrified by the sheer terror they must have experienced before they died; the Buckleys were her age, her acquaintances.
“John had to go in to talk to the police,” she said. “If he can help them, that’s wonderful, but I hated for him to go. I wish you’d never joined that damn group, Aurora. But there’s no point talking about it now. Won’t you come stay over here?”
“Are you going to defend me, Mother?” I asked with a weary smile.
“With my last breath,” she said simply.
Suddenly I felt my mother was safer if I stayed away from her.
“I’ll manage,” I told her. “Thanks for taking care of the sign.”
Chapter 13
I had a bad night.
I dreamed that men with cameras were coming into the bathroom while I was dressing and that one of them was the murderer. I swam up from a deep sleep to find rain was patting lightly against my bedroom window. I slept again.
When finally I woke up groggy I peered out the upstairs windows from behind my curtains to make sure no one was lying in wait for me. All the cars in the parking lot belonged there. No one was parked out front. There was a large unmistakable sign at the entrance to the parking lot. I padded down the stairs to get my coffee, but took it back up to my room. Mug in hand, I watched Robin leave for work in the city. I saw Bankston go out and get his papers, Teentsy’s car pulled out. She must have needed something for breakfast, for she was back within ten minutes. The shower the night before had not amounted to much, not like the rain of two nights ago; the little puddles were already gone.
By the time Teentsy returned, I’d worked up enough courage to get my own papers. They were having a screaming field day. There was a picture of Arthur, a picture of Mamie and Gerald at their wedding, a picture of the Buckleys and Lizanne when the Buckleys had celebrated their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, and a picture of Morrison Pettigrue taken when he’d announced he was running for mayor, with Benjamin beaming in the background like a proud father.
At least no one seemed to believe that Melanie and Arthur were guilty of anything but being the butt of ghastly practical jokes. I wondered where the hatchet that had killed the Buckleys would turn up, or the knife that had killed Morrison Pettigrue. How could the murderer sustain such a frenzy of activity? Surely there must be an enormous output of physical and emotional energy involved. Surely he must stop.
I managed to dab on some makeup so I wouldn’t look like I was going to keel over and yanked my hair back into a ponytail. I pulled on a red turtleneck and navy blue skirt and cardigan. I looked like hell on wheels.
My only goal was to get to the library without anyone noticing me, and find out if there was any chance of putting in a normal day’s work. To my utter relief, there were no strange cars in the library parking lot. The interest in me seemed to have ebbed. The day began to look possible.
I found out at work that Benjamin Greer had called a press conference that morning to announce another candidate would run for the Communist Party in the Lawrenceton mayoral election. The candidate proved to be Benjamin himself, who seemed to be the only other Communist resident of Lawrenceton. I didn’t believe for a minute that Benjamin had any coherent political philosophy. He was getting as much publicity as he could while the attention of the media was still on our town. I wondered what would happen to Benjamin after the election. Would butchering at the grocery store ever be enough again?
Lillian Schmidt told me about Benjamin, and altogether covered herself with unexpected glory that morning. She worked side by side with me as though nothing at all had happened, with the exception of describing his press conference. I wanted to ask her why she was being so decent, but couldn’t think of a way to phrase it that wasn’t offensive. (Why are you being nice to me, when we don’t like each other much? Why is a tactless person like you suddenly being the soul of tact?)
I was pulling on my sweater to leave for lunch, when Lillian said, “I know you don’t have anything to do with this mess, and I don’t think it’s fair that all this has happened to you. That policeman coming to ask me yesterday if
