Milicent Le Sueur Read online

  Wade Tate waited while I looked at my curlicue shoelaces.

  “Okay, it’s like this. I made my way through the alleys to where it said in the phone book that Titus Moore lived. As a rule, Wade Tate, I don’t go looking through garbage cans. Too much stuff to be had right on the surface, don’t you know? But I figured since Miss Vinnie Ledbetter’s TV said no municipal services today, that meant no garbage pickup, right?”

  I didn’t wait for his nod. “That meant if someone had thrown something away, it would still be in the garbage. And that’s where I found my bags.”

  “In Titus’s garbage can?”

  “No, in the blue recycle can two doors down from his house. There was nothing in his recycle can. I don’t think he participates in the program. His was empty.”

  “How did you miss being seen by my detectives there?”

  “They are in the house. Only a madman, a killer, or a bag lady would hang around an alley on a day like this one.”

  “Did you check? Are the knitting needles missing?”

  “Come on, Tate Wade, you know the answer to that one. Does Dick have a wide hatband? Do birds fly? Fish swim?”

  There was just the answering swish of the windshield wipers breaking up the silence in the car. I could hear Wade Tate thinking, though.

  I asked, “You ever heard of carbon monoxide? We’re gonna die here.”

  He turned off the key and immediately the car turned dark inside as the falling snow won the battle with the windshield. “Open your window. Get some fresh air in here.”

  “Open your own, it’s cold over here.”

  “Okay, say I buy your story. For now. Why did the killer leave the bags in the can?”

  “Now who but a bag lady would carry around umpteen—make that nine—bags? Dead giveaway that something is going on. And I figure the killer didn’t know about the worst storm of the century and thought the bags would be long gone in the trash pickup.”

  Wade Tate was a gloomy outline in the dark of the car. His voice came through loud and clear, though. “Millie, we have a problem here. Let’s try to solve some of it before we go back to the office.”

  The warmth the coffee had provided was fading fast, but if you really love a man, you gotta give him his say-so time, so I sat and waited for Tate Wade’s say.

  “You’re right about the knitting needles. They were yours. We ran prints as soon as we could. Now, I don’t believe for a minute that you killed Mary.”

  “Because you love me,” I told him.

  “No, because it took strength to stab her with those needles. More strength than you have.” Then he told me how the needles were used to kill. At least he tried. After the first words, I covered my ears, but in the shadows I could see him pointing to his neck and chest.

  “Yuck. Stop. That’s awful. That’s enough. I get the picture.”

  He ignored me and went on talking, so I took my hands down and listened after I thought he was through with the gore part. “Somehow, somewhere, there is a link between you, Angie Woodburn’s killing, and Mary Titus’s death. I just haven’t figured it out yet.”

  “Oh, I have,” I told him.

  SEVENTEEN

  “So, tell me your theory,” Wade Tate said.

  “Only if you start the engine again. Death by freezing is just as dead as death by carbon monoxide.”

  Of course, the engine wouldn’t start again so Wade Tate had to use his cell phone to call headquarters. A tow truck was promised.

  As he started to put his phone away, he paused and asked, “Millie, I worry about you. Do you have a cell phone?”

  “Do they send a bill for a cell phone?”

  “Yes, it’s just like a telephone bill.”

  “Then I don’t have one. I own nothing that requires billing.”

  “I don’t know why I’m doing this, but I want you to take my cell phone. It’s charged with about thirty minutes of use on it.” He showed me the little gray phone. “This is how you do it. Press POWER. Those orange lines show if you are charged.”

  “I don’t want to be charged with anything,” I reminded him.

  “No, I mean like a battery is charged. I’m paying for the calls. Then you press one. See the one? That’s my home number. Two is my office number. Get it?”

  “What about three, four, five, six, seven, eight and nine, not to mention ten?”

  Tate Wade laughed for the first time since I had gotten into the car. “They are there too. Emergency numbers. Municipal offices. But all you have to remember is one and two. Three is the number on this phone. If you ever find yourself in an emergency situation, press POWER, then one, two, or three, then punch SEND. The call will find me, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said as I put the gray phone away in my green bag. “But what will you answer with if I have your phone?”

  “I have two more with the same numbers. I always keep one being charged in the office, one at home, and one with me. I just want you to be able to stay in touch wherever you are.”

  “Three cell phones sounds expensive.”

  “The city provides the phones, but that’s beside the point. I’m sorry I got sidetracked, but I just thought of the phone. Now, tell me your theory.” I could see puffs of icy smoke coming from his mouth as he spoke. I decided that if the tow truck didn’t come soon, I was getting out and walking to his office. At least I would be generating heat.

  My teeth were beginning to chatter as I said, “Long story, short. I don’t think we have much time left in this world. Titus Moore was sleeping with Angel and got her pregnant. She threatened to tell Mrs. Mary Moore, and so Titus killed her while he was out jogging. Then Mrs. Mary Moore figured it out, and he killed her, but first he stole my bags because he thought I had recognized him when he killed Angel, and maybe I had written it down or something. Or he could pin the killing on me.”

  I think Tate Wade was sitting there looking dumbfounded. I couldn’t really tell because it was getting late, and light was fading fast. Like I felt my life was. I could feel ice beginning to form in my veins.

  We heard the toot of a horn and looked up to see the orange lights of the tow truck approaching us. Wade Tate got out of his car, and there was a lot of men talk about engines and batteries. The crux of it was that I couldn’t answer his last question until I was sitting in his lap in the squashed cab of the tow truck on our way to his office.

  I leaned back and whispered in his right ear behind me. “Was Mrs. Mary Moore at Angel’s house after the funeral? When you went to tell them about her being pregnant?”

  Tate Wade’s breath was warm in my ear. Anything alive would have seemed warm to me then. The heater in the tow truck didn’t work either. “Actually, she was. She’s a good friend of the Woodburns, and I asked her to stay while I told them. Mary was a great comfort to Mrs. Woodburn.”

  “Whoop-de-do. There you have it, Tate Wade.”

  “Millie, it’s only a theory. I can’t take it to the bank.”

  “Sure you can. It’s as solid as my rock. Mrs. Mary Moore went home and accused her husband of what she had suspected. She didn’t like him anyway.”

  “You’re making that up,” he said.

  I was warming up, sitting in his lap. Well, some of me was. “Excuse me! I saw the way she looked at him at the funeral. And besides, what’s to like? Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out if he’s awful in public, he’s twice as bad at home.”

  The tow truck slid into the parking lot of the Police Station. As we got out of the cab, Wade Tate grabbed my elbow to lead me inside. “Let me get this straight. You think Titus killed Angela and then Mary? And he used your knitting needles to pin it on you?”

  “It’s in the cards. Read them and weep, Tate Wade.”

  I stopped so suddenly we both slid and fell down the last steps into the Police Station basement entrance. The ste
ps with the right numbers. So many people had come and gone during the day that the snow and ice had melted and refrozen. Very dangerous stuff.

  “What in the hell? What is wrong with you, Millie?” Wade Tate asked, as he lay sprawled at the gray door.

  “I just remembered. I’m not going in until you tell me about Gypsy.”

  “Milicent Le Sueur, I do not have to tell you everything about my investigations. But I will tell you that, yes, we’ve looked into your friend, and he seems okay.”

  “Bet he’s a suspect, though, right?”

  “Everyone, including you, is a suspect, yes.”

  We helped each other up and finally made it through the door of the station.

  “You can stop suspecting, Tate Wade. Titus Moore did it.”

  “Now, you don’t know that. I know you want it to be Titus, but there’s no proof. It’s all in your head, Millie.”

  My breath came out in white spurts of frustration. “Or, maybe you’re thinking I did it, Wade Tate?”

  He sighed a long foggy breath and, I think to placate me, said, “I will call Titus in to answer some questions.”

  He didn’t have to do that, though.

  Titus Moore stood in the doorway of Wade Tate’s office and yelled, “There she is. That’s the woman who killed my wife.”

  I turned to Wade Tate and said, “Read ’em and weep.”

  EIGHTEEN

  Needless to say, I was totally and utterly worn out, exhausted, and just plain tired.

  Colors came and went as Titus Moore harangued around Wade Tate’s office, but I was too tired to take much mind of them. The fuchsia in the corner seemed the only stable color in the office, and I made my way there as Portsmith’s city manager accused me of murdering both Angel and Mrs. Mary Moore.

  Betty, the woman elf, brought me coffee, which only seemed to make the colors speed up in the room.

  “Calm down, Titus. Millie is right here. There’s no reason to go on shouting like that. We all know you’re upset about Mary, and you have every right to be. Everything is under control,” said Wade Tate’s blue voice.

  “She killed Angela. And my Mary,” said the red voice.

  Once, before I came to Portsmith, when I lived in the house where the alley had the climbing red roses, I remembered that the colors had often clashed and crescendoed like this. They only went away when I found that can of peas in the alley. There were no cans in Wade Tate’s office.

  I sat there in the fuchsia corner, growing warm in my parka and Land’s End boots, which I finally took off. As I did the jacket.

  I threw it on the floor with Miss Vinnie Ledbetter’s boots and gloves.

  “Titus, you don’t have proof of any kind. Millie’s not going anywhere. We have plenty of time to sort this out when everyone is calm.”

  “Ever since she came to Portsmith, everyone has treated her like a pet.”

  Meow, bow-wow, chirp, chirp. Polly want a cracker? Animal crackers. Cookies and milk. Teddy bear’s picnic. Zoo parade, and we’ll all go marching home again.

  I heard Tate Wade say, “Titus, you know we’ve watched Millie carefully. She’s only a threat to herself. The damned legislature says you can’t keep people locked up any more for being confused.”

  If the red, red robin comes bobbing, who’s belling the cat? If the mouse ran up the clock, who’s watching the barn door?

  “Confused? You call living in a vacant lot or a junkyard confused?”

  “She’s not hurting anyone, Titus. Millie has odd habits, it’s true. But she has a job. Maybe she doesn’t vote or pay taxes, but she’s a part of our community.”

  Red and blue, swelling and ebbing. Warring it out.

  I took off my sweater and my sweat pants. No one was looking at me anyway.

  “She killed Angela Woodburn and my wife. That’s not confused, that’s fucking crazy. She’s a paranoid schizophrenic.”

  “That does it,” I said.

  They all turned to look at me standing there in my panties and bra.

  Sad to say, red had won the day.

  “I am not paranoid,” I said. “Whatcha looking at?” That was the last thing I remember saying before I twisted off.

  NINETEEN

  Be quiet.

  Hush, hush, sweet Charlotte.

  Hurry, hurry. Run.

  And the goblins will get you if you don’t watch out.

  Shoofly pie and apple pandowdy.

  So skip to the Lou, my darling.

  Dance by the light of the moon.

  Be quiet.

  Roses on the wall of the other room.

  Hell will freeze over.

  Come to the church in the wildwood.

  Look away, Dixie Land.

  Roses.

  Be quiet.

  “There are blue roses on my gown,” I said.

  “Milicent?”

  “Yes?”

  “Was that you talking just now?”

  “Yes. I said there are blue roses on my gown. I don’t remember a gown with blue roses.” I raised my head up off the pillow to see who was talking to me.

  It was the elf, Betty, from Wade Tate’s office. She was sitting by my bedside with a book in her lap. She reached across the crisp bedsheets and touched my hand. “Welcome back, Milicent. That was some long sleep you had.”

  I didn’t know why I’d never noticed before what a pretty woman Betty was. Her skin was black and smooth like velvet. Dark, intense eyes stared into mine from under a shining cap of bobbed hair. She said, “Miss Ledbetter sent you that gown and four more just like it. All with different colored roses. You feeling better, Milicent?”

  “It’s just that there is no such thing as a blue rose, you know, Betty.”

  “Well, there aren’t many purple ones either, I don’t think, but you have some on a gown. Now, tell me, how are you feeling?”

  I looked around. I was in a hospital bed, so I guessed I was in a hospital. Yes, it had to be. The state hospital rooms didn’t look as swell as this room. “I’m thirsty,” I told Betty.

  I stretched and was surprised to find how stiff my body felt. “Thank you. That hits the spot. I was thirsty.” My hand shook as I tried to hold the glass Betty gave me, but she held on tight to it as I sipped cool water through a straw. “What a taste I have in my mouth. Stelazine?”

  “I don’t know. It may be just the IV they have in your hand.”

  I swallowed some more water and ran my tongue around my mouth. I did taste the familiar sweet taste of glucose. I sighed and laid my head back on the pillow. “How long have I been here? Is it still snowing?”

  Dusky-mauve-on-mauve printed curtains were pulled tight across the window by my bed. Betty stood up and pulled them aside with a long rod. There were gauzy white drapes still covering the window and through them pale, weak sunlight seemed reluctant to enter the dark room.

  “Lord, no, Milicent. You’ve been in here nearly two weeks. The snow melted last week. We’re having a heat wave now. Up to forty-two degrees.”

  “With weather like that, spring will be here in no time,” I said.

  “We have to get through Christmas first,” she said.

  We laughed and the room became brighter.

  Then I said, “Betty, I can’t afford a room like this. How come they didn’t ship me over to the state hospital?”

  Before she could answer the wide door opened and a nurse came in with some towels. “Morning, Betty. I’m just in to give Ms. Le Sueur her bath. Do you want to take a break? Well, hello, there. You’re awake, Ms. Le Sueur? Dr. Apple will be glad to know that. I’ll just run out to the desk and have them give him a call. I’ll be right back.”

  “Betty?”

  “It’s okay, Milicent. I’m not sure who is paying your bill, but it’s been taken care of. Don’t you worry. Not that
you didn’t worry us. That was some show you put on in the chief’s office, girl, when you twisted off. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.”

  “God,” I said as I remembered the scene in Wade Tate’s office. “Tell me I didn’t go all the way to naked.”

  “Not to worry, Milicent. Chief Tate put your coat around you and held you tight until the EMTs came to get you. He cleared that office out so fast. Titus Moore ran like lightning hit him.” She came over to my bedside and leaned down. “Now, tell the truth, Milicent. Do you buy your underwear at Victoria’s Secret?”

  “Oh, God,” I said again.

  I could hear noise outside in the hall through the opened door. Quickly, I asked Betty, “What are you doing here? Not that I’m not glad to see you.”

  “Chief Tate has guards for you around the clock. I’m here for four hours every day.”

  “Am I under arrest?” I asked.

  “Land, no. The chief is just concerned about your safety. We’re sorta like guards for you.”

  “Someone is out to get me?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far, but he just wanted to make sure someone was with you all the time. I kinda think he thought you might just wake up and skedaddle.”

  Be quiet.

  “I need to go to the bathroom,” I told her.

  “Grace handles that department. She’s your day nurse. Hang on, she should be back soon.”

  Grace wouldn’t let me get up. Said I couldn’t walk steady yet, but Betty left the room, and Grace and I got the job done. “Did you say my doctor is Dr. Apple? I don’t know a Dr. Apple.”

  The nurse busied about, straightening my bedclothes and cleaning up. “Isn’t that an unusual name? I never knew anybody named Apple before, but he’s a real good doctor. They got hold of him out at the desk, and he said he’d be right over.”

  When Betty came back in, she said she had called Wade Tate, and he was on his way over too. “A lot of people have been waiting for you to wake up, Milicent. You want me to call Ms. Ledbetter?”