The Pinch of Death – a mystery by Alysse Aallyn

Chapter 27. A Late-Stage Baptism

Jacquetta’s home looked like someone else’s apartment. Things were in the wrong places. The lights didn’t work. Jacquetta stood in the doorway for a moment, stupidly staring. It was dark – the drapes were drawn and there was no light but after a moment Jacquetta could discern shapes. The velvet rocker lay on its side; a broomstick was thrown against the couch, an ironing board had been dumped on the upturned coffee table. It reminded Jacquetta of the extensive fort-building of childhood. Except that under the coffee table, under the ironing board, sprawled a litter of white clothes.

No. Nonononono….Oh God deliver us. She pulled the coffee table off the body.

It was Honey, curled impossibly small as if to escape her attacker through the floor. It hadn’t worked. Hair covered her face. Jacquetta reached for her hand, clenched as small as an opossum’s, roadkill to be shoveled aside by an uncaring universe.

She pulled Honey’s hair away and wished she hadn’t: her roommate’s face was unrecognizably purple, tongue extruding like a plague victim’s. Jacquetta scrabbled her fingers in the ashes of a fallen ashtray and drew a cross on the dead girl’s forehead. “I baptize thee in the name of…who?”

That slowed her down. Unbaptized Honey had already belonged to all that was good in the universe. “In the name of those who thirst after righteousness,” Jacquetta whispered. “In the names of the peacekeepers, and in the names the meek who are heirs of the earth.”

The particular peacekeeper who responded to Jacquetta’s 911 call was a man named Lt. Marie. He wanted to talk about boyfriends.

“Barney Douglas”, said Jacquetta, who honestly answered most questions she was asked. “He works at Douglas Cadillac. But he didn’t do this.”

“Oh really?” Darkly alert ferret eyes fixed hers. “Who did?”

That was the question. What could she tell this man? George Cleese? Avalon Powell? She had nothing.

“He wasn’t the type,” she said shortly.

The quizzical eyes hardened. “Can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that.” He looked past her and through her; if she was going to spout the standard forlorn clichés of the bereaved, suddenly he was not interested. “She put up a good fight,” he acceded.

She put up a good fight. Jacquetta blanched. Somehow that was even more horrible. She lost, thought Jacquetta. Because she was fighting a monster, and she was fighting a monster because of me…

“Did you touch anything?”

“The phone,” said Jacquetta vaguely. “The bag of groceries somewhere is mine.” She honestly couldn’t have said what happened to it. “I painted a cross on her forehead.”

The eyes swiveled once again. “You..?”

“I didn’t know what to do.” She shook her head. “I tried giving her to God. I didn’t know WHAT to do.”

She could see he had a fear of female hysteria. He backed up a little.

“And you were where? Coming from where?”

“Oh.” She tried to focus. “My alibi.”

Lt. Marie smirked unpleasantly. “Yeah. Your alibi.”

“I was at the Monastery of Holy Calvary in Southport at four-thirty. Then I had dinner with my mother in Pinewood. I ended up at the all-night grocery on Route 1 –“

“Anyone see you?”

Would Penny remember? Still, there were the groceries, expensive, frozen bags of them. Realer, somehow than Penny Dettler ever was. Ever could be.

“Mrs. Neil Dettler. I…helped her shop and I escorted her home.”

She could tell by his eyes that he knew there was more to this story. But he’d already heard too many stories – enough stories for a lifetime. How much should he care about this one? Officiously, he made a note.

“May I use the phone?” she asked.

“You may not. Officer Fuente will drive you where you went to go.”

Fuente means fountain, she thought. Hidden springs.

She was dismissed, but they wouldn’t let her take anything. Her purse was searched, her car keys impounded and she was directed not to “leave town.” Now she was just another character in Dragnet, or worse. Unsolved Mysteries. Where did she want to go?

“The Coaching House on Rt 33?” she suggested. She knew it well, unfortunately. Through her ex, Nelson. It was next to a grocery store which she knew from experience contained many of what she and her lover used to consider the “necessities of life.”

She was learning different necessities now. Life itself was the first necessity. Knowledge is the second.