OUT ON A LIMB by Joan Hess Page B

up the foundation and the flour beetles are making me crazy. Do come in.”
    Any sane person would have bolted for the sidewalk. I went inside.
    All the drapes in the living room were drawn, leaving an eerie glow that suggested visitation at a mortuary. The furniture was an eclectic combination of battered wicker chairs, lumpy upholstered sofas, and stools from a longdefunct ice-cream parlor. The redolence was sour but bearable.
    “You’re Sheila Armstrong?” I said as I perched on what proved to be a precariously wobbly stool.
    She draped herself across a chair, oblivious of her lack of clothing, and pushed a tangled mass of graystreaked hair out of her face. Even in the gloom, her skin was so pale that I doubted she ventured out of her house until after sunset. Her makeup had been applied with a zealous hand. “Perhaps, perhaps not. Are you a terminator or an exterminator? I simply cannot make plans for the rest of the day until you explain your motives.”
    “I was hoping we could talk about Daphne.”
    “Yes, Daphne.” She lit a cigarette and blew a stream of smoke that seemed to swirl in the sunlight coming through a gap in the drapes. “She was here when they came looking for her yesterday. I told her to hide under the bed or in the attic, but she just sat and waited. She used to be high-spirited, but her father systematically broke her as one would a wild pony. She didn’t even protest when he forced her to attend that dreadful church school. If he had listened to me, none of this would have happened.”
    “The murder—or the baby?”
    “None of it,” she said emphatically. “Would you like some vodka?”
    When I shook my head, she went into another room and returned with a glass filled to the brim with a colorless beverage that was not likely to be water. She took a drink, and then a long drag on her cigarette. “Just who are you?”
    I told her my name and vaguely alluded to the bookstore. “Daphne came to my apartment several days ago because she needed help. She was worried about Skyler.”
    “She should have been more worried about that boyfriend of hers. They should have kept him locked up for the rest of his life. After I met him, I warned her that he was disaster in the making. There she was, dating a boy nine years older who worked as a mechanic, when she could have been doing her schoolwork and thinking about college. That’s when Anthony sent her to that school, where they wear prissy uniforms and recite Bible verses every morning. A course in sex education would have been more pragmatic, wouldn’t it?”
    I wasn’t sure what to make of her, dressed as she was in expectation of the arrival of an exterminator. The vodka was being consumed with practiced efficiency; the glass was already half empty (or half full, if she was an optimist). She hadn’t shown any concern for Skyler’s whereabouts or well-being. Or Daphne’s, for that matter.
    “She lived with you for a time, didn’t she?” I asked.
    ‘That was several weeks ago. She seemed more like a feral cat than my little girl. I kept expecting her to hiss over table scraps. The infant screamed night and day. It was simply too stressful for me. Do you have children, Mrs. Malarky?” *
    “Malloy,” I murmured, although I doubted it would penetrate her haze. “Yes, I have a daughter. I would do whatever was required to stop her from living on the streets.”
    “Anthony’s problem. He wanted custody, and I never contested it. My share in the divorce settlement was laughable. He’s played golf with every lawyer and judge in the county for twenty years. Most of them have invested in his developments and come away with a profit. He built three quarters of the apartment and condominium complexes in Farberville, as well as several residential developments. His corporation owns dozens of rental houses. I accepted this one as part of the deal, since I knew I wouldn’t be able to afford anything better. Unfortunately, I’m finding it