There's a (Slight) Chance I Might Be Going to Hell - v4 (18 page)

“I’m here at the scene where…where…oh, shit! Cut!” he yelled angrily, hitting his leg with his microphone, then ran around to the back of the tripod and pushed “stop.” He flipped open his notebook again and Maye saw him mouth the words “Cynthia McMahon” several times until he was convinced he got it right. He pushed “play” again, ran in front of the camera, counted to three, and again shouted, “ACTION!”

“I’m here at the scene where Cynthia McMahon was tragically murdered last night,” Richard Titball reported. “And I’m with her neighbor—”

He flipped his wrist and pointed the microphone at Maye, who was taken by surprise for a moment and finally said, “Maye Roberts.”

He flipped the microphone back to himself. “That’s okay,” he whispered into the microphone. “We can edit the pause.”

Maye sort of shrugged and nodded.

“Now, Miss Roberts, you were a friend of Cynthia McMahon?” Richard Titball asked her.

“I was,” Maye answered. “She was a lovely woman.”

“Were you surprised by what happened?” he asked.

“Of course I was,” Maye replied. “You never expect anything like that to happen to people you know, or on the street where you live. I can’t believe it.”

“Can you tell us what you saw here last night?” the reporter dug. “Was there blood on the street?”

“Excuse me?” she replied, shocked. “No, there was no blood on the street.”

“Are you afraid the raccoon will come back for more?” Richard Titball asked dramatically.

“I’m not sure if it’s been established that that is what happened,” Maye commented. “You’d have to confirm that with the police.”

“So you doubt the police report?” Richard Titball probed.

“No,” Maye said, shaking her head. “I just think that it needs further investigation for some definitive answers.”

“Do you think we should round them all up and exact justice for what’s been done to one of our own?” Richard Titball asked.

“Well, you can’t blame the whole raccoon population for the alleged actions of just one,” Maye said, then remembered her earlier thought from that morning, “I’m sure most raccoons won’t attack unless they’re being attacked first. It’s unbelievable. It’s like being mugged by Goofy or carjacked by Piglet.”

“That’s great, thank you,” Richard Titball said, then looked into the camera and screamed “CUT!” before he ran behind the tripod and pushed the “stop” button.

At the florist, Maye chose a bouquet of white roses, calla lilies, and tulips to be sent to Cynthia’s husband, whom she had waved to on the street now and then but had never met. She returned home and was making dinner when she switched on the television to see if there had been any update in the investigation of Cynthia’s death. Naturally, it was the lead story that night, and she hoped desperately that her interview had been forgotten on the editing-room floor as she watched Rick Titball introduce his own story, “A Killer in the Backyard: When Raccoons Murder.”

“I’m here at the scene where Cynthia McMahon was tragically murdered last night,” Titball reported. “And I’m with her neighbor—”

Suddenly, Rick Titball’s face appeared in a close-up as he said, “MAYE ROBERTS.”

“Now, Miss Roberts, you were a friend of Cynthia McMahon?”

“I was,” Maye said.

“Can you tell us what you saw here last night?”

“—blood on the street,” Maye suddenly said.

“Is it true that a raccoon went crazy and killed your neighbor?”

“Raccoons won’t attack unless they’re being attacked first,” Maye told the reporter.

“So you doubt the police report?” Rick Titball inquired.

“It’s unbelievable. It’s like being mugged by Goofy or carjacked by Piglet,” Maye interjected.

“I’m Rick Titball, WDRK, reporting,” Rick Titball said. “Back to you, Rick.”

Titball then followed his own story with tips on how to survive a small-mammal attack and a tip line to call for anyone sighting a suspicious raccoon that fits the description, although the only description given was “a raccoon.” He went on to explain that the suspect was still believed to be in the vicinity, probably because of family ties.

Maye couldn’t believe what she had seen.

“Oh, Titball,” she said between clenched teeth. “I’d like to squeeze you until you’re blue!”

She immediately called the tip line, hoping to set the record straight and get her interview pulled from the later broadcast. After five rings, the station finally picked up.

“Rick Titball,” the voice said.

“This is Maye Roberts, and I just saw your report,” she said angrily. “And I have something to say to you!”

“Yes! Have you seen the killer? Quickly, give me the info. I’m on commercial,” Titball replied.

“I want to speak to the station manager!” Maye said sternly.

“Um, he’s at lunch,” Titball stammered. “Try the community-service line.”

“Do you answer that phone, too?” Maye asked.

There was a pause that couldn’t be edited out. “Sometimes,” Rick Titball said quietly. “Gotta go. It’s time for the weather, and the weather girl ran off to Miami with her body piercer.”

Maye slammed down the phone and fumed silently as Rick Titball appeared on the screen in front of a map of the country with a laser pointer in his hand.

That Rick Titball, she thought to herself. He was a Dick after all.

That Saturday, Maye and Charlie arrived at the Spaulding Memorial Chapel to attend the service for Cynthia. To their amazement, the parking lot was empty save for a few cars.

“Are you sure we’re here at the right time?” Charlie asked. “Is this even the right place? There’s nobody here.”

Maye pulled out the notice of Cynthia’s service that she had clipped from the paper. “Spaulding Memorial Chapel,” she read aloud. “Two P.M. Right time, right place, Charlie. Then again, all of Cynthia’s friends will either be taking the senior shuttle or riding their scooters down here. If you want an aisle seat, we’d better get in there now.”

As they entered the chapel, they saw that the seating area was just as empty as the parking lot. Not a soul in sight except for an older man sitting in the front row, whom Maye recognized as Cynthia’s husband.

“Hello, Mr. McMahon,” Maye said as she and Charlie walked to the front row. “I’m Maye, and this is my husband, Charlie. We live across the street.”

“Oh, yes,” the older man said, standing up and shaking both their hands. “Thank you for coming. Please call me Pat.”

“We’re so sorry about Cynthia,” Maye said. “She was such a nice person. She was always very kind to me.”

“Oh, you were the girl she was going to work with for the next pageant,” Pat said, nodding in recollection. “I know she was really looking forward to it. Didn’t I see you on the news the other night?”

“Yes, that was me,” Maye replied hesitantly. “But I was horribly misquoted; everything I said was taken out of context. I even called the station to complain, but the only person to talk to was the reporter who did the story. I’m so sorry you had to see that. I really am, I’m quite angry about it.”

“Oh, that Rick Titball,” Pat scoffed. “Rick Screwball, if you ask me. He’s misquoted just about every person in town! Plus, it turns out that a raccoon didn’t kill Cynthia after all, just like you thought, Maye. Medical examiner found a three-inch long beetle stuck in her hair, and the best he could figure is that she was trying to get it out when she fell down the stairs and broke her neck taking some old donuts out to the trash. That woman loved her hair spray, and in the end, it trapped that beetle like it was in a cell. I guess during the fall, some of the jelly from those donuts smeared on her face, and that’s what the raccoon was trying to eat. I tell you, it was a sight, though.”

“I can’t imagine,” Charlie said.

“I guess it’s better this way than being a murder,” Pat said, shaking his head. “I love nature, but I didn’t want it to make a meal out of my wife, you know.”

Maye wasn’t sure how to reply to a comment like that, so instead, she chose door number one, trivia.

“I’m sorry if we came too early,” she said, motioning to the empty chapel. “We didn’t mean to interrupt your alone time, but the newspaper said the service was starting at two.”

“No, no,” Pat replied. “That’s right, it was two o’clock. Unfortunately, you can’t really book a funeral in advance, unless it’s an execution or something, and well, it just so happens that today, of all days, is Styrofoam Day. Everyone’s out at the plant.”

“Oh,” Maye said, again not really knowing what to say. She tried to be optimistic. “I’m sure more people will come to the funeral.”

“Nah,” Pat said, waving his hand. “There won’t be one. Cynthia had decided to donate her body to the Automobile Institute for Crash Testing. She loved the aspect of reuse. It only makes sense that she got recycled herself. In fact, I’d better wrap this thing up. Elsie is out there, holding my place in line. Nice of you to come, though. Are you heading out there yourself? It will be one hell of a line by now.”

“Got a bag of peanuts in my car,” Maye answered, nodding.

Already knowing that they had done their fair share of poisoning the earth with what the Styrofoam gods had bestowed on them, Maye and Charlie lied to the new old widower. There were no peanuts. The last piece of Styrofoam from their house had entered the trash and Cynthia had secretly plucked it from their bin and added it to her own collection days before a loud and large black horned beetle had become entombed in her lacquered hair and she tumbled down eleven of the twelve back stairs.

The Sewer Pipe Queen Pageant had been going strong for as long as Spaulding had been a town, Maye realized. Considering the average life span, that meant that there had to be at least several dozen Old Queens walking around—after all, Maye hardly knew anyone in that town, and she had already bumped into three of them. There had to be someone she could dig up who wasn’t already sponsoring a contestant, and the odds were finally in her favor.

After she read the morning paper, which had been consumed by Cynthia’s death—the headline read RACCOON CLEARED: BEETLE SUSPECT IN QUEEN MAULING while the one below it read, “
H.M.S. Pinafore
Sunk After Lead Runs into White Light”—she decided to put her rusty reporter’s skills to work and find out just how many Old Queens were rattling around the streets of Spaulding.

On her way to the library to start on some research, Maye felt guilty about her joy over being released from her obligation as Dick Deadeye, but it was a feeling that she simply could not deny. Still, she felt bad for Agnes, Elsie, and the Rascal Rodeo, who all but lived for those performances, although, as the paper had reported, the production would simply be impossible to execute since Cynthia herself was playing four of the eight roles that were of any substantial merit.

At the traffic light in front of the library, Maye stopped as pedestrians tumbled into the crosswalk, including one dark, hooded figure complete with face obscured and staff in hand. Was there a new
Star Wars
movie opening that she didn’t know about? Maye wondered. Then she realized that she wasn’t sure what was more bizarre—that a Grim Reaper was in the crosswalk or that no one else in the vicinity seemed to take any notice. Maye parked, making sure to pay special attention to any flying beetles coming her way. Another Spaulding Moment, as she and Charlie had begun to call their encounters with something unusual, like a girl walking around downtown topless, or a mailman attempting to hurdle your trash can. This town was full of them.

Maye made her way to the Spaulding Room, where the old directories and newspaper clippings were collected. Although the room wasn’t huge, its oak-paneled bookcases were filled from floor to ceiling with binders, books, and volumes of documents and ledgers; beyond the bookcases sat several rows of old wooden filing cabinets. Maye hadn’t the faintest idea where to start looking for old Sewer Pipe Queens.

“Can I help you?” a woman at the front desk asked, obviously sensing Maye’s confusion.

“I hope so,” Maye said, laughing. “I’m doing some research on the Sewer Pipe Queen Pageant. And I was hoping to find some old newspaper stories or some kind of list of women who held the title.”

“Hmmm,” the librarian hummed as she quickly typed and hit “enter.”

“Welllll,” she said as she studied the computer screen and winced slightly, which made Maye wince slightly. “It doesn’t look like there’s a whole lot in the file, but it should be a good start. Let me pull it for you, and while you take a look at it, I can check some other places.”

“That would be great, thank you,” Maye said as the librarian walked to one of the old oak filing cabinets, yanked heartily on a stubborn drawer, and pulled out an ample manila folder with newspaper clippings sprouting out of it.

“Here you go,” she said as she handed it to Maye. “I’ll be right back. I have a hunch I’m going to follow up on. We might be able to find additional archives under the Spaulding Festival.”

Maye brought the file over to a small table with an accountant’s lamp on it. She turned the light on, illuminating the green shade, sat down, and opened the file.

Looking up at Maye from inside the folder were pretty, young, smiling faces now yellowed and aged on fragile newspaper that had become antiqued with time. In clipping after clipping, their crowns glistened and shone, as each winner embarked on a year as the town’s queen. Paulette Newsome, for example, won her title in 1927 by exhibiting her Charleston dancing skills; Marion Perkins captured her crown by her demonstration of sewer-pipe construction with a jelly roll 1943; in 1962, Peggy Notham took the throne with her interpretive dance to “Puff, the Magic Dragon”; and in 1973, Sharla Sunflower took the throne by reprising her community-college theater role of Mary Magdalene in
Jesus Christ Superstar
by singing “I Don’t Know How to Love Him,” using a holographic portrait of Jesus with eyes that alternated between open and closed, which, it was reported, made the Christian savior look rather narcoleptic.

There were dozens and then more dozens of Sewer Pipe Queens in Spaulding’s past, making Maye feel a little overwhelmed. How could she find out who was alive, who had moved, who lived here still? Many of the last names must have changed through marriages and divorces, and the hunt for each individual queen could become an investigation on its own and could take weeks, maybe even months. She even found photographs of the male Sewer Pipe Queens, and although she knew it was a bit sexist, she passed them by. Maye decided to eliminate anything that dated so far back that it was most likely the Old Queen wasn’t available being that she was embalmed or was so old that springing her from the assisted living facility might be a little difficult. Still, faced with a file full of clippings and more than fifty possible leads, Maye couldn’t help but feel a little bit defeated.