Sisterhood is Deadly: A Sorority Sisters Mystery Read online

  Hatfield frowned, deeply. “Who are you? Are you family?”

  In a sense, yes. “She’s my sister,” I said simply. “Delta Betas are there for each other.”

  Hatfield rubbed a hand over his face like he was exhausted and mumbled something like, “Mother of God.”

  I decided to spell it out for him. “Look, I know you don’t get it. But like I said, there are a bunch of traumatized young women back at the chapter house. With Liza gone, I’m going to have to take responsibility for the chapter, and I’d appreciate your respecting that.”

  “Right,” he bit out. “And I’d appreciate your respecting the legal authority of this police department as we investigate this matter.”

  Okay, fine. He had another decent point. I saw where he was going with that. A Delta Beta woman always respected the law. But as Hatfield drove me back to the Deb house, I wondered why he seemed to think there would be an ongoing investigation of what a doctor would surely diagnose as a sudden stroke or heart attack.

  Chapter Four

  FOLLOWING A DEATH in the chapter room and a quasi-­accidental arrest, my immediate response should have been to call my supervisor at Delta Beta headquarters in Atlanta. And I did that … sort of. I called someone: Casey Kenner, the Delta Beta director for public relations and my best friend at HQ.

  The hoarse voice that answered told me I might not have called at the best time.

  “Do you know what time it is?” The growling on the other end of the line was disconcerting.

  I looked at my rose-­gold Michael Kors watch. It had been a present from the UCLA chapter after a particularly difficult semester, grade-­wise. I had helped them institute a new study-­buddy system and regular study hours. After just a semester, the chapter had reached a C average. They had been thrilled. “It’s not that late in my time zone.”

  “Girl, we’re in the same time zone. North Carolina and Georgia are practically neighbors.”

  Love that Casey. Smart as a whip.

  I briefly went over the events of the evening, and as I expected, Casey was all over it. Deaths and arrests were bad for public relations. “You’ve been there half a day,” Casey moaned.

  “And isn’t it a good thing I was here!” I exclaimed hotly, thanking Jesus that I was sent to the right place at the right time. “The chapter needs me, now more than ever.”

  Casey yawned audibly over the phone. I forgave the incredibly bad manners at two in the morning.

  “I have to call Mabel. She’ll want an update, too, but I wanted to give you a heads-­up before things get crazy in the morning.”

  “Thanks.” The word was little flat, but like besties always did, Casey came around. “Do you need me? Are you okay?”

  Once again, for the fifth or five hundredth time that day, my heart nearly burst with love for a true Delta Beta friend. “I think I’ll be all right,” I assured myself as much as my friend. “Thank you for asking.”

  After I got off the phone with Casey, I called Mabel Jones, the Vice President of Collegiate Chapters. She also reminded me of the time, but as soon as I explained what was going on, she forgave me. And because Mabel is a true Deb, smart and sharp even in the middle of the night, she asked me—­ME!—­to temporarily take over the chapter-­advisor position at Sutton College, while the whole mess got sorted out.

  It was a huge honor. I was not going to let my sisters down.

  AFTER THE CONVERSATION with Mabel, I couldn’t get to sleep, wide-­awake with ideas and dreams of where I could take my chapter. I was staying in the guest room on the second floor of the sorority house, essentially a supply closet with a spare bed, but I didn’t mind; I was used to staying wherever chapters could find room for me. At least I had a door and a place for my suitcase here. I rolled out of the twin bed and pulled on a Sutton College sweatshirt over my nightgown. I headed downstairs to the kitchen to get a drink of water, using the back stairs, where every square inch of wall was covered with Delta Beta history. It seemed as if nothing had changed in fifty years, much less ten. I traced the walls of the hall with my fingertips, in the dim light of emergency bulbs set every few feet into the ceiling. Every step brought back a memory: of college, of friends, of my final days of childhood.

  Ten years ago, I had pledged this very chapter of Delta Beta. I was eighteen and fresh from my small hometown in the Florida panhandle. Growing up, I dreamed of going north for college, where campuses were covered in ivy and girls wore flannel and LL Bean boots for necessity’s sake. I got as far as North Carolina, which was just fine with me. Here at Sutton College, I had all the ivy and woods and LL Bean that a Florida girl could dream of, plus a winter that was frosty but not arctic-­y.

  Childhood really lasts through college, doesn’t it? Sure, it’s in its waning days, but the world still seems as bright as a new penny, hopeful and huge. My four years in this sorority were the last incubation period, my final cozy womb until I burst out, ready to take on the world. And if I had partially stayed in that Delta Beta cocoon by becoming a semipermanent Sisterhood Mentor, well, who would blame me? It was fun. And happy.

  Except when ­people died at a chapter meeting. That was a total bummer.

  I pushed open the door to the kitchen and registered movement in the dark. With a jump and a scream, I slapped at the wall and turned on the lights. A young man in khaki shorts and an untucked polo shirt was as startled as I was by my scream. He held his hands up. “I’m sorry! I’m just finishing up!”

  I put a hand to my chest, where I found my racing heart drumming a tattoo. “Who are you, and what do you think you’re doing?”

  Men were only allowed in the public areas of the first floor of the sorority house between the hours of 8:00 A.M. and 8:00 P.M. And they were strictly forbidden in the chapter room. It was inviolable Delta Beta law.

  “I’m the house brother,” he said nervously. “Hunter Curtis.”

  Well, that explained it. A house brother was a young man, generally a fraternity member, who was hired to do light housework and/or heavy lifting around a sorority house. It was usually someone who many of the sorority members considered a friend or even a little brother, and there were strict rules about his conduct in the house. Hunter looked trustworthy enough, with friendly brown eyes, sun-­streaked brown hair, and worn-­in Sperrys.

  “What are you doing here? It’s after midnight,” I asked again, this time with the crazy turned down.

  “With the police here, I couldn’t finish sweeping up after dinner. So I came back to make sure it was all ready for the morning.”

  I relaxed a little bit. “I appreciate your hard work, but you really shouldn’t be here this late.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. He seemed like a nice young man, just doing his job.

  “We’ll let it go this time.”

  “Okay, Miss … ?”

  Where were my manners? “Margot Blythe,” I said, reaching out to shake his head. “I’m the temporary chapter advisor.”

  Hunter’s expression altered when he heard that. Like I said, ­people respected strong authority figures.

  I locked up after Hunter left via the kitchen door and padded through the halls with my cup of water until I found what I was looking for: four framed displays, hung chronologically. The annual chapter composite pictures featured portraits of each sister, memorializing their youth and beauty for all time. The pictures were alphabetical, and thanks to my last name, I was near the top for my sophomore, junior, and senior years. I went back to my freshman year. Here I was closer to the middle, as pledges were placed after the active members.

  Written in calligraphy, my name was under a portrait of a girl I barely recognized. Fresh from having my braces removed the summer before college, I sure liked to show off all those straight, pearly teeth. My natural brown hair was thick and virgin, free of dyes. One of only two brunette pledges that year—­I knew what it was like to be a minority. As the composites went on, my hair lightened as more and more highlights were magically added (by t
he sun, of course).

  Now, my hair is almost all brown again. Traveling as much as I do, I don’t have time for all the upkeep that a good head of highlights requires. And though the freshman in the picture had hated her full cheeks, now, at the ripe old age of twenty-­seven, I appreciated what a little baby fat could do to a face.

  I might have given up on a full head of unnatural blond streaks but I hadn’t outgrown poor cosmetic decisions, like the thick bangs I’m constantly trying to flatten. Six months ago, I was talked into bangs by a picture of Zooey Deschanel. Turns out, Zooey Deschanel is a better woman than I. I gave it three weeks before I decided to grow them out, but now they just look like an awkward brown flap, just long enough to flip behind my ears, where they stay for about three seconds before slipping out again.

  I placed my hand on the faces of my sisters, wishing them well wherever they were. I reached my big sister’s portrait, beautiful and self-­assured as always, reminding me that a perk of my new role in Sutton would be to spend time with Amanda.

  Still not sleepy, I had another pilgrimage to make. I tiptoed up to the third floor. There were fewer bedrooms up here, and most girls didn’t like to carry all their shoes all the way to the third floor. It was popular with the older sisters and the really studious ones who liked the quiet. Needless to say, I had lived on the second floor. I tried the door handle at the end of the hall. Luckily, it was open.

  The room was nearly pitch-­black. There were no emergency lights in here, as it was basically a floored-­in attic space where the chapter stored rush props and the random detritus of college women: enough supplies to survive on a desert island. I walked slowly, keeping my hands out in front of me, feeling for furniture or boxes. I stubbed my toe almost immediately, but then I saw the silvery light coming in through a window.

  Sorority row sat on the south side of campus, on a rise that wasn’t apparent from the street until you were up here, on the third floor, looking over the edge of campus, the town beyond, and the Blue Ridge Mountains in the far distance. I don’t remember when I discovered the view from here, but I would escape to this little nook on the days when things got too loud, too dramatic, too much to deal with on the floors below.

  The town of Sutton looked like a Norman Rockwell dream, all red brick and straight-­ edged, with elm-­lined streets. Everything made sense up here. The world looked perfect. And it reminded me that perfection was possible. All you had to do was look at the world in the right way. Stay positive, and you’d see the most amazing things. I was pretty sure that Mary Gerald Callahan or Leticia Baumgardner would agree.

  Chapter Five

  THE NEXT MORNING was bright and clear as I made my way across the Sutton College campus. It was easily the prettiest college campus I’d ever been to, and I’m a bit of an expert. In the last six years as Sisterhood Mentor, I’ve been lucky enough to visit nearly forty institutions of higher learning across North America.

  Wide, tree-­shaded pathways snaked through campus, curving among brick buildings built in the colonial style. Students joke that the campus planners were drunk when the sidewalks were built, but I prefer to think that they just liked taking their time when getting to their destination. Kind of like I do.

  Though I had a meeting scheduled for nine, I took a bit of extra time strolling through campus. Each building held a special place in my heart; each bend in the path was another precious memory to relive. There, at the Harrison-­Peterson Cafeteria, I saw Kirby Jones cheating on me over a spaghetti lunch with an Epsilon Chi. And there, at the War Memorial fountain, my cute exchange-­student boyfriend Felipe told me he was married and had three kids back in Chile. And at the ivy arbor next to the psychology building, I found my ex-­boyfriend macking down on a Beta Gamma Zeta.

  College days were the best.

  My destination this morning was the Commons, or the student center, specifically the basement offices of the Panhellenic Council. Panhellenic is a nationwide quasi-­governing organization of the national sororities—­kind of like the United Nations. Similar to the United Nations, joining Panhellenic is political and voluntary, and their rule-­making is toothless. The bite of the Panhellenic is more often carried out at the campus level, and Sutton College was no exception.

  In fact, almost fifteen years ago, there was a kerfuffle when the Epsilon Eta Chi chapter invited all the rushes to a kegger at a private house, a no-­no. When the Panhellenic advisor took Epsilon Eta Chi’s side, it mystified all the other sororities on campus … until it came out that she herself had been an Epsilon Eta Chi, causing drama and fallout sufficient for a Bravo reality show. From that scandal on, the Panhellenic advisor at Sutton College has had to keep her sorority membership a secret in order to remain impartial: a good rule I wish other campuses would adopt. It would do a world of good to avoid the underhanded dealings of Epsilon Eta Chis and their ilk.

  In her office at the Commons, I sat across from the current Panhellenic advisor, a skinny, perky woman with long, enviably straight, blond hair, and a knack for eye makeup. Now this office showed some imagination in decor, from the rug to the posters; Deputy Hatfield could take some lessons. Every inch of the space showed true Panhellenic spirit, with pictures depicting the most fun times of sorority life. It was like I’d died and gone to Delta Beta heaven.

  I made a circle with my thumb and forefinger and nonchalantly put the circle over my heart. The Panhellenic advisor did the same over her heart. We smiled at each other with big, goofy grins, the kind you get when happiness is too hard to keep bottled up.

  “BIG!” I yelled, getting up from my chair.

  “Little!” Amanda yelled back. That’s right: The Sutton College Panhellenic advisor was not only a beautiful, smart Delta Beta, but she was my one and only big sister.

  “I can’t believe you’re here!” she said after we’d hugged each other’s breath out.

  “When they told me I was coming back to Sutton, I could hardly stand not calling you,” I admitted. “But I wanted it to be a surprise.”

  “Total surprise! Last I heard from you, you were in Atlanta.”

  “For just a few days,” I said. “Before that it was Jacksonville, then Austin, then Portland …”

  “So glamorous.”

  I nodded. Living out of a rolling suitcase, doing laundry only every few weeks, and sleeping on spare beds. My life was great but definitely not glamorous. “How’s your family?” I asked.

  Amanda tossed back her perfectly straight hair. “Fine, I’m sure.”

  Her reticence wasn’t surprising. Amanda had never really talked about her large, West Virginian family.

  “Your sisters? How are they?” She had three sisters, which I’d always envied.

  “My sisters are all pregnant. For the third time. Each.” Amanda added.

  “So exciting! Is everyone thrilled about all the babies?”

  “Oh, yes,” Amanda said flatly. “Especially the welfare office.”

  There was an awkward pause. Her family was large, and the one time I’d met them, very kind, but I’d known Amanda long enough to suspect that they were very strapped for cash. It was something Amanda never brought up in college, but the tension showed, and I never told anyone about the Delta Beta scholarships she received. Some ­people are strange about money. Especially proper Southern women.

  “Have you heard anything new about the old gang?” Amanda asked, clearly trying to change the topic, which I was happy to do. I updated her on various pledge sisters and friends I’d run into around the country. It was one of the perks of my job. I was still the social butterfly of our Deb chapter, always keeping up with friends in every city even after we’d scattered postgraduation.

  “How does Kelly Jo look?” Amanda asked, about a friend of ours who I’d just seen in Austin. “I heard she wasn’t keeping well.”

  “She’s twenty-­eight,” I said. “She looks twenty-­eight.”

  Amanda smoothed a hand over her hair, and I self-­consciously did the same with my growin
g-­out bangs. “That’s a shame,” Amanda said.

  “You look great,” I said, totally sincere. “Not a day over twenty-­two.” Amanda was a year older than me, at twenty-­eight, but I thought she’d like to hear that.

  She smiled, pleased with the compliment. “Can’t beat good genes and sunscreen,” she said.

  “True,” I said cheerily, knowing that if Amanda’s poreless, glowing complexion was solely due to sunscreen, I was Angelina Jolie.

  “How long will you be in town?”

  I lifted my hands. “Who knows? You heard about Liza McCarthy, right?”

  Amanda nodded, a sheen of tears suddenly appearing in her eyes. “I’m just in total shock about it,” Amanda said. “She was so young.”

  “So young,” I agreed.

  “What’s going to happen?” Amanda asked, and I gave her the update from HQ.

  “Whoa.” Amanda leaned back in her chair. “That’s huge.”

  “That’s one of the reasons I came to see you. To formally introduce myself as the Delta Beta chapter advisor, pro tem.”

  “I’m so proud of you,” Amanda sniffed. “It’s so great to see your little sister succeed.” Her words brought a mix of emotions, that, to be honest, made me a little uncomfortable. So I just pushed them down and ignored them, like a good Delta Beta. No need to ruin the reunion party.

  My attention was grabbed by a framed photo on her desk. “I can’t believe you have this picture!” I picked up the sparkly pink frame and grinned at the memories that flooded back at the sight of little nineteen-­year-­old Margot and twenty-­year-­old Amanda in the middle of the Sutton Kmart, dressed as Christmas elves. “I still can’t believe you made me do that.” Amanda shook her head.

  “It was Christmas, we had to spread some cheer.”

  “You bought all those toys, and we gave them out to random kids outside the elementary school.”

  I couldn’t help but smile.

  “You always had the most fun ideas to distract me when I was feeling stressed during finals.”