Peachy Scream

by Anna Gerard

  “Good question. I’ll talk to her once Connie leaves and find out for sure. The only relatives I’ve heard her mention are in California, so the troupe is probably the nearest thing she has to a family. Unless she’s close to any of Len’s folks, but from some of the comments I’ve heard her make in the past, I kind of suspect not.”

  I nodded. The whole “young trophy wife hated by the older husband’s family and friends” was a cliché for a good reason.

  “Keep me posted,” I told him. “I’m assuming rehearsals are cancelled for the rest of the day. If I can help you with anything, let me know.”

  “I appreciate that,” he replied, sounding as if he actually did. “Maybe you wouldn’t mind running upstairs and seeing how everyone else is doing.”

  I nodded, since I also needed to retrieve Mattie from wherever Radney and Chris had taken her. Leaving Harry outside the dining-room door, I headed upstairs. Bypassing the room where Susie was staying—packing up Len’s things from the parlor was probably going to fall to me—I rapped at Tessa and Bill’s open door and poked my head inside.

  “How are you two holding up”

  They’d been sitting on the bed near each other, backs to the door and heads tilted toward each other, whispering together like a couple of teens. At my question, they both whipped about with oddly guilty expressions.

  “Oh, hello, Nina,” Tessa said. “Bill and I were just discussing the, ahem, situation. This was quite unexpected. I fear we haven’t quite taken it in yet.”

  “I think we’re all in shock,” I agreed, a bit surprised to see no obvious show of grief from them. While Marvin might have been wrong about Susie, maybe he’d been right that the troupe wouldn’t care if Len permanently exited stage right.

  Then Bill frowned. “I wonder how this will impact the festival. The show must go on, as they say. Perhaps I should remind Harry that I know Hamlet’s lines up and down, and would be happy to fill in for our deceased cast member.”

  “I’m sure Harry has a backup plan,” I replied, resisting the temptation to repeat Harry’s comment about a geriatric Hamlet. “He’s going to talk with Susie as soon as the sheriff leaves. She won’t be able to take Len’s body back to Atlanta until after the autopsy, so I’m not sure yet if she’ll stay here at the B&B until then.”

  The pair nodded their understanding.

  “It would make better sense for her to stay here,” Tessa opined. “It would do her no good to go home to an empty house. At least here she’ll have something to distract her.”

  “And she’ll have us for moral support,” Bill added, surprising me in light of the lack of concern he’d just shown for Len. Though maybe it was easier to care about a pretty young widow than it was that widow’s late spouse.

  I left the pair and headed to the next room, which was the one Radney and Marvin shared. The door was closed, so I gave a polite knock. Radney answered a moment later, cell phone to one ear. He gestured me inside, giving me the “wait one” raised finger as he finished his call, his end of the conversation consisting mostly of a few “uh-huhs” and an “I’ll let you know” before he hung up.

  “Sorry, Nina. I took the liberty of calling the office and telling Len’s executive assistant what happened. I didn’t want Susie to have to do that.”

  “That’s kind of you. I’m sure she’ll appreciate your thoughtfulness.”

  “Yeah, well, talk about that being the least I could do.”

  He dropped onto one of the twin beds, swiping his free hand over his bald head as he sat there and gave me a helpless look.

  “I’m kind of surprised how hard this is. I didn’t much like the guy, but I’ve worked with him for years at the day job. And then there’s all that time spent with troupe. I mean, an hour ago we were all sitting at the same table, talking, and now …”

  I nodded as he trailed off. Radney, at least, recognized that a man had just died. They might not have been friends, but there was that decent acknowledgment of a fellow being’s passing that had been lacking with Bill and Tessa.

  I repeated to Radney what little I knew so far. He nodded, and then asked, “What about the festival? We’re not canceling the play, are we?”

  And just when he’d risen to the top of my good guy list.

  I tried not to roll my eyes. Was there something about actors, amateur and pro alike, that made them so single-minded? Though, in fairness to the GASPers, the festival was a pretty big deal to the town. Looking at it from that angle, it spoke well for the players that they seemed willing to soldier on.

  “I think Harry has a backup plan for the performance. I’m sure he’ll summon everyone later with an update.” Then, changing the subject, I asked, “So, what did you and Chris do with Mattie?”

  “Last I saw, the kid took your pup to his room … you know, for comfort or something.”

  “Yeah, she’s pretty good about making a person feel better. I’ll go talk to him next.”

  I left him scrolling through his phone, presumably for the numbers of more people to notify, and headed for Chris’s room. Of all the GASPers, he was the one I worried most about right now … besides Susie, of course. I’d admired how he’d been the only member of the group who had tried to help Len. But chances were he’d never seen anyone dead before—at least, not unless they were already neatly laid out in an expensive casket surrounded by flower arrangements. But an up close and personal view of the body of a man he knew had to have been traumatic.

  “Chris,” I called through the closed door as I gave a quick rap. “It’s Nina. Do you have Mattie in there with you?”

  The only response was a muffled bark from the Aussie. Concerned, I twisted the knob and peered inside.

  As on the day before, he was stretched out on one of the two twin beds, earbuds in and head propped on pillows as he stared at his phone. The oversized glasses lay on the bed beside him, his bare face looking even younger and more vulnerable. Mattie sat at his feet, chin on paws, as she turned an inquiring look from me back to the youth.

  Ignoring the whole shoes on the clean bedspread thing, I asked, “Chris, are you all right? Chris? Chris?”

  That last word was almost a shout. Apparently, it was loud enough to pierce the volume coming from his earbuds. He turned in my direction and plucked one out, then sighed. “Yeah?”

  So much for vulnerable. After his valiant efforts on Len’s behalf earlier, I’d expected to find him prostrate with grief. Or at least suitably sad. Instead, he had the resigned look of someone who was being disturbed in the middle of a crucial round of Candy Crush or whatever the game du jour was.

  Frowning a little, I said, “Sorry to intrude, but I was looking for Mattie.”

  “You told us to keep her inside while the paramedics were here, so I figured this was the best place. Sorry if that wasn’t okay.”

  “No, that was just fine. And the paramedics are gone.” Then, when he continued to stare, I went on, “The sheriff is talking to Susie right now.”

  This comment sparked a look of interest. Plucking out the other earbud, the youth fixed me with a wide-eyed look. “Sheriff? Why is he here? They don’t think someone killed Len, do they?”

  I stared right back. Why would Chris, of all people, jump to such a conclusion? Sure, I’d wondered the exact same thing, but for all of fifteen seconds.

  “She,” I reflexively corrected the pronoun. “And not as far as I know. Sheriff Lamb needs information about any medication Len was taking. Since it was an unexpected death”—I refrained from giving the words finger quotes—“the coroner has called for an autopsy, just in case.”

  He shrugged, the stare gone. “I suppose that makes sense. Still, you know how it goes. Old people die all the time.”

  Old? Len was in his mid-fifties, which made him not much more than a dozen years older than me. Which in Chris’s world probably put me into the decrepit category too.

  But before I could educate the kid about the realities of aging, he brightened and added, “Maybe now
Harry will let me play Hamlet.”

  Another contender.

  I sighed and patted my leg to summon Mattie, who promptly slipped off the bed and joined me. As I turned to the door, I remarked, “I’m sure Harry has a plan in mind. I’ll let him know you’re up here when he’s ready to call a troupe meeting.”

  But Chris had already stuck the earbuds back in his ears, effectively tuning me out. Shaking my head, I left the room. While Mattie padded with me down the hall, I mulled over the conversation I’d just had with the youth.

  Back in the garden, Chris had seemed understandably upset by what had happened. Just as quickly, he had resumed his too cool for school ‘tude, only to then wonder, like me, if Len’s death was something other than an accident.

  I shook my head. Probably, like me, he watched too many cop shows on TV.

  “Not my circus, not my monkeys,” I reminded myself.

  Instead, it was time to revert to my role as innkeeper. I would check in with Harry and see what Susie’s plans were. Then, assuming I wasn’t needed elsewhere, later today I would take on the sad task of packing Len’s things that remained in the parlor.

  Chapter Eleven

  The morning had dragged on interminably once Sheriff Lamb had finished talking with Susie. I ran into Marvin in the upstairs hallway right after a pizza lunch that I’d called in for the troupe, my treat. I was bringing up extra towels. He was leaving Susie’s room, stealthily closing the door after him. Catching sight of me, he gave what appeared to be a guilty start.

  “I was just checking in on Susie again,” he said, though the flush in his cheeks seem to indicate that something more might have been transpiring besides friendly comforting. “She’s still pretty upset, so I thought another swig of that fancy cognac might help her. I left the bottle in there with her. I hope that’s okay.”

  “Sure. And it probably wouldn’t hurt for us to take turns making sure she’s all right,” I replied, charitably ignoring the fact that his breath now held a distinct whiff of said fancy cognac.

  He nodded as we started down the stairs together.

  “I guess Spielberg, er, Harry already told you that she’s staying here for the duration?”

  “Yes, I talked to Harry about it before lunch. It’s probably good that she does stay at the B&B. Any arrangements that need to be made I’m sure she can handle by phone or Internet. And in the meantime, she’s got all of us for support.”

  Marvin snorted.

  “Well, she ain’t getting it from anyone else. Right now she’s worried that Len’s people are going to swoop in and take the house and all the cash. She said they had a pre-nup, but all them Marshes are just like him … a bunch of hyenas. That’s why she hasn’t notified the family yet. Let ‘em read it in the obits, is what she told me.”

  I winced. On the one hand, I could understand that attitude if the in-law dynamics were as toxic as Marvin indicated. On the other … well, it was pretty brutal not to let family members know that one of theirs was dead.

  Circus. Monkeys. The reminder drifted through my mind, enabling me to refrain from commenting.

  Once downstairs, I left Marvin on the shaded front porch with a glass of iced tea from the big jug in my refrigerator. Earlier, Radney, Tessa, and Bill had called for an Uber and gone down to the square for a look around.

  “Harry gave us the day off,” Tessa had explained. “There’s not much else for us to do except sit around and mope.”

  Which made sense. That left Chris still closeted in his room, with Harry, I assumed, upstairs in the tower room. With everyone out of the way, I’d put up what was left of the pizza and do the dishes. Later, I’d tackle packing Len’s things.

  Cleanup didn’t take long, though I spent a few extra minutes inventorying my champagnes flutes that had held the breakfast mimosas. Sure enough, one was missing. I was positive I remembered seeing Len carry off his glass after breakfast, but I didn’t recall noticing it on the patio or in the garden. Unless he’d set it down in the hallway on his way out, it had to be somewhere in the backyard.

  Suddenly feeling compelled to find the missing glass, I tossed aside my dish towel and headed for the backyard.

  Mattie followed me out into the summer heat. Somewhat to my surprise, we found Harry there, lounging on one of the patio benches. As usual, it felt at least ten degrees cooler in the shade, and even cooler with the slight breeze, meaning it wasn’t crazy for him to be taking in the afternoon there.

  He too had a glass of iced tea in hand. Yorick sat beside him … if a skull could be said to sit. I was glad to see that the cigarette was gone.

  “Sharing a little quality time with your friend?” I asked with a smile.

  Harry shrugged. “Yorick tends to keep his thoughts to himself. The only way I’ll get any intelligent conversation is if you care to join us.”

  Feeling oddly complimented by this, my smile broadened. That was, until I recalled what I was doing out there.

  “Actually, I’m on a scavenger hunt. You didn’t see one of my champagne glasses out here, did you? I think Len carried his outside with him, and with everything that’s happened, it’s kind of disappeared.”

  “I’ll help you look. Why don’t we start in the Shakespeare garden? I’ll take the east side, and you can take the west.”

  I nodded my agreement. Harry gave his bony buddy a pat on his smooth head, leaving the skull where it sat. Mattie gave it a curious sniff. Then, apparently deciding she preferred his silent company to ours, she flopped down on the bricks beside the bench. Her one blue eye and one brown eye watched us with lazy interest as we began our search.

  The obvious place to look was any level surface in the garden—a stone, a short wall—that might have made a makeshift shelf. After a few minutes of fruitless searching, however, I brushed away the sweat dripping into my eyes and shook my head.

  “I don’t see anything. Maybe he still was holding it when he collapsed, so that would mean out there in the yard somewhere.”

  We took the two steps down through the garden gap to the backyard proper. The gash in the hedges where Len had landed stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb. Moreover, now I could see ruts in the grass near the drive where the gurney had been wheeled in and out. Hendricks would not like any of that at all.

  “Hendricks is not going to like this,” Harry echoed my concern. Then, when I looked at him in surprise, he clarified, “That old geezer was doing Aunt Lathrop’s gardening back when I was a kid. I can’t believe he conned you into keeping him on.”

  “Since I garden about as well as I cook, I figured it was worth the aggravation to keep the grounds up to your great-aunt’s standards.”

  He looked a little surprised at that last, but nodded.

  “Thanks for that. Hendricks can fill in the ruts with sand, and in a couple of months no one will see the damage. The hawthorn will be harder, but he’ll figure something out.”

  “Speaking of which, we should probably try looking in the hedges first,” I suggested. “I didn’t smell cigarette smoke this morning, so Len probably never made it as far as the smoking area.”

  Harry nodded and knelt to one side of the broken hedges, leaving me to the other. Gingerly, because I hadn’t forgotten Dr. Bishop’s comment about snakebite, I parted branches and fished about within the leaves, looking for a glint of glass. I rousted a couple of mosquitoes and a shiny black beetle with my efforts, but saw nothing resembling the missing glass.

  “Any luck?” I called to Harry a minute later.

  “Nothing yet. And be careful. The glass might have broken when he dropped it. You don’t want to slice your hand open.”

  I crawled a bit deeper into the bushes, aware that I was doing more damage but certain Hendricks wouldn’t know the difference between the earlier breakage and the new. By morning, all the broken branches and stems would sport equally brown leaves and drying blooms. And if the old man complained about it too much, I’d simply give him a lecture on …

  A glint of
orangey light above where I was crawling caught my attention and cut short my mental scolding.

  “I found it!” I cried as I spied the intact champagne flute suspended like a Christmas ornament between two hawthorn branches. Even more improbably, a good half-inch of peach mimosa remained in the flute’s narrow bowl. “Give me hand, would you?”

  While Harry gripped my free arm for balance, I carefully extracted the glass from the tangle and then stood. “Just needs a good washing,” I said in satisfaction. But as I started to dump out the remaining liquid from the glass, I noticed something else.

  “Harry, come back here, would you?” I said, as the actor had already started up the steps toward the garden again. “Does this look odd to you?”

  I raised the champagne flute once more, this time indicating a small line of dried residue on the glassware’s inner surface. Harry took the glass from me, squinted at it, then shrugged.

  “Looks like some junk fell into it … probably pollen,” he replied and handed back the flute. “That or it’s just dried peach nectar.”

  “I don’t think it’s pollen,” I countered, taking another look. “And in all the times I’ve made my peach mimosas, I’ve never seen this happen before. It almost looks like some sort of dried powder.”

  The actor gave me a considering look. “What are you trying to say, Nina?”

  “I —I’m not sure.”

  To be more accurate, I had a good idea of what I wanted to say but, unlike Chris, I didn’t yet dare voice it aloud. I distinctly remembered looking at every single flute before I’d mixed the mimosas. Whatever else was in the glass now had to have been introduced after I’d served it to Len.

  The question was, what was “it”? And how had it gotten into Len’s glass?

  Before I could take my internal theorizing any further, Harry spoke up again.

  “All right, here’s another possibility. What if Len was washing down one of his pain pills with your mimosa at the exact moment he had his heart attack, or whatever? Maybe he spit his meds back into his glass before he collapsed, and the pill dissolved in what was left of the mimosa while the glass was baking out here.”