Condemned to Repeat

by Janice Macdonald

  The place went wild with applause.

  4

  --

  As Marni was ushering people into the dining areas, you could still hear them muttering and exclaiming about the amazing performance they had witnessed. I heard Mark Meyer, with a true professional’s timing, move immediately into character as the MC of the magicians’ reunion that was the heart of the mystery dinner theatre. People began to laugh and respond to the various actors at their tables and the party was soon in full swing. No one noticed the nondescript man in the brown corduroy suit who had come through the back door to help take down what was left of Dafoe da Fantabulist’s set. After standing near the entrance to the parlour to be sure the dining room curtain was drawn, I nodded to him the all-clear and went up to offer help with the rubber containers that apparently had been behind the shimmery curtain the whole time. Dafoe calmly pulled open the parlour curtains and nonchalantly closed one of the windows. Between us we carried the containers to the back hall and set them in the kitchen room with the backdoor access. Marni had told me to offer the magician a meal, and he was happy to accept. I could only imagine the energy it took to perform such a concentrated and precise show. We sat in the maid’s parlour up the back stairs and ate our food with our plates balanced on our knees. I didn’t have much time, because I had to be ready to get Tanya spirited away to her corpse scene, but it was pleasant to see the return of the ordinary man with the nice manners. Like most westerners, we made the requisite remarks about the lack of early snow, and he mentioned how good it was to have another month of clear highway driving, since he lived out of town. He told me he had witnessed a car accident near the St. Albert Trail on his way here, and that led to a polite argument over whether or not the right lane could be considered for slower traffic when in the city. We deliberately talked about anything but magic, although he probably knew I was bursting like a little kid to ask him how he’d disappeared all his equipment. Man, if I could clean house with one of those boxes for just an hour!

  Mostly, though, we talked about the House and about my project. Dafoe seemed really interested in the House itself, saying he’d never actually been inside before. I was thinking that Marni might be right on the money with her special events. All it took was to bring people through the door and the genial atmosphere and accessible history did the rest to charm folks into learning more about their own past. It was that sort of philosophy that had also built and maintained Fort Edmonton Park, the city’s tourism jewel.

  I excused myself from Stephen Dafoe and headed down the stairs to keep an eye out for Tanya. Any minute now, she and Mark were going to stage an argument that had to take place in all three dining areas, after which she would be heading upstairs to get into place. It was my job to make sure no one saw her head upstairs.

  From where I stood at the edge of the foyer, I could see into the dining room and straight down the hall that led to the Arbour restaurant area. The staircase in all its splendour rose before me, and the parlour, which now held no vestige of magic, unless you consider upright pianos to be magical even when they are not white and not in the middle of parks, lay to my right. Tanya came out of the dining room and around the newel post and deked up the stairs to take her place in the master bedroom closet, giving me a quick thumbs-up on her way. I removed the velvet rope from its hooks on either newel post, to allow access to the upper floor. Neil, the actor who was playing the murderer, was going to slink over to the parlour and stand out of sight next to the piano for a count of twenty, until we all heard Mark shout, “Hang on a second, where’s Tanya?” and that would be the cue for the guests and actors to get up and move about. Right on time, the action moved forward and the game was afoot.

  I moved against the tide toward the breakfast nook. It was also our cue to clear away the dinner plates and reset with dessert forks. We would be serving coffee and dessert as the actors did the big reveal and tallied up the ballots cast by the patrons to see who had come closest to guessing the murderer and the reasons for the crime. People were still milling about a bit, and I wove in and out, carting dirty plates down the steep stairs to the kitchen and coming up with the crumb broom and pan.

  Guests were certainly getting into the spirit of the game. The House rang with the thumping about of feet, and I had a sudden idea of what it must have sounded like in the years when it was a fraternity house. I gingerly moved one woman’s open purse from the table to the seat of her chair, marvelling at her general trust in her fellow man. Of course, perhaps there was nothing of value but tissue in her purse, merely what one supposed Queen Elizabeth kept in hers.

  Taking another tray of dirty dishes downstairs, I noticed Roxanne sitting at the till-desk, reading. I suppose someone had to man the gift shop, since it was open to anyone passing through to use the washrooms, but it was annoying to see her doing nothing while I navvied. Better yet, I was scolded by the chef, who told me that we had to hurry up or they’d be returning to unset tables. I wasn’t totally sure what he was talking about, since most of the tea-room area was reset, but on my next trip upstairs, I peered into the dining room, where I had thought Jossie had been doing much the same as I.

  It was still a mess, with dinner plates at each place. While I had presumed we’d been working in tandem, she had apparently skyved off and wasn’t pulling her weight. I cursed, thinking she had probably got caught up in the game, and conveniently decided her role was to guard things where the fun and action was, leaving the menial tasks to me. Never mind the fact that I had signed on for this for the extra cash, she was getting paid for her time as well and should be earning it.

  There is nothing like righteous indignation to set me to work at a fierce pace. Muttering under my breath about pretty undergrads with far too much of a sense of entitlement, I had the dining room bussed for dinner plates, swept, and set for dessert in record time. I did a double-check of the breakfast nook and was just peering into the sunroom to assure myself I hadn’t forgotten anything when the screaming began.

  5

  --

  It was coming from upstairs, and I grinned at the fact that I had been startled, even when I had expected it. Tanya’s “body” must have been found, artfully draped into the master bedroom closet. The sound of footsteps racing up the front stairs confirmed my suspicions. Pretty soon we would hear Mark Meyer declaiming, “She’s dead. My beautiful assistant is dead,” and the whole crowd would be ushered back down to the parlour for a visit from the constabulary, played by Andrew MacIvor-Smyth. I had seen him in the basement, dressed in a trench coat and flipping through a coil-bound notebook, too preoccupied by reviewing the clues he had to highlight to do anything but smile and nod as I went by.

  I looked around for Marni, as I intended to complain to her about Jossie. I knew this evening had to go well in order for special events to continue at the House, but bussing tables wasn’t what I had been hired for. While I wasn’t averse to pitching in, being left to do all the menial chores still burned. She would be told that her junior staff was not pulling their weight. So what if I didn’t get invited out for drinks with the wait staff? Honestly, what could we possibly have in common, anyhow?

  As I waited for the patrons to come back down the stairs, it occurred to me that something was wrong. For the first time since the beginning of the evening, the timing was off. Mark still hadn’t called out his line, the thumping about and thrumble of voices upstairs was still happening, louder and shriller than before, and the screamer, who had finally ceased her high-level alarum, sounded as if she was hiccoughing and crying, which seemed a bit much even for the actors involved.

  There was another thing. The locus of all the sound was coming from the wrong side of the house.

  I took one look at the front vestibule and knew I would never manage to push my way up there, so instead, I took a shortcut through the passage beneath the main staircase and ran up the steep maid’s stairs at the back of the house, the ones we had intended to sneak Tanya down right about now. I eased past
the maid’s sitting room, where I had eaten with the magician, and noted a dirty dish sitting on the floor. Picking it up reflexively, I moved into the upper hall, where most of the guests and actors were standing, alternately stricken or puzzled. The crying seemed to be coming from the guest room, directly across the hall from the master bedroom, where the focus should have been.

  Curious, I pushed forward; and, dressed in my apron and carrying dishware, I must have registered as official enough to warrant the movement. People stepped back, and I soon found myself in the sunny bedroom with the yellow ceiling, which Mrs. Rutherford had had painted in order to bring cheer to any guests of the House. Marni was standing with her arm protectively around a young woman who was convulsively sobbing quietly, and behind her a small knot of people stood in shock, staring toward the guest bathroom. I had to step fully into the room to look in the direction they were all aimed at, and when I did, I almost dropped the Limoges plate in my hand.

  Lying in the bathtub, in a hideous pantomime of spa relaxation, was Jossie Jaque. She had one shoe on, and the other was lying far under the claw-foot tub as if it had been kicked there. Her apron was askew, and the front of her blouse looked as if it had been ripped. An arm dangling over the near side of the tub showed marks near her wrist akin to a bruise, and her nails were broken. The worst thing, though, was her eyes, which seemed to be looking with horror through the open doorway toward us. Her head was twisted at an unrealistic angle, and even from here I could see that she was quite dead.

  I am not sure how long I stood there before I processed the fact that Marni was saying my name. I pulled my eyes away from the horror before me and turned toward my boss.

  “Randy, would you please go downstairs and call the police?”

  Shaking myself aware, I nodded. I was about to leave the room, when some of the senses that must have rubbed off from dating a policeman for so long kicked in.

  “Marni, perhaps we should get everyone downstairs and out of this room and make sure that no one leaves before the police get here, too.”

  She looked at me and I could see in her eyes the weariness and woe that would mark the next few weeks for us all. Nothing can rule your life like being stuck in a murder investigation, even peripherally. Just ask me about it.

  “Good idea. I will move everyone out of this room. Please have the actors help you seat everyone in their dinner places, and perhaps Chef can serve dessert while we await the police.”

  On the surface, it may have sounded cavalier, but I could see the value in keeping everyone calm and carrying on, as it were. Besides, if they were all seated, we could keep track of them better. I ran down the stairs and grabbed the telephone in the hall, hoping 911 would have GPS coordinates to Rutherford House, because I was in no condition to give them directions.

  The operator put the call through to the police immediately. I explained the situation, requesting as many officers as possible to help with the rather large group of patrons in the House, and then signed off. I was told to be at the front door to identify myself to the detectives and officers on their arrival.

  As soon as I hung up the phone, I ran downstairs with the plate I’d pulled from the maid’s room and grabbed the cellphone I rarely used but now always carried from my purse, which was tucked away in the cubby at the back of the kitchen.

  I needed my own personal cavalry. I hit speed-dial and called Steve.

  6

  --

  Steve got the gist of what I was saying without too much extrapolation. After all, he knew where I was working, and I’d gone on at length about the whole mystery event two nights earlier, when we’d been out for dinner together. Making sure I’d already put through the emergency report, he told me to follow their directions, praised me for thinking to secure the crime site, and warned me to be careful till he got there.

  “If everyone is sitting at their places at the table, you’ve got to figure the murderer may still be there. Do not hide yourself off in any hidden alcove. Be seen, be with people, and keep your back to the wall till I get there. Love you.” And he hung up the phone.

  Trying to follow both his and the 911 operator’s instructions, I positioned myself in the front hall, by the door to the vestibule. From here I could see through the glassed doors to Saskatchewan Drive, which soon would be awash in blinking red and blue lights. I could also see the entrance to the dining room and the breakfast nook, and the hallway leading to the back exit.

  Most of the guests were now on the main floor, and I asked them to return to their seats, as the police would be arriving shortly. Mark and Tanya were coming down the stairs, arm in arm, with Tanya dangling her beaded shoes from one hand. She caught sight of me and hurried forward to hug me, likely seeking comfort from a familiar face in all the chaos. Or maybe she just hugged everyone.

  “Oh my lord, can you believe this? I was just lying there and when that woman began to scream, I almost had a heart attack. There was something just so appalling about feigning death so close to where a life was actually being taken, I am just shaken.”

  “You’re probably in shock. The police are coming right away, though, and Marni wants us all to go back to where we were seated for supper, if you can manage that. That way, we can try to maintain some sense of calm for the rest of the guests and preserve any clues for the police.”

  Somehow, my words transformed the two actors in front of me. It was as if I had uttered “the show must go on” in some grainy black-and-white ’30s musical. Both of them seemed to grow an inch or two; squeezing hands, they smiled at each other gamely and separated to their set places. I breathed a sigh of relief. With these two troopers exuding grace over the tables where they sat, I was pretty sure we would be able to avert any hysteria or demands from the guests to leave before the officials got here, and we could then hand off everything to the trained professionals.

  The ambulance arrived first, followed by a lit-up police car and an unmarked sedan, which pulled up behind it. I stood in the open doorway, explaining to the paramedics that the victim was very likely beyond their help, but directed everyone upstairs to the guest bedroom.

  Behind the two uniformed officers came a man and woman in street clothing. She was wearing skinny black jeans and a tailored camel jacket over a black turtleneck, with a black satchel strap crossing over her chest. He was in jeans and wearing a windbreaker over a blue-and-orange-striped polo shirt. They showed me their identification, even though I had actually met them once before, at Steve’s office Christmas party. They were Detectives Nancy Gibson and Joe Howard, from the south-side division, the same precinct out of which Steve and his partner, Iain McCorquodale, worked. While I knew I would have been teased severely by Iain for getting myself involved in yet another spot of trouble, part of me wished it had been that duo heading things up in this situation. At least I would know where I stood.

  I explained as briefly as I could the set-up of the evening, and what we had done to contain the guests, so that the police could speak with them all.

  “Do you have a reservation list showing all the names of the people here tonight?” asked Detective Gibson.

  “I’m sure there is a list, but I am not clear if everyone is listed or only the people who purchased the tickets. There were no place cards at the tables, if that’s what you mean. We just knew we had a full house of sixty guests and six actors. Then, of course, there was Chef Bryan downstairs with Brad, the sous-chef, and Kathy, the dishwasher. Roxanne Bachan, the chief interpreter, was downstairs, too. Marni Livingstone, the city manager, was here, along with Jossie and myself, and of course the magician, Stephen Dafoe.”

  Detective Howard picked up on the last name and likely my shift in tone.

  “Magician? Is he still here?”

  “Now that you mention it, I haven’t seen him. We ate supper together up in the maid’s quarters, to avoid the crush downstairs, and I had helped him move some of his totes into the back hall, so that he could load his car while dinner was still happening.
Maybe he’d just left, before any of this happened.”

  “We’ll need to get his contact information, at any rate,” said Detective Gibson.

  “I’m sure Marni has it for you,” I responded, wondering where the heck Marni had got herself off to and why she wasn’t the one dealing with all these questions. “Do you want me to see if I can find her for you?”

  “Actually, if you wouldn’t mind, we would appreciate it if you would help us conduct an initial viewing of the crime scene by pointing us in the general direction and then introduce the uniformed officers to your boss for help coordinating the interviewing of the guests.”

  “Sure, no problem. You’ll want to go upstairs and to your left. The guest room is the front room to the right of the balcony area. She’s in the tub in the guest-room bathroom.”

  “Wow, a private bathroom in a house this old?” Joe Howard looked impressed.

  My history-nerd gene kicked in. “Aside from, arguably, the McGrath Mansion, Rutherford House was the premiere house in Edmonton for much of the early twentieth century. Built in 1912, it featured indoor plumbing, a stained glass skylight, Grecian colonnades, and an open sun porch that was later glassed in to protect against the western winds. As you can see, because it was built of brick from the newly formed Riverdale Brickworks, it stood apart from its wooden, stuccoed, and shingled counterparts. The private bath for guests, who often stayed for several weeks visiting from down east, was considered in the best diplomatic taste.”

  Detective Gibson grinned. “I didn’t expect the guided tour, but thanks.”

  I blushed and began to stammer something about finding the other officers when Steve walked in the front door, causing both me and Inspector Gibson to light up. Inspector Howard stepped forward to greet him.

  “Steve? I thought this was your night off?” he asked, shaking my boyfriend’s hand.