Sugarplum Dead

by Carolyn Hart

  Emory Swanson, however, looked pleased. Exceedingly pleased. He sat at ease in his chair, his eyes gleaming with triumph.

  “But”—and Marguerite’s gaiety was in stark contrast to the dark resistance surrounding her—“we must all be patient until after dinner. Now, Emory”—and she turned to her right—“tell me again about the golden crystal. That’s the one I…”

  Conversation creaked into being, jerky and disjointed. As Annie picked at her salad, desperately aware of Pudge to her left and Rachel’s empty space to her right, she heard snatches:

  Emory Swanson’s reassuring balm, “…know that you yourself hold the keys to many kingdoms and…”

  Max’s dear voice, a solid spar in a sea of unpleasantness, “…specialize in helping people with problems. No, I don’t…”

  Joan Ladson’s slightly querulous tone, “…can’t believe how much everything costs today. And I just have to get a new car…”

  Alice Schiller’s dry comment, “…has never been able to control herself so…”

  Donna Farrell’s harsh whisper, “…has she lost her mind?”

  Wayne Ladson’s exasperated mutter, “…had no idea she’d gotten in so deep until…”

  Terry Ladson’s puzzled query, “…what’s all this about crystals?”

  Happy Laurance’s anxious flutter, “…Marguerite doesn’t realize how upset…”

  The words swirled and buzzed, disconnected and unimportant. Annie’s being was concentrated on the physical presence of the man who sat next to her, on the well-formed hand that nervously turned his wineglass, on the sheen of his bright green jacket, on the face turned toward her with its sandy mustache. She knew he looked at her even though she stared straight ahead.

  “You were nice to Rachel.” His voice was a musical tenor.

  The manservant whisked away salad plates.

  Annie picked up her roll, tore off a portion, buttered it. “It’s hard to be her age.”

  “She told me she came to see you.”

  The dinner plates were served, sea bass with a bleu cheese sauce, stuffed artichokes and sautéed winter vegetables.

  Annie slowly met his gaze. Before she could discipline her mind and her heart, the thought came tumbling through her sweet and clear as a fine white wine that he was nice with honest eyes and a kind mouth. Her face tightened. He hadn’t been there for her. He had never been there for her. She didn’t owe him a thing.

  Pudge leaned closer. “Annie, did your mother ever tell you about the night we met?”

  She stared into his eyes, feeling a jumble of conflicting emotions. Yes, she wanted to know. He could re-create a moment in time that she had never known. He could bring her mother to the table, young and eager and full of hope and the beginnings of love. But every word he spoke forged a link between them and Annie wanted no link. Not now. Not ever. He had proved he couldn’t be trusted.

  “She never talked about you.” Annie’s voice was harsh.

  Pudge sighed. “I don’t suppose I blame her.” He sounded very tired.

  Annie poked at the fish, though she knew she couldn’t eat anything. One painful word at a time, she said jerkily, “The night you met—”

  Afterward, she couldn’t recall anything of that dinner, the taste of the food or the sounds of other conversation or the odd surroundings of that water-encircled table. She ate, yes, but most of all she listened and learned.

  “—my sister Amy asked me to help her that night. She taught fourth grade. I was in town on leave. I was a second lieutenant in the infantry…in the hall carrying a Humpty Dumpty made out of egg cartons and I bumped into this pretty girl…Judy was in her first year as a kindergarten teacher…you don’t look like her, you know—”

  Annie knew.

  “—her hair was as black as midnight and her eyes shone like sapphires. Delicate features, but a firm chin. Very firm. Deep-set eyes and hollowed cheeks and a rosebud mouth. I never gave another thought to helping Amy. She found me after the open house and asked if I intended to take up residence in the kindergarten room.” Pudge’s mouth curved in a rollicking grin. “‘Hell yes,’ I told her. I knew then that I wanted to marry Judy. I told her…”

  The dessert plates were removed.

  Marguerite rose. She waited until every eye was on her and the only sound in the huge room was the susurrant wash of surrounding water.

  Annie marveled at Marguerite’s impact. Yes, it was all a piece of stagecraft, from the silver beam of light trained upon her to the carefully timed pause. Stagecraft, yes, but magic, too. Rich auburn hair swayed around the haggard, still-elegant face. Black strokes of makeup made the smoldering eyes darker, larger, mesmerizing. Her bloodred lips parted.

  “Life”—Marguerite leaned forward, looked at each in turn—“and death. Forces greater than any of us.” It was a declamation, her deep, husky voice imbuing the words with grandeur. One hand, the scarlet-tipped nails bright as flame, slowly encompassed them.

  The audience—and they were indeed an audience—probably wasn’t reacting as Marguerite wished. The watching faces exhibited caution, wariness and uneasiness, but no one appeared captivated or impressed. Except, of course, the attentive, oh-so-pleased Dr. Swanson.

  “It has been my great good fortune to realize that I possess an extraordinary capacity for reaching beyond this world.” Her crimson lips spread in an exalted smile. “I have a responsibility to myself, to society, to the world. Therefore I shall divest myself of the encumbrances of this world and dedicate myself and my fortune to the great efforts being made by Emory Swanson.”

  Swanson looked up at his benefactress, his expression one of humble self-deprecation.

  She smiled down at him. “Oh, I know you’ve counseled me to give this great consideration, to be sure that I can follow the Golden Path. I know I can.” She clasped a hand to her heart. “I am led. I shall endow the Evermore Foundation—”

  Terry Ladson stood so quickly his chair clattered to the stone floor. “Marguerite, you can’t be such a fool.” His red face was mottled.

  Happy struggled to her feet, too, twisting the napkin in her hands. “Marguerite, you mustn’t. This isn’t what Claude would want.”

  Wayne Ladson waved a languid hand, but his eyes were angry. “Calm down, everyone. Let’s hear what Dr. Swanson has to say. What is this Golden—”

  The lights went off.

  Though the lighting had been dim, except for the silver spot trained on Marguerite, the transition from light to utter darkness left Annie straining to see and feeling as though black velvet pressed against her eyes. Sounds pulsed around her, Marguerite’s imperious voice demanding, “The lights. Someone see about the lights,” Happy’s frantic bleat, “I don’t like this,” the scrape of a chair, Alice Schiller’s sharp cry, “Marguerite, be careful.”

  Alice Schiller’s warning frightened Annie. Schiller’s husky voice throbbed with fear—fear for Marguerite, fear for a woman hell-bent on destruction. What was happening in the darkness? What could happen?

  The lights came on.

  Annie’s heart thudded. She stared toward the head of the table.

  Marguerite Dumaney stood rigid, her features sharp-edged, her lips twisting in a furious scowl. Her gaze, dark eyes hooded and implacable, swept the table, then paused, eyes locked on the single gardenia that lay on the table in front of her. The transformation was slow, her face softening, lips parting in wonder and awe. Slowly, hand trembling, she reached down, lifted up the gardenia. A flush suffused her cheeks. Her lips scarcely moved, and the sound was a whisper. “Claude.” Then, loud, strong, triumphant, her voice filled the huge room. “Claude.” She held the gardenia to her cheek, then thrust the flower toward Emory Swanson.

  “Claude always gave me gardenias. Always. He wants us to know he’s pleased. He is reaching out to me across the great chasm.”

  Wayne Ladson smoothed his beard. “Pretty dramatic, Swanson. How did you bring it off?” Admiration mixed with sarcasm.

  “That’s wha
t I’d like to know.” Terry hunched forward in his chair and glowered.

  “Claude always gave her gardenias.” Happy’s eyes were wide and shocked. “He did.”

  Donna’s mouth curved in a derisive smile. “Don’t be an idiot, Happy.”

  Joan lifted her glass with a shaking hand. “Where did the flower come from?”

  Pudge looked up at the lights.

  Alice Schiller stared at Marguerite, her face tight with foreboding.

  Max’s gaze was focused on Emory Swanson. Annie understood why. When the lights came on, faces around the table reflected surprise, uncertainty and shock. And that included Emory Swanson.

  Whoever—or whatever—spun a sweet-scented gardenia through the air to fall in front of Marguerite was unknown to Swanson. And that, Annie thought, might be the most peculiar and unsettling fact of all.

  Marguerite cupped the gardenia in her hands, smiled at it tenderly. “Oh, Claude. Claude.” She moved away from her chair, stepping out of the light.

  Everyone watched her go.

  At the bridge, she turned. She lifted the gardenia, touched it to her lips. “Claude. Forevermore.”

  Eight

  ANNIE WAITED UNTIL Max slammed his door and turned on the motor. “So who rigged it?”

  “The single gardenia?” Max’s tone was dry. He drove cautiously down the drive. “Damned if I know. But that’s why the lights went out. In addition to setting a spooky stage, the lights had to go out.”

  Annie understood. It would be a little awkward simply to pull the posy out of a pocket. That lacked any otherworldly connotation. No, the gardenia had to arrive unseen and thereby appear to be proof of an active spirit attempting to communicate with those still earthbound. In the early twentieth century, attendees at séances marveled at flowers presumably created from ectoplasm by the medium’s control. Annie didn’t believe in materialized ectoplasm, nor in poltergeists, unruly spirits usually linked to destruction. She agreed with skeptics who wondered wryly why any spirit would waste its time in eternity cavorting about tooting horns, flinging flowers or communing under control names ranging from Chief Sitting Bull to Sister Corinna. Annie shivered, but not from a waft of icy otherworld air. The car was cold and she didn’t like the picture in her mind, someone at the table waiting until the perfect moment, somehow cutting the lights, then tossing that sweet-smelling flower toward a deeply vulnerable woman.

  “Marguerite’s a mess, isn’t she?” Annie leaned back in her seat, glad to be free of the house and its seething, volatile, distraught occupants. “But I’d say somebody made a big mistake. Swanson definitely came out the winner.”

  “I guess so.” Max’s tone was thoughtful. And puzzled.

  Annie peered at him. “Guess so? Oh hey, Max. The flower simply reinforced Marguerite’s conviction that she was communicating with Claude. Or I suppose she’d say that Claude was communicating with her. A gardenia! You’d think she’d have better sense. Anyway, I looked at Swanson just as the lights came on and I swear he was absolutely astonished. Now, I know the man’s an actor, too, but just for an instant there was complete surprise.”

  “Then what?” Max asked slowly.

  She was sure Max had watched Swanson, too. “Oh well, he played along. Who wouldn’t?”

  Max braked, then turned into the street, the thin headlight beams illuminating the live oaks. Silvery swaths of Spanish moss were briefly glimpsed, then gone. He drove slowly, alert for wandering deer. “So you think one of the others rigged the lights and threw the flower, with the net result that Marguerite’s even more convinced that Swanson is her link to Claude?”

  “No doubt about it. I’ll bet whoever did it is simply sick.” Annie doubted the flower thrower could appreciate the irony.

  “That would be pretty stupid.” Max strained to see, prepared to stop for either raccoons or deer. “Funny thing is, I don’t think anybody there is stupid.” He shot her a glance, husbandly ESP, and said swiftly, “Happy’s not stupid. Sweet and even a little silly and credulous, but not stupid. Besides, if anyone there besides Marguerite was tempted to credit Claude with the flower, it was Happy.”

  Annie recalled Happy’s wide, amazed look, her tremulous voice, and grudgingly agreed. “Okay.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “Swanson was shocked, then bland. Happy wasn’t sure it was Claude, but she was damned scared it might be. Wayne immediately accused Swanson of fakery. Terry and Donna also thought Swanson threw the flower, and Alice Schiller…” Annie frowned. “Max, Alice looked worried.”

  Max picked up speed. The road was fenced on both sides for a stretch. “I’m with Alice. Because the appearance of the gardenia didn’t make any sense. Oh sure, if Swanson set up the flower, it made lots of sense. But if he didn’t, someone is playing a very strange game. Why reinforce Marguerite’s belief in the supernatural? That’s what someone did.”

  “It’s ugly,” Annie said bluntly.

  “Ugly and dangerous.” Max frowned.

  Annie said crisply, “I’ll bet Alice knows who threw the flower.”

  Max glanced at Annie.

  She moved impatiently in her seat. “Alice is about as savvy as Marguerite’s nuts. The way Alice looked at Marguerite—I think she’s frightened for her.”

  Max slowed again as the fences ended. “Marguerite was too busy playing to the house to get a feel for the audience. I came away with a singularly nasty feel. She’s infuriating a bunch of people. You’d think Swanson, just for his own good, would have tried to keep her quiet about plans to turn her money over to him.”

  “To the Evermore Foundation,” Annie corrected.

  Max shrugged. “Same thing. And they all know it. But you have to hand it to the old dame, she can put on a good show.” He turned the Ferrari into their road.

  Annie felt warmer. The heater was working and they were almost home. She leaned forward, glimpsing the twin lights on their porch. “Oh well, it isn’t our problem. God, what a house and what a zoo. I don’t like any of them. Marguerite Dumaney’s a self-centered, crazed old harridan. I wouldn’t trust Emory Swanson with a wooden nickel, much less a fortune. Happy lets her sister push her around and, worse than that, she didn’t stick up for Rachel. Wayne cultivates that tweedy professor image, but he has the eyes of a lion tamer. Donna has all the charm of the alligator in our pond. Terry looks like a blackjack dealer in a casino. And Joan should have stayed home if all she can do is glower at her ex.” Annie’s eyes narrowed. “I’d be interested to know what Alice thinks about her boss. But”—and the relief was evident—“I don’t have to give a damn about any of them.”

  Max said softly, “Annie, you talked to Pudge.”

  She wanted to cling to their discussion of unexplained gardenias and unattractive people. Yes, she had talked to Pudge and she liked everything about him: She liked his kind face, she liked the sound of his light tenor voice, she liked the feeling it gave her to sit next to him.

  There was still a core of coldness around her heart. Pudge Laurance couldn’t be trusted. That’s what she had to remember. Now and always. He could not be trusted. Ever.

  The Ferrari lights swept over their front lawn. Annie grabbed Max’s arm. “Max, look, on the porch….” A small figure huddled on the wooden bench.

  Max jammed on the brakes. Annie was out of the car and running. Max’s door slammed. He left on the lights.

  A thin, bloodless face turned toward them. Her brown eyes vacant and glazed, Rachel’s stare didn’t waver. A tracery of blue veins stood out against gauze-white skin.

  Annie reached out, gently touched a cold cheek. “Rachel, let’s go inside.” Annie pulled the girl to her feet as Max held open the front door. Annie put her arm around the bulky oversize jacket hanging from thin, slumped shoulders. She led Rachel into the living room to an overstuffed sofa. As they sank into its comfort, Annie murmured, “Max, some hot chocolate. And an afghan.”

  Max turned toward the hall.

  “Rachel”—Annie gently held icy hands—“they’ll
be worried.”

  The girl’s eyes flickered. Her mouth twisted. “Nobody cares about me.” She swallowed. Her words came at intervals, as if it took all her strength to speak. “You were nice to me tonight.”

  Annie’s throat ached. Words should never be that hard to say, not for anyone and certainly not for this bewildered, drained girl.

  Max stepped softly near and handed Annie a beige and blue afghan.

  Annie squeezed Rachel’s unresponsive hands, then gently spread the warm afghan over her. “Rachel, what’s wrong?”

  Red-rimmed eyes stared stonily ahead. Rachel’s lips quivered. “Mike wouldn’t talk to me.”

  Annie had a cold sense of foreboding. Mike was the nineteen-year-old gardener. Happy thought he was too old for Rachel. At dinner, Marguerite said she had found it easy to discourage his interest in Rachel. “Tonight?”

  Tears slowly trickled down Rachel’s white cheeks. “I called and he hung up on me. I rode my bike to his house. I went up to the front door and his mom opened the door. She’s always been nice to me before, but tonight she shook her head and said Mike was busy.” One hand straggled out from beneath the afghan, swiped at her cheeks. “She looked sad. Then she shut the door. I went around to the back. Mike’s room is by the back steps. I knocked on his window. I’ve done that lots of times.” Her high voice was open and guileless. “Sometimes it would be real late and he’d push the screen out and I’d climb in.” She pulled the afghan up to her neck. “He opened the window and told me to go away, told me to go back to the big house. He said—” She swallowed jerkily. “He said he never wanted to see me again.”

  A spoon clinked as Max placed the tray on the coffee table.