The actress blanched and froze for an instant. Then she put her wineglass on the table with a shaky hand. “I don’t recognize that dialogue.” She pulled her long braid to the front and grabbed it like a lifeline.
Liar. “Funny. You heard it less than a week ago. And you weren’t the only one who heard it.”
“Not the only—? Ah, I get it. You’ve talked to Gunnar.” Madison let go of her braid and stood up. “I think it’s time you left.”
Val didn’t budge. “It’s time you told the truth. Gunnar was trying to protect you. In return, you lied about his fight with Emmett. I can understand your lying if Emmett pressured you. Now that he’s dead, he can’t hurt you, but lying to the police can get you in trouble.”
Madison clutched her braid again. “I was so upset by what he said that I didn’t pay any attention to what was going on between him and Gunnar.”
She’d fiddled with that braid both times when she wasn’t telling the truth. What she’d just said contradicted the story she’d given the police.
Val pounced on the discrepancy. “Why would Emmett’s words upset you if he was just practicing lines from a play? That’s what you claimed they were.” Having caught Madison in a lie, Val wanted to push her advantage, but not too far. She wouldn’t get anywhere by asking Madison what kind of hold Emmett had over her. Madison would be more willing to reveal his secrets than her own. “What did Emmett want you to do?”
Looking relieved, Madison sat down. “To search for a poetry book in Rick’s study.”
Val hadn’t seen that coming. She’d assumed Emmett wanted to extort money or sexual favors. “What book?” The same one Rick Usher was trying to find?
“Something by Poe. I wasn’t paying attention because I couldn’t search for it even if I wanted to. Rosana’s never far away if I’m in Rick’s study. Emmett didn’t believe me.” Madison took a long drink of wine. “By Thursday, when he had the fight with Gunnar, he’d come up with a new idea. He would give me some sleeping pills to crush into the food Rick, Rosana, and Clancy ate for dinner. He wanted me to search Rick’s study after they’d all gone to bed. Totally nuts.”
Her volley of words surprised Val. She didn’t doubt the story. It was too weird for anyone to make it up, and Madison had delivered it fast without touching her braid. But why was she willing to give so many details? Maybe she was using the truth as a smokescreen. This story diverted attention from a subject she hoped wouldn’t come up—why Emmett assumed he could make such demands on her.
Val broke a long silence. “Emmett wanted you to steal the book?”
“He knew I wouldn’t do that. I was supposed to take a picture of the book on the shelf. He didn’t say why. I told him I’d try, just to get him off my back.” Madison’s glower suggested she wanted Val off her back too.
Val wasn’t ready to leave. “You told him that after the rehearsal on Saturday?”
Madison shook her head. “On Thursday, when he had the fight with Gunnar. I didn’t see Emmett after Saturday’s rehearsal.”
Val waited for Madison to reach for her braid, but this time the actress passed the hairy lie-detector test. Not necessarily conclusive. Even sophisticated lie detectors sometimes failed. “You came straight back here for lunch after the rehearsal?”
“No. I don’t usually eat here on weekends. I went to Bayport.”
“That’s where I live. Bayport has some great restaurants. Which one did you go to?”
“I wasn’t hungry after snacking in the rehearsal hall. I just . . . uh, window-shopped.” Madison fiddled with her braid.
Window-shopped on a cold, blustery day? Right. Maybe she was trying to avoid the man who was pressuring her. “Did you go to Bayport because you knew Emmett was coming here for lunch?”
“I didn’t know it ahead of time. I came back here around two. I was a quarter of a mile from the house when I saw his car coming toward me.”
Madison answered without hesitation or braid clutching. She’d just confirmed Val’s guess about Emmett’s visit here on Saturday.
The room struck Val as eerily quiet. Too quiet. Sometime, while she was focused on grilling Madison, the music had stopped. From then on, any bug in the room would have picked up their voices. The recording would convey how fixated Val was on Emmett and his visit here. A new worry gnawed at her. Someone in the Usher house, maybe more than one person, would rather the police not know about the man who came to lunch.
She still had more questions, but she’d like to ask them with the music on. “Do you mind if I turn on the CD player?” Without waiting for a response, she punched the play button. It hit her what was odd about Madison’s claim that she’d seen Emmett’s leaving. “I don’t usually look closely at who’s driving a car coming toward me. What made you notice Emmett’s car?”
“The road doesn’t get much traffic because there are only a few houses along it. When he whizzed past me, I was so surprised that I took my eye off the road, swerved, and nearly hit an oncoming—”
The lights went out and the music stopped.
Chapter 23
“The power’s gone off,” Madison said. “It’s happened before during storms.”
Val couldn’t even see her own hands. “Do you have a flashlight?”
“Yeah, but I can’t find it in the dark. Ha. Ha. My phone would give us some light if only I knew where I put it.”
Val knew exactly where she’d left her phone—in her bag in the kitchen. “My phone’s downstairs. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me a little longer.”
The lack of power left her without a lie detector. In the dark she couldn’t see when Madison stroked her braid. Lies had tripped off the woman’s tongue while the lights were on. No reason why they’d stop now. Without music to interfere with the reception of sound, Val would have to watch what she said. A bug small enough to hide would run on a battery without any need of AC power. From now on, she’d avoid the subject of Emmett Flint.
“Don’t panic!” Clancy’s voice carried up the staircase. “I’m going to gather flashlights. I’ll bring one up to you.”
“Who’s panicking?” Madison sounded annoyed.
“You and Clancy seem to get on each other’s nerves,” Val said. “At dinner you two sounded more like rivals than teammates in the Usher enterprise.”
“Clancy’s the one who started with the digs. He thinks his work is more important than mine, just because he’s the writer. He can’t write anything without a detailed outline and, even so, Rick has to fix Clancy’s scenes. Since Rick stopped giving talks and going to book signings, I’m the one who keeps him in the public eye. Clancy wouldn’t have a job if it weren’t for me.”
“What did you do before you worked for the Ushers?”
“My first job was at a public relations firm, doing social media campaigns for clients. Then I handled publicity for mysteries and thrillers put out by Rick’s publisher. After I met the man I’m now engaged to, I wanted to move from New York to Washington. When Rick heard I was leaving the publishing company, he offered me a job as his assistant and publicist.”
Val wondered if Madison had known then that she’d work under Rosana. “That’s when you moved in with the Ushers?”
“No, they still lived in Baltimore. I rented a place halfway between their house and Washington. I gave up my apartment after they moved here and offered me a room.”
Val saw a chance to nudge the conversation in a direction she wanted. “Rosana told me they moved here because Rick feared a stalker.”
Madison laughed. “I’m not sure the stalker exists. Rick had an infection that made him paranoid. He even hallucinated. The doctor put him in the hospital, pumped him full of antibiotics, and cured him. A month or so later, the cycle repeated. Infection, weird behavior, antibiotics, recovery. Rosana was afraid he’d act crazy in public and damage his reputation. She canceled all his events and convinced him to move away from Baltimore.”
Though Rosana had told Val a different story about the move,
she and Madison had agreed on one thing—that no one had stalked Rick. Val shelved her suspicion that Raven Wingard had stalked his father.
A light came from the stairwell, weak but welcome.
“Let there be light.” Clancy arrived at the top of the stairs. The beam from his small LED flashlight danced around the room and stopped when it lit up Val and Madison. He pulled a second small flashlight from his pocket and held it out to them.
Madison jumped up and grabbed it. “I’ll use this to find my own flashlight. Then you can have it, Val.” Madison walked toward the sleeping area, rummaged in a dresser, and pulled out an old-fashioned flashlight in metal housing, sturdy enough to bash someone. She turned it on. “Still operational. The last time the power went out, the furnace didn’t work. Any idea how long this outage will last?”
“I called the electric company. They’re fixing a downed power line but can’t estimate how long it will take,” Clancy said. “We can all huddle around the gas fireplace in the living room if the house gets too cold.”
Madison gave Val the small flashlight. “Until then, I’ll stay here, under my down comforter, with my Kindle full of books to keep me warm.”
Val counted on the cashmere outfit and her parka to fend off the cold for as long as she was stuck here. She also needed something to ward off harm. “I’m going to call the Bayport Chief of Police when I go downstairs. He’s a good friend of my grandfather’s. I’ll tell him where we are and ask him for an update on the roads between here and town. Maybe we won’t have to stay here much longer.” She turned to Clancy. “Do the Ushers have any sand to put on the walk and the driveway?”
“I can check down there.” He pointed to the garage below Madison’s room. “I doubt they have enough sand to treat the whole driveway.”
“I’ll get my wet clothes.” Val fetched them from the bathroom. “Thanks again for lending me some dry clothes, Madison.”
“No problem. By the way, Clancy, Val mentioned that Emmett Flint ate lunch here on Saturday. Why was he here?”
Val groaned inwardly. She’d planned to work up to that question with Clancy, not hit him in the face with it. Madison apparently wanted to put him on the spot. They seemed to enjoy making each other uncomfortable.
Clancy didn’t miss a beat. “He dropped by to talk to Rick. Rosana invited him to lunch.”
Based on what Rick Usher had said at the table tonight, he’d passed on eating lunch with a guest, but they might have met before the meal in the privacy of the study. If so, the author would have come face-to-face with his double, a disconcerting experience for anyone.
Clancy had already started down the stairs, lighting the way for her. She followed.
He waited for her at the bottom. “Your grandfather’s in the living room with Rick and Rosana. There were phone noises coming from your handbag in the kitchen while I was cleaning up after dinner.”
“Thanks, I’ll check my messages. First I’ll deal with my wet clothing. Can you point me to the laundry room?”
“I’ll show you.” He waited while she hung up the clothes. “On a night like this, I appreciate Rosana’s preparations for an emergency. Using the light from my phone, she found six flashlights she’d stowed in various places around the house.” He walked to the kitchen with Val.
She fished her phone from her bag and saw that Gunnar had texted her. She would call him later, from a place where no one could overhear her. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to find someone to cover the café in case the weather doesn’t improve by morning.”
“Okay. I’ll go work on my computer. Its battery should last a while.”
When he left, she went into the living room and told Granddad and the Ushers that she would call Chief Yardley to get an update on the roads between here and Bayport.
Her phone rang as she returned to the kitchen.
“Hey, Val. It’s Bethany. I just called your house to talk to your grandfather. No one answered.”
“He’s with me.” Val lowered her voice. “We’re both marooned at the Ushers’ house because of the freezing rain, and the power just went out.”
“Yipes! That’s worse than hunting for a cadaver in the dark. I just watched the news. The roads in town are fine and so are the main roads. It’s only that last stretch on the side roads you have to worry about. The meteorologist said we’re right on the line between rain and freezing rain.”
Val crossed her fingers that the front would shift north before morning. “Why did you want to talk to Granddad?”
“To tell him what I found out about cadaver dogs, but you can tell him. My neighbor returned today and came over to pick up Styx.” Bethany giggled. “Good pun. She told me how she works with the dog. Styx was never going to pay any attention to my signal. He only searches for a cadaver when his handler gives the signal.”
Val laughed. “Thanks for telling me. Too bad we didn’t know two days ago.” They might not be spending the night here if they hadn’t gone cadaver hunting. Rick Usher’s shout of buried alive had brought Granddad back for another look at the mound and led to his surprising bond with the author. Then, to make sure Granddad wasn’t in danger, she’d taken the catering gig here. Funny how one thing led to another.
After she got off the phone with Bethany, she called Irene Pritchard and explained she might not be able to return to Bayport by morning. “If you can get around in the morning and I can’t, would you mind opening the café?”
“That depends on the weather. Jeremy has four-wheel drive. He’ll be able to drive me there, unless the roads are iced up.”
“If they are, the club won’t open. I appreciate your doing this, Irene. I’ll call you in the morning and let you know if I’m stuck.”
“I usually get up by six thirty,” Irene said.
Val thanked her and hung up. Irene had been cooperative, though not friendly. Good enough for now.
Clancy poked his head into the kitchen from the foyer. “I’m happy to lend you my e-reader tonight, but I’m not sure the books I have would match your taste.”
“I’m working my way through Poe Revisited. If I can borrow a copy, I’ll read it by flashlight, or better yet, by candlelight. That will put me in the spirit of Poe.”
He laughed. “I have a copy in my room. Go up the spiral staircase and give me a shout when you want it.”
Val put on her parka and then went outside to the covered front porch. She called Chief Yardley’s cell phone number and left a message on his voice mail, saying she and Granddad were stranded at the Usher house. She ended with a tidbit she hoped would prompt him to investigate the people who lived here. “Emmett Flint had lunch here on Saturday, a couple of hours before he collapsed. And everyone here has access to beta blockers.” She would tell him about the dog’s death the next time they talked.
Now to call Gunnar. He had texted earlier to tell her that the rehearsal was canceled and that he hoped to ride out the storm with her.
“Sorry I can’t be with you,” she said when he answered his phone. “Granddad and I are iced in at the Usher house.” She gave him the same information she’d left for the chief, but in more detail.
“Great, Val. You’ve proven that the gang there had the means and opportunity to murder Emmett. That’s the good news. The bad news is that you’re stuck overnight in a house with them. Would you please stop snooping?”
“Okay, but I need you to do some research about the book Usher wanted you to find on his shelves. Go online and see if there’s an early edition of Tamerlane that could be valuable.”
“Okay. I’ll call you back.”
Val walked to the porch railing. With no outdoor lights working, she couldn’t see what was falling from the sky, but she could hear rain hit the pavement and the porch roof. Holding on to the stair railing, she went down two steps, took off a glove, and bent to touch the concrete walk. Still icy.
She’d just gone back inside the house when Gunnar called her.
“Your hunch was right,” he said. “
A first edition of Tamerlane is worth a lot of money. In 2009 a copy sold at auction for more than any other book by an American writer—six hundred fifty thousand dollars.”
Wow. Worth stealing if you needed money for a house or for your brother’s medical bills. Val felt the blood pumping through her veins and warming her. “How many first editions are there?”
“A dozen are known to still exist. One of those was stolen from the University of Virginia library, along with some manuscripts and historical artifacts.”
“When did that happen?”
“They were discovered missing in 1973.”
When Rick Usher was at the University of Virginia. The significance of Emmett’s note about a library job hit Val. It didn’t refer to where Rick or Rosana had worked, but to the slang meaning of a job—a robbery.
Chapter 24
Val clutched her phone. Was the theft of a rare book decades ago somehow related to Emmett’s murder? “Hold on, Gunnar, while I grab my coat and go back outside. It’s a little warm in here.”
“By warm you mean someone might be listening to you?”
“Yes.” The Ushers sat in the living room, only steps away. Clancy or Madison could be lurking in a dark corner not far from the foyer. Once outside, Val said, “Do you know exactly what else was taken in that theft from the library?”
“Letters written by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Papers that belonged to Mark Twain, Aaron Burr, and Robert E. Lee. Those are just a few of the items.”
Rick Usher, who specialized in American history, must have had access to those materials for his research. That didn’t mean he’d stolen them. He’d asked Gunnar to search for a copy of the Tamerlane book, but it could have been a different edition. If Usher had a rare book, wouldn’t he have put it in a safe-deposit box or another secure location? Not if he’d drawn a lesson from “The Purloined Letter,” Poe’s story about concealing something in plain sight. The best place to hide a valuable book was on shelves with other books.
The Tell-Tale Tarte Page 19