A Tale of Two Biddies (League of Literary Ladies)

by Logan, Kylie

  “Because of the legend, of course!” This time, Tiffany provided the wrist flip to go with what was, apparently, a monumental statement, and when none of us got it, she screeched her frustration. “Come on outside,” she said. “That’s where I’ve got the scrapbook. That will explain everything.”

  I let Tiffany, Kate, and Chandra go first, then locked up the house before I walked out to where they waited near the golf cart Tiffany had parked in the driveway. There was a tote bag on the floor (need I mention it had the words Boyz ’n Funk written across the front in purple glitter?), and she reached inside it and pulled out a scrapbook with a picture of the band taped to the front. Underneath the picture in black magic marker were the words Volume 12, The Dark Days.

  “It’s all in there,” she said, poking the scrapbook in my direction. “Go ahead. Take a look.”

  I did.

  I flipped through the pages, scanning rather than reading, and not sure if I was getting the message I was supposed to be getting, I looked up at Tiffany. “Richie Trayton Monroe, the guy they talk about in some of these old newspaper articles, he’s the same as our Richie?”

  One corner of Tiffany’s mouth pulled thin. “Like I said, unless there are two . . .”

  Kate had been reading over my shoulder. “And according to these articles, our Richie claimed he was the one who wrote some song called ‘Ali, Ali, Free Bird.’”

  “Some song?” We were, apparently, the three dumbest women on the face of the earth. At least that’s what Tiffany’s expression said. “‘Ali’ just happens to be the most popular song the Boyz ever recorded. The album it was on went platinum in less than a week, and ‘Ali’ was number one on the charts for a month.”

  Call me cynical, I could barely get the question out of my mouth. “And Richie wrote it?”

  As if she’d bit a lemon, Tiffany’s face puckered. “Richie claimed he wrote it. Don’t you see?” She grabbed the scrapbook out of my hands and flipped through the pages, and when she found the one she was looking for, she tapped her finger against a yellowed newspaper article. “That’s what the court case was all about. See, Richie and Dino, they were roommates at Bowling Green.”

  “Then they did know each other!” The words whooshed out of me along with a gasp of surprise. “Dino said he had no idea who Richie was.”

  “Well, what did you expect?” Tiffany emphasized the question with a click of her tongue. “After Dino’s faith in mankind was destroyed by the evil ways of that slug, Richie Monroe—”

  “Wait a minute! Wait a minute!” To get Tiffany’s attention, Chandra waved her hands. The sun nearly brushed the horizon and it bathed the scenery around us with a soft, pink glow that boded well for next day’s weather. Still, Chandra’s face was as pale as a marshmallow. “Are you telling us that Richie was some kind of big-time songwriter? That he was . . .” She nearly choked on the word. “Famous?”

  “Infamous,” Tiffany insisted. “He wasn’t famous for anything but being a no-good thief. See, Dino always swore he was the one who wrote ‘Ali’ during his first semester at Bowling Green. You know, when he roomed with that Richie.” Her eyes narrowed to emphasize the that. “I mean, really, why would Dino lie about a thing like that? Have you seen the guy? He’s hotter than a wildfire. And handsome. And the best singer on the entire planet. He doesn’t need to lie about anything.”

  As much as I wanted to point out the flaws in her argument (the heck with logic, the thing about Dino being the best singer on the planet nearly sent me over the edge), I stuck to the subject. “So Dino says he wrote this song and—”

  “And the band recorded it,” Tiffany said. “The rest is music history. ‘Ali’ was an instant hit, and all of a sudden, Richie crawls out from under a rock and says Dino stole it from him.” She snorted. “As if! Dino is hotter than a wildfire and—”

  “And let me guess,” I ventured. It was better than hearing the litany of Dino’s superhero qualities one more time. “All this happened the fall when Richie was a freshman at Bowling Green.”

  “Awesome!” Tiffany gave me a thumbs-up. “Maybe you’re not the cultural loser I thought you were. You actually know something about the history of the band.”

  “I know something about Richie,” I said, and I didn’t even bother to look at Tiffany when I did. Chandra and Kate were standing to my left and I glanced their way. “That explains why Richie came back from school.”

  “And why he was so upset when he did,” Chandra added. “Even before his parents died.”

  “He was a changed person,” Kate said. “That’s what everyone says. He used to be fun and bright, and then when he came back to the island—”

  “It couldn’t have happened that way,” Chandra chimed in. “Not unless something really big happened to change him. Something really bad. He might have been embarrassed if he tried to pull a fast one on Dino. He might have even felt a little guilty. But he wouldn’t have become a hermit. He wouldn’t have completely given up on life.”

  “Not unless he was bitter and depressed.” I said. “But if Richie was telling the truth, if Dino stole the song that Richie wrote and Richie was disgraced and deeply hurt by what happened . . .” I thought of the guitar I’d seen upstairs on Richie’s bed, and of the poster of Guillotine with the knife thrust through it. “No wonder Richie looked so upset when he saw Dino and the other guys get off the ferry the other night. He never dreamed he’d run into Dino again, especially not here on the island. And when he confronted Dino at my place the next day—”

  “Dino claimed he didn’t know who Richie was,” Kate said.

  “Well, of course he would say that.” Tiffany plunged back into the conversation and slapped the scrapbook shut. “Richie and Dino were best friends back in college. You can imagine how Richie’s betrayal broke Dino’s heart. He’s still psychologically scarred by the whole experience, poor darling. He had to say he didn’t know Richie. To protect his psyche. He couldn’t face the painful truth.”

  “That argument only works if Dino was the one who was betrayed,” I suggested.

  Tiffany went as still as stone and her voice was no more than a whisper. “If you’re suggesting that Dino is lying, think again. Like I said, the case went to court. Richie lost.”

  “Beaten by the mega-group that made millions off the song he wrote.” No, I didn’t know this for a fact—at least not yet—but I followed where the logic led. “That would be no big surprise. Richie was a nobody. He didn’t have the clout. He didn’t have the pull. He didn’t have the money it would take to hire some crackerjack team of attorneys to plead his case.” Just thinking about how Richie might have been railroaded sent a chill across my shoulders and I shook it away.

  “If you’re so convinced that Richie lied and that Dino is as innocent as the driven snow, why do you care?” I asked Tiffany. “Why show up here at Richie’s place and take the chance of being caught breaking and entering if you think Richie was just some kind of no-good scumbag?”

  Tiffany’s bottom lip trembled. “Don’t you see? This whole story about Richie and how he tried to steal Dino’s work and be as famous as Dino . . . it’s been a stain on the Boyz’s reputation all these years. Sure, Dino won his case in court, but there are still people who hear the story . . . like you”—she glared at me—“and question what happened. I thought if I looked around Richie’s place, I might find something that would prove the truth once and for all, that Richie’s been lying all these years, that he would do anything to hurt Dino and the boys.”

  “Like mess with the guillotine on stage the other night?” I suggested.

  Tiffany’s mouth twisted. “I wouldn’t be surprised. Richie was a terrible person. He must have been. How else could he have even thought to besmirch the reputation of Boyz ’n Funk?”

  Believe me, I was tempted to ask if she even knew what “besmirch” meant, and maybe even challenge her to spell it. I bit my tongue.

  “If that Richie was the one who risked Dino’s life with that st
upid guillotine trick . . .” Tiffany’s hands curled into fists. “It makes me so mad just thinking about it. Just thinking how, all those years ago, he cast a cloud of doubt over Dino and nearly broke his spirit. I swear, if I’d known Richie Trayton Monroe was on this island when I got here . . . I swear, I would have killed him myself.”

  • • •

  “Obviously when Richie said someone was out to get him, he wasn’t kidding.” We stayed around Richie’s long enough to watch Tiffany drive away, then hung around a few minutes longer to make sure she didn’t double back, and now we were back in my SUV. Since I knew it was what we were all thinking anyway, I threw out the comment. “Now we can add Tiffany to our list of suspects.”

  Kate was in the passenger seat and she tapped a finger against her chin. “She was on the island on Wednesday night. We know that for sure. We all saw her in the park on Monday night when Guillotine got off the ferry.”

  “And Dino was on the island when Richie died, too,” Chandra said from the backseat. “And now we know there was a connection between Richie and Dino, and not a good one.”

  “And Mike and Gordon both have motive, and they were here on the island, too,” I added. I wished I hadn’t. All this talk of all this many suspects gave me a headache.

  “Speaking of Gordon,” Chandra called out. “Look! There he is going into his cottage.”

  Luckily, I have good reflexes. Though we were already past the little green cottage that Chandra pointed to, I slammed on the brakes, did a U-turn, and cruised to a stop in front of Gordon’s. There was a giant wooden fish out front next to the mailbox and an old fishing net draped across the lintel above the front door that we’d just seen Gordon shut behind him.

  “What are you going to do? Are you going to interrogate him?” Kate asked, and I didn’t know why she was whispering since we were still in the SUV and Gordon was inside the cottage.

  “I’m just going to ask . . . you know.” I took my time getting out from behind the steering wheel. Since I had no idea what I was going to ask Gordon, it bought me a little time and (maybe) made me look a little less like I was flying by the seat of my pants. Though the League of Literary Ladies technically had no hierarchy—or no formal organization at all, for that matter—Chandra liked to point out time and again that I was “the brains of the operation.” Every once in a while, I felt that I actually had to act like it.

  Too bad I was no closer to knowing what words were going to pop out of my mouth when I knocked on Gordon’s front door.

  The curtains on the front window of the cottage were closed tight. So were the windows. At the same time I found myself thinking that was a shame since a pleasant breeze blew over the lake and Gordon was missing out on it, I saw the mini-blinds behind one curtain twitch. A moment later, Gordon opened the door just a crack and poked out his head.

  “Ladies! What a surprise to see you.” The way Gordon said it, I couldn’t tell if it was a good surprise or a bad one. The way he kept the door open just a smidgen, I wondered what we’d interrupted. “You’re not going to the park for the high school band concert this evening?”

  “We’re on our way there now,” I said, and it wasn’t exactly a lie since I was planning to ask Kate and Chandra if they wouldn’t mind stopping at the park on our way back to the B and B. “We saw you as we drove by and we just thought we’d stop in and say hello.”

  “That’s really . . .” Gordon was not an especially small man, yet in one smooth move, he managed to slip out of the door without opening it any farther and closed it behind him. “That’s really nice of you,” he said, his smile just a little too forced. “I’m going to be heading over to the park in a couple minutes, too.”

  “We could give you a ride,” Chandra offered.

  “Even if you’re not ready at this moment,” Kate said. “We don’t mind waiting.”

  “That’s really very generous.” Gordon raked a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. Had this been a normal conversation with just about anyone else on the island (minus that list of suspects, of course), I would have worried that we came across as three pushy women. But this wasn’t a normal conversation. And Gordon wasn’t just anyone. Like so many of the others on our suspect radar, Gordon had been wronged by Richie, and he’d been rightfully angry. Angry enough to kill? That, of course, was the question, and until I had the answer, I had every right to be suspicious of everything Gordon said and everything he did.

  The fact that he looked way too nervous didn’t help.

  Before he could cook up an excuse to get rid of us, I decided to head him off at the pass. “We were actually just on our way back from Richie’s,” I told him. “We’re helping Margaret and Alice clean out the place.”

  Gordon shook his head. “Richie. Poor kid. A shame that sort of thing happens to anyone.”

  I drew a deep breath and plunged right in. “Especially since there was no way he could have had time to pay you for the damage he did to your boat the other night.”

  Gordon waved away my concern. “That’s what insurance is for.”

  “But you must have been mad.” Chandra, never the one to go for subtle. “I mean, Richie was being Richie and, rest his soul, Richie could be the most annoying person on the face of the earth!”

  “It wasn’t that big a deal,” Gordon assured us. “Now if you ladies will excuse me.” He stepped back toward the house and put a hand on the door but didn’t open it. “I’ve got to get dressed and get over to the park. We’re taking a first look at all the Dickens impersonators tonight, you know. See you there!”

  There was no use trying to stall.

  That didn’t mean I didn’t notice that Gordon never even touched the doorknob to go back inside until we were almost all the way to the SUV.

  That just happened to be the same moment we saw Dickens imposter number three, Mason Burke, step out of the cottage next door.

  We waved, and Burke hurried over. It looked like he was more than ready for his first appearance in front of the Bastille Day crowds that evening; his suit was freshly pressed, his plaid vest was dashing, and the gold chain on his pocket watch winked in the last of the sunlight.

  “I do hope you’ll be at the park this evening,” he said. “I’m on my way there now.”

  “I’ve got the car.” I pointed even though, since we were standing almost right next to it, I didn’t really need to. “If you’d like us to drive your wife to the park, we’d be happy to help.”

  Burke’s expression went blank. It only lasted a nanosecond, then he shook his head and laughed. “Very kind of you. But she’s decided to stay back. She’s saving her energy—and her ankle—for the big event on Sunday.” He tipped his top hat. “Good evening, ladies.”

  It wasn’t until he had sauntered up the road and I turned to get into the SUV that I realized that while we were busy talking to Mason, Gordon Hunter had slipped back into his closed-up, curtains-shut, blinds-down house.

  12

  Here’s the thing about checking out Dickens impersonators during intermission at a band concert—it’s not easy.

  I mean with people milling all around the gazebo in the park where the impersonators were scheduled to line up.

  And kids tossing Frisbees.

  And folks calling to each other and laughing, and a couple college kids carrying on over near the fountain (which Hank put a stop to practically before it got started).

  The fact that I’m short didn’t help, either.

  I stood on tiptoe and craned my neck, and when that didn’t work, I told Chandra and Kate I’d be right back (with all the commotion, I don’t think either one of them heard me) and elbowed my way through to the front of the crowd.

  I mean, really, it’s not like the folks who packed the park were hog-wild to see the Dickens impersonators, right?

  Right.

  Turns out the crush near the front of the gazebo had less to do with Dickens than it did with dining.

  Mike’s ice cream cart was set up near one of
the two entrances to the octagonal-shaped gazebo and a line snaked over to him that stretched out all the way to the public bathhouse.

  Not to be outdone, the hot dog seller positioned his cart nearby, and apparently the cotton candy guy caught on, too, to the old wisdom of location, location, location. I had to squeeze by him and the eight gazillion kids lined up in front of his cart before I could even get close to the gazebo.

  Why did I care so much?

  Well, it was supposed to be a secret, but I suppose it’s safe now to spill the beans. See, I was one of the Dickens judges.

  Yes, I know, this seems a little out of character for a B and B proprietor, but apparently Marianne Littlejohn, our town librarian, had somehow caught wind of the fact that I’d once mentioned to the League that I was a former English major. When it came to qualifications, that was good enough for Marianne, and I was drafted. As for accepting, it was that or cause something that might be too near a scene and draw too much attention to myself if I dug in my heels and refused to cooperate.

  So judge I was. And though I’d already met three of the impersonators, even I didn’t know if there were more.

  I found out soon enough.

  Just as I got to the front of the crowd, Gordon stepped up to the microphone looking far more relaxed and far less edgy than he’d looked back at his cottage. He called Charles Dickens to the gazebo and, one by one, like a scene out of some strange movie or some even weirder dream, the Dickenses materialized out of the crowd.

  Ashburn was first. Didn’t it figure. Shoes aside, his costume was perfection and his attitude, as annoying as all get-out back at the B and B, was perfect for the occasion. Gregarious and just the slightest bit impressed with himself. I’d read enough about Dickens (the real Dickens) to know he enjoyed his fame, and I had to give Ashburn credit. The smile, the wave, the slight bow toward the ladies . . . he had it all going for him.

  But then, so did Drake.

  He was the next one to make it to the gazebo and his mannerisms were a perfect mirror of Ashburn’s. If I was judging on looks alone—and I wasn’t, remember; there was still the big trivia contest on Sunday afternoon—I honestly wouldn’t have known which one to pick.