by Mary Daheim
other. Judith hoped it was the latter that made him so
indulgent of—or was it indifferent to?—Vivian’s notso-subtle charms.
In response to the question, Judith nodded. “There
are other men, but they’re not actors. They’re directors
and writers and—”
Herself waved again. “Aren’t those types homely?”
Before Judith could try to reply, Cairo intervened.
“Let’s cut out the chitchat, ladies. I want to hear some
specifics about this so-called accident. Tell me,” he
said, standing in front of the fireplace with his hands
folded behind his back, “who discovered Zepf’s body?”
“I did,” Judith admitted, sounding miserable.
“You did, eh?” Cairo glanced at Joe. “Not the great
detective over here?”
Judith didn’t comment.
“All right,” Cairo went on, “when did you find the
stiff?”
Judith glanced at Joe. “Around one-fifteen, maybe
later?”
Joe gave a faint nod.
“When and where,” Cairo queried, “did you last see
this Zepf character alive?”
Judith tried to focus on the question, though her
brain was fogging over. “He was on one of the living- SILVER SCREAM
131
room sofas by the fireplace. That must have been about
a quarter to one, when Joe and I began to clean up
everything and take some of the perishable items down
to the freezer in the basement.”
Cairo flung out his hands. “So where’s the basement?”
Joe sneered. “Under the house.”
Herself burst out laughing; her bust almost burst the
seams of her emerald-green robe. “Oh, Joe-Joe! You’re
such a scream!”
Stone Cold Sam Cairo did not look amused. “You
know what I mean,” he snarled. “How do you get to the
damned basement?”
Judith spoke before Joe could further enrage Cairo.
“Through the kitchen, the hallway, and down the stairs
on the left.”
Cairo looked thoughtful. “So it’s quite a distance
from where Zepf was in the living room. Who was
with him?”
The fog enclosed Judith’s brain. “I don’t remember.” She glanced at Joe for assistance, but none was
forthcoming. “He may have been alone.” She paused,
straining in an effort to concentrate. “The cat—I think
Sweetums was sitting on Mr. Zepf’s lap.”
Cairo scowled, but Herself laughed again, though
this time the sound was soft and purring. “That lovely
cat! Oh, Sam, you’ve never seen such a beautiful
pussy. Not lately, anyway.”
Cairo ignored Herself. His attitude seemed to indicate
that perhaps he was getting tired, too. Maybe frustrated
as well, Judith thought in her exhausted haze. Before the
detective could pose another question, Dilys returned to
the parlor.
“They won’t come down,” she announced. “They
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Mary Daheim
won’t even open their doors. The woman in Room One
says we have no probable cause or any evidence of a
crime having been committed.” Dilys didn’t bother to
stifle a wide yawn.
“Not cooperating?” Cairo slammed his fist against
the fireplace, hurt himself, and swore under his breath.
“Poor baby,” Vivian murmured. “Let Mommy kiss
your boo-boo.” She advanced on the detective, allowing a great deal of bare leg to become exposed.
“Not now,” Cairo growled. “I’ll take a rain check,”
he added.
Joe looked at Judith. “Who’s in Room One?”
“Winifred Best,” Judith said, surprised that she
could remember where Room One was located, let
alone who occupied it.
“Ms. Best is right,” Joe said to Cairo. “Why don’t
you go away?”
Rubbing his sore knuckles, Cairo bristled. “I want
to hear the details about how this Zepf guy died.”
“You have heard them,” Joe asserted. “He came into
the kitchen, maybe to get some aspirin, probably had a
heart attack, and fell face first into the sink. Look, the
guy had just had the biggest comedown of his career.
His future was on the line. You never knew of someone
to suffer a coronary after a life-altering shock?”
His face darkening, Cairo continued rubbing his
knuckles, but made no comment.
“I’m curious about that cupboard door,” Dilys put
in. “How often does it open by itself?”
“Occasionally,” Judith admitted.
“Interesting,” Dilys remarked, then turned to Cairo.
“Mr. Flynn has a point. We can’t do much until we get
the ME’s verdict.”
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133
“Awwr . . .” Cairo grimaced, but nodded abruptly.
“Okay, we’ll hang it up for now.” He loomed over Judith. “I gotta trust you, Flynn. We’re shorthanded
tonight because of the holiday weekend. You see to it
that nobody goes near that kitchen, especially the sink.
You got that?”
Joe nodded solemnly; Judith blanched. “But I have
to serve breakfast for—” she began.
Cairo made a slashing gesture with his sore hand.
“Forget about it. Your fancy guests can go out to eat.
So can you.”
“But Mother can’t—” Judith began before Joe broke
in.
“Sam’s right. The kitchen is a potential crime scene.
We’ll manage.” He offered Cairo a dubious smile.
“Trying to get rid of me, eh, Flynn?” There was
nothing playful about the look in Cairo’s chilly eyes.
The equivocal smile remained on Joe’s lips. But he
said nothing.
Cairo gave Dilys a nudge and took Vivian by the
hand. “I’ll see one of your wives home,” he said.
“You’ll see me again tomorrow. Stay put.” Cairo,
Dilys, and Vivian left the house.
“Oh, Joe,” Judith murmured, “I’m so tired! But
what will we do about breakfast tomorrow?”
“We’ll work it out,” Joe said grimly. “You go to bed.
I’ll check things around here before I come up.”
Judith started to protest but lacked the energy for argument. She did, however, have one last question.
“So you really think Bruno’s death was an accident?”
Again, Joe said nothing.
Indeed, Judith was too tired to care.
*
*
*
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Mary Daheim
To her great surprise and relief, a smiling Chips
Madigan met her as she came down from the third
floor just before nine o’clock the next morning.
“That’s great!” he exclaimed, framing her with the
ever-present viewfinder. “ ‘Early A.M., overcoming
tragedy, ready to face the world.’ My mother would be
proud of you, Mrs. Flynn. She’s had a couple of B&B
guests die on her, too.”
“Really?” Judith quietly closed the door to the thirdfloor staircase. “What happened?”
Chips made a face. “I’m not sure. I mean, it was so
long ago that I don’t quite recall. One w
as maybe a
stroke. Maybe they both were.”
Strokes, heart attacks, even aneurysms sounded
comforting to Judith. Anything was better than murder.
She smiled apologetically. “I’m afraid I can’t make
breakfast this morning. No one is allowed in the
kitchen until the cause of Mr. Zepf’s death becomes
official.”
Chips nodded. “That’s what Win and Dade told us.
Dade got his start writing for a TV cop show a few
years back. He’s our police expert. And Win—well,
Win knows everything. Or so it seems.”
“How is she?” Judith inquired. “I thought she was
terribly upset last night.”
“She was,” Chips agreed. “She still is. She and
Bruno were like that.” The boyish-looking director entwined his first and second fingers. “But she’s a survivor. She’s had to be,” he added on a grim note.
“I guess everybody in Hollywood has to be a survivor,” Judith remarked, slowly heading for the front
stairs.
“True.” Chips’s voice held no expression. “We’re
SILVER SCREAM
135
going out to forage. At least Win and Ellie and Ben and
I are. Dade already left.”
“He’s a lone wolf, isn’t he?” Judith remarked as she
reached the top of the stairs.
Chips nodded. “A lot of writers are like that. They
work alone, they prefer their made-up characters to
real people.”
“I can understand that,” Judith said, though she really
couldn’t. People were the center of her world, her reason for being. Family, friends, and strangers—Judith
held out welcoming arms to them all. She would never
have been able to run a B&B if she hadn’t loved people.
Judith risked a touchy question. “I got the impression that directors and screenwriters don’t always
agree on how a movie is made.”
Chips flushed, his freckles blending in with the rest
of his face. “You mean that little dustup with Dade the
other night?” He didn’t wait for Judith to respond, but
shrugged in an exaggerated manner. “Typical. We call
it artistic differences. It doesn’t mean a thing.”
“Yes,” Judith said, “I see how that can happen. But
you and Bruno Zepf must have agreed on how The
Gasman was made, right?”
Chips cocked his head to one side, looking even
more boyish than usual. “Directors and producers have
their own differences. It wouldn’t be normal if they
didn’t. We’re all creative types, we all have our own
ideas about how a picture should be made.”
“Do you think Bruno had the wrong idea? I mean,”
Judith added hastily, “that he did something wrong to
get such a strong negative reaction to his movie?”
“Yes,” Chips said sadly. “Making the picture was
wrong. A passion for filmmaking is one thing—Bruno
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Mary Daheim
had plenty of passion. But personal missions seldom
make for good box office. The project was doomed
from the start. Maybe,” he continued on a mournful
note, “Bruno was, too.” With a shake of his head, he
turned back into Room Five.
Judith headed downstairs. Joe had already gone to
early Mass and was bringing back pastries and hot coffee in big thermoses. But Judith’s priority was
Gertrude. The old lady would be fussing, since her
daughter usually showed up at least an hour earlier
than this with breakfast.
Indeed, when Judith entered the toolshed Gertrude
wouldn’t speak to her. She was sitting in her usual
place behind the card table, sulking.
“One of our guests passed away last night,” Judith
began.
Gertrude turned her head and stared at the wall.
“He may have had a heart attack. That’s why I
haven’t been able to make breakfast. I can’t go into the
kitchen.”
Gertrude uttered a snort of derision.
“It’s possible that someone—” Judith stopped and
bit her lip. There was no point in alarming her mother.
“We have to get an official verdict from the coroner before I can use the kitchen.”
Gertrude picked up a deck of cards and shoved them
into the automatic shuffler. Click-clackety-click-clack.
She removed the cards and began to lay out a game of
solitaire.
“In about fifteen minutes, Joe will come back with
pastries and hot coffee,” Judith said, then added with a
touch of irony, “I hope the trouble last night didn’t
bother you, Mother.”
SILVER SCREAM
137
Gertrude, who was about to put a red six on a black
seven, turned her small, beady eyes on her daughter. “I
didn’t hear a thing. At least your latest corpse was
quiet about sailing off through the Pearly Gates.”
“Thoughtful of him,” Judith murmured, so low that
her allegedly deaf mother couldn’t hear her.
“What kind of pastries?” Gertrude demanded, playing up an ace. “They’d better have that custard filling I
like. Or apples, with that gooey syrup. The last time,
Lunkhead brought something with apricots. I don’t
like apricots, at least not in my pastries.”
“He’ll do his best,” Judith avowed.
“No blueberries!” Gertrude exclaimed. “They turn
my dentures purple. I’d look like one of those trick-ortreaters who came by last night.”
Judith frowned. “You had kids come to the toolshed?”
“Kids, my hind end! They were as tall as I am. I
didn’t give ’em anything. Nobody eats my candy except me.” Gertrude slapped a deuce on the ace.
“What were they dressed as?” Judith asked, recalling the late arrival of the spaceman and the alligator.
“A cowboy with fancy snakeskin boots and a scarecrow that looked like he came out of The Wizard of
Oz, ” Gertrude replied, putting up another ace. “I could
hardly hear a word they said. That’s when I told them
to beat it. They did. They knew better than to mess
with this old lady.” With a savage gesture, she reeled
off a black nine, a red eight, and a black seven.
“What time was that?” Judith asked.
“Time?” Gertrude wrinkled her nose. “What’s time
to an old lady on her last legs? There’s not much of it
left. If you were me, you wouldn’t keep track of time,
either.”
138
Mary Daheim
Judith eyed her mother shrewdly. “You seem to keep
track of mealtimes pretty well.”
Gertrude played up several more cards. “What does
it mean?” she said in a musing voice. “Think about it.
Why do they say that?”
“What? You mean about time?”
“No,” Gertrude replied with a scornful glance at her
daughter. “Last legs. You don’t talk about somebody’s
first legs, or their second or their third. If you got more
legs as you went along, then they wouldn’t give out on
you. Your last legs should be your best legs, because
they’re newer.” She paused, scanning the cards in her
hand. “Now where�
��s that ace of clubs? I saw it someplace.”
Judith surrendered. She’d been curious about the
trick-or-treaters because she wondered why they’d
gone to the toolshed instead of to the house. But maybe
they had. Renie or Arlene would have taken care of
them. There’d be more tonight, she realized, since it
was officially Halloween. At least the wind had died
down and the rain had dwindled to a mere mist.
Joe had returned when Judith went back into the
house. He was putting a variety of pastries and doughnuts onto the buffet, along with crackers and various
cheeses. There was also a plate of cookies in the
shapes of jack-o’-lanterns, bats, and witches.
“Cute,” Judith remarked, kissing him on the cheek.
“Me or the cookies?” he responded, plugging in the
coffee urn.
“Both,” said Judith. “When should we hear from the
ME?”
“Elevenish,” Joe replied. “Then we’ll know if the
guests can leave.”
SILVER SCREAM
139
Judith began to pace the living-room floor. “I’d hate
to have to go through Ingrid at the B&B association to
put up the guests who are coming in later today. We’ve
got five reservations, you know.”
Dirk Farrar entered the room, looking belligerent.
“What’s going on? Nobody’s telling us a damned
thing. We can’t stick around forever.”
“We were just talking about that,” Judith said.
“We’re still waiting to hear from the police.”
“Screw ’em,” Dirk said fiercely. “That SOB Bruno
had a heart attack. It served him right. My price just
went down at least five mil and next time—if there is
a next time—I’ll be lucky to get any points at all.”
“But you’re a huge star,” Judith protested. “You’ve
been in several big hits, including with Mr. Zepf. Or so
I’ve heard,” she added humbly.
The handsome, craggy features that had made females hyperventilate on five continents, and possibly
Pluto, twisted with anger. “You don’t get it. None of
you people who aren’t in the business get it. Last
night’s flop could be the end of Dirk Farrar!”
Joe may have been three inches shorter and twentyfive years older, but he stepped smoothly between the
actor and Judith. “That could come sooner if you don’t
stop yelling at my wife. Back off, big fella, or I’ll have
to do a little cosmetic surgery on that famous face of
yours.”
“Why, you—” Dirk began, but suddenly stopped and