Silver Scream : A Bed-and-breakfast Mystery

by Mary Daheim

  number. There was no answer except for Anne’s voice

  on the machine.

  “Anne Jones here. If you want to reach me immediately, call my cell phone or my pager. The numbers

  are . . .” After reeling off the digits, she added, “If you

  must speak to anybody else, leave your—” The message cut off abruptly, as if Anne didn’t give a damn

  whether the rest of the Joneses ever got a phone call.

  Which, Renie asserted, Anne didn’t.

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  Judith took a plateful of pastries out to the toolshed,

  where Gertrude picked over them with a persnickety

  air. Finally she selected two custard sweet rolls and

  three sugar doughnuts.

  “Some breakfast,” the old lady sniffed. “Isn’t it time

  for lunch?”

  Judith told her mother that lunch would be a little

  late. Gertrude sniffed some more.

  By five to twelve, none of the guests had returned.

  Their absence made Judith nervous, but accepting it

  as a sign from heaven, she headed off to St. Fabiola’s. The church was near the civic center, and was

  a half century newer than Our Lady, Star of the Sea.

  The amber brick edifice was only a few minutes’

  drive from Hillside Manor. At the bottom of Heraldsgate Hill on a quiet Sunday morning, traffic was

  light. Most of the businesses were closed, and the

  few that were open had just unlocked their doors to

  customers.

  Judith arrived just after Mass had started, so she sat

  in a pew near the back. The lector was reading the first

  epistle when there was a commotion behind her.

  Discreetly, she turned to look. At the side entrance,

  an elderly usher was struggling to keep a disheveled

  bundle of unsteadiness upright. It was a woman, Judith

  thought, and wondered if she was drunk or ill. At last

  the man steadied the unfortunate soul, propping her up

  against a confessional door.

  “. . . word of the Lord,” intoned the lector from the

  pulpit.

  “Oh, my Lord!” Judith gasped from the pew.

  The disheveled woman was Renie. She was panting

  and limping, her clothes in disarray and her hair going

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  every which way, including over her eyes. Judith hurried into the aisle and approached her cousin.

  “What’s wrong?” she whispered in a frantic voice.

  “Are you sick?”

  Renie shook her head, brushing unruly chestnut

  strands of hair out of her eyes.

  “Have you been attacked?” Judith asked.

  Renie shook her head again. “Not exactly.”

  Judith gestured toward the pew where she’d been

  sitting. “Can you sit down?”

  Renie nodded. The usher, whose wrinkled face was

  etched with concern, made a move to help both

  women.

  “It’s okay,” Judith said softly. “She’s not heavy,

  she’s my cousin.”

  TEN

  RENIE ALL BUT fell into the pew. By now, several of

  the nearby worshipers were staring. But as she regained her breath and straightened her clothes, the

  curious returned their attention to the altar. Judith,

  however, still stared at her cousin with anxious eyes.

  “Later,” Renie mouthed.

  It seemed like the longest Mass that Judith had

  ever attended. She had great difficulty concentrating

  on the liturgy, though she found no problem in praying for Renie and for herself. It seemed that they

  both were in a great deal of trouble. At last the priest

  gave the final blessing. Judith offered to help Renie

  out of the pew, but was shaken off.

  “I’m okay now,” she declared. “I won.”

  “You won what?” Judith asked as they started

  down the aisle.

  “The fight,” Renie said as they reached the

  vestibule. “I got into a fight at the XYZ Market up

  the street.”

  “Oh, good grief!” Judith exclaimed, drawing

  more stares from the exiting churchgoers. “How did

  that happen?”

  “Some middle-aged Amazon thought she was

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  Wonder Woman and tried to edge me out at the checkout counter,” Renie explained as they headed down the

  stairs to the door that led to the parking lot. “I’d already stood in line for ten minutes and I was afraid I’d

  be late for Mass. Bill had gone to ten o’clock at Our

  Lady, Star of the Sea. I was so pooped from everything

  that happened yesterday that I slept in. Anyway, this

  brazen broad ran her cart over my foot and said something like, ‘Move it, shorty.’ So I rammed her with my

  cart. Then we got into it, and the next thing I knew we

  were slugging it out over the counter and finally I put

  a plastic produce bag over her head. She surrendered.”

  Renie wore a grim expression of victory. “So what’s

  new with you this morning?”

  Judith started to speak, and discovered that she had

  no voice. “I . . .” The single word was a squawk.

  “Joe . . .” Her husband’s name was a guttural sound, as

  if she were gagging.

  Renie looked alarmed. “What’s wrong, coz? Is

  something caught in your throat?”

  Judith shook her head. The other churchgoers were

  now swarming the parking lot, revving engines, and

  readying for departure. The cousins were blocking

  traffic. With a desperate effort, Judith mouthed the

  words, “Buster’s Café.”

  “Buster’s?” Renie looked bewildered.

  Judith made chewing motions. Renie got it.

  “You want me to meet you at Buster’s? Okay, see

  you in a couple of minutes.”

  Buster’s Café was old, a lower Heraldsgate Hill

  landmark. Buster himself still ran the place after inheriting it from his parents forty years earlier. Nothing

  much had changed in that time, or even before, but the

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  food was decent and the rubber-soled waitresses could

  have won a restaurant Olympics for speed and efficiency.

  It took each of the cousins less than three minutes to

  drive to the café, but almost ten to find parking spaces,

  even on a Sunday morning. Judith was out of breath

  when she arrived; Renie seemed to have regained her

  usual bounce.

  “I can’t have more than coffee,” Judith said, “because I have to get home. If you think you’ve had a bad

  weekend, listen to this . . .”

  Renie did, her brown eyes growing wider and wider.

  When Judith had finished about the same time that

  Renie’s coffee had gone cold, an incredulous expression remained on her cousin’s face.

  “You can’t lose the B&B!” Renie cried. “It’d be like

  removing your liver!”

  “I know.” Judith sighed. “It’s not just a job or making money, it’s who I am. The horrible part is that we

  may be at fault. We were negligent in not getting that

  cupboard door fixed. Why, you almost slammed into it

  the other day.”

  “True,” Renie allowed, her expression full of concern. “But you don’t really know what happened to

  Bruno.”

  “Also
true,” Judith agreed.

  A brief silence fell between the cousins. “I’m not

  going to say it,” Renie said at last.

  “Whatever it is, I don’t want to hear it,” Judith responded, finally taking a sip from her water glass. “No

  matter what, I’ve already said it about twenty times

  since last night.”

  Renie said it anyway. “It can’t be another homicide.

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  That’d be three at Hillside Manor. On the other hand,

  if it is, you wouldn’t be at fault.” She paused after stirring extra sugar into her coffee. “When is a murder not

  a murder? How on earth do you and Joe expect to find

  out?”

  “I’m not sure,” Judith replied, looking worried. “I

  talk, I listen, while Joe sleuths in a professional way.”

  “Can Bill and I help?” Renie offered, her deep sense

  of family loyalty leaping to the surface.

  While not nearly as compassionate, Renie ran a decent second to her cousin when it came to striking up

  a revealing conversation. As for Bill, whatever he disliked about idle socializing was more than made up for

  by his extraordinary perceptiveness. Being a trained

  psychologist didn’t hurt any, either.

  “Why not?” Judith said, brightening a bit.

  “Well . . .” Renie grimaced. “We were planning on

  inviting our future in-laws over so we could make sure

  who was marrying whom, but the kids aren’t positive

  that will work with their various and elaborate schedules. They insist we’ve met them already. I’ll find out

  what Bill thinks. If he gives me a green light, we’ll be

  over as soon as we can.”

  Driving to Hillside Manor, Judith breathed a little

  easier. To her relief, the cul-de-sac was empty, except

  for the patrol car that had crept close to the curb. She

  couldn’t see who was inside, but assumed it was someone from the day shift. Darnell Hicks and Mercedes

  Berger would have gone home hours ago.

  As she often did, Judith left her Subaru in the driveway. She usually entered the house from the rear, but

  on this anxious Sunday she retraced her route to the

  front. Pausing on the walk, she drank in the entirety of

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  Hillside Manor, acknowledging its age, soaking up its

  memories. The house was almost a hundred years old,

  built in the Edwardian era. The dark green paint and

  the off-white trim on the Prairie-style Craftsman had

  just begun to chip and fade. Next summer, Judith

  would have to hire a painter. If there was a next summer at Hillside Manor.

  So many memories, she thought, ignoring the slight

  drizzle. Her Grover grandparents had bought the house

  in the twenties. Her father and Renie’s father had

  grown up there along with four siblings. Gertrude and

  Donald Grover had raised Judith within its sheltering

  walls. After Don died, Judith and Mike had returned,

  converting the house into a bed-and-breakfast. To Judith, it wasn’t just a building, it was a sanctuary. She

  couldn’t possibly give it up. Not ever.

  With a dragging step, Judith entered through the

  front door, where her melancholia was swept away by

  angry voices coming from the living room. One voice

  soared above the rest.

  “You don’t live in our world, Mr. Flynn,” proclaimed Angela La Belle. “You can’t possibly understand what it’s like to be in the picture business. If we

  aren’t free to talk to people, to make contacts, to keep

  up on every nuance of the business, our careers are in

  jeopardy. Indeed, after last night’s fiasco, all”—she

  paused, and Judith thought she glanced at Ellie Linn—

  “or almost all of us are already in deep doodoo.”

  It seemed to Judith the reference was not to Bruno’s

  death, but to The Gasman’ s flop. She couldn’t help but

  flinch at the lack of humanity.

  Joe remained unruffled. “Don’t blame us. Talk to

  your studio suits. You all have cell phones, don’t you?”

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  He cupped one ear with his hand. “I could swear

  they’ve been ringing like a satellite symphony.”

  “It’s not the same,” Ben Carmody argued. “I

  planned to take a dinner meeting tonight with the number two producer in Hollywood. Number one now,

  with Bruno out of the picture. So to speak.” The actor

  looked faintly sheepish, but continued, “After last

  night, there may not be any producers who want to talk

  to me.”

  “You’re not kidding,” Angela chimed in. “Now

  when my name comes up, they’ll say, ‘La Belle? She

  was in that disaster, The Gasman. I wouldn’t touch her

  with a ten-foot pole.’ It’ll be like I have a contagious

  disease. There’s no rationality in this business. Only

  success and its afterglow count.”

  The others enumerated their complaints, all of

  which swelled into a dirge of doom. Judith studied the

  gathering. Winifred was seated on one of the sofas by

  the fireplace with Chips Madigan at her side. Opposite

  them were Angela and Dirk. Ben Carmody leaned

  against the mantelpiece and, while not wearing his

  usual sinister screen expression, definitely looked morose. Dade Costello retained his lone-wolf status in his

  favorite place by the French doors. Ellie Linn also

  stood outside the circle, perched on the bay window

  seat with her feet tucked under her. It seemed to Judith

  that the young actress hadn’t been nearly as vocal

  about the unfortunate movie premiere as her colleagues.

  It was time, Judith believed, to cut someone from

  the herd. She singled out Winifred Best.

  “Excuse me,” she said in a deferential voice, “but

  could I speak with you privately, Ms. Best?”

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  Briefly, Winifred looked hostile. Or maybe just

  wary. But her response was sufficiently courteous.

  “Yes, if you like.”

  Judith led her guest into the front parlor. “It’s really

  none of my business, but since I’ll have to fill out some

  forms, I should know what the plans are for Mr. Zepf’s

  body.”

  “Oh.” Winifred’s face fell. “I’ve contacted his children—they’re both in the L.A. area—and they’re making the arrangements. My understanding is that the

  body will be shipped from here tomorrow. Under the

  circumstances, I should think any kind of service will

  be private. Very private.” She uttered the last words

  through taut lips.

  Judith wondered if the very private services were

  because the family was very private or because the deceased had suffered a huge professional catastrophe

  and the survivors were afraid that nobody would attend.

  “Are his children grown?” Judith inquired.

  Winifred nodded. “Practically. That is, they’re both

  in college. Greta’s at Pepperdine and Greg just started

  USC.”

  “Um . . .” Judith cleared her throat. “Is their mother

  also in L.A.?”

  Winifred arched her thin eyebrows. “Their mother is

  in Dubai. She divorced B
runo several years ago and

  married an emir. She was an actress named Taryn

  McGuire. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d never heard

  of her. She did mostly TV and only appeared briefly in

  two or three feature films.”

  The name meant nothing to Judith. “I suppose being

  married to Bruno wasn’t easy,” she said in a sympa- 160

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  thetic tone. “That is, he really was considered a movie

  genius, wasn’t he?”

  “Brilliant.” Winifred’s eyes lit up and her voice became almost caressing. “He always had his dreams.

  Bruno attended every Saturday matinee, his attention

  fixated on the screen, his imagination catching fire.

  Early on, he understood what made a successful picture. It was born in him.”

  Judith felt as if Winifred were reading from a press

  release. Maybe she was; maybe she’d written it.

  “It was only in the last six or seven years that he began

  to recieve the kind of acclaim he’d always sought,”

  Winifred went on. “Two years ago he made the short list.”

  “Which is?” Judith asked, puzzled.

  Winifred offered Judith a pitying smile. “It refers to

  those few at the very top of their professions in the film

  industry. Like Spielberg or Cameron. And Bruno.”

  Quickly, she turned away. “Excuse me. It’s so hard to

  think of Bruno going out . . . with a failure.”

  “You seem genuinely fond of him,” Judith said, surprised at herself for being so bold, even more surprised

  that she was using the word genuine with a Hollywood

  person.

  Winifred drew back sharply. “Why wouldn’t I be?

  He gave me an excellent job.”

  Maybe it was as simple as that. Maybe gratitude

  was possible in the movie business. Maybe something other than ice water ran in the veins of Winifred

  Best.

  “You’d been with Mr. Zepf a long time?” Judith

  said, keeping her voice low and casual.

  “Yes,” Winifred replied, still wary.

  “You must have had excellent credentials to get the

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  job as Mr. Zepf’s assistant,” Judith remarked, hearing

  a car pull up outside.

  “Good enough,” Winifred said, her expression shutting down. “Is that Morris who just arrived?”

  “Morris?” Judith echoed, puzzled.

  “Morris Mayne, the studio publicist,” Winifred said,

  joining Judith at the parlor’s tall window.

  “No,” Judith said, recognizing Woody Price’s car.