by Mary Daheim
happiness, didn’t he?” she finally asked.
Meg sat up very straight. “You mean . . . the book?”
Judith nodded. “That’s what you came for earlier
this morning, isn’t it? The book. Your copy of the
book.”
Meg’s jaw dropped, but she recovered quickly.
“That Best woman—she was the one who all but stole
it from us.”
“Not your personal copy, though,” Judith put in.
“Bruno took it with him when he left you, didn’t he?”
“I could have killed him right then and there,” Meg
declared. “Pa’s book was his monument. It was all that
we had left of him, except for the manuscript he never
finished. And no one would buy that one from us.
Foolishly, we let the copyright on The Gasman run out
in 1985. We thought, what’s the use? There was never
more than the one printing. Then Bruno . . .” She spat
out his name as if it were tainted with gall. “Then he
used the book to make this big, big movie. Winifred
Best had gotten hold of the rights for him. Walt and I
couldn’t believe it when we saw it on a TV show about
Hollywood. Millions of dollars. And we were practically on food stamps. After all those years—thirty-one,
to be exact—that son of a bitch uses Pa’s book to make
himself even more rich and famous.”
“You never forgave Bruno, did you?” Judith asked
quietly.
Meg shook her head decisively. “Never. How could
I? He ruined my life, he destroyed my future, he stole
Pa’s book. It ate at me, like a cancer.”
“Cancer,” Judith repeated. “You have cancer, don’t
you?”
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Mary Daheim
Meg’s body jerked in the chair. “How do you
know?”
“I found a piece of label from a prescription bottle
in Bruno’s room the morning after he died,” Judith
said. “It was for thalidomide. If it wasn’t for Bruno and
it wasn’t for Walt, then it had to be for you. I’d heard
that the drug was being used again, this time for cancer patients. Thalidomide has proved effective in retarding end-stage cancers. I think that scrap of label
was dropped when you were exploring the upstairs.
You didn’t notice because you were too busy destroying Angela’s costume and putting the rubber spider in
Bruno’s bed.”
Meg’s gaze dropped along with her shoulders. “That
medicine helps. But it doesn’t cure. I’ve got blood cancer. Multiple myeloma, if you want to put a fancy
name to it.”
“I’m so sorry,” Judith said, feeling as if she had to
apologize for too many tragedies in Meg’s life. “When
you learned Bruno was premiering his movie here in
town, it must have come as a shock to discover that he
and his company were registered at the same B&B
you’d chosen.”
“Not really,” Meg said on a weary sigh. “It figured.
Our first trip in twenty-five years, and somehow Bruno
managed to foul it up for us. I guess that was the last
straw. It was right after that when I found out about the
cancer.”
The damp air seemed to seep into Judith’s skin; she
felt faintly chilled. The ticking of the schoolhouse
clock sounded unnaturally loud in her ears. For all she
knew, Meg had a gun in her purse. It seemed heavy,
judging from the way Meg held it. Judith braced her- SILVER SCREAM
335
self before asking the next question. “Did you intend to
kill Bruno?”
Meg smirked before speaking. “Of course I did. I’d
wished him dead every day of my life. But then I saw
him again, after so many years.” She looked away and
bit her lip. “I had to talk to him, to tell him what a
skunk he was, to make him give me back my book. And
of course money from him would have been nice. I
don’t know how Walt will manage without me. He
hasn’t been the same since the farming went bad.” She
looked away, into the corner of the dining room, with
its quaint washstand, porcelain ewer, and pitcher. Judith thought the sight must have reminded the other
woman of home.
“Bruno was so snotty to me,” Meg went on, “so
mean, like he was after we were married. When I first
began to show with the baby, he called me Spider
Woman. He said that with the big belly and my scrawny
long arms and legs, I reminded him of a spider.”
“How cruel,” Judith said with a shake of her head.
“Bruno sounds as if he was held captive by his ego,
even then.”
“He was nice only in the beginning,” Meg said,
“when he was trying to seduce me. I was so green. I’d
never met anyone like him.”
Judith started to reach out to comfort Meg, but
thought better of it. “Don’t blame yourself,” she said.
“You were a farm girl from a small town. He was in
search of his Iowa roots, and already had the aura of
Southern California about him.” She paused, knowing
that Meg had a need to talk about the confrontation
with Bruno. “Night before last must have been very
hard when you finally faced him again.”
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Mary Daheim
“It was and it wasn’t,” Meg responded, her sharp
features hardening even more. “I was glad that when I
finally saw him, he was feeling miserable. How the
mighty have fallen, I thought to myself. But then he
got nasty. When Bruno went to take some pills he had
in his hand, he opened the cupboard by the sink to
fetch a glass. Then he dropped one of the pills. When
he bent down to get it, he reared up so fast that he
banged his head on the cupboard door and knocked
himself silly. He fell right into the sink with all that
water in it. For a second I thought I should haul him
out.” Her face twisted with bitterness. “Then I thought,
to hell with him. He never cared about me, why should
I care about him? So I held his head under the water
until he stopped flailing around. Then I put the spider
over the sink and left.” Meg’s pallor had a strange
glow. She’d won the final battle with Bruno.
For a long time neither woman spoke. Judith forced
herself not to look in the direction of Meg’s purse.
“Your brother, Will,” Judith said at last, recalling the
information on the Internet. “You mentioned at some
point that he lives here. He’s William Euclid Carp,
isn’t he?” Silently, she cursed herself. She’d never
thought of looking up Carp in the phone book.
Meg nodded. “He moved out this way a couple of
years ago. He couldn’t stand trying to make a living
selling farm equipment anymore. The market had
fallen out of that, too. I figured that this trip would be
my last chance to see him. Will was real pleased. But
sad. I’d asked him to scout out this place so we could
find it without running around all over a strange city.
By then, we’d been displaced, and knew from you that
&nb
sp; Bruno was coming here for his big shindig.”
SILVER SCREAM
337
“Ah!” Judith exclaimed softly. She couldn’t believe
she’d been such a dunce. The tall, old-fashioned figure
she’d seen alongside the house wasn’t Ben Carmody;
it was William Euclid Carp. “But you were the pioneer
woman at the party,” she said. It was a statement, not a
question. American Gothic, Judith had thought the first
time she’d met the Izards. Gothic, as in grotesque. Out
of the corner of her eye, she could see the calendar
with the Grant Wood painting.
“What else could I be?” Meg replied. “That was
Great-Grandma Carp’s dress and bonnet I found a long
time ago in the attic. I brought it with me. I couldn’t afford a fancy-dress costume. I’d heard about the ball on
TV, and I figured I’d confront Bruno afterward at your
B&B.”
“Did Walt dress up?” Judith inquired. “I don’t recall
seeing him at the party.”
“He never came inside,” Meg said. “He and Will put
together some makeshift costumes. Walt was a scarecrow. Will was a cowboy. Those were easy to do, after
all the scarecrows we’ve had on the farm. Will had
herded cattle for many years. He still had his boots and
his vest and his cowboy hat. They didn’t blame me for
what I’d done, but they fussed. They were afraid I’d be
found out. Will was especially worried, so he and Walt
tried to keep tabs on what was going on here after
Bruno died.”
So the witch wasn’t a witch, but a scarecrow,
thought Judith. Another mistake she’d made, though
understandable. In the fog, the pointed hat, the turnedup shoes, the ragged garments, the strawlike hair, and
the fact that it was Halloween had made the illusion
credible.
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Mary Daheim
“Who found the missing key to Hillside Manor?”
Judith asked.
“Walt.” Meg smiled thinly. “It was in your driveway.
He picked it up on a . . . whim, I guess. I tried to use it
this morning, but before I could make it turn right,
some fat old bag came to the door.”
Judith had another query for Meg. “Why did you hit
Winifred Best and start the fire?”
Meg’s jaw jutted. “I thought she had my book. She
said she didn’t—Bruno had it. But that didn’t make
sense. Bruno was dead, so where did it go? She swore
she didn’t know. That’s when I hit her. Then I went all
through her room, but I couldn’t find the book. I got
mad.” Her eyes grew cold as marble. “I struck a match
and set fire to the bedclothes. That woman may not
have had my book on her, but she’s had Bruno all these
years. It wasn’t fair.”
Judith tried not to gape. Could Meg still love Bruno
in spite of everything he’d done? Sometimes love and
hate were so hard to distinguish. Maybe it was obsession. Yet Bruno Zepf had inspired love in several
women, perhaps including Winifred Best.
“And there was this,” Meg added, releasing the grip
on her purse. She fumbled a bit before she held out a
black rubber spider. “I came to leave this. Sort of a . . .
what do you call it? A calling card, maybe.”
“An epitaph,” Judith murmured. “Why did you put
the other spiders in our freezer?”
“Walt did that,” Meg said, looking askance. “Don’t
ask why Walt does things. Sometimes I think he’s a
little tetched. Losing his pa’s farm, you know.”
Judith suddenly recalled another seemingly inexplicable incident. “And the truffles that were sent here?”
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339
“Truffles?” Meg scowled. “I don’t know what a
truffle looks like.”
“They’re kind of . . . disgusting,” Judith explained,
“but they taste wonderful.”
Meg continued scowling, then suddenly let out a
sharp yip of laughter. “I sent Bruno a cowpie, straight
off the farm.”
“Oh!” Gertrude had been right to flush the parcel’s
contents down the toilet. “I see.”
Meg toyed with the spider for a moment, then
pushed it across the table to Judith. “Here, you keep it
as a souvenir. What are you going to do now, call the
cops?”
Judith gazed at the gray, gaunt face. Meg Izard was
already condemned to death.
“I have to,” she finally said.
Meg reached into her purse. “Okay,” she said. “But
not yet.” In her hand was a .45 revolver. No doubt it had
been used previously to shoo away unwelcome birds
and even more unwelcome strangers on the Izard farm.
Judith tensed in her chair. Her feet were planted
firmly on the floor, her fingers gripping the table’s
edge. “Why would you shoot me?” she asked in a
voice that didn’t sound like her own.
“I want my book,” Meg said, now holding the gun
with both hands. “Give me my book.”
“Okay.” Judith forced herself to move. “May I?”
“Yes.” Meg stood up. “No tricks, just my book.”
It had never been harder for Judith to walk, not even
when she’d taken her first tenuous steps after hip surgery. Slowly, agonizingly, she made her way to the
drawer by the computer. Keeping one hand in full
sight, she reached down to get the book.
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Mary Daheim
“Here,” she said, still moving with difficulty.
“Here’s your book.”
Meg removed her left hand from the gun and took
the heavy volume from Judith. “Thank you,” she said
with great dignity. She clasped The Gasman to her flat
breast and slipped the gun back into her purse. “Goodbye.”
Judith stared as Meg walked toward the entry hall.
The other woman moved slowly now, almost decorously, to the front door. Trying to control a sudden
spasm of trembling, Judith started to follow. But Meg
had closed the door behind her before Judith could get
beyond the dining room.
“My God!” Judith exclaimed under her breath, and
leaned against the wall.
She took several breaths before she could go on. Finally, she reached the door just as the shot rang out. Judith had expected it. She didn’t want to look outside,
but she had to.
Meg Izard was lying facedown at the sidewalk’s
edge. Her copy of The Gasman had fallen in the gutter.
Judith inspected the items on the silver tray and decided to start breakfast with the fruit compote. “How’s
your omelette?” she asked of Joe, who was sitting in a
plush armchair with his tray on his lap.
“Excellent,” he replied. “I couldn’t have made a better one myself. The Cascadia Hotel has one of the best
chefs on the West Coast.”
“I have to admit it,” Judith said with a pleasurable
little smile, “this is heaven.”
“As long as we’ve been turned out of our house, we
might as well make the most of it,” Joe said, his green- SILVER SCREAM
341
eyed gaze taking in the extensive hotel suit
e with its
lavish old-world appointments. “Especially since Paradox Studios is paying for it.”
“I can’t believe they ended up paying us,” Judith remarked, admiring the thick slice of Virginia ham on the
white Limoges plate. “Twenty-five thousand dollars,
plus our expenses. And the insurance money for the
fire—I’m wondering if we shouldn’t keep the B&B
closed for a while. Business gets increasingly slow this
time of year. We could make some renovations I’ve
been thinking about.”
“You decide,” Joe said.
“We might even enlarge the toolshed for Mother
now that she’s gotten used to being out of it for a few
days while the major work is being done to the house.”
“I still say all the noise of the construction wouldn’t
have bothered her,” Joe asserted. “She’s deaf, she’s
daffy.”
“She’s also selling her life story to the movies,” Judith pointed out. “At least she hopes so.”
Joe merely shook his head. He didn’t notice that his
wife was staring at him.
“I’m not so hungry anymore,” Judith said softly. She
put the tray aside. “At least not for breakfast.”
“What?” Joe looked up from his marmaladecovered toast. He grinned. “Well, now. Maybe I’m not
either. But do you really want to let things cool off?”
“That depends on what you’re talking about,” Judith
replied.
Joe set his tray down on a French marquetry table
and moved toward her. “You’re right. Seize the moment.” Instead, he climbed onto the king-size bed and
seized his wife around the waist.
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“Oh, Joe.” Judith sighed, her lips against his cheek.
“This is perfect!”
A knock sounded at the door.
“Damn!” Judith breathed. “Shall I get it?”
Joe buried his face in the bare curve of her shoulder.
“No,” he said, his voice muffled.
The knock sounded again, louder, more insistent.
“We’d better answer that,” Judith said through
clenched teeth. “Whoever it is will go away fast
enough.” Pulling her terrycloth robe closed, she
slipped off the bed and went to the door.
Gertrude stood in the hallway. “Where’s my breakfast?”
Judith gaped at her mother. “Didn’t you order from
room service?”
“Of course not,” Gertrude shot back. “You know
how I hate to use the phone.” She and her walker
clumped past Judith and into the room. “Lunkhead