Short-Circuited in Charlotte: A Pret' Near Perfect Mystery

by Amy Patricia Meade

  Quietly loading toothpaste onto her toothbrush and briefly running it under the tap, she listened at the open door for any indication that Meagan might have traveled to a different bedroom, all the while berating herself for her suspicions. There was no logical reason to believe that Meagan was doing anything other than catching up on some much-needed sleep, yet there was something in the young woman’s nervousness in the hallway which, combined with her prior reluctance to wear her engagement ring, gave Stella pause.

  After brushing her teeth and washing the makeup from her face, and still not hearing any movement from down the hall, Stella decided that her suspicions were not going to be confirmed on this particular evening.

  Collecting her toiletry case and towels, Stella exited the bathroom and gave B. Ology’s bedroom door a soft tap before heading across the hall. As Stella entered the bedroom she shared with Nick, B. Ology appeared in her bedroom doorway. She had pulled her hair into a bun on the top of her head and had traded her Boho attire for a cozy ensemble of flannel ‘Peanuts’ cartoon pajama pants, coordinating green hooded sweatshirt, and a pair of sheepskin mule slippers.

  She flashed Stella a wide smile before disappearing into the bathroom with a towel and a mesh bag filled with an assortment of bottles, jars, and tubes.

  Stella returned the smile and retreated behind the privacy of the bedroom door. “Looks like you may be waiting a while,” she remarked to Nick, who had stripped down to cotton lounge pants and a white t-shirt.

  Stretched out on the window seat, he looked up from the local history book through which he had been leafing. “Really? Ms. B. struck me as being the low maintenance type.”

  “Maybe, but she went in there with every bath and beauty product under the sun.”

  Nick watched out of the corner of his eye as Stella threw her toiletry case onto the bed and extracted a leopard print peignoir set from the inside pocket of her suitcase. “If I judged everyone by the amount of luggage they carry, I’d have requested a different bathroom from you altogether.”

  “Ha, ha, ha. Very cute.” She kicked off her heels and moved to the window seat, where she stood with her back to him. “Unzip me, please?”

  “Always,” he obliged with a grin.

  Just as Stella was about to make a smart remark in return, there was a gentle rap at the door. “That can’t be –”

  Still wearing her dress, although unzipped in the back, Stella padded across the green Oriental rug to the bedroom door and opened it a crack. There stood Ms. B. Ology, her face radiantly red from a recent scrub. “Tell Nick it’s his turn,” she whispered.

  “I will. Goodnight,” Stella assured before quietly shutting the door.

  “I told you not to judge a person by their luggage,” Nick joked while feigning serious interest in the book he was holding.

  “Whatever. You heard the lady. Time for your evening ablutions.”

  “But I’m kinda enjoying the view right here.” Nick closed the book with a smirk and sat upright.

  “Oh, you are? Well, it’s only going to get better – and that, my dear, is because of my luggage. The very luggage you just derided.”

  “Unless you packed your birthday suit in there, I’m not sure how your luggage will provide an improvement.”

  “My luggage contains more than a few pieces of lacy, silky, sexy lingerie,” she answered sassily. “As for the birthday suit, that travels with me wherever I go. You, of all people, should know that by now.”

  “Hmm, I should, shouldn’t I? Perhaps you need to give me a refresher course.”

  “Sure. How’s tomorrow strike you?”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Yes, tomorrow,” Stella answered as she pulled back the comforter from the bed. “We’ve had one roll in the hay already and although I am usually never hesitant to say yes to another, this girl needs her beauty sleep.”

  “You look fine from where I’m sitting.”

  She set about removing the pillows from their decorative shams. “Thank you, darling, but we have a big day tomorrow. You have the Cavalcade and I need to track down a tent-ripper.”

  “A tent-ripper? Stella, no. I mean it. Just enjoy yourself tomorrow. This is supposed to be a mini-vacation for both of us.”

  “I will enjoy myself,” she assured. “But if I happen to do a bit of poking around while having some fun…”

  “Stella, come on. Let it go.”

  “Nick, Philip Morehouse has been very gracious in letting us both stay here this weekend. If I can repay that favor by finding out who sabotaged a member of his Cavalcade, then I’m certainly going to try.”

  “Fine,” Nick allowed. “But be careful, will you?”

  “Of course.” She slid out of her dress and pointed to the door. “And you’d better get ready for bed before someone thinks that empty bathroom is an invitation to take a long shower.”

  “You take off your dress and then ship me off to the bathroom? You’re a cruel, cruel woman, Mrs. Buckley.”

  “Yes, and you wouldn’t have me any other way.”

  Grinning ear to ear, Nick grabbed his toiletry case from the top of his nightstand and headed off to the bathroom only to find, upon arriving, that the door was tightly shut. He reached for the handle but, thinking better of it, decided to give the door a quiet knock instead. Before his knuckles could strike the six-paneled wooden door, it swung quickly inward, revealing a freshly showered Oona Bauersfeld.

  Oona’s damp hair clung to her shoulders in limp ringlets while her still-wet torso, obscured from view by nothing more than a crisp white terrycloth bath towel, dripped water onto the hallway hardwood floor.

  “Oona,” Nick exclaimed in surprise. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know you were in there.”

  “I was just warming up with a hot shower. There are no bathrooms on the third floor, so Meagan told me to come down and grab the first one available. I didn’t realize you needed it.”

  “No, I’m fine. I was going to brush my teeth before turning in for the night, so no need for you to rush. Just give our door a knock when you’re finished.”

  Oona gave a loud laugh. “Oh, I’m done, honey. I don’t take too much time in the shower any longer. After fifty- nine years, a girl gets to know which parts of her need buffing and polishing and which ones to leave alone.”

  Nick felt the blood rise to his cheeks. “Yeah, I um, I suppose you do. But hey, I’d better let you go and get dressed, before you need another hot shower to warm up from this one.”

  “Dressed? Oh, I didn’t bring anything with me to wear. Figured my clothes would be dry by morning.”

  “Well, my wife, Stella, may have –-” Recalling the contents of his wife’s suitcase, with particular focus on the night garments, Nick stopped himself. “I think I have an extra shirt you could borrow. Long sleeve, flannel, fairly warm.”

  “That’s mighty nice of you, but once I get under the covers, I’ll be just fine. I like to sleep in the buff whenever I can anyway. Good to let things air out every now and then.”

  “Yeah…. Yeah, air is good. You, uh, you’d best get under those covers before you catch your death,” he urged.

  “You’re probably right,” Oona shivered. “Good night, Nick. See ya in the morning.”

  “Yeah, see ya,” Nick bade, relieved that the near-naked woman was finally departing. Turning the antique marble and brass door handle, he let himself into the steam-filled bathroom and set about brushing his teeth.

  Minutes later, he emerged, toiletry case in hand, and returned to his and Stella’s bedroom. There, he found his wife tucked into her side of the bed, flat on her back, eyes closed, and the covers drawn to her chin. Nick deposited the toiletry case on his nightstand and climbed beneath the covers to occupy the space to her right.

  “Good night honey,” he gave her a kiss on the forehead. “And let’s hope the smoke alarms don’t go off tonight.”

  “Hmph?” she answered groggily. Her eyes remained shut. “Why?”

  “Because
Oona Bauersfeld sleeps in the nude.”

  Stella chuckled slightly and then mumbled: “Oh? Who told you that?”

  “Oona did. I ran into her in the bathroom. She had just gotten out of the shower.”

  At this remark, Stella opened one eye. “And it just happened to come up in conversation?”

  “No. All she had was a towel to wear, so I offered her my shirt.”

  Stella’s other eye snapped open. “Your shirt?”

  “I was going to offer her a nightgown of yours, but then I remembered that they’re kind of skimpy,” he said matter-of-factly.

  Confused, but too tired to delve any deeper into what she knew was an innocent situation, Stella merely nodded and yawned. “Mmm… good thinking.”

  Nick reached over and switched off his bedside lamp and then moved closer to Stella. Before the couple could position themselves in anything remotely resembling an embrace, the wind howled and a loud crash radiated from directly outside the Buckleys’ window.

  Stella bolted upright. “What was that?”

  Nick sprang from the bed, pulled back the window curtains, and threw up the bottom sash. Hanging his head out of the window, he peered into the darkness of the stormy night, eager to identify the source of the disruption, while simultaneously hoping that the source was not malevolent in nature.

  Gazing out upon the driveway and front lawns, he noticed nothing out of the ordinary. The rain, lightning, and thunder had ceased, leaving only the relentless wind as a reminder of the latest meteorological disturbance. Nick listened to the rattling of late autumn’s desiccated leaves as they clung hopelessly to their branches. However, aside from their desperate rustling and the wind’s fierce and haunting wail, there was nothing else to hear.

  Nor was there anything particularly interesting to see. The grounds were dark, water-logged, and covered with leaves, but that was all Nick could infer from his view on the second floor.

  Through the picture window to his left, he could see the mansion’s main staircase, softly illuminated by a series of wall sconces, should Vue Colline’s guests require access to the lower level of the house. To his right, he detected movement and light in the additional guest bedrooms. Whether the noise had disturbed the other Creators or they were night owls, Nick could not determine, but one thing was certain: they had nothing to do with the sound outside the Buckleys’ window.

  Upon deciding that the noise had been caused by the wind, Nick inspected the shutters that flanked either side of the window and discovered the one of them was loose. Case closed, Nick determined as pulled his head inside and closed the window.

  “What was it?” Stella, still upright, asked.

  “Shutter blowing against the house,” he whispered. “What time did you set the alarm for?”

  “Seven.” Stella waited until her husband was under the covers before rolling onto her right side and resting her head on his chest. “Good night.”

  “Good night, sweetie,” he bade.

  The couple promptly drifted off to sleep only to be awoken, not at seven a.m., but a little after six, and not by the beeping of Stella’s alarm clock, but by the blood-curdling screams of Meagan McArdle.

  Chapter Seven

  “Help! Help! My God, somebody help him!”

  Nick, bleary-eyed, and Stella, clutching her leopard print silk robe at the waist in order to cover the matching negligee beneath it, stumbled from their room to find Meagan McArdle running down the hall away from Morehouse’s quarters.

  “He’s dead!” she shouted. “He – I – I think Philip is dead!”

  Casting modesty to the devil, Stella, her robe open wide, ran to Meagan and cast a consoling arm around the woman’s shoulders. “What happened?”

  “I went in there to wake him up and – and – and –” Meagan sobbed and nearly fell to her knees. Nick rushed to her side and propped her back up.

  In the meantime, Chef Durand, dressed in a blue shirt, black trousers, and a white apron, Ms. B. Ology in her pajamas, and Oona Bauersfeld, wearing the same ensemble she wore the night before, came running up the master staircase. The remainder of the Creators had also emerged from their rooms and gathered near Meagan.

  “What’s going on?” Rousseau asked.

  “It’s Philip,” Meagan sobbed. “He’s dead.”

  As Carlson pulled a cell phone from the pocket of his robe and declared that he would call 911, an incredulous Rousseau pushed past Stella and Nick and dashed into Morehouse’s quarters. “Jesus! No!”

  Meagan followed, with Stella and Nick in tow. Moving through the double doors that separated Morehouse’s quarters from the remainder of the house, they hurried past Morehouse’s personal office and sitting room and into his bedroom. There, beneath the down comforter of the massive, carved oak four-poster canopy bed, lay Philip Morehouse. His skin was a pale gray color, and both his eyes and mouth were open.

  “Jesus!” Rousseau exclaimed once again. “How…? Why…? And today of all days!”

  “Mark!” Meagan nearly shrieked.

  “I’m sorry, Meagan. I’m really sorry. That came out wrong. I can’t believe he’s… I mean, we had our differences, but…” Rousseau drew a hand to his face, which registered complete shock and disbelief. After a deep breath, he spoke again, this time much more calmly. “When did it happen?”

  “I don’t know. Phil had lots of work to do for today – interviews and such – so I stayed in the White Room last night. When my alarm went off at six this morning, I decided to come in and check on him. That’s when I found him like… like this.”

  “God, I’m so sorry, Meagan. Are you okay?”

  She shook her head and resumed her sobbing. With a tear in his eye, Mark reached for Meagan and wrapped his arms around her consolingly. “Shh, come now. He wouldn’t have wanted you to be carrying on like this. Let’s all go down to the kitchen and wait for the police. You could use a cup of tea.”

  As Stella accompanied Nick, Mark, and, Meagan out of the bedroom, the sole of her red ballerina slipper pressed upon something hard in the Oriental rug that grounded Morehouse’s bed.

  It was an Allen key.

  Seven minutes and a half-cup of chamomile tea later, Megan and the rest of Vue Colline’s occupants were seated around the dining room table drinking coffee and somberly picking at the croissants and vegan quiche Chef Durand had prepared for what was expected to be a festive morning.

  “What happened? What was the cause of death?” Meagan asked the uniformed Chittenden County police officer standing nearby.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’m not qualified to make that determination. We’ve called the coroner and he should be arriving in a few minutes. Once he examines the body, we’ll release his findings to the next of kin. Would that be you, Mrs. …?”

  “Ms. McArdle. Yes, I was his fiancée. He also has a step-son.” At this mention, Mark Rousseau rose from the table and introduced himself.

  “My condolences to you both,” the officer tipped his hat. “Had Mr. Morehouse been ill?”

  “No,” Meagan answered with a shake of the head.

  “Healthy as a horse,” Rousseau added.

  “We found a bottle of Tambocor on his bedside table. Were either of you aware that he was taking that prescription?”

  “Tambocor? Oh, um, yes,” Meagan appeared surprised by the question. “Philip took it for his heart. He had experienced an irregular heartbeat a year or so before we met, but everything was fine now. He saw his cardiologist just this past Monday and got a clean bill of health.”

  “Anything you can add to that, sir?” the officer prompted Rousseau.

  “No. My step-father and I usually kept our discussions focused on business matters and idle chit-chat. Meagan would know far more than I would about his health and well-being.”

  “What time was Mr. Morehouse discovered?”

  “Shortly after six this morning,” Meagan replied, her voice quavering. “I had slept in one of the guest rooms last night – I’m a light sl
eeper and Philip had some work that needed to be done. I set my alarm for six and went to his bedroom as soon as I got out of bed.”

  “And the way we saw him was precisely as you found him?”

  “Yes,” she sniffed.

  “And when was the last time he was seen last night?”

  “Why do you need to know that?” Rousseau intervened.

  “I’m sorry sir, but it helps us to pinpoint a time of death.”

  “You said the coroner is already on his way, can’t he pinpoint a time of death? This poor woman has been through enough. Why do you need to harass her with so many questions?”

  “It’s fine, Mark,” Meagan waved Rousseau back. “I, um, I probably said goodnight to Philip a little before eleven. He had a Skype interview scheduled with some reporter in California and I simply couldn’t keep my eyes open. I kissed him goodnight and moved to the White Room down the hall.”

  “And he was fine when you left him? Nothing odd about his behavior?”

  “No, he was excited about this year’s Creator’s Cavalcade. Perhaps a bit anxious for things to go well, but that was perfectly normal for him.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard some great stuff about the Cavalcade. Must be quite the undertaking, pulling that off every year.”

  “It is, but it’s worth the effort,” Meagan acknowledged. “Do you have children, Officer…?”

  “Ramsey, ma’am. Yep, two. A boy and a girl. Ten and seven years old.”

  “Perfect! I’ll make sure there are some tickets waiting at the gate for you and your kids for this year’s Cavalcade.”

  “That’s very nice of you, ma’am, but we’re not allowed to accept gifts.”

  “Then let me just reserve some, so that they don’t sell out.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that either.”

  “Just as well,” Rousseau proclaimed, “since I highly doubt the Cavalcade will go on this weekend anyway.”

  “Not go on? How could you say that, Mark?” Meagan challenged.