A Deadly Snow Fall

by Cynthia Gallant-Simpson

  “Oh, get off your high horse, Liz. She’s your mother all the way from jolly old England. She’s missed her darling daughter. She’d love to meet your friends.”

  “Right. Imagine Geraldine telling her about her sex change operation. Of course, Geraldine would reinforce my mother’s present attitude that all men are brutes. But, honestly, I just don’t think it’s a good idea.”

  “That’s it. I’m coming right over to invite her myself.”

  “Daphne, honestly, believe me, please. She is a snob and a harridan and she’s pushy and arrogant.”

  “Cool. She should be very entertaining. By the way, we’ve got three new members. Say, you could just send her along and you stay home if you don’t want to come yourself.”

  “Damn, Daphne! You ought to be her daughter. You are a lot like her. See you at seven.”

  An hour later, James appeared at the kitchen door causing Lady Gwendolyn to immediately transfer her fascination with modern kitchen gadgets such as the microwave oven and the amazing wire whisk to him. She had wandered around the foreign territory of the kitchen exclaiming over such things as the potato peeler, the Cuisinart food processor, the French press and the pasta machine. Of particular interest was the microwave that she at first took for a new-fangled, kitchen television. As I explained the function of this space age appliance, my mother’s reaction might have been in response to an account of the practical uses of alchemy.

  Making introductions, I could see my mother sizing up the handsome police officer and doing some secret drooling. Too sophisticated and British tight-lipped by far to let her favorable impression of him show, I knew she was having lascivious thoughts about him, even if he was a member of the “inferior” Irish “rabble.”

  Finally, Mother announced that she was off to take a brief nap. “To restore myself before heading out into the village to view the natives.” I was sure she expected them to be wearing feather headdresses and wielding tomahawks.

  “James, I’m so sorry; she is such a snob. Just showed up unexpectedly this morning. I don’t know what I am going to do with her.”

  “Sweetie, she’s your Mam. How bad can she be?”

  “Don’t ask. Why are you here, anyway? Sorry; that sounded terrible, James.” I kissed him deeply and then motioned for him to sit at the kitchen table.

  “Brace yourself, Liz. Found a torso in Mary Malone’s garden.”

  “No! Are we real or are we characters in a cozy, James?”

  “Mary happened on it while digging to put in a new plant. Missing one leg and one arm, but otherwise a complete torso, head and all.”

  “So, what do we do next?”

  “You, my love, do nothing but get the inn up and running and write your cookery book. And, of course, entertain your loving Mam. I, the law, will pursue this mystery.”

  “What about Mrs. Malone? What do we really know about her? What was her reaction to such a find in her garden? What about her husband? Did he disappear one night and she told everyone he had left her for a belly dancer or some such?”

  “Don’t know the woman real well, but the Chief says she’s the sweetest lady on the face of this good earth. Makes cookies and brownies for every town function, runs the scholarship bake sales and knits little caps for all the new babies in town. Last year, she took the CPR course so she could save a life if it became necessary. Chief vouches for her not to have murdered anyone.”

  “So, that leaves the Snows. What about the old man, mean as a wet hen and he certainly had enemies aplenty. You don’t rob people of their homes and land without making murderous enemies. Maybe one of them tried to murder old man Ned but got murdered himself instead.”

  “It was a woman. Doc took a look and checked the pelvis,” James said.

  “Oh, James, this case is getting weird.”

  “Welcome to crime fighting, love.”

  James went off to help the Chief’s secretary, Annie Cannon, search through the dusty files from sixty years ago, looking for reports of missing females. I went into a black funk. In just a few short hours I’d be introducing my black widow spider mother to my best friend and a handful of other women I liked and hoped to continue to be liked by. However, probably by the end of the evening my social life would be a shambles.

  Ten minutes later, James called my cell. “Hi. Forgot to tell you. In the stucco room in the middle of the Snow mansion, the arson team found an old steamer trunk full of women’s clothing. Real ‘flashy stuff’ as Bob Gerard said.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The rest of the day I spent doing laundry, cleaning bathrooms and endeavoring to explain to my mother why I did not have servants to do such menial work.

  “You have gone mad, child. Why would you not have help to do such odious jobs?”

  “Mother, this is America. I like doing my own work. This is a labor of love and pride. I love this place and I enjoy taking care of it. I have a serious business to run. I have no time for entertaining you. Perhaps you should contact friends and drum up some invitations to visit them. You’ll only be bored to death here. There is nothing in this village to interest you. You know you hate being in the country and sea air gives you headaches. You need to leave.”

  “Oh, balderdash. First, I want to get to know your little provincial village. In fact, I am having my fortune told tomorrow. I read an ad in your little newspaper and I called to make an appointment. You just keep ruining your fingernails and your posture, and I will head out into the village to find my own entertainment every day.”

  Mother went off in a huff leaving behind her a trail of very expensive scent. I could hear her high heels clicking down the front hall and then up the stairs. Only then, when she was not there to witness, did panic set in. I simply could not let Lady Gwendolyn and Emily/Eloise meet. It would be tantamount to splitting the atom. Boom.

  Later, when I told my mother that I’d be attending my monthly book club and that she was welcome to come along, “although, of course, you will be utterly bored and probably prefer to stay here and watch some telly,” she was jubilant. Damn.

  “How lovely. I am anxious to meet your new little friends, darling.” I flashed to the sandbox in the park near our London flat where my governess took me to play with other little rich girls. Did my mother expect girls in pinafores with their hair in plaits?

  Unfortunately, seven p.m. did arrive and I had to face the fact that my mother’s visit had been real and not the result of my having fallen into a bathtub and sustaining a concussion. Never had the possibility of a temporary slip into unconsciousness seemed so delightful.

  When my mother finally floated down the stairs at seven fifteen much to my chagrin, she did so as if she was on a Paris runway. “Mother, don’t you have anything less…obviously expensive to wear. Everyone will be in jeans and t-shirts. You will be so out of sync. Better to try and fit in than flaunt your wealth.”

  “Darling, you know MaMa always sets the pace. They will love seeing this designer frock.”

  “Whatever. Let’s go.”

  Arriving at Daphne’s house, I worked at holding down everything I’d eaten that day. My mother could, with the wave of her diamond-heavy hands, ruin my new life. To the villagers I was just one of them, a regular hard-working friendly villager. I had attended town meetings and I took my own trash to the dump, gave to the Fund for the Families of Lost Fishermen and baked goodies for the scholarship bake sales. A bona fide villager. Or as my mother, left to her own haughty devices would call us (please gods of incognito rich titled girls--not tonight and not to my new fiends), “rag tag commoners.”

  The front door opened and there stood Daphne wearing anything but casual herself. I wondered if they’d had a wardrobe confab over the phone in secrecy. White stovepipe silk slub jeans that might have been painted on, topped by a silk gypsy blouse encrusted with red, blue, yellow and black embroidery that must have cost at least eight hundred dollars at Ralph Lauren, screamed wealthy.

  The dripping diamond earring
s might look to the others like great paste costume jewelry from T. J. Maxx, but I could recognize a Tiffany earring anywhere. Even on the ears of my traitorous friend.

  Damn you, Daphne (I said to myself), you planned this outfit to impress my mother. Obviously not to be outdone by Lady Gwendolyn, Daphne had purposely dressed the part of the wealthy woman she was. So much for her witness protection program pretense. We had once kidded, after I discovered her secret life, that if found out she could plead having stumbled onto sex tapes of the prime minister. In a quirky place like Provincetown, that would diminish the onus of having pretended to be just a wage-earning villager.

  “Welcome, ladies. Lady Gwendolyn, it’s so lovely to meet you.” Taking both of my mother’s hands in hers, Daphne drew the woman into the living room totally ignoring me.

  Mother entered the room to face the bevy of females and facsimiles thereof as if she was stepping onto the stage of the Haymarket Theatre in London. Then, the leading lady turned back to me and, oh so graciously, reached out her hand to pull me into the circle as if just remembering that I was there. A bit player.

  What on earth was Daphne up to? We had agreed not to let on that we were both refugees from wealthy (titled) families. But there she was putting on airs like a grand duchess. Where was her hip talk? This was just too much. It had already been a darned difficult day only to conclude with my best friend blowing our cover and treating my mother as if they belonged to the same polo club.

  The solution came to me like a meteor on a collision course with my brain. I’d simply convince these good, real, honest people that my mother was a prize-winning fraud. Otherwise, my cover would be blown and I was not ready, at least that soon, to be exposed for a wealthy woman. I liked just being one of the villagers.

  “Dear, you look so familiar. I could swear I knew you in my youth. Well, I would venture a guess that you are the spitting image of your mother, am I correct? Didn’t I meet her at a ball at Baliol Castle sometime during my coming out year? Not that I dare mention what year that was.” A little girlish laugh for the rapt audience.

  “Yes, now I remember. Of course, Alexandra Crowninshield. Darling girl, you could be her with only the addition of a beehive hairdo.”

  I had to hand it to my almost ex-best friend for her next move. Daphne very cleverly dodged the social bullet by simply beginning the introductions and letting the matter drop. Once Mother was ensconced on the couch next to Geraldine (who used to be a man), I ceased to be concerned. Whatever happened from that point on was completely out of my hands. Talk about sunspots and planet alignments!

  Geraldine, wearing a tight black scooped neck cleavage exposing sweater with slim black designer washed jeans and a wide red snakeskin belt with matching high boots, grinned broadly and patted the empty seat beside her on the couch. I must note here that although casual was the norm for most occasions in the unpretentious village, there were certain exceptions and exemptions. Geraldine was still fully enjoying her newly won female life and her knockout New York designer wardrobe.

  My mother was immediately enraptured as she and Geraldine shared their opinions on the “beastliness of men,” the season’s new fashions, their favorite designers and their shared contempt for American wines. Fortunately for us all, Geraldine did not share the details of her sex change operation.

  Taking Daphne aside, I asked, “Do the girls know about your elite British roots?”

  “No, of course not; do they know about yours?”

  “They do now, don’t they? Mine and yours. Nice work, pal.” I glared at Daphne in contempt.

  “Oh, dang! I guess they do. Hey, we’ll just tell them later that your mother’s a big fake and we set it up for me to put her on. No problem. Just a bit of sport. They’ll have no problem accepting that Lady Gwendolyn’s a British housewife who enjoys putting on airs. After all, you are such a regular girl, Liz.”

  “Bite me.” I snarled at Daphne before laughing. After all, great minds work alike and since we were both on the same page, all should be well.

  “After all, it’s not like anyone ever takes me seriously. You, on the other hand, are a worry wart and too dead ordinary to come from the upper class.” I gave her a withering look, sat across the room from my mother and leafed through the cozy book samples on the table, hoping my mother would disappear in a puff of smoke.

  Amazingly, the evening went fairly well. I left feeling confident that my mother had been more entertaining than toxic and I would not have to leave town in the dark of night. But Mother’s visit wasn’t over yet.

  I was hanging freshly washed kitchen curtains when my mother burst in with her big news, the following day. I had thought she was sleeping in, but she’d slipped out and actually walked on her own legs, the four blocks to Emily’s Fairies in the Garden shop without my even knowing it. Sitting in the kitchen watching me work until she insisted I sit, after brewing her a cup of mint tea, I sensed something big coming. Like the change in the air before a storm or the horrifying high-pitched buzz as a bomb is dropping.

  “Where did you go without my knowing it, Mother? I would have made you breakfast. Did you go to Beasley’s?”

  Then it was out and could never be taken back. “You will never believe what that dear, talented woman told me. Eloise saw my future as clear as crystal.” She tittered at her little joke.

  My stomach fell like a failed cake. The damn had broken. The levies failed. How to stop that runaway train now that it was out of the station? I couldn’t muster enough metaphors for the awful thing that was to come. If Eloise had advised Mother to move in permanently and run for mayor I’d have to smash her nasty glass face.

  “Mother, you didn’t. The woman is a fake, a charlatan; you mustn’t believe anything she told you.” But her expression said otherwise.

  What could I do but brace for the worst and then hope I could find a patch large enough to close the hole in my life when the maelstrom passed. “Oh, what did you discover, Mother? Did the crystal ball tell you it’s time to take up charity work and live in sack cloth or join a monastery? Or, simply that you ought to change your lipstick color?”

  “Now, don’t be so flippant, Elizabeth. MaMa is not as shallow as that.” Right.

  I bit my lip and tried to think of something more shallow than my mother, but only came up with the image of my father’s foot bath. My mind wandered to the real estate market and how much I might realize from selling out and moving to Istanbul to sell scarves.

  “I know you will be disappointed, darling, but MaMa must be on her way tomorrow.”

  A brilliant light shone upon my antique pine well-worn but steadfast kitchen table. Had she really announced her immanent departure? Had the God of Innkeepers, whose name I did not know, but who must have been watching over me, come to my rescue? What my mother said next, in another context might have brought forth laughter. Instead, in this framework, it brought joy to my heart.

  “Yes, Hollywood is calling. My fortune is waiting for me there. Won’t Percy be surprised when he sees my name up on the huge screen in his man cave?”

  “Mother, what on earth are you talking about? Hollywood? And where did you pick up that expression, man cave? Really, Mother, PaPa would never call his study that.”

  “Geraldine taught me that and I think it is just delightful. Men are such Neanderthals; the cave image is quite apropos. I am heading west as soon as I can arrange for transportation.”

  “I’ll drive you to Hyannis or Boston or Providence--whichever airport you choose to fly out of, Mother, dear.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  With my difficult mother off on her way to Tinsel Town, I returned to the inn after driving her to the Hyannis airport, feeling like a new woman. Nothing like the insertion of a much greater problem into one’s current mélange of problems to put things into proper perspective. What was a little bit of murder, arson and a torso in the pansies compared to a few days with Lady Gwendolyn?

  Stepping from my sunny yellow Jeep, I realized
that Daisy Buchanan and the wonders of Land’s End Nursery had been to visit. Our joint plans for my garden--flowers, vegetables and edible herbs--would be such a wonderful addition to the charms of the inn when completed. That day, Daisy had planted black-eyed susans and shasta daisies in huge clumps all along the driveway. Just as I’d envisioned them since the day I first came to the Cranberry Inn.

  James drove in behind me. “Well, love, the torso in Mary Malone’s garden tipped the scales. Takes a lot to excite the Chief these days. I’m sure he’s in more pain than he lets on, but he perked up when we found the mysterious torso. Wants answers to everything. He’s sure that all the mysteries somehow tie in together. As he said, ‘Figures that old buzzard would not leave this mortal coil without leaving behind a real mess.’ Never heard the Chief so poetic.”

  “So, a full investigation is underway?” I asked, feeling pleased.

  “Yup, nobody missing in town at that time, but we’ll reach wider for missing persons who might have been visiting here around sixty years ago.” James pulled me into a big hug. “Got to hand it to you, Liz. You have the mind of a sleuth.”

  I smiled, pleased that there just might eventually be justice for the miserable old man and punishment for his killer. I kept mum, however, on my next plan.

  “Oh, I forgot to ask. Did you ever check with the bank to see if Edwin made any large withdrawals or wrote any large checks?” I asked James.

  “I checked and he didn’t. In fact, the man lived on almost nothing. Took out forty dollars a month in cash and all in small change. Drove the teller nuts. Brought in an old ratty canvas sack to pick up his coins. Dead end if he was being blackmailed. I’d say he managed to avoid paying.”

  “So, he must have fended off the blackmailer somehow. Makes sense that the blackmailer would have been pretty frustrated, and murder might have been the result. The thing that sounds strange, however, is the description of Edwin looking smug and almost amused by the blackmail attempt. At least, according to Mario at Sal’s Place. A rather odd reaction, wouldn’t you say? I mean, who is amused by blackmail?”