“We were going,” I reminded her. “You can put the gun away now. You don’t want to shoot anybody by mistake.”
“People are always telling me what I want to do and don’t want to do. I know what I want to do, Mac. I’m a planner. You know that. Life is all a matter of planning. I kept telling Willena, ‘You need to plan. Don’t go off helterskelter without thinking things through.’ But she never listened, of course. From the time she was a tiny thing, she always thought she knew best. Now look where it got her.” She brought a delicate blue hankie from her pocket with her free hand and dabbed her forehead. “It is warm in here. Hetty shouldn’t have turned the air-conditioning off and opened the windows.”
Grief takes different people in different ways. Looked to me like Wilma had either gone off her rails or was wobbling on them.
“Hetty’s probably saving you a few pennies. I wish Clarinda cared about that.” I aimed for a cheerful tone and to keep Wilma’s attention on me. Rachel had begun to edge away from the table.
Unfortunately, Wilma noticed. “Stop!” She gestured with the gun toward a door in the back corner of the kitchen. “Walk toward the back stairs. Both of you.”
“How long is this going to take?” I asked her. “Pretty soon Joe Riddley is going to begin to wonder why I’m staying so long and come looking for me.”
Wilma laughed. “Don’t try that old trick, Mac. We’re going upstairs.”
“It’s not a trick,” I protested. “He is firm about my writing him a note whenever I leave the office, stating where I’m going and when I’ll be back.”
“You’ll be back when I say so. To the stairs, please.” She gestured again with the gun.
Rachel hesitated. The way her eyes narrowed, I suspected she was calculating whether a tackle would succeed. “Humor her,” I advised, thinking. Maybe on the stairs . . .
I led the way to the door and opened it to reveal a narrow pine staircase varnished to resemble mahogany. It climbed straight up into darkness. The air inside was close and warm. I flipped a switch and one dim light showed a landing far ahead where the stairs turned back on themselves. The walls were varnished beaded board up to the narrow handrail, a dingy gray above it. They were so close on both sides that I felt like I needed to press my elbows to my waist.
“Go on. Get up there.” Wilma stood behind us and gestured for us to climb.
I’m not the athletic type, but it’s amazing how fast you can climb steep stairs with a gun at your back. We were soon half a flight ahead of Wilma. I turned and saw Rachel close at my back. “When we reach the second floor,” I murmured, “dash toward the first open door.”
Unfortunately, the door to the second floor was locked. We both tried the knob, but the door didn’t budge. “What now?” Rachel asked, looking down at Wilma, inexorably climbing.
Once the top floor was converted from servants’ quarters to the ballroom, Frank Kenan’s servants must have used the back stairs for serving food up there. I shuddered to think of all the heavy trays that had gone up that steep staircase, but I’d have given a great deal for one of them at the moment. Anything to throw down and distract Wilma. Why had I left my pocketbook on the kitchen floor beside my chair?
“Keep climbing. When we get in the ballroom, go right. I’ll go left,” I said softly. “She can’t shoot but one of us, and that gun is far likelier to maim than kill.”
“Comforting thought,” Rachel muttered. Still, she didn’t seem the least bit panicked. Maybe people who lived in New York were used to this kind of thing.
She wasn’t gasping, either. By the time we got to the third floor I was seeing stars and sucking air. Below us on the landing, Wilma was panting worse than me. The staircase ended in a closed door with a dull iron knob. An old-fashioned skeleton key was still stuck in the keyhole. I had the fleeting question whether Frank Kenan used to lock his servants in at night, but Wilma was already calling, “It’s unlocked. Go in and close it behind you.”
I hesitated, puzzled. Rachel passed me and bolted up the last few steps. As I followed her I tried to snatch the key, but it wouldn’t come out easily, and I was in a hurry. As soon as I was through, we slammed the door and leaned our backs against it, although I didn’t feel like much of an impediment if Wilma wanted in. I hadn’t climbed so far at once in years. My legs quivered like the leaves outside the windows, responding to a light breeze.
Ahead of us the ballroom was stuffy, vast, silent, and very warm. Apparently the air-conditioning upstairs was turned on only for events. Dust motes danced in sunlight filtering through leafy branches. The hot space was empty except for a grand piano in one corner, a bar at the back, a table with two chairs near a front window, and one odd chair at the far wall.
“What now?” Rachel whispered.
I pressed my ear to the door and heard Wilma climbing up the stairs. Her steps were weary and her breath came out in little grunts. “Can you run over and bring that chair to put under the knob?” I couldn’t run even to save both our lives.
Rachel sped to the solitary chair and was back before Wilma reached the top step. The back of the chair fit securely under the knob. Elated, we slid to the floor and exchanged a silent high five.
Our celebration was short. We heard a sharp click, then Wilma’s steps going back down. “She’s locked us in!” Rachel got to her knees and grasped the knob. The door wouldn’t budge.
“Not to worry. The main entrance is over there.” I wasn’t sure my legs were ever going to bear my weight again, but I rose painfully to my feet and took a couple of experimental steps. I might make it to the other doors.
We staggered across the floor to big double doors that Frank Kenan had installed when he had extended the front staircase to the third floor and created the ballroom.
Those doors were locked as well.
Rachel and I stood looking at each other in disbelief. “What’s this all about?” she asked.
“If I were to guess, she’s holding us prisoner while she calls the police.”
I could see Charlie Muggins’s satisfied smirk when Wilma triumphantly flung open the door and he saw me. Like I said, he’s been trying to catch me in some criminal activity ever since I became a judge. I doubted that Wilma could make a trespassing charge stick, since Hetty had invited me in, but hauling me before another judge’s bench would give Charlie enormous satisfaction.
“Do you think we could . . . you know, push the key out on the other side and pull it under the door?”
“Like they do in detective stories?” I asked dryly. “No, hon. There’s a step immediately beneath it, and no crack under the door. If there had been, we’d have seen light through the crack while we were climbing.”
We circled the room, peering down from all twelve windows, four each on three sides. At the front, the porch roof prevented us from seeing the drive, but I presumed my car and Wilma’s were both still there.
Speaking of seeing, I wondered what had happened to all the chairs that had lined the room for Joe Riddley’s prom, small gold chairs with red velvet cushions. There must have been fifty that night. Were only three left? I considered the two sitting at the small table placed near a front window. Had Willena and Grover come up here for romantic meals and dancing?
As I moved over to the side windows, I heard a crunching sound from outside. “Oh, no!” Rachel exclaimed, and started banging on a front window. I hurried to join her and watched Wilma drive away in her silver Cadillac. Lincoln seldom drove her unless she was going a distance or had things to carry.
“Where’s she going?” Rachel whispered, as if her voice had left with Wilma.
I tried to speak briskly. “Home, I imagine. She’ll call the police and let them come and find us. I hope. It’s possible she won’t bother to call them, but plans to leave us here awhile to stew.”
“Hetty knows we’re here.” Was Rachel trying to comfort me or herself?
“Hetty doesn’t know doodley-squat,” I said bluntly. “She’s over in her apartment packing and can’t se
e the front of the house from her windows. I’m sure Wilma will have locked up the house, and Hetty no longer has keys, remember? Besides, for all she knows, Wilma took us both somewhere with her and will bring us back later for our cars. We’re in a pickle, hon.”
The air felt warmer and closer every minute. I could tell myself there was plenty of oxygen, but I was having trouble believing it.
“Maybe we can get out a window.” Rachel stripped off her jacket and dropped it onto the little table, then headed to look for a route of escape.
In opposite directions we circled the ballroom again like wallflowers in search of partners, but the windows were small and had been painted shut sometime since the advent of air-conditioning. No windows at all overlooked the garage and Hetty’s apartment. That wall held the double doors at the front, a small one in the center, and the door to the kitchen at the back. When we opened the door in the middle, it led to a storeroom piled high with small tables and all the chairs I remembered.
Rachel peered through the gloom. “Are there windows behind all the chairs?”
I craned my neck, but saw not a glimmer of light. “Nope. This side was probably an attic storeroom when the servants’ bedrooms were up here. Maybe if we break a front window and yell together, Hetty or Baker will hear us.”
Rachel dashed across the room, hoisted a chair, and smashed a front window before I’d finished the sentence. Glass spattered the porch roof far below, and a blessedly cool breeze flitted in. We both leaned toward the window to savor moving fresh air.
But though we called until we were hoarse, Hetty and Baker did not respond.
“Let’s wait until we hear them loading up their truck,” I croaked. “Then we can yell again. I sure wish we’d brought our tea up with us. I need to wet my whistle.”
Rachel gave me a rueful grin. “Anticipated death distracts the mind. The way Wilma was shaking, I was fully occupied with praying her gun wouldn’t go off.”
I grinned back. If you had to be imprisoned, Rachel wasn’t a bad person to be imprisoned with. I scouted the room with my eyes. “I wonder if the bar at the back still has running water.”
Rachel beat me there. She was rummaging beneath the counter when I arrived and gave a crow of delight. “Tonic water, unopened lime juice, and gin. Can you drink a gin and tonic without ice?”
“Hon, I could drink a gin and tonic without tonic right now. Mix ’em up.”
She took a couple of glasses from inside a cupboard and wiped them on her shirt. “Don’t be overly fastidious,” I begged. “Just pour.” I could feel my clothes sticking to my body and my face beginning to perspire.
We dragged the chairs over to the open window and sat there, alternating sips of lukewarm liquid with gulps of cool, fresh air.
When we finished that drink we had another. What else was there to do?
I went exploring and found a bathroom in the far corner of the room, but there was no escape route in there.
I kept checking my watch. For over two hours we sat and waited to hear Hetty and Baker come out to their truck.
We chatted about this and that. I finally asked, “Did you and Slade finish your projects?”
“We started on the bathroom paper, but I underestimated how much I’d need. I’ll have to buy another double roll.”
“Those little rooms take a lot more paper than you ever think they will,” I agreed. “The two of you seemed to be working in rare harmony.”
She shrugged. “He’s fun when he gets off his high horse. We discovered that we like a lot of the same books, movies, and music.”
“Slade can be a nice man,” I opined.
“For somebody,” she agreed. “Not for me.”
“Grover?” I hazarded.
She turned and gave me a puzzled look. “Grover?” She laughed. “Heavens, no. He’s like a brother.” Her voice softened. “I loved his wife, and Jamison is the nephew I never had.”
“So you didn’t mind that he was dating Willena?” I wondered how much she knew about their plans.
“They were actually planning to get married.” She drained her glass and sighed. “And I’ll admit I wasn’t too happy about it. Grover seemed happy, but Willena—” She stopped.
“Not somebody I’d want my brother to marry,” I agreed.
“She’d have run Grover’s life for him,” Rachel said bluntly, “and she would never have put him first in anything.”
“My feelings exactly. But if Grover isn’t the complication, do you mind telling me what your problem is with Slade?”
Rachel held her glass to her cheek. “It’s awful hot, even with the window open. I’m tempted to break another to get some cross ventilation.”
I was disappointed not to hear why she didn’t like Slade, but all I said was, “Go for it.”
She picked up her chair and went to the one catty-cornered from where we were. “Timber!” she shouted, and smashed the legs of the chair into the window.
“Timber?”
“What else could I yell, ‘Glass’?” She brushed shards off the seat of her chair and brought it back to where I sat. She sat with her legs stretched out and wiggled her toes in her sandals. “Hot damn, that was fun. Now I understand why kids vandalize buildings. Makes you think you are a lot more powerful than you really are.”
I lifted damp hair from the back of my neck. “I feel more breeze, too.”
She picked up her drink and stared at the dregs in the bottom like they could tell her future. “And now, it seems, we have arrived back at your question. The short answer is, I didn’t get a law degree to stay poor. I grew up that way, and it’s no fun. So I don’t want to work in poverty law all my life. I wish I were that noble, but I’m not. Therefore, I doubt I’ll stay in Hopemore long. I like the town and the people, but I need to earn more than I do now, and there are already enough lawyers in this county, so I can’t go into private practice and make much of a living. Marriage to a small-town newspaper editor wouldn’t add much to my bank account, either. Do I sound mercenary?”
“You sound like Slade. He came up poor, too, and he has told me his three criteria for the woman he will marry. She needs to be rich, beautiful, and smart.” I slid down in my chair and tried to stretch out my legs, too, but the chair was too high. Afraid I’d slide all the way off the seat, I sat back up straight. Then I squirmed, trying to get comfortable, but it wasn’t any use. Those hard seats were made for sitting on between dances, not permanent roosts.
“In that order?” Rachel inquired, her eyes amused.
I had to think a second to remember what she was talking about. “Simultaneously.”
She gave a short, not-funny laugh. “Well, I strike out on two of three. See? We are obviously not suited.”
“Nonsense. You have a lot in common — you are both wrapped up in the wrong things. That ought to count for something.” We were silent for a time, then I mused, “Wilma and Willena have always had lots of money. Do you think it’s made them happy?”
“I have no idea, but I’d rather be unhappy and rich than unhappy and poor. At least you can be comfortable in your misery.”
She had a good point. No matter how miserable a well-to-do person is, their misery isn’t accompanied by the terror of not having a next meal, shelter, or transportation. Still, I felt compelled to point out that money isn’t a panacea for all ills. “Sadie Lowe married for money and it didn’t last.”
“Bad defense, Mac. She got to keep the money.”
“Well, look at Nancy Jensen. She married for money. Look where it got her.”
Until then we had been talking in light, bantering tones. Now Rachel sobered instantly. “Slade said she almost shot Sadie Lowe Thursday.”
“No, she only shot at her. If she had meant to kill anybody, she would have. And in her shoes, I’d shoot Horace, not—”
We both leaped to our feet as a motor roared to life below us. We pounded on what was left of the window and yelled for all we were worth. Rachel even leaned out and waved
frantically, but Baker’s black pickup growled down the drive without a sign that anybody knew we were there.
I checked my watch. It was five minutes until five. My hamburger was a distant memory. “I sure wish I’d eaten more of those lemon cookies.”
“Me, too. Why do you think Wilma did this? Pure spite?” Rachel shoved her hair out of her face with one slender hand. Damp heat had created a mass of corkscrews curling all over her head.
I repressed the image of corkscrews. “Maybe. I think this past week has made Wilma a tad crazy. She and Willena were very close.”
“She’s crazy, all right.” Rachel began walking about the room with restless energy. I wished she didn’t remind me of stories I’d read of prisoners of war who developed exercise rituals to keep their sanity. “She’s making me crazy, too. She thinks I did it, you know—killed Willena.” She had her back to me, so I couldn’t see her face.
Guess Who's Coming to Die? Page 23