1 Death Pays the Rose Rent

by Valerie Malmont

  4’Oh. Sorry. I didn’t realize there was anyone in here.”

  “We’re quite finished. Aren’t we, Rose?”

  Rose nodded. Her eyes and nose were red, as if she had been crying.

  “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” I said to Sylvia. “I thought the doctor might keep you in the clinic overnight.”

  “He ordered me put on an IV, but I had too much to do here, so I called Uriah’s Heap and came home. It was really just exhaustion, my dear. Rose Rent Day always takes so much out of me. I feel fine now.”

  I glanced quickly around the room. No black box in sight. “Did either of you see where Garnet put the Edison machine?” Both shook their heads.

  “Haven’t seen it since you dragged it out of the basement,” Sylvia snapped. Rose blinked. They left the room together but went in opposite directions when they reached the hallway.

  I checked every corner, but the box I’d risked my life for was gone. Maybe Garnet had taken it with him, I hoped, but doubted it, since he didn’t really think it was anything other than a curiosity.

  Chimes rang out, the signal that dinner was ready. I picked up the telephone in the hall and tried to call Garnet again. As far as the receptionist at Hoop’s knew, he was still out at the battlefield, and she was still trying to beep him. I told her it was a matter of life and death. She didn’t sound impressed, but promised to keep trying.

  I walked into the ballroom, studied the seating chart, and located my table. I joined the mayor, the Seligmans, Alice-Ann and Mark, and three people I hadn’t met before. It turned out they were all winners of some of the day’s special events. The owner of a two-headed snake was proudly displaying her pet’s first-place medal. I prayed she didn’t have her pet with her, too. The two muscle-bound young men were the winners of the bed race, having represented the Old LCNB in that competition. They were both from the accounting department, and conversation with them was as fascinating as watching an industrial training film. I was just thankful that the teenage winners of the skateboard race were seated elsewhere.

  I sipped champagne and looked around to see who else was there. Twanya Tweedy, looking virginal in a white dress similar to mine, was seated on the other side of the room. Tactful planning by someone! She was having a lively conversation with a good-looking Union officer—the king was dead, long live the king!

  The Thorne sisters were at a table near the entrance to the front hall. Rose looked upset. Sylvia, pale and fidgety. Seated with them was Praxythea in a black dress she’d spray-painted on.

  At another table, Maggie, the librarian, waved at me. The nice-looking man on her right must have been her fiance. Dr. Meredith Jones was there, of course, positioned where he could keep an eye on his favorite patient, Alice-Ann. His dinner companion was the editor, publisher, reporter, etc., of the lickin Creek Chronicle. She nodded graciously in my direction and coughed.

  To give the waiters credit, they kept the wine flowing, and I was having trouble concentrating on the confusing, complicated mystery plot. The pretend one, not the real one. People in strange costumes kept appearing, making dramatic speeches or bursting into tears or threatening to kill themselves or someone else.

  Michael was apparently the comic relief, showing up every few minutes in a different costume, starting with a Lawrence of Arabia outfit, and most strangely, during the shrimp-cocktail course, wearing a pink satin negligee and what must have been one of his mother’s Lucille Ball wigs. I don’t know if it was his intent, but he looked a lot like Rose.

  In a loud “intimate” conversation with a bespectacled man, Michael explained he was a princess from a Balkan country who needed to marry for money before her country was sold to a Japanese businessman for a ski resort. Everyone laughed a lot as he swished around the room, so I suppose it was funny.

  Suddenly a shot rang out, and you could hear silverware dropping all over the room. A moment later we heard a woman’s scream from the great front hall.

  Everyone at our table jumped up with much excitement, Not me. I took another tiny sip of wine and told Alice-Ann, “Some guy gets shot by the countess and rolls down the steps. I watched the rehearsal.”

  But it was happening differently this time. The woman who ran into the dining room, screaming, was not the French maid in her skimpy costume, but Janet in her sensible shoes and plain dress.

  “Help, someone, please. There’s a dead body in the hall.” She sounded convincingly panic-stricken.

  Everyone laughed and clapped, and about half the people in the room followed the trench-coated detective into the hall. The rest stayed behind to eat.

  “Let’s go see,” Alice-Ann suggested. Mark didn’t want to, so she and I went together to watch the show in the hall. I couldn’t see a thing over the heads of the people in front of me, so I took Alice-Ann’s hand and we weaved our way to the front, where we saw a woman, dressed in pink, lying facedown in a pool of blood. Her bright red wig was slightly askew.

  “They changed the plot,” I whispered. “It was

  supposed to be a man that was killed. I guess Michael decided to be the ‘corpse’ after the countess lost her gun. She must have found it though, or she couldn’t have ‘shot’ him.”

  “Are you making any sense or is it me?” Alice-Ann asked, obviously confused.

  Before I could explain further, Trench Coat, who had been kneeling next to the “body,” got to his feet and turned to face us. “Everybody go back to your dinners, please. We’ll be solving the murder right after dessert.”

  We all cheerfully did as we were told and headed back to our tables for more fun, games, and wine. Not to mention baked Alaska. Except me. I waved Alice-Ann on back, but I remained there.

  I waited till they were all gone and stage-whispered to the body, “All right, Michael, you can get up now. The others have left.”

  He didn’t move.

  “Boy, that fake blood sure looks real,” I said.

  “Mother!”

  I spun around and saw Michael, still dressed in the pink dress and red wig, running toward us.

  He knelt down and gently turned the body over. It was Rose, blood pouring from a gash over her right eye. Her red wig fell off, revealing the few straggly wisps of white hair left after her cancer treatment.

  I didn’t want to look, but I had to. “Is she dead?” I asked fearfully.

  “No. Go get Doc Jones,” Michael ordered.

  I managed to fetch the doctor without alarming any of the partygoers.

  He examined Rose quickly but efficiently.

  “Head wounds bleed a lot, but this one isn’t fatal. It would have been if it had hit her straight on. She must have ducked just in time.”

  “You mean someone really shot her? She didn’t just fall?” I asked.

  “Yes, she’s been shot,” the doctor said. “I want her carried upstairs, please. It’s going to be a while before we can get an ambulance out here. I don’t think she’s in any danger. The bullet just grazed her head.”

  “You’re right.” I’d been checking around while he talked. “Here’s the bullet. It was stuck in the banister.”

  Michael picked up his mother and carried her up the staircase as though she weighed nothing.

  Trench Coat followed him, wringing his hands. “What do I do now?” he wailed.

  “You’re an actor,” Michael called over his shoulder. “Improvise.”

  CHAPTER 25

  The doctor and I walked back into the dining room, where the noisy guests were feeling no pain.

  “I was afraid of this,” I said. “They’re gone.”

  “Who’s gone? For God’s sake, Tori, stop the Nancy Drew stuff and tell me what’s going on.”

  “Sylvia and Praxythea. Can you get Alice-Ann and have her meet me in the next room, the one they’re using for a pantry?”

  His eyes brightened at the sound of her name, and he did what I asked without arguing. I walked through the room trying to look casual, smiling at the people I recognized. I ducke
d behind the screen Michael’s set designers had built and found myself in a room full of waiters, actors, and food, lots of it, on steamer tables.

  Janet was shaking in a corner, where several young women were trying to comfort her.

  “So much blood,” she kept repeating.

  “Janet, where were you when you heard the shot?” I asked.

  “At the hall closet. Some people wore capes, and they needed hanged. I ran out when I heard the shot.”

  “Did you see anyone?”

  “I seen her lying there. I thought I heard someone running down the hall. I was scared to go after them.”

  “Them? Do you think it was more than one person?”

  She nodded. “Oh, yes. I could hear their high heels clickety-clacking on them stones. You’d think people lived in a castle would put rugs down,” she said with a sniff.

  The doctor then came in with Alice-Ann.

  I held my hands up for silence and raised my voice. “Did any of you see Praxythea and Sylvia anytime in the last twenty minutes or so?”

  “I did,” George said. “I was down in the kitchen putting the baked Alaskas in the oven when the two of them came charging through. They went down the basement stairs.”

  “Was either one of them carrying anything?”

  “Praxythea had something like a black suitcase with her,” George said.

  I had to find them before someone else was killed. Until just about an hour ago, I thought they were accomplices. Now I was pretty sure that only one of them was involved in the murders, and the other was in serious danger of becoming the next victim.

  “Come on,” I said to Alice-Ann and Doc Jones. I ran down two flights of stairs to the basement with the two of them close behind. Sure enough, the kerosene lantern Michael had said always hung on the

  hook by the cave entrance was gone. I knew I was on the right track.

  “Damn!” I said. “It’s all so obvious. Sylvia was the one who knew about the dead soldier and took the machine down there to try to communicate with his spirit. If they want to test the machine again tonight, why go into the caves? Everyone knew Garnet had the body removed this afternoon.”

  Then my mind cleared, and the answers to my questions came to me. “The Historical Society headquarters—that’s where they went!” I exclaimed. “Garnet told me that if there were such things as ghosts, that’s where they’d be. They’re going to try it out there, while everyone in town is away at one of the Rose Rent activities. I’m following them.”

  “Through the caves?” Alice-Ann said, golden eyes wide as bottle caps. “You’ll get lost. I’ll go with you.”

  “No. You stay here and keep trying to get hold of Garnet. Tell him where I am. I won’t get lost. Garnet showed me the secret markings on the cave walls. All I have to do is follow them.” I wished I felt as self-assured as I sounded. “Keep calling until you get Garnet, please!”

  “Then I’ll go with you,” the doc said in a Dudley Doright voice.

  I shook my head. “Rose might need you. And Alice-Ann.” That got him. He put an arm around her shoulders.

  “I’ll take care of them,” he said.

  I ran upstairs to the kitchen and found one of those great big flashlights with a long handle. I also grabbed a butcher knife. It would be better than no weapon at all, although I was positive Garnet would get to the Historical Society before I did. Cursing at the lost time, I headed, once again, into the darkness of the caverns below.

  The magic of the caves overwhelmed me anew. In the dim glow of the flashlight, the walls of the tunnels reflected back glints of gold, while embedded crystals flashed all the colors of the rainbow. And always, there was the slow drip, drip, drip of water, leaking through the limestone crust above.

  I passed the entrance to the crystal cave and underground lake and saw several tunnels veering off in different directions. I moved the flashlight beam around until I spotted an arrow carved into the stone. Under it was scratched the letter T.

  Praying T stood for town,1 moved along the tunnel quickly but cautiously, remembering the cave-in we’d encountered the day Garnet first took me down. The long white skirt on my dress kept wrapping itself treacherously around my ankles, threatening to trip me, and finally I gave up and ripped it at the waist. Once out of it, I felt much safer if colder.

  When I started encountering the skeletal remnants of old ladders and even some shelves still holding long-forgotten jars of preserved food, I realized I was under the town. Above me I could see outlines of the trapdoors that would lead into the basements of the oldest buildings in town.

  At last, I came to the caved-in area and knew I was close to my goal. I tried to skirt it carefully, but my heart did a quick double-time beat when my foot slipped a little on some loose stones. How easy it

  would be to lose one’s balance. Could an old woman like Sylvia have maneuvered around it? I shuddered at the thought of falling and falling into unending blackness.

  After a few moments that felt like hours, I was standing at the foot of the ladder that led up into the cellar of the Historical Society. The trapdoor was propped open, and from the other side came a dim, orange-gold glow. It had to be coming from the kerosene lantern they’d carried from the castle. A high-pitched hum filled the space around me and increased in volume even as I stood there. The air in the tunnel seemed to vibrate in response to the sound.

  I turned off my flashlight and placed it on the ground, then, clenching the butcher knife between my teeth like Douglas Fairbanks, I climbed the rickety ladder until I could peek through the trapdoor. The little secret room where the slaves had died was empty; the flickering light was coming through the archway from the large utility room next to it. I pulled myself out of the hole and lay prone on the earthen floor. If I could have burrowed into the dirt to hide, I would have. Garnet Be here. Please, be here. I inched forward, leaving the skin on my knees behind, until, crouched next to the arch, I could see into the other room.

  The kerosene lamp was suspended from a hook in the ceiling, illuminating the room. I could see Sylvia and Praxythea from my vantage point, but they couldn’t see me. I hoped.

  Praxythea was on her knees in front of the Edison machine, and Sylvia was leaning against one of the wooden posts that supported the floors above. A gun dangled from her left hand.

  “Find someone,” Sylvia ordered, her voice quavery. “Damn it, you’ve got to find someone.”

  Praxythea slowly turned a knob and the sound intensified. “Sylvia, please, let’s stop,” she pleaded. “It’s not going to work.”

  “It’s got to work. Three people have died for it. Make it work!”

  Praxythea wiped her forehead with the back of one hand and bowed her head for a moment, as if in prayer. With a quick twist of her wrist, she turned the knob all the way to the right.

  The humming noise changed to an ear-piercing whine. Around me currents of air swirled, cold as wind from a graveyard. Cold as the wind that only I had felt during the seance at the castle. Cold as the wind in the Mark Twain House.

  The whining sound changed again and filled the room with a thousand tortured screams, and the wind blew with the fury of a tornado, spinning old newspapers and trash around the cellar like a carousel gone mad.

  I covered my ears, trying to block out the malevolent noise, and I thought of the Mark Twain House, where I had first felt the tangible pall of evil—evil so strong it had come to life. Evil so terrible that I had sworn never to enter that building again. Evil so persistent that I would never be able to escape from it. It had followed me here. To Lickin Creek. And once

  more it caressed me, loved me, enchanted me, enticed me to kill for it—as it had made others kill.

  You can’t run from me, Tori. There’s no place in this ivorid you can bide from me. I will be with you always. I love you, Tori. Do what / ask and I will give you everything you ever wanted.

  I saw Billy—waiting for me, happy, not blaming me for what Fd done. My mother—whole and well a
gain. My father—able to smile once more.

  The machine—I had to turn off the machine!

  I lunged into the room, knocked Praxythea over, grabbed the black box, and flung it as hard as I could against the wall. The noise stopped, and so did the obscene voice in my head.

  Sylvia was stunned into immobility by my sudden entrance, but now she swung the gun up and pointed it at me. Praxythea lurched forward and grabbed Sylvia by the ankles, pulling her to the floor, and the gun discharged with a roar. The bullet hit the kerosene lantern, which crashed to the floor and shattered.

  As the two women wrestled, I groped around on the floor, in the dark, trying to find the gun. Where was the damn gun?

  Unnoticed by any of us at first, the flame from the broken lantern was following small rivulets of kerosene; little fiery fingers reached eagerly for the old newspapers piled against the wall. And suddenly we weren’t in the dark anymore. The heavy stacks, dense and damp from years in the basement, smoldered slowly at first, then began to burn around the edges, as clouds of thick, inky smoke whirled up from the fire, sucking the oxygen out of the room. It wasn’t exactly comforting to remember that more people died from smoke inhalation than from burns in a fire. There was supposed to be more air near the floor, so I dropped to my knees. Not only could I breathe better, but I could see Praxythea and Sylvia both crouched on the floor.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I croaked to them. The smoke was filling my lungs and it was hard to talk. “The stairs are behind you. Crawl. Don’t try to stand up.”

  We had almost reached the door at the foot of the stairs when I heard Garnet’s voice coming from behind it. “Tori, are you in there?”

  He flung the door open, and black smoke was sucked up the stairwell with a whooshing sound. I saw Garnet fall to the floor as flames rolled up the stairs, fed by the oxygen-rich fresh air. They spread out across the ceiling, ignited the dry, old wooden beams, cut off our escape route. And I couldn’t see Garnet.