by Mary Daheim
“I think Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Flynn are very glad to be leaving,” Peggy said with a small laugh. “I’m sure they’ve had enough of us.”
“We’re awfully sorry that your visit wasn’t more pleasant,” Wayne remarked as he picked his way through the dishes on the sideboard. “Perhaps you can come back some time when things settle down.”
Judith thought he almost sounded sincere, though she knew better. “That would be lovely,” she said. “Maybe Bev and Tom will be back by then.”
“Don’t count on it,” Dorothy said, lighting a cigarette. “Those two don’t show up more than once every three years. Wouldn’t you think they’d get sick of all that dust?” She blew out a cloud of smoke and flicked ash into a Limoges saucer.
Renie picked up the cue and lighted her own cigarette. Peggy, Russ and Wayne all looked startled. “Really,” Wayne began, “my wife is the only one who is allowed to—”
“Stick it,” Dorothy broke in. “What’s one more butt around this place?” She glanced up as Kenneth came into the dining room. “Speaking of which…” She uttered a little laugh and eyed her nephew with something akin to contempt. “Well? You save any saber-toothed tigers this morning, Kenny?”
“Aunt Dorothy, please,” Kenneth began in a ragged voice. “Don’t you feel a kinship with all creatures great and small?”
“Only the great ones,” Dorothy shot back. “The small ones don’t count. Did you talk to your dear Grandmaman last night?”
“I didn’t get a chance,” Kenneth answered defensively.
“Lay off, will you, Dot?” Peggy said in a testy tone. “Kenny’s not the only one around here who asks favors from Maman. What about Howdy-Doody and his pathetic pizza parlor?”
“Bop’s doing just fine,” Dorothy retorted. “At least he works. What about your Caroline and her lamebrained plan to start a women’s writing center?”
“Hey,” snapped Peggy, “I thought you were all for that. Aren’t you the one who thinks women should have their own careers?”
“That’s not a career,” Dorothy countered, “that’s a retreat, which is all Caroline’s ever done—retreat from the real world. The last time I read something she wrote it was about an ant crawling around on a paper towel.”
Wayne had gotten to his feet. “Peg, Dot—please. We have guests. Please.” He sat down again, but not before giving his wife and his sister a reproachful stare.
Judith finished her scrambled eggs and stood up. “Don’t worry about us.” She nudged Renie under the table. “We’re leaving. Thanks for everything.”
The cousins got as far as the door when they almost collided with Edwina Jefferson and Danny Wong.
“Hold it,” Edwina said, blocking their way. “We’ve got some questions for all of you.”
“Who let you in?” Dorothy demanded, angrily stubbing her cigarette out in the Limoges saucer.
“Some old coot who was about to keel over,” Edwina said in a vexed tone. “We’re the law, remember?”
“I thought,” Wayne said in a stilted voice, “you finished your inquiries last night.”
Edwina poured herself a cup of coffee from the sideboard and sat down between Wayne and Kenneth. “Are you kidding, honey? We just got started.” She turned to her partner, tugging at his sleeve. “Take a load off, Junior. There’s tea, too. Chop, chop.”
Danny, however, merely grinned, and sat by Judith and Renie, who had resumed their places at the table.
“Okay,” Edwina said, her shrewd brown eyes taking in each of the others, “we started with a homicide. Now we’ve got another crime.” She didn’t skip a beat as everyone stared, including Wayne, who had clearly taken umbrage at being called honey. “I’m going to ask each of you where you were last night, and not just at the time of the murder but up until around five this morning,” Edwina said. “Let’s start with some introductions. Danny and I haven’t met all of you.”
As the family members identified themselves, Judith reasoned that neither the Wayne Burgesses nor the Hillmans had come to Creepers until morning. Or if they had, they’d arrived after the detectives had left.
“Let’s start with you, honey,” Edwina said to Wayne Burgess. “Last night from eleven o’clock, if you please.”
Wayne pursed his lips. “I prefer that you don’t call me honey.”
Edwina cocked her head. “Is that right? Go on, honey, where were you?”
“What is this other so-called crime?” Wayne demanded, getting red in the face. “We have a right to know.”
“No, you don’t,” Edwina said calmly. “Come on, honey, where were you?”
“Now see here—” Wayne began, wagging a finger at Edwina.
“Junior,” she said, turning to Danny Wong, “make a note that Mr. Wayne Burgess refuses to answer the question.”
“What?” Wayne exploded. “Of course I’ll answer the question!”
Edwina sat back in the chair, arms folded across her plump bosom. “Go ahead.”
“I was home.” Wayne glared at Edwina. “All night.”
“Oh?” Edwina turned back to Danny. “Don’t we have a couple of witnesses who said Mr. Burgess was at Creepers earlier in the evening?”
“Yes, we heard about that last night,” Danny replied with a quick glance at the cousins.
“I thought,” Wayne said stiffly, “that I was only to account for my time after eleven P.M.”
“True,” Edwina agreed. “We just don’t want any blanket statements. Go on, honey.”
Wayne grimaced. “I told you. I was at home.”
“You live close by,” Edwina remarked. “A few minutes ago, you and your wife gave your address as Evergreen. Isn’t that another one of these big estates in Sunset Cliffs?”
“That’s correct,” Wayne replied.
Edwina gazed at Dorothy Burgess. “Will you confirm that, honey?”
Dorothy winced. “Yes. Of course.”
“You were there, too?” Edwina asked.
“Certainly. I didn’t leave the house all day.”
Edwina turned from the Burgesses to the Hillmans. “You were here earlier in the evening, too,” the detective said to Peggy.
“That’s right,” Peggy replied. “I had dinner with Maman.”
Edwina smiled broadly. “Maman, huh? I like that. There’s Creole blood in my family, and once in a while a French phrase slips in. Did you come back to the house later?”
“No.” Peggy paused. “Actually, I drove out to the highway. Russ was going to be late, so I thought I’d do some shopping over at the mall. They don’t close until nine-thirty.”
“Your house is on the golf course?”
“Yes, not far from the chapel.”
“What time did you finally get home?”
Peggy considered. “Eleven, eleven-thirty?”
Edwina frowned. “It’s not more than ten minutes from Sunset Cliffs to the mall. If the stores close at nine-thirty, what took you so long to get home?”
“I was hungry by then,” Peggy replied. “I stopped at Lenny’s for a burger. Maman eats dinner early because of her TV programs.”
Edwina turned her gaze on Russ Hillman. “When did you get home, honey?”
Russ didn’t seem to mind the informality. “It was late. I had dinner and drinks with some club members. Eleven or so, I guess. Maybe later.”
“Who got home first, you or your wife?” Edwina asked.
“Ah…” Russ gazed up at the crystal chandelier. “She did.”
“Thank you.” Edwina smiled at Kenneth. “I spoke with you last night. Where were you after Danny and I left Creepers?”
“Here,” Kenneth replied a bit nervously. “I went back to bed. I just came downstairs before you arrived.”
Edwina regarded Judith and Renie. “And you two?”
Renie answered first, relating how she’d dozed off on the settee in Mrs. Burgess’s sitting room, and had been awakened by the arrival of Nurse Fritz. “After that, we went back to our rooms. I dozed off ag
ain and slept straight through.”
Judith, however, had a much longer tale. As she related how she’d encountered Caroline in the pool house, Peggy gasped in surprise.
“Carrie’s here?” she said. “I’d no idea.”
At that moment, Caroline, looking dazed, appeared in the dining room. “Gosh,” she said, “this is quite a crowd. Hi, Mommy. Hi, everybody. What’s going on?”
“These people,” Peggy said with a grimace, “are detectives. They—”
Before Peggy could get the words out, Caroline fainted.
As Kenyon was summoned to fetch smelling salts, Judith and Renie exchanged bemused glances. The butler was gone so long that Caroline came to before he got back.
“Do you want to lie down?” Peggy asked her daughter.
Caroline nodded. Wayne rose from the table. “I think we should adjourn this farce to the drawing room. Here, Carrie, I’ll help you.”
Kenneth took his sister’s other arm, leading the way down the hall, through the entryway and past the central staircase. Caroline took one look at the crime scene tape and fainted again.
“Good grief,” Renie muttered. “What is this? A nineteenth-century melodrama? When does the villain arrive, twirling his black mustache?”
“Maybe he—or she—already has,” Judith said under her breath as the cousins made way in the entry hall for Kenyon, who was finally bringing the smelling salts.
Renie leaned one hand on a small round rosewood table that stood against the wall separating the entry hall from the staircase area. “We might as well linger here while our swooning heroine is revived.” She fiddled with a bronze lamp featuring the figurines of two small children playing with a puppy. “How the heck do you turn this thing on, or is it just for decorative purposes?” She bent down and finally found the chain, which had gotten tangled up under the pink tulip shade. “Lights on, lights out. Caroline faints, Caroline comes to. Can we really go home now?”
“Of course not,” Judith replied in an undertone as Peggy ministered to her daughter. “The cops won’t let us. You know that, which is why I didn’t argue. Hey,” she said suddenly, “why doesn’t that light turn on?”
Renie had still been idly pulling the chain. “You’re right.” She bent down to peer under the table. “Aha. My knowledge of things electrical has served me well. Lights don’t turn on if they’re not plugged in. This sucker isn’t.”
By the staircase, Caroline was coughing and choking from the effects of the smelling salts. Her uncle and her brother again picked her up and all but carried her in the direction of the drawing room.
Judith was leaning down next to Renie, who was reaching for the plug. “Hold it,” Judith ordered, shoving her cousin’s hand out of the way. “Is that dirt under here?” She stood up, pulling Renie with her. “Think this through. Why is that lamp unplugged? Is it usually left on at night to provide some light for the entry hall? Did the killer unplug it to make the hall completely dark? Or is it the weapon? What about these little bits of dirt? They look the same as the small clumps I saw by Dr. Moss’s body.”
“Dirt’s dirt,” Renie declared. “Why didn’t the cops bag this lamp? They took away some of the other stuff, like that figure of Venus and the wrought-iron hat rack.”
As Judith studied the entry hall, Danny Wong appeared from the drawing room. “Excuse me, ladies,” he said in his soft, polite voice. “Would you mind joining us?”
“Take a look at this, Detective,” Judith said, then repeated the same questions she’d put to Renie. “What do you think?”
Danny rubbed his chin. “You may be right. I’ll go tell Winnie.”
Winnie, Judith assumed, was Edwina’s nickname. The cousins waited until the senior detective came out of the drawing room.
“Well, Mrs. Flynn,” she said after she’d examined the lamp and the floor, “Joe’s knack seems to have rubbed off on you.”
“I’ve had the opportunity to help him on a couple of cases,” Judith said modestly. She didn’t add that she’d solved a lot more on her own.
“I’ll get Junior to take care of this right away,” Edwina said, then put a hand on Judith’s shoulder. “You’re working your way up from honey, honey.”
In the drawing room, Caroline had collected herself and then accounted for her whereabouts during the night. Edwina nodded after Danny summarized the young woman’s statement.
“Good,” Edwina said. “We’ll talk to the servants now. You folks can go off and do whatever folks like you do. By the way, after we interview Mrs. Burgess, I’d like to talk to…” She took the notebook from Danny and flipped through the pages. “Bop, is it?” She looked at Wayne. “He’s your son, isn’t he, honey? Please let him know we want to see him here within the hour.”
Wayne’s eyes narrowed at Edwina. “Before I call my son or head for my office in town, I want to hear about this other so-called crime. You said earlier you’d tell us.”
“I will,” Edwina replied in an amiable tone. “Some time last night, Dr. Moss’s home was entered. His office was rifled, his safe had been opened, and it appears that some of his records and papers were stolen. It’s possible that the thief was the same person who murdered him.”
Judith wasn’t surprised.
Much to the family’s dismay, Edwina had ordered Judith and Renie to stay at Creepers for at least the next twenty-four hours. She also warned the family not to leave the vicinity until further notice. Judith couldn’t tell which directive angered them most.
With nothing better to do, the cousins poured themselves some coffee and retreated to the parlor. Edwina and Danny had assembled the staff in the dining room. Wayne had gone downtown where Evergreen Timber’s head offices were located, Russ had headed for the clubhouse at the golf course, and Peggy and Dorothy had gone to their respective homes. When last seen, Caroline and Kenneth had been talking earnestly together in the drawing room. Bop still hadn’t arrived.
“Edwina mentioned that Dr. Stevens phoned in the robbery report,” Judith said, sitting in front of the empty fireplace. “Of course, it’s his home, too. I suppose they had separate offices there. I wonder what time Dr. Stevens discovered the break-in?”
Renie took out her cigarettes, caught Judith’s glare, and put them back. “It wasn’t a break-in,” she pointed out. “Edwina figured that the killer took Dr. Moss’s keys, which is why they weren’t on his person. What time did Dr. Stevens leave here?”
“Around one-thirty, maybe closer to two,” Judith replied. “I have trouble recalling exact times and the sequence of events. So much happened so fast. But Dr. Stevens wasn’t going straight home, remember? The hospital had just paged him.”
“That’s right,” Renie agreed. “That widens the window of opportunity.”
“Not really,” Judith said. “The killer couldn’t know Dr. Stevens would be paged. I’ll bet whoever did it went straight to the doctors’ place. It’s not more than a few minutes from Creepers.”
Renie didn’t say anything right away. Finally, she regarded Judith over the rim of her coffee cup. “Okay, so who was the real victim?”
It was Judith’s turn to become mute. At last, she gave a slow shake of her head. “I honestly don’t know. Ever since the murder occurred, I’ve gone this way and that. My initial reaction was that it was a huge mistake. Look,” she said, leaning forward in one of the matching chinoiserie armchairs, “the killer enters the house, or is already here. It’s possible, if unlikely, that the killer followed Dr. Moss inside. Or maybe came in with him. He wouldn’t suspect anything if it was someone he knew.”
“I got it,” Renie said with a droll expression. “The killer is there, in the entry hall or by the staircase. Go on.”
“Dr. Moss buzzes Mrs. Burgess. She turns on the lights and appears at the top of the stairs. Assuming the lamp was on, the killer unplugs it because he or she can’t find the chain. It was tangled up, remember? Then the main downstairs switch is clicked off. It’s right there, by that little round table. Di
dn’t you see it?”
“No,” Renie answered. “Not just now, but you’re right.”
“The killer then grabs whatever, maybe the lamp itself. Mrs. Burgess falls down the stairs. The killer attacks, but in the dark, he or she can’t tell exactly who’s getting smashed over the head. Even if a few seconds elapsed and the killer’s eyes adjusted a bit, both the doctor and Leota were wearing dark clothing. It would be an easy mistake.”
“Not if Leota was already on the floor,” Renie pointed out.
“That’s a problem,” Judith conceded, “which is why I keep going back and forth. Certainly it’s easy to think that Mrs. Burgess was the intended victim. But why go to Dr. Moss’s house and steal his files? And which files were they? Something he kept on Leota and the alleged attempts at poisoning her?”
“Maybe,” Renie suggested, “he’d become suspicious.”
“In which case,” Judith went on, “he’d have to be eliminated first, before he could point a finger at the would-be killer.”
“Obviously, Mrs. Burgess still isn’t safe.”
“That’s quite likely. Even if we weren’t confined to Creepers, I doubt very much if Bev would want us to leave. She’s probably over there in Egypt, worrying herself sick.”
“She’ll call today,” Renie remarked. “Or I’ll call her. Say, what about Joe and Bill and our mothers? How come we haven’t heard from them? They must know about the murder and be pretty worried, too.”
Judith nodded. “You’re right. I should call Joe now.” She glanced at the telephone on the mahogany end table. “I hate to do it. If he knows there’s been a murder, instead of just an ailing old lady, he’ll yell and bellow and insist I get the hell out of here. He might even pull rank and tell Edwina to send us home.”
“That’s a bad thing?” Renie said in a small voice.
“Yes, if Bev wants us here. That’s why we came in the first place.”
Renie ran her hand through her pixie haircut. “Why did I agree to do this? Why couldn’t I be callous like everyone else and say no?”