Creeps Suzette

by Mary Daheim

  “Because,” Judith said as she dialed her home phone number, “you aren’t callous. Underneath that prickly exterior, you have a heart of—Hi, Joe. How are you?”

  “Jude-girl,” Joe said, warmth running through his voice like honey on hot biscuits. “Has it ever been lonesome around here. When will you be home?”

  Joe’s reaction wasn’t quite what Judith had expected. “Ah…tomorrow, maybe?”

  “Tomorrow?” Joe’s voice dropped a notch. “Not today?”

  Judith offered Renie a puzzled shake of her head. “I told you it’d be a couple of days. Mrs. Burgess…still needs us,” she added on a cautious note.

  “I need you, too,” Joe said, sounding glum. “But I’ll survive. The guests have left for the day and the Rankerses have gone home. What should I do now?”

  “Where’s Phyliss?” Judith asked, referring to her daily help.

  “Upstairs,” Joe replied. “I keep my distance from her. I don’t want to be saved by Phyliss Rackley. She’s collecting for the missionaries in Minnesota.”

  “What missionaries?” Judith asked, increasingly baffled by Joe’s lack of acknowledgment concerning the murder case.

  “Who knows? You know Phyliss and her fundamentalist leanings. Her cousin Rip is one of the missionaries. He’s saving souls in St. Paul.”

  “Good grief,” Judith sighed. “Ignore her.”

  “I do. I will.”

  “How’s Mother?” Judith asked, changing the subject.

  “She went to St. Paul with cousin Rip.” Joe sounded more cheerful.

  “Joe…”

  “She’s fine.” Joe paused. “Tomorrow, huh?”

  “Probably,” Judith said. “If you’re at loose ends, why don’t you clean out some of that old stuff in the basement? I’ll call St. Vincent de Paul when I get home.”

  “I don’t want to do that when you’re not around,” Joe objected. “I might toss the wrong stuff.”

  Judith suppressed a sigh. “What about the garage?”

  “It’s still there,” Joe said blithely.

  “I mean…Never mind. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

  “Call later today. I’ll be here.” Joe had again turned glum.

  “I will if I get a chance,” Judith said, then added, “I love you.”

  “I hope so,” Joe said on a wistful note.

  Judith put the phone down and gazed at Renie. “He doesn’t know about the murder. How can that be? He reads the paper every morning.”

  Renie had gotten up and was pacing the floor. “There’s no point calling Bill or my mother. We all take the evening paper, and neither of them watches TV or listens to the radio during the day. Maybe Joe was busy helping with the guests and hasn’t seen the paper yet.”

  Judith shook her head. “The guests are gone. He’s bored. I don’t get it.”

  Renie halted in mid-step. “I do. These people aren’t like the rest of us unwashed masses. Wayne Burgess—and Leota, too—have the clout to keep this story out of the media. What do you want to bet that Wayne’s on inter-locking boards, with enough influence to manage a total blackout?”

  Judith considered Renie’s words. “You’re right. When we were at Mountain Goat Lodge, those phone company executives thought they could keep the lid on until things got completely out of control.”

  “It’s crazy, it’s wrong, but I’ll bet that’s what happened,” Renie said, coming back to sit down by Judith. “These are the privileged people, and they don’t play by the same rules as the rest of us.”

  “That’s frightening,” Judith said softly, “to think that the super-rich can get away with something like that.”

  “It’s not the super-rich so much as the super-elite,” Renie said. “The nouveaux riches, even with all their money and power, couldn’t pull this off. For one thing, they’re usually in high-profile businesses and actually seek the limelight as a professional tool. If something like this happened with them, I doubt they could turn it off. They need the media. But an old family like the Burgesses or the other people who live in Sunset Cliffs are icons. Often, they can avoid publicity.”

  Judith gave Renie a long, hard look. “But even they can’t get away with murder.”

  Renie grinned at her cousin. “Not if you can help it.”

  Judith stood up. “Let’s explore some more. How about this tower? I found the staircase last night. It’s across from the library.”

  Renie was game. “Okay, let’s go.”

  The stone steps made a semicircle around the first-floor parlor before the cousins encountered an open door. Peeking inside, they saw that the room was empty, though there were signs of recent occupancy.

  “Kenneth’s hideout,” Judith remarked, taking in a stack of magazines and newspapers devoted to wildlife preservation. “This is kind of cozy. I wonder why Caroline was so terrified of staying in the tower?”

  “Because she’s nuts?” Renie retorted.

  Judith smiled, but her attention was on the second-floor room itself. Three tall, narrow windows stood half-open, the morning breeze stirring white lace curtains. There were two single beds, one of which was unmade, a small fireplace, a bureau, and a dresser. The bathroom and a well-stocked closet were set into the wall that was attached to the rest of the house. A third door opened to reveal what had been the nursery where a rocking horse, a dollhouse, Matchbox cars, a train set, and other toys were still strewn around the room.

  The cousins proceeded up to the third floor. The door at the top of the landing was closed, but unlocked.

  “Nobody home,” Judith said as they looked at the tidy space with its single bed and other furnishings in the same dark, heavy style as the pieces on the floor below. There was another bathroom, an empty closet, and a door leading to a room that held tables, chairs, a chalkboard, a globe, and shelves of books.

  “The schoolroom,” Judith said, closing the door. She stood by the bureau, tapping one foot. “Okay, this is—was—Caroline’s room when she visited Creepers. There’s just one bed. Down one flight there are two beds which must be where Kenneth and Bop slept. I’ll bet that in the previous generation, Wayne had this room, and Peggy and Bev shared the one below.”

  “An excellent deduction,” Renie remarked. “So what?”

  Judith didn’t answer right away. “How many floors did you see in the tower from outside, not counting the daylight basement?”

  Renie thought through the question. “Four. This tower is taller than the rest of the house. The top floor had dormer windows.”

  “Right. The stairs go up another flight, but not to the attic, which first occurred to me,” Judith said. “What’s missing in this picture?”

  “TV?” Renie answered.

  Judith grinned at her cousin. “No, really, coz. Think.”

  “I give up,” Renie said, chagrined.

  “The nanny’s quarters,” Judith responded. “Hasn’t it dawned on you that all the Burgess offspring use French words to refer to Leota? Maman, Gran’mère, and so on. The name Suzette is French, and Mrs. Burgess told me that before she married Walter Burgess, Suzette had been a nanny here. So where did Suzette and subsequent nannies stay?”

  “I love a hint like that,” Renie said, grinning back at Judith. “On the fourth floor.”

  “Exactly. Let’s go up there.”

  The cousins climbed the last flight of stairs. The door to the room on the fourth floor was padlocked. The padlock itself was rusty, and cobwebs clung to the door.

  Judith looked at Renie. “So far, Creepers seems to have an open-door policy. But not up here. I wonder why?”

  A sharp pounding noise startled the cousins before Renie could answer. They turned at the top of the stairs, but could see nothing unusual.

  “It came from further down,” Judith said, descending one step at a time.

  “Here?” Renie asked, pausing at the third-floor landing.

  “Maybe,” Judith allowed, then jumped as the noise sounded again, this time closer.
>
  “Go away!” a harsh voice cried.

  “Who is that?” Judith whispered.

  “Go away!” the voice repeated, louder and more shrill.

  “Good idea,” said Renie, scampering around Judith and starting down the stairs. “Oops!” Renie missed a step and almost fell.

  Judith, sensing but not seeing another presence, followed on her cousin’s heels. Then she stopped, listening to see if she could determine where the harassing voice was coming from.

  “Somebody really wants us out of here,” she murmured.

  “I told you,” Renie whispered back, “that’s fine with me. Let’s go.”

  But Judith still waited, her ears alert.

  The cousins heard nothing except the wind, moaning in the tower.

  TEN

  “NOW WHAT?” RENIE demanded as they reached the ground floor and leaned against the wall in the passageway between the tower door and the library.

  Judith shook her head. “I don’t know. It sounded more like a woman than a man.”

  “But no one I could recognize,” Renie said, finally catching her breath. “Of course whoever it was sort of shrieked. That could distort the voice.”

  Taking a last look at the door to the tower, which Judith had firmly closed behind them, she started for the main hall “It could have come from the nursery, Kenneth’s room, even the schoolroom. I couldn’t get any sense of where it originated. It almost seemed to float.”

  “Brrr,” Renie said with a shiver. “Let’s not get fanciful, coz. I think we can deduce that we’re not wanted around here.”

  “All the more reason to stick around,” Judith said. “Somebody may feel we’re onto something. In fact, we’d better check on our charge.”

  On their way through the entry hall they spotted Bop, heading for the door. He stopped and gave the cousins a lopsided grin.

  “You sure picked a weird time to visit Creepers,” he declared. “Poor old Grandmaman. She thinks the killer was trying to put out her lights.”

  “Do you think so?” Judith asked.

  Bop shrugged. He was wearing his pizza delivery uniform, complete with a red cap atop his red hair. “Who’d want to kill old Doc?”

  “Somebody did, though,” Judith responded. “By the way, Bop, does the name Suzette mean anything to you?”

  “Suzette?” Bop’s forehead wrinkled. “Did I date her?”

  “I doubt it,” Judith said. “She was a nanny here before your grandmother married your grandfather.”

  “I like older women,” Bop said, then grinned some more. “Maybe not that old. Suzette, huh? I’ve heard the name, but I don’t know anything about her. Should I?”

  “Mentioning her seems to scare the wits out of your cousin Caroline,” Judith remarked.

  Bop shrugged again. “What wits? I didn’t know Carrie had any. Everything scares her. One time she hung up her bathrobe on a clothesrack and woke up during the night, convinced a rapist was lurking in the corner. She got a knife from someplace and ruined a lot of chenille. Carrie’s really strange.”

  “And Kenneth?” Judith prompted.

  Bop laughed. “He’s weird, too. My crazy cousins, I call them. But not to their faces. It’d make them cry. They both inherited some serious short circuits. Hey, gotta run. The pizza palace opens ten minutes from now, at eleven-thirty.”

  “You talked to the detectives?” Judith asked before Bop could get out through the front door.

  “Yeah, not that I could tell them anything,” Bop replied. “I spent the night at my folks’ place. My apartment has a gas leak. See you.”

  “Bop,” Renie said under her breath. “Semi-normal. I can guess why he hasn’t gone into the family business.”

  “You’re right, coz,” Judith said. “If Maxwell Burgess handed over the company reins to Walter, and Walter passed them along to Wayne, why isn’t Bop the heir apparent? I figure he’s around thirty.”

  “Peggy told us why,” Renie replied. “She said he wasn’t suited for the task.”

  “I thought maybe she was being prejudiced,” Judith said as they climbed the stairs. “Kenneth and Caroline certainly aren’t suited for it, either.”

  “Which is why Wayne won’t retire until he has to,” Renie noted.

  Nurse Fritz opened the door of the master suite and took one look at Renie. “Go away,” she said and slammed the door.

  “Butt,” Renie muttered. “Shall I disappear?”

  Judith grimaced. “I don’t know. It’s too bad you and the nurse didn’t hit it off.”

  Renie was wearing a belligerent look. “Hit it off? Nurse Blitz is lucky I didn’t hit her.”

  Judith stared at the closed door. “Maybe I should have my head examined.”

  “Probably. You really don’t think I’m going to apologize, do you?”

  “I spoke literally,” Judith said. “I mean have the bump on my head examined. By a nurse.”

  “In other words,” Renie said dryly, “I should disappear.”

  “Do you mind?” Judith looked apologetic.

  “Of course I do,” Renie said, heading for the cousins’ suite. “I was the one who was invited here in the first place. When I talk to Bev, I’m going to tell her about Nurse Titz. I’ll bet she’ll put a flea in her mother’s ear.”

  Judith knocked again. This time, it took quite a while for the nurse to come to the door. When she did, she peered out warily.

  “I’m alone,” Judith said with a sheepish smile.

  “I should hope so,” Fritz said, letting Judith in. “What is it?”

  Having gained access to Mrs. Burgess’s sitting room, Judith decided to skip the matter of the bump on her head. “I told Mrs. Burgess I’d be back to see her after breakfast. Have the detectives come and gone?”

  “Yes, just minutes ago,” Fritz responded, still regarding Judith with suspicion. “Are you quite sure you’re a family friend?”

  Judith, who was almost as tall, if not as broad, as Nurse Fritz, stood within six inches of the other woman. “What did Mrs. Burgess tell you?”

  “Very little,” Fritz replied. “Mrs. Burgess isn’t a common gossip.”

  The phrase, with the tiniest hint of resentment, caught Judith’s attention. “You’re right, she isn’t. That makes it difficult, I imagine. I mean, if you have to pass the time with a patient who doesn’t chat. I don’t blame you for not coming when Mrs. Burgess sprained her ankle last fall.”

  Nurse Fritz bridled at the suggestion, reminding Judith of a large grouse, all puffed up with wings aflapping. “That wasn’t my reason. I’m a professional. I never let a patient’s idiosyncrasy deter me from accepting an assignment.”

  “Goodness,” Judith said, trying to look aghast, “I didn’t mean that. I assumed that you had another patient, perhaps one with whom the hours wouldn’t drag.”

  The nurse seemed taken aback. “Well, yes, that was what happened.”

  “You’d think,” Judith went on in a musing tone, “that this huge old house would have heard and seen so much over the last century. It seems a shame that a family like the Burgesses won’t share its tragedies and triumphs, especially with someone like you who has been with them during their darkest hours.”

  “You hear things,” Fritz said with an ambiguous expression.

  “You should,” Judith averred. “A nurse is a natural confidante. She’s there in life and death situations. Who else can be trusted in such difficult times?”

  “As I mentioned,” Fritz said, preening a bit, “some things do come out. It certainly hasn’t been all roses. Take those grandchildren, for instance. Ten years ago when I was caring for Mr. Walter all those months, they were barely out of their teens. Kenneth and Caroline kept dropping out of one expensive college after the other. I don’t think either of them ever got a degree. And then Bop—such a dreadful nickname, so undignified—refused to go to college at all. Finally, his father coaxed—or should I say bribed?—him into attending the local university to major in business. Naturall
y, I assumed he was being groomed to follow in his father’s footsteps at Evergreen Timber. Not so. He flunked out and enrolled at Sunset Community College just up the road. I never did hear if he graduated, but he certainly never went back to the university.”

  “My, my,” Judith said in a doleful tone. “Think of squandering the chance at such fine schools. Have they no ambition?”

  “Not when it comes to business,” Fritz replied. “Unless you consider that pizza parlor a business, which I do not. It’s a whim.”

  “Is it a success?” Judith asked innocently.

  Nurse Fritz pulled at her long lower lip. “Well, now. I live over on the other side of the highway, so I go by there regularly. Bop opened the place about four years ago. I must admit that it always seems busy. I believe that it isn’t delivery only, but has a small restaurant as well.”

  “Maybe,” Judith suggested, “that’s what Bop wanted. To have a successful business on his own.”

  “He hardly started from the ground up.” Fritz sniffed. “After Mr. Walter died, he left each of the children and grandchildren a rather hefty sum in trust.” The nurse leaned closer to Judith and lowered her voice. “I really shouldn’t discuss this, but I know for a fact that Kenneth, Caroline, and Bop received at least a million dollars apiece. The parents got considerably more.”

  “My,” Judith said, “that’s a nice amount. What did Kenneth and Caroline do with their share?”

  Before Nurse Fritz could respond, a knock sounded at the door. “Now who could that be?” the nurse asked in an irritated voice.

  Judith didn’t recognize the man in his forties with the shaved head. He was wearing striped coveralls and a denim jacket. Nurse Fritz knew him, however, and reluctantly let him into the sitting room.

  “What is it, Jeepers?” she asked, still sounding irritable.

  “It’s these,” Jeepers replied, handing over a bunch of keys. “I found them stuck in the pool drain just now.”

  Nurse Fritz stared at the keys. “I’ll see to whom they belong,” she said.

  “Thanks,” Jeepers responded and left.

  Judith thought she knew who owned the keys, but decided not to say anything. Glancing at her watch, she asked Nurse Fritz if she could see Mrs. Burgess for a few minutes.