Creeps Suzette

by Mary Daheim

  Judith stared at Renie. “It’s possible—but I don’t quite see it. Or do I? Dr. Moss is then in his fifties. He and his wife have no children. Maybe Mrs. Moss was incapable of child-bearing. Aaron Moss meets an attractive black woman and has an affair. She gets pregnant, and he takes care of her. Yes, it could fit, but it’d mean that Dr. Moss didn’t mind flaunting his illegitimate son in the face of Sunset Cliffs. That’s the part that doesn’t ring true.”

  “I kind of like it,” Renie said.

  Judith looked doubtful. “Let me get back to my chronology. Thirty-five or so years later, Dr. Moss is murdered. What does that suggest?”

  “Confusion,” Renie replied, putting the Drambuie glasses and coffee cups on the tray that Kenyon had delivered. “Does it do something for you?”

  Judith grabbed the sugar bowl, the cream pitcher, and the silverware. “Yes, it does. Generations, that’s what. Not all precise, but if you skip the postwar episode, you’ve got three generations.”

  “So?” Renie said, opening the parlor door with her elbow.

  “Calamitous events,” Judith said, following Renie out into the hall. “Suzette, who worked for Walter and Margaret Burgess. Kenyon, arriving with a whole new passel of servants circa 1946. Dr. Moss delivering Theo Stevens. The threats to Leota and Dr. Moss’s murder.”

  “You forgot something,” Renie said as they headed for the kitchen. “Charles Ward’s hit-and-run death. Doesn’t he count, too?”

  Judith wrinkled her nose. “Should he?”

  “Maybe,” Renie said. “All the usual suspects were involved, including Dr. Moss.”

  “But he was at Creepers to see Leota,” Judith reminded Renie. “Her gall bladder attack, remember?”

  “I know,” Renie said as they entered the kitchen. “But it’s still a tragedy involving this whole crew. Hi, Ada,” she said brightly.

  To the cousins’ surprise, Ada Dietz was crying. She looked up from a stool next to the work island and stared dumbly at Judith and Renie.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded in a hoarse voice.

  “Helping,” Renie replied, setting the tray down. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” Ada barked. “It’s almost ten, I’ve had to do without power for half the evening, this household is in chaos, and I won’t be finished here until midnight. The dishwasher’s backed up by three loads.”

  “Then we’ll pitch in,” Judith said. “What needs to be done right now?”

  Grudgingly, Ada indicated a stack of plates in the sink. “They need to be scraped. The garbage has to be taken out. I wouldn’t do it during that storm. I have to box up some leftovers to send to Mr. Bop when he gets off work. Between all the visitors and the police, I feel like I’ve been feeding an army. No offense,” she hastened to add, apparently remembering that Judith and Renie qualified as guests.

  “I take out the garbage at home,” Renie said. “Where does it go?”

  “There’s a brown Dumpster off the back porch,” Ada said, then got down off the stool and wiped her eyes. “See here, there’s no need…”

  “Ta-da!” Renie shouted, picking up a plastic bag in each hand. “I can use the fresh air. Be right back.”

  “You’re guests,” Ada said, looking worried. “The Mrs. better not hear about this.”

  “Don’t tell her,” Judith said, turning on the sink and rinsing off plates. “You and Edna must have been very young when you came to Creepers. How long has it been, Ada?”

  Ada sighed. “Close to fifty years. I was barely twenty, but my husband was killed right at the end of the war in the Pacific. Edna had been in service with a family in the city. They divorced and broke up housekeeping, so she had to find another position. The Burgesses needed a maid and a cook, and I’d been working at a restaurant downtown. Edna’s always been timid, and she was afraid to take on a big place like Creepers, so she insisted I come along, at least for a while.”

  Ada stopped, and scowled at Judith. “Why am I telling you all this? I don’t even know you.”

  “Yes, you do,” Judith replied cheerfully. “I cook for a living, too. It’s a big part of my job as a B&B hostess. We’re both working girls, Ada. The lifestyle at Creepers is as foreign to me as Xanadu.”

  “You have a kind face,” Ada murmured. “It isn’t often I get to talk to somebody of my own class who’s sensible.”

  “You mean solid middle class.” Judith smiled.

  “Do I?” Ada’s own smile was grim. “I guess you’re right. I used to get out more when I was younger, but these days, it’s all I can do to keep up with everything around here. You’d think that once the children were grown, they wouldn’t be around so much.”

  “Ha!” said Renie who had reappeared in the kitchen. “Our kids are never leaving. When Bill and I die, they’ll just stick us somewhere down in the basement, along with all their other castoff belongings. They’re not much younger than these kids, either.”

  Ada regarded Renie with curiosity. “Who’s Bill?”

  “My husband,” Renie said. “Our three are in their twenties.”

  “I wasn’t talking about the younger generation,” Ada said. “I meant the older ones. Mr. Wayne, Mrs. Peggy. Mrs. Beverly is the only one who had the nerve and the ambition to get away from Creepers. Oh, Mr. Wayne and Mrs. Peggy may have separate houses, but they’re so close you could spit on them. Now I could see it if Mrs. B. had all the money. But Mr. B. left them each a tidy sum. And still they never move away. It’s like they’re chained to Creepers.”

  “But not Bev,” Renie noted.

  “No,” Ada said thoughtfully. “Not Mrs. Bev. She’s different than the other two. Always was independent. And always a bit of an outsider. She was about ten when I came here, and I felt sorry for her. Wayne and Peggy were so mean to her. It was always like they knew some big secret and they weren’t going to let her in on it. I don’t care if she did marry a Japanese man, he’s a fine fellow, and it just showed them all up. It serves Wayne Burgess right. Now the Japanese are all over him.”

  “They are?” Judith said in surprise.

  “You bet,” Ada said with a decisive nod. “They want to buy out Evergreen Timber, and judging from what I hear—not that I’m one to eavesdrop, that’s Edna’s style—I say, good. And never mind that the Japanese killed Homer—that was my husband. These big shots didn’t sink his ship, they were still in diapers, or whatever Japanese babies wore back then. Wayne is no businessman, and never was.”

  Judith perched on the stool that Ada had vacated. “So a Japanese company is trying to buy out Evergreen Timber?”

  “That’s right, you heard it here,” Ada asserted. “He’s gotten himself and the company in a real hole, and the Mrs. is wild. She won’t hear of such a thing, but it’s either that or go bankrupt.” Ada gave the cousins a sly look. “The phone rings in here, you see, and sometimes when Sarah isn’t around to answer it, I have to pick it up.”

  And sometimes when Sarah is around, Judith thought, and stifled a smile. “I can see why Mrs. Burgess is upset. Evergreen was founded by Maxwell Burgess. It’s been around for over a hundred years.”

  “They should have let Peggy run it,” Ada averred. “Peggy was the firstborn, and might have had a better head for business than Wayne. But Mr. Walter couldn’t see a woman being an executive, not in those days, and Wayne got the job. Then Wayne passes over Mr. Bop, his own son, who has twice as much business sense. Though,” she added, “I don’t think he wanted to do it. He’d rather have his little pizza parlor. I’ve often wondered why.”

  “Pressure,” Renie suggested. “It’s one thing to own a small restaurant, and another to run a huge corporation like Evergreen Timber.”

  “I suppose,” Ada allowed.

  “Poor Wayne,” Judith said, feigning sympathy. “This certainly comes at a bad time for him. Or maybe it’s the reason for his…domestic troubles?”

  Ada’s gray eyes widened. “You know about that?”

  Judith gave a sad shake of h
er head. “Oh, yes.”

  Ada uttered a little snort. “A long time brewing, if you ask me. Mrs. Dorothy has never been a happy woman. She never wanted to stay home and just be an executive’s wife. If he’d let her have that gym, they wouldn’t be in this mess.”

  Renie was frowning. “Do you mean Jim—or gym?”

  “A gym,” Ada replied. “You know, one of those health clubs. Dorothy has been wanting to start one out on the highway for the past several years. Wayne was dead-set against it, and the Mrs. wouldn’t give her a dime for it. ‘Common,’ that’s what the Mrs. called it.”

  Judith and Renie exchanged quick glances. “So that’s at the heart of this divorce?”

  “Partly, anyway,” Ada said. “I’ll be frank, I’m on Dorothy’s side. She’s had a bad time of it. I didn’t much mind telling the police that Wayne was here last night.”

  “They knew that,” Judith put in.

  “I don’t mean early in the evening,” Ada said. “I mean late, around eleven-fifteen. Not that that’s unusual for him.” She paused and the corners of her mouth turned down. “Anyway, I saw him come to the house. I was getting ready for bed and watching the TV news. They said a storm was coming, so I went to the window to see if it had started to rain. It hadn’t yet, but I saw him, sneaking around out front.”

  “What did the police say?” Judith asked, trying to hide her excitement.

  Ada shrugged her broad shoulders. “Not much. You know how they are, though that black woman is kind of nice. She calls me honey.”

  “Yes, she’s very nice,” Judith said absently. “Did Wayne actually come inside?”

  “I don’t know,” Ada answered. “My bath was running. As soon as the weather forecast was over, I turned the TV off and headed for the tub.”

  “So you didn’t see Dr. Moss arrive?” Judith queried.

  “No.” Ada opened the dishwasher, which had finished its cycle. “I was half asleep when the next thing I knew, I heard someone running along the hall and then a couple of minutes later, Sarah was at my door, telling me there were a bunch of emergency vehicles out front. That’s when Sarah and I came downstairs to see what was happening.”

  “Did the rest of the staff wake up then?” Judith asked.

  Ada made a face. “Kenyon’s so deaf he wouldn’t have heard an atom bomb go off, and Edna snores like a locomotive. Her room is next to mine, but I didn’t rouse her then. She would’ve passed out from all the excitement.”

  “Is Sarah’s room near yours?” Renie asked, pitching in to help Ada put the dishes away.

  “Being the housekeeper,” Ada said with a captious expression, “means she gets an actual suite, front and center, with my rooms at one end and Kenyon’s at the other. Edna’s next to me, but on the north side of the house. The rest of the third floor is pretty much used for storage, since there aren’t any extra maids or footmen these days. There’s not much space left over, because the third floor is mostly dormer rooms.”

  “What about the nannies?” Judith asked. “Were they also on the third floor?”

  “No, they were in the tower, above the children’s rooms,” Ada replied, starting to reload the dishwasher with Renie’s assistance. “I’m told they had speaking tubes running between the tower floors, in case the kiddies got sick during the night. They were taken out after the last nanny left because Peggy and Wayne used the tubes to wake up poor Beverly and scare her half to death.”

  Sarah Kenyon entered the kitchen, also looking tired. She bit her lip when she saw Renie hard at work. “You don’t have to earn your keep, Mrs. Jones,” she said, though it was impossible to tell from her tone if she was being humorous.

  “I’m compulsive about dishwashers,” Renie replied. “I think of them as ferry boats. You load them up, and off they go, with water, water everywhere. Then they get unloaded when they’ve completed their run, and sure enough, there are always more passengers waiting to come aboard.” She offered the housekeeper her most disingenuous smile. “I have a lot of fun in the kitchen.”

  A bit uncertainly, Sarah smiled back. “If Ada needs help, I’ll take over. Actually, I was looking for you ladies. Mrs. Burgess wanted to see you before she went to sleep, but it’s well after ten now, and she’s watching one of her programs. If you could time it just right, you might slip in just after it’s over at eleven.”

  “Of course,” Judith said. “By the way, are the phones working?”

  “Not yet,” Sarah replied, carefully placing two crystal goblets into the top rack of the dishwasher. “It’s a nuisance, but Kenneth said there was a problem in the local central office. I believe he heard it on his transistor radio.”

  “Joe must be worried sick,” Judith said as the cousins trudged down the hall.

  “He’ll figure out the phones are screwed up,” Renie said in reassurance. “What do you suppose he did all day?”

  “Who knows? Brooded, maybe.” Judith halted in mid-step. “You said you heard someone running outside last night when you were in the library calling 911. Could that have been Wayne, taking off?”

  Renie’s eyes widened. “Sure. But it could have been somebody else, too.”

  Judith sighed. “I know. Unless Wayne killed Dr. Moss. But why?” She grabbed Renie’s arm as her cousin turned to go into the parlor. “We might as well go back upstairs. It’s almost ten-thirty, and we have to check in with Leota at precisely eleven-oh-one.”

  “Bear with me,” Renie said, shaking Judith off and proceeding into the parlor where she went to one of the windows to pull aside the drapes. “I found this by the Dumpster when I took out the garbage.”

  Judith stared at the crowbar. “The weapon?”

  Renie stared at Judith. “Shoot. I didn’t think of that. I got it because I thought we might use it to pry open the fourth-floor tower room door.”

  Judith grimaced. “I’m not sure I want to do that tonight. In the dark. With the power going out. Hearing strange voices. Anyway, we should turn this over to the police.”

  “Well, phooey,” Renie said. “I thought I was on to something.”

  “I suppose you got fingerprints all over it?” Judith said.

  Renie made a face at Judith. “Do you think I carried it in with my teeth? Besides, it was out back, not out front. Don’t you think the police would have spotted it when they searched the grounds?”

  Renie was making sense. “Yes, probably. If it was there then.” Using her skirt to wrap around the crowbar, Judith picked it up. “We still ought to mention it to Edwina. Come on, let’s head upstairs.”

  Kenneth met them in the entry hall. “What’s that?” he asked, pointing to the crowbar.

  “We…need it to open the fireplace damper,” Judith fibbed. “It’s stuck.”

  “This house,” Kenneth said in a dreamy voice, “has flaws, but that’s because it’s so old. It makes Creepers all the more wonderful, don’t you think?”

  “It’s a matter of taste,” Renie said firmly.

  “Creepers should last forever,” Kenneth went on, as if Renie hadn’t spoken. “I’d keep it the same, I swear I would. But not the grounds. Gardens are a waste.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Judith said, puzzled.

  “I’d let it all go wild, tear down the outbuildings,” Kenneth continued, his eyes drifting around the entry hall. “If I could, I’d evict everyone in Sunset Cliffs, and raze all the houses. Grandmaman doesn’t understand.”

  “Kenny?” Russ Hillman stood in the doorway. “I’ve come to take you home.”

  Slowly, Kenneth turned to face his stepfather. “I changed my mind.” His voice grew shrill. “I’m staying on again tonight.”

  “But your mother told me you wanted to go back to your place in town,” Russ said.

  “No!” Kenneth stamped his foot like a child. “I’m not finished here. Go away.”

  “Kenny…” Russ began, his hands outstretched.

  “No, no, no!” Kenneth shouted. “I’m going to my room.” He wheeled around and practic
ally ran in the direction of the north tower.

  Russ shook his head. “Sorry, ladies. He’s in one of his moods. Peggy tells me he’s already had at least one row with his grandmother.”

  “He has,” Judith said, moving the crowbar behind her back. “Did Peggy say why they quarreled?”

  Russ groaned. “The usual. Kenny wants to turn Creepers into an animal preserve.”

  Judith let out a strange little laugh. “In the middle of Sunset Cliffs? No wonder he was talking about getting rid of the rest of the residents.”

  “It’s not really a joke,” Russ said. “The Burgess family not only still owns about a third of the undeveloped property in Sunset Cliffs—excluding the golf course—but Maxwell, the patriarch, retained certain rights in…I forget the term.”

  “En perpetua?” Renie put in.

  “Something like that.” Russ cocked his head to one side and gave Renie his engaging grin. “Anyway, it means the Burgesses—at least Leota—can make certain rules about land usage.”

  “Like turning somebody’s three-car garage into a tropical bird aviary?” Renie asked.

  “Not quite,” Russ said. “It’s more about what they can and can’t complain about with regard to their own property. If Leota wanted to build a ten-story condo that cut off somebody’s view, she could do it, and they’d have no recourse. Or put a stream through somebody’s land. Things like that.”

  “Like letting the deer and the antelope roam through the rose garden?” said Renie.

  “Exactly.” Russ grinned again.

  “It all sounds hypothetical,” Judith noted. “Leota would never allow such a thing.”

  “Well…” Russ scratched his head. “I’m not so sure about that. I think she’s leaving Creepers to Kenny.”

  “Really?” Judith said in surprise. “How come?”

  “Nobody else wants it,” Russ responded, taking an imaginary golf swing. “Peggy and I have our place on the links, Wayne and Dorothy live at Evergreen.”

  “Has none of you ever thought of moving?” Judith asked.

  Something flickered in Russ’s hazel eyes. “No. Why should we?”

  “There’ve been…rumors,” Judith said with a little shrug.