She nodded. “I’ll listen for the doorbell.”
The living room was filled with genteel chatter and soft strums from the harp in the corner. From the entrance, I said, “The buffet is open.”
A few heads swiveled my way.
My heels sank into the soft carpet when I stepped inside. The group closest to me included Jinx, Preston, Mary Beth, and Pete. “Please, be brave.” I pressed my hands together as if in prayer. “Start the buffet line.”
Jinx’s gaze slid toward Mother. “Curry?”
“Of course.”
Jinx glanced at the window that reflected sleek cocktailers and not the snow outside.
“We’ll get the ball rolling,” said Pete. He was a big man. Hopefully he wouldn’t decimate the curry all by himself.
“Thank you,” I said.
“My pleasure.” He took Mary Beth’s elbow and guided her toward the door.
The benefactors filtered out after Pete and Mary Beth.
“Go remind people there are other places they can sit.” Mother stood beside me. “There aren’t enough seats in here.”
I nodded and headed to the dining room. “If you’d like, you’re welcome to eat in the family room. It’s just across the hall.”
A few couples carried their plates that direction.
Jinx and Preston entered the dining room. “We decided to stay.” Jinx lifted a plate. “We’ll save you a seat in the living room.”
Then came the flood, the dining room table hidden behind a wave of hungry people.
Finally, only Mother and Daddy, Cora and Thornton, and I remained. “Please.” I gestured toward the buffet. “Help yourselves.”
Thornton picked up a plate and filled it. “This looks delicious. All my favorites.”
Really? Curry was one of those things I’d eat if it was served to me, but not a dish I’d ever pick.
Daddy tilted his chin toward the table. “Cora, Frances, help yourselves.” He smiled at me. “You too, Ellison.”
I shook my head. “My house. I go last.”
He pursed his lips but took a plate and followed Mother around the buffet.
I spooned a small amount of rice onto my plate and topped it with a smaller amount of curry. The cold poached eggs I skipped entirely. That Mother thought I would approve of this menu…
I carried my plate into the living room and claimed the seat Jinx had saved for me.
There was energy between couples. The charged connection of new love, the comfortable buzz of people who’ve been together since forever and still like each other, the caustic spark of those who are unhappy, and the tired flicker of those who’ve grown weary of each other’s company. The energy between Jinx and Preston was as taut as barbed wire and twice as sharp.
Jinx lifted a fork to her mouth. “Preston loves curry.”
Preston reached for his drink. “So do you, dear.”
Ugh. They were not talking about curry.
Mary Beth and Pete, who sat at the other end of the couch, shifted uncomfortably.
I put my plate on the coffee table. “I need to check on things in the kitchen. Will you please excuse me a moment?”
Preston half-rose from his chair.
I held out my hand and stood. “Don’t get up.”
He sank back into the wingback.
I made my way toward the door to the hallway. Smiling. Nodding. Asking if so-and-so was getting enough to eat, and promising a different so-and-so that the staff would be in soon to take their plate and serve dessert and coffee.
Thornton grabbed my arm and stopped me. “It’s a nice party, Ellison. Thank you.” He glanced around the full living room. “Cora could never have pulled this off.”
“Of course she could.”
He scowled. Because he disliked me disagreeing with him or because he thought his wife couldn’t host a party for fifty?
“Thornton, I really need to—”
Ding dong
If I walked into the front hall, I’d have to answer the door, and I couldn’t face another gust of cold air. I tarried. “I really need to tell you how pleased I am that I could help out.”
His face smoothed. “Hopefully the luncheon will be as successful as tonight.”
“I’m just sorry the weather didn’t cooperate.”
That brought a furrow back to his brow. “Have you heard a forecast?”
“No. I didn’t realize it was supposed to snow tonight.”
“It wasn’t. The weatherman said this would go north.” His tone suggested he held the weatherman personally responsible.
Aggie, who wore an understated black kaftan, slipped into the living room and walked toward me. “Mr. White is here.” Her voice was low.
Mother, who sensed problems like other people sensed rain on their skin or sunshine in their eyes, appeared next to us. “Stan White? What’s he doing here?” Her voice carried surprise and volume. She adjusted the volume to a much lower decibel. “Any idiot can see you’re entertaining.”
“Mr. White would like a word with Mrs. Russell.”
“Now? Absolutely not.” Mother lowered her voice to a furious whisper. “You can’t keep embroiling yourself in murders.”
“Mother—” I attempted a soothing tone “—it’s all right. It’ll only take a minute.”
“It most certainly is not all right. You have guests you haven’t even spoken to yet.”
Mother wasn’t wrong. I looked around the full living room. I’d stopped by to chat with everyone, but I still needed to make the rounds in the family room.
“Aggie, please see if Mr. White would like some dinner. Last I checked there was plenty of curry left.” Of course there was. It was curry. “I’ll see him as soon as I’m able.”
Aggie nodded, a grim expression on her face.
A sick feeling tightened my stomach. What did Stan want? “Maybe I should just—”
“Have you made the rounds in the family room?” Mother’s question was rhetorical. She knew the answer.
“I’ll do it now.” Complying was easier and probably faster than arguing.
I made my way to the family room where Lorna caught me with one swipe of her turkey vulture hands. “Lovely party, Ellison. I adore curry.” She meant it.
I glanced at Tom’s plate—a study in pushing food around without eating a bite. Obviously he didn’t adore curry.
“Someone will be by with dessert and coffee.” No one disliked lemon meringue tartlets. And if they did, we also had pumpkin tartlets topped with dollops of whipped cream.
I smiled at Ellen Byron who was entertaining a group with stories about her Louisiana relatives. I winked at Jack Kelly who crouched next to octogenarian Bernice Danner. I traded air kiss with Susan Archer. And when I’d interacted with every single person in the room, I headed to the dining room to see Stan.
Someone had put out the candles. Without their flames reflecting in the windows, the room transformed from cozy to eerie. I squinted at the table. Not only was the candle out, but the candlestick was missing. I reached for the rheostat and turned up the chandelier.
I wasn’t mistaken. The candlestick was gone.
Mother would have kittens.
“Stan?” My voice shook. Dammit. I stepped farther into the room and steadied my voice. “Stan?”
Being afraid was just silly. Sixty people were wandering around my house. It wasn’t as if I was alone. But I was alone in the dining room. All alone. With my heart lodged somewhere near the back of my throat.
The sick feeling in my stomach—the one that had plagued me all night—moved to a variety of other intestines.
The voices of the catering crew in the kitchen were clearly audible. I was fine.
I took another step into my dining room. Normal except fo
r the missing candlestick and the—
And the foot extending beyond the edge of the table.
Oh dear Lord.
“Stan?”
Another step.
And another.
Stan lay on the floor, his body stretched out as if he were napping.
He wasn’t.
My great-grandmother’s candlestick lay next to him—it’s silver shine colored red. And there was matter on the heavy end.
Sweet nine-pound baby Jesus.
My stomach flipped. My heart tried to escape my chest. I stumbled backward. “Aggie!”
thirteen
Mr. White in the dining room with a candlestick.
My life was turning into a sinister board game.
Aggie stood next to me. Gaping. “Is he…?”
“I think so.” Nausea welled up from my stomach. I covered my mouth with my hand and jerked my head toward the kitchen.
Together we escaped the carnage in the dining room, stopping only to turn out the lights. Hopefully the people populating the first floor would think the buffet was closed. Hopefully no one would stumble over Stan’s body.
“Get Mrs. Russell a glass of water,” Aggie directed one of the caterer’s staff.
I sank onto a stool. Accepted the glass. Sipped. I stared at my lap, studying the subtle pattern of my dress until the urge to vomit ebbed. I raised my head. “We need to call.”
“On it.” Aggie, whose brow was as wrinkled as a Shar-Pei’s, picked up the phone and dialed.
“Ellison, are you in here?” Mother pushed through the swinging door. “Do you realize someone has turned out the lights in the dining room?” She stopped, narrowed her eyes, and somehow drew herself up so that she was taller than her actual height. “What’s happened?”
“Someone murdered Stan White.” My voice was flat. Apparently I’d left all my emotion in the dining room.
The color leeched out of Mother’s cheeks and she staggered.
“Aggie is calling Anarchy now. Do you want a glass of water?”
“Good Lord, no.” Mother pointed to a young woman wearing a chef’s coat. “You. Go get me a brandy. Now.”
Fortunately, the woman was smart enough not to argue.
Mother claimed a stool at the island. “This is a disaster.”
“Especially for Stan.”
“Don’t be smart, Ellison.” She put her elbows on the counter and rested her head in her hands. “He was shot?”
“No.” I drained my glass. Too bad I hadn’t asked for brandy like Mother. “His skull was bashed in.”
Mother’s already pale cheeks turned the color of parchment. “With what?”
Someone took the empty glass from my hand, refilled it, and returned it to me. I sipped. Slowly.
Next to me Mother sighed. I knew that sigh. It spoke of a daughter who was a disappointment. A major disappointment. Just wait. When I told her how Stan was murdered, her head was going to levitate off her body and spin, spewing fire and destruction upon us all. An experience that required brandy. “Great-grandmother’s candlestick.” I spoke fast and low and ran the syllables together.
Mother didn’t react. Didn’t move. But I know she heard me because I heard her. “Fudge.”
“I have Detective Jones on the line,” said Aggie. “Do you want to speak with him?”
I stood, somehow made it across a few feet of kitchen floor, and took the phone from her hand.
“Anarchy, there’s been another murder.”
Anarchy did not say “fudge.” No soft-selling expletives for him. He used the real word. Five times in a row. Then apologized for cursing.
“Stan White is in my dining room.”
“And you’re sure he’s dead?”
“Pretty sure.” My voice was dry as old bones. I closed my eyes and saw Stan’s bashed head against the back of my lids. Ugh. I opened my eyes and stared at the desserts still sitting on the kitchen island.
The woman in the chef’s coat returned with Mother’s drink. I pointed at myself then the glass and mouthed the word, “Please.”
She turned on her heel and went out the way she’d entered.
“What was Stan White doing at your house?” asked Anarchy.
“He came by to talk to me.”
I could imagine Anarchy’s forehead buried in the expanse of his palm. “What did he say?”
“Nothing. I didn’t get a chance to speak with him.”
“Why not?” Frustration was creeping into Anarchy’s voice.
“I’m hosting a party.”
This pronouncement was met with a few seconds of silence. Seconds that lasted an eternity. “How many people?”
“Umm…” I looked at Mother. “How many people showed up?”
“Forty-two.” She looked a smidge happier now that she had a drink. Where was mine?
“Forty-two,” I repeated. “Plus the catering staff. And the harpist.”
“The harpist?”
“Don’t ask. Also, Aunt Sis is here. All told, there are at least fifty people in the house.”
“Don’t let anyone leave. I’m on my way.” He hung up.
“Well?” Mother pinched the bridge of her nose.
“No one can leave.”
She swore again. Except this time, she didn’t say “fudge.”
The woman returned with my drink. I took a sip, enjoyed the burn in my throat, and waited for the inevitable from Mother.
“How many times have I told you that this must stop?” It was a rhetorical question.
I answered anyway. “At least a hundred. Maybe more.”
“Yet you continue to find bodies.” Mother put her glass down on the counter so hard the brandy sloshed over the rim.
“It’s not as if I find them on purpose.”
“Can’t you just pretend you don’t see them?”
“Someone is going to notice a body in the dining room. And, if we ignore it, it will start to smell.”
“Don’t be smart with me, young lady.”
The catering staff was watching us as if we were engaged in a particularly grueling volley in a tennis match. Their heads swiveled with each comment.
“It’s pretty easy to be smart when you say such inane things.”
“I am trying to help.”
“By lecturing me? I don’t enjoy finding bodies, Mother. It’s extremely unsettling.” My stomach flipped at the reminder of just how unsettling the sight of Stan’s bashed head was. I sent my long-suffering stomach some brandy. “Helping would be managing the guests. Someone is going to want to leave soon and they can’t.”
Mother turned her gaze to the woman in the chef’s coat. “Is your staff passing desserts and coffee?”
“Of course,” she squeaked.
Not all of them were. Two were watching us with a level of attention usually reserved for a new episode of All in the Family.
“Get out there,” Mother snarled.
The staff, revealing heretofore unsuspected sense, grabbed trays of desserts and disappeared through the swinging doors.
Mother turned her incensed gaze on Aggie. “You. Go to the front door and head off anyone who wants to leave.” Mother pointed a finger at me. “You. You stay here. If your guests can’t find you to thank you, they’ll have to stay.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. There’d been plenty of times I’d tried to find my hostess, failed, and left without expressing my thanks. I soothed my guilty conscience by sending flowers the next day.
Mother picked up her glass and drained the rest of her brandy. “I’ll go manage this disaster.”
Her meaning was clear. She’d clean up my mess, but she’d hold it against me for years.
At least
she was actually helping.
I was left alone with the woman in the chef’s coat who busied herself with filling another silver tray with tartlets. “Your mother has a strong personality,” she said.
Attila the Hun had a strong personality. Mother was a mile-wide tornado with hundred-fifty-mile-per-hour winds.
The caterer wedged a pecan tartlet onto the already full tray. “I don’t think I’d be able to stand up to her the way you do.”
Me? Stand up to Mother?
I had.
The glow in my stomach had nothing—almost nothing—to do with the brandy.
The police arrived. Squad cars with men in uniform. Detective Peters with his disreputable raincoat. And Anarchy.
They interviewed the guests.
And me.
Presumably they asked us the same questions—although I’d bet I was the only one lucky enough to face the cantankerous Detective Peters. He regarded me with suspicious eyes and a slight sneer. “Where were you between seven thirty and eight fifteen?”
I glanced around the study, opened as an interrogation room. Was it just four days ago I’d found Khaki on the carpet? Those four days felt like an eternity. “I floated between the living room and family room.”
“Floated?”
“Floated. I visited with guests, made sure they were getting plenty to eat, had their drinks refilled.” Did he not understand what a hostess did?
“In all that floating—” he made it sounded as if I’d been doing something dirty “—did you notice anyone acting strangely?”
“No.”
“Did you float into the dining room?”
“No.”
He grunted and made a note on the small pad he pulled out of the pocket of his raincoat. “Did you know Stan White?”
“To say hello to.”
“Who would want to kill him?”
“I have no idea.”
The curl of Detective Peters’ lip became more pronounced. “Yet he’s dead in your dining room and someone in this house killed him.”
I wasn’t about to argue the dead part of his statement, but I held out hope for person or persons unknown. “How can you be so sure it was someone in the house? Maybe an intruder snuck in and bashed him over the head.”
Watching the Detectives Page 12