by Carol Miller
As she lay there slowly regaining her senses and listening to the continued thumping, it started to sound more like pounding. Then it occurred to her that somebody wasn’t dropping muddy boots, they were pounding on the front door of the inn. Beulah? She must have forgotten or lost her key. Daisy knew with the thin walls of the inn that she couldn’t be the only one who heard the pounding. But she very likely would be the only one who was going to respond to it. She certainly couldn’t expect the guests to rise and open the front door for who-knows-who in the middle of the night. Her mama was too ill to get out of bed. And Aunt Emily was either sleeping like the dead or dashing down to the kitchen for her shotgun.
Rising and pulling a robe around herself, Daisy opened her own door and shuffled out. The hall was dimly lit by a small stained glass lamp at the opposite end. As far as she could see, the other room doors were closed. The pounding went on, growing progressively louder and harder. It had probably begun as a normal polite knock, and when nobody had answered it, Beulah had gotten impatient. Daisy couldn’t blame her for that. Nobody wanted to be stuck outside on a February night in the cold and wet.
The steps creaked under her as she descended. Daisy remembered Kenneth Lunt’s comments about being able to hear her moving around the previous morning, and she shrugged. If he was indeed such a light sleeper, then he was already awake anyway. Somewhere above her a door opened. It sounded like it came from the third floor. Lillian and Parker were in the James Longstreet on the third floor. Maybe Lillian was coming to protest the pounding. Another door opened. There were also footsteps. Daisy couldn’t tell the direction of either. The closer she got to the pounding, the more it obscured everything else.
When she reached the bottom of the stairs, she was surprised to find the entrance hall dark. A trio of brass sconces lined the wall. Although they originally held candles, they had been wired for electricity long ago. Their soft light was more decorative than functional, but Aunt Emily always left them on so that no one would accidentally go careening down the steps in the pitch black, especially not guests, who weren’t used to the narrow passages and tight corners of the inn like Daisy was.
Even more surprising to her was the parlor. It was dark, too. To the best of Daisy’s recollection, there had been at least four lamps switched on when she had left Drew and Henry Brent earlier in the evening. It seemed peculiar that the two men would have been fastidious enough to turn them all off, particularly after enjoying what had no doubt been a considerable amount of gooseberry brandy. And then they both would have had to make it to their respective rooms in the dark. Granted, it wasn’t completely dark. There was no light coming from the kitchen or the dining room, but there was a faint yellow illumination from the porch lights shining through the leaded-glass panel above the front door.
Suddenly, she felt movement behind her. Daisy spun around. No one was there, or at least no one appeared to be there. She squinted down the hall. Was that shadow at the edge of the kitchen a person?
“Hello?” she asked.
She received no answer. The shadow didn’t budge an inch. Daisy shook her head at herself. How silly. Of course it wasn’t a person. Her eyes and mind were just playing nighttime tricks on her.
By this point, the pounding on the front door had become almost frenzied. Turning back around, Daisy hurried to put a stop to it. She flipped the locks and threw open the door.
“Hey there,” she began with a smile. “How was the date? Did you lose your key…”
Both Daisy’s voice and her smile faded in the same instant. She had been mistaken. It wasn’t Beulah on the front porch of the inn. It was a man. A strange man.
“Mercy me, Ducky! What’s all the racket?”
There was no mistaking Aunt Emily. She was plodding down the stairs in her scarlet slippers, fastening her matching chiffon dressing gown. Apparently she had been sleeping like the dead, because there was no shotgun in her hands.
“I—” Daisy stammered, still startled from not finding Beulah at the door.
Aunt Emily rubbed her eyes to wake herself up, after which she carefully ran her fingers over her hair to correct any wayward silver strands. When she had finished her toilette, she looked at Daisy, then at the man standing in the doorway, and finally back at Daisy again. “Who’s this?” she said.
“I—” Daisy started once more.
The man cut her off.
“Bud.” He took a step forward and stuck out his hand. “Bud Foster.”
Bud Foster appeared to be about fifty, and he didn’t have a nice hand. The nails were ragged, the skin was thick and callused, and the knuckles had that misshapen quality often noted in those with pugilistic tendencies. After a brief hesitation, Aunt Emily shook the hand, but she did so with obvious reluctance.
“This isn’t an appropriate hour, Mr. Foster,” she remarked.
Although Aunt Emily’s tone wasn’t hostile, it also couldn’t have been described as welcoming. Apparently good hostess standards were less rigid between the hours of midnight and dawn when strangers on the front porch were involved.
“Bud,” the man corrected her with an unnervingly large smile of chipped and yellowed teeth.
Neither Aunt Emily nor Daisy smiled back.
“It’s my car,” Bud said, after a short pause. “I got lost. Then the storm hit, and I couldn’t see a damn thing—”
Aunt Emily cleared her throat to express her displeasure.
He paused again and seemed momentarily confused. “Oh. Okay.” He gave a little nod. “I couldn’t see anything. The snow was coming down in these huge flakes. They were clumping together on the windshield like a blanket, and the wipers couldn’t get ’em off fast enough. I didn’t know if I was still on the road or had gone off it. I couldn’t tell what was ahead of me or on either side. It all just blurred together in one giant cloud. I think it must have been what they call a whiteout. Take a look for yourself.” Bud turned and gestured behind him.
For the first time since she had opened the door, Daisy’s eyes moved past the man. She was so astonished by what she saw that she took a step backward. It was as though the world had disappeared. There was nothing beyond the inn. The doorway, the front porch, and then a wall of gray. Common sense told her that it was a sheet of white snow against the black night sky, but it looked like a solid wall of gray.
“Well, I’ll be,” Aunt Emily exhaled.
Bud nodded vigorously. “I was driving real slow, hoping that I wouldn’t hit something, or that nothing would hit me. But then I went down into a ditch and got stuck. After a couple of tries, I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to work myself out. Of course my phone couldn’t get a signal, not that a tow truck could reach me now anyway.”
“Certainly not,” Aunt Emily concurred.
“So I sat there for a while,” Bud continued, “wondering what to do. After a lot of looking around, I thought that I saw some lights in the distance. I got out and headed toward them. Five minutes into it, I was wondering if I hadn’t made a big mistake and should have just stayed put. With the snow piling on and the wind whipping it around like a tornado, half the time I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face and kept losing track of the lights. Let me tell you, I was getting pretty worried. You hear those stories about people in blizzards wandering ten feet from their house or barn and not being able to find their way back. They just get covered and freeze. When I finally saw that the lights belonged to this place, I said a prayer of thanks.”
“I can well imagine,” Aunt Emily concurred again.
Daisy glanced at her. Her tone had warmed, but only slightly. It still couldn’t have been considered friendly. Did Aunt Emily not believe the story? There was a somewhat artificial, almost rehearsed quality to it. But that could have been because the man was cold and stressed. Why would he want to fabricate such a tale? Of at least one truthful element there could be no doubt—the heavy snow.
Maybe there was something else about Bud Foster that Aunt Emily didn’t trust.
He definitely didn’t have the most confidence-inspiring appearance. His stubble was a good three days old. His tan trench coat was fraying in spots and had several large inkblot stains from coffee or cola having been dribbled down the front. And he kept cracking his pugilist knuckles while he talked.
“Sorry for banging on the door like I did,” Bud apologized, “but I was worried that everybody might be asleep. I couldn’t very well stay out here on the porch all night, not in this miserable weather.”
“Everybody?” Daisy echoed. The word struck her. It seemed as though he knew that there were a lot of people in the house.
“It is an inn, isn’t it?” he replied immediately. “I saw the sign coming up the front walk, or what I assume is the front walk, and the part of the sign that isn’t coated with ice. ‘The Tosh Inn. Rooms available.’ I’m hoping that you’ll have a room available for me.”
It was a smooth response. A bit too smooth, perhaps. Daisy glanced at Aunt Emily again, wondering if she thought so also. She must have had some reservation, because as with taking Bud Foster’s hand, Aunt Emily hesitated with his request.
“Of course we’ll find you something,” she answered after a moment. “None of God’s creatures should be left outside on such a night.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I sure do appreciate your kindness.”
Stomping his feet and brushing the snow from his coat, Bud stepped into the inn. A hefty black duffle bag was slung over one shoulder. Daisy blinked at it in surprise.
“You trekked through the snow and wind carrying luggage, not knowing in advance that this place was an inn?” she said.
This time the response wasn’t so smooth.
“I couldn’t tell—” Bud began. “I thought maybe—”
He was interrupted by the onslaught of voices and footsteps on the stairs. His pounding on the door, along with their talking in the entrance hall, had evidently stirred the guests. There was a mixture of sniffling, shuffling, and general drowsy mumbling. Aunt Emily switched on the sconces. Drew was the leader of the pack, followed by Lillian, who was sputtering about the injurious disruption to her sleep regimen.
With the front door still partially open behind Bud Foster, there was a frigid breeze gusting through the hall, so none of the guests lingered. Like sheep pushing into a cozy pen, they all crowded into the parlor, where Drew and Parker started turning on lamps and arranging seats. Daisy was about to shut the door and show Bud where he could hang his wet coat when she heard Drew’s voice rise abruptly. A second later, the light clicked on in the dining room. And Lillian screamed.
CHAPTER
10
“Oh, for pity sake,” Aunt Emily said, rolling her eyes at Daisy. “What is that woman bellyaching about now?”
Daisy didn’t roll her eyes back. She knew that something was truly wrong. For all her grousing, Lillian never shrieked like a panicky schoolgirl about spiders and spooks. Which meant that she wasn’t just startled. She was shocked. And so was the rest of the group as they turned one by one almost in slow motion toward the dining room. Gasps. A cry of horror. May Fowler sinking to the carpet in distress.
Leaving Aunt Emily and Bud Foster in the entrance hall, Daisy hurried toward the others. Her feet stopped the moment she reached the French doors that separated the parlor from the dining room. They were wide open, providing an unobstructed view of the nook where a mere twelve hours earlier Henry Brent had proudly revealed his gift to Aunt Emily. The antique secretary was no longer standing grandly, albeit tippy, against the wall, its golden tiger maple and brasses gleaming. It was now lying facedown on the floor, the two pieces—the desk and the bookcase—separated, no doubt from the impact. Except the impact wasn’t with the floor. Between the furniture and the ground lay a body. It was Henry Brent.
There was no need to check for a pulse or seek emergency medical care. Daisy could tell that instantly. Henry Brent’s eyes were open and unblinking, staring without seeing up at the ceiling. His mouth was open also, forming a stiff circle. And his limbs were stretched out in every direction like a jumping jack. The exact injury wasn’t clear. A heart attack, a shattered spine, internal hemorrhaging. They were all possible based on the great size and weight of the secretary. The end result was the same, regardless. Henry Brent was dead.
He must have seen it coming, considering that he was lying on his back rather than his stomach. Daisy dearly hoped that it had been a quick death. She thought it might have been. There was no visible blood from slowly seeping wounds. Neither his hands nor his arms were scratched and bruised as they would have been had he struggled to get out from underneath or push the secretary off. On the contrary, his right palm was closed and appeared to be holding something.
Daisy felt a warm touch on her shoulder. Glancing up, she found Drew leaning over her. Only then did she realize that she was no longer on her feet but on the ground next to Henry Brent, her fingers mechanically straightening his bow tie.
“Daisy—” Drew began, trying gently to get her to rise.
She stayed put, gazing with some confusion at the bow tie and the accompanying suit—the burgundy seersucker that matched the burgundy draperies.
Drew tried again. “How about if we go sit in the parlor?”
Still not moving, Daisy lifted her head and looked at the group gathered before her. May remained on the carpet where she had sunk at the first glimpse of the body. Edna knelt beside her, patting her hand and crooning in soothing tones. They were dressed in nearly identical long-sleeved, floor-length flannel nightgowns with a ribbon of ivory lace stitched to the collar and hem. Lillian was on her usual settee, wearing a pair of pumpkin-orange pajamas featuring an array of cats chasing mice. In his cartoon wiener-dog pajamas, Parker paced back and forth behind his wife, grimacing and mumbling intermittently to himself.
The neighboring settee was occupied by the Lunts. Sarah perched at the edge of the brocaded fabric with the agitated expression of a caged canary waiting to fly off at the first available opportunity. She was clad in a scanty turquoise silk negligee with an equally flimsy turquoise silk cape. It was a surprising—and rather daring—choice of attire, considering both her personality and that she was at an inn with relative strangers instead of in the privacy of her own home. Kenneth lounged next to her, wearing such crisply starched pajama bottoms that they displayed not even a hint of a wrinkle. They were topped by a sweatshirt from his presumed alma mater.
Finally there was Georgia. Dressed in tie-dye boxer shorts and a faded Dairy Queen T-shirt, she was pressed against the wall in the far corner of the parlor with her gaze studiously averted from everybody else. But it wasn’t what each person was doing or individually wearing that struck Daisy. It was the fact that they were all—including her—in their nightclothes, while Henry Brent was in his seersucker. Unlike them, he had never gone to bed.
“Can you get a blanket?” Drew said to Parker.
Parker stopped pacing. “A blanket?”
“A big one, to cover him. Or a bedsheet?” Drew suggested.
“Right. Good idea.” Parker took several quick paces toward the hall before pausing with a frown. There were an awful lot of blankets and bedsheets at the inn. He turned to Aunt Emily questioningly.
Up until that point, Aunt Emily had been standing mute and motionless at the edge of the parlor. “I know just the one,” she murmured, more to herself than to him, and then disappeared down the hallway toward the linen closet.
Parker’s frown deepened as his focus shifted to the person that had been next to her. “Who are you?” he asked Bud Foster.
Glancing intermittently at the body on the floor, Bud started to give the same explanation that he had to Daisy and Aunt Emily about getting lost while driving, and the storm hitting, and his car subsequently ending up in a ditch, but May cut him off halfway through.
“I must see Henry,” she said abruptly, paying not the slightest attention to Bud or his story.
“I’m not sure…,” Edna’s voice trailed away, her
brow heavily furrowed.
“I must see him,” May repeated emphatically, “before they cover him.”
Edna shook her head, as though she thought it far better for her sister not to see the deceased any more or any closer than she already had. It was certainly understandable. May, twisting her handkerchief taut and clutching it to her bosom, clearly did not have the strongest of nerves. But as May looked at her imploringly and reached out feebly for support, Edna didn’t have the heart to say no and helped her to rise.
Parker came over to offer his assistance, and together he and the sisters moved slowly, arm in arm, toward Daisy and the nook. The rest of the group seemed to take it as a sign that now was the time when they should collectively pay their respects. Lillian joined her husband. Sarah and Kenneth followed. Even Georgia tiptoed over.
They circled around Henry Brent like a bereaved family of elephants closing ranks around a lost member of the herd. Some stood, others bent down or knelt by his side. It was Daisy who closed his eyes. She wanted to close his mouth, as well. She could see his dentures, and it made her think fondly of his clacking. But his jaw looked as if it was already too rigid, and she decided that it would be best to leave it rather than forcing it.
The wind hollowed outside, and an arctic blast of air whistled through the front door, which was still partly open. There was a communal shiver.
“Shut the door, would you?” Kenneth hollered at Bud, who had yet to move from the entrance hall.
Bud complied without speaking, although not before a second gust carried a shower of snow and ice inside. May swallowed a sob.
“Henry would have been so excited,” she said mournfully. “He would have wanted to see if this storm could have topped the one in sixty-two.”
Edna gurgled.
Parker heaved a sigh. “I sure will miss the old dog.” He gave a farewell woof.