by Carol Miller
Lillian’s lemon lips puckered, and she harrumphed under her breath. Daisy shot her a reproachful look. It was no secret how much Henry Brent’s banter—especially with Parker—had annoyed Lillian, but that didn’t excuse her being disrespectful to the dead.
“He seemed like such a lovely man,” Sarah remarked quietly.
“He was so kind,” May told her.
“And smart,” Edna added.
“He asked after my mama every chance he got,” Daisy said.
May nodded. “That was Henry. Always thinking of others.”
“Always able to make you laugh,” Parker chimed in.
Lillian harrumphed again.
Daisy’s reproachful look repeated itself, and this time, it was joined by a pointed glare from Drew. Sniffing indignantly, Lillian turned her back on them, although she remained next to her husband as the eulogizing continued. Soon thereafter, Aunt Emily appeared with a large wool blanket cradled in her arms. It was a dogwood-colored tartan, the official state tartan of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Daisy knew it to be Aunt Emily’s favorite, and she thought it very appropriate under the circumstances.
The circle parted to make room for her, and Aunt Emily approached them with wobbly steps. Rising to her feet, Daisy nodded at her encouragingly. The steps steadied the closer she came.
“Oh, Henry,” Aunt Emily said, gazing at the man lying before her.
She didn’t weep, but that didn’t surprise Daisy. Although Aunt Emily would occasionally shed a happy or sentimental tear, she never cried out of sadness. Daisy had asked her about it once many years earlier. Aunt Emily had gotten a faraway look in her blue eyes and didn’t respond. Ever since then, when the subject came close to being broached, she always deflected it by calling herself a tough old biddy.
“I shall miss you, my friend,” she went on.
Edna gurgled as she had before. May swallowed another sob.
“I should have paid more attention,” Aunt Emily chastised herself. “Everyone was talking about it being tippy. I should have listened better. It’s my fault.”
“No, no!” May exclaimed. “It’s my fault! The secretary wouldn’t have been here at all if I hadn’t sold it to him.”
“It never should have left the shop,” Edna said plaintively.
“But it didn’t look tippy at the shop!” May wailed.
“Indeed it didn’t,” Edna agreed. “And that’s why it’s not your fault. You couldn’t have known what would happen.”
“I should have known,” Aunt Emily interjected severely. “When Henry was squeezing himself behind it last night before dinner, and it wobbled. I should have insisted right then and there that we move it, or at the very least, that we set something up against it, so it couldn’t tumble over. I should have…”
As Aunt Emily continued her dour self-reproaches, Daisy remembered the noises—the rumbles and the crash—that she had heard in her bed before Bud Foster’s pounding on the front door. She had originally thought that she might have dreamed them, but now it occurred to her that maybe they had been real, after all. Maybe they had been Henry Brent twisting himself behind the secretary again, trying to make it less tippy, or to see whatever thingamabob he said he had been looking at the first time. The rumbles could have been him pushing or shifting the secretary for a better fit or view, and the crash could have been it falling over. That would explain why it had seemed like the thunder came before the lightning.
Daisy also remembered that in between the rumbles—but before the crash—there had been footsteps in the hall on the second floor and also on the stairs. Door hinges had squeaked. There had been voices, too. Garbled voices, some distance away. Were those part of a dream? Drew and Henry Brent had been together in the parlor when she retired to her room, and she had assumed that some of the sounds were from Drew going to bed. But were they all from Drew? Or maybe none was from Drew. The footsteps on the stairs could have been going up or down from the third floor, just as easily as from the second. And the voices had come after the hinge squeaks and footsteps, or at least so she thought.
She looked at Drew, who was standing close by her side with his arm wrapped supportively around her waist. His hair was rumpled, and he was wearing an old hockey jersey. He had definitely gone to bed. But Henry Brent in his seersucker hadn’t gone to bed. Which meant that he must have remained in the parlor—or returned to the parlor—to tinker with the secretary after he and Drew had called it a night. So was one of the voices his? Had Henry Brent been talking to somebody? Or maybe she was confused, and she had just imagined the voices.
“Ducky?”
Drew gave her waist a prodding squeeze.
“Ducky?” Aunt Emily repeated. “Would you take that end?”
Waking from her musing, Daisy found Aunt Emily holding a corner of the dogwood-colored tartan in her direction. Apparently she was supposed to take it and help cover Henry Brent.
She grasped the proffered corner. Parker held the opposite corner across from her. Removing his arm from her waist, Drew took the third corner, and Aunt Emily retained possession of the fourth. Together they stretched the blanket wide.
“Under or over?” Parker asked.
For a moment, Daisy didn’t understand him, then she realized what he meant. Did Aunt Emily want the blanket to go over the whole secretary, or under the secretary and only over the body?
“Just Henry, I think,” Aunt Emily said.
“We’ll have to lift the secretary for that,” Drew told her. “At least partway.”
“Oh, no,” she responded quickly. “We don’t want to lift it. We might see how he—Oh, no.”
“I’m afraid the blanket isn’t big enough to cover everything,” Parker said.
“We can do the top of the secretary and wrap the blanket under him,” Daisy suggested.
And that was precisely what they did. The entire bookcase was covered, while the desk was left open. The edges of the blanket were tucked under Henry Brent, so that none of him remained visible. In a flurry of activity, everybody in the group lent a hand, and then they all stepped back.
“Gracious, Parker!” Lillian cried. “Can’t you even cover a body properly?”
She gestured toward Henry Brent’s right arm, to which Parker was the closest. The arm was sticking out of the tartan like a stray caterpillar leg protruding from a cocoon.
“How did that…” Parker gazed at the arm quizzically. “I thought I—”
“Well, obviously you didn’t!” Lillian snapped.
“Dear me.” May looked back and forth between them, then at the arm—which in its present state had a rather disturbing disembodied appearance—and she started to swoon.
“Come sit down,” Edna said to her sister, although not before chiding Lillian with a stern shake of her head.
Drew helped Edna guide May to the nearest settee, and as he passed Lillian, he muttered, “Instead of griping, fix it.”
Lillian glowered at him.
“I’ll fix it,” Daisy said, not wanting to turn the sad arm into a circus. And before anyone could respond, she came around and pulled the blanket over the offending appendage.
“Thank you, Ducky,” Aunt Emily said gratefully.
But Daisy didn’t hear her. She was too busy thinking about the arm that she had just covered. It was Henry Brent’s right arm. The palm of the hand was open and empty. And that was what troubled her. Because the last time she had looked at Henry Brent’s right palm—before the blanket and before the eulogizing—it had been closed and holding something.
CHAPTER
11
It had looked like a piece of paper. Not a scrap torn from something else, but bigger and with straight edges. Daisy thought it had been folded in the shape of a letter, although she couldn’t remember the color. White or cream, maybe a light yellow. She had only noticed it for a second. It had been a consoling sign to her that Henry Brent hadn’t struggled under the secretary, because if he had, he presumably wouldn’t have kept his
palm closed, holding whatever it was that he had been holding. Except he wasn’t holding it anymore.
She could be mistaken, of course. Daisy had enough experience with death to know that the shock and grief of it could easily play with one’s senses. But she was pretty sure that the paper had been there. So why wasn’t it there now? The most obvious answer was that it had fallen out of Henry Brent’s hand. Her eyes took a quick survey of the surrounding floor. No paper—or anything else. It could be under the blanket.
Leaning down, Daisy slid her fingers along the edge of the tartan. She had to be subtle about it. She couldn’t just lift up the blanket for all to see. May, who was being bolstered on the settee by Edna and Drew, couldn’t handle another view of the body. Daisy felt around carefully, pretending to tuck in the corners of the blanket with great diligence. Henry Brent’s right shoulder, then his elbow, and finally his hand. She flinched slightly when she touched his skin. It was like waxy plastic. With some reluctance, she checked his palm. It was definitely open, and there was definitely nothing in it. There was also nothing around it, at least not that she could find.
The stiffness of his skin made her glad that she hadn’t tried to close his mouth earlier. It also made her realize that it was unlikely for Henry Brent’s palm to have opened up all by itself and whatever had been in it to just drop out. That left only one other option—somebody had taken the paper from his hand. But why? And for that matter, why had Henry Brent been holding it in the middle of the night, in the nook between the dining room and the parlor, while looking at an antique secretary?
It could have been anything. A bill from the electric company, a note confirming a doctor’s visit, even a grocery list. And it could have been anyone who had taken it. That was obvious enough. They had all crowded around the body to pay their respects. They had all helped with the blanket. Straightening back up, Daisy looked about expectantly. One of them should be holding it. One of them should have it in their hand. But none of them did.
“I don’t like to interrupt—” Bud Foster said.
Every head turned toward him. He had at long last moved from the entrance hall to the parlor, although he remained distinctly separate from the rest of the group. It was the first time he had spoken since May interrupted the story of his arrival.
“—but shouldn’t someone call the police?” he went on.
“Call the police?” Parker echoed.
Bud nodded.
“Why would we do that?” Lillian asked with considerable disdain.
The question seemed to surprise Bud, and he answered by gesturing at the shrouded figure.
“What’s the use of calling?” Kenneth said. “The man’s stone cold dead.”
“No one—” May began tearfully.
“—can do anything for him now,” Edna concluded, adding a weary exhalation.
“All the same,” Bud responded, “there needs to be an investigation.”
“An investigation?” Parker echoed as he had before.
“What on earth needs to be investigated?” Lillian snapped.
“He was plainly crushed,” Sarah squeaked, her thin frame quivering.
Kenneth’s nostrils flared at Bud. “You’re upsetting my wife.”
In Daisy’s opinion, Sarah looked more chilled from her lack of clothing than upset by Bud Foster.
“I don’t mean to upset anyone…” Bud hesitated, as though he couldn’t quite decide how to continue.
“Just so you know,” Daisy said to him after a moment, “we don’t have the police around here. We have a sheriff.”
She deliberately kept her tone light, as though it wasn’t really an important distinction, merely one of law enforcement nomenclature. But in truth, there was something important about it. By mentioning the police, Bud had shown that he wasn’t from the area. In Pittsylvania County, Virginia—like many counties in the country—there was no police. There was a sheriff. Except Daisy wasn’t sure whether Bud’s error helped to prove or disprove his lost-and-stranded-motorist story.
Aunt Emily gave her a shrewd sideways glance. Evidently she had noticed Bud’s faulty word choice, as well.
“Police or sheriff,” Bud retorted with some impatience, “they have to be contacted, regardless.”
“He’s right,” Drew said.
Out of the corner of her eye, Daisy saw Georgia shrink back against the wall.
Parker turned to Drew. “You think so?”
“I do.”
Lillian wrinkled her nose. “I don’t see why.”
“I don’t, either,” May whispered, blinking from one person to the next. She seemed confused by the entire discussion.
“But is it right to bother the sheriff?” Edna’s cleft chin jutted out as she spoke. “Especially in this frightful weather. There must be so many accidents and other problems that need his attention.”
“Well, this was no acc—” Bud began brusquely.
Drew cut him off before he could finish. “It doesn’t matter how many other problems there are,” he said, addressing the group as a whole. “The sheriff needs to be notified. It wouldn’t be bothering him. It’s his job. There’s been a death, after all.”
“Yes,” Parker remarked thoughtfully. “I can see your point. It should be reported.”
May went on blinking. Edna gurgled and nodded, apparently seeing the point also. Lillian harrumphed.
Daisy looked at Drew. He looked back at her with meaning and shook his head ever so slightly. He realized what Bud was going to say, the same as she did. Only, he didn’t want everybody else to realize it, too. Unlike the rest of them, Bud didn’t think what had happened to Henry Brent was an accident.
Bud was wrong. Of course it was an accident. It was obviously an accident. The secretary had been tippy. They had all noticed it and talked about it. They had even seen the piece wobble. Henry Brent had pushed it, or tried to adjust it, or was just standing in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the behemoth secretary had fallen on him and killed him. Terribly sad, but simple enough. Everyone thought so. Everyone had been shocked and horrified at the accident. No one supposed it to be anything but an accident. Except Bud Foster.
Except Bud didn’t know that the secretary had been tippy. He also didn’t know Henry Brent. The man had been ninety-four years old. He had been witty, generous, and extremely amiable. No one wanted to kill him. And that was what it boiled down to—killing him. Because if it wasn’t an accident, then it was murder. The idea was so startling to Daisy that she had difficulty wrapping her mind around it. Murder Henry Brent?
“I’ll make the call,” Kenneth volunteered.
“I think that would be wise,” Sarah concurred.
“Why you?” Lillian countered. “You don’t even know the sheriff.”
“No, but I—” Kenneth started to say.
“Parker could do it better than you,” Lillian informed him crisply.
“Now, my dear,” Parker protested. “This is Emily’s house. She’s the one who—”
“Daisy should do it,” Drew interjected.
They all turned toward him.
“Daisy,” he repeated with such decisiveness that nobody argued, “should call the sheriff’s office.”
The group looked at her. Daisy, in turn, looked at Aunt Emily. She was squinting at the tartan blanket.
“Yes, yes. By all means,” Aunt Emily responded absently, her thoughts clearly not on the conversation at hand. “You talk to the sheriff, Ducky.”
Daisy didn’t mind talking to Sheriff Lowell. He was smart and efficient, and her dealings with him in the past had been amicable. But she was curious why Drew insisted on her being the one to make the call. Her eyes went to him, and he once more looked back at her with meaning. He definitely had some reason. Maybe it was because he knew that she would handle the matter without making a great fuss, unlike Lillian and some of the others. A quick call and a quick appearance by Sheriff Lowell would be good all around. Drew and Edna were still propping up May on t
he settee, and by this point, everybody had an equally gray and worn appearance. Depressing as it was, May and Edna were right. No one could do anything for Henry Brent now. There was no purpose in dragging out the necessary formalities.
The clock on the marble mantel chimed six. It was early, but at least it was morning. Even though Sheriff Lowell wouldn’t in all likelihood be in his office yet, she could leave a message for him. As Daisy headed toward the phone in the entrance hall, she glanced at the glass panel above the front door. There was no sign of dawn, and the yellow glow from the porch lights had disappeared in the swirling snow. Wind rattled the door.
She shivered, although she wasn’t cold. This wasn’t how the weekend was supposed to go. It was meant to have been a party. She had planned on peacefully sleeping in that morning, not calling the sheriff’s office to report a dead body—dear Henry Brent’s body—lying squashed on the floor.
With a cheerless sigh, Daisy picked up the inn’s phone from the hall table and dialed. While it rang, she tried to figure out what she should say and how much to explain. Better to make it short and fast, she decided, like ripping off a bandage. She could go into all the unpleasant details when Sheriff Lowell arrived.
To her surprise, the phone kept on ringing and ringing, which was odd. Somebody was always at the office, all hours of the day and night. They had to be. It was the sheriff’s department. Daisy wondered if maybe she had misdialed. She checked the screen. The number was correct. Finally, there was a click and a friendly—albeit drowsy—female greeting.
“Pittsylvania County. George Lowell, Sheriff. Janice, here.”
“Hey, Janice. This is Daisy McGovern. Over at the Tosh Inn. I know it’s a bit early, but I wanted to leave a message for the sheriff.”
Janice yawned. “Sure can, luv. Only, he won’t get it today.”
“Oh.” Daisy was disappointed. “I thought he usually came in on Saturday mornings.”
“Sure does, luv.” Another yawn. “Only not today.”
She hesitated. Should she ask which deputy was on duty that day, or would it be better to wait and call Sheriff Lowell later at his home? He knew her and Aunt Emily well enough, so it wouldn’t be too great of an imposition.