Death of an English Muffin

by Victoria Hamilton

  “She’s sure she didn’t drift off or fall asleep after her mother left the room?”

  “Ms. Schwartz is a very credible witness. She was calm and certain of her facts.”

  “Is Patsy going to be okay? Is she conscious?”

  He shook his head. “Not yet, and the doctors don’t want to awaken her at this point until they do all the testing.”

  I tugged him over to the fireplace, pushing him down onto the settee. “I have a lot to tell you, Virgil. Not facts, not stuff I’ve been holding back, but things I’ve noticed. Things I’ve heard.”

  Frowning, his thick brows drawn together over his dark eyes, he said, “What, guesswork? Unless you have facts—” He paused and shook his head. “I almost said unless it was facts I didn’t want to hear it, but I know better than that. I know you better than that.” He took a deep breath and said, “I’ll listen to anything.”

  “Thank you,” I said, afraid my voice would tremble. I needed him to take me seriously. I told him all I had heard and talked about over the last few weeks, finishing up with the conversation I’d heard between Patsy and Barbara the day before. “Patsy told Barbara she couldn’t keep quiet anymore,” I said. “She sounded upset, worried. She claimed it was just that she was the one who had invited Cleta to Wynter Castle, but I don’t believe that for a second. I wish I had pushed her harder to find out what she was talking about.”

  Virgil sat back, his eyes turned down, staring at his hands as he drummed a beat on his knee. “Though she was talking to Barbara, you really don’t know if what she said she couldn’t keep quiet about concerned Mrs. Beakman.”

  “I was sure it did, at first, but now, thinking back . . . she didn’t say anything definitive to suggest that.”

  He met my gaze, his brow furrowed. “She could have been telling Mrs. Beakman that she couldn’t keep quiet about something about one of the other ladies. Or even Lauda. In fact, it could be something that would pinpoint who killed Miss Sanson or it could be about something else entirely, something in the past.”

  “So that may not help us figure out who did this at all.” I thought about another conversation I’d had, and related to him what I had spoken to Barbara about, concerning secrets the ladies had. Why had I let Lush off the hook in all of this? I wondered. Surely she knew these secrets that Barbara spoke of? I saved that thought for later.

  Virgil eyed me, speculation in his gaze. “What’s going to happen if I go to Mrs. Beakman and demand answers?”

  “She’s going to shut down,” I said promptly, sensing a deal in the offing.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “She may even be the murderer, Virgil; you can’t risk spooking her. She has a lot of money. If you try to question her too closely, she’ll . . . What do they call it? Lawyer up?” I could see him thinking and pressed my advantage. “Right now whoever did it, Barbara or someone else, thinks she’s smarter than we are. Especially me.”

  He could see where I was going and shook his head. “No, no way. You’re not asking questions without me here.”

  I was silent, startled by his vehemence. Reluctantly, I said, “Okay, I won’t, if you don’t want me to.”

  “I don’t want you to. Don’t just write them off as older ladies with health problems. One of them has been crafty and lethal; it doesn’t take strength or youth to kill someone, just ruthlessness and a certain shrewd nature. Don’t poke the bear.”

  I let it go for the moment. Something was tugging at my brain, and it finally came to the surface. I practically yelped in surprise. “Virgil, I have a question. The right answer could explain the locked-room part of the mystery.”

  I related the conversation I’d had with Juniper, and how she had told me the two reasons Cleta Sanson didn’t want Shilo as her maid: first, she was irritated by my friend commenting on the smell of smoke in her room, because the woman would sneak the occasional puff of her favorite expensive smokes. “But also, Cleta was obsessive about her towels; they had to be just so, folded the right way and hung exactly right. I wonder if she was smothered and passed out? The killer thought she was dead but she revived, locked the door because she was afraid of the killer coming back, then straightened the towels. Even sick, it might be the kind of thing an obsessively tidy person would do, wouldn’t it? Then, suffering from the near-death experience, having trouble breathing, she opened her purse, spilled the nitro pills, and then collapsed and died.”

  He nodded. “It sounds far-fetched, but given the woman, it could be possible. I’ll call the doc and ask him. Anything else?”

  “I really believe it’s tied into their past together, Virgil.” I eyed him and went back to the point of contention. “I have to talk to them, but you know I won’t be stupid. If one of them tried to kill Patsy, that means she’s getting desperate. I won’t have anyone else harmed in my home.”

  He growled; I’m not making that up. He made a low, rumbling noise in his throat, then said, “Damn, I wish you’d listen to me once in a while.”

  “I do listen, Virgil, but what can I do? I can’t clear them all out. Who knows which one did it? Look, I won’t interrogate anyone purposefully or take any risks. I won’t ask too many questions, but if I happen to hear anything I promise I’ll tell you right away.”

  He was torn, I could see it on his face, and he didn’t say a word. But what could he do, forbid me from talking to my guests? There were undoubtedly legal sanctions he could slap on me, but he was loath to do it. I let him get back to work, and I did the same. From one of the upstairs windows I saw him drive away from the castle a few minutes later.

  Juniper had done a stack of laundry the day before, so I distributed fresh towels to the ladies’ rooms, chatting briefly to each of them, comforting where I could, all the while thinking of Patsy and Pattycakes, and hoping the little lady was going to be okay. Pish was sitting with Lush as she tried to nap. He had called the hospital and talked to Pattycakes, who told him she was staying with her mother until she knew more. They were doing scans and X-rays. Patsy was in ICU, where no visitors other than family were allowed, so there was no point in anyone else coming to the hospital just yet.

  I spoke to Hannah, briefly, then while Emerald served breakfast to my guests, I got down to some work. While I’m thinking I have a tendency to tidy and sort. It makes my thought process more orderly. I shut myself into the storage closet that used to be my uncle’s office and rearranged the shelves, then tried to improve the storage system. Toilet paper, cleansers, towels, paper towels, rags, glass cleaner: each now had a regimented home, lined up like little rows of cleaning soldiers. I disposed of wrappers, dusted, and stacked lists and some papers together along with receipts from the closest big-box store, where I had stocked up the month before on toiletries and cleaning products.

  Who killed Cleta Sanson? I had learned from Hannah—Virgil didn’t have the decency to tell me—that Minnie vehemently denied using her little postal truck to spy on the castle that day, but one of her roomers who was a library client said that the postal worker was careless with her keys. Anyone could have lifted them, made a copy, and taken the truck whenever she was busy or sleeping or working. So Lauda was not out of the mix, and she was still the one who benefited most from Cleta’s death, as far as I knew. But why attack Patsy, if Patsy was indeed pushed and didn’t simply fall? Patsy may have known something. I still needed to talk to Barbara and see if I could get her to reveal what Patsy meant when she said to her that she wouldn’t keep quiet any longer.

  I’d have to be careful; Barbara was a suspect, after all. Going to the kitchen for more food that afternoon was a great cover-up for being in the right place to smother Cleta. If she was particularly cold-blooded she could have done the deed, filled her plate, and come back to her table. The same with Vanessa, who was in and out of the dining room at least once or twice. Her past as a movie star left ample room for speculation as to her “secrets
.”

  Did she have any weird fans or obsessed men? As a noir star surely she attracted a slightly offbeat following.

  I hopped out of the tiny room and grabbed my cell phone, then retreated back to the airless closet and called Hannah again.

  “Hey, sweetie, how are you?” I asked when she picked up.

  I had already told her about the awful events of the night, but she asked if I had heard any more about Patsy’s well-being. I had nothing to tell her. I then asked her, my favorite researcher, if she could find out about Vanessa’s film career and if it intersected much with her personal life. I wanted to know specifically about any scandals in her past, other than the ones she’d shared with me. It had to be something juicy, but something of which she was either not suspected or there was no proof she was involved. She said she’d call me back. I fetched a wet rag and began to wipe down the vacuum cleaner and carpet shampooer, which I liked to look clean when they were being used in the ladies’ rooms. I wasn’t running a hotel, but I still wanted everything shipshape. I pondered the problem of Lush. Had Pish found out what was behind her past trouble with Cleta? I hadn’t thought to follow up on that. I just could not picture sweet, dithery Lush smothering Cleta and pushing Patsy down the stairs.

  All that had taken a few hours. I finished up, showered, dressed and descended to the kitchen. Lunch was coming up, and I had no idea what to feed a houseful of folks who were scared, worried, and—at least one of them—guilty. Soup. Homemade soup cures all ills, I’m convinced. As I cooked, Hannah called me back. “So, find anything?” I asked.

  “About Vanessa, not much,” she said. “There were a few notable scandals, but she’s been pretty open about them. When she was just a teenager a woman she was staying with died on vacation. A few years later a man who was obsessed with her threatened her life, and when he was arrested he committed suicide in jail. His family claims she led him on.”

  “Sounds like something a family of a dangerous person would want to think, rather than that he was seriously ill and needed help.”

  “That’s what I thought. Vanessa released a statement at the time saying she felt bad for the family. She paid for his funeral.”

  “Anything else?” I stirred the soup, tasted, and added some pepper.

  “There was an accidental death on the set of one of her films, but according to reports at the time, she wasn’t even there that day.”

  “That’s probably the one she told us about. Still, that’s a few deaths near her.”

  “You have a few, too, don’t forget, and you weren’t responsible!” she said.

  “You’re right.” I thought for a moment, but none of those past scandals felt connected. Though I could be wrong. “You said about Vanessa, not much. Does that mean you found something out about someone else?”

  “I did a little random digging and found something interesting. It probably doesn’t mean anything, though. Did you know that Patsy Schwartz declared bankruptcy?”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  I WAS STUNNED. “Our Patsy Schwartz?”

  “One and the same,” Hannah said with satisfaction. “She filed just over a year ago. I have a hunch she tried Chapter Eleven first,” she said, then explained that meant a reorganization of debts. “But she was forced into a Chapter Seven, which is liquidation. She even lost her New York condo and moved to a rental. When I found out about the bankruptcy, I hope you don’t mind but I called one of the people I met at your Halloween party, that real estate agent Melanie Pritchard, and asked if she knew anything about it. She knew about the condo sale and why, and she told me everything, since I already knew about the bankruptcy.”

  I sat down and thought about our conversations; it was starting to make sense, the contradictions in the woman’s life. All Patsy’s lavish spending was in the past. Even the expensive cosmetics she favored and still used were now sparingly applied and thinned, as I had heard. Then I thought of the two thousand dollars in cash Cleta Sanson had taken out of the bank but which we had never found. Cleta was the wealthiest of the bunch, with a banking and investment background. Was it intended as a loan to Patsy? Or a payment for some reason?

  “Okay, that’s given me a lot to think about.” I wondered if Pish knew about Patsy’s bankruptcy; as a financial advisor he might, and not think it was anyone’s business.

  “But there’s more,” Hannah said.

  “Oh?”

  “Mrs. Schwartz was apparently accused of check kiting, though she settled the problem without going to court over it.”

  I knew what check kiting was; Leatrice Pugeot, the model for whom I once worked, had a little problem with that when she was short of funds. An example of check kiting is writing a check on one account for more than the amount you actually have in it, depositing it to a second account at a different bank, then using the money, even though it is nonexistent. It only works if you have the ability to draw on a check you deposit right away. In Leatrice’s case she could be sweet as sugar and talk her second bank into letting her cash a check immediately. She honestly didn’t think she had done anything wrong, and it took her lawyer a while to sort it out and help her avoid prosecution.

  I told Hannah about it, and she agreed that the likely answer was that Patsy either didn’t realize she was out of funds or simply didn’t think what she was doing was wrong. Or she was desperate and thought that somehow she’d be getting money to deposit to make good on the check before it was sent to her main bank. At the very least it indicated a person who wasn’t above bending the rules.

  “That’s all very interesting, but it’s usually the blackmailer who dies, not the victim. If Patsy was blackmailing Cleta for something and the two thousand was a payoff . . .” I got lost in my thoughts, stirring the pot.

  “Blackmailers usually have more than one victim, though, don’t they?” she asked, cutting into my musings. “And Merry, who is to say Cleta didn’t threaten Patsy somehow, and so Patsy killed Cleta? You can’t rule out Mrs. Schwartz just because she fell down the stairs.”

  “Dang. You’re right. I had kind of eliminated Patsy as a suspect because of the fall, but it could still have been an accident. Thank you very much; I’m now right back where I started, with everyone as a possible murder suspect.”

  “Sorry about that,” she said, with a chuckle.

  “You’re not sorry at all. I do have one more question,” I said. “If you’ve got the Internet up right now, maybe you can find out for me.” I asked what I wanted to know, and she set the phone down. I could hear the tap-tap-tap of her keyboard and a slight gasp.

  She came back on the phone and read a news piece out to me that confirmed what I had wondered about, a tiny detail that had snagged me when I’d seen it but hadn’t really jibed with anything until I’d heard all of Hannah’s information. “How awful,” I said sadly. “I think I really do take people too much at face value. Okay, go back to your books, librarian, and don’t you worry about any of this.” I didn’t need to warn her not to say a word about our conversation to anyone.

  I finished making the soup, but everyone had, according to Emerald, retreated to their rooms after breakfast and had not yet emerged. Pish was closeted with a weepy Lush. I made a mental note to ask him about Lush’s past dealing with Cleta. I couldn’t imagine her as the culprit, however . . . I didn’t want to rule anyone out just because I liked them. It was a jumbled kind of day. I’d wait on serving lunch until everyone felt up to it.

  I went back to the storage room to empty the garbage and sorted through the receipts and other papers I’d collected. One appeared to be a note on a stained and crumpled piece of paper. I unfolded it.

  It was an old letter written in a sloping cursive script, slanting down the page.

  Cleta,

  Please don’t judge for what I said last night . . . very drunk . . . very upset. I did what I did and I’m ashamed, but no going back, no point in c
onfessing now, right, my friend? Please don’t say anything to the others. Couldn’t bear the looks. I’ve paid, God, how I’ve paid. You don’t know. Let’s just forget everything I said. I was drunk and it’s over now anyway.

  I sat down on the floor and stared at the handwriting. I’d seen it before and had a feeling I knew to whom it belonged. This felt like a confession of sorts, to Cleta, of all people. Or more like acknowledging a confession and asking for silence. But how did the paper get in my storage closet?

  I thought I knew why the note was hidden in the storage room, and I had an idea of what had happened to Patsy and, finally, who’d killed Cleta. Hannah’s information had given me the last piece, the why of the whole thing. There was only one secret worth killing for. One fact that Virgil may already have was all I needed.

  I hustled out, got my cell phone, and raced outside to call Virgil, not wanting to be heard by anyone in the house. I walked him through my deductions and read him the note. I told him who I thought had written it, and who’d put it in the storage room and why, and how it had all led inevitably to the troubles. Then I asked him one question. “You asked me some questions about lipstick, and I remembered seeing a smudge on Cleta’s glasses. I could picture the killer holding on to her, smothering her, bending over to keep hold and maybe even smudging her lips accidentally against Cleta’s glasses. I know you took items from each of the ladies’ rooms. Have you identified whose lipstick it is?”

  He said he had. I made a guess at whose lipstick it was, and he reluctantly confirmed my deduction. “It’s not enough to arrest her,” he said, flatly, of the murderer. “It’s all too vague and circumstantial. I appreciate the info, and I think we’re probably right, but I can’t make an arrest. I’ll do some more investigating and see if we can build a case, but it’ll take a while.”