Death, Guns, and Sticky Buns

by Valerie S. Malmont

  Fred and Noel stayed close to me as the firemen charged in wielding a ton of fire-fighting equipment. The men checked the ceiling and walls, pulled down the drapes, and chopped a big hole in the floor to make sure the fire hadn't spread to the floor joists. After about an hour they seemed convinced that there was no further danger. By the time Ethelind walked in the worst of the smoke and smells had dissipated.

  Most of the trucks departed, leaving the fire chief and a few men to try to determine what had started the blaze. I tried to watch them, but my eyes kept blurring, and I grew so dizzy, I had to sit down. I hadn't felt this peculiar since the morning of my biopsy when I'd overdone the anti-anxiety medicine. I saw Chief Yoder bend over and pick up an ashtray that must have overturned during the commotion, perhaps as I'd knocked the tea table over trying to get the rug out from under it.

  “Looks like you were a lucky young lady,” he said, scooping a few cigarette butts off the floor. “Don't imagine you'll be doing much smoking when you're sleepy from now on.”

  “Look, Chief, I don't smoke.”

  He cocked his head and looked skeptically at me. “Your voice sounds kind of slurred. Were you drinking?”

  “I was not drinking. Except for some tea.” Ethelind's beautiful teapot and teacup lay on the floor, but by some miracle they didn't seem to be broken. “And I wasn't smoking. Why should I lie about it? Everybody who knows me will tell you I detest the smell of cigarettes.” Ethelind nodded her confirmation. “In fact, if that ashtray full of butts had been on the coffee table, I couldn't have sat down in here to read without emptying it and washing it out first.” I blinked, trying to bring the offending container into focus.

  “Are you trying to tell me that someone came in here and planted a dirty ashtray in the room while you were sleeping?” He laughed. I couldn't blame him. It did sound ridiculous.

  “Hey, Chief.” One of the firemen who'd been outside entered the room. “Take a look at this.” He held out a bag for Chief Yoder to inspect.

  “What is it?” I asked, after the chief had looked, smelled, and even tasted the contents of the bag.

  “Stuff I found on the rug you dragged outside,” the firefighter said. “Looks like a pile of dirty clothes that near burned up.”

  Chief Yoder looked thoughtful and nodded. “Did you leave some of your underwear on the floor?” he asked me.

  “Of course not. Wait a minute, do you think someone deliberately set this fire?”

  “I'm beginning to think so, miss. Did you hear anything? See anything?”

  “No, of course not.” Then I remembered something had happened. “My alarm went off upstairs at about ten o'clock. I thought I'd set it wrong. Now I wonder if it wasn't a trick to get me out of the room.” I looked at the empty teacup on the floor and began to shake. “My God, someone must have put something in my tea while I was upstairs. I got really sleepy a little while after I came back down. No wonder I feel so groggy.”

  Chief Yoder and one of the men got down on their knees and inspected the teapot and cup. “There's a little tea left in the pot,” the chief said. The assistant carefully carried the teacup and pot out of the room. “We'll check the contents,” the chief said. “Do you have any idea how somebody might have gotten in?”

  I started to say no, then realized I really had not checked to make sure anything was locked before I'd settled down to read. I'd been in Lickin Creek long enough to almost think like the natives that a locked door was “unneighborly.” Certainly locking up wasn't a major concern the way it had been in my Manhattan apartment.

  “You need to be more careful,” the chief warned.

  “I will.”

  “Can you think of anybody who'd want to hurt you?”

  “Nobody. I mind my own business and expect everybody to mind theirs. Why are you laughing like that?”

  “Because I've heard you're the biggest buttinsky to hit town since the Secret Service organized a fishing trip here for President Carter back in the seventies.”

  “But I haven't done anything to warrant this.” I gestured to the ruined parlor. “Oh my God!”

  “What?”

  “I just thought of something. Did you know that Professor Nakamura, from the college, was shot over in Gettysburg?”

  “Yeah. I heard about that. Damn shame. Nice guy like that. Probably some poacher out on the battlefield shooting at deer and hit him by accident.”

  “That's what I thought. But what if it wasn't an accident?”

  “You think he was shot deliberately?”

  “No, but I was standing right next to him when he was hit. Now that this has happened, I wonder if someone was aiming at me.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Tuesday Noon

  CASSIE WAS PREPARED FOR MY MORNING-AFTER headache. “Smoke inhalation,” she said. “It'll be days before you cough it all up. I didn't expect you to come in today.”

  I gratefully accepted the two Extra-Strength Tylenol she pressed upon me and washed them down with a glass of tepid tap water. I knew my nauseous condition came partly from the smoke, but I also blamed the unknown drug someone had slipped into my tea. “I needed to get out of the house. The cleaning crew sent by the insurance company is ripping the place apart.”

  “Are your cats all right?”

  “They feel a lot better than I do. Smoke rises, I guess, so they didn't get as much as I did. Thank God for Fred. He woke me up by scratching my face. If it hadn't been for him, we'd all be dead.”

  “He's a real hero,” Cassie said, agreeing with me. “How did Ethelind react when she got home?”

  I shuddered at the memory. “You'd think I had personally taken an ax to her floor. It took nearly a half hour and many dozens of apologies before she settled down. She even suggested she might not go to England after all because she was afraid of leaving her house in such incompetent hands.”

  “But it was an accident. You couldn't help it.”

  “You're right about one thing. I couldn't help it. But, Cassie, I don't believe it was an accident. That fire was deliberately set. I'm sure of that and Chief Yoder thinks so too.”

  Cassie gasped. “How could someone start a fire right next to you? Surely you would have woken up.”

  “I was drugged, Cassie. Someone slipped something into the teapot while I was upstairs. The chief took what was left to a lab today to determine what was in it.”

  Wondering why someone would want to kill me made my headache worse. And the physical discomfort reminded me I still hadn't heard anything about the results of my biopsy, except from the gossipy women at the baby shower who all seemed to know I was okay. “Cassie, can you please call Dr. Washabaugh's office for me?”

  “Sure. Do you think someone's going to be there?”

  “I don't know. Maybe there's another doctor filling in.”

  She dialed and listened to the receiver. “Someone's answering. Oh, shoot, it's an answering machine.” She listened a moment or two longer before hanging up. “Patients can come in any afternoon this week to have their records transferred to other doctors’ offices. No appointment needed.”

  “I'll be there. What's happening this morning?”

  After returning a few phone calls, I started on my rounds. First, a local farm where a giant pumpkin was on display. Second stop, the Caven County Prison to photograph the new caterer serving lunch. Back in the heart of town, I took pictures of some children from the

  Catholic school painting giant pictures of spooks, spirits, and shadowy shapes on windows of deserted stores. I was glad to see that some people could still have fun celebrating Halloween.

  The fourth and final photo opportunity was a picture of three ladies from the Lickin Creek Garden Society placing fresh potted chrysanthemums around the base of the fountain in the square.

  I glanced at the clock tower on the old Market building, now used for the borough offices, and saw it was getting late. I'd have to hurry if I wanted to get to Dr. Washabaugh's office before it closed. For a minute
I even thought I might postpone going, put off getting the bad news for one more day, but I knew I'd have to face it sooner or later. I got in the car and headed out of town.

  Because there was only one car parked in front of Dr. Washabaugh's former office building, I feared, then hoped, I was too late. The door, when I tried it, was locked. Feeling relieved because I wouldn't have to face my worst fears today, I turned to leave. At that moment the door flew open, and I heard Vesta Pennsinger's cheery voice. “Now, don't you go away, Tori. I was just getting the place redd up. What a busy day. You wouldn't believe how many people showed up.” She ushered me into the waiting room, chatting all the while. “Now, don't tell me. Let me guess why you'uns is here.”

  “No games please, Vesta. You know damn well I came for the results of my biopsy.”

  “I can't give it to you directly, Tori. I'm supposed to forward it to your new doctor, and then you can…”

  That was the last straw! Summoning up the image of John Travolta in Pulp Fiction, I grabbed Vesta by the front of her white smock and pulled her close to me.

  Right in her face, I muttered, “Give me my test results, Vesta. Or I'll…” I left it to her imagination to guess, since I really had no idea of what I'd do if she wouldn't give me what I wanted.

  She fell back against the divider wall when I released her and smoothed her clothes. “Okay, already. I'll get it. Hang on.”

  She darted through the door, and I followed close behind, watching as she went through the papers in the top section of an in-box on the counter.

  After a few minutes she waved a piece of paper at me. “Here. You can read it for yourself.”

  My hand shook as I took the report from her. I focused on the page of medical terminology, wondering what it all meant. One word leaped off the page. Negative. “That's good, isn't it?” I asked. Please let it be good!

  Vesta took it from me and read quickly through it. “Yo u ’re okay, Tori. It was a cyst. Nothing to be concerned about. Be sure and get a mammogram every year.”

  To my great surprise, I burst into tears. “I'll get you something to drink,” Vesta said, hurrying from the room. She returned in a few seconds with a paper cup full of ice water, which I swallowed in one gulp.

  Vesta pulled a couple of Kleenexes from a box on the countertop and handed them to me. I wiped my cheeks with one and blew my nose in the other. “Thanks,” I said. “I am so relieved! Don't know why I cried. Feel like an idiot.” I looked at her crumpled smock front where I'd grabbed her. “I'm sorry about that.”

  “It's okay, Tori. Everybody reacts differently. One woman who came in earlier got bad news about her Pap smear. After I told her, she actually started laughing.”

  “That is strange.”

  “And two men and one woman threatened to sue me because of all their records being burned up. Like we set that fire on purpose. Poor Dr. Washabaugh… it was just awful. I walked in and found her lying right there with papers from our files piled up around her… and burning… and the smell…” She covered her face, and her shoulders shook as she sobbed.

  I walked over to the counter to get a Kleenex for her, and noticed a report lying on the top of the stack in the in-box. It appeared to be test results. Edward Macmil-lan's name jumped out at me as if it were in neon letters. I read through it, feeling no qualms about invading his privacy; after all, he wasn't alive.

  It was snatched away from me by Vesta. “You can't read that,” she snapped. “It's confidential information.”

  “Look, Vesta, don't tell me about confidentiality. Not when you've spread rumors about my medical condition all around Adams and Caven counties.”

  Indignantly, she said, “I don't know what you're talking about.”

  “Of course you do. Nobody knew about my biopsy except Dr. Washabaugh, my landlady, and you. And obviously you were the only one who knew it came back negative. Last night, I was congratulated by people I didn't even know. It had to be you who told them.”

  She hung her head. “I didn't mean no harm, Tori. My mother always said my big mouth'd get me in trouble.”

  I couldn't help feeling sorry for her. She didn't appear to be malicious, only a woman who enjoyed being in a position where she had confidential information that nobody else knew.

  I retrieved Mack Macmillan's test results from her. It was from the Gettysburg hospital, and just as the coroner's report had said, Mack Macmillan had prostate cancer.

  “I guess he didn't know he had cancer, if this has come in since his death,” I said.

  “He knew. This was a follow-up test. The results came in the same day as yours.”

  “Was he going to have surgery?”

  Vesta blew her nose as she shook her head. “The urologist Dr. Washabaugh sent him to doesn't recommend surgery for men over seventy. He said it was a slow-growing type of cancer and Mack could live ten years or more if something else didn't kill him first.”

  “I imagine he was glad to hear there was no immediate danger,” I said, thinking of my own relief.

  “Not really. He didn't handle it real good. Even cried. Practically had to be carried out of here. Kept saying there had to be a mistake. That's why Dr. Washabaugh ordered the second set of⊙ tests.

  CHAPTER 16

  Tuesday Evening

  IT HAS BEEN SAID REPEATEDLY BY TOURISTS DRIVING past Lickin Creek on the Interstate that one can smell the grease from Lickin Creek's dozens of fast-food restaurants for miles before the town is visible. To celebrate my good news, I stopped at one of the eateries that Lickin Creek is so well known for and purchased dinner: two hamburgers, a double order of fries, a fried apple pie, and a Diet Coke, which I ate in the car while watching the ducks from the Lickin Creek comb the parking lot for crumbs.

  Back in Moon Lake, the cleaning crew had finished its work. Ethelind wasn't happy with the lingering smell of smoke, but they had assured her it would dissipate if she left all the windows open. Neither was she happy with the repairs made to her parlor floor, since the carpenters had used a wood that didn't exactly match the existing hundred-year-old planks, and she wasn't happy with me, either, on general principles. The cats took refuge under the bed in my room while I changed clothes. Although I wasn't exactly thrilled with what I had to do tonight, it was a lot better than staying home with my infuriated landlady.

  When I entered the kitchen, Ethelind turned her scowl on me, stared for a moment, then burst into gales of laughter. She clutched at her chest and collapsed into a chair, straining to catch her breath. “Oh, my, Tori. I've seen you wear some god-awful outfits, but that one takes the cake!”

  I stared down at the voluminous blue skirt that lay in ripples on the floor around my feet. “I didn't have time to shorten it.”

  Ethelind stopped laughing long enough to say, “Please tell me that isn't the latest thing in cocktail gowns from Barney's.” Impressed with her own wit, she blew her nose into a paper napkin and laughed some more.

  “I'm a nun,” I explained.

  “A bloody Flying Nun, I'd say.”

  I adjusted the enormous wings of my starched white cornette. “A Sister of Charity,” I said with great dignity. “You can call me Sister Camilla O'Neil. I died of blood poisoning while tending the wounded at the Lickin Creek College for Women during the Civil War.” A brief biographical sketch had been enclosed with the costume, with a note telling me how to act and what I should say whenever someone entered the attic.

  With yards of navy blue cotton bunched up on my lap, I drove to the college, thinking that it was all worthwhile if my costume had brought the smile back to Ethelind's face. At the college, I was directed to a parking place behind the administration building. Thankful I wouldn't have to hike up the hill from the visitors’ lot, I got out, shook the wrinkles out of my habit, and entered the building through the back door. A group consisting of nuns, Union and Confederate soldiers, and college girls in long gowns was gathered at the foot of the stairs, listening to Helga Van Brackle give directions.

&nbs
p; “You're late,” she said to me.

  “Only a little,” I said with a smile, determined to show everyone she didn't intimidate me one bit.

  “I'll get to you in a minute, Tori. Please be patient while I tell the girls what to do.” Even though she spoke to me as if I were a freshman, I kept smiling. One of the gowned students winked and handed me a program, and I read The Lickin Creek College for Women presents the Annual Harvest Time Legends Tour featuring Tori Miracle as the Nun in the Attic.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “What's this ‘featuring Tori Miracle’ business?”

  Helga simpered as the girls giggled. “You're our Celebrity Ghost this year. I thought you knew that.”

  “I didn't expect this,” I said gruffly, but way down under my habit I was tickled with the attention. Maybe I wasn't a big name in the literary world, but at least I was recognized in south-central Pennsylvania.

  The girls were to be the guides and ticket takers, I learned. They represented the six original students who had been brave enough to seek out higher education equal to that offered to men. A man in a black suit played the part of the Presbyterian minister who had founded the college in 1860. Another man in black, with a stovepipe hat and a beard, was obviously portraying Abraham Lincoln. Keeping a low voice, I asked one of the guides, “What's he doing here? I never heard anything about President Lincoln coming to Lickin Creek.”

  Unfortunately the acoustics in the hall were very good, and Helga threw me a dirty look. “If he hadn't died at such an inopportune time, I'm sure he would have visited our town when the war was over.”

  Helga handed each of us a flashlight, a supply of candles and matches, and a small lantern. “Make sure all the lights are off in your area, then assume your assigned positions. The first guests should be coming through in about ten minutes, so please have your lantern lit with the chimney on. And keep your eye on them. We don't want a repeat of last year's near-tragic accident. Repairs to the second-floor carpet took all our profits. And don't use your flashlights unless it's absolutely necessary.”