by JOAN HESSS
A siren grew louder, accompanied by a drone of car engines. The shrill noise peaked, then died in a spiraling whine. Car doors slammed, voices shouted orders and counterorders, and feet thudded across the floor downstairs. The sheriff, his posse, and possibly a battalion of marines had arrived.
Caron picked up the telephone receiver. “I am going to call Inez. I need to maintain contact with the outside world; otherwise I’ll end up as crazy as the rest of you!”
“The rest of you” referred to, I suspected, that generation of people older than fourteen years of age. Wondering if she had a valid point, I returned to the drawing room to find out what was to happen.
The sheriff was issuing instructions to a bevy of scurrying minions, all dressed in trim beige uniforms and brimmed hats. The sheriff was similarly dressed, but the effect was less than impressive. I had expected a cartoon version of a rural lawman; the reality was a contradiction of the stereotype. He was a slight man, clean-shaven, with short dark hair and wire rimmed glasses. No bulldog jaw or expanse of girth. His overall appearance was that of an accountant hired to find a pesky error in the books.
“You’re—ah, Claire Malloy?” a deputy asked, stopping me at the foot of the stairs. “You’re here with your daughter Caron?”
I was ticked off on his list and sent to wait until the sheriff could talk to us as a group. My comrades drifted in as I had done, were asked their names, and then sent on to the drawing room. Dr. Chong Li tried a few questions, but was rebuffed with officious curtness. Not even Mrs. Robison-Dewitt could elicit any information, despite her threat to write an exposé on police insenstitivity in the Ozark Chronicle.
There must have been a reason to keep us sitting for over two hours, but it eluded me, as well as the others. Conversation seemed inappropriate; thinking, however, led to unpleasant images and a lot of chewed fingernails. I caught myself wishing I were upstairs on the telephone with Inez, although I might have run out of topics as the hours crept by. Caron and Inez would be strong contenders in a telephone marathon; their endurance was incredible.
Just at the point when rebellion was imminent, Peter and the sheriff came into the room. The sheriff took off his hat to wipe a veneer of sweat off his forehead, then said, “Several of my deputies are still at the crime scene, but we have completed the initial investigation.”
Déjà vu to the max, as Caron would say. From the shifting of bodies around me, I sensed that I was not the only one in the room reliving the moment in the dining room earlier, when Nickie Merrick had begun in the same way. Then it had been fun and games—a major difference.
“I have had a long discussion with the authorities both in Farberville and in my office, and we have decided that Lieutenant Rosen will take charge of the investigation,” the sheriff continued in a mild voice. “Although his jurisdiction is limited to Farbeville, he has been present since Friday afternoon and seems the logical choice. My men and I will remain to offer assistance.”
Peter gave us a bemused look as he stepped forward. “Strange, isn’t it? But we’ll all have to forget about the game and get on with the more serious problem so that we can go home.” He waited out a rumble of displeasure at the implicit warning that we might not be permitted to have brunch and toddle away in the morning. “Unlike our man from Scotland Yard, I am not going to publicly question the suspects and pass out the clues. I will see you one at a time, in the office near the back door. If in your sleuthing you saw anything at all that seemed incongruous, please tell me; in the meantime, you may return to your rooms or use the facilities of the inn.”
Mrs. Robison-Dewitt lifted a finger. “We know nothing of what has happened to Mr. Crundall. Therefore we have no way to determine what may or may not be congruent to your investigation, Lieutenant Rosen.” She managed to make his name an insult. I wondered if she still suspected Harmon would at any moment leap out of a closet to chortle at us. He would receive a chilly reception.
“Then perhaps you’d care to be the first to join me in the office?” Peter said levelly. Above his jutting nose, his eyes glinted with anger, but he managed to maintain a civil expression. “I’ll see the rest of you over the next few hours. Please remain available until your statement has been taken.”
School was dismissed. Although I was gripped by curiosity, I was not about to ask Peter any questions until my name floated to the top of his hit list. I finally decided to make an exit before I was coerced into speculation, and went across the lawn and through the garden. Mimi had not reappeared; I presumed she was still with Bella at the bungalow. I hurried through the garden.
Mimi met me at the door of the bungalow. “I’m glad you came, Claire. There are a million things I need to do, but I hated to leave Bella alone, even for a few minutes. The press will probably arrive in a herd, and we will have to serve dinner. Is everybody fairly—did the sheriff—oh, this is terrible! I don’t know if I can deal with it, Claire!”
I made encouraging noises and sent her back to the inn to face a crowd of distressed guests, inflated deputies, sulky staff, and whatever else she would encounter. Consoling Bella was infinitely easier, I thought, as I went into the bungalow.
Bella lay on the sofa, her face hidden under a compress fashioned out of a washcloth. She lifted one corner at the sound of my footsteps and said, “Claire, how kind of you to come.”
“I didn’t know if there was anything I could do, but I wanted to come,” I said, studying her grayish face for signs of an impending breakdown. Bella’s demeanor might have alarmed a doctor, but she seemed fairly composed. I suggested tea and busied myself in the narrow kitchen for a few minutes, then brought her a cup laced with brandy from a cabinet.
I offered my sympathies, then added, “All the guests are bewildered by the parallel events. We feel we’re reliving a scene from a previous life.”
“Mimi’s in a state of shock, poor girl. She kept repeating that it was all her fault for ever suggesting the mock murder, and looking as though she might start beating her breast and ripping out her hair in penance. She’s more upset than I am, although I suspect in my case the truth hasn’t sunk in yet.”
“Was it Mimi’s idea?”
“It was more Harmon’s idea, I’m afraid. He attended one of these weekends on a trip to New York last fall, and decided it was a wonderful project for our theater group. Once Harmon shoved a bee in his bonnet, an acre of clover couldn’t lure it out.”
“Then he introduced the idea to the theater and did the plot?” I asked.
“I don’t know who actually devised the plot,” Bella said. “I was busy with midterm grades at the time, and couldn’t attend the brain-storming sessions at the theater. Harmon thought it would be more amusing for us if we had no idea what the others were doing. We did go over some of the scenes together, but each of us was aware only of his or her own schedule, except when it coincided with someone else’s. Harmon had the only master, I believe. Would you like to see mine?”
Bella took a typed page from her suitcast and showed it to me. She had followed her directions well, showing up at the designated time to create the scene in the drawing room, then reappearing at both dinner and breakfast. A few notes were scribbled in the margins, but the directions were downright terse.
“No one wrote any dialogue?” I said, perplexed by the skimpiness of her script.
“Harmon felt that we ought to improvise the scenes as we went along, so that we would sound more spontaneous. We had precise times and explanatory material to be introduced, but we were on our own with the actual lines.”
“It was convincing,” I admitted. “I kept trying to figure out which of you were players and which were genuine money-paying guests. Your initial entrance was remarkable.”
“I was glad you were there to see it, Claire, and I enjoyed feeding you the story in the garden. Although I’m sure it wasn’t terribly ethical of me, I was rooting for you to solve the mystery … when it was a game.” She lowered her eyes and sighed.
“Now
that the game has been canceled, can you tell me about the clues and all?” Not terribly ethical of me, either.
“Harmon mentioned that he was writing some cryptic little messages to be salted around the scene, but I have no idea what they were. Frankly, I didn’t care. I spend enough time with childish pastimes during the week, and I was not enchanted with the idea of using a weekend for more of the same.”
“Then you are a high-school teacher, as you told me earlier? Was Harmon really a developer, or was that fiction?”
“He was a developer, and the first part of the story was basically true. However, our marriage was fine and he was not the womanizing monster I made him out to be. His major interest in life was the theater. I hoped we could travel once he retired, but he auditioned for a minor role, was chosen, and promptly fell in love with acting. Almost every night and weekend he was at the theater, directing or playing a role. He was the patron saint of the Farberville Community Theater, and the angel for most of the productions.”
“Angel?” I echoed blankly. It seemed extreme.
“It’s a theater term for the backer, the one who finances the production. Although the group is sincere and dedicated, the house receipts rarely pay the utility bills. Harmon felt needed, which was important to him.”
“How did Mimi fit in with the group?”
“She was our leading lady,” Bella said. “Harmon met her when the Vanderhans bought the inn, and learned that she had some experience on Broadway. No name in lights or anything like that, but small parts in real shows. Harmon was absolutely enchanted, and he insisted that she join the troupe. He even persuaded Eric to help with the sets.”
“She was quite good in her role,” I said. “I have her in my notebook as the most likely murderer—oh, I’m sorry, Bella. I didn’t intend to …” I could almost taste crepe soles in my mouth.
“Don’t worry about it. Harmon chose a most complicated time to be murdered, and I accept the fact that everyone is apt to confuse the two events,” Bella said, with more grace than I could have produced in a similar situation. “I just wish I knew when the curtain will drop on the second act of the play. I force myself to think about my flower beds at home, and about the mundane details that will occupy me. But I can’t do anything about a funeral until the body has been released, nor can I find the strength to notify relatives and close friends.”
She sank back, suddenly exhausted and old. I offered to call someone for her, but she shook her head. I refilled her teacup and left her to sleep.
I stopped in the garden next to the cherub, wondering how the day could be so pretty when it ought to be dreary and cold. The birds were cheery, the sky cloudless, the leaves on the trees and shrubs bright with pastel clarity. The cherub seemed pleased with his one-footed pose, and optimistic that at some point the water would once again dribble down to the leaf-filled basin beneath him.
I sat down on a bench to consider what had happened. That took about fifteen seconds, so I moved on to what I had learned about the theater troupe. No startling insights there; everyone was involved with an undemanding role. Husbands, wives, students. Harmon and Suzetta had been assigned the most difficult roles, but they had deported themselves well. Harmon had carried his role to a fatal conclusion, however.
My noisy sigh sent a bluejay flapping away with an angry squawk. Could the murdered have come from the outside? Nickie had told us that the gate was locked, but that might have been scripted. What we needed was a psychotic drifter who had seen the sign from the highway and drifted in to find food or money. He would have been more than a little crazy to row a boat across the lake, I concluded morosely. A bona fide drifter would have quietly drifted away, unconcerned by the aftermath of the crime.
I discarded the fantasy and tried for a more prosaic analysis. I mentally went over the time scenario I had written in my notebook, hoping I might be able to spot any movement that was not a part of the script. A clump of little gray matter expired without any success. But, I thought with a flicker of excitement, each player had only his or her schedule of appearances and confrontations, so none of them would be able to recognize a discrepancy in the plot any more than I could. If I could get my hands on the master script, then I could compare it to what I had in my notebook.
A vague return of the competitive spirit sent me to my feet. All I needed to do was to ask Mimi to locate the script, then take it away to study it. Peter could plod along with his fingerprint kit and tedious questions, while I solved the murder by sheer intuitive brilliance. Again.
A deputy stumbled into view and glared at me as if I’d taken an unauthorized recess. “Mrs. Malloy?” he panted, trying to sound ominous despite his ungainly entrance. “Lieutenant Rosen has been asking for you for over thirty minutes. You’re supposed to have kept yourself available for questioning.”
“A crime, Sergeant? I think not,” I retorted coldly.
He stiffened. “I’m a corporal, ma’am.”
I held out my wrists to invite handcuffs. “Drag me to the interrogation room, Corporal. But I will not talk, no matter how tight the thumbscrews. I have concealed a cyanide tablet on my body. Rather than betray my compatriots, I shall die first!”
There was no excuse to behave like that, and I should have apologized immediately and offered some excuse about the heat. Nevertheless, I lifted my chin resolutely and marched out of the garden toward the Mimosa Inn and the firing squad—as soon as someone lined one up. The deputy puffed along behind me, muttering words best left unspecified.
EIGHT
“I hope you don’t have any crazy ideas about trying to solve this homicide,” Peter said as I came into the office. “There is no champagne for the winner, nor is there any gourmet dinner. The game is over, Claire. I want you to keep your nose out of the investigation.”
Inwardly, I was less than warmed by the reception, but I pasted on a meek expression and said, “Of course not. I would never dream of interfering in a police investigation.”
“Why do I have such difficulty believing you?”
I did not tell him that his instincts were good. Instead, I settled for a martyred sigh, meant to convey how deeply he had wounded me with his callous remark. “I have no intention of involving myself in Harmon Crundall’s death. What time was he killed, by the way?”
“The medical examiner estimated the time of death to be between ten o’clock and midnight. Once he’s completed the autopsy, he’ll have an official report, but we’re presuming that the death coincided with the staged time.”
“A charming coincidence,” I murmured.
Peter sat back and ran a hand through his dark curly hair. “This whole thing is going to drive me crazy. The script was written so that any of the actors could be the villian in the story, and so, of course, not one of the actors has an alibi. A darkened room with people moving about; the boathouse conveniently placed out of the light from the porch; motives abounding but not necessarily real.”
“Have you finished with the statements?”
“I’ve seen most of the guests, and all of the troupe except for Bella Crundall, although I don’t expect to hear anything of value. Thus far I’ve heard the same story from everyone. The actors claim it was all a big shock, no reason for anyone to murder Crundall, a happy family of amateur actors presenting a weekend of fashionable entertainment.”
“How about the guests, then? Perhaps someone was nursing a grudge from a business deal, or is a closet maniac who got carried away with the ambiance.”
“Mrs. Robison-Dewitt had an identical theory. Guess whom she mentioned as the most likely maniac?”
“I don’t suppose she happened to leave the drawing room during the movie, a baseball bat in one hand?”
“You’ll have to discuss that with her. Now tell me what you saw and did from your arrival at noon yesterday.”
I dutifully told him of all my excursions and of the clues I had found in various places. I saw no reason to mention that Caron was the one who deciphered the cr
yptic clues, and I omitted my mental ramblings on general principle.
Peter jotted things down during my narrative, then flashed his teeth at me and told me that I was excused. Although I expected a stern word of warning as I left, he waved me out and began to reread my statement.
Caron was sitting on a settee in the drawing room, her lower lip extended to its utmost. “That man”—glaring at a deputy—“came to our room and made me come downstairs. I thought the Gestapo was disbanded at the end of World War II.”
“That’s the current theory,” I said. “Have you had your turn in the office?”
“No, I have been sitting on this lumpy thing for hours and hours, with nothing to do but stare at the wall. I didn’t pay any attention to what’s been going on, Mother. I fail to see why I, a mere child, should be interrogated as if I were a common criminal.”
The deputy edged closer, perhaps planning to thwart an escape attempt. From his expression (not warm), it was clear that Caron had already expounded on her self-righteous outrage for him, several times.
I gave her a stern look. “If you, a mere child, have seen nothing of interest, then I presume your interrogation will be brief. I’ll meet you on the porch.”
“I ought to call the American Civil Liberties Union,” she growled with a contemptuous sniff for her neo-Nazi jailer.
“If you decide to do so, please make it a collect call.” I left her to fume in chintzy solitude and went through the dining room to the kitchen to see if Mimi was there.
As I put my hand on the door, I heard a muffled sob. It was followed by a series of sympathetic noises meant to be comforting. Eric and Mimi, I realized as I let my hand fall back. I had no desire to interrupt a private conversation. On the other hand, the meek are going to have to wait a long time to realize their smog-ridden inheritance. I tilted my head and leaned forward.
“Oh, Eric,” Mimi wailed, “I just cannot bear all this—this guilt! It’s not my fault that Harmon insisted on doing the murder weekend. I told him that it was nonsense, but I could hardly refuse, since he …”