5 Death, Bones, and Stately Homes

by Valerie S. Malmont

  Praise for the novels of Valerie S. Malmont

  "Likable, eccentric characters, frothy hullabaloo, and humorous situations."

  -LibraryJournal

  "Intriguing... Malmont does a fine job of creating atmosphere [in Death Pays the Rose Rent] ...and Tori makes a resourceful heroine."

  -Roanoke Times and World-News

  "Malmont is a master at weaving the cozy tale.... [In Death, Lies, and Apple Pies ] the pace is riveting, the characters lovable enough to make the reader care what comes next, and the plot is intriguing enough to keep us guessing right to the end. It's a fascinating glimpse into small-town America."

  -The Mystery Morgue

  "[Death, Guns, and Sticky Buns] will appeal to fans who enjoy a cozy that stars a quirky, delightful character.... The fast-paced and humorous story line provides the audience with a glimpse of Pennsylvania Dutch small town living. As with the previous tales in this warm series, Valerie S. Malmont leaves her readers with a satisfied feeling, as if they'd just devoured a sticky bun."

  -Harriet Klausner, Amazon.com

  "[In Death, Snow, and Mistletoe] readers who enjoy wading through the clues and chaos Malmont liberally supplies will find that this cozy-albeit typically offbeat and cornyread provides a barrel of fun."

  -Publishers Weekly

  "Cute along the lines of Lilian Jackson Braun's cozies."

  -San Jose Mercury News

  Death, Bones, and Stately Homes

  More Tori Miracle Mysteries

  by Valerie S. Malmont

  Death Pays the Rose Rent

  Death, Lies, and Apple Pies

  Death, Guns, and Sticky Buns

  Death, Snow, and Mistletoe

  Death, Bones,

  and Stately Homes

  A Tori Miracle

  Pennsylvania Dutch Mystery

  Valerie S. Malmont

  For Nathaniel Malmont

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  As always, my thanks go to my critique partners, Francoise Harrison and Helen 0. Platt, for their invaluable assistance. I also want to thank Brad Gsell of the White Tail Refuge for providing a fascinating insight into deer farming. Last, but certainly not least, my thanks to Shirley Katusin for supplying me with authentic Pennsylvania Dutch recipes.

  Death, Bones, and Stately Homes

  One

  In the darkness, I grabbed my bedside phone to stop the annoying ring and was surprised to hear Garnet's voice calling all the way from Costa Rica. He sounded warm and loving, not exasperated and cold as he had when we parted in January. "I have something important to tell you," he began.

  In my eagerness to hear what he was going to say, I sat straight up. The phone rang again, and I remembered with great disappointment that there was no phone by my bed; it was the alarm clock I was clutching to my ear. In anger, I hit the snooze button.

  "Come back," I called, trying to recapture my dream, but the voice was gone, and I wanted to cry from the frustration of not knowing what he was going to tell me. A dream, only a dream, and yet it had seemed so real. Fred meowed in his sleep and moved closer to me. I stroked his soft orange-and-white tummy for a moment until the alarm sounded again. The best time for sleeping, I've always found, is in the early morning, so I closed my eyes and pulled the covers over my head.

  "Tori. Tori Miracle. Aren't you up yet? Your clock's been going off for half an hour." My landlady's voice, outside my bedroom door, had all the subtlety of a chain saw. "It's nearly seven!" she continued.

  I opened one eye and looked toward the window. Sure enough, morning sun was streaming through it.

  "You've got to get up now The exterminator's coming this morning, and I want to make sure he does your room. All that junk food you've got in your dresser has got to be attracting ants."

  Recently I'd discovered the Philadelphia delicacy called Tastykakes. Since they were neatly wrapped in plastic, I doubted they'd attracted anything from the insect kingdom. As I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, I became righteously indignant. How did Ethelind know what was in my dresser?

  "Hurry up," the chain saw rasped. "He'll be here soon." I heard her sensible shoes clumping down the hall as she hurried toward the front stairs. Reluctantly, I put my feet on the braided rug beside my bed, gathered my clothes together, and headed to the bathroom.

  All winter, I'd been the house-sitter for Ethelind Gallant and I thought she'd be gone for a full school year, but she returned from her sabbatical in England much sooner than I'd expected. She hadn't really had time to learn everything there was to know about contractions in Middle English, but I think she was worried that her house wouldn't stand up for nearly a year under my charge. She'd forgiven me the fire, but the collapsed front porch still irritated her. Knowing my apartment in New York was still sublet, she told me I was welcome to stay as long as I wanted. "I enjoy having company, and this is a huge house for just one person."

  It was indeed huge, and for one thing I was very grateful. With Ethelind home, I would no longer be paying the oil bill. That was particularly important since P.J. Mullins had resumed her rightful position as publisher/editor of the Lickin Creek Chronicle and kindly allowed me to stay on as part-time reporter, even though I'd lost a lot of her subscribers due to the Civil War-reenactment fiasco last fall. "They'll be back," P.J. reassured me. "We're the only paper in town."

  She'd even given me a week off with pay in January, and I used that time to fly to Costa Rica to visit Garnet Gochenauer, the former Lickin Creek police chief who was now a police adviser in Central America. That week had not been what I hoped it would be. Although the beach resort on the Pacific coast was beautiful and the weather had been warm and sunny, a nice change from the cold, gray skies of Pennsylvania's winter, our visit was strained at its best moments and miserable at the worst. Garnet seemed very different away from his natural south-central Pennsylvania habitat. More self-assured. Busier. Even happier. His life was full, and there didn't seem to be much room for anybody else in it, even me. He did say he wanted me to stay with him, but since he knew I had obligations back in Lickin Creek it didn't mean much. When we kissed good-bye at the airport in San Jose, I knew it was for the last time.

  During the next few months, I finished revising proofs of my second novel, a fictionalized account of what could have happened to the USS Eldridge in 1943 when it was rumored to have been teleported from Philadelphia to Norfolk, Virginia, during government experiments with invisibility. With great relief I mailed them to the New York publisher of my earlier book, The Mark Twain Horror House, and hoped she hadn't forgotten who I was.

  My mistake was dropping in on Alice-Ann MacKinstrie, my best friend, to tell her I was done.

  "Now that your book is finished and you're only part-time at the paper, you'll have time to help me out with the June house tour," she said. We were sitting at the round oak table in her country kitchen, drinking coffee from blue splatter-glazed mugs, and she had just finished telling me that she'd agreed to co-chair the annual fund-raiser for the Caven County Humane Society.

  "What do you want me to do?" I asked, reaching for another doughnut hole. "With my reputation for having houses fall down around me, burning down the historical society headquarters and the courthouse, and killing Senator Macmillan, if anybody knows I'm involved they'll back away in a panic."

  "Don't be silly, Tori. You didn't burn down the courthouse."

  If that was said to make me feel better, it didn't. I knew the blame for that disaster was still on my shoulders, even if I hadn't lit the match.

  "Since you're a writer, you can write the descriptions of the houses we're going to show For the tour-book. That doesn't sound too difficult, does it? And besides, it will s
how the townsfolk how much you want to fit in here." Alice-Ann had been my best friend since college, and she knew exactly how to manipulate me.

  "But isn't it the first weekend in June? That doesn't give me much time."

  "You can get it all done this week. The printer only needs a few days. Besides, the same people go on the tour every year, so there's not any real need to sell tickets in advance."

  I'd used up all my excuses, and my desire to be known as more than "that gal what burnt down the historical society," or even worse, "that New Yorker who got dear old Mack Macmillan blown to smithereens," was the clincher. I agreed to help her. Secretly, I was rather flattered. Poking about in old houses and writing about them would be a nice change from the routine my life had slipped into. "It might be fun," I said. That had been enough. In the next instant I was on the committee.

  The chain saw outside the bathroom door interrupted my thoughts. "Aren't you nearly done with your shower, Tori? I need to run the dishwasher."

  "Done," I called, turning off the water. There was no heat in the room, and despite it being mid-May, my teeth chattered from the cold. I quickly dried myself and pulled on jeans and my NYU sweatshirt.

  "Not staying for breakfast?" Ethelind sounded disappointed as she watched me jam my arms into my blue jacket. "I've got some nice kippers."

  "Thanks, but I promised Alice-Ann I'd meet her at eight," I said.

  "You will be here for dinner, won't you? I thought I'd fix a beef and kidney pie. It's a recipe I picked up at a charming pub called The Whole Hog, in a little town outside of..."

  I waved and was out the door before she finished. Once Ethelind-the-Anglophile got started on stories about her favorite country, she could and would go on for hours.

  Garnet's blue monster-truck waited for me in the circular driveway. I'd have to give it up soon, I knew, but figured I was doing him a favor by keeping it running while he was gone. I drove it down town to the Humane Society Thrifte Shoppe, located on Main Street in what used to be the Woolworth Building.

  When I tapped on the window, Missy Bumbaugh, the manager, looked up from the pile of clothes she was sorting, screwed her face up in displeasure, unlocked the door, and let me in. "Good morning," she said coolly, eyeing my casual outfit with disdain. In keeping with her position as wife of the president of the borough council, she always dressed as if she might be called to a meeting at the White House at any time. Today she wore a light blue suit with a white silk bow at the neckline. And high heels, of course, not sneakers like me. "You're late. Everybody else is already here."

  Alice-Ann's cheery voice called out a greeting from the darkness in the rear of the store. "Come on back," she called. "We're just getting started."

  I pushed aside the curtain that covered the door to the workroom and saw that the other members of the committee were already seated around the long table. Except for Alice-Ann, all the women present wore spring suits in pastel colors. Alice-Ann was slightly more casual in beige linen slacks, yellow silk T-shirt, and a matching cashmere sweater. That she could dress differently and get away with it spoke of her position in Lickin Creek society as a member, by marriage, of the town's first family.

  Once again, I was inappropriately dressed. How did they know, these citizens of Lickin Creek, what the dress of the day was to be? Did they have some sort of secret events calendar that told them what to wear on every occasion? And where could I get a copy?

  I was glad to see Maggie Roy, the town librarian and my good friend, at the table. She patted the empty chair next to her. "Saved you a seat, Tori. And I brought sticky buns and coffee. Help yourself and sit down."

  I put a large, gooey bun on a paper plate, doctored some coffee with artificial sweetener and creamer, and joined her. The reek of mothballs emanating from the boxes of used clothing behind me would have put me off my feed, if I hadn't been quite so hungry.

  Adelle Ashkettle, a dainty woman with eyes as round and cold as blue marbles, rapped on the table with the large gold-dome ring on her forefinger and announced that the meeting was called to order. "Mrs. MacKinstrie and I are delighted to have so many committee members here this morning. Bless you all for taking time from your busy schedules to be here today. It's less than two weeks until House Tour Day, so it's time to buckle down and put our shoulders to the wheel. Let's start with a moment of silent prayer."

  Everyone bowed their heads, so I did, too. I heard Adelle shuffling through some papers, and after a very brief moment, she said, "Amen. Let's see, Alice-Ann, do you have chairwomen lined up for each house?"

  Alice-Ann nodded, stood, and read a list of names. "Does everybody know what's expected of them? You contact the owner of the house you're in charge of and go through it, making note of which rooms are not to be open to the public. At the same time, you ask the homeowner to show you what items of interest she would like the tour guides to point out. And you determine whether or not you will need runners to protect the carpets. I'm sure you all remember what happened to the Laudermilch house last yearcleaning that rug took a good bite out of our profits. You also need to decide how many tour guides you will need positioned inside the house. And it is your responsibility to enlist them and make sure they show up. Please remind your guides that they have to keep an eye on visitors, to make sure nothing is removed or damaged. Any questions?" When nobody responded, Alice-Ann sat down.

  "Who's the refreshment lady this year?" Adelle asked.

  A woman at the end of the table raised her hand. "It's me, again. Same as every year. Everything's organized. We plan to serve cookies and punch in each dining room as the visitors leave."

  "No red punch, I hope," Maggie Roy said.

  "Of course not. When I think of that lovely sofa at the Bighams'..." The refreshment lady sighed. "I've contacted the Giant Big-Mart bakery manager, and he has offered to give us the cookies for free. Part of the company's community outreach program, I think."

  "You've done a wonderful job, Martha." Adelle smiled. "Let's move on to traffic control. Since nobody volunteered, I have shouldered the burden here and arranged to have the West End Volunteer Fire Department directing cars in the downtown area. Does the chairwoman of the ticket committee have anything to report?"

  A woman stood and said, "I can't do anything about ordering the ticket books until Janielle Simpson finishes the sketch of Morgan Manor for the cover. And I still need the house descriptions."

  Everybody turned and stared at me. "I'll get right on it," I promised.

  "Good," said Adelle. "I think that covers just about everything. Are there any questions?

  A hand rose. "What if it rains?"

  "It won't. It never has. Any other questions?"

  "How did you manage to get permission to show Morgan Manor?"

  "I have my ways. Since it's the first time we've shown the manor, I expect it to be the centerpiece of the tour." One of the women at the table spluttered an objection. "Don't worry Mrs. Houdeyshell, the Bride's House as always plays an important part of the tour. After all, it sets the tone-romance, June brides, all that. I only meant that since it has been shown every year, and since very few people have ever been inside Morgan Manor... oh never mind. If there are no more questions, the meeting is adjourned. We'll be back here next week at the same time. Until then, put your noses to the grindstone and get busy. We only have a short time to pull all this together."

  One hesitant hand went up. "Has the flower committee contacted someone about supplying plants for the houses?"

  A nod came from an elderly woman. "Fowler's Flowers will do it as usual, and there'll be no charge if we get a mention in the program booklet. You house chairs need to let me know what you'uns want pretty soon. We gots to order stuff in, you know"

  I was in the process of preparing to leave, when Maggie Roy beckoned to me.

  "Look what I found," she said in a low voice, as though trying not to be overheard. Maggie had knocked over one of the odoriferous boxes behind her when she scooted her chair back, and s
he was gazing at the spilled contents as if they were the jewels of Araby.

  "What?" I saw six or seven sweaters in pastel colors, pretty but nothing to get excited about.

  "Cashmere, all of them," Maggie said. "And in large sizes, too. This peach would look gorgeous on you, Tori."

  Although I resented her implication that I needed a large size, I couldn't resist taking the sweater she held out to me.

  "Perfect color," came Alice-Ann's voice from the other side of the room. "You should buy it, Tori."

  I wanted it. Really wanted it. I wanted to look like Alice-Ann did in her cashmere sweater and linen slacks. I wanted to look as if I belonged. I wanted to look tall, thin, and blond. "I can't afford cashmere," I began, but the manager interrupted me.

  "Of course you can. All our sweaters are three dollars. How many do you want?"

  I had ten dollars in my wallet, so I took three. Maggie bought the rest.

  Two

  Morgan Manor, originally known as the Matteus Morgan farmhouse, is located on a ten-acre portion of the original farm and is dramatic in size and appearance. It has remained in the ownership of the Morgan family since it was built in 1796 of native limestone.

  The fifteen-room farmhouse is built in the Federal style, which is reflected inside and outside the home. The porch with the Ionic columns was probably a later addition. As you stroll around the exterior of the house, please take notice of the finely chiseled masonry surface and narrow mortar joints on the front of the house, and the coarser stonework on the side and rear elevations. As you enter the home, the molded fanlight over the entranceway lights the center hall. Please stay on the plastic runners to protect the original pine floors. There are two staircases; the most formal curves upwards from the front hall, while the smaller service staircase leads from the kitchen to the thirdfloor servants' quarters. Be sure to take note of the walnut grandfather clock in the living room, a Morgan family heirloom. Use caution as you climb the staircase; there is a slight list and we don't want anyone getting hurt. On the second floor, there are six bedrooms with adjoining baths, which were added about forty years ago. Just imagine the luxury of soaking in ajacuzzi in an 18th-century house.