“Oh, but I did see!”
I whirled around to stare down at my mother. She was looking up at me, her brown eyes clear and direct.
“That’s impossible, Mom. You were in your room, asleep when—”
“I woke up!” She leaned to her right to peer around me. “Isn’t that right, Lucy? And we went to Lucy’s room to get a book, and that’s when I saw him.”
John and I turned to face Lucy at the same time. Before I could say anything, he spoke.
“Lucy? Is that true?”
The girl looked terrified as she slowly rose to her feet. Wringing and twisting her apron, she said, “Aye, Doctor. We did, sure. Went down from Miz Wilder’s room to get a book.” Her eyes widened. “But I didn’t see nothin’! I swear it! I never even saw this Percy fella, not alive and God help me, not dead!”
“That’s true,” my mother added. “Lucy left me in my in the hallway while she popped into her room to get the book. She was in there when Professor Plum sneaked up the stairs at the end of the hall. It was dark at the far end, but I saw the candlestick in his hand. Lucy never saw him, but I did.” A sharp nod of her head punctuated her certainty.
John crouched in front of my suddenly and incredibly coherent and articulate mother.
“Mrs. Wilder?” he said softly. “Who did you see? Who was the man with the candlestick?”
Chapter 10
8:30 P.M.
You could have heard a pin drop. Everyone’s attention was riveted on my mother, though she seemed unaware of the commotion she was causing. After all, in her mind, she was just playing a child’s game. Her hands were folded neatly in her lap. A slight smiled curved her lips as she blinked up at John.
John cleared his throat and repeated, “Who was the man with the candlestick?”
Her lashes fluttered and she looked a little disconcerted. “What man?”
He flicked a quick glance at me, then returned his attention to my mom. “Professor Plum. In the hall. Can you describe him?”
Her mouth turned down and she seemed to retreat into herself again. “When?” She stared at him, crossed her arms, scowled. “Who are you?” she demanded. “Why are you badgering me like this?”
My heart skipped a beat. She was gone again. Her bewilderment had bloomed into anger and from experience, I knew we’d get nothing more out of her.
I exchanged looks with John. “I’m sorry. She won’t—”
He raised his hand to halt my remarks. Still crouched before the wheelchair, he simply watched her. The expression on his face told me he was thinking, analyzing, trying to find the key that would unlock my mother’s mind.
This was a very serious situation—a young actor lay dead a few rooms away and his killer was undoubtedly pretending to be a guiltless observer of this scene. Whether my mom truly had seen the killer, it was impossible to know. Was there really a “Professor Plum” or was she merely replaying a game from years ago?
Add to it the fact we were snowbound and vulnerable, somebody had put two puncture wounds in her neck, I found all I could think about at the moment was John Mercilus, and what it would feel like if he kissed me.
I am a disgusting piece of garbage. I am beyond inappropriate. What is the matter with me? This man is a vampire and maybe even a murderer, and in spite of all that, I have never been so attracted to a man in all my life. Ever! Am I sick or just too stupid to live?
As soon as I thought it, however, I knew John was innocent. Somehow, I just knew he hadn’t killed anybody. I was letting the fact he was a vampire and the fact he’d been late meeting me in the study, plus the fact Mom had puncture wounds in her neck divert me from looking at other members of the household as potential killers.
The flip side to that, of course, was that he really was guilty and my attraction to him was blinding me to the reality he was an evil blood-sucking monster and my mother and I were undoubtedly his next victims.
I tilted my head and evaluated what I’d just been thinking. Nope. That didn’t fly either. There was no way John Mercilus was a bad guy. I’d even be willing to bet that the “blood” I’d seen on his sweater was just red paint. Yes. That was it. He’d been painting a, um, oh, I don’t know, a fire hydrant maybe? Sure. That made perfect sense.
All around us, the room was quiet. Nobody spoke. Nobody moved.
I continued to watch John as he observed my mother, undoubtedly assessing the situation to better determine how he might craft an approach that would get more information out of her.
I knew from experience it would be nearly impossible, but she had shown remarkable clarity this evening for the first time in years, so who knew what might happen?
John was so intent, I could almost see the gears turning inside his head. For a moment, I thought I could actually hear them. Then I realized that the clicking and tapping I heard weren’t the cogs and wheels in his brain, but the hurried footfalls of someone quietly heading for the door.
Somebody was trying to beat a hasty retreat.
I could tell the moment John heard it, too. His gaze shifted from my mom to me, and he rose to his feet, turning around to face the man tip-toeing toward the door.
“Going somewhere, Professor Plum?” When the man made no reply, John demanded, “Well?” His accusatory bark shook the room like a roll of thunder. “Okay, tell me this. Why did you change your clothes… Igor?”
Igor swallowed and gave a nervous little shrug. His eyes bulged so much, he looked like a carp staring out of an aquarium. “I was, you know, uh, dirty,” he stammered. “I, uh, wanted to change before dinner, see.”
Wolf left the loveseat and moved to stand next to John. “This is being not true, Doctor,” he said. “Inside we worked, because of the storm. I am not getting dirty. He is not getting dirty.”
Of course! Earlier that day, Igor had been wearing the same color T-shirt shirt as Wolf.
The shirts were purple.
Purple—like a plum.
Wolf was still wearing his shirt, but Igor had changed. Was that because there was blood on it?
Abruptly, my mother pushed herself out of her wheelchair and stood. My breath caught. Mom hadn’t possessed the strength to stand or walk unaided for several years, yet here she was, standing straight and tall and proud.
“Mom?” I choked, overcome with emotion at the sight of her looking like her old self. When she wobbled a bit, I put out my hand to help steady her. “Did you want to say something?”
She nodded and raised her chin in obvious triumph. Lifting her arm, she pointed straight at Igor.
“Professor Plum!” she announced. “In the Hall with the Candlestick! Woof!”
Across the room, Igor’s expression changed from trepidation to terror. He forced a smile, then shrugged again and gave a cajoling little laugh. “Hey, listen. You can’t believe her. She don’t know what she’s talkin’ about. Like the Missus there was sayin’, she’s got Alzjammers, for God’s sakes.”
Before anyone could respond, Igor lunged for the door, grabbing for the knob with both hands. But before he could get the door open and make good his getaway, John and Wolf were on him. Amid grunts and curses, John wrestled Igor to the floor and pinned his arms behind his back.
Not even breathing hard after the tussle, John said, “Wolf. Find something to tie up this son-of-a-bitch.”
With a quick, “Yes, sir,” Wolf jumped to his feet and hurried from the parlor. Behind me, the movie people applauded as though this were a performance staged expressly for their entertainment.
But Percy Usher’s death was no stage production. He was well and truly dead. Murdered.
I remained silent, continuing to hold my mom steady, but as John yanked Igor to his feet and shoved him into a chair near the fireplace, I said, “Igor? Did you kill Percy? Was it you my mother saw in the hallway?”
His expression was flat, his head slightly bowed, his jaw clamped tightly shut.
At that moment, Wolf entered the room with a length of rope. Together, he and John
tied Igor’s hands and feet, trussing him up like a Thanksgiving turkey.
When he was through, John gestured toward me. “Answer the lady. Did you kill Usher?”
Slouching down into the chair, Igor shrugged again, then gave a half-hearted nod.
“Why? You didn’t even know him.” John crossed his arms and looked hard at Igor. “Or did you? Yeah, that’s it. You did know him. And more significantly, he knew you.”
Igor pursed his lips. “Aw, hell,” he sighed. “It’s over now anyway.” He straightened in his chair. “Yeah. I knew him. We was roomies together for a little stint in Camarillo.”
The movie people had been pretty quiet until now, but on hearing Igor’s confession, Robert Renfield put his hands on his hips. An expression of shock distorted his features.
“Camarillo?” he yelled. “The California State Mental Hospital for convicted felons? Rapists? Sexual predators?”
Igor cracked a smile. “Yeah. Some fun, huh.”
Teri Van BoobBounce gasped. “Percy was there? He was one of them? My Percy?”
This got a derisive snort from Igor. “Your Percy, my ass. He was everybody’s Percy, whether they wanted it or not. He wasn’t real good at takin’ no for a answer. Besides,” he said on a tired breath, “when I knew him, his name wasn’t nancy-boy Percy Usher. It was Les Fester.”
Felix Karloff piped up. “So you killed him because he recognized you?”
“Yeah. I thought movin’ this far north, I’d never see the guy again. But what do you think? The little perp walks right into my life, sees me, and informs me for a few bucks, he won’t say nothin’. So I put it out I’ll tell on him, and he says I got more to lose than he does, so I solved the whole dillenema with one of them big brass candlesticks from the cabinet in the study. He was looking for porn when I rang his bell. Permanently.”
John crossed his arms over his chest. “The candlestick. Where is it now?”
Igor’s eyebrows rose. “Tossed it out my window in the snow somewheres. I imagine it’ll turn up after the melt, but I’d planned to be long gone by then.” He smiled. “Long gone and scot free.” He snorted. “Shit. Busted by some old lady in a wheelchair. What’s this world comin’ to anyways?”
I looked at my mother. She smiled at me, then at John. Finally, she turned her attention to Igor. “I have only one thing to say, you little prick.” With a saucy lift of one brow, she widened her grin and whispered, “Woof!”
An hour later, the police and coroner had been summoned and would arrive as soon as the roads were passable. Igor was still tied up and had been locked in a small laundry cupboard with no windows and no means of escape. My mom had stayed pretty quiet after the wild events of the evening and had gone to bed soon after.
The movie people meandered about the parlor, trying as best they could to understand what had happened. Renfield was rather philosophical about it though, saying, “Hey, just another day in Hollywood.”
When everyone had gone, I went to the fireplace and stared into the bright flames, trying to give my brain time to process the huge amount of data this day had brought, not to mention the rollercoaster ride my emotions had been on.
A moment later, John sidled up next to me. Together, we stood in silence, enjoying the heat from the fire, and—I have to add from my personal point of view—the heat from his uber-masculine body.
Without looking at him, I said, “I knew you didn’t do it.”
“I know.” His deep voice was rich and incredibly sexy, and I decided I was very okay with that.
“I do have a question, though.”
A moment ticked by, then another. Finally, he said, “I thought you might.”
Turning slightly in his direction, I said, “Your alibi was my mother.”
“Yes.”
“She has two puncture wounds in her neck.”
“She does.”
“You lied. You told me you are a Vampire, an ethnic group and not a Creature of the Night.”
“I did, yes.”
“And that my mother and I would be safe here. She has obviously been bitten. Do you care to explain to me how that happened?”
He nudged my chin with his index finger and looked deeply into my eyes. I looked back. I wanted to. In fact, I think it was at that moment I decided I wanted to forever.
Softly, he confessed, “I was with your mother, but I did not hurt her.”
Diverting the conversation for a moment, I said, “What kind of doctor are you?”
“A neurologist, specializing in dementia.”
I cocked my head. “And you are a real vampire,” I accused. “One of the Undead. A Creature of the Night. A blood-sucking monster.”
“Yes, yes, yes, and no.”
“Yes, yes, yes, and yes,” I countered. “You attacked my mother.”
“I thought I could help her, and I believe I have. You saw how she was this evening. More like her old self, yes?”
“But how?”
He stepped closer. “I did not take any of her blood. Vampires don’t need to do that anymore. These days, we have alternatives.”
“Such as?”
“Such as Hemoglobin Helper and Plasm-a-Roni. Plus, there’s platelet chips and, well, you get the picture. We don’t need living donors anymore to survive.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m absolutely O-positive.”
God, he was so incredibly charming, I felt myself practically melting into the floor. “So how did you help my mother?”
“Instead of withdrawing blood from her, I injected stem cells into her system. Much research is being done on this concept, but research is very slow, and your mother needs help right now. Now, before she falls so far into dementia, she can no longer be healed.”
I frowned and shook my head. “I wish I could believe that, John, but I just don’t see how… ”
“Stephanie?”
At the sound of my mother’s voice, I whirled around. She stood there looking neat and tidy, her hair combed, a smile on her face. She’d changed out of that damned persimmon pantsuit into a lovely print dress. “Yes, Stephanie. It’s me. I’m really here.”
I felt my eyes sting as I shot a quick look at John and then rushed to my mother to fold my arms around her and hold her close, close, close. “Mom?” I cried into her hair. “Oh, Mom. Do you really know me?”
I felt her nod her head. “I do, my sweet baby,” she whispered. “I do.”
She stroked my hair like she’d done when I was a little girl, murmuring soft words of comfort while I hugged her as tight as I could. “Thank you,” she said, “for taking such good care of me. I know I’ve been a burden—”
“No, Mom,” I rushed, pushing back a little so I could look into her face. “Never a burden, Mom. Never, never, never.” Her eyes were clear and sharp and there—despite the tears that spilled from them to wet her cheeks. She was wholly there.
“I know you blamed yourself for ‘giving’ me Alzheimer’s, Stephanie, but it just isn’t true.”
“But the car accident,” I protested. “I wasn’t paying attention and ran that red light and you hit your head, and—”
“Stop,” she said softly. “Not your fault. You were sixteen. Learning to drive. Please stop beating yourself up over something that happened half a lifetime ago. I never blamed you and you shouldn’t either.”
Stepping away from me, she said, “Well, it’s been a long day. I’m going to bed now. We’ll talk more tomorrow, okay?”
“Yes, Mom,” I choked. I gave her another long hug and a kiss on the cheek. “We’ll talk tomorrow and the day after that, and the day after that. I love you, Mom.”
“Love you more,” she said with a smile, then walked off to bed, leaving me alone with John.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Her healing. It’s miraculous. It can’t happen this fast. There’s just no way—”
“It can,” he interrupted, “when you’re a vampire who knows a thing or two about neurology. However
, she still has a long way to go. She will relapse, but with each treatment, she will improve. I’m asking you to trust me. I only have your mother’s best interest at heart. And yours, Stephanie.”
He moved closer and put his arms around me.
Leaning in to him, I put my forehead on his chest. His strong, solid chest. “I do trust you. Thank you.”
He kissed the top of my head.
“I should confess,” I said softly. “I’m falling in love with you.”
He chuckled. “Perfect. I’m falling in love with you, too. From the moment you walked into my office, I began to hope.”
As soon as I raised my face to his, he kissed me. And then he kissed me again, longer, slower. His lips were delicious and I couldn’t get enough. I think I moaned. Or maybe it was him; I really couldn’t tell.
He broke the kiss for a moment, to smile into my eyes. His lips met mine again, and I was a goner and…
Oh.
Oh, my.
THE END
About the Author
Long ago and far away in the fairytale land of Santa Barbara, California, MARIANNE STILLINGS’s mother read her the Little Golden Book of The Ugly Duckling. She cried so hard at how badly the duckling was treated, her mom frantically skipped ahead to calm her and prove all would end well. The book has been lost over the years, but Marianne’s love of reading and happy endings has remained.
When not writing happy endings of her own, Marianne spends time quilting, embroidering, crocheting, gardening, baking, and watching every British mystery ever produced. She lives in Washington State with her husband and two rescue dogs, Lily and Ginger, and is the proud mom of two amazing grown-up daughters and is the grandmother of two (so far!) beautiful grandbabies. Shadows in the Mist is Marianne’s eighth book.
Marianne loves hearing from her readers, so please,
Shadows in the Mist: A Paranormal Anthology Page 6