Much Ado About Murder

by Elizabeth J Duncan

  “How and when do they arrive?” Charlotte asked.

  “It varies. Sometimes that young man you see about the place, Aaron I think he’s called, brings them down from the hotel. Sometimes they’re on the steps when I leave in the morning.”

  “When you leave?”

  “I take an early morning walk for about an hour. I set off as soon as it’s light so I’m back in time to prepare Audrey’s breakfast and make sure she’s up and has everything she needs for the day.”

  “I see. And the ones that are left on your door step—I guess they don’t come with a card or anything?”

  Maxine shook her head. “But you have to understand, this kind of thing is really common for popular actresses. Happens all the time. Goes with the territory.”

  “I’m well aware of that. And sometimes the actress feels it’s really creepy and annoying, and other times she’s flattered. When I first talked to Audrey, she didn’t seem to mind. I wondered how she’s feeling about it now.”

  “To be honest, she’s had enough of it. She wishes whoever’s doing this would stop.”

  “I think that would be a very good idea. Shall I tell you how to make it stop?”

  Maxine nodded.

  “Get rid of them. All of them.”

  Maxine tilted her head.

  “You can see the flowers in their vases through the window. I’ve seen them on my dog walks. That sends a message to whoever is sending them that you like them enough to display them. Once he gets the message that you don’t like them or want them, he’ll stop sending them.”

  Maxine’s mouth twitched to one side while she thought that over. “That makes sense.”

  “So let’s get them all bagged up, and I’ll take them away with me.” Maxine disappeared into a bedroom and returned with a distinctive dark-green bag from a famous London department store. “Seems such a waste of a good bag,” she said as they lifted the flowers from the vases, bent the stems in two, and stuffed them in the bag. “But I suppose it’s worth it.”

  Charlotte and Rupert walked back to her bungalow, where she phoned Paula. “I’ve got some flowers here,” Charlotte said, “and you need to take a look at them. I’ve got to get back to work now, but is there any chance you can drop in later?”

  *

  “Yes, they certainly look like they’re from my garden,” Paula said when Charlotte showed her the flowers that had been left at the hotel’s front desk. She reached into the bag and pulled out a cream-colored rose with a pink tint on the edge of its petals. “These grow in the bed beneath the terrace.” She sighed. “I can’t believe Ned would do such a thing. It seems so out of character. Well, I’ll talk to him, and if it was him, now that he knows we’re onto him, it’ll stop.”

  She dropped the flower back in the bag and closed it. “What’s the news on the Edmund Albright front? Are they any closer to knowing what happened?”

  “They think they are,” said Charlotte, “but I don’t agree with them.”

  Paula sank into a chair, and Charlotte offered her a glass of sparkling mineral water with ice and a slice of lemon. “Tell me,” said Paula as she reached for it.

  “The police say it’s a ‘likely’ suicide and don’t seem interested in investigating. They seem to rely so much on forensics, but they don’t think about the circumstances surrounding it. We know Edmund wasn’t in a suicidal frame of mind. And Ray himself said it wasn’t an accident, so that can only leave . . .”

  “Murder.”

  Chapter 19

  Aaron was bent over the worktable, focused and intent on the documents laid out in front of him, when Charlotte and Rupert arrived the next morning. On days when her handsome corgi asked to go to work with her, she almost always agreed, and she kept a dog basket beside her desk for him.

  “Morning.”

  Aaron looked up from his work. “Oh, hi, Charlotte. I’ve finished the sketches for Beatrice and Hero. If you want to look them over, and they’re okay, we can show them to Wade.”

  “Just let me get Rupert settled.” She unclipped his leash so he could explore the workroom and make sure everything was just as he left it on his last visit. Once reassured that everything was in order, he climbed into his basket, where he could keep a watchful eye on the office comings and goings.

  Aaron arranged his sketches. Each featured a few words of explanation—such as chemise or V-shaped bodice with an arrow pointing to a section of the garment—and had a couple of fabric swatches pinned to them. Charlotte fingered a fabric attached to a Hero sketch. “I don’t really like the color. It’s too dark and heavy. She’s young and innocent, so you want something that will convey that to the audience. And we have to think about the size of the skirts. If they’re too full, they’re going to need elaborate crinolines or even a hoopskirt to hold them out. And they’ll take up too much room onstage and be difficult for the actresses to move in, so you’ll need to make some adjustments there. But other than that, they look fine. And when Wade’s approved them, you can get to work. In the meantime, I’ll get the men in and measure them up so I can order their costumes.” She referred to her notes. “One South and half a dozen North.”

  Aaron shuffled his sketches into order, then walked to his desk and held up the latest issue of American Theater magazine. “Remember Simon Dyer?”

  “Of course I remember Simon bloody Dyer.”

  “This came this morning, and you might want to take a look at it.”

  “Just tell me.”

  “He’s been appointed artistic director at some fancy theater and performing arts center in Colorado.”

  “It figures.”

  Neither said anything for a moment, and then Aaron placed the magazine on Charlotte’s desk. “I’d better go. Wade wants me at the rehearsal this morning.”

  “We’re going to be desperately busy for the next couple of weeks. Right, on your bike, then.”

  She puttered around the office, picking up scraps of cloth that had fallen off the worktable and emptying the recycling bin in the tiny kitchen. Her gaze drifted often to the magazine on her desk, and she had just picked it up and started leafing through to the appointments section when the door opened and Mattie slunk in. Charlotte lowered the magazine to her lap and met Mattie’s eyes. Normally impish and bright, they were dull and downcast. Her hair, which she often wore scraped back in a neat ponytail, was tied loosely over one shoulder and carelessly braided.

  “Hi, Mattie. I can see you’re still worried.”

  “I can’t believe how stupid I was. How naïve.”

  “Do you know for sure yet?” Mattie shook her head in distress. “Want my advice?” Mattie nodded. “Get yourself down to the drugstore, love, get yourself a kit, and find out for sure so you can decide what to do.”

  They sat in an uneasy silence as faint sounds of actors’ voices in rehearsal drifted down the corridor and through the open door. Mattie sighed. “I don’t know what I came in here for, really; just needed someone to talk to, I guess.” She wrapped the curl on the end of her braid around a finger and twisted it as she glanced at Charlotte through sideways eyes. “I just wondered if there was any news on Edmund. Have the police decided for sure it was suicide?”

  “I believe it’s the medical examiner’s office that makes the final decision on manner of death,” said Charlotte, “and it’s my understanding that, yes, they will classify it as a suicide.”

  Charlotte couldn’t quite read Mattie’s reaction. A faint smile twitched at the corners of her mouth, but disappeared, replaced by a light frown.

  “Everybody’s been talking about it,” Mattie said. “Is it too much to ask that we put that behind us and move on? We don’t need the memory of him hovering over us like Banquo’s ghost.”

  “When you were with Edmund, did he give you any indications that he was upset or worried about anything?” Charlotte asked.

  Mattie let out a weak little laugh. “No. But what do I know? I really didn’t spend that much time with him.” She stood u
p, and as she did, a puzzled look flashed across her face. Her eyes widened as she placed a hand on her abdomen, and without saying anything, she ran out of the room.

  A few minutes later, she was back, a huge grin creasing her face. She hugged Charlotte and said, “It’s here. Everything’s all right now.”

  “You must be so relieved! I’m so glad. A complication like that on top of everything else is the last thing we need right now.”

  “Thanks for listening. Talk to you later.” Mattie tossed her hair over her shoulder as she skipped from the room.

  *

  “Mrs. Van Dusen, Ned wants to speak to you.” Paula Van Dusen’s housekeeper hovered in the doorway of her study. Seated on her butterscotch-colored leather sofa with Coco, her corgi pup, curled up asleep beside her, Paula took off her reading glasses and lowered the theater financial statements she’d been examining.

  “I suppose he wants to talk to me outside.”

  The housekeeper smiled. “Yes, he said if you don’t mind, he’ll wait for you outside.” She gestured at the window that overlooked the driveway. “His boots and clothes are dirty, and he doesn’t want to track garden muck all over the carpets. He’s at the front door.”

  Paula rose, placed the documents on her tidy desk, and, accompanied by the housekeeper, walked down the corridor and through the great front hall. “Coco just woke up, so she should go out. Would you tell Barnes I’d like him to walk her in the garden for ten minutes?” she asked as the housekeeper opened the front door and stood to one side. Paula stepped outside to be greeted by Ned, holding his flat cap in both hands, frowning anxiously.

  His gray hair curled over his collar, and his chin was covered in stubble that almost matched the coarse hair that sprouted from his large ears. No one had ever seen him dressed in anything other than serviceable denim gardening overalls. In summer, he wore a faded cotton check shirt; in spring and fall, he wore a flannel check shirt under a dark-green sleeveless down vest that his late wife had bought him decades ago.

  “Good morning, Ned,” said Paula. “Got your vest on, I see.”

  “Morning, Mrs. Van Dusen. Yes, the weather’s starting to turn.”

  “You wanted to talk to me, I believe.”

  Ned took a step closer and looked around before speaking. “I wanted to talk to you about the flowers.”

  “Yes, and I wanted to talk to you too about the flowers. I’m very interested to hear what you’ve got to say. It’s about the roses, isn’t it?”

  “Well, the roses, and there’s other flowers too.”

  “Yes, so I gathered. What about them, Ned? What would you like to tell me?”

  He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, took a deep, dreary sigh, and fixed his gaze somewhere on the horizon.

  “The fall fair’s coming up in a few weeks.”

  “Yes, I’m aware of that, Ned.” She crossed her arms and waited for his eyes to drift back to her. When they didn’t, she spoke. “Look, Ned, let’s stop beating about the bush and get to the point, shall we? You want to tell me something about the roses. Now why don’t you just come out with it. And look at me, please, when you’re speaking to me.”

  “I thought you should know. Someone’s been stealing our flowers, including the buds that would have matured just in time for the flower show. So I don’t know what I’m going to do about this year’s entries for the fair.”

  Paula’s eyes widened as she let out a little gasp and touched her lips with her fingertips. “Did you just say someone’s been stealing our roses? Do you mean it wasn’t you who took them?”

  Now it was Ned’s turn to look surprised. “Me? Steal my own flowers?” He shook his head mournfully. “Not me. I started noticing flowers going missing a month or so back. At first I thought someone was cutting them for the house, although they shouldn’t be, so I went ’round to the kitchen door and spoke to the housekeeper. She asked everybody, and nobody from inside the house has been cutting them. At least nobody’s owning up to it.”

  “But the house is gated, so someone can’t be sneaking into the garden and helping themselves. It must be an inside job, Ned.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “I’m sure you’ve been thinking about this. Do you have any idea who it could be?”

  “Well, I don’t want to speak out of turn or get anybody in trouble, you know, but there is someone it could be.”

  As he spoke, Barnes came around the corner of the building with Coco dancing at his heels. Ned’s blue eyes followed Barnes’s progress and then returned to meet Paula’s, with the slightest tip of his head.

  “Thank you, Ned. I’m glad we had this little chat. That’ll be all for now.”

  “Very good, Mrs. Van Dusen.” Ned walked away with his back slightly bowed even though he wasn’t bent over his wheelbarrow. He passed Barnes going in the opposite direction, but neither man spoke.

  Seeing Paula, Coco ran toward her. Paula leaned over, patted her, and waited for Barnes to catch up with her. “Barnes, I would like to see you in my study in ten minutes, please.” She opened the door and Coco scampered inside, with Paula close behind.

  *

  “Barnes?” Charlotte’s eyes widened. “It was Barnes?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid poor old Barnes has been sending the flowers to Audrey,” said Paula. “He only meant to send her the one bouquet when she first arrived, but then he got carried away, and to keep the costs down, he started helping himself to the flowers from the Oakland gardens. He didn’t think they’d be missed.”

  Paula let out a little exclamation of dismay. “Oh, poor Barnes. He’s a bit old to be mooning around like some lovesick creature. Imagine him out in the garden, picking flowers in the dead of night, and dropping them off here. For all I know, he’s been hanging around here, hoping to catch a glimpse of her.”

  “If it weren’t so awful, it would be quite sad, really.”

  “Yes. He was terribly embarrassed during out little chat. Said he didn’t know what had come over him. That he’d been a big fan of hers for years and just felt drawn to her in this way.” Paula squeezed lime juice into her glass and dropped the crushed wedge into her drink. “I told him that since Audrey hadn’t lodged a formal complaint that the matter would go no further but that it must stop.” Charlotte nodded her agreement. “I also told him that he must apologize to Ned. He’s picked all Ned’s best blooms for the flower show, and Ned’s devastated.

  “He knows every bloom and every leaf in that garden—especially this time of year, when he’s keeping a close eye on what he’s going to enter at the fair.”

  Charlotte straightened in her chair. “Is this the first time Barnes has done something like this? I mean, let’s be honest and call it what it was. He was stalking her, and that’s a serious offense. I don’t think men realize how unsettling that is for a woman. And it isn’t just the flowers. Audrey said she thought someone was lurking outside her home, and Ray got called out twice, I think it was, in the middle of the night to check it out and reassure her. At the time, he and I kind of laughed it off, thinking she was making it up as an excuse to lure him over to her bungalow, but now I wonder. If Barnes was spying on her, peering in her windows, let’s say, that’s serious compared to just sending her flowers. I didn’t mention the flowers to Ray. But I wonder now if I should have. Barnes is actually really lucky that I didn’t tell him.”

  “Yes, he is,” Paula agreed. “And I told him so. As far as I know, he’s never done anything like this before. I believed him when he said he simply got carried away.”

  “You’re sure he understands that what he did was wrong? That he really gets it?”

  “I’m sure he does, and I’m confident it won’t happen again.”

  “Let’s hope not. Because if he does it again, we will have no choice but to report it. And we might end up in trouble because we didn’t report it this time.”

  Chapter 20

  The play began to take shape as actors and the director explored
the words, discovering hidden depths of meaning, and related their insights to the time period during which they were setting the play. As the most populous state in the North, New York sent more officers, men, and supplies to the Union army than any other state. Director Wade Radcliffe, who now saw the concept as a rich vein to be mined, and the designers adapted a couple of sets to depict a chapel and an upstate home befitting the character of a prosperous Leonato. Wade, Charlotte, and Aaron finalized costuming and, tasked with creating the women’s costumes, Aaron was busier than he’d ever been. His sewing machine had been humming for days as he stitched skirts, tops, and dresses. The uniforms for the male actors had arrived, and costume fittings were about to begin, with the start of dress rehearsals just a few days away.

  “Audrey will be here for her first costume fitting soon,” Charlotte reminded Aaron first thing on an early autumn morning. “I’m just going to take a final look at her dress.” Aaron did not look up from his sewing but kept his eyes on the fabric as he guided it through the machine. Finally, when he approached the end of the seam, he gently raised his foot from the pedal to slow the needle and then stopped. He lifted the presser foot, turned the fabric, and lowered it before turning to speak to Charlotte.

  “Sorry. Just wanted to finish that. Yes, her costume is ready for the first fitting. I finished the detailing last night. Will she be hard to please, do you think?”

  “I’m not sure, to be honest. The one who could be hard to please is Maxine. She keeps a close eye on everything to do with Audrey’s professional life and, as you may have noticed, is very protective of her. She’s worried that the dress won’t be flattering. You’ve had a real challenge to come up with something period appropriate and age appropriate without being matronly. I can’t wait to hear how you did that. Let’s go over it together, and you can talk me through it in case we have to explain it to Audrey.”