by Kylie Logan
“You’re obviously better. You came downstairs.”
“Yes.” She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t want to push too hard, but I thought I’d watch a little TV, maybe make a cup of tea.”
I motioned in the direction of the parlor. “Put up your feet and make yourself at home. I was just going into the kitchen. I’ll put on the kettle for you.”
When I got into the kitchen, I found Meg stirring the soup pot and her girls next to her, both busy with coloring books. Kate, Chandra, and Luella all had their noses pressed against the back window that looked out over the driveway.
“He’s leaving? He’s going out in this weather?” Shaking her head, Kate turned and walked back over to the breakfast bar. She slipped onto one of the high stools there. “What do you suppose he’s up to?”
I sat down next to Kate, and Luella and Chandra came over. I told them what Ted had told me. “I’m not sure I believe him,” I made sure to add. “But there’s not much I can do about it. I can say this: if he gets stuck, I’m not going to get him.”
“If he gets stuck . . .” Chandra plopped down on the stool next to mine, her head propped in one hand. She drummed her nails against the granite counter. They were purple, studded with gold stars, and when she beat her fingers up and down, the stars winked at me. “If he gets stuck . . . not that I’d wish that kind of thing on anybody, mind you . . . but if he did get stuck out in the snow somewhere, we’d have more time to search his room,” she said.
I’m not sure mortified quite covers the feeling that washed through me.
The sensation didn’t last long. But then, that’s because it was instantly followed by appalled and astounded when Kate and Luella got right on board.
Kate was off the stool so fast, I’d bet anything she didn’t even hear me voice an objection. By the time I was on my feet, my fists on my hips, my fellow book discussion group members were already at the door that led into the hallway.
“Ladies!” I didn’t dare speak too loudly. Amanda was in the parlor. “We just can’t go through a guest’s room. That would be—”
“It’s all in the name of our investigation,” Chandra said, so jazzed by the prospect, she shifted from foot to foot.
“And it couldn’t hurt, could it?” Luella asked.
I swung my gaze to Kate. “And you? What kind of a cockamamie excuse are you going to give me?”
“No excuse.” Kate was all business, ticking off her reasons on her fingers. “First of all, you don’t need one, because this is your house and you have every right to go anywhere in it that you want. Second, well . . .” A grin broke through her somber expression. “Heck, I don’t need an excuse and neither do you. We’re investigating. That gives us all the excuse we need to be just plain old nosey.”
They piled out of the room, and after I asked Meg to pour tea for Amanda, I went along. Honestly, I didn’t have much choice. Kate was right; it was my house, and if anyone saw me going into or out of Ted’s room, at least I could explain myself. The other three? Not so much.
As soon as we were out of the kitchen, I shushed them and pointed to the parlor.
Chandra clamped her hand over her mouth. Kate and Luella nodded their understanding. Like thieves in the night, we tiptoed upstairs.
Outside Mariah’s room, I paused long enough to listen at her door and caught the faint strains of classical music. A finger to my lips, I signaled my confederates to keep on keeping quiet and we shuffled and shushed our way to Ted’s door.
He’d locked it when he left, but I had a master key. Just to be sure he hadn’t come to his senses and doubled back into the house while we were in the kitchen, I knocked.
“Ted, it’s me, Bea. I’ve got . . .” I’ve got what? A lot of nerve? Rather than admit it, I scurried over to the linen closet and grabbed a pile of fresh towels. I rapped my knuckles on the door again. “I’m bringing in fresh towels,” I said, and unlocked the door.
Ted hadn’t returned, and don’t ask me how I knew it would be so, but it was no big surprise that he wasn’t the world’s most tidy guest. There was a duffel bag open on the chair near the windows, and clothes spilled out of it. When Chandra made a beeline over there, I cautioned her not to touch anything, and watched as she leaned in nice and close with her hands behind her back, peering at what she could see of Ted’s possessions like a nearsighted owl.
Luella went to check out the bathroom.
Kate and I did a quick turn around the bedroom.
“He reads the newspaper.” There was a small pile next to the bed, and Kate shuffled through it. “The Toledo Blade from a couple days ago, and a Cleveland Plain Dealer from last week.” While she set the newspapers aside, I took a gander at the bedside table.
Ted had left an iPod there along with a pair of reading glasses and a folded sheet of paper. Being careful to note exactly where I’d gotten it so I knew precisely where to put it back, I picked up the paper and unfolded it.
“It’s a takeout menu,” I said. “From the Orient Express.”
Chandra, Kate, and Luella gathered around.
“That proves it,” Chandra cooed. “He’s our killer.”
I restrained myself and didn’t give her the look I wanted to give her. Then again, I was pretty sure Chandra wouldn’t have noticed, anyway. Just like subtle doesn’t work on people like Chandra, they’re impervious to obvious, too.
“Of course he has a menu.” Kate said what I was thinking. “He admitted he owns the building.”
“And that he ordered lunch there on Sunday,” Luella said. “He must have picked up the menu at the grocery store. I saw a stack of them near the door.”
That all made perfect sense, and in spite of Chandra’s runaway imagination, I knew it didn’t mean a thing when it came to alibis, motives, or murder. What did strike me as odd was . . .
Ted had turned off the lights in the room before he left, and I went over to the wall near the door and flicked the switch to turn on the ceiling fan and light, the better to take a closer look at the menu.
“This is weird,” I said, and for the second time in as many minutes, the ladies gathered around me to see what I was talking about. I pointed. “Ted has one of the lunch specials circled. Look. It’s the one for orange chicken.”
Turns out, the League of Literary Ladies members are nothing if not plucky. There may have been a ripple of enraptured delight, but three cheers for us; rather than salivate at the very mention of orange chicken, we soldiered on.
“That’s not so strange,” Kate said, stepping back with her arms crossed over her chest. “Ted said he wanted to make sure there were no peanuts in his lunch, and see, Peter’s menu lists the peanuts right there.” She pointed. “Right in the description of the dish.”
“But that’s the weird thing,” I pointed out. “Remember, I used to live in New York, and that means I’ve had my share of takeaway. In my experience, you don’t mark off the dishes you don’t want to order on a menu. You star or underline or circle the ones you do want to order.”
Luella stared at the menu. “So what does it mean?”
Leave it to Chandra to have the answer to that. She threw an arm in the air, one finger pointed to the ceiling, and her words were edged with what I suppose she thought was a Poirot-like accent. Honestly, she sounded more like Ozzy Osborne. “It means he has been lying,” she announced. “From the start. The orange chicken, it was surely poisoned.”
“Peter wasn’t poisoned,” I reminded her. “He was stabbed. And the orange chicken has nothing to do with it.”
“Oh.” Chandra’s expression fell along with her arm. “Then what does it mean?”
I shrugged. It was as honest as I could be, and if nothing else, I figured I owed my coconspirators that. “If Ted is allergic to peanuts, I can’t see why he’d want to order a dish that clearly has peanuts in it.”
“So he didn’t do it,” Chandra said.
“So we don’t know if he did it or not,” I told her.
“So we have to keep investigating,” Kate said, and before I could stop her, she was on her way out the door and headed for Mariah’s room.
I scrambled to turn off the lights and lock Ted’s door behind me.
“You just can’t walk in there,” I said in my best stage whisper, scampering over to join them outside Mariah’s room. “She’s in there.”
“And you . . .” Since I hadn’t needed the diversion, I was still holding that pile of towels, and Kate gave them a pat. “You have the perfect excuse to go in.”
“But . . .” I should have known they wouldn’t accept what I’d hoped was a valid excuse to abort the mission. Before I could, Chandra pushed me to the door and Luella knocked on it for me.
“Yes!” Mariah’s voice floated from what sounded like a long way off, and I realized she must be in the bathroom with the door closed. I unlocked the bedroom door and stuck my head inside. The rest of me followed fast enough when the other ladies pushed into the room behind me.
“I’ve got clean towels,” I called out to Mariah. I had to do it loudly. She had opera playing in the bathroom, and at that moment, the music crescendoed and some woman with a voice like a startled hawk joined in, holding a particularly high note for an incredibly long time. The resulting racket floated out to us along with the overpowering scent of flowery bubble bath. “I’ll just leave the towels here on your bed,” I called.
To which Mariah didn’t answer at all, but I did hear splashing.
Before I even set down the towels, I realized the other ladies had wasted no time. They were already taking a quick look around.
“Nothing here,” Chandra whispered, pointing to the empty suitcase that stood open near the closet. I recognized it as the one Mariah had risked her life to retrieve from her car after lunch.
“And nothing much here, either,” Kate said. To my horror, she had a dresser drawer open and was poking around in it.
I made a frantic shut-it motion for all I was worth. “She might come out at any minute,” I hissed.
“And if she does, she sure won’t want to find us with these.” I turned to find Luella holding up a package of condoms.
More splashing from the bathroom.
Was Mariah an enthusiastic bather? Or was she getting out of the tub?
I didn’t want to take the chance of finding out.
I set the towels on the foot of the bed and signaled to Luella to put the box of Trojans back where she found them, and we hightailed it out of there.
Out in the hallway, our whispered voices washed over each other.
“What does it mean?”
“Could it be that she’s meeting someone here?”
“She didn’t smuggle a boyfriend in with her, did she?”
I shushed them all. “It probably means she’s not as much of a stranger here as she pretends to be.” I wasn’t sure of it, but I offered the theory. “Maybe she came here to meet somebody.”
“Oh, an assignation!” Like it was suddenly too hot out there in the hallway, Chandra waved a hand in front of her face.
“Or it could mean she’s as much of a stranger as she says she is,” Kate added. “Maybe she’s just hoping to get lucky.”
I gave my ponytail a tug. “Maybe.”
“Maybe, what?” Chandra asked. “Maybe she knows someone? Or maybe she was hoping for a wild and crazy weekend?”
My shrug said it all. “Maybe.”
While I was busy pondering this, Luella had already moved on to Suite #1, where Amanda was staying.
This suite was at the front of the house and got soft light all day long. As least, when there weren’t snowstorms in progress. I’d had it decorated in a pretty cream-colored wallpaper dusted with flowers in shades of mauve, pink, and purple.
“Make it fast,” I said, unlocking the door and standing back so the others could go inside while I kept an eye on the stairway. “She’s right downstairs, and if she hears us—”
Chandra poked her head into—and out of—the closet. “She’s got pretty basic taste when it comes to clothes,” she announced.
“And pretty basic habits when it comes to cosmetics and toiletries,” Luella said from the bathroom. “Nothing fancy there.”
Kate looked over the secretary desk in the far corner of the room where Amanda had set out a paperback with a dark cover I recognized even before she held it up and I saw the title Evil Creeps in red letters that ran like blood.
“Hey, look!” She waved the book. “Amanda’s reading FX O’Grady. And you were too scared to even try a book from the master of horror, Bea.”
“You’ve got that right.” I sought to prove exactly how much I didn’t care that I was a weenie by scooting into the room so I could take a quick look around.
Just as the ladies reported, Amanda’s possessions were pretty basic. In fact, aside from the wonders I’d accomplished with the help of dozens of lacy doilies, three pretty little oil landscapes in gilt frames, and the assistance of a decorator who charged an exorbitant amount, there was nothing distinctive or unusual about the room at all.
I had just told the ladies this and stepped aside so they could exit the room before me when something caught my eye, a single sheet of paper lying facedown on the floor, one corner of it sticking out from under the frilly bed skirt. I would have ignored it altogether except for two things: I feared my cleaning crew might be getting a tad careless, and we’d just found what might be a clue—that menu from the Orient Express—in Ted’s room.
With Kate, Chandra, and Luella already out in the hall, I stooped to retrieve the paper, flipped it over, and read the message that had been cobbled together from a mish-mash of matte newspaper headlines and glossy magazine pages.
YOU WON’T GET AWAY WITH THIS.
I’LL NEVER FORGET.
I SWEAR I’LL MAKE YOU PAY.
I read the message under my breath. But then, it’s hard to find anything in the way of a voice when you feel as if you’ve been punched in the stomach.
Eager to see the note, the other women scudded back into the room and gathered around me.
“‘You’ll never get away with this. I’ll never forget. I swear I’ll make you pay.’” From over my shoulder, Kate read the message and pointed to the block letters with one finger. “Bea, this sounds like—”
“The note I saw at Peter’s.” I nodded. “It’s exactly the same. The paper . . .” As if it would reveal some secret to me, I turned over the note in my hands. “The lettering . . .” I flipped it back the right way and reread the threatening message. “It’s all the same.”
Chandra’s voice was choked. “What does it mean?”
Carefully, I put the paper back where I’d found it and ushered the ladies out of the room. “It means . . .” I closed the door and faced them in the hallway. “It means Amanda is receiving threatening notes, too,” I said, my stomach souring. “And that means . . .” The terrible reality of the situation settled over me like a scratchy wool blanket. “It means Peter wasn’t the only one whose life was in danger.”
10
So what did we know at this point?
Well, for one thing, I knew for certain that I never wanted to have to deal with this kind of snowstorm again.
No sooner had this thought occurred to me than my right boot got stuck in a snowdrift nearly as tall as me that had piled up at the bottom of my front steps. I gritted my teeth, yanked, and hoped that when my foot came out of the icy mound, my boot would still be on it. The snow had lessened from driving-downhill-with-foot-on-accelerator to something more like coasting. Teacup-sized flakes whirled in the sky above me, lacy Frisbees, then plopped to earth to add to the eighteen inches of wet, heavy snow already on the ground. It was bitterly cold, and I hunkered down inside my jacket, my eyes on the prize that was Chandra’s vintage Volkswagen van idling in my driveway.
What was I doing outside?
Wondering if I needed my head examined, for one thing.
For another . . . well, th
e answer was really quite simple, even if it wasn’t all that smart.
First thing that Wednesday morning over steaming mugs of coffee and the oatmeal breakfast cake Meg had rustled up seemingly out of thin air, Hank Florentine had informed Ted that the cops were done with the Orient Express and he was free to get back into the building.
Don’t think Chandra didn’t glom on to that little nugget of information like a vampire hanging on to the neck of a swooning victim.
Remember, she was itching to do a cleansing at the restaurant. Truth be told, I was on the fence about that part of the plan. Might not help, but I guess it couldn’t hurt.
And it really didn’t matter. See, I knew an opportunity when I saw one. And this was an opportunity for us to get a there-might-not-be-a-second-chance look at the scene of the crime.
To anyone who might have happened to peek out their window that morning, we must have looked like a peculiar line of bundled-up ducks. Chandra had offered her van, insisting that, like the Little Engine That Could, it would surely be able to plow through the snow and get us to our destination. She led the way, her purple coat a bright slap of color against the white landscape.
Kate followed behind, her arms firmly wrapped around herself against the cold. Luella, on the other hand, seemed impervious to the weather. Unlike the rest of us, her head was bare and she wasn’t wearing gloves. When she looked over her shoulder to make sure I’d gotten my foot safely out of the snowbank, her cheeks were burnished red, like pomegranates.
Ted was behind me, huffing and puffing just like that Little Engine. He’d insisted on coming along, and since the building belonged to him, it was a little hard to say no. He’d returned safely from his foray into the storm the day before, and he was confident he could negotiate the nearly impassable streets one more time. One look at Chandra’s van painted in an array of bright colors with a brilliant yellow hippie peace sign airbrushed on the side, and I could understand his decision to drive his own vehicle and meet us at the Orient Express.