After he finished telling the 911 operator where we were and that we needed the police and an ambulance right away, Luke said, “You know, I guess we really should check his pulse and make sure he’s dead …”
By now, other people from inside the plantation house had gotten curious enough—and courageous enough—to start edging down the path toward us. I was vaguely aware of lots of whispering going on. A thought occurred to me, and I turned and called to the crowd, “Is anybody here a doctor or a nurse?”
“Or a paramedic?” Luke added.
The only responses we got were shaking heads and muttered denials.
I turned to look at the man who played the plantation owner. “I guess you can do it, just try not to move him.”
The man looked a little queasy. “I don’t think I can.”
That left it up to me or Luke, since we were the ones standing there, and when I hesitated, he said, “Don’t worry, Miz D. I’ll do it.” He didn’t sound real enthusiastic, though, and he swallowed hard as he approached the body and then knelt beside it, the other fellow moving back to give him plenty of room.
Luke grimaced as he felt around on the stabbed man’s neck, searching for a pulse. After a minute or two he looked up at me and shook his head.
“He’s dead, all right.”
Luke made that grim announcement just as a young woman wearing a fancy ball gown with a hoop skirt and lots of petticoats pushed through the crowd and reached a point where she could see the corpse. She screamed, “Steven!” then clapped her hands to her face, and darned if she didn’t swoon, just like the character she was supposed to be might have. As she lay there in a faint, I recognized the pretty face and dark curls. She was the actress who played Scarlett O’Hara.
She wasn’t the belle of the ball anymore. She was just a crumpled heap on the flagstones. But at least she wasn’t dead, like the phony Rhett Butler.
I heard a siren somewhere in the distance. As it began to wail, a couple of men in uniform trotted up to us. They weren’t policemen. Logos on their gray shirts identified them as guards from a local security service.
The portly Gerald O’Hara—the Thomas Mitchell character— turned to them and demanded, “How could you let something like this happen?”
The two security guards shook their heads, and one of them said, “Sorry, Mr. Ralston. I checked out here in the garden just a little while ago, and everything was fine then.”
“Well, it’s not fine now. Mr. Kelley is dead.”
The guard nodded. “Yeah, I can kinda see that. The cops’re already on the way?”
“That’s right, no thanks to you.”
Ralston was getting his bluster back. The way he was acting made me wonder if he really did own this plantation, in addition to playing Thomas Mitchell for the tourists. The name Ralston was familiar to me, too, and I recalled that I had seen it on some of the paperwork when I was setting up the tour with the management company that handled business affairs for the plantation.
I took a chance and approached him while we were waiting for the police and the ambulance to arrive. “Mr. Ralston, I’m Delilah Dickinson… .”
I saw by the look in his eyes that he recognized my name, too. “Mrs. Dickinson,” he said with a grave nod. “I’m sorry we had to meet under such tragic circumstances. I’m Edmond Ralston. This is my plantation.”
That confirmed my suspicion. It surprised me a little that a rich man like Ralston would take part in the play-acting, putting on a show for the tourists. From the way he had been acting earlier, though, he seemed to get a kick out of it.
“Oh! Oh!”
We looked around to see that the woman who had fainted earlier was coming around. Two more ladies in ball gowns hovered over her, helping her sit up. Both were young, a blonde in her early twenties and a brunette who was probably still a teenager. “Scarlett” began to sob as she once again saw the corpse lying a few yards away on the path.
“Maybe we ought to cover him up,” Edmond Ralston muttered under his breath.
“The cops wouldn’t like it,” Luke said, echoing what I had told Ralston a few minutes earlier about messing with the body.
“I just hate for her to have to see him like that.” Ralston lowered his voice even more as he added, “She’s his wife.” He spoke up. “Janice, why don’t you and Lindsey take Maura back into the house?”
The brunette teenager nodded. “All right, Dad.”
She and the other young woman helped the sobbing Maura to her feet. Maura didn’t want to go, though. She tried to pull away, saying, “Let go of me! I have to help Steven!”
Ralston said, “There’s nothing you can do for him now, my dear. It’s a matter for the authorities.”
He sounded a little more British now, although his voice still held a trace of the Southern drawl he affected as Thomas Mitchell.
I turned to Luke and said, “Keep an eye on things here. I want to make sure the girls are all right.” I had thought about them right away, after Luke and I came out here and saw the body, but I’d seen them dancing in the ballroom only a short time earlier so I wasn’t really worried about them. Still, since I’d promised my sister I would take care of them, I knew I’d feel better about it if I saw them with my own eyes.
Luke nodded. “Don’t worry, Miz D. I won’t let anything happen.”
I looked at the corpse and shook my head. “I’d say it’s already happened.”
CHAPTER 6
I
started making my way back through the crowd of onlookers, but I didn’t have to go very far before I ran into Augusta and Amelia. Both of them were standing up on tiptoes and craning their necks, trying to see what was so interesting in the garden.
“I heard somebody say there’s a dead guy out there,” Augusta said.
“Is that true, Aunt Delilah?” Amelia said.
I nodded. “It’s true. A man’s been stabbed. You girls go on back inside.”
“Can’t we go and look at him?” Augusta asked.
Before I could tell her that no, they couldn’t go and look at him, Amelia made a face and said, “Oh, my God. You want to look at a dead guy?”
Augusta shrugged. “I’ve never seen one before.”
“I don’t want to see one!”
I made shooing motions at the two of them and said, “Neither of you need to see a dead man. Go on back inside.”
“Are the police coming?” Amelia said.
“Will they question us?” Augusta said.
“Yes, they’re on the way. Don’t you hear the sirens? And no, I don’t know if they’ll want to question you.”
I didn’t see any reason why the police would have any questions for my nieces. After all, they’d both been inside when Steven Kelley was killed. But, once again going by what I’d seen on TV and in the movies, I figured there was a chance they’d question everybody who was here tonight, regardless of where they were when the crime was committed.
As I started to herd the girls toward the house, Augusta looked back over her shoulder and said, “At least tell us who it was that got killed, Aunt Delilah. That can’t hurt anything, can it?”
I didn’t see any reason not to tell them. “It was the man who played Rhett Butler.”
They looked at each other.
“Oh,” Amelia said.
“Him,” Augusta said.
I got the distinct impression that the murdered man’s identity meant something to them, but before I could ask them about it, Will Burke came up to me. I introduced him to the girls, then he said,
“I heard about what happened, Ms. Dickinson. People are saying that you discovered the body? Are you all right?”
The question took me a little by surprise, both the concern that was evident in his voice and expression and the rumor that I was the one who’d found the murdered man. “I’m fine,” I said, “but I’m not the one who found him. That was—” I stopped and looked around for Elliott Riley but didn’t see him anywhere. “Now where the heck did
he go?”
As I asked the question, I recalled that when I’d first seen Riley just outside the ballroom doors, he’d been upset and had dark stains on his hands—like blood. There was no doubt in my mind now that it was Steven Kelley’s blood. Obviously Riley had touched the body. I knew it was selfish of me, but my immediate reaction was dismay that not only had somebody been killed during my first tour, but also that one of my
clients had found the body. That couldn’t be good for business.
And then a little voice in the back of my head asked, What if
the killer is one of your clients? That’s going to be even worse, isn’t it? I must have groaned at the thought, because Dr. Will Burke leaned closer to me and asked, “Are you sure you’re all right?
Even if you’re not the one who found the body, this must still
be quite a shock for you.”
I held up a hand. “I’ll be fine. You’re right, Doctor. Murder
is just … shocking.”
“You’re sure it’s murder?”
I glanced at Augusta and Amelia, who were watching and
listening with avid interest, especially Augusta. “The man was
stabbed,” I said. “It didn’t look like an accident or suicide to
me.”
“Do you know who he was?”
“Mr. Ralston called him Steven Kelley.”
I could see that the name meant something to Will. His
breath hissed between his teeth.
“I guess you knew him, since you said you work here.” Will nodded. “He and I teach at the same college. He’s the head of the drama department there.” He stopped and shook his
head. “Taught at the same college, I should say. It …it’s hard
to believe, hard to grasp when someone you know dies suddenly like this, especially violently….”
“Were you good friends?”
“No, I wouldn’t say that. Just colleagues. But I’ve known
him for several years.”
Augusta said, “Who’d want to kill him?”
Will looked surprised at the blunt question, but no more
surprised than I felt. “I have no idea,” he said, at the same
time I was telling Augusta, “That’s none of our business.”
But it might be my business, I reminded myself, if one of my clients turned out to be the killer. This news was going to spread fast through Atlanta’s travel agency community. Conventional wisdom says there’s no such thing as bad publicity … but at the moment I wasn’t so sure about that.
The sirens had gotten a lot louder while I was talking to my nieces and to Dr. Will Burke, and now they cut off abruptly. I took that to mean the police and the ambulance had arrived, and sure enough, before I could manage to get Augusta and Amelia back inside, several uniformed officers hurried through the French doors in the ballroom and into the garden. A couple of paramedics carrying emergency kits trotted after them.
The officers were sheriff’s deputies, I saw—from the patches on their shirts—as they went past me. The plantation was well outside the Atlanta city limits, so that made sense. They moved the crowd back, telling everyone in brisk, no-nonsense voices to return to the ballroom and stay there. One of the deputies went along with us, I guess to keep an eye on us and make sure nobody tried to sneak off.
Edmond Ralston spoke to one of the deputies and was allowed to remain in the garden as the paramedics knelt on either side of Steven Kelley and opened their kits. I saw one of them take out a stethoscope and press it to the dead man’s chest as he listened for a heartbeat.
He wasn’t going to find one.
Luke found me once we all got back into the ballroom. He looked relieved that Amelia and Augusta were all right, as I had been. “I’ll bet it won’t take very long for the cops to find out who killed the guy. They’ve got all that forensic stuff now, like on TV. There must be fingerprints on the handle of that knife.”
“Will they have to fingerprint everybody here?” Augusta asked.
“They’ll get that icky black ink all over our fingers,” Amelia said.
“We’ll just cooperate, answer all their questions, and do whatever they say,” I told them. “It’s nothing to worry about.”
I was worried, though. The more I thought about Elliott Riley discovering the body, the more I wondered about him. He had a temper, as was obvious from that fight he had gotten into with Gerhard Mueller at the Gone With the Wind Movie Museum the day before. And he’d had blood on his hands.
That was easily explained. When he found Steven Kelley’s body, he could have touched Kelley while trying to see how badly he was hurt and maybe help him if he was still alive. Perfectly innocent.
But where had Riley vanished to after that, and where was he now? That was a little more suspicious, even though Riley’s absence might not really mean anything.
I turned to Luke. “Have you seen Elliott Riley?”
“Who?”
“The man who had that trouble with the German tourist at the museum yesterday.” I lowered my voice and leaned closer to him. “The one who started yelling tonight when he found the body.”
“Oh, yeah, him.” Luke looked around the ballroom. “I don’t see him anywhere.”
The people who’d been told by the deputies to wait in the ballroom had split up into two main groups: the guests from my tour, and the actors and staff who worked here on the plantation, recreating the antebellum lifestyle for the tourists’ enjoyment. Within those groups there were smaller bunches, all standing around with shocked expressions on their faces, talking in hushed conversations about how terrible all of this was. At least, that’s what I assumed they were talking about. I spotted “Scarlett O’Hara” sitting next to the wall in a white chair with a lot of elaborate scrollwork on the arms and back. She had been married to the murdered man, I recalled Edmond Ralston saying. She was still crying, but she wasn’t sobbing loudly and wailing anymore. She dabbed at her eyes with a lacy handkerchief while the two young women who had helped her in from the garden stood by rather awkwardly. From time to time one of them would reach over and pat her on the shoulder in a feeble attempt at comforting her in her grief. The other people who worked here all looked pale and shaken, too. They would have known the dead man pretty well, I thought. My clients were sympathetic, of course, but I got the sense that some of them were also annoyed that something like a murder was threatening to interrupt and possibly ruin their tour.
Nowhere among any of them, though, was Elliott Riley, and that was downright odd.
I couldn’t very well go looking for him; the deputies had told us all to stay put in the ballroom. I wasn’t sure I wanted to find him, anyway. I hadn’t liked him to start with, and I liked him even less now.
A stocky, gray-haired man in a brown suit came into the ballroom. His tie was loosened, and he had a weary expression on his face, as if this were a long day that was about to get even longer.
He was followed by a couple of men and a woman, all wearing polo shirts that had the sheriff’s department logo on the front and the words CRIME SCENE on the back.
The people with all that forensic stuff Luke had been talking about earlier had shown up.
The gray-haired man, who must have been a detective, led the investigators through the ballroom and into the garden. He closed the doors firmly behind them, making it clear that he didn’t want any interruptions. That left the rest of us cooling our heels inside as time dragged. Within fifteen minutes, both Augusta and Amelia were whining about wanting to go to
their rooms. I made an effort to hold on to my temper, even
though it wasn’t long before they were getting on my last
nerve.
The wait stretched to forty-five minutes. Even though a
couple of deputies were standing in front of the French doors
now, from time to time I caught a glimpse of camera flashes
going off in the garden as the crime scene folks p
hotographed
the body and its surroundings.
Finally, the paramedics came out through the ballroom,
were gone for a couple of minutes, and came back wheeling a
gurney between them. That quieted down the buzz of conversation in the big room, but absolute silence fell a short time later when they reappeared. A long, motionless shape shrouded
in a black body bag lay on the gurney now.
Rhett Butler would never run the blockade or return to Tara
again.
CHAPTER 7
T
he gray-haired man came back into the ballroom a few minutes after the paramedics removed the body of Steven Kelley. He was trailed by a couple of deputies, one of whom asked in a loud voice for everyone’s attention. When he had it, the gray-haired man stepped forward and spoke.
“My name is Timothy Farraday. I’m an investigator for the sheriff’s department.”
That confirmed my guess about him being a detective.
“I’m sorry for any inconvenience, but my men and I will be taking statements from all of you before you’ll be allowed to return to your rooms this evening.”
One of the actors—I think he was supposed to be a Tarleton twin—said, “That’s fine for them.” He gestured toward the guests who had come there on the tour. “But what about the ones who just work here? Can’t we go home?”
Timothy Farraday shook his head. “Not yet. Sorry.”
He didn’t sound particularly apologetic. The irritated, impatient muttering that greeted his answer didn’t appear to bother him, either.
“Everyone just be patient, and we’ll get to you as soon as we can.”
Farraday headed for Maura Kelley, the murdered man’s wife, and led her out of the ballroom. Her face was pale and her eyes were red, but she appeared to have stopped crying. In fact, she had that overly calm look that said the shock was really beginning to settle in on her. While Farraday was doing that, two of the other deputies picked someone else to question, and the others kept an eye on the rest of us.
“They’re going to fingerprint us,” Amelia said. “I just know they are.”
Literary Tour 01 - Frankly My Dear I'm Dead Page 4