by JOAN HESSS
“Azalea’s characters are a lot more interesting than these dweebs,” Caron said, still studying her foot. “In her books, there’s always a handsome hulk with a dueling scar. Keith’s pockmarks hardly qualify.” She glanced at me. “And a poor, mistreated girl who’s penniless and has to marry some sadist who keeps his other wives locked in the attic. When she learns she’s actually an heiress, everybody’s really sorry about being mean to her. Really, really sorry.”
“Is that an erumpent pimple on the tip of your nose?”
With a squeal of terror, she fled to the bathroom. I changed into a nightgown and plumped the pillow as best I could, then took a mystery novel from my suitcase and settled in to read something entertaining rather than instructional.
After the best part of an hour, a slightly greener Caron reappeared and lay down on her bed to gaze at the ceiling. “I wonder if Ellie has anything that might help.”
“Help with what, dear?” I asked distractedly, more concerned with the blizzard at the country house that had trapped a sextet of potential murderers, along with an elderly butler who dressed impeccably and served brandy on a silver salver. He did not wear sunglasses and a set of headphones, although he did glide silently in and out of the chapters.
“My complexion. I look worse than when I had the chicken pox in second grade.” She yanked the sheet away and sat up. “Maybe Ellie has some cream or something I can use tonight.”
“Everyone has gone to bed. Ask her in the morning.” I turned the page. The electricity was out because of the blizzard, naturally, and everyone was creeping around the house with candles in their sweaty fists. I decided the butler was doing too much creeping for his station in life. Ignoring the sighs and groans from the other bed, I turned another page.
After a while, the sighs and groans became snuffly snores. I continued to read until I realized I was holding the book while I dozed. I crossed the room to switch off the light, and made it back to my bed with only a minor bit of damage to one toe. I deplumped the pillow, pulled the sheet up to my chin, and closed my eyes.
As if controlled by a thread from the ceiling, my eyelids rose. I tried again, but they refused to stay down without conscientious effort on my part. I stared at the ghostly blotches of mildew on the walls. I stared at the crouching figure made of suitcases. I stared at the sliver of moonlight on the wardrobe. Eventually, I found my watch on the bedside table and stared at it until I determined it was nearly midnight. I also determined that I was hungry—ravenously, primitively, inescapably hungry—and that I was not going to be able to sleep until I appeased the internal demons.
I eased out of bed, put on my robe and bedroom slippers, and went out to the hall. One small bulb in a wall fixture on the landing provided enough light for me to make it safely down the stairs.
As I turned to go to the kitchen, I saw a narrow line of light under the parlor door. I crept to the door and tried to peek through the keyhole, a vastly overrated technique. I caught a glimpse of movement but no face. I considered my options and opted for the obvious. As I opened the door, the figure spun around.
“Cousin Claire!” gasped Phoebe as she stumbled backward through the thicket of floor lamps.
“I came down to raid the refrigerator,” I said, glancing at the tape measure in her hand. “What are you doing?”
“I had trouble sleeping, and I thought I’d look in here for a magazine.”
“Any size in particular?”
She looked at the tape measure as if it were the record-setting tapeworm. “I left this in here earlier.”
“I’m going to the kitchen to see if I can find some cheese and bread,” I said, not bothering to point out I’d seen her put it in her bag before dinner.
“I’ll come with you.” She put the tape measure in her bathrobe pocket, switched off the lamp, and joined me in the doorway. “I must agree that dinner was inedible. Whatever could have been in that sauce on the pudding?”
We discussed possibilities as we went down the hall toward the kitchen. As we passed the open door of the dining room, I spotted movement. I caught Phoebe’s arm. “There’s someone in there,” I whispered.
She unceremoniously removed my hand. “There is a great deal of moonlight, Cousin Claire. It’s more likely that you saw a shadow from the magnolia tree near the window.”
“Or someone looking for a magazine.” I turned on the light.
Stanford was on his hands and knees under the dining table. He gave us the frantic look of a puppy caught piddling on the carpet, then hastily crawled out and stood up. His bathrobe hung open, exposing pajamas dotted with teddy bears. “I…came downstairs to…ah, to find myself a little snack.”
“You’re rather desperate if you’re willing to settle for crumbs from under the table,” I said.
Stanford snatched up a napkin from the table to wipe his forehead. “There is a perfectly good explanation for my behavior, which I’ll be the first to admit looked peculiar.” We waited diplomatically while he concocted it. “When I retired earlier, I realized I’d misplaced my pocket watch. It’s been in the family for generations. I was too distraught to sleep. It finally occurred to me that it might have fallen out of my pocket during dinner, and I came down to search under the table.” His bald lie gave him enough courage to narrow his eyes at us. “And what are you two ladies doing down here?”
Phoebe narrowed her eyes right back at him. “I desired a magazine to read, Cousin Stanford. Cousin Claire says she came down to find something to eat.”
“Miss Justicia insists that the kitchen door be locked every night.” Stanford dusted off the knees of his pajamas and tightened the belt of his bathrobe with a jerk that must have pained a few of the dear little teddies. “Cousin Pauline has always kept the key; she used to allow Keith into the kitchen when they thought no one was up.”
I tried to imagine the two as comrades in a midnight pantry raid, then reminded myself that he’d probably been dragged to the barbershop on a monthly basis.
“I suppose I’ll go back upstairs,” I said.
“So will I,” Stanford said. “And you, Cousin Phoebe? I see you didn’t have much success finding a magazine….”
“As much success as you had finding your pocket watch.”
I turned off the light and we went toward the foyer. As we came through the doorway, I saw a diaphanous white figure in the darkness. Phoebe and Stanford must have seen it, too, since their gurgles of surprise echoed mine as we rammed into each other like a chain-reaction accident on a foggy freeway.
The figure turned around. I could see a gossamer gown, but the face was masked by the shadows. Bits of the cook’s cinematic ghost story came back in icy dribbles down my spine. Gulping, I squinted until I could make out features.
“Pauline.” I exhaled. “What are you doing out here?”
A few noises came from her throat, but I could make no sense of them. As I reached her side, I realized the front door was ajar. I pulled it open and found myself confronting not the vaporous remains of General Malloy but the pudgy white taxi driver who’d delivered Caron and me to Malloy Manor several eons ago.
“Somebody called for a cab,” he said, shrinking back as I gaped at him. “Now this lady says she doesn’t know who called. I drove all the way out here, and lemme tell you—it ain’t no hop, skip, and jump.”
Pauline found what there was of her voice. “I’m at a loss as to who would call at this hour.”
“Are you positive someone called from this house?” I asked the driver.
“I didn’t drive out here for my health.”
“No, I suppose not.” I looked back at Stanford and Phoebe. “Do either of you know anything about this?”
Stanford numbly shook his head, but Phoebe turned on Pauline with a tight frown. “Perhaps you might explain why you’re in the foyer, Cousin Pauline?”
“I…I thought I heard voices down here, and felt it only prudent to see who was up and about. Justicia oftens wakes at the slightest soun
d. As I came down the stairs, I heard a knock on the door, and I subsequently discovered…the gentleman on the porch.”
I gnawed on my lip for a moment, and then resorted to surreptitious twitches of my fingers as I mentally counted. “There are only nine of us in the house. I can vouch for Caron’s innocence; she’s sound asleep. If none of us called, it must have been Miss Justicia, Ellie, Keith, or Maxie. Why would any of them want to leave in the middle of the night?”
“It is most puzzling,” said Pauline. “I’ll peek into Justicia’s room and make sure she’s asleep.” We waited while she went across the foyer, opened one of the double doors, and closed it carefully. “She does awaken so easily,” she whispered as she joined us. “However, she is in her bed under her comforter. The brandy decanter is no longer on her bedside table, which I fear indicates she…well, she polished it off once I’d settled her down for the night.”
Stanford shook his head. “So Miss Justicia is drunker than a skunk and passed out, as usual. We’d better ask the others if one of them made the call for some bizarre reason.”
“I can assure you it wasn’t Mother,” said Phoebe.
Pauline timidly touched my shoulder. “What shall we do about the taxi driver, Claire? I don’t think we should require him to wait on the porch. Shall I send him on his way?”
“Oh, no,” I said. “Take him into the parlor and chat with him while I get to the bottom of this.”
She clutched her collar. “I’m not dressed to entertain gentleman callers! I would never dream of sitting in the parlor in my nightclothes. People would talk.”
I pointed my finger at the driver, who was halfway down the porch steps and no doubt hoping to disappear into the night. “Come back here. Someone called you, and I’m going to find out who it was. Was it a male or a female?”
“I dunno. The voice was low and whispery. This place’s rumored to be haunted. Maybe it was a ghost.”
I gave him an icy look. “Nineteenth-century ghosts are not familiar with the concept of calling a taxi. The call was made by a person who either will climb in the backseat of your taxi or reimburse you for your time and gasoline.”
“It’s not a big deal, lady.”
“No, I suppose not,” I said, gesturing more emphatically for him to come into the house, “but it’s a curious deal. Would you mind waiting in the parlor for five minutes?”
“Okay, okay.” He went past me, his head lowered, and continued into the parlor as if it was the principal’s office.
I turned on the light for him, closed the door, and regarded my three cosleuths. Given my druthers, I would have preferred the company of the driver to that of Stanford, Phoebe, and Pauline. I clearly had no druthers.
“Well,” I said, “let’s find the person who called the driver and let him or her do whatever he or she has in mind. This is peculiar, but I don’t intend to stay up all night because of it.”
“Maybe we ought to forget about it,” Stanford said with a sigh. “We’re getting ourselves all stirred up over what may have been a little misunderstanding on his part.”
Phoebe frowned at the closed door that led to the parlor. “Cousin Stanford’s apt to be right. Why don’t I tell the driver to run along?”
“No,” I said firmly to squelch the palace revolt brewing in the foyer. “It’s a very small mystery, but I’m wide-awake now and I’m going to solve it before I go back to bed.”
I started upstairs, but before my foot touched the third riser, my band of Malloy Manor irregulars (in all senses of the word) fell into line.
At the top of the stairs, we halted for a conference. After a great deal of hissing and gesturing, I shushed them and crossed the hallway to tap softly on Ellie’s door.
Keith opened it, still dressed and wearing the sunglasses. “Isn’t this a little late even for the Avon lady?”
“Someone in this house called for a taxi,” I told him. “The driver is waiting downstairs. Did you call him?”
“Why would I want to split in the middle of the night?”
Stanford nudged me aside. “Why would anyone wear dark glasses in the middle of the night? With that disgraceful hair and those ratty clothes, I wouldn’t speak to you on the street. You look like a two-bit hoodlum.”
“Or a junkie,” Phoebe contributed.
“It’s my hair,” Keith muttered, brushing even more of it in his face for emphasis. “I’m like into heavy metal, and all the guys in the band have long hair. I got a tattoo on my butt. Wanna see it?”
“Your mother, may she rest in peace, reared you to show respect for your elders,” Stanford said in a sputtery voice. “Remember how I used to take you outside and tan your bottom for sassing me? I ought to—”
I decided we were merely rehashing old hash. “What about Ellie?” I asked Keith. “Is she planning to go somewhere tonight?”
“Naw, she’s in the bathroom putting mud on her face.”
I glanced at the closed bathroom door behind us. Light glinted beneath it, and I heard running water and the faint sound of someone conversing with her perfect complexion in the mirror.
“She’s got a car, anyway,” Keith added. “Why would she need to call a cab?”
“Why would anyone?” I said, making a face.
While Stanford grumbled at his hirsute offspring and Pauline made tart remarks about the risks of infection from tattoos, Phoebe went down the hall, slipped inside her room for a moment, and returned to inform us that her mother was asleep. “As well we all should be,” she concluded.
“I suppose so,” I said. “I’ll go downstairs and dismiss the driver, and we can all try to get some sleep.”
A door banged in the foyer below. I peered over the banister, wondering if our driver had fled farelessly into the night, but I saw nothing. After a minute, however, I heard an ominously familiar droning sound.
In the bathroom, Ellie stopped murmuring compliments and began to sing “Claire de Lune.”
5
Pauline joined me at the banister. “This is terrible, simply terrible. Justicia promised to give up these childish pranks, but she persists at every opportunity. It’s dark, the grass is wet and slippery, and all sorts of animals are in the yard at night. I could just kill her.” She hurried into the bedroom and tugged at the window until it opened with an abrupt squeal. “Perhaps we’re mistaken,” she added without optimism. “We might have heard the taxi as it left.”
We crowded around her. Moonlight softened the raggedness of the yard and gave it a certain deceptive tranquillity. The inky water of the bayou glittered, as did the leaves of the tangle of trees beyond it. Several mosquitoes took advantage of the open window to zoom in for a midnight snack. Their buzzing competed with the increasingly insistent drone that was not the taxi’s departure, to our collective regret.
The wheelchair came around the corner of the house, its white-haired driver bent over the controls. She narrowly missed a tree, teetered precariously on one wheel, and then, at the fateful second, regained her balance. With a triumphant cackle, she shifted into high and shot into the shadows.
Pauline snorted angrily. “I must find her before she causes herself serious harm. All that wine at dinner, and then the brandy…” She squirmed through us and ran out the door.
We waited mutely at the window. Bedroom slippers flapped down the stairs like soft applause. A door banged. Seconds later, Pauline came into view and trotted away in the direction Miss Justicia had taken. It was much the same scene as I’d observed earlier, although the white gown that Pauline was wearing gave this version a macabre air.
Keith whistled softly. “Did you catch the look on her face? She’s so far off her rocker, she couldn’t find it, much less sit in it.”
“Don’t speak of your grandmother like that,” Stanford said, leaning over my shoulder to get a better view. His hand rested on my fanny, and, after a moment, began to explore its planes and curves. Keith and Phoebe jostled for position behind us, pinning me to the windowsill.
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nbsp; I froze, unable to believe Stanford would take advantage of his mother’s potential peril to resume his advances. I then regained my sensibility and elbowed him hard enough to elicit a muffled grunt, but no respite. I was preparing to punch him in the nose when Pauline reappeared from the bushes.
“I can’t find her,” she said. “I’ve looked all along the paths she usually takes, but there’s no trace of her. I don’t hear the wheelchair.”
“We’ll help you search the grounds,” I called down. I gave Stanford one last jab, a truly vicious one, and pushed my way through the group. “Well? Are you coming to find Miss Justicia before she runs into a magnolia tree?”
Stanford gave me a wounded look, although I didn’t know if I’d offended his superficial sense of decorum or his rib cage. “Of course we are,” he said grimly. “All of you, step to it. Poor Miss Justicia’s out there in the dark, and we have a responsibility to find her before it’s too late.”
Phoebe sniffed. “It seems to me it’s Cousin Pauline’s responsibility. It’s part of her job description.”
She caught my glower and reluctantly came across the room. Keith opened the bathroom door, tersely described the situation, and joined us with a smirky expression. “Ellie’ll be down as soon as she can chip off the mask,” he reported. “With that gook on her face, she’d give Granny a heart attack. I thought only kids were into mud pies.”
I could think of one kid who’d be delighted to dabble in mud—if it was guaranteed to ward off pimples. I ascertained that said kid was asleep, then trooped downstairs with the others. As we went through the foyer, I considered inviting the taxi driver to join in the fun, but decided to leave him in isolated ignorance. As it was, his opinion of the clan was already less than flattering. Miss Loony Tunes herself, he’d said. No rebuttal came to mind.
We halted on the porch to assess the situation. A cloud drifted across the face of the moon, briefly blotting out the eerie white light. Tree frogs competed with distant bullfrogs. Mosquitoes and gnats buzzed in my ears. Birds squawked at us from deep within shadowy tunnels of foliage. Amidst this bucolic cacaphony, I did not hear the wheelchair.