“If you would,” our hostess replied with a nod. “I may be a few minutes at that.”
Mrs. Vancamp gave me a mildly reproving look; then her head disappeared and the doors came together again. Maybe she was right about how I’d turned out.
Frankly, I wasn’t sure which surprised me more: that Mother and I had mistaken a Bible group for a cabal of thieves, or that Cora Vancamp had so readily accepted seeing us being held at gunpoint.
“Carl,” Mrs. O’Grady said kindly to our rifle-wielding escort, “thank you for your concern, but there’s no real problem here. You can go now.”
He frowned, head tilting like that of a dog trying to understand its master. “You sure ’bout that, Alma?”
“Quite sure. Vivian and Brandy are old friends of mine.”
Carl let out a skeptical sigh but finally lowered the gun. “Okay, then . . . but I’ll be around if you need me. Just let out a scream or somethin’.”
“I’ll do that, Carl. Thank you.”
Finally, he went out, grumbling to himself and casting suspicious glances at us over his shoulder.
Mrs. O’Grady told us, “Really, Carl’s a peach.”
More like the pits, I thought.
Mother said, “I’m sure he is. However, he doesn’t present himself terribly well.”
Mrs. O’Grady chuckled. “You know how these eccentric old farmers are. But he does odd jobs for me in exchange for hunting on my property.”
Hence the rifle.
Mrs. O’Grady clasped her hands. “Now, what’s on your mind, Vivian? I know you well enough to figure you didn’t ride all the way out here on a whim. Must be important. Come have some cookies and tea.”
She turned, and we followed her back to a cozy country kitchen, where wicker baskets displayed on cupboard tops seemed to be a passion, as did geese, an army of which were marching around the room on the border of the yellow-and-white wallpaper.
Mother and I sat at a rustic oak table, while Mrs. O’Grady put the cookies on a plate. I’d let Mother eat one first.
“How do you take your tea?” she asked. We told her, and in a moment she was back with two steaming cups, placing them in front of us.
Taking the chair next to Mother, Mrs. O’Grady asked, “Now, what brought you girls out here to see me?”
Mother, shifting in her chair, demurred. “I’d rather not say. It would get a certain person in trouble.”
I, not feeling demure-ish, blurted, “It was that pig-farmer neighbor of yours who sent us off on this wild-goose chase.”
(Note to Editor from Vivian: I will not protest the use of the cliché, since it fits in with the cliché decor. And, anyway, a cliché in dialogue is rather more acceptable. Just a word to the wise!)
“Ah,” Mrs. O’Grady said with a mild frown and a knowing nod. “And what unkind words did Randall have to say about me?”
“I would prefer not to repeat such things,” Mother said, which was one of the most ridiculous things a gossip like her could say.
On the other hand, perhaps Mother was reluctant to jeopardize her friendship with Alma O’Grady (herself a possible source of gossip). Whatever the case, I decided to fill our hostess in.
When I’d finished, she said, a little stiffly, “Regarding the nature of the vehicles that come up and down my lane, our prayer group consists of older women who don’t care to drive their expensive Cadillacs and Lincolns out in the country in bad weather, so they carpool in vehicles with four-wheel drive. I’m sorry their mode of transportation isn’t more to Randall’s liking.”
Since I was stuffing a warm, gooey cookie in my mouth, Mother replied, “It was an unfair assumption on his part.”
Of course, it was an assumption that Mother had accepted at face value.
“And as to his assertion that the corn husker in question was his,” Mrs. O’Grady continued, chin up, “the operative word here is ‘was,’ since Randall gave the tool to my husband as a gift shortly before Tom died. So, naturally, when my ‘good neighbor’ asked for it back a few days after the funeral—a really offensive thing to do, in my opinion—I refused.”
“Seems odd he would lie about it,” I said as gently as possible.
The woman sighed. “Not when you consider that he’s been angry with me ever since I complained to the EPA about the terrible stench emanating from his hog farm. Honestly, half the time we couldn’t have our windows open! Well, those governmental folks paid him a visit and found all kinds of violations, which Randall refused to address. . . and, consequently, they shut him down.”
Mother shook her head sympathetically. “And here Randall always claimed he walked away from the pig biz because he’d wearied of it.” She reached for Mrs. O’Grady’s hand. “Alma, dear, I do hope you’ll understand our misplaced zeal. As you may suspect, we’re investigating Camilla Cassato’s murder and have to follow up every lead we get, however slim it might seem.”
This was as close to an apology as I’d ever heard Mother make.
“I understand,” Mrs. O’Grady said, then smiled, just a little. “But I’d appreciate it if you’d take me off your list of suspects.”
Mother placed splayed fingers to her chest. “Why, Alma, dear, you were never on it!”
I hoped Mrs. O’Grady didn’t come around to our house and peek through the window. She might see the blackboard, where she was first on the list.
Mother was saying, “You see, dear, we just needed to clear up some loose ends.”
Mrs. O’Grady was frowning, in thought.
“Something on your mind, dear?” Mother asked.
She sighed. “As a matter of fact, yes. You mention loose ends. This might . . . just might . . . be pertinent to your case. . . .”
Mother sat forward, a cat that had spied a mouse. “Do proceed, by all means!”
Mrs. O’Grady raised a forefinger. “After you and Brandy left the auction on Sunday, I saw your producer—that out-of-town man with the beard?—having a somewhat surreptitious conversation with Camilla outside, by her car. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it became quite heated.”
Mother said, “That’s Phil Dean. He was probably telling Camilla to stay away from the filming.”
“I don’t think so,” Mrs. O’Grady countered. “Because they started out quite friendly, and one would think he’d have laid into her immediately if such were the case.” She shrugged. “Anyway, for what it’s worth, that was my impression.”
“It may be worth a good deal, Alma,” Mother replied. “Thank you for sharing.”
Mrs. O’Grady let out a massive sigh. “Well, I must get back to the prayer group,” she said. Then, bright eyed, she added, “Would you care to join us?”
I held my breath. Mother was capable of accepting, just to stay on Mrs. O’Grady’s good side or, anyway, get back on it. And she was also capable of upstaging God Almighty, should the prayer meeting inspire her. Thankfully, she declined, stating we had an appointment to keep.
We thanked our hostess for the tea and cookies and took our leave.
Outside, by the car, I grumbled, “Well, she sure turned out to be a pickled herring.”
“That’s red herring, dear,” Mother said, unperturbed by our (her) waste-of-time blunder. “Even the greatest detectives—Holmes, Poirot, Wolfe—go down the occasional blind alley. Anyway, we got a new lead out of it.”
“Phil?” I grunted. “Don’t be silly.”
She swung toward me. “Dear, you must keep an open mind and a sunny disposition.”
“I’ll put you in charge of that.” I turned to her. “Please tell me you were fibbing about having another appointment.”
“No, dear.” She checked her wristwatch. “Tilda is expecting us shortly.”
Remember Matilda “Tilda” Thompkins? The New Age guru we’d had on our show, whose questionable talents Mother was convinced had helped crack several cases of ours?
I asked, “Why’d you set up a meeting with her, of all people?”
Moth
er raised a forefinger. “Because, my dear, Tilda should be able to regress me to the evening that we broke into Camilla’s shop. Under her expert hypnosis, I hope to recall something about our assailant that has eluded us till now.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay. I’ll take you there, but I’m not coming in for the floor show.”
“But I need you to record what I say!” Mother protested. “You know that I never remember what I say or do while in a trance.”
I might argue that she was in a trance more or less all the time, but I let it go.
I twisted toward her in the car. “Isn’t it strange how every time you go under, out pops another one of your former lives! Just dripping with history!”
Mother, in addition to being Iras, Cleopatra’s handmaiden, in 44 BC (in charge of the Egyptian queen’s asps), had been around in 1615 AD as Matoaka, the younger sister of Pocahontas, with whom John Smith was really in love . . . or so Mother/Matoaka claimed. And who are we to contradict her?
“There will be no historical side trips, no matter how interesting they might be,” Mother assured me. “This time I’ll be able to give Tilda a specific date, time, and place.”
“Well . . . okay. But don’t expect me to buy it if you turn out to be Anne Boleyn’s hairdresser or Davy Crockett’s Indian guide.”
“Understood . . . though wouldn’t that be fascinating?”
I sighed and started the car. (You may think I report my sighing too frequently, but I assure you the bulk has been edited out.)
Tilda lived across from the Serenity cemetery, in a white two-story clapboard house that could nowadays be called shabby chic, though the emphasis here was on shabby. Mother’s favorite guru/hypnotist might also be psychic, because she opened her door before we’d had a chance to ring the bell.
The slender, forty-something female, with long golden-red hair and translucent skin and a scattering of youthful freckles across the bridge of her nose, wore Bohemian attire, as she did no matter what the season: long madras skirt, white peasant blouse, and Birkenstock sandals (though she did add socks in winter).
We moved past Tilda’s graciously gesturing hand into a mystic shrine of soothing candles, healing crystals, and swirling mobiles of planets and stars—much of it for sale. Incense hung in the air like a fragrant curtain, and from somewhere drifted the tinkling sound of New Age music. The room served as a living space, waiting area, and shop.
And did I mention she had cats? She had cats. Lots of them—perched on the couch (seat and back) and every chair, and on the windowsills. Nor were these your ordinary, run-of-the-mill felines, but rather reincarnations of dead humans.
Tilda sincerely believed that spirits from the cemetery across the way who still had issues and hadn’t “moved on” often floated across the street and took up residence in her assorted cats. She claimed that after a burial, a new cat would simply appear on her porch, and when she opened the door, it would trot right in, as if having lived there for years (and then would).
I knew some of the animals by name—Eugene Lyle Wilkenson, Constance Ruth Penfield, Franklin “Frankie” Carlyle, Cheryl Jean Steward—having known them in life. This didn’t stop me from shooing them off the couch, even Frankie Carlyle, though he had been a bully and might bite.
“You’ve caught me at a propitious time,” Tilda said, addressing us in her husky, sensual voice. “I can schedule you in between my tantric sex class and chakra session.”
While I was trying to process that, Mother chirped, “How lovely when the stars align.”
Would it be unkind of me to remind her that it was still daytime and the stars wouldn’t be aligning for some time?
“So, ladies,” Tilda asked, hands fig-leafed before her, “how may I be of service?”
Mother frowned. “Didn’t I made myself clear on the phone? I need you to regress me again!”
Tilda sucked in air sharply. “Oh, dear! The last time we simply couldn’t get rid of Madame Curie’s talkative cook, and I am on a tight schedule.”
(I forgot to mention Mother had prepared meals for the famous female scientist, including suggesting to the madam’s husband the basic notion of pasteurization.)
Mother produced a paper from her coat pocket and handed it to Tilda. “I’ve written down just what you need to know, so that I go back only a week.”
“That should be very helpful,” Tilda replied, then raised a conditional finger. “But should a former life appear and refuse to move along, you and it will have to attend the pending chakra session. Come!”
We followed Tilda, who moved with ethereal, dreamy grace, back to the kitchen, off of which was a small, dark, claustrophobic room.
The single window had been shuttered, and the only source of light came from a table lamp, the revolving shade, with its cutout stars, sending its own galaxy swirling on the ceiling.
Mother stretched out on a red-velvet Victorian fainting couch, while Tilda took an ornate straight-back chair next to her. I sat on a little stool behind Tilda, cell phone in hand, ready to record Mother’s every utterance.
Tilda, with Mother’s handwritten instructions on her lap, reached for a long gold-chained necklace with a round, shiny disk, which was resting on the table next to the lamp. Dangling the jewelry before Mother’s face, Tilda started to swing it like a pendulum.
“Watch the medallion, Vivian,” Tilda said softly. “Consider its gentle motion. Surrender to its gentle motion. . . .”
Mother eyes moved back and forth, as if she were viewing a tennis match.
“You feel relaxed . . . so very relaxed,” Tilda cooed. “You’re getting sleepy . . . so very sleepy.”
As Tilda repeated this, every phrase progressively slower, ever more soothing, Mother’s eyelids fluttered.
“Your eyelids are heavy . . . so very heavy . . . so heavy that you simply can’t keep them open.”
Mother’s eyes closed.
“I’m going to count backward from ten to one. When I say ‘one,’ Vivian, you will be asleep, completely, deeply asleep. Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .”
At “five,” Mother’s body went limp, but Tilda finished the count. At this point Mother proved she really was deeply asleep by beginning to snore. The kind of snoring that can riffle roof tiles.
To Tilda, I said, “She’s had a busy day.”
“No matter,” the hypnotist said and withdrew the swinging necklace from in front of Mother’s face and sat back, then consulted the notes in her lap.
“Vivian,” the guru/hypnotist began, “I want you to go back to—”
But that’s as far as Tilda got, for Mother, in a deep voice and her patented British accent, said, “Greetings! I am Myles Carter, personal attendant to King George the Third, defender of the realm, king of Great Britain, France, Ireland, and Hanover.”
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” I muttered.
“I like to think of myself as more than a valet, in fact, as a trusted, valued confidant. Just today I was advising His Majesty to hold firm with these uppity colonists. Their threats of revolution are merely empty poppycock!”
At least she’d stopped snoring.
Tilda leaned toward Mother/Myles. “Mr. Carter, we need to speak to Vivian. Return Vivian to us, sir.”
“Very good, madam,” he replied stiffly. “I have a wig to powder, anyway!”
Mother’s face relaxed.
I could hardly believe the guru/hypnotist had gotten rid of King George’s manservant so quickly, but then, I guess, he was used to taking orders.
“Vivian?” Tilda ventured. “Are you with us?”
“I am,” Mother replied in her normal voice.
“Last week,” the hypnotist said, consulting Mother’s paper, “you and your daughter were in Camilla Cassato’s antiques shop, sleuthing. Suddenly a man appeared. I want to you recall the moment just before he pushed you. Can you do that?”
“Yes.”
“He is standing very close to you. Can you see him?”
Mother, eyes c
losed, shook her head. “No. Too dark.”
“What are you hearing?”
Mother frowned. “Heavy breathing. A man breathing.”
“Anything else?” Tilda prompted.
“A paper crinkling.”
“Can you see the paper?”
“No,” Mother replied.
“What are you smelling?”
Mother’s nose twitched. “Cologne.”
“Is it familiar?” Tilda asked.
Mother nodded.
“Had you smelled it before?”
Mother nodded.
“Is it a common brand?”
Mother shook her head.
“Can you attach a face to it?”
“I think so. Yes. Yes, I can.”
I sat forward on the stool.
Tilda asked, “Whose face do you associate with that cologne?”
“Our producer,” Mother said. “Phil Dean.”
* * *
A short time later, Mother and I sat in the car in front of Tilda’s house while I played back the recording of her session on my cell phone.
After it concluded, neither of us spoke for several minutes; I was grappling with the idea that the mystery man who had attacked us was the producer/director of our show . . . and our friend. I imagined Mother was doing the same.
What she said, however, was, “Really? So I was Myles Carter, personal attendant to King George the Third, defender of the realm, king of Great Britain, France, Ireland, and Hanover?”
“Will you forget about that?” I said. “The question is, what papers was Phil after that night at Camilla’s shop?”
Mother frowned. “Whatever they were, they must have been important enough for him to break in and try to get them.”
“Could Phil have killed Camilla?” I asked, then said incredulously, “How could that even be possible? We’re talking about Phil here, one of the nicest guys we know!”
“Dear,” Mother replied, “how often do the friends or relatives or neighbors of a murderer go on television and say, ‘So-and-so was such a nice person’? To which I say, if they murdered someone, apparently, they’re not that nice!”
“If Phil did kill Camilla,” I said, accepting that jarring possibility just for the sake of argument, “why didn’t he take the papers, then?”
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