Death of an English Muffin (25 page)

I ran upstairs, slipped into a nice dress, did my long dark hair up in a chignon, tapped on each bedroom door, and led the parade downstairs: Pish, Lush, Barbara, Lauda, and Vanessa followed me, all very solemn. When I had everyone seated I said I’d fetch dinner.

Virgil stood and politely said, “I’ll help you, Merry.” He
followed me into the kitchen and grabbed my arm, swinging me around to face him. “Are you okay?”

“I hate when people ask me that!” I snapped. Taking a deep breath, realizing he’d only asked because he was concerned, I said, “I’m sorry, Virgil. Yes, I’m okay for someone who is about to try to trap a killer into revealing herself. Does your mother know the drill? I thought by the way she was acting she knew something.”

“I didn’t tell her outright, but she knows me too well and I think she’s figured it out. She doesn’t know what I know, though. What about Pish?”

“He knows everything. I had to tell him; he’s another pair of eyes, and no one is better at social interaction than he is. I made sure he wouldn’t tell Lush, but it wasn’t fair to keep him out of the loop.”

He nodded. “Okay, but let me lead the way. I have to be careful here, because this could all go horribly awry if she can point just once to me misusing my position as an officer of the law. This needs to be crystal clear and witnessed.”

“And that is why I need to do all the talk . . .” I saw his look. “Okay,
most
of the talking. You
can’t
be the one to lead her into a confession, or admission, or anything else.”

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “This could all go very right, or very wrong, and if it goes wrong it’ll go down as the worst error in judgment by a sheriff in the history of American law.”

It hadn’t occurred to me just
how
dangerous this was for him. I touched his shoulder and held his gaze. “I appreciate this. I know that if it were up to you, you’d have a solid case before approaching her, and then you’d do it in the sheriff’s station. I just don’t think I can spend one more night under the same roof as a murderer.”

“And I don’t
want
you sleeping under the same roof as a murderer. I think we know what we have to do, now let’s do it.”

As we gathered the food, a rare roast beef with roasted
potatoes and other root vegetables, we briefly talked about strategy and agreed to let it all ride until after the meal. We carried the food and condiments into the dining room. Virgil carved the roast as I poured the wine. A little alcoholic lubrication would not hurt. I watched Virgil, oddly riveted by the strangely domestic activity that occupied him. Gogi’s gaze slewed back and forth between us until I had to look away, aware that my cheeks were flaming.

He was the one, the man I didn’t think I would find at this point in my life, someone who I wanted to know better, who I wanted to kiss, and more. It didn’t surprise me that he was so different from Miguel, it made me happy. My husband was a one-of-a-kind force of nature, and to look for another such man . . . He didn’t exist. But Virgil was a force of nature in his own unique way. One question remained: was he interested, or was I making it up out of thin air? Everyone close to me—even his mother—said he was interested, that he watched me when I wasn’t aware. I thought I was
always
aware when he was around, but apparently that was not so.

After pouring the wine, I sat and we ate, chatting about inconsequential things. Virgil was surprisingly good at small talk. He managed to draw Barbara out by returning to the only topic that interested her, the theater. Vanessa, to my right, smiled and put her hand over mine. “You like him, don’t you? The sheriff, I mean. You watch him a lot. He’s a very handsome man. You two would make a beautiful couple.”

I smiled over at her and let out a trembling sigh. “I don’t know where I stand with him,” I murmured.

“He’s interested or I don’t know men, and I
do
know men. Don’t waste time. Go after him! It all goes so swiftly, the days, the months, the years.” Her look was melancholy.

“Is that what happened to you?” I asked, watching her face. “Why did you never remarry? You’re such a vibrant woman.”

“Just because I never remarried after my divorce doesn’t
mean I didn’t have lovers, my dear child.” She smiled at me. “But there never was one who appealed to me more than my career. I worked right up into the eighties, and after my career was over . . .” She shrugged. “Then it was too late in many ways.”

“It’s never too late,” I said brightly and stood. I picked up my wineglass and raised it, looking around the table. They all gave me their attention. “I just wanted to say how sorry I am that your party has been diminished by two, one permanently and one hopefully temporarily. I’d like to make a toast to Cleta and Patsy, two very different ladies.”

They all obediently raised their glasses, watching me. I scanned their expressions. The killer was one calm, cool cucumber. “To Cleta; I didn’t know her long, but though she was not the easiest person with whom to get along, she did not deserve her fate. May she rest in peace.”

Lauda sniffed and touched her eye with a tissue that seemed permanently affixed to her hand now.

“And to poor Patsy,” I said, scanning the gathering.

As I had prearranged, Pish asked, “Do we know what happened to Patsy?”

“Yes, actually we do.” I looked around at the others. “We know
exactly
what happened to
Patsy.”

“O
F COURSE WE
know what happened,” Barbara snapped. “The poor old gal got dizzy and fell.
That’s
what happened.”

Vanessa narrowed her eyes and looked from me to Barbara. “I don’t think that’s what Merry is saying, Babs.”

“We always said Patsy was a dizzy blonde,” Barbara said.

Time for the punch. “She wasn’t dizzy, and she didn’t fall; she was pushed.”

“No!” Tears welled in Vanessa’s eyes and one hand covered her mouth. “How could that be? Patsy Schwartz never did anything to anyone in her whole life.”

Lauda half stood and pushed back her chair. “I’m going up to my room. I don’t feel well.”

I watched her with interest. “Lauda, please stay,” I said calmly. “I’d like to try a little experiment this evening. This is my home, and I don’t like what happened here. We have conflicting accounts of where everyone was when Cleta went off to the bathroom the day of her murder, and I’d love to
straighten that out, with all of your cooperation.” If I was right, the killer would not dare object.

So far so good. No one actually said anything, they all just watched me, much the same as a bunny rabbit watches a snake. Fear, mistrust, worry: all were present around my dining room table. “It’s like a board game,” I said. I slipped from my chair and went over to the sideboard, opened a drawer, and removed my mock-up of the dining room, what I normally use to plan seating arrangements. I set it down on the table and sat, flattening the chart.

Vanessa frowned over at me. “Merry, are you expecting us to help you accuse one of us?” she asked. “I don’t know if I can approve.”

Lush spoke up for the first time. “If it will help figure out who killed Cleta and who pushed poor Patsy, then I am willing to try.”

“I’m not saying I won’t help, Lushie, dear,” Vanessa said. “It just seems so . . . gruesome, somehow.”

“I think it’s disgusting,” Barbara said, her voice trembling. “There is poor Patsy lying in a hospital bed, and we’re to play some kind of . . . of parlor game?”

“I should think you’d all want to help Merry,” Gogi said. “If there is a murderer in your midst, you should want to flush her out.”

“If this was your plan all along, then why is
she
here?” Lauda complained, hooking a thumb over her shoulder, indicating Gogi.

“She’s my friend and she was at the luncheon. Why shouldn’t she be here?”

“Well, I wasn’t invited to your precious luncheon,” Lauda said, standing and pushing her chair back, “so I’m going upstairs.”

“Sit down, Lauda,” Pish said.

“You say you weren’t here,” I said, raising my voice, “but I think you were.”

Her face had gone pale, and she tugged at her frizzy locks nervously, not sitting down, but not leaving, either. “How could that be true?”

I watched her. “Please sit down, Lauda. You and I both know you were here. All that is in question is, why? What did you do here? What did you see?”

“I wasn’t here,” she stubbornly said.

“We’ll let it go for now,” I said, then paused and added, “but I know you were here.” I looked around. “Everyone who was at the party gave a statement, and they’ve been cross-referenced, so the sheriff knows where they say they were and when. I think you can see where I’m going with this.” I would not meet Virgil’s eye because I was about to lie, and I didn’t want him to interrupt. “Some discrepancies have come to light. I’d like a couple of you to explain them.”

I knew as soon as I said it that I’d stepped wrong and put the killer’s back up. Her eyes went stony. I was right, I could tell, but it was going to be a tough task to expose her, because she was smart and bold. If she just continued to deny involvement there may never be a way to charge her with the crime, and I couldn’t stand that, because she had proved to me that she would strike again if she felt threatened. Unleashing her on the world felt wrong, but she couldn’t stay at Wynter Castle.

“Let’s start at the beginning,” I said, though I didn’t intend to go through the whole event minute by minute. There were a couple of key spots. I decided to ignore the long faces and sour looks coming at me from Lauda, Barbara, and Vanessa. One way or another, the murderess was leaving, either in handcuffs, or I would drive her all the way to Rochester that very night and stick her on a train back to the city.

I lightly passed over the early part of the tea, lunch, the dessert buffet, setting up the tables for cards. That was where the oddities happened. I glanced at Lauda, and she looked like she was snoozing, eyes closed, breathing rhythmic. Lush
looked worried, her glance skipping around the table to each person. Pish was watchful, as was Gogi. Virgil was observing; it was weird, but it was like he made himself invisible. He just withdrew and seemed not to be present, when I know very well he was aware of everything.

We chatted about the card games in progress. “What game were you and the others at your table playing, Pish?”

“Euchre. I would have preferred bridge, but Helen Johnson didn’t know how to play.”

“And Lush, you were sitting with Cleta, Doc, Hubert, and Mabel Thorpe.” I already knew the answer, but I asked the question anyway. “What game were you playing?”

“We were playing bridge, dearest,” Lush answered. “I taught Pish how to play when he was just a wee lad.”

I nodded. “So, about two thirty in the afternoon, after dessert, did Cleta leave the table for some reason?”

Lush nodded. “We were five at the table, so we took turns sitting out a hand. It was her turn to sit out, and she excused herself.”

The room was deadly quiet; all eyes were on me. I was sure of my next move, but as in chess, it was smart to be careful and step warily against a canny opponent. “Why would she do that?” I asked.

“She probably went out for a cigarette. She never could give up that filthy habit,” Vanessa said. “It was supposedly a secret, but after every meal and sometimes just when she needed a moment alone she’d slip out with her purse, carrying her cigarettes. She bought some kind of expensive cigarette that she said would never kill her.”

“Turned out she was right about that,” I said grimly. “It didn’t have the chance.”

Barbara sat motionless, watching us all. Her gaze swiveled to me, and she stared with alarm. “I can’t help but think you’re trying to get at something, Merry. What exactly are you trying to say or ask?”

I watched her as I said, “I’m trying to pinpoint both who knew Cleta would leave the room the moment she had a chance to have a smoke, and who was absent about the same time. Like . . . you. You left the room right after Cleta did.” That was a point of contention.

“No, that’s not true!” she protested. “We had been playing euchre five-handed, but I wasn’t feeling well and left the table. I told them to play on four-handed.” She glanced around the table. “You must have seen me. I came back, sat down, and resumed play just as Cleta was leaving the dining room.”

“That’s true,” Lush said. “I remember now! You needed to push one of our chairs aside to get through, and Cleta, who had paused by me to complain about being roped in as faro banker, made some kind of crack as she was leaving, about . . .” Her sagging cheeks pinkened. “I’m sorry, Babs, dearest; it was rude, and I wasn’t sad to see her leave.”

Pish, looking stunned, said, “And that’s when Patsy left, too, almost following her, but not quite.” He met my gaze. “After Patsy left, so did one other person.” He turned in his chair and stared at the woman to my right. “Vanessa, Patsy was gone for a moment, and then you got up and left the room, too. I can’t think why I didn’t remember before, but I just thought both statements you gave were true, that you came back to your seat, then left again after Cleta departed the room. Where did you go?”

The woman was an actress, and really much better than her B-movie roles would indicate. She looked puzzled. “I don’t know what you mean, Pishie, darling.”

Virgil spoke up for the first time. “Madam LaDuchesse, perhaps you need a reminder. In your formal statement you told us that you came back to your seat just
before
Cleta left the room and didn’t get up again. When we spoke after the incident, with the medical examiner, you claimed to be just sitting down when Cleta made a remark about the faro game. But these folks are saying that’s not true, that it was
Mrs. Beakman who came back just as Miss Sanson was leaving. You actually left just
after
she left the room.”

Tears welled in her eyes. She nodded. “It’s true. I’ve been trying to hide it, but I have to tell you all the truth about . . . about what happened.”

It was as if the entire dinner group sucked in a breath and held it; the room felt airless, my cheeks flushed with blood, and I got dizzy. She was going to say it. She was going to tell the truth.

“I did leave the dining room. I was going to go to the washroom, but Patsy came from that direction. She told me the door was locked, so someone must be in there. I didn’t even bother trying. I lingered for a moment, but when no one came out I went up to my own bathroom and then came back to the game.”

My turn. Watching her face carefully, I said, “Well, that isn’t true at all. I know that because I know that Patsy and Lauda
both
were in your room.” Lauda I was guessing at, but Patsy I knew of for sure.

Lauda had turned pale but didn’t protest. Vanessa didn’t say a thing, and I could see that she knew she had misstepped. She had overcomplicated her remarks and didn’t know which way to go.

“Cleta once hinted to me that there was something in your past, something unsavory,” Lush said. “Someday she’d tell us all, she said. What was it, Vanessa?”

“
I’ll
tell you all what it is,” I said, then turned to watch Vanessa’s face. “When you were just nineteen you lived with a wealthy older woman who willed everything to
you
, as long as you stayed with her.” I paused, waiting for a protest, but she said nothing. “But it was the 1950s, and you were ambitious. She
adored
you, but you saw a trap. How would you explain her to the movie directors and the press, if you made it as big as you planned? They’d expect you to be seen with men, and you weren’t averse to that. You didn’t start
out wanting to be a noir B-movie vixen. You saw yourself as Elizabeth Taylor.” I paused, and my voice clogged with emotion as I said, “So for financial and career reasons, your lover had to go.”

Vanessa’s expression became grim. I felt like the veneer was about to crack; one more good blow.

“I saw the photo in your room, Vanessa. There was that one in the collage on your wall; the poor woman gazed at you with such adoration. It was plain in her eyes.” I felt so sorry for that long-ago woman who fell in love with a girl who didn’t have a heart to give back.

“You’re making this all up,” she whispered, her voice hoarse. She was strained, her mouth tight, wrinkles gathering around it like a purse string.

“It was in the news, as the murders of rich people often are. Did you know, most newspapers have archives with all their old articles? You can buy an old article from the
New York Times
for something like four dollars. You were on vacation in the Caribbean, a little out-of-the-way spot with no extradition treaty with the United States. Just in case.” I watched Vanessa, but she didn’t look at me. Instead she picked up a linen napkin and twisted it in her hands, wringing and wringing, like throttling a little yellow bird.

No one said a word. All I could hear was the hushed murmur of breathing. “You convinced her to take you on vacation, engineered some kind of fight in the lobby, and said you were leaving. But before you did, you followed her back to the room and smothered her,” I said, my voice shaking. “Then you made it look like a room break-in. You flew back to New York. The island police had their suspicions—you were seen with scratches on your arms, hurrying through the lobby—but they couldn’t prove anything, and once you were in the U.S. you were safe, even if they had wanted to charge you.”

Lush was softly sobbing and murmured, “How awful!”

I looked over at Virgil, then back to Vanessa. “The crime is still listed as unsolved. You took your inheritance, moved to California, changed your name, and got into movies. Then you went to Europe, married a wealthy count who wanted a wife and then
ex
-wife to cover for his
own
preferences, and divorced him, getting even wealthier in the process and leaving behind forever the girl who was once just plain, dirt-poor Vanity Slacum, from Mount Airy, North Carolina.”

Her handsome face looked ravaged and her breathing was ragged and irregular, but I was unmoved by pity. She killed Cleta Sanson and then tried to murder poor poverty-stricken Patsy Schwartz, who had the nerve to steal from Cleta’s room the letter that Vanessa had written to Cleta many years ago, trying to take back a drunken confession. Patsy had intended to continue for profit the blackmail that Cleta had started out of amusement. I felt sure that Patsy had tried it at least once, and that was why she had the welt on her arm—Vanessa was stronger than she looked, and had likely grabbed her; supposition on my part, but well grounded—and that is also why Patsy invited her daughter to come stay, to protect herself. The night of Patsy’s fall Vanessa must have lured her out with the promise of settling up with money. One push was supposed to end it all, but Patsy didn’t die.