Hark! The Herald Angel Screamed: An Augusta Goodnight Mystery (with Heavenly Recipes) (13 page)

I told her Genevieve had put space heaters in some of the upstairs rooms and that Zee was probably in a hurry because she said her feet were cold.

“Well, of course they’re cold since she insisted on wearing that sorry excuse for shoes.” Idonia slowly unbuttoned her coat and passed it over to a waiting docent. She wore a prim gray silk with tucks down the front and a lace collar. The infamous gold locket was her only adornment.

“They’re serving cranberry punch in the dining room,” I told her, “but I don’t think it’s hot.”

“What’s Melrose doing with himself tonight? Is he planning to drop by?” I called after her as she made her way upstairs.

She gave me a backward wave of her hand. “He was going to, but his cousin needed him to help out at the funeral home, so I guess he won’t be coming.”

Fulton McIntyre, of course. Our minister announced in church that morning that Fulton had died, which was no surprise since the man was ninety-three and ailing.
So that’s why Idonia’s so crabby
, I thought. I knew something must have gotten her dander up. If Idonia was upset over playing second fiddle to a dead man, what would she think if she knew what we suspected about her locket?

I didn’t have time to think about it, however, as guests began to arrive and I stayed busy guiding them from one room to another. From the parlor came the strains of “What Child Is This?” and “Away in a Manger” played sweetly on the dulcimer and for a second I thought I saw Augusta sitting in a corner by the fireplace listening. A closer look proved me right: it
was
Augusta and her expression was so blissful and serene it made me forget for a moment just how bossy she can be. I had mentioned to her earlier that the Dulcimer Man was scheduled to play, so I wasn’t surprised to see her there. Augusta had attended one of Andy’s concerts with me earlier in the year and I knew she was fond of his music. When I glanced in there a few minutes later she was gone.

“Augusta was in here a little while ago,” Ellis whispered when I dropped by the kitchen during a break later that evening. “Didn’t stay long … guess she came to hear the Dulcimer Man.”

“I saw her in the parlor,” I said, sipping gratefully on the hot spiced cider served from a pot on the hearth. “Aren’t the Fiddlesticks coming back? I passed Albert and Miranda leaving with their instruments.”

“Nope. I believe a flute trio from the high school band is next on the agenda,” Ellis said as she added more ginger cookies to the tray on the table.

I turned in front of the fire to get thoroughly warm before crossing back across the yard to the main house. “Better let me have a cup of that punch to take back to Idonia,” I said. “She was asking for something hot to drink.”

Ellis laughed. “She’s already been in here. Drank two cups in here and took one back with her.”

“Did she seem upset?”

“No, just thirsty. I thought she was going to drink the punch bowl dry. Why?”

I told her about Idonia’s earlier behavior. “I guess she’s just disappointed that Melrose couldn’t join her tonight.”

“If there’s anything shady going on about that locket he gave her, Melrose DuBois had better get a running start!” Ellis said.

In keeping with the period, we had been asked not to wear watches that night, but because long sleeves covered my wrists, I could keep mine well out of sight. It was almost eight-thirty when I returned to my post in the hallway, and every room in the old house seemed to be filled with visitors. It was easy to imagine the home as it had been in the past with friends, music, and laughter, and if a building has a spirit, this one must have been happy. Plans were for the open house to end at nine, but some of the musicians stayed longer, and several of the town’s older citizens settled down to exchange tall tales by the dining room fireside, so it was closer to ten before everyone cleared out.

I was helping some of the docents clear away the clutter downstairs when Zee rushed into the room on the verge of tears. “Lucy Nan, something’s wrong with Idonia! You’ve got to come quick! I can’t wake her up.”

We all raced upstairs behind her to find Idonia seated at a small writing desk in a rear bedroom, her head upon her chest. The room was close and warm because of the space heater, and Idonia, who was unaccustomed to late hours, had been out caroling the night before.

“She’s probably just worn out,” I said, calling her name. “Idonia! Wake up! It’s time to go home.” I got no response.

“I felt her pulse,” Zee said. “She’s breathing okay, but she seems to be out like a light.”

By that time Nettie and Jo Nell had joined us. “She’s not on any medication, is she?” Nettie asked. “Sometimes antihistamines can make you drowsy.”

“Nothing but a low-dose thyroid pill,” I said. Idonia was usually as healthy as a horse.

Jo Nell sniffed at a punch cup beside her. “What’s she been drinking?”

“Just hot spiced punch, and so have I,” I told her. “There’s nothing in there to harm her.”

“Wait a minute … I think she’s waking up,” Zee said as Idonia blinked her eyes. “Is it time to get up?” she mumbled before closing them again.

“That does it!” I said. “Who has a cell phone? I’m calling nine-one-one.”

o, wait! Don’t!” Nettie said. “We might be able to catch Glen Smiley before he gets away. He was talking with somebody out front just a few minutes ago. Idonia would hate it if we made a big issue of this.”

Genevieve rushed into the hallway and hollered downstairs in her loud demanding voice for somebody to run and find the doctor. Glen Smiley graduated from high school in the class just ahead of ours and has been practicing medicine in Stone’s Throw for close to thirty years. Although his name is somewhat of a misnomer, as his bedside manner leaves something to be desired, you won’t find a better diagnostician, so I was relieved to hear the doctor’s monotone muttering in the hallway below.

“What’s going on here, Lucy Nan?” he asked, taking the stairs in great loping strides. But I could only shake my head. I was too frightened to speak.

“Idonia Mae, I want you to look at me,” he said, kneeling beside her chair. “Look at me and tell me where you are.”

Idonia’s eyelids fluttered and her head rolled to one side. “Don’t feel so good … leave me ‘lone.” She sounded more like herself in spite of the slurred words.

“Have you had anything to eat or drink tonight?” the doctor persisted, examining her more closely. Idonia slumped forward until her head rested on the desktop. She didn’t answer.

“She drank a lot of that spiced cider,” I told him, gesturing toward the cup.

“Is this it?” He picked it up and sniffed it. “You-all didn’t slip any vodka in there, did you?” He directed the question at Genevieve without so much as a flicker of a smile.

“Certainly not!” she answered, looking from one to the other of us. I could tell she wasn’t quite sure about the rest of us.

“I can’t do anything for her here,” he told us, taking a cell phone from his pocket. “She needs to go to the ER, but first we’ll have to get her out of that chair before she slides onto the floor.”

“It’ll take them about five or ten minutes to get here,” Dr. Smiley said, after making his phone call. “Meanwhile, let’s get her over on that bed so the EMTs can take a look at her.”

I heard somebody gasp behind me and turned to find Genevieve with a fist rammed into her mouth. “That bed’s almost two hundred years old,” she said. I honestly thought she was going to faint.

“Then it oughta hold up a few minutes longer,” the good doctor said. “And we don’t need all of you in here, either,” he added. “At least one of you can go outside and watch for the ambulance.”

“I—I will! I’ll wait for them out front.” Jo Nell’s voice trembled. “Only I’ll need to borrow a flashlight. I don’t—can’t remember where I put mine.”

“Take mine. I left it by the front door,” I said. I could tell she was about a sniff and a swallow away from crying.

“And somebody needs to find Ellis,” Jo Nell said. “Oh, Lordy! What if something’s happened to Ellis, too?”

“Nothing has happened to Ellis. She’s probably still straightening up out in the kitchen,” Nettie assured her. “Don’t worry, Jo
Nell, we’ll find her.” And giving Genevieve’s arm a jerk, she propelled the startled woman from the room.

Zee and I stayed to help Glen Smiley move Idonia to the bed, and I must say she didn’t cooperate one bit.

“Like picking up a big sack of chicken feed,” Zee said.

I couldn’t imagine where that analogy came from because as far as I know Zee St. Clair has never lifted a sack of chicken feed in her life.

“You better hope and pray Idonia didn’t hear you say that,” I told her.

The doctor frowned as he took her pulse. “Does anybody know how to get in touch with Nathan?”

Idonia’s only son lives somewhere in Georgia but I couldn’t remember the city. “Is it that serious?” I asked him. “What’s the matter with her, Glen?”

“I’ll know more about that when we get her to the hospital and have whatever’s in that punch analyzed. Are you sure Idonia’s not on any medication? Has she been having trouble sleeping lately? Look in her purse—see if you can find anything in there.”

“She came with me. I don’t even know if she brought a purse,” Zee said.

“Yes, she did! I saw her take it upstairs,” I said, “so it should be somewhere in here.”

Zee found Idonia’s gray leather handbag in one of the bureau drawers but there was no medication in there, only a comb, a package of tissues, and a tube of her favorite shade of lipstick, tawny rose.

“Is there anything you can do to help her?” Zee asked, kneeling by the bed.

“To be on the safe side, they’ll probably have to do a gastric lavage,” the doctor said.

I’ve watched enough medical shows on television to know that meant washing out the stomach and that Idonia wasn’t going to
like it one bit. Now she sighed as she shifted her position on the bed and made a face as if she smelled or tasted something bad.

“What’s the matter with Idonia?” Ellis’s breathless question accompanied her frantic footsteps on the stairs. “It’s not her heart, is it?” she asked, grabbing Glen Smiley by the arm.

“I’m inclined to believe it’s possibly something she ingested,” he said, freeing himself from her grasp. “You were in the kitchen, weren’t you? Do you know if anyone else suffered an adverse reaction to something they may have consumed tonight?”

Ellis looked at him as if he’d asked her if she’d served up rat poison. “Well, of course not! It was only spiced apple punch and ginger cookies. Idonia did drink a lot of it, though. Said she hadn’t had time for supper.”

“She’s going to be all right, isn’t she?”

“Glen thinks we should get in touch with Nathan,” I said before he could answer. “Do you know where he’s living?”

“No, but Jennifer should,” Ellis said. Jennifer Cole is Idonia’s niece, who teaches at the high school.

“Then I think you’d better call her.” Glen moved to the doorway at the sound of a siren in the distance. “That must be the ambulance, so let’s clear out and give them some room. You can follow us to the hospital if you like, but the sooner we get there, the better.”

Taking his advice, I hurried into the hallway, but Ellis still stood in the middle of the room looking like she just remembered she’d forgotten to put on underwear. “Wait a minute!” she said.

“Wait for what?” Zee asked. “Hurry up, Ellis, we have to get out of here.”

Ellis turned and walked resolutely to stand over Idonia’s inert body. “It’s gone,” she said, turning to look at us.

“What’s gone?” I said.

“The locket. Her locket’s not here.” Ellis’s searching fingers traced Idonia’s neckline, felt beneath her head and shoulders. “Did one of you take it off?”

“Of course not,” Zee said. “That locket was the last thing on my mind.”

“But not Idonia’s,” I said. “If that locket doesn’t turn up, we’ll have another emergency on our hands.”

“She didn’t appear to be wearing anything like that when I examined her,” Glen said, “but if she is wearing jewelry, they’ll remove it at the hospital for safekeeping.”