An Old-Fashioned Murder (24 page)

“The end of the day?” Beulah scoffed. “I'll be back much earlier than that.”

“No!” Daisy exclaimed. “You can't come here, Beulah!”

There was a startled silence.

“What's going on, Daisy?” Rick said sharply, his instinct showing.

Her throat tightened, and for a moment, she couldn't respond. Then her words came out dull and disconnected, as though somebody else were speaking them. “Drew. He's dead.”

Beulah let out a strangled gasp. “Good God, did you just say…”

Her voice faded away, and a second later, there was a thud.

“Whoa! Don't fall down on me, sweetheart.”

Rick was talking, but Daisy could hardly hear him.

“Sit on that chair. There you go. And drink this. It'll help.”

After a minute, there was some clattering with the phone, and Rick's voice grew louder.

“Daisy? Are you still with me?”

“Yes. What happened?”

“Beulah started to faint and dropped the phone.”

“Is she all right?”

He gave an affirmative grunt. “Don't worry about her. I caught her before she hit the floor. And now she's sucking on a glass of whiskey. That'll bring her round.”

Daisy drew a shaky breath.

“Don't worry about Beulah,” Rick repeated. “We need to worry about you. Tell me what the hell is going on over there. From the beginning, and don't leave anything out.”

With some fits and starts, Daisy explained it all as well as she could, trying to include as many potentially pertinent details as possible. It wasn't easy, especially when she had to describe the scene with Drew at the bottom of the cellar stairs. Rick didn't interrupt and let her talk at her own pace, even when she faltered at the difficult portions. She concluded by telling him that Aunt Emily had wanted his advice.

“Get out,” Rick responded, without the slightest hesitation. “That's my advice to you. Get out now.”

“I can't,” Daisy said. “It isn't physically possible. The parking lot is buried. There's no way for me to get to a car, let alone drive anywhere with it.”

“What about one of the barns or Beulah's salon?”

“My salon,” Beulah murmured somewhat incoherently in the background. “Daisy should go to my salon.”

“I can't,” she said again. “I can't leave my mama.”

“Take your mama with you.”

“The snow is awfully deep around the inn, Rick. I'm not sure how far I could get through it, but I'm positive that my mama wouldn't make it past the porch. She's too weak. And she's just beginning to get over her cold and cough. If I take her outside in the icy air now, I have no idea what will happen to her lungs. I can't take that chance.”

“But you can take the chance of her staying there?” he retorted.

“Her door is locked, and she's got Aunt Emily's Remington.”

“Excellent. So at least she's taken care of. What about your gun?”

Daisy winced, knowing that Rick was not going to like her answer. She owned a small Colt—a .380. Her daddy had given it to her mama the Christmas before he passed, but it belonged to Daisy now. Previously she had kept it at the inn, but several months earlier there had been a robbery at the bakery, which had left her and especially Brenda shaken. As a result, she had taken the gun there.

“The Colt is at Sweetie Pies,” she told him.

“For criminy sake, Daisy! Why isn't it at the inn?”

“Because I thought we needed it at the bakery more. We already had Aunt Emily's shotgun. Normally the inn doesn't require an arsenal.”

Rick replied with an agitated snort.

“Well, the gun isn't here, so there's no use getting mad at me over it,” Daisy continued defensively. “And it's not like I could go waving it around now anyway. May Fowler is already on the verge of a breakdown, and Edna probably isn't far behind. We're trying to keep them calm, not have them think that there's about to be a shoot-out.”

“Does anybody else there have a gun? What about that fellow whose car went into the ditch and suggested calling the sheriff in relation to Henry?”

Even though Rick couldn't see it, she shook her head. “I have no idea what Bud might have. I haven't seen a gun, and he hasn't mentioned one. But I doubt that we could trust whatever he said, regardless.”

“What about Parker?” Beulah asked, still in the background but more coherent.

Daisy shook her head again. “Parker doesn't like firearms. I think he had a bad experience with Lillian once.”

Rick gave another snort. “Every experience with Lillian is bad. If he doesn't keep a gun, it's because he's afraid that one day he might not be able to control the temptation to use it on her.”

“No,” Beulah corrected them, her voice growing stronger as she dragged her chair closer to the phone. “I'm not talking about Parker having a gun. I mean, what about Parker doing the killing?”

It took Daisy a moment to process the words. Beulah thought Parker was the murderer? “Are you sure that she didn't hit her head on the floor, Rick?”

“My head is perfectly fine,” Beulah rejoined.

“I told you that whiskey would do the trick,” Rick said.

“Yes, but how much did you drink, Beulah? Because thinking that Parker—”

“Why not him?” she argued. “He could have snapped. Lillian might have finally broken the poor man. We all know what a tyrant she can be, and nobody knows it better than her long-suffering husband. The two people who died were both ones that Lillian held a specific grudge against. Maybe Parker thought he was helping them.”

“Helping them by killing them?”

“I didn't say it was rational. I said that he might have snapped.”

“But Parker loved Henry,” Daisy protested. “They'd known each other since Parker was a wee shaver.” She smiled, remembering how annoyed Lillian had gotten whenever Henry woofed and called him “Dog” Barker. “He never would have pushed a secretary on top of him. And Parker liked Drew, too, even though he'd only met him a couple of times before.”

“Exactly,” Beulah said. “Parker was fond of both of them—especially Henry—and he was tired of Lillian being so nasty toward them. He wanted to set 'em free.”

Daisy frowned at the phone. Even for Beulah, that seemed to be going to the extreme. Henry and Drew weren't captive birds. They didn't need to be set free. And they had both held their own against Lillian quite well, particularly Henry, who had given just as good as he had gotten from her, if not better, even.

If they were going to look at every possibility—which at this point, they clearly needed to do—Lillian could certainly be considered a suspect. Henry's teasing had vexed her to no end, and Drew had interfered with the potential happiness of her darling nephew. But putting Parker on the list was really a stretch.

“I don't know,” Rick remarked doubtfully.

“You don't know?” Beulah echoed in amazement. “You don't know if Lillian could push Parker far enough to make him snap?”

“Oh, I'm sure she could. There's no question Lillian could nag and criticize a man until he exploded like a tinderbox. But that's just it. He would snap and—as you said—act irrationally. But neither of the deaths was like that. At least Henry's wasn't. It's harder to know with Drew's. The second could be a result of the first. It might not have been intended at the outset, but it became necessary in the end.”

“That's what I think,” Daisy said. “Drew was getting too close, and the killer got nervous. They were worried about being exposed, and they probably panicked. With Henry, it seems more planned. Not brilliantly planned, mind you. Because then it wouldn't have been done with a piece of furniture during a snowstorm and a party at the inn. But it still seems calculated to me. And Henry must have had some inkling, as well, considering that he took the Remington and hid it.”

“You do realize, Daisy,” Rick replied, “that if someone got nervous enough to kill Drew, you're in serious danger.”

“Everybody here is, Rick.”

“Except everybody hasn't been sharing their bed with Drew.”

For a second, Daisy flushed with resentment at his presumptuous tone. Then it occurred to her that he was right. She hadn't actually been sharing her bed with Drew, but that wasn't what mattered. They had been spending time together, and the entire inn knew it. If the murderer had indeed thought that Drew was getting too close, then it was only logical for the murderer to also assume that she wasn't far behind. That was not good.

“Was Drew getting too close?” Rick asked her. “Did he know—or did he suspect—who the killer was?”

“No. At least not the last time I spoke with him. But he was trying to remember a voice that he heard arguing with Henry in the parlor. We both thought it was the voice of the murderer. Drew might have figured it out during the night and—”

“I still think it could be Parker,” Beulah interjected. “He's such a nice guy. Nice guys tend to be the ones who have meltdowns.”

“But it doesn't seem like a meltdown—” This time Daisy cut herself off. There was a strange noise coming from somewhere. “Do you hear that? Is it on my end or yours?”

“I don't hear anything,” Beulah said.

“Me, either,” Rick agreed. “What does it sound like?”

Daisy listened. “Like a cat crying.”

“Brenda didn't bring Blot, did she?” Beulah asked.

“No. Brenda isn't here. She was worried about driving in the storm, and I suggested that she stay home.”

“At least that's one person we don't have to worry about,” Rick said.

“Small favors.” Daisy sighed.

She listened again. The noise was definitely on her end. It pitched high, then low, and then went high again. It could have been the television, but with the power out, that didn't make sense.

“I think it's coming from downstairs,” she told them.

“Ignore it,” Beulah said.

“I can't ignore it.” Daisy rose and walked toward the door of her room.

“Yes, you can,” Beulah countered. “Your mama's safe, so let them sort it out for themselves.”

“Except I don't know what
it
is. And what about Aunt Emily?”

“Oh, Aunt Emily's scrappy. There's no need to fret about her. In the end, she'll outlive all of us. Guaranteed.”

Rick chuckled. Under different circumstances, Beulah's boundless confidence in Aunt Emily's indestructibility would have amused Daisy, too. But Drew had been nearly forty years younger and a lot more fit than Aunt Emily—and he was dead.

She turned the knob, planning on starting with a cautious little crack until she got a better handle on what was happening. But the instant the door opened, it was obvious that the noise was neither a cat nor a television. It was a person wailing.

“Is that somebody screeching?” Rick said.

“I think it might be May.” Daisy moved into the hall, trying to identify the voice. “Or maybe Sarah Lunt.”

“Beulah's right,” Rick informed her sternly. “Ignore it and stay in your room.”

“Of course I'm right…,” Beulah began.

Not listening to them, Daisy took several steps in the direction of the stairs. The voice became clearer. It was Aunt Emily. A moment later, her words became clear also.

“No, Parker! No!” she shouted. “Don't kill him!”

 

CHAPTER

23

For a minute, Daisy stood motionless in the hall, wondering if her ears might have deceived her. Did Aunt Emily just yell something about Parker killing someone? Could Beulah indeed be right—not about her ignoring it and staying in her room—but about Parker being the murderer?

There were more noises downstairs. They seemed to be coming from the parlor, and it sounded like a struggle. Arms and legs scuffling. Furniture getting knocked to the ground. A shriek. And then Aunt Emily again.

“Please, Parker!” she implored. “Don't do it!”

Daisy dashed toward the steps. She had already reached the landing before she remembered that she was still on the phone.

“I'll have to call you back,” she told Rick and Beulah hastily.

In unison they protested and demanded to know what was going on, but Daisy was too busy thinking about Aunt Emily and Parker.

“I'll call you back,” she said again, and then promptly hung up without waiting for a response.

She raced down the stairs and through the front entry. Her feet came to an abrupt halt at the edge of the parlor. Although she had expected some sort of an altercation based on the shouts and noises, what she saw still managed to startle her.

The normally sedate and stately parlor was in a complete uproar. It almost looked like the room had been flooded again—just as it had four months earlier, resulting in the renovations and the supposed party—only with significantly less water and more people.

The gold-brocaded settee usually occupied by Lillian and Parker was empty, its matching throw pillows scattered across the floor. Huddled into the corner of the emerald-brocaded settee was May Fowler, her lace handkerchief pressed to her face, half covering her eyes. The potted dwarf Meyer lemon tree lay at her feet, broken branches and soil spilling over the carpet. The candle stand that had been next to the plant was on top of it instead, one of its cabriole legs cracked and detached from the rest.

Lillian stood pressed against the wall in between the windows and the longcase clock, looking like she was tempted to burst through the glass and sprint outside, if there hadn't been massive drifts of snow blocking her way. Kenneth Lunt was also on his feet, his cheeks florid and his fingers clutching the back of one of the damask armchairs. His wife stood partially concealed behind him. Her chair was tipped over.

Also tipped over was the chair that Bud Foster typically occupied, along with the neighboring tea table. Bud was in the scuffed leather smoking chair, with Aunt Emily standing on one side of him and Edna Fowler on the other. And in the center of it all was Parker. He was positioned in front of the smoking chair, leaning over Bud, his hands wrapped around Bud's neck.