Crossing the Lion (a Reigning Cats and Dog) (2010) (18 page)

Margaret was still cleaning up from dinner, both her hands hidden inside puffy oven mitts as she pulled dinner plates out of a steaming dishwasher. Yet while her uniform looked as perky as if it was just starting a new day, I couldn’t say the same about her face: Her eyes were watery, the corners of her mouth sagged, and her skin looked as if it were begging for a facial. I
knew that she’d put in a long day, which had begun early that morning with breakfast preparations.

“I hope I’m not disturbing you,” I said, suddenly feeling guilty about asking her to extend her day even further. “I couldn’t resist coming down here and looking for a snack.”

“In that case,” she said with an authoritative nod, “I’ve got just the thing. When it comes to comfort food, I’m a real expert.”

“Milk and cookies?” I asked.

Margaret cast me a strange look. “I was thinking of scotch.”

So much for the comfort foods Mother used to make
, I thought with amusement.

“Actually,” I said, “I’ve heard great things about your fudge. I was wondering if I could get you to make a batch.”

“It’s true,” she said, nodding. “I’m famous for my fudge. I’d be happy to introduce you to it.”

“Thanks,” I said. Offering her an apologetic smile, I added, “Sorry that I’m making you work overtime.”

“Me?” She shrugged. “I don’t expect that I’ll be getting much sleep tonight, either—even with the help of this.” She picked up a glass that I hadn’t noticed before, mainly because it was tucked behind the electric mixer. Frowning, she added, “Talking to that Lieutenant Falcone earlier today is enough to keep anybody awake nights.” She raised the glass in a silent toast, then downed a good third of its contents without coming up for air.

“I’m pretty sure Anthony Falcone has that effect on just about everybody he talks to,” I commented.

“He wasn’t treating me like everybody,” she corrected me grimly, setting her glass down firmly on the table. Her voice wavering, she added, “It’s hard enough coming to grips with the fact that poor Mr. M. was murdered. But the idea that I could possibly have had anything to do with it is preposterous. Nobody was more loyal to that man than I was!”

With agitated movements, she began to assemble ingredients: milk and butter from the refrigerator, sugar and squares of unsweetened chocolate from the pantry. She slammed each item down on the granite counter, making it clear just how upset she was over being considered a suspect in Linus’s murder.

“What do you think happened that night, Margaret?” I asked gently.

“Like I told that Falcone,” she said, “I agree with the theory that the eggs Mr. M. ingested had to have been in the birthday cake. That’s the only thing on the menu that could possibly have been prepared with them. We had all his favorites: lobster with melted butter, shrimp in a garlic-and-oil sauce, plenty of veggies … There’s no way to incorporate eggs into any of those. So it had to be the cake.”

She grabbed a large knife from the block on the counter and began chopping up the chocolate with swift, angry strokes.

I was afraid to ask the obvious question but had no choice. “But didn’t
you
make his birthday cake?”

“I made
a
birthday cake,” she replied. Frowning,
she reached into a drawer under the stove and noisily rifled through the pots and pans, finally pulling out a saucepan. “But somebody evidently substituted one that was made with eggs without me knowing.”

She turned to me, wearing an agonized expression and still grasping the metal pan in one hand. “I should have paid closer attention,” she told me, her voice a near whisper.

“How could you have anticipated that something like that would happen?” I asked. “Especially since someone clearly went to great pains to make the switch.”

“Whoever it was certainly knew how things work in this house,” Margaret mused.

“What exactly happened Wednesday evening?” I asked gently. “In terms of getting the cake ready for Linus’s birthday?”

Margaret took a deep breath. “After I made the two chocolate cake layers, I left them on the counter. If you’ve ever baked a cake, you know it takes a while for it to cool down. You can’t frost the layers until they’re at room temperature or the frosting will slip right off. So I put the cake layers on a cooling rack and went about my business, getting other things ready and leaving the kitchen a few times to do some other errands.

“When it came time to frost the cake, I thought I noticed they looked a little different,” she went on. “But I was in a hurry, and my mind was in a hundred different places … My theory is that while I was away from the kitchen, somebody sneaked inside and substituted
two chocolate layers that they’d gotten somewhere else. I went ahead and frosted the cake, then served it to the entire family.”

I blinked, not sure whether to believe her version of what had happened. After all, she was the one who had control over the kitchen, spending more time here than anyone else. It wasn’t impossible that someone had sneaked in and switched the cakes, of course. But it was at least as likely that she had put eggs in the cake herself.

Still, for the sake of questioning her, I intended to act as if I accepted her explanation without question.

“Who knew that you were making a chocolate cake for Linus’s birthday,” I asked, “and that you’d be making two layers that were that particular size?”

“Just about everyone who’s familiar with this household,” she replied matter-of-factly. “It’s a Merrywood family tradition to serve a two-layer cake at everyone’s birthday celebration. I always make two nine-inch layers, in whatever flavor the person likes best. That’s a pretty standard size.” Shrugging, she added, “As for the flavor, Mr. M. loved chocolate. So anyone who knew we were gearing up for a birthday celebration would have known it was guaranteed to include a chocolate birthday cake.”

I hesitated for a few seconds before asking the next question that came to mind. “Margaret, who do you think might have substituted their cake for yours?”

She didn’t look at me, instead pretending to be absorbed in dropping chunks of chocolate into the milk she was heating on the stove.

“I’m not one to go around making accusations,” she said evenly, her eyes still fixed on the saucepan, “especially when it involves something this important. But I’ve observed some things that not everybody in this house may know about.”

My heartbeat quickened and my ears pricked up like Max’s whenever he hears the refrigerator door open. “Like what?”

She cast me a wary look. “Like the fact that there was somebody in the house that night who I suspect had been trying to come between Mr. M. and his wife.”

My eyebrows shot up as she continued, “Maybe that person finally got fed up that her plan wasn’t going the way she wanted. Or maybe there was something else going on between the two of them.”

I remained silent, mentally going through the list of people who were at the party the night before last. Aside from Linus’s daughter and his wife, the only females in the house were Scarlett and Gwennie.

Margaret clearly thought one of them was pursuing Linus, motivated by a desire for either his love or his money. But, frankly, I found it difficult to picture either of them engaging in a flirtation with Linus, no matter what their motivation. Scarlett Sandowsky was as prim as they come. Repression appeared to be her middle name. As for Gwennie—well, it was difficult to imagine her in any role aside from an extra in
Mary Poppins
.

“Not that I blame her, of course,” Margaret went on, still staring intently into the saucepan and steadily
stirring the delicious-smelling chocolate mixture. “After all, what woman in her right mind wouldn’t develop a strong affection for Mr. M., once she got to know him? The man was a prince. He was intelligent, sensitive, as polished as all get-out … I mean, how many men who’d achieved as much as he did would still care so much about using his fortune to help so many others?”

A sudden realization hit me like a lightning bolt.

Oh, my gosh!
I thought.
Margaret was in love with him!

I tried to wrap my mind around the fact that the family’s loyal longtime employee obviously had feelings for Linus. Given that revelation, it was no wonder she was convinced, rightly or wrongly, that another woman in the household had also set her sights on him.

As she continued singing Linus’s praises, meanwhile stirring more and more forcefully, my mind drifted to the two possibilities, Scarlett and Gwennie. If one of them did, indeed, have feelings for Linus, she could have become frustrated by his lack of interest in returning her affections and murdered him. Or, if money was her motivation, it was possible that she’d managed to get him to write her into his will, and she saw a quick inheritance as the next best thing to replacing Charlotte in the role of Mrs. Merrywood.

Either way, all the secrets cloistered within the walls of this creaky old mansion made this puzzle much more difficult to solve than one in a board game.

•  •  •

I didn’t know how I’d ever fall asleep that night, even though I’d have the comfort of Nick beside me. There were too many thoughts whirling around inside my brain.

Still, it was late, the house was quiet, and the rooms were getting colder. It was definitely time to go to bed. With a pan of freshly made, foil-wrapped fudge in hand, I opened the bedroom door quietly, encountering darkness and hearing low, even breathing that told me Nick was already asleep. Darkness and his low, even breathing.

Enough light filtered in from the hallway that I could see he was sharing the mattress with Max and Lou. Both of my doggies woke up long enough to wag their tails—in Max’s case, the stub on his butt—and gaze up at me adoringly through bleary eyes. After stashing the fudge in a drawer in case Alvira decided to pay another midnight call, I petted each of them for a minute or two before squeezing into the limited space that remained. I was glad that at least I now had Nick and the dogs to help ward off the chilly air that held the entire house in its grip after night fell.

But I’d been right about how elusive restfulness was going to be. As I stared up at the ceiling, one scenario after another played in my head. They were like a series of movie trailers, each with a different star: Brock, Tag, Cook, and just about everyone else in the household. In addition, the jumble of random clips never quite told a satisfying story.

They certainly didn’t give any clues about what the ending would be.

I lay in the dark, trying to think up a good way of questioning Scarlett, Townie, Harry, and the two servants from across the pond without appearing to be interrogating them. But I froze when I suddenly heard a loud squeak. It sounded like one of the wooden floorboards out in the hallway—one that was right outside my room.

You’re imagining things
, I told myself, turning over on my side and resolutely closing my eyes.

Sque-e-eak!

This time there was no mistaking what I’d heard. Where it had come from, either.

Someone is out there
, I thought with alarm. And since the only other person who had a room in this part of the house was Harry, it wasn’t exactly a high-traffic area.

My heart had already gone into its jackhammer mode, and I could feel the adrenaline shooting through every nerve of my body.

It’s probably nothing
, I insisted to myself.
Just someone going to the bathroom—or down to the kitchen because they smelled Cook’s fudge
.

Instinctively, I glanced over my shoulder at Nick. But he was sleeping so soundly that I couldn’t bring myself to wake him. Certainly not over something like this, since the logical part of me knew it would most likely turn out to be nothing. My two “watchdogs” didn’t even bat an eyelash.

Then again, there was something about this house
that wasn’t like anyplace I’d ever been before. A noise in the dark of night that I assumed was nothing could turn out to be
anything
.

Sque-e-e-e-ak!
I heard it again, this time a little farther away.

By this point, I knew there was no way I’d ever get to sleep without checking it out. So even though the room was icy cold, and even though I knew the floor was going to feel like a glacier beneath my bare feet, I pulled back the covers, climbed out of bed, and tiptoed over to the door. I opened it gently, sure it would turn out to be nothing more onerous than someone moving innocently through the house.

So I was unprepared for the sight of something white and diaphanous floating at the other end of the hallway. As I stared at it, blinking, a gust of cold air hit me, sending a horrible chill through my bones.

A ghost!

My chest was doing that telltale-heart thing again. I tried to find relief in the fact that, whatever it was, it appeared to be moving away from me.

Wait a minute
, I suddenly thought.
You don’t believe in ghosts! You’re just imagining things—all because of this creepy house with its hidden staircases and eerie portraits and all this thunder and lightning …
As for that blast of cold air, it was probably a draft from an open window somewhere.

By that point, the ghost, or whatever it was, had disappeared. And I was feeling like an idiot.

I ordered myself back to bed, talking to myself as if
I were a naughty child suffering from the aftereffects of too much sugar.

Just because this house is creepy doesn’t mean you have to start believing every horror movie you’ve ever seen
, I scolded myself. I got back into bed, marveling over how quickly the sheets on my side had gone from toasty warm to freezing cold.

I was just beginning to warm up again when I heard a low moan.

A moan that sounded exactly like the kind of noise a ghost would make.

But there
is
no ghost!
I reminded myself.
Not here or anywhere else!

“Oh-h-h!” I heard again.

Okay, something was definitely going on. Either there was a ghost up here—or someone was trying to make me
believe
there was a ghost up here.