Death of an English Muffin (9 page)

That was all fine, but I needed Shilo to help serve alongside Emerald. Juniper was just not someone I trusted to serve tables most of the time, since she was grumpy and misanthropic, an interesting blend of combativeness and snarkiness I didn’t mind now that I knew the good heart and hard work beneath it. She just wasn’t suited to serving food to the public.

I compromised by making sure Emerald would serve Cleta’s table. With Cleta I seated Doc, who would not stand any of her nonsense and could not be insulted; Mabel Thorpe, the sharp-tongued manageress of the Vale Lunch counter, who had demanded an invitation because she heard there was to be bridge-playing; Hubert Dread, who was loopy in a sly-as-a-fox way anyway; and Lush, who had brought the plague down upon us and so needed to be punished.

Just joking. However, Cleta
was
her fault, though I still could not figure out who had told Cleta about moving to Wynter Castle, nor who had truly invited her, since every single one of them disavowed that.

Everyone had arrived. We served a light luncheon of finger sandwiches and salads. I had taken great care setting up the trays of finger sandwiches and had Lizzie take photos in case I wanted to start giving teas. I was also going to have her take more pictures of the afternoon so I’d have a reference as I planned future events. She rolled her eyes a lot, but over the course of the next hour or so she did what I asked. Better taking photos, I reminded her, than serving tea.

The guests played cards. I drifted among the tables making sure everything was going smoothly. Barbara had eaten quite a bit of lunch. Despite her apparent pickiness at the opera evening, in truth the woman could eat anything without it affecting her, it didn’t matter how spicy, nor sickeningly sweet. This afternoon, though, her fleshy face was pale, and there was sweat on her brow. She got up and made her way out of the dining room. If she was gone too long, I’d seek her out, but I wasn’t feeling too charitable or concerned about her “delicate” constitution after her performance at the opera after-party.

Jack was sitting with Hannah, Gogi, and Isadore playing Crazy Eights. I smiled as I watched because the play was silly and high-spirited, each one slapping his or her cards down with gusto. Hannah giggled like a little girl, and Jack laughed out loud, even as he glanced over at Shilo, who was moving around filling teacups. His gaze followed her, then he glanced at me.

When Shilo came back to the tea table, I moved to stand close to her. “How is it going?”

“Fine,” she said.

“Shilo, I hope if there was anything wro—”

“Merry, everything is
fine
!” she said. Picking up another pot of tea she headed out to make the rounds, filling empty teacups. I was called over to settle a dispute between Janice Grover and Patsy Schwartz.

“Merry, she cheated me,” Janice claimed, holding up a poker hand. “She’s dealing from the bottom of the deck!” I
had left it to the individual tables what they wished to play. Apparently they were playing poker, and if I was to believe Janice, who I had no cause to doubt, Patsy was a poker shark.

Patsy, her carefully made-up face painted with coral lipstick and blue eye shadow, looked aghast. “I would
never
!” she said, hand over her heart as if she were having palpitations.

“
I would never
,” Janice mimicked in a thin, exaggerated voice, her double chins wobbling in her indignation and her lucky parrot earrings swinging. She threw down her poker hand and crossed her arms over her colorful muumuu.

I glanced around, noting the attention we were drawing. Janice was turning red with fury, while Patsy was pale under her one-shade-too-dark foundation. I didn’t want this to blow out of proportion. What to do? “Are you betting real money?” I asked Janice and she nodded. I sighed heavily. I had said no betting.

Thankfully Vanessa stood and moved from her table to theirs. “Patsy, why don’t you go and sit with the others at
my
table, and I’ll move here,” she said. “I don’t believe you’re cheating, but you are a
lousy
poker dealer. I’ll take over, if that’s okay with you, Mrs. Grover?”

Janice nodded. They dealt a fresh hand and, with the others’ assent—Elwood and Stoddart were at her table—they played on.

People moved in and out of the dining room, as well as changing tables for games at times. Barbara was gone for a long while. Hannah and Gogi ended up playing War, since Jack had abandoned them and was talking to Shilo. I noticed that Isadore was missing, too. Where the heck had she gone? I strolled around the room, chatting with folks and watching to see that Cleta didn’t behave badly.

I couldn’t pay attention after a while, though, because I needed to direct the dessert course. Since there were so many different treats I had cut them fairly small. It made sense, with that variety, to let people help themselves. I
shooed Jack back to his chair, and Shilo, Emerald, and I lined up the sweets on platters on tables by the window overlooking the lane. We had tarts and squares, minimuffins, coffee cake, as well as scones and real butter, with clotted cream and preserves for the ones who wanted it. That was all Cleta ate: greedy spoonfuls of clotted cream on my homemade scones, with rhubarb-ginger compote.

Emerald, Shilo, and I kept refilling the dessert table and taking away empty trays. Isadore came back for dessert, then Juniper disappeared at some point. I thought she had likely gone out for a smoke; someone had been smoking in the castle, and it annoyed the crap out of me. I didn’t go looking for her, since I would need her more for the cleanup after the luncheon. Isadore disappeared again. Where the heck was she going when she left? I wasn’t sure that I wanted to know, but I supposed my library was one possible destination. Books held a magnetism for her.

Lizzie mumbled something about taking a few more pictures and then going to take more photos of the structures in the woods. I waved her off. She did take more photos, then vanished. The card games went on and the merriment seemed to increase exponentially. In fact, it was all so cheerful I grew suspicious. After a month I had become accustomed to a dark cloud over every affair. Where was she? Where
was
my own personal storm cloud? I scanned the room. No Cleta. Maybe she had gone up to bed. Perhaps the happiness abounding had become too much for her spirit, and she’d gone to lie down and recover.

I checked in at the table where she had been playing bridge. When I asked, Lush just shrugged, but Mabel Thorpe sourly said that Cleta, who was apparently a very able partner in bridge, was sitting out a hand. Mabel clamped her lips tight, appearing to have taken the absence as betrayal. She might not like the woman, but apparently Cleta was a damn fine bridge partner and was missed.

“Hope she doesn’t come back, to tell you the truth,” Hubert said with a chuckle. “As long as she kept partnering with Mabel I never won a game! Now I’m doin’ not too bad.” He turned to the others and began one of his tales. As I drifted away, I heard him say, “You know, bridge as a card game was invented by the Chinese, who used it to communicate state secrets to other highly placed folks . . .”

It was beginning to wind down, games finishing, folks yawning and stretching, and I was happy about that. Maybe we could make a go of these things, the luncheons and teas. I might even consider tour groups who wanted to stop somewhere interesting for lunch, if I could get licensing for it. But Cleta’s absence nagged at me. She had been gone too long for simply sitting out a hand or two. I dashed out and ran upstairs. A door opened down the hall and Eleanor, Elwood Fitzhugh’s ditzy sister, tiptoed out, closing the door behind her.

“Ma’am, can I help you?” I asked.

She jumped and turned, bridling slightly, her thin frame quivering with indignation. “You might not want to startle a body,” she said, clutching her pocketbook to her bosom.

“Were you looking for something?”

“It’s quite all right. I found it.”

“What did you find?” I asked, noting that she had been in Patsy Schwartz’s room.

“The lavatory, if you
must
know! Wouldn’t think it mattered. There was another lady up here when I came up, one of those New York women.” She trotted past me and down the stairs.

“There’s a bathroom on the main floor, you know,” I called down over the gallery railing, but there was no answer.

I headed to Cleta’s room but had a momentary qualm as I stood before the oak door, staring at it. She had the best room in the house, in my opinion, one of the turret rooms, the one that had a lovely trompe l’oeil ceiling that I had uncovered last autumn. It was furnished with sturdy Eastlake furniture—a double bed, highboy dresser, and vanity
suite, as well as an overstuffed love seat near the fireplace. Would she be lying on her bed, shoes off, reading a book? I tried the knob and the door swung open.

I stepped inside. “Miss Sanson?” I called out. I peeked into the small cream tiled ensuite bathroom, but she wasn’t there. I looked around the room, puzzled, inhaling the faint odor of tobacco smoke. Had Juniper been there? Just because she cleaned the woman’s room didn’t mean she could use it as her personal smoking pit.

I stomped out and down the stairs intending to upbraid Juniper and almost ran into Emerald, who was racing to the kitchen to get paper towels after Janice Grover spilled an entire jug of cream. Over Patsy Schwartz’s head.

Luckily, Janice had awful aim, so though she had intended for the cream to go all over Patsy’s head, it was actually all over the table. It took me fifteen minutes to clean up the mess and half an hour to get everyone calmed down. I was finally at the long buffet table clearing some of the crumbs and stacking empty trays when Hannah came to me, her wheelchair gliding quietly across the hardwood floor.

“Hey, sweetie, have you enjoyed yourself?” I asked, smiling over at her as I kept cleaning. She was young, just late twenties, but she had an affinity for seniors. I worried sometimes that she spent too much time with older folks and not enough with people her own age, but she always assured me she liked it that way.

She smiled back. “I have. I wasn’t sure I would, with . . . with certain people here.”

She meant Cleta, of course. I sympathized.

“I’ve been trying to use the, uh . . . the facilities for over half an hour,” Hannah said, “but the door is locked.”

Wheelchair bound as she was, the only washroom she could access was the main-floor half bath on the hall to the back door. “I’ll see what’s up,” I said, dusting off my hands and tossing the cloth aside. “I hope no one is ill.”

“I called out, but there was no answer.”

“I hope the lock didn’t malfunction or something.” I paused, a bad feeling roiling in the pit of my stomach. “I’d better get my keys.” I zipped through the great hall and snagged my keys from my handbag, which I had hidden. I sped through the kitchen, followed by Hannah, and headed down the back hall. I knocked on the bathroom door. “Hello?” I called. “Is anyone there?” No answer.

I shrugged as I tried the doorknob. Just then Zeke came in the back door. “What’s going on?” he asked, seeing Hannah and me by the bathroom. I knew Hannah wouldn’t want me blurting out her needs—she’s a very private young lady—so I just said, “Door seems to be locked, but there’s no one in there.”

“Last I saw, Mrs. Beakman was using the can. She didn’t look so good.”

Gogi came into the hallway just then. “Hannah, your parents are here to pick you up. What’s going on?”

I explained again, then stuck the key in the lock, wiggling it to make it work, and opened the door.

There, slumped over against the vanity that held the sink, staring blankly up at me was Cleta Sanson, her face ashen and sagging into wrinkles, her mouth slack and skin discolored with a bluish cast. She was quite dead. I started crying.

I
DON’T KNOW
why I cried; it surprised the hell out of me since I had disliked the woman. I grabbed backward and felt Gogi’s comforting presence.

“Oh dear,” she said, looking past me and seeing Cleta.

Hannah must have seen past us both because she cried out, “Can’t you help her? Should you be doing CPR or something?”

Zeke crowded in and peered over our shoulders. “Nope, she’s a goner. Looks just like my uncle Silas when he died last Fourth of July after eating a hot dog too fast and having a heart attack.”

His words made me shudder to life. I turned and pushed him back into the hall. “Hannah, will you and Zeke please go back into the kitchen for now?” They obeyed, and I stood with Gogi, looking around the bathroom from the door, trying to understand what had happened. It seemed impossible, and yet . . . she was dead. Her smeared glasses were in the sink, one of the arms bent oddly.

Cleta’s pocketbook was on the floor; it looked like she had been trying to get some pills out. They were spilled all over the white ceramic sink and the tile floor, along with much of the contents of her purse: lipstick, antibacterial handwash in a plastic bottle, lighter, pens, and an odd little compact with a monogrammed lid. Gogi tilted her head and read the pill bottle, where it lay tipped over on the edge of the sink. “It’s hers. Nitro,” she said. “Poor woman. Probably tried to get the pills thinking she was having an angina episode, but it wasn’t, it was her heart.”

“Is nitro only for angina?” I asked.

“No, oh no. If she thought she was having a heart attack she’d reach for them, too.”

Poor Cleta . . . her lipstick was smeared, as if she had tried to jam a pill in her mouth and failed. Other than the spilled pocketbook and the glasses in the sink, the bathroom was perfectly neat. I turned away from the door and held on to the doorframe. “I haven’t seen her for close to an hour,” I said, thinking of my search upstairs, the incident with the cream pitcher, and everything else. Hannah said she had been trying this door for over half an hour and the door was locked. “What should I do, Gogi?” I asked.

“You must call Virgil,” she said.

I sighed. “I was afraid you’d say that.” Another death at Wynter Castle, another call to Virgil Grace.

Shaking, I returned to the kitchen and grabbed the phone, as Zeke sat on a kitchen chair, quietly talking to Hannah and holding her hand. Poor kid looked white and afraid. I touched her shoulder as I got dispatch and told them what had happened and that Miss Sanson was most certainly dead. I was told to do nothing, but to wait for the sheriff or a deputy.

Unless, the woman said, I thought there was any hope of revival. Then we should start CPR. I gabbled something inane into the phone, and Gogi grabbed the cordless. She identified herself then reassured the dispatcher that she had
seen enough elderly patients expire to be able to hazard a guess that the poor woman was dead.

I remembered that Hannah’s parents had arrived. “Hannah, why don’t you go? Your parents are here; there’s no point in your staying.” I gave her a hug, then guided my friend down the hall, past the washroom, and to the pantry hall door, where Zeke helped get her into the van. It seemed impossible that it was a glorious spring day, with white puffy clouds sailing open blue skies, but it was. I took Hannah’s mom aside and told her what had happened, and that I thought Hannah was upset by it. She expressed her sympathy and told me they’d have a talk and make sure she was all right.

I blocked off the hallway and sent all of the townies back to Autumn Vale. Gordy had arrived to help clean up, so Gogi had him drive the Golden Acres bus with her folks back to the retirement home, where her assistant manager would look after getting everyone settled back in. Eleanor, Helen, Elwood, Isadore, and Janice went back to town with them, just as they had hitched a ride out to the castle on the Golden Acres bus. Stoddart decided to go back to his home, too, letting Pish concentrate on his aunt and the other ladies.

I had already shooed Jack and Shilo away, telling them to go home. Shilo doesn’t deal well with death, so the events of the previous autumn had been traumatic for her in ways I don’t think she had dealt with yet. She’s stronger than she knows and has her own way of coping, but the world breaks her heart a dozen times a day.

I
think
I’m made of sterner stuff. I’ve been through enough losses in my life to destroy a more sensitive soul, but I am confronted daily with the knowledge that I am still, in too many ways, not over my husband’s death eight years ago.

Gogi offered to stay at the castle with me, and I appreciated it. I had Emerald, yes, but with Lizzie coming home from her woodland trek any moment, I didn’t want to take up her time dealing with everything that I would need to deal with.
And Juniper . . . I
still
didn’t know where she was. Probably puffing away in the attic, poring over the Wynter family photo albums, in which she had displayed a strange interest.

Pish was taking care of everything else, in particular the rest of the Legion, especially his aunt. Tender-hearted Lush was horrified when she heard of Cleta’s passing, and collapsed. Pish had helped her upstairs and Vanessa was watching over her, while Barbara and Patsy probably reveled in their least-favorite friend’s passing.

Virgil arrived and posted one of his deputies at the scene, as he insisted on calling it, even though the death was natural. He then took me aside, asking if there was somewhere we could talk. I led him out the back door and around the corner to the little garden I was starting to create with Zeke’s help and Lush’s enthusiastic planning; it was an old one that had once thrived, but now only held a few stubborn, leggy perennial herbs. I leaned back against the stone wall, absorbing the warmth radiating from the mellow gold stone.

“The medical examiner is on his way,” Virgil said, eyeing me, then looking away, squinting into the distance. “But I thought you could just tell me what went on, how you found her.”

I explained everything, talking nonstop. Finally, I was done.

He was silent for a moment, then asked, “So you had to unlock the door?”

I nodded. “It was locked from the inside. I have the only key and it was buried in my purse, so no one
else
could have locked the door from the outside. That’s the only thing I’m sure of.”

He nodded, lost in thought, then said, “Mom says it looks like a heart attack.”

The medical examiner pulled up just then. I let Virgil guide him to the bathroom, while I squeezed past them to the kitchen. Life went on, and I had folks to cook for. I dithered, unsure of what to do. These were friends of Lush’s,
long-term
friends of over fifty years, regardless of how they
spoke about Cleta behind her back. I was fortunate Pish was there, capable of taking care of their emotional needs.

I would care for their bodily requirements: Comfort food. Hot tea. A decadent dessert. The death of one of their intimates must remind them of the hold death had on all of us, the truth that becomes more inescapable with each passing year. I wanted to help remind them that there was still much of life to enjoy, even with the passing of a friend.

I started a ferocious round of cooking for dinner: baked macaroni with three cheeses, stuffed pork chops in mushroom gravy, homemade applesauce, and carrots that would be glazed in maple syrup. Dessert was going to be caramel apple pie with ice cream; I happened to have a few pies in the freezer, and I took one out to thaw. Trouble was, the kitchen is right around the corner from the hallway that holds the bathroom, so I could hear the medical examiner’s rumbling voice as he spoke to Virgil. The doctor finished a cursory exam of the deceased, as he called Cleta, right where she sat, and I could hear the snap of his latex gloves as he removed them.

“Everything looks all right. I’ll know more when I get her on the table.”

“Poor woman,” Gogi said, her voice echoing clearly in the hall. “What she must have suffered, alone and having a heart attack!”

I felt bad then, for all the times I had wished Cleta harm. Why had she acted the way she had? Hannah had wondered that same thing, but now we’d never know.

“We can pack her up now, boys!” the doctor said, likely to the crew ready to move the body to the morgue.

I shuddered. I was too close and yet I felt I couldn’t . . . shouldn’t . . . go far.

Finally I heard rather than saw someone coming into the kitchen. I looked up from chopping carrots with a crinkle cutter. Virgil stood by the entry to the hall and watched me, his eyes dark. “Smells good,” he said.

“Smothered stuffed pork chops and homemade macaroni and cheese.”

He edged forward and leaned against the kitchen counter. “Mac and cheese not out of a blue box?” he said with a smile. “Didn’t know there was any other kind. Mom’s never been much of a cook and neither was . . .” He trailed off, without naming his ex-wife. “I bet it’ll be great.”

“It will be,” I said, my voice catching slightly.

“You okay?” he asked.

I nodded.

“We’re taking her away now. The doctor thinks given everything it’s natural causes, but he’ll do an autopsy. Should we speak to the ladies? Or maybe her niece?”

“Lauda is her next of kin, but I think the ladies would probably be able to give you pointers as to who to contact, so it makes sense to talk to them first. Shall I have Pish round them up?”

“I’ll talk to them in the library. Would you join us?”

It took a good fifteen minutes to get everyone downstairs and seated in the library, one of the two turret rooms on the ground floor. The ladies took the club chairs, as did Pish, and I perched on the arm of one. Gogi joined us and sat on a hassock by Pish’s chair.

Virgil stood by the door. He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry to inform you that your friend Miss Cleta Sanson passed away sometime before three o’clock, we believe.”

“On the john,” Barbara said, with a snort of laughter that ended on a cough, her bulk quivering in the chair. Lush gave her a reproachful look. Barbara snapped, “You don’t find that funny, Lush? With all the crap she started, it’s hilarious that she died in the john.”

“Bad timing, Barbara,” Patsy said, with a reproachful look. “She has barely passed; let’s have some dignity.”

“Well, hoity-toity, are we? And that coming from the toilet queen of Queens!”

I looked in puzzlement toward Pish, and he mouthed,
Later
.

“Barbara, enough,” Lush exclaimed, clasping her hands in front of her in a prayerful gesture. “Cleta was our friend, and she’s dead. Patsy’s right; we should be respectful.”

Vanessa had been silent, but she finally spoke. “Can we just be
quiet
?” she asked. “I can’t believe one of us . . . one of us is
gone
.” Her voice quivered, but she took a deep breath and regained control.

“Did she seem ill to anyone?” Virgil asked.

Vanessa examined him. Virgil is a handsome man, and she seemed to appreciate that, straightening her back and meeting his gaze as she spoke. “It was hard to tell with Cleta,” she said. “She didn’t speak of it, unlike some people.” She shot a look at Barbara. “But she had a heart condition and angina.”

“She took nitro,” Gogi said.

“She did,” Lush said. “But she wouldn’t let anyone see. Vanessa’s right; she hated to appear weak. Stiff upper lip and all that.”

Just then the medical examiner entered the room and nodded to Virgil. He was a handsome older man, one of the saner members of the Brotherhood of the Falcons, and he knew Gogi very well. He touched her shoulder before he cleared his throat. I wondered if there was a spark of romance there, from his fond gesture. He was also a local doctor, and I had witnessed before his care for her in times of trouble.

“Why wasn’t Miss Sanson on a nitro patch if angina was a recurring problem?” he asked.

“She was allergic to the adhesive,” Lush replied.

Gogi nodded, and so did the ME. I was mystified, because I didn’t really know what angina was. It had something to do with the heart, but I certainly didn’t know there was a patch for it.

“Did she typically take a nitro pill if she was suffering
an attack of angina?” the ME asked. “And how often did that occur?”

The Legion ladies exchanged glances.

Vanessa, her face shadowed as the spring afternoon light began to die outside, hesitantly said, “As Lush said, Cleta didn’t really speak of her health problems often, but she
had
been complaining of angina more often in the last week. We thought Lauda showing up as she did upset her and brought on the attacks.”

Virgil briefly explained the arrival of the unwanted niece.

“Is that possible?” I asked. “That being upset could make it happen?”

“Stress can bring on an attack,” the ME admitted.

“I don’t even know what angina is. Is that heart disease?”

“It’s a symptom of heart disease,” Gogi said, and explained that the disease itself was often characterized by plaque building up in the arteries, resulting in not enough oxygen-rich blood getting to the heart.

“That’s the most common heart disease,” the medical examiner said, then explained another kind more common in women, but his explanation was so technical he lost me.