5 Murder by Syllabub (24 page)

“I
t’s Louis.” Cora Lee grasped Aunt Mary’s arm, as if she’d collapse without support. “I’d know that ring anywhere. It belonged to Louis.”

Petal sat in the wing chair, the now disintegrated glove in her teeth, still making low growling noises.

“Louis? What are you talking about? What ring? Oh. Oh, no.” Elizabeth squatted down and looked more closely at the scattered bones littering her floor. A couple of the smaller ones had rolled under the table, but several still lay where they had fallen, right in front of the chair. One thick short one had a ring on it. A gold band with a small red stone in the middle. Elizabeth put her hand out as if to touch it.

“No. Don’t touch anything. We need to get the police. Now.”

“That ring. It looks just like the one Mildred wears.”

“I told you. They had matching rings. His was just bigger. Oh, Lord. Those bones. They’re Louis. Only where
—”

“Is the rest of him?” Aunt Mary’s tone was
faint and I thought I detected a small tremor. Cora Lee was clutching Aunt Mary’s hand. She patted the hand, removed it and eased her into the nearest chair. “I’d say odds are he’s in the old kitchen, under that table.”

“We’ve got to get Noah. He’ll know what to do.”

“Elizabeth, are you crazy? Louis was Noah’s father!”

Aunt Mary took hold of Elizabeth as well, pulled her backward and
helped her into the wing chair beside the dog. It grumbled but moved over. “We’re going to have to tell Noah, and I think we need to prepare him before the police get here, but let’s get them on the way before we do anything else.” She looked around the room, I supposed for a phone. Mine was in the pocket of my robe. I handed it to her. To my surprise, her hands shook as she entered 911 and put the call on speaker so we could all hear. I listened as she tried to tell the operator what our emergency was. It took the woman a few tries, but finally she seemed to get it.

“You think the rest of the body is buried under the house? In a kitchen? How long did you say this person has been dead? I see.”

It was obvious she didn’t, but at least someone was on the way. Aunt Mary disconnected and returned the phone to me. She collected Elizabeth’s empty mug, gestured at Cora Lee, who shook her head, and took hers and Elizabeth’s over to the sink. She stared down into it for a minute, evidently trying to think what to do next. Make coffee. Cocoa, especially laced with brandy, was designed to relax, to help you sleep. There’d be no sleeping for quite some time and we needed clear heads. I’d never felt the need for a clear head as much as I did right then. This was murder. It couldn’t be anything but that. How did this murder tie in with Monty’s? It had to, of course. It was too much of a coincidence for it not to. Only, how? And, how were we going to tell Noah? Not Mildred. She’d been through enough. She didn’t need to be told her missing husband was dead if he wasn’t. Headache pain arrived. Was there any Tylenol or Excedrin down here? I wasn’t sure I’d make it all the way up the stairs.

“I think we’d better get dressed.” Cora Lee tugged her dressing gown
back into place. Did she ever tire of fiddling with that thing?

“Good idea
,” I said. “You go first. I’ll make the coffee. Would you bring down my Tylenol? The bottle is on top of the chest in the bathroom. Thanks.”

Cora Lee nodded and pushed back her chair. She paused to take a good look at Elizabeth, who hadn’t moved or spoken. She glanced back at Aunt Mary, shook her head a little and headed for the stairs.

Aunt Mary sat very still while I made coffee. She barely noticed when I took down fresh mugs, filled two of them, put one in front of her and set the other on the small table beside the chair where Elizabeth sat.

“Do you want cream
, Elizabeth?”

“What?”

“Cream.”

“For what?”

“For the coffee I just gave you.”

Elizabeth looked over at the table, surprised to see the mug, steam lazily rising above it. “Oh. No. Yes, I would like some. Mary, what are we going to do?”

Aunt Mary already had the cream out of the refrigerator. She didn’t bother with a pitcher. Those kinds of niceties weren’t called for right now. She poured a large dose into Elizabeth’s mug. She looked at the carton for a moment, then at her own mug, and set the cream on the table. I could practically read her mind. She was going to need every ounce of caffeine she could get and cream would only dilute it. “What are we going to do about what?”

“About Noah, for starters. We have to call him. He’ll be up to feed soon. What time is it, anyway?”

“Not quite six.” She dragged a chair over close to Elizabeth, where she could face her. “Elizabeth, you need to tell us about Louis. Cora Lee called him a thief. Why? What happened?”

Exactly the question I wanted answered. I filled another mug, pulled a chair beside Aunt Mary and sat down to hear the answer.

Elizabeth studied the light brown liquid in her coffee mug as if assessing how much cream was in it and if she needed more. Finally she looked up. “I never met Louis. It all happened long before I came on the scene, so I only know what William told me.” She sighed, took a sip and set the coffee mug on the table. Aunt Mary looked at the hot mug, then at the magazine that should have been under it but, to her credit, didn’t move.

“He disappeared one day. Noah was about three or four. I’m not sure. The Smithwood silver disappeared the same day.”

Aunt Mary and I looked at each other, neither of us quite buying into that story.

“With no warning? He just up and left?” There
was incredulity in Aunt Mary’s voice. There was a lot in my mind, as well.

“Were he and Mildred having trouble? Did he have money problems? There must have been something
—”

“
No. They were happy. At least, that’s what I was told. Mildred came to live here after she and Louis married. He’d always lived here, always loved Smithwood. He managed the tobacco fields. They still grew some cotton and had livestock. I’m not sure what, but it was a working farm. He seemed to love Mildred a lot, and he adored Noah. That’s what made the whole thing so strange.”

“He
just disappeared.” I found myself shaking my head.

“Because he stole the Smithwood silver tea and coffee service. At least, that’s what everyone thought. It was one of Smithwood’s most valuable possessions. It was made especially for Smithwood in the eighteenth century by someone in the Boston area, someone famous, and was evidently worth a lot of money. The set was complete. Most aren’t. Pieces get lost or damaged over the years, so to have a whole set is rare.” Pain filled
Elizabeth’s eyes. “William was furious. More than furious. He was hurt. He trusted Louis. He was in Wisconsin and he sure didn’t trust Virginia to run anything. He came back here, had the sheriff out, had the whole county out looking for him. He didn’t know what to do about Mildred, who was shattered. She kept telling them Louis would never steal anything. Something terrible must have happened to him, that they needed to search the woods. William didn’t know what to think.” She paused for a moment and sighed. Her voice was expressionless. “Leo McMann handled that case also. He was a young detective then, just getting his start, and he was convinced Louis stole the silver and skipped.”

She twisted around toward the table, rummaged through the books and other things on it and picked up the napkin Cora Lee
had used earlier. She dabbed at a drop of coffee that had spilled on the table then sat for a moment, saying nothing. Neither did we. Elizabeth needed some time to collect her thoughts, but we needed to know what else happened. Now. Aunt Mary reached over and took the napkin out of Elizabeth’s hand. It was beautifully embroidered and obviously old. Too nice to be sopping up spilled coffee. Elizabeth didn’t seem to notice, but she didn’t object. Just used the sleeve of her robe to dab her eyes. Was she thinking of William?

I was sure thinking of Dan. Why had I told him not to come? I had never missed him as much as I did now. I needed him here, but he wasn’t. “Go on,” I told Elizabeth.

“Leo thought William should make Mildred leave. Said she couldn’t be trusted and he was pretty sure she must have known what Louis was up to, maybe even knew where he was.” She shook her head, as if she still couldn’t believe anyone would think that of her friend. “William told me about it later, after we moved in together. I knew about his wife, of course, but not the Longos. He wanted to know what I thought. I told him he was right to go with his feelings. Just because Louis had deceived him didn’t mean Mildred would, or had, and if he trusted her, he should let her stay. A good decision, even if Leo never quite forgave him for not taking his advice.”

“Was his first wife, Virginia, still living here?”

“Yes. So was Monty. With Louis gone, William no longer had a manager. He wouldn’t trust Virginia to manage her own checking account. That was when he asked Cora Lee if she wanted to come back here, not full-time, but often enough to manage the place. Having someone live here on the plantation, in this house, worked out. Well, for William and Cora Lee. Virginia wasn’t too thrilled and Monty hated it. So, there they were. Cora Lee, when she was here, redoing this house. Virginia, alone in the main house, drinking herself to death. Mildred and Noah continued living down the hill.”

“Drinking. Is that why she fell down the stairs? She’d been drinking?”

Elizabeth sighed. “The autopsy report said she was three sheets to the wind.”

“So, that happened?”

“Nothing. They never found Louis. Not a trace of him. Never found the silver, either. The sheriff was positive it would show up in a pawnshop or some such place, but it didn’t. That silver set was worth over one hundred thousand dollars. It belongs in a museum, one like the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or the museum here in Colonial Williamsburg. William had been thinking of working out something with Louis about the land before all that happened, but after that, well, he never mentioned it again. Neither did Mildred. At least, not until recently.”

Elizabeth’s expression hardened
, and the lines around her mouth stood out. “Mildred’s one of the bravest people I know. She already had her teacher credentials when this happened but she went back to school and got her master’s. Now she’s a principal. She stayed on here because Noah had a claim to the house and she never gave up hoping they could get legal title.” She paused and took another deep breath. “She’s become one of my very best friends. I don’t know how she’s going to take this. I know she’s been in pain all these years, thinking her husband was a thief. Someone had to have murdered him and buried him in that kitchen. Don’t you think? If someone did that, then he didn’t steal the tea set.”

“If he didn’t steal it, where is it?”

I hadn’t heard Cora Lee come back down, but there she was, dressed in a pair of dark gray wool slacks topped with a light gray long-sleeved silk blouse, every hair in place, a matching cardigan slung over her shoulders. Discreet makeup, as befit the solemnity of the moment, had been artfully applied. How she had accomplished that so quickly, I had no idea. I took the offered bottle of Tylenol and started to get a glass of water.

Cora Lee handed me one. “Take that fast and then get upstairs and get dressed. All of you. The cops are almost here. I heard sirens. Why they turned them on, I have no idea. Louis has been dead for years. There’s not much need to rush.” She took my glass and walked over to the sink. She kept her back to us and leaned both hands on the granite counter. “As to who killed him, my guess would be Monty. I always thought he stole things. We didn’t pack all of the estate’s things. Just enough to keep Mother from having that damn garage sale. I moved some furniture from the main house over here, but over the years there were things I could never find. Small things. Pictures, a blue and white rice bowl that came over from Japan toward the end of the eighteenth century, some serving spoons, beautiful silver but not
engraved with the Smithwood ‘S.’ Things that could have easily been pawned or sold to antique dealers who didn’t ask too many questions about provenance. Virginia used some, whatever she could find. She broke a lot of them when she was drinking. I was never sure if something was missing or if she’d swept up the pieces and wouldn’t tell me. Anyway, I never could prove anything. Monty, of course, moved out when he finished college. Or got moved out. Then Virginia died.”

“Did you notice anything else go missing? After Virginia died, I mean.”

Cora Lee didn’t hesitate. “No. I’ll bet you anything Monty stole that tea set and somehow Louis found out and Monty killed him.”

“Are you sure that ring belongs to Louis?” Elizabeth kept her eyes on the remains of what had once been a hand, scattered on the floor. The bone with the ring still on it was almost under her foot.

“I’m positive.” The gravity in Cora Lee’s voice was striking. After all the barbed quips, she had finally said something that rang true. For the first time, I wondered how much of that brittle, always amused, detached attitude of hers was a façade. Cora Lee might be a product of vast wealth, but it didn’t seem as if her life had been very satisfactory.

“Mildred will confirm that soon enough
,” she added. “Right now, I think we’d better go upstairs and get ourselves dressed. You go next, Elizabeth. It’s you they’ll want to talk to.”