A Tale of Two Biddies (6 page)

“Couldn’t pass up the opportunity to support a chamber of commerce event,” I said as pleasantly as I could. My comment was punctuated by an explosion of golden stars above the trees in the park, and around us everyone made the appropriate oohing and aahing sounds.

I propped one hand on the table and leaned closer to Dino so I could whisper, “You told me that guillotine trick was one hundred percent safe.”

His hand stilled over the picture he was about to autograph. It showed a smiling group of five teenagers, and automatically I went down the list. Aside from the fact that they were thirty years older and thirty pounds heavier, Scotty, Jesse, and Nick didn’t look all that different. Paul had lost his crop of bushy hair completely. And Dino . . . I took another moment to study the dark and handsome kid in the photo, then looked at the man who was looking up at me. Hard living showed in every line of Dino’s face, and his eyes had the hungry look of a man who’d tasted fame but had never gotten a big enough gulp to satisfy himself.

He dashed off the signature and handed the photo to the waiting fan. “It wasn’t funny. Somebody’s going to pay for that guillotine trick,” he growled. The next woman moved to the front of the line. Excited, she danced from foot to foot. She never took her eyes off Dino once, not even when a shower of fireworks lit the street with streaks of green, orange, and purple.

I went for subtle. After all, nobody but me, Dino, and the people we’d shared the secret with knew that for tonight, the guillotine was supposed to be nothing but a prop designed to tease folks into going to Saturday’s concert. “Somebody?”

Dino’s gaze slid toward the front door of the bar, then back to me. “Don’t you worry about me, babe.” He patted my hand. “I know who it was, and there’s no way the son-of-a—”

“Picture, Dino? Please!” The next woman in line jumped up and down and waved her smartphone. “Come over here and take a picture with me. Puh-leez!”

He did, and I took the opportunity to return to where Levi, Luella, and Chandra waited. My timing was perfect. The mini fireworks show ended with a mini grand finale. A dozen or so rockets all hit the sky at the same time, and along with the pops and the whirrs, the night sky lit up with flashes of white, puffs of gold, and twinkling yellow stars.

In the light, I saw Mike Lawrence hurry out of the bar and start down the street in the opposite direction from where Levi waited for me.

“I’ve got to get back behind the bar.” Levi sounded almost apologetic and I didn’t want to wonder why.

I settled back on the ol’ reliable cocktail party talk. “It’s late and I’ve got to get going, anyway.”

No sooner had Levi gone back into the bar than I was surrounded.

“Oh, no!” Chandra looped her right arm through my left. “You’re not going to run out of here now. Not when Levi’s looking at you the way Levi’s looking at you.”

“He’s not looking at me at all,” I pointed out. Apparently the fact that he’d gone inside and couldn’t see me from in there was lost on both Chandra and Luella.

“You know what she means,” Luella said. She grabbed my right arm. “You can’t make the poor boy suffer.”

“No one’s suffering,” I insisted, though if push came to shove, I would have had to admit that sometimes when I thought about Levi, I felt the pain. “He only talks to me to be polite.”

“Uh huh.” Chandra tugged my one arm. “And he’s not the hottest thing on the island.”

“Which has nothing to do with—”

“Sure.” Luella tugged the other.

When they stepped back into Levi’s, I had no choice but to go along, too.

Since most of the patrons who’d been there earlier had gone to the park and some of the others were still out worshiping the ground the former Boyz ’n Funk walked on, the place was just about empty and blessedly quiet. I knew that the members of Guillotine did their own setup and takedown (ah, how different from the days when the roadies did the grunt work), and since they’d walked off right after the watermelon surprise, their instruments were still on stage.

“Let’s just hope they don’t get the idea that anyone’s looking for an encore,” I mumbled, and I guess Chandra and Luella know exactly what I was talking about because they laughed.

Chandra scooted over to the bar. “I’m going to order another beer before it gets crowded in here again. What can I get you, ladies?”

Luella asked for ice water. Since I hadn’t had a chance to finish my last glass of wine, I opted for another Reisling. While I waited for it, I figured a quick trip to the ladies room was in order.

I never got there.

But then, that’s because the restrooms were all the way at the back of the bar, past the makeshift stage and the pool tables that had been pushed against the far wall to make more room for the overflow crowd. Back there, it was darker and quieter than it was at the front of the bar. A few chairs were scattered around for those who’d watched the concert earlier, and all but one of them was empty.

Richie Monroe still sat in the corner.

It would have been rude not to say hello, considering Richie and I were the only ones around. “Hey, Richie!”

Except he didn’t say hello back.

Just to be polite, I took a couple steps closer. “So what did you think of the concert? And the fireworks? Only maybe you didn’t see the fireworks since you’re still sitting here.”

Richie had nothing to say.

I’m not sure when I realized that Richie was being anything but rude. I do remember I flagged down Levi. But then, I figured when something like this happens, a person should never be alone.

“What is it?” he asked.

I took a few more steps closer to Richie. As if it had been dropped, the glass he’d apparently been drinking from was shattered at his feet and there was a trickle of drool on his chin. His eyes were open. His mouth was twisted in an expression that reminded me of a silent scream. Richie’s skin was the color of those pale fireworks that had lit the sky outside only a few minutes before.

Only, fireworks are hot.

And Richie?

Richie was one getting-colder-by-the-moment dead dude.

“W
hat else did Hank ask you? What did he say? Luella and I were over at the bar and we didn’t see anything and we didn’t even realize what was going on until he got there and once he got there, he wouldn’t let us over to where you and Levi were waiting for him and he cleared out the bar and made us leave along with the rest of the crowd and you were in there so long so I came home but I couldn’t sleep all night, just waiting to talk to you, and it’s all Hank’s fault because he knows I could have stayed there. It’s not like I was going to do anything, right? I mean, he already had a dead body on his hands. Poor Richie! The least Hank could have done was let those of us who knew Richie stay there with the body. He’s impossible. I mean Hank, not Richie, because of course, Richie was impossible, too, but in a whole different way than Hank is impossible. Only Richie isn’t impossible anymore, and Hank knew that, and he knew I was there because he saw me when he walked in, and he could have let me in on what was going on. The man’s as annoying as a mosquito in the bedroom in the middle of the night. He’s—”

Good thing Chandra had to stop to catch her breath or I never would have gotten a word in edgewise. I decided on the very noncommital, “Well, you know Hank.”

Understatement.

Hank was Chandra’s husband number two, and just for the record, she never said much about either number one or number three. Hank, though? She had plenty to say about Hank. Then again, they both lived on the same four-mile-long by one-and-a-half-mile-wide island. I’m not very good at math, but even I know that’s not a lot of square footage. Especially when it comes to tripping over an ex.

“Did he say—”

“He asked all the usual questions,” I told her, and it’s not like I was eager to get rid of Chandra or anything; it was just that she was so anxious to find out all the details of what had happened at Levi’s the night before, she showed up at my front door not long after the sun came up. I’d been sound asleep when she started in on the doorbell, and now my hair was a fright, I’d left my glasses on the nightstand next to my bed, and I was dressed in my jammies, waiting for the coffeepot to fill. I hoped Chandra’s arrival didn’t disturb Dino and the other Boyz because I was in no condition to play hostess.

The coffeepot stopped dripping—hallelujah—and I filled one mug for myself and another one for Chandra. “Hank is very straightforward. You know that. He asked what I saw, how I found Richie, if I knew how long he’d been there.”

“And you told him . . . ?”

I thought my shrug pretty much said it all until I saw Chandra’s eyes still lit with the fire of curiosity. “I told him what happened. We were outside watching the fireworks. We came inside. I walked by on my way to the ladies room and found Richie.” Not for the first time since the night before, the realization hit me somewhere between my heart and my stomach. “Poor guy. To die like that in a dark bar with nobody around.”

“Unless there was!”

I knew it would come to this, given Chandra’s tendency to let her imagination run away with her and all. In an effort to ignore the gleam in her eyes—and all that last comment of hers suggested—I kept myself busy getting ready for the day’s breakfast. From what I’d seen the morning before, I knew my guests weren’t early risers, but still, I promised breakfast at nine and I had to be ready by then, just in case. In keeping with the week’s theme and the French tricolor, Meg had made some blueberry/cranberry muffins before she left, and I got them out of the freezer so they’d have plenty of time to thaw, then busied myself getting plates and bowls and silverware ready to go.

“Bea, don’t tell me you didn’t think the same thing.”

I set down a handful of spoons and turned to Chandra, my back propped against the granite countertop. “I didn’t.”

“Except you did, or you would have asked what I was talking about.”

I sighed. “There was no sign that Richie was murdered.”

“Except somebody did try to kill him at the party the other night. Did you remind Hank about that?”

I didn’t. Partly because Hank had heard it himself from Richie after we pulled him out of the lake. Mostly because I wasn’t sure I believed the story in the first place. “There was no sign of foul play,” I told Chandra. “Nothing more than a trickle of blood. It didn’t look like there had been a struggle. It looked . . .” I wanted to say
natural
, but there isn’t anything natural about dying alone in a dark bar. Though I would have preferred to forget the whole thing, I knew that was impossible, so I allowed myself to think back to the scene. I’d left Chandra and Luella near the bar and walked back toward the restrooms. That’s when I spotted Richie, and that’s when I said hello and he didn’t say hello back.

“Richie’s head was propped against the wall behind him,” I told Chandra. “It was tipped to the left just a little. His elbows were up on his knees, and his fists were clenched. His expression was . . .” Again, I forced myself back to the scene. “Pained” was the only word I could think of. “His mouth was drawn out, but not in a smile. More like something hurt. Richie’s jaw was clenched. Honestly, when I saw him, I thought he’d had too much to drink and just fell asleep like that. It wasn’t until I looked a little closer . . .” A chill shot up my spine and I did my best to thaw it with a sip of coffee.

“That’s when I realized he was dead. But honestly, Chandra, whatever else he is, Hank’s a good cop.” Really, I didn’t need to remind her. In spite of the fact that she had a well-deserved reputation as the island crackpot, Chandra was as honest as the day is long. She was the first to extol Hank’s virtues. I mean, his virtues in addition to the ones he apparently showed off in bed.

I shook away the thought. “Hank saw all the same things I saw, and if there’s anything fishy, you know he’ll pick up on it. He’ll talk to everyone who was at Levi’s last night. He’ll get the details. He did ask me if I knew if Richie had been sick. Or if he took any medications. So maybe he’s thinking it was some kind of overdose. I’m afraid I couldn’t help. I didn’t know Richie all that well.”

“I’m not sure any of us did.” Chandra cradled her coffee mug in both hands. “And that’s the real shame, isn’t it? Here we are, all on this island together, and even though we see some people every day, it’s like we’re strangers.” She plunked her mug on the counter and, shoulders back and head high, headed for the door. “I’ve got to light candles. And burn some incense. It’s the best way I can think of right now to honor Richie’s life.”

I was not about to argue. Not at this time of the morning.

Instead, I followed her, pulled open the front door, and stopped cold. There on my front porch was a man with his hand raised; he’d been just about to knock.

I can’t be blamed for staring. First of all, like I said before, it was way early. And as for the man . . .

Middle height. Middle weight.

Nothing unusual there.

But then there was the long frock coat, the narrow trousers, the plaid, double-breasted vest with its shiny metal buttons. Oh yes, and the cravat, a stiff, two-inch-wide piece of silk tied into a wide horizontal bow. He had a high forehead and poofs of hair over each ear, a bushy mustache and an unruly goatee trimmed long and squared off at the bottom.

“Good morning!” His smile was as bright as the sunshine that lit up the eastern horizon, and he had an English accent that struck me as more the community theater type than authentic.

“I do hope I am not calling upon you at too early an hour of the morning, but you see, I have had quite a challenging travel itinerary and this was the only time at which it was amenable for me to arrive.” He glanced from Chandra to me. “I know from the signboard out front that I am in the right establishment, so I presume one of you must surely be the Miss Cartwright I am seeking.”

If nothing else, the sound of my name snapped me out of my daze. I stuck out a hand. “I’m Bea. And this is my neighbor, Chandra Morrisey. You’ll have to forgive the way I look, it’s early and—”

“Nonsense!” The man stepped into the house and, eager to start the woo-woo mojo going, Chandra took the opportunity to leave. “You are the very picture of loveliness,” the man said, “and I . . .” Since his back was to the open doorway, it was hard to say, but I’m pretty sure he blushed when he bowed from the waist. “I offer my deepest regrets again for discommoding you so. Ah!” He looked around the entryway of the house, at the chandelier that hung above the stairway directly behind me and the stained glass window on the wall above the door. “This will do nicely.”

Really, I had an excuse; I hadn’t finished my first cup of coffee. “Do what?”

He thought I was kidding. That’s why he laughed. “Forgive me.” Again, he bowed. “I have not introduced myself. I am Charles John Huffam Dickens.”

“Charles . . .” It took a moment for the words to sink in, and another for me to put them together into some sort of thought that actually made sense. “Charles Dickens. Of course! There’s the Charles Dickens impersonator contest this weekend and the Dickens trivia event on Sunday. You’re one of the contestants.” In my head, I went over the list of the guests I knew were scheduled to check in that day. Only one said he might be arriving early. “You must be Gregory Ashburn.”

He tipped his head to acknowledge the fact. “Gregory Ashburn, professor of nineteenth-century British literature, Columbia University. BA, Stanford. MA, University of Chicago. PhD, University of Pennsylvania. Yes, madam, there are those who know me by that name, though I would prefer if, for the weekend, you would call me Mr. Dickens. Or Charles. Or even Boz, if you feel inclined to such familiarity. It is a family nickname and a pseudonym I used early in my career. Authenticity. I am striving for authenticity. And I am sure there isn’t another contestant who—”

“I do beg your pardon.”

I had been so fixated on my conversation with Ashburn/Dickens, I hadn’t realized another man had arrived on my front porch, and I turned to greet him and stopped dead.

Middle height, middle weight. Long frock coat, narrow trousers, plaid, double-breasted vest with shiny metal buttons. Stiff, two-inch-wide cravat, tied into a wide horizontal bow. High forehead, poofs of hair over each ear, bushy mustache, and unruly goatee. Need I even mention that it was squared off at the bottom?

“Oh!” I looked from one man to the other. “You must be—”

“Charles Dickens.” The man stepped forward and extended his hand, and when I reached out to shake it, he took mine in his, bowed low, and brushed the briefest of kisses over my fingers. “I do hope I’m not interrupting,” he said in an accent slightly less phony than my first guest’s, and finally he took a moment to look at the other man who stood in my foyer.

The second Dickens’s face paled. “Ashburn! You! How dare you—”

“Surely, sir, you must have me confused with someone else. My name is not Ashburn, it is Dickens,” the first man told him. “And since I am that man, I hardly think you can claim that same celebrity. I was here first.”

The second man’s eyes narrowed and he cast a look over Ashburn. “First in terms of time, perhaps, but not in terms of perfection. The shoes . . .” The second man’s gaze traveled up from those apparently offending accessories. “The shoes are all wrong.”

“Wrong?” Ashburn lifted one foot, the better to show off his short ankle boots with the pointy toes. “Black, one-inch heel, laced closed. Perfectly acceptable.”

“Black, one-inch heel, elastic sided.” The second man showed off the shoes he wore. “Far more authentic to the eighteen fifties. If you were as much of a scholar as you claim—”

“You must be Timothy Drake.” I interrupted and didn’t feel the least bit guilty.

“Professor of nineteenth-century British literature,” the man said. “BA, Harvard. MA, The Ohio State University. PhD, Cornell.”

“You’re here for the contest this weekend.” It was so apparent I didn’t even bother to make it into a question. “I didn’t expect you this early.”

“A small mishap in the way of travel arrangements,” Drake assured me. “I would have endeavored to find a different mode of transport and arrived at another time if I knew this early hour would attract the riffraff.” With his top lip curled just the slightest bit, he looked at Ashburn.

I scrubbed my hands over my face and tried for logic. “It’s going to be a long week, guys. Am I going to have to put an electric fence between your rooms?”

“He’s staying here?” Ashburn asked with a look down his nose at Drake.

“He can’t find a different hotel to accommodate him?” Drake shot back.

I threw my hands in the air. “A different hotel’s not going to work because from what I’ve heard, every place on the island is booked solid for the rest of the week. So here’s what we’re going to do.” I propped my fists on my hips. It might have been a far more intimidating stance if I wasn’t wearing the white cotton jammies with the pink flamingoes all over them. “You’re going to go up to suite six right now.” I reached over to the table near the front door, grabbed the key, and slapped it in Ashburn’s hand. “And you . . .” There were two more keys there and I got the one for suite four and gave it to Drake. “You’re going to go to your room. You can both get settled while I get dressed, and if you come down in another thirty minutes, I’ll have fresh coffee ready for you. How does that sound?”

“My dear, if you could give me a cup of tea to clear my muddle of a head I should better understand your affairs,” Ashburn said, and added, “That’s from
Mrs. Lirriper’s Legacy
.”