A Will To Murder (5 page)

“Around the corner is the landing for the front stairs, then Armagnac’s bedroom.  Next is the sin room.”  They stopped to look inside, and Katherine nodded at the red tartan wallpaper and said, “Next on my hit list.”

A buffalo head hung above a pool table.  Nearby were a box of cigars, a pipe rack, and a tray of crystal decanters (“Next on
my
hit list,” said Bert).  Arthur wondered about a pair of stuffed and mounted dogs, the first in pointer pose, the second sitting on its haunches.  “Those are Tig and Mary, former pets of the household,” said Katherine grimly.  “I don’t know why James took them to the taxidermist, except to be perverse.  I’ve arranged for them to have a decent Christian burial at the farm.  You’ll notice Barksdale can’t stand them either.”  The dog’s shoulders were high, and he was whining.  

They shut the door to the sin room.  “Next is Rose’s old bedroom, and that’s where you and Rose will be sleeping, Bert.  After that is Jac’s old room, and that’s for you, Arthur.”

“Where does Mrs. Marshpool sleep?” the boy asked.

“She has a room on the third floor.  Heydrick and Willowby have apartments over the carriage house, and Sheila, who’s our cook, commutes from town.”

“Where’s Richie sleeping?” Arthur asked warily.

“He’s on the third floor too, and so is Briarly.  You can play with them and have practically that entire floor to yourselves, except for Mrs. Marshpool.  Won’t that be nice?”

Silently, Arthur wondered what on earth it was with grownups.  “Can we see the observation deck now?” he asked impatiently.

“We’ll have to skip the next story, but follow me.”  Katherine opened a door, and they saw the top of the abandoned arch outside.  An ironwork staircase traveled from the arch to the roof, and Arthur promptly began to climb, his father trudging behind him.

“I’ll wait here, if you don’t mind,” the old lady called.  “I’m bothered by heights.”

The stair ended at an octagonal ironwork tower large enough for maybe a dozen people to squeeze into.  Arthur gripped the chest-high railing, thrilled that his relatives owned something neat like this tower.  The boy pointed towards the gravel parking area next to the carriage house and called out, “Whose cars are those?”

“The Jeep belongs to Willowby, the pickup truck is Heydrick’s, and the old station wagon is Sheila’s.  The Crown Victoria is a family car--Armagnac drives it, mostly, and the SUV is Mrs. Marshpool’s.”  This last vehicle was the biggest, most muscular of its kind that Arthur had ever seen.  It did not surprise him to discover that the housekeeper owned it.  Then he saw something else.  About a hundred feet from the parking area was the front half of a car.  Someone must have sliced off the section from the steering wheel forward with a blowtorch.

“What’s with that purple car?” Bert yelled down to Katherine.

“I had a wreck in my Opel Kadet,” she replied, embarrassed.  “I needed a new front end welded on, since there was quite a lot of damage to that part of the body.  James bought the section you’re looking at from a junkyard and told Armagnac to supervise the repairs.  But my nephew refused, saying I shouldn’t be driving at my age.  James said the new front end was going to sit there on the lawn until Armagnac had the welding done, and it’s been on the grass ever since.  Those two could never stop fighting.  Oh, there’s Rose returning from Douthit’s.”

The trio went back down into the living room and found Armagnac reporting to Phil, Jac, and Mrs. Marshpool.  “When we told him that Father didn’t want a mausoleum, Douthit said he regretted we wouldn’t be having a proper burial.”

“The gall of the man!” ranted Jac.  “He just wants our money.”

“I couldn’t take my eyes off that--that picture he had on his office wall,” added Rose, snacking on a fingernail.

“Yes,” said Armagnac tartly.  “It was his class photo from embalming school, with a corpse on a gurney and all the students standing around it grinning.  Douthit’s a prole, all right.”

“I’ve heard enough!” shouted Jac.  “I’m going upstairs.  Phil, we need to finish unpacking.”

Bert motioned his wife into the dining room.  Once there, Cummings checked to see if they were alone, then said softly, “Your relatives don’t seem very eager to discover who put that CD player in your Dad’s car.”

“That’s because it might have been one of the servants.  I don’t think any of them got along with Father except Willowby.”

Bert grunted.  “Why not one of the family?”

“Army often clashed with Father,” Rose answered reluctantly, “but I don’t think my brother could have forced himself to touch a rap CD, even if he wanted to infuriate Father with it.  And Jac had no reason to be any more annoyed with Father than her usual.  She was his favorite, despite what she claims.”  Rose’s voice was resentful.  “He was always slipping her presents and money.  That’s why I think it was one of the servants.”

“What about your aunt?” Bert asked.  “The old man was always bullying her.”

Rose sighed.  “She couldn’t have installed that CD player herself; she’s not very handy.”

“Could she have arranged for someone else to do it?”

“Honey, let’s not discuss it.  The joke went dreadfully wrong.  Whoever did it must not have known about his heart condition and his blood pressure.”

The Salisburys were emptying their suitcases in their second floor bedroom while Briarly talked to her mother’s shoes.  The girl was aligning them inside the closet, pretending they were people.  

“Why is she arranging your shoes?” Phil asked.

“I want her to learn how to take proper care of clothing,” said Jac impatiently, changing her earrings in front of a mirror.  “She’s always destroying her own, twisting and sucking on them and God knows what else.  I’m too upset to bother with them myself.  I was certain it was Heydrick who put that CD player in Dad’s car until--”

“Not Willowby?”

Jac snorted with disgust.  “Willowby actually liked Dad, God knows why.  But Aunt Katy told me a couple weeks ago that Army keeps having these ‘headaches’ that confine him to bed, and Marshpool has to ‘attend’ him during these.  Lord knows how long she’s been pulling this crap.  She’s just trying to grab the Boyle money.  Who on earth could fall in love with Armagnac?”

“What’s Mrs. Marshpool’s first name, anyway?”

“Letitia.  Isn’t that hysterical?”

A knock came on the door.  Jac opened it and saw Richie, Mrs. Marshpool, and Heydrick.  The gardener’s arm was wrapped tightly around the neck of the struggling boy.

“Madame,” said Mrs. Marshpool icily, “your son was caught trying to pry open my locked bedroom door.  He had already broken into several other rooms upstairs.  I would appreciate it if you
controlled your son
.  We wouldn’t want him to steal anything, would we?  He might end up in a juvenile detention center.”

Phil saw his wife purpling and jerked Richie away from the gardener before Jac could speak. “We’ll see that he behaves himself.  He was only engaged in a childish bit of snooping, I’m sure.”  Quickly, Phil shut the door, saying, “Excuse me, we need to change our clothes.”

“What the hell do you think you were doing?” Salisbury asked his son.

“Nothing,” Richie whined.  “I was just looking around and I thought this door was stuck.  I tried to work it loose, and that old bitch and the scarecrow jumped me.”

“You stay out of their rooms and out of their way.”  Phil glanced aside at his wife.  “And you try to be polite to them as well.”

“Why?”  Jac spat.  “Didn’t you hear how rude she was?  They’re only servants employed by
my family
.  It’s their job to be polite to
me
.  I’m having Marshpool fired as soon as possible, and I’ll get that bastard Heydrick as well.”

Richie lay back on the bed, head resting in his arms and grinning at his mother’s wrath.

“Look,” Salisbury insisted, “wait until the will is read.”

“Oh, for God’s sake!”

“Just do it,” her husband urged, stepping towards the door.

“Where are you going?” Jac asked.

“To get a few things from the car.”

“Briarly, go with your father and help him.”

After the two left, Jac gave her son a serious look, and Richie sat up instantly.

“Richie, I have something very important to tell you.  Marshpool and my brother are having an affair.  I think she placed that CD in Dad’s car to kill him, so that Armagnac would inherit.  Then she could marry him and get her hands on the family money.  You can see from her behavior that she’s trying to make everyone think that
we
hid that CD player in the car.  She’s going to get away with murder, robbery, and frame us for Dad’s death--unless we stop her.”  Jac paused at her son’s frightened expression.  “Aunt Katherine also told me something else.  Dad’s latest medical report was lying on Mrs. Marshpool’s desk, as if Marshpool had been studying it.  So she knew about his previous heart attack, and you don’t blast rap music at a man with his health problems and deeply ingrained prejudices.  Unfortunately, the police won’t arrest her because they think Dad’s death was accidental.”

“Can’t we turn her in?” Richie wailed.

“No.  We need proof that she killed him and we don’t have it.”

“What can we do?” the boy asked anxiously.

Jac smiled.  “Don’t mention this to your father, but I have a plan.  I doubt we can enlighten my fatheaded brother, but we could probably disillusion Aunt Katy about her, and then Aunt Katy could fire her.”  She put an arm around her son’s neck.  “Are you ready to help me?”

Richie nodded enthusiastically.

Later that night Arthur was sent upstairs to unpack his clothes.  Despite Katherine’s warning that his bedroom used to belong to Jacquelyn, he was still unprepared for what he saw.

“No!” Arthur wailed as he stood in the doorway.  “No!”

Everything was white.  The bed was white, the dressing-table was white, the bureau was white, even the carpet was white.  Mirrors were everywhere, reflecting white-on-white.  He was in a
princess
room.  

“No!” the boy wailed, pressing Frederick hard against his face in humiliation.  Instantly, he backed out and fled next door to his father.  “I can’t sleep in that room,” Arthur told him desperately.  “What if someone sees it?”

“Quit complaining,” Bert replied.  “The Boyles already know what it looks like.”

Arthur tried to clarify the problem.  “What if
Richie
sees it?”

“So what?” said his father heartlessly.

“But I can’t stay there,” the boy tried again.  “Don’t they have other bedrooms in the house?”

“Katherine says they’re all reserved.  Your only option is to share a bed with Richie.”

This was a tough one, thought Arthur.  “I suppose I could keep the door closed,” said the boy queasily.  With bilious steps, he made his way back to the noxious bedroom and shut the door.  Pained, he examined the room, made a noise like a death-rattle, and sat Frederick on the white dressing table.  Then he began to put his clothes away.  But when he opened a dressing-table drawer, he found it full of old, balled-up ladies’ hose.  A second and third drawer were full of hose as well, and a fourth, fifth, and sixth drawers  were holding bras and underpants.  The large middle drawer was crammed with dried-up makeup cases and shriveled lipsticks.  Arthur eyed these with alarm, then decided to try the bureau.  With dread he slid out the lowest drawer and was grateful to find it empty.  For a moment Arthur was sure he was going to have to pile his clothes on top of the radiator.

But when he opened the closet to hang up his shirts, he received another shock.  Though the closet was as big as his entire bedroom back home, there still wasn’t any room to step inside it.  Ladies’ shoes covered the floor, and there were dozens of shoe boxes stuffed with things like compacts, barrettes, curlers, sunglasses, and hair clips.  About a hundred old purses were lying on the floor as well, and knobs on the walls held vast tangles of necklaces, belts, and hats.  About a zillion outfits packed the rods.  

Arthur put his shirts in the lower drawer of the bureau.  Then he shuddered and retrieved Frederick.  “I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to hide,” said the boy solemnly to his rabbit.  “You’ve got too many enemies in this house.  Richie for one, and Uncle Armagnac, if he discovers you exist.  I’m going to hide you under the bed during the day, but I’ll let you sleep with me at night, okay?”

After this lecture, the boy put on his teddy bear pyjamas.  But as he was doing his buttons, he remembered something, and opened the side door that connected his room to his parents’.

“There’s bats in the house,” Arthur announced to his father.  Phil had mentioned this earlier in the day, but only now had the boy remembered it.

“So what’s wrong?” growled Bert.

“What if they’re in my room?”

“They are not, so go to bed.”

“But what if they are?” Arthur insisted, twisting his pajama sleeves.

“They aren’t,” replied Bert.  “If you’re scared, go look around your room to see if you can find any, then go to sleep.”

This was quite logical, but Arthur didn’t move.  He only stared at his father, eyes huge.

With a sigh, Bert rose, donned a bathrobe with teddy bears on it (it was clear neither he nor his son bought their own clothes) and escorted Arthur next door.

“There.  I’m opening the closet, and there’s no bats here, see?  
Good God
,” Bert added, noticing the contents, “they couldn’t even flap a wing in here.”

“Darn,” said Arthur, the heavy counterpane pulled over his head.

“Now, are you going to go to sleep?”

“No.”

Bert’s lower jaw jutted out.

“Yes,” Arthur corrected.

“Good.  Sleep tight.  Don’t let the vampire bats bite.”

“Dad!”

“I’m closing the door.  Did you hear me say that?  Goodnight.”

After the door shut, Arthur switched off the lamp by his bed.  But once in darkness he only sat, scanning the shadows and clutching Frederick.  Then he thought he saw a motion just a few feet away from his bed.  The lamp clicked on immediately, only to reveal that he’d forgotten the mirror was hanging on the closet door.  He had seen his own reflection.