Becklaw's Murder Mystery Tour (Jo Anderson Series) (6 page)

I felt nervous, there was no denying it. The last thing I wanted was to become a pawn in the ongoing Battle of the Becklaw Women. Leslie gave me an apologetic glance, then directed Lily and Josie off to the ladies’ room. I stopped walking to let Miss Lucinda catch up, waiting for her to speak.

Lucinda stood still a moment, more to catch her breath than for dramatic pause. In spite of her obvious handicap, this woman was one tough cookie.

‘I have decided to join Beatrice in this cockamamie outfit of hers. What job should I do?’ She stared at me with eyes that dared me to disagree.

I didn’t.

‘Well,’ I began slowly, ‘Miss Bea oversees everything that we do. I suppose you’d better talk to her.’ There. I had extricated myself neatly from another Becklaw Pitfall.

Lucinda Becklaw snorted, an almost horsy sound. I fully expected her to lift a hoof and paw the ground in front of us.

‘That Woman,’ she said, her voice issuing capital letters to the words, ‘is a dingbat.’

I had to quickly stifle a grin. I hadn’t heard that epithet since watching reruns of
All in the Family
.

‘I’m sorry, dearest Lucy?’ The words were laden with sugary sweetness, the voice unrecognizable to me for its dangerously mellow tone. ‘I’m afraid I missed that last comment.’ Miss Bea had walked up behind me, laying a hand on my shoulder. ‘Jo, dear, run along and give Leslie a hand, won’t you?’

I obeyed. Quickly.

I scampered down the hall and didn’t look back. I don’t know what I was afraid of seeing: perhaps my beloved Miss Bea with claws in place of hands and fire issuing from her kindly mouth. I knew that was just a fancy but, from what I had just heard, it could have happened.

Leslie was kneeling down in front of Lily when I walked in, pins bristling from her mouth in a parody of teeth.

‘Hng n a minit,’ she said, trying to speak without swallowing one of the little daggers.

I looked around the small dressing area. Dresses with lace flounces and feather boas covered nearly every surface. The mirrored dressing table and the cushioned stool that stood in front of it, carried a load of acting minutiae; vials of thick stage make-up and jars of face cream were side by side with all manner of undergarments; push-up brassières and double-sided tape, along with girdles in all sizes, lay strewn around for everyone and their grandma to see.

With Lily’s dress reconstructed to her satisfaction, Leslie came groaningly to her feet.

‘That carpet needs some new padding,’ she grumbled. ‘Where’s Miss Bea, Jo? I need her to see Lily’s dress before I make the changes for tonight.’ She bent down and plucked a box of straight pins off the floor.

‘Oh, I think that I’d trust your judgment on this one, Leslie,’ I said, cutting my eyes sideways at Lily to indicate ‘not in front of the newbie, Leslie’.

She didn’t get it and babbled on. ‘I was just saying to Lily and Josie that Miss Bea is in the head honcho for everything we do in Becklaw’s, isn’t that right, Jo?’

What was it with everyone trying conversationally to entrap me today?

I didn’t have to answer, thank goodness. We three heard the sounds of rapid footsteps coming toward us. The door was flung open and in stepped Miss Bea, flames figuratively shooting from her eyes. Instinctively, I moved nearer to Leslie and Lily. I don’t why I did; Miss Bea wasn’t the type to murder me in my tracks … was she?

‘I have just been informed by my dear sister-in-law that she intends to join our little family and run part of the troupe.’ Miss Bea’s face was unnaturally red, and her hair had completely come undone, its tangled frizzle hanging around her face
à la
Medusa. If that didn’t give one nightmares, then nothing could, I thought, as I edged even closer to Leslie.

‘What’s going on?’ Leslie looked from me to Miss Bea, concern evident in her tone. ‘Do you need us to run her off, Miss Bea? I can certainly do it and LJ will be more than happy to take care of business for you.’

Miss Bea brushed aside an armful of clothing and plopped down on the stool. I held my breath, praying silently for its safety and hoping that the craftsman had counted on bottoms of all sizes.

‘No, that’s very kind of you, my dear,’ she said, her face less flushed and her voice quieter. ‘When I married my sweet Desmond, I essentially married his family. His sisters, Lucinda and Miranda, were so clingy, and his mother, God rest her soul, acted like Desmond wasn’t old enough to leave home. We took off as soon as we had the money, leaving kith and kin behind and happy to do it.’ She paused, smiling at the ceiling in a way that I now associated with her many visits to a happier past.

‘There are two of them?’ I couldn’t keep the horror out of my voice, looking back over my shoulder as if another Becklaw Person was going to come swooping at me from the shadows.

‘Yes,’ smiled Miss Bea in amusement. ‘Lucinda and Miranda – Lucy and Mindy – are twins. For every bad point that is Lucy, Mindy is as sweet and kind as the day is long.’

I shook my head in disbelief. I couldn’t get out of my head the fact that Miss Lucinda had a twin and that this twin was sweet. ‘Sweet’ was not an appellation that one would ever, ever apply to Lucinda Becklaw.

Leslie came to life, pointed to Lily’s dress, and asked if it looked OK. Miss Bea turned an appraising eye toward the flounces that Leslie had pinned up to accommodate Lily’s shorter stature.

‘That looks fine, my dear,’ Miss Bea said, rising from the stool. I heard a groan and wondered if the stool was thanking its lucky stars that she had stood up.

Once more, the door was opened with force. Miss Lucinda stood there in the open doorway, arms firmly crossed and a stern look on her face. She homed in on Miss Bea, who seemed to suddenly grow ten feet taller and shoot sparks.

‘I believe that the actors’ dressing rooms are off-limits to the public,’ Miss Bea announced in stentorian tones.

‘Oh, give it a rest, Bea!’ Miss Lucinda bit her words off as cleanly as a seamstress cutting thread.

Leslie turned to look at me, making a slight pointing motion with her head, first toward Miss Bea then toward Miss Lucinda. I shrugged, wiggling my eyebrows to telegraph my opinion. Miss Bea’s radar, though, was in fine working order.

‘Girls, you don’t need to do that,’ she admonished sternly, although I swear I could detect a smile in her eyes. ‘Whatever it is you need to say, just say it.’

I took a deep breath. Leslie was counting on me to be the leader, and poor Lily was in something like shock, watching the drama unfolding in front of her.

‘Miss Bea, Miss Lucy,’ I began, then swiftly corrected myself. ‘Miss Lucinda. We need to get these costumes ready to go for tonight. Which one of you will be in charge of that?’

I felt the air thicken as Miss Bea’s eyes narrowed. I had really stepped in it.

‘I am the One in Charge,’ Miss Bea said stiffly. I felt crushed. Miss Bea had never used that tone with me.

‘I didn’t mean it like that, Miss Bea,’ I replied contritely. It must have worked, because her sunny smile returned and I felt forgiven. ‘What I really meant to say was, are these changes that Leslie made OK with you?’ I had clean forgotten that she’d already told us that they were. I was pretty shaken up, I guess.

Apparently she was shaken a bit as well, because she answered, ‘I’ll take a look in a few minutes, dear. Let me just escort dear Lucy here to the front room first, then we’ll go over the costumes. Lucinda?’

Here she opened the dressing room door, holding out her left arm in a magnificently sweeping gesture that said very clearly, Get Out.

Dear Lucy got out.

In spite of the bad vibes between the two Becklaw gals, we managed to fit both Lily and Josie, as well as the Three Amigos. With the clothing issues out of the way, we set about getting the eating area in order, our ‘stage’ zone defined by a long table (Derek’s bar), an upright piano, and three round tables with mismatched chairs. Since we really didn’t use props other than the cards, ashtrays, and a few bottles for the bar, we were ready to go.

‘Miss Bea,’ questioned Josie, ‘when I leave to go rest during the play, which direction should I walk?’

As we had already gone over what ‘stage right’ and ‘stage left’ meant, I waited for Miss Bea to reply using one of those terms. To my amazement – and amusement – she said, ‘You go to your right, Josie, as if you were looking out at the audience and decided to run back to the dressing room. Does that make sense?’

Her tone was kind, not facetious in any way. I could tell then that Miss Bea associated ‘beauty’ with ‘empty head’. Well, who didn’t? Josie didn’t seem to notice anything of the kind, instead pausing to crinkle her smooth brow, look out at where the audience would be, back to her right, and then nod.

Eureka, I thought. She’s got it! (Never mind that I was feeling a bit cynical at this moment, dear reader. I was actually impressed that the girl knew her right hand from her left.) With that little issue taken care of, Miss Bea gave us all last
-
minute chores to do before we left.

I soon found myself side by side with Miss Lucinda, moving chairs closer to the tables in order to form more walking space for when Leslie and I would venture out among the diners and encourage them to participate. Much to my surprise and thankfulness, she had nothing to say. Instead, she marched up and down to the best of her ability, shoving in chairs with enough vigor to make me think that she still was a bit miffed over the ‘Get Out’ scene with Miss Bea.

I have to say that right about then I was starting to get a funny feeling about the entire thing: the venue we’d been hired on to play, the way Miss Lucinda showed up out of the blue, and even the way that Skinny Joe insisted on helping to choose the bit-parters. Something Did Not Feel Right. No siree, Bob.

I did have a sort of reputation already, though, as one who tended to leap to conclusions and even quicker to action, so I was loath to mention any of my gut reactions to anyone. That is, until I was cornered by Miss Lucinda at the end of one of the long tables.

‘So spill it already, missy,’ Miss Lucinda barked, blocking my path with her girth.

As is my wont, I feigned a look of innocence as my mind raced to decide what I could say to this woman. ‘I’m afraid that I don’t …’ I began, but Miss Lucinda’s laser beam glare blew my words clean out of this galaxy.

‘Do not play ingenuous with me, young lady! I’ve had plenty of experience with folks like you who like to think that age dulls one’s senses. Well, I wasn’t born yesterday,’ – a sharp look from her stopped my grin in its tracks – ‘so you’d better give it up. Now.’

She sounded a lot like my third grade teacher, scary Mrs Fiornelli with the moustache.

I gave it up.

‘Miss Lucinda,’ I said, ‘I really have a bad feeling about all of this.’ There. I’d said it. She could take it or leave it. I hoped she’d leave it.

She took it.

Miss Lucinda plopped down a bit unsteadily, her braced leg stuck straight out in front. She motioned to me to sit down as well, which I did, afraid to defy her.

She really did remind me of Mrs Fiornelli, moustache and all.

As I sat in silence, hoping that I could use this as a defense, Miss Lucinda cleared her throat with a loud ‘harrumph’, then began to speak.

‘I have to admit, Jo, that my finding you all was no accident. I have been concerned for a while about how my brother, well, about his death, its suddenness and the fact that we never saw a body or had a funeral. We’ve only had Beatrice’s word all these years.’ She stopped speaking, staring past me at some memory. She sighed, shaking her head as if to rejoin the real world.

‘When our mother passed away, my sister and I promised each other that we’d find out the truth of the matter, no matter how awful or how mundane. If it was true that he’d died in a boating accident and was never found, so be it. But if we found out that Beatrice or someone else had a hand in his disappearance, there would be hell to pay.

‘Unfortunately, my sister has also passed, leaving me the sole survivor of the Becklaw family. It’s up to me to find out the truth about Desmond and to reclaim anything that might still be rightfully our family’s.’ She stopped speaking, head down. I felt a wave of sadness for this woman whose entire family was gone, who was left with a nutter like Miss Bea.

Wait a doggone minute, I mentally scolded myself. You just accused Miss Bea, sweet, kind, do-anything-for-anyone Miss Bea, of being as off her rocker as Crazy GreatAunt Opal.

Well, that stood to reason, didn’t it? I knew the symptoms. I suppose I’d known all along that Miss Beatrice Becklaw, Proprietor of Becklaw’s Murder Mystery Tour, was a nut. Oh, boy. Where did that leave me? I guess I knew this entire escapade was too good to be true. The best thing for me, I thought wretchedly, was to get myself back to Copper, pack my belongings, and head back to Piney Woods.

Or not. I couldn’t just up and leave Leslie to Miss Bea’s mercies. Or LJ. Or Derek. Or even Miss Lucinda, for that matter. I was going to have to stick it out, maybe give Miss Lucinda a hand with her investigation. Lord only knew what we’d uncover.

But I was ready. I lifted my head, looked Lucinda Becklaw straight in the eyes and said, ‘You can count on me, Miss Lucinda.’

If I had known what those seven words held in store for me, I would’ve sooner bitten my tongue than utter them.