Creeps Suzette (3 page)

“Coz,” Judith said in disgust, “do you have to smoke in the car?”

“Definitely,” Renie replied. “Mrs. Burgess probably doesn't allow smoking in her mansion. Thus, I'm going to inhale as much tar and nicotine as possible between here and there.”

Judith sighed. “Okay, but open your window. It already smells terrible in here.” She waited for Renie to comply, then continued speaking: “And Joe's right. You
do
look terrible. I don't mean the outfit—it's very sharp. But somehow you've managed to grow pale and drawn, and it's almost as if one side of your face
is
paralyzed.”

“It is,” Renie said as they reached the crest of Heraldsgate Hill. “Still, it's a light case this time.”

Judith's head swiveled as they drove along the avenue, which was flanked by commercial enterprises, churches, apartments, and an occasional residential holdout. “What are you talking about? You don't have to convince me you're sick.”

“I
am
sick, dopey,” Renie asserted, purposely blowing smoke in Judith's direction. “I don't tell big whoppers even
in a good cause like you do. The palsy started in right after I left you at Moonbeam's Friday afternoon. I was going to tell you about it, but you hung up on me. I went to the doctor Saturday, but they said it should go away in a few days without additional treatment. I hope Mrs. Burgess doesn't scare as easily as our mothers.”

“Goodness.” Judith felt upset as they began to descend the other side of the hill and were once again in a residential area. “You should have told me.”

“I didn't get a chance,” Renie said. “We kept playing phone tag. We haven't really talked since Friday.”

“Goodness,” Judith repeated, and went silent until they reached the turn-off from Heraldsgate Hill to the bridge that led over the ship canal. “To think I wasn't really lying to Joe. Except that you
did
tell him Mrs. Burgess was sick, right?”

“She is,” Renie responded, throwing her cigarette butt out the window. “That is, she has all sorts of ailments, not to mention being sick at heart because she thinks somebody is trying to put out her lights.”

“Good point,” Judith agreed, as the six-lane thoroughfare took them past the city zoo. “By the way, you better fill me in on the family background and whatever else you know about them.”

Renie shrugged, then lighted another cigarette. “I don't know that much, and some of it's just general stuff I've picked up from reading about the history of the area. Did you ever hear of Maxwell Burgess?”

Judith tried to ignore the cloud of cigarette smoke drifting her way. “He was some kind of timber baron way back, wasn't he?”

“Right, before the turn of the century,” Renie said. “The Evergreen Timber Company. It's still around. Anyway, old Maxwell has been dead for many years, as has his wife. But in the 1880s, one of the timber parcels he bought was what became Sunset Cliffs, overlooking the sound and the mountains. Great setting, way beyond the city limits then, and even though they've changed the boundaries at least
twice, it's still part of an unincorporated area just north of the dividing line.”

“I know where it is,” Judith said. “I've seen the entrance over the years.”

“Right,” said Renie. “Anyway, Maxwell clear-cut the whole parcel by the mid-1890s, then got the idea of building a house. As legend goes, he was overcome with a fit of remorse, and reforested the place. But later, when some kind of panic came along and Evergreen Timber was having financial troubles, he started selling off lots. Big ones, for big houses for people with big bank accounts. That's how Sunset Cliffs became an exclusive gated community some time around World War One.”

“Have you ever been inside?” Judith asked, finding the patch on Renie's left eye disconcerting. “I haven't.”

Renie shook her head. “While Bev and I were friends in college, I was never invited. I never figured out if I was too shabby to present to her family, or if she was embarrassed by her wealth. Mainly, we socialized on campus and just off-campus. The coffee house and foreign film era, as you may recall.”

“I do. You and I once went to a Fellini film, and the projector broke down. We thought it was part of the movie, and couldn't figure out why everybody else was stomping their feet and jeering.”

“Right. We thought it was one of Fellini's cinematic innovations,” Renie recalled. “Where was I? Oh, the family. Maxwell had a daughter, Virginia, and a son, Walter. Walter's first wife died young, leaving him with two very small children, a boy and a girl. He married Leota a short time later, and, as I mentioned, they had Bev, their only child together. Her half-brother, Wayne, runs the timber company, and her half-sister, Peggy, has had a checkered marital career. I think the current husband is number three.”

“Are these the suspects?” Judith asked with a frown.

“I suppose, at least in Mrs. Burgess's mind. Wayne and his wife—I think her name's Dorothy—live nearby in Sunset Cliffs. Peggy is now married to the pro at the golf
course where they have a house on the fifth green, or something like that.”

“So they're all close at hand,” Judith remarked, as traffic began to get bogged down along the gaudy commercial thoroughfare that led ever northward.

“Yes,” Renie agreed. “Peggy has two kids, boy and girl, and Wayne and his wife have a son called Bop.”

“Bop?” Judith wrinkled her nose.

“That's right. It stands for something, but I don't know what.”

“So nobody lives in the big old mansion except Mrs. Burgess?”

“Just the servants,” Renie answered vaguely. “I don't know much about the present setup. Bev wasn't entirely clear about it.”

If the Yellow Brick Road had led to Oz among exotic forests and colorful poppy fields, the highway to Sunset Cliffs was crowded with motels, used-car lots, and fast-food restaurants. When the cousins finally made a left at the city limits, the north side of the street boasted card rooms, taverns, pull tabs, and other minor vices that were legal in the unincorporated neighborhoods. Five minutes later, they were out of the low-life section and into a high-rent residential neighborhood.

Then they arrived at the arched entrance to Sunset Cliffs. Shafts of sunlight filtered through the tall evergreens that shaded the impeccably groomed golf course on their left. Beyond the gatehouse and on their right, they could see nothing but dense shrubbery and more trees. Judith and Renie were five minutes from the hurly-burly of the highway, but in that short span, they had entered a different world.

The cheerful uniformed young man in the gatehouse asked their names and destination. He never missed a beat when Renie turned to him head-on and displayed her eye patch.

“Jones and Flynn to see Mrs. Walter Burgess at Creepers,” Renie announced.

The guard checked his clipboard. “You're right on time. I've got you down for eleven o'clock.”

“Where
is
Creepers?” Renie asked. “We've never been here before, and I don't have an exact address.”

The cheerful smile remained in place. “There are no addresses in Sunset Cliffs,” the young man replied. “Only house names.” Carefully giving complicated directions, he lifted the barrier arm and waved them through. “You can't miss Creepers,” he called after them. “It's the last house on Evergreen Drive.”

Judith drove at the decorous posted speed of fifteen miles an hour. “You have to make an appointment to get in?” she asked Renie.

Renie nodded. “Security is very tight. Which, now that I think of it, would automatically limit the number of suspects on Mrs. Burgess's hit parade.”

“To people who are known to the guards,” Judith mused as they drove among tall stands of evergreens and thick bushes of salal, Oregon grape, and huckleberry. “To familiar faces.” She grimaced as they came to the first fork in the road. “To family.”

“To family,” Renie agreed. “Let's hope we can avoid meeting the rest of them. Otherwise, we could end up on their hit list, too.”

Judith glanced at Renie to see if she was joking. But the eye patch and the limited mobility on the left side of her cousin's face made it impossible to tell.

Judith suddenly felt an ominous tingle in her spine. Maybe she shouldn't have come. The rest that Judith had in mind wasn't of the eternal kind.

T
HE DEEPER THEY
drove into Sunset Cliffs, the more curious Judith became. This was a far cry from the neighboring palatial estates with their manicured lawns, swimming pools, and tennis courts. There wasn't a house in sight. The cousins were surrounded by second-growth forest with tall, spare evergreens that almost blotted out the sky. Uphill and down they drove, winding on the serpentine road until they finally spotted a large if undistinguished house through a heavy stand of rhododendron bushes and lush ferns.

“I was beginning to think nobody lived here,” Judith remarked.

“There's a white brick house over here on the right,” Renie pointed out. “The sign says ‘Wind Rest.' It's got a mailbox. How quaint.”

They reached the second fork where the road dipped down, then abruptly rose again. Beyond the evergreens and a stand of madrona trees, they could see the sound below them and the mountains to the west. Then they were back in the deep woods where more houses began to appear at discreet distances.

“They all look empty,” Renie said. “Maybe most of the owners winter somewhere else.”

“I'd hate to drive these roads in snow and ice,” Judith
said as they passed under a small arched bridge with globe lights and scrollwork carved into the sturdy concrete. “I wouldn't even want to drive here at night.”

“Look,” Renie said, pointing through the windshield. “It's the chapel the guard mentioned. Goodness, it's beautiful.”

Judith agreed. The small, perfect church could have been set in an English village. The gray stone building was Perpendicular in style, with delicate tracery around the windows and a handsome bell tower. The chapel looked as if it had always been there, and intended to remain.

Along Evergreen Drive, however, almost every architectural form had been used. There were sprawling Italian villas, small Moorish palaces, English Tudor, French chateaux, Dutch Colonials, and variations on contemporary Americana. Some of the homes dated back to the early twenties; at least two others were still under construction.

“Are we lost yet?” Renie asked as the road seemed to wind on forever.

“I don't think so,” Judith replied, gesturing to her left. “That house is called Evergreen. I'll bet it's the one that belongs to Bev's half-brother, Wayne.”

“Probably,” Renie replied, craning her neck. “Damn, I can't see with this stupid patch. What does it look like?”

“All one floor, mansard roof, tall arched windows and doorway,” Judith said, almost veering off the road. “Circa 1960, I'd guess.”

“That's about right,” Renie responded. “Wayne must be in his mid-sixties. He and—what did I say?—Dorothy probably got married about then.”

The road seemed to narrow, and there were no more houses, even at a distance. A gentle hill rose before them and at the top, there were two large iron gateposts crowned with lions. The small, tasteful sign read “Creepers.”

“We made it,” Judith cried, reaching the crest of the hill and a circular driveway. “Oh, my God!”

“Hmm,” murmured Renie. “That's the ugliest house I've ever seen.”

“I thought you knew what it looked like,” Judith said. “You described it.”

“I know I did,” Renie responded. “I was parroting Bev's description. ‘Richardsonian, Romanesque.' Whatever the hell that means.”

“It means ghastly,” Judith retorted. “It looks like a home for mental patients.”

Going well under the fifteen-mile-an-hour speed limit, the cousins continued up the drive. The house was huge, five stories of dark stone relieved only by an occasional decorative beige band. There was a tower on the near side with dormer windows and a tall chimney. Another tower, not so tall, but bigger all around, stood on the other side of the house. Most of the windows were almost floor-length and rather narrow. The large front porch with its arched openings and stout pillars presented a formidable aspect. Above it was a balcony, with more arches and pillars topped by a roof that jutted out from the front of the house. Up close, Judith and Renie could see that the basement windows were barred.

“Maybe it
is
a home for mental patients,” Renie said. “I'd go nuts if I lived there.”

“Had I but known…” Judith whispered. “Gosh, coz, I was sort of thinking stately homes of England. You know, like the mansion we stayed at in Wiltshire.”

“Don't remind me,” Renie snapped. “In case you've forgotten, the mistress of the house was murdered during our brief visit. I prefer not to have history repeat itself.”

“Very late Victorian,” Judith remarked, pulling up in front of the house, which seemed to loom over them. “Ugly period. There's not much like it anywhere else around here.”

“A good thing,” Renie replied, then pointed out the passenger window. “I think I know how it got its name. Much of the lower floors are covered by what looks like Virginia creeper.”

“Covered like a tombstone,” Judith said. “That's what it looks like—one big tombstone. With windows.”

“They're probably buried inside, like a mausoleum. They've got windows so the rich can still look down their noses at everybody else after they've passed on,” Renie remarked. “It figures.”

As the cousins got out of the car, Judith noticed movement behind one of the lace curtains that covered the glass in the big double doors. “We've been spotted,” she whispered. “Maybe we should have gone to the tradesmen's entrance.”

Renie glanced over her right shoulder. “I'm wondering if Creepers will be even uglier when I have the use of both eyes. Doesn't this house remind you of Pittsburgh or Savannah or Buffalo?”

“We've never been to any of those places,” Judith answered, opening the trunk and removing the two suitcases. “How would I know?”

“I've seen pictures,” Renie said. “Huge old stone houses actually look okay in context. Impressive, as well as imposing. But this one is definitely not a Pacific Northwest style.”

Judith handed Renie her suitcase just as a stooped, white-haired man in a butler's uniform opened the front door. “Mrs. Jones?” he inquired, squinting far beyond the cousins. “Mrs. Flynn?”

“Over here, Mr. Magoo,” Renie muttered, trying to keep her good eye on the butler and the walkway. “Yes, we've arrived,” she went on, raising her voice. “Where should we put the car?”

“I'll take it to the garage out back,” the butler replied, moving forward and bumping into a thick pillar. “Later, if you will. Where is it now?”

“Holy Mother,” Judith said in an undertone. “I don't want a blind man driving my Subaru.”

“Maybe he's some kind of jokester,” Renie said, stumbling over an old-fashioned hitching post that depicted a liveried black footman. “I mean, he must have seen us drive up. Oops!” Renie made another misstep, squashing a couple of promising primroses.

“Watch it,” Judith said out of the side of her mouth. “You've already uprooted a hitching post and stomped on the flowers. Maybe it's a good thing Mr. Magoo can't see.”

Guiding Renie by the elbow, Judith ascended the stone steps to the wide porch. Empty planters awaited their spring finery, and an ancient swing with a striped awning was covered with clear plastic.

“I'm Kenyon, at your service,” the butler said, making a very stiff bow. “Welcome to Creepers. Mrs. Burgess is waiting for you in the library.”

“Okay,” Renie said as they entered the house, then whispered to Judith: “Do you suppose she looks like a gargoyle? As I recall, she used to be nice-looking.”

“Shh,” Judith urged. “Kenyon may be blind, but it doesn't mean he's deaf.”

But Kenyon was either too deaf or too polite to react. He offered to take the luggage to the visitors' quarters as soon as he led the way into the library.

Judith was still goggling at the huge entry hall, complete with fireplace. The hearth was flanked by what looked like choir stalls, and a refectory table was cluttered with knick-knacks, empty vases, and what appeared to be antique music boxes.

The library was down a side hall and off to the left, behind another room where the double doors were tightly closed. Kenyon rapped softly on the heavy oak. A woman's voice called out rather loudly; the cousins guessed that Kenyon was indeed both deaf
and
polite.

With effort, he opened the heavy door. “Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Flynn,” Kenyon said deferentially. “Or is it Mrs. Flynn and Mrs. Jones?”

“Never mind,” said Mrs. Burgess, not unkindly. “You may go, Kenyon.”

The door closed slowly behind the cousins, who were left alone with their hostess. Judith and Renie couldn't help but stare: Wearing a chic navy pantsuit, Leota Burgess was seated at an oval table. She had a trim figure, and her white hair was swept back in a smart, expensive cut. Her skin
was remarkably unlined, her makeup discreet. The bone structure was delicate, the eyes a riveting blue. She looked closer to sixty than eighty, and retained a timeless beauty. It was only her hands, with the swollen joints and liver spots, that betrayed her.

“Poor Kenyon.” Mrs. Burgess sighed. “He's getting very feeble. Do sit down, girls. You must be Serena Grover,” she said, nodding at Renie. “You really haven't changed that much.”

Flattered, Renie put a hand to her breast. “That's awfully kind of you to say. I'm Serena Jones now, and this is Judith Grover Flynn.”

Mrs. Burgess gave Judith a royal nod. “Please sit. I'm delighted to have both of you here. I understand your need for a companion, Serena. What happened to your eye?”

“It's a long story,” Renie replied, sinking into one of two leather wingback chairs. “I don't want to bore you.”

“You won't,” their hostess replied. “I'll send for tea, and we can get better acquainted.”

To Judith's surprise, Mrs. Burgess turned to an old-fashioned speaking tube. “Tea for three, Edna. And some of Ada's delightful finger sandwiches.”

As they waited for their tea, the cousins allowed themselves to be subjected to Mrs. Burgess's well-bred probing. “My, my,” the older woman said to Judith after a small gray-haired maid had delivered a trolley to the library. “Your first husband must have been quite stout. Did he find exercise difficult?”

“Dan found moving difficult,” Judith blurted. “He…ah…wasn't terribly ambitious.”

“What a shame,” Mrs. Burgess said, though the comment was merely polite. Gesturing at the three tall windows behind them, she turned to Renie. “I was going to have Edna open the drapes, but thought perhaps the light might strain your good eye. Shall I keep them closed?”

“Either way is fine,” Renie said. “You have quite a book collection in here.”

Mrs. Burgess glanced with indifference at the glassed-in
floor-to-ceiling bookcases. “Collectors' items, mostly. The kind of books no one ever actually reads, except perhaps my grandson Kenneth. My father-in-law, Maxwell Burgess, was very keen on rare first editions. Personally, I prefer romance novels. They always have a happy ending.” The blue eyes suddenly lost focus. “Life isn't like that, is it?”

Judith, who had just finished a delicious salmon finger sandwich, smiled sadly. “No, it's not. I gather that lately you've had cause to be unhappy.”

Leota Burgess sat up very straight, as if she were calling on some inner reserve of strength. “Yes. People—even people we know and love—have cancerous emotions buried inside that make them commit the unthinkable.”

“Like attempted murder?” Judith asked softly.

Mrs. Burgess's face paled. “Yes. Like that.”

“Do you want to tell us about it?” Renie asked, sounding genuinely sympathetic.

Leota Burgess hesitated as various emotions flitted across her face. “Not just yet,” she finally said. “You'll want to get settled into your quarters. We'll lunch in my room, at one.” She smiled as she gave the cousins a single nod. Apparently, they were dismissed.

Kenyon was outside, propped up against a large sepiatoned photograph that might have been Sunset Cliffs before it was clear-cut. The trunks on the evergreens were huge, indicating that some of the trees had been four or five hundred years old.

“This way,” the butler said, leading Judith and Renie back down the side hall, into the entryway, and through an open arch that led to a massive central staircase. Judith could see the second floor through the mahogany railing. Wheezing a bit, Kenyon stopped halfway up. Then, with a unanimous deep breath, they reached the final step before Kenyon passed out.

Photographs and oil portraits lined the walls. One was identifiable, Leota Burgess some fifty years earlier in a Balenciaga ball gown. On their left, the butler pointed to a closed door.

“The mistress's suite,” he said, and continued down the dimly lighted hallway. The room reserved for the visitors was two doors down. “I hope this will be satisfactory,” Kenyon murmured as he slowly opened the door. “Please let me know of any inadequacy.”

The first inadequacy that struck Judith was the lack of a bed. She turned to say something, but the butler had already slipped away. Renie, however, was opening another door.

“Wow,” she breathed, bumping into a velvet-covered settee, “this isn't a room, it's another suite. Look, two beds, chairs, tables, gophers.”

“Gophers?” Judith stared at the large, overly decorated bedroom. “Those are ceramic cats. Very Victorian.”

“With only one eye, they look like gophers to me,” Renie replied. “Which bed do you want, coz?”

“It doesn't matter,” Judith said, gazing at the two brass single beds and dull ruby velvet coverings that matched the settee and the draperies. “They're both the same. I'll take the one by the window.”

Further exploration revealed a large bathroom with old-fashioned hexagon tiles on the floor and a deep tub with a mahogany surround. Renie guessed that the toilet seat was also mahogany.