Death Dangles a Participle (Miss Prentice Cozy Mystery Series) (2 page)

Once again, I dreamed of drowning, struggling in the dark and chilly waters of Lake Champlain, which abruptly changed to the swimming pool at the YMCA.

Then, all at once, I was in the classroom, clad only in a swimsuit. My first class of the day was due to arrive any moment. I needed to get home to get dressed, but Principal Berghauser, strangely oblivious to my dress-code infraction, was shaking his head.

The late bell rang reproachfully in my ear. I opened my eyes, blinked, and made a reflexive grab for the bedside telephone.

“Aren’t you two finished honeymooning
yet
?” someone demanded.

It took several foggy seconds for my brain to sort out that the voice on the other end belonged to my friend and former neighbor, Lily Burns.

“No,” I told her, switching ears as I struggled to disentangle my delicate peignoir sleeve from the telephone cord, “we have one whole week left. Surely you didn’t call at—” I squinted at the bedside clock“—one-seventeen in the morning to ask me that. How did you get this number, anyway?”

“Marie, who else? I had to tell a really huge whopper to pry it out of her.”

Marie LeBow, manager of Chez Prentice, our bed and breakfast back home in the Adirondacks, and the only living soul entrusted with our whereabouts, had been sworn to secrecy except in the case of dire emergency.

“Who is it?” mumbled my new husband from his side of the bed.

I covered the receiver and murmured, “The Widow Burns.” It was Gil’s humorous pet name for the glamorous Lily.

Gil groaned and rolled over, making a head sandwich with his pillows.

“Aren’t you getting tired of all that tropical sunshine by now?” Lily asked heartily. “It’s nice and brisk here. Wind chill, two below. As Gil says in the newspaper, ‘January: the way nature intended.’”

Memories of my nightmare were fading and being replaced by irritation. “Lily, if this isn’t an emergency on the scale of an earthquake, so help me, I’ll turn you in for burning those leaves in the street as I should have in October; I’ll tell—”

“No, you won’t. You never do. Amelia, I was your matron of honor. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

“Don’t whine. Just what is it you want?”

“It’s Alec.” Lily’s relationship with her hirsute, hymn-humming swain, Dr. Alec Alexander, was on-again, off-again. “I’ve been thinking about it, and I decided you’re the one to talk to him. He likes you.”

“I thought he was pretty fond of you too,” I said.

The last time I had seen them was at our wedding. Alec was kissing her under the mistletoe.

“Not anymore.”

“Oh, Lily, you didn’t dump him again!”

“If you must know, it was the other way around. We were at dinner at the Lion’s Roar tonight—”

“He took you there again? That’s three times since you started dating.” Alec’s courtship of Lily must really be setting him back.

“Four, but who’s counting? Anyway, all I said was that I might have another date to the ice festival and—”

“And do you?”

“What?”

“Have another date?”

“Of course not. But I have been kind of hoping that somebody else might ask me.”

“Lily, how could you?”

“I’m not married to that man.” Lily’s voice was taking on a familiar petulant tone.

We’d known each other forever. I could picture her sitting at the kitchen table where she always chatted on the telephone. She’d slipped off her earrings and three-inch high heels she considered
de rigueur
for dressy occasions and was probably massaging her toes, the nails of which had been professionally painted Lily’s favorite shade, Passionate Plum.

“Lily, this is ridiculous, it’s the middle of the night.”

Gil rolled out of bed and staggered to the bathroom. If he’d been a student of mine, the expression he muttered would have earned him several years in detention hall.

“But you will call Alec for me, won’t you?”

I kneaded my forehead with my fingertips. “Why? What for?”

“To bring him to his senses, of course! He said, ‘I’m cuttin’ ye loose, Miss Lily.’ Used those very words. But he was miserable about it, I could tell. I need you to change his mind.”

Poor Alec. He’d been crazy about Lily. It must have taken a lot of courage to say that.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you want him back? I thought you said—”

“Amelia, I’m not made of stone. I’m not positive this thing with Alec can’t work. I know he likes me a lot. He just gave up on us too soon. So are you going to help me or not?”

“I’m not sure I should,” I said carefully.

“What are you talking about? Were you at the same wedding I was? Did you or did you not aim your bouquet at me? I thought you wanted us to get together.”

She had me there. Alec had been infatuated with Lily for months, and I’d found his devotion so touching that I’d taken every opportunity to promote the match. But there was a limit to everything, and this was it.

“Lily, you’re just about the oldest friend I have and I do care about you,” I said. “I know I should’ve said all this a long time ago, but I kept thinking things would get better. Your treatment of Alec’s been shocking. You’ve led him on and used him and made fun of him behind his back. That lie you told about seeing the Lake Champlain Monster was beneath contempt. It could’ve set his work back several years or seriously undermined his scientific credibility.”

“Now listen—” Lily protested, but I was fired up.

“And all this time, the man’s been a perfect gentleman, hoping against hope you’d come around. It seems to me, Lily, if Alec’s dumped you, well, he’s finally come to his senses.” I took a quick breath and plunged in again. “I know from experience you probably won’t take my advice, so all I can say is, do whatever you want. And . . . and . . . .don’t call us, we’ll call you!” I slammed down the phone, my chest heaving.

“Amen, sister!” called Gil from the bathroom.

I smiled halfheartedly. The lingering shadows of my nightmare gave this new spat with Lily a momentous feeling, as if I were cutting some kind of lifeline. After all, months ago, when I really
was
drowning, she’d been there for me.

As I settled back into bed, I was already feeling guilty. Lily Burns was vain, opinionated, exasperating, and a terrible gossip, but she was my oldest friend. And if not for her, Alec, and the grace of God, I would surely have become a large, overeducated portion of fish food in the inky waters of Lake Champlain.

“What did Mother Teresa want this time?” Gil asked as he returned to bed, smelling pleasantly of expensive hotel soap. “And how did she track us down?”

“Tell me, Mr. Editor.” I cupped his face in my hands and kissed him. “Do you really want to talk about Lily Burns?”

“Nope,” said Gil, and grinned.

“Student?” I was totally mystified. We were standing in the foyer of Chez Prentice, my old family house recently converted into a bed and breakfast, staring at the manager Marie LeBow. “What student?”

“The one Mrs. Burns called me about. The one who was gonna commit suicide. Did you call him? Is he okay?” Marie’s voice held a tone of desperation.

Gil and I exchanged glances. So that was the whopper Lily had used to get our phone number last week.

“Is he okay? Did you get to him in time?” Her face was pinched in anguish. Her own twenty-year-old daughter had died last year, but it was typical of self-centered Lily not to give a thought to how such a tall tale would affect Marie. “I’ve been worried about it all week. Is he gonna be all right?”

I took a deep breath. “Everything’s just fine now.” I hugged her. “I’m afraid I can’t say anything more about it, though.”

Marie’s right hand had been pressed to her heart. She dropped it. I noticed the skin of her once chronically chapped hands were now a creamy olive, and she had an elegant white-tipped French manicure.

“Oh, thank goodness!” She sighed, then immediately resumed her manager persona and became all business, leading us into her office—formerly Papa’s study—to show us her schedule book.

“We’re doing pretty good these days. The laundry’s quite a job, but I’ve got a couple of high school girls coming in part-time to help Hester out. You know, just fill in here and there. Still, we need to put more people in these rooms if we want to pay the bills. The ice festival will help bring them in, but there’s plenty of spots still open.”

She tut-tutted and shook her head at the blank spaces on the calendar. “It’s getting better, though. Mrs. Daye—that lady reading the paper in the parlor—she’s from Ohio. Paid cash in advance ’n everything. She tells me she’s got family here in town, so she’ll probably be back, off and on. And there’s always the drop-ins, and we’ll be full up for another whole week in June with the education conference. Plus, of course, the Kiwanis have their weekly breakfast meetings in the dining room.” She pointed to large K’s in each Friday square. “And the mayor’s daughter wants to have her wedding reception here in August. I guess a little bird told her how good yours turned out,” she said, twinkling.

“A little bird named Etienne, perhaps?” I twinkled back. Marie’s husband Etienne was my partner in the business.

“Oh, Amelia, he’s so proud of this place!” Even after two weeks, her face still glowed as she spoke of her once-prodigal husband. “He’s got another wonderful idea for putting us on the map—but I’ll let him tell you that later.”

Their reconciliation must be going well
, I thought.
Another prayer answered
.

Marie squared her shoulders and buttoned her well-tailored navy wool blazer. “And I’m gonna make you real glad you give me this job.”

“I already am, Marie.”

For the past two decades, after being abandoned by her husband, Etienne, Marie had eked out an adequate living for herself and her daughter doing whatever honorable work she could find, from waiting tables to pumping gas. When the opportunity finally arose, Marie eagerly accepted the position of manager at Chez Prentice as a chance to prove what she could do.

It was an inspired choice. Marie was shrewd and intelligent, with a gift for administration that had gone unnoticed in her other jobs. Her long-term goal was a college degree in hotel management, which she was working toward in small steps during her free afternoons and evenings.

“The flowers in the foyer are lovely,” I said.

Marie seemed to shrink slightly. “D’you think it’s all right? Chuck Nathan says he can let me have a bunch a week for half price. I didn’t tell Etienne yet.”

“All right? Of course it is! It’s a beautiful, gracious touch.”

“And to get such a good deal from that tightwad is quite an accomplishment,” Gil added wryly.

“Before I forget, I got something else you need to sign,” Marie told me. “While I find it, you go on back to the kitchen and get some coffee. It’s just made. Val’s boy brought some fresh baked stuff this morning: apple strudel and croissants. I want you to try one of them with Hester’s McIntosh apple butter.”

I turned to consult Gil, but he was already on his way to the back of the house.

Marie’s sister Valerie, an amazing cook, lived on a family farm in Vermont. Her wonderful baked goods were delivered across Lake Champlain thrice weekly by her teenaged son.

I heard conversation as I entered.

“Part of the fun’s not knowing what Val’s gonna send us, y’see,” explained Hester Swanson, who came in daily to help with breakfast preparation and cleaning. “Tuesday it was prune Danish and raisin walnut bread.”

Hester, no slouch at cooking herself, rolled her eyes in enthusiastic memory, nearly missing Gil’s cup as she poured his coffee.

“Things are really shaping up around this place,” Gil commented, gesturing with his cup at the fresh wallpaper and newly painted glass-front cabinets.

Hester parked fists on her generous hips and gazed around the high-ceilinged old kitchen. She was built like one of the heftier carved figureheads on the bow of an old sailing ship, feminine but substantial.

“We got things buttoned up in here,” she agreed, “but Etienne and me’s got a bit more to do in a couple other rooms, for sure.”

She turned back to the kitchen counter and cut the two sandwiches she had made into diagonal quarters. “Bert’s lunch,” Hester informed us, and after tenderly sliding them into plastic bags, she laid them in a silver-sided dome lunchbox. “He’ll be here to pick it up later today.”

She opened a jar of apple butter and laid a spoon next to it. “There. Try that on some of the rolls. I made a great big batch last week. Etienne wants to get some labels printed up.”

She ran a hand around another, unopened jar. “It’ll say ‘Chez Prentice’ right on top here, then, ‘Hester’s Authentic McIntosh Apple Butter’ right there.”

Our section of New York State is famous for its apple orchards, specializing in McIntosh apples, and Hester was McIntosh’s biggest fan.

“This is delectable, Hester,” I said.

Gil, his mouth full, nodded enthusiastic agreement. “Mmm.”

“Yeah, delectable, that’s what it is. You’re always coming up with the big word. Guess it comes from being an English teacher. Delectable. I like that. ’Course I do all that stuff the health department says I have to, but my apple butter’s not what you call health food or nothing,” Hester warned. “It’s got sugar in it, of course. Marie keeps saying our guests are gonna want health food. I told her alls I know is Bert Swanson’s been eating my cooking for twenty-five years and if he ain’t healthy, I’m that Audrey Hepburn woman.”

She patted her short gray hair and smiled crookedly. She had made her point; her burly husband positively radiated good health.

“
Here’s that paper to sign, Amelia,” Marie said, coming into the kitchen. “It’s an entry form for the snow sculpture contest. It’s all filled out. I’ll run it over to the mayor’s office as soon as you sign it. Etienne and me—and I?—thought it would be good publicity, out there in the front yard. We’ll line somebody up to make it, so you don’t have to do a thing.”

I watched Marie as she spoke, exuding enthusiasm. It was a nice change from the depressed person she had been before.