Midsummer Murder (14 page)

“The glass with the orange stuff in the bottom?” asked Biddy.

Chi-Chi nodded. “I make a pitcher of it every day. Orange juice, brewer’s yeast, echinacea, and a few other things. It fortifies the immune system.”

Lindy grimaced.

“Robert doesn’t like it, either, but it’s only for a few months of the year. He’s perfectly fine in the city.” She bit her lip. “Marguerite doesn’t know; she’d refuse to let him come.”

“Mum’s the word.”

Chi-Chi relaxed. “A few months of sneezing is a small price to pay for all Marguerite has done for us. And she worries too much. I don’t think she believes any of us have completely grown up.”

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They took their leave a few minutes later.

“You could sleep up at the house tonight,” said Biddy. “Are you sure you’ll be okay alone?”

“No. But Robert will be back tomorrow. I’ll just have to make do until then.”

“I hope she’s right,” said Lindy as they made their way back to the house.

Biddy only nodded.

88

Eight

“I can’t understand what is taking him so long.” Ellis stood looking out the window of the dining room in exactly the same position Jeremy had occupied the night before.

“I’m sure he’ll be back soon,” said Lindy. She played with the cup of coffee that sat on the table before her.

“He shouldn’t have insisted on going by himself. He says his hip is fine, but driving down the mountain—if he needed to use his reflexes quickly . . .”

“He probably just decided to do a little shopping while he was in town.” Biddy didn’t look at him, just continued to play with her plate of cooling eggs.

It was the first time Lindy had ever seen Biddy pick at her food.

Her stomach, unlike Lindy’s, never seemed to be affected by stress or worry.

“Maybe he stopped in at the police station to see about Robert.”

Lindy took a sip of coffee. It was cold. She wondered if it would be okay to exchange her cup for another with hot coffee.

“That must be it,” said Ellis, suddenly sounding years younger. “I don’t know what we would do without him.” He walked over to the sideboard and began to fill a plate from the chafing dishes.

The door opened and they all turned to see if it was Stu. Jeremy paused long enough to cast a cursory glance over the table and poured himself a cup of coffee.

“Morning, Jeremy,” said Ellis. “Stu went into town to collect the papers. He said we shouldn’t wait until they were delivered this afternoon. Better to be prepared for whatever they might be saying about us.”

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Jeremy gave him a long look. “I’m sure he’s right.” He sat down several chairs away from the others.

Lindy stifled an urge to get up and kick him. He wasn’t the only one distressed by the events of the last three days. He should stop acting like such a brat and start helping the others to cope.

“How is Marguerite this morning?” Biddy asked, looking at him quickly before returning her gaze to the now-cold scrambled eggs.

“She seems okay. A little tired. Adele told her to stay in bed today.

But you know Marguerite.”

Actually, they hardly knew Marguerite at all, but Lindy refrained from saying so.

“Ah, here he is.” Ellis put his plate back on the sideboard and went out to meet Stu.

Lindy, Biddy, and Jeremy drank their coffee in silence.

Lindy wished Jeremy would just get things off his chest. He was making them all uncomfortable, Biddy especially. She was completely loyal to him and the company and Lindy knew it hurt her to be left out of things that were affecting him.

He had a way of letting things build up until the very space around him seemed to vibrate. Sometimes the mood blew over without any of them knowing what had caused it. Other times his revelations about his feelings had been shocking and unsettling.

Lindy hoped this would be one of the former kind. Between the student performance, their own performance, a death, Marguerite’s health, and Robert’s stay at the police station, they had more than enough to deal with already.

Ellis returned to the dining room with Stu in tow. Neither of them looked happy. Stu slapped down a stack of newspapers and went to pour himself a cup of coffee. Ellis took up the paper on top.
“Fatal
Accident at Easton Arts Retreat,”
he read aloud. “That’s not so bad.” He turned to the next paper without reading the article of the first.

“Oh my God.” He didn’t even apologize for his blasphemy, but sank into a chair that fortunately was placed right behind him.

“Student Found Dead at Academy. Police Investigate.”
He tossed the paper aside and reached for the next. A hand closed over his wrist. Stu stood next to him.

“I don’t think we need be too concerned about the headlines. It will all blow over in a couple of days and then will be forgotten.”

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Midsummer Murder

“If there’s an earthquake or a war,” said Jeremy without looking up.

Lindy gave him a stern look, though he couldn’t see her. He was staring into his coffee cup. She willed him to get the message.

He lifted his eyes in her direction. At least he had the decency to look chagrined.

Biddy pushed her chair back and left the room.

Oh great.

“Blow over.” Ellis extracted his wrist from Stu’s hand.
“Child
Plunges to his Death at EAR?”

“I almost didn’t bring that one back.” Stu placed both hands on the table. “Ellis,” he said levelly. “It’s only the local paper. And you know how the editor feels about gaining these lands for the town’s benefit.

He’s in cahoots with the mayor and those local real estate people.”

Stu straightened up and squeezed Ellis’s shoulder. “It has a circulation of less than two hundred readers. It won’t affect any public opinion but theirs, and we already know where the town stands.”

“Sandiman!” Ellis bellowed the name so loudly that the others jumped. Sandiman appeared magically from behind the baize door to the kitchen.

“Yes, sir.”

“I don’t want Marguerite to see the papers today, or tomorrow, or any day until this has blown over, do you understand?”

The idea was ludicrous. Lindy imagined the servants hiding in the scullery cutting out the headlines of all the papers that entered the camp. A scene right out of a Victorian novel. It occurred to her that Marguerite might need less protecting than her brother.

“Very good, sir.” Sandiman uttered the remark with a completely straight face, but Lindy guessed that if Marguerite wanted to see the newspapers, all she had to do was ask.

“That will be all.” Ellis waved his hand in the air, dismissing Sandiman, the same man who only last night had sat with them tête-à-tête over brandy.

Sandiman bowed and disappeared behind the door.

Lindy found that she had an almost uncontrollable urge to laugh. Sandiman came and went like a jack in the box. Ellis changed his role in the family as readily as he changed his clothes.

Stu was beginning to act like the friendly family solicitor, and even 91

Shelley Freydont

she and Biddy were beginning to think in terms of “tête-à-tête” and

“particular friends.” Only Jeremy seemed resistant to the Old World influences around him.

“Can I see one of the papers?” he asked, his voice as bland as if he were asking the loan from a fellow commuter on his way to work.

Stu tossed it toward him. Their eyes met for a second before Jeremy opened the paper and began to read.

Ellis was reading the article in the local paper. He opened to the continuation and he was hidden by the double pages of newsprint. An occasional grunt came from behind the paper. Lindy tried to read the front page that Ellis held from where she was sitting.

“For crying out loud,” she said and grabbed the remaining paper.

It wasn’t pretty. The paper wasn’t local, but even they mentioned the fact that the police were investigating the circumstances of the case.

She had no doubt who the “spokesman” for the county police was.

Everyone looked up from what they were reading at the sound of another car coming to a stop at the front door. The slam of a car door, and the car drove away. A few seconds later Robert entered the dining room.

He couldn’t have looked much worse if the sheriff
had
been beating him all night. His clothes were rumpled; his hair was flat on one side; a cowlick stuck up on the back of his head as if he hadn’t even been allowed to comb it after his long night in the county jail. But the worst part of his appearance was his face. His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot. There were puffy circles under his eyes and when he spoke, his voice was thick with congestion.

“How is Bu-arguerite?”

“Oh God, Robbie.” Jeremy jumped to his feet and poured the man a cup of coffee, the only breakfast item that was getting any attention at all.

Robert shook his head. “How is she?”

“She’s okay. Nothing to worry about. You look like hell.”

“I fell like hell. I dond dnow what they put in dose maddresses. I gotta get cleaned up and let Chi-Chi dhow I’m all right.”

“Sit down,” said Jeremy. He helped Robert into a chair and then headed for the kitchen.

Robert began drinking the cup of coffee that Jeremy had poured for him, but waved away Lindy’s offer to fix him a plate of food.

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Midsummer Murder

In a few minutes, Jeremy returned, out of breath and holding a bottle of pills. He poured two into his palm and handed them to Robert.

Robert popped them into his mouth.

“What are those?” asked Ellis, alarmed. “What’s wrong with you, boy?”

“I’m fide. Something in the jail, bade me stuffy, that’s all.”

“God knows what kind of molds and mildew are growing in that jailhouse. It’s got to be a hundred years old,” said Ellis, mollified.

“Remember when we were in DC for the cherry blossom festival?”

“I remember you sneezed your way through the weekend,” said Stu, “including the receiving line at the White House. I thought I’d bust a gut trying not to laugh; I think the First Lady did, too.”

Ellis turned pink. “First and only time I was ever affected by pollen.

Nasty experience.”

Robert’s breathing was returning to normal as the antihistamines went to work on his nasal passages. “Me, too,” he said.

Lindy glanced over to Jeremy. No response.

The kitchen door swung open and Chi-Chi rushed into the room.

Robert stood up and she threw herself into his arms. “Are you okay?

I was so worried.” Questions continued to pour out as she touched his face, smoothed his hair, took his chin in her hands and then hugged him again. “I was so worried,” she repeated.

“I’m okay. The worst part was missing you.”

“I was so afraid he would hurt you.”

“Don’t be silly.”

The others listened to this exchange of affection until they couldn’t stand it any longer.

“What happened?” they chorused together.

Robert and Chi-Chi looked at the others, surprise on both their faces.

“Uh, sorry,” said Robert. He placed Chi-Chi in a chair and sat down in the one next to it. Lindy could tell they were holding hands under the table.

“So they come and get me out of rehearsal. Byron is waiting and says he has some questions for me. I say fine, and he says down at the station.” He took a breath. “I figure this is pretty strange, but typical of Byron, so I get in the car. But when we get to the jail, instead of questioning me, they throw me in a cell.”

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Chi-Chi must have squeezed his hand, because he winced and turned to her. “They didn’t ‘throw’ me, that was just a figure of speech. After a while they lead me to the interrogation room. It was printed right on the door. It was pretty daunting. If I did have anything to confess, the sign alone would have undone me.”

“They wanted you to confess?” Lindy couldn’t help herself. The question just came out.

Robert frowned. “I think so. But Byron was kind of vague on what it was he wanted me to confess to. Evidently they found some notes in Larry’s locker that they hinted had to do with his fall. Of course that was stupid, and I told them so. I did think that Byron was going to hit me then, but there was another guy with him, and he seemed much calmer about the whole thing.”

He pushed at his cowlick. “They woke me up twice during the night to question me again—”

“Can they do that?” Chi-Chi asked Stu.

Stu shrugged. “We should have gotten you a lawyer, but it seemed so unnecessary at the time. We thought for sure you’d be back in a couple of hours.”

“I told them everything I thought would be helpful, but I guess it wasn’t what Byron wanted to hear. He kept trying to make out that Larry killed himself because he had been seduced. Byron doesn’t know quite what to think, but he would like the seducer to be me.”

“That’s preposterous,” said Chi-Chi.

“Absolutely ridiculous,” said Ellis.

The others added their reassurances, even Lindy, who really had no idea whether it could be true or not. Only Jeremy sat quiet at the end of the table, slowly biting his lip.

* * *

She was as shocked at herself as Jeremy appeared to be, but she managed to stare him down. It was an odd feeling. She had probably been privy to more of his feelings than most of the others, but even so, 94

Midsummer Murder

she never had spoken to him in anger before. It was so useless. He took whatever reactions people had to him and absorbed them. Lindy often thought that he would be a lot better off if he would just throw them back and be done with it.

But he never did. He seemed to have an immense capacity for carrying everything inside himself.

When he at last gave in, and Lindy had drawn a shaky breath, already regretting her words, all he said was, “I am who I am.” And left her to stew in her own irritation.

* * *