Silver Scream: A Bed-And-Breakfast Mystery

J
UDITH
M
C
M
ONIGLE
F
LYNN
twitched in the kitchen chair, jumped up, paced the floor, and leaned her head against the cupboard by the sink. Desperately, she tried reason, argument, and, finally, bad grammar in an attempt to fend off Ingrid Heffelman from the state bed-and-breakfast association.

“I don’t want none of those crazy people at Hillside Manor,” she shouted into the phone. “I mean,
any
of them. They’re Hollywood types, and they’re nuts.”

“Just because they make movies doesn’t mean they’re crazy.” Ingrid huffed. “Look, I know this is a big favor. But you had only two other reservations for the last weekend of October besides the producer, Bruno Zepf. I can put those non–movie people up somewhere else to make room for the additions to Mr. Zepf’s original guest list.”

Since Bruno Zepf had made his reservation two weeks earlier, Judith knew she was on shaky ground. Like many Hollywood big shots, Zepf was as superstitious as he was successful. Ten years earlier, his career as an independent producer had been launched at a film festival in the Midwest. At the
time Zepf couldn’t afford a hotel; he’d had to stay in a bed-and-breakfast. The movie had won the top prize, launching his Hollywood career. Ever since, he had stayed at B&Bs before premiering a new production. But other members of his company wanted to stay in the same B&B, hoping that Bruno’s good luck would rub off on them. Magnanimously—egotistically—the Great Man had allowed at least a half-dozen associates to join him at Hillside Manor.

“Please, Ingrid,” Judith pleaded, moving away from the cupboard, “I’m stuck with Mr. Zepf, but I’ve had my fill of so-called beautiful people, from opera singers to gossip columnists to TV media types. I’ve had gangsters and psychos and—”

“I know,” Ingrid interrupted, her tone suddenly cold. “That’s one of the reasons you’re going to accept this deal. You’ve managed to have some very big problems at Hillside Manor, and while they don’t seem to have hurt your business, they give the rest of the B&Bs a black eye. Look what happened a year or so ago—your establishment was included in a sightseeing tour of murder sites, and you ended up on TV with a dead body.”

“The body wasn’t at Hillside Manor,” Judith retorted as the cupboard door swung open all by itself. She took her frustration out on the innocent piece of wood, slamming it shut. “And it certainly wasn’t my fault. Besides, I got the tour group to take Hillside Manor off the sightseeing itinerary, didn’t I?”

“You still looked like an idiot in that television interview about your so-called sleuthing,” Ingrid countered. “It was embarrassing for innkeepers all over the state. You owe me—and the rest of the good people who run B&Bs around here.”

“That was the editing,” Judith protested. “I didn’t ask to be on TV. In fact, I begged them not to do the piece. I hardly consider myself a sleuth. I run a B&B, period. I can’t help it if all sorts of weird people come here. Look, now you’re the one who’s setting me up. Who will you blame if something happens while these movie nutcases are staying at Hillside Manor?”

There was no response. The line was dead. Ingrid had hung up on her.

“Damn,” Judith breathed. “Ingrid’s a mule.”

“She always was,” Gertrude Grover responded. “Fast, too. She wore her skirts way too short in high school. No wonder she got into trouble.”

Judith stared at her mother. “This is a different In-grid. She runs the state B&B association. She’s my age, not yours.”

Gertrude’s small eyes narrowed. “You just think she is. Ingrid Sack’s been dyeing her hair for years. Had a face-lift, too. More than once, I heard.”

“Mother,” Judith said patiently, “Ingrid Sack—I believe her married name was Grissom—has been dead for ten years.”

Now it was Gertrude’s turn to stare. “No kidding? I wonder how she looked in her casket. All tarted up, I bet. Funny I didn’t hear about it at the time.”

There was no point in telling Gertrude that she’d undoubtedly read Ingrid’s obituary in the newspaper. Read it with glee, as the old lady always did when she discovered she’d outlived yet another contemporary. Judith was used to her mother’s patchy memory.

“I’m stuck,” Judith announced, flipping the pages of the American art calendar she’d been given by her cousin Renie. August’s
Black Hollyhock, Blue Lark-
spur
by Georgia O’Keeffe was a sumptuous sight compared with the stark, deliberately mundane realism of Louis Charles Moeller’s
Sculptor’s Studio,
which heralded October. Vibrant natural beauty versus taxing, gritty work. Maybe the painting was an omen. “Come Halloween, we’re going to be invaded by Hollywood.”

Gertrude pulled a rumpled Kleenex from the pocket of her baggy orange cardigan. “Hollywood?” she echoed before gustily blowing her nose. “You mean like the Gish sisters and Tom Mix and Mary Pickford?”

“Uh…like that,” Judith agreed, sitting down at the kitchen table across from her mother. “A famous producer is premiering his new movie here in town because it was filmed in the area. He’s bringing his entourage—at least some of it—to Hillside Manor.”

“Entourage?” Gertrude looked puzzled. “I thought you didn’t allow pets.”

“I don’t,” Judith replied. “I meant his associates. Speaking of pets,” she said sharply to Sweetums as the cat leaped onto the kitchen table, “beat it. You don’t prowl the furniture.”

Sweetums was batting at the lid of the sheep-shaped cookie jar. The cat didn’t take kindly to Judith’s efforts to pick him up and set him down.

“Feisty,” Gertrude remarked as Sweetums broke free and ran off in a blur of orange-and-white fur. “You got to admit it, Toots, that cat has spunk.”

Judith gave her mother an ironic smile. “So do you. You’re kindred spirits.”

“He gets around better than I do,” Gertrude said, turning stiffly to watch Sweetums disappear with a bang of the screen door. The old lady reached into her
pocket again, rummaged around, and scowled. “Where’d my candies go?”

“You probably ate them, Mother,” Judith said, getting up from the table. “There are some ginger cookies in the jar. They may be getting a bit stale. It’s been too warm to bake the last few days.”

The summer had indeed been warm, though not unbearable. As a native Pacific Northwesterner, Judith’s tolerance for heat dropped lower every year. Fortunately, there was only a week left of August.

“I should call in person to cancel the displaced guests’ reservations,” Judith said, scrolling down the screen on her computer monitor. “Let’s see—the Kidds from Wisconsin and the Izards from Iowa.”

“Those are guests? They sound like innards to me.” Gertrude was struggling to get out of her chair. “You got two lonesome old cookies in that jar,” she declared. “I suppose that hog of a Serena was here and gobbled them up.”

Judith reached out to give her mother a hand. “It wasn’t Serena,” she said, referring to her cousin who was more familiarly known as Renie. “It was little Mac. Remember, he was here with Mike and Kristin and Baby Joe the day before yesterday.”

Gertrude paused in her laborious passage from the kitchen table to the rear hallway. “Baby Joe!” she exclaimed, waving a hand in derision. “Why did Mike and his wife have to name the new kid after Lunkhead?”

“Lunkhead” was what Gertrude called Judith’s second husband, Joe Flynn. “Lunkhead” was also what she called her daughter’s first husband, Dan McMonigle. Mac was the nickname of the older grandson, whose
given name was Dan, after the man who had actually raised Mike. Though Judith had first been engaged to Joe, she had married Dan. It was only in the last year that her son had come to realize that Joe, not Dan, was his biological father. Thus, Mike had honored both men by giving their names to his own sons.

“Mike thinks the world of Joe,” Judith replied, escorting her mother to the back door. She didn’t elaborate. Gertrude had never admitted that her daughter had gotten pregnant out of wedlock. To Judith’s mother, sex before marriage was as unthinkable as chocolate without sugar.

They had reached the porch steps when Joe Flynn pulled into the driveway in his cherished antique MG, top down, red paint gleaming in the late afternoon sun.

“Ladies,” he called, getting out of the car with his cotton jacket slung over one shoulder. “You’re a vision.”

“You mean a sight for sore eyes,” Gertrude shot back.

“Do I?” Gold flecks danced in Joe’s green eyes as he kissed his wife’s cheek, then attempted to brush his mother-in-law’s forehead with his lips.

Gertrude jerked away, almost throwing Judith off balance. “Baloney!” the old girl cried. “You just want to get my goat. As usual.” She plunked her walker on the ground and shook off Judith’s hand. “I’m heading for my earthly coffin. Send my supper on time, which is five, not six or six-thirty.” Gertrude clumped off toward the converted toolshed, her place of self-imposed exile since she had long ago declared she wouldn’t live under the same roof as Joe Flynn.

“Ah,” Joe said, a hand under Judith’s elbow, “your mother seems in fine spirits today.”

“I can’t tell the difference,” Judith muttered. “She’s always mean to you.”

“It keeps her going,” Joe said, hanging his jacket on a peg in the hall. “Beer would do the same for me. Have we got any of that Harp left or did Mike drink it all?”

“He didn’t drink as much as Kristin did,” Judith replied, going to the fridge. “But I think there are a couple of bottles left. Kristin, being of Amazonian proportions, has a much greater capacity than other mortals.” She glanced up at the old schoolroom clock, which showed ten minutes to five. “You’re early. How come?”

“I found Sir Francis Bacon,” Joe responded, sitting down in the chair that Gertrude had vacated. “How the hell can you lose an English sheepdog? They’re huge.”

“Where was he?” Judith asked, handing Joe a bottle of Harp’s.

“In their basement,” Joe said, after taking a long swallow of beer. “He was trying to keep cool, and in the process, managed to get into the freezer. He found some USDA prime cuts and ate about a half dozen, which gave him a tummy ache. Then he went behind the furnace and passed out. He was there for two days.”

“Sir Francis is okay?” Judith inquired, after pouring herself a glass of lemonade.

“He will be,” Joe said. “They trotted him off to the vet. I hate these damned lost pet cases, but the family’s loaded, it took only a couple of hours to find the dog, and they paid me a grand.” He patted the pocket of his cotton shirt. “Nice work, huh?”

“Very nice,” Judith said with a big smile. “All your private detective cases should be so easy. And prof
itable. Maybe we can use some of that money to have Skjoval Tolvang make some more repairs around here.”

“How old is that guy anyway?” Joe asked with a be-mused expression on his round, florid face.

“Eighties, I’d guess,” Judith replied, “but strong as an ox. You know how hearty those Scandinavians are.”

“Like our daughter-in-law,” Joe acknowledged, opening the evening paper, which Judith had retrieved earlier from the front porch.

“Yes,” Judith said in a contemplative voice. Kristin was not only big and beautiful, but so infuriatingly competent that her mother-in-law was occasionally intimidated. “Yes,” she repeated. “Formidable, too. What is she not?”

The front doorbell rang, making Judith jump. “The guests! They’re part of a tour, here for two nights. I didn’t think they’d arrive until five-thirty.” She dashed out through the swinging doors between the kitchen and the dining room to greet the newcomers.

The tour group, consisting of a dozen retirees from eastern Canada, were on the last leg of a trip that had started in Toronto. Some of them looked as if they were on their last legs, too. Judith escorted them to their rooms, made sure everything was in order, and informed them that the social hour began at six. To a man—and woman—they begged off, insisting that they simply wanted to rest before going out to dinner. The bus trip from Portland had taken six hours, a result of summer highway construction. They were exhausted. They didn’t need to socialize, having been cheek by jowl with each other for the past three weeks. Indeed, judging from some of the glares that were ex
changed, they were sick of each other. Could they please be allowed to nap?

Judith assured them they could. Cancellation of the social hour meant that she, too, could take it easy. Following hip replacement surgery in January, Judith still tired easily. But before taking a respite, she had to call the Kidds and the Izards to inform them that their reservations were being changed because of unforeseen circumstances.

Joe had just opened his second Harp when Judith returned to the kitchen. She observed the top of his head behind the sports section and smiled to herself. There was more gray in his red hair, and in truth, there was less of either color. But to Judith, Joe Flynn was still the most attractive man on earth. She had waited a quarter of a century to become his wife, but the years in between seemed to have faded into an Irish mist. On the way to the computer, she paused to kiss the top of his head.

“What’s this rash outbreak of affection?” Joe asked without glancing up.

“Just remembering that I love you,” Judith said lightly.

“Do you need reminding?”

“No.”

She noted the Kidds’ number in Appleton, Wisconsin, and dialed. They were repeat customers, having come to Hillside Manor six years earlier. Judith hated to cancel them.

Alice Kidd answered the phone on the second ring. Judith relayed the doleful news and apologized most humbly. “You’ll be put up at a lovely B&B which will be convenient to everything. Ms. Heffelman will contact you in a day or two with the specifics.”

“Well, darn it all anyway,” Mrs. Kidd said with a Midwestern twang. “We so enjoyed your place. How is your mother? Edgar and I thought she was a real doll.”

A voodoo doll perhaps, Judith thought. “Mother’s fine,” she said aloud. “Of course her memory is sometimes iffy.”

“Yes,” Mrs. Kidd said in a quiet voice. “Edgar’s mother is like that, too. So sad. My own dear mother passed away last winter.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Judith said.

Alice Kidd acknowledged the expression of sympathy, then paused. “You’re certain we’ll be staying in as nice a B&B as yours?”