Silver Scream: A Bed-And-Breakfast Mystery (15 page)

“Good point,” Renie remarked. “Have you looked?”

“No,” Judith said, “but Joe searched the guest rooms. Still, it’s odd that there weren’t more than two. If you wanted to scare somebody with a fake bug over the course of a weekend, wouldn’t you bring along, say, a half dozen?”

“I would,” Renie said. “Better safe than sorry.” She turned as Joe and Bill entered the living room.

“Bill made a chart,” Joe said. “It shows all the relationships between the guests and their possible motives.”

Sure enough, Bill held up a sheet of butcher’s paper. He had used different colored pens, made a legend in one corner, and set down at least a dozen footnotes in the other. It was so elaborate that it resembled a diagram of the solar system. Or Einstein’s theory of rela
tivity. As far as Judith could see, it was equally hard to decipher.

“Goodness,” she said for lack of anything more positive. “Does it…make sense?”

“It does to Bill,” Joe replied.

“Of course,” Renie murmured.

Bill revealed a long bamboo skewer to use as a pointer. “Bruno is here in the middle,” he said, indicating the largest of the circles.

“Like the sun,” Judith said softly.

Apparently, Bill didn’t hear her. “This smaller circle closest to Bruno is Winifred Best. Note the lines coming from her. Can you read my handwriting?”

“Can I ever?” Renie remarked. “By the way,” she said in an aside to Judith and Joe, “he can’t spell.”

Bill ignored his wife. “One line is for loyalty, another is for dependence, a third is for—”

“What’s that thing that looks like a bug?” Renie interrupted.

“It’s a bug,” Bill responded, smacking the creature with his hand. He paused to use a handkerchief, wiping the victim off his palm.

“Not a spider,” Judith noted.

“The spider’s over here.” Bill pointed to what looked like an asterisk. “Source unknown. To get back to Winifred—”

The phone rang. Judith went to the small cherry-wood table and picked up the receiver. “It’s for you,” she said to Joe.

The others remained silent while Joe took the call. His expression changed from mild interest to surprise. “No kidding? That’s…a shame. Sure, let me know.” He hung up.

“Who was that?” Judith inquired.

“Dilys,” Joe replied, looking preoccupied. “Stone Cold Sam Cairo is in Norway General Hospital with a heart attack.”

“Oh, no!” Judith exclaimed. “How serious is it?”

“Serious enough, I guess,” Joe said, trying to look sympathetic but not succeeding very well. “Dilys is waiting to hear who’ll take over the case with her until he recovers.”

“I was wondering why we haven’t heard from downtown,” Judith said. “I thought that Cairo and Dilys had taken the day off. At least the police haven’t given up. I mean, they must still believe that Bruno could have been murdered.”

“It’s high profile,” Joe said. “They have to stay on it, or they could get sued, too.”

“Don’t mention it.” Judith nodded at Bill. “Go ahead, what else have you attached to Winifred’s circle?”

“The possibility of a love affair,” Bill replied, “or her wish to have one with Bruno. Men and women who work so closely together—especially in the Hollywood atmosphere where sex is so prevalent in every phase of life. Often, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just casual sex. But sometimes it can be more, at least for one of the parties involved.”

“Say,” Judith put in, “what’s Bruno’s marital track record? Was he married to anyone besides the starlet who’s now an emir’s wife in Dubai?”

The others looked blank. Finally, Renie spoke. “Didn’t Winifred say Bruno’s kids were of college age? He must have married—what was her name?”

Judith thought hard. “Tamara…no, Taryn. Taryn McGuire.”

Renie gave a brief nod. “Bruno must have married Taryn at least twenty years ago. It’s hard to imagine that he never married anyone else. I saw on one of those discarded statements that he turned fifty-three this year. Surely he couldn’t be the only man in Hollywood who had just one wife.”

“True,” Judith remarked. “But Winifred didn’t mention any other family except the two children. Let’s face it, we don’t know much about his background. Except,” she continued with a wag of her finger, “he was related to the C. Douglas Carp who wrote
The Gasman
novel.”

“Ah.” Bill glanced at Renie. “I need an orange pen.”

Dutifully, Renie reached into the box of markers on the coffee table and handed her husband the object of his desire.

Bill drew a rectangle on the chart. It could have been a book—or a box of cereal. “That’s interesting,” he noted. “Despite the fact that the novel wasn’t very good, Bruno was deeply attached to it. Which suggests he was deeply attached to the author, maybe more so than to the book.”

Joe gave Bill an approving nod. “You may be onto something, Mr. Jones.”

Judith was peering at what looked like a stick figure wearing a big hat. Or maybe it was a halo. “What’s that?” she asked.

Bill examined the clumsy sketch. “That’s the alien suspect. See, it’s from outer space.”

“So’s Bill,” Renie murmured. “He can’t draw, either.”

“I don’t understand,” Judith admitted.

Bill tapped the figure twice. “We can’t exclude an
outsider. If you and Joe were in the basement when Bruno died, he could have let someone in, someone you never saw and don’t even know exists. Thus, the alien suspect.”

“That’s not a bad theory,” Joe remarked. “I tell you, Billy Boy, you may be going somewhere with this chart.”

“Speaking of going,” Renie said with a bored expression, “could we go on to something else?”

“No,” Judith responded. “I think Bill has a very important point.” She ignored her cousin, who was using her hands to make a conical steeple over Bill’s head. “Why don’t I call one of my buddies with the library system and ask about
The Gasman
?”

“Why?” Joe countered. “You said yourself you didn’t remember anything about it.”

“But I’m not eighty-five years old,” Judith said, seeing Sweetums wander into the living room. “Delia Cosgrove is. She might recall something. Delia’s been retired for years, but she’s still very sharp. I ran into her last spring at the annual library tea.”

“Forget Delia,” Renie said with a curious expression. “Call my mother.”

Bill looked askance. “Your mother?”

“Yes,” Renie replied with a touch of defiance. “My father read all sorts of books, including some oddities nobody else probably ever heard of. Mom might remember.”

Bill sucked in his breath. “I’ve gone to a lot of work here.”

Judith started to speak, but Renie interrupted. “I’m going to call my mother right now.” She picked up the phone and dialed as Sweetums sashayed over to Bill and sniffed the corner of his chart.

“Why don’t we watch the end of the football game?” Bill muttered. “We might as well. This is going to take a long time.”

“The game’s over,” Joe said as the doorbell rang. “I’ll get it.”

Without any sense of optimism, Judith stood next to Renie as Aunt Deb picked up the phone on the first ring.

“Hi, Mom,” Renie began. “I’ve got a question for you…Well, yes, of course I want to know how you are, but I talked to you this morning for at least twenty minutes and…No kidding? How did your big toe get stuck in the drain?…Thank goodness for Mrs. Parker stopping by…I didn’t realize Auntie Vance and Uncle Vince were coming down from the island…No, I won’t tell Aunt Gertrude…Yes, I know how she and Auntie Vance like to argue…No, I realize you aren’t one to quarrel…Yes, Aunt Gertrude can be a trial sometimes. You’re very patient with her…I’m aware that she thinks she’s the one who’s being patient with you…Certainly Auntie Vance can have a rough tongue…She told you to put your big toe where?…Well, that is kind of coarse, but you know what Auntie Vance is like…”

Judith was distracted by the return of Joe with three deliverymen carrying several cartons and portable heating units. “Oh, dear,” she sighed. “I forgot about the caterers.”

“I’ll handle it,” Joe said grimly.

As the deliverymen began to unload the order onto the buffet, Renie eyed the food with longing. “I know it’s foggy,” she said into the phone. “Yes, I’ll cover all my orifices when I go outside so that the damp won’t
harm me…Of course I’m wearing sturdy shoes.” She glanced down at her flimsy brown flats. “No, this pair doesn’t lace up to my ankles. I haven’t worn those oxfords since I was twelve…”

Judith’s attention drifted to the buffet, where Joe was ripping open boxes and dumping out heated bags. The deliverymen had already skittered out of the house after presenting an embarrassingly large bill.

Joe emptied a box of Wienie Wizards, dropping almost all of them on the floor. They bounced, but not very high.

“Wait!” Judith cried. “Let me do that. You’re angry, and you’re making a mess.”

Joe’s jaw jutted. “Do you know what all this crap cost?”

“No, and I don’t want to know,” Judith shot back. “Not now. Let me call Arlene on my cell phone and see if she wants any of this food before you destroy it.”

She started to get her purse from the kitchen when she heard the sound of hurrying feet on the stairs. “I smell Wienie Wizards!” cried Ellie Linn. “Yum, yum!”

In a flurry, Judith scooped the hot dogs off the floor and dumped them into a crystal bowl. “They’re nice and warm. Be our guest.”

“I already am.” Ellie giggled, her dark eyes shining with delight. “Mmm…my faves!” She immediately pitched in, grabbing four wieners and four buns at once.

Finally reaching the kitchen, Judith dialed Arlene’s number.

“What food?” Arlene asked in a puzzled voice.

Judith reminded her neighbor about the large order
from the caterer. “I thought you wanted some of it for your family dinner tonight.”

“What family?” Arlene asked. “They canceled. They all decided to stay home because of Halloween.”

“Rats!” Judith muttered. “Okay, sorry to bother you.”

“Why don’t you freeze it?” Arlene suggested.

“Frankly,” Judith said, “we’re running out of room in the freezer. But you’re right, I’ll try to squeeze in some of the items that won’t keep.”

By the time she returned to the living room, Renie was finally hanging up the phone. Ellie Linn had disappeared, apparently going upstairs to savor her Wienie Wizards.

“Guess what?” Renie said, looking dazed.

Bill and Joe barely looked up from their places on the matching sofas. The TV screen showed Nazi planes swooping over England. Bill had one eye on the set and the other on his chart, which was spread out over the coffee table. Sweetums was weaving in and out between his ankles, the cat’s great plume of a tail swishing back and forth.

“Go away,” Bill snarled under his breath, “or I’ll turn you into cat chowder.”

“What is it?” Judith asked of Renie.

Bill spoke up before his wife could answer. “Get this damned cat out of here. And I could use a purple pen.”

Renie swooped down, grabbed Sweetums, and made a face at Bill. “The marker pens are under your chart, Galileo.” She moved away, unceremoniously dumping Sweetums near the entry hall.

“My mother actually read
The Gasman,
” Renie de
clared. “So, of course, did my father. He made her read it because he insisted it was a quick way to learn the history of the world.”

“You’re kidding!” Judith cried.

Joe hit the mute button on the TV’s remote control; Bill didn’t take his eyes off the screen.

“Does Aunt Deb remember anything about the book?” Judith asked, aware that her aunt’s memory was much keener than her mother’s.

“Well…” Renie made a face. “She admits she skimmed it. My dad enjoyed it because there were some obscure facts he learned and some misconceptions he had that the book cleared up. I gather C. Douglas Carp meticulously researched his material. Anyway, that sort of thing appealed to Dad. Mom didn’t give a hoot, and thought the story itself was silly, and she didn’t like all the wars.” Her gaze shot to the TV, where London was being bombed into what looked like charcoal clumps.

“Oh.” Judith was disappointed. “At least we know that somebody besides Bruno read the book.”

“There was one other thing,” Renie said. “You know my mother—she’s like you, coz. Her main interest in life is people.”

Judith smiled faintly. It was a great irony that in many ways, Judith’s personality was more like Aunt Deb’s. Conversely, Renie had some of the same traits as Gertrude. Reacting to Renie’s comment, Bill groaned, but Joe gave a thumbs-up signal. Both men felt they had a cross to bear when it came to their mothers-in-law.

“So?” Judith prodded.

“So,” Renie began, “Mom had an old friend, Hattie
McDonough, who married a man named Carp. In fact, I guess she married him back in the late twenties, about the time that my folks read
The Gasman
. Naturally, since Carp isn’t a common name, Mom wanted to know if Hattie’s husband and C. Douglas were related. Hattie—who, by the way, died a few years ago—said they were cousins. Bernie Carp—the one Hattie married—was from the Midwest. Iowa or Nebraska, Mom thought. Alas, Mr. Bernie Carp turned out to be a drinker, and Hattie divorced him before World War Two,
a war we all know who won by now
.” Renie raked the TV screen with a scathing look.

Judith clapped her hands together. “Damn! Why didn’t I think of this before? I’m going on-line to find out about Bruno’s background. If,” she added on a note of doubt, “I can figure out how to do it.”

“I’ll do it,” Renie volunteered. “I’m semigood at finding stuff like that. But only after I eat most of this food. Then you can start putting it away while I surf. Meanwhile,” she added, pointing to Joe and Bill, “we’ll leave General Eisenhower and General Patton in here to beat the stuffing out of the Führer all over again.”

Five minutes later Renie was at the computer in the kitchen while Judith staggered past, carrying a load for the freezer. Directly behind Renie’s chair, two of the boxes fell over and hit Renie on the back.

“Yikes!” she cried. “Watch the shoulder! I’ve had surgery, remember?”

“How can I forget?” Judith muttered. Favoring her artificial hip, she bent over to retrieve the boxes and dropped two more.