Top O' the Mournin' (14 page)

I dumped my stuff on the bed and regarded the two of them. Maybe it was the unflattering dullness of the room’s fluorescent lighting, but they suddenly appeared very old and vulnerable. “Are you sure you’re going to be all right?” I asked, suffering a pang of conscience. “You don’t have to move if you’d feel safer in here with me.”

“You’re sweet to offer, dear, but to be honest, Tilly and me like to be on our own. We didn’t sign up for this trip to be a bother to you. We can take care of ourselves.” With a herculean grunt, she swung her suitcase onto the floor and popped the handle up. I stared in horror.

“Nana! You shouldn’t be lifting suitcases by yourself! What are you thinking? You’ll hurt your back!” As I hurried across the room to assist Tilly in closing her bag, Nana rolled hers toward the door.

“It’s on account of exercise class, dear. I can do all sorts of things now that I couldn’t do before.”

“The desk clerk said he’d help you with your bags,” I said as I headed for the phone.

“Save your breath,” Tilly advised, joining Nana at the door. “He’s probably operating on Irish time. By the time he walks down the hall, your grandmother and I can be unpacked.”

I saw them to their door, but Nana shooed me away before I could gain more than a peek at the flowers and flounces in their room. “I’d invite you in, dear, but you need to get ready for dinner and so do we.” She let Tilly go ahead of her, then in a confidential whisper said, “Do you think George would find me too brassy if I rouged up my lips a little tonight?”

I gave her the thumbs-up sign. “Before I forget, make a list of anything untidy in your room and give it to me so I can inform the front desk. The custodian cleaned your room, so I’ve been warned it might not be up to usual standards. You know how men are about cleaning. They miss a lot of details.”

She returned my thumbs-up. I scooted back to my room, checked the time, and geared up to warp speed. I set out a long red matte jersey dress with a slit to mid-thigh, red thong sandals with a three-inch heel, and drop pearl earrings. Understated but elegant. I liked that. I ran into the bathroom.
Eh!
My anti-itch cream had turned my skin yellow. I’m surprised no one had mentioned that I looked like a summer squash. I removed my eye makeup, washed my face with foaming cleanser, and examined my complexion in the mirror. My hives were less visible than they’d been earlier, and they’d stopped itching, which meant that even though my anti-itch cream smelled terrible, it worked. Or maybe I should attribute the improvement to the fact that nothing disastrous had happened on the afternoon tour. Yeah. That was more likely. I felt in control again.

I pulled my hair back into a ponytail and twisted it into a simple ballerina’s bun, then began applying fresh makeup. Light foundation. Eyeliner. Mascara. A smudge of brown eye shadow for depth. Blusher high on the cheekbones. As I reached for my lip pencil, I heard a knock on my door, and hurried to answer it. I checked the clock again. Probably Etienne picking me up for dinner.
Hmm.
I wondered how he’d feel about having a little appetizer before the main event.

“Here’s the list you asked for, dear,” said Nana when I opened the door. She handed me a sheet of castle stationery. “And if it wouldn’t be too much trouble, you s’pose I could borrow some a your lip rouge? I couldn’t find none in my toiletry bag, then I remembered why. I don’t usually wear none.”

I took the note from her and scooted into the bathroom. I searched through the dozen tubes of lipstick I’d brought with me, selected one, and pressed it into her hand. “The perfect color for you, Nana. Shell Pink Passion.”

“No kiddin’. I like it already.”

I returned to the bathroom, outlined my lips, and, as I riffled through my stash of lipstick tubes again in search of one called Lusty, glanced at the note I’d set on the vanity. The list was short and was printed in Nana’s distinctively neat and precise hand.

Cigarette butt left in ashtray

Lightbulb burned out in floor lamp

Dead body in closet

I inhaled a calming breath. “NANA!”

I peered at the body lying in near fetal position on the floor of Nana’s closet, recognizing immediately the pony-tailed man wearing the green coveralls with the fish and warthog emblazoned on it. “It’s the custodian,” I said. “I saw him in the lobby this morning, carpet-sweeping the rug. Did you check for a pulse?”

Nana nodded. “He hasn’t got no pulse, but he’s still warm, so he hasn’t been dead too long.”

I dropped to my knees in search of bloody footprints, but from what I could see, the area around the body was clean. There was no trace of blood on either the carpet or the body. But the man’s eyes were wide open and glazed with what looked like terror, and his mouth was contorted into a shape that suggested that he hadn’t prayed with his last dying breath. He’d screamed. Pinpricks of ice needled my flesh. “I’d better call the front desk.”

“I just did that,” said Tilly, and no sooner were the words out of her mouth than we heard the sound of footsteps racing pell-mell down the corridor. Liam McEtigan burst into the room so white-faced with panic, even his freckles looked pale.

“Oh, Jaysuz, not another one.” He peeked into the closet, then pressed the heels of his palms into his eye sockets as if to erase the image. “It’s Archie. Jaysuz. Two people in two days. This’ll be our doom for sure. What am I going to do?”

Tilly thumped her walking stick on the floor. “You could recommend that all your employees have stress tests before they begin work. That could reduce your mortality rate considerably.”

Liam raked his fingers through his hair as he continued to regard the custodian. “He was a good worker, Archie was. He might not have given attention to every detail, like making sure the labels of the body washes and shampoos were facing outward and folding the corners of the bathroom tissue into a point, but he always got into every corner with that carpet sweeper of his. He even did closets.”

I looked across the room to find Archie’s carpet sweeper leaning against the stone facade of the fireplace. “So if he was carpet-sweeping the closet, what’s his sweeper doing over there?” I asked, nodding toward the fireplace.

Liam looked from Archie to the sweeper, bewilderment stamping itself on his face. “I wouldn’t be knowing that. But if he wasn’t cleaning the carpet, why was he in the closet?”

“Maybe he was tryin’ to tell us somethin’,” said Nana.

Hmm.
I hadn’t thought of that, but I remembered seeing a movie once where a long-decayed skeleton indicated the correct path through a complex cave system by extending a bony forefinger in the right direction. I gave Archie’s corpse another look. He wasn’t pointing at anything. “What do you suppose he could be trying to tell us?”

“Look at the expression on his face,” said Tilly. “I think he was frightened of something in the room and was hiding from it. Why else would he squirrel himself away in a closet?”

Liam paled another shade lighter. “Oh, Jaysuz.”

“Nana?” I said, soliciting her opinion.

“I think it’s obvious.” Three sets of eyes riveted on her, awaiting her pronouncement. “He was tryin’ to tell us he was gay.”

I knew my decision to avoid explaining the gay and lesbian movement to her in rabid detail would one day come back to haunt me.

“You’re being too literal, Marion,” Tilly explained. “The term ‘coming out of the closet’ is merely a euphemism to describe a person’s decision to reveal his lifestyle to the world. There are no actual closets involved.”

“No kiddin’? What about wardrobes?”

Tilly shook her head. “No wardrobes either.”

Nana mulled this over for a half second. “You mighta known that, but how do we know
he
knew that?” She nodded toward Archie. “Maybe he didn’t understand about euphemisms either.”

“I need to be calling the authorities,” Liam stammered, wringing his hands. “And I’ll need to be asking you ladies to pack your bags and move to another room before the police arrive, else they might be wanting to include your belongings as part of their investigation.”

Nana nearly tripped over Tilly’s cane in her rush to start throwing things back into her suitcase. “I been that route with Emily last year,” she said as she gathered the contents of a drawer into her arms and dumped them into her grip. “That Swiss hotel lost her luggage and she couldn’t wear none a the pretty things she brought with her. No way that’s gonna happen to me, specially not with all the fancy undies I got with me. I bought ’em, and by glory, I’m gonna wear ’em.”

I could hardly believe my ears. “You brought fancy underwear with you?” I teased. Nana had always favored flannel bloomers, but that was logical considering the longest season in Minnesota was winter, with an occasional warm weekend in July that passed for summer.

“I been rethinkin’ my options in intimate apparel since I made the move south,” Nana replied as she scooped out the contents of another drawer.

Tilly waggled her cane as if calling us to order. “What room are you sending us to, young man?”

Liam scrunched his face into an agonizing grimace and massaged his forehead. “Let me think. Oh, Jaysuz, I’ve no rooms available.”

I felt my stomach sink to my knees. No. No! This was my mother’s doing. Her prayers of intercession were killing me.

“I’m afraid you ladies will have to be returning to Miss Andrew’s room, if she’ll be having you.”

“What about the room we checked into yesterday?” asked Nana. “You got that clean yet?”

“We do, yes. Archie scoured it today. Even washed the carpet. But—”

“We’ll take it,” she said, rushing into the bathroom.

Liam looked horrified. “I’ll not be asking you ladies to sleep in a room where someone died only yesterday.”

“Won’t bother us a bit.” Nana scurried across the floor with her toiletry bag, pitched it into her suitcase, and slammed the lid shut. “It’ll be like visitation at the funeral parlor, only without the body.”

Liam gave Tilly an Are-you-sure-you-want-to-do-this? look. Tilly assumed her professor’s demeanor. “In comparison to some of the places I’ve done field research, this should be a cakewalk. Why, I’ve slept in huts in New Guinea where the main decorative feature consisted of a hundred human skulls dangling from the roof.”

Good thing Martha Stewart hadn’t been along. She probably would have wanted to turn them into something adorable, like lampshades…or door knockers. “Okay,” I said, liking the plan. “Liam will call the police, then see the two of you to your new room. I’ll scoot back to my room to finish dressing and will plan to see you in the dining room in a little while.”

I picked my way around small clumps of New Yorkers who had stopped to socialize with each other as I walked across the hall to my room and unlocked the door. They apparently weren’t concerned that it was seven twenty-five, and by Iowa standards, they were really late for dinner. I envied their ability to ignore the schedule and to live life at their own pace. Of course, they ran the risk of cold food, bad seats, and disapproving stares by being late, but they could remedy this easily enough by whining to the management. Unfortunately, New Yorkers had earned a reputation for being consummate complainers, but no one ever asked
why
they complained. I figured the reason was health-related. Complaining was a way of preventing ulcers. They didn’t get the ulcers themselves; they gave them to other people. New Yorkers were really serious about preventive medicine.

As I changed into my dinner dress, I tried not to think about the body in Nana’s closet, but the look on the man’s face kept haunting me. It was Rita the maid all over again, minus the bloody footprints. Was Tilly correct in thinking Archie had been trying to hide from something in the room? Is that why Rita’s body had been found near a closet too? Had she been attempting to hide? Or had she been trying to escape? But from what? Cries? Apparitions? Cold spots? A really big duck?

Whatever the explanation, it seemed statistically impossible to me that two members of the castle’s staff would die of natural causes on two consecutive days. I’d taken statistics in college. I knew about these things. I might even be able to work out the math if I could remember what I’d learned. Liam McEtigan might not want to face the truth, but I thought it was as clear as the freckles on his face. Something in Ballybantry Castle was killing people, and my greatest fear was that once it finished off the staff, it would start on the guests. I had to make sure that didn’t happen, but I wasn’t exactly sure how. The only recourse I had at the moment was to keep my eyes open at dinner and see if I could root out any new information.

I smoothed my dress over my hips and thighs, slid into my shoes, and plucked out a few wisps of hair to float around my neck and temples. It was seven thirty-five now, and since Etienne still hadn’t shown, I followed his directive and trotted off to the dining room by myself.

The place was abuzz with conversation and laughter. Chairs scraped the floor as people headed out to join the buffet line. Glasses tinked. Dishes clinked. Flatware chinked. A soft Irish melody played in the background. I noticed my people all bunched together in groups of four and six at the tables closest to the food. I guess these were considered the “good” seats—where you simply had to tilt your chair back on its legs to grab more dinner rolls. The New Yorkers occupied the tables flanking the good seats, but they all seemed content, at least for the moment. I spied George Farkas down front at a table for six, wedged contentedly between Nana and Tilly, who had somehow managed to beat me there. Their table was full, so I searched for another open space and found one where I could both mingle outside my social circle and snoop. A brief acquaintance had once told me that the fun of travel isn’t the sights you see but the people you meet. This was the perfect time to put the theory to the test.

“Do you mind if I join you?” I smoothed my fingers along the back rail of the last empty chair at a table occupied by the Minches, the Kuppelmans, and my ex-husband. “Or are you saving this seat for Tom?” I asked Jackie.

“Tom has a migraine, so he can’t even look at food. I’ll save the seat for you, but don’t stop to sit. Get your food before it’s all gone. The Iowans arrived first and they have voracious appetites.”

I grabbed a plate still warm from the dishwasher at the end of the buffet table and proceeded slowly through the line, agog with the variety of culinary fare available. Two members of the cleaning staff might be dead, but the cooks were alive and kicking. There were three tureens of soup: green pea, creamy mushroom, and a butterscotch-colored broth that had green herbs and seashells floating around in it.

I skipped the soup and went on to the appetizers. Fresh oysters. Pale pink smoked salmon. I forked a piece of salmon onto my plate. I pondered a bowl of crisp lettuce, then passed it by, not wanting to waste my appetite on food I could eat back home. Next came the vegetable choices. Potatoes in every incarnation: mashed, boiled, roasted, fried, and flattened into cakes. Boiled cabbage. Kale. Broccoli. I scooped a little of each kind of potato into my plate and added a spear of broccoli for color, then moved on to the chafing dishes.

I wasn’t sure what each dish contained, but it all smelled delicious, and since I’d made a vow to expand my rather pedestrian “meat and potatoes” palate, I decided to sample everything. A spoonful of some kind of stew with carrots, onions, and a meat product that looked like sausage. A nibble of something resembling a stuffed mushroom cap covered with breadcrumbs. A dollop of mashed potato with a crab claw sticking out of it. A spoonful of another kind of stew with onions, mushrooms, carrots, and shredded beef. A scoop of a fluffy golden casserole with onions and some other ingredient I couldn’t quite identify. I passed up the baked ham as too ordinary and the bread selections as too filling and headed back to the table.

“I’m sorry to hear about Tom’s migraine,” I said as I took my place between Ethel Minch and Jackie. “Does he get them often?”

“Only when he’s stressed out. This thing with Ashley today did a real number on him.”

I nodded, understanding. Poor Tom. Crippled by the stress of watching his wife carry another woman down a rugged path for over a mile. Life could be hell. “So, is everyone excited to taste authentic Irish cuisine?” I gazed around the table to discover that no one else’s plate looked like mine. Jackie’s was glutted with potatoes, cabbage, broccoli, a bunch of lettuce, and a single slab of salmon. “You didn’t take any ham? You used to love ham.”

“Did I forget to tell you? I’ve become a vegetarian! I’ve changed so much since I saw you last, Emily. No burgers. No steak. No ham.”

No dick.

“You two dolls go back a ways?” asked Ernie Minch, whose plate held a pile of lettuce supplemented by potatoes, cabbage, kale, and broccoli, with a cup of pea soup on the side.

“We’re old friends,” I said, staring at Ernie’s meatless selections. “Don’t tell me you’re a vegetarian too.”

“We’re vegans,” Ethel answered for him. “We don’t eat anything with a face, a mother, or a liver.”

They ate nothing with a face? Wow. That eliminated meat, fish, fowl, Nabisco Teddy Grahams. They could probably still eat gingerbread men, but they’d probably have to break the heads off first.

Ira Kuppelman waved his fork at Ethel’s plate. “You’re still eating too many unhealthy vegetables.” Ira’s dinner consisted of cabbage, kale, broccoli, and a single slice of bread. “Potatoes are on my ‘Do Not Consume’ list and I eat lettuce only occasionally.”