At witts end, p.14
At Witt's End, page 14
“That’s Mrs. Gray,” Thomas answered. “She’s on the board at my school.”
“She’s also current president of the Historical Society and chairperson of about a dozen charities,” Cerridwen expanded.
This struck Teddy as funny. “No, really. She never. Oh, that is funny. Do you know who that is?” Teddy was bouncing with suppressed glee. Cerridwen just shook her head. Teddy was laughing out loud now.
“That, my dear, is Lilith.”
It took her a moment to remember their earlier conversation. It had been more than a week. Understanding dawned. “No!” It was hard to believe. “Lilith from Witt’s ‘community of souls?’ That Lilith?”
“The very same,” confirmed Teddy. “It’s true. The staid Mrs. Gray is Topless Lilith.”
Fred choked on his coffee. Thomas was uncharacteristically wide-eyed. Stone came to point as he did whenever Witt or his disciples were mentioned.
“The mind boggles,” was Gerry’s opinion.
“Well, you have to picture everything higher. And not so wrinkly.”
“I am trying very hard not to picture it,” Thomas said with his hands over his face.
“Well, all I have to say is your loss. You should ask Thorn if he has any pictures.” Teddy scratched his chin. “Mrs. Gray, you said. Gray, Gray. I know that name. Well, I’ll be,” he said after a moment. “Topless Lilith married Toad. That’s unexpected, I must say.”
Cerridwen wanted to ask who Toad was. She had a vague memory of Teddy referring to him under the crabapple, but she wasn’t sure.
“Well that is odd,” put in Pearl. “When they first met she wouldn’t give him the time of day. Which I never understood. Seemed like a nice boy.”
“He wasn’t of her class, don’t you know,” Ruby supplied. “She came from old money. Or as old as it gets on this coast. Jumped up robber barons fancying themselves the new royalty. Course, things changed in a hurry when her Daddy landed them in financial ruin.”
“Strange that someone living in a commune would be classist,” chimed in Stone. “Didn’t Mr. Gray pass away recently?”
“If you call sometime last year recent,” Ruby said, shrugging.
Before they could go into detail, the outer doors opened. Jane strode in with Exposito close behind. They blew past reception, ignoring the group huddled in the waiting area, and cornered a doctor. Cerridwen recognized him as Blue Scrubs, her nemesis from her earlier visit.
Blue Scrubs caught sight of her and did a double take. He took in her escort, his eyes widening when they touched on Teddy. He took a step back towards the swing doors, gesturing for the two detectives to follow him.
“That’s done it,” Fred told her. “You’ve given the man a phobia.”
“I didn’t give him anything. I was unconscious. It was you people that put the fear of God into him.”
“What do you mean ‘you people?’” Fred raised an eyebrow.
“Shut up, Tonto.” Cerridwen waved a hand at him in dismissal. He just laughed at her. “You know what I think?” she said after a moment. “I think he did it.”
“Who did what?” Gerry turned sideways and tried to curl up on a row of plastic chairs. He kicked Stone in the process, almost knocking him out of his seat. Not entirely on accident.
“That Blue Scrubs, the doctor. I think he killed Ann. Think about it. He keeps turning up, but plot wise he has no reason to be here. Besides, he’s acting all shifty for no reason. Look at him. He’s practically a walking Chekhov's gun.”
“Chekhov didn’t have a gun, he had a phaser.” Gerry opened one eye and peered at her.
“Chekhov the Russian playwright,” Stone corrected, shoved Gerry’s feet aside and reclaimed part of his seat. “He said if you mentioned a gun in the first act you had to fire it in the third. If this was a story, having mentioned him twice we would have to make use of him somehow.”
“But why would Blue Scrubs want to kill Ann Hawkner? Damn, one of us has to find out his name,” Fred said.
“The Historical Society acquired his home by unscrupulous means and he wants it back,” offered Pearl.
“No,” Ruby disagreed. “The holier-than-thou -society demolished his home to make way for more museum parking.”
It took the others a moment to understand the game. Stone caught on quickly. “He is compelled to kill middle aged female historians because they remind him of the history professor that broke his young, freshman heart,” he put in.
“Oh, good one!” said Pearl. “Worthy of Felix. Your turn, Cerridwen.”
“Well, off the top of my head? He’s Mary Paul’s long lost something-or-other. And he’s seeking revenge by killing off one by one the people he thinks are responsible her death.”
Stone choked on his coffee, which must have been cold by now. Fred just shook his head. The humor, black as it was, relieved the tension for a moment.
Cerridwen had warmed to her idea and would have expanded on it, but Jane emerged from the swinging doors and beckoned her. She was in professional mode. Only someone who knew her well could tell how shaken she was.
“Someone tried to kill Joan.” Jane stated without preamble.
“How can you be certain it wasn’t an accident?”
“There were two doses. The first was the prescribed dose of the sleeping pills she was given this afternoon. The second dose was given later. It hadn’t completely dissolved yet. And, according to the doctor, it was massive. He thinks it unlikely that she would have been awake enough after the second dose to take it herself. It is also a different medication than the one she was prescribed.”
“Do they know when she was given the second dose?” Cerridwen asked. They were both thinking the same thing. When would have a definite effect on who.
“They are working on it. The possibilities are limited. They can’t do anything more for her tonight. And neither can we. Don’t go anywhere alone. Stay with Thomas until I get home.”
“And just what is Thomas going to do if someone tries to poison me?” Cerridwen had to ask. “Intimidate the poison?”
“Hopefully he would scare them off before they had a chance to poison you. Go home. Make sure to take Teddy with you. He’s making the natives nervous.” She started back down the hall with a sigh.
“Oh, Jane!” Cerridwen caught her arm. “Teddy says Mrs. Gray is topless Lilith from Witt’s commune.”
Jane laughed in surprise. “Well, that’s news. How did that come about?”
“According to Teddy she married that guy they all called Toad for some reason. She might be a source of information.”
“I know where this is going. And I would tell you no if I thought it would do any good. So here is what I’m going to do.” Jane held up a hand to silence Cerridwen, who was about to say she didn’t know what Jane was talking about. “Ask questions in a casual way. Nothing pointed.” She jabbed a finger at her. “And you tell me everything.”
“If I find out anything,” Cerridwen capitulated.
“No if. Everything she says you report to me. I’ll see you in the morning after I wrap up this circus.”
Cerridwen saw her sooner than that. When they pulled into the driveway of Random House they could clearly see the wall that cut Whitmore off from the rest of the court. They had an unobstructed view of the six foot high letters sprawled across its length. The bright red paint demanded to know, “Where did Mary go?”
Teddy merely shrugged and shuffled towards the house. Thomas made an exasperated noise and banged his head against the roof of the GTO. Gerry and Fred played rock paper scissors for who got to call Jane with the news. And Cerridwen decided she had had enough and just went to bed.
Twenty
The late morning sun woke Cerridwen. She eyed the unfamiliar wallpaper distrustfully till she remembered where she was. She had not had the energy to take in her surroundings yesterday. She sat up and stretched, dislodging a sleeping Thomas. He grumbled and spread out to take up more of the bed.
Thomas had taken a very linear approach to decorating. The bed was shoved against the wall by the bathroom with a carved and very beautiful, expense antique Balinese screen as a headboard. A baroque, marble-topped dresser was grudgingly shoved as far into the corner as it would go. The length of the room, both the inner wall and the space under the windows, was taken up with assorted instruments and components of what appeared to be at least five stereos wired together. The opposite wall of the long room was filled with floor to ceiling diagonal shelving holding the largest collection of vinyl records she had ever seen. They barely avoided blocking the tiny door to the room next door.
“I wonder what he did with the Nanny’s room,” she thought out loud, eyeing the little door.
“It has all my recording equipment,” Thomas mumbled into her shoulder, foiling her efforts to disentangle herself from the blankets.
“I would have made it a closet.” She shoved at him with no discernible effect.
“I don’t have that many clothes.” He shrugged.
The man had warped priorities. She slapped his wandering hands and eeled out of the bad. “Bookshelves, then. Aren’t you supposed to be torturing children at tuba point?”
“I don’t teach tuba. The principal called and said I could take time off till Monday for my family emergency.” He abandoned his pursuit and flopped across the mattress.
“She lets you take off a lot of time for a new employee.”
“I have very impressive credentials. And I’m pretty. Why are you getting dressed?”
“I need to go home. I want my own clothes. And I have to meet the locksmith. And I have work to get done.”
“That’s a lot of reasons for going. I can think of one reason to stay.” He wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.
“I’m sure you can.” Cerridwen went into the bathroom to look for her sweater.
“We have slept together twice, three times if you count last night and this morning separately. But we haven’t done anything other than sleep,” he called after her.
“That’s not true. We’ve watched three movies. And don’t forget the time I threw up on you.” She called through the open door.
“And they say romance is dead. Still not quite what I had in mind. Not something I want to repeat either, if I had to be honest.”
Cerridwen emerged from the bathroom with an incredulous expression. “The body count is at two. Depending on Joan’s progress, it may well be three. And what you’re complaining about is that you’re not getting laid?” She pulled at her mangled sweater, dry but obviously the worse for wear. “Would it be tactless, do you think, to tell Joan she owes me a vintage sweater?”
“It might not be the right time to bring it up. And I will not say anything about your messed up priorities. Of course I’m coming with you.” He heaved himself out of the bed.
“I wonder what Mrs. Gray is up to today.” Cerridwen’s voice was muffled as she searched for her shoes under the bed. “I want to talk to her. All I got out of her last night was that she had indeed married Toad, and that she hated that nickname. She felt it was unkind and that his eyes didn’t protrude that much.”
Thomas stuck his head out of the bathroom. “Does Jane know you’re questioning people?”
“Jane said she wouldn’t tell me no, because she knew it wouldn’t work. Which is almost the same thing as permission. Are you coming?” His answer was not clear. She suspected it wasn’t flattering either, but she let it go.
In the end, Thomas and Fred both went with her, trailing Teddy like an easily amused balloon. She left them in the kitchen and shut the door to her office. As recently as week ago, she would not have left them unsupervised. Now she just didn’t care.
Cerridwen rewrote chapter twenty-two three times and was still unhappy with it before the doorbell demanded attention. She went to answer it with equal parts relief and irritation. As she passed through the kitchen she saw Thomas and Teddy playing a card game that somehow involved the chess board from the library and the salt and pepper shakers. Fred seemed to be squaring off to do battle with the ancient Aga range. Something loud, very metal, and possibly German blared on Fred’s laptop. She had to raise her voice when she took a moment to remind them that the chess board and the stove were both antiques before going to let Carl the locksmith in.
“Them biddies at the Historical Society were on the phone first thing this morning. The wanted me to know I’m violating a historic landmark.” He grinned at her. “I said lady, that house and I don’t have that kind of relationship. There is no truth to the rumors, we are just good friends.” He laughed at his own joke.
Cerridwen couldn’t help grinning back. “Your relationship or lack thereof with my house is none of their business. And I will tell them that.” She left Carl dismantling the hardware on the front door and went back to her office.
The call to the Historical Society only produced a confused secretary, who had no idea who Cerridwen was or why her locks were a problem. Next she made a call to the lawyer that administered the day to day matters of her grandmother’s trust. One of the attorney’s minions promised to send the Historical Society a politely worded letter explaining why the locks were being changed, and also, why it was none of their business. It was not the first time they had to do this. The Historical Society had to be gently reminded of its boundaries.
Maybe that was why it took so long for the question to finally occur to her. She stomped back through the kitchen, past the ever-evolving card game, which now involve her calendar in an unknown capacity, down the length of the house, back to the front door.
“How did the biddies know?” Cerridwen asked.
Carl didn’t look up from the unidentifiable piece of front door he was holding. “How did they know what?” He was not giving her his full attention.
“How did the biddies from the Historical Society know that I was having the locks changed? I didn’t tell them. I assume you didn’t call them and announce you intended to violate my house. So how did they know?”
“Don’t know. Saw the truck maybe. That detective anywhere around?” Carl still hadn’t looked up from the bit of metal. He ran his finger over it, chewing his lip.
“Jane? Upstairs asleep, I think. Why?”
“You might want to go wake her up. And tell her that your front door has had its lock picked.” He held the lock’s innards out to her. “See where the face of the tumbler pins are all scratched up?”
“Those are not just the scratches that you get on a door from keys and what not? It is an old door.”
Carl shook his head. “If they were on the face plate maybe. But not on the inside. You get those scratches from something that hasn’t been cut to fit the way the key was. See?” He pointed.
No, she didn’t see. Cerridwen wasn’t even sure what she was looking at. But it certainly lent credence to Joan’s insistence that someone else had been in the house the night she hit Cerridwen.
Of course she would tell Jane. But Jane had been awake all night. And it wasn’t as if she could do anything about it now. Besides, Cerridwen had something else she wanted to do first. She had to go upstairs to find shoes. Her ancestors had assumed that she would have someone to fetch and carry and therefore would not need a conveniently placed hall closet.
“Yahtzee!” yelled Teddy as she came down the stairs.
“Gin,” countered Thomas. “And I take your queen.”
“No, you don’t. Double sixes! And a bottle of ranch dressing.” Teddy cackled.
“Where the hell did the dice come from?” Their voices faded as she ran down the curved front steps, through the front garden and out on to the sidewalk. To her left, past Random House, garish red letters still bled from the surface of Whitmore’s outer wall. She didn’t cross the street but followed the gentle downhill arc of the pavement to the right, towards the Gate House near the entrance to the Court.
The snow and slush had melted, leaving everything gray and soggy. The surviving vegetation was limp and dripping. Cerridwen splashed through a puddle as she crossed where the avenue intersected the court. Standing in the drive to Gate House she could not see her own house clearly. The view of Witt’s End was blocked by its own garden wall at one end and the looming Green Man Tree at the other. The door to the conservatory was at the back of the house and not visible from the street at any angle. She could see Carl’s van on the street, but last time he had parked in the service lane that ran along the side of the house, the side opposite from where she was now standing.
Turning to eye Gate House and then the empty street with equal distrust, Cerridwen picked her way through the mud and slush of the gravel drive. The view from the portico was even more limited. Ann Hawkner could not have seen Carl the locksmith from her house. The tall trees were likely to have blocked the line of sight from the upper floor as well. She drew the line at breaking in to check. She didn’t want to put Jane to the embarrassment of having to arrest her. On the other hand, Jane was Homicide. Maybe she would get arrested by an officer she hadn’t met yet. That would be a fun way to meet new friends.
“What are you doing?” Fred’s quite voice made her jump nearly out of her skin. Studying the house in front of her, she had not seen him come across the street.
“Damnit, Silverheels, stop sneaking up on me. The Historical Society is upset that I am having my historic locks changed,” she began.
“How did they know that you’re having the locks changed?” Fred’s eyes narrowed. Against the thought or the slanting sunlight? Both, maybe. The nickname he just ignored.
“The logical answer would be that they heard it from Hawkner. She was a member. And their resident spy. I still have a message from her on machine from her about it. I didn’t get it till after she was dead.” She shivered slightly as she replayed the message in her head. “What I can’t figure out is how she found out.”
“Hawkner couldn’t see it from her house. And you didn’t tell her?” Fred thought out loud.
“I never talked to the woman more than I could help. She left a nasty taste in my mouth. I certainly didn’t natter on about my personal life. She could have found out if she tried to use a key. The only key that I know is out there is the one Joan had.”
