A Deadly Snow Fall (20 page)

“So, that leaves the Snows. What about the
old man, mean as a wet hen and he certainly had enemies aplenty.
You don’t rob people of their homes and land without making
murderous enemies. Maybe one of them tried to murder old man Ned
but got murdered himself instead.”

“It was a woman. Doc took a look and checked
the pelvis,” James said.

“Oh, James, this case is getting weird.”

“Welcome to crime fighting, love.”

James went off to help the Chief’s secretary,
Annie Cannon, search through the dusty files from sixty years ago,
looking for reports of missing females. I went into a black funk.
In just a few short hours I’d be introducing my black widow spider
mother to my best friend and a handful of other women I liked and
hoped to continue to be liked by. However, probably by the end of
the evening my social life would be a shambles.

Ten minutes later, James called my cell. “Hi.
Forgot to tell you. In the stucco room in the middle of the Snow
mansion, the arson team found an old steamer trunk full of women’s
clothing. Real ‘flashy stuff’ as Bob Gerard said.”

Chapter Twenty-One

The rest of the day I spent doing laundry,
cleaning bathrooms and endeavoring to explain to my mother why I
did not have servants to do such menial work.

“You have gone mad, child. Why would you not
have help to do such odious jobs?”

“Mother, this is America. I like doing my own
work. This is a labor of love and pride. I love this place and I
enjoy taking care of it. I have a serious business to run. I have
no time for entertaining you. Perhaps you should contact friends
and drum up some invitations to visit them. You’ll only be bored to
death here. There is nothing in this village to interest you. You
know you hate being in the country and sea air gives you headaches.
You need to leave.”

“Oh, balderdash. First, I want to get to know
your little provincial village. In fact, I am having my fortune
told tomorrow. I read an ad in your little newspaper and I called
to make an appointment. You just keep ruining your fingernails and
your posture, and I will head out into the village to find my own
entertainment every day.”

Mother went off in a huff leaving behind her
a trail of very expensive scent. I could hear her high heels
clicking down the front hall and then up the stairs. Only then,
when she was not there to witness, did panic set in. I simply could
not let Lady Gwendolyn and Emily/Eloise meet. It would be
tantamount to splitting the atom. Boom.

Later, when I told my mother that I’d be
attending my monthly book club and that she was welcome to come
along, “although, of course, you will be utterly bored and probably
prefer to stay here and watch some telly,” she was jubilant.
Damn.

“How lovely. I am anxious to meet your new
little friends, darling.” I flashed to the sandbox in the park near
our London flat where my governess took me to play with other
little rich girls. Did my mother expect girls in pinafores with
their hair in plaits?

Unfortunately, seven p.m. did arrive and I
had to face the fact that my mother’s visit had been real and not
the result of my having fallen into a bathtub and sustaining a
concussion. Never had the possibility of a temporary slip into
unconsciousness seemed so delightful.

When my mother finally floated down the
stairs at seven fifteen much to my chagrin, she did so as if she
was on a Paris runway. “Mother, don’t you have anything
less…obviously expensive to wear. Everyone will be in jeans and
t-shirts. You will be so out of sync. Better to try and fit in than
flaunt your wealth.”

“Darling, you know MaMa always sets the pace.
They will love seeing this designer frock.”

“Whatever. Let’s go.”

Arriving at Daphne’s house, I worked at
holding down everything I’d eaten that day. My mother could, with
the wave of her diamond-heavy hands, ruin my new life. To the
villagers I was just one of them, a regular hard-working friendly
villager. I had attended town meetings and I took my own trash to
the dump, gave to the Fund for the Families of Lost Fishermen and
baked goodies for the scholarship bake sales. A bona fide villager.
Or as my mother, left to her own haughty devices would call us
(please gods of incognito rich titled girls--not tonight and not to
my new fiends), “rag tag commoners.”

The front door opened and there stood Daphne
wearing anything but casual herself. I wondered if they’d had a
wardrobe confab over the phone in secrecy. White stovepipe silk
slub jeans that might have been painted on, topped by a silk gypsy
blouse encrusted with red, blue, yellow and black embroidery that
must have cost at least eight hundred dollars at Ralph Lauren,
screamed wealthy.

The dripping diamond earrings might look to
the others like great paste costume jewelry from T. J. Maxx, but I
could recognize a Tiffany earring anywhere. Even on the ears of my
traitorous friend.

Damn you, Daphne (I said to myself), you
planned this outfit to impress my mother. Obviously not to be
outdone by Lady Gwendolyn, Daphne had purposely dressed the part of
the wealthy woman she was. So much for her witness protection
program pretense. We had once kidded, after I discovered her secret
life, that if found out she could plead having stumbled onto sex
tapes of the prime minister. In a quirky place like Provincetown,
that would diminish the onus of having pretended to be just a
wage-earning villager.

“Welcome, ladies. Lady Gwendolyn, it’s so
lovely to meet you.” Taking both of my mother’s hands in hers,
Daphne drew the woman into the living room totally ignoring me.

Mother entered the room to face the bevy of
females and facsimiles thereof as if she was stepping onto the
stage of the Haymarket Theatre in London. Then, the leading lady
turned back to me and, oh so graciously, reached out her hand to
pull me into the circle as if just remembering that I was there. A
bit player.

What on earth was Daphne up to? We had agreed
not to let on that we were both refugees from wealthy (titled)
families. But there she was putting on airs like a grand duchess.
Where was her hip talk? This was just too much. It had already been
a darned difficult day only to conclude with my best friend blowing
our cover and treating my mother as if they belonged to the same
polo club.

The solution came to me like a meteor on a
collision course with my brain. I’d simply convince these good,
real, honest people that my mother was a prize-winning fraud.
Otherwise, my cover would be blown and I was not ready, at least
that soon, to be exposed for a wealthy woman. I liked just being
one of the villagers.

“Dear, you look so familiar. I could swear I
knew you in my youth. Well, I would venture a guess that you are
the spitting image of your mother, am I correct? Didn’t I meet her
at a ball at Baliol Castle sometime during my coming out year? Not
that I dare mention what year that was.” A little girlish laugh for
the rapt audience.

“Yes, now I remember. Of course, Alexandra
Crowninshield. Darling girl, you could be her with only the
addition of a beehive hairdo.”

I had to hand it to my almost ex-best friend
for her next move. Daphne very cleverly dodged the social bullet by
simply beginning the introductions and letting the matter drop.
Once Mother was ensconced on the couch next to Geraldine (who used
to be a man), I ceased to be concerned. Whatever happened from that
point on was completely out of my hands. Talk about sunspots and
planet alignments!

Geraldine, wearing a tight black scooped neck
cleavage exposing sweater with slim black designer washed jeans and
a wide red snakeskin belt with matching high boots, grinned broadly
and patted the empty seat beside her on the couch. I must note here
that although casual was the norm for most occasions in the
unpretentious village, there were certain exceptions and
exemptions. Geraldine was still fully enjoying her newly won female
life and her knockout New York designer wardrobe.

My mother was immediately enraptured as she
and Geraldine shared their opinions on the “beastliness of men,”
the season’s new fashions, their favorite designers and their
shared contempt for American wines. Fortunately for us all,
Geraldine did not share the details of her sex change
operation.

Taking Daphne aside, I asked, “Do the girls
know about your elite British roots?”

“No, of course not; do they know about
yours?”

“They do now, don’t they? Mine and yours.
Nice work, pal.” I glared at Daphne in contempt.

“Oh, dang! I guess they do. Hey, we’ll just
tell them later that your mother’s a big fake and we set it up for
me to put her on. No problem. Just a bit of sport. They’ll have no
problem accepting that Lady Gwendolyn’s a British housewife who
enjoys putting on airs. After all, you are such a regular girl,
Liz.”

“Bite me.” I snarled at Daphne before
laughing. After all, great minds work alike and since we were both
on the same page, all should be well.

“After all, it’s not like anyone ever takes
me seriously. You, on the other hand, are a worry wart and too dead
ordinary to come from the upper class.” I gave her a withering
look, sat across the room from my mother and leafed through the
cozy book samples on the table, hoping my mother would disappear in
a puff of smoke.

Amazingly, the evening went fairly well. I
left feeling confident that my mother had been more entertaining
than toxic and I would not have to leave town in the dark of night.
But Mother’s visit wasn’t over yet.

I was hanging freshly washed kitchen curtains
when my mother burst in with her big news, the following day. I had
thought she was sleeping in, but she’d slipped out and actually
walked on her own legs, the four blocks to Emily’s Fairies in the
Garden shop without my even knowing it. Sitting in the kitchen
watching me work until she insisted I sit, after brewing her a cup
of mint tea, I sensed something big coming. Like the change in the
air before a storm or the horrifying high-pitched buzz as a bomb is
dropping.

“Where did you go without my knowing it,
Mother? I would have made you breakfast. Did you go to
Beasley’s?”

Then it was out and could never be taken
back. “You will never believe what that dear, talented woman told
me. Eloise saw my future as clear as crystal.” She tittered at her
little joke.

My stomach fell like a failed cake. The damn
had broken. The levies failed. How to stop that runaway train now
that it was out of the station? I couldn’t muster enough metaphors
for the awful thing that was to come. If Eloise had advised Mother
to move in permanently and run for mayor I’d have to smash her
nasty glass face.

“Mother, you didn’t. The woman is a fake, a
charlatan; you mustn’t believe anything she told you.” But her
expression said otherwise.

What could I do but brace for the worst and
then hope I could find a patch large enough to close the hole in my
life when the maelstrom passed. “Oh, what did you discover, Mother?
Did the crystal ball tell you it’s time to take up charity work and
live in sack cloth or join a monastery? Or, simply that you ought
to change your lipstick color?”

“Now, don’t be so flippant, Elizabeth. MaMa
is not as shallow as that.” Right.

I bit my lip and tried to think of something
more shallow than my mother, but only came up with the image of my
father’s foot bath. My mind wandered to the real estate market and
how much I might realize from selling out and moving to Istanbul to
sell scarves.

“I know you will be disappointed, darling,
but MaMa must be on her way tomorrow.”

A brilliant light shone upon my antique pine
well-worn but steadfast kitchen table. Had she really announced her
immanent departure? Had the God of Innkeepers, whose name I did not
know, but who must have been watching over me, come to my rescue?
What my mother said next, in another context might have brought
forth laughter. Instead, in this framework, it brought joy to my
heart.

“Yes, Hollywood is calling. My fortune is
waiting for me there. Won’t Percy be surprised when he sees my name
up on the huge screen in his man cave?”

“Mother, what on earth are you talking about?
Hollywood? And where did you pick up that expression, man cave?
Really, Mother, PaPa would never call his study that.”

“Geraldine taught me that and I think it is
just delightful. Men are such Neanderthals; the cave image is quite
apropos. I am heading west as soon as I can arrange for
transportation.”

“I’ll drive you to Hyannis or Boston or
Providence--whichever airport you choose to fly out of, Mother,
dear.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

With my difficult mother off on her way to
Tinsel Town, I returned to the inn after driving her to the Hyannis
airport, feeling like a new woman. Nothing like the insertion of a
much greater problem into one’s current mélange of problems to put
things into proper perspective. What was a little bit of murder,
arson and a torso in the pansies compared to a few days with Lady
Gwendolyn?

Stepping from my sunny yellow Jeep, I
realized that Daisy Buchanan and the wonders of Land’s End Nursery
had been to visit. Our joint plans for my garden--flowers,
vegetables and edible herbs--would be such a wonderful addition to
the charms of the inn when completed. That day, Daisy had planted
black-eyed susans and shasta daisies in huge clumps all along the
driveway. Just as I’d envisioned them since the day I first came to
the Cranberry Inn.

James drove in behind me. “Well, love, the
torso in Mary Malone’s garden tipped the scales. Takes a lot to
excite the Chief these days. I’m sure he’s in more pain than he
lets on, but he perked up when we found the mysterious torso. Wants
answers to everything. He’s sure that all the mysteries somehow tie
in together. As he said, ‘Figures that old buzzard would not leave
this mortal coil without leaving behind a real mess.’ Never heard
the Chief so poetic.”