Climate Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 7) (28 page)

BOOK: Climate Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 7)
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CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
 
I AM JESSICA!

He was ripped open.

By something inhuman.

Talk about a conversation stopper.

And Thompson’s pronouncement did in fact stop conversation; killed it as dead as Garth Amboise certainly was, shredded it wide open, and tore it to pieces.

So for a time, the three of them just sat there, looking at each other in open-mouthed wonder, watching the shrine of the goddess of wisdom as it wheezed out fumes.

Professor Dunbury broke the silence:

“It is as though this house, The Candles, has become the House of Atreus.”

Thompson:

“Pardon, Professor?”

“When Agamemnon returned from the Trojan War with a mistress, his wife, Clytemnestra, butchered him in his bath. The gods ordered her son and daughter, Orestes and Electra, to murder her as an act of vengeance. They did so, but then they were in turn attacked by the Furies.”

Nina interjected:

“I remember them from mythology. Vicious demonic creatures, half animal and half woman, they tormented their prey.”

“Yes, indeed, my dear. And it’s as though poor Mr. Amboise has become one of their prey.”

Nina listened to this, thought about it, and shook her head:

“Maybe but––”

Her mind raced back to the morning.

The pond.

Her first meeting with Professor Dunbury.

“You said what we heard was a panther?”

He nodded.

“Yes. Quite certainly a black panther.”

Thompson:

“There are black panthers in these woods?”

A nod.

“They are rare, of course. But they exist. All the way down from Michigan. If the woods are thick enough.”

James Thompson shook his head:

“No. I’ve lived here all my life. Hunted in these woods. Never seen such a thing.”

Dunbury:

“Nevertheless, the thing we heard this morning was a black panther. I would swear by it.”

“All right, so a black panther is out there roaming these woods. How the hell did it get into Garth Amboise’ room?”

But to this question, Professor Dunbury could only shake his head:

“I’m completely at a loss, sir. It seems impossible.”

“Completely impossible indeed. But I’ll give you this, Dunbury: the Coroner’s report stated that the saliva in question must have come from a predator.”

And again, they could only look at each other.

Until Nina, remembering the people who’d come trooping through her room during the last hour, said to James Thompson:

“I’ve had a thought. It’s a crazy one.”

“It would have to be to explain this.”

“All right. Can we three go downstairs and look at Amboise’ room again?”

“Yes. If that would do any good. But I don’t see any––”

“I’m not sure I can either, but it’s the best I’ve got. And I’ll need you to send one of your men to get a couple of other people, so they can meet us there.”

“Sure. Which people?”

She told him.

Then they struck out for the room of the deceased Garth Amboise.”

It had been cleaned completely since she remembered it. The sheets were gone, the bed bare, but large pools of burgundy stain still marked the carpet.

“No window,” Officer Thompson was saying. Besides, we’re up on the second floor. I don’t see how anything that big could have gotten in.”

“The storm’s getting worse,” said Nina, quietly. “Anything outside, anywhere near here, might have been driven in for shelter.”

“Driven in where? Surely the thing didn’t just come prancing in through an open door?”

“No, but––”

“Hi!”

“Did you send for us?”

And there in the doorway, beaming as usual, stood Pat and Jim Hershey.

“We did,” said Nina.

“How can we––”

“––help you?”

“Your theory of the crime. I wonder if you’d go over it again, precisely as you told it in my room just a little while ago?”

They both stepped forward into the room.

“Sure, we––”

“––could!”

Pat Hershey said:

“You start, Jim!”

“Alright, honey. Let’s go over it again. The woman arrives around six.”

“No, we said five.”

“How many times do I have to tell you this? Five is too early!”

“Okay, so you think it’s dark. Who cares? Now, if you could talk about the theory again––”

“I will, if you’ll just let me. The problem is how the killer got out of the room.”

“Oh, we’re back to this closed door stupidity!”

“The answer to that is the secret tunnel!”

“And I’ve told you and told you I’ve never agreed to that notion!”

“That’s because you have no imagination!”

“I’ve got a lot more than
you’ve
got!”

Upon saying which, Pat Hershey ran to the far side of the bed and gripped a vase which stood next to the wall.

She raised it menacingly above her head, and was about to hurl it at her husband.

When, with a great groaning and squeaking of mechanisms, a panel opened in the wall itself, revealing a gaping hole.

That led, clearly, into a tunnel.

Finally James Thompson spoke, saying:

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

Pat Hershey put down the lamp, which, clearly, had triggered the mechanism, and said to her husband:

“You are
so
brilliant!”

Nina remembered what Margot had told her that very morning:

‘They fight like cats and dogs when they’re actually writing. But once the book is over, they’re proud as punch of each other.’

And this book, to them, is over.

“Darling, you’re the smartest man in the whole world; you’re more brilliant than Shakespeare even.”

“It was nothing, honey.”

She put her arm around him:

“You’re the most wonderful writer I know.”

“No, you are!”

“No you are, Jim! And, my God, I want you so much right now!”

And so saying, she dragged him from the room.

Causing James Thompson to say:

“Look at the two of them. They really are cute together.”

Nina glared at him.

Finally, Dunbury walked to the opening of the tunnel, peered into it, and said:

“It does lead down, probably to an opening out onto either another tunnel, or to the river itself.”

Thompson joined him at the tunnel opening, saying softly:

“Rumor always had it that Confederate soldiers would make their way here, even after the place was in Union hands. The staff would hide them, maybe in tunnels like these. Escape tunnels. Now, if the animal were really seeking shelter, it might have made its way into the opening at the water’s edge. It might have been attracted by smells and heat, and made its way up here.”

“It would have been starved for food,” said Nina. “The storm had made it impossible for it to feed.”

Dunbury:

“How could it have opened the panel door? I ask myself.”

To which Thompson:

“We know that the lamp triggered the door from the outside. But it’s possible that mere weight would open it outward.”

Nina:

“So that anyone—or thing—coming up from the inside would only have to push against it to make it open.”

“And that,” said Dunbury, “our animal, our panther, would certainly have done—sensing meat on the other side of the wall.”

“All right, but then how––”

Thompson was interrupted by the door of the room opening into the corridor, and Margot and Mildred the cook entering.

They both stood gaping for a time at the tunnel’s entrance.

Finally Margot stammered:

“What in God’s name is that?”

Nina was about to answer but Mildred interrupted her, saying calmly:

“It’s the old escape tunnel, Ms. Garvin.”

“The what?”

“The old escape tunnel.”

“You knew it was here?”

“Oh yes, ma’am.”

“Then why didn’t you tell us?”

“The girls was afraid you’d make them clean it.”

There was little to be said to that. So Margot finally broke the silence by saying, quietly:

“You all better get downstairs. Especially you, Officer Thompson.”

“Why, ma’am? What’s the trouble?”

“Dinner’s almost over. Sylvia Duncan has made up her mind about the HBO winner.”

“Do you know who it is?” asked Nina.

Margot shook her head:

“No. But whoever it is, the others are going to tear to pieces.”

“Margot,” interjected Nina. “We think Garth Amboise was killed by a panther. Eaten alive!”

Margot merely shook her head, saying:

“He was lucky.”

So saying, she turned and left.

The rest of them followed.

      

Dinner was chaos of course. The cozy writers all knew that the big announcement was imminent, and their minds were racing with fevered frenzy through the marvelous benefits of being rich and famous and going out and living in Hollywood and helping to choose the star of the new series and going to the Academy Awards program even though it was just TV and not movies, but, of course, there would
be
a movie and it would win the award for best writing and there would be the BIG SPEECH in which one said “I would like to thank everyone who helped me in creating this series, and I want especially to acknowledge my etc., etc., etc., and then there would be MILLIONS AND MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF DOLLARS which could be used to fly to Aruba and the Costa Brava and all those places where one could just sit on the beach with one’s laptop and write and drink Mai Tai’s and never have to worry about paying rent or working a real job ever again.

BOOK: Climate Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 7)
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