Climate Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 7) (33 page)

“It’s a twister! Get down behind this tree trunk!”

And Margot, clearly not worrying about cats or cars, pulled her to the left, so that she was soon cowering behind the thickest pine available, and watching as the tornado sucked up the barn.

It did so with astonishing ease, just as the bloated creek had sucked down the Volkswagen, up down, up down, elemental forces running amok now, the barn swirling and twisting and rising, its shape nearly perfectly intact, as it simply disappeared into the sky.

And then the tornado was gone, having receded into the clouds as though they were its lair.

“Where is it?” asked Margot.

“It’s gone! It’s just gone!”

“So is the barn!”

“Da dum da dum da daah daah!”

“What are you humming!”

“The music from
The Wizard of Oz
.”

“What?”

“This whole weekend. The handyman, Mildred the cook, Harriet, Sylvia, Dunbury––have turned into the scarecrow, the tin man, Professor Miracle, the Wicked Witch of the West, Glenda the Good Witch, The Wizard himself, and now the tornado. Margot, when that barn finally comes down, there’s going to be a witch under it.”

“You’re crazy!”

Nina nodded:

“Or I’m dreaming. But there’s no place like home. It’s just that I’m not sure I’ll ever get back there.”

“You will. But come on; we’ve got to get back to Candles.”

They rose and began to slog their way to the spot where the old barn had stood.

And then it came to her.

Jane Austen might have been standing there in the flood, smiling at her and nodding.

That
was how it had happened!

“Margot, I think I know now!”

“What are you talking about?
What
do you know?”

“It’s not the ruby slippers! It’s golden instead!”

“Nina, what are you talking about?”

“The boxes! And an image I just thought about! From The Nature Channel! It was happening all around us. Nature, doing its thing—and we didn’t realize it!”

“I hate it when you get like this! It’s as though you were in another world!”

“No! Everybody else is in another world, a fake world. I’m in the real one. I’m the only one in the real one. Well. I and one other person.”

“Will you tell me what you’re talking about?”

But Nina merely shook her head:

“I’ve got to show you. But I think I can. Come on!”

And she strode off, Margot one step behind her, toward The Candles.

And to
The Solution
—

The Perfect Murder!

CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
 
THE VOICE OF GOD

The situation back at Candles was much as it had been an hour earlier. Everybody seemed to be angry, and everybody seemed to be shouting.

It was hard to tell which of the two villains––Nina or Sylvia––was most hated.

Several of the writers had formed small groups and were discussing the possibilities of lawsuits against HBO. Or, of course, there was also the possibility of boycotts.

That was it! All mystery writers of the nation—or of the world—boycotting the new Nina Bannister series.

Even the sound of it––the Nina Bannister series—was ludicrous and insulting.

Of course, at the moment the Nina Bannister series was being completely ripped apart as a concept, the subject of that series was back in the entrance hall, talking with a member of Margot’s staff about the mysterious box that had arrived with a return address but no address.

“Was this box delivered by the mail in just the same way the others were?”

“I don’t know, ma’am.”

“You didn’t bring it in?”

“No, Ms. Bannister. It was one of the other girls.”

“Which one?”

A shake of the head:

“I’m not sure about that, either. The boxes were arriving all morning, some of them by FedEx. I didn’t sign for any of them, but other people in the staff did.”

“And this box:
 
do you remember what came in it?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Okay, this is very important. Can you ask around and find out all you can about this box? I want to know who brought it in and how it came here with no address on it. Can you do that?”

“I’ll try.”

“Good girl. Whenever you find out, wherever I am, come and tell me.”

“All right.”

And, so saying, the girl disappeared.

Nina threw herself into the dining room, ignoring the hateful stares that were directed at her.

It was early evening, dark outside now because of the storm and the twilight, and the chandeliers were glowing.

Dinner had not been served:
 
no thought of eating, given the rancor in the room.

Margot had disappeared somewhere, but that did not matter to Nina.

She had to find Sylvia.

Where
was
Sylvia?

Ah, there, in the middle, of course, of a group of angry people.

Hard to pry her loose, but necessary.

So Nina began to make her way through the crowd, trying to remind herself that the stares directed against her came from the fact that she was not even self-published.

She was non-published.

Of course, people here hated her!

Crossing the room was like walking out of the forest had been, except that, rather than making her way through floodwaters and pine needles, she was making her way through bitter hatred and resentful jealousy.

But making her way she was, and Sylvia was now only ten feet away.

Now only five feet.

When suddenly the lights went out.

Someone shouted:

“The storm!”

The entire room was black, illuminated only by flashes of lightning that shone through the massive picture windows.

Even the screen which had glowed with the picture of Jessica Fletcher was now dark.

There were small cries and orders and bits of advice everywhere:

“Somebody get a candle!”

“We need some light!”

“It must have been a lightning bolt!”

“Where are candles?”

“Doesn’t The Candles have candles?”

One candle did appear though, just at that moment, in the doorway which led to the kitchen.

It was a tall white candle, and it was carried, of course, by Margot the Capable.

Whose voice resonated over the room:

“All right everybody, be calm. We have all the candles you need. Some of my people are bringing them now. The storm must have…”

But she was interrupted by another voice.

A voice that seemed to be piped in from speakers in each corner of the dining hall.

A voice which said:

“Please don’t worry about the candles, Ms. Gavin. You won’t need them for some time.”

And at precisely that moment, the screen lit up.

Except on it was not the face of Jessica Fletcher.

It was the face of Molly Badger.

The image was in black and white, and showed no background, only the sad Badger face that Nina had come to remember from the small hideaway cubicle at Candles and the motel in Abbeyport.

The image was perfectly clear, however, as was the concerned voice:

“Margot?”

How could she see Margot?

“Nina?”

My God
, thought Nina.
She must be able to see the entire room!

Where was she?

How was she doing this?

And then, of course, the answer came:
 
she could do this—whatever it was—because she was a genius at electronics.

“Margot! I can hear you—tell me what you’re doing there!”

Margot stared at the screen, hesitated for an instant, and then said:

“Molly?”

“Of course, it’s Molly! But tell me:
 
why are you and Nina still there?”

“You can see us?”

“Yes, I can see all of you, and the entire hall. But don’t worry about technical matters:
 
just tell me what you two are doing there!”

“But Molly, where else would we be?”

“Out on the Abbeyport Road, where Officer Thompson told you to be.”

“But how did you know––”

“Molly Badger, this is Nina. You didn’t
listen in
on any call, did you? You
made
those calls!”

The image on the screen smiled slightly:

“Yes, that’s correct. Nina, I’m so sorry that both of you are there. I wanted you to be somewhere else.”

“Like out on the Abbeyport Road?”

“Yes.”

“And that’s why you were able to fake a call to Thompson and his men. And then a call to us. You somehow made him think—and Margot think—that you were the woman in the dispatcher’s office.”

“It wasn’t hard, Nina. Not with my expertise. But you still have not told me:
 
why did you not go?”

“We did go, Molly. Or at least we tried to. But the bridge washed out before we could get across it.”
      

Silence, then a shake of the head:

“That’s too bad. I’m genuinely sorry to hear it. I didn’t want you to be in the hall. I didn’t want you to see what may be going to happen next.”

More silence.

Ominous silence.

It was Margot who spoke up:

“So there’s no beast roaming the countryside, is there, Molly?”

The smile looming down on all of them changed slightly, though in precisely what way Nina would have found it hard to say.

The voice filtering down was softer, somehow.

“There are many beasts.”

The storm roared.

Another lighting flash lit the hall.

“There are beasts almost everywhere. Some of them in us. Some we carry around with us.”

Nina took two steps toward the screen:

“Molly, where are you?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“You were not kidding this afternoon at the motel, were you? You really did commit the murder of Garth Amboise.”

“No, I did not.”

“All right. You did not. But you were responsible for it. It and the murder of C. R. Roberts.”

“Yes. The body builder. I didn’t truly hate her. I didn’t hate the man Amboise, either, although he was in many ways a hateful man. But I felt nothing against them compared to the viciousness that has been directed at me. And now I must come to my main point.”

She was silent for a time and then pronounced:

“Harriet Crossman.”

It might have been the Voice of God, calling one of the sinners to judgment.

It repeated itself:

“Harriet Crossman.”

Harriet, to her credit, did not appear cowed or terrified. She stood straight, in the middle of the room, and spoke up to the face staring down at her:

“I’m here, Molly.”

At the precise instant she said this, a figure crossed the room and stood beside her.

It was Professor Brighton Dunbury.

He took Harriet’s hand and held it firmly.

Then he said:

“
We’re
here, Molly. Harriet and I. We stand, together, before you. What do you wish of us?”

To which the visage answered, funereally:

“Then I speak to both of you. And to all the other cozy writers. The seeds of your destruction surround you.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Harriet.

“There is no place for you to go. The police are no help to you. And if you try to leave, you will be ripped to pieces, just as your colleagues have been ripped to pieces. Yes, they were indeed PUBLISHED AUTHORS. But that was little help to them, was it?”

Harriet bowed her head, stared at the floor, and said:

“No. No, it wasn’t.”

“Well, the same fate awaits you. And all of the rest of the writers.”

Silence.

Only the sound of breathing.

Finally Molly:
         

“You will all be ripped to shreds. You will see your destruction coming. But that will be no use to you. For the forces that are to destroy you are those which you have brought to Candles with you.”

The Smathers Sisters rose as one and said:

“It’s a demon, isn’t it? We’ve known all along:
 
you’ve unleashed a demon!”