Fadeaway Girl (31 page)

I swept up the tray, barged into the dining room right past Miss Bertha as she barked at me. Or snarled. It came out less “Emma” than “Rummma.”

But I just sailed past and set the tray on a serving table next to Mr. Muggs's table for two.

“My, that looks delicious, Emma.” He tucked his napkin into his collar and rubbed his hands. I filled his water glass and asked him if he'd like coffee now or later. He said later, and I peeled away.

“Ruuummmmma!”

I turned and fluted, “Yes, Miss Bertha, I'll have your lunches up directly.” I held my empty tray up on my fingers and swanned back into the kitchen, ignoring whatever question she was about to ask.

Their lunches were ready and I set them on the tray. Then, seeing my mother busy over at the pastry table, I replaced the pimiento on Miss Bertha's plate with a little strip of habanero pepper (which my pepper research had told me was the hottest member of the family). I picked up the tray and asked, “What's for dessert?” I was backing into the dining room.

“Floating Island.”

“Oh!” I nearly swooned with delight before I carried the tray to their table and set plates before them. Miss Bertha poked her food around and Mrs. Fulbright murmured her approval of the meal.

I went to Mr. Muggs, who had nearly finished his chicken. “Floating Island for dessert,” I whispered.

His “Oh!” sounded much the same as mine had.

“Be back in a jiff!” I said.

The jiff was interrupted by a yelp from Miss Bertha, followed by her bouncing from her chair with cries for “Water, water!”

Gunga Din couldn't have called for it better.

I sighed. You'd think by this time she'd be familiar with every known pepper on the planet, and know that water was the very worst thing for its heat.

I filled her glass and handed it to her.

Mr. Muggs and Mrs. Fulbright received their Floating Islands—a dessert as magical as its name. Miss Bertha couldn't eat anything else because she was fanning out her mouth and would be making noises for the next fifteen minutes at least.

After they'd all left, I cleared their plates away. Mr. Muggs's plate was always cleaned of every morsel, almost as if he'd been eating shadows.

And after
my
two helpings of Floating Island, I took off for Britten's.

 

“Na Ow,” said Ubub.

“Ake Or,” Ulub corrected him.

I had asked them where Morris Slade had gone the night before; had they continued following him? I made out “Lake Noir,” but was stumped by the next detail coming from Ulub: “Nilva Air.” I did not want to spend the rest of the afternoon interpreting the Woods' dialect. “Where's Mr. Root?”

“Niside,” said Ulub. He cocked his head toward the store.

I climbed the wooden steps and said hi to the two old-timers chewing tobacco and sitting on crates. I wondered since when did Mr. Britten offer the comfort of crates to his customers.

From him I got my usual lowered-eyebrow reception. Mr. Root was happier to see me. He was buying some Mail Pouch and a package of Twinkies. When I asked him about Morris Slade and what Ulub meant by “Nilva Air” he said, “Yeah, last night, he went out t' the Silver Pear.”

“He went by himself?”

“Yeah, by himself.”

“What time?”

“Oh, mebbe around seven, seven-thirty. Got to the restaurant about eight.”

“Didn't he meet anyone there?”

Mr. Root pondered. “Well, he could've, I guess. I mean somebody might've been in there waiting, or come after.”

This was very vague. “Then where'd he go after the Silver Pear?”

Mr. Root was getting a little defensive. “I don't know. We couldn't hardly wait all night. He was in there an hour, hour and a half by the time we left. How long does it take to eat?”

I felt like saying any good private eye would have waited all night. Of course, any good private eye would be getting paid too. “Well, never mind that, Mr. Root. You all are doing a great job.”

“Well. You want a Twinkie?” He'd opened the package and held it out.

“Thank you, but I just ate a big lunch.” That had never kept me away from a Twinkie before.

I whisked myself out of the store, waved to Ulub and Ubub, and hurried back to the hotel to call Axel's Taxis.

M
r. Root or the Wood brothers would have given me a ride, but I wanted to think. Delbert, of course, wanted to talk, but I could ignore him in a way I couldn't ignore the others.

“Silver Pear? My God, girl, you can afford to eat there?”

The priciness of the restaurant interested him more than that a twelve-year-old was going there by herself.

“I sold my bike,” I said as we drove through La Porte and out the other side to open land.

Delbert said, one, that he'd never seen me on a bike; and, two, that he was surprised I'd sell it. Then he started talking about what was best to do with a person's money and I tuned him out and watched horses in an otherwise empty field. As if words were water, Delbert's ran on and on. He might as well have dived into a lake of words, for the talk went down down down.

This might be a trip worth taking or it might not. But I was depending on the curiosity of the people at the Silver Pear. After all, Morris Slade turning up in that fancy sports car would trigger curiosity in a person much less nosy than the owners of the restaurant. They would have wondered, questioned, watched him.

I looked out at two black-and-white cows that had propped their heads on a split-rail fence, chewing and musing. I mused along too until I saw Lake Noir in the middle distance, through a million pine trees.

We turned off onto White's Bridge Road (called “the Lake Road” by the snobby owners of the luxury houses on Lake Noir). The Silver Pear didn't sit right on Lake Noir, but it was near enough that you could see it, like a silver plate through the dark trees.

Delbert had stopped talking and I hadn't registered this until we were bumping along a rough section of road. He was as silent as if he'd drowned in the lake, and I hoped that wasn't a drowned man driving.

 

Gaby and Ron were the owners of the big Victorian house that they'd turned into this expensive restaurant. The first time I was here, I tried to give the impression an adult just might show up and we'd have lunch. I had studied the menu with a kind of horror, seeing dishes like Lobster Thermidor and Filet Mignon à la carte for four times what the hotel charged for an entire meal.

I'd been here a couple of times since, and I hoped they wouldn't remember me and grow suspicious as to why a twelve-year-old was here again, empty-handed, no money in sight.

But I'd forgotten that I wasn't empty-handed! I had fame to spend. I kept forgetting I was by way of being a celebrity now, gaining more with each new installment I wrote.

“Really,” said Gaby or Ron, hard to tell apart, both of them posted by the dining room door, hugging menus. His voice was high and breathy as he said it again. “Really, that was
so
brave of you!”

He was referring to my walk at gunpoint and being forced into a rowboat. “Not really,” I replied. I asked them what was brave about going where a gun told me to go. (Of course I thought it was brave, but I “eschewed”—another favorite word—bravery in favor of a kind of jaunty, jaded attitude toward danger.) I said if I'd grabbed the gun, or yanked Miss Devereau into Spirit Lake after me, instead of just doing what she wanted, that would have been brave.

They naturally thought I was being modest and that was okay with me. I said, “If you read the
Conservative
—”

They nodded, Yes, yes . . .

“—then maybe you read my account—”

Yes, yes . . .

I thought they might go into a tap dance in their polished shoes and seersucker suits. “Now, do you happen to recall a man driving up in a red sports car last night?”

“I certainly do. An Alfa Romeo two-seater. Just gorgeous!”

Alfa Romeo
. Here might be another word my mind could taste that would go with “poinciana,” “bougainvillea,” and “Tamiami.” I shook my head a little to get the words out of it. “He had dinner here?”

“Of course,” said Ron or Gaby. “The Lobster Thermidor.” Wouldn't you know?

The other one said, or whispered, “We heard he'd been involved in a great scandal years ago over near Spirit Lake? At that big hotel that burned down?”

I nodded. I wasn't about to go into detail about the scandal. “Did he meet anyone here?”

“No.”

“No.”

“He didn't say anything about visiting friends at Lake Noir or anything like that?”

“No,” said Gaby. I knew it was Gaby, for he added, “Ron?”

Ron shook his head.

Of course, why would Morris Slade talk to them about his plans? But then why was Morris Slade here on his own?

I thought for a moment, but could come up with nothing else. “So he just left and went back to the highway.” This seemed obvious, so what Gaby said next surprised me.

“No. As a matter of fact, he drove off toward White's Bridge.” He pointed not toward the highway, but away from it. The bridge was just a short distance from the restaurant.

My eyes opened wider. That really made me wonder.

Them too. “We couldn't figure out where he'd be going. No one lives around here except for an old man, down the road from Mirror Pond. That's where the road just turns to dirt. We've never been on it.”

Past Brokedown House and several miles beyond, dwindling and widening and dwindling to hardly more than a path, all the way to the back of Spirit Lake.

Ron said, “Of course, you know about the shooting there.” He nodded toward a point just beyond the bridge. “That was something.” He shivered, it seemed, with delight.

Gaby whispered, “Business was better than usual. I expect people are a bit ghoulish.” He flapped his hand. “Don't quote me.”

They were speaking of Fern Queen's murder. I said, “I won't. But he would have to have come back by the restaurant here. Did he?”

“Not unless it was after we turned in, and that wasn't till around one, one-thirty.”

Ron bit his lip. “Well, there
is
that old man. . . . Could he be a friend or relation of some kind?” He switched the menus to his other arm. “I never thought about that until now, that the car didn't come back.”

“Maybe you just didn't see it, I mean, with all of your guests.”

“Not last night; there weren't more than six or eight people. . . .” He mused. “We ran out of pheasant, I recall.”

My mother would probably remember in this way, running out of something. I said, “I'd better be going.”

“How did you get here?”

“Taxi.”

Gaby turned. “I'll call you one.”

“Not right now, please. I'm going to walk over to Mr. Butternut's.”

They raised quizzical brows. They looked enough alike to be twins.

“The old man,” I said. “That's his name.” They'd been here for years and didn't know that? That was the restaurant business.

They shook their heads. Ron said, “My, but you are intrepid!”

I smiled at whatever that meant and left the Lobster Thermidor and pheasant-scented room.

 

I crossed the short expanse of White's Bridge, barely a dozen yards, curved around Mirror Pond, where the shooting of Fern Queen had occurred, and walked the dirt road as far as Mr. Butternut's small house, a cabin really, one great big room and a kitchen and a bedroom.

The place was lit up like a wildfire, even though it was broad day outside. A big bulbous porch light hung directly over the doorway, moth-shrouded like the ones at the hotel. He did not come directly to my knocking, so I called out, “Mr. Butternut! It's me, Emma Graham!” I heard him reply, but distantly, and there was a shuffling about before he pulled open the door.

“Well, what in tarnation?” He sounded pleased.

I was sure for anyone to visit him was an occasion. I don't think he had any family left at all, and being stuck out here with no one around must have been hard on him.

“Hi, Mr. Butternut. May I come in?”

“Yeah, sure. You want some cocoa?”

We'd had it when I was here before, right after Fern Queen's murder. “Okay. I see you've got a good fire going in your stove.”

It was an ancient cast-iron one and the fire was so hot the air felt blistered.

“Come on, come on, set yourself down.”

There were two armchairs drawn up before the stove and I perched on one, then sat back as far as I could to get away from the heat. I think old people tend to be colder. “Listen, did you happen to notice a red sports car around here last night?”

“Sure did.” He was rattling pans around.

I straightened, surprised I'd hit pay dirt again. I waited for him to go on, but he didn't; he just plunked down a small pan and now was getting milk out of his little icebox.

“Well . . . where? I mean, did it go by here?”

“You bet. My Lord, why any fool would want to drive a fancy roadster like that down this good-for-nothing road's beyond me. I ain't got no marshmallows.” He was looking into an almost-empty plastic Jet-Puffed bag that I could see held a couple of marshmallows stuck in a corner. He just didn't want to share them, was all.

He poured milk into the pan and added cocoa and sugar and stirred this into a paste before adding more milk. He made pretty good cocoa.