MURDER at CRAWFORD HOUSE (Allie Griffin Mysteries Book 3) (4 page)

              As the coffee was poured out, Allie said, "So Larry, what is your favorite memory?"

              "My all-time favorite?" said Larry.

              "Well, we can cover that too if you want, but I was thinking of your favorite memory from our time working on
Chimera
."

              "Well, my favorite memory is probably the time you came up with that name."

              "I never hear this one," said Jürgen.

              "Mind if I tell it?" said Larry.

              "I'll tell it," said Allie. "You'll ruin it or wind up making yourself look like the hero."

              They shared a light laugh and Allie began.

              "Ok, so you all know I came on board fairly late. And there I was, this nerdy little lit major with a chip on her shoulder. I wound up marrying a doctor, by the way, on a side note, making me the first person in history to have a literary degree actually pay off."

              Again, a shared laugh lightened up the room.

              "So I came on board, and I think I was talking to you, Bertie, is that right?"

              Bertie shrugged at his bowl of bisque. "Yeah, I think so."

              Allie felt put-off by this response. "Ok then. Anyway, I was talking to
somebody
about the gig and after I got back to my dorm, all elated that I might possibly fit in to at least a tiny gaggle of my own kind, suddenly it occurred to me that I didn’t even know the name of the magazine. I felt so dumb for not asking. Well I asked around and found out the name of the thing was
The Sticker Book
, which made absolutely no sense whatsoever.
The Sticker Book
? Are you kidding me? What drug-addled hippie mind thought that one up? Well, when I showed up that first day, Larry here was the only one in the English office. I said, and I'll never forget the look on your face, and I still can’t believe that I had the guts to say it, I said, 'So can we please, for the love of God, change the name of this toilet paper?'"

              The guests burst out laughing.

              "I was so insulted," said Larry.

              "You looked like you were going to belt me one, à la Ralph Kramden."

              "To the moon, Alice!" said Larry.

              "Exactly. So anyway, I said, 'Listen, I have it on good word that this magazine needs to be held to a higher standard,' because you see I'd been talking to people. I said, 'Let's start with the name and work our way up to fonts and then finally to content.'"

              "It's true," said Larry, "I swear on my life, that's exactly how she put it."

              "Do you remember what you said in response?"

              "I said, 'You're one of us.'"

              "Very good," said Allie. "So I said, 'Why don’t we call it
Chimera?
' Larry said, 'Huh?' And I said, '
Chimera.
It's a mythological beast, first mentioned in the
Iliad
. It's an animal made out of the parts of other animals.' I figured, why not? That's exactly what a literary magazine is."

              "Genius," said Jürgen.

              "Thank you, good sir."

              At this point, one of the wait staff came in with what looked like an urgent message, whispering in Larry's ear.

              He excused himself from the table and went quickly out of the room. Upon returning some moments later, he explained the situation.

              "Apparently," he said with some amusement in his voice, "the snow is getting worse. The waiter you just saw was the last of the staff to remain. Unbeknownst to me, Michaud had dismissed them all. So, since the last of the staff is braving the blizzard, we're left taking care of our own plates, and we may be snowed in for the weekend." He held up his coffee cup. "Cheers."

#

              It seemed as though a pall had been cast over the entire weekend with this latest development. The guests rose from their seats, each with a plate and silverware in hand in a show of solidarity with the Gordons and their staff-less predicament.

              "Just put them right in there," Larry said, indicating the huge industrial sink in the corner of the kitchen. "Someone will take care of them."

              Allie had politely let everyone else go first. While she waited, she studied Larry Gordon's face. Here was a man trying with all his might to save face and grin and bear a weekend that was unraveling before his eyes, and he was powerless to stop it.

              "Well," he said to Allie, "dessert was good at least."

              "Dessert was phenomenal!"

              "You like my house?" The man looked positively heartbroken.

              "Larry, your house is...unreal."

              This brought a smile to the man's face.

              "Really. And our room is outstanding. There's no other word for it. The view...my God, the sunrise must look amazing from there."

              His face changed. "The sunrise?"

              "Yeah, from the windo—, oh right. I forgot to tell you; we switched rooms with Bertie. I was going to tell you. I hope you don’t mind."

              "With Bertie? Why?"

              "He said the sunlight irritates him or something."

              The man looked downtrodden. "I really wish you'd said something. We planned everything out." Then he shrugged, "Oh well. There's no staff anyway. We’ll just adjust. Go ahead; we’ll meet in the drawing room. I want us to talk of old times. Maybe we can salvage some of this weekend, eh?"

              He followed Allie out and went upstairs while she walked over to Rachel Forrester who stood by an immense bay window in the breakfast nook, gazing out at the blanket of white that lay all around.

              "Crazy, huh?" said Allie.

              The woman started. "You scared me. I didn’t even hear you approach."

              "I'm sorry." She pointed to the window. "Crazy, huh?"

              "Yeah. Yeah, it is."

              The woman wrung her hands while she stared at the snow.

              "Everything ok, Rachel?"             

              Rachel took a deep breath. "Yeah. Everything's fine."

              "It's just that your hands—"

              "I'm fine. I'm just a little anxious. I don’t like being snowed in with... I just don’t like it."

              "I can understand that. I'm about to have a nervous breakdown."

              The woman smiled, but it was short-lived.

              Allie stood next to her, gazing. Now was as good a time as any, maybe, if there ever would be a good time.

              "Rachel, I need to talk to you. I rehearsed this over and over and it never sounded right, so I'm just gonna wing it. I'm sorry. Back when the whole Tori Cardinal affair went down, I was a rather inept investigator and I—, I know it must have sounded like—, I said to you that— Sure is snowy out there, isn't it?"

              "Allie, that's water under the bridge."

              "Are you sure? I mean, Rachel, I always counted you as kind of a kindred spirit. We have similar backgrounds and, I don’t know, I just always thought you'd make a good friend. I was very upset when I insulted you."

              The woman nodded and the hint of a smile appeared on her face. "Allie, I was upset, but that's all in the past. It's over. We're ok, you and I. Ok?"

              "Ok." She smiled. "We’ll, I'm going to go upstairs now and curl up in a fetal position. I'll see you in a little bit. Gordon wants to shoot the breeze about old times. Should be interesting."

              Rachel smiled, then turned back to look outside.

              On the way up, Allie bumped into Larry Gordon.

              "You going to meet us in the drawing room?" he said quickly.

              "Yeah, just want to freshen up a bit."

              Larry hopped down the stairs and disappeared around the corner. Allie continued on up, and a feeling of desperation—of anxiety toward impending, relentless boredom, and of chronic claustrophobia —descended on her like a lead blanket; and she ran to her room, past Del, and threw herself on the bed, screaming maniacally into her pillow.

              "I
knew
it. Didn’t I say it before? Didn’t I?"

              Allie was pacing their room and speaking in hushed yet forceful tones.

              "Yes, you said it," Del said lackadaisically.

              "Snowed in. I'm going to go insane with these people. You think anyone would mind if I just stayed in here all weekend? Or in the library? That's an idea! I'll sleep in the library. You think it has a lock on the door?"

              "Listen, sunshine, relax. It's not so bad. There's plenty to do here."

              "With no chef or staff? Wake up, Del. Without the five-star meals, there's nothing. I seriously don’t think Larry or his wife have prepared a meal on their own in years. We'll be lucky to get a canned soup."

              "Alright," said Del, rising from the bed. "You've obviously had too much caffeine. Just relax."

              "Do you know how long this blizzard is supposed to last?"

              "I think I left my meteorology degree in my other pants."

              Allie fumbled in her bag for her phone. "I'm going to check with the National Weather Service right n—" She froze, and then looked at Del.

              "What?"

              "No service."

              Del let out a laugh that enraged Allie right down to her socks. She threw her phone on the bed, and fell down next to it. She felt like burying her face in the pillow and sobbing. Del patted her back tenderly and leaned down to her ear. "My darling, I'm going to go number one." Then she went into the bathroom.

              Rising from the bed, Allie decided that this was not going to wreck her completely. She left the room to go to the other bathroom on the floor in order to splash some water on her face and perhaps regain a bit of calm and resolution in the process.

              But the bathroom was occupied.

              Frustrated beyond the capacity for words, she turned and went back to her room. It was 7:45 p.m.

#

              Downstairs, the guests were assembled, sipping their after dinner drinks. All except Bertie, who was upstairs.

              "I want that man down here this instant," Larry said in mock tones like a school headmaster. "Del, darling, will you be a pet and go upstairs to fetch him for us?"

              "Righto," said Del, happy to play along.

              The mood was lightening up a great deal, with everyone resigned to the situation and an unspoken feeling of making the best of it wafting through the air. Lighthearted ribbing and old, inside jokes flew back and forth like tennis volleys. Allie felt some of her anxiety melting away, and figured that if the rest of the weekend was like this, they'd emerge none the worse for wear, with a pretty neat adventure to speak and reminisce about in the future.

              She was feeling like this until Del came down looking ashen.

              "Bertie's in the bathroom and...he won’t come out."

              Amid some giggles, Allie asked, "What do you mean he won’t come out?"

              "He's not coming out. I knocked, I called. I think something's wrong."

              Larry immediately got up from one of the comfy chairs and said, "We have a key to the rooms somewhere. I'll see what's up."

              Allie followed him to a small table against the wall by the stairs. From a top drawer he extracted a single key on a large key ring.

              She followed him upstairs while the rest of the guests remained in the drawing room.

              "I hope everything's alright," said Larry. "He looked fine. Didn’t he look fine?"

              "He looked ok to me," said Allie.

              Larry pounded on the bathroom door. "Bertie? Bertie, are you in there? Are you alright?"

              He threw a nervous glance over at Allie. She shrugged in response.

              Slowly, he inserted the key. He waited a moment, and then knocked again. "Bertie? We're going to open the door, ok?"

              He looked again at Allie. She nodded to him. And he turned the key and opened the door.

              "I don’t understand," said Allie. "You were right. He looked fine."

              "Are you sure he's—"

              "There's no pulse." She felt the man’s neck and shook her head. She put her head down close against his mouth to listen for breathing. His mouth smelled like garlic and mint and spicy cinnamon.

              The body lay on the bathroom floor in front of the sink. A bottle of aspirin, opened and spilled with tablets everywhere, lay near him. The medicine cabinet was open. On the sink lay a box of toothpaste, unopened. The sink was dry and the hand towels neatly folded on the rack. In the wicker wastebasket was a balled-up tissue and a single Dixie cup, crumpled.

              Coming off the body was a pronounced floral scent and tobacco. Bertie was meticulously clean right down to the tips of his fingers. His glasses were partially off his head, and there was a red gash with bruised flesh around it on the forehead.

              "This gash here," said Allie. "He didn’t have this before."

              She stood up and looked around. The porcelain sink had an ornamental tap in the shape of a swan's neck with a head that rose up and over and stared down into the sink. Allie went to it and looked closely. "There's a teeny bit of blood right there. You see it?" She pointed to the head of the swan."He was facing the mirror, probably getting the aspirin, when he fell forward. He must have hit his head on this. It looks like he may have had a heart attack. The aspirin. My husband had heart disease. We had aspirin on hand for angina pain." She took a deep breath and put her hand on her head. "Oh my."

              "What do we do?" said Larry, a touch of panic in his voice.

              "I don’t know. Why are you asking me? I never had to deal with this. Well, that's a lie."

              "What does
that
mean?"

              "I can’t explain right now. The point is, at that time there were cops there to handle it. No cops are getting through here tonight. Not with that blizzard out there and this house ten thousand miles from civilization."             

              She made a sudden move to inspect the faucet again when Larry stopped her. "Don’t touch anything."

              "I wasn't going to."

              "Don’t touch anything else. The body, the sink, anything."

              "Larry, chill out. I wasn't going to touch anything. I wanted to take another look at the faucet is all."

              "I'm sorry, I really am, I'm just—, my God, I don’t know what to do."

              "Do you have a blanket or a sheet? A sheet would be better."

              "Yes, of course." He left the bathroom quickly, muttering under his breath, "Where do they keep them?"

              Allie took another look at the body, and then squatted down to get a closer look. She stood up with a very uneasy feeling in her gut. And then she turned and left and closed the door behind her.