Poison to Purge Melancholy (28 page)

Acey agreed. “I don’t know what’s up between you and my bro, but it’s bound to be Rich’s fault. Sit and eat with us. I’ll buzz him and tell him to get his fat ass back here.” She reached for her cell, but before she could punch the on-button, Delia stayed her hand.

“No. Not yet.” I got the impression, whatever she intended to say to Rich, she didn’t want an audience. In the end, though, she agreed to stay awhile.

Evelyn closed the door and we all walked toward the dining room where we found Glad blocking the doorway. “Beth Ann, go ask your father and uncle if they’re coming down, so I know how many plates to put out this time.”

Beth Ann frowned at me and Miss Maggie hastily volunteered to go fetch Hugh herself. Guiltily remembering her arthritis, I shook my head. “The kid and I’ll go root him out together.”

So Beth Ann and I climbed the steps, my knees protesting each riser. I was tired—my usual late afternoon slump—and also hadn’t been drinking as much water as Horse had prescribed. I vowed to down a quart of it with dessert.

Upstairs at Foot’s door, I let Beth Ann do the knocking and summoning (“Dad! Grandmom wants to know if you and Uncle Foot are eating dessert with us!”) while I inspected the door jamb by the light of the single electric wall sconce in the hall. A shallow indentation was still visible where the lock had been—the lock Dunbar said Brennan had put on his door, proving this to be the salesman’s room, where mercury-tainted logs had burned in the fireplace.

With Beth Ann right beside me, I didn’t get the headache or panic attack I’d experienced yesterday, but I felt
something
. Worry? Mild anxiety? Like the hint of fear I’d felt at the bottom of the stairs after we first arrived.

The door shook as someone tried to open it. My eyes were focused on where the lock had been, and I saw the door stick right at that spot. On the other side of the wood, I heard Hugh curse loudly. Remembering how Glad had let Foot out yesterday, I told Beth Ann to try opening the door.

She turned the knob, pushing, and the door swung in without effort.

“Evelyn’s got to get this door fixed,” Hugh groused. “I had a heck of a time getting in, and Acey had to let me out earlier.”

I heard Foot behind him. “That’s why I didn’t close it all the way last night.”

A door that only opened from the outside? And that only Carson women descendants could open easily? Added to the fact that Carson women descendants kept the bogeyman away better than anyone else in the house. I got the feeling someone was trying to tell us something. Thing was, if this ghost was playing charades, I couldn’t get past “First syllable, sounds like . . . ?”

“Aunt Delia’s here,” Beth Ann announced. “Will you come down, Uncle Foot? Please?”

Foot was stretched out on the bed, hands behind his head. He pushed himself up on one elbow to gaze at his niece. He must have had as hard a time saying no to her pleading look as I did, because after half a moment he took a steadying breath and said, “Yeah, I’ll come down.”

Beth Ann turned to me. “We have to go tell Grandmom.”

I reached over for Hugh’s hand—I still needed to talk to him. “You go ahead. I’ll come down with your dad.”

Her eyes went to our entwined fingers, but she didn’t scowl this time. “Come on, Uncle Foot. I’ll race you.”

With an abrupt burst of energy, Foot launched himself off the bed and out the door. We heard Beth Ann shriek, “You cheat!” as they clamored down the steps.

Hugh pulled me farther into the room and, cradling my face in his free hand, kissed me. I kissed back. He wrapped his arms around me. I reached up to run my fingers through his hair. The interlude could have been wonderful—better than dessert—except dummy-me forgot to keep my eyes open.

Suddenly I felt someone else kissing me, roughly. Holding me too tight. I caught a glimpse of red cloth as I pushed away.

“You’re still mad at me?” Hugh had let go and was studying me through narrowed eye slits.

Thank God I still had my hands on his chest, so I felt nothing worse than embarrassment. “No, I—” Acey was right. I’d have to lie to him if I didn’t tell him about the ghost. Then again, I didn’t have time now. “I’m sorry. I’ll explain later.” I stood on tiptoe to smooch him, my lids open.

He wasn’t convinced. “We ought to get downstairs.”

“Wait. I have to know something first. Why did Foot ask for you specifically? Because you were the only sibling not at the shore house last weekend?”

Hugh’s jaw dropped a half inch. Pay dirt.

“And what does Foot think?” I asked. “That the drug they found in Dr. Weisel was mixed into a bottle of antacid?”

“Yes, but how did you—”

“Your observant daughter told me the white glop on Weisel’s nose was antacid. I figured he was self-absorbed enough that if he got
agita
, and remembered seeing antacid in the bathroom, he’d just go take a swig, without benefit of spoon or dosage cup. And if he didn’t take the protrip—whatever, himself—”

“Foot thought it was his own Mylanta,” Hugh said. “He’s always been paranoid, thinking everyone’s out to pick on him, but this time, well, if you mix the medicine Foot takes with the type of antidepressant they found in Weisel, it’s likely to be fatal. So Foot took the bottle from his vanity bag and brought it to the hospital last night—”

“He made them test it, and told them what to look for in Weisel’s system, right? That’s why he insisted on going. But Foot’s antacid must have tested clean.”

“How do you know that?” Hugh was starting to look peeved at my deductions.

I still had my hands on his chest. I moved them around his waist, and my breasts up against his abs to placate him. “Because the other bottles in the front bathroom disappeared. When the hospital called this morning, they must have given Foot the lab report.”

Hugh nodded. “He said they found antacid in Weisel’s stomach last night, so a toxicologist was called in to test the bottle, in case it was deliberate poisoning. She was really pissed to be up all night Christmas Eve on a wild goose chase.”

“So your brother decided one of the other bottles must be tainted instead and he confiscated them?”

“Foot says they’re in a safe place. Wouldn’t tell me where.” Hugh absently slipped his arms around my back.

The sensation distracted me, but I kept my mind on business. “One bottle was Horse’s, wasn’t it? I saw it next to a shaving kit in the bathroom. He was the only one of you here at the time.”

“Right, that was his. Foot said Horse had it sitting out like that last weekend, next to Acey’s stuff on the counter in the bathroom the three of them shared.”

“So Foot thinks what? That Acey or Rich put the antidepressant into Horse’s antacid?”

Hugh shrugged, dazed, like he was in total disbelief himself. “They had the opportunity, and either of them could write a prescription for the stuff.”

“What about the other bottle? The one in the medicine chest? Weisel might have chugged that one instead.”

Hugh sighed. “Ma’s. She always keeps a supply handy.”

“Evelyn might take it, too.”

“Maybe.” Hugh pulled me closer, touching his cheek to the top of my head, probably so I wouldn’t see how troubled he was. “Jesus, Pat. Who’d want to harm any of them?”

“His generous Patrons may inspire
By filling up his Pockets higher.”

—
Boston Evening Post
, news carrier verses, Christmas 1764

December 25, 1783—Market Green

Having no wish to
be seen from Captain Underwood’s windows, I situated myself farther along Nicholson Street, behind a large oak that stood on the green across from the Randolph house. What I hoped to learn from viewing the scene in the noonday light, I had little notion. Yet, here Brennan was slain.

No blood was now apparent upon Underwood’s steps. They’d been scrubbed clean. The house, too, looked stark and empty this noon, with no fine horses beside the curb and no footman at the door, though smoke rose from three chimneys.

“Benjamin!”

I started, swinging around, to find Noah Akers beaming at me, his nose red from the cold. Flustered, I nearly forgot to bow and touch my hat.

“Delighted to see you,” he said, with a hearty clap to my shoulder. “I’ve just left Mother visiting with old Mrs. Withers. While those two hens cackle together, I thought I’d walk about for health, as the modern doctors advise. I’ll wager they deliver such advice from comfortable chairs by their fires.” He nodded toward the Underwood house. “Shocking what happened last eve. I dined there, you know. Mother and I.”

Noah studied my reaction as he spoke. ’Twas with caution, I asked, “You saw Brennan murdered?”

“That I did, from the window right of the steps. Mother sat there to watch the antics, and I stood behind her, so my view was not good. We heard little of the play, for the sash was closed against the cold. Yet, I thought I’d have another look today, for Mother claims that after the shot, she saw smoke beside the hedgerow.”

The hedge alongside the next house, Noah meant, where young Tom hid himself while we’d been inside. I surveyed the row now. ’Twas tall as a man. Taller, perhaps. I pictured a musket barrel, forced through its greenery. “A bit far to assure a true aim,” I said with doubt.

“For a musket, yes, but not a rifle.”

A rifle? Musket shot fired through a rifled barrel, spinning the ball to its target with greater accuracy? Yes, possible. In the army, only sharpshooters wielded such arms—rifles took too long to load when a company faced a line of Brown Bess muzzles. Also, rifles cost more, so men like me relied more on luck and less on aim when coney hunting.

Noah seemed to read my thoughts. “Rich men can afford to amass a show of fine weaponry. The captain displays his collection upon the south wall of his rear parlor. No less than six rifles hang there, fancily inlaid and carved. I admired them before dinner—”

“And after Brennan was shot?”

“I regret that I did not think to view them again. Indeed, we were given no opportunity before the second course was served. And Mother made no mention of the smoke until this morn.”

I considered the idea. Was it happenstance that the murderer of Thomas Carson should himself be killed at the house of Carson’s commanding officer? Had Underwood perhaps never reported my suspicions to his superiors? Had there been some link ’twixt him and John Brennan before the war’s end? I was beginning to form a notion what that link might be.

But no, Brennan did not die at Underwood’s hand. The captain watched our play from his door, in my constant view. “Who, sir,” I asked, “do you presume fired the fatal shot?”

Noah placed the fingers of one hand between the breast buttons of his coat for warmth. “My sire was a great one for antics. He went about reveling each year, always as St. George’s dragon. As a boy, I shadowed him, much as that young lad did last night. The last two years before I joined the army, Father let me play the part of Molly Muggins. I wore Mother’s skirts.” He laughed, his eyes shining, as if seeing anew a happy time past. “But I cannot recall playing at a single house of gentry where a footman or two—or every manslave in the place—did not stand at the ready, in case our antics turned rough and troublesome.”

I saw his point. No liveried servant had been in attendance of our play. “Was Lynch inside?”

“I did not see the man, nor any other servant. Possibly they were all required for the remove in the dining room.” Noah seemed to think it unlikely. “Moreover, after Brennan fell, ’twas some minutes before Sergeant Lynch rang the bell for the constable. Though, with Dr. Riddick appearing from the shadows to tend the victim, perhaps Underwood first wished to see if Brennan could be saved before calling for Lynch once more.”

I could tell from Noah’s manner that this supposition did less than satisfy him, so I asked, “Now that you view the scene by day, sir, what is your opinion?”

“I believe I may seek out the constable myself and just mention Mother’s smoke to him. Give him something to ponder besides the whereabouts of those revelers.” Noah removed his hand from his coat and undid the lower buttons, the better to reach into his waistcoat pocket. He brought forth a small purse. “I meant to bless your Christmas box this Tuesday, when you come to do my accounts, but today is as well. And here is a bit more for—well, I don’t imagine you collected much fiddling last evening.”

He knew of my part for certain. However, I merely accepted and expressed my deepest gratitude for his gift—three dollars and six bits, more coins than I’d rubbed together at one time in four months.

“You deserve it, Ben, for all you’ve helped me this month.” Smiling, he added in lowered voice, “Though, if you hear of any future plans for mummery, you might mention that you know of a lad who cuts quite a figure in a skirt.”

“That I will, Noah. And, if you would, I know of a part you might play sooner.”

Everyone was already in
the dining room when Hugh and I went downstairs. The room was now candlelit, as I’d seen it last night, with the addition of a single taper with a hurricane glass cover on the small table where Acey and Sachi sat. “‘Far from the madding crowd,’” Acey explained, “though they aren’t so ‘madding’ without Rich here.”

At the main table, Horse sat at the foot and Delia next to Miss Maggie, opposite the two empty chairs left for me and Hugh. It might have made more sense for me to sit between the two big men, but I plopped myself down next to Beth Ann, leaving Hugh and Horse to bump knees. If I lost contact with Hugh, I still had his daughter for backup health insurance.

Glad hadn’t allowed anyone to dig in until we arrived. Justifiably, too, because this was her most amazing layout yet. Like last night, the tablecloth had been removed and the desserts were set out on the bare wood. At the head and foot of the table were upside-down cones made from raspberries and cherries, respectively, both with sugar glazes to hold them together, each summit capped by a holly leaf. Shelled nuts made a nest around each base.

Of the four dishes surrounding the center, two opposite diagonals displayed dried fruit: apples and apricots, pears and pineapple, all garnished with colorful hard candies.

Glad pointed to one of the other two platters. “Apple tansey,” which was a sweet omelette fried over slices of apple, then flipped out so the apples were on top.

Opposite that was a plate of what Glad called “ratafia biscuits, flavored with almonds,” which reminded me of the lighter-than-air Stella Doro Anginetti egg-white cookies my Aunt Lydia buys by the carload. Around the pile of biscuits were star-shaped purplish-blue flowers.

“Borage flowers,” Glad replied when I asked. “They’re candied and perfectly good to eat.”

The
pièce de résistance
was center stage. “A Floating Island,” Glad explained. “The whipped cream in the bowl has lemon and sack mixed into it—”

“Sack,” Evelyn interjected as he reached for a bottle of white wine and the water pitcher, “was the name given to fortified Spanish wine or, more commonly in the eighteenth century, an English honey-wine, spiced with rue and fennel root. I used mead, though I couldn’t find fennel root this time of year, so I substituted a few of the seeds—”

“The Italian Market,” I broke in. “In South Philly. They have fennel root in December. My cousin Tutti brings it to every Montella New Year’s party. Let me know next time you want it and I’ll call Tutti.”

Evelyn sent me a smile from over Delia’s shoulder, his face ruddy in the candlelight. “Thanks. I’ll do that.”

“As I was saying,” Glad continued, “floating on the whipped cream is an island made from thin slices of French roll, which back then meant a hard crusty bread. It’s layered with two kinds of jelly: currant and hartshorn.”

“We fudged here as well,” Evelyn apologized as he poured Acey’s wine. “Hartshorn jelly was made from ground deer antlers—”

“Eewww!” Beth Ann exclaimed, wrinkling up her nose.

Evelyn laughed. “That’s what made it set up, you see.”

“Ev used ordinary gelatin,” Glad assured her.

The finished product
did
look like an island, with more whipped cream on top—the real stuff, not the aerosol—like snow on a mountain. The rim of the bowl was garnished with dabs of different colored jellies and slices of orange. Miss Maggie gushed her praise and so did I. Even Delia said, “Wow, Mom. Very ambitious this year.”

Horse asked impatiently, “Can we eat now?”

Glad looked surprised, as if eating these creations hadn’t occurred to her. I personally thought it a shame to ruin them, especially since I was still stuffed with pottage, spoonbread, and Sally Lunn and wasn’t sure where I’d put dessert anyway.

“Forget about your stomach for once, Horse,” Acey said. “Some of us want to hear what Ma has to say.”

“No, it’s all right.” Glad resumed her seat. “I’m quite finished.”

No sooner were the words out of her mouth than the ambient light coming from the kitchen went out.

“Blast!” Evelyn exclaimed. “Another fuse.”

“Only the overhead lamp.” Glad patted the table near Evelyn’s place. “Sit and leave it until after the course.”

“No, I should check.” He set his pitcher and bottle on the sideboard. Lifting the candlestick from his end of the table, he went off through the pantry, the candle’s circle of wavering light making an eerie silhouette of his head and shoulders.

The kitchen wasn’t an absolute black hole, I noticed. Glad had left the porch light on and if I leaned forward, I could see the glare from outside casting windowpane-shaped rectangles on the kitchen’s vinyl bricks. But sans candle, the darker end of the dining room and pantry seemed extra creepy. I was twice as aware of our shadows high on the surrounding walls, seeming to have a life of their own every time someone passed a dessert plate. Thank goodness we still had light filtering in from the lamp in the front hall.

Evelyn returned and restored the candlestick. “Whole kitchen’s off. Stove and fridge. I’ll go change the fuses before our next course is ruined. Won’t be a minute.”

“Wait, I’m coming with you,” Miss Maggie announced, pushing her chair back from the table. I raised my eyebrows at her—Magnolia Shelby never abandons a full dish of food without good reason. She winked at me and shuffled off after Evelyn.

“That’s the third time this weekend.” Foot’s tone was steeped with I-told-you-so superiority.

“Fourth,” said Glad, oblivious to his disapproval. “The stove was out when I got up this morning. Odd. Usually doesn’t happen so often. Elizabeth must be restless this weekend.”

Beth Ann froze with a ratafia biscuit between her teeth. “You mean Elizabeth Carson?”

“Of course.” Glad beamed as she cut a slice of tansey for Evelyn. “I’ve felt her in this house since we moved in. Ev says I’m being silly, but I know she’s here. I wonder if the authenticity of these dinners stirred her curiosity—”

“Stop it!”

We all stared at Hugh, who hardly ever raised his voice in anger. Oh, I’d heard him bellow halfway across Bell Run’s acreage, threatening to ground Beth Ann, but that was all dramatic license. When he’s intensely angry, he holds it in.

“Take it easy, bro,” Horse said, setting his fork down.

“No.” Hugh was mortified by his reaction, I could tell, but he went on anyway. “This Elizabeth Carson crap has to stop. I swear, next thing Mom’ll start believing she
is
Elizabeth.” He glanced from Horse to Foot. “Do you know she’s changed her name to Carson-Lee?”

Glad sat up a tad straighter. Not that she could slouch in the stays she wore. “I see nothing wrong with being proud of our blood ties to a fine old Virginia family. Especially now that I’ve moved back into the very house where—”

“You are
not
a Carson,” Hugh seethed. “None of us are Carsons. There haven’t
been
Carsons in Williamsburg in more than two centuries.”

“We don’t know that,” Glad said. “Elizabeth’s son Thomas might have—”

“You were born plain Gladys Hawkins, Mom.” Hugh’s rage seemed to deflate all at once and the next words came out more like a plea. “What’s wrong with that? Ever since I can remember, you’ve been trying to be someone you’re not.”

“Like every other human being on the planet,” Acey piped up. “Including you, Fitzhugh Lee, with your going to the woods for a life of quiet desperation à la Thoreau. At least Ma’s aspirations aren’t self-defeating.”

“Aren’t they?” Foot asked. “We have clinical terms for folks who believe ghosts come to their dinner parties.”

The kitchen light came back on and Glad jumped to her feet. “I’ll just go see if the refrigerator’s working.” She practically ran out through the pantry.

“Nice move, Sigmund,” Acey said to Foot.

Miss Maggie bustled in all excited. “I love old cellars. They can tell so much about a building.” She resumed her seat and began filling the thumbprint of a ratafia biscuit with glazed raspberries. “For instance, this house originally had only a crawl space beneath it. Makes sense. The land around Williamsburg was always swampy, which was one of the reasons they moved the capitol to Richmond. The summers here were thought to be unhealthy. They knew nothing of mosquito-born diseases, of course—they thought the illnesses came from inhaling the stench of pond scum. Anyway, back at the time of the Yorktown campaign, a French officer made a map of this area, and if I remember right, it showed a stream running by this house.”

“Absolutely right.” Evelyn had come back during her lecture. He set the bag of fuses on the sideboard. “The basement wasn’t dug out until the 1940s, after the Williamsburg Tunnel segment of the Colonial Parkway was completed. They’d re-engineered the landscape for the project, draining the marshes, so it made a basement feasible. That’s when the first restoration of the house was done: a new heater put in, and visible pipes and wires moved below the floors.”

Glad re-entered, assuring Evelyn that the appliances were once more working in the kitchen. He held her chair as she sat down, then took his own.

“What I thought was interesting”—Miss Maggie paused to chew a piece of fruit-ladened biscuit—“is that the fuse box for the kitchen wing is mounted on the original brick foundation, whereas the box for this part of the house is mounted below the other, on the 1940s cinder block foundation. And according to Evelyn, the electricity in this wing never goes off.”

“Then all you need to do is replace the kitchen fuse box.” Delia made it sound as if home improvement projects were in the same league as grocery shopping and laundry for her.

“In the decade after the restoration, the Foundation tried changing the box several times with no luck,” Evelyn explained. “I’ve put in for a circuit breaker box, but I don’t know—”

“Mount it on the cinder block,” Miss Maggie insisted. “That’ll solve your problems.”

“I’m willing to try anything.” Evelyn looked at his guests. “I apologize. This isn’t a common occurrence. I don’t know why it’s happening so much this weekend—”

“Ma knows,” Acey broke in. “It’s the ghost.”

“Don’t start,” Foot warned his sister.

Acey ignored him. “Oh, I believe her. See, I saw one of the resident specters myself.” She paused to increase the shock value, grinning at the disbelief on her brothers’ faces.

“Please, Acey,” Foot said. “Why must you—”

“Because it’s true.” Acey stuck her tongue out at him. “I saw a ghost in my room last night. Sorry, Ma, it wasn’t Elizabeth Carson. I saw her daughter, Polly.”

“Polly?” Glad seemed both fascinated and confused. “I suppose she must have stayed to look after her mother, as she did through the last years of Elizabeth’s life—”

“No,” Hugh said, loud and firm. “There
are no ghosts
in this house.”

“Yeah-there-are.” Beth Ann made one word out of three as she glanced around me at her dad. “I saw Polly, too. In the same room.”

Everyone went silent. They might all assume Acey was lying, but Beth Ann was different, though Foot went so far as to ask, “Did your aunt put you up to this?”

“No!” Beth Ann let out one of her grown-ups-are-such-a-pain sighs. “I saw the ghost before Aunt Acey. And we didn’t tell each other until a little while ago.”

During the general outcry that followed, Hugh scowled not at his daughter, but at me, like this was all my doing.

Need I say that this annoyed me a smidge? “Hey, don’t look at me. Polly’s
your
ancestor.”

“So you saw her, too?” he murmured, not pleased.

“Not—uh, not in the same way.” Problem was, he knew which way I meant. I could see my betrayal on his face—I’d broken my promise. And maybe he was wondering if this was an indication of how I’d treat other vows between us.

Obey
. I
knew
that one would be the real bugger. Love and honor were easy by comparison.

My first instinct was to make excuses. Plead self-defense. This ghost was trying to poison me, after all. Or I could say, when I found out Beth Ann had seen Polly, I wanted to make sure she was in no danger. Hugh
did
want me to act maternal, right?

But long before Beth Ann mentioned her sighting, and before I’d felt a twinge of nausea or taste of metal, I’d closed my eyes beneath the mistletoe, trying to start a conversation with someone two centuries dead, in direct violation of my promise. Worse yet, guilt-wise, I’d been kissed by someone other than Hugh—twice—and hadn’t told him, so I felt like I was running around behind his back. Not that I’d asked for or enjoyed either experience.