Silver Scream: A Bed-And-Breakfast Mystery (9 page)

Joe didn’t respond, which forced Judith to speak. “I think he was taking some aspirin. He had a headache.”

“Hunh.” Cairo steered Dilys to the sink. “What does this tell you?”

Dilys’s smoky-gray eyes widened. “That the drain is plugged?”

Cairo put an avuncular arm around Dilys’s narrow shoulders. “Think a little harder. Take in the whole picture. Remember, you’re a rookie. This isn’t like your first two cases with the drunks popping each other and the spousal murder-suicide.”

“But,” Dilys protested in her little-girl voice, “is it a homicide?”

Cairo removed his arm and wagged a finger at his partner. “There you go, young lady. Is it? How can we tell?”

“We don’t have the body,” Dilys noted. “Shouldn’t they have waited until we got here before they removed it?”

Cairo nodded approval. “That’s right. Haste makes waste,” he added with a disapproving glance at Joe, who remained expressionless.

“I guess,” Dilys said slowly, “you should have told them we were on our way. Now we’ll have to wait for the autopsy.”

Cairo shot Dilys a sharp, wary glance. “They should have known we were coming. But you’re right, only the ME can tell us for sure how this guy died.” He gave Joe an even darker look. “You know better, Flynn—why didn’t you tell them to hold their horses?”

Joe stared up at the ceiling, looking innocent in his choirboy costume. “I’m retired, I’m old, I forgot.”

Cairo grunted. “If you say so.”

Joe said nothing.

But his former colleague wasn’t giving up. “Hey,” Cairo urged with an expansive gesture. “Share your thoughts with us, for old times’ sake. Reach out. We’re listening.”

“I never speculate,” Joe said quietly.

“No kidding?” Cairo gazed at Joe with feigned shock, then swore as the faulty cupboard door swung open and rested gently against his right ear. “What’s with this thing?” the detective demanded. “Ghosts?”

Judith shook her head. “The spring is sprung. Or something. It does that often.”

Cairo glared at Joe. “Can’t you or your slave here
fix the damned thing?” He gave the door a vicious slam, rattling china and glassware in the cupboards. Judith gritted her teeth.

But Cairo’s gaze was now on the spider above the sink. He turned to Judith. “What about you, Mrs. Flynn? Is that scary tarantula wannabe one of your Halloween decorations?”

“No.”

“Oh?” Cairo grew curious. “Then who put it there?”

“I’ve no idea,” Judith replied. “I didn’t see it when I was in the kitchen before…before Mr. Zepf died.”

Cairo nudged Dilys. “You hear that, young lady? Mrs. Flynn doesn’t know how that nasty old bug got there. What’s your idea?”

Warily, Dilys looked up at the spider. “Are you sure it’s not real?”

Cairo reached up and gave the spider a spin. “Definitely fake.”

Dilys gave a nod. “So maybe…” Her small voice trailed off.

“Yes?” Cairo urged. “Maybe what?”

“Maybe”—Dilys swallowed hard—“someone put the spider up there to frighten the deceased. You know, like a practical joke.”

Cairo frowned at her. “Come now, isn’t that pretty far-fetched?”

Dilys was blushing furiously. “Ah…maybe, but—”

“She could be right,” Judith put in, unable to watch the young woman suffer further. “The deceased—Mr. Zepf—was superstitious about spiders. They terrified him. Someone had already tried to scare him by placing one of these phony tarantulas in his bed.”

“No kidding.” Cairo moved his frown to Judith. “You sure about that, Mrs. Flynn?”

“Absolutely,” Judith replied. “There were several witnesses. Not to mention that Mr. Zepf became frightened by a very small but very real spider out on the back porch. I saw that with my own eyes.” To Judith’s satisfaction, Dilys had slipped behind Cairo and was making bunny ears above his head. Maybe, she thought, the young detective wasn’t quite as cowed as she pretended.

At that moment Angela La Belle and Ben Carmody appeared in the hallway that led from the back stairs.

“What’s going on?” Ben asked, looking sleepy.

Joe turned to the pair. “Didn’t Ms. Best tell you?”

Ms. Best hadn’t. “What’s to tell?” Angela inquired. “Bruno’s dead.” She was wearing a paper-thin wrapper over a sheer, short nightgown. “Are there any truffles left?”

Cairo’s dark eyes were bugging out from underneath the black brows that grew together. “Now who’s this, I might ask?” He leered at Joe. “Another one of your slaves?”

“This is Angela La Belle,” Joe said woodenly, “and Ben Carmody. They’re part of the movie company that came here with Bruno Zepf. You do have a list of possible witnesses, don’t you?”

“Ah!” The question was ignored as Cairo beamed and put out a pawlike hand. “Celebrities! I’m thrilled.” Despite the grin, it was obvious that Cairo would have preferred meeting a pair of real tarantulas.

Dilys, however, was goggle-eyed as she stared at Angela La Belle. “Ohmigod! I saw you in your first
big movie, that musical—
Enjoy Your Pants
! You have such a beautiful voice!”

Angela was scanning the kitchen counters, apparently for truffles. “Thanks. It was a small part. My voice was dubbed.”

“But the dancing!” Dilys enthused. “Looking down from way up high on you with all the spinning and leaping and twirling and—”

“That was a double,” Angela said, opening a couple of plastic containers. “I’ve got two left feet.” She looked at Judith. “So they ate all the truffles?”

“I guess so,” Judith replied. “Eugenia Fleming seemed especially fond of them.”

“Bummer.” Angela took in the official yellow tape that Stone Cold Sam Cairo was putting up between the kitchen and the dining room. “Oh,” she said with mild interest, “is this a crime scene or what?”

“Bruno couldn’t have drowned,” Ben Carmody remarked. “Win must be wrong. He probably had a heart attack. Not that I blame him after what happened tonight.”

Cairo whirled around with surprising agility for such a thickset man. “And what was that, young fellow?”

Ben gazed incredulously at the detective. “The premiere. What else? Bruno bombed. Big time.”

“Ah, yes.” Cairo rummaged in the pocket of his navy-blue raincoat. “What’s it called?” He peered at a small notepad.
“The Gasbag?”

“It might as well be,” Ben said with a heavy sigh. “It’s
The Gasman,
” he added, emphasizing the final syllable.

“So,” Cairo said, stuffing the notepad back inside
his raincoat, “the deceased had suffered a big disappointment, had he? Did he have a history of heart trouble?”

Angela and Ben looked at each other.

“Ulcers, maybe,” Angela said.

“High blood pressure?” Ben suggested.

“Ask Win.” Angela pulled the folds of her wrapper more tightly around her body. “Win knows everything,” she added with a sniff.

Cairo nodded sagely. “Let’s have a word with this Win. That would be Winifred Best, correct?”

“Right,” Ben said. “Come on, Angela, let’s go back upstairs.”

“But no further,” Cairo called after them. “We don’t want any of you fancy birds to fly the nest. Har, har.”

Angela, who had started down the hallway, turned around and glared at the detective. “What do you mean? Are we stuck in this place for some weird reason?”

“That’s right,” Cairo said with a sharp shake of his head. “You’re stuck until I unstick you. Surely you’re enjoying the company of Mr. and Mrs. Flynn here.”

Angela managed an ineffectual smile. “They’re nice, but…”

“We’ve got meetings to take, lunches to do, people to…” Ben began in a not unreasonable voice.

“In due time, my lad, in due time.” Cairo waved the pair off with a faintly sinister smile.

They had just disappeared up the stairs when someone knocked at the back door. Judith and Joe stared at each other. The rear entrance was reserved for family, friends, and neighbors.

“Mother?” Judith mouthed and started for the door.

Cairo put a hand to stop her. “Dilys will get that,” he said. “It might be a reporter. Shoo him—or her—off, will you, my girl?”

The young woman cautiously opened the door to reveal a startling figure. A tall platinum blonde of more than a certain age stood on the threshold in an emerald-green satin lounging robe slit to the hip. She was carrying a paisley umbrella in one hand and a glass in the other.

Judith’s jaw dropped. It was a neighbor, all right, it was sort of family, but it wasn’t necessarily a friend.

Vivian Flynn, also known as Herself, was Joe’s first wife and Judith’s nemesis. Their visitor dropped the umbrella and swayed into the kitchen with a big crimson-lipped smile on her face.

“Stone Cold Sam!” she cried, setting the glass down by Judith’s computer. She reached out her arms, embraced the detective, and kissed him three times. “It’s been too long!”

Cairo, his chin on Vivian’s shoulder, gave Joe a wink and a smile. A nasty smile, Judith noted, and thought the night would never end.

“L
ET’S GET OUT
of here,” Joe whispered to Judith. “We’ll go into the front parlor.”

Unobtrusively, Judith tried to edge toward the door. The crime-scene tape barred her way. Joe glanced at Cairo, saw that he was still in Vivian’s embrace, pulled the tape aside, and with an arm around Judith, slipped out through the dining room. Dilys, though evincing curiosity about her partner and Joe’s ex-wife, raised an eyebrow at the Flynns’ departure but made no comment.

“Good Lord.” Judith sighed, collapsing into one of the two matching armchairs in front of the stone fireplace. “I’m exhausted! And what’s Vivian doing here?”

Joe’s grin was off center. “You know Vivian, you’ve watched her for six years since she moved into the cul-de-sac. She keeps late hours. No doubt the emergency vehicles caught her attention.”

Meanly, Judith figured it was more likely they’d roused her from an alcohol-induced stupor. Herself, as Judith preferred to call Vivian, had brought a glass with her. Maybe she’d come to borrow a refill. Despite Joe’s efforts to get his ex to join AA, she
continued to drink. Vivian Flynn wouldn’t admit that she had a problem.

“Vivian obviously knows Stone Cold Sam,” Judith remarked as Joe stirred the embers in the small fireplace.

“Oh, yes,” Joe replied, adding some paper and a couple of small pieces of wood. “They go way back.”

“They must.” Judith stared into the fire, which was now sparking into orange-and-yellow life. It rankled her that Joe and Vivian had such a long—if rocky—past. The marriage had been a mistake from the start, a catastrophe set in motion by Joe’s first encounter with a fatal teenage overdose. The cop bar he’d gone to afterward had offered strong drink and a stronger come-on by the woman perched atop the red piano. In fighting off the shadows of wasted fifteen-year-old lives, Joe lost his grasp on reality. When he awoke the next morning, he was in a Las Vegas bed with a new bride, the already twice-wed Vivian.

There was no going back, though Joe had tried. He’d called Judith from the hotel casino to try to explain, to beg forgiveness. But Gertrude had told him that her daughter never wanted to see him again. The irony was that Judith never knew about Joe’s call, or his subsequent attempts to reach her. Brokenhearted and abandoned, she had married Dan McMonigle on the rebound. That union was also doomed from the beginning. When Judith learned years later what had happened to Joe, she realized that both of them had married alcoholics and were paying the price for their folly. Joe’s folly more than her own, she had often thought, but no one had compelled her to marry Dan. It was only retaliation—and the unborn child she was
carrying—that had sent her so recklessly to the altar. Eventually, she had begun to understand Joe’s ties to Vivian. In addition to having been married twice before, she had a son by each ex-husband and was down on her luck. Joe was a sucker for the underdog. Having taken the vows, he felt obligated to live them, for better or for worse. And like Judith, Joe had endured more worse and no better.

Those long, mean years had tempered both of them. It hadn’t been just the chance meeting twenty years later that caused him to file for divorce. The marriage to Vivian had been a shambles for more than a decade; the only good thing that had come of it was a daughter, Caitlin. Perhaps it was proof of the dismal state of matrimony in the first Flynn household that had kept Caitlin, now forty, from seeking a husband.

The thoughts flickered through Judith’s brain like the flames dancing in the grate. She could picture Joe and Vivian hosting a departmental party, with Stone Cold Sam Cairo running his hand up the welcoming slit in Herself’s dress. She could see Joe chatting with his longtime partner, Woody Price, on the deck—if the Flynns had had a deck—and being introduced to a young woman named Sondra, who would later become Mrs. Price. Joe would tend the barbecue, rustling up steaks and burgers for many of the cops whom Judith met later in life, and for some she’d never known at all. Despite a decade with Joe, Judith still resented the wasted years during which Vivian had held him hostage.

“…too long now,” Joe was saying.

Judith realized she hadn’t been listening. So caught up in her thoughts, so weary was her body, so en-
wrapped in what had been and what might have been, she hadn’t heard her husband.

“I’m sorry,” she apologized, “I faded out there for a minute. What were you saying?”

Joe gave her a sardonic look. “That they can’t do much tonight. They need the ME’s report to proceed if, in fact, foul play is suspected.”

“Oh. Good,” Judith said. “You mean they’ll have to go away?”

“Right.” Joe, who had sat down in the other armchair, turned as Stone Cold Sam Cairo entered the parlor.

“So you’ve got two wives in the same cul-de-sac,” he said with another one of his leers. “Two wives, two slaves, and some sexy movie actresses upstairs. I guess you’ve got it made, eh, Flynn? Maybe I should retire right now. Then you could tell me your secret for the good life. Har, har.”

“Don’t count on it, Sam,” Joe responded with a sour expression. “What’s up?”

“Do you really want to know? Har, har.” Cairo laughed again, then sobered. “I just heard from downtown. They won’t know anything until midmorning. Bruno Zepf may be a big shot in Hollywood, but he’s just another stiff on a busy Halloween weekend.”

“His companions won’t like that,” Joe said. “They’re used to first-class treatment.”

“So what are they doing here?” Cairo slapped his thigh and laughed even louder than usual.

“It’s a fluke,” Judith said, and wished she’d kept her mouth shut.

“A fluke?” Cairo looked mildly interested.

“A superstition,” Judith replied as Herself and Dilys
entered the parlor. “Bruno Zepf considered B&Bs lucky for his movies.”

Cairo scowled. “Not this time.”

“Goodness!” Vivian exclaimed, cradling her chimney glass, which was now almost full of what looked like bourbon. “To think that all these Hollywood people were here and I never noticed! That’s what I get for being such a night owl! I miss the comings and goings during the day.”

Judith felt obliged to offer Joe’s ex a thin smile.

Cairo was moving restlessly around the room, his gaze darting between Herself’s glass and Herself’s décolletage. “I’d better chat up these folks, just to remind them they shouldn’t wander off.” His hooded eyes turned to Joe. “You want to tell ’em to rise and shine?”

“No,” Joe responded. “I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“Hey!” Cairo raised his voice and scowled at Joe. “Who’s in charge here?”

“You are,” Joe retorted. “You tell them to rise and shine.”

Cairo started to speak, stopped, and turned his scowl on Dilys. “You’re it.”

Dilys’s gray eyes widened. “Me?” She hesitated, as if waiting for verification. “Okay.” Obediently, she trotted out of the parlor.

“Now,” Vivian said, slithering onto the window seat, “tell me about all these gorgeous hunks who are sleeping just over my head.”

When Joe didn’t answer, Judith stepped in. “There are only two actors, Dirk Farrar and Ben Carmody. The actresses are Angela La Belle and Ellie Linn.”

In a dismissive gesture, Herself waved the hand that
wasn’t holding her drink. “Actresses! They’re all made-up hussies. Surely there must be more…men.”

Judith glanced at Joe, whose expression was blank. He and his ex remained on friendly terms, and not only because they had a daughter. It seemed to Judith that Herself was some kind of source of amusement to Joe. Or maybe she was a reminder, the living reinforcement of Joe and Judith’s good luck in finally finding each other. Judith hoped it was the latter that made him so indulgent of—or was it indifferent to?—Vivian’s not-anguishedbrainso-subtle charms.

In response to the question, Judith nodded. “There are other men, but they’re not actors. They’re directors and writers and—”

Herself waved again. “Aren’t those types homely?”

Before Judith could try to reply, Cairo intervened. “Let’s cut out the chitchat, ladies. I want to hear some specifics about this so-called accident. Tell me,” he said, standing in front of the fireplace with his hands folded behind his back, “who discovered Zepf’s body?”

“I did,” Judith admitted, sounding miserable.

“You did, eh?” Cairo glanced at Joe. “Not the great detective over here?”

Judith didn’t comment.

“All right,” Cairo went on, “when did you find the stiff?”

Judith glanced at Joe. “Around one-fifteen, maybe later?”

Joe gave a faint nod.

“When and where,” Cairo queried, “did you last see this Zepf character alive?”

Judith tried to focus on the question, though her brain was fogging over. “He was on one of the living-
room sofas by the fireplace. That must have been about a quarter to one, when Joe and I began to clean up everything and take some of the perishable items down to the freezer in the basement.”

Cairo flung out his hands. “So where’s the basement?”

Joe sneered. “Under the house.”

Herself burst out laughing; her bust almost burst the seams of her emerald-green robe. “Oh, Joe-Joe! You’re such a scream!”

Stone Cold Sam Cairo did not look amused. “You know what I mean,” he snarled. “How do you get to the damned basement?”

Judith spoke before Joe could further enrage Cairo. “Through the kitchen, the hallway, and down the stairs on the left.”

Cairo looked thoughtful. “So it’s quite a distance from where Zepf was in the living room. Who was with him?”

The fog enclosed Judith’s brain. “I don’t remember.” She glanced at Joe for assistance, but none was forthcoming. “He may have been alone.” She paused, straining in an effort to concentrate. “The cat—I think Sweetums was sitting on Mr. Zepf’s lap.”

Cairo scowled, but Herself laughed again, though this time the sound was soft and purring. “That lovely cat! Oh, Sam, you’ve never seen such a beautiful pussy. Not lately, anyway.”

Cairo ignored Herself. His attitude seemed to indicate that perhaps he was getting tired, too. Maybe frustrated as well, Judith thought in her exhausted haze. Before the detective could pose another question, Dilys returned to the parlor.

“They won’t come down,” she announced. “They
won’t even open their doors. The woman in Room One says we have no probable cause or any evidence of a crime having been committed.” Dilys didn’t bother to stifle a wide yawn.

“Not cooperating?” Cairo slammed his fist against the fireplace, hurt himself, and swore under his breath.

“Poor baby,” Vivian murmured. “Let Mommy kiss your boo-boo.” She advanced on the detective, allowing a great deal of bare leg to become exposed.

“Not now,” Cairo growled. “I’ll take a rain check,” he added.

Joe looked at Judith. “Who’s in Room One?”

“Winifred Best,” Judith said, surprised that she could remember where Room One was located, let alone who occupied it.

“Ms. Best is right,” Joe said to Cairo. “Why don’t you go away?”

Rubbing his sore knuckles, Cairo bristled. “I want to hear the details about how this Zepf guy died.”

“You
have
heard them,” Joe asserted. “He came into the kitchen, maybe to get some aspirin, probably had a heart attack, and fell face first into the sink. Look, the guy had just had the biggest comedown of his career. His future was on the line. You never knew of someone to suffer a coronary after a life-altering shock?”

His face darkening, Cairo continued rubbing his knuckles, but made no comment.

“I’m curious about that cupboard door,” Dilys put in. “How often does it open by itself?”

“Occasionally,” Judith admitted.

“Interesting,” Dilys remarked, then turned to Cairo. “Mr. Flynn has a point. We can’t do much until we get the ME’s verdict.”

“Awwr…” Cairo grimaced, but nodded abruptly. “Okay, we’ll hang it up for now.” He loomed over Judith. “I gotta trust you, Flynn. We’re shorthanded tonight because of the holiday weekend. You see to it that nobody goes near that kitchen, especially the sink. You got that?”

Joe nodded solemnly; Judith blanched. “But I have to serve breakfast for—” she began.

Cairo made a slashing gesture with his sore hand. “Forget about it. Your fancy guests can go out to eat. So can you.”

“But Mother can’t—” Judith began before Joe broke in.

“Sam’s right. The kitchen is a potential crime scene. We’ll manage.” He offered Cairo a dubious smile.

“Trying to get rid of me, eh, Flynn?” There was nothing playful about the look in Cairo’s chilly eyes.

The equivocal smile remained on Joe’s lips. But he said nothing.

Cairo gave Dilys a nudge and took Vivian by the hand. “I’ll see one of your wives home,” he said. “You’ll see me again tomorrow. Stay put.” Cairo, Dilys, and Vivian left the house.

“Oh, Joe,” Judith murmured, “I’m so tired! But what will we do about breakfast tomorrow?”

“We’ll work it out,” Joe said grimly. “You go to bed. I’ll check things around here before I come up.”

Judith started to protest but lacked the energy for argument. She did, however, have one last question.

“So you really think Bruno’s death was an accident?”

Again, Joe said nothing.

Indeed, Judith was too tired to care.

To her great surprise and relief, a smiling Chips Madigan met her as she came down from the third floor just before nine o’clock the next morning.

“That’s great!” he exclaimed, framing her with the ever-present viewfinder. “‘Early
A.M
., overcoming tragedy, ready to face the world.’ My mother would be proud of you, Mrs. Flynn. She’s had a couple of B&B guests die on her, too.”

“Really?” Judith quietly closed the door to the third-floor staircase. “What happened?”

Chips made a face. “I’m not sure. I mean, it was so long ago that I don’t quite recall. One was maybe a stroke. Maybe they both were.”

Strokes, heart attacks, even aneurysms sounded comforting to Judith. Anything was better than murder. She smiled apologetically. “I’m afraid I can’t make breakfast this morning. No one is allowed in the kitchen until the cause of Mr. Zepf’s death becomes official.”

Chips nodded. “That’s what Win and Dade told us. Dade got his start writing for a TV cop show a few years back. He’s our police expert. And Win—well, Win knows everything. Or so it seems.”