Tea Cups & Tiger Claws (29 page)

Veronica responded
, not with a greeting or a grunt or even a nod, but with an unmistakable look of surprise, which Dorthea ignored, as she walked over and gave her a hug. After the one-sided embrace, Dorthea clasped her hands together and said, “I’m sorry to disturb you, my dear. It’s just that the time has come for you to tell your cousin about the things we’ve been talking about.”

Veronica
glared at Sarah and said nothing. Dorthea hovered nearby and continued to smile at Veronica. From her seat across the room, Sarah studied Dorthea. After a few seconds of this, Veronica got impatient and said, “What do you want?”

“Nothing
,” said Sarah. “I just thought you’d like to join us, given the…uh…special circumstances and all.”

“I was telling your cousin about—”

“—about the exciting news,” said
Sarah, interrupting Dorthea. “But I just had to hear it from my little cousin. Herself.”

“What are you talking about
, Sarah?”

“The news, Veronica. The special news
,” said Sarah.

“
Special?” said Veronica. “You’re moving to Alaska? That would be special.”

“My dear, you’re being entirely too bashful
,” said Dorthea evenly, almost sternly. “What about your engagement to Ernest?”

Veronica lo
cked eyes with Dorthea and neither of them blinked. Then she turned to Sarah. “Oh yeah, that. What about it?”

“What about it? You’re saying
it’s true?”

“
Yes. If it’s any of your business,” said Veronica.

“
You never said a word! This is a very important decision. When were you planning on telling me?”

“This
decision was not made in haste, my dear. Veronica confided with me at length about it. And, after hearing her out, and Ernest, too, she has my full blessing. More than that really. She has my love. I don’t think she’d mind me telling you, but after the tragic loss of her mother, Veronica has allowed me to fill in for some of her loss. She’s even asked me to stay with her at the manor while she plans the wedding.”

“I’m sorry. What did you say?” asked
Sarah.

“
Veronica has asked me to move into the manor. Isn’t that so, Veronica?”

“Yes,” said Veronica.

“Excuse me, Miss Veronica. I’ve brought the tea.”

Veronica stepped to the side and
Mr. Perkins wheeled in the cart.

“Oh, how nice,” said Dorthea.

“We won’t be having tea after all, Mr. Perkins,” said Sarah.

“Yes, we will, Perkins,” said Veronica.

Perkins, confused, looked at Sarah for guidance but she had none to give. She got up and left the room without saying another word.

~~~

Ernest tapped on the attic window frame with the butt of the rifle until fifty years’ worth of grime and blistered paint broke free, and the window popped open. He stuck the gun barrel out the open window and surveyed his new surroundings. Earlier that afternoon Horrick had made him get dressed up like a retard and had driven him up to the manor, where Dorthea made a big show in front of some butler. “Perkins,” she’d said, “this is my son, Master Ernest Dodd.” She called him “son,” which meant she had a scheme—a serious one. As soon as she turned her back, he headed for high ground and ended up in the tower attic.

He liked attics, not as much as dungeons, but almost. Besides the usual outgrown baby stuff and broken furniture, this one had lots of trunks, most of them packed with girls
’ clothes, but in one he’d found an army uniform, including boots, and maps, and photographs of soldiers. In another he’d found a complete safari uniform. Now he had everything needed for his own safari, including the elephant gun he held in his hands, which he’d received two days before all the way from London. It had belonged to a Lord Ashton Iverson, who’d clutched it while getting trampled by a bull elephant in 1847, at least that’s the story that came with the gun.

Crushed by ten tons of elephant until your guts shoot out your ears
. Not a bad way to go, he thought, as he put his eye to the scope. Better than a lot of other ways of dying. Better than a lot of ways of living. Ernest wondered what the man thought about as he got pulverized. Did he think about Lady Iverson? Sarah Evans, sitting on a block wall down by the stable, came into focus on the scope. He twisted the knob and brought her in so close, he could almost feel the sparkle in her hazel eyes. Did he think about his rivals? He twisted the knob back out and saw the cowboy sitting next to her on the wall. Maybe he thought about his mother. He put his finger on the trigger.

~~~

Dorthea sat at the vanity, dressed in a slip, and looked in the mirror. The hat she’d worn earlier in the day had turned her hair into a mess, but not an unsalvageable one. With a few sprays of Adorn, she put the top of the bouffant back together, and then used an ivory comb to pull out the loose hair around her ears and along the nape of her neck. She combed these strands and added to them until a wispy veil flowed shoulder to shoulder. She touched up her rouge, put on lipstick, and rose from the vanity.

From the closet she pulled a colorful floral chiffon dress with flowing wing sleeves and an attached shawl collar. A dress made to move, eager for a breeze, she’d modeled it for herself many times in the privacy of her hotel suite, with
Mozart playing in the background, and an imaginary champagne flute held just so, but had never worn it in public. She’d been saving it.

She slipped on the dress, stepped into new, orange, two inch he
els with square toes and multi-colored glass scales on the insoles and outsoles, spritzed herself with “Joy,” and left her first floor room at the manor.

She’d taken this walk a hundred times in her dreams and had seen it from every angle. Now she took it for real, with open eyes, the best angle of all. At the main hallway she turned left and
saw the closed doors to the empty dining room on the left and, on the other side, the servants’ entrance to the ballroom. She’d put life back into these rooms. They deserved it.

She then came to the gra
nd stairway. Her left hand glided delicately along the giant carved handrail and the chiffon sleeve of her dress fluttered in her draft. At the landing, as she approached the tall wooden doors, she raised her arms, causing her dress to form a colorful, billowing, moving curtain, which contracted as her hands came together, and then majestically expanded as she simultaneously flung open the ballroom doors.

She stepped
onto the large balcony that overlooked the ballroom and reached out to flick the wall switch. Overhead, thousands of crystal drops, hanging from a long row of chandeliers, and rope after rope of draped crystal beads sparkled with light. From the balcony where she stood, to the dance floor down below, she drank in the entire ballroom, even though her real purpose that evening lay across the room, beyond the cut glass veranda doors.

Down the ballroom staircase she flowed, the same staircase that
for half a century had formally introduced countless governors and senators and presidents. At the bottom she glided past the velvety chairs and claw-footed tables that lined the gilded walls, before turning toward the dance floor, and to her final destination on the opposite side of the room. She swung open the doors, felt the cold March air splash across her face, and strode to the end of the veranda.

There, with her dress dancing elegantly in the breeze, with her wispy veil of hair
standing aloft like gliding feathers, and with the bright winter moon as her attentive witness, Dorthea Railer looked down on the people of Prospect Park. She looked down on all of them.

Aunt Judith didn’t die by accident! Those words, emphatically delivered to Sarah’s troubled mind after a night of twisted blankets and tangled thoughts, exploded from her mouth as she bolted upright in bed. Her aunt didn’t accidentally take ten pills instead of one. Nor did she get confused, as the medical examiner speculated, and take the wrong dose for days or weeks, and slowly poison herself and ultimately cause heart failure. Her aunt had had an incredibly sharp mind and had taken that same medication without problem for twenty years.

These facts made perfect sense to
Sarah, and she believed them, but that’s not why she bolted upright in bed. She did that because of the string of unsettling events that had recently marched through the gates of Sunny Slope Manor. First Aunt Judith died; then Veronica, the ultimate unsocial misfit, decided to be social and throw a winter ball; then she got engaged to Ernest Dodd; then Dorthea Railer moved into the manor.

And, most unsettling of all,
Sarah saw Dorthea’s fingerprints on three of the four events. Who’s to say her fingerprints weren’t on Aunt Judith’s pill bottle as well?

Sarah left her room and hurried down the
third floor hallway to her Aunt’s bedroom, where she found the prescription bottle on the bedside nightstand where her aunt always kept it. On the label, under her name, it read “Digoxin 250mcg. Take 1 tablet daily.” Sarah picked up the nightstand phone and dialed the number on the label. After a few rings, when no one answered, she glanced at the alarm clock and realized that Greenberg’s had not yet opened. From the nightstand drawer she pulled her Aunt’s address book and turned to Greenberg’s listing. Her aunt had many private, unpublished phone numbers in her book, including one for Greenberg’s. She dialed that number and this time a man by the name of Markham or Parkman answered the phone after two rings.

“This is
Sarah Evans, Judith Newfield’s niece, and I’m calling about my aunt’s prescription.”

“Yes
, Miss Evans, I’m very sorry about your aunt. How can I help you today?”

“Thank you.
I’ve got my Aunt’s heart medicine and I want to know if there’s any way for you to tell me if it’s a real prescription…that came from Greenberg’s…and that it hasn’t been changed, or anything like that….”

“Well, I can tell you what the
tablets are supposed to look like, and we can check the dispense date on the label, and cross reference the patient’s name to an RX number. Does any of that sound helpful?”

“Yes, tell me what the
y’re supposed to look like,” said Sarah, as she removed the lid and poured the contents onto the nightstand.

“
Let me see…your aunt was on Digoxin two-fifty. Those are off white in color, scored with a single line across the middle, and have the number nine-eight-two imprinted on each tablet.”

And that’s exactly what
Sarah saw in the twenty or thirty pills that she’d splashed onto the nightstand. “What were those other things you said we could check?” asked Sarah.

“Look for a date in small print on the bottom right corner of the label. It should say
January 3
rd
, 1972.”

“Yes, that’s what it says.”

“And the RX number in the upper left corner, above your aunt’s name, should say three, zero, eight, zero, six, six.”

“Yes
…that’s what it says….”

“Then
it matches our records exactly and, if all the tablets look the way I described, I’d say that’s the same prescription we dispensed on January third.”

“But it
doesn’t make sense. Can you think of any other way that someone could’ve tampered with it?”

“No, not really.
As you can see by the special markings, it’s difficult to alter a tablet like this. Now a capsule, on the other hand, like your aunt’s other prescription, is a bit easier to alter.”

“Other prescription? What prescription
is that?”

“
Um…Valium.”

“Valium? I don’t see
—just a second. I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.” She put down the phone and grabbed a little beige travel case that her aunt kept by the side of the nightstand. Inside she found aspirin bottles, lotions, stomach remedies, tweezers and clippers, and various spare makeup items. She also found two more prescription bottles and both of them said valium on the labels. She grabbed the phone and said, “Ok, I found them. What am I looking for?”

“They’re extended release, so you’re looking for blue and yellow capsules.”

Sarah poured out the pills from both bottles, looked them over, and said, “Ok. That’s what they look like. What else?”

“The dispense date should be December
23, 1971.”

“Yes…that’s what it says.
And the other one says February 10, 1972.”

“Excuse me?”

“That’s the date on the other bottle,” said Sarah.

“And what’s the RX number
in the upper left corner?”

“For which one?”

“The second.”

“Three,
zero, five, six, eight, five.”

“And
it’s prescribed to Judith Newfield?”

“Yes.”

“And it has a Greenberg label on it, with a blue and red border?”

“Yes.”

After that Sarah heard silence, and throat clearing, before the man said, “We didn’t fill that prescription. The dispense date doesn’t match. And the RX number belongs to a different patient altogether.”

Sarah
felt her neck muscles tighten and heard the loud beating of her heart. “What’s the name of the other patient?” she asked.

“Um…um…Dorthea Railer—but it’s possible there’s a logical explanation
—”

Sarah
slowly put the phone back onto the cradle. Then, just as slowly, she put down the pill bottle and stared at it like it contained poison.

Dorthea Railer didn’t love Veronica, as she’d said the day before, she loved Sunny Slope Manor. And her love for it had nothing to do with
playing the part of the doting live-in mother-in-law. She didn’t dote on anyone but herself. She wanted Sunny Slope Manor, not ardently, or passionately, but fanatically. That had been the strange, almost comical reputation of the Railers for as long as anyone could remember. And now Dorthea had made good on that reputation. She’d committed murder.

Sarah flipped
the address book pages to the name of Roger Millington, her aunt’s attorney, and dialed his home number. “Mr. Millington,” she blurted, when he answered the phone, “this is Sarah Evans. No, everything’s not ok. Veronica is getting married and I need to ask a question. If she dies after the wedding, what happens to Sunny Slope Manor?” She heard his answer loud and clear, though she didn’t hear much of what he tried to tell her about prenuptial agreements. She mumbled something about calling him back, pushed down the telephone plunger, waited for a dial tone, and then dialed zero. She called the police. Not because she completely understood Dorthea’s crime, but because she understood her plan, or just enough of it to know that only a five minute wedding ceremony separated Veronica from death; Dorthea planned to steal the manor by murdering Veronica after she married Ernest.

When the dispatch operator heard the words
“murder” and “poison” spoken in the same breath as Judith Newfield, she became focused and efficient, and told Sarah to expect a police officer on her doorstep within minutes. 

While she waited,
Sarah decided it might be wise to know the whereabouts of Dorthea, which meant finding the whereabouts of Mr. Perkins, who always knew the whereabouts of everyone else. A quick ring down to the kitchen informed her of his general location. She threw on some denim trousers and a white open sleeved Mexican peasant blouse—not an ideal outfit for a cool March morning, but she didn’t plan on going out until later in the day—and tracked him down in the dining room.

“Good morning Mr. Perkins.”

“Yes, good morning Miss Sarah,” he said, unsmiling, his face wet with perspiration, as he lifted covered serving trays from the dumbwaiter and set them onto a cart. He had on white gloves, which he normally wore only for formal occasions.

“Have you seen Dorthea?”

He looked into her eyes for a moment. “Yes, Miss, she requested service in the sitting room.”

“In the sitting room? She doesn’t belong in there.”

“I thought that also, but it seems Miss Veronica has extended special courtesies to her guest.”

“I see,” said
Sarah.

“…Unless you’d like me to inform the guest that other arrangements have been made?”

“No, Mr. Perkins, let’s leave things as they are for now.”

“Miss
Sarah, if I may, how…um…long shall we have the pleasure of Miss Railer’s company?”

Compared to
Nanny, who sang Irish lullabies one minute and cussed a blue streak the next, Mr. Perkins’s temperament ran decidedly on the calm and cool side. This morning, though, he seemed out of sorts.

“I don’t know
, Mr. Perkins, but as long as I have you I know we’ll make it through.” She put her hand on his and a hint of the old calmness returned. She turned to leave, made it as far as the doorway, before looking back at Mr. Perkins. She stared for a while, until he asked, “Is something wrong, Miss Sarah?”

“Sometimes people are worse than our most terrible thoughts, aren’t they
, Mr. Perkins?”

“I’m sorry
, Miss Sarah?”

Now that she’d
needlessly confused old Mr. Perkins, she smiled and said, “Don’t mind me. I don’t even know what I’m trying to say.” When she turned to leave, another servant appeared in the dining room doorway. He also wore white gloves—and a curly white wig!

“Danny! What are
you wearing?”

“New rules, Miss,” said the young servant, face reddening, looking at his feet.

“Whose rules?” asked Sarah.

“That would
be Miss Veronica, as delivered to us by Dorthea Railer,” said Mr. Perkins.

“Who does she think she is?” asked
Sarah. “Is that the reason for the gloves this morning, Mr. Perkins?”

“Yes, Miss, and for the wig that was issued to me as well. I just haven’t
yet worked up the courage to put it on.”

“And you won’t! Danny, take that thing off. It looks ridiculous.”

Danny grinned, yanked the wig from his head, and said, “Sorry to interrupt, Miss, but there’s a Deputy Rollings in the parlor who wishes to speak with you.”

“Perfect. Danny you take this breakfast to the sitting room for Her Highness
, and Mr. Perkins, you come with me. I want you to witness what I say to the police officer.”

“Yes, Miss
Sarah,” said Mr. Perkins, as he followed her out of the dining room and down the hallway to the parlor.

When she entered the room,
Sarah found a young looking policeman with a large, adolescent looking Adam’s apple. Hoping that he hadn’t just graduated from the academy, she nonetheless said, “Hello Deputy Rollings, I’m Sarah Evans. Thank you for responding so quickly.”

“
Sarah Lorraine Evans?” asked the officer, ignoring her extended hand.

“Yes.”

“You are being evicted from these premises by court order.”

“Excuse me?”

“You are being evicted and are entitled to remove only those personal items which can be carried—”

“What are you talking about? I’m the one who called you! I
called the police not more than fifteen minutes ago.”

“I don’t know anything about that, ma’am. I have a default judgment in favor of Veronica Newfield and signed by Judge Simmons this morning.
Now please gather your belongings or I’ll be forced to remove you without any belongings at all.”

“You can’t do th
at! I’m the legal trustee for this estate. Here, call my attorney,” said Sarah, motioning toward the telephone. “He’ll explain everything.”

“You had your chance to say all th
at in court, and you didn’t bother to show up. There’s nothing I can do.”

“
I never heard a word about any of this!”

“Ma’am, this is your last warning.
You can leave of your own accord, in your own car, or I can put you in handcuffs and drive you off the premises in a police car.”

“Ok, ok. I’m leaving. Just let me gather some things.”
She hurried over to a pull down desk and quickly scribbled out a note, which she handed to Mr. Perkins. “Give this to Mack, Mr. Perkins. Make sure he gets it right away.”

“Yes, Miss
Sarah, right away.”

The policeman gestured toward the door.
Sarah started walking. “And, Mr. Perkins, help Mack if you can…and Veronica, too. Things aren’t right here, Mr. Perkins…and you have to be careful…and Nanny has to watch her tongue, but please take care of Veronica.”