The Best of Sisters in Crime (25 page)

“Chinatown, my
Chinatown . . .”

Mike felt his
body go cold.
No! No!
Unable to move, unable to breathe, he stared at the spinning
record.

“. . . hearts
that know no other world drifting to and fro. . .”

Over the
scratchy, falsetto voices of the long-ago singers, Laurie’s exquisite soprano
was filling the room with its heart-stopping, plaintive beauty.

Back to table of
contents

Dorothy Cannell, who
writes about people she likes, behaving the way she’d like to behave
if “. . .
something thrillingly
chilling . . .” happened to her, says that she became a writer to avoid
learning algebra, and her fans are delighted that she made the choice. Her
first novel,
The Thin Woman,
introduced Ellie and Ben Haskell;
Down the Garden Path
featured Hyacinth and Primrose Tramwell; and
The Widow
’s
Club,
nominated for an Agatha and an Anthony, brought the
four sleuths together. Most recently,
God Save the Queen
continues to provide chills and
laughs.

In “The High Cost of
Living,” a brother and sister are taxed by the consequences of their plan to
keep pace with inflation.

“They’re not coming!” Cecil
said for the
fourth time, peering out into the
rain-soaked night. The gale had whipped itself into a frenzy, buffeting trees
and shaking the stone house like a dog with a rag doll. On that Saturday
evening the Willoughbys—Cecil and his sister, Amanda— were in the front room,
waiting for guests who were an hour late. The fire had died down and the canapés
on their silver tray were beginning to look bored.

“They’re not
coming!” mimicked Amanda from the sofa, thrusting back her silver-blond hair
with an irritable hand. “Repeating oneself is an early sign of insanity . . .
remember?”

Her eyes, and
those of her brother, shifted ceilingward.

“Cecil, I regret
not strangling you at birth. Stop hovering like a leper at the gate. Every time
you lift the curtain an icy blast shoots up my skirt.”

A shrug. “I’ve
been looking forward to company. The Thompsons and Bumbells lack polish, but it
doesn’t take much to break the monotony in this morgue.”

“Really, Pickle
Face!” Amanda eyed a chip in her pearl-pink manicure with disfavor. “Is that
kind?”

“Speaking of
kind”—Cecil let the curtain drop and adjusted his gold-rimmed spectacles— “I didn’t
much care for that crack about insanity. I take exception to jibes at Mother.”

“Amazing!”
Amanda wielded an emery board, her eyes on the prying tongues of flame
loosening the wood fibers and sending showers of sparks up the chimney. “Where
did I get the idea that but for the money, you would have shoved the old girl
in a cage months ago? Don’t hang your head. All she does is eat and—”

“You always were
vulgar.”

“And you always
were forty-five, Cecily dear. How you love to angst, but spare me the bit about
this being Mother’s house and our being a pair of hyenas feasting off decaying
flesh. That woman is not our mother. Father remarried because we motherless
brats drove off every housekeeper within a week.”

“Mary was good
to us.” Drawing on a cigarette with a shaking hand, Cecil sank into a chair.

“Brother, you
have such a way with words. Mary had every reason to count her blessings. She
acquired a roof over her head and a man to keep her warm in bed. Not bad for
someone who was always less bright than a twenty-watt bulb.”

“I still think
some respect. . .” The cigarette got flung into the fire.

“Sweet Cecily”—Amanda
buffed away at her nails— “you have deception refined to an art. I admit to
living in Stepmother’s house because it’s free. Come on! These walls don’t have
ears. The only reason Mad Mary isn’t shut up in a cracker box is because we’re
not wasting her money on one.”

“I won’t listen
to this.”

“Your
sensitivity be damned. You’d trade her in for a used set of golf clubs any day
of the week. Who led the way, brother, to see what could be done about opening
up Father’s trust? Who swore with his hand on the certificates of stock that
Mary was
non compos mentis
?
Spare me your avowals of being here to keep Mary company in her second
childhood.” Amanda tossed the emery board aside. “You wanted a share in Daddy’s
pot of gold while still young enough to fritter it away.”

Cecil grabbed
for the table lighter and ducked a cigarette toward the flame. “I believe he
would have wished—”

“And I wish him in
hell.” Amanda tapped back a yawn. “Leaving his money tied up in that woman for
life . . .”

“Mary was
halfway normal when Father died. Her sister was the fly in the ointment in
those days. Always meddling in money matters.”

“Hush, brother
dear.” Amanda prowled toward the window and gave the curtain a twitch. “Is the
storm unnerving you? I’m amazed we haven’t had the old lady down to look for
her paper dolls. For the record, I’ve done my turn of nursemaid drill this
week. Mrs. Bridger didn’t come in the last couple of days, and if I have to
carry another tray upstairs I will need locking up.”

Her brother
stared into the fire.

“No pouting.”
Peppermint-pink smile. “Beginning to think, dear Cecily, that the world might
be a better place if we treated old people the way we do our dogs? When they
become a bother, shouldn’t we put them out of everyone’s misery? Nothing
painful! I hate cruelty. A whiff of a damp rag and then deep, deep sleep. . . .
Oh, never mind! Isn’t that the doorbell?”

Cecil stopped
cringing to listen. “Can it be the Thompsons or the Bumbells?”

“Either them or
the Moonlight Strangler.” Amanda’s voice chased him from the room. Hitching her
skirt above the knee, she perched on the sofa arm. From the hall came voices.

“Terrible night!
Sorry we’re late. Visibility nil.” A thud as the wind took the front door.
Moments later an arctic chill preceded Cecil and the Thompsons into the room.
Mrs. Thompson was shivering like a blancmange about to slide off the plate. Her
husband, as thin as she was stout, was blue around the gills.

“Welcome.”
Amanda, crisp and sprightly, stepped forward. “I see you’ve let Cecil rob you
of your coats. What sports to turn out on such a wicked night.”

Mr. Thompson
thawed. This was one hell of a pretty woman. He accepted a brandy snifter and a
seat by the fire. His wife took sherry and stretched her thick legs close to
the flames. That popping sound was probably her varicose veins.

“The Bumbells
didn’t make it.” Norman Thompson spoke the obvious. “I told Gerty you wouldn’t
expect us, but she would have it that you’d be waiting and wondering.”

“Our phone was
dead,” Gerty Thompson defended herself. “Heavens above!” Cheeks creasing into a
smile. “Only listen to that wind and rain rattling the windows. Almost like
someone trying to get in. I won’t sleep tonight if it keeps up.”

“She could sleep
on a clothesline,” came her husband’s response.

“Refills?” Cecil
hovered with the decanters.

Gerty held out
her glass without looking at him. Staring at the closed door, she gave a
squeaky gasp. “There’s someone out in the hall. I saw the doorknob turn.”
Sherry slopped from the glass.

Norman snorted. “You’ve
been reading too many spook-house thrillers.”

“I tell you I
saw—”

The door opened
a wedge.

“Damn! Not now.”
Almost dropping the decanter, Cecil grimaced at Amanda. “Did you forget her
sleeping pills?”

An old lady
progressed unsteadily into the room. Both Thompsons thought she looked like a
gray flannel rabbit. She had pumice-stone skin and her nightdress was without
color. Wisps of wintry hair escaped from a net and she was clutching something
tightly to her chest. A child terrified of having her treasures snatched away.

“How do you do?”
Gerty felt a fool. She had heard that old Mrs. Willoughby’s mind had failed. On
prior occasions when she and Norman had been guests here, the poor soul had not
been mentioned, let alone seen. Meeting her husband’s eye, she looked away.
Amanda wore a faint smirk, as though she had caught someone drinking his finger
bowl. Most uncomfortable. Gerty wished Norman would say something. He was the
one who had thought the Willoughbys worth getting to know. The old lady
remained marooned in the center of the room. A rag doll. One nudge and she
would fold over. Why didn’t someone say something?

Cecil almost
tripped on the hearth rug. “Gerty and Norman, I present my stepmother, Mary
Willoughby. She hasn’t been herself lately. Not up to parties, I’m afraid. You
never did like them did you, Mother?” Awkwardly he patted Mrs. Willoughby’s
shoulder, then propelled her toward the Thompsons.

Gerty began
shivering worse than when she was on the doorstep. “What’s that you’re holding,
dear?” She had to say something—anything. The old lady’s eyes looked dead.

An unreal laugh
from Cecil. “A photo of her twin sister, Martha. They were very close; in fact,
it was after Martha passed on last year that Mother began slipping. She always
was the more dependent of the two. They lived together here after my father was
taken.”

“Sad, extremely
sad.” Mr. Thompson would have liked to sit back down, but while the old lady
stood there . . .

Nudging Cecil
aside, Amanda slid an arm around Mrs. Willoughby. “Nighty-night, Mary, dear!”
she crooned. “Up the bye-bye stairs we go.”

“No.” The old
lady’s face remained closed, tight as a safe. But her voice rose shrill as a
child’s. A child demanding the impossible. “I want Martha. I won’t go to sleep
without Martha.”

“Poor lost soul!”
Ready tears welled in Gerty Thompson’s eyes. “What can we do? There must be
something.”

“Mind our own
business,” supplied her husband. He was regretting not keeping his relationship
with the Willoughbys strictly business. They had been a catch as investors,
money having flowed from their pockets this last year.

The old lady did
not say another word. But everyone sensed it would take a tow truck to remove
her from the room.

“I give up,”
Amanda said. “Let’s skate the sweet lamb over to that chair in the bookcase
corner. She won’t want to be too near the fire and get overheated. I expect she
feels crowded and needs breathing space. Look, she’s coming quite happily now,
aren’t you, Mary?”

“Ah!” Gerty
dabbed at her eyes with a cocktail napkin as Amanda tossed a rug over Mrs.
Willoughby’s knees. “She didn’t want to be sent upstairs and left out of
things. Being with the ones she loves is all she has left, I suppose.”

“Yes, we are
devoted to Mother,” responded Amanda.

Mrs. Willoughby
rocked mindlessly, her pale lips slack, the photo of her dead sister locked in
her bony hands.

The others
regrouped about the fire. Cecil poured fresh drinks and Amanda produced the
tray of thaw-and-serve hors d’oeuvres. Rain continued to beat against the
windows and the mantel clock ticked on self-consciously.

“We could play
bridge, or do I hear any suggestions from the floor?” Amanda popped an olive
into her mouth, eyes on Norman Thompson.

“How about. . .”
Gerty’s face grew plumper and she fussed with the pleats of her skirt. Everyone
waited with bated breath, for her to suggest Monopoly. “. . . How about a
seance? Don’t look at me like that, Norman. You don’t have to be a crazy person
to believe in the Other Side. And the weather couldn’t be more perfect!”

Amanda set her
glass down on the coffee table. “What fun! My last gentleman friend suspected
me of having psychic powers when I knew exactly what he liked in the way of. .
. white wine.”

Cecil broke in. “I
don’t like dabbling in the Unseen. We wouldn’t throw our doors open to a bunch
of strangers were they alive—”

“Coward!” His
sister wagged a finger at him. “How can you disappoint Gerty and Norman?”

Mr. Thompson
forced a smile.

Gerty was
thrilled. “Everything’s right for communication. This house—with the wind
wrapped all about it! What could be more ghostly? And those marvelous ceiling
beams and that portrait of the old gentleman with side whiskers . . .” While
she enthused the others decided the game table in the window alcove would serve
the purpose. Amanda fetched a brass candlestick.

“Perfect!”
Fearless leader Gerty took her seat. “All other lights must be extinguished and
the curtains tightly drawn.”