5 Murder by Syllabub (19 page)

Cora Lee joined her, leaning on her cane a little. “I’ve got to go into town, and Mary and Ellen
need to make a trip to the grocery store. At least, if we’re going to eat tonight. Mary, have you made a list or anything?”

Aunt Mary hadn’t. She’d had no opportunity to take stock of what was in the refrigerator, let alone the freezer, and the only thing we’d found in the cupboards was the sugar jar. Maybe she shouldn’t have volunteered. Only, I knew she’d always wanted to cook on a stove like the Wolf that sat in the kitchen. Now was her chance. We’d go to the grocery if she had to call a cab. I followed her down the cellar toward the stairs.

“I haven’t made a list, but I will. Do we have time for a shower?”

Cora Lee peered at her delicate silver watch. “Elizabeth needs to leave in about thirty minutes. We have a little more time.”

I followed them up the stairs, thinking they looked tired, all of them. But then, what they’d all been through the last two days would make anyone tired. Aunt Mary didn’t usually show her age, but today, it told with every step she climbed. A long, hot shower before we headed for the store was what she needed. It was what we all needed.

The red light on the answering machine blinked. Elizabeth looked at it, turned away, then turned back, walked across the room and reached out to press the button. “Damn thing. It’s probably Lieutenant McMann telling me he’s on his way back out to arrest me.”

It was Hattie. “Elizabeth, I wondered if you and Mary would like to drop by my house in Yorktown this afternoon. I can show you my kitchen and go over the things you’re going to need. We can talk about the part you want me to play in your little school.” She paused. “If you can’t make it, maybe Mary can. She seemed so interested. I’d love to show her more and, of course, give her a cup of nice eighteenth-century tea.” Another longer pause. “Well, let me know.”

Elizabeth and Aunt Mary looked at each other. Cora Lee stared at the answering machine. “I see she didn’t mention me.” Her sarcastic smile was back. “Piece of luck for me, wasn’t it
?” She headed for the door leading into the hall but stopped. “Are you going?”

“I can’t.” Elizabeth looked imploringly at Aunt Mary. “Would you mind?”

“Why, no.” She didn’t mind a bit, I could tell. Hattie was not very likable but she
was
interesting, and hearth cooking was fascinating. She wanted to know more about it. “Ellen will go with me, won’t you?” She raised an eyebrow in my direction.

I sighed and nodded. Actually, I didn’t mind, either. I wanted to know more about Payton Culpepper. Who better to tell me than Payton’s mother? I didn’t see how he fit into any of this, but Noah said Payton was in some kind of legal trouble.

My curiosity was piqued. “How are we going to get there?”

“I can’t take you but I can pick you up. Cora Lee?”

“Sure.” Cora Lee cocked her head and nodded. “You can go shopping after Elizabeth collects you.”

“
All right.” Elizabeth looked at Cora Lee appraisingly. “Where are you going?”

“I have some errands. You shouldn’t be with Mr. Glass
longer than an hour or so.”

“I shouldn’t think so. What kind of errands?”

“Just errands. Take your shower first, Elizabeth. You have to leave soon. Mary, here’s Hattie’s number. Why don’t you give her a call and tell her you’ll be there about two.” Cora Lee went through the door into the center hall. We heard the tap of her cane helping her climb the stairs.

Elizabeth didn’t say anything, just listened, an unfathomable expression on her face. When the footsteps died away, she sighed. “I won’t be long in the shower.”

She, too, went into the hallway. Her steps on the stairs were almost as laborious as Cora Lee’s.

Aunt Mary looked at the phone, then at me
. “I guess I’d better call Hattie.”

“While you do that, I’ll step outside and call Dan.” I hoped I could reach him. If there was ever a time I needed to talk to him, it was now. A dog whined at the French doors. I opened the doors for Petal and waited while Max got himself up from under the table, stretched and followed her out.

I stepped through the doors, slid them closed them softly, and took out my cell.

Y
orktown appeared as a small cluster of houses clinging tightly to the side of the hill that overlooked the bay. Boats dotted the gently swaying water, and seagulls squawked overhead as they circled, looking for a handout. Right in the middle, moving slowly, was a huge naval ship. I knew nothing about naval vessels but thought I could make out the shape of men moving around the deck. I watched for a minute, hoping it wasn’t on its way to someplace where it would get shot at.

Cora Lee slowed
in order to turn down a narrow lane that seemed to dead end at the water.

“See that house over there?” She pointed to a rather ordinary looking house on the left. It had
a plaque on the lawn that I couldn’t make out.

“That’s where Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington. Right there is where the Revolutionary War ended and the United States of America became official. I’ve often wondered why it’s not a bigger tourist attraction. Not nearly as many people visit it as the Jamestown fort.”

She pulled up in front of a small white board house with green shutters and front door. The roof was peaked and covered with heavy shake and a dormer window on each side. Smoke rose lazily from a brick chimney that seemed to take up one side of the house; the back extended out in what was obviously an add-on that ruined the symmetry of the cottage. Someone had wanted more space. People today weren’t willing to pile on top of each other as in the eighteenth century.

A picket fence encircled the large yard and a climbing rose
—the first spring flowers just beginning to show through green buds—wound through the slats. There were several outbuildings. I was pretty sure the one with the cone-shaped roof was a dovecote, although it probably doubled as a home for chickens. A small barn sat behind it and, at the very back of the lot, the “necessary” was half hidden by a large tree. A vegetable and herb garden, ready for planting, was located between the dovecote and the bricked backyard of the house. A hedge, white blooms just starting, edged one side of the garden.

“What’s that?” Aunt Mary un
buckled her seat belt, opened her door, and stood. “It seems familiar, but I can’t place it.”

“
Don’t touch that hedge.” Cora Lee rolled down the passenger window. “That’s English Yew. It’s poisonous. Elizabeth should be here in an hour or so. I probably won’t be back until six, or around there.”

The window rolled back up and the car started to move. Cora Lee wasn’t coming in. She made a U-turn at the end of the street and passed us by without a wave. She turned the corner.

“She seems uptight this morning.”

I nodded. She
was tense, even more than usual. I wondered why, but was distracted by Aunt Mary staring at the house. Except for the smoke, there was no movement.

“Do you suppose she’s home?”

I shrugged. If she wasn’t, we had a long walk back. Aunt Mary opened the small gate, pausing to look at the iron chain on it. A heavy ball was attached to its end. She pushed the gate open, waited for me to start down the brick path and turned to push the gate shut. She didn’t have to. As soon as she let go, the gate shut itself.

“Will you look at that
? It acts like a spring, only better. I could use one of those on my back gate. That thing has never closed right.” She came up the path, pausing occasionally to look at a plant or a tree. Some species she seemed to recognize. Others she examined more closely, like the yew hedge.

“
I’ve heard about this for years,” Aunt Mary said. “It’s pretty. I wonder if it’s poisonous in the same way Oleanders are. They’re all over California and they never seem to cause any trouble.”

I only cared about what was
in
the house, like Hattie. If she wasn’t there, I was going to be seriously plucked. “Come on. You can look at that later.”

The board door had no window, but it did have a heavy iron knocker. I raised it and let it fall. It responded with a loud clang. The door opened almost immediately and there stood Hattie, dressed like an eighteenth
-century housewife. Didn’t the woman have any modern clothes?

“You
r timing’s good. I just finished a class in hearth cooking.” She stood aside and motioned us into a surprising room.

There was no hallway as in the Smithwood home. You stepped directly into a large, comfortable eighteenth
-century room. Well-worn wood planked floor, recessed paned glass windows, beamed ceiling and one wall taken up with a fireplace. A high-backed rocker sat close beside it, an upholstered wing chair on the other side, a small table in easy reach. Ladder-backed chairs with rush seats were pulled up to the square table that sat in the middle of the room, a beautiful Windsor chair at the head. None of them looked particularly old. I’d seen more than one living room furnished in similar fashion. It was the rest of the room that looked as if we’d stepped back in time. An open-shelved cupboard sat against one wall. A large wooden tub stood on a bench beside it, along with a lantern and a large salt-glazed jug. A dresser stood against the other wall, serving dishes and platters stacked on top. The fireplace was the center of activity in the room, but it wasn’t like the one in Elizabeth’s gathering room. Hers seemed designed mainly for heat. This one, like the one in the Payton Randolph kitchen, was meant for cooking. Herbs hung from the rafters and pots dangled from an iron bar attached to the bricks with massive black nails. The wooden mantle held a couple of pewter candlesticks and one very lovely, and heavy-looking, brass one. Long-handled ladles hung from a hook on the side. Tall andirons on the floor close beside the fireplace were filled with logs, and a metal tub sat beside them on a tripod. An iron bar could swing over the fire or back over the hearth, which extended into the room. A small fire burned in the fireplace and coals had been pulled out onto the hearth. A trivet was perched atop the fire with a cast iron saucepan on top. I couldn’t see what was in it and didn’t care. What had my attention and certainly Aunt Mary’s hung just inside the fireplace.

“What is that?”

“A chicken, of course.”

She turned to face Hattie. “I know it’s a chicken. Believe it or not, I’ve seen one before. I’ve never cooked one tied up like that and not with a crust on it.”

Hattie’s arrogant smile was back. “That bird is stuffed. It’s pretty hard to cook a stuffed bird on a spit without all the stuffing falling out. The colonials trussed it up and hung it over the fire, basted it with a water and salt mixture, and let the drippings fall into a pan, like that one over the trivet. They dumped butter into the drippings, dusted the bird with flour then basted it with the drippings. Made that crust you see. You can serve it with boiled onions or cranberry sauce.”

“Cranberry sauce.” Aunt Mary walked a little closer to the fireplace and peered at the steam coming out of the breast. The crust was a lovely brown and smelled wonderful. “What did they stuff it with?”

“Different things. Mashed potato mixed with herbs, sometimes.”

Was this a joke? “Is that what’s in there?”

“No. We used bread we made in class. Yesterday’s, so it would be good and dry.”

“Of course,” Aunt Mary muttered.

“We mixed it with eggs, fresh thyme, marjoram and some white wine.”

I thought back to the French toast. They used a lot of wine in the eighteenth century. They must have made that, too. They certainly hadn’t gotten it at the supermarket.

“This one’s ready to come off.” Hattie picked a pewter platter off the mantle and laid it down on the hearth. She pulled a pair of heavy shears out of her pocket and cut the twine holding the bird onto the hook. It plunked down on the platter. She moved the saucepan over to the side of the hearth and—using the side of her apron, of course—picked up the platter and set it on the table. Putting her hands on her hips, she leaned back on her heels, a satisfied smile on her face. “Looks good, don’t it?”

Aunt Mary stared at the bird then walked over and peered into the pot. “I use dry bread and an egg in my stuffing, but not butter. I keep stock going as well, but haven’t tried wine.”

I could hardly wait to try her next chicken.

“Do you know what Elizabeth has in that old kitchen?
” Hattie asked. “She’s going to need some frying pans, sauce pans like that one, trivets for putting them on and, of course, a large kettle to hang over the fire. Does she have any of those things?” She dropped her apron but ran her hands down the front of it.

Aunt Mary
was standing stock-still. I knew she was thinking about the contents of the broken crate. So was I. “We haven’t been down to the kitchen, but I think she can lay her hands on some of those things.”

“Hmm. I’ve got a cake in the oven. I’ll give you a piece just as soon as it’s cool. Tea?” Hattie didn’t wait for an answer. She took
off the top of the barrel and ladled water out of it into a large iron teakettle she placed on another trivet. Scooping some coals onto the bricks with a poker, she set the trivet and kettle on top. “It won’t take long to get that water hot. The teapot is over here, on this sideboard.”

She cross
ed the room to the cupboard with the open shelves on top. Welsh cupboards, that’s what they were called. The ones I’d seen were open under the shelves. This one had two drawers and a closed cupboard underneath.

A collection of pewter plates and platters filled one shelf. Pewter tankards sat on another
, along with several pottery mugs and a pestle and mortar. Aunt Mary walked closer. “Oh, I’ve always wanted one of those.”

I
consigned that item to my virtual Christmas list.

The bottom shelf was cluttered with an assortment of things. A large
, white soup tureen sat in the middle; shallow white bowls were piled next to it. Crystal wineglasses and a few heavy syllabub glasses were placed in a neat row on the other side. The glass was thick, with little bubbles in it. Not quite like the Smithwood glasses.

“You have some beautiful pieces. Are they all old?”

“I like to keep everything authentic.” Hattie opened the top of an earthenware jar and scooped tea into a china teapot. Her back was to us and she paid us no heed while she talked. “These things are Culpepper family icons. My late husband, Jerome, didn’t have much from his side of the family, but I’ve kept what there was.” She filled a tea caddy and dropped it into the pot then turned to face us, resting one hand on the sideboard. “It was his cousins who had the plantation and the town and all the land, but Jerome’s people were important, too.” She paused for a moment, as if making sure we understood that. I wondered how many times she’d reworked Jerome’s family tree, trying to make his ancestors, and consequently Payton’s, seem more important. I suspected she reshaped that tree a lot.

Hattie stood up straight and directly addressed Aunt Mary. “You’re a widow, too, aren’t you? Did you keep a lot of your husband’s family things?” She turned back to the teapot, lifted the lid, glanced inside and placed the lid back on. She seemed more focused on getting an answer than on the tea as she leaned back against the hutch, clutching the teapot to her bosom.

“There wasn’t much to keep. Samuel wanted his mother’s lace tablecloth and the cut glass celery dish. His sisters took the rest.”

“I’ve tried to keep what Jerome had for Payton but for some reason, he doesn’t seem too interested.”
Hattie set the teapot down on the hutch, put the top back on the tea jar and pushed it to the back of the sideboard. “Do you take cream?”

Aunt Mary shook her head.

Hattie nodded. “It seems young people nowadays aren’t as interested in their ancestry as we are.” There was a sad smile on her face. “You think that’s so?”

Our family had lived in Santa Louisa for four generations. None of us thought that had any special significance. As for possessions, my grandparents never had much. When they died, my mother and my aunts each took something to remember them and their childhood. The rest they gave away. That wasn’t what Hattie meant, however, and I didn’t think Aunt Mary knew how to respond. She didn’t have to.

“How’s Mildred? Are they letting her out of the hospital? Such a terrible thing to happen. I was shocked when I heard.”

“How did you hear? Was it on the news?” I groaned. That
was all we needed, another round with the press.

“Police scanner. One of my hearth-cooking students has one. She told us. Oh, the cake.” Hattie stepped over to the fireplace and, again using the end of her apron, removed a wooden door that blocked a hole in the fireplace wall. Aunt Mary and I watched, fascinated, as Hattie removed a cake pan, carried it to the sideboard and placed it on a trivet.
The smell of fresh cinnamon cake filled the air.

“
The cake recipes in the old cookbooks call for so much flour and sugar, it’s hard to cut down. One calls for eighteen eggs. Can you imagine? When they baked back then, they baked. Of course, they had a lot of people to feed. Nowadays, we think five or six is a bunch. I wanted to show you how to bake a cake in a fireplace oven and what it tastes like.”

The cake was beautiful. Light brown, high in the middle, perfectly done. Aunt Mary examined it with a practiced eye. “How do you know when it’s finished? And how do you regulate the heat?”