An Old-Fashioned Murder (16 page)

Aunt Emily's brow furrowed. “But I told them it wasn't for sale.”

“They seem to be under the impression that you might change your mind.”

“Change my mind?” She was taken aback. “Why would I do that?”

“You said the timing didn't work,” Daisy reminded her. “Maybe they believe the timing's better now.”

“Because Henry is dead?” Aunt Emily's astonishment switched to indignation. “They have some bloody nerve—”

“I doubt it's that,” Daisy broke in hurriedly, motioning for her to keep her voice down. The Lunts' room was the George Pickett right next door. She didn't know if they were presently in it, but she did know that if her mama could overhear them, then they might also be able to overhear Aunt Emily. “Timing can include a lot of things. Honestly, it was sort of an odd answer you gave them.”

Aunt Emily pressed her raspberry lips together hard, but she didn't respond.

Lucy changed the subject. “I keep thinking about Bud wanting Henry's room. What could Henry have that would interest Bud?”

Daisy's mind went immediately to the mysterious disappearing piece of paper. But that had been in Henry Brent's hand, not his room. And Bud couldn't have taken it, because unlike all the others, he didn't get near the body. He wasn't close enough to have even seen the paper.

“We could check the room,” Aunt Emily proposed.

“It couldn't hurt,” Lucy said. “One never knows what one might stumble across.”

Aunt Emily nodded. “Pop in, take a peep around, pop back out.”

In unison, the pair turned toward Daisy. Understanding the inference, she arched an eyebrow at them.

“So you want me to do it? I'm the one who's supposed to go snooping?”

“Your mama's cough is just beginning to mend, Ducky,” Aunt Emily pointed out. “She can't go downstairs without potentially catching her death.”

Although Daisy would never have suggested that her mama climb up and down the steps with her lungs in such a weakened state, let alone take the chance of her being caught in an icy draft, she still found it rather ironic that the two women were so quick to volunteer her for the task of poking about in Henry Brent's room.

The eyebrow remained raised. “And I presume that you're far too busy with the guests, Aunt Emily?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, yes.” She fussed with the sleeves of her blouse. “It's nearly time for lunch, and then there are afternoon cocktails to think about…”

“You could take Drew with you, honey,” Lucy suggested.

“Oh, what an excellent idea!” Aunt Emily commended her. “An extra set of eyes is always beneficial.”

“And it would let you and Drew have a moment's privacy,” her mama added.

Daisy smiled at her in gratitude. She didn't consider rooting through a dead man's room to be a particularly amorous activity, but it would get her and Drew away from Lillian's ever-watchful gaze, even just for a little while.

Her mama started to smile back when a severe coughing fit suddenly overtook her. Daisy swiftly got up and handed her a dose of medicine. It helped, but only slightly. The coughing continued.

“Enough talking,” Daisy said, throwing Aunt Emily a stern glance, because she had the tendency to chat with her mama indefinitely. “Now you need to rest.” She plumped up the pillows behind her head and tucked the quilt snugly around her.

Lucy patted her daughter's hand and coughed some more.

Picking up the breakfast tray, Daisy headed toward the door. “Come on, Aunt Emily.”

As she rose from the rocker, she gave Lucy an encouraging nod. “We'll report back as soon as Ducky and Drew find something.”

“
If
we find something,” Daisy corrected her.

“I have every confidence,” Aunt Emily returned optimistically.

But Daisy couldn't share in such a rosy view, because it occurred to her that in all their discussion of Bud Foster's fake identity, and what Henry Brent might have in his room, and someone doing the dear man in, there was one thing they didn't mention. If someone had indeed done Henry Brent in, then that person was certainly still at the inn.

 

CHAPTER

15

Daisy's foremost challenge wasn't finding something of importance in Henry Brent's room. It was finding Drew. She checked his room, the kitchen, and the parlor, but he wasn't in any of them. The stairway leading down to the cellar was dark, and the French doors that concealed the nook and the body were still closed. He couldn't be wandering around outside in the storm, and he also would have no reason to climb up to the attic. Drew seemed to have evaporated into thin air.

Puzzled, she was about to go back up the steps to see if he had returned to his room in the interim when she noticed Lillian sitting on the Windsor bench in the hallway across from the linen closet.

“Have you lost something?” Lillian said, with a not-quite-friendly twang.

Daisy stopped and looked at her. She was wearing a yellow-and-brown-spotted sweater, topped by a large cowl that made her neck stretch up like a giraffe's. Her mouth was puckered even tighter than usual, and she was holding a goblet that contained a liquid more closely resembling whiskey than water.

Not wanting to broach the subject of Drew, Daisy motioned toward the glass. “A bit early in the day, isn't it?”

“Just a drop of sherry. Takes the edge off.”

She swallowed a laugh. No goblet was big enough to take the edge off Lillian. A bathtub full of sherry might have done it.

“Not much of a party,” Lillian grumbled.

“It certainly hasn't gone like Aunt Emily planned.”

As she said it, Daisy couldn't help thinking that all of the unpleasantness had begun with Lillian's arrival. But if Aunt Emily was right that bad things did always happen in threes, then maybe they were done now. First there had been Lillian's unexpected and unwelcome appearance. Then came Bud Foster. And finally—with the worst occurring last—Henry Brent's death. The bad omen for the weekend had been fulfilled, and a sunny sky would soon follow. Hopefully.

Lillian sipped her sherry. “I told Parker I wanted to leave.”

Although Daisy would have been delighted to see her go, she knew it wasn't possible. “I don't think you can get to your car. The parking lot is buried.”

“That's what Parker said. I told him then I wanted to walk.”

“Walk home in this weather! Oh, Lillian, I know it's only a mile or so to your house, but you wouldn't make even half of that. You can't see your own arms and legs out there. You and Parker would get lost and covered before you reached the end of the inn's driveway.”

“That's what he said,” she repeated.

“He's right. But it's okay that you have to stay.” Daisy tried to buck up her spirits, well aware that an unhappy Lillian was liable to make everybody else unhappy, too. “Lunch should be ready shortly, with cherry pie for dessert. If I remember correctly, isn't cherry pie one of your favorites?”

Lillian answered with a half nod, then she took another drink.

“Where is Parker?” Daisy asked, hoping that after another minute of polite conversation, she could excuse herself and return to her search for Drew.

“With those Fowler sisters.” She rolled her eyes. “Apparently they're still all shook up, and Edna was worried that May would be too unsteady on her feet to make it down the stairs by herself. So she asked Parker to come and help. I don't know what's keeping them. They're only on the
second
floor.”

It took Daisy some effort not to roll her eyes back at Lillian. Even with all that had happened, the woman was still holding a grudge and grinding an ax over the location of her room. She replied lightly, “It's nice of Parker to help. May did look pretty shaky earlier.”

“Too indulgent.” Lillian sucked on her teeth. “Far too indulgent.”

Daisy wasn't sure if she was referring to her husband, Edna, or everybody at the inn generally—aside from her unsympathetic sour lemon self—but she didn't seek any further explanation or dispute the point. She could see that Lillian's mood was not improving, and she was eager to distance herself as soon as possible.

“Well, lunch should be ready shortly,” she said once more, unable to think of any other innocuous topic. She turned to walk away.

Lillian sucked on her teeth again. It was a grating sound. “You've lost him, haven't you?”

Daisy stiffened.

“I don't mean Matt.” Her voice was harsh and bitter. “I mean the one you replaced him with.”

To her surprise, Daisy found herself more fatigued than angry. With a weary sigh, she turned back around. “Really, Lillian? Do we have to have the same argument over and over?”

“I'm simply looking out for you, Daisy. Matt would want that.”

She was tempted to respond that if Matt had any interest whatsoever in her well-being, he wouldn't have left her in the first place, but there was no sense in egging the woman on.

“I can't shirk my responsibilities to my family,” Lillian continued, haughty and grave.

The sigh repeated itself.

“And I don't trust him.”

At that remark, Daisy's brow furrowed. Since when did Lillian not trust her darling nephew?

“It's very suspicious,” Lillian said.

“What is?” Daisy asked her hesitantly.

“That boy, of course.”

She was confused. “Matt?”

Lillian's nostrils flared. “No, not Matt! How would Matt be suspicious? I'm talking about Drew!”

Daisy closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Lillian, I am
not
going to keep doing this—”

“Listen to me, Daisy.” Her words tumbled out fast. “He was ahead of me on the stairs. He was the first one down. But I think he was down already.”

“I don't have the slightest clue what you're—”

“Last night,” Lillian said. “Although technically, it was already this morning. When we were all woken up by that banging on the door.”

“You mean from Bud?”

She nodded. “I was behind Drew on the steps. He was the first in line. Except he wasn't really.”

“Yes, he was,” Daisy responded curtly.

“No, he wasn't.”

“I was in the entrance hall, Lillian. I saw it. Aunt Emily and I were talking to Bud when everybody came down the stairs. There was Drew, then you—”

“But I think he was just pretending.”

Daisy shot her an irritated, impatient look. “That's absurd. How could Drew be pretending to be on the stairs when we both saw him there?”

“You don't understand.” Lillian shook her head in a state of agitation. “I was in bed when I heard the pounding on the front door, and I complained to Parker about it.”

“Naturally you did,” Daisy muttered under her breath.

“Being lazy like he is, Parker wouldn't get up. He said I should mind my own business and go back to sleep.”

“Which naturally you didn't,” she added, also under her breath.

“Well, I couldn't just lie there without knowing what was going on.” Lillian drained the remainder of her sherry. “So I opened our door. There was no one in the hall. Of course there wouldn't be on the
third
floor.”

Daisy felt an overwhelming desire to gulp down a glass—or bottle—of something considerably stronger than sherry.

“I stepped out on the landing and was just about to start down the stairs,” Lillian went on, “when suddenly there was this movement.”

“A movement?”

“It was like when an animal scurries in the night. You can feel it better than you can see it, but you know something is there. And then came the shadow.”

That grabbed Daisy's full attention. She remembered a movement, followed by a shadow, too. It was right before she had answered the door and spoken to Bud Foster. She had come down the stairs and felt something behind her in the hallway. When she turned around to look, there had been a shadow at the edge of the kitchen. Or at least she had thought there was a shadow at the edge of the kitchen.

“It was only in front of me for an instant.” Lillian held the empty goblet before her as though pointing at the shadow. “On the second-floor landing.”

“Did it move?” Daisy asked. Her shadow didn't budge an inch, which was why she had dismissed it as her imagination.

Lillian hesitated. “I'm not sure. It was awfully dark.”

“So it just disappeared?”

“Of course it didn't just disappear,” she retorted, more adamant than indignant. “It must have gone somewhere.”

Daisy was thoughtful. Had her shadow gone somewhere, as well? At the time—for a brief moment—it had seemed to her like a person. She had even spoken to it. When it didn't respond, she had assumed that it was her eyes and mind playing a nighttime trick. But maybe it wasn't a trick, after all.

“It couldn't have gone up, because I was there,” Lillian declared, waving the goblet in the relevant direction. “And it couldn't have gone down, because you were there. Which means that it must have gone into the second-floor hall. It's the only option left.”

“And then?” Daisy questioned.

“And then it came back out again! It was Drew acting like he was coming from his room when he had actually just come up the steps.”

Daisy blinked at her. It was Drew? Drew was the shadow?

“So you see he wasn't really first on the stairs,” Lillian concluded in triumph. “He was only pretending.”

“Why?” Daisy said slowly.

“I don't know that,” Lillian replied with a careless air, as though it were an unimportant detail. “But I do know it's suspicious. Very suspicious.”

There was a pause as Daisy considered whether she could be right. Not about Drew being the shadow, but about the shadow generally. The timing fit. If Daisy saw her shadow before she opened the door, and Lillian saw her shadow after she started speaking to Bud, then the shadows could be one and the same. The same person that was ghosting about the inn in the middle of the night. And the same person that might have been talking to Henry Brent before he died. There had been those voices.