A
s Fenimore charged up to the front door of the Henderson Funeral Home, a carefully coifed young man in a dark suit was withdrawing his key from the lock.
“I'm sorry, sir.” He bestowed a grave smile on Fenimore (the one they practiced to perfection in mortuary school). “The Pancoast family has just left. But they are receiving up at the house, if you wish to pay your respects.”
Fenimore glanced at the program the young man handed him. At the top, in elegant script, was written:
In Loving Memory of Pamela Pancoast
And at the bottom, in italics:
The family welcomes friends at home immediately after the ceremony
“Thanks.” Fenimore folded the sheet into four unequal parts and stuffed it into his side jacket pocket (which was already overflowing with a syringe in a plastic wrapper, several bottles of pills, and his stethoscope).
He strolled back to his car. No rush now. His lengthy but informative visit with the coroner had caused him to miss the funeral, and the reception would probably go on for hours. There would be no opportunity to have a word with the family members alone for some time. And he certainly could not impart his newfound knowledge about Pamela's death to a crowd of gawking mourners.
Fenimore cruised idly down the main street of Seacrest. There is nothing more depressing than a seaside resort in November. The storefronts were as bleak and shorn as an actress after removing her makeup and wig. And the display windows were as empty and forlorn as the rooms of a house after moving day. The only store that showed any signs of life was an inconspicuous cinder-block structure called Ben's Variety Store. It bore a hand-painted sign: OPEN ALL YEAR. Ben's sold a little of everythingâfrom bread and milk to nuts and boltsâto help the handful of year-round residents make it through the winter. As Fenimore drove by, he caught a glimpse of Ben puttering around inside.
At the end of the street, towering majestically above the town, was the Pancoast mansion. Built in the mid-1800s by Caleb Pancoast III, the grandfather of the present owners, it was a massive wooden edifice, dwarfing the more modest clapboard houses in the vicinity. On former visits, the Misses Pancoast had filled Fenimore in on their family history.
The original Caleb Pancoast had arrived at Seacrest from England in 1762 and set up a whaling station. The Pancoast men had been great whalers. And the Pancoast women had been great “waiters.” Pacing the widow's walk that was attached to the sea side of the house, they had anxiously watched and waited for the return of their seamen from their long voyages. When the whaling industry died out, the Pancoasts switched to fishing and shipbuilding. And when that was no longer lucrative, they had become simplyâbuilders. In recent years, they had concentrated on restoring the older homes in South Jersey, of which there were many.
Today, the front door of the Pancoast house was decorated with a simple wreath of white daisies. Before ringing the bell, Fenimore tried the knob. It turned easily. The hall was crowded with people talking in subdued tones. His eyes swept over them, searching for Emily or Judith. He spied Emily near the dollhouse and moved toward her. Not an easy process. Keeping his eye fixed on the top of her head, he edged himself sideways through the crowd.
Emily glanced his way and with a glad expression began to thread her way toward him. Despite her age and frailty, she made better progress than he. “Doctorâ” She took his hand. “How kind of you to comeâand so promptly.”
“Sorry I missed the ceremony,” he muttered.
“Oh, Doctor.” Judith came up behind him. “How nice of you to make the trip. Do have some coffee or tea. It's in there.” She pointed to the overflowing dining room. And both older ladies were carried away from him on the tide of their guests.
Rather than fight his way to the refreshments, Fenimore
decided to take a look at the dollhouseâthe focal point of the vast hall. It stood at the bottom of the staircase on a platform which had been erected expressly for its display. Several other people were discreetly examining it also. For an instant Fenimore thought there was a miniature funeral wreath fastened to the small front doorâidentical to the one on the door of the big house. (He was familiar with the eccentricities of the Pancoast sisters where their elaborate toy was concerned.) But on closer examination, he was relieved to find a cluster of Indian corn. As he inspected the exquisitely furnished rooms, he recalled what he knew about the house.
Edgar Pancoast, the aunts' younger brother, had surprised his sisters one Christmas with the dollhouse. Although chief architect of the family firm, it had taken him a yearâapplying all his building acumenâto complete it. There was no doubt it was an amazing structure. It had the two chimneys, gabled roofs, and rambling screen porch of the big house, and was decorated with the same delicate squiggles and scrolls of gingerbread. Edgar had even included the carriage house (now converted to a garage) with its cupola and delicate wroughtiron weather vane. (He had spent a long, hot afternoon plying the local blacksmith with beer to get him to produce that!) The plumbing fixtures and electricity had been supplied by Adam, his son-in-law. But the interior he had left to his sisters. It had been up to them to paper and paint and furnish it. This they had done with the greatest enthusiasm.
Immersing themselves in the world of miniatures, they had read everything about dollhouses they could get their hands on. They had visited the famous Queen Mary dollhouse between
the World Wars and it had made a deep impression. (Secretly, Emily thought she looked a little like Queen Mary). They had especially admired the toothbrushes. One of the guidebooks said the bristles were made from “the finest hair taken from inside the ear of a goat.” When they were furnishing their own dollhouse and had come to the bathroom accessories, Judith had wondered aloud what they should use for the toothbrush bristles. “There are no goats in Seacrest,” Emily said, emphatically, “so put that right out of your mind.” Instead, they had settled for hairs snipped from the tail of a neighbor's cat.
Somehow the two sisters had managed to find a facsimile of every piece of furniture that occupied the larger house. The wickerware on the porch, the mahogany in the parlor (they still called it that), the oak in the dining room, and the bird's-eye maple in the spare bedroom. The tea set of pink English china had been acquired at the gift shop of the Victoria & Albert Museum by one of the family's travelers and the crystal chandelier had been captured by a niece at an auction at Sotheby's.
The whole family had been caught up in the project and every member had contributed by either buying or making something. Judith had written a minute book of love poems in her own hand. And Emily had painted two seascapes the size of postage stamps which were identical to the ones that hung in their real dining room. And both sisters had filled tiny buckets with sand to place in each corner of the widow's walk in case of fireâa custom they had read about in a journal of one of their ancestors. Even Dr. Fenimore had contributed. He had donated a syringe with which they had injected a fine sherry into the cut-glass decanter, and a hemostat for removing its
small top. The hemostat worked like a pair of scissors, but instead of blades that came to a point, it had blunt ends like a tweezer. Both sisters had a touch of arthritis which made them clumsy and the hemostat enabled them to handle small objects more easily.
When the furnishings had been completedâdown to the last picture on the wall and the last pot in the kitchen, it seems the aunts had grown restless. Surely there was something more ⦠. The story went that one evening Emily had been reading a book about antique dolls. Suddenly she had looked up and said, “What about dolls, Judith?”
“Oh, Emily, you're a genius.” Judith pounced on the idea. “I'll start making them tonight. One for each member of the family.”
“You must let me help,” Emily said. “It was my idea.”
“Of course.” And Judith headed for the sewing room to round up fabric, cotton batting, needles, thread, scissors, and paintâall the materials necessary to fashion miniature dolls.
Once the dolls were created, the two sisters became quite carried away with them. When their nephew, Tom, stayed with them one summerâbartending at the Seacrest Innâhe kept his red sports car parked in their carriage house. Right away, the aunts went to the dime store and bought a toy plastic carâthe same shade of red as Tom'sâand placed his doll in it. At night they parked the car in the dollhouse carriage house for the length of his stay. Another time, when Pamela was awarded her doctorate degree, they dressed her doll in a cap and gown, complete with velvet hood the same shade of blue as her real hood. Mildred thought the aunts overdid the doll thing. When
she married Tom she refused to have a doll made in her likeness. She wrote in her diary: “I hated to disappoint the aunts, but I don't want some doll that looks like me running around loose. It gives me the creeps. What if someone took a dislike to me and decided to stick pins in it?” But she was the only one who objected to this family tradition.
Â
Gradually, the guests (if that's the correct designation for funeral attenders) began taking their leave and Fenimore was able to make his way into the dining room. Soon all that remained were himself and members of the Pancoast family. The adults, that is. The children, twelve and under, had been excluded on the pretext that exposure to death might upset them (although they were exposed to a steady diet of violent death on television every day).
Fenimore found a cup of coffee and a chair. Once seated, he sipped his coffee and settled back to wait for someone to broach the subject which had brought them all there.
M
arie, Pamela's mother, was the first to raise the subject. She drew up a chair beside Fenimore and confided, “My daughter Pamela was too young to record her burial wishes, but I did overhear her say once that she wanted to be cremated and âtossed to the four winds.'” The cremation had been taken care of, but the contents of the small wooden box on the mantel still awaited disposal. How this was to be accomplished had yet to be decided, although several suggestions had been made.
Adam, the physics teacher, had suggested they divide the ashes into four parts, check the direction of the wind each day, i.e., north, south, east, or west, and scatter one fourth of the amount on the appropriate day. Tom had come up with another, less scientific scheme: wait for the hurricane season, toss the whole lot out at once, and trust the wind to carry the ashes off in all directionsâand with much less fuss.
Fenimore was impressed by both ideas, but thought the latter had more flair.
“We do appreciate your coming ⦠.” Marie murmured to Fenimore.
“When we know how busy you are ⦔ Judith said.
“And such a long distance ⦔ Emily added.
It was obvious that Emily had not informed the family about her phone call to the doctor. And Fenimore had not informed Emily about the other, more urgent reason which had brought him hurtling down to Seacrest.
“Nonsense,” Fenimore assured them, almost adding, “Wouldn't have missed it for the world,” but caught himself in time. Awful how frequently funerals took on the character of a party, he thought. But, after scanning the faces of his companions (their color and animation had increased markedly since he had arrived), he revised his opinion. A little party atmosphere was probably a good thing. The Irish Catholics had the right ideaâproviding plenty of whiskey at their wakes. He could use a drink himself right now. Unfortunately, the Pancoasts were Presbyterians.
“Would you like some sherry, Doctor?” Judith had read his mind.
He would have preferred Scotch, but he settled for sherry.
When everyone was supplied with refreshments, the aunts with their cups of tea and Marie and Fenimore with their thimblefuls of sherry, he began gingerly, “I wonder if you could tell me what time you discovered the ⦠uh ⦠deceased?”
Marie looked away in distress. Judith and Emily exchanged glances, each hoping the other would answer. Finally Judith spoke. “We had just finished a game of charades. It was beginning to grow dark. I think it was about five o'clock.”
While Fenimore began his impromptu interrogation, the other family members drew near. Even Mildred, who had been huddled in a corner with her cellular phone, put it away and joined the others.
“And after you found her, what did you do then?”
“Edgar tried mouth-to-mouth resus ⦠oh, dear ⦔ Emily could not go on.
“And I called the ambulance,” Judith said.
“They came right away,” Mildred put in.
“Yes, they were very quick,” Susanne agreed.
“I believe,” Adam said, “the preliminary cause of death was âasphyxiation due to aspiration.'”
“He means she choked,” Tom broke in, helping himself to the sherry decanter. (From somewhere he had acquired a large tumbler.)
“Was anyone present in the house besides the family?” Fenimore asked.
“No,” Judith said firmly.
“There was Carrie,” Emily corrected her.
“Oh yes. But she just popped in at the end.”
“Carrie?”
“A child from the village. We hire her sometimes to help clean up after parties,” Judith explained. “She comes from a large family and appreciates the chance to earn a little extra money.”
“Did Carrie have anything to do with the food preparations?”
“Oh no. I did all that myself.” Judith was unable to conceal a note of pride.
“I peeled the potatoes and onions,” Emily reminded her mildly.
“In fact,” Judith continued, “I sent Carrie home right after the ⦠when the paramedics left. And Emily and I did the cleanup ourselves the next day.”
“If dinner was over, why was Pamela in the dining roomâalone?” pressed Fenimore.
“She wanted to finish her crossword puzzle âin peace,'” Susanne explained.
Judith looked slightly embarrassed. “You see, Doctor, when we play charades, we get quite raucous.”
“Pamela was always stretching her mind.” Edgar quickly came to his daughter's defense. “She didn't have time for frivolity.”
“Did anything else happen prior to her death, besides the two upsets in the dollhouse?”
“Two
upsets?” Edgar repeated.
The sisters looked embarrassed.
“Yes,” Judith finally answered their questioning stares. “The dining room in the dollhouse was disturbed once before you came.
“We blamed it on mice,” Emily murmured.
“Why the third degree, Doc?” Tom, fortified with sherry, broke the strained silence.
(Emily and Judith were the only ones who knew about the doctor's avocation.)
Fenimore cleared his throat. “I'm afraid I'm here under false pretenses.” He looked only faintly chagrined. “You see, I learned yesterday from the coroner that the autopsy report on
Pamela disagreed with the preliminary cause of death.”
He had everyone's fixed attention.
“Now they believe she was poisoned.”
“I knew it!” cried Mildred. “Pluto moved into the Twelth House today, and that always means disaster!” Her comment was punctuated by the doorbell's harsh clamor.
Judith started up, but Dr. Fenimore placed a restraining hand on her arm. “Let me go,” he said gently. “That will be the police.”