And Then They Were Doomed

by Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli

  The woman’s face changed to outrage. “Well, really. No need to snap at me. And I didn’t mean to frighten you. It’s just that I—we … have enough to handle with the people already here.”

  Zoe shrugged and pushed against the woman, getting into her room, then grabbing the door and trying to close it.

  “If my friend and her sister can get here, I welcome seeing them. I was paid to deliver the final webinar and take part in all other planned events. That doesn’t mean every second of every day is yours. I will be down in a minute to return my friend’s call. If she wants to come see me, she’s coming, and her sister Lisa too. They won’t take any meals. They won’t get in the way of events. They won’t stay overnight. They just want to make sure I’m in good hands since everything has been so odd about this whole event.”

  “Odd?” Creases deepened between Emily’s eyes, making her look tired, but not really old. “This is my first large event for our society. Mary and I are in charge. The others are waiting to see how we do here. I hate to hear that you’re unhappy with us. I really do. We’ve tried to be so careful.”

  She sniffed and bent her head toward Zoe. “Odd?” she said again. “What do you mean by odd?”

  Zoe looked at her in disbelief. “What about the invitation?”

  “You didn’t like something about my invitation? I thought it was done quite well.”

  “With black edges—like a death notice?” Zoe was incredulous and tired of having these jousts between them every time they met.

  “I beg your pardon.” She reared back on her oxfords. “I would never do such a thing. Like a death notice? Really! I may be a novice at events, but not an idiot. Who would want to come to anything announced in a death notice?”

  Zoe was about to say that she had come, hadn’t she?

  “That’s what I got,” she muttered and tried again to close the door.

  “You should have mentioned it to me when you first called. I did send an invitation—of course—because I wanted you here, but it wasn’t dressed up as death.”

  “Who helped with the invitations?”

  Emily’s face was flushed. “We needed people to do the calligraphy. Just a couple. Mostly Mary Reid and I did them. But then there were a few of the Finnish women. One, Marya, had her baby with her. There were one or two others.”

  “Who mailed them?”

  “I don’t remember. I know I didn’t.” She thought awhile. “Seems one of us was going by the post office.”

  Her faded blue eyes were wide. If she wasn’t feeling outrage, she was doing a good job of acting. But she was an actor. As far as Zoe knew, they were all actors.

  Zoe leaned full against the door until the woman stepped back into the hall, calling, “Lunch in an hour. Please don’t be late.”

  * * *

  Downstairs, Zoe walked straight to the telephone on the reception desk and punched in Jenny’s number as hard as she could. Nothing. No dial tone.

  Chapter 35

  There were only six of them at lunch. No one asked about the others: Anthony Gliese, probably studying Leon’s notes, and Mary Reid.

  Betty Bertram announced loudly that she wished people would stop leaving. It was so unprofessional, and she didn’t want to be roped into giving a webinar. She wasn’t being paid enough for that, she said, and set to eating her stew and dumplings, ignoring the others.

  As soon as lunch ended, Aaron and Nigel got up and left.

  Anna Tow, on the other side of Betty, knocked back her wine and set her glass on the table with a heavy clunk. She leaned across the table toward Zoe, whispering, “I think the men here have decided to be snotty to all the women.”

  “Seems like equal-opportunity snottiness. They don’t treat each other much better.” Zoe said.

  Anna laughed her high laugh and asked, “Are you going to town later?”

  Zoe nodded. “I have some things to look up.”

  “Really, I’d think your webinar would be the easiest to do. Playing mop up on the last day. What on earth do you have to research?”

  When Zoe couldn’t answer, Anna got up and left.

  Zoe waited for Betty to go next.

  Once Zoe and Gewel were alone, Gewel quickly whispered to her, “Think someone’s playing a joke on us? Are you as suspicious as I am?”

  “I’m suspicious of some of the people here, if that’s what you mean. I’m even suspicious of their names. I’d like to check them out.”

  “Who is it you’re suspicious of?” Gewel batted her eyelashes at her. “Anyone in particular?”

  Zoe shrugged. “A little widespread deception.”

  “Deception? About what? Who on earth here would want to fool us? I was talking about how the webinar schedule has been messed up.”

  “Oh.” Zoe wanted to smile. “But I was talking about the names. Nigel Pileser—what kind of name is that? Or Anna Tow. I keep thinking: Tow, Carry, Pull.”

  “Or heave, yank, tug.” Gewel didn’t laugh.

  “How about Gewel Sharp.”

  “Me?”

  Gewel thought awhile. “Hmm. But what on earth is a Zoe Zola?”

  Zoe laughed. “Not easy, is it?”

  Gewel started to get up. “I think I’ll—”

  “He’s using you, Gewel. Just a creep with a little power.”

  “I think you’re talking about Anthony. There’s nothing—”

  “I heard you in his room. I hope you don’t get hurt.”

  Gewel gave her a look, but no answer.

  She left the room.

  Zoe, alone at the table with the dirty dishes and a big bowl of stew, wondered how she’d made enemies so fast. And still three days to go.

  She could be setting a record for herself. One enemy a day, but since everyone here seemed to be somebody’s enemy, maybe she was right on target.

  Chapter 36

  Anthony’s rehash of Leon’s talk was adequate. The questions from their faraway audience were tepid. They finished right on time—with a few minutes to spare.

  Gewel and Anthony, Zoe, Nigel Pileser, And Betty Bertram were on the lodge porch by 4:40. Then they were in the van and off to Calumet, talking in low whispers.

  The road was pocked and washed out in places. At the swollen creek, the driver had to slow down to barely moving to get them over the still submerged bridge.

  Anthony, in the seat with Gewel, turned to the others. “Wouldn’t Christie be proud of us? All on a ruined road together, in this old bus—not exactly the Orient Express.”

  He laughed when Zoe called back, “I can’t begin to imagine which one of us might be murdered.”

  The group quieted, turning to look out their windows and whispering when they had something to say to the person in the seat with them.

  Once in town, they were reminded by their driver to be waiting back here, at the nearby bench, by six forty-five. Zoe asked for the library, pulled her computer case down the steps, and was directed to Mine Street. “The red-brick school,” the driver said and then added proudly, “Fine library. One of the best on the Keweenaw.”

  She felt the weight of her computer bag before she’d gotten more than two blocks across the park.

  Every block she walked, there was another massive structure: big, red, important-looking buildings, but almost no one on the streets. A few cars. She couldn’t quite put a finger on what she felt in this strange town. It wasn’t pity. More something like hope, she was picking up on. More like the red buildings were waiting, along with the people who lived there.

  She found Mine Street and the red-brick school. Then found the end of the school, dedicated to the library, and went into a large room with tall, rounded windows, filled with antiques, tall plants, and wooden tables for quiet reading.

  When she asked for Agatha Christie books, the elderly librarian, thin bangs etched over her forehead, smiled and leaned over the high desk.

  “You must be Zoe Zola. We heard you were coming to Calumet. How are things going out at Netherworld? Eve
rybody’s heard about the webinar series. And right here, in Calumet—well, almost. Really happy to have you all with us.”

  She smiled wider and took a deeper breath.

  She brought out all she had left of their Agatha Christie collection. “Town people’ve been taking them out at a great rate,” she explained and set three books down. One very old copy of And Then There Were None. One hardcover copy of The Mysterious Affair at Styles with a cracked cover. And a paperback of The ABC Murders.

  She knew these books almost by heart. Knew the characters. None were named Gliese, nor Joiner, nor Betty Bertram. No Aaron Kennedy that she knew of, nor Gewel Sharp. Nothing in these.

  Where do I start? she asked herself, settling back in her squeaky chair.

  There was a code for the internet. The librarian smiled when she asked, and offered to punch the code into her computer for her. Being treated as a child by the elderly woman was uncomfortable, but Zoe forgave her, knowing elderly men and women saw her as small and maybe in need of their help.

  Zoe declined the help and got her small laptop up and running, beginning the search for names in Agatha Christie’s work. She knew what was ahead of her: seventy-five novels, one hundred and sixty-five short stories, three poems (she could ignore those), sixteen plays, radio broadcasts, two autobiographies. Had the woman ever stopped to take a breath? And why that kind of production? What was she running from?

  She took out a list she’d made back at the lodge. Every name from the symposium written down except for Emily Brent and Bella Webb. She probably had to accept the explanations of the women’s names—connecting themselves to Christie’s work. There were nine others—from Anthony Gliese to Betty Bertram, including the two who were mysteriously missing. She didn’t know what she hoped to find, but something that could help explain the feeling of growing nerves around her, and the odd black-trimmed invitation that Emily denied sending.

  Something was off, so far off her brain had been jangling from the very beginning. She couldn’t get it to shut up, to let her accept that this group of ten, including her, weren’t somehow caught up in a strange reenactment of And Then There Were None, and doomed—every one of them—to be murdered. To be about anything less than murder just couldn’t be possible. She couldn’t accept it, not with the elaborate preparations, the lodge, the strange feelings she got from the other guests, the names that rang so many bells.

  Then another part of her brain—the more practical part—said they were trapped in a psychological study, and it wasn’t about literature at all, but about being locked away together with egos and baggage on full display. Guinea pigs.

  She did a search for Christie’s books, then went to Wikipedia for character lists for each. Next she looked up the names and found:

  Mary Reid—nothing, except there was a Gwenda Halliday Reed in Sleeping Murder.

  And there was a Dr. James Kennedy (not Aaron) who first tried to poison Mary and then to strangle her. Dr. Aaron Kennedy. Maybe a tie to Mary Reid as the killer in Sleeping Murder.

  But she found a Dr. Aaron Kennedy. English Literature and Language, University of Southern California. Prior jobs at the University of Utah, University of Michigan. A list of publications. Nothing on Agatha Christie, which she found odd. But at least he was an academic with a reason to be chosen for this event. He was real but ‘leaving the University of Southern California as of June 1.’

  Hmm. She couldn’t make any connection to the event at the lodge.

  She felt the beginnings of a headache but kept going.

  Gewel Sharp. Nobody by that name anywhere that she could find. Maybe in some forgotten story—if there was such a thing.

  She put three question marks next to Gewel’s name.

  She looked up the ABC Murders, where she found an Elizabeth “Betty” Bernard. It was Betty Bernard who was murdered by a Franklin Clarke. Nothing. No connection to Betty Bertram, but something was nagging at her. She couldn’t pin it down, and there were too many others to search for.

  Louise Joiner—listed as a professor at Amherst and lived on the street where the Dickinson family had lived. A list of credits. A list of classes she’d taught in the past. A list of classes planned for the fall. There was a contact number for the English Department. Did she dare call? She put it off.

  Anna Tow. Oh, phooey. Totally the wrong track.

  Leon Armstrong. Ah, And Then There Were None. She had that one. Dr. Edward Armstrong (close enough). A drunk. That fit their Leon. Killed a patient while operating on her under the influence. He was the one who went missing—pushed by Justice Wargrave into the sea—“A red herring swallowed one …” The seventh to die on Soldier Island. But of a Dr. Leon Armstrong, touted as an expert on Agatha Christie? Nothing.

  The right track after all. How to tie them together?

  Anthony Gliese. Nothing. An Anthony Marsden in And Then There Were None, but that was really stretching.

  Dr. Nigel Pileser—no one anywhere. She searched as many Christie books as she could find online. Then, as many short stories. Nothing. Until she came to A Murder Is Announced and found the vicarage cat—Tiglath Pileser—and knew immediately someone or something was laughing at her.

  When she sat back and closed her eyes, she visualized her fellow speakers, then checked out each again. Surely, if they were all well-established Christie critics, they would have a web presence. After all, she had a fairly extended one. For an ego boost, she began searching her own name first, separating herself from any other Zoe Zolas in the world, to read about her books, her articles, her growing national attention—then pulled herself away from posts where people said they didn’t understand her work and didn’t get the premise. She sniffed at the rampant stupidity let loose in the world.

  Back to Gewel Sharp. Okay. Nothing on her. The girl was young, just out of college. Maybe she didn’t know about self-puffery yet and hadn’t gotten herself a website.

  Anna Tow. She searched for her press: Tollance. And found it—two postings. Creation of a Mystery by Mary Lamb and another by Anna Tow. Where were those books? She had to find them. Her head was hurting. Anna Tow. What to believe?

  Back to Harley Lamb as Leon Armstrong, an attorney in Calumet and half owner of Ulysses Bookstore. A connection between Leon Armstrong and Mary Reid. There was a phone number for both places.

  Zoe wrote the numbers down and went to find the bathroom. Down a set of metal steps, and luckily there was no one in there.

  She dialed the first number—an attorney’s office. There would be someone there on a Monday, or at least a recording. The answering machine said only that Mr. Lamb would be back in his office the following Monday and gave the number of an attorney in Houghton in case of emergency. She was tempted to call but called the bookstore in Houghton first.

  A woman answered. Zoe asked for Mary and was told that Mary and Harley wouldn’t be back in the store until next Monday. When asked, the older woman on the phone said only that Mary was attending a book convention in Chicago.

  Monday. Whoever was going to die had to be dead by next Monday so everyone could get back to normal.

  She kept looking and found Miss Emily Brent in Murder on the Orient Express but couldn’t figure out how the Lindbergh kidnapping, loosely used for the book, could figure into what this Emily Brent was doing.

  There were a couple Betty Bertrams in Canada. One in Manitoba. A Betty Bertram in Montreal. Could be the right one. Student at McGill. Yes, that was Betty Bertram. But not a graduate with a master’s degree. How had she come to be chosen as an expert?

  Nothing made sense.

  Dr. Nigel Pileser. Ah. Agatha Christie’s vicarage cat. She considered whether Dr. Pileser was catlike and decided he was, with his odd moods and vicious attacks when he had the opportunity, and then an almost licking of his fur when he knew he was right.

  That left only the lecherous editor: Anthony Gliese. She hoped to find something like Elbowing the Seducer, about another preying editor, but didn’t. Gliese was listed in
a search either as an actor or the Gliese 581 Planetary System. No editor anywhere. It seemed she was looking for people who didn’t exist. All the fault of that black-edged invitation.

  Anthony. Another character in And Then There Were None: Anthony Marston. A playboy. He killed two small children with his car, while drinking, but never seemed bothered by his crime.

  And the rain. Nobody turns rain on and off at will except on a stage. Nobody floods roads because they want to. Without the rain, her whole theory—whatever it turned out to be—didn’t hold. Without the rain, no one would have been kept at the lodge. They wouldn’t have gotten so short-tempered with one another. And without the constant downpour, any mysterious purpose for the gathering was improbable.

  Zoe pushed back her squeaky library chair. She’d proved that most of the people had no business at this gathering. Maybe a couple of them were real—maybe her, and Louise and Aaron Kennedy.

  Actor slipped back inside her brain. Actor. Anthony Gliese was an actor. She looked him up online and found nothing. Not an editor. Nothing.

  Her head was pounding now. Anything—for a couple of aspirin.

  She had a question to ask the librarian.

  The elderly woman came back to the counter and leaned far over to smile down at Zoe.

  “There’s a woman in town,” Zoe said. “She’s leading the event at Netherworld I’m involved with. Her name’s Emily Brent. Do you know her? Is she someone from Calumet?”

  The woman’s kind face froze. The corners of her mouth arced downward. She wrinkled her forehead until the wispy bangs caught in her eyebrows. With tight lips and wrinkled lipstick—she said only, “I’m afraid we’re closing early. You’ll have to leave.”

  Chapter 37

  Because she still had an hour before the bus was to pick them up, Zoe stopped at a Burger King on Sixth Street for a Coke. And maybe because the place was empty, the girl behind the counter leaned in while handing Zoe her cup and asked if she was with the group out at Netherworld. She smiled oddly when Zoe said, yes, she was with that group. The girl leaned closer, looked straight into Zoe’s eyes, and asked in a whisper, “Did it happen yet?”