She made her way down the stairs and into the great hall; there was enough moonlight coming in the expansive windows to ensure she would not trip or stub her toes. As she passed the carved teak door that closed off the library, she noticed it was open a crack. She stepped closer and heard a noise coming from inside. Drawing in a breath, she paused outside the door. Had she really heard something? Yes. There it was again, the grating sound of drawers opening and papers rustling, and she saw a faint flicker of light.
A burglar? And here she was with no weapon and her cell phone upstairs.
Then she heard soft murmuring and recognized the voice.
Emily pushed the door open and stepped inside. At first, she couldn’t see much. The room was shrouded in shadows, and it took a few moments for her eyes to adjust. When they did, she saw David, then Tom. They were both standing in front of the large oak desk that sat in the center of the library like some great Buddha. “Tom? David? What are you doing?”
David turned on the small flashlight he had apparently doused when the door opened. “Looking for Daddy’s will.”
“Really? He’s not even dead, and already you’re looking for the will?”
“That was the reason we all came, wasn’t it?” David asked. “That’s what you said on the phone, ‘Maybe we should protect our inheritance.’”
“I didn’t mean this.” Emily gestured to the mess the men had made, strewing papers all over the desk, some of them tumbling to the floor. “I just meant showing mother and father that we care, so they’d feel better about leaving us the money.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake.” Tom slammed a drawer closed and started toward the door. “Forget it. It’s late. I’m going to bed.”
Before he got the door open, there was a loud banging noise that sounded like it came from the front foyer that opened to the great hall. Emily started to run toward the sound, but Tom held her back. “Wait.”
“I’m not going to wait,” Emily whispered. “It could be burglars.”
“It could be burglars with guns,” David said. “We should call 9-1-1. Do you have your cell phone?”
“I always carry my phone in my pajamas.” Emily did nothing to hide the sarcasm in her whispered response.
Tom disappeared for a moment, then came back to the doorway with fireplace tools in his hands. “I saw these earlier. They make good weapons.”
He handed the little shovel to Emily, the brush to David, and kept the poker.
“Well at least one of us has a chance of downing a burglar,” David said, pointing to the poker before holding up the brush. “What am I supposed to do with this?”
“Quiet.” Emily peeked into the hall. It was harder to see than it had been just moments before. Clouds must have covered the moon. She strained to see in the dimness, and then saw a shadow move toward the staircase. “Aiyee.” She cried and dashed out, wielding the shovel with the determination of a soldier brandishing a bayonet.
The shadowed figure turned and ran toward the dining room, David and Tom in hot pursuit. “Stop. Thief!” Tom called out.
“Stop? Thief?” Emily ran to catch up.
“That’s what they say on television.”
Emily didn’t even bother with a response as she dashed after the men.
The burglar—if that was what he was, and Emily was beginning to have her doubts since he had no bag full of family silver slung over his shoulder—ran into the kitchen.
Big mistake. There was no other way out. She knew that from the hours she’d spent there basting the turkey. Emily also knew where the light switch was and jogged ahead of her brothers to enter the kitchen and flick on the light. A tiny man in dark sweats and a ski mask cowered behind the butcher-block island. He held a copper-bottomed fry pan as a shield, raising it higher as Tom dashed in, brandishing the poker.
“Put the pan down, mister,” Tom said with an edge of gruff masculinity that seemed to surprise even him.
Emily and David moved into flanking positions, and the man slowly lowered the pan to the top of the butcher block. “Now put your hands up,” David said.
The man did. “No kill me, please.”
“What are you doing here?” Emily asked.
“What’s he doing here?” Tom gave her a look, maintaining that Clint Eastwood impersonation. “Look at him. He’s a burglar. He came to steal the family jewels.”
“I’m not so sure.” Emily stepped over and pulled off the ski mask. “Aha!”
“Aha, what?” Tom asked.
“He’s Asian.” Emily turned slightly to look at David. “I wonder what an Asian man is doing in the house?”
David didn’t answer for the longest minute, then he let out an exasperated sigh. “Oh, my God. Not that again. You don’t really believe—”
“Believe what?” They turned to see Min in the doorway.
“Believe that this man is only a burglar,” Emily said, sarcasm dripping like the fat from the turkey. “Believe that it is just a coincidence that the burglar who came to steal grandmother’s silver, but didn’t, is the same nationality as the hit man you’ve done business with. Who did you call when you left the dinner table?”
“Oh, my God,” David said.
“What?” Min stepped into the room. “Me no call killer man.”
“Riiiight.” Emily gave her a knowing smile. “Then what’s he doing here?”
“How I know?” Min squinted at the burglar’s face. “Look, he not even Chinese. He Korean. I never call no Korean killer man.”
“But you’d call a Chinese killer man?” Emily glared at Min.
“Wait a minute!” David’s face reddened. “You can’t talk to my wife like that.”
General chaos ensued as everyone started yelling, and into that chaos stepped Regina. “What on earth is going on?”
Silence descended and the Korean man took the opportunity to dash out of the kitchen, heading to the front door.
None of the others moved. It was like none of them knew what to do. Regina sighed then asked, “Who was that?”
They all shrugged.
“What was he doing here?”
More silence.
“And what was all the fuss about?”
Again, more shrugs. Emily certainly wasn’t going to try to explain about hit men and her suspicions of Min. And it was obvious the brothers did not want to mention why they were in the library earlier.
“Oh dear.” Regina sank onto a nearby barstool. “I don’t think I can take any more excitement. I’d been so hoping for one last pleasant Thanksgiving as a family.”
David moved over solicitously. “Can I get you something? A brandy?”
“Yes. Perhaps.” Regina paused for a moment. “And some pumpkin pie.”
“Pumpkin pie?”
“Certainly. It’s still officially Thanksgiving, and we might all want to end the day on a note of civility.”
David served the pie, and everyone dug in. Everyone except Regina though. Emily waited with a forkful halfway to her mouth, watching to see if her mother would take a bite, but she didn’t.
Emily put her fork down. “Mom? Is there a reason you are not eating the pie?”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“I don’t know. You tell me.”
“Really?” Regina took a large swallow of her brandy, then met Emily’s gaze. “There is nothing wrong with the pie.”
“Then take a bite.”
David spit out his mouthful of pumpkin. Not a pleasant sight as it plopped in a great orange blob on his plate. “Mother!? Did you do something to the pie?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I don’t feel so good.” Tom grabbed his stomach and moaned.
“This is absurd.” Regina stood and tossed her pie in the trash. “I’m going to bed.”
She took her snifter of brandy and stalked out of the room. Emily looked at her brothers, then at Min, and they all dumped their pie. Emily had no idea what to say. Thoughts whirled through her mind like debris b
eing tossed in a tornado, and she just wanted the sanctuary of her room.
Once there, she tried to slow things down. It was absurd to think there was poison in the pie. Right? They had all eaten some earlier and everyone was fine.
But this was a new, uncut pie.
“Oh, shut up,” she muttered aloud, hating that little voice in her head that was always so suspicious.
Emily spent the rest of a restless night trying to figure out if her mother had indeed spiked the pie with arsenic. And if so, why had she done it? Did she want to get rid of all her kids? But that didn’t make sense. What would she gain? Except some vindictive satisfaction of offing them because they had been so hateful to her in recent years. But that had been her own damn fault. And if she had succeeded in killing anyone, she would end up in prison. Then who would take care of Daddy Dear?
Well, actually, Emily would. Without Mommy Dearest in the picture, Emily might even consider coming back to live here and take care of her father. She actually liked him.
Still, the whole idea of her mother killing anyone was ridiculous. Wasn’t it?
The wandering maze of her thoughts had gotten her nowhere, so early in the predawn, Emily had packed and called for a taxi. She felt bad for sneaking out without saying goodbye to her father or her brothers and to Min, but she was just fine with walking out without a word to her mother. Despite how absurd the thought of Mommy as a killer was, Emily could not be sure. She had checked the garbage before she left, thinking she would take a sample of the pie for testing, but the bag was gone. It wasn’t in the compacter or the garage or any of the places a bag of trash might have been put.
*
A week later, Emily read a news item about a Korean cat burglar who had been arrested breaking into a house in her parents’ neighborhood. Ah. So there was no hit man. That was a relief. Emily hated to think badly about her sister-in-law. But there was still that niggling concern about the pie, and her mother.
Making a rash decision, Emily picked up the phone and dialed the number for her parents’ house. Her mother answered. “Why Emily, what a surprise.”
“Yes. Well, how are you mother?”
“That was very rude of you to sneak out last week. A proper guest would have said a proper goodbye.”
Emily took a quick breath to stem the surge of anger. “I’m sorry, Mother. Things were just a little…well, crazy.”
“Yes. Yes, they were, weren’t they?” Regina paused for just a moment, then continued. “I still cannot believe that you would have thought…thought that horrible thing about me.”
“Actually, that’s what I called about.”
“Really, dear. Can we not just put that behind us?”
“I could, if….”
When Emily did not finish, Regina prompted. “If what, dear?”
“If you tell me what happened to the garbage that night.”
“What?!”
Halfway through her explanation of looking for the pie to get a sample and what she was going to do with it, Emily could hear laughter from the other end of the phone. It grew in volume until Emily asked, “Why are you laughing, Mother?”
In-between hiccups of laughter, Regina explained about how Emily’s father had wanted another piece of pie so he’d gone down to the kitchen. After finishing his snack, he’d noticed that the garbage bin was overflowing, and he worried about the food rotting and smelling up the kitchen. So, he’d taken the bag out and put it in the bed of his truck to take to the dump the next day.
Emily was embarrassed. Actually, more than embarrassed. She was mortified that she had let her imagination run so wild. After speaking briefly to her father, and then apologizing to her mother, Emily hung up the phone.
She really should stop reading all those murder mysteries.
A Family Affair
Liz Milliron
When families get together for a big dinner, say Thanksgiving, there are certain expectations. The turkey is dry, the mashed potatoes are lumpy, the cranberry jelly is canned, the dressing is cold, and Uncle Harry’s jokes are lame.
What nobody expects is to find Uncle Harry facedown in aforesaid dressing when you come to sit around the table.
“Are you sure he’s dead, Tommy?” my Aunt Marian asked, as she clutched the back of a chair. Aunt Marian was often accused of being overly dramatic. This time, however, she might have been underplaying her reaction.
I paused in my examination of Uncle Harry’s corpse to fix her with what I hoped was a piercing gaze. “Two things. One, I’ve been asking you for fifteen years to stop calling me Tommy. Two, I work for the coroner’s office. I think I know when a guy is dead.”
My mother, Aunt Marian’s sister, fussed with the dinnerware. “Be kind, Tom. It is her husband lying in that…pan.”
Ah, the Burns Family Thanksgiving. What a jolly scene. Another expectation: my mother’s restrained, but pointed, criticism of Aunt Marian’s cooking abilities. Or lack thereof.
Harry’s death brought all of that to a screeching halt. Even the cooking critique. Dinner with Marian and Harry was never normal. I’d considered staying in Fayette County, maybe joining a couple of my State Police friends at a nice restaurant instead of my aunt and uncle’s ‘70s-era dining room. I’d come to support my mother. I should have stayed home.
I finished my examination, careful as I could not to disturb the body. I always said if he said another stupid pun I’d kill him, but obviously someone had gone where I feared to tread. “Did anyone call 9-1-1?”
“Yes,” my cousin, Alicia, said as she comforted her mother. Well, she tried to. Now that Aunt Marian had the spotlight, she wasn’t going to give it up. “I asked for an ambulance.”
“You might want to call back and ask for the police, too.” I took in the reactions from my relatives. They ranged from disbelief, to amazement, to “this boy is off his rocker.”
“Why the police? For all you know, Harry had a heart attack. He’s been on meds for ages,” Uncle Jack said, Harry’s younger brother. Also not a fan of Uncle Harry’s humor. Jack glanced into the living room. “Yes! 14-0. Oops, sorry.” Not even death could interrupt Jack’s football viewing. Then again, he and his brother had never been particularly close. At least not that I could recall. Jack was a bachelor. Any meal he didn’t have to prepare for himself was a good meal.
I grabbed a napkin and wiped my hands. “Just an educated guess, but I doubt the dent in the back of his skull is from a heart attack.”
*
The ambulance crew came, then left—right after they supplied Aunt Marian with something to “calm her nerves.” The cops came, looked over the scene, and interviewed people. My parents drifted to the den with its plaid upholstery. Jack went back to watching the game.
I got out of the way. Alicia found me staring out the living room window, away from the noise of death investigation and football.
She handed me a tumbler. “Johnnie Walker Black Label, two fingers.”
“You are my favorite cousin, you know that?”
“I’m your only cousin.” She shivered, despite the fact that it had to be eighty degrees in the house. “Do you think Dad died from that blow to the head?”
I sipped the whisky. “Don’t know. They’ll have to do an autopsy. If he was having heart problems, maybe it was a heart attack. Or maybe he passed out and aspirated the dressing, which would be a horrible way to go.”
“I can’t believe someone would commit murder at Thanksgiving. Especially family.”
“Stress. Holidays are a time when family members decide to off one another.” I sipped again.
Alicia slapped my shoulder. “Tommy! That is a horrible thing to say. I know people in your profession go for black humor, but really.”
“You know, I only let you get away with that—”
“Yeah, yeah. Because I’m your favorite cousin. It’s still horrible.”
“You’re right, I’m sorry. But holidays really do bring out the worst in some people. I know a guy in
the State Police who sees this all the time. Last year he was called to a scene where one family member had stabbed another over who got the last turkey drumstick.” I held up a hand. “True story.”
She turned to look out the window and gave a shuddering sigh. “He…he was alive when I put the dressing on the table. Mumbling about his arm hurting. What if it was a heart attack?” She turned to me. “What if I missed something that could have saved him?”
I dropped any hint of humor. “Hey, don’t beat yourself up. The initials after your name are going to be M-B-A, not M-D. How were you supposed to know?”
“I was hoping this holiday would, you know, be a good one. For once.”
I put down my tumbler. “Alicia, what’s been going on? The police will ask.”
She nibbled a thumbnail. “Uncle Jack was right. Dad hasn’t been well. The doctor changed his heart medication a month ago because his blood pressure kept going up. He and Mom have been arguing a lot, too.”
“About what?”
“Anything, everything. She wanted to take an Alaskan cruise, he didn’t. She wanted to put in new windows, he wouldn’t do it. She wanted to get the living room repainted—”
“Let me guess. He said no.” Aunt Marian was always a bit on the demanding side, but Alicia’s story was odd. Uncle Harry had always humored his wife. What was behind the sudden change?
“Yup.” She stared out the window. “Then there’s my school bill.”
“I thought you had that covered.”
“So did I. But I missed out on that internship I was counting on. I went from ‘all covered’ to needing almost all of next year’s tuition so I can finish.”
Ouch.
“Mom wanted to give me a loan, but Dad said no way.” Alicia clenched her fists. “He said I could leave school and work for a couple years, then go back and finish my degree.” She imitated Harry’s voice in all its pomposity. “That’s the way it’s been done for years, Alicia. You millennials want everything, without putting in the work.”
The Killer Wore Cranberry: A Fifth Course of Chaos Page 14
