Drawn and Buttered

by Shari Randall

  I wondered what Gladys was thinking. She was upset about Max but didn’t want to say anything in front of Fred.

  “Gladys, did you know Max well?” I said.

  She stopped and straightened slowly. “Only what Fred told me.”

  My eyes followed the clippers.

  “You didn’t like him.” That was plain.

  Gladys threw a look toward Fred’s door. “Max was a user. Fred has the kindest heart. When he heard Max needed money he didn’t hesitate to give it to him. A lot of money. But did that kid care about Fred? He couldn’t be bothered to stick by the man who helped him.”

  “Stick by?” Verity and I exchanged a glance.

  Indignation drew Gladys’s lips further downward. “Max was close with the Parish family. Could have put in a word for Fred to get that grant. But did he? That grant went to Lyman Smith, who’s all buddy-buddy with Royal Parish. The kid was an ingrate.” She turned back and decapitated the bush with one forceful clip.

  Verity and I rushed back to the car.

  “You know, I’d almost feel bad for poor Gladdy if I weren’t so afraid of her. Imagine doing yard work for someone who thinks fish are more interesting than you are,” I said.

  “That’s devotion,” Verity said. “If she’d do that I guess she’d do anything for him.”

  “So Max didn’t help Fred get the grant from Royal Parish. So what? How much pull could a college kid have?” I sent the photos to Lorel. Then I scrolled on my phone to the historical society Facebook page and the photos posted by Beltane.

  “I know you,” Verity said. “What are you thinking?

  “Do you have time for ice cream? I can’t think. My blood sugar must be low.” I pulled from the curb.

  “Yes, let’s stop at Scoops.”

  Scoops by the Bay was our favorite ice-cream shop. We didn’t go much during the summer since tourists made the lines insanely long. Leaf peepers made up the line now, but it was much less busy than during the summer.

  Verity and I ordered two-scoop cones, rocky road for her and chocolate-chocolate chip for me. Scoops had several picnic tables overlooking the water. We took seats and licked our cones in silence for a few minutes.

  “So what are you thinking?” Verity said.

  “Look at this.” I showed her the picture of the group at the grant presentation. “What do you notice?”

  “Royal looks great and so does this guy”—she pointed at Lyman Smith—“and this is Max, right? They all look like they stepped out of the history book. Maybe they all got their costumes at the same place.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “They’re all dressed the same. Maybe I’m looking at this the wrong way. What if the killer didn’t mean to kill Max at all? It was dark. Maybe the killer followed him to the graveyard in the dark because the killer thought he was Royal. Royal had the same build, the same cape and hat.”

  I crunched my cone.

  “But,” Verity said, “what about the lobster? Wouldn’t the killer see the lobster and think, wait a sec, Royal wouldn’t be caught dead carrying a lobster?”

  “Good thought. Maybe the killer didn’t see the lobster. Just thought, tall guy in a cape and pilgrim hat.”

  But why kill Royal? I sighed. “I hate to say it, but I think Isobel might have wanted to kill her dad. No love lost there. I heard her mother, Kathleen, talking to Madame.” Kathleen had no love lost for her husband, either.

  “That’s awful. Well, we heard him yelling at her at the party.”

  “So Isobel may be the killer even if she thought it was her dad and killed Max by mistake. It was dark. Or she knew it was Max and killed him on purpose.” I finished my cone and sighed. I should have gotten three scoops.

  Verity finished her cone and licked her fingers. “She seemed nice. And she bought a lot of jewelry from me. You’re still so preoccupied.”

  “Didn’t Gladys look like she was hiding something?” I said.

  “All I could think was that when I was little my mom would tell me if I kept making faces my face would freeze like that and I’d be stuck with it forever. I figured that’s what happened to Gladys.”

  I told Verity about Fern, and how she’d been shouldered out of her job. About Beltane, and how her love affair with Lyman Smith had soured.

  A car full of guys pulled into the Scoops parking lot. They wore sweatshirts from Graystone College. I remembered that there was supposed to be a ceremony tonight at the fraternity for Max. I searched on my phone. “Remembrance celebration at 7:30 P.M. in the college arboretum.” Remembrance celebration sounded so civilized. This was a frat. I could imagine what kind of party there would be after the ceremony.

  I wanted to learn more about Max Hempstead and find his black backpack.

  “Verity, would you like to go to a frat party tonight?”

  Chapter 31

  At eight P.M., Verity met me at the Arts Center. “Sorry I’m running late,” she said. “I had customers who would not leave.”

  We walked down the green toward the chapel entrance to the campus, across from the frat house. Music pumped. The street was lined with cars.

  “I haven’t been to a frat party in years,” she said. “I don’t know how to dress for one anymore.” She wore vintage designer jeans and a silky teal top with an Asian print. “I have my Graystone sweatshirt still.” Verity had gotten degrees in art history and business while she grew her vintage shop. She knotted the sweatshirt around her neck.

  I’d tossed on a black sweatshirt and yoga pants. I didn’t want to call attention to myself. I knew where I wanted to go.

  The frat house was already alive with music. Dozens of kids spilled out the door and porch, all holding red plastic cups. I wrinkled my nose. “I can smell the cheap beer from here.”

  Verity and I turned toward tall cast-iron gates that led to a broad path, which was lighted by luminaria, the candles set in brown paper bags giving off a soft, wavering light. A sign over the entrance swung in a light breeze, visible in the golden light of an old-fashioned gas lamp. GRAYSTONE COLLEGE ARBORETUM.

  “Wait. I thought you said the party was at the frat,” Verity said.

  “We’re checking out the remembrance ceremony first.”

  “Were we invited?” Verity said.

  “It was on the Web site so everyone must be invited. I want to see who shows for the ceremony.”

  The backyard of the frat house abutted the arboretum, a hundred acres of natural beauty where the botany department of the college gave classes. Plays and dance performances took place at a large amphitheater at the end of a broad lawn. The amphitheater was ringed with four tall stone columns, a fanciful gift from an alum. I’d danced here in two shows.

  “I bet the ceremony will be in the amphitheater. But let’s stick to the shadows,” I whispered.

  We edged down the broad lawn, skirting the line of luminaria on the path. The luminaria made me certain we were headed in the right direction.

  As we neared the amphitheater, we dodged into the trees.

  A group of young men in blazers and matching striped ties stood around a brazier, alight with a flame leaping into the night sky. A large group of people, men and women, ringed them.

  Nate Ellis stood before the assembled guests in a somber black suit. I saw Lyman Smith and Royal Parish in the inner circle. Nate and another guy poured large urns of water onto the flame.

  They muttered some words, then the inner circle raised glasses. “To Max. Our brother forever. Now the sacred rites are concluded.”

  “Rats, we missed it,” I whispered.

  The crowd processed up the path.

  Verity and I dived farther into the trees but followed the group as they headed back up toward the street.

  Royal Parish and Lyman Smith got into expensive black sedans and left along with the other adults. The students streamed toward the frat house; Verity and I joined them.

  Music now pumped more loudly from the frat house. We followed a group of giggling girls who looked ba
rely out of high school up the stairs. Two hulking guys, the bouncers, waved the girls in and did the same with me and Verity.

  “I don’t think anyone’s checking invitations at the door,” I said.

  We stepped inside into a wall of music and a crush of writhing, dancing bodies.

  “What’s the plan?” Verity shouted in my ear.

  “Let’s get the lay of the land. Learn about Max Hempstead,” I yelled in her ear. “And keep your eyes peeled for a black backpack.”

  “A backpack?” she shouted.

  “Remember Isobel told us about the papers stolen from her house? When I saw Max with Fred Nickerson at the shack, he wore his backpack while he was working with Lobzilla. I thought that was strange. That was the day after a burglary at the Parish house.”

  “So you think the papers are in the backpack?”

  I remembered what Nate Ellis said. Guys steal. “Yes, I think he didn’t want to let those papers out of his sight.”

  We slid through the crush into the kitchen. The table was covered with dozens of bottles of alcohol and one small bowl of pretzels.

  “Hey.” The two freshmen we’d met at the Parishes’ Halloween party stepped into the kitchen holding the ubiquitous red plastic cups. I peered past them into a bathroom. An old-fashioned claw-footed tub was full of murky brownish liquid that guys were stirring with a paddle as another poured from a bottle of vodka.

  “So, you came to the party,” one said.

  Verity and I shared a glance. Small talk wasn’t their strong suit.

  “Yes.”

  “Hope it doesn’t end like the other party.” One guy swayed. God, drunk already and the party has just started.

  “That was sad,” Verity said. “Did you know Max well?”

  “Max? Nah.” One guy reached for a handful of pretzels.

  The other said, “He owed me money.”

  “He did?” Max needed money.

  “He shook me down for fifty bucks. Now I’ll never get it back.”

  “I liked your outfit the other night better.” One guy waved his cup at me and slurred. “Pirates are hot.”

  Verity said, “Let’s get out of here.”

  “I lost my cape—did you find it?” Red Cup said.

  Cape? “You lost your cape?”

  “After the party they were in a big pile in the coat room. I couldn’t find mine. Had to pay the party store twenty dollars because someone took mine.”

  My pulse kicked up a notch. “Sorry, no.”

  Verity grabbed my arm. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking? The capes were in a big pile—”

  “Maybe that’s what happened to Madame Monachova.” I pictured her, a pair of glasses on her head always. The lights had been turned down until the police came. She couldn’t see well. She must have picked up the wrong cape at the party.

  I pushed Verity through the kitchen, waving good-bye to our stalkers.

  “Verity!” I hit my head. “I should have known. When we saw her on the patio, her cape was too long for her. I stepped on it!” My words tumbled out. “She must have taken off her cape when she went in to the party because it was warm. She left it in the coat room. When she went back to get it, she picked up somebody else’s cape.”

  “Her cape was awfully long. So the killer was a tall guy in a cape.” Verity picked up a bowl of pretzels. “There were a lot of tall guys at the party. But the police can get the killer’s DNA off the cape. That’s great.”

  I shook my head. “You just heard that kid. They were all jumbled up together. Lots of different people’s DNA rubbing off everywhere. Probably wouldn’t stand up in court.”

  “Now you really sound like Bronwyn. We should have asked her to come.” Verity munched a handful of pretzels.

  “No, we shouldn’t. She’d want to arrest everyone here. Half these kids are underage.” Plus I didn’t want her to stop me from doing what I wanted to do.

  Several guys looked at us appraisingly as we went into the living room. I picked up a cup and handed it to Verity. “I’m so glad I’m old and don’t have to do this anymore. Don’t drink anything. We’ll just look like we’re drinking.”

  “I’m not touching anything,” she said.

  “Unless it’s a black backpack.”

  “Is there anything that makes the backpack stand out?”

  “It had keys and tools and one of those orange foam floating key chains on it. Like the kind sailors use.”

  Verity sniffed the drink and put it down with a grimace. “Okay, you take me to a party where I could get salmonella or worse if I eat or drink anything, not to mention all that weird ritual stuff. Now what do we do?”

  “Now we go upstairs.” I nodded toward the staircase.

  Verity put her hands on her hips. “Are you kidding? I know you didn’t get to go to many college parties because you were at the conservatory, but there is one rule: you do not go upstairs in a frat house. Or the basement. Definitely not the basement.”

  I grinned at Verity and pulled her hand. “We are tonight. Keep your eyes peeled for that backpack.”

  We eased through the crush of bodies and went up the stairs. “Remember I told you that the frat showed the police Max’s bed? But a kid here told me that only freshman slept in the bull pen. So I think Max’s room must be on the top floor.”

  We passed kids crowded around an air hockey table and continued upstairs.

  As we climbed, the music quieted enough that I could hear the floorboards of the stairs creak as we ascended.

  “I don’t have a good feeling about this,” Verity said.

  At the first room we came to, the door was open. I glanced quickly behind me and stepped inside. The room was narrow, with two beds, computer equipment, tennis rackets, and duffel bags. My quick search found a green backpack and a black leather briefcase.

  The next room held two backpacks, one blue, one with a camouflage pattern.

  The next room’s door was closed.

  “Is the light on?” Verity whispered.

  I bent to look.

  A door across the hall opened. “Ladies?”

  I whirled. Nate Ellis pulled up short, his hand on the doorknob. He’d changed from the suit he’d worn at the ceremony and now was dressed in jeans and a GRAYSTONE LACROSSE T-shirt. He quickly pulled his door shut behind him, his brows knitted, trying to place us. He nodded. “I remember you. The dance professor.”

  “Hi,” I said weakly.

  “And who’s your friend?” Nate said.

  “Sade Wellington.” Verity batted her eyelashes.

  “Looking for someone?” He wasn’t smiling.

  “The little girls’ room,” Verity said in a sultry voice I’d never heard her use before. I almost laughed.

  “Oh, downstairs.” Nate looked from me to Verity, confused.

  “Too kind.”

  I had a feeling that Nate knew we were up to something but didn’t know what. But with Verity by my side and a bunch of kids downstairs, I wasn’t worried.

  “This way.” He led us back downstairs.

  Back on the first floor I turned to Nate. “I’m sorry about your friend Max,” I yelled as we entered the living room. The music thumped from speakers at a deafening volume. Verity danced at my side.

  Nate shouted back. “He was a good guy.”

  Coop was on the couch, a bowl of corn chips on his lap. His eyebrows jumped when he saw me. He waved. I waved back. He scurried to the kitchen.

  “Ooh, a boyfriend already!” Verity said in my ear.

  Coop returned with two more cups. “You ladies all set for drinks?”

  “Ah, okay,” Verity said in her breathy voice. She took the drink and continued dancing. I nodded thanks to Coop.

  “Was Max’s family here? For the ceremony?” I shouted over the music.

  Coop leaned back, pulling my drink away, and slurred, “I thought his family hired you, didn’t they?”

  He and Nate exchanged glances. Nate frowned. “I think you’d bette
r leave. You, your friend.”

  “We’re just—”

  Shouts came from the kitchen, then the sound of crashing bottles and falling bodies.

  Nate swore. “Geez, those morons. See the ladies out, Coop.” He rushed toward the kitchen.

  Coop made an exaggerated just-this-way gesture toward the front door and staggered drunkenly in our wake. When we got outside on the porch, the sound of the fighting behind us, I took a deep breath of clean air. “Coop, honestly, we’re not cops. I just want to know what happened with Max. He was dating a friend of mine.” That felt true. I did like Isobel.

  Coop touched his nose. “Nope. I kept on script for the cops and I’ll keep on script for you, too.”

  So he did lie to the cops.

  Someone shouted from inside. Coop and the bouncers headed in. Coop slammed the door.

  “Well, there’s one for the books.” Verity put her drink down on the railing. “I’ve been kicked out of a fraternity.”

  I inhaled deeply as we went down the steps.

  “Follow me.” I circled the house, stopping to turn back and beckon Verity. She groaned but followed.

  A black iron fire escape clung to the back of the building. I reached up and pulled down the ladder. “Back in we go.”

  Chapter 32

  A few minutes later, after a lot of moaning from Verity, we climbed to the top level of the fire escape. “These are the rooms we didn’t get to look in,” I whispered. “I especially want to know why Nate Ellis pulled his door shut so quickly.”

  “Well, we better hurry. I don’t want to see those kids again. The little drunk one is fine, we could knock him over with a pinkie, but the big ones looked a lot more serious.”

  I peered through the window into the first room. There was nobody inside and they’d helpfully left the light on. Piles of what appeared to be dirty clothing were heaped next to unmade beds. Sports equipment and more clothes spilled out of a closet. I spotted a green backpack by the door.

  The next room had the curtains pulled and the unmistakable shadows and sounds of a romantic encounter. “Oh, no.”