Dead in Bed (Sweetfern Harbor Mystery Book 2)

by Wendy Meadows

  “Let’s go home, Brenda. You look like you need a breather.”

  Brenda took one more look at the actors, then turned to nod at Mac. She wanted nothing more than to confront Ellen head-on and find out what this lawsuit was all about.

  She allowed Mac to steer her homeward. “I don’t want the news getting out but Edward just told me the Sheffield Bed and Breakfast may not belong to me.” As Mac turned to look at her in surprise, she told Mac about the blow Edward’s news had dealt her.

  “He will get to the bottom of this,” said Mac. “He filed the will and you signed the papers, I can’t imagine what could change that. Let’s stop and get a drink to end the night.”

  They stopped at a small bar and grill at the end of Main Street and sat listening to the live music played by a small acoustic band on the deck that looked out toward the street. She sipped a glass of red wine while he enjoyed a cold beer and they watched the crowds from the theatre festival trickling home down Main Street. It was a beautiful night and she should have been relaxing with the man she loved, but her mind was racing. Brenda finally stifled a yawn and told him she was beat. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Edward is going to look things over in the morning rather than wait until Monday so I’ll call you when I hear something.” Mac, still worried about her, walked her home with a protective arm wrapped around her shoulders.

  At the door to the bed and breakfast, Mac leaned down. His kiss lingered longer than usual. She smiled up at him, the warm glow of his embrace permeating her body, and turned to go inside. He waved over his shoulder as he walked back down the street, knowing Brenda would be looking at him from the front windows as she always did. She climbed the stairs wearily to her apartment hoping that Edward would soon have good news for her.

  Chapter Four

  Shocking News

  The Blossoms van pulled up in front of Sheffield Bed and Breakfast the next morning. Allie peeked out the front door and saw Jenny Rivers unloading spray after spray of beautiful bouquets, many of them roses. She went outside to lend a hand.

  “Good morning, Jenny. Did Brenda order all these flowers?”

  “Not all of them. Most are deliveries for Ellen Teague. There are more of them coming, I’ll have to make a second delivery run later today. I’m just hoping I don’t run out. If I do, I’ll have to get the florist in the next town over to help me out.”

  Brenda appeared in the doorway just as Allie and Jenny carried up several armfuls to the front porch. Allie told her most of the flowers were for the famous star.

  “I separated yours from Ellen’s,” said Jenny. She pointed to the cluster set aside on the porch. “As soon as I get them all inside you can tell me where you want them. I have the newspaper with early morning reviews with me, too, if you want an extra copy.” Her eyes sparkled. Sweetfern Harbor’s visiting star certainly increased business in the village. The whole town had come alive.

  “Let’s take as many as we can carry up to her room,” said Brenda. She solicited Allie’s help and the three made their way upstairs.

  Brenda knocked on the door. When it opened, she saw Ellen Teague perfectly coiffed and with makeup on, but she was more astonished by the exquisite silk dressing gown she wore. The emerald green silk contrasted with her dark eyes that glittered in the morning sunshine. Brenda did not know if she would get used to this kind of glamor in her bed and breakfast.

  Ellen did not appear surprised at the numerous bouquets and immediately directed them where to place each bouquet. The lavish floral displays spilled their incredible perfumes into the room and looked magnificent when set up on the bureau and the dressing table.

  “There are more to come,” said Jenny. “We’ll bring them up right away.”

  Ellen had no comment and turned back to the mirror where she patted her hair in place. Allie and Jenny started for the door when Ellen decided to speak.

  “Bring just a few more up here. The rest can be displayed prominently throughout the bed and breakfast.”

  Jenny and Allie glanced at Brenda. Her look told them to quickly go and get the rest. As for Brenda, she tried to take a calming breath. Ellen had made a generous offer, but it wasn’t the actress’s prerogative to command her to place them prominently – but Brenda ignored that for the moment. Brenda took a deep breath and got right to the issue.

  “What is this about a court case against my Uncle Randolph’s estate challenging me as the rightful owner of the bed and breakfast?”

  Ellen turned to look at her briefly, then rolled her eyes dismissively as she stood up to face her. “Oh, you silly girl, you do not own this place. I’m the one with a stronger legal claim to it.” She advanced toward Brenda as she said this, and Brenda instinctively took a step back toward the door. “It will all be sorted out soon. This place needs a lot of improvements but I’ll manage that. Not that I plan to spend much time here but it is mine nevertheless.” Without waiting for a response, she gently pushed Brenda through the doorway with one manicured hand and closed the door in her face.

  “You can say what you want, but you can’t take the Sheffield Bed and Breakfast from me.” Brenda raised her voice slightly to be heard through the closed door, not caring who overheard.

  Ellen opened the door a crack, just wide enough to give Brenda another cold look. “You really must get used to the fact that it was never yours in the first place.” She closed it again and Brenda heard the lock click.

  When she composed herself and returned downstairs, the smell of the armfuls of flowers Allie and Jenny returned with became too much. “I need some fresh air. Jenny, the rest of the flowers should just go to the sitting room for now, I’ll deal with them later. Allie, do you want a break?”

  “Sure. Is the smell from all these flowers getting to you?”

  Brenda thought her beautiful Sheffield house smelled like a funeral home but didn’t express those thoughts aloud. “I could use a good walk right now.”

  They walked down the road toward Main Street. Brenda had never seen so many tourists at one time in Sweetfern Harbor. Not only were tourists visiting for the Seaside Theatre Festival, but reporters and journalists were in town for the duration of the show. Someone pointed out the owner of the Sheffield Bed and Breakfast right as they walked into town and Brenda found herself in the center of a small group of reporters clamoring for details about Ellen Teague.

  As she listened to their silly questions, Brenda knew she had had enough of the actress. She finally said, “Please, I cannot divulge anything private about the star, or about any guest of the Sheffield. But I am sure Ellen will give interviews when ready.” The disappointed reporters finally left her alone. Brenda and Allie finally reached Morning Sun Coffee in one piece and saw Shawn and Anna Quincy sitting at a table that looked out onto the street. Despite the indignities of hosting Ellen Teague, Brenda was determined that the other actors should have a better experience visiting their tiny town. Allie followed Brenda as she made her way to their table.

  “I didn’t get a chance to congratulate you both on your stunning performance last night. I thoroughly enjoyed the play and your acting was superb.”

  “Thank you. We’re glad you enjoyed it,” said Shawn, flashing her with one of his megawatt smiles. “Ricky has a few comp tickets that Ellen, or rather Chester, gave him if you want to see it again.”

  Brenda thanked him and told him she was busy, but she was sure Jenny wanted to go again. She didn’t say it but privately she wondered if she could possibly enjoy seeing the play again. How could she enjoy seeing her formerly favorite actress on stage, pretending to be this glittering beauty of warmth and charm, when Brenda now knew what she was really like? She knew it wasn’t something she was ready for. Shawn agreed he would pass the word on to Ricky to give the extra tickets to Jenny Rivers.

  “You’re welcome to join us,” said Anna, patting the chair next to her and smiling at the still-starstruck Allie.

  Brenda left her young employee happily chatting with the Hollywood stars and
chatted with Molly, the proprietor, for a few minutes while she ordered their drinks. When their lattés were ready, Brenda carried them from the counter over to the table and sat down to listen as Anna finished telling Allie a hilarious story about a stage makeup mishap that had happened on her very first touring show.

  As they finished their lattés, the cheery sound of the bell at the Morning Sun’s door rang as more tourists trooped in. Brenda took that as their cue and told Allie they should get back to the bed and breakfast. They said their goodbyes to the Quincys and headed back on Main Street.

  More than anything, Brenda reflected, she wanted to be alone. The town, crowded from the festival, began to suffocate her today as it never had before. It was not unlike the feeling she had felt in her bed and breakfast following the uncomfortable confrontation with Ellen. She had a lot to think about.

  Upon their return, Brenda spoke to Phyllis and was relieved to hear there wouldn’t be a repeat of yesterday’s rehearsal on the back lawn. She decided to prepare her own lunch in the main kitchen and take it up the back stairway to her apartment. She needed time to think, but more than anything she hoped Edward Graham would call her soon. Perhaps he found a loophole of some sort or maybe he found out Ellen’s claim was not legally sound after all.

  Brenda had eaten her lunch and straightened her room when finally her phone rang. She glanced at the screen and saw it was Mac, and answered the call with some relief. He was eager to know if she had heard from Edward yet, and she gave him the disappointing news.

  “Well, I’m sure he’ll be in touch soon. Meanwhile, I thought I’d go see ‘The Rich Game’ again tonight. Jenny asked me to take her. She was sure caught up with it and she got complimentary tickets from Ricky Owens.” He noted the pause from her end. “I didn’t ask you since you gave me the impression you didn’t like Ellen Teague so much now.”

  “It’s perfectly fine. Your daughter wants to see it again and I’m not really interested. For the record, I still admire Ellen’s talent but not so much her personality offstage. Have a good time tonight.” She meant her last words, but she felt strange, almost lonely, knowing he didn’t ask her first.

  “I’m just being silly,” she told herself when they had hung up. “Jenny really wants to see it again and why shouldn’t Mac take her?”

  In an attempt to distract herself, she thought again about the magnificent stories she had heard about her Uncle Randolph from the actors who had known him. What else did she not know about him? Could Ellen’s claim have some merit? It was a troublesome thought.

  She knew Randolph had married three times and never had a child of his own. The one time she had visited Sheffield house with her parents, her uncle had taken her up the narrow stairs to what she now knew was the attic. He showed her a playroom with a slanted ceiling and faded old wallpaper in a floral pattern. With a proud flourish, he opened the floor-to-ceiling cupboards to show her the old toys stored there, and then in the final cupboard he showed her a large antique dollhouse with all its furnishings. She had played with the delicate, tiny furniture and porcelain doll figures for hours while the adults talked downstairs. He seemed to find great happiness in her joy that day, like it was a secret he had been longing to share with just the right person. It was an enchanting memory, one she cherished. Not until she was in her teens had her parents mentioned him again, and only to mention how he had transformed the old mansion into a bed and breakfast. It wasn’t until decades later that she learned he too never forgot his niece and that captivating visit to the attic playroom. After his death, her uncle’s lawyer Edward Graham contacted her to inform her she was the heiress of his estate and now the proud owner of Randolph Sheffield’s bed and breakfast.

  Quiet descended on the Sheffield house as the day wore on into the late afternoon and still no phone call came from Edward. Brenda waited and finally drifted off to sleep in her chair and awoke with a start. Aside from the ticking of the hall clock, there was not a sound throughout the huge house. She remembered then that the cast and crew of the play had reserved dinner at one of the upscale restaurants at the edge of town with a waterfront view. It was time to discover who her uncle really was.

  Brenda climbed the narrow stairs to the attic with a heavy-duty screwdriver in her hand. She switched on the light and walked through the first couple of empty rooms, toward the room farthest from the stairs where she knew her uncle’s crates were stored. The revelation that he had once been an actor opened up a whole new chapter in his life as far as she was concerned. Even more fascinating to her was the fact that he had been connected to Ellen Teague, and that these crates could hold the key to that story.

  Brenda opened the dusty room and brushed away a cobweb that hung from the light. She looked at the stacks of wooden crates and old-fashioned steam trunks before her. She lifted a crate down from one pile and read the handwritten note on the outside, “Costumes.” Setting it down for later, she looked at the second crate which read, more promisingly, “Memorabilia.” She pried open the top of the crate with her screwdriver, the nails squeaking in the wood, until she could take the lid off. Inside she found a treasure trove of Broadway tickets, advertising posters, and playbills. Randolph Sheffield’s name was on everything. Brenda sat back on her heels in satisfaction.

  “You really were an actor, Uncle Randolph. Why did I never know that?”

  As hard as she tried, Brenda could not remember either parent talking about his days as an actor. As she sifted through several other boxes of memorabilia and other papers, Brenda found a small bundle of letters tied with a heavy string. The one on top was addressed to her father. It was stamped but had not been mailed. She turned it over and saw that it had not been sealed either. Perhaps Randolph had more to say and had never finished writing it. She unfolded the two sheets of paper and began reading.

  In the letter, Randolph explained his frustrations to his brother, her father, Tim. Evidently this had been written during the run of a play in which he and Ellen Teague had been costars. Randolph wrote that he was tired of playing second fiddle to Ellen Teague. She hogged the spotlight until reporters started zeroing in on her alone. She played one character for the public, another character on the stage, and a nasty character in private, even in those days. She had played the press like a fiddle – so well, in fact, that her costar Randolph had barely merited a mention in the reviews that praised her talents and beauty. It had been a bitter pill to swallow for her uncle.

  Brenda clutched the letter tighter, feeling a kinship through the years with her uncle. As she read on, she softened as she read that Randolph was in love with someone named Anne. No last name was provided in the letter. Ellen had snubbed him until she found out about Anne, and then Ellen found a million ways to sabotage him. She found ways to interrupt them, or show up when he was out on a date. She was not afraid to use her star power to try to ruin Randolph’s chance at happiness.

  In the last paragraph, Randolph told his brother he wanted out of show business. He missed the pleasures of living in a small town like the one the two brothers grew up in, in upstate New York. The next sentence began: I have a chance to buy a historic home in a town called Sweetfern Harbor. I’ve visited there several times and have decided to purchase it. It is right on the… here the words ended. This confirmed what Brenda thought: that her uncle had more to say or he would have mailed the letter to her father. She wondered what interrupted him and why he didn’t go back and finish the letter. There was no way to answer that. The two brothers, along with her mother, were now deceased.

  It dawned on her that she and her uncle were very much alike. He wanted a simpler life and so did she. When she had found out the bed and breakfast was hers, she discovered how much the town of Sweetfern Harbor and its life of simplicity and freedom drew her in. The townspeople had accepted her and it didn’t take long for her to feel right at home for the first time in her life. She put her life as assistant to a Private Investigator back in Michigan aside. She had enjoyed her role as an amateur
sleuth but was ready for peace and quiet in a quaint village set along the Atlantic Ocean. That didn’t mean she would stop reading crime novels, though.

  Whatever happened between Ellen Teague and Randolph Sheffield fed her curiosity. On the other hand, as hostess to the famous actress, she knew her first priority was to apologize to her guest for her behavior that morning and make things right again. She would have to set aside the terrible business of the court case and treat Ellen Teague just like any other guest.

  Brenda closed up the attic again and returned to her room. She stretched out across her bed and flipped through an old script that she had come across in the crates. Immersed in the old-fashioned murder mystery play, she did not realize it was getting late until a cold breeze sailed through her curtains and made her shiver. She absently stayed awake reading until she heard everyone come in. She listened as doors closed and everyone started settling in for the night. Then she went down to Ellen’s room and knocked on her door. Chester opened the door with expectant, raised eyebrows.

  Brenda opened her mouth to speak but stopped when she heard another familiar voice. She looked past Chester and saw William Pendleton sitting in one of the wingback armchairs with a glass of champagne in his hand. Chester stepped aside as William turned to greet her, but Brenda chose to focus on Ellen.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt, I just wanted to speak with Miss Teague. I can do that in the morning...”

  “No, don’t let me trouble you. I must be on my way,” said William. Chester excused himself as well, saying he needed to see to the costumes that had been brought to his room.

  Ellen looked down her nose at the interruption. “The costumes will have to be dry-cleaned again by tomorrow afternoon. It’s our last performance here and I want them to look perfect.”

  “I’ll let Allie know,” said Brenda, as she watched William and Chester leave. She felt unaccountably nervous when she was left alone with Ellen. “I came to apologize for my bad behavior earlier. I hope you have found everything satisfactory during your stay here.”