by Maia Chance
“Should I turn back?”
“No. Too risky. There isn’t much traffic on this road. He’ll notice. Anyway, haven’t we seen enough? He picked up dry cleaning—from another town—and put it in a van. A van not at his home, but out here.” Effie was scrabbling in her handbag for a fresh cigarette.
“He’s obviously up to something weird. Pass me the Tic Tacs, would you? Do you think that Volkswagen belongs to him?”
“Couldn’t you simply ask Otis?”
“No way. He’s … he’s really upset with me because of our snooping. If he knew I was still snooping, I don’t…”
“I see. You’re holding out hope that you’ll crack the case, Otis will see the folly of his ways, realize what a brilliant sleuth you are, sweep you into his arms, apologize, and whisk you away to the Adirondacks.”
YES! Yes, exactly this!
“Please,” I said.
*
I kept going back and forth in my mind about whether I should call Detective Albright and drop hints about Clifford Prentiss being up to something odd. After all, I had Albright’s private cell number stored in the contacts on my phone. There were two problems with calling him, though. First, I would have to explain how we had learned about the dry cleaning and the Volkswagen van. Admitting to stalking my fellow townsperson = not good. Second, it is not even bragging for me to say that Sinclair Albright had a thing for me, and calling his cell would overstep the boundary I had so painstakingly drawn.
When Effie and I arrived back at the inn, Dorothea and Hank were sitting on Adirondack chairs on the lawn overlooking the lake, talking. A big white storage pod was sitting beside the rent-a-dumpster out by the garage.
“What’s that?” Effie asked.
“More room to store antiques while we’re renovating,” I said.
“Genius!”
When we went inside through the kitchen door, Chester was making coffee on the state-of-the-art espresso maker Effie had splurged on. Behind Chester’s back, Tiger Boy was on a countertop eating Chester’s sandwich.
“Perfect,” Effie said to me. “We’ll put Tiger Boy’s collar on now and I’ll take him straight up to Hanks’s room for a mouse-scaring session, and then, when I see Hank heading back inside, I’ll simply go and fetch him.”
“Sounds like a totally normal thing to do,” I said.
Chester told me he had cut the plywood into pieces that would fit the bathroom floor. “I even cut holes for the bathtub and toilet plumbing.”
I thanked him, and we carefully hauled the pieces up to the attic and leaned them against the wall in the hallway.
“Do you want me to help you glue and nail those down?” Chester asked, wiping his sweaty forehead with his T-shirt hem.
“No, actually. I think I want to do it myself.”
“For practice?”
“Yeah.”
Honestly, I didn’t know why I wanted to install the floor by myself. I just did.
*
For dinner, Chester ordered a huge takeout feast from Bengal Palace. We ate at Effie’s recently acquired, castle-sized dining room table, sitting on antique chairs whose upholstered seats were still covered in protective plastic wrap. Somewhere between my samosa and my chicken tikka masala, I decided that, if I happened to run into Detective Albright at the Lake Club Masquerade later, I’d drop hints about Clifford. It was probably my civic duty. But mostly, I wanted to corner Clifford and Belinda myself and demand some answers.
After helping Chester and Effie with the cleanup, I turned to go upstairs and get ready.
“Wait, Agnes,” Effie said. “Let me fix your eyebrows.”
“They’re fixable? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Only temporarily, and in a water-resistant but not waterproof way. Sit back down. I’ll be back in a jiff.” Effie stubbed out her cigarette and went off somewhere. After a few minutes she returned with what looked like a fishing tackle box and plunked it on the kitchen table. Inside were an incomprehensible number of blushers, eyeliners, lipsticks, and mascara tubes.
“Jeez, auntie, you could set up shop getting every last kid in town ready for Halloween.”
“There’s a thought.” She was unscrewing the cap of a little glass jar. “Bear with me—I haven’t done someone else’s brows since ex-hubby number three decided that a full face was more his style than the corporate businessman look.” With a tiny brush she dabbed at my eyebrows until I thought I was going to scream with impatience. Finally, she capped the jar of eyebrow gunk and passed me a mirror compact to see.
“Oh. My. Gawd,” I said, or, possibly, moaned.
“You look fantastic!”
“I look like a female impersonator.”
“Those are Sophia Loren eyebrows.”
“These brows are wearing me.”
I couldn’t look away from my reflection. The brows Effie had painted on were mesmerizingly symmetrical, lush, tapering tributes to Effie’s modeling career. They didn’t look bad at all. They actually looked terrific. It’s just that they didn’t go with the rest of me.
“I know you have an allergy to looking like you’re trying too hard, Agnes, but it’s either these brows or looking like you were almost pecked to death by Peregrine falcons.”
*
The Naneda Lake Club sits about a mile south of town, a rambling, crouched 1930s lodge kind of thing on the lakeshore. It’s about as swanky as it gets in Naneda, which is to say, not especially. It used to be the place to hold a “classy” function, although in recent years, converted barns and vineyard tasting rooms have taken away some of its party and wedding traffic. It has lakefront lawns and a beautifully restored wooden boathouse, from which club members launch rowboats in nice weather.
When I braked the Dustbuster at the VALET sandwich board in the clubhouse’s front drive, the windows were glowing and rock music floated out.
“I can’t wait to dance, Myronie,” Lo said, clambering out of the back seat. She and Myron hadn’t wanted to shell out for costumes they’d never use again, so she was wearing a black velour tracksuit heavily embellished with rhinestones and a small silver masquerade mask with an elastic strap that she’d gotten at Harries Stationery. Myron was in slacks and a blazer, with a silver mask that matched Lo’s. They linked arms and headed toward the club’s open doors.
Hank got out next, wearing a scarecrow costume that his scrawny body was made for, and then he turned to give Dorothea, in a Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz costume, a hand. Then they linked arms and headed toward the door, their heads bent close.
I looked at Aunt Effie. “What in the world?”
“Love is in the air, Agnes. Love is in the air.”
“Not for everyone,” I said darkly.
“What would the hills of a romance be without the valleys?” Effie got out, and so did I. She was in a black sheath dress, spiky black heels, and a mask made of peacock feathers.
I had gone with a black jersey wrap dress that could be dressed up or down. Effie had informed me that I had gone with “down.” I wore no jewelry (unless you counted my glasses) and black ballet flats. My costume consisted of a headband from which two bobbling plastic pumpkins sprouted from springs. Understated elegance, no?
As I was handing my keys to the valet, a Datsun hatchback stuttered to a stop behind the Dustbuster. Chester climbed out from behind the wheel wearing a capacious, orange plush pumpkin suit.
“Evening, ladies,” he said, tossing his keys to the gawking valet.
The Lake Club’s interior was all exposed wood beams, oil paintings, stone fireplaces, and clusters of brass-studded club chairs. Antique oars and framed sailing flags decorated the walls. You could just picture Teddy Roosevelt striding around in there with a scotch and soda. Tonight it brimmed with costumed Nanedans in a festive mood.
Chester bumped—literally—into a friend, so Effie and I left him behind as we made a circuit of the oak-paneled ballroom.
“The auction begins in about forty-five minutes,” Effie said
over the cover band, “so we have until then to ask questions. Remember, be subtle.”
“I’m always subtle.”
Effie eyed my sproingy pumpkin antennae. “M-kay.”
She swiped two flutes of bubbly from a passing tray and passed me one. We stood there, sipping and inspecting the crowd. Up on stage, the band was plowing through a peppy version of “Billie Jean.” Couples rocked and twirled in the middle of the room, and lots more were mingling at the peripheries, drinking, eating, and laughing.
“It looks like a wild success,” said Effie. “I hope the bachelorette auction goes just as well. The proceeds are for the county literacy program.”
“After the jet-setting life you’ve led, I’m surprised you can stand this kind of party out in the sticks,” I said.
“Oh, but you see, there really is no bigger, better life somewhere far away. That’s an illusion. True, some parties have better clothes than others”—she was looking at a guy in a used-car-salesman-style checked sports coat—“but tonight Naneda is just as much at the center of the universe as anywhere else. It’s simply a matter of perspective.”
“You really believe that?” I couldn’t help it; I was thinking about Seattle.
“I do. Coming back to Naneda has been a revelation for me, Agnes, an absolute revelation. It feels wonderful to be rooted to a spot, not to be—to be searching for something anymore. Oh, look. Alexa and Randy Rice have arrived. What is Alexa dressed as?”
“Um … oh, there she is. She’s a black cat.”
“Of course she is.”
“She looks like she may be tipsy already, the way she’s clinging to Randy for balance. I was thinking of asking her about her alibi, but maybe tonight isn’t the night.”
“Randy cleaned up nicely, didn’t he?”
“He still looks angry.”
“Mm.”
Randy wasn’t in a costume but a navy-blue suit. His face was flushed, and he was scanning the ballroom as though itching to pick a fight.
Effie jabbed me with a sharp elbow. “Look. There’s Clifford, over at the nibbles table, going at the prosciutto like there’s no tomorrow.”
“And there’s Belinda, right next to him. Looks like she’s costumed as a gypsy.”
It looked as if Belinda was quietly chewing Clifford out, actually, by the way her head was dipped low and her lips were working like a rubber band.
“Let’s go ask them about the dry cleaning and the Volkswagen, shall we?” Effie said.
“I can’t think of anything I’d like to do more.”
Chapter 17
I followed Effie around the crowd in the ballroom to the hors d’oeuvres table. We got really close to Clifford and Belinda without them noticing us in the hubbub. I heard Belinda say, “—and would you lay off the snacks? You’re starting to look like a marshmallow stuffed into that suit. That used to fit you perfectly.”
I’m not one to talk, but the seams of Clifford’s navy-blue suit did look as if they were on the verge of giving up.
Clifford ostentatiously stuffed two prosciutto canapés into his mouth at once and chewed slowly, without taking his eyes from Belinda’s face. Then he polished off a glass of wine in one swallow.
“Stop it,” Belinda whispered. “Stop it! Where is your costume, anyway?”
“I left it in the car.”
“Go get it.”
“I don’t feel like it, Belinda dear.”
“What has gotten into you, Cliff? Besides several dozen cupcakes, that is. You’re acting crazy.”
“What’s gotten into me?” Clifford said. “I’ll tell you what’s gotten into me, Belinda dearest. I’m done.”
Belinda’s shoulders tensed. “Done?”
“That’s right, done.” Clifford speared a cube of cheddar with a toothpick and popped it into his mouth. “Things have changed for me—changed in a huge way—and now I’m free. You know where I think I’ll go first? By myself? The San Diego Model Railroad Museum.”
“What are you talking about?” Belinda snapped. “How do you think you’re going to get there? May I remind you that you’re afraid of flying and that we don’t have the money for plane tickets?”
Something made Belinda turn her head.
“Oh, hello!” Effie trilled, as though we’d suddenly come upon them. “How are the nibbles? They look exquisite. Are you enjoying yourselves? Have you danced yet? You two look like you could compete with Fred and Ginger in the airy department.”
“Airy?” Belinda said. “Cliff? That’s a joke. Oh, he gets the steps right—on my feet.”
“What do you want?” Clifford asked. His words were slightly slurred and he was craning his neck. “Where’s that darn waiter with the wine?”
“More wine is the last thing you need,” Belinda snapped.
I cut in. “Actually, I was going to ask you guys about cars.”
Clifford stiffened.
I went on, “I’m thinking of buying a new car and I’ve narrowed it down to a few different models. I noticed you guys drive a Subaru station wagon—one of my top choices—and so I wanted to ask, um, how you like it, and how it compares to your Volkswagen Vanagon.”
Clifford’s face turned the color of used dishwater.
Belinda was watching me closely. “You’re really weird, you know that?”
“Yup.” I beamed, hoping she’d continue.
She did. “The Subaru is fine—even though Cliff has destroyed the clutch about ten times. We don’t have a Volkswagen Vanagon—where did you get that idea? We can’t afford to insure two vehicles! And you know what? I’m sick of you two and your bizarre questions. Come on, Clifford.” Belinda stepped away.
Clifford lurched in the opposite direction.
“They don’t have a Volkswagen?” I whispered to Effie. “Are you sure you saw—”
“I’m positive.”
“Then what the hey was that Volkswagen Vanagon at Hatch Automotive?”
“That’s obvious, darling. It’s Clifford’s little secret. Maybe he uses it to store things he doesn’t want Belinda to see. Maybe he uses it to take secret jaunts. Or—and I don’t expect you to know this since you weren’t around in the seventies—those sorts of vans are ideal for trysts. Perhaps Cliff has been meeting a lover in the back.”
“Ew.” Alexa’s affair. Could Alexa and Clifford…? “I’m thinking he’s planning on driving it to San Diego. To see that model train museum. Except, what about the dry cleaning?”
“There is that. Any way you look at it, though, those two are on the express to splitsville. Oh, look.” Effie made wiggly fingers up high. “It’s that little darling, Mr. Solomon. I’m just going to pop over and say hello—you’ll be all right, won’t you, Agnes? And go and get yourself a drink, because Otis Hatch just walked in, and my, my, my does he look delicious tonight. I’ve never seen him in a suit. James Bond has nothing on that swagger.”
My heart fluttered. “What? Where?”
Effie was gone.
Then I saw Otis. Dreamy in a black suit and white shirt open at the neck, he was looking around the ballroom searchingly. I was on tiptoe and lifting my hand to wave at him when I saw the bouncy blonde curls beside him.
Delilah.
My hand fell to my side.
She wore a clingy white dress, with a silver halo trembling over her head and feathery angel wings.
Cheese suddenly sounded like a great idea.
I had only been grazing at the cheese platter for about a minute when Lauren appeared beside me in a pale gold 1960s sheath dress. Her hair was a full-on Bewitched flip, complete with headband.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey.” I swallowed pepper jack. “Why do you sound like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you feel sorry for me … wait. You saw Otis. With the Frosting Floozy.”
“Uh-huh.”
I speared a cube of Gouda with a toothpick. A lump was gathering in my throat.
“The good news is, I have so
me intelligence to pass your way,” Lauren said.
“Okay.” I popped the Gouda in my mouth and chewed. I barely tasted it.
“I stopped by my sister’s house for dinner tonight.”
Lauren’s sister Lucy has a great husband, two Jack Russells, and three small kids who worship their auntie.
She leaned in. “Lucy saw Delilah Fortune on a date with Mikey Brown sometime last week.”
“No.” My pulse ticked up.
“Yes. We were talking about the murder—everyone has been—and she was saying it was so weird to have just seen him alive, full of life and everything—”
“Wait. Lucy knew Mikey?”
“Uh-huh. Same class in high school.”
“Maybe I should talk to her.”
“Be my guest. Anyway, she said she saw Mikey at a restaurant in Lucerne with someone she called ‘that cupcake store chick.’ Delilah.”
“Delilah dating Mikey? No way. I just can’t picture it. At all. Maybe it wasn’t a date. Maybe it was, like, a business meeting, or maybe they’re second cousins.”
Lauren shrugged. “Ask Lucy about it. Anyway, I have to go. I’m supposed to help set stuff up for the bachelorette auction.” Lauren gave my hand a squeeze. “Hang in there, Agnes. And by the way—your eyebrows look beautiful.”
She was gone.
I turned back to the cheese platter and found myself face-to-face with the Peeper Prize judge, Hugh Simonian. He was holding his large smartphone like a holy relic and wearing a skinny-cut suit and a cravat.
He peered hard at my face. “Do I know you?”
“Not really.”
“I do know you … do you work at the minimart by the highway?”
“Nope.”
“Oh, wait. I know. You’re the chick from the Chamber of Commerce. I didn’t recognize you in those glasses. And your eyebrows are—”
“First of all, don’t call me ‘chick’ unless I get to call you ‘snoogums’—”
“I like your wit,” Hugh said. “It’s relatively quick.”
Omigosh. I hated this guy. “—and second of all, I was under the impression that the Peeper Prize judge wasn’t supposed to fraternize or consort with business owners.”
