Ms America and the Whoopsie in Winona

by Diana Dempsey

  I’m one of those women who love the holiday season. I don’t go gaga but I do enjoy decking the halls. Sending out cards. Baking cookies. Making homemade gifts. Going around the block with a few neighbors and singing carols. So as I stand in Damsgard’s glorious candlelit living room surveying the fabulous Christmas tree and all the other Yuletide décor—the poinsettias, garlands, nutcrackers, Santas, and snowmen—I should be awash in delight. Instead it all falls a little flat for me this year.

  I’m plagued by doubt and uncertainty, never good for the mood. Where will I celebrate Christmas next year? Will my family be around me? Change is supposed to be good but, boy, can it be scary, too.

  The truth is I dread what the New Year will bring. For sure it will bring an empty nest. Rachel will graduate high school and go off somewhere, probably to parts foreign and unimaginable. My reign as Ms. America will end. Jason will be living in Charlotte. Most likely I will be, too. I’m excited about the international competition in my future, but that brings lots of pressure, too. I’ll have to work really hard to get back into competition shape, and into the competition mindset. This will be the first—and no doubt, only—time I represent the U.S. of A. on the international stage and this queen is determined to make her nation proud.

  If by some miracle I win, then I’ll continue to be a beauty queen, something I know and love. But much more likely, I won’t win. And once my reign is over I’ll have to relinquish my Ms. America crown. So my title, tiara, and sash days will be over. Who’s Happy Pennington if she’s not a beauty queen? Talk about a big question to have to answer.

  From out of nowhere Trixie appears to rub my back. She’s adorable in a sleeveless emerald-green sheath with a lace bodice and satin tulip skirt. We queens never need much of an excuse to get all dressed up so it took us but a nanosecond to decide that the candlelight Christmas tour required festive garb. “You know,” Trixie murmurs, “I really do believe things work out for the best.”

  “How do you always know the exact right thing to say?”

  “All you have to do is think about it a little bit more and you’ll know what you want to do about moving to Charlotte.”

  When I got back to Damsgard from the funeral home, I pulled Trixie and Shanelle into my room and told them Jason had accepted the job offer. It felt good to talk about it but I’m as confused as ever.

  “Charlotte’s really nice, you know,” Trixie adds.

  “That’s what everybody says.”

  “I’m going to be really sad to move, and it’s terrible timing with Jason’s new job and all, but I am pretty sure I’m going to love Savannah.” She grins. “Look at it this way. If you move to Charlotte, I’ll be only two hundred fifty miles away. That’s just a car ride.”

  “I’ll be a lot closer to Shanelle, too in Biloxi.”

  “See?” Trixie smiles and rubs my back again. “But first things first. Let’s have a good time with this house tour then keep trying to figure out who murdered poor Ingrid. I think the memorial book was a really good idea.”

  We set it up on the foyer table next to a photo of Ingrid. I doubt anyone will write anything revealing in it but you never know. “Let’s all three of us do a lot of mingling,” I say. “See if we can find out something new about Ingrid.”

  “All four of us will be mingling. Your mom wants in on this, too. You look very cute, by the way.” Trixie steps back to admire my dress, which features a navy lace overlay over a white sheath. “I love that scalloped hem. And lace is really trending this season.”

  Shanelle joins us in a fuchsia fit-and-flare dress with a black floral motif that gives it a screen-printed quality. “Man, this house looks spectacular!”

  “All the candles make it so magical, don’t they?” I say. Per the instructions we were given by the historical society, we’re using electricity only to light the Christmas trees. To replicate a Victorian-era atmosphere, our only other light source is candles. “It’s no wonder so many places burned down back in the day, though.”

  “I think a lot of these old houses were built with shredded paper as insulation, too,” Shanelle says. “Can you imagine how fast that would go up?”

  “We have to make sure we douse every last candle before we go to bed,” Trixie says.

  I’m in the kitchen putting the White Christmas Dream Drop cookies my mother baked on serving platters when she calls to me from over by the sink. “Look what I found in the garbage,” she crows, and waves a slip of paper in the air.

  “Mom, you’re too dressed up to be digging in the trash.” She’s sporting a blue paisley wrap dress, yet another fashion-forward acquisition.

  “It was near the top. Look at this,” she repeats.

  I pause in my task. My mother’s find is a small greasy piece of paper filled with Ingrid’s signature written over and over again in blue ink. “Well, I agree that’s weird, but it doesn’t mean anything.”

  “What are you talking about? Your father has taken out the trash since that woman died. She didn’t write this,” my mother concludes.

  “We don’t know that. The fact that it got thrown out recently doesn’t mean it was written recently.”

  My mother throws out her arms. “Who practices writing their own signature?”

  “Pretty much no one,” I admit. “No one who’s an adult, anyway.” I haven’t practiced a signature since I was seventeen years old and just found out I was pregnant and was anticipating my shotgun wedding by repeatedly scrawling Mrs. Jason Kilborn in my Chem notebook.

  My mother flourishes the paper triumphantly. “Only one person would do this and that’s that Maggie. You dust that paper for prints, that’s what you’ll find.”

  “It’s not a crime to practice writing somebody else’s signature.”

  “Not on a piece of scrap paper, no. But you mark my words.” My mother folds the paper in half and stuffs it in her bra. “That’s not the only place she’s writing it.”

  “You realize you’re pretty much accusing Maggie of fraud.”

  My mother juts her chin. “Fraud, murder, who knows what that floozy is up to?”

  The doorbell rings and we hear Trixie answer it with a cry of greeting. “Don’t tell Maggie you found that,” I instruct my mother, handing her a platter of Dream Drops to transport to the dining room. “Give me a chance to feel her out on it when she and Pop get back.” Heaven knows where they are. We were told not to expect them back till late.

  Now I hear a real commotion in the foyer. It appears the Christmas tour has officially begun.

  The next few hours pass in a pleasant flurry of guiding visitors through Damsgard, probing them for tidbits about Ingrid, and guarding the library so Priscilla doesn’t use this opportunity to sneak in to snatch the Erskine above the mantel. Nothing very interesting happens until I meet a fiftyish couple sparring mildly as the female half writes in Ingrid’s memorial book.

  “It was in 2009 that we did Love’s Labour’s Lost,” she says. “We did Merchant of Venice in 2008.”

  “Are you sure?” He gives her a dubious look. “You might be right.”

  I introduce myself. “Are you talking about the Winona Shakespeare Festival?”

  “Actually it’s called the Great River Shakespeare Festival.” The woman straightens from the memorial book, where I see she’s penned quite the tribute to Ingrid. “Mrs. Svendsen was a big sponsor every year. We’re so sad what happened to her.”

  “Did you know her personally?” I ask with hope in my voice.

  “Only from afar,” the man replies, “although my wife and I have been volunteering from the beginning. We’ve been ushers and helped with hospitality—”

  “That’s the best,” the woman interrupts. “Then we get to meet the actors.”

  “Really? Did you by any chance get to know Priscilla Pembroke when she played Hermione in The Winter’s Tale?”

  They both frown. “Priscilla Pembroke?” the man says.

  “Never heard that name,” the woman declares. “Wasn�
��t it Kim Martin-Cotten who played Hermione?” she asks her husband. “Kim is so wonderful,” she tells me. “She’s been in so many of our productions.”

  “You could look it up online,” the man says. “You’ll find photos from all the productions.”

  Why didn’t I think of that? “Thank you. I will,” and I usher them into the dining room, where there’s a crowd who’ve stopped touring to scarf the Dream Drops instead.

  Sure enough, I realize a minute later, standing in the foyer to scan the photos from The Winter’s Tale on my cell phone. There was no Priscilla Pembroke in that play. For all her gushing about Hermione, Priscilla was nowhere near that role. That’s just another lie she told. What is up with that woman? She tells lies as often as I apply hand cream.

  I’m wondering whether anything Priscilla told me is true when I sense a hulking presence to my left. I glance over to see a bulky older man in a parka and wool cap squinting at the framed 8-by-10 glossy of Ingrid beside the memorial book. It is hard to see it clearly in the candlelight. He looks vaguely familiar but I can’t place him. That is, until Trixie sashays into the foyer bearing a platter of Dream Drops. Then his attention shifts from Ingrid’s photo to Trixie. He calls out her name.

  Well, sort of her name.

  “Trudy Barnett!” He bellows the name so loudly I bet he gets the attention of every visitor on Damsgard’s first floor. He points a stubby finger at our makeshift memorial to Ingrid. “You let me think Mrs. Svendsen was alive! What the heck kind of trick you trying to pull?”

  Uh oh. It’s Hubble.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “When I met you at that boat landing,” Hubble thunders, “you told me Mrs. Svendsen might need my services again. Since I don’t investigate in and around the pearly gates, I don’t see how she could!”

  “And you told me your name was Trixie!” a gray-haired doyenne accuses. By now the cookie-munching crowd from the dining room has migrated to the foyer and is gearing up to watch this impromptu drama unfold.

  Trixie gulps. “Trixie, Trudy, who can keep it straight?”

  “We are beauty queens, after all,” Shanelle offers. “Not too much upstairs.”

  “You’re smart enough to take up residence here at Damsgard, the nicest place in town,” a male voice calls out. “I don’t know how you managed to pull that off.”

  “Yeah! What’s going on here?” the Shakespeare man demands.

  I step forward and take Hubble’s beefy arm. “Just a little misunderstanding,” I call out cheerfully. I try to urge the P.I. toward the living room. “Everybody please enjoy the Dream Drops and go on with the tour.”

  Hubble whirls on me. “You! You’re the one with the cold who pretended to be Mrs. Svendsen on the phone!”

  A gasp rises from the multitude. And I will admit I sound pretty malevolent from that description. I better take swift action or we three queens might face some Victorian-era justice. “My name is Happy Pennington, I’m the reigning Ms. America, and my friends and I are houseguests of Mrs. Svendsen. We came to town to participate in the Giant W opening ceremony.” I speak in as forceful a manner as my congestion will allow. “Mrs. Svendsen’s sister Maggie Lindvig is staying here, too. I’m sure many of you remember her from back in the day.”

  “Maggie Lindvig, yes,” the Shakespeare woman says. She lowers her voice. “The one who had the baby out of wedlock.”

  My mother pipes up. “That’s the one.”

  “Whoever you people are, I don’t like being taken for a fool.” Hubble picks up Ingrid’s photo and waves it in the air. “I didn’t know Mrs. Svendsen real good but she was a classy lady and she always treated me right.”

  “Didn’t you say you were doing some investigating for her?” the Shakespeare man wants to know.

  “You should investigate these beauty queens!” the doyenne cries. “I think they had something to do with her murder!”

  The crowd recoils in horror. Trixie almost drops the platter of Dream Drops.

  “They’re up to no good, that much I know.” Hubble gets right in Trixie’s panic-stricken face. “You led me to believe Mrs. Svendsen was your Aunt Ingrid and now I know that’s a flat-out lie!”

  “Murderers!” the doyenne yowls.

  This crowd is turning on us faster than a ballerina can pirouette. I don’t know if Hubble plans to punch Trixie in the nose but all of a sudden he spins around to return Ingrid’s photo to the foyer table. Unfortunately he’s so het up that he knocks the frame into the tall candles we set up next to the memorial book so visitors could see clearly enough to write. As if it’s happening in slow motion, I watch the candles tumble. One of them sets the memorial book on fire and the other ignites the wreath encircling the sconce above the foyer table.

  “Oh my God!” my mother hollers. “Everybody out! The whole place is going up!”

  I wouldn’t go that far but the wreath is burning but good and a surprising amount of smoke is billowing toward the ceiling. The smoke alarm begins to shriek.

  Nothing clears a crowd like the prospect of being grilled like a New York steak. The tour visitors skedaddle so fast you’d think they were Olympic sprinters. No sooner do they escape out the front door than I am astonished to see my mother aim a fire extinguisher at the blaze. She sprays foam all over it and in seconds it’s out. We’re left with a charred wreath, a crispy memorial book, a slightly fried wall, and a smoky foyer. But other than that, Damsgard appears unscathed.

  For a few seconds we all just stand there panting. Then I move forward to take my mother in my arms. She’s trembling, I’m trembling, and I bet Trixie and Shanelle are, too.

  Trixie is the first to break the silence. “My Lord, Mrs. P! You look like you’ve been doing that all your life!”

  “I practice every year around the holidays.” My mother breaks away from me, sets down the fire extinguisher, and wipes her hands on her pretty paisley dress. “We always get a live tree and put lights on it and you never know what can happen.”

  I find my voice. “I can’t believe you reacted so fast! How did you even know where the fire extinguisher was?”

  She blinks at me. “Soon as I saw all the trees in this house, I looked for it. It was in the kitchen, where you’d expect it to be.”

  I’m giving my mother another grateful hug—and thinking I really shouldn’t underestimate her—when a fire truck wails to a halt out front. A trio of firemen race inside to assess the scene. One of them succeeds in shutting off the smoke alarm.

  “I’m glad somebody called us but you ladies handled this real well,” the senior fireman pronounces. “This situation could’ve gotten out of control fast.”

  I point to my mom. “This lady here deserves all the praise!”

  My mother bows her head. “Don’t say anything about this to your father, Happy. I wouldn’t want to show up that Maggie.”

  We blow out every candle in the house and offer the firemen a Dream Drops reward. They depart soon after their sugary jolt. I call Detective Dembek once again and this time I reach her. We have a brief catch-up on the investigation and agree to talk in more depth in the morning. I return downstairs to sink onto a velvet sofa in the living room. In short order Trixie and my mom join me.

  Shanelle brings up the rear bearing a tray of lovely pink drinks in martini glasses. “Poinsettia Mimosas. Boy, do we deserve these. You most of all, Mrs. Przybyszewski.”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” she replies.

  I find out they’re made with sparkling wine, Triple Sec, grenadine, and cranberry juice. I let out a big sigh after the first sip. “Between this and the broken window, we have got to be the worst houseguests in the state of Minnesota.”

  “Neither of those was our fault,” Trixie points out.

  “Tell that to Peter Svendsen.” I set down my cocktail and drop my head back against the plush cushions. “I am dreading having to tell him about this. I assured him we’d do a great job with the tour but instead we nearly burned down his house.”

  “P
ut off telling him till tomorrow,” my mother suggests. “It’s always better to get bad news first thing in the morning than late at night.”

  That’s a piece of folk wisdom I am ready to embrace.

  “Plus,” she goes on, “the meat pie’s about to come out of the oven.”

  “That’s what smells so delicious!” Trixie cries.

  “You made cookies and a meat pie?” Shanelle says.

  “I knew that Mario was coming over for dinner so I wanted to make something extra good.” My mother cocks her chin at me. “They say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. In my opinion other parts work pretty good, too.”

  “Mrs. P!” Trixie yelps.

  “Whatever works,” my mother concludes. We’re all agreeing that she’s quite the pistol when the doorbell rings. I expect to find Mario on the stoop so I’m pretty surprised to see Hubble there instead.

  “I want to apologize for starting that fire,” he says without preamble. He looks past me at the singed foyer table. “Glad it didn’t turn out worse. I’m not happy you people told me a tall tale but I had no business getting everybody so riled up.”

  I wave him in out of the cold. “I owe you an apology, too. And an explanation.”

  It does not surprise me that Hubble prefers a beer to a Poinsettia Mimosa. He joins us in the living room, where I detail my sleuthing history and my quest to figure out who shot Ingrid Svendsen. “So that’s why we weren’t upfront with you. I thought the fact that Ingrid hired you to investigate Galena Lang might have had something to do with her murder.”

  “Maybe it did. Maybe it didn’t.”

  “And all you know about why Mrs. Svendsen hired you to investigate Galena was that she thought Galena was trouble?”

  Hubble pauses to swig some beer. Then, “She didn’t say it in so many words but I got the idea Mrs. S wanted something on Galena Lang. Something she could use against her. Tell you what.” He pours more beer down his gullet. “How about I keep snooping around Galena Lang? For free this time. I owe it to Mrs. Svendsen and it’ll make up partway for the damage I did to her house.”