The Tell-Tale Tarte

by Maya Corrigan

  Hmm. Maybe Rosana had been one of Rick Usher’s students.

  Val saw Granddad’s Buick stop at the curb. She opened the front door for him and took the grocery bags to the kitchen while he hung up his jacket.

  He joined her there and went to the refrigerator for a beer. “Busy day at the Usher place. I found out what’s under that mound of dirt.”

  Val’s jaw dropped. She had a vision of him digging in the yard. “Did you take a shovel with you today?”

  He popped open his beer. “I had one in the car, but I didn’t need it. Rick told me what was buried there.”

  Rick? “You’re calling the man you thought was dead by his first name?”

  “I was wrong about that.” Granddad sat at the small kitchen table. “But you were wrong about what he meant when he shouted buried alive. He wasn’t talking about something from a Poe story.”

  Did that mean someone had been buried alive there?

  Chapter 15

  Val joined Granddad at the small table in the kitchen. “Please explain how you got to talk to Rick Usher and what he meant by buried alive.”

  “I went to his house early. I knew that Clancy wouldn’t be there because he was going to the café to talk to you and that Rosana and Madison work together every morning.”

  “You were hoping to catch Rick Usher alone.”

  He nodded. “Even if I didn’t, I wanted to take another look at the dirt mound. When I got there, he was by himself, standing by the mound. I walked up to him. He remembered meeting me last week, but forgot my name. You’re the man who’s going to represent me at book signings, he said.”

  Represent. If Granddad’s contract described him as a representative, the Ushers could deny they’d hired an impersonator. “What was he doing there by the mound?”

  “Looking like a man at a cemetery. His dog is buried there.” Granddad leaned toward her as if he had a secret to reveal. “His dog Cicero.”

  If Val had been in a cartoon, a light bulb would have appeared over her head. “He started to say My poor Cicero last night, not My poor sister. Okay, he’s not crazy enough to think he’s a Poe character, but he has the same obsession with live burial as Poe. Why would he think his dog was buried alive?”

  “He dozed off in his study last night and woke up when he heard barking. He went outside and saw two people and a dog near the mound. He thought prowlers had dug up his dog alive.”

  Val jerked to attention. “Rick Usher has a good memory for faces. He knew who you were from a brief meeting a week ago. He might recognize me as one of the people he saw last night.”

  Granddad gave her a smug smile. “That occurred to me too. I asked him to describe the prowlers. He couldn’t. They were too far away and he was focused on the dog. He assumed you and Bethany were teenage boys.”

  “Whew.” She mimicked wiping sweat from her forehead. “I feel bad about the way we upset the poor man. I hope he didn’t stay out in the cold for long.”

  “When you all ran away, he went inside and talked to Rosana. She told him he’d had a dream. He wasn’t convinced, so this morning he went out to check on Cicero’s resting place. He even asked me if I could see any sign of digging there. I said the mound looked the same today as two days ago.” Granddad stood up. “Speaking of dreams, I had one last night that reminded me of something I should do.” He left the kitchen.

  “I’ll start dinner.” She took the leftover beef daube from the fridge. While it heated in a pot, she peeled potatoes, cubed them, and added them to the beef, turning the heat down to a simmer. She was scraping carrots when Granddad came back.

  He marched up to the counter. “You hid my new hat and glasses. Why?”

  Just her luck. For the first time in years, he remembered where he put a pair of glasses. “Why do you need them? You said you weren’t going to impersonate Usher anymore and—”

  “And you didn’t believe me.” He pointed his index finger at her. “You’ve got to stop treating me like a child. How would you like it if I hid your stuff?”

  Of course she wouldn’t like it. He had every right to be angry. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

  He went on as if she hadn’t apologized. “Last night I dreamed that a thief got in the house and stole my Usher getup. The dream about a thief came true.” He glared at her.

  Now he was really rubbing it in. “I said I was sorry, and I meant it.”

  He waggled his finger at her. “Bring me those things right now, young lady.”

  Feeling like a naughty six-year-old, she went upstairs and got them. He grabbed them from her, turned, and left her alone in the kitchen.

  Alone with her regret. A year ago, when she quit her job in New York, broke off her engagement, and moved in with him, her mother had assigned her a role—to save Granddad from himself. Val was supposed to put him on a healthier diet, encourage him to do something besides watch old movies, and prod him to sell the big house. He ate better now that she was cooking for him. He’d taken up writing a recipe column for the newspaper and started a half-baked business as a sleuth. He no longer spent all day in his lounge chair watching the TV screen. But he wouldn’t budge on the house sale. She respected that decision. Even her mother was happy with two out of three and absolved her of further responsibility for him. Occasionally, though, Val slipped back into her role of grandfather protector. Last summer her protectiveness had saved his life, though he didn’t give her credit for that. This time, though, her intervention had backfired. He might even retaliate against her by clamming up, refusing to tell her anything more about his visit to the Usher house today.

  The aroma of beef simmering in wine and garlic brought him back to the kitchen sooner than she expected. He set the table in silence. She poured two glasses of red wine, hoping it would make them both more mellow.

  She took the food to the table and sat across from him. “I want to explain why I hid your glasses and hat. I thought, if they were within easy reach, you might wear them because you look good in them.” A little flattery went a long way with him. “Today I found out that someone might have stalked and tried to kill Rick Usher before he moved here. I was afraid you’d be in danger if you resembled him.”

  Granddad put his salad aside and took a generous helping of beef. “How do you figure that?”

  She told him what she’d read about the author’s behavior at his last public appearance. “He moved here a few months later and went into seclusion, possibly because he feared for his life. Recently he hired a stand-in. Why? Maybe to test whether he’s still in danger.”

  Granddad pointed his fork at her. “You’re wrong about why he’s holed up in that house. And you’re wrong about him. He’s not the kind of man who’d put someone else in danger to save his own skin.” He went back to eating.

  She’d rather smooth over their differences tonight than challenge Granddad’s conclusions about a man he’d just met. She speared some salad. “I don’t understand why a famous author would want another man to pretend to be him.”

  “Who says he wanted that? He told me that he always talked like Poe at lectures and he didn’t mind if I talked like Rick Usher. He never saw me in the clothes and glasses that made me look like him.” Granddad reached for his wineglass. “Either Rosana didn’t tell him what I was doing or he forgot.”

  “Rosana might want to know if a killer is still after her husband. But is she ruthless enough to put someone else in jeopardy to find out?”

  Granddad rolled his eyes. “Why do you keep saying someone wants to kill him? He acted paranoid when he gave that speech because he was showing how Poe acted.”

  “And then he moved here and never went out in public again.”

  “He was in his seventies. He retired. What’s the big deal? Anyway, he had other reasons to move here.”

  Val waited for Granddad to say more, but he took a mouthful of beef instead. So this was her punishment for hiding his hat and the tinted glasses. He was tantalizing her with bits of infor
mation and leaving her hanging. “You’re right. People his age retire. A lot of retirees move to this area. But no one’s hired to masquerade as them. Three days ago, an actor who made himself look like Rick Usher died under suspicious circumstances. He may be dead because his killer mistook him for a famous author.”

  “You have no proof someone wanted to kill the famous author.” Granddad sipped his wine. “Look for evidence that someone wanted to kill the actor.”

  “The police have been doing that.” And reached the wrong conclusion. “They’ve found evidence against Gunnar.”

  Granddad’s eyes widened. “How’s Gunner involved?”

  “He, Emmett, and Madison have roles in the Treadwell Players’ upcoming show. Gunnar intervened when Emmett harassed Madison. Emmett tried to punch him. He forced Gunnar to defend himself and then filed an assault complaint and a lawsuit against him.”

  Granddad stared at the wall behind Val. “Huh. Now that’s weird.”

  “What’s weird?”

  “Something Rick said.”

  “Over Cicero’s grave?”

  “No. Later.” Granddad mounded beef onto his fork. “What else makes Gunnar look guilty?”

  Val drank some wine and suppressed her annoyance with his evasions. Then she told him about Gunnar’s access to Emmett’s burrito, his lack of an alibi, and his possible possession of the medicine Emmett had OD’d on. Granddad’s frown deepened as she talked. Though his attitude toward Gunnar had improved in the last few months, she sensed it could turn negative quickly.

  “So Gunnar has motive, opportunity, and means.” Granddad put down his fork. “I warned you against him when he first showed up here. I knew he wasn’t being straight with you. Giving up a solid job at his age to take up acting didn’t sit well with me either. But I never figured him for a murderer, especially not by giving a man pills. That’s like poisoning. It’s a woman’s weapon. I can’t see Gunnar using it.”

  Val rarely let Granddad get away with a generalization about women, but she let this one go. It worked in her favor. “You want to blame a woman? I’ve got one who makes an excellent suspect. Madison.” Val summarized the case against Rosana’s assistant. Emmett tried to blackmail her. She lied about it to the police. She had as much chance to tamper with his burrito as Gunnar did.

  “Emmett sounds like a nasty piece of work. What else do you know about him?”

  Val ran through what she’d learned about Emmett. When she mentioned his one-man show, Granddad interrupted her. “Aha! Would you call him a Poe expert?”

  What did that Aha mean? “Emmett researched Poe for the play he wrote for himself. Why do you ask?”

  “Rick mentioned him today, though not by name. He didn’t much like the guy.”

  Another thread connecting Emmett to the Ushers! Val kept her excitement in check. If Rick Usher hadn’t mentioned Emmett by name, Granddad’s conclusion might be wrong. “How did Usher go from mourning his dead dog to dissing a Poe performer?”

  When Granddad’s face lit up, she saw she’d hit on the right way to extract information from him. He stubbornly avoided answering simple questions, but he couldn’t pass up the chance to spin a yarn.

  He went to the sink and brought a large glass of water back to the table, like a lecturer afraid his mouth would run dry before he finished. “While we were at Cicero’s grave, we traded dog stories. Rick said he never imagined Cicero would die before he did. He started crying. Not just tears rolling down his cheeks. I mean bawling his eyes out. It was embarrassing to be there, but I didn’t want to leave him either. All of a sudden he stopped and apologized. I told him I understood. I grieved a lot when my dog died.”

  “I guess you didn’t tell him Chessie died ten years ago.”

  “Not important. It made him feel better to think somebody understood what he was going through. The Ushers bought the house here as a summer place about the same time as Cicero joined the family. That’s how Usher put it. The dog loved running free here. He hated Baltimore, the noise, the crowds, and, probably most of all, the leash. So the Ushers decided to move here permanently and sold their place in the city.”

  “The dog made them do it?” Val didn’t believe it. “I’m sure Cicero preferred living in the country to living in the city, but he didn’t demand that Rick Usher give up contact with his fans.”

  Granddad shrugged. “Folks slow down when they get older. He asked how long I’d lived on the Eastern Shore. When I told him all my life, except for my stint in Korea in the fifties, he got excited. He was stationed there too, four years before I was. We reminisced about the place. Then he invited me to go inside with him. We went in by the door in the wing that leads directly to his study.”

  Val mimicked tipping her hat to Granddad. “Bravo. You penetrated Rick Usher’s wall of isolation.”

  He smiled for the first time since she’d taken his glasses and hat. “You should see his study. Books on all four walls, floor to ceiling. Everything from ancient history to Stephen King. We sat in armchairs in front of the fireplace and talked about growing up in the forties. He’s a few years older than me. I married earlier, straight out of high school. He didn’t get hitched ’til he was almost forty.”

  “He married a younger woman.”

  “Yep. Rosana’s a baby boomer, only a few years older than your mother. Usher and I hit it off because we’re from the same generation. We speak the same language. Men who go for younger wives miss out on that kind of bond.”

  Val suppressed a smile. “I guess they have other compensations.”

  “Those don’t last forever.” Granddad sipped his wine. “Usher’s a lonely man. The next time Ned and I go to dinner and poker night at the retirement village, I’ll ask him to join us. I think he’d enjoy meeting some people his own age.”

  “He appreciated your company. Whether he likes poker is another question.”

  “Only one way to find out.” Granddad stopped talking long enough to take another bite of his dinner. “This beef tastes great.”

  “Thanks. It’s one of the few dishes that’s good when you make it, better the following day, and best two or three days later.”

  “I’m glad a few things improve with age.” He reached for his wineglass. “Rick’s different from most people I know. He asked me a question no one else ever did—What’s your philosophy of old age? What would you say to that?”

  Easy question for Val. “Old age is better than the alternative.”

  “That’s a young person’s answer. Not all old folks would agree.” Granddad sipped his wine. “My approach to being old is to try new things to replace what I can’t have or can’t do anymore. That’s what I told him.”

  Unless Val redirected the conversation, she’d have to listen to Rick Usher’s philosophy of old age when she wanted to hear about his reaction to Emmett Flint. “What else did you talk about?”

  “Our families. We both raised one daughter and no other children.” Granddad poured another half glass of wine. “Now for the sad part. His daughter died when she was fifteen. The mother of her friend was driving the two girls home after a party. A drunk driver hit them.”

  Val’s last bite of beef stuck in her throat. “That’s terrible. How do you get over something like that?”

  “I don’t know. Rick sank into depression and couldn’t write anything for a couple of years. When he went back to it, he did it with a vengeance. Two books a year instead of one. My books are my children, he told me. I want them taken care of when I’m gone. He said the man who managed Poe’s literary legacy destroyed his reputation. Rick’s afraid the same thing will happen to him. He’s looking for the right person to take care of his legacy.”

  “His wife’s not the right person?”

  “He said the house and their savings would go to Rosana, but he needed someone else to manage what he’s written. She handles the finances, which never interested him, but he doesn’t want to burden her with making decisions about his works.”

  “Or he
doesn’t trust her to make them,” Val said.

  “He talked to one man, a Poe expert who asked to interview him. Rick wanted to get to know him before saying anything about his literary legacy.”

  Granddad’s Aha now made sense to Val. “You think he talked to Emmett Flint?”

  He nodded. “The guy gave him advice on how to profit from his fame. Instead of paying a writer like Clancy to work with him, Rick should find writers willing to pay him to put his name on their books. Then he could make money without doing any work.”

  “Exploiting other people. That sounds like Emmett.”

  “Rick said this Poe expert was like Mr. Proffit in Poe’s story ‘The Business Man.’ Mr. Proffit puts up eyesores that people pay him to remove. He starts fights with people on the streets and then sues them for attacking him.” Granddad turned his hand palm up as if offering her a plate. “That’s what I said was weird. Emmett doing what Mr. Proffit did.”

  “Clearly he wasn’t the right person to enhance Usher’s reputation.” Val added a splash of wine to her glass. “Rick Usher rejected him and Rosana as literary executors. Why not appoint Clancy? He knows more than anybody about the Usher books.”

  “I asked Rick the same question. He told me how the two of them work together. Rick dreams up the plots and gives them to Clancy to write a first draft. The draft always comes back with unnecessary characters and complications. He said if Fancy Clancy wrote Peter Pan, Captain Hook wouldn’t just have a crocodile chasing him. He’d also have a school of sharks and a great white whale. And Tinker Bell would have two mean stepsisters.”

  Val laughed. “Clancy won’t be writing drafts of books after Usher dies, so his fancy touches don’t matter.” How important could Rick Usher’s literary legacy be? His books sold well, but he wouldn’t make anyone’s list of the top hundred American writers. “What does Rick Usher expect his literary executor to do?”