Antiques Fruitcake

by Barbara Allan

  Peeking out, I could see the fruitcake in the audience—that is, Mother—in her aisle seat in the first row, Sushi on her lap, looking ecstatic. Her play was a hit, and she couldn’t have been happier—unless she’d played the lead herself.

  After the curtain had come down for the last time, an ebullient cast and crew congratulated each other, buoyed by the audience’s reaction.

  For a few moments, the death on this very stage was forgotten.

  But when Sheriff Rudder strode into this happy tableau, it came immediately back to everyone’s mind.

  “Well, Sheriff,” Mother chirped, “what did you think of our little production? Did it get you into a festive mood?”

  “Just got here, Vivian. Didn’t see it.”

  Mother’s expression could not have been more startled and offended had he thrown cold water in her face.

  Snippily, she asked, “Then why did you bother coming here at all?”

  “Because, Vivian, I have a job to do. You’re in charge here, right? The director? Well, I want to see the following people—Paul, Martha, Miguel, Clara, Kimberly, and Leroy. Right now.”

  Mother asked, “You mean in the dressing room?”

  He shook his head. “No. Center stage is as good a place as any to act this out. Rest of you can leave!”

  When the bit players and stagehands had departed, Rudder addressed the remaining little group gathered together in a semicircle right around the spot where Madeline had taken her last, unintentional bow.

  With his back to the closed curtain, the sheriff said, “I’m sorry to have to detain you folks again, but we have some new information in this investigation.”

  Kimberly blurted, “Sheriff, let everyone else go!”

  “Excuse me, young lady?”

  “I’m . . . I’m the one who poisoned the fruitcake.”

  There were gasps from the rest of the suspects. Mother, ever the director, raised a cautionary hand, stopping any of her people from saying anything more.

  Kimberly, her face firmly set, continued, “It was selfish of me to go on tonight. So horribly selfish. When they were all applauding, I felt awful. Terrible. So guilty.”

  Miguel began to speak but Mother shook her head at him and he paused.

  Kimberly explained: “I lied to myself and said I was only going on because this event was for charity. But in my heart I knew I took Madeline’s place for selfish reasons. I don’t care what it leads to—I have to take responsibility for my actions.”

  Miguel stepped forward, shaking his head, no restraining gesture from Mother this time.

  “Kim,” he said. “You don’t have to lie.” He turned to Rudder. “She’s just trying to protect me. I poisoned the fruitcake.”

  “No, Sheriff!” Kimberly said, eyes wild. “He’s trying to protect me!” She gazed at Miguel, her expression tragic. “Do you think I could live with letting you take the blame for my actions?”

  Rudder patted the air with both hands. “All right, you two, enough. Who’s telling the truth?”

  “I believe they both are, Sheriff,” Mother said, stepping forward. “If without the other’s knowledge . . .”

  I had to agree—Kimberly was a good actress, but Miguel was no actor at all, and their heartfelt performance seemed sincere.

  “Oh no,” Kimberly gasped, staring at Miguel. “Did you . . . ? Did you do it, too? Oh, my God, what have we done?” She covered her face with her hands.

  An equally stricken Miguel looked at Rudder. “We were just joking around the other night, saying, wouldn’t it serve Madeline right if she missed opening night and you went on instead? We joked about how just a little sprinkling of that rat poison would make her sick. Only, I started thinking it could really work, and Kim could go out there for Madeline, you know, and really shine. Then, after Brandy put the fruitcakes on the prop table, when I walked by? I . . . sprinkled a little of that rat poison on the fruitcake for Madeline.”

  Kimberly wore an expression of horror. “I did the same thing! Just before I carried the fruitcake onstage. Just sprinkled a little on. I didn’t, I swear to God, I never meant for her to die!”

  Miguel turned to Kimberly, taking both her hands in his. “Neither one of us meant for Madeline to get anything but sick. But the combination of what we both did.... It was a kind of accident! We’re not murderers.”

  Mother said, rather clinically, “More like manslaughter, wouldn’t you say, Sheriff?”

  Throughout this emotional confession, I had been studying Rudder, who seemed detached during such important revelations, which puzzled me.

  At least I was puzzled till he said, “Madeline didn’t die from rat poison. She died from arsenic.”

  Paul frowned. “Arsenic?”

  Martha asked, “Where would any of us get arsenic?”

  Janitor Leroy jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Outta the maintenance room.”

  Clara said, “You mean . . . there wasn’t just rat poison on top? There was poison in the fruitcake, too?”

  “Nope,” Rudder said, shaking his head. “No poison baked in, and what was on top wouldn’t have been enough to do the trick. Just make her sick, like you two kids thought. That fruitcake may have saved Christmas, but it didn’t kill your leading lady.”

  Everyone was taking this in with shocked expressions, except Mother, who said, “And you know this how, Sheriff?”

  “Vivian, during the preliminary autopsy this afternoon, the doc did something called the Marsh test, which shows a fatal dose of arsenic was absorbed through the skin.”

  Kimberly, smiling although in a hysterical fashion, said, “Then . . . then Miguel and I didn’t kill her.”

  “No,” Rudder said. “You may have acted like rats, but you didn’t poison her . . . not to death, anyway.”

  She and Miguel hugged each other, though neither looked exactly happy.

  Mother asked, “Sheriff, what part of Madeline’s skin absorbed the arsenic?”

  “That would be her face.”

  I asked, “How long would it take before . . .”

  “It killed her?” Rudder finished. “Probably an hour or so.”

  Mother had been fiddling with her cell phone, and now she moved next to Rudder.

  “Shortly after the murder,” Mother said, “I took photos of Madeline’s dressing room.” She held up the cell and let him see its screen. “This is a picture of the dressing table.”

  “Yeah?” Rudder asked. “And?”

  “Her liquid makeup bottle is missing.”

  Rudder frowned, but he was nodding. “Which could be how the arsenic got on her face—in the makeup!”

  “Almost certainly,” Mother replied. “And since that makeup always remained in her dressing room, it would have been easy for someone to have tampered with it.”

  I said, “Mother, since Madeline left her dressing room at five minutes to eight, and died about eight-fifteen, who here had the opportunity to retrieve the damning bottle?”

  Mother smiled in her best cat-that-ate-the-canary fashion. “I think I can determine that right now, dear.”

  While the others exchanged glances, Mother walked downstage to the closed curtain where Rudder faced the suspects, positioned herself beside the sheriff, and pointed a finger at Paul.

  “You were in the lighting booth between the time Madeline left her dressing room and collapsed onstage.”

  Startled, Paul said, “So what?”

  “So . . . you’re in the clear.”

  The finger moved on to Martha. “You were seated in the audience. You’re in the clear.”

  The finger next found Leroy. “You were operating the conveyor belt backstage. You’re in the clear.”

  The finger sought out Kimberly. “You were in the wing, standing behind Madeline. In the clear.”

  The finger trained on Miguel. “And you? From my seat in the front row, I could see you standing in the stage-left wing. Also in the clear.”

  Finally the finger settled on Clara. “But, you
, dear, were in the wardrobe room, just a few steps away from Madeline’s dressing room. It would have been child’s play for you to retrieve the makeup bottle, which you’d laced with arsenic sometime before Madeline had arrived for rehearsal. What did you do with it, dear? Throw it in the Dumpster out back? Or toss it out your car window into a cornfield? No matter. The sheriff will find the bottle . . . and your fingerprints on it.”

  Clara’s face had a bisque-baby blankness. “. . . Can I still be in Saturday’s matinee?”

  “I’m afraid not, dear,” Mother replied, almost kindly. “But all in all, yours has been a remarkable performance.”

  Rudder took the girl’s arm. She was sobbing quietly now, tears streaming. “Clara, you’ll have to go with me to the county jail. You can call your parents from there.”

  Then he led the intern off the stage.

  “Imagine,” I said, “that harmless-looking kid killing somebody.”

  “Madeline killed Madeline,” Mother said, colder than cold cream. “You see, dear, she could act many a part. But one key role eluded her.”

  That was my cue. “What role is that, Mother?”

  “Being a decent human being offstage.”

  Curtain Call

  I’ll Be Home for Fruitcake

  Mother has requested that I turn the rest of this narrative over to her. She quite reasonably pointed out that I was not present for the coda of this piece, and why should the reader get the story secondhand? Anyway, it’s almost Christmas, and this was a gift Mother really wanted, and it doesn’t cost me a dime.

  You might wish to have a cup of eggnog before pressing on. The kind of eggnog Captain Morgan likes!

  Yes, it is I, Vivian Borne, director and playwright of The Fruitcake That Saved Christmas, which should soon be available from Samuel French publishers (they haven’t gotten back to me just yet). And I do appreciate Brandy passing the baton or perhaps the pen (or computer?), since from here on out, this is really a one-woman show.

  No, come to think of it, it’s a two-hander. I did have a key supporting player.

  You see, after Clara’s arraignment, Sheriff Rudder was kind enough to allow me to visit the troubled girl in the county jail, where she was awaiting trial.

  Sidebar: In recent years I worked tirelessly as a community leader in support of a new downtown jail—and we now have one, a state-of-the-art, no-barbwire facility that looks more like your average medical clinic. Those who accuse me of having an ulterior motive may have a point: I did land in the old bug-infested hoosegow once or twice. (Once was for chaining myself to a wrecking ball about to demolish one of Serenity’s Victorian buildings; twice was for driving with a suspended license. There may be a thrice, but it escapes me.)

  Midmorning, with sun finding its way through the crosshatch of wires on high windows, I sat in the little visitation cubicle across from Clara, a Plexiglas window separating us. I was wearing another Breckenridge outfit (pink sweater, winter-white slacks); Clara was less fashionable in standard-issue jumpsuit of bright orange, a color that did nothing for her.

  A female guard named Patty (an acquaintance I’d made on recent incarcerations) (listing the reasons would be a pointless digression) loomed behind the girl, but at enough of a distance to give us some privacy. As usual, the woman wore the bored expression of someone who’d been too long on the job. Isn’t it sad when someone doesn’t love her or his work?

  “How are you, dear?” I asked Clara, speaking into the little microphone in the glass (a big improvement over the old jailhouse phones).

  “Not bad,” the girl said with a shrug, seemingly unconcerned about her future.

  “Are they treating you well?”

  I’d quite enjoyed all of my stays.

  She perked up. “Oh yes. And the food isn’t half-bad.” She might have been a child reporting what life at an upscale camp was like.

  “You’ll want to avoid the meat loaf,” I advised. “They go overboard with the filler.” I had gained five pounds during my last incarceration.

  I continued: “Dear, do you mind if we speak of the . . . unpleasantness?”

  She frowned just a little.

  “Dear, anything you tell me will be in strictest confidence, I assure you.”

  Clara’s cheerfulness faded, and she stared down at her lap. “I . . . I’d rather not.”

  “I may be able to help you.”

  “I have a lawyer.”

  A court-appointed lawyer of no renown.

  “I still think I can help, dear.”

  Her eyes met mine. “How?”

  “Let’s just converse and see. Now. In one of your backstage conversations with Brandy, you mentioned being on an antidepressant. Or so Brandy reports.”

  Clara nodded. “That’s right. Because I was having a hard time at school.”

  “Teased, dear? Bullied?”

  She nodded. “But after I started working at the Playhouse, my doctor said I was doing so well that he took me off the meds.” She shrugged again. “He said he didn’t want me using ’em as a crutch.”

  “Does your lawyer know of this?”

  “No. I didn’t see what it had to do with anything.”

  “It has everything to do with anything. It’s vital that your lawyer be informed of this.”

  “Why?” Dull eyes momentarily brightened. “You mean, it could get me off?”

  “No. But it might lead to a reduced sentence, or even affect the type of institution where you make your amends.”

  She winced and said, “It was just spur-of-the-moment, you know.”

  Actually it was quite premeditated, but I said, “Because Madeline was so cruel to you?”

  “She was awful. Called me fat and a pig and stupid. And I admired her so!”

  “Tell me, dear—how did you know that adding arsenic to Madeline’s makeup would have the effect it did? Did you read it in a book? Agatha Christie, perhaps?”

  I hated to lay a real murder at the Grand Dame of Mystery’s feet, but it could make for a good argument in court.

  Clara shook her head. “Madeline told me.”

  “What? Explain!”

  The girl nodded. “It’s funny. At first, she was nice to me, and let me hang around her dressing room before rehearsals. One time, when I said how pretty her complexion was, she told me that in the olden days women would put a little arsenic in their face cream to make their skin whiter. But they had to be careful not to use too much because it could kill them.” Clara shrugged with her eyebrows. “So, in a way, it was kind of Madeline’s fault, wasn’t it, really?”

  So—the diva had directed her own final performance.

  “Dear,” I said, “Madeline may have given you the idea, but you put it into effect. Make no mistake about it—you took another person’s life.”

  Clara’s eyes welled. “I know. I wish I could undo it . . . but I can’t.”

  She had a box of tissues on her side of the Plexiglas and used several.

  I waited for a while, then said, “I don’t know what the outcome of your trial will be, Clara, but if you find yourself inside for a while? Keep in mind it’s what you do during that time that can make a difference in your life. Because someday you will get out into the world again.”

  Clara wiped her nose on her sleeve. “Like do what on the inside?”

  And I told her about how I had, on a fairly recent visit, formed a jailhouse repertory company with the other female inmates, and that we put on plays—first for ourselves, then the male inmates, and finally, the general public.

  (I left out the part about two of the girls doing a runner on an off-campus performance, which put an end to our theater group. Also, I felt it best not to mention that the play they skipped out during was Arsenic and Old Lace.)

  “Dear,” I said, bringing enthusiasm to my voice, “just think of it! You could be the lead actress in the new jailhouse theater group.”

  “I . . . I could?”

  “But of course! You were marvelous as the cook
. Completely believable. Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if, after you pay your debt to society, you might make a name for yourself on the Great White Way.”

  This was horse hockey right out of my production of My Fair Lady, but the girl did need encouragement.

  Her eyes were shining like new pennies, Lincoln side out. “You really think so?”

  “Why, after the experience you’ll get with the new theater group . . . certainly! Silver lining.”

  The sullen Patty said, “Time.”

  Standing, Clara asked, “You’ll come to the trial?”

  I beamed at her. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. I’ll be testifying, you know.”

  “And I know you’ll be just wonderful,” the girl said, smiling back. “Thank you, Mrs. Borne, for caring about me. My folks are pretty mad at me right now. You know something?”

  “Dear?”

  “That wasn’t the fruitcake that saved Christmas at all. Anyway, it sure ruined mine.”

  And Patty escorted her out.

  Now, dear reader, before you put me up alongside Mother Teresa, I should reveal that behind my interest in Clara was my own ulterior motive. I had a drawerful of plays I’d written that the board hadn’t deemed good enough for the Playhouse, but that might well see the light of day inside the county jail. Silver lining indeed—pure tinsel.

  Look out, Samuel French!

  A block from the facility, I caught the gas-powered trolley. At home, where I was greeted by the aroma of a freshly baked fruitcake. Of course, the truth is I generally don’t like fruitcake—but that antique recipe of Hattie’s is really not too shabby!

  As I entered our retro 1950s red-and-white kitchen, Brandy was removing a piping-hot example from the oven, with Sushi dancing in anticipation nearby.

  “How’d it go with Clara?” she asked.

  “I’ll tell you all about it over a slice of fruitcake and some hot tea.”

  Soon we were seated at the antique Duncan Phyfe dining-room table, where I filled Brandy in.

  Brandy, on her second piece (a new convert to fruitcake, at least the Hattie variety) said, “Did Clara tell you why she killed Madeline?”

  “We spoke of it,” I said, sneaking Sushi a bite under the table. “But in no great detail.”