Six Pack of Sleuths: Comedy Mysteries

by Barbara Silkstone

  “Does the doctor know about this?” said a woman's sharp voice, Asian accented. The new nurse must be here. “The patient is to remain absolutely still. No stress. No interruptions. Who are you?”

  “Don't worry, nurse. I'm a professional,” Athena said. “I'm fixing her hair. I work on bedridden people all the time. And I was a medical aide in the army. Served in Desert Storm. She's in good hands, ma'am.”

  “Yes, I'm fine,” Cady said. “Just a little…grieving.”

  So Athena had been in the army. This made Cady feel a little safer. She honestly didn't expect Flo's burglars to break in, determined to steal Regina's childhood scribblings, but she felt some anxiety about it all, with the strange story of Regina being murdered.

  A commotion seemed to be happening at the door.

  “She is not to be disturbed,” the nurse said. “The doctor gave me strict orders…”

  “I have my orders too.” This was Lupe. “Congresswoman, it's another call from Florence Adams.”

  Cady reached for the phone.

  “Is that you, Cady?” Something was wrong—very wrong. The voice sounded like an old woman's. Flo was over seventy, but not old.

  “She's dead,” Flo said. “The little white girl. Tina Davis is dead.”

  Chapter 25—Cady: Death by Chocolate

  “The little actress is dead,” Flo repeated. “She was sitting right next to me. Just sitting here eating a chocolate bar—one of those great big Cadbury things. And, God forgive me, I was ignoring her. I was furious at how rude she was not to offer me some. You see the concession stand here is closed on account of the snow. It's snowing something fierce. Did I tell you that?”

  “Yes.” Cady tried to be patient. “You mentioned that, but Flo, how did she die? Are you all right?”

  “I'm trying to tell you, dear. You see, I was so hungry and irritated, stewing away about that chocolate bar, that I pretended to be completely buried in my Agatha Christie, even though the girl kept making odd little noises there beside me, and—oh, dear—when I finally turned around to look, her eyes had gone so strange, and she'd stopped breathing. I grabbed her and tried to do a Heimlich maneuver, but she went limp in my arms…do you mind?”

  “What's wrong?” Flo seemed to be talking to someone else.

  Flo gave a vocal sigh. “I've got a crowd of looky-loos scowling at me as if I strangled the girl or something. I could hardly get them to let me come to the phone booth. I think I finally got one of them to understand they should call the authorities…oh, my. Here they are now. They have swords. Big, long swords.”

  “Swords? Who? Florence, tell me what's going on.” Cady worked to make sense of what she was hearing. “Take it slowly.”

  “I can't.” Flo's voice quavered again. “They look so fierce, with those scowls on their faces. I'm sure they could be dangerous in spite of the silly hats—awful sideways sort of hats. They look as if they're about to haul Napoleon off to Elba.”

  Cady remembered the San Montinaro police-force/army dressed in what Regina used to call their “comic opera outfits,” and found it hard to imagine them looking fierce.

  “Do you want me to speak to them?” Cady said. “One of them ought to speak English. Put him on. Tell them I'm a Congresswoman. Those people are crazy for titles.”

  But with a click, the phone went dead.

  “Okay, what's wrong?” Athena said.

  Cady tried to compose her thoughts as she made a polite mask of her face.

  “Thank you, Lupe,” she said, “Please let me know if Ms. Adams calls again. Nurse, thank you. I know you have orders from the doctor, but this is a special circumstance.”

  Poor Flo. Dealing with death was always stressful, even the death of a stranger, and on top of jet lag and travel stress, anyone would feel the strain. But the police were there. Things should be under control.

  “So are you going to tell us what's going on, Reverend?” Athena said. “Come on. You can tell us. The others are gone. If you can't trust your hairdresser, who can you trust?”

  Cady tried to smile. Should she tell Fatima and Athena about poor dead Tina Davis and her wild claims that Regina had been murdered? Could she trust them to keep it to themselves? This was the kind of molehill the media would make into an instant Everest.

  It had all the right ingredients; a dead blonde, royalty, and a far-fetched conspiracy theory.

  But she had to do something to help Flo. Maybe Al and Tipper were snowed in too—would they have been taken back to the palace?

  Or she could call the State Department.

  But what could they do, really? The police would probably have some tedious paperwork, but if flights were delayed because of snow, anyway, that shouldn't keep Flo from making her plane. By the time Cady got through to anyone of importance, Flo would probably be back in Boston.

  Of course, if there was any truth to Tina Davis's suspicions, and someone really had murdered Regina, and perhaps Ms. Davis herself, that was another story.

  Flo could be in danger. Real danger.

  Cady realized she had to do something. She sat upright, but a wave of dizziness hit her.

  “Reverend? Are you all right?” Fatima said. “Athena, I'm gonna to call the doctor—”

  “No. No, that won't be necessary,” Cady said. “That was my secretary calling from the San Montinaro airport. There was an accident. But she's fine. What I'm really worried about is that the person who had the accident had been saying that…” Well, the cat was almost out of the bag, anyway.

  Cady lowered her voice.

  “Please. You mustn't breathe a word of this to anyone—but she was saying Princess Regina may have been murdered.”

  Athena laughed. “Is that all? She probably saw it on Geraldo. Friday he had somebody on who said Princess Regina found Jesus and was going to work collecting dimes for Elmo Greeley's cathedral, and Channel Seven interviewed some woman who said Regina was running away from Prince Max and had been hiding out in a detox center near Hollywood Park. I hear all about this stuff from my ladies at the shop.”

  Fatima let out a snort.

  “Detox; sure, that's where I'd choose to hide out, if I was a princess. I saw that show, and you would not believe what a nut bag that detox woman is. She says—right on TV—that she's a princess, too. From a planet far, far away.”

  “What did I tell you? Nuts and flakes,” Athena said.

  Cady smiled. It was true there were always crazy rumors when celebrities died. Somehow people felt better if they could find someone to blame for their loss. This poor actress of Flo's admitted she'd been in a rehab center. Who knew how drugs or alcohol might have damaged her brain; and her health?

  Chances were good the girl died of natural causes. Flo said she'd been eating a huge chocolate bar. She could have gone into diabetic shock. Alcohol-induced diabetes was common. The poor woman probably simply went off her diet.

  “You're right, ladies.” Cady sighed. “I'm overreacting. And Flo is stressed and jet-lagged so her judgment is probably a little clouded.”

  Murder plots, like UFOs and Elvis sightings, made great stories, but real life tragedies were usually about everyday things like going off your diet.

  Chapter 26—Cady: Not With the Band

  “Am I the only one still interested in this diary?” Fatima said. “I can read it to myself, if you ladies want me to turn on the TV. I'm sure Geraldo is on some channel.”

  “Please go ahead.” Cady was glad she hadn't called anyone. She could imagine the headlines now, “Former congresswoman, suffering from a head injury, imagines herself in UFO plot.”

  Flo was a wise and intelligent woman. She'd tell the police what she'd seen and then go on her way. Involving the American government would only complicate matters.

  Fatima began to read.

  Cady lay back and tried to push all the anxieties from her mind as she listened:

  “November 18

  “I can't believe how long it's been since I've written in here. I'm
so excited! Artie is coming home from Choate for Thanksgiving and guess what! He's bringing a friend for Cady. His friend's name is Darius Q. Jones, and he's in tenth grade and they want to take us to the Thanksgiving party at the country club.

  “Artie says since the club made such a big deal about letting the Frys in because they're Jewish, they should have conniption fits when we show up with two Negroes. I don't really care about who has conniption fits, but I'm going to get a new dress. And I get to buy my first pair of heels! No more devil dogs and peanut butter cups. I'm going on a diet for real!

  “November 23, 1961

  “I can't sleep. You won't believe what happened to us. It is so stupid.

  “Darius got here yesterday and he is so handsome, that Cady keeps saying I should pinch her to make sure she's not dreaming. She doesn't mean it though. But he is pretty cute. He's over six feet tall and wears Brooks Brothers suits and these serious-professor glasses. He also talks like he's Cary Grant and we're all morons. Artie acts like he's in love with him, too.

  “So last night we went to the Harvest Dance, and Cady looked beautiful with her hair all done up and Mother's lace dress she remade for her, and Artie said I looked ravishing in my new sheath dress (I'm down to 119 pounds!) and we had a wonderful time.

  “Until we got arrested.

  “Yes. We got arrested, like criminals. And we had to spend the whole night in jail because Mother was somewhere with Mr. Peabody and Artie's parents were at the Levine's ice skating party where nobody heard the phone, and so we had to stay the whole night there.

  “What was so stupid is the club people didn't tell us we couldn't come into the dance, which is what we thought might happen, and then we were going to go ice skating instead. But I guess at the door they thought Darius and Cady were with the band, so they let us in, but after we danced a little, a whole bunch of the chaperones came over and said we'd have to leave. They didn't tell us why or anything and they were really crabby about it. Darius said we weren't doing anything wrong and if they wanted us out, they'd have to call the police.

  “So they did. And the police arrested us. They said it was for trespassing and disturbing the peace.

  “But it was really for bringing Negroes who weren't with the band.

  “Jail was scary and everybody's mean and the worst thing is it smelled really, really bad.

  “November 28

  “Cady is so in love with Darius that I think I'm going to throw up. She says she wants a June wedding with six bridesmaids and…”

  Cady winced, and interrupted Fatima with a laugh. “I think I might throw up, too. Why don't we skip a year or two? I can do without a trip down Memory Lane with Darius Quinlan Jones.”

  Even after all this time, the wounds hadn't healed.

  “You got bit by the love bug, Reverend?” Athena laughed.

  “Yup. It swallowed me whole. Love caught me and ate me for supper, let me tell you.” Cady laughed. “We started writing to each other after that Thanksgiving, and in the summer of '63 he went down to Birmingham to work with Dr. King and nearly got himself killed by the Klan. You can imagine what kind of a hero he was to me: James Bond and Abe Lincoln and Moses all rolled into one. When he got into Princeton I applied to a bunch of fancy Ivy League schools so I could be worthy of him. I couldn't believe it when they gave me a huge music scholarship to Bryn Mawr. I figured that was God's way of letting us know we were supposed to be together.”

  “But it didn't work out that way?” Athena was determined to hear this story.

  “No, it didn't.”

  Chapter 27—Cady: The Laws of the Aztecs

  Cady wanted to get her mind off Darius Q. Jones.

  “Why don't you look for a diary from around 1964 or '65? That's when Regina stopped playing the piano. I never did know why she stopped—she was so talented. It nearly broke her mother's heart.”

  Lupe seemed to be at the door again. She and Fatima were having a conversation Cady couldn't quite make out.

  “Is it Flo? Has Lupe heard from Flo?”

  Cady's heart started to race as her mind focused again on the present. What was she doing here having her hair done; worrying about things that happened over thirty years ago, while her dear friend and secretary was probably going through bureaucratic hell in a foreign country?

  Who knew how the police in some strange European country would treat a black woman? Remembering that horrible night at the Berkshire Country club reminded her of how things could be. Besides, Flo hated the cold.

  Fatima said something incomprehensible that sounded like “moley okay?”

  “Excuse me?” Cady said. “Did Lupe get a phone call she didn't tell me about?”

  “Lupe is getting ready to go home. It's her half-day and her grandson is having a birthday. She wants to know if chicken mole is okay for dinner. There's some in the fridge. You like that, Athena—you know; it's got that sauce with chocolate.”

  “Chicken with chocolate sauce? I think I'll pass,” Athena said.

  “You love it, girl,” said Fatima. “You had three helpings last time. Remember how Lupe told us that in ancient Mexico the Aztec people only let the men eat chocolate? Any woman who was caught eating it got her heart cut out?”

  “Oh, yes.” Lupe had a tinkling laugh. “The Aztec culture believed chocolate made women wild and lustful.”

  “Chocolate makes women wild and lustful?” said Athena. “Where is it? Bring on the Hershey bars, girlfriend!”

  While everyone was laughing, Cady heard the sound of quick, purposeful footsteps on the stairs.

  “What is going on here? Is this what you thought I meant by absolute quiet?”

  Dr. Lillian came close to the bed.

  “What's this?” The room went silent.

  “That's the Reverend's pills,” Fatima said in a defensive tone. “I found them in her luggage, when I was unpacking her things.”

  “Was I talking to myself the other day, Reverend Stanton? Have you taken these? Nurse, have you let her take any of this garbage?”

  “I have only given her the medication listed on the chart, Doctor,” said the nurse. Her voice was stiff. “I cannot control what she chooses to take herself.”

  “I am going to take this and flush it, Reverend,” said Dr. Lillian. “If I find anything like this again, you find yourself a new doctor. Am I making myself clear?”

  “It's my fault, Doctor,” Fatima said. “I know how important her diet is to Reverend Stanton. I read all about it in The Star. They said those pills were like a miracle drug. Honest to God, I never heard…”

  The doctor's voice went from angry to tired.

  “No,” she said, “Nobody hears. Nobody hears anything but the diet industry propaganda. The Mayo clinic is about to come out with a new report on this stuff. It doesn't just wreck your lungs, and maybe cause brain damage, it eats your heart away—dissolves your heart muscle—but nobody will listen. They're too brainwashed. Do you know how many normal-sized ten-year-old girls in this country think they're too fat? Four out of five. Taught to hate their own bodies—fear sexual maturity—make them terrified of becoming grown women with healthy secondary sexual characteristics.”

  “Secondary say-what?” Fatima gave a hoot of laughter. “Are you saying fat is what makes a woman get hot?”

  “To a certain extent.” The doctor's voice lowered. “Sex hormones are stored in fat. Breasts and hips are made up of fatty tissue. Listen, I'm not saying we shouldn't exercise and keep off the junk food…”

  Athena interrupted with a big laugh.

  “So Lupe's old Aztec folks were right. Eating chocolate does make women wild and lustful. No wonder you're such a hot mama, LadyFat. You are two hundred pounds of secondary sexual characteristics.”

  “Two hundred and twelve pounds,” Fatima said with what sounded remarkably like pride.

  Two hundred and twelve pounds. No wonder the bed bounced when Fatima sat down. Could it be? Was Tyrone sleeping with a woman of size? Was he that unafraid
of public opinion? Could a man survive in the public forum with a woman on his arm who didn't conform to current standards of smallness? Cady couldn't think of anyone who did.

  She found herself admiring Tyrone Power Magee in a whole new way. He was brave enough to defy the law of the Aztecs.

  Chapter 28—Cady: Old Maids Never Wed and Have Babies

  Silence settled over the room after Doctor Lillian left. Athena resumed her rhythmic braiding of Cady's hair and Fatima rustled through papers in the mysterious box.

  Cady lay still, listening to the beating of her own heart, wondering if the six months she'd spent on the diet pills had permanently damaged it—or any other organ. How could she have let anyone convince her that being TV-thin was worth risking her life?

  She really had got her priorities skewed for a while. How had she been sucked in by the myth that happiness is directly related to thinness? She had been at her thinnest ever when she fell in love with Darius Q. Jones, and God knew Darius had not brought her happiness.

  “How about I read Regina's diary from 1965?” Fatima said, apparently still bursting with energy. “It's the classiest one of all. It's white leather with a gold design—a shield with three owls on it.”

  “The Bryn Mawr crest,” Cady said with a laugh. “I gave her that one. I remember buying it at the College bookshop right after I arrived for freshman week. Sure, go ahead and read it.”

  That was the year Regina lost sixty pounds, gave up the piano and decided to go to art school, with no explanation.

  Fatima read:

  “October 2, 1965

  “Happy Birthday to me.

  “Here's my big present: a diary from my brainy sister. Thanks, Cady, for rubbing it in a little more that you got into a great college. I guess this is as close as I'll ever get to the Ivy League. Arthur says I'd better damn well practice my piano, because if I don't get into Julliard, with my math SAT, I'll end up at a state school, like he almost did. Luckily his uncle Murray pulled some strings and got him into some new art school in Greenwich Village. Otherwise, he'd be studying swine management and the history of refrigeration over at U. Mass.