Toni L.P. Kelner - Laura Fleming 07 - Mad as the Dickens

by Toni L. P. Kelner

  “I hope you’re right. Now if you’ll excuse me, I should check in with the Murdstones.”

  Richard came back then. “Hi, love. Are you all right?”

  “I’m still fine, Richard,” I said in exasperation.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I’m just aggravated. Finding out who killed Seth should be simple. It was simple—somebody hit him upside the head, and there aren’t that many people it could have been. Why can’t Junior and I figure out which one? Maybe being pregnant kills brain cells.”

  He patted my leg. “Come on, Laura. It has nothing to do with being pregnant. You always come to a point where nothing makes any sense and you start grasping at straws.”

  “Thanks,” I said sarcastically.

  “Then you figure it all out. Just be patient.”

  “Patience is not my strong point.”

  “You’ll forgive me if I don’t respond to that.”

  I looked back over at Oliver, now deep in conversation with Jake. “Maybe Oliver killed Seth so he could play Scrooge.”

  “But he didn’t get the part.”

  “I know, but he thought he was going to. Remember how shocked he was when you picked Big Bill instead of him? Maybe he’ll go after Big Bill next.”

  “I told you not to joke about my cast.”

  “Sorry.” I looked around the room and saw that the crowd was thinning. “Do you suppose we can get away with leaving now?”

  “I’m sure we can,” Richard replied. “Did you have another avenue to investigate?”

  “All I’m interested in investigating is dinner. I’ve got a craving for a hamburger and french fries.”

  “Hardee’s or McDonald’s?”

  “McDonald’s,” I said, my mouth watering. I knew I was supposed to be eating good, healthy meals, but ever since I’d been pregnant, nothing had satisfied me quite so much as junk food.

  “Wait a minute! Is it all right to eat at McDonald’s?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “If it’s bad luck to quote the Scottish play, it must be bad luck to eat at a Scottish restaurant.”

  “What Scottish restaurant?”

  “Isn’t McDonald’s a Scottish restaurant?”

  Chapter 27

  I got up the next morning fully intending to go to Seth’s funeral, both to pay my respects and to snoop. But it was drizzling, and my feet hurt from being on them so much the day before, and I was still sleepy. I knew the Murdstones had planned the funeral for early in the day to keep from interfering with rehearsal, but that didn’t make it any easier for me to get moving.

  Still, I managed to get into the shower, but when I pulled on the second loaner dress from Vasti, I looked at myself in the mirror and said loudly, “For pity’s sake!”

  “What’s the matter?” asked Richard, who was already dressed.

  “Look at this.” I held my arms out so he could see how the dress fit, which was much the same way that a circus tent fits the center pole. “It’s huge!”

  “It is kind of loose, isn’t it.”

  “Richard, there’s enough room for you in here. I wouldn’t fit in this if I was having quintuplets. Does Vasti think I look this big?”

  “I’m sure she doesn’t, but if she does, obviously she’s wrong.”

  “I can’t wear this!”

  “Then wear the dress you wore last night.”

  “People have already seen me in it.”

  “Then wear a scarf or something—my mother says you can wear the same outfit a dozen times if you accessorize properly.”

  “I didn’t bring any accessories with me. Besides which, I spilled ketchup down the front of it last night.”

  “Then keep your coat on. Or wear your regular clothes.”

  “I can’t dress that way for a funeral.”

  “Then—” He stopped. “You don’t want to go to the funeral, do you?”

  “Not really,” I admitted. “I know I should …”

  “Why? You barely knew Seth.”

  “Then for the investigation.”

  “Laura, how often do people really say anything meaningful at a funeral? They’re coming to bury him, not to confess to killing him.”

  That sounded suspiciously like Shakespeare, at least in paraphrase, but I didn’t think it was Macbeth so I didn’t point it out. “I know, but—”

  “Junior is going to be there, and so am I. You go back to bed, and we’ll tell you if you miss anything important.”

  I looked at the bed, cozy with the fluffy quilt my grandmother had made. “Are you sure?”

  “Go to bed. I’ll pick you up on the way to rehearsal.”

  “I’ll go you one better. I’ll get a ride to the recreation center and meet you over there.”

  “It’s a deal.” Then he got me a drink and put me to bed. I should have felt bad about it, but I didn’t have enough time before I fell asleep.

  An hour and a half later, I was much better rested. I called around to see who was available and caught Aunt Nora on her way out the door. She said she’d be glad to drop me off, and even brought me a hefty breakfast of eggs with fruit salad on the side. Being Aunt Nora, she also had fresh biscuits handy.

  The funeral must have still been going on, because the parking lot was empty when we got to the recreation center. Vasti had made a production out of keeping the doors locked in a vain attempt to prevent practical jokes, so I couldn’t go inside, but it was such a balmy day for December that I didn’t mind. Aunt Nora volunteered to stay with me, but I knew she was meeting Aunt Edna so they could plan what we Burnettes were having for Christmas dinner. I had a vested interest in their doing a good job and didn’t want to hold them up, so I sat down on the stone wall and pulled out the latest issue of the Byerly Gazette.

  Byerly not being a hotbed of news activity, it didn’t take me long to read the Gazette from cover to cover. I was surprised people hadn’t shown up by then, but I figured the Murdstones must have laid out a good spread back at their house after the funeral. Or maybe the killer had confessed after all, I fantasized, and Junior was busy taking his or her statement.

  It was about then that I heard something, a kind of rhythmic sound. More restless than curious, I wandered toward the building, trying to figure out what it was and where it was coming from. I got to the front door and decided it was definitely coming from inside. Now that I was closer, it sounded like someone sawing wood.

  The front door was at the far end of the building, with the stage all the way at the other end. With the lights out I could just barely make out motion at the back of the stage. Somebody was sawing something.

  My first thought was to knock on the door, so whoever it was would let me in, but I changed my mind. What was that person doing in there, anyway, and why hadn’t he or she turned the lights on? I thought Vasti was the only one with a key. Besides which, almost everybody in the cast and crew was at the funeral.

  There was only one reason I could think of for somebody to be inside. Our practical joker was setting up another prank.

  My first thought was to run along the side of the building until I found a window closer to the stage so I could see who it was. I probably would have, too, but the baby started kicking, reminding me that I needed to look before I leaped. Though Junior and I didn’t think the practical joker was Seth’s murderer, I sure as heck didn’t want to be proven wrong by making him come after me. Even if he wasn’t the killer, he’d been working hard to hide his tracks. I didn’t know how he would react if I caught him red-handed.

  Before I could decide what to do, the sawing stopped. I ducked down and crept to the nearest bush that was big enough to hide behind. I was hoping the prankster would come out the front door so I could see him in the daylight, but eventually I heard the distant sound of a car door shutting and realized that he must have been parked in the back parking lot.

  I quickly moved to the other side of the bush, where I couldn’t be seen by the driver of the car that appe
ared and drove out the exit. It was moving too fast for me to read the license plate, but I didn’t need to. I knew that car, and I knew who was driving it. But why would he be playing practical jokes? It didn’t make sense, and I decided not to say anything until I was sure I’d seen what I thought I’d seen. There had to be another explanation, even if I couldn’t begin to figure out what it could be.

  Only when the car was long gone did I get out from behind the bush and go back to my seat on the fence. This time I was too nervous to read the newspaper or to do anything other than keep watch in all directions. I was mighty relieved when Vasti’s red Cadillac pulled into the parking lot, followed closely by Richard in our rental car. The rest of the cast and crew were close behind.

  “Hey, love,” Richard said, giving me a hug. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long.”

  “Not too long,” I said. “How was the funeral?”

  Richard shrugged. “Very nice. Tasteful. About what you’d expect a funeral to be.”

  “I hope you gave the Murdstones my regrets.”

  “They didn’t mind your not coming, if that’s what you mean. They’ll be here later. In the meantime, Florence sent you a box of food from the post-funeral gathering.”

  “That’s nice.”

  Vasti had the door open by then, and we followed her inside.

  “Is anything wrong?” Richard said.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “You look pale, and you didn’t ask what food Florence sent.”

  I managed a smile. “I’m fine, but—”

  “Richard!” Vasti yelled. “Have you proofread the program yet? It’s got to go to the printer right away or it won’t be ready in time.”

  “Sorry,” he said to me. “Do you mind?”

  “Of course not,” I said. I wanted to know more, even before I told Richard what I was thinking. “You go ahead.”

  He went to see what Vasti needed, and I stared at the stage, trying to remember where the prankster had been.

  Everything was laid out for the scene where Scrooge spies on the Cratchits’ Christmas dinner. There was a dining room table with chairs stage left, with the fireplace Jake had made in the center, and Tiny Tim’s chair stage right. The scenery flats were painted to create the illusion of a plain house, just this side of poverty-stricken, with faded wallpaper and a framed needlepoint sampler.

  I headed toward the stage, walking carefully to make sure I didn’t set anything off. I decided that the prankster had been standing stage right, near the door into the set, and sure enough, there was sawdust on the floor all around there. But what had he been sawing?

  Gingerly, I reached over and touched one of the flats. It wobbled, but just a little. Then I touched the one next to it, the one with the door through it. It wobbled a lot. I jumped back, watching it rock back and forth, and only breathed again when it stopped moving.

  “Richard!” I called out, surprised at how shrill my voice sounded.

  “Just a minute!” he called back.

  “I need you now!”

  He came at a dead run. “What’s the matter?”

  “Something’s wrong with that flat,” I said, pointing. “When I touched it, it nearly fell on top of me.”

  “Are you sure? I know Jake braced them.” He reached out.

  “Don’t touch it!” I yelped. “I’m serious, Richard. I think it’s about to fall.”

  “It’s okay,” he said soothingly, then yelled, “Can somebody flip on the spotlights?” A few seconds later, someone complied.

  “There’s sawdust on the floor,” I offered, and though Richard looked confused, he realized the implication and started looking up and down the wooden frame of the flat. “Jesus!” he breathed.

  “What is it?”

  He stepped completely out of range, and in a tight voice said, “Somebody sawed through the frame on both sides. One little push, and the damn thing would fall right over.”

  “But it’s just boards and canvas, right?” I said. “It wouldn’t hurt anybody, would it?”

  “Most of them wouldn’t, unless you got hit by the frame itself,” he said, “but this one is heavier than the others so it can support the door. If it hit you, you could get a concussion, or a broken arm, or …” He didn’t bother to finish. “Get off the stage.”

  “But—”

  “Now. Please.”

  I got off the stage.

  Richard looked around at the gathering cast and crew, who were watching us with more than a little curiosity. “Folks, our practical joker has been busy again, and this one is nasty. He’s rigged one of the flats, and we’ve got to get it down before it falls down. Martin, Sid, and Big Bill, I could use a hand.”

  I suppose I should have been offended that he only called for the menfolk to do the heavy work, but I was too shaken to think about it. I just stepped out of the way while they carefully took hold of the flat and brought it down. Even though I was watching them, I jumped when they let it fall the final foot or so. As much noise as it made, I didn’t want to think about what would have happened if it had hit one of the cast. Had the prankster recognized the set? Had he realized that Big Bill, Sid, Florence, and David would have been on stage, along with all of Junior’s nieces and nephews? Or did he care who it was he could have hurt?

  On stage, Richard and the others were checking the other flats and starting to talk about repairing the damaged one. Everybody else had gone back to their various jobs, and I was sure they didn’t know how bad it could have been.

  Except Junior. She was staring at the stage, and from the look on her face, I could tell she realized what might have happened.

  “How did you catch it?” she asked.

  “I saw him doing it.”

  “What? Who?”

  “It was Mark Pope.”

  Chapter 28

  Junior swore fluently under her breath for a full minute, then said, “What did you see?”

  I explained getting there early and hunting down the source of the noise I heard. “I recognized Mark’s car when he drove off. It was the same one he was in at the mall yesterday.”

  “Did he see you?”

  “I don’t think so.” Then, a little embarrassed, I said, “I was hiding.”

  “Good!”

  “Has he been playing all of the jokes?”

  “It’s possible,” she said in an odd tone of voice.

  “Did you know Mark was setting these things up? Is that why you didn’t want to spend any time tracking down the jokester?”

  “I didn’t know for sure,” she said carefully.

  “Junior! You’ve been holding out on me!”

  She looked around quickly. “Keep your voice down.”

  “You knew!” I said angrily.

  “I didn’t know anything,” she said. “I only suspected.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I mean it, Laurie Anne. It’s just that I saw him outside not long before Florence slipped on the soap that day. And I thought it was interesting that there weren’t any jokes set yesterday, the one day he didn’t show up.”

  “I’ve told you everything I suspected,” I reminded her. “I haven’t held anything back.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry.”

  “Do you know why he’s been doing it, or are you keeping that a secret, too?”

  “The fact is, I’ve been watching Mark pretty closely ever since this started.”

  “Why?”

  “Because of something he did the day Seth was killed.”

  “I don’t understand. What did he do?”

  “It was right after he got here that day. I’d expected him to be pissed that I was at the murder scene ahead of him, knowing that he wanted to make a big show for the city council. And I was willing to let him run the investigation as long as he didn’t mess it up too badly. The way I figured it, if him solving one case was enough to make them want to replace me, they could go ahead and do it.”

  “But you love your job.”


  “Of course I do,” she said, “but not enough to kiss anybody’s butt to keep it. Anyway, I was planning to tell Mark that I’d stay out of his way, but he started throwing his weight around before I could. Reminding me I wasn’t in charge, threatening to tell my mama I was working during my vacation. I’d known for a while that he was after my job, but he’d been fairly subtle up until then. All of a sudden it was out in the open, as if the stakes were higher than they’d been before.”

  “I can see where that might have gotten you thinking.”

  “There’s more. Since Mark was being so high and mighty, I decided he could do all the scut work himself, and I let him think I hadn’t done anything while waiting for him except stand over Seth’s body. Then I watched him do all the looking around I’d already done; I was kind of hoping he’d miss something so I could rub it in.”

  “Did he?”

  “Yes and no. His initial examination was fine. At least, he hit everything I would have. But when the medical examiner came, Mark tried to get him to say that it could have been an accident, that maybe Seth fell and hit himself.”

  “On what?”

  “Exactly. It took you two minutes to see it wasn’t an accident. Mark should have seen it faster than that. Of course, the medical examiner set Mark straight, and I could have let that pass. But then I heard Mark and some of the state troopers talking about who was going to take statements from which witnesses. One of them was planning to talk to Jake, and she asked Mark if there was anything special about him she ought to know. That’s when Mark should have told her about Seth and Jake being moonshiners. Criminal connections are always of interest in a murder investigation. But all Mark told her was family background: stuff about Jake’s son recently dying and him being in the furniture business with Seth.”

  “Did you tell her about the moonshining?”

  “I should have, but that’s when Mark chased me off, and that didn’t sit too well, so I thought I’d let him make a fool of himself. Then I could step in and solve the case, which would have ended any talk about Mark getting my job once and for all.”

  I must have looked disapproving, because Junior said, “I know, it wasn’t a mature thing to do. Here I’ve been maligning Mark for playing politics instead of getting the job done, and I’d done the same thing myself. I don’t think I’d have let it go on for much longer, but while I was waiting to be interviewed, I started thinking. How on earth had Mark made a mistake like that? Two mistakes, if you count him thinking that Seth could have died by accident.”