To the Grave

by Carlene Thompson

  Shortly afterward, though, Patrice yawned and then drew attention to her sleepiness by laughing and acting as if she were trying to swallow yet another yawn. “Pardon me!” she said loudly. “I’m usually able to hold my own later than this, but I have a big day tomorrow.”

  “The wedding isn’t until tomorrow evening,” someone called good-naturedly. “You can sleep late!”

  “Oh, I never sleep late.” She looked fondly at Lawrence. “And I’m sure I won’t be able to sleep late on my wedding day!”

  People took the hint. A few glanced at watches to see that it was nearly eleven o’clock. The food and drink had made them drowsy, and Patrice’s remark about her wedding day had reminded them that they would be attending a much bigger celebration tomorrow. Almost as if a gong had sounded signaling “leaving time,” people began to shift in their chairs, leave the dining room for what Catherine guessed to be one last stop at the restroom, and approach Patrice and Lawrence to say good night and make assurances that they could hardly wait for the wedding, which they knew would be beautiful.

  Catherine and Marissa were slowly making their way toward Patrice and Lawrence when Marissa suddenly grabbed Catherine’s arm. “Oh my God, there’s Maud Webster.” Catherine looked at the woman whose small, drooping eyes widened at the sight of them. “She’s going to ask more questions about Renée,” Catherine hissed.

  “What will we do?”

  “We will be rude and simply run for the door. Patrice and Lawrence won’t be offended. Lawrence is so tired he looks ready to drop on the floor.” Marissa signaled to Tom, pointing to the door, and pulled on Catherine’s arm. “Come on! She’s gaining on us!”

  By the time they reached the door of the dining room, Catherine felt giddy from Marissa’s hurried, giggling flight toward the main entrance to the Larke Inn. The three of them burst out the front doors and hurried down the five steps leading from the sweeping veranda to the wide sidewalk.

  “It’s freezing,” Catherine complained.

  “So you’re glad we didn’t bring my convertible.”

  “If we had, I think you would have sense enough to put up the top and turn on the heater. Still, I like my cozy white sedan.”

  “Which I see about twenty feet ahead of us. Gosh, Catherine, you have a midsize car, but the rear end is sticking out past any of the big cars.”

  “You know I’m not good at judging distance,” Catherine said edgily. “Besides, I’m not blocking anyone.”

  “But you’ve had that car for three years. Haven’t you learned to park correctly yet?”

  Catherine turned on her. “Do you want to walk home?”

  “No.”

  “Then for once be quiet about my bad driving.”

  “Okay. Sorry.” Marissa paused. “And sorry for being sorry. I just can’t suit you tonight.”

  “I’m worn-out and my head is killing me.”

  “You always get fussy when you’re tired,” Marissa said as if Catherine were a little child. “Besides, if you’d left me, I would have had Tom drive me home.”

  Catherine shook her head. “I don’t know how Eric puts up with you.”

  “Oh, but he does.”

  Catherine had not locked her car and she swung open the driver’s side door, blinking as the interior lights snapped to life. “Well, it’s a miracle, that’s all I have to say—” She went stone still. “Tom?”

  “What is it, Dr. Gray?” the young deputy asked immediately, reaching for his gun.

  “The seat. Look at my seat.”

  As Tom bent to look in, Marissa stepped back from the car. “What?” she demanded. “What’s on your seat?”

  Catherine shuddered. “I think it’s the mask Renée was wearing in Mardi Gras Lady.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  1

  “That woman has been clattering around in Mary’s room for the last two hours! I can’t stand it!”

  Dana Nordine stared at her handsome if frazzled-looking husband for almost a full minute before she answered in a soft, even voice. “That woman’s name is Ms. Greene. She’s the nurse I hired. Mary is coming home after major surgery today, in case you’ve forgotten. Ms. Greene is preparing Mary’s room.”

  “Will she leave as soon as Mary gets home?”

  “No, Ken, she will be staying for at least three days. Full-time.”

  “Three days and nights?”

  Dana took a deep breath, trying to hold on to her patience. “Mary could have problems in the night as well as in the day.”

  “Well, if she has problems at night can’t you just call an ambulance?”

  “I could, but that’s not what I want to do.” Dana and Ken stood outside Mary’s hospital room. A nurse was talking to her, asking the five-year-old for suggestions as to how her panties, robe, house slippers, stuffed dog, and precious though wilting “get well” flowers were to be arranged for the trip home. Dana could hear the little girl’s voice, louder than usual with excitement, but still took Ken’s arm and pulled him a few feet farther down the corridor out of Mary’s earshot. “Mary is your child, Ken. I hope you feel the same way I do—that she deserves the very best care. After all, it isn’t as if we can’t afford to have a private-duty nurse for three days.” She paused. “Or is she already coming on to you?”

  “Coming on to me!” Ken looked horrified. “She’s at least seventy and she has a nose like a pig’s. I’ve never seen such big nostrils in my life!”

  Dana glared at him for a moment before her lips began to twitch and she bent over, laughing. “Honestly, Ken, you are the only man I know who is more concerned with a medical person’s looks than her expertise.” Ken glared at her indignantly until she wiped the tears of laughter from her face and managed to look at him halfway seriously. “Ms. Greene will only be with us for three days and you don’t even have to look at her if you find her so physically repugnant. The doctor highly recommended her; she has excellent credentials; she’s supposed to be a regular pied piper with children—they love her.”

  “Oh, I don’t care about her credentials. I mean, I’m sure they’re fine. She must be good enough at her job to look after a kid getting over a simple appendectomy.”

  “Then what is your problem today? You look like you found out someone stole one of your father’s paintings.”

  “Actually, I sold a painting this morning. A very expensive painting, but…” The indignant look faded from Ken’s face to be replaced with one of near despair. “Bridget still hasn’t turned up! No call, no text.”

  No sex, Dana almost said, but now was not the time for an argument. “Have you driven past her house?”

  Dana knew he would have, but she’d decided to play along as if she gave a damn about Bridget Fenmore, at least until she could get Mary home and settled.

  “Yes. A couple of times.” More like twenty, Dana thought. “There’s no sign of her. The mail and newspapers are piling up.”

  “What about her car?”

  “What about it?”

  “Is her car around?”

  “Yes. It’s in the garage.” His eyes shifted away guiltily. “I looked in the garage window and saw it.”

  Dana had been to Bridget’s tiny house once and knew the garage had no window. Ken had a key to the house and he’d used it, going inside to search for Bridget or any sign of her, Dana thought. In order to see Bridget’s car, he must have glanced through the door leading from the house to the garage. “Have you called her parents?”

  “I don’t know where her parents live. They might even be dead. She never mentions them.”

  “The information might be on her application form. However, after you got a look at her during the interview, I don’t suppose you spent much time studying her application.”

  Ken’s jaw tightened. “It seems to me you’ve gotten damned cocky lately, Dana. What’s behind this new tone of yours?”

  “Nothing I care to discuss with you.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes, really. What
about her friends?” Ken looked blank. “Have you talked to any of Bridget’s friends?”

  “What makes you think I’d know who her friends are?” Ken asked defensively. “She’s just our employee. We don’t socialize with her.”

  Talk about protesting too much, Dana thought sarcastically. “She mentioned a friend to me once.” She told him the woman’s name. “If she has an unlisted phone number, I guess you’ll have to call the police.”

  “The police!”

  “To report Bridget missing, if you’re so certain something has happened to her and she hasn’t just decided to take a long weekend.”

  “She’s been gone since Friday. You call that a long weekend? And where would she go? Who with?”

  “With whom. I have no idea. You know her a lot better than I do.” Dana waited for Ken to give her a spluttering denial of knowing Bridget better than Dana did, but he was obviously too tired. “Ken, I want you to be here when our daughter is released.”

  “I came here to sign papers. That’s all taken care of. Now I need to be at the gallery. You and what’s-her-name, the nurse, can get Mary home.”

  Dana took a deep breath, trying to smother her anger. Finally, she was able to talk instead of shout. “Ken, you can at least act like you care. After all, bad publicity wouldn’t be good for the gallery,” she added acidly. “I expect you to be here within the next hour. If you aren’t, I will make sure half the hospital staff knows how unconcerned you are about your daughter.”

  “Don’t threaten me.”

  “Don’t disappoint me.”

  “You mean ‘don’t disobey me.’”

  Dana, to her own bafflement, smiled. “Your vocabulary has improved since you were a stock boy at one of my father’s stores, Ken, although I’m aware of the occasional grammatical gaffe.”

  Ken looked furious. “Dammit, Dana—”

  “You either stay here now or you come back within an hour. Mary can barely wait to see her father. And don’t forget—people are watching you far more than they did before Arcos’s murder.” Dana leaned closer and hissed, “For your own sake, don’t screw up because of Bridget Fenmore.”

  2

  Eric Montgomery stood on the porch of the Gray home, hat in hand. Before he’d had a chance to ring the bell, an exhausted-looking Catherine swung open the door and demanded, “Do you know where that thing came from?”

  “The mask.”

  “Yes.”

  “No.” She frowned at him. “No, I don’t know where it came from yet.” He waited a moment and then asked, “May I come in?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” She moved backward and Eric saw Lindsay peeping out from behind her. “That’s quite a scary guard dog you have.”

  “She’s Marissa’s dog, remember? Give me your coat and hat.” She turned and loudly yelled, “Marissa, Eric’s here!”

  Eric had never heard ladylike Catherine yell. Never. This was a definite sign that her nerves were shot, he decided, and was glad when Marissa rushed out of the kitchen and flung herself in his arms. “Our knight in shining armor! Tell us all about that awful mask!”

  “I called you earlier—”

  “James had a setback,” Catherine announced harshly. “Apparently he got out of bed in the night—he was sleepwalking, I suppose—and … and…”

  “He didn’t do much damage to his shoulder.” Marissa didn’t even look at Catherine, whose eyes were beginning to drip. “He had to go back into surgery, but the doctor said they only needed a few more stitches to close a few that had torn. The original incision had enlarged, but four stitches—”

  “Five!” Catherine snapped.

  “Five stitches fixed him right up. He’s snoozing away on painkillers right now. The doctor says this will only delay his recovery for a day or two.”

  Catherine looked defiant. “She was just trying to make me feel better.”

  “No, she wasn’t. Did she look like one of those doctors who pat you on the back and tell you everything’s fine when it isn’t? She knew Dad, for God’s sake.”

  “What does that have to do with us?”

  “Well, I’m sure it has something to do with respect and professionalism and … oh hell, I don’t know.”

  “I’m sorry about James,” Eric said. “Does he sleepwalk?”

  “Not that I know of,” Catherine replied.

  “It might have been a reaction to his injury or the medicine,” Eric replied.

  “Catherine, calm down,” Marissa said kindly. “Go upstairs, cry some more, and get this anxiety out of your system.”

  “I’m not going anywhere until I hear about the mask.”

  Marissa sighed. She looked almost as tired as Catherine and twice as frustrated. Nevertheless, Marissa was obviously working at keeping up her spirits. “You might as well spill all the details about the mask or there will be no peace this afternoon, and someone needs a nap before the wedding tonight.”

  “What have you found out about the mask?” Catherine urged.

  “The mask was plastic,” Eric said. “We didn’t find any prints. However, the glue on the gold lace edging wasn’t completely dry and neither was the black paint used to make the star around the right eye.”

  “The paint was fresh?” Catherine asked.

  “I don’t know. It was latex paint,” Eric said. “Sometimes latex paint can dry on plastic in an hour. It’s often used on stuff like model cars or ships.”

  “But you can’t tell exactly how long ago the star was painted.”

  “No, Catherine, I’m sorry, but I can’t. The glue used to attach it is completely dry. It could have been Krazy Glue. We’ll be testing the paint and the glue Monday, but today all I can tell you is that I think the mask was decorated yesterday.”

  “But you know what that mask looks like.” Eric remained silent while Catherine stared at him. “It looks exactly like the mask Renée is wearing in Mardi Gras Lady.”

  “I’ve only seen that painting once, but as I remember it, the mask does look like the one the woman in the painting is wearing.”

  “Where would someone get a mask like that around here?”

  “In Aurora Falls?” Eric shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s near Halloween, though. A few shops around here sell costumes. We’re already checking on them to see if anyone bought a full costume with a plastic half mask or just a white plastic mask that could be decorated any way the buyer wanted. I have a feeling the person who left that mask on your seat wouldn’t take the chance on being recognized as someone who recently bought a mask like that, though, so I looked on the Internet. You can order plain white plastic masks and have them delivered overnight. If I were going to pull a stunt like someone did on you last night, I’d be safe and order a mask, not buy one locally.”

  “Do you think it could be the mask Renée wore in the portrait?”

  “If she actually wore that mask and posed for the painting, Arcos could have kept the mask out of sentiment,” Eric said. “After his murder, we went over his warehouse thoroughly, though, and we didn’t find it. Of course, if it really existed, she let him keep it and then left him, he could have destroyed it out of anger or grief or … hell, I didn’t know Arcos. I don’t know how his mind worked, what he might have done with it. If the painting is just a product of his imagination, the mask in your car could simply be one made to look like the one in the portrait.”

  “So the important question is who would do something like this,” Marissa said.

  Eric nodded. “We have a list of people invited to the dinner. Catherine, did you know all of them?”

  “Heavens, no! A lot were business associates of Lawrence. I met them, but I don’t remember most of their names.”

  “Except for Maud,” Marissa said.

  Catherine rolled her eyes. “Oh lord, I’ll never forget Maud.”

  Eric looked at her. “Maud?”

  “Maud Webster,” Catherine said. “Her husband, Ed, is senior vice president of Star Air. He seemed very nice. She was anot
her matter. Pushy, nosy, no manners. Of course, she’d had too much to drink, but I have a feeling she’s not much better when she’s sober. She knew about my relationship with James and what happened last Saturday. She kept asking me what it felt like to discover his wife’s body. She would not shut up and she was talking loudly. People were pretending not to hear her, but I knew they could hear every word. Marissa kept trying to interrupt, but it didn’t do any good. Maud’s husband, Ed, must have finally seen what was happening. He hurried over and started nearly dragging her toward a couple named the Suskins or Sutpins. I can’t remember their exact names.” For the first time, Catherine smiled. “I do remember that they looked like they were ready to bolt for the door when they saw her coming!”

  “They must know her,” Marissa said dryly. “When even I can’t get someone to shut up, you know you’re in trouble.”

  “I’ll talk to the Suskins or Sutpins about Maud,” Eric said. “Maybe she had a reason for being so tenacious.”

  “I think she’s one of those people who just lives for gossip, but there might be something else,” Catherine said.

  Eric frowned. “You said a lot of people heard her.”

  “At least half the room.”

  “Did anyone look surprised?”

  “Surprised?” Catherine echoed.

  “Yes, like they hadn’t already heard about you finding the body.”

  “Well, honestly, I was thinking more about how embarrassed I was than watching for other people’s reactions,” Catherine answered. “Why are you asking?”

  “Because not everyone at the rehearsal dinner was from Aurora Falls. Some of the Star people were from at least a hundred miles away. They probably would have heard about the body being found, but they wouldn’t have known what Catherine Gray looked like.”

  “Oh,” Catherine said. “So Maud might as well have pointed me out to the whole group.”