Stranded

by Lorena McCourtney

  “Hiram was … shrewd, you know. He was never stingy. Never. But he could drive a hard bargain when he was making a deal. So that’s what I’m thinking, that it was someone who came, did the deed, and left as unnoticed as he came. And will probably never be caught.”

  “What about an old wife?”

  “There’s only one still around, number two, I think she was, and I have a hard time suspecting her of anything.” Lucinda chuckled, as if an inside joke were involved. “You can meet her tomorrow at the rehearsal. Doris Hammerstone. She’s prompter for the skits.”

  Doris Hammerstone? Tiny, pink-scalped, bent-bodied Doris was one of Hiram’s old wives? No, I couldn’t see her whopping him over the head, at least not with anything more substantial than a celery stick. I couldn’t, in fact, even see her making it up to the third floor of the house. “Actually, I’ve already met her.”

  Okay, cancel the old wives. Although I have to admit I did so reluctantly.

  Lucinda left a few minutes later. I did some more vacuuming and dusting. Abilene got home just before dark, elated about her driving practice. “Dr. Sugarman says that I already drive well enough that after a little more practice next weekend I should be ready to take the test. The pickup is an automatic, which is a lot easier to drive than the stick shift on the old tractor.”

  I noted that he was still Dr. Sugarman, not Mike, to her.

  We spent the evening with me going through the driver’s license booklet and asking Abilene every question I could think might be on the test. Then I figured I’d better study that booklet myself, because she knew more than I did.

  In the morning I used the cell phone to call the mail-forwarding outfit in Arkansas, give my password, and ask them to send my accumulated mail to general delivery in Hello. Mail wasn’t delivered to homes here. Everyone had a P.O. box, but I was reluctant to do that. I suspected the Braxtons had tracked me down once by using the resources of a family member in the postal service. Maybe I was being paranoid, but I figure too much caution is better than too little.

  Right after lunch I walked down to the old hotel building on Main Street. A gloomy blanket of clouds cut off the top half of the mountains on both sides of town, and dirty gray slush ridged the streets. The hotel had no doubt been impressive in its day, and it still maintained a stolid dignity. Four stories, all brick, still the tallest building in town. A couple of windows were boarded up on the second story, but above that everything appeared in good shape.

  Activity buzzed around the front door, cars coming and going and dropping people off, and I followed several ladies inside. A wide stairway led off to the right of a shabbily carpeted lobby, but the stairs were blocked by a tasseled cord and a “Keep Out” sign. A plywood barrier and a similar sign, with the addition of a red-lettered “Danger,” barred entrance to a single elevator on the left side. Ladies wrapped in a hum of busy chatter milled around the lobby.

  The far side of the room opened onto what may once have been a large restaurant or even a ballroom. Now it held numerous rows of unpadded brown seats, the folding kind I remember from movie theaters when I was a girl. An impressively large stage covered the far end of the room, but the floor had been patched with plywood, and a crisscrossing of two-by-fours braced one end. The rod holding a gold curtain drifted downhill, and the floor felt uneven under my feet. To really refurbish the building, as Hiram had apparently promised to do, would surely take big bucks.

  A slapstick skit was in progress on stage, three people shoving each other around. The actors were all women, but one of them yelled, “Soitenly!” in that old Three Stooges take on “certainly.” As I recalled, the Three Stooges hadn’t come along until later than the 1920s, but probably the Revue aimed for fun rather than fussy time details. Lucinda and another woman stood off to one side consulting a script. And there, right down front, was Doris Hammerstone, also a script in hand, her unexpectedly strong voice now bellowing out, “No, no, Emily, it’s not Mel, it’s Moe. Moe is one of the Stooges.”

  Off to one side, the chorus line was getting lined up, a tall woman in the center, height graduating unevenly down to the shortest ladies on either end. Tight leggings had been out of style for some time now, but they were in prominence in the chorus line, along with all the unflattering lumps and bumps tight leggings reveal.

  “Mrs. Malone, I thought that was you!” I turned and saw a slim, blond woman rushing toward me. “Remember me? Char Sterling, Chris Sterling’s mother. We met at the Historical Society the other day.”

  “Yes, of course.” The ladies there had called her Charlotte, but apparently she preferred Char.

  “How nice of you to come and watch our little production! So, what do you think?”

  Charlotte was more casually dressed today, dark slacks and a ski sweater, but her oversized purse with the enigmatic letter was the same as before. Today her blond hair was in a sleek ponytail tied at the nape of her neck, casual but still elegant.

  “Very interesting. You’re not in the chorus line?” I asked, since she looked in better shape for it than most of the ladies in the lineup.

  “I’m handling costumes again this year. And wigs.” She held up a dark wig that looked as if it had been cut with a bowl as a pattern. “Moe’s, I think. For the Three Stooges skit.” She surprised me by draping the wig over her own elegant hairdo. It covered half her face. “What do you think?” she asked from beneath it. “Could I sell more real estate in this? Things are slow now.”

  We both laughed as she took the wig off, and I liked her better for being able to make a bit of fun of herself. Not nearly as stuffy and pretentious as I’d thought at our first meeting.

  “Did someone at the Historical Society find information on the house you asked about? The Randolph house, I think you called it.”

  “Actually, I had to go back over there and do it myself.” She wrinkled her nose with an air of exasperation, and I wondered if she also called this the “Ladies Hysterical Society.” “Perhaps you’d like to see the house sometime? And some of the town’s other historic old houses as well?”

  “I would indeed. But I’m afraid I’m not in the market for real estate of any age at the moment.”

  She put a hand on my arm and laughed again. “Oh, I’m not trying to sell you anything. I just thought you might be interested. Although none of the other houses have the mystique of having a murder attached as Hiram’s place does, of course. Do you really think you can uncover anything about his death?”

  “The police apparently did a very thorough examination of the house and didn’t find anything. There was fingerprint powder all over the third floor tower room, from where he was pushed.”

  Charlotte shuddered lightly. “I wouldn’t want to live there.”

  “Really?” A thought occurred to me. “What about selling the place?”

  She looked momentarily nonplussed. Then, assuming a polished real estate saleslady air, as if she were addressing prospective buyers, she said, “Oh, Mr. and Mrs. Johnson, I have just the place for you! It’s this marvelous old Victorian home that belonged to one of our town’s most illustrious citizens. Three stories, with enough bedrooms for all your guests, fantastic views of the city and mountains, especially from your very own ballroom on the third floor! Plus a mysterious history that no other house in town can claim. A murder once happened there! I know you’ll love it, and you won’t believe the reasonable price they’re asking for it.”

  She was laughing by the time she finished, and so was I. “Am I good, or what?” she asked.

  “You’re good.”

  Going more serious, she added, “Anyway, for a small town, we have a really competent police force. We had another murder three or four years ago, some drug-related thing, and they had the killer nailed within a week. So I’d guess they didn’t leave anything undone on this one. Although I’m personally inclined to think Hiram was killed by some outsider who may be very difficult to track down.”

  An opinion that matched Lucinda’s. “Not K
elli?”

  She looked surprised that I’d even ask. “Definitely not Kelli. And I’d believe that even if she weren’t my son’s girlfriend. Kelli is no killer, and it just makes me furious how people have jumped to unfair conclusions about her.” An apologetic smile erased the deep frown lines that had momentarily cut into her smooth complexion. “Sorry. I just get kind of worked up on this subject.”

  I changed the subject. “This is quite an impressive old building too.”

  She glanced overhead, as if suspecting something might come tumbling down. “As you may have heard, Hiram was planning to buy and renovate it, and then donate it to the Historical Society. But that won’t happen now, of course, so this may be the last year for the Revue. The fire department has been warning for the last couple years that the building is unsafe and threatening to shut us down.”

  “That would be too bad. But I suppose officials have to be cautious about safety.”

  “Personally, I think it’s a big to-do about nothing. This old building will still be standing when that young fire marshal is gray-haired and doddering.”

  “The stairs and elevator must be dangerous.” I gestured toward the signs.

  “I don’t know that I’d call the elevator dangerous. It certainly isn’t going anywhere. It’s been stuck in the basement since last year. And the stairs might not support a crowd of people, but we use the third floor for storage for costumes and props, so someone is always running up or down the stairs, and we’ve never had any problems. We have to use the third floor because the second was vandalized years ago.” She hesitated, one hand absentmindedly stroking the wig as if it were a pet. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but I’ve sometimes wondered if there wasn’t some collusion going on.”

  “Collusion? Between whom?”

  “Well, for starters, maybe between Hiram and the fire department officials? Threats to condemn the building would certainly lower the value and might convince the elderly woman in Denver who owns it to sell cheap.”

  I was surprised at her suggestion of a shady business practice on Hiram’s part, since her son had been his lawyer and presumably advising him. Although I realized I probably shouldn’t be surprised. I’d already heard about Hiram’s shrewdness, which might merely be a euphemism for any number of less complimentary adjectives.

  She laughed and touched my arm again. “Oh, don’t pay any attention to me. Probably just my imagination running amuck. Chris says I read way too many mystery novels, and he may be right.”

  “Mysteries are my favorite reading material too.”

  “Really? Maybe you won’t think my suspicions completely weird, then.” She stepped closer, her voice dipping confidentially low when she added, “Chris always thought so highly of Hiram, but I had my doubts. Before my husband passed away, he also handled Hiram’s legal affairs. He never actually told me anything specific, confidentiality between lawyer and client, you know. But I got the definite impression that it wasn’t easy to keep Hiram on the up-and-up, that he often wanted to do things that weren’t necessarily illegal but were definitely—” She broke off and made a little side-to-side wiggle with her hand.

  “Definitely questionable?” I asked, wanting to make certain I wasn’t misinterpreting the gesture. She nodded.

  “And it could be all my imagination.” She smiled. “Plus all those mystery and thriller novels, of course.”

  “Imagination can sometimes produce useful insights.”

  “You know, would you and your friend who works for Dr. Sugarman like to come over for dinner one night? Kelli and Chris can come too. We’ll put our heads together and brainstorm a solution to Hiram’s murder!”

  “Sounds great. Chris doesn’t live with you?”

  Charlotte touched her cheek in a pretended gesture of horror. “A thirty-year-old man living with his mother? You must be joshing.” She laughed again. “No, he has one of those new condos out beyond Safeway. Though they’ll probably buy a new house before the wedding. The condo’s a little small.”

  She made the wedding sound more imminent than Kelli had. I wondered if she knew Chris was pushing for an elopement, and Kelli was stalling.

  Someone rushed up to Charlotte then, something about needing a screwdriver. I thought Charlotte would go off to help the woman find one, but instead she dug in her big purse and astonished me by hauling out an entire miniature tool kit.

  The woman grabbed and waved it. “Charlotte is always prepared for any emergency. Stamps, Tums, Band-Aids, anything. Would you believe, once I needed a dab of blue nail polish, and she pulled it right out of her purse?” The woman was rushing off again even as she spoke.

  Charlotte gave a little wave as she headed off in the direction the woman had taken. “I’d better go see what they’re doing with my screwdriver. Not messing around with the electricity again, I hope.” She rolled her eyes, as if in tribute to some previous disaster. “Nice talking to you! Don’t forget, dinner some evening soon.”

  I didn’t stay for all the rehearsal, although I did watch Paul Newman do his master of ceremonies bit between skits. I was astonished. The man who in the tow truck had acted as if it would take an IRS agent to pull a few reluctant words out of him was, on the stage, talkative and jovial. He told a joke about an old couple with hearing problems, complete with appropriate voices, did a funny little dance step, and joked about the hotel’s deteriorating condition, a total about-face from his offstage personality.

  I also watched the chorus line perform one number. After a moment I recognized the jazzy music as the old ’20s tune, “Yes, Sir, That’s My Baby.” The chorus line lacked something in coordination as they kicked and turned, but their boisterous level of enthusiasm rivaled six-year-olds at a birthday party. Even when the statuesque central lady, who I now knew was Lulu Newman, the MC’s wife, tumbled and the entire chorus line shrieked and tumbled with her, they simply untangled themselves, giggled, and regrouped.

  Outside again, I wandered the full length of Hello’s main street. There was indeed an oversupply of what Abilene had called “antique-y” shops, but I also passed the more practical necessities: a photo shop, Halburton’s Hardware, the Café Russo, and a small flower shop.

  I paused at the window. I didn’t need flowers, of course. I couldn’t afford flowers. But a bunch of yellow daffodils drew me inside. Daffodils always reminded me of Harley. He used to grow beautiful daffodils. But they never seemed to bloom as lavishly back at the house on Madison Street after he was gone.

  I asked the dark-haired young woman at the counter the price of a half dozen of the daffodils.

  “There’s a dozen there in the window,” she said. “A dozen make a very nice arrangement.”

  “I know, but I just need a half dozen.” I figured even that many was stretching my budget.

  She tilted her head as she looked at me thoughtfully. “They’re getting a little old. Three dollars?”

  I was surprised. That sounded very reasonable for outof-season daffodils. I nodded and got out my billfold as she went to the display window and removed six of the daffodils. Then something occurred to me, and I stopped short. “That isn’t the real price, is it?”

  “Are you implying I raise my price just because a customer needs daffodils, and I’m the only florist in town?” She touched her chest and managed to sound righteously indignant, but something in her hazel eyes gave her away as a phony.

  “I’m implying you may go broke if you lower your price just because some little old lady looks wistful about a few daffodils.”

  She laughed. “Whatever.” She handed over the flowers wrapped in green tissue paper. A calico cat wandered in from somewhere and jumped on the counter to rub its head under the girl’s chin. “It’s been a slow day. Enjoy.”

  “I’m Ivy Malone,” I said impulsively. “We just moved into the old McLeod house, and I’m working on Hiram’s books for the Historical Society library.”

  Her pretty face went a little stiff, but her “Oh” was noncommittal. She b
ecame very busy micromanaging a display of small cards to accompany floral arrangements.

  I felt at a peculiar loss for words, given the abrupt change in atmosphere, and I stumbled along with, “Did you know Hiram?”

  “I’d met him.”

  “I suppose you know Kelli Keifer too, then? She’s been very kind and helpful to us. And generous too.”

  The girl didn’t say anything, just grabbed a cloth and started polishing the counter with a vigor that would have put a shine on a mud pie. The cat gave her a dirty look and jumped down. I felt as if I’d blundered into some social gaffe here, because she obviously didn’t see Kelli as kind and helpful. Yet, as usual, I also felt defensive where Kelli was concerned.

  “The town seems to have made some judgments about Kelli that I feel are unjustified.”

  She looked up at me, hazel eyes flashing in her heart-shaped face. She slammed the polishing cloth down on the counter. “I don’t know about that, but I do know Kelli Keifer blew into town, sized up the eligible males, and grabbed mine.”

  I touched my throat in dismay. No wonder the atmosphere had plunged from friendly to frigid. Chris Sterling’s former girlfriend!

  13

  While I was wondering how to get what felt like an oversized foot out of my mouth—praising current to former girlfriend is not a hallmark of tact—the young woman’s expressive face changed again. “I’m sorry. That was totally uncalled for.”

  She grabbed my flowers, rushed over to the window display, and added the other six daffodils. “I really am so sorry,” she repeated as she thrust the enlarged bouquet at me.

  “I guess you must have been very much in love with Chris.”

  She smiled wryly. “I had my wedding gown picked out and our first two children named, if that tells you anything. Fortunately I found out what kind of man he is before I made the mistake of marrying him. So I probably should be grateful to Kelli for that.”

  “What kind of man is he?”

  “Not a faithful one, that’s for sure. He strung me along for weeks before he admitted he was seeing Kelli too, and dumped me. And not the greatest lawyer in the world, either. A friend went to him and said he completely messed up a real estate contract. He’d never have gotten into that law firm if his father hadn’t been a partner in it.” She shook her head and smiled guiltily. “Sorry. Again. A woman scorned and all that, right?”