Dead and Breakfast

by David Crossman

  Or . . .

  What if shewas pretending? What if, somehow, she wasn’t as helpless as she seemed? Why had she been fully dressed when the alarm was raised?

  On the heels of this troubling thought came another, leaving her wide awake: where was Jeremy Farthing?

  This thought, like a pregnant lemming, gave birth to a host of questions that had been plaguing her which, one by one, went diving madly off the cliffs of her reason.

  What had Mr. Piper taken from Miss Tichyara’s room? And, with Miss Tichyara thus brought to mind, why had there been a light under her door?

  The image of Miss Tichyara, all but naked, being ushered from her room by Mr. Piper in response to the fire alarm, projected itself on Caitlin’s photographically trained inner eye. It had been an anachronism that hadn’t fully registered at the time – the slender body and slight hips, the disproportionately large breasts with compact, rigid nipples. Her first thought was how curious it was that a young woman, blind or not, would have gone to such lengths to conceal such attributes, but that yielded almost immediately to a recent memory: Caitlin had observed the same curiously attractive combination before – in Amber Capshaw.

  In her mind’s eye, she superimposed the mental images of the two young women over one another. Barring the blindness, the ghastly scar, the color of the hair, and their voices – distinctions which could easily be feigned, naturally acquired, or manipulated – the two were identical.

  Twins!

  Chapter Twenty–The Night Visit

  Caitlin didn’t knock on Joanna’s door. It was unlocked, so she let herself in, closing it behind her so quietly the latch made no sound as it slipped into place. With eyes accustomed to the darkness she could make out the sleeping form on the bed. She wavered a moment, fighting the feeling that it was brutally inhuman to disrupt such a hard won rest.

  “Joanna?” she whispered. She laid her hand gently on the woman’s shoulders. She stirred slightly and moaned.

  “Joanna,” Caitlin repeated, leaning close. “It’s me, Caitlin.”

  Joanna stirred abruptly. “What? Who is it?”

  “Caitlin. I’m sorry to wake you, but we need to talk. Just for a minute. Then you can go back to sleep.” It was a disingenuous comment. Caitlin knew there would be no more sleep for Joanna Capshaw that night.

  A deep, insensible sleep reluctantly released its captive. “Caitlin?”

  Caitlin patted her shoulder comfortingly. “Are you awake?”

  “What now? Another alarm?” Joanna pulled herself to a sitting position. She was still dressed. “What time is it?”

  “About two o’clock. Why do you still have your clothes on? There’s no fire, I assure you.”

  “It’s not that . . . I . . . heard there were men watching through the windows the other night. I haven’t been in my pajamas since. Silly, I know, but I feel . . . I’m sure we all feel violated.”

  One mystery solved, much to Caitlin’s relief. It didn’t make the job ahead any easier, however. “I need to ask you something. It’s not pleasant.” She could feel the woman tense under her hand.

  “Go ahead.”

  “You’re sure you’re awake?” Joanna nodded.

  “Tell me about Gayla’s funeral.”

  “Gayla’s funeral? What about it?”

  Caitlin was hesitant to trouble Joanna with her own suspicions any more than absolutely necessary. “Just . . . tell me about it. You were there?”

  “Of course.” Joanna massaged her face with the palms of her hands. “Forgive me. I’m so groggy . . . it’s the sedative. What do you want to know?”

  “The funeral, tell me about it.”

  With a deep breath, Joanna reluctantly confronted the memory. “The family has a plot in New Hampshire. A little cemetery on a hill overlooking Watson’s Lake.”

  “Near your summer place?”

  “Yes. It’s where Philip is buried. And Nancy . . . his first wife.”

  “And Gayla?”

  Joanna nodded in the dark. “So many,” she whispered, barely audibly.

  Caitlin waited.

  “It was foggy that day. There were only two of us there, apart from the minister and the funeral director. Gayla hadn’t any friends in the area, being only a summer resident.”

  Caitlin wondered if there were other reasons. “That’s sad.”

  “Oh, she . . . she had friends. At school. Her roommates. She was very close to one or two. I never met them. Don’t remember their names. But Philip thought they were a bad impression on her. Her behavior definitely became unacceptable, which is why he amended his will as he did. I doubt he meant anything more than to use that knowledge to try to force her to change.

  “I tried contacting the school, but . . . it was pretty much closed that time of year. No one could help me track them down.”

  “There was a casket then? I mean, she wasn’t . . . ”

  “Cremated? Yes. There was just an urn. Same as Philip and Nancy.”

  “Did you make the arrangements?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Did you hire the funeral home and the minister?”

  “Oh, no. I’m afraid I was not . . . I wasn’t very helpful. Avril took care of everything. Avril Cummings, Philip’s personal secretary.

  You remember we talked about her?” She laughed softly. “She’s one of those women who always seems to know what to do. I don’t know how I’d have managed without her.”

  Caitlin knew the type; women who seemed to be born with a perfect understanding of the world and its social mechanisms. Her mother was the same. Unflappable. Self-possessed, with a serene confidence in her own judgment, which was, with rare and unacknowledged exceptions, borne out by events. “Did you ever . . . see the body?”

  “Yes. I had to identify . . . both Amber and I had to go to the morgue. She was like this delicately – veined alabaster on that cold, aluminum table. Like a statue in the Louvre. Perfect.” Joanna looked up self-consciously. “That’s too poetic a description, I suppose.” The smile that punctuated the observation was wistful. “She looked so peaceful.”

  “And . . . you did identify her? I mean, she hadn’t been . . . I’m sorry . . . but she hadn’t been disfigured or . . . ” Caitlin was choking on the words, fully aware of their affect on Joanna, but she needed to review her understanding of what Jill had told her, to sort out the cat’s twine that was leading her in all directions at once. “She was found shortly after the accident, right? It wasn’t some time later, when the water would have . . . ”

  “Oh. No. She was found the next morning. She wasn’t . . . damaged at all. Like I said,” her whisper falling even lower, “she seemed peaceful. Asleep. She was always a very restless sleeper. Unlike Amber, who hardly had to make her bed in the morning. At least she didn’t used to. She’s become much more restless since . . . what with all that’s happened, I suppose it’s only natural.” She turned toward Caitlin. “Gayla was a very troubled person. The doctors said she was bi-polar. She’d have these incredible mood swings. One moment you had the feeling she had the world on a string. The next, she seemed to be suffocating under a cloud of . . . of impenetrable darkness. Heaviness. You never knew how to react to her. I’ve told you all this, haven’t I? I’m sorry. I’m exhausted.”

  “As I recall, you said she was on medication . . . ”

  “Yes. Lithium and Prozac. But when she was feeling well, she’d convince herself she didn’t need it, so she’d stop taking it.”

  “Which brought on another depression.”

  “Yes. Those were the times she frightened me. She became this . . . this . . . ” She didn’t complete the thought, but lapsed into a reflective silence. “She looked so peaceful on that table.”

  “Who else was there?” Caitlin’s little speculative house of cards, so recently constructed, was teetering on the brink of collapse.

  “Just the coroner and a policeman. And Avril Cummings, of course.”

  The house of cards collapsed. Mis
s Tichyara’s likeness to Amber, however uncanny, could be nothing more sinister than cosmic coincidence. Gayla Capshaw was dead. Dead and gone.

  “She and Amber were identical?” she said mechanically. If nothing else, she could do her best to make the disturbance cathartic.

  “In appearance, yes. But not in temperament.” Joanna’s voice rose comfortably above a whisper. “Gayla was by far the more dominant of the two. She was moody and aggressive. It’s not unusual in twins. Are you familiar with epigenetics?” Caitlin was not.

  “Not many people are. It has to do with what are called epimutations in non-coding DNA, slight alterations that can be evident in one identical twin and not the other. The evidence is apparently pretty strong that these differences contribute to things like diabetes, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder . . . that type of thing. They’ve got my vote, if Amber and Gayla are any indication.

  “Anyway, it’s not easy to say, but . . . I got the feeling Gayla resented having a twin. It was as if any attention or material benefit that came to Amber had somehow been stolen from her; Gayla. That it would have been hers if not for her sister.

  “Amber sensed this, I’m sure. She was always trying to please her sister. She’d do anything for her.”

  Caitlin could hear a smile in her voice. “Amber was her father’s favorite . . . hard as he’d try to hide the fact. She was so easygoing. ‘Sundrop’, he called her.”

  Caitlin thought of Amber carefully framing the dead rabbit in her viewfinder. ‘Sundrop.’ The pet name jarred her senses.

  Joanna cut in on her thoughts. “She’s changed, though. Since Gayla’s death, she’s become much more morose. Introverted.”

  “More like Gayla?” Caitlin hazarded. A new thought began to take shape in her mind.

  Joanna considered. “Yes, now that you mention it. It’s as if the two were opposite sides of the same spirit, and once Gayla died, that darker part of the spirit was taken up, absorbed, by Amber. Not that Amber hasn’t been wonderful to me,” she added hurriedly. “She’s gone out of her way to take care of me. This whole trip was her idea. I’m afraid I’ve let her down. I’m sure she had high hopes for my recovery, but . . . ”

  “But?”

  “I get the feeling she’s forcing herself. The gentleness, the kindness, and . . . ” she searched for the right word, “the willingness isn’t there.

  “She’s been through such a lot. Her mother, her father, and her sister . . . all . . . ”

  “What do you know about the accident that Philip and his first wife were in?” Caitlin asked tentatively, bracing for the reply.

  Joanna’s eyes brimmed with exhaustion and inquiry. “Nancy died.”

  “I know, but, what caused the accident?”

  “I . . . I really don’t know.” She sifted through her memory.

  “Philip never talked much about it. She was driving at the time. I gather the brakes failed, but I could be wrong.”

  “I thought I heard voices.”

  Caitlin had been absorbed in the conversation and the cacophony of her resulting thoughts. She hadn’t heard Amber enter the room through the connecting door. She started violently.

  “Is everything all right?”

  How long had she been there? How much had she heard? “You’re not bothering Caitlin again, are you Joanna?”

  “No. I couldn’t sleep,” Caitlin replied, too quickly. The nebulous suspicions that had been nibbling at the edges of her consciousness united suddenly, with numbing clarity. Somehow, prior to the drowning at Watson’s Lake, Amber and Gayla had exchanged identities. It was Amber who had drowned. The young woman who stood at the end of the bed, watching, listening in the darkness, was Gayla! That was impossible, of course, if everything Joanna had told her was true, but the evidence was overwhelming. “I just needed someone to talk to,” she said as calmly as possible, forcing the words around the knot in her throat.

  “So you woke her up?”

  The lie was out of her mouth before she had time to consider it. “I heard the toilet flush,” said Caitlin. “I knew she was awake.” It was possible. Hers was the next room. The question was, would Joanna back her story?

  “The plague of womankind,” said Joanna lightly. “You go on back to bed, my dear. We’re fine.”

  Amber hesitated. “You need your sleep.” The words, though spoken to Joanna, were directed at Caitlin.

  “We all do,” said Caitlin, rising from the bed. “It hasn’t been a very restful night. I’m so sorry to have bothered you, Joanna.”

  “No bother at all.”

  “Should I get you something to help you sleep?” Amber offered coldly. “I’m sure Jill would understand if I . . . ”

  “No. I’m fine. Let’s just go back to bed.”

  Amber went to the hall door, opened it, and waited. “Goodnight, Caitlin. I hope you can sleep now.”

  Caitlin had no choice but to leave. Wishing them both goodnight, she went back to her room.

  But, once again, there was no sleep. Examining her suspicions closely, it made no sense. Why would Gayla and Amber have changed places? The question brought with it the memory of Haley Mills inThe Parent Trap. Did identical twins do such things in real life? Could they get away with it – even with their own parents? Of course, Joanna wasn’t their mother. She hadn’t really known them that long. How hard would it have been for them to deceive her?

  Caitlin was convinced that control of the company was somehow involved in the bizarre string of Capshaw tragedies. And the only way for Gayla to gain control of the company was to pose as Amber . . . but if Amber was really Gayla – which would explain why Amber had suddenly become such a restless sleeper – and the real Amber was masquerading as Ella Tichyara . . . whose was the body Joanna had identified in the morgue. Athird sister? Triplets!

  The longer she deliberated, the more inanities her brain churned up. However, unable to sleep, she had nothing to lose – except, perhaps, what little sanity remained – by giving her imagination free reign with the assumption that Amber was, in fact, Gayla . . . and that she was trying to drive her stepmother mad. Or at least make her seem mentally incompetent.

  It didn’t work. Amber had been first on the scene the morning Joanna said she saw the body in the moat. “But, from that distance it could have been anyone made-up to remind Joanna of Gayla.”

  That would mean another accomplice.

  The possibility answered the second problem: When Gayla’s body appeared in the closet, Joanna had run to her daughter’s room and found her sleeping. Presumably it had been dark. She hadn’t awakened her, but stumbled off in search of her sanity. An accomplice, the same accomplice, could easily have impersonated Gayla under such circumstances, while Gayla – the real, live Gayla – hung on the hook of the closet door.

  It would have been a simple matter, in the interval during which Joanna ran for help, to mop up the evidence, to run a towel over the hook and the floor, then to return to her room and relieve the accomplice. Which might, after all, have been no more than a bundle of blankets and pillows made up to look like someone sleeping.

  For that matter, the body in the moat may have been nothing more than human-shaped flotsam, an aquatic scarecrow dressed in Gayla’s clothes would suffice from such a distance in the surreal light of dawn, no accomplice required, simply slip it into the current a bit upstream, and run back to the chateau. A difficult trick-of-the-eye that seemed to leave a lot to chance, but not beyond the daring of a young woman as resourceful as she now imagined Gayla would have to be. Surely she had no fear of being observed, at such an hour, making her preparations.

  But was that assurance well-founded?

  In fact, someone elsehad been on the grounds that morning: Francis Griffeth, who had unwittingly photographed a fairy.

  It would take a chilling amount of nerve to attempt such a deception.

  Again, Caitlin sat bolt upright, the gathering promise of sleep shattered beyond redemption.

  It was after Mrs. Griffeth had
made known her pre-dawn foray at the dining table that her film went missing. The wrong film, as it turned out. Now, with the disappearance of the fairy photo and its negative, that mistake had been remedied.

  Caitlin got up and began to pace wildly. She went to the bathroom, turned on the light and closed the door. Taking Joanna’s example, she shocked her face with a cupped handful of frigid water from the faucet. It was like applying an electric jolt to her brain. She leaned on the sink, staring into the sleep-deprived eyes that regarded her steadily from the mirror.

  “What if Gayla was out that morning,” she inquired aloud, “carrying on with her plan, unaware that Francis Griffeth is on the far side of the pond recording events for posterity? However unknowingly.”

  She stared at herself unblinkingly as the water dripped from her face and hair, and a host of new possibilities queued up for consideration.

  “But the figure in that photo was no scarecrow or bundle of blankets.” The photographic image came vividly to mind. “It was a woman, standing. A redhead, draped in a pale blue garment. Someone made up to look like the girl who had drowned in Watson’s Lake. She was positive.

  More or less.

  “Therehad to be an accomplice,” she convinced herself. The possibility that someone among them, someone other than Gayla herself, was willing to conspire in such a macabre deceit, and to plunge face-down into the murky waters of the moat on a cold October morning, was more than chilling. It suggested that in terms of pure calculating mischief, Gayla had a soul mate. A kindred evil spirit.

  But Joanna Capshaw’s resiliency must have exceeded their expectations. She was fragile, yes, but still in control of herself; still, to a degree, able to distinguish the real from the unreal. The shallow satisfaction of this realization was quickly superseded by a terrifying likelihood.

  “They’ll try again.”

  That uncomfortable thought came with its twin in tow; where was Jeremy Farthing?

  Chapter Twenty-One–Death at the Dinner Table

  “Well, you look like hell after a hurricane,” Piper bellowed, as Caitlin approached the breakfast table. “Coffee’s ready on the sideboard.” He set orange juice in front of Miss Tichyara and, taking her hand, gently guided it to the glass. “Orange juice, my dear.”