Dead and Breakfast

by David Crossman

  His arrival, if the look in the eyes of his beloved was any indication, was not welcome. Nevertheless, it had effectively cut short an intense, unpleasant interview.

  Amber, without visibly acknowledging Mr. Wagner’s presence, simply turned and left. Caitlin followed her photographically, in extreme close-up.

  Whatever transpired between her and the older woman had left her observably shaken. Her eyes brimmed with tears, which she wiped away with an angry swipe of her sweater sleeve.

  Caitlin lowered the camera and looked at the Wagners. Mrs. Wagner was pointing at a cement garden gnome and smiling as her husband took a picture of it.

  What had they been talking about, and what on earth could account for the uncanny similarity between them?

  “Interesting subject, wouldn’t you say?”

  Caitlin jumped in her skin, though by now she should have ceased to be surprised by Farthing’s unexpected materialization at her elbow. “Mrs. Wagner?” she said, in lieu of the epithet which she choked back.

  “Mm.”

  “She’s not the only one,” said Caitlin, turning her full attention to him.

  “Oh?”

  “Oh?” Caitlin mimicked. “I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me how you came to lead the police to their murderer?”

  “Nothing simpler,” Farthing replied dismissively. “But if I told you, it would be at the sacrifice of that air of wonder and mystery with which you regard me. Happened every time Holmes explained himself to Watson.”

  She formed a retort, but decided against it.

  “I found this in her room.” The blank side of a photographic print had been protruding from his shirt pocket. He handed it to her.

  “It’s Mrs. Griffeth’s fairy!”

  “So it seems.”

  Caitlin stepped from the shadows and studied the picture in full sunlight. “How did you get it?”

  “I told you, it was in Mrs. Wagner room.”

  Caitlin raised her eyes, her expression a perfect billboard for the confusion in her brain. “What were you doing in Mrs. Wagner’s room?”

  “We’re having an affair,” said Farthing. “It’s true what the country songs say about older women.”

  Caitlin refused to rise to the bait. Instead she simply raised an eyebrow and tapped her foot a couple of times.

  “I went in to the get picture,” Farthing said matter-of-factly. “You wanted to know who took it from the kitchen, didn’t you?”

  “How did you know it was taken from the kitchen?”

  “I listen at keyholes,” he replied without a trace of irony. “You’d be amazed the things people talk about quite freely when they’re sure no one is listening.”

  “That’s despicable,” said Caitlin reflexively. At once she thought of the footsteps in the hall outside Joanna’s room. Had that been Farthing? If so, what had he heard?

  “But effective.” Farthing tapped the photograph in Caitlin’s hand.

  “You went in her room?”

  “Oh, I’ve been in everybody’s room.” He cast a disinterested eye over the valley. “You don’t suppose I laid in bed those two days while everyone else was gone, do you? I’d’ve been bored to tears.”

  “Did you go in my room?” she said in disbelief.

  “First thing,” he said brightly. “It’s nearest mine. I was too weak that first day to go any further.” He smiled. “I wouldn’t have guessed you the thong type.”

  Caitlin blushed deeply. “I can’t believe you would do such a thing.”

  “Have I given you any reason to suppose otherwise? How else was I supposed to entertain myself? It’s surprising the dark little secrets people tuck beneath their socks.”

  Secrets? Answers to questions? She wanted desperately to ask what he had discovered, but her determination to have no part in his inexcusable behavior struggled for ascendancy.

  “How do I know you got this from Mrs. Wagner’s room?” she countered, slapping the photo against her palm. “You could just as easily have taken it from the kitchen yourself. It’s clear you knew it was there.”

  Farthing shrugged. “Damned if I did, damned if I didn’t. Hardly fair, is it?” He turned and looked at her directly. “I have only one interest, Caitlin: the truth. And I’m perfectly willing to trample on a few social niceties to get it.” He smiled wolvishly. “Kind of a hobby.”

  “What are you going to do when she finds out this is missing? Assuming you’ve told me the truth.”

  “When she finds out what is missing?”

  “This picture,” said Caitlin, waving the object in front of his face.

  “A brochure?” he said. “What makes you think she’d miss it.” Farthing caught the document between his thumb and forefinger and, with a theatrical flip of his hand, turned it toward her. She looked at it. It was an SCSN train schedule for theTres Grand Vitesse.

  “They’re a dime a dozen,” he said cryptically. “I’ll tell you something,” he tossed a glance at the Wagners. “You’re right to keep a close eye on her, especially tonight.”

  Caitlin realized how like a fish she must look, with her eyes not blinking and her mouth opening and closing but nothing coming out.

  Farthing poked her camera lightly. “You know, that’s a lot like a keyhole, isn’t it?” He turned to leave. “See you at the cafe.”

  Caitlin watched after him for a moment, then looked at the booklet in her hand. Grappling with the fact that not only had Farthing trampled unspoken rules of privacy and decency, demonstrating that there was no depth to which he would not sink with apparent ease, but he was apparently some kind of evil magician as well.

  He was right about one thing though, she thought as her gaze drifted to her camera: with art as her excuse, she was every bit as adept at loitering at keyholes, however figuratively, as he.

  “Planning a trip?”

  Caught in a web of guilty thoughts, Caitlin dropped the train schedule and very nearly her camera as well.

  “Sorry,” said Amber, retrieving a document from the ground. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  Nor did Caitlin intend to be startled so easily, or so often. She took the booklet Amber offered. “Oh, that’s . . . I was just . . . ” Just what? “Thinking. Miles away, I’m afraid.” She forced a smile.

  “Then you are planning a trip,” said Amber, with an almost imperceptible nod at the train schedule. “No doubt you’ll need a good holiday once you’ve dismissed our little company.”

  “Oh, no! Not all. Mr. Farthing was . . . this is his.” She fanned the document. “He just had some questions . . . ”

  Without realizing it, she had fallen into step beside Amber, and they were strolling slowly across the garden in the general direction of the fountain. “He gives me the creeps,” Amber volunteered with feeling.

  If you only knew, thought Caitlin. “Oh, he’s . . . harmless,” she lied. “All bark and no bite. I suspect he’s a marshmallow at heart.” She suspected no such thing, but if there was a marshmallow at Farthing’s core, it was one that had been held over the flames so long it caught fire, a skin of blackened charcoal oozing the white lava of indigestible malice. “A pussycat really.” She tucked the train schedule in her purse. “I know what you mean, though. He does have a knack for setting your teeth on edge.” She tried to sound conversational and lighthearted, even as her mind tried to wrap itself around her doubts and suspicions regarding her companion.

  “I expect he must’ve been terribly hurt at some time.”

  “It’s never too late,” said Amber beneath her breath. Caitlin darted a glance at her.

  “Goodness, did I say that? “ said Amber with the closest thing to giggle Caitlin had heard from her. “How terrible of me. Yes,” she fell serious, “I’m sure you’re right. Some well-meaning uncle no doubt dropped the infant Jeremy on his head, or the boys called him sissy in the school yard. Perhaps both. One must take the possibility into account.”

  Caitlin didn’t know if she should laugh. Amber had nev
er shown even the glimmerings of a sense of humor. Taking a lead from the girl’s expression, she let it pass without remark.

  The women entertained their thoughts privately until they reached the fountain, on the edge of which they sat automatically while a trio of granite cherubs urinated musically into the depths behind them. The silence had become strained when, at last, Amber spoke. “I feel I should apologize.”

  “Really? Whatever for?” said Caitlin, though she had no difficulty imagining a number of things for which Amber, or Gayla, or whoever she was, might be profoundly apologetic.

  The reply was unexpected. “For mother.”

  “Joanna?” Caitlin said with genuine surprise. “Whatever for?”

  Amber demurred briefly. “For being such a nuisance . . . I know she bothered you again last night.”

  “No!” Caitlin said defensively. “I told you, I was the one . . . ”

  Amber held up her hand preemptively. “Please, I know how demanding she can be. You needn’t defend her.”

  ‘You needn’t defend her’, what kind of nineteen year-old spoke like that? The surety with which she spoke, however, forced Caitlin to silence.

  “What did she tell you?” said Amber after a second.

  Did Caitlin imagine a hint of desperation in the question? “Oh, we talked about a lot of things,” she prevaricated. “She was just having a hard time getting to sleep, you know.”

  “I know she’s very . . . I don’t like to say this, but since she seems to have chosen you for a confidante, it’s only fair . . . she’s very troubled.” Amber tilted her large gray green eyes – so like Mrs. Wagner’s – expressively at Caitlin. “All of this about a body in the moat and . . . ” she hesitated. “I’ve been afraid she might have other delusions or whatever you’d like to call them. She hasn’t, has she?”

  “Not that I know of,” Caitlin lied with disturbing ease.

  “Well,” said Amber thoughtfully, “don’t be too surprised if she does. You see, there’s something you don’t know about mother.”

  Caitlin waited, preparing herself for whatever new shock might be forthcoming.

  “She . . . please, this is just between us . . . ” said Amber, leaning close in speaking so low that the eternal tinkling in the background nearly overwhelmed her words, “she has a medical condition – mental problems. Paranoid schizophrenia.”

  So Joanna’s illness was common knowledge among the family. Caitlin sighed inwardly. “Really? ”

  “Yes. Not that I can imagine what must be like.”

  Amber became animated. “Oh, it’s terrible. Poor father . . . ” she bowed her head, as if at a painful memory. “It was very difficult, especially for him.”

  It was an unexpected comment. “Indeed?”

  “Joanna was . . . she could be very,” Amber searched for the right word, “she felt very persecuted. “The doctors said that was as if she had two parts. Two personaliites. One dominant and one subjective? Is that the right word?” She thought. “No submissive . . . a dominant and a submissive personality.”

  Much like twins, Caitlin thought.

  “The submissive one – the weak one – was afraid my father was trying to kill her. If he went into the bathroom while she was in the bath, she’d scream that he was trying to drown her. If he picked up a carving knife, she’d run out of the kitchen, accusing him of trying to carve her to pieces. It was terrible.”

  With a few simple sentences, Amber had turned Caitlin’s little pyramid of conjecture on its head. How much, if anything, of what Joanna had reported had actually happened? How much of it might simply be a raging paranoia that Caitlin had absorbed and transferred, in the form of unsubstantiated suspicions, to Amber?

  If Amber had, in fact, lost her family to a series of freak accidents, and was now struggling to bring her mentally and emotionally ravaged stepmother to a place of healing, then Caitlin was guilty of gross injustice in suspecting her of crimes too horrible to mention.

  “I have a confession to make,” said Amber.

  Caitlin’s heart added an involuntary beat. “Oh?”

  “I’m afraid I’ve done something terrible.” Amber lowered her head slightly. “When I planned this trip, I intended to devote myself to Joanna, to spend time with her and try to be her friend, not just a stepdaughter. To help her . . . not forget everything, I suppose . . . that would be impossible . . . but to begin to heal.”

  “Commendable,” said Caitlin tentatively, waiting for the other shoe to fall.

  “Naïve, I’m afraid,” Amber continued. “Mother’s . . . problem is much more serious than I imagined, and far beyond my ability to be of any help at all. In fact, just my presence seems to make things worse.”

  “That’s nothing for you to feel terrible about,” Caitlin replied calmly, despite the inner turmoil that only grew as she tried to reconcile old theories with new probabilities. She didn’t know how to respond.

  “I know. It’s not that,” said Amber. “It’s just that, when I realized that I was so out of my depth, I’m afraid I just abandoned her.” She fixed her eyes on some inner horizon. “Coming on these outings, rather than staying with her at the chateau. Avoiding her, as much as possible.” She closed her eyes for a moment then, opening them, looked deeply at Caitlin. “Because of that, you and Jill have had to take my place. You’ve done what I should have been doing. I’m very sorry.”

  Unexpectedly, she put her arm around Caitlin and leaned her head very gently against her shoulder. “I’ve been ungrateful,” she said. “I’m very sorry.”

  The vulnerability of the simple action set off a firestorm of doubt and confusion in Caitlin’s head and heart. She had too far sold herself on the conviction that Amber was in fact Gayla to fully submit to the embrace. Yet, in failing to do so was she denying comfort to a young woman who, with the best of intentions, had simply undertaken the task that ultimately overwhelmed her?

  Instinctively, she inclined her head toward Amber’s and softly stroked her copper hair. “You’ve nothing to be sorry for, in that regard,” she equivocated. “Jill and I expect each of our guests to demand some . . . personal attention and . . . and Joanna’s needed no more than her share, as far as I’m concerned. I’m sure Jill would say the same.”

  “That’s very nice of you,” said Amber.

  It would have been a natural moment to end the embrace, but Amber didn’t lift her head. If anything, she surrendered even more to Caitlin’s tepid ministrations, as if she was drawing strength from the barest act of human kindness.

  The argument that Amber was nothing more than Amber – an all but orphaned child who had lived through a series of horrible accidents that had deprived her of her adoptive parents and her sister – was gaining the upper hand in Caitlin’s raging interior dialogue. Finally, all her reservations were swept away by an irresistible instinct of compassion. She put her arm around Amber’s waist and held her tight. At once Amber’s body convulsed with silent tears.

  Mr. Piper framed the tender scene beautifully, but he didn’t snap the shutter. The camera was out of film.

  “What is she up to now?” said Miss Tichyara.

  “One last night,” said Piper into the back of his camera. He squeezed the shutter anyway, but nothing happened. “Damn.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five– The Birds Began to Sing

  Caitlin wanted nothing more than the solitude and quiet of her room when they returned to the chateau late in the afternoon. She made her escape as quickly as was socially acceptable and, closing the door behind her, leaned her forehead against the cool, solid sympathy of the oak as the world spun around her. As it slowed, she dragged herself to the bed and submitted to a fitful sleep until she was awakened by a rap on the door.

  “Mam’selle?”

  Genevieve’s gentle, persistent repetition of the word eventually wove among the sinews of sleep and prodded Caitlin awake. “Yes? “ she said drowsily.

  “It is seven o’clock, mam’selle,” said Genevieve. Caitlin strug
gled to sort out the thickly accented French in her sleep-addled brains. “You asked to be called for dinner.”

  “Yes. Thank you, Genevieve. Dinner’s at eight-thirty?”

  “Oui, mam’selle,” said the maid. Having accomplished her errand, she turned away from the door and her footsteps retreated down the hall.

  Caitlin buttressed her body with her arms and pushed herself to an upright position, slowly drawing the world into focus, together with its attendant wave of guilt at having left her guests alone for an hour-and-a-half. Though she’d love nothing more than to lay down again and let a deep, unconscious sleep overtake her, she got up and began the mechanical process of making herself presentable.

  She was on her way to the bathroom when she saw the corner of an envelope sticking out from beneath the rug. Apparently it had been pushed under the door while she slept, but it could have been there any length of time and only uncovered as she trod upon the rug in the natural process of her comings and goings.

  These thoughts raced through her mind in rapid succession as she bent to pick up the envelope, which was unsigned and unsealed. Inside was a single piece of lightweight paper that was torn at one end and had a natural tendency to fold – as if it had come off a spool. “A FAX, “ she said aloud. It was a faint copy of two official documents each baring the New York State Seal above the title Record of Live Birth.

  She read silently through the preamble which ended with the date and hospital of birth, then began to read aloud. “Paternal twins to Miss Rachel F. Williams, of 16 Stanhope Gardens.” The rest of the information had been entered in a cramped handwriting necessitated by the entry of twice the information the lines were designed to accommodate. “Birth weight, 4 lbs. 6 oz and 3 lbs. 9 ounces, length to 15 1/2 inches and 11 and 3/4 inches. Names, Gayla and Amber.

  “Delivering physician, Jacob Fleischmann.”