by Tyler Colins
May-Lee covered her mouth with a gloved hand to contain laughter while Adwin and I, keeping our expressions as neutral as possible, scurried after the two young women.
“That was priceless,” I said under my breath.
Adwin glanced back and chuckled. “Brother and sister still look shocked. May-Lee's all but rolling on the ground.”
“Those two ladies seem to be at constant odds.”
“There does seem to be a perpetual degree of tension.” He nodded. “Speaking of 'them', what about your cousin and her friend? Do you think they have a thing going?”
They were walking arm in arm.
“Does it matter, my little Linzer Torte?”
“No, my dear saffron bun.” He offered a thin smile. “I just can't imagine getting into a serious relationship with that cousin of yours and not wanting, at some point, to shove her head into a pecan pie – heavy on the nuts.”
“She and Linda get along really well – like a couple married too long.” I glanced upwards and noticed the sky was evolving into a formless layer of charcoal gray. Nimbostratus clouds would soon obscure the sunlight. “It looks like rain's on its way.”
“Accompanied by thunder and lightening, no doubt.” He laughed. “How perfect would that be?”
“When Aunt Mat goes all out, she goes all out.”
“She has Mother Nature in her back pocket, huh?”
“Aunt Mat could charm the socks off Red Skull.”
“Another villain?” He smirked. “You've got to stop stealing your nephew's comic books.”
My nephew Quincy's penchant for comics and graphic books had rubbed off on me not long after he'd moved in with my mother five years ago. My sister, Reena Jean, had been a thrill-seeker, or wing-nut as her nonconformist ex called her (he who parasailed and freefall-skydived regularly). During her last adventure, she'd been washed out to sea when she'd stood on a pier during a Category Four hurricane. So much for trying things at least once, which had been her motto since youth.
We stopped alongside Rey and Linda, and waited for the others.
Linda turned to Prunella and pointed at a cross-hipped roof visible beyond a line of tall spindly pine trees. “Is that your home over there?”
“That would be it,” she replied with a proud smile.
“Have you been neighbors long?”
“Twenty years,” Percival said with a sad smile. “Twenty wonderful fun-filled years.”
Everyone ambled to the pond in silence. The opposite side of the Moone property was fairly barren while this stretch was much busier – with the pond and a gazebo, a rose garden, and sporadically placed wrought-iron benches. Halfway between a six-car garage and the gazebo stood the small outbuilding I'd seen last night. It might have served as a studio or cottage, or even fancy storage shed. Whatever it was, the structure seemed out of place; it didn't match the grand house in any respect, except for gray-green slate roofing. A small-town carny ride stuck in Disneyland.
As the others continued forward, Adwin and I strolled up to the dwelling and wiped at a side window with dried-up leaves to peer inside.
“What do you suppose she kept in here?”
“Too bad the sun's pretty much gone. I can't see much through this tiny opening between the shades, except some sheet-covered furniture… Maybe visitors stayed here, ones who preferred privacy to a house filled with people. Or maybe the servants use this place.”
“For what purpose? To pluck chickens and clean pond piranhas?”
“Do piranhas have scales?”
“You'd still have to skin them.”
We chuckled feebly – to match the humor – and moved along a narrow semi-worn path to the entrance.
“Maybe Fred resides in there.”
“Fred the Ghost or Fred the Feline?” I asked, scanning two tall windows bearing specially-designed blinds lining both sides of the door. A third, small arched window with a stained-glass leaf motif was positioned overhead.
“Why not both?” Adwin stood on my heels. “Ghosts need pets like anyone else, especially if they're stuck on earth for perpetuity.”
A hand-forged pull handle was loose. Too bad the door it was attached to wasn't. “Pooh.”
“You're as fixated on finding clues and bodies as Rey.”
“Hardly. I'm merely curious.”
Adwin clicked his tongue and grabbed my elbow, and led us toward the rest of the group gathered on the topmost step of the statued white marble gazebo, which was pretty much the size of my studio condo back in Wilmington.
“Did you find anything of note, Detective Reynalda?” I asked, stepping up behind her.
“Not yet,” she sniffed, “but I will.” She stood five feet from a sizeable pond that four dozen Koi would have been happy to call their home had the water been cleaner. Noticing my gaze, she nodded. “Looks kinda murky.”
“It certainly does,” Prunella agreed softly, looking uncertain about moving any closer than Linda, as if the pool of water might suck her into its unknown depths.
“Are you expecting to find a body in there?” Adwin joked, swinging around a pillar and nearly bumping into Jensen, who appeared to be humoring us by appearing keenly interested in all that lay before him.
“I'm not,” Linda replied with a droll smile, “but Rey is.”
“Fun-nny gir-rl.” My cousin ambled past the two women and stopped inches from the edge, ignoring Prunella's caution about getting too close. She crouched. “Man, this baby could use a serious cleaning. If there were ever fish in here, they'd have to be dead.”
“Or slime suckers,” Adwin offered.
“Well, great detective, are you going to squat there? Or detect?” Percival asked, again appearing to keep mirth in check.
“Patience my not-so-favorite lackey,” my cousin responded, removing a knitted glove, rolling up a fleecy sleeve, and sticking her hand beneath the surface.
“Oh, for the love of –”
“Hold on. I can feel – yes, there's something here. Gawd!”
Who'd have guessed trim, gangly Prunella could emit such a bloodcurdling scream?
* * *
Percival released a low and lengthy whistle, lurching backward and grabbing the zaftig thigh of a pillar-goddess he'd lurched into. “Keeee-rist, doesn't that want to make you spill your frittatas?”
Adwin and I clasped hands and gaped, while May-Lee's response was to glance at Percival and arch her right eyebrow.
“Damn.” Jensen suddenly seemed very serious as he regarded the item my cousin clutched.
Shocked-looking Rey held a head by mud-thick curls. Rubbery kelp-tinged skin was daubed with slime and bulbous eyes gazed back defiantly while chubby, deformed lips were pulled back in a badger snarl. It was a prime CSI/Bones moment.
“Who's that?” Adwin asked, releasing me and crouching alongside Rey, who hadn't moved or spoken since she pulled the hideous find from the dank wetness. She seemed staggered, incapable of moving or speaking. This was a truly rare occasion. Mom would want to hear about it.
“The Incredible Hulk?” I suggested.
“A superhero or comic book champion this guy – uh, head – ain't,” Linda said. “Any ideas Rey?”
“Cousin?” I urged when she remained still.
Rey looked up, focused, and frowned. “What am I – psychic? I don't know who this dude is.” She scanned the head, cursed softly and let it fall, then studied her hand as if to ensure it wasn't contaminated with a flesh-eating virus or cooties.
“Has anyone gone missing in the area lately?” I asked as I crouched alongside Adwin.
“Someone inevitably always goes missing.” Percival's voice was as dark as his expression.
Jensen sighed. “We'd best ring the police.”
“Hold on.” I peered closer and then poked the head.
“Are you crazy?” Linda asked, stepping up alongside me.
“No. Curious,” Adwin answered for me with a smirk.
“Too funny, humorless pastry boy,” I
said, smirking in return. I poked again. “This is a fake head.”
“What?” Prunella moved beside Rey. “A fake? As in a joke?”
“It's an odd place to put a joke,” I replied, “but that's what it appears to be. See?” I yanked a misshapen rubber ear, and then rubbed oily sludge from my fingers on a patch of spiky grass. Strange. It felt like grease or petroleum jelly.
“I don't get it,” Linda murmured.
Rey laughed and we all stared. “Come on! It's Aunt Matty's idea of fun. I bet she's stashed a dozen of these around the place, and some legs and arms, too!”
I found myself laughing as well, remembering what I'd been thinking yesterday. “She probably figured we'd go exploring at some point, so she made sure to have all bases covered.” I held up glistening fingers. “Even the pond scum is for show.”
“I don't find this funny,” Prunella said, annoyed.
“Oh come on, you were one of her best friends. You must be accustomed to this stuff.”
The bird benefactor tilted her head one way and then the other, and the pout evolved into a grin.
“Do you think she placed the snake in the bed, too?” Percival asked.
I glanced at Rey and she at Percival. “No,” my cousin and I replied simultaneously.
“Why not?” He kicked the head as if it were a soccer ball. Back into the pond it went.
“She's dead,” we responded at the same time.
His brow furrowed like a kiwi past its prime (the fruit, not the bird).
“Our aunt passed a while ago,” I explained. “That snake was put there recently – to scare Thomas, or warn us, or maybe both. It's unlikely Snakey's been lying there since her funeral.”
“Why not?” Percival challenged.
“You have me there.” It was time for my brow to furrow. “Maybe when she'd planned this inheritance affair, one of the pranks was to scare Thomas. She'd probably requested one of the servants put the reptile in his bed when an opportunity presented itself.”
“Do you think all the staff may be in on this?”
“Anything is possible,” I said with a shrug.
“Keeee-rist, I need a tea. With a shot of brandy.” Percival removed his Ascot cap and ran a hand through loam-colored hair as dense as wool.
“Need? I want one. A double.” Jensen turned on the heels of his Bally loafers and started toward the house.
“Hey! We've got more exploring to do,” Rey called.
“I've endured enough foolish pranks for today, thank you.” He waved a long thin hand limply behind him.
“Spoilsport.” She thrust out her lower lip, looking like a birthday brat-uh-child who'd not received enough ice-cream with cake.
“Let him go. He thinks he's too grand for the likes of us anyway,” Percival said quietly, watching the London barrister take a shortcut beyond the bungalow-cottage-shed.
There was a touch of hostility in the tone and gaze, and I got the impression the London barrister affronted the poetry and gardening lover in some way. In fact, there appeared to be a lot of ill-feeling among the group.
We shared another telepathic moment and simultaneously headed for a narrow path that led to the other side of the Moone estate.
The dark sky hovered ominously overhead, but the rain it promised didn't arrive, at least not during the next ninety minutes. We enjoyed the solitude of the estate, Mathilda Reine Moone's crazy landscaping notions, and the two heads, three hands, and one leg placed in more strategic locations than the pond.
Dear Aunt Mat. You had to love the old gutsy gal.
9
A Tour of the Manse
Tea-time saw a spicy blend served with mushroom tartlets and shortbread cookies shaped like multi-legged creatures, maybe octopi or spiders. It was a silent affair. We were hungry – or peckish as Jensen may have said – and it appeared we felt like entering Zen zones again. Forty minutes later our sated re-energized group, save Jensen, marched along a west-wing corridor lined with ornaments and weaponry. Longswords, battle axes and quarterstaffs, and unusual pieces of chainmail added an interesting if not disquieting dimension to the interior decoration. King Arthur and his knights would have felt perfectly at home.
The plan was to move throughout the first floor, from back to front, starting with the larder and kitchen. If nothing else, it was something to do to kill time. Oops, maybe “kill” wasn't the best word under the circumstances.
“Where's that London barrister?” Rey peered circumspectly around one of two tall long metal shelving units in the large dim larder, as if anticipating finding a body tucked between cases of granola and pickling barrels. “He become too good for us?”
Linda dropped the lid to a mammoth freezer. She looked disappointed, as if expecting to find a corpse inserted between forty containers of soup and stew and twenty tubs of ice cream, but finding nothing more than freezer burn. “Become? The man was born too good for us.”
Percival snickered like a sibling watching his parents' favorite child being dissed and chomped into a chocolate chip cookie. When he saw the stares, he passed his sweet find on.
Adwin glanced at the bag, frowned, and handed it to Rey. Pre-fab desserts did not play a part in the life of my little dough boy.
Cookies in hand, we moved through an old-fashioned but immaculate kitchen into a large somber room that was a mix of library, study, and museum. It smelled “old”. One tall partition supported russet-stained shelves and books. Another wall was lined with oil paintings of old-world landscapes and hunting scenes; yet another wall supported two huge portraits.
Like the King Arthur corridor, the room possessed an unusual if not disturbing effect. Or maybe it only seemed disturbing because there was something perturbing about the man in the first portrait, which resembled an early twentieth-century photograph with predominant shades of browns and creams. A solemn man in his late forties, he was dressed in a dark tail coat and trousers. What was it that was so bothersome? The fixed stare? The graveness? The big Dumbo ears? The huge solitary eyebrow perched over dark beady eyes? The handlebar mustache that looked as if it had been pasted in the middle of a pail-shaped head for some unidentified effect? And what about those lips? They were so fat and flabby you might have thought the guy had encountered a collagen-happy cosmetic surgeon. This had to be Reginald Charles Moone II.
Prunella stood so close behind, my eyes began to water. Obsession was an intense and intoxicating scent when dabbed delicately behind ears or on wrists, but not so pleasant when the body had been completely doused with it. “I can't say why, but that man always came across as eerie.”
I was glad to know I wasn't alone in my feelings. “Did you ever meet him?”
She chuckled. “He was way before my time. Moone Number Two died in the early 1930s.”
“And the other?” I gestured the second portrait. Like Moone Number Two, this fellow had one huge eyebrow; it was perched over onyx-black eyes just as beady as the sire's. He had the same ears and the same sober – almost grim – air. That was where the similarities stopped. Unlike his father, Moone Number Three was clean-shaven, his skin slightly scarred, possibly from a childhood ailment. His lips were well-defined, almost sensual, as if they belonged on a silent movie star. The face was remarkably thin, a dramatic contrast to the father's. His smart and fashionable if not expensive suit consisted of a double-breasted vest worn with a single-breasted jacket and matching trousers.
“I never knew him, either.” She leaned close. “Matty once told me that Reginald rarely talked of his family. There'd been a falling out between brothers and uncles. Hence, the limited number of portraits. I understand many were removed, if not destroyed, over the years.”
That wasn't hard to doubt. The male Moone kinfolk were much too serious for anyone's good. “What about Aunt Matty's hubby, Moone Number Four? Even though he was my uncle, I never met him. What was he like?”
Searching for the right words, she studied a cabinet filled with curios – everything from teapots to vase
s to statues. “Aloof. Frosty. Weird – no, maybe I should say different. He, too, had a few falling-outs, including one with Jensen, his youngest brother, but they made up when Reginald celebrated his sixtieth. He was extremely knowledgeable about antiquities and history.” She offered a lean smile. “Reginald didn't talk much, except after a couple of glasses of Madeira. Good gracious, then he would get caught up in the Renaissance and Reformation, or the Napoleonic Wars, and that mouth seldom closed.” She smiled thinly.
I'd forgotten Reginald and Jensen were brothers. Other than sharing a somber demeanor, they bore little resemblance. Maybe Jensen took after the mother. I motioned the cabinet. “Is that his only collection of curiosities?”
“Oh my no. Oddments and showpieces fill a large room on the third floor, as well as the entire tower.” Her voice became a conspiratorial whisper. “I wouldn't go there alone, sweetie. It might turn that lovely dark hair of yours a stark shade of white.” She turned to her brother, who had sidled up alongside us.
“Lookee here!”
We whirled and found Linda holding a 10 ½” X 13” hardcover comprised of black cloth, gilt lettering, and gilt page edges. It was very old and in pristine condition.
“It's a book,” she announced.
We offered surely-you-jest looks.
“It's all about old-world treatments and remedies!” She flourished an arm like a heralding trumpeter might a majestic banner. “In fact, half this shelf is about medicines and herbs, poisons and toxins. There are some awesome first editions.”
Rey sped across the room with the velocity of a tempest. “How perfect is that?”
“Perfect for what?” Percival asked flatly.
“For Thomas Saturne's killer. Everything he or she needed to know about committing the perfect murder was – is – right here in this room.”
“Sure. His 'killer' came in here the day of his death and researched all these books to find the perfect poisonous substance.”
“It's merely a coincidence, dear,” May-Lee added quietly. “If Thomas was murdered, and we must assume it's an 'if', then it's unlikely his murderer would have had time to research poisons, never mind find one that satisfied his or her needs, much less acquire it.”
