The Connecticut Corpse Caper

by Tyler Colins

  Taking the least amount of time as possible, Rey, Linda, Aunt Mat and I slipped into comfortable “detecting” clothing, collected flashlights, a digital camera, candles and matches (in case the electricity wasn't working or went out), a kitchen bread knife, and old Colt Thunderer with actual bullets from Reginald's modest nineteenth-century gun collection (in the improbable case an unknown crazy was in the house). Thirty minutes after the drop-off we were scooting out of the abode.

  “Kind of creepy,” Linda murmured, slipping off a heavy black cardigan and hugging it tightly to her chest as if it were a protective shield.

  Spinning like a Lazy Susan rotating tray boosted by a bored kid at a Sunday family dinner, Rey pulled off a modboy hat and scrutinized a huge forest-green room with fifteen-feet high ceilings that accommodated dozens of rosewood shelves stacked to well-ordered capacity. Her expression was just shy of aversion.

  The room, like the rest of the Sayers' house, was warm and stuffy. It was reminiscent of an early nineteenth-century college library where everything was carefully aligned and the air was thick with bygone knowledge and practices. Several birch logs lay in a large Greek-styled Victorian cast-iron fireplace that sported intricate detail and unusual bosses, a perfect fixture in a Boris Karloff movie. Dark paneling and oil paintings of English and French countrysides lined walls where shelving didn't exist. On the west wall were two multi-paned arched-head windows and a large rectangular stained-glass window depicting among other things a family crest: a pheasant and a magpie. Apparently the bearers of feathers and wings played a part in the Sayers' family history. That explained the bird fascination.

  Bright mid-day sunlight did little to cheer up a room best described as stodgy. Three knights guarding three corners didn't make for a friendly feel, either. Had Reginald's taste for the medieval influenced the Sayers? Or vice versa? Or could it be, more people than imaginable were fascinated by the dark and dour Middle Ages?

  The four of us stood in the middle of the library on a medallion in the center of an immense rectangular Persian rug. Suspended above was a Two-Tier Paris Flea Chandelier, a heavy antique fixture that could better have served a ski chalet dining room. Had we been in a movie, I'd have expected it to start swaying uncontrollably and crash to the floor in ominous warning.

  “Where does one start?” Aunt Mat asked in awe, scanning a wall that surely held no less than five-hundred books. “Did Prunella give any indication where she tucked the diaries?”

  Rey shook her head. “None. But they have to look different from all these leather-bound books, which pretty much look like legal or library collection type books. Right Jilly?”

  “They're probably smaller or slimmer than most of the books here.”

  “The word 'diary' won't be embossed on the spine,” Linda offered.

  Aunt Matt looked around dubiously. “This will be like searching for a flea on a camel.”

  “Rey and I will each take a wall. You and Linda share one. There are two rolling library ladders, so we can alternate. Two of us will start at the top, two at the bottom,” I instructed.

  Aunt Mat eyed me critically, as if she thought I might be bereft of sense, but finally nodded. She turned, then stopped, her gaze on a rosewood partners desk beneath the stained-glass window. “Would she have hidden them in there?”

  Linda frowned and turned on an Aladdin lamp on a Victorian library table. “That's too obvious, don't you think? It would be too easy to stumble across them.”

  “What if there's a hidden compartment? Those old desks usually have one or two.”

  “Good thinking, Aunt Mat,” Rey said cheerily. “Let me check the desk.”

  I smiled drolly. “You do have those magic fingers.”

  She stuck out her tongue and stepped behind a tall back office chair.

  Aunt Mat strolled toward the east wall. “Let's take this one, Linda. It's as daunting as any other. What a shame May-Lee opted out of helping.”

  “She's not much into playing detective,” Linda said. “Besides, she does have a business to tend to.”

  Aunt Mat's smile was dry. “Yes. The customers are out in droves with this lovely summery weather.”

  Rey and I dove into the task. Would we actually find a diary? Yes, in approximately five minutes, give or take. It had to look good and real – or as real as calculating amateur detectives could make it look. Scheming and conspiring had extended into the early hours of the morning. We had no experience with criminal masterminds or psychopaths, or the mentally challenged, and Rey had never appeared in a legal or private eye series, so she'd never researched that realm. What did we know about snaring a villain? Nothing. But we were eager to make a valiant attempt and condemning, detailed diaries seemed a worthwhile ploy.

  The plan of attack involved Linda and I, both quick typists, keying Prunella's “observations” and “findings” into two laptops. Time being of the essence, we caught minimal shut-eye – a few minutes here and there – and then hastened to the print shop around the block, which fortunately opened at eight a.m. Everything was printed on different types of paper, cut and pasted and stapled into two heavy, fat blue leather diaries Linda had purchased at a card and gift store in the hotel lobby. We'd also inserted clippings from on-line newspaper articles – anything we could find in those hours that could add weight and believability to the crazy scheme. It hadn't been that difficult to put ourselves in Prunella's Birkenstocks, and Rey's overactive melodramatic imagination helped bring Bird Lady's madness to life.

  Aunt Mat would doubtless question why Prunella had typed most of the entries, but Linda's reason was as (un)sound as any: Prunella liked things clean and neat and readable. Who could argue with that? What effect or result the diaries actually created remained to be seen.

  “Eureka!” Rey's right-on-cue scream grabbed our attention. “Look!”

  We scrambled to her side and gathered around. “Is it Prunella Sayers' diary?” Linda asked breathlessly.

  Rey grabbed the journal that we'd stepped on, bent, and sprinkled with tea. A hair dryer had assisted in giving it a used, timeworn look. “It seems to be. Look, here's a clipping of Reginald Moone's obit. And Helena's and David Leigh's. And the others.”

  I took it and leafed through several pages. “She's listed meetings with Thomas, documented calls and get-togethers with Porter, who she refers to as Crackers, and there's reference to – hey, look Aunt Mat.” I showed a page. “It says here Prunella was certain you would get even with Thomas after she'd discovered you'd found out about his stealing from Reginald's collections.” We'd remained vague to avoid any blatant inaccuracies.

  “Of course I was going to get even – during my inheritance extravaganza,” she snapped. “I was going to scare him, though not the same way I was going to scare the rest of you.” She grabbed the diary. “Odd, I don't recall sharing suspicions or intentions – of any sort.” She started to leaf through it, stopping here and there. Finally she flipped to the back, where Linda had entered a few hastily scrawled notes, marred by watered-down whiskey. Could it fool Aunt Mat at first and second glances? We'd find out soon enough. Instinctively I moved into grade-school mode, crossed my fingers, and silently promised to be good for a week.

  “It's proof of Prunella's involvement,” Linda said with a weary smile. “I bet there is enough in here to shift suspicion from me. She held an interest in the Moone deaths that went beyond casual.”

  “Yeah.” Rey gazed at our aunt curiously. “Any idea why Pruney would keep the obits?”

  Aunt Mat smirked. “A sense of perversity?”

  I reached for the diary, but Aunt Mat pulled away and strolled to a thickly padded burgundy leather sofa, and sat on the armrest. Then she regarded us closely, as if waiting for us to make the next move.

  Rey looked around. “Odd. There's no phone in here.”

  “There's one is in the kitchen,” Aunt Mat explained. “They cherished their privacy. Neither was big on talking to the outside world when they were at home, so it'
s the only one – for emergencies.”

  “I'll go call Lewis,” Linda volunteered.

  “What's the rush?” Aunt Mat asked casually. “You can call from my house.” She glanced around and offered an exaggerated shiver. “This place makes me feel peculiar.”

  “It's kind of spooky, isn't it?” Linda agreed.

  She offered a droll smile. “I wouldn't mind having an opportunity to read what Prunella claims people have done before it gets buried in police red tape.” She turned to me. “I thought there were a few diaries?”

  Rey and I exchanged glances.

  “Let's keep looking,” my cousin suggested.

  “I could do with coffee, so while you're snooping around, I'm going home and read. I'll have a pot ready for your return. It will be burned and tarry, as it tends to be when I prepare it. I don't have Beatrice's or Hubert's touch, and I'd arranged to have someone collect the poor dears early this morning. They desperately need a week of R&R.”

  Linda and I looked at each other.

  “Sure, go ahead.”

  “Sure,” Linda repeated with a shrug.

  I ignored Rey's are-you-nuts look. “As soon as we find the others, we'll join you – pronto.”

  Diary in hand, our tense-looking aunt ambled from the room.

  “We didn't have a choice, Reynalda,” I stated before she could comment or condemn. “She'd have become suspicious if we didn't let her go.”

  “Jill's right,” Linda affirmed.

  Rey frowned, then sighed. “Let's 'find' the other diaries.”

  “You mean diary?” Linda pulled it from her knapsack and we departed the library.

  * * *

  In the Sayers' foyer we started to slip on coats for the return jaunt through the cold when Rey made a dramatic proposal. “Why don't we sit in the Sayers' kitchen for a few? It has to be fully stocked.”

  “A change of venue wouldn't hurt,” Linda agreed. “But what about your aunt?”

  “I doubt she'll be doing much more than what she said she'd do. And we can't head back too soon. We're supposed to be on a hunt.”

  “You don't think she'll make a run for it as soon as she's read everything?” Linda asked worriedly.

  “I don't believe she will, as long as she thinks she's the only one to have read the contents,” I replied. “Besides, nothing in there out and out states she's responsible for anything. There are only … suggestions.”

  “But she knows we're looking for more diaries and she's bound to think we're going to read them and assume –”

  “What she'll assume is that we're going to bring them back as soon as we locate them. We promised to return pronto,” I reminded her.

  Rey re-hung her wool coat on an antique six-peg walnut coat tree. “Linda, you're doing sandwiches and appetizers. Jilly, you're in charge of beverages. I'll find treats and set the table.”

  “Follow me, kids.” Linda pointed and took the lead like a self-assured hall monitor leading pupils toward the auditorium.

  The rustic kitchen was as large as an outdoor public pool, darkly decorated, and glazed with heavy detail. Hardware merged with exposed stone and metals and carvings of milk and honey. It was well laid out and, like the entire house, immaculate. A cook's dream. Who wouldn't want the lovely Tierra Negra cookware that neatly lined high-gloss shelving between two arched windows?

  “Hey-ho, crackers and cookies third cupboard, left of the stove,” Rey announced, shaking a box of poppy-seed biscuits.

  Linda opened the fridge. “We've hit pay-dirt! Milk and cream. Juice. Italian soda. Different cheeses and cold cuts. And bread – and it looks fairly fresh.”

  “Placemats and napkins and cutlery have been located. Put your table-setting skills to use, Rey.” I pulled them from the middle drawers of a wood cabinet and strolled to a chrome coffee machine on a granite counter. “I could do with a caffeine jolt right now. Any coffee in there?”

  “Three types. Let's go with the Kona.” She started removing items.

  A mango glow warmed the room when I turned on track lighting above a kidney-shaped island in the middle of the kitchen.

  Rey began rummaging through boxes and packages in a cupboard. “What? No one likes un-healthy cookies?”

  As Linda and I chuckled, I glanced out a window behind a large rectangular table in the corner. A large pond, wandering pathways, evergreens and two rock gardens were in immediate view. At the far end of the expansive yard were two dozen beautiful handcrafted birdhouses. With the blankets and drapes of white, it held a certain austere beauty, but in summer had to be absolutely stunning.

  Linda started preparing sandwiches while Rey set the table.

  “Do you think she's buying it?” I asked, watching fragrant coffee fill the pot.

  “We'll know soon enough,” Rey replied, regarding a pheasant motif on the placemats. “I'm surprised she doesn't have any stuffed feathered friends around the house.”

  “She's into the real thing,” Linda responded. “I'm sure she'd find taxidermy sinister if not cruel, even if the plumed creatures had died of natural causes and not a hunter's gun.”

  I brought jars of mustard and mayonnaise to the table. “I'm getting a little nervous, to be honest. The diary details are pretty vague.”

  “You need fuel,” Rey declared, directing me to a chair. “You'll be fine and fully positive in a few. Linda, where's our feast?”

  “Here, my lady.” She bowed and brought over a tray supporting a platter of thick crusty sandwiches and a plate of cheese and crackers.

  Rey poured coffee and we toasted.

  “Here's to de-throning a bone-chilling, killing queen.”

  “Here's to three women having some explaining to do.”

  We turned slowly, guiltily, knowing that Massachusetts accent anywhere.

  “Why, Sheriff Lewis,” Rey smiled gaily and extended her arms in welcome, looking like a presenter greeting a crowd at the Golden Globe awards. “You're just in time for an impromptu and very nummy lunch.”

  30

  Almost Always

  After an angry Sheriff Lewis had chewed out the three of us for trespassing and tampering, yadda yadda yadda, we'd dived into a tasty late lunch. Forty minutes later, he'd left with a respect-the-law message and us wondering how he'd known to find us at the Sayers (he'd pleaded the Fifth). Then three suitably chastised souls trundled back to the Moone manse and a warm, sunny kitchen where we found Aunt Mat looking relatively relaxed.

  Rey's nattering and ill-tempered attempts at baiting, however, had soon worn thin on the sexagenarian, and hadn't set that well with Linda and myself.

  “I'd like to look at it.” Rey reached across the breakfast nook table for the diary our aunt had returned home with. The one we'd brought back rested alongside it.

  Aunt Mat slammed the first volume on top of the second, then pressed a tiny hand on them, her hold secure and her gaze as frosty as the ice-clasped exterior. “Reynalda, we've had enough for the moment, thank you.”

  My cousin was taken aback. “Excuse me?”

  “I've had enough of your petulance and impatience,” she retorted. “These diaries belong to someone once considered a dear friend. I'd like to reassess what I've read so far, and peruse this new one. Leave them with me. They won't go far.”

  Taking a sip of tepid grit-your-teeth coffee, gaze fixed and tone measured, I leaned toward my tetchy aunt. Maybe Rey's exasperation was infectious. “We've gone through a few days of hell. It's been grim and gloomy, and it's been mysterious – hell, it's been a nightmare – but we should learn Prunella Sayers' secrets, and we should do it here, with all of us present.”

  Aunt Mat's delicate jaw shifted, but she remained mute.

  Rey finished chewing a Medjool date and leaned across the table. “Suck it up, Matty Moone. Like Jilly said, we've gone through hell. We want – and deserve – to know what's in there.”

  Aunt Mat's jaw shifted again.

  Rey slapped the table. “Hand them over, Mathilda Moone!” />
  “Come on, Mrs. Moone, pass them over,” Linda coaxed, giving her friend a peeved glance.

  She gazed at me, as if seeking support, then cursed softly. “Fine.” She propelled both across the table, causing two full cups to topple and cookies to crumble. French Roast splashed dried fruit and stained a taupe linen tablecloth and cornmeal-colored placemats.

  Jumping up, Linda grabbed a roll of paper towels and started dabbing and wiping. Rey and I only managed to gape; this was a side of the older woman never seen.

  “Something tells me you don't want us to know what's in there,” I challenged.

  Her smile resembled Jack Nicholson's The Joker: sinister. “I believe you already know what's in there.”

  Linda passed me the diaries, tore off more paper towels, and continued wiping up the mess.

  “You've been playing me since we got back … and even before.”

  “Playing you?” Rey's mien was innocent, but her tone held an edge.

  The evil smile deepened. “You're a good actress, Reynalda. Almost as good as Prunella.”

  My cousin regarded her for several seconds, then tossed her head and smiled angrily in return. “What about you?”

  “I am the queen of thespianism. No one holds a candle to me, my dear.” She rose and straightened, holding her carriage regally. “I'm going upstairs – with the diaries.”

  “Mrs. Moone, aren't you feeling well?” Linda asked with exaggerated concern, looking at her best friend. “Maybe you should accompany her.”

  “Maybe you should all stay here,” Aunt Mat replied dismissively. “I'm extremely tired and am going to lie down. I trust you can amuse yourselves for a couple of hours?”