Death in Castle Dark, page 21
“What about you, Elspeth and Renata?” I said, spooning into my dessert cobbler. “Zana and Bethany are married, and Tim is spoken for, but you’re the mysteries. Do you have some secret grand passions?”
Renata laughed. She was wearing a sleeveless blue blouse and a white skirt, and some blue stones glinted in her ears. “Oh, ‘passion’ is a word for the young.”
Elspeth snorted. “There are tons of guys in town who have the hots for Renata, ever since they saw her in the community theater version of Cabaret. And a certain guy named Rafe sent her flowers just last month.”
With a wave of her hand, Renata dismissed Elspeth’s assertions, but she was smiling and blushing.
Elspeth pointed at her. “Yeah, she knows it’s true.” Then she sighed. “I, on the other hand, have relentlessly pursued a guy who teaches at Wood Glen High, but so far he is not picking up on my signals.”
“Maybe you need different signals,” Tim suggested. “Like neon signs.”
“Worth a try,” Elspeth said, patting tonight’s tiara into place.
“What about you, Nora?” Bethany asked. “Are you dating anyone?”
I shook my head. “No, but I’ve had many an unhappy love affair.”
“Oh, come on,” Zana said as she came in to clear the table. “I can’t imagine a guy letting you get away.”
“Lots of guys let me get away,” I said, “even when I wasn’t trying to get away. My big college romance was initially dreamy—we fell in love when we were cast in a play together—until I realized that he had a habit of falling in love with his leading ladies. When he was cast in a new play and fell for a new girl, I protested, and he called me melodramatic.”
“Ironic,” Tim said.
“Yes. I must confess to some Schadenfreude when I learned he did not become the big Broadway star he told everyone he would be. I think he works at an office supply store.”
“Karma,” Elspeth said.
“Very good German pronunciation, Nora,” Renata said approvingly, and I laughed.
“Anyway, there were others like him. I made the mistake of falling for actors, and as I told Connie the other day—actors shouldn’t date actors.”
Renata nodded sadly; her relationship with Garrett had not survived. I wondered if they, too, had found that actors were incompatible.
Bethany had donned one of her exaggerated expressions, this time one of disdain. “That’s ridiculous. Tyler and I were both drama majors in college, and we are perfect for each other.”
I bowed my head in acknowledgment of this. “I stand corrected,” I said.
Tim was grinning at me, but furtively. He had confided, on a recent and much more enjoyable bike ride, that he found Bethany’s histrionics “insufferable.”
“Tim,” I said, tired of talking about my love life, “how did you and Amy meet?”
He grew bashful. “Oh, I don’t think you romantic ladies will be all that impressed by this. We met online.”
Elspeth held up a finger. “Almost forty percent of couples meet online.”
“Really?” Renata said, turning to her. “How very interesting.”
Tim nodded. “It wasn’t a dating site; it was a video game. We both played it, and we did a lot of chatting in the game. It was fun. Eventually we exchanged e-mail addresses, and we started chatting there. Then we exchanged photos, and a few weeks later, we decided to meet. We had immediate chemistry.”
I said, “I disagree with you, Tim. That’s very romantic.”
He shrugged, blushing slightly.
Zana appeared in the doorway, leaning on the jamb. Bethany said, “Sit, Zane. We’re talking about relationships. Tell us how you met Eric.”
To my surprise, Zana smiled and sat down. She shook her head, still smiling, and said, “We were so young. So young.”
“Did you attend school together?” Renata said.
“Yes, but we didn’t know each other in high school. It was after we graduated; Eric was a student at U of I, and I was in culinary school. His family had a party, a big birthday party for his dad. I was working part-time for a caterer, and we got hired to do the event. Eric and I recognized each other from school, so we got to talking. He told me later that he had just thought I was so pretty in my little caterer’s outfit. Just a little black dress with a white apron. He asked if I would go to the movies with him the next day, and I said yes. Before I left that party, he pulled me into a hallway and stole a kiss.”
“Oh, my,” Elspeth said. “Fast mover.”
“But so romantic,” said Bethany with a misty expression. “Ty and I went to school together, but the funny thing is, we didn’t meet on campus. I met Tyler at a concert. We were at Lollapalooza in Chicago. I couldn’t see the band, and I was jumping up and down. He asked if I wanted him to lift me up, and I said yes, and he put me on his shoulders. It was amazing.”
“That’s cool,” Tim said.
Paul had been sitting at the end of the table, eating cobbler and quietly listening to all the stories. I turned to him and said, “Paul and I should start a club. The Happily Unattached.”
“I’ll join,” Elspeth said cheerfully.
“As will I,” said Renata, her expression placid.
Paul grinned. “I’ll be in charge of the T-shirts.”
We laughed, and Zana said, “I better get started on those dishes.”
“I’ll help you,” Tim said. He stood up and accompanied Zana into the kitchen.
Elspeth and Renata rose, murmuring about phone calls they needed to make, and they said their good evenings.
Bethany looked at her watch and said, “Oh, gosh. Tyler will be home from work. I have to run, too. See you!” She whisked out of the room as though she were walking off a stage.
Paul and I were left alone. He said, “Our club theme song could be ‘All by Myself.’ ”
“Ha ha! That’s a great song, though.”
His expression became mischievous. “Fancy playing it for me on the piano? I wasn’t at the other concert.”
I had been yearning for a reason to return to Derek’s Steinway. “I could be persuaded,” I said. “I only charge a thousand dollars.”
He nodded, considering this offer. “How about a handful of M&M’s?”
“Deal,” I said.
Moments later we were climbing the stairs to the second floor, beaming our lights ahead of us. I looked for Hamlet this time before he could terrify me, and sure enough, he was following us up the stairs.
We reached the landing, and Paul flipped on a light I didn’t know existed, illuminating the hallway. “Ah, this castle,” he said, gazing down the red-carpeted expanse. Hamlet found a toy and brought it to Paul, who patted his head. “It’s always been such fun. I can’t wait until this terrible event is resolved, and we can build our way back.”
“Back to what?”
His blue eyes held regret. “To being happy again.”
* * *
* * *
On July 3, Jade came to visit the kittens. She had brought a ball of yarn, and we spent a good half hour watching the Brontës tumble over their new toy, flipping their little bodies this way and that as they attempted to conquer the large yellow ball.
We were sitting on the floor in front of my fireplace. Jade rolled the ball of yarn to me, and the kittens chased it. Charlotte pounced with spectacular form, Emily pounced on Charlotte, and Annie fell on her fat little belly.
Jade laughed, and said, “This is a really nice home for them. And I’m glad they got to stay together. I like what you named them, too; I read Jane Eyre in school. It was pretty good in between the boring parts.”
I stared at her, scandalized. “There are no boring parts.”
She shrugged. “Like I said, it was pretty good. Do you read a lot?”
“I do. Books, and scripts when I audition for things.”
Her eyes took on a gleam of interest behind her dark glasses. “I would love to audition for something in the city. That sounds so awesome!”
“It can be. It can also be very nerve-racking and heartbreaking. Right before I got the job here, I thought I had a part in the bag. I had two callbacks, but they ultimately said no. That hurt.”
“Oooh, I bet. You are going to try out for our next community-theater thing, right? I think there are auditions for Fiddler in the fall.”
“Hmm. Maybe. If we’re not too busy here.”
Jade picked up Annie and held her high in the air. Annie gazed at her, utterly trusting. “I love cats,” she said, setting Annie down near the yarn.
“Do you have one at home?”
“If by one you mean four, then yes.” She grinned. “And we’ll end up with more. My mom and I are suckers for strays.”
“You and your mom are pretty close, huh?”
“Well, all three of us, really. I’m an only child.”
I grinned at her. “I had kind of guessed that.”
“Yes, yes. I’m a precocious child, blah blah. Like I haven’t heard that all my life.” She was trying to line all three kittens up for a picture, but Emily kept wandering away. “My parents are pretty cool, though. My dad is a real feminist, not a fake one. And he isn’t like those jerks who say ‘I’m a feminist because I have a wife and daughter.’ That’s still sexist. He’s a feminist because he believes all human beings have rights.”
“Good for him.”
“Yeah. Got it!” she said, finally snapping her picture. She showed it to me. It was a remarkably good picture—well framed and lighted and capturing the sweetness of each face.
“Oh, could you send that to me?”
“Sure. Give me your number. You can make it your profile picture or something.” I gave it to her and her thumbs flew on her keyboard, and she said, “There.”
Now the kittens were staying in the little pile Jade had posed them in, and I realized they were getting sleepy. “I love the way they just nap right in the middle of things. I aspire to be like that,” I said.
“Yeah, it’s great.” Jade sighed and stretched, then snapped a few more pictures of the Brontës. “I should probably go soon. I have the afternoon shift at the bakery.” She pushed her glasses up on her nose and sent me a quizzical glance. “Are you guys any closer to getting the killer? Or am I not allowed to ask?”
I shrugged. “We can all ask, but the police aren’t saying anything. I think they’re working hard, though.” There was still always at least one police officer on the premises, and I had seen Detective Dashiell more than once, either talking with Derek or stalking around the grounds for reasons unknown.
She nodded, looking thoughtful. “My mom says I have too big an imagination. I think that’s kind of a compliment; shouldn’t all imaginations be big? Anyway, I kind of came up with my own reason why any person in the castle could have done it.”
“Really? Why might I have done it?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“That’s easy. You have a secret, and Garrett found out. Simple.”
I laughed. “And what is my secret?”
Her smile held a hint of evil. “You’re planning to kill that lady who got your part.”
“Oh, my,” I said. “Even I am not that competitive. But in a story, that would work. What else have you got?”
She started counting on her fingers. “It could have been Derek because he and Garrett had a fight one time. Maybe it wasn’t resolved.”
“What?”
“Yeah, like a yelling match. It was at Wood Glen Gardens, which is like a restaurant/pub in town. It was the talk of the neighborhood for a while.”
“When was this?”
She shrugged. “A couple months ago.”
I had never heard this. Had Derek mentioned it to Dashiell? Perhaps I could ask Connie. . . . Jade had moved on without me, immune to my shock.
“And then Connie, because maybe Garrett made a pass at her. I assume guys do, simply because she’s pretty. The curse of beauty, right? You probably get that, too.”
“Well, thanks. And Connie doesn’t strike me as the murderous type.”
She pulled down another finger. “Then there’s Renata. My mom saw her one time when she got ‘overserved.’ That’s what Mom called it. Maybe she and Garrett got drunk and did something they regretted, and she killed Garrett so he wouldn’t tell.”
Renata had mentioned, when she said the keys could open other doors, that she’d learned it after having too much to drink. But I had never seen her looking inebriated. . . .
“And of course Bethany, because she was mad that Derek didn’t hire her husband. She was always moaning about it when we did a play together last year.”
“Wasn’t there only one opening?”
“Yeah, I don’t know. Maybe she thought Derek should have made one? She was like ‘People refuse to see Tyler’s talent,’ which I took to mean he has none.”
I couldn’t resist a giggle at that, and Jade looked pleased.
“Then of course Elspeth could have done it because Garrett came into the costume room and caught her in the act.”
“The act of what?”
Jade shrugged. “That’s for the police to figure out. She was doing something, Garrett saw her, and she killed him.”
It was chilling, the way she said it in such a matter-of-fact voice.
“I think you’ve covered everyone,” I said, stroking Emily’s soft ear with one finger. Charlotte had curled into a ball, Annie was stretched out next to her, and Emily was a foot away from them, belly up and snoring.
“Nope. Two more. Zana could have done it because Garrett wanted his own girlfriend to be the chef at Castle Dark and was advocating for it. Zana was furious because he was threatening her job.”
I stiffened. “Is that true?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I remember Sora said something once, when my friends and I were having sundaes at her shop, that her boyfriend worked at Castle Dark and that it would be a fun gig for a chef.”
Jade was a surprising storehouse of information. I needed to let Dashiell know about her.
“And then of course there’s Paul. That one’s easy. He’s always been jealous of his brother, and he wants to take over his role. So he kills Garrett and frames Derek for it, then takes over the castle as the noble and grieving brother. And he ends up getting more business than ever because of the murder.”
I recalled Derek’s words at the dinner table, right after Garrett’s death—that the Inspectors had been even more thrilled because someone had actually died.
I studied Jade’s face. “And what about Tim?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe Garrett made fun of his bike pants.”
Normally this would have made me laugh, but Jade’s theories had disturbed me too much. I rubbed my hands on my legs and stood up. “This is getting a bit depressing,” I said.
Jade looked up at me, surprised. “It’s only fake stories,” she said. “I’m just a child.” She batted her eyelashes at me, and I laughed.
“You’re hardly a child. And I doubt anything gets by you.”
She sighed. “Meanwhile, time to make the donuts. My mom showed me this old commercial on YouTube where a guy just says that over and over. ‘Time to make the donuts,’ ” she said in a zombie voice. “We joke about that all the time.”
I held out my hand and she took it, standing up and slinging her little purse over her arm. “Jade, it has been a pleasure,” I said.
“Yeah. Thanks for taking such good care of the kittens. They like it here.”
“I love them.”
“See you soon! Come to the bakery—we’ve got some really good Fourth of July treats, and we’re open in the morning.”
“I’ll try,” I said.
She walked to the door, waved over her shoulder, and walked out, shutting the door behind her.
The Brontës remained in sweet, furry slumber. I lay down beside them on the rug, gently scratching Annie’s tiny head and thinking about everything Jade had said.
I closed my eyes for a moment and didn’t wake up until Connie came to walk me down to dinner.
* * *
* * *
At the dinner table, Derek looked happy and excited, the way he had when I had first arrived at the castle. “We have an announcement,” he said to us after we were all seated, “and this is a good one.”
“About time,” Tim joked.
Connie looked ready to burst with the news. “Derek had the best idea, and then Paul made it even better.”
Derek put his arm around her. The king and queen of the castle. My brain studied that idea for a moment, even as Derek went on talking. “As you know, tomorrow is July Fourth. We used to have a big fireworks show, but that won’t happen for two reasons. One, we are still in mourning and it would be inappropriate. Two, the Wood Glen Ecology Commission asked us last year to consider alternate celebrations, since fireworks are actually rather devastating to the birds and animals in our woods.”
“So what are we doing?” Elspeth asked.
“A bonfire,” Derek said. “We’ll put up a poster in town, charge some minimal fee for tickets on entry, see if any locals want to come out. Paul used to build big fires all the time at his fraternity bonfire parties, and he knows how to do it safely. We’ll light it well away from any forestland. People can come and enjoy an hour or two on the grounds, and hopefully it will help to minimize the stigma that we’ve gotten in the last week or so. Then a day or two later, we’ll open up our website to reservations again and we’ll get to work on building our cocktail lounge.”
Tim looked dubious. “Isn’t it kind of late to expect anyone to attend?”
Derek shook his head. “I’ll plant the information tonight with people who might be able to spread the word over most of Wood Glen by morning. A lot of people in this town wouldn’t turn down a chance to hang out at the castle on a holiday.”
