Marcia Talley - The Last Refuge

Lt Pickett seemed unflappable. ‘One of your, uh, actors, or do you call them cast members…?’

‘We prefer cast, actually.’

‘One of your cast, a Mr Alex Mueller, was found dead in the spring house this afternoon.’

‘Christ on a crutch!’

‘If you say so, sir.’

Jud swiped a hand through his hair, paced in the doorway. ‘Oh, God. This is terrible.’ His eyes swept the room, focused on one of the four chairs set around the card table. He crossed the room and lowered himself into it, wearily, as if he were a hundred years old. In the last minute, his face seemed to age by a decade, too.

‘Mrs Ives here found the body. We were just asking her about what time that was.’

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to hold it together. ‘As I said , Lieutenant, it was not long after the Peggy Stewart celebration was over.’ A sudden thought made my eyes fly open. ‘Wait a minute! There’s a videocam in the entrance hall. You should be able to tell what time I came in by looking at that.’ I swiveled in my chair to face Jud, looking for confirmation. ‘The tapes are time stamped, aren’t they?’

Jud stopped chewing on the knuckle of his index finger and said, ‘We’ll see to it that you get copies of all the videotapes, detective.’

‘ All of them? How many are there?’

‘Eight? Nine? We’re taping a reality show here, detective, so we have pretty broad coverage. You’ll see when you get them.’

‘Are there any in the back garden?’

Jud shook his head. ‘None outside the house, I’m afraid. We use handhelds for the outside shots.’

Standing next to the door, the junior officer was scribbling away when Amy rushed in, Melody and Gabe in her considerable wake. ‘Jeffrey came to get us. What’s going on?’

I patted the cushion on the loveseat next to me. ‘Here. Sit.’

Jack sprang to his feet. ‘Let me take the children out of here.’

Melody clouded up and stamped her foot. ‘I am not a child!’

Her father glanced at me uncertainly. He was leaving the decision to me.

‘French,’ I said, ‘would you take Gabe down to the kitchen, please? He can play with Dex. And for heaven’s sake, tell Karen not to let the boys out into the garden.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ French said, actually looking relieved to be leaving the room.

‘Melody, you may sit next to your father.’ I gestured with my head in the direction of the sofa.

When everyone had settled in again, I picked up Amy’s left hand in both of mine and just said it right out. ‘Amy, Alex is dead.’

Amy’s eyes grew wide as saucers. ‘Dead? How can he be dead? I just saw him!’

‘We don’t know, sweetheart. It looks like he fell into the spring house. Hit his head…’ I shrugged helplessly.

‘Fell?’ Amy’s face was dangerously red. ‘ Fell? No. Nobody’d fall into the spring house. That’s just bullshit.’

Privately, I had to agree.

Across the room from us, Jack stirred. ‘What would he be doing out there at this time of day anyway?’

‘A reasonable question,’ said Lt Pickett. ‘Who was the last to see him?’ His eyes scanned the room.

Michael raised his hand, waved it like a schoolboy. ‘It may have been me. We bought a couple of beers at McGarvey’s during the Peggy Stewart celebrations. Alex was supposed to be bringing Amy a Sprite, but he got involved in a conversation with some reporter, so I said I’d take the soda to Amy. And I did.’

‘Can you describe this reporter you saw talking to Mr Mueller?’

Michael shrugged. ‘Black frock coat, three-cornered hat, powdered wig. Impressed me that he was kinda getting into the story, you know? Wait a minute, his ponytail had a little black bag tied to the end of it.’

‘A tag?’ asked the junior officer.

‘B-A-G, bag,’ Pickett corrected.

‘Ponytail with a bag on it,’ muttered the junior officer, his ballpoint pen scratching away. ‘I can’t believe I’m writing this.’

‘Do you know what the two were talking about?’

With a nervous glance at Jud, Michael said, ‘Not really. Because of our contracts, we’re not supposed to be giving interviews, so I split.’

I raised a hand. ‘I saw Alex, too, Detective. But whoever he was talking to had just left.’ I swiveled on the loveseat to face Michael. ‘Michael, how do you know it was a reporter? Alex told me the guy was a tourist from Raleigh.’

Michael scowled. ‘If he was a tourist, then I’m a prima ballerina.’

So, Alex had lied to me. That stung. I stole a quick glance at Amy, but Detective Pickett drew me back to the matter at hand. ‘What happened next, Mrs Ives?’

‘We walked for a bit, then we ran into my husband. I didn’t see where Alex went after that.’

‘What happens now, Detective?’ Jud wanted to know.

‘As soon as we finish processing the scene, we’ll be transporting the body up to the medical examiner in Baltimore for autopsy.’

Next to me, Amy gasped.

Lt Pickett addressed her directly, his voice gentle. ‘It will help us find out what killed him, Miss. Whether it was an accident, or… or, something else.’

‘Accident, had to have been an accident,’ Michael said. ‘Who would want to hurt Alex? He was one of the nice guys, you know?’

Jud frowned. ‘What impact will this have on the continuation of our show?’

‘Until we get the autopsy results, which, barring complications, should be in a couple of days, I must ask that nobody leaves town.’

Amy’s giggle had a manic edge. ‘That’s a laugh! We’re stuck here for the duration anyway, right?’

‘From a policeman’s point of view, it’s awfully convenient having all of you together in the same house,’ Pickett admitted. ‘Like one of those Agatha Christie novels where everyone’s snowbound at Chipping Monktip for the weekend.’

Melody, who had been staring at a spot on the wall, sitting bolt upright with her hands folded demurely in her lap, suddenly roused herself. ‘All of the suspects are right here in this room,’ she intoned.

Jack gave me a look – see, I told you the children shouldn’t be here – and I gave him one right back. Chill out, Jack.

‘That’s what always happens on Masterpiece Mystery ,’ Melody forged on, unchallenged. ‘Hercule Poirot comes into the room et voilà !’ She pursed her lips, furrowed her brow. ‘Eet iz zee brain, zee liddle gray cells, on which one must rely.’ What we need, is Hercule Poirot.’ She favored us with an elaborate sigh. ‘But he’s a fictional character.’

Amy and I exchanged glances.

Both she and I knew that one of the suspects was not in the room, and he was far from fictional.

‘What’s two-penny worth of yeast, anyway? A teaspoon? A cup? Then it says to beat for three-quarters of an hour. No wonder they needed slaves.’

French Fry, housemaid

Two nights later, with the table set, candles lit and the food laid out for dinner, Jack summoned the family and all the staff to the dining room.

With a face like Mount Rushmore, he cleared his throat several times, then said, ‘I have an announcement to make. Founding Father has just notified me that according to the medical examiner, our dear friend, Alex Mueller, died of a broken neck as the result of a fall. His death has been ruled accidental. Let us pray.’

Almost without taking a breath, Jack launched into a rambling grace that touched on food, death, the souls of men (and women) and the downtrodden people of the third world. While the food on the platters cooled, and Jack showed no sign of winding down, I dared to raise my head and look at Amy. She stood by the buffet, hands folded in front of her – even in the candlelight I could see that her knuckles were white. Her mouth was a thin line, and she was shaking her head and mouthing, ‘No, no, no, no.’