Mary Daheim - Silver Scream - A Bed-and-breakfast Mystery

Flynn’s property from their neighbors, Carl and Arlene

Rankers. The man had his back to Judith and appeared

to be looking up under the eaves.

“Sir!” Judith spoke sharply. “May I help you?”

The man whirled around. “What?” He had a beard

and wore rimless spectacles. There was such an oldfashioned air about him that Judith was reminded of a

character out of a late-nineteenth-century novel.

“Are you looking for someone?” Judith inquired,

moving closer to the man.

He hesitated, one hand brushing nervously against

his trouser leg. “Well, yes,” he finally replied. “I am. A

Mr. Terwilliger. I was told he lived in this cul-de-sac.”

Judith shook her head. “There’s no one by that name

around here. Unless,” she added, “he intends to stay at

my B&B.” She made an expansive gesture toward the

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old three-story Edwardian house. “I run this place. It’s

called Hillside Manor. There’s a sign out front.”

The man, who had been slowly but deliberately

backpedaling from Judith, ducked his head. “I must

have missed it. Sorry.” He turned and all but ran around

the rear of the house.

Judith’s hip replacement didn’t permit her to move

much faster than a brisk walk. Puzzled, she watched

the man disappear, then returned to the front yard. He

was coming down the driveway on the other side of the

house, still at a gallop. A moment later he got into the

car parked at the curb and pulled away with a burst of

the engine.

“Local plates,” she murmured. But from where Judith stood some ten yards away, she hadn’t been able

to read the license numbers. With a shrug, she headed

back to the toolshed. She’d mention the stranger’s appearance to Joe when he got home. If she remembered.

Five hours later, when Joe arrived cursing the dead

end he’d come up against in a missing antique clock

case, Judith had forgotten all about the man who’d

shown up at Hillside Manor.

It would be two months before she’d remember, and

by that time it was almost too late.

TWO

JUDITH RECOILED FROM the obscenity screamed into

her ear by Cousin Renie. The four-letter word was

rapidly repeated before Renie cried, “You’re not

911!” and hung up.

Shaken, Judith stared at her cleaning woman,

Phyliss Rackley. “Oh, dear. What now?” she

breathed to Phyliss.

“What ‘what now’?” Phyliss inquired, scarcely

missing a beat as she scoured the kitchen sink.

“My cousin—Serena,” Judith said, her high forehead wrinkled in worry. “I think she was trying to

call 911. I don’t want to call her back in case she’s

on the line with them. Maybe I should go over to her

house to see what’s happened.”

“You got those Hollywood sinners due in two

hours,” Phyliss pointed out. “Besides, that cousin of

yours is probably in Satan’s clutches. I always said

she’d end up in the hot spot.”

Judith’s gaze darted to the old schoolhouse clock.

It was two on the dot. Friday, October 29. The day

when Bruno Zepf and his Hollywood entourage

would arrive for the premiere of The Gasman on the

following night.

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But family came before filmdom. “I’ve still got

some spare time. I’m going to Renie and Bill’s. I don’t

dare call in case she’s tied up on the phone with 911.”

“Keep away from Lucifer!” Phyliss warned as Judith rushed out the back door. “He’ll come after you

when you least expect him!”

Judith was used to her cleaning woman’s fundamentalism. But like Skjoval Tolvang’s obstinacy,

Phyliss Rackley’s religious mania could be tolerated

for the sake of a reliable, thorough work ethic.

Traffic on Heraldsgate Avenue was relatively light

for a Friday afternoon. It was just a little over a mile

from Hillside Manor to the Joneses’ residence on the

north side of Heraldsgate Hill. Six minutes after she

had left Phyliss in the kitchen, Judith was at the door

of her cousin’s Dutch Colonial. So far, there were no

signs of emergency vehicles outside. Judith didn’t

know if that was a good or a bad portent.

When Renie and Bill had moved into their home

thirty years earlier, the doorbell had been broken. Bill

was a psychologist and a retired college professor, a

brilliant man in his field, but not adept at household repairs. The bell was still broken. Judith pounded on the

solid mahogany door.

No one responded. Anxiety mounting, Judith started

to go around to the back but was halted at the corner of

the house by a shout from Renie.

“Hey! Come in. I’ve got this junk all over my

hands.”

Judith returned to the porch. Renie stood in the

doorway, her hands and lower arms spattered with

what looked like the insides of a pumpkin. Bill came

down the hall from the kitchen. His head was covered

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Mary Daheim

with the same orange clumps and he’d left a trail of

yellow seeds in his wake.

“What on earth . . . ?” Judith began, her jaw dropping. “I thought you had a catastrophe!”

“We did,” Renie replied, moving back to the

kitchen, where she ran her hands and arms under the

tap. “Bill got a pumpkin stuck on his head.”

Judith looked at Bill. Bill shrugged, then took a

towel from the kitchen counter and began to wipe himself off. Judith then looked at what was left of the

pumpkin. It lay on the floor in several pieces. Only the

top with its jaunty green stem remained intact.

Putting a hand to her breast in relief, Judith leaned

against the refrigerator. “Good grief. You scared the

hell out of me.”

“Sorry,” Renie said, rinsing her hands. “I hit your

number on the speed dial instead of 911.”

“Then,” Bill put in, his voice muffled by the towel,

“she punched the button for her hairdresser. By that

time I’d gotten the pumpkin off my head.”

“I don’t suppose,” Judith said slowly, “I ought to

ask why you were wearing a pumpkin on your head,

Bill?”

Removing the towel, he shrugged again. “It was for

your Halloween party tomorrow. I planned to go as

Ichabod Crane.”

Judith shook her head in wonder, then frowned. “It’s

not my party, it’s Bruno Zepf’s. I’m merely catering

the damned thing.”

“I’m helping,” Renie said, looking a trifle hurt.

“That’s why we’re coming, isn’t it? We thought it

would be more fun if we wore costumes like everybody else.”

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21

“What,” Judith asked Renie, “were you going as?

Ichabod’s horse?”

“A tree,” Renie said with a lift of her short chin.

“You know—the scary kind with a twisted trunk and

clawlike branches.”

“Don’t,” Judith advised. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

She glanced at Bill. “One of you already has. I’m

going home now. In fact, I might as well stop at Falstaff’s Grocery on the way to stock up for the party.

Bruno Zepf gave me a list. Some of the items had to

come from specialty stores. I hope he can pay all

these bills.”

“He can,” Bill said, his clean-cut Midwestern features finally free of pumpkin debris. “The man’s

movies make millions. The Gasman may hit a billion.”