Midsummer Murder (21 page)

She forced herself to look up. Adele and Marguerite were both staring at her. Were they daring her to disagree, or were they inviting her to make her stand with them?

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The three of them stayed locked in each other’s eyes, until the door opened and Jeremy came in with Rose and Peter close behind him.

Sandiman closed the door and moved over to the drinks table. Jeremy followed him and poured himself a hefty amount of deep amber cognac.

He looked pretty close to death himself. Eyes dull, his complexion the color of cold ashes. He had been left to carry on the rehearsals by himself, while he should have been free to console Marguerite and Chi-Chi. He was worried about Robert, and probably about what Lindy had said to the police. Why hadn’t Biddy helped him, instead of staying with Marguerite? Then she saw Biddy’s face and understood.

He had pushed her away again.

Rose and Peter stood uncomfortably on the fringe of the group and declined the drinks Sandiman offered them.

“We just dropped in to make sure that everything is on for tomorrow night,” said Rose.

“The kids are ready. Is it a go?” asked Peter.

Lindy looked to Marguerite.

“Yes,” she said. “Chi-Chi?”

“Of course, Robert would want us to.”

“Really, Marguerite,” said Ellis. “In light of all that’s happened, we would be wise to . . .”

“God damn it, Ellis.” Jeremy banged his brandy snifter on the table.

It caught the edge of a marble trivet and shattered. Blood seeped from his hand.

Biddy was on her feet.

“Biddy, don’t,” said Lindy, but Biddy was already moving toward Jeremy.

You’re just setting yourself up for another rebuff,
she thought.

Biddy didn’t stop until she was right in front of him. Ignoring his bleeding hand, she tilted her head up until she was looking straight into his face.

“Jeremy,” she said. “Get a grip.” She turned and marched out of the room.

The door shut behind her. Jeremy’s face grew paler if that was possible. Rose, Peter and Lindy stared in open-mouthed astonishment.

The others held an embarrassed silence until Adele crossed to Jeremy and began cleaning his hand with a towel that Sandiman had produced from a drawer in the table.

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“Sorry,” he said. “It was an accident.”

“We’re all very tired. Let’s get some rest. Tomorrow will take all our strength,” said Marguerite. She rose. Everyone else did, too. “You’ll stay with us tonight, Chi-Chi. I’ve had the room next to mine readied for you.”

Chi-Chi set her lips.

“Don’t protest. You are not going to stay in the bungalow by yourself tonight. Come along, dear.”

Chi-Chi followed her silently out of the room. The rest of them followed, except Stu and Ellis who were standing before the window in quiet conversation.

In the hallway, Adele pulled Lindy aside. “Come to my office in the morning. We need to talk.”

Lindy nodded and went upstairs to deal with Biddy.

* * *

Lindy came to stand behind her, and they both stared out into the night air. The sky was an inky backdrop, studded with a million stars.

“The Queen of the Night’s aria in
The Magic Flute,
” said Biddy.

Lindy nodded.

“I’ve really done it now.”

“Well, you certainly got everyone’s attention.”

“What did he do?”

“Stood there while Adele cleaned his hand.”

“I hurt him. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“I think you had your reasons.”

Biddy took a deep breath. “It was for his own good.”

“I know.”

138

Twelve

Another day. Lindy blinked her eyes open without moving the rest of her. She concentrated on the raised pattern of the coverlet until her eyes came into focus. She had hardly moved during the night; the coverlet was unwrinkled.

Her body felt drugged, but she recognized the feeling for what it was. It was “tour tired.” Waking up on tour was always worse than waking up at home. Each day on the road was crammed with back-to-back events, heavily scheduled so that there was hardly any downtime to regroup. You had to grab rest in small unplanned doses. A person had to be really flexible in order to make the most of what little relaxation time there was. It was an exhausting regimen. And when you were so tired that you thought you would die if you had to go on another second, you went on anyway. Then it was over, and for days or weeks nothing much happened; a few days off while you pulled yourself back to a functioning level, then daily rehearsals with an outside world waiting to distract and rejuvenate you.

Feast or famine. It was a way of life. An insular world that magnified every insult, every over-reaction, every insecurity.

But it was also a glorious life culminating in pride, praise, and glimpses into the state that athletes called “the zone.” Dancers had known about “the zone” for years. They just hadn’t named it. When your body goes into overdrive, and you become the dance, the music, the sheer muscularity of the movement. And you soar.

Lindy’s thoughts dropped painfully back to earth. And when you added accidents and possible suicide and murder to the schedule . . .

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the coverlet felt like a lead blanket. She shoved it aside and sat up.

Biddy was still sleeping. Lindy had spent the night in Biddy’s room, because she didn’t want Biddy to be alone. She had heard her up wandering the room during the night, but after asking once if she were okay, Lindy had left her alone.

She forced herself into the bathroom and composed herself to face the day.

When she came downstairs for coffee, Peter was in the restaurant, sitting at a table by himself. She sat down across from him.

He handed her a piece of folded paper. “Jeremy’s gone for the day.

Says he’ll try to be back in time for the afternoon rehearsal.”

Lindy listened to his words as she read the same message written on the paper.

“That’s all? He’s gone? Didn’t he say where?”

Peter stretched back in the chair. “I didn’t see him. This was left in my box at Reception.” He studied Lindy for a minute then put his hands behind his head.

“To the hospital?”

“Maybe, but Chi-Chi’s here, looking about as substantial as that.”

He nodded toward the paper Lindy was holding. “If they wouldn’t let Chi-Chi see Robert, I doubt if Jeremy will have any better luck.”

Lindy let out a low growl.

“I know. We need him here. But he’s feeling penned in and ineffectual.

He can’t help Marguerite and he’s letting the company down.”

“He told you this?” Peter and Jeremy were two men who kept their own counsel. Did they actually talk about things to each other?

“Didn’t have to. I understand what it feels like.” He leaned forward and finished off his coffee. “You want to take company class or shall I tell Mieko to do it?”

“Ask Mieko. I have something to do this morning.”

“You want to tell me what?”

“Later.”

Peter threw his napkin on the table and reached for his briefcase.

“We’re a team, remember? Nobody can make it on his own without the others; you taught me that.”

Lindy watched him walk across the restaurant, stop briefly at Chi-Chi’s post and give her a quick kiss on the cheek. A brooding, swarthy chrysalis emerging from his shell.

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Too much symbolism, she thought. It must be the effects of the retreat’s artistic ambiance. What she needed was some facts. She headed for the infirmary.

* * *

She motioned to the wooden door that was held in place against the wall with a wooden wedge.

Lindy kicked the wedge away and the door swung shut. She pushed until the latch clicked into place, then turned to Adele, her curiosity piqued.

Adele motioned for her to sit. She sat.

Adele stood up. “I’d like you to tell me exactly what you saw in the bungalow yesterday.”

Lindy suddenly felt ill at ease. Was she being tested? “I thought you said
we
needed to talk, not just
me
.”

Adele’s eyes never left hers. “You talk, I talk, we talk.”

Amo, amas, amat. She sounded like she was reciting declensions.

Lindy took a deep breath. There was no reason not to tell her what the police already knew, she could probably find out anyway. But it was so hard to trust anyone when you were involved with death under unusual circumstances. A euphemism again. Murder. There, she had said it. To herself anyway. The police hadn’t publicly declared that Cleveland’s death was murder, but the sheriff suspected it, and against her will, Lindy had to agree. What she had learned of the boy didn’t point to suicide, nor could she believe he was just wandering around at night and plummeted down the cliff. There had to be more to it than that. Was he on his way to some place specific? There was nothing out there except the archaeologists’ camp. He could have been meeting someone. For a lovers’ tryst? Or to break up with someone. Connie? They still hadn’t found the boy. God, what if he was dead, too? And if he was, something was really rotten at the Easton Arts Retreat.

“Please.” Adele sat down.

“I was just trying to get organized,” said Lindy. She told Adele about Chi-Chi asking her to check on Robert, going to the cabin, and thinking he was asleep. She tried to include every detail, what she had 141

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seen, anything she might have heard. It was easier talking to Adele than to Grappel, but she still had the distinct feeling that she was being interrogated. Had Marguerite put Adele up to this?

“Did you notice anything in the room? On the desk?”

Lindy conjured the scene in her mind; let her mind’s eye travel over the desktop. “There was the bottle of pills. His head hid them until I moved him away. A stack of paper. Several sheets of blue paper, and white ones spread in front of him.”

Adele nodded

“A glass of Chi-Chi’s power drink. Nearly empty. A jar of pens and pencils. A pen on the desk—” Lindy paused as a spur of realization grew within her. “Like he had been writing.”

She stared at Adele. “Like he had been writing,” she repeated. She wasn’t being interrogated. Adele was leading her. Like a teacher encouraging a slow-witted student. No, like a psychologist guiding a client in denial.

“He had been writing. He never used the computer; Chi-Chi told us that the night we were in the bungalow. Robert wrote everything on paper, and she transferred it to the computer. The artist and the artisan.

She laughed about it.”

Adele nodded, her lips pressed together.

“The chair rolled back when I pulled him up. But only a few inches.”

“And the computer screen?”

“It was on, but, no, I didn’t notice if anything was written on it. Just the green aura. Then I came to look for you.”

“Did anyone see you?”

Lindy thought back. “Possibly the police. Two of them were going into the Fuller studio, but I slowed down so they wouldn’t get suspicious.” Lindy looked away, suddenly embarrassed. “I didn’t want to waste time explaining.”

Adele smiled. Was it what Adele had expected of her, because it proved to her Lindy was one of them, or was it relief for some other darker reason? Oh hell, in for a penny in for a pound.

“Then we came back.”

“And the computer screen?”

Lindy shrugged and shook her head. “I don’t know. I was shocked because Robert’s chair was facing the computer, and when I left it was facing the desk. I don’t think I moved the chair 142

Midsummer Murder

by mistake, and even if I did, what are the odds of it stopping right in front of the computer keyboard? It doesn’t make sense.”

Adele sat perfectly still as Lindy replayed the scene in her mind. At last, she sighed. “I just don’t know. I remember the glow, but I don’t recall anything written on the screen. Did you or Stu notice anything?”

“No,” said Adele. “I was completely involved with Robert, and Stuart doesn’t recall seeing anything. Men don’t notice things the way women do.”

“Kitchen things,” said Lindy.

A question formed on Adele’s features.

“Kitchen things, the way women see things and interpret them, have caught killers before and not just in fiction. You think someone tried to kill Robert?”

“Don’t you?” Adele put on her glasses and reached for a pen.

She rolled it between her thumb and fingers. “Now I’ll talk.” She contemplated the action of her fingers. “You know about Robert’s allergies.”

Lindy nodded.

“They’re annoying, but not debilitating. A continuous dose of antihistamines keeps them at a livable level, but . . .” Adele pointed the pen at Lindy. “Robert and Chi-Chi asked me not to mention it to Marguerite. They didn’t want to worry her.” An expulsion of air from her nostrils. “Everyone is so busy trying to protect Marguerite. If there is one person on this earth who doesn’t need protecting, it is Marguerite Easton. Look at this place.”

Adele drew a circle in the air with her pen. “She has us all jumping through the hoop.” She plunged the pen toward the desk and the tip hit the blotter with a crack.

Lindy blinked.

“Because we want to, not because we’re being coerced. She inspires that kind of loyalty.” Adele cleared her throat and brought herself back to the point.

“Robert occasionally has trouble sleeping. Antihistamines affect some people that way. Some get drowsy, some get hyper.”

Lindy nodded. That was why Robert’s hands always had a slight tremor; he wasn’t nervous, just reacting to medication.

“It isn’t a perfect solution, but he doesn’t need them in the city.

He has nine whole months in which to clear his system. The 143

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downside is that he does need to be functioning while he’s here, so I prescribe a light sedative to help him sleep on those nights when he’s too wired.”

Lindy’s eyes narrowed.

“Exactly. One shouldn’t mix antihistamines with a depressant.”