Murder on the Candlelight Tour (8 page)

11

On Thursday afternoon, I wandered up and down the aisles of the Harris Teeter supermarket. Panic was setting in. Displays featured Christmas toys and ornaments, paper towels and plates with holiday motifs. But where was the food? Grocery stores are foreign places to me. I dash into them only when I'm running low on toilet paper. The way I look at it, the same god who invented homecooking, cookstoves, pots and pans, also invented restaurants and professional chefs. I'll take the latter, thank you very much.

I wasn't sure what I was looking for but when I spotted the prepared entrées in the frozen food case, I knew I'd found it. Tossing two boxes labeled Chicken Divan into my shopping basket, I headed for the express checkout line.

At home, in my old-fashioned kitchen, I stretched on tiptoe to pull down my one and only casserole dish from a high cabinet. My gas stove is green and camel and sits nine inches off the floor on tapered feet. I've only used one burner and that was to heat water. I don't own a microwave. This is not a place where casseroles get assembled for grieving widows.

To my chagrin, the plastic containers inside the boxes were oval shaped, not rectangular. The Chicken Divan was frozen solid. I looked from them to my rectangular Corning casserole. Two oval blobs of frozen food set side by side in a rectangular baking dish would tip off anyone that I was offering tacky, commercial, frozen food to the bereaved.

A topping, that's what I needed. Something to conceal the oval outlines. When baked, they'd merge. Unfortunately, even if I could figure out how to turn on the oven, I didn't have time to bake them now. Jon and I had spent the morning reviewing blueprints and preparing an estimate for the owners of an antebellum mansion. Melanie was meeting me at the Mackie residence in thirty minutes.

I shoved the frozen Chicken Divan into my freezer, and zipped back to Harris Teeter where I purchased a shaker of seasoned bread crumbs and a packet of shredded cheddar cheese. Then I flew back home.

Running the frozen containers upsidedown under hot tap water just long enough to dislodge the blobs from the containers but not long enough to defrost the food, I then deposited the ovals in my rectangular casserole, side by side.

Tearing open the bag of shredded cheese, I sprinkled the frozen ovals generously with cheddar. Liberally, I shook bread crumbs on top of the cheese. Or should it have been the other way around? Bread crumbs first, then cheese? I didn't know which, so I combed my fingers through the topping, mixing it up and spreading it around. Maybe I should be dating a chef instead of a not-very-shrewd detective. The people in my life are as helpless in the kitchen as I am.

But the casserole, doctored up, didn't look half bad. I put the glass lid on it, slid it into a plastic bag, carried the offering out to my Aurora and placed it gently on the front passenger seat. For good measure I strapped the seat belt around it. Oh, why was I bothering? MaeMae Mackie would just shove it into her already burgeoning freezer and forget about it. Probably I'd never see my pretty casserole dish again. Well, no great loss.

I drove out Oleander Drive to the Bradley Creek community, then nosed down a narrow, very private road. The Mackie's one-level white French Provincial house sat high up on a bluff overlooking Greenville Sound. The garage door was closed but Melanie's Lexus RX-300 was parked in the semi-circular driveway. She jumped out when I pulled in behind her.

I opened my car door to say "hey."

"Where have you been?" she snapped. "I've been sitting here for hours."

"Hours? I think you exaggerate a tad, sister-mine."

Hands on hips, Melanie glared at me. "Ashley, what are you up to? This is positively idiotic. I don't care a whit about MaeMae Mackie and she knows it."

"Lower your voice," I warned as I stepped out. "She might hear you."

I gave Melanie a head to toe. As usual, she looked stunning. How was it she had inherited all of our family's fashion genes? She was wearing an olive green knit suit that showed off every nip and curve. Her jewelry was brushed copper and matched her hair. Her hose matched her suit. Her high heels, a mossy green suede, went with everything.

Carefully, I lifted the casserole in its plastic bag from the seat. "What's that?" she asked suspiciously.

"Oh, just something I whipped up. We can't pay a condolence call without a homemade food offering. Not in Wilmington."

"What are we doing here anyway? You said this was urgent." Melanie was already sashaying toward the front door, at the same time glancing at her watch. "I'm staying five minutes and not a second longer."

"Five minutes is all I need," I said, catching up.

Her perfectly manicured fingertip pressed the doorbell.

"Just keep MaeMae occupied while I take a look around."

"Keep MaeMae . . . have you gone ma . . . good afternoon, we're here to see Mrs. Mackie." She smiled sweetly at the housekeeper who stood holding the door open.

The haughty woman was primly dressed in a black uniform with a starched white collar. Tall and gaunt, she literally looked down her beaky nose at us, disapproval written all over her stern face. Good lord, I thought, MaeMae's housekeeper is Mrs. Danvers.

"Come this way," she said, taking the casserole I offered. She carried it with arms extended--and her arms were long--holding the plastic bag and its contents at a distance, as if it was nasty and smelled bad. As if she intuited that I was passing off store-bought as my own.

Behind her back, Melanie rolled her eyes toward the beamed ceiling. That look said: You're a fool for being nice. No good deed goes unpunished.

I looked around, taking in the decor. This was my first visit to Sheldon's home. Our meetings had taken place at the historical society or in public places.

A long, narrow hallway ran from the front of the house to the back. The oak floorboards were stained a deep chocolate brown. Walls were painted bright white. A glass and brass table under a Moorish mirror occupied one wall. The decor decidedly reflected the Seventies era.

Mrs. Danvers, for this was what I called her in my mind, led us through an open archway into the living room. Here again, the Seventies style prevailed and I saw Billy Baldwin's signature everywhere, except in this case, the signature was a forgery. Sheldon had copied Baldwin's classic rooms. I was disappointed. I had expected something original.

Long, floor-to-ceiling French doors looked out at an expanse of blue water and sky. Inside, the walls were upholstered in chocolate brown silk moiré; the floor stained the same chocolate brown. Everything else was white, including the tuxedo sofa on which MaeMae and Lucy Lou sat sipping martinis with green olives. They looked up, startled.

"I'll just take this," Mrs. Danvers sniffed, "to the kitchen." She departed silently on little cat's paws.

MaeMae and Lucy Lou did not seem happy to see us. Neither said hello nor welcomed us in any way. They sat stony-faced, cocktails in hand, seemingly at a loss as to why we were there. Melanie cast me a cold, hard glint. I'd hear about this later. But I'll say one thing for my sister, she can handle any social situation with aplomb--even rebuff.

Her expression changed mercurially. Face wreathed in smiles, arms extended lovingly, she marched over to the sofa. "Now don't get up, you poor dears, and don't say a word. I know you're speechless. What you two have been through, why it breaks my heart." At this point, her right arm crossed her chest as her hand pressed over her heart. Then she reached down to MaeMae, hugged her neck, and kissed the air near her cheek.

"So good of you to come," MaeMae murmured, setting her martini glass on a tray.

Lucy Lou made a face. "Yes, aren't you thoughtful to remember MaeMae in her hour of need."

Hour of need? I was going to be sick. With my very own eavesdropping ears, I had heard MaeMae rejoicing because Sheldon was dead. But, coward that I am, I uttered appropriate banalities.

Mrs. Danvers appeared in the doorway conveying a pitcher of martinis and martini glasses. "You'll join us in a little drinkie, won't you?" MaeMae inquired.

Melanie had settled in a French bergere that was covered in zebra skin, on the opposite side of the coffee table, another brass and glass item. She crossed her right leg over her left and murmured, "None for me, thank you." She patted her flat tummy. "I have to watch my figure and my skin."

"Excuse me," I broke in, reminding myself why I was here, "may I use your powder room?"

MaeMae looked like she'd swallowed a green olive. "Direct her to the powder room, will you, Velma."

Velma, alias Mrs. Danvers, escorted me out of the room. "Go down the hall and turn to your right. You'll find the powder room behind the second door on the right." She returned to the living room to oversee the dispensing of martinis, or so I imagined. I wondered if MaeMae was as intimidated by Danvers as I was. Or did she call her Danny in private? I suppressed a giggle.

At the end of the main hall, a side hall turned sharply to the right and I followed it into the back wing. Opening the second door on the right, I glanced in at a pink and brown powder room, promptly closed the door, and continued on my nosy way.

What I was looking for I didn't know, but I knew that I'd recognize it when I saw it, just as I'd recognized the frozen prepared entrees. I opened a door on the left. Hallelujah! The master suite. I stepped inside and closed the door behind me.

Billy Baldwin's influence was strong in this room as well. White wall-to-wall carpeting strewn with zebra-patterned rugs. Forest green walls, tailored white draperies and bedding. Brass and glass bed tables.

I didn't dare open drawers--even I wouldn't go that far--but contented myself with snooping through the stuff on top of a chest of drawers and a dressing table. Very little there: flower arrangements, brush and comb, perfume bottles. Then I recalled that in Woody Allen's movie, Manhattan Murder Mystery, Diane Keaton punched the telephone's recall button to learn the number her suspect had last dialed. I walked over to the bed table, and hit the recall button on the phone. A number appeared in the small window. Tearing a page off MaeMae's monogrammed notepad, I scribbled the number on it, then quickly hung up before it rang.

In the same movie, Keaton had hidden under the suspect's bed. At the time, I'd reflected that it was incredibly clean under there. I always have bolts of fabric shoved under my bed. I never have to worry about someone hiding under it, there's no room. Wonder what's under MaeMae's bed? I asked myself.

Glancing back at the door to be sure Mrs. Danvers hadn't crept up on me about to pounce, I bent from the waist and lifted the neat white dust ruffle. There was something under the bed. One item. A book. I picked it up. Flower sprigs on a cloth binding.

What a dilemma. Could I stoop to stealing a book? Surely I had more scruples than that. As I weighed the ethics of my situation, one standard stood out: Binkie's entire future depended on my finding the real killer.

Swiftly, I lifted the back of my jacket with one hand, stuffed the book under the waistband of my slacks with the other. Then I fled. I dived into the powder room, flushed the toilet, splashed water in the sink, and dampened a hand towel. As I was closing the door behind me, a chilling, disapproving voice, so close to my ear that I jumped, said, "Miss Wilkes is leaving now."

At the front door, Melanie was tapping the toe of one mossy green suede pump, hand on door knob. MaeMae and Lucy Lou fluttered about nervously, thanking Melanie profusely for our condolence call, but probably just eager to return to their "little drinkies."

Lucy Lou said, "Ashley, we didn't get to visit with you a minute."

"We've got to run," I said, my voice crackling with guilt. I cleared my throat. "Melanie has to show a house. I hope you enjoy the casserole. It's one of Mama's recipes. Thirty minutes at 350 degrees." That's what everyone always says about reheating casseroles, so I didn't feel I'd give anyone food poisoning.

"Well, y'all come back now, you hear," MaeMae trilled.

I walked slowly to my car, back ramrod straight, the crisp edges of MaeMae Mackie's diary digging into my flesh.

12

With the hot diary burning a hole in my passenger seat, I drove west on Oleander, heading for the historic district and home. I couldn't wait to get inside my house, to lock my doors and draw the

shades, to get down and dirty with MaeMae Mackie's psyche. But first I wanted to check out the phone number. Using my cell phone I tapped in the number I'd jotted down, while stopped at a red light. A woman at the funeral home answered. Well, shoot, a wild goose chase.

I had two suspects in mind for Sheldon's murder and MaeMae was prime. The second was Earl Flynn. There was no way it was Binkie. Jon's little talk with Binkie on Sunday evening had revealed nothing new. Binkie was sticking to his story: he didn't kill Sheldon, he didn't know who did, and Sheldon had robbed the Atlantic Coast Line's payroll in 1960.

On my "To Do" list was a meeting with Betty and Wayne Matthews. Wayne would possess all the facts about the payroll robbery. But, alas, the Matthews were on a winter holiday in Palm Beach and I'd have to wait two weeks to see them. If Nick hadn't reverted to his pigheaded cop's role again, he could help me. But knowing him, he'd balk at a suggestion that there might be a connection between Sheldon and the robbery, especially if that suggestion came from Binkie and me.