Tea-Totally Dead (18 page)

Then the tuxedos turned to the vegetarians. Ratatouille, white bean salad, asparagus in pastry with dairyless bechamel sauce, baked beans a la Charente, artichokes vinaigrette, pasta and vegetables with sauce veloute. I lost count of the choices. Mandy and Lori and I agreed to split a little of everything. And then, surprisingly, Eric changed his order to join us.

“Vegetarian food is totally healthy, you know,” he said, with a quick sidelong glance at Mandy.

“Of course it is,” she said dismissively. Then she seemed to soften. “If you’re really interested, I’ve got a copy of
Diet for a New America
by John Robbins at the hotel. It’s a splendid little book.”

“That sounds totally awesome,” Eric breathed.

By the time he made it through the savory pepper-and-chestnut soup, Eric was a dedicated vegetarian. By the time he had eaten his salad, Mandy had talked him into renouncing dairy products as well. I wondered how long it would take the boy to realize that ice cream was a dairy product.

Wayne waited until the entrees were served to bring up Vesta’s funeral. Dru had just speared a piece of grilled duck in green peppercorn sauce. Trent was slicing into his rack of lamb Dijon on thyme jus. And I was just breathing in the tantalizing scent of sauce veloute.

“Been thinking about the services for Mom,” Wayne said quietly, lifting his tortured eyes to scan the table slowly. Ace gulped down the food he had just put in his mouth. I heard the sound of silverware being laid back down hastily. “Maybe you can help me,” Wayne went on. “You’re all staying for the funeral on Wednesday, aren’t you?”

“Of course we are,” Ingrid and Dru assured him, their distinctive voices raised together in uneven unison.

“Wouldn’t miss it, kid,” Ace promised a half a beat later.

Trent nodded solemnly. Even Bill averted his bland gaze for a moment, touched by some unknown emotion.

I put down my own fork in amazement. I’d never known Wayne to be manipulative before. It wasn’t his style. But somehow he had just talked the suspects into staying three more days. Maybe all that thinking this afternoon
had
helped him.

Then I noticed the way Gail was staring at him. I would have bet she was the only other person at the table who knew what he had just done.

“I’ve got an idea,” Lori said eagerly. “Maybe we could do something with the Tibetan Book of the Dead.”

Trent groaned and shook his head.

“Oh, dear,” Ingrid whispered. “I don’t think that would really be a comfort—”

“Maybe some music, though,” Dru chimed in. “Vesta always did love music so. Chopin—wasn’t it Chopin she loved?” she asked, turning to Ace.

“Chopin,” he agreed, his blue eyes sparkling. Were those tears? “And opera. Caruso especially. Remember how she loved…” His voice trailed off. He looked down at his coq au vin abruptly.

“You know what?” said Eric. “Caruso was Aunt Vesta’s name, Grampy. Isn’t that totally weird? I mean, here’s this guy she liked so much and that’s her last name.”

Ace was blushing now. Trent cleared his throat noisily. I wondered if Lori or Gail realized that Vesta had never been married, that she had chosen the name Caruso for herself when she became pregnant with Wayne. I couldn’t tell by either of their attentive faces.

“Well, I think Caruso’s a perfectly splendid name,” Mandy said, filling the silence. She looked over at Uncle Ace with a hint of adoration in her chocolate eyes.

“Oh, me, too,” Eric agreed eagerly.

“Have you thought about a minister yet?” Ingrid asked.

Wayne shrugged his shoulders. Now that he had them talking, he had slipped back into his cocoon of silence.

“Vessie was never very religious,” Ace put in softly. “Don’t think she ever went to church, did she?” He turned to Wayne.

Wayne shook his head.

“But still,” Ingrid insisted. “She must have been a Christian. You were all raised in the Christian faith, weren’t you?”

Ace tilted his head and grinned. “I guess you could call Baptists Christian,” he drawled.

Dru giggled, then added, “Ma and Pa sure thought so, anyway.”

Trent rolled his eyes. I wondered what Ma and Pa Skeritt had been like. I thought about asking, but Ingrid was still pursuing the religion issue.

“How about a nondenominational minister, then?” she suggested.

Wayne nodded. I did too, glad someone knew how to handle this.

“And flowers,” she went on, taking full charge. “Too bad we aren’t close enough to bring some from home.”

“Those florists charge you an arm and a leg,” Dru agreed. “I picked my own when Raoul died.” Her face drooped into sadness for a moment.

A man in a tuxedo came around the screen and looked at our still full plates.

“Is everything all right here?” he asked.

“Everything’s fine, George,” Wayne assured him, then waved him away.

“Here we are, letting all this good food go to waste,” Dru said, her tone high and aggressively cheerful. Her face wasn’t drooping anymore, but it looked a bit strained at the jaw line. “Now, what would Ma and Pa have said to that?”

“Eat up or else,” Trent shot back. A hint of a smile tugged at one corner of his mouth.

Dru giggled into her napkin.

“And be sure to clean your plate,” Ace followed up in a falsetto.

Then everyone seemed to be laughing, Lori and Dru the loudest. Ingrid beamed at the table at large.

The Skeritts really felt like family now, I thought as I cut into the delicate asparagus-filled pastry. They hadn’t seemed to get along so well on Friday night, though. But then again, Vesta had been alive on Friday night.

I bit into my asparagus, pushing away thoughts of murder. It was delicious, rich with the bechamel sauce. The pasta with sauce veloute was even better. And the baked beans! Only the French could have thought to bake them in cognac, garlic, herbs and red wine.

I began to realize that I shouldn’t have worn my Liz Claiborne jumpsuit after all, as I took my last bite of fresh fruit compote. I could feel the velvet straining over my full belly. Oh, well. Maybe I’d be able to lose the added pounds if I skipped lunch for the next two weeks.

“Boy oh boy, was that good!” boomed Ace, patting his own belly happily.

“Truly magnificent,” Trent intoned ponderously.

“And we’re not finished yet,” Dru announced, draining her coffee cup. She grinned and reached into her oversized handbag. “Guess what I’ve got,” she challenged.

Ace was the first one to try. “Alka Seltzer,” he hazarded.

Dru shook her head, laughing.

“Even better,” she whispered. “Guess again.”

“Candy?” Eric tried.

She shook her head.

Cocaine? Pornography? The poison that had been used to kill Vesta? I kept my own guesses quiet.

“For heaven’s sake, Dru,” Trent protested impatiently. “Just get on with it.”

Dru pressed her lips together in a pout for an instant. Trent rolled his eyes. Finally, she got on with it.

“Ta-da!” she trilled and pulled a black volume tied with black ribbons out of her big bag. “I’ve got the family picture album.”

Trent groaned.

“You didn’t,” Ace protested, but he was already on his feet and circling around behind her to look.

Gail and Bill pulled their chairs in closer to Dru as the rest of us filed around and squeezed in behind her. I shoved my head forward under Wayne’s armpit, the only way I was going to be able to see around this family of giants.

Dru pushed her place setting aside and laid the album in front of her. Then she opened it with a theatrical flourish.

A bride and a groom stared out at us from an old black and white photo. Neither one looked very happy. I saw now where the Skeritt brow had come from. The groom’s eyes were invisible under the heavy thatch of his brows. Even the bride’s brow was unusually low. Maybe that’s what had attracted them in the first place.

“Wow, totally cool,” Eric breathed. “Who are these guys?”

“Your great-grandparents,” Dru answered. “On their wedding day.”

“How come they look so totally unhappy?” he asked.

“Not unhappy,” Dru corrected him as she turned the page. “They were just, well… just serious.”

“Oh, come on,” Gail snorted.

The next picture was of a small child seated in a formal pose with hands folded, staring at the camera gravely. He, or she, didn’t look very happy either.

“So, who’s this one?” Eric asked eagerly.

“Your great-uncle Trent,” Dru told him.

“Oh, Dad!” Lori squealed, pushing in closer. “You look so cute! I never knew you were a cute baby.”

Ingrid smiled softly at her husband.

“Turn the page,” Trent ordered gruffly.

There was another small child on the next page, looking remarkably similar except that this one was smiling.

“Mom?” asked Wayne softly.

“Yes, honey,” Dru whispered. “That’s your mama.”

I looked closer. The child’s smile was sweet and dreamy. Hopeful. I had never seen an expression like that on Vesta’s adult face. My heart contracted suddenly. How had Vesta come to lose that sweetness?

Dru turned the page again and Ace grinned up at us. Another turn and Camille looked out with a dazed expression on her little face. Another and Nola was in her place, looking quizzical. And then, the baby of the family, Dru, beamed at us.

“A real looker, even then,” Ace teased her.

Dru giggled and flipped to the next page, a group shot of all the children. Trent was the tallest, looking thin, teenaged and aloof in the background. Vesta was maybe a foot shorter than Trent, and Ace another foot shorter than she was. Little Camille and Nola were holding hands. And Dru was sitting on the ground with her doll.

“So those are my great-aunts, Nola and Camille, right?” Eric said, pointing at the girls holding hands. He didn’t wait for a confirmation. “So how come they didn’t come to the reunion?” he demanded.

“Camille is a drama teacher at a college on the east coast,” Dru answered. “She couldn’t get the time off.”

“Oh,” Eric said. “How about Aunt Nola?”

“She has, well… a little health problem,” Dru answered slowly.

“What kind of health problem?” Eric pressed.

“Never mind—” Trent began.

“She’s an alcoholic,” Gail cut in brusquely. “She’s in treatment.”

Dru turned the pages more quickly after that. As the family shots went by, I heard Mandy whisper, “hideous clothes,” and Eric whisper back something that sounded like, “a total dweeb parade.” Then there were the inevitable graduation photos, and finally, a picture of another bride and groom.

“Me and Raoul,” Dru whispered, then sighed tragically.

Gail flipped the page impatiently, then heaved her own not so tragic sigh at a baby picture of herself. The pages moved faster after that. We saw Gail grow up from a sullen toddler to a sullen adult, and then the album was closed.

As everyone returned to their seats, I excused myself to go to the rest room.

I was in one of the stalls, struggling through that long refastening process peculiar to jumpsuits when I heard the bathroom door swing open.

I hooked the side piece and the front piece and began buttoning the front. Funny, I thought. Whoever came in hadn’t gone to a stall. I snapped the neck. I couldn’t hear them washing up either. In fact, I couldn’t hear any movement at all as I pulled the belt around my waist and buckled it.

I stood there in the cubicle, perfectly still for a moment… and couldn’t hear a damn thing. I could feel my heart thumping in my chest, though. Maybe I just
thought
I heard someone come in, I told myself.

I took a deep breath and pressed my eye up to the crack of the stall door. I saw a woman standing a few feet away with her back to me, a heavyset woman in a pair of twill pants and a man’s dress shirt. Gail Norton.

- Fourteen -

“I know you’re in there,” Gail said softly. The hair went up on the back of my neck. I pressed my eye closer to the crack in the stall and watched her turn slowly around, her plain face expressionless except for the intensity of her gaze behind her glasses.

I kept silent in spite of her words. Or maybe, because of them.

“Are you afraid of me?” she asked, her voice neutral.

Damn right, I thought. You’re a mighty strange woman.

“Do you think I’m the murderer?” she prodded.

The instant she named my fear, I began to feel foolish. Even if she was the murderer, what was she going to do? Poison me by force in the ladies’ room?

“Just a moment,” I called out. I flushed the toilet a second time, hoping she would interpret my earlier silence as mere lavatory modesty.

I took one last peek out the crack, then grabbed my purse, centered myself as best I could, and opened the stall door.

“What’s up?” I asked in what I hoped was a cheerful tone.

The tone was wasted on Gail. She stared at me morosely as I washed my hands.