Historically Dead Page 4

  Priscilla noticed me entering the room. She extended one hand to me, while the other kept hold of the newcomer’s left hand. “My dear, come meet my nephew, Johnny. He’s Ruth’s younger son, you know. He lives just down the street, such a good boy. Not like Robby, not at all.”

  I took Priscilla’s outstretched hand. Her fingers were cold, and trembled a bit. “Nice to meet you,” I said to Johnny.

  His sharp brown eyes took me in from head to toe as he shook my hand firmly. “It’s John. And you are?”

  “Daria Dembrowski. I’m the owner of A Stitch in Time, which provides historical sewing services. I’m working with Priscilla to transform herself into the mistress of an eighteenth-century house for the TV show.”

  He nodded, his attention already diverted from me as Louise Pritchard entered the room.

  “Miss Ruth would like to see Miss Priscilla in the dining room,” she announced, sounding like the grand butler from a forgotten era.

  I watched in silence as Priscilla rose and shuffled out of the room with Louise.

  “Is there anything else I can do?” I asked John once the door closed behind the two of them.

  He was scrolling through his phone. “You don’t know of a good cleaning service, do you?”

  I shook my head, somewhat shocked at his callousness. “I guess I’ll be leaving, then. I don’t suppose Priscilla will want to think about curtains at a time like this.”

  He just shrugged, deep in his research. I gathered up my sewing things and left the room.

  On the way out the door I saw yet another newcomer passing through the hall. I recognized his broad shoulders and trim build encased in an expensive pinstriped suit. Of course, the new attorney. It figured. I would have ducked into a room, any room, to avoid meeting him, but he heard my step and turned around.

  “Ah, Daria. We meet again.”

  “Randall. I was just leaving.” I tried to slip past him, but he sidestepped so that he blocked my path. I refused to let him see that I noticed. “You must be the new attorney.”

  He inclined his head. “I’ve been retained to oversee the appraisal of the contents of the house, in my capacity as a wills and estates lawyer for the law firm of Flint, Perkinson and Hubbard. It looks like we’ll be seeing a lot of each other, especially since you’re making my fiancée’s wedding gown.” He smiled lazily down at me, daring me to cross him. “She’s a lovely girl, my Fiona. Deserves nothing but the best. I trust that’s what she’ll receive from you.”

  I drew myself up as tall as I could manage, which was hardly impressive given my short stature. “I take pride in my work. Fiona has nothing to worry about...from me.” I left those last two words hanging in the air between us and took a step forward, inviting him to move aside and let me pass. He complied with a chuckle.

  The bus was practically empty on my ride home. I stared out the window, scarcely noticing the profusion of mountain laurel bushes throughout the upscale neighborhood. All I could think about was Randall, reappearing in my life when I’d finally succeeded in moving on.

  I seized my unexpected afternoon off to work on Fiona’s wedding gown. I spent almost three hours assembling the buttons for the back of the gown. Rather than using ready-made satin buttons, I was using fabric from Fiona’s dress, so the buttons would match perfectly. This process involved cutting a small circle of satin, placing it over the metal button head, and snapping it into the shank to form a custom-made button. The thickness of Fiona’s satin made it hard to stretch such a small piece over the tiny bit of metal with no wrinkles. Every single one of the fourteen buttons took two or three tries to get right. By the end of the afternoon my fingers tingled with the effort. But I was glad of the need to concentrate, so I couldn’t dwell on the sight of Professor Burbridge sprawled on the floor of the library, dead.

  The late afternoon sun was flooding into my workroom by the time I finished up the final button. I piled them all into a small box on my worktable and headed downstairs to look into dinner.

  Pete, Aileen, and I tried to eat together at least once a week, just to foster a sense of community in the house. Often we found ourselves at the table at the same time on other nights, but Fridays were the official “family meal” nights of the week. It was a little inconvenient for Pete and me, but Aileen insisted on Friday so she could have a decent meal before her inevitable gig. Whatever Aileen wanted, Aileen got. We didn’t have a formal schedule as to whose turn it was to cook, but Pete and I always tried to get to the kitchen before Aileen. Last time she cooked we had to eat gefilte fish on freezer waffles slathered with chocolate marshmallow sauce and topped with carrot shavings. Thanks, but no thanks.

  I served up a perfectly ordinary meal of sautéed chicken and vegetables with a hint of curry. I refused to let Aileen get a rise out of me when she dumped a massive pile of curry powder on her plate.

  She shoved a huge forkful into her mouth and mumbled through the food, “Either of you two know a guy with dark hair, tall and slim, who goes around in a fancy three-piece suit and carries a brown leather briefcase that’s too big for him?”

  I almost choked on my chicken. I remembered that briefcase. I’d given it to Randall on his graduation from law school, after saving for six months to be able to afford the real leather model. He’d scoffed at the unstylish size of the thing, and refused to carry it to the office. What surprised me most was the fact that he still had it, if indeed he were the one Aileen was describing.

  “Why do you ask?”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “Is he a friend of yours? Or should I say, ‘was’? He came poking around the house today. Jerk tried the door, even. I hollered out the window and ran him off. He won’t be back anytime soon.”

  My hands went cold at the thought of Randall trying the door. He wouldn’t know that I had changed the locks after he left me, disappearing with the balance of our joint bank account. What made him think he could come back now?

  “He tried the door?” Pete frowned. “Do you think he was trying to break in?”

  Aileen snorted. “Either that or he was the rudest jackass alive.” She snagged the bottle of curry powder and dumped on a fresh layer.

  “Did he say anything when you hollered at him out the window?” I asked.

  “Yeah, sure. He professed his undying love for you while strumming on a mandolin. What do you think?” Aileen stopped in midstream, noticing the blush on my face, no doubt. “Wait—you know this guy?”

  I nodded. “I’m guessing it was Randall Flint, a guy I used to know.”

  “Randall, as in the guy you were going to marry?” Pete said.

  “Yeah, that guy.” I glared at Pete. Nothing like a big brother to blurt out all the painful details of one’s life.

  “So the ‘undying love’ wasn’t so far off.” Aileen couldn’t resist. “What, the wedding seamstress was a jilted bride?” She turned to Pete, “Did you run him off, Moron?”

  Pete shrugged, unfazed by Aileen’s habitual nickname for him. “I never met the guy. I understand he was a jerk, though.”

  “Of the highest order.” I sighed. It looked like Randall was back in my life. I needed to fill Aileen in. “I met him at a wedding, when he was in law school. We went out. He moved in. Then he ditched me. Anything else you want to know?”

  “Touchy, aren’t we?” Aileen scowled at me. “Yeah, there’s a lot I want to know. If this jerk’s gonna be coming around trying to get into the house, I want to know what he’s after. I want to know if he’ll be sneaking into my bedroom in the middle of the night, or setting fires in the basement. I want to know if you’re planning to get back together with him or if I should keep running him off. I think I have a right to know.”

  I got up from the table. “Okay, you made your point. I went out with him for four years. He lived with me here in this house while he was in law school, to save money. I thought he loved me, but he was j
ust using me for free rent. While I was making my wedding dress, he was making sure we had a joint bank account, which he then cleaned out before he split. As a matter of fact, Aileen, you can thank Randall for your opportunity to live here, because I wouldn’t have had to take in a renter if he hadn’t stolen all my money.”

  I didn’t mention the fact that I had missed the classic signs of manipulation as Randall distanced me from my friends and family and surrounded me with his unrelenting attention that morphed from showering me with flowers and candy to demanding to know exactly where I was at all times of the day or night. And through it all, I had loved him, fool that I was. I didn’t need to mention that, either.

  “So, no, Aileen, I don’t intend to get back together with him, especially since he happens to be engaged to marry my lovely client, Fiona.”

  Pete let out a low whistle. “You never told me all that stuff.”

  “Well, what good would it have done me? You didn’t have any money to help me pay the bills. Plus I didn’t want you to judge me for getting sucked in by such a con artist.”

  He smiled at me. “I wouldn’t do that. You didn’t judge me for getting sent to jail for drugs.”

  I smiled back. “Yes, I did. That’s what sisters do.”

  Aileen rolled her eyes. “Okay, so what you’re saying is, this Randall jerk is going to be hanging around our house while you make his fiancée’s expensive wedding gown.” She grimaced at me. “I have the feeling that the band is going to need a lot of extra rehearsals. Too bad they might happen whenever that jackass is around.”

  Pete laughed. “He’ll probably want to call the whole thing off by the time you get done with him.”

  “You got something to say about the band, Moron?”

  “No way! I love the Twisted Armpits, as long as I have my trusty earplugs handy. Without them, the noise might make me want to end it all.”

  I gasped, catching Aileen in midsnort. She and Pete stared at me.

  “All this talk about Randall—I forgot to tell you. Professor Burbridge died today. I found his body in the library.”

  If I were trying to rival Aileen in the shock category, I hit the jackpot. Pete dropped his fork with a clatter, and Aileen swore, “What the hell?”

  “You know Professor Burbridge is working with Priscilla to catalog the historical books in her collection. I needed to talk with him about the curtains for Compton Hall, and when I went in he was on the floor, dead. It was horrible.”

  “What is it with you? Are you trying to break the world record for most dead bodies discovered by one person?”

  “Yeah, Aileen, that’s my life’s ambition.”

  * * * *

  I settled in to do some research on eighteenth-century draperies after supper. Without the professor’s drawings, I would have to come up with my own design for Priscilla’s curtains. I felt guilty for focusing on my own mundane needs when the man lay dead, but there was nothing I could do for him now. I was coming to the conclusion that I wouldn’t find anything useful on the Internet when the doorbell jangled. I jumped. If it was Randall, I intended to give him what for.

  Aileen obviously had the same thought. She beat me to the front door, which she flung open to crash against the wall. I was thankful that the leaded-glass window in the door survived the impact.

  “What are you after now? Oh, it’s you.” She stepped aside to let the new arrival in. “It’s your newspaperman, Daria.”

  “Hello, Aileen.” McCarthy stepped across the threshold, filling the hall with his boundless energy. He turned his attention to me. “I heard you discovered a death up at Compton Hall. Are you all right?” News travels fast in a small town, and even faster at a small-town newspaper. McCarthy always seemed to know everything that happened before anyone else did.

  “Yeah, I’m okay.” I led him into the kitchen, the heart of my home. “Want some tea?” I fussed with getting the water cold and filling up the kettle while he sat down and watched. “What did you hear about the professor’s death?”

  He pulled out his ever-present little spiral notebook, and poked a tiny pencil out of the wire. “I heard the professor died of an apparent heart attack.” He looked at me quizzically. “Anything you can add to that?”

  I got out two mugs and pulled out an assortment of teas. He chose Earl Grey, and I went with my favorite, green tea with ginger. “Not really. There was some dried blood on his face, but Jamison Royce thinks he probably hit the corner of the desk when he fell.” I poured the hot water into the mugs.

  McCarthy frowned as he dunked his tea bag in the water. “Professor Burbridge was only forty-three years old—kind of young for a heart attack. I understand the coroner’s ordered an autopsy, routine in the event of an unattended death. I hope they don’t discover anything suspicious.” He winked at me. “Wouldn’t want you to get mixed up in another murder investigation.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m not mixed up in anything.”

  McCarthy stayed just long enough to finish his tea and cajole a favorite song from Aileen. The fact that he had a favorite Twisted Armpits song never ceased to amaze me.

  I struggled online for another hour or so before calling it quits. I could not find enough information about eighteenth-century draperies to make a historically accurate decision about the embroidery design for the curtains for Compton Hall. If only I could get my hands on the drawings Professor Burbridge had located. But the professor wasn’t going to be able to help me, or anyone else, ever again.

  Chapter Three

  I stood before the door to the library the next morning, and hesitated with my hand on the doorknob. I didn’t really believe in ghosts, but a man had recently died in that room, and I was about to go through his belongings. It seemed somehow sacrilegious, even if Professor Burbridge was not noted for his piety. Still, I needed the drawings to continue my work on the curtains. The professor was dead, but the rest of us were still alive. Life goes on, and all that. I pushed the door open and crept inside.

  The cleaning crew had done good work. The room smelled fresh and piney, with overtones of bleach. The only evidence of death was a noticeably lighter spot on the faded carpet. The mess of papers on the desk had been neatly stacked into a pile. I gritted my teeth and began sifting through them.

  I was surprised to see so many handwritten pages in the pile. Evidently the professor was slow to embrace modern technology. I tried not to pay attention to the content—if I read every page on his desk I’d be there for three weeks. All I needed were a set of drawings, or maybe a description of the drawings—I wasn’t sure exactly what I was looking for. When I’d gone through all the papers on his desk without finding anything about curtains, I turned my attention to the file boxes stacked on the floor.

  The top box was titled “Summer Term.” I knew the professor was teaching a class called American Myths for Oliphant University’s summer term, so I doubted I would find anything useful in this box. Sure enough, it contained files on lecture topics and a section with names of students. Nothing about the house, furnishings, or curtains.

  I replaced the lid and shifted the box to get to the next one. This one was titled “Library,” and held files corresponding to the various bookshelves in the room where Professor Burbridge died. Again, no curtains.

  The last box on the bottom of the pile was titled “Major Samuel Compton.” It didn’t surprise me that Professor Burbridge was researching Laurel Springs’s hometown Revolutionary War hero and esteemed ancestor of Priscilla and Ruth. It was possible that the professor’s research on the original furnishings of the house could be in this box. I popped off the lid and scanned the bulging file folders within. Their labels read things like “Sources,” “Letters,” “Battle of Laurel Springs,” and “Treason.” I didn’t find anything having to do with the renovation project.

  I replaced the stack of boxes and heaved a sigh. Where would the professor
have squirreled away the important drawings I needed to produce authentic eighteenth-century curtains?

  I checked the desk drawers, but they were filled with office supplies and boxes of old family photographs that looked like they belonged to the Compton sisters rather than Professor Burbridge. I would have loved to spend all afternoon going through those pictures with Priscilla, hearing her tell family stories. Unfortunately, I really didn’t have time for that. I did spare a few minutes to shuffle through a few of the boxes, just to get a glimpse of the old ladies back when they weren’t old. I found a shot from Ruth’s wedding, back in the late 1950s by the look of the style of the gown and bridesmaids’ dresses. Priscilla was maid of honor, wearing a stiff taffeta dress with an off-the-shoulder neckline and a full gathered skirt that fell just below her knees. Her youthful face was almost unrecognizable, except for her sweet smile, which had never changed.

  Another photo showed Priscilla standing next to Ruth and her husband in the front yard of Compton Hall. Ruth held a baby in her arms, and a young boy snuggled up beside her. Priscilla wore a tight sweater and a tweed skirt, with her long hair curled up in a bun. She couldn’t have been more than thirty, but she already looked like the maiden aunt. I shuffled through more photos, watching the two boys grow older and their father grow stouter, while in them all Priscilla stood by their side, serene and alone.

  I slipped the stack of photos back into the small box. I didn’t know a whole lot about the Compton family, but I did know that Priscilla never married. Ruth married a Philadelphia lawyer some years older than herself. I had a vague memory that he had died seven or eight years ago, while I was in college in Ohio. There was some scandal about his death, but I was in the midst of writing a thesis on the impact of French couture on American fashion throughout the twentieth century, and had no time or inclination to follow the society news from Laurel Springs. The couple evidently had two children. I’d met one of them yesterday, John Ellis. I wondered what the other son was up to.