Waltz Macabre Read online

  Ginny looked Florida casual, like me, in slacks and sleeves, but Wanda was in another fairy-godmother dress, a green-and-blue print, and while she’d been moving like lightning she’d managed to grab a white sweater and a blue silk scarf. She looked nice. No, more than nice. She was glowing somehow.

  It was a strange meal. Not the food. The conversation. Michael managed to keep things going for a while with a neutral flow of talk, but everything Wanda said was right out of left field, and she kept dragging us back to the murder of her daughter. It wasn’t like one of those charming English dinner parties you read about in Agatha Christie, where the people were too well-bred to discuss dead bodies over food. They were thinking about dead bodies like crazy, but my dear, not a word. Here in the American diner the bodies were practically laying on the table. I was especially bothered by the chipper way she kept talking about Alison, as if she’d just gone off to Jersey for a while. Michael eventually gave up on the harmless banter and let Wanda lead the conversation. By that time, we were almost finished anyway.

  When my cell phone rang, I was almost relieved. It was Ed.

  “I’m sorry,” I told the table at large, “I think I need to take this.”

  I got up and went to the back of the diner, hovering around the ladies’ room, but the conversation was brief and I didn’t bother to go in.

  He was at The Bookery and at his wit’s end, and he wanted me. When he found out I was just across the street, he got insistent.

  “But what do you expect me to do?” I whispered.

  “I don’t know. Just come.”

  After a quick pause, I said, “Listen, here’s what I want you to do. Take Barnabas upstairs to his apartment . . . .”

  In less than a minute, I’d finished with my instructions and hung up. As I began to walk back to our booth, I saw Clay coming in the door, and behind him were Rita and Sheriff Kyle Longley. Apparently, Rita’s meeting with the Sheriff had been set to happen over lunch.

  I was already on my feet, so I went over to them. They invited me to join them in that way people have of doing the polite thing while hoping you’ll say no.

  “I’ve got my own table over there,” I said.

  Rita took a look across the diner, widened her eyes, then with a disarming smile, turned back to me.

  “Just what are you up to now?” she asked.

  “I didn’t set this up. The universe has decided to realign the planets, and I can’t do a thing about it except go along with it. So now I’m going over there to stall them, and I suggest you guys wolf down your food and be ready to leave approximately two minutes after we do. Three, if we’re moving slow.”

  I explained as briefly as possible and then left them to find a table, order their lunch and do a little fast-talking among themselves.

  Back at our table, Wanda was still chattering away, Michael had resigned himself to smiling and nodding, and Robin and Ginny were all but absent. Michael looked up at me and said, “Wanda’s ordered coffee, so I ordered some for us, too,” without enthusiasm.

  “Oh, good,” I said. DeAnn was there by then, pouring coffee, and I asked if they had any macadamia nut ice cream.

  “Vanilla, chocolate, and orange sherbet,” she rattled off, giving me a look and adding, “You know that.”

  “Chocolate. Anybody else?”

  Nobody else.

  Michael was looking at me, and I knew what he was thinking: Why are you prolonging this?

  I sat down and prepared to take my time over my ice cream.

  By the time we were ready to leave, the planets had fully aligned. I was going to blame them if this turned into a debacle.

  We walked out into the thin sunshine, under the dome of a sky that was bluer than it had any reason to be in January, and stopped to listen.

  Barnabas was playing the waltz.

  Chapter 25

  The effect was immediate. From a state of pleasant abstraction, Robin became rigid and his face showed the first expression I’d seen on it that day: shock.

  “Mother,” he murmured, and he began to walk across Locust Street like a robot.

  I ran to catch up with him, ready to pull him back if any cars were coming, but there were none. Wanda and Michael were right behind me, and when I whipped my head around to look behind, I saw Ginny hesitating in the doorway, dumbfounded.

  I left her and followed her father to the door of The Bookery. It was locked.

  The waltz grew louder and came to life; Barnabas had reached a part where the sadness falls away for a moment, just a moment, and the music becomes brisk, almost cheerful.

  By then, Ed had gotten to the door and unlocked it for us.

  Robin bumbled in and went forward alone.

  I took a moment to look around the ruined bookstore. Barnabas had re-shelved entire sections, but others were still bare, and an obelisk of books at the far wall still stood, looking unstable.

  “We’re upstairs,” Ed murmured to me, and he turned to usher Michael, Ginny and a fascinated Wanda into the shop.

  “Did a ghost do this?” Wanda asked, all agog.

  Nobody answered. We formed a single file, stepping over and around heaps of books on the floor, and followed Robin to the back of the store, where the stairs to Barnabas’s private apartment were. The door had been left open, and Robin was following the sound of the piano as if he could see the notes in the air.

  We climbed the stairs and went through the open foyer door, straight ahead. The side door that went directly into the kitchen was closed. By the time we reached the parlor and could see Barnabas at the piano, the music was winding down to the final, dying chords. Without taking notice of us, Barnabas lifted his hands from the keyboard and sat staring at the sheet music magazine on the rack before him. His cat, Ishmael, was huddled under the piano looking wary and unhappy.

  Ginny finally followed us in, but I didn’t see Ed.

  “That was my mother’s,” Robin said, going to stand beside Barnabas. “This was her music. I recognize it.”

  I didn’t know whether or not they knew one another, and it didn’t seem to matter.

  I heard Barnabas murmur something about the estate sale.

  Robin looked at Ginny, shocked. “You sold our things?”

  “Papa, I had to,” she said, coming forward.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Michael sit in one of the wingback chairs, and I took the other one. We made eye contact briefly, then tried to settle back, watching.

  “You sold our private things.” He got a cunning look on his face and added, “But I’ll bet I know what you didn’t sell.” For some reason, I shivered. The harmless old man was suddenly creepy, even scary.

  “What do you mean, Papa?” she asked with an undercurrent in her voice.

  “Secret things. You didn’t sell our secrets, did you? No, you wouldn’t do that. You’re a deceiver, just like her. I must say Geneva, I haven’t been happy with you lately. The past belongs in the past. You shouldn’t be dredging it up. Moving me out of the house won’t change a thing. I can still see what’s going on. I’m not stupid, you know. I know about that girl. I warned you. Mother warned you. We told you a long time ago that you would always be unlucky, but you wouldn’t listen. You can’t be led, and now look what’s happened.”

  Ed came quietly in and sat on the end of the sofa near me, making himself very small. We shared a quick glance, then looked at the other end of the room, where Ginny, Robin and Wanda stood in the glare of the windows next to Barnabas.

  “What girl?” Wanda asked. “My daughter Alison? What do you know about it, Robin?”

  He looked at her suspiciously. Then, slowly, obviously lying, he said, “I don’t know anything at all. Ask Ginny about it.”

  Wanda looked at Ginny, blinked, then decided not to ask.

  Barnabas gently closed the sheet music magazine, but left it in the rack. He hadn’t taken any interest in what the others were saying. He was still absorbed in the music. “I was drawn to this,” he said, to
uching it. “I bought the entire collection, but this one fascinated me. It was the only one out of chronological order, and it showed much more usage than the others. And it opened itself to the waltz the first time I looked inside.”

  “She played it over and over,” Robin said. “After Papa left. While we were still at the plantation, and even more after we moved into town. It was a comfort to her. It brought back good memories, to try to smother the bad ones. I asked her one time what she liked about it, and she told me she had danced to it once, with somebody special. She said it told the story of her life: A sad waltz. Beautiful and elegant, but tragic. You remember your grandmother playing it, don’t you, Ginny?”

  Ginny didn’t answer. Wanda did. “Oh, yes,” she said comfortably, “I heard it many times.”

  Ginny rounded on her. “You couldn’t have. Grandmother was dead by the time you moved in next door.”

  Wanda smiled weirdly. “Oh, I heard it all right. Sometimes night after night. I always thought how sad it was, and how beautiful, but I knew it wasn’t really there. It was coming from a place between heaven and hell that we’re not supposed to know about. And then it got worse. Lately it wasn’t beautiful anymore. It was terrible. I knew something had gone wrong. I suppose that’s why I wanted help from Mr. Darby-Deaver, but he hasn’t done any good. So I’ve had to take care of things on my own.”

  Before anyone could ask her what that meant, Ginny moved toward the piano and made a grab for the sheet music. Robin whisked it away and held it out of her reach, where she couldn’t get at it without physically attacking him. For a moment, I was afraid that was going to happen.

  “Now Ginny,” Wanda said complacently, “that’s not going to help. Behave yourself.”

  Ginny turned on her looking savage, then controlled herself and looked back to Robin. “Father, you’re confused,” she said tensely. “And this lady is even more confused. Let’s not make things worse, now. Let me take you back to the senior living center. Then I’ll do what I can to help our neighbor, here.”

  “I know exactly what I’m talking about,” Robin said. “You leave this lady alone. You think she’s involved, but she’s not. You’ve been wrong about everything all along.”

  “’Tell Geneva to leave him alone,’” Wanda quoted in a queer little voice. “That’s what Phoebe said last night. You really shouldn’t have treated your father this way. Even your grandmother agrees.”

  Robin stared at her, befuddled, and she prattled on. “We had a séance, you know. At your house. Your mother came to us through Taylor and cautioned Ginny to leave you alone. I suppose you’ll be getting out of that nursing home now. Isn’t that nice?”

  Robin’s confused stare glazed over, and he said, “Mother didn’t care about me. She was talking about him.”

  “Oh,” Ed said, forgetting to be invisible. “You mean the man who was buried at Cadbury House? She doesn’t want his identity known?”

  “No,” I said. The pressure of their eyes suddenly staring at me wasn’t enough to spare me from the pressure of the entity in the corner, on the far side of the piano. I wouldn’t look directly at him, but he hovered just inside my field of vision as I stared at the group on the other side of the piano, and he sent waves of emotion toward me. I could feel it. He crouched in the shadows, a deeper shadow holding me in a tractor beam. “Not him. The new Barclay Lodge. The hopeless love, of the same blood as Phoebe’s hopeless love. History repeating itself. You’ll always be unlucky in love, you know. Like your grandmother.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Ginny said icily.

  Wanda began to ask questions, but Robin cut her off, talking to his daughter as if they were alone. “Didn’t you think I’d know? The diary. I found it years ago, and now Mother has spoken to you directly, and still you won’t listen. I let you have Mother’s bedroom for a reason, you stupid girl. All that heavy furniture; it’s been in the family since before I was born. I was forbidden to go into her rooms, so of course I would sneak in and snoop around every chance I got. I found the diary years ago.”

  “The hope chest!” Wanda said. “Ginny told us about the secret compartment where she found the diary.”

  “There’s no diary in the hope chest,” Robin said. “Where could you have a secret compartment in a hope chest? A false bottom? It would have been obvious, and hard to get to, once the chest was full. And the diary needed to be hidden. It was full of terrible things. Why did you even tell them about it?”

  “I didn’t mean to,” Ginny said weakly. “But it’s been the pattern of my life. It’s all I know.”

  “You let her possess you,” Robin said. “You let it happen. I think you wanted it to happen. And when she died and I let you move into her bedroom suite, I made a deliberate decision: leave things exactly where they were. The diary. The gun. The photographs. All in the secret place, safe from prying eyes.”

  “The armoire,” I said groggily. There had been something about it that had drawn me to it.

  “Of course the armoire,” Robin said. But he wasn’t looking at me. He was still lecturing his daughter, Ginny. “I knew right down to the hour of the day when you found it; I could tell just by the look on your face. The long hours you spent in the master suite, ‘getting settled in.’ Reading her thoughts, being infected by her. It was always a danger with you. I saw it in you from the moment you began to walk and talk, child, and I thought if you could see the sins of your grandmother, it would be as a parable to you. Instead, you let it ruin you.”

  There was movement in the shadow, but I couldn’t look. My body was frozen. I couldn’t even lift my hand. But I could talk. I raised my voice and said, “We need the diary. It’s in the armoire.” I heard slight movement in the dining room, as I expected. “The piece of furniture that will never fit into the apartment you’ve rented, but which you refuse to give up.”

  Ginny seemed to snap out of it, and she made a move toward her father. “Come on. You’re going back to the home.”

  Barnabas stood and placed himself next to Robin, facing Ginny. I noticed for the first time how gaunt Barnabas had become. His bearded cheeks had fallen in, and his eyes were almost feverish. He made a half-turn toward the shadow that seemed to be pulsing behind him, and I wondered if he could see it too. Nobody else seemed to. The way he turned back to Ginny, his shoulders hunched as if he were protecting himself, made me sure he knew the man was there, behind him, waiting, listening. Under the piano, Ishmael’s body was tightly drawn together, ready to run, his fur standing up.

  “Garrison,” I said.

  Ginny whipped around. “What did you say?”

  Wanda said, “She’s talking about your grandfather.”

  “He’s here,” I said, looking directly at Ginny. “It’s time to let him rest. It’s time to settle him in his grave. Let the truth come out.”

  “What are you saying?” Wanda asked me.

  “You need to confess,” I said, talking only to Ginny. “Otherwise, he will never leave you alone. He will drive you insane. You need to let it go, whatever the cost. The diary. The gun. Alison’s missing camera, if you still have it. You need to give them all up and tell us the truth. That you followed in your grandmother’s footsteps and let love drive you to murder. Only instead of killing your lover and your husband, you killed your rival, Alison Wickert. The woman Clay Brownlee fell in love with. He’s very much like his great-uncle, isn’t he? His hair, his eyes, his build. Those photographs your father mentioned. They’re of Barclay, aren’t they. You looked into those long-dead eyes and saw what your grandmother saw, and when you saw Clay Brownlee, you felt what your grandmother felt.”

  “He betrayed her,” Ginny said. “She gave herself to him, and then he wanted to throw her away. And now she’s telling me that Clay would do the same thing to me. But I don’t care. My whole life has been wasted, picking up the leavings of my grandmother’s life, and now, for the years I have left, I want a life of my own. I want him. No matter what it costs.”


  “You can’t have him,” I said. “You can never have him.”

  She came at me like a wildcat.

  Chapter 26

  Ed had let Kyle, Clay and Rita in after the rest of us had gotten upstairs, of course. He’d taken them in through the kitchen, and they’d been standing in the dining room with the door open, listening.

  Michael stepped in to protect me, and suddenly Ginny and I were surrounded by big strong men pulling us apart. When she recognized Clay, she whimpered something like, “Not you,” and crumpled. Kyle had no trouble taking her away. But before he left, he turned back to the room and said, “I heard something about a gun?”

  Robin moved. He handed the sheet music to Barnabas matter-of-factly and came walking forward, suddenly looking twenty years younger, and no longer confused at all. “The diary is much more deadly than the gun,” he remarked. “I’ll take you to them. They’re at our house on Redbud. No warrant will be necessary,” he added almost cheerfully.

  “I’m much more interested in the gun,” Kyle said. “Am I going to be able to put any bodies on it?”

  “Two. It should be three, but I’m sure the bullet that killed Barclay Lodge is no longer in him. He was given a decent burial. But my father’s corpse, out in the fields, probably still lies near a bullet, and of course poor Alison was killed with the same gun. My daughter is very susceptible to symbolism,” he added obscurely.

  He moved to go with the Sheriff and his daughter. At the last moment, Sheriff Longley turned and said, “Why don’t you come on along with us, Clay? I’ve got deputies on the way, but until they get here, I might need another man.”

  “I don’t want him to come,” Ginny said pathetically.

  “Too bad,” Clay said, and he walked out with them.

  * * * * *

  “He still calls Garrison his father,” Michael remarked.

  We were all on our feet, still staring after them. Barnabas stood against the window behind his piano, holding the sheet music in both hands.