The Connecticut Corpse Caper

4 The Dinner Bell Tolleth

4

The Dinner Bell TollethEven if the eccentric hostess was in absentia, dinner embraced the wacky. Hematite-black name cards with silver scroll-like print had been placed around a long rectangular mahogany dining table, but everyone played illiterate and sat beside those he or she felt most comfortable with.

Diffused lighting was provided by two ornate silver candelabras on the table, two Victorian floor candleholders in the westernmost corner, one four-arm wrought-iron candleholder chandelier suspended in the center of an unusually narrow room, and four two-tone brass wall sconces. Save for the sconces, plasma-red candles burned brightly in all.

Cutlery was early American chunky-clunky while the china had to have been made especially for the occasion. Or Halloween. The color combination again was hematite-black and silver and the motif was ectoplasm. What else could the protoplasmic substance design in the middle of the plates be? Okay, maybe a San Francisco fogbank. But if you considered the black linen napkins were secured by tiny nooses instead of napkin rings, well, ectoplasm it had to be.

If I didn’t know better, I’d have bet dollars to donuts that Aunt Mat was lurking behind one of the dark-grained panels lining three walls. I’d also bet if I looked away, sparkling ginger-brown eyes darting with cyclonic speed would appear in one of six landscape paintings; either that or eyes belonging to one of several animal heads on the far wall would twinkle with merriment. Actually, nix that. If she were around, she’d probably be hiding behind one of several large colorful square and rectangular plates lining a handsome Italian-styled credenza (fashioned of alder possibly, but what would the queen of Swedish assemble-yourself furniture know). Spindly Beatrice would lift one and there she’d be, grinning and yelling, “Surprise! Yolk’s on you!”

Save for the retro platters, the furnishings and colors were old-world, nice in their day, but tired and stuffy now. Aunt Mat had never been into modern, but she did have eclectic and sometimes bawdy tastes. Missing were nineteenth-century bordello layers of reds, blacks and purples, and velvets and satins.

Beatrice did her lumbering thing and heavy brown orthopedic shoes clop-clop-clopped across a gleaming hardwood floor. Graceful was not a word in this woman’s vocabulary. She poured more Chardonnay into heavy multi-colored goblets reminiscent of a Kandinsky abstract painting . . . gone wrong.

Everyone had dressed up in eveningwear, the sort appropriate for a dance club more than a fine family dinner at a local castle. It seemed we females had sent telepathic messages down the long second-floor hallway: do slinky and/or glitzy and pink. How scary was that?

We’d finished the soup and salad courses -- mushroom and mushroom respectively. There must have been a sale on the button ones at the supermarket. Or maybe they’d been picked at a local farm. It wasn’t hard to envision Porter the household cook traipsing around with a large wicker basket, giving edible fungi a critical eye. The man, who was as round as a teepee and about as tall, loved his food as much as it loved him. Porter, by the way, wasn’t his real name; Aunt Mat thought it made a better cook’s name than Ralph.

“So May-Lee, what are your thoughts? Do you find us a behaved, civilized group this lovely November evening?” Prunella chuckled, fingering a long gold bird-claw pendant she’d been wearing earlier. The talons were decorated with tiny diamonds and the pendant, like the thick ropey chain, looked old and expensive. Aunt Jane Sue, a bird enthusiast much like Prunella, would have loved the expensive, antique piece. She’d introduced me to the world of birds when I was ten, and while I’d learned a few things about the feathered creatures, I’d never developed the same passion.

The antique shop owner smiled prettily, showing tiny pearly teeth. “For the moment, Prunella darling. For the moment.”

“Why wouldn’t we be behaved or civilized?” Linda asked curiously over her wine glass.

May-Lee’s smile evolved into a diva’s smirk. “Dear Matty’s been known to entertain guests from . . . curious walks of life.”

I felt as confused as Linda appeared, but decided to stay out of whatever odd little face-to-face the two ladies were engaging in.

Adwin glanced at me and I offered the barest of shrugs. He leaned close and whispered, “Is it just me or is there tension?”

“There’s tension,” I whispered in return. “But does it stem from jealously, rivalry, or simple, mutual dislike?”

He crossed his eyes in response and reached for his wine.

“What’s everyone gonna do with their share?” Rey asked, fiddling with a thin fuchsia strap that insisted on falling off a lean shoulder, her eyes glassy from two triple-ounce drinks tossed back in the last twenty minutes. But who was counting?

That question was bound to come up at some point. I flourished my hand like an over-enthusiastic student. “I’d set up my own business-”

“You mean your own weather station,” Adwin said with a wave of a sesame seed encrusted breadstick. (Was it my imagination or did it resemble a severed limb?)

“No, not at all. I’d produce one of the screenplays I’ve always considered writing. There are four floating around in my head. A sci-fi, comedy, and two dramas. The money would help make a creative future reality.”

Weather forecasting hadn’t been my initial career choice. I’d studied film for two years, hence the interest in scriptwriting, but decided the egos that tended to congregate in that industry would be too much too endure for long. Thinking it might be better to save the world, protect endangered species, and contribute to the termination of global warming, I moved into environmental studies. It was a noble thought that had never materialized. Instead I got an admin job at a local cable station so student loans could be paid off. Two years later I stepped from behind a desk in front of a camera.

I watched Beatrice plunk a basket of crusty mushroom-shaped buns in front of Adwin. The perpetually sour expression (which did nothing to enhance a face that could not launch a thousand ships but could well sink them), suggested she had a lot to say if someone would listen. “I’d also go to the Galapagos Islands for a couple of months.”

“With two-hundred thou?” my cousin snorted. Evidently Beatrice wasn’t the only graceless one.

Adwin grinned and grabbed a bun. “Jill loves those turtles-”

“Tortoises.”

“Whatever. She loves those green guys with the shells that move like they’re on Diasepam.”

“That’s so cool.” Linda.

“Actually, that’s so hot -- as in tropical hot and not Miley Cyrus hot.” He offered a seductive pose more feminine and credible than any model’s pose I’d ever seen.

It was tempting to grab the butter knobs shaped like sleeping porcupines or sea urchins -- round and spiky -- and throw them at my beau, but he’d probably catch them between those thin yet sensual lips and offer a victory cheer. Maybe the silver butter dish shaped like an antique apothecary mortar would have a better effect. I grabbed it and mimicked a toss.

Adwin feigned a duck.

“What about you, Jilly’s boyfriend?” Rey asked, her eyes twinkling and not necessarily from merriment. She spooned two tiny ice spheres from a teeny silver bucket into her glass.

“I’d go solo and start up my own restaurant, and ask Jill to move in with me,” he stated.

“With two-hundred thou?” my cousin snorted, sounding like a firing propane burner in a hot-air balloon.

I saw myself stuffing one of those ice spheres up a slim nostril any moment -- whoa. Move in with me? Six blocks separated our homes, and with our crazy schedules, peculiar leanings and inclinations, living together had simply never been a topic of conversation before. Of course it was also highly likely we both boasted aversions to commitments and concessions.

“I’d buy a cottage for me, my brother and sister so that we could spend time together during summer and fall, and holidays,” Linda offered. “And I’d go back to school.”

“For what?” my cousin snorted.

Adwin grabbed my hand as it reached for the ice bucket and shot a dour look.

I sighed and chugged Chardonnay as if it were Gatorade and I was a boxer who had just done ten rounds. You hadda love that Beatrice. She had my glass refilled at the last gulp.

“Journalism. And some sort of forensic course.” She wasn’t the least put off by her best friend’s mocking. The poor thing was probably accustomed to it.

My cousin made a yeah-right-whatever face. “I’d have a total makeover and get a trainer. And buy a huge new wardrobe.”

I snorted. “What a-”

Playing peacekeeper, Adwin squeezed my thigh and gave a quick let’s-play-nice look. Hey, what was wrong with a harmless little scrap between cousins?

“That might be fun,” Prunella said, looking thoughtful. “But I get enough exercise hiking and fencing. No, I couldn’t waste money on extravagances like that. I’d have to support my bird sanctuaries and the like.”

“How charitable,” Rey cooed, crossing her eyes when Prunella turned away.

“And you, boyo, I wager you’d finally move to Ireland and buy a wee spot of land to raise sheep and grow some Campanula rotundifolia and Globeflower,” Prunella said with a bad Irish-English accent, giving her brother’s lean shoulder a playful poke.

“Yes, and you’d be coming with me,” he grinned, grabbing her thin sun-burnished hand and squeezing it. He, too, sported an accent, but he’d had it since my arrival. Unlike the accent his sibling just used, Percival’s was consistent -- and fake -- but it fit his affected air perfectly.

May-Lee let out some sort of grunt, or maybe the wine had traveled down the wrong passage. She offered a quick smile and pressed a napkin to Joan Crawford lips: full, well-defined, and primrose red.

Aunt Mat did favor odd people, as May-Lee had pointed out, and this brother and sister were about as odd as they got. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end as if it had been veiled by an artic sea spray.

Thomas almost cracked a smile. That must have hurt.

“What about you, May-Lee darling-dear?” Prunella asked with a sugary smile. “You’ve been unusually quiet all evening.”

May-Lee imitated the smile. “I believe I’d partake of a grouse and/or partridge shooting expedition. I’ve always wanted to experience the thrill of a hunt under various cover types, with a flusher or a pointer at my side. What fun!”

The Sayers sister paled and took hasty sips of water.

“What about you, Jensen?” Rey asked, leaning forward to look at the barrister seated at the end of the table, hacking a huge chunk of ice-cold butter. Give her points for attempting to engage everyone in the group.

He lay the butter knife aside and smiled tightly. “I’d buy the helpmate a diamond bracelet and a three-month trip to Brazil, a country she’s always wanted to visit.”

To get her out of my hair, I could imagine him adding if he were sitting at a table with intimate friends. Something in the way his kelp-green, jellybean-shaped eyes darkened, just for a blink, suggested it wasn’t love he felt for the woman. His Queen’s English accent was flawless, but then three-plus decades in England would lend itself to that; so would elocution lessons and a sincere desire to present a perfect image.

Thomas, seated on the opposite side from Jensen, nodded to Beatrice and Hubert, who had entered with silver salvers. Saved by dinner. You could almost hear the fleshy man’s “phew” as he methodically chewed a sizeable piece of butter-slathered bun and fingered a cluster of tiny red splotches at the base of one ear. He’d acquired more marks since the late afternoon and served as the perfect ad for Poe’s “Red Death”. Looking at him made me want to scratch and I asked Hubert if there was Calamine lotion to be had. There wasn’t.

Flank steak, scalloped potatoes and sautéed mushrooms kept the mushroom theme constant. Dessert was a mushroom-shaped mousse that tasted vaguely of, well, yes, more ‘shrooms. “Curious” was what Adwin’s furrowed brow suggested as the thick chilled dessert slid along his discerning tongue.

Hopefully Porter had other motifs and ideas in mind for the week. Or was this part of the test -- how long someone could eat fungi prepared five dozen ways before he or she screamed “enough!” and ran into a raven-black night?