The Grim Steeper Read online

  “His girlfriend? I know about her, Jason. I saw her here.”

  “Oh, okay. Yeah. I saw him talking to her a few minutes ago. I’m going to catch up with him.”

  “I also saw him talking to another person, a guy, dark haired, average height.”

  “Crap.” He scanned the street, but the dean had disappeared. “I’ll have to find him. I need to speak with him. Talk to you later!”

  * * *

  Rose sipped a cup of tea at the table in the tearoom kitchen as Sophie, downhearted, cleared the last of the clutter, in and out from the front of the tearoom. It had not gone as her granddaughter had hoped and worked toward, which was unfortunate, since it was one more “failure”—not really, but that was how she would see it—that she had caused. Rose wished she could impart the wisdom of over eighty years, that few things were as important as they seemed at the time, that failure was never final, that success in life was often not felt until the twilight years. Sophie was young but, burdened with a mother who seemed to deliberately misunderstand the stellar value of her daughter’s work ethic and talent, she mistrusted herself, underestimating her own value.

  Sophie toted in another box and set it down on the kitchen counter, unloading the empty treat plates and trays to wash by hand in the deep stainless steel sink.

  “Honey, sit for a moment,” Rose said, patting the table opposite her. The kitchen blinds were drawn and just the light over the sink was on; the kitchen felt cozy and intimate.

  “I have some stuff to do, Nana,” Sophie replied, taking off her stained chef’s coat and draping it over the back of a chair. “I want to get it all done and go to bed.”

  “Sit! I need to talk to you.”

  Sophie obeyed, sitting down in the chair opposite her grandmother and slipping her phone out of her jeans pocket, glancing down at it. She was likely waiting for a text from Jason. She was worried, Rose knew, that the events of the evening had damaged whatever little reliance remained between the dean and Jason Murphy. She was blaming herself for not noticing Thelma’s creative interference, which Rose would deal with on the morrow, and for speaking up in her friend’s defense, ill timed as it was. “Honey, listen to me,” Rose said.

  Sophie looked up from her phone, then laid it screen down on the table, folding her hands and paying attention.

  “You did everything you could to make it all work out. Jason’s career does not hang by the slim strand of a tainted cup of tea. Jason is a good man; even if things go badly, he’d never blame you for something so silly. I know Thelma did this somehow, but in the end it won’t be what hurts Jason’s career, nor will it be your harangue at the chairwoman. It will be someone who sabotaged him at the college, or the dean, too lazy to find the real culprit behind the changed grade.”

  “That’s what Jason said. He’s not going down without a fight.”

  “He’s a winner, honey, and he’s like you; never count him out.”

  Sophie sighed. “I guess you’re right. I feel like I let him down.”

  “You didn’t. Put that thought right out of your head. I’ve learned the hard way that you can’t single-handedly make or break someone’s life. If I could, I’d have changed my relationship with your mother long ago, but it has to be a two-way street.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I handled Rosalind all wrong when she was a teenager, minimized her feelings. Didn’t take her worries about her weight seriously. I feel like I created, in a way, her obsession with her looks, her aversion to fat. If I could go back, I’d change things. I have tried to talk to her in the years since, but I believe now that it has to come from her. She has to be prepared to talk and to listen. I’ll keep telling her how much I love her. Someday I hope she’ll come around.”

  “I don’t understand what that has to do with this.”

  Rose thought for a second. She was tired, and had to take her time to sort her thoughts out. “I guess I’ve been thinking about your mother a lot lately. You’re right; it doesn’t have much to do with this. What I’m trying to say, honey, is that we’re all doing the best we can in a difficult world. You did the best you could, and Jason knows that. If the dean is going after Jason, it won’t be because of salt in his tea or a miffed board member.”

  “Okay, message received,” Sophie said, springing up and kissing her grandmother’s cheek.

  * * *

  Laverne and Sophie cleaned up the last of the debris, finding paper napkins in the Japanese maple’s branches, cupcake liners in the hedge and even an upset teacup on the ground under the tree. Gilda and Cissy were tidying over at Belle Époque, but Sophie was in no mood to talk to anyone. She was tired and cross and resentful. Thelma Mae Earnshaw, despite what Nana said, had been a thorn in her side for years. Just when Sophie thought they had everything worked out, the woman got into a snit and went at it again.

  Laverne drove home with some treats in a container for her elderly father. Cissy left, too, without a word to Sophie, whether out of embarrassment over her grandmother’s trick, or upset about something. As usual. Nana was already in bed softly snoring, Pearl curled up with her, so Sophie tiptoed upstairs and sat cross-legged on her bed hoping for a text or call from Jason to tell her what happened with the dean.

  It disturbed her deeply that Jason was being blamed for something he didn’t do. The unfairness of it rankled, as unfairness always had. When she was a kid, her brothers could do no wrong. While at the Hamptons, if they tracked sand and seaweed all through the house, it was “boys will be boys.” But her mother expected Sophie to be ladylike and demure, when all she wanted to do was follow her brothers and do what they did. So it was always, Sophie, you’re getting filthy, or Sophie, can’t you stay out of the dirt for two minutes?

  There was a noise outside, the vroom of a car engine and the sound of a car door closing. She looked at the clock; 10:03. Could that be Jason? She jumped up, dashed to the window that overlooked the front of the tearoom and looked down. If it had been him, he would have parked at the curb and she would see the car, but she didn’t. And yet . . . there was someone out there.

  She squinted into the dark; there was a car parked across the street, but it wasn’t in the pool of light from the streetlamp, so she couldn’t tell much about it except that it was smallish. She then noticed movement near the maple tree in front of Auntie Rose’s; it was like . . . like two people embracing? Or dancing? Weird. But she didn’t care to accidentally spy on anyone’s love life, so she turned away from the window and went back to her bed, checking her phone again, hoping for a text saying Jason had sorted everything out with the dean.

  He texted her that he had tried to talk to Dean Asquith again, but the man avoided him. Instead Jason went to Julia’s tearoom after the stroll to talk to his department head about what to do, though she didn’t have any answers. The dean was apparently making his announcement the next morning, and Jason hadn’t even had a chance to talk to him, present his case and hear what proof, if anything, the dean had on him. Asquith was now not answering his phone, so Jason was going to get up early and go directly to the dean’s home and confront him.

  She could feel the frustration and worry in his words, and sent back a note telling him it would all work out (even though she wasn’t so sure it would) and that she’d call him in the morning to find out how it went. She hoped he was doing okay, not worrying too much. What she didn’t say was that she’d worry enough for both of them.

  She’d only been back in Gracious Grove for a few weeks, and here she was worried about losing Jason again. When this mess was over, she needed to have a real conversation with him about their relationship. How did you start, with the ominous phrase we need to talk? That always seemed to indicate the end of the party for one person or the other. But she needed to know, was this all one sided? She knew he cared for her, but did he really care for her. The difference was subtle but real. He could care for her as a fr
iend, or he could care to take it one step further, back to real dating.

  All she knew was how she felt every time she saw him, and whenever he took her hand. It was electric. He was special to her, even more so for all the time they had spent apart. But there was so much she didn’t know about the years between them saying good-bye, and her coming back to Gracious Grove last spring. She knew one thing about his relationships in between those times; he had been engaged a couple of years before, but she didn’t know to whom, or how it ended.

  They definitely needed to talk.

  She heard another noise and jumped out of bed, dashing to the window again. It was Gilda dragging a garbage can out to the street. Garbage collection must be the next day! She’d entirely forgotten and so had Nana, but with the stuff she had tossed from the tea, she couldn’t afford to miss the week’s trash removal.

  She slipped on a hoodie, grabbed a flashlight and tiptoed down the stairs to the side door, then scooted out. In the time it had taken her to do that, Gilda had already gone back in, and Belle Époque was closed up tight, lights out. She had a strange sensation that there was someone else around, but shivered and shrugged it off.

  She trotted around back to the darkest corner of the backyard, shone the flashlight on the little wooden cabinet in which the garbage can was locked, and worked the combination lock, snapping it open. The cabinet kept the garbage can safe from foraging raccoons; the lock was overkill, in her estimation. Though who knew? Raccoons, clever little thieves, might develop number recognition and opposable thumbs. Then Nana would have to use a padlock with a key. She snickered as she pictured a raccoon bandit spinning the tumblers while another shone a penlight on the lock.

  She dragged the plastic can down the lane toward the street, the sound echoing in the still, cold night air. Slowly, carefully, she made herself move at a snail’s pace, afraid that the sound would awaken Nana, who habitually left her bedroom window open two inches except in the dead of winter. Finally, she got it to the road. Their street had no real curbs, just a grassy boulevard and then the pavement. So she checked to be sure the lid was on tightly, and wiggled the can until it was secure on the dew-dampened grass. If you didn’t do that, a random dog or raccoon could easily tip it over, and she didn’t want food all over the place.

  She turned away and saw something glinting in the corner of the graveled section of Auntie Rose’s front yard near the Japanese maple. What had she and Laverne missed, another teacup? She shone the flashlight that way and saw a piece of fabric with what looked like a shiny button. What the heck?

  She moved toward it, speeding in one second from unaware to horrified. By the brilliant beam of the flashlight she saw Dean Asquith’s face, eyes wide, drool hanging out of his open mouth, his suit jacket ripped and blood seeping through his torn white shirt. He was twisted, contorted, his hands clutched into claws, and he was dead . . . very, very dead.

  Chapter 9

  She shrieked, the sound echoing in the still night air, then bolted back along the lane into the kitchen, not waiting to run upstairs. She called 911 from the kitchen phone, taking the cordless handset back outside with her as she gabbled the facts to the dispatch, answering questions she didn’t remember later. Lights came on inside as the wail of sirens scythed through the cold clarity of the night. A dog howled in time with the keening sirens, a duet of mourning and horror.

  Nana flicked on the light and opened the front door of the tearoom as she knotted the tie of her robe. Pearl sleepily stuck her nose out the door at her feet. “Sophie, what’s—”

  “Nana, go back inside!”

  “Why? What’s going on?”

  “I f-found Dean Asquith.”

  “Is he okay?” Nana stepped outside anyway, pushing Pearl back in with her slippered foot as the police car screamed up to the curb. Gilda came running out of the front door of Belle Époque, shrieking unintelligible questions. “Oh, my dear lord, the poor man!” Nana said, staring down at him. She clasped her hands together, whispered something, then looked up at Sophie. “Are you okay, sweetie?”

  “I am,” Sophie said. She glanced to the police car. Thank goodness! It was Wally Bowman getting out. He was an old friend and now Cissy Peterson’s boyfriend, someone she could trust and explain the situation to. “It’s cold out here tonight, Nana; you should get back in where it’s warm.”

  But as Wally approached, Nana was examining the scene with a surprisingly calm demeanor. Sophie looked down, forcing herself to face it, the overhead light illuminating the scene much more clearly than had her small flashlight. Hours ago Dean Asquith was alive, vital, the center of things in his academic world, and now he was dead.

  She focused on individual features, trying not to let the fear overwhelm her. Drool: There was still a string of it dangling from his mouth. Surely that must mean he was killed recently? His body: Why was he contorted so? His fingers: She shuddered at the way they were cramped, like he suffered agony. And the blood seeping from his chest: Where did that come from? She didn’t dare touch him. This was a murder scene, and she mustn’t move an inch. “Wally! I’m so glad it’s you,” she said, looking up at the officer.

  “Sophie,” he said, with a curt nod. He muttered something into the radio that was clipped by a nylon thingie that looked like a carabiner to his epaulette, then studied her. “Are you okay? You look pale.”

  “I’m okay.”

  Wally knelt beside the dean and studied him, then stood back up. “Ma’am, if you could go back inside, I’ll talk to you in a moment,” he said to Nana. She stepped back in the tearoom without a murmur. Wally turned to Sophie. “You and I are going to move back to the street, and you can tell me what happened.” He took her arm in his gloved hand and guided her to the street near his cruiser, as another cruiser pulled up, lights flickering. “Wait here a moment,” he said, then approached the other car and spoke to the female officer who climbed out. She nodded curtly and radioed in.

  Sophie explained everything that had happened from the moment she served the last customer to the second she first laid eyes on the fluttering piece of fabric that had drawn her to the dean’s body. As she explained what went on, she kept thinking that it was going to be a long, awful night.

  * * *

  Thelma was having a nightmare—or at least she hoped it was a nightmare—that she was being attacked by the clucking chickens from the farm she had been raised on. Gabble, cluck, peck! She felt like she was swimming, then someone was hauling her up out of the water and . . . she opened one eye. Gilda leaned over her, babbling about something, spit raining down from her dentureless mouth while she shook Thelma by the shoulder.

  “What are you quacking about now?” Thelma asked, swinging her feet over the edge of the bed and squinting at the clock. “It’s eleven at night, you stupid hen!” she growled.

  “Thelma, oh, Thelma, we’re in so much trouble!” Gilda, frizzy hair partially restrained by prickly curlers, waved her hands around and plucked at her fuzzy pink housecoat.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Over at Auntie Rose’s! You remember you wished someone would die there sometime so they’d be known as the murder tearoom and not us? Well, you’ve wished it right into being!” Gilda’s eyed widened as she stared down at her employer. “You wished for this to happen! And the salt . . . oh my! Those packets will have my fingerprints on ’em because I’m the one who snuck them into their stuff. And that awful, awful man, the college dean . . . I told him off. They’ll be coming for me soon!”

  Thelma, now fully awake, stared up at her employee. “I don’t understand one word in twenty that you’re cackling!”

  Once Gilda calmed down and explained, Thelma tottered over to the window, joints popping and feet aching, and stared down over the street scene below, cruisers with top lights blinking cheerily, and lights ablaze over at Auntie Rose’s. “What did you say? Who was it that was killed this time?”

&n
bsp; “That college dean, the mean one who helped Rose exclude you.”

  Thelma felt a chill, like a goose had walked over her grave. “You talking about that dean feller that was running the whole shebang?” Reasoning it out, she decided that as usual, Gilda had gotten it all muddled around in her brain and the previous night’s kerfuffle with the dean had added to Julia Dandridge and Sophie Taylor’s shutting them out of the whole deal. “He’s dead? Come on, you’re imagining things. Had a nightmare. Go back to bed, you chicken-headed idiot.”

  And then there was a rapping at the door, thud, thud, thud, like in a horror movie when death comes knocking. Gilda squawked and flapped her hands, dashing around the room clucking in anxiety.

  Thelma swallowed hard. What if Gilda wasn’t imagining things? “We didn’t do anything but put some salt in a couple o’ sugar packets, that’s all. Nothing else,” she said. “A little salt never killed anyone.”

  Or could it? She wasn’t sure. But she did remember when the dean drank the salty tea and made a fuss over at Auntie Rose’s. Sophie Taylor had looked directly at her as she stood in the window gloating over the fuss. That girl . . . she had her grandmother’s sharp eyes, for sure. Wouldn’t take her but two minutes to point the shameful finger of blame at poor Thelma.

  Thud, thud, thud again. “We’d better get going,” Thelma said. “You go down and hold ’em off.”

  “Me?” Gilda squawked again, jumping like she’d been scalded. “Why me?”

  “Because you’re already decent. I’ve got to get my housecoat on and splash some water in my eyes. Make some tea, while you’re at it. My mouth feels like the bottom of a barnyard boot.”