"Ladybug pine tree to mingle with the bumblebee…" Mingling with bees? With stingers still attached? Not a wise decision there…
Ch. Five: Six Little Indians Playing With a Hive
Rogers looked up when Daphne stormed in, obviously ruffled about something. Somehow he doubted it was the weather she was acting so much like. With a curt nod in his direction she swept up the grand staircase, presumably to her room. Sylvester entered shortly after, dripping with rainwater. "Pickett's dead," he announced. "Gather everyone to the sitting room, will you, Rogers? That's a good lad," and he vanished to find the others.
Rogers stood and thought a moment. Jennifer was sure to be in her room; she had claimed feeling ill. Sylvester would find Marianne, and Daphne had just gone upstairs. That left only Velma. He thought she'd be in the library, and walked through the games room to the library door. He paused with his hand on the knob. He was sure of himself, wasn't he? Then why, he wondered, did he feel so odd about libraries? Was it merely this one? But it wasn't, and he knew it. His parents' grinning faces shadowed by flames stole him away to another library in another time. He shook his head – this library wasn't burning down anytime soon – and opened the door.
Just as he'd thought, there stood Velma sliding a book back onto the shelf. She turned her head in surprise at the sound of his footsteps and the squeak of the door, removing her glasses to wipe the fog from them. "Yes?"
He blinked. Why should her glasses be fogged up unless… "It's, like, me. Sylvester wants all of us in the sitting room."
"Why?" She continued to clean the lenses with the hem of her cardigan.
"Pickett's dead."
The glasses hit the floor with a clatter. She dropped to her knees and began searching for them, her words spilling over each other. "You aren't joking, are you? Pickett's dead; chopped in halves, he must be, the rhyme – Sylvester found him, I suppose? I'm so sorry, I'm not usually this cack-handed – "
He suppressed a smile and walked over to pull her to her feet, retrieving the glasses for her in doing so. "Here. Don't worry about it," he told her, interrupting her protests; then, reversing the subject, "There can't be many people who've been outside recently." This caused her nearly to drop the glasses again, but she only nodded and slid them on a bit shakily. Rogers had said that casually, but part of him was put on high alert by her jitters. Had medication been a tad off, or was there another, darker reason?
No! This was Velma, she was too – too nice to be Owen. He shook his head to clear it and followed her into the sitting room, where the others were already assembled. He'd just wanted to help conserve the island's wildlife. Now it seemed the only thing running wild was death.
Sylvester stood, lighting his pipe, and turned to face the company with a serious look on his face. "I am afraid that, as you may be aware, Pickett is dead. He was indeed 'chopped in halves,' and he was indeed 'chopping up sticks.'"
"Bradley," interrupted Marianne, "the next part of the rhyme is playing with a hive. How do you propose stopping that? After all," she added with a flash of suspicion in her eyes, "aren't you the only one who has 'played with' a bee's hive as of yet?"
He was, rather oddly, calm at the accusation, "Indubitably I am, Marianne my dear."
Jennifer recoiled. "Sylvester!" she reprimanded, looking horrified. "Have you forgotten that you are the one who suggested trying to prevent the deaths? A foolhardy action such as that - !"
Rogers saw Daphne squirm uncomfortably at the word 'deaths.' "What is it?" he asked her.
Her eyes darted from his face to the fire. "Dead bodies don't move," she whispered.
Puzzled looks were exchanged. "I should hope not," Velma said thoughtfully, "and if they did I would think they weren't so dead after all. What makes you say that?"
"Freddy is in the screening room," confessed the redhead.
In an instant Marianne was gone, Sylvester close on her heels. Rogers blinked. "You're, like, kidding, right?"
"I wish I was!" she burst out. "It's awful; his eyes are open and staring, staring, as if he were watching a film, but there's not a film, just a bloody axe and handprint!" Panting now, Daphne sank back against the couch.
"Well, you needn't swear," Jennifer said primly, setting down her knitting to take a sip of now-cold tea. "Could use some more sugar," she muttered to herself.
"I wasn't swearing, the thing was dripping with it. Pickett's blood, I mean."
"And why his?" Velma asked.
"Who else's? It's an axe," Daphne said as if she was talking to a child, "and you chop things with axes. Like people. Chop, chop."
"But the handprints?" she said doubtfully, ignoring the derisive tone of voice.
"A left one on the blade, likely Owen's."
Rogers stiffened. "Shouldn't we go look then? It'd tell us something, wouldn't it?" His stomach twisted up on itself at the thought. The last thing he'd like to see would be a bloody handprint on an axe – the gory sight would haunt him, he just knew it. So he was relieved when Daphne hugged herself and shook her head vigorously.
"No, I don't want to see the frightful thing again," she whimpered. "The eyes staring at the axe, it was so terribly gruesome! No, I won't go."
Sylvester and Marianne returned. "What's that?" Sylvester queried, shooting a glance at the poem.
"The image of the bloody axe in the screening room scared Daphne half to death," Jennifer told them.
Marianne's brow knit. "There isn't an axe. The screen is blank. There was film in the projector, but no bloody axes."
"Who went into the room first?" Heavy silence followed Velma's question. Even the storm seemed to get muted. Rogers could almost taste the stillness.
He hadn't known silence to taste like corn on the cob drizzled in melting chocolate.
Marianne's face gave away the answer. "Bradley did," she said slowly, turning to the older man. "Bradley?"
He closed his eyes. "There was not a thing on the screen when I entered. Marianne was a mere few steps behind me. That does not allow nearly enough time to change the films out, as it is a regular projector."
"Are we really so petty as to fall back into the blame game again?" Daphne said suddenly. "It doesn't matter now that it's gone, so long as it is gone. As it were, I will be in my room until you can all just grow up!" And with that she stood and left.
Not a word was spoken for a long while, and the only sound was the ironically content crackling of the fire. Then Jennifer announced that she ought to be heading to bed, for she was still feeling ill, and if the others had any sense at all they would do likewise. After she was gone Velma rose and left for the upstairs level without a sound. This broke the stillness of the diminished group, which quickly dispersed amid excuses of how late it was and the like.
As Rogers turned out his light and rolled onto his side to sleep, a thought crossed his mind. Tomorrow is the last day before the boat returns…
oOo
Jennifer awoke to find, much displeased, that her intolerable headache was still tormenting her. The woman groaned and pressed the heel of her hand firmly to her forehead, praying silently over her pain. It almost seemed to increase rather than recede, so she dragged herself from bed and put on her dressing gown over her pyjamas.
Taking out her Bible, she opened to Psalms for her daily Scripture reading and spoke the words aloud. "My heart is sore pained within me: and the terrors of death are fallen upon me. Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me." She stared at the page, her gaze sliding down from verse five to verse eight. "I…I would hasten my escape from the storm and the tempest. Destroy, O Lord, and divide their tongues: for I have seen violence and strife in the city. Day and night they go about it upon the walls thereof: mischief also and sorrow are in the midst of it. Wickedness is in the midst thereof: deceit and guile depart not from – "
With a strangled cry she found she could not continue out loud. Her eyes were drawn down to verse fifteen, which she read silently, having been stripped of speech. "Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick into hell: for wickedness is in their dwellings, and among them."
For the first time in a long time tears streaked down Jennifer's normally stern face. "No!" she screamed, turning pages desperately. "Lord, forgive me! Forgive me! I repent, I repent!" Everywhere she looked words of forthcoming death and judgment leapt out at her. At last she stopped in the gospel of John. "I repent!" The words of Christ struck her full in the face. "'And ye shall know the truth,'" she whispered, fingers caressing the page, "'and the truth shall make you free.'"
And Jennifer knew.
Had Christ not said, "do not judge lest ye be judged as well"? Had she not judged Evangeline Carruthers in killing her? She had sinned.
Jennifer Morley had sinned. It had taken a rhyming murderer, an isolated island, and her own beloved King James Bible to get it through to her. She vowed to refrain from judging another again…
…if she could just get off this island alive.
Downstairs it seemed she wasn't the only one still tired. "Like, I *yawn* made breakfast since Pickett's, uh…"
"Dead," Daphne said matter-of-factly, spooning a portion of her oatmeal into her mouth.
Marianne looked about to fall asleep at the table. Jennifer hoped if she did and landed in her bowl none of the porridge would make much mess. Only Sylvester appeared to be even remotely alert. "We only have today before the ferry master returns to take us back," he tried to reassure them. "Surely the six of us can live that long?"
Or can we? It wasn't said aloud, but it was evident in each pair of eyes. Slowly the mutual gaze was broken as one by one they looked away, unsure of whom to trust.
After a socially uncomfortable breakfast the six drifted apart. Jennifer surreptitiously watched to see where the other five would go as she rummaged through her knitting kit. Sylvester and Marianne went back into the games room to continue pool. Jennifer disliked pool and thought the blonde woman was being very brazen in making advances towards a man old enough to be her father. Sylvester shouldn't be encouraging her, she thought crossly. This whole sinning business certainly wasn't helping her headache.
Now, if she could just find the right yarn…
A thud from the library made her heart leap in fear. What was going on? She hurried into the other room to find –
– nothing.
No one was there. She shook her head. "You're getting on, old girl. Imagining things," she said to herself, turning to go. As she did so, one shelf on the wall caught her eye. The books were all dusty, 'all' meaning there was one that was not. For what could have been eternity, or only a moment, or anywhere in between, she stared at the undusty book. The Way to Where You Are, by Jess Crossing. "Never heard of it." Still, it wouldn't hurt to see why it wasn't the same as the others. Even as her gnarled fingers closed around the spine, Jennifer tried to convince herself Velma probably was reading it. Where was the girl, anyway? Everyone was always disappearing around here. She tugged on the book, expecting a bookmark to fall out of it or something else to tell of some recent reading.
Instead the bookshelf swung inward with a faint creak. The woman stumbled back in shock, letting go of the book as she did so. It closed again with the thud that had first alerted her to something amiss in the library. Hurriedly she went to the glass door and opened it, spotting a familiar head of perfect red hair.
"Did Velma come along this way?" Jennifer asked, hearing the demanding tone in her own voice.
Daphne looked up from straightening a geranium. "No. At least, if she did, she's been completely silent about it."
She could see that. Though, it was far more likely the girl had found the bookshelf trick and used it to sneak away. But why? A horrible thought hit her. It was probably that confounded Rogers boy, she thought, closing the door back and remembering the scene she had interrupted. She disliked any man who would take a girl into his room and sit in such close proximity to her. On his bed, too. What a devil's assistant.
In the small room behind the bookshelf, which had nearly swept her out again upon releasing The Way to Where You Are, these sour thoughts drifted away as she realized the door in front of her was locked. By whom? Velma? Did she suspect someone would follow her, or did she merely lock it out of habit? Or, Jennifer reasoned, it could have locked itself. She would just have to unlock it. Unfortunately, she hadn't the slightest notion of how to pick a lock. She jiggled the handle uncertainly, eying the numbered keypad with venom. As expected, nothing happened. She glared at the door for a long while, and at last her determination got the best of her. She explored the room for something that would help her open the door. A crowbar would be helpful, preferably one that came with an instruction manual on how to use it for door opening. The closest she could come was a hammer. Wedging the curved claw between the door and the frame, she strained to pry it open. Ten straight minutes of this and Jennifer had to stop, sweat dampening the underside of her tight bun on the nape of her neck. "Ahh," she moaned wearily, tossing the hammer to the floor. "Let her die. What do I care?"
oOo
Daphne filled a glass with water. The gardening had taken her mind off of Owen – at least until Jennifer had poked her head out and asked in a voice verging on panicked if Velma had come by. That shattered her pretense of normality like a thin window. Sipping from the glass, she brushed the lacy curtain to the side in order to peer out the small window over the sink. She secretly hoped Sylvester was coming back from his jog. He had come by the patch of flowers, not even worth calling a garden, fuming and brooding over losing the pool game to Marianne and grumbling that he was going for a jog to wind down.
She wondered if he had passed out from exertion. After all, he was fairly overweight, and not exactly the youngest of them.
"Whatcha looking for?" Daphne turned to see Marianne leaning against the kitchen island with one hand. In the other she held a glass of wine, and one carefully penciled eyebrow was raised over a smirk.
She let the curtain fall back into its rightful place. "Sylvester isn't back from his run," she admitted. What she wouldn't admit to was that she felt a little nervous after the moving-body scare and that she'd feel better with an army general in the house.
"He's running?" The woman suppressed a laugh. Holding up the nearly empty glass, she said, "Bradley doesn't run. Lurches or lumbers, yes; runs, no." She tipped up the glass and finished off the white wine. "He's too fat," spat Marianne.
Daphne's shock showed plainly on her face. "Then why are you always flirting with him if that's the way you feel?" She left out the part about being a grasping gold-digger like that boyfriend she seemed so remorseful over.
This time the blonde outright guffawed. "Flirting with Bradley? No! I'm his – "
The word she started to say began with either 'n' or 'm'; there was no way to ascertain which because she was interrupted by the door swinging violently open. Sylvester stood there, red-faced and panting from his run. "It's – it's – hurry!" he gasped out.
Marianne's glass rattled where she tossed it in the sink, and both took off after the old general. Daphne got a sick feeling in her stomach when she saw where he was leading them.
The apiary.
"Rogers or Jennifer?" she called to the wheezing man. He couldn't respond, only slowed, doubling over and holding his side, and pointed. She had to look away.
The nurse dropped to her knees beside the body. A few moments later she confirmed that Rogers was dead. "Nasty rashes all over," she said, sobered by the latest death. "My guess is dead within seconds of the first sting."
"The first?"
"There are three sting marks. One on the back of his neck, one on the right side of his chin along the jawline, and a particularly ugly sting is swollen on the back of his upper left arm."
She shivered. "Jeepers."
Sylvester stretched, looking thoughtful. "Rogers wouldn't willingly come out here alone. Either he was forced…"
"…or coerced," finished Daphne. "And who is the only one of us we know he would trust?"
The three of them said her name together. "Velma."
oOo
Marianne's fingers flitted with the yarn she had taken from Jennifer's basket, idly knotting it together whilst the others searched for the AWOL member of their company.
"No!"
The yell of protest made her look up. Her fingers caught and in panic she saw she had knotted together a miniature noose. Quickly she stuffed it into her pocked and rose to her feet as Bradley brought Velma in with her arms held behind her back, bent over in effort to resist. Marianne gave him a look that showed clearly what she thought of his typical military-prisoner approach to the matter at hand. Jennifer and Daphne followed him into the sitting room, the former tutting nervously. "Bradley," Marianne said gently, "this isn't war. Stop scaring her out of her wits and act civilized, will you?"
Reluctantly he released her and sat. Velma instantly put a good meter or two between them and looked warily from one face to the next.
"There. Isn't this much better?" As she talked calmly she settled into the armchair again. "All five of us left alive in one room to discuss what's what and try to discover 'whodunit.'"
"But Shaggy isn't h-" Velma stopped. "He's dead, isn't he?" she asked quietly. No one answered. It wasn't necessary. "And you think I did it?"
Again, thought Marianne, response would be unnecessary when she knew perfectly well what they thought. "We don't want to jump to conclusions," she began.
"Then don't." Funny how simple everything was to her. If only this whole Owen mess was as simple as she made it sound.
"Show them where you were." All four turned to look at Jennifer, whose tight voice was uncharacteristically high. "In the library."
"You know?"
"Only that you were in the library," Jennifer said, "and then you weren't. And Daphne here stated you didn't come by that way, which is the only exit from the library that we know of."
"Stated, did she? Wrote up a formal document to go with it, I'm sure," Velma said wryly. "Well, if you're so intent on seeing it, follow me."
Jennifer gripped her arm. "I wouldn't be talking that way if I was in your position," she warned. Marianne could almost see the metallic glint underlying the woman's voice.
The girl smiled back, unruffled. "You aren't, though, and I am. You see?"
Daphne laid a hand on both of them. "Calm down," she commanded. "We don't need to be at each other's throats at every little thing. Now," her voice softened, "do you want to show us or is it something…personal…?"
Marianne tried not to think of the relationship with the dead man when Daphne said 'personal' like that.
She shook her head. "I can show – wait." Velma turned away with her head bent as if reading something. Finally, "What do I care?" she muttered. "He killed Shaggy…" She turned back. "Come on."
Marianne swiped the crumpled paper she dropped and read it to herself after the other four had moved into the hall. The cellar? And why were 'No One' and 'Everyone' capitalized? She slid the card into her pocket for further examination later. As she did so her fingers brushed the yarn noose, sending chills racing down her spine. Why on earth had she tied that, of all things? She flicked the thought from her mind and hurried to catch up.
She entered the library just as Velma pulled down on a blue book. The shelf swung inward. Somehow Marianne wasn't surprised. In a house like this one, with murder swimming about, why not go the whole nine yards and put a secret passageway behind the bookcase? They filed into the small room, which instantly felt claustrophobic with five people and the junk that was already there. "How does the door open?" Jennifer prodded.
Bradley snapped his fingers. "I'll wager we use a crowbar."
"I tried that," the older woman responded dryly. "It simply isn't done."
"Let her open it," Daphne reminded them. They grew quiet as Velma hummed under her breath, tapping out on the keypad with such rapidity Marianne almost went cross-eyed from watching. "Long combination."
She glanced up to smile at the redhead. "I know. God Save the Queen takes a while to spell out in its entirety on a lock like this one, especially when you have to use the Polybius square."
"God Save the Queen!" cried Bradley. "I shall give a rousing chorus!"
"Please don't, Bradley; you'll wake the five dead bodies upstairs with your screeching caterwaul."
"How did you know it was God Save the Queen?" Daphne looked curious.
Velma finished tapping and the lock clicked, allowing the door to open smoothly. She nodded to a stack of papers. "Every third word of the beginning sentence of each paragraph. Eventually, once you get through the whole stack, it comes out as God Save the Queen, all the way through. Six verses I thought was a little excessive for a password on a lock, but since it's the national anthem I suppose they couldn't resist all of it."
The tunnel behind the newly opened door led on for some time. Marianne had to keep wiping the sweat off the back of her neck, suddenly very aware of how humid and musty the underground could get when left unused for who knew how long. "Are we even going anywhere or is this a circular tunnel?" she said aloud to their unofficial guide.
"Yes, we're going somewhere. It's a bit of a hike, but I promise it really isn't interminable. You'll get used to it after – " She bit her lip and looked away. "Never mind. Just trust me that it does in fact come out somewhere."
"Doesn't feel it," she mumbled. Intriguing response. After what, she wondered? How many times had she come this way in the span of a day and a half? And for what purposes? She really didn't think the lot of them was that dull.
At last a door proved the end of their journey. Velma pushed it open and stepped back to let them see. "It's the cellar of one of the houses in the fishing village. That's where I was, in the village. If I'd known Shaggy was in the apiary…" She trailed off without finishing. Marianne could tell the smile was forced.
She understood. She wouldn't have let anyone else kill Evan either, but she wouldn't have ever admitted the fact. It was perfectly normal for this denial that she had killed someone special to her, even when Marianne at least knew that was really what had occurred.
Bradley looked content with this alibi and led the way back, proposing they go ahead and have dinner. "After all, with one very hungry mouth gone, we should have just enough for dinner, supper, and breakfast on the morrow. Thanks very much for showing this to us."
Velma flinched a little at the light-hearted mention of Rogers' death, but only nodded with a quick glance at Jennifer. So she really was afraid of Ms. Jennifer Morley, even if she wouldn't willingly admit it. How interesting to know, Marianne thought with a little smile.
The blonde woman thought of the card in her pocket and wondered if it was wise of the younger girl to have done so. Owen was not going to be pleased once he or she remembered the card given to her.