Chapter 47

It was lunch time before Vera came padding down Beatrice’s stairs and into the kitchen.

“Good morning,” Jon said.

“Hmph, it stopped being morning about an hour ago,” Beatrice said. “Good to see you’re still alive.”

“Thanks,” Vera mumbled. “Do I smell coffee?”

“Yes, indeed. Sit down, Vera,” Jon said.

“We just finished lunch. Plenty left,” Beatrice said, and pointed to the chicken noodle soup she’d made with the leftovers of the previous night’s chicken dinner.

“Oh, that looks good,” Vera said. Jon brought her a bowl of the soup and her mother brought her a plate of biscuits. The two of them sat down at the table with her.

“You look great. Very tan,” Jon said.

Vera smiled. “Thanks. I feel pretty good except I’m worried about Sheila. She’s not herself.”

“Of course not. A concussion is nothing to mess around with, then add to it all the trauma. . . .” Beatrice said.

“Have they found out who killed that poor woman and her lover?” Jon asked.

“I don’t think so,” Vera said. “But you know there were some very strange goings on. Mmm. The soup is so good. It almost feels, I don’t know, cleansing, after all the food I’ve gorged myself on.”

“What do you mean by ‘strange’?” Beatrice asked, leaning in a bit closer as she placed her elbows on the table.

“Well, the security guy thinks he’s a vampire, for one thing,” Vera blurted.

“What?” Jon and Beatrice said at the same time.

“Apparently, he told Randy this. You see, they went on this date.”

Beatrice didn’t know how to react to this. Of course the man must be certifiably crazy. She couldn’t find words.

“Nonsense,” Jon said after a few beats. “There’s no such thing as vampires. If the man was serious, you must report this back to the company. He’s not right in the head.”

The words “no such thing as vampires” rolled around in Beatrice’s old brain. That’s what people always said about ghosts, too. And she knew they existed. Her husband’s ghost had been with her up until a few years ago. Even now, though she couldn’t see him like she used to, sometimes she still smelled him or felt him close to her. But vampires? That was a different matter. She remembered reading about people who thought they were vampires. Wasn’t it a syndrome? Yes, she remembered—it was called Renfield’s syndrome.

“But like Sheila said, if the man thinks he’s a vampire, he may think he needs to kill,” Vera said.

“Did you tell the investigators all of this?” Beatrice asked.

“I didn’t know it at the time. I did tell them about Theresa Graves,” Vera said, and dipped her spoon back into the bowl.

“Who?” Jon asked.

“She was a woman on the cruise. She’s a big-time scrapbooker. Sheila had a meeting with her. And anyway, she came to our photo class on the island and she and this creepy guy heckled Sheila,” Vera said. “So I told the agents about it. They seemed pleased. They wrote it all down.”

“Heckled Sheila?” Beatrice said. “What?” It seemed that not everybody liked Sheila after all.

“Very juvenile,” Vera said.

“And just plain weird. Why would a grown person do such a thing?” Beatrice said.

Vera shrugged. “You know, I asked myself that a lot on this cruise.”

“I told you they were nothing but trouble,” Beatrice said.

“I know you did. But we’re home safe and sound. So at least there’s that,” Vera said, and took a large drink of her coffee.

“Between the weird security chief and the backbiting competitive scrapbookers, not to mention the juvenile ones, and all of the drinking, it was quite an eye opener. My God, the excess. And then the mention of Sharon Milhouse made me feel, I don’t know, creeped out, or something,” Vera said. “I’m so ready for a peaceful, relaxing Christmas break.”

Jon and Beatrice exchanged looks of concern. “What?” Vera said. “What else is going on? Don’t tell me there’s been another murder!”

“No, now calm down,” Beatrice said. “Sheila doesn’t know this yet, but when Steve came home a few days after they both had left, he found a threatening postcard in their mailbox.”

“What kind of threat? I mean, what did it say?” Vera said, her brows knitting.

“‘Die, die, die, scrapbook queen,’” Beatrice said.

Vera gasped.

“There was something else on the note. Bryant is checking it out and the forensics team in Richmond is looking at it. It may have been blood,” Beatrice said.

“Blood?” Vera paled.

“I’ve talked with Steve and Bryant about it. We’re all wondering who would have it in for Sheila.”

“Bryant? You talked with Detective Bryant?”

“Hmph. More than I wanted to,” Beatrice said, sitting back and crossing her arms. “But he hasn’t been too cocky these days.”

“That’s suspicious in and of itself,” Vera said. “Does Sheila know about any of this?”

Beatrice shrugged. “I don’t know if Steve’s told her about it yet. But we decided not to tell her while she was on the cruise. Thought she had enough to think about.”

Vera thought a moment. “Maybe so,” she said. “As far as I know, Sheila has no enemies. Unless it’s someone from afar that we know nothing about. I mean, I know everybody she does. I can’t think of anyone except Sharon and that was so many years ago.”

“I suppose Bryant is looking for her,” Jon said.

Beatrice nodded. “I hope he finds her, too.”

Vera’s spoon clanked on her bowl as she scooped up the last of her soup. “I’m sure he will. I’m sure she’s somewhere far away and there’s nothing at all to worry about. I’m putting it completely out of my mind. It’s Christmas and a joyful time of the year. I’m going to do my best to give Lizzie a good one.”

Beatrice stopped herself from rolling her eyes at her only daughter. Try as she had over the years to vanquish the Scarlett O’Hara streak Vera had, it had never gone away. Sometimes she could almost see her daughter as Vivien Leigh, putting off today what she could do tomorrow.

It had served Vera well most of her life. This time Beatrice wasn’t so sure.