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7:45 a.m. Sunday, August 30th, 1992
SAM hauled a huge, heavy tray up the back stairs. For the third time that morning. True, Quill’s tray hadn’t been this loaded down, but it had been heavy enough and half as big as Sam herself and awkward to carry. His sparse tray had been the first, and she had managed it. Thankfully Turner had decided to come down and eat in the kitchen and console Mrs. Trimble over Talia’s murder. But there was no way Quill would’ve lowered himself to eat with the help. Even though the man was merely another of Keener’s employees.
When Sam had shown up in the kitchen to find out what she could do to help the cook, she’d found Mrs. Trimble all a twitter trying to decide what to do with the dining room still sealed off. Normally she started setting out a breakfast buffet right away, for Turner and Quill, who were both early risers, she’d explained. But where should she put the food now, since she couldn’t use the dining room? Perhaps in the parlor?
The problem had been solved for her with Turner charming her into letting him eat right there in the kitchen and everyone else requesting trays to be sent to them. And of course the job of taking those trays wherever they needed to go fell to Sam. Up to the second floor with Quill’s to the man’s suite, and then again with a tray loaded with two full meals—one for Barbara Keener and one for Stephanie—up to the mother’s room, because the two were staying close. Sensible under the circumstances. But their tray had been so weighty that Sam had almost tumbled back down the stairs. A fine finish that would have been. She hardly had to worry about the murderer if she were going to get herself killed without any help.
At least she was getting a chance to observe how everybody was holding up. Turner had looked troubled, which was unusual. Quill had been irascible, but prickly appeared to be his normal nature. And he was still suspicious of Sam. Barbara Keener, on the other hand, seemed scared underneath a brave face while her daughter had been nervous with anxiety and excitement. Stephanie had professed to be eager for the police to come so she could observe a real criminal investigation at first hand. Her mother, however, didn’t appear to be looking forward to the imminent invasion.
After delivering breakfast to one set of Keeners, Sam had been able to take a brief break to rest and eat something herself. She’d wanted to talk to Bailey during that respite, but he hadn’t been around, and she had not had the energy to track him down. Even Turner would’ve done, but by then he’d left to go do something else. And then the time had come to take a tray to the other two Keeners.
Restored by the rest and a nice cup of coffee, if not by Mrs. Trimble’s concept of conversation, now Sam was hauling another heavily loaded tray up the stairs to the second floor. Elaine and her son usually slept in and breakfasted late, but normal routine was being disrupted all over the place. Quill hadn’t taken his early morning stroll and now this.
With both her hands full and the heavily loaded tray barely balanced, Sam knocked on the door with her forehead. The door remained closed, and there was no response from within. Not wishing to stand there forever in her precarious position, she yelled. “Your breakfast is here, if there’s anybody left alive to eat it.”
A faint ‘wait a minute’ reached her ears, though it was more like five before the door finally opened and she found herself face to face with Elaine’s son. Stanley took the tray from her, which was completely unexpected.
He cocked his head at her. “You’re new, aren’t you? That was fast.”
While he walked over a few steps to put the tray down on the nearest table, Sam stood there looking at Elaine Keener propped up in bed and gazing into a hand mirror. Unfortunately that gave the woman time to notice Sam was still there.
Elaine paused in her primping and gazed across the room. “You didn’t need to shout so. You could have brought the whole house running, and I’m not ready to be seen in public.”
Of course a maid didn’t count. “Everyone is in their own rooms, and the way this house is built, it would take an ear-splitting scream to attract somebody’s attention, and even then I doubt it would be heard outside of this end of the house.” Sam wondered who would come running if Elaine screamed anyway.
The widow put her mirror down on the bed and frowned. “You’re awfully impudent for a maid. We employ you to do things like bring breakfast and unpack our bags, not to speak your mind. By the way, you should have brought two trays, one for each of us, and mine should be the kind with the little legs so I can eat in bed.”
“I brought your food. Feel free to eat it wherever and however you’d like.”
“That attitude won’t do. If you can’t do any better, I’ll make sure you don’t work here again.”
Sam squinted at the woman. “Not that I’d want to work here again, but I was hired by one of the executors, and it would be up to them whether I could come back.” With that, and a half smile for Stanley, she turned and stalked away down the hall.
As she took the back stairs down at a rapid clip, she weighed the two of them as suspects. Well, she dismissed Stanley as not having it in him to kill Talia in such a violent way, but she could see him poisoning his father and Oak. Elaine made for a better murderer though, and not just because Sam didn’t like the woman. The widow would’ve been capable of all three murders if she had believed they would benefit her and her son, but had she? Sam also had to wonder if the woman would’ve lowered herself to murder a maid. Could mother and son have been in it together?
Aside from the different methods used to murder Keener and Oak on one hand and then Talia on the other—poisoning versus garroting—they felt as if they’d been committed by two different killers to Sam. But at least one of those might be dead.
It was possible Oak had poisoned his employer and then taken his own life in the same fashion, or Talia might well have poisoned them both and then been murdered by someone else for some other reason. But whoever had killed the maid was certainly still alive and in the house. Sam had taken Turner, Padget, and Mrs. Trimble off her list, but there were still six suspects.
There were the four family members and Quill. And while Dobson might be in the clear for Brandt’s murder, he could’ve killed Talia. Though the question would be why. Why had anyone wanted to kill the maid?
They had maybe as much as twelve hours to investigate before the contemporary authorities took over. Of course Bailey would still want to leave before the police arrived, but Sam couldn’t. Not while the murderer or murderers remained unidentified. Anyway, it wasn’t as if they could arrest her and Bailey because they didn’t have any ID. She knew that much of how the police of this time operated. Their presence would however put an effective end to her own efforts to catch the killer. Or killers.
She hadn’t been able to come up with any good theory for Talia’s murder by the time she’d returned to the kitchen to find Mrs. Trimble preparing another tray. At least this breakfast was spare like Quill’s had been. It had to be for the lawyer Dobson.
The cook was just putting a pot of tea next to a cup and saucer, and the only other items on the tray were a rack of toast and two small ramekins, one of raspberry preserves and one of orange marmalade. It wasn’t what Sam would call a proper breakfast.
Shaking her head, Mrs. Trimble confided in her as she pushed the tray toward Sam. “That Mr. Dobson says he’s busy in the study, and he wants to eat in there. I’d tell him that’s no way to do it—how will he enjoy his food if he’s working? Except I have to suppose he’s my employer now, so I couldn’t, not if I want to keep my job. Though I’m sure I don’t, depending on who if anybody is actually going to live here.”
As her eyes began to glaze over, Sam smiled at the woman. “Don’t worry—your food is too good to be ignored. If you have to worry about anything, it should be that he’ll make some mistake with his legal papers because he’s concentrating on his breakfast rather than his work.”
“Which is just why everyone ought to come eat properly in the dining room, and they would if that presuming Padget hadn’t locked the place up, saying nobody could go in there. And I’m sure most of them aren’t like that nice Turner to come and eat in the kitchen, but perhaps I ought to have made up a buffet in the parlor. And that would’ve been better for you, not having to go up and down those stairs.”
Sam saw her chance to get away. “Well, I won’t have to climb any stairs to take this tray to Dobson in the study.”
Mrs. Trimble nodded. “Or if not the parlor, the terrace might’ve worked, on a nice day as this looks to be. Maybe that’s what I’ll do for lunch.”
Scooting off with the relatively light tray in her hands, Sam wondered what she would make of the lawyer. She had only seen him so far as a blur from beneath the sofa. Of course, since he was an attorney, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to tell much from his expression, but anything she could learn would be better than nothing. But if Dobson had had any motive to murder Talia, he wouldn’t voluntarily tell anyone about it.
She took the tray through the back of the kitchen and down the corridor running through the staff section and past the back door and turned down the hall that led to the west end and the study. And all the while tried to think of motives for murdering a maid. It was obvious why Elaine Keener might have killed Talia before her husband had died. Brandt’s death would have weakened the woman’s rationale for murdering the maid though. That really left only the idea that Talia had known something that the killer could not allow her to share. But that was too vague to be helpful. And where and when was Talia to have come by such dangerous knowledge?
Sam found the study door ajar and pushed her foot against the bottom to shove it open wide. Advancing into the room with the tray, she could only see the top of Dobson’s head, as he was bent over a bunch of papers on the desk and scribbling notes on a large yellow pad with his briefcase standing open to one side. The man didn’t even bother to look up until she was trying to find somewhere to set down the tray. Unfortunately, there was no clear space to do that.
He peered at her for a long moment before saying anything. “You must be the other maid, the one Mr. Hope hired. You’ve got quite a distinctive face, Miss...?”
“Samantha.” She didn’t like the way he looked at her, and she went ahead and set the tray down on top of his papers, then stepped back from the desk.
“Mr. Hope didn’t mention how he found you. I presume it was through some agency?”
She nodded vaguely and hoped it would do. Of course lawyers liked to ask questions, but she didn’t want to answer any. “I have a lot of work to do, sir. If you don’t mind.” She’d backed away a few more steps and started to turn when he called to her.
“We need to talk, Samantha, and this would be as good a time as any. Why don’t you close the door so we won’t be disturbed? I’ll just have a few questions to ask, and it won’t take long.”
It hadn’t really been a request, but Sam did not bother to close the door. Instead she rested a hand on the back of a chair and gave him a polite look. “I don’t think it would appear appropriate to be alone with you and the door closed, Mr. Dobson. Anyway, whatever it is you have to talk to me about, I’m not going to mind anybody overhearing.”
The lawyer nodded. “Quite right. You’re right to consider appearances, and I wasn’t thinking. As you spend a lot of time on your feet as it is, feel free to sit and relax while we talk.”
Sam nodded and sat just on the very edge of the chair she had been grabbing. She wondered what in the world he might want to discuss and how swiftly she could think of some excuse to get away. Only, it might provide her with some sort of clue if she listened to him and asked the right questions. Whatever those might be.
Dobson smiled at her, just like a salesman getting ready to make his pitch. “I’m sure you know I am an executor of Keener’s estate, essentially one of your employers. I wanted to talk to you about staying on here on a permanent basis.” He eased back his chair and stood, stepping to the window to stare out as he continued. “The estate will maintain this place as a residence for Mr. Keener’s family, and we will want to hire a new full-time maid. If you would be interested in continuing to work here, I imagine it would only be fair to offer the position to you before we look any further afield.”
Sam didn’t have any interest, but she wanted to keep the lawyer talking. “I don’t know, Mr. Dobson. Would that be fair to the other women who wanted the job? Offering it to me like this?”
He turned from the window and smiled vaguely as his gaze wandered around the room. “You’re already familiar with the house and the family. That puts you ahead of anyone else who might apply.”
She wondered if knowing the Keener wives and their children was supposed to be some kind of incentive to take the job. It wouldn’t have worked.
Nodding to himself, Dobson walked around the corner of the desk. “We would’ve liked to staff this place with the same people, if it had been possible, and we want Padget and Mrs. Trimble to stay if they will. For the family’s sake. If they do, you would be working with them.”
Fat chance of federal agent Padget taking Dobson up on that offer. Sam started to shake her head, and then everything happened at once. The bronze globe paperweight that had been sitting on the desk was in the lawyer’s left hand and being swung down at her skull, just as some subconscious instinct propelled her out of the chair.
The blunt instrument went wide, but Dobson’s descending arm slammed into her shoulder as she dodged. The blow sent her sprawling forward to the floor, and with a whoosh all the air was knocked out of her. And still Sam reacted faster than the lawyer. He stomped down on the hem of her skirt while he shifted the globe to his right hand. If he had meant to keep her pinned down as he struck, it backfired. The material tore as the makeshift alteration she’d made to the waistband came apart, and she slipped free from the skirt. She shot forward while the paperweight whistled through the air behind her.
Sam sprang to her feet and ran. She’d reached the open door by the time Dobson started after her. And she took to the hall happy to have been wearing her regular clothes under her uniform. She knew he would almost certainly kill her if he caught her, but she didn’t plan to let that happen.
After all, she was faster than the lawyer, and all she had to do was reach help. Turner or Padget or even Mrs. Trimble would do. But she really wanted Bailey. She just had no idea where he was, and now was not the time to check. So she ran down the hall to the staff section and hoped he would be the help she found first.