Silver Scream : A Bed-and-breakfast Mystery

“Mother,” Judith said patiently, “Ingrid Sack—I believe her married name was Grissom—has been dead

for ten years.”

Now it was Gertrude’s turn to stare. “No kidding? I

wonder how she looked in her casket. All tarted up, I

bet. Funny I didn’t hear about it at the time.”

There was no point in telling Gertrude that she’d undoubtedly read Ingrid’s obituary in the newspaper.

Read it with glee, as the old lady always did when she

discovered she’d outlived yet another contemporary.

Judith was used to her mother’s patchy memory.

“I’m stuck,” Judith announced, flipping the pages of

the American art calendar she’d been given by her

cousin Renie. August’s Black Hollyhock, Blue Lark-

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Mary Daheim

spur by Georgia O’Keeffe was a sumptuous sight compared with the stark, deliberately mundane realism of

Louis Charles Moeller’s Sculptor’s Studio, which heralded October. Vibrant natural beauty versus taxing,

gritty work. Maybe the painting was an omen. “Come

Halloween, we’re going to be invaded by Hollywood.”

Gertrude pulled a rumpled Kleenex from the pocket

of her baggy orange cardigan. “Hollywood?” she

echoed before gustily blowing her nose. “You mean

like the Gish sisters and Tom Mix and Mary Pickford?”

“Uh . . . like that,” Judith agreed, sitting down at the

kitchen table across from her mother. “A famous producer is premiering his new movie here in town because it was filmed in the area. He’s bringing his

entourage—at least some of it—to Hillside Manor.”

“Entourage?” Gertrude looked puzzled. “I thought

you didn’t allow pets.”

“I don’t,” Judith replied. “I meant his associates.

Speaking of pets,” she said sharply to Sweetums as the

cat leaped onto the kitchen table, “beat it. You don’t

prowl the furniture.”

Sweetums was batting at the lid of the sheep-shaped

cookie jar. The cat didn’t take kindly to Judith’s efforts

to pick him up and set him down.

“Feisty,” Gertrude remarked as Sweetums broke

free and ran off in a blur of orange-and-white fur. “You

got to admit it, Toots, that cat has spunk.”

Judith gave her mother an ironic smile. “So do you.

You’re kindred spirits.”

“He gets around better than I do,” Gertrude said,

turning stiffly to watch Sweetums disappear with a

bang of the screen door. The old lady reached into her

SILVER SCREAM

5

pocket again, rummaged around, and scowled.

“Where’d my candies go?”

“You probably ate them, Mother,” Judith said, getting up from the table. “There are some ginger cookies

in the jar. They may be getting a bit stale. It’s been too