“Hail to the wycann,” came from Bernice.
“Hail to the-” I stopped and looked at my script. Was
“Hail to the goddess,” they chirped in unison.
On the other hand, maybe it was possible.
Matavious cranked up the volume on his portable player and the music to the “Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy” filled the room.
“I drink from the Goblet of Life.” Bernice raised the Styrofoam cup to her lips and drank deeply.
More likely it was the Goblet of Martinis, I thought cynically.
It was time for the dance of the muses, and Oretta groaned her way down from her bar stool. But before the dance could begin, Bernice dropped the cup, opened her mouth, and uttered a noise that was a cross between a belch and a gurgle.
“What, dear?” Oretta said. “Bernice! Are you all right?”
A stream of greenish-yellow bile shot from Bernice's mouth and splattered Oretta's chiffon-covered bosom.
“Ohmygod!” Oretta screamed.
Bernice's eyes opened wide as if she had seen something that surprised her, then she doubled up, clutched her stomach, and crashed to the floor.
I ran across the stage, pushed past the stunned actresses who were frozen in their spots, and dropped to my knees next to the woman a second or two before Matavious Clopper scrambled onto the stage. I moved back a little to give Matavious room to work, but not before my nose was assaulted by the nasty smell of gin, cinnamon, and something else-almonds.
“Call an ambulance, somebody, quick!” Stanley Roadcap yelled frantically. “For God's sake, Matavious, you're a doctor. Do something!”
“I'm trying,” the chiropractor snapped. His fingers were on Bernice's throat, trying to find a pulse.
Bernice was frighteningly still, her mouth bright red.
Speculations began to fly. “Heart attack… stroke… too much estrogen… not enough… my doctor says… ptomaine… stomach flu… like when my appendix burst…”
The white cup lay on the floor where Bernice had dropped it. I bent over and sniffed it. It had most definitely contained spiced cider laced with gin. And there was that other smell, too. Almonds. “Don't anyone drink the cider,” I yelled, as I struggled to my feet. I moved quickly to the front of the stage. “Please, people, don't drink the cider!” To prevent panic, I added, “It might be spoiled.”
My warning was picked up by the people gathered below and carried to the back of the room. Those people who held cups quickly put them down and stared up at me with anxious eyes.
“Somebody call the police,” I urged.
“I already did,” Ginnie said, at my side.
It occurred to me that nothing could have been added to the cider urn, since so many people had drunk from it without ill effect. It must have been something she brought with her. “Where's Bernice's thermos?” I asked.
Her gentleman friend stepped forward, holding it up. It was seized from his grasp and passed from one person to another until it reached me. No point in worrying about fingerprints now, I thought, and quickly unscrewed the lid. I sniffed, expecting the same odor I'd smelled in the cup Bernice had drunk from, but as far as I could tell, the liquid in the container was straight, unadulterated gin. Whatever had sickened Bernice hadn't come from her thermos.
The ambulance arrived in only a few minutes, but it was too late for the EMTs to do anything for the poor woman.
People stood around in small groups, talking quietly to each other, until Luscious Miller and the county coroner arrived. While I watched Henry Hoopengartner open his black bag, I couldn't help but wish he was more like the last coroner, who, despite all his faults, had at least been a doctor.
Hoopengartner pronounced Bernice dead, glanced at his watch, and added, “Time of death: nine- eighteen.”
As Bernice's body was placed upon the stretcher, I took Luscious by the arm. “I need to talk to you,” I said softly, so as not to alarm the people around us. “I suspect Bernice was poisoned. You should get the dregs in her cup analyzed. Also the contents of her thermos and the cider urn. I don't think you'll find anything in them, but they should be checked.”
Luscious looked shocked. “You don't think she was murdered, do you?” I could understand his astonishment; Lickin Creek's police force seldom faced anything more violent than domestic disputes and bar fights.
“It's quite possible, Luscious. Smell this.”
I had picked up Bernice's cup with a pencil, and now I held it to his nose and let him take a whiff. He recoiled.
“I think it's cyanide. And it didn't get in there by accident,” I said. “I doubt very much that she chose to commit suicide this way. Also, I happen to know that a few days ago Bernice received a letter threatening her life.”
“She did? How do you know?”
“She showed it to me this morning. I'm terribly afraid I didn't take it seriously at the time.” I had to swallow my pride to admit this, but guilt was weighing heavily on me. I retrieved my purse from the corner, found the letter, and handed it to Luscious, whose lips moved as he slowly read it.
“The misspellings might help you identify the person who sent it,” I suggested.
“What misspellings?” Luscious asked.
I sighed. This wasn't going to be easy. “Do you have any idea who might have wanted Bernice dead?” I asked him.
He shook his head. “Lots of people in town didn't like her, but I don't know anyone who'd want to kill her.”
I watched Stanley Roadcap follow his wife's body out of the auditorium. “How about her husband?” I asked.
“Stanley?” Luscious looked truly shocked. “Impossible. I went to school with his younger brother.”
Half the people who had been in the auditorium had already left, while the others milled around, destroying whatever evidence there might have been.
“Luscious, this is murder. You need to take charge,” I told him.
Panic flared in his pale blue eyes. “I don't know what to do,” he admitted.
He appeared to be defeated before he started. I stepped forward and raised my hands to silence the remaining onlookers. “Can someone tell us who put this cup on the stage? The one Bernice drank from.”
Heads turned, voices buzzed, but nobody came forward.
“Maybe you saw someone near it?” I asked, but hope was fading.
A man pushed through to the front of the crowd.
“There was dozens of people up there before the rehearsal started,” he said. “Some was making wreaths and had to move out of the way. I saw a couple of people with brooms, sweeping up-”
A woman interrupted. “Reverend Flack moved the Boy Scout flags.”
“That wasn't Reverend Flack,” someone shouted indignantly. “It was the custodian.”
What it came down to was no one in the group had actually seen anyone place the cup on the stage.
Primrose Flack raised her hand, caught my eye, hesitated for a minute, then said, “I saw Bernice pour something into the cup from her thermos-right before the rehearsal started.”
“Thank you, Primrose. Please, people, think about it,” I insisted. “Perhaps after you go home, you'll remember something. If you do, please call Luscious immediately.”
Marvin Bumbaugh climbed the steps to the stage. “I want to know why you'uns is asking all the questions,” he demanded of me. “Where's Luscious?”
Luscious stepped forward to my side. “I asked Tori to help,” he said firmly, “because with just Afton and me on the force, we don't have the manpower to do two things at once.”
I would have been prouder of him if I hadn't smelled the brandy on his breath.
To my surprise, Marvin took Luscious's alcohol-fortified outburst mildly. “Just find out what happened to her,
