Climate Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries Book 7) Read online

  “I don’t know, I don’t know what they want of me,” she said, gasping to get her breath.

  “There, there––”

  “Don’t send me away! Please don’t!”

  “I won’t,” Margot said, consolingly. “I promise that I won’t.”

  “Margot,” Nina said quietly, “if Harriet Crossman insists––”

  Margot shook her head:

  “Harriet Crossman doesn’t run The Candles. I do.”

  “Still––”

  “No. We’ve never turned anyone away from here. We’re not going to start now.”

  Then, to Molly Badger:

  “I’m sorry that you’re self-published. I truly am.”

  The woman looked up at her and shook her head:

  “It’s not my fault! I want to be published! Honestly I do!”

  “I know. I know.”

  “And I can write! My style is as fresh and vibrant as theirs! I can do dialogue! I have believable characters!”

  “Of course you do, my child. I’m sure you do.”

  “But—but all the real publishers, the ones that aren’t vanity publishers, keep sending my manuscripts back.”

  “Why?”

  A deep breath, another fit of sobbing, another deep breath, and then:

  “My murder methods.”

  “Your what?”

  “My murder methods. They say I have unbelievable murder methods.”

  Nina knelt, put her palms on Molly Badger’s knees, and asked, quietly:

  “What murder methods do you use?”

  This, though, occasioned a stiffening, and brought about a look of instant distrust:

  “No.”

  “No, what?”

  “No, I’m not going to tell you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’ll steal them. You’ll steal my murder methods!”

  Margot:

  “No she won’t, my dear. She’s not even a writer.”

  “I’m just a retired high school principal,” said Nina, consolingly.

  The distrust continued:

  “But everybody else here is a writer! Once I tell you how the murder is done, you might be tempted to tell the others. No. No, I’ve come up with perfect crimes. But the stupid publishers refuse to believe my murders are possible. So I self-publish, just so I can try to persuade people like Ms. Crossman to accept me.”

  “Where can we get your books, Molly? Are they in any of the big bookstores?”

  A shake of the head:

  “They’re locked in a trunk in my attic. I don’t want people actually to read them, because––”

  Nina finished her sentence:

  “––because then people would know about the murder methods.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Well,” said Margot, “maybe just to get published you can use a more conventional murder method. A gunshot to the head, or a knife in the heart.”

  “But that would be selling out! Everyone dies from a gunshot to the head or a knife to the heart!”

  “There’s always poison,” Nina said, trying hard to make the situation better, and saying desperately whatever came into her mind.

  But Molly Badger was having none of it.

  “There, you just said it yourself! There’s always poison! Strychnine or arsenic or cyanide, cyanide or arsenic or strychnine! But my characters are important to me; I love them and I want to kill them in special ways!”

  There was little to be said to that, and so the three women simply sat for a time.

  Finally, Molly Badger asked:

  “So—so can I stay?”

  Margot nodded:

  “Of course, you can stay.”

  Nina:

  “How can she stay, Margot? Harriet Crossman will be livid.”

  “She won’t know about it. At least for a time.”

  “How can you keep her from knowing about it?”

  Margot straightened slightly and turned, pointing to the end of the south wing of the plantation.

  “There’s room at the end of one of the upstairs corridors that’s set off by itself. We’ll sneak Molly into it. Molly, just try to stay out of sight for a time. We’ll have dinner sent up. Then, later on tonight, I’ll try to reason with Harriet. Surely, if you promise not to bother any of the real writers––”

  “But I am a real writer!”

  “I know but I mean one of the published writers––”

  “But I am a published writer!”

  “I know but I mean one of the By Other People Published writers––”

  “But I would be one of the By Other People Published Writers if they would just––”

  “Just believe in your way of killing people, I know.”

  “Someday someone will believe it, I know they will!”

  “And they will, my dear, I know they will. For now though, just go over there and walk through that far door. You see it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go up the staircase to your immediate right. You’ll find a room at the top of the stairs. The door will be unlocked. Do you have bags?”

  “I left them out by the main gate.”

  “Well, I’ll have someone get them and bring them up to you.”

  “You’re so kind! So kind!”

  “I know. But now get off with you, before Harriet comes back.”

  “Thank you! I will be published. And when I am published, the book will be dedicated to you!”

  “That will be my honor. Now go.”

  And with that, Molly Badger rose, straightened her shoulders and walked toward the building.

  “I wonder,” said Nina quietly, watching the figure disappear, “what her murder method is?”

  Margot shook her head:

  “I don’t know. But you have to admire her. She believes in something.”

  “Yes. Even though it’s only a murder method.”

  “Don’t disparage murder methods. They’ve made many writers famous.”

  “And generals.”

  “Now you’re being cynical.”

  “Am not.”

  “Are too. Come on. I have to find somebody to get Molly’s bags. Then we have to see how dinner is coming.”

  And they did.

  Then they did.

  CHAPTER SEVEN: FOOD, WARNINGS, AND SCREAMS AT MIDNIGHT

  The Candles Plantation had grown to pride itself on many things since being taken over by Margot Gavin and her husband, Goldmann Bristow. But no aspect of the Bed and Breakfast experience was more important to them and to their entire staff, most of whom lived and worked near Abbeyport––than food.

  The men and women of Mississippi could cook.

  Nina knew this, and, being a child of The Deep South herself, had always known it.

  But she was still somewhat taken aback when she walked into the dining room, surveyed the tables elegantly laid out with candles flickering radiantly and silverware glittering—and made her way beside the long and sumptuously endowed buffet.

  Mildred and the others had done wonders, especially given the fact that they’d all felt compelled to quit no more than half a day before.

  It was a southern feast.

  There before her, simmering in platters warmed by small gas flames, were all the great dishes of her youth, just as they’d been prepared by her mother and her mother’s mother and all the mothers before that.

  Fried chicken.

  (Of course.)

  Honey-glazed ham.

  Veal cutlets.

  (Choice of wondrously thick cream gravy or succulent scented brown gravy)

  Fried catfish.

  (Not farmed catfish but catfish fresh caught out of the magnificent Mississippi River and cooked in a special batter whose secret ingredients no Yankee had ever succeeded in prying away from anyone living below the Mason Dixon Line.)

  Golden fried jumbo shrimp flown up that morning from the coast.

  Fresh lump crabmeat.

  Oysters on the half she
ll.

  And, of course, the side dishes.

  New Potatoes.

  Mashed Potatoes.

  Fried Potatoes.

  Squash.

  Beets.

  Black eyed peas.

  Green peas.

  Green beans in mushroom sauce with delicately breaded onion rings atop them.

  And niblets of something else, a treasure that none of the northern-based cozy writers had ever seen before, and that elicited awed questions such as:

  “What is that? I’ve never seen that before!”

  “What are those things?”

  Questions which made Nina, always proud of her heritage, smile as she said, in answer to whomever she could reach with her soft voice.

  “It’s fried okra.”

  “It’s what?”

  “Fried okra. And look, Mildred has done it just right. Just enough to make the okra bits crunchy like they should be.”

  “I see.”

  “Try it. Take some!”

  And, of course, most of them, remembering okra as slimy and runny and squid-like, did not.

  There was iced tea, there were urns of freshly-roasted coffee, there was juice, and, of course, there were decanters of white and red wine.

  Nina watched as the cozy writers made their way up and back, along the buffet line, astonished at the huge amount of food that had been made available to them and certain that most of it would remain un-eaten, given what were almost certainly birdlike appetites of the ladies.

  In this last, though, she was proven completely wrong.

  The Cozy Writers ate like Teamsters.

  They plowed through the chicken, gorged on the fish, shoveled potatoes of all kind on their plates, made mincemeat of the crab offerings, devoured the veal and sopped up the gravy with roll after roll after roll after biscuit after biscuit and then as though they had nothing better to do and an infinite amount of appetite to satisfy began to wolf down slice after slice after slice of apple, cherry and chocolate pie.

  “My God,” Nina found herself whispering to Margot, who was standing with her in an equal state of astonishment, “can these women eat!”

  “We may,” Margot replied quietly, “have to slaughter some of the cattle.”

  They were not forced to take such drastic steps for, after only an hour or so of feasting and drinking, the Roman Orgy was over.

  Plates were removed from tables, some last cups of coffee or glasses of port or burgundy were poured, chairs were turned to face the dais, and Harriet Crossman had risen to address, for the first time this year, the plenary congress of the American Guild of Cozy Writers.

  “Welcome, welcome, welcome to you all!”

  Some shouts from the audience.

  “Hear, hear!”

  The sound of a few knives, a few forks, a few spoons, ratting on the tables.

  “Tomorrow morning at precisely eight o’clock—for you all know, that as mystery authors we all value precision, else how could our lady sleuths outwit the dimwitted police and catch the careful but not quite careful enough murderers––”

  Some laughter at this.

  “—at precisely eight o’clock, I shall be calling into session the fifth annual national convention of the nation’s most respected and august body of Cozy Mystery Authors!”

  “Yes! Yes!”

  Applause.

  A bit of time for the applause to die down.

  “And I am, of course, moved, as I always am, to be in the position to act as your leader. Your confidence overwhelms me; your trust brings tears to me. And, as always, I am struck to my core with feelings of insignificance in the light of the challenges facing me as your leader, as well as those facing you as members of the most rapidly rising literary genre in our nation today, if not in the entire world!”

  “Up Cozies!”

  “Yeah!”

  “Huzzah!”

  A bit more time for the rabble of shouts to abate.

  Then:

  “The tasks we face are enormous, and they grow larger and more menacing daily. You know, of course, what these tasks are, and you are as acutely aware of the threats surrounding us as I am.”

  A small hard object went whizzing through the air and struck the back wall of the dining room.

  “They’re throwing food,” whispered Margot.

  “It’s just a biscuit,” replied Nina.

  “I know. But if they start with the gravy, I may have to intervene.”

  Harriet Crossman seemed not to notice, and continued unruffled:

  “There is, of course, to begin with, the flood of self-published novels that fill digital space, and, unedited and unskilled as they are, give a terrible name to all of us and to our noble profession.”

  “Boo!”

  “Down with them!”

  “They should all go to Hell!”

  “To Hell with the Selfies!”

  Another biscuit went flying; Margot tensed visibly, but Harriet Crossman continued:

  “We are, of course, pursuing legislation that would prohibit the publication of any work of fiction by any unauthorized—and so frequently unlettered—would-be author. But these selfies, even if they know nothing about the hallowed craft of writing, do know something about hiring lawyers, and they continue to insist that The First Amendment allows them to say anything they want.”

  “That’s ridiculous!”

  “You can’t self-publish FIRE in a crowded theater!”

  The speaker nodded:

  “That is, of course, absolutely true. And we hope fervently that soon we can make the Federal Justice Department decree that no mystery novel can be published except by small independent publishers.”

  “Yes!”

  “Take it to the Feds!”

  “Put the Bozo Selfies in Jail!”

  A time passed in order for some of the rancor to subside.

  Then:

  “But that, of course, is material for our legal team. Remaining for us here, during these next days, is the daunting task of defining and maintaining our standards. Every month, every week, publishers such as those who make our own novels available, are deluged with thousands of manuscripts of Word files, all purporting to be cozy novels. And, of course, as I’m sure you know, only a small portion of this mountain of garbage is genuinely cozy material, just as only a small number of the authors have truly taken the trouble to read carefully through our by-laws to inform themselves about what a true cozy actually is.”

  “Idiots!”

  “To jail with them, too!”

  Harriet held up before her a sheet of single spaced typing:

  “And here it is, of course, our constitution as it were, our rock, our foundation. The ‘Rules for Cozies’ sheet that all of us have memorized, and which, strictly held to, will make our genre the thing of rare beauty and value that it is and has long been.”

  Silence in the crowd.

  An awed sense of reverence as thirty pairs of eyes stared at the document.

  Harriet Crossman:

  “The age of the heroine, the occupation of the heroine, the size of the cozy little town, the occupations of the eccentric and loveable characters who are friends of the heroine and who may be accused of but who cannot ever, of course, actually commit the murder, the method of the murder, the placement of the body, the time of day of the discovery of the body, the degree of bunglingness of the crotchety old police chief, the degree of stupidity of the deputy of the crotchety old police chief—these are not random elements.”

  “No! No, they’re not!”

  “Not random! Not random!”

  Harriet, shaking her head:

  “Far far from being random, they are as fixed and immutable as the chemical composition of a medical prescription or the core of an atom. They are never-changing values—we stretch them at our peril. And to disavow them, to look away from them, to stray from them—is to court disaster.”

  She paused for an instant to let this soak in.

  Then she le
aned forward over the pedestal and almost whispered:

  “The Romans too thought themselves secure and impregnable. The magnificent Roman Republic. But then they began to turn away from the values and beliefs that had made them great. And what happened? Chaos. The Dark Ages. So now, ladies—and our two gentlemen—I stand here now saying: we have before us, to be acted upon by this convention, a manuscript submission set in—Philadelphia!”

  Shocked silence for an instant, then several voices:

  “What?”

  “Philadelphia!”

  “Burn the damned thing! Burn the manuscript!”

  Arms raised, the speaker waited for calm.

  When it came she asked:

  “Does Philadelphia sound ‘cozy’ to you?”

  “No!”

  “Down with Philadelphia!”

  Then, the small reed-like voice of white-haired Rebeccah Thornwhipple, who had seated herself at the front table:

  “I was in Philadelphia once. I didn’t like it.”

  Harriet Crossman smiled down at her:

  “Of course, you didn’t.”

  “I just wanted to come home.”

  The same smile from Harriet.

  Other supporting smiles from around the room.

  “And you did come home, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “And there, living in that small town, you created your heroine. Sally Maplewhite, who has solved eleven murders in the past two years, despite being ninety-three years old and confined twenty-four hours a day to an iron lung.”

  “Hoorray!”

  “Way to go, Rebeccah!”

  “Way to go, Sally!”

  Thunderous applause.

  Finally, Harriet:

  “And yes, we admit, Rebeccah, that even among ourselves we have some disagreement. Several of your manuscripts we did have to reject as candidates for AGCW’s Novel of the Year Award because of the intense nature of their erotic content.”

  The reed-like voice again:

  “Ninety year olds can be horny too. And if the iron lung is big enough––”

  A shake of Harriet Crossman’s head stopped the argument.

  “But enough of this for now. In our major morning session, as well as in our breakout session, we shall allow all voices to be heard. But now it’s getting late. We’ve had a wonderful meal––and I think we should all give a huge round of applause to our hostess, the proprietor of The Candles—Ms. Margot Gavin!”