vision. Ignoring Sweetums’s claws, which were affixed to her slacks, she carefully opened the back
door.
In the darkness, she could make out two male figures near the driveway. They were arguing loudly, and
it looked as if they were about to come to blows.
The wind caught just a few words, sending them in
Judith’s direction: “. . . trashed what was a solid piece
of . . .”
“. . . bitching when you got paid as if you’d come up
with the whole . . .”
“. . . Why not? I had to virtually rework the damned
thing . . .”
The door blew shut, clipping Judith on the arm.
Sweetums continued to claw her slacks. With an air of
resignation, she opened a can of Seafarers’ Delight and
spooned it into the cat’s dish.
“Enjoy it,” she muttered. “It looks better than the
way Mother described those blasted truffles.”
There was a sudden silence in the kitchen. Winifred
must have returned to the living room. Judith took a
deep breath before rejoining Joe.
“Why?” The single word was plaintive.
Judith flinched. “I had to tell them something.”
Joe took a long sip of Scotch. “What really happened?”
Judith explained about the disgusting appearance of
the truffles and how Gertrude had—not without reason—flushed them down the toilet.
58
Mary Daheim
“Great.” Joe leaned against the counter. “How about
telling the truth for once?”
Judith sighed. “I know,” she said, taking the green
salad out of the refrigerator. “Maybe I should have. But
I didn’t want to be liable for the loss of the truffles and
I didn’t want to get Mother in trouble.”
“You could have explained that your mother is
gaga,” Joe said. “That would have been the truth.”
“Well . . .” Judith swallowed hard. “It’s hard for me
to admit that sometimes she is gaga. And in this case,
what she did made sense.” Taking silverware out of the
drawer, she gave Joe a bleak look. “What did you tell
Winifred?”
“That I’d check around,” Joe replied. “Without
charge. Tomorrow, I’ll them what really happened.”
“Oh.” Judith arranged the place settings, then
started out of the kitchen. “I want to check on something, too.”
Peeking around the corner of the archway into the
living room, she counted noses. Everyone was there.
But Chips Madigan and Dade Costello looked as if
their clothes were half soaked by rain.
Judith kept out of the visitors’ way as they lingered
over the social hour. Hillside Manor’s rule, though
never hard-and-fast, was that the hour was just that—
from six to seven. Most guests were anxious to leave by
then for dinner reservations or the theater or whatever
other activity they planned to enjoy during their stay.
The visitors from Hollywood were different. Apparently they dined later. Or maybe they never dined at
all. Perhaps they really were lotus-eaters, as depicted
by the scribes.
SILVER SCREAM
59
But they did leave eventually. Sometime between
eight-thirty and nine, the company trooped out to their
limos and disappeared into the October night. Joe
helped Judith tidy up the living room, which looked
not very much worse than it usually did after a more
conventional gathering of guests.
There was something different about the downstairs
bathroom, however. It wasn’t obvious at first. Judith,
who had started sneezing after dinner and fervently
hoped she wasn’t catching cold, sneezed again as she
rearranged the toiletry articles by the sink. A bit of
white powder floated up into the air and made her
sneeze again.
Judith looked at herself in the mirror. Ellie Linn had
almond-colored skin. Winifred Best’s complexion was
the color of milk chocolate. Angela La Belle was fair,
but not that fair. None of them would have worn such
a pale shade of face powder.
“Joe,” she called from the entry hall, “come here. I
want you to see something.”
Joe, who’d just dumped what he estimated to be
about three hundred dollars’ worth of uneaten hors
d’oeuvres into the garbage, came in from the kitchen.
“What is it?” he asked.
“You used to work vice years ago,” Judith said,
pointing to a small film of white powder at the edge of
the sink. “Is that what I think it is?”
Joe ran his finger in the dusty residue, then tasted it.
“Yes,” he said. “It’s what you think it is. Cocaine.”
“Damn!” Judith swore. “I suppose it’s to be expected.”
Joe nodded. “I’m afraid so. Too many Hollywood
types get mixed up with this stuff.”
60
Mary Daheim
She sighed. “Well, it’s only for one more night.”
He chucked his wife under the chin. “That’s right.
Face it, they’re probably not the first guests you’ve
hosted who’ve had a habit.”
“That’s true.” Judith gave Joe a weary smile. “I’ll
just be glad when they’re gone. I prefer normal people.”
Joe lifted an eyebrow. “Like the gangsters and superstar tenors and gossip columnists you’ve had in the
past?”
Since all of the guests that he mentioned had been
murdered or involved in murder, Judith shuddered.
“No, not like that. I was thinking of the Kidds and even
the Izards. They’re the ones who should be here this
weekend, not this crew from L.A.”
Joe shrugged. “As you said, it’s only for one more
night. What could possibly happen?”
Around two A.M., Judith was awakened by muffled
noises from somewhere in the house. The guests, she
thought hazily, returning from their revels. When the
Flynns had gone to bed around eleven, the Hollywood
crew had not yet come back. But, as with all Hillside
Manor guests, they had keys to the front door. Judith
rolled over and drifted off again.
But moments later louder noises made her sit
straight up in bed. She glanced at Joe, who was snoring softly. He’d put in a long day; there was no need to
rouse him. Judith donned her robe and slippers, then
headed down to the second floor.
The lights were on in the hall. Bruno, clad only in
underwear decorated with Porky and Petunia Pig figures, was collapsed on the settee. Winifred and Chips
SILVER SCREAM
61
Madigan stood over him while Dirk Farrar peered out
from behind the door of Room Four. Angela, Ellie,
Ben, and Dade were nowhere to be seen.
“What’s going on?” Judith asked, noting that Bruno
was shuddering and writhing just as he had done on the
back porch.
Dirk opened the door a few more inches. “Another
damned spider. Big as a house. Or so he says.” He
smothered a smile.
“No!” Judith couldn’t believe it. In late summer,
harmless, if imposing, wood spiders sometimes
crawled into the basement, but it was too late in the
year for them to show up. She marched to Bruno’s
room, where the door was ajar.
Ben Carmody was standing by Bruno’s bed, laughing so hard that his sides shook. “Look,” he finally
managed to say. “It’s a spider, all right, but . . .”